Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[T-hawk]

Yeah, they're doing nothing wrong. The agreement does say that the marble timing will be arranged around CFC's convenience of not using it, not at any time RB is actually ready to use it.

So our options are to just take it now anyway, or to point out that we don't need it now post-Taj and renegotiate for something else instead.

[Ruff_Hi]

They out 'agreemented' us ... plain and simple. We should have insisted on one that was tighter and we got (slightly) burnt by not doing so. There is a lesson in this for us for the future re arrangements with CFC.

We either accept the trade in the when it is convenient to them or we push a little and say 'starting T147' (for example).

The downside of pushing it is they can just say NO and we look weak (we are weak with regards to this particular agreement). Maybe we just say T145 and leave it at that. Just to screw with them (a little), we should also find a marble wonder which we dont' want and which we could get to in that time frame and let it drop that we are heading for that.

[kjn]

Note that the agreement is really loose on both ends here: it says the marble loan "can be arranged around CFC's builds", which means it need not necessarily be arranged when it's most convenient to CFC.

So if CFC are unwilling to provide marble on T150-160 or so then I think they should be ready to give up something else to us.

The alternative is that they show they're not willing to work with us, and burn all their bridges in the post-T175 world.

[Ruff_Hi]

Ok! Well spotted kjn. I think we can now push a little and hang it on that word 'can'.

[novice]

What is our agreement with the Germans regarding marble, btw? Now that 10 turns have passed, should we cancel that agreement? Or should we keep it until we declare war?

Kind of hard to convince CFC that we need their marble when we're already getting a source from the germans.

[scooter]

They out 'agreemented' us ... plain and simple. We should have insisted on one that was tighter and we got (slightly) burnt by not doing so. There is a lesson in this for us for the future re arrangements with CFC.

Sigh. Wish people would stop saying this. The marble was never part of the deal with CFC. We tacked it on at the literal last second because CFC was in a rush to get a deal done and we knew at the time it would likely be completely inconsequential. There seems to be this rewriting of history that assumes the marble thing was a centerpiece of this deal or something. It wasn't. We just wanted a NAP, plain and simple.

[Ruff_Hi]

Sigh. Wish people would stop saying this. The marble was never part of the deal with CFC. We tacked it on at the literal last second because CFC was in a rush to get a deal done and we knew at the time it would likely be completely inconsequential. There seems to be this rewriting of history that assumes the marble thing was a centerpiece of this deal or something. It wasn't. We just wanted a NAP, plain and simple.

Ok, fair enough. If it was tacked on when CFC were 'weak' and we didn't push for stronger wording, then we failed in our negotiation and the current situation is the result. We should have stipulated 'ASAP' (ie as soon as hooked) in the 5.5 clause when we had the chance.

[scooter]

What is our agreement with the Germans regarding marble, btw? Now that 10 turns have passed, should we cancel that agreement? Or should we keep it until we declare war?

Kind of hard to convince CFC that we need their marble when we're already getting a source from the germans.

There's no timeframe on it if that's what you're asking. We can cancel it immediately, or we can keep it active until the war to lull them into security.


A thought on the CFC front. Do they have any excess resources that are useful to us? I'm thinking if we could time a 10T gift on an excess happy of theirs to coincide with the start of the war with the Germans, it might be a nice band-aid when we start dealing with War Weariness.

[scooter]

Sigh. Wish people would stop saying this. The marble was never part of the deal with CFC. We tacked it on at the literal last second because CFC was in a rush to get a deal done and we knew at the time it would likely be completely inconsequential. There seems to be this rewriting of history that assumes the marble thing was a centerpiece of this deal or something. It wasn't. We just wanted a NAP, plain and simple.

Ok, fair enough. If it was tacked on when CFC were 'weak' and we didn't push for stronger wording, then we failed in our negotiation and the current situation is the result. We should have stipulated 'ASAP' (ie as soon as hooked) in the 5.5 clause when we had the chance.

It was worded that way because we didn't want to sabotage the deal. We had basically agreed to the entire deal and loosely discussed 5.5. CFC was hesitant about a marble provision because they didn't want their hands tied, and we were OK with the deal and no marble provision. When the deal was 95% agreed to in principle, we decided to slip in the mildest marble provision possible betting that they wouldn't nix the whole deal over something that was worded in such a way as to give them plenty of flexibility. They said "sure fine" because they were about to settle a city and wanted the NAP active for it. It was a "it's better than nothing" type thing.

[kalin]

Sigh. Wish people would stop saying this. The marble was never part of the deal with CFC. We tacked it on at the literal last second because CFC was in a rush to get a deal done and we knew at the time it would likely be completely inconsequential. There seems to be this rewriting of history that assumes the marble thing was a centerpiece of this deal or something. It wasn't. We just wanted a NAP, plain and simple.

Wanted to emphasize that. We were after the NAP and didn't care much about the marble. It was almost an afterthought and a means to calm people (like me) that were feeling we were giving too much to CFC for the NAP.

Kalin