Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

And yes, we're well into wheel spin territory now, so I sent that draft. Our response time was 20 hours. For a message of that magnitude that was sent to us, turning it around and getting a response to them in less than 24 hours was pretty great. Nice discussion everyone.

[scooter]

Well I got good news and bad news.

Hi Scooter.

Yep, that works for us. In fact, most of our folks wanted a simultaneous attack, and I had to do some arm-twisting to get them to agree to going first. So the team will pleased. Turn 150 it is.

What about the agreed-to division of land? Does this work for you? My concern here is that we actually end up 'competing' against each other to claim more land - sort of like the Russians and Allies in the closing daysof WWII in Europe.

Also, are you number one in soldiers? We are now at #2.

Cheers! Beta

Glad he happily backed off the staggered attack plan. Not so thrilled that they're pushing the division of land issue. I need to think about how to respond to this.

[Lewwyn]

Hi Beta,

Your team is weak and does not deserve the land split you have suggested unless you are actually able to capture those cities. We will not stop capturing German cities and slow the death of the German to let you catch up. If you can capture those cities they are yours, but our army is stronger and will be doing the heavy lifting and as such will take what we get.

Yours,
RB

[Lewwyn]

Also, I think we should tell them that, yes we are number 1 in soldiers and that our army composition is far superior to theirs. As long as we explain from an objective standpoint why we deserve a larger split, I think it will be fine.

[kalin]

My initial thought is to reply after some time: "Our team is still debating your proposal.". Then we can explain that we feel that their proposal is not reasonable and suggest an alternative. We can also offer them other incentives, e.g., resources.

Kalin

[Ceiliazul]

We can be honest here, and tell them we want more than half. They are in a prisoner's dilemma here: they can help us and gain a little, or not help us and gain nothing. Beta has shown enough common sense that they probably know this.

Here's the relavent diplo:

The overall reception to your team's proposal is definitely positive. We would like to see the German team removed from the game, and we like the T150 window pretty well. We do trust you guys enough that we can divide workload + cities up pretty fairly, so that's not a major issue either.

Again, they know thisis coming, no need to beat around the bush.

[antisocialmunky]

Well I got good news and bad news.

Hi Scooter.

Yep, that works for us. In fact, most of our folks wanted a simultaneous attack, and I had to do some arm-twisting to get them to agree to going first. So the team will pleased. Turn 150 it is.

What about the agreed-to division of land? Does this work for you? My concern here is that we actually end up 'competing' against each other to claim more land - sort of like the Russians and Allies in the closing daysof WWII in Europe.

Also, are you number one in soldiers? We are now at #2.

Cheers! Beta

Glad he happily backed off the staggered attack plan. Not so thrilled that they're pushing the division of land issue. I need to think about how to respond to this.

Hi Betamax,

<fluff />
Some members of the team don't think its fair that we are going to be committing more than twice the power but only getting 50% of the land.
<fluff />
We want to negotiate a split of land that we can both agree on.

Your friends for hire,
RB

Or you can hint at it and see if they come back with anything. They obviously want this attack to continue, can't imagine them pulling out of this so far in so we do have leverage.

Hi Betamax,

<Blah blah blah good that we are attacking on the same turn blah blah lbah />
We need more time to discuss this, some of our team members have very strong feelings about the fairness of your proposed land split.

Your friends for hire,
RB

[scooter]

Here's one possible wrinkle. I could see us negotiating some sort of split where they get roughly 1/3rd of the German cities but... be unable to capture them. Then what? Are we responsible for killing off the German units so they can capture them? Surely we don't want the German team to remain alive any longer than necessary, but being stuck in a situation where we've captured all OUR target cities while WPC is flailing away making no real progress sounds lousy. In that scenario, I'd like it if we had the flexibility to say "sorry guys, you couldn't capture it, so we're taking it" and we take it for ourselves. If we agree to a split, that is not an option since we don't really want to go breaking agreements.

Capturing and gifting is also apparently illegal. Though I supposed we could capture, clear out, and let WPC recapture (netting us capture gold in the process).

Also - it would really help if we could figure out a list that looks like this:

German cities we must absolutely own:
German cities we think we should get:
German cities we don't care about and are fine with WPC receiving:

If those 3 lists could be filled out completely, it makes it a little easier to know how to begin talking with them.

[SleepingMoogle]

On a slightly different note.. After a week of silence, once the next turn rolls over I expect a short message from CFC blaming us for them not offering Marble anymore. Oh, and they'll decline the NAP extension.

[Ceiliazul]

Hi Betamax,

<fluff />
Some members of the team don't think its fair that we are going to be committing more than twice the power but only getting 50% of the land.
<fluff />
We want to negotiate a split of land that we can both agree on.

Your friends for hire,
RB

I like this, except the 'friends for hire' part.

Also, I'm sure if we take 'our' cities, WPC will have an overwhelming material advantage over the remaining German assets.