Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

By the way, an ivory trade to the Spanish team might have the side benefit of getting CFC to be suddenly reallllly interested in talking to us.

[T-hawk]

I agree with the growing consensus: don't reply to the Germans at all. Our only goal here is to avoid them starting a defense buildup. Anything we say that isn't a clear yes to the NAP will trigger that. Silence may be annoying to them, but we have to man up and blow off manners here.

[darrelljs]

scooter your Spanish draft looks good, agree it needs to be sent ASAP. Hopefully they don't go another turn without putting the full might of their economy into HBR .

Darrell

[scooter]

I agree with the growing consensus: don't reply to the Germans at all. Our only goal here is to avoid them starting a defense buildup. Anything we say that isn't a clear yes to the NAP will trigger that. Silence may be annoying to them, but we have to man up and blow off manners here.

Silence will eventually trigger that too, though, especially when we're normally pretty prompt in replying (prompt meaning 2-3 days average which is way better than most teams). I would be OK with waiting a couple more days, then sending that message, and letting that be the last message we send. I've talked myself into thinking that's a pretty reasonable reply. After all, this is the same time that offered us a 100T NAP upon first contact when we met them, and now they only want 25T with a team that could squash them at any moment? That's actually legitimately suspicious.

Our favorite conspiracy theory is that CFC + Apolyton are in bed together and are planning a war against us around approximately T175. If that's true, the German team would NEED to be on board somehow or else it's a ridiculous notion. I'm not trying to advance discussion on the dogpile speculation front, I'm just making the point that the current proposed response actually makes a lot of sense. It does sound like something we might send even if we had no plans to make peace with them. That makes it more beneficial than complete silence IMO, and it also manages to be very honest. And like Seven said, who knows, maybe we'll luck into some useful info.

[scooter]

OK, decided to go ahead and send the Spanish draft without further discussion. Time seems critical, so hopefully you're all ok with this.

[kjn]

OK, decided to go ahead and send the Spanish draft without further discussion. Time seems critical, so hopefully you're all ok with this.

Yeah, I think there is a strong consensus for this move. If Sullla doesn't pop up soon, I will probably log in and offer the trade later this evening, so we can have it in place before the turn rolls.

It also seems most teams are playing a game of chicken right now with ending their turns.

[dazedroyalty]

Does our agreement with CFC allow us to trade Ivory? I thought we had a no aiding of enemies clause, but if we do it before 1) they declare war or 2) they tell us they are gonna attack the Spanish, we are not aiding their enemies.

[scooter]

Does our agreement with CFC allow us to trade Ivory? I thought we had a no aiding of enemies clause, but if we do it before 1) they declare war or 2) they tell us they are gonna attack the Spanish, we are not aiding their enemies.

We're clear on two levels here. The only section of the agreement that deals with this:

3.2. If any of the members is at war with a third party, the other member agrees not to gift units to that third party.

We only covered units, not resources. And even so, they aren't at war yet. So we're in the clear in terms of our agreement.

[kjn]

Does our agreement with CFC allow us to trade Ivory? I thought we had a no aiding of enemies clause, but if we do it before 1) they declare war or 2) they tell us they are gonna attack the Spanish, we are not aiding their enemies.

I just checked our agreement, and only unit gifts are prohibited.

3.2. If any of the members is at war with a third party, the other member agrees not to gift units to that third party.

5.4 Both teams agree to offer first dibs to newly acquired/unused resources to the other team at an appropriate price (happy resource for happy resource or for a price of 2 GPT per city count of the team receiving the resource)

It's all in the fine print here, and the ivory is not newly acquired (we've had it since T108), nor is it unused (it's our only source).

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Forward them spam from, the RB email's spam folder for a few days and then claim you are having issues with your computer in the form of a virus. "Going to reinstall windows, someone else taking over for me for a while."

I know you're joking, but I don't consider this morally OK in real life let alone as a negotiating tactic, and I don't think it's a joking matter.

Lighten up! I thought it was clearly a joke and a pretty funny one, ASM.

This just isn't true, there's plenty we could say. This is the whole point of having diplo available as an option. Diplo is a tool just like microplans, and not leveraging it to its full extent is deliberately playing with one hand.

100% agree with scooter here. I support your current draft to the Gerries as well.