Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

Okay, very lengthy and interesting chat with OT4E/CivPlayers. I'll try to break it up here and there with comments. Also, Gmail is storing chats a little differently now, so that's why the formatting is a little different. Any bolded emphasis added is mine.

scooter:
Hey OT4E. one of my teammates just said open borders with you guys got canceled
did you guys do that or did somebody on our team bump it on accident?

OT4E:
yes, we closed borders
we didnt want to annoy you with accident religion spread or get your religion either

scooter:
well theocracy prevents that from happening quite nicely, it definitely wasn't a concern on our end
and your religion is pretty well-spread right? the value of trade routes is pretty big

OT4E:
last time you closed borders for the religion issue

scooter:
well we weren't in theocracy, but we re-opened them right away
anyway, we hope you'll reconsider on OB, but I just wanted to make sure that wasn't an accident

OT4E:
are you in theocracy now? i didnt notice
we get no profit for it, may be just one coin


Comment: I spaced and couldn't remember if we were in OR/Theocracy, but this wasn't really a big deal - point is they closed OB and yes it was intentional.


scooter:
huh okay, I guess that's because we're so close
Anyway, so do you mind if I ask what you're waiting to see before you decide if you want to extend the NAP?

OT4E:
heh, nice question
if i could say it right now, i wouldnt take time to observe it

scooter:
I don't think I understand

OT4E:
I mean I dont know what will happen


Comment: lots of long pauses before his messages here, like he didn't know what to say


scooter:
hah, okay, here I have a theory. you can tell me if it's crazy or true
you're waiting to see how the CFC/Zulu war goes
because you know that if CFC can win it quickly, they would like to attack us. but they know they need a partner to do that, so they've tried to get you on board.
am I close?

OT4E:
I think I never went so far, heh

scooter:
what do you mean?

OT4E:
In general, you are right. We are weak and small nation. Being neutral is becoming too expensive for us. I cant predict what happens in 10-15 turn to enter 40 turn NAPS

scooter:
Ok and yeah that's fair, I'd probably do something pretty similar if I was in your place
however just to explain from our perspective how we have to react
we're looking at a situation where we may get attacked on both sides by your team and CFC. CFC cannot declare war prior to T175
what we can't do is let the NAP with you auto-extend until T165 and then you cancel, lining up perfectly with them
This may change, but as of right now if we don't have an extension in place by T160, we will likely initiate the cooldown
we would have no choice unfortunately, and I hope you could see that

OT4E:
i understand this
dont expect something special from you
except what we have agreed to

scooter:
We really don't want to be enemies with you guys, we really like your team as you have always been very fair
what would it take from your perspective to make a NAP extension more worthwhile than a war with us?

OT4E:
you never shared any plans with us and our relations remain very cold. So I simply cant believe your words that you are happy to have us as neighbours. Let's speak directly. We are annoying, we cant even maintain OB for free. I am 90% sure that we are the next in your list.
But I have to search for the gain.

scooter:
I'll tell you what, I can explain a few things to you (that will make our actions make more sense), but I first have to ask that the first thing I tell you remains 100% private between our teams for the next few turns. Can you agree to that?

OT4E:
of course


Comment: Forgive me for the liberty I took here, but I think it was worthwhile and necessary. And it's not like it's a surpsing thing to anyone.


scooter:
Ok. this will probably not be surprising as it's not very hard to figure out, but next turn, we will be declaring war on the German team. I'm guessing you probably knew that
WPC will be declaring also. The war was their idea, and they approached us about joining with them on T150, under the condition that we told nobody and it was highly secretive
so we had no choice but to keep our plans to ourself, or else we would be violating our word
Further, CFC has more or less aligned themselves against us for quite a long time. We've had dealings with them, but we've had difficulties trusting them because they've made no effort to be fair with us

OT4E:
you have many deals as I can see
with CFC
but they probably insisted on the long paper sheet with many loopholes

scooter:
Maybe you haven't seen this through our messages with you, but the general team temperature is that our members do not like the CFC team very much, but there has been 0 complaints about your team. we trust you guys to be fair
yes! that's exactly what they did. so irritating, they do that to you too?

OT4E:
well, I cant say that they have abused something

scooter:
but they make a long agreement where you can clearly see they leave room for abuse if they feel the need to do so

OT4E:
but I think they have such deals with all teams they have any deals

scooter:
I thought so too, but their neighbor UCiv said they pretty much ignored them. so I don't know what that means
Anyway, to go further on what I was saying. Let's say in 20 turns the German team gets conquered and the Zulu team gets conquered
that puts us neighbors with you, WPC, CFC, and likely Apolyton
to me, out of that bunch your team is the one I'd most prefer to be friends with longterm.
and if you dont' believe me, we're willing to consider whatever you'd ask to prove it.

OT4E:
You dont need to prove anything. I've just never seen any attempts to cooperate incoming from you.

This could happen by to things to my mind:
1) laziness
2) being not friendly oriented in long term

For 1) I cant believe. To be honest I am very impressed by performance expressed by your team. This is not flattery. But I cant believe that it can happen that you dont know what to do.
So 2) is basic consequence. And it is not based on that you have said something wrong, Scooter. It is just my personal observation.

scooter:
I guess I'm at a little bit of a loss to understand what you would have wanted us to do differently?

OT4E:
of course we understood that you prepare an attack on Germans or WPC

scooter:
it's been difficult for us to put our trust in a neighbor who has always been hesitant to sign NAPs with us
so we've been very concerned that anything we say to you would get passed on to CFC
here's my perspective. we have 4 neighbors. 3 of them have at some point or another proposed some sort of trade/agreement/cooperation with us - you're the only one who never has inititiated anything to my knowledge. so that made us nervous all game long. but if you ask me right now for just about anything, our team would have to discuss it, but you would probably get it because it would finally be a signal that you'd rather be friends.
we made efforts to save your chariot recently too. if that had been most teams, we probably would have just let it die.
it's a trivial thing I know. I just think you're misinterpeting us having a difficult time knowing if you were going to be friendly to us or not as coldness

OT4E:
I sent you my personal gratitude, despite of it was sentry chariot and you need to have special skills to lose it

scooter:
oh that's funny, I didn't know it was a sentry! haha

OT4E:
I understand your position. You are right. That's all my blame that we have cold relations. I never meant to blame you.

scooter:
I don't think there needs to be blame necessarily. It's very natural to be more cautious with your direct neighbors than your far-away neighbors.
I know we have been that way, sometimes to a fault

OT4E:
I am not good at making deals, inventing deals, designing deals and diplomacy in general.
but I will think if I can propose something
is that what you want?

scooter:
I think I mostly just want to know if you have any interest in at least considering things. You say your main concern is that we'll just attack you next - but for example if you ask me for a game-long NAP, I have a feeling our team would very seriously consider it.
maybe that sounds extreme, but the point is your perception that you are just next on our hit list isn't accurate, and maybe it's our fault for not doing a better job of communicating that

OT4E:
May be I never mentioned, but I am more likely enter deals consisted of some cooperation, but not just common NAPs. NAP in my view is all what you call "last chance period".

Ok, it seems that I got your position. Didnt really want to bother you with my doubts that much. On your place I would choose us. This doesnt make any sense though.

As I promised I will consider your proposal. You gave me some new thoughts about forever peace. Not to say that I like such deals much. There is one simple truth about them, that one side always regret it.

scooter:
Yeah I understand that. I guess I look at the map and I wonder where/how you'd like to cooperate. Mutual wars has always been a difficulty because we won't really share neighbors that much. But if you have an idea, I'd like to hear it. There is a lot of benefit though to having a huge "back border" with one neighbor that you always know will be safe. it lets you take risks with your other neighbors

OT4E:
It is very simple.
you could propose to help us against 3rd side
you gain neutralized enemy and secure back
but that's just a first what comes to my head
As I said being neutral is very expensive, we dont have best food or biggest land

scooter:
do you have a 3rd side & timeframe in mind?
for instance, I have no idea what your relations are like with civfr, uciv, or any of your other neighbors

OT4E:
it is just the most common way too cooperate
I am not ready to reveal everything

scooter:
well my point is just - I don't know what's an attractive option to you, so I'm trying to understand what you'd like

OT4E:
ah, then I will say it more clear. I will more likely enter a campaign with CFC or any other against you, than turn into war with other side alone.
being not alone is quite important

scooter:
who are your other direct neighbors? I don't have a map in front of me, and our knowledge of that area is very limited anyways

OT4E:
hope you understand, nothing personal there
we have only border with civfr now

scooter:
no I understand that - it's part of the game
are they friendly with you? or do they not talk much? most people seem to say they are very quiet

OT4E:
they are very greedy for answers thats right
we have what you call cautious relations
Scooter, I am really sorry, but I have to go now
if you are Scooter

scooter:
oh yes i am scooter hah. and no problem, I have to leave in a couple minutes anyway. I'll get in touch with you again sometime soon

OT4E:
ok feel free to contact me if I am online
I will just not reply if I am busy
hope it is ok
see you later

scooter:
ok, sounds good. thanks for the chat, even if it took a lot of time! it was helpful. I'll talk to you later

Alright, that's a lot. The main issue is this:

1) Though they won't mention it, I suspect they harbor some minor resentment for our aggressive settling towards them. We did this to basically everyone. Of course we made the right call in pushing our borders, but this is just the price you pay for being top dog.
2) Their perspective: CFC has a clear offer on the table to divide us up. We do not have a clear offer on the table for them, because what can we offer except peace?
3) They certainly are not 100% committed against us, partially because they seem to be annoyed by CFC's diplo a little bit too in the same way we have been.


Our main thing to tackle is going to have to be figuring out what we can offer them that's better than CFC's offer. They seem pretty intent on picking a side in the RB/CFC divide, so we need to somehow convince them we're more worth dealing with than CFC.

And honestly, if I were them I would take CFC's offer absolutely. So this will be difficult.

[scooter]

On the WPC/gems thing, yeah we should just offer them the gems/dye thing and give them gems up front. I'll draft something for that when I get a chance (an hour or two).

[antisocialmunky]

I don't think there's anything RB could really offer them if they want land. Can anyone think of anything?

It was their own opening that limited their growth IIRC. :\


Maybe we can do something like:
Ask CP to stay neutral (pay them something if we need to or give them resources to attack CivFR or whatever they want to do) because the only outcome where they could win the game is if CFC and we grind each other down to the point where the other teams can catch up.

[mostly_harmless]

Well, what we could offer is to not swing our army south west once we are done with the Germans and cripple a third of their nation before CFC can create a diversion on the other side of our empire.
Can we in theory initiate cooldown on T150 to "threaten" them from T160 on? Not saying it is a wise thing to do, just checking.

mh

[Fintourist]

Very informative chat scooter, thanks for posting it. T175 dogpile becomes more and more real. Very much accuracy is needed in our actions during the next dozens of turns so that we will maintain both the economic lead and are ready to defend ourselves.

As annoying as it is, CFC's strategy of mediocre playing and then convincing everybody to dogpile the leader seems like a solid approach in a full diplo game

[T-hawk]

There are rules misunderstandings in that chat: Closing borders does not block random religious spread. Neither does Theocracy. I don't know if we want to try to explain that and get borders reopened.

[pindicator]

Speaking of WPC, if CFC is carving up the Spanish and has no deal with WPC then i wouldn't be surprised to see CFC let CivOlayers tie us down in war while they take the easier WPC out

[scooter]

Well, what we could offer is to not swing our army south west once we are done with the Germans and cripple a third of their nation before CFC can create a diversion on the other side of our empire.
Can we in theory initiate cooldown on T150 to "threaten" them from T160 on? Not saying it is a wise thing to do, just checking.

mh

The earliest we can initiate the cool down is t160, so that's why I used that number in our chat. I basically implied exactly that, but chose to try reasoning with them before going all-in on a threat. We could burn several of their cities in the 5T window before CFC could join, so it's a nice option we have.

[kalin]

Can we propose civplayers to help them against civfr? We could send some two-movers.

What do people think would be necessary in terms of troops to defend the CFC front?

We should also consider helping WPC if CFC attacks them. Is it worth discussing some kind of mutual defense pact? WPC should get a NAP with UCiv at least.

Kalin

[Brian Shanahan]

Our main thing to tackle is going to have to be figuring out what we can offer them that's better than CFC's offer. They seem pretty intent on picking a side in the RB/CFC divide, so we need to somehow convince them we're more worth dealing with than CFC.

And honestly, if I were them I would take CFC's offer absolutely. So this will be difficult.

I'd point out that:
a) we'd have five turns (at least CFC is not neccessarily going to jump in to help them on t175 if they think they are better stalling) of really messing them up with an army of highly promoted knights and possibly maces, while still being able to defend our border effectively against CFC with drafted rifles/highly promoted maces/highly promoted rifles (upgraded from maces). As OT4E said they are "small and weak", well we're big and strong.
b) point out to him that even he realises that a CFC offer is so laced with loopholes and caveats that it is not worth his while wiping his arse with it, never mind accepting it as a genuine offer (and I'd leave the bluntness in on this one). I'd remind him that it is not a normal person he's dealing with but that rules-lawyering scobe of a knacker Sommerswerd (if you ever read this post Sommer, I was being very generous here, in reality you're a lot worse), who was perfectly willing and glad to destroy any semblance of a game in the set-up phase simply to annoy a single team.
b & 1/2) point out the likelihood that CFC are proposing a similar split with every team but us on dog pile in the hopes of the following:

Don't you see, darling Bloom, glorious Bloom? It's so simple. STEP ONE: We find the worst play ever written, a surefire flop. STEP TWO: I raise a million bucks. Lots of little old ladies out there. STEP THREE: You go back to work on the books, two of them - one for the government, one for us. You can do it, Bloom; you're a wizard! STEP FOUR: We open on Broadway. And before you can say STEP FIVE, we *close* on Broadway! STEP SIX: We take our million bucks and fly to *Rio!*

c) remind him strongly that CFC will turn on them after a 2v1 on us, that for CFC CivPlayers will only ever be a cat's paw, whereas we will always treat allies as true friends. It may be worthwhile to point out how we worked with Banana back in the Apolyton demogame here.