Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

Okay, how about this plan:

1) Warm up to CivFR, ask about what they think of CP allying with CFC and prod them to see if they are planning on attacking 'a mutual neighbor'
2) If they remain tight lipped, then reason with them that because both CFC and we are expanding but they are not, they will be left behind.
3) Claim to CP that CivFR is looking to fight a war with them but we'll offer to protect them and intimidate them with a CivFR alliance if they are stubborn.
4) If CP says yes, ally with CP, if they say no, actually go forward with CivFR in planning a CP war.

That actually seems like a good foreign policy but assumes that CivFR won't just ignore us.

The thing I'm concerned about is "warm up to CivFr" is way easier said than done. We've sent them two messages this game, and both times they gave us two sentences that just rejected whatever we've offered. IMO the only real way to get them to respond with some sort of substance/timeliness is to give them something serious to respond to.

My other concern is what I just wrote to mwin's comment. You say to ask them what they think of CP allying with CFC to take us out. I bet they respond "sounds pretty freaking awesome to us!!"

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Thoughts:

Okay, how about this plan:

1) Warm up to CivFR, ask about what they think of CP allying with CFC and prod them to see if they are planning on attacking 'a mutual neighbor'

If I'm CivFR, I don't answer questions about possible attacks with the game leader unless a very specific benefit exists.

2) If they remain tight lipped, then reason with them that because both CFC and we are expanding but they are not, they will be left behind.

This is a valid arugement, but not likely to solicit much of a response.

3) Claim to CP that CivFR is looking to fight a war with them but we'll offer to protect them and intimidate them with a CivFR alliance if they are stubborn.

Why, under any circumstances, should we align ourselves to fight alongside a weaker neighbor against a distant, stronger team? We would not keep the land and would sap our own strength to do what? Prop up a team that we'd be better fighting ourselves? If we commit our forces, it needs to be for a specific, tangible benefit. Acquiring new land is one valid reason (war with Germany makes sense here, as would war vs. CivPlayers absent any other context). Dogpiling the leader would be another, if we didn't drag our own team down much. We would have to improve our relative position for this to be worth it, and since we're the leader at the moment, this doesn't apply.

4) If CP says yes, ally with CP, if they say no, actually go forward with CivFR in planning a CP war.

That actually seems like a good foreign policy but assumes that CivFR won't just ignore us.

Allying with CivPlayers against CivFR just doesn't make any sense with the current geography and team standings in the game. However, plotting with CivFR against CivPlayers does make sense: two stronger teams fighting a militarily weaker team that both the stronger teams could take land from. That sounds imminently doable, absent other concerns. CFC, however, remains an issue.

I strongly discourage any diplomacy where we could be caught out by third party teams as being slimy, manipulative, or duplicitous. Let's not misrepresent another team's intentions. It is too easy to fact check, makes us look really bad, and provides yet another reason for an otherwise disinterested party to want to attack the game leader.

[antisocialmunky]

@scooter - You would need to do something like point out that even if they bide their time, CFC and RB will have much more land than they do and whoever wins the war will have like 4 Civs work of land to work with. They probably are planning on killing someone for their land, why not steer it towards CP?

@ BGNW - My idea is that we don't want to invade CP. The goal would be to use CP as a buffer and make CivFR expand away from us so they can go after CFC or whatever. The idea would be to not waste a war on CP, just get them to not annoy us while we murder CFC or whatever we end up doing.

The other plan of sicking CivFR on CP while we handle CFC probably is simpler to pull off though.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

CivFR is a contender to win this game and it is not in their interest for CFC/CIVPlayers to carve us out. But they will be interested, if CFC and us fight to a standstill. I think they would be interested in fighting CIVPlayers, if they think both CFC and CP can win a fight against us.

I would disagree with your first sentence, which is why I don't want to admit we might get 2v1'd. If I was CivFr and I found out the chief threat to win (us) was about to be stuck in a 2 front war, I'd happily let that go while continuing to tech in peace. Geez, I'd probably offer to contribute random 2-movers to CivPlayers for that matter. The reality is we can probably handle a 2v1 just due to our defense bonuses, but it'll slow us down enough to make this game pretty wide open.

A much more likely motivation for them to be on our side is the attractiveness of getting a big chunk of fairly well-developed land from a distracted neighbor.

This. To have dialogue with CivFr we need to be able to offer them something that will benefit their position in the game. Would they be better off sitting and teching while we eat Germany and then (likely) fight CFC to a standstill or would they be better off joining us in a pre-emptive attack on CivPlayers where they would benefit by taking new land? The knowledge that we are then likely to be attacked by the #2 military power mere turns after we open this war would further sap our strength, making it likely that CivFr would be taking more land than we would in the CivPlayers war, and thus gaining more benefit and improving their position in the game. The fact that the game leader would then be slogging through a two front war would be more inducement to get CivFr to entertain this war. I think we can manage this diplomatically, maybe. More likely, though, it is safer for CivFr to sit and tech while we (and others) fight.

Having said that, is it even in our own best interest to fight CivPlayers? Ideally, no. We want to keep our strength for what we are certain is coming on T175 in the CFC (and who knows who else) attack. Then the question becomes, is it better risk fighting a two front war on T175 or be certain of that fact by invading CivPlayers on T170? It's really too early to answer that question. Much depends on our military success against Germany.

[scooter]

Having said that, is it even in our own best interest to fight CivPlayers? Ideally, no. We want to keep our strength for what we are certain is coming on T175 in the CFC (and who knows who else) attack. Then the question becomes, is it better risk fighting a two front war on T175 or be certain of that fact by invading CivPlayers on T170? It's really too early to answer that question. Much depends on our military success against Germany.

Wait, of course it's definitely not in our interest to fight CivPlayers. I was dead serious in my chat with OT4E, if they want a game-long NAP it's probably something we should agree to (not likely to happen so don't take that sentence too seriously). However, look at what OT4E says in the chat - they currently believe it's in their best interest to join CFC in a war against us. He might be right too.

There's not a lot more we can say to them to change their minds, so while we wait on them for a few turns, we need to assume a 2v1 is coming, and figure out how to best break it down. That's where this attack on CivPlayers talk is coming from - just assuming the worst and planning for it. If OT4E writes us back this weekend and asks for a NAP extension, we drop everything and take it IMO.

Best way to beat a dogpile is to figure out how to beat them 1 at a time. Everyone's favorite example is PB2. There were many flaws to that dogpile, but one of the critical flaws was the stacks showing up at different times and getting beaten one-by-one. In this case, one side will be completely vulnerable for 5T AND has a real contender in CivFr as a neighbor, so to me, that's the weak link of the 2v1. (CFC has no real serious neighbor of note to give them trouble, so the best we can do there is maybe recruit UCiv to do who even knows what.)

[scooter]

Sent the draft to WPC about gems/dyes

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Having said that, is it even in our own best interest to fight CivPlayers? Ideally, no. We want to keep our strength for what we are certain is coming on T175 in the CFC (and who knows who else) attack. Then the question becomes, is it better risk fighting a two front war on T175 or be certain of that fact by invading CivPlayers on T170? It's really too early to answer that question. Much depends on our military success against Germany.

Wait, of course it's definitely not in our interest to fight CivPlayers. I was dead serious in my chat with OT4E, if they want a game-long NAP it's probably something we should agree to (not likely to happen so don't take that sentence too seriously). However, look at what OT4E says in the chat - they currently believe it's in their best interest to join CFC in a war against us. He might be right too.

I agree. I was asking that rhetorically in response to ASM's post, then trying to reason it out. Obviously if we can make CivPlayers sit the T175 war out, that's awesome. But, realistically, they may not have a better chance in the entire game to improve their chance of winning then joining in a dogpile against us.

There's not a lot more we can say to them to change their minds, so while we wait on them for a few turns, we need to assume a 2v1 is coming, and figure out how to best break it down. That's where this attack on CivPlayers talk is coming from - just assuming the worst and planning for it. If OT4E writes us back this weekend and asks for a NAP extension, we drop everything and take it IMO.

Strongly agree.

Best way to beat a dogpile is to figure out how to beat them 1 at a time. Everyone's favorite example is PB2. There were many flaws to that dogpile, but one of the critical flaws was the stacks showing up at different times and getting beaten one-by-one. In this case, one side will be completely vulnerable for 5T AND has a real contender in CivFr as a neighbor, so to me, that's the weak link of the 2v1. (CFC has no real serious neighbor of note to give them trouble, so the best we can do there is maybe recruit UCiv to do who even knows what.)

Agree here as well. If we determine that we will be fighting 2 vs. 1 no matter what we do on T175, we should go for the kneecap attack CivPlayers on T170 and prevent them from being an issue when we fight CFC. CivFr should see the value in this for their own team and join in.

[scooter]

An idea for a reply to the Spanish team:

Hey guys, sorry to hear that about CFC . There's not much we can do, and I don't know of anyone who seems willing to help right now.

If you'd like, you can send screenshots of the battle front (we have Paper now so it's allowed) and we'd be happy to take a stab at any tactical advice. Maybe that won't help, but I do know we have several players who are very experienced in MP war, so maybe that would be useful?

scooter - Team RB

Any objections to offering tactical advice like this?

[antisocialmunky]

The problem is, we aren't kneecapping CP. They'll probably have units in place so IIRC, if we can't get CivFR on board then its unlikely we can take CP out of the game. Heck, CFC might pull out a loop hole and declare early.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The problem is, we aren't kneecapping CP. They'll probably have units in place so IIRC, if we can't get CivFR on board then its unlikely we can take CP out of the game. Heck, CFC might pull out a loop hole and declare early.

I'm not saying we'd go into CP for a protracted, offensive war. Just a quick strike effort to raze some border cities to improve our defensive posture for T175 when the fireworks really begin. As for CFC declaring early, I don't recall any loophole of that magnitude in our agreement.