Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[kjn]

Now, this is just a theory about what is happening, but I think the German turnplayers has really tried to get the other players there involved and active, but simply never heard anything and so just waits, because they're trained to wait for input from other in their other games.

The trouble with that behaviour in this case is that you can't build interest by waiting for it - it will never come, you have to engage people and post interesting stuff for people to comment on. But I'm not sure the German turnplayers realises that in the situation they are in. I imagine they just feel beleaguered. This is the sort of stuff that is often easy to recognise from the outside, but very hard from the inside.

[scooter]

Got a reply from WPC. For easy reference, here's the last email I sent to them.

Tatu,

First, apologies for being a bit slow to respond - I was out of town for the week. It seems like things have been quite eventful while I'm gone - I certainly didn't expect two neighbors to break into war! I wish you good luck in your fight. Also, some serious congratulations to you on drawing first blood . I believe that's the first city conquest of the game so far which is a great accomplishment that your people can be proud of.

We are often hesitant to freely sign NAPs, but we do understand your desire for security while involved in another war. Therefore, we're happy to sign the NAP until T100. Hopefully that will give you some breathing room.

So does the German team seem caught unawares? What are your expectations from this war?

Their reply that just came in a few minutes ago:

Sorry for late reply.

I have been swamped with work lately, and didn't get around to answer your message.

Regarding the war. We have advanced quite well, and razed one of their cities early in the war.
We will keep on pressure at the Incan lands while securing our own territories with even stronger units.
The Incan seem to be pleased to waste their axemen on our more capable Dog Soldiers and thus providing us with valuable promotions and GG points.
I guess I will have to thank them for that at some point.

I think every other civ would be pleased if the Civ.de team would be taken out of the game due to our war. That would speed up the game considerably.
Naturally you are welcomed to join us in making the game faster by eliminating the Incan nation.
Mutual alliance againt the Incan nation would benefit us both, and we could have a fair agreement on the division of Incan lands between our nations.
How about it?

It seems that lately Incan nation has got access to chariot units, but that will not be a problem as we have strong spearmen lined up for them.
According to our intelligence the Inca should not have access to horses though.

Do you know if the Incas have asked for horse resource from any other civ including your team?
Or do you know if some nation is providing them with chariot units?

The truth will come out with our investigation and naturally we will provide this information to you and every nation in our area.

On other subject...
How is the game progressing for your team?
Probably slowly, but in game terms, are you pleased with your position?
Don't hesitate to think about co-operating plans for our teams that will make us both stronger.

Best regards,
Tatu
FM of WPC

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Hmm. No thanks on the invitation to carve up the Germans. We're NAP'ed up, sorry, as much as we'd like to speed up the game, our reputation is super important to us, etc. As for renting our our horses, no, we like our War Chariots far too much to spare the resource. Also, we intend to stay strictly neutral, so we will not be providing our horses to the Germans. As for the game, we think we're doing ok, but it's a long way to go yet.

Add fluffy language.

[kjn]

Boldly's outline looks good to me.

Interesting how WPC is fishing for information there, and how differently WPC and the Germans view the war. But at least both of them definitely are trying to court our help and feeds us tidbits. But it does lead to issues of us knowing the answers to their questions about the other team, where we have to play dumb and ignorant.

[Bigger]

we need to make clear to them that we are absolutely not the one providing them horses. they should know that from the ai-diplo screen, and we can point that out to them. if they think we might be providing them with horses that could be a point of contention in the future we don't need.

how long is our NAP with the germans? We can just mention that we have a NAP, but MIGHt be open to this when it expires (be vague). if nothing else, this will encourage them to stay at war.

[Bigger]

i also don't see the harm in telling them that the germans did inquire about war chariots, but we turned them down. it does seem likely that some team to the north or the west is providing them with horses, no?

[Sullla]

Agreed, we can mostly respond with the same thing we told the German team: we already signed an earlier NAP before the war started, and feel that it's important to honor all of our deals. Aside from that, we wish them well and so on. We do know from talking with the German team that they have their own source of horses, not sure if we want to pass that on the WPC. (We also know from F9 Demos that no teams have a trade route connection to one another, but we maybe don't want to go into that level of stat analysis.)

I'm definitely liking the sound of these messages. WPC sounds confident they will win the war. German team said the dog soldiers will get their butts kicked very soon ("gegen die sehen Dogs nicht so gut aus" if I'm reading that translation correctly ). With no catapults on either side and lots of Ancient age units banging their heads into city walls, I would expect lots of continued military builds on both sides and overall stalemate. Perfect for us.

[mostly_harmless]

Yes, agree with Boldly and Sullla. Lets not take any sides. and be up front with them regarding horses.

mh

[Bigger]

just to reiterate: they are apparently not aware that you can track who is trading resources by the diplo screen. since we aren't giving the germans horses, we benefit from them knowing this, so they don't mistakenly assume we are. best to educate them a bit.

[novice]

just to reiterate: they are apparently not aware that you can track who is trading resources by the diplo screen. since we aren't giving the germans horses, we benefit from them knowing this, so they don't mistakenly assume we are. best to educate them a bit.

You need contact with both parties to see the trades on the F4 screen. And the F9 screen only shows trade connections when they're acoompanied by Open Borders, I think?