Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Azza]

People's dislike of CFC seems to be leading to irrational decisions. I have no doubt if we lock them up with a turn 250 NAP that we've won the game.

Darrell

This.

[MWIN]

I am guessing CFC is trying to do some diplo with CivFr and that is the reason for not ending the turn....peace between them might come this turn....

[antisocialmunky]

Maybe start piling some units into cities where they have visibility (we'll probably want to pack cities with units for the porpoises of a defensive war anyway) after Germany is dead. That + silent treatment might make them come to us.

[kalin]

I am in favor of engaging CFC for a NAP. The fact is the CivFr doesn't talk to us and gave ivory to the Germans. I don't think they will work with us. I think it would be best if scooter could engage Yossarian in chat.

Kalin

[Ellimist]

My comment re: Apolyton was in reference to this from Sullla's tech analysis report:

Apolyton
Techs Ahead of Us: Banking, Economics
Techs Behind Us: Iron Working, Literature, Aesthetics, Horseback Riding, Drama, Calendar, Construction, Engineering, Nationalism, Liberalism
Total Beakers: 21,366
17 cities / 94 total pop

Apolyton has taken a very strange path through the tech tree. They have more Medieval techs researched (7) than Classical techs (6). They've essentially ignored anything even the least bit military-related to go full on economy. And indeed, they pushed for early universities, whipped them out with their cheap Philosophical trait, and got an early Oxford up in their Bureacademy capital. In the current Golden Age, their GNP looks extremely impressive with that 1300 figure or whatever.

However, Apolyton is pretty much at the height of their power curve right now, and it's only going to decline from here. Their teching power is based on a tricked out capital city with Academy and university and Oxford, which would be awesome on a Tiny map, but scales poorly on this Huge map. Apolyton is far lower in population than the other strong teams (CFC, CivFr) and has zero room for further expansion. They will inevitably be outdone in the long run by teams with more population and more territory. By the end of the German war, we're looking at roughly double Apolyton's number of cities, and once those captured locations have the chance to grow up to a decent size... well, you get the picture. See what's going on in the current Pitboss 8 game, for those who aren't involved in the game themselves. Over the long haul, more territory and more population will trump a smaller, vertically inclined empire.

As you yourself point out, we're already NAPped with Apolyton for at least a month. I'm not talking about actually doing anything vs them in the short term, but we may have a very good window to do something 25-50 turns from now. All we have to do now is refrain from saber-rattling with them, and continue to project the "we really want to be friends" vibe we've used in the past without any "5 turn window" threats. If they aren't planning an offensive war against us, their past history implies that they won't be investing any beakers or hammers into military resources, and they won't be alarmed by an impending expiration of a NAP if they're the ones who refused to extend it.

I mention it now because we don't need a NAP with Apolyton, and we don't need to scare them either. They aren't militarily dangerous to us, and can't easily become dangerous, so let's avoid giving them any incentives to militarize. Regardless of whether we would attack them or they would join an attack on us, it benefits us either way if they continue doing what they've been doing and avoid militarizing.

Also, Apolyton seems to have no military emphasis at all. Let's stop using any threatening language vs them and be super nice, then plan on hitting them at some point after the Germans.

We cannot hit them without a CFC NAP. It's just not possible. This is why I've snapped at your posts before - you criticize my decisions, but your comments make me wonder if you're paying close enough attention. If we are ever in a position to not have a NAP with CFC, we'll need to commit a lot of military to their border because they are Rival Best in power by a long ways. It will be that way for the entirety of the time we have no NAP with them. We cannot do that and simultaneously invade a team who is pretty even with us in tech. That's insane.

This isn't even considering the fact that they can in theory soon start screwing with us w/ Espionage if we don't have an agreement in place.

I am paying attention, and you dismiss my comments because you aren't looking at things from CFC's point of view. If you want to get a NAP extension with CFC, consider what would motivate them to want one. So far, we've been obsessively risk-averse with regard to them, and that's a guaranteed way to get screwed over in any negotiation. We've consistently given the wrong incentives to CFC and they've consistently responded to those incentives. You say this makes them predictable, and I agree, but the problem is that they've only been predictable because our actions concerning them have had predictable consequences.

I refrained from commenting on our early diplomacy with CFC because we did fine there. We got what we wanted and they got what they wanted. But then they started testing us. We forgave them for settling that BS city on our borders, and they viewed this as weakness(whether or not it was the right move, this is how they reacted to it.) Things have only gotten worse from there.

Things heated up after they distorted their own development to achieve Taj Mahal before we did, using our agreement for marble delivery to delay us and accelerate themselves in the race for the wonder. CFC knew what they had done and sent us a bullshit message afterward to gauge our reaction. They were not sure how we would react, and they wanted to find out whether they had screwed up. This WAS a big deal, and you considered it significant enough at the time to ask them for 3 fast workers in compensation. I disagreed with asking for compensation primarily because it would give CFC an out from their position of uncertainty. I favored sending a very short and simple message that would make them nervous without revoking our existing agreements, but instead we took their message at face value and sent a non-response. This wasn't bad, but it didn't accomplish anything for us either.

As they got ready to invade the Spanish, they became more nervous and direct in their attempts to redefine the agreement in their favor. They got pushier with regard to the marble thing. They wanted to know whether we were going to react to their provocations, and their marble-related questions were a test/proxy to determine this. The NAP was valuable for them too, and they weren't sure whether we would make them regret provoking us, as RB has occasionally done in the past. Our eventual response was to unconditionally reassure them that we were okay with their behavior and that they could continue doing whatever they wanted and we wouldn't punish them for it.

We should have let them be worried! That's how we'll get them to the negotiating table, asking us for NAP extensions. They are like us, right? They have a variety of opinions behind their diplomacy, just like we do. So take advantage of this. Convince the risk-averse elements of the CFC team that they are pushing us too hard and we're potentially going to make them regret it. Don't reassure them and take away any doubt. (We aren't doing ourselves any favors when we let them distort the little things, either. Correct them when they make bogus claims about what we've done or haven't done. At worst, we've been passive aggressive.)

They valued the original NAP for the same reason we did, so they could conquer their backwards neighbor in the opposite direction. Scooter and Sullla and others have said several times that the original NAP helped us but not CFC, but they would not have agreed to it if it helped us and not them. That's simply not the way they operate. If we want a NAP or espionage agreement extension or whatever with them in the future, they will have to want it as well. We're not going to achieve that by asking them AGAIN after their explicit refusal, because repeatedly begging for a NAP is the best way to demonstrate that they shouldn't agree to one. Si vis pacem, para bellum

[SevenSpirits]

To a great extent, I agree with Zargon.

Btw I really disagree that if we NAP CFC to t250 we automatically win the game. They are a strong team too, they have spiritual while we have the already-mostly-played-out expansive, they have india while we have the already-played-out egypt, and there are still a lot of other teams in the game. Don't forget we can get our civics repeatedly revolted into the starting ones by an otherwise-irrelevant 3rd party.

[scooter]

CivPlayers just responded to our previous NAP offer.

Scooter, greetings

We considered you proposals as I promised, but at this moment we do not feel ready to extend our NAP obligations. Perhaps we will reconsider this in the soonest future.

OT4E
CivPlayers

[darrelljs]

I have respect for the game CFC has played to date but I think a) we are better, and b) we are less likely to have a lapse in concentration. In a NTT FFA, diplo's goal should be to avoid a crippling war, and locking CFC up pretty much guarantees that. If we have to swallow our pride and toss them a few more bones, so be it.

Edit: reading Z's post again, I think he makes a good case that waiting with CFC is more likely to give us what we want.

Darrell

[scooter]

My hesitance with waiting on CFC comes only because I think they'll work something out with CivFr. They both will recognize that fighting means we win, and they'll come to peace, and we'll be right back where we were a few turns ago. If I didn't think that were the case, I'd be all for waiting.

[SleepingMoogle]

Let's give CivFr another day or two. If they keep ignoring our PMs, and especially if their war continues to heat up, then we can approach CFC with a NAP extension.