Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[mostly_harmless]

Cool.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

That works for me. Nice chat too, mh. So far, we look like best friends with WPC...

[Old Harry]

So does the German team seem caught unawares? Hopefully for your sake they are easy to defeat. Do you think you can take a lot from them?

Not sure about "Hopefully for your sake" - maybe "Hopefully for the turn-timer's sake" or "Hopefully they will leave some more cities empty for you."?

[kalin]

So does the German team seem caught unawares? Hopefully for your sake they are easy to defeat. Do you think you can take a lot from them?

Suggested rephrasing:

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

Kalin

[scooter]

Ok, so kalin's suggestion seemed nice and simple, so I went with that:

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?

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Also sent the draft to the German team as-is without mention of the city raze. That can come up naturally in follow-up messages, the message to them was less important. Here it is:

Flunky,

Thanks so much for the map info, that's helpful. Trade routes is definitely a priority for us in expansion, so hopefully we can settle those pretty soon.

We're very sorry to hear WPC declared war on you. Is everything ok? What kind of force are they sending? In any case, we wish you good luck. Hopefully you can take care of their attack quickly and be back on your feet.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Also sent a quick thank you note back to CFC about their OB message:

Caledorn/CFC,

Thanks! We have accepted the Open Borders.

scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

Also, I have updated the 2nd post of the tracking thread to reflect the deals we have recently signed.

[Shoot the Moon]

Just realized something: have we at all considered agreements to limit EP spending to the point where both teams have graphs? It'd be a good way to build trust, avoid spy missions against us, allow us to focus EP on teams we actually want to spend it on, and/or find out if a team is planning to use espionage missions against us. Maybe a topic to bring up with CFC for instance, as we don't seem all that set on attacking them and could probably use our EP in better places than against them.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

CFC are going to be putting EPs on us anyway. The moment they pop a GSpy, warn them off. If they move in, we ramp out defensive EP spending and start guarding own cities and running countermissions.

[NobleHelium]

I see absolutely no reason not to suggest/request an EP spending limit agreement with CFC. What kind of attitude is "they're going to be spending EPs on us anyway, we shouldn't bother trying to head them off"?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

My thoughts are that they'd refuse outright. In that case, give us a chance to establish a casus belli later.