Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[kjn]

Contact with the Spanish!

[scooter]

Great. Drafts to them and CFC will be written & posted here today.

[SleepingMoogle]

Make sure to include directions to the Germans. :P

[kjn]

Yeah, that's impirative.

[Bigger]

Make sure to include directions to the Germans. :P

[scooter]

First, sorry for not getting these drafts up sooner - a bit under the weather today. Anyways, still nothing from CivPlayers. I'm still a little leery of that situation, but they are the definition of unthreatening right now military-wise, so that is firmly on our side. Draft to CFC:

Caledorn,

Well I guess making new contacts come in pairs, because we just met the Spanish team this turn. We stumbled upon their (well-promoted!) Impi near the floodplains to your east. That's sort of a threatening position to just sit fortified, so I hope they aren't causing you any trouble. I'm about to initiate contact with them and see where things go. Do they seem comfortable communicating in English? I ask because we have a couple Spanish speakers on our team, and I'm not sure if I should be drafting them into duty or not.

If you could give directions towards UCiv, that would actually be great. Whether we seek out the Spanish borders or attempt to meet UCiv next is something our team is still in the process of deciding, but any directions you could provide would be super helpful.

Please extend a hearty welcome to your chariot that has reached our borders! You'll be happy to know that the inside of our land is currently free of barbarians (knock on wood), so he should be very safe. We would be happy to direct you to CivPlayers if you'd like - you can get there pretty quick on our road network headed west. If you want more specific directions, let me know and I'll get those to you.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Goal is just keeping them in the loop about the new contact (as per our deal), as well as swapping directions and all that. Simple stuff. Alright, next is the greeting message for the Spanish team. Caledorn did indicate to me that they had some mild difficulties communicating with them early on, so I'm going to attempt to use fairly simple language - trying to avoid idioms primarily. If we get some indication that using Spanish will be better we can do that, but I think our previous experiences with the German team of assuming English first is probably the wisest way to go (last thing we want is to offend them).

Spanish Apolyton,

Greetings from Realms Beyond! It's nice to finally meet your team! We have had contact with CFC for quite some time so we have known about your team, but our early scouting was slowed by barbarians so it has taken us awhile to be able to meet you. We have now met your team, CFC, WPC, German Team, and CivPlayers. Have you been able to meet many teams?

If you would like to share map info of your surroundings, we would be happy to tell you about our neighbors too. Are you interested in this trade of information?

I'm looking forward to getting to know your team. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out!

Thank you,
scooter - Team RB

I'll be honest - I don't think we need to heavily invest in this team. I wouldn't normally say that in a diplo game because overlooking a "less significant team" can often come back to haunt you, but this team is very backwards, very behind, and very far away. So let's pay attention of course, but just don't sweat it is what I'm saying (relations with CivPlayers and CFC is much more pressing). Good chance one of the better teams (CivFr?) roll over these guys in time.

Alright, any strong opinions on these drafts? I'll probably aim to send them before I go to bed if there aren't any significant issues.

edit: Oh yes, I probably should include info about where the German team is

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Both drafts look solid. You can even send Angry Pacal with their quote for fun.

[DaveV]

If you're trying to keep the language simple, I'd suggest the following changes:

Spanish Apolyton,

Greetings from Realms Beyond! It's nice to finally meet your team! We have had contact with CFC for quite some a long time so we have known about your team, but our early scouting was slowed by barbarians so it has taken us awhile until now to be able to meet you. We have now met your team, CFC, WPC, German Team, and CivPlayers. Have you been able to meet many teams?

If you would like to share map info a description of your surroundings, we would be happy to tell you about our neighbors too. Are you interested in this trade of information?

I'm looking forward to getting to know your team. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out!

Thank you,
scooter - Team RB

[darrelljs]

Do we want to offer Spanish translations in the future?

Darrell

[Tyrmith]

I think we were holding out on that because we're nervous about sounding condescending.