Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Confrontational is fine, these guys respect strength, not weakness.

Also, I think there's a way to use strikethroughs.

Testing

[s ][/s ] are the appropriate tags,

[Ceiliazul]

Thanks Nic, I'll use that next time.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I think we should get in their heads as much as possible. We should mention their recent Theology tech, and how we suspect they are whipping a bunch units to pour out with Theocracy boni. We want to give off the sense that we know exactly what they are doing. It gets in their head. How do you attack the team that knows exactly what is coming? And do you really think you are going to make gains? Hello, CivPs, we are pretty fucking good at this game!

I think our message should make all that fairly clear.

[Azoth]

I'd cut the word "currently" from the first two sentences.
It distracts from the main idea (i.e.: that WE are being peaceful and YOU are behaving aggressively),
and implies that we might have plans for war later (i.e: let's postpone our inevitable war to T175, shall we?)

So:

Decebal,

We have no plans for war currently, but we need to protect ourselves. We currently have a neighbor that is refusing a longer term NAP while whipping in military buildings and teching military techs, so we're concerned that they have plans to attack us. That neighbor is you...

[kjn]

Don't omit the last paragraph - they trolled about settling the area between us in their last message. Omit the last sentence of it instead, I think.

[SleepingMoogle]

I would probably change the last sentence of the first paragraph somewhat.

"If you guys would like to attack a different neighbor, we're of course happy to give you a longer NAP so you can do that without worrying about us. You don't seem interested, though, and that's concerning to us. "

This feels a bit too much like we are perfectly willing to benefit from a third team's hardship. And while technically it's true I see no reason to be blunt about that - being blunt about our perception of CivPlayers should be sufficient really. Better to change it into something like "We prefer a longer NAP as it would go a long way towards soothing concerns about aggression headed our way, and at the same time you guys won't have to worry about one of your neighbours with a short NAP building up a strong military."

[Shoot the Moon]

To be honest, I like scooter's first draft more than most of the suggestions, except for perhaps to eliminate the last paragraph. I also like omitting the word currently from the first sentence but not the second. The other one I agree with is the phrasing hav a safe front. Other than those though I like the original better than the other line by line changes proposed I think.

EDIT: typo on phone. Should read "but not the second" where it originally read "by not the second".

[novice]

To be honest, I like scooter's first draft more than most of the suggestions, except for perhaps to eliminate the last paragraph. I also like omitting the word currently from the first sentence by not the second. The other one I agree with is the phrasing hav a safe front. Other than those though I like the original better than the other line by line changes proposed I think.

Agree with this. But I would specifically mention their Theology research and the units they have prewhipped that are waiting in their build queues for the Theocracy bonus. If our guess is correct on that, it will screw with their heads.

[kjn]

I doubt they have anything pre-whipped yet. I think they're going to go for stables and other military infrastructure first, and that they will only start pre-whipping units circa T110.

[SevenSpirits]

Well has their power been going up when they whipped? I thought it hadn't.