Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

Spanish Team

We make no more promises and give no more gifts. I think we should ask what their ETA to HBR is, but any loan to them that damages our ETA to Engineering is not an option. Even then, I doubt this is something we want to do. Proposed draft:

Hey, unfortunately we're not able to get some units over to you right now - we're pretty tied up at the moment. So for now I'm afraid we can't do much more. What's your ETA to Horseback Riding?

Thanks,
scooter

German Team

Definitely say nothing.

CFC

The only proposed response I could seriously support would probably be Ruff's response, but I agree with the many that suggested we just say nothing and move on.

Apolyton

I saw they had somebody on chat in their email account, so I'm trying to talk to him now. He's saying the team is discussing our proposal. I'll post a log after we get done.

[scooter]

Not much of note, but here's all I had time for.

scooter: Hey, this is scooter from RB. Anyone around over there?
Apolyton: hi there
scooter: Hey! just happened to notice you were on at the same time, and thought I'd follow-up on the email we sent the other day. do you guys have any thoughts/concerns?
I realize we're in a big stage of the game right now, so stuff like this is pretty impactful
Apolyton: yes I know that, i have presented your proposal to my team.. unfortunatelly they are quite slow to answer
btw i had discussion with an other team about NAPs and there was a question about what does a t100 nap mean..
I mean does the last tun included or not..
i thought i ask your view on this as well
scooter: oh yeah, that's always sticky. I usually interpret a "T100 NAP" to mean ending on T100, unless explicitly specified.
in past games I've played I've said "NAP through T100 inclusive" or something if it was necessary to include that turn
Apolyton: ending on t100 is still sticky is it included on the nap or not?
scooter: Are you asking about the NAP between us that currently runs through T170?
Apolyton: in any nap for future reference
scooter: yeah. Well, for future NAPs we should probably specific which. I don't think it matters too much which you go with, as long as both sides aree
Apolyton: from now on i wil try to aways specify it
scooter: *agree
yeah me too
scooter: have you guys ever had much communication with UniversCiv or CivFr? Those guys seem really quiet
Apolyton: I too noticed this.. we can make contact with Uciv, few letter with civfr.. and they are both our neighbours
can=can't
scooter: Also, I'm assuming our T170 nap actually ends on T170, rather than including T170. although, if we agree to extend the nap it shouldn't matter much
yeah, I was just curious if we were the only ones they didn't write to very much, but I guess not
we haven't sent much to them, but when we do send them a message they respond maybe 1/3 of the time haha
Apolyton: ok let1s stick to that then. about extension, I would like to hear more opinion on it, and it could take a few more days, but as the game progresses we won't reach t170 in this month anyway
scooter: sounds great. if your team agrees to extend it, let me know if you'd prefer the final turn to be inclusive or not. we are fine with either, so long as we know which it is
Apolyton: ok, will do
scooter: any guesses on who all that CFC drafted/whip pop is for? :D
somebody is going to experience some pain it seems
Apolyton: no idea, bu if you were my neighbour I would want an army too
scooter: haha, fair enough!

Then we both had to wrap it up. Not much of note there since they haven't had our message for more than about 24 hours, but I've seen him (I'm assuming it's MZ but he didn't actually say) in the account a little more often lately, so hopefully that will be useful. This chat took place in the official account, so it's in the rb.diplo chat log if anyone wants to see it themselves. The above is pretty much unedited though since it was pretty brief.

[Lewwyn]

Apolyton: no idea, bu if you were my neighbour I would want an army too

Soon my boy, soon.

[kjn]

If we are extremely lucky, we might be able to have Engineering on T152, but that'd require lots of pillage gold and maybe another team researching it. I think the only realistic target is T153, and we should have a reasonable margin for that.

Not sure about how to interpret Apolyton's "no idea" on CFC's war plans. But it's good to know that we aren't the only ones having trouble doing diplo with Univers and CivFr. Maybe we should ask the Spanish team and WPC as well?

[scooter]

I'm thinking once we declare war on the German team, we may want to use that to further convince Apolyton that they should sign an extension with us. They probably aren't assuming they'll be neighbors with us by the time the current NAP runs out.

[antisocialmunky]

Now if we could only quantify how many resources we need to spend to extend the Spanish war by a turn, then we could figure out the other part of this equation. That is, how many resources can we spend before #3 catches up to both us and CFC?

Ugh. That'd be nearly impossible to quantify, especially since which team is #3 can be viewed as either Apolyton or CivFr, and they follow different strategies, and then there is Univers which is starting to speed up as well.

However, one thing I really think we should consider is that if the Spanish team is still holding out on T175, we really should declare on CFC, and do so in the most blatantly possible way - make them see it coming from several turns away. Either they switch veteran units from the Spanish front to us (making the Spanish bleed CFC even longer), or they have to keep their core cities in wartime mode by whipping and drafting. Either way we win.

As for the German note, I think we should answer with a courteous note that we are coming for them. With their build switches, a wall in Wasserburg, and new catapults, I think we have nothing to lose by giving a formal war declaration now. They know, and we know they know, so there is little reason for subterfuge now.

Yeah, probably the best we can do is guestimate

Declaring on CFC is probably the best move I think. It gives us a fair amount of advantages such as not getting double moved and keeping CFC on their toes. I don't think we should telegraph it though. I don't think they expect us to declare so it might be shocking. We might want to start putting more boats into the water though to make sure we don't get D-Dayed. That and abusing naval blockade would be amusing, I think crippling their coastal cities would a poetic justice for their annoyingness...

Also what are the rules for alliances doing staggered declarations? Do we all have to be on one side of the timer?

For the life of me, I didn't expect to end up friends with both the Apolyton and Ex-Templar teams.

[NobleHelium]

I don't see why you'd have to be on the same side of the timer. At worst the game goes fully sequential, it still works.

[kjn]

Have we got away a trade offer to CivPlayers about spices for sugar yet? They have two connected now, so better do it quickly.

[Yell0w]

Apolyton: no idea, bu if you were my neighbour I would want an army too

Soon my boy, soon.

[scooter]

Have we got away a trade offer to CivPlayers about spices for sugar yet? They have two connected now, so better do it quickly.

Yep, it was included in our reply a couple days ago.


Shock of the day - reply from UniversCiv

Hi Realms Beyond,
Thanks for your kind interest, but we are safe
Things may effectively become riskier for the Spaniards.

Bye
Yuufo

Nothing we don't know I guess.