Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

Anybody have a clue what they are asking?

can we make you a question? its something we are debating while we
prepare the guillotine to execute our lider....

have your team coordinate the investigation of techs with others civ
to pact exchanges of techs in advance?

[kjn]

Anybody have a clue what they are asking?

Probably if we had discussed our tech path with some other team, eg to draw advantage of the known tech bonus or to divide up first-to bonuses or wonders.

The simple answer is no. The Germans asked if it was possible early game, but we declined.

[darrelljs]

Two possibilities...1) have we coordinated to gain known tech bonus, 2) have we given non-compete clauses for the techs that grant freebies. I guess a third possibility is they think tech trading is on .

Darrell

[scooter]

Big chat with OT4E of CivPlayers about the gold gift first, then Zargon's NAP extension plan, then stray things about the German team & CFC.

scooter
Care to explain why you're helping the German team get to Feudalism?
Seems kind of low to help them out after I told you about our plan for war under confidentiality

OT4E
hi there

scooter
hey. I'd say good morning, but I'm guessing it's not morning in your part of the world

OT4E
interesting thing that you are trying to accuse me that I was using confidential information acquired from the dialog with you
while i didnt even login
but I only gave you word that I will not tell what I've heard from you to the third party
and to be honest
that wasnt secret that you were planning to attack, I doubt that it is secret to the others
but as I said I am not going to tell anyone that we've got coversation about this
with you
but we already got some obligations to Germans

scooter
Ok, the second message I sent is retracted. but still, you directly aided an enemy we're going to war with

OT4E
which we are going to keep
we arranged them a while ago
about feudalism or any other way they are going to use I have no information

scooter
you'll have to forgive my mild skepticism, the timing is pretty blatant
Anyway, I can accept the explanation and move on. I don't think you'd lie to me directly, so I'll drop it
we have a proposal of sorts for your team

OT4E
I can ensure you that our actions were not based on our yesterdays chat

scooter
I believe you,and I'm sure it would be easy to confirm by civstats, so I don't think you would lie about something like that

OT4E
i should mention that we got obligations

scooter
yeah. I had to ask. All I knew was the first thing I saw this morning upon checking our forums was the news that your team sent gold to the German team, and with no other knowledge, I had to ask
anyway. We'd like to propose a simple, small 10T extension of our NAP through T170. This would mean the 10T cooldown gets pushed back to T180
I'll explain
Right now, we're expecting a 2v1, with you and CFC.
well granted, we know apolyton might jump on board too, but that will be more than taken care of

Comment: this line about Apolyton doesn't mean much, I just don't want him thinking the offer doesn't make sense because of Apolyton - want him to know that we are aware of them. Just projecting a little bit of confidence.

the best strategy against a 2v1 in which the war declarations have a spread (5T gap here) is to hit one hard first and hope you disable them enough that you can fight the other side 1v1
right now that's you guys, since the NAP with you expires first. and to be honest, I don't think that's fair for your team
CFC is ahead of you guys right now in the game. if you get into a war against us where you have to do most of the work (heavy losses on both sides are likely in a battle vs us), then CFC gets to waltz into our land with very little effort and capture our strongest cities, that hardly seems fair to you
all you've done is moved from a place where we're the leaders to a place where CFC is the big leader
so, if you're committed to this war, I think it's only fair that CFC should have to throw the first stone, not you. they're ahead, so they should have to do the heavy lifting
so what you get out of it: we end up in situation where we're attacking CFC and merely defending against you, rather than the other way around
what we get: a few more turns and a chance to stick it to CFC, who we dislike far more than you
Also, you can be confident that CFC will not do the same thing and take a 10T extension for one reason: they feel they need to hit us ASAP. They know that we can get to some powerful techs before T200, so for them, starting right at T175 is crucial
anyway, that's the gist of our proposal. you guys should get the bulk of the spoils if you start a war against us if you want things to be fair, and right now you're set up for a world where you invest more and get less. and I know that deep down you're a little skeptical of whatever CFC may have promised you, because you know they're difficult to trust
any thoughts on all that?

OT4E
I am a bit busy. Your team is based in US, right?
I am not well informed, sorry for that

scooter
understood, no problem. we're all over, but I'm in the US as well as our turn player

OT4E
I got your message. The gist is that you are going to attack CFC at turn 175 if we agree to extend NAP for just a 10 turns?
otherwise you treat to attack us
so this is my choice, right?

scooter
most likely yep. basically, if we're dealing with a 2v1 we need to try to hit one of the 2 hard first, so we're giving you a chance to make that be CFC since we like your team better
and it buys us more time of course

OT4E
I cant answer right now anyway

scooter
yeah I understand
no pressure, just thought you would like to hear the proposal

OT4E
yes the proposal seems to be more fair to us than we deserve
sounds from your words like that

scooter
well I'm glad you think so. it seemed like a nice compromise to me


Comment: the conversation strays a bit at this point as he needs time to decide whether to take our offer, so the rest of this is not very important. There's a few noteworthy things though, like his comments about the German team "threatening" them which is kind of bizarre.


OT4E
I personally think that you have everything on your hands to fight effectively on both sides

scooter
well it's tricky, because even if we won that type of war, it may just mean CivFr takes the lead and becomes the new runaway. and if that happens, we aren't close enough to do anything about it
so our preference would be to avoid war of course . not that you seem all that interested in that, so this proposal is the best compromise we can think of

OT4E
why do you think that I am?

scooter
what, committed to war?

OT4E
yes

scooter
well, you've basically said you're in as long as CFC takes out the Zulu team in a speed manner. and I don't expect them to have too much trouble with that

OT4E
I didnt remember that I say that
for me that zulu is still alive is the biggest surprise
and I was hoping for a while that you would choose natives as a target

scooter
why would you prefer them?

OT4E
nothing against them, but we could have an option to get personal revenge against Germans. But now we have to help them...

scooter
personal revenge? did they do something to you?

OT4E
not much, but they acted like they have something powerful behind until the end

scooter
what do you mean - threatening in the way they talked to you?

OT4E
how did you trick inca?
if it is not the secret

scooter
i'm not sure what you mean by trick?

OT4E
that they didnt realize that you attack them so soon
i will of course not tell anyone

scooter
honestly, I think they just forgot the NAP expired on t150
when they first met us on t50 or so, they proposed a 100 turn NAP until T150. so we decided to take it. so i think it had just been so long that they forgot
is that what they said to you - that they didnt know we would attack so soon?

OT4E
when your power was growing for sometime already, they were going on threating us

scooter
really?? that's odd

OT4E
they gave you marble recently

scooter
we did a couple minor resource trades with them, but we had no agreements past t150 nap
yeah

OT4E
well, they were not saying they will attack us, but looked pretty annoyed that we took place in the jungle
the city bordering with you looked like symbiosis

scooter
heh. that's funny. we probably took more of "their" land than you did, but for some reason they didn't send us nasty messages

OT4E
well I dont take game personal, but attacking inca could be an alternative for us despite of their behaviour


Comment: Yeah I figured this was what they had in mind - if we cut them into the German war, they might be willing to back out. Not really an option for a lot of reasons, but I think this is what he was hinting at with "mutual cooperation." Not that it would have changed anything for sure, but it would have been nice if he could've said this prior to T149.


OT4E
but it is all theoretical thoughts
thanks for your proposal
one question
when do you expect the answer
i dont want it to be not comfort to you
and it is obvious that you wont wait until 165

scooter
no set time frame, but the sooner the better.
that's vague, but things change really quickly right now
the offer will absolutely be on the table for 2-3 more turns, which during war time will probably take a week
Anyway, I'll let you go. as always, let me know if you have any further questions

OT4E
I actually have one more

scooter
okay go for it

OT4E
but you can not answer if you consider it not my business
why are you so annoyed with CFC?

scooter
it's a few things
1) it partially stems from the game setup when sommerswerd occasionally held the game hostage in order to get the settings he wanted, and was quite rude to a few of us. so that started things poorly
2) our deals with them have been frustrating. they nickel and dime us on every offer we give them. their insistence on us signing a huge document full of potential loopholes made it difficult to trust them.

OT4E
but you still have rather long peace

scooter
also, 3) they are organizing a war against us and recruiting other teams to join them. I know enough to know they are organizing this dogpile, not you. so to me, they get the blame.
so those things add up. and some of their emails have been slightly dishonest/deceptive, so we've gotten tired of that

OT4E
thanks for explanation

scooter
yep no problem, we just don't trust them basically. and yes we had long peace, but they were antagonistic even in that - settling a purposely worse city just so it would interfere with our cultural borders for example. they follow the letter of the agreements, but not the spirit

OT4E
I cant promise anything about my answer
But I hope you wont take it all personal
I dont want to have bad relations with you guys in future
because I am really impressed by your perfomance

scooter
oh of course not, don't worry. you have to do what's best for your team, I don't blame you for whatever you decide

It went on for a few more minutes, but I'll snip that out for length - he basically just said a few more nice things about our team's performance in this game (full chat is in the team email account if you're really curious). Stray thoughts to wrap up:

1) They're interested in our extension proposal. This would be pretty nice - at worst, it would buy us more time. At best, we could use it to drive a wedge in their alliance and break it down further. Fingers crossed that they take the deal.

2) Kudos again to Zargon for his post - I basically went right down his post during the chat and just wrote it in my own words

3) I think it was better to do this by chat than email - getting his immediate initial feedback & questions from him right away seems better than waiting for the usual email delay.

[scooter]

From Spanish Apolyton:

sorry, I forgot tech exchange was forbidden... Politic situation in
our government its in a crisis :D

I... I'm going to miss getting crazy emails from these guys.

[kalin]

Scooter: great job, many thanks for the work here!
Kalin

[Lewwyn]

I know the chat has already gone through, but I do think its worth mentioning that Holding off CFC would be a piece of cake since we have such a narrow border. If CP and CFC were to attack us I think we would simply defend from CFC and focus on destroying CP. I think that's similar to what has already been said, but I don't think the specific nature of our border with CFC has been explained and I think its something that again would make them realize they would end up with the short end of the stick.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Let's ask quickly them for a screenshot or two. This is our chance to cause maximum losses for CFC without actually using our own units. And the intel that we are getting has some value too.

Goal 1: Kill as many CFC units as possible
Goal 2: Convince Spanish to whip their cities completely to the ground in order to minimize their value for CFC (if they are not already doing this while producing units)

How viable is it to pillage cottages for cash upgrades? Let's suggest that at least. Helpful toward Team Spain? Not really. Harmful to CFC? Oh yeah!

[Zargon]

I hope CP didn't come away from that with the impression that we're agreeing to attack CFC on turn 175. The idea was simply that we would have the option and it might be a good idea (perhaps exaggerating how likely we think it is to be a good idea), but we're not agreeing make bad moves if it looks like attacking CFC on turn 175 is a tactically bad idea in exchange for 10 more turns on their NAP.

But at this point, if there's a misunderstanding, perhaps we'll just have to let it stand. If they agree to extend to 180, and turn 175 rolls around and we judge an attack to be a bad idea and CP asks why we didn't attack, we'll simply ask them if they would rather we suicide our defending force and let CFC march in uncontested, or make them fight for every city.

[antisocialmunky]

From Spanish Apolyton:

sorry, I forgot tech exchange was forbidden... Politic situation in
our government its in a crisis :D

I... I'm going to miss getting crazy emails from these guys.

Are we accepting Spanish settlers in the antarctic wastes?

Good job scooter