Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[mostly_harmless]

The total lapse in discipline aside,
WPC should have never asked us in the first place to replay differently after a reload. That was just no option, period. If they start flinging shit around about us to other teams, that is our main argument.

Also, I doubt that this was Beta logging in, so I think scooter and Beta can patch this up, somewhat.

mh

[Cyneheard]

If they start flinging shit around about us to other teams, that is our main argument.

Agreed, this is key. If they wanted us to raze those two cities so that they could resettle, they should have asked us before we actually played the turn. That would have probably worked - it was a close vote to give them a shot at Warendorf if the odds let them, so if they'd asked for something that we could have easily done they'd have probably won the vote.

[Mardoc]

To be fair to Sullla - once we decided not to give them any spoils, it's only a matter of time before they dislike us. He might have sped up the adjustment process a bit, that's all.

[spacetyrantxenu]

To be fair to Sullla - once we decided not to give them any spoils, it's only a matter of time before they dislike us. He might have sped up the adjustment process a bit, that's all.

Wasn't there a comment here recently (by Seven?) about WPC needing to realign their expectations with reality, or something to that effect? Maybe that's the sliver lining here, mission accomplished!

[scooter]

Haha wow, I was literally in the middle of drafting an apology when this popped into my inbox. From WPC:

Hi Scooter et al.

First let me apologize to Sulla for our exchange in game last night. My wife and I drank a bit too much wine after dinner, and I let my frustrations with our joint war effort get the better of me.

However, there are very real frustrations on our part. If RB had gone to war single-handedly against the Germans, you would have faced a much stiffer defence than you did with us an ally. You have never shared any pics or info on the units you faced, only the pre-war pic of the german army at that time, most of which ended up in Warendorf. So our actions, however ill-planned they may have been, certainly helped you win a quicker and cheaper war, as from what we can tell, the bulk of the German army was first aligned defensively against us, and is now doing its very best to hurt us, not you.

Also, heading into the war, we felt we had an agreement on how to split up the German territory. As the war progressed, it seemed that that 'agreement' morphed into something different from your perspective. I admit that we both missed the matter of the no-city-gifting rule, but it also seems that there is little interest from RB to try to ensure we get the northern cities, either through razing, or even just killing the one long-bow in Warendorf so we could take the city next turn. And given how 'straight up' we have been from the start about all this, we find that disappointing.

I understand RB's position about wanting to play the turn as closely as was played the first time around; that is the right thing to do. What we are disappointed in is how you played it the first time around. You could have razed Wilhelmshaven, attacked the last stack of German units on the hill as you did, (and that action was greatly appreciated, btw) and killed one of the two long bows in Warendorf. We could have then taken Warendorf, rebuilt Wilhelmshaven, and taken the last two cities.

But not now that's history. It looks like for all our efforts, we get nothing, and in fact, may still have one of our cities razed. Hence our frustrations.

Again, my apologies to Sulla.

Cheers. Beta

[darrelljs]

Happiness = Reality / Expectations

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Well, at least we know he hasn't found the twitch account. That was a really well worded e-mail, and I can certainly sympathize with WPC's frustration. It doesn't change the fact that they didn't earn any spoils on the field of battle, and got pretty much what they deserved. I'd say the diplo key is to keep them a) invested in the game, and b) a loyal (if discontent) vassal .

Darrell

[MWIN]

May be we should talk in general on what their plan for this game are? May be there is something we can do to help them in getting any of their secondary goals. Surviving past their enemy Gemman is not small thing .

[scooter]

So let's take a stab at cleaning things up. Draft to WPC.

Beta,

So I was just clued in this morning about the in-game chat that went poorly, and I was in the middle of writing you a message when your email came in. First off, thanks for the apology, and I'd like to extend ours too. Sullla seems to have had a long day going into that, and the perpetual Turn 160 that kept getting stopped and reloaded was frustrating to us all, so I think you guys just had the perfect storm for catching each other in a bad mood. It happens in a game we've all invested a lot of time in, so I hope things are okay going forward. It looks like both sides said some regrettable things, so hopefully we can both write that off as a blip and move on. We clearly have a bit of an game-related dispute or difference of opinions, but I really don't want that to extend to a personal dispute. This is a game after all, and our contact with your team has been nothing but pleasant throughout. So please do accept our sincere apologies for the harsh words that were said.

As for our dispute over spoils, I think there's a few frustrations from our side too. I want to dispel this myth that we've walked into empty cities and you guys have had to do all the fighting. Someone on our team did a count of units. Your initial stack had 45 units:
* 5 archers
* 3 chariots
* 10 dogs
* 5 swords
* 15 cats
* 7 spears

That's 200k of power. Here are the units we've killed so far in this war:
* 12 axes
* 9 spears
* 14 longbows
* 1 Quechua
* 3 elephants
* 1 catapult

That's 211k of power. We've killed more than you invaded with. Yes they did weight things toward you a bit later on in the war, but we absolutely killed a lot of units. I understand that you've seen them defend heavily against you, but the reality is we brought Knights, Maces, and Elephants and you brought dog soldiers, and dog soldiers will never do anything against longbows and elephants. It just isn't true that you've had to do all the fighting. I don't know what exactly you've killed from their team, but I'm guessing it's less than 211k of power.

The added frustration for us was the missed opportunity to hit Warendorf early. We blitzed their first couple cities. It definitely cost us quite a few units, but it allowed us to capture their population before it could be whipped into new units. I honestly believe you guys would have taken Warendorf had you attacked it immediately instead of burning 4 turns turning around and going the wrong direction. Sure it would have been bloody, but that was literally all they had on that front - the rest was by us and too far away to reinforce. If Warendorf fell, the rest of their cities were always going to collapse afterwards. That 4 turns they spent whipping longbows and war elephants, and that basically turned the tide of the war up there.

So I'm not sure what to do next to resolve this. I do understand your frustrations completely, but I do not agree with your opinion that you've had to do all the fighting while we waltz into all the spoils untouched. I believe it's just the reality that we brought a ton of extremely advanced units. Anyway, I think I better send this so you can hear my initial thoughts and react, but I'm more than willing to continue talking this through and figuring out how we can help you out going forward.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

It's long, but I honestly believe it's totally necessary here. Thoughts?

[scooter]

Oh, to answer one question before it comes up - I really don't want to offer them some sort of gift in this email. I'm not totally opposed to it if it's reasonable, but I'd like to A) calm them down here and B) let them have time to adjust their expectations. Once that's done, I think some sort of gift from us (if we go that route, I'm not committing us to that) would be better received.