Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[NobleHelium]

I haven't played any MP Civ 4, so I have to defer to people more experienced to me, but CP just smashed our main stack, trading 30 units for 3 (I missed whether we counterattacked to take some of that back at 1 for 1). I don't understand why they'd choose to take our deal and turn around and hit CivFr when they can just keep walking forward and take peace after we actually display an ability to stop them, which seems like at least 4 cities in, minimum. Why take modest gains when you can take more?

Because CFC will get much more than they will and thus run away. That's what we're trying to sell. They can get X cities and CFC can get 2 cities, if that, or they can get X cities and CFC can get everything else.

[antisocialmunky]

If anything we should press even harder with the king maker card. Give them the ultimatum that they should take this by T175 or we will German-Gift our cities to CFC and we should at the same time start talks with CFC over gifting them our land (not in earnest but drop the idea that we hate CP and Poly more than them and want out of this game) to make our story more credible.

I don't think its believable to frame CFC as the leader but we could probably convince them that we would be willing to make them the leader especially if we can make it look like we seriously are tired of this game and want out.

[scooter]

If anything we should press even harder with the king maker card. Give them the ultimatum that they should take this by T175 or we will German-Gift our cities to CFC and we should at the same time start talks with CFC over gifting them our land (not in earnest but drop the idea that we hate CP and Poly more than them and want out of this game) to make our story more credible.

I don't think its believable to frame CFC as the leader but we could probably convince them that we would be willing to make them the leader especially if we can make it look like we seriously are tired of this game and want out.

I've been thinking about this. This is kind of the "nuclear" option to me - full-on threatening to throw the game to CFC if they don't take our peace deal. Of course we would not do anything to ruin the game, but it's a handy threat. But it's a one-time use (effectively anyway), and you burn up a lot of goodwill/credibility in using it. I don't think I want to go that route just yet. But if they continue to press the war and not realize the position they're putting us in with regards to CFC, I'm up for this route.

I think I'd like a few more opinions on the draft, so if you're on the sidelines and have an opinion, please share it. I'm going to send something tomorrow.

[antisocialmunky]

Apolyton and CivPlayers,

Hey guys, I wanted to run another idea past you both. I'm sending this to both of you because I'm sure any potential deal must include both of you. It's about what would be reasonable peace terms for you guys.

First off, nicely done so far. Overall I'm impressed by your smart play and teamwork. The tactical puzzle each turn has been interesting, and it continues to be that way. That said, I think I can say two things confidently here that you guys would agree with:

1) Each of you guys are probably able to take another city before our counter-attack begins in earnest.
2) You both see that we are about to get Rifling AND we still are comfortably #1 in soldiers. We have plenty of gas in the tank so there's a very finite limit to how far you guys can go.

Anyway, as I said previously, I see CFC as the big leader right now. They have one neighbor sending their whole military away from them the another who is an extremely technologically inferior.

The way I see it, we have almost everything on your front or headed towards your front right now, and more is coming in every turn. When CFC joins on T175, we'll have no real ability to defend against them. Us losing core cities rather than isolated outposts and German cities doesn't matter too much to you, but CFC gaining all our best cities does since I figure the whole point of you declaring on us was to prevent a complete runaway .

Our cities on the CFC front are our strongest cities, and if they pick up 7-8 of them (minimum) easily while you guys only gain 1-2 cities each, they will easily run away with this game - I Can Promise You That. And no, we aren't going to abandon our front with you just because CFC moves in on us. If we're going to get dogpiled, we are going to find a way to win on one of the two fronts just for pride's sake . If we're going to die, we'll try to recapture what you've taken in the same way the German team did to WPC previously. So I see 2 ways the next 10-15 turns could unfold:

1) Our war continues. You guys pick up a couple cities, things grind to a halt when we've taken our shots at your stacks AND added Rifles to the mix. CFC joins, gains a bunch of big cities that we're unable to defend because we're tied down in the west. CFC becomes the new RB runaway, takes peace with us after they get what they want, and you guys are stuck with a never ending war with us letting CFC runs away with an easy victory.

2) We agree to not contest your capture of a fair amount of cities in exchange for peace (explicit gifting is banned, but we can empty out cities for you to capture), and in return we'll prevent CFC from effectively winning the game by defending the big prizes in the east. You guys can freely integrate your new conquests while we are stuck slogging through another war. The end result I believe will be a world where Apolyton, CivPlayers, RB, and CFC are all pretty evenly matched through the end of the game. I think that's what you guys want, and that'll give you a better chance of victory in my opinion. In addition to not attempting to recapture Brick we would let you guys capture (or raze/replace) Ditchdigger, Mano Y Mano, PETA Crusaders, and Beyaz Penir without any further counter-attacks from us. Then we would both make lengthy peace, and we would go fend off our eastern enemy who will still have a sizable technology advantage against us.

How do you feel about this? I would be happy to chat further when you get some time.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[mostly_harmless]

Zargon, don't be too obsessed with city count. Thats so Imperio-style!
The truth is, that our city count is bloated by a handful of crap iceball fishing villages.
CFC has currently 22 cities as far as we can see. They have the potential to fit at least 2-3 cities more in to their land and capture one barb city nearby as well. That takes them to 26.
And any deal we strike in the west does not mean we will hold Eastern Dealer. Starfall is a toast anyway. And those are core cities. So I find that we will be only evenly matched after that.
That's why I suggested the WPC land being carved up.
I don't like throwing in all those additional concessions in the opening offer. Remember, we don't want to come over to needy.

mh

[Old Harry]

Agree that the offer needs to be made - great idea MH. It'll be surprising if they accept though, given how well the war is going for them so far. How many more cities would we be willing to give up?

I wouldn't suggest that we'll let CFC roll over us even if they don't go for peace - that sounds like sour grapes. Perhaps say we won't be able to stop them rolling over us if we don't get all our units over there...

[mostly_harmless]

Agree that the offer needs to be made - great idea MH. It'll be surprising if they accept though, given how well the war is going for them so far. How many more cities would we be willing to give up?

Look at the thin red line a few posts up.

[Old Harry]

With looming threat of CFC cannons in our core, I would be prepared to fall back to the red line in the west.

And if they wanted Frozen Jungle on top would that be too far? I think Apolyton will want more for their rifle stack, and I don't think we can give up Denial and Dopelganger can we?

Anyway Scooters message is a great start, we can debate how far we'd go once they actually reply.

[DaveV]

I think I'd like a few more opinions on the draft, so if you're on the sidelines and have an opinion, please share it.

I approve of this message.

[waterbat]

Id prefer not to name the cities - as that just establishes a starting point for the negotiation and they will want more.

If you think that will take too much time to go back and forth so that it endangers the success of the diplo, then i guess its what we have to do.

Thanks guys.