Golden Rule of Diplomacy

[Arnelos]

For those who missed this when I posted it (it was burried in the "strategy" thread):

Among the players of the boardgame Diplomacy, there is a something called "The Golden Rule of Diplomacy":

"Do unto others what they would do unto you, just do it first."

Alternate Version:

"Do unto others what they would do unto you, just do it better."

-------------------------------

I trust we can keep this in mind?

[F-PRO]

I trust we will, but what if the others do too...

[ThePlagueRat]

IMO we should follow the Art of War doctine by Sun Tzu.
Being formless and unpredictable, we will emerge victoriously.


Here is one about spying too:

"There are five kinds of spy: the local spy, the inside spy, the reverse spy, the dead spy and the living spy. Local spies are hired from among the inhabitants of a place. Inside spies are hired from among enemy officers. Reverse spies are hired from enemy spies. Dead spies give false information to the enemy. Living spies come back to make their reports."

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[mrmitchell]

Arnelos and his boardgames...

[Togas]

I'm also a fan of Diplomacy the board game. I highly recommend it.

A few points I'd like for us to stress:

First, in the beginning, I see myself sending messages to the other nations that we meet but in due time I prefer to assign individual members of our team to act as an ambassador to one other team.

Our ambassadors will be cultural liasons, who should appear willing to share all sorts of information to the other team. We not lie about anything they can discover themselves. We should also tell them things we have learned about the world and the other civs...

And that's where the true diplomacy begins. We spread rumors, tell stories, get them to distrust other civs and get them to rely on us as the best and most trustworthy source of information about the world.

We must make ourselves useful, reliable, and trustworthy while carefully pitting one civ against another. We become their best trade partner and their most trusted civ.

In any event, as we discover the human civs, I will be seeking voluteers to serve as the full time ambassador to that nation. Such people will also become our resident "expert" on the team in question.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

sounds perfect.

The benefit we have on our team is that it seems we have a cross-section of different playstyles and people on the role-play team and, in addition, our "roleplay" nature should give us the ability to better play at being "two birds of a flock" with each and everyone one of the other civs...

For instance, we get a "warrior"-style player who likes to roleplay to being the ambassador to Glory of War, someone who understands and can empathize with the builders to be our ambassador to them, etc.

[Ninot]

Can I be foreign ambassador for ONLY Glory of War?

I wanna be the one who has to deal with them, lol

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Ninot
Can I be foreign ambassador for ONLY Glory of War?

I wanna be the one who has to deal with them, lol

While I think this would be enormously amusing, somehow I think we might have people more "empathetic" to their viewpoint than yourself

That said, we ARE the role-play team and, conceivably, any one of us can use our character to role-play however we want in this game

[Ninot]

Uhm....
Arnelos

if you may remember... my C3DG persona is not what I am, and I can truly be anything I want HERE.

I am fully capable of diplomatic relations with any nation. Its all a matter of keeping a stoned face and getting the message across without giving too much information

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Arnelos
That said, we ARE the role-play team and, conceivably, any one of us can use our character to role-play however we want in this game

I thought I covered that... though this only covers RP and not RL... I'll admit that your single-player Civ3DG persona isn't necessarily your real one or even reflective of your single-player one... mine certainly isn't

So I agree

[Ninot]

And... i think it would truly be a fly on the warmongers nose if they thought they were dealing with a wimpy builder diplomat

[Arnelos]

lol

don't know about THAT, but it's an idea worth batting around

[mrmitchell]

Ack, I'm trying to read forums while all this stuff is popping up...
"Earn 24 dollars in part time," "Surf 7 days a week," "Do you want to update ZoneAlarm," "New Updates Available," "Travel the world on Orbitz," "ZoneAlarm has blocked all ports due to a chicken in Arizona," "Windows has terminated your grandma"...
How can I get anything done?

We need wimpy builder diplomats for both the GoW and Legoland, because
1. We need Glory to think we're what we're not
2. We already have a friendship with Legoland we dont want to break by sending in the commandos .

[Togas]

I want us to send a warrior to deal with Glory of War. Why? I want them to like us. I don't want them to feel we're a weak civ that can be demanded and steamrolled if we don't give in. I want them to see us as a viable temporary partner in any of their conquest escapades.

... However, I also want to see them destroyed first, as they are the only civ who has stated that their mission is to "test out a theory" about conquest civs and they intend to be a conquest civ above all else, no matter if they lose doing it.

I think their idiots for saying so. When dealing with them, I want us to act naive to their stated mission, but we should do everything in our power to see that they do not succeed.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Togas
I want us to send a warrior to deal with Glory of War. Why? I want them to like us. I don't want them to feel we're a weak civ that can be demanded and steamrolled if we don't give in. I want them to see us as a viable temporary partner in any of their conquest escapades.

... However, I also want to see them destroyed first, as they are the only civ who has stated that their mission is to "test out a theory" about conquest civs and they intend to be a conquest civ above all else, no matter if they lose doing it.

I think their idiots for saying so. When dealing with them, I want us to act naive to their stated mission, but we should do everything in our power to see that they do not succeed.

--Togas

Yup, "don't play well with others" is a pretty good label for the civs we want to knock off... Glory of War is at the top of that list. This also makes them LESS DANGEROUS than certain other human teams, however... it might be worth keeping their predictability around just long enough to let us help take out some unpredictability (should the need arise) with teams like Gathering Storm...

Otherwise, I agree. Glory of War has to go.