Diplomacy Thread

[pikesfan]

Why would we want to drop hints that would make them more competent? Surely we want them to remain incompetent and get in trouble with someone else.

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by pikesfan
Why would we want to drop hints that would make them more competent? Surely we want them to remain incompetent and get in trouble with someone else.

What I want is for them to leave our territory. We are the most centrally located civ in the game and we have a vast amount of territory to REX into if there are no competitors.

If they become more competent but leave our territory before discovering the lands to our south, I think we still will have won the game by dominating the land, resources, luxuries, and city sites that will come from successful REX in the southern direction.

[jdjdjd]

I like the idea of lux, nd & us tech embargoing gw - but i'm not 100% sure they are trustworthy, either.

i like the idea of pitting gf v. panzer, et als - donegeal could manipulated. un and aggie, probably not.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by jdjdjd
I like the idea of lux, nd & us tech embargoing gw - but i'm not 100% sure they are trustworthy, either.

i like the idea of pitting gf v. panzer, et als - donegeal could manipulated. un and aggie, probably not.

UnOrthO can't be manipulated, but he won't make the same diplomatic mistakes that Ghengis is making, and would probably surface as much more of a power inside their team than Panzer's been (pure conjuncture, since I honestly don't know how much of a power Panzer is) -- we might not be able to maniuplate him, but I bet we could work with him...

-- adaMada

[Crousto]

A tech embargo against GoW sounds like a good idea. GoW is behind in tech right now so Lux and ND could easily join us... except that they are on the front line if war breaks out with GoW, so they may think that the deal is at our advantage.

[Arnelos]

Unortho would make a better diplomat than GhengisFarb by a long shot and that is WHY Unortho was named the FAM for GoW... unfortunately, Unortho is inactive because of RL concerns and can't do their diplomatic duties...

That's why Ghengis acting as their FAM as well as their leader.

Panzer has very little clout in that group, he's more of a groupie to them.

I suspect the guys with most of the clout are:

GhengisFarb
Unorthodox
Aggie
UberKruX

Guys like donegeal and Aro would be secondary, along with guys like Panzer32 or others like that.

Then again, you never know for sure. We have some people on OUR team that are relatively new to Apolyton who have a lot of say about our team because we're fairly open-minded if someone has a good idea and people can build repuations for themselves here.

My suspicion is that the GoW team is less open-minded in that sense... that the guys on the top probably really do make most of the decisions, though they might be open to what they might think is a good idea from one of the others. That said, guys like Aro probably participate in the commraderie with the rest of the team, but don't offer any suggestions or strategy. The strategizing and the diplomacy is all be handled at the top. With Unortho's inactivity, that means GhengisFarb and Aggie are likely the chiefs of the team (UberKruX will probably get listened to on military matters, but even the other GoWers won't really head him in diplomacy ).

Interestingly, Aggie would make a better diplomat than GhengisFarb as well...

As for us...

Under no conditions should we tell them that they should "improve their diplomacy". This will only serve to insult GhengisFarb and the rest of the team won't take it very nicely, either. It will just make us look arogant and it will get us nowhere. There are things we can do here, but that isn't one of them.

[Togas]

I wrote back to "Jason" via email (player of Ghengis Farb) telling him rather bluntly that I was tired of the way he handled these stupid situations and that I felt that the two of us together = trouble. Told him to stop sending comments via email to me, I would stop responding, and that I felt it was better that we both let our diplomats deal with these situations.

It's mostly true. This guy gets under my skin too much and makes it difficult for me to think rationally about foriegn affairs with his team. I suspect, that his opinion is not the only opinon over there, but it is a leading force, I'm sure.

However, if we can get any sypathizers from their team, any friends that you can "talk frankly" to about the situation, talk to them. Undermine Ghengis's authority as best as possible, and let them see that his hardline attitude is causing problems.

Important note: We're not NEXT to GoW, we're next to ND and Lux. GoW, in a purely logical sense, makes an excellent ally because we each have the same 2 neighbors. However, from a diplomatic sense, they suck. Maybe in the future that can change, but right now .... I'm losing faith.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by dejon
It's a good thing I'm not involved in our diplomacy, because I can't stand his arrogance.

[OOC]

I got the same message with the save file.

My immediate thought when I read it was that good cop/bad cop really is the way out of this...

He's equating Togas with the entire team and his anger is put on Togas.

Now equating Togas with the team isn't really that far off , but there's some room for manuever here...

For instance...

GhengisFarb knows that we have supposedly heated internal politics and that Togas remains supreme leader because all of us support him.

Aside from the fact that Togas still has our complete support as Supreme Leader, it might not be a bad idea for some of us to roleplay that we think Togas "messed this up" and we're trying to pressure Togas to change his mind - with his ability to stay in power potentially in question.

Nothing would make GhengisFarb happier than to think that he caused an internal division in the RP Team. It would make him like us even more if he thought Togas' hand was being forced to make better deals with GoW because a number of us were supposedly pro-friendship with GoW and wanted policy changed in that direction.

This might also get into GhengisFarb's head the idea that Togas doesn't necessarily equal the team and that if he can manipulate the rest of our team into believing something, we can pressure Togas into doing it. GhengisFarb will absoultely DELIGHT in thinking he's driving a wedge into our team.

The catch is that we can't let the cat out of the bag that it's all just a game

We also have to let GhengisFarb know that there's a heated internal division about cancelling that tech deal with GoW and for him to "bite" - to believe it's true. Now, in part, it's not TERRIBLY far from the truth. Ninot and DAVOUT, to name just two, really have come out to say that our attempt to stop GoW from being in our territory is absolutely ludicrous. Twisting that into appearing to be something more shouldn't be too hard of a task.

It might even be worth Togas softening his stance in a few days on this issue just to give the appearance that Togas might actually be responding to the threat. That might actually get Ghengis to be believe something's really up over here, even if he was suspicious before (though still not necessarily).

The key will be getting GhengisFarb to the point where he's latched onto the idea of there being a rift and he's progressed to attempting to exploit it. Once he's there, we've got him. However, that's where it gets tricky... because then we have to continue to play the game w/o being so fake with it that the game's up and Ghengis realizes he's been "played". Personally, I think the best way to resolve it is for the story to progress to a point where Togas' moderation on the issues causes everyone to go back to being 100% supporters of Supreme Lord Togas. Then Ghengis will both think he made the difference in our internal policy AND he'll afterwards realize that Togas' grip on power is stronger than Ghengis might have previously thought

There are risks associated with a strategy like this...

GhengisFarb and GoW, in attempting to "exploit" the division, could be EVEN MORE AGGRESSIVE, believing that the camp supposedly upset with Togas was a peacenik camp afraid of GoW and willing to pay GoW anything. I think we can perhaps avoid this if we play it that the camp upset is upset for PRECISELY WHY GHENGIS IS UPSET, that we supposedly "broke our word" and these people think that's a bad idea. Since it's the same reason Ghengis is upset, he's more likely to buy it (and more likely to think he caused it).

At a later point, when Ghengis realizes he's been "played", he'll become very belligerent toward us to an extent that makes the current belligerence look like child's play. However, this is the point where we can exploit a rift in GoW. You see, the rest of the members of GoW might not like that Ghengis has been "played" and they might like even less that Ghengis is taking being "played" so personally that it's going to adversely affect GoW policy

It's risky, but it's worth considering... needs more discussion. Togas, what do you think? I'm not sure we're up to playing this little game that well, but it's possible we can pull it off (at least in part).

[Aidun]

Very good strategy Arnelos, I can't wait posting on the general forum or talking about a revolt against the king that is brutually quelled, or about the rising discontent towards Togas, (don't tell this to anybody) or portraiting him outside our borders as a tyrant.

I've also thought out a strategy of my own that may solve this problem and many more problems witrh GoW in the future:

1. We can show Ghenghis what his fate will be if he attacks us: Lux and ND benefit of the absence of their troops at home and attacking us. I'm sure that will soften him. He knows that the others don't trust him and that they will take any opportunity to crush him. If he doesn't think so, we should make him believe so by mentioning it every time we chat/PM him. We should also use this strategy to Panzer32, if we do not, Ghenghis will believe it is again just bluff.

Originally posted by dejon
On the positive side, I believe GoW has already sufficient damaged their own reputation with ND and Lux that neither would believe a "RP has broken another agreement, they are untrustworthy" story.

2. As an addition on Dejon's idea we could try to make their reputation even worse than it already is so that any warnings, bluff or other offensive talk about us doesn't make sense to the others. They find themselfs talking agains a wall and will be quite easy to handle for us. If we want to attack on of the others, any warnings of GoW shall not be taken for serious and just another attempt to denigrate us.

3. Trying to split GoW in fractions has some risk: we know what we can expect of GoW and we don't know that of Lux and ND. Especially lux is very opportunistic and is wriggling to get the best out of every deal, every time: they try to put nearly accomplished deals off the table to get us in new deals that benefit them more in the new situation.


I think that we should keep peace at all costs, and if a war breaks out we have to keep in contact with them and try to make peace.

Aidun Cian the Older.

[History Guy]

Picahulu finally sent us a message:

Dear Friend History Guy, ambassador of the great merchant nation of Spain,

apologies again for letting you wait so long for an answer. As you're also a man who is keen to learn more about the world, i'm sure you'll understand that my studies have kept me away from diplomacy the last week.

We're also glad that the plot of the Warmongers couldn't harm our good relations. Be assured that we still trust the glorious Spanish people without reservation, as your immediate response and the other letters convinced even the always-doubting voices among our people the Chinese tried to destroy the friendship between our civilizations. In my point of view, this affair indicates the Chinese fear a strong alliance between Spain and Arabia - and i am convinced they've only achieved that our civs will stand together even more close in future times!

My ruler, Sultan Borc informed me you already got Iron Working from the Ottomans, that's why we have to put down that deal. Nevertheless, we would like to get Writing in the framework of our technology alliance. We will have researched Mathematics in about 12 rounds and i'm sure we'll make up a deal beneficial to both of us.

Another important matter we have to talk about is a border contract. As Borc already wrote to Togas, we never signed a contract with the Ottomans because they didn't stop to treaten our unguarded settler, which was the only condition we demanded to accept their proposal. In our point of view, Trip needs a great deal of arrogance to claim we would have broken their proposal as it was their fault the border contract couldn't be established.

At the moment we only expand to the north. Nevertheless we'll need our west OR our south to expand further when the Chinese and the Ottomans prevent us from settling in the north, that's why we have to agree which region will be settled by which civilization. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Of course we won't explore your homeland until you permit it, nevertheless we are ready to sign a right of passage agreement as soon as you are.

We remain in friendship and peace,
Picahulu, Ambassador of Neu Demogyptica
---

I stand by for further orders.

Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger

[Arnelos]

We should have no problem with ND expanding to their west.

The best thing it will do is close off the route GoW would have to us.

[Thrumble]

I like the idea of playing GoW for awhile and am against the tech embargo idea.

One of the four civs will be eliminated eventually, but lets use them to generate more techs while we can. GoW seemed genuinely interested in researching techs the other civs weren't to increase effectiveness.

The more hostile we seem and the more hostile reactions we give them, the more likely they will be planning to attack us.

We need them to not think of us as an enemy if we are to defeat them easier later.

These are just my ideas, and I am far more confident in the opinions of our members who have a better feel for the opposing players than I do.

[Togas]

History Guy

This is EXCELLENT news. Please get back to ND as soon as you can and let them know that:

A) We desire mathematics and will certainly trade them when it arrives. We will have writing in 10 turns. See if that is a suitable trade for Math.

B) We wish to sign a settlement agreement with them.

C) We would like to sign a RoP in the future. Probably some time after Writing is discovered.

D) We hope that you can feel safe to settle to your west AND your east. We will give up settling to your east (north of Madrid) if you will agree not to settle south of the jungle. This division will give each of us access to gems, and this will allow us access to iron, which you already have.

E) We should draw a settlement link on the map, perhaps. See if they'd like to discuss this, where we each agree to stay on our side of the line.

F) We have allowed your scout to continue in peace, but be careful. Our military advisor has warned that there are barbarians near Pamplona, the city where you are traveling. Our warriors are searching for these rogues to defeat them before they threaten our workers. You must travel carefully with your scout. You may want to stay close to our warriors for protection.

--Togas

[DAVOUT]

Arnelos,

My suggestion was a reaction to an order from Togas to soften the deal in order to obtain that the warrior leaves our land. My opinion is that the situation does not require that. But on the other hand, as we physically cannot prevent the warrior from going south, we should at least make things as difficult as possible for the warrior. It is not a weak attitude, but a realistic one, without giving up anything we really have.

[Togas]

With regards to GoW:

adaMada in your talks with them, let them know that NOT EVERYONE on this team agrees with how I'm handling this situation. State that others, like yourself, favor a more peaceful approach. Let them draw their own conclusions.

Others In chat with GoW members it's OK to let slip a little that you wish this thing were handled differently and that you don't always agree with me. Don't out and out say you disagree, but only give them vague hints that we, as a team, are not so single minded or blindly behind Togas.

If Togas knows that his teammates disagree, he may be more inclinded to accept whatever agreement adaMada makes with Panzer to keep control of the team, and in the future, we could continue to play up the "seeds of mutany" within our team should the need arise.

--Togas