Foreign Policy: RealmsBeyond

1889 and Sommerswerd raises some very important points here.

What do you guys think we should do? Do we attempt to play RB & WPC against each other using mindgames? Or do we do this the clean way and deal fairly with them at this time?
 
What if they try both try to form coalitions that include us but leave out RB/WPC?
This would be a complete mess. If this happens and we take sides (which we will almost have to in such a situation, unless of course we wish to stand without either as an ally...), the team left out will view us as quite the traitors.
Our best bet is to be open and honest to both teams. The more open and honest we are, the more trust we will gain. As teams trust us more and more they will naturally begin to be see us as their BFFs:)

Let the other teams hang themselves by trying to trick each other... They will begin to distrust each other on their own while we will be seen as the honest open friend that they can trust.

There will be plenty of time for dirty tricks in the endgame. Its not time for that yet.;) Build up a good reputation now that we can leverage for an advantage at the critical moment to win. Dont start the game off with establishing ourselves as a nest of vipers. (Let the "BlackAdders" jokes begin:p)
And these three paragraphs makes me think that Sommer does have a very good point.

In other words, my preferred course if action would be the way suggested by 1889 and Sommer. So there's my opinion, after seeing these statements.
 
If we have to choose one team, I'd rather it be RB. I've lurked Sullla's site for nine or so years, so I feel more at home with them than WPC, a site completely unknown to me. Their "DO NOT SCOUT NEXT TO OUR BORDERS" reallllly did not make a good first impression for me.

Regarding the "mind games" argument, honesty 100% is not the end-all way to go. It's like the NAP argument- should we go with honesty/NAP in all cases? Probably. But do not discount a well-placed false comment/remark. As long as it's simple and not obvious, it may be a better option.
 
Regarding the "mind games" argument, honesty 100% is not the end-all way to go. It's like the NAP argument- should we go with honesty/NAP in all cases? Probably. But do not discount a well-placed false comment/remark. As long as it's simple and not obvious, it may be a better option.

Oh, no, I do agree with that. But so does Sommer if you read what he wrote about timing. If I understand what Sommer says correctly, he is trying to tell us that there is a time for everything, including deceit - but that he thinks the time for that is not now this early in the game. At least that's what I'm reading into his statement, and that's what I am agreeing with.

If we do a misstep here this early, and get caught in a situation where we have to pay for our mindgames to the other teams (for instance the way 1889 brought up, aka both teams take a dislike to one another and asks us for a full alliance), we may end up losing the game over it. Let's say that happened and we sided with one of them, and we think that we are two teams against their one, so we will win. Then as we send our troops we suddenly discover a fourth team within their borders defending them? What then? We would have a neighbouring enemy for the rest of the game, and we may very well find ourselves in the position where we picked the "worst" team. We have no way of knowing whether RB or WPC will be in the best position if these two teams say 75 turns from now.

Tl;DR: That was a slight rant... I'm advocating the same thing Sommer does - for now that is. Honesty (where we do not give away more information than we feel comfortable with of course), and as little use of mindgames as possible (preferably none IMHO).
 
Looks like RB should get their forums back up tomorrow if their fix works (according to news at their temporary site at .org instead of .net), so hopefully we'll get that message of theirs soon.
 
I don't think we should try to deceive them. It seems like too big of a risk. Having RB and WPC at each other's throats might be valuable, but it might also be a dangerous situation. We don't know what the diplomatic situation in the rest of the world looks like. It may be the case that we need these two teams to be with us in a strong 3 team alliance. If that's the case, trying to stir up trouble is a lose-lose situation.

Even if it turns out to be the case that a war between WPC and RB would be beneficial for us, we're taking a big risk that they see through the plan and come to be suspicious of us.

I'd much prefer to use this opportunity to tell RB how great WPC is, to subtly suggest that RB increase their info sharing with us.
 
I don't think we should try to deceive them. It seems like too big of a risk. Having RB and WPC at each other's throats might be valuable, but it might also be a dangerous situation.
But this is just a small push. We will not make them start a war, we just want Team CFC to be looked as the best possible ally around.
 
When you talk bad about guy A behind his back to guy B. Only stupid guy B will say "Oh I guess that guy A is bad and you must be my friend."

Smart guy B will say "Hmmm, if you talk bad about guy A to me, then you must be talking bad about me to guy A as well. You are a snake and not to be trusted."

Of course he will not say this to you, he will keep it to himself, but all the while he wont trust you. Meanwhile he will go to guy A and say "Here look what that CFC snake said about you. Obviously he is trying to imply that I should be enemies with you. What do you think of this?"

And of course guy A will say "I think we should turn the tables on that CFC snake"

Let's please not do this.:(. We dont need to push others to hate each other. All we have to do is push them to like us. They will start hating each other on their own. WPC already doen't trust us to scout near them. They already have their guard up toward us. Why do we think they will trust us enough to believe our bad words about RB?:crazyeye: They won't...

They don't even trust us to walk next to their border!!! They aren't going to start setting diplomatic policy from our advice:nope:

One thing at a time... FIRST, we need to get WPC to TRUST us enough to let us see their land, before we start trying to influence them to like or dislike someone else, right?
 
Eh all that effort put in with WPC just to make them accept our scouting of neutral territory near their borders... This doesn't scream like someone to work with to me. I think we should keep peace with them, but no more than that. Paranoia this early will only get worse...

EDIT - Moving this to the WPC thread...
 
We start and describe to RB our first impression of WPC as paranoid and unwelcome for not allowing us to come closer than 1 tile from their borders (which is not even entirely untrue, as this was the first thing we saw from them). Then we mention that some of us know some of the WPC guys, but unfortunately WPC have appointed unknown guy to be representing their team in their affairs with CFC, so we dont knew what to expect (one more truth). Then tell RB that we are afraid of WPC's choice of nation and leader (one more perfectly true thing), and then we mention we are somewhat disappointed we see the map is much more denser habituated than we though initially it would be (I for real have this feeling - I was hoping for a bit bigger map - as we are now, rushes or early land disputes are not out of the question). So, we basically say three perfectly true things, which once whispered to RB's ears, we hope will be as the seeds of the doubt which to find good soil and grow in to a monsters.

I'd be more worried about this result:

RB to WPC:
"Hi, we understand you've met CFC and don't get on with them. How abouts we gang up against them at the end of the current NAP?"

WPC to RB:
"Great idea. We used to like them just fine, but then they started telling us how mistrustful they are of us because we didn't want their warrior harassing our border, and because of our leader choice, and half a dozen other things -- they object to everything! Seems we're not going to be able to work with them after all, so you're on -- let's take them down."
 
Surely the biggest "seed of mistrust" is simply that they are only 7sq apart, and one of them is going to get iron-working and be able to settle the jungle first.

No need for subterfuge -- let's be nice guys.

Besides, I'm more worried about whether there's a team as close to us in another direction as RB are to WPC -- there were 18sq between us and RB, there seems only to have been 10 from RB to WPC.
 
Continuing to read Sulla's ISDG webpage, I find it very interesting and highly educative. Here is some example of RB diplomacy for those who are afraid to say the slightest negative or simply non-over-exalted thing to anyone about anyone:

Realms Beyond to PAL:
Hi PAL,

We don't need CoL [Code of Laws] right now, and I doubt you do either, so do you think you could go to zero research and contact Imperio to let them know your barb problems leave you with warriors to upgrade ASAP? Mention the horses you're getting from us, and maybe they believe you.

So what's in it for PAL? Firstly, Imperio have a 2-gold, FP-heavy capital that will be a monster in Bureaucracy. If they get CS [Civil Service] so early, they should be able to pull into a winning lead. If they amandon the CS Sling plan, and claim another tech on hearing of your CoL delay then we both avoid the nightmare scenario.

The second scenario is that Imperio delays Oracle, and allows TeamRB to steal it. We could grab Metalcasting and trade it to you for Currency, for example. This would turn a lose-lose into a win-win. Our ETA for Oracle is T95, but we'll see whether we can get this down by a couple of turns.

I cant imagine the reaction if I was proposing something like this, which is like from another dimension harsher than what I proposed :)

Yes, yes, I can hear you objecting that it is too early, and it is for real too early for such a thing, thats why I was proposing way milder - almost featherlight approach :)
 
Whoa... Yer approach does seem featherlight, but critically the proposal you quoted seems to be two teams working against one rather than one spreading distrust between two.

Actually PAL were already in agreement with Imperio and not Rb with PAL.
 
Can we expect this kind of aggressive division should we build an alliance with WPC?
I am not referring to RB as dangerous and unscrupulous team out of nowhere. It is because all the evidences show they ARE. And not only in purely game skills which they have no doubts, but in the diplomatics and in their political weight and impact.

You wanna know how the story continues?

PAL say to RB that they already have agreement with Imperio, so they could not lie or trick their partner. But RB continues the mind attack. They suggest that PAL just dont give CoL to Imperio for some time, without even saying why. Few more messages exchanged with lucrative offers and hand-bending and PAL agrees to what RB desire. The funnies thing is that even RB dont get the Oracle, so they owe no tech to PAL, they just set things up that with empty promises and describing catastrophic scenarios, blackening Imperio to PAL, their rival lose a good chance and result is put dent between PAL and Imperio relationships.

This is good example of pro-active politics. They are not afraid of the possible negative consequences, they know what they want and they are not stopped by denials. They re-phrase their offer and resend it. Rinse and repeat until you get the result desired.
 
We need to send something. As I would like to be able to respond to RB that we have told WPC of their location, could you make a message to send to WPC today please, 2metra?
 
And just for the record: yes, I know we must continue these discussions about the teams. But we cannot wait for these discussions to end before we act, as that will leave us without both WPC and RB as allies, as this is likely to go on for some time yet.
 
We need to send something. As I would like to be able to respond to RB that we have told WPC of their location, could you make a message to send to WPC today please, 2metra?
Sure, just not exactly sure what to tell them.
 
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