[Spoilers] Adrien's England is your friend

[AdrienIer]

Some more afterthought after reading the F/G thread :
I'm getting a lot of comments from Pindicator to other people around 1902 that I don't expand much on my moves and am not easy to work with, but if I compare my diplo with France and Germany with their own there's one thing that strikes me : while most my proposals are answered with "sounds fair" and no followup, my questions with "I'll get back to you on that" and my comments with various levels of non-answers, they are freely exchanging with each other. So it really feels like they were just not interested in exchanging with me, and then complaining that I wasn't exchanging more.

All in all, I think Pindi's diplo with everyone else was great, I'm just baffled that he thought I should have liked having no one to work with, getting very little from him etc. And in 1902 he expected me to come back to him for a fresh start. In the end if was a classic backstab, with the classic issue that it's a slow process killing off England (too slow when there's a Juggernaut).

[AdrienIer]

So I'm finally getting to read about the pivotal (for me) moment of the game, fall 1901 discussion between Russia and France. Basically Pindi lied to me about Russia talking him into not moving to Bur. That's what I feared, but it seemed so plausible at the time.

Note that the next message is partially true (I was going from memory on how a E/F game works, so actually just realized that he could get 3 centers out of the opening moves while I should've anticipated it) and partially false (I had no knowledge of the bounce F and G had planned in Bur, and was hoping for Mun-Ruh on the german part which wouldn't have allowed 3 centers).



Also I'm getting the feeling that part of the "I'm not sure I can trust England" is just bad luck :



Tuesdays I don't get home from work before 15mn after this message (and I answered pindi an hour after this). Quickly responding to a message in general thread while in the metro is fine, but to talk plans with people I prefer to be on my computer. Particularly when there is no reason to rush things.

[AdrienIer]

Man I didn't realize how much Pindicator was projecting when he was accusing me of throwing the game to Russia. I get the "he hasn't really made friends" and "he hasn't adapted to France not being on his side" comments, but the one time I manage to get someone to work with me on an objective I want (in this case, getting control of the channel to avoid getting a Wales convoy every turn) that's how he responds.

[sunrise089]

pindicator kept saying Russia obviously had to be stopped, anything else was barley playing the game. It’s unclear though whether he was sincere or that was just gamesmanship. I thought it was more sincere at the time than I do now.

[klops]

I also think it was a big thing for him to stop RT and I was siding with him about that. It felt boring and it also felt like I had no options because they were just too quick with Austria (and Italy).

Adrien, I wasn't aware that you are french, couldn't tell from your writings. I might be able to express myself ok-ish in English written language but I agree that it take more time and probably loses some detail. A lurker mentioned that some players would surprisingly not talk a lot at the start of the game. Might be true for me because of a second reason: what the hell are you all chatting about? I hat A LOT of conversation in my very first diplomacy game and more than half of it was outdated by the next adjudication

About this game: sorry it didn't work that well with us. It's true I prefered an alliance with France for strategic reasons and because we were talking nicely. But I was open to switch sides if necessary. Luckily, F did not betray me in the first years, so there was no reason so talk to you a lot but I was honest about Russia and joint operation with E, F and G. But I get your concern with that (mostly France).

[scooter]

Last thing I thought of while reading the threads (minus Russia and lurkers' so far) : I think it's not random that the two non-native english speakers (krups and I) have been underperforming. Chat format is worse than detailed reporting in this respect because while doing reporting in something that isn't your native language just takes longer to write, in chat format part of the messages are implicit so you might actually lose on some of what you intend to express. And answering chat with non-chat detailed stuff takes too long. At least I think it partly explains the "everyone says the interactions with Adrien are awkward" messages in Pindi's thread.

Do you have any ideas how to improve this? I'm definitely not naive to the fact that higher stakes live chat seems incredibly hard to do in a non-native language. I did try to meet people where they were - if they send infrequent longer messages, I tried to do the same, while the informal chatters I matched too. I still have hopes we might play some more of these, and I don't want it to just be a game here for native speakers.

I notice that Scooter claims I never asked him to support Nwy-Ska in spring 1902.




I admit that I made the mistake of not reiterating the request of Nwy-Ska before the adjudication (as I said earlier IIRC 10-12 of May were not the best days for me when it came to IRL stuff), but the agreement was made.

Yeah this was a weird one. I viewed that as us tossing ideas and didn't feel like it was firm. I didn't know exactly what you were doing with the unit. In general I tried not to explicitly ask "what precise move is X unit doing" to players who I didn't think trusted me, and instead waited for them to offer it. That said, there was certainly a part of me that suspected that maybe you thought it was a done deal, and it was absolutely a choice to not follow-up on my own. So consider me half guilty here.

[pindicator]

I've been trying to think how to respond to this thread, because I think a lot of it is accurate.  I remember thinking that the winning play was probably to work with you and yet I just didn't want to - why exactly?  I can't say, outside that I just didn't feel like our personalities were meshing well - for whatever reason I just didn't find your style trustworthy?  I can't put a definite finger on it now, but there was a lot of paranoia in the opening year.  And I remember distinctly feeling like I really should put such feelings aside because EF was probably the strongest alliance but I obviously didn't.

I think scooter did a great job stoking any ill feelings i was having, and I was really blind to how well he was mimicking my own emotions back at me to win my trust.  Really, I let myself be manipulated there - bad on me.

pindicator kept saying Russia obviously had to be stopped, anything else was barley playing the game. It’s unclear though whether he was sincere or that was just gamesmanship. I thought it was more sincere at the time than I do now.

Entirely sincere.  Outside of the season where Italy worked with Russia to stab Austria, RT Juggernaut felt entirely inevitable and I was trying to get us to put aside our past wars to defend it.  To that end, I was entirely earnest in giving England cores back once we started reclaiming cores.  Obviously I wasn't able to overcome my own trust deficit there.

Man I didn't realize how much Pindicator was projecting when he was accusing me of throwing the game to Russia. I get the "he hasn't really made friends" and "he hasn't adapted to France not being on his side" comments, but the one time I manage to get someone to work with me on an objective I want (in this case, getting control of the channel to avoid getting a Wales convoy every turn) that's how he responds.

Just let myself get way too emotional after believing we had turned the leaf there, because I felt that was our last real chance to stop RT.  One of the things I didn't like in myself from playing this.  It passed after a day and I feel like we talked it out better after, but around that time I was thinking how maybe Diplomacy wasn't the game for me.  I certainly wasn't having as much fun as I thought i would.

To that end, I still don't see how me not moving to Bur in Spring 01 was such a big trust issue for the whole game.  I didn't expect anyone else to 100% telegraph their moves to me early on and outside of anything directly hurting me it seemed silly to hold self-serving moves against other people.  Was that just a press tactic or was that really something that made you think I was not worth working with later on?

[AdrienIer]

Do you have any ideas how to improve this? I'm definitely not naive to the fact that higher stakes live chat seems incredibly hard to do in a non-native language. I did try to meet people where they were - if they send infrequent longer messages, I tried to do the same, while the informal chatters I matched too. I still have hopes we might play some more of these, and I don't want it to just be a game here for native speakers.

The solution is for the non-native speaker to have so much time and energy on their hands during the game's lifespan that they can make it work. And perhaps for everyone to know beforehand so no one is put off by the slightly different posting styles.
In a similar way, having two other people in your team was a huge advantage because they could talk you out of doing bad moves or point out stuff that you might have missed. It's impossible to quantify but an advantage nonetheless.

Yeah this was a weird one. I viewed that as us tossing ideas and didn't feel like it was firm. I didn't know exactly what you were doing with the unit. In general I tried not to explicitly ask "what precise move is X unit doing" to players who I didn't think trusted me, and instead waited for them to offer it. That said, there was certainly a part of me that suspected that maybe you thought it was a done deal, and it was absolutely a choice to not follow-up on my own. So consider me half guilty here.

Makes sense !

[AdrienIer]

I was entirely earnest in giving England cores back once we started reclaiming cores.  Obviously I wasn't able to overcome my own trust deficit there.

[...]

To that end, I still don't see how me not moving to Bur in Spring 01 was such a big trust issue for the whole game.  I didn't expect anyone else to 100% telegraph their moves to me early on and outside of anything directly hurting me it seemed silly to hold self-serving moves against other people.  Was that just a press tactic or was that really something that made you think I was not worth working with later on?

The answer to both of those is game theory. For the first part, you had just made like 3 moves in a row where the opportunity cost for not attacking me was low-to-mid, and you still chose to attack. Once the opportunity cost for not taking my last centers became high it seemed unrealistic that you would do it. Also, what you wanted me to do was leaving my centers open to you to attack Scooter right after you sent everything towards me to take a center by brute force. My answer had always been to get your fleets out of my waters so I could decide to use my forces for something else than home defense. At pretty much every point I was earnest in wanting to help defending the long term threat (R-T) once the short term threat (you) was dealt with.

And about Bur, F-E thrives when there is never a fleet in Lon, Eng or Bre, and when England can get Bel or Hol in 1901 or 1902. Moving to Bur for you was a great move for the alliance because it made it likely that I could take Hol in 1902 with your help, threatened Mun, and gave your Por fleet a non-aggressive purpose for 1902 : taking Spa. Therefore it's not tempted to move north against me (as happened in the game), nor towards Italy (which is usually good, F-E doesn't usually want to go after Italy until 1903 at the soonest). And most of all, taking 3 centers puts France in an awkward spot regarding builds, because as you said in winter 1901 3 armies is too much. So 2 builds is best for this alliance : an army in Paris and an army (or fleet) in Mar.

Because you quickly agreed to delay the Spa center and move to Bur I didn't try to convince you to do it by explaining all this, but it was a big issue. It lead to you building a fleet in Bre, threatening my cores, and forced me to move to Hel in spring 1902 in hopes that you were not betraying me, meaning I was out of position when you attacked (and I knew that I was opening myself up way too much by doing that).

England's beginning is very much tied to "what do my neighbors give me in exchange for my help", and while Krups told me he wasn't really going to help me get Bel you claimed to want to help me get Hol and then made moves that meant you could do very little to help me get Hol.

So in winter 1901 and spring 1902 I was very uneasy about it all. Afterwards it wasn't the main focus of my uneasiness : it's more that of the 4 things we discussed, you went through with the 1901 Eng DMZ, then lied about the Bur move, then went for the Bre F build that I asked you not to do, then lied about not moving to Eng. That's 2 lies, 1 truth and 1 truth that was almost a war declaration. Quite an awful ratio.

[T-hawk]

Also, what you wanted me to do was leaving my centers open to you to attack Scooter right after you sent everything towards me to take a center by brute force. My answer had always been to get your fleets out of my waters so I could decide to use my forces for something else than home defense.

This was the part that I was saying came across badly from you. The fact is, sometimes you do have to leave yourself open to an attack, and hope and count on diplomacy to protect you.

You were telling France to move the fleets away from you... where could they have gone? What else could they possibly do? It would take forever to get them all through into the Mediterranean. "Get away from me" doesn't work without a plan for something else the units can do instead.

If you wanted to stay allied with France there, you had to talk and trust that France would continue moving them towards Germany instead of you, since that was the only other thing they could do.