Diplomacy 5 Lurker Thread

[MJW (ya that one)]

I believe that scooter wins solo because CMF is failing to stab him in time. He's trying to stop cyneheard from getting a draw but he cannot do that without failing. This would have been a typical Italy bad-position draw at high level.

[AdrienIer]

My challenge with Adrien is that his messages to Russia and Germany seem to come from a perspective of “why would you assume I’m in an alliance with France” but then his messaging with France seems to be “why wont’t you do what I ask when we’re in such a close alliance.”

It’s a little like a boy who wants to exclusively date a girl but is worried she won’t say yes if he asks directly so he just hopes they’re on the same page and then gets upset when it turns out they aren’t.

I realize now that one of my mistakes this game was not being more explicit early on with France about the specifics of a E/F alliance. Pindicator seems to have little theoretical knowledge of the game, so things that seemed obvious to me if we were to work together like him getting an army in Bur to help me, splitting the low countries between us etc didn't seem to be obvious for him. He originally wanted to go for a german alliance, so I get that he didn't want to go for some of these, but it explains why he thought I shouldn't mind his moves. When I'm playing in the west I'm always under the assumption that I'm in a strong alliance with one of my neighbor against the other because otherwise it becomes way too slow(like in this game). So I assumed he would be in the same mindset.

Of course I was partially lying to Germany and Russia, my intent was a strong alliance with France until one of us was in a position to backstab the other, and hoping France was in the same mind.

[T-hawk]

Funny dispute between France and Turkey. They had agreed Turkey would "stop at Gibraltar". Turkey moved into MAO. France says that breached the agreement, while Turkey says he didn't conquer past Gibraltar so it didn't.

[T-hawk]

And to Adrien: After fall 1901, Russia asked you "what happened with France getting to 6 centers", and you replied "You happened" to Russia. Russia didn't cause that with France at all. I'm really curious as to what you meant by that reply?

[AdrienIer]

After the Mar-Spa move, Pindicator explained it by stating that Russia and Germany had convinced him that I was going to backstab him. Coupled with the german support for Russia in fall 1901 it seemed like a very plausible explanation, so I fell for the "Russia and Germany made me do it" speech. Russia coming in right after my tense talk with Pindicator, playing the innocent about the situation, was therefore very gaslight-y. And soon after that Austria tells me "someone" talked them out of working with Italy (or was it the other way around ?), so I realised how much of a manipulator Russia was.
But my reaction should have been more level headed, despite realizing that a game I thought was going well was actually entirely doomed, with France not working with me, no easy areas of expansions and everyone in my area except the only person I betrayed making moves (diplomatic or in-game) that were hostile against me.
I didn't account for Pindicator's uncertainty, because like Scooter said in his thread at some point : it's much better to get a lot out of your backstabs. In other words, the most efficient thing is to either be honest with the person you're talking to, or luring them into a trap. The only possible middle ground being not giving away too much information and waiting for a better time to commit. From Pindicator's thread, I think he did neither of those in 1901 : had I known that it was a possibility I would have done things very differently in late 1901/early 1902.

[MJW (ya that one)]

The fact that CMF won't be able to stop the scooter solo after France throwing proves that it was a bad idea to even attempt to stop Italy from getting the draw. Maybe is that why France is throwing to him? To prove that he had no chance of a 17-17 draw?

[AdrienIer]

If I were CMF I'd be contemplating a backstab now. Ask for Scooter to move out of rum while you "let him take mun", but actually move all your troops in Turkey towards Sev/Rum and take Mun with France's help (while taking undefended centers off France)

[Cyneheard]

The fact that CMF won't be able to stop the scooter solo after France throwing proves that it was a bad idea to even attempt to stop Italy from getting the draw. Maybe is that why France is throwing to him? To prove that he had no chance of a 17-17 draw?

I didn't try that hard to talk CMF into anything, but there wasn't much I could offer him. I do think his only hope is to stab Russia and hope he can snipe just enough centers in each direction to get to 18.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Pindi's line about 30% of games ending in solos, so a 16-center loss is worthless is the fundamental communication problem. This is also why Turkey surpasses France at high level--struggling to solo doesn't matter when solos don't happen anyway. They have a good chance to solo this game but only because of France throwing in response to Russia not going for the three-way draw.

I agree with Pindi but my opinion is biased.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Pindi should not have been tricked by double-stab. It was already possible to lock-in a three way draw at an earlier point, so scooter would have accepted then. This was also past the point of no return, so there was no reason for scooter NOT to lie as there is not going to be a next time anyway. Pindi deserves to be treated like a NPC.