8:05:09 Diplomacy

[snwcrsh]

All animals are being betrayed. But some animals get betrayed worse then others.

-- George Orwell, Animal Farm (probably misread)



Diplomacy can be so much fun. And also so risky. Especially when you have a setup like this:

North America: I are Orange
South America: Schubdüse
Europe: big fart
CCCP: Mike the Wookie
Asia: Jonny SRK
Africa: snwcrsh

This was a really vicious diplomacy game, I dont know what was going on at other communication channels so I can just report from my perspective.

Standard move in this setup for me is to privately message Asia to share the Indian Ocean peacefully, i.e. not waste forces for protection. It's a win-win scenario for both parties (if they trust each other) as Asia can focus its fleet on the Pacific while Africa can secure its Atlantic coast.

Jonny agreed, and naval forces were distributed accordingly, except for subs in the 'magic spot' the Indian Ocean was clear. Then something weird happened, CCCP allied with SA (kinda unusal) and Europe allied with us. My Silo Placement was conservative, building some kind of "Drunken Feud Setup" by Namibia, protected by three radars, airfields a bit north of that spot.

I messaged Mike (CCCP) then, because we spectated a game and had some chat before, that I would actually prefer to not play against him. He asked me to join over the CCCP/SA Alliance but I did not like that much because of the Indian Ocean Situation (open flank). So he suggested that I could be some kind of "Secret Agent", which always suits me fine (regardless whether I actually follow up on that or not).

Now it was all about "diplomatic engineering". I talked to Schubdrüse (SA) and negotiated a cease-fire -- since I agreed to play as Agent for the Red Alliance (CCCP/SA), I didn't want to waste forces against SA in the Atlantic. After some little skirmish both SA and me drew back our forces so we didn't have to struggle with it anymore.

This was the status quo that stayed until way after defcon 1. SA took care of the North Atlantic against NA and Europe while my fleet was waiting at its coast -- no reason for me to involve, I couldn't care less about Europe at that time.

Asia and CCCP were exchanging quite some hits in the meantime, I was giving CCCP intelligence on Asias positions and actions but never actually involved myself. I offered Asia my help (as my bombers could always suddenly turn the other direction and hit Asian targets, if necessary).

I was consistently in private talk with Mike, and I even asked for his "Okay" so I can take out one of his radars since Jonny asked me for it. The good thing was, I never had to actually involve, Asia and CCCP hit each other, so did SA against EU and NA.

That put me in the pole position on the leaderboard, no casualties and not even having fired a nuke. I knew that this usually means problems but I could not move much without giving up my advantage: The Asian-Alliance still worked well, although Jonny and I did some Sub/Carrier changes in the India ocean but there never was any attack. Of course, my subs were waiting just a wee bit from his radar range and when Carriers spotted a wolf pack, I had no choice to move straight east so it looks like they were en route to America.

The status quo held for quite a while until NA joined the Red Alliance all the sudden. This made me quite wary because this did not look very balanced. In retroperspective I believe, this was the moment when I stopped to trust SA alltogether. I knew I was number one target by having no casualties and being in very good tactical position.

That was probably what saved me from a direct attack. It was a lot of shifting troups (and even playing muscles by always sending up some planes in the south Atlantic to just return to their carriers). With 9 Battlerships and 9 Carriers at my coast I felt pretty secure (the rest was off into the Indian Ocean by now because I feared that Jonny might suspect that something is funny).

Then things happened pretty fast, as Mike (who was trailing on score badly by that time, mostly due to Asian hits) to form a new alliance. I agreed for the prime reason that this would clear things up. I think NA had dropped by now, so it was just CPU -- so SA allied with Asia finally trying to take me out.

That sure was a close showdown. I split my missiles about even against SA and Asia but also noted that the NA-CPU would win -- 4 bombers were sent promptly to hit the largest remaining targets on US East coast giving me this result after 8:05:09 of ingame time:



Whee! Diplomacy is so much fun! Thanks all for that great game. And Mike, you were a trustworthy ally although you gave intelligence away, it shall be forgiven

cheers

[dutch_camel_NL]

It was a cool game indeed. I was "I am Orange", and just after we agreed to turn Africa into a playground for nuclear abused puppies, my connection died ...
The game was great. You could smell fear, nobody, but really nobody seemed to trust another. Been a long time since that happend in a game i played.

It was pretty dramatic drama play, containing all actions you would expect: Treason, friendship, trust and the previously mentioned nuclear abused puppies.
I tried several times to rejoin, but it just wouldnt work. I am so sorry .... I hope my subs at USSR were able to fire? They were kind of insurence so to say.

You did well snwcrsh, i saw half way the game that you were still untouched. Taking out your North Radar was kind of a statement: You too can be nuked ::twisted:

Again sorry for dropping, it was not intended ...

[snwcrsh]

No worries I did not think you did that on purpose. But it is a pity that you had connection problems, if you were in to the end, who knows how that would have ended. I sacked many subs in mid and south atlantic since I had 9 carriers crusing around there but still quite some nukes got through. Nothing against the final launch of SA tho -- I don't know, if he had launched 2 minutes earlier that might have put me in 2nd...

[MikeTheWookiee]

Yes I got hit at the start pretty badly, but kept most of my 'goodies' while taking out 3 of asia's silos, 2 airbases, and a few other things. After that it was all trying to get everyone to nuke each other and not me. The 'secret agent' thing would mean that it didn't just play out as a standard 3v3, since those odds are far too even for my liking. USA joining took me by surprise, but I figured it would get the americas to attack you for me. Briefing both sides at once hurts the fingers though. I had also run out of non-silo nukes by this point, as I destroyed all of Europe's defences with my waiting subs. This made remaining gunboat diplomacy difficult without revealing my silos, which had remarkably survived detection.

I figured I could ally with you and give south america intel on your fleet to better crush you. It nearly worked, too. If we'd had 5 more minutes, USA would likely have been hit a few more times to drag him down to my level. If only the rest of you had done your jobs right, I would have won.

Moral of the story: If you want a job doing properly, do it yourself.