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Mentalist, on Mar 8 2009, 01:36 AM, said:
it may hurt your long-term reputation for any future games, though
Yeah. Well, DiBs survived 1.0, and in general, sacrifices must be made. As said, I played like a good guy in the two speed dips. If Diplomacy becomes a reading/spelling contest to catch others in little slips and loopholes, it becomes more of a lawyer's practice than a game, and the true art of stabbing becomes non-existent
.If you offer a good, solid agreement that benefits both parties as equally as possible, it will not be broken.
Also, you can usually see the end of its lifetime coming and then it is time to broker a new deal. The true test would be: playing it alted and not revealing alts afterwards. Let's see how many will stick to their word then (JA will).
I personally like approaching each game on its own though. Often, there are good explanations for treacherous behavior. Since it won't hurt anyone, I'll explain my actions for this game.
1) As France, you're always stuck with the triangle Germany-England-France, and to get to 21 centres, you have to take (at least one of) the other two out - and then, you can only keep the other alive if its interests are going to be going in an entirely different direction than your own.
2) It wasn't going to be like that this game, and it was apparent pretty fast. An alliance with Russia against Germany was no use as Osric gave up fast, I believe during turn 2 already. That also meant that unless I went to war with one of my neighbours fast, Germany would be too bloated to take on later in the game (not that I was intending to wait anyway).
3) Italy is far too difficult to approach without a solid naval presence in the Med, and that opens you up to England + Germany as you have to dedicate builds and move fleets away - and since the same goes for Italy when taking on France, a perfect dmz agreement was easily reached.
4) Then, when I declared war on England (it's the best one to take out fast as it is the only country to the west of you), Germany decided to meddle. Not a good base for keeping anyone around or trusting one as a partner, if it decides to meddle in what was a bilateral war.
Had I played as Germany or Turkey things would probably have been different.
Anyways, I'm the first on this board to take out England - that's worth something - and my stab of Germany was one by the books, so before you condemn me, do the following:
1) Read the moves
2) second guess the deals
3) ????
4) Profit
