Play Diplomacy Online

I'm at home from work at the moment. There's been a rash of Covid-19 cases and they've decided to shut us down for a while. So possibly more than a rash.

Anyway, I was musing today and came up for an idea about a series of articles on tips about Diplomacy. The idea is seven articles on seven aspects of Diplomacy with seven main tips in each article. I'm not sure whether I'll get to seven articles but we'll see. Dip is a game of sevens.

So the first article is Seven Tips for Better Correspondence. You can view it in full at the link. I'll probably break it down into a series of blog posts later. But I thought I'd put it all together in one article (if I finish all seven I may even put it all together).

Here are the highlights just to tempt you:
1. Communicate with everyone.

- At the start of the game the thing is simply to get communications underway, no matter with whom you're communicating.
- One of the aims of this Early Game correspondence is to get a feel for the people you're playing.
- Keep the correspondence going. It’s important at every stage of the game because you may need new allies at any time. You can never rely completely on the allies that you have, and you can’t afford to neglect the possibility of a new ally.

2. Communicate when you don't want to.

- If you stabbed the person you’re writing to you need to explain why you did what you did, and again avoid being patronising.
- If you were the person who was stabbed, you need to swallow the frustration and come to terms with the new reality. It’s never easy being betrayed but, well, it happens.
- The idea of communicating when you find it most uncomfortable to do, is that you need to maximise the impact or minimise the hurt. It’s also about laying the foundation to build bridges again.

3. Put yourself in the other person’s position

- If you want to understand a person, you need to have empathy with them. You can then talk to them in a way that is going to appeal to them.

4. Ask the right questions.

- Before you can ask the right question of someone else, you need to ask yourself a question: What do I want to know?
- There are perhaps three reasons for asking a question. You might be looking for what has motivated a player to take some action. You might be asking a player about what they think about certain events. Or you might be asking them about how to work together going forward.

5. Know how to say what you want to say.

- People like people they can identify with. Making your correspondence style match theirs is a way to make them comfortable.

6. Be persuasive.

- I consider there are four aspects to persuasion: stating what you want, stating how it helps the person being persuaded, stating how it helps the persuader, and explaining the expected outcome.

7. Be polite.

- Let’s not kid ourselves: this is Diplomacy. Politeness is the only accepted hypocrisy! But, still, it pays.

I wish there was a like button Mr Malarky

If only people exercised the same principles in real life, I'd be a happier Flump

Some people are incapable of uttering a truth. Some people are just spineless amoeboid.

Thank you for the share.

One I'd add is to simply proofread what you have written. In the effort to do the things you say, I've found myself re-writing messages several times and, in the process, introducing grammatical errors which fundamentally change the point I was trying to make. Realising this before I send it rather than when I read the reply is helpful!