Number one?

Anyway yeah it was meant a bit ambiguous but I'm pretty serious. Why do I not get a response to "hey #country miles and miles away from me# how are you and good game"? I feel that not responding to that just signals that #far away country# is a newb or an idiot how about you?

You're talking about alliances. That takes Diplomacy and that is what this game is all about. But yes it is good to have a plan. You need some sort of vision and you need to sell that vision to whom ever you want to work with you.
Trust is good but that trust needs to be considered. Always expect other players to make the move that is in their best interest.
You don't have to create that "relationship" with just one player. You should talk to just about everyone.

Ow I do that and thanks for your response by the way. Seriously, I say hi to everyone and try some openings like "how do you feel about #neutral country between us that at the end of this conversation should be assigned to me#?" and then the answer is:
SWEDEN IS MINE IF YOU TAKE IT I WILL INVADE YOU STAB YOU AND NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.
That's usually about two turns before I take Sweden and I don't understand why the aggression?
I really believe diplomacy is all about making love and making war at the same time. John Lennon was wrong, the two are not mutually exclusive.

You said "Revolutionary thread that actually deals with the game of Diplomacy #2 " so I assume there was a #1??? Or not?

Redhouse posted a thread a little while back about stabbing. I think that might have been topic #1.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=764415

Henry Kissinger is with me on this one. I like your nickname by the way I had to wiki the original Thucy to find out more, very interesting. Does it reveal anything about how you play?

Yeah.. There's a brilliant reply by Santosh on that one.

Ah. The original thread on stabbing, I see which one you mean now.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?viewthread=472#472

Right?

Anyway, yeah my namesake is a figure of personal interest and yes it does shed light on my diplomacy philosophy. But honestly if you don't at least believe in realpolitik within the framework of diplomacy then I don't really know what you're doing on this site lol.

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

You'd seen that quote from him before, hadn't you? I guess I've known it for so long I don't remember how well-known it is.

That's yet thread about stabbing when I talked about mine it was in fact the one I link to above.
I'm not sure if the weak in diplomacy should suffer. Exploit their positions yes, but suffering for the sake of it no.
Also I don't believe at all in the concept of "right" in diplomacy. There are no rights, just the stuff you say and the moves you make. Austria doesn't have the "right" to Serbia any more than England does in the beginning of the game, he should just go and get it.

pardon: That's yet #another# thread about stabbing

Lol that thread Thucy posted is the first ever discussion about stabbing (in this forum).

That was what he did before he started concentrating on derailing Conservative Man's personality :)

No right as in "I am right, you are wrong" and of course there is no "right" in diplomacy, that's the point of the quote.

The stabbing thing still eludes me though. Kissinger said you should never trick another diplomat (of course he said that about real world diplomacy, although it is known that Kissinger called the game of Diplomacy itself "his favorite game") because you keep running into each other. I strongly believe that also goes for the game but we'll see in the years to come. It is very much related to the issue of "relationships" though not in the sense that Conservative Man means. Anyways Kissinger says that in "Years of Upheaval" if you're interested which is an interesting book on real world diplomacy.

Maybe one person who is a diplomat shouldn't trick another person who is a diplomat, but there is nothing wrong with one country tricking another, if wrong here means "it will not be good for you later" as opposed to "it is morally wrong."

Well Kissinger would *say* that wouldn't he ;-)

I simply open the floodgates and come right out and offer to work with people. I have no problems offering suggestions and coming up with plans. The idea is that in real life, most people are followers and very few are leaders. If two followers are talking to each other, they'll simply sit around and try to dig up information and play their hand. I step up and be a leader and simply take the reins and make genuine plans, propose enemies and establish goals. People are often drawn to that sort of thing and it shows the other person that I'm (a) interested and (b) committed to the cause.

After I receive replies from the countries I've set out to work with, I check what they're saying to determine who might be lying or might not be giving me quite what I want and I select to work with the person who gives me the best deal possible while offering them things in return.

I won't go into a lot of detail because I don't like to share a lot of my strategy. That sort of thing can come back to bite you in the end, but that's the basis of how I go about making friends in the first year.

@Tru Ninja: interesting...
@Thucydides are you sure? Is there a distinction between the diplomat and what he represents? But maybe you weren't talking about real life but the game. In which case my question stands but is more fluid I guess.

I can't account for every thing Kissinger has said diplomatically, but the US has certainly told lots fibs in the course if its diplomatic history.
And there's that famous definition of a diplomat: An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

He's talking a lot in his book about how he tried to uphoald the promises of the US to other countries but because of the restrictions the Congress imposes on the President after Watergate he finds it difficult to live up to his promises. He describes it as an interesting as well as frustrating period. I'm only halfway the book though.
And of course there's the endless grey area between lying and not telling the whole truth that he navigates like no other.

I look for opportunities to work with everyone early on, because I don't know who my allies are. I typically end up working with the talkiest players; silence is rarely a good sign.

How do you determine if a player is being just silent or is being just silent to you?

Distinction without a difference.