Rat Diplomacy 1: The Great Betrayal, “Et tu, sqeecoo?”

[Kalin]

 

[sqeecoo]

Betrayal and horror on turn 4!

Italy and Russia support Serbia to Bulgaria, but the treacherous Serbs instead move to Rumania with Muslim support, while Germany takes over Sweden! A surprise anti-Russian alliance!

My original plan and alliance was with Russia against Turkey, but looking at the situation it seemed clear that Turkey is already weak and under pressure from Italy as well, so my gains there would be minimal; meanwhile, Russia would get most of the stuff while also grabbing some of England's stuff in the north. After beating Turkey I'd be only marginally stronger than now and stuck between a huge Russia and an Italy that will either attack me or go west, leaving me to fight Russia on my own. So it seemed smarter to take Russia down a notch first.

We'll see how that will work out for me Possibly not that great, it was the riskier play for sure but with an eye towards preventing incoming Russian mid-game dominance.

In the west, France goes for enveloping moves against England and takes Belg with German support. Germany is playing both fronts very well, and France can defend all his centers now in the Fall while potentially taking Liverpool or moving even deeper into English territory.

 

[Lizzurd]

I feel I must warn all of you that Sqeecoo is not only a person with an obvious predilection for choosing easily misspelled and thus deeply annoying nicknames, but also a guy who will sweet-talk and smile his way to your heart, only to relieve himself in the most sacred chamber of your soul.

Look at you all, walking with vibrant voices and glittering eyes that dream of some distant wealth and plunder straight into the lion's maw. Turn back, brothers! For you do not realize that you are about to test your wits against a man so devious and dark, so vile and viperous, that he has at one point in his life actually become fluent in Immanuel Kant. Kant! Why, you ask, still marching forth toward certain doom, still full of hope and wonder, would a man perform such intellectual contortions in order to achieve that frightening feat? Why would he attempt to walk the twisting streets of the great philosopher's moral system until he had memorized it all? Why, to understand it, of course, to grasp it fully and then to excise the moral imperative from his very core and cast it aside as he shall do with your pitiful, broken nations!

I was warned.

 

[Eadee]

Numbers rounded to closest four.

Betrayal and horror on turn 4!

It's happening again!

 

[Matalarata]

Je suis Россия!

#Россияlivesmatter

 

[Kalin]

 

[sqeecoo]

Haahahahaha, and the little turk in the picture looks exactly like Kulja IRL!

 

[Lizzurd]

My favourite shirt. Has enough space for each one of you!

 

[Eadee]

And one of us may even dual-wield!

 

[Matalarata]

dual-wield

Yes, but by the rules you can't dual sneak attack.

Spoiler

...unless you're an Arcane trickster and declare your secondary attack as impromptu, I guess.

 

[Eadee]

Then Boo will take the seventh sneak attack!

 

[Matalarata]

Or maybe Russia is secretly self-backstabbing...

Spoiler

 

[Quilty]

Sqeecoo and I were talking yesterday about how much we miss playing Crusader Kings 2 in multiplayer, but since it can get a bit too slow and quiet with just two players, I was wondering if any of you fine gentlemen might be interested in playing with us? If you are interested, let us know when you'd be available for a test run of an MP session.

 

[Dayyālu]

Sqeecoo and I were talking yesterday about how much we miss playing Crusader Kings 2 in multiplayer, but since it can get a bit too slow and quiet with just two players, I was wondering if any of you fine gentlemen might be interested in playing with us? If you are interested, let us know when you'd be available for a test run of an MP session.

What DLCs and what version.

Plus, is CK2 truly *fun* in MP? It's barely fun in SP nowadays!

 

[Lizzurd]

EVERYONE BACKSTABS EVERYONE! THERE ARE SO MUCH DECEIT THAT IT COUNTERS ITSELF!

 

[sqeecoo]

Turn 5 (four - I actually think it's 4)

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on; Lizzurd's newspost sums it up best :D

Italy betrays Turkey who betrays Austria while Germany betrays (?) England while "mistakenly" failing to support my Galician attack on Warsaw.
Further north, Russia is attacked by Germany while supporting Germany against England and saving Sweden from being captured by Germany while England ineffectively attacks Germany in Denmark.
I have no idea who's winning or even who is fighting whom exactly, but we finally have an official Juggernaut alliance between Turkey and Russia! Temporarily at least :D

In the west, France grabs Portugal but loses the crucial MAO sea position and bounces in Lvp (the alternative would have been to move to Clyde to threaten two centers next year). But England lost a center to Germany and will be hard pressed to defend. In the east, I have no fucking idea what's going on but I sincerely hope we can keep to our now standard rate of at least one betrayal per turn.

Ahhh, Diplomacy. I'm glad the game is playing out as hilariously as it should.

 

[Quilty]

Sqeecoo and I were talking yesterday about how much we miss playing Crusader Kings 2 in multiplayer, but since it can get a bit too slow and quiet with just two players, I was wondering if any of you fine gentlemen might be interested in playing with us? If you are interested, let us know when you'd be available for a test run of an MP session.

What DLCs and what version.

Plus, is CK2 truly *fun* in MP? It's barely fun in SP nowadays!

Why isn't it fun anymore? Have things changed so much?

I don't think we really cared much about which DLC we had, as long as the sunset invasion was turned off. But if there's a certain piece of dlc you would like to turn on/off when we play, I'm sure we can come to an agreement. Also, it's been a very long time since we last played, so I don't know which version we used (probably whichever one was the newest on torrent sites).

Personally, I find the game a lot of fun in MP, you get to find out what kinds of crazy things are happening around the world, and all the crises going on in people's courts add up to a pretty amusing experience. I'll never forget unknowingly marrying a chaste girl as the sick, old king of Norway with no heirs and then waiting for years and years before suddenly realizing my mistake. Of course, the pope wouldn't grant me a divorce, so I set off on a grand campaign to spread christianity across the heathen world. After many years of murder and forceful conversion, the pope finally liked me well enough to grant me a divorce, after which I married a lustful young girl who proceeded to get pregnant very quickly. And then gave birth to an idiot who soon succeeded me when I dropped dead. I'm sure my mates had a fun time listening to my cries of anguish.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

I could have held Norway just fine, but was fooled by the fake Russo-German war.

CK2 could use its own thread. (I might be interested too.)

 

[Lizzurd]

I could have held Norway just fine, but was fooled by the fake Russo-German war.

Hey! It has changed its fake/true state at least 3 times!

 

[Eadee]

 

[Dayyālu]

I am honestly dumbfucked.

I did not check the order time, just the timer of the game, and it gave me 20 hours left (this yesterday evening, when I was diploing quietly with others).

Imagine my surprise to find the turn resolved and a build order lost. I presume rollbacking is not possible, nay?

 

[sqeecoo]

No rollback, sorry. I honestly don't know what happened and wasn't following the timer myself (since I have nothing to build )

Perhaps the pause messed something up? Someone should research how that works exactly

 

[sqeecoo]

And turn five!

I am even less certain of what's going on now, especially since I've been a bit out of it due to RL issues. But it seems clear that we've had our standard dose of at least one betrayal this turn.

In the west, England hilariously moves to the Mediterranean - actually not a bad move, since that fleet will now be a strong bargaining chip - he might help Italy pressure France (or bully him into it - that single fleet can do a lot of damage to the exposed Italian west flank), or help France against Italy since France can't make much progress against England for a while - his fleets are far away, his armies are stuck on the mainland.

At the same time, Germany and France weirdly attack each other in Hol and Belg (wtf). Germany, meanwhile, grabs Sweden and supports Austria into Warsaw. Russia, so triumphantly orchestrating Turkey's betrayal of the anti-Russia alliance last turn, is now betrayed by Germany (apparently?). While Turkey somehow convinces Italy to back off with his silvered tongue and overwhelming emoticons, and is now profiting hugely and can choose an ally in me or Russia at his leisure.

Verily, these verses describe the very essence of Diplomacy:

 

[sqeecoo]

Turn 6!

All kinds of drama!

In the west, France makes some defensive moves but pulls out of Clyde - does this mean he has peace with England now? England seems to be pushing towards Italy as well.

In the east, Russia takes Bud from me (Austria) with Turkish support! Meanwhile, Turkey tries to take Serbia as well. I can reveal that this was a semi-betrayal, so we have satisfied our betrayal quota for this turn. I grab Greece (!) from Italy, who is moving on Turkey. Turkey is hard pressed, as is Russia, but with England (and France?) moving on Italy there may be a chance for peace.
Germany is slowly strangling Russia and growing steadily, but Russia can hold out quite long if Germany doesn't get outside help, perhaps until France/England decide to attack him.

This will be interesting! Alliances are very fluid and change from turn to turn, and it's hard to predict what will happen next.

By this point in the game, someone is usually dead or near death (often Austria). With France seemingly pulling out of England, this is not the case in our game here. Everyone is being very careful to switch alliances as soon as there is potential for someone to grow huge, which is smart. But how long can this continue?

There's a lot of discussion on how a "perfectly" played game of Diplomacy would go. Some say it would always end in a 7-way draw, since players would rationally switch alliances constantly to prevent others from growing. I'm not sure this is true, but so far that's how this game is looking like. We shall see!

 

[sqeecoo]

And there we have it, turn 7!

Keeping up our daily betrayal quota, Dayyalu (Italy) backstabs me (Austria)! Yikes! Well, I can see how a backstab on me was tempting, but abandoning his position in Turkey? Dayum Dayyalu! With Austria and Russia on the ropes and Italy already facing western fleets, Turkey is pretty much uncrackable now, it's just a question of whether Italy can maybe hold him off with one hand while battling France with the other. IF he manages to kill me of course; he made the stab pretty easy to predict in diplo (i.e. suddenly no more diplo) so I managed to defend a bit, like forestall the convoy to Albania - but with two of my home centers in foreign hands, I'm in danger of being eliminated even before Russia, on whom Germany is steadily advancing.

France decides to commit to killing England! With an army convoyed to Wales or a similar move, it'll all be over soon That English fleet in the Med, well, it's a mystery for now, maybe just causing as much confusion as possible.