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Pippin -> RE: Crown of Glory v. Empire in Arms (3/25/2005 4:33:39 AM)
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Yes you can control SOME of the diplomacy but still it is mostly up to luck imho. In one game I found myself as France and was deciding who to ram my weight into first. As Fate/Luck/Skill would have it, I made up my mind to crush either Prussia or Austria first. Well as fate would have it, Prussia and Austria allied right off the bat. Not good luck for me, but perhaps no luck at all as this is pretty standard for seasoned players.
I decided I would first go after Austria, in essence, this was quite some BAD luck for him. Maybe I wouldn’t call it luck from my viewpoint, as I chose him for some specific reasons, having a weaker army than Prussia to start out with, and having too many others close to him to watch out for all at once.
Knowing I had a problem with his alliance with Prussia (and who knows who else may want to join their side), I slammed my fists down on the table and gave everyone a long and harsh speech. I let everyone know that I was going to declare war on SOMEONE, and it would be just my war against that SOMEONE. And if anyone else allied or not to that SOMEONE comes to his rescue, then my GOD would I be pissed and do everything in my power to crush the first opponent to stick his nose in MY private war. I then basically repeated this again while I leaned forward and glared over at the Prussian player sitting next to the Austrian. Again, I smiled evilly and showed my teeth as I reminded him I would not hesitate for a moment to wrap my units around and head straight into the first ally to wipe him out, even if it meant the death of me. And they all knew it.
Well, perhaps it is no surprise then, after I declared war on Austria, that scared Prussian character broke his alliance when called on and took the loss in PP to save his army for another day. Yes, it was a bad move, for both of them.
Now, was that LUCK, or diplomacy skill? I don’t know, bit of both perhaps? Maybe I was LUCKY that the Prussian player was such a chicken-**** and fled the fields to live another day. From the Austrian player’s side of things, no doubt he felt as though he was getting just all the BAD LUCK right from the get-go.
After I stomped down Austria with my boots, I was totally free to turn my army north-west and crush Prussia while he was alone. Nope, I didn’t do it, saved that for later. Instead I pounced on Russia who had recently decided (like a typical Russian) to jump into my war and gain a bunch of cheap freebies from Spain’s surrender to the both of us. Why should march all that way into Russia later on when he had a huge army there, waiting for me to hit anyway?
You could call that LUCK for Prussia. Had Russia not stuck her nose into the situation and made herself a target too, I would have possibly got bored and smashed Prussia instead. He lasted quite a while that game, I am sure not all these factors was due to his skill.
Of course I have been on the sucky end of things too. Like the time I was Prussia, and my Austrian partner (well I thought he was supposed to be!) decides he will declare war on me right from day one! I was even worse shocked than France, who couldn’t believe his eyes that his two rivals were attacking each other! One has to ask, where was the skill in that? Or was it just bad LUCK I had some kind of newbie? LOL He had figured that since I was closest it would be a FUN thing to do?
We can break the diplomacy level down into other groups. E.G. diplomatic actions on minors. You can sometimes guess what and how people are going to manipulate. Sometimes you declare war on a minor and some else wants the same one. You are playing a guessing game often and conflicts arise when sometimes nations clash over simple minor diplomatic events. I would say luck has a part in this. Anything that involves guessing has an element of risk/luck to it. Sometimes just having a certain minor in your influence box can mean the life or death of a player.
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