The Caliph, it seems, is well acquinted with both Muslim and Roman Sha'riah 
And tis' good to see our Happy Syria restored to the Dar!
And tis' good to see our Happy Syria restored to the Dar!
Children of the Fatherland: MP conversion game
- Thread starter King of Men
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The question is then: when is it absolutely necessary?
You may have noticed it followed a similar pattern to most previous wars of international note, where those not involved make sure the peace does not to much change the balance of power in their disfavour... They were no different from the demands during the Russian war, where the parties first tested the waters of international opinion and then adjusted their demands to suit it. Thus we can expect most wars of size to end, so long as the player in question has not made a pariah of himself.
Frosty seems to be demonstrating a common fallacy: That when bargaining, it is best to start ridiculously high so you can be haggled down. Wrong. There is a zone of possible agreements, agreements acceptable to both parties; starting with an offer outside that zone merely pisses off the other negotiator, and in this case also the rest of the world. You can't start arms reduction talks by saying "Ok, suppose we dismantle three of our obsolete ICBMs, and you take apart all of yours and allow five armoured divisions of NATO inspectors to check for compliance?" (That is, assuming these are actual negotiations between equals. If you are dictating terms to a conquered enemy, that's something else again.) The Soviets will walk out of the conference, and what's more, they will publish your offered terms all over the Third World as propaganda, saying "This is what the Americans think is reasonable? The proletariat laughs bitterly! We know this kind of 'negotiation', it is what capitalists always 'offer' the worker - that or starvation!" And it'll work, too; it'll be clear to everyone that the US wasn't actually intending that to be taken seriously; it'll be a propaganda coup for the Soviets. "Americans negotiate in bad faith; film at eleven." (And any idiot in the State Department who tries to defend himself with 'Well, I was starting high' will be summarily fired, and quite rightly so.) That's why actual diplomats do not make such offers. They look for something within the zone of possible agreements, and offer something on the high end of that zone. Not something ridiculous that the enemy will fight rather than accept.
Now the zone of possible agreements is not always known, of course; it's possible to make a mistake, to offer something that you think could be accepted, but that the enemy will recoil from and launch the missiles rather than accept. This is why real-world diplomatic negotiations are so slow; people are offering hypotheticals, trying to probe the borders of the acceptable space without pissing off the other side. And of course there's such a thing as a bluff, saying you'd rather fight than accept terms X even if that's not really true. This is why negotiations sometimes break down, even when there was a possibility of an agreement. (That's not always the case, you should note. Suppose the Jews of Germany had been an armed resistance movement; what would negotiations with the Nazi Party have looked like? "Well, suppose we only exterminate half of you..." In this case, no agreement was possible.) This is what 'skilled diplomacy' means: To be able to find the actual borders of the possible agreements, and then driving a reasonable bargain within that border. It doesn't mean offering three dollars for a used car, expecting to be bargained up. The salesman will say "Get out of here", and he'll mean it, too. He doesn't need your custom that badly. (I actually had this happen to me once, and I wasn't offering any three dollars, either. Six thousand looked reasonable to me, but apparently not to him. I bought a different car.)
Now the zone of possible agreements is not always known, of course; it's possible to make a mistake, to offer something that you think could be accepted, but that the enemy will recoil from and launch the missiles rather than accept. This is why real-world diplomatic negotiations are so slow; people are offering hypotheticals, trying to probe the borders of the acceptable space without pissing off the other side. And of course there's such a thing as a bluff, saying you'd rather fight than accept terms X even if that's not really true. This is why negotiations sometimes break down, even when there was a possibility of an agreement. (That's not always the case, you should note. Suppose the Jews of Germany had been an armed resistance movement; what would negotiations with the Nazi Party have looked like? "Well, suppose we only exterminate half of you..." In this case, no agreement was possible.) This is what 'skilled diplomacy' means: To be able to find the actual borders of the possible agreements, and then driving a reasonable bargain within that border. It doesn't mean offering three dollars for a used car, expecting to be bargained up. The salesman will say "Get out of here", and he'll mean it, too. He doesn't need your custom that badly. (I actually had this happen to me once, and I wasn't offering any three dollars, either. Six thousand looked reasonable to me, but apparently not to him. I bought a different car.)
First try at this...
Edit: Ok, it's way smaller than what I made it... Give me a minute.
Edit: Ok, it's way smaller than what I made it... Give me a minute.
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Blame Photobucket. The image is supposed to be a 1000 pixels wide, not 30...
I miss my upload site.
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Apparently you did not learn much from that experience with the salesman, considering your initial demands in the Russian war and the international outcry after it.
Yay for Imageshack!
It's a bit bigger than I thought it would be, but I'm sure it fits just fine in all your fancy monitor resolutions.
It's a bit bigger than I thought it would be, but I'm sure it fits just fine in all your fancy monitor resolutions.
My mistake in that case was that I thought I was dictating terms to a conquered enemy, but it turned out I was negotiating with neutrals wanting to maintain the balance of power.
You see, we did not expect such massive international support for your side either. The cases seem quite similar.
Frosty is saying that he was starting high in the expectation of being bargained down. When I demanded the Free Ukraine, the intention was not to be bargained down, it was to cripple or weaken a defeated Russia by taking away a third of the realm, plus of course giving an independent spot to Golle. It did not cross my mind that you might accept such terms if you could still fight, or that you would take them for a bargaining position; I thought you were down for the count and I was taking the opportunity to kick you in the head. If I had thought the result of the war would be a minor border adjustment and the purely nominal independence of Finland, I would not have started it, on the grounds that you should never make an enemy of someone by doing them a small injury. As demonstrated by recent events.
Our offer in the recent conflict, on the other hand, was based on our appraisal of the respective strengths, and intended as acceptable to all parties. You'll note that our proposed Jerusalem consisted mostly of land under our actual control at the time of the negotiations, and that where your armies had progressed, we offered concessions. Certainly we may have misjudged what would be acceptable to you, and of course we can discuss forever who actually had the upper hand militarily, but it was a peace offer, not a diktat, and consequently quite different in tone and harshness.
Our offer in the recent conflict, on the other hand, was based on our appraisal of the respective strengths, and intended as acceptable to all parties. You'll note that our proposed Jerusalem consisted mostly of land under our actual control at the time of the negotiations, and that where your armies had progressed, we offered concessions. Certainly we may have misjudged what would be acceptable to you, and of course we can discuss forever who actually had the upper hand militarily, but it was a peace offer, not a diktat, and consequently quite different in tone and harshness.
Byzantine propaganda said:
Yet I note that despite having been defeated militarily, Persians flooding across the border, my base of power under siege and half the world calling for my holy lands to be made into a buffer state I still somehow ended up gaining a respectable amount of land...
Yoshi's comic said:
Hey! If you wanted that land you should have held firm and not accepted my bribe!
Since you admit you were bluffing, that would clearly have been a mistake on OY's part. As for me, I'm regretting giving up Roman Syria.
Yet I note that despite having been defeated militarily, Persians flooding across the border, my base of power under siege and half the world calling for my holy lands to be made into a buffer state I still somehow ended up gaining a respectable amount of land...
Well, I guess all I can say is good job fooling half the world, then. Hats off.
Nah, with Russian help the Black sea coast would probably had been won, while the Levantine front could have held at best.
Console yourself with the fact that last time you lost Syria and got a NAP with me you ended up growing into one of the games great powers
Yet I note that despite having been defeated militarily, Persians flooding across the border, my base of power under siege and half the world calling for my holy lands to be made into a buffer state I still somehow ended up gaining a respectable amount of land...
Please, at least pretend we got a good deal and that your boasts of "we will defeat you next session, just you wait" had some substance. Kumbaya remember!?
Our alliance would have won, but it would have taken for ever, and the distribution of spoils would not have been as slanted in my favour. Perhaps had you held out unforeseen events/european intervention would have turned it.
However on a local level the outcome was probably for the best, any real amount of provs back or forth in the M.E. and I think we would have had another war in the not to distant future. Now we have compromise giving a chance at lasting stability and security, something that will be worth more longterm than a few provs back or forth.
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Well, to be fair to Frosty: Based on what happened in our testing session on Friday - this is with Russia and Croatia AI, remember - I was not that eager to continue active combat. My manpower was down to 90k, remember. (Now 220k after several years of peace, and not fully recovered yet.) It came down to what the West was willing to intervene for. I was honestly a bit nervous demanding the Black Sea coast. It's one thing for Jakalo to break a NAP and eat an excomm to prevent a complete collapse of the balance of power in the ME; it's another for him to go to war over six provinces.
I don't think the war was a foregone conclusion either way, short of the intervention of every Western power; it may be that Frosty got a better deal than the minimum he could have accepted, and that this was based partly on bluff. But then again it may also be that the opposite is true.
I don't think the war was a foregone conclusion either way, short of the intervention of every Western power; it may be that Frosty got a better deal than the minimum he could have accepted, and that this was based partly on bluff. But then again it may also be that the opposite is true.
Ah, so you're actually bragging about your ability to backstab your allies, rather than your ability to bamboozle and bluff your enemies. I can see we're going to enjoy this eternal Kumbaya in the ME.