> >One final alliance breaker... Present entirely different faces to two
> >allies. When they talk, they will become convinced that the other is
> >lying about you.
>
> That's a really good one, Chris, so many people forget that one. You
> can look at different faces in a couple of different ways. Here are
> only some:
>
> 1) Act completely insane to one player and absolutely sane and
> rational to the other.
That was the primary thing I had in mind.
> The only worry I've had with this one is
> that the one you're acting completely insane with frequently will just
> start passing your letters to the other player.
Not a worry. Since it is possible to fabricate (as you point out), you
already have reasonable doubt. Forwarding or even providing
substantial excerpts of press is usually considered poor form. Asking
for it even more so.
> 2) You can present completely different potential attack/alliance
> structures to your opponents, but this gets resolved very quickly
> when you have to move. I've usually not been able to make this work
> very well as a result.
You have to lie about your intentions, not your moves. To be successful
you need to be either thinking at least 2 years ahead or counting tempi
for a specific goal (such as crossing a stalemate line or doubling back
through a DMZ). I know *how* to do this, but since I only play a couple
games a year I haven't had a chance to do it.
You can also lie by telling the truth unconvincingly. You're England in
an EG and you want to delay Russia helping France. Tell Russia that you
have an unshakable alliance with Germany and there's no way that you'd
exploit that 50/50 chance at a given German SC even though you know
there is no way that Germany is going to cover it. Russia is convinced
that you *are* going to take the jab. He leaks it to Germany and
proceeds the take care of business in the east thinking that his
diplomacy job is done in the west. You honor your commitment to your
alliance with Germany and gain cred with your ally. If he took the
bait, you add diplomatic leverage and tempo to your position within the
alliance. Russia is off at least 2 moves as far as western involvement
is concerned and loses credibility with Germany. You win all the way
around because only the most paranoid individual in the world is going
to believe that you had anything to gain by being truthful in that
situation... and that much paranoia is mutually exclusive of believing
you or anyone else. :-)
> 3) You can be completely honest with one player and repeatedly lie to
> another player, this is aimed at finally building up trust with
> player 1. This really quickly becomes almost a different strategy
> since it is unlikely that the second player is going to keep
> re****ting your messages as fact to player 1.
It's a mistake to act as though all the action is in one corner of the
board. You single out *one* player to which you show the less desirable
set of behaviors. You can be *especially* cooperative to one player in
the alliance you are trying to bust, but you need the back channel
communication to reinforce the positive view, not the negative.
Speaking of "back channel", allies that aren't in your immediate
theater of operations can still help you in this way if you can
persuade them to be so inclined.
> I'm interested to see if Chris had other ideas in mind about the
> "faces"?
You hit the main ones, Jim, but there are some subtler means. You can
tell everyone the same thing, but vary *how* you tell some. Re****t
rumors with differing degrees of assertiveness, for example. If you
look at the board, you can often tell another player what someone else
is going to do. If you're wrong then it's only because your source
lied. You can get away with that a couple times before you have to
abandon your source. If you make solid claims of intel to one player
and act like you're guessing to another, you can craft versions of
yourself that behave according to the facts without necessarily being
truthful. While both 'faces' conform to the facts, they cannot be
reconciled one to the other.
Chris
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