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A Weekly Threat Assessment of the Diplomacy Community

Podcast #57 - Backstabbr Interview and More
In this episode, Amby and Kaner interview Jon, one of the developers at Backstabbr, about the platform's features and future plans.  They also discuss other diplomacy variants and the launch of the Asia Pacific Diplomacy Association. Listen Here.
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Next Week Your Briefing Will Come Early for Christmas

 
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Infinity Stones of Manipulation
In comic book lore, the infinity stones represent ultimate power. If one person possesses them, then his every desire will be realized with a snap of his fingers. Does such a power exist in diplomacy? Learning how to weaponize other people’s emotions is a powerful tool that might even seem godlike to some. This is a series for people that want to win and be in control of the levers of power. Just as there are six infinity stone, there are six emotions we will look at in this series.   
Harnessing Fear
The Jewish prophet Jeremiah said, “He that flees from fear shall fall into a pit.”  Fear is a part of every game because no one wants to lose.  In a game, you have alliance changes, stabs, board leaders, and team ups.  The ability to paint nightmare scenarios will give you a great advantage. 
Fears most powerful aspect is that it doesn’t even have to be real.  The number of phantoms are limited only by your imagination.  You can forecast threats that may never happen and there will be no penalty for it. Read into innocent moves an evil intent, blame setbacks on neighbors, or pass on “privileged” information.  

Last year, the Nexus held their first season.  Over 130 players participated, and I was fortunate enough to compete in the finals.  This game was one of the most enjoyable I’ve played, and there are several memorable moves I’ll never forget (Next week I’ll talk about the infamous Christmas stab).  This particular move set gives us two examples of the use of fear.
First, you see how I blocked an Italian stab. This was just a defensive guess on my part. Rather than brag about how much smarter I was, I mentioned that Russia had revealed his plans to me. This is of course was a very believable lie because an enemy always wants someone to blame for their failure. A successful use of fear of betrayal.

To my shame though I allowed fear to distract me.  I had just pulled off an effective attack on England.  The moment of his downfall was at hand.  Yet, I was greatly concerned about Russia’s prospect for growth.  He had established a strong presence in the south and with Austrian, Italian, and English help was poised to make gains on Germany.  

It was at that moment that England approached me about convoying to Norway and him supporting me into St. Petersburg.  It was appealing because I wouldn’t lose my advantage if he lied and if he was truthful could deal a crippling blow to Russia.  While every diplomacy player loves an awesome convoy, I was primarily motivated by fear of Russia expansion.  This was a mistake.  There was still much game to play, and I should have locked in my build.  The next turn he betrayed me.   
While this didn’t change England’s ultimate demise it did set me back two years.  It was probably my biggest mistake of the game.

There is one more great benefit with using fear: you place the mastermind label on someone else.  You want the target to be on another power and a great way to do that is by hyping up the “best” player on the board.  Overstate their tactical ability and their cunning.  Keep the target on someone else so that you are the smallest threat on the board.  If a player is always watching their back that means their gut will be open.

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