by sigmazero13
Weltenreiter wrote:
lol does anyone do diplomacy.
Depends. If the fate deck is low, and there's an area that has a Dragon or Giant, especially if other neutrals are there, too, then we might try it. If there are 4 cards left in the deck, for instance, and you know one of them is a gold, then I would often decide to spend the 4 influence to get them.
Also, far more often, I'll send units into a neutral area to attempt diplomacy with a few influence, not really hoping to gain them as allies (though that's nice), but even just to get a Grey result to push them out of the area. This is useful for a couple reasons:
- You can send a single unit in to try and capture the area.
- You can claim a neutral-occupied area without it counting as your battle if using Mobilize.
Of course, it's all situational, but in our games Diplomacy is used relatively often. Not universally, but every game has a few attempts made.
(Thematically, I know some don't like that greys push them away. To me, it makes perfect thematic sense - I think it represents you talking to them/bribing them/etc to vacate, maybe with smooth talk of "greener pastures" or whatever. Abstracted in mechanics, of course, but I can see even a lone unit acting as emissary coming in to try and talk. The gifts they bring may work, or may cause the neutrals to get angry and attack, in which case the emissary will usually retreat).
To be honest, while I don't mind rolling dice, I don't think a dice-based system would have made things any "better"; most of the opposition I see to it is just because people like rolling dice.