Rhetoric - threatening without threatening

[Restitution]

I consider myself a relatively strong player, but my press is fairly weak.

Often, I am in a position where I want to make something clear; "Do X, or I will Y".

People, obviously, respond poorly to this. People do not like being pushed around.

What is a way to frame these kinds of points that appeal to reason and not emotion?

Side point; what are things that you guys do as E/F/G to make sure you are in the 2-way?

[Bark]

Ask a question, "If you do X, why shouldn't I do Y?"

E-F-G is all about Belgium. Whoever makes a strong play for it is usually the odd one out, IMO.

[Restitution]

Ask a question, "If you do X, why shouldn't I do Y?"

E-F-G is all about Belgium. Whoever makes a strong play for it is usually the odd one out, IMO.

IMO, as E, you *need* Belgium and have no choice but to make a strong play.

[TDOS]

Typically, I try to not to make threats with my own actions. For example, talking to say, France, as England, I might say "I dont know if I want you touching Belgium. Germany's been really anxious to invade you lately, but I keep telling them not to, because, you know, we're friends. But... if you walk into Belgium, I might tell Germany it's okay. Oh, and, because you're already waging a war with Italy, you're pretty sure to die. And if I know you're going to die, I might as well get my slice. So, please, dont touch Belgium."

The key is that you need to make sure Germany will actually do such a thing. So, possibly saying to them, "Hey, Germany, I hear that France is planning to move on Burgundy. You might want to bounce that."

Naturally, you'd have to work on the wording, but the principle is the same: Get the nation to comply with your wishes with a threat about the action of another nation, and trick that nation into actually carrying out the threat.

Actually, that's a general Diplomacy rule I try to follow. Make your lies true.

Anyways, you'd be amazed how often that works. And since you already established that Germany was wanting to attack France, you can blame this on Germany not listening to you, and then team up with France against Germany.

[Carl Tuckerson]

I consider myself a relatively strong player, but my press is fairly weak.

Often, I am in a position where I want to make something clear; "Do X, or I will Y".

People, obviously, respond poorly to this. People do not like being pushed around.

What is a way to frame these kinds of points that appeal to reason and not emotion?

Side point; what are things that you guys do as E/F/G to make sure you are in the 2-way?

Tell them why you need X done and why you will do Y if they don't comply. If you can't craft a convincing answer to why you need X done, then it's probably not reasonable to ask of them face-up, and they're not going to respond well to any attempt to coerce them on that point. (Start planning to get X done through other means.)

As England I am cheerfully convoying to Norway and selling Belgium to the highest bidder. England has no business in Belgium; nothing prevents the French and German armies from killing each other like an English unit in Belgium making penetration of Burgundy and Ruhr difficult.
As France or as Germany I am trying to get Belgium; to sell the other person I am promising to build a third fleet to kill England; to sell England I'm promising a fourth army to go around Switzerland and outflank our mutual target. I admittedly am mostly hoping that England has my understanding of how England should approach Belgium. If I'm faced with an England that is aggressively soliciting Belgium then I'm probably aggressively soliciting the other power for an alliance against England, with Belgium as the prize.

[Peregrine Falcon]

I'm going to be annoying and subvert the question. Maybe we shouldn't be asking "How does one make productive threats?" but rather "Are threats productive at all?"

My opinion is that it is rare threats get a positive response. In some cases, a positive response is not needed, and threats can be useful in those. But, as you mention, most of the time people do not respond productively. Threats are perceived as aggressive and domineering, and people don't like being told what to do. Threats are inherently unilateral; they only fulfil one side's needs while the other is left with a problem. As a result, threats tend to degrade relations, while a successful game is about building them.

Personally, I like to instead frame things as options and consequences. It gets a very similar point accross without being so one-sided. It's helpful to set the situation up as an option between a mutually beneficial course of action and a mutually detrimental course of action. Doing so still makes a similar rational argument for why going along with what you want is a good idea, and allows you lattitude to explain why not doing so causes problems for you both. Yet, it doesn't come across as forcefully. Rather, it can be almost caring—wanting to ensur the best outcome for both of you. In the end, it makes a strong argument for the course of action you want, without degrading the relationship, still allowing you to work together no matter what.

[New England Fire Squad]

I'm going to be annoying and subvert the question. Maybe we shouldn't be asking "How does one make productive threats?" but rather "Are threats productive at all?"

My opinion is that it is rare threats get a positive response. In some cases, a positive response is not needed, and threats can be useful in those. But, as you mention, most of the time people do not respond productively. Threats are perceived as aggressive and domineering, and people don't like being told what to do. Threats are inherently unilateral; they only fulfil one side's needs while the other is left with a problem. As a result, threats tend to degrade relations, while a successful game is about building them.

Personally, I like to instead frame things as options and consequences. It gets a very similar point accross without being so one-sided. It's helpful to set the situation up as an option between a mutually beneficial course of action and a mutually detrimental course of action. Doing so still makes a similar rational argument for why going along with what you want is a good idea, and allows you lattitude to explain why not doing so causes problems for you both. Yet, it doesn't come across as forcefully. Rather, it can be almost caring—wanting to ensur the best outcome for both of you. In the end, it makes a strong argument for the course of action you want, without degrading the relationship, still allowing you to work together no matter what.

This is an incredibly cerebral and well thought out response. It clearly would work well with quite a few people. I do think that there is an addendum to this, however. Some players can react poorly to caring and kind press as well. I've had this happen- a player mistook my press that was meant as an explanation as 'snarky and sarcastic', almost as if he thought I was taunting him. From then on his only goal was to take me down, come hell or high water. in my opinion, the best way to craft press is to base it off of the press one receives from each individual player - if I'm Italy and receiving press from France that makes it appear English is not his first language, I will dull down my own to make it more intelligible and so it won't appear that I'm looking down my nose at him. If Austria has the press of an English professor, then I will do my best to replicate that. If a player is mostly open to my suggestions, I will attempt to be mostly open to theirs. If they are not mostly open to my suggestions, I will try to do my utmost make it appear that I am at least somewhat open to theirs. As for Restitution's original questions: Instead saying 'if you don't do Y, I'll do X mf'er' I'll say: "Where should we go from here? I was thinking Y, for a-b-c reasons. Tell me what you were thinking." X will not need to come up at all. If they don't do Y, then after I do X, press will go like this: "I'm sorry, but I was getting incredibly paranoid by you not doing Y- in my experience that usually means that (country you are) will be turning on me, and I again apologize for jumping the gun. If you do Y, I of course will be more than happy to go back!"

[Claesar]

... in my opinion, the best way to craft press is to base it off of the press one receives from each individual player - if I'm Italy and receiving press from France that makes it appear English is not his first language, I will dull down my own to make it more intelligible and so it won't appear that I'm looking down my nose at him. If Austria has the press of an English professor, then I will do my best to replicate that. If a player is mostly open to my suggestions, I will attempt to be mostly open to theirs. If they are not mostly open to my suggestions, I will try to do my utmost make it appear that I am at least somewhat open to theirs. As for Restitution's original questions: Instead saying 'if you don't do Y, I'll do X mf'er' I'll say: "Where should we go from here? I was thinking Y, for a-b-c reasons. Tell me what you were thinking." X will not need to come up at all. If they don't do Y, then after I do X, press will go like this: "I'm sorry, but I was getting incredibly paranoid by you not doing Y- in my experience that usually means that (country you are) will be turning on me, and I again apologize for jumping the gun. If you do Y, I of course will be more than happy to go back!"

I should do this. Thanks.