Often times, you and an enemy can bond by sharing the same sphere as a superpower. Example from one of my games: I as Turkey begin to attack Austria but realize that Russia and Italy are ultimately going to kill me after they get Austria. He explained this to me and I began to work with him. But if you're invaded by another stronger power and that power is not being threatened at all by any one else you can consider boned. It's definitely situation dependent with few universal principles.

The best way is to invoke other powers. Offer cooperation and promise that it will work out better for both as allies than as enemies. That almost always works on reasonable people. Often, I am telling the truth, too, and that helps. The awkward part is not mentioning the inevitable future resuming of hositilities, though, it does not always have to end up that way.

One time as Germany, I had conquered all of Austria and a bit of France with England as our ally. We needed Turkey to provide us help against Italy to win, but of course he wouldn't. To change his mind, we sent four units right on top of his borders...

I have found that if you use the 'stab' sparingly, as a useful tool, than many times your actions of not stabbing an ally speak louder than promises of SC or survival.

I think you are probably right that the stab needs to be used sparingly or not at all if possible.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

First you have to start from the prospective that you have no enemies!
You have powers that you have some conflicts with and the focus should be on those conflicts as a matter of governments but not of players.

Second, always talk to those that you are fighting, even if it is only about things that do not directly relate to the game.

Remember that in all communications if you have something negative to say use the name of the country, if you have something positive to say then use the name of the player.

Talk with the other players about things that could happen that would alter the current state of affairs between your countries. Remember it is always the countries that are fighting not you and the other player.

Players may tend to make early alliances and to try to stick to them regardless of the negative consequences for themselves and their allies. Solid alliances tend to create counter solid alliances and lead to large draws under normal circumstances. The background here with PPSC and the degree of NMR's and CD's may condition players in their earlier games to ignore the consequences of the play style. An occasional slap with a 6 way draw might break them out of it.

Now that's what I'm talking about - those were some really useful tips. I love the idea about name of the player versus name of the country/govt. I wonder, does that hold up in a face-to-face game as well?

Heh - somehow that really reminds me of my favorite trick in settlers. If you are playing ftf settlers and are trying to get someone to accept a trade who is on the fence about it simply expose the cards you are offering and extend them toward the player - it dramatically increases your success rate!

Edi's manner of dealing with people feels like that - a little grease that doesn't appear to be much on the surface, but probably has a high success rate =)

a proper stalemate can work wonders
once one of your enemies sees he is not going to see any land, he might as well start searching it elsewhere

Logic works for me. Emotions can be altered and pushed around quite easily and are open to quick change. This will not make for a stable relationship. If you point out the logical value of your alliance or whatever, they can't deny the points.

Well, sometimes they can- by claiming paranoia.

Unfortunately I've done that myself once or twice if I see potential benefits for my ally should he attack me :S

Jacob - the first suggestion I have for you - play more WTA games rather than PPSC games - you wont find intractable allies at all (or very rarely).

keep active diplomacy with all your non-neighbors from the start - and I agree with Edi - if you have no game realted stuff to talk about - just talk about the weather (ok - maybe not the weather - but maybe about their diplomacy history)... when people tell you personal things (like when they played diplomacy or their favorite ever win or whatever) they tend to associate that positive feeling (the retelling) with you. If you do this early enough - specially when you SEE a strong alliance forming on the other side of the board in 1902, then when 1907 rolls around, you have an open line of communication with BOTH of them and can nudge BOTH into offensive action...

and one other thing - when trying to create mistrust between two solid allies - don't make up blatant lies because they WILL check with each other - but try to insinuate intention that is possibily backed up by unit positions and/or game dynamics like: "well England, even if France takes all of Italy and Tunis, that still leaves him at 15 - and with my (turkey) units blockading the eastern med, where do you think he'll get the last 3?" give them 2+2, and let them realize it adds up to 4.

anways - you might find these useful.

ps. that trick in settlers - absolutely awesome trick. another good one - if you are willing to trade 2 cards for that badly needed iron... say "I have a wood and a sheep for an iron... hmm... on second thought, only a wood"... most often, one of the players will pipe up and say - "I'll do it for both"... then you just smile - and give them what you originally wanted to offer anyways ;)

Oh god, that's pure evil. I love it.

Well, I attacked austria recently very early game with italy and ended up being his ally through most of the game for some reason 0.o he talked me into him helping me take turkey as it would be easier. So I was all fine and dandy and set to go draw with him but he got greedy and took one of my SC's, that ticked me off so I invaded him and got a nice batch of SC's out of the deal xD

I guess it was Empire by numbers? I looked at your games, you were playing a friend of mine as Russia, in his first (and sadly, last) game and you were Italy too.

I think it was that, I honestly don't recall the names of my games. It could be diplomacy 7 though

jacob, only you would think of setlers.

i have found myself in situations where neither of us was gaining ground, and i said, look, we're going nowhere, lets kill this dude, and it worked. people will usually listen to common sense.

Use your common sense. That's the only thing I can tell you.

P.S. It's easier to pull it off on more experienced players.

Bribes and more bribes. Ask any one in state of Illinois.

The best way to convert someone is to BE RIGHT. :D

I convert enemies to allies by being so damn tough to kill that I convince them to attack easier targets :P