Hey guys, I've read quite a bit about fog of war confusion and such so I figured I'd ask the best in the game and find out whats really up asking him to keep it objective and not subjective. He sent me an email on diplomacy with Fog of war. Here is a portion of it. It deals with the sharing of information and what is wrong (if anything) with giving information in games. This is a portion of Beast's training email regarding overall diplomacy.
In Fog of war, you work with a limited ammount of set information. In addition to your armies and dice, you can use your opponents by connecting dots and manipulating them. You can over-exaggerate a player's advantage, you can claim to see an army of X ammount of men on your border to try and deter a more immediate threat from you (if it'll work)
Most people who find this a "pet peeve" are players who have taken a powerful bonus and dont like the information sharing of where their armies are, in short cooperation or teaming against them. If people are telling other people things, heres an idea, counter it. These other players that are recieving this information are probably recieving it because the giver knows they cant see this portion of the map, if they cant see this portion of the map, then you can counter-claim and make it their word against yours. Likely at the end the other players will have to attack that way to find out for themselves or just drop any inclination in that area because they dont know which information is accurate.
Diplomacy is a huge part of this game, in non fog games, you need a legitimate diplomacy stance that convinces another player (or other players) to make decisions that favour you based on all the information on the table. Everyone has access to it. Fog of war is a different zoo. Players only have access to certain regions so you need to map out not only where you're powerful but scope to see what other players are probably dealing with as well, most times in fog of war games players are inclined to deal with 1 portion of the map and spend a good ammount of time securing it before expanding. Before initiating deals against a certain player, you need to make sure no one is in a huge position to call your bluff (if indeed you are bluffing). Sometimes a player that recieves the message "player X has ZZZ ammount of men on Y territory, watch out" Can shortly if not immediately see that area, they may call the bluff or they may use the disinformation to their advantage, supporting it falsely to give yet another player in the game reason to fear, both the sender and reciever of the message know it is false and the player itself knows they dont have that army but the "hot potato" is being passed around, the only player who will object is the player holding that area being falsely represented and at 2 vs 1, the odd player out may feel inclined to believe the 2 (much to the frustration of the player who really doesnt have this army as he is teamed on by 3 players)
In short, you need to work on manipulating information, in nonfog games, you do that by convincing people of an immediate threat, you tell them what they can already see, and explain why it is a problem for them, here, your wording must be precise and effective because they have the same information you do, you are not expecting them to take your word for it, you must convince them of the threat that they have already brushed off in their mind while focussing on you (likely)
In fog, you are looking to place more value on your "word of mouth". You are convincing people of a potential threat, not an immediate, let the game log do that for you. Your job in gaining good diplomacy (in anygame, fog or not) is to realize that you can get a step up by attacking and gaining territory, and equally by not being attacked once your done. You have control over what you attack with dice and deployments, your mouse. Your control over what happens to you while your turn is ended depends on your mindgames and ability to manipulate words.
