Diplomacy

As covered in Actions, a player has a certain number of AP (typically 20) they spend each yound, and they can spend twice their diplomacy score plus one on Diplomatic Actions.

Diplomatic Actions – Max (DD+1) AP per round
1 AP – Secret Communication: Send a NB to a player anonymously
2 AP – Secret Communication: Send a NB to 2-3 players anonymously
3 AP – Secret Communication: Send a NB to 4 or more players anonymously
2 AP – Bribe Elector: Steal votes from another player’s Elector
2 AP – Court Gossip: Distribute information to everyone anonymously
3 AP – Stock Raid: Trick a player into liquidate Stock, gain half the value
4 AP – Initiate Embargo
3 AP – Join Embargo
2 AP – Maintain Embargo

Secret Communications (SecCom) – To use this the player send a NB to the moderator, designating a recipient or recipients and the message to be sent, the message should be in quotations, and generally the title should be “SecCom: Bob, John, Mark, Susie” The message may be anything of reasonable length

Bribe Elector (DI) – This is a contested Action, to use Bribe Elector a player must know the Electors’ Name and Location (but not necessarily its owner). They NB the Mod, “Bribe: Count Rufus on Sminro” for example, and Elector will lose a number of votes that round equal to the difference between the Player’s DI score. An Elector never gains votes from this, nor can they be reduced below 0 votes. So a Player with a DI of 7 targeting an Elector controlled by a player with a DI of 4 would cost that Elector 3 votes that round. This action costs 2 AP and 500 MS to initiate, and can be boosted, every additional AP or 500 MS spent boost the player effective DI by 1. So a player who spends 4 AP and 1500 MS, instead of 2 AP and 500 MS minimum, would add +4 to their score. Even a very unskilled diplomat can bribe someone, with enough a big enough bribe. A player who is planning to boost their attempt should add “boost” to the title as well. These lost votes automatically Abstain, essentially those voters have a cold or death in the family and were ‘too distracted’ to make the vote or send a proxy.

Court Gossip (Gossip) – A player sends the mod a message titled gossip or court gossip and includes, in quotes, a message they want circulated around. It appears in the Court Gossip, the mod reserves the right to adapt these for flavor even if in quotes, but if the player doesn’t put a message in quotes and simply sends ‘Weapons Factory on Deneb is unguarded’ this will likely appear in the Court gossip as “Did you hear? Apparently whoever owns Deneb Munitions Factory has even bothered to place a garrison there”. Keep in mind that Court Gossip usually features some noble(s) talking, possibly about something random, general tactics, or random nonsense form the Mod, you can use this to distribute utter nonsense if one wishes to, its advantage is that it is done anonymously. The Mod also ‘spies’ on players randomly and randomly decides if information will be true, half true, or flat wrong then puts in the Court Gossip. Every action a player takes has a small chance (about 1 in 20) of showing up, possibly distorted or vague, in the Court Gossip. It is the games Rumor Mill. There are huge numbers of nobles in the game, each has spies and sources of info.

Stock Raid – For 3 AP a player may launch Stock Raid by targeting a player, and may boost his SS score by 1 for each 2 AP spent, SS functions off DI. The attacker tricks the defender into thinking some stock they control is about to crash in value, and they liquidate it at a reduced value, the attacker and defender each receive half the liquidated value of the stock. The number of shares of Stock liquidated are the equal to the difference between the attacker and defender’s SS scores. Should the Attacker have a lower score, their attack fails and the defender knows who made the attempt. A player with a Mentat on their Homeworld receives a +1 to their defense against stock raids.

Embargo (DC) – This is an open, contested action. Once a player initiates an embargo, by NBing the mod “Embargo: Bob” they attempt to stifle the players economy, and who is involved becomes public info, everyone knows who is embargoing who. The moment an embargo becomes public (when the mod posts it) all bids and liquidations (other than stock) the embargoed player sends in after that are limited. An embargo can be broken with House Raids, a successful House Raid against any player engaged in an embargo pushes them out of it the next round, and they can not rejoin until the round after that, see Combat for details.

Embargo Score: A player gets a number of free bids equal to their DCI (typically minus the difference between the players’ DC scores, never less than 0. That is how many free bids the player gets that round, each individual bid (each bid or rebid on a single item) counts toward that limit, and they must spend 1 AP for each bid beyond that. Other players may join in and their DI minus the player’s DC (never less than 0) also lowers the number. An Embargo has a Strength, which defines how effective it is, equal to the sum of DC Differences between each embargoing player and the player being embargoed. The Strength of an embargo also dictates how much income the player loses, an embargoed player has their Income decreased by 300 MS for each point of Embargo Strength, but never below 0.

Example: John has a D/C/I of 3/3/2 and embargoes Bob, D/C/I of 2/2/4. Bob’s DCI is 8, this represents all the various diplomatic favors, soldiers to fight off boarding crews or evade embargoes, and covert contacts to smugglers he has to get things through the Embargo. John’s DC minus Bob’s DC is 6-4 or 2, so Bob has 2 less free bids, dropping him to 6. A restriction but not crippling, and he can still spend an AP for each extra bid. Now Susie and Mark decide to Join the Embargo, at 3 AP each, Susie has a DC of 7 and Mark a DC of 5, adding 3 and 1 to the Embargo’s strength. The Embargo is now at 6 Strength, and Bob, with his DCI of 8, can only make 2 free bids, each other costing 1 AP, and has his income reduced by 1800 MS each round.

Embargoes are politically expensive to setup and maintain. Starting one costs 4 AP, Joining one costs 3 AP, and each player must spend 2 AP each turn to maintain it, if a player does not, they leave the embargo and would have to spend 3 AP to rejoin or 4 AP if everyone left it, but players are assumed to be maintaining an embargo unless they inform the mod they have left it. Being part of an Embargo is public, but the strength of an Embargo is secret, only the subject player and mod know how many free bids they get. Again, while normally bids are done en masse, and a player might send a single bid message in on ten items at once, they actually sent in 10 bids, they just cost nothing, under an embargo that left the player only 4 free bids, sending in 10 bids would cost the player 6 AP. Embargoes can be ended by a Player Vote in the Landsdraad, its hard to maintain an unpopular Embargo. What essentially is going on is the embargoing players are using their military and diplomatic muscle to turn back shipments and discourage business dealings. The Embargoed player is resisting through political protests, by placing escorts and marines on transports, and by using smugglers.