Diplomacy Mechanics

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Basics

The goal of the enhanced parley system is to count your Parley Progress down to 0 before your opponent does. In order to achieve this goal, you must move the Parley Indicator to your side of the play-field (downward) using diplomacy abilities called statements. Many statements cost expression, which serves as fuel, while others provide Expression for later use; most statements, in addition to helping you, also provide some benefit to your opponent in the form of expression, progress, or both.

Parley uses the dialog, gameboard, and strategy windows. The dialog window shows the conversation as you advance toward your goal; you may learn much by paying attention to it. The gameboard shows what cards are being played, the accumulated expression for you and your opponent, the progress you and your opponent are making, and the relative influence you have over your opponent (or your opponent has over you). The strategy window shows the hand of cards you selected from your deck for use in the parley.

Parley requires some preparation before you begin. Talking to the initial trainer will net you, training, some abilities (cards), and, eventually, a special shirt. By the time you complete your trainer's quests and the final training, you will have gained about 40 skill points in diplomacy and collected a nice size deck of cards and a few items for your diplomacy wardrobe.

Statements

All abilities in Diplomacy, called statements or cards, are categorized in 2 ways: by expression type and by statement type .

Expression

Expression represents the four ways in which you can influence someone (each is keyed to a color). Expression is a fuel that you spend to activate some abilities. Much of parley is building up your Expression to play Assertions or other Statements that cost Expression to win the parley.

Diplomacy Cards

Throughout your diplomatic career you will gain many different cards that you can use to create your diplomatic strategy. There are five major types of diplomacy cards; each type represents a different way of interacting with an opponent:

Comment

Comment cards do not require any expression to play, so they are easy ways to gain a quick score at the beginning of the match. Watch out, though, as comments also provide your opponent with expression to use against you.

Evaluation

Evaluation cards grant expression when played, and generally do not advance the influence meter. They do not cost any expression; however, they may give expression or influence to your opponent.

Assertion

Assertion cards are the quite powerful. They generally take a good amount of expression to play; however they provide you with a significant influence boost.

Repeal

Repeal cards take one type of expression and give you at least twice as much of another type of expression. Repeals are very powerful, but do not move the meter.

Rebut

Rebut cards remove expression from your opponent’s board. These can be very powerful when used at the right time.

The following figure shows the various parts of a card:

1) Card Name
2) Influence (# of spaces the marker will move)
3) Expression Cost to play card
4) Expression Granted to Opponent
5) Expression Granted to You
6) Rounds Before Reuse (Random)

Starting Deck

As you begin the tutorial, you receive two comment cards based on your class.

For the advanced tutorial, your deck is enhanced with two evaluation and two assertion cards based on your race.

After the tutorial you also automatically receive an assertion from each expression.

As an example, if you were a Thestran Ranger (Inspire/Reason, your initial deck would be:

You will get several cards during your starting quests as you go out in the world to hone your skills. Also, when you return to your trainer for final training, you will learn about rebut and repeal cards and receive two of each (base on your starting area); you will also get two more expresion cards (based on your racial expresion).

So since, as the Thestran Ranger, you start in Tursh, you will get an Inspire Repeal and an Inspire Rebut, as well as your choice of one repeal and rebut from the other expressions. At the end of the newbie experience, you Ranger will have a deck of 20 cards similar to the following (depending on the choices made):

Parley

Now that you understand the cards, you should understand how to use them.

Conversation Types

When you hail an NPC that wants to parley, the parley or conversation will be identified as one of five types. These types represent the ways in which you would interact with an NPC. These conversation types may limit the types of expression that can be used in the parley.

Building a Strategy

Opening your strategy window, you will see five slots into which you can drag cards from your ability book. As you progress in diplomacy, you will gain more strategy slots

An initial strategy should contain a comment, an evaluation, at least one assertion of the same expression type as the evaluation. As you progress in diplomacy, you will naturally develop specialized strategies for different conversation types and even for individual opponents; strategies that are flexible enough to allow you to choose your own style of play:

• Once you know the type of conversation you will be involved in, you should adjust your strategy to take accordingly. For instance, if you have reason as your primary mode of expression and are faced with a gossip parley, you must remove your reason cards and build your strategy from other cards; else, you will never have the expression you need to use your statements!

• In addition, a clever diplomat take advantage of the limitations of the conversation type by selecting statements that give expression that the opponent cannot use.

• Also, as you gain experience talking with various NPCs, you will gain insight into the strategies they use. For instance, if you use demand and know an NPC uses a lot of reason and gives you a lot of flatter, you might add a flatter assertion or flatter to demand repeal and a reason rebut.

The Gameboard

The gameboard for parley consists of several distinct sections that affect one another.

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The Parley Board

1) Opponent's Last Card
2) Opponent's Expression
3) Opponent's Remaining Points
4) Opponent's Name
5) Opponent's Spaces
6) Your Last Card
7) Your Name
8) Your Remaining Points
9) Your Expression
10) Your Spaces
11) Expression Markers
12) Marker

The window title (at the top of the board) indicates the conversation type. In the figure it is gossip, which means demand, inspire, and flatter are in play, and reason is not allowed.

In the upper-left (1) is the space where the opponent's played card is shown. It will remain until you finish your next step so you can refer to it as you plan your next move.

At the lower-left (6) is the space where you play your cards. To choose a card to play, click on it in your strategy window; it will appear in that space if you meet the requirements to play it (until you choose to speak, you can replace the card as often as you wish).

At the bottom of the gameboard are two buttons, Speak and Listen. When you are ready to play a card, press Speak to play it. If you cannot play any statements (or choose not to, a very important strategy!), press Listen, which passes your turn and ticks down all your Refresh Timers.

In the middle of the board is the expression field. The top section (2) is for your opponent (you can see your opponent's name (6) at the top) and the bottom section (9) is for you (your name (7) is at the bottom of your section). In between are four color-coded symbols for the four Expression types (11); when an Expression type is disabled due to conversation type, it will be grayed out (in this case, reason).

As you build up expression, colored dots corresponding to the color of the expression type fill the space below the four symbols. As your opponent gains expression, the colored dots appear above the symbols.

On the far right is the parley indicator section. At the top is a speech bubble with a number (3); this is the number of dialog points remaining for the opponent to earn before they win. Likewise, your points to victory are shown at the bottom of the Indicator section (18).

In between is the tug-of-war of the parley indicator. A line indicates the zero-point. When the Indicator (12) is at this space (most parleys start this way), neither side gains a dialogue point.

As you gain influence, the indicator moves toward the bottom; the indicator shows how many spaces from the center it is. As long as the indicator is below the line (10) at the end of a step, you earn a dialog point and a line of dialog in the dialog window!

As your opponent gains influence, the indicator moves toward the top. If the indicator is in the top (5), your opponent earns a dialog point.

The first player to zero wins!

See also Civic Diplomacy.