A number of writers have touched upon matters of diplomacy. Nonnak Severin wrote an entertaining piece a few weeks ago titled “On Diplomacy and Negotiation” while Inquisitor_Kitchner wrote a piece about a year earlier titled “Crash Course: Effective Negotiating.” Both were interesting and similar pieces and I do not aim to repeat the work for a third time here. Instead I want to look at a fairly specific and all too common scenario of negotiating from a weaker position. Imagine you have a fairly decent alliance and you have yourself nicely situated in your region. You have your wormhole, or moons or sov developed and you feel rather comfortable where you are. The money making is decent and the fighting is kept to a manageable level.
Next thing you know you’re getting hit by a new group. Maybe you’re familiar with them, maybe you’ve never heard of them. In any case their’s more of them than you and man for man they’re at least as good as you. Your numbers don’t allow you to stand up to them directly and you’re slowly losing your grasp on your resources. The future may be bleak but all is not lost.
Perhaps one of my favorite quotes from Gladiator. The reply to this quote is even more important. “Will you know? Will I?” For us in Eve the lesson is simple: know your limits and know when bravado, force of arms and smack talking won’t save you. Be reasonable and pragmatic. If it doesn’t look like you have a very good chance at securing your victory, there isn’t much point to wasting your bargaining chips. Realizing and accepting this is your first step to turning your total annihilation into an opportunity to adapt and develop yourselves into something better. You need to find out what your attackers have in mind. Why are they attacking your wormhole? Your moons? Your sov? Is it a personal grudge? If so the number of variations on such a situation is too great to expand upon a simple article. However, if we assume that their goal is to acquire resources, which most of the time it is, we can consider our options.
This is an ancient Chinese proverb that translates into “the Heavens/the Mountains are high and the Emperor is far away.” Due to factors such as geography, centralization has always been a problem in China’s history. So the proverb more or less means that whoever is in power to enforce certain measures is too thinly stretched to do jack all about you. Other variations suggest a reference to local corruption and others that there is a need to take measures into one’s own hands. For our needs it basically means that nobody is coming to save you and that you need to handle this by yourself. If you do happen to have an ally that can somehow tip the scales in your favor, by all means, explore those options. But for our article here let’s assume you do not or that your enemy has an equal or greater ally to counter act yours. What then?
Just because the loss of your holdings is inevitable, does not mean that there is no value in what you are holding right now. Regardless of which of the three scenarios (wormhole, low sec, 0.0) that is specific to you, in each of those you more than likely have towers involved. And towers require grinding which requires time and resources. Yes your enemy will take your towers down EVENTUALLY but until they do, you’re still holding what they want. Assess your value as an entity beyond just your holdings. Get a firm understanding of what you have to negotiate and then consider your options. Remember it’s important not to underestimate yourself but just as important not to overestimate what you have in your hand.
Assuming that you aren’t dealing with a thick necked creten, you’re more than likely going talk with someone that can understand your position and is willing to hear your thoughts. A good diplomat, as the aforementioned articles discuss, does not look at such an interaction as a simple win/lose scenario but rather a relationship where both parties can gain something out of the exchange. A good diplomat is empathetic to the needs of his “enemy” and will try to negotiate the situation so that both sides gain something. Look to adapt and grow rather than impose your will upon someone who you can’t really force to do anything. Negotiating from a weaker position is much more about appeal than force.
So now you are sitting “face to face” with your “enemy” and their terms are fairly simple. They want what you have and there’s nothing you can really do to stop it. It is simply a matter of time. Now at first you may hear a little voice saying “tell them to go fuck themselves. We’ll fight to the last!” While that may be heroic and impressive and very 300 Spartans, ask yourself, could you really defeat this opponent? If not, tell that little voice to promptly shut the hell up. There’s no room for pride in such a situation. Pride equates to inflexibility and inflexibility results in you snapping like a brittle dried piece of wood.
So you’re going to lose everything. Rather than just losing it, why not trade it for something? If your opponent wants your C5, offer to pull down the towers after they’ve helped you acquire a similar wormhole. If they want your moons or sov, trade it for territory elsewhere. Most important is to turn this enemy into an ally. You both need to realize that working together you can accomplish more than apart. These terms will not be agreed simply because you ask for them however. You need to have proven yourself as a valiant enemy in order to be a respected ally.
This has happened numerous times in our own history. Before the Mongols invaded Russia, there had been another nomadic group that was powerful in the area known as the Cumans (or Kypchak.) While they were quite capable at war, they simply lacked the numbers and organization which the Mongols had developed. While some fled westward, most stayed north of the Black Sea and became incorporated into the Mongol domain. They became known as the “Golden Horde” and were considered to be a vital component of the Mongol sphere of influence. Now if they would have resisted, they would have more than likely been annihilated and sold into slavery. Instead, they opted to offer their services to the Mongols and because of it attained a level of power they did not have before.
Likewise in Eve showing the stronger entity that you are willing to work toward their goals, can ensure that your own goals are also fulfilled. Being flexible and adaptive gains you this option while refusing gains you nothing.
Sometimes this power dynamic is more difficult to recognize than others. Having a 200 man fleet land in your region and uprooting everything with your alliance’s ticker on it is a pretty obvious. However, there are those situations where a small and dedicated group can cause long term adverse effects on your alliance. No where is this more common than in my specialty: covert ops warfare.
Having been a part of a number of organized campaigns to harass larger sov holding entities using cov ops I’ve seen a general trend on how things flow. There is the initial phase where contact is made with the local residence and the cov ops group run into each other. The assumption is that the cov ops group is simply there for some quick ganks and then leave. The 2nd phase is when the realization sets in that the cov ops group is not going to leave. The directors tell their pilots not to rat and stay docked up. “They’ll get bored soon enough.” The third phase is when the cov ops group is clearly not leaving. Individuals begin to undock and go about their ratting only to become victims. The 4th phase is when you have some nice declarations of revenge on comms and there is some sort of “plan” on dealing with these intruders. Then the 5th phase kicks in. The plans are foiled, people are frustrated, they argue with one another and the internal erosion is more damaging than the actual isk being destroyed in space. NPC kills drop to double digits and both the individual and the corps are feeling a hole in their wallet.
It’s at this point that the two sides may choose to negotiate with one another. Perhaps the cov ops group is simply a group of griefing vindictive assholes that get their perverted kicks off from causing actual emotional duress upon their victims. I assure you these are petty people with lives far more awful than what they manage to do to anyone in game. More than likely this group is more interested in being good at what they do and attaining some sort of recognition. As a resident you’re bleeding isk daily either in losses or simply by keeping everyone docked up. Even worse, your players continue to be frustrated by this. Not everyone has the resolve of the loyal directors. So what can you do? You may be bigger and stronger but they’re more mobile and can cause you more damage than you can cause them. Answer?
Buy them. Make them your client. Offer them something they don’t have that binds their interests with yours. Do they want recognition and resources? Hire them to train your own cov ops branch. Pay them in something that binds them to you such as moons, ratting rights, etc. That way if they act against your interests you have a way to tug the leash hard. In this scenario, even though you have more to negotiate with, you need to keep in mind that you are still negotiating from a position of weakness. You can turn that situation to your advantage but you cannot let arrogance line your language in such a way to ruin a possible relationship.
Adaptation is the best virtue you can maintain. The Romans held onto the longest lasting entity in human history by adapting, from weaponry and technology to diplomacy and politics. If they found a group worthy of working with, and inclined to align their interests with that of Rome, you had a wonderful relationship. If not, there was only loss of resources. There are plenty of enemies to be had in Eve, what’s important is how many good relationships you can grow.
Whether you are trading your current moons for other opportunities, hiring the thorn in your side to become your asset, or simply coming to an agreement to maintain your alliance as an existing entity, you need to present such a situation as something good and positive for your own people. You’ll always have that one guy that’s all piss and vinegar at any notion of diplomacy. “We can take ’em!” Sure he says that now, but when the merde hits the fan he’ll be the first to go to greener pastures. It is important for your people to understand what you are gaining out of the agreement rather than what you are losing. Is it better to lose everything and attain nothing or to trade what you have for a different opportunity? Unless you can fight off your aggressors, that is the options you are left with. It is also important to understand that you are not locked into any power dynamic forever. Things change and next time perhaps you will be able to be an agent of change and adaptation.
Recognize opportunity in any loss, a truly strong leader can turn even the catastrophic into an opportunity. Eve is littered with such examples. Goonswarm lost all their sov and crashed in the north as refugees. Through the changing political landscape they have managed to place themselves at the helm of the greatest coalition in Eve because they took something terrible that happened to them and adapted. Pandemic Legion likewise lost their sov in Fountain. Instead of failcascading, they turned to their nomadic mercenary ways and turned their loss into a triumph. Nulli Secunda were completely wiped out of Delve and Period Basis by the combined force of the CFC and the HBC only to emerge as a valuable partner in the N3 coalition.
There are more examples to speak of and more examples created all the time of alliances and corporations that take failure and turn it into success. Those who fail to recognize the opportunities cease to exist. Those who can harness those possibilities reinvent themselves and continue onward. While this article does not go into every possible detail, it acts as a basic primer and hopefully can help one think outside of the stereo typical assumption of how diplomacy works. As always discuss your own personal examples and consider what others have to say on the matter.
– Seraph IX Basarab
