Reforms to Discord Diplomacy

Hello all! As you are all aware, Discord has been an integral part of the /r/ColdWarPowers for some time now. It is unlikely it ever won’t be a part of our game: Discord allows critical parts of the game to happen in real-time, compared to the slow, asynchronous back-and-forth of the old [DIPLOMACY] posts on the subreddit. That being said, as we continue to steal the latest innovations from /r/EmpirePowers develop and refine the use of Discord in our game, we have identified several issues with last season’s Discord-based diplomacy that we hope to resolve.

What’s Going Away?

#x-aligned Channels: In previous seasons, we found that the X-aligned channels (#ussr-aligned, #us-aligned, etc) existed in a weird, liminal space between OOC and IC. Used as both an OOC hangout for mutually-aligned players and as a space to disseminate important in-character information, it was not always clear what was in-character and what was out-of-character. Often, players would use these channels to “pre-negotiate” deals--stating what they would agree with before later opening an in-character diplomacy ticket. This meant that players in the same Bloc would only move to tickets when most things were already agreed upon, side-stepping any possibility of in-character disagreement.

Frankly, we weren’t really thrilled with this. While we discussed some ways that we might reform and salvage these channels, we ultimately decided that they were more trouble than they were worth. Therefore, there will be no #x-aligned channels in Season 18.

#private-negotiations Threads: In CWP Season 17, we experimented with using the private thread function to allow for player-to-player negotiations. The thinking was that it would reduce administrative burden on the mod team (mods would no longer have to manually assign players and roles to newly-created tickets), avoid any issues with the channel limit (tickets count towards Discord’s server-wide channel limit, but threads do not), and allow players to more easily conduct diplomacy with each other. Due to limitations with how private threads work on Discord, players had to manually ping mods to add them to the thread after opening it. Despite efforts to remind players to ping us on these threads, they often would not (or would ping us late), making us unable to moderate the threads properly. Moreover, improvements to the ticket bot mean that players can now add people to tickets themselves, eliminating the best argument for threads over tickets.

As such, we will not be using #private-negotiations threads for diplomacy on Discord going forward. This includes both private threads and public threads. We may revisit this in the future should interesting use cases emerge.

What’s Being Added?

International Organizations: Historically, only a few international organizations have been given Discords channels--NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and the like. However, these channels occupied the same semi-meta liminal space as the #x-aligned channels, basically working as a more exclusive planning chat.

This season, we are reforming the way we handle international organizations. First off, we’re significantly expanding the number of international organizations that will have tickets or Discord channels. Like private tickets, these channels will be fully in-character. The guideline is to include any regional organizations or defense alliances with four or more members, but we’re open to suggestions on additional organizations. To give you an idea of what OTL organizations would be included in this, we’ve already made channels for the following (some of these aren’t made in-game yet, but we’re assuming they’ll exist in some form...):

• NATO

• Warsaw Pact

• COMECON

• European Coal and Steel Community

• Organization of American States

• Arab League

• Allied Control Council

• The Commonwealth

• Council of Europe

As the season goes on and more countries in the Global South gain their independence and international organizations come more into vogue, we expect this number to increase. By moving discussions out of semi-meta #x-aligned channels and into fully in-character tickets, we hope to increase clarity regarding which players know what. We also hope that it will incentivize participation in international organizations--membership can get you a seat at the table where important deals are being made. Even something that was previously meaningless, such as observer status in an organization, now comes with material benefits: it won’t let you talk in those channels, but you’ll at least know what’s going on!

What Isn't Changing

Diplomacy Threads: We're moving more and more of our diplomacy functions to the Discord, but the subreddit is still the primary forum for our game. The subreddit will remain the primary venue for posting public, legally-enforceable diplomatic agreements. If you and another claim write a treaty, it will not be considered signed and put into force until it is posted on the subreddit. For agreements that are more under-the-table, it's fine to keep them on Discord--just make sure your regional mods and the World Mods are aware of them.