Diplomacy for toddlers

From IceWars Documentation

So, you just started your very first own alliance, you already have some members and now you want to start diplomatic contacts with the rest of icewars? Your first idea might be to offer a DA to every alliance in the top 10, in that case, you should immediately stop and consider what you are doing... why should any of these bother with you without even knowing you?

Well, let's take a step back and look at our possibilities. What are possible "official" relations between alliances in Icewars?

• War. Probably not the right choice for newbies, since you will need some ships and stuff first.
• NAP: the Non-Aggression-Pact. It means that there should be no aggressive acts like scans or raids between the two partys. This is often used right after a war, mainly to allow the weaker party to recover. Sometimes it is also made between two alliances who think about making a DA in the future, but who want to get to know each other first. Sometimes it is also made between two alliances who just don't want to attack each other. It should be noted however, that it is still possible to attack anyone who is in a NAP with you, just like it is possible to attack members of your own alliance.
• DA: the Defense Alliance. This means that if one Partner is attacked, the other one will rush to his aid. Often, the two partys of a will always go to war with each other, even if they are the aggressors. However, if war is declared upon one of the alliances, it is not automatically declared on the DA, the DA, just like the NAP is a declaration of an intention, not a feature with ingame consequences.
• Wing: This means that one alliance becomes the wing-alliance of the other. That means the HCs of the main alli can be allowed to administer several things of their wing, also every war, NAP or DA that is declared on one of both alliances is automatically declared on the other, the wing on the other hand cannot make any wars or treatys on its own. Usually a wing is the part of an alliance with new members and less points, who are both educated and tested and might be included into the main alli as soon as they have learned enough. Sometimes the wing is an Elite Wing, were the best and most aggressive players of the alliance are united. Seldom, two alliances become so close that they call themselves sister alliances and use the wing-option to make this public. Since there is main party and a wing party in this system, sister alliances hardly use the wing option anymore, but are rather only DAs.

Apart from those, sometimes alliances chose to have a secret, inofficial relation. That might be a NAP oder even a DA, but it was also heard of inofficial wars, though usually they soon get officially declared.

So, now we're through with that. What to do now? As I said, top alliances will probably not take a second look onto your DA-request, sometimes they might even intentionally attack your alliance because they feel bothered by you.

What you should do is look around in your own galaxy and maybe the neighbouring galaxies and search for some alliance with more or less similar strength. Instead of immediately offer a DA you should first have a look at the alli info page and read it, if they have an IRC Channel you can join it and ask if they are interested, otherwise you should send an ingame message to one of the HCs and nicely ask him if he would be interested in a DA. That way, you already get to know each other a bit, and if you get a treaty, it is more likely that they rush to your aid in times of war, than if you have a DA without ever having spoken with someone of them.