Templars: Diplomacy Thread #2

[Swiss Pauli]

The fun and games will continue here......

[regoarrarr]

message from templars

Team RB,

You seem to have ignored this comment from me:

"Indeed Sir Aidun went out of his way as to NOT demand but to ask you
what you thought might resolve the situation".

Also the issue about handing over Cape Town was mentioned by you not us.

Hercules Templars.

[ruff_hi]

right - and we kept on saying that it was up to Templar to make the first suggestion. Repeatedly.

I think we shoot them back an email ...

Templar,

You should grab a copy of the complete correspondance. Yes, Aidun did ask us to propose a peace deal and also to make it attractive. We, repeated, multiple times, refused and asked him / Templars to suggest a peace deal as it was you that aggressively declared war. We are still waiting!

Team RB

[Sullla]

I would remind them of the course that negotiations have taken thus far... (Scroll ahead to the next post to skip the full exchange and get to the substance.)

May 6
Hi Ruff,

In response to your letter of 28/29 April, Hercules has asked me to initiate some informal 'backtrack' talks with your team. The team was not opposed to your latest proposal, but some unclarities remain. Please take your time to read this, I hope you don't mind, since I have a lot to say. This is part 1 of 2.

I do not have an official mandate to make binding statements and whatever we would discuss is not official or binding, but the idea is that by talking freely about our concerns here could possibly bring about a solution which we both prefer over the current one of war. This solution we could recommend to Imperio.

I have long argued within my team to engage in more open talks with your team, because my impression is that there is unnecessary misunderstanding and distrust, which has brought us to this situation of war. I hope that through this way, you can make me help understand the concerns of your team a bit more and I can do the same for my team.

For my part, I can say that we share your concerns about PAL. Right now they are running away with the game. However, we have found it difficult in this game to find allies. PAL has been friendly and helpful to my team and what you ask is that we pay back that friendship with a slap in the face. My team cannot afford to alienate friendly teams, especially not when we are at war with the secondmost powerful team in the game.

My team has been in search for security for a very long time. Warily we watched the expansion from your team and your military buildup. We know from previous experiences that in DGs, one has to find a team to join forces with. For a very long time, for us, that team was your team. In our forums we talked about a 'natural alliance'. Yet, we seem to have talked two different languages. When we reached out, we felt nothing came in return and when you reached out, my team saw it as an opportunistic action, leading to a response like: "Apparently it suits them now to team up with us, but when we asked them it was too much for them - how can we trust that they don't turn their backs on us when the weather changes again?"

Eventually we found another partner in Imperio one or two months before your team suggested to us to form a three-team alliance with your team and Banana. The response was: "Nice, but a couple of months too late." And once again: "Why didn't they agree when we proposed it back in August/September 2008?"

All my team's actions have been motivated by a search for security and indeed this war is mainly aimed at achieving security by attacking a team that we started to view as a threat to our security.

However, if we let our minds think freely, and I have encouraged my team members to do so, we could see that our team's security can be achieved peacefully as well if the threat were to cease to be a threat through peaceful means.

I have always hoped that we could establish a three-team alliance and I was disappointed to see our continent go down the road of beggar-thy-neighbor politics.

With PAL going full-speed ahead, we have to formulate an effective strategy of competition. I cannot see how that would work without extensive cooperation and coordination between the three teams of our continent. As such, my view is that if you are truly concerned about PAL, you must agree with me that cooperation is the only way.

We cannot proceed, however, as things stand now. My team is facing a hugely strong neighbor, who has the capability to eliminate us if we were on our own. As such, we need to have a satisfying answer to this question: suppose that we were to ally, how can we be sure that our neighbor does not turn on us and wipes us off the map in the blink of a second once our common threat/challenge is eliminated?

end of part 1

Part 2 of 2

If you want to prevent PAL from running away with the game while we are bogged down in war, think about that last question in particular. If you want us to become your partners, you have to win our hearts and minds and take away our security concerns.

Unlike Imperio, I don't want to ask concessions from your team, I want your team to understand my team's situation so that you can come up with a solution yourselves. I hope you appreciate that more than arrogant demands. Perhaps you wish to offer us something, I leave that to you. However, make sure that your answer is convincing and leaves my team do doubt that we should better end this war than continue it.

I hope you are willing to explain your team's concerns to me. Make me understand what drives you. Perhaps you also have security concerns. I know that you did not appreciate all of my team's actions. I'm sure you have a certain idea about my team. It's possibly not positive, but that's no problem. Please tell me and please be honest in that. No comment can offend me, because I regard any critique from you as a learning experience. The fact that we are at war means we have both failed in a certain way and hopefully next time we can avoid that mistake.

I hope this informal talking can help us bring greater understanding and perhaps peace.

Best,

Aidun


May 7
Dear Sir Aidun,

Good to see you back! Diplomacy with your team was rather difficult since you left, since our emails were unanswered. We hope all is well with your personal life, since we were concerned for you when you left abruptly.

You are correct that we do have our grievances against Templars (that whole "declaring war on us" thing was a biggie!) and we note yours with us. However, we do not see it as constructive to discuss past events. We will say things that you disagree with, then argue further on the details and nothing will come of it.

As such, we will try to suggest a constructive plan for the future.

We will answer your question about our motivation. Quite simply, it is the same as yours: security. Our military build up was solely a response to Imperio, who made their intentions clear at an early stage by sabotaging our metal and building a lot of units. We never had any hostile plans towards the Templars and were happy to renew our NAP until you informed us that you did not want to do so.

We honestly do not know how we can convince you to "leave my team in no doubt that we should better end this war than continue it". As you say, PAL is running away with this game and our continent needs to settle its differences if it wants to change that outcome.

In terms of a "gift" that you mentioned, we can figure out some kind of lopsided trade if you like - the techs we have that you don't (drama and engineering) for the tech that you have and we don't (theology) - naturally, dependent upon an in-game peace deal between our two teams.

From our point of view we see this war (and our war with imperio) as a stalemate that gains nothing for any team but hurts us all. Whoever invades the other team will simply lose. That is probably the best movitation for us both. Ideally, we see the future as uniting against PAL. If we all close borders against PAL and negotiate a trade embargo, they will suffer. We can coordinate our research and trades to give us 3 vs 1 research power. This will have to be negotiated in the future after we sign an continent-wide in-game peace deal. You will gain the ability to focus more on research and religion rather than having to build units to defend yourselves.

Anyway, it seems that you want us to suggest a peace deal. It seems strange to invade our lands, retreat your units and then ask us to propose a deal, but we will get the ball rolling.

Our proposal is:

1. An immediate peace. We re-open borders and sign a 20 turn NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to sign peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.


May 7
Hi Ruff,

Thanks for your message. Once again apologies for the length, I need a lot of text to make my message crystal clear. This is 1 of 2.

I am doing very well, although I am busy. When I quit diplomacy, I didn't have time for it any longer. I'm studying Diplomacy in Belgium and I was preparing a simulation of the European Union in Buffalo, New York state. American and European students participate in that. The simulation was a success and I got an award for my role there, which involved a lot of mediating. Right now, I'm busy finishing my studies and finding a job in government or perhaps Ph.D. So I don't have a lot of time to concern myself with this Democracy Game (or perhaps rather Diplomacy Game). Occasionally I drop by and that was when I saw our turnplayer Hercules' request.

My last letter was an unapproved message. I do not know, but there might be members who would have preferred that I would not have shared what I wrote in my last message. However, it is something which I have wanted to share for a long time with you; 5 months ago. I have seen our relationship decline. And while part of the blame undoubtedly lies with you guys, we share the other half of it. It frustrated me, because we could have achieved a lot more through cooperation and I wished we had joined forces back in August.

Mutual mistrust brough us here and I had my part in that as well. There have been many occasions that I have also thought about the questions I formulated in my previous letter. Before I proceed to matters at hand, I want to ask you once more, to express your grievances and talk about the past. I do not wnat to go into a discussion of who is right or who is wrong. That was not why I openly expressed Templar feelings in my last letter. I want to understand your point of view and it is for you important to help me with that, because that will help me to place your proposals in a wider context, opssibly giving them more legitimacy.

That gets me to our current situation. I think I can convince my team members to refain from pillaging right now, but they will be hard-pressed to agree as long as your troops are assembling before Jericho, so we have a tit-for-tat situation there. One thing in return for the other.

What I need from you is something to return with to my team, to present and say: hey, look what I got from those RB bastards. 5 months ago we would have solved things differentlty. Then we were equal partners, then a proposal like the one you proposed would have worked. Now we are not equal partners. You are big, we are small. There's mistrust on my team's side. But still a couple of members said: ok we give you the benefit of the doubt. Try to get us something, but make it substantial. Now as much as I'd like to, with your current proposal, I cannot return.

While being big has advantages and being small has serious disadvantages, being big has disadvantages too and likewise being small also has certain advantages.

I understand that in this situation, your team is not happy to make an attempt to please a team with which it is at war, let alone make gifts. Who are those Templars, to be the demanding party? However, the situation is as follows. Right now, your team is second to PAL and Imperio is third. The Templars, are not one of the big and powerful teams. The chance is very small that we are going to win this game and my team members have been thinking like that. They don't see a reason to end this war, because whether we lose here or 200 turns down the road, we lose either way. Our ambition is fairly small. We are no longer in this game to win. In other, more modest ways, we can define our victory. Even if we lose, we win.

As such, we don't have to go for peace deals. In fact if we do, the team that would most benefit from such a peace deal is yours, since it grants you a shot at defeating PAL, while our chances at that are forgone anyway. There needs to be something in this for my team, something that is so valuable that it would make us decide that we would better stay in this game and fight alongside RB instead of against RB. Is that unfair to you? Perhaps it is, but such is your dilemma right now. In chess, you sometimes have to sacrifice a piece, sometimes even the queen, to win the game. That's what this situation is like. The question is whether you are prepared to make that move.

I know that would we form a three-team alliance, together we would be very strong, unbeatable perhaps, but the partner in the alliance which would win the game would be your team. My team would serve as support for that. An intact Templar partner has much more to offer you than a stale-mate or a defeated Templar team with cities in ruins. The question is how much and what are you prepared to give up for that? Likely you want something in return and I think there is still a lot the Templars can give RB in an alliance.

Consider all those things. But be careful. While it may not seem like that, I am reaching out, perhaps more than I have ever done. I can do that only once. Also, I can foresee that with the current developments, in the near future, truly unrepairable damage will have been done to the relationships between our teams. There are hard feelings on both sides now, at the current pace they will quickly increase. Now we have a chance to get past that. So do not wait to take your decision. Would you need more time, I advise whoever is making the military moves in your team to observe some constraint to the military actions, particularly around Jericho. As I said above, tit-for-tat.

Best

Aidun


May 10
Dear Templars,

We recently received a pm from Sir Aidun, seeking to negotiate a peace deal. However, once we proposed our deal to him, his reply did not make it clear whether he posted it on your boards. He seemed to imply that unless we made a very generous offer then he would not report it to you. We thought our deal was fair, but he believes he cannot report back to you unless it's heavily in your favour. To be honest, the whole thing is confusing. Does Sir Aidun speak for templars as a whole? Are the templars interested in negotiating a peace deal? He also proposed a pact to stop pillaging while we negotiate, but we are unsure whether the templars' turnplayer supports that pact. We like Sir Aidun and get along with him well. But war/peace is quite important, so we'd like the above issues cleared up.

Thanks,

Team Realms Beyond

May 18
Hi Ruff,

I hope my last letter by PM did arrive. In any case, while I would
love to take the time for these peace negotiations, other players in
the game have come knocking on our door as well.

This time PAL is seeking to court my team. We both know that it is in
PAL's interest to do so, in order to keep your team at a distance
through the war.

But like the leader of a random small country in the real world
doesn't generally turn down an offer from the President of the United
States of America, so my team finds it hard to say 'No' to a friendly
PAL, when the Templars as an individual team can benefit from it. In
fact in this time of war, the team can use any help that is being
offered.

Still, the attitude in the team is that they want to give peace a
chance if not quite for free, as I explained before, but then we
should make haste with peace deals, because we can't first say 'Yes'
to PAL and a day later turn our back on PAL. Your first proposal,
which you sent by e-mail last week was not deemed sufficient.

That said, a mistaken post by Zeviz on our wall, which Hercules
informed me about, but which I haven't been able to read, about an
all-island alliance was well-received.

I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to see what I can
get, but other members are more of a mind 'grab whatever help we can
get' and given the war situation that seems quite understandable.

The Templars are unsure which way to go, which side to choose, and as
much as I have expressed my faith in our negotations, I stand
currently rather empty-handed and with little more than messages of
good intentions from RB to convince my team. I give this hint to you
that they might need some persuasion from your team, a response to
this move from PAL. A bold move perhaps. That is a difficult situation
for you, which even real world foreign-policy makers like in the State
Department would have difficulty with, but try to make a decision om
that shortly.

Best, Aidun.

Check out the next post for the summary.

[Sullla]

OK, cutting out all of Aidun's BS, we get this:

Our proposal is:

1. An immediate peace. We re-open borders and sign a 20 turn NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to sign peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.


And the Templars (wel, Aidun speaking for them) responded with:

Still, the attitude in the team is that they want to give peace a
chance if not quite for free, as I explained before, but then we
should make haste with peace deals, because we can't first say 'Yes'
to PAL and a day later turn our back on PAL. Your first proposal,
which you sent by e-mail last week was not deemed sufficient.


So the key point is that we made fairly neutral terms for a white peace, and they rejected them. Obviously, the strategic situation has changed significantly in the last two weeks. If Templars think that they're getting the original terms of peace, or even something better, they are completely insane. Instead of running back and forth with "he said, she said" messages, they might want to start making us some real offers before we overrun the rest of their pitiful civilization. :hammer:

[ruff_hi]

How about we take Sullla's summary, dump it into a text file and send it attached to a summary such as ...


Templar,

We are attaching the full correspondance that we have had with Aidun. In that, we offered the following on May 7th:

1. An immediate peace. We re-open borders and sign a 20 turn NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to sign peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.

This was rejected by Aidun / Templar as being insufficient. At that point, we suggested that you make a counter proposal. We are still waiting for that counter proposal.

Be aware and as we stated earlier, our war preparations will continue.

Regards,

Team RB

[sunrise089]

We could also offer the following:

"Templars,

We'll take peace in exchange for Jerusalem and a 50-turn no-tech trading clause with PAL.

-RB"

[Dreylin]

So we just say:

Templars,

We did propose a peace deal. The response we got from Aidun & yourselves was "Your first proposal, which you sent by e-mail last week was not deemed sufficient" and instead of suggesting what you would want, instead we got: "There needs to be something in this for my team, something that is so valuable that it would make us decide that we would better stay in this game and fight alongside RB instead of against RB" - talk about nebulous!

In truth, we were (and are) not willing to engage in a game of 20questions to find out what terms would be acceptable to sign peace. Make us a concrete proposal and we will consider it.

TeamRB.

[ruff_hi]

nice Dreylin. I approve this message (with the attached summary of Sullla's)

[MyOtherCar]

I like Sunrise's addition as well :)

[sooooo]

Yeah fine, Dreylin's email with Ruff's attachment sounds good.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd go with Dreylin's email without attachments.

[sooooo]

Dreylin's email sent.

[Swiss Pauli]

*bump*

With Imperio switching sides, Templars have every incentive to go for an AP 'Stop The War' vote. Seeing as this could happen any time after they log in (I've no idea where are on the AP voting cycle), we should probably decide whether to vote 'No' or 'Defy'. Pink would suffer :mad: citizens as a result of defiance unless we get more :) in there.

[sooooo]

PAL will vote yes. I say defy and take the happy hit at pink. I want to build a forge next here - that should get us 2 hammers. And the 3 x whip unhappy should wear off eventually.

[Kodii]

I would defy. If by chance the motion doesn't go through anyways, we won't suffer the unhappiness.

[MyOtherCar]

Let's stop the war: by taking out Templars :evil:

[T-hawk]

Stop the War with Templars? Sounds fine to me in fact. We have nothing left to gain from Templars - we negotiated to leave the rest of the cities for Imperio. That would be a fine excuse for not attacking Jerusalem.

Plus, then we can attack Imperio (diplo talk to be sorted out later) while keeping trade routes via Templar territory.

[regoarrarr]

Hmm that's true. If it comes up, there's no reason to continue warring with Templars, right?

[sooooo]

There are a few reasons. Firstly we wouldn't be able to put down 2 settlers on the same turn as Jerusalem falls. Secondly we lose our control over when Imperio attack templars. I think it's quite powerful being able to delay capturing Jerusalem to delay Imperio getting involved. I was hoping to delay the capture enough to let banana capture Acre.

But whether those advantages outweigh the loss of units while capturing the city I am not sure.

[mostly-harmless]

If the vote comes up, it does not matter what PAL does. The vote requires 48 in favour currently. Templars have 50 votes by itself.

I say defy.

mh

[regoarrarr]

Email from templars

Team Relams Beyond


I guess with Imperio having agreed peace with Realms Beyond then we offer peace as well.

Yours Hercules

Templars

[mostly-harmless]

Hahahaha.

Will have more coherent thoughts later.

mh

[Dreylin]

:toofunny:

Do you think they actually believe that we will accept a vanilla peace at this point!?!?!?!? :dizzy:

[mostly-harmless]

"Guess again."

"We accept your fair peace offer and the gifting of Constantinople, Damascus and Acre."

"Better start to learn Spanish."

"We guess that after we have peace with Imperio, we can now show you what our real army looks like."

Come on. This is fun.

mh

[Dreylin]

How about:

"Bzzzzt. Aw sorry that was the wrong answer, looks like you chose poorly."

or maybe:

That's good, we were just about to gift you the cities you wanted ... oh no wait I have that backwards; we are just about to take those cities we wanted....

[ruff_hi]

Either we don't acknowledge the email or we say that we only recognize communication from Aidun as Templar's chief diplomat.

[mostly-harmless]

Either we don't acknowledge the email or we say that we only recognize communication from Aidun as Templar's chief diplomat.

"We would like to talk to some Templar with a better grasp of reality please."
:cool:

mh

[Kodii]

Just be careful not to accidently accept any peace proposal they offer :p

[regoarrarr]

My vote is we just ignore it

[ruff_hi]

I support "vote to ignore". And click 'no dice' in game. Actually, how about we put Templar on ignore for the balance of the game.

Can someone close this thread as we will not be using it again.

[sooooo]

I just logged in and there was a peace treaty offer. I turned it down of course. Then I read this thread and had a good chuckle.

[Dreylin]

We should certainly ignore them for at least a week to reflect their diplomatic style.

[mostly-harmless]

I just logged in and there was a peace treaty offer. I turned it down of course. Then I read this thread and had a good chuckle.

I can't believe they really offered a white peace?! :huh:

mh

[sunrise089]

Draft
Dear Templars,

We're glad you've decided to see reason. We're happy to discuss peace. We think we can make you a nice offer: leave no defenders in Jerusalem or Constantinople for 10 turns and after we capture the cities we'll agree to peace.

Let us know.

-RB

[sooooo]

I think we should send this:


Dear Hercules,

Finally a peace proposal! Unfortunately, now we have peace with Imperio we no longer require a peace treaty with yourselves. Maybe you should have sent something earlier?

Regards,

Team Realms Beyond

[Dreylin]

Can we taunt them publicly yet? :cute:

[Krill]

You always could in my eyes ;)

[MyOtherCar]

Can we taunt them publicly yet? :cute:

Would they notice?

But to keep it in theme. (http://www.jokes.thefunnybone.com/waves/fart.wav)

[MyOtherCar]

Just a nice quote from the start of the war:
If we try to list our grievences then we are in danger of coming over as a bunch of whiny dorks. Game is meant to be fun - the templars attack, the templars get smashed, we make fun of the templars is how I forsee it.

[Sullla]

Three words: Giant LOL Smiley!

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Smilies/biglol.gif


OK, serious answer: send no response. That way, they at least think that we're considering their message. Also, whenever anyone logs into the game, make SURE to reject a Templar peace offer if one pops up. They may well try to bombard us with peace offerings in the hopes of getting an accidental signing.

We can taunt them unmercifully when they have been eliminated from the game. ;)

[Dreylin]

They may well try to bombard us with peace offerings in the hopes of getting an accidental signing.
Well it's unlikely to be a bombardment since they generally only log in once per turn... ;)

[Kylearan]

That mail from Templars...:eek: :toofunny: :toofunny: :toofunny:

This is really hilarious! Man, I'm so much looking forward to reading their forum after the game has ended. I just can't wrap my mind around their personality... :dizzy: :idiot:

MyOtherCar, that quote you dig up from sooooo is indeed quite prophetic! :lol:

[ruff_hi]

remember that PM I sent Aidun in anger when Herc suggested we had a cease fire? No? Ok, here it is ...


Aidun,

This is a private message from me to you. Not from Team RB to Templar.

We just got an email from Herc saying that they thought we had a cease fire. What a load of rubbish. Go back and read all of our messages - 'cease fire' was never mentioned anywhere, by anyone. The last communication two weeks ago (2 weeks!) was us asking you to propose a peace deal.

Simply put, you should have actually read our messages and acted on them.

Ruff

Well, I just got a reply from Aidun ...
Ruff

The past two weeks I was unable to access the email or Apolyton and only first checked today. I just read Hercules' email.

We never had a cease-fire in my imperssion, although for a long time, until talks effectively broke down, neither side engaged in military action against the other, which had the same effect as a cease-fire, which I described as an 'informal kind of cease-fire'; informal since it was neither official nor agreed upon by us. I used that terminology, "informal kind of cease-fire" in a description to my team of the status quo after our first or second PM exchange. Either team was free to do as it pleased, but both did nothing until you attacked Jericho.

Simply put, under the terms which you proposed, peace was never acceptable neither by me nor by my team. I felt very disappointed by that email of your team and was preparing a reaction when I could no longer access this. I also didn't understand your message, but perhaps that is part of a greater misunderstanding between us or between your team and myself (I noted that some e-mails were no longer signed by you; I was unsure what to make of that, but assumed I was talking to different people with different preferences).

Frankly, I think you or whoever in your team wrote that last message or took the general decision to refuse to compromise, made a serious mistake, because you are wasting your resources on a war that will get you what exactly? 5 Templar cities. Take it, if that is what you want. I had no illusion that the Templars could hold out against your team. Time was to your advantage in that respect, and I knew you would use time to get your forces ready.

However, time was on my hand in a very different way. I knew that my team could wait forever to make peace, knowing that it would never have a shot at winning, but you was under pressue and you still are: with every hour that passes, PAL is one step closer to winning and you are one step further away.

It was a bargain in which I held something that was precious only because you would presumably value it highly and would accordingly be willing to pay a lot for it, at least that's the logic of bargaining. Apparently you didn't or changed your mind, which explains your message. Otherwise you made a big mistake. Peace wasn't worth a damn for us, unless it would get us something we would otherwise not get, such as territory. However you didn't want to offer that extra thing and as such your peace proposal was worthless. Worse, the peace you offered was effectively asking us to sell our pride and that is something my team and I cannot do. If my team had made peace under your conditions, I would have quit the team. I prefer to lose a game fighting than to become a vassal.

Future must tell whether you were right or not to forgo peace, but I think that if your objective is to win the game, it was a mistake to forego peace. If your objective was more limited, i.e. to let PAL win the game as long as your team could dominate the island, it was a good decision to refuse peace. Still, in that case, you should have broken off the talks unilaterally when your troops were in place instead of making a meaningless offer for peace. Which leads me to suspect that if not now then within some weeks or months you and your fellow team mates will be damning themselves when, as Hercules wrote, you won the battle, but lost the war.

Aidun

Oh my - what a laugh. They wanted to trade them delaying our progress towards victory for territory! For what - they would just let the jungle grow back. And we would be further from victory. Squashing this team is a huge step forward for us regarding our ultimate victory in this game.

If anything - the time that Templar have cost us has enabled us to practice our war tactics and for the team to grow very confident of our future battles. I think they have actually played into our hands in this regard.

[darrelljs]

Good gravy. I mean, how exactly does handing over territory to Imperio/Templars going to help us beat Imperio?

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Templars are out of their flippin' minds!

Ok, so they had no hopes to win...so somehow they will do better if we kill them completely?!?

RB is in danger of falling behind PAL...and 5 more cities will make us worse off?!?

RB should feel bad if we come in at second, but Templars should feel good if they come in dead last?!?

Finally, I love the incompetence implicit in his statement that we didn't move forward in the war until the attack on Jericho. Does he not realize from turn one of the war we were taking back the neutral lands, building cats, moving units into Jericho's forest, bombing the city down, and building roads? I guess not, because in Templar world you just march your stack straight into superior forces over a 15-turn period ;)

[timmy827]

I'm going to miss these guys after we/Imperio wipe them out ;)

@Ruff - good point about the target practice, although I fear we may get cocky. Especially people like me that rarely do MP, and mostly watch the trio of S's exhibit their tactical skill.

[Sullla]

Frankly, I think you or whoever in your team wrote that last message or took the general decision to refuse to compromise, made a serious mistake, because you are wasting your resources on a war that will get you what exactly? 5 Templar cities. Take it, if that is what you want.


That's right. We will be taking it, he he. :lol:

Anyway, this is the classic "sour grapes" message - we're going to lose, but it will cost you victory in the end, yadda yadda. Aidun even does have a point to some extent, since PAL is indeed benefiting from the conflict. However, for some bizarre reason he seems to believe that we declared war on his team. Umm... do the Templars forget that THEY declared war on US? We did not chose to start this war - they did! You can't go posting a schadenfreude "I hope the fighting was worth it" message when YOUR TEAM was the one that started it! :happyno:

Even at the death, they believe we should have ceded them territory and cities. Like... wow. :huh: This is roughly equivalent to Germany in 1945 telephoning the Red Army and demanding that eastern Poland be turned back over to them. It's so insane that it stupefies the mind. I really want to see their team forum when this is all said and done. I simply cannot understand what they were smokin' in there.

timmy, you ARE right about being careful about getting overly confident. Imperio doesn't look to be all that tactically sharp (see the uber-stack of units), but they will unquestionably be better than Templars. And PAL is all MP guys, so they will be very good indeed. We certainly won't see a pitiful Templar-quality road network ever again in this game.

[ruff_hi]

This reminds me of the movie 'The Mouse That Roared (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/)' ...

The Duchy of Grand Fenwick decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose and accept foreign aid. They send an invasion force to New York (armed with longbows) which arrives during a nuclear drill that has cleared the streets. Wandering about to find someone to surrender to, they discover a scientist with a special ultimate weapon that can destroy the Earth. When they capture him and his bomb they are faced with a new possibility: What do you do when you win a war? Written by John Vogel {jlvogel@comcast.net}

The best laid plans of mice and men ... A cold war satire emphasising the new emerged American Superpower's use of foreign aid to buy friends and keep then away from the USSR's influence. Peter Sellers, as the scheming Prime Minister of Grand Fenwick, plots with Peter Sellers, as the scheming Grand Duchess, to declare war on the USA, lose and get that foreign aid. Unfortunately, they forget to tell Peter Sellers, as Tully Bascombe, commander of their mediaeval army. This honourable man does his best for his country and through a series of unbelievable circumstances (well, this is a comedy) to win. Now, who has to give aid to whom?

[T-hawk]

Time for another round of devil's advocate from me. :) I actually understand Templars' position here. Their only shot at getting back in the game was to somehow wheedle territory from us. So why not try it?

I can also understand "rather lose than play as your vassal". Take their elimination as a good sport and bow out gracefully, rather than spend another year playing out a farce.

Finally, as for who's the aggressor now... we are. They offered a white peace and we declined. They want peace, we want war.

The only place I disagree with their position is where they think an RB-Templars alliance has a better chance of beating PAL than RB alone after conquering Templars. They can't credibly research or attack, and we're better off just taking the land ourselves.

[Sullla]

Finally, as for who's the aggressor now... we are. They offered a white peace and we declined. They want peace, we want war.


I know you're just playing devil's advocate, but I feel compelled to point out that this was AFTER Templars declared war on us, and AFTER they rejected our own white peace offer. Again, it's Germany in 1945 saying, "what's all this talk of unconditional surrender? Let's just agree to status quo antebellum, ok?"

Diplomacy has to include at least some measure of the events that transpired. :p

[sooooo]

I don't think that Templars thought for a second that we'd accept the peace deal, but thought they have nothing to lose by trying anyway. I also agree with T-Hawk that their diplomatic strategy isn't that crazy. They had no reason to sign peace before but now they do have a reason to sign peace. I doubt they believed in either case that they'd get what they want, but they were right to ask.

Their predicament is simply that they aren't as good as us at Civilization 4. They just didn't build the right things in their cities in the early game. Didn't build enough workers or settlers and didn't use them efficiently enough. Didn't build the right military at the right time. Didn't improve the right tiles. Didn't work the right tiles. Sent their stack of units to get slaughtered. Didn't adequately defend Jericho. Didn't chop the forest outside Jericho. Didn't build enough defensive catapults.

They probably don't even know that they aren't as good at Civilization 4 and are blaming their predicament on bad luck, our sneakiness etc. That's why they believe that they are more help to us alive than if we have their cities.

[sunrise089]

Time for another round of devil's advocate from me. :) I actually understand Templars' position here. Their only shot at getting back in the game was to somehow wheedle territory from us. So why not try it?

I can also understand "rather lose than play as your vassal". Take their elimination as a good sport and bow out gracefully, rather than spend another year playing out a farce.

Finally, as for who's the aggressor now... we are. They offered a white peace and we declined. They want peace, we want war.

The only place I disagree with their position is where they think an RB-Templars alliance has a better chance of beating PAL than RB alone after conquering Templars. They can't credibly research or attack, and we're better off just taking the land ourselves.

Sullla is the historian, not me, but my sense is that if you were a maritime power in 1500AD your best bet for growing more powerful wasn't to invade your European continental neighbors, especially the strongest one. Templars could have either decided to gang up with us against Imperio or tried to head to the new world early, both of which make more sense than unilaterally invading their largest neighbor.

[T-hawk]

Again, it's Germany in 1945 saying, "what's all this talk of unconditional surrender? Let's just agree to status quo antebellum, ok?"

Except that Templars have not threatened to end the freedom of the free world. And don't have a past habit of trying once and then quickly rebuilding to try again. And the Allies vs Germany were not overshadowed by a bigger power threatening to run away. Templars never even approached a city. It's more akin to the Mexican-American War than WWII. A border skirmish declared by one party is used as an excuse by the other party to conquer gobs of territory on the way to global superpower status.

We're the aggressors now. It's perfectly justified as gameplay, but let's not pretend that we're not wronging the Templars here.

[ruff_hi]

Except that Templars have not threatened to end the freedom of the free world. And don't have a past habit of trying once and then quickly rebuilding to try again. And the Allies vs Germany were not overshadowed by a bigger power threatening to run away. Templars never even approached a city. It's more akin to the Mexican-American War than WWII. A border skirmish declared by one party is used as an excuse by the other party to conquer gobs of territory on the way to global superpower status.

We're the aggressors now. It's perfectly justified as gameplay, but let's not pretend that we're not wronging the Templars here.

re my bold above - there is some argument that Germany was forced into going to war again due to the heavy penalties levied on it out of WWI. At least that is how Hitler was able to position himself.

However, you Mexian-American war is a much better analogy.

Finally - pls note that I know next to nothing about history apart from the stuff I lean on band of brothers and similar true stories :)

[Sullla]

Templars never even approached a city.


O rly? What about this screenshot from T133? ;)

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=161656&stc=1&d=1239906295

That was after sunrise boldly attacked and killed their two horse archers with our maces, I might add. I suppose they were out for a Sunday stroll then, hmmm? :p

Or what about our latest escapade with Templars?

http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/7915/pdt152.jpg

Come on, T-Hawk. Cut the revisionist history. (I get enough of that already in my line of work! :lol: ) It's not that Templars "never even approached a city", it's rather that we cut their attacking forces to shreds before they could reach our towns. Don't make excuses for their own poor tactical play! They thought that they were going to waltz right into Pink Dot because all our units were tied up in the north against Imperio. They were the aggressor, they were wrong, and now they're paying for it.

How about this analogy: Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Emperor Napoleon III of France gets angry at the growing power and influence of Bismarck's Prussia, rashly declares war and invades the Rhineland, only to see his forces get ripped to shreds by the vastly superior Prussian army. France suffers a total military disaster at Sedan, Prussia counter-invades and eventually captures Paris, where France has to sign a humiliating peace treaty as the new German Empire is proclaimed. That's a better historical analogy than the ones we're been using thus far. :cool:

OK, I know this is all totally meaningless spinning in circles here, and of course I'm just messing around with T-Hawk, but I'm really anxious to get to the next turn. When are we going to get the patch in place? Argh.

[sunrise089]

Except that Templars have not threatened to end the freedom of the free world. And don't have a past habit of trying once and then quickly rebuilding to try again. And the Allies vs Germany were not overshadowed by a bigger power threatening to run away. Templars never even approached a city. It's more akin to the Mexican-American War than WWII. A border skirmish declared by one party is used as an excuse by the other party to conquer gobs of territory on the way to global superpower status.

We're the aggressors now. It's perfectly justified as gameplay, but let's not pretend that we're not wronging the Templars here.

Sure they did. RB is the free world, both in realpolitik terms and in real terms. Subjectively, it would be suicidal for our nation (for role playing purposes) or our team to see us as anything other than the best nation on the terra world. There isn't a mechanism for peaceful transfer of power with in a civ :) Objectively, we've played an honorable game to this point. So has Banana and Rabbits, but both have traded with the evildoers more than us. I think we have the moral high ground.

Furthermore while the Allies were not overshadowed by another power, the U.S. and Britain certainly were. By 1945s many Germans felt their best attempt at peace was to get the troops marching in from the west to ally with them and attack the Red Army. I don't care to get into the moral merits of that proposal, but the Germans were right that left unchecked the Russians would dominate (geographically) much more of the continent than any single other power.

[Swiss Pauli]

Their predicament is simply that they aren't as good as us at Civilization 4. They just didn't build the right things in their cities in the early game. Didn't build enough workers or settlers and didn't use them efficiently enough. Didn't build the right military at the right time. Didn't improve the right tiles. Didn't work the right tiles. Sent their stack of units to get slaughtered. Didn't adequately defend Jericho. Didn't chop the forest outside Jericho. Didn't build enough defensive catapults.


That's quite right, and we have to be thankful for that: their appreciation of the metagame was sound, their strategies of trying to wheedle land from us, then to ally with Imperio against us were both sound, too. They simply lack the requisite turnplay skills to turn a cunning plan into a winning one.

[MyOtherCar]

Finally - pls note that I know next to nothing about history apart from the stuff I lean on band of brothers and similar true stories :)
Don't forget your Civ education. You know almost all of the ancient world wonders, lots of famous world leaders in history and even get to chat with one of the most famous Dictators of ancient Rome!

[timmy827]

How about this analogy: Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Emperor Napoleon III of France gets angry at the growing power and influence of Bismarck's Prussia, rashly declares war and invades the Rhineland, only to see his forces get ripped to shreds by the vastly superior Prussian army. France suffers a total military disaster at Sedan, Prussia counter-invades and eventually captures Paris, where France has to sign a humiliating peace treaty as the new German Empire is proclaimed. That's a better historical analogy than the ones we're been using thus far. :cool:


Not sure...France in 1870 was at least a great power, and surprised by a new model of warfare when their professional army was quickly outnumbered via Prussia's rapid mobilization of a large reserve force with railroads. (Too bad the templar DOW came too early for us to pull this trick!) Templars on the other hand were always incompetent.

I think I like Prussia's DOW of the original Napoleon in 1806 - the specifics don't line up, but the general model of clueless diplomacy (sitting out the Third Coalition, then going to war essentially alone against a clearly superior power) matches up OK with the lack of coordination between Templars/Imperio aside from the initial DOW. And of course, the rapid and crushing defeat the clueless aggressor suffered:)

re my bold above - there is some argument that Germany was forced into going to war again due to the heavy penalties levied on it out of WWI. At least that is how Hitler was able to position himself.


Forced? Sorry, even though ruff isn't directly advocating this view, I feel compelled to weigh in. The (in)actions of Britain and France in 1930's showed they were willing to live with a Germany that rearmed itself and annexed essentially all of the German-speaking peoples (Austria, Sudetenland). Saying they were "forced" to go further is absurd. But of course, many of the losers of WWI were eager to try to be winners in the next round...


Furthermore while the Allies were not overshadowed by another power, the U.S. and Britain certainly were. By 1945s many Germans felt their best attempt at peace was to get the troops marching in from the west to ally with them and attack the Red Army. I don't care to get into the moral merits of that proposal, but the Germans were right that left unchecked the Russians would dominate (geographically) much more of the continent than any single other power.

It is sort of tragic from the German perspective that they pulled so many troops off the eastern front post-DDay to oppose the western Allies, probably moving the Iron Curtain boundary west of Berlin in the process. Hard to feel to sorry for them though, the Communist postwar oppression was terrible but nowhere near as gross the wholesale butchery of the Nazis in Poland and Russia.

[ruff_hi]

This reminds me of the movie 'The Mouse That Roared (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/)' ...

I send a very short pm to Aidun with the link to the above movie. It seems he is also looking for real world parallels between TRB and Templars ...


Ruff,

Interesting movie, judging from the description. I haven't seen it. You seem a couple of years older than I am.

I know my team declared war and I can't disclose more about it than I already did in previous letters. However, I can say that my team has felt cornered throughout the game, so that who actually made the formal declaration of war has lost all relevance, it was only a formality. The war was declared long before the fighting started and that declaration of war was when your team founded Pink Dot. That move announced a cold war from my team's perspective, one which we could long sustain, but at the price of economic development and expansion. You can see that beautifully when you check the curves.

The problem lies in a belief-system that creates a deadly trap. It works that when you see the enemy grow more powerful and you expect to be his target, that you have no choice but to do the best you can to deter him by keeping up in power. However, by doing that you inevitably leave the initiative and control over the process in your enemy's hands. For every unit he produces you will have to do the same, no matter how high the long-term cost, since you can't afford to get invaded.

Additionally, failure to have sufficient security in the short term gets you invaded and any long-term benefits you got by sacrificing on security are worthless since you will never live to experience them. Therefore, it is entirely rational to focus exclusively on a short-term arms race and ignore long-term needs like expansion and economic development.

That is how the US defeated the USSR. The USSR paid for short term security by relinquishing long-term economic development. Your team has used a similar strategy, knowingly or unknowingly, to defeat my team.

Simply ignoring the short-term need for security is impossible because of the belief-system: you can't leave your homeland poorly defended when you expect to be attacked, that is irrational and irresponsible. But if it turns out that by luck you are not attacked, you escape the trap.

The only rational way out of the trap is to change the belief-system: by no longer believing that you will be attacked. Then the need for excessive military production disappears and you can freely focus on long-term development. However, it is extremely hard to change the belief-system: you need very concrete evidence to believe in the opponent's peaceful intentions. So the belief-system really creates a deadly trap, from which rational players can hardly escape. From a scientific point of view a very interesting piece of game theory.

The way to traditionally get evidence is by signing a treaty and that is what has continuously failed for numerous reasons, mistrust and an uncompromising nature of negotiations being the prime reasons. In the absence of such an agreement or other evidence, it is folly to believe that you will not be attacked and you continue to stay in the trap and get entrenched ever deeper.

Of course the reality is a bit more complex, but the above describes fairly accurately the kind of game our teams were engaged in and which brought us to the current outcome.

Looking back I may ask myself several questions. One example: Should we have occupied the barb city south of Pink Dot back in October (or around that time)? We didn't, since we agreed not to. I feel we played too honorably. But what would have happened if we had captured the barb city and broken our promise? In any case I will have to place less trust in making agreements with other teams, since these have all been broken. In that respect, in addition to a couple of crucial mistakes, my team was backstabbed one time too many by many players in this game, once my team is completely defeated, I can tell more about that and I'd love to.

I hold no grudge about all that, but I wished some dealings had gone a completely different way, better cooperation and such.

Have fun.

Aidun

They must hold some pretty big grudges against us at the moment. I wonder what all of our back-stabbing has been. It will be interesting to compare notes.

My memory of the events is that we wanted to talk NAP and they wouldn't have a bar of it without a border agreement. Seems we really mind-f**ked them on that one. If they sign the NAP, they then have the ability to run minimal defense and grab the land they wanted ... they just couldn't trust that we would not break the NAP, so they kept on building military and not expanding.

If they had kept the barb city - I am pretty sure we would have just gone 'oh well, on with the game' and left it at that. Lucky they read our super strong power curve as multiple units instead of paper and shadows :D.

[sooooo]

who actually made the formal declaration of war has lost all relevance, it was only a formality

Ah, that old chestnut! I was wondering when that line would appear from Templars.

[Dreylin]

I admit I wasn't around at the time, but they really agreed not to occupy that Barb city!? Our silver-tongued diplomats must have been working overtime to get them to agree to that ... or they were extremely foolish to agree.

Besides, don't I remember them saying at some point that they didn't want to settle in the jungle yet because it would have been too much of an effort to develop ... yeah, with their one Worker.

[regoarrarr]

I couldn't remember what had happened with that barb city, so I took a look. It's on page 6 of the first Templars thread if you want to look on.

Summary:
We noticed the barb city pop up
We emailed them asking "What do you want to do about it"
They said they didn't want to keep it and suggested razing it.

Silver tongues indeed :lol:

[ruff_hi]

Summary:
We noticed the barb city pop up
We emailed them asking "What do you want to do about it"
They said they didn't want to keep it and suggested razing it.

Yep - that was my recollection of the event too. We sent them brain waves suggesting razing it, they got nervous about having a city close to PD and razed it. Too funny!

[mostly-harmless]

This brings me out of temporary lurker mode. Templars are really misjudging our civs development during the last 70turns. We were not engaged in an arms race with them but with imperio. And they will see that soon, when out main army attacks as well. Also we managed to scout the world and land several wonders. Those guys are have their heads up their butts. Pardon my french. They just think they played a more impo
rtant role. They will be gone before rabbits even.
Mh

[Sullla]

Yep, regoarrarr is right. For Krill (or any latecomers reading this thread), here is the exact exchange that went down over the barb city (with me trimming out extraneous parts from the emails):

Sep. 9
Greetings Templars:

The RB team appreciate your pledge regarding not expanding in the contested region. I expect that you will have noticed the new Barbarian City that popped in the 'buffer zone' between RB and yourself. I've been asked to contact you regarding your intentions vis-à-vis said city. Since the city is located in this zone, we are not planning to capture it in the foreseeable future, but we might send a unit (maybe 2) to absorb barbarian incursions likely to originate from it.

What are the Templar's thoughts regarding this city?



Sep. 10 (with my emphasis added)
Hi Ruff,

Barbarian city
Yes, we did notice the Barbarian city and have already dispatched a Quechua to it to investigate, we found the city of Harappan there sitting on top of the Stone resource, currently size 1 and guarded by 2 Warriors.

Our feelings are that that city being in our buffer zone is a potential threat to our relationship and it's therefore best to destroy it. Its location right on top of the stone isn't optimal anyway, even if it wasn't in disputed territory we wouldn't want to capture and keep it, so razing it is the only option in our view. There might be some benefit in keeping it around for a while to milk it for experience points, but as noted the threat that one of us might take it without consulting the other could form a continuous dark cloud over our relationship, which in our opinion isn't worth it for a few XP points.

In the spirit of building trust between our teams, we would like to propose a joint military operation to attack and destroy that city: with 1 or 2 of your units and 1 or 2 of ours taking the city would be a piece of cake. The spoils of war resulting from the capture could be shared equally between our teams, with the provision that if one of us loses more units than the other that should be compensated for in the distribution (perhaps a 33-67 split would be the simplest way to settle that? A small, undeveloped city like that isn't likely to either yield much gold or require much sacrifice to eliminate anyway).



Sep. 22
Dear Ruff,

It has been 12 days since Wouter sent you our last message and 8 since you sent us a brief message to confirm that you received his letter. Since then, there has been no communication between us.

Perhaps you could get back to us soon about the proposed joint military operation in the south to remove the barbarian city. We cannot wait too long with that.

Please get back to us soon so that we might coordinate our joint military operation against the barbarian city.



Sep. 22
Sir Aidun,

Totally forgot to reply. That is what happens when you go on vacation for your birthday. I've got a draft around here somewhere - will need to get RB Team sign off and then I will flick it your way. Part of that reply was about the Barb city in the South - feel free to engage your troops without waiting for us ... we'll have some units there shortly but don't wait for us. And as you are taking the risk, keep the gold from razing it.

I'll have a fully reply for you shortly.

Ruff



Sep. 23
Sir Aidun,

Barbarian City
As I noted in my short reply, we'll have some units heading that way shortly, but don't wait for us if you want to kill that city. Also, as you are taking the unit risk - feel free to keep the proceeds.


And that was the last that we discussed the barb city, which Templars razed just as they said they would. Any Templar anger over that location is purely in their heads: we simply asked them about their intentions, they told us they wanted to raze it, and asked us to join them in the attempt!!! :lol: We failed to do so because our defense was entirely smoke-and-mirrors at the time.

Aidun's comments in his concluding paragraph are entirely BS. We forced them to do nothing they weren't already planning to do.

[Sullla]

I know my team declared war and I can't disclose more about it than I already did in previous letters. However, I can say that my team has felt cornered throughout the game, so that who actually made the formal declaration of war has lost all relevance, it was only a formality. The war was declared long before the fighting started and that declaration of war was when your team founded Pink Dot. That move announced a cold war from my team's perspective, one which we could long sustain, but at the price of economic development and expansion. You can see that beautifully when you check the curves.


OK, sorry for double-posting, but it's not like there's anything going on in the game at the moment. I call BS on this one too! Templars' claim that they had to give up economic development and expansion to build military is total nonsense. I know this very well because I was tracking their Soldier count every turn for the first 130 turns of the game! ;)

Let's go to the tape:

http://apolyton.net/upload/view/27565_ADG-33.jpg

(Linked to avoid scrolling the window.) Power tracking for the first 75t. Notice how Templars are sitting in DEAD F'ING LAST PLACE for almost this entire stretch. They were also one of the last teams in the entire world to research Iron Working, not getting it until T80. Hardly the actions of a team that claimed to be in a "Cold War" with us from the start of the game.

Or if you look at the contemporary Power bar graph:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162451&stc=1&d=1244995827

You'll see that RB and Templars were running neck-and-neck in Power rating right up until the AD crossover, at which time Imperio began a huge military buildup and we had no choice but to respond. If Templars believe that military was intended for them, well, they simply disastrously misread the situation. We were simply trying to defend what we had against Imperio, but by pre-emptively going on the attack against a phantom danger, Templars created a self-fulfilling prophecy that we would attack them.

(Yes, we were planning on attacking Templars eventually, but not with the forces that they are referring to.)

Anyway, this still begs the question: if we were engaging in this "Cold War" buildup of military forces, how did we manage to also expand so well, snag wonders, and keep up in technology? Plus successfully fight and win a 2 vs. 1 war?! As you guys have pointed out, the Templars' real problem is that they just aren't very good at this game. :hammer:

[ruff_hi]

First time through Aidun's email, I miss read this part (near the end) ...


Looking back I may ask myself several questions. One example: Should we have occupied the barb city south of Pink Dot back in October (or around that time)? We didn't, since we agreed not to. I feel we played too honorably. But what would have happened if we had captured the barb city and broken our promise? In any case I will have to place less trust in making agreements with other teams, since these have all been broken. In that respect, in addition to a couple of crucial mistakes, my team was backstabbed one time too many by many players in this game, once my team is completely defeated, I can tell more about that and I'd love to.

I highlighted the 'red' part. Aidun is saying that all (or nearly all) of the players in this game back-stabbed Templars. If he thinks that Imperio's declaration of peace with us is a back-stab ... what will he call it when (if;)) they declare on Templar?

Oh - and given Aidun's wordy nature, I am pretty sure that 'his agreements' were not even recognized as such by the other teams.

[TAD]

Ah, that old chestnut! I was wondering when that line would appear from Templars.

Nods. You got to be kidding me with this one. A declaration of war is never a formality. It is when things finally break down.

[sooooo]

There is a chance that we may need templars for one last favour. Once we capture jerusalem and constantinople and we are at war with imperio (not necessarily in that order ;)) we may want to get peace with Templars again, since we probably will not have astronomy by then and will need the trade routes once more. Therefore I suggest we send a simple and polite:


Dear Hercules,

Thankyou for your email. RB have discussed and we have decided not to accept your peace offer at the present time.

Regards,

Realms Beyond

[Dreylin]

Yeah, send them something. At least that way the ball is back in their court.

[sooooo]

Email sent.

[mostly-harmless]

Looks like we won't need that thread anymore.
Just a heads up, that Templars are applying as refugees to PAL (long with a gifted boat).

Not, that I want any Templars lurking our forums, but should we sent them a message saying "Jumping from one sinking ship to another is a bad plan."? ;)

I can imagine, what a bunch of whiny Templars will do to PAL.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Maybe they can watch and learn...

[mostly-harmless]

7/23/09 4:50 am Naldoimperio Score increased to 1219
7/23/09 4:50 am Templars Eliminated
7/23/09 4:50 am Templars Finished turn
7/23/09 4:42 am Naldoimperio Logged in



File closed. ;)

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Not quite...let the taunting begin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmYGpxuYpJQ

[MyOtherCar]

7/23/09 4:50 am Naldoimperio Score increased to 1219
7/23/09 4:50 am Templars Eliminated
7/23/09 4:50 am Templars Finished turn
7/23/09 4:42 am Naldoimperio Logged in



File closed. ;)

mh

And even Rabbits are still alive!!!!

[mostly-harmless]

Rabbits will finish 2nd or 3rd in this game

mh

[ruff_hi]

I sent our favourite diplomat (Aidun, in case you have forgotten) a pm with info about the game finishing, our thread being open and a link to Sullla's summary.

[sooooo]

Yeah it would be nice to hear from Aidun again.

[sooooo]

I think we should probably lay off the templars in the public forum. No more name calling (sorry for my part in that).

[Iamjohn]

Our team has been a bit harsh... ;)

Very nice summary so far Sulla, thanks for all the hard work. :)

[Krill]

This is a public forum...