PEACE diplomatic exchanges

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Also, with regards to the Pirates.... I'm glad you two are such close allies

indeed!

[Nubclear]

A translation from Politicalese to English.

Greetings most honoured Ambassador Flubber,

I hope you die soon,

I haven't received many comments yet from the Collective, but I'll already give you the opinion of the External Affairs Functionality.

Nobody has posted much yet, but everyone hates you so I know what their gonna say.

We don't have any problem with the first part of your communiqué. This means we would be willing to switch our research to Ethical Calculus after you have given us Doctrine: Flexibility, and give that tech to you to finish the Industrial Automation deal.

regarding the first part of your communique, you've been a very good doggie. Heres a bone.

We do have some questions about the second part of your communiqué.

Were smart enough to know when were being had.

In the first paragraph you say you want a tech plus another 40 credits in return for DocFlex. The reason you offer is because you are trading for a tech which you will only get several years down the road.

With regards to the first paragraph: No.

However in the paragraph below that you present yet another series of conditions and extra burdens for us, again with as reason because you will only get a tech in return several years down the road.

With regards to the paragraph below the first: HELL No.

So just to be clear I have to ask: Do you want a tech and some interests or mortgage in return for DocFlex, or do you want a tech, interest or mortgage and 40 credits?

You are testing my patience. Which is it?!

As for the proposal itself, we believe it would be acceptable for us not to trade DocFlex to any other faction we meet until we repay you our debts. We do pose serious questions about your requests for credits though. The small advantage we would gain by trading with you does not justify the amounts of credits you are asking.

We're gonna trade with other factions, but we won't tell you about it.
Anyway, were not the fools you are. This is a terrible deal which we will not accept.

To make our case more clear, we would like to remind you that we will research DocFlex ourselves in a mere five turns. Also we would like to bring to your attention again the fact that both the Believers and Angels possess knowledge of Doctrine : Flexibility. Because I, Mani Alpha-3, expected the traditional difficulties in our negotiations with you, PEACE, I asked the Internal Affairs Function to build up an energy credit reserve. That reserve is steadily building up. In a few turns we will have around 100 to 150 credits. If you cannot or will not offer us a sufficiently beneficial deal around the principle one-tech-for-one-tech, we will use that cash reserve to buy DocFlex from the faction that gives us a better deal.

Were gonna get the tech within a few turns anyway, and we can always go to the DataAngels or the Believers for the SAME tech.
I knew you would try to take us for fools, so I got some money. If you continue to pretend we are your vassals, then we'll simply pack up our stuff and play elsewhere. I'm sure the Hive/Drones would love to have an ally to fight certain factions in the game.

We can buy DocFlex from three different factions. Please keep in mind that we are doing you a favour by negotiating with you first, and offering you the ability to tell us freely what techs you would prefer in exchange for DocFlex.

We already have other sources, and we can easily kill you off. Either give us a better deal or die.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3
External Affairs Function

Bastards,

Mani Alpha-3
External Affairs Function

Note that my letter is not copywritten, so you may use it at any time
I love watching diplomatic relations sour. It makes for interesting arguments

[Maniac]

LOL!

[Corellion]

What an incredibly accurate translation. I'm sure you could go through all our other communiques and find the exact same thing applies.

[Maniac]

DocFlex negotiations

Below is the edited and slightly elaborated PM I sent to PEACE.

***

Greetings most honoured Ambassador Flubber, and Captain Hercules also online at this moment,

Your communiqué has been reviewed by the Collective, and as head of the External Affairs Functionality I have been asked to provide you our reaction.

The first part of your communiqué was received positively. We would be more than happy to switch our research to Ethical Calculus after you have given us Doctrine: Flexibility, and give that tech to you to finish the Industrial Automation deal.

Some questions were raised about the second part of your communiqué.

In the first paragraph you say you want a tech plus another 40 credits in return for DocFlex. The reason you offer is because you are trading for a tech which you will only get several years down the road.

However in the paragraph below that you present yet another series of conditions and burdens for us, again with as reason because you will only get a tech in return several years down the road.

This apparent double payment you ask for the delay you suffer confuses the analysts we have ordered to investigate your message. So just to be clear we have to ask: Do you want a tech and some interests or mortgage in return for DocFlex, or do you want a tech, interest or mortgage and 40 credits?

As for the proposal itself, we consider it reasonable for us not to trade DocFlex to any other faction we meet until we repay you our debts. We do pose serious questions about your requests for credits. The small advantage we would gain by trading with you does not justify the amount of credits you are asking.

To make our case more clear, we would like to remind you that we will research DocFlex ourselves in a mere five turns. Also we would like to bring to your attention again the fact that both the Believers and Angels possess knowledge of Doctrine : Flexibility. A few years ago, on the External Affairs Functionality's request the Internal Affairs Functionality started to build up an energy credit reserve. In a few turns we will have around 100 to 150 credits. If you cannot or will not offer us a sufficiently beneficial deal around the principle one-tech-for-one-tech, we will use that cash reserve to buy DocFlex from a faction that gives us a better deal.

The External Affairs Functionality thought it had made its position about this deal clear in the past, but let us repeat ourselves:

If you would be willing to provide us data of Doctrine : Flexibility, we are willing to repay you in two possible ways:

1) A lump sum of energy credits. As we can buy DocFlex elsewhere in the near future, we were hoping on a competitive price. Something around 80 credits perhaps?

2) A technology we provide you in the near future, or immediately, depending on your desires. Please note that your argument that you are trading for an unknown tech at some unknown future time is false. We have repeatedly asked you what specific tech you would prefer in return. We of course hope you would ask something of equal value to DocFlex, which is a level 2 tech. Furthermore we have techs available we could offer you in return right away. It is your choice to not accept those techs and wait for us to research another tech instead. Please also note that under this optional deal, we would not pay you one microcredit extra.

We can buy DocFlex from three different factions. Please keep in mind that we are doing you a favour by negotiating with you first, and offering you the ability to tell us freely what techs you would prefer in exchange for DocFlex.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3
External Affairs Function

[Corellion]

Looks good. Although they'll probably respond with the standard "the fact that you'd be willing to trade with the AI rather than you pact brothers saddens us..." etc. etc. etc.

[Maniac]

Well then I could respond with "it saddens us you force us to trade with the AI."

Anyway, the tone of my PM is not really friendly, but how else can you tell them their proposal is plain ridiculous?

[Nubclear]

Hmm....

AMERICANESE (TNGR):

You ********, that deal blows!!!

AMERICANESE (ADLT):

You ********, that deal sucks!!!

EUROPEANESE:

Um.....no.

RUSSIAN:

At present, your deal is laughable. Please come back to us when you have a deal worthy of our attention.

CHINESE:

Yoo deew noo goo!

TENG VIET:

Youwi deali naowi good! Youwi suuk!

AUSTRALIAN:

You sheep-****ers, that deal plain sucks!

CANADIAN:

Um....uh.....We love you and all but....uh....well....your deal....kinda.....is....not....good?

GODESE:

By decree of the CyConian Imperial Council, the deal presented by the mortals called "PEACE" is rejected by a unanimous vote.

GODLISH:

How dare you, mortal?! I will crush you for your insolence!

I hope I've been of some help

[Corellion]

Um....uh.....We love you and all but....uh....well....your deal....kinda.....is....not....good?

[Maniac]

I received two other PMs from Flubber. Let me post them:

Re: DocFlex negotiations

Honored Mani Alpha-3
External Affairs Function

I have received your message and will seek instructions from my faction.

I do have a couple of points of explanation and my personal reaction:

1. We are not trying to make a double request for credits. The 40 ec was premised on the idea that you would have to research a new level 2 tech and it would take you around 10-12 years to get that so it was a fee for the use of doc flex until you pay for it . If you can get a tech to us quicker, I would be pleased to recommend dropping this fee. There are scenarios where it could be many more years for us to get a tech back in this deal . Fundamentally even if one agrees that a tech is worth a tech, I can't accept that a tech now is worth the same as a tech 10 years from now. Time matters . . ..

2. The mortgage and the "interest" were totally a result of you folks researching doc flex before completing your trade obligations. It is taking you many many years to meet your obligation and you don't seem to have placed ANY priority at all on completing the prior deal or indicating when it maight be completed. We went out of our way to make it so that these " penalty" elements don't apply if you get a tech to us in a reasonable time. Interest is a pittance until year 15-- your rejection of the interest concept causes me great worry as to when you would intend to return a tech.

3. If you have a level 2 tech to trade or will soon get one , then offer it and we would be pleased to do a one-for one tech deal. Make a concrete offer for a level 2 tech that you know you will have. You want us to request a specific Level 2 tech?? I think we would be delighted with any of them if you could get it to us in a reasonable time.

4. yes you could possibly get doc flex elsewhere ( AIs can be touchy) but we can certainly get all the level 1 techs elsewhere quite easily. We both have other options but we have been coming to you first every time in the interests of the pact .


YOUR OFFER

You are offering us EITHER

a) 80 ec -- I will pass this one on as maybe people will like this-- IT is immediate and concrete.

OR

b) a tech--

immediately-- I think we have everything you have that we want-- IF you can acquire something we don't see, offer it !!!

-- in the future-- this is what we want if there is no immediate tech suitable and available--BUt if that tech will not come for a number of years, is that a fair "one-for one trade"??

while I accept the idea of tech for tech-- I can't accept that a tech now is equal to a tech provided 10 years from now. It just don't seem fair that if we accept your form of proposed tech deal, we give a tech and get nothing back immediately. Put another way, here is no cost to you or benefit to us at the time of the trade.

Ambassador Flubber

The second PM, sent an hour later, is called "personal diplomatic note", but it doesn't contain much personal remarks. It just seems another way of repeating the same arguments, so I'll post it here too:

Personal diplomatic note

This message is an off the record individual response and not part of our official forum discussion-- Just like real life I am thinking that some back channel frank discussion can help us out here


I was very disappointed with your reaction to our offer. I thought 40 ec was a very reasonable price to get a tech many years before you pay us back. . .. and it could be a lot of years if we managed to acquire your next research target.

I thought you guys would want to try to "make friends "after deliberately NOT heading for a tech that would pay us back on the prior deal . I had been arguing in favor of a " Pact-for -life" where we team up to the end but the tone and finality of your message does not help-- In my message I had tried to explain our rationale and made a very lengthy message to try to set a friendly tone. There was stuff in there to protect us but we tried to make it so none of the penalty stuff applied if you even made an attempt to get a tech back to us.


I want to make a deal because if this falls apart, I fear what it will mean to our long-term relations if we can't agree on a simple tech trade. I believe that we could win this thing if we acted together. I also thought you would want to deal with us to lead to even closer relations and hopefully more trade. As an aside, we have been offered far more than a single tech for doc flex by others so your response does not fare well in comparison.

I am also suprised by the pedantic requirement of tech for tech since you guys requested and GOT an extra 20 ec from me in the original trade we did when we were researching plan nets and got soc psych back to you on the next turn after flipping. The cycon rationale was that you would not have an immediate use for it.

I have tried to look at this thing from your point of view and I can't blame you for wanting doc flex at the cheapest possible price. We have to try to be competitive. But getting anything from the AI is a tricky proposition so are you really guaranteed to get it from them??

If you try to look at it from our point of view you would see that:

the immediate tech offer --nothing really interesting there unless you have something I don't recall

Future tech-- just seems fundamentally unfair-- I just can't accept this since frankly it seems like we are getting screwed if there is no additional compensation

Energy credits-- a possibility-- at least we get something now we care about


SO our challenge is to find a deal that looks competitive enough on your side and doesn't feel like we are getting shafted on our end. I'll feel out the ec alone option but I know our faction is MOST interested in tech. However, if you can't offer a decent tech within a few years, there HAS to be something more for us. If you can't offer anything I think the tech option is completely dead and only the tech for cash option is feasible.



The official factional response will probably come after I review the forum after work tomorrow-- I hope we can come up with a counter-offer but if you confirm that there will "not be a microcredit more" on the tech for tech trade, I won't waste my time on that and will look at the energy only option.

I hope this message helps in us reaching a deal if one is possible

Flub

Both his PMs can be responded by using arguments I already used in my previous PM. I'll get to it in a few hours. In the meanwhile if someone has suggestions what to write in my communiqués, please give them.
I'll also start a poll with the question: Should we be willing to give PEACE, besides a tech, also energy credits to get DocFlex?

Edit: Oh yes, from his "personal" PM I get the impression they won't be willing to agree with a tech-for-tech deal. So is it ok if I focus on a lump sum of energy credits?

[Corellion]

You know, after we get Doc:Flex, the Cycon have a special ability that will provide us with an alternate way to get the techs we want from them.

[Phenix]

Argh, i hate the diplomatic bs that always seems to come up in those trades with PEACE!!

they do have a point tho... What they're offering isn't really fair, but I can understand their side:
we still owe them a tech and we're already asking for another one.

If you examine it objectively, the time they have to wait is not so bad. But it has a psychologic effect: they'll be 2 techs behind us in trade for some years, with no extra benefit (i.e. the EC's they're asking )

At this moment, the best option seems buying/trading for DocFlex with the AI. This will (as Flubber states) seriously harm our long-term relations with Peace though...

I'd be willing to give them something like 20-30 EC with interest, or 40 without interest. If they don't want to compromise, IMHO go for the AI trade

[Maniac]

Hi Flubber,

I have read your two PMs. You seem willing to drop the roleplaying aspect and the politicalese for a while. I will too.

After I read your previous PM, I started a poll among the CyCon asking whether we should offer you a tech and credits in return for DocFlex. Based on previous discussion about this matter and based on the preliminary poll results I think it is safe to say we will not agree to pay "even one microcredit more" in a tech-for-tech deal. So I would recommend to focus on the tech-for-energy option in the PEACE discussions.

In response to your arguments saying we should pay you more credits: your arguments would be valid when we were dealing with a situation where you are the only faction from whom we could get DocFlex. But here we can research DocFlex ourselves in five turns, and we can buy it from two other factions as well in a few turns. In other words, the demand is low, the supply is high, thus the price drops. Market reality. You should not focus on getting a "fair" deal, but rather on getting a deal at all. For example, even though the true value of DocFlex is more than eg 80 credits, for you getting 80 credits is still better than getting no credits at all because we buy elsewhere.

I'll give some more detailed responses to certain quotes of you:

The mortgage and the "interest" were totally a result of you folks researching doc flex before completing your trade obligations.

Sorry. At the end of the IndAut negotiations you didn't seem to place much priority on getting that future tech soon. You seemed perfectly happy to leave that issue rather vague. Anyway, since we're almost sure we'll be able to buy DocFlex from someone, we will hopefully be able to switch to EthCal and you'll still get your future tech as soon as you would have got it if we researched EthCal right away.

I want to make a deal because if this falls apart, I fear what it will mean to our long-term relations if we can't agree on a simple tech trade.

This is indeed a reason for concern. But what do you suggest I do about it? You can hardly expect us to pay more than we reasonably should taking our other options in account.

I had been arguing in favor of a " Pact-for -life" where we team up to the end

Among the Consciousness we only shortly discussed that proposal. It seemed that was only a personal tentative proposal. We decided to wait giving a reaction until we knew whether your sentiment was shared by the PEACE majority.

I am also suprised by the pedantic requirement of tech for tech since you guys requested and GOT an extra 20 ec from me in the original trade we did when we were researching plan nets and got soc psych back to you on the next turn after flipping. The cycon rationale was that you would not have an immediate use for it.

The difference here is we can get DocFlex elsewhere.


Anyway, I certainly hope we can reach a deal, but you have to understand I won't be able to offer you 100 credits or more seeing we have other factions most likely willing to sell at that price.

Friendly greetings,

Maniac

[Nubclear]

PEACE diplomats are sooo bad Seriously, the worst faction I've seen.

Great response Maniac

[Corellion]

I must say, though, we've accepted their deals in the past, and always regretted it. Who's worse, the bad negotiator, or those who accept his deals?