Opinions on other factions

[Drogue]

I recently received a PM from Chairman Voltaire of the Hive, apologising about Tassadars actions, and stating that he wishes friendship with our faction. It struck me that although we have not met other factions, a general opinion of how much friendship (from War to Pact) we would want with each faction might be a good idea when determining how our initial diplomacy is worded. We have already decided our stand towards PEACE, but how about other factions:

The Hive
Personally, I am in favour of good relations with the Hive, and simply replied that we took no (major) offence at Tass's actions and realise they are not official Hiverian comments, and that we do not have the petty emotional foibles that say that totalitarianism is always wrong, and thus their record with that would not count be a barrier to friendship. I would like to see us, the Hive and PEACE join together, to help defeat PUT and the Drones, while making sure that we are stronger than both, so we can then fight it out with them when the PUT and Drones are less of a threat.

The PUT
I think this needs War. We could go for a truce and maybe a few trades to start with, but IMHO they are a strong faction that is easy pickings. They are perfect, they will have a relatively small army, but many techs, so we can use techsteal to great effect. Let us be friends, but thenm double cross them ASAP. Archaic relies on friendship to win games, as I am seeing in Vets5 on CGN. As the PUT, he cannot win wars, so he goes for peace until he has a massive tech advantage. We need to hit them hard and hit them early IMHO.

The Free Drones
This is the one I cannot decide on. We should we well above them tech wise, but unless we have much better military tech, we would have a hard job in war, with little to gain (no techs). However they will be a very strong faction, and they need to be taken down a peg or two. Therefore, I propose that while we try to not meet them, and maybe stay at truce (or War, but try to be inactive) and let PEACE and/or the Hive (if we are allies) take them out. We take out the PUT, the others take out the Drones, while giving mutual aid to each.

What do others think? What is the best course of action to follow when we meet each faction? I think tech trading should be open with PEACE, open except for military techs to the Hive (they could slaughter us with military), open except for military and SPs to the Drones if at peace (we don't want their building advantage getting SPs before us) and open except for military and anything else important with then PUT. We need to trade with the PUT if at peace, because they will have much to trade with us, probably the only faction by that time with stuff that we don't have, however we have to be careful not to give them a military advantage. And we absolutly have to make sure that they do not get the Hunter Seeker Algorithm IMHO. They have massive probe deficits, with Knowledge and their -2, and without the HSA, we will be able to steal royally

[Drogue]

BTW: Here is a copy of the PM was sent by Voltaire:

Greetings...
I first must apologize on behalf of the Central Continuing Committee of the Human Hive, the recent "proposal" by Comrade Tassadar was in no way sanctioned or authorized by the CCC or any official governing body of the Hive in any manner. Reprimand will be taken again the parties involved in these illegal activities, be assured of it, though the CCC does not hold any official powers in the general forums and thus we could not act to stop it. Part of the blame lies with me personally, for in my reign I have been to liberal and allowed decadence such as this to escape unpunished, be assured that things will change.

Though the proposal of an alliance between our two factions can be assumed to be out of place for no official contact in game has occurred, I would strongly request that the government of the Cybernetic Consciousness consider such a possibility. The CCC would consider such an alliance between our two great factions of great benefit to both, it would serve to counterbalance the power of the University. It must be admitted that our factions do not agree on everything, and we have been accused of being despotic and totalitarian (both of which are far from the truth, though I am vested with near absolute power, my reign has been nothing short of benevolent). Both our interests lie in seeing the University toppled from their pedestal of power, thus we ask that an alliance (if not a formal one) be considered.

Sincerely,
Voltaire
Chairman of the Central Continuing Committee of the Party and People of the Human Hive

[Googlie]

Hmm - this is disturbing.

First Tass chatting, PM'ing and e-mailing Archaic - which I ruled was a breach of the "No contact between factions before in-game meeting (or getting the commlinks from a third party )"

Now Voltaire paving the way for a friendship pact before a formal meeting??

Equally egregious as Tass, in my opinion.

This is a very disturbing trend.

G.

[Drogue]

That is true. I agree with you with tass and his thread, however I think Voltaire was trying to just remove what Tass had done. I think it was just an apology for Tass and trying to make sure that he had not done any harm. I simply read it like I read the general messages in responce to Pravda, in just saying "we should be friends" rather than any allaince proposal at all. However I agree that this may have crossed the line, and I apologise for my reply, which probably did too therefore.

BTW: Can we get commlinks from each other, considering we already have all of them? Is there a procedure for asking for

EDIT: If it helps your judgement, this gave me nothingn I didn't already know. I know that the Hive want peace, since their posts in 3D and Pravda supporting and trying to break common ground suggested this, as much as Voltaire did. Moreover, it is obvious that the Hive is scared of PUT, their posts show that. Thus although it is technically a breach, it will not alter our actions at all, since we were already aware of this.

Can I suggest you making a thread in the main forum stating what you believe is and isn't acceptable, since we have some communication (else no newpapers, no RPing etc.) but we are not allowed to discuss diplomacy. I don't think Voltaire, nor myself, had any intention of breaking the rules, but were unaware of the exact rules regarding it. Whatever you decide is or is not acceptable, I will abide by and support.

Once again, sorry for any actions that were unacceptable

[Googlie]

The game mechanics recognizes that commlinks are not available (ie when the Pirates made contact with you, if you noticed, the status beside the faction now had Truce beside it, while the other three were blank.

When you now call up another faction to see what techs you have that they don't have, the Pirates' commlink now appears as something you have on the table to offer (try it - re-open the last turn and click on Buster, then "offer all tech" - you'll see jdm's commlink appearing)

So it (another faction's commlink) is an official trade offering

G.

[Maniac]

I agree with Drogue. We should certainly ally with the Hive and war with the PUT. The Drones have expressed anti-Hive sentiments, so they will probably ally with the PUT against a Hive-CyCon alliance. The wild card for me are the Pirates, as besides Hercules, I don't really know any of their major participants.

[Drogue]

Flubber is a good player, having completed quite a few PBEMs. Not quite up with buster, but close to Archaic in ability IMHO. JDM has played a bit, but haven't seen much, and he is easy to toy with diplomatically I favour good relations, as they have the unique ability of naval power, meaning commlinks (being the first faction with ships and thus the first to find others on other islands), support services for war, transport, and the fact that in every single player match I have the Pirates come second to me, with very strong tech. Because of sea bases, which are high in energy and nuts (so population, and even more energy) and so they will easily beat the Drones and Hive in the tech race. If we are to beat the PUT tech wise, we need to ally with them.

I agree with you that the Hive and CyCon will ally against the Drones and PUT. In that conflict, I think we will lose. However I think the Pirates will be the Kingmakers. They have no factional inclination to either side, IMHO they would go with the first faction they founds, which is us. I don't think we can win if the Drones and PUT combine forces, unless we have PEACE on our side. PEACE will be harder to keep than the Hive, but potentially more rewarding and useful IMHO.

[Whaleboy]

the Hive and CyCon will ally against the Drones and PUT

Not if we take out the PUT now

[Drogue]

We haven't found them yet elijah. They are likely quite a way away, as I am pretty sure that Googlie would not put the 2 research factions near each other. Would be of too mucy benefit for us,a s we would trade and get evern further ahead. I think they will be near the other side of the map personally.

[Googlie]

I have had an exchange with Voltaire who agrees that he unintentionally breached the sprit of the "no contact" rule by discussing a potential future alliance against the PUT in a private forum - rather than "float a trial balloon" on the winds of Chiron (by newspaper or e-news - in other words, generically - in the general forum)

He has committed to no further contact until a formal meeting has occurred.

G.

[Maniac]

I think the Hive have met another faction. Why else would they ask for a delay and why would there be new posts every minute on their forum? Who knows, it might even be the PUT. That might explain Tassadar's emigration out of the Hive I guess.

[Drogue]

A very possible situation, and a rather scary one However it is doubtful the Hive will have much techs for the PUT, or that the PUT will get on too well with the Hive, with one being FMers, and the other anti-FMers. Also knowing Voltaire's trepidation about the PUT. Let's hope there's a war

If the PUT get ahead of us techwise next turn, then we know it could well be the trading (or just them researching something )

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
That might explain Tassadar's emigration out of the Hive I guess.

I have set out the reasons here

[Drogue]

Any more thoughts on this? Any actions people would suggest for the moment? I propose offering 1 tech for all the commlinks that PEACE have. Obviously try first without, but I think we'll need to offer that or a few Ec? What is PEACE's diplomatic status with other factions?

[Maniac]

Still the same: pact with us, treaty with PUT, and informal truces with the Angels and Believers.

As for dealing with the Pirates, how about the following idea:

I suggest you tell them first we met the Believers. Tell them how, the story with the chopper, scout, vendetta etcetera... Also ask if they have met the Believers and have any extra useful information about them. Tell them we don't feel so safe regarding the Believers, and we might be interested in a cooperative action against them if necessary.

We won't be giving them crucial information by telling Peace about the believers: they can see the Unity chopper in our base screens and because they are our allies they probably know who we have met, just like we know it about them. However the advantage of telling them would be it gives the impression of us as open and cooperative allies. As a result they might become more willing themselves to disclose information to us, also about other factions besides the Believers.

Depending on how PEACE reacts on our believer query, you could then tell them the CyCon is always interested should PEACE meets another faction, and would always want to know more about it.

If they then claim they haven't yet met other factions, we know they are lying, and we shouldn't count too much on them as our allies.