External Affairs Function's Office

[Drogue]

I think there should be an office for each elected position, so that any Function can request orders, give ideas and discuss relevant policy. Anyone can contribute, and please feel free to discuss any foreign policy issue here. I will keep the first post updated with the latest issues.


External Affairs department for each faction

PEACE Diplomatic Exchanges
Hive Diplomatic Exchanges - CyCon-Hive embassy (password "voltogue")
PUT Diplomatic Exchanges
Drones Diplomatic Exchanges
Angels Diplomatic Exchanges
Believers Diplomatic Exchanges


Current Issues

Hive - their cheating

PEACE - DocFlex trade

PEACE - Pact, War or something im between, and how to go about getting each. Commlinks.

Believers - The chopper and other threats/opportunities

How to combat the sudden surge in tech level of the Hive and Drones (meeting?)

Techs/Units to request from the Internal Affairs Function.


Current Threads

Term 0100

Eastern exploration

Previous terms

PEACE Diplomacy - Read and discuss the correspondance regarding the latest PEACE deal.

What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailors? - Poll on what to do about PEACE.

Opinions on Other Factions - Please continue discussion here.

[Corellion]

This is looking a little into the future, but I have an idea for a strategy we can use against PEACE (diplomacy, not war). Best of all, it comes right out of their playbook.

Next turn, we shall begin research on Doctrine: Flexibility. This is a tech that PEACE already has. Let's continue researching as normal, but when we have either 2 or 1 turn left to completion, we propose the following deal to them.

We inform them (which they will doubtlessly already know) that we are almost done researching Doc: Flex. We know that they have this tech, and we have come upon a potential deal, honouring our wonderful relations with our Pact Siblings. It's a deal where both gain. They offer us, as a gift, Doctrine: Flexibility. In exchange, we switch production to another tech (Ecological Engineering, for example), and complete that within a turn or two. We then gift them with this tech (and maybe demand some credits too). We're going to get it anyway, so they may as well gain from it too. Remind anyone of the Planetary Networks negotiation? Turnabout is fair play.

[Googlie]

ooooohhhh - wicked

GGLIE

[Corellion]

The most powerful faction on Chiron is the Data Angels (with us in second, yay!). Seeing as we've met them, I was wondering if we should start to get a little chummy with them, hopefully getting some techs/credits in the process.

[Maniac]

Sorry, I forgot to contact the Angels.

As for your PEACE suggestion, I doubt it has much chance of success. The idea to contact PEACE and obtain Doc:Flex is good of course. But they probably wouldn't accept what you would want for extras in return.

First, I would contact them a little earlier than 1 or 2 turns before we research it. You know how our negotiations with PEACE always tend to get drawn out...

Second, EcolEng is still a long way to go. EthCalc is a more realistic countertech (and IMHO +- equally valuable to Doc:Flex, especially for the Pirates with their growth and efficiency mali).

Third, I think there's about zero chance they would give us a few extra credits. Remember how we reacted when they demanded 100 ec in the IndAut deal? Also, you refer to the PlaNets deal. When you take that as precedence, we are the ones who should pay some credits extra. After all, back then they were about to research PlaNets (or so they claimed - I have my doubts as they have a history of lying to us), but they still gave us 20 credits extra. That's of course also because SocPsych was worth less than PlaNets.

So to prevent they demand credits, we should offer them a tech of equal worth as Doc:Flex. EthCalc seems fine, but then of course we can no longer offer that tech as the future tech we promised in the IndAut deal.

Because of these three problems addressed above, my proposal is that we contact them four turns before we research Doc:Flex, and offer them a simple Doc:Flex<->EthCalc deal, with no other strings or credits attached. And if they ask even 5 credits extra, [b]we should simply refuse[:b] to trade with them. Sure, I guess that according to game theory we would still gain even if we give some credits extra to PEACE, but unless we teach them once they can't bluff us into paying more than we should (as they did the last two times), we'll never be able to have fair trades with PEACE.

[Corellion]

The credits were mostly on an if-we-can-get-them basis. And I don't know what I was thinking when I said Ecological Engineering.
The short time was to put the pressure on them, as they have done repeatedly with us (notice how all our negotiations with them take place a turn or two before the deal can be made?). It could help our negotiations.

As for the tech offered, I would have to say I do not agree with giving them Ethical Calculus. We have already promised them Ethical Calculus in the Industrial Automation deal, and if we gave it to them, we would have to renegotiate which tech we owed them... something which I do not want to do.

[Maniac]

What would you offer instead of EthCalc?
(Please also note the new message in the PEACE diplomacy thread.)

[Corellion]

Boolean Bay has two garrisoned scout patrols, and an undefended CP just heading out of it. Shouldn't one SP join the convoy?

[Maniac]

I asked Drogue a while back to send the Boolean Bay scout patrol along with the CP, so it should be ok.

[Drogue]

Will be done. You do realise with the Eth Calc - Doc Flex thing that we owe them Eth Calc already for the last trade? How are the Doc FLex negotiations going?

[Drogue]

Maniac: With regards to the unity rover, you have asked for it to run up and down the river on (79,71), and it is doing that. Can I suggest the river to the north, as that has 3 squares of which 2 are fungus, as opposed to 2 squares of which 1 is fungus. Or is there a better place to run a river to get MWs?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
Will be done. You do realise with the Eth Calc - Doc Flex thing that we owe them Eth Calc already for the last trade? How are the Doc FLex negotiations going?

They aren't going. I've sent them a message and a reminder, but they haven't responded. If I sent a third message, it'll make us look desperate and they'll ask a for them advantagous deal.
My guess is they're planning to:
a) simply not trade.
b) wait until the last minute like usual, putting us all on a time pressure, again hoping to get an uneven deal in their advantage.
To prevent that, my official recommendation would be to get 100 to 150 ec as soon as possible, and contact the Angels and Believers to see if they're willing to sell DocFlex (which they both have) to us. Or to the very least we should get a decent credit reserve, so we can pretend to the Pirates that we're able to buy DocFlex elsewhere, and say that we're still willing to buy from them if they offer us a good deal.

Maniac: With regards to the unity rover, you have asked for it to run up and down the river on (79,71), and it is doing that. Can I suggest the river to the north, as that has 3 squares of which 2 are fungus, as opposed to 2 squares of which 1 is fungus. Or is there a better place to run a river to get MWs?

I'm sorry. I need to see the situation before my eyes first before I can give an answer.

[Drogue]

Same as last turn. It's just which terrain gets us more worms. You don't need to se troup positioning, just the map.

[Drogue]

Maniac: Have received communication from PEACE via Flubber. Have posted in PEACE Diplomacy Thread.

Also, feel free to edit my first post.

[Corellion]

BTW, I seriously suggest we at least contact the Angels this turn, and guage their willingness to co-operate. We don't want to keep forgetting about them.