HIVE diplomatic exchanges

[Phenix]

Who ever did it, now it's too late. We'll have to hope the Hive hasn't got some secret alliance with Peace (not very likely )

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Maniac
Who told the Hive we were going to war in MY 2150??

IIRC, I do remember that Corellion did seem to have...eh, loose lips?

[Impaler[WrG]]

It couldn't have been Correlion, he hasent even logged on in 2 weeks. We only made the desision to accelerate the war to 2150 after we got the info from the Hive. Prior to that it was 2152 as far as I know (Manic do you know if 2150 was an important date in the past?). It seems to me the leak happened very resently.

Should I just ask HongHu who told her, she may have heard it from someone else in the Hive and might not know who the leak is but I figure its worth a try.

[Nubclear]

Of course, this is not reflective of the moderating staff in any way, however...
It would probably be wise to go to the top

[/Freeadvice]

[Maniac]

PM from HongHu:

Dip matters
How is your negotiation with the PUT going? Do you need more time? We need to hear from you before we play our turn. Normally buster plays pretty quick. If you need more time maybe we could try talk buster into taking more time?

What should I respond?

[Maniac]

How about this message proposal? (Sent after approval of Impaler who was on chat)

Hi HongHu,

It indeed looks like we will need more time for the negotations, as all members of PUT are quite inactive to say the least. Several days ago they told us they were interested in Applied Physics and asked us what we wanted. Yesterday GeneralTacticus sent me a message saying they're presently discussing our proposal, but that he is quite busy. So I get the feeling it may still take quite a while and that it might be a good idea to ask buster to wait a bit with playing the turn.

I'm not really aware of Drogue's diplomatic policy, but AFAIK his latest proposal was to offer AppPhys and 30 credits. I don't know if PUT would accept that though. Personally if I was PUT I wouldn't, but then again they seemed really eager to get AppPhys for some reason. If PUT doesn't respond in the next day, do you want us to increase our offer to PUT? The problem is that we are quite short on cash right now, and that we can't offer PUT anything higher than 50 credits or so. So my question is, if we have to go higher than 50 credits and AppPhys to get EcoEng, would you be willing to make up for the difference and give us the credits we have to pay more than 50 credits? If so, what would be the maximum prize you want us to offer to PUT in order to get EcoEng? When we have more cash, we are of course willing to repay you part of the credits you would give us now.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3
Prime Function of the Cybernetic Consciousness

[Maniac]

HongHu's answer:

I have to talk to the turn player to see if the Hive could spare some ecs for this deal. However, one suggestion is for you to offer both AP and Initiative to uni for trading of Eco Eng and SHB. Make sure to stress that CyCon isn't in great need of SHB but the init-SHB deal was added to balance out the AP-EcoEng imbalance. So kind of indicating you are actually sacrificing to facilitate the trade.

What do you think about that?

Hong

Should we try that? We get a useless technology: SotHB. I'll ask HongHu if they would want to give us Gene Splicing if we offered them SotHB. Then that tech might still have some indirect value.

***

Edit:

I sent this to HongHu:

Hi HongHu,

I have announced this proposal to the Collective. I'll see what others think. Anyway, SotHB is indeed useless for us. Therefore to make the tech more attractive I was wondering, if we got SotHB, would you be willing to trade that against Gene Splicing? IIRC you mentioned that you attached a great value to SotHB, the prerequisite of Neural Grafting.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3

Her response:

RE: Re: Re: Dip matters
In the Hive's offer we proposed to offer Gene Splicing for SHB and NG. I can promise you that upon receiving SHB we could immediately transmit Gene Splicing to you without waiting for you to complete NG. I have also mentioned to Function Impaler that I might be able to persude the Hive not to ask you to reseach NG for us. However, since Gene Splicing for SHB were pretty imbalanced I cannot promise you this at this moment before I gain concensus from the Hive leaderships. SHB is not in great need by the Hive also, it is only soughted for because it is a prequisit of NG which is a prequisit of bioengineering. While NG also offers the benefit of enabling the production of two special ability units, the SHB offers trance, which is not utterly needed. The only argument I could use to pursude others to accept Gene Splicing versas SHB deal is that CyCon will appreciate getting Gene Splicing and with long lasting friendship between Hive and CyCon you would do the same thing for the Hive in the future.

She seems to attach a really huge importance to Gene Splicing. Am I perhaps missing something? In our current status the biggest reason to get Gene Splicing would IMHO be that it is a prerequisite to Synthetic Fossil Fuels. It gives research hospitals, but we don't even have network nodes or hologram theatres in our bases, so it will probably be a while before we build the first one of that. Gene Splicing gives the ability to produce more than 3 nutrients in non-bonus squares, but until we have a bunch of sea bases that will hardly make a difference for us. Besides we can always trade with PUT if need be. Also personally I consider EnvEcon (tree farms!) way more important than Gene Splicing, yet that they seem way more willing to trade away for the lower level tech EcoEng.
So am I missing something?

[Drogue]

How about I offer HongHu a few ec too? Say a tech (SoHB if we get it) and a few ec for Gene Splicing? We want that both for nut restirictions lifting and SFF. Or we could loan them a cruiser for it, so they can reverse engineer and then give it back, as they suggested. One turn for a cruiser is easily worth GS.

[Maniac]

We would first have to move the cruiser to their territory before we can turn over unit control. Then they would have to move it back to our territory before we can use it again.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I would very much like getting Gene Splicing as we can start farming our rainy tiles and harvesting additonal Nuts. None of the other things it provides are very important ofcorse. SFF would be a sufficient reason to get the tec though. We also need to get Doc Loyalty from them soon, perhaps trading something we take from PEACE in exchange for it, Progenitor Pych perhaps.

[Drogue]

We could build a 1-1-8 cruiser, just to take bases (since the others attack, we need one to take the base) and loan that to the Hive for a turn or two?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Maniac
Who told the Hive we were going to war in MY 2150??

I did. I am sorry if I overstepped it, but my reasons were thus:
The Hive and PEACE are not friendly. They are pacted for convenience, but like we were in the final days of our pact, are trying to do them over, so to speak. They're pact was temporary, and they do not wish to be allies, as such, with them. They do with us.

Add to that that they were feeling very shaky about our feelings towards them. They knew that the old members were pro-Hive, but did not know about the new ones. They were feeling very trepid about giving us information, because they weren't sure of our feelings for mutual pacting, etc. HongHu asked me about PEACE plans, so either it was tell her, or tell a lie, that will be found out when we attack, and would harm relations a lot. Our best, and possibly only hope for victory is with the Hive and/or Drones. Risking that, which IMHO would have been lost if they felt we were lying to them, is a lot mroe risky to the CyCon than telling them we wanted to attack 2 years earlier than planned.

Imagine how the UK would feel, IRL, if the US had attacked Iraq a couple of months earlier, without even telling them. Pretty peeved I would have thought. It would damage relations no-end, possibly ending their co-operation on that level. We cannot afford to surprise our allies that much. I want to win this game. The triumverate works for RP (a cybernetic society, with telepathy, automatically means everyone knows everything, and so there is no discention), in game terms (the only real chance for a CyCon victory IMHO - we can't fight the Hive and Drones and hope to win) and most importantly in fun terms, that if this game isn't won in a few months, participation will drop, as only two or three factions are left, and it will end up not being finished. The last DG shows what happens if things drag on.

Therefore, IMHO, the best interest of the CyCon, and most logical option, is to ally with people that can give us a few more months of fun, and then we win. It would work on all levels. However if we attacked without them knowing it, taking them by surprise, while they were already very shaky about our trust of them, we would have a lot to recover to get trust for a long term pact and victory. Therefore, having been given the option of lying, which would have been found out when we attacked, or giving them the year we were going to attack, knowing they are not friendly with the person we are going to attack, I did what I thought was in the best interest of the CyCon, and told them. If you disagree, then I am sorry. I had to make a decision and I chose what I thought, and still think, is in our best interests, on every level (RP, game and fun).

I must resurrect the constitution discussion, since we need one. As EAF, without a constitution to bind us, it was my place to make that decision, bearing in mind that I had to choose, and did not have time in a conversation to ask the general consensus. I was, I believe, acting in an emergency, in the field that is my responsibility. Moreover, I felt (and still feel) I had little choice: if I wanted to keep Hive/CyCon relations strong and an alliance possible, which IMHO is the most important diplomatic objective, I had to choose to do that.

Originally posted by Maniac
so we do not know where the loyalties of all Hive members lie.

None of them lie with PEACE. Of that I am pretty sure. If I thought there was a credible risk of it being passed on, I wouldn't have acted like I did.

Originally posted by Maniac
Therefore the Hive should still be treated as a foreign faction

If we do that, we wreck our only decent chance for victory, and resign this game to a long, drawn out and boring finale, with 2 or 3 factions left, and no-one really bothering about it. I don't want that. I want to win and have fun. If we treat them no as an ally, we wreck the chance to win. I think it's easily worth the risk, IMHO.

I accept I went further than I wanted to, but given the choice of tell them or lie to a very important ally when it would be found out soon, I would choose again exactly what I did. It was an exceptional circumstance, and warrented that action, IMHO. I am sorry if I offended anyone, I could not think of a better action.

This is an explanation of why I said it. I'm sorry it seems as if its overcompensation. I think it was needed to clear it up. Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I didn't see it before, and have been on Oxford University interviews for the past two days.

[Maniac]

I understand your decision. But couldn't you in a similar situation - instead of telling them or lying to them - simply say that you are not authorized to reveal such information, or that you first want to talk to the Collective before possibly giving an answer? After all, unless you know more than I, though they were so friendly to provide us part of the PEACE info we requested , it's not like the Hive is answering every question we ask them. IIRC in the past I asked them per PM what their relation with the drones was, who owed what techs to who after all their leapfrogging etc, but they avoided the question. Likewise I don't think we should tell them eg our exact battle plans, even if HongHu directly asks about them as IIRC she did in one of her posts on the VoyForum.

Regarding winning together with the Hive and Drones, unless the situation has changed in the meantime, the Drones still don't want to win with three factions as it is too easy, and the Hive still doesn't want to betray or to win without the Drones. So until one of those two change opinion, it seems rather impossible to me to get a 3-way-victory. As a consequence we should at the moment think of our own interest first, and only then about the Hive.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Manic is right, silence is always an option.

I was more peved at the fact this information had gotten out without knowing WHO had given it out. If you reveal a significant secret to another faction please inform us of it so that the rest of us dont sound like fools when talking to them or get caught in a contraditon that may reveal us to be lieing (must keep our lies consistent you know).

I agree we realy realy want to avoid a long drawn out game with the all the factions trying to Grind each other up as this would take long time to finish if ever. But I think we should play as if thats a posibility. We want to grow our empire by concquest and expantion untill it rivals the Hive. My personal goal is to achive victory with the Hive and Drones subordinate to us rather then the other way around.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
I was more peved at the fact this information had gotten out without knowing WHO had given it out. If you reveal a significant secret to another faction please inform us of it so that the rest of us dont sound like fools when talking to them or get caught in a contraditon that may reveal us to be lieing (must keep our lies consistent you know).

Indeed! Drogue, I get the impression you regularly have MSN chats with Hive members such as HongHu or Jamski. Though you are again more active the last few days, you were not the latest month or so. As a consequence we had no clue at all what the Hive possibly learned from you about us during those chats. This can lead to a contradictary foreign policy, when due to your absence others have to fill in for EAF. For example in my communications to other factions I have carefully avoided to reveal that we have HEC and NonlMath. Yet yesterday I reread your chatlog with Jamski where you told him our war plans, and I discovered you already told him back then we had Impact Guns. If I had not pressed you at that time to post that chatlog, none of us except you would have ever known about the Hive knowing about our impact guns. So if you discuss gameplay matters over MSN, could you please post the relevant chatlog here, so the rest of the Consciousness knows what the situation is?