Drone Negotiations

[Kody]

Drones were encountered in two locations shown above in the year 2120.

One problem that we are currently encountering is that our colony pod is 2 turns away from the drone scout. The new base site was going to be placed on the square with the drone scout. This means we have to redirect our colony pod if the negotiations are less than successful.

Furthermore, testing showed that our scouts will be unable to defeat the scout. Our veteran rover will be able to combat the scout, but only in open terrain. If they decide to bunker down on a rocky square it will be several turns before we can forceably remove them. This would require prototyping a laser infantry and this would take several turns and then upgrading the rover. I would say a minimum of 15 turns to remove the hinderance.

They could quite easily hinder our colony pods and formers and with their foil they will soon be able to send colony pods and troops to invade our shores.

It is believed that the drones are occupying the landmass to the west of our contient. The drones have industrial base as a starting tech, which can be used in our quest for industrial automation. They also have AC ecology
judging from the allowed cheat that Googlie mentioned.

I did some research on the drones and it appears that buster has a fair bit of experience. Mongoose appears to be 2nd in command and is currently involved in at least one multiplayer AC. Buster is also away on holiday so that puts Mongoose as the most senior member.

Comrade Kody has been volunteered to head the negotiations. Chairman Voltaire given full authority to negotiate with the drones.

[Kody]

Email

Kody,

This is from my main email account.

First, kindly provide coordinates where we made contact.

Second, presuming we have made contact, what do you have in mind?

I do not yet have any authorization from my forum to conclude a deal. I
only posted the contact note about a half - hour ago.

Mongoose

[Kody]

Email

We have encountered you in two places.
Even though there has been some sabre rattling in the public forums. The
majority of your members have stayed out of it. Consequently I am inclined
to show you some of our goodwill and trust.

First I would like bring up the possiblity of a pact.
We are willing to offer you all of our techs (3 of them) in exchange for
all of your techs. Future techs discovered will also be given while the
pact lasts. In exchange you will treat us the same, fully sharing all of
your techs for the duration of the pact.

In addition to tech sharing we ask that you do not attempt to colonise
our contient, as this will be seen as gaining a foothold for a future
attempt at war.

Finally, if you do not wish to commit to a pernament pact. Please state an
duration during which both our factions will honor the pact. I personally
dislike backstabbing and I will do my best to ensure that my faction will
honor the pact for however long it will last for. Note that if the
duration of the pact is short we may not be willing to trade all our techs.

This is the hive's offer. Please send your counter offer when you
are ready, I will be waiting.

Kody

[Kody]

Email

A fair offer! I will post it for discussion. About half of our members are
Europeans and usually wouldn't be on line or in the forums until about 0800
GMT, almost eight hours from now.

Mong

[Kody]

Email

It may be necessary for Comrade Claire to make a goodwill tour of Free Drone bases.

Mong

[Kody]

Email

I'll communicate that with her, she seems to go where ever she wants. Just
between you and me Claire appears to be working for HongHu. There was
some weird alliance switch where Claire jumped out of bed with Jamski and
started working hand in glove with HongHu.

Heh, if things go well we can release the hive ic story. It wasn't
really a movie like Pravda said. Although a few of the pieces submitted
are a bit rough.

Since it will be a few hours and apolyton is down, I'm going to read a
book. I'll be back then and we'll see what happens.

PS: From our anaylsis we think that the Cycon have met up with the
Priates. Then both of them went all quiet. Not sure what to expect from
them now.

Kody

[Vev]

Sound promising.

[Kody]

We intend for a long term pact. Most of the previous misgivings against the drones were due to the Drone Weekly comic which ruffled many of our feathers.

Our inital offer is under the understanding that we will remain long term partners. The timeout to figure out how eager they are to stay in pact with us without forcing them to pretend to get our techs. If they want a short timeout this will allow us to be on guard against them.

The trading from then on will be very difficult for them if they reject the possibility of a pact.

The first thing I'm going to do is negotiate a forced withdraw from our next base site. I'm pretty sure they want information networks as they're probably beelining with wealth. I will tell them that we have been studying the networking techs (which they don't have) and that we will refuse to trade if they hinder our expansion.

Kody

[Snowflake]

Kody, You have done a great job! Judging from the initail reaction of the drones there are promising opportunities to form a pact. We should be prepared if the proposal do not pass their poll but we should do our best to reach a coorperative pact with them. I do not believe there were any real hard feelings between we and them from the public forums.

[Kody]

PS: From our anaylsis we think that the Cycon have met up with the Priates. Then both of them went all quiet. Not sure what to expect from them now.

Someone was wondering where I pulled that from.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=2141045#post2141045

Talking about Cycon, looks like they have already met with another faction. I thought that the Pirates would be the first human faction to meet others due to their movability in the sea. But maybe it is them who met CyCon. Or, maybe everyone else has met somebody except us. This is why again I'm so anxious to get the rover to go south. We need to get some tech traded. Otherwise we'll stay at the bottom for some extended time. Anybody can share with me how's the power graph been moving? For example, if CyCon and Pirates rose up kind of sharply, that must mean that they have exchanged technology.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=2084861#post2084861

This occured shortly before the power graph increases in CyCon and Pirates. Also CyCon took the lead in tech when Googlie was saying the university would probably stay in the lead for a while. Obviously CyCon have traded tech with someone. I would guess the pirates due to their boats.

Kody

[Vev]

Imagine a Cyborg/Pirate Hybrid.

"Arrg, tha sea be nasty on me metal implants,, but I get great prosthesis for my missing hand"

[Kody]

Questions have been recently raised on whether the Drones will keep a long term pact. Please state your opinions here.

Hrmm I didn't get around to reading that book.....

Kody

[Googlie]

I commented in the Hive Turn reporting thread - should I copy them here?

G.

[Kody]

While the drones have been making their decision the ministers of the Hive have not been idle.

Discussion have been conducted on how binding a pact will be and measures on reducing possible damages caused by backstabbing.

After serious discussion I have decided on the following.

Any pact we make will be bound by no more than the honour of the players involved. This makes it serious possibility that we can be betrayed by the enemy.

If the Hive should make a pact it will be binding unless were are attacked.
We should make every effort to keep the pact. If we do not the other team will know and this will cause misgivings that will definitely result in the end of the pact. Furthermore, entering such a pact with no intention of keeping it will set a precendent on what will occur for other democracy games. It may very likely result pacts that have little more meaning than a treaty.

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Voltaire has agreed or decided on the following in relation to the Drones.

If they agree to a co-operative victory via the pact. We will go about keeping it. However, certain measures will be taken to ensure that they not betray us.

Firstly, we will keep a number of military units so that if they decide to turn on us it will not be a easy victory.

Secondly, we will attempt to get planet busters so if they do betray us then we can hurt them as well.

Thirdly, if the drones conduct turnchats, there will be an exchange of representatives. So that an ambassador of one faction will monitor the actions of the other faction.
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If we do not entirely trust them it may be benifical to offer some of our garisson troops in their bases. It will not look like a military buildup if we thinly spread some of our troops through their bases. Furthermore, it will seem like an act of goodwill towards the drones. However if they break pact all the troops will be sent to the closest hive base. This will be right on the border between our two factions. Hence, our extra troops will be moved precisely where we need them to defend against our betrayer.

An pernament alliance with the drones will reduce the likelyhood of an alliance with the CyCon. However, we do not wish to alienate the CyCon. Policies in relation to the CyCon are pending until such time we discover their alliances and their position on the map.

We have not yet raised the issue of the co-op victory pact. It was decided that bringing this issue up early would make the hive look weak. If the Drones continue to show no duplicity this will be offered to them in the next round of negotiations.

Kody

[Kody]

Discussions were conducted with the military advisor Rokossovky on tatics if no pact is created, and if the pact is simply a peace fire agreement.

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We are fairly certain they are after industrial automation. Their SE settings are currently on freemarket. This means they have both of the industrial techs required for industrial automation. They do not have information networks or planetary networks. This will be their motivation to move their scout away.

If the pact is not created the immediate response will be to demand that their scout turn back and head west. We will refuse to trade with them until they have already done this. This is required so we will still be able to colonise the west of our contient. In this case we need to expand westward as fast as possible as their foil might start bringing colony pods onto our contient. The original plan of that base site being a colony pod city is more important than ever.

We only need them to back down 1 square. This will be enough to move our colony pod forward and if they attempt to go back on their word the rover will arrive in time to destory the scout.

The worst case scenerio will be if they decide to move onto one of the rocky squares. If they do this (as mentioned earlier) we won't be able to touch them until we get more powerful weapons. However Rokossovky has assured me that we will be able to block the scout off and move our colony pods and formers around the scout. The greatest threat will actually be if they decide to head north towards the undefended St Voltiresburg.

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If they decide to pact and it becomes clear this is only for short term benifit. We will have a rather tricky situation.

It is believed that they are actually going for the merchant exchange rather than the weather paradigm. In fact it is likely the drones will soon be able to out-tech us if not already with their freemarket. It is believed they are planning on making a super science city that will be able to trawler huge amounts of energy putting them up to par in tech rate with factions such as the CyCon and University. The industry makes trawlers very cheap....

While currently our bases are unassailable this will soon change. With good tech and industry for the Drones, it is likely that our bases and continent will become a easy target.

Rokossovky believes that the hive matures in power faster than the drones. I am rather dubious considering we have population 4 while the drones have population 7 and we have a +1 popluation bonus compared to them. Also it is predicted these drones once they get started are going to be getting tech like the university.

He believes that our best chance is to do a pre-emptive strike against the drones, around the time they are about to get needlejets. One of the main tactical concerns is the narrow channel seperating our land masses.

The channel is one square thick and roughly 15 square long. The width allows for formers to raise land thus joining our continents at anywhere along the width. This favours the attacking force as the channel is a defensive bonus due to the vunerability of ships. Consquently we have a chance of doing more damage to the drones then they do to us if we attack early before they have their conquer and armor techs researched.
In later stages the situation may favour the drones due to their advanced tech.

The other method to forestall an invasion from the drones is to keep ourselves powerful enough that attacking us will ensure the drones will be unable to win the game. It is hoped in such a situation the CyCon will be able to keep us in tech parity with the drones.

If things turn sour with our negotiations the main thing that will be holding them back will be fear of making themselves weaker in the face of one of the other factions.

Kody