Official: CyCon negotiations

[Micha]

Excellent work Comrade!

[Arnelos]

Impaler[WrG]'s response:

Thanks for the Reply Arnelos, now that it seems all the cards are on the table I might as well elaborate further on Cycons stance.

From about the point when we learned both the Hive and Drones were located on the same continent and that your had shared several tecnologies (which we knew from Pact with Pirates) we calculated a very high probability of an Aliance between your two factions. The Hives long standing policy of remaining secretive about its relations with the Drones also raised suspicion. When we finaly became Pacted to the Hive we had our suspicions raised further when we saw the Hive had nothing but Scout patrols for defence. Coperation with the Drones in stealing Nural Grafting and tec switching to MMI along with Un-Pacting us basicaly convinced us that you were going to go for a Co-op with them and our only real chance was to break up that relationship and get the Hive to side with us. Unfortunatly due to consistent failure on our part to apoint an Embasador who logs on more then once a month we never realy succeded in persuading you to do that.

I have no problem telling you at this point that your going to win the war easily, infact you could probly do it with one hand tied behind your back at this point. We havent prepared militarily for this kind of thing as we have been trying to fix our poor Economy for some time now but we were simply too far behind Economicaly to catch up with you and Drones. We were trying to prepare in Uni territory but we were still atleast 5 turns away from being secure and as the games tecnologies heavily favor the attacker at this point when weapons are 6 and defence is 3 we expect the Drones Choped Droped Half of Uni on their turn and will Blitzkrige south at lightning speed. The Hive will likly have a much more difficult time attacking us as the Core Cycon terriotory is seperated by the Captured PEACE territory and a good deal of water to boot. Thankfully we managed to deny you PEACE base from which to attack us (this has been our driving purpose behind our attacks on them latly).

We knew that diplomatic efforts could only go so far. Cycon was willing to accept just about any kind of peace deal and took a wait and see aproatch, we knew if the Hive didn't attack us then we would be safe atleast for the meantime. We also knew that an unambigus full scale attack was a very probable thing. Most of use have suspected that the Hives assertions that it felt threatened by Cycon was mearly a bluff intended to delay us from preparing our defences or from eliminating PEACE (which we will ofcorse be forced to do now) though the Drone attack did suprise us a bit, we had expected Buster to wait untill he had Fusion power. Purhaps he percived our defences growing to strong.

Politicaly within the Conciousness their is a good sized "fight to the last Cyborg" camp and I would have to count myself in with them. PEACE didn't quit when they were down to once base, we must show that we can take it in addition to dish it out. Besides I would like to gain some experience fighting a defensive war (something that rarely happens in these games). Lastly we wouldn't want to cheat yall out of your war, you have been building all game and finaly crushing your helpless economicaly inferior oponents under your heel is the pay off for us Build oriented folks. If the Hive has any kinds of plans to Back stab the Drones after the war against Cycon is won then some of us would be happy to assimilate into the Hive and come along for the ride even as low level members.

On the other hand I am certain that a number of Cyborgs will chosse to activate their Self Delete Codes and drop this Democracy game, Maniac has already done so as he felt the burden of the games time consumtion wasn't justified if we are going to loss. I think as a whole though we will remain a workable faction even after this step down in partispation.
If the Hive and Drones wanted us too we might simply capitulate at this point and we could all then move onto the next Democracy Game.

As before the ball is in your court, we have had a very fun game and think we did quite well considering the what we were up againsts. No hard feelings on anyones part, though I do wish you had done as Jamski sugjests as it would have been a realy interesting war unlike the borring one you will have now.

[Arnelos]

My response to Impaler[WrG]:

Politicaly within the Conciousness their is a good sized "fight to the last Cyborg" camp and I would have to count myself in with them. PEACE didn't quit when they were down to once base, we must show that we can take it in addition to dish it out. Besides I would like to gain some experience fighting a defensive war (something that rarely happens in these games). Lastly we wouldn't want to cheat yall out of your war, you have been building all game and finaly crushing your helpless economicaly inferior oponents under your heel is the pay off for us Build oriented folks. If the Hive has any kinds of plans to Back stab the Drones after the war against Cycon is won then some of us would be happy to assimilate into the Hive and come along for the ride even as low level members.

I'm glad to hear that. I've been in your shoes on this matter before, as I said. In the PTWDG, it was my team (of which I was the chief diplomat and VP figure) being gangbanged by two other teams with superior units and an economic advantage. We were helped by the team that was in the lead in the game at that point, but the help just wasn't enough against the odds (and both we and our allies made some stupid blunders in the campaign... useful learning experiences).

I'd say that a lot of running that campaign was interesting, though obviously watching each of your cities/bases be taken by your enemy is never a pleasant experience. In the end, we just holed up our entire army in the capital and forced our allied enemies to wait around building up enough troops that they could take us out in our one remaining city. We ended up losing the city and thus our last holding on our home continent when one of our turnplayers made (in my opinion) a rather MAJOR blunder moving forces out of the city (against orders from both the team leader and myself, the VP-equiv. at the time ... if only we hadn't both been out of town), exposing them to attack, and leaving our last city with a weaker defense... a blunder that made the city far easier to take when our enemies finally moved to assault it.

This said, we did learn a lot, especially from the mistakes we and our allies made. It's been months since we lost that war and our team is currently in a somewhat similar situation to PEACE in this game, though because of the way Civ3 works we can't actually be wiped out until someone gets amphibious attack units to invade our shores.

Facing such overwhelming odds, though, we never really expected to win in the first place. So I can't entirely blame our war strategy for our loss. We knew we were going to lose, it was only a matter of how long it would take and how much we were going to make our enemies pay for it.

So I'll definately tell you good luck with this. I don't know what strategy you will opt for to make the price of any Hive/Drone victory to be as high as possible (assuming we even make it so far with the game), but you guys definately win points for standing to defend like PEACE did before you.

Another bit of my experience from that game though... the jobs of diplomats like us when these armageddon wars start become EXCEEDINGLY boring. The generals are doing all of the meaningful inter-team discussion anyhow. What time I spent doing diplomacy was spent in futile attempts at breaking up the opposing alliance.

So, with all of that said, good luck.

- Arnelos

[Micha]

Great, they have rehabilitated their reputation with this decision. In fact, I think if we had pacted with all others against drones, we´d have won too easily. Even Buster couldn´t stand such an assault, especially since we´d have shared all technology with our allies...

Plus, I believe taking out the CyCon will be a *very* difficult enterprise. We´ll probably need a decent marine force when they start building AA in their bases. But well, let the future tell us

That said, let me add a big THANK YOU for our diplomats

[Voltaire]

I personally think we made the right decision, we were in it with the Drones from the start, it is good that we finish it together.

And once again, excellent work to Comrade Arnelos. Though there are still a few other things to be done. For one we should try to keep PEACE on our side, they won’t be exceptionally helpful to the cause, but it will lend legitimacy to our war.

[Frankychan]

PEACE should definitely be on our good side....while they may be small, a thorn in the foot is a nuisance no matter how you look at it.

With this said, are we looking for Co-op victory or an eventual Hive-only win in the end?

[Snowflake]

To tell you the truth, what I was thinking was only to attack PUT and then make peace with CCs. I still remember earlier in this game we talked about that the Hive will stay neutral when Drones's fight with the CCs and we will be fighting the Roze. However things do change. So I don't know what's going to happen any more.

[Snowflake]

Hi HongHu,

From the "What is the status of the game??" thread:

Originally posted by HongHu
The misdelievered PM threatening Hive declaring vendetta against PEACE or face vendetta from the CyCons was the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Could you please send that PM to me if you still have a copy of it? Who was it sent to? Who read it? Who posted it in the Hive forum? Who first claimed that this supposedly was CyCon's true intent, and how did that person(s) claim to have acquired such "information"?

Friendly greetings,

Maniac

[Snowflake]

Jamski told Kody and Voltaire that you send this PM to him I think. I was added to that conversation although I wasn't there at the time. But I should still have the chat transcript. I'll have to go home and find it for you. Upon being asked for forwarding of that PM, Jamski did not do it because he has deleted it I think.

I do not remember who posted it in the Hive forum but I will look for it after I send this. Voltaire later contacted the CCs and Drogue PMed us back saying that it was not the CCs intent. You may remember that I posted in our embassy complaining about this. That was the reason of the second Jamski trial and some of the team members were discussing that perhaps Jamski really wants to be in the CC team. I told them that I believe that Jamski loves the Hive and I trust that he wouldn't do anything that would harm the Hive and that we should not send him out of the team.

I later tried to ask Jamski for an explanation for I believed it could be a genuine misunderstanding since he had been away from Hive for some time. But he refused to explain and said that he has to protect his friend. I thought he meant you. But I couldn't understand why you would want to do it.

I would appreciate if you could provide anything that would eliviate me from my confusion. I'm going to post our communications on the Hive forum. I will also forward you the posts about this incident when I locate them.

Hong

[Snowflake]

Here are some posts in the one thread about this. There are other posts around other threads too. We've had quite some discussions since many believed that Hive was at a crossroad. I have not included some of the posts that contains more detailed recommendations regarding what Hive should do.

Thread title: CyCon Ultimatum
started by Voltaire

~The following is a public service announcement by the Central Continuing Committee~

Earlier today the Cybernetic Consciousness allegedly issued an ultimatum to the Human Hive. The ultimatum read as follows: unless the Hive joins the war on PEACE on the site of the CyCon then the CyCon will consider the Hive as an enemy and will have to declare vendetta. No confirmation has been received in regards to the truth of this ultimatum, the government has attempted to contact the CyCon on several occasions, but the answers received (when they were finally received) were ambiguous and did not tell us anything, merely that the CyCon representative would have to report back to his government on this issue.

The question before the people of the Hive is as follows: how should the Hive respond to this ultimatum? Express your opinions before the whole People of the Human Hive so that they may be heard and taken into account in the governments decision making. Present a clear case for the position and action you advocate.

The government will keep you informed as we receive more information about this ultimatum, stay tuned.

-Central Containing Committee

Originally posted by Jamski
Firstly, some info, so as not to make it all secret.

• An unnamed senior CyCon official sent this info in a PM to me.
• We later got the turn, and we are at Vendetta with the CyCon.
• They are offering a pact.
• The CyCon know somehow of our pact with their enemies, the Pirates. This seems to be thier main problem with us. Either we have a leak, or they have infilteration.
• If we do not accept the pact with the CyCon, then we ill continue in a state of Vendetta.
• PMs with a different CyCon member revealed some confusion o the issue and a passing of blame.
• The CyCon have asked for more time to discuss.
• This suggests either the CyCon are divided on the issue, the annoucment was fake, the announcement was unauthorised, or they have changed thier minds.

So... that's what we know. I'm respecting the CyCon's wishes to remain unnamed.

-Jam

This one represented some of the Hive reactions:

Comrade Chairman, my thoughts:

We, the People of the Human Hive, are our own separate faction with our own agenda on Planet. If the CyCon faction think they can bully us into taking a side in their vendetta, then I believe they are sorely mistaken. The principle fact is that if we show weakness now, then other factions may very well expect us to roll over the next time.

Jamski

Originally posted by Jamski
They say the Hive has no chance against the "most advanced millitary on Chiron" or something (too lazy to look up the exact quote)

-Jam

Originally posted by Jamski

How the hell could the Hive succesfully attack us? We have the most advanced army of all human factions on Chiron.
Also, normally PEACE should no longer exist in 15 years.

There you are, word for word as he said it

-Jam

This also represents some reactions:

I don't know, but I want to get to the bottom of this. Who is this 'unnamed CyCon official?' It's now rather obvious there's a rat somewhere.

Originally posted by Jamski

Well, probably its not Drogue, as he is asking who it was. However this would be classic denial trick. Of course PMs are called PMs for a reason.

-Jam

Originally posted by HongHu
Sorry I didn't have time to contribute more input earlier. Now I will attempt to write out my understanding of the situation, see if it will help anybody.

As the Hive's CC ambassador, I have discussed with Function Drogue and Maniac regarding their upcoming PEACE war and the Hive-CC relationship in a talk recently. I have restated the Hive's position. I told the CC that the Hive is very willing to further the Hive CC relationship, with the cavert that CC must understand that at this time there are not enough support for us to go into a joint victory report with the CC. The CC informed me that by this turn (2150) the CC is ready to accept the Hive's pact offer. Also the CC will start its PEACE war that it has been planning for some time.

We have also talked about this following detail. Since the Hive is currently pacted with the PEACE, after the CC declares vendetta against the PEACE, the computer will automatically change the Hive CC relationship to vendetta. It was agreed that the CC will immediately offer a pact back to us. And I have agreed that the Hive will accept it.

In that talk as well as other previous communications through the Embassy, the CC understood and accepted the Hive's stance toward the PEACE: that we are not prepared to go into war with the PEACE at this moment, because we would like to keep our integrity of the pact, and also because we don't have any military force to spare. We have discussed in the case if the university will declare vendetta against CC, we may want to offer our spiritual help to the CC by declaring vendetta against the university, but again we have made sure that the CC understands that due to our limited military ability, this would mainly be a gesture, instead of an actual war.

Based on the above information, I have seriously conservation about the aforementioned "CyCon Ultimatum". It appeared to be a drastic departure from the CC's stance toward us, so drastic that I doubt its truthfulness. I am not accusing Comrade Jamski was lying here. Rather, I believe in the spirit of helping the CC Hive relationship, Comrade Jamski had taken initiatives to contact the CC. However because he had not been involved in the game and was not very clear about the current situation, there might be some misunderstanding and thus led to this PM perhaps from one CC function.

Since now it has been officially denied by the CyCons, I believe we should not taken this as the CC's official stance.

Originally posted by Jamski
To add to what HongHu said, I got a PM today from xxxx, which said I should not have told anyone about his/her PMs, especially with Tass's witch-hunt thread in action.

Since now it has been officially denied by the CyCons, I believe we should not taken this as the CC's official stance.

I agree, although there is still the possibilty that this could be thier unofficial stance...

-Jam

Since my understanding is that senior CC officials are you, Drogue and Impaler and the other two has publically denied their knowledge of this, so I have thought that it was you who had sent this PM. I would really appreciate if you could tell me what was going on and if it was you or not.

Hong

[Snowflake]

I've obtained Maniac's permission to post this in our forum:

Jamski Affair

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php...amskiAffair.

[Snowflake]

Well looks like he deleted it. I will forward the copy to Chairman and if he decides that I should post it out then I will.

[Snowflake]

More PMs to Maniac:

Btw may I ask, do you know what happened that made Kody, Voltaire ad AFAIK other Hiveans apparently pissed off at laurentius? A couple of months back he's had many chats with Hiveans we didn't know about, and apparently he made many people angry for some reason.

I don't know too much about him. Tass actually accused me of leaking info to him when I didn't even know him. But I think he had claimed that he has infiltrated all ACDG teams other than the Drones. And that may have pissed some people off.

[Frankychan]

Comrade HongHu,

I remember him saying that he had all the factions infiltrated. I, for one, did not have contact with him as per the command for all Hive citizens to cease talks with every other faction except for diplomats.

[Kody]

That time period was very complicated.... and in my opinion none of the things are really resolved....

At least I know that Maniac doesn't have it in for me, since he hasn't reserved that kind of PM just for me.