Diplomatic Contact with the Spartans

[Chaos Theory]

It's too early to pop boom when we don't have the drone control or crawlers to maintain +2 nutrients. We need some more crawlers, rec tanks, and rec commons. We also need enough cities to actually have something worth booming, though not every city has to be ready at the time we switch to Democracy. Also, once we do switch to Demo, our cities with creches will be in permanent booms, unlike most factions which would switch to Free Market or lower Psych allocation.

[Chaos Theory]

I confirm everything Lt. Colonel Maniac has said or will say, considering he's one of the two leaders of the Spartan Federation. My very mandate of office comes directly from him.

Here are a few proposals for trades with Doc Flex and Eth Calc. Since we can't know what you'll want, you'll have to modify them if you don't find them agreeable. All of tech trades will by default entail a trade embargo covering third parties for a duration of 15 mission years.

1) We will give you Ethical Calculus. You will in turn give us 15 credits for 10 turns as a licensing fee for our information. Also, you must agree to refrain from building Citizen's Defence Force, since the discovery leading to that project, Intellectual Integrity, will be a direct result of our intellectual property.

2) We will give you Ethical Calculus. You must agree to not build CDF. You offer us a technology in turn.

3) We will give you Doctrine: Flexibility. In turn, you will give us Social Psych and 50 credits, in recognition that while D:F is a level two technology, Social Psych is a level one technology.

4) We will give you Doctrine: Flexibility. In turn, you will give us whatever you want to suggest.

All things considered, it's mostly open season, but agreeing to 1) and 3) will most likely get you the techs you are after. All of the above terms are, naturally, open for negotiation, in search of mutual agreement.

For the Junta and the Federation,


Major Kassiopeia, Diplomatic and Foreign Affairs Officer of the Spartan Junta.

Message edited by: Kassiopeia on 10/20/2004 17:14:52[Server Time/GMT -8 Pacific Time]

I never valued the CDF very highly, and would be willing to forever give up the ability to build it. In particular, if the Spartans want the CDF and want to avoid letting us grab it, I would be quite willing to allay their fears (for whatever value we can extract for this, of course).

The tech embargo for 15 years is completely unacceptable for anything we might want to trade with the Angels (Doc: Flex for certain). 15 credits for each of 10 turns is borderline beyond our capabilities, and is certainly a rather high price for this early a tech. 50 credits is also a steep difference between a level 1 tech and a level 2 tech.

The terms listed, all in all, are not very appealing. I believe the Spartans will not be a lucrative trade partner, given their insistence on a trade embargo, and our lack of items of value to them.

[Illuminatus]

I am not so sure for CDF, I think we should ask for opinions of other players too, before dismissing that. I know Maniac values that project, but are they preparing for an impact or rover rush? I think we should think about that. We should PM Darsnan and Hydro to have their say. At least we don't have to respond this turn.

15 credits for 10 turns is unacceptable, as is trade embargo - we should lower the embargo to five years. Level one tech + maybe 25-30 credits then? We should ask Angels for credits, since they will be very interested in trade for flexibility regardless. We can tell them we are negotiating for Flexibility and ask for credit emission to us, in order to fund this effort (we should be wary of Spartans trying to replicate our efforts).

We could also agree on a longer embargo for Calculus in order to decrease embargo on Flexibility. We should get Calculus and Flex from them, and eventually any other useful tech from them (they have access to Lal's techs). After that, they will ask us for techs. I will now PM GeoModder about some issues - since eventis is nonexistant anymore, I'll tell him to send PMs to you too CT.

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I never valued the CDF very highly.....The tech embargo for 15 years is completely unacceptable.....15 credits for each of 10 turns is borderline beyond our capabilities, and is certainly a rather high price for this early a tech.

The terms listed, all in all, are not very appealing. I believe the Spartans will not be a lucrative trade partner, given their insistence on a trade embargo, and our lack of items of value to them.

Yup, got to agree, the Spartans are nuts. Additionally, they are the one faction which can be crippled by not trading with them at all (except for techs useless to them in order to slow down their research, i.e. Progenitor Psych). So I don't mind not trading with them.

Normally I would be right there with you on the CDF, but allow me to speculate under the circumstances. Consider the fact that we have two, maybe three big prober factions: Angels, Morgans, and Spartans are likely to go Fundy during war. Assuming we plan on building enough PDs to justify the expense, it would make sense to build the CDF in a central base to prevent probe teams from destroying our PDs. This could be especially important if the Spartans go to rover rush.

Of course I have no MP experience, so I don't really know. Just something to chew on.

[Ouro_827]

Didn't they get a bypass on Automation trading? Insist we deserve one too!

[Illuminatus]

Yes, but we agreed on money compensation for 50 credits. We should ask for toning down the embargo rules.

[Hydro]

A couple of observations:

Technology ‘level’ is a completely bogus argument since the research cost is related to the number of techs you have, not the level of the tech. So, reject this stupid item out of hand.

The Spartans will have no idea what we are trading to whom; plus, this is too great a limitation

I’d be sympathetic to giving up CDF if they had developed Int:Integ, but they don’t have it yet. By their argument any tech that leads to Int:Integ will give them the ‘right’ to CDF. I’d say hose off, or make it worth our while.

Overall, my recommendation is that we say we will trade a tech-for-a-tech, with a few exceptions like critical techs like IA, but we don’t have to tell them that. I’d also review their previous offers. I seem to recall they said they’d pay us 25 cred for a tech. OK – we’ll give you 25 cred for a tech. If you thought it was fair, then quid-pro-quo.

I think we should negotiate from a tough but fair approach. If they are being butt-wipes then throw their offer in the trash and politely say ‘try again’. If they don’t want to be a trading partner then so be it. If we appear desperate or needy then we are dog meat. Besides, we can always work with the Angels (unless we did give their frequency to the Spartans, in which case we’re hosed).

[Chaos Theory]

We did exchange frequencies, and this does not hose us. The Angels have not yet traded with the Spartans (or we'd have heard about it). We can work with the Angels to the exclusion of the Spartans, since they have no reason to be tougher on us than on the Angels. Based on my construction of the world map, they were possibly just a few turns away from meeting.

Turning their offers around certainly sounds like a good way to counterinsult them.

[Illuminatus]

I shall wait a day before replying to Spartans. Also note that Spartans are trying to sell same techs to both us and Angels. I would use this fact in order to weaken relations of Angels and Spartans.
Also, if Angels are interested in unifying diplomatic front against Spartans, we could ask them to reject all their offers along with us, presenting a unified front which would force Spartans to back down.

[Chaos Theory]

Others may be interested to learn that the Spartans do in fact have Morgan's commlink (and vice-versa, of course). Thus, their statement that they could not get it from Yang, while perhaps true, is misleading in that we wanted Morgan's commlink from Sparta. They are untrustworthy.

Checking old turns shows they obtained this commlink between our 2141 and 2142 turns, though it's impossible to tell who contacted who first.

[Illuminatus]

Shocking discovery indeed. I believe we should tell this to Angels. Also, should we renew our peace treaty when it expires?

[Chaos Theory]

I'm inclined against it, as I've stated before. We should avoid mentioning our discoveries to the Spartans, and allow them to think we're gullible, but sharing with the Angels is fine, so long as we make sure they're quiet about it, too.

[Illuminatus]

Angels already have research treaty with Spartans. I mentioned this to Angels, and I beleive they will keep quiet, since they proposed a way to bypass treaty rules they have with Spartans. I would also feed Angels some bits of information about Hive and Sparta, trying to shake Sparta's impression on Angels.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
I'm inclined against it, as I've stated before. We should avoid mentioning our discoveries to the Spartans, and allow them to think we're gullible, but sharing with the Angels is fine, so long as we make sure they're quiet about it, too.

Why not confront them about it? I don't know exactly what's been going on, but if we asked the for Morgan's frequency and they told us they didn't have it/couldn't give it to us, then we need to tell them that we know they have the frequency and their holding out on us does not make them good trading partners. We will inform others of their underhandedness too, for it is in everyone's best interests for free flow of information (heh ) and to get trustworthy trading partners set up. This is not conducive to trust or cooperation and we should strongly urge them to make amends in the future or they will find themselves isolated.

Secondly, what is the point of an embargo? If it is so that they can sell whatever we were buying off them quickly to other factions before we did, OK, but that should take no more than 5 turns. If there was a particular faction they did not wish to have a particular tech, then they should feel free to tell us and we would only be too happy to negotiate with this knowledge. But 15 years is unnecessary and again, counterproductive to establishing trusting ties.

We should tell them all of this. Be open about our concerns and we should expect them to change or to damn themselves further.

[Illuminatus]

Before I turn down all their offers (they proposed #5 which included they transmitting us Flex under assumption we are currently researching it so we can redirect to HGE - they are beelining towards missle weaponry) their 4) offer was:
4) We will give you Doctrine: Flexibility. In turn, you will give us whatever you want to suggest.

I think I should say to them we refuse all offers but 4) but we won't suggest anything. If we turn down 4) they would have a dangerous precedent set for them.