Spartan Diplomacy

[arginine]

I thought we were going to go ICS for most of the land bases.

I would put in a restriction prohibiting both factions from trading Synth Fossil Fuels and D AP for about ~20 turns to anyone.

Should we tell the Federation of our contact with Zak? (They can check it themselves). Maybe we could bluff them into selling us the commlink to the PKs (by saying we are looking for less than University's price). Alternatively, we might try asking them for their assitance in getting a trade agreement with Zak.

[Mead]

I posted this in the Embassy:

Gentlemen and Officers of the Junta,

The Corporation would be pleased to extend the current treaty we have with you for another 5 year term. We offer to do so.

Please let us know if you accept our offer.

Mead
CDO, Morgan Corp.

PS
Please note that I did not place this offer in the Treaty, Contracts, and Agreements thread because I only want to place completed agreements there, so it is easy to reference (over a period of time the thread would become cluttered otherwise). If our offer to extend the treaty is accepted then I will place a copy of the extension in that thread.

I feel that they want to continue the treaty. I want to lock them in for another 5 years before we get the PEG.


Mead

[Mead]

Originally posted by arginine
I thought we were going to go ICS for most of the land bases.

I would put in a restriction prohibiting both factions from trading Synth Fossil Fuels and D AP for about ~20 turns to anyone.

Should we tell the Federation of our contact with Zak? (They can check it themselves). Maybe we could bluff them into selling us the commlink to the PKs (by saying we are looking for less than University's price). Alternatively, we might try asking them for their assitance in getting a trade agreement with Zak.

I recommend against stating that we are looking for a lesser price than what Uni is offering.

They ought to know that we would buy the comm link from Uni if offered it to us (if we can ask Sparta, and get a response from them, before we post our turn then Sparta might indeed suspect that we are shopping for a better price. These way we don't have to imply (bluff) anything. We let them come to thier own conclusions. It keeps our credibility and may even be more convincing a 'bluff'.

Let me know if I should ask Sparta if they could give us a quick price quote on the PK commlink.
If we were to buy the comm link from Sparta, how would we pay? Installment plan? How much for how long?

Mead

[arginine]

Lets ask them for a quick price quote. Nice thinking about just asking for a quote. It is possible our ship will run into the PKs soon, so we might not want to buy it, but it can't hurt to ask.

I figure we would pay them in a lump sum a few turns after the PEG (when we have money

[jtsisyoda]

Go ahead and ask for a quote. We may not want to pay it, but it's worth having a quote. However, they know we have a boat in the water since we have Zak's commlink now.

I propose we tell the Spartans we can start SFF in the early 2150's, if they provide HEC. IMHO, the PEG is in the bag (but don't tell them that!), so we're free to get this DAP thing rolling.

Offering a lump sum gives away how much mad loot we're pulling in. We should be coy about just how much we're making, by continuing a policy of installments. Otherwise, we may find prices artificially inflated, or worse, it may paint colorful concentric rings on our chest.

[jtsisyoda]

From Googlie:

To: Board Members and Officers of Morgan Corporation

The Spartan Federation would be pleased to extend for another five years the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with the Morgan Corporation.

There is, however, one change that we must insit on, and that is the revocation of Mr. Moneypenny's privileges on board the SCC Hunter. We have explained the reasons for this in the SCC Hunter logs

Lieutenant-Colonel Googlie

The Spartan Federation

And:

As the terms of our Treaty are currently under consideration for renewal, we would like to revoke the status of Mr. Moneypenny as an observor aboard the SCC Hunter.

We have found - for those six years he has been on board - that our exploration style has been somewhat cramped, as we have avoided going where sensitive cartographical information known to us already might be revealed. This has resulted in less than optimal operating efficiency for the Hunter.

**Captain Primus Pilus shakes Mr Moneypenny's hand and wishes him godspeed**

And:

TO: Mr Mead, CDO, Morgan Corporation

We do indeed possess the commlink for Commissioner Lal

We would be happy to sell it to you for 40 ec's. If this is acceptable, we would prefer to receive payment in a short timeframe - 1 or 2 years would be our preference - as we have a need for energy credits in the near future (4 years out would be about as far as we'd want to go, but that'd be less than optimal)

Lt. Col Googlie

[Micha]

Hm, so they´ve taken the bait.
Fourty ecs is quite much when it´s a one-time-payment. We should try to either lower this price or divide it into several installments.

[-SafaN-]

why do they need the ec's? rushing crawlers for the SP probably?

Greetz

[Mead]

So,

Do we:


Accept to contiunue the Treaty (without the observer on the SCC Hunter)? There were several reasons I wanted an observer on the Hunter. They were:

To get some map data;
To keep track of where the Hunter was;
To complicate matters for the Spartans in case they wanted to launch an invasion on us; and
to show them that we were not such a pushover in bargaining.

How hard do we want to bargain on this?

We could try to negotiate a 2 EC reduction in cash to the Spartans (representing the loss of the value of the observer intel).

Although I think we should continue the Treaty even if we don't get a reduction in the profit sharing, I want to see if we can lessen the amount of Treaty profit share by 2 ECs. Maybe, we can settle at a 1 EC reduction.

AFTER the Spartans post their turn (unless they push me too much on it before then), I'll reply to Googlie expressing that although we understand their concerns, we are disappointed at the loss of very enjoyable and informative postings from the Hunter and we want to reduce the payment by 2 ECs (remember this is the amount extra the initially sought for Moneypenny's passage).

40 EC for PKs commlink.
It looks like they are willing to spread this over 4 years.

It is still too much right now. Let's wait until our turn comes back. We might be able to get the commlink for less (or free, if we bump into someone else).

Plus, I don't want to accept Sparta's first offer. It dilutes the power of the treaty. If they are getting 10 ECs from the Commlink purchase, and 8 from the Tech purchase, (18 total) then the 3 to 5 ECs they would get from the treaty looks insignificant. But, if they are only getting only 8 from the Tech purchase then the 3 to 5 ECs they get from the treaty still looks pretty good.

I'll try to ignore the Spartans until after they post their turn, but please give some feedback on the above in the meantime.

Mead

[Chaunk]

Just to point out, a treaty cannot be cancelled except by an act of war as far as I know. A pact can be cancelled, but only down to treaty. This is only IIRC. Which I might not

Which isn't to say we want to say "Screw you, you ain't getting a penny, and we're keeping our treaty." but it does give us some extra leverage I think.

Will comment on the rest when I have more time.

[Micha]

I think Googlie posted the turn before you made this post, Mead... (Or did you mean after the 2149 turn?)

Well, I agree with what you say. 40 ec IMO is too much. while they certainly won´t settle for 20ec, we might be able to lower the price a bit. Also we need to continue the treaty. If they are sturdy, we´ll have to back down. We still cannot afford a war with them!

[arginine]

Well, if they want to explore their territory, I don't see much objection to that. One possibility would be to turn the treaty into us being notified on the location of Spartan ships in our territorial waters and vice versa. It would be nice to reduce the 'revenue sharing' by 2 or 1 ECs.

As for 40 EC for the commlink, I have no objection to that price. It would be worth mentioning we were expecting a better price but on the other hand it wasn't a flat out rip off, so we'll make it painless and just take it. Trade revenues with the PKs would be worth about >10 EC / turn alone. I am more concerned about getting the PKs to start trading with us once we get the commlink. The commlink is worthless until we get trades with the PKs. Hopefully, we'll have enough money to do this.

[Chaunk]

How about 20 ec for the commlink, and a further 30 ec after we've had a treaty with the PK's for two turns? They'll probably object, but at least that way, we're pointing out that the commlink isn't valueable to us for it's own sake. We're not Zak for crying out loud.

My point with the treaty being unbreakable without vendetta starting (Which is right btw. The ai can do it, but after checking, just confirmed that a human-human treaty can't be broken except by vendetta) is just this: They want to change the terms of our treaty unilaterally. We therefore have that option too. They remove our observer, we remove their credits, or at least a portion. 40% less per turn seems sensible.

They'll object of course, but then we object to the removal of our observer, without warning, without notification.

[jtsisyoda]

I think 40 ec's is too much. Waiting to find the PK's on our own is fine with me, unless they come down to 20 ec's.

I think it's a good idea to bargain down 1 or 2 ec's on the profit sharing.

Chaunk, can we hit "Pledge Truce" and then have them accept, or vice versa? Not that we want to do that... just asking if it's possible.

[Mead]

OK, thanks for the feedback so far.

Chaunk, I didn't realize this

Just to point out, a treaty cannot be cancelled except by an act of war as far as I know. A pact can be cancelled, but only down to treaty. This is only IIRC. Which I might not

Which isn't to say we want to say "Screw you, you ain't getting a penny, and we're keeping our treaty." but it does give us some extra leverage I think.

Knowing this will come in handy.

I'll respond back to Sparta, in due time. There's no rush that I am aware of. I want to talk to them after we get the turn.

In a nice, cooperative, constructive, tone I will reply to their making our guy Moneypenny 'walk the plank.' I'll negotiate for a 2 EC reduction in profit sharing and be seeking to settle for no less than a 1 EC reduction.


As for the 40 EC commlink offer, I'll try to negotiate a lower price, but wait for more consensus before we get serious with the negotiations. I'll wait until we get the turn before I contact Googlie on this as well.


Mead