Spartan Diplomacy

[arginine]

I think we should ask the Spartans if it is possible for us to acquire neural grafting through them in the near future, or if anyone even has neural grafting.

[arginine]

We are going to beat the junta to the PEG without divine intervention, so I wouldn't put in that conditionality.

[Mead]

Originally posted by arginine
We are going to beat the junta to the PEG without divine intervention, so I wouldn't put in that conditionality.

I'm not worried about them building PEG before us.

I'm adding that clause to save Morgan 'face'.

If they are going to get us to promise not to build the CDF I want them to feel like they are giving us something (that they don't really care about anyway) in return (but that they think is important to us).

I don't want Sparta to get the feeling that we are a pushover. It sets a bad precedent for future negotiations.

Exchanging a promise from them not build build a certain SP in return for our promise to them not to build a certain SP seems fair and reasonable. It's a promise that costs them nothing, but that they may think we value substantially.

I am asking them for the promise from them not to trade Industrial Economics to anyone else for the same exact reason (if they are geting our promise not to transfer tech they give us for 9 years then I want the same promise from them). I think everyone will have it by the time we make contact.


Mead

[arginine]

I guess I'll just leave diplomacy to the diplomats. I would prefer the project be the Ascetic Virtues though...

[jtsisyoda]

Awesome, Mr. Mead. (Although I think everybody else has Ind Econ so that part may be superfluous.) I have a suggestion we could consider, though. Instead of (or in addition to?) making them promise not to build PEG, we could add a condition to our promise not to build CDF. We agree not to build CDF as long as the Spartans don't break the treaty with us. (Implying that if they attack us, steal from us, etc., we are freed from our commitment.) This might go without saying, so do you guys think it's unnecessary? If they were to backstab us, we would not be the ones losing honor by abandoning the agreement.

[arginine]

I think it is understood if we do get attacked (or we attacked them) Morgan-Spartan agreements would be null and void.

[Mead]

I posted this in the Embassy:

We appreciate your willingness to establish a fair price for Ethical Calculus, and I think that your diplomatic efforts have been at least cordial, if not completely professional as you lament.

The Junta recognizes your financial troubles at the moment, therefore we suggest an additional exchange of technology to cover for the lowered licence fee. Therefore we propose that the following might be an acceptable compromise for both of our factions:

Morgan Industries supplies to the Federation the technology of Industrial Economics , pays an annual licence fee of 8 energy credits for 15 years for the use of Ethical Calculus, and undertakes not to trade it to third parties for a period of 9 years. Furthermore, the Corporation undertakes not to build the Citizens' Defense Force. Ever.

In exchange, the Federation will transmit to Morgan Industries Ethical Calculus, with the no-trade embargo reduced from our original 15 years to 9 years, and Gene Splicing - Gene Splicing will not have a no-traude clause attached to it.

***

Major Kassiopeia

We appreciate your kind understanding of our situation.

We agree to your offer with the with the following provision that, like us agreeing not to transfer Ethical Calculus to anyone else for 9 years, you agree not to trade Industrial Economics for 9 years to anyone else. And, as we promise to never build the CDF, you promise to never build the PEG.


To summarize:

Our Offer
We give you Industrial Economics, 8 ECs per year for 15 years (120 ECs total), our commitment to not transfer Ethical Calculus to anyone else for 9 years, and our commitment to never build the CDF.

You give us Ethical Calculus, Gene Splicing, your commitment to not transfer Industrial Economics to anyone else for 9 years, and your commitment to never build the PEG.

If you agree, please send both Techs to us preaccepted and post a response here confirming your acceptance.

[Unofficially, I will say that if this is accepted, I am fairly certain that my Junta colleagues could be convinced to explore a joint initiative towards securing Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics for both of our factions.]

This sounds very promising. We anticipate closer relations with Sparta that will be very profitable for both of us.

Also, while I am sure that our titles may be confusing to you, seeing as you are all Misters, I have to correct you, Mr. Mead, in that I am not a Lieutenant Colonel, but a Major.

My mistake. But, I am certain you will attain that, and higher grade, rapidly.


Mead
CDO, Morgan Corp.

Mead

[Mead]

Originally posted by jtsisyoda
Awesome, Mr. Mead. (Although I think everybody else has Ind Econ so that part may be superfluous.) I have a suggestion we could consider, though. Instead of (or in addition to?) making them promise not to build PEG, we could add a condition to our promise not to build CDF. We agree not to build CDF as long as the Spartans don't break the treaty with us. (Implying that if they attack us, steal from us, etc., we are freed from our commitment.) This might go without saying, so do you guys think it's unnecessary? If they were to backstab us, we would not be the ones losing honor by abandoning the agreement.

I expect them to build the CDF themselves as soon as it is practicable to keep it out of the hands of their future intended victims.

With the CBA unavailable it is the best defensive SP. Although it is useful as an SP I never liked letting my enemy get close enough to my cities where they could use ground forces (it's true that because choppers can't attack cities, ground attacks may be more likely).

Please note, it is possible for them to properly attack us if the treaty ends in a lawful way (by expiration, or mutual agreement) and then they attack us. By the time that happens, however, I expect them (or maybe someone else) to have built the CDF. I expect that one of the chief reasons why they were restricting our transfer of it was to prevent other factions from building the CDF.

When the time eventually comes, we will have to capture (probe/buy) the city that houses the CDF SP. Probably from the Spartans.

Mead

[Micha]

Excellent work, Mead!

With these annual payments we are ensuring a renewal of the treaty, I think. With their pity economy our installments must be a huge percentage of their budget...

And regarding the CDF:
It´s a good SP because it gives free base facilities; But remember that perimeter defences don´t cost us upkeep anyway, and as cheap as they are we can easily build them in each base.

[-SafaN-]

we know now that the spartans won't attack us until the CDF is build. If they do CDF should be builded at all cost by us, just to show them we are no whussies
nice work mead!


Greetz

[Mead]

Originally posted by Micha
Excellent work, Mead!

With these annual payments we are ensuring a renewal of the treaty, I think. With their pity economy our installments must be a huge percentage of their budget...
***

They have not accepted yet.

I hope and expect them to accept but they haven't yet.

If they do accept then that would likely mean that they are devoting their efforts to building the CDF. If so, that means that we should not expect an invasion, from them, until a few years after they complete the CDF at th earliest.

Mead

[#endgame]

I'd say steer clear of CDF, and spend the crawlers on something else. We will have spine, but they don't need to know that... yet.

-- CTO #endgame

[arginine]

They have rejected the deal, but over the minor bits we added in recently.

If we accept their techs at the beginning of next turn, will that increase the cost of researching Adapt Eco which we will start next turn. We won't need the techs immediately so it might be a good idea to deal acceptance of the deal until right after they finish their turn.

Also, they need industrial economics in order to research Environmental Economics, so while we might not value it, they do.

The stickler was the time limitation on trading Ind. Eco.

I'd like to trade that tech with the friendly AIs to help us get on good enough terms to get a trade pact. We haven't thought about how to butter up those friendly AIs into giving us trade deals, at which point we can ignore the rest of the game

I would like to reiterate my support of rushing a foil of some sort next turn.

Since we put that time delay before trading the techs, we can cite our need to make the AIs friendly to us somehow. If they have a viable alternative for us to get friendly with the AIs, then I have no objections.

[Mead]

Junta Responding at turning down our offer:

The Junta has decided to turn down your counter-proposal. The earlier proposal by us was considered to be a balanced one, but your addition of a no-trade clause to Industrial Economics and a no-build clause of Planetary Energy Grid are a problem.

While the PEG issue is a minor one, the no-trade clause is not - we were willing to lower our price for Ethical Calculus from 10 to 8 times 15 because we expect to be able to trade IndEcon onwards for a sum of money that might slightly cover the decifit we will suffer from the lowered selling price of EthCalc.

With the no-trade clause, this is not the case for nine years, during which the monetary value of the technology will have rapidly declined.

So this is their stated reason. Maybe it's the real reason.

If you can remove the no-trade clause from your counterproposal, we have a deal.

I don't have any problem with removing it, although I would like to get something in return, like
arginine's request that they promise not to build the AV.


The rest of their response.

"My mistake. But, I am certain you will attain that, and higher grade, rapidly."

Thank you, I am flattered; but I would probably turn such a promotion down, as I find that my skills are best used in my current position, not that of a commanding officer.


In response to Mr. Arginine:

The Junta disagrees with the presented principle and the calculation of the value of stolen techs.

Regarding the calculation of what's the cost for getting stolen techs, you have made some errors. This is of course understandable, as you have little experience with our method of technology acquisition.

Firstly, in order to steal technology succesfully, probe teams with 2 movement points are necessary. This increases the cost to 3 mineral rows per probe team.

Secondly, it costs more than two credits per mineral to hurry a unit, e.g. a probe team. A more accurate exchange rate would be 2.5 to 3 credits per mineral. Since were not an economical-infrastructurally oriented faction, we have no need right now for facilities, so your argument that we should use those credits for hurrying facilities holds no ground when applied to us.

Those two factors already increase the credit cost of a stolen tech (being cheap and assuming a 2.5 ec exchange rate) to 225 credits.

However, that does not include the cost of building the transports necessary to ship the probes to their destination. That's a heavy investment in a period of time when those minerals can be used for many other useful things. If you include that, the cost increases even more.

Besides that, we disagree with the principle that self-researched technologies would be more valuable than self-stolen techs. They are simply different and equivalent strategies to reach the same goal. As you have lots of energy, researching yourselves is the best option for you. As we have less energy but more naval and probe power, 'acquiring' them is the best option for us.

Additionally, several of the key techs we have available for sale or trade were not acquired through self-research nor probe stealing. For example, Gene Splicing was purchased by us, and we traded a tech to the AI for Ethical Calculus (I suppose the latter can be comparable to a self-researched tech).

So it's not quite so simple as comparative costs for stolen versus researched technologies. We do not consider one strategy inferior to another, and the techs obtained by one strategy we do not consider less valuable in trades than techs obtained by another strategy. "All techs are born equal" - this is a simple principle to follow.


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

How soon do we need/want the Techs (EC and GS)?

If we need them ASAP I'll accept their offer.
LET ME KNOW.

If not, I'll wait or try to get a better deal with them promising not to build AV.

I want to get an installment payment deal in place at least 2 years before our treaty deal is to expire so they continue to have a reason to value peace with us.


It looks like they have already posted the turn so a deal for this turn may not be possible.


Mead

[Mead]

My reply

Reply to : Kassiopeia


The Junta has decided to turn down your counter-proposal. The earlier proposal by us was considered to be a balanced one, but your addition of a no-trade clause to Industrial Economics and a no-build clause of Planetary Energy Grid are a problem.While the PEG issue is a minor one, the no-trade clause is not - we were willing to lower our price for Ethical Calculus from 10 to 8 times 15 because we expect to be able to trade IndEcon onwards for a sum of money that might slightly cover the decifit we will suffer from the lowered selling price of EthCalc.With the no-trade clause, this is not the case for nine years, during which the monetary value of the technology will have rapidly declined.If you can remove the no-trade clause from your counterproposal, we have a deal.

Maj Kassiopeia
We value your position. We find it entirely understandable that you hope, like us, to profit over the sale of Industrial Economics to others (you help others while at the same time you help yourself and everyone benefits). It is commendable.

It just seems evenhanded that if you place a 9 year restriction on the transfer of Ethical Calculus so you could profit on its later sale, that we place a 9 year restriction on the transfer of Industrial Economics so we could profit on its later sale.

I have not yet discussed this with the Corporation, but I am thinking that we could replace the non-transfer restriction with a promise from you to never build the Ascetic Virtues.

As always, please let me know what you think. I like to keep the discussions between us open and productive.



To summarize again:
Our Revised Offer assuming the Corporation agrees with what I'm thinking (I really want to make this deal work for us, but I have to check with the Corporation)


We give you Industrial Economics, 8 ECs per year for 15 years (120 ECs total), our commitment to not transfer Ethical Calculus to anyone else for 9 years, and our commitment to never build the CDF.

You give us Ethical Calculus, Gene Splicing, DELETED[your commitment to not transfer Industrial Economics to anyone else for 9 years], and your commitment to never build the PEG ADDED [and your commitment to never build the Ascetic Virtues].

If the Junta agrees to this please let me know by posting here. I think I could get the Corporation to agree, I would then post acceptance and then we would have a deal.

If you have sent the techs to us preaccepted this turn (I don't know if you have) and we resolve this by the time we get the turn we might be able to consumate the deal then.


Mead
CDO, Morgan Corp.