GoW- Diplomacy comments #2

[nbarclay]

Would you be willing to wait until GoW either attacks us or declares their hostility toward us on the public forum? It seems to me that we're better off not doing anything that makes it look like we're the ones picking a fight with GoW. (Of course if others disagree...)

By the way, it would probably be good if someone would let RP know that it looks like GoW is about to declare war on us.

[notyoueither]

[22:09] *UnOrthOdOx* Basically, I wanted nothing to do with what is about to follow (barring some miracle)

Something is up. Lego is coming?

I tried to set a patient, but welcoming tone towards war. I thought that would best put them off. They think they are the big bad asses with the riders. That the enemy sniffs at them and says 'bring it on' would be the most unnerving, I think.

[Shiber]

Could GF know that we landed massive amounts of troops on Bob from the game? Could he have been tipped off by a traitor in RP? Or is he just playing mind games and hoping that we'd reply with "How did you know?" so he would know?
Anyway, we need to tell RP, just in case they do have a traitor among their ranks (a very unfortunate event, and if it turns out to be true then I swear I will make sure that GoW is penalized for using information from traitors).

[Aeson]

If they knew what we were landing they wouldn't be declaring war Shiber. They have 14 'mostly irreplaceable' Riders, and they'd lose them all before Toledo falls. I can't see them making that decision informed.

[notyoueither]

Something else. Why did UnO claim that he knew that Barcelona would be turned over to us? Did he misplay his hand? Did he assume that that was the deal with RP, since we demanded it from them? Hense, his gambit would be to psych us out that there is a mole.

I think this is likely. I think that GoW got their cues mixed up. UnO thought he could use the threat of revealing Inchon to get yet more information from me. While he was unaware that GF had already spilled it.

The entire slant of GoW barking has been to drive wedges between what they fear is coming. An RP, GS union.

He is correct. He failed.

Good cop (UnO) bad cop (GF). pfft.

[Aeson]

I'd actually trust UnO that he is morally detached from GoW. I think he was trying to get us to spill something (teleportation 'exploit'?) he could use to be able to stomach their NAP 'violation' (which in his eyes wouldn't be a violation then) in hopes of staying in the game.

[Shiber]

GoW violates a treaty and declared war on us. IMHO this voids the NDA on Chivalry. What do you think?

[Aeson]

Nope, seperate agreements. It's only a couple turns difference anyways.

[Shiber]

But it sets such a nice example. Lego, beware: declare war on us and we'll steal your techs.

[Aeson]

It's also breaking an agreement. Even GoW respected the NDA on Feudalism while at war with us the first time. How could we do less?

[vulture]

It's breaking an agreement, and besides, they can't attack Toledo until turn 132, which is certainly a turn we can trade Chivalry on anyway.

On the NDA, I'm inclined to regard the turn we receive the tech as turn 1 - no NDA means we can trade the tech immediately that we get it, a 1 turn NDA means that we have to wait one turn (we receive it on turn 100, and sell it on turn 101, but can't on turn 100 because of the NDA). Hence if we receive a tech on turn x, and the NDA is for n turns, we can sell or gift the tech on turn x + n. In this case, we received the tech on turn 121, and the NDA is for 10 turns, so we can do what we like with it on turn 131, namely the next turn that arrives.

We might want to keep it for one more turn just to make it absolutely obvious that we haven't broken the NDA, no matter how you count the turns, unless there is an absolutely pressing need for RP to upgrade their horses in turn 131 rather than 132.

[vulture]

I don't think they guessed that we are moving RP troops back home with the Inchon thing though. By the sounds of it, they think we were using it to move our own troops around, although if you study the turn order that doesn't work (or does it - if we offered it as a trade for 1 gold, accepted, it wouldn't change hands until RPs turn AIUI, so we could use it to move our troops around). Can't think what they'd imagine the point of it was though. Perhaps they are just worried that we have found some cunning exploit to move our troops en masse to Bob using teleporting, rather than merely having a lot of galleys.

EDIT: put in here to avoid spamming up the board with three messages from me in a row... Just for the record, I think that GoW are right that our actions helping RP and hindering them violate the NAP, especially after we made a point about it being the spirit rather than the wording that was important. But that is in the past now, so I'm not going to carp on about it, and am certainly not going to say anything to this effect in the public forum (or in private PMs or emails either, obviously). Now lets get ready to kick some Rider butt

[Aeson]

I think you're right Vulture. I was thinking of 121 as turn 0, but it's definitely a turn we could have traded Chivalry, so should count as the first turn of the NDA.

1: 121
2: 122
3: 123
4: 124
5: 125
6: 126
7: 127
8: 128
9: 129
10: 130

Trade: 131?

[Aeson]

I don't agree with the NAP violation on our part at all.

When we signed the NAP, GoW hadn't clued us in on their invasion. We hadn't clued GoW in on our invasion plans either. We aren't required to help GoW, or even facilitate them in their campaign. They aren't required to reciprocate.

Saying we broke the NAP by taking RP cities and not allowing an ROP is like saying they broke the NAP by threatening RP in the first place. We had plans too, ones which actions by GoW caused us to throw out the window. A NAP wouldn't have given us the right to demand they withdraw their troops because we wanted to conquer territory they were threatening. It doesn't give GoW similar rights.

We just beat them to the cities pure and simple. Sure those cities block GoW from RP, and we knew that going in. We knew that it would anger GoW, but we didn't sign on to be GoW's lapdogs and do their bidding any more than GoW signed on to be ours. GoW's part in denying us territory on Bob certainly didn't agree with us, and it wasn't a violation of the NAP was it? They had to have known we wouldn't like it (especially after we told them flat out a few times).

Hurricane keeps GoW from 4 move Galleys, which is (or will be) hindering their war efforts, and it's not a violation of the NAP that we hold it from them. It's ours, like Toledo and Bilbao are. GoW not attacking ND with their Riders hinders our war effort, and them having Riders near our cities does too, but we don't have the right to demand they attack ND or leave the vicinity of our territory, just that they don't violate our actual borders.

The purpose of a NAP is to help protect what is ours and theirs... not to determine what becomes ours or theirs (outside us taking theirs or them taking ours). That's the spirit of a NAP. GoW is trying to stretch that to protecting what they want to eventually have, while not considering what we want at all.

The spirit of an alliance we would have broke, but we never signed on for an alliance.

[DeepO]

I totally agree with Aeson's last post, so won't write my version of it. Let this be my vote on the situation


Then some other things:
- We need to prepare something public in our defense, and we better prepare it now, because it is obvious GoW is going public. They are already preparing justifications towards us.

- Inchon couldn't have been a tactic we used to move 'vast numbers of GS troops around', unless one thing happened: we let cats capture, and take them back from RP later on. You can't teleport troops to any other city then your capital. So, my guess is that they are guessing at the reasons, or only know part of why we did it. Once they say this in public, we have to refute it.

- However, it seems very likely that there is a rat in either RP's or our team. I don't believe for a minute there is one in ours, although it is always possible that one of the inactive members decides to spice the game up. Which means we have to ask RP about this... there are too many indications of someone spilling information to just ignore it. No reason to become paranoid because of Inchon, but this is not the first case...

- As to the good cop - bad cop routine: partially agree. However, I believe UnO is much more stable then the rest of the team, and in general means well. Re: his quote about "what's about to follow": he does not agree with GoW breaking the NAP, as he sees it as a pure breaking on GoW's side, even if he keeps the official "GS has been hostile" line. Also, I think he has at least some idea of how powerful we are, and what it will do to their pretty army.

DeepO