GoW- Diplomacy comments #2

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by 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?

There is a huge difference between respecting an agreement when you declare war on someone and between respecting an agreement when someone declares war on you. Consider how things work in SP. If you declare war when you owe an AI something per turn, your reputation is shot. If an AI declares war when you owe it something per turn, or if you declare war when an AI owes you something per turn, it's no big deal because the side declaring war is cheating only themselves.

In the earlier instance, GoW committed what we had told them and they had agreed would be treated as an act of war. Had they used that act as a basis for disavowing their NDA, anyone they dealt with in the future would have to wonder whether GoW might stage or provoke a war as an excuse to break an agreement. Further, the earlier "war" was merely an action by a few GoW mercenaries fulfilling a contract (or at least the letter of the contract). Everything they said and did seemed to imply that they had no desire to escalate the conflict beyond a few mercenary engagements into a serious war, or to provoke us to a point where it would be difficult for our civs to do business together later.

But in this situation, we have not engaged in any action that threatened GoW units or territory. Declaring war is GoW's choice, not ours, and this is shaping up to be a way whole lot more than just a minor skirmish. Thus, the only precedent we would be setting is that if civs want us to honor NDAs with them, they should not declare war on us. And the fact that GoW is breaking a NAP in the process only adds to their lack of right or reason to expect us to honor the NDA in the face of their choice to go to war with us.

[DeepO]

Don't agree, Nathan. These are two separate deals, and no matter which other deals got broken, the first has to hold.

So, if we find ourselves at war with GoW, we cannot break the NDA. But, correct me if I'm wrong: we don't need to either: next turn we're able to pass Chivalry along if we want to, as the NDA has expired. It is turn 131, right? Which means we had Chivalry in our possession for 10 turns without trading it onwards...

BTW, we commented on this in public (at least I did, but I thought more of our members joined in): we said we wouldn't break and NDA when war breaks out, as it would not be honorable. I agree the situation is different in that we get attacked, but NDAs are no implicit NAPs either, the two can exist besides each other.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Regarding Inchon, my guess is that GoW is probably seriously underestimating how many units we already had in the South. They don't realize that the goal was to get RP units that had been aboard a galley home faster (even aside from the whole catapult issue), and therefore think we needed to use the gift to get our own units into position to transport them to Bob faster. Actually, someone on GS did indeed suggest taking advantage of the Inchon gift to teleport some of our troops, but we had enough units for our first two waves without needing to use that trick, and troops could march overland in time to be part of the third wave (giving them more flexibility to get back up north if need be).

[DeepO]

Good point... but still strange for them to have any problem with it. As long as they don't know we have gifted 7 cats to RP, all is well

They are going to be surprised when they see our stacks, though... so far no reinforcements for their 14 riders have appeared, they think they have enough to totally conquer RP with that stack. That could be true in SP, but in MP?

DeepO

[nbarclay]

As I recall, Aeson said he thought and I later confirmed (for the last RP chat) that we got Chivalry on turn 122. That would make Turn 132 the earliest we could justify giving it to RP as not breaking the NDA.

I think the idea of allowing other civs to pick and choose which deals they'll break and which they'll expect us to keep both goes beyond the demands of honor and puts us at too much of a disadvantage. It probably won't make a huge difference in this case, but I'm not sure how big a bet I want to place on that.

[DeepO]

We better check this more thoroughly... in the 'current trade proposals' thread, it says 131.

DeepO

[vulture]

How confident are you on that Nathan? I checked the old turn threads, where I got the info from originally, and turn thread 121 (linked here) has the following post by you:

Playing the turn...

Deals with ND (our map for 20 gold); GoW (our map, 200 gold, and furs for wines, Chivalry, and their map); and RP (map for map) completed.

The turn 122 thread makes no mention of chivalry. This is a bit ambiguous though - was turn 121 the turn we approved the deal, and we couldn't trade the tech until turn 122, or was the deal concluded turn 121 to the extent that we could offer the tech to another civ that turn? Anyone have the turn 121/122 saves to find out?

[Aeson]

RP would have fallen to the 40 some odd units of GoW and ND, and relatively quickly, IMO.

-------------

From the 121 turn thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=2151117#post2151117

Playing the turn...

Deals with ND (our map for 20 gold); GoW (our map, 200 gold, and furs for wines, Chivalry, and their map); and RP (map for map) completed.

[nbarclay]

I checked again and you're right, it was Turn 121, 150 BC. So we're clear to give RP Chivalry next turn in any case.

[Theseus]

Well, that takes care of the NDA problem for this specific case.

My contribution:

A breach of agreement, such as a declaration of war in clear contradiction of a standing NAP, means that all bets are off.

My interpretation of honor is that we will never be the ones to at initial fault.

[Aeson]

I went and checked Feudalism just to make sure. We finished it on turn 96, sent it to GoW, they received it on turn 96, and Vox (and everyone else) had Feudalism on turn 106.

[vulture]

!! Everyone had it on our turn 106? That means that GoW must have given it around during their turn 105 (since they come after us in the turn order). By the same logic, we could have given out Chivalry on turn 130.

[Aeson]

Well, it's sorta dicey.. because we come at the start of the turn. So if GoW wants to give ND Feudalism on turn 106, they have to initiate the trade on turn 105, but the trade actually completing on turn 106. For us, we would be initiating and completing the trade on turn 130.

EDIT: nevermind... you're right... they gave it on turn 105, and in ND's case, 104 was when they initiated the trade.

[Arrian]

Wow, I kinda feel bad for UnO.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh, by the way, it seems pretty clear to me that we have a leak. GoW should not know we are landing "large numbers of troops" on Bob. They *could* be guessing, but it sure sounds like someone on RP told them.

-Arrian