Re-evaluating foreign affairs

[vulture]

During the wait for the restart of the game, I've been going back over the diplo logs and comments threads, and have some thoughts.

Vox Controli

Nothing new here. At best they survive temporarily north of the chokepoint. Ideally they survive somewhere else, or not at all.

Neu Demogyptica

They've been pretty quiet, and at a guess are not going to take the feudalism deal, for whatever reason. Very vulnerable to being divided up between GoW and RP if you ask me, but they didn't...

Glory of War

Broke the NDA on Code of Laws, which I really doubt happened by accident, although others may disagree. Lied about the fake war with Vox. Landed units next to an undefended city (after having been warned not too) - the only real reason for this that makes sense to me was hoping that we'd give them 1 turns grace (or be too busy with the war to be able to react) so that they could raze the city. Not entirely impossible that they have some agreement with Vox since Vox gave up Port Isolation on Bob to them.

In short, not remotely trust worthy.

Roleplay

As far as I've seen in the logs, they've actually been pretty honest with us so far, at least in so far as not lying to us directly. Have been telling lots of teams contradictory things, and Togas is known not to like us personally. OTOH if you look at what we've sent to other teams, and compare with what they hear from others, we probably don't look much better than RP, depsite the intention to be honest and up front.

Legoland

These guys are regarded as friendly. I'm not sure why, since they gave us a price hike at the last minute on one deal, and have pulled out of others. Is it a case of it being said so often that it becomes 'fact', even if untrue? Although it'd be nice to have them as trustable allies, I get the impression that we want to believe this is the case, and ignore the evidence. They are probably our best bet for allies, admittedly, since they don't need to antagonise anyone yet, but I'm wary.

Gathering Storm

I don't think our reputation for honest dealing is anywhere near as good as we seem to think. Lego might be suspicious after the continually changing terms of the Republic / Construction / Commerce / Monotheism deal (and an earlier dubious proposed deal to 'test their honesty', RP, GoW and ND can reasonably point to us trying to muck-stir between them, and worsen their reputations with Lego. Vox are upset that we wanted to change the tech-sharing agreement previously organised with them once it didn't work to our advantage any more, and of course are going to be upset about the war situation as well. Our reputation with Trip and other hypothetical outside observers may yet be intact though.

[notyoueither]

Those are good observations, I think.

[Arrian]

Hmm, I admit I didn't read every diplomatic message, so I'm a bit surprised by your observations of our diplomactic efforts.

But, since I'm not willing to go back & read up on it all, and both you & NYE seem to see things this way, I'll take your word for it.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Re: Re-evaluating foreign affairs

Originally posted by vulture
Not entirely impossible that they have some agreement with Vox since Vox gave up Port Isolation on Bob to them.

VERY possible, in fact - Beta gave out a clue to this during his last chat with NYE.

[zeit]

RP might have not done anything to antagnonise us directly, but they have proven to be cunning and dangerous. They have safely secured the southern area of Bob, with almost no resistance- not even diplomatical. They have also pulled a nasty trick on Lux, which quickened their demise- letting ND know about their MPP, and its expiration date, as well as deliberately delaying the negotiations with Lux. It worked in their favor perfectly- they had time to establish themselves while GoW and ND (and later on Vox) quarreled over the remains of Lux.

Also- Vox knew and seemed to appreciate the fact we want to revise the tech partnership- it didn't come out of the blue. There was even a clause stating that the agreement can be changed or end, should any side want to- 10 turns after notifying the other team. We have given Vox a notification long before that, and negotiations were in place, it was Vox who deliberately ignored our messages regarding this issue- probably while they were deeply into their war preparation.

So i think that the self-criticism in this regard is unjustified- and i hardly believe Vox decided to make war because they felt we were unfair to them.

[notyoueither]

No, Vox chose war with us because we would no longer trade tech openly with them, and we were not at all inclined to join them in attacking somewhere else.

Put yourself in their shoes. Not great land, and very little of it. The civ you share the landmass with is rexing like mad and ignoring the military (you strong, they weak). The only possible way to have success off the land mass would be with an ally. All of Bob demonstrated that Vox was unwelcome. To go to Bob would require the assitance of those who are unwilling (and unable) to assist you. You have the impressive army now, but it will soon be obsolete. The decision to attack GS is almost a no-brainer.

[vulture]

As NYE said, once Vox had been rebuffed from Bob, their only chance to remain in the game was to win a war with us as soon as possible. In their situation I'd have done exactly the same thing - although I'd have kept my immortals in one stack and sacked Arashi by now .

But since they were going to attack us, it is (psychologically) in their interests to believe the worst of us. Given the tech deal stuff, it is probably quite easy for them to honestly believe that they helped us out early on, and we abandoned them the moment things swung in our favour. And they'll be telling everyone else that as well. So our reputation is going to be coloured by that: we may stick to the terms of a deal, but don't rely on us for a long-lasting formal/informal partnership, 'cos we'll honour it only as long as it benefits us. Notice Lego not wanting to give us a good rate on currency and construction in return for later good deals from us?

Actually, I'm not really trying to say 'this is the case, believe it!', but rather that three bits of (what appear to be) received wisdom - Lego are our friends, RP are the enemy, we have a good reputation - could well be wrong. They could also be right. We just shouldn't assume one or the other without realising that we are making that assumption - and, dare I say it, should probably try to be more neutral in our internal discussions.

Example: Lego once told us that there was a 1 tile sea lane between Estonia and Bob, which we already knew. This was taken (as far as I can tell) as a sign of good intentions from Lego, and was positively regarded. RP tell us they have a screenshot showing 23 immortals, and a claim from Vox that they have more that aren't shown. Some people here had calculated that Vox probably had 20-25 immortals at the start of the war, although we hadn't shared that info with anyone, and RP would have no way of knowing much we'd figured out. If accurate, they were presenting us with new information (the 20 immortal end of the estimate is too low). And somehow this is taken as evidence of RPs duplicity. Granted, they have their own reasons for telling us, and are probably betraying Vox into the bargain (hoping to keep on the good side of whoever wins?). But since we previously liked Lego and disliked RP, obsolete info from Lego was treated as a positive thing, while partially new info from RP spun discussion about how dubious they were. And so the previous standing of both continues, regardless of their current actions.

[Shiber]

You raise some good points Vulture. Yes, I guess we are all somewhat biased towards our initial impressions and preferences.

[zeit]

You raise some good points Vulture. Yes, I guess we are all somewhat biased towards our initial impressions and preferences.

I wholeheartedly agree. Humans don't have their impressions based on logic- it's alot more complex than that, and even if you try hard, in this cruel game people might still dislike or disrespect you for what you think are stupid reasons- that's the nature of human interaction.

I wasn't here when the whole war thing blew out, and i never claimed that war with us wasn't in Vox's best interest at that point.
I actually believe that if Vox would have wanted to, we could have agreed on a tech deal that was benefical to us both- which was just what we wanted. We never said "screw with that tech partnership". We just said: "you're no longer researching, and even if you are, there's no way you'll make considerable advances given the low trade output, so we'll have to revise the tech partnership" we offered an alternative, we didn't just back out.

Let me remind you that it was Vox and other teams that looked for ways to change deals to make them more profitable after being signed- even if those agreements were not meant to be renegotiated- which wasn't the case with our tech partnership.

If Vox would have shown more interest in getting us into the loop of them moving on to Bob, given their massive force and the fact Lego and us practically controled world research for quite some time- a combined invasion would not have been fantasy. Vox did not expect us to lend a hand with their first landing on Bob- not by the way they handled it. My guess is that they were just trying off a few things- in their Voxian way (although impression could be wrong, as past events proved to us). When that didn't work, i'm sure the next nearest target they thought of was us. Operation Mc'arthur was planned with us in mind- we were told of it some time before public announcement, and the ruse was probably prepared for quite a while.

Also, the fact we want to target RP is that they (and Lego) have the best starting position, and as it seemed (and still seems that way) back a while ago, they have the best chances of winning this game. Hitting either of them is essential if we want a chance at winning- and RP seems like an adversary that will soon draw its fangs and strike at someone- with a decent army and an worthy economy to support their efforts- and only the northern border to expect attacks from.

I wouldn't care to take on Lego- but i think the defense they could arrange might be to much for what we'll gain. Against RP we could at least gain the support of one of the other Bobians.

[Arrian]

Actually, I think GoW got the best start position, but that's just me.

And, technically, we are at war with them...



-Arrian