Office of Diplomatic Affairs

[ManicStarSeed]

Shall I as the question to Vox...

"Are you willing to leave this continent for peace? We are putting together a proposal (which includes assistance from GS) but do not want to insult your honor by offering it without knowing it is welcome?"


The discussion is here:

Nathan' s "Idea for a remote possibility for peace"

[Shiber]

Yes, that looks very good! Much better than my clumsy proposal that I've put up and posted in Nathan's thread.
Does anyone object to sending a feeler?

[Harovan]

If I were The Voice, I would answer "Tear that insult in tatters, put it in a dish together with the head of that villain who brought it, and return it to those bastards. We will perish fighting."

The words are well put, but it is waaaaaay too early. It might close the door for further negotiations.

[Shiber]

Perhaps you're right. Maybe we should let them send hordes of immortals first, to fight to their death at Inchon, and then once they've failed and they see that our walls are up, they will respond more positively to our offer.

[nbarclay]

The whole point of my offer was to get Vox to disband most of their units now so (1) we can change back to builder mode immediately instead of continuing to crank out units (which, I might point out, are getting awfully expensive to maintain) and (2) we won't suffer additional casualties to the forces we already have. If we wait until Vox no longer has any significant capacity to hurt us to make the offer, the offer loses its value to us.

[zeit]

I'm with Nathan on this- every turn of building now will be very important in the future.
We can offer this to Vox, if they say no, we can try again later...

I'm sure they wouldn't be offended by a second offer, which is not any worse than the one before, even though their army lays in ruins...

[Harovan]

Well, go ahead and try it, but don't be surprised if the answer will be as I anticipated. It may be worth a try, but in my opinion the chances are significantly less than 10%. And if Vox asks, where we expect them to go, and we answer, that we don't care and not talked yet with anyone, the chance sinks to nada.

[nbarclay]

If we do go with my proposal, I would want to provide a lot more explanation. I've been thinking in terms of a message along the lines of the following:

Greetings People of Vox Controli,

We have held a poll within Gathering Storm to determine whether peace between our nations will be possible while we continue to share the continent. The results are overwhelming: there can be no peace while you continue to live on our continent.

There are two reasons for this conclusion. First, your continued presence on our borders would pose a permanent military threat to us. For the entire rest of the game, we would have to worry about your providing a ready-made ally to any other nation that might fight against us. That, in turn, would force us to keep a large number of troops on your border at a high upkeep cost, hurting both our production situation and our financial situation. And after the elaborate deception you used in setting up the war with us, it is hard to see how anything you say or promise could possibly mitigate that threat to any significant degree.

And second, we have been forced to invest almost all of our golden age's production thus far and most of its wealth in our military. Now that our investment has placed us in a position where conquering the continent is within clear sight, it would be difficult to accept anything less as an adequate repayment for our expenses. We have come too far and sacrificed too much.

But that does not mean that Gathering Storm desires to see Vox Controli disappear completely. Continuing to coexist on the same continent is no longer an option from our perspective, but giving you time to evacuate a small number of your troops and as much of your population as you can might be. With five or more settlers, if you could find a place for them to settle, you could instantly have a new core with almost as many cities as your current one (albeit initially much smaller cities), and might someday grow into a reasonably respectable power. And we should be able to help some with your technological situation while you are rebuilding. I wish we could find a viable way to offer you better, but as things stand now, that's the best prospect for Vox's survival that we can come up with.

If you would rather fight to the death than continue to exist on terms that would leave Vox in such an uncompetitive position, we will understand perfectly. But if you are interested in negotiating peace on such terms, I can present a more specific proposal. The essence is that you would disband the vast majority of your military, thereby removing your military danger to us and allowing us to shift our economy back to a builder mode, and we, in turn, would guarantee you a period of peace in which to focus on building galleys and settlers before we take over your current cities.

Again, I am sorry that we cannot offer you better, but our own security and prosperity have to come first. We hope you can understand that. Please let us know what you decide.

Sincerely,

Nathan Barclay,
Chief Economist, Gathering Storm

Edit: Changed "respectable minor power" to "reasonably respectable power".

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Well, go ahead and try it, but don't be surprised if the answer will be as I anticipated. It may be worth a try, but in my opinion the chances are significantly less than 10%. And if Vox asks, where we expect them to go, and we answer, that we don't care and not talked yet with anyone, the chance sinks to nada.

Sir Ralph, in case you didn't notice, I characterized the idea as a long shot when I proposed it. But it seemed worth a try.

[Shiber]

That's a lot nicer, actually. Very honest, respectable... gives us the best possible chances of success, IMHO. I'm not entirely happy with the sentence that tells them that they might someday become a minor power in the game, but we have to be honest with them about it.

[Theseus]

Same reaction as Shiber... well written, but drop the word minor.

Same reaction as SR... 10% at best.

And I'm not so sure this can't eventually come back to bite us in public.

[nbarclay]

Edited to changed "respectable minor power" to "reasonably respectable power". (I don't want to sound like I'm trying to persuade them that they can accomplish more than is realistic.)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus

And I'm not so sure this can't eventually come back to bite us in public.

Agreed. On the other hand, anything else we might do instad could also come back to bite us. "Anything you do can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion."

[ManicStarSeed]

Hmmmm when do we need to answer them by.....?

Mss

[Shiber]

Since noone objected to Nathan's message, I suggest that we send it.
Should Nathan send it, since he wrote it, or should Zeit send it, since he's the chief diplomat?