NAPs with the Bobians?

[Arrian]

Yeah, I don't want to commit to peace for 20 turns, because of exactly what Aeson says. A lot can happen in 20 turns.

Consider that we essentially won our war with Vox in that time frame, and it was a war we were totally caught off-guard by. Imagine if we had planned it.

Add in the speed of Riders & Ansars and things could go down really, really fast.

We need to stay flexible and not burden ourselves with NAPs.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

I'm not certain... GoW still had 7(?) turns left on Chivalry, meaning the war needed to be over in 12 turns if we were not allowed to join in (1 turn upgrading at least). If we come to someone's protection, we would need at least 5 turns to set something up (loading units, and invading in a strategical sound way). So the difference isn't that great.
The risk of having to stay out of a war is IMHO not that great compared to getting some peace, and more friendly relations.

The comparison to the GS-Vox war is maybe somewhat justified, however if ND would have to face 2 enemies, I doubt the difference would have been so great as here on Stormia. We simply were a lot bigger then the start, played very well, and got lucky in that Vox made a couple of mistakes strategically that have seriously speeded up the war.

DeepO

DeepO

[notyoueither]

I would say that we should politely decline any entangling treaties. And that is what we can say.

'An NAP with you, in the absense of one with your neighbours, would send the wrong signal to your neighbours. We do not wish to do that.'

We can't say that to everyone for long, but we can say it for a time. We can say it for long enough to get our feet under us in the new situation, at least.

We can also tell anyone who asks that we have no plans to get involved on Bob. That is perfectly true, because we currently do not have any plans to do so.

[ManicStarSeed]

I am getting the vibe that we should stay out of NAPs... is this correct?

Mss

[notyoueither]

For now, I think so. It is too early. We have very little idea (read none) of which way the wind is blowing on Bob. We need to find out, fast.

Building suits our purposes perfectly, I think. However, we also have the largest military on the planet and should not miss the opportunity to use it if events that we are unaware of on Bob are about to transpire.

[Octavian X]

I agree. Considering our position away from everyone else (once Vox leaves, that is), a NAP would be useless. At this stage of the game, any attempt to invade our island would most likely end in defeat, especially since we can see all ships heading down the coast.

For now, we should just step out of world affairs, and perhaps start a colonizing Bob for our eventual invasion.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by notyoueither
For now, I think so. It is too early. We have very little idea (read none) of which way the wind is blowing on Bob. We need to find out, fast.

Building suits our purposes perfectly, I think. However, we also have the largest military on the planet and should not miss the opportunity to use it if events that we are unaware of on Bob are about to transpire.

I agree with this completely. The time will come (and it might come soon) when we want to sign an NAP or even an alliance with a Bobian civ. However, which way things are gonna go on that continent are far from certain right now. We should stay out of getting ourselves involved in negotiations until we're certain who's side we want to pick (and indeed, what the 'sides' are).

Until that point we should continue to try and improve relations with all teams via Luxury and World Map trades. It should be possible to stall them on any NAP talk - there are plenty of other things for us to negotiate.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Until that point we should continue to try and improve relations with all teams via Luxury and World Map trades. It should be possible to stall them on any NAP talk - there are plenty of other things for us to negotiate.

[nbarclay]

Agreed. I'm not a hawk or a dove; I'm a vulture, waiting for an opportunity.

[zeit]

I'll have to agree with FP about "stalling" the Bobians.

But I'm afraid we won't be able to do so for very much longer- we are going to be part of Bob pretty soon, and we'll have to dive into the mud pit eventually...

True, we need to see more, and hear more from the Bobians- what do they have to offer to us, and what are the big threats.

From what I understood, It seems like there are no alliances as of yet on Bob, but this could just be another misguidance.

[DeepO]

That's exactly my fear, zeit. It looks like there are no alliances yet, but this could very well be misguidance, given our isolation from Bob (which we are more or less part of). By getting in NAPs, we could feel them out better, and at least not get a combined invasion of our shores

But I agree with the others too: there are other ways to building friendship, and we should explore those too. And picking one NAP with a team, or leaving one out would be a seriously bad decision to make if we want to keep out of wars for the moment.

DeepO

[vulture]

So far, some kind of consensus seems to be building towards:

NAPs with all three Bob civs is probably too restrictive on us - we may want to intervene somewhere (although it has been pointed out that in practice we may only be giving up 5 turns of possible intervention on a 20 turn NAP - perhaps shorter ones could be negotiated)

NAPs with two Bob civs is a bad idea, since the one left out starts to get paranoid.

NAPs with one Bob civ would have a similar effect of polarising alliances on Bob, and provoke suspicion from the other two civs. A NAP with ND in particular would probably move RP into buying GoW, giving us the worst war scenario from our POV.

NAPs with no civs currently looks the best option. We will have to do some work to make up for it in trades and (non-binding) assurances that we aren't going to invade just for the hell of it, but I think that map and lux trades, couples with such assurances should be enough to keep us on good terms with everyone.

The last, rather mischevious option is to go to the other extreme and declare ourselves for hire to the highest bidder on Bob in the event of a war, just to make them all paranoid about getting involved in a major war (it might just work to keep peace there, so none of the Bob civs grows too large). I'd hazard a guess that this isn't the way most of us want to play the game though.

[nbarclay]

I've been thinking a bit more about the NAP issue, and I've come up with an idea for a GS policy:

Gathering Storm has recently been approached by other nations with offers for non-aggression pacts. While we are interested in arrangements for mutual peace and security, we have two key reservations that must be satisfied in any pacts we sign.

First, at least in theory, it would be quite possible for a non-aggression pact to turn into a license for aggression. Nations could use a blanket commitment from us not to attack them as a means of protecting their flanks while they attack someone else. And second, because of that fact, a blanket non-aggression pact with one nation might be construed as a kind of implicit threat or even alliance against another. These factors could, at least in theory, pervert an agreement intended to promote peace into an opportunity for war.

Therefore, while we are willing to sign non-aggression pacts for reasonable durations with any interested party (including Vox once the current unpleasantness is behind us), the pacts must be limited to defensive purposes only. Attacking another nation (except in clear self-defense), or willfully provoking another nation to declare war, or bringing in allies to turn a defensive war into a war of conquest, must be regarded as nullifying the pact.

We hope that this policy makes it clear that we are interested in peace, but are not willing to commit to stand idly by if our neighbors are attacked. We value good relations with all nations, and wish to ensure that any NAPs we sign will be used only for peaceful purposes.

[vulture]

That solves most of the problems. Presumably a conditional NAP with a civ that is attacked, and fights in self defense doesn't cancel the NAP, so if we sign such cNAPs with all of Bob, and Bob does the 2 on 1 war thing, then we probably end up with a NAP with the 1, and are free to fight the other two. This might serve as a counterbalance to war, since all civs will have some advantage to be gained from not being the one to go on the offensive, and might wait to be attacked, knowing that in that case we can't join in against them.

Anything that delays war on Bob is a good thing in my opinion, since although war weakens everyone for a while, the danger (as we all know) is that we end up with two civs on Bob who are then in a strong position.

[DeepO]

I'm not so sure we need to keep Bob from warring, we only need to make sure that not 1 team gets eaten by another, doubling the other team. I wouldn't mind a little war, eating up resources, starting GAs, but not overly unbalanced.

Anyway, I don't think that we can, or should try to bend world politics. As long as we don't get isolated it's fine by me. If that means we need to take sides, fine, but I'd prefer not to do that atm.

DeepO