Turn 261: 1350AD

[notyoueither]

Looks good to me.

It's even got a not so buried dig.

[Aeson]

I figure if they can lob nukes at us the need for subtly is gone...

[notyoueither]

Received back.

Ahhh the lizard...

I PMed Aeson told him my inbox was now cleared a bit, or if not he could e-mail me at raguil at gmail.

Cya

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Aeson
I figure if they can lob nukes at us the need for subtly is gone...

No doubt.

Balls out from here on in, no other way to go about it.

[Aeson]

Well, state the offer if you wish, though you must understand that at this point it would rather difficult for us to switch our priorites. I mean, it would have to be a really big price and we already stole from you the humongous quantity of 9 gold when we took Elipolis.

-MZ

P.S. you should have sent this mail 10-20 turns ago

[notyoueither]

Go all in, Aeson. There is no other raise in this poker game.

[notyoueither]

I actually think they are prodding us.

It was entirely too peaceful for their purposes.

[Aeson]

I cut out the guarantees for now, they can be negotiated.

MZ,

Certainly we have been neglecting diplomacy. Still, perhaps we can better the offer that ND has made.

GS views this shared victory by GoWND as cheesy. We do not observe a "victor" that has not triggered an in-game victory condition or had all other teams declare them the winner. In a case where a victory condition is triggered or unanimous decision made, that team, and that team alone, is the victor in our eyes. This is what an FFA is, fundamentally, where all teams compete to be the one winner. Alliances form to help teams to that end, but the end remains the same. Obviously GS has a conflict of interest when viewing the current situation. Some people will have different opinions, but also, some will share ours. We ask if this is really how GoW wants the game to go down?

GS wishes to continue it's existance and maintain some sliver of possibility for a victory. We offer our services in an alliance against ND. We do not offer a shared victory or even a guarantee that we will work towards GoW's ultimate victory. If GoW is to claim final victory it will be by triggering an in-game victory condition, and the same for all teams. What we offer is an opportunity for GoW to have overwhelming odds of being able to claim sole (and indisputably legitimate) victory in this game in exchange for the continued existance of GS.

Given ND's production potential, and the tech of Space Flight you are almost surely sending to them, every city and tile of GS' within 11 tiles of a ND city is a good bet to be nuked in this coming turn. That leaves us with Hurricane, Tornado, Cyclone, Blizzard, Sufu, Inchoff, and Typhoon. EotS and Sandstorm cannot be hit themselves unless we have missed some ND Nuclear Subs, but almost half their tiles can. Needless to say, our already dismal production capacity that was roughly 50-60% of either your's or ND's will be lessened greatly. WoC is in ruins, and Tempest, our other biggest producer, will surely be in ruins. EotS will be half what it was. We will have no Rubber, no Aluminum, no Uranium, drafting Riflemen and building Marines. We will have no Space Flight, and no research capacity to obtain it. Not to mention roughly 100 ND units on Stormia to deal with.

GS will still have most of it's military though. That would be directed at ND if you accept, otherwise it basically becomes irrellevent due to the extreme gameplay imbalance cause by nukes. By ourselves we felt confident in being able to hold our own in a 1v1 with ND even given their inherent production advantage. We still feel that given our curent military we can hold our own in a non-nuclear war for quite some time even given the extreme hit our economy has already taken, and will take on ND's turn. Our analysis of the situation was that there was no way GS or ND could win the game if the 1v1 nature of the war lasted, and that GoW's analysis would lead them to take a virtually free ride to victory. That is why we trusted in your word that you would remain neutral, having been forced into the war by ND, and having long known that GoW would always favor ND over us in any equal proposition.

Between GoW and GS we would have overwhelming naval superiority, numerical troop superiority, and due to turn order, GoW could make sure that ND has no nuclear capacity before they can react. There is no doubt in my mind that GoW on it's own could achieve the same thing without GS' help (as could ND if they chose), but it would be less likely to work and would (further) open doors that need not be opened.

Thank you for receiving our offer. If you wish to continue negotiations after hearing these basics, we can go into more details about what guarantees GS would be required to make to have it work out.

- Aeson

[Aeson]

I will post this for discussion in our forum and get back to you guys when we have an answer. In the meantime, even whoremongers have to go to sleep...

-MZ

[notyoueither]

I would like to hear what MZ says to that.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Go all in, Aeson. There is no other raise in this poker game.

Easy call when you don't have enough for the big blind anyways.

[Aeson]

Replied, "Understood." to the first paragraph.

Well I posted this in our forum and the result was rather unanimous: we wish to continue the course we have undertaken as of now.

The first and most immediate reason is a military one, which I am not at liberty to discuss (I will share it in due time, you might even deduce it the coming turn). The second is because we would be blatantly violating an alliance which has been clearly spelled out. Granted, you probably know that GoW is synonimous with loopholes and shady clauses. I will not deny that. But in our eyes, we have not yet violated a treaty so blatantly. Our treaty with Roleplay with the Bobian War was purely a mutual protection pact in case ND attacked them. It said nothing if we were the ones to attack first (sneaky, I know). Likewise with Lego we had no treaties whatsoever which means we were free to go to war at will, just like you did. In this current war we pledged neutrality, but never said up until when. And you can ask Cort Haus that I clearly mentioned that if GoW felt itself directly threatened then we would intervene, be it with you or against you. What was this inminent threat? Nukes of course. The moment GS obtained uranium, we knew that we'd be utter fools to wait until you got nukes since you had no treaties of non-aggression with us. And knowing how cunningly your team has acted in the past, it would not have surprised us if you launched at us instead of vice versa. Don't take this wrong though, if anything it's a reflection of the huge respect we have for you guys as Civ players, knowing quite well that given your limited size and strength, would use every opportunity at your disposal to win. I don't blame you at all, since I would have done the same (or should I say, did).

Things would have been different had GS never had access to uranium. Perhaps we'd have waited until you and ND bloodied yourselves to bits and we then would have swooped down on your respective rotten carcases and won. But right now we have two choices: either accept your proposal, offer even a diminute probability of you winning, accepting the fact that we'd spare you in exchange for absolutely nothing in return (not even an offer of joint victory), and blatantly violate a treaty which clearly lays out the path to our (co) victory. Regarding you accepting a joint victory, I'm not sure a defeated or even destroyed GS would be in a position to reject such a thing, in any case though, I assure you, we WILL win in-game-wise, most likely via the next round of UN voting. If GS chooses to accept the winner on the basis of the in-game victory, that is entirely up to you guys, but via whatever method we win, we will never recognize our own victory as being alone. I have also heard - though entirely unconfirmed - that it is possible to win an "allied victory" if you eliminate all your opponents except those you are allied in-game with. I would not know if it is possible since I have not heard this from a reputable source, if it were true, it would be another possibility for us.

There is still a lot to discuss about what has been going on, surely the AAR of this war will be an interesting read. Despite being enemies at the moment I nevertheless appreciate your last-minute approach. It was difficult for us (particularly me as turnplayer and evil-plan-orchestrator) to do what we did last turn since GS was a team that - unlike during the first half of the game - became a pleasure for us to deal with. I have nothing but respect for DeepO, Cort Haus and yourself for not only being fantastic Civ players but also allies in war, partners in peace, and now rivals in war. I think your diplomacy really improved alot and I really can't find much fault in it other than your over-cautiousness after the Lego War, though I find it initially justified due to the fact that you were then missing uranium. With that said I just want to restate that this was not a personal issue, nor did it involve any past grudges, nor was it a plot for being the strat forum guys, etc. ND and GoW each have had the power to destroy the other on more than one occasion in the past. Yet both of us refrained from doing so out of trust and mutual interest. The big difference with GS is that we knew that you could destroy us if you had the chance, a reasoning brought out because of our high regard for you people as Civ players. In the event, we had the chance first and we took it and I guess this pretty much sums up the story.

So again, sorry but we cannot accept your deal though we appreciate the effort and I am still open for any "off the record" discussions you or your team might want to have.

Cheers,
-MZ

P.S. Btw, there IS a loophole in our deal with ND though I doubt GS could manage to trigger it (but you are welcome to try as it's the only way we'd seriously consider breaking the treaty and thus win alone). Hint: it's in my second post in the Whore of Babylon thread.

[Krill]

One last thing.

The Glory of War and Neu Demogyptica pledge to win this game as allies. That means that both teams shall share the final victory if and when the Gathering Storm and Roleplay (and Lego) are defeated in war. Should either GoW or ND win by an alternative method (UN or Space Race for example) herein, victory shall still be claimed by both. Likewise, no separate peace shall be given by either of our two teams even if one or both of us are defeated. This alliance is called the Bilateral Inter-Bobian Treaty of Cointegrity and Help. Or B.I.T.C.H. for short.

Regarding Vox, GoW pledges to defend their sovereignty and have them end the game as "survivors". Of course if they choose to ally themselves with us, better yet. Mess with Vox, you get pwned. Hear that Lego? Our words are backed with nuclear weapons.

A representative from ND will soon post in this thread to confirm our B.I.T.C.H.in' alliance. When that is done the save shall be passed and the battle report posted.

-MZ

If everyone, including Vox dies, GoW can't win via diplo. they would have to go for SS or take out ND.

[Aeson]

I think MZ was talking about getting ND to attack Vox. (or Vox to attack ND?)

It could also be if we get a peace treaty with ND. Like if we sent that 180g we still owed them in a peace treaty, and they accepted then re-declared war, then technically GoW could say ND broke the treaty.

There are a lot of ways the treaty could be broken with "creative interpretation". GoW just doesn't think our offer was enough to decide to do so.

[Krill]

Care to ask MZ if he will send us copy of that treaty?