DIPLO: Legoland diplomatic contact LOG

[Cort Haus]

from vondrack

Cort Haus,

Just briefly acknowledging the receipt of your thorough PM. I have posted it in our forum - we will respond in detail, addressing the issues raised, but it will take us some time to put the response together.

Sorry for not answering your previous PM - we were waiting for GoW to talk to you first. It would have been rather unacceptable to inform you about their decision, which we knew, before they'd tell you officially.

Regards,
vondrack

[asleepathewheel]

from vondrack, save email

This is an official communication from the Senate of Legoland:

Honourable Nation of Gathering Storm,

We, the Senate of Legoland, thank you for the honest message and open
analysis of your current situation and options. We hope this response
of ours will make it easier for you to understand where we stand, what
our plans/intensions are, and most importantly, how all that affects
our current and future relations.

First: we, to a large extent, agree with your analysis regarding the
potentials of Lego, GS, GoW, and ND. In case GoW and ND split Bob
between themselves in a fair way, their potentials will almost match
the potential of Lego, with GS being severely shafted. We also agree
that a more-than-2-civ Bob would suit even our plans better, alas...
we do not see a way to create a stable world incorporating such a
setup.

Assuming RP either dies or survives only in a small exile in the
Northern Stormia and GS gains a decent share of the Bobian territory
(~100 tiles), the world might seem slightly better balanced at the
first glance: Lego ~400 tiles, GoW, ND, and GS ~300 tiles each. The
problem, though (from our point of view) would be that GS would make
our situation easier (by weakening the potential of GoW & ND), while
not improving its own enough to be able to win peacefully. If not
giving up the hopes to win the game, GS would be forced to try
conquering more land in order to match or outmatch us. Inevitably, we
would have to respond by defending the attacked nations, getting
involved.

Which, however, is exactly what's happening now.

When the war broke out and your armies joined, rather unexpectedly,
the troops of RP, we faced quite a difficult decision. Despite GoW and
ND entering their GA, we did not believe they were strong enough to
withstand the might of yours & RP combined in the long run, especially
considering your stunning triumph over the strong army of Voxian
immortals (later events have pretty much confirmed our concerns). We
had to decide whether we preferred Bob split between GoW & ND only or
(possibly multinational) Bob with your strong presence - which we, as
explained earlier in this message, regarded as a permanent threat to
our long term plans (we do not wish to expand beyond Legos).

Considering the circumstances addressed earlier, we decided the lesser
evil for us was Bob split between GoW & ND - and allied with them,
strictly defining the extent of our involvement and the goal to
achieve.

While it was not possible to ally with GoW & ND and protect them from
being overwhelmed by your armies without de facto standing
against RP, too, we did make it clear we would not get involved in
operations against RP. There was/is a treaty binding us to join no
wars against RP... and even though it probably sounds a bit
ridiculous, we still honour it in the way we deem appropriate. The
destruction or crippling of RP was/is not our business, even if we
have no intentions to oppose it. Furthermore, it would be futile to
pretend our own selfish interests are better served with anything but
a prolonged conflict on Bob.

It certainly is no news for you that GoW and ND want no presence of
yours on Bob. Legoland's role in this triple alliance is, said in a
bit simplified way, to ensure you do not win (on Bob), rather than to
ensure you lose there - though, in the end, it probably means the
same.

However, we would like to make it crystal clear that our role in the
alliance with GoW and ND ends with your last soldier leaving the
shores of Bob (or with a peace treaty signed between you, GoW, and
ND). As leaked in the chat some time ago, we even made it abundantly
clear to our current allies we would not support any invasion of
Stormia. Not only we would not support/join it, but we would oppose
it, just like we currently oppose your presence on Bob.

Once the war is over, we are ready to fully revive the cooperation and
trading between our two nations, including techs, luxuries, and
possibly even strategic resources. As correctly implied by your
message, a feeble GS would serve the victorious Bobians most,
indirectly hurting our own interests. We are ready to ensure GS keeps
at least on par with Bob tech-wise and that GS armed forces are
properly equipped to defend their homeland against potential
invasions. Once the war on Bob is over (or GS no longer involved in
it), there will be nothing preventing a close cooperation between our
two nations, unless, of course, GS decides to not cooperate with a
nation that hurt its interests in The Great Bobian War. Even if this
paragraph is not written in bold, it is the key part of our message to
you.

We fully acknowledge that our approach to the current situation, with
respect to you, is far from "fair". You've got every right to feel
bitter about us standing in your way. But then, in this sense, trying
to win the game is not "fair" to anyone... only one team can win and
Lego wants to win, in its own "builder" way, as much as you or anyone
else does.

We hope you understand - and we hope that despite standing against
each other now, we will not remain that way forever.

The Senate of Legoland

[Harovan]

edit: deleted, sleepy beat me by 2 minutes

mwahahahahaha

[Cort Haus]

To Vondrack : request for Gunpowder

Vondrack,

You have the turn, so I want to suggest this now, while there's time.

GS intends to withdraw from Bob, but as we don't know whether we have any saltpeter on Stormia or within the area we still hold on Bob, we are clinging on until we have gunpowder (which we are researching).

If we knew for sure that we were holding none on Bob, we could start leaving immediately and attempt to make peace with ND & GoW. If we are holding some on Bob, but we have none on Stormia then it is essential that we do not abandon it yet - even a couple of turns of SP could be worth us fighting for.

Lego have already succeeded in weakening GS to the point of us no longer being in contention. Technically, we understand that your position in the alliance against us remains until every GS unit is off Bob, but the die is cast and Lego must recognise, for their own good, that GS is already broken as a rival.

So can you give us Gunpowder now to resolve the issue? It's a cheap tech now, but still takes turns. Lego has won its war, GS has blown the GoW/ND GA for you and delayed the construction of the Bobian uber-power. Now we need a break - in the interests of both of our civs. So how about it?

Regards,

CH
GS

[Cort Haus]

ack from vondrack

Hello, Cort Haus!

Acknowledging the receipt of your PM. I need to consult with my teammates and perhaps even with our allies before getting back to you with an answer. I've posted your PM in our forum and we are going to sit on the save a bit until a decision is taken.

I will get back to you as soon as I know more.

Regards,
vondrack

[vmxa1]

Seems like there was nothing to lose and something to gain, good idea.

[Cort Haus]

Lego obviously don't plan to give us GP, so I thought I'd be polite and save vondrack the bother of replying :

hi vondrack,

First, GS would like to congratulate Lego on building JS Bach's Cathedral. We hope you enjoy the music

Second, you might like to know that we're on our way home. In the end we figured that we weren't that fussed about Gunpowder and Saltpeter anyway, and the weather on Bob wasn't really what we were used to. The troops long for home cooking too - you know how it is. I can't imagine what your boys are having to eat in that dungeon of a country they call GoW.

Oh, and under the circumstances you can disregard that suggestion that we made about Gunpowder - it's no big deal really

Regards,

Cort Haus

[vmxa1]

Just for my edification, was any parameters given for the rights to build sistine? I mean, it occurs to me that they can use it as a prebuild for a long time and not be concerned about its being build out form under them. I would have made some prohibition in that regard. Start it in so many turns and no swithcing or all bets are off or some such.

[vulture]

vmxa1: for organisational reasons, diplo logs are for diplomatic messages sent and received only. There are seperate 'comments' threads for each team where we discuss issues arising from diplomatic contacts. If the threads have disappeared from view, you can find them from links in the first post in the topped "office of diplomatic affairs" post.

[Cort Haus]

from Lego

After discussing your inquiry in the Senate of Legolad, we believe there is no harm in telling you that there is no saltpeter on Stormia and that there is no saltpeter inside or close to cultural borders of the territory you and RP currently hold on Bob.

As for trading gunpowder to you... we are sorry but that cannot be done until there is a peace treaty signed between you and GoW/ND. We hope you understand we cannot provide a key military tech to you, as long as you remain enemies of our current allies (even if you intend to withdraw from the war).

However, you have got our word that once the war between you and GoW/ND formally ends, we will trade gunpowder to you at a fair price - and not only that. If you agree to not influence the war on Bob (if there still is one at that time, of course), we will trade you one of our excess saltpeters.

We hope this guarantee will be enough for you to start negotiating a peace treaty with GoW/ND.

vondrack

[DeepO]

Vondrack,

its been ages since our last communication, but finally there is something we can discuss with you. Would you be interested in a Electricity for Industrialisation trade? We didn't ask you before as we wanted to be sure nobody could beat us in the race to the Theory of Everything, but there seems no harm now, so we would gladly trade with you.

We were thinking of the following:
We give you Electricity, you give us Industrialisation and 150 gold (the cost difference between the two techs is 480 beakers). Both parties uphold a 20 turn NDA.

Would something like that suit you?

best regards,
DeepO

[DeepO]

Hello, DeepO,

Glad to hear from GS again!

I posted your message in our forum - until now, the response was agreeable. However, even if I do not expect anyone objecting, I'd prefer giving our active members a wee bit more time to say whether they like it or not. More a matter of principle than a matter of possible controversy of this deal...

I sent Industrialization and 150g as unaccepted. Be so kind and counter with Electricity, either accepting or not, up to you. Unless someone comes up with an objection in our forum, we will accept the deal as proposed on the next turn (810AD, so you'd get the tech in 820AD).

Best regards,
vondrack
on behalf of Legoland

[DeepO]

Hello Vondrack,

Great! I've accepted and sent Electricity, so in case ratification goes well on your side, it will be there for you.

Please understand that with the Easter period, we more or less face the same problem in GS: this deal was not ratified by all our members. I dont expect any objections, but in case we change our mind before you play your turn, I hope we can ask you to deny the offer. It shouldn't happen, normally...

Regarding the NDA: it currently is turn 196, 810 AD. Please do not trade or give Electricity to other teams before turn 217. We will not do the same with Industrilisation (so protected to turn 216 inclusive).

Pleasure doing business with you

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Vondrack-

Its been awhile since our teams have spoken, we hope all is well with you and others on your team. We noticed that you have a caravel, the Horatio Nelson, within unloading range of our coast. While we of course acknowledge your right to scout, would you mind moving the ship out of landing range? It would prevent a cold-war like naval buildup in our sea.

Thanks,
Asleepathewheel
GS

[DeepO]

Dear Legoland,

this is a time of both joy and grief for us. We thought we should give you a heads up, before we make anything public.... Legopolis has fallen. More details will be unveiled later, but we just wanted to let you guys know that we feel for your loss, even if we were responsible. We know how much time you invested in building, what we un-builded in one turn time.

Kind regards,
Gathering Storm