Foreign affairs message

[vondrack]

DeepO was very quick sending the GS 3900BC minimap back to us. Here is a merged minimap, showing everything we know about our world:



For God's sake, do we have at least ONE neighbour? If we do, then it is most probably Voxes...

[Kloreep]

On a different topic, I think we should go for those "guaranteed trades"; I forget who was offering them (GoW, perhaps?) but it seems we're very isolated, and they may be the only way to get into early age tech trading.

[ZargonX]

Have we spoken to Vox yet about trading maps? We should also approach Lux. At this point, I think we should get as many maps as possible to find out definitively if we are isolated or not.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Have we spoken to Vox yet about trading maps? We should also approach Lux. At this point, I think we should get as many maps as possible to find out definitively if we are isolated or not.

I have just briefly spoken to Trip. Luxes voted against trading minimaps with us (somehow forgetting to inform us about their decision...).

As for Voxes... as they are (most likely) the ones closest to us, I would prefer discovering them "conventionally", rather then telling them where we are (learning where they are in return). We have our explorers well positioned and we are as close to Map Making as anyone can be, I think... Although I voted for all the minimap trades before, I would oppose trading with Voxes now. We would be giving up on a possibly huge strategic advantage.

[Tiberius]

Actually GS are not that far away. They might be on a landmass that is west from us, maybe close enough to be reached with a trireme. (do I remember correctly that somebody saw land at some point to our west?)

[Tiberius]

This is related to our foreign affairs, so I'll put it here:

If we find out that we are alone on our landmass (small continent?) and we are able to colonize it almost completely, (but just almost) before others are able to sail toward us, should we issue a Legoland Policy, a public declaration that Legoland will declare automatically war to anybody who dares to found a city on our continent ??? What do you think? I would strongly favour such a declaration.

[Spiffor]

I agree with Tiberius, but we need to issue this policy on a timely manner. We really have to settle almost all our continent for us to be credible on this one.

[Tiberius]

Currently we have possibilities to settle ~12 cities. I say that after 8-9 cities we could issue the policy (so roughly after settling 3/4 of the continent).

[redstar1]

Sounds a bit strong to me and actually committing to war on that basis may be playing into some team's hands somewhat....

What we could say is that 'Legoland claims all the land currently settled as well as anything 10 tiles west of our borders. We hope that our mutual respect will allow us all to grow and prosper in peace'.



Takes away the sting but lets people know where we stand. No team is naive enough to beleive they can walk all over us.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by redstar1
Sounds a bit strong to me and actually committing to war on that basis may be playing into some team's hands somewhat...

I am going to agree with redstar on this. I believe that making such a claim now or in the near future would in fact harm our interests.

First: the land we have explored so far was never "meant" to be ours, even if we perceive it so - it will become ours on condition we can settle it fast enough. With Farmerville, we should be able to do so extremely quickly, irrespective of whether other teams try standing in our way or not. Making claims will make no difference... especially when other teams know that we would be likely to (prematurely) trigger our golden age, if deploying Mercs.

Second: it is quite possible (barring Voxes location) we are on a big island, maybe even a small continent. It will take quite some time before other teams cross the water and try settling our lands. Plus, the best spots will already be taken by us anyway... Once we will have most of the landmass settled, others will not be eager to go there, because of the corruption, limited "supply lines", and general vulnerability.

Third: if we make such a claim, we MUST be ready to go to war, if someone crosses our way. Currently, a war is the last thing we need. Our immediate plan is REXing like crazy - having to wage war would seriously hamper our expansion. I believe we can quite silently and secretly settle most of our landmass without making any claims.

IF anyone shows up, we shall be prompt to tell them back off (at any time). But I'd strongly discourage making any public claims. I just can't see what we could gain by making them.

Note: rereading Tibi's post, I realize that we are not in disagreement too much and that my post is addressing something he did not really suggested... I will still leave my post as is, because it contains some thoughts we should be aware of.

So, while I would be for actually following and enforcing such a policy, I do not believe we should make the claim public (at any time).

[Tiberius]

dp

[Tiberius]

I was talking about the possibility that we settle a big part of our landmass and somebody sails toward us and settle a city on our continent, on one of the remaining spots (North Outpost, for example). I repeat, only when we will have settled the entire continent and only the "bad" spots are free. I'd be very-very angry if somebody put a city there. However, once they settled there, what can you say? Get out? Hence the declaration (not now or in the near future, obviously): to be sure that nobody will come pretending that they didn't know it was our land.
If some want to declare war to us, they don't need such an aliby.

Of course, there are other means we can fight with (against foreign invaders), like culture. But this requires early temples, what I favour (for culture, because for happiness we won't need them for a long time).

[ZargonX]

Before making the declaration I would wait for several things:

-Obviously, we should find out if we really are alone.
-Have settled at least 6-8 cities.
-Actually had someone land a unit on our lands.

The last one is so we don't seem overly eager to create a "Fortress Legoland," and then still gives the first people to arrive a chance to pull back out.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
-Actually had someone land a unit on our lands.

The last one is so we don't seem overly eager to create a "Fortress Legoland," and then still gives the first people to arrive a chance to pull back out.

This is actually a very fine idea. Thinking it over again, this would be a situation I would agree to making a public claim in. Yeah, I like that a lot.

[redstar1]

Someone may land a unit perfectly innocently though I seriously doubt someone would send a settler ship without first exploring unless they either had a massive abundance of them or were hemmed in.