Vox Controli - correspondence & foreign affairs

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Sharpe
I stand by my statement UNLESS Vox gets help from other nations, they would fall to GS

But of course, Voxes alone would never make it. I was responding to your line about other civs being less likely to intervene.

[vondrack]

Alright, this is a very busy day for me. I sent the following questions to BetaHound this morning:

1) Are you reasonably confident you can get your iron back?

2) RPers offer us to trade you their iron in exchange for two free techs from us (Theology & Chivalry). Do you want us to discuss this deal with them?

3) Is there anything we could do for you directly, to improve your chances to hold against GS? No way to commit troops, I am afraid - gold seems to be the only aid we can provide you with... but if it helps you, just ask. We would strongly prefer helping you directly, bypassing the RP team.

4) Do you want us to start building a refuge for you on Legos Minor? I have already talked to our MoI about this and he agreed that if you wanted us to start preparing a refugee settlement for you, we could afford that now. Legos Minor is a bit larger than your own land, but much more mountains (I would choose your land over Legos Minor, if having the chance... but... oh, well...). But if you'd prefer to die fighting, we would not slow ourselves down and keep settling our productive land.

This was his quick response:

Hi vondrack - thanks for the info. Here is a real quick reply.

We are sucking up like mad to make peace with GS. They have hinted they want us off the continent - but we are going for another settlement. Will tell you the details in a bit.

As to iron - do not give RP anything for them to give iron to us. Fighting GS at this point will not help our cause. If we need to make a desperate defence to evacuate - we have sufficient troops for that. So we can look real peaceful if we forfeit any access to iron.

You guys have done way more than any other civ to help us so far - so please do not throw good money after bad at this point. And don't give it to RP. Heck - they hinted they wanted a deal from us to get iron.

One way or the other - we would like to start setting up shop on Legos Minor. We have a settler and galleys set to go now. It will take some 16 turns to get there. OK to set sail now?

More later. Thanks again for the heads up. Somewhat bleak - but interesting and fun times.

Not quite the outcome we had hope for though. Well, c'est la vie. Pass the wine please.

And here is another, more detailed follow-up:

Hi again - I'm at work now. No access to my home-email, but access to Poly.

Here is what we are proposing to GS:

- they get south Estonia
- we gift Dissidentville
- we do a public mea culpa - I will do that.
- we post a public non-agression pact with GS into the next era. Jon does this
- we will provide engineering in approx 15 turns.
- we provide our free tech going into the next era.
- we will not attack Inchon
- we are allowed to safely evacuate all our troops from South Estonia
- this includes Harry and his gang of immortals trapped on the mountains in the SE. As a show of good will - they will move down to tha plains where they will be easy targets. (they are all down to 1 and 2 HP's as it is). Also - they will need to move one worker to allow them to get by.
-and we are asking if they want to move Inchon - maybe two tiles south. They will still get the prime enhanced grassland tiles - but our cultural borders will not be overlapping.
- and most recently - Vox forfeits any access to iron until the new era as well.

If GS rejects our proposal - we are going to go public with it. That should create quite the scene and some serious discussions on rights and wrongs.

OK - and now for some other inside Vox info that you should be aware of. One of the proposals on the table internally is that we become a 'vassal' state to GS. Ie- relinquish all decision making abilities and do and research waht they say. All of us agreed we would rather go down fighting than basically helping GS win the game.

However, we have acknowledged that we will not win the game. We recognized this quite a while ago. So, to some degree we will be a vassal, or more like a little brother to a team that will. There is overwhelming support within Vox that that team be Lego.

Our goal is to try and maintain the land we have - and settle Legos minor. With caravels - the two landmasses should be relatively close. (we were actually thinking of trying to do it with a galley.) Then we lay low forawhile and see what happens. But we would be prepared to support you in whatever direction Lego wants to go. We would obviously keep this very confidential between our two teams.

And so - we would like to settle Legos minor. One thing that has come to mind is that GS with the great Lighthouse may actually get there first. If you could land a settlement and claim it - and then we will rpeay with either a settler of our own - or two workers or something like that - it may be helpful. But as I mentioned earlier, we have the exodus ready to begin.

Any other questions - just let me know. Happy to answer them.

Having fun in Vox land - Beta.

[vondrack]

Now, my thoughts:

1) with us unable to assist Voxes militarily, RPers betraying yet another "ally", ND staying under the radar, and not even GoW believing in Voxian victory, I assume it very wise of Voxes to consider making peace and basically fleeing.

2) What little we did for them worked just perfect - they feel now it was us being their best friend (and it seems we really were...).

3) We have several reasons to help them again now. Here is a summary:

3a) We want our money back. We still have Voxes owing us some gold. While it is not a big deal, it would certainly be better to get it back rather than waive it.

3b) We want to have our Northern border secure. I believe we are well aware of that settling Legos Minor would actually be a burden for us, not an advantage. A small, compact empire of a loyal ally there would do much more good to us than our own settlements. We have been through these discussions anyway when we were planning to host Luxes there.

3c) We do not want Voxes to become extinct, joining other teams. Though I do not consider this a threat that big, I agree it would be better if the secrets of our ties with Voxes remain just that - secrets.

3d) I have all reasons to believe that Voxes mean it when they say they would be happy to become out "little brother". This little brother could be very helpful to us on various occasions. Persians are scientific, so they get a free tech on every era dawn. They can research techs we would be unable to "grab" because of the tech tree branching too much. They can try to deny others great wonders we would not want to build ourselves, but would still not like see with another "competing" civ. They can deny others whatever valuables may Legos Minor hide (iron & horses ATM, but who knows what is there...). They can be our "training partners" for great leaders. Possibilities are almost endless.

Thus, my suggestion (and it is NOT only because I consider BetaHound a good friend of mine) would be:

Let's send our settler escorted by the merc being constructed in Panama to Legos Minor. To a central location hidden from any vessels passing by the shores of Legos Minor. Let's build a city there (the future Voxian capital or FP city) and gift it to Voxes immediately.

This way, they will be safe from a "surprise extinction", plus others will be less than sure how they made it to there... (as I believe the heart of Legos Minor does not appear on any map, but ours). The sooner we do that for them, the better.

ONE MORE THING: BetaHound asked me in a separate PM if we could hold the save a bit longer this time - they need to give the peace talks with GS some time. Considering we have our own troubles to take care of, I think we can do that for them, can't we?

[Tiberius]

They could move their capital with a Palace jump, abandoning their current capital.

We could also set up a leader-traning city, settling a city on Legos Minor that would produce only warriors to be sacrificed in fighting with Vox elite immortals. This would also help us claiming the peninsula.

Maybe it'd be time to go public with our claim on Legos (Major and Minor), stating in public that we will declare war to anyone landing here.

Btw, did we sent that PM waiving the 150 gold loan? Should I do it (as an ambassador to Vox?) I will, only I have now little access to the internet (only from work).

Btw, no f*cking deal will be signed with RP. They were trying to gain maximum profit doing almost nothing. They didn't even want to fight. Bah ...

[Tiberius]

I agree with the plan.

One more thing: while escorting the settler to his new destination, let us send an outgame screenshot of Legos Minor to Vox. This will give them time to plan their future cities' locations. It should be them to decide where to settle their future capital.

Btw, Benelux will be now Benevox ?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
They could move their capital with a Palace jump, abandoning their current capital.

This pretty much depends on whether they succeed to keep at least a small part of Estonia after basically surrendering to GS... if they are left with the very core of their empire, they would better leave their capital there. But I suspect GS will not agree to that... so the Voxian Palace will "be jumped" by GS...

Originally posted by Tiberius
Maybe it'd be time to go public with our claim on Legos (Major and Minor), stating in public that we will declare war to anyone landing here.

Not sure if we'd gain anything by that... as the ND incident shows, it may be better to handle such things on a case by case basis - GoW already knows, ND has just been informed. RPers are hardly a threat ATM (plus, I do not believe even Togas would be that cheeky to insist "they did not know we would mind"), as is GS. Voxes are no threat at all.

Btw, did we sent that PM waiving the 150 gold loan? Should I do it (as an ambassador to Vox?) I will, only I have now little access to the internet (only from work).

I fear I did not send anything official - though it was agreed by both me and BetaHound that 150g was the deal.

Btw, no f*cking deal will be signed with RP. They were trying to gain maximum profit doing almost nothing. They didn't even want to fight. Bah ...

I feel exactly like you, Tibi. RPers seem to be obsessed with betraying their "allies" right and left. I am just stunned by how blatantly they are willing to forget their commitments and how much importance they attribute to "the written word of treaties". I do not care if they signed a written deal with Voxes or not. They said they were going to fight GS - they told Voxes, they told us. And now? Cowards... there is no dignity in what they do...

I understand they are trying to avoid getting involved in a prolonged war, but heck - they should have thought about it before making any promises to Voxes... I guess I dislike RPers even more than GS...

And to be honest, GoW did not come out of this with a clean shield either. Sacrificing two horses in order to look like "supporting" Voxes simply doesn't cut it in my eyes... meh...

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
I agree with the plan.

One more thing: while escorting the settler to his new destination, let us send an outgame screenshot of Legos Minor to Vox. This will give them time to plan their future cities' locations. It should be them to decide where to settle their future capital.

This sounds like the right to do to me. Anyone having a problem with sending Voxes an outgame image of Legos Minor?

Originally posted by Tiberius
Btw, Benelux will be now Benevox ?

Nope... following the trend set by GS with Inchon and Inchoff, it will be...

Invoice...

[Sharpe]

Even for 240 gold lost, I frankly don't care what happens to Vox - maintaining good relations with GS, GoW or other relevant civs are much more important to me.

The recent ND scare clearly demonstrates the need to get into some sort of coalition or alliance. The fact that GoW sounded as though they were willing to support us for most situations is a good sign (unless GoW and ND are just playing for time for their main forces to arrive of course).

So, if GS wants Vox eliminated and doesn't want anyone supporting them, fine by me. I don't want to lift a finger to help Vox anymore unless it doesn't hurt Legoland - and our last loan to Vox is still a potential problem for us. Remember our involvement was supposed to be secret and Vox talked about it with other civs in an attempt to get more civs on their side, even if they didn't provide too many details. That's another reason I don't care if we support them anymore.

Vox just isn't important enough - they were a weak civ before the war and now they are even more irrelevant and weaker due to the increased power of GS.

Perhaps if Vox is eliminated, we can convince the other teams to allow us to add their players to our team due to our ever decreasing membership... (especially with summer nearly here and vacations and members such as Nimitz possibly going away for a bit).

The only way I would permit Vox onto Legos Minor is if GS and perhaps other civs give the ok for it. Perhaps we should join GoW as a mediator in the peace talks, though that raises the risk of our involvement being exposed.

Even if we permitted Vox onto Legos Minor, Benelux/Suez is ours - and that isn't negotiable.

[Kloreep]

I agree on the last point; if we do found the new city for Lux, it should be farther up in the interior of Legos Minor.

It could also be good to talk to GS about jumping them over, should the peace negotiations fail; better to have their blessing, especially since GS is now a potential ally, along with GoW. On the other hand, would it be worse to blatantly go against their wishes if they want Vox eliminated?

So, I suggest we ask Beta how the peace negotiations are going before moving on the Legos Minor deal, and if they're going downhill, we can talk with GS about transplanting Vox (maybe even a joint Vox-Lego-GS chat). It was mentioned as a possibility in a GS chat a while ago. If they give their blessing, great; if not, we're going to have to decide whether GS relations or Vox survival are more important...

[Tiberius]

Why should we gift Benelux? Where does this come from ??? We were talking about settling a central spot on Legos Minor and then gifting it to Vox.

And Sharpe, I frankly couldn't care less about maintaining good relations with GS. This game is not just about winning but also about having fun. Would you play it if you knew that you just have to press enter every turn and win in the end? I bet you wouldn't. Having a "vassal civ" in our neighbourhood is just much more fun than kissing GS's ass, in my very humble opinion.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't maintain good relations with GS, but not at any price. If they aren't reasonable enough to let Vox survive on the other end of the world, then they should stop playing.

I frankly care about what happens to Vox. Because of them GS wasted their golden ages on a war that didn't bring them too much. Even as a "vassal civ" or "little brother", call it how you want, they deserve to be part of a possible Lego win. I am quite sure that if Bob won't have the guts to attack GS then GS will win this game due to their superior domestic planning and more efficient city placement. It was a golden opportunity to get rid of GS or at least to slow them down as much as possible, and yet no one had the courage to openly help Vox. Do you think they will do it in the future, after they saw what GS can do with an invading army? This game is almost already won by GS.

[vondrack]

Anyone surprised I happen to strongly disagree with Steve's stance...?

Originally posted by Sharpe
The recent ND scare clearly demonstrates the need to get into some sort of coalition or alliance.

Can you elaborate on this a bit, please? We had an ND scout land on our continent, move two tiles inland, get spotted... then we talked to ND and it seems we will be able to work out a deal that will actually get us what we wanted anyway (the no-Sistine clause) plus the scout will go home, we get some gold, and improve our relations with ND considerably. I cannot see where we needed an ally to accomplish all this? How does this demonstrate we need to get into some sort of coalition or alliance? I would say it's a bit the other way round... other teams need to get into alliance with us - facing the threat of GS...

Originally posted by Sharpe
So, if GS wants Vox eliminated and doesn't want anyone supporting them, fine by me. I don't want to lift a finger to help Vox anymore unless it doesn't hurt Legoland - and our last loan to Vox is still a potential problem for us. Remember our involvement was supposed to be secret and Vox talked about it with other civs in an attempt to get more civs on their side, even if they didn't provide too many details. That's another reason I don't care if we support them anymore.

Are we now taking orders from GS...? Are we THAT weak to have to ask GS about if they are fine with us planting a loyal ally in our Northern flank? Besides, I expressly asked DeepO about the possibility of providing Voxes an asylum on Legos Minor - and he made it very clear that it was no problem at all for GS. He said GS wanted Voxes to be gone from their continent, not dead. I do not feel ANY need to ask them again. Legoland is a sovereign state, we can do whatever we wish - we just have to be ready to accept consequences.

And if this leads to our relations with GS cooling down? Well, are we going to win this game by teaming up with our greatest rival? I assume that's not very likely - but then, I do not see why keeping GS happy should be our top-top priority...

Originally posted by Sharpe
Vox just isn't important enough - they were a weak civ before the war and now they are even more irrelevant and weaker due to the increased power of GS.

I would partially agree Voxes had a start bad enough to be in no position to win the game, unless eliminating GS very early on, only slightly better than if we had started on Legos Minor. From this PoV (i.e. as far as winning the game is concerned), they may be irrelevant. But few posts above I gave more than few examples of how Voxes on Legos Minor can be beneficial to our cause.

Originally posted by Sharpe
Perhaps if Vox is eliminated, we can convince the other teams to allow us to add their players to our team due to our ever decreasing membership... (especially with summer nearly here and vacations and members such as Nimitz possibly going away for a bit).

Ever decreasing membership? I can't recall we would be losing a single active member over the last three months... me, you, Tibi, Zargon, Kloreep, redstar, lmtoops, Nimitz (with quantum probably just following the forum, posting only little) - it is the same team ever since Jack_www and Spiffor left. Accepting Voxes into our team does NOT help us ingame at all. Legos Minor would still be a burden for us.

Originally posted by Sharpe
The only way I would permit Vox onto Legos Minor is if GS and perhaps other civs give the ok for it. Perhaps we should join GoW as a mediator in the peace talks, though that raises the risk of our involvement being exposed.

I would understand if you put it as "The only way I would permit Vox onto Legos Minor is if it is beneficial to us." But only if GS/others do not mind??? Hell, we are THE world power, possibly even #1 (who knows what happens after the GS' GA end - our economy may be even stronger than theirs). Do we have to ASK anyone to do what we consider beneficial for us? (and yes, I do consider having Vox on Legos Minor beneficial for us - see my post above...) What about asking others if they are ok with us settling the rest of our landmass? What about asking others if they are ok with us eventually winning the game?

Originally posted by Sharpe
Even if we permitted Vox onto Legos Minor, Benelux/Suez is ours - and that isn't negotiable.

Anyone ever said we would be gifting them Benelux???

I can sum my reasons for providing Voxes with an asylum on Legos Minor into two points:

1) pure reason: Legos Minor is more of a liability than an asset for us. Our city placement plan for Legos Major uses up almost all cities we can build without hitting the OCN induced corruption. Due to the rough terrain, we would never be able to get anything really worthwhile from there. OTOH, Legos Minor is too close to Legos Major to leave it unsettled or have another, non-vassal team settle it. Security risk. Letting Voxes settle Legos Minor solves both problems nicely - our Northern flank would be covered and Voxes would be able to get the most of that piece of land, running a tight, compact small state there. Even if this is all what harbouring Voxes would accomplish, I'd consider it significant. But I believe there would be numerous other benefits to our cause.

2) "heart": well, let's face it - why are Voxes losing their war? Mostly because nobody (but us, to a degree) gave them the support promised. They were betrayed, to put it plainly. Betrayed by GoW, betrayed by RPers. I am not going to speculate why GoW & RPers decided to do so, but that's what happened. I don't want to join this "society of traitors", trashing Voxes for the sake of "keeping good relations with other teams". As Tibi put it, I want to have fun with this game. Fearing what GS and other say about us letting Voxes find their exile on Legos Minor is not fun for me.

I want to have a sovereign, strong empire that will be able to set the course of history. If Lego decides to let Voxes live on Legos Minor, it shall be so - irrespective of whether others approve it or not. Lego takes no orders from other teams. Lego is strong enough to go its own way.

And just to make it clear - I am not suggesting we should completely ignore consequences of what we are doing here and there... I'm just saying that giving Voxes Legos Minor does NOT give anyone a solid reason to start hating us. Voxes will be no threat there. Objecting their exile there is just plain unreasonable and thus, I am not going to care if anyone objects...

One more thought: having Voxes settle Legos Minor may actually HELP us in the eyes of ALL other teams, as we would effectively "give up" part of the enormous landmass we have at our disposal. Perhaps the worst part (but who knows it is the worst part! GoW saw the shores from their galley and that's it), but it still room enough for ~6-8 cities. Having someone ELSE settle it makes us look weaker than if we settled it ourselves.

[lmtoops]

Having Vox in Legos Minor (LM) is a definite benefit and I completely support this initiative. I would want us to be very public about giving LM to Vox. No secrecy is necessary. At the same time, we will not ask permission from any team. We simply let it be known that we are giving Vox a way to stay in the game. I don't think any civ will have a problem with that.

I also misunderstood the re-naming of Benelux. I interpreted the renaming as being a gift to Vox. In any case, that is cleared up and we are keeping our cities.

It was inevitable that the world would find out about our Vox support. I went into the deal know that the secret would leak out eventually, so I can not complain.

Again, do not be secretive. The other civs will know eventually and it buys us nothing.

[vondrack]

This came from Beta (formerly BetaHound) of Vox:

Hi Radek - our peace proposal was rejected by GS. Hawks outnumber the doves.

I really hate to see what my mistake has cots us now. Oh well.

But - I do have another plan. Both RP and GoW are close by - and both had previously committed troops and are waiting to hear from us as to what to do. I am going to give both of them ROP's, and ask them to land their troops.

I would like to have a chat with you, Togas, BF, another Lego, MZ, and P32, and propose this plan.

They land their troops - as previously committed - and in GoW's case - a signed deal.

We - all of us do some serious sword rattling. We close the deal with RP for iron for engineering - and they do not charge you anything.

Agreement is reached that if GS agrees to the peace terms - where we will publicly sign a NAP with GS - then all foreign troops pull back.

The only wild card here is NeuD - who probably won't get involved. However - If the see RP and GoW and RP hanging together on this issue - I doubt they will make much noise.

So - would you be up for this. Could you hold your nose with Togas in the room. Do you think it will work.

I will be available later this evening or tomorrow evening for a chat. I know the times are awful for you.

The mistake he is mentioning was an oversight he made playing their last turn - I have no idea what exactly it was but apparently, it was quite important.

I responded basically agreeing with the chat (though expressing doubts about GoW/RP willing to commit troops now), but asking to wait for ZargonX to come back.

[Kloreep]

He doesn't say what turn the oversight was... perhaps the oversight was not seeing the settler in the Inchoff stack (or not realizing what it would do).

I dunno about the chat... I don't think we have much weight in diplomacy (at least, not the treatening "we have troops landed/ready to land for Vox" kind), and it would confirm for GoW and RP that we have been supporting Vox. (Which they seem to be all but sure of, but a log that could be sent to GS could be bad.) I'm not sure if it would work even with RP and GoW on board with Vox; RP's credibility seems suspect at best after the Lux war (though it's true GS doesn't know how much they're waffling about iron, and Vox support in general), and how much reason could GoW have to support Vox now? GS could see through it, and if they do, I wouldn't be surprised to see GoW and RP's units fleeing back to the galleys as quickly as they land.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Kloreep
He doesn't say what turn the oversight was... perhaps the oversight was not seeing the settler in the Inchoff stack (or not realizing what it would do).

It was on the last turn, I know that (Beta mentioned that in another PM - first asking me to wait for a fixed Vox save, then changing his mind back again, realizing it would be cheating to correct an oversight in an already forwarded savegame...).

As I said, I do have my doubts about the usefulness of the chat, mostly due to the fact I do not believe GoW and RPers will have guts to join the show. But it is true that we openly told RPers we would support an anti-GS war efforts. And GoW knows we are supportign Voxes, just do not know to what extent. Plus, being invited (and coming) to a chat means nothing per se...