Diplomacy Thread

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Thud
Regarding my nomination to 5 most inactive people:

I was busy perfecting bronze, now available at my hut in the marketplace at very reasonable prices for those citizens who hunt. Besides, the Land of Lego is so distant as for my diplomatic post to be nearly irrelevant for many years to come. However, I shall make an effort to visit our politcal center more often.

Ah, so that's how you get people active - just threaten to publicly whip them!

[Thud]

Also, it is my opinion that GoW is simply friendly with the highest bidder. Whomever sends the most squids gets the troops. Counter-intuitively, this means that they may become quite friendly with Legoland, and by association, us.

[jdjdjd]

Ok, here is my email to Trip -

Trip,

I hope you didn't do too much damage New Year's Eve, or at least had fun doing it.

I wrote this to Admiral PJ this morning, and then noticed that he hasn't been on line in several days. Is he on vacation? Togas suggested I send a copy to you just in case Admiral PJ is away.

We did send the offer of Alphabet through the Game. I'm not sure of all the techs you guys have discovered, but was thinking one of these - Iron Working/Mathematics/Mysticism - for the Alphabet. I had also talked to The Admiral about a minimap exchange, though now that we found each other in the game its not important. We may still be willing to do it, if you guys want. We could also discuss any other trades you may come up with so we can keep those damn warmongers to the North in check.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

jdjdjd

P.S.
Sorry I did not get into full Roleplay mode, but I have to get back to work. And please, for God's sake, don't tell Togas. He already is going to have Ninot whipped along with some others in public, simply because they haven't been on-line a lot recently.

I kept it low key as I never knew Trip to be one big on RP'ing. Also, I tried to keep the offer vague. We would love IW for Alphabet, or I think even WC and Alpha for IW.

I will keep you posted.

[jdjdjd]

Wouldn't you know it, Lux is claiming they only have Wheel or WC or 12 gold.

What shall we do, what shall we do.

[History Guy]

Alright. I've got a new message from Neu Demogyptica...am posting immediately below.

[History Guy]

Here is the message from Picahulu, Ambassador of Arabia...

-

History Guy, my dear Friend,

my great Ruler, Sultan Borc himself, asked me to express his gratitude for sharing the secrets of the spanish kitchen with us. To be honest, i got the impression that today he enjoyed having dinner even more than the preceding afternoon in his harem in Neu Theben. Well anyway, he ordered a group of messengers immedeately to deliver some tasteful spices from Arabia to your beautiful country, as we would like to give you something in return. If this isn't just impossible, these spices may help you to improve your dishes even more!

Sultan Borc is also very pleased we've made a trade agreement that satifies both of us.
We feel that friendship between our countries intensifies every day, and maybe you agree that time has come to talk about a Technology Alliance. We've heard that you've turned down the quad-pact offer from China. As we also think that we can't allow these mercenaries to become the strongest force on our continent, we're not interested in a quad-pact either.

Nevertheless we think that a technology alliance between our two countries would be benefecial to both of us!
At this moment we are discovering Iron Working, but yet there's still some time to come until research is finished.
As we prefer to trade non-martial technologies first, we offer to research mysticism in exchange for writing or mathematics.

Thinking of the threat which lurks in the north, we are convinced that trading technology is the best way to forge an alliance between our nations to stand together against the Warmongers.

We do not doubt you agree that an alliance would help both of our civilizations and hope to make an agreement soon.

Best Regards from Arabia,
Picahulu, Ambassador of Neu Demogyptica

-

I await further instructions.

Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger
Squid Baron

[Crousto]

About Lux : we should get the Wheel and Warrior Code from GoW in a few turns. And we can't cripple our deal with GoW again... So right now, it seems that Lux will have to wait for alphabet (12 gold... )
About NeuDem : trade partnership , military alliance

[adaMada]

Re: the Five most inactive people.
I think MWIA joined the team for the future, but is out of the country for a bit. I know he was leaving, though I don't know when he was slated to come back.

Originally posted by Aidun
[ooc]Mrmitchell, has GoW such hatred feelingt towards us? I think they're quite neutral towards us. A little bit of big talk, thats all.[/ooc]

Aidun

Mrmitchell -- I love the chart, but agree with Aidun. I'd put GoW at neutral for now, and perhaps even friendly in the near future -- dispite distrust all around, our negotations with them (so far) have gone well, and they've given us the hard line we were looking for every time .

Originally posted by Thud
Also, it is my opinion that GoW is simply friendly with the highest bidder. Whomever sends the most squids gets the troops. Counter-intuitively, this means that they may become quite friendly with Legoland, and by association, us.

This may indeed be true. We really won't know until we've seen for ourselves if GoW values loyalty . Having said that, right now I believe our relations are, at least officially, good .

Trade alliances
Every team near us now wants a trade alliance with each other or a trade embargo against another, and we've told al that we'd be friendly to such a notion . I was originally for a trade embargo against ND with GoW, and as ambassador, I still say it would do wonders for our relations, but I think we might just want to steer clear of any embargos and make ourselves useful to all sides of the little love triangle we're in the middle of by getting tech from them all. On the other hand, I'd very much like to have a close and powerful ally -- if we could ever trust GoW, it'd be really nice to have them guarding our backs. We've been told that ND's land is pretty bad, but bad land normally is a good defense, and they're in perfect position to guard our backs. Lux is going to be weak from a tech perspective for now, but that's just because we signed a deal with GoW before we signed with them, and they can easily catch up.

I've a few more things I'd like to discuss, but have to run now -- will post more later.

-- adaMada

[Thud]

Indeed. I think it is clear that GoW is a very strong ally candidate. I think that if we make an effort to befriend them quickly, they will consider any of our offers with first priority... particularly when it comes to choosing sides in a war. Of course, I don't beleive they will do this for free even if we are a trusted partner. We must take this into consideration. We must also consider our relationship with the Legoland, and how relations between them and GoW can work to our advantage or disadvantage.

We should also tend to our relations with ND cautiously. What we need most here is additional information. Depending on their strength and strategic position, we can have them as a friend... or use them as leverage with GoW.

[Togas]

Message from Ghengis Farb:

We have one hugging the east side of Demogyptia's
borders also so either we'll meet in the East or the
West.

I am assuming you are researching Writing.

We are researching Horseback Riding if you let us know
what you are researching we may be able to lock a
trade in for the techs we are currently researching
with the following clause:

We won't trade the tech you traded us if you don't
trade the tech we trade you. This will give each of
us full control over the tech we researched.

Lux apparently had ND break a land agreement with them
and isn't too happy with ND right now.

I told him that this was a wonderful idea and that he should have his ambassador contact adaMada immediately to begin to work out the details.

I love how Lux and GoW are talking poorly about ND, and ND is talking poorly about GoW. It's going to be interesting up there in the future.

--Togas

[Togas]

Diplomatic Instructions

Lux Invicta -- Work towards a deal for Iron Working, even if we have to wait a bit. Trip will understand as I've already told him THAT is what we want, and that the other techs don't interest me that much. We want to build up an army of swordsmen (from Spanish warriors). Also work along the lines to forge a tech alliance whereby they work on the martial techs and construction techs, and we work on the writing/philosophy techs.

We continue to be viewed as the peaceful and civilized people, who do not research warfare and are forced to trade for such knowledge.

Glory of War -- We're doing this trade with them -- Alphabet & Bronze for Warrior Code & Wheel. We then trade them Writing for Horseback Riding. We work out a deal whereby we do not trade techs we received from them to anyone else, and they do not trade to anyone else. This is good because Lux will have these war techs anyhow, and we're going to make a peaceful tech deal with ND whereby we don't give them war tech and they don't give us war techs.

Neu Dem -- We trade Writing to them for either Mysticism or Mathematic, and we sign a "peaceful tech accord" with them whereby both of our civs trade peaceful techs with each other to strengthen each other's culture and promote peace between our nations. We should also work very soon to sign a jungle accord, whereby we do not settle north of the jungle .... but we should only propose this pact once we're in position to lock up the border jungle settlements. We don't want to tip them off that they could easily travel south and steal our land.

They will sign such a deal once they realize that we're going to get those southern cities anyhow ... and once they sign it, they'll make no efforts to sneak past us and establish rogue settlements inside Spain.

--Togas

[adaMada]

Togas,
If I haven't been contacted by tomorrow, I'll shoot a message to Panzer seeking the more complete diplomatic agreement that you asked for above.

In the meanwhile, do you want the clause about neither side trading away the techs they aquire from the other side to be open ended, or to have some limit (after which point it must be resigned by both sides)?

All,
It is very good and rather bad news that ND is unpopular. On one hand, it gives us a rather secure rear as long as they're there -- I doubt they'd be foolish enough to start a fight with us while GoW and Lux are gunning for them. On the other, it means that their land could become fair game early on, and we might not like the result. As I've suggested above, they may have good defensive land -- they've been described as having poor land for settlement, which often has defensive bonuses. As such, we should prepare for a situation that seems likely at this time -- a standoff between ND and GoW/Lux, with ND being unable to press beyond their boarders and GoW/Lux being unable to press into their homeland. If this happens, we could find ourselves in the unique situation of being able to break the tie ourselves -- either by helping ND out, who will probably be behind by a tech or two by then, or by exploiting the situation and attacking ND from behind, taking land for ourselves and securing our border.

Just some food for thought -- nothing we need to worry about now. I hope I'm reasonably coherent .

-- adaMada

[jdjdjd]

I have asked Trip how long till they have IW, and asked what he may trade for it.

I know he won't take Alpha alone, he has already told me this. If he is interested in Writing for IW, after we both complete, that may be a good deal.

Also, so we don't lose out on getting anything for Alpha, maybe money - their 12 gold and 1 or more gpt and/or mini map - should be considered.

[jdjdjd]

OK, thoughts on Trips response to my PM and my ideas to Togas on what to do next.

Thanks.

Togas,

They need about 10 turns or so to complete IW. We need 23 (not 26 like I said earlier) turns to complete Writing.

My thinking is we should get him to commit to IW for Writing. I think its even, though I guess I should see what our experts think.

As for now, try get Alpha for some money - maybe 10 lump and 2 gpt - as a starting point.

As for the Military alliance he wants, I think we should avoid it, but a non-aggression pact maybe a good thing - for 50 turns.

Please let me know what you think. I'll post this in the diplo thread for others to comment on.

Trip wrote on 03-01-2003 11:12:

jdjdjd wrote on January 3rd, 2003 08:53 am:
Trip,

I have finally been able to talk to Togas about a possible tech trade. Right now, we are not interested in the Wheel, because of the amount of jungle we have in our neighborhood.

But, because of the track we are on right now tech wise, we'd really like to get Iron Working in some kind of trade, even though we know we have to wait until you complete it. Can you give me an idea of how long you have till IW is done? Can you give me an idea of what you might want in exchange for it?

Thanks,

jdjdjd

With the Wheel, that is understandable.

We're actually about 10 turns away from Iron Working. By then Iron Working will be between 2 and 3 times more valuable than Alphabet, if that's any indication of what we want. We have little use for Alphabet now other than a stepping stone to other techs, but Iron Working is one of the most important techs in the game (unveiling iron, unlocking the most powerful ancient age unit, etc.). Perhaps we can come to an agreement when the time comes.

In the mean time, I would like to discuss the possibility of entering a military alliance with Roleplay when your almighty ruler is available.

Yours,
Trip, Administrator Lux Invicta Demo Game

[Aidun]

Adamada,

Two dogs fighting for a bone, the third gets it all alone. Is that what you mean?

Aidun