Diplomacy Thread

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Togas
I'm going to personally write Ghengis Farb to tell him how frustrated I am at his team for trading when we had a deal, especially when we turned down Lux.

If they don't give us a very favorable offer, I propose we don't sell them Alphabet. Sure, they can get it from ND, but we need to make a point that we're not going to accept being stood up like this.

We may have to get Warrior Code from ND or Lux, but let's wait to see how GoW responds to our being insulted.

Will post his response.

--Togas

I agree with this course of action. However, keep in mind that we essentially did the same thing to them with ND earlier.

[Togas]

Trip always seems to be online. Always.

Anyhow, I got busy with a backup plan. Complained in public chat about how GoW is "Trying to change their deal with us," and asked Trip if the deal he offered me earlier today was still good, because our deal with GoW might end up going south.

He opened private chat and went back to work.

I griped a bit about how GoW isn't as reliable as we had hoped and that they're trying to change a tech deal on us. Joked about how we were have diplomatic "issues" with them. Asked him if his team was willing to offer the old deal of W.C. + Wheel + Iron Working for Alph + Writing, he said yes.

He asked if I wanted to work out an alliance deal and if I wanted him to write something up tonight. Says his team is in favor of an alliance. I mentioned a few of the terms I'd like to see, said my team was in favor of it, and told him that I had some people on my team that were good at these things. Said that I'd let my wisemen prepare something and send it to them next week.

I think they'd sign most any deal. Furthermore, Trip is going to offer us W.C. and Wheel on their turn, so if GoW balks, we can take them up.

He's clever to do so. This sort of diplomatic situation will strain relations between us and GoW and pull us closer to Lux, however, that may be in our best interest, we need discussion on this.

1) I need suggestions on how to handle things with GoW to keep from damaging relations too much.

2) We need to determine quickly if we should reneg with GoW or take Lux's offer.

3) We need to draft an "alliance" with Lux, but I'll put that information in a separate thread.

Lastly, I want to apologize to jdjdjd for stepping on his toes so much with Lux. As I've discovered, Trip likes to take care of business personally, and he seems to enjoy being approached directly by the leader of our team (me), and I have a past rapport with him from the Demo Game that seems to have carried over a bit.

But there is still work for jdjdjd. Oh, yes, my silver-tongued scribe. I will need your skilled legal mind for the "alliance" we are to draft.

--Togas

[Togas]

Ghengis responded in two emails. One to me, and one to myself, Arnelos, and Dejon. First message:

Okay, apparently our trade deals are off, but I have
no idea what your are talking about. We said we would
trade you Warrior Code and The Wheel and that's what
we were going to do. I have no idea what ND deal you
are talking about unless it was the deal they offered
us last turn to pay them 10 gpt for Alphabet, which we
turned down.

Clearly this whole thing caught him offguard, which makes me wonder about the power structure of their team and if they really have any central leadership, or if they all tend to their own business. Anyhow, Ghengis is clearly upset and confused, but being upset lead him to write this second message:

This is to inform you that I have recommended to our
team that trading you The Wheel and Warrior Code for
Alphabet is no longer acceptable in my opinion. We
were trying to insure that our two teams would get
every tech possible technology but your completely
aggressive attacks in private and public against any
team that does not willingly submit to be your lackey
has made it clear that NO TEAM can coexist with yours.

I wrote him back immediately, sending him a quote from Panzer's PM to adaMada, explaining to him that THEY informed US that the deal was off, why that would frustrate us, and how we avoided a deal with Lux to do this deal with them. I explained that Trip offered tonight to still make the deal, and I told him that I would if The RP-GoW deal fell through. Went on about how we refused Lux because we had made a promise to GoW and we are going to keep our word to them and trade with them unless they tell us otherwise.

I asked him to clarify his team's command structure ... who has authority to make what deals, and to decide if they wanted to keep their promise to us or not, and if so, to give me someone with authority who can make that promise.


In short -- We are rightfully offended but we must stress that we will stand by our deal with GoW if they will stand by it. If they reply with Wheel and WC for Alphabet, we agree (old deal involved us trading Bronze too), make a vow, do the deal, and forgive and forget.

If not, do your best to smooth things over in public. Explain why your Despot is angry and try to beg them to reason with him for the good of both nations. Play peacemaker between myself and GoW. Try to be very neutral about this in public when you discuss it.

-- Togas

[E_T]

So it was Panzer who had made the Error, and not GF. Hmm, it does make one wonder, who is in charge of that team.

It does show the Wisdom of having our leadership vested in the Great & Powerful Togas Family. And in his structuring of his Ambassidors & Advisors.

Letus Eta Tamali

[Hot Mustard]

Possible PM to GhengisFarb:

Dear GhengisFarb,

As Most Trusted Advisor of Lord Togas, ruler of all España, I am writing to you to seek clarification of recent diplomatic events. My great leader is in a bit of a mood due to these events, and thought it would be wiser for someone else to contact you.

Originally emailed by GF
...your completely aggressive attacks in private and public against any team that does not willingly submit to be your lackey has made it clear that NO TEAM can coexist with yours.

I do not understand the source and reasoning for this, very aggressive, strong statement. From the correspondence visible in our Displomacy thread, Togas and our ambassors have been nothing but courteous to all civilizations, and have never made any demands of any kind.

We were the first civilization to start trading mini-maps. From the start, we wished to enter into good faith trading with all willing civilizations. Fortune was not with us though, and trading commenced within the northern triangle first (GoW, Lux, ND), and has continued without us, despite our attempts to befriend the northern civilizations.

We understand perfectly that it is hard to dismiss a current beneficial trade offer for a more beneficial pre-arranged one (which could not yet be conducted). We have been put in that unenviable position ourselves. However, good sportsmanship and common sense would seem to suggest that the team breaking the pre-arranged trade, or "obseleting it" if you prefer, might offer an apology to the other team, or at least suggest a new trade to replace the old. What we have received instead is 1) (from Panzer) A simple dismissal of the old trade, and a request for our technology list and 2) (from yourself) An accusational and aggressive email that stops just short of threatening an imminent trade embargo against our completely innocent civilization.

Is it possible that communication and coordination among the diplomatic envoys of The Glory of War is not what it is amongst the officials of the Roleplay team. For that reason alone, we are not yet treating these events as a complete rebuff of us and as an indication of aggression. We understand that the Chinese are a prideful people. What you may not understand is that the Spanish are too. We differ on opinions from time to time, as any group will, but if our ire is raised, we will stand together as one, behind our fearless leader, Lord Togas, and lock horns with any aggressor, like a matador in the bull rings of our land. We will not suffer unfair insults or aggression towards our envoys or people.

That said, I would humbly beseech you to clarify the Chinese intentions on trade with Spain. It now seems clear that long-term trade wishes are almost sheer folly, as civilizations have so far done whatever is in their short-term interests. If you agree with this assessment, then we can only plan trades for current technologies. If you do not agree with this assessment, and wish to engage in longer-term arrangements with the fair people of Spain, then I beg of you to make amends with Lord Togas.

Humbly yours,
Señor Fletcher Dejon
Most Trusted Advisor of Lord Togas
Roleplay Team

edit: Nevermind, see next post.

[Hot Mustard]

Email from GhenghisFarb:

Subject: Roleplay/Glory of War Conflict

Clarification of our negotiation system:

Any email from me is not an official diplomatic
message it is simply ideas, suggestions, our opionions
of the Leader of the Glory of War. By gameplay
standards official proposals should come through
Panzer32. Any proposal or approval of a deal should
be posted in our forum and approved of by our members.
Although most deals and offers have been conducted by
me as Panzer32 hasn't been online as much as I have
andI make immediate decisions on what I think is
best. This is how we have operated so far.

Togas stated that Panzer32 emailed adaMada an official
diplomatic statement that we were cancelling the tech
trade. This statement should be ignored if it
happened as that was NEVER brought before our team and
no one other than Panzer32 has heard anything about
that. The agreement in our forum was that since Lux
gave us Bronzeworking for free we would simply trade
your team the two techs we had agreed to and take the
one tech, Alphabet, that was agreed to since we
already had the other one.

I need adaMada to forward me the email where Panzer32
cancelled the tech trade and I will have him removed
as our ambasssador.

Here's the timeline on the situation from what I have
gathered:

We make tech trade deal for 3 techs UNLESS we aquire
them before we meet.

You acquire one of the 3 techs.
We aquire one of the 3 techs.

We ammend the deal to be 2 techs for 2 techs.

Lux gifts us Bronzeworking to encourage us to befriend
them and not side with ND.

Panzer32 informs adaMada that our tech deal is off.

Togas makes statements in the Apoly chat room that we
violated on our aggrements and are not to be trusted.

Togas informs me that I am dishonest and Roleplay no
longer wants to deal with us.

I inform Togas that I have no idea what he is talking
about.

I find out that we are being slandered as backstabbers
and have broken our agreements.

I inform my team that I don't feel it is wise to deal
with a team that slanders us publicly and inform
Togas, Dejon, and Arnelos of my new position.

Togas emails me that Panzer32 told adaMada that the
tech deal is off.

I posted the situation in our forum and requested a
statement from Panzer32 as to what he informed you and
why he may/may not have changed the deal without team
authorization.

I emailed Togas, Dejon, and Arnelos this overview.

-Jason (GhengisFarb

He is (perhaps subconsciously) escalating this by referring to it as a "conflict" in the subject. He is inviting us to hang Panzer out to dry as a scapegoat, it seems.

[Crousto]

We should keep asking them Wheel & WC for Alphabet. This trade may be at our advantage but we'll trade later Writing for Horseback which is at their advantage as far as tech value is concerned. If GoW wants alphabet, we are their only solution for them right now (they have nothing to offer to NeuDem -and don't want to anyway-) and Lux doesn't have alphabet.

About avoiding damages in our relations with GoW, it will be rather hard now. Maybe we could promise them public apologizes if they agree to keep the deal like above.

Edit after reading GF's answer : well it seems that apologizes may not be needed after all if he blames his ambassador So it's clear now that Lux wants to crush NeuDem through an alliance with our team and GoW...

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Crousto
About avoiding damages in our relations with GoW, it will be rather hard now. Maybe we could promise them public apologizes if they agree to keep the deal like above.

While statements in the general chat are technically "public", it is not the same as a post in the general forum. After all, who was there to read it besides Togas and GF anyways? I do not agree with making a general forum post to apologize for something that most don't even know about - it will make us look foolish.

[adaMada]

PM From Panzer

I will reply to this later -- I have to go out now. Until then, here's a PM I just got from Panzer. I have some ideas as to how we can handle this and hopefully wind up on good terms with GoW, if we're lucky. Note that Panzer offers to make the original deal with us as a favor to smooth things over. Though it gets us what we want, I'm inclined to believe it will worsen the Diplomatic situation (which, from what I can gather, is pretty bad right now ), and it might be best to offer them some form of compensation for the second tech.

Panzer is correct -- there was a clause in the original deal stating that the contract changes if either sides met another team and traded with them. This was before we'd met anyone, and it was logical then. That clause, which was the sensible option before, will now cause us a bit of pain (we were working on faith that neither team would invalidate the deal whereas they were working by the original agreement), but I think we can negotiate around it. I'm going to try to push it off as a misunderstanding, since that's what I believe it was -- and I believe we can resume normal diplomacy best if they feel this was just a bump in the road, with both sides not being on the same page. That's what I honestly think happened, so it shouldn't be hard to pull off.

I'm going to have to come back later to write my reply, which will be posted here once it is done. Until then, if any of us meet anyone from GoW in the chat room, try not to brawl over this -- we've made our point, and Panzer's gone as far as to offer the original deal we wanted. Our next step is to smooth out ruffled egos and try to resume normal diplomatic communications. Once this deal is behind us, Togas will be making a general decision as to our tech-trading relationship with GoW, and once we've decided what sort of a relationship we'd like with them. Once we've met them, this sort of thing will be in the past, as we'll be able to propose any deals instantly and to agree between us not to trade for any techs we're negotating with.

-- adaMada

EDIT: I've just read Dejon's post about the message Ghengis sent him. That obviously changes things, though I'm not quite sure how. Either way, I'd suggest that we don't push for Panzer's removal, as a greatful ambassador might be... useful . He's also been fairly pleasant to us so far, and aside from this incident, has given us generally what we wanted.

Greeting adaMada, Diplomat of the Roleplay team. What I have to reply to is this email Togas sent to Ghengis Farb. I am sending this to Togas as well.

** SNIP: Togas' Message to Ghengis **

Well, for one, you seem determined that we cheated you by trading Lux Invicta. We traded The Wheel and Warrior Code for Bronzeworking and Pottery. Now, our team can still give you the Wheel and Warrior code, and you can still give us alphabet. Therefore, I propose we do exactly the same trade that we had agreed upon earlier - You give us Alphabet, we give you the Wheel and Warrior Code, and we have a 50 turn nonagression pact. Think of this advantageous deal as compensation for not trading with other teams while coming to meet us. I believe our warriors are extremely close to meeting, so we will hopefully have this cleared up very soon.

This brings up another point: In the original agreement, there was a 'clause' stating that we would renegotiate the deal if we met and/or traded with another team. I fail to see which part of this the Glory of War actually broke. Do not mistake the above deal I am giving you as an apology from the Glory of War team, it is simply a sort of compensation for misunderstanding our contract.

I also understand that you said in the public chat room: "Togas to Trip -> We may have a better deal for you - GOW is trying to change their deal" What did you say this for? Are you trying to spread lies about us? The Glory of War has done every deal with Lux Invicta it said it would do, the aforementioned tech trade is a public example. Please research your facts before you spread rumours about others.

Are you also afraid we have traded 'behind your backs' with New Demogyptica? The only time we have done this was a while back, before the latest tech trade was agreed upon.

Thank you; I hope that we can clear up some of the misunderstanding between our two teams

Panzer32, Foreign Consul for the Glory of War.

[jdjdjd]

Interesting turn of events.

What I beleive...

Lux comes through with an offer of IW for Alpha and 25 gold. Then after they hear of our dilemna with GoW are willing to commit to Alpha and Writing for WC, Wheel and IW. Which would be Alpha for WC & Wheel right now.

GoW pulls out of our initial deal and then after realizing that Togas's statements to Trip could harm their relationship with others, claim that Panzer was wrong and acting out of turn. Also, that they would accept Alpha for both WC and Wheel.

Trip obviously told Ghengis about what Togas said, as from what I gather, they were the only two present when they spoke. Trip is clearly trying to play us and GoW against each other, as it benefits him. Either way he gets Alpha from us, either in first trade format or second, and either way he looks good to us. He looks good to GoW by telling them what Togas said.

Trip is using the stupidity of GoW to harm what was a very close relationship between us and GoW. Trip has indicated to many that ND is who he fears the most. The gift to GoW is an indication of that. But does he? Is it possible that he has a very close relationship with ND as well? Is it possible he is just being opportunistic? Is it possible he and GoW are playing us for our techs and plan to leave us out of the whole continent?Is Trips offer of a Military Alliance just to lure us into a false sense of security for 40 turns, while he and any partner he has build and plan to invade us. Is his exploration pact a way of convincing us to keep any first hand visual experience out of his territory so that he can build up his troops?

Perhaps I am being overly paranoid from warnings I had gotten from Our Supreme Leader and others, that Trip and his team were going to be decptive. They may very well be, and GoW and ND should not be trusted either.

One side note is how neither is willing to approach ND for Alphabet - or is ND gone isolationist with GoW and Lux, considering them the greatest threat. Ironically, ND may be our most trusted neighbor.

Having said that, we should go back to GoW and agree to that trade assuming they still have it on the table, i.e., WC, whell for Alpha. Go back to Trip and stick to the first trade Alpha + 25 for IW. Offer no one Writing until we have it, and then shop it to all teams at once in hopes of getting three equally valuable techs.

I say we stay out of any exploration agreements. I say we only sign Non Aggression pacts, no MPPs and no Alliances - military or tech. Start to build out military up after we can get a third settler. And lets pop that damn hut ASAP.

--
Isolationism is our best bet.

[Crousto]

I agree about only non-agression pact, no MPP and above all no military alliance. Tech alliances would be interesting however, but as far as Iron Working is concerned we'll have to choose between NeuDem or Lux as our partner, which may be a very difficult choice (maybe Lux would be the best choice as NeuDem could get another tech to trade with us from a goody hut).
Also, after reading Panzer's message to adaMada, it's obvious that Genghis lied to us when he said that Lux gave them Bronze for free.
I've updated the tech race table which should now give a pretty accurate vision of all the tech trades that occured and could be made in the near future.

[jdjdjd]

Yes, Crousto is right about Ghengis's deception. (I cross posted with adaMada).

I may have rambled earlier....but I say we stick to the current deals on the table. We do not need to make amends with GoW as far as I'm concerned , they have lied to us.

As for Non-agression pacts, I'm all for them. But lets not put our guards down because of them. GoW or Lux will invade us at the drop of hat, IMHO.

Lets play the game this way, we have no allies, we have no friends, and no one can be trusted - who is not of Spanish blood.

[Togas]

My message to Panzer:

Panzer,

I think this matter can be put to rest. If your team will trade us Warrior Code and Wheel for Alphabet, then we have no problems at all. I regret that there has been such confusion over this issue.

I got enraged when my ambassador posted to our forum that you aquired Bronze Working from another source and said that the deal would have to be renegotiated, which meant that the deal was basically off. The reason I was angry about this is because I had taken active measures to send people to meet your team ASAP, foregoing their original scouting mission to travel directly to you. I had also had many exchanges with Ghengis Farb where he asked me on several occasions if the deal was on, and even sent us a .jpg showing where your warrior was so that we could both meet.

I was only angry because we had done so much thus far to make this deal and it didn't seem to me that it was as important to you guys as it was to us

Furthermore, Trip had offered us Wheel & Warrior Code in conjunction with several other trades, but we turned him down on Wednesday saying we already had a deal with you guys. Then I had to go back to Trip on Friday, after receiving your PM, to see if he would reoffer the deal to us.

I also understand that you said in the public chat room: "Togas to Trip -> We may have a better deal for you - GOW is trying to change their deal" What did you say this for? Are you trying to spread lies about us? The Glory of War has done every deal with Lux Invicta it said it would do, the aforementioned tech trade is a public example. Please research your facts before you spread rumours about others.

I said this, as this is what was communicated to me by your PM. You told adaMada that our previous deal was obsolite and that you'd like to make a new deal. Did you not say this?

Regardless, I understand that if you received Bronze Working as a gift, you could not refuse it. If I had been made aware of that situation earlier, I would not have been so frustrated by this turn of events. Furthermore, if I had been made aware by your first PM that you were willing to offer Wheel and Warrior Code for Alphabet, I certainly would not have protested. Such a deal is acceptable to me and my people.

I apologize that this misunderstanding inflamed both your people and mine, and I hope that in the future we can keep each other more informed so that misunderstandings like these will not happen again.

--Togas

[Hot Mustard]

Check out Crousto's post here for an image we could send GoW.

And my comment below it:

Originally posted by dejon
Excellent Crousto! Yes, I think this type of collaborative image will help smooth things over more. Since Togas sent the last PM to them, I think adaMada should send the picture, so that he is seen in a good light as well.

[Togas]

I don't care if they bought Bronze, got it in a goody hut, or got it as a gift, if they'll give us Wheel & Warrior Code for Alphabet, I'll make the deal. Frankly, that's what I ultimately wanted.

I slipped in the comments about GoW in public Apolyton chat on purpose. One GoW guy was there, but I can't remember his name, and there were others. No matter how this thing is resolved, our implications that GoW tries to change their deals will stick to them.

Anyhow, we should graciously take whatever "concessions" they hand us to smooth out this incident and express our apologies in kind.

With hope, they have learned that we are serious yet reasonable. I also hope that they will get over their annoyance with this scuffle, but that remains to be seen. GoW can be a very passionate crowd.

--Togas