Diplomacy Thread

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by History Guy
Ah, before I could respond, Dejon, the every watchful warrior, grabs the words from my mouth, stuffs them back in, and allows me to spit them back out only seconds afterward to make me look daft.

Whatever I can do to help.

[adaMada]

Ok . I'll work towards positive relations with GoW in general, as I was planning, and not a wimper about this to them.

-- adaMada

[adaMada]

My Message to GoW

Here's the message I just sent to Panzer. It's perhaps over-polite, maybe to the point of sucking up a bit , but I want to promote a better diplomatic relationship with them as best we can. If GoW really is telling ND that we have an alliance against them, it might be their way of getting back to us for the last controversy, so I'd like to resume normal diplomacy as soon as is possible.

My esteemed comrade from Glory of War,
It's just occurred to me that, several days ago, you asked us for our tech list, and I never provided you with it. The oversight was purely mine, as my team had always intended to send it to you. I do apologize, and hope you can forgive the lapse.

Our current list of techs:
* Alphabet
* Ceremonial Burial
* Bronze Working
* Masonry
* Pottery
* Wheel
* Warrior Code

I apologize again, and hope that we can move on with good relations. We look forward to trading with you more as we both continue to move up through the tech trade, and let me send my own personal best wishes to both yourself and your esteemed leader, Ghengis Farb.

-- adaMada

-- adaMada

[E_T]

[OOC] This is getting VERY Interesting....[/OOC]

This Ghengis Farb Khan is a very Devious Person and should be watched very Carefully. While we try to sow the seeds of lasting freindships & Trust, he apparently is doing the opposite and is sowing the Weeds of Distrust and Hate. But what better way for so called Mercenaries to get to be Hired, but to try to create the very distrust that would give them the Employers to hire them.

Letus Eta Tamali

[Togas]

I received the following PM from ND:

a) of cause we are ready to be your shield to the north!
b) we want to believe you that you have to settle in the north and the west and at the moment we have no plans to settle there but before we can talk about a border agreement for the future we have to discover the jungle between us.
For this we will not go to the south with our scout but to the west. later in the game it would be nice if you could invite our scout to travel through your wonderful country to explore the south. we also would allow you to visit our small country.
c) You wrote: "Lux Invicta claims that you broke your deal with them about settlements"...
Please let me tell you our point of view: centuries ago: our scout found a settler and our settler walked some turns to the north. he was alone and it was cold and dangerous in the darkness. a warrior of the ottomans came and showed his weapons to our shy settler. he asked us to divide the land and actually they wanted to have the much better part of the country. nevertheless my people almost were ready to accept the border deal but the ottoman warrior did not stop to follow our single settler for another 3 turns (6 turns total!). i wrote trip a message that we would not accept any deals and that we would stop all negotiations if the warrior would follow us one more step... anyway the did not stop hunting our settler :-/ since these days we dont like visitors coming from the east but after 500 years we started to write new and friendly messages to Lux invicta in the last time.

thats the story and thats the truth.
Please tell this your people...

1) I mentioned to him that we wanted to see ND strong as they stand directly in the way between us and GoW, and if they are strong, we are safe from GoW agression.

2) I told him we could ONLY settle to the west and north, given our poor starting location and that we had already settled to the west (south of the jungle) and that we wanted to come to a settlement agreement that we would not interfere with their northern settlements if they would not interfere with our settlements south of the jungle.

We need to consider if we should invite their scout south now ... or if by doing so they'd uncover the vast valley to the SW with elephants, etc. Maybe it's best that they only know about Cow Valley and believe (as we will tell them) that this is the ONLY place we can grow to.

3) This does not surprise me about Lux. I believe ND's version of the story. And while it seems that ND is the most advanced nation, they have far too many enemies and rivals. We must continue to hold out our hand in friendship to ND. Furthermore, I have no problem with them expanding to fill the gap between us and Lux and GoW. We just need to be sure that they don't beat us to settlements in the west.

--Togas

[Togas]

I received a joint email from Ghengis Farb, written to us as well as ND.

He is proposing a tech alliance.

ND just informed me that they are now interested in
the tech sharing idea (first email I had gotten from
them in a while I was beginning to get the idea they
had cut off diplomatic relations with me)

Here is the chart with the techs everyone is
researching now and what they would like to research
next. I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes by
sending this as I don't see how this is going to
destroy anyone's gameplan.

ND has stated they wish to research Mathematics next.
As my team researched the cheapest tech of the lot we
would like to research Mapmaking to make up for it so
that we are contributing our full share.

Roleplay is researching the most expensive tech so I
woudl not have a problem with them researching one of
the lower cost ones.

This is not an Official Diplomatic message, just a
message to start some organization so that we can
start to get on the same page so to speak.

It is my philosophy that this tech coordination in no
way affect diplomatic or political discussions. If
one civ declares war on another civ so be it, but the
tech thing continues. If Lux and ND go to war
(example only, not trying to start a war) then Lux
will still get the research ND did and vice versa it
will simply be transferred through a non-aligned
party. What are your teams views on this? I am going
to try to get a consensus from my team.

I also envision that immediately upon researching your
assigned tech you give it to the other teams. This
would eliminate the desire of one team to choose a
specific tech for a Wonder and hold on to it to get an
advantage over the other three.

I wrote him back saying that we were doing Mapmaking, and since it's much more efficient for us to do it immediately after writing, since we'd be the only ones who could research it at that time, they should do another tech. He wrote me back asking if we had any suggestions for what they should research.


Frankly, I'm not entirely keen on this idea, but I'm publicly saying that we're "on board" and I'll let someone else be the spoiler. I do think that our 4 nations should all research different techs, but Ghengis is proposing a rather "socialist" sort of project, one that (if we were to get involved in) I would recommend that we DROP our research rate substantially after learning mapmaking, collect gold, coast along at a 30 turn pace, and cash in on everyone else's efforts.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

Fully agreed, Togas (on your last post about the PM from ND). We need to become very good friends of ND if possible.

That said, we also should be attempting to convince Lux Invicta NOT to fight ND. That's equally critical.

If both of those objectives are accomplished, that would leave GoW all on its lonesome if they want to start a war here.

[Arnelos]

As for the message from ND about GoW's "plot" to divide us, I suspect it to be genuine. It DOES sound like something GhengisFarb would attempt to do and would count on GoW's already deplorable reputation to mean that it won't hurt them if their plot is found out. Afterall, no-one is forming agreements with GoW because they TRUST GoW anyways...

The best counter is, as Togas suggested, to simply disavow involvement and remain resolute about our friendships.

[Arnelos]

btw... I've got an idea...

Perhaps we should suggest to Legoland to forward ND the message they got from GoW about ND being such an enormous threat

If LEGOLAND forwarded this to them (a nation not even in contact with ND that GoW was trying to get aligned against ND), that might go a long way to convincing ND that it is GoW that is behind these plots rather than ourselves.

Afterall, ND will have no reason to believe that Legoland might be lying.

On the other hand, Legoland might be unwilling as it would be a "violation of trust" with GoW.

That said, Legoland can always tell ND that they'll only give ND a copy of what GoW sent Legoland if ND promises not to publish the information or confront GoW with it. That way ND both realizes that GoW is the true villain AND GoW doesn't get tipped off that Legoland was the one to tip off ND.

We could FURTHER this by then forwarding ND our OWN messages from GoW where GoW was trying to convince us to go after ND.

That would make our attempts to convince ND that we're actually on THEIR side of this a bit stronger (and give them very good reason to know that GoW sees them as a target).

Just an idea...

[Togas]

Not a bad idea at all, Arnelos...

Thud, could you try to arrange for Legoland to contact ND about the messages they've been receiving from GoW about ND. Explain to them that GoW has also been saying these things about us to ND, and that we are trying to show ND the truth about who is scheming against whom.

If there are any confidentiality issues, they can either paraphrase the letter, or ask ND to NOT tell GoW that they sent it.

--Togas

[jdjdjd]

GF's memo to us and ND, he seems to be including Lux in it as well. So this would be a four way tech agreement? This is good at least to get out of the Ancient Age. Maybe we could take it one or two steps at a time. We all agree to research our two assigned techs, and trade them, but only when everyone is done. Not as GF proposes. My fear is that everyone drops their research rate as proposed above and all four of slow down our research capabilities thus hurting all of ourselves.

Furthermore, if we go writing and mapmaking (my assumption is the GF volunteered that because he knows its not logical for him to do it because he does not have writing - so we would have to give him writing or we would have to research it ) then shouldn't we get some guarantee kind of additional compensation?

I agree we should not be the ones to kill this deal, and in fact favor these kinds of tech trades- but we need to protect ourselves from not being taken advantage of.

Finally, I agree with bringing ND into an alliance or at least a non-agression pact - like we are with Lux.

[jdjdjd]

No es divertido cómo él se va en su capacidad de conducir guerra. Y que ninguna guerra no efectúa el comercio del tech.

I mean...

Isn't funny how he leaves in his ability to conduct war. And that any war does not effect the tech trade.

[E_T]

OOC: The Timeliness of Tech Advancement

I surmise that GoW is wanting to have everybody advance TOO Quickly. This would allow them to get to their UU that much faster, while everybody is still building up their Defenses AND their builds (likely working on Wonders) AND fairly cash poor. This would leave them with the ability to rage war unchecked.

While this is a great Idea, we need to be certain that we don't advance too quickly or that the others try to maintain a steady pace.

With that in mine, we should reduce our current (and future) tech rate, so that we can have the available cash to do the proper Upgrades, when the time comes. If we can present a Properly modernized Military to the Warmongers, we can keep them at bay.

E_T

[Aidun]

Jdjdjd, We're the only ones that are reseaching writing. If we wait one turn with trading writing when we have discovered, we can assure ourselves of a small lead when we start researching mapmaking. The result: we discover mapmaking one turn earlier than GoW does. We can then trade it to the other two before GoW does. Of course we'll inform Gow that we want to reseach Mapmaking too before we start it, but because they need writing they cannot get it earlier than we get it.
Think also of the worthy contacts GoW can make if they sent a trireme along the coast to meet Lego, Vox or GS. We must prevent them of doing so.

Aidun Cian

[Aidun]

Something strange: GoW is trading techs with Lux, but why aren't they mentioned in Ghenghis' message when he summarizes the teams and the techs they're researching?
It may have a reason: bad relations between Lux and GoW, the reason that Lux wanted to have a treaty with us.
Has Jdjdjd perhaps an idea?

Aidun Cian