Diplomacy Thread

[Hot Mustard]

I'll take a crack at it:

"España lies just beneath the equator of Apolyton, with an ocean to the south-east. The land surrounding Madrid is diverse and beautiful, with plentiful wildlife and many forms of recreation possible."

[History Guy]

I have had a productive talk with Caliph Borc, sirs.

The Arabs have caved in, and are now allowing in diplomats. Borc assures that he shall have his diplomatic team ready shortly.

Their capital most definitely is No Name. As for situation, they hint at being in a wild desert, though this could be mere propaganda.

Lastly, and most importantly, they seem to be impressed with Spain. They may make useful allies, they certainly seem docile enough. I think we may be able to use them as friends in coming times. Having gotten to understand the character of Borc further, I might now say that I think he is relatively trustworthy (though he still will throw up the smoke screen of propaganda where necessary) and he may become a reliable ally until he has no further use.

Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger

[Togas]

OOC:

For people who have actually tested the PBemail function of PTW ... how exactly does diplomacy work?

Sure, I've heard that you send an offer and they send one back ... what I'm wondering is, do they know by looking at the foreign relations screen how much gold we have, what techs we have, what cities we have, what lux we have, etc?

If not, absolutely anything goes. We'd have to ask them for what techs they'll trade and they could downright lie to us, or we could also lie about techs we have, etc. If we need iron, for example, and we start asking around, an opportunistic civ will likely attack us due to the fact that we can't build decent offensive units.

Plus, let's say we're mapwhoring and the other civ says "we only have 44g" when they actually have much more. We'll just have to take their word for it or not make the trade. Truth and deception can play very large roles...

In any event, if any of you know, please let us know so we can begin to plan for how we're going to trade with our first contact. If no one knows, perhaps we should play a "test" multi-game on a small map to test the diplomacy features.

--Togas

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Togas
Sure, I've heard that you send an offer and they send one back ... what I'm wondering is, do they know by looking at the foreign relations screen how much gold we have, what techs we have, what cities we have, what lux we have, etc?

we will not be able to see what the other guy has, nor will they be able to see what we've got

... and it does work on a turn-by-turn haggling method so I would recommend ironing out the details in PMs or or Messenger service before going through the agony of 5 turns of haggling.

[Togas]

Our ambassador to Legoland is currently away with "computer issues" so I will tend to his duties personally until he returns.

There has been discussion in another thread about what tech to research next and, perhaps, working that matter out with Legoland.

I will contact them and see if they are willing to begin cooperation on alternate tech research at this time. I will also see what other clues and benefits we can get.

--Togas

[Thud]

Lord Togas, am I not your appointment to Legoland? I am perfectly capable of doing everything in the service of Spain, except meeting directly in a room for a chat with our allies in Legoland. Direct me, my liege.

[Togas]

Thud,

Good to see you back, I was under the impression that you had some computer difficulties which lead to problems in the CivDem game.

I sent a message to Nimitz about cooperating on research and giving each other descriptions of our start locations. He informed me he would post the message in his forum and get back to me. When he does, I'll forward the correspondence onto you and let you continue with the negotiations.

--Togas

[Nuclear Winter]

I´ve sent this message to ELi, an influent man in the voxians chain of power...

Hello friend!
I would like to ask who of you is your leader, forth I don´t know who to send messages about diplomacy, also, we Spaniards would like to make an early contact, so if you could provide us with some kind of guidelines as to were in te world you are...(on the top of the earth, on the down of the earth, your wise men provably have already mentioned something as such...) we would be glad to provide guidelines on were does the Mighty kingdom of Spain lies...
Also, if there is anything you want to discuss, just tell your fellow tribesmen to send me as much PMs as needed... It is a plesure to make contact with your people...
Looking forward to another meeting in mIRC like we had once...
Nuclearis Winterius the II,

[Nuclear Winter]

I´ve been informed by Eli and resent the messge to their foreing minister,I´m going to talk about tech exhange, but misleading them. I´ve also had a very interesting conversation with Eli via ICq, and I´m gonna post the archives here for your own eyes, because there are lots of things that can be deduced from that talk about he who is one of the masterminds of the Vox Controli team.
Stay tune

[Togas]

I would like for us to aquire Masonry from the Legoland Civ, if possible. This hinges on if, as a result of our current negotiations, we have a chance of meeting them relatively soon.

However, I would like all of our ambassadors to study their civs, determine what starting techs they have, and determine what techs we might exchange upon first contact. We may have to learn Masonry from another Civ.

We need to have this plan ready so that upon meeting any other civ we can immediately negotiate this trade.

--Togas

[History Guy]

The Arabs have Ceremonial Burial and, I think, Pottery. They are all mad. Mad, I say!

[Togas]

For All Ambassadors

I want each of our ambassadors to contact their civs NOW to begin discussions about what we will do if our civs are the first to meet.

Make a point of saying that we want to trade with their nation and look forward to continued trade in the future.

Make note of how we do not want to delay the game, and want to be prepared to begin trading upon first contact.

Therefore, we offer to swap start techs for start techs with them IF we are the first civs to come into contact.

We shoud also ask for a small amount of gold (40g?) in addition to our techs. Reason: EVERYONE has masonry, so it has no further trade value. We're one of 2 who has alphabet and ceremonial. Both rare techs.

Most likely negotiations will result from there. Keep negotiating, take best offer you can get. Be creative.

IF we meet another civ first, deal is off. Keep that as "fine print." Deal will result with whomever we meet first. We should stress that we may go with a 1 tech for 1 tech swap if we meet their nation 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.

Go hunting for prelimiary deals and see about getting general locations for all of the civs ... find out where they are in the world!

--Togas

[History Guy]

Yes sir!

[ThePlagueRat]

It would be cool if you can get a deal with them about free movement in territory, so we can move our expeditons into their homelands as well.

For instance...
The TEG and I can travel all way into their lands and report back what we find, without being called a spy.
I'd love to see if they have various metal deposits.

[Togas]

I received the following email from Ghengis Farb:

Panzar32 and adaMada are supposedly negotiating a deal
where we agree to trade you Warrior Code and Masonry
for Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial and each of trades
our minimaps (the little blach ones in the lower left
corner) so we can can send warriors to meet in the
middle and establish contact.

I'm talking up the trade in our forum, if it sounds
good to you could you talk it up on your side?

If we meet any other civs in the meantime we should
trade them for the techs they have other than the two
we are planning to trade so we can get more techs.

FYI we have info on other civs and their locations to
trade you in order to sweeten the deal.

My reply:

Jason (Ghengis)

I sent Ada to work on this trade and I'm glad that your nation is behind this idea. We both have 2 techs that can be traded with the other, however, we're not entirely sold on Masonry because everyone else who we've been in PM contact with has it, and we anticipate paying a few token gold for it in trade from the first civ we meet.

However, if it turns out that it's your civ that we meet first, I think we'd happily do a 2 for 2 tech trade deal if you can give us the location (how to find, mini box, whatever) of another civ with whom we can trade, of if you can throw in a common tech that you guys have purchased ... something like Pottery.

If we agree to this deal and our nation meets another civ first, I would be willing to substitute Masonry for something else when we meet -- like additional civ locations or gold. If you give us gold we'd only give it right back to you later on when we hire you guys.

I have authorized this agreement to be made between our nations in the hope of continued good will and good relations between us. I hope that our nations can come into contact soon.

--Togas