Diplomacy Thread

[GodKing]

What I most reciently sent to gathering storm as I have not heard a thing from them, which makes me very nervous.......

We have already traded mini maps with several civs. Wondering if you would be interested in doing so with Gathering Storm.

Life goes well in the land of Spain. The calamari is excelent, we have several explorers out, and are finding many interesting things.

Any tech trade interests. We have already worked out a couple with the other civs, and our explorers are only turns from contact. We would like to meet and trade with you. What techs do you have interest in? Perhaps we can assist you.

I know you were interested in the deal regarding wonders. Anything occur there? Any wonders you are interested in? Not interested in? We have little interest in the colosus or the lighthouse at this time? You? Would you be willing to not work on the pyrimids if we were not to work on either of these? How about the great wall?

Would you be willing to go into a non-agression pact for 100 turns after we first meet? Just means no war, no taking of slaves, and so forth. Nothing about war prep if that is your wish.

GodKing - Embasidor to Gathering Storm and Royal Chamber Pot Cleaner for Our Magnificient Despot, Lord Togas.

[History Guy]

Senor God King, a good letter, however, I see that you mention your affiliation as chamber pot cleaner. This may make them think twice about friendship with us if they see that the man sent to them cleans toilets for a living.

[jdjdjd]

Still no response from the Admiral at Lux. I am sending another note. I have not seen him in any of the chats over the past several days, since my last PM. I will keep looking for him.

[adaMada]

[OOC]
I have many things to respond to. Sadly, some will have to wait until later, but there are one or two that cannot be delayed.

Originally posted by Arnelos


[OOC]

Is it just me, or is this defense of GoW as a nice cuddly friendly team a rather good example of the dangers of "going native" that I warned many of you about at the start of our diplomatic efforts?

Arnelos, History Guy, and all others who have suggested it -- I have not "Gone native". I do not believe that GoW is no threat to us, and I do not see them as a cuddly teady bear. I agree that they are a threat. I also however have considered the situation and believe they will honor their word. Now, perhaps in that one respect my reasoning is flawed, but if they truely intend to be a mercenary civilization, I do not believe any other path is possible. Assuming they will keep their word in explicit agreements, which obviously needs more debate than I thought, our best course of action is simple. GoW will need to aquire military technology. They could do this by conquering, but there is an obvious catch-22 in such a situation -- how can they conquer without the technology to do so? As such, I feel that GoW has a definate weakness -- and by becoming one of their primary diplomatic partners, we can not only make a sizable profit, but also utilize their military nature to our advantage and (hopefully) eliminate threat to ourselves. This is my outlook on GoW, and this is why I do not agree with those who propose a cautious diplomatic strategy -- not because I disagree that it is not a dangerous situation, but because I feel we can turn this to our advantage.

While I agree with adaMada on the strategic value of an agreement with GoW at this time and even with something of an agreement that may cause them to defer from us as a target, I must remind him and others that History Guy is correct... they really are bent on war and the destruction of every other civ in the game as their strategy. To allow ourselves to be so easily fooled into believing otherwise would be truly stupid. Seriously... while we can certainly pretend that we're buying their line, but WE SHOULD NOT ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT. It is quite clear that this is as much a lie as many of our own to other tribes.

I'm unsure on this issue. I did take it at face value when they said they were going to be a purely mercenery civilization, perhaps because I can see how such a path would be fun. Just as our own roleplay design makes the game more interesting for me, I can easily see how a mercenery civilization could be more interesting than a warmongering one. I need some time to reflect on the issue before I comment more.

That said, we CAN work with GoW, even knowing that it is their eventual intent to wipe us out. It's easy to look for advantage in tactical agreements with your friends... it's harder but sometimes more advantageous to look for them with your enemies.

This I agree with. Clearly, if there are two civilizations left -- us and GoW -- we will become a target. Having said that, I feel very strongly that our goal should be to put off becoming a target as long as is possible -- and benefiting from their successes however we can (and, as such, preparing ourselves for the future). I believe that (through good diplomatic work) we can avoid becomming an immediate target of GoW -- but that is not possible if we already assume that there can be no diplomatic dealings with GoW without sentancing ourselves to death.

Let us be clear that GoW is without question a long-term foe, but in the short term may prove an asset.

I can agree on this -- my simple goal is to make the short term asset last as long as possible, and to put off the long term foe for a very long time. Obviously, my ideal goal, and what I strive to do, is to put it off forever -- but I understand a more practical goal is to profit off it while we can . Either way, I do not feel that any action we've taken so far has been a mistake, or even that we should continue our current strategy -- we should move on as we have.

-- adaMada

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Arnelos


I fully agree with signing such an agreement. Let us be clear, however, that we may very well want to violate such an agreement if GoW were to attack Legoland (since they seem to be next to one another) and we felt that it would make GoW too powerful or that we would then logically be GoW's next target.

Agreed -- but I'd caution against letting Lego know that, since we don't want to wind up in a war with GoW, and if we ally against GoW with Legoland, we take the brunt of the attack, not them.

Generally, however, I think a non-agression pact with GoW is a very good thing to do. But please keep in mind that an agreement to not have wars with GoW will only be worth the value of the piece of paper it is written on (and given the lack of paper here, that's not much!) if we lull ourselves into a sense of false complacency and present and easy target.

Again, working on the assumption that the Mercenery line isn't a pure ruse, I think they will honor their agreements. In my mind, they stand to loose too much by breaking their agreements, and have too much to gain by following them. Having said that, we should be prepared for them to betray us -- but we should not consider it a given.

GoW will respect strength and an ability to defend ourselves. They will likely not invade if they feel they would not win. It is only then that such an agreement holds any real meaning.

Very true, but I'd add one consideration to this -- if GoW comes to rely on us for their strength and defensive ability (basically, if we can make ourselves their primary tech supplier), they will also not attack. I'm not saying this is what we want to do, or that there are no risks in such a strategy -- but throwing the dog a bone can often keep it at bay better than using a club, and I believe we can even profit from such an arrangement with GoW. (If nothing else, it would give us considerable sway over who they attacked next).

I don't exactly remember what this meant from the Legoland agreement, but I seem to recall it was something along the lines of "we promise to come to you first" with various technologies, resources, luxuries, etc. This might not be a bad idea either... with the same qualifications I mentioned for a NAP with GoW, remember that such an agreement should not be considered a protection of invasion - only strong defenses can really do that.

Personally, I'd only use an explicit agreement stating this if we stood to gain a concrete item for it. I'd much rather establish ourselves as useful to them in their minds, and work from there.

This is absolutely out of the question. We DO NOT want to voluntarily restrict our ability to manuever in this regard. If we were to ever sign such an agreement, there should be no question that we would violate it at the first chance we got should the situation demand it. And I would count on GoW being intelligent enough to perhaps realize that's exactly what would happen. If there are only 4 civs on our continent and GoW invades one of them (GoW being one of them), do you honestly believe we'd just sit idly by with the certain knowledge that this will only make GoW more powerful and that we might be the next target?

No, this is ludicrous. We CANNOT promise to remain neutral if a war starts. A "non-aggression" pact we could get away with (knowing that we'd end up violating it) because it's not as much of a promise to say "we won't invade you", with the known caveat that if we ever sign any other alliances, the agreement is null and void for those allies.

In other words... there should be no question IN OUR MINDS that defensive alliances ("mutual protection pacts" as Civ3 calls them) are what we want to sign with teams probably like Legoland and that such agreements should have superiority over any "non-aggression" agreements. Non-aggression should only mean "we won't fight a 1-on-1 war with you", not a broader neutrality agreement that promises that we will sit on the sidelines if they invade the other half of the planet.

I'm inclined to agree with you on the first part, at least for now. I threw it out as a general diplomatic option that Togas aired, but I'm not all that hot on any agreement that restricts our abilities to enter or not enter a war at this early stage of the game. We simply don't know who our friends are yet, and until we do, we can't afford the restriction of options. Having said that, I'd also be equally against any MPP, for the reasons above. We cannot count on Legoland to have our best interests at heart, even if we can consider them to be solid allies. Furthermore, if we were to sign an agreement with Lego vs GoW, we would be the loosers -- Lego would just defend their seashore while we took the brunt of the land attack. We'd be forcing ourselves into a nasty situation which could've been avoided, and which is why I'm against MPPs more than I am against noninterference pacts.

As I said, I would think that GoW would HAVE to realize we're lying if we propose and sign such an agreement. Conversely (and far worse), GoW could take us SERIOUSLY and see it as a sign of weakness (we being SO DESPERATE to not be attacked by them that we're willing to even agree to not enter war even if they're invading other people around us).

As I've already agreed with you that a noninterference pact isn't the best option for now, I won't go into much detail here, but if we did do such a deal, I'm sure they'd be paying us dearly for it. We'd never sign such a deal if they weren't giving us something in return, and as long as we made it clear that we were willing to grant them noninterference as long as they pay us in return, I think we could avoid signs of weakness.

I think I've said enough on this for now... I'm starting to get redundant

Me too -- I'll come back later tonight and read what I wrote, and then try to figure out what I actually said .

-- adaMada

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Togas
I got a very informal email message from GF when he sent me the save. He asked me not to share with either of our ambassadors, so I will not post it here, but will communicate what he said to me. We can discuss. It sounds legit.

He says GoW was met by Neu Dem several turns ago, and Neu Dem has met some other team prior to meeting GoW. He indicates that he doesn't know the location of those two civs, but said that if they're between us we should consider allying together to squeeze that nation between us.

He stated that this was an informal idea, not sanctioned from his diplomacy department. I wrote him back saying it sounded like a great idea and we should informally discuss it more when we find out the locations of the other teams. I also told him that if his people wanted to "formally" discuss it, to contact adaMada.

--Togas

Togas,
Very interesting proposition they made. I need to think about it a bit before I give my thoughts, but it's a facinating example of how we could make ourselves useful enough to avoid war. On the other hand, it could also mean that we take half of the nation and GoW takes the other half, and we suddenly share a huge boarder with GoW. This might not be a bad thing, but it's something we'd rather not deal with until we've established if they can be trusted.

-- adaMada

[History Guy]

Well, me thinks that you are mistaken in only some areas. If we are the closest to the Chinese, we will be the target of their aggression. I do not think they would honor their word if they wanted to expand. Would it not be a fine tactic to lure us into a false sense of security, and then to break treaty and strike? Realistically, we must remember that they are warmongers. I do not believe that they would be mercenaries unless to do out there and conquer other nations and grow strong enough to be able to destroy rightful Spanish order and replace it with their own madness. And besides, how can we be sure that if they are mercenaries they won't be hired out to fight us?

Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger
Diplomat

[Togas]

GK & I were chatting with Nimitz of Legoland today after tending to some court business in the Demo game.

Nimitz indicated that they grew to 3 this turn, and that they had "something big" happening 3 turns from now. He suggested that we use the F11 screen to find out.

Frankly, I think it's their first settler. They probably believe they will be the first to produce one. We will kick out a settler in 2 turns. We actually may be the first to do so.

He indicated that his team took an explorer and are now heading southward (and east) towards where our team is located. We wished him luck and hoped that their team wasn't on an island.

--Togas

[GodKing]

Togas beat me to it.....

[pikesfan]

I had a terrible dream that I was talking and these symbols came out of my mouth. Then when I was hungry what did I see on my plate but rice. No squid. Just rice, rice, rice, and not much of it either. Then I had to eat it with bamboo sticks, and so dropped it all on the floor and was hungrier than ever Boy, was I glad to wake up and call for some real squid, and was I ever happy when my servants ran in and gave it to me!

[jdjdjd]

If GoW really met Neu Dem, and we already were lead to believe that Lux met Neu Dem, then we should have at least two addl neighbors between us and Lego / GoW to the North and West.

That leaves Vox Controli, who lead us to believe they are to the North and East, and Gathering Storm who may have already met another civ and - location I'm not sure.

And there were no AIs, is that right?

This sounds like a panagea. And its not too big of a landmass. This ought to be interesting.

Still no word back from Lux to my PMs. I know Admiral has read them. May be they already know where we are....

[Togas]

Ghengis gave me a short message again when he dropped off the save. He said that Neu Dem already has two cities, and may have found a settler in a goodie hut.

Neu Dem's score has not increased from last turn. Wouldn't their score go up considerably if they had two cities? I'm not sure if Ghengis is being fooled or if he's trying to fool us.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to fool us.

--Togas

[E_T]

[ooc]
Maybe he wants to bait us into thinking that Neu Dem is the real threat and to take a contract out on them

E_T

[Crousto]

It's possible, I've often popped my second city from a hut when playing an expansionnist civ. The scores are only updated at the end of each turn, so as ND and GoW play before us we can't prove that Genghis lied before the next turn. And as GoW, with their mercenary attitude, would like to avoid being considered as liars or traitors, I'd say that Genghis tells the truth.

[Togas]

Ghengis sent me another short message with the save, as he's done now for the past 2 turns. This time he slipped in that Neu Dem was 12 tiles south of GoW.

Neu Dem's score did increase, and it seems likely that they did find a city in a goodie hut, as Ghengis reported. If he's right about the positioning of Neu Dem, they will be between GoW and us, and they should be just beyond the Valley of Cows.

--Togas