Diplomacy: Reports, Instructions, PMs

[Arnelos]

Here's the part of a chat with Unorothodox about the PTWDG:

UnOrthOdOx> Hey, you there?
Arnelos> yes
Arnelos> what's up?
UnOrthOdOx> You still active at all in RP?
Arnelos> yes
Arnelos> quite, actually
UnOrthOdOx> We were wondering why you turned down peace.
Arnelos> turned down?
Arnelos> we haven't turned it down AFAIK
Arnelos> in fact, opinion has swayed toward signing it
UnOrthOdOx> Hmm.
UnOrthOdOx> I'll have to open it up myself then and double check...
UnOrthOdOx> We might have a troublemaker in our forum who is reporting you turned it down...
Arnelos> to my knowledge, and I'm the one doing diplomacy for RP right now, we have not yet turned you down
Arnelos> I know that Togas sent MZ a PM telling him that he's started a discussion thread and poll on the issue... the poll is currently in favor of peace
UnOrthOdOx> MZ sent it last tur.
Arnelos> ok
UnOrthOdOx> Ah. MZ has been a bit lax in posting PM's...
Arnelos> the major active players of the team are now all in favor... even BigFree
Arnelos> the one thing left to do is formally negotiate a peace with you, not merely a cease fire
UnOrthOdOx> It's probably best to copy me on everything from here on out as I am taking over most of the foreign relations for us.
Arnelos> ok
Arnelos> I'll make a note of that in our forum
UnOrthOdOx> Thanks.
Arnelos> no problem
Arnelos> we should probably have our teams schedule a chat for that negotiation
Arnelos> My bet is sometime next week
UnOrthOdOx> Alright. not a problem.

[Arnelos]

And a new information/disinformation campaign is hatched. Not a terribly complicated one, but a itty bitty one none the less.

I can't give all the details here, but suffice it to be said that some members of ND (though I have no idea as to their activity levels) may notice from another chatlog that Unortho and I may have been discussing something about "other" things, perhaps the PTWDG, and may come to their own conclusions regarding what that would be about. They'd probably come to the rather obvious conclusion that we're discussion peace, but then the question might be raised why we're not having a similar discussion with ND.

I really doubt ND will pick up on this given my experience with them thusfar, but it's always possible. If nothing else, because this is relatively harmless, I'd like to see if they're paying any attention. This isn't a terrible way to try to find out.

Regardless of that, we need to contact ND soon to begin peace negotiations with them as well. Should we wait until peace with GoW is finalized and ND starts wondering when they get peace, too, or should we just go ahead and approach ND (since we know they aren't going to approach us for a while...)?

Need to discuss that.

[Togas]

Togas,

Vox have politely asked us if we could accept a 5-10 turn NDA while they negotiate the trade of PP to 'another team', which we've accepted. The better news is that they are doing democracy next, and are offering to do a deal with us on that - which is cool by us if they don't fwd the techs to Lego.

This means that you could start Navigation at 40-turn immediately, and get PP from us when the NDA expires. It also occured that if you did want to trade with Vox you have the Incense now, which we would prefer you traded rather than gold which we all can use on Stormia.

Vox are keen to cultivate good relations with GS too, so an era of friendly trade between RP, GS and Vox could be upon us.


Regards,

Cort.

[Togas]

Cort,

Spain has now switched to Navigation on the 40 turn plan. We will hold off buying Printing Press from Vox and offer (when they ask) to give them incense instead.

We have gifted you 20gpt this turn. We currently make 30gpt. Should our gpt get too low we'll kick in a few marketplaces to try and keep up the 20gpt pace.

Two new units will be ready next turn, so feel free to clear out the pikeman in the north-east corner and the inf on the east side.

--Togas

[Togas]

emailed to Vox

Would you guys accept luxuries instead of gold?

Our gold is pretty tied up. We just bought Astronomy from GS and are trying to get other techs from them at a discount by paying with GPT.

We have an extra lux (I think it's incense). How about 20 turns of that instead of 200g?

--Togas

[Togas]

from Cort Haus,

1. Many thanks for the gpt - we'll have Banking in 3 turns.

2. Santa Barbara : one of our team has raised the remote but theoritical spectre of Santa Barabara flipping to GoW - despite Port Isolation's level 1 border. He reckons the odds are 1/2000 per turn, and the risk could be eliminated by keeping 2 defenders in there. I'm no authority on flipping, but 60 shields sounds an expensive insurance policy to me (nearly 2/3 of a marketplace and over 1/8 of Magellan) for a tiny risk. However, if you have 2 pikes already, we can cover the wall. (see point 3) Discussions on this continue on our forum - what do you guys think?

3. Sea wall and unit maintainence costs : our wall is complete and we have a few units spare. The original idea was that you could make your own wall out of cats, but as we don't need those GS units up there ourselves yet, and see no likely use for them for the forseeable future with the tech push for ToE our current target, how do you feel about switching to marketplaces then banks, and leaving our units on the wall, to save your unit costs and increase, rather than decrease, your commercial output?

4. Magellans : Attention in GS is turning to the eventual threat of Marines, following a post by H_E on the strat forum demonstrating how, in a PBEM, Tiberius opened the save to find his civ had gone doughnut following a marine assault on one city and the same-turn unleashing of cavalry on an undefended core. An analsis posted on our forum shows how GS could awake to find its entire civ destroyed in a single turn if we fail to defend effectively against Marines. We feel that denying Magellans to all opponents by either GS or RP building it would be an important part of our mutual defence. We could build it in Bolderberg in around 40 turns - which would time well with your research into Navigation. If you were then to build the Oracle we could loan you BB for a turn to trigger your GA. The feeling is that sacrificing a warrior for a GA would not be accepted by all teams, but it would also allow Lego to follow suit and time their GA to perfection.

[Togas]

from Rhoth of Vox

Greetings to Togas and the many fine people of Roleplay.

We have received your offer of a luxury in exchange for printing press, but unfortunately Vox Controli currently has no need of a luxury. However we will need aluxury in the future. To that end Vox Controli offers the alternative deal of Roleplay sending 4gpt (totalling 80 gold) to begin in 600ad and a luxury that will begin in the future at a time of Vox Controli's choosing. In return we will send printing press-accepted in 500ad when we finish research. We recognize that Roleplay can not send gold in exchange in 500ad so we are willing to put off the gold payment off roughly 13 turns. If this is acceptable to Roleplay then we can draft a written agreement to this affect. We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Rhoth

I think we should just pay them 80g and promise the luxury in the future. I'd rather not do the GPT thing.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

From Cort Haus of GS:

Hi Togas,
cc Arnelos

We have Banking, and will send it to you once ND has it, to stop it devaluing for them. We hope your galley enjoyed the trip home. We got PP from Vox. We tried to do a deal with GoW for Chemistry but as usual they were playing the slipperly eel, so we'll probably do it ourselves in 4-turn now they've traded it to the others.

Regards,

Cort

PS - great work on the AU501, Arnelos. A fine game and a fine DAR. I lost 300 shields of units in a flip to Japan - details on the UU forum later

[Arnelos]

From Cort Haus:

Cort Haus wrote on 03-02-2004 15:56:
cc Arnelos

Hi Togas / Arnelos,

What did you think about the ideas of us lending you Magellans?
(if we get it - Lego might be onto it as I think they have Nav)

We've got Chemistry in a deal for Physics with GoW. There's a 20-turn NDA, but we'll be able to give it to you after that.

Regards,

Cort Haus

[Arnelos]

My response to Cort Haus:

Could you clarify the background on this? When is Magellan's going to be completed? What city? Could you clarify when and for how long you intend to perhaps lend the city in which it resides?

More importantly, what do YOU believe you have to gain by lending it to us? I'm not quite clear on the point. Lay out the full argument for us.

Thanks.

- Arnelos

[Togas]

from Cort:

Bolderberg is a culture-building free zone, except for a 30s temple. If we got Magellans and you built the Oracle, we gift you Bolderberg for one turn to trigger your GA, and you give it back once triggered. We'll only lose the cheap temple.

By the way, if you wanted to get some markets in before units, we're in no hurry to deploy our units elsewhere. It's up to you.

[Arnelos]

from Cort Haus:

Arnelos,

The first point I think was was covered in an earlier PM to Togas. It would complete a turn-or-two after you get Navigation.

On the second point - in addition to wishing to do what we can for our allies, we'd seek some share of the GA profits - were it to be economically viable. We would face loss of commerce during the one or two turn transition. It might only be worth it if your cities are all high in pop.

Initially, we were thinking of offering a unit for your UU to kill, but it was felt that would not be acceptable to all teams, and Lego could use the same tactic to a greater effect with Vox triggering a Lego GA at the most favourable moment for Lego.

However, dicussion among GS of the "Magellans-lend once RP built the Oracle" idea has raised the possibility of city-swapping for GA purposes being seen as foul by other teams too. I think it is unique, though, and unlikely to be done often in games because of the volume of investment in wonder-size cities that would usually be lost in a city swap.

What do you guys think?

Regards,

Cort.

[Arnelos]

My response to Cort Haus:

On the second point - in addition to wishing to do what we can for our allies, we'd seek some share of the GA profits - were it to be economically viable. We would face loss of commerce during the one or two turn transition. It might only be worth it if your cities are all high in pop.

No problems there. The whole point would be to help you guys make a little more money on behalf of the alliance.

Initially, we were thinking of offering a unit for your UU to kill, but it was felt that would not be acceptable to all teams, and Lego could use the same tactic to a greater effect with Vox triggering a Lego GA at the most favourable moment for Lego.

However, dicussion among GS of the "Magellans-lend once RP built the Oracle" idea has raised the possibility of city-swapping for GA purposes being seen as foul by other teams too. I think it is unique, though, and unlikely to be done often in games because of the volume of investment in wonder-size cities that would usually be lost in a city swap.

What do you guys think?

I think other civilizations are likely to complain about it regardless.

Have we considered that because until Amphibious Warfare, there's ZERO chance that anyone can invade us that we could do the following? ...

We land a force somewhere on Bob before the advent of RR. As long as GoW/ND can't kill the stack upon its landing and we can use at least one conquistadore to run 9 tiles across Bob and whack an ND or GoW unit (perhaps use multiple conquistadores to ensure eventual success), we get our Golden Age. Hell, because conquistadores are so friggin' FAST, we could literally just land a stack of a few of them on the southern edge of Bob and race them 9 tiles to a suitable location where we could find any vulnerable ND or GoW unit and whack it. Instant GA!

Then, because GoW/ND have no ability to invade Stormia, we just say that we'll sign peace whenever they're ready for it. They'll probably wait 5 turns just so they can keep the happiness bonus, but there's little reason for them to remain at war... afterall, WW is going to hurt them a lot more than us in the long run.

That's as fair as it's going to get for starting RP's GA, I'd think.

That said, I'm not opposed to building the Oracle and swapping Magellan's at all. If we're actually going to sink the shields into the Oracle, that should be good enough to satisfy people (it probably won't for some of them, but it should be).

[Arnelos]

From Cort Haus:

Interesting. One problem is that Steam will probably be around before you get Navigation, though how far actual rails will be developed is another question. Another version of the scenario is to wait to see what GoW & ND do with their Cavalry when they come online in a few turns. Either they hit each other, or they hit Lego (more difficult, with sea-logistics). Whatever happens, RP could strike a deal with one side to offer reconnaisance services in exchange for a launch-pad for your Conq's.

Imagine what a stack of Conq's could do to the black hole that is Lego's map! RP would be world heroes!

It might even be possible for RP to hire GoW to trigger the GA, perhaps paying them an industrial tech which GS could provide - or structuring it with some other deal. I don't know if it's OK to hire mercs for this any more than to have an ally do it, but again, it sets a precendent for Lego.

[Arnelos]

My response:

Well, to avoid setting the precedent for Lego, you just ensure that the use of our conquistadores is in a valid war conflict. Conquistadores may not have much survivability, but they can travel 9 tiles across enemy terrain, regardless of that terrain. If they find a weak unit anywhere along their route, they whack it and start our GA.

Obviously, that means we'd have to get lucky to find such a unit, but that could be done.

The real value of conquistadores, however, is that the enemy will have a tendency to underestimate just how far they can penetrate behind their lines. So if they move a bulk of their forces to counter a GS landing somewhere and they think they see all of the forces, we could hide some conquistadores a stack back and penetrate 8 tiles into enemy territory to tear up key tiles of road/RR or even raze cities in the area.

Once we're inside their empire, any surviving conquistadores just keep moving 9 tiles each turn to find new spots to pillage or new underdefended REX towns to raze. Especially if a number of conquistadores are landed (and they're relatively cheap), we could wreak havoc and force a good portion of their military go running around chasing us down while your military marches forward far more slowly (but with far less resistance).

It's an idea, at least...

The other use would be to have conquistadores move 5 tiles forward and 4 tiles back each turn (meeting 1-move units moving forward), giving us a much better ability to scout enemy formations and territory ahead of our stacks. The only liability, of course, is that we can't stack Spanish conquistadores with GS SoD's.