GS FA thread 1

[Beta]

Zeit's response.
Comments?

Re: Report on current events
BetaHound of Vox Controli.

Thank you for thank report, the team is very interested in this kind of information. So far most of what we have is from the public board- and this is not a very dependable source, nor as informative as first hand report. The news we saw on the board were worrisome, and it obvious there was plenty of tension. Your
report, however, did inspire a bit of optimism. Although we understand your claims for the land beyond the strait- for all the reasons you've mentioned, we also believe that some diplomatic effort prior to the landing would have made things easier for you, and far less dangerous.
Please give us any information you think is relevant, and willing to share- we have discovered that knowledge of the political situation on Bob is very important, and helps us shape a better foreign policy.
Are you implying RP is the puppetmaster on Bob, or simply has great influence? GoW has made great effort, in the beggining at least, to raise a strong front against you- i think this is another sign of their weakness, and that's one of the reasons they wouldn't object their bigger "pact brother" using his influence...

As for the tech partnership- i hope you can see our difficulty in this: We produce far more commerce than you have, add to that the your obvious need for cash for warrior upgrades. I think you have explained to Nathan your understandable difficulties, at this time, to keep up with our research capacity, but please take ours as well when you review our proposals. Also- Please inform us of any deal which includes techs you're involved in, as this would help coordinating our dealings with the Bobians.

Kind Regards
Zeit, Chief Diplomat of the Gathering Storm
__________________

[Wittlich]

Ok...what exactly were we hopeing Zeit's response to be? What I can tell, they are being VERY non-commital except for any possible techs that they can suck out of us...

[Beta]

Not sure exactly what we wre expecting. More an indication of some sort that they are buying the story line, I think.

I was also thinking, given their expressed interest in what is going on on on the continent, that we could sell our map of Bob to them just before we implement Op.Imm Beloved. Say - 100 gold - just when they could use it.

[Wittlich]

Ah, but if we do that - What's to stop them from telling the other civs where they got the map from (especially after we start taking their cities)?

Wouldn't the "leak" of the map in question eventually lead back to Lego - where we got the map from with the promise to "keep it under wraps"?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid...but I would rather NOT make enemies with everyone BEFORE we actually win.

[Beta]

I was just thinking of the plus 100 for us, minus 100 for them.

Or better yet - they send us the 100 gold. And then we don't send them the map - we do this on the turn before we declare war.

Gawd - I'm surprising myself with some of the things I think up.

[mjmacy]

Not a bad plan. I would love to take 100 gold away from them and give it to us for absolutly nothing, yeah as long as we are selling stuff we don't intend to give them, can anyone think of something else we can sell to them and then not give them.

[Beta]

Here is my current affairs update just sent to Zeit of GS. Hope you like it. The new story line is going to have to read like we got out quick, and are re-arming to go back in. That's when the messy war happens. Probably in about 3-4 turns.

Hello zeit.

Thank-you for your letter. It was good to hear from you given the plethora of non-friendly correspondence I have waded through recently.

Here is the most recent update.

We agree that diplomatically we should have worked something out ahead of time. However, we suspect that it would not have made much difference to our welcome, and hence we went with the plan we did. We underestimated badly the reponse time of both GoW and NeuD and the immediate force we would require. We thought we would have time to get two cities up, walls in one, and more troops across before before they reacted.

So discretion being the better part of valor, we have cut our losses, and have pulled our troops off the continent. We have one spearman yet to extricate. At least we did not lose any troops.

We do, however, now have a good idea of what the geography is like in that corner of Bob, and what we will need to be able to stay there next time. There is even a good chance we may get our city back through cultural conversion - given the closeness to our capitol. Plans are in the works.

Regarding the Bobians, GoW and NeuD seem pretty close, almost like two hyenas who are very wary of each other, but realize it is better to hunt as a pack. RP is not so much a puppet master - as I think they really do not trust their neighbours. Their support for them always seems to ring hollow, and Togas has warned us in private to be careful of the 'sharks' on the continent, and to stay away. But that doesn't make much sense, as you would think RP would welcome our presence to draw interest, and troops, away from them. I think they are actually scared of the other two, and realized that politically they had no choice but to publicly support NeuD's and GoW's position.

I think to a certain extent, that the single-mindedness with which GoW, and especially NeuD, hunted down Lux has unnerved RP a bit. I hear rumblings that they are arming themselves, and perhaps if our timing was a bit different, we may not have run into such a united front. In deed, we may had an ally. If you see my point.

Anyways, live and learn. I would like to thank the members of Gathering Storm, and in particular, Nathan, for his moral arguments and compelling debate in support of our position in the public forum. It was appreciated.

I trust all is well with you folks. I will keep you updated as things develop further.

Regards... Beta.

[argha]

That sounds nice! A bunch of lies surrounding a core of truth!

[Beta]

My semi-regular update to GS. This was prepared for two reasons - to keep them updated as much as possible- for obvious reasons, but more importantly - to commence a serious campaign of disinformation. I got wind of a rumor that was too close to the truth for my liking - coming from Roleplay. I figure it was speculation, but just to be sure, the best way to counter it is to share many other rumors we have heard from roleplay.

This was my note:

zeit - greetings dear sir. I couldn't help but smile at DeepO's post in the public forum on the on-going debate over our excursion onto the continent.

Quote from DeepO:

"Only one minor problem, though, it seems Vox's journey hasn't taught you much when it comes to warning your neighbours you're going to perform some strange tricks with territoy. Now you have a bulls-eye painted on that city, which is closer to NDs territory, and for the moment undefended with long support lines... I wonder if ND considers it their territory or not, after all, they are now relatively one city behind, and they applied most of the pressure (at least publicly, I don't know what happened behind the curtains)"

I wonder if he was closer to the mark than any of us realize. There are numerous rumors flying about right now - RolePlay seems to be the ultimate source of many of them - so it makes one think.

Three that we at Vox have heard include:

- GoW and you against Vox.
- Gow and you against NeuD.
- and the one which may be have some grain of truth to it and which relates to the above - GoW and RP against NeuD.

The last and in our opinion, the most likely scenario, may provide a prime opportunity for Vox's return to the continent. We are keen to try again before the middle ages brings riders and ansar warriors to the scene. We want an opportunity to consolidate our gains and prepare defences.

However, if the first rumor is true - please advise.

Or, if the second is true - count us in.

Anyways, we will continue to update you as we hear anything, and as our plans develop. Eventually we are going to have to jointly prepare bigger plans for Bob. For now - we are happy to work on securing a small corner of it.

If you have heard anything, or have any thoughts on the political and military situation over there, we would appreciate if you could share it with us.

Trust all is well in the south.

Regards ... Beta.

[HarryH]

One thing I will have to say about you Beta, you are good at coming up with stories. This and some of the role play stuff doesn't come so natural to me. At times I will get a brief period of inspiration, but I am too much of the logical by-the-numbers person to do it consistently.

[Beta]

Thanks Harry. My only fear is that after playing so many roles and angles I am going to become a full-blown schizophrenic from this game.

[Beta]

And zeit's response. Jon - I will let you deal with the tech trading discussion. I suggest we say that we can either go to a gpt set-up, or research a medieval tech after we finish monarrch. I will come up wit a realistic figure in terms of number of turns in which we will finish it.

RE: The Politics of Bob
Honorable BetaHound of Vox Controli

Thanks again for the information. I'm glad to hear things worked out for you- although you had to back out, and obviously had some losses, it could have been far worse. We were also quite suprised of the way RP handled the situation- we would have expected them to at least keep themselves out of this. Perhaps they didn't feel this was the right time for them to antagonize ND and GoW, therefor they joined their "Off-of-Bob" campaign against you. Maybe if you would have timed this with them, things could have been different, but that's pure speculation...

You've have mentioned a few rumors- but i wouldn't take rumors seriously at this point. As for the ones which involve us- i can assure you none are true. We have also heard several "report", from first hand about X+Y against Z. It seems the Bobians tend to jump into conclusion prematurely, and put a label of enemies on those who don't cooperate ("you're either with us, or agianst us" )- maybe that's the reason the Bobians formed a unified front- they just think that if they won't do so, they'll be labeled as enemies of, in this case, GoW. I'm afraid i can't tell you more than that, because we don't have that much updated information on the happenings on Bob, as you seem to have. If we will have that sort of iinfo on the happenings there, we'll let you know.

As for our tech sharing arrangement:
Now that you no longer have to take care of defensive buildup as much as you had to when you had a city on Bob, i think it would be appropriate to once again go through the details of our tech partnership. I realize Vox's economy is rather small, but the agreement we had was that each of us contributes as much as he can. The GS has made alot of effort- both on the negotiation tables with other nations, and in our research labs (or dungeons, to be precise... ), to make sure we both keep up with the tech race, and even have our chances at trading techs.
I ask you to review our last proposal for a revision of our tech partnership. I understand you want this agreement to last longer than 20 turns, but like you said- Vox will need some more time to bring up its economy to be able to keep up with the tech speed of the GS and the rest of the world, and make a decent contribution in research. But for the time being, there's no reason not to contribute in another way. Therefore, i want you to reconsider the idea of you giving the GS gpt for 20 turns, after which the arrangement will be renegotiated, to make it adaptable to the changing situation- yours and ours economic capabilities, other trading options, and the like.
I'm sure that some agreement can be reached, based on our last proposals- the details can be negotiated, of course, but please remember what we have here is a partnership- in which both sides contribute as much as they can.

Cordially
Zeit, Chief Diplomat of the Gathering Storm.

[Wittlich]

Keep 'em talk'n Beta!

[Wittlich]

*On a side note*
I'm currently out of town for the weekend and my friend's DSL service is...how shall I put this...touch and go at best. So far, I have access!

[Beta]

jon - we need to respond to the last part of zeit's note. I will list some suggested points I think we need to make to them - others pitch in as they see fit - and then you can write it. OK.

- they state that we are now finished defending our city on Bob. This is a great and subtle time to re-inforce the fact that we are indeed going back to the continent. We are answering them - and not telling them - which gets around the key issue that Harry raised elsewhere regarding too much communication also being suspicious.

- now as to gpt. I suggest we tell them we will be finished monarchy in 18 turns. It would be 31 at 100% if we started today, but if we started say 6-7 turns ago - and if we had a slightly stronger economy - 18 would be plausible. And we say that we also have a pre-contract for 80 gold. We will give them half.

- now - I think we also need to hit them with some facts:

---------------------
Vox to GS:
---------------------

bronze working
iron working
warrior code
mysticism
mathematics
horseback riding
philosophy
monotheism

total - 710 beakers

other -

75 gold - Lux situation
contact with GoW
contact with NeuD
contact with RP

--------------------
GS to Vox
--------------------

the wheel
alphabet
writing
literature
code of laws
republic

total - 650 beakers

other-

8 gold - part of previous trade (HB Riding)
20 gold - Vox map making (still owing)

I have left currency and construction (total 360 beakers) out of the deal; the point here is that we also had a deal lined up to get them, so it was more a matter of 'convenience' as to which of us traded for them. In fact we had previously told them we would provide all three. Then again - maybe we shouldn't start this argument until the current deal does go thorugh. They may say fine - go get them yourself.

But on the face of it - they have done very well by our arrangement. Very well. In fact - they still owe us 20 gold.

Maybe we should say we need to discuss the arrangement heading forward - and we will start that as soon as the mono-republic-curr-constr trade is done.

Maybe this whole correspondence should wait until after that - it should only be one turn.

Based on my post in the Lego thread, it will be interesting to see if GS forwards them to us this turn.