Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by Kylearan
Hi,


I hope you mean inter- instead of intra-! We would really miss you otherwise.

-Kylearan

Nope - I meant 'intra' as in 'within team'. This whole 'intra' / 'inter' thing is often confused. This is assuming that it still works when I sub out 'state' and in 'team'.

Interstate
- between or among two or more states, as in: Federal laws cover interstate commerce.


intra
- prefix meaning within.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Originally posted by ruff_hi
intra
- prefix meaning within.

Exactly. So "intra-team communication" to me means communication within the team - which I hope you will still do in the future, i.e. talk to us. "Extra-team communication" would mean communication from within our team to other teams, i.e. between teams.

An analogy would be "Intranet" (communication within a network) vs. "Internet" (communication across different networks).

But maybe I do understand this wrong, not being a native English speaker?

-Kylearan

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by Zeviz
I don't understand the line about housewives. Are you warning them not to say too much?

There is an Isaac Asimov short story about space communication with someone who is 9 hrs (speed of light) away. The whole issue is 'do we say something and wait for their reply' which would make communication stupidly slow. This scientists mother says 'don't be silly - just keep talking like wives over a back fence and any part that doesn't make sense, then they will ask for clarification.' It might be a little bit obscure (ok, maybe more than a little bit) but it will be a great item for the new diplo guy to open the next communication with.

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by Kylearan
Exactly. So "intra-team communication" to me means communication within the team

duh - no, I got it wrong. I obviously meant 'intra-team' rotation out of the 'inter-team' communication role. See what happens when you try to be smart and use the right word ... you put it in the wrong place.

[Sullla]

OK, as much as it is to play with semantics... let's start working on our real reply to Templars.

Talking points to cover:

- Open Borders agreement. I think that both of our teams will probably want to agree to this. We can discuss including a "no scouting" clause of enemy territory.

- Templars missionary. We can make a formal request, and see if there's anything they want in return.

- Resource trades. Neither team has anything that the other needs right now, but might be good to mention as far as setting up future cooperation.

- Imperio NAP. Do we mention with Templars? Probably we should, and warn them that an Imperio military buildup could be trouble for them.

- Tech trading. More formal agreement to exchange for some of their religious techs (?) It seems like we could make some natural exchanges.

Plenty of things to cover. Let's come to an agreement on what we want to say.

[Zeviz]

For the Sulla's agenda above:

1. I'd propose OB, talking about trade income and some RP talk about friendly ties, etc, etc, and mention that if they want, we can include a clause against scouting of each other's lands for now.

2. It's a little early to ask for a missionary, considering that we don't yet have religious techs to spread it further.

3. We can include something like "we are open to ideas of resource trades, although it looks like neither side currently has any resources the other one needs".

4. This is a very important point. I'd even include some wondering about Imperio's continued increase in soldier points.

5. We should research Mystecism ourselves, so we can offer to buy any further religious techs they have for things like Sailing and IW.

[mostly-harmless]

- OB are less critical if Imperio agrees. However, we want OB with Templars as well, in case PAL refuses and we need more international trade routes.
- Missionary should wait. Lets see what natural spread we can get from having access to three religions via OB & trade routes.
- Imperio NAP: yes mention it. It is a good deterrent I believe.
- Resource trading: What could they have we want before Calendar?
- Tech trading: Yep, lets see what their ideas are.

mh

[sooooo]

Open borders - yes, let's ask for them.

Missionary - it cannot hurt to ask.

Resources - agree with Sullla's point

Imperio NAP - yes, we should mention that they contacted us for said pact and, since we had no plans to start any wars on our continent, agreed.

Tech trading - the most important bit. We should probably suggest trades in our email.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'll draft something in the next couple of hours and post on here for approval & editing.

[Swiss Pauli]

Version 0.1:

Greetings Sir Aidun!

It’s fallen to me to take over from the estimable ruff_hi as RB Team ambassador. I’m sure you share our delight that our two realms are now linked by road, so this seems an opportune moment to request Open Borders. We would gladly accept a limited agreement, excluding right of passage for units, should you harbour concerns over the nature of our intentions.

And speaking of intentions, we are somewhat alarmed about Imperio’s troop build-up: they approached us in the early game to propose a non-aggression pact. We agreed as we have no plans to turn our continent into a bloodbath. Did they make a similar request of you?

Let us turn to trade: whilst no opportunity for a resource trade presents itself at the moment, we’d gladly consider such business in the future. For now, we’d like to focus on exchanging technologies for our mutual benefit. To wit:

[add trades, maybe throwing in a missionary into the deal(s)]

yours etc

Can someone add the all-important tech deals? Ta.

[Zeviz]

Some of the words in your message, such as "harbor", have negative connotations, so I tried to rewrite it in a more positive language. Also, I changed the language to present proposals in a way that hilights their interests. (for example, starting tech trade offer with what they would get, and using words like "propose" instead of "request") What do you think of this version?

Greetings Sir Aidun!

It’s fallen to me to take over from the estimable ruff_hi as RB Team ambassador. We are delighted to see that a river now provides trade connection between our realms, so this seems an opportune moment to propose an Open Borders Treaty. Such an agreement would help bring our nations closer together and create prosperity through trade. If you have reservations about fully opening borders to each other, we can include a "no scouting" clause, so the Treaty is used purely for trade, and does not allow units to enter borders.

And speaking of intentions, Imperio recently approached us to propose a non-aggression pact, to which our peace-loving nation has agreed. However, their military strength continues to grow, so we are wondering if they've signed a similar treaty with you. (If they did, we'd be curious why they keep training troops at the same rate as before.)

Let us turn to trade: whilst no opportunity for a resource trade presents itself at the moment, we’d gladly consider such business in the future. For now, we’d like to focus on exchanging technologies for mutual benefit. Your people are wise in the mysteries of religion, while we pursued more worldly paths, learning to sail the seas and work with metals. Once the opportunity presents itself, would you like to exchange this knowledge, getting Sailing for Mystecism and Polytheism?

[signature]

PS In my second paragraph I tried to inconspicuously imply that we suspect Imperio plans to attack Templars under protection of a NAP with us. Did that work, or should I make it less/more obvious?

[ruff_hi]

2nd is better and more fitting with the tone that we have taken with Templars in the past (ie wordy).

[Sullla]

I like the second message as well (not that Swiss Pauli's message was bad, just that version 2.0 improved upon it). I would quickly add:

- Neither of our teams actually has Writing right now, so we can't actually initiate Open Borders yet. We need to reword the first paragraph slightly to make this clear. (That is, we would like to open borders once the option becomes available soon.)

- Sailing and Polytheism have the same base beaker cost (100) so Mysticism + Polytheism for Sailing is grossly unequal to Templars. We should amend this to give them a more even trade. Either Polytheism for Sailing, or something like Iron Working (200) for Polytheism (100) and Monotheism (120). We can play around with these numbers and come up with something.

[Zeviz]

I didn't remember tech costs off the top of my head and thought they already have Writing. So how about the following version:

Greetings Sir Aidun!

It’s fallen to me to take over from the estimable ruff_hi as RB Team ambassador. We are delighted to see that a river now provides trade connection between our realms, so this seems an opportune moment to propose an Open Borders Treaty that can be signed as soon as one of use can write it down. Such an agreement would help bring our nations closer together and create prosperity through trade. If you have reservations about fully opening borders to each other, we can include a "no scouting" clause, so the Treaty is used purely for trade, and does not allow units to enter borders.

And speaking of intentions, Imperio recently approached us to propose a non-aggression pact, to which our peace-loving nation has agreed. However, their military strength continues to grow, so we are wondering if they've signed a similar treaty with you. (If they did, we'd be curious why they keep training troops at the same rate as before.)

Let us turn to trade: whilst no opportunity for a resource trade presents itself at the moment, we’d gladly consider such business in the future. For now, we’d like to focus on exchanging technologies for mutual benefit. Your people are wise in the mysteries of religion, while we pursued more worldly paths, learning to sail the seas and work with metals. Once the opportunity presents itself, would you like to exchange this knowledge, getting Sailing for Polytheism, Sailing and Iron Working for Polytheism, Meditation, and Monotheism, or some other trade package?

[signature]

[Sullla]

I like it. Maybe one last line like "These are just initial possiblities, feel free to counter-offer tech proposals that you feel are advantageous."

And we need some sort of flowery role-playing signature. The Templars like that kind of stuff.