Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[mostly-harmless]

For a worthwhile border agreement with Templars, we need it to be specific, include Pink Peaks & Southern Marble and in place quickly to secure those spots.
Therefore we either pursue that border agreement seriously and send off a proposal soon or forget about it and reply on a vague way and settle those cities without an agreement.

EDIT: After all, we are ready to settle Pink Peaks in 11 turns or less if we rush the settler.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

I don't think we can seriously propose Pink Peaks and Southern Marble as our cities as part of a border agreement. Why on earth should Templars accept such a proposal? If the boot was on the other foot, I'd find them arrogant for proposing such a one-sided deal.

[mostly-harmless]

No, I did not mean to tell them about the city spots.
I want the border agreement to be specific enough to allow us settling those two spots. Therefore any tile within a 2 tiles radius around those spots are no-go area for Templars. That's what my map was about.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Here's the crux of the problem: both teams want (in an ideal world) both sites. If we're going to make a deal, we need to be prepared to compromise and hand over the less important site to Templars. Else Templars can only see our offer as all take and no give.

If Templars are more interested in Iron than Marble then, in the nicest way possible, we'll have to decline a deal (at this point) and steal the Iron site anyway.

The ideal scenario is that we invite Templars to take Southern Marble, and they balk at the opportunity and only stake their claim to Jungle Rice, letting us have our cake and eat it. Unlikely to happen, but you never know with these Daft Knights!

[Sullla]

If we're going to be specific, I kinda like mostly_harmless' map with the check marks. We say, "you guys can settle anywhere up to and including these spots, and we won't contest it. What do you think?" To a team without iron, it even looks like a fair division of land. In the center of the map, it LOOKS like we split the middle land, but in reality we rush a settler up there and grab all the good stuff for ourselves. By the time Templars get around to moving a settler there, our cultural borders already control the area.

Yeah, I think they would probably go for it. I'd especially try to emphasize that we each get a city in the south (them at the stone, us around the marble) and each get a city in the middle area (us "near the cows and rice SE of our capital", them at a spot of their choosing). We have to compromise somewhere, and this gets us the spots we want while giving the Templars little that they don't already have.

Maybe get some opinions from someone beyond the three of us before going forward though.

[sooooo]

Mostly harmless' map looks rather nice for us and is worth a try.

[mostly-harmless]

Hhmm, if we decide to be civilized about it and negotiate with Templars as equals (which in my opinion we shouldn't) than we cede the southern coast to them for securing the Iron site.

Alternatively, we settle the secure the Iron site as soon as possible, presenting Templars with a fait accompli. The we will see how much they bicker around. To pacify them (if needed at all) we can cede the southern coast. If they just start another month of talking and complaining we settle Southern Marble. Done! No border agreement needed!

I suggest the following course of action:
1.) A quick reply asking them to draw up a their proposed border agreement.
2.) Study their proposal.
i.) if their proposal secure Pink Peaks and Southern Marble for us, fine. Slap an NAP on top and sign. Problem solved.
ii.) if their proposal does not 100% secure us Pink Peaks: rush settler & escorts and send them our revised proposal (see initial map). See if they agree, otherwise settle Pink Peaks.
iii.) if their proposal is outrageous: tell them off, rush settler & escorts, settle Pink Peaks and make plans for Southern Marble.

What Templar are not getting, in my opinion, is the fact that the continent runs out of free space that would require a border agreement to secure it for later.

mh

[Zeviz]

Looks like we've had a lot of important developments lately.

I'd suggest a much more vague replay to Templars that makes it look like we are making a deep consession, while actually solidifying what we already were going to do. Here is what I would say:

Dear Sir Aidun,

We are glad to hear that your people are also enthusiastic about potential for cooperation. As peace-loving nations who have to rely on ingenuity to compensate for poor land, it is natural for us to work together to be able to keep up with our neighbors such as Imperio, who are blessed with 3 gold mines and numerous fertile floodplains. And since most of our continent's fertile lands are located in the south, we agree that control of these fertile grasslands will determine the destiny of both of our civilizations. (Imperio has so much gold, furs and floodplains near their capital, that it would be unfair for them to claim much of southern grasslands.)

You have mentioned a permanent border agreement, which should definitely be our eventual goal. Many of our people think that such an agreement should come about only as a result of a long process of cooperation that builds up the trust necessary to justify the consessions made. Such an agreement is especially difficult to commit to due to uncertainty in settlement pattern in the north-eastern part of our continent due to lack of border agreement with Imperio.

However, we understand your need for certainty, so most of the rulers of our civilization have agreed to the following interim settlement guideline, while working on a full tri-lateral agreement: In the south-western portion of the continent, large jungle provides a natural boundary between our civilization. So RealmsBeyond will pledge to not settle in the jungle east of Pink Dot and Templars will pledge to not settle in the jungle west of Jerusalem until all other good city sites are taken. In the north, we will direct our expansion towards Imperio, so we will only settle one or two settlements north east of Pink Dot to support the outpost(s) on Imperio border.

The agreement above leaves a wide enough buffer zone to allow some border adjustments for a more fair land distribution when a full trilateral agreement is reached.

Since this agreement would severely limit our expansion in the southern part of the continent, we can sign it only as a part of a comprehensive friendship pact that includes cooperation on trade, technology, and religion.

And speaking of religion, our people yearn for the light of god and are wondering who can give them guidance. Some believe that Islam offers one true path to faith and Imperio is the only righteous nation in the world. Many others look to the twin beacons of Christianity and Buddhism shining in your southern lands. Like prince Vladimir of ancient Rus', we are ready to listen to any messanger of faith.

Zeviz,
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Interim Embassador of Realms Beyond

I know that above demands are pretty outrageous, but it gives Templars room to make a counter-offer and negotiate a better settlement. Or they might just accept it as is.

What do you think?

EDIT: To clarify, my offer above was written up with an assumption that borders are subject to negotiations. I agree that Mostly_harmless' map should be our eventual goal, but if we show it right away, Templars might assume that it's our starting offer and negotiate from there.

[mostly-harmless]

I would get rid of the complete 1st paragraph. No reason to give them all that map knowledge. Sir Aidun mentioned "We also have very good relations with Imperio and our continuously ongoing negotiations are very fruitful." We wont succeed in spreading mistrust between them, I believe.

I would also scrap or rephrase the second part of 3rd paragraph. I am not sure that they actually know that Pink Dot is the name of the city west of Jerusalem. I would also not mention that we are already settled "outposts" next to Imperios land. Just mention the "jungle agreement".

Does the last paragraph come over as too desperate?

mh

[Zeviz]

The reason for my first paragraph was not to spread mistrust between Templars and Imperio, but to justify why we think Imperio shouldn't have a claim to as much of southern grassland as us and Templars. That map knowledge is necessary to explain that we aren't just beeing greedy.

Here is updated version of the third paragraph:

However, we understand your need for certainty, so most of the rulers of our civilization have agreed to the following interim settlement guideline, while working on a full tri-lateral agreement: In the south-western portion of the continent, large jungle provides a natural boundary between our civilization. So RealmsBeyond will pledge to not settle in the jungle east of our city there and Templars will pledge to not settle in the jungle west of Jerusalem until all other good city sites are taken. To the north of this area, we will direct our expansion towards Imperio, so we will only settle one or two settlements in the Imperio's direction.

The iron city will be justified as supporting city for expansion in Imperio's direction.

The last paragraph is mostly roleplaying fluff to give them the message that we can form religious alliance with either them or Imperio. I'll just remove the last part of first sentence. (Editing original draft.)

[sunrise089]

I agree with M_H is post 262. Let's concede the southern city if necessary. While you guys are confident we can diplomatically keep Peaks safe I'm confident we can cut roads and split off any city they would be so foolish to settle underneath our culture.

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by sunrise089
I agree with M_H is post 262. Let's concede the southern city if necessary. While you guys are confident we can diplomatically keep Peaks safe I'm confident we can cut roads and split off any city they would be so foolish to settle underneath our culture.

The question is: when can we do it? We need to start growing cottages on that nice southern grassland now, and we aren't going to be in a position to attack Templars until much later. (If we follow the "economy first" strategy.) So I would suggest making a medium-term deal on the best conditions we can get, and then seeing what things look like in the middle ages.

[Sullla]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless
I suggest the following course of action:
1.) A quick reply asking them to draw up a their proposed border agreement.
2.) Study their proposal.
i.) if their proposal secure Pink Peaks and Southern Marble for us, fine. Slap an NAP on top and sign. Problem solved.
ii.) if their proposal does not 100% secure us Pink Peaks: rush settler & escorts and send them our revised proposal (see initial map). See if they agree, otherwise settle Pink Peaks.
iii.) if their proposal is outrageous: tell them off, rush settler & escorts, settle Pink Peaks and make plans for Southern Marble.

Once again, I have to agree with mostly_harmless. It's simple and effective. They've been asking non-stop for border agreements, so tell them we're interested in the idea and that we'd like to see them draw up a map for us. Based on what they do, we react accordingly.

If they want us to provide a map, we sent them the one with the check marks mh posted in this thread. Nice and neat. Honestly, I'd leave Imperio out of our message entirely. Only going to complicate things at this point.

We can incorporate some of the stuff Zeviz typed up above in our message too.

[Zeviz]

The only problem with letting them make a map is that it starts out the negotiations on their terms. I'd much rather start with "you can't expand past your capital" and make consessions from there, than start with "we can't found any more cities in the southern half of the continent" and demand to improve it. Sure, there is a danger that if initial offer seems too outrageous the negotiations might end right there. However, Templars don't sound like the kind of team that attacks for the smallest percieved insult.

[Swiss Pauli]

How about sending Templars mh's map, and inviting them to add sites for our potential cities that they won't contest, and then add some sites that they would like, but that the recognise we may want to claim them as well.

We then reply contesting the 'open' sites as we see fit, then we negotiate an agreement on the disputed territory.

I think this puts pressure on them to be reasonable, and not to say 'Pink Dot sealed off a lot of land, so we want the rest', and it also gives us the last move in the opening phase, as we decide whether to contest their claims.