Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[mostly-harmless]

I agree with Zeviz.
A basic peaceful message.
I would not mention the religion yet.
And don't give away any other info.

mh

[ruff_hi]

I'll put up a short draft reply in our gmail acct tonight. To be sent tomorrow if everyone is ok with it.

[sooooo]

Contact from the Templars:

Dear Ruff,

Your scout was moved right beside a lion. We are not sure whether this was done intentionally to gain xp, or that it is an accident. We have a quecha on a hill southwest of your scout and would like to come to your aid. For this reason we will move our quecha onto the same (forested) tile as your scout in order to defend him. If your move was intended for xp purposes, you can (assuming, the lion attacks and will be defeated) move southwest. Three tiles exactly in that direction, away from your scout's current position there is another lion.

Something else we would like to share with you is that we have discovered a yellow civ to our northeast, straight east from your scout's current position. We have not yet moved in such a way that we can see its territory, because we wish not to announce our presence to them and do not want them to know of our presence. Therefore, should you have a desire to explore in that direction, please to not inform that civ of our presence.

Also, in your email of 19 May, you mentioned something about exchange of ideas and stories. What did you have in mind about that?

Until we meet gain,

Sir Aidun,
Foreign Affairs Minister of the Knights Templar

[sooooo]

This is very useful information methinks. Tracy is planning on moving eastwards but will be heading into open ground so it is useful to know that there is another lion out there. Also it is extremely valuable infomation that there is another yellow civ to the east of Tracy.

I do not know what information we could offer in return. We could tell them that we know of no other civs and are at the end of a peninsular. That would give them less incentive to scout our land which I think would be a good thing. If they scout our land early they could be tempted to settle in our direction.

Perhaps we could suggest that we could look to adopt and spread their religion in the future.

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by sooooo
We could tell them that we know of no other civs and are at the end of a peninsular. That would give them less incentive to scout our land which I think would be a good thing. If they scout our land early they could be tempted to settle in our direction.

Perhaps we could suggest that we could look to adopt and spread their religion in the future.

Wow...those guys are really nice. They'll probably finish last. I agree with both of sooooo's ideas. It gives the illusion of quid pro quo while actually serving our interests.

Darrell

[Sullla]

Originally posted by sooooo
I do not know what information we could offer in return. We could tell them that we know of no other civs and are at the end of a peninsular. That would give them less incentive to scout our land which I think would be a good thing. If they scout our land early they could be tempted to settle in our direction.

I would definitely mention something along these lines in the response. It gives little information away while sounding magnanimous. I wouldn't mention their religion though, since we should continue to pretend that we don't know that they have it. (Wait until they raise the issue first.) I would also make sure to thank them for moving their quechua to help defend Tracy.

The "yellow civ" to the east is clearly PAL. That's somewhat bad news; I was hoping we would draw Banana or Rabbits as the other civ on our island (especially Rabbits, since they have a history of feuding with Templars). Unlike the Templars, I think we should push on with our scout and try to meet them immediately. Since contact will happen sooner or later anyway, it's generally to our advantage to make it happen sooner. (With the Templars in the unenviable "middle" part of the continent, they would be the ones to be attacked first in the event of an early rush. We should be far enough away to be safe for now.)

Also note that we would gain 1 beaker/turn in bonus research on techs known by both Templars and PAL, simply for meeting them. While that is ultimately minor, every little bit helps (11 -> 12 beakers/turn is significant at this point in the game.)

EDIT: darrell and I cross-posted with essentially the same ideas.

[mostly-harmless]

I was looking for Ruff's draft but could not find it.
Then saw the Templars message and headed over here.

I agree that they leave a good first impression.
About telling them what our land looks like:
We approached them from the west deliberately, trying to disguise our whereabouts.
I am against giving away map info to them at the moment.
Also, don't mention the religion, yet.

I would tell them that we are generally open minded and will meet the other civ. We can then disclose the identity of the new neighbours back to the Templars.

The yellow civ could be either PAL or Rabbits.
I think we should go ahead and meet them soonest.
We can again try our trick with approaching them from the southwest maybe. (from the Templar direction, luring their interest towards the Templars.)

I would hold back on embracing the Templars as best buddies until we met the other civ.
We are likely to compete with the Templars over land tiles, so might be better off teaming up with someone else.

These are of course the paranoid opinions of the hawks in the Ministry of Truth.

mh

[sooooo]

We approached them from the west deliberately, trying to disguise our whereabouts.
I am against giving away map info to them at the moment.

This is not really a trick. We kind of are west of them. Approaching them from the west is not going to make them think we are due west, they will think we are over there somewhere which we are. Do you disagree with the benefits of saying that we are on a peninsular and do not know any other civs, trying to put them off scouting our land and making them like us for giving information? I don't see any downsides and see many upsides to telling them this.

I agree with thanking them for protecting our scout and for their map info.

[mostly-harmless]

I agree with thanking them for their map info, although seeing our scout is headed east anyway, the value is not very high.
Furthermore I believe our scout did not need protection, but appreciate their gesture. Against animals the scout stands as good a chance as a Quecha I think.

I am against giving away the map info.
First of all for the info to be meaningful to them, we need to also provide a rough location and direction of the peninsula.

Their units scouting around our territory is not necessarily a bad thing as it reduces the barb threat.

Furthermore, the Templars will recognize our need to push towards the south, especially the spot Sullla has identified, if they know we are coming from the cold north, being cut off good lands on at least two sides.

I rather have their 1 move Quechas jogging around land we already scouted than have them jogging around land with potential goodie huts.

mh

[Zeviz]

I would also vote for giving them map info.

Looking like nice guys could be the best defense. With this single friendly gesture, Templars made us think that they aren't a threat. Similarly, if we seem completely open, we'll give them the same feeling.

And if we establish a good relationship with them, we might be able to get Sulla's spot without a military confrontation. (Since they are hiding from their other neighbor, they are not interested in conflict with us. So we could push them pretty hard peacefully, as long as we promise not to ally with their enemy.)

[ruff_hi]

draft reply in gmail account for your comments.

"Sir Aidun,

Thank you very much for the help that you provided Tracy (our scout). My understanding is that the lion contact was unintentional and we thank you for the cover that your unit provided.

The information about the civilization that is to your Northeast is very generous. I am not sure if we have similar information that we can share. We will certainly not explicitly mention your presence to this other civilization. Would you like us to inform you regarding their nature if we do meet them?

Our contact of May 19th ... "We look forward to meeting you 'in-game' and building an open and free exchange of information, ideas and stories." ... was not intended as exchanging explicit items, but rather an expression of our desire and intentions.

Regards,

Ruff
Your Voice to the Realms Beyond Team"

[mostly-harmless]

The draft reply looks good.
I am in favor.
This being a democracy game, I will bow to the decision of the majority of course.
See my reluctance to give away infos as a necessary trait to run the ministry of truth. ;-)

mh

[Zeviz]

Ruff, thanks for the draft. It is well-written, but I would prefer a more cooperative message:

I'd suggest a more open "unfortunately, we don't have information about any other civilizations" instead of "I am not sure if we have similar information that we can share." The way you phrased it, sounds like we are hiding something.

Similarly, I wouldn't include the last paragraph with its disclaimer. (It sounds very bad when after they did something nice for us we say "never mind, our offer of cooperation shouldn't be taken literally".)

The tone of this message seems to me like it's politely telling them that we aren't interested in cooperation, which is the opposite of the impression we want to make.

[ruff_hi]

edited draft:

Sir Aidun,

Thank you very much for the help that you provided Tracy (our scout). My understanding is that the lion contact was unintentional and we thank you for the cover that your unit provided.

The information about the civilization that is to your Northeast is very generous. Currently, your civilization is the only one that we have contacted. Regarding the 'yellow civ', we will certainly not explicitly mention your presence to this other civilization. Would you like us to inform you regarding their nature if we do meet them?

Our contact of May 19th ... "We look forward to meeting you 'in-game' and building an open and free exchange of information, ideas and stories." ... was not intended as exchanging explicit items, but rather an expression of our desire and intentions. It is our hope that as our mutual civilizations grow, we can share to our mutual benefit.

Regards,

Ruff
Your Voice to the Realms Beyond Team

[darrelljs]

I like the edited version very much!

Darrell