Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[mostly-harmless]

Another load of BS from Templars it seems.

1st paragraph is the usual blah-blah. And surprisingly now they are eager to open borders.
Compare to last message:

However, we feel that open borders must be accompanied by a border agreement. Of course we have discussed this topic in the past, alas, without a satisfying result.

The rest of the message boils down to "we don't like your proposal and are not interested in a quick agreement". Otherwise they would have made a suggestion or alteration of the map themselves. To me it is clear that they play on time, now that they have seen the Iron spot and want to get a settler over there pronto.

As a response I would:
1. Hold back on OB as we have nothing to gain from that at the moment.
2. Immediately ask them for an alteration of the map.

Take your second chance.

sounds ridiculous.
3. Unlike Zeviz really enjoys it, cut back on the role playing. All that was done with Templars was to exchange miles of text with agreeing on substantially nothing so far.

mh

[sunrise089]

I guess the important question is if we fear the Templars want to grab the iron spot ASAP should we try and beat them to it?

[mostly-harmless]

I'd rather rush the settler to grab the Iron, even if it is only to speed it up by two turns. Remember Cape Copper! :-)

EDIT: But Sullla made a point against rushing, stating it is too costly. 2pop for speed up of 3 turns. And none else chimed in with an opinion. (see Turnplayers Thread)

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

We missed my change about having them propose a more elegant solution, and they bounced it back at us

We'll just have to lob it back over at them, with a lot less verbiage this time around, and tell them to come up with something more equitable.

[Swiss Pauli]

Here's Ruff's sentence on Pink:

... In light of this, I've been authorized to inform you that we will not be founding a city beyond 'Pink Dot'...

They've got us more or less bang to rights on this point, so we cocked up with the map proposal, as we should cede Southern Marble to them.

[mostly-harmless]

Not really.
All we have given them is a point (Pink Dot) with no specified directional vector. "Beyond Pink Dot" could have many meanings:
- south of Pink Dot
- east of Pink Dot
- southeast of Pink Dot
- not closer than Pink Dot with respect to Jerusalem (my favorite, allows Pink Peaks & Southern Marble)
- ...

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

First draft of our reply:

Dear Sir Aidun,

We are naturally disappointed by your response to our proposal, but you must understand that such negotiations are not always going to run smoothly. Unfortunately, owing to the degree of debate over the proposal, we omitted a rather important caveat:

'This is our first proposal concerning the border agreement, and is - of course - subject to your comment and approval. If you can propose a more elegant solution then we would be most willing to consider it.'

As Templars are clearly unsatisfied with our proposal, the correct way forward is for your team to make a counterproposal, not for Team RB to come with another proposal. Then we give you our feedback, and so on and so forth until we reach an equitable agreement.

Thus we await your counterproposal with interest.

yours etc

[ruff_hi]

'beyond pink dot' obviously has lots of meanings. When we discussed this - it was with the understanding of not 'south' of pink dot. So Iron-Side is ok but Silk-Marble should be a no-go.

Or we could just say ... "not founding beyond pink dot (next)" but that has now changed 'you bunch of whinging losers'.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless
Not really.
All we have given them is a point (Pink Dot) with no specified directional vector. "Beyond Pink Dot" could have many meanings:
- south of Pink Dot
- east of Pink Dot
- southeast of Pink Dot
- not closer than Pink Dot with respect to Jerusalem (my favorite, allows Pink Peaks & Southern Marble)
- ...

mh

I must disagree: beyond means ALL of these possibilities, not the one that is most convenient to us.

We shouldn't be too downhearted about this: we were prepared to cede Southern Marble for Pink Peaks anyway, so it could be a lot worse.

[mostly-harmless]

Swiss, you are not seriously suggesting that we refrain from settling south & east of Pink Dot?

Furthermore, that statement back then was unilateral and we got nothing in return.
Also it came with the addition of

In light of this, I've been authorized to inform you that we will not be founding a city beyond 'Pink Dot' so that we can give the 'Border Agreement' a chance at success.

Since then no effort was made by Templars towards a border agreement.
And now a border agreement is virtually useless.
We will settle Pink Peaks no matter what.
We will then make normal progress to get another settler out to settle the south. If Southern Marble is still available we will go for it, no?

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

We should bide our time regarding Southern Marble. We certainly need to give Templars a chance to make their border proposal: we'll be settling Pink Peaks anyway so we don't want to be overly-aggressive in claiming 'open' sites as it will look like we're negotiating in bad faith, especially given our previous statement on land beyond Pink Dot.

Pink Peaks *will* upset Templars (if we haven't come to an agreement by the time we settle it), so we need to choose our diplomatic battles wisely. Once we put the ball back in Templars' court then the onus is on them not to upset us which changes the whole dynamic.

[mostly-harmless]

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli
We should bide our time regarding Southern Marble.

Yes, we need to establish Pink Peaks first, with a reasonable build up in military. By the time we have the next settler ready to go (not rushed) and Southern Marble is still available we don't delay it by waiting for Templars.
Also that Fish resource at SM is the only one within grabbing distance for us. Not too big of a point, but still.

[SIZE=1]
Pink Peaks *will* upset Templars (if we haven't come to an agreement by the time we settle it), so we need to choose our diplomatic battles wisely. Once we put the ball back in Templars' court then the onus is on them not to upset us which changes the whole dynamic.

Yes, agreed.

mh

[Sullla]

I'm largely happy with Swiss Pauli's initial draft. What I'd suggest adding to it:

- mostly_harmless' clarification of the "beyond Pink Dot" issue:

In light of this, I've been authorized to inform you that we will not be founding a city beyond 'Pink Dot' so that we can give the 'Border Agreement' a chance at success.

Making it clear to them that we'll settle anywhere we damn well please if they continue to reject our offers. I think we can also mention here that we waited a full 40 turns without settling in their direction, and they made no effort to claim any disputed land for themselves during that period.

- Their statement that the jungle area in the south is pretty ridiculous. They said: "Jungle offers nothing. It is unhealthy, it takes a lot of time to clear it, the clearing doesn't produce any hammers and we're left with only grassland." I think we need to counter that this is a totally absurd statement, and we would be happy to claim the stone, marble and dyes in the jungle if they don't want them.

Surely they can't be THAT stupid... or maybe they are, which would explain their awful play so far.

- The best news: if they reply with some kind of inane border agreement, we can safely turn it down. The Templars have completely missed their best opportunity to attack us. Remember, for a long time they had horses and copper, and we had neither. Now we have both, and they'll need a massive stack to crack one of our cities. Without Imperio's help, I don't see how the Templars can take one of our cities (pillage, yes - capture, no) and we still have an NAP with Imperio for another 30 turns.

I would not fear military threats from Templars at this point.

[sooooo]

I support Swiss Pauli's reply.

[Swiss Pauli]

Version 0.2:

Dear Sir Aidun,

We are naturally disappointed by your response to our proposal, but you must understand that such negotiations are not always going to run smoothly. Unfortunately, owing to the degree of debate over the content and tone of the proposal, we omitted in error a rather important caveat:

'This is our first proposal concerning the border agreement, and is - of course - subject to your comment and approval. If you can propose a more elegant solution then we would be most willing to consider it.'

As Templars are clearly unsatisfied with our proposal, the correct way forward is for your team to make a counterproposal, not for Team RB to come with another proposal. Then we give you our feedback & revised proposal, and so on and so forth until we reach an equitable agreement.

As regards our statement that we would not settle beyond Pink Dot, here's our words in full:

'In light of this, I've been authorized to inform you that we will not be founding a city beyond 'Pink Dot' so that we can give the 'Border Agreement' a chance at success.'

It should be clear from the above that we haven't forfeited our claim to this land, but we have held off settling this area whilst we looked to conclude a Border Agreement, so that a negotiated solution for this territory can be established.

Team Realms Beyond awaits your counterproposal with interest.

yours etc

At this point, I'd like to avoid pulling them up about their 'useless' jungle. We can bring it up as part of our critique of their proposal, if needed.