Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[mostly-harmless]

Yep. Looks good.

Also agree on not commenting on the jungle.
More jungle for us.

mh

[sunrise089]

I don't see the need for the "we won't settle past pink" stuff, to me it seams unnecessarily legalistic. Why not let them propose their own map, and then if they block off too much territory counter-propose a map that includes territory past pink and THEN if they make the "you said you wouldn't argument" again we can explain things. IMHO we miss an opportunity to let Templars create our loophole for us by including the paragraphs...because any map they create that gives us any land past Pink in any direction is like a minor concession for free.

[ruff_hi]

that is good - send it soon.

Edit: just read Srise comments - nice. How about we do that.

[mostly-harmless]

Yep on sunrise comment.

mh

[sooooo]

Swiss, I prefer your first draft. Short and to the point, and as Sunrise says, doesn't advertise the loophole to them.

[Sullla]

sunrise has cut through the Gordian Knot of debate once again. Disregard my previous comments and we'll hold them in reserve for later. We should use the original message:

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.

Thus we await your counterproposal with interest.

yours etc

[Zeviz]

I agree.

Should we also mention that "we are currently negotiating with several possible tech trade partners, so if we reach an agreement with them first, our offer if off the table?" (And should we start negotiating with Imperio? They might be more dangerous, but I'd rather trade with people that are reliable than waste time "negotiating" with people who just delay.)

[Swiss Pauli]

No, let's leave the tech trades for a separate thread.

@Zeviz - do you want to send the email to Templars today?

[Zeviz]

The reason I wanted to mention tech trades here is that I want to let Templars know that time is running out.

Also, slight change to first paragraph:
"We are naturally disappointed by your response to our proposal, but we understand that such negotiations are not always going to run smoothly."

EDIT: I can send this in several hours.

[mostly-harmless]

Uh! Just logged in and have a Open Border request from Templars. I will wait for a while for others to voice their opinion. I am tending towards agreeing, if only for defusing purpose.

EDIT: Actually, Templars said as much in their latest reply, also limiting it to a no-scouting OB. So I guess it is ok to accept. It will raise the chance of religion spread. In return we are giving Templars 1gpt in trade route value for their next city, which is ok.

EDIT2: Ok, we now have open borders with Templars.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

That's fine by me, though I was hoping they'd forget about OBs for a wee while...

[Zeviz]

After re-reading this, I have a question before sending:

Do we really want to say "'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."

The above paragraph implies that our first offer was utterly unrealistic and we expect final settlement to be very different.

I'd prefer the following message:

Dear Sir Aidun,

We are naturally disappointed by your response to our proposal, but we understand that such negotiations are not always going to run smoothly.

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.

Thus we await your counterproposal with interest.

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

PS We are currently negotiating with several potential partners for technology exchange, so we would appreciate a response quick enough to know whether you will be participating in the first round of deals.

The omission of "this is just our first proposal" from pervious message was NOT accidental, because there are two negotiating strategies:

1. Start with an outrageous demand, and negotiate down from there.

2. Start with a reasonable position, and try to convince your partner that it's a mutually benefitial solution.

We obviously went with plan 2. (Unless somebody here is willing to seed to Templars the ENTIRE southern coast, as well as the iron site.) So now we need to justify to Templars why the map we sent them was fair, and how much we are willing to compromise. Saying "our previous offer was just an initial offer" will simply encourage Templars in thinking that they can request the entire southern coast, and the iron site.

PS I would also explain to Templars now that our original plegde to "not expand beyond Pink Dot" was meant to last while negotiations were going on, and they've wasted that opportunity by ignoring our messages for a month.

PPS The reason I object so strongly to saying "this was just initial proposal" is that it would send mixed signals to Templars about the borders we would accept. If I was on Templar team and got a message about "this was just original proposal, feel free to counter-offer", I'd think that the map m_h drew was accepted by RB to be as outrageous as Templar suggestion "we just will not settle north of your capital".

[sunrise089]

I agree reiterate I oppose any discussion of "not expand beyond Pink Dot."

Furthermore, while I agree with Zevis that we shouldn't give the Templars reason to believe we made an outrageous initial offer, I don't feel the "'This is our first proposal..." text does so. In fact, I love the "propose a more elegant solution" language because (I think) it makes it clear that we feel our offer is fair but that we're humble enough to admit we could have overlooked something. To me, that places the onus on the Templars to provide that "elegant" solution. Just saying "the correct way forward is for your team to make a counterproposal, not for Team RB to come with another proposal" sounds unnecessarily harsh to me.

[Swiss Pauli]

I thought it was an accidental omission, as I was not happy with the tone of the original proposal. My job involves a lot of negotiation of bilateral trade deals, and I can tell you that the 'outrageous demand' strategy only breeds resentment (even if the counterparty has no choice but to accept).

The key part of that text is that it entreats Templars to come up with something better, whereas the text we sent looks a lot more like a diktat, so I little backtracking here would be worthwhile.

[mostly-harmless]

I am fine with the rephrased message. We should send asap, to not appear delaying the agreement.

mh