Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli
... My job involves a lot of negotiation of bilateral trade deals...

In that case, I'll leave diplomacy up to you, since I have no practical experience in this area. Do you want to send the current message, or should I do it and mention that we've found a more permanent embassador?

[sunrise089]

@Swiss - I can think of one strong objection to the idea that we should treat this game as similar to real-life trade negotiations. Namely, in the real-world a goal is to build up good will in order to maintain a mutually profitable relationship in the future. In this game the goal is to win, and part of that for example may necessitate murdering the opposition without good cause should it become advantageous in the long-run. I only say this to remind us that good-will is only valuable to the extent it leads to outcomes we can actually take advantage of. There is no reason to offer a imbalanced beaker trade for example the turn before we declare war if we could get a better trade merely by causing some ill-will.

[Zeviz]

Two questions:

1. Should we re-write the message to reflect the existing tech trade?

2. Can I send the following message 14 hours from now?

Dear Sir Aidun,

It is taking us a long time to agree on a reply to your last message, so for now I just want to say that we were glad to see your offer of Open Borders and a trade offer. It is good to see real cooperation between our nations, even if borders still remain a contentious issue.

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

[Sullla]

I wouldn't even wait 14 hours. I'd send that to them immediately.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Zeviz

In that case, I'll leave diplomacy up to you, since I have no practical experience in this area. Do you want to send the current message, or should I do it and mention that we've found a more permanent embassador?

No, I see the role of 'ambassador' is more to send out agreed text, and maybe to draft some initial versions of these texts.

My frustration here is that we had a widely endorsed text and then you stopped and proposed a new version, leading to further delays when we know speed is important (for a change).

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by sunrise089
@Swiss - I can think of one strong objection to the idea that we should treat this game as similar to real-life trade negotiations. Namely, in the real-world a goal is to build up good will in order to maintain a mutually profitable relationship in the future. In this game the goal is to win, and part of that for example may necessitate murdering the opposition without good cause should it become advantageous in the long-run. I only say this to remind us that good-will is only valuable to the extent it leads to outcomes we can actually take advantage of.

Goodwill is always better than ill-will and its greatest benefit is in oiling the wheels of negotiation: right now, Templars are mistrustful of our intentions and they're picking over the minutae of our proposals and blowing them up out of proportion. If we can convince them we're 'nice guys' they will look on our proposals in a better light, and give us the benefit of the doubt.

Building up goodwill (but not kowtowing to their every demand) will make a double-cross much less expected, or, if we go after Imperio, then we have a much better chance of convincing them to remain neutral (or even join us in battle).

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we need to send a reply to Templars today regarding borders. If we delay then they'll probably think we're working on another proposal, so if we come back with a (nicely worded) message that simply says 'your turn' then they'll wonder what took us so long, and we'll end up looking like we're playing for time in order to slap down Pink Peaks.

[T-hawk]

we'll end up looking like we're playing for time in order to slap down Pink Peaks.

... except that that's exactly what we ARE doing.

[Sullla]

Shhhh! You'll spoil our plan!

More seriously, I agree we should send something today. It doesn't have to be fancy - we're pretty much agreed on the message, so let's just send it away now.

And T-Hawk, any chance we'll see you around more often? The game is vastly more interesting now than it was 3 months ago. I think you'd enjoy the strategic discussions we've been having.

[T-hawk]

Oh, I've been reading and following everything. It's just that every time I think of something to say, I scroll down and sooooo or ruff or mostly-harmless has already said it.

Back to the topic, I'd say we really have no need for any border agreement with Templars at all (although we should continue communicating, of course.) After Pink Peaks, which we'll get by stalling, there isn't ever going to be a site that 1) they could claim 2) but they'd cede by talking 3) without us giving up a worse concession elsewhere. Settlers do the talking here and they're speaking very well for us.

[Zeviz]

Sorry about delaying the agreed upon draft. I've sent the following message, which combines agreed draft with a note about trade deals:

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. 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.

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

PS The recent trades happened after the draft above was nearly approved, so instead of restarting our internal discussion for a new draft, I will simply add the following paragraph:

We were glad to see your offer of Open Borders and a trade offer. It is good to see real cooperation between our nations, even if borders still remain a contentious issue.

The bit about "internal approval of drafts" should not only explain the delay, but give us some cover if we want to stall for time in the future.

PS If the only job of embassador is to send out approved texts, I am not the best person for it, because my internet connection at home is often unreliable, and sometimes I am absent an entire weekend.

[mostly-harmless]

EDIT: Hat sich erledigt. Never mind.
mh

[Sullla]

Well said, Zeviz.

[Swiss Pauli]

Time to play a little guessing game: how will Templars react?

1. Anger/Frustration - 'why did it take you so long to come up with this?'. We should reply along the lines of 'many on our team wanted to forget about the agreement because of a lack of effort from your team'.

2. Insist that we make another proposal. We say 'no, we need to get an idea of your thoughts as to an equitable deal. We can't make a bilateral deal on our own'.

3. Agree to send us a proposal. Friendly, blah-blah email about the challenges of making such a proposal.

4. Proper feedback on our original map. Feedback in kind about what we wanted to achieve with the map.

5. No Deal. Party time! Though we express our disappointment that they've walked away from the table...

Have I missed a possible reaction? I think it's a good idea to chew over some possible responses in advance, so that we are better prepared when the actual reply arrives.

[Zeviz]

I think that whatever we do with Templars, stalling for time in a non-obvious way should be our top priority. As T-hawk pointed out, we are not willing to give up either Iron or Marble site, and after these two are settled there will not be much left to negotiate over.