Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[sunrise089]

My Templar draft:

Diplomats of the Templar,

Team RB has observed that the Templars seem to be focusing on internal affairs in recent weeks. We believe however, that ongoing international developments make cooperation between our fine civilizations more important than ever. We hope that you will consider the following information and graciously provide a response.

Recently, PAL and Imperio have been cooperating more closely than ever, and by leveraging their superior land they threaten to run away with the game. The combination of superior land, high-gold happiness resources, Civile Service, and the Currency Tech may soon create an insurmountable tech lead for any civilizations that lack consistent trading partners.

Rather than sit idly by and loose the game, team RB believes that the three other teams who still possess developed empires (namely RB, Templars, and Banana) should work together towards all of our mutual well-being. As they say, if we do not hang together we shall surely hang separately. On the other hand, 3-way cooperation between RB, Templars, and Banana can keep us all in the game.

In spite of any past communication breakdowns, RB feels close cooperation with the Templars is only natural. RB has absolutely no plans to attack the Templars, and we seek a long-lasting NAP. Likewise our borders have been defined by natural settling patterns. It should be easy to agree not to intrude on each other's territory.

Most of all, we hope we can open a new round of dialogue with your civilization, and as soon as possible, with Banana as a third party as well. In the meantime however, we have 2 proposals that we hope will interest you. First, as a token of friendship, RB is prepared to gift Templars wines in a few turns. I'm certain the sacrament of Holy Wine will be most appreciated by your priests and religious leader. We can also arrange to trade you Marble, which may prove handy for various sacred buildings.

Finally, we would like to reiterate our hopes for an Aesthetics and Literature for Metal Casting trade. Making this trade would be a first step to closer tech coordination in the future that is in all of our best interest.

Please consider our requests; we look forward to your responses.

-RB

[Swiss Pauli]

Thanks for drafting that sunrise, but I don't think the tone is right: Templars haven't been locked out of the trading loop, they've been at the heart of it. What we don't know is their current research. If we can get that info (maybe from PAL?) then we might have a route back in with them.

In any event, I suggest waiting until we have HBR, and propose HBR and Aesthetics for MC. Trading them a military tech would surely show we have no (immediate) designs on their cities.

[sooooo]

It's true that they have been at the heart of the recent trading activity, but apart from the first paragraph, I like the rest of the email.

[mostly-harmless]

I think the message is fine as it is. I would definitely not wait for HBR. First of all, it will take another 2 weeks for us to get it and we need to open contact with them now. 2nd, we prefer to trade them peaceful techs rather than military tech. They will appreciate that we are offering all we currently have.

I would modify the message to the effect, that we cancel the wine gift the moment they have their happy resource connected (don't remember what is was, silk?) and engage in a fair trade. Don't want to gift them wine for all eternity.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

I think the message is fine as it is. I would definitely not wait for HBR. First of all, it will take another 2 weeks for us to get it and we need to open contact with them now. 2nd, we prefer to trade them peaceful techs rather than military tech. They will appreciate that we are offering all we currently have.

Given we made the same tech trade offer nearly two weeks ago, why should they suddenly accept it now? Two peaceful techs for a reasonable military tech (forges, route to Machinery) is unlikely to look any better just for being repeated.

[Sullla]

I'm pretty happy with sunrise's draft as well. Would someone like to make a few touch-ups, run a quick 2.0 version past the group, and then send it off?

Swiss, I agree that Templars may very well blow us off. Then again, they might not too. Talk is cheap, and we don't lose anything by trying. (Anyone who is familiar with the game Diplomacy knows that you can sometimes work miracles by keeping the lines of communication open and talking constantly, over and over again, to everyone.)

My one suggestion would be adding specific mention that PAL and Imperio just swapped Civil Service/Currency. (As in, they traded these techs to each other, not just researched them separately.) Maybe Templars know this already, maybe they don't. It backs up our point, and might help push them towards us.

[Dreylin]

Well, split the difference, and tweak the final paragraph along the lines of:

Finally, we would like to reiterate our hopes for a Metal Casting trade. We can currently offer Aesthetics & Literature, but are in the process of researching towards HBR (to counter potential Imperio Elephants) and that will certainly be available to our allies. Making this trade would be a first step to closer tech coordination in the future that is in all of our best interest.

[sunrise089]

I tried to incorporate most of the recommendations. Changes in bold.

Diplomats of the Templar,

Team RB has observed that Templar diplomats have been busy with other missions in the past several weeks and unable to entertain our diplomatic envoys. We believe however, that ongoing international developments make cooperation between our fine civilizations more important than ever. We hope that you will consider the following information and graciously provide a response.

Recently, PAL and Imperio have been cooperating more closely than ever, and by leveraging their superior land they threaten to run away with the game. The combination of superior land, high-gold happiness resources, and key economic techs may soon create an insurmountable tech lead for any civilizations that lack consistent trading partners. While both Templars and Banana have made several prudent trades recently, we feel it's obvious that it will become more and more difficult for the other teams to research useful trading techs in the face of a Imperio/PAL trading bloc. Already PAL and Imperio have swapped to Civil Service and acquired Currency...in fact they traded those two techs between themselves.

Rather than sit idly by and loose the game, team RB believes that the three other teams who still possess developed empires (namely RB, Templars, and Banana) should work together towards all of our mutual well-being. As they say, if we do not hang together we shall surely hang separately. On the other hand, 3-way cooperation between RB, Templars, and Banana can keep us all in the game.

In spite of any past communication breakdowns, RB feels close cooperation with the Templars is only natural. RB has absolutely no plans to attack the Templars, and we seek a long-lasting NAP. Likewise our borders have been defined by natural settling patterns. It should be easy to agree not to intrude on each other's territory.

Most of all, we hope we can open a new round of dialogue with your civilization, and as soon as possible, with Banana as a third party as well. In the meantime however, we have 2 proposals that we hope will interest you. First, as a token of friendship, RB is prepared to gift Templars wines in a few turns. I'm certain the sacrament of Holy Wine will be most appreciated by your priests and religious leader. Then, when you have your own sources of happiness, we would be pleased to arrange a long-term trade for our wines and your resource. We can also arrange to trade you Marble, which may prove handy for various sacred buildings.

Finally, we would like to reiterate our hopes for a Metal Casting trade. We can currently offer Aesthetics & Literature, but are in the process of researching towards HBR (to counter potential Imperio Elephants) and that will certainly be available to our allies. Making this trade would be a first step to closer tech coordination in the future that is in all of our best interest.

Please consider our requests; we look forward to your responses.

-RB

[mostly-harmless]

Sounds good.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Hang on a sec...they live and we have a reply to my PM:

Hi Swiss,

I am deeply sorry, I wanted to contact you before, but many things got in between. I will now reply at the latest this evening, barring anything else.

Best,

Aidun

[Dreylin]

I suggest we send the new e-mail as well; after all, the one they are promising to reply to is several weeks old ... may as well let them have the current information before that also becomes old news!

[Swiss Pauli]

I wouldn't advise that: it only gives them the excuse to delay further.

[sunrise089]

Won't they have to delay even more though when they send us an obsolete response, we consider it, and then we send the above with some edits?

[Sullla]

Simple compromise solution: wait ~12 hours to see if they actually send something. If not, go ahead with the updated message. The logic is that we can respond to their message (with our new proposals) much faster than if we wait for their tortured, labored response yet again.

[regoarrarr]

email from templars

Dear members of team Realms Beyond,

We first want to apologise to have kept you waiting for so long. It
was not our intention, however, we encountered some rather hectic
situations that demanded all of our attention recently, and the
attention for your request has suffered a lot as a result. We wanted
to respond much sooner than this but each time something else came up
that required our direct attention. And one member after another drops
by with yet another opinion making it hard to reach a compromise.
However, the team is in agreement on a response to your proposals. One
by one I will state our position.

First we want to compliment you with building the Great Library.

Regarding the border: we have previously indicated that my team wants
to include the jungle area in the south to its territory. Although at
the present time we have little interest in developing this area, we
intend to settle there at some point. Therefore we accept your offer
of the first choice. We do not have a plan for the region yet, but we
are happy to inform you in advance when we plan to settle there.
However, don't expect this to be soon. As you stated, to our east it
is much better to settle, so indeed, our focus is there.

The NAP proposal has been received positively by the team. We welcome
the initiative. If only we could have reached this back in August,
what level of cooperation we could have reached by now! Would I have
had the opportunity, I would have told you sooner that my team
considers that since the turn of your request, 104, we formally have a
NAP. I hope that eases your feelings. However, many members were a bit
more hesistant than yours, it seems. This has to do with the delicate
balance in diplomacy that currently exists in this game and the fact
that my team does not want to side with one team against another. We
can't afford that at this moment given the dominance of some teams in
the game. Therefore some members argued for a 10 turn renewable NAP,
some for 20 turns and the more ambitious members for 30 turn NAP. For
a consensus we decided to go for a compromise and offer a 20 turn NAP
since the turn of your request. At the end of these 20 turns we can
easily extend then.

Regarding techtrading, we are happy to trade techs, however, the
techdeals already in place prohibit us from trading the specified deal
with your team. We are currently researching Theology, so perhaps we
can set up an exchange in the near future. We look forward to
exploring this further.

Regarding your workboat: Do we already have open borders? If not, we
should get it signed. I think we should generally refrain from
exploring each other's territory, but in this case, we are happy to
let your workboat go through our waters. As a general direction, I can
say that we met Banana in the east. We haven't spotted them, but they
spotted a workboat from us.

We look forward to extending the scope of cooperation in the future.

Best,

Aidun