Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[Swiss Pauli]

I've re-written a couple of paragraphs and added one about the MC situation:

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, resources like Gold and Gems, Civil Service, and the Currency may soon create an insurmountable tech lead.

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

One thing we need to understand from you is your motivation in agreeing to a ban on trading Metalcasting to us. By not exchanging techs between ourselves, the net beneficiary is clearly Imperio who is able to extend its lead yet further.

We still need to cover the WB, and their offer of Theology.

[ruff_hi]

maybe we reveal a little bit of introspection ...

"One thing that we would like to understand better is your motivation in agreeing to not trade us Metal Casting. Sure, this hurts us by making us research a tech that someone already has, but it also puts all other teams 1 step above us - benefiting them. Were we really that much of a threat 25 turns ago that you thought we needed to be brought back to the pack? If so, aren't Imperio with their huge commerce land driven lead an even bigger threat now?"

[Dreylin]

I got as far as this before the end of my lunch hour:

Diplomats of the Templar,

Firstly, many thanks for your long and comprehensive reply, it has given us much to contemplate and consider.

I think our first and foremost question regards your comment that: “we are happy to trade techs, however, the techdeals already in place prohibit us from trading the specified deal with your team”

Different members of our team are reading this in vastly different ways: the optimists are reading it as “we have deals in place for Aesth, Lit & HBR, so can’t trade you MC for them” and wondering which techs would elicit an acceptance. The pessimists are reading “we have agreed with another team that we will not trade MC to Team RB” and are very troubled by the implications.

Regarding the NAP; we are certainly pleased to hear that it is already in place, and are eager to knock out the details of renewal / expiry. Would Templars consider an auto-renewal clause – along the lines of: every 10t, the agreement resets to a 20t expiry unless official notification is received from either party. That would prevent us having to ratify a new NAP every couple of weeks, and also provides a 10t notice of expiry to both teams.

e.g. the current agreement is due to expire on t124, however if neither team notifies the other of a desire to cancel by t114, the agreement renews to t134. If notification is received on t113, the NAP would expire on t124 as agreed.

Regarding the border, I think we have reached agreement on this topic.

The key to my NAP proposal is that inaction indicates renewal, so they have to actively do something in order to cancel it.

Right, off to meetings!

[ruff_hi]

Nice. But this sentence ...

Different members of our team are reading this in vastly different ways: the optimists are reading it as “we have deals in place for Aesth, Lit & HBR, so can’t trade you MC for them” and wondering which techs would elicit an acceptance. The pessimists are reading “we have agreed with another team that we will not trade MC to Team RB” and are very troubled by the implications.

... needs a "Please clarify" or similar at the end.

[mostly-harmless]

Yep, looks good with Ruff's correction.

mh

[Zeviz]

I like the combination of Dreylin's NAP paragraph and Swiss'/Sunrise's earlier message about cooperation.

Maybe the trade paragraph of Swiss' message can be extended a little to ask about details. Here is a combination of the two drafts:

Dear Sir Aidun,

Firstly, many thanks for your long and comprehensive reply. It is good to see the growing cooperation between our people, especially in light of recent international developments.

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 against 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.

With that in mind, we are wondering if your refusal to trade for Metal Casting is due to lack of interest in techs we have to offer, or if Imperio made keeping Metal Casting out of our hands a requirement for their deals with you. A no-trade clause like this would hurt both of our teams, giving Imperio the only benefit, and is not something we would ever demand from our allies.

Regarding the NAP; we are certainly pleased to hear that it is already in place, and are eager to knock out the details of renewal / expiry. Would Templars consider an auto-renewal clause – along the lines of: every 10t, the agreement resets to a 20t expiry unless official notification is received from either party. That would prevent us having to ratify a new NAP every couple of weeks, and also provides a 10t notice of expiry to both teams.

e.g. the current agreement is due to expire on t124, however if neither team notifies the other of a desire to cancel by t114, the agreement renews to t134. If notification is received on t113, the NAP would expire on t124 as agreed.

[Swiss Pauli]

@Zeviz - rereading the original text again, Dreylin may be right about the MC trade, but I'm struggling to see it, seeing as Imperio don't have either tech (we only offered Aesthetics & Lit btw). Maybe it's to do with the trades with Banana? Why not ask them straight up which tech(s) they'd accept for MC (and not mention any other teams)?

You also took sunrise's original draft where 'high-gold' resources are mentioned (I'm sure he meant 'high commerce', but I think Gold and Gems is easier to understand) 'lose' is misspelt and 'all of' should be deleted from the 'our mutual' phrase.

I don't think we need to spell out the fact that we've been locked out of trade deals recently (which is why I deleted this part in my draft). We're about to get CS, but they don't know this, so I think it make us look a bit desperate ('please join our little club!'). We just want to stress the superior position of PAL and Imperio.

After all, we still don't know whether they plan to attack us along with Imperio, or even whether they're keeping an eye open for an opportunistic dog-pile. I'm sure they must have a NAP with Imperio, else they would be really worried right now.

[Dreylin]

The main thing that made me wonder if Templars already had a line on Aesthetics / Literature was that their MC trade with Imperio was 100+ beakers in favour of Imperio. I was wondering if Imperios had promised an additional tech - e.g. Aesthetics to equalise the deal. Since Imperio are refusing to trade with us, that leaves them having to research Aesth/Lit themselves, so obviously they would want to get some trade value out of it if they could.

It's clutching at straws though - as I read Templars response as saying they won't/can't trade MC to us. Even so, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt in poor wording and try and get them on our side. The risk of wrongly accusing them of participating in a trade embargo and causing a "diplomatic incident" (-1) makes it worth erring on the cautious side and asking for clarification.

[sooooo]

I like Zeviz's message and think we should send it. BTW there's a typo: "loose" should be "lose".

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we'd be better off approaching them on each topic separately, starting with the MC situation. If we go back with everything at once I think we risk sending them into another extended bout of navel gazing. I think we should approach in this order:

1. MC
2. NAP extension mechanism
3. Tech-club

The first email should also thank them politely for their positive response.

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we'd be better off approaching them on each topic separately, starting with the MC situation. If we go back with everything at once I think we risk sending them into another extended bout of navel gazing. I think we should approach in this order:

1. MC
2. NAP extension mechanism
3. Tech-club

The first email should also thank them politely for their positive response.

[Dreylin]

I'm not sure I really agree, I think we should just send the whole thing now and then if they spend forever getting back to us, nudge them on individual issues.

If we do go with separate e-mails, I would suggest that the NAP is the more immediately important issue.

[Swiss Pauli]

If we can get MC & Machinery, we'll have Maces and they can stuff their NAP, so I still think MC is the key issue here

[Sullla]

No, no, no - three separate emails only gives them more time to stall. The draft Zeviz came up with looked like a "version 0.8" to me: very close to a finished product. Let's do a new draft, correcting the things that have been pointed out, and set ourselves a deadline of having the email message out in the next 24 hours.

[Zeviz]

Unfortunately I don't have time to polish the draft, so could somebody work on it.

PS Another thing to consider is that if they leak idea of RB-Templar-Banana alliance to PAL, we'll have lots of explaining to do. Is that risk justified, or should we skip that part of our message?