Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[sunrise089]

I vote for Sullla's message with the Italy reference.

[mostly-harmless]

I don't mind what you send. It's a waste of keystrokes.

Once we nicked Jericho, I hope we can talk more straight.

mh

[regoarrarr]

Letter received from Aidun through our mail account

Hi Ruff,

I hope my last letter by PM did arrive. In any case, while I would
love to take the time for these peace negotiations, other players in
the game have come knocking on our door as well.

This time PAL is seeking to court my team. We both know that it is in
PAL's interest to do so, in order to keep your team at a distance
through the war.

But like the leader of a random small country in the real world
doesn't generally turn down an offer from the President of the United
States of America, so my team finds it hard to say 'No' to a friendly
PAL, when the Templars as an individual team can benefit from it. In
fact in this time of war, the team can use any help that is being
offered.

Still, the attitude in the team is that they want to give peace a
chance if not quite for free, as I explained before, but then we
should make haste with peace deals, because we can't first say 'Yes'
to PAL and a day later turn our back on PAL. Your first proposal,
which you sent by e-mail last week was not deemed sufficient.

That said, a mistaken post by Zeviz on our wall, which Hercules
informed me about, but which I haven't been able to read, about an
all-island alliance was well-received.

I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to see what I can
get, but other members are more of a mind 'grab whatever help we can
get' and given the war situation that seems quite understandable.

The Templars are unsure which way to go, which side to choose, and as
much as I have expressed my faith in our negotations, I stand
currently rather empty-handed and with little more than messages of
good intentions from RB to convince my team. I give this hint to you
that they might need some persuasion from your team, a response to
this move from PAL. A bold move perhaps. That is a difficult situation
for you, which even real world foreign-policy makers like in the State
Department would have difficulty with, but try to make a decision om
that shortly.

Best, Aidun.

[ruff_hi]

anyone?

I feel like just writing back ...

"Listen Dipstick - it wasn't us that started this war ... it was your war of aggression. How do you want to say 'sorry' for your silly mistake. It is getting to the stage that Team RB's definition of WIN is 'kill Templar' so you better hurry up and make a peace offer."

[sunrise089]

What the f?

Their entire argument is that they have to war against us to hold the leaders down. And then they go and consider allying with the FIRST PLACE TEAM?!?!

[regoarrarr]

Could this be a bluff? What would PAL want from them? Even as a vassal, they would be much more useful to US than PAL, right?

[Dreylin]

What would PAL want ... to leverage the weakest team to keep us confused, unfocused and to fight a proxy war by supplying them with arms & armament.

I think that a short note directly to the Templars saying something along the lines of:

Templars,

Aidun talks a good game, but as yet has failed to address the fact that you declared war on us. The gist of the messages we have received is that TeamRB is now somehow responsible for making reparations in order to secure peace, while the majority of our team thinks that the weaker aggressor should be the one making concessions.

We are interested by your comments regarding PAL; having previously stated that you are looking to play kingmaker it's hardly surprising that you'd latch onto the biggest fish in the pond, however playing lackey to the heir to the throne is hardly the same as taking up the sword to fight a larger oppressor. We still hope to convince you that siding with us against PAL is the way forward, however while your team fails to acknowledge culpability in our current situation the majority of our team will remain unconvinced of the need to treat favourably with you.

A simple "Sorry" would be a good start.

TeamRB

[ruff_hi]

I have no idea but I will throw this out ...

Sir Aidun,

You have written us 3 very lengthy letters saying very close to nothing. In the first, you asked us to share some of our grievances with your team (an offer we have refused - personally, I would like to list them but my team tells me that this is just a waste of time and all dialog between us will degenerate into 'she said / he said'). In the second, you tried to paint yourself as 'strong' because you are holding us in war and letting PAL run away with the game (thus you are making us lose). In the last, you say you have been approached by PAL with an attractive offer.

In all three, you have said you wanted stop a war that you started (yes - you started this war ... were you aware of that?), you wanted peace but failed to even suggest what might be a suitable peace deal. You did provide hints about a continent wide alliance.

You also mentioned that our initial offer was unacceptable - I've gone back to my messages and I cannot find any offer to Templars so I am at a loss to what you find unacceptable (I could be overlooking this - can you refresh my memory?).

Our view is that Templar's want to be King Makers ... to appoint one team 'King' and either explicitly help that team win, or implicitly help that team win but holding all of the other teams down. This is what you have outlined in the past. Now your team might say this isn't true - however, this is exactly what you are doing at the moment - anointing PAL as the chosen one and holding all other teams that can challenge them down.

You have asked us to make you an peace offer and we have asked you what would be acceptable ... obviously, we are getting nowhere and all the time Jericho is under threat (as you have noted).

Here is the start of an offer that we can discuss (note that the order of items is important!). Please take this to your team and discuss it with them. Let us know which items are unacceptable to you and which items are acceptable. Add to it, make this a living discussion rather than a child's 'guess what I have in my hand' game. You have the right to flatly reject the lot, but I would council against such an action due to its consequences.

1. Templar' asks for the war they started to stop
2. Team RB accepts the request and pulls all units back to its territory
3. Templar accepts Open Borders with Team RB
4. Templar removes troops from Team RBs border
5. Team RB removes troops from Templar's border
6. Templar approach Imperio seeking a peace deal on Team RB's behalf
7. Templar and Team RB sign a NAP, 50 turn duration (renewal options open for discussion)
8. Upon Imperio and Team RB signing a NAP, Team RB will cede all cities south of Pink Dot to Templar
9. Templar agrees to found a city SW of Jeruselum (in the jungle) and agrees to actively grow said city
10. Templar agrees to pay Team RB 100g per turn
11. Team RB agrees to gift all technologies to Templars that it can
12. Team RB agrees to assist Templar in its foreign trade dealings with other teams (excluding PAL)

Are their any items that you would like to see added to this list? Religion adoption / spread? Gift of units? Map trading? Other?

Regards,

Team RB

[mostly-harmless]

Told you. Waste of time.
PAL gifted Music to Templars. Big help that is for them to hold Jericho. They can listen to the Prodigy while we storm the walls.

mh

[TAD]

Does Aidun seriously think that they get a big goodie like a city as a start of an all penninsular partnership? I think his unclear logic is that we give up a city to the Templars to equalize things and then they co-operate.

I agree with mh by now.

Let us storm Jericho, then we have a nice gift for them. And if not continue to advance.

I am by no leaning towards continuing..

[Swiss Pauli]

You seemed to have missed the point that all Templars have left is talk, so whatever we reply with there will an 'Aidun Epic' coming right back at us, and it's better for us to look pragmatic rather than closed-minded. I'm not for a second suggesting we should hand over a city, but I'm surprised at your lack of empathy for Templars: as T-Hawk rightly says, the only role they have left to (try to) play is that of kingmaker. So we need engage with them to some degree, rather than simply butt heads. After all this stalemate war is nothing if not a continuation of politics by other means.

It's bad form to quote oneself, but this is panning out as I expected, and is why I still think we should send Aidun away to work on a Continental Alliance: there's no way Templars will accept any bilateral deal we propose them, nor will we bow to his barely-veiled threats/bluffs (delete as applicable). We can always make a second attempt to 'turn' Imperio once we take/raze Jericho, if we don't get anything interesting from Aidun.

Regardless of whether the team thinks my approach is worth trying, we should reply that his mooted 'alliance' with PAL will exist only as long as it suits them: if Team RB looks like it's struggling in the war, we know that PAL will rally to our cause because PAL's interests are served best by maintaining a stalemate in this conflict.

[sooooo]

Zeviz: Which part of your post did you put in the main forum? Was this line included:

Since we aren't actually going to give them any consessions, these are the only courses of action I see. (Unless we are hoping for a continent-wide alliance, which will not work anyway.)

[sooooo]

Perhaps we raze Jericho, then send a note to Imperio that the other templar cities will follow soon and ask if they want a share of the incan lands. Presumably they don't want to let us get all of their cities.

[sooooo]

I still think we should send an email to templars, stating that we won't give away a city but everything else is up for discussion and asking for a counteroffer. Here an editted version of my original post, minus references to Italy or principles.

Sir Aidun,

You didn't spell it out exactly, but we think we have worked out what templars are after: Cape Town. We will not give this or any other city up to either you or Imperio. This is a firm statement. Other concessions are on the table, such as resources, cooperation agreements and techs, but you cannot have any of our cities. We will listen to any offers (honestly we will) as long as they do not involve giving cities away. The offer we made was deemed to not be sufficient by you. That is fine, but we cannot proceed without knowing exactly how it is deficient. We need some work on your part here to make a deal happen. You need to make us an counteroffer.

Realms Beyond

[ruff_hi]

lets send sooooo's post with the addition of getting them to work on an 3-way alliance ... anything to try and get rid of Aidun.