Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[ruff_hi]

Draft reply.

Sir Aidun,

Thank you for your recent message. We note your comments about possibly overcoming future 'surprises' by early communication and whole heartily agree. We will strive to keep be as open and as above board with you as we can. Naturally, our sovereign concerns might over-ride this as you have acknowledged in your last message.

In that light, I would like to inform you that we are currently working to connect our capital to our first city and you may notice some worker action to that extent.

Now, regarding the meat of your communication ... you discussed our offer of a Non-Aggression Pact and suggested combining a border agreement with it. You mention 'evenly dividing the land'. You also mentioned your lack of land knowledge; two locations in particular: land West of us (we assume you meant our Capital) and land South-East of us.

Our comments:

Firstly: what do you mean by 'evenly'? Are you including the Impala in your equations or do you consider them a non-issue?

Secondly: Are you talking about a map trade or is a (general) description of the land sufficient.

Thirdly: Directly to our South-East is your capital. Surely you know the land surrounding your capital better than us?

We would consider filling in your lack of map knowledge - maybe you could share your map knowledge and then it would be clearer to us what you are missing.

Cheers ....

[Zeviz]

What happened to the idea of telling them that all of their strategic resources are located in Imperio's direction?

Look at it this way: They can see horses and will likely settle next to them anyway. Any city next to their horses will also get copper in its radius. So they'll settle next to Copper whether we tell them about it or not.

Benefits of telling them about location of resources:
- We look friendly.
- We look strong. (We aren't afraid of pointing out their resources to them.)
- We direct their attention away from us.

Disadvantages:
- They are even more likely to settle next to their copper, which they'd probably settle next to anyway.

So with that in mind, I would prefer to use the text I've included before, instead of the currently proposed non-committal version. Here is my suggestion again: "We were surprised by your interest in the south-western part of the continent, considering that the area to the east of your capital contains just as much grassland, hills, and food, and almost no annoying jungle. And your strategic resources are located to the north-east of your capital. In fact, the only sources of Copper and Horses we've seen in the eastern half of the continent are located to your north-east. While Imperio might have one military resource in the area south of their capital we haven't seen yet, they have nothing to their west and immediate north, so they might be interested in the resources located closer to you."

[mostly-harmless]

I am against mentioning the copper location.
Templars might not have prioritized Bronze Working, but the knowledge of a guaranteed copper source for their second city will have them research it straight away. We know they have a worker ready to connect it up. So we are most likely facing a scenario, in which Templars have access to copper and horses before we have knowledge of iron.
We just cannot neglect the construction of warriors & archers in our capital on the on side and give our closest neighbor (who also mentioned military action against us already) all the tools for superior units.

@ Ruff: The Spanish team is called Imperio not Impala. Lets have this right at least for the official communication.

mh

[Zeviz]

Can we get more votes on whether to tell them about Copper location?

And I wouldn't tell them about our worker actions either way, because that just gives them a better warning for ambushing our workers, without giving the same diplomatic benefits we'd get from revealing map information.

[darrelljs]

I would not disclose the location of Copper.

Darrell

[ruff_hi]

ok - I'm going to send the draft as is. No mention of copper or stuff like that. I want to keep the dialog moving. I'll edit the name of the other team. I thought calling them Impala was funny ... oh well.

[mostly-harmless]

Calling them Impala was .... well ... funny.
But not for official communication.

mh

[Zeviz]

You can send it as is, since it looks like we don't want to mention copper. (And I still suggest removing mention of our worker actions.)

[sunrise089]

I also vote no copper mention.

I like the Impala thing too.

[ruff_hi]

email from Templar ...

Dear Ruff,

I'm happy to hear from you. A few things in RL kept me from getting back to you. I will try to write a complete reply to you tomorrow. I think a general description of the land will do, but I'll see if our turn player has a map for you. Thanks for the info.

Best,

Sir Aidun
Foreign Affairs Minister of the Knights Templar

[ruff_hi]

I'm expecting an email from Templars shortly. I'll mention their units near our borders when I send my 'got your email - we are discussing' reply.

[Sullla]

OK, although I logged into the game again this morning, and they have started moving their quechuas into somewhat less threatening positions. Two of them are definitely still close though.

[Zeviz]

Note: We are the ones who offered the NAP, and Templars refused. (Or, rather, they said "let's discuss borders first.) So I'd be very careful making further demands from them. There is only so much bluffing we can do with a high soldier score, and it'll be over 30 turns until we are aware of location of a military resource..

[sooooo]

Originally posted by Zeviz
Note: We are the ones who offered the NAP, and Templars refused. (Or, rather, they said "let's discuss borders first.) So I'd be very careful making further demands from them. There is only so much bluffing we can do with a high soldier score, and it'll be over 30 turns until we are aware of location of a military resource..

Blimey, this is a rather Hawkish interpretation of their got-it email. They did not refuse. They said they would discuss it with their team. They did not say let's discuss borders first, that comment was an answer to ruff's question of description vs screenshot.

I think you guys are getting carried away / paranoid. Let's cool down and read what the templars are actually saying. I can see us two getting along just fine for a long while.

[ruff_hi]

Obviously, with regards to the Templars, we need to apply the 1% doctrine ... that is, if there is a 1% chance that they have weapons of mass destruction, we need to act as if it is a certainty that they have those weapons.

[/joke]