Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[regoarrarr]

So they want to NOT continue the NAP? That doesn't sound good...

[Dreylin]

Well they probably want to keep their options open to take best advantage of our upcoming Imperio war....

[sooooo]

I think the templars are pretty scared of us. With our economy now booming, our large area of land and the only team on the continent not playing like a schizo, we seem more dangerous than Imperio.

[Dreylin]

Well we are, aren't we?

[sunrise089]

Yes, so why not want a non-aggression pact with us? I agree that they want to keep their options open. If Imperio smashes us Templars could grab a few cities.

[mostly-harmless]

Of course they are scared. And they think Imperio will come out victorious from the RB-IMperio conflict. That's were they are wrong, though.
I am almost tempted to ignore them from now on.

Just to clarify with the team:
We only have a NAP with them to T124 (! not T134), correct?
That will give Pink Dot 6 turns to build up some military to scare them.

mh

[Sullla]

Wait, so let me get this straight: they send no response for three weeks, then do nothing but tell us that they don't want to extend our NAP agreement? Uhh, what is this team doing?

As much as we would like to smash Templars for their slow diplomacy, poor play, and continued irritating actions, we HAVE to at least remain neutral with this team for the time being. We can fight off Imperio or Templars alone. I don't think we would do well against both. Also keep in mind, if both teams were to cancel Open Borders, we would lose all of our trade routes - all of them - and our resource deals with PAL and Banana. Yes, this is one of the side effects of the atrocious map design, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Honestly, I think the best course is to continue cozying up to Templars... for the moment. (Provided we survive the current situation, we absolutely can and will go ape-wild on them later.) If we have to send them a dozen emails, so be it. Offer them the moon, just keep them at least neutral for the time being.

[sooooo]

Perhaps it is worth pm-ing Hercules, saying we understand he is the new diplomacy guy and that we'd like some answers to our recent emails.

[mostly-harmless]

Yep, go ahead.

mh

[Sullla]

Do we want to send another new email to Templars? If so, here are some talking points:

- We are very disappointed that the team has rejected our offer for an extention of our NAP. We would like to avoid a destructive military buildup along our borders, but how is this possible if Templars keep turning down all of our offers? Templar emails always state that they want peace, yet our offers keep getting turned down. Why?

- Reiterate that we would like to work together to share technologies, and cannot understand the purpose of holding back techs that are widely available to all other teams.

- Reiterate that we would like to initiate resource trades as a preliminary to a closer working agreement.

- Yet again, we should mention that RB has no desire for war with Templars (at least for the moment, heh). As proof of this:

+ We have offered an extention of our NAP.
+ We have offered to trade Templars valuable military technologies, and made trade offers that are strongly in their favor by beaker cost.
+ We have offered them vital happiness resources to them, at no cost, only in the hopes of an even exchange in the future.
+ We have strictly adhered to our no-scouting Open Boders agreement.
+ We have made no move to settle beyond the borders agreed upon in our earlier email exchange, despite having the ability to do so.

As a team, we simply cannot understand the cold shoulder that we continue to get from team Templars. It is our fervent hope that we can form a mutually beneficial partnership along with Banana, allowing our three teams to band together for safety and teching purposes. We don't believe hostility between RB and Templars benefits anyone except PAL and Imperio, and why would anyone want to see the score/GNP leaders getting further ahead?!

(Or something like that. Of course, we could also agree not to send another message at all, but I've always believed that more talking is better than saying nothing. )

[regoarrarr]

Yes - I agree we should continue to send things to them, and something along the lines of what sullla lays out sounds good.

I also agree that we should PM Hercules or whoever the new foreign minister is

[mostly-harmless]

A couple of things:

Templars demanded Currency from Imperio and got it. This must be a downpayment for a future deal (as Imperio had Currency for quite a while now) or just diplo extortion.

I am happy with Sulllas statement, but do we still want to offer them HBR if we do not have a NAP? I guess we might as well do it, otherwise they will get it from Imperio.

Also do we want to keep our side of the bargain and refrain from settling the south of Jerusalem? Since we are going for a Settler in SF, we might as well keep distances short and settle on that southern coast. That might get us a response.

mh

[regoarrarr]

I would lean against settling in the south as well as doing anything that might provoke them. Like sullla said we really need them neutral.

[Sullla]

Settling in the south would not be wise, unless we want to write off Templars as a permanent enemy. We really have no choice to placate them right now, as trying to face both teams on our continent at once would be a recipe for disaster.

We also have plenty of room for more cities in the north, although it's unfortunate that it will take a couple turns to walk the settler up there.

So does someone want to try and draw up a first draft? I'm decent at coming up with lists of talking points, not so good at actual diplomacy.

[mostly-harmless]

We might be able to cut out the roleplaying stuff, now that their diplo corps has changed. It will also speed up our consensus, hopefully.

mh