Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[mostly-harmless]

Hmmm, definitely asking whether Herc is the last Templar standing.
Also I can't remember any similar consideration, when Banana was without a player for several turns.

And the civstat uploader timed out again as well.

Annoying. I thought we could play the next turn today.

mh

[sooooo]

He must be the last player. Meh - nevermind, pause for 24 hrs. I'd rather keep him sweet and still playing than have him quit in a huff.

[Sullla]

Objecting to this publicly is likely bad form, and probably should be avoided. However... Krill, if you're reading this, we don't believe that the game should be paused just because a single team member on another team is unavailable. As sunrise said, we've had to jump through serious hoops at times when turnplayers were traveling or unavailable, and we've never requested a pause for those situations. It doesn't seem fair for other teams to be able to stop the game on a dime when they are temporarily inconvenienced.

If Templars or Imperio are down to a single player, that's their own fault, and we don't need to make special rules just to help them out.

[Zeviz]

Especially considering that neither Banana nor Rabbits got a pause when turnplayers were unavailable. (Rabbits even got temporarily replaced by AI.)

[ruff_hi]

does anyone think that the current 'pile on TRB' is caused by the number of people who are active on our team - just check civstats and you see how many different TRB people are logging into the game.

[Dreylin]

does anyone think that the current 'pile on TRB' is caused by the number of people who are active on our team - just check civstats and you see how many different TRB people are logging into the game.

It's quite possible that we have more active players than the other teams put together!

BTW, I wouldn't expect anything from Krill today; he's busy celebrating his Birthday....

[sunrise089]

Happy Birthday Krill!

As for the idea people dislike how many of us there are....I think that is unlikely. I do think however that we should push any new prospects to considering joining a less populated team. I mean, we're all great (I know I am ), but new players would have a lot more impact on some other teams. Plus, the quality of the game would improve. I know I wouldn't do very well as the only RB player.

[Dreylin]

Herc just posted again that he's away. I think we should be friendly and pause the game once our turn is complete.

[sooooo]

I was feeling mischievous and sent this email:

Dear Templars,

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

How's it going? We noticed some of your units climb our hill ... and then leave again. What's up with that? Were they just on a mission to collect the bodies of their (sadly deceased) mounted brethren? If that's what you were worried about we could simply have had them shipped back to you to give them a good christian burial. We're not barbarians over here!

Realms Beyond

[ruff_hi]

too funny - I was actually thinking ... brave brave sir robyn!

[TAD]

You gotta love psychological warfare.

[ruff_hi]

PMs from our old friend ... Aidun

Hi Ruff,

In response to your letter of 28/29 April, Hercules has asked me to initiate some informal 'backtrack' talks with your team. The team was not opposed to your latest proposal, but some unclarities remain. Please take your time to read this, I hope you don't mind, since I have a lot to say. This is part 1 of 2.

I do not have an official mandate to make binding statements and whatever we would discuss is not official or binding, but the idea is that by talking freely about our concerns here could possibly bring about a solution which we both prefer over the current one of war. This solution we could recommend to Imperio.

I have long argued within my team to engage in more open talks with your team, because my impression is that there is unnecessary misunderstanding and distrust, which has brought us to this situation of war. I hope that through this way, you can make me help understand the concerns of your team a bit more and I can do the same for my team.

For my part, I can say that we share your concerns about PAL. Right now they are running away with the game. However, we have found it difficult in this game to find allies. PAL has been friendly and helpful to my team and what you ask is that we pay back that friendship with a slap in the face. My team cannot afford to alienate friendly teams, especially not when we are at war with the secondmost powerful team in the game.

My team has been in search for security for a very long time. Warily we watched the expansion from your team and your military buildup. We know from previous experiences that in DGs, one has to find a team to join forces with. For a very long time, for us, that team was your team. In our forums we talked about a 'natural alliance'. Yet, we seem to have talked two different languages. When we reached out, we felt nothing came in return and when you reached out, my team saw it as an opportunistic action, leading to a response like: "Apparently it suits them now to team up with us, but when we asked them it was too much for them - how can we trust that they don't turn their backs on us when the weather changes again?"

Eventually we found another partner in Imperio one or two months before your team suggested to us to form a three-team alliance with your team and Banana. The response was: "Nice, but a couple of months too late." And once again: "Why didn't they agree when we proposed it back in August/September 2008?"

All my team's actions have been motivated by a search for security and indeed this war is mainly aimed at achieving security by attacking a team that we started to view as a threat to our security.

However, if we let our minds think freely, and I have encouraged my team members to do so, we could see that our team's security can be achieved peacefully as well if the threat were to cease to be a threat through peaceful means.

I have always hoped that we could establish a three-team alliance and I was disappointed to see our continent go down the road of beggar-thy-neighbor politics.

With PAL going full-speed ahead, we have to formulate an effective strategy of competition. I cannot see how that would work without extensive cooperation and coordination between the three teams of our continent. As such, my view is that if you are truly concerned about PAL, you must agree with me that cooperation is the only way.

We cannot proceed, however, as things stand now. My team is facing a hugely strong neighbor, who has the capability to eliminate us if we were on our own. As such, we need to have a satisfying answer to this question: suppose that we were to ally, how can we be sure that our neighbor does not turn on us and wipes us off the map in the blink of a second once our common threat/challenge is eliminated?

[end of part 1]

Part 2 of 2

If you want to prevent PAL from running away with the game while we are bogged down in war, think about that last question in particular. If you want us to become your partners, you have to win our hearts and minds and take away our security concerns.

Unlike Imperio, I don't want to ask concessions from your team, I want your team to understand my team's situation so that you can come up with a solution yourselves. I hope you appreciate that more than arrogant demands. Perhaps you wish to offer us something, I leave that to you. However, make sure that your answer is convincing and leaves my team do doubt that we should better end this war than continue it.

I hope you are willing to explain your team's concerns to me. Make me understand what drives you. Perhaps you also have security concerns. I know that you did not appreciate all of my team's actions. I'm sure you have a certain idea about my team. It's possibly not positive, but that's no problem. Please tell me and please be honest in that. No comment can offend me, because I regard any critique from you as a learning experience. The fact that we are at war means we have both failed in a certain way and hopefully next time we can avoid that mistake.

I hope this informal talking can help us bring greater understanding and perhaps peace.

Best,

Aidun

[ruff_hi]

I am not sure if these are private messages to me or a way of talking unofficially with Team RB - I have asked for clarification on this front.

If they are poly member talking to poly member about a game that is being played ... how does team RB feel about me speaking to them? I would be quite happy to share our team's view of Templar with Aidun and discuss the history that brought them to war with us. I will make no mention of Bloodbath.

Comments / Direction?

[sunrise089]

I don't think there are private messages (certainly I would hope no RB player would send such a message without team agreement). Rather I think they view this as an option to send out peace feelers without having to propose anything themselves ("Well I can't offer terms RB because I'm merely the messenger. Now if you want to send an offer to Templars I'm happy to deliver it...")

I'd prefer we draft a formal response, preferably after I've had a chance to cool off from their insanity.

Quick reactions:

1) The reason Templars are better off if the war ends than if it continues is because they won't keep loosing all of their units to us. If they think the war is going well they might want to examine the combat logs and see which of us has units in the enemy's land.

2) We offered to be at least as helpful as PAL. We never turned down Templar offers to trade techs or resources, did we? And surely the PAL crew of MP guys wasn't charming Templars with their flowery language.

3) The criticism of us as two-faced is baseless. Sure we may have taken our time to come to diplomatic consensus, but our actions were always consistent and honest. Very unlike Templars who talked cooperation while double-moving a settler and reneging on a trade deal.

4) The idea that our military buildup caused the war is about as sound as the German claim that Polish incursions into the reich caused WWII. We built up our army once Imperio cut off communications and went all military in their cities. Then our roads were pillaged and we were declared on by both powers before we placed a single unit in enemy lands.

5) There was no reason Templars couldn't agree to a 3-way alliance all the way up to the turn their units entered our borders. But by refusing the back down they made the prospects of diplomatic cooperation much more difficult.

6) Templars have no hope of stopping PAL without an alliance at this point. RB DOES have another option. We can kill Templars and leverage that into a better position to fight PAL. We don't have to say that but before Templars ask us for concessions they should at least keep that in mind.

7) We'd be happy to sign an in-game peace agreement with no reparations required. All we ask is for Templars to close borders with PAL, close borders with Imperio for as long as they're at war with us, and agree to and stick with a tech trading agreement for at least one round of techs with a no-Imperio clause.

8) If they can't agree to such a gracious peace offering then they should listen to our original request and close borders with PAL anyways.

[Kodii]

So... when can we attack?

I don't buy his explanation regarding the falling out of our relationship with his team. As heart-wrenching as this letter is, the Templars have played the worst game. I really wish this letter was coming from Imperio, because we could actually make a difference by teaming up with them. I don't think we would gain anything by teaming up with the Templars now.