Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[ruff_hi]

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

Sunrise - if you view your comments as requiring a cool-off, then that would push my first reaction to nuclear.

my comments would be something like this ...

• oh come on!
• you guys have played a horrible game - how many cities do you have ... 4? 5?
• There are at lease 2 city sites that you should be working on instead of sending obsolete units to attack us
• you were the ones that pillaged our road network - a network you said we could build
• when were we dishonest in our dealings with you? Go back and check the logs for the number of times that we requested a missionary from you - and you never ever even mentioned it in your replies
• did we double deal on a tech trade
• did we enter into a tech embargo against you

And I would be more than happy to share these observations with Aidun person to person.

[TAD]

Rather then recounting history, you guys should look at this from a constructive viewpoint. Is there anything to be gained by co-operation with them?

The letter to me at least sounds pretty genuine.

[sooooo]

That's amazing, 2 pages of writing without saying a single thing. All that drivel that we already knew, then asking us to come up with a proposal at the end?

The letter is surely a sign that they realise that they cannot get anything from this war. However, it cannot be the way that templars attack us, then realise that they cannot do anything, then ask us to come up with terms for peace.

The letter to me at least sounds pretty genuine.

I have a strange feeling that they do believe they are being genuine. They have convinced themselves of things that are simply untrue.

I don't really know how to reply. I'm not sure if we want a peace deal or not. Fighting a 2-front war is very annoying, but I don't see us able to make progress with Imperio if we were just fighting a 1-front war. The main thing we gain is our trade routes back. It will take a long time to get the units needed to take on a neighbour.

Possibly the best option is to somehow negotiate a peace deal for 20-30 turns, while we draft the hell out of our cities. It's dishonest, but this is the templars we're talking about and I would feel no guilt at all. Getting trade routes back for 20-30 turns would be excellent.

I don't think we'll be able to convince them to cancel their trade routes with PAL.

[mostly-harmless]

A lot of muck. Have they not mentioned negotiations about an NAP right before they attacked?
They are doing it again now, to gain some time for the Imperio army to reach Pink Dot.

Send a short message:
o close borders with Imperio
o cancel gold per turn deal with Imperio
o open borders with RB

But it will be a waste of time. No allying with the worst team in the game. I would not be surprised to see Rabbits passing them in score and strength soon.

mh

[sooooo]

Most of their letter is drivel at best, lies at worst. However, I think we could benefit from a peace deal and should make an attempt to do so. I think our letter should start with:

Dear Sir Aidun,

Good to see you back! Diplomacy with your team was rather difficult since you left, since our emails were unanswered. We hope all is well with your personal life, since we were concerned for you when you left abruptly.

You are correct that we do have our grievances against templars (that whole "declaring war on us" thing was a biggie!) and we note yours with us. However, we do not see it as constructive to discuss past events. We will say things that you disagree with, then argue further on the details and nothing will come of it. We will try to suggest a constructive plan for the future.

We will answer your question about our motivation. Quite simply, it is the same as yours: security. Our military build up was solely a response to Imperio, who made their intentions clear at an early stage by sabotaging our metal and building a lot of units. We never had any hostile plans towards the Templars and were happy to renew our NAP until you informed us that you did not want to do so.

Anyway, it seems that you want us to suggest a peace deal. It seems strange to invade our lands, retreat your units and then ask us to propose a deal, but we will get the ball rolling.

Our proposal is:

[MyOtherCar]

It seems to me they realized this is a war they can't win. I don't think they deserve peace or that we would gain anything from it (except getting back our trade routes). But most importantly, whatever the team decides, we shouldn't backstab them by talk of allying up and then still initiate operation Bloodbath.

Our only proposal should be: you can be our vassal.

[sooooo]

Here is a suggestion of the proposal

1 An immediate peace. We re-open borders and return to our 20 turn renewable NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.

We honestly do not know how we can convince you to "leave my team in no doubt that we should better end this war than continue it". In terms of a "gift" that you mentioned, we can figure out some kind of lopsided trade if you like - the techs we have that you don't (drama and engineering) for the tech that you have and we don't (theology). From our point of view we see this war (and our war with imperio) as a stalemate that gains nothing for any team but hurts us all. Whoever invades the other team will simply lose. That is probably the best movitation for us both. Ideally, we see the future as uniting against PAL. If we all close borders against PAL and negotiate a trade embargo, they will suffer. We can coordinate our research and trades to give us 3 vs 1 research power. This will have to be negotiated in the future after we sign an in-game peace deal. You will gain the ability to focus more on research and religion rather than having to build units to defend yourselves. You can even re-settle that stone spot on the south coast near the ruins of the barbarian city you razed a long time ago.

Clearly this text is mostly stalling until we can draft a large army. Also it's kinda lying. No I don't feel any guilt in that - templars have been extremely dishonest with us to-date.

Getting our trade routes back should not be underestimated - they are absolutely huge for us.

[mostly-harmless]

I also have no qualms in backstabbing them in 20 turns or later. This is realpolitik. Otherwise we will have to sign a game long alliance.

A couple of things I don't like about sooooo's proposal:
o no lopsided tech deals with them or tech gifts. They attacked us and had more casualties. Offering them more than white peace and OBs is making us appear weak and needy.
o Don't give them ideas about that southern spot. Don't mention it at all. Clearly any past understandings are no longer valid.
So I want us to send a settler there as soon as we have the NAP with them.

There is no point whatsoever in being overly nice to them.

mh

[sooooo]

no lopsided tech deals with them or tech gifts. They attacked us and had more casualties. Offering them more than white peace and OBs is making us appear weak and needy.

I called it lopsided in their direction but actually it is lopsided in our direction. Imperio have engineering and can gift it to templars whenever they like (as they did with feudalism). In reality they have this tech already whenever they ask for it from Imperio. So we would really be trading drama (go ahead and build theatres!) for theology, a tech that would help us for operation bloodbath.

Don't give them ideas about that southern spot. Don't mention it at all. Clearly any past understandings are no longer valid.

OK, fine by me.

[TAD]

I also have no qualms in backstabbing them in 20 turns or later. This is realpolitik. Otherwise we will have to sign a game long alliance.

Indeed, this is competitive multiplayer after all.

[darrelljs]

Offer them a 20 turn NAP .

Darrell

[ruff_hi]

I like sooooo's copy from above but I would like to tweak it a bit ...

Dear Sir Aidun,

Good to see you back! Diplomacy with your team was rather difficult since you left, since our emails were unanswered. We hope all is well with your personal life, since we were concerned for you when you left abruptly.

You are correct that we do have our grievances against Templars (agreeing to a tech trade knowing that you wouldn't honour it, declaring war, and others) and that you probably have a similar list (pink dot?). However, we do not see it as constructive to discuss past events. We will say things that you disagree with, you will say things that we disagree with, the 'discussion' will reduce to argument and nothing will come of it.

So, we will try to suggest a constructive plan for the future.

We will answer your question about our motivation. Quite simply, it is the same as yours: security. Our military build up was solely a response to Imperio, who made their intentions clear at an early stage by sabotaging our metal and building a lot of units. We never had any hostile plans towards the Templars and were happy to renew our NAP until you informed us that you did not want to do so (oops, see how easy it is to fall back into discussing past issues).

Anyway, it seems that you want us to suggest a peace deal. It seems strange to pillage roads you said we could build, to aggressively invade our lands, to find some steel instead of a soft underbelly and then to retreat your units and then ask us to propose a deal. Oh, sorry - more discussion of past events.

As you can see, our history cannot be so easily swept away and it will take time, effort and active dialog for our teams to start trusting each other.

Ok, let's see if we can get the ball rolling.

Our proposal is:

I'm trying to let some of the teams frustration with Templar through so that we have an avenue for our backstab. Or is that not worth it and the whole point of this is to get our international trade back so that Op BB can start sooner?

[ruff_hi]

I'm happy with any proposal the team wants to put together. Can we include ...

Your team must improve its Civ4 play. We will only partner with a team that can contribute and not be a drag.

[Sullla]

Hmm, I think I prefer sooooo's wording for the introductory message. Ruff, your message is a little snarky, and while it had me laughing, it's probably not the right tone to take. Now, as for the proposal itself:

1 An immediate peace. We re-open borders and return to our 20 turn renewable NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

Let's change the "renewable NAP" to simply a 20 turn NAP. That way, we don't have to break our word when we backstab Templars in the near future. And we can say that we stuck to the letter of the agreements that we signed, if clearly not the spirit of them.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.

Agreed, and a nice touch to drive a wedge between Templars and Imperio. We have a legit military reason for doing so, and it will really make Imperio angry.

We honestly do not know how we can convince you to "leave my team in no doubt that we should better end this war than continue it". In terms of a "gift" that you mentioned, we can figure out some kind of lopsided trade if you like - the techs we have that you don't (drama and engineering) for the tech that you have and we don't (theology).

I think this should stay in the message too, for the reason sooooo mentioned above. It sounds like a generous concession, but it really isn't one at all. Plus, we really can use Theology tech, and we're pretty much the only team that doesn't have it right now; no one else is going to trade it to us, and we don't want to research it ourselves.

From our point of view we see this war (and our war with imperio) as a stalemate that gains nothing for any team but hurts us all. Whoever invades the other team will simply lose. That is probably the best movitation for us both. Ideally, we see the future as uniting against PAL. If we all close borders against PAL and negotiate a trade embargo, they will suffer. We can coordinate our research and trades to give us 3 vs 1 research power. This will have to be negotiated in the future after we sign an in-game peace deal. You will gain the ability to focus more on research and religion rather than having to build units to defend yourselves. You can even re-settle that stone spot on the south coast near the ruins of the barbarian city you razed a long time ago.

But we should take out the last line about settling on the south coast. Don't want to give Templars any ideas there. Hopefully they'll sit around building theatres over the next 20 turns and then we can wipe 'em out.

A general comment: having committed themselves to this war, Templars absolutely should not be signing peace with us right now. But in their typical vacillating, purpose-less play, I think there's a good chance that they will do so. They honestly seem to have thought that their pathetic, decrepit stack of units was going to capture Pink Dot! Anyway, let's work on getting a final draft so we can send it off to them. Getting a temporary peace with Templars would really help us out - we might even have a chance to capture Chichen Itza if we played our cards right.

[ruff_hi]

Hmm, I think I prefer sooooo's wording for the introductory message. Ruff, your message is a little snarky, and while it had me laughing, it's probably not the right tone to take.

Right - as I said, I was trying to let some of our frustration with Templars through. Anyway, suggested draft ...

Dear Sir Aidun,

Good to see you back! Diplomacy with your team was rather difficult since you left, since our emails were unanswered. We hope all is well with your personal life, since we were concerned for you when you left abruptly.

You are correct that we do have our grievances against Templars (that whole "declaring war on us" thing was a biggie!) and we note yours with us. However, we do not see it as constructive to discuss past events. We will say things that you disagree with, then argue further on the details and nothing will come of it.

As such, we will try to suggest a constructive plan for the future.

We will answer your question about our motivation. Quite simply, it is the same as yours: security. Our military build up was solely a response to Imperio, who made their intentions clear at an early stage by sabotaging our metal and building a lot of units. We never had any hostile plans towards the Templars and were happy to renew our NAP until you informed us that you did not want to do so.

We honestly do not know how we can convince you to "leave my team in no doubt that we should better end this war than continue it". As you say, PAL is running away with this game and our continent needs to settle its differences if it wants to change that outcome.

In terms of a "gift" that you mentioned, we can figure out some kind of lopsided trade if you like - the techs we have that you don't (drama and engineering) for the tech that you have and we don't (theology) - naturally, dependent upon an in-game peace deal between our two teams.

From our point of view we see this war (and our war with imperio) as a stalemate that gains nothing for any team but hurts us all. Whoever invades the other team will simply lose. That is probably the best movitation for us both. Ideally, we see the future as uniting against PAL. If we all close borders against PAL and negotiate a trade embargo, they will suffer. We can coordinate our research and trades to give us 3 vs 1 research power. This will have to be negotiated in the future after we sign an continent-wide in-game peace deal. You will gain the ability to focus more on research and religion rather than having to build units to defend yourselves.

Anyway, it seems that you want us to suggest a peace deal. It seems strange to invade our lands, retreat your units and then ask us to propose a deal, but we will get the ball rolling.

Our proposal is:

1. An immediate peace. We re-open borders and sign a 20 turn NAP.

2. You do not pillage the roads in neutral territory.

3. We have attempted to talk to Imperio about peace. They have continued to state that they will not sign peace with us unless we give them our city of Cape Town. Clearly we will not do this. If we cannot agree peace with Imperio, then we cannot have them using your lands to attack us from. Thus while we are still at war with Imperio we must insist that you close borders with them. If you wish to broker a peace between our nations then take your best shot at it. However we will not be giving them Cape Town. Maybe they would be more willing to sign peace if our civilisations sign a peace treaty first.