Public Diplomacy Thread

[mostly-harmless]

I am fine with posting the above message.

I am surprised that noone mentioned that the whole treaty was not acceptable in the first place, with us fighting down Templars and then handing over our gains to Imperio.

mh

[Zeviz]

Swiss, we should do the opposite of what you are suggesting. To the other teams, we have to prove that we are trustworthy. That is why we are carefully going through the treaty, showing how Imperio violated it first. Naldo, on the other hand, will hate us regardless of what we tell him.

Besides, I do not see this as a backstab. If Imperio hadn't violated the treaty first, I would have voted against this operation, and I think so would plenty of others here. In personal games, I never break treaties, and I wouldn't have supported it here if the deal wasn't violated by the other side first. This is why my original draft didn't say anything about Imperio's attack on us: that attack came when we didn't have a NAP in place, and as such can't be used as justification for our actions.

[LiPing]

How about taking the middle ground between the two, removing points 3,4 and 5, and just leaving 1 and 2? It covers the main issue, that the agreement was already violated from Imperio's side, and imo, if the intent is to make the team look trustworthy, I feel that the last three points achieve the opposite, it comes off to me as sounding like "We didn't like what they did previously, so it's okay to break our agreement with them."

[MyOtherCar]

I like Zeviz's message with one small change:

Because Imperio ignored their responsibilities from our most recent agreement, we must now consider that agreement broken -- by them, not us -- and therefore void.

remove the word 'now', it suggests we didn't deem it broken before

[Zeviz]

We have 7 in favor of this message and 2 against, but some people might not have seen it yet, so I'll leave discussion open for now. If somebody wants to write to Naldo, that might be good to do before we post this anyway.

Somebody can post the latest draft to public thread in a couple hours if no further objections come up.

How about taking the middle ground between the two, removing points 3,4 and 5, and just leaving 1 and 2? It covers the main issue, that the agreement was already violated from Imperio's side, and imo, if the intent is to make the team look trustworthy, I feel that the last three points achieve the opposite, it comes off to me as sounding like "We didn't like what they did previously, so it's okay to break our agreement with them."

Points 3, and 4 present the justification for war, while point 5 is there just to give us extra sympathy. (If Imperio just betrayed their own allies, people will be more likely to cheer on anybody attacking them.) Perhaps the line about "we consider agreement broken" can be moved to after point 2, to make this more clear.

[MyOtherCar]

I feel we have to reply to Naldo at the same time we post in the public forum.

[dsplaisted]

I feel we have to reply to Naldo at the same time we post in the public forum.

Or before. Can we go ahead and send the letter in Spanish to him?

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I agree with dsplaisted. Somehow I feel we owe him that.

-Kylearan

[MyOtherCar]

Yes, before is even better

[Swiss Pauli]

Swiss, we should do the opposite of what you are suggesting. To the other teams, we have to prove that we are trustworthy. That is why we are carefully going through the treaty, showing how Imperio violated it first. Naldo, on the other hand, will hate us regardless of what we tell him.

Besides, I do not see this as a backstab. If Imperio hadn't violated the treaty first, I would have voted against this operation, and I think so would plenty of others here. In personal games, I never break treaties, and I wouldn't have supported it here if the deal wasn't violated by the other side first. This is why my original draft didn't say anything about Imperio's attack on us: that attack came when we didn't have a NAP in place, and as such can't be used as justification for our actions.

Get real, Zeviz, it was a backstab: we did not share our grievances about the treaty with Imperio, and allowed them to think everything was OK between our two teams, in order to get the upper hand on them with a surprise attack.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, if Imperio really thought that they could get away with the proposed treaty, then not trading us Gunpowder and continuing to trade with PAL, ..... then they had to learn a lesson on reality.

mh

[MyOtherCar]

This song from the O'Jays keeps popping up in my head:

A few of your buddies they sure look shady
Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin' straight at your back
And I don't think they'll miss

(What they do)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers (back stabbers)

[mostly-harmless]

Zeviz, you are in charge of this. So please post away, as things are developing in the public forums.

mh

[ruff_hi]

we need to post something quickly. How about ...

Considering Imperio's past actions, they aren't in a position to complain about the current situation. Here is a brief list of their past actions from our point of view:

1. During the cooldown period of our previous NAP they used spies to disconnect our sole source of metal. Regardless of whether espionage is considered an act of war, preventing us from training troops to prepare for the end of NAP broke the spirit of that agreement.

2. Our current agreement that included the NAP Imperio is talking about also included following clauses:
2.1. Imperio to trade us Gunpowder. Not only did they fail to do this, but they ignored our messages about it.
2.2. Imperio to join us in war against Templars. They broke both the letter and the spirit of this clause by delaying their attack for so long that Templars declared on them first.

In addition to broken agreements with us, Imperio did several other things that poisoned good relations:

3. Imperio had negotiated a trade embargo against us, denying us critical military technologies.

4. Imperio had teamed with Templars and declared war on us.

5. Later in that same war, Imperio betrayed their Templar allies by not only signing a separate peace with us, but switching sides completely and splitting Templar territory with us as part of the peace deal.

Given all the reasons listed above, Imperio can't complain about the current situation.

Team RB

I'm going to post this in about 2 to 3 hours.

[sunrise089]

I continue to feel the Zevis email is fine. I think we have a clear majority for that.