The Bunch Diplomacy

[Metaliturtle]

Yeah, could use some help on this one, getting married in January makes me unpredictable at best.

[Ennet]

Oooo congratulations Metaliturtle

[Hot Mustard]

From: Platypus Rex
To: Gathering Storm
Cc: Daddy-O
Date: Oct 23, 2006 3:33 AM
Subject: Re: Contact

Since you now the name of our glorious town, all is well and welcome to our peacefull realm.

Just beware of the burnig of bananasense--this may cause burning of eyes, drooling of the mouth.

Let me scribe down the ideas and wishes and I will be happy to gather my fellow Bananas for disccusions in these important matters.

Expect delays with us as well, we all try hard to do and make the best of things


Bananapus Rex

Response to nye. Note it was cc'd to Daddy-O, so perhaps he may also have a role in their diplomacy.

[Arrian]

Congrats, Metaliturtle!

I'm happy to leave the ball in their court... delays in communications help us, so long as they do not create emnity. In this case, that does not appear to be a problem.

Anyway: the longer it takes for discussions to become substantive, the better.

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

Yes, congratulations, Metaliturtle!

[Metaliturtle]

Thanks for all the congrats everyone

I'll delay talks with Bananaphilosophical questions

"Can a banana slip on it's own peel?"

[notyoueither]

I'm not sure we want to delay things.

We would like to have a friend before Vox and Nana meet. If we have no ties to Nana before they meet Vox, we will be in a dicier situation.

We can make this easy on ourselves. Be one of 2 banging 1, even if the second isn't a real large asset, or we can be the 1 being banged and that small guy could be a real pain in the ass.

I would like to arrange a chat, Metaliturtle. I would like to get into it live with Nana.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm happy to leave the ball in their court... delays in communications help us, so long as they do not create emnity. In this case, that does not appear to be a problem.

Anyway: the longer it takes for discussions to become substantive, the better.

-Arrian

Sorry, but I vehemently disagree.

We have all the balls in our court. They are ours to play as of this moment. They will not be as soon as Nana meets Vox. At that point the 2 will look at each other, the soldeirs graph, and they will likely get married.

We need to neutralise Nana, now, and that means chatting and meaningful diplomacy, not empty words and delay.

[notyoueither]

Our goals with the Bunch should be:

a freindly relationship, but not yet an end game alliance (we want to hold open the door of a banana split after we feast on the main course of Vox)

they are on our side vs Vox. They could send a few small units that could help tie down Vox attention, and more importantly, keep Vox away from paths of expansion. Conversely, it would be a major pain in the ass if a Vox settler set off with several archers for land North of Nana where they could make a new capital that we can never get at.

Could we get them to go Alphabet and arrange the trades? They could be a great ally if they research properly, whether we are long term allies or not.

Thoughts?

[Blake]

Religion is important.

I think they might be going for monotheism due to a very flat soldiers score. If we confirm that they are, we should claim that we were considering Monotheism but will graciously step aside and allow Banana to found the religion uncontested (by us) in order to preserve the balance of religions (lack of said balance is one of the main causes of the war with the 3rd party, of course).

I think in terms of interaction with Vox... we would be best of if they agree to simply let us handle Vox and to not interfere... like.. if they do help, they might expect something in return... but I think they will be willing to just stay out of it, after weighing up the difficulties of helping (either us or Vox) with the fun they could be having building wonders and stuff. We might want to push for a "Don't let in any refugess" agreement...

We want to emphasize that the circumstances (proximity, river, religion) meant we had very little choice but to declare war. Putting a more positive spin on it. We can't really help but intimidate Banana a bit (I mean our team lineup and power graph are just going to do that) but it would be best if they aren't also paranoid about being our next meal after Vox is consumed...

I think that Banana might be a beneficial long term alliance partner, I don't think Banana will have the same drive to win that we do, as such they aren't directly competing with us. If we destroy Banana the other teams probably wouldn't hesitate to dogpile us (altough warfare on the distant lands may make this a moot point), but if we have an alliance with banana that complicates things... call it innocence by association, sure, we're guilty of destroying Vox, but if we have a military-pact with Banana, then anyone who declares war on us is essentially also declaring war on an innocent party which diminishes the moral high ground factor.... it also makes us a lower profile target, a single team consuming two other teams is obviously a very big target.

In any case if we indulge in a banana split then we are declaring our willingness to take on the entire world and there are benefits to an alliance. What I think is that we should go in to negotiations with full good faith. We have been pretty honorable so far (no beating around the bush when it came to war with Vox).

Altough in terms of less than honorable things we may not want to fully indicate the extent of our lands, like I believe if we draw up borders we want them to be at least above the nearest Jumbos, preferably Banana's most southern city being to claim the ... bananas... most likely a comprimise, unless banana have a lot of land up there (they might be content to block off that causeway and grab the bananas, then backfill). We also may wish to pretend that we are seriously considering pursuring Monotheism.


I think we do wish to discuss the extreme flatness of their power graph, and the rapid accession of ours... we don't want misconceptions. Basically an open and honest information exchange - on why our power graphs are shaped the way they are. We (presumably) both have assumptions and it'd be nice to confirm them. I think we can be honest about the circumstances which led to war, with spin added, of course. Naturally we wish to hide our real plan to destory Vox "We are choking them with skirmishers for now" should suffice.

Or in short, we can quite safely tell Banana anything which Vox already knows, after all Vox are going to end up telling them the story anyway, sooner or later.

I see that the rules kind of specify that we can't refer to Vox by name, but we can probably refer to them like as "We started very close to another team"... I guess a clarification would be nice here.

Anyway enough rambling from me... I look forward to NYE diplomactic dicussions with Banana, asap.

[Arrian]

Well, that's both NYE and Blake that disagree with me, and what they say makes a great deal of sense. I guess I was assuming that Vox & Banana might not make contact for quite some time, with Vox's northern scouting warrior dead and the distinct possibility that 'nana doesn't have a southern scout... but that's a gamble.

Chat away, NYE.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

I agree we need to try to win them to our side, and delaying talks isn't a good way of getting to that goal. I don't agree we need to put all our cards on the table right away.

So, coordinating research sounds great (except we can't tell them we go for construction as that will scare the living hell out of them), asking for a war ally before they even know Vox exists is not. I would be very careful in answering the question whether we've met someone, and you can bet that question is going to be asked in chat.

When the relation matures, Blake's arguments sound like a good path to follow, although I don't want us to restrict ourselves to a friendly relation. If we can get to CHs quickly, our commerce could make a very big empire viable real quick. And that still beats the diplo risk of allying ourselves with some other team.

After all, last I heared nana was in for the fun, not super efficient play with a goal to win. They might not make the best friends...

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Sending a PM to snoopy to get his attention to this issue.

snoopy, could you give us a summary of your view of the rules on what we may say or not to Nana?

[notyoueither]

Teams should not discuss their relations with a third team that has not contacted one of the teams. May teams discuss having contact with a third team but not mention the team's name?

This seems very problematic. We show up at their door with blood on our weapons. They look behind our warrior and see hordes of soldiers... but we can't tell them we are at war?

[DeepO]

First question is whether we've met someone, even without specifying which team we might have met. Is that in itself allowed?

DeepO