The Bunch Diplomacy

[notyoueither]

OK, we have contact.

Vox and The Bunch do not.

What should we say in our initial message?

[Blake]

"Is that a Banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?"

Urrrgh. My poor brain.

[notyoueither]

That might set the right mood, but maybe it could be refined.

A lighthearted tone would go over better with them I suspect.

[Metaliturtle]

Dear yellow-coated worshippers of all fruits phallic,

Gathering Storm wishes to inform you of our presence near your borders, and that it is purely for explorational purposes. Should you see our axemen, do not fear, they're nice, prolly just a little hungry for bananas.

What we are interested in is peace, and bananas, may we have some of each?

[Metaliturtle]

In all reality, the Bunch is probably the Leeroy Jenkins of this Democracy Game though...

[Arrian]

I'll leave the exact phrasing to others, but my general plan would be as follows:

1) Make nice. State that we're happy to meet them and want to work with them.

2) Do not mention Vox unless then specifically ask if we've met anyone else (they very well may). If they do, tell them we'll reveal that info if they will do the same for us. If they agree, reveal that Vox exists.

At that point, we will probably have to explain we are in the process of exterminating Vox. Simple explanation: we started really, really close to each other. They beat us to Hinduism, which due to a river trade route connection was doubly sucky (loss of religion + security risk), and then presented us with an opportunity to kill their scout. We took it, and intend to finish them. We ask that they not intervene. There is lots of space between us, so cooperation just makes a heckuva lot more sense than warfare.

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

Does anyone want to be the ambassador to Banana?

I have several time commitments, so it would be good to work with someone else who may be more available to the Bunch for things like chat.

[Arrian]

I'm happy to give input pretty consistently (as I do with turn threads and planning debates and whatnot), but I'm never on chat.

Metaliturtle? Given your sig, you seem like a good choice if you have the time...

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Don't mention Vox, not even if they ask. Wait until they've met, we'll see this in the diplo screen.

The disadvantage is that we won't be able to work on them diplomatically to gain them to our side, possibly even months before they can talk to Vox directly. But we shouldn't give them any ideas on where to go look for another team.

DeepO

[Hot Mustard]

It wasn't really diplomacy, but in the interest of full disclosure, here is a recent exchange via our team email with Banana, caused by them adding a new turn player:

Original email:

Please include fed1943 in all further save sends

The e addy: fed1943 at hotmail dot com

I thank you for you time

--
Issued by Mighty Platypi

My reply:

I will add this address to our diplomatic lists, but I expect you meant to send this to the team *ahead* of you in the turn order (Vox), not the team after you. :-)

Regards,
Hot Mustard

And the response:

you are so right

sorry to waste your time

Hope its going according to plans

Greg

[Metaliturtle]

Sure, I'll be the diplomat, who do I talk to?

[notyoueither]

First thing we need to do is decide on an introductory message, and we need to decide on it relatively soon. Are you available for chat with me tomorrow night, M?

Next, we need to nail down the parameters of discussion, like at what point do we discuss Vox.

re discussion of Vox, we should be working Nana to our PoV at an early date, but we should not force it. Other civs will come up naturally as a matter of discussion. Our approach should be to encourage a fair exchange of information. That will engender trust and help us turn Nana to our side.

Reasons why Nana would prefer allying to us? Let's discuss them.

1. Geography. Nana gains more land from Vox being knocked off (they seem to be N-S whereas we and Nana are SW-NE).

2. Diplomacy, but only if we work it. We are in a three-way land situation now. All our diplomacy needs to be bent towards getting Nana to see our side of things, but without being over-eager. We have contact and Vox does not. We hold the winning hand if we play it right.

3...?

[notyoueither]

Incidently, the job of an ambassador is often to stall and say nothing while remaining freindly. Then report back to the team and the team decides on a response to a particular point of interest. The important thing is being available, whether you say anything of substance or not. 'I need to discuss this with my team' is always an acceptable statement with any team we would want to be freindly with.

From reading posts I am confident you can do this, M. I welcome you wanting to be involved.

[Metaliturtle]

on right now, just got a new computer so have to d/l messenger though

[notyoueither]

I just use Windows Messenger. You just have to turn it on and add notyoueither@hotmail.com as a contact.