Team Sarantium Diplomacy

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by polarnomad
Nice! Lots of info about Sarantium and the Horde, yet not much revealed about ourselves.

Well, yeah... Just remember I am not one of the 'great' diplomats, and Aidun is...

I laughed out loud at your comment:

It got us the specific troop numbers, as I expected. I seem to have a knack for pushing the right buttons...ask GS....

[Togas]

This early rush that they fear ... how probable is it? Do we have any outside evidence that confirms their fears?

Frankly, I don't want their stress and fears to interrupt our early growth plan. We have a short window to expand, settle, and secure our future pirate state. Once that is complete, foreign military operations can commence.

Until that, I urge that we supply them with things like intelligence ... so long as they pay us for the service.

--Togas

[Kloreep]

Seeing their capitol's lands and getting a quicker trip through for the scout is in some ways payment enough for such an easy mission, but some actual exchange might be nice as Togas said in the other thread. I'd be willing to settle for the passage, though. Maybe extract return rights for the scout, or a more concrete right to DoW and move through their territory for some set amount of turns?

Checking for copper is really all we can do to help them out right now - we simply don't have the military to pull it off, and switching to military to defend them against uncertain risk of rush will cripple our expansion - but I think it would be a good idea to do that, since we can. Beyond my admitted bias against the Horde, it just doesn't seem good for future business to have one of our neighboring civs killed by another.

[Kloreep]

And indeed, good chat indeed, UnO. Desperate as their situation may be, I'm not sure he would have spilled about the archer rush possibility had the conversation gone differently.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Alright, most (well all that have spoken so far) are in favor of the copper scouting mission. I will make the offer to Aidun now and ask for the location of Horde borders as 'payment'.

Sent to Team Sarantium email:

Dear Sarantium,

In light of information from the recent chat with Aidun, Team Merc has come up with a proposal that may be of some help to you immediately.

Among the discussion, it was brought to our attention you were pondering the risk of going after bronze working. We tell you, trusting it remain confidential, that we have this technology, and would be willing to remove the risk from your calculations by scouting your terrain and telling you if you possess copper or not.

This would require a declaration of war to move our scout through your terrain, but as it will be only a scout, and they can neither attack nor pillage, you will be at no risk and this is only a technicality. We would provide screens of any resources to you.

There is one minor matter. We are not in the business of doing favors, but rather in the business of being paid. We propose that the ability to scout your territory, and your telling us the location of Horde borders so they may be scouted will be seen as payment enough.

We are prepared to enter your territory next turn and provide this information if you are in agreement.

We also continue to discuss other means which we may be able to assist in the future.

- UnOrthOdOx
Team Mercenary Representative.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Togas
This early rush that they fear ... how probable is it? Do we have any outside evidence that confirms their fears?

Frankly, I don't want their stress and fears to interrupt our early growth plan. We have a short window to expand, settle, and secure our future pirate state. Once that is complete, foreign military operations can commence.

Until that, I urge that we supply them with things like intelligence ... so long as they pay us for the service.

--Togas

I'm not an expert at reading this screen yet, but:

Depends on a barracks or not. No barracks, troop numbers indicate 3-5 archers. But I'ld lean towards 3 rather than 5.

Aidun said "4 of them" This could mean any combo of troops technically. 2 archers a warrior and a scout?

I'm still trying to come to grips with a team knowing they have Mercs and the most warmonger team as neighbors and not researching Archery.

Builderers... Never can understand em.

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx

Aidun said "4 of them" This could mean any combo of troops technically. 2 archers a warrior and a scout?

So far we have seen 2 Horde scouts.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by polarnomad
So far we have seen 2 Horde scouts.

Indeed. But one is exploring our area, and Aidun was referring to units around their capitol, so if he's telling the truth I think we can count 3 military units. Assuming he was telling the truth about spotting an Archer earlier in the chat, and assuming he was telling the truth when he said they had spotted 4 units later in the chat rather than his initial statement of 1, we can count 1 archer, 1 scout. UnO's prediction might not be far off what the Horde has; 2 archers out exploring in the same area seems a bit much, but not if they really are going to rush Sarantium.

[Kloreep]

BTW, I'm not sure where Sarantium is thinking of anything but Archery...

If they've already seen 4 units close to the capitol it's a little late to be researching any tech. BW would require them to road & mine a copper even if they have one. If the Horde is rushing, I don't think they'll do it on a timetable convenient to Sarantium's hooking up copper. Not something we want to bring up, though... we don't actually know their situation, and I don't want to turn them averse to the scouting deal.

Again, though, I must wonder why they aren't at least going for Archery now even if they have been somewhat shortsighted (or too longsighted? That's more the builderer way ). A warrior has only a +25% bonus to city defense, giving a full health warrior 2.5 strength; that gives an Archer the odds. The only way to survive with warriors would be numerical superiority. An archer, on the other hand, has +50% city defense, giving it 4.5 strength or, I believe, about 66% odds against an enemy archer. (Assuming no promotions on everything here. Sarantium can't have a barracks, Horde possibly might but it is an expensive investment.)

They go for copper, they will be losing warriors left and right if they can't get that copper hooked up and axeman out in time; and copper gives them two points to defend rather than just the city stronghold. They go for archers, they are guaranteed to have the odds on defense, and to have the unit available to build regardless not just of a resource's presence, but irregardless of their ability to defend that resource. Though Archers certainly wouldn't stop a choke by the Horde. If I was Sarantium, I would go for Archery straightaway anyway.

Hmm, one thought in favor of Sarantium going for Archery... if the Horde does have hostile intentions, I imagine they will start with a probe and go for Sarantium itself only if they feel they can. If Sarantium gets Archers, they may just hang out and choke as long as they can, which to my mind is a winning situation for us - but I could see them retreating if Sarantium brings an Axeman to the party. That's a lot of ifs, though, whereas the benefit from the copper mission would be solid.

[UnOrthOdOx]

They are at 40% culture defense, though. So a full strength warrior would be in the neighborhood of 3.4 ish strength in the city. This is among the things that really make an archer rush rather insane. I don't believe I've ever seen a successfull one. I think a squeeze maneuver rather than outright rush is FAR more likely. Pillage them to hell, keep them from expanding. That's what I'ld do with a few archers early.

[OzzyKP]

But if Sarantium fears a rush, however unlikely, then there is no reason to dissaude them of that if we can get a benefit from it.

[Kloreep]

Oh, certainly.

Welcome back BTW.

[UnOrthOdOx]

We don't currently wish you to cross the border, espeically, while there are Horde Units around. to see it.

We Are disacussing the map trade (looks like Civ4 doesn't allow removal of resourses, like Civ3 did, unless you know how...). Aidun is away in Itally on Holiday, but Con should be back. He can help prod the team into getting this going ASAP.

We are alos debating the trade of info on Resources, Horses for Copper. We do know of a few Horse resourses, and if your willing, we could trade for what you have seen of Copper. Again, as Golden Bear sometimes says, it's like hearding cats... Hopefully, Con will also get this going faster....

B ut for right now, I think that we can hold off of going such a drastic route with crossing of borders. But, for something like this, we will likely have to do a full poll (Con will like that, he so loves polls.... ) and I'm not satisfied with the discussion phase, with some of our people being out. But we do thank you for the offer and appeaciate thinking of this for us.

E_T

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
But we do thank you for the offer and appeaciate thinking of this for us.

Good enough for me.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Dear Merc's

My personal apologizes for not getting you a definitive answer to your scout copper for the location of the Horde border. I am not really leading the team, but I'm more of the OK guys let’s get some kind of answer or decision and move on kind of person, more like chairman of the board, I guess.

With that being said we had a few other folks out last week as well and are busy catching up this past week so we finally have an answer

First of all we would like to take you up on your proposed deal to scout our area for copper, In exchange here is the location of the Hordes cultural border. We do NOT have the entire border mapped but if you travel NINE-1’s from our capital you will be in the tile just outside there cultural border in the NE notch of the TEE shape of culture at this point in the game. Another point of reference would be to go 2 tiles due east of your eastern cultural border, then go 12 tiles south, you should be in the tile smack dab in the middle of the Horde’s northern cultural border. The second bearing could be off one tile in either direction but is close enough to give you there location.

In addition with our scout approaching your borders we would also be willing to give you information on the location of horses in and near your capital since we are going to enter into a phoney war anyway.

This is under the assumption that sides would keep what is inside the borders confidential from other teams.

We have a scout heading your way as we speak and could provide you the information shortly, since he is within 3 tiles of your border currently, such as there is a horse resource at 6,6,6,9,9 from your capital for example.

With all that being said we did ask Snoopy about how he would view our phony war for the purpose of scouting resources. Here was his reply:

quote:
Of course...

I thought about this when I read about it earlier. I don't like it personally, as I'm generally against any phoney war, but I don't think this would be illegal per the explicit rules agreed upon.

That said, it undoubtedly would be looked upon as sketchy by some of the others in the game - so you'd probably risk the wrath of said people if you did it. But, that's up to you; I will not prohibit this action.


With that being said some of our team is concerned about how this will be viewed, I am personally not one of them, but if this is a concern for the Merc's please let us know as soon as possible. I think it would be best if this transaction would be kept secret for the duration of the game, but that’s my opinion and I would like to hear your views on this.

If this sounds all amenable we would like to close the agreement and the deal at your earliest convenience.


Looking forward to hearing from you soon, and hope all is well in Merc Land

conmcb25
Imperial Representative of Sarantium.