Vox Diplomacy

[Arrian]

Dominae,

As I recall it was Vox that refused to move from the chokepoint in the PTWDG, not the other way around!!

And NYE is right regarding the final trigger for war (I'd add our rather haughty border treaty negotiations).

...

NYE - I don't really understand this "it's custom to stay away from our borders" thing. I don't buy that at all, and were I Vox, I'd be irritated by it. They have a scout. They're scouting with it.

Now for something more important:

Didn't we all agree there wouldn't be any Faux War in this game?

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I don't know what was agreed to, but if we agree to not declare war and still not send attackers, that was insane. We should be able to declare war and not send attackers, if we choose.

If the other party understands what we are about, preventing religion in this case, and want to go along, that seems fair.

They may not go along or understand our point. Now if we do the war bit and then also attack their scout, it is not a phony war is it?

[vmxa1]

As to the border bit, I am not sure how the mechanics work in an MP game, but I think it is reasonable to presume that teams are going to take umbridge if you get next to their borders.

You can elect to do that or you can elect to agree to some distance allowed. If not, then you get what ever reaction the others choose to have.

I am not so sure how important that is at this stage. It is a bit later that I would really not want them to scout us, but there will probably be no unclaimed tiles by then.

[Cort Haus]

I doubt Vox would agree with a faux war to prevent religion spreading. They gambled and won. We gambled and lost. Why would they agree to nerf their advantage?

We could say to Vox "we are in a state of war to defend ourselves against your religion, and intend to stay that way until we get our own", they might agree, if the only alternative is a real war, which would favour us at a stage of the game where our UU is significant.

So, our position of potential strength might 'force' them to agree - although at this point they are nearer to archery than we are.

From the standpoint of defending against religious spread, a faux war - or perhaps 'cold war' might be better, is not the same as a war to trigger a GA, share resources, or allow double moves for workers as in Civ 3.

Another point is that we lose some commerce by not trading with Vox while at war. It's possible that an agreement with Vox to let us shoot for Monotheism could be an option. I suppose this would be in exchange for us not starting trouble, which is tricky to express diplomatically without being threatening - which of course it is.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by notyoueither
There is a flurry of posting going on in Vox's forum atm.

Donegal, then Jon Miller, then Done...

This still strikes me as one of the most farfetched ways of finding out information on a team, I smile everytime I see someone using it. You need patience to stake out their forum You're right though, if 3 people are alternating posts, they're stressing about something. And I can imagine what that would be: where to move their scout to, and what to send us as a message.

DeepO

[DeepO]

I'll move my view into this thread as well: If we get the scout, by all means declare war. If not, don't declare a phony war to prevent religion from spreading (it's borderline exploitative anyway).

And if we declare war (phony or otherwise), we need to be prepared to take them. But seeing they're so close, and it's quite possible they have a corner of our continent, we will be going to war sooner or later anyway.

DeepO

[Ennet]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I doubt Vox would agree with a faux war to prevent religion spreading. They gambled and won. We gambled and lost. Why would they agree to nerf their advantage?

By not agreeing to this fake war it would seem like they had hostile plans for the future.. and the last thing they would like us feel, no matter if they will attack us or not, is threatened.

Originally posted by Arrian
NYE - I don't really understand this "it's custom to stay away from our borders" thing. I don't buy that at all, and were I Vox, I'd be irritated by it. They have a scout. They're scouting with it.

First any military unit could attack undefended workers/cities or pillage your infrastructure, so you would feel threatened if someone moved around those outside your border. Secondly this is a scout yes, but the main reasons why you want information on your opponents lands is ofcourse so you can estimate how they will develop and also from what direction you would launch a military campaign against them.
In the games i have played with my friends (Civ3), more or less everyone conciders it hostile to have their terretory scouted out, and everyone defenatly dislikes it, not to talk about having any military units move anywhere close to your borders.

RL example: Foreigners are forbidden to go anywhere near most military bases and surrounding areas. As a matter of fact most of the stockholm archipelago is offlimits to foreigners..

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arrian

NYE - I don't really understand this "it's custom to stay away from our borders" thing. I don't buy that at all, and were I Vox, I'd be irritated by it. They have a scout. They're scouting with it.

It's custom in that it is common in every dg I have been in to stay off your neighbours cultural borders if you desire peace. It's usually a clause of first agreements between civs.

Now for something more important:

Didn't we all agree there wouldn't be any Faux War in this game?

-Arrian

When I started this idea rolling, I didn't think it was false war. I was thinking only of a mechanic of the game that could be used to gain a desirable end.

I can see how people might think it is false war, but I am unaware that that was banned for something like this.

In my mind it will be a 'real war'. We won't be getting Vox's approval for this, we will simply try to manage the consequences.

[snoopy369]

If you tell Vox that you're not intending to attack them and do not desire actual hostilities, then it is pro forma a faux war. If you declare war on them and then do not attack them, but do not communicate that intent, then it is probably not a faux war (at least as far as an 'exploit' or other potentially objectionable activity would be concerned).

However, as stated in the other thread, this kind of faux war was more or less allowed in the chat and poll, so it probably won't be objected to if you desire to do it.

[notyoueither]

I can see the POV of those claiming false war.

I don't agree it is a no go to be at war for legitimate reasons, while discussing ways of lessening hostilities with the other party.

Fake wars were brought up with regard to trading uints for training, or to have an ally destroy a city that was not well placed, or to deceive all the other teams about true intentions.

I see nothing wrong with telling Vox we are at war to prevent religion spread, but that we welcome an absense of hostilities. It is up to them. We didn't cook this up for mutual benefit. It's to our benefit and definitely not to theirs. They accept it, or they don't.

If anything, we are telling Vox to stuff their religion and if they wish they can make something out of it. In which case, we will be more than willing to fight.

[notyoueither]

That being said, can we afford to allow Hinduism to spread to EotS?

Are we better builders?

Would it set Vox at ease to see GS being our normal building self? We could reserve the anti spread weapon for once we have a second, barracks, city up. If we wish war, we build the units for war from that city. We show Vox a buildery cap, but deny them a view of warlike 2nd and 3rd cities. We have no shortage of hills for mines to fuel the fires of war.

[notyoueither]

Something must be sent to Vox.

I suggest something like this before very many more hours go by.

Greetings to Donegal and the Voice.

We congratulate you on your discovery of Hinduism. We are sure it is an exciting belief as it is much discussed among Stormians.

We do have one small request though. Nerves are on edge at this early stage of contact. We would think twice before moving a unit onto your cultural borders. We would assume that a power intent on peace would respect our request to stay off our border. This is a request to Vox to keep units at least one tile away from our cultural border.

I am sure there is much for us to discuss. I look forward to meeting with Donegal and Jon Miller in chat.

Regards
nye

[notyoueither]

Am sending above message as Vox are next up for the turn.

[notyoueither]

May I note that I hate GMail.

What a God-awful interface.

[vmxa1]

I concur with your post #25 completely. This would not be a false war, weither we attack or not. The only time you can be certain of any agreement lasting, is if you control the others.

This was done when we had basically a vassal in the last game. Here neither they nor us could ever be sure that hostile actions would not occur.

More over, there is no mutal benefit that would work to the detrement of any other teams. The only one to gain is us and that is how one should play.

Anyway the mods have already said it is not banned.