Team Sarantium Diplomacy

[UnOrthOdOx]

Grammar...pah.


Sent corrected version to con, ET, and Aidun.

[polarnomad]

Looks good. Only thing I noticed is that by saying "Team Mercenary is willing to turn its scout around," we are letting Sarantium know that we have only one. I guess it's not that important, but then they don't need to know either.

EDIT: Guess I was too slow... oh well.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by polarnomad
Looks good. Only thing I noticed is that by saying "Team Mercenary is willing to turn its scout around," we are letting Sarantium know that we have only one. I guess it's not that important, but then they don't need to know either.

I don't think they can conclude that it's our only scout, just that it's our only scout (and probably only unit in general) that's in their area.

[Togas]

I arrived too late to comment on this, but looks like I don't need to. You folks have handled it well.

I just wanted to say that I scouting out San's land and the area beyond it has tremendous value to us in the long run, and I hope that they agree to the new proposal so that we can turn this thing into a win-win.

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

Dear Mercenaries,

After reading the PM by UnOrthOdOx sent to Sarantium yesterday we unfortunately have to say that we will pass on the current proposal.

In previous communication our two teams have had informal discussions about exchanging information to the mutual benefit of both our teams, but we of Sarantium feel that these informal discussions were ignored in your representative’s latest proposals. Most of the people of Sarantium are not at all pleased with such treatment and feel sort of let down by your team. This is especially true since several of the team’s most cooperatively minded members, members who very much support the idea behind a mercenary team and the idea of having a mercenary team around, members with a very positive stance to your team in particular, have exchanged ideas, tried to arrive at mutually beneficial deals and most of all provided some information trusting your team that it would agree on a fair deal. They did so only to receive an official message from your repesentative like the one sent to us yesterday with a most uncooperative content.

We hope that your team will in the future use a more customer-friendly approach when it comes to making mutually beneficial deals. The general consensus at Sarantium is that a team that is basically centered around customer service should probably have a very customer service focused attitude in order to improve business.

Sincerely,


Aidun,

Offical Representative of the Imperial Democracy of Sarantium.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I have a migraine this morning, and I'm sure anything I have to say at the moment would not be appropriate.

[polarnomad]

So now we should graciously kiss their butts for allowing the mercenary team to exsist by fulfilling all their desires and meeting all their terms? Whatever! Condescending little piece of crap! Aaaaargh!!!! :fist:

EDIT: I guess that's what you meant by inappropriate...

[Cptn Fancypants]

We should reply with a message that includes something like:

Contracts are the foundation of the Mercenary Team's business conduct. We do not want you to infer from anything we communicate during negotiation that a contract agreement is imminent or guaranteed. For both our protection and our customers' protection, we will consider no contract final until both parties "sign on the dotted line". We hope that you will take the same, conservative approach to negotiation.

I'm not sure what else they need to hear from us.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I think they need to hear something along the lines:

Dear Sarantium,

We offered share of information beneficial to both teams, and are confused how Sarantium sees it any differently: Scouting for Copper by team Mercenary in exchange for scouting Horde borders by Sarantium. We are sorry this arrangement does not seem mutually beneficial to Team Sarantium, but we are confused as to how it is deemed uncooperative as it's the same deal you agreed to with very few changes. All we did was ask for a screenshot and let you know we don't need help with locating horses.

Having a 'customer focused attitude' does not mean agreeing to everything a customer wants. As for tone, expect all things to adopt a business-like tone. We got a lawyer looking at these, what do you expect?

Contracts are the foundation of the Mercenary Team's business conduct. We do not want you to infer from anything we communicate during negotiation that a contract agreement is imminent or guaranteed. For both our protection and our customers' protection, we will consider no contract final until both parties "sign on the dotted line". We hope that you will take the same, conservative approach to negotiation.

[Kloreep]

Looks pretty good to me. A few changes I'd suggest:

Dear Sarantium,

We offered share an exchange of information beneficial to both teams, and are confused how Sarantium sees it any differently: Scouting for Copper by team Mercenary in exchange for scouting Horde borders by Sarantium. We are sorry this arrangement does not seem mutually beneficial to Team Sarantium, but we are confused as to how it is deemed uncooperative as it's the same deal you agreed to with very few changes. All we did was ask for a screenshot and let you know we don't need help with locating horses.

Having a 'customer focused attitude' does not mean agreeing to everything a customer wants. As stated, we had not agreed to anything, and had in fact been turned down previously on a similar deal. Since the copper scouting deal was refused at that time, we moved our uncontracted scout onward rather than waiting for an uncertain deal that had been refused for the time being. This changed the situation and necessitated these changes from the offer we gave when our scout was placed conveniently on your border. As for tone, expect all things our messages to adopt a business-like tone. We got a lawyer looking at these, what do you expect?

Re-iterating how they cannot expect the deal to stay open indefinitely. And our first chat certainly wasn't business and I wouldn't expect any further ones to be, so just being a bit more specific to static correspondance and not real-time chat...

Contracts are the foundation of the Mercenary Team's business conduct. We do not want you to infer from anything we communicate during negotiation that a contract agreement is imminent or guaranteed. For both our protection and our customers' protection, we will consider no contract final until both parties "sign on the dotted line". We hope that you will take the same, conservative approach to negotiation. We cannot be beholden to any team that sends us something without signing an agreement on recompense.

Changes unmarked:

Dear Sarantium,

We offered an exchange of information beneficial to both teams, and are confused how Sarantium sees it any differently: Scouting for Copper by team Mercenary in exchange for scouting Horde borders by Sarantium. We are sorry this arrangement does not seem mutually beneficial to Team Sarantium, but we are confused as to how it is deemed uncooperative as it's the same deal you agreed to with very few changes. All we did was ask for a screenshot and let you know we don't need help with locating horses.

Having a 'customer focused attitude' does not mean agreeing to everything a customer wants. As stated, we had not agreed to anything, and had in fact been turned down previously on a similar deal. Since the copper scouting deal was refused at that time, we moved our uncontracted scout onward rather than waiting for an uncertain deal that had been refused for the time being. This changed the situation and necessitated these changes from the offer we gave when our scout was placed conveniently on your border. As for tone, expect our messages to adopt a business-like tone. We got a lawyer looking at these, what do you expect?

Contracts are the foundation of the Mercenary Team's business conduct. We do not want you to infer from anything we communicate during negotiation that a contract agreement is imminent or guaranteed. For both our protection and our customers' protection, we will consider no contract final until both parties "sign on the dotted line". We hope that you will take the same, conservative approach to negotiation. We cannot be beholden to any team that sends us something without signing an agreement on recompense.

[Cptn Fancypants]

Sounds good.

[polarnomad]

Nice wording. Very constructive.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Editted version sent to ET and con. Aidun has a full PM box and could not receive it.

[Togas]

Two notes:

Aidun, the "master diplomat" is attempting to manipulate future relations with us with a "guilt trip."

It should be noted, though, that we did not meet their expectations of us.

To resolve:

The response looks good. We definately need to avoid arguing or blaming. Both would escalate matters and soil our early relations. But we also need to be careful not to admit that their expectations of us are correct -- or else we just trap ourselves into behaving according to their definition of what mercenaries are.

Less words is best. Less for them to read into.

With regards to their expectations of us, all that we can do is to maintain a steady, professional, and consistant approach to business with them. In time, they'll come to understand how we operate and adjust their expectations accordingly.

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'm having trouble comming up with what they actually expected of us though.

Aidun is just lucky I subscribe fully to Merc neutrality or I'ld already be calling for their heads. Folks attempting to play these games really piss me off.