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Togas
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California
Jun 2002
time: 21:35
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Instead of reposting the very long message that F-P sent us. I'll post the highlights here:
quote:
1) Borders – Your nation wishes to see the border just south of Crudetown, while we were expecting Meeting Mountain to be the original border. Clearly, we both have a problem with the other’s idea, so perhaps if we simply divided the disputed region in half. This would have the benefit of splitting the luxuries evenly; we would supply you with silk and you supply us with wine, while we both have furs and ivory of our own. Our nation, it seems, would prefer to keep Pumpkinville as our own, but would have absolutely no problem with you settling in close proximity to the township.
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I'm not sure where they're drawing this line, but it's not really "in the middle" of our two proposals. It gives them a lot more land than us and I'm unsure why they want Pumpkinville so badly when we can just as easily send them ivory with the road they're building.
It makes the border between us much larger than I care for.
They will take the CDG cities and gift them to us after the war.
They claim that they are not ruthless warmongering barbarians, more like Sun Tzu, where they are good at war, but carefully pick their battles.
He compares a war with Apolyton to be a battle of quality vs quantity. We have Hoplites and Swords. They have horses. He notes that they could quickly attack and take a few cities, but once we holed up behind walls with our strong units we'd be a difficult foe. He also feels that once we get to the middle ages and get knights we'd have the advantage.
He says that peace grants them the ability to develop and grow faster. It also grants them more luxuries to fuel their growing cities.
Reputation is important to them.
They want an ally in the next game.
They feel the trade road is important and want to keep building it. They will even send 2 workers into our territory and help connect the other wines for them, if we so ask. They note that we do not have mapmaking and cannot build harbors.
They propose that we place a sentry on the road to prohibit them from using it to sneak attack us.
They propose moving all troops post CDG war to a specified location so that we can both watch each other's troops.
They are willing to go to war with CDG in the next 3-4 turns.
They feel that there's no OCN issues with building cities in the southwest, that area is close to their capital, and they have tremendous growth and will fill in the northwest and south east very quickly. They're holding firm on their request for "half of the disputed lands"
They're asking if we want them to abandon the pyramids (which would be silly). They plan to build the Great Lighthouse.
(and if I missed any other points, please add them)
--Togas
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Togas
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California
Jun 2002
time: 21:35
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I have no reservations about sending the letter to PAL, as it got serious discussion going, and jump started a dialogue between us and will most likely lead to a better relationship. It may have caused them to abandon plans to attack us, but it certainly didn't invite any such plans, as they would be on notice that they have no element of surprise.
Better relationship?? Consider any relationship in real life. If you have an issue with your friend, you speak your mind, work things out, and then after things are settled you become more secure in your relationship.
Diplomaticly, we need to be direct with these guys. While they have a rep for being warmongers we have a rep for having a silk tongue. We have a rep for saying whatever we want the other guy to hear and being too friendly can actually be suspicious. Opening up and saying, "Hey, we're not so happy about that" is a good way to keep things real between us.
Anyhow, while FP made some excellent points and probably argued his case TOO much (I'm always suspicious of long-winded people. Common sense points don't need to be drilled in with long long diatribes.) However, I'd be more suspicious if he just offered to do whatever we wanted. He's clearly not doing that. He's still trying to push for his own agenda while offering a few good (and a few bad) solutions to our problems. Kudos. 
After the team responds to his email I could write him a response, or someone else can. Preferably, it should be two of us. I can respond personally commending him on his true spirit of cooperation and his very reasonable solutions, somone else should offer a more down-to-earth "this is what we want" letter.
I think we should definately place a sentry on that road.
The proposal to have workers come into our territory to road is a fine one.
I do not want them to abandon Pyramids, and we need to tell them that was not our intention. Their stated plan to build the Great Lighthouse is all we ask for.
We just need to figure out what to do with this freakin' border proposal. And we'd better actually draw something up. These "no map trade" rules are silly when we're dealing with the same land that we both can see. There must be a common sense way around them.
--Togas
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ormuzd
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The answer is quite impressive. I don't think they will really attack us either and I disagree with the border proposal they have made. Short term they have advantage because the continent will be settled faster and this will bring greater advantage to both teams. But we are commercial and our corruption rate is reduced. This means that if we have greater territory we will use it better than PAL.
But I think we have never mentioned the island(s?) we have seen. If we leave them with that territory they want we can settle the islands and this will make us happy too.
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GodKing
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Detroit
Feb 2002
time: 00:35
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FOR REVIEW AND COMMENT - DRAFT - HAS NOT BEEN SENT TO PAL
Dear PAL:
I am writing to you today as MOI (Minister of Interior, Domestic Dude, Secretary of Building, City Planner, what not) of Apolyton. We thank you for your response to Togas’ letter. Here are some points that we want you to reflect upon to further help in understanding us and bettering relations between ourselves.
1) The land down here is relatively barren. You are industrious and agricultural, making you the Super REXer. We know and understand. We have lots of plains and desert squares (abet, with some flood plains that are far away from our capitol so as to be mostly unsettled as yet). It sucks for growth for us (thus our relatively small size) and slow expansion.
2) We have explored a large part of this continent, thanks to your cooperation in letting us pass through your territory. Please feel free to do the same. Once you understand the scope of the land, I think you will feel better about the border we are proposing with you. Our FP would go near the ivory you have settled, making this a fairly dense region for us and our commercial trait. You have significant lands to your south (swamps) and east (mountains and jungle) that can be settled with work, but being industrious you have the manpower to do such work. Until such an agreement has been worked out, we kindly ask that you settle the disputed region last. We will do the same. And if you do settle there, please consider the fact that we may be asking for those cities to be gifted to us at a later date upon resolution of the border.
3) Although the pyramids offer you a huge potential in growth and in starting your GA when you want it, we look at your empire and think two things: a) they are already growing like mad, what do they need more growth with and b) you really need happiness. Wouldn’t the oracle or some other happiness wonder be better for you in the long run? We will not fight you (or even argue with you) about this, your civ, do what you feel is right. This is where the comment about the pyramids and a focus on your infrastructure came from. We also recognize the good it does in taking this advantage away from our rival civs. But think about this…. Those rival civs must be thinking about taking each other out. If so, what way to give one of them a leg up on doing so than to give them serious growth. If nothing else, it will make the other civ that much more of a target when we invade.
4) Let us gift our extra lux asap. Go ahead with the road. Just realize that in PBEM world, the building of a road is often the first step in an invasion, thus our general paranoia about it. No need to send in a worker to connect the lux, unless you feel you want or need it in the next 20 or so turns. We will be able to connect it in that time with no problems. We can speed things up as needed, please send us a timeline, but not less than 10 turns. Feel free to send workers anyways, as I will never turn down free worker help. As they are close already, they will allow you to scout a bit also if you like. We will gladly offer a ROP for your explorers and workers, however, due to our limited growth, we are scraping the barrel for our money to perform all the warrior-sword upgrades we have planned, so we would kindly ask you to found the embassy.
5) Because of your super growth and the likely fact that you will soon have the pyramids, would you consider selling us some workers, or even settlers? The faster this land is occupied and productive, the better off we will both be. (Settlers are sold as follows: we tell you where we want a city, and you found one there and gift/sell it to us). Although I have not discussed this with my team, and our general paranoia will have the cats hairs up during this process, I believe that it will prove to be a benefit for both of our teams.
6) We fully expect our relationship to continue to the finals. Although we may not be allied then, we will definitely start out with friendly relations. This is one of the reasons we formed the alliance with you in the first place.
7) We fully plan on building Zeus. In fact, we already have a prebuild working on it (although our plans are flexible enough on it that we may decide to change). We have no firm plans on any other wonders at this time, but if for some reason CDG doesn’t initiate our GA by dying on one of our hoplites spears, we may look at starting our GA by other means. We would like one of us to build the lighthouse if at all possible, as that will allow our invasion to proceed much smoother.
8) I and my team have been thinking more along the lines of invading the other continent with knights and MI instead of Cavalry, with a burn and pillage philosophy. At least that is what myself and a few others have chatted about. We really have no firm plans at this time as we want to REX out this land mass and explore prior to making anything firm.
9) Our one scout encountered some barbarian problems, and that is why he has stayed stuck up north. He has resolved his issues with the local despot, however, and is now on his way home. Thank you for understanding. Our other scout continues to march south in the far eastern lands. We see no end to the landmass yet, thus our belief that the land there is plentiful and ripe for possibilities for expansion by you. It appears to offer huge benefits in terms or both shield and food resources, with the required improvements done of course.
10) Our plan for the war is to send a nice size army of slow movers (hoplites, archers and swords) into their belly, while your fast movers decimate their northern outposts. We will have a few fast movers ourselves to catch those attacks/captures of opportunity. As we will be marching in with hoplites, we fully expect CDG to kill an archer or two on our spears and start our GA for us. Being so, we wish to switch to republic to maximize our growth and production just prior to the start of the war. We plan on our revolution beginning around turn 86. We ask that we coordinate our mutual invasions such that we do not have any potentially wasted GA time. Do you plan on changing governments soon?
Thank you for listening to this old man ramble on. We look forward to our mutual success in this and the next game.
Sincerely,
Godking, MOI of Apolyton
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conmcb25
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Angmar
Aug 2002
time: 23:35
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Ok short and sweet letter sent to PAL.
GK I would change the Pyramid letter. If you want to say anything I would just say something like:
"On the issue of the Pyramids, we fully understand that is the plan to start your GA and keeping it out of Sumeria's hands is a strong selling point. We just wanted to offer a different perspective that with your outstanding growth a happiness wonder maybe something to think about as well. Both approaches have there good points and bad points and now that we have discussed it we are convinced you guys are taking the right approach. Rest assured that were not trying to tell you what to, we were just suggesting an alternative for discussion, and as Fried Psitalon knows, Apolyton guys love to talk.  "
Maybe rework that last sentence a bit, but right now, I got to get back to work.
I just dont think we should again stress the Pyramids thing. They heard us once, they said "You must be kidding". I just think it would be counterproductive to try and stress it again.
Consuls? What do you think?
On the other two letters, Im camping for the next two days. In the meantime, I think we should send a more extensive spirit of cooperation letter as Togas suggested. Togas can you handle that?
Then on the this is what we want letter, I need to know what we want? (The Uber split?) and what we will settle for?
And if we would settle for them keeping pumkinville as long as we get the island.
Please discuss these issues the next couple of days and Ill work up the what we want letter on sunday. In the meantime, I think the spirit of cooperation letter needs to come first.
Give em a kiss before you give them a punch. Thats an old rule of thumb from business letter writing.
Last edited by conmcb25 on 24-09-2004 at 19:08
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:35
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GK's point #3 is good, I think, about the idea that if one of the other civs gets the Pyramids then they may go after their other neighbour. However, should they decide to go after one of us, it will just make the two of them harder to beat later on. Perhaps mention BOTH of these things to them, and then leave it.
Part of point #4 I am not too comfortable with - I don't think we need mention PBEM road building possibly meaning an invasion - these guys know that. It's a bit needless, I think.
OK, have just counted tiles. This may be out by one or two, but here goes. I have counted every land or fresh water I can see or deduce the type of (there are a few unexplored tiles in PAL terrain where the tile type can be basically determined from seeing the edge of the tile.
I have counted all tiles we can see of PAL from a line NW/SE (7/3 on the keypad) of the PAL Silk colony as PAL tiles, and all tiles for us (including CDG lands) NW/SE of the mountain that PAL's Warrior Dr Shot is on, 3 tiles North of Olympus.
Thus:
Grass (or grass forest): APO 56 PAL 61 basically even
Plains (or plains forest): APO 85 PAL 49 favours us with so-so terrain
Mtns: APO 9 PAL 18
Hills: APO 16 PAL 23
Desert: APO 22 PAL 14
Fresh Water: APO 1 PAL 1
Tundra: APO 6 PAL 0
Floodplains: APO 12 PAL 13
Volcanos: APO 0 PAL 1
Marsh: APO 0 PAL 22
Jungle: APO 0 PAL 21
So in total, this amounts to 223 for PAL, of which 104 are grass or can be turned into grass, and 207 for Poly, with a measly 56 grass. With ho hum terrain included (plains, + desert for PAL), the ratios are PAL 166: Poly 141. PAL has more hills than us too. Oh, and of course they have even MORE we have not fully explored yet.
In the area not accounted for, between Dr Shot and the PAL Silk colony, we have
Grass: 5
Plains: 23
Mtns: 2
Hills: 11
Desert: 14
FP: 9
For a total of 14 good, 37 so-so to good, and 64 tiles total. Looks to me like there will be at least 27 tiles unexplored to the SE of PAL land, and another 15 or so in the middle of their lands we can't see.
If we had all of thost 64 tiles up to the Silk colony, and PAL has the numbers of tiles I estimate as well as what we know, the totals would be about 1:1. Also, PAL would have around 120 grass tiles, and we would have about 61. In the plains category, PAL would have 70-odd, and us with 108, and a FP imbalance in our favour by an additional 10 tiles. This would mean we were roughly even in terms of fp + grass +plains tiles, although PAL still maintains a majority of grass tiles over us, and with their Ag trait they have an advantage of desert tiles being extra useful to them.
So looks like things are pretty unbalanced at the moment, and would be redressed mostly if we have all land up to near the PAL Silk colony. PAL would still maintain a terrain advantage though. Perhaps we can use some of this crap I can't BELIEVE I've just counted up to convince them of our need for more of the disputed land.
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