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RegentMan
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quote:
Originally posted by Donegeal
You do realize that Apolyton blantantly broke a NAP with.. oh damn.. Lucky's team in the original ISDG and are none the worse for ware. People still see us as a trust worthy team and make deals with us. |
Well, that's true. However, GCA was also invading CFC, and invaders almost always look like the bad guys. It very well could look like Apolyton was stepping in and aiding a fellow nation.
quote:
Originally posted by Donegeal
There is a difference between breaking an out of game treaty becuase it is favorable to your team and flat out cheating as CBR has been caught doing in the past.
Who do you think has a better rep? If we stab a cheating team in the back, who do you think will have the better rep? |
Reading that, I can see your point.
Regarding Apolyton's reputation: I see it as nearly spotless. Perhaps it's because our two sites were allied during the MSDG, perhaps it's the truth. I was disappointed that we weren't in round one together, as I hoped we could rekindle the alliance. Such is life...
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Thot
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My proposal is, to be as open and friendly to the Brazilians as possible.
If we had a 3-3-constellation, we would need to find out first, who and where #3 is. Then we can think about the options the have. It would be a bad idea to anger the Brazilians or force them into a coalition against us.
If we had a 2-2-2-constellation it would be even worse, because we need to cooperate in techresearch and there would probably anyway be enough space to settle in on our continent for both teams.
So consider this a declaration of peace until we know more about other neighbours. No war and no hostile behaviour against the Brazilians as we should not limit our options later on.
For day-to-day politics this means imho that we should accept a 50-round-peace to make them feel secure and comfortable with us.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:37
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I'm going to need to read through this entire thread when I find the time, but keeping in mind that I haven't, here's my perspective:
The FAM should be approaching the Brazilian team as though *assuming* that we're going to be allied: not merely *wish* to be allied, but behaving as though we assume that's where things are headed and we want to try to make that a reality. That we believe in it, that we believe its the best course, that we try to encourage the Brazilian team to see it as the best course.
In doing so, however, the FAM is going to have to keep in mind what information will be known to the Brazilian team. Assume that our team is preparing for war on them... given that, we need to develop a narrative to give to the Brazilian team that:
1. Accounts for information they know about, including things that might otherwise be suspicious.
2. VOLUNTEERS information that is at least not harmful to our narrative. The more supportive the information is to the narrative, the better. The more they perceive that we are willing to volunteer information because it seems we're not terribly worried about them, the better.
3. Judiciously leaves completely unmentioned and unexpressed (even subtly or unintentionally) signs of our true intention - whatever that may be. The narrative must remain unmarred by the realities of our internal debates and remain consistent in its picture.
The inclusion of #2 should help *considerably* with #3. For those new to the team or who haven't seen it before, it might pay to repost the OpSec posts that E_T and myself made back when we were in the leadership of the 'poly PTWISDG team.
I'll make the following warning: Doing this requires *a lot* from the ambassador. Akward pauses can kill you. Walking the tight rope of "how you expect your team to react to X proposal" can be rather difficult for some people.
Aro being our ambassador, I'm happy. He can hopefully establish a rapporte that none of the rest of us could. 
That's all for now. I really need to read this thread and see what the devil has been going on thusfar. 
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:37
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Checked the discussion over the past 2-3 pages. I'm not as concerned about whether we *ultimately* break treaties or not than I am about whether we get the narrative right until the one point where we might break a treaty.
Whatever we do.... whatever we do.... there is only ONE time when breaking a treaty is acceptable: that time is the turn upon which you stack of doom is sitting on the enemy's border and ALL treaties with that partners effectively become meaningless.
Breaking a treaty under any other circumstance is just abject stupidity. Breaking a treaty under *that* circumstance has been repeatedly shown not to hurt the reputation of the team that did it. Almost every single successful team in multiplayer DG play has done precisely the same thing at one point or another.
That said, we should certainly try to avoid it if possible. If we can demonstrate that we actually *didn't* break any agreements with our first target, it adds at least some measure of credibility to our agrreements with the second. Ultimately, what makes agreements credible is not so much the "reputation" of the partner, but perceived ties of interest inherent in the agreement. If the partner perceives it to be in our interest to live up to the agreement and our INTENT to live up to the agreement, they will trust us to hold it. Even if we have a spotless reputation, if they perceive our interests and intent to be counter to an agreement, they're going to be suspicious of us.
Last edited by Arnelos on 26-08-2005 at 00:29
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:37
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Hey, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the GWT guys. You guys proved in both the PTWDG and the PTW-ISDG that you were way above any other competition we had from other sites. In the PTW-ISDG, especially looking at things from a strategic planning and domestic micromanagement standpoint, those of us involved in studying those things knew very well that you guys were better prepared and far more clever than ANY of our other opposition. We were able to discern relatively early on knowing GWT and CGN that you guys were going to win a conflict and it was going to be because you guys were planning ahead effectively and playing the game better. We made a rather futile attempt to beef up CGN and advise them on what they could do to meet the threat, but it proved ineffective because, frankly, CGN just wasn't as good as you guys - not by a long shot.
You harbored GCA and I'll admit that earned you some measure of enmity here, but trust me when I say that we *profoundly* respected what you guys were capable of, how good you were, and what we were up against.
When MZ told me via chat yesterday that you guys had joined our team after your elimination in Round 1, I was *quite* pleased. It would be difficult to find better additions to the team.
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Thot
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quote:
Originally posted by notyoueither Perhaps we can be honest and let them know that a vocal minority (?) are against NAPs on general principle and past experience. We are however discussing it and it could turn out positively. [What do the rest of you think to trying to say that?] |
I don't think that's a good idea. We should always act as a whole team with only one voice to the outside world. Anything else will make people think and wonder about if they can trust us.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by BigFree
2. They have likely met another Civ but Worcet cannot say yet. |
Sounds like it. Good work, BF.
quote:
3. They picked a defensive Civ in hopes of playing mostly a diplomacy type of game with some emphasis on Role Playing. |
I have some experience being in the senior leadership of THE "roleplaying team" and I'm going to say this:
That's 100% complete and total BS!  (not that anyone didn't already know that, of course!)
I'm sure they picked the defensive UU in order to increase their survivability and I'm sure that they may indeed love RP, but the idea that their RP and defensive UU are driving a position of playing a perfectly peaceful diplomatic game picking daisies off in a corner while the rest of the world burns around them is rather silly.
Besides, telling that story is something we've seen before... we (RP team) did it. It was Togas' idea and it worked beautifully for a while in large part because of the sheer amount of effort that went into it and the sheer amount of RP material produced (some of it edited and specifically released to create desired impressions). It didn't last. I think it just became *far* too obvious that we were consciously using the RP as a flimsy smokescreen for just how exhaustively calculating our team really was (or at least how the leadership really was).
Given the history of this CBR team, there is but no doubt in my mind that they're trying to pull the same fast one. It might be a bit self-serving for me to say so, but I'll say this: they aren't doing it very well, either. 
All of that said, however, I think this gives us a bit of an opportunity: PLAY ALONG!
Take what they tell us at face value, even play gullible if the situation calls for it. See if they can tell us any more about their wonderful civilization over there. And pray, very very hard, that they get it into their heads that their overly simplistic ruses will actually work and they can afford to be too lazy to really work at anything more elaborate.
It should be noted that in order to make that work, we need to not let it be known that we know about things they haven't told us about or that we can't see from the most immediately available game information. Anything discovered by Area X that we might not have realized otherwise certainly falls into the category of things we know about, but don't want them to know we know about.
We'll need to bear in mind, of course, that we are not above being fooled. We're going to have to watch what they're doing extremely closely and keep in mind that the moment we assume it's impossible for these guys to be clever enough to fool us, that's when they actually get a shot to do it.
quote:
I also think they have had a negative experience with another Civ on our Continent and therefore would be overjoyed to find an "Ally" |
Possible. It could also be a ruse.
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25-08-2005 07:43
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