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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by adaMada
Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger,
I know not if hasteful is a word. In my travels, I am told that we are indeed advanced to even have knowledge of an alphabet, so perhaps we might continue our advancement through the construction of a great list of words that exist? I know not of this dictionary you speak of, however I am always happy to learn new of words, and perhaps even find some that I may use.
As for Glory of War, I must respectfully disagree with your diplomatic assessment. As your honor may remember, this tribe has elected to make themselves a band of servants, willing to do the deeds of others for reward, even at the expense of their own victory*. Though I understand not their reasons for doing such, it would seem to me that they would be unwilling to betray a friend, as then who would allow their service? Indeed, if we are concerned that they will use this information to betray us, they have already agreed to shakehands with us upon the thought of nofighting, and perhaps a great linguist (such as yourself) might even place such a handshake in words and make it moreso binding? Even without such, I feel confident that they will honor their words, as any other path will lead to the downfall of both their tribe and their merchant ways.
Sincearly yours,
ada del Mada
Ambassadsor of Togas to Glory of War
[ooc]
* Merc tribe, even if it means loosing them the game.
[/ooc] |
[OOC]
Is it just me, or is this defense of GoW as a nice cuddly friendly team a rather good example of the dangers of "going native" that I warned many of you about at the start of our diplomatic efforts?
While I agree with adaMada on the strategic value of an agreement with GoW at this time and even with something of an agreement that may cause them to defer from us as a target, I must remind him and others that History Guy is correct... they really are bent on war and the destruction of every other civ in the game as their strategy. To allow ourselves to be so easily fooled into believing otherwise would be truly stupid. Seriously... while we can certainly pretend that we're buying their line, but WE SHOULD NOT ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT. It is quite clear that this is as much a lie as many of our own to other tribes.
That said, we CAN work with GoW, even knowing that it is their eventual intent to wipe us out. It's easy to look for advantage in tactical agreements with your friends... it's harder but sometimes more advantageous to look for them with your enemies.
Let us be clear that GoW is without question a long-term foe, but in the short term may prove an asset.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by adaMada
Possible Diplomatic Deals:
- Nonagression pact. Their ambassador mentioned this briefly -- suggesting that if we did trade minimaps, he personally wouldn't signing one so neither side could use the information as a military advantage. (This is probably because of how I overplayed our team’s distrust of them above). I think this option would make nearly everyone happy -- for those two want to befriend/ally with them, it's an unmistakably friendly step, and for those who distrust them, it secures us for the immediate future against them.
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I fully agree with signing such an agreement. Let us be clear, however, that we may very well want to violate such an agreement if GoW were to attack Legoland (since they seem to be next to one another) and we felt that it would make GoW too powerful or that we would then logically be GoW's next target.
Generally, however, I think a non-agression pact with GoW is a very good thing to do. But please keep in mind that an agreement to not have wars with GoW will only be worth the value of the piece of paper it is written on (and given the lack of paper here, that's not much!) if we lull ourselves into a sense of false complacency and present and easy target.
GoW will respect strength and an ability to defend ourselves. They will likely not invade if they feel they would not win. It is only then that such an agreement holds any real meaning.
quote:
- Most Favored Trading Nation Status. Togas suggested that I consider the benefits and reasons against offering this to them. I haven't even mentioned it to their ambassador yet (waiting to hear what others thing), but sadly this means I can’t offer much insight into the problem – I have no idea what it’s worth to them
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I don't exactly remember what this meant from the Legoland agreement, but I seem to recall it was something along the lines of "we promise to come to you first" with various technologies, resources, luxuries, etc. This might not be a bad idea either... with the same qualifications I mentioned for a NAP with GoW, remember that such an agreement should not be considered a protection of invasion - only strong defenses can really do that.
quote:
- ‘Neutrality Pledge’ in their wars. Same situation as above. I don’t know if GoW would value this at all, and I’d rather not give it away for free – but if it allows us to net some better deal, and if we already have a military nonaggression pact, then this level of more full neutrality may not be a bad step (though it could eventually put us in a conflict between our GoW contracts and our Legoland contracts).
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This is absolutely out of the question. We DO NOT want to voluntarily restrict our ability to manuever in this regard. If we were to ever sign such an agreement, there should be no question that we would violate it at the first chance we got should the situation demand it. And I would count on GoW being intelligent enough to perhaps realize that's exactly what would happen. If there are only 4 civs on our continent and GoW invades one of them (GoW being one of them), do you honestly believe we'd just sit idly by with the certain knowledge that this will only make GoW more powerful and that we might be the next target?
No, this is ludicrous. We CANNOT promise to remain neutral if a war starts. A "non-aggression" pact we could get away with (knowing that we'd end up violating it) because it's not as much of a promise to say "we won't invade you", with the known caveat that if we ever sign any other alliances, the agreement is null and void for those allies.
In other words... there should be no question IN OUR MINDS that defensive alliances ("mutual protection pacts" as Civ3 calls them) are what we want to sign with teams probably like Legoland and that such agreements should have superiority over any "non-aggression" agreements. Non-aggression should only mean "we won't fight a 1-on-1 war with you", not a broader neutrality agreement that promises that we will sit on the sidelines if they invade the other half of the planet.
As I said, I would think that GoW would HAVE to realize we're lying if we propose and sign such an agreement. Conversely (and far worse), GoW could take us SERIOUSLY and see it as a sign of weakness (we being SO DESPERATE to not be attacked by them that we're willing to even agree to not enter war even if they're invading other people around us).
I think I've said enough on this for now... I'm starting to get redundant 
quote:
- Location of the two civs they know. This would obviously be very useful, but I doubt we’ll get it. Firstly, we can only trade them the location of Legoland, which we obviously cannot do without betraying their trust. Secondly, they may be forbidden to trade us those locations as well, and I believe they take their treaty obligations very seriously.
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I agree that such an agreement is rather doubtful.
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Arnelos
[OOC]
Is it just me, or is this defense of GoW as a nice cuddly friendly team a rather good example of the dangers of "going native" that I warned many of you about at the start of our diplomatic efforts?
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I fully agree with Arnelos. GoW have declared themselves as a warmonger civ. They 've literally "burn the ships". Everyone is expecting them to do this now, se they will have to do it even if they have changed their opinion. I say, don't trust in them.
Aslo, do you know how the trading in PBEM wroks? can they have our techs without giving us theirs? Because if that's posible, I wouldn't discard that...
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Togas
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California
Jun 2002
time: 21:24
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Diplomatic Policy:
I want all of our ambassadors to aggressively seek out trade deals, map deals, peace deals, cooperation deals, and virtually any other deals you can make. The more interaction and involvement the better. I want us to get close to every nation out there and I want us to quickly establish a value to other nations so that we will be seen in a more favorable light. This will help us gain allies in emergencies, push alliances, or convince other nations that there are better targets than Spain.
Your job as ambassador is to keep our relationship strong with your nation, make friends with your nation, and learn as much as possible about them. You must also do everything you can to make us likeable and popular to the players on the other teams. We should entertain and be always willing to chat about anything.
Important Notes:
We MUST maintain a strong and formidable military no mater what.
We should never fully trust anyone to follow through with their deals, and should they not follow through, we should let every other nation know it.
We will break agreements. It will happen. Let us not be too unwilling to do so, especially if we can destroy a universally hated nation by doing so. We should not use treachery to destroy a weak or popular nation, but we should pull no punches with destroying a dangerous nation or the leading nation in the game.
--Togas
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History Guy
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Reads too many books...
Oct 2001
time: 23:24
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I wish I could get in touch more with these confounded Arabs, but they so rarely remember to open the door to let my messengers in. Ah well. I'll see what more can be done.
I'm glad someone has backed me up, here. Thanks Senor Clemente. Expect the first squid tribute tomorrow. It appears that the tactic of the Chinese is to lull us into a false sense of tranquility, to in effect say to us that they have no notion of suddenly going berserk and attempting to totally destroy our people. It is a poor tactic, or so we might think, but in this case it nearly worked. I would refrain from trusting anyone outside our borders, for they are all primitive barbarians anyway, but I'd especially take each word from the Vox Controli and the Warmongers with an especially large grain of salt. The plan that these Warmongers have always put forward was to destroy every other people, and to take over the world. There is no question in it, and we must remember that.
Convince them to sign that non-aggression pact, for if they break that, they will surely never get another one from anyone else, and their only hope will to be simply to go out in battle.
Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger
Diplomat
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pikesfan
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They say they wear black so that the blood they spill doesn’t show.
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Togas
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California
Jun 2002
time: 21:24
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I got a very informal email message from GF when he sent me the save. He asked me not to share with either of our ambassadors, so I will not post it here, but will communicate what he said to me. We can discuss. It sounds legit.
He says GoW was met by Neu Dem several turns ago, and Neu Dem has met some other team prior to meeting GoW. He indicates that he doesn't know the location of those two civs, but said that if they're between us we should consider allying together to squeeze that nation between us.
He stated that this was an informal idea, not sanctioned from his diplomacy department. I wrote him back saying it sounded like a great idea and we should informally discuss it more when we find out the locations of the other teams. I also told him that if his people wanted to "formally" discuss it, to contact adaMada.
--Togas
Last edited by Togas on 23-12-2002 at 11:59
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Nuclear Winter
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I´ve just sent this, if you notice it has good pieces of rp, and in the end the requesition of the book of the voice is to make ´em think their book propaganda(of them being roleplayers too) has worked....
quote:
My friend Betahound,
Our tribe has sent our hordes of mighty warriors and explorers toward the north in hope to meet your nation, but the directives are a little vague. We have also given you the directives on how to meet our team on a previous PM, but whe believe it must not be easy to. It is a vast world we live in, but our wisemen have tought on a way to overcome this trouble.
The minimaps (the small maps on the left side of the screen) can be traded. The agreement we sugest is basically we show you ours if you show us yours.
It is obvious some may think such a purpose is one with mean intentions, so to prevent this it would be a good time to forge strong bonds of friendship amongst our nations. We sugest these directives:
Minimap Trade This one is pretty self explanatory
Most favored trading nation status By this we agree to offer you better deals than we´d offer to other nations and this also implies your nation offering us better deals than you´d give to others in trading maps in the future, in tech deals and in luxurie trades.
Pact of nonagression This deal states that both of our nations agree not to attack one another for a time of 50 turns. Of course, our nation would like to extend this deal later on.
Also, we would like to ask for a copy of the book of the Voxians, wich interested us quite a lot.
Looking forward to stablish great relations with the 2nd most roleplaying team 
Nuclearis Winterius the II,
representant of the Great Dictatorship of Spain
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History Guy
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Reads too many books...
Oct 2001
time: 23:24
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The book of the Voxians is in the language of Mordor which I shall not utter here. Ask for a copy in the common tongue, eh?
As for myself, the Neu Demogyptica Caliph simply doesn't respond to me. I've sent another private messenger to their ambassador, the Emir el Picahulu, which basically asks for trades of mini-maps, and coordinates so that we may meet up, and words of encouragement to let them believe that we favor them above all other nations. Also, I suggested that we trade technologies, and that we develope a relationship that is mutually beneficial to our two great civilizations. No response as of yet, but I suppose it leaves a lot to be discussed between them. However, the lack of response to me personally is disconcerting.
Hernan de History Guy Calamari the Younger
Ambassador to the Crazy Cackling Evil Heathen Maniac Arabs
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adaMada
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"The Iron" Stadium, Ubergorsk, Apolytonia (C3DG)
Mar 2000
time: 00:24
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[OOC]
I have many things to respond to. Sadly, some will have to wait until later, but there are one or two that cannot be delayed.
quote:
Originally posted by Arnelos
[OOC]
Is it just me, or is this defense of GoW as a nice cuddly friendly team a rather good example of the dangers of "going native" that I warned many of you about at the start of our diplomatic efforts? |
Arnelos, History Guy, and all others who have suggested it -- I have not "Gone native". I do not believe that GoW is no threat to us, and I do not see them as a cuddly teady bear. I agree that they are a threat. I also however have considered the situation and believe they will honor their word. Now, perhaps in that one respect my reasoning is flawed, but if they truely intend to be a mercenary civilization, I do not believe any other path is possible. Assuming they will keep their word in explicit agreements, which obviously needs more debate than I thought, our best course of action is simple. GoW will need to aquire military technology. They could do this by conquering, but there is an obvious catch-22 in such a situation -- how can they conquer without the technology to do so? As such, I feel that GoW has a definate weakness -- and by becoming one of their primary diplomatic partners, we can not only make a sizable profit, but also utilize their military nature to our advantage and (hopefully) eliminate threat to ourselves. This is my outlook on GoW, and this is why I do not agree with those who propose a cautious diplomatic strategy -- not because I disagree that it is not a dangerous situation, but because I feel we can turn this to our advantage.
quote:
While I agree with adaMada on the strategic value of an agreement with GoW at this time and even with something of an agreement that may cause them to defer from us as a target, I must remind him and others that History Guy is correct... they really are bent on war and the destruction of every other civ in the game as their strategy. To allow ourselves to be so easily fooled into believing otherwise would be truly stupid. Seriously... while we can certainly pretend that we're buying their line, but WE SHOULD NOT ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT. It is quite clear that this is as much a lie as many of our own to other tribes. |
I'm unsure on this issue. I did take it at face value when they said they were going to be a purely mercenery civilization, perhaps because I can see how such a path would be fun. Just as our own roleplay design makes the game more interesting for me, I can easily see how a mercenery civilization could be more interesting than a warmongering one. I need some time to reflect on the issue before I comment more.
quote:
That said, we CAN work with GoW, even knowing that it is their eventual intent to wipe us out. It's easy to look for advantage in tactical agreements with your friends... it's harder but sometimes more advantageous to look for them with your enemies. |
This I agree with. Clearly, if there are two civilizations left -- us and GoW -- we will become a target. Having said that, I feel very strongly that our goal should be to put off becoming a target as long as is possible -- and benefiting from their successes however we can (and, as such, preparing ourselves for the future). I believe that (through good diplomatic work) we can avoid becomming an immediate target of GoW -- but that is not possible if we already assume that there can be no diplomatic dealings with GoW without sentancing ourselves to death.
quote:
Let us be clear that GoW is without question a long-term foe, but in the short term may prove an asset. |
I can agree on this -- my simple goal is to make the short term asset last as long as possible, and to put off the long term foe for a very long time. Obviously, my ideal goal, and what I strive to do, is to put it off forever -- but I understand a more practical goal is to profit off it while we can . Either way, I do not feel that any action we've taken so far has been a mistake, or even that we should continue our current strategy -- we should move on as we have.
-- adaMada
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adaMada
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"The Iron" Stadium, Ubergorsk, Apolytonia (C3DG)
Mar 2000
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Arnelos
I fully agree with signing such an agreement. Let us be clear, however, that we may very well want to violate such an agreement if GoW were to attack Legoland (since they seem to be next to one another) and we felt that it would make GoW too powerful or that we would then logically be GoW's next target. |
Agreed -- but I'd caution against letting Lego know that, since we don't want to wind up in a war with GoW, and if we ally against GoW with Legoland, we take the brunt of the attack, not them.
quote:
Generally, however, I think a non-agression pact with GoW is a very good thing to do. But please keep in mind that an agreement to not have wars with GoW will only be worth the value of the piece of paper it is written on (and given the lack of paper here, that's not much!) if we lull ourselves into a sense of false complacency and present and easy target. |
Again, working on the assumption that the Mercenery line isn't a pure ruse, I think they will honor their agreements. In my mind, they stand to loose too much by breaking their agreements, and have too much to gain by following them. Having said that, we should be prepared for them to betray us -- but we should not consider it a given.
quote:
GoW will respect strength and an ability to defend ourselves. They will likely not invade if they feel they would not win. It is only then that such an agreement holds any real meaning. |
Very true, but I'd add one consideration to this -- if GoW comes to rely on us for their strength and defensive ability (basically, if we can make ourselves their primary tech supplier), they will also not attack. I'm not saying this is what we want to do, or that there are no risks in such a strategy -- but throwing the dog a bone can often keep it at bay better than using a club, and I believe we can even profit from such an arrangement with GoW. (If nothing else, it would give us considerable sway over who they attacked next).
quote:
I don't exactly remember what this meant from the Legoland agreement, but I seem to recall it was something along the lines of "we promise to come to you first" with various technologies, resources, luxuries, etc. This might not be a bad idea either... with the same qualifications I mentioned for a NAP with GoW, remember that such an agreement should not be considered a protection of invasion - only strong defenses can really do that. |
Personally, I'd only use an explicit agreement stating this if we stood to gain a concrete item for it. I'd much rather establish ourselves as useful to them in their minds, and work from there.
quote:
This is absolutely out of the question. We DO NOT want to voluntarily restrict our ability to manuever in this regard. If we were to ever sign such an agreement, there should be no question that we would violate it at the first chance we got should the situation demand it. And I would count on GoW being intelligent enough to perhaps realize that's exactly what would happen. If there are only 4 civs on our continent and GoW invades one of them (GoW being one of them), do you honestly believe we'd just sit idly by with the certain knowledge that this will only make GoW more powerful and that we might be the next target?
No, this is ludicrous. We CANNOT promise to remain neutral if a war starts. A "non-aggression" pact we could get away with (knowing that we'd end up violating it) because it's not as much of a promise to say "we won't invade you", with the known caveat that if we ever sign any other alliances, the agreement is null and void for those allies.
In other words... there should be no question IN OUR MINDS that defensive alliances ("mutual protection pacts" as Civ3 calls them) are what we want to sign with teams probably like Legoland and that such agreements should have superiority over any "non-aggression" agreements. Non-aggression should only mean "we won't fight a 1-on-1 war with you", not a broader neutrality agreement that promises that we will sit on the sidelines if they invade the other half of the planet.
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I'm inclined to agree with you on the first part, at least for now. I threw it out as a general diplomatic option that Togas aired, but I'm not all that hot on any agreement that restricts our abilities to enter or not enter a war at this early stage of the game. We simply don't know who our friends are yet, and until we do, we can't afford the restriction of options. Having said that, I'd also be equally against any MPP, for the reasons above. We cannot count on Legoland to have our best interests at heart, even if we can consider them to be solid allies. Furthermore, if we were to sign an agreement with Lego vs GoW, we would be the loosers -- Lego would just defend their seashore while we took the brunt of the land attack. We'd be forcing ourselves into a nasty situation which could've been avoided, and which is why I'm against MPPs more than I am against noninterference pacts.
quote:
As I said, I would think that GoW would HAVE to realize we're lying if we propose and sign such an agreement. Conversely (and far worse), GoW could take us SERIOUSLY and see it as a sign of weakness (we being SO DESPERATE to not be attacked by them that we're willing to even agree to not enter war even if they're invading other people around us). |
As I've already agreed with you that a noninterference pact isn't the best option for now, I won't go into much detail here, but if we did do such a deal, I'm sure they'd be paying us dearly for it. We'd never sign such a deal if they weren't giving us something in return, and as long as we made it clear that we were willing to grant them noninterference as long as they pay us in return, I think we could avoid signs of weakness.
quote:
I think I've said enough on this for now... I'm starting to get redundant |
Me too -- I'll come back later tonight and read what I wrote, and then try to figure out what I actually said  .
-- adaMada
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adaMada
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"The Iron" Stadium, Ubergorsk, Apolytonia (C3DG)
Mar 2000
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Togas
I got a very informal email message from GF when he sent me the save. He asked me not to share with either of our ambassadors, so I will not post it here, but will communicate what he said to me. We can discuss. It sounds legit.
He says GoW was met by Neu Dem several turns ago, and Neu Dem has met some other team prior to meeting GoW. He indicates that he doesn't know the location of those two civs, but said that if they're between us we should consider allying together to squeeze that nation between us.
He stated that this was an informal idea, not sanctioned from his diplomacy department. I wrote him back saying it sounded like a great idea and we should informally discuss it more when we find out the locations of the other teams. I also told him that if his people wanted to "formally" discuss it, to contact adaMada.
--Togas |
Togas,
Very interesting proposition they made. I need to think about it a bit before I give my thoughts, but it's a facinating example of how we could make ourselves useful enough to avoid war. On the other hand, it could also mean that we take half of the nation and GoW takes the other half, and we suddenly share a huge boarder with GoW. This might not be a bad thing, but it's something we'd rather not deal with until we've established if they can be trusted.
-- adaMada
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jdjdjd
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of España
May 2002
time: 00:24
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If GoW really met Neu Dem, and we already were lead to believe that Lux met Neu Dem, then we should have at least two addl neighbors between us and Lego / GoW to the North and West.
That leaves Vox Controli, who lead us to believe they are to the North and East, and Gathering Storm who may have already met another civ and - location I'm not sure.
And there were no AIs, is that right?
This sounds like a panagea. And its not too big of a landmass. This ought to be interesting.
Still no word back from Lux to my PMs. I know Admiral has read them. May be they already know where we are....
Last edited by jdjdjd on 24-12-2002 at 21:16
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22-12-2002 00:14
Boy, was I glad to wake up and call for some real squid, and was I ever happy when my servants ran in and gave it to me!
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