13-12-2002 22:37									#1
	Response from NDE Inflate your Upload Space

This is the PM I just recieved from Borc this morning:

quote: Hello Trip, Unfortunately the situation has changed a little bit. But don't care! we both will find a quick solution! I am the leader of my people but anyway we are a democratic nation and thats why they want to discuss the deal first in our parliament. Your people already had the time to study the situation and i know you had the chance to make a poll yesterday. We also need this. And we need more discussions with you. Some of my people say that it is not really nice that you bring fear on our helpless settler and that there is no reason for you to hunt him through a land which is not occupied by you and which was already visited by our scouts... So we have to discuss the border situation soon again... But I had the chance to say my people that at least we should leave with our settler to let the border land free until our both nations can define the border later... They accepted but they dont want your warrior to follow our settler. If you will do this then some of us certainly would call for our archer :-( So let us both keep the border land free for a while and we also will call back our scout from your home city. I also was enabled to offer you Warrior code, but my people are still discussing if 10gc are enough for it. I will try my best to tell my people that 10gc/warriorcode would be a good first deal (but if you have any further ideas?)... Let us start more diplomatic actions soon... maybe we can have a peace pipe meating again in your chat room this weekend? three of us and three of you? Please, let us make this first contact a success! Borc

This definitely makes things much more interesting, and not in a way that's good for us.

To summarize:
- Us recieving Warrior Code for 10 gold is seriously in question.
- The border agreement is no longer valid.
- They want that settler, and want to make sure he's safe (they've moved him).

We can go two ways with this:
1) We can renegotiate and try to crank out a better (i.e. one they will accept) deal.
2) Or we can try to force the issue using their settler as our advantage.

Benefits of option 1:
- We have virtually no chance of going to war.
- We will maintain friendly relations with NDE, which are a good stepping stone for a tech or even real alliance.

Benefits of option 2:
- There's a chance that we'll get the deal we agreed to, which basically is all good things for us.

Bad things about option 1:
- We likely lose a lot from the deal we'd previously agreed to.
- NDE will get the feeling that we'll always want to take the peaceful route, and may act more aggressive in the future.

Bad things about option 2:
- This could lead to a decaying of relations between our two teams, and eventually even war.
- We might end up with a hostile neighbor, a city a hop-skip-and a jump away from our capital and only city, and no agreement at all.
- Even if we don't go to war, NDE will remember how we treated them, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, having two cities so early is a huge advantage... an Archer rush in the near future might mean the end of us.

Our advantages:
They have a settler not too far away that we could chase down, and we have a much more vigorous and aggressive diplomatic stance, and better on-the-spot diplomats.

Our disadvantages:
NDE apparently has an Archer, the capability to make more, knows where our capital is (I can confirm I see their scout on top of a mountain from the game I just recieved), and could possibly build a city very near to us that's rather productive.

What should we do? I'm going to try and write up a very polite and formal PM to him later today trying to get as much as we can from a deal, and I need some input on what our stance should be.

My personal priorities as far as this deal goes would be to try and maintain the border agreement at all costs... we don't really have much more than plains in our area, and not very defensible ones at that. We need that good land in order to maintain our growth, and to get our empire to an impressive size and power. If we do not obtain possession of that area, we'll be vulnerable and much weaker than we would be otherwise.

	14-12-2002 01:18									#2
	Support Apolyton

I think we need to be firm but not unreasonable. I don't know how exactly we'll accomplish this; I'll let you other people decide.

	14-12-2002 02:16									#3
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I say avoid option 2 at all costs. Any war now or in the near future would severly hinder our growth. Doing anything to risk that is not worth it. I suggest a possible trade or Bronze working for Warrior Code and Gold. We could also agree not to follow their settler for x turns (maybe 3-5) we dont want to appear threatening, but we can't allow them to hinder our exploration.

	14-12-2002 02:26									#4
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

A preview of my PM:

quote: We at Lux Invicta understand your situation and will not hold anything against you. This however does not mean that we do not wish to discuss some sort of deal with Neu Demogyptica. In response to the tech trading deal: We would wish to set up some sort of tech agreement, as it would benefit us both, giving us an advantage over all the other teams very early in the game. If possible, we would like to trade for Warrior Code, however, if this isn't possible, then we will be happy to trade in the future. Would it be acceptable for us to trade you Bronze Working for Warrior Code and a sum of gold? Also, it might be possible for each team to research different techs for the purpose of trading them as we develop them, which would greatly accelerate our research relative to the rest of the world. We can discuss this in more detail in the chatroom over the weekend as you suggested. In response to the border agreement: My team feels we are being very gracious in letting your undefended settler move and neither capturing it nor destroying the city it would have soon created. My team strongly wishes the previous border agreement to be upheld, for our actions were based entirely upon that belief that it would be upheld. Unfortunately, my team would be very reluctant to make any further agreements in the future with Neu Demogyptica due to the fact that they would feel that nothing we negotiate will be upheld. If this deal is to be maintained, then any actions by our warrior in the area will be solely for the sake of exploration, and will not be concerned with your settler at all. As you stated, "Some of my people say that it is not really nice that you bring fear on our helpless settler and that there is no reason for you to hunt him through a land which is not occupied by you" the land in question is not occupied until decided so by treaty, so I'm sure you will not mind our warrior exploring this 'unoccupied land'. Hopefully we can maintain a good and strong relationship with Neu Demogyptica, and we wish you all the best. -Lux Invicta

Very cordial and formal, trying to be very gracious (we do after all want allies not enemies), but also with a 'bite' to it (especially conerning the border agreement). The longer we give them to move their settler and drag out negotiations, the less of an advantage we have, and they start piling the advantages up (especially when they build their next city).
For this reason, we must be forceful and get any major agreements out of the way now, before we lose the initiative.

I get the feeling that NDE won't be so passive as the game goes on, so any way we can try to get the upper hand over them will be very beneficial...

	14-12-2002 02:43									#5
	Increase Your PM Length

They lost my trust on the first deal. If they couldnt have made a deal, they shouldnt have agreed in the first place. Besides if we have a neighboring government that cant back up their words because the 'people' of the government disagree, we probably wont be able to see our ends meet on future relations either.

Brilliant playing by ND though. This is exactly what I would have done. Buy time and back out on my words in this exact fashion. Kudos to them.

We could use the two workers...

	14-12-2002 02:49									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Yes, I have to hand it to them, that trying to back down and buy time is the best thing they could have tried to do. This is why we have to try and pin them down here and now with this PM.

If they agree, we must build a settler on our border with them ASAP to make sure they uphold the agreement this time...

	14-12-2002 03:18									#7
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quote: Originally posted by CiverDan I say avoid option 2 at all costs. Any war now or in the near future would severly hinder our growth. Doing anything to risk that is not worth it. I suggest a possible trade or Bronze working for Warrior Code and Gold. We could also agree not to follow their settler for x turns (maybe 3-5) we dont want to appear threatening, but we can't allow them to hinder our exploration.

We cant trade bronze anymore. Now that I know that these guys are capable of much clever diplomacy than I had hoped for. I saw this possibility, and it was exactly what I would have done (see my topic to be discussed post). I think our slip-up of telling Borc that we "may" follow the settler scared him. I'm sure they feel that we can't be trusted to meet the deal after 10g <--> warrior code trade is made, the word of securing settler can be kept. If its not that, Borc must have wanted to squirm out of this situation even before talking to his members and just agreed to any deal...

My plans with warrior is to apply contant pressure on the NDs. Keep following the settler and hope for a chance to catch the settler. If it goes into the capitol, we'll let it fortify 1 suare apart from the capitol while blockading one of its vital resource. Any acrher coming out to attack will be counter attacked. ND city will be seriously handicapped by this and I'm sure they won't want this to happen and we'll get an agreement before we need to do this.

We can still intimidate them. The battle is even, although they have a better attacking unit, we balance it with our defensive unit. Our best attacking unit is also balanced by their best defensive stat. We can try to bluff the fact that we had bronze longer than they probably had warrior code...

Also our offensive unit is cheaper. While them losing archer agasint an archer VS spearmen battle is -20 shield for them, us losing a warrior to archer or warrior during our attack is only -10. We are also closer to iron working. Keep the enemy scared of us! Use this fact and dont cower from them. It is them who should be bending over to us!

Keep attempting a peaceful solution out of this mess. But do not accept a meagerly satisfying deals. We have clear cuy advantage here. Its not reaonable to give in to someone who has lesser advantage here right now.

	14-12-2002 18:30									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Seems like I may have been right all along...oh well...this is most unfortunate. I still say go with Trip's message, and make sure that our distaste is subltly expressed, but clearly understandable.

	15-12-2002 17:35									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

It may be time to head for that grassland with our soon-to-be-built settler.

	15-12-2002 19:20									#10
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Great message Trip. You have my support to do whatever you feel is right.