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zeit
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Meet my blade!
Sep 2002
time: 06:25
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I post this after reading the idea DeepO had regarding the last incident (sadly, one of many...) with Vox, which you may not all noticed. I refer to the "we thought it was ratified" part of Jon Miller's last note to Nathan. He reffered the border treaty draft made by him and Nathan on the last chat. In that chat, Nathan clearly stated that any agreement or suggestion made by him is informal and cannot be treated as agreed upon by our team, and only after a ratification by our team it be regarded as such (or something in that spirit).
Even if he (Jon) was bluffing, that Vox thought it was ratified, it comes to remind us the importance of stating that any form agreement made by ambassadors/representatives in negotiations is not binding unless clearly stated that it was authorized by our team members.
So, i think it would a good idea to send some form of clarification to all the teams, stating the above. Every ambassador can make compose in a manner he sees fit, just keep in mind sone thing:
We should state that this is strictly a precaution taken by the team, to make sure that the team is not obliged by anything which the members havn't discussed and agreed upon. It is best to steer away from any implications that we don't trust the other team or that the problem is in their "misunderstanding".
Vox should also get one, while we would be sparing any cynism from them- it doesn't matter anymore, since we already who we are dealing with.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by zeit
I refer to the "we thought it was ratified" part of Jon Miller's last note to Nathan. |
I honestly hate to say this, but "I told you so" (not just zeit, everyone). Now they sneak in a city that basically forces us to accept the proposal. Bleh, I'm surprised no one else is bothered by this, but I guess we're concentrating on the GL right now...
zeit, I'll make sure to tell LI that anything I discuss with them is not final until I explicity say so. Somehow I expect things to proceed more smoothly with LI than with Vox.
Dominae
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:25
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Dominae, try to get those kind of messages in.
But what we really should aim for is kind of a Codex, Protocol, or book of Relation things. Just a rule set, where what we will and won't do in diplo contact is documented. Wasn't there a start on this sometime ago? Something like
1. We will play honorably, we won't lie. We can simply not tell something, though. But we do not break any promise made, any deal negotiated.
2. Whatever discussions between ambassadors take place, any deal is not final until we formerly declared it raitified by the team. We also expect the same from our relations: when they agree to a deal, they clearly state it to us, and they don't assume any draft negotiations final until they hear from us it is.
3. We will try to acknowledge receipt of every diplomatic message within 24h of receiving it (as can be seen on the PM tracking page). It will either be a reply, or in case we need more time a simple 'thank you for the message, it was posted on the board' reply. If in those 24h no response has come, the one contacting should contact someone else, either the head of the diplomatic scholia for that momrent, or the player or president of GS.
We expect the same from our contacts, in that they try to follow this guideline.
4. All diplomatic issues are in GS democratic in nature, so could lead to wide spread discussions, and polls. Sometimes, these political debates can take time, certainly as GS is worldwide. Please take reasonable time limits in consideration when proposing or setting deadlines. We will try to accomodate your time needs as well.
5. we consider negotiations between teams completely secret to other teams. Information received in a negotiation can be exchanged sometimes (depending on the nature of the information), but never will be said how we got our intelligence.
6... and so on
DeepO
[edit: when going over it, I noticed I said diplomatic instead of democratic...]
Last edited by DeepO on 12-02-2003 at 01:30
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Dominae
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"Although we have not actually declared war, we're playing as though we had declared war."
No point in argument amongst ourselves, or with Vox, really. DeepO's codex idea is excellent, and we should definitely adopt it for any external communication.
Dominae
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:25
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well... I corrected a typo, but maybe it's best if we've got some grammitcal comments from Native English speakers as well, to avoid any ambiguity.
So far, I haven't seen any additional points, though.
I propose to both post this in a thread on the general forum, as send a version of it too all ambassadors. In the forum, we can then ask if anyone wants to join us in accepting the declaration, it could make it all more official. Further, if we in the future want to update our codex, we can find the thread, and just unburry it.
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:25
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Nathan, it was not my intention that we needed to ratify everything in-team, but that we mention for every deal, how small it might seem, that we formally declare the deal as final, and ratified from our side.
Yes, I think we need to do this, as otherwise there are going to be discussion on what is a small deal, and what not. If we agree to trade one tech for another, we could imply to ratify by agreeing to a deal in-game, which can be a faster response, but normally, we should need to at least have the deal posted on our forum for a day or so, so that everyone can comment on it.
I doubt this will get us in trouble, as most of the times we'll agree well in front to any deal, but it is also a message to the world: we are democratic, and thus bureaucratic, please allow us time by offering deals well before the are actual happening, and we'll be very efficient.
DeepO
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Would it be better to word things so formal ratification is required only for ongoing or long-term agreements, while one-shot agreements can operate with less formal team approval? |
Other teams can do what they want, but I would like Gathering Storm to have some sort of consensus even for one-shot deals. Trading techs is a big deal (pardon the pun). If I contact Lux and tell them I'm offering them Writing for (say) 80 Gold, you can bet the team would want to discuss it first. There should at the very least be some intermediary between the person playing the turns and the diplomatic decisions being made.
In any case, is the Codex not supposed to be about inter-team protocol? A team can "formally accept" proposals any way they wish (in Vox's case it seems Jon's words and actions are more or less final). The fact that we (Gathering Storm) want to ratify important deals is our own business (and a practice I highly recommend).
Dominae
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
I just wanted to make the distinction between a deal and a near-deal, as that near-deal could be rejected totally by the rest of the team.
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Ideally, ambassadors get to near-deal status with the other team, then lay the proposal out to the other members in our own forums. Of course, there are always complications.
The only problem with the border treaty deal was that Jon thought that since so much work was put into it, it was as good as agreed-upon, while Nathan knew it still only had near-deal status. I think we're all agreed that the Codex should address this.
Dominae
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Based on what I wrote, Vox had sufficient reason to act on the assumption that a border treaty would probably go through, which would provide a fully adequate explanation for the "as if" in Jon's later message.
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First, given what was going on in our own boards, I'm not sure this statement was appropriate on your part:
"(But I think the faction that prefers the stability
predefined borders would bring - if the borders are in a location acceptable to us - is larger at present.)"
The reason you thought this was that border treaty discussion basically involved 3 people on our team. When the rest of the team voted on the official poll, it was less than clear. Which is why we've done all that work on trying to get consensus on the major diplomatic issues.
quote:
But unless they have absolutely no understanding of the English language at all, they knew we were still debating the issue and hadn't reached a final conclusion.
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Here we agree, as the following statement was more than clear:
"There's still a faction that would rather just
REX it out instead of predefining borders, though, so the matter is still under discussion."
quote:
I see no basis to support your claim that Vox's understanding of the situation was less than clear.
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You're defeating your own argument here. As I said previously: either Vox did not understand that the treaty was not ratified yet, which implies horrible intra and inter communication skills on their part, or they laughed at the treaty while the negotiations were still in process and make a quick land-grab. In both cases Vox's actions are not exemplary.
Unless you want to go into another "as if" discussion, I think it is clear Vox acting "as if" the treaty was ratified was not exemplified in their founding of Dissidentville, since that city went against the very proprosed treaty in question (more, against the whole spirit of the treaty, which was to avoid a REX contest). And you said so yourself, as I quote:
quote:
If you want to complain about their planting a city in a location where if we wanted a border treaty, we would have to accept its location as an established fact, fine. I'm a bit miffed over that myself when they knew (or should have known) that we had serious objections to that location.
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Finally, I'm honestly confused as to why you are defending their actions so vehemently. Yes, we can use Vox in the short-term, and we will. But it is impossible to now look at Vox as a completely trustworthy, reliable and efficient team. I'm not calling for a war against them. I'm just saying that we have good reasons not to want them as long-term partners. Probably it will never get to that stage, as Vox will screw up again before then.
Dominae
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
First, given what was going on in our own boards, I'm not sure this statement was appropriate on your part:
"(But I think the faction that prefers the stability
predefined borders would bring - if the borders are in a location acceptable to us - is larger at present.)"
The reason you thought this was that border treaty discussion basically involved 3 people on our team. When the rest of the team voted on the official poll, it was less than clear. Which is why we've done all that work on trying to get consensus on the major diplomatic issues. |
Actually, I was basing what I said on the preliminary poll, which had five votes in favor of one or the other of the two already-drawn-up treaties, one supporting a treaty but with different borders, and three for REXing it out. (At least I think all those votes had already been cast at the time.) That certainly wasn't a definitive margin given the total size of the team, but it was enough to get a fairly strong impression of which way the winds were blowing.
quote:
Finally, I'm honestly confused as to why you are defending their actions so vehemently. Yes, we can use Vox in the short-term, and we will. But it is impossible to now look at Vox as a completely trustworthy, reliable and efficient team. I'm not calling for a war against them. I'm just saying that we have good reasons not to want them as long-term partners. Probably it will never get to that stage, as Vox will screw up again before then. |
This last message had nothing to do with defending Vox. It had to do with defending truth (at least as I see it), and to some extent with defending myself against implications that I was insufficiently clear (at least in practice) in conveying to Vox that the deal still had to be ratified.
This thread started based on the premise that Vox had misunderstood and thought the border agreement was effectively ratified when it really wasn't. But the only evidence I see supporting that claim is one particular interpretation of Jon's words. Further, I see nothing in the record that even begins to support that interpretation over the alternative interpretation that Vox was merely acting based on the assumption that some variant of the border deal would probably be ratified (which was how I interpreted Jon's "as if"). Further, by my understanding, the words "as if" themselves imply recognition that a condition does not necessarily actually exist. (Would you say you walk as if you have legs?)
I've felt all along that this thread was aimed at trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist - at least not yet - which is why I haven't given it as much attention as I have most others. I'm starting to see value in making sure such problems don't show up in the future, but I see no real evidence that Jon's view of where the border treaty situation stood was ever less than accurate.
Nathan
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
That certainly wasn't a definitive margin given the total size of the team, but it was enough to get a fairly strong impression of which way the winds were blowing.
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5-1-3 is quite close to 50/50 division, especially since the '1' wanted the borders pushed back up the chokepoint. But this is unimportant in the current discussion.
quote:
This last message had nothing to do with defending Vox. It had to do with defending truth (at least as I see it), and to some extent with defending myself against implications that I was insufficiently clear (at least in practice) in conveying to Vox that the deal still had to be ratified.
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I believe you were very clear, but perhaps mis-gauged what the "will of the team" was on this issue. Those are two very different things. I'm attacking Vox's actions here, not yours!
quote:
This thread started based on the premise that Vox had misunderstood and thought the border agreement was effectively ratified when it really wasn't.
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You're right, this was not a good premise. But it seemed the only reasonable alternative, because the other possibility is that Vox had just "stolen" a city-site (or, the best tiles) right from under us. If you're negotiating something, and one side just takes a part of what is being negotiated, that kind of undermines the negotiation, right?
quote:
Further, I see nothing in the record that even begins to support that interpretation over the alternative interpretation that Vox was merely acting based on the assumption that some variant of the border deal would probably be ratified (which was how I interpreted Jon's "as if").
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Yes, but assuming you're going to get what you want and acting as if this were true is simply not done during negotiations (and if so, it reeks of superiority). Sure, if it looks like the deal is going to go through, you can start moving your units, but you cannot found a whole city in a spot that is central to the entire negotation.
Dominae
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zeit
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Meet my blade!
Sep 2002
time: 06:25
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Indeed- as Theseus often states- flexibilty is the last thing we should ignore, even when the prospect of long term peaceful relation with Vox (or anyone else for that matter) can become a reality (a questionable occurence in its own, but lets forget about this now). We are very close to binding Vox and basicly shuting them every possible chance of winning- the border treaty, the tech agreement- which can be terminated when the time comes, and finaly- getting contact with civs on the mainland, Then Vox will have no card besides what they will make for themselves, and it won't be much, probably. We shouldn't tie ourselves to them, just because we want to make it a long term relationship- they won't be a major threat if we leave them be, and it won't be too hard to take them out if we want to. But should we keep on feeding them with techs and/or protection while we might do better if we bypass Vox and focus our efforts on teams like RPG.
Sure, we better have strong ties with Vox until we get contacts, get to Republic and finish REXing- but after that? well, maybe we should and maybe we shouldn't, things will probably change. the point is we shouldn't commit ourselves right now, not offer better deals to Vox just for the prospect of it, nor fail to exploit an opportunity just so they can feel better in their relations with us (something they would never consider, at least that's what i believe).
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06-02-2003 03:07
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