 |
| |
|
|
Dominae
|
|
This is a post I originally wrote for the "After the Granary" thread, but felt would be more appropriately placed here. It is in response to the general agreement among diplomats that an Immortal strike will come within 20-30 turns.
I know that discussions with Persia have not been going so well. But I'm a little put out at our diplomats' efforts in this regard. Hearing the diplomats' estimates on how long we have until CDG comes after us with Immortals (inevitably, it seems) got me thinking:
We are not ready for war.
We can therefore do one of two things: 1) mobilize our economy for a potential attack, at great cost to our overall power, 2) work extra hard diplomatically in assuring that that Immortal rush will not happen.
Clearly I prefer option 2, and I think the diplomats are not giving it enough merit. Tensions are high, I understand that. Yet we must forget all that and try to get them to do what we want, even if this means making concessions/apologies/etc.
We chose Carthage to "lay low" and slowly but surely build up power. Our foreign policy has dictated the exact opposite strategy.
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
Can we not then delay the "inevitable" by 20 turns or so? The most recent border agreement thingy looks quite promising...maybe we can convince them not to come after us so fast. Given their proximity to India and the jungle they have to trek through to get to us, I think we've got a good case.
And, by the way, I saw nothing "humiliating" in our negotiations. This is how I see our initial contact with Persia:
---
Poly: Hello, let's trade techs.
CDG: Sure thing.
Poly: By the way, you know of anyone else on this continent?
CDG: Nope.
Poly: *Sees GCA borders and exlaims "THEY LIED TO US, THE BASTARDS! THEY'RE UNSTABLE AND...EVIL! YES, EVIL!"
Poly: You lied to us CDG.
CDG: We resent that.
Poly: But you did.
CDG: *Feels bad about having being caught in a lie, and so tries to save face by acting tough.
Poly: Ok, how about this agreement? We're not happy about you, but we'll live with you for the moment.
CDG: That agreements sounds ok. Now let's contact GCA and see where that gets us.
---
If this is more or less accurate, I see no reason to believe CDG is calling for a war against us. The Persians are a fine choice even if you're not necessarily out for blood. Let's not assume too much here.
Dominae (who is getting active diplomatically because he wants 2 Granaries, not 1 Granary and Mercs.)
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
vondrack
|
 |
Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
|
|
Hmmm... no, I do not think this is accurate (and I did not take active part in negotiations, always reading the logs only afterwards, so I believe I was less likely to get pissed off by what they said as I missed the "heat of the debate").
If it was just the failed tech trade and the unfortunate attempt to catch them lying, I would agree. But there is this problem with them opposing our Wbigfree moving towards GCA. And then the thing with a line instead of a radius... I can't help myself but I consider their stance in these matters just plain unacceptable/unreasonable. I mean - I do understand they would prefer getting that contact a bit earlier. But threatening war because of that? Pardon me? Are they sane?
I somehow cannot recall what exactly it was they compromised. Wbigfree is sitting there, prohibited to move (which is just plain ridiculous). There is a line drawn instead of a radius. Their warrior moved towards our cultural borders last turn. I do not perceive this as a "peaceful" and "reasonable" stance.
Maybe they are not that agressive, but they are difficult to coexist with, because they are not reasonable. They apparently have little clue about what it takes to live in peace and friendship so close to each other. Demanding and dictating terms never leads to those.
While I fully agree that we shall suck it up ATM, getting rid of them is a topmost priority. Our land (at least what we know ATM) does not really allow us to outgrow them by peaceful expansion. So, the only other possibility is - a military encounter. Let's be ready for it ASAP.
BTW, the last line of your post is amusing! 
|
|
| |
|
|
|
vondrack
|
|
Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DAVOUT
Could you explain to Dominae that your recommendation to cool down before answering to any stimulation should not result in MORE sarcasms !  |
Not sure what you mean here...
Hopefully, the laughing smilies suggest that it's nothing bad or a problem... Maybe, if my recent posts sound like I am a bit carried away by emotions, I swear I am not. Emotions never really rose up for me in this affair, since - as I said - I missed the real heat of the talks with CDG and read everything only later with sort of a "perspective".
I do see Dominae's PoV, though - I'm not really debating number of Granaries vs. number of Mercs here and the exact build queues. I am talking more about a general doctrine we should formulate and follow. I would like to voice my impression that we should not forget the whole CDG incident by saying "oh, yes, they said something wrong, then we said something wrong, they were paranoid a bit, we were not really trusting them... and so it all went the wrong way" (which is what I felt I read between Dominae's lines). I did not see it that way. CDG was very aggressive in their demands and we had to give in only because of we had really nothing to back up a more determined opposition.
quote:
Originally posted by DAVOUT
All the more that this negociation was just a pedagogic demonstration of what must not be done in diplomacy ... |
Now, this I agree 100% with. And I am sad to say that we had our own share of misconduct. I believe the most important lesson learnt was: Never try to catch your opponent lying. Set no "traps" for him. It helps you in no way and just makes him act difficult when caught. Keep the knowledge to yourself and use it maybe later on, indirectly...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by vondrack
If it was just the failed tech trade and the unfortunate attempt to catch them lying, I would agree. But there is this problem with them opposing our Wbigfree moving towards GCA. And then the thing with a line instead of a radius... I can't help myself but I consider their stance in these matters just plain unacceptable/unreasonable. I mean - I do understand they would prefer getting that contact a bit earlier. But threatening war because of that? Pardon me? Are they sane?
|
I think it is possible that they're just inexperience MP/PBEM players, and are just expecting to get what they want at all times like you would in a SP game. If this is the case, they clearly need to learn a thing or two. Perhaps we could just point this out to them? By reacting badly whenever they do something annoying, we're reinforcing their behaviour. If we're calm, they'll feel less threatened, and will be more open to our requests.
Of course, it is completely possible that they're reckless warmongers that just want to take out their nearest neighbor ASAP, but I doubt it.
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
vondrack
|
|
Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
I think it is possible that they're just inexperience MP/PBEM players, and are just expecting to get what they want at all times like you would in a SP game. If this is the case, they clearly need to learn a thing or two. Perhaps we could just point this out to them? By reacting badly whenever they do something annoying, we're reinforcing their behaviour. If we're calm, they'll feel less threatened, and will be more open to our requests. |
Hmmm.... I have just reread almost the whole chatlog. You may be right. Maybe it is after all just inexperience. But I somehow doubt they will be quick to learn... 
I admit I myself would probably get po'ed during the "you are liars" phase of the negotiations, if I was Kentonio... OTOH, the following part of the conversation when nye took the lead was - and let me say it aloud here - an excellent example of how negotiating should be done (from our side). Bravo, nye! I should have said this earlier. 
Maybe Dominae's right, maybe it was just an unfortunate misunderstanding... but I still lean more towards that this ISDG game will be the one where CDG will learn how important diplomacy is... the hard way. And we certainly don't want them to pull us down with them. I would still consider a war of elimination between us and them as inevitable, even if "postponable".
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Master Zen
|
 |
of naughty
Jan 2003
time: 23:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
I think it is possible that they're just inexperience MP/PBEM players, and are just expecting to get what they want at all times like you would in a SP game. If this is the case, they clearly need to learn a thing or two. Perhaps we could just point this out to them? By reacting badly whenever they do something annoying, we're reinforcing their behaviour. If we're calm, they'll feel less threatened, and will be more open to our requests.
|
That's why I wanted to send them THE LETTER 
quote:
Of course, it is completely possible that they're reckless warmongers that just want to take out their nearest neighbor ASAP, but I doubt it.
Dominae |
As I said before, they are rather evident of the perilousnesss of their geographical situation, they are effectively pinned between Poly, GCA and the sea (we don't know this but it has been implied during their conversations) and paranoia dictates their foreign policy as they are apparently amateurs.
I am not sure If I explained myself properly in previous posts referring to what posture we must take. I do agree with all of you that in the end (for the moment) we must swallow our pride a little and give concessions that we would not have normally made. However, I do not believe that outright agreement on their proposals is necessary since it gives a bad impression. They must realize we are tough negotiatiors, that we do not give in so easily and that most importantly, we hold the initiative during negotiations hence my insistent that we send them our proposals first.
This does not have to be done in an agressive or hostile manner, it can be done with calm, skill and patience. And they will respect our professionalism more for it.
-MZ
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Togas
|
 |
California
Jun 2002
time: 21:26
|
|
I know everyone is hopeful that we will somehow be able to make CDG into a more enlightened state, and that if we're patient enough and friendly enough we'll be able to control their decisions and make them act in a more rational mannor.
I'm hopeful as well, but I'm not at all optimistic that this will ever occur.
People on the outside who didn't participate in the lengthy and tiresome negotiations don't really understand the immense work we put into this to get us to this level of appeasement. NotYouEither was asked to step in (because BigFree and I were too emotionally distracted/annoyed) and with supernatural patience and restraint, kept them talking, but even he couldn't get them to wise up so we had to bring in Trip who was an extremely vocal proponent of appeasement, but was so beaten down by the negotiations that his opinion of them radically changed from one of "we can control them" to "they are just going to screw us."
You cannot bring an opponent up to your level of sophstication, nor can you "teach" them the value of their own long term interests, they must learn this lesson on their own, in thier own time. The way such lessons are learned are through mistakes, and realizing (looking back) that their decision was a poor one.
I know it's easier for us to believe that if our FA department just "handled things better" we'd be able to control the decisions and demands of our neighbors. Frankly and respectfully, that is simply not true.
I'm going to work harder to better influence our neighbors, but I'm also going to do my best to fight for what is best for Apolytonia in the long run, and to try to represent our needs and concerns in a positive light. To set a tone early on that Apolytonia wants a cooperative, straightforward, and honest relationship with our neighbors.
But lastly, I don't want our nation's development and long term plans determined by our foriegn affairs, I'd rather that our foriegn affairs reflect our long term policy. If our MoI guys tell me we can't go to war or that we can't deal with the obnoxioius CDG team, I accept that, and I will do my best to keep the peace and keep things stable until such a time that Apolytonia is able to act.
--Togas
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
Togas, I did not mean to imply that the FA "screwed up" and forced us into a war scenario. I'm simply pointing out that war at this point in the game (and given our poor lands) is really really not in our best interests. And I'm not talking about the relative merits of conquering a neighbor here: I believe just defending ourselves will be quite a task, and quite detrimental to our overall power.
So my suggestion is that we do as much as we can to "convince" them not to point any Immortals our way anytime soon. That is all (although it may not be all that easy).
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Trip
|
 |
Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:26
|
|
Dominae, from what I've seen I can tell you that things will only get worse. They will demand more, we will have to accept. They will demand even more, and we'll eventually get to a point where we can't appease them any more. Then what? They snap and declare war. We can't continue to go down this path, especially since they have Immmortals. This is the exact path that Lux was taking... "let's try to keep our neighbors at bay diplomatically (which ultimately failed) while building up our cities/units/etc. peacefully." We had just finished a Granary when war came, and had an extremely low number of units. In 20 turns, as I've told others, we would have had 5 cities and at least 3 Horsemen and enough Spearmen to laugh ND and GoW to the grave.
Let me repeat myself. This is the exact course that Lux was taking in the PTW DG. Do we want to end up in 20-30 turns when they've been recklessly stockpiling Immortals while we don't even have a single NM? Whether or not they realize that building up a million Immortals now and completely scoffing diplomacy hurts them in the long run, it does not mean they won't do it. We've already seen them do irrational things. This scenario could happen. Where does 2 Granaries and 5 Warriors get us then?
They will be building Immortals, and they will find a target for them. No matter what diplomacy we use, that target may be us. Or it may be GCA. We cannot be assured of that. It's not the worth the risk. Lux's few Spearmen vs. ND's Swordsmen is one thing. Apolytonia's Warriors vs. CDG's Immortals is a step beyond that...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
I'm not sure why you're so confident "history" will repeat itself here. Unless CDG is already bent on war (which I doubt), I do not see what kinds of demands they will be making 30 turns from now. They could require that we grant them more land, which is why we have to extend the border treaty as long as possible. I can guarantee they will not be expanding close to our borders in the next 40 turns (unless they're on some sort of weird peninsula), so (again) unless they want war in the first place I cannot see why they would want to make further demands.
From what I heard Lux made some diplomatic mistakes. If we do the type of stuff Lux did in the PTWDG, we could then expect the same reaction from CDG that you got from ND, GoW, etc. It was not like the other teams were "out to get" Lux from the start. Similarly here. If we do our best to be friends with our one and only neighbor, I believe we can appease them long enough.
Thus far, I do not consider their demands all that unreasonable. Other than the lying part, I would probably have done the same in their situation. I would want to ensure I contacted the southern neighbor first, and I would want to ensure that I could expand in a more or less "bubble"-like fashion. This leads me to believe they're just being greedy, and simply not taking our own needs/desires seriously (which is important in diplomacy). This is a far cry from "they're producing Immortals as we speak and will be attacking us ASAP".
As a final thought (feel like I'm rambling here), we really want to contact GCA fast and put a new spin on this whole situation. CDG and GCA are closer to each other than to us. Let's turn them against each other (peacefully and secretly, of course!).
Dominae
Last edited by Dominae on 21-03-2003 at 00:58
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Trip
ND felt that Lux was "working against their best interests," which CDG clearly believes of us (and vice versa). They're irrational, we're not. They have Immortals, we don't. We're already basically on the same stance with CDG that Lux was with ND. There are too many parallels to ignore. |
The only parallels that I can see at this point in is 1) we're neighbors, and 2) the relationship between our teams is not that great But this is to be expected from any teams that go to war, right?
Concerning "working against their best interests" I would like to see some proof that this is in fact the case. Clearly our two civs are a little close, but there is Jungle enough for the both of us! My point is that the fact that tensions are high between our two teams is completely a diplomatic issue, and it does not have to be this way. If they attacked us after 30 turns it would be completely out of spite, since they know they will not do well against our Mercs. The goal is therefore to calm them down. Once calm, they will not make ridiculous demands.
Dominae
Last edited by Dominae on 21-03-2003 at 01:17
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
And why do they want to attack us first and not GCA? Do they simply want to take out whoever they meet, one by one, in that order? They may be inexperienced, but they're not dumb.
More and more (as I read the chat logs) I'm realising that more than half the problem of CDG came and continues to comes from within our own team.
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
More and more (as I read the chat logs) I'm realising that more than half the problem of CDG came and continues to comes from within our own team.
Dominae |
Placing the blame on our FA Department is not fair and it certainly is not right. CDG, as a team, isn't reasonable. If they choose to come after us, like they are posturing to do, we can do little to detract them other than offering more appeasements. We know it would be foolish to act like they are, but it doesn't mean that they won't simply continue to act the way they are; which is beligerent and confrontational.
If we were to go around and placing blame around here, what about that fact that we have no units available to call their bluff this moment? It was a gamble to not have more units in order to grow more quickly. That gamble has cost us first conact with CGA and a possible trade of Pottery for CB. It also weakened our position with CDG for the time being. I'm in favor of a balanced approach, but now they are forcing our hand into a more war like posture. We have to prepare for the possibility of war with them now and not point fingers. I know I just pointed a finger or two, but I am defending the FA Department not attacking anyone.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
CiverDan
|
|
One question about the agreement. Why should We have to inform them of any other civ we contact with BigFree, while there is no equivalent provision for CDG to inform us of any civs they contact.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Trip
Let me repeat. They would rather attack each of us individually on their own accord, than risk being attacked by both of us at the same time. They themselves stated that. What impression do you get from that kind of statement? |
I get the impression that they fear an alliance between us and GCA, which makes perfect sense considering their actions. But I do not get the impression that they want to destroy us at all costs. If we strike up a 3-way no-aggression pact between us, CDG and GCA, I'm sure everyone would feel a lot better.
Why must everyone be alarmists instead of trying to find a solution?
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by bigfree1
Placing the blame on our FA Department is not fair and it certainly is not right. CDG, as a team, isn't reasonable. |
Both teams are equally to blame. This is obvious from the chat logs. I would like our diplomats to admit this.
It is too easy for us to say "they're not reasonable" and assume we're perfectly fair. You only get out of this as much as you put into it, and we put a lot of negativity into our relations with CDG. So we can expect them to be pretty on edge right now.
As for the finger pointing about how many Warriors we have, I think that is completely besides the point. In fact, if we had more Warriors roaming around, we would have felt even more powerful and would have been even less cooperative in the negotations. So I'm rather glad that our "weak" position has brought us this far on the bargaining table. And even if we did have an extra Warrior, this would not change the issue at hand, which is how to avoid an Immortal strike. One Warrior would not do much to further this aim (and, as I just pointed out, would probably be counter-productive).
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Togas
|
|
California
Jun 2002
time: 21:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
More and more (as I read the chat logs) I'm realising that more than half the problem of CDG came and continues to comes from within our own team.
|
I'm getting tired of this.
I don't know what chatlog you're reading, but I'm afraid that you seem to want to lay the blame "equally" because it's easier that way. If we're as much to blame as them, then all we have to do is be nicer and everything will be perfect. You want to believe that we have control over the situation and that there is a "right" way to handle these guys and that we're flawed in some fixable way. What's insulting, however, is that your position (as someone who was not personally involved) is "right" and those of us who were actually involved are clearing "wrong", and furthermore, you want us to admit we're wrong so that your theory can be proven and so that we can go back to assuming we can control their decisions and behavior by merely acting "the right way."
ENOUGH.
What the "blame the FA" croud seems to ignore is that this mess was started by their demands that warrior BigFree not move south, or else they'd go to war on us. They made a threat and we, eventually, negotiated a way out of it. Yay us. I just pray that they don't use this tactic again, but I don't see any reason why they won't ... it worked the first time. Why not use it again? They played chicken with us and we folded first. We have to acknowledge that and recognize that we are going to have to continue to give into their demands until we have sufficient strength and willingness to stand up to them.
What to know how to make a bully more confident? Give him your lunch money. Telling him he's your friend and stroking his ego may convince him to go bully on someone else, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a bully and will remain a bully until someone teaches the bully a lesson.
--Togas
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:26.
Apolyton Time is 00:26. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
20-03-2003 11:44
I hope we don't go to war, seriously! 
|