SANCTA Embassy & Intelligence

Kaleb

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Our Workboat has made contact with SANCTA!!

I've already allocated all our espionage points against them. How shall we introduce ourselves?

And we should inform Cav straight away too, right?

Here's their territory:
Spoiler :


We're not that far away!! And we'll be able to see their techs in 3 turns from now
 
Well I guess there are a few different ways we can approach SANCTA:

1. We can act guarded and formal, presenting a cautious diplomatic stance to them. This would allow us to stall on any meaningful discussions with them and try to draw out General_W's strategy without giving anything away.

2. We can be give them the cold shoulder, letting them know that we don't trust them because of their high score and previous MTDG victories. But at the same time we leave an opening for General_W to try to work his magic on us, giving them some false hope.

3. We can lead them on, talking about tech trades and alliances and doing an open border agreement. We can only hide our alliance with CAV and MS for a few turns though- once they see our scores shoot up from tech trades the jig is up.

Whichever option we go with I think we should continue W with our workboat, either by DoW (which we explain away like Oyzar tried to do with us) or open borders.
 
I think option 1 is best. Let them take the initiative to court us.

I've just sent Memphus a pm to say hi and ask for an email address we can send an official greeting to.

Donsig can you write one up please?

Btw, notice how close they are. Close enough to be harrassed by a couple of chariots :D
 
Yes, we are close. We should definitely REX to the core to grab the good land before they do. Their culture is going to be a problem when we start squaring off against them over choice land.

Diplo wise I think option 1 is best also. And we should crash their borders with our workboat and explain it away after the fact.
 
Diplo wise I think option 1 is best also. And we should crash their borders with our workboat and explain it away after the fact.

I think that would say loudly and clearly that we don't care about working with them. Why don't we offer them an open border agreement? The only reason I can see for not doing so would be to conceal the fact that we have writing. In three turns we'll have alphabet and we'll be able to see what techs they have. I suggest we drop anchor while we make nice with SANCTA for a few turns. Here's a proposed introductory note:

Proposed note to SANCTA said:
Hi and Hello!

I am coming from the great land of Kazakhstan. It is best in all world for potassium. All other potassium exporters run by little girls. My country give you best deal for potassium. Keptin Kirk (a famous Kazakh) says, "we have sailed far for our mission to seek new life and new civilizations". We are being happy that our travels are not in vain. We must continue to go boldly where Kazakhs have not gone before. So I say, "Hi, it is good to meet me. Now I must declare war to you."

Ha, I fool you, didn't I? War would be only a formality to let me sail on. Okay with you? Come on, we talk.

donsig
Foreign Minister Great State of Kazakhstan

:hmm: Not at all sure if my Borat impression is any good, nor if we should take this line with them. But that's why I make proposals. Don't be afraid to say this is a bad approach - you won't hurt my feelings.
 
Donsig, that style is perfect ;) We can baffle them and drag the discussions out by corresponding to them "in character." I'm almost certain they will turn down our transit request, but this would give us some rhetorical ammo.

ALSO- I just got a PM from Memphus where he quotes Kaleb's greeting and gives the SANCTA email address. I'm guessing others here got a PM from him as well- they are casting a wide net to see how many of us they can get conversations going with. I'm not going to reply back and I urge no one else to either! We don't want them to figure out our true intentions by working multiple contacts.
 
I think that would say loudly and clearly that we don't care about working with them. Why don't we offer them an open border agreement?
I like Donsig's approach the best and think that we should send the note exactly as worded (plus its a hilarious note:lol:). We should definitely NOT crash the border. At least 1 civ has more military than us, and it might be them. We have no way of knowing whether they have chariots, spears etc.

The bottom line is, ALL we can possibly hope to accomplish is to stall them for a little while before they realize that we are mortal enemies. Being hostile will not acomplish this IMO. Who knows? Maybe SANCTA will offer to join us in a 4-on-one against Saturn:D

I also think we should tell Cavalieros about SANCTA right away so we can get their input on how the alliance should handle SANCTA. We should encourage Cavalieros to tell MS about SANCTA too. It is possible that hearing that we met SANCTA will make MS feel like they are way too far away from SANCTA to backstab us and ally with SANCTA.

At least now we KNOW exactly where to send the spies... :satan:
 
No need to declare war we can ask for open border.

Don't forget that the alliance with team cav and MS is not forever...we have no gain in making enemies of Sancta...

No need to tell them about the alliance either.

lets be formal with them, ask for open borders but not be proactive as to deals (so like Cav scouts 1 approach).

Donsig your letter is perfect, except from the war part...lets ask for open borders instead..
 
A couple of points to note. SANCTA will know we have writing and will be able to propose open borders to us.

As soon as we get alpha we'll be able to see what techs everyone else has and vice versa.

We shouldn't be overly hostile with SANCTA just in case MS+Cav don't work out. SANCTA have also teched the same path as Cav so Cav will know we can actually get more from SANCTA than from them.

But let's be clear, these guys are the ones to beat in this game! And they are right next to us.

If we want to slow our tech rate down we have the perfect excuse to do so now...
 
Ok, I've modified Donsig's text a wee bit:

Hi and Hello!

I am coming from the great land of Kazakhstan. It is best in country in all world for clams. All other clams exporters run by little girls. My country give you best deal for clams.

Keptin Khirk (a famous Kazakh) says, "we have sailed far for our mission to seek new life and new civilizations". We are being happy that our travels are not in vain. We must continue to go boldly where Kazakhs have not gone before. So I say, "Hi, it is good to meet me. Now I must declare war to you."

Ha, I fool you, didn't I? Just funny joke. No need to make poop in trousers. Our clever Kazakh wise men know secret of how to write. We make agreement to have open borders, yes?

donsig
Foreign Minister Great State of Kazakhstan

Is that ok to send?
 
:lol: Funnier than my attempt. The big difference is we let them know we have writing. That's ok by me unless someone else has a reason to try to hide that fact.
 
We can't hide it. If another civ you have contact with has Writing and you don't you can still propose Open Borders to them.
 
We can't hide it. If another civ you have contact with has Writing and you don't you can still propose Open Borders to them.

OK, makes sense. Then I see no reason to with hold your version. I'm off ot work so feel free to send the note after givnig other team members some time to comment on it.
 
Well I think we have support from at least 5 team members for this so I'll send it as is from the new team email account.
 
Very good, fun discovery.


I can already see we need a naval strategy with colonial ports placed northwards on easily defendable hill tiles with walls and all. We also need to cork up the middle valley with the blocking copper fort city (ideally placed on a hill, as its our Helms Deep). The colonial ports will be part of our denial strategy, which means we need sailing very soon.
 
The note also suggests that we have clams to trade... If they do not have clams that provides an incentive for them to want to trade with us. Ultimately, we will prob not be trading our clams to them, but it opens the door to trade something else... or at least make them THINK we will trade with them. Should keep them from making invasion plans anytime soon (Unless of course they want to get sailing to pillage our VAST clam farms).;)
 
I just stuck the clams in coz it seemed more appropriate than potassium :mischief:
 
I wonder if they think we are located to the East of them. If they have not explored that well it would certainly look like we came from that direction.

They also could have some barbarian problems as their capitol is more exposed than ours.
 
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