AMAZON Diplomatic Messages

[Trystero]

To AMAZON from us:
Sent: Tuesday, 7th September, 16:36 (GMT) via PM

Greetings,

Just a brief update on the Merlot Holkan on Bode (the spoke to our south). Their unit is in the area corresponding to the location of the lake on Anjennida. It is currently 1 tile west of that lake on Bode, about 4 tiles west of the southern desert area. We will keep you apprised of it's movements.

Regards,

Trystero

 

[Trystero]

From us to ETTA:
Sent: Sunday, 12th September, 22:23 (GMT)

Fellow ETTA members,

We have completed our research of Paper, and have distributed it to the ETTA. We think it would be the best use of our research capabilities if we work on Astronomy as soon as Optics is available. We will need to accumulate some gold to do so, and are planning to put minimal beakers into Philosophy while we wait for Optics.

We would like to know if the rest of the ETTA agrees with this course of action, and what the others were planning to research.

Regards,

Trystero, Team Sirius diplomat

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Thursday, 16th September, 12:10 (GMT)

Greetings

We hope all is well in the Amazon.

As you can see, I have attached a dotmap for Anjennida.

First, I'll explain the map itself. The orange squares are those tiles under Sirian control, and the blue squares under Amazon control. The circles are the locations of the cities. Ignore the signposts, they're just from earlier plans (although "City A" on Bode is still a planned location). The split tiles are ones which would be under some sort of cultural conflict. The tiles in the inner ring of a city are assumed to stay with that city, the conflicts are just tiles in the outer area of two cities. As long as one city is not ahead of another in culture by an order of magnitude all tiles except those marked as in conflict should be fairly stable.

Now, I'll explain the thinking behind the dotmap. Firstly, the existing Amazon city and the barbarian city were taken as given (not much can be improved by moving the barbarian city anyway). We each have three cities along the coast. There is then room for a central city, which we have assigned to Amazon. In exchange for giving Amazon the centre, Sirius has claimed the Whale city in the north. This is roughly in keeping with the idea of assigning more coast to Sirius and more inland squares to Amazon. The city placement is quite squashed overall, but the shape of the land necessitates this.

Under this plan, there are 39 grassland tiles assigned to Amazon, and 24 grassland and 3 flood plains assigned to Sirius. There are also 7 disputed grassland tiles. Sirius gets more coastline, mostly thanks to the northern Whales city. There is only a few unassigned tiles in the desert tip, where there would be room for a filler city to work an extra clams, but we have not included a city here as it would be of little value to either of us.

Overall, this is not a negotiation-opening dummy deal, this is a genuinely good deal for Amazon which we are nonetheless content to work with. Overall we would prefer not to give away so much of the valuable grasslands, but this is as good a plan as seems to be possible.

Let us know your thoughts on this proposal.

--
Regards, Irgy on behalf of
Team Sirius

Attached Image:

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to the ETTA
Received: Thursday, 16th September, 15:58 (GMT) via PM

The AMAZON will complete Construction next turn. We will be teching Feudalism next. We agree with Sirius plan to tech Astronomy.

On the war front... We currently have several Pyrgomache destroying improvements near the coastal Merlot City, "the circus".

Peace and long life friends,

Sommerswerd, Zenobian Captain

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to the ETTA
Recieved via PM Sept 17:

Dear Allies,

Just to make sure there is no confusion. I repeat that The AMAZON has started teching Feudalism. We have offered Construction to each of you in-game.

Also, it is obvious that the prospect of being the first to tech Music, and thus receive a Great Artist is attractive indeed. In fact, we Zenobians considered pursuing Music as well, but this path was voted down.

We are however concerned about how the great Artist will be used, so we thought it best to ask our allies how and where they plan to use the Artist, before any irreversible act occurs that causes unnecessary strain on our enlightened partnership.

In about 3 turns, we will be founding a city on the extreme Western end of Marthaton, the landmass between ourselves and Merlot. This city will be at the base of the landmass, and form an impassable, barrier to our enemies, making it impossible to access Marthaton by land without traveling through the city.

As you are all aware, we are currently engaged in a bitter, but righteous, blood crusade against the evil Merlot murderers. This upcoming city is absolutely critical to our strategic efforts, for three reasons:

First, the city will prevent the Mavericks from sending units to reinforce their M&M allies... now that we have denied Mavs OB, their boat is headed back towards Sirius, and them attempting to assist Merlot is the natural next step.

Second, the city will form a Canal which will allow us to move our navy into Merlot waters without sailing all the way East around Marthaton, saving precious time and giving us the element of surprise. Our navy is already headed that way as we speak.

Finally, the city location was chosen specifically because it was the farthest East we could build and still accomplish our strategic goals. It occurred to us that our allies might also desire to place a city near the center of the map to serve a similar purpose as a Canal, and by placing our city several tiles off center we are attempting to share the powerful center with our allies, rather than greedily claim the entire center for ourselves.

Therefore, we respectfully request that our allies commit to NOT using a Great Artist to performance a great work near the center of the map, as this will disrupt our city plans in this time of war, and place undue hardship upon us as we attempt to contain the evil Merlot.

In appreciation and friendship,

Sommerswerd, Zenobian Captain

To keep everyone up to date, after a few private discussions with Quattronia (i forgot to CC people in and CFC does not have a respond to all). CDZ is well on its way to Music and as far as I am aware Quattronia is finishing off HBR or Feudalism if Sommerswerds team doesn't take over it, though I am unsure if they've chosen to finish Drama.

CDZ would like to take the opportunity to apologise for the lack of communication, as expressed to differing people at various times a lot of us have been caught up with affairs outside of the game (hence the revolving door of turnplayers recently).

Unless there are any objections CDZ was planning on following the path towards Nationalism.

I.e. Drama, (if Quattronia are not finishing researching it) Philosophy, Nationalism.

Such an extensive time to research these will allow us to avoid mistakes again should RL events re-occur.

Regards
BCLG
CDZ

Sommerswerd,

You guys will be teching Feudalism? I remember that CDZ said they would be teching Feudalism after Machinery. But then instead of doing that they seem to have gone Aesthetics-> Literature. Could all the teams clarify their tech plans so we are all on the same page?

Here is my understanding so far:

Quatronia: Drama (2 turns)-> Music (6 Turns)
Sirius: Astronomy
Amazons: Construction-> ?
CDZ: ?

-Cav

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to US

Recieved Spet 20th 11:11am

Sirian Friends,

In case you were unaware, CDZ and Quatronia are at odds with each other over the settlement of their shared landmass. The ETTT is in danger of unraveling over this. Apparently, they are racing to Music to get a Great Artist so that they can culture bomb each other off the landmass.

Obviously this will precipitate war between them, which will cause one of them to break away from the ETTT and join the M&Ms. We have evidence that Mavericks and Merlot are pretending to take sides in this conflict, which is clearly a thinly veiled gambit to break the ETTT up.

We have already drafted a proposal to settle this issue but it is being voted upon. The vote will conclude right around the time that this turn ends, and the proposal will then either be sent, or (if the proposal is voted down) we will inform CDZ and Q that we are not getting involved.

The reason are contacting you (besides just generally keeping you informed as per the SAP) is to request that you give your full-throated support of our proposal. The proposal, as currently written, does not require any action or commitment on the part of the Sirians, however, your support will lend great moral credibility to the measure and increase its probability of success.

Please agree to support us in this attempt to hold the ETTT together,

Sommerswerd, of the Matriarchal Alliance on behalf of
nabaxo, Special Envoy to the Sirians

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to the ETTA:
Received: Monday, 20th September, 17:34 (GMT)

Honored ETTT Allies,

We are all aware of the volatile situation faced by our enlightened alliance, so this letter will not engage in a re-hashing of the issue, but instead will propose a possible solution.

We all should see by now the the following four factors are obvious:

1. CDZ and Quatronia are each unhappy with the settlement arrangement on their shared landmass, one issue being, that both parties wish to possess Stone.

2. CDZ and Quatronia each find the other obtaining the Great Artist an untenable escalation of this 'Cold War.'

3. CDZ and Quatronia could each gain advantage over the other by enlisting the assistance of the M&M alliance, however, the entire ETTT is damaged by any co-operation with the M&M enemies.

4. CDZ and Quatronia would not trust each other to come up with a fair solution to this situation.

We Zenobians wish for peace and accord within our ETTT family, and accordingly, we humbly offer these solutions to the above problems.

1. In order to end this 'Cold War' and temporarily preserve the status quo, CDZ and Quatronia agree to stop building cities on the land between them for now until a settlement agreement is reached. In the meantime, we can all instead re-focus our efforts towards destroying the M&M enemies. In order to resolve the issue of the Stone, the AMAZON will immediately rush-settle near the Stone on Marthaton, and obtain the Stone in order to gift it to the party without Stone. This way both parties are assured a source of Stone, elimminating the need to conflict with each other over it.

2. CDZ and Quatronia agree not to tech towards Music any more, The AMAZON will take over teching Music, so that neither has to worry about the other using a culture bomb against them. By now it must be obvious to both of you that neither of you would trust the other with a culture bomb. We implore you both to re-direct you technological efforts, and we will tech Music for the alliance. We will use the Great Artist against the Merlot enemies, ensuring that neither of your cities are threatened by a culture bomb. This would require a tech switch for us, which we are currently voting on, but should the measure pass, we would switch tech immediately upon the Kleptocracy and the Continuum accepting this proposal.

3. CDZ, Quatronia and The AMAZON agree to declare war on Mavericks and Merlot, cancel all prior agreements with them, and to stop all communication with them for the rest of the game. It must be clear to all of us that M&M have no hope whatsoever against the ETTT, so long as we remain focused, and remain united in opposition to them. Any one of the ETTT members co-operating with M&M will inevitably bring M&M into technological parity with the rest of us and squander the advantage we have all worked so hard to build.

It must be equally clear that CDZ and Quatronia will not trust each other to refrain from seeking to gain advantage through co-operating with M&M so long as this 'Cold War' lasts. It is therefore imperative that we all declare war on M&M, so that there can be no doubt where we all stand, and there can be no alliance erroding, trust-undermining suspicion between us.

All of us know that the M&Ms are using their candy-coated sweetness to trick and lure us away from each other. They are attempting to play the alliance for fools, attempting to break us up by pitting us against each other. Friends, we implore you, do not be taken in by their silver-tongued deceptions. The ETTT has nothing to gain by breaking up. On the other hand the M&Ms have everything to gain by breaking us up. They also have nothing to lose, and can make too-good-to-be-true, pie-in-the-sky offers to any member willing to defect, because if one of us does not defect, they will lose, it is inevitable. Both of you must see this.

4. The AMAZON will serve as the binding arbitrator in the settlement agreement between CDZ and Quatronia. CDZ and Quatronia agree to accept the judgment of the AMAZON on the peaceful division of their shared landmass. As we have already stated, we will adjust our settlement plans and war efforts in order to quickly provide you with Stone. The other details of the settlement agreement can be discussed and agreed to once each of you has had an opportunity to present your needs, desires, concerns, and grievances to us. This process will be made easier by both parties halting all settlement of the shared landmass, and instead focusing on crowding out M&M. If we place the same effort on crowding out our enemies that have place on crowding out each other, we will defeat M&M quickly and easily.

Please friends, do not let the provacative designs of the wiley mapmaker fool you. The penninsulas are not intended to be shared evenly or equally. They are intended to cause conflict. They can only be shared through co-operation and trust. If you allow our friendship to unravel over this, if you continue racing to the culture bomb, you will have let the mapmaker defeat you, and defeat the ETTT. Do not allow this to happen.

Please accept our proposal without delay, so that our alliance may continue to move forward.

In eternal friendship,

The AMAZON

 

[Irgy]

From us to Amazon:
Sent Tuesday, 21st September, 12:43 (GMT)

Esteemed Amazonian allies.

We thank you indeed for informing us of the brewing situation. I had noticed the somewhat ridiculous settling pattern of the CDZ-Quatronia peninsula (our name for it is "Hoag", I will use this name from now on unless I hear of a more official title), as well as the fact that they seemed to be settling it in preference to settling the M&M peninsulas. I had also noticed that they had been a little unreliable in their claimed tech path by switching to technologies on the music line. However, I, and as far as I can tell the rest of the team, had failed to put the pieces together, so we appreciate you filling us in.

We appreciate and thank you for your efforts to bring the alliance back in order. We will give our support to the proposals made, although having only been included as a BCC in the proposal sent (which I am not disputing the wisdom of) this does not seem to me to involve us saying anything for the moment.

We would however like you all to consider the following.

The ETTT's benefit is to propel four teams to a substantial technology lead, at the expense of the remaining two. Once those two rivals have been eliminated, the ETTT will naturally come to an end. We need to consider what will happen afterwards. We would assume that our strong alliance and friendship, supported by the ASP, would remain. We had also previously also assumed that CDZ and Quatronia would stick together as well, having made a close alliance themselves and encouraged to band together by the Amazon and Sirius alliance. This would then lead to a fair fight between north and south, eventually followed by a fair race to victory between us and yourselves once we were the only teams remaining, which seemed like a good enough prospect for us.

However, one thing which would be substantially better for both of us than a fair fight between north and south, would be to see a great deal of infighting in the south, while we, with our close co-operation and good co-ordination, steamroll over the lot of them. As such, we would question the merits of doing too good a job of healing the rift between CDZ and Quatronia. This division has risks, but could also be a great opportunity for us in the long run.

We would argue that when it comes to the ETTT giving us a significant technology lead over M&M, sufficient to defeat them, it has already substantially done its job. Indeed there is already dissention among our team when it comes to the wisdom of continuing to trade away the GNP lead we have to more than half of our rivals, and exactly what the right time to dissolve the ETTT is going to be.

The one thing however that we absolutely need to avoid is one of CDZ or Quatronia gifting a large number of technologies, the fruits of the ETTT, to one of M&M. I say "gifting" and "large number" with reason though. A fair beaker trading agreement between one southern ex-ETTT member and one of M&M would not for example constitute a threat, as it would preserve our existing technology lead, which should still be sufficient for us to defeat our M&M rivals. Given the weaker negotiating position of M&M it would be crazy for either of CDZ or Quatronia to agree to anything stronger than that. However, as foolish as it might seem, we agree that this prospect of gifting of technologies outside the ETT is still a considerable risk that we need to take seriously.

So, we see the priority as being to reach an agreement which ensures that the technology lead we have established is not given away to either of M&M. We acknowledge that healing the rift between CDZ and Quatronia, is one quite effective method of acheiving this. However, it is not necessarily the only way. We hope that you can see the arguments we have made in favour of some rift between those teams remaining, and take that into consideration when arbitrating their dispute.


This all does also bring into focus the need to ensure our own peninsula of Anjennida does not lead to similar problems. We would like to let you know that we are hopefully only a couple of turns from capturing Carib. We would also be glad to hear your thoughts on the generous proposal we have made for the settling agreement, although we are happy to allow you whatever time you require to consider it.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to the ETTA:
Received: Saturday, 24th September, 20:13 (GMT)

Honorable ETTT Allies:

We Zenobians welcome the recent messages from both the Kleptocracy and the Continuum. We are heartened to see both teams showing a good-faith commitment to resolving this dispute peacefully to the benefit of the ETTT. The goal of this letter is to establish a universally accepted starting point for the settlement of this matter.

We cannot hope to establish a starting point for negotiations if the status-quo is in flux. Therefore, as a preliminary matter, we ask both teams to agree that there will be no settlement on the shared landmass until a settlement agreement is reached. As the Matriarchal Alliance has not named this landmass, we will be referring to the Continuum-Kleptocracy shared landmass as “Hoag” (the name Sirius has given it) for the purposes of this letter.

We understand and recognize that both teams have legitimate concerns, and before addressing these, we would like to remind our allies that the map is designed in such a manner as to encourage conflict. We will continue to reiterate this point throughout the negotiations, when it bears on the issue being discussed.

We see two issues with the status quo… a very dense city placement with lots of potential cultural overlap, and cities that cross into each team's "sphere of influence." While the cities are packed in tightly, most cities appear to be viable so long as both teams maintain cultural parity. At this point, both teams should see the value of adopting an agreement that limits further cultural competition.

We feel that the harder issue to resolve is the concern about "spheres of influence." There are many potential solutions, but this will involve delicate, possibly-lengthy, negotiations and discourse. During this time, we anticipate that settlement of other areas of the map will be a necessity, however we repeat that further settlement of Hoag will only serve to disrupt the status quo and further complicate negotiations. So again, we respectfully request that both the Continuum and the Kleptocracy openly commit to cease all settlement of Hoag, until an agreement is reached.

We have already discussed some possible settlement agreements, but introducing these suggestions would be unproductive, without general agreement among the parties as to the starting point of the negotiations. Again, that is the goal of this letter, to reach that mutually agreed starting point, so that everyone is on the same page.

So while we feel that resolving this dispute cannot be accomplished by looking to the past, it has become clear from recent correspondence, that both sides wish to address the events leading up to the present dilemma. It seems that in order to reach a mutually agreed starting point for negotiations, it is necessary to first establish an objective “score” of the situation thus far.

Our approach therefore, will be to present the parties with our objective analysis of the record as we have it. In reaching our conclusions, we have taken into account the parties’ correspondences, as well as the attending circumstances, and applied logic and reasoning to trace the roots and causes of this dispute. We expect that as with the findings of any impartial arbitrator, both parties will agree with some of what we have to say, and disagree with some of what we have to say, but that is the purpose of this letter, to flesh out the relevant sources of disagreement and discard the irrelevant ones.

We seek only to present our objective findings, to determine what facts can be agreed upon, what facts need further discussion or clarification, and what facts are irrelevant or hopelessly at impasse and therefore must be put aside. Once we have established what can be agreed upon, we will have our starting point, and will then be able to move on to fruitful suggestions for a settlement agreement, based on that common ground and common understanding.

We will address the history of this dispute in a loose timeline form:

1. 'Spamville' and 'Or Here' are perfectly legitimate cities, being located on CDZ's "side" of Hoag, especially since at least one, if not both, were founded before CDZ entered the ETTT.

2. Resonance is a legitimate city, even without access to the Stone, however, the fact that the one of the 3 tiles of cultural conflict is the tile containing the Stone is slightly provocative, and warranted at least some warning or minimal attempts at discussion prior to founding. The deciding factor is whether CDZ was in the ETTT when Resonance was founded. If yes, then Resonance is legitimate but slightly provocative. If no, then Resonance is completely legitimate. When Resonance was planned is not really relevant, unless those plans were communicated to CDZ.

3. Asymptote is a poorly placed, but completely legitimate city, as it has no major cultural conflict with Spamville, and does not ‘threaten the Stone’ as CDZ suggests. Asymptote is on Quatronia's 'side' of Hoag and claims two seafood resources as well as using an Oasis. Assymptote does steal the Oasis from Spamville, however, the Oasis is not Spamville’s primary food source, the Clam is. And this is where the intentionally conflict-inducing map comes into play. The oasis at the tip of the spire is clearly intended to induce settlement to obtain the Whale.

So in that sense, the oasis ‘belongs’ to the Whale City, not the Stone city. The whole point of the oasis is to make the Whale city viable. On the other hand, a city founded to claim the Whale will unavoidable extend its culture onto the other teams ‘side’ of Hoag, and since there is only one Whale and one Stone, any city founded in the spire will feel provocative, but this has more to do with the map design, and less to do with any ill intentions. The other cultural conflicts with Assymptote are on marginal plains tiles and can hardly be considered provocative.

CDZ is correct that Asymptote is provocative, only in the sense that Quatronia had better sites available to them, and chose the site that is clearly the worst on Hoag, AND squeezes their borders against CDZ. Quatronia could have chosen a site that was farther away from CDZ and simultaneously a better city overall, but absent some agreement with CDZ they certainly had no obligation to do so.

Upon the founding of Asymptote, CDZ was perfectly correct to assume that Quatronia intended to found cities wherever they wished, on Quatronia's side of Hoag, regardless of how CDZ felt about the cities, and regardless of cultural conflict. CDZ would have therefore been perfectly justified in founding any city on CDZ's side of Hoag in response, but NOT justified in founding cities on Quatronia's side.

4. Therefore, CDZ's claim that Resonance and Asymptote provoked them to found ereh Ro is weak. Resonance and Asymptote are minimally provocative yes, but not THAT provocative. ereh Ro is completely illegitimate, being founded on Quatronia's side of Hoag, on the coast, in Quatronian waters, and claiming the second of the only two Copper sources on Hoag, when CDZ already had a source of Copper. ereh Ro was a total over-reaction to minor provocations at best. Either when Quatronia founded Resonance or especially when Quatronia founded Asymptote, CDZ should have opened settlement negotiations, if they were offended by these cities, rather than escalate the conflict by founding an overly provocative city like ereh Ro.

5. At the point where ereh Ro was founded, the ETTT was in effect, and CDZ should have negotiated with Quatronia over the founding of future cities on Hoag. Both allies were morally (not contracturally) obligated to initiate these talks, so the fact that neither apparently did is wrongdoing on the part of both. CDZ points out that "at no time had Quatronia sought to discuss the settlement of our common peninsula," but they ignore what is equally true, specifically, that CDZ did not seek to discuss settlement either.

6. The argument that "Quatronia did not ask our permission to claim the near-worthless plains spire" is unpersuasive. Asymptote's value is marginal at best, so it was reasonable for Quatronia to assume that CDZ would not want a city in that location, and there would therefore be no harm in claiming the location for themselves. CDZ has even called the city site "marginal" indicating that they did not desire the rest of the land on the barren spire. Furthermore, Asymptote does not threaten the Stone, and it is clearly founded on Quatronia's side of Hoag.

Similarly, the argument that "Quatronia did not ask permission to found a city on Quatronia's side of Hoag, that has three tiles of cultural conflict with Spamville" is also unpersuasive. Resonance is a fine city without the Stone, and the conflict is at the corner of Resonance's BFC, while the Stone is adjacent to Spamville. There is very little chance that Resonance would ever come close to claiming that Stone from Spamville.

7. Pulsar Plateau is an abomination. Whatever moral high ground Quatronia had upon the founding of ereh Ro was completely squandered and erased by founding Pulsar Plateau. Frankly Pulsar Plateau was very close to a de facto declaration of war, thankfully for the ETTT, CDZ did not treat it as such.

Besides creating 12 tiles of cultural conflict, all on valuable grassland tiles, Pulsar Plateau, on a matter of principle is founded in a location that had clearly been claimed by CDZ cities. In fact Pulsar Plateau is not, in and of itself a viable city like Resonance. Its true viability depends upon stealing tiles from the surrounding CDZ cities. Also Pulsar Plateau threatens two strategic resources (both Coppers). Threatening one strategic resource is usually enough to get DoWed' in MP.

The fact that Pulsar Plateau claims an unclaimed banana is a pitiful excuse for founding such an outrageous city. Risking War over a banana? We consider this unlikely. It is more likely that Pulsar Plateau was founded for the specific purpose of stealing the Coppers from CDZ, and CDZ was perfectly reasonable to assume that Pulsar Plateau would be the site of a Cultural Bomb at some later point.

Another bad-faith aspect of Pulsar Plateau, is that when it was founded, we all already knew that we had Iron on our home islands, making the city even more blatantly and unnecessarily provocative. Therefore, Quatronia can not even claim that they needed the Copper, because they already had Iron... 'iron'ically, thanks to CDZ gifting it to the alliance... which makes Pulsar Plateau even more of an insult and outrage against CDZ. CDZ 'gave' the alliance access to Iron by gifting Iron-Working, and Quatronia responds by trying to steal CDZ's Copper.

8. Pulsar Plateau is bad, but Cygous is even worse. The negotiation that Quatronia attempted after founding Pulsar Plateau was too little, too late, to justify Cygous. The time to negotiate was before founding Pulsar Plateau. Furthermore, even if the negotiations proved unsuccessful, that would not justify Pulsar Plateau or Cygous. Cygous, if founded by itself, in response to ereh Ro, would have been a measured response with some small degree of arguable justification, but after the founding of Pulsar Plateau, Cygous was just provocation on top of provocation.

This situation can be likened to a schoolyard fight, where Quatronia sticks their tongue out at CDZ. CDZ then pushes Quatronia in response. Quatronia then punches CDZ in the face, but then says "Hey lets be friends now, just let me push you back first." When CDZ says "no," Quatronia hits CDZ in the head with a rock.

9. About Music... CDZ was teching Music first, before Quatronia was teching it. It is true that Quatronia was first to announce a desire to tech Music, but they stated plainly that they intended to tech Drama first. CDZ then replied that they were already teching Music. This should have ended the discussion. CDZ techs Music, and Quatronia techs Drama. If Quatronia only wanted Drama to reduce the cost of teching Music, then they could have selected something else to tech at that point.

For example, if Quatronia has expressed a desire to tech Construction, only to be informed that Sirius was already teching it, they would simply select something else. Another example would be, if Sirius were to announce that they intended to get all the prerequisite techs along the path to Monarchy, and then tech Monarchy, only to be told that CDZ was already teching Monarchy without getting the prereqs, they might be slightly annoyed, but they would just find something else to tech.

The only reason there was any ado over 'who called Music first' is because of the desire on the part of both teams, to get the Great Artist. The only reason the teams are racing to get the Artist, is to culture bomb each other off of Hoag, or to prevent themselves from being culture bombed.

CDZ has not specifically stated why they initially sought to gain the Great Artist, however they have intimated that they considered using it against Merlot. This claim has some merit, but is not entirely persuasive. What is more likely, and completely legitimate, is that upon the founding of Pulsar Plateau, CDZ either anticipated a culture bomb from Quatronia at Pulsar Plateau, or intended to use a Culture bomb to capture Pulsar Plateau. Either use of the culture bomb would not have been condone-able, but probably would have been understandable under the circumstances.

Quatronia has stated that they only sought to get the culture bomb to prevent CDZ from getting it first, and using it against them. This argument is totally unpersuasive. This is because Quatronia announced that they wanted Music before CDZ announced that they were pursuing Music already. And when CDZ replied that they were after Music already, Quatronia conveyed shock and surprise, as if they were operating under the assumption that CDZ was after something totally different (Feudalism).

There is no convincing reason that a team would be after Music at this stage, other than to get the Great Artist, so Quatronia can not claim that they called Music first (and thus, called the Great Artist first), AND simultaneously claim that they were ONLY pursuing the Great Artist to beat CDZ to it.

This is because, the only way Quatronia could be seeking to beat CDZ to the Artist, is if they already knew, or anticipated, that CDZ was going for it. If they knew CDZ was after the Artist, then their claim to have "called it first" is illegitimate, because they knew CDZ was already in-fact after it.

If on the other hand, Quatronia had no idea that CDZ was after the Artist, then their claim that they had to defensively get it to 'beat CDZ to it' is undermined, because if CDZ was not after it… as far as Quatronia knew (i.e. CDZ was after Feudalism)…, then there was no need to beat them to it. So in short, either Quatronia had a pretty good idea that CDZ was after the Artist and they tried to usurp CDZ after the fact, or Quatronia had no idea whether CDZ was going for the Artist or not and they decided to pursue the Artist as an aggressive tactic, totally independent of whether CDZ was doing so.

So the bottom line of our analysis is... Quatronia technically initiated this conflict, but their actions were very minimal. CDZ totally overreacted, drastically escalating the situation. Quatronia responded with even worse behavior and then compounded their bad acts with additional bad acts, making the situation even worse, and both sides continue the escalation. Returning to the schoolyard analogy, after Quatronia sticks out their tongue, CDZ pushes, Quatronia then punches, and hits CDZ with a rock, CDZ then sees a gun (the G. Artist) on the ground, and makes a run to get it, Quatronia then sees the gun and gives chase, saying "Hey I call the gun, I called it first!"

Surely we can at least agree that neither party should use the gun on the other?

Where do we go from here?

As has been previously stated, we welcome the teams’ feedback on our objective analysis. Reaching some common ground on what went wrong and how to move forward is the only way to resolve this disagreement. As mentioned above, we have already come up with some suggested settlement agreements that we will share when both parties have aired their grievances to their satisfaction. Sharing of city screen shots could help ensure both teams know the other party is acting in good faith. We offer our assistance if needed to oversee this process. While trading cities is a potential solution, this would involve more difficult negotiations. We feel it will be more productive to follow a three-step process, whereby both teams agree to:

1. First, halt expansion on Hoag, pending a settlement agreement.
2. Voice all concerns with the objective analysis, to establish a bona fide, agreed starting point for negotiations
3. Discuss and reach a settlement agreement that addresses as many concerns as possible with as little disruption to the status quo as possible.

We look forward to hearing from our allies,

Sommerswerd, Captain of the Zenobian Matriarchal Alliance

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to ETTA

Be wary, the crew of Dora's Revenge have spotted Pirate ships off the coast of Anjennida.

Guard your seafood accordingly.

--Sommerswerd of The AMAZON

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to US
Sept. 27 9:39am

We hope all is well with the Sirius Business, we would first like to congradulate our friends on the recent subjucation of the Anjennidan savages at Carib. Welcome to Anjennida, and we look forward to connecting our cities to the benefit of our mutual defense. Towards that end, and in anticipation of your arrival, we have already extended a road NW from Myrine, our northernmost city towards Carib. As we have already informed you, there are native Axemen afoot, one of which our brave Hippolyte-a has already dispatched. Be warned that our Toxaris, Susie has encountred a native Spearman in the southern, desert near the center of Star-landmass.

Additionally, we thought it prudent to inform you of two developments with the M&M enemies. First, as anticipated, Toxaris Susie has reported seeing a Maverick chariot headed for Marthaton. This chariot will be blocked by Suisie, and the city she will be defending, however, we are concerned that this chariot is a forward scout for a larger force. This suspicion is bolstered by our recent communications with the Continuum, who are reporting that the Mavericks are offering to capture Kleptocracy cities for them. This would mean that the Mavericks are assembling a military force to threaten the ETTT.

This brings up another issue. The Kleptocracy has implied that their communications with the Mavericks have revealed a secret, permanent treaty of non-aggression between the Sirians and the Mavericks. We dismissed this hearsay as the feeble attempts of the M&Ms to smear chocolate stains all over the cohesion of our alliance, by sowing seeds of distrust, which is why we did not mention it to you. However, now that it seems clear that the Mavericks are trying to reinforce Merlot, we feel the need to call upon our allies to place some pressure on the Mavericks to reduce their freedom to reinforce Merlot. Obviously an all out attack on their citeis would accomplish this, but a simple Declaration of War against the Mavericks would make them think twice about sending their units away from their own cities. Therefore, a mere Declaration of War on the Mavericks would assist us a great deal. We hope that our Sirian friends will help us in this regard.

The recent troubles between The Kleptocracy and the Continuum is proof that the Sirian-AMAZON method has been superior, and also demonstrates the futility of atempting to share the landmasses on East-West lines. We continue to work on resolving the situation between the two parties, but as you suggest, we are not rushing the matter, but attempting to make it as methodical, and deliberate as possible, thus the extremely lengthy message on the subject to all the allies. Now that Quatronia has included you publicly, you can openly endorse our recommendations. Please condsider the possibility of doing so at your convenience.

On to the issue of Anjennida. We greatly appreciate your last dotmap, but as you are aware, our newest city makes that dotmap obsolete. Happily we have enclosed three possible solutions for dividing Anjennida, each very different in approach. We hope that you will select one of these approaches, as we are comfotable with all three. Maps for all three approaches are enclosed.

One map is a simple no-settle line (In Red). Sirius would settle above the line, and The AMAZON would have to settle below it. Other than that, its just first come first served, which is obviously slightly more competitive. This Map gives Sirius 40 land tiles (including 11 desert tiles), but of course the Sirius Business gets the only Whale and the only Marble in Anjennida. The AMAZON gets 43 land tiles, including 3 desert tiles on the Southern tip. The AMAZON gets both elephants, which would obviously be shared with Sirius. There are 7 land tiles on the line itself including the Western Horse, which would be subject to cultural conflict
.
The Second approach is a No-Conflict Line, which means that Sirius would settle Above the Orange line and The AMAZON would settle below the Blue Line, but no team could found a city in a place where any tiles of the city's BFC would go over the line. Both teams are free to settle where they wish, within these guidelines, which means that no cities would overlap BFCs. The difference with this approach is that Sirius is guaranteed the Horse and The AMAZON is guaranteed the two Southwestern Clams. On this Map, The AMAZON get 43 land tiles (including 3 desert) and Sirius gets 47 land tiles including 11 desert.

The final approach is a dotmap, which pre determines city locations. It provides the following tile distributions. Sirus receives, 1 desert oasis, 1 marble hill, 3 Flood Plain, 21 grass (17 river, 6 forest), 2 bananas, 6 coast, 1 ocean, 2 clams, 2 coast (non-coastal city), 1 clam (non-coastal city). Amazon gets, 24 grass (1 forest, 15 jungle, 2 river), 2 jungle elephants, 1 jungle banana, lake, 11 coast, 5 clams. The shared tiles are Sirius:
7 grass, 2 grass jungle 1 grass hill horse and 1 coast.

Remember that under all three approaches, in addition to receiving the only Whale and Marble, Sirius' cosatal tiles are actually just as good if not better than improved land tiles. this is because with a dike(UB) and a lighthouse, plus your FIN trait, every coastal tile will give 2, 3 and 1, which is comparable to an improved land tile.

We look forward to hearing from our friends,

Special Envoy nabaxo on behalf of The AMAZON

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to Us
Oct 5, 12:03pm

Relations with Mavs - Typo in our last letter

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you recieve our last gmail?
There is a typo The last sentence in the 2nd to last paragraph says "The shared tiles are Sirius:7 grass, 2 grass jungle 1 grass hill horse and 1 coast." It should say "The shared tiles are: 7 grass, 2 grass jungle 1 grass hill horse and 1 coast." So the word "Sirius" is a typo. Sorry for any confusion this caused.

Also, we understand if you need more time to discuss the dotmaps, but we are still anxiously waiting to hear from you regarding a DoW on Mavericks, as well as the rumor of the secret treaty.

Take care,

Sommerswerd of The AMAZON

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to us (via PM)
Received, Wednesday, 6th October, 21:49 (GMT)

Letting you know as per the SAP treaty of friendship, that we can now see the tech choices of our mutual enemies, M&M.

Mavs are teching Optics, and Merlot are after Civil Service. Both appear to be building gold at present.

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Friday, 8th October 00:12 (GMT)

Greetings Amazons.

First a sincere apology for the long delay in sending this correspondance. I was indeed away for what is a long-weekend where I live, and my wife and I have both been taken down with a horrible flu ever since we got back.

As you can see, events with Mavericks have moved along on their own course. We had finally resolved to declare war on them, despite our somewhat struggling military, when this issue of their retirement from the game came up. We probably need to wait to see what the gods (admins) decide on that one before discussing it much further.

The rest of this correspondance is a discussion of the settling agreement, which I wrote before I went away for the weekend, but held off sending it waiting for a decision on the Mavericks issue. I wish I'd sent it then a week ago now, and again my apologies for the delay.

Anjennida City Plan
We were actually a little upset at first to see that you had settled somewhere different to our proposal before actually replying to our proposal, but examining the situation in detail we're not bothered by it. The location is one which is, under all schemes, considered your territory. The shift in location 1N of our proposal loses access to the grassland that is currently 2SW of that city, in exchange for tiles to the north which are all overlapped with other cities. So on the whole we don't consider it quite as good a location for the city, but the difference is small and entirely your concern.

We are, for the record, not at all in agreement that a 2F1H3C coastal tile is as good as, for example, the potential of a 2F1H8C grassland cottage site, nor a 2F4H grassland workshop, nor even simply a 4F grassland farm under Biology (which comes at a similar time to our Dike).

As far as the alternative methods of agreement, on the whole, we are much more in favour of a dotmap as an approach, as it has two advantages:
* It ensures an efficient settling pattern. A no-settle line will lead to cities settled aggressively close to the line in order to claim territory, resulting in inefficient settling locations. A no-conflict line will as good as guarantee that there will be a number of tiles unworked as it is impossible to place city BFCs on every tile on one side of the line without crossing over it in places.
* It makes it entirely clear who is getting what, avoiding the potential for either disputes or simply an unfair deal for one side.

The biggest downside of a dotmap is that it is more work and a more complicated agreement, but with only three or four cities each involved here we don't think it is too much work.

We will therefore primarily address the dotmap you have sent us. We have a number of issues with it, most of which are, probably unsurprisingly, dealt with by the dotmap we sent previously.

1. Both dotmaps include a northeastern city in an identical location, and a southwestern city in a similar location (our proposed location being one south of yours). However, the ownership of these two cities is swapped. The reason we think it is better for us to own the southwestern city is that the two clams it has access to are in the BFC of a planned city on Bode. We are not keen to complicate the discussion by including agreements on where we settle on Bode, and the Bode city itself is particularly good production location which we would be reluctant to move. Therefore if we own this southwestern city rather than the northeastern city there will be substantially less cultural conflict in total, and it will be restricted to Anjennida itself. In particular it will save our teams culture fighting over the southwestern clams, and give you the northwesterns clam to your self.

2. The location of the western horse city in your proposed dotmap is a terrible city location. It is one off the coast (wasting a seafood resource in the process), non-riverside, and settled on top of a productive resource, which also happens to be the only otherwise-available production tile. I do conceed that as a dotmap location it does cover a desirable set of tiles, however we think this does not make up for the weakness of the city location itself.

3. Our proposal squeezes in an entire extra city. This city admittedly does not claim a large number of new tiles, but it does claim enough to justify its existence, and many of the tiles it claims would otherwise effectively be lost under alternative proposals. The cities which move away from the centre under our proposal to make room for it partly make up for the lost central tiles with other tiles, and the end result is that every worthwhile tile on the penisula is worked. It's also a city under your control, so it must surely be a good deal for you anyway.

On the whole, we're not stuck on our own proposal for its own sake, but would like you to consider the reasons we've given behind the differences on their own merits.

All the best,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to US
From Sommersword Oct. 28 8:29am

Hello Sirian Allies,

It has been ages since we last spoke. Many things have happened in our world since that time... Our alliance was able to avoid disaster, as the hostilities between the Kleptocracy and the Continuum have ceased. The craven Mavericks have tucked tail and fled in the face of the righteous might of the ETTT. The powerful King Indiansmoke has been overthrown, and his kingdom is no doubt in turmoil under the newly crowned King slaze.

All these developments are good for the ETTT, however, the absorbtion of the cowardly Mavericks people into the Merlot Kingdom presents the strong possibility of tough days ahead for The AMAZON, as we struggle mightily to contain the Merlot threat on Marthaton for the benefit of the ETTT. You have no doubt noticed that our people have been mobilized over the last several turns, attempting to keep pace with the increasingly milataristic Merlot Kingdom. We have been battling with Royal Army and Navy, and sadly one of our Triremes, the Georgia, perished beneath the waves with all her crew. The Zenobians aboard fought bravely, sinking Merlot vessels before they were destroyed.

This last point raises some questions for us to pose to our Sirian friends. First, in order to put down the Merlot threat once and for all we must invade their home island. As you know, we can not hope to do so without Astronomy. Are the wise Sirians still employing their best minds towards this end? When do your scientists expect that the ETTT gain this knowlegde?

This brings up another issue. In order to prevent our defensive forces on Marthaton from being destroyed by Merlot forces flooding Marthaton, it has been necessary to upgrade our Pyrgomache to Andromache, and our Archers to Toxari. Of course this has slowed our progress towards Feudalism, but once our necessary upgrades are complete we will resume our vigorous technological progress. Do you have any information to share regarding the technological progress and plans of our allies? For our part, we can still see the Mavericks tech, and they will have Compass in 2 turns.

Are the Sirians curently engaged in battle with the remnants of the Maverick cowards? Do you have any information from the Continuum to indicate they are fighting either Mavericks or Merlot? It will be difficult indeed for The AMAZON to face the combined armies of both the Mavericks and Merlot, so we are hopeful that our allies will move against the Mavericks soon. Which leads us to yet another development... In accordance with the SAP we thought it appropriate to mention that we entered into a NAP with CDZ in order to persuade them to assist us against Merlot. The AMAZON cannot hope to defeat the armies of both nations without the efforts of our wise and brave allies.

Finally, we wanted to take the time to share our thoughts on your latest proposal for the division of Anjennida. One of the principle differences of opinion our people seem to have is the relative value of the desert land in the northern spire. Your last letter to us made it clear that Sirius does not consider the land particularly valuable, maybe not completely worthless, but certainly substantially less valuable then the jungles in the south. This is an important distinction between our viewpoints, because we consider the spire quite valuable.

We have therefore modeled our newest proposal on that principle. Examining our proposal, we find it very similar in spirit to the Sirains' last proposal. What we are suggesting is very simply, that we will take the spire, and Sirius will take the rest of the jungle. The way this plan will work, is that The AMAZON will be free to settle anywhere on our coast, north of Myrine (our northernmost city on Anjennida), and anywhere north of the formerly barb city, Carib. Sirius will gift us Carib, giving us control of the spire. We will not build cities anywhere else on Anjennida. Therefore, Sirius will be completely free to place cities anywhere else on Anjennida, provided that the city is South of the former barb city Carib. (We can rush a settler to you as compensation for the resources you expended taking the city.) We will completely trust your wise judgement to consider the cultural conflicts that the placement of your new cities might pose, and act in the best interest of the SAP alliance. However, there will be no other restrictions on Sirian placement of cities.

We have not forgotten your plans to pursue the Great Library, and so if us gifting Marble will further this end, we are happy to do so upon your request, once we recieved Carib from you. We feel very good about this new plan, and the settlement of this issue, so please respond with any thoughts or concerns.

Your Zenobian friends

 

[AlphaShard]

to Amazon from us:
11-03-10 11:07pm

Greetings to our friends in The Amazon.

As you have no doubt noticed, Astronomy is complete now. We wish you the best of luck at invading the Merlot home island. We can only see Quatronia's tech, and they appear to be researching Horseback Riding.

This also opens up the possibility of resource trade. We propose to make the following trades:
* Gold for Silver
* Silk for Fur
* Fish for Deer
Obviously we both need to connect some resources to enable all of those trades.

On the war front, we have had no direct engagement with Mavericks as yet, but we plan to proactively change that ourselves in the near future.

As for Anjennida, we are all quite reluctant to part with Rigel (previously Carib) now that we've invested a reasonable amount of time and resources developing it. On the whole we weren't all that pleased with the latest proposal. We are receptive to the idea of swapping the city at the top of the spire in principle, although as you have said earlier yourselves it makes more sense for us to claim more coastline while you claim more of the centre of the continent.

Although we agree that there has been disagreement in words over the relative values of grassland and coastal tiles, we don't agree that it has impacted the proposed agreements significantly. In fact we still fail to understand what you don't like about our dotmap proposal, which seems to us strictly better for you than the dotmap proposal you made yourselves, in that it gives you more grassland, more cities, and more resources.

We hope all is going well for you.

Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Irgy]

From AMAZON to us, received Saturday 6th November 13:59(GMT)

Greetings Sirian friend.

It is me - 2metraninja. I am temporary implementing the Amazon diplomacy service.

We thank you for the wishes, we will need a good energy and good luck in the war for sure.

We thank you for the proposed help with the barbarian spearman, but we can handle this threat easily.

We want to warn you (in case you dont see it), that Maverick's powergraph is skyrocketing after King Slaze took the reign, meaning every one near them is endangered. We have substantial forces defending our most closer to the center of the star city of Nabaxica, but we fear we will be unable to patrol the exact centre where all the peninsulas connect and through which land Mavericks army can march in any direction. We already asked CDZ to spare 2 units and send them to the center of the Oceanic Star, which they will do soon. If you send troops too, our combined force will be enough to repel any attempt for trespassing.

On the matter of Anjennida, I see the reason you dont want to part with your city. But this last land division, proposed by our team was the same you did proposed to us a bit earlier. So now you dont seems to like the part you proposed to us. This I say like an Amazon diplomat.

On more personal note, I want to mention our worries about your first proposed dotmap. We are afraid that those so- called "conflict" tiles will be clearly for you to use, because of your creative trait, thus heavily disballancing the land division. Please, give us a new and a bit more favorable dotmap and I promise to put it on voting so we can at last solve this case and continue building and growing cities.

2metraninja
on behalf of Amazon team

 

[Irgy]

From 2metraninja (Amazon) to Irgy (Sirius), via pm.
Received 19th November 09:44(GMT)

Subject: MTDG2 land division

Greetings Irgy of the Sirians!

I am writing to you in half- official way to ask you how we can speed up the negotiations about Jennylund/Anjennida land division. Will you make a new dot- map or you want us to make a new one and send it to you for your approval?

Lately we had some successes razing Merlots main city on Martathon - The Circus and capturing one another Merlot city - The Library, but the war is promissing to be long and heavy, so we need place to settle new cities and outgrow/outproduce Merlots.

I use the opportunity to inform you that we are teching again after all the needed war upgrades and will have Feudalism to give to our allies in 13 turns.

2metraninja on behalf of Team Amazon

 

[Irgy]

From Irgy (Sirius) to 2metraninja (Amazon), via PM.
Sent 20th Novemeber, 11:45(GMT)

Sorry, I've drawn one up already but I'm being disgracefully slow in the easy part of sending it off. If you haven't got it soon tell me I'm a slacker.

Irgy

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON.
Sent 20th November, 12:03(GMT)

Team AMAZON wrote:

Greetings Sirian friend.
It is me - 2metraninja. I am temporary implementing the Amazon diplomacy service.

Hello. Thanks for your fast response, apologies for the speed of mine.

We want to warn you (in case you dont see it), that Maverick's powergraph is skyrocketing after King Slaze took the reign, meaning every one near them is endangered. We have substantial forces defending our most closer to the center of the star city of Nabaxica, but we fear we will be unable to patrol the exact centre where all the peninsulas connect and through which land Mavericks army can march in any direction. We already asked CDZ to spare 2 units and send them to the center of the Oceanic Star, which they will do soon. If you send troops too, our combined force will be enough to repel any attempt for trespassing.

We had intended to send our maceman Juno south in response to this, however barbarians from the north of Anjennida as well as the barbarian city in the centre meant that we needed to divert him to protect Rigel.

We apologise for our lack of involvement in the military side of things so far, but despite our best efforts our own military is still rather lacking. As we have said in the past however, we see ourselves as giving the most benefit to our alliance by way of technology, and we have been contributing significantly more than our fair share of that.

We do nonetheless intend to put significant pressure on the Maverick home island as soon as we are able. Our East Indiamen should be a usefull asset in this regard. Hopefully this will relieve at least a little of the pressure in the centre of the continent.

On the matter of Anjennida, I see the reason you dont want to part with your city. But this last land division, proposed by our team was the same you did proposed to us a bit earlier. So now you dont seems to like the part you proposed to us. This I say like an Amazon diplomat.

I'm actually genuinely confused by this. The only concrete proposal I can recall making is the dotmap we sent, and your proposal is substantially different from that dotmap. I'm quite sure we never made a proposal that conceeded Rigel.

On more personal note, I want to mention our worries about your first proposed dotmap. We are afraid that those so- called "conflict" tiles will be clearly for you to use, because of your creative trait, thus heavily disballancing the land division. Please, give us a new and a bit more favorable dotmap and I promise to put it on voting so we can at last solve this case and continue building and growing cities.

Thanks, it's great to hear and understand the concerns. While we don't entirely agree that every conflicted tile will be ours, we do understand your concern about the advantage that our creativity gives us. I will say however that our proposal was designed to do its very best to minimise the amount of cultural conflict.

First just a minor point of detail, I'm going to count the flood plains as worth 1.5 grassland tiles. If you're happy with that then skip this paragraph, as it's very boring. My thinking is that with two cottaged floodplains, you have 2 cottages, 2 food surplus, and 1 unhealthiness. With 1 farmed grassland and 2 cottaged grasslands you have 2 cottages, 2 food surplus, and 1 unhealthiness (from the extra population). The grasslands lose out by 1 unhappiness (from population) and the need for Biology, however, the most important thing is the late game where biology is available and health is the limit. The grasslands gain with an extra population point for votes and domination and more importantly the flexibility to work 3 cottages instead. So 1.5 grasslands for a flood plains should be close enough.

Going by our previously proposed dotmap, the land distribution came out as 39 grassland tiles (38 with your different choice of southern city location) for you to 28.5 for us. Even considering all of the contested tiles to be ours, we still only catch up to 35.5 grassland tiles. With only 4 workable tiles available, the spire city still only slightly overshoots in making up the difference.

Here's a proposal then: We give you the spire-tip city, and take the northeastern jungle city (east of Rigel, north of Myrine) in exchange. We will move that city 1N of the location previously proposed, to the forest tile that is 3E1S of Rigel, in order to reduce cultural conflict. The well established city of Myrine will be more than capable of holding on to the tiles in the row halfway between itself and this city (the middle banana row). so on the whole this will transfer roughly 5 grassland tiles from your control to ours.

The two scenarios are then close to symmetric, one in which we have the spire tip but less grassland than yourselves, and the other in which you get the spire tip but close to the same amount less grassland than us. Therefore at least one of the two proposals must surely be acceptable.

I have attached two dotmaps, one our previous proposal for reference (the one with the "-Sirian whales" suffix), and the other the new proposal ("anjennida dotmap"). Let us know what you think of these. We are hoping to settle our horse city in the near future - as it is not a location that is likely to change we hope this is acceptable.

Best wishes for the ongoing war,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

2 attachments, shown below: