Team Babe Embassy

[Paul#42]

If we don't want to be too negative, we could offer them passage for a deposit of 500g, payed back 10 turns after they left our shores without any hostile action. (We don't have to tell that a hostile action on SABER or FREE is also hostile on us)

I doubt they would do this but at least we would offer a shake hands...

 

[sirdanilot]

We might want to be friendly to them right now. Forbidding them to enter our borders will just make them more angry and if they are really going to attack us, it won't help.

We could also offer them that we sell some techs for a moderate or slightly higher than normal price. The plus is that they might see us as an interesting science-source, the cons is that they obviously get more advanced and they might start sending demands. But of course we know they won't attack us then. We could even hint that we can't research anything anymore if they attack us, and that the knowledge of the Council will be lost forever. (Or do nations get free techs when they eliminate someone else?).

But before that, we should probably ask them about GONG's technical position. We should try not to mention FREE.

Just an idea...

 

[tomasjj]

I don't think we should offer them anything yet.
See what their intentions are, then act on that.
If they enter our territory, give them a salvo.

 

[sirdanilot]

Yes we could tell them to get out of our territory, but we shouldn't tell them they can't enter it before they do. But I don't think they would enter our waters without asking first. That would be very rude.

I guess we could just send them a rather vague letter about what their intentions are, yes.

 

[Paul#42]

We might want to be friendly to them right now. Forbidding them to enter our borders will just make them more angry and if they are really going to attack us, it won't help.

I doubt it would change any of their plans. We would only know earlier what we are up to...

Yes we could tell them to get out of our territory, but we shouldn't tell them they can't enter it before they do.

Yes, that would be "The Council" way...
As they already entered our waters (see below) two turns ago, I'd find the time right to tell them.

But I don't think they would enter our waters without asking first. That would be very rude.

It would be - but IIRC SABER did the same. And I consider "our coast" not only inside our cultural borders but all sea and coastal tiles around our island. The might see that different and we'd have to make that clear soon. I guess that is a matter of interpretation...
I would like to clearly tell them that we'd regard their ship in the (sea or coastal) waters around our island as a act of hostility if they don't ask for permission...

I guess we could just send them a rather vague letter about what their intentions are, yes.

I don't quite understand that.
You want to tell them what (we think) they are about to do?

 

[sirdanilot]

I don't quite understand that.
You want to tell them what (we think) they are about to do?

Erm no, more like asking them wether they want to trade with us, or want discuss a peace treaty (even though we know they won't), or anything like that. Maybe a small hint about our tech advantage. If they really entered our waters, we should kindly ask them to explain why they are there. I don't think we should tell them to get out just yet.

We could also just become very (defensively) agressive at them, demanding they leave our waters and telling them we know they want to attack us, but I am personally very against that and I'd prefer a soft approach. We want to convince them we are too technologically advanced to just simply take for lunch.

At some point, we might even try to hint that SABER is a better victim for them. Then again, we'll undoubtedly (sp?) be next when they choose to do that anyway, but by that time we'll be at astronomy and our Council-Free alliance should be just as strong as a two-island BABE by that time. We'll also have met GONG then which adds another factor to the game.

 

[Paul#42]

If they really entered our waters, we should kindly ask them to explain why they are there.

That's what I ment to be a matter of interpretation. The BABE would certainly not say that they "entered our waters".
We should tell them politely.

They will argue that "our waters" are inside our cultural borders or at most the coastal tiles around our island.

(unless I stand alone with my interpretation of "our waters")

 

[Niklas]

You don't stand alone, I fully agree with you. There's no reason to be meek, the whole purpose is that we don't want them to map our shores, and that means staying out of our (=around our island) coastal/sea waters altogether. They've met us, no reason for them to go any further. None at all.

 

[donsig]

I agree there is no reason to be meek. I also don't think we need to realy what SABER told us just to have an excuse to be defensive. We know what they can do with the lighthouse and mounted warriors and they should know we know, etc. I vote we ask them nicely to stay out of the waters around our landmass.

 

[tomasjj]

Yeah. The mission of an early curragh or galley would be to reckon out a landing zone.
Tell them to stand back if they start moving along our coastline.

 

[General_W]

there is no reason to be meek.

My dear fellow councilors!

Let me remind you that going to war isn't just a logical decision, it's also an emotional one.
I can tell you first hand that discussions of who to attack don't just flow from power scores, proximity, and long-term strategy. Although all those things are very important… it much easier to attack someone who is ticking you off than someone that is being nice to you.

In the first MTDG, team MIA almost went to war with the Dnuts because we perceived them as rude, uncooperative, and (most dramatically) because we had reason to believe they broke a treaty with us. Now, in our case, logic prevailed and we went after our much more strategic target (the much closer and bigger threat) team KISS. However, KISS has also done plenty of things to tick us off. If KISS has been flattering us with more pretty words… it's hard to say. People can get pretty worked up over small diplomatic things, and conversely, it's very hard to attack a team that you genuinely like.

We can't change the strategic considerations that BABE is debating… but we can try to make them like us. If they like us, we may pick up an ally or two on their team that will go to bat for us in their forums, and advocate attacking someone other than us.

It's a small chance, but if we do anything that can even remotely be considered as rude, we're just making it easier for them to attack us.

We don't need to be weak sounding – that'd be a terrible mistake. But I think we can convey strength and friendship at the same time. A good step here would be to just mention that we know they're looking for someone to kill, but we're confident it won't be us! Just letting them know that we expect an attack is a good deterrent, I think.

Therefore, I suggest that we send a letter brimming with friendship, acknowledging that they're on the lookout for a target, and dangling the possibility of access to our knowledge…
We then follow up with an article in the RoundTable announcing that we're in the Middle Ages, and hope that fear of our MDI combined with our friendly attitude will persuade BABE to go look elsewhere for their conquests.

Here's my proposal:

Dear Alessandra (and all Babes)!

What a pleasure to meet you! We welcome you to the coasts of The Council.

We hope we can build a peaceful and profitable relationship with you. Of course, we recognize that there is iron behind the smiling faces of your lovely ambassadors, and we fully expect the mighty armies of the BABES to march forth in due time. Therefore, it obviously becomes us to see if we can make ourselves a less appealing target and more appealing friend.
In addition to our military builds, which we hope you won't take as a personal affront, we'd like to explore options for peace.

You currently don't have any knowledge we lack, but would you be interested in purchasing some of our tech at a discount? For example, Mathematics for 120 gold?
We're open to any suggestion if the idea of trading gold for tech appeals to you at all?

Let us know.

All the best,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

Obviously, the proposal for math isn't that great of a deal (240 beakers for math at monopoly costs) but I'm just trying to sound them out.

Feedback?

 

[Niklas]

I think you are right about being nice, to a degree. But I also think it's orthogonal to what I'm saying. I adamantly propose that we specifically ask their curragh not to enter our waters - in as friendly a way as possible of course, preferably phrased as if it was something completely natural (you're the master of formulation, I'm sure you can do it ). Not being meek is not the same thing as being rude.

Being nice and making them like us might make them think twice about attacking us. But not having any map knowledge, and thus not being able to plan an assault in a good way, will definitely have that effect. I prefer definite to to possible.

As a side note, both me and zyxy have already managed to tick Wotan off in the Turn Tracker thread. Let's hope that doesn't stick too deep...

 

[tomasjj]

It isn't hard to tick off Wotan though....

Anyway, the reference to our military builds as an afront, I think it is too obvious that we are trying to act stronger than we are here. And I am fairly certain that they won't fall for it. Just my 2 cents.
Obviously, they may choose to attack someone else out of other reasons.

I also think offering a price for maths makes us sound a bit weak, especially such a cut price deal. We are commercial! I like the think about offering them a tech, just not discount and the quoted price. A civ on equal terms would ask them for which tech they are interested in and then the negotiating begins.

If they are ruthless, they will take the tech deal and still attack....that wouldn't surprise me, as an old cynic...

 

[General_W]

But not having any map knowledge, and thus not being able to plan an assault in a good way, will definitely have that effect. I prefer definite to to possible.

Oh, I totally agree with you here – but even if we "totally forbid" them from entering our cultural waters… can we stop them? Would we declare war to sink their boat?
If not, it's an empty threat and a powerless gesture that will only highlight our current inability to defend our own waters.

Before we make any kind of demand or threat, we'd better consider what we'll do if they laugh at us and cross the line we draw. If we're not willing to throw down, we'd better not be drawing any lines!
Or am I missing something here?

Seems to me, if we can't stop them from mapping our coast, we might as well pretend we're ok with it – and even invite them in. I hate the fact that we have to choose between looking foolish/reckless in encouraging BABE to map our coast… but the only other option I see is to look powerless. And in my opinion, it's better to look foolish than powerless in the face of a likely hostile enemy.

It isn't hard to tick off Wotan though…

All the more reason to be extra nice then!

I also think offering a price for maths makes us sound a bit weak, especially such a cut price deal. We are commercial! I like the think about offering them a tech, just not discount and the quoted price. A civ on equal terms would ask them for which tech they are interested in and then the negotiating begins.

Ok – well, I actually thought we were asking for TOO much gold there. Generally in my PBEM experience 50% of the gold is considered a fair price before libraries (as that essentially splits the work for both players). After libraries, the price tends to go down.

But in the interest of dragging the negotiations out longer, I don't have any trouble with dropping a suggested price.

Here's how the letter would look taking your suggestion:

Spoiler :

Dear Alessandra (and all Babes)!

What a pleasure to meet you! We welcome you to the coasts of The Council.

We hope we can build a peaceful and profitable relationship with you. Of course, we recognize that there is iron behind the smiling faces of your lovely ambassadors, and we fully expect the mighty armies of the BABES to march forth in due time. Therefore, it obviously becomes us to see if we can make ourselves a less appealing target and more appealing friend.
In addition to our military builds, which we hope you won't take as a personal affront, we'd like to explore options for peace.

You currently don't have any knowledge we lack, but would you be interested in purchasing some of our tech? We're open to any fair suggestion if the idea of trading gold for tech appeals to you at all?

Let us know.

All the best,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

And I'm totally fine with this version.

Am I making any headway on persuading people that demanding BABE leave our coast is a bad idea?
If not, here's my best initial shot at how I'd word the request for them to leave…

Now that we've made contact with your brave Curragh, we'd appreciate you doing us the honor of respecting our cultural waters by not crossing into our borders. Surely there must be other exotic lands that are excited to make contact with the beautiful people of BABE! We'd hate to monopolize your curragh's time.

 

[General_W]

<snip> Double posted somehow...

 

[Niklas]

Yes, I think we should draw the line. If they cross it, we know that they have no intentions of being nice to us at any rate. Then at least we get an early warning.

 

[tomasjj]

We know they are very likely to attack us soon, so I see no point in not drawing the line. This will give us more time, and a confirmation of their intentions. Also, they are looking to map out our coast with that curragh, and we don't want that.
Do we have a couple of ships in the proximity to police our waters?

 

[Aigburth]

Lets not forget that curragh has movement of 3 and can end turns in sea tiles, they could make two moves through our cultural waters and end the turn outside, we would have no evidence that they did this.

 

[Niklas]

Hence why "our waters" should not be restricted to our cultural boundaries, but rather any sea or ocean tiles within, say, 4 tiles from our main landmass.

 

[General_W]

Ok &#8211; I can't say I'm convinced, but this pretty clearly seems to be the will of The Council&#8230;

How's version 2 look?

Dear Alessandra (and all Babes)!

What a pleasure to meet you! We welcome you to the coasts of The Council. But now that we've made contact with your brave Curragh, we'd appreciate you doing us the honor of respecting our cultural waters by leaving our coastline. Surely there must be other exotic lands that are excited to make contact with the beautiful people of BABE! We'd hate to monopolize your curragh's time scouting our rather boring coast.

We hope we can build a peaceful and profitable relationship with you. Of course, we recognize that there is iron behind the smiling faces of your lovely ambassadors, and we fully expect the mighty armies of the BABES to march forth in due time. Therefore, it obviously becomes us to see if we can make ourselves a less appealing target and more appealing friend.
Therefore, we'd like to explore options for peace.

You currently don't have any knowledge we lack, but would you be interested in purchasing some of our tech? We're open to any fair suggestion if the idea of trading gold for tech appeals to you at all?

Let us know.

All the best,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

Suggestions on that version?