AMAZON Diplomacy Discussion

[Irgy]

A thread for discussing our diplomatic strategy with regards to the AMAZON team.

Some discussion has already occurred in the turn tracking thread, posts 844-850.

It would be good to send them a reply reasonably soon, it's been nearly 12 hours since we received their message and there's been no message back from us (that I'm aware of anyway).

It's been a bit quiet here generally recently, partly because we're in a bit of a lull, as our moves have been planned more than 10 turns ahead and we've had little to do except bicker about the direction to send our exploring workboat. Hopefully this event will liven things up a bit.

 

[Trystero]

I posted this in the Turn Discussion thread, but I'll copy it here:

Well, that didn't take long. I'm not sure Cyrus is who I'd pick as a neighbor, but I'm keeping an open mind about these things.

Irgy: I'm happy to have you represent yourself as our "foreign minister" for now. I'm new to MP, so I'm not sure how diplomacy is typically handled, but my instinct is to be cordial, but tip our hand as little as possible. I would tell them we are happy to discuss any sort of alliance without spelling out where we stand tech and development-wise. As far as switching to Alphabet, I think we should stick to our current plan as much as possible. If we can research Monarchy while they research Alphabet, great. But I wouldn't divulge that that's what we are planning just yet. Also, with regard to IW, perhaps we should get a warrior over to the other island ASAP to scout for the resources we can see, before we make that decision.

It also occurs to me that they are likely to meet our neighbor to the west before we are, if their WB continues westward.

 

[Trystero]

What about sending a brief reply, such as:

"Hail and well met, Captain Sommerswerd and peoples of the Zenobian Empire.

The Sirian Empire rejoiced at receiving word of contact with your vessel Jenny by our exploring craft Voyager. We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our great peoples. We are currently convening our high council to discuss this momentous occasion and will a formal introduction to SilentConfusion shortly."

It could be dressed up to be more laudatory, but maybe something that brief will suffice as a reply?

 

[Irgy]

Looks good. Add the word "send" between "...and will" and "a formal introduction..." and it's ready to go.

Just one question, should we wait until SilentConfusion has sent us something before working on a more detailed reply? I'm just thinking he might be writing something already and we could end up at worst cross-posting or possibly wasting time writing something that will change when we get what he's written.

If so, it might be better to say we're awaiting SilentConfusion's communication than to suggest we're about to send something as well, or we also risk both teams waiting for the other to get around to sending the first detailed response.

So, I'm proposing modifying it to something like:

Hail and well met, Captain Sommerswerd and peoples of the Zenobian Empire.

The Sirian Empire rejoiced at receiving word of contact with your vessel Jenny by our exploring craft Voyager. We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our great peoples. We are currently convening our high council to discuss this momentous occasion. We eagerly await hearing from your diplomat SilentConfusion to begin detailed correspondence.

 

[Trystero]

Irgy, That looks good to me. I agree with letting them initiate formal contact while we discuss what we want to do, and get feedback from more of the team.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Ah, first contact. Not exactly my first choice as a neighbour (in fact, to be frank, my last choice out of the 5 possible teams), but never mind. No need to worry about cross-posting, it's just general courtesy to send a quick and friendly response when you get a friendly welcome message.

While we probably want to be cautious about working with the Amazons, I don't see why we can't start negotiations. Alliances are the key to winning in these games, and like it or not Amazons are the first team we've met (and very likely we're the first team they've met). The first team you meet generally has a higher chance of working out as a long term ally, especially on a map like this, but you have to push your advantage early. No use being distant at first and then getting interested in an alliance later on once they've met a few more civs. If we want an alliance with the Amazons, we'll need to start working on it from day 1.

Personally, much as I'm reluctant to work with Sommerswerd, there are others on the Amazon team who I could get along with quite well. Nabaxo and I are on fairly friendly terms, for instance. So I think we should definitely give at least a tech alliance a shot with the Amazons. But we'll need to act quickly.

 

[Irgy]

No need to worry about cross-posting, it's just general courtesy to send a quick and friendly response when you get a friendly welcome message.

This is reason enough to send the reply above now rather than waiting around then. I can't exactly see all the wheels falling off as a result of something wrong with that reply, given there's practically no content in it, so off it goes. It's within 12 hours at least, that's not too bad

 

[AlphaShard]

I wanted to make sure that we shouldn't forget the concern over the "Jenniland" territory. A screen cap of where there boat is would be appreciated since I am unable to even get in the game right now. This is why I like larger maps I hate starting so close to other players. Now I wished we had gotten hunting and some damn metal.

 

[Irgy]

Sent. For what it's worth, I did the following rather confusing thing:

I sent it from my work email, but basically spoofing the sirius gmail account. This is actually really easy to do in thunderbird. This should look almost identical from their end to if I'd sent it directly from the gmail account. The only difference from our end is that it doesn't get copied to the sent folder. Because of this, I also BCC'd it to the gmail account, so that gmail has a record of it.

All of this is now set up so that I just need to select the right identity when I'm sending Sirius emails and the rest will happen automatically. I did it this confusing way purely for my own convenience, as it's a royal pain in the backside to log in to gmail from work. If anyone dislikes this method let me know.

 

[Irgy]

I wanted to make sure that we shouldn't forget the concern over the "Jenniland" territory. A screen cap of where there boat is would be appreciated since I am unable to even get in the game right now. This is why I like larger maps I hate starting so close to other players. Now I wished we had gotten hunting and some damn metal.

I don't think it's a good idea to argue about the name of the land in our communications though. We can just use our own name for it when it comes up. The name they've given doesn't really imply their ownership of it anyway, it's.

On the other hand I certainly agree it would be good to have a strategic resource. A non-aggression pact would help us a lot in this situation, assuming we trusted them to stick to it.

We've done our best to find metal so far really. There's no point getting to archery to defend against immortals, so hunting is no use without metals.

 

[Trystero]

I agree that the best way to handle the Jenniland thing is to simply ignore it for now. I think it would be a mistake to immediately alter plans in response to meaningless and unsupported claims. We don't really have need of Hunting for spears unless we have metal with which to make them. We are well setup for an expansion phase, and there is no evidence that they've started settling "Jenniland". I think we should stick to the plan through Sailing and see if there is any copper available on the nearby landmass. (I would agree though, that we might want IW soon after we start exploring the mainland.)

 

[Trystero]

I wanted to make sure that we shouldn't forget the concern over the "Jenniland" territory. A screen cap of where there boat is would be appreciated since I am unable to even get in the game right now. This is why I like larger maps I hate starting so close to other players. Now I wished we had gotten hunting and some damn metal.

Here you go:

Spoiler :

Nothing too exciting.

 

[azzaman333]

Let's push for an alliance. There's no reason not to.

 

[AlphaShard]

Someone forgot to mention India got Hindisim. I wonder why we can see that but not who founded buddiasim.

Irgy you misunderstood me I don't care what it's called at all. What I do carr is if we build a city there say the next settler in fact that it doesn't immeasiatly start a war we cannot fight because we have no army. Because I will bet money THEY do.

 

[GoSkins]

I'm usually a warmonger so that's where I'm coming from. I say we stick to our island for now with the settler. We need to be friendly with Persia. Let them attack another civ (a financial one) and we can use their war to our advantage as we settle. Another option is we could attack someone together (financial civ) and expand our borders that way.

I can volunteer to be an ambassador to one of the civs if necessary, but I'm a warmonger...maybe defense minister would be a good role

 

[GoSkins]

Edit: Cyrus is imperialistic (faster production of settlers) so they will probably beat us to settling the mainland

 

[pindicator]

Edit: Cyrus is imperialistic (faster production of settlers) so they will probably beat us to settling the mainland

Assuming they're also stuck on an island, how can you be sure? The bottleneck isn't building a settler, it's researching Sailing, building a galley and a settler. I'm not so sure they've gone that far.

But if we stick to our own island that seems a sure way of losing.

 

[GoSkins]

Assuming they're also stuck on an island, how can you be sure? The bottleneck isn't building a settler, it's researching Sailing, building a galley and a settler. I'm not so sure they've gone that far.

But if we stick to our own island that seems a sure way of losing.

The bottlneck is sailing/galley to get the first city on the mainland but after that it's all about settler production.

Notice I said stick to our mainland FOR NOW. There is no need to expand into to the mainland while we do not have a military to protect our cities. That was my point of why we should befriend Persia. That way, when they attack someone else, we can use that to our advantage and settle. Otherwise, if we settle the mainland too much too early we risk getting attacked - and since we have no military, that is a sure way of losing.

 

[DaveShack]

Is there any demographic evidence that they might have built a wb first build and sent it immediately? If they had, then they would have been able to travel a very long way, possibly far enough to not even be our immediate neighbor -- if not then they could be relatively close.

If their diplo goes the same way as their signup thread in the main forum, we can expect a lot of roleplay in the messages. If that's the case, I'll stick to strategy and leave the messaging to someone else.

Let's think of a name for the connecting landmass, and use that. No need to argue over the name and create a conflict per se, just use our name instead of theirs. That will keep the fun if they're only intending RP based on the name, and send the right message if they're intending to lay claim to it.

 

[AlphaShard]

I don't care what the land is called we need it and we may be in danger of losing it. I just think we should discuss with them where they plan on settling otherwise be prepared for a surprise. If we don't discuss now about that land we may end up starting a war when we do try to settle.

I do agree with Daveshack that wb may have been traveling for awhile. Which is why it's critical to get as much info out them as possible.