AMAZON Diplomatic Messages

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Friday, 25th March, 08:33(GMT)

Just to be clear, Scientific Method was an emergency placeholder. We already had enough beakers (overflow from the previous tech) in it to be somewhat committed to it, and another turn of research into it does not change that either way. It is not too late to still choose to delay it for a while if that is considered worthwhile. I still think avoiding the Temple of Artemis is a better choice though, I'd expect you'd get more commerce building wealth than you'll get out of it before it obsoletes.

The Merchant is neither here nor there, as it may quite easily be transferred from one civilisation to another anyway. So if that is the main reason you wish to continue research into Economics then forget about it, as it is an illusory issue. We could question what claim you have to it in the first place, we don't recall any negotiation for its use and if anything it should be the property of the entire ETTT just as the technology that creates it is. However, it's clear enough that you have outmaneuvered us on that issue long ago and there is no sense trying to argue about it now, the time to dispute it was when you informed us* of your research plans a month ago, not now. So if we do research Economics we can transfer you the Merchant.

The issue then is entirely about the costs of a turn's anarchy against the cost of wasted beakers from duplicate research. Given that we can research the technology in two turns, as a rough estimate if you are not half way through it already the turn's worth of anarchy is likely to cost the ETTT on the whole more commerce than the lost beakers of switching who researches it. This is the last turn we have to start on it in time to make use of the golden age however, so a swift resolution of this issue is important.


Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius


* A team member has identified when you did indeed tell us this earlier. I had missed it because it was in a pm not an email (which I did look through) and a month ago now, which also happened to be the day before my Tonsilectomy so I wasn't paying much attention at the time. Still, excuses aside, I'll try and keep more on top of this sort of thing in future.

 

[Irgy]

From us to Amazon:
Sent both of the following in quick succession, on Friday, 1st April, 09:38(GMT)

Greetings, friends of the Amazon

First, a short explanation on the Economics situation. Having explained that the merchant was never the issue, we were still waiting for a response with regards to the best option in terms of lost commerce. I was assuming we would default to Scientific Method if we heard nothing, but I wasn't pushing the issue as I was expecting a response to appear in time. The turn players, in their wisdom, chose to default to Economics instead. On the whole I expect both options were almost equally wasteful in their own ways so it's probably not such a big deal either way. As a sign of respect for your original claim to the technology though we are in the process of transferring the Merchant over to you, I understand it is on Anjennida already and should arrive soon.

Just to clear another side issue, I have failed to get the required support for transferring Mizar to your control. That "New City" was already settled in its somewhat pointless location before the final vote was cast likely did not help matters, though we perfectly understand that you did not wish to wait for the completion of our interminable debate on the issue before settling. Since you appear to have no wish for any alternative compromise, we can only request that we both keep the dispute on Comet from spreading into other areas while it plays itself out. We will also make no moves to block or outrace your other settlers in the area.

With those issues out of the way, we'd like to start talking about the future. In particular, we strongly believe that the time to end the ETTT, at least as it currently stands, has arrived, and we intend to withdraw ourselves from it in the near future.

We appreciate that M&M have not yet been completely dealt with, but the reality is that with Cannons, Rifles and Cavalry available we finally have the military technology lead we need. We expect M&M to be defeated well before any other military technology is completed, so the need to share technology with our other rivals in order to defeat M&M is finished.

So, we see absolutely no point then in continuing to support the spongers in the south. However, we are aware of our various obligations under section 7 of the ASP. So, we wish your advice on how best to extract ourselves from giving technology to Quatronia and CDZ. We are happy to continue fair technology trades with any team, and we are also happy to continue a complete tech equality agreement with yourselves. We would like to hear your preference on how to go about this, but I need to stress that the team is absolutely adamant about not continuing to gift technologies to CDZ and Quatronia.

Apologies, I cut and paste incorrectly from our discussion thread, and was missing the second half of the previous email. Here it is.


We have been planning for this somewhat already. We sent a message to CDZ suggesting that it would be in their interests to support a war against Quatronia once M&M have been defeated. This would split the two teams and provide easy pickings for both ourselves and yourselves in the future. However, we have not heard back from them, and can only assume that despite their repeated conflicts with Quatronia they are still tied to them. We are concerned as well that CDZ might desire to pull you into a three way alliance against us, as our current golden-age boosted demographics may be of concern to them. Have you heard anything from them in this regard?

We hope all is well in your homelands,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[AlphaShard]

From Amazon to US via PM
Apr 06, 2011, 05:09 AM

Sirian Friends,

Apologies for not responding sooner to your letter, which raises many 'Sirius' issues, (pardon the pun, it was irresistable). Our Special Envoy to Sirius was AWOL again, but as I can see he is back now, you should get a longer reply soon.

What I can say, without any discussion with the team mind you, is that we appreciate you sending the Great Merchant to us... Admittedly, I myself was skeptical that you would honour our claim to it. The next thing is that as far as I'm concerned, the Mizar issue is water under the bridge. We will claim the rest of Comet and we dont need to talk about it anymore, Others on the team might feel differently, and this might be in the longer letter.

As for the rest of your letter, please wait for our Envoy to get back to you, but I can speak for myself and say that your general feelings are in line with my thinking. Be assured that we are not part of any 3-way conspiracy against you. That was the main reason I wanted to respond to you quickly to let you know that.

Sommerswerd

 

[Lord Parkin]

From AMAZON to us:
Received 7 April 2011 at 05:45 (GMT)

Sirian Friends,

Sirius and The AMAZON are friends and The AMAZON is not plotting against Sirus
We appreciate your letter, and we are sorry that it was not noticed sooner. You raised many concerns, and we will try to begin with the most pressing and proceed forward from there. First, and most importantly, The AMAZON is committed to our alliance with Sirius, we regard you as our oldest and most cherished friends. We are not party to any 3 way alliance agianst Sirius, nor have we made any plans with CDZ or Q to make war on Sirius or otherwise act against you. So we say absolutely and unambiguously that we are your friends and we have not been conspiring with others against you.

Ending the ETTT prematurely would be disasterous
Second, almost of equal importance, the wise Sirians must realize that if the ETTT was to expel a member or members now, Quatronia or CDZ for example, the expelled parties would immediately join the evil Candy-Axis and give away the technological advantage that we currently enjoy.

More specifically, the home island garrisons of both M&M nations are huge. If they were to simply obtain Astronomy, they could most likely invade and recapture enough territory to re-establish themselves. With Rifling and Steel, they could upgrade and possibly destroy all of us.

Therefore we implore you, in the strongest voice possible, please reconsider the path of excluding CDZ and or Quatronia from the ETTT until we have completed the task which was the purpose of the ETTT, the complete destruction of M&M. We know that the political climate in the Sirius Business is sour to this idea, so we have some suggestions for hopefully making it more palatable. We will address this later in this letter.

The AMAZONs Espionage efforts against M&M
On a directly related matter, the reason we are accutely aware of the strength of the Candy-Axis military is because of our espionage efforts. We believe this is a good time to tell our Sirian friends that part of the reason our technological contributions have been slow, is due in part to our committed focus on driving the M&M economy to a halt, via constant and sustained espionage missions.

Perhaps the Sirians have noticed the sharp and steady decrease in Merlot's score. This is not simply from slaving, it is the result of starvation. We have used our agents to force Merlot to slave population away before it starves away, creating a vicious cycle that denies them the ability to work their gem mines and numerous cottages. At present, the once mighty Merlot Capital, which was the largest city in the world, has a population of 1. Merlot other cities are pop 3 and 5. This is our doing.

We have dedicated ourselves to this effort, realizing that the size of the enemy armies were too vast for invasion, until we obtained a substantial tech advantage. We recognized that if we did not act to prevent M&M from getting Astronomy, they would be able to launch invasions and recapture territory, possibly even overwhelm us in a Blitzkrieg.

We knew that even if we focused on tech, our contribution to our FIN ETTT allies would be modest. But with our substantial espionage abilities, we have tried to protect the ETTT by making it impossible for Candy-Axis to advance to to Astronomy, thus keeping their massive armies trapped on their islands. At this moment, Merlot has abandoned building military in favor of spies in a pitiful attept to counter our crippling espionage. We tell you this, despite some concern on our team that it would be revealing too much. The reason we are sharing this with you, is to give you information about what we have been spending money on, in lieu of teching quickly.

Putting aside our recent disputes
We thank you greatly for sending us the Great Merchant. We would like to use it for a trade mission to your capital. Please expect a ship to bring him to you soon. If you request it, we are happy to give you a screenshot of the vessel en-route, so there are no worries that there are spies onboard.

Economics was a contested issue, with half the team supporting Sirius' desire to tech it... the Captain was against discussing it further, feeling that Sirius mind was already made up, and further discussion would just be inflammatory. Yes we lost many beakers, but our friendship with Sirius has given us many times more beakers than the ones we lost, so we can bear no grudge over this.

Additionally, some on our team are still sore about Mizar, and so further discussion about it will only inflame them. You have Mizar, and we will claim the rest of Comet. You have promised not to obstruct us, so let us move to other matters. We can confirm to you that the cultural conflict on Comet will not spread to other parts of the world, or erode our alliance. You are our friends, and it will stay that way.

On ending the ETTT
We agree that you carrying the alliance's tech must be cumbersome. We are actually surprised that you bore the burden so long without protest. We did not expect you to renew the SAP treaty, as it obligates you to remain a member of the ETTT under section 7.3.*

We have analyzed the ETTT, and in our opinion, Sirius can not unilaterally withdraw honourably from the ETTT. The only way for a member to leave the ETTT is under Section 2.2, which requires consent of all other members, so CDZ, Q and AMAZON would have to vote Sirius out. Of course, we cant vote Sirius out, because Section 7.4 the SAP treaty forbids either of us from voting the other out. So the only way Sirius can get out of the ETTT is to violate the treaty, which means they can be automatically expelled under section 2.3.

Besides comprimising our honour, violating the treaty would almost certainly result in CDZ and Q joining M&M and attacking us both, which we would prefer to avoid. Our espionage production is high enough that we are confident that we would be able to steal any tech that a team outside the ETTT researches as soon as they get it. Indeed, two of the last three techs we contributed to the ETTT were stolen. So we are less concerned with any member leaving the ETTT, as long as M&M are elimminated first.

Of course you already know all of this, but it does not address you issue of not wanting to give any more tech to CDZ and Q. What we suggest, is that Sirius should just stop teching immediately. As you correctly pointed out, we already have the tech advantage we need already to capture the M&M islands, and our espionage prevents them from advancing in tech any further.

If you instead focus on gold, you can bolster yourselves in other areas... upgrades for example, and still stop contributing to the advancement of CDZ and Q. This way you do it without technically violating the treaty and without driving them into the welcome arms of M&M. We are currently preparing to invade Merlot, as you are preparing to invade Mavericks. We also suggest, that you could speed this process along if you were willing to subsidize our upgrades, through a grant or loan while you halt your tech in favor of gold.

Once M&M are elimminated, we could then ask CDZ to vote with us to expel Quatronia as you suggest. Once Quatronia is voted out, the two of us could then vote to expel CDZ. That is the only sane way to do it within the boundaries of the treaty, because if we dump an ETTT ally BEFORE M&M were elimminated, that ally would obviously join M&M immediately, giving M&M all their tech, including Rifling, Steel and Astronomy which would doom the former ETTT allies.

Patience is what we advise our wise Sirian Friends. We look forward to hearing from you.

nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius

*On a side note, we notice that you continue to call the treaty the ASP, which of course means 'snake', while we continue to call it the SAP, which of course means 'sucker'. We are both putting the name of the other nation first in an attempt to show affection and deference, but either designation, the snake, shifty, unreliable, treacherous person,or the sucker, foolish, naive and easily taken advantage of is really no proper name for our treaty. That is a seperate issue, but we thought it would be amusing to you if we brought it up, and add some needed levity to this situation.

 

[HUSch]

PN to Alltriia, AlphaShard, BLubmuz, HUSch, Irgy

gmail to you
we should have sent you a gmail yesterday plz confirm you got it

I 've sent a answer, that we got their letter

 

[Alltriia]

Yeah, me too.

 

[Irgy]

From us to Amazon:
Sent Saturday, 9th April, 05:49(GMT)

First, with regards to CDZ's possible plots, I went to great lengths to not technically even suggest your involvement, but you indeed read between the lines to the paranoia that had engulfed a small part of the team. This and other parts of your recent communication have calmed things to quite a degree.

It's quite encouraging to hear about your espionage activities. We congratulate you on the effect it appears to have had. Although it assists yourselves and CDZ a little more than it assists us, as it is crippling Merlot more than Mavericks, it helps all of us by keeping the technology level of M&M down. It's encouraging to know that your commerce was spent on this worthy activity rather than the selfish wastefulness of, for instance, Quatronia's massive warrior->maceman upgrade.

We thoroughly agree that anything which results in a substantial technology transfer to M&M would be an absolute disaster. It was never our intention to withdraw in such a way as to allow this to occur. We confess to not having planned out exactly how to withdraw in a way that avoids any such risk, primarily because we needed to discuss it with yourselves first, however we do still believe it to be possible.

As far as the technical reading of the treaties go, it is our belief that the ETTT itself, ignoring the PAS (though feel free to call it the PSA) for the moment, has no provisions preventing a team from simply withdrawing. Section 2.2 discusses the means of expelling a team from the treaty, but the process of 2.2 does not preclude the option of voluntary withdrawal. It is only therefore the PAS which prohibits our withdrawal. The may not be a provision in the PAS which allows it to be ignored in specific cases when all parties agree to the course of action, but only because such a provision is surely assumed by default. Therefore, were we to convince you that a particular course of action was wise we could undertake it honorably, even if it were technically in violation of the PAS. Of course if you don't agree then we have no such options.

We're left with a few potential options then.

A) Simply save cash and perform espionage as you suggest, until such time as M&M are crippled to the point of having no potential relevance (which probably means eliminated entirely).

B) Withdraw from the ETTT, with your permission for ignoring 7.3. We may then continue research as we please for the remainder of the time of the ETTT. We believe this carries low to zero risk of a technology transfer to M&M, as it would surely still not be in the interests of the remaining ETTT members to do so any more than it is now. Once M&M are eliminated and the ETTT comes to a natural end, we may then transfer the fruits of our research over to you, giving both of us a substantial head start on Quatronia and CDZ. It would of course require your trust that we would do so, however we would obviously make an explicit formal agreement to with you before beginning on this option. That we would stick to it is a matter of honor. Although Sirius itself may be a transient entity, I know its members take their reputation very seriously - certainly myself in any case.

C) My own original "plan B" - Announce to the ETTT that we refuse to do any further research until such times as the contribution of other teams has caught up to our own. A vocal version of (A) if you will. If effectively ignored this will simply converge into (A). Otherwise it might get us voted off the ETTT (your vote of course having our permission), at which point it effectively converges to (B).

As you may imagine, our preference is for (B), although going through (C) may have its advantages. We hope to convince you of the benefits of (B) to both of us. However if we cannot then we will have to settle for (A).

One issue of relevance to the subject is the amount of time remaining until the elimination of Mavericks and Merlot. If all goes well, we expect Mavericks to be close to eliminated in the next five or six turns. Although if all does not go well it could of course take substantially longer An estimate of the time it would take to eliminate Merlot would assist us. we may consider helping to fund the necessary upgrades, but it would I expect need to be a loan.

Finally, we would happily welcome the Merchant back to our capital on a trade mission. We are willing to trust you in his transfer with no need for a screenshot. Speaking of screenshots, I believe there's been a discussion to exchange Mavericks and Merlot screenshots. I'll send the Mavericks one on as soon as it's ready.

We hope all is well on your shores,
Irgy on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[Lord Parkin]

From Amazon to us:
Received 15 April 2011 at 03:24 (GMT)

Sirian Allies:

We thank you for presenting us with options on how to proceed with the ETTT. Of the options you have presented to us, we choose Option (A). The only caveat is that if you choose to put your money towards espionage, we would obviously prefer that you direct it towards someone other than us.

A) Simply save cash and perform espionage as you suggest, until such time as M&M are crippled to the point of having no potential relevance (which probably means eliminated entirely).

We congratulate you on the sucess you are enjoying in your invasion of Mavs. It seems that you will eradicate them soon. We appreciate your point that our espionage efforts may have helped ourselves a little more than Sirius, however, we are glad you agree that halting M&M's tech has helped everyone. We would also point out that Mavs vast dye resouces (along with all the commerce they would have gotten from them) remain un-claimed to-date, precisely because we never allowed them to tech Calendar. We hope this has been of some measure of help as well.

Ironically, the amount of time to eliminate Merlot has been adversely affected by your invasion of Mavs. One turn prior to your combined invasion with the Q, Merlot was on the verge of a strike which would have killed off, or forced disbanding of many of their units. We were waiting for the strike to attack. However, all the Mavs units that have been destroyed by your invasion has given the Mavs gold to prevent Merlot's impending strike. Consequently, we can not begin our invasion until you have completed yours.

Additionally, we would welcome a loan to fund our upgrades. We would like a loan of 2000 gold, which we propose to pay back in the form of immediately starting to pay you 50 gold per turn for 40 turns. Please let us know if such an arrangement is acceptable to you. Once you have elimminated Mavs, Merlot will strike, and then we will invade and destroy them.

We look forward to the next time we hear from our friends the Sirians.

nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius

 

[BLubmuz]

Here's what i've just sent:

Friends Amazon,
we thank you for your answer. Irgy is in vacation, so i take in charge the Diplomacy for few days. We need to clarify some point, though:

1) M&M war
The attack on Mavs Island was not coordinated with Quatronia, since they never answered to our renewed request of coordination. They simply landed 18 units on Mavs, which were reduced to dust by some 15 cats and then eliminated with few losses (i think no more than 8 units) by Mavs.
Thus actually we have no merits (or demerits) in M&M financial recovery. Only in the last 2 turns i managed to actually kill some 20 Mavs units.
We can foresee that, without major events, we can be able to wipe Mavs in 2 turns, conquering all their cities.

2) ETTT
We're glad you accepted our option A) and we wish to inform you that, seen how the war is proceeding, we can be ready to start teching again in 2-3 turns.

3) Loan of gold
Unfortunately we lack the sum you requested, because we used our gold to produce cheap units to upgrade to Riflemen and some to rush-buy buildings. Nonetheless, we understand your needs for your war effort and we can give you a loan of 500 gold which you can give us back in 10 turns with 2 turns of delay, so you can use immediately all the sum. I think we can even wait more if you like.
To be clear: let's assume we give you the loan on turn 185, you start pay on turn 187.

We hope you understand our needs as we understand yours, please let us know shortly your opinions, which we'll wait to start actuate our plans.

Our best wishes for your war with Merlot.

Blubmuz, on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[Irgy]

From us to Amazon:

Will be sent Tuesday, 3rd May, ~02:10(GMT)

Hi, just a short note.

One of our spies was captured in your territory recently. I'm just letting you know, he was on route from Alberdan to Alcor, with intention to head to Quatronian lands. However he made a rather unfortunate choice of route to do so. We're not sure whether you can see the location where the spy was from the message you would have received about it in game - some have said though that if you click on the message in the event log it moves the screen to the appropriate location.

We have no ESP for missions, and could simply send an ordinary unit with open borders if we wanted visibility of your tiles, so I hope you can believe this was simply a poor bit of micro by our turn player (caused by a poor route-choice by the game engine). We apologise for any concern this may have caused you.

Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Alltriia]

Just sent to the Amazons:

Situation with Quatronia

Hello,
One of us that wasn't following the diplomatic field that closely jumped the gun and rushed our attack on Q.
We just offered a 10 turn peace deal. It was a short skirmish.
Sorry about the screwup.

Also, Irgy has been busy so I'll be helping on the diplomacy while he's not able to.

Alltriia, on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[Alltriia]

I sent another one as I forgot to ask in the prior message:

How are things on the Merlot front? Can you give us an estimated deadline?

Alltriia, on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[HUSch]

Ama didn't make any attack at mer isle, You can ask yourself, why?
My dime is, they want attack us.

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to us:
Received Wednesday, May 18th, 16:03 (GMT)

Hello Sirian Friends,

We just noticed your message. We were very confused by your invasion of the Continuum and were not exactly sure how to react. We saw your actions as somewhat premature after our prior conversations. However, to be on the safe side, we still refused a tech trade with Q because of your earlier expressed wishes.

As we are basically in limbo now, please let us know what your intentions are towards Q. Obviously you intend to invade, but when exactly? You obviously have a plan in place that someone apparently botched a little, so please let us know so we can continue with our plans or adjust them accordingly.

We also need to know how you would like us to deal with Q so we can discuss it ahead of time. Do you intend to continue tech trades with them or not? What about resource trades? Open Borders? We need all this info for our team discussion on how we will deal with them prior to your invasion.

Thanks and Good luck with your plans,

nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius

 

[Alltriia]

From us to AMAZON:

Dear Amazonian Friends,

We declined your recent map exchange offer, as we would like to discuss the current situation and where we go from here concerning technology sharing and resource trades.

First off, regarding Quatronia: What's your stance with them? We think that an embargo might be effective as we're thinking of using the same espionage tactics that you used with Merlot. We do not however want to put you in a position where you feel you must compromise your integrity regarding your relationship to to them (ETTT is still in effect, and apparently nobody was voted out to date). Do you know CDZ's inclination on the matter?
If I remember correctly, your primary concern was that Quatronia would take ETTT's techs and flip to M&M.

How are things on the Merlot front? We've seen your recruiting efforts some turns ago and got a bit confused but today we just noticed Merlot score decrease. Is that your doing? We might be in the middle of something ourselves, but I don't think it does any harm asking if you need some help.

This is just a short letter as we might need to volley the ideas a bit more.
You seem open to continue with our pact. Are you interested in extending it?

Waiting a speedy reply,
Alltriia, on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Message from AMAZONs to us:
Received 23 May 2011 at 2:06am (GMT)

Sirian Friends,

We noticed that you declined to share Military Science with us. We
would like to remind you that both the ETTT and the SAP require you to
share tech with us upon request, and the fact that the SAP is close to
expiration is not the same as the SAP actually being expired. At any
rate, as you correctly point out, we are still obligated under the
ETTT to share tech with Quatronia and since you are no longer abiding
by either the ETTT or the SAP we are forced to obtain Military Science
from them.

You asked our stance regarding Quatronia, Merlot and CDZ. In our last
letter to you, we made it clear that as a result of your premature
attack on Quatronia we are in limbo with regard to the other teams.
As we told you in our last letter, we have been waiting to hear
specifically what your plans are regarding Quatronia before we are
able to convey any of our plans regarding the other teams. On the
other hand, it is understandable that you would wish to know our plans
while keeping yours secret, and so it seems we are currently at an
impasse. Obviously you intend to elimminate Quatronia, and we intend
to elimminate Merlot. It seems we must wait until these goals are
accomplished before we can engage in further coordination.

Acting outside our treaties towards Q, is one thing, but clearly
acting this way towards us is quite another. We have some internal
discussion going on about ways to structure our next pact or extension
to account for the current scenario where our Sirian friends decide to
disregard a treaty before it is actually over. We will work on this
and get back to you as soon as possible.

nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius

 

[Alltriia]

From Us to Amazon:

Dear Amazonian Friends,

Yes, that's why when in unforeseen situations(where both members of the ETTT would be in war against each other.) that we decided to hold the techs before discussing the problem with you. Is it so hard to have concerns about our enemy getting a tech that we researched ourselves through another civ? Be assured that it isn't our intent to keep you out of techs we researched but to talk to you first.
So, what do we do now? We don't mind abiding to the ASP at all but we definitely won't give away our techs to Quatronia.

No, we couldn't have shared our plans for Q in the last letter because we didn't had any at the time but the embargo and the spy ideas.

We can say now that the only ones that have land oil tiles are we, you and CDZ(Only in Anjennida, Cigar(SE spoke) and Comet). There's a ocean oil tile in each island, but as well as you know civs will need to go for Plastics to get it. Q without any oil based units is a sitting duck. We might go through this path, but we're still discussing what to do.
We do give you Scientific Method(Q is researching it right now and due in three turns, so we apreciate if you can delay it to them) as Q can't access it before they research Plastics and we ask you not to give Q any oil. We asked CDZ to exchange SciMeth and MiliSci for their Combustion and asking them to not supply Q with oil.


This whole mess started by our rush and forgetting the diplomatic binds as we pointed out in our 12th May letter and we've been thinking on how to keep still abiding to the documents we signed. As our main ally in the game, we definitely await your kind words of wisdom.

I've noticed a request for Scientific Method this turn. We stand by the words we wrote before; We do want to share technology with you, but not with Q.

Alltriia, on behalf of Team Sirius.

I made a mistake and sent this draft first but apolagised and send the correct one right after.

 

[Trystero]

From Amazon to us:
Received 6 June 2011 03:39 (GMT)

Greetings Sirian Allies,

We have destroyed the evil Merlot, as you are probably aware, and we are redeploying our troops to our territories all over the world. So you will notice a lot of activity as our troops move around to their destinations. As the Sirius military is mighty, we trust you will not be alarmed, but we thought it best to give you some advance notice. Also, our apologies for not mentioning this earlier, but we started construction of the Parthenon and the Statue of Liberty around the same time, some turns back. Unfortunately, we were not able to finish Parthenon, as it was made obsolete by Scientific Method, but we are still working on the Statue of Liberty.

Finally, after much deliberation, we have decided that we just can not agree to engage in blatant treaty breaking towards any of our ETTT allies. We will continue to honor the ETTT and the SAP and all our agreements under their terms until the agreements are ended under their terms.

The ETTT obligates us to give tech to Q, and we intend to honor our agreements. As we said, we understand that this will cause some discomfort for Sirius, which is why we asked you to stop teching, so that you would not have to worry about trying to deny tech to an ETTT ally and all the trouble and discomfort that would cause. You asked us for our advice on how to handle this situation and we have some ideas. One idea would be to just stop teching as we suggested to you before.

Another idea would be to cancel the SAP, as the mandatory period has ended, and then relieved of your SAP obligation to remain in the ETTT, you could announce your unilateral withdrawal from the ETTT. As we have said before, our interpretation of the ETTT is that it does not allow unilateral withdrawal, and that unilateral withdrawal is a violation of the treaty, but you have said that you do not agree with this interpretation.

A third idea would be to cancel the SAP and then separately request that the ETTT partners vote Sirius out and then each could approach Sirius for new tech trading/sharing arrangements. We understand that you have gone to great lengths to achieve a powerful tech rate, and it is natural that you are eager to start reaping the sole benefits of it. However, it must be equally obvious to you, that we would not agree to removing the 7.3 term from the SAP or entering into a tech trading rather than sharing agreement, as this would be against our interest. So that is why we suggest that if you desperately wish to be free of the tech sharing obligations of the SAP then you should consider canceling it.

We completely understand your concerns regarding the tech and resource situation. You intend to invade Q at some point, so you obviously don't want them to get techs or resources that will make their military, economy etc., better, because it will make it harder for you to invade. This makes perfectly good sense to us.

Now please try understand our concerns as well. We preferred to avoid the awkward, diplomatically impossible situation where two members of the ETTT would be at war against each other, precisely to avoid a conflict of interest like the one we are going through now. It was so confusing when you invaded Q before we finished off Merlot. Why is this happening we wondered? Some on our team worried that Sirius was trying to rush and get to Q and take all Q's land before anyone else could.

We can certainly appreciate the strategic value of such a maneuver, taking Q's land while AMAZON was occupied with Merlot. We admire your cunning and initiative. But you must understand that this was a very difficult problem for us. On the one hand you are asking us to embargo Q and break our treaties to deny them tech, but the reason you are asking us to do this seems at least partly so that you can rush and take all Q's land for yourselves. Obviously you can see that we would not want to let that happen, it would just be foolish strategically for us to allow that.

You ask us to join in an embargo against Q, but you have not explained towards what end? Please try to appreciate this from our perspective. Q has remained unwaveringly faithful to the ETTT. In fact, when Sirius has denied us tech, like Military Science, Q has faithfully provided it. Now you warn us not to ask you for any more tech and at the same time you ask us to break our treaty and join you in an embargo against Q. This is a very uncomfortable position for us, not to mention that you have not explained what your plan is for moving against Q.

Are we to make an embargo against Q and break treaties to deny them tech indefinitely, while Sirius picks and chooses when they want to share tech with us? It is one thing to say “Embargo Q, and we will invade and destroy them in 10 turns” and quite another to say “Embargo Q until Sirius gets so far ahead that you can no longer be competitive.” Are we supposed to have to trade with Sirius, beaker for beaker and deny ourselves a trading partner in Q, falling behind in tech, all so Sirius can overwhelm Q and take all of Q’s land for themselves?

More to the point, Until we know exactly what Sirius plan is for Q, when you will invade, how long it will take to overcome them, what role you expect us to play, what we stand to gain (cities land resources, money, tech, etc), it is unreasonable for you to expect us to give our full support to a Sirius invasion of Q. We would like very much to avoid the tense haphazard, grab-and-go-get situation that happened on Comet. Right now, at best we are disinterested observers, continuing to trade with Q and Sirius, maintaining the status quo of loosely confederated allies, but understand that at this point you have not done much to show us why helping Sirius to invade Q helps The AMAZON.

We hope this has made our feelings clearer and explained our behavior so far. We look forward to hearing from our Sirian friends.

nabaxo, special Envoy to Sirius

 

[BLubmuz]

From Us to Amazon:
Here's the message i sent few minutes ago:

Dear Amazon friends,
we received and carefully read your last message. Before to discuss any further point we (Sirius) need to deepen our discussion, but for now we'd like to share this thought with you: there's no point in keeping an alliance comprising all the surviving teams. Only one will win this competition and we'll do our best to be that one.
We gave to the ETTT all our research potential, sacrificing other aspects of the game.
I think i can affirm that we gave the same amount of beakers You, CDZ and Quatronia together gave to us. Still, we don't regret anything, but we think the time for this alliance is arrived to his end with the elimination of the "Candy Axis".
We'd like to keep good relations with you and CDZ and possibly have fair trades.
We assure you that we'll give you the last tech we researched while being in the ETTT.
May i say now: anyone for himself and God for all?

Two more things.
- All the Victory Conditions are enabled, thus the military way is just one of the options.

- Our NAP is just expired and we're in the 10 turns of non aggression. I think we can propose to you a new NAP, with a revision of some terms.

We (Sirius) need to read carefully the NAP just expired and to re-think a new one. But, before we do this, we'd like to know your thoughts about it.

More will follow shortly, just the time to better discuss with the team.

Blubmuz, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Lord Parkin]

From Amazon to us:
Received 9 June 2011 at 01:06 (GMT)

Dear Sirian Allies,

We recieved a note from your General, Blubmuz. The first and most important thing we need to clear up is the mistaken impressions he had on the terms of our SAP treaty. General Blubmuz made mention of a 10 turn NAP between us that took effect when the SAP expired. There are slight misconceptions with this. Number one, the SAP treaty has not expired.

Section 2. Pact Duration and Cancellation Terms

2.1. The pact continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

Since neither of us has told the other that we are canceling the treaty, the SAP treaty along with all duties and obligations, is still in effect. We say this first because we want our Sirian friends to be aware of this if it had been overlooked. If only General Blubmuz overlooked this, then there is no reason for us to be alarmed. What we think General Blubmuz may have been talking about, is this

2.2. The pact cannot be canceled until 1500AD.

Of course now that 1500 AD has come, the pact is subject to cancelation, whereas before then it could not be canceled by either of us.

However neither of us has canceled the SAP. So if our Sirian friends wish to cancel the SAP, they must do so clearly, not with some unclear statment like "May i say now: anyone for himself and God for all?" We have no idea what this means. Is this a statement or a question? And what treaty does this refer to? SAP or ETTT? Please give us a clear statement of cancelation or a clear offer of amendment, or we can just continue to abide by the SAP as-is. And remeber please, the SAP is still fully in effect.

The second misinterpretation that must be urgently cleared up is the mistake about there being a 10 turn NAP between us. There is no such 10 turn NAP between us. The SAP is an indefinite NAP (see section 3.1 in combination with section 2.1 above).

Section 3. Non Aggression

3.1. Both members agree not to attack each other at any time while this pact is in effect.

What we think General Blubmuz may be referring to is the amendment that Sirius suggested but we rejected, which would have added a 10 turn NAP to the end of the 1500 AD non-cancelation clause. As I said, this term was never accepted by AMAZON, and is not part of the treaty.

Another term General Blubmuz might be talking about, is this, actually a combination of 2 terms

Section 2. Pact Duration and Cancellation Terms

2.3. The pact will be canceled if at any time there are no non-member teams left in the game.

and

Section 3. Non Aggression

3.4. If the pact is canceled because there are no non-member teams left in the game (Section 2.3) a Non-Aggression Pact will go into effect that will last for 10 turns after the last non-member team is eliminated.

So as you can see, an automatic 10 turn NAP between us would only come into effect if Q and CDZ were both elimminated in addition to M&M. So there is no current 10 turn NAP between us. We are bound by the SAP's indefinite NAP only.

Since we cleared up those mistakes about the SAP, now we turn to the issue that weighs most heavily on the mind of our Sirian friends, ie ending the ETTT so that they can take their well deserved place as world tech leader. As you know well, The AMAZON's interpretation of the ETTT is that the two ways to exit the ETTT according to the terms of the treaty are:

Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

and:

Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms

3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.

So to leave the ETTT, within the terms of the treaty, Sirius must convince all the members of the ETTT to voluntarily dissolve the ETTT, or Sirius must get all other members to vote Sirius out. Of course AMAZON can not vote Sirius out because of section 7.4 of the still-in-effect SAP treaty, which states:

Section 7. Mutual Technological Advancement

7.4. Neither member will vote for the other to be removed from the ETTT.

The AMAZON recognizes that this term could be amended out of the treaty by mutual consent of Sirius and The AMAZON, but as we said in our previous message, we can see no benefit to AMAZON in doing so, as we favor the protection that section 7.4 gives. We further remind our Sirian friends that the SAP is still in effect, and section 7.3 of the SAP states:

Section 7. Mutual Technological Advancement 7.3. Both members agree to the terms of the Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty (ETTT) and agree to remain members while both The ASP and The ETTT are in effect.

Again, it is not in AMAZON's interest as far as we can see, to amend out this term, as it protects us. So in short, Sirius must first cancel the SAP if they wish to cancel the ETTT. Once the SAP is canceled, Sirius could then ask the members of the ETTT to dissolve the ETTT or to vote Sirius out. This is our interpretation of the only way for Sirius to remove the ETTT obligations.

As a final thought, we appreciate Sirius focus and efforts to excel in technological advancement and we thank you for your continued technological contributions to the ETTT. We would also like to mention our humble militatry efforts which did much to destroy the entire combined-offensive armies of Mavs and Merlot in a series of pitched battles near Nabaxica. Hopefully the alliance enjoyed some increased measure of security due to these efforts. We also would like to mention, while contributions are being mentioned, that our espionage efforts against Merlot stalled M&M's tech in the Medeival ages, and also stalled their troop production capabilities. This in addition to our technological advantage, was what allowed the recent cake-walk victories over their defensive armies to take place, increasing the land and security the allies at our considerable expense, and at the expense of our many other goals.

We look forward to hearing from our Sirian friends, as always.

nabaxo, special Envoy to Sirius