C3B POLL: Stop relations until they say sorry?

[Emp.Napoleon]

There has been much talk about stoping diplomoncy untill C3B says sorry for their "unfair" deals. Some think we should stop untill they promise not to suggest such "unfair" deals.

 

[Ankka]

Now where's the poll?

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

Now where's the poll?

Right here

I voted for just telling them. Maybe they did not know how much it would insult us. I want good relations and they do too. We can just tell them not to do such a thing again and thery probaly wount.

 

[Matrix]

Apologies won't do any good. But if you explain to them how ridiculous the proposal was they won't do it again.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Don't stop talks, just reject all their proposals because of the proposals are unacceptable. Leave them the option to re-propose better deals. Talking isn't bad, but we have nothing to say about their current proposals.

 

[Cheetah]

In case the discussion continues here, I'm just dubbleposting this.
Emp. asked me to give some points I think he should talk about when we meet C3B.

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Sure. Now, using Matrix's model as a base:

1. What do we need to talk about?
DMZ (a) and exploration. Both over land (b) and water (c).

2. What can we gain and what can we give away?
a)
The latest DMZ proposal from C3B has not been accepted by most of us as I have understood it. Of course I too want to get as much as possible from any deal, but when I count tiles in this last proposal I get to 10 tiles each way, yet I hear people say it is shorter to our capital than to theirs. Is there something I'm missing?
The higher we can press the DMZ the better. But I don't know how we can do that at this time.

b)
If we go by Matrix's idea to only get peace and no entry into cultural borders, we can block our choke and explore their land. But I expect that their response to such a situation will be hostile. If they are not ready for a war in some time, this could be used as a pressure to make them accept some DMZ more in favor for us. If they are ready for a war, this can bring the war even faster.

c)
As of turn 50, we can have Writing in 12 or less turns. This means we can finish Map Making in 30 turns or less from now on. And the other landmass does look like a small island for me, but for every passing turn we'll see it clearer. If we time things correctly we can have our first city there in less than 35 turns. It will take a C3B Curragh at least 20 turns to get to this landmass if it starts now, which it won't. In 18 turns or so we can have a Curragh outside their (probably secondly built) city on the east coast.
I'm not sure of the value for them of seeing our island(?), but I sure would like to see their coast! Could someone like Matrix, who is against the Curragh deal, tell me why they would gain more than us?

3. Where lies the danger?
a)
The only danger with the DMZ would be if they somehow get way more land than us, or the DMZ is closer to our borders than theirs. Don't think there is a lot of traps and dangers to find here.

b)
If we don't get any treaty on land exploration it would be their loss, as we can block the choke and explore their lands. But that may lead to war, and a to early war at that.

c)
The real, enourmous danger with sea exploration is if we meet someone to our west. Then we would not be able to keep them secret from C3B, who will also meet them, though a bit later than us.
But we can also meet someone if C3B has met someone up north!

4. How can we make our demands look as fair as possible?
What we could do is to try and play on the worker-demand and pressure them a bit with that.
Before we can talk to much about how we can make our demands look fair, we need to decide what we want to demand.


And a little draft to what we could say to them:

To the people of Civ3 Brazil

A number of our citisens happen to feel that C3B have been offering unfair treaties for a while, but it usually hasn't been brought up as a very important issue. However, your last proposal that we should give you a worker before we should start land exploration in the way a citisen of ours, Rik Meleet, suggested, has shaken most of the teams feelings that we would be able to gain good and mutual beneficial treaties with one another. Some of us were hoping that this proposal was just some misunderstanding, and our ambassador, Emp. Napoleon, got in touch with you to clear up this severe misunderstaning.

When you reply that there is no misunderstanding, and moreover, that there is no reason to be offended, because it was only a proposal from some citisens that you had to put forth, we do not feel less bothered by this proposal. For in addition to be given such a proposal, you also admit that you expected us to reject this. We do not know how the internal systems works in Civ3 Brazil, but Fanatica does not put forth proposals that we expect the other party to reject, and thereby waste time and resources for the other party. Frankly, if we were to put forth all the thoughts of proposals that come up in our forums, neither of us would have much else to do than discussing ridiculous proposals and angering the other party.

The people of Fanatica would at least expect some kind of appology or a statement that this proposal didn't have the full support of the nation. The nation of Fanatica wishes to have a strong and mutualy beneficial relationship with it's neighbours, but that can not happen if one party starts to come up with proposals that is expected to be rejected by the other party. That kind of unserious diplomacy does not benefit any of us.

That being said, the people of Fanatica does understand the people of Civ3 Brazils concerns over a Fanatican Warrior near their borders that they could not see. We have repeatedly stated that our Warrior was moving southwards, and a few turns ago you were able to see so for yourselves. As this should no longer be of any concern we would like that both sides propose mutualy beneficial, reasonable treaties.

As a start, here is a proposal from the people of Fanatica concerning our DMZ:

We need to come up with a good proposal here, as it is true they have come with most of the proposals. Anyone wanna tell me what kind of DMZ we want? Or maybe this proposal should just be a treaty without any DMZ?

We are looking forward to our diplomatic meeting on Saturday, June 12th.

Greeting,
the People of Fanatica

Ok, it turned into a letter which we would have to send at least 36 hours before the meeting I think. But you get the idea. What do you think?

 

[Matrix]

Wow!
I'm suddenly a lot less disappointed that I didn't become president!

As for my 'model': I'm really flattered you use it!

Now about the contents:
a. Looking at the proposed De-Militarized Zone I actually don't think it's that bad. That is, if we really need to have a DMZ. But they've got the mountain, we have the hills. We can't expect any better defense by land than that!

b. Then I stay with my proposal as they will certainly not be ready for war yet. It would be a waste of production in this yet crucial expansion phase to have more than one or two immortals. On this subject it is very important to make it look fair! And since this is a basic code of behavior I don't see why it should be a problem. (This is what I've been saying ever since we let them past our land bridge blockade.)

c. Right now they don't know we're on such small peninsula. I expect their space to be much bigger, which is less interesting. Secondly, as you already said yourself: who knows who's out there. There must be someone out there within curragh-reach even; I'm sure of that. After all, they're close to the Northpole, while we're sailing around the equator.

Your letter to them is very nice! Only you do ask for an apology which is not a good idea in my and the general opinion (according to the poll).

 

[Ankka]

Nice writeup, Cheetah... I agree quitemuch on it, I think, , as far as I read it at least.

I voted for the option to tell them how ridiculous the deals were and reject the deals...

 

[magnusmarcus]

Your letter to them is very nice! Only you do ask for an apology which is not a good idea in my and the general opinion (according to the poll).

There is no way they are going to apologize. We would never and I'm damn sure they won't. It would just further damage communication with c3b.

 

[Cheetah]

To the people of Civ3 Brazil

A number of our citisens happen to feel that C3B have been offering unfair treaties for a while, but it usually hasn't been brought up as a very important issue, since all proposals will look different for each party. However, your last proposal that we should give you a worker before we should start land exploration in the way a citisen of ours, Rik Meleet, suggested, has shaken most of the teams belief that we would be able to gain good and mutual beneficial treaties with one another. Some of us were hoping that this proposal was just some misunderstanding, and our ambassador, Emp. Napoleon, got in touch with you to clear up this severe misunderstaning.

When you reply that there is no misunderstanding, and moreover, that there is no reason to be offended, because it was only a proposal from some citisen that you had to put forth, we do not feel less bothered by this proposal. For in addition to be given such a proposal, you also admit that you expected us to reject this. We do not know how the internal systems works in Civ3 Brazil, but Fanatica does not put forth proposals that we expect the other party to reject, and thereby waste time and resources for the other party. Frankly, if we were to put forth all the thoughts of proposals that come up in our forums, neither of us would have much else to do than discussing ridiculous proposals and angering the other party.

That being said, the people of Fanatica would like to say that we do understand the people of Civ3 Brazils concerns over a Fanatican Warrior near their borders that they could not see. We believe that we repeatedly stated that our Warrior was not moving further north, and a few turns ago you were able to see so for yourselves.

We have also understood that you were upset by our decission to block your Warrior near the landbridge. It was done for a few turns while we discussed how we felt about it and we did decide to let you through to our borders. However, we feel that your anger because of this is not justified. There was no agreement at that time, and indeed, there still is no agreement about this, that said we had to let you through the landbridge. We believe we were in our full right to block the landbridge. And though the blocking might have upset you, we would like you to remember that we did let you through after a few turns as a show of good faith.

The people of Fanatica hope that we now can put these disagreements behind us, so that both sides can start to propose mutualy beneficial, reasonable treaties.

As a start, here is a proposal from the people of Fanatica concerning our DMZ:
We need to come up with a good proposal here, as it is true they have come with most of the proposals. Anyone wanna tell me what kind of DMZ we want? Or maybe this proposal should just be a treaty without any DMZ?

We are looking forward to our diplomatic meeting on Saturday, June 12th.

Greetings,
the People of Fanatica

But we need some kind of proposal before I send this. And I would like to send this in about 12-18 hours or so, so they have some time to talk about this.

 

[Matrix]

Cheetah suggested I make a suggestion for a letter, so here it is.

To Civ3 Brazil,

I'd like to share a few things before we chat next time.

First of all, your last proposal, that we'd give you a worker for exploration, is of course out of the question. It has even angered some of our people, but the official line is we simply reject it. But apparently you proposed this while expecting that we'd reject it. Why ask it then? It's only a waste of time and effort.

Secondly, I'd like to set one thing straight: a lot of you were upset for the fact that we blocked your warrior in the beginning. As I see it, it's just our advantage of the map. Why did we have to give away that advantage? It's like we'd ought to share our second iron because you don't have any, if that were the case.

Something to think about: we retreated our northern warrior because we blocked you. But shortly after that we let you pass. Isn't our warrior allowed to go back up again?

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But I'd just like to share another point of view. More like: what would you have done if you were in our position?

Finally about the DMZ:
We're a bit reserved concerning the de-militarized zone. Could you please tell us the usefulness of a DMZ? If a good reason is presented, we'll agree with the proposed borders of the DMZ.

We are looking forward to our diplomatic meeting on Saturday, June 12th.

Greetings,
Matrix of CivFanatica

 

[RegentMan]

Nice touch with the whole iron paragraph. Do you think they'll see through it?

 

[Hygro]

I like it way much!

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

I think both are great. But Cheetah is a little bit more polite, and Matrix's is a little more to the point. I don't care witch one I present (since they are both good) so tell me witch one, Mr. Minister of Internal Affairs.

 

[akots]

The goal of this whole diplo is to postpone war between our team and C3B and try to avoid it completely. One something serves this goal, it is a good move. IMHO, suggestions by our newly elected President is reasonable and expressed in a polite and constructive manner overall. Minisry of Defense supports it in general but may be more discussion is appropriate.

I would be unable to attend the chat on Saturday. Please excuse me, I'm leaving to Florida with the family for a week. Taking laptop with me and will try to check the threads on the road.

 

[Ankka]

I like both letters very much, Cheetah's maybe a bit more nicely worded, but if you combine them both, it will be great.


@Hygro: it's feudal, not fuedal.

 

[Matrix]

I like both letters very much, Cheetah's maybe a bit more nicely worded, but if you combine them both, it will be great.

Indeed. One of my flaws is that I can't 'wrap' my issues in nice-looking diplomatic sentenses. I just say what I want to say.

Perhaps Cheetah can combine our letters, and add what I said with his words. That iron thingy is good, if I may say so, and to ask "will they fall for that?" is irrelevant, because it's just the truth! Something that is true is easy to defend.

 

[Rik Meleet]

I would never put in the line about the iron, it is so easily seen through. It in fact confirms to them we have no Iron.

 

[Matrix]

No, no, no!
1. "If that were the case" means anything's possible. I didn't make this example because we don't have iron; I would've made it in any case.
2. There's nothing to "see through" as it's just a fact! You tell me then where this comparison fails, besides that it is not equally important? (That doesn't matter because it's an example.)

 

[Cheetah]

I'll try to combine them in an hour or so, but just one thing: If Iron might be a problem, why don't we use horses, incense or some other resource as an example?