Diplomacy Central

[Niklas]

I like version 2 of the letter, though as Paul pointed out it might be better with 60% than 65%. We'll benefit from it anyway with our 175% research yield. Thus we don't really mind getting a lot of cash...

 

[peter grimes]

Yeah - i never had a problem with the saber letter

 

[General_W]

We appear to be AT WAR!!

We just received this from GONG:

Dear General_W and the Most Learned and Esteemed Council,

I've just noticed and opened your private message. You most certainly have our permanent good will. You say I will notice in the save that you have not accepted our MPP, but I have already opened the save this morning and it came with an accepted and most unexpected gift of flight to us. According to my save you are now at war with Free. Your other offers are most interesting and I believe favorable, but we need to deal with this first, Was I intended to receive this message before I got the turn and decline the offer? What can we now do without me reopening the save?

You really shouldn't worry about being at war with Free unless you have other problems. We should soon eradicate them from our shores leaving no possible method of resupply to them and have already sunk one of their transports. They are throwing so much at us now that I cannot imagine they are also ready to make repeated attacks on your nation. My suggestion is to limit possible attacks on your nation so that war-weariness cannot disrupt your most splendid Golden Age but seek opportunities to sink Free's cruisers and transports, especially if possible to the west of the Gong Show and from their resource island to the north. Understand the offers and diplomacy Gong has been conducting with The Council and your warm friends at Saber have not been a plea to save Gong, but to save yourselves as well from a real danger to your plans by reducing Free's power now. If their blitzkrieg of us had succeed they would have advanced to the next civilization on their list, most likely!
the Babes and gained something approaching domination even now. This is not even their real goal. The third message we ever got from Team FREE was "There can only be one color in the world, and that color is TEAL. FREE declares war on Gong." Rest assured that Gong is resolved to stay at war until such time the Council wants peace and you will be favorably rewarded at the peace table should FREE be defeated and accept surrender.

I'll stop all actions on the turn now, to give you sufficient time to respond to this message. Gong does hope to hear from you soon via private message or googlemail

Best Regards and Wishes for the Council,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

----

Dear Council,

As addendum to the above message you must have accepted our pact last turn as you are already at war with Free and we also now have another Mutual Protection Pact and obtained flight. Saber and Free have already taken thier turns and responded to both the original Mutual Protection Pact Saber should have seen on its turn and Free to you declaration of war. They really do seek to destroy us first but we are almost of a certainty going to foil all their plans.

Regards,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

I sent this letter back:

PrinceMyshkin,

Thanks for the letters!
I must say - the news that we're at war with FREE is a bit of a shock... maybe our turnplayer messed up? I'm posting this for the team to discuss.

Yes - our previous letter was supposed to arrive BEFORE you got the save... but we're very slow... what can I say?

We're glad to be of assistance with Flight, and I'm sure we'll make progress on the other issues.
We'll write more as soon as we get the confusion straightened out.

Best,
General_W

Any idea what happened Paul?
Is it possible there was a mistake?

Or do we think PrinceMyshkin is confused about the MPP, and we're currently suffering from a surprise attack by FREE? (which seems unlikely to me)

If we're really at war with FREE… we'll need some fast and fancy diplomacy to get out of this one

 

[Paul#42]

What did I do?!??! :suicide:

Started the save again.



I had just pressed "senden" because the red line read "we rejected their offer".
After playing aroud a bit, I think I should have clicked the MPP line on the trading table to erase it, right?

I guess we'll have to draft a smart letter to FREE...
Will you, General or shall I?

Sorry, folks, I hope we can prevent this nightmare.
Maybe we even give FREE something to think about and take pressure from GONG...
I hope they don't sink our carrier...

Did I already say it?
I HATE THIS TRADING SYSTEM!

(I had thought the last trade erases all trades before anyway? )

 

[tomasjj]

What did I do?!??! :suicide:

Started the save again.



I had just pressed "senden" because the red line red "we rejected their offer".
After playing aroud a bit, I think I should have clicked the MPP line on the trading table to erase it, right?

I guess we'll have to draft a smart letter to FREE...
Will you, General or shall I?

Sorry, folks, I hope we can prevent this nightmare.
Maybe we even give FREE something to think about...
I hope they don't sink our carrier...

 

[General_W]

Well nothing for it but to write to FREE!
Don't be too hard on yourself Paul... This will be funny eventually.

Proposed note for immediate release:

Dear FREE,

It has come to our attention that our dear first chairman may have gone and done something a little… rash.

Team GONG, in a move of understandable desperation, sent us an offer for a Mutual Protection Pact – and sent it "with accept."

Our team voted on entering this private little war of yours – and unanimously voted it down, as we recognize that you've done the world a great favor in neutralizing the GONG culture threat.

However – it would appear that somehow – by shear accident – our dear Chairman may have clicked "accept" instead of "decline" … they put those buttons so close together, you know…

Can you confirm (as we've just heard from others that we're at war, we haven't seen it first hand as of yet) that we are actually at war with you?

If so – please accept our most humble apologies! We'd like to correct the situation immediately, if you're willing?

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Embarrassedly yours,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

EDIT: SENT! To FREE gmail & to Kuningas via PM

Thoughts?

 

[Niklas]

A really fast letter to FREE is obviously in order. Don't fret it Paul, I hate this trading system too.

EDIT: x-post with General_W - I like that letter, send it off!

 

[tomasjj]

Speed is the main thing here, not nit-picking

 

[Niklas]

Btw, we should send a very fast letter to SABER too, explaining what happened. They might start to wonder otherwise.

 

[Paul#42]

I'll accept anything...

At least it's our turn before FREE is playing again...
So no real need for a hurry, neither FREE nor SABER were able to see this dow, only GONG and BABE can see it before we are up.

I guess I'll return our carrier to safer waters, right?

 

[Niklas]

Paul, how do you reckon that? It should have happened on FREE's turn, when FREE attacked some unit, so SABER wouldn't have seen it but FREE certainly would. Or?

 

[General_W]

is it possible the MPP didn't go into effect till it cycled back to GONG's turn?
EDIT: I think probably not - since PrinceMyshkin seemed to indicate we were already at war with FREE when he opened the save?

I'll send this letter off anyway - just so that we cut off any bad feelings that might be accumulating towards us in FREEland.

A letter to Saber is a good idea also... but I'll see if I can catch Dutchfire in a chat. If not - we can send a note along with the save I think.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

FREE has units in GONG territory, which triggers the MPP.

 

[donsig]

Sorry I was away all day - my son's 15th birthday. But why in heaven's name did we send a letter to FREE so darn fast? Is there panic in the streets? My gut reaction is to get it on and start fighting FREE. We can tell SABER we made a mistake in accepting the GONG MPP but the die is cast. We might be able to get SABER to lay off BABE and help us against FREE. BABE would join, too and we'd have our dog pile. This is a great time to fight FREE - they've expended lots of effort on their GONG invasion and this MPP would've really thrown them - except we've run to them with our tails between our legs like scared pups.

We don't even know if they will believe our story. We don't even know if we really are at war with FREE. Remember when someone told us we were no longer at war with BABE?

We'd better publicize our defensive guidelines as soon as possible. We may need them.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

So, we have time.

BABE is next, then us. FREE goes before GONG.

We probably shouldn't have panicked, but what the heck the game needs excitement!!!

in case it seems different in anything I write (I suspect I make some snarky remarks in other places), I think this is a funny twist and do not hold our turnplayer responsible in any way!!! I am reasonably sure I would have done the same thing.

I believe we should talk to our game moderators, as well (assuming they are still around and see what our options are.

 

[General_W]

Apparently GONG is considering that we may have an option to appeal to the Moderators.
Just got this letter...

Dear General_W and the Council,

We have still proceeded with no additional movements on our save after destroying one of Free's transports to the northwest. We are sorry that you mistaken concluded deals that you did not intend and know this will add some difficulties for you. I'll summarize the situation and make things more clear for you so that we may hasten a reply.

1. Gong sent an accepted offer of Mutual Protection and communicated this to the Council before you received the turn.
2. I sent a response to your consideration of the proposal that Gong would continue to send accepted Mutual Protection offers each turn until you wished to accept or no longer receive such offer.
3. Gong opened the save about an hour after the turn was posted as ours in the Turn-Tracker thread. We were quite surprised and also quite happy to see that the Council had reached a decision and sent an accepted Mutual Protection Pact and the gift of flight.
4. We received the in-game message that Council has declared war on Free, planned our campaign and had just started making moves is response to these most positive developments.
5. Gong then received your message that you were not ready for such a deal at this time.
6. We sent you word that we had the save open to see if you also wished to send us an additional Mutual Protection Pact.
7. Unfortunately, reloading our save will still leave you at war with Free since you must have accidentally accepted our offer and both Team Saber and Team Free have taken turns in response to these developments.

We still await your reply as to whether you wish us to seek administrator approval for a reload. This additional Mutual Protection Pact is for 20 turns which we can end at that time. We would prefer not to reload our save, if you have any concerns over this pact please let us know soon. Otherwise, we will finish our turn and pass along the save to the Babes with the deal intact in time for our approaching 24-hr deadline.

We have naval vessels left to scout for other Free shipping and will be able to send detailed ship locations, troop numbers, troop types, remaining forces and losses for Free. It is most unfortunate this was not your intention and Gong will give you extra consideration in the future for the difficulties the loss of your trade with Free will entail during your Golden Age. Should Team Saber become involved in the war against Free we will cooperate with them fully in these matters as well and I propose we be equal partners in any peace deal we collectively make should Free ever be willing to accept it.

Should any Councilors of any department have questions they may also contact us to ask questions. For now any response would most likey be from myself, but others of Team Gong may also contact you in the future.

Best Regards
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

I responded with this:

Hey PrinceMyshkin,

Sorry for the delay in responding to you further... I didn't realize that we had any option to NOT sign the MPP! (or that you were still waiting for a further response from us )

By "reload" do you mean go all the way back to having us play the turn again? If so - we don't expect that.
I assume we'll have to live with the consequences of our mistake. (we've since determined how we think it happened. We declined the MPP offer, but when we later put flight on the table with accept, the way the trading system works, it also accepted your MPP deal. Apparently this is a semi-known bug in C3C?)

Anyway - I'll post your letter for my team, and we'll try to have someone (if not me) respond ASAP on whether or not we want to appeal the rules for an exception.

Thanks for being understanding in this... Who knows, maybe it'll all be for the best anyway?

- General_W

Does anyone think we can (or should) appeal what happened to the mods and look for a do over?
I'm starting to think Donsig may have a point - even if it was a mistake and not our first choice, maybe this is our chance to do a little damage to FREE and isn't so terrible of a thing in the final analysis?

For the sake of GONG moving the save along, we need to make another quick decision here.
It's getting late here (9:30pm) - so I'll be off the grid for the next 12 hours probably. IF the team makes a decision in that time - please go ahead and send a response without me

 

[AutomatedTeller]

My belief is that it makes the game more interesting. And we are not the only team who would have to replay - SABER and FREE would, as well.

I think the game will mean war with FREE at some point, in any case, so why not now?

I would say continue from here.

 

[General_W]

Just found this before I dropped off to bed (up to give my daughter her last rounds of meds)

Dear General_W,

Thanks for the quick reply, I was not aware of a bug of that nature. It was my understanding you could clear the table before proposing another deal after you decline. Perhaps this also explains us recieiving two instances of flight. You do indeed have the option of not accepting an already accepted proposal.

By "reload" I mean reloading Gong's turn to undo the unintended extra MPP that we now have for a period of 20 turns. Does this concern you? If not we can proceed with the turn. Its unfortunate however it happened but, yes you are at war with Free. They had the option to cease attacking us, but rather than let us destroy their remaining contained armor they chose to attack anyway, triggering your declaration.

Imo, your last statement is correct. I believe it will be for the best. Don't worry about the 30 happiness points they just received. They are about to get another 30 or so points from us and we've already inflicted 604 on them. Rest assured they are suffering. Imo, its not possible to have 4 teams take their turns over, or certainly not a good idea as Free would get to try a different tactic on us and we suffer for it.

Regards,
PrinceMyshkin

So... I'm not sure I'm totally understanding PrinceMyshkin here... if he sent with accept, and we accepted... then what's he going to do differently if he reloads??

Maybe it's just too late here for me to process what he's saying.
Go Team! I trust you all to figure it out!

And I'm out...

 

[Paul#42]

Well the Prince's approach to me means not only GONG reloads but we start that.
I don't understand that either, if FREE triggered to MPP, there should be no way for them to cancel that...
Nice style by the way, GONGers!

So I'd like to play on and solve the problem the diplomatic way.

Some nice heartbeats on FREE's side - at most.
If they had sunk our carrier or anything else we would have received a battle log. At least an astonished letter. From that I derive they don't even know we are at war because we were not when they played...

Maybe we should indeed check if we want to stay at war with FREE.
I'd rather have this dow prepared than by accident...
I doubt that SABER and BABE will to end their war and join our case with reasonable effort...
I'd rather keep peace and keep those two conflicts alive while we live long and prosper

 

[donsig]

I don't quite understand what he means about the second MPP, but I think we should send a note telling him to play on as we're not going to appeal to inactive mods.

I suggest we shoot off a quick and brief note to SABER telling them about the situation and asking if they are interested in joining us in actually harassing FREE.

As for FREE we should either wait till we hear back from them or get the save so we can analyze the situation. We don't want to make a complete diplomatic about face with them until we decide we actually want to fight them now. When we do write we should make it clear that any aggression on their part will result in the state of war between us continuing.

We also should publish our defensive announcement before we send our next turn to SABER.