Diplomacy Central

[tomasjj]

Are we ready to fight with FREE in terms of forces?

 

[Paul#42]

Regarding land forces defintely no, but air and navy maybe. But we'd have to ignore our EWS for some time...

If I had prepared an attack I would have at least moved all frigates to those coasts away from FREE to do EWS duty and modern ships towards FREE's direction to sink some ships. But this war totally took me by surprise me...

I'd love to send submarines for FREE's supply stacks...
Ever tested that target-chose-stuff?

 

[peter grimes]

Wow - look what happens when I don't check in for a couple of hours!

I think Prince may have misunderstood something about how the MPP works, Free pressing the attack shouldn't trigger it: the state of war should. Or perhaps I misunderstand.

In any case, it seems that when Paul did the revised trade, the offer of MPP was accepted, which vaulted us into war with FREE. Saber and Free have now played on past that point, and, as Paul pointed out, the lack of a Battle Log from Free indicates that they didn't attack any of our forces (unless they spaced out on sending it).

Since a letter has already been sent to Free advising them of our error, we may not be able to attack them. But perhaps they will write back something so incendiary that we have to defend our honor

Overall, I'd say this was well-handled.

 

[Niklas]

I still say NO to any hostilities with anyone. We want to win the game, and the best way to accomplish that is to stay out of fighting. Let others handle the fighting. We don't want it, and we definitely shouldn't seek it.

 

[Paul#42]

I agree that we should sign peace with FREE again, even if our reputation suffers. No AI will sign any gpt deals with us

But should we also re-sign the luxury deals?
Maybe we can forget about that...
That might hurt FREE...

 

[peter grimes]

Does Free war happiness just from a DOW? Or does the happiness only result if one of their units is attacked?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

The DOW gives them happiness. Though I'm not sure that MPP DOW's give happiness - any one know?

I mentioned this in another thread - what triggers an MPP isn't war or attacks on units - it's units in the partner's territory. (thus, protection) I believe a worker can trigger an MPP if it wanders into enemy territory, while killing 3000 units, but not entering enemy territory, won't trigger an MPP.

 

[General_W]

I'm just flying through right now, but found another letter from GONG:

Dear Council,

I suppose we'll need to ask for extension soon. I must be misunderstood. The offer screen was Council offers Gong MPP + flight which we accepted. Flight was listed twice. Somehow you've also accepted even if by bug, our offer of MPP since the next message is Council declares war on Free, triggered when they again attacked us. Whatever rulings you want to seek are up to you. Do you want Gong to reload our save and inform administrators to decline your offer of MPP + flight since you did not intend to offer us MPP in addition. Or is our MPP we now have for the next 20 turns acceptable to you and no cause for concern? Still awaiting your reply but ASAP means different things to us, I suppose.

Regards,
PrinceMyshkin

I'm not sure if that clears it up any?

I think I finally get it.
GONG offered MPP with accept
We counter-offered MPP + Flight with accept.
We also offered Flight with accept.

GONG then accepted both of our offers.
The MPP didn't go into outright effect, because we modified the deal. But when GONG accepted our counter-proposal (because we'd sent it with accept) we immediately went to war with FREE who had units in GONGs territory.

From the way I read this, PrincMyshikin should be able to reply declining the first offer, but accepting the second - and avoid all this mess.
However, he's moved units around and stuff - so it's a technical violation of the rules.

Since this is all a result of C3C messy trading system - it's possible MOD would be sympathetic. Can someone contact one to see?

The main problem here, is if GONG doesn't replay - then we're probably stuck at war with FREE until they make peace with GONG (since the MPP will last for 20 turns).

Gotta run now for a bit...

 

[peter grimes]

OK, Consensus time:

Do we want to play onwards without involving the game admins in a reload situation, consigning ourselves to 20 turns of MPP with Gong and de facto war with Free?


Speak up! We should try to get a consensus in, at most, hours here. Not days. Gong's save is awaiting the results.

Peter Grimes: Play on

 

[Niklas]

I think this game has suffered too much mess already - play on as it stands, and we'll have to rectify it diplomatically.

 

[peter grimes]

Do we want to play onwards without involving the game admins in a reload situation, consigning ourselves to 20 turns of MPP with Gong and de facto war with Free?

Play On
Peter Grimes
Niklas

Petition Game Admins

 

[General_W]

I'd rather not be at war with FREE - but I think we should try to solve this diplomatically.
As Niklas said... this game has had enough mess and hand-wringing already. Last thing we want is to be in the middle of another "is coastal blocking allowed" type argument.

I vote we play on.

I also vote we send a response to GONG within 5 hours of this post. (to get them an answer before their 12 hour extension request is up)

EDIT: Sent this to PrinceMyshkin...

PrinceMyshkin,

I'm sorry we're so slow - I think our decision making model is great, but it's not really suited to situations like this. We have a lot of active players, and no single one of us has the authority to make a decision of this magnitude for the whole team.
We do have a vote underway - and we'll have an answer to you before your extension request expires.

Thanks for your understanding.

Just as an FYI - the current vote is running in favor of continuing with the MPP and not trying to mess with a replay.

Best,
General_W

 

[dl123654]

I say play on, but we leave it to FREE to make the next move as to we have war or not.

 

[Aigburth]

Play on for the reasons Niklas gave

 

[peter grimes]

Do we want to play onwards without involving the game admins in a reload situation, consigning ourselves to 20 turns of MPP with Gong and de facto war with Free?

Play On
Peter Grimes
Niklas
General_W
dl123654
Aigburth


Petition Game Admins

 

[General_W]

5 to 0 ... That's going to have to do it for a consensus under the circumstances.

It looks like we might have a little more time if PrinceMyshkin is too tired to play right now anyway - but I'm still going to send him a letter letting him know we're good to go.

Dear PrinceMyshkin,

Thanks again for your patience though all this mess

The Council has voted to take our lumps, and stick with the MPP plan
As I mentioned at the start, we were never totally opposed to this - we just wanted to get more ready before going to war. Oh well.. this will keep things interesting! We're in it together now.

We're still discussing how active we want to be in the conflict... but at the very least, FREE has lost our luxury trades and now has to worry about defending their homeland.

We'll write more later when we get things further nailed down.
Please go ahead and finish the turn and pass it along when you're ready.

All the best,
Your MPP Partners,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

Now we just need to decide if we actually want to engage in open hostilities with FREE - or make this a "cold" war?

 

[General_W]

Double post...
When I went to e-mail GONG, I found yet another letter from them...

Dear General_W, Ambassador for the Council

My apologies for not wording things correctly from the beginning and the constant reminiders. I was about to inform you essentially the thing to do is for us to play the turn without reopening as it might be up for review. I applaud your government, but understand it put myself at least under a bit of strain. Just get those messages out before I get the turn and then we won't make mistakes. I'll wait a little bit rather than quickly opening as well. As to the gift of flight as you intended without the MPP as intended you had our warmest thanks and consideration.

As to the other proposal your team intended:

We're also seriously considering gifting Motorized Transport to you (tanks)… but some Councilors believe that before we go this far, we need to structure the deal as a trade. What we'd like to propose is this – if you'll give us your word to research either Espionage or Advanced Flight before you tackle any techs in the Modern Age, and then gift it to us upon discovery… we'll give you Motorized Transport next turn.

You'll be free to trade MotorTransport around, if you wish.
If you choose Espionage, we just ask that you promise to NOT trade it to anyone else.

We agree to the structured deal of trade to motors next turn as you propose and agree to all your terms. We would like to propose an addendum your team can put to vote, but we would accept original proposal anyway. Both Teams will agree to only use spies on teams that declare war on them. Essentially a war declaration triggered by MPP is the same to us as other teams have the ability to halt their aggression if they wish. Also the landing of an army on your territorial homelands designed to force declaration. Word this as you wish and we would most likely agree straightaway.

If you wish us to get both espionage and advanced flight before researching modern age technology, we can work out a similar or other deal to be discussed after the first structured trade deal is concluded.


Best Wishes to you and The Council,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

 

[Paul#42]

Just for the record: I'm also for playing on.

Can't we cancel the MPP before those 20 turns are over?
I know this might be difficult, in the PBEM I had to dow my trading partner to cancel a deal after some turns but I also know that in this game SABER cancelled our rubber deal after just one turn - without declaring war on us. What's the secret?

 

[donsig]

I join the play on consensus. The admins have been ignoring us for some time now, let's continue to ignore them.

I'm not at all sure how MPPs work but it does seem reasonable to expect that if we make peace with FREE and the MPP is still in effect then we will declare war on FREE again if they do whatever it is that triggers the MPP. Declaring war on GONG may be the only way of ending the mistaken MPP. (Or GONG declaring war on us - either way we lose more lux deals.)

I hear you Niklas and understand it would be best for us to avoid wars while the other four duke it out. But we can't really be sure we won't be attacked anyway. I think this accidental MPP/declaration of war can be made to work in our favor. It will certainly draw FREE's attention. It gives us a good excuse to divert SABER's energy towards fighting FREE. That would be huge for us even if we must do a little fighting. SABER hasn't had much luck invading BABE so perhaps they will be open to a new target. Neither of us really needs to invade FREE's mainland. Denying them their eleven tile islands may be possible and at the very least we (along with some help) should be able to deprive FREE of a viable navy - which means they would not be able to invade us. If we concentrate on the air and naval power and turn SABER to the islands we could end up ruling the seas. This would keep our homeland safe - something we've been trying to do ever since we tried building the Great Lighthouse.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think playing on is right.

I think we will still need some time to figure out what we plan on doing, so I think we should ask for an extension when it comes to our turn.