Diplomacy with the Eagles

[I. Larkin]

No, their spicies for 11 gpt we pay. We may think that we dont know about their trade with DK

Anyway thank them for friendly support.

 

[Lanzelot]

F2 shows that they have traded their spices away...

 

[Lanzelot]

Here is my first attempt on what to say to the Eagles.

Dear Calis of the Eagles,
yes indeed, within two turns the situation changed completely, and not only once but twice... We are still quite surprised ourselves and cannot really believe our good luck. From fighting for our bare survival we went to looking ahead to a bright future and the chance to catch up with the two leading nations of this world.

However, at the same time we are well aware that the future is not without any problems...

• First of all, if we settle all this nice land now available to us and develop our much neglected infrastructure, the other two nations, which are confined to only half a continent, might see us as a potential threat in the long term future. And this might prompt one or the other nation (or both...) to do something against that threat, before we have fully recovered.
• And next: when we finished the Great Library, we expected the Anarchos (as a Despotism and in the middle of a cruel war) to be relatively backward, while you and the Küche would be quite advanced. But the situation was almost reversed: the Anarchos were almost as advanced as you, while the Küche were like 2-3 techs behind. This could only mean that you have been cooperating with the Anarchos, our worst enemy?! And then, why did they leave you "The Village" as a "fare-well present"?
  Basically this town is insignificant (because of corruption), for you as well as for us. Unless it is used as a ship-chain endpoint. And to be honest: this makes us quite worried at the moment.

Ok, after these general remarks let me address your suggestion about an incense deal: first of all, we have to tell you: your worker trying to establish a colony will probably come to late. Right after the "dissolution" of the Anarchos, we set up a ship chain and sent a settler on its way, which will reach its destination next turn.
Of course we are interested in selling the spare resource, especially as - due to your Golden Age - we could probably expect quite a good price.
However, during your long silence we have also been conducting negotiations with the Küche and found a lot of common interests and trade opportunities e.g. tech exchanges. To make a long story short: I know that in previous negotiations between our two nations there were a few unfortunate "misunderstandings" (and I don't claim us to be completely without fault here). I don't want to repeat that mistake, therefore I'm telling you quite frankly: at the moment it looks much more likely that we'll sign a corresponding luxury deal with the Küche than with you. (Not the least important reason being that this seems to preserve the "balance of power" between the three nations best, seeing that the Küche appears to be much weaker than your nation.)

 

[templar_x]

i am not too fond of a few details of your text, but practically it will serve its purpose. just rephrase it a little bit so to make the text a bit more fluent maybe.
and why not include my suggestion of that demand for The Village? i guess i understand the reason why, it is because you want to follow justanicks idea of long negotiations. but i am not fully convinced here, and if they give up any ideas about your continent (for the moment) this could be very beneficial. you could rush at least 2 immediate settlers from there to resettle that land! corruption of the town does not mean too much here.

t_x

 

[I. Larkin]

why not include my suggestion of that demand for The Village?

Most probably Eagles reject . Will we start war? Do we have an agreement with Kuhe that they support us at war?

 

[Lanzelot]

Perhaps I can ask whether they would sell it for something. But we will certainly not start a war for it: I have the impression that the Küche is "not yet ready".

 

[I. Larkin]

What we may offer to eagles?

And if we want peace, why we list all things that they had cooperation with Anarhos?

 

[templar_x]

i am just a lurker with a preferred status now, but i do not understand why you do not want to demand that town or else go to war SO CLAERLY. the Eagles have no military to speak of currently, and it will take a few turns until this changes. now you want to leave them alone to build unis and banks? they will have the best use of their GA now. maybe even better disturb them now and have their shields "wasted" in units, rather than face a completely optimized enemy in 20 turns, with infra AND troops. because this is what will happen.

and even for the Küche an apparent solo attack from your side would be benefitial! then the Eagles build a fleet, carry units over to you which you can kill, and they can attack their flank then.

t_x

 

[Lanzelot]

Your points are very good. The only reason why I don't want to go to war now is: war happiness! If they can lower lux to 0% during GA, it probably makes 50-60gpt for them. (And I have the feeling, that WH is somehow broken in multi-player?! Apparently we still had WH from the Anarcho's DoW, even after losing 3 towns and a few dozen units!!) I want them to declare, not vice versa.

Edit: If war of aggression, then we need to make some real damage, i.e. take out 1-2 core cities. But our fleet is not in the position to transfer a sufficiently large force over in the next 5-10 turns. Therefore a DoW now would only help them. And in 10 turns, when our fleet is ready, they will probably already have adequate defenses (and most probably Cavs), so a landing then would easily be a disaster.

 

[templar_x]

the WH argument is indeed valid, especially if
- it is really broken in MP-games. how could it be though that this is not known?
- losing one town is not enough to lose the WH anyway.

any way you go, i think you should post something in the Eagles thread. you may suggest that they show that they accept the souvereignity of your continent by handing over that town... then you can still somehow "accept" if they decline.

t_x

 

[I. Larkin]

Why not consider lux for City deal?

 

[Lanzelot]

The lux is worth too much during their GA. The town is worth almost nothing.

 

[templar_x]

Calis´ post goes into your direction anyway, L. now you can easily decline at least this offer with the argument that the town is practically worthless, to either side. THEY CAN GIFT IT TO YOU AS A SIGN OF THEIR GOOD WILL, but no, a lux for 20 turns is way way out of reach for what they have to give. what about Chem?

t_x

 

[templar_x]

Sir Lanzelot of the Knights,

We do not want to be impolite, but we do not understand, why you say "you dealt with them, but not with us?" We are not in the position and do not have the information to rule, who broke some deal, or treaty and who didn't, Anarchie was a partner in a deal that was created a long time ago and planned long term. And other than that, you can be sure that we didn't support them directly in their war against you. We have no hard feelings towards you, but also we had no hard feelings against Anarchie.

Regarding The Village, we just can say that we got an offer to take over all of Anarchies' settlements but declined that, as we were sure about your feelings regarding such a shift of territory.

And finally we can tell you that we ARE interested in a deal regarding The Village. As you rejected our inquiry for a colony - with a reasonable argument - we ask you to accept a 20 turn delivery of insence in exchange for The Village. The town already has a courthouse built, which slightly improves the vallue for you.

What do you think?

With peacefull Greetings
Calis of the Flock

Calis diplo has grown from mediocre to pretty bad. i suspect it dawns on them that their position is deteriorating, while they have different opinions on how to move on.

this could be the pattern for a reply:

dear calis,
it does not matter at all whose fault it was, and we find it strange you bring that up when we did not. never mind. but it is a fact that you gave techs and money to the Anarchie, who were our enemy. that they backstabbed us in the middle of a PD is a matter of fact, and SO MUCH you actually do know, but this does not matter.
the Anarchie is gone, and what does matter is what the remaining 3 civilizations make out of this situation. our past was tense, that is a fact. the future is yet unwritten.
however, your "offer" obviously lacks a smiley. you cannot be seriously proposing a "lux for crap town" deal. this would bring you about 50 gpt [whatever the number could be] and us about 3gpt. just to put it plain, this is not going to happen, and we do not really appreciate if we are offered merely a chance to prove totally stupid.
your other decision regarding settlements on our continent was wise and may foster the hope that relations of our nations will improve. also reading between the lines of your former post that you plan to respect the souvereignity of our continent was perceived positively. to this regard, it would be appreciated if you would just hand over the Village to us - accepted and outside of any deals. if you were in our situation, you would surely consider any settlement of the other continent on your own as hostile in tendency, and it is hard to see anything else in it. (whether you took one town or ten in "that deal", it is quite obvious that the decision was based on the possibility or impossibility of defense plus to create alternatives to a war scenario - here we go: let us try that.) the benefit of that town is minimal for you and minimal for us, so this should not be too hard a decision.
for everything else, especially tech deals even planning as far into the future as for your free IA tech, we would wait for your suggestions. (btw, if we want to talk seriously, it surely is beneficial if we manage to do so in shorter periods than 2 weeks.)
of course, we could not offer tech-for-tech deals, as we only were able to build markets until now, and no libs. but it is more efficient if one party makes the money and the other one creates the beakers, with the multipliers respectively, anyway.
Regards,
knights


i just wrote what came to my mind, no double-checking, no double-thinking.
t_x

 

[I. Larkin]

I am affraid this answer not flexible. We need Village and agreement that "no Eagles on our continent". Take into account that City generate more then 3 gpt, it is food and at lest 1 spt. Also size itself is a value. Fourth Lux indeed costs a lot, but we have to negotiate fair price. Or go to war.

What we and Kuche prefer?

 

[Lanzelot]

Küche prefers that we give the lux to them. This is best in my opinion as well. I think there is a big risk that the Eagles simply "steam-roll" the Küche once they get Cav, and then we would be without an ally... Alone we have no chance against the Eagles.
(The Eagles are fully developed, all cities size 12, libs, some universities and probably markets. Just take a look at the demographics that justanick posted in our common thread... )
So we need to help the Küche as good as possible, and not make the Eagles any stronger...

templar's points are right. Only the "tone" is a bit too hostile.

 

[I. Larkin]

ok. Let continue useless negotiations. What situation with GP now? How far Kuche from it?
Will we research Astronomy? Or just feed Kuche with money? May be we work out fast military plan?