Embassy to C3B, Term 4 -The Eternal Alliance

[akots]

I went through the logs and seems to me the same old bs. What I got is that they are not going to settle more cities south and that their southern recent city (Saint-Louis IIRC) was built due to some playing with the vote to get a few extra votes from undecided part of the citizens from the radical party to moderate party. Which apparently worked.

What really annoys me is that they don't know what cities would be productive and what would not be productive. They don't want to have too many unproductive and poorly defended cities and they have trouble figuring out where to settle - north or south. Apparently south wins because there is a purpose - mess up with our settling there. Whereas building to the north seems like a waste especially considering military escort required for protection against the barbarians.

And for some reason they think that our Iron island is or can be productive which is absolute double bs. Even if we have a courthouse and Forbidden Palace in each city there, still it won't be productive. On the other hand, tobacco area will not be productive for us as well.

Also, I got the impression that they don't want war as well and will be trying to avoid any open conflict. Hence, they are willing to continue the border negotiations.

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

I think that maybe they say: We don't wanna extend the treaty about not settleing. Then they build cities saying they are "waiting" for a counter-proposal.

 

[RegentMan]

Thank you very much Rik for shortening the names. I read through it and am quite angry with our "allies." We need to build a few galleys, sail up to their north with a few settlers in tow and found some cities, claiming the north as our own. After all, it's going to be very unproductive to them, they said so themselves. Reading through, I thought of sending settlers to the very south of their new city to block them off, then saw TheDuckOfFlanders posted the same idea, thus I second that motion. I hope we can kick their butts in the chat tomorrow. I unfortunently won't be able to attend, so I'll enjoy reading it after.

 

[Hygro]

Guys, we have the psychological high ground. This means we can be more forceful and effectively so.

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

Thank you very much Rik for shortening the names.

Yea, how did you do that so fast? It took me 2 hours to do one!

 

[Hygro]

try the "find all" and "replace all" commands in MS Word. (start with ctrl-f)

 

[akots]

Yep ctrl-H will do the job.

 

[Cheetah]

And another thing ,a note to EMP Napoleon plz to annoy C3B next chat could use a nicname of atleast 80 characters?

Anyway, I liked TheDuck's idea to settle right south of the new C3B city. akots, you're a lot better than me with the numbers, how much more corrupt would those cities be than the ones we're planning now?

Oh, and next chat we could ask them if we can settle the western part of their penninsula, since it will be very corrupt for them as well, and they don't seem to settle it within the next 50-100 turns.

 

[akots]

These cities would be completely corrupt, one shield and one gold. But what we are planning to settle now would have fair corruption, 20-70%. With courthouses and Forbidden Palace most of our "homeland" can be in rather decent shape.

 

[Ankka]

I don't actually think we should settle those bad lands before we have all good land done. The only thing we really get from them is unit support, which isn't so important in Monarchy, and with one gold they'd support also one unit over the limit.

And if we care of points, I think I'd rather show off weak and be realy strong than have a large area and points but low defence.

 

[Rik Meleet]

I think it is way better for us to not play the "Take bad lands to annoy"-path, but go for good sites first. But I do like the idea of filling a galley with settlers and claim the norhtern part of the border zone with cities.

Just 1 more thing: I am in strong favor of giving C3B an email warning: "If you settle 1 more city in the border zone before a border is agreed upon we'll take this as a declaration of war".

 

[akots]

I like when the spider grows small but powerful. He then jumps up and eats everyone around. Too much land is not good in general when there is not enough strength. It should be like a spring. Accumulate the force in it and then release.

 

[classical_hero]

I think it is way better for us to not play the "Take bad lands to annoy"-path, but go for good sites first. But I do like the idea of filling a galley with settlers and claim the norhtern part of the border zone with cities.

Just 1 more thing: I am in strong favor of giving C3B an email warning: "If you settle 1 more city in the border zone before a border is agreed upon we'll take this as a declaration of war".

This does seem to be the best thing to do. If they want to settle in that buffer zone that we had agreed to, then once is something we can overlook. The second time is where we say enough is enough, you have violated our treaty and therefore you are guilty of declaring war upon us, so we shall bid you farewell. We should also remind them that we have AC's and are willing to use them when needed.

 

[RegentMan]

I agree with Rik's ultamatum. But I do not agree with CH's statement "then once is something we can overlook." Let's get a few cities around their new one so that they're blocked.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Just 1 more thing: I am in strong favor of giving C3B an email warning: "If you settle 1 more city in the border zone before a border is agreed upon we'll take this as a declaration of war".

Actually ,i think that this is a bad way to handle this ,simply because:

A) we can't enforce that threat ,if they settle again in 5 turns will we really declare war? Nope! In fact we already showed weakness by allowing them to settle that southern city withought much of a strong comdemnation.
And if they wanted to build another city they could place their troops closely in attack ready position and await our DOW when they have settled a city there ,giving them a nice casius belli.

B) How would you and the citizin of this nation react should C3B give us such a threat? Not very constructive for the alliance really.

To explain my thought of "cold alliance relations" i tried to propose earlier:
It's better that we handle our ally two-faced like they seem to do with us ,but then actually use method's to force them certain diplomatic agreement's.
I wanted to point out that how it stands with a not very happy alliance though no emmediate prospect of war ,what is done will remain done as noone has to force to force an other team to change from course of an action the other team disliked.

We had agreements of non-settling the border zone earlier already ,we didn't declare war on them because we simply havn't got the force to force them to change that action ,we can kindly ask thm however they can under the circumstances stall any agreement wich would be neggative for them and yet again we cant force them.

Therefore ,since we can't force them to cooperate with numbers of millitary force ,we need to seek other factor's to force them with ,a strategicly settled city is an excelent way to force them to play ball ,they probably won't react with force neither.under the thought "whats done is done" whe can then machevelian talk away the consequences of tht action by such remarks as for ex.:

A) It was not a decission of our leadership ,some nooby citizins demanded a poll on hat matter and voted us into submition. (argument alla C3B's "we needed that to win the ellection" )

B) Rest assure C3B ,this isn't permanent ,we can work this out in diplomacy and an other agreement can be found. (but we stall that agreement to eternity and we take the weight of having that city already there in diplomatic talks ass backup to get a good agreement)

C) Youre own ambassador has made hints that this action wouldn't be a problem (misuse any statement made by C3B diplomat to justify the decission ,like "you will get atleast 2/3's of the lands" (and we settle up to the 2/3's border) or misuse the city every so much turn settling plan interpreted already in effect ,and any other statement that can be misused but always two faced.

D) Well youre team already settled a city outside the border agreement so our citizins demanded it to be a action of "symbolism" to atleast settle a city there to (although nicely close to their border)

We don't have to settle 2 city's there ,1 will be enough as long as it's placed so strategicly to make it un-interresting for C3B to settle beyond that city.
1 Settler aint that big a waste if it will allow us to in the long run get a favourable agreeement in that area making our nation bigger.

But more than talking about this pure isntance ,i wanted to point out the aprouch i wanted to take us towards C3B in the emmediate future ,as one being of "cold friendship" (an allusion to cold war but then in alliance framework) ,meaning to force good positions for ourselfs against C3b by actions that can't be forced undone by them ,just like we can't force C3B to undo the settling of that southern city ,but to be in all circumstances VERY FRIENDLY ,2-faced friendly that is but nevertheless not giving them the clear casius belli to aggitate against actions we do upon them wich force them in submition.

 

[Matrix]

I can't get in the chat. Either because I am behind a router - I've portmapped 6667, but there's always a delay and I don't know how long - or because I don't know the password for the embassy chat channel.

If someone reads this, I could really use some help. Please contact through MSN: matrix@straland.com.

 

[Matrix]

Never mind, I'm there.

It's just because it's time and I saw only Chieftess that I thought something was wrong, but that's not the case.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Chatlog of the CFC-C3B chat that just took place:

 

[Matrix]

I must say The Cat is a cunning diplomat, even though she doesn't hold back that much info. But she really knows how to bring certain things in such a perspective that it seems that we are being egoistic. That really pissed me off.

 

[akots]

Matrix, you are the Minister. So, you are the boss. It is your country you should take care of, not some stupid C3B. It is natural to be egoistic for the MoFA since there are many citizens behind you awaiting the results of your great negotiations.

Anyhow, looks like this all alliance crap will be over soon. There is no sign of anyone from the other continent and we probably don't have horses around. In about 35 maximum 40 turns there is going to be a war and we would have an advantage of having fast movement troops (about 10 AC units). This will rapidly seal the fate of C3B. We just need to hook up iron and get our own Medeival Infantry units which are same as Immortals. Then they are as good as dead to me.

I would also suggest to set some expiration date for all subsequent diplomatic agreements in that timeframe so that there is no illusion of backstabbing. Extending the peace over that period of time might be highly undesirable since we will be outresearched by them and while AC is still good to fight Pikemen, there might be some problems in fighting musketmen.