Embassy to Team Quatronia

We got the following message from Quatronia in our gmail account 9 hours ago:

Captain's Log
Runabout USS Ganges, NCC-1337
Stardate 2000 BC

Long range sensors detected a ship closing in on our position today. We immediately went to yellow alert and then magnified the viewscreen image until we could make our what appeared to be... a bevy of scantily clad vixens holding a party... on a boat! WaWaWeeWa- Great Success! We have made contact with a vessel from the Amazons!!!!! :D Shields were immediately lowered and a hailing freqencies was opened...

Greetings Team Amazon! :)

We too are on a mission of exploration and one of our primary objectives was to make contact with your team. The reputation of the Amazons is well known across the universe. Yours is a team of accomplished players with a fun attitude and outlook. Just the kind of people we want to meet. ;) We are hoping to establish warm and beneficial relations that will lead to a lasting friendship.

To answer your questions: the Ganges has been sailing for the past 28 turns as well, and yes she has made contact with another sentient race. If you continue on your present course you will reach the lands of the Mavericks shortly. How about you guys, do you have contacts with any other teams?

As to cooperation between our two teams- we think this is an excellent idea. Open borders, resource trades, a NAP and of course tech trades would be awesome. We have an abundance of hearty wheat and luxurious silver. We also have some exotic spices in our lands that we hope to harvest one day.

Regarding the NAP, how bout we do an initial one until turn 100 with the possibility for renewal?

Techwise we are on the way to Alphabet. What tech paths are the Amazons persuing? It would be great to coordinate research in anticipation of some profitable trades.

Yes it is a shame that there was a duplication of effort with Stonehenge. But the silver lining is that you made some early gold. Without goody huts that can be a very good thing. We agree that avoiding future duplications of effort would be desirable.

Oh and we go by many names: Team Quatronia, The Continuum or just plain Q. Feel free to use whichever one you like.

Again, it's truly great to meet you. We eagerly await your next message. :)

Sincerely,

Cav Scout
Ambassador
Team Quatronia

They wrote the message with forum tags in it so I all I had to do was paste it. Looked a little weird in the email, but looks nice when posted.

I also received a PM saying the following from Cav Scout:
We just sent a note to your gmail account. :)

Regards,

Cav Scout
 
I am very pleased by the tone of that communication. It seems that they are not the person south of Sirius but one beyond that. They had their boat as early as we did and we chose the same direction (just as we did with Sirius).

They claim that their primary mission was to make contact with us. They say they like our fun attitude. And they say they want to establish a lasting friendship.

I am somewhat blown away by the strength of their words. I guess getting them to join our alliance will not be as hard as it could have been.

They are open and honest in their communication and I think we should be open back. We definitely tell them about Team Sirius. Our journeys of exploration have been similar, with us going past Sirius and them going past Mavericks to find one another. We can also tell them that we are about to meet Team Merlot. We now know where everyone is.

They have told us their resources so we definitely share ours with them. They also have Silver. Interesting that their other resource is a calendar resource. I much prefer Deer and Fur.

I would be happy with any kind of NAP since we don't want to attack them, and it would be difficult to get to them in the first place, not to mention we can't attack their island cities until Astro. I say we accept this NAP. Flexibility is not as necessary here because they are on the other side of the world.

They say they are "on the way to Alphabet." Sirius should have Alphabet in the next few turns. Depending on how far they are on Alphabet, they might be able to divert. Either way we should definitely tell them we are headed for Monarchy and would be glad to do some tech trades with them. We should try to get the official tech alliance started.

I will focus my energies on this.
 
I just looked in-game to see if Quatronia had Writing (see if we could offer OB) but they don't. So they are considerably farther away from Alpha than Sirius. This is another good bargaining chip in getting them in quickly: They don't have to tech Alpha.

They also settled a second city this turn called Quatron, so we should be sure to mention this in the reply.

I hope Sirius will reply to us soon as I would prefer to hear back from them before we ask Quatronia to join us. For the meantime we can say that we have some tech trading deals worked out with Sirius that involves getting Alphabet in the next few turns, tell them what our tech plans are, and that we are interested in getting a 3 or 4 way alliance going that would include them.

EDIT: Also, the fact that they say they are pursing Alphabet rules out another team from competing with us for Monotheism. But we should mention we're going for this anyway, just in case. From their friendly tone, they may let us get it first even if they are going for it because they already have a religion.
 
Do we want to accept their NAP offer of no aggression until turn 100 with the renewal of the treaty considered at that time?

This is only 50 turns away. Neither team could attack the other team in the next 50 turns anyways, so I say we agree to it right away. We can even work out a longer term one when we set up our Tech Alliance. As I see it this NAP is just a token of good will. Might as well accept.
 
I think that they may genuinely preferring to ally with us over other teams, because of our similar team structures/constitutions/charters... we are probably the two most democratic teams.

I am OK with your judgment on the content of the reply, except that I don't think we need to wait for Sirius to reply to offer an alliance to Quatronia. For one thing, it behooves us to ally with a non-neighbour, whom we will not be cobympeting with for land... less potential for conflict.

Also, I would not put. The Q off Alpha yet, as we can use that as a hedge against Sirius if they back out or stall on trading Writing/ Alpha next turn. We told them we met the Q, so they probably figure they will meet another civ soon. They might be holding on replying to us to maximize their value for Alpha. They may also be sore about us rushing a boat out in front of them. They get Alpha next turn.

Sirius mentioned that they valued quick communications in their last message, but they have not responded to our last two communiques. I am very wary about this. We are the only civ they know, but they seem to be holding out for something better.

I would say go ahead and send the ETTT to Quatronia and Sirius, and whoever signs it first becomes our first ally. We can figure the rest later, as we need to press out advantage BEFORE other teams start making contact with each other.

That was the whole point of sending out the workboats. If we don't send the ETTT now, then we wasted our time with the workboats.
 
I think that they may genuinely preferring to ally with us over other teams, because of our similar team structures/constitutions/charters... we are probably the two most democratic teams.

I am OK with your judgment on the content of the reply, except that I don't think we need to wait for Sirius to reply to offer an alliance to Quatronia. For one thing, it behooves us to ally with a non-neighbour, whom we will not be cobympeting with for land... less potential for conflict.

Also, I would not put. The Q off Alpha yet, as we can use that as a hedge against Sirius if they back out or stall on trading Writing/ Alpha next turn. We told them we met the Q, so they probably figure they will meet another civ soon. They might be holding on replying to us to maximize their value for Alpha. They may also be sore about us rushing a boat out in front of them. They get Alpha next turn.

Sirius mentioned that they valued quick communications in their last message, but they have not responded to our last two communiques. I am very wary about this. We are the only civ they know, but they seem to be holding out for something better.

I would say go ahead and send the ETTT to Quatronia and Sirius, and whoever signs it first becomes our first ally. We can figure the rest later, as we need to press out advantage BEFORE other teams start making contact with each other.

That was the whole point of sending out the workboats. If we don't send the ETTT now, then we wasted our time with the workboats.

Good point about not putting them off Alphabet yet. Sirius should get Alphabet not later than they get Writing, so we can see what Sirius does first. Maybe sending the Tech Alliance treaty will not only get Quatronia on board, but also convince Sirius that they're better off with us. Once they see we've got a tech alliance going they'll want to be a part of in unless they can organize a better one quicker, which I doubt.

I too am a little worried that Sirius has taken this long to send us a communication. I think seeing a tech alliance starting up will get them more willing to be on our side. I agree we should send the ETTT to both Quatronia and Sirius. And maybe Merlot next turn. Once someone comes to our side, the others will not want to miss their chance to join, I think. I will fix up the ETTT with the suggested corrections.
 
Here's a draft. The part with the treaty has spaces added to the tags to show how it will appear in the email. The spaces will be taken out before it is sent. This makes it not as clear in the email, but it makes it nicely formatted when it is posted.

Do we want to tell them we're sending one to Sirius? It is honesty and it may help them answer faster, both of which are good.

Greetings to The Continuum,

We are very happy that we have found each other. It seems we each went a long way to do it. You have gone past the Mavericks and we have sailed past Team Sirius to find you. We want you to know that we think vrey highly of your team as well and would be more than happy to start working together immediately.

We have met Team Sirius who is our neighbor. The Ganges should be able to see their border in about 9 turns. We are on the other side of that. I think we have met extremely soon for people on opposite ends of the world. We have not met Team Merlot yet, although we can see the edge of their borders this turn. They are on the other side of us. CDZ, then, must be between you and House Merlot.

It is clear the map is star-shaped and it is postulated that there may be water channels leading through the center of the star. Can you confirm or deny this? We are apparently on opposite ends with two civilizations between us on both sides. There is a preponderance of Clams surrounding this star and so far no other resource has been visible to our boats.

Our own island also has Silver. We also have an abundance of Sheep, Deer, and things to make Fur out of.

We would like to get an Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance set up. We would consider you a top candidate for this Alliance. If we can get this worked out quickly we can start optimizing our teching plans. We would like to organize at least a three-team alliance and preferably a four-team one. This would ensure us an edge over our competitors. Our researchers are expending their efforts towards Monarchy. We are currently developing Monotheism trying to follow your religious example.

We would like to suggest we open borders as soon as this becomes possible.

We gladly accept your proposed NAP until turn 100. We are also willing to consider a longer term NAP between The Continuum and The AMAZON as we believe that securing peace between our nations is important to the spirit of cooperation which we seek to foster in the relationship between our teams.

By working closely together we can minimize future duplication of effort.

Below is our proposed Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty, which we would like you to consider. We have also sent a copy to Sirius. We would like to get this alliance up and running as soon as possible to take advantage of our early meeting. If you have major concerns about the treaty please let us know because working together is the most important thing to us. We have formated the treaty so that it is formated when you copy and paste this letter into a post.

[QUOTE ]
The ETTT[ /CENTER][ /B][ /SIZE]

The Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty[ /CENTER][ /B]

The Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty is the governing treaty of the Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance (ETTA), which is composed of the members of the ETTT.

Section 1. Members of the ETTT[ /U][ /B]

1.1. The AMAZON[ /INDENT]

Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members[ /U][ /B]

2.1. New members may be added by unanimous agreement of all current members.

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

2.3. A member may be removed at any time if they are proved to have violated any of the terms of this treaty.[ /INDENT]

Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms[ /U][ /B]

3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.[ /INDENT]


Section 4. Trading Policies[ /U][ /B]

4.1. Members agree to trade freely and generously with all other members.

4.2. Members agree to trade with non-members only with unanimous consent from all other current members.

4.3. Members will be open and forthright about research plans to avoid duplication of effort and ensure rapid progress.

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.[ /INDENT]

Section 5. Amendments[ /U][ /B]

5.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by any member. The proposed amendment must be sent to all members.

5.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon the agreement of all members.[ /INDENT][ /QUOTE]

We look forward to hearing from you again shortly.

Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat​
 
Id say send it. Honesty and open-ness is the best policy when dealing with potential allies. There is plenty of time to pull out the cloaks and daggers later if it does not work out between us.

The only thing I would say is remove the part that says clams is ALL we found with our boats, because we found whale also, and horse. I'd say its best to say we found lots of clams, and leave it at that.

I guess you could say that Dora technically found the horse, but using technicalities should be reserved for the end of an alliance not the beginning. You don't make any friends hiding behind technicalities.
 
Id say send it. Honesty and open-ness is the best policy when dealing with potential allies. There is plenty of time to pull out the cloaks and daggers later if it does not work out between us.

The only thing I would say is remove the part that says clams is ALL we found with our boats, because we found whale also, and horse. I'd say its best to say we found lots of clams, and leave it at that.

I guess you could say that Dora technically found the horse, but using technicalities should be reserved for the end of an alliance not the beginning. You don't make any friends hiding behind technicalities.

Yeah, I wasn't counting horse because it wasn't visible from the water. I was commenting on the symmetry, but I agree with you. I'll change that.
 
I sent this message to Quatronia:

Greetings to The Continuum,

We are very happy that we have found each other. It seems we each went a long way to do it. You have gone past the Mavericks and we have sailed past Team Sirius to find you. We want you to know that we think vrey highly of your team as well and would be more than happy to start working together immediately.

We have met Team Sirius who is our neighbor. The Ganges should be able to see their border in about 9 turns. We are on the other side of that. I think we have met extremely soon for people on opposite ends of the world. We have not met Team Merlot yet, although we can see the edge of their borders this turn. They are on the other side of us. CDZ, then, must be between you and House Merlot.

It is clear the map is star-shaped and it is postulated that there may be water channels leading through the center of the star. Can you confirm or deny this? We are apparently on opposite ends with two civilizations between us on both sides. There is a large number of Clams surrounding this star and so far it seems that this world is very symmetrical.

Our own island also has Silver. We also have an abundance of Sheep, Deer, and things to make Fur out of.

We would like to get an Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance set up. We would consider you a top candidate for this Alliance. If we can get this worked out quickly we can start optimizing our teching plans. We would like to organize at least a three-team alliance and preferably a four-team one. This would ensure us an edge over our competitors. Our researchers are expending their efforts towards Monarchy. We are currently developing Monotheism trying to follow your religious example.

We would like to suggest we open borders as soon as this becomes possible.

We gladly accept your proposed NAP until turn 100. We are also willing to consider a longer term NAP between The Continuum and The AMAZON as we believe that securing peace between our nations is important to the spirit of cooperation which we seek to foster in the relationship between our teams.

By working closely together we can minimize future duplication of effort.

Below is our proposed Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty, which we would like you to consider. We have also sent a copy to Sirius. We would like to get this alliance up and running as soon as possible to take advantage of our early meeting. If you have major concerns about the treaty please let us know because working together is the most important thing to us. We have formated the treaty so that it is formated when you copy and paste this letter into a post.

The ETTT​

The Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty​

The Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty is the governing treaty of the Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance (ETTA), which is composed of the members of the ETTT.

Section 1. Members of the ETTT
1.1. The AMAZON​
Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members
2.1. New members may be added by unanimous agreement of all current members.

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

2.3. A member may be removed at any time if they are proved to have violated any of the terms of this treaty.​
Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms
3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.​

Section 4. Trading Policies
4.1. Members agree to trade freely and generously with all other members.

4.2. Members agree to trade with non-members only with unanimous consent from all other current members.

4.3. Members will be open and forthright about research plans to avoid duplication of effort and ensure rapid progress.

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.​
Section 5. Amendments
5.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by any member. The proposed amendment must be sent to all members.

5.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon the agreement of all members.​

We look forward to hearing from you again shortly.

Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

Only after sending it did I notice the word "vrey" in the first paragraph. Hopefully they'll be vrey happy about the tech alliance opportunity and they'll easily forgive this typo.

I'm also sending a PM to Cav Scout letting them know they have mail.

EDIT: This PM was sent to Cav Scout:
We just sent a note to your gmail account. :)

Regards,

Cav Scout

We just sent a reply to the note that you sent to our gmail account. :)

-SilentConfusion
 
Since they have finished teching Writing, we could offer open borders to them in game. I think we could send a short message asking them for open borders and telling them we've made an in-game request.

We can also tell them that Team Sirius has accepted the ETTT, which just might get them to hurry up. And it also allows them to change techs if they are going to be joining our alliance.

I suggest we send something like this if they take much longer to answer. It might get them to realize the value of acting quickly.

Greetings to our friends the Q,

We appreciate the time it takes to discuss something as large as what we proposed in our last message. We just wish to continue to be open and share what information we have with your people.

First of all we wish to congratulate you on the discovery of Writing. Due to the potency of this new invention, rumor has already reached us of your accomplishment. We have offered an Open Borders agreement to you in-game. Even if we cannot establish early trade routes across ocean, the Open Borders agreement can at least symbolize our desire to work together closely.

We wish to inform you that Team Sirius, whom you will meet in not that many turns, has agreed to the ETTT. This is great news for us, and also for you, if you decide to join us. Sirius has already researched Alphabet, so you could focus your energies elsewhere to avoid duplication. A 3-way tech alliance with Alphabet at this early date, will prove to be a strong thing, we are convinced. We are very much hoping that The Continuum will agree to be the third member in this alliance. A 3-team alliance will guarantee that all members will not be left out of a bigger trade alliance, and then the only thing we have to consider at that point is whether we want to seek a 4-team alliance and really seek to dominate the remaining teams.

If you have issue with the terms of the ETTT please let us know. We are working on a separate treaty just between our two teams that will help solidify our relationship. We are happy to hear your ideas about what should be included in this treaty. The most important thing now that lots of people are meeting each other, is getting a trading alliance established and rolling.

Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat
 
I think they will respond favorably to the above letter... It should be sent ASAP, especially since I already sent the in-game request for Open Borders.:)

Ok. Will send ASAP.
 
This was sent to Quatronia with 7 hours left on the clock for turn 51, having already ended turn ourselves:

Greetings to our friends the Q,

We appreciate the time it takes to discuss something as large as what we proposed in our last message. We just wish to continue to be open and share what information we have with your people.

First of all we wish to congratulate you on the discovery of Writing. Due to the potency of this new invention, rumor has already reached us of your accomplishment. We have offered an Open Borders agreement to you in-game. Even if we cannot establish early trade routes across ocean, the Open Borders agreement can at least symbolize our desire to work together closely.

We wish to inform you that Team Sirius, whom you will meet in not that many turns, has agreed to the ETTT. This is great news for us, and also for you, if you decide to join us. Sirius has already researched Alphabet, so you could focus your energies elsewhere to avoid duplication. We are convinced that a 3-way tech alliance with Alphabet at this early date will prove to be a strong thing. We are very much hoping that The Continuum will agree to be the third member in this alliance. A 3-team alliance will guarantee that all members will not be left out of a bigger trade alliance, and then the only thing we have to consider at that point is whether we want to seek a 4-team alliance and really seek to dominate the remaining teams.

If you have issue with the terms of the ETTT please let us know. We are working on a separate treaty just between our two teams that will help solidify our relationship. We are happy to hear your ideas about what should be included in this treaty. The most important thing now that lots of people are meeting each other, is getting a trading alliance established and rolling.


Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat
 
Quatronia has already met Merlot. I was looking at the F4 screen, and it shows Sirius not having met them, yet but Quatronia has. We should keep this in mind going forward. This means either Quatronia had two boats going in opposite directions like us, or Merlot's boat has already reached them. I hope it is the second, because if they have two boats and have already gotten to Merlot (we'll know in a few turns if we see their boat) then they've also met CDZ. I don't think this is the case, but in that case they know more people than we do and could plan something against us. Although they seemed genuinely happy to see us.
 
I received this PM from Cav Scout. At least unofficially it has made my heart glad. :)

The PM subject was: Letter coming shortly.

cav scout said:
Hey just wanted to let you know that we are still drafting a reply for the ETTT proposal. I can tell you unofficially that we are pretty stoked! :D We appreciate your patience and will get you an official response shortly. And if possible we would like you to hold off on revealing the ETTT to the Mavericks and Merlot until you hear from us.

Cav Scout

This is great news, though still unofficial at this point. They say they are "stoked" about our proposal and on top of that they say they don't want us to mention this to the Mavericks or Merlot.

I think we can send a short PM back assuring them we will wait for their letter before revealing the ETTT to anyone else if a letter is really coming shortly. We haven't met Mavs yet and Merlot has yet to respond to us, so no rush on either of those.

I think this is our third Ally. If we can get CDZ on our side, we'll have 4 members, and a guaranteed no border squabbling because everyone would have one secured piece of land (between two allies) and one piece of land available for aggressive expansion.

If CDZ and Merlot are too closely allied, then we can probably incorporate Mavs as 4th member, in which case we, at least still have a front to aggressively settle (towards Merlot).

I will send a reply PM saying that if their reply is indeed coming shortly we are happy to wait for them before revealing the ETTT to anyone else.

EDIT: Sent the following reply to Cav Scout's PM. The promise is an easy one for us to make, because if they do respond quickly it will be worth waiting, and if they don't (which I don't expect) then we haven't promised anything.

Unofficially, we are very glad to hear that. That kind of news is easier to wait for, I assure you. :) And thank you for the message. Silence can make you doubt even things you don't have reason to doubt, especially in the very early game. So long as your reply is indeed "coming shortly" we are happy to wait for it and not say anything to the Mavs (whom we haven't met yet) or to Merlot (who hasn't yet replied to our introductory message).

SilentConfusion
 
Careful with Cav scout, he is very crafty. Provolution, especially is very skilled with treaty craft and diplomacy. I would not be surprised if they have multiple treaty plans in the works.

Bottom line is I would advise against letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. The fastest 4 way is the one we should embrace. I imagine that either Provolution or Cav scout is making amendments to the treaty... mostly having to do with the Tech- Sharing part of it. They(like most FIN civs) are going to want to count beakers in tech exchanges.

Of course that is not going to work, especially since Sirius has already agreed to share tech. So then we are going to have to spend a few turns going back and forth with them about that... hopefully they are just going to sign the treaty as is, but I would not be in favor of waiting for them to work out side deals.

The treaty is pretty straightforward... we share tech, and we don't trade outside the alliance... either they agree or they don't. It doesn't take a whole lot of figuring out. Look how fast Sirius responded when we applied pressure.

What differentiates Q from Sirius in this situation is that they have met other teams already, whereas Sirius had only met us. The only thing they can be considering is whether to ally with us or whether to ally with others.

So I agree with telling them we will wait, I just don't think it is realistic for them to expect us to ACTUALLY wait. What are we really waiting for? For them to forge a 4 way that excludes us? For them to make changes to the ETTT that we will have to reject, because Sirius signed it as-is? For someone else to get Alphabet? For them to convince Mavericks (or Merlot) to enter some secret side deal against us prior to signing the ETTT?
 
I believe now that Quatronia and Mavs are already allied (or very close to becoming allies)... as are CDZ and Merlot. Quatronia is trying to determine whether they (and Mavs) should join the Southern alliance or the Northern one (us). The Map seems to be designed to force you to ally with your neighbor.

If this is the case, our position is precarious. I would tell the Q
I wanted to contact you immediately to inform you that as AMAZON Diplomat, my hands are tied, the team has decided to offer membership in the alliance to Merlot as soon as the game restarts, if we have not gotten an acceptance from you before then. If you decide ultimately to sign the ETTT, our two nations will immediately draft a Classified Addendum to the treaty to give our two nations additional security. The terms of the Addendum will of course be negotiated between us, but among the terms could be, 1.)a provision that we should only develop espionage towards each other to read each others demographics and/or technology research, 2.)the other alliance members should not know of the existence of this seperate treaty.
Make sure you use the words "Classified Addendum," as it will immediately be recognized by Provolution and possibly cav scout as well... The 2 terms may seem meaningless, but they are from an "alliance-within-alliance" treaty drafted by Provolution in the last game. Hopefully he will see the language, recognize what we are trying to do and quickly sign on to the ETTT, before it is "too late."

Hopefully, faced with a possible 4 way against them, the Q will join the sure thing, if for no other reason, to save themselves the trouble of researching Alphabet.
 
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