Foreign Policy: RealmsBeyond

[Caledorn]

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we shouldn't agree to their proposal. We just need to realize that RB gets more out of this deal than we do... plus they still have not reciprocated on any info sharing.

I'm curious btw. How is RB getting "more out of the deal than we do"? We have full control of what we choose to share with them and not, and we obviously won't share more info with them unless they choose to share info with us as well. Please elaborate, as you seem to be viewing this diplomatic contact as if you consider us their vassals already based on your posts, while most of us don't view it like that.

 

[Aivoturso]

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we shouldn't agree to their proposal. We just need to realize that RB gets more out of this deal than we do... plus they still have not reciprocated on any info sharing.

Perhaps one of the reasons why they have not reciprocated on the info sharing could be that they don't really have that much of info to share since their starting warrior died.

BTW, there is a major reason why I think this agreement with RB could be really important. We have already discussed that how important it is to get to know our mutual neighbour(s). I'm sure that RB is thinking along same lines. If we get them to agree to share info on who was met and around where, it will be a bit more difficult to sneak in an agreement with the mutual neighbourg.

 

[cav scout]

It's worth noting that they say they appreciate the quick response, so they definitely don't think we're moving at a slow diplo pace. I think that at this point we can take as much time as we need on our messages. Also, they acknowledge that we're "bearing with them" regarding the border situation, implying to me that they will be willing to "bear with us" if we get difficult or demanding in a certain situation, so maybe we don't need to worry as much about tiptoeing around them?

They didn't say the "bearing with them" phrase was in regards to the borders discussion. I took this to mean bearing with their response time.

We need to be careful about falling into the trap of reading what we want to hear (or fear to hear) into their messages. Imprinting our own assumptions/desires on a message can result in a self-reinforcing thought loop that clouds our understanding.

Also, we should be careful not to underestimate the power of vagueness in diplomatic wording. It can give a team great flexibility, which i'm sure RB values. I won't be surprised if we get messages from them that aren't exactly crystal clear.

I'm curious btw. How is RB getting "more out of the deal than we do"? We have full control of what we choose to share with them and not, and we obviously won't share more info with them unless they choose to share info with us as well. Please elaborate, as you seem to be viewing this diplomatic contact as if you consider us their vassals already based on your posts, while most of us don't view it like that

They get more out of the deal because we are better positioned to make contact with other teams sooner since we didn't loose our initial scouting warrior. Loosing their warrior in this critical early stage was traumatic for them so i'm sure they are keen on "catching back up" with their rivals. Getting info from us helps to repair their early warrior loss. Also, we are positioned to make contact with one of their neighbors next. Meanwhile, we have no idea if they even have a scouting warrior out.

Oh and I don't consider us their vassals. But I do see this as a danger- if we rely on goodwill so much that we end of giving them key advantages over and over again we might wake up one day and realize our close friends have outpaced us and our end game choices are 2nd place with them or 2nd place with their rival.

 

[Caledorn]

They didn't say the "bearing with them" phrase was in regards to the borders discussion. I took this to mean bearing with their response time.

That would be strange since we spent more time with our last response than they did with both theirs. Interpreting it is difficult though, as it doesn't really state clearly what we're "bearing over with", so you may very well be right.

We need to be careful about falling into the trap of reading what we want to hear (or fear to hear) into their messages. Imprinting our own assumptions/desires on a message can result in a self-reinforcing thought loop that clouds our understanding.

This is a very very good point, and one we absolutely need to be aware of at all times.

Also, we should be careful not to underestimate the power of vagueness in diplomatic wording. It can give a team great flexibility, which i'm sure RB values. I won't be surprised if we get messages from them that aren't exactly crystal clear.

Also a very good point. We need to ensure that we use vagueness whenever it benefits us as well in our messages (not only to RB, but to everyone), as vagueness is a very powerful tool in diplomacy.

They get more out of the deal because we are better positioned to make contact with other teams sooner since we didn't loose our initial scouting warrior. Loosing their warrior in this critical early stage was traumatic for them so i'm sure they are keen on "catching back up" with their rivals. Getting info from us helps to repair their early warrior loss. Also, we are positioned to make contact with one of their neighbors next. Meanwhile, we have no idea if they even have a scouting warrior out.

Another good point. As far as I can tell though, we do not intend on giving them information freely. We can agree on giving information to them about other team meetings, but we do not necessarily have to agree upon giving them location of said new contacts. That's one of the things we should discuss now: If we agree to the deal (which I am in favour of), I believe we should be as specific as possible on what to share, and when. E.g. "We agree to sharing information about other team contacts on the following terms: We met Team X on turn Y, Z tiles due east of our starting position. If your team does not agree to this, please come up with another suggestion as to what to share. Until we have an agreement on specific details on what to share, we will consider both our teams exempt of sharing this information." (This is not my suggestion for what we should ask them, and only serves as an example)

Oh and I don't consider us their vassals. But I do see this as a danger- if we rely on goodwill so much that we end of giving them key advantages over and over again we might wake up one day and realize our close friends have outpaced us and our end game choices are 2nd place with them or 2nd place with their rival.

Then we're very much on the same page, as I think it's vital for us to make sure that any and all deals we make with them are of equal benefit to both teams (the info sharing we gave in the first two messages are exempt from this IMO, simply because we had to give something to them to be able to gain trust - in other words we "paid" for establishing good relations with some non-vital info that they would find out in the near future anyways). They obviously won't agree to any deals that put them at a disadvantage, unless they are in a situation where they have to to survive, or we manage to trick them into doing so by extremely careful wording. And the same goes for us. Both RB and our team have far too many good players with experience to actually accept being an underdog to the other team without a very good reason (or very good trickery).

 

[1889]

Chat is a good opportunity to build a good rapport with Scooter and by extension RB. Obviously big decisions need to be brought to the team for discussion but I think you should freely exchange pleasantries and such if you happen to see him on-line.

I think alerting each other when we meet other teams is important to avoid the paranoia of wondering if we are being played. I like that we add the detail of what direction the contact was in too. They get more for starts but since we are heading north and sharing so much and already have a deal "penciled in" for their Eastern limit maybe we should encourage them to head West or South and sort of work together.

 

[Caledorn]

I sat down and wrote a draft for a response, and here it is, with footnotes that obviously will not be included.

Hi scooter/RB

Thank you for the congratulations on the new city we indeed have built, and likewise congratulations to your team for your new city as well.

I have sent you an invitation to GTalk using the gmail you provided (from caledorn@gmail.com). If there's something you need a quick response to you are welcome to poke me there. I'm using an Android phone, so I should be available there (as long as I'm not asleep of course) even if I'm not near my computer.

Your suggestion about notifying eachother when we meet other players is a good suggestion which we agree to. We would like to nail down some specifics about it though, so we suggest that when one of our teams meet a new team we notify one another what team we met, the turn we met them, and in what direction they are (thus making it easier for eachother to meet up with those teams) {1}. If that sounds like too much information for your team to give away, then feel free to come up with another suggestion, but we think this is a fair deal for both our teams. {2}

As you probably have already figured out by our warrior movements outside your borders, we intend to move our scouting warrior north from your lands. We suggest that you send a unit either westwards or southwards from your lands since we're moving north. Of course, our suggestion for your further exploration is after you've scouted the lands between our teams which is necessary so we can get that border agreement out of the way. {3} That way there will be a higher chance of us meeting different teams in accordance to the agreement about notifying eachother about meeting other teams.

We have been doing some speculations about the map, based on what we have seen so far in our scouting, and we're wondering if you have explored enough lands even with the loss of the initial warrior to make out some speculations on your own? We definitely agree that it would be a good idea if we pool knowledge on our surroundings together. If we could pit together our information we may be able to figure out some pattern to where the other teams are so we can scout as efficiently as possible with the goal of meeting the other teams as quickly as possible. Obviously we can't share maps yet, as that would be breaking the rules, but a general description of what things look like or some interesting terrain features should be okay to share until we have paper. {4}

Caledorn, on behalf of Team CFC

Footnote commentaries:

1. The more I thought about it, I realized that it wasn't such a bad idea to actually suggest that to them. Feel free to correct me of course if anyone disagrees, but it's a win-win situation even if RB starts exploring 10-20 turns after us, as they will be going in a different direction than we do.

2. If they disagree with that proposal and come back with something like "we don't want to share the direction we explore" etc, then I'm going to be suspicious to be honest, as that means it's a lot more likely that they're looking for other allies than us. So this is also serves somewhat as a test of their intentions.

3. This sentence sounds weird to me. I'm contemplating just removing it unless someone can come up with a better way of stating the intentions here, which obviously is that we don't want them to think that we are trying to keep them away from exploring the lands between us. We want them to explore those lands ASAP, so we can get that border agreement set in stone - but I am struggling a bit with the wording on this one. I thought about saying something like "unless you have several warriors that can scout of course", but that also sounded very wrong, and may give them the idea that we're not skilled at demo-hacking, so I'm not really comfortable with adding that either.

4. Here's where we outright ask for information about their exploring. However, note that I am shrouding it by stating it as "map speculation" and "pooling information together to more efficiently scout". It sounds much better to me than "begging" them for info. One point I need to state though is that I'm curious about that map share rule. The rule simply states that we cannot share maps before paper. It says nothing about how detailed we can go into things, and if I recall correctly there was a huge debacle about this in the public rule discussions thread. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea how much information we can share - and I'm wondering if we broke the rules by telling them the specific location of the oasis. Can someone remember, or take the time to look through the rule discussion to see what the outcome of that was - preferably as soon as possible please?

 

[YossarianLives]

I'm curious about that map share rule. The rule simply states that we cannot share maps before paper. It says nothing about how detailed we can go into things, and if I recall correctly there was a huge debacle about this in the public rule discussions thread. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea how much information we can share - and I'm wondering if we broke the rules by telling them the specific location of the oasis. Can someone remember, or take the time to look through the rule discussion to see what the outcome of that was - preferably as soon as possible please?

This is the rule on pre-Paper map-sharing:

04. Out of Game Actions
...
d. Sharing of Map Images – Map images / screenshots cannot be shared outside of the game until it is possible to share maps in-game.

There was discussion about how an exact replication of the map can be spelled out without images if you put enough work into it, but in the end, no ban on this made it into the ruleset. We are not allowed to share screenshots, but we can describe the map to our heart's content. Of course, this benefits the other team, not us, so I don't see why we should put much work into describing the map for anyone.

Spoiler :

Final Ruleset

01. Rule Infringing
a. Infringing on the rules is not allowed.

b. When an allegation of rule infringement has been leveled at one or more teams by one or more teams, the game will be paused.

c. Each side of the alleged rule infringement will appoint a spokesperson. 'Prosecutor' for the alleging team or teams, 'Defender' for the alleged rule infringer.

c. Evidence of alleged rule infringement will be collected and forwarded to the Game Admin together with any accompanying explanatory text by the Prosecutor.

d. The Game Admin will forward this information to the Defender and ask for feedback.

e. Upon receiving feedback (or after a reasonable amount of time at the Game Admin's discretion), the Game Admin will rule on the alleged infringement, determine the penalty (if any), the resolution (if any) and those determinations will be acted upon.

f. The Game Admin should start a thread that communicates allegations of rule infringements, parties involved, rule(s) allegedly infringed, evidence of infringement (providing proprietary information is not disclosed) and Game Admin ruling.

g. All rulings under this rule by the Game Admin are final.


02. In Game Actions
a. The following in-game action rules apply at all times.

b. Suicide Training - Knowingly sacrificing a unit to an ally in order to yield experience points to the victorious unit is not allowed.

c. City Gifting - Conquest, culture flip, UN resolution, and AP resolution are the only permitted methods of city transfer.

d. Unit Gifting, Unlock Building - Gifting a unit with experience that would remove the unit experience restriction for the Heroic Epic is not allowed. Gifting a unit with experience that would remove the unit experience restriction for West Point is not allowed.

e. Unit Gifting, war ally support - A team can only gift units to a war ally during the war ally's portion of the turn.

f. Bugs and Exploits - The use of any bug or exploit is not allowed. The decision about exactly what constitutes a bug or exploit rests solely with the admin. Consult with the admin if any action you are considering may be a bug or exploit.

g. In-Game Pausing - Any Team may pause the game. Any team encountering a paused game should consult the CFC based turn-tracker thread. If a team has not requested a pause in that thread, the game may be unpaused.

h. Abusing Pauses - No team should abuse the game pause rule.


03. In Game Actions (war edition)
a. Civilizations that are at war must observe turn order. Turn order is automatically fixed by the APT Mod on the first turn of war.

b. Teams must also observe turn order on the turn immediately prior to the first turn of War.

b1. Declarer Desires First Half Example: If the declarer desires to move first during the war phase turns, they must move before their 'target' in the turn preceding their war declaration.

b2. Declarer Desires Second Half Example: If the declarer desires to move second during the war phase turns, they must move after their 'target' in the war declaration turn.

c. Turn Order Shuffle to later slot - All teams at war have the right to request an order shuffle to a later slot providing at least 3 turns have elapsed since the declaration of war or the last order shuffle. If order requests conflict, the priority for a later position goes to the team that is currently earlier in the turn. The team moving ‘down’ the order acknowledges that they are giving the team moving ‘up’ a double move against them.

d. Deleted as per Administrator - June 6, 2012

e. Turn Order Appeals – A team can appeal to the Game Admin that the shuffle order is unfair and that the Game Admin can adjust the shuffle order at his discretion.

f. Joining an existing war - Teams will exercise care so as to avoid any double move when joining an ally in an existing war.

g. Care should be exercised on the war declaration turn so that the mod can correctly assign war turn order. This means that teams should not leave the game without finishing the turn on the turn that they declare war or the team being declared on should not enter the game until the declarer has finished their turn.

h. Teams can't declare war on a team that is currently online. Teams cannot permanently stay online just to avoid being declared on.


04. Out of Game Actions
a. Team Espionage - All external forms of intelligence gathering against opposing teams are not allowed.
Non-exhaustive list of example: Entering Team Forums, joining multiple teams using different accounts, actively petitioning other players for information, looking around on the CFC (or a 3rd party website) image database for screenshots and save uploads.

b. Game / Pitboss / Save Manipulation or Disruption - Editing the save file (with or without a utility) is not allowed. Intentionally disrupting access to the Pitboss host server is not allowed. Intentionally opening Diplomacy screens and then pausing, intending to lock teams out of playing their turn is not allowed.

c. Pre In-Game Contact - Teams making diplomatic contact before they have met in-game is not allowed. Non-exhaustive list of example: meeting privately to discuss in-game actions, game-related deals, in-game agreements, etc.). Note that teams meeting to discuss rules, ramifications of the impact of votes or rules are allowed.

d. Sharing of Map Images – Map images / screenshots cannot be shared outside of the game until it is possible to share maps in-game.

e. Game Pause Requests - Any team may request a pause by posting in the CFC turn-tracker thread. The purpose of the pause must be included in the pause request.

f. Abusing Pause Requests - No team should abuse the Game Pause Requests rule.


05 - Administration
a. Game Administrator - r_rolo1 has sole authority as game administrator. Replacement of the game administrator must be agreed to by all teams.

b. Victory - The winner of the game is the first team recognized as winner by in-game victory dialog.

c. Defeated Teams - Player on teams that are eliminated are permitted to join another team. These "refugee" players are free to share any information from their old team with their new team. They may NOT engage in team espionage by reporting information on their new team to any other team.

e. Game Setup Votes - Items determined during the voting phase of the game cannot be changed by rules or subsequent team votes. This rule cannot be changed by 05f.

f. Game Rules - Rules (with the exception of 05e) can only be changed by unanimous decision of all remaining teams in the game (1 vote per team) or by admin ruling.

g. Game Reloads - All game reloads will trigger an automatic game pause (game admin will post such in game pause thread) for a minimum of 24 hours or until each team that logged in to the game after the reload point has stated in the game pause thread that they are ready to continue.

 

[Caledorn]

Isn't there any comments, suggestions or anything in regards to my draft?

Just wondering if I should read that as approval, or if people are just thinking about it still.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We had a rule on Team Kaz, and then the same rule on Team AMAZON

"Silence Means Consent"

 

[grant2004]

I wouldn't mention the loss of their early warrior yet. They haven't told us about it correct? We only know it was an early warrior from the demo hacking. I'd prefer to keep it quiet that we have the capability to nail down events that precisely.

We might want to bring it up in the future to get some sort of demo-sharing treaty. Would it be beneficial for the demo hacking to see what all of RB's demographics are, and their world rank? I think that would be more valuable than just getting their graphs though espionage, and both of our demo hackers would benefit greatly from it. I'm not sure if we'd be more likely to secure a treaty like that if they think we're a strong demo hacking partner (share the warrior info) or if they think we're bad at it (keep quiet).

3 also sounds weird to me maybe:

Spoiler :

As you've probably figured out from our warrior movements, we will be exploring northwards next. We'll be crossing a patch of open terrain next turn and wanted to ask if you had seen any barbarians in the area. Have you explored this direction already? If we're going to share when we contact other teams, it would make sense for us to send our scouting units in different directions.

I might also omit sentence 2. It sounds a little wishy washy to me. I think it's fine to just make the proposal and see if they accept or not. If they aren't interested in that detail I'm sure they'll return a message saying so.

 

[Caledorn]

We had a rule on Team Kaz, and then the same rule on Team AMAZON

"Silence Means Consent"

Sounds like a very good rule!

 

[Caledorn]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, grant Here is a revised draft and comments:

Hi scooter/RB

Thank you for the congratulations on the new city we indeed have built, and likewise congratulations to your team for your new city as well.

I have sent you an invitation to GTalk using the gmail you provided (from caledorn@gmail.com). If there's something you need a quick response to you are welcome to poke me there. I'm using an Android phone, so I should be available there (as long as I'm not asleep of course) even if I'm not near my computer.

Your suggestion about notifying eachother when we meet other players is a good suggestion which we agree to. Our suggestion, to get a clearly defined agreement, is that when one of our teams meet a new team we notify one another what team we met, the turn we met them, and in what direction they are (thus making it easier for eachother to meet up with those teams).

As you've probably figured out from our warrior movements, we will be exploring northwards next. We'll be crossing a patch of open terrain next turn and wanted to ask if you had seen any barbarians or animals in the area? Have you explored much in this direction already? As we're going to share when we contact other teams, we think it would make sense for us to send our scouting units in different directions. What's your thoughts on this?

We have been doing some speculations about the map, based on what we have seen so far in our scouting, and we're wondering if you have come up with some speculations? We definitely agree that it would be a good idea if we pool knowledge on our surroundings together. If we could pit together our information we may be able to figure out a pattern to where the other teams are so we can scout as efficiently as possible with the goal of meeting the other teams as quickly as possible.

Caledorn, on behalf of Team CFC

As you can see, I replaced the entire paragraph containing 3 with your suggestion, grant, with only a few minor modifications. Thank you for that excellent rewording Also, your statement about sentence 2 makes perfect sense to me now that I look at it with your commentary about it sounding wishy-washy. And finally, I also removed the sentence about the warrior, as you make a very good point. There's no harm in letting them think we are blissfully unaware of the loss of the warrior, and that Yossarian and our demo-hacking team is as skilled as they are (You guys still amaze me btw, demo-hackers!). Let's keep our advantages in the shadows.

About the demo-sharing suggestion: I think that sounds like a very good plan, provided of course that we get a mutually beneficial cooperation with them, and that there is a broad agreement on our team that we should try to get into such an agreement with them. An agreement on that scale should only be made with a strong majority consensus on our team, imho. We don't need to reveal the skill of our demo-hackers until we decide that we should try to go for such a deal.

So, this is the standing proposal for what I will send them, and I'm quite happy with it. Unless there is any objections about this, I will send this to them in about 24 hours or so.

 

[YossarianLives]

The message sounds great to me!

 

[cav scout]

I would take out the part where we go into specifics about info sharing when meeting another team. Just say "yes, we agree" and then wait to see what they come back with as far as the specifics.

I'd also take out the part where we say we are going North. Who knows, we might choose NE instead in a few turns.

 

[Caledorn]

I would take out the part where we go into specifics about info sharing when meeting another team. Just say "yes, we agree" and then wait to see what they come back with as far as the specifics.

Okay? Wouldn't that put us at a risk of the agreement turning into a vague "Oh, we almost forgot to mention that we met Team X some turns ago, just so you are aware of it"-thing?

 

[cav scout]

Okay? Wouldn't that put us at a risk of the agreement turning into a vague "Oh, we almost forgot to mention that we met Team X some turns ago, just so you are aware of it"-thing?

Well i'm not saying that we let this contact sharing agreement stay permanently vague. Just saying that we offer simple agreement now and then see if they come back with the specifics. If they do I would be inclined to think that they are serious about cooperating with us.

 

[Caledorn]

Well i'm not saying that we let this contact sharing agreement stay permanently vague. Just saying that we offer simple agreement now and then see if they come back with the specifics. If they do I would be inclined to think that they are serious about cooperating with us.

Hmmm .. So basically you think we should reword the specifics into just saying "Your suggestion about notifying eachother when we meet other players is a good suggestion that we agree to."? Without asking about specifics? Or do you have a specific suggestion for how you think we should word it?

Bottomline is, I think you make a good point here, so unless someone else disagrees with it I think I will rephrase that part of the message in accordance with your suggestion.

 

[cav scout]

Hmmm .. So basically you think we should reword the specifics into just saying "Your suggestion about notifying eachother when we meet other players is a good suggestion that we agree to."? Without asking about specifics?

Yes, for now.

 

[Caledorn]

With modifications made based on cav scout's suggestion, here is the current draft that is scheduled to be sent:

Hi scooter/RB

Thank you for the congratulations on the new city we indeed have built, and likewise congratulations to your team for your new city as well.

I have sent you an invitation to GTalk using the gmail you provided (from caledorn@gmail.com). If there's something you need a quick response to you are welcome to poke me there. I'm using an Android phone, so I should be available there (as long as I'm not asleep of course) even if I'm not near my computer.

Your suggestion about notifying eachother when we meet other teams is a good suggestion that we agree to.

As you've probably figured out from our warrior movements, we will be exploring northwards next. We'll be crossing a patch of open terrain next turn and wanted to ask if you had seen any barbarians or animals in the area? Have you explored much in this direction already? As we're going to notify eachother about contact with other teams, we think it would make sense for us to send our scouting units in different directions. What's your thoughts on this?

We have been doing some speculations about the map, based on what we have seen so far in our scouting, and we're wondering if you have come up with some speculations? We definitely agree that it would be a good idea if we pool knowledge on our surroundings together. If we could pit together our information we may be able to figure out a pattern to where the other teams are so we can scout as efficiently as possible with the goal of meeting the other teams as quickly as possible.

Caledorn, on behalf of Team CFC

 

[Caledorn]

Just for the record, to make this easier (especially for me, as it's troublesome to go through all these pages everytime I look for a draft or something), I have created this thread. In that thread you can always find the latest version of any draft we are discussing. When I update the draft that we're currently working on, I'll directlink the draft in this thread instead of posting it here.

For the record, I would prefer that we do this with all the teams, so we have an easy and quick way to read through the communications without having to go through several pages of comments, suggestions, thoughts etc - but I didn't want to spam the forum making all those threads right away, so I suggest we make them as the need arises.