Foreign Policy: RealmsBeyond

[talonschild]

Just noticed that when this thread is the most recently posted in, it shows up in the public forum. Guess everyone has figured out we've met RealmsBeyond. Ah well.

The bear should come up for justification if they ask us not to come near. And if we say, "no further than the oasis", should we perhaps post a warrior where cavscout's border city is? Or even quickly build a city there?

 

[Aivoturso]

I think it is polite. It signals that we've got their message and are active in checking for response.

 

[Aivoturso]

Just noticed that when this thread is the most recently posted in, it shows up in the public forum. Guess everyone has figured out we've met RealmsBeyond. Ah well.

No worries. It only shows if you have access to the subforum. Try when you're not logged in.

 

[2metraninja]

Yes, no one should be able to see it. The most one can see is if he checks "Mark this forum read" then it shows no new posts. With refreshing, they can see when someone posts new post in the whole ISDG2012 sub-forum and if there is no new posts in the visible areas, they can know we posted something somewhere in our private sub-forum.

About the current situation, I see one very big plus for us. We find them and not the opposite They must be annoyed at least

 

[talonschild]

Which is why more explorers are of paramount importance

 

[Aivoturso]

I think that we should also start thinking what our medium/long term plan is with RB (aside from not letting them win). Meeting RB first makes things a bit complicated. If we had free choice my preference would be to ensure that RB and German team are first ones to drop out the competition. However, I believe in longer term it is more beneficial to live peacefully with most of our neighbours. I believe also that we have best chance of having an agreement with the teams that we meet early on. So I am inclined to suggest we aim for at least warm relationship with RB.

 

[Caledorn]

Please be advised that I am planning to get drunk tonight. In other words, if a response comes from RB tonight I will not be available to respond to it before tomorrow. So if there is something urgent that needs to be responded to tonight, I hope someone can do that on our behalf.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[2metraninja]

I think that we should also start thinking what our medium/long term plan is with RB (aside from not letting them win). Meeting RB first makes things a bit complicated. If we had free choice my preference would be to ensure that RB and German team are first ones to drop out the competition. However, I believe in longer term it is more beneficial to live peacefully with most of our neighbours. I believe also that we have best chance of having an agreement with the teams that we meet early on. So I am inclined to suggest we aim for at least warm relationship with RB.

With such a neighbor, I would say we keep our guard high and not let ourselves fall behind. I think they will do the same and try to avoid early wars as much as possible. However, with their stance "NAPs are no good" they can find themselves quite isolated and deprived from close friends. Which can be only good for us.

Another thing is to watch out for one thing they are really proud of and I can bet 1 to 5 beers they will try this game too - The Pink Dot city style. They used that with great success in the last ISDG and they even believed the term is "RB made" (which is of course not true - it have CFC origin ). What this Pink Dot means is city placed in provocative manner to grab/deny good land to the opponent. I would be happy to miss this part, but we must have this in mind too.

However, early wars in my opinion are to be avoided at all costs!!! We have our land, we can develop it, we know ho to play and we should not spoil our chances in the long run by planning ancient war without serious reason/ally.

Please be advised that I am planning to get drunk tonight. In other words, if a response comes from RB tonight I will not be available to respond to it before tomorrow. So if there is something urgent that needs to be responded to tonight, I hope someone can do that on our behalf.

LOL, have a good time Cal, and take one good advice from a 20+ years veteran in getting wasted - you can save yourself a lot of the pain in the next day if you just remember to do something in the night before going to bed. Drink 1-2 liters juice or water, take 1-2 aspirins and few of each vitamins you can find at home Believe me, in the morning you will be times better than the usual tearing hangover. Enjoy.

 

[Caledorn]

Here's the response from Team RB - which is all I can do tonight. I think this can wait until tomorrow with a response, but I must say I am very pleased with the response!

Team CFC:

Meeting Team CFC in this wilderness is a stroke of pure luck. We too are happy to see you so close. As you have freely volunteered contact information, we feel honour bound to return the favour. You are our first and only contact.

"harsh words" - bah, I don't remember any harsh words. Even if there were some ... they were just friendly discussions regarding game set up and are long forgotten. We are here to play a nice and fun game of Civ to the best of our ability.

We accept your offer of a NAP until turn 100 (which we take to mean the NAP expires at the beginning of turn 100). The term "NAP" is thrown around a lot in these games but rarely defined. For now, we will assume the narrowest definition: no actions which would cause war to be declared in-game (i.e., attacking units or violating borders).

We hope your warrior hasn't had too much trouble reaching us. We saw a lion on the tile one west of your warrior on turn 26, and there have been both lions and panthers prowling our borders.

Team RB

You guys go ahead and discuss a bit so I have something to work with tomorrow.

And thank you, 2metra, for the good advice Glad to know we have a veteran around

 

[Aivoturso]

The answer is quite positive. However, I'm bit concerned that RB did not mention our wish to discuss the borders at all. With the narrow interpretation of NAP not agreeing on any tentative borders is like an open invitation to a settling race.

OT:

Spoiler :

LOL, have a good time Cal, and take one good advice from a 20+ years veteran in getting wasted - you can save yourself a lot of the pain in the next day if you just remember to do something in the night before going to bed. Drink 1-2 liters juice or water, take 1-2 aspirins and few of each vitamins you can find at home Believe me, in the morning you will be times better than the usual tearing hangover. Enjoy.

It's mostly the water. Nastiest hangover symptoms are from dehydration. People tend to forget to dring when getting drunk. Of course aspirins help too but they actually work better when taken in the morning assuming you're able to keep them in Oh, and have nice night out.

 

[Bowsling]

Does anyone know who wrote this? It has a very distinctive style, and could be telling as to who is in charge of diplomacy.

 

[YossarianLives]

@Bowsling: I can't tell who might have written it. What I do remember is that in their sign-up thread, Kyan had volunteered to be the main diplo person, and said he enjoyed having the role in the last ISDG. However, a few weeks back he wrote a post on RB saying he will be taking a break from Civ for awhile, worked out who would cover his games, etc. I haven't seen him post since then, so maybe they have had to come up with a new Diplo leader? Based on the fact that Ruff Hi sent the initial acknowledgement, I'm guessing maybe it's him?

Team CFC:

Meeting Team CFC in this wilderness is a stroke of pure luck. We too are happy to see you so close. As you have freely volunteered contact information, we feel honour bound to return the favour. You are our first and only contact.

Hmm, I had to go back and check, but we never mentioned being "so close" to them in our message. 31 turns for contact could actually be pretty far away, though we do inform them that we are neighbors, so maybe that's where they're getting that. Also, I wonder if we should take the "honour bound" statement to mean that they wouldn't give up this info if they didn't have to, or that they would be honourable allies?

"harsh words" - bah, I don't remember any harsh words. Even if there were some ... they were just friendly discussions regarding game set up and are long forgotten. We are here to play a nice and fun game of Civ to the best of our ability.

Glad to hear they feel this way! I don't think those pre-game discussions should have any influence on whether or not we want RB as long-term allies.

We accept your offer of a NAP until turn 100 (which we take to mean the NAP expires at the beginning of turn 100). The term "NAP" is thrown around a lot in these games but rarely defined. For now, we will assume the narrowest definition: no actions which would cause war to be declared in-game (i.e., attacking units or violating borders).

Well, they proved me wrong here. Obviously, a big ISDG is much different than a typical PB or PBEM, and they're smart enough not to isolate themselves so much, so it does make sense that they'd agree to a NAP in this game even if they tend to avoid them in internal games. It is too bad they didn't mention the border agreement, and only took the "narrowest definition" of NAP. Hopefully they're not going to use this to try to "Pink Dot" us, but two can play at that game! I was holding back judgement on refocusing our expansion plans to the west, but maybe that is a good idea after all...

We hope your warrior hasn't had too much trouble reaching us. We saw a lion on the tile one west of your warrior on turn 26, and there have been both lions and panthers prowling our borders.

Team RB

Actually, we were chased right up to your borders by a bear! Don't mind us as we skirt your borders, we're just trying to avoid being eaten!

OT:

Have fun tonight Caledorn!

 

[cav scout]

As far as a pink-dot city goes I think we are pretty safe. We have some geographical features that pretty clearly define our boundary (in my mind at least) and limit expansion towards each other.

The area in play is the bottle neck around the wine/stone. I'm pretty sure we can beat RB if we place our fourth city there.

If we want to throw RB off a little bit as to which direction we are located we could say "We are being chased up there by a bear. He is right on our tail." This would imply that we are located to their south so they might think about placing a pink-dot in that direction.

And I think it makes sense that they want the NAP, because if not we could start choking their capital and pillage a few resources. This would completely upset their early game snowball and foil all the gambits they are going for like the Oracle.

 

[2metraninja]

If we want to throw RB off a little bit as to which direction we are located we could say "We are being chased up there by a bear. He is right on our tail." This would imply that we are located to their south so they might think about placing a pink-dot in that direction.

Great idea, Cav.

And I think it makes sense that they want the NAP, because if not we could start choking their capital and pillage a few resources. This would completely upset their early game snowball and foil all the gambits they are going for like the Oracle.

Yes, absolutely they are those who need the NAP most. In fact our warrior is at their gates and not the opposite. I think they would have acted/reacted quite different if their warrior was at the gates of Indira.

 

[2metraninja]

The answer is quite positive.

And yes, I am surprised by the simple, yet positive things which the message says.

About the "harsh words", it was absolute mistake at first we mention them at all. It sounded as if we are nervous about this and we think day and night about it. Of course what is said before the game stays there and we move on to the real game. It is completely different matter that it cant be removed at all, so our minds and relations to be spotless as newborn, but we have time to think about it.

 

[YossarianLives]

Should we send RB a short message to let them know we've received their email, similar to the one we got from them?

 

[Sommerswerd]

@ Yossarian - I dont think that is necessary. It can wait until Caledorn comes back

@ 2metra and cavscout - Mentioning that there was no bad blood or bad feelings was critical and here is why... it actually involves the point I wanted to make to cavscout:

We can not, should not, must not tell lies. Alliances are built upon trust, openhandedness, generosity and transparency, not tricks, lies, deceptions and half-truths. RB is the closest civ and we met them first. We would be fools not to realize that our best bet is to become BFFs quick, fast, and in a hurry. The sooner we have a strong alliance in place the sooner we can start elimminating the ones outside of our alliance.

2metra is absolutely right that an ancient war would mean almost certain defeat with this many opponents. If we were only playing against 3 or maybe even 5 but not 8 opponents and not this strong of competition.

So what does that mean? It means that we are not going to war with RB. We are going to ally with them. Since we are going to ally with them, we need to share info with them and be truthful with them. If we say (or imply) we are south when we are east that is a lie. At least that is how they will interperet it when they find out... and that makes us seem tricksy and false, it makes it seem like we cant be trusted to be honest with them. We would only hide our location because we dont trust them and we are planning to trick or surprise them somehow. But if that is what we are doing then we can not hope to be allies, can we?

And That is why it was important to get that past bad bood behind us in the open. Let them hear us say it and let them as well say aloud "There are no hard feelings, past is past, we are ready to be friends." That way there can be no suspicion from anyone on the team... theirs or ours. No secret angry Blubmuz's holding a grudge that he will use to strike when at last he is in control of the helm. Sure the experienced ones know that all harsh talk is forgiven when the game starts, but what about the newer ones? They may outnumber the experienced and be determined to get revenge. This way, everyone has said openly that all is clean and clear in our relations.

So now there should be no obstacle to forming an alliance.

This is what we should say to them about the border thing... Something like this:

Hey Team RB,

Of course we all know about Pink Dot and we all know how to do the thing where we make a NAP and then race to settle all these provocative cities as close to the other guy as possible, claim all the resources, etc. We are not going to do that to you, and we hope that you are not going to do that to us. We think the best thing is to set a simple border rule now so we can focus on settling optimal cities rather than provocative ones.

On that note, there is a single source of stone that is right between us. Obviously the stone is there to make us fight. So lets agree not to settle to claim that stone until we have had a full discussion on how to share it or find a second source, etc. The bottom line is we talk about cities that we settle in each others direction before settling them. What are your thoughts on this?

@ Caledorn - Have fun, drink one for me and I will drink one for you... Also 2metra is absolutely right about hangover-busting. What taking the 2-3 ibuproffen/asprin/acetominefen does is keep you from feeling any searing headache when you wake, even if you are a little dehydrated. Works like a charm

 

[talonschild]

I relished the thought of utterly obliterating RB. Since that would only really be viable if we planned to turn on all our allies - Conquest victory - I guess that ain't happening. Provided, of course, that I'm right in thinking that eight is too many to conquer in 469 turns.

But that is immaterial. I was rather hoping to implement cavscout's border city proposal. Again, presently seems unlikely.


Please excuse the lament. While I am uncomfortable with the sudden about-face in our relations, I of course. Bow to the experience of the team. Still tastes like diabetes, though.

 

[cav scout]

Geez Sommers, why don't we tell them about the gold too and promise not to claim it either while we are at it?

Sure the experienced ones know that all harsh talk is forgiven when the game starts, but what about the newer ones? They may outnumber the experienced and be determined to get revenge.

I disagree with this little bit of "experienced players/new players" rhetoric here. Someone who has been trashed talked is like a woman scorned, she might forgive but she will never forget.

There are many other teams in the game and some might turn out to be far more suitable allies for our purposes.

Oh and saying the bear chased us up there is not a lie. We are moving northwest at the moment on the defensive terrain. If they make certain assumptions or get it in their head that we are to the south of them then that might buy us the time we need to get the stone first.

 

[whb]

If we say (or imply) we are south when we are east that is a lie.

However,
"Thanks for your info about the lions and panthers. There is also a bear 2sq behind our warrior (to the SE)"
is truthful.

Depending on their knowledge of the lie of the land, I think they'll infer more from how our warrior moves. Do they know whether the water to their E is bridged at the top or the bottom? I don't think we're bound to let them know.

Ok, some mad-as-bats theorising on the "don't assume they're necessarily being honest with us" line follows. (As regardless of whether there is bad blood, they would always effusively assure us that there isn't. Placate the bear don't bait it. You don't want the first sign your neighbour isn't being as honest as they say to be when they sink your exploring workboat 40 turns into its journey...)

Given we met their capital not their unit, I think it's a fair guess that they sent their exploring warrior west or north. I also suspect they might not be being totally honest about us being the first team they've met. With such an early UU, they'd need to know the location of a nearby enemy to attack quick-smart. I think it's 50-50 that they have already met someone. Though it's possible they've been unlucky and their explorer just hasn't quite hit someone in their target direction yet (but I'd expect it to very soon).

Something I wonder is whether they'd have circled their terrain as we did before venturing out in one direction. If they went W first, and saw good land (settleable, good city2 site), would they have kept going with the intent of meeting someone sooner.