Foreign Policy: RealmsBeyond

[YossarianLives]

Hmm, I guess RB didn't like our directions.

Spoiler :

You can see in this picture that the Germans are also exploring deeper into our territory.

 

[YossarianLives]

RB responded to our email earlier today.

Caledorn,

Thanks for letting me know! We're going to post over at CFC about this shortly, so hopefully we can get a discussion & vote going. We're just ironing out a proposal so that it's clear and hopefully acceptable to everyone.

Thanks!
scooter

Interestingly, it appears that they have just been waiting on our approval to move forward with this. They have already posted publically about changing the rule (I will copy that post into the timer discussion thread). I think this speaks volumes about how they still view us as a main force in this game, and felt that this proposal would have been unsuccessful without our support. I can only read that as a good sign.

I don't think we need to address this again in our next message to them. Instead, I think we should focus on how Ambassador Caledorn will be paying them a visit shortly, and maybe bring up a border agreement once again. It might be an ideal time now since they seem to be very happy with us for agreeing to reduce the turn timer.

 

[classical_hero]

Do we have a border plan with them?

 

[2metraninja]

Do we have a border plan with them?

Last thing we talked about was we proposed that no one of us settles past the Oasis as he is the midway between our starting locations and they replied they have no intention of settling provocative towards us. So far both teams keep to this semi-official statements.

 

[YossarianLives]

Message received from RB:

Caledorn,

I just wanted to inform your team that we met CivPlayers this turn. They are to our west - across the lake that we have. We'll be sending them a message shortly, but I wanted you guys to be in the loop right away about our new contact.

Thanks!
scooter

 

[YossarianLives]

So, possible draft response to RB:

Hi Scooter,

Thanks for that information! Between the two of us, I think we've been able to locate everyone but CivFr. It seems like your initial map speculation was pretty accurate, and we can fill in some of those blanks now that we know what position the other teams are in.

Let us know if you need new directions to the Spaniards. There is a mountain range blocking a direct route east, so you'll have to go a little north when you leave our borders in order to hit their borders. They've just planted a new city in our direction, so you will be able to contact them pretty quickly, if you'd like. Have you met UCiv, yet? They are located north of us, so we could give you directions to them if you would prefer.

We've had to keep most of our units at home to protect us from the barbs, but we were just able to send a chariot your way, so I'll be visiting you shortly. We got an earlier view of the land around your world-renowned Gold city, and we look forward to seeing how the rest of your land puts ours to shame.

See you soon!
Caledorn

 

[YossarianLives]

Above message sent, with one small change:

Hi Scooter,

Thanks for that information! Between the two of us, I think we've been able to locate everyone but CivFr. It seems like your initial map speculation was pretty accurate, and we can fill in some of those blanks now that we know what position the other teams are in.

Let us know if you need new directions to the Spaniards. There is a mountain range blocking a direct route east, so you'll have to go a little north when you leave our borders in order to hit their borders. They've just planted a new city in our direction, so you will be able to contact them pretty quickly, if you'd like. Have you met UCiv, yet? They are located north of us, so we could give you directions to them if you would prefer.

We've had to keep most of our units at home to protect us from the barbs, but we were just able to send a chariot your way, so I'll be visiting you shortly. We got an earlier view of the land around the world-renowned (and well-named) Mansa's Muse, and we look forward to seeing how the rest of your land puts ours to shame.

See you soon!
Caledorn

 

[YossarianLives]

Thanks Caledorn for posting the RB email.

Caledorn,

Well I guess making new contacts come in pairs, because we just met the Spanish team this turn. We stumbled upon their (well-promoted!) Impi near the floodplains to your east. That's sort of a threatening position to just sit fortified, so I hope they aren't causing you any trouble. I'm about to initiate contact with them and see where things go. Do they seem comfortable communicating in English? I ask because we have a couple Spanish speakers on our team, and I'm not sure if I should be drafting them into duty or not.

The Spanish Impi has moved to the FP just north of Lana. I expect that it will move into our borders next turn. In our response, I think we should ignore the part about the Spaniards giving us trouble, and just answer them about the Spanish speakers. I think it's fair to say that they get by fine in English, but we try to include a Spanish translation whenever possible.

If you could give directions towards UCiv, that would actually be great. Whether we seek out the Spanish borders or attempt to meet UCiv next is something our team is still in the process of deciding, but any directions you could provide would be super helpful.

Any directions we give them to UCiv will put them in fog for awhile, which might be a big turn-off since their scout can't fight barbs. I think it's sufficient to tell them this for now. If they still want directions, I think I see a path that will let them mostly 2-move, while landing mostly in jungle.

Please extend a hearty welcome to your chariot that has reached our borders! You'll be happy to know that the inside of our land is currently free of barbarians (knock on wood), so he should be very safe. We would be happy to direct you to CivPlayers if you'd like - you can get there pretty quick on our road network headed west. If you want more specific directions, let me know and I'll get those to you.

What do you guys think? Head straight through to CP, or stick around awhile and uncover all the RB cities? I'm inclined to get contact with CP as quickly as possible. Maybe a future unit can scope out their outlying cities later. My biggest concern was seeing how far towards us they settled, and now I want to get on to meeting other teams.

And as far as our own explorations, here's what we've uncovered so far:

Spoiler :

 

[2metraninja]

What do you guys think? Head straight through to CP, or stick around awhile and uncover all the RB cities?

To me this sounds like a veiled suggestion on their side to not go around in their territory too much and go to the straightest way out. I might be wrong of course, wont bet a beer on that. As for rational reasons, I want to meet other teams too. At the moment knowing exactly where and in what shape RB's cities are is not of great worth to us.

And no, they are not settled that far in our direction. More like in WPC direction. We will have a city just as close to the midway as theirs is in just 3-4 turns too or even earlier. Smart RBers use the war of WPC to their best - they get land even without the hassle of fighting an occupied opponent.

 

[talonschild]

I'd say we should get the directions and deviate only slightly. Like, 1 or 2 turns, tops. Let's get meeting our rivals, and backfill after.

 

[1889]

I'd say we should get the directions and deviate only slightly. Like, 1 or 2 turns, tops. Let's get meeting our rivals, and backfill after.

This is good advice.

 

[YossarianLives]

Hi Scooter,

We hope your dealings with Spanish Poly have started off well. I think they're pretty good with English, since they always send us messages in English, but we do try to include a Spanish translation when we can.

I'm not sure where CFC Welcome Wagon went, but the way to Uciv is mostly fogged and through the jungle. There's about four solid tiles of jungle and then you'll hit their southern borders. They're using an "Asterix the Gaul" theme.

We'd appreciate directions around your western lake to CivPlayers. We look forward to meeting them soon.

Caledorn / CFC

I'll send this in a little under 24 hours barring further comments / discussion.

 

[Caledorn]

That looks excellent, Yossarian Well done, as always!

 

[2metraninja]

I would remove the part where we tell them we include a Spanish version. The 2 possible outcomes of this are:
a/ RB dont think of it as necessary thing and they just miss it and SPAP think: "See, the nice CFC guys take their time and efforts to write a message to us on our language, where the RB are not so kind/diligent". Point for us and 1 point less for RB.
b/ RB think: "Oho, we will include Spanish version of our messages, how clever we are to do so while the so-so CFC guys would have never though of that." thus underestimating us. Underestimating an enemy is the first step towards defeat.

 

[YossarianLives]

Message sent, with the following change:

I think they're pretty good with English, since they always send us messages in English, but we do try to include a Spanish translation when we can.

 

[2metraninja]

Thanks, Yossa.

And directions to reach CP would be appreciated as it seems we reached the west end of RB culture this turn.

 

[YossarianLives]

Moving this discussion to the RB diplomacy thread (just the part about what we should tell RB. Discussion about where to settle the city should continue in the other thread)

As far as telling them in advance... This is a rare situation where I would prefer that we ask for "forgiveness rather than permission."

This is what we told them about settling locations near the Oasis. Any derivation from this may be seen upon as breaking a deal/promise, and I strongly advise against settling in any other spot than these, as they clearly stated they wished the oasis to be the spot defining the border between us:



They never gave any objection to any of these locations, and based on the diplomacy log in question, that is to be counted as an agreement to any of those 4 positions. If we suddenly settle 2 of the Oasis, we are going to break a deal.

I hate to get into "lawyer" mode, but I think that the chat with Scooter is non-binding. In my view, it was more of a courtesy to let them know what we were thinking, rather than anything that set our city placement in stone. That said, I totally understand Caledorn not wanting to look like he was lying or misleading RB, so maybe we should send them a clarification that we ultimately decided against settling the city that we told them we were considering several months ago, so to please disregard the potential city placements Caledorn had previously mentioned.

Of course we can argue the points that "No, you never gave us a formal response", but of course they keep track of our diplomatic conversations just as we do with it. In other words they will quickly be able to look this up, just as we have done, and see that "Ah. CFC breaks their agreements." And that may quickly lead to the though "Hey guys, this means that we are entitled to break the NAP with them if we wish, so let's sign a NAP with them, build up and pretend that we will attack WPC or the Germans, and then backstab them." I don't know if RB would play like that, but I am giving a fair warning here that if we are going to do this, we may:

1. Be regarded as dishonourable dogs, which may stain the entire reputation of every single member on Team CFC
2. Needlessly aggravate RB, even if they don't consider us dealbreakers, as they have clearly told us that they prefer the Oasis to be the definition of our border area
3. Get backstabbed in return, if RB plays by "eye for an eye" rules

Edit: Bottomline is that I am very much against settling 2 of the oasis to gain some advantage from corn/fish, when we have advocated strongly that we wish the oasis to set the border, RB has voiced a clear preference that the oasis marks the border, and we have given them a list of locations we wish to settle. If we send RB a message in advance asking them if settling 2 from the oasis is okay, and they respond positively to that, I have no objections on the other hand - and we would retain our honour and goodwill.

RB have already settled E of the Oasis with their lake city. Whatever we do, the oasis is no longer the border. I think we can honestly say that their lake city meant we had to shuffle our settling locations around a bit.

Ok, the more I think about this, the more I feel we need to send RB a message telling them that they have broken our trust. We let them know very clearly that we considered the Oasis a mid-way point that shouldn't be crossed. We went to them when we considered placing a city near the midway point, but clearly on our side. Then they go and plant a city a full 3 tiles on our side of the midway point without even notifying us. I'm not saying they needed our permission, but at least let us know what you're planning. Have the same courtesy we extended to you. With this groundwork set, we should demand that we finalize the border agreement that they have been delaying for 50+ turns, and propose the following as the only fair land split:

Spoiler :

Everything east and south of that mountain chain should be ours. If they concede 1 tile west of the oasis to the south, we will overlook their aggressive settlement and we can resume relations as normal

 

[cav scout]

Brilliant Yossarian

Right away I can see where we should place 3 cities:

1. Directly South of the oasis (gets corn, fish, oasis and blocks Western approach to isthmus).
2. West of the rice (gets rice, stone and blocks Northern approach to isthmus).
3. Plains hill SE of the wines (gets 3 wines, pigs and protects the approach to our capital).

Lets do this chaps!

 

[SilentConfusion]

I agree with cav_scout about the brilliance of Yossarian's suggestion. We should send something like that soon. I like cav_scout's city placement suggestions. The mountains are a nice natural barrier between us and Realms Beyond.

 

[talonschild]

I heartily support Yossarian's and cav's plans.