Foreign Policy: RealmsBeyond

[Caledorn]

That plan has my full support, Yossarian. Much cleaner than just going ahead and settling, and we retain our honour even if they have not.

 

[2metraninja]

RB has voiced a clear preference that the oasis marks the border

Interesting. I did not knew we had border agreement in place. And if we actually had and I missed it somehow, to me now it is a real wonder how RB did settled east than the Oasis.

 

[YossarianLives]

I still don't consider that we had any agreement in place, but even so, I see this as a slap in our collective face that should be addressed. Here's a rough draft for a message we can send them. Comments are appreciated, but I think we need to act quickly since the city has already been up for a few turns and we don't want our indignation to sound faked.

Realms Beyond,

We have been debating how to react to your recent city placement of “Brick by Brick”. Since we met 50 turns ago, we have tried to get a border agreement in place with your team, but you have not seemed interested in having such a discussion. Until recently, we were giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it now appears that you have simply been delaying so you can place cities that are clearly on our side of the mid-way point. We were very clear that the Oasis was the mid-way point between our teams, and that we considered any city placement on the opposite side of the Oasis as an aggressive plant. We even went to you when we were considering a city in the vicinity, even though it was clearly on our side, and gave you detailed information about our planned location. We consider it a violation of our trust that you would go and settle a city a full three tiles east of this mid-way marker without so much as a word to us. We’re not saying you needed permission, but at least have the same courtesy towards us as we had towards you.

We think our relations up to this point have been fruitful and fair. In order to continue our friendship, we insist on an immediate border agreement. We had considered the Oasis tile as a fair dividing line, but now that you have crossed it so egregiously, we will need compensation to the south. There is a three-peak mountain range on your southwestern border. We maintain that everything south of the northernmost peak, and east of the westernmost peak, is within our sphere of influence, and you will not plant any cities in this area. That means that in the south we get one additional western tile then we would have otherwise requested. This is more than fair to make up for the three extra tiles that you have taken in the north.

We hope you see that we are being reasonable, and swiftly agree to our proposal so we can maintain our strong and beneficial friendship.

-Team CFC

 

[talonschild]

 

[Caledorn]

Excellently written, Yossarian. I support that message fully.

 

[2metraninja]

I think we can honestly say that their lake city meant we had to shuffle our settling locations around a bit.

This line of whb sounds simple and yet ingenious. This is what summarize my feelings too. I though we never had clear agreement about the border with RB. They settled without asking us east of the Oasis. Either we play it insulted and raise noise, which only shows us as whiners and incapable of doing something actually, or we accept the situation and act as it is only a small bump in our common business we have to find a plain workaround. Namely settle a bit different from what we though until now.

Smart men dont whine or cry "foul". We must play on, learn and be better prepared next time. And do what is best for us in the changed situation.

edit: crosspost with Yossa. Will read and comment.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I would not send the current note as is. Let me explain... Writing now

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think it is also reasonable to look at the Oasis not as a simple East-West Border but as a sort of diagonal North-South border. If you look at how RB has settled, I honestly think they will respond to our complaints... by saying they imagined the Oasis to establish a sort of diagonal border like the one Yossarian drew. In fact, in line with this thinking, in our border proposal, I would extend the black line continually Southwest taking the whole southern ithsmus for us.

TBH we should really be trying to take both Ithmuses as quickly as possible to establish culture that covers all the chokepoints... Remember the Map is toroidal

Again, I like the idea of settling where we want, while we send them the message asking to settle on a border agreement. This way we are covered both ways. I agree with 2metra that we don't want to be whiners, but I think cavscout will agree that we also don't want to come across as pushovers. We dont want them to expect us to be asking them for permission on where to settle. What if they say no? Then we can't settle there? Or what? They DoW us? I think not.

If we send them a note saying "hey guys we are settling in X place, just wanted to let you know since it close to the Oasis, still on "Our side" but just letting you know", our security/viability is served, our honor will be covered and our ego will also be covered. Their lake city is clearly on "Their" landmass, while our Ithsmus city will be in more of a gray area. Not theirs by any stretch of the imagination, but not clearly ours either.

I find that with such land it is best to just claim it first letting them know a teensy bit in advance (like 1 turn) that we are doing so. Anyone remember Nabaxica? That city turned out to be the most strategically advantageous city in the last MTDG, and almost certainly contributed in a large way to us winning the game. Maybe some of you also remember TKY? That city also proved to be the deciding point that led to the decisive ending conflict of the game. Let's not be on the losing end of another Nabaxica/TKY situation...

 

[2metraninja]

Had read it. I have only one comment. Keep calm and play the game. Whatever we say, it wont change much. We cant risk war and without being ready to use a sword, we must not rattle swords or use harsh words. And if we dont say anything, it will sound like whining. 1 tile east or west is nothing. Playing our game and planning for the time when we will have something to say, this is what I would do.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Sommerswerd's message is simpler and cleaner, while also sending a stronger message. It avoids sounding whiny or accusatory, while also not weakening ourself to the point of asking them where to settle. Their city placement can justify the diagonal line theory. If they try to argue, we can have misunderstood their settling patterns to have meant that the line was diagonal. I missed Sommer's diplomatic insight. Glad to back in the demo game community.

I support modifying the message we send to Realms Beyond. I like the feel of Sommer's message better and I like the position that it puts us in. I really believe the diplo we do right now with Realms Beyond will have far reaching impacts on the game.

 

[2metraninja]

Crossposted with Sommers. Reading now. And great to see time has come to test our nerves and playing strength after the booooring first turns where the biggest decisions to be made are do we move warrior left or right

 

[2metraninja]

Nabaxica I know very well As for TKY, I dont know at all.

 

[YossarianLives]

Glad to have your input Sommerswerd!

I don't really understand what you think we should send to RB, though. Are you suggesting a revision to the message I posted? That's what it sounds like based on SilentConfusion's reply. But my reading of your message is that we should stay silent now, and just send a short message one or two turns before we settle our city in that area, wherever we want to settle it.

Ok, reading it again, it sounds like you think it's a good idea to open up border discussions again, and let them know that the mountain range represents a diaganol line that will act as our border. That would actually give us a lot more land then the message I was proposing, so it would be great if that works, but I'm not sure RB will go for it. Do we say anything about their recent city placement? Would we be in a stronger position if they reject that border proposal, as opposed to the proposal I suggested?

Just to be clear, Sommerswerd is absolutely a better diplomat than myself, so I would give his opinion more weight than my own. I'm just not entirely sure how you're suggesting we proceed. Do you think you could write up a draft message to RB, to give me a better idea of what you are suggesting?

 

[Aivoturso]

If we send them a note saying "hey guys we are settling in X place, just wanted to let you know since it close to the Oasis, still on "Our side" but just letting you know", our security/viability is served, our honor will be covered and our ego will also be covered.

Ego be damned! I've seen several games lost due to such misguided concept as ego (mostly other games than civ though). In the end, winning the game will heal all the tiny blows to ego that we may suffer along the way. Let's keep our cool and if we have to swallow our ego at times, so be it.

BTW, this rant is not against you Sommers in any way. Nothing wrong keeping our ego satisfied if it happens along the way as your suggestion does. But I felt it is important to raise this point before we as a team decide that it is perfectly OK to base our startegic decisions or diplomacy on foolish notions like ego or petty grudges.

Oh, and I agree with Sommers completely. It's better to make our move and explain it as we go. We don't win anything by complaining or demanding at this point.

 

[2metraninja]

For me naming or reserving artificial borders dont work well. Possession is 90% of the law. Let us settle this city to set the border and short before this inform them. What they will say? Nothing. If they say something, we have argument with them already settling east of the Oasis.

 

[SilentConfusion]

For me naming or reserving artificial borders dont work well. Possession is 90% of the law. Let us settle this city to set the border and short before this inform them. What they will say? Nothing. If they say something, we have argument with them already settling east of the Oasis.

Yes, this is how I interpret it as well. Sorry for calling Sommerswerd's plan a message. It is more a diplomatic strategy.

As I understand it it involves us:
1. not sending a message about their Eastern city.
2. restating the need for settling plan
3. waiting until we are a few turns from settling one (preferably two cities) in that area before sending them a message, saying "Hey guys, we are settling city X. It's still on our side of the oasis, but just letting you know because it is close to the oasis."
4. if they want to argue, then and only then do we mention the misunderstanding we had about the dividing line because Brick by Brick was far to the east of the oasis.

 

[YossarianLives]

Thanks for the clarification SilentConfusion. That makes perfect sense to me now.

In that case, we probably don't need to send them anything at this point. We can wait for their next message to us, and then bring up the border discussion again in our reply to them. Does that sound good to everyone?

Hopefully we'll have our next settler(s) en route by then, so we'll really just be letting them know that we're settling the rest of that area east of the oasis.

 

[talonschild]

That sounds about right. And I'd stress let's hurry.

 

[2metraninja]

As I said, we can have 1 settler ready to settle the Stone/Fish/Corn/Oasis city in just 2 turns from Daiva (+travel time) and we can have our next settler in 4-5 turns (+bigger travel time from Mantra), but for me it makes more sense to settle the best spot and just later (like 10 turns or so) fill in the gap. We can also have a missioner in place for it to pop borders just after some 5-6 turns.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes it seems like we are all on the same page now (In terms of understanding my intentions)

@ Aivo - I agree... Ego be damned... ego is trivial, petty and has nothing to do with us winning.

When I use the word "ego" I am talking about our ego in terms of the perception we have in the minds of the other teams, in this case, RB. THAT has a potentially large impact on our ability to win the game. It is important that RB does not regard us as vassals or pushovers because that WILL afect our chances of winning. Weak is fine... As 2metra always points out, it is fine for your enemies to underestimate you...

But we don't want them thinking they can just bully us around taking what they want and leaving us with scraps.