Foreign Policy: Spanish Apolyton

[YossarianLives]

Hmm, I see it as taking full advantage of the benefits that this agreement does give to us, but I understand that it might be perceived as overly aggressive. I'm sure the Spaniards use this type of agreement all the time, so it would be obvious to their team whether such a reservation would be seen as hostile or keeping in line with the agreement. I guess we'll know more once they reserve their first city.

So how about this revision:

...
We appreciate getting first choice in our agreement. We would like to reserve the Floodplains tile 4 east and 2 south from your Gold an area on our side of the mountain range, south of your Gold city. The exact location is 6 tiles west and 2 tiles south of your Gold resource. The city we plan on settling here will claim our own Gold resource.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC

 

[whb]

Um, it's west, isn't it?

 

[YossarianLives]

Sure is. Fixed now.

 

[Bowsling]

Haha, that reminds me of the Quatronian dealings with the Mavericks:

To Team Q,

There has been a rumor in cities of vast Mavericks empire of the warrior wandering around the jungle in proximity of our land. These rumors happen to be the true we realize now.

Over past couple of centuries the Maverick people reached and asked for alliance with Team Q and almost all of our pleas fell into deaf ears. Therefore the free people of Maverick empire agreed upon next statement:

The warrior west of our city is to turn around and head west right now. Should this warrior make a step in any other direction we will consider this to be open act of hostility by your people and we will consider that move as a declaration of war by team Q upon our people.

We are tired of being ignored by your leaders and this request is an ultimatum.

You have 24 hours to respond to this message, you have been warned!

The destiny of our future relations lays in your hands.

On behalf of Maverick people
Ahmedhadzi, Junior Diplomat.

They meant to say east, of course. But they said west, so we went west!

 

[Caledorn]

If you are able to get the message translated to Spanish today, Yossarian, I think it's ready to be sent if noone has any more suggestions or objections

 

[YossarianLives]

Ok, here's the Spanish translation:

Pedimos disculpas por tardar tanto en nuestra respuesta. Si necesitan comunicarse con nosotros rapido, por favor mandame una mensaje por Gtalk, a caledorn, o a YossarianLives, quien habla español, por Gtalk, a vhinderl. Podemos llevar mensajes a nuestro equipo y regresar con una respuesta rapida cuando es necesario.

Gracias por las clarificaciones, estamos de acuerdo con todo que escribieron. Esperamos que esto sera la fundacion de una amistad fuerte y larga.

Les agradecemos por dejarnos escojer primero. Queremos reservar una area en nuestro lado de las montañas, al sur de su ciudad con oro. El lugar exacto donde pensamos colocar nuestra ciudad esta 6 espacios al oeste y 2 espacios al sur de su oro. Este ciudad nos va dar nuestro propio oro.

Esperamos poder recibir su respuesta.

Caledorn de parte del equipo CFC

And the English original:

Spoiler :

We apologize for the delay in our response. If you ever need to reach us quickly, please feel free to send me a message on GTalk at caledorn, or our Spanish speaker, YossarianLives, on GTalk at vhinderl. We can get messages to our team and get back to you with quick responses when needed.

Thank you for the clarifications on our agreement, we can agree with everything you wrote. We hope this is the foundation of a strong and lasting friendship.

We appreciate getting first choice in our agreement. We would like to an area on our side of the mountain range, south of your Gold city. The exact location is 6 tiles west and 2 tiles south of your Gold resource. The city we plan on settling here will claim our own Gold resource.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC

 

[YossarianLives]

Above message sent to Spanish Poly.

 

[YossarianLives]

Wow, lightening-fast turnaround by the Spaniards:

correct. I got caledorn in my gtalk as Magno
No problem with the delay, its normal this days. We prefer to keep using this email as many of us had the passw and so any can read and answer urgent mails.

We take notice of that city in that gold. It will be a nice city. We are not planning new cities in this zone so far, so we keep our chance of booking for later. As we talk you had 15 turns to put the city, you had now obligation to do so, so if you change your mind or priorities. If this 15 turns goes and no city is there we 'potencialy' could book this zone if really want it.. its not our priority a second gold resourse, its just clarifying what we undertand of this deal.
If you found the city or the 15 turns goes you can book other place in any moment

Unfortunately, they only sent the English translation and not their Spanish original.

Only one thing stood out to me as surprising. They said that as soon as we plant the city, or if we let the 15 turns expire, then we can "book other place in any moment", which seems to mean we are not alternating first they reserve a spot, then we reserve a spot. Rather, we are only allowed to reserve one spot per team at a time.

Here's our message they're responding to, just for reference:

Spoiler :

We apologize for the delay in our response. If you ever need to reach us quickly, please feel free to send me a message on GTalk at caledorn, or our Spanish speaker, YossarianLives, on GTalk at vhinderl. We can get messages to our team and get back to you with quick responses when needed.

Thank you for the clarifications on our agreement, we can agree with everything you wrote. We hope this is the foundation of a strong and lasting friendship.

We appreciate getting first choice in our agreement. We would like to an area on our side of the mountain range, south of your Gold city. The exact location is 6 tiles west and 2 tiles south of your Gold resource. The city we plan on settling here will claim our own Gold resource.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC

Also, I'm removing our email addresses so our inboxes don't get spammed up after the threads get unlocked (I think that's why people don't spell out their full email addresses, right?)

 

[Caledorn]

Thank you for translating and sending off the message, Yossarian

Their response was indeed lightning quick. Some thoughts I have:

* They have several people reading their emails, just as we do, but they also leave the option open for anyone to respond if there is anything urgent. This sends a strong signal of a team that either is, or wants to be perceived as, unified in how they are playing the game.

* They state that our reserved spot for a city is a good spot, thus saying that they have scouted that area (which may or may not be correct, see my below comment about language difficulties here).

* They state that we are obligated to settle on that spot within 15 turns, which means that if we settle another city before settling that city, we may inadvertently break the deal with them.

* Communicating with them is severely difficult because of the language/understanding barrier, which strikes me as very worrisome. Even with Yossarian's great help with the translations, there are details and nuances we don't really understand in their original suggestion, as we now see by this last message. I too did indeed think that the 15 turn thing was an alternating thing between our teams, but they now clearly state that is not the case. Both teams may reserve a spot at any time with the only rule that must not have any currently reserved spots pending.

Baseline: This is going to be tricky. Even more tricky than I thought.

 

[Caledorn]

One thing I believe we should do asap, is ask them straight out if we are obliged to found only the reserved gold city before founding any other cities. We really need to do that before settling copper city, as it is quite important that we do not come across as deal breakers to these guys. Their close proximity, their former experiences with being betrayed in an ISDG, and their UU all means we should do our utmost at nourishing a healthy relationship with them - even though it is a tricky and difficult situation to deal with communicationwise.

 

[Bowsling]

Yes, I agree.

 

[2metraninja]

I am a bit afraid that this will give them ideas. Reminds me in the army when someone asked: Sergeant, with helmets or without helmets we are supposed to run those 10 kilometers?" and the sergeant said: "Yeah, sure, put your helmets on, bastаrds!" LOL

 

[Caledorn]

I am a bit afraid that this will give them ideas. Reminds me in the army when someone asked: Sergeant, with helmets or without helmets we are supposed to run those 10 kilometers?" and the sergeant said: "Yeah, sure, put your helmets on, bastаrds!" LOL

This may indeed be a point. But are we willing to risk us being perceived as dealbreakers by them over giving them ideas on this one, considering their UU and the risks of an early war with them being our closest neighbours?

 

[2metraninja]

Running with helmets is terrible. So is we not being able to settle our gold city for another 15 turns if they say that all cities counts. But didint we asked already, more specifically didnt we told them that we consider the deal in power only when settling cities towards each-other? Did they gave us clear answer on that?

In unclear cases I consider it easier and safer to act and then ask for forgiveness if you wronged something than to ask for permission in first place.

 

[Caledorn]

Okay, then I suggest people voice their opinions on this matter asap. We have little time until we settle copper city. Do we wish to take the chance for forgiveness if we have misinterpreted the deal, or do we ask them?

I'm totally undecided, so I publicly abstain for now.

 

[whb]

I think we just state what we understand it to be. Tell them straight out that there will be another city settled in a non-booked spot well away from their borders too. I don't see that the deal should be defined by how they happen to interpret it as opposed to how we happen to interpret it.

 

[Caledorn]

I think we just state what we understand it to be. Tell them straight out that there will be another city settled in a non-booked spot well away from their borders too. I don't see that the deal should be defined by how they happen to interpret it as opposed to how we happen to interpret it.

In this case it's better to just settle the copper city, and then if they react to it apologize in retrospect as 2metraninja suggests. I do agree that the deal should not be interpreted in their way, and that if we have misunderstood this term on their behalf then they have not explained it well enough to us.

 

[RegentMan]

I don't really like this arrangement with the Spanish team, and their team isn't winning any points with me. Let's be sure to get our gold and copper cities up next, with the gold first as per the deal (?).

 

[talonschild]

Better to get Copper in my opinion. And it's not toward them. I don't see any problem, besides a fear of vengefulness that I'm sure will not lead to war. Quite.

 

[1889]

Settle copper for sure. We already asked the Spanish for clarification and didn't get much help so forget that. Strange that they answered so fast. That wasn't really a critical message we sent. Maybe their team isn't very active so there isn't much need for discussion?