Foreign Policy: UniversCiv

[talonschild]

Huh. Okay. Glad that's resolved as happily as is reasonable to expect.

 

[RegentMan]

It's resolved to me in that I don't really want anything to do with these guys anymore. I don't care if them asking us to stay away was justified or not- the fact is they still went right next to our borders even though we did stayed away from theirs. It's just so obvious to abide by your own demands, both in Civ and in life. Let's just let the NAP expire and be on our way.

 

[Aivoturso]

Please, don't judge the guys based on misunderstanding. IMO, asking/demanding a visiting warrior to stay his distance as a precondition for negotiations is not an unreasonable request. It's too bad that we misunderstood their request to be a clause in the NAP deal. Honestly, I do believe that this was all unfortunate mix-up that occured mostly due to language barrier. I believe they did not expect us to stay away after we had NAP in effect. I would be willing to bet a beer on that. IMO, it'd be petty to hold a grudge due to an apparent miscommunication.

 

[talonschild]

I'm with Aivoturso. Given that the misunderstanding was ours, there is no reason not to work with them. The language barrier, though, will have to be uppermost in our minds.

 

[Bowsling]

It's not a misunderstanding of anything. It was clearly not part of the NAP agreement, rather, it was a simple request on their part that we keep away from their territory, which is understandable, given that we were walking around a settler and a few workers of theirs. If we didn't want them to look at Daivagati, we should have asked, and I'm sure they would have complied with our request.

 

[talonschild]

Well, some of us misunderstood it. And by some I mean me.

 

[1889]

So these guys are the lawyer type diplomats. They will comply with the letter of a deal as long as they can't find a loophole. I will find it very hard to trust them because any future agreements will have to be scrutinized carefully to spell out exactly what we expect in return.

 

[Bowsling]

I wouldn't say so.

If you want a treaty of non-aggression you may follow some clauses listed below:

not come too close from our borders
inform us about the approximate distance between our civs and your geographic location
inform us about the known existence of others civilizations on our continent

This was not "here are the mutual terms of our NAP agreement". This was "follow these clauses so that we know that you won't just turn around and choke us with a woodsman-ii warrior". As they said in their most recent message, they were very afraid that we would try to steal their worker.

Obviously it would be pointless for them to reciprocate on the former two points, and the first one was essentially a relic of when we had a warrior near them and a hasty offer of a NAP. I'm certain they would have no qualms if we moved a warrior up to their borders at this point in time.

 

[YossarianLives]

We showed very good faith when we agreed to the one-sided deal, and I don't see a great effort on their part to do the same. Also, they still haven't told us about any contacts. Technically it's not in the deal that they must share this info, but they say it is obvious that they would.

I do think we should remain friendly with them, as peace is in our best interest. I hope things turn around.

 

[RegentMan]

So these guys are the lawyer type diplomats. They will comply with the letter of a deal as long as they can't find a loophole. I will find it very hard to trust them because any future agreements will have to be scrutinized carefully to spell out exactly what we expect in return.

We showed very good faith when we agreed to the one-sided deal, and I don't see a great effort on their part to do the same.

I agree with these two.

I know it wasn't a negotiated deal that they stay away. However, they demanded limitations on our freedom to explore, and we went along with it. It is not unreasonable to expect them to do the same. Not only do they not, they fail to do so twice.

It'd be like you and I playing a sport. You accidentally knock me down and raise a hand and help me up. There's nothing in the rules that say you have to. Now later in the game I accidentally knock you down. You, on the floor, are thinking "Whoops! Oh well, here he comes to help me up..." and I wander away back to my team. I didn't break any rules, but it is common sense to return the favor. UniversCiv not having common sense isn't a great trait in someone I want a deal with.

I'm not advocating war or anything, but let the NAP expire and let the spider webs grow on our embassy. Let's see UniversCiv take the ball in diplomacy.

 

[Caledorn]

My latest draft is now pointless after their last message, so I will remove it. I think you should weigh whether a response is needed, and suggest a draft for what the response should be if we wish to respond, Bowsling.

 

[Caledorn]

If a response is to be sent, I will chime in that I agree with regentman on this one. A response could possibly contain something along the lines of that we hope they will respect that border agreement and that it would go a long way in restoring our faith in them. Just a suggestion though. As I wrote earlier, diplomacy needs open communication, so my personal belief is that we should let them know in some way that we're not impressed so far. My pointedness in the discarded draft is however no longer needed, so if we are to tell them that we're not impressed it would probably be wise to do it in a more polite manner.

Edit: Also the team contact thing should be mentioned, as I would like to know if they have contact with any teams we don't to get a clearer picture of the world.

 

[2metraninja]

So these guys are the lawyer type diplomats.

You have to see a lawyer-type diplomat. Later will take the time to show off what a lawyer-type agreement looks like from the Amazon diplomacy thread from the last MTDG. If they were so to-the-letter type of diplomats, that would have been clear if "dont close our borders" clause is or is not part of the NAP. They are just being cautious. In the healthy-sane-sense way. And they do realize they were asking for biased deal, but now when presumably they trust us a bit more, they want to remove this one-way clause to improve trust and friendship between our 2 teams.

 

[RegentMan]

...but now when presumably they trust us a bit more, they want to remove this one-way clause to improve trust and friendship between our 2 teams.

Or they are next to our borders and we're not near theirs and it's not convenient for them anymore.

 

[Aivoturso]

They did not remove any clauses. I believe they never meant it to be a clause at all. They just wanted us move away for the negotiations in case we would come to different thoughts if we see their undefended settler/worker. Since they wanted much shorter NAP than we proposed I believe they were afraid that we respond with "We don't want shorter NAP. We'll just take your settler and be on our way." IMO, that is a legitimate concern when you meet a team that's totally unknown to you. It's just too bad that we did not realise that this is all they wanted and we assumed it to be clause in NAP. It's too bad that we did not ask for confirmation or clarification of terms of NAP. That however, does not mean that we've been had. There really is no reason to expect them to reciprocate a rule that from their point of view did not exist at all.

IMO, there are two important lessons to be learned in this situation:
1. Do all things possible to lower the language barrier. Sending the communications in both languages is a very good start on this part.
2. Always confirm that both parties have same understanding of any agreement we make. Concrete steps towards this would be to add always full explanation of the agreement in the "we agree" or "do you agree" messages. We already have had our fair share of related confusion with other teams as well (not coupling the negotiations about border with NAP when meeting RB and confusion about the agreement with Spanish team). This current mishap is our most severe misunderstanding to date but luckily no concrete harm occured and I hope we can move on. We should definitely improve in being more clear and explicit on what we suggest and what we agree on before there are any more serious consequences due to different understanding of standing agreements.

 

[cav scout]

It's resolved to me in that I don't really want anything to do with these guys anymore. I don't care if them asking us to stay away was justified or not- the fact is they still went right next to our borders even though we did stayed away from theirs. It's just so obvious to abide by your own demands, both in Civ and in life. Let's just let the NAP expire and be on our way.

I agree with RegentMan. These guys knew exactly what they were doing- demand that we stay away as long as Thunderfall was in their area and then waltz right up to our borders and snoop around.

They were worried that we would steal their workers but completely disregarded that we might have the same concerns. Then when we bring this up they shrug it off and change the deal to meet their current needs. This doesn't bode well for any future cooperation- I can seem them constantly twisting the meaning of any deals for their short term benefit and then selling us out once it becomes advantageous for them.

It also seems they don't have the same understanding of a NAP as we do. If they were concerned that we would agree to a NAP and then immediately break it when we spotted their workers this tells me that they would have stolen our workers if the situation was reversed.

Bottom line- these guys have demonstrated they lack the MP diplo maturity to be trusted in this game. It's unfortunate but it is what it is. If we try to count on these guys in the future we are just going to end up getting burned.

So lets be cheerful and nice but always watch our back when it comes to them.

 

[Aivoturso]

I'm pretty sure they did not expect us to back down on our word. However, they wanted to negotiate the length of NAP. So while the discussions were ongoing, we were not under any obligation to not grab their worker. I honestly believe that us terminating the negotiations and launching an attack of opportunity on them was their only concern. So I don't see anyone here changing the deal. We just assumed there was a deal that UCiv never intented.

Anyhow, I'm not against having a healthy dose of suspicion when dealing with the team. We should actually treat no agreement as absolute i.e. we should never rely solely on any team keeping their word. Well, with a possible exception of RB.

 

[2metraninja]

we should never rely solely on any team keeping their word. Well, with a possible exception of RB.

I can say without any doubt the same goes for WPC and Apolyton - they wont break their word on agreed deal.

 

[YossarianLives]

Ok, final

talonschild is already working on a draft to UCiv, so I guess just let us know if you want any input from the team as far as what to include in the message. I'm glad we're getting these messages out to resume diplomacy with everyone!

 

[talonschild]

Half-composed already. I'm working on the assumption that we want to renew the NAP. Just to recap, has a settling border been firmly set?