Foreign Policy: UniversCiv

[YossarianLives]

We got a fast response:

Hi,
I think I understand your proposal. Maybe we could work on a more precise city planning, so that our border cities are not too close one from another?
And the Zulus have founded a city located 6663 from the marble. Do you have good relations with them? How are they integrated into border definition?

Take care,
Yuufo

 

[2metraninja]

Interesting. Very interesting. With their typical say-nothing-for-sure-explicit manner of conducting diplomacy, they want to further discuss things, leaving their options absolutely open. But at least they say they "think" they understand our proposal. However, it does not sounds enough for them, they want more precise one. The no-settling zone of two rows of tiles I think is enough far away. But then, looking at our proposed no- settling zone, we can even benefit from this their desire. We will say we will step back 1 tile south and if they take back 1 tiles north, then we have whole 4 tiles distances from each border city, so we wont even overlap BFCs and thus no sources of frictions and needless culture wars.

We can settle the tile east of the Marble. We still get nice green land and the Sugar in the no-one's border land. Where, if they step back 1 tile, they will actually have no where to settle except way east from the disputed strip of land. I think they will want the Sugar in their control though. And we might want to agree to that only to have NAP and secure border. If we play our cards right, we can take that city later without risking war with Uciv now when we are vulnerable Despite all, they ask about more precise city planning instead of telling us what they think is good, so we go ahead and propose them our vision (which will be good for us of course) and they will have to take it in consideration.

They also mention Zulu. We must know why? Do they want not to have common border with Spaniards? Maybe this can be in our favor too. We have no uncertainties about that. We want the land and will guard it. Also it can be nice to not give our 2 neighbors to have common border so they are forced to get in touch more in depth diplomatically and also giving them corridor for moving armies/units between them outside of our control.

As for what contact we have with Zulu, we can say we dont have a NAP despite we wanted and we had some unconventional time negotiating with them, which is the truth. About how they are integrated in to the border agreement, I dont know what we to say. Maybe that we have strange system with them with calling on city spots sequentially and now it is our turn to call a site, so we are communicating border only with Uciv at the moment.

What else I wanted to say about Uciv is that they have 10 cities already. Thats not small count. But their GNP is not impressive as I can see and is nothing like our own. (Yossa?)

Spoiler :

This tells me few things. They might be not that stubborn in negotiating about the border are, as they might not want to settle many more cities any soon to not wreck their economy. Another thing is they will be a bit slower on research and getting to maces, knights, cuirrassiers, rifles, cannons, etc. So we might have good window of opportunity to get them with overwhelming technology gap and we might have quite juicy bounty to get with their many cities. Third thing that comes to my mind is that we must track how they settled those 10 cities. Was it periodically settling each few turns once city or it was campaign like settling 3 cities, then pause, then settling another 3 then pause and see if they are even stopped with settling. Also, can we make a guess how they settle their cities? Are they grouped tight to minimize maintenance or they are spread to claim maximum land. If we can get their matrix of settling, we can make good prognosis about their curve of development. Inevitably they having settled many cities and big chunk of land will result in lowering their research capabilities for some time, then their curve will start to grow and at some point all this land will translate in massive amount of research/production for them. But here comes our role to assess and predict this and act before they reach the point where their land will skyrocket their research/production. With more conservative settling we could be able to have smaller fall in our graph before we start to climb again and I hope we will hit higher amounts of research way before them. And the moment in the time where we will have the biggest difference (advantage on our side) in our economics, there we will have the opportunity to strike at them.

 

[YossarianLives]

What else I wanted to say about Uciv is that they have 10 cities already. Thats not small count. But their GNP is not impressive as I can see and is nothing like our own. (Yossa?)

Spoiler :

Hmm, I thought you had asked for a breakdown of when UCiv had settled their cities, but maybe that was in a different thread, or maybe I just misread this post. Anyways, here's a rundown of what UCiv has been up to:

T0 – Move starting Settler
T1 – Capital settled
T9 – Growth (so they did not go Worker-first)
T12 – Tech
T25 – Tech
T31 – City 2 settled with 8 new land tiles
T35 – Tech
T39 – City 3 settled with 7 new land tiles (first team to 3 cities)
T46 – Tech
T52 – City 4 settled (can’t tell # of tiles because Germans also settled this turn)
T53 – Tech
T61 – City 5 (Stone city) settled with 9 tiles + Tech
T67 – Tech
T68 – City 6 settled (also performed first whip this turn)
T72 – Tech
T76 – Tech
T77 – City 7 settled
T81 – Tech
T85 – City 8 settled
T92 – City 9 settled
T94 – City 10 settled + Classical Tech (Monarchy) + revolted into HR

We can see from the graph 2metra posted that they had a GNP roughly similar to our own until about T80. In the last 15 turns, their GNP has started to stagnate with the 4 quick new cities, while ours continues to grow. This is more apparent when you filter out the other civs (this can be done on the APT website, but I'm having issues posting images from work right now). They might be able to pick things up with HR if they can start growing some of their core cities, but I agree with 2metra's assessment that we can definitely out-tech them moving forward.

 

[cav scout]

I'm not too impressed with their response. They ignored the NAP suggestion and stalled on the border agreement.

I suggest we restate our NAP agreement and make sure they understand that it is a separate proposal from the border agreement. We should make it very clear so there can be no misunderstanding and we should insist on a yes/no answer or viable counterproposal.

Same thing for the border agreement, we should offer it again and also offer 2metra's idea about 4 tiles. Let them know we want a yes/no answer or a counterproposal.

Let's hold their feet to the fire and let them know we aren't going to play games with them anymore. If they want to be friends and make a deal cool, if not then they need to worry that they may have made a mistake antagonizing us.

 

[Caledorn]

These guys really make me dislike them more and more. However, as I think the team sentiment is to try to negotiate with them still, I voice my strong agreement to what cav scout suggests.

 

[talonschild]

New draft

Salut, Yuufo/UniversCiv,

Nous voulons beaucoup renouveler notre Pacte de non-agression, jusqu'au tour 140. Sera cela acceptable, ou ayez-vous un proposition différent?

Pour l'autre de nos propositions, cela de la frontière mutuelle, nous avons une modification potentielle: Etendre la Zone de non-colonisation d'une carreau au nord et une carreau au sud. Cela assura que notre croix-villes ne se chevaucheraient pas. Au thème des Zoulous, nous ne savons quoi dire. Nous avons avec eux un accord étrange où nous prenons tours de reserver sites de colonisation. Nous ne savons pas comment intégrer cet accord avec nos négociations présents, donc nous allons les garder séparés.

Sera cela acceptable, ou ayez-vous un proposition différent?

Talonschild, pour l'Equipe Civfanatics

Hi, Yuufo/UniversCiv,

We'd very much like to renew our Non-Aggression Pact until turn 140. Is this acceptable to you, or do you have another idea?

On the topic of our other proposal, on our mutual border, we have a potential modification: Extending the No-Settling Zone one tile north and one tile south. This would ensure our city crosses wouldn't overlap. On the subject of the Zulus, we don't know what to say. We have a rather strange agreement with them whereby we take turns reserving city sites. We have no idea how to integrate that with our present negotiations, so we intend to keep them separate.

Is this acceptable to you, or do you have another idea?

 

[2metraninja]

Maybe include the ASCII graphic again for visual reference and say explicit that the NAP is bound with respecting the border agreement?

 

[talonschild]

Revision

Salut, Yuufo/UniversCiv,

Nous voulons beaucoup renouveler notre Pacte de non-agression, jusqu'au tour 140 (conditionnel aux autres accords fussent observés). Sera cela acceptable, ou ayez-vous un proposition différent?

Pour l'autre de nos propositions, cela de la frontière mutuelle, nous avons une modification potentielle: Etendre la Zone de non-colonisation d'une carreau au nord et une carreau au sud. Cela assura que notre croix-villes ne se chevaucheraient pas. Au thème des Zoulous, nous ne savons quoi dire. Nous avons avec eux un accord étrange où nous prenons tours de reserver sites de colonisation. Nous ne savons pas comment intégrer cet accord avec nos négociations présents, donc nous allons les garder séparés.

Donc, aucun entre nous colonisera dans une ligne qui comprend les montagnes de formation
XX_
X_X
X_X
_X_
et qui s'étend a l'est de là.

Sera cela acceptable, ou ayez-vous un proposition différent?

Talonschild, pour l'Equipe Civfanatics

The grammar of the bit in brackets was a shot in the dark. Bowsling, could you check that over?

Hi, Yuufo/UniversCiv,

We'd very much like to renew our Non-Aggression Pact until turn 140 (subject to any other agreements being kept). Is this acceptable to you, or do you have another idea?

On the topic of our other proposal, on our mutual border, we have a potential modification: Extending the No-Settling Zone one tile north and one tile south. This would ensure our city crosses wouldn't overlap. On the subject of the Zulus, we don't know what to say. We have a rather strange agreement with them whereby we take turns reserving city sites. We have no idea how to integrate that with our present negotiations, so we intend to keep them separate.

Thus, neither of us will settle in within a line that comprises the following mountain formation
XX_
X_X
X_X
_X_
and extends eastwards from there.

Is this acceptable to you, or do you have another idea?

 

[2metraninja]

Lets send them this, If it is in both languages, they will get the message no problem.

Something is going on with them. Lately there are 2 players - hunter and zioun who log in and out constantly. I think something important is going on with them. They are debating or preparing for something.

 

[Bowsling]

Looks good!

I would suggest that you replace "carreaux" with "cases" in the second paragraph. What does the last sentence mean in the second paragraph? It's unclear to me in both versions.

I'm not even sure if I would include the bit in the parentheses. The meanings in French (which says that the NAP is dependant on the other treaties being followed) and in English (which could be interpreted as meaning that the duration of the NAP depends on whether we keep any other agreements, of which we currently have none).

 

[talonschild]

The last sentence in paragraph 2 was an explanation of why the Sapniards aren't in the border agreement - our arrangement with them is incompatible with a longer-term agreement.

Will replace "carreaux" with "cases".

The parenthesis bit arouse out of:

...say [explicitly] that the NAP is bound with respecting the border agreement

Regrettably, the verb tense is so esoteric that it's probably not worth it.

My messages are generally ineloquent and awkward, but that's because I'm better at translating French to English than English to French. Thus, the messages are written first in French and then translated to English to ensure they're as close in meaning as I can make them.

 

[2metraninja]

Then lets keep things as simple as possible and ideas one-at-a-time and send the message. I might be wrong, but those guys are up for something.

When I was in the game, their turnplayer tried to connect via the ingame diplo-screen. I opened the screen and he was logged off already. Maybe he was just checking our cities not knowing I am online?

 

[Bowsling]

Thus, the messages are written first in French and then translated to English to ensure they're as close in meaning as I can make them.

That's natural. Of course it's easiest to translate into your native language. I've had my fair share of awkward French in just a few messages, and I still do. Live and learn, as they say.

 

[2metraninja]

I see we got no agreement on the text of the message and I will give it a try.

Hi, Yuufo/UniversCiv,

We would like to renew our Non-Aggression Pact (no one will declare war to the other side) until turn 140 including and we would like to finalize the border agreement that goes with it. Taking in consideration your doubts that 2 tiles No-Settling-Zone might not be enough, we are proposing extending the No-Settling-Zone one tile north for Uciv and one tile south for CFC. This will ensure our city crosses wouldn't overlap in any case.

Thus, neither Uciv nor CFC will settle west of the mountain formation:
XX_
X_X
X_X
_X_

If you agree with the NAP and the border agreement that goes with it, please confirm

What you guys think?

 

[talonschild]

Barring the west/east mixup, pretty good. Now to translate...

 

[2metraninja]

Ah, yes. Mistyped West instead of East for the mountain range. I tried to write it as simple and understandable as possible. Dont know if I succeded in this.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Yossarian reported that UCiv put their Espy Points 100% on us two turns ago. Speculation exists that UCiv might be in an alliance with either SpAp or RB. Just wanted UCiv diplomats to know that these questions have been raised.

 

[Sommerswerd]

If we committed to attacking UCiv right now, how long would it take us to raise enough Army to steamroll them?

Do we have way to scout their territory (spies for example)?

 

[2metraninja]

I see us as being able to start raise good army which can kill swift instead of torture an enemy civ in after about 50 turns at earliest.

 

[YossarianLives]

As far as strategic aims in a UCiv war, I think it's important to keep in mind that they are very spread out with a bunch of cities planted in our direction. That means it'll make it easy to take and keep their outlying cities like their stone city, but more difficult to take and keep their core, which is much further away from us than the Spanish core (and maybe even the WPC core).

However, let's see how things play out on the RB side of things before we start planning a UCiv war. We might want to start thinking about building an alliance against RB a little earlier then we previously thought.