Grand Diplomacy

[2metraninja]

I think its more likely that a home island would be targeted for invasion first. That is the way to break a team's back

Also, if we look at how sparse our home isand is defended, we can make a guess, that the others are most likely the same

BTW, moving our sentry caravel I found a caravel of Sirius placed nearly in the same manner on the north of the Anjennida spire. I think they dont exclude the possibility we to try an invasion too.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Take care to keep our Caravel out of sight. We don't want them to know that we saw it. They might have more boats in the Northern sea, forming a sentry net. What this shows is they are wary about the SAP treaty ending. Maybe now is the time to begin discussing an extension of the treaty and NAP.

Maybe say something like:

We have enjoyed the years of peace and cooperation... blah blah...
We notice our special treaty the SAP is ending soon... blah blah blah...
We remember that the Sirians originally wanted this treaty as protection/insurance when the ETTT was formed... blah blah...
Now that the Sirians position in the world is so much more secure, and the ETTT is such a solid alliance, the original treaty seems outdated and perhaps unecessary... blah blah...
However, if the Sirians would once again wish to extend our treaty for additional protection, we will of course be willing to enter a new arrangement with similar terms. Of course the fine details would need to be negotiated.

Another thing we could do is sink their sentries with privateers, if we are worried about them dropping off spies. We just have to make sure we 'warn' them ahead of time... saying something like..."Be on the lookout, we spotted Barbarian Pirate ships off our coasts. They fled from our navy and could head in your direction."

 

[damnrunner]

I would agree that a message to Sirus would be in order. Sommers suggested we send text saying we are willing to extend the SAP, I am curious if it would be better to say we would like to continue it. That way the onus is on Sirius to turn the agreement down which would give away intentions.

I would not sink the caravel with privateers as it would be easy to suspect us. I would however think it is ok to acknowledge to Sirius that we see their sentry net and to disclose that we have similar ships patrolling the waters. Saying something along the lines of "secure borders makes for stronger allies" would make sense. We may want to consider a secondary line of privateers though should Sirius attempt to send a caravel past our sentries. Again it would be ok to disclose this and to inform them of the consequences of attempting to run the blockade. We can assume they will do the same.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@damnrunner- I don't understand what you mean by this statement

I would agree that a message to Sirus would be in order. Sommers suggested we send text saying we are willing to extend the SAP, I am curious if it would be better to say we would like to continue it.

what is the difference between the two?

 

[damnrunner]

Directly asking them to extend the SAP puts the onus on them to give a yes / no answer. Saying we are "willing" to extend it means they have a lot of flexibility to respond in any manner they please which they could use to better hide intentions. It is a small thing but I would rather use language that forces them to make a commitment.

 

[nabaxo]

I agree very much with Damnrunner now with that clarification.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Thanks for clarifying that for me, it makes a lot more sense now. OK so based on you and nabaxo's opinion, I will get a letter drafted for Sirius, asking them directly to extend.

My main concern is that its harder to ask for new terms if we are the ones asking for a new treaty.

Probably won't get the letter out before xmas.

 

[damnrunner]

Maybe a good strategy is to ask to extend existing treaty and then if they say yes open the discussion to new terms.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This was sent to the allies, informing them that we are getting Versailes. Hopefully CDZ isnt already building it:

Hello ETTT allies,

This is a short message to inform allies in advance that we are building the illustrious Versailles Palace to counteract the enormous, potentially crippling costs of managing the unruly cities liberated from the Evil Merlot Kingdom. It is our hope that this palace will serve as a shining example of the righteousness of the ETTT and pacify the former Merlot citizens.

Sommerswerd, Captain of The AMAZON

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sent via PM to our allies:

Hello Allies,

Just a quick note that we stole Guilds and Gunpowder successfully, and and are ready to gift these tech to you.

Also, we are teching Banking next.

-- Sommerswerd the Zenobian

 

[Sommerswerd]

Very good argumentation. We care not only for our own interests, but we come as messiah to defeat the evil and otherwise invincible Mavs, and we are even keen to share the spoil.

Here is the letter for Q. If you think its acceptable, you can send it to them. I tell them basically that we will capture Option B and gift it to them in exchange for them gifting Cygous to CDZ. I also indirectly hint that we are not keen on Sirius' plan to share their (Comet) land, but I tried not to bad-mouth Sirius as they are still our buddies and allies afterall.

Dearest Friends of the Continuum,

You have no-doubt noticed we are marching on Comet, more specifically the evil M&M's Candy-Axis city of "Option B". Our forces unexpectedly met up with a force of Sirians on the road to Option B, as they appeared to be marching on Comet as well. We did not discuss much of the Sirians plans...so we have absolutely no idea why their army is invading Comet other than generally to fight M&M. Most of our collective time was spent marching, drinking, and exchanging pleasantries and tales of the war on Marthaton. However, we thought it prudent to alert you to our presence on Comet, and our purpose for being there.

Most importanly, the purpose of our invasion is not to establish any long term presence on Comet. Frankly, we think that taking land on Comet would upset the delicate Balance of Power between the allies, and erode the cohesion of the ETTT. We therefore propose that we capture Option B for you and transfer ownership of the city to you. This will allow you to use your adjacent units to defend the city against an M&M counterattack, rather than wasting them in an assault with no siege support. If the Sirians army has also come to simply aid you in taking possesion of Comet, then you will need their help against the inevitable M&M counterattack after we take the city.

In return for Option B, we request that you agree to transfer ownership of your floundering city, Cygous to CDZ. We will make arrangements with CDZ whereby The AMAZON recieves something in return from CDZ. In this way, all of our positions are enhanced and alliance cohesion and goodwill is enhanced.

We have been monitoring the progress of our ETTT allies against the Mavs wing of the Candy-Axis, and we have noticed two things. First, the ETTT has suffered some costly defeats, both on Mavs Home Island (MvHI), and Comet, and Mavs army keeps getting larger and more powerful, with uncontested access to Horses, Iron, and now Muskets. Second, while the Continuum has obviously been working and slaving to raise an army to defeat this menace, Sirius has not been slaving. These two factors led us to believe that having secured Bode, Sirius possibly felt less pressure to assist against Mavs and the Continuum was struggling to fight them alone. Accordingly, we sent our armies to assist you. We now see that Sirius has also arrived.

Also, it has come to our attention that the Candy-Axis are speeding along their research by funneling money from the Mavericks to Merlot. Merlot is FIN and thus is the natural choice for teching, while Mavs send them Gold. We could not allow this to continue, and so we thought it was best to send help to Comet.

So this is our plan for moving the alliance forward. We hope you find our explanation and plans acceptable. We also are considering other plans of coordination with CDZ, whereby the positions of all three of our nations will be advanced. It is our sincere hope that this minor cooperation will go over smoothly, clearing the path for future, more mutually profitable arrangements.

Sommerswerd of the Zenobian Matriarchy

 

[Sommerswerd]

Letter to CDZ, coordinating our plan. Again, if this is acceptable to you go ahead and send it to them:

Brave CDZ allies,

We have considered your proposal to postpone invasion of MHI until the ETTT has teched Steel. However the Matriarchy has voted to invade MHI ASAP, without waiting for Steel. We already have a plan underway whereby our covert operatives will work to severly weaken the defenses and populace on MHI prior to invasion. We are hopeful that this will allow us to capture the island with less difficulty.

This raises a small dilemna. Since the Kleptocracy is not presently ready to invade MHI, we would like to propose a trade whereby the Kleptocracy trades its claim to one of the cities on MHI in exchange for a Quatronian city on Hoag. We have requested that Quatronia transfer ownership of Cygous to you in exchange for a city on Comet which we will capture for them shortly. If all parties agree, this deal will be mutually beneficial, serving the interests of all three of our nations.

We were also considering the possibility of asking Quatronia to transfer ownership of Pulsar Plateau to CDZ in exchange for CDZ's claim to the second MHI city. In the exchange, Quatronia would recieve either rights to settle the land currently occupied by the Babarian city on Hoag (which we would destroy for them) or some other valuable compensation fron The AMAZON. Do we have CDZ's blessing to enter negotiation with Quatronia on this issue?

Sommerswerd, Captain of The AMAZON

I am thinking that if CDZ agrees to these deals, we can offer to gift Quatronia our Army on Comet, either permanently or temporarily, to assist them in capturing Comet from the Mavs. Surely that is worth giving up one city, as it will enable them to capture multiple cities. Also, I think Pulsar Plateau is a good trade for the MHI city, considering that CDZ does not want to help invade.

 

[2metraninja]

To me, it is good as is.

I was thinking to put a slightly different direction of the diplomacy as a whole, but if you say the letter to Sirius will be soothing and pleasing too, it will be ok.

Lets hope they never compare the 2 versions

 

[Sommerswerd]

Letter to Sirius, announcing our intention to capture the city and guilt tripping them to keep their army on Comet... also giving them a choice between attacking Mavs with Q or attacking Merlot with us:

Sirian Friends,

We recieved your letter suggesting coordination of the invasion of Comet, but the orders to capture the Candy-Axis city, "Option B" had already been voted on via our Democratic process, no other manuvers were approved or discussed. Accordingly, we will capture the city next turn, freeing your army to move on to assault the next M&M cities.

We have already communicated with Quatronia concerning our plans, and voiced our concerns about their ability to defeat Mavs on Comet alone. Since Mavs were still flourishing following the defeat of Merlot on Marthaton, we assumed that the alliance was expecting us to also destroy Mavs on Comet, which is why we were moving against them. But rest assured that we are more than willing to cooperate to destroy the Evil Candy-Axis.

We believe however, that it makes more sense to cooperate to kill Merlot first, because Merlot is smaller, already contained on MHI and as the FIN civ, Merlot has all the infrastruture for generating the M&M's tech. Once Merlot is gone, Mavs will not be able to advance in tech any further and will fall more easily. We feel that attacking Merlot first and Mavs second is the path of least resistance.

We nonetheless are fully aware that our Sirian friends may regard this line of reasoning to be accutely self-serving, so we are ready to do our part to make killing Mavs first as simple as possible. As is our custom therefore, we extend the Sirians an opportunity to choose between two approaches to defeating the Candy-Axis:

Choice 1 - Sirius moves their army and ships through Nabaxica to Marthaton for a combined assault on Merlot Home Island (MHI) first. While we assault MHI, the Q continue to keep Mavs occupied, and contained on Comet. Once Merlot is defeated, we turn both of our armies against the Mavs.

Choice 2 - Sirius and Quatronia attack the Mavs first, and while Sirius and Q assault Mavs, The AMAZON will keep Merlot occupied and contained on MHI. Once Mavs are destroyed, we attack Merlot together.

Please convey our warm affections to your people, and we look forward to your decision.

nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius

Again, go ahead and send this to Sirius if you approve the content and don't want to wake up early to take the city.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I was thinking to put a slightly different direction of the diplomacy as a whole

What do you mean when you say "different direction"?

Lets hope they never compare the 2 versions

Why do you say that? I tried to write all three letters in a way that does not betray anyone... I am generally assuming that all things will come to light eventually, so I try not to say anything in diplomacy that can't be explained or can be used against us later.

if you say the letter to Sirius will be soothing and pleasing too, it will be ok.

That second letter was to CDZ not Sirius... careful that we dont send wrong letters to wrong parties

Anyway, if you like all the letters I will go ahead and send them, unless you already did it.

 

[2metraninja]

Wait me to read it.

And good point about to whom is the second letter.

Oh, God, I'm so tired... Please, you take the sending, as I am out of focus it seems.

 

[2metraninja]

Ah, it seems I posted before you actually wrote the second letter, so now it makes sence. I was thinking there will be only 2 letters - to Q and Sirius. Overlooked the one between. Once again - I'm tired

 

[2metraninja]

What do you mean when you say "different direction"?

I was thinking we are more willing to stay close to the Sirians as our logical ally and trying to isolate Q and once M&M are gone, they to be the one who will fall in the "1" category in the "3 vs 1" equation.

I have read all 3 letters and I think more and more that they are excellent.

Only the part with us gifting army to Q (which is not part of any letter actually) we need to discuss, but I am not very happy about the idea.

Please, go and send them all.

 

[2metraninja]

send this to Sirius if you approve the content and don't want to wake up early to take the city.

I am not sure that anyone will actually read it before it is too late (i.e. I take the city), and even if they do and are able to respond quickly with a letter, I can always say that I was given orders to capture it and our diplomat just did not get any possible objections from Sirius in time to stop me.

 

[Sommerswerd]

All three letters were sent, along with PMs. I see that city was also taken. Our score is now also even with Sirius, so they should be sufficiently freaked out.

Now we need to discuss the suggestion about gifting our Army to Quatronia...

My thinking was that we will need a strong inducement to get them to give up a wothy city like Pulsar Plateau. Plus we will need a good city for CDZ to justify giving up its claim to MHI. Giving away a bunch of soldiers along with the high maintenance city will really boost our economy.

Also, Quatronia really really needs military to take Comet and offering our Army to them will help them immensely, drawing them closer to us and away from Sirius. This connects with the next stage we must move into.

Once Candy-Axis is dead the ETTT will obviously turn on each other, forming 2 on 2 groups or a 3 on 1. I want to avoid a situaton where anyone is in as good or better position than us when this happens. Right now Sirius might have NAPs with everyone while we only have them with CDZ and Sirius. If Sirius has a NAP with Q that they have not disclosed to us, this is a violation of the SAP, but still... we should be prepared. I doubt CDZ and Q have a NAP because the North end of Hoag is still unsettled. This means they have been unable to reconcile since the Cold War and prob still hate each other.

Assuming Sirius is abiding by the SAP and has not signed a NAP with Q, then we need to try to discourage that from happening. The reason is, that if Q and Sirius are close, there is a risk that they will join up when the ETTT breaks. This would be a disaster for us... Two FIN teams against a group with only 1 FIN team. In fact, this alone might convince CDZ to dump us to be on the all FIN side.

What we want when the ETTT breaks up, is to be able to avoid dishonesty and ing with an honest straightforward presentation of the situation. Something like this letter we would send individually to each ally:

Begin Imaginary Post M&M letter:

Spoiler :

To XYZ ally,

Blah, Blah, Greetings Congrats etc on destroying the Evil blah blah... Now we talk about the present situation and moving forward etc etc...

As you knows, The AMAZON has NAPs with Sirius and CDZ, but not Quatronia. So the only possibilities for us are as follows...

1. Peaceful Space Race, which obviously favors Sirius
2. AMAZON, Sirius and CDZ against Q
3. Q and CDZ against Sirius... AMAZON stays out of it, but cancels OB with CDZ and Q.

Then we would tell each ally individually that they must decide which path to take. Sirius will prob like Option 1 best, but nobody else will, so Sirius will be OK with option 2. CDZ will be OK with all 3 options but will strongly prefer Option 2, and then option 3. Q will have only one choice, Option 3.

Either way, we are protected, and there will be a strong chance that option 2 and 3 are selected.