MERLOT Dipolmacy Discussion

[grant2004]

I've pieced together a quick message of greeting for team Merlot. I don't know what our plans will be for relations with them. Our current plan for the 4 way alliance does not include them, so there may not be much we need to say to them beyond hello.

I'll post the message here for review, but will probably send it off fairly quickly as it is a fairly simple first message.

Spoiler :

The Sirian people extend our greetings to the Kingdom of Merlot. Our intrepid explorer Voyager has reported to us a sighting of an impressively large ship from your Kingdom. We are honored to meet you and look forward to years of peace between our two nations. The Sirian people are inherently curious about this world around us, and are always looking to learn more. We have pieced together a fair picture of our world, and its grand intelligent design. We look forward to learning about you, and your view of this world, to make our picture all the more complete.
The nation of Sirius may always be contacted at sirius.mtdg@gmail.com. We anticipate eagerly our correspondence with your kingdom.

-Grant2004, on behalf of team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

Looks good. Thanks grant for volunteering! What kind of ship did we see?

 

[grant2004]

We encountered their galley, large compared to Voyager, but nothing unusual.

 

[grant2004]

Ok, I sent out the message. Is there anything important you guys think we should bring up in future messages with them?

I'm thinking we might want to exchange resource information with them, if only to satisfy our curiosity about how resources are distributed on this map.

 

[azzaman333]

I would've said to wait for them to send a message to us, but apparently I'm too late.

 

[AlphaShard]

I would've said to wait for them to send a message to us, but apparently I'm too late.

Stop acting like it will cost us the game. It won't matter at all who contacts who first.

 

[azzaman333]

I'm not acting like it'll cost us the game. I'm saying that we aren't aiming to have strong diplomatic ties with this team, so there's no rush to make contact.

 

[Irgy]

If we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them the last thing we want to do is let them know that we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them. And the best way to give away the fact that we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them is to wait forever to send them a greeting.

You're always better off being polite, responsive and communicative, even while you're in the middle of sliding a knife into their back. Just don't make or suggest agreements that we won't want to stick to.

By sending the first message, we're now in the stronger moral position. It's also well worded to ask a lot of questions politely without telling them anything at all. So good work I say.

 

[Irgy]

Our current plan for the 4 way alliance does not include them, so there may not be much we need to say to them beyond hello.

.

I see them as not our allies, but not our enemies particularly either. We have no direct border with them, which means we have nothing to fight over. We don't want to do anything that outwardly hurts our allies, but at the end of the day the geography is such that the stronger Merlot's position is the stronger ours will be relative to our allies.

We have something of a plan for a 4-way alliance, but we don't want to burn our bridges with everyone else too soon. I'd like to think we can rely on AMAZON for a while to come yet, but the rest of the diplomacy could go any which way really. Even if it works out the way we currently want it to, the longer it takes the 'M's (Merlot and Maveriks) to figure out that they're in a bad situation diplomatically the better.

This is just how I see it unfolding though.

I'm thinking we might want to exchange resource information with them, if only to satisfy our curiosity about how resources are distributed on this map.

I'd be inclined to wait until we hear back from AMAZON on that issue. If their response gives us a good idea how the resources are distributed then we don't need to give away that information.

That said, I don't know whether people think the resources info is particularly sensitive or crucial anyway?

 

[azzaman333]

If we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them the last thing we want to do is let them know that we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them. And the best way to give away the fact that we don't want to have strong diplomatic ties with them is to wait forever to send them a greeting.

You're always better off being polite, responsive and communicative, even while you're in the middle of sliding a knife into their back. Just don't make or suggest agreements that we won't want to stick to.

By sending the first message, we're now in the stronger moral position. It's also well worded to ask a lot of questions politely without telling them anything at all. So good work I say.

I'm not saying we should have no contact with them. I'm saying there was no need to rush it out.

 

[grant2004]

I appologize, I did rush it a little. I waited until at least one other person had reviewed it, but I wanted to send it out quickly because I was going to bed, and I figured waiting until morning was an undue delay. I don't agree that we should have waited for them to contact us, we do want to maintain the impression that we are friendly and interested in dealing with them, so that they don't cozy up with the Mavericks immediately, and also so that maybe we'll get a few tidbits of information out of them.

 

[DaveShack]

I don't mind having a contact note sent, IMO it shows we're on the ball.

We should stay on cordial terms with everyone until we get some actions to back up the alliances we're forming. Some of the messages from Amazon make it sound like they're including us in their plan to form a 4 team alliance.

Are we anywhere near the home island of Merlot? Is that galley strictly exploring, or might it be carrying troops or a settler? Maybe we should see if any information can be extracted via casual chat.

 

[AlphaShard]

The Amazons are our neighbors to the west and Quadronic is to our east. The Merlot are SW of Amazonia. So we don't have to fear the Galley and whatever they have for the time being.

 

[DaveShack]

Agree nothing to fear, but knowledge of what the galley carries and does might reveal something about their strategy.

 

[AlphaShard]

Your right it would be nice, don't know if we want to wait around to watch though.

 

[Alltriia]

The Amazons are our neighbors to the west and Quadronic is to our east. The Merlot are SW of Amazonia. So we don't have to fear the Galley and whatever they have for the time being.

I'm sorry, one of us must be wrong, AlphaShard.
If the world is cylindric, the Amazons are ALSO to our west, but as we see it in the map, they are to our east.

I just want to make shure. Is this right? Clockwise: Amazon, Merlot, Mavericks, CDZ, Quatronia and us.

 

[Irgy]

I just want to make shure. Is this right? Clockwise: Amazon, Merlot, Mavericks, CDZ, Quatronia and us.

It's Sirius, AMAZON, Merlot, CDZ, Quatronia, Mavericks and back to us. At least according to what AMAZON have told us.

 

[AlphaShard]

Yeah I got east and west confused sorry.

 

[Alltriia]

I was under the impression that Q was to our south. Didn't Amazon fishing boat(Jenny, wasn't it?) that visited us met Q right after and didn't they gone around the star point?

 

[grant2004]

That's true, but I believe they met a Quatronian workboat in Maverick waters. I'm surprised we haven't seen that Quatronian workboat though, it may have gone to investigate the center of the map instead of heading for us.