Honorable ETTT Allies:
We Zenobians welcome the recent messages from both the Kleptocracy and the Continuum. We are heartened to see both teams showing a good-faith commitment to resolving this dispute peacefully to the benefit of the ETTT. The goal of this letter is to establish a universally accepted starting point for the settlement of this matter.
We cannot hope to establish a starting point for negotiations if the status-quo is in flux. Therefore, as a preliminary matter, we ask both teams to agree that there will be no settlement on the shared landmass until a settlement agreement is reached. As the Matriarchal Alliance has not named this landmass, we will be referring to the Continuum-Kleptocracy shared landmass as Hoag (the name Sirius has given it) for the purposes of this letter.
We understand and recognize that both teams have legitimate concerns, and before addressing these, we would like to remind our allies that the map is designed in such a manner as to encourage conflict. We will continue to reiterate this point throughout the negotiations, when it bears on the issue being discussed.
We see two issues with the status quo
a very dense city placement with lots of potential cultural overlap, and cities that cross into each team's "sphere of influence." While the cities are packed in tightly, most cities appear to be viable so long as both teams maintain cultural parity. At this point, both teams should see the value of adopting an agreement that limits further cultural competition.
We feel that the harder issue to resolve is the concern about "spheres of influence." There are many potential solutions, but this will involve delicate, possibly-lengthy, negotiations and discourse. During this time, we anticipate that settlement of other areas of the map will be a necessity, however we repeat that further settlement of Hoag will only serve to disrupt the status quo and further complicate negotiations. So again, we respectfully request that both the Continuum and the Kleptocracy openly commit to cease all settlement of Hoag, until an agreement is reached.
We have already discussed some possible settlement agreements, but introducing these suggestions would be unproductive, without general agreement among the parties as to the starting point of the negotiations. Again, that is the goal of this letter, to reach that mutually agreed starting point, so that everyone is on the same page.
So while we feel that resolving this dispute cannot be accomplished by looking to the past, it has become clear from recent correspondence, that both sides wish to address the events leading up to the present dilemma. It seems that in order to reach a mutually agreed starting point for negotiations, it is necessary to first establish an objective score of the situation thus far.
Our approach therefore, will be to present the parties with our objective analysis of the record as we have it. In reaching our conclusions, we have taken into account the parties correspondences, as well as the attending circumstances, and applied logic and reasoning to trace the roots and causes of this dispute. We expect that as with the findings of any impartial arbitrator, both parties will agree with some of what we have to say, and disagree with some of what we have to say, but that is the purpose of this letter, to flesh out the relevant sources of disagreement and discard the irrelevant ones.
We seek only to present our objective findings, to determine what facts can be agreed upon, what facts need further discussion or clarification, and what facts are irrelevant or hopelessly at impasse and therefore must be put aside. Once we have established what can be agreed upon, we will have our starting point, and will then be able to move on to fruitful suggestions for a settlement agreement, based on that common ground and common understanding.
We will address the history of this dispute in a loose timeline form:
1. 'Spamville' and 'Or Here' are perfectly legitimate cities, being located on CDZ's "side" of Hoag, especially since at least one, if not both, were founded before CDZ entered the ETTT.
2. Resonance is a legitimate city, even without access to the Stone, however, the fact that the one of the 3 tiles of cultural conflict is the tile containing the Stone is slightly provocative, and warranted at least some warning or minimal attempts at discussion prior to founding. The deciding factor is whether CDZ was in the ETTT when Resonance was founded. If yes, then Resonance is legitimate but slightly provocative. If no, then Resonance is completely legitimate. When Resonance was planned is not really relevant, unless those plans were communicated to CDZ.
3. Asymptote is a poorly placed, but completely legitimate city, as it has no major cultural conflict with Spamville, and does not threaten the Stone as CDZ suggests. Asymptote is on Quatronia's 'side' of Hoag and claims two seafood resources as well as using an Oasis. Assymptote does steal the Oasis from Spamville, however, the Oasis is not Spamvilles primary food source, the Clam is. And this is where the intentionally conflict-inducing map comes into play. The oasis at the tip of the spire is clearly intended to induce settlement to obtain the Whale.
So in that sense, the oasis belongs to the Whale City, not the Stone city. The whole point of the oasis is to make the Whale city viable. On the other hand, a city founded to claim the Whale will unavoidable extend its culture onto the other teams side of Hoag, and since there is only one Whale and one Stone, any city founded in the spire will feel provocative, but this has more to do with the map design, and less to do with any ill intentions. The other cultural conflicts with Assymptote are on marginal plains tiles and can hardly be considered provocative.
CDZ is correct that Asymptote is provocative, only in the sense that Quatronia had better sites available to them, and chose the site that is clearly the worst on Hoag, AND squeezes their borders against CDZ. Quatronia could have chosen a site that was farther away from CDZ and simultaneously a better city overall, but absent some agreement with CDZ they certainly had no obligation to do so.
Upon the founding of Asymptote, CDZ was perfectly correct to assume that Quatronia intended to found cities wherever they wished, on Quatronia's side of Hoag, regardless of how CDZ felt about the cities, and regardless of cultural conflict. CDZ would have therefore been perfectly justified in founding any city on CDZ's side of Hoag in response, but NOT justified in founding cities on Quatronia's side.
4. Therefore, CDZ's claim that Resonance and Asymptote provoked them to found ereh Ro is weak. Resonance and Asymptote are minimally provocative yes, but not THAT provocative. ereh Ro is completely illegitimate, being founded on Quatronia's side of Hoag, on the coast, in Quatronian waters, and claiming the second of the only two Copper sources on Hoag, when CDZ already had a source of Copper. ereh Ro was a total over-reaction to minor provocations at best. Either when Quatronia founded Resonance or especially when Quatronia founded Asymptote, CDZ should have opened settlement negotiations, if they were offended by these cities, rather than escalate the conflict by founding an overly provocative city like ereh Ro.
5. At the point where ereh Ro was founded, the ETTT was in effect, and CDZ should have negotiated with Quatronia over the founding of future cities on Hoag. Both allies were morally (not contracturally) obligated to initiate these talks, so the fact that neither apparently did is wrongdoing on the part of both. CDZ points out that "at no time had Quatronia sought to discuss the settlement of our common peninsula," but they ignore what is equally true, specifically, that CDZ did not seek to discuss settlement either.
6. The argument that "Quatronia did not ask our permission to claim the near-worthless plains spire" is unpersuasive. Asymptote's value is marginal at best, so it was reasonable for Quatronia to assume that CDZ would not want a city in that location, and there would therefore be no harm in claiming the location for themselves. CDZ has even called the city site "marginal" indicating that they did not desire the rest of the land on the barren spire. Furthermore, Asymptote does not threaten the Stone, and it is clearly founded on Quatronia's side of Hoag.
Similarly, the argument that "Quatronia did not ask permission to found a city on Quatronia's side of Hoag, that has three tiles of cultural conflict with Spamville" is also unpersuasive. Resonance is a fine city without the Stone, and the conflict is at the corner of Resonance's BFC, while the Stone is adjacent to Spamville. There is very little chance that Resonance would ever come close to claiming that Stone from Spamville.
7. Pulsar Plateau is an abomination. Whatever moral high ground Quatronia had upon the founding of ereh Ro was completely squandered and erased by founding Pulsar Plateau. Frankly Pulsar Plateau was very close to a de facto declaration of war, thankfully for the ETTT, CDZ did not treat it as such.
Besides creating 12 tiles of cultural conflict, all on valuable grassland tiles, Pulsar Plateau, on a matter of principle is founded in a location that had clearly been claimed by CDZ cities. In fact Pulsar Plateau is not, in and of itself a viable city like Resonance. Its true viability depends upon stealing tiles from the surrounding CDZ cities. Also Pulsar Plateau threatens two strategic resources (both Coppers). Threatening one strategic resource is usually enough to get DoWed' in MP.
The fact that Pulsar Plateau claims an unclaimed banana is a pitiful excuse for founding such an outrageous city. Risking War over a banana? We consider this unlikely. It is more likely that Pulsar Plateau was founded for the specific purpose of stealing the Coppers from CDZ, and CDZ was perfectly reasonable to assume that Pulsar Plateau would be the site of a Cultural Bomb at some later point.
Another bad-faith aspect of Pulsar Plateau, is that when it was founded, we all already knew that we had Iron on our home islands, making the city even more blatantly and unnecessarily provocative. Therefore, Quatronia can not even claim that they needed the Copper, because they already had Iron... 'iron'ically, thanks to CDZ gifting it to the alliance... which makes Pulsar Plateau even more of an insult and outrage against CDZ. CDZ 'gave' the alliance access to Iron by gifting Iron-Working, and Quatronia responds by trying to steal CDZ's Copper.
8. Pulsar Plateau is bad, but Cygous is even worse. The negotiation that Quatronia attempted after founding Pulsar Plateau was too little, too late, to justify Cygous. The time to negotiate was before founding Pulsar Plateau. Furthermore, even if the negotiations proved unsuccessful, that would not justify Pulsar Plateau or Cygous. Cygous, if founded by itself, in response to ereh Ro, would have been a measured response with some small degree of arguable justification, but after the founding of Pulsar Plateau, Cygous was just provocation on top of provocation.
This situation can be likened to a schoolyard fight, where Quatronia sticks their tongue out at CDZ. CDZ then pushes Quatronia in response. Quatronia then punches CDZ in the face, but then says "Hey lets be friends now, just let me push you back first." When CDZ says "no," Quatronia hits CDZ in the head with a rock.
9. About Music... CDZ was teching Music first, before Quatronia was teching it. It is true that Quatronia was first to announce a desire to tech Music, but they stated plainly that they intended to tech Drama first. CDZ then replied that they were already teching Music. This should have ended the discussion. CDZ techs Music, and Quatronia techs Drama. If Quatronia only wanted Drama to reduce the cost of teching Music, then they could have selected something else to tech at that point.
For example, if Quatronia has expressed a desire to tech Construction, only to be informed that Sirius was already teching it, they would simply select something else. Another example would be, if Sirius were to announce that they intended to get all the prerequisite techs along the path to Monarchy, and then tech Monarchy, only to be told that CDZ was already teching Monarchy without getting the prereqs, they might be slightly annoyed, but they would just find something else to tech.
The only reason there was any ado over 'who called Music first' is because of the desire on the part of both teams, to get the Great Artist. The only reason the teams are racing to get the Artist, is to culture bomb each other off of Hoag, or to prevent themselves from being culture bombed.
CDZ has not specifically stated why they initially sought to gain the Great Artist, however they have intimated that they considered using it against Merlot. This claim has some merit, but is not entirely persuasive. What is more likely, and completely legitimate, is that upon the founding of Pulsar Plateau, CDZ either anticipated a culture bomb from Quatronia at Pulsar Plateau, or intended to use a Culture bomb to capture Pulsar Plateau. Either use of the culture bomb would not have been condone-able, but probably would have been understandable under the circumstances.
Quatronia has stated that they only sought to get the culture bomb to prevent CDZ from getting it first, and using it against them. This argument is totally unpersuasive. This is because Quatronia announced that they wanted Music before CDZ announced that they were pursuing Music already. And when CDZ replied that they were after Music already, Quatronia conveyed shock and surprise, as if they were operating under the assumption that CDZ was after something totally different (Feudalism).
There is no convincing reason that a team would be after Music at this stage, other than to get the Great Artist, so Quatronia can not claim that they called Music first (and thus, called the Great Artist first), AND simultaneously claim that they were ONLY pursuing the Great Artist to beat CDZ to it.
This is because, the only way Quatronia could be seeking to beat CDZ to the Artist, is if they already knew, or anticipated, that CDZ was going for it. If they knew CDZ was after the Artist, then their claim to have "called it first" is illegitimate, because they knew CDZ was already in-fact after it.
If on the other hand, Quatronia had no idea that CDZ was after the Artist, then their claim that they had to defensively get it to 'beat CDZ to it' is undermined, because if CDZ was not after it
as far as Quatronia knew (i.e. CDZ was after Feudalism)
, then there was no need to beat them to it. So in short, either Quatronia had a pretty good idea that CDZ was after the Artist and they tried to usurp CDZ after the fact, or Quatronia had no idea whether CDZ was going for the Artist or not and they decided to pursue the Artist as an aggressive tactic, totally independent of whether CDZ was doing so.
So the bottom line of our analysis is... Quatronia technically initiated this conflict, but their actions were very minimal. CDZ totally overreacted, drastically escalating the situation. Quatronia responded with even worse behavior and then compounded their bad acts with additional bad acts, making the situation even worse, and both sides continue the escalation. Returning to the schoolyard analogy, after Quatronia sticks out their tongue, CDZ pushes, Quatronia then punches, and hits CDZ with a rock, CDZ then sees a gun (the G. Artist) on the ground, and makes a run to get it, Quatronia then sees the gun and gives chase, saying "Hey I call the gun, I called it first!"
Surely we can at least agree that neither party should use the gun on the other?
Where do we go from here?
As has been previously stated, we welcome the teams feedback on our objective analysis. Reaching some common ground on what went wrong and how to move forward is the only way to resolve this disagreement. As mentioned above, we have already come up with some suggested settlement agreements that we will share when both parties have aired their grievances to their satisfaction. Sharing of city screen shots could help ensure both teams know the other party is acting in good faith. We offer our assistance if needed to oversee this process. While trading cities is a potential solution, this would involve more difficult negotiations. We feel it will be more productive to follow a three-step process, whereby both teams agree to:
1. First, halt expansion on Hoag, pending a settlement agreement.
2. Voice all concerns with the objective analysis, to establish a bona fide, agreed starting point for negotiations
3. Discuss and reach a settlement agreement that addresses as many concerns as possible with as little disruption to the status quo as possible.
We look forward to hearing from our allies,
Sommerswerd, Captain of the Zenobian Matriarchal Alliance
