Piffle – Official Embassy

[General_W]

New letter from Piffle...

Sorry for the delay in this reply. We saw a frog hopping around the office and everyone coincidentally licked it at different times and the hallucinations weren't coinciding.

Dear Mr. The,

We are prepared to accept the following from your proposal:

1. The Leader will work his noggin over to figure out some way to covey thoughts with copious congregations of symbolic characters.
2. The Pilfinatress will build up massive fires to attempt to liquify some rock to gain useable shiny scolding liquid in order to fashion tools and weapons much stronger than the big stick that our oafs are currently carrying
3. The monetary advantage (30g or 30 beakers) that Mr. The will gain by persuing said technologies can be re-imbursed once we discover a common monetary system as our monetary system involves moments of silence which are very rare and much sought after. This should be done before Beaurocracy is discovered as the paper work could be counter-productive and cost-prohibitive.
4. No fighting is agreeable with us as we only like to scuffle in bed. But we are opposed to any 10 turn notice as this creates a lot of undue tension between teams if someone breaks off a peace agreemen. We would prefer to have the non-fighting, friendly state of our nations to continue until the years stop counting down and start to count up again.

Picking a peck of pickles,
Pilfinatress of the Piffle People

I had to read the treaty part twice before I understood it...
I believe they are asking for a treaty that will last until 1AD.

That's a pretty long commitment... and if they try to settle up in our lands, it ties our hands on how we can respond.

But still – it might be nice to have one solid ally.

What does everyone think?

 

[DaveMcW]

We can promise not to research Bureaucracy while we owe them money. (But we won't tell them that we are going to research it BEFORE going into debt. )

Part of the 1AD peace treaty can be a promise not to settle closer than the halfway point between our capitals.

 

[General_W]

Here's my proposed response:

Dear Tubby Rower and All Piffledom,

We believe we are very near a deal here.
Points 1 and 2 look great, and we agree.

We propose that point 3 be reworded to:
"The monetary advantage (30g or 30b) that The Leader owes to The Pilfinatress will be rectified as soon as possible either by a) a lopsided tech deal 30b in favor of Piffle, or by b) 30g in payment made as soon as Currency is learned by either nation.
The Leader will not research Bureaucracy (or equal-or-higher level technology) unless the debt has already been discharged."

We'd also like to see point 4 reworded to:
"Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD.
During this peace, no towns may be settled closer than the halfway point between the other's capital."

We believe these rewordings protect both of our teams from any possible unfair advantage.

Let us know!

All the Best,

FM General_W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

I threw a bunch of extra rewording into point 3 to help hide the really significant change from "done before Beaurocracy" to " research Bureaucracy" – to allow us the freedom for the Oracle slingshot without violating the treaty.

EDIT: SENT!

 

[peter grimes]

Something to consider: neither of our teams know where the half-way point is between our capitals.... unless I'm missing something.

 

[General_W]

That's true - but it's a safe bet the half-way point is on that connection land strip somewhere. By the time they are ready to settle city 4 or 5 (first 3 will almost certainly be close to home) we'll hopefully both know where the 1/2 point is.

 

[DaveMcW]

Neither team will research Bureaucracy (or equal-or-higher level technology) unless the debt has already been discharged."

I would change this to:
"The Leader will not research Bureaucracy unless the debt has already been discharged."

Let them think they still have a chance to get Bureaucracy first.

 

[General_W]

Ok - I like that change. However, I still think we should keep the parenthetical "or equal or higher level technology" so that the statement still means something.
When we get the Oracle, we can just apologize for being vague, but I'm sure they'll understand our need for secrecy. Our agreement on currency will still have weight, because we'll still be agreed to the essence of what they're asking for… that we not just ignore the currency wing of the tech tree to avoid paying our debt.

I've made your change in my proposed letter above.

Other comments?

 

[General_W]

Message sent to Piffle!

 

[General_W]

Just got a response from Tubby Rower at Piffle...

Gen and Mr. The,

Your re-wording of #3 seems to be saying the same things as what we originally had, but we'll go with your words. We appreciate the sentiment of point 4, but it is unworkable at this time becuase we don't know where your capitol is. How about just this for #4:
"Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD.


Waiting by the phone like a teenage girl for her new boyfriend to call,
Piffle

Looks like they're going with the Peter Grimes defense!

I think we need some kind of territory division language in there... or else there's a major exploit just waiting to happen.

Other thoughts? A different way to word it?

 

[DaveMcW]

I don't think territory division is a big deal. Building too far away from the capital before 1AD will really hurt their income. And with long supply lines they will have trouble defending if we get aggressive.

 

[General_W]

true enough - but are we willing to risk an aggressive settlement of the connecting isthmus by Piffle – while we can do nothing about it till 1AD ?

I suppose it's unlikely – but I think we want to think through the ramifications before we agree to peace with no territory limits.

 

[General_W]

Ok – no one is commenting on this much – and we need to respond before too much time goes by - so here's my proposed response:

Dear Tubby and all the teenage girls at Piffle,

You're quite correct about point #4 being technically unworkable… but what we were after was the sentiment of the deal anyway – which we're pleased to hear you agree with. So how about that point says something more… sentimental… like "Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD – during which time, neither nation will settle in what is reasonably and obviously the other's natural territory."

That's obviously vague – but we'd like to see our agreed sentiment at least somewhat codified in our treaty.
We trust that both our peoples will be reasonable in upholding the good faith of even that vague treaty.

What do you say?
Do we have a deal?
Should there be formal documents?

Until then,

Foreign Minister General W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

Any comments?
24 hours till sending…

 

[lost_civantares]

What about linking strings of land between contenants? Is that okay to settle on?

 

[General_W]

yeah - I think that'd be ok - and they way my proposal is worded, I think you could settle any where on the connector without problems... as long as it wasn't right on the edge of the other's continent.

 

[peter grimes]

I apologize for not commenting,... but I really don't have much to say. I trust you to steer our diplomacy in a constructive direction; and I see from Piffle's correspondence that you are equal to the task: They went for your re-wording!!

I think we might want to reword the settlement bit to say something like:
Niether team will found a town on the spit of land connecting our territories. To prevent that, no town may be founded by either team that has fewer than 6 [is this the right number?] land tiles.

I really dont' know if that accomplishes the idea of keeping the land bridge open, but I hope it gets us talking about it.

 

[classical_hero]

Excellent diplomacy.

 

[General_W]

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Peter – I like your reword… but I don't think we actually want to agree to that. It's very possible we may want to settle a town on the spit of land, to allow boats to pass through from one sea to the other.

With the crazy choke points in this game, Naval mobility could be key to a military victory.

My vote is to leave the wording vague (as above) or else change it to something like…
Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD – during which time, neither nation will settle beyond the halfway point on the spit of land connecting our islands.


Now we don't actually know for 100% that Piffle got to us across a similar spit of land like we found to our South-East… but it's seems VERY likely.

I'll give at least 6 more hours for discussion on this before sending anything.

Spoiler current letter draft :

Dear Tubby and all the teenage girls at Piffle,

You're quite correct about point #4 being technically unworkable… but what we were after was the sentiment of the deal anyway – which we're pleased to hear you agree with. So how about that point says something more like "Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD – during which time, neither nation will settle beyond the halfway point on the spit of land connecting our islands."

That's obviously still a little vague – but we'd like to see our agreed sentiment at least somewhat codified in our treaty.
We trust that both our peoples will be reasonable in upholding the good faith of that agreement.

What do you say?
Do we have a deal?
Should there be formal documents?

Until then,

Foreign Minister General W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

EDIT: SENT!

 

[Memphus]

I Say sent it!

Looks great

 

[General_W]

ok - Sent!

Dear Tubby and all the teenage girls at Piffle,

You're quite correct about point #4 being technically unworkable… but what we were after was the sentiment of the deal anyway – which we're pleased to hear you agree with. So how about that point says something more like "Peace will reign between our two peoples until 1 AD – during which time, neither nation will settle beyond the halfway point on the spit of land connecting our islands."

That's obviously still a little vague – but we'd like to see our agreed sentiment at least somewhat codified in our treaty.
We trust that both our peoples will be reasonable in upholding the good faith of that agreement.

What do you say?
Do we have a deal?
Should there be formal documents?

Until then,

Foreign Minister General W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

 

[peter grimes]

Great letter, and I agree with you that my wording wasn't the best. I'm glad you came up with a more agreeable version.

Again, Great job