Piffle – Official Embassy

[General_W]

Heard back from Piffle…

General,

Until paper is researched and maps are able to be traded, any land division doesn't seem possible. There's too much exploration both (with emphasis) teams must acheive. If we have a border conflict then we'll cross that bridge when it's time. We fully understand your concern about borders. Border definitions at this early point in the game are just unfeasible and will likely be unknowingly lopsided towards one team. While we would hate to be on the short end of that endeavor, we likewise don't want to short-change you as an angry neighbor is never good.

So here is our latest proposal for Peace (and we take your PM-word on it and don't need official-looking documents).

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 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.
4. Peace will reign between the Leader and the Piffilnatress until 1 AD. Upon discovering Paper, borders will be negotiated.

Let us know what you think and we'll be eating Oreos and watching The Breakfast Club


Dreaming of a Peaceful Piffledom,
The Piffilnatress

I think this is as far as we're going to get with them.
I think it's fair.

At least they can't settle unreasonably close to us and claim that they're totally protected by our treaty… as we clearly and repeatedly expressed our concern about settlement.

I say we sign this, and trust things to work out.
I'm optimistic they will.

I'll give at least 24 hours for comment before I even draft a response.

 

[Memphus]

Good to go in my books

Except the will raise a stink when we complete the Oracle but technically speaking we are following the treaty!

The downside to this is they could be going for a Metal Casting Oracle sling... (although I doubt it with 2 industrious Civs)

Either way we know that they are nowhere near a CS sling

 

[lost_civantares]

I say sure, it looks good, though how reticent are they going to be about settling in our "zone" when they see "The Leader Has Adopted Burarcracy!" though? (or does that not happen since it's PBEM? Would they have to happen onto the log?) They are trying to prevent us from doing the slingshot in this treaty, and we are more than slightly bending the treaty I think.

 

[General_W]

@ Lost Civ – I don't think we'll get much flack from Piffle about our Bureaucracy Sling Shot. If they were honestly worried about that (or even thought it possible in Multi-player) then they would have caught the word change and recognized what we were doing. Since they accepted the word change – they must not be thinking in those terms. At least that's my take.

They'll be jealous (and impressed)… like everyone else. But I don't expect any trouble around "you broke the treaty!" unless they're looking to start trouble for other reasons.

So – here's my draft response…

Dear Tubby, and all Dreamers and Oreo Eaters,

Let me be the first to embrace you as our brothers in peace! The Leader and Supreme Council of Epsilon have approved of the peace treaty and trading measures outlined in your last letter to us.

A holiday has been declared in your honor - the people rejoice.

We look forward to many years of peace and cooperation. May today be only the seed of the future greatness that is to grow for both our peoples.

We always welcome further communication from our friends – I am at your service for anything further you would like to discuss.

Sincerely Yours,

Foreign Minister General W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

I'll leave this here for another 24 hours or so before sending.
You'll notice I used "friends" in the plural in the last line there… try to plant a little doubt about how many people we've met.

We may want to consider talking with Piffle later to find out what they know of the wide world. This will require us to decide how much information (if any) we're willing to give up.

Thoughts on that or on the letter?

 

[lost_civantares]

As a purely stylistic issue, didn't we go with something like "The council of seven" or something like that? It just sounds something that would go along with the ancient times we are in.

As for information, personally I feel that it really isn't all that big of a deal (it never seemed to be in the civ3 from what I can tell by reading the archieves...). How and why is it all that important? They are going to find out at somepoint, and through this treaty neither of us is going to go on a poaching run.

 

[General_W]

Good call on the "council of seven" - I love it!

Any other feedback from anyone?

I'm assuming everyone likes the peace deal?

 

[Memphus]

yeah without a doubt let's send it off.

 

[General_W]

Ok - Sent!

Here's the final version I sent.

Dear Tubby, and all Dreamers and Oreo Eaters,

Let me be the first to embrace you as our brothers in peace! The Leader and the Epsilon Council of Seven have approved of the peace treaty and trading measures outlined in your last letter to us.

A holiday has been declared in your honor - the people rejoice.

We look forward to many years of peace and cooperation. May today be only the seed of the future greatness that is to grow for both our peoples.

We always welcome further communication from our friends – I am at your service for anything further you would like to discuss.

Sincerely Yours,

Foreign Minister General W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

 

[peter grimes]

As for information, personally I feel that it really isn't all that big of a deal (it never seemed to be in the civ3 from what I can tell by reading the archieves...). How and why is it all that important?

You must not have come across the juicy parts yet. It may be tough to imagine how, but any info we can get (or plant!) may be of value. As for early contacts, that is the single most important aspect of the MTDG. The team that controls the early contacts will come to dominate.

 

[General_W]

Here's the letter I propose to send to Piffle.

I will leave it here for at least 6 hours before sending – so please comment if you think anything should be changed!

Dear all of Piffledom,

We were witnesses to the climactic battle between the Bubba Warriors and the barbarian forces of darkness.
Our scouts report that the Bubbas fought fiercely and bravely, and would have won, except a cruel trick by the barbarians distracted them at a crucial moment. Apparently the distraction involved half-clothed women and some kind of alcoholic beverages… but the details are sketchy.

You will be pleased to know that we have avenged the death of Bubba, and made the barbarians pay for their… barbarity.

We hope you will sleep easier knowing that the murderers of the Bubbas have had justice visited upon them.

Your Friends,
From the Golden Halls of Epsilon Eridani,
Epsilon Team!

EDIT: Sent

 

[Memphus]

That is great!

Haha Brightened up my lunch hour!

 

[peter grimes]

I like it. I just wish we had more details on that nefarious distraction!

 

[Agarwaen]

Just Great!

 

[General_W]

Proposed new letter to send to Piffle.
I can only give 6-7 hours for comment before I send - so please speak up if you have an opinion!

Dear Tubby and All Piffles,

Please forgive our silence of late, the last few years have been busy for my people, as you can imagine.

We regret we weren’t able to be more open with you about our plans for the Oracle – but we're confident you understand and are sympathetic towards our desire for secrecy.

That said, we are still looking forward to fulfilling our end of the treaty we have signed with you, and wanted to let you know that we're about 6 turns away from having the secret of letters… project code name: "ABC"

We're curious to know how you're coming on melting rocks into better killing weapons?

Yours in Peace and Trade,
General_W, Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team

 

[Memphus]

You may to swap out 6 turns for a Quarter Century

6 turns * 40 years a turn = 240 Years

But a Quarter Century is a little more vague in that it could be 6 or 7 turns and it is more "Historical"

But really either way is fine by me

 

[lost_civantares]

hmm, If we are thinking about the style, IMHO, we should stay with the 6 turns instead of years, we have slightly damaged releations possibly due to our oracle slingshot, so we need to be as honest as possible, especially since I doubt that we'll need the extra turn.

But as you said Memphus, it's fine either way.

 

[General_W]

Ok – I waited to send this till I got back from my weekend family reunion. I agree with Lost Civ – we should be as honest as possible at this point. I’m going to send the letter with “4 turns”

Here’s what I’ve sent!

Dear Tubby and All Piffles,

Please forgive our silence of late, the last few years have been busy for my people, as you can imagine.

We regret we weren’t able to be more open with you about our plans for the Oracle – but we're confident you understand and are sympathetic towards our desire for secrecy.

That said, we are still looking forward to fulfilling our end of the treaty we have signed with you, and wanted to let you know that we're about 6 turns away from having the secret of letters… project code name: "ABC"

We're curious to know how you're coming on melting rocks into better killing weapons?

Yours in Peace and Trade,
General_W, Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team

 

[Memphus]

Hmmm Well because now we are 4 turns away but 6 is close enough

 

[General_W]

oh man! :slapsforehead:

I meant to change that! I'll send them a note correcting it to "4 turns"

Thanks Memphus!

EDIT: letter also sent to Piffle's Gmail account.

 

[General_W]

Heard back from Tubby @ Piffle...

Hello Leader,

Sorry about the delay. With us not knowing how to transfer information across paper, we had trouble getting up to speed. We're happy to hear that you're so close to learning project code ABC. We've noticed that the Oracle has provided your captial with some magnificent means of generating more gold and hammers. We heard it's called Burea...something.
Project metal metaling is coming along and we hope to provide it soon. We've had some problems as you know with the loss of one of our feared warriors and the infidel barbarians continue to be an annoyance. We're eradicating the problem as fast as we can.

Will you be sending project ABC when you're finished?

Sincerely,
Pifflenatress

So they know we pulled off the Bureaucracy slingshot. And they're being vague with on us on when they'll have Metal Casting.

I'm thinking we should respond with something like…

"Yes – at first we were quite puzzled when the Oracle starting spouting all kinds of senseless legal jargon and endless regulations for performing common sense tasks… but it seems to have boosted production in Epsilon Eridani, so we decided to let it continue (although some of us suspect that these productivity gains are just an accounting trick).

Anyway – that's why we wanted out treaty with you reworded "The Leader will not research Bureaucracy, or equal or higher level technology" since we suspected that we would get this kind of Bureaucratic advance from the Oracle. We hope you understand this was necessary to maintain secrecy – but the treaty still holds us to the intent of the agreement – that we not delay in getting you the tech we've promised.
As you can see – we are sticking to that deal.

If you can let us know when you expect to finish Metal Casting, we'll send you writing on faith, and then we can trade alphabet and gold straight across for Metal Working.
How does that sound?"

Or something like that.
Please offer feedback and suggestions!