Piffle Communication Thread

[1889]

Perhaps, but I don’t think OB by themselves improves relations in any significant way; the only way to make inroads is by making plans together.

Our team doesn’t look so hot right now to anybody familiar with the demographics data (although hopefully things will start to improve when we capture some cities). Anyway right now Piffle may feel that their only competition is Epsilon so there could be a chance of starting trouble between them.

Renewing the OB could be an excuse to chat, let’s see if we can get something for it. Maybe hint that we are on hard times as a result of the war and could be persuaded to join Piffle against Epsilon if they were to make a move.

Kind of a vague plan for such a dangerous game, does anyone think it has a chance?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I severely doubt it. All that Piffle would probably do would be to extract as much information as possible from us, play friends for a while, and then attack us with Epsilon at their side. I really, really doubt that we can realistically turn those two teams on each other at this stage of the game. Sure, they might pretend to be interested in our offer of war with Epsilon, but the chance of them going through with anything is beyond slim. Still, go ahead if you like.

 

[1889]

Well do you think Piffle has long ago just decided to surrender the game to Epsilon or what? If they have a chance I think they would take it. They may not think this little scheme of ours is credible but I'm sure they would rather win if given a decent chance.

 

[1889]

P.S. I just remembered that the Piffle-Epsilon peace treaty expires in 1250 AD, just about the time we are putting the cabash on Loco's last city. Could that be just coincidence?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Well do you think Piffle has long ago just decided to surrender the game to Epsilon or what? If they have a chance I think they would take it. They may not think this little scheme of ours is credible but I'm sure they would rather win if given a decent chance.

Well, give it a shot if you reckon it can be made to work.

 

[1889]

Here is a proposed (and unsent) email to get the ball rolling. I was hopping that Theo or Dutch could handle the chat though.

Dear Piffle,

The Open Boarder agreement between us has expired and since our man never made it back to explore your lands we see little value in extending it, although we are willing to do so if you could see fit to compensate us with a small tax.

We were unable to find much common ground in our last chat but the strategic situation has changed a great deal since then and now present numerous opportunities that we would like to explore with you.

We would like to arrange a chat to discus these important developments.

Team Innovia

 

[Theoden]

Looks good, except that I don't think the word 'tax' is the best... just say that we want some compensation and that we can discuss it in the chat. This also prevents them from turning down the idea immediately.

I can handle the chat, but you'll have to elaborate a bit on those 'numerous opportunities that we would like to explore with them'.

 

[dutchfire]

I could chat, if needed.
Killercane chats for them, right? What's his email-addy?

 

[1889]

Here are the items on my mind right now:

• We will have another sugar resource available for trade soon. Also our silk for fish trade is about to expire. Our resources are clam (3) Marble (1) sheep (1) Incense (1), It will be a while before we can reliably use capture resources. They have 1 each of horse, corn, crab, wheat, gold, and wine.
  
• After Astro a good tech path for us might be engineering (6turns). Pikes are reasonable defense against cavalry plus extra road movement will be helpful and it opens chemistry (grenadiers, frigates). Don’t know what Piffles tech plans are but would that be tradable?
  
• Most importantly we can tell them that our war has not worked out. Victory is assured but by the time it’s over we may have missed our shot at the win. (I don’t really believe this is true, but I want them to feel that we no longer feel we have a chance at the win, so that they may feel like taking us on as a junior partner.) We expect to finish Loco around the same time that their peace treaty with Epsilon expires. We are unsure what to do with the large numbers of experienced troops we will have left over and wonder if they have considered how or when they might make their break for the win.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Sounds good. By the way, it's "Open Borders" if you haven't already sent the email note.

 

[1889]

Email fixed and sent.

 

[1889]

No response huh?

 

[Theoden]

Well, he tried to contact me but I was away and discovered it too late to respond. I then wited for him to come online during the weekend and until now, but no luck...

 

[1889]

Along with the save we got this nice note:

Greetings, Team Innovia!

When you receive the save, you will undoubtably notice that I have
cancelled our open borders agreement. I should apologize for the
delay in doing this, as my actions at this point have trapped your
units behind our borders.

We want the Innovians to know that this is not a sign of aggression.
And that we have no hostile intentions towards Innovia. The reason
that we did this is our on-going war with Aloha. From our
perspective, it seems that Aloha and Innovia have become rather cozy
allies. As you can imagine, we would rather that a map of our cities
and territory NOT make it into the hands of our mortal enemies.

On another note, we notice that Innovia has a spare sugar resource
that is not connected. We have some spare wine. Please let us know
if you might be interested in doing a trade along these or similar
lines.

Sincerely,
Conroe

Team Piffle

No suprise there. Shall we try and get some map trades with Loco and Aloha?

 

[Theoden]

Message from Piffle:

Dear Team Innovia,

We are concerned how things have deveoped. Recently you cancelled our silks deal but continue to scout our territory with your camel archer. We would suggest either renewing the deal or we would respectfully ask you to remove your camel archer.

Please advise how you'd like to proceed.

Regards,
The Pifflenatress

Seems our camel archer's exploration adventure is over...

 

[1889]

They had a nice look around Innovia then cancelled open borders right when we showed up. I think they owe our ambassador a little better hospitality.

Or something to that affect.

 

[1889]

Or something to this effect:

Dear Pifflenatressonians,

You’ve been very vocal on the point of sour relations between our nations, but very uncooperative on any point that might strengthen our ties.

Millennia ago you refused entry to our scout while Aloha’s warrior marched in right ahead of us, you refused tech trades, and then stopped responding to our diplo all together.

We offered you open borders to get relations back on track. Your warrior dined on Ploughland’s finest take-out at discounted rates, he enjoyed the best that Glassport Community Theater had to offer and even got wine and cheese at the after party, he enjoyed the pleasures of Polynesia’s red-light district on clean sheets. But or explorer is eating bugs and snakes in the wilderness, literally whistling Dixie to himself and hasn’t seen a sheep since he left Port Tropicana!

Relations between our two nations need never have deteriorated to this point, now you suggest they can only get worse. We feel instead this is an opportunity to grow stronger together.

Thank you,
Team Innovia

 

[Theoden]

I agree that it's about time we go straigth to the problem and tell them clearly that we don't feell very well treated by their foreign department.

Fix the typo (should be "our explorer") and the message looks good to me.

 

[1889]

fixed and sent.

 

[Provolution]

Clearly, they deserve a good spanking, and that spanking should be very soon.