Team GONG Embassy

[AutomatedTeller]

Can we find out if FREE acted honorably in terms of any peace treaties they may have had with GONG?

 

[peter grimes]

That's a good point, AT. For that matter, we might ask all the teams about their past treaties

 

[Paul#42]

I guess GONG would have pointed that out and asked for a UN resolution.

Wait - UN is not built yet...

 

[General_W]

If FREE had broken a treaty to attack GONG, I suspect we would have heard about it in the UN... like Paul said.

 

[General_W]

New letter from GONG:

Dear General_W,
Respected Ambassador of the Council,

We are glad to hear the Council is discussing matters. You've an interesting form of government. We're quite informal here and teammates give input and help often, but are satisfied with me doing the work. I'm trying to recruit ambassadors, but no takers so far.

We've also received a communication from Saber expressing desire to know if our luxury trades might be threatened. This is impossible over the next few turns, but if our trade does become threatened we will let you know. Otherwise, we will respond only when we hear from you and be happy to provide any answers to questions you may have. We'll continue to send the accepted MPP offer each turn while you discuss matters unless your team wishes that we do not. We've other proposals, but will to hear from you first.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Best Regards,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

Please keep discussion on the letter to send GONG in response the "Diplomacy Central" thread for now.
Thanks.

 

[General_W]

We sent this letter to GONG:

Dear PrinceMyshkin and all our Song & Dance friends,

As you'll see with the next save, The Council has voted against a Mutual Protection Pact at this time. This issue isn't totally dead over here – we just believe that any deal like that is a little premature.

However – we DO have some good news.
The Council has voted to send an emergency aid package to you, consisting of a few Council scientists, and all the drawings and technical schematics that you should need to make your very own Fighter Planes and Bombers.
We hope this is of great use to you in fighting the good fight against the invaders.
Flight is yours, no strings attached. (except for our earnest hope for some good-will with your people).

We're also seriously considering gifting Motorized Transport to you (tanks)… but some Councilors believe that before we go this far, we need to structure the deal as a trade. What we'd like to propose is this – if you'll give us your word to research either Espionage or Advanced Flight before you tackle any techs in the Modern Age, and then gift it to us upon discovery… we'll give you Motorized Transport next turn.

You'll be free to trade MotorTransport around, if you wish.
If you choose Espionage, we just ask that you promise to NOT trade it to anyone else.

Interested?

Let us know!

All the best,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

And I received this one back:

Dear General_W and the Most Learned and Esteemed Council,

I've just noticed and opened your private message. You most certainly have our permanent good will. You say I will notice in the save that you have not accepted our MPP, but I have already opened the save this morning and it came with an accepted and most unexpected gift of flight to us. According to my save you are now at war with Free. Your other offers are most interesting and I believe favorable, but we need to deal with this first, Was I intended to receive this message before I got the turn and decline the offer? What can we now do without me reopening the save?

You really shouldn't worry about being at war with Free unless you have other problems. We should soon eradicate them from our shores leaving no possible method of resupply to them and have already sunk one of their transports. They are throwing so much at us now that I cannot imagine they are also ready to make repeated attacks on your nation. My suggestion is to limit possible attacks on your nation so that war-weariness cannot disrupt your most splendid Golden Age but seek opportunities to sink Free's cruisers and transports, especially if possible to the west of the Gong Show and from their resource island to the north. Understand the offers and diplomacy Gong has been conducting with The Council and your warm friends at Saber have not been a plea to save Gong, but to save yourselves as well from a real danger to your plans by reducing Free's power now. If their blitzkrieg of us had succeed they would have advanced to the next civilization on their list, most likely!
the Babes and gained something approaching domination even now. This is not even their real goal. The third message we ever got from Team FREE was "There can only be one color in the world, and that color is TEAL. FREE declares war on Gong." Rest assured that Gong is resolved to stay at war until such time the Council wants peace and you will be favorably rewarded at the peace table should FREE be defeated and accept surrender.

I'll stop all actions on the turn now, to give you sufficient time to respond to this message. Gong does hope to hear from you soon via private message or googlemail

Best Regards and Wishes for the Council,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

----

Dear Council,

As addendum to the above message you must have accepted our pact last turn as you are already at war with Free and we also now have another Mutual Protection Pact and obtained flight. Saber and Free have already taken thier turns and responded to both the original Mutual Protection Pact Saber should have seen on its turn and Free to you declaration of war. They really do seek to destroy us first but we are almost of a certainty going to foil all their plans.

Regards,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

WAR?!??
More in the Diplomacy Central Thread…

I sent this letter back:

PrinceMyshkin,

Thanks for the letters!
I must say - the news that we're at war with FREE is a bit of a shock... maybe our turnplayer messed up? I'm posting this for the team to discuss.

Yes - our previous letter was supposed to arrive BEFORE you got the save... but we're very slow... what can I say?

We're glad to be of assistance with Flight, and I'm sure we'll make progress on the other issues.
We'll write more as soon as we get the confusion straightened out.

Best,
General_W

 

[General_W]

New letter from GONG:

Dear General_W and the Council,

Your help is most appreciated. I suppose your voting on the structured trade deal motors for espionage as we agreed to all your terms, but proposed a few more ideas you might want to work in.

As I said before, I wouldn't want a lot of war-weariness points to wrech your Golden Age, so I suggest limiting your losses and look for attacks of oppurtunity on Free shipping especially transports. We just killed 2 this turn and will kill another 1-2 soon. There is a Free Cruiser escorting a transport just south of your battleship on ouw NE (banana island). We've prevented their resupply for now but have been attempting to do this from the resource island to the north. Slow cautious encirclement should contain them in their territory and we may be able to coordinate seizure of their resource islands at a later date. Please let us know if you are ready for peace or ready to negotiate so we may do this together. If your superior navy and our growing one can contain them, they'll not be able to attack our homelands and we might then slowly approach theirs together if they are not willing for peace.

Warmest Thanks and Esteem,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

So - how do we feel about GONG's proposal for espionage? I think it sounds pretty good.
And do we want to pursue a deal for Advanced flight?

 

[Niklas]

I've read their previous message several times now without understanding what their proposal really is. Could someone clarify?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

From the other thread, this is what I think there proposal is:

"We would like to propose an addendum your team can put to vote, but we would accept original proposal anyway. Both Teams will agree to only use spies on teams that declare war on them. Essentially a war declaration triggered by MPP is the same to us as other teams have the ability to halt their aggression if they wish. Also the landing of an army on your territorial homelands designed to force declaration. Word this as you wish and we would most likely agree straightaway."

Essentially, in this case, we could only use spies on FREE, which rather reduces the use of espionage in any case.

I don't really understand why they want that - I'd be ok with something that says that neither side can use spies on the other, but if we have espionage, we will want to be able to use it on SABER, certainly, to monitor their SS.

 

[peter grimes]

Yes, odd that.

Perhaps we should come back with a formal letter spelling out the Motorized Transport / Espionage trade. The wording of the spies could be incorporated, and maybe we write something simpler:
"Each team agrees to not use spies against the other"

Maybe that would slip past them?

 

[General_W]

new letter from GONG:

Dear General_W, Ambassador for the Council,

We understand your wish to make this a defensive war as this is your right. We've noticed some very fine buildings known as the United Nations and the Seti Program may be making an appearance soon in our world. So far Team Gong has inflicted 674 war-weariness points on Team Free. We have destroyed 39 tanks, 8 marines, and 2 transports and for at least the moment Free holds no land on our shores. We can understand for political reasons you may have wished to hold back on the proposed trade or gift of motorized transportation.

You will probably notice we are in anarchy, but as a religious people we can expect to emerge as a Monarchy next turn ending the effects of war-weariness for our people. Our situation remains very dire, however. Perhaps you noticed the 2 unescorted Free transports just west of our coast near your naval group last turn. These have now unloaded 3 infantry, 7 tanks, a settler, and a worker on our western shore 3NW-3N of your cruiser, Ulsan, and aircraft carrier. This is not enough to overwhelm our defenses this turn, unless they are also able to resupply a large force from 2 more transports out to sea. Our destroyers have damaged 2 cruisers leaving them with 2hp's each escorting 2 transports 4W of the Ulsan and your carrier. We can only trust the Council to do the right thing, but if a way to defeat these ships can be found to fit in with your policies we should be able to hold out against Free many turns with good chances to throw them from our shores. We must expect the worst, however, should you not find it acceptable to your policies to kill these ships and it is conceivable our defenses could fail and we will be overwhelmed quickly. We will take steps to remain alive via settler escape for as long as possible to keep Free pinned down should this happen.

Please contact us as soon as possible to let us know your plans. We are prepared to also share concrete information with Team Saber as we know you have warm relations with them, but prefer they contact us for this. We remain faithful, grateful, and warm to the Esteemed and Learned Council and await any word you may send us

Best Wishes and Regards,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

We should really send MotorTansport next turn.

And I'll take a swing and drafting some kind of proposal for GONG tomorrow. Too tired now, sorry.

 

[Paul#42]

If they are in Monarchy, they can cash rush.

If we don't decide to attack FREE actively, I'd suggest to send 1,000g along with MotTrans to offer them a strong indirect support.

I think those 1,000g are a good investment, it won't hinder us to get The Internet at full speed and will keep FREE busy without open hostility.

If SABER also spent some money, GONG could do some nice damage to FREE.

I'd still hesitate to openly attack FREE.
At the minimum we should talk to SABER about it - although both FREE and SABER made some warfare without consulting us but that were different cases...

 

[donsig]

Since there seems to be some interest in sending GONG a pile of gold we should write and ask them if a gift of gold would help. Here's a draft:

Dear GONG,

We are reluctant to openly attack FREE since we do have an outstanding peace treaty with them despite our erroneous declaration of war. We do want to help you as much as we can within the confines of our treaty. We are considering sending motorized transportation next turn. We would also like to know if a loan of gold would help you drive FREE from your shores. If gold will help you defeat FREE how much would you need?

Do you have any screen shots of the FREE transports heading your way? Is stopping these transports your only hope?

The Council

Please comment, edit, revise, vote it down, etc.

 

[Paul#42]

Good one.

I'd still say gift instead of loan but in thier situation it's pretty much the same...

 

[donsig]

should you not find it acceptable to your policies to kill these ships and it is conceivable our defenses could fail and we will be overwhelmed quickly

In light of this statement and the Council's opposition to striking the transports in question, I think it is a waste of resources to send gold to GONG. Before we play our current turn we should have a dialogue with GONG about this. I suggest we ask for an extension and send this letter to GONG:

Dear GONG,

We are reluctant to openly attack FREE since we do have an outstanding peace treaty with them despite our erroneous declaration of war. We do want to help you as much as we can within the confines of our treaty. We are sending motorized transportation this turn. We would also like to know if a loan/gift of gold would help you drive FREE from your shores. If gold will help you defeat FREE how much would you need? We just want to be sure the gold will be useful before sending it - we also don't want it to fall into the FREE treasury box.

Do you have any screen shots of the FREE transports heading your way? Is stopping these transports your only hope?

The Council

I am prepared to send the note off by noon (eastern US time) unless there is strong objection from the Council.

 

[peter grimes]

I'm fine with sending the letter, tho' I might add a line that says "We won't play the save until we hear back from you", or something along those lines

 

[Paul#42]

Yes, please send it.
I'll check our mailbox in the evening (6 hours from now) and request an extension if we got no response.

If we got response, please post it here and post your decision in the Diplomacy Center.

 

[donsig]

Sent to GONG gmail and PrinceMyshin's pm:

Spoiler :

Dear GONG,

We are reluctant to openly attack FREE since we do have an outstanding peace treaty with them despite our erroneous declaration of war. We do want to help you as much as we can within the confines of our treaty. We are sending motorized transportation this turn. We would also like to know if a loan/gift of gold would help you drive FREE from your shores. If gold will help you defeat FREE how much would you need? We just want to be sure the gold will be useful before sending it - we also don't want it to fall into the FREE treasury box.

Do you have any screen shots of the FREE transports heading your way? Is stopping these transports your only hope?

We are holding our turn till we hear back from you.

The Council

Sent to PrinceMyshkin's pm and GONG gmail

 

[General_W]

sorry I've been so AWOL around here today is another busy day... hopefully I can participate more soon.

New letter from GONG:

Dear Team Council,

As always your help is appreciated and, indeed, the erroneous declaration of war has complicated things needlessly for all teams involved. A hearty kudos is in order for General_W's wonderfully produced RoundTable reports and I'll be making a subscription post there soon as I've been stealing editions of his fine paper long enough. You have succeeded in giving Free the "Fear" to attack, but it also appears they now have no fear of attack themselves.

I have attached two tactical screen shots from CivAssist showing the numbers and positions of Free's ships to the west of the Gong Show as you requested. The turn before our destroyer had successfully killed one of their unescorted transports, but this turn they covered their resupply with cruisers. We attacked these cruisers and almost succeeded in destroying one, but they both remain at 2/5 hp's and 2/4 hp's after our attack. The second map shows how they will be able to resupply next turn via 2 transports escorted by a healthy cruiser. Just to the NE you can see the stack of units consisting of 3 infantry, 1 settler, 1 worker, and 7 fresh tanks they landed on our shores this turn.

The units they have on our shores now and the ability to resupply by air is of certainly grave concern to us, but our defenses are virtually 100% certain to hold next turn if that were all they have to attack with. By careful abandonment of some of towns and wise builds we could be expected to hold out a good number of turns and ensure your supply of our luxuries. The chance to overthrow this new position from our island would not be impossible, but is made difficult by the fact they have the ability to steal our oil with their new settlement on the next turn. If you had sent motors to us on the last turn we would have been able to set production to tanks and been able to rush some tanks on the first turn of anarchy. We still hope to receive motors from you this turn and none of our agreements have changed. Your gift of flight has helped and the first bomber we produced has already succeeded in destroying another tank. We successfully destroyed 10 tanks this turn.

Unfortunately, it is our opinion now that stopping Free's transports is our only hope of holding out yet more turns. If they somehow, and I don't doubt they do, have the ability to resupply the new town they should build next turn with 12 fresh tanks our defenses will likely fail and we could lose a number of towns and be easily overrun the next turn. Possibly also lose the chance to provide some assisstance via escape by settler.

Gold could possibly help us repel Free from our shores, but if these ships aren't destroyed it is likely much of the gold would just fall in Free's hands. If they were to be destroyed, we would be sure no gold could fall into Free's hands over the next few turns. With the remaining bombers we can rush, our stock of artillery and some more infantry units we could possibly repel them from their new position by 2-3 turns but would need to rely on cavalry to do the job. My best advisor says this could require as much as 4000 gold, but my own opinion is it would take much less than that.

We have succeeded at reducing Free's power by the same relative margin our own power has been reduced, but it may be that despite our best efforts our downfall will come eventually if Free is not to be attacked by any other team soon. I hope I have answered all your questions in this long reply, but if you have others ask them soon and I will answer more succintly and directly to any questions asked.

Best Regards and Thanks,
PrinceMyshkin
Team Gong

I remain hesitant about sinking transports... but I think I'd certainly vote to send gold to GONG. We don't want them to be wiped out!

 

[peter grimes]

Well, tho' I've been a strong advocate for not sinking Free's navy, this letter is really eating away at me.

Of course, we don't really know if the situation is quite as bad as he claim. We still don't know everyone's military strengths relative to eachother.

Too bad we didn't do the MT trade last turn, but I don't recall any pressing language in his letter. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Is there any way our fighters on the carrier can help to keep Oil flowing for Gong?