The Shen Ling Accord

[Goonie]

The Shen Ling Accord circa 2230 BC

The Shen Ling Accord was written in attempts to aid the Nations of Elucidia and Fanatikou rid the world of the Gamecathcer Alliance, and allow these nations to claim Gamecathcers fertile lands. This accord summarizes the steps that both Nations agree to take in order to accomplish the latter.

I The War Effort
i War shall not be declared until both nations are prepared and consenting.

ii The Battle Plans agreed upon by both nations must only differ if each Defence Minister has been contact and agrees with the move.

II The Aftermath
i All cities of the former Gamecathcer Alliance will be split equally. In the case of an odd number of cities, Fanatikou and Elucidia must come to an agreement about that city before any further actions are taken.

ii If a city is taken by the wrong nation, that city must be turned over to the proper country. All gold may be kept.

Fanatikese Foreign Affairs Minister,
Goonie


Its only a start, but I think its better than an MPP! What do you guys think?

 

[croxis]

I like this. Much better for now. Perhaps something more perminant can come into place later.

 

[FortyJ]

I think this is premature and may backfire on us.

Right now, we've got a presumably friendly nation that seems willing to come to our aid should the need arise. This risks making us appear eager to go to war and could trigger the reverse effect.

They did mention, when we asked if we could get past their "road block" up north, that some neighbors weren't behaving properly up there. I think we should attempt to better determine what exactly they meant by that, and offer to come to their assistance.

All in all, I think we should avoid a formal alliance such as this for the time being. I mean, we just met them and now we're asking them to give us Iron Working and declare war on a neighbor that doesn't seem to like us very much. Not necessarily the best foot forward....

 

[Goonie]

Do you honestly want to go fight up North? I hope not. We dont need to present this right away.

Remember Elucidia has alot to gain from this, and I bet they are thinking of how to ask us for this aswell. What is the best step foward? Fighting alone? Of course not! Finding a keen allly who will gain something as well! With our combined strentghs, the conquest of the Gamecathcer Alliance is not far.

FortyJ, I dont understand your reverse effect approach? How will this 'backfire'? This isn't really a very formal alliance, it is a military coalition for one campaign, that we need to fight to win this game.

 

[FortyJ]

My concern is that we don't have the means to wage an offensive campaign at this time (and probably won't for about 20 turns or so). Thus, we should not commit ourselves to an alliance of this nature, yet.

Also, if we come out now saying let's get GC, that's a bit different than saying let's stop the aggressor GC before they conquer us and you and everyone else on our little island.

 

[Zukatah]

A proposed roadmap before we submit this accord to the friendly people of Elucidia:

1) Learn more about their aggressive neighbours
2) Propose them a no-war pact between our two nations for a good period of time
3) Ask them if they plan to wage a war with GC in the not too distant future
4) In case they do plan to go to war, submit this proposal to them to see how things will work

Another thing we could add: as soon as map making is discovered, we trade world map with each other. That way we would learn alot about the surrounding lands.

 

[FortyJ]

I agree. If they are looking to start a fight (or end one ) with GC, then we should definitely offer to come to their aid.

However, I really think we need to try to spend the next 20 turns expanding our empire. If we are going to cut down the trees north of Shen Ling, that will add 10 shields to the production of the granary, which will make it that much sooner to recruit our first settlers. Then we should try to produce another settler every 5 turns to build more cities.

This should allow us to grow to six cities within 20 turns (including a settler from Zhi Gang in that time period as well). This would be a sufficient base from which we can produce an army of units that would make even the staunchest GC citizen quake in their mud-catching boots.

 

[Goonie]

@40J

There is no need to worry about your concern. This proposal is beign written and discussed now, but we are not presenting it at this time.

Also please no thread-jacking.

And I bleieve we should be the ones to signal to Elucidia that we want war. They might be reluctant to take this first step. If they say that they are intrested in a war, we present them with this.

 

[Zukatah]

I think that we can make it clear for Elucidia that we don't want to start a war now, that we have to wait for 15-20 turns to get a decent attack force and I'm pretty sure that they'll understand and they'll also want to wait to get a decent immortal army before declaring war. We're all in the same boat here, the 4 civs wants to declare war once they get IW and a decent attack force so we need to keep that in mind and act accordingly. So even if this proposal seems to be premature for some, I think it's even a bit late to start trading techs and having a partner along our sides. I'm pretty sure that if they want to hit Elucidia, they'll do it with archers and they won't want to wait until they get Immortals because that would be suicide. You don't want to attack a civ that has his UU...

 

[FortyJ]

Sorry about the inadvertent thread-jacking. I figured my comments were topical considering the ramifications of this treaty. Should this discussion become an actual agreement, then we would need to shift our focus from growth to conquest. I'm just concerned that we don't have a large enough base to support such an undertaking at this time.

 

[Zukatah]

Such a treaty doesn't change dramatically our focus because the best plan is to stick to ours and it never says when we should declare war on GC, it only says that we'll provide assistance in case there's a conflict. If they're good allies, they'll inform us before undertaking an attack and we'll tell them how long it will take for us to react to that situation and they'll have to live with it. It will have to be a concerted decision for it ot be effective and it's in the better interest of the two civs to act that way.

 

[Goonie]

One thing I dont agree with in that statement Zu. I dont want to go running if they get attacked by Poly. If they get attacked by GC, and we have a force, then bam! Look out!

 

[Octavian X]

I feel this agreement to be too restrictive in the event we do actually declare war on GC.

First off, it will restrict the number of cities we can take. Even if we can take those old GC cities from Elucidia, it would've been easier to take them by ourselves in the first place.

Sceond, we're already on the road to iron working. Forcing CDG to give up such a tech at this point would not work - because there's no guarentee for techs from us, they'ed reject it outright.

Third, there's no honorable way for us to get out of this if we decide not to after GC. It's very possible that we find out that we can't take on GC safely, or for us to find someone else more urgent to attack, say, for example, CDG.

Fourth, Zukatah is right. The world of diplomacy is a tricky one. If we reveal right now to Elucidia of our future designs for Gamecatcher, they may rat us out and tell Lucky. If what little suprise we have left is taken away, an attack is sure to fail.

Fifth, fears of a war against Aployton are useless. A, it'll be a while before we acually meet them, meaning we can't formally declare war. B, they're so far away, it wouldn't be practical from them to declare war on us. C, For all we know, the state of affairs between Elucidia and Aployton may be very good, thus reducing the chances of war. D, who cares? There's enough anti-'poly sentinment on this board that no one will really mind.

 

[Goonie]

First off, it will restrict the number of cities we can take. Even if we can take those old GC cities from Elucidia, it would've been easier to take them by ourselves in the first place.

True, we can take this out, but if we get an alliance with them, they are more likely to get more cities than us, because we have to break through BoP. This actually benefits us!

Sceond, we're already on the road to iron working. Forcing CDG to give up such a tech at this point would not work - because there's no guarentee for techs from us, they'ed reject it outright.

Fine I agree, I will take that out.

Third, there's no honorable way for us to get out of this if we decide not to after GC. It's very possible that we find out that we can't take on GC safely, or for us to find someone else more urgent to attack, say, for example, CDG.

We aren't going to change our minds. We need those lands. We have already commited ourselves to gameplay that is all in order to kill GC. We cant change now. Its too late.

Fourth, Zukatah is right. The world of diplomacy is a tricky one. If we reveal right now to Elucidia of our future designs for Gamecatcher, they may rat us out and tell Lucky. If what little suprise we have left is taken away, an attack is sure to fail.

Think about it. Elucidia has absolutely NOTHING TO GAIN from rating us out. They have LOTS to gain from helping us. And the world if diplomacy is tricky, and so is war. War is even tricker when we dont have an ally. We need Elucidia!


I agree with your 5th point. But all I said, is that later on I dont want to get dragged into one. That is why I dont want an MPP.

 

[Goonie]

Updated First post.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

I will suggest that we present this once we sign the agreement that they proposed. Remember they haven't said specifically whether they definately will wage war against Gamecatcher. They only said that Gamecatcher dont seem to like us.

So yes, I like the agreement, but after we sign the central alliance one.

 

[Hygro]

I like the pact; I especially like the name; I think we should wait to know their situation before signing; I like semi-colons

 

[Killer A's]

I like the revised agreement but we do need more details on their situation (i.e. Possible wars with their other neighbors)

 

[Goonie]

I agree with Killer and Hygro, but I do not agree with GmB. I dont want to sign the Central Alliance, because it is too restrictive. It locks us up in a MPP. I dont think anyone here really wants that.

 

[FortyJ]

Originally posted by Goonie
Think about it. Elucidia has absolutely NOTHING TO GAIN from rating [SIC] us out.

On the contrary; we don't really know what they can gain from ratting us out. In fact, they could gain quite a bit.

We do know, or at least can surmise that CDG is having trouble close to home with some uncooperative neighbors. Kentonio as much as told us this during the chat last Friday. If this trouble is from Gamecatcher, then they could use this proposed deal as a bargaining chip to stay their hands. They could very easily offer up proof of our intended betrayal as a sign of their loyalty and willingness to exist peacefully with GC.

I still think that while this deal may well be the course of action we need to take, I believe it is extremely premature to take it at this time. We need to know more about what's happening between CDG and GC before proposing this deal.