[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[Caledorn]

So, Yossarian has played the turn and will post the turn report soon. (Short edit here: I blame myself for Yossarian beating me to the post! You will be hooted for this, Yossarian!) He tells me we've met the Gladiator's Glory team - and boy are we glad we have the romans as our eastern neighbours! *cough*

So I came up with a quick draft for our first message to them, and discussed it a bit with Yossarian on GTalk. Here's basically what we came up with, but thought we'd ask for some lurker feedback on before we send anything:

Greetings to the Roman Gladiators

I have to admit that I detest writing "First contact" messages, as no matter how much I try to word them nice and eloquently they always seem extremely corny. So, let's just get down to business instead and skip the fluff for now.

We would like peaceful relations with you, and as such we suggest a NAP until at least turn 100. Obviously we ask for a long NAP, as we hope that you too desire at least one friendly neighbour that you can cooperate with, and it is our most sincere hope that you will find someone else to pay a visit with your praetorian legions when that time comes. If you agree, we look forward to discuss other treaties and possible avenues of cooperation as well. How does that sound to you guys?

(Blame) Caledorn

I initially wrote T75, but as the following conversation will reveal Yossarian had a better idea:

Yossarian
Sounds good. I would try to push that NAP even a little further, maybe T100?

Caledorn
I wanted to write that, but was a bit worried it may sound too desperate..
They're probably very very aware of their nation choice, and that a nap until t100 means we don't want praetorian visitors

Yossarian
Yeah, they'll know what we're going for. But T75 just gives them peace long enough to get their Praet's online
Let them counter us with that, then we'll know if they're gunning for us or looking for peace on our side so they can focus on their other side

Caledorn
I guess I could be brutally honest and write T100 and make a joke about the prats..
{snipping the draft, since I pasted it to Yossarian here}
How about that?
I can obviously skip the entire sentence about the cooperation-crap and the prats if you think it's overdoing it

Yossarian
I think it sounds good
Let's put it in the thread for some lurker feedback
I'd love to hear Scooter's take, for example

Caledorn
Great!
And yeah, definitely
This is going to be a lot easier than the ISDG though, as I don't have to deal with all the fluff crap
Well, with some teams I have to..
But I doubt these guys will appreciate fluff to be honest. I reserve the fluff for Maga, Halvgud and Parkin
Since they'll obviously know that we are aiming to avoid the prats I feel it's just as simple to just state it outright
Could add something about the fact that we feel lucky they're the first team we meet, so we get an early opportunity to make a deal with them before anyone else gets the chance perhaps?

Yossarian
Yeah, the praet's aren't somehting we can really tiptoe around. I think the first message is good without the extra about how happy we are to meet them, but maybe add that in once we've secured a NAP