Diplomacy Correspondence Tracking thread

[kjn]

Chatted with someone from CFC while logged into the game. The chat is a little disjointed, since I mistakenly started with "Chat to all", and is missing their opening "What's up neighbours" and some closing pleasentries:



So, they're about to get another city somewhere else, and will send a formal message to us about their city on the isthmus that we should respond to quickly.

[scooter]

From CFC:

Scooter/RB,

We like your suggested extension of the NAP until turn 175, and your suggested status of treating one another as preferred resource trade partners. We would like to add a few things to the table, though. Since you guys have a surplus of spices and will also soon have a surplus of stone we request that you gift us one stone resource and one spice resource for the duration of the NAP. We will be getting a surplus wine soon which will be available to you since you will be our priority resource partner.

If this sounds acceptable to you guys, we consider the NAP extended to turn 175 as soon as you send us a confirmation that all the above is okay.


Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC

[scooter]

Chat with Caledorn:

scooter: hey Caledorn, you got a few minutes?
Caledorn Yeah, no problem I'm playing DOTA2, but just a practice match against bots. If I don't respond immediately it's because I'm fightimg something
scooter: ok no problem! I'll just type away, you can just respond whenever you get moments
Caledorn Perfect
scooter: overall our team is pretty receptive to your full offer. we do have one or two comments/questions
we're definitely willing to gift surplus spice/stone throughout the NAP. the only glitch is the second stone is roughly 10T away from being hooked
and from the language of your message its sounds as if you're asking us to gift you stone immediately, regardless of when the stone on your border gets hooked. i'm not sure if that is possible right now... is that an issue to you if we wait until the surplus is hooked?
Caledorn Hm. That may actually be outside my jurisdiction to respond to without team approval, so I can't really respond quickly on that one :/
However, I should be able to get a response pretty quickly (10-20 hours)
scooter: Ah yeah I understand.
ok great!
that was the only potentially signfiicant glitch, but other than that we are happy with the deal
one other question
let me check a map first to make sure i have this straight, heh
Caledorn Usually I have a great deal of leeway with what to respond, but this is a pretty important deal for both our teams, so I'd better not overstep my bounds with the team
And shoot
scooter: my understanding is you guys either have a marble under your control or you have one nearby. if at all possible we'd like to make a short-term trade for that in the future if we could line it up for a 10T window that you don't need it
it's hard to give a specific date on that one obviously as I'm sort of talking loosely - it was just something a few teammates pointed out... it's just really useful for building stuff like national epic whenever we get to Lit
and I'm sure you guys will have to discuss that as well
Caledorn I am sure that can be arranged at some point yes, but indeed you are correct that I need team approval on that one as well
scooter: Yep! understood. we actually will have our own source of wine pretty soon so we probably wouldn't trade for that, but some sort of short-term marble trade in the future would be wonderful if it can be worked out
so anyways, whenever you hear about the stone thing just drop me a line. I will be around a little bit tomorrow, but you may not catch me. no rush!
Caledorn Sounds great I will let you know as soon as I have a team response tomorrow
scooter: great! also so you know - if the stone need is very pressing to you and you have a spare worker, you could help hook it and that could speed it up by a couple turns. obviously that would not be necessary, but just know that it's an option if you're in a rush to use the stone
but we're partially having to wait for Starfall's borders to pop so we can even improve it
Caledorn That's an option too yes, so I'm sure the team will take that into consideration too.
scooter: sounds great. thanks!

[scooter]

Series of chats with CFC that have been in the discussion thread over the last few days (nothing new):

scooter hey Caledorn
you around?
Caledorn heya
scooter hey! ok, so one of our turn players just posted a screenshot of the stone area. it showed you guys have got a settler way out there 1W of the rice. are you guys really wanting to plant on that tile?
Caledorn I cannot respond to that question I'm afraid
I'm sorry
scooter I'm not sure I follow..?
Caledorn I can't respond to the teams settling plans without the approval of the team is what I mean
scooter well, surely we would find out this/next turn, so I guess I'm confused what the harm is
but that location is... not ideal
Caledorn The discussions are pretty active at the moment (as I'm sure you have guessed), and my freedom to speak on certain things is limited by the team until we have come to an agreement
scooter yeah that makes sense. I guess it's a confusing move, as I thought we were close to a deal where we'd give you that stone anyways, and this seems geared towards forcing the issue and making our borders pretty tight
Caledorn I am sure everything will resolve amicably if we (that is our teams) come to a solution we're both happy with
that much I can say
scooter for sure. yeah I don't want any damage to be done, which is why I thought i'd catch you on here immediately
i'm assuming this is because you need the stone sooner than you would've otherwise gotten it
Caledorn I understand your concerns yes
The stone is an important part of this, yes - I won't pretend that it isn't, as it's pretty obvious
scooter understood. pyramids play?
Caledorn now there's something I can't respond to again, and I'm sure you know that laughs
scooter worth a shot to ask!
Caledorn of course I would have done the same!
scooter well, I do need to speak plainly and honestly - that spot is not a spot we would be happy with you guys settling. It's 3 tiles away from 2 cities of ours and heavily encroaches on both of them.
if there's anything we can do/say to dissuade you from settling on that spot, please let me know
Caledorn I understand that sentiment
Considering the heavy discussion going on in the team right now, I feel obliged to let the team make a decision before I make a statement here that can commit us to one action or another.
You have the idea about what our concern is though, as that is pretty obvious
And I'm sure we can come to an agreement that makes both our teams happy.
scooter yeah I definitely understand being in a rush to get stone hooked.
well that's what I'm attempting here . ok, here's the best we can do:
Starfall's borders pop on t107
so that stone could be hooked on exactly t107. it will take a lot of work to manage that, but it's possible
to do you one better, we could gifft your our sole source on T106, MAYBE T105, but I really don't know if that's possible. T106 most likely
so... if your team can manage to wait a couple more turns for stone, we could take care of that much
Caledorn my turn: pyramids play?
scooter as is I'm guessing you probably wouldn't be able to hook that stone much before then anyways unless you have a massive army of workers ready to rock
well you didn't tell, so I'm not sure I can either
Caledorn smiles that is perfectly fair
your offer is a good one, so I will deliver it into the discussions that's going on, and I will get back to you on what the sentiment is for this

Follow-up:

scooter: ok, so I just got some feedback from my teammates, and I got some permission to speak a little more freely about stone/wonders
the only thing I ask is that you are sworn to secrecy - this is shared with your team and our team only
Caledorn: that is perfectly acceptable. I can use my power as the foreign minister for CFC to bind my team to that promise.
and just to make sure that is clear, I do use that power, so I bind us to that
scooter: ok great. you do not have to confirm/deny, but our best guess is you're aiming at the pyramids, which would make sense. We are hoping to complete Hanging Gardens in the next couple turns, which we are predicting is not the stone wonder you are pursuing
we have no intentions to steal pyramids from you, if that is indeed your target
we of course can't promise the same for every other team in the game
but if that eases any of your concerns about using the stone, I hope that helps
Caledorn: 2 seconds - I just have to look something up
scooter: and this will all be quite amusing if we've totally guessed wrong
Caledorn: okay, based on that I feel comfortable with telling you that we are indeed not aiming for the HG. Of course, the HG is not a wonder we would deny having, as it's a very sweet wonder. But that is indeed not the one we are aiming for right now.
now, as I still cannot confirm/deny your team's theories, I can just say that it is obvious that if we are indeed aiming for the pyramids, we would need stone quickly as the pyramids are long overdue anyways.
scooter: understood! I'm kind of surprised they have not yet fallen.
Caledorn: so am I, personally
t100+ seems very late for them

More:

Caledorn hey!
scooter: hey! ok, I have feedback for you
Caledorn great
scooter: we're largely in agreement with you. i wanted to clarify 2 things first
1) I'm assuming that accepting this and guaranteeing you the stone no later than T106 means you would not settle that location that is very close to our cities, correct?
Caledorn yes
if you provide us with the stone there is no reason why we should settle on that suboptimal location to get it ourselves
scooter: ok great! thought so, I just thought I would be extra sure
Caledorn that's understandable
scooter: 2) when we say NAP, can we safely assume this means nothing aggressive at all, rather than simply no war? By that I mean - harmful spy missions or something like a border culture bomb by either of us would be an issue if we understand the NAP correctly
just clarifying that we're both assuming things like that would be off the table
Caledorn we would actually like to follow up on discussing the details of the nap with you to make sure that we are on the same page with the NAP
my team has been looking at making a more formal treaty agreement that we can both agree to in that regards, so both our teams can feel that our interests are safe from one another
to answer your question though, yes - we would like the NAP to mean the same
scooter: great. yeah, we don't want to be a pain, but I know a lot of people have different interpretations of what would constitute a "NAP Violation"
Caledorn yeah, we feel the same way about that, so we thought having something formal to refer to would be in both our interests to avoid any tensions at all
scooter: ok that's good! yeah, we would consider harmful spy stuff, cultlure bombs, gifting military to an enemy, etc. stuff like that would not be right for either of us to do
ok cool. are you guys drafting up something more formal along that line or should we do that?
Caledorn this is not binding in any way, and may not be in our suggestion for such a treaty, and I have no idea what you guys think about it .. but how would you feel about exchanging wonder plans as well as those things mentioned too, to avoid tensions with wonder building?
scooter: that might be a good idea actually. of course I can't commit to that now, but it's something I can bring to my team as an idea
Caledorn great
we're already working on a draft, so I will have it ready for you as soon as we're done working on it
scooter: I can't promise how they'll feel either way, but I think it's definitely worth considering
ok great
ok, so I do have one more proposal for you guys to consider
and obviously I don't expect you to have an answer right away
Caledorn for now any of the mentioned things you have said like no espionage etc can be considered binding (for both of us) until we have agreed to a formal treaty - does that sound okay with you and can you bind your team to that?
scooter: yes, agreed. we can definitely consider that portion locked in, and we can take our time on some of the finer points. sounds like we want the same thing.
Caledorn great
scooter: so, on the stone gift. T106 is of course a given. T105 will be pretty painful if we give it up then and we would generally prefer not to do it. however, we would be willing to guarantee it on T105 if we can get two things: 1) have the NAP run through T200 rather than T175, just to notch up the commitment length and 2) if you'll settle your border city SE of the rice, which would be a very reasonable border city in our opinion.
also, no pressure whatsoever on this. like I said, we are pretty happy with the terms of your last message. this is just a proposal we thought would be worth considering. and I'm guessing you'll have to take it to your team to talk about
Caledorn I definitely have to talk to the team about 1)
2) I need to check what the settling location is, as it may be that spot we have in mind
if it is, then no problem .. if it isn't then I have to take it to the team obviously
scooter: we were guessing you would either settle 1S of the rice or 1SE, as those are probably the best two spots. this is kind of a way to indicate our preference for SE. but if you do choose to settle 1S of the rice, we can work with that.

And another follow-up:

scooter: Ok I'm back
Caledorn: great it looks as if the spot we intend to settle is 1S of the rice
I hope that's not going to be a big problem. it's clearly within our hemisphere
scooter: Ok - to be honest, it's a spot we can live with and we won't complain if you choose to settle it as it's very within your right. However, if we're going to adjust our plans and make a couple sacrifices to get the stone to you on T105 instead of T106, we would definitely ask for you guys to flex it back to SE of the rice.
so if you want to discuss that option with your team that's great. and if it's just not an option, we'll understand.
and we would of course still be good with all other facets of the agreement
Caledorn: great
I will mention it to the team and we will discuss it of course
scooter: fair enough, and thanks!
Caledorn: I'll get back to you within a day I expect on this it shouldn't be a long discussion
we need to get that city settled soon, and it will be either 1S or 1SE of the rice, as those were our preferred locations
scooter: ok, sounds great

[scooter]

Official proposal from CFC:

Hey Scooter/RB,

The team has decided that we will settle 1S of the rice (this means we are fine with getting stone from t106 and not t105).

Here is the formal agreement I spoke of on GTalk, to be signed by your team (I have included BBCode to make it easier for you to post it on your forums):

---
Section 1. Members of the RB-CFC treaty

1.1. Team Realms Beyond

1.2. Team CivFanatics

Section 2. Pact Duration and Terms

2.1. The pact binds both teams to adhering to all of the clauses of the pact as a whole.

2.2. The pact lasts until the beginning of turn 175.

2.3. The members of this pact cannot enter into agreements with third parties which interfere to any of the clauses of this pact.

Section 3. Non Aggression

3.1. The members agree not to conduct actions which will lead to a declaration of war between the members of this pact for the duration of the pact.

Section 4. Open Borders

4.1. Both members agree to maintain an Open Borders treaty to facilitate trade and unit movement for the length of this pact.

Section 5. Resources and future agreements

5.1. Team Realms Beyond agrees to gift Spices happy resource to Team CivFanatics starting from turn 103 and keep providing it for free for the duration of this pact.

5.2. Team Realms Beyond agrees to gift Stone strategic resource to Team CivFanatics starting from turn 106 and keep providing it for free for the duration of this pact.

5.3 Team Realms Beyond agrees to not get Pyramids and Team CivFanatics agrees to not get Hanging Gardens.

5.4 Both teams agree to offer first dibs to newly acquired/unused resources to the other team at an appropriate price (happy resource for happy resource or for a price of 2 GPT per city count of the team receiving the resource)

Section 6. Espionage

6.1. Both members agree to not spend/gain espionage points against eachother.

6.2. Both members agree to not perform espionage actions against eachother .

Section 7. Temporary Exceptions

7.1. Temporary exceptions can be made to the terms of the pact with the express agreement of both members. This is meant to allow either member to react to unforeseen circumstances or circumstances outside of their control.

Section 8. Amendments

8.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by either member.

8.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon agreement of both members.
-----

I think this sums up exactly what we all want from our deal, and we have no problems accepting and signing it in it's current form.

Keep in mind that any additional protective clauses that may be suggested as amendments will be a two-way deal. Both our teams wish to feel secure, so we are open to suggestions for amendments that are rational and maintains the interests of both our teams. We are working on possible additional clauses of the NAP, and we are sure we can come to an agreement on them as soon as the main body of this pact is signed, without any of our teams feeling the weight of time pressure to get this out of the way. Here are some suggestions that we think are rational to put in as clausules:

-----
3.2. If any of the members is at war with a third party, the other member agrees not to gift units to that third party.
3.3. Both teams agree not to use Great Artists to culture bomb in cities touching culture with culture of the other team.
-----

If you like the suggested amendments, you can include 3.2 and 3.3 in the treaty, and return it to us signed, and we have a deal. We want the main deal without the amendments signed this turn, as we can not afford to postpone settling our city on the isthmus any further, while the deal with the stone from you is still uncertain.

[scooter]

Well hey, CivPlayers is alive.

Greetings Scooter,

I hope we can agree on the following: as I said previously turn 110 NAP is fine. Also, starting from then, NAP is considered valid unless denounced with 10 turns in advance. (i.e: that means one side can attack the other no sooner than T120 ) We would also like to use the land between our nations. As you have very well pointed out, that land is rubbish, so there shouldn't be anything to negociate for, right?

Regarding the OB, I'm still working on that. The 2 workers were merely a suggestion, I'm open for anything that would show us your good will and that would give me a leverage into trying to convince our High Council to sign the agreement.

Since you have started out the military discussion, I feel obligated to continue them as questions arise in our War Ministery. You do have, as you have kindly pointed out, one of the largest armies in the world. Do you plan any attacks in the future? Can we get involved as part of that plan, would it give it any added value? Could we count on you for any military actions?

I look forward to hearing your answer. If you feel that there are things that we should discuss directly, I will try to make time in my busy schedule. Just let me know.

Best wishes,

Decebal

(let's hold off on discussing this in the discussion thread until the CFC + WPC issues are passed, maybe tonight or tomorrow)

[scooter]

Sent to CFC:

Caledorn,

One issue we discussed previously that we do really need to see added to Section 5 is this:

5.5 Team Civfanatics agrees to give Realms Beyond a 10T loan on marble at some point during the NAP. This can be arranged around CFC's builds to be a 10T window in which they will not be using the marble. RB would like this window to start no earlier than T120 and no later than T150. Both sides will make good-faith effort to be accommodating on the timing of this loan.

We also agree with your section 3.2 and 3.3 suggestions. If we can get confirmation from you that these three suggestions are officially added (3.2, 3.3, 5.5), our team will consider this document signed by both parties. We will then immediately send you the spice as a sign that the agreement is in effect.

I'll be mostly available on chat today so we can get this turned around in a timely manner.


Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

Sent to WPC:

Tatu,

Our team is agreed on all points and ready to move forward with the plans. We have been hard at work trying to wrap up one of the two necessary NAP extensions that will allow us to be fully into this (this is to blame for the delay in responding, sorry!), and we're hopeful the other can be taken care of soon too. Also, thank you for your answers to all our questions! That was very helpful.

We've been talking about the catapult issue, and we wanted to suggest an idea. We were thinking it might be better if you keep your catapults, and we turn this into a true two-prong attack. We'll have Construction and catapults before T150 for our own personal protection anyways, so it won't be too much hassle to have our own. This will save you a lot of hassle in discreetly getting them to our land. If you think you can get together a credible force of your own, we can coordinate with you to make sure we both hit the German team at the same time. That should make it extremely hard for them to reinforce against either of our attacks. Do you think this is a realistic plan for you? We're very open to discussion on this of course!

Also, I have a suggestion to tighten our agreement. Can we mutually agree that any potential peace deal with the German team must include the approval of both your team and ours? If the German team wishes to negotiate, we would be agreeing that they must negotiate with both of us together as one entity. Ideally we would completely wipe them out and not have to worry about this of course.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

Caledorn: I have posted your reponse in the forum now, and I need to go to sleep very soon as I've been awake for nearly 24 hours
However, before I go, I would just like to say quickly that I see no problem with what you have suggested
scooter: ok, yeah get some sleep! and that's good - looking forward to hearing official word whenever
Caledorn: you may hear from another member on my team
scooter: sounds good
Caledorn: as long as there is no other addendums that need to be discussed and both our teams agree to the deal in it's entirety with point 3.2, 3.3 and 5.5 as you have suggested, I'll just tell the other guys on the team to send you a confirmation email that we agree to the deal
and with that confirmation email, we both can consider the deal binding and signed
scooter: sounds good! thanks

[scooter]

From CFC:

Looks like we have a deal in place:

Hey scooter/RB,

I am happy to confirm that we are in agreement. The entire treaty, with the addendums 3.2, 3.3 and 5.5 officially added, is hereby accepted and signed by Team CFC.


Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC