Diplomacy Correspondence Tracking thread

[scooter]

Sent to CFC:

Yossarian,

I talked with my team, and I've included our official proposal for the deal we suggested. We were mostly fine with dropping your half of the opt-out, but we would like to protect WPC if possible, so we kept an exception in for that. I also tied up some loopholes and included EP/OB things as well. Please let me know if you have any questions, clarifications, or concerns and I'd be happy to discuss them! This isn't necessarily meant to be a take-it-or-leave-it offer, so do keep that in mind if there's a major issue in here. I don't expect there will be any surprises though.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

NAP Extension Proposal
1) Current Deals
A) All current deals are still in effect until their expiration on T175.
B) These cannot be canceled in any way except for the opt-out clause in Section 2A-C

2) Opt-out Clause
A) If at any point during the length of this agreement (expiring on T200) Realms Beyond declares war on another team, CFC can choose to opt-out of all current agreements with RB if they believe it's in their team's interest to do so.
B) If at any point during the length of this agreement (expiring on T200) CFC declares war on WPC, Realms Beyond can choose to opt-out of all current agreements with CFC if they believe it's in their team's interest to do so.
C) The window for this is 3 turns. Example: If RB declares war on a neighbor during T168, CFC has until the end of T171 to notify RB that they would like to opt out of their agreements with RB. After the 3T window is closed, the agreements can no longer be canceled unless an opt-out condition is triggered again.
D) The opt-out does not apply to any other wars not explicitly covered by 2A-B. This means none of the following qualify: on-going wars, wars in which a 3rd party declares on RB, non-WPC wars which CFC initiates, or anything else that does not explicitly follow section 2A-B.
E) This opt-out clause takes effect immediately upon agreement of the deal by both sides.
F) Exception: Team RB has made it clear to our neighbors that if they use spies to revolt our civics or religion, we consider that to be an act of war. If one of our neighbors does that to us, we will consider that to be a declaration of war on us, so we would be free to officially declare war in game and retaliate without opening up the opt-out window. RB does not expect this to happen, because we either have spy agreements or very clear warnings with all of our neighbors.

3) T175-T200 agreement
A) NAP agreement from T175-T200, which goes into effect immediately upon the previous deal expiring.
B) EP agreement to target EPs at other teams as long as both sides are able to view graphs. RB and CFC will not run EP missions against each other.
C) Extension of Open Borders throught he duration of the agreement.
D) No NAP loopholes or exploitation. This includes:
-No gifting (or trading) units, gold, or strategic resources to a nation the other side is at war with. If such deals are in place prior to a war, they must be canceled if a war begins. Example: If RB is trading iron to a neighbor of CFC and a war breaks out between that neighbor and CFC, RB will cancel the trade immediately. Note: Brand new trades must wait 10T to cancel, so if advance warning is provided, it must be followed. If it is not provided, then the deal must be canceled on the earliest possible turn. Health resources and non-strategic luxuries are not covered by this provision and are free to trade.
-No doing damage to land/units/resources that the other has claim to, even if cultural borders allow it (example: pillaging in the BFC of recently captured/razed cities).
-No granting Right of Passage to and/or aiding an army that has the intent of hurting the other party or giving tactical scouting info to the 3rd party.
E) By "Expiring on T200" that means the deal is effective through EOT199. During T200, the deal is no longer in effect.

[scooter]

From WPC:

Hi Scooter et al.

First let me apologize to Sulla for our exchange in game last night. My wife and I drank a bit too much wine after dinner, and I let my frustrations with our joint war effort get the better of me.

However, there are very real frustrations on our part. If RB had gone to war single-handedly against the Germans, you would have faced a much stiffer defence than you did with us an ally. You have never shared any pics or info on the units you faced, only the pre-war pic of the german army at that time, most of which ended up in Warendorf. So our actions, however ill-planned they may have been, certainly helped you win a quicker and cheaper war, as from what we can tell, the bulk of the German army was first aligned defensively against us, and is now doing its very best to hurt us, not you.

Also, heading into the war, we felt we had an agreement on how to split up the German territory. As the war progressed, it seemed that that 'agreement' morphed into something different from your perspective. I admit that we both missed the matter of the no-city-gifting rule, but it also seems that there is little interest from RB to try to ensure we get the northern cities, either through razing, or even just killing the one long-bow in Warendorf so we could take the city next turn. And given how 'straight up' we have been from the start about all this, we find that disappointing.

I understand RB's position about wanting to play the turn as closely as was played the first time around; that is the right thing to do. What we are disappointed in is how you played it the first time around. You could have razed Wilhelmshaven, attacked the last stack of German units on the hill as you did, (and that action was greatly appreciated, btw) and killed one of the two long bows in Warendorf. We could have then taken Warendorf, rebuilt Wilhelmshaven, and taken the last two cities.

But not now that's history. It looks like for all our efforts, we get nothing, and in fact, may still have one of our cities razed. Hence our frustrations.

Again, my apologies to Sulla.

Cheers. Beta

[scooter]

Sent to WPC:

Beta,

So I was just clued in this morning about the in-game chat that went poorly, and I was in the middle of writing you a message when your email came in. First off, thanks for the apology, and I'd like to extend ours too. Sullla seems to have had a long day going into that, and the perpetual Turn 160 that kept getting stopped and reloaded was frustrating to us all, so I think you guys just had the perfect storm for catching each other in a bad mood. It happens in a game we've all invested a lot of time in, so I hope things are okay going forward. It looks like both sides said some regrettable things, so hopefully we can both write that off as a blip and move on. We clearly have a bit of an game-related dispute or difference of opinions, but I really don't want that to extend to a personal dispute. This is a game after all, and our contact with your team has been nothing but pleasant throughout. So please do accept our sincere apologies for the harsh words that were said.

As for our dispute over spoils, I think there's a few frustrations from our side too. I want to dispel this myth that we've walked into empty cities and you guys have had to do all the fighting. Someone on our team did a count of units. Your initial stack had 45 units:
* 5 archers
* 3 chariots
* 10 dogs
* 5 swords
* 15 cats
* 7 spears

That's 200k of power. Here are the units we've killed so far in this war:
* 12 axes
* 9 spears
* 14 longbows
* 1 Quechua
* 1 horse archer
* 3 elephants
* 1 catapult

That's 217k of power. We've killed more than you invaded with. Yes they did weight things toward you a bit later on in the war, but we absolutely killed a lot of units. I understand that you've seen them defend heavily against you, but the reality is we brought Knights, Maces, and Elephants and you brought dog soldiers, and dog soldiers will never do anything against longbows and elephants. It just isn't true that you've had to do all the fighting. I don't know what exactly you've killed from their team, but I'm guessing it's less than 211k of power. For reference, we had 387k of power (3,140h of production) on turn 1 of the war, and we've added ~200k of power of Knights/Maces throughout the war.

The added frustration for us was the missed opportunity to hit Warendorf early. We blitzed their first couple cities. It definitely cost us quite a few units, but it allowed us to capture their population before it could be whipped into new units. I honestly believe you guys would have taken Warendorf had you attacked it immediately instead of burning 4 turns turning around and going the wrong direction. Sure it would have been bloody, but that was literally all they had on that front - the rest was by us and too far away to reinforce. If Warendorf fell, the rest of their cities were always going to collapse afterwards. That 4 turns they spent whipping longbows and war elephants, and that basically turned the tide of the war up there.

So I'm not sure what to do next to resolve this. I do understand your frustrations completely, but I do not agree with your opinion that you've had to do all the fighting while we waltz into all the spoils untouched. I believe it's just the reality that we brought a ton of extremely advanced units. Anyway, I think I better send this so you can hear my initial thoughts and react, but I'm more than willing to continue talking this through and figuring out how we can help you out going forward.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

Reply from WPC:

Thanks for the reply Scooter. And thanks for the info on units.

To continue the discussion, I can share our numbers as well, and I believe they support our position pretty clearly

To start with, I can't easily get our numbers from turn 150, but two turns later we had 389k of units. Slightly more than you had on turn 150, albeit as you have pointed out, not particularly strong units. And both of us were building more units during those turns. So we did not start out markedly weaker than you.

We have killed 163k worth of German units in this war:

15 axes
8 catapults
2 elephants
1 longbow
2 spears
4 chariots
1 quechua

Bearing down on us at the start of the last turn were:

4 chariots
13 war elephants
6 horse archers
4 longbows
9 catapults
4 axes
1 spear
2 quechuas

And in Warendorf: 2 longbows

That is 265k of units, most of which were previously defending us in Warendorf. And which we went to great expense to pin them there. If you recall, we wanted to move on to Wessleburn and hopefully split their defence. One of your team members ranted at me about our plan, and you wrote this to us:

"but if you guys want to make any progress it's pretty important that we both keep up the pressure on them and that their core cities start falling quickly. I'd really suggest you guys turn around and take a shot at Warendorf instead. Many of their units are going to turn around and fight us anyway since you can't hit the city for a few more turns, so things should be softened by the time you get there. The longer you wait, the more longbows will be present, and that will make it impossible for you guys to make any gains. The tundra cities will still be there for the taking when the core cities fall."

So, we stuck it out at Warendorf, clearly facing the larger portion of the German army.

If you add the 163k we have killed, that means we have killed and/or been facing 428k of German units, almost double of what you have had to face and kill.

Another perspective that supports our position. On turn 152, the turn we would have been attacking Warendorf had we gone straight in as has been suggested we should have, the German military in and around Warendorf was as follows:

11 catapults
3 war elephants
5 chariots
2 spears
15 axes

That totals 182k worth of units, almost the entire total you killed in taking some 10 cities.

Also of note, we have lost some 70 units totalling 298k.

So, I agree that you have had to do some serious fighting to take what you have, but the numbers show that you faced about half of the German military that we did. And that is reflected in your success in the war. And our lack thereof.

Cheers, Beta

[scooter]

From WPC:

And on top of this, from the civstats screen, looks like the Germans took Huron River.

[scooter]

Sent to WPC:

Beta,

Quick pause in the bigger discussions. The German team rolled the turn, so we popped into the game. We will do everything in our power to get your city back for you, but in order to be able to do that we really are going to need screenshots of all their units in the region if that's possible. We'll happily go in and kill their units, but as of right now we'd be going in blind which isn't very productive. Sorry to rush you, but the quicker the better on this, so we can plan out the smartest way to do it.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

Response from WPC:

Here's the screen shots. The first (A) shows the units in Warendorf. The second (B) shows the units one tile to the west. The two chariots are solo, and were used to destroy the roads.
 
We killed two cats, two elephants and another axe. We lost a pile of units, but have more coming up.
 
We have one catapult which could hit Warendorf this turn.
 
From the way they destroyed the raods, I figure it may have to wait until next turn, unless you have a pile of workers hidden somewhere.
 
Thanks! And I will be standing by all today.
 
Beta

Note: he clearly meant to say Huron River and not Warendorf. Here are the two images:

[scooter]

Sent to WPC:

Beta,

Thanks so much for the screenshots, that helps.

We will help you recapture your city next turn. We will plan on killing all except one unit, so just make sure you have a couple units in place to finish them off and you should be good.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

[scooter]

From WPC:

 
Thank you!
 
Standing by. And yes - we have a number of units that can attack this turn.

Kind of wondering if he misunderstood as we're attacking this turn, so I clarified:

To be clear, it'll have to be next turn (T162) and not this turn to recapture. Our 1 movers are 4 tiles away from the city, so we're just a little too far this turn. So you can take this turn to get into good position if you'd like. 

[scooter]

Three more quick consecutive messages from WPC:

OK. Understood. I figured that would be the case.

What's the scoop on the two tundra cities? This goes back to the 'big picture' discussion, but also dictates what we do with our stack next to Warendorf.

Also, in looking at the situation and their intent to do maximum damage to us, I suspect they may cross the river in force. This may prevent us from taking back our own city. In other words, they would rather let you capture our city and they get eliminated rather than letting us recapture it.
 
If that is the case, I gather you can liberate a city. Or is that considered 'gifting' as well?

Was hoping we could avoid talking about tundra.