[SPOILER] Suryavarman II of Maya - Whosit & Ravus Sol

[Ravus Sol]

Crap i had a nice reply written and the internet has killed it so now i'm re-writing quickly before work.

Okay you are right about Malakai. That sort of NAP, for 25 turns is pretty meaningless. I can only think of three reasons why it would be offered in that kind of reserved and formal fashion.

1) He's hoping to rush someone and wishes to secure borders.
2) He believes that this kind of formality and agreements to bind each other together creates trust and friendship
3) He WANTS us to say no in an attempt to use it as a cause for revenge later in the game.

From what i remember Malakai likes to consider himself honourable. So i don't think 3 is what he's going for, but it may be a test in his mind to see what sort of player you/we are.

I have work now, nearly late, but if i remember you get online in 3-6 hours. So when you do can you list your own thoughts on this, plus wether you would prefer to take a risk, be blunt and honest with Malakai and see what happens. Or if you would like me to fall back on reserved wordplay to angle a agreement more to your liking.

- Ravus (In a rush)

[Whosit]

Well, I'll certainly be on later, too. I kinda hover around the internet most of the day.

Anyway, I basically feel like we may as well agree to anything that doesn't really hurt us. The NAP is fine... although that runs the risk of turn 50 coming and us saying "well, we don't feel like extending it." So it could be safer to say "we don't think it matters at this point in the game." Could avoid burnt feelings later if we word it well now.

Oh, actually! Maybe do something semi-sneaky like "we don't think a NAP is necessary because of the distance between our empires. Your capital lies to the southwest of England, correct?" That's where I think he is, but if we could get him to confirm it, that'd be nice (could also ask him straight-up, but that's not as fun).

I suppose the main thing I'm not interested in is Open Borders. We'll get no trade routes from them, and I don't think we'll be visiting each other's territory. Plus I kind of want to be isolationist, but meh.

Oh, by the way, I don't think anyone will rush on this map. Only Impi or Jaguar Warriors would have a chance, what with all the trees.

[Whosit]

Made a new dotmap. Still need to do some simming on how best to get more Settlers/Workers out in a timely fashion, but eh. Workers are hooking up Gold now (already did Gems) to provide more cushion for whipping.



Orange sucks, but it's filler.

Dark blue and Green are probably the 3rd and 4th cities I'm thinking of. Thoughts?

[Whosit]

Hoping to hear from you soon, Ravus. Hope your Internet didn't give out again.

Anyway, finally started doing sims for future turns. Can't sim Tech advancement due to shenanigans, but I can track builds and stuff. 1st draft of the plan sees, by Turn 42, 2 more Workers, 2 Settlers, 1 Warrior, and a Library. All from Capital, which gets whipped several times.

Question I can't answer yet is: Will 4 cities by T50 bankrupt us? Will have to see how much the lake costs us. I know for certain that the Capital will have to go into Commerce mode (ie, grow into Gold and Gems). Lakes... we'll see how that develops. Not much inherent commerce there, but will probably spit out a bunch of Workers, 'cuz I know we'll need them. Barely get Workers for cities 3 and 4 as is, and then the Capital is abandoned as the two Workers there finally start the long road to the lake.

Certainly, Dark Blue and the Lakes can manage some commerce if I build cottages on grasslands and stuff. I'm probably going to fall into the trap of not making enough income, but maybe not. I think I've become so accustomed to seeing rivers and saying "build cottages!" that the lack of rivers has me a little confused. Green dot is a clear hammer town, but I think that most of the cities we build will need to utilize grassland cottages to get income going. Certainly, 4 cities by T50 should signal a brief consolidation, I think. Honestly, and to my shame, I've never really gotten the whole expand/consolidate rhythm down pat. Subconscious and all.

Oh, and following this plan means that we have a spread out empire defended mostly by Warriors and a couple of holkans. Barbarians could get really bad on this map, actually, with so much open space, so note to self: be careful. Should probably get the Copper hooked up sooner than later, just because Holkans will get owned by Barb Axemen.

[Ravus Sol]

Emporer Malakai to Whovus

Greetings,

I am Emporer Malakai, I am pleased to hear that our warriors have finally made contact in the forests to the South of Gaspar/Nakor's City.

I am unsure how we missed each other on the first pass, I was lead to believe that you were on the eastern border when I was to the west, and that we would both loop around the south of the city keeping to the border? Either way it is all in the past for we have finally made initial contact.

I would like to extend my hand to you in peace for I see no immediate reason for us to be anything other than friends at this time and hope that both great nations will prosper thanks to our contact. To this end I would like to offer an initial NAP with a few specific clauses.

Proposed NAP until turn 50, having just played turn 25 that means that there would be an initial period of peace of at least 25 turns between our great nations.

Obviously the nap would include all the general terms of a nap such as not attacking each others units, founding any cities in a way that would be considered aggressive.
Or any other action that could be considered aggressive or in any way an act of war.

Additional Clauses as follows:

*Agreement to notify each other when contact is made with any other nations that either of us meet, and to facilitate meetings with these.
(this clause would obviously only effect the nap until such time as all civs have been met).

*Secrecy Agreement, agreement to keep all information shared between us and communication between us to ourselves. The content of any of our conversations should not be shared with any other civs without prior agreement.

*Open Borders / Trading: Agreement to keep borders open for trading purposes, (I will offer open borders in game once the nap has been finalised) for the full term of this nap and any future extensions we agree.

*No Spying / Scouting: Although I am happy for each other to travel through each others lands when required, I request no scouting / spying on each other and therefore any information gained through travel into each others lands should not be shared with any third parties.

*Lastly a point regarding espionage, although we would both want to gain graph visibility on each other, which I am more than happy with, I request your agreement that once full graph visibility has been reached that espionage be switched to another player IF possible, I know you can only switch to other nations you have met that that it is possible that similar agreements may have already been reached with other nations. If at any point either of us are unable to comply with this clause, they should let the other party know at the time.

If there is anything specific you would like to include in a NAP or any of the above points you would like to be amended or to discuss in more detail, please let me know, if your happy with the clauses outlined above please indicate this in your reply message.

I look forward to working with you in the future and may both our empires prosper.

Regards


Emporer Malakai of Korea

Possible Replies:

BLUNT

So who is it you don't trust? I'm sorry, My name is Lord Ravus, and I am handling all of Lord Whosits Diplomacy... for... well... good reasons. I suppose i could banter around with you, we could circle each other in reserved conversation, but i'm new at this and your NAP seems very forward. Like you quickly want to sort out friend from foe and those that can be trusted to hold an agreement. Which obviously leads back to the first question.

Our nation could easily sign this agreement, there is nothing here that is offensive. Whosit likes to only sign these sort of things with people he trusts and you've been a little overbearing in that regard. A little explanation of how you see NAPs would probably help in convincing him that you aren't securing your borders to rush someone else. Crazy with all that forest i know. But people think in different ways.

Personally i think you prefer relationships founded on legal bindings with a one strike method of dealing with things. But i need those words from your own lips as our empires are so far apart a NAP with these agreements would be of little benifit to us if you are just securing your borders, while if it was the way you wish to build future relations then i am sure i could talk Whosit around to signing.

Blunt. Tries to get a clear view on his thoughts. Breaks the typical pattern of Diplomatic communication. Resevered Gentleman club that this is.

RESERVED

To the Humble office of the Magnificent Malakai

Greetings to you my liege. I am the pontiff Lord Ravus who will be handling all diplomatic affairs for Emperor Whosit. He is glad that communications are finally arranged for our two great nations to discuss our futures together.

Your offer is interesting, though it's meaning unclear. Especially in regards to how far apart our two empires are. Friends is something we could perhaps grow into. Trust is earned after all. Not freely given. My Lord Whosit is not an easily trusting man and i try my hardest to make sure he gives every nation he greets an equal chance to choose how he will perceive them.

But he does not forgive easily.

In regards to trust, not forgiveness... Trust can be built on close legal bindings, mutual dependence or understanding. Whosit prefers the later while i can understand most of them. He see's legal bindings as a sort of entrapment. Uneccesary in true friendship. But i convinced him not to instantly dismiss this opportunity as unimportant. Your terms are after all, not dangerous, merely annoying to him to keep track of. He is however particular annoyed at what he calls the "uselessness" of the open border clause given our distance. There is unlikely to be trade between us and minimal movement through borders.

He wishes understanding of why you want or need this NAP. While i have my own views on what your aims are he will trust it more from your mouth and not mine.

I hope your words reach him and that our two nations can be bound together through trust, understanding and lawful terms. It is so very useful to keep open lines of communication open to discuss different views on world events after all.

In other news our nation is just about to start it's massive expansion phase. We are expanding into the centre of the map for better manoeuvrability later in the game.

Regards, Lord Ravus, the Silver Tongue of the Empire, acting under orders of Lord Whosit, The Iron Fist

I assume the second one is more to your liking. It should hopefully prompt a response from him and set me up as intermediary to yourself.

NONE DIPLOMATIC NEWS
I agree with the Green and Blue dots. Both seem good. Personaly i'd pick Green first for the easy reinforcement from the capital but we could probably found both quick quickly in regards to each other. Now's our land grabbing phase. It WOULD be good to get some communication open with Malakai and i believe he is honourble from my initial look over how they think. I just hope he isn't playing against his natural playstyle.

As for the Consolidation rythm it all depends so i can understand the difficulty. I think we could hand four cities but no more forawhile. I like the land it claims us, but then we'd totally have to pump out workers forawhile.
Scouts would be good as well. Or chariots eventually if we get lucky. Just something to map out the land quickly while we consolidate so we can pick the next expansion jump.

[Ravus Sol]

hmmm Sorry just a quick extra note, but what do you think of those Whosit? The First is perhaps too blunt, but i'm not sure you will like how i'm using your Persona in the second. I make you out to be the overbearing emporer watching the world but refusing to speak to them directly... the effect is useful i think but could annoy you at how i'd be basically pushing you into the shadows diplomatically. The benifit is how i can distance myself from you as front man, in no-way in control of YOUR actions.

I wonder if i continued this someone would DEMAND to speak to you properly... that could be amusing.

Anyway i need your thoughts on these two approaches in case you want me to polish them up in a certain way.

- Ravus

[Whosit]

Well, the less blunt response would probably get us further. As much as I'd like to shake up the usual diplomacy, I think it would be wiser to wait until we're in a relatively strong position before we start flexing our muscles. Just my thoughts, anyway. The more polite one probably does the job just as well.

I don't really care how you portray me, though the one thing to consider is that many of the other plays can and have read previous stuff I've done, so if you write me really too far out of character, they might be wondering. Then again, confusing them could be fun! Based on prior diplo, I basically considered both our titles to be Co-Consul, but again, inconsistency may or may not matter.

Few corrections for the letter though: If you're trying to be obsequious, I don't think you'd call Malakai's office "humble." One of your "I"s is lowercase, [strike]and you wrote "later" when you meant "latter."[/strike] That may be it.

Edit: It's too late for me to be editing...

[Whosit]

Well, we got something:

Greetings Lord Ravus,

I was please to recieve your reply and I can understand Emperor Whosit's hesitancy to sign into a complicated and restrictive agreement, which is why I ensured that the clauses included within my proposed NAP were neither restrictive or complicated in my honest opinion. The clauses were selected those that have been used in previous NAP's from my experiences as a leader in the past in order to promote honesty and trust, the values that work towards a strong and positive relationship.

Considering how non restrictive the suggested clauses were and given the very short term that was suggested in the NAP proposal I find it hard to believe that anyone could find fault with these suggestions. Furthermore, these were merely meant as a suggestion and I did invite your good council on the specifics of the NAP in question.

Drilling down to the specifics of the clauses you have brought to my attention as being the ones preventing us from joining our great empires in peace.

Open borders: Given the minimal distance between each of our "squares" I feel that trade between us will come more quickly than you anticipate and my experiences show that trade between players greatly increases financial output which would benefit all the nations included within this, to a point. What I mean is that you can only trade with a number of cities, equal to the number you have, therefore the first people you open trade with benefit more from such agreements then those that you meet later on, I am merely offering you the chance to benefit from such.

Furthermore, the only reason NOT to want open borders is because you do not want each of us to being wandering each others lands gathering intelligence or because of the risk of military action. We can if you prefer include a no right of passage clause within the open borders agreement to prevent such action, however I do not feel such further restrictions would aid either party, even if one of us decided to breach the NAP, which I assure you I would not do, as my word is my bond and my honour is my life, any declaration of war would automatically cancel the NAP and displace any attacking units from the borders of the defending parties land.

Alternatively, if you do not feel a no right of passage clause removes your emperors apparent misgivings about opening borders then we can remove this clause completely from the agreement from the time being, we can always negoticate further agreements in the future.

In fact if you want to build this relationship from the ground up we can simplify the entire agreement to a much more straight forward albiet limited agreement, and we can slowly add agreements as we feel it is necessary.

How about we forget all the originally suggested clauses for the time being and only agree to a simple NAP including an agreement not to carry out any acts of war or aggression, this obviously would include not attacking each others units and not founding cities in positions that can be considered as aggressive.

I still feel that turn 50 is a good start point for the duration of the NAP, however we grow closer to turn 50 and we would obviously need to look at a possible renewal some turns before turn 50 arrives.

Let me know what you think and I hope that this message will please your Emperor.

I look forward to hearing from you

Kind Regards
Emperor Malakai of Korea

This is why I let you do your thing, Ravus. I would have bet that he'd be a bit more offended than this, but shows what I know.

Just woke up, so feeling a bit groggy, but let's see what I can wrap my brain around. What's most interesting to me is his assertion that we are closer than we think. I want to know more about that. This either suggests that his capital does not lie where I think it does (beyond the English), or that he knows that there is world-wrap.

I'm still not really sure what to do about the NAP. I mean, it doesn't harm us at the moment to agree to it, but once Turn 50 comes and he starts asking for a renewal, it may look suspicious if we say we don't want to. Then again, it may not really hurt us, although I think that we need to know where they are before we can make really informed decisions. Especially the "aggressive settling" bit. Helps to know if we really are close in some fashion.

Edit: On another note, on my last dotmap, I'm moving Orange down 1S so that it will pick up Horses. Shouldn't have used an outdated map.

[Ravus Sol]

I like this reply. Nice and in depth. I think he is still a little offended in that he feels his word is being questioned. But we've opened him up to the possibility that you think differently then he can ever imagine and thus will have to explain why he asks and does certain things. Which can be benificial in the long run.

Of course you don't think too differently. *Sigh* both of you seem to see a NAP as unbreakable. i know it has a effect on the social-political circle but if you are powerful enough to consider breaking one you are powerful enough to suffer the backlash.

Well i'll angle for more in a reply on his positioning. I'll claim naive beginner player who only handles diplomacy for a personal explanation.

It's up to you about the NAP Whosit. Malakai DOES consider himself honourable. If you want to secure one person as an ally early he could be the one... especially if you tie him down in this legal mumbo-jumbo he likes. Of course i'm cynical and would never completly trust him, but the more i talk to him the more we can trust him to act as himself. Which i allways find more appealing as not many people take aims to forcibly act against their nature.

From what i can tell if we don't agree to start on a path that COULD end in trust. Then Malakai will never trust us and assume one day we will come for him. If we do start on that path he will want to take continueing steps to draw us together, and yes extending the NAP whenever possible would be one of them. Thus if we ever say no to extensions it should be because we are ready to wipe him out utterly. He's the type to hold a grudge.

In the reply i think my best bet is to push your supposed suspicious nature in a contrast to my own attempt at understandings. It should quieten his thoughts on what our letter was angling for and paint me as a person who speaks from the heart. I'm hoping.

But either way we got him to reduce the NAP down to the basics so you can build it up how you like. Plus we can use his desire of no aggressive settling to get his map of him, as it would be neccesary. Of course we COULD mislead him in our own map replies... but that idea has a very high chance of backfiring spectacularly.

The problem i get is that i consider this TOO easy. He's reacting EXACTLY as i expected. Which i don't like. He's nearly word for word the summery i gave back on page 2.

Elizabeth of Korea
Malakai Profile

Definatly ponders his own actions and his enemies. Which can be good and bad as he comes to his own conclusions before allowing other evidence or world politics to come to light. Someone to be wary of politically as once we were his enemy he might stick with it mentally holding a grudge.

Alternativly he is also someone most likely to stick by a friend for trust issues instead of mechanical reasons. A more Emotive player is perhaps the wording to use?

Note to self: This is limited data as Malakai has only got one game for me to look through.

One of the best ways to manipulate events is to present yourself exactly as others EXPECT you to be. That way you can predict their responses and have a level of control over events. *sigh* i really am a suspicious sod. I'll think myself into circles at this rate. Slow steps that i can influence right? I'll draft up a reply once you sort out what kind of agreement you want with him and how you want to treat him.

[Whosit]

Sorry, Ravus. It seems you are just too skilled for this batch of mere mortals.

Anyway, after briefly reconsidering, it's probably best to go ahead and take the NAP and, like you said, renew it until we're actually ready to smack him around. Oh, and as far as my views on NAPs being unbreakable.... sort of. It is my nature to consider breaking an agreement a measure of last resort, but I would do it if I thought it was the best choice available. The community here frowns on it, as you must have noticed, so that is a factor in such considerations. The fact that reputations linger here is also another damper.

But, hey, if we find an opportunity for glorious backstabbing, let's sharpen the knives! We'll have to see what transpires.

Anyway, back to matters at hand. With Malakai, starting with the NAP to turn 50 and building from there sounds nice. Deal with Open Borders when it becomes relevant. If you can get a map out of him, great, although I'm sure he'll want one in return. Shouldn't be a problem.

Speaking of NAPs, probably should have brought this up earlier, but perhaps you can come up with something to send to the English? It just occurred to me that they may find our Lake City aggressive, so having some kind of protective agreement in place might be helpful. Despite my acknowledged distaste for NAPs, they may be more useful in this game if we want to run low military for a while.