Niccolò Machiavelli's Thread

[plako]

Highly likely yes. As already said we'll probably get a stack on the hill NW from WIFOM. Pyramids city is by far the best land target. They pretty much had to raze it . I'll do my best to collect defenders there, but potentially we might need to retreat from there and choose another fight.

[spellman]

So apparently all future NAP clauses should include no gifting? =p

Never thought I'd be on the German side for a pre-WW2 analogy.

[plako]

Response from 3M

You are correct, we have engaged in a phony war with Gillette and gifted units to them. Our original intention was to tell you Gillette compelled us to gift them the units or they would take our cities, but I felt a different response to your message was necessary. I'm going to give you two answers to your email below, one an "in-game" answer and the other a "real-life" answer. Both are in earnest, but the second is far more important than the first:

In-game:

We have not violated our NAP, given that we have not declared war on you or attacked your units. We have supplied your rival with weapons, a time-honoured tradition in international affairs when opposition is necessary but open conflict is undesirable. We have violated our agreements in so far as we did not tell you about our secret deal with Gillette. For the record, we consider our NAP still in effect, though if you feel you need to put a formal end to it, we will understand. We are disappointed to have had to bring our heretofore cordial relationship to such an end, but consider it to have been regretfully necessary for us to have any chance in this game.

Good luck,

Team Menagerie-trois

Real-life:

I may be reading this into your message, but if there is an out-of-game issue here we need to discuss, feel free to contact me at my personal email address, which I believe plako has (calebburney@ ...). I don't really know what to say other than that, save that I'm dismayed to think you guys might be mad at us in real life over our actions in-game. If we felt we were doing anything morally wrong, we would not have done it. Again, feel free to talk if you would like. We will consider any message to the team account a formal in-game reply, and any to either of our personal accounts (preferably mine, I think) to concern personal issues, if any.

[zakalwe]

Never underestimate the power of rationalization!

[darrelljs]

Seriously .

Darrell

[plako]

So what to respond?

I wasn't that annoyed at them before, but this message just makes me mad.
* "We've not followed our deal, but we're still very honourable people"
* "It would be very convinient for us to consider our NAP totally null and void. Please confirm so we can join the war and have your blessing."

Only honourable thing to do would be to recognize their mistakes and withdraw their participation from this war.

[zakalwe]

Well, I think it's best to cool off before sending anything, but my initial impulse was also to send them something like this.

In-game:

Fuck off.

Real-life:

Fuck off.

That's not really how I feel about it, but it would be kind of funny.

Seriously though, maybe send them this:

Well, if you didn't violate the NAP then I guess it still stands, no? You work it out...

Then if we get a clear shot at them, take it, and just tell them we're breaking the NAP because we're dishonorable bastards.

[zakalwe]

Just ignoring them is also a perfectly legitimate option.

[pling]

You gotta wonder what reaction they expected us to have? "Oh, you went back on a deal, that's OK it's all sunshine & roses over here " I mean, obviously we'll be a bit annoyed and obviously we'll let them know about it. If you're gonna do something do it & own it, don't hand wring over it afterwards about how you're not really being bad

Did we ever explicitly say the NAP included no unit gifting? I don't think we did, which does mean they have followed the letter of the deal for that. Rules lawyering your way out of keeping a deal isn't to my tastes, but it's a time honoured strategy.

So the bit they've broken is the info sharing stuff -- maybe tell them we don't intend to end the NAP (coz that's nicer for us to have 20 more turns where they can't join in for real, yes?) and to ask them to make it up to us by telling us a bit about the composition of Gillette's troops. Guilt trip given they're already feeling guilty & maybe makes us look less clued in than we are*? I dunno.

*Assuming we are and I'm not totally wrong about what sort of size army Gillette have

[novice]

We could ask them to gift us some catapults...