Public Announcement from Gathering Storm

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by nbarclay
We offer to sell you Feudalism, you refuse, and you call us isolationist over it?

This is news to me. As Commander of the Armies of Spain, I had been pleading for Feudalism for a long time before we got it. I'm shocked to hear that we could've had it earlier. How long ago was this? I didn't get back to full activity after my March absence until late April. My impression was that certain parties wouldn't trade us Feudalism, and that others who acquired had to wait a long time before selling it to us. (This impression may have shortened my fuse a bit. )

Originally posted by nbarclay
I wonder whether you would still regard the issue of who the aggressor was as irrelevant if you were the ones who were lied to and attacked by surprise. The treachery Vox used to set up their attack gives this war a rather different flavor in our minds from what it would have as a straight attack without the lies. War is a major, inherent part of the game. Dishonesty is not.

Certainly, perspective is everything.

Originally posted by nbarclay
To the best of my knowledge, your team's interest in roleplay has nothing to do with the suspicions many within GS have toward your team. (And my apologies for the bad manners involved in DeepO's presenting suspicions as if they were fact in a public forum; that should not have been done without clear evidence and without our having discussed the matter with your team in private to get a clearer picture.)

On the other hand, if you look at some of Togas's posts in the public forum, it seems quite clear that he, at least, has a rather hostile attitude toward us. I don't recall seeing much from other members of your team indicating that his attitude does not reflect the attitude of your team at large, and our discussions with other teams do indicate a general practice within Roleplay of trying to raise concern about us in the minds of other teams. (Of course with us, it's Lego you try to raise concern about.) Is it really such a big leap to suspect that Roleplay would go from that to actively encouraging, and maybe even providing some support for, a war against us? Then add to that your refusal to buy Feudalism from us, almost as if you wanted to make sure we wouldn't have the gold we desparately needed for upgrades to defend ourselves against Vox's surprise attack.

As I said, I think the way DeepO made an accusation withut hard evidence, based solely on suspicion and without even having discussed our suspicions with your team in private, was completely unwarranted. But are our suspicions themselves really so hard to understand?

I recall Togas' calling GS members elitist, or something like that. I really didn't have an opinion prior to that, but it certainly sounded plausible at the time that the strategy experts could be...confident. I have learned since then that while it might be true of some, it is not true of all GS members.

I understand how speculation and incomplete information can lead to suspicisions and unearned reputations. I think both our teams suffer from this.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Not, "or we'll attack you too." Indeed, we weren't the ones who started the war with Vox, so "too" would not quite be gramatically correct even if we were threatening an attack. Rather, "or the fact that you assisted our enemies will affect future relations."

You are right, I stand grammatically corrected. Thank you.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Keep in mind that the only reason Vox has a need for foreign iron in the first place is that we cut off their domestic supply. So what we are asking for is not for other civs to turn down profits that they could reasonably expect due to natural distribution of resources. Rather, we are merely asking other civs not to take advantage of a situation our military created in order to profit at clear and significant expense to us. "Give us something or we'll undo the results of your military operation by providing Vox with a replacement source of iron" sounds entirely too much like extortion for my taste.

I would have thought it would be obvious, at least once a person or team thinks about it, that undoing a military advantage a civ gains in cutting off an enemy's resources would not be viewed favorably. So much for my idea that I was merely calling attention to a fact that ought to be self-evident, at least once you think about it a little.

As I said earlier, I did not have an issue with the original message, but with the tone and delivery of it. Your posts and your team members posts since then have calmed my initial "outrage", which if you'll notice in my subsequent posts, I downgraded to "irritation". This is why I've avoided getting involved in the RP FAM.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Arrian
As for the map issue... we're a small island civ ....

Comedy runs rampant.

[Arrian]

Just because you're smaller doesn't make us big, Beta.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Why is this funny? It's true.
You should know, since you live here (at the moment). Our island has less than a third of the number of tiles on Bob.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by dejon
This is news to me. As Commander of the Armies of Spain, I had been pleading for Feudalism for a long time before we got it. I'm shocked to hear that we could've had it earlier. How long ago was this? I didn't get back to full activity after my March absence until late April. My impression was that certain parties wouldn't trade us Feudalism, and that others who acquired had to wait a long time before selling it to us. (This impression may have shortened my fuse a bit. )

Is this true??
Man... and we thought that you were seriously plotting against us when you refused to our offer of Feudalism.

[Arrian]

Wow, big diplomatic SNAFU there, it seems.

Perhaps our diplomats have something to talk about, um, now?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Hmm, checked the diplo log and it doesn't look like a SNAFU, but rather that RP felt they could get a better deal elsewhere. We were thanked for our offer, but were refused.

Nothing much to discuss, unless we want to try and undercut the other bid (which was extremely low).

-Arrian

[GodKing]

At one time I was RP’s diplomat with GS. We did have several trades and discussions early on in the game, but as the game progressed and we didn’t have anything new to discuss, DeepO and myself lost contact. Eventually, out diplomatic relations just disappeared as they were not being used. Now that things are interesting again, as there has never been a relationship worked out, it is going though some growing pains.

Additionally, relations are stressed as GS views RP as having lots of good land (slightly exaggerated, but I would be lying if I said we were not content with what we have.) RP views GS as having a tightly knit core of cities with excellent production and science potential. The fact that GS was/is the scientific leader in the world and that they were refusing trading of maps contributed to the general distrust. RP team also made several plays that were not to benefit the team winning the game, but to make RPing more fun, weakening our overall performance (and against my objections – we will continue to make more “RP” moves).

So, with that out of the way, knowing that neither of our teams completely trusts each other, fine, and no big deal. That doesn’t mean that we will not be able to work together now or in the future. We expect each team to do what is best for itself in whatever way they choose to play.

Two things are surprising me in this whole conversation: 1) why isn’t anybody focusing on the long term problem of Lego’s dominance. They have a huge landmass, no competition (except some barbarians) and the traits to be a powerhouse. And 2) who wants to trade with RP???? Come on, what are you offering and what do you want??? We are commercial after all!

[DeepO]

Okay, first of all, I owe you all an apology. My fellow members of GS for giving away too much, and the rest of the world for wording my intentions badly. I could try to write it off as a combination of me not being a English native, or of writing my last post moments after I woke up from a bad night, but that's not the whole thruth... it was a bad choice of me to write that, no matter what excuse I could come up with.

So, allow me to try to clarify myself, and rewrite a few of those sentences that upset people...

I'm not surprised RP's members are screaming hardest when it comes to our isolationism. After all, we all (know or) suspect that it wasn't only Vox' idea to treacherously attack us...

This was rather unfortunately put... what I really wanted to say was that we expected for a long time (and we have numerous clues, no proof) that Vox did not come up with the idea of attacking us by themselves, or at least were helped in their conviction by other teams. I did not want to say that RP was one of those teams that thought a weakened GS was the best thing that could happen in this game, but seeing the first 3 posts of RP members, it was kind of an Aha-erlebnis... it made me think that quite possibly, an iron-deal between RP and Vox was already under discussion, or even ratified. I messed up in wording here, I should not have put those 2 thoughts so close to each other, and picked better wording on my second sentence.

Fact remains that Vox must have received some kind of sponsoring, and judging from how techs got distributed, RP still remains a likely candidate. As I said (but that got lost in the rest of my message), I personally don't mind any economic deals, even if there is a militaristic undertone to them. But iron is different, that is no economic deal.

It is such a key military resource, that providing it to them can only be seen as a military alliance against us.

Hmmm... again sorry, better worded this should be "If you want to military ally with Vox, providing iron would be one of the best ways of doing it". It's not that iron leads straight to a military alliance, but clearly trading iron to a team that is at the brink of being overrun because it doesn't have iron is a political-military action that can (and I emphasize again, CAN) lead to military consequences. The only way one could support Vox better is to actually ship loads of units onto our continent, not even gold payments can top the impact of iron.

Further, in rereading my post, I realized it was very agressive, maybe partly because of my morning temper. Sorry about that, I'm halfway between dove and hawk in reality (in this game anyway, irl I'm Belgian and so almost by definition a peacenick). I tried to make it sound like a (technical) state of war was one option for us to stop Vox from receiving iron, without commenting on the 'block harbor and declare war' plan. I failed miserably, in that for those who do not know of the strange mechanics of Civ which requires a war declaration for blocking, it must have read like we were going to invade all harbors in this world. While our military is quite adequate to handle Vox about now, we do not have the spares to go on a wild rampage amongst several civs, nor do we want to. We want to return to a stable state, where we do not need to spend insane amounts of gold on rushing units for our defense. That stable state only requires one thing: no more war.

Other points: I was, and still am, the ambassador to RP. In that position, I had to endure multiple set backs over the first few months, in that very few of the proposed deals went through... Feudalism comes to mind, as does some unfortunate deals involving other teams which RP offered and we were unable to accept. We offered a deal on Feudalism 4 times, so please don't blame it on us if you couldn't get it earlier. After our 4th offer, at least my personal opinion was that you were stalling us, and that was not a very exotic thing to assume. Given the war with Vox, all our diplo contacts froze, and they haven't recuperated since... part of that is my fault, as rl has been bugging me mercilessly the past month, and I did not had time for any chitchat as ambassador. But outside of Feudalism, we had little to offer, except for our friendship.

I really want to have a friendly relation with all teams, certainly those I'm ambassador to, which is why I called my post a warning, and not a threat (even if the bad choice of words made it sound the wrong way). If any team provides iron to Vox, it might be a necessity for us to declare war, even if we don't want to. But even if a declaration of war isn't called for, it will damage our relations with that team... In the current situation, it doesn't look like Vox will play any significant role in this game anymore (yeah, more trashtalking ), and we will survive our war, so if you need to chose sides, please think twice... all we ask is that you remain neutral to us, so that we can stay on friendly terms.

To close it all: it certainly was not my intention to voice my opinions as GS official announcements. It was not my intention to threaten, or speak agressively. It was not my intention to piss any RP members off, even if some of their members weren't very nice to us before. And most importantly, it was certainly not my intention to threaten, or imply a threat to those teams that want to side with the losing party in this war. For all these things, I can only apologize, as it happened, and can't be turned back. I do regret it furiously

Now, I'll check our private forum, to see how my teammates reacted to my last post

DeepO

[Togas]

I am frustrated beyond words at where this thread has gone. I am angry because my own personal and past issues with the attitude of VERY FEW of the Gathering Storm members somehow grew into a mass loathing by GS for my team. My team had nothing to do with my opinions, and I am tired of seeing them slandered or seeing gross assumptions being made about the nation of Spain and our policies, based solely on my Out of Game beef.

Secondly, Gathering Storm posted this thread and should have contemplated what the logical result would be. How did you expect people to react when reading this "Public Announcement?" What was the purpose of posting it? What are the logical responses that people of all teams would have to this? Then to get angry at individuals who respond in a predictable fashion ... that's just irresponsible and VERY poor diplomacy.

Third, the Vox vs GS war was a PR nightmare for GS who COULD have played the victim role and COULD have rallied the world behind them, but they didn't. Instead they polarized it and when indivudals decided who they wanted to root for, the masses sided with Vox. Vox won the Propaganda war and it's too late to undo that. Vox then used that Propoganda victory to bolster their active diplomacy with all of the other teams. I am unaware if GS has been contacting any other teams, but after GS refused to negotiate on the price of Feudalism with us, we have received -0- PMs of any kind from GS, and had -0- chats. Vox, on the other hand, remains in active contact with us and we continue to do business with them ... we see no reason why not to.

Forth, if we or GoW or ND or Lego wants to sell a resource to Vox that's our business. We don't appreciate being vaguely threated in this fashion. We could easily sell resources to GS. We could trade techs. We have not embargoed either party. We have not refused to trade with either party.

We could not afford Feudalism from GS as we were paying 18gpt in current tech deals and suffering from rampant corruption due to the shape of our empire. If GS would have simply agreed to negotiate we would have bought it from them, but I was told by your ambassador that the price was not negotiable. What did you expect us to do when you refuse to negotiate? Why didn't anyone consider the logical results of your diplomatic hardline stance?

Fifth, I urge Gathering Storm to please calm down, back off, and try to be diplomatic with the rest of us for a change. Pointing the finger at Spain and making unfair accusations is not helping you to win our friendship or cooperation. If you truely want us to consider your wishes regarding Vox, maybe it's time to actually talk to us?

Consider this an olive branch.

--Togas, King of Spain.

[DeepO]

GodKing (cross posted with you): Indeed, I'm sorry for our loss of contact. I thought our relation to be quite amicable, and enjoyed it very much, even if the global game did not always give us many things to work with. I certainly hope we'll be able to trade and talk in the (near) future, so maybe you can convince your team that trading iron may be a fun way to play the game, but won't exactly improve relations with us... (the same applies for the other Bobian / Borconian teams, of course )

DeepO

[Arrian]

Third, the Vox vs GS war was a PR nightmare for GS who COULD have played the victim role and COULD have rallied the world behind them, but they didn't.

We DID try to point out that we were blatantly attacked. The reaction of the "rest of the world" was "we don't care who started it, quit whining and fight."

*sigh*

[edit] So that's precisely what we did: Shut up and fight![/edit]

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Togas
If GS would have simply agreed to negotiate we would have bought it from them, but I was told by your ambassador that the price was not negotiable.

Whow there... don't mix diplomatic conversations up, Togas. You're kind of quoting me here, but from different PMs, and out of context. I will not provide the exact quotes, as it is against our policy to give away diplomatic contacts, but let me tell the rest of the world what really happened:
1. We first said that the price of Feudalism was not negotiable, as it was already low enough. That is perfectly correct, in that at that time (i.e. the release of Feudalism to the world), we offered the tech to all teams to the exact same price, and were not going to advantage any team over the other.
2. A few messages later, after you told us that our price was too high and you had another possible source (quoting their price, which we find appalling diplomatic tactics as it was only intended to get us in a bidding war), I specifically mentioned that at release, the price was not negotiable, but that once other teams were free to trade Feudalism on, we would appreciate it if you asked us for a new price, as we would certainly try to outbid them. That implied that the price would drop over time, only the immediate price was unnegotiable as it wouldn't be fair to other teams. You never even tried.

No matter what personal quarrels you have with some of us (myself probably included, for God knows what reason), do not attempt to further bend this in a propaganda war by ripping quotes out of context. We're perfectly aware we did a lousy job on the PR side of things, but we remained honest. Posing as a victim (well, we were a victim of treachery, but somehow nobody seemed to mind) when you know that in 10 turns time you could probably be double in strength is not honorable.

DeepO

[Togas]

Please accept my apologies as this was written while I was writing my post and I really need to respond to it:

Originally posted by DeepO
This was rather unfortunately put... what I really wanted to say was that we expected for a long time (and we have numerous clues, no proof) that Vox did not come up with the idea of attacking us by themselves, or at least were helped in their conviction by other teams. I did not want to say that RP was one of those teams that thought a weakened GS was the best thing that could happen in this game, but seeing the first 3 posts of RP members, it was kind of an Aha-erlebnis... it made me think that quite possibly, an iron-deal between RP and Vox was already under discussion, or even ratified. I messed up in wording here, I should not have put those 2 thoughts so close to each other, and picked better wording on my second sentence.

Fact remains that Vox must have received some kind of sponsoring, and judging from how techs got distributed, RP still remains a likely candidate.

What the hell is this?! Where does this come from? There are numerous clues but no proof?! If there's no proof then why the hell are you making this accusation?! My God, next I'll be hearing from the Lux Refugees that ND attacking them was a secret RP plot as well because we were sick of dealing with Trip!

Can these sorts of baseless and factless accusations against my nations end? Please? Because it's not fair and entirely flat out wrong to even suggest this about us.

Originally posted by DeepO
It was not my intention to piss any RP members off, even if some of their members weren't very nice to us before. And most importantly, it was certainly not my intention to threaten, or imply a threat to those teams that want to side with the losing party in this war.

I can't begin to tell you how many of my clients tell me that they didn't mean to do something or say something, or didn't intend that their actions result in the criminal consequences that they're facing. Actions have logical consequences that we must all be responsible for. Please think about how the post will be taken before the post is made.

Thanks. That's all for now.

--Togas

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Togas
There are numerous clues but no proof?! If there's no proof then why the hell are you making this accusation?!

Again, it seems I'm expressing myself wrongly. Togas, maybe you're not aware of it, but you're doing your best to take apart sentences from someone who has less then 5% of your English vocabulary, and none of your legal standard text approaches. I apologized for making accusations when there was no proof, I apologized for even making the wrong assumptions, and you respond and say it is appalling I make those accusations in the first place. This is not a court room, and I'm no lawyer. Flame me if you like, I can't do more then apologise.

Oh, correction, I can try to play your PR game, and play the victim of someone who is obviously much better at English then me... nah... that would put my (already battered) ego at the line

DeepO

[Togas]

With your permission I would like to quote the PM to straighten this out, because you didn't imply that you would negotiate, instead you gave me a pointless lecture about how it's bad policy to buy from some other source and how they were untrustworthy and may not give us the tech in 10 turns, clearly because you didn't like our diplomatic tactic of trying to bid down the price of a tech...

Originally posted by DeepO
(quoting their price, which we find appalling diplomatic tactics as it was only intended to get us in a bidding war)

Originally posted by DeepO
when you know that in 10 turns time you could probably be double in strength is not honorable.

Maybe this is just a bad translation issue, but I have no idea what you're saying here.

Here's the deal: It's a Free Market. All if fair, and the merchant who offers the best price AND gives the best service gets the sale. These haughty ideas about "appauling diplomatic tactics" and "not acting honorably" because we didn't go the extra mile to BEG you to please reconsider negotiating with us astounds me! You guys have no idea the sort of wrangling we have to do in the tech market because GoW is so damn good at it. Frankly, I don't care who gives me the tech so long as I get it for a good price, and GoW delivered that good price to me, were willing to negotiate, were amicable with their terms, and are trustworthy and reliable merchants who have a track record in Spain of excellent service.

How dare you act as if we slighted you by buying something from them? You had every opportunity to sell us the tech, all you had to do was beat their price. You refused to do so because you found such behavior to be beneath your standards, and so long as you employ such standards you will continue to lose out on potential sales.

In the end we got the tech, Gow got the cash, and GS got nothing. What did those "honorable" trade policies do for you in the end?

... sigh ...

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

Forth, if we or GoW or ND or Lego wants to sell a resource to Vox that's our business. We don't appreciate being vaguely threated in this fashion. We could easily sell resources to GS. We could trade techs. We have not embargoed either party. We have not refused to trade with either party.

Let me jump in for one second here.

Togas, you almost make it sound as if you speak for all of the teams. I can assure you that GoW did not feel threatened by the statement made earlier, hell we don't even have spare Iron so none of this even concerns us presently.

On a PERSONAL note (not neccessarily a GoW statement) I see no problem with a team requesting that the other teams please keep out of the business militarily. Iron IS a military resource, therefore a military support.

Did it come off as confident and threatening?

Yes, definately. Mistakes happen to all of us.

Could it have been handled more diplomatically?

Certainly. As proven by later posts.

Is it an unreasonable request given the circumstances?

Absolutely not.

[mrmitchell]

* Spamish jumps in on the scene of the diplomatic incident and speaks to Togas. *

Whoa, my King, have patience and understanding! Whut you say here could determine ours, our children's, and our children's children's lives. Do not speak with haste, speak with wisdom. For, though your emotion is a powerful resource, many a life have been lost to it in matters of this scale.

[mrmitchell]

DeepO

Certainly there's an online translator or dictionary you can use if you're having that much trouble? Well, anyways, you're doing a pretty good job at speaking English IMO--in fact, it's better than most of it I hear regularly

[ruby_maser]

You don't use mustard to fix a watch. The Mad Hatter knew this well. Butter... maybe, but certainly not mustard.

If you understand that, my teammates, you know as much as the Mad Hatter about restraint.

[Arrian]

By the way, regarding the feudalism trade issue:

I didn't follow that as it developed. As far as I'm concerned, RP didn't do anything wrong or dishonorable.

You guys were willing to wait 10 turns and get a better price. We didn't come up with a lower offer. So we lose. That's fine, unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible, since I do tend to neglect the diplo log threads and concentrate on military & economic areas (which are the 2 scholias I'm part of).

But please cut DeepO some slack - he has little hope of communicating in English as well as a native English-speaking lawyer, even though I think his English is excellent.

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

Why haven't we seen any statements or reaction from ND or Lego? C'mon guys, you don't want me labelling you as isolationist too, do you?

[Arrian]

Oh, and by the way,

UnOrthOdOx -

That's a pretty fair assessment, I think. Thanks.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Arrian

But please cut DeepO some slack - he has little hope of communicating in English as well as a native English-speaking lawyer, even though I think his English is excellent.

-Arrian

I agree. Both Togas and Arnelos have left me running for my dictionary on more than one occasion, I can only imagine how a non-native speaker feels. Honestly, though DeepO is doing a great job, I hadn't even noticed, frankly.

[DeepO]

Togas, you do NOT have permission to quote the entire message in public, as it does contain remarks on other team(s). We do not give out diplomatic messages, I even crossed the line too far in trying to defend myself personally. If you want, we can take this private, where you can quote our messages if you want.

Maybe this is again a misunderstanding, however I thought (and still think) that the sentence I'm referring to was very clear (third sentence of my reply). You can hardly call that implying... although I'm the first to confess it is far from legal speak.

I know you have a different idea of how diplomatic negotiations should proceed, and I know that for you, nearly all tactics are allowed in what you call free market. But as a result of the first commotion about all the "ringers" in GS, we commited to play it honorably, even if in many cases it would not give us the best deals, or even if it would mean we would lose this game badly (say end in last place). I admit, that that line of thought in many cases makes us think that other teams are crossing the line, when in reality it is our self-imposed line they cross, and they did not promise anything, hence are not breaking any commitment. Sometimes, this troubles relations because of wrong assumptions, sometimes it makes us appear arrogant, but normally we're only commenting on our own policy, not another team's.

I thought I said that when I said that we do not want you to mention what others are asking for a tech (assuming we trust you, and the price is accurate). It is your good right to try that tactic, but we won't do it, and don't like it when someone uses that bidding war tactic on us. I wanted to say that in the first quote, even if it came out poorly.

In rereading the PM for the 5th time or so, I realize that seeing it from another PoV, you could interpret part of the message as kind of dubious to such a bidding war, but again, that's bad English that is showing, and if you consider our PoV for only a second, there is no doubt.

The second quote: We could play a victim, but it didn't catch on (remember the "moral high ground" thread?). If we would have sneak attacked Vox, violating a NAP, that argument would have made all teams gang up on us. Why? Vox is the underdog, so they are 'allowed' to be creative with breaking treaties. We don't get support for being right... maybe a little support at first, but the moment other teams started to realize that Vox was not going to win, and possibly we would not get damaged as much as hoped for, there was no sympathy left. That's a normal human reaction, so playing a victim in a PR war when you're actually the biggest kid on the block is simply pathetic, nothing more... we may not have made any friends in this war, at least we kept our dignity.

I know, I know... you don't value dignity, as this game is a "free market" in many ways. But we don't play to win at all costs, we play to win (or at least survive) in a fun, and honorable way. Call us idiots if you want, but that's how we want to play.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Thanks for the comments on the quality of my English, however there is a problem here. I do not grasp all hidden meanings in sentences, nor am I aware of all I imply in what I write. I don't need a on-line dictionary (those are awfull most of the times), and of course I'm used to write English, but that is in a totally different context... I can easily see some confusion coming from using 'difficult' vocabulary, while I miss the simplest words from time to time, but that's because I'm used to reading academic papers, and talking in English in an academic environment. Let me tell you, the differences in word usage are considerable when compared to trying to be an ambassador

DeepO

[Hot Mustard]

RE: DeepO

Originally posted by Arrian
But please cut DeepO some slack - he has little hope of communicating in English as well as a native English-speaking lawyer, even though I think his English is excellent.

So do I. And I always cut ESL'ers slack, but that didn't seem to be the issue here.

DeepO stated that he (or some of GS) believed a particular theory on the basis of "clues". Togas took issue with that, as any lawyer would. You can't leap from "clues" to "conviction" without proof.

DeepO also stated that Togas was taking apart his sentences, which I don't see any evidence of.

I sympathize for DeepO if he feels intimated by Togas' vocabulary, but it doesn't change the fact the he (and other GS members?) were judging RP without facts. I would love to hear an example of a "clue" that wasn't merely pure speculative conversation.

RE: Arnelos - What black hole did he get sucked into, anyway?

RE: Feudalism - A shame. I obviously wasn't around or paying attention, I would have preferred to get it sooner than later.

RE: Mustard - What are you talking about? Mustard fixes all wrongs!

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Togas

How dare you act as if we slighted you by buying something from them? You had every opportunity to sell us the tech, all you had to do was beat their price. You refused to do so because you found such behavior to be beneath your standards, and so long as you employ such standards you will continue to lose out on potential sales.

In the end we got the tech, Gow got the cash, and GS got nothing. What did those "honorable" trade policies do for you in the end?

All we had to do was accept a price representing less than 10% of the cost of our research (if I remember the numbers correctly). That in a game with six teams currently active, and in whch we were at war with one of those six and so could not expect to trade with them. In the short term, accepting such a deal would have profited us more than letting GoW have the sale did. But in the long term, setting such a precedent would have been highly problematical to say the least.

If we're going to have research in this game, civs need to be able to expect their customers, collectively, to pay a reasonable share of the price of that research. That's not going to happen if any civ selling a tech has to worry about competing with its first customer in trying to sell the tech to anyone else. In the past, 10-turn delays combined with teams' preference to deal with the original researcher had always seemed to be enough to ensure sane results. But in this case, the rest of the world could hardly have shafted us more effectively if they were engaged in a deliberate conspiracy.

Do we really want a world where the only way civs can research safely is to line up ironclad trades in advance before they even start researching a new tech? If not, pitting original researchers in bidding wars against their own customers is ultimately self-defeating, however good a deal it might look like in the short term.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Togas
Actions have logical consequences that we must all be responsible for.

I think that this succintly sums up this entire thread. If another team decides to intervene in the war on our continent, then there will be repercussions. We did not interfere in The War Against Luxian Agression, knowing that there would be repercussions. Surely you can see that there will be repercussions if there is proof of aiding Vox militarily?

GS would want nothing more than to revert to builder mode after Vox has been dispatched. We were, after all, just builders when Vox attacked, we had virtually no military. After the war, GS would like to turn our chariots into plowshares, but intereference with our affairs....


note: the above is from a silent member of GS (who would kill to be allowed to participate again, alas. )

[Arrian]

who would kill to be allowed to participate again, alas

Your participation is missed.

-Arrian