Combined diplomatic thread --Direction needed - Page 7

Hercules · February 4, 2004, 08:22

I sent this to Voltaire via PM.

Greetings Voltaire,

Our Cap'ns as you are I hope by now aware, totally with you on way forward , if we can hold out.

As stated we will be sending you our techs and maps, next turn regardless of what happens.

To try to ensure Peace survival you might care to consider further courses of action.

1.

Rush a Sea colony pod and launch it close to you but in our direction. Leave it empty. One of our schooners
might just be able to reach it faster than our transport. Then change our Peace Hive relationship from Pact to
Treaty (consult first, if and when this would be necessary), so that we can invade without having our forces
need to withdraw back to a base in our territory.

2. Capture a Data Jack base, near to you and also leave it empty. However the risk here is that DJ might steal
it back again before we get there and even if we get there.

As you can see we are considering everything. After our next turn we will know what is and what is not
possible for us.

One last possibility is that you indicate to the Cycon that you will intervene on our behalf if they do not stop
the war.

Best wishes

Cap'n Hercules.

Please, find attached to our Jumbo parrot, one of the last remaining barrels of 40 Year Old Xenorum.
__________________

Makahlua · February 5, 2004, 00:41

Latest from Maniac :

Hi foolish_icarus, (cc to Makahlua, johndmuller and Gert, Hercules - others have told me they're not active anymore or haven't read previous PMs yet)

quote:
under no circumstances would I be willing to surrender to your faction while there remains anything left of PEACE. I will probably remain in the ACDG, but even then I might join another team instead of yours.

I hope you aren't seriously considering to join the Drones or Hive, and I hope you don't consider the Consciousness the ultimate evil monsters, and the Hive or Drones paradise. If you do and if you are currently cooperating with them, we have some info about the actions of your supposed "friends" towards you in the recent past that you might find interesting...

Greetings,

Maniac

Hercules · February 5, 2004, 05:41

Yeah I got that. If we survive we will ask the Hive about it later.

FlameFlash · February 5, 2004, 12:30

To me that just sounds like yet another rotten trick among the CyCon to try and get us to stop putting up a fight.

Hercules · February 9, 2004, 17:56

I have received a message from Honghu the Current Hive turn player.

In case we have a DL on board I am forwarding the message to regular posting cap'ns.

If you want a copy post here.

IN essence the Hive want only a selection of our offered techs (to keep their tech costs down). so they ask for specific techs to be sent mext turn.

They also notify us of a change in Hive - Cycon relations to treaty level.

FlameFlash · February 9, 2004, 21:59

/me nods.

I liked everything I read, I suppose it's their perogative if they want fewer techs, eh?

Hercules · February 16, 2004, 21:40

Just noticed this in a PM from Buster on the 7 Feb

Quote:

Hi -

I just sent you all the techs which we have that you don't and which cyborgs have.

They are IIRC:

High Energy Chemistry
Doctrine Air power
Synthetic fossil fuels
Environmental economics
Biogenetics

possibly one more I forgot

It may be too late to make a difference - I hope not. At least they won't worsen your odds. In return I would like
thech you have don't (they are four IIRC)

I know you have an escape plan and hope to resettle - I hope you have luck with it. If you get able to settle
somewhere near us - we have the have the power to fend off any attacks that may come.

If you are not able to do so gas equipped planes can make a nasty exit. That is only recommended however if
you are beyond rescue.

Now the techs were sent pre-accepted so you could accept and not give us the techs we request. Should you
do that however do not expect our suppport. If you for whatever reason (and I cannot imagine one as you are
getting more and more advanced techs than we request back) do not wish to do the exchange that is alright but
you should then not accept the techs.

Besides that I have data on all cyborg bases etc I want to forward to you. You may have them already but I
believe I may have been tricked by a cyborg impersonating a Peace official to send them to the wrong person.

Let me know if you did not get them and where to then send them.

regards
buster

That's some bunch of techs. Maybe it'll scare of the Borg or we'll pop a pod that will deliver a noodle. Or would that be too quirky

johndmuller · February 17, 2004, 20:47

I see no reason to look this gift horse in the mouth and would support the exchange he requests.

Maki, I would therefore recommend accepting the offer and then offering (preaccepted) all techs to them (with or without the maps, I don't care, but someone else might).

Interesting that Buster would suspect that he was tricked by the CyCon impersonating us - did anyone of us have any dialog with Buster that could have been misconstrued as that, or are the Borg really doing things like that too?

Googlie · February 18, 2004, 01:42

Tass and I have issued a ruling on that to the affected parties. There was no malfeasance on the Borg's part. Buster made an erroneous assumption and the CyCon let him "wallow" in that assumption.

FlameFlash · February 18, 2004, 01:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
Tass and I have issued a ruling on that to the affected parties. There was no malfeasance on the Borg's part. Buster made an erroneous assumption and the CyCon let him "wallow" in that assumption.

/me shrugs.

foolish_icarus · February 18, 2004, 12:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
Buster made an erroneous assumption and the CyCon let him "wallow" in that assumption.

Can you tell us what the effect was or should we ask the Drones?

Googlie · February 18, 2004, 14:53

Buster gave some information to the CyCon believeing that they were PEACE.

When he discovered his error he then fed some misinformation to them

The "effects" have still to play out

G.

johndmuller · February 18, 2004, 16:09

Hard to imagine Buster jumping to conclusions like that without any 'help' from the Borg in that direction, but since Googs only gave us a 'teaser', instead of the actual story, one can't tell for sure.

I still haven't seen where there was any discussion about the Cycon taking over management of the PUT - Perhaps it occurred while I wasn't paying attention, but I do know that I would not have been particularly in favor of it had I had the occasion to post a comment.

FlameFlash · February 18, 2004, 16:16

Quote:

Originally posted by johndmuller
I still haven't seen where there was any discussion about the Cycon taking over management of the PUT - Perhaps it occurred while I wasn't paying attention, but I do know that I would not have been particularly in favor of it had I had the occasion to post a comment.

Not really our decision to make though... if the two teams wanted to serve each other they have every right to...

johndmuller · February 18, 2004, 16:36

While trying to find a discussion thread about the Cycon/PUT merger, I read the Borg's thread in the ACDG forum about our war with them ... Peace/Cycon War Report thread ...

In there, I found this post about playing ahead:

Quote:

from Maniac IMHO when a member would reload a few times and send a ship in all directions, and based on that information the turnplayer sends the ship in another direction to avoid discovered danger, I would consider it "playing ahead". However if for example the member of a faction responsible for military orders test-captures a base to see what would happen with b-drones etc, and also orders the turnplayer to repeat those exact same moves, I don't think there is a problem with "playing ahead".

Interesting how this relates to our dispute over the supposed exploit - the example Maniac gives of acceptable playing ahead being just what Cap'n Herc did when he recommended attacking the Cycon units in the move that the impartial mods made us take back. Seemingly the Borg engage in this form of playing ahead themselves, but find it to be cheating if other people do it.

I believe that this whole concept of good and bad playing ahead is a can of worms.

The 2nd example Maniac used (for good playing ahead) is carefully framed - avoiding mention of what exactly the military function would have done if he discovered that the base was unexpectedly strong and resisted being captured - would they still recommend that the turn player do exactly what they did then??? (Well, we think that what they would have done is to have gone crying to Tass and Googlie complaining that someone must be cheating since they were getting an unfavorable result.) Somehow I doubt that the military strategist would recommend a course of action demonstrated to be unfavorable, so how would that differ from Maniac's first example of bad playing ahead?

FlameFlash · February 18, 2004, 16:59

Now there's interesting ammo against them...

I'll formally complain that they have probably used these practices under your reasoning and want an investigation

(that was my formal complaint, he does raise an important question as to how and why our bases are falling at such a quick rate... besides the fact that they probably built up a military while pacted with us with their pact info...)

Hercules · February 18, 2004, 17:39

I noticed that comment at the time. It was a response to a question I asked of Impalerwg's comment. (who has since gone remarkably quiet in the public forums)

But our essential downfall has been the lack of a 3 armour defense and or Doc: Loyalty or in some battles, a simple lack of units to defend that one extra battle.

Then it all becomes cumulative.

There is one battle I am uncertain about though.

After the Borg were informed of our accidental discovery of their invasion force, we moved our foil probe southward (as we were originally inclined to do anyway). However The Borg then knew we had a foil probe out there.

I don't think they would have discovered it and killed it but for that intelligence.
Its killing, probably would not have effected outcomes but it would have been interesting for our further decisions, if we could have probed them at that early stage.

Makahlua · February 19, 2004, 10:15

Just dashed this off to HongHu:

Quote:

Just wanted you to know where to spot us; we'll be skirting the DJ coastline, and hanging a turn around Conshelf 57 (or is that 59?) in about 4 turns. Our course may wiggle around a bit to throw off pursuit; we have a light escort with the colony transport, and the rest of the fleet is playing 'Bait' with the Borg cruisers

Anyway, we should be seeing you folks shortly; btw where are we supposed to park?

Makahlua · February 21, 2004, 10:09

Response from Hong Hu:

RE: PEACE escape route
Hi Makahlua,

I have just looked at the turn. Your strategy sounds fine to the Hive. The only thing we may worry is that you need to make sure you are able to set up your new base before your other bases fall to the CCs.

Here's a post by Googliegod in Hive's forum.

quote:

Well, the technicalities in PBEMs dictate that PEACE has to self-destruct their last base, after evidence is presented that the CyCon can destroy it that turn. Colony pods in transit, or units away from the base are simultaneously eliminated.

Otherwise, if the CC do destroy the base, then the year flips over to the start of the next, and the Drones would lose their turn.

Agreed-upon procedure is for the self destruct, which must be requested by the CyCon - if PEACE try stalling, then either Tass or I take a midturn save from the Borgs and confirm that PEACE would be destroyed, then rule it so.

G.

What that means to me is that you need to really think how many turns you are sure your other bases would be able to last and make sure your colony pod reach a peaceful water before that. From your current direction of the colony pod it looks to me the area south of the Hive land would be a good place for you, however if you cannot reach there, please simply choose the best place under the situation.

I have managed to save about 50 ecs in this turn. Would that be helpful to you at all? Please let me know. I plan to post the turn 20 hours from now.

Makahlua · February 21, 2004, 11:05

My response back:

Well, insofar as I know, they (CyCon) probably think the 'escape pod' is the one we have up on Yardarm Isle by a base they almost have control of. I think they only have one cruiser 'sport, and I can still see the invasion force on a different isle a good few turns by cruiser to the south.

A map for you:

(link)

Red stars are the 2 Cycon forces I can see - a lone cruiser in the north picking off the newer lightest defended bases; and the marine invasion fleet in the south. I've projected move ranges and turns, but that assumes for the southern fleet they won't stop to heal or will suffer light losses. We should have an Imapct defender finished prototyping by the time the invasion force arrives @ Pamplona, but I'm not counting my mindworms before they hatch ^^ That northern cruiser force may just sail in and park -or- they might head south to join the assault on Atlantis (furthest east colony); as I can't predict that, I made no projections.

White stars are the colony convoy headed for the hive
and we are going to use that pod for an inland base; we also have 2 unity rovers with the northern CP that I may be able to upgrade shortly

So, er yes, we -could- use the credits - any unit we can rush to delay them is another turn of time that allows us to get to the Hive! Let me know if you have any harbors we could sail into on the sou'east side there so we can unload our colonists easier, if you would be so kind

(Screenshot perhaps?)

Makahlua · February 24, 2004, 19:11

Latest message from HongHu - how are we going to coordinate this? Go ahead and drop to treaty next turn, or drop the turn before landing?

Makahlua,

I didn't realize that you didn't have a sea colony pod. This means you need a land square to establish your base. We have had some discussions inside the Hive. We would let you set your base at our land, however, this would mean we have to go through a very complex process of breaking pact, become vendetta, and reestablish pact. This may require more time than you would have. The best solution to us is for you to set up your base at the island southeast of the Hive and we send some forces to protect it. We will have penetrators that can fly to your base as soon as it is up and as soon as we build a transport we would be able to ship a couple plasma garrison and probes also. The first production of your new base in my opinion should be a defense probe (0-0-1 probe).

I'm attaching a local map for your reference.
http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...ColonySite.bmp

I'm also attaching a post from Comrade Mead in the Hive forum. Hopefully it will help you understand more about the establishing base at pact member teritory issue.

quote:

They can establish a base on our southern coastline, even though it is in our territory.

They can only do this if they are not in a Pact with us.

I just ran a simulation on an old Trans SMAX single player game save I had to test this. This is what I found:

I was playing Hive, Pactmate was Cult.

While in Pact I tried to establish a base in Cultist territory and the following message came up.

"Chairman, our Pact of Brotherhood with Prohet Cha Dawn of the Planet Cult Precludes us from building bases in Cultist territory."

So, I clicked on the Comm menu and right click broke the Pact. The following message came up.

"Our Pact of Brotherhood with the Planet Cult has ended. All Cultist units have been removed from our territory. 5 units have been removed from cultist territitory and returned to our nearest bases."

I reloaded the test game, broke the Pact and then moved a colony pod into Cultist territory and, while in treaty but not in Pact, I tried to establish a base. I got the following message with two options.

"Chairman, our treaty with Prophet Dawn of the Planet Cult precludes us from building bases in Cultist territory.

NEVER MIND

BREAK TREATY

OK"

I then chose to break the treaty and my base was established.

The Cults then went into Vendetta against me.

From this test I conclude the following if we are going to allow Peace to establish a base on our territory:

1. Peace and us must break Pact before they enter our territory otherwise all of their units that are within our territory will automatically be returned to their nearest base once we break pact.

2. Once we break Pact their units and our units will not be able to occupy the same squares (or move through us) until we restablish Pact.

3. They must build their base before we reestablish Pact.

4. Once they build their base in our territory it is very likely that the game will automatically change the Treaty between us to Vendetta and we will have to restablish the Pact manually.

5. We need to be careful not to have our units in a position that would block their movement, because once we are out of Pact they cannot move through our units or occupy the same square.

6. Because I am not sure what would happen if both Peace and Hive units occupiped the same square, outside of both the Hive and Peace territory, when Pact was broken I think we should avoid it.

6a. We should also be careful not to try to move our units into the same square as their's while in treaty. Attempting to do so will result in attacking and destroying their units.

7. When we escort the Peace units in let's have our units behing them, providing a rear guard action.

8. Let's get them landed, established, and protected as soon as possible.

Mead

foolish_icarus · February 24, 2004, 19:40

I can't see the map--Is landing on the island feasible?

FlameFlash · February 24, 2004, 20:23

The map didn't show up right when I downloaded it... can you post a .jpg?

Makahlua · February 24, 2004, 21:33

THis should work I hope:

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?...colonysite.jpg

foolish_icarus · February 25, 2004, 01:29

looks like the island is the best bet

FlameFlash · February 25, 2004, 16:00

Who is the light blue in the picture though?

Hercules · February 25, 2004, 17:31

The light blue is Data Roze. The Hive are at vendetta with the DJs

OK move to Treaty status next turn.

Hercules · February 25, 2004, 17:34

Pity the Island is bare

foolish_icarus · February 25, 2004, 20:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Hercules
Pity the Island is bare

Makahlua · February 25, 2004, 22:43

The Isle between us and the Hive he means. And I'm thinking to hold off un-pacting a few turns so they can cover us in the same squares until we're in air range. Sound good?