External Affairs Function's Office

Drogue · August 12, 2003, 06:12

I think there should be an office for each elected position, so that any Function can request orders, give ideas and discuss relevant policy. Anyone can contribute, and please feel free to discuss any foreign policy issue here. I will keep the first post updated with the latest issues.

External Affairs department for each faction

PEACE Diplomatic Exchanges
Hive Diplomatic Exchanges - CyCon-Hive embassy (password "voltogue")
PUT Diplomatic Exchanges
Drones Diplomatic Exchanges
Angels Diplomatic Exchanges
Believers Diplomatic Exchanges

Current Issues

Hive - their cheating

PEACE - DocFlex trade

PEACE - Pact, War or something im between, and how to go about getting each. Commlinks.

Believers - The chopper and other threats/opportunities

How to combat the sudden surge in tech level of the Hive and Drones (meeting?)

Techs/Units to request from the Internal Affairs Function.

Current Threads

Term 0100

Eastern exploration

Previous terms

PEACE Diplomacy - Read and discuss the correspondance regarding the latest PEACE deal.

What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailors? - Poll on what to do about PEACE.

Opinions on Other Factions - Please continue discussion here.

Corellion · August 22, 2003, 23:22

This is looking a little into the future, but I have an idea for a strategy we can use against PEACE (diplomacy, not war). Best of all, it comes right out of their playbook.

Next turn, we shall begin research on Doctrine: Flexibility. This is a tech that PEACE already has. Let's continue researching as normal, but when we have either 2 or 1 turn left to completion, we propose the following deal to them.

We inform them (which they will doubtlessly already know) that we are almost done researching Doc: Flex. We know that they have this tech, and we have come upon a potential deal, honouring our wonderful relations with our Pact Siblings. It's a deal where both gain. They offer us, as a gift, Doctrine: Flexibility. In exchange, we switch production to another tech (Ecological Engineering, for example), and complete that within a turn or two. We then gift them with this tech (and maybe demand some credits too). We're going to get it anyway, so they may as well gain from it too. Remind anyone of the Planetary Networks negotiation? Turnabout is fair play.

Googlie · August 22, 2003, 23:48

ooooohhhh - wicked

G

GLIE

Corellion · August 23, 2003, 02:44

The most powerful faction on Chiron is the Data Angels (with us in second, yay!). Seeing as we've met them, I was wondering if we should start to get a little chummy with them, hopefully getting some techs/credits in the process.

Maniac · August 24, 2003, 10:03

Sorry, I forgot to contact the Angels.

As for your PEACE suggestion, I doubt it has much chance of success. The idea to contact PEACE and obtain Doc:Flex is good of course. But they probably wouldn't accept what you would want for extras in return.

First, I would contact them a little earlier than 1 or 2 turns before we research it. You know how our negotiations with PEACE always tend to get drawn out...

Second, EcolEng is still a long way to go. EthCalc is a more realistic countertech (and IMHO +- equally valuable to Doc:Flex, especially for the Pirates with their growth and efficiency mali).

Third, I think there's about zero chance they would give us a few extra credits. Remember how we reacted when they demanded 100 ec in the IndAut deal? Also, you refer to the PlaNets deal. When you take that as precedence, we are the ones who should pay some credits extra. After all, back then they were about to research PlaNets (or so they claimed - I have my doubts as they have a history of lying to us), but they still gave us 20 credits extra. That's of course also because SocPsych was worth less than PlaNets.

So to prevent they demand credits, we should offer them a tech of equal worth as Doc:Flex. EthCalc seems fine, but then of course we can no longer offer that tech as the future tech we promised in the IndAut deal.

Because of these three problems addressed above, my proposal is that we contact them four turns before we research Doc:Flex, and offer them a simple Doc:Flex<->EthCalc deal, with no other strings or credits attached. And if they ask even 5 credits extra, [b]we should simply refuse[:b] to trade with them.

Sure, I guess that according to game theory we would still gain even if we give some credits extra to PEACE, but unless we teach them once they can't bluff us into paying more than we should (as they did the last two times), we'll never be able to have fair trades with PEACE.

Corellion · August 24, 2003, 22:36

The credits were mostly on an if-we-can-get-them basis. And I don't know what I was thinking when I said Ecological Engineering.
The short time was to put the pressure on them, as they have done repeatedly with us (notice how all our negotiations with them take place a turn or two before the deal can be made?). It could help our negotiations.

As for the tech offered, I would have to say I do not agree with giving them Ethical Calculus. We have already promised them Ethical Calculus in the Industrial Automation deal, and if we gave it to them, we would have to renegotiate which tech we owed them... something which I do not want to do.

Maniac · August 26, 2003, 07:12

What would you offer instead of EthCalc?
(Please also note the new message in the PEACE diplomacy thread.)

Corellion · September 5, 2003, 12:47

Boolean Bay has two garrisoned scout patrols, and an undefended CP just heading out of it. Shouldn't one SP join the convoy?

Maniac · September 6, 2003, 11:35

I asked Drogue a while back to send the Boolean Bay scout patrol along with the CP, so it should be ok.

Drogue · September 7, 2003, 12:29

Will be done. You do realise with the Eth Calc - Doc Flex thing that we owe them Eth Calc already for the last trade? How are the Doc FLex negotiations going?

Drogue · September 7, 2003, 13:16

Maniac: With regards to the unity rover, you have asked for it to run up and down the river on (79,71), and it is doing that. Can I suggest the river to the north, as that has 3 squares of which 2 are fungus, as opposed to 2 squares of which 1 is fungus. Or is there a better place to run a river to get MWs?

Maniac · September 7, 2003, 14:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Drogue
Will be done. You do realise with the Eth Calc - Doc Flex thing that we owe them Eth Calc already for the last trade? How are the Doc FLex negotiations going?

They aren't going.

I've sent them a message and a reminder, but they haven't responded. If I sent a third message, it'll make us look desperate and they'll ask a for them advantagous deal.
My guess is they're planning to:
a) simply not trade.
b) wait until the last minute like usual, putting us all on a time pressure, again hoping to get an uneven deal in their advantage.
To prevent that, my official recommendation would be to get 100 to 150 ec as soon as possible, and contact the Angels and Believers to see if they're willing to sell DocFlex (which they both have) to us. Or to the very least we should get a decent credit reserve, so we can pretend to the Pirates that we're able to buy DocFlex elsewhere, and say that we're still willing to buy from them if they offer us a good deal.

Quote:

Maniac: With regards to the unity rover, you have asked for it to run up and down the river on (79,71), and it is doing that. Can I suggest the river to the north, as that has 3 squares of which 2 are fungus, as opposed to 2 squares of which 1 is fungus. Or is there a better place to run a river to get MWs?

I'm sorry. I need to see the situation before my eyes first before I can give an answer.

Drogue · September 7, 2003, 18:15

Same as last turn. It's just which terrain gets us more worms. You don't need to se troup positioning, just the map.

Drogue · September 8, 2003, 12:05

Maniac: Have received communication from PEACE via Flubber. Have posted in PEACE Diplomacy Thread.

Also, feel free to edit my first post.

Corellion · September 13, 2003, 11:18

BTW, I seriously suggest we at least contact the Angels this turn, and guage their willingness to co-operate. We don't want to keep forgetting about them.

Maniac · September 13, 2003, 12:33

Sure why not.

But do keep it mind that despite that it may look ages ago due to the slow turn cycle, I only contacted them three years ago, in MY 2132. I don't think we should contact them more often than once every five years, to avoid them losing patience with us, and refusing to accept our calls.

Corellion · September 13, 2003, 13:27

Has it only been three years? Wow.

Drogue · September 14, 2003, 07:55

I reckon go for it this time, but usually not that often.

Drogue · October 2, 2003, 13:16

You have ordered the scout not to pop pods. Should the rover pop the pod it is near? And now the scout cannot move the way it's ordered without popping a different pod

Why not pop pods too? Sure the benefit from somethign outweighs the cost of it maybe being a MW and losing a scout, when we have the rover nearby?

DeathByTheSword · October 2, 2003, 13:20

i agree

Drogue · October 2, 2003, 13:43

That settles that then

Googlie · October 3, 2003, 00:47

Some thoughts to ponder:

Elsewhere I replied to Maniac that I had started the AI off with one being "friendly" and the other "unfriendly" to each faction. If you right click on Roze or Miriam in the commlinks box you'll see that one is "seething" towards the CyCon and the other is "obstinate" (tough love, I guess)

If you click on the PEACE icon at the bottom of the open box (just above the row of Function key logos) you'll note that both AI's are "seething" towards the Pirates. (I guess that the AI knows when it's infiltrated and inwardly "seethes" about it.)

Also, if you right click on Archaic in the commlinks button, then click on the PEACE logo, you'll see that the Uni have met no-one else other than the Pirates (and any other playing the game can do the same with Drogue, then PEACE, and see that you are pacted with PEACE and have truces with both the AI's. but have met no-one else

Note that this procedure is not a cheat, nor a bug, but was covered in one of the early Firaxis patches under the "pactmate restricted packet sniffing" protocols.

Useful information that other factions' Covert Operations Directors are checking on every turn.

Just thought I'd level the playing field, as the amount of PBEM experience varies by team.

G.

Corellion · October 3, 2003, 09:59

Interesting... I didn't know that.

Drogue · October 3, 2003, 10:27

Thank you Googlie. That is a very useful thing. If the Pact with PEACE breaks, no-one can see though can they? Presuming there is no-one who has infiltrated us? I will have to check this regularly.

Googlie · October 3, 2003, 10:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Drogue
If the Pact with PEACE breaks, no-one can see though can they? Presuming there is no-one who has infiltrated us?

That is correct.

Drogue · October 7, 2003, 12:52

DBTS: I have an idea about the upcoming war. An idea that could be interesting would be to raise land near their base that is close to us. That would both give us more land, and raise their base so that we can attack it with land units. It would also be a complete surprise move

Possibly going to far, but what do you think? Can we raise land there still being pactmates?

BTW: Have a look at the top right of our territory in the save. There's a bit of an issue with MWs

Googlie · October 7, 2003, 14:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Drogue
Can we raise land their still being pactmates?

Unfortunately not.

G.

Drogue · October 7, 2003, 14:37

As I feared. Well, maybe during war. It cancels their sea advantages, and puts them far from their supply lines.

Googlie · October 10, 2003, 18:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Googlie
Useful information that other factions' Covert Operations Directors are checking on every turn.

If you do consider breaking pact with PEACE, make sure you milk the relationship of all worthwhile data;

eg - here's your own "Profile" info on the PUT:

Now here's what you see when you click on that PEACE icon at the bottom:

Quite a lot - energy reserves and current tech being researched (at the top), techs that they have researched (bottom left) with asterisks denoting those that you don't have, and at bottom right a list of their bases together with the population per base.

You can collect similar info on all factions that PEACE are pacted with

G.

Drogue · October 10, 2003, 19:00

Since we have the old saves, can't we do that anyway?