Official: CyCon negotiations

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:51

Please write your comment responding CC's proposal in this thread. Hopefully we can have a MSN chat this evening but if you are going to miss it, please make sure you present your opinion here.

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:52

CC message:

Quote:

Greetings Comrade of the Hive.

I come before you as Prime Function of the Cybernetic Conciousness, and bring goodwill and glad tidings from the CyCon. I also bring a few proposals:

Firstly, would the Hive be amenable to a Treaty between our two factions?

Secondly, I propose a trade of technologies. We have Industrial Base, Social Psych and Doctrine: Initiative that we would be willing to trade for Doctrine: Loyalty, Ethical Calculus and Gene Splicing. What would be your opinion on that?

Thirdly, we believe you lack the Commlink for the Believers. We have that commlink, and would be willing to trade for PUTs commlink, which we believe you have?

I will have to ask my fellow CyCons, but it may also be possible to trade world maps or sign a Pact, if you are amenable?

I hope we can come to some agreements :-) If you wish to contact the CyCon by PM, please send it to DBTS, who is our External Affairs Function, and myself, as Prime Function. Whom should we address communiques to?

Friendly Greetings,
Prime Function Drogue Beta-8

PS. With regards to the PEACE affair, I have sent an email to Voltaire giving our side of the story. If you have the commlink of the PUT, could you pass it on to them, since we cannot legitimately contact them.

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:53

From CC Ambassador:

Quote:

greetings citizens of the Human Hive. I am Function Delta and my assignment is External Affairs Function. I am the central proccesor of all the subroutines, algorithms and function in the EA mainframe. We hope that a long and friendly relation can exist between the Cycon and the Hive.

with regards funtion Delta

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:54

My message to CC:

Quote:

Greetings all functions of the Cybernetic Conciousness.

I am Comrade HongHu, a proud citizen of the Human Hive and the Hive Ambassador to the CyCon. It is indeed an honour to greet you. I would like to convey to you of Hive's desire for longlasting peace and friendship with you. I commend the CyCon's efficiency in coming up with a proposal. I will certainly bring this back to my comrades. I am very optimistic that we will be able to come back with a positive answer to your proposal.

To facilitating better communication, please direct all future official diplomatic messages to Kody our turn player as well as myself through PM or email. My email is hhu003 at mchsi.com.

Comrade HongHu

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:55

I have not promised anything. I haven't disclosed the fact that we have univ commlink either. Please advise if we want them to know this.

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 12:58

Can we meet around 9:30pm my time? If not then you guys please go ahead meet before this and just let somebody inform me the decision when I'm on.

Googlie · October 17, 2003, 13:50

Quote:

Originally posted by HongHu
I have not promised anything. I haven't disclosed the fact that we have univ commlink either. Please advise if we want them to know this.

They know this from their erstwhile pact with PEACE

(In their last turn as pactmates, they click on the commlink tab, select Voltaire and right click on that, then on the PEACE icon to access PEACE's infiltration data.

You are listed there as having an informal truce with Archaic, indicating that you have met in-game

Doing the same thing with Archaic lists Voltaire as one of the PUT's contacts

(you could do the same to them - in that 2141 turn - to get their contact list (from your PEACE pactmate status)

G.

Rokossovky · October 17, 2003, 14:53

Good response Comrade HongHu.

Comrade Kody will have to tell you if we want those techs. I know that IB and the such will slow down our research efforts. He has this ALL worked out in that scary mind of his.

Re: Map Trade... I would wait until we have established relations and determined their attitude towards us before doing such a thing.

The PUT commlink.... I dunno. This just may be a front to try and get in with the PUT and form a research partnership. Then, on the other hand, Uni is pacted with PEACE, and the cycon have just screwed them over, so I don't know.

Then again trading for the believer commlink could be beneficial, as we could get some uber mil techs from them for fairly cheap (or so kody tells me). However, the believers could end up not liking us... and the combination of them and roze could be very.... annoying to our efforts.

Oh, and just an update on the "Foreign Policy Objectives", buster, kody and myself have agreed to wait for MMI until we start to expand militarily. Though I am convinced this will mean encountering stiffer resistance, as going now would catch our target defenseless, the economic consequences are far greater than the rewards.

HongHu, I would suggest talking to buster to see what he thinks of all of this. Being our pact mate, and a very experienced player, he could probably shed some light on this.

- Rokossovky

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 15:02

Buster's posted in the embassy. He thinks Doc:Init is of interest and leans toward not giving them univ commlink (We could get believers' link from Drones). We need to decide when we want the Doc:Init. I think we will definitely agree on treaty. Not sure if we want to pact with them now, or later, or discard the idea? As for map, I tend to say no. And I think we should agree to pass their message to univ, just as a good gesture.

Rokossovky · October 17, 2003, 15:05

Doc: Init would indeed be very nice.

Given the 100% support for non perm pact... you would be very safe going for a treaty right now, and alluding to a pact in the near future.

Re: the message, yea, go ahead. It would start relations out right.

As I said above, I agree with you on the no map thing.

- Rokossovky

Snowflake · October 17, 2003, 15:21

CyCon also requested we post this in our forum:

Quote:

I have been authorised to post the CyCon statement about the PEACE affair on this forum. If this could be posted on your forum it would be appreciated, the quote marks do not work particularly well on this forum

I hope this will shed some light on the issue from our side:

"Seeing as I cannot reply on the forum page, I am trying to get this PM passed around all the factions, since we do not have the commlinks for all factions. This is in answer to what Flubber posted on the main forum.

Quote:

A recent ruling by googlie suprised me. We had pre-accepted a tech to the cycon with a note in the commlinks to look for a message from me. I sent a PM to the person the cycon had listed as their ambassador, 2 to 3 days before the cycon got the turn setting out turns and stating explicitly that the tech should not be accepted unless a deal was reached.

I did not see this until after I had played the turn. We had mentioned in an earlier PM that DBTS, our External Affairs Function, was not the most active member of our faction, and to please send all communiqués to both him and myself, so that I got them before I played the turn. We were surprised when we got the turn to see it offered, so Maniac, our Second Function, acting as EAF while DBTS was not online, sent a PM to Flubber asking why they had offered it. During relations with PEACE, which have been rocky since the start, we have had to delay our turn on 3 occasions, and our research for a few turns, so that we could iron out a deal, with them usually waiting until just before our time limit to ask for some extra ec as a sweetener, or the deal wouldn’t go through. I will elaborate later on. Knowing that if I didn’t play then, due to RL commitments, I would not be able to play within the 48 hours, I decided that I was not going to wait for another round of extremely stressful diplomacy, and played the turn, accepting the tech.

Quote:

( and break pact with us on the same turn but thats another story and pretty much irrelevant except for some roleplaying to come).

This had been polled days earlier, and was already decided, before we knew anything about them offering a tech.

Quote:

They checked with googlie beforehand and googlie ruled that it violated no rule to accept a tech in the diplobox regardless of any conditions attached. He considered it unsavory and backstabbing behavior but not a cheat.

We did not know of any conditions, nor did Googlie say to us it was "unsavoury and backstabbing". Firstly, since we owed them a tech from an earlier deal, and our next research was the tech that they asked for in return, we thought it was a gift to get the tech they wanted earlier. We had a few doubts, given their previous conduct, but we believed it was a strong possibility. Secondly, since non of the CyCon are regular PBEM players, we did not know of any unwritten rule regarding pre-accepting techs. I believed that accepting anything in the diplo box is accepting what is on the table, as the game mechanics is set up. Therefore I thought both parties accepted what was on the table. If we had a deal before send it pre-accepted, as our first deal with PEACE went, then we would have happily held to that deal. There was no deal, nor any communication as far as the CyCon turn players were concerned.

Quote:

I have played a lot of PBEMS and never ever thought it would be acceptable to take a tech from the commlinks and ignore any conditions contained in the offer. Perhaps I was naive.

While I would consider this a backstab, and not a cheating, I would not intend to do that anyway. If we had known of the conditions attached, we would have thought twice about accepting the tech.

While I admit we were probably too hasty in accepting it without getting confirmation, but you have to look at our past diplomacy with PEACE:

The relationship was already extremely rocky from the start, as mentioned above. We know they are out to win, and accepted that, but still we felt how they acted earlier was no way to treat a pact mate. However we still saw them as allies and did not intend any harm or any backstabbing whatsoever. Then later, in negotiations, one of their members accused me of planting viruses on their computers, and started a personal attack against me. As Maniac said in that thread, this stressed me enough to seriously consider leaving the DG, and soured relations greatly. We tried to work through this, but found both sides had lost trust too much, and decided to reduce relations to a treaty. Then this came up. To try to sort it out, we offered a tech, to make up for the one we accepted. However they were obviously still angry at us, so did not mention it in their reply.

- To be fair, it is not like we were model pact mates either. Due to an error, when DBTS, who is not particularly active, played the turn while I was away, and choose the wrong tech to research, meaning we could not pay PEACE back the tech we intended to. And I will admit, after the incident mentioned, we were less friendly, and did end up trading with another faction once instead of PEACE, because they asked for more ec. We are far from blameless ourselves.

I do not wish to mudsling. I admit we have done wrong, mostly without knowing it, but I have tried to explain some of the reasoning behind our actions. Accepting that tech could easily be considered relatively unsportsmanlike behaviour, and it would be a commonly held belief that we should have waited for a reply, but to be honest, with the way we feel we have been treated by PEACE, we did not feel like being particularly sportsmanlike.

Sorry for the long PM, but I though I needed to explain why we did what we did.

Prime Function Drogue Beta-8"

Voltaire · October 17, 2003, 17:14

Quote:

Corellion says:
It seems we've finally met
Voltaire says:
Indeed
Voltaire says:
Well
Voltaire says:
Now we can negotiate.
Corellion says:
Indeed we can
Voltaire says:
...
Voltaire says:
So
Voltaire says:
What do the CyCon want?
Corellion says:
negotiations shall be carryed out either by email or in the secure forum
Voltaire says:
Of course
Voltaire says:
I'd much rather hear the inside scoop from you than the official line from the diplomats.
Corellion says:
Er...
Corellion says:
There isn't really an inside scoop]
Voltaire says:
Well I'm certain you have apprehensions about our pact with PEACE, after all you broke your with them only a short while ago, and may well be pondering what action PEACE will take, and if PEACE goes to war with you does our pact with them bind us to also declare war, etc.
Corellion says:
That would be something that might be worth clearing up in the secure commlog
Voltaire says:
And this is not secure?
Corellion says:
It is secure, but other members might want to know too
Corellion says:
And it's better if it's put in as official, rather than relayed through me
Corellion says:
It carries more weight
Corellion says:
Unless you don't want to
Voltaire says:
The problem is that not everything can be said through the official channels, what I would say to you would be out of curtsy to you, as well as because I want to see a pact between the Hive and the CyCon succeed. And there still remains apprehension about it on our end.
Voltaire says:
You can share all this with the rest of the CyCon.
Corellion says:
Have you read our explanation in the commlogs?
Voltaire says:
Yes
Voltaire says:
I will tell you that your problems with PEACE have not made a difference in out stance toward you.
Voltaire says:
If anything PEACE has fallen in our eyes.
Voltaire says:
Besides, you have no idea what passes for Hive diplomacy. Our messages have to be screened by almost everyone before we can collectively agree on a statement. Several decisions had to be pushed through by me because there was no consensus.
Corellion says:
My God!
Corellion says:
Such reckless irregard for the rules!
Voltaire says:
Rules? What rules?
Voltaire says:
Oh and congratulations.
Voltaire says:
HongHu's the Hive ambassador to your faction.
Voltaire says:
You've been blessed.

My attempts at establishing backdoor communications with the CyCon. Essentially I’m trying to ease their reservations about pacting with us, so that we may better employ them as a tool.

Kody · October 17, 2003, 20:17

HongHu, here's some information you will find useful for your diplomancy dealings.

(everything in brackets don't reveal to the cycon, all the rest is okay)

Okay here's the reasons why we don't want to trade.

We don't want Industrial base. That would slow our tech rate down and we would perfer to get the prototype. Ask if the cycon could get a synth-metal unit to us, and turn over control so that we can obtain the armor in our unit workshop.

We don't want social pysch as we currently have no drone problems whatsoever.

We don't want initative as we're pursuing a builder research path. Again if we can get the chassis off them we would consider it. (Really we just want to wait until Initative is easy to obtain. Foil probes and ships are all we need until we start preping for invasion plans).

Basically if they can give us a crusier, armor, weapons so that we can obtain the units in the design workshop. We would be willing to give them techs.

The other option is if they coordinate research paths with us.

As for the university comm-link, at present time we don't want to give it to them. We're trying to secure ecological engineering from the university. With part of the deal as the cycon's comm links.

Admit that contary to public opinion we're following a builder route.

Snowflake · October 18, 2003, 00:05

Ok my draft message to CC:

Dear Prime Function Drogue and Function Delta,

I hereby bring you the initial Hive feedback to your proposal.

First, your proposed treaty has been unanimously accepted. Also, the public sentiment in the Hive is that we are interested in a deeper relationship with our valued CyCon friends. Therefore, I am authorized to propose to you a pact aiming for more co-operations in all aspects.

Second, at this point the Hive is beelining to restriction lifting. Therefore we do not feel we should obtain techs from you for that will increase our tech cost. In addition, Social Psych has a low value to us since we currently do not have drones problems. The Hive seniors have been considering several alternatives. The basic idea is that if we could get prototyped unit in lieu of the corresponding techs, we would be willing to offer techs to you as if we are trading the techs. There are also suggestions about extended tech trade where we agree to give you a tech in exchange to an agreement from you for another tech in the future when we need it. We are currently trying to work out a trade with the university to obtain Ecological Engineering. If we are able to obtain this technology, we might be willing to include it in the trade package to you in exchange for some kind of a unit with good weapon/armor/chasis and/or special ability combination. For example, we would be interested in impact, +2/3 armor, cruiser and/or marine ability. These proposals have not been polled yet. However, I would like to let you know what we are thinking so you could think ahead. I am prepared to start the necessary polls right now and would appreciate any feedback on these proposals from you.

Third, because CC commlink has been included in our trade offer to the university for ecological engineering, we would not be able to offer you the university commlink right now. We believe that the success of this potential trade would be beneficiall to both of our factions since we would then be able to offer it to you. In addition, while giving the university your commlink is equivalent with give you the university commlink, if you still desire it, we will offer you the university commlink after the trade with university go through.

Last, we are still thinking about ways to trade maps with you. We would like to avoid trading maps in game. There are worries that your coastal bases might be suspectiable to peace probes, thus people feel we need to find other ways around that will not compromise the Hive.

I hope I have presented to you a comprehensive picture of the Hive’s view about the future relationship between us. Please feel free to contact me and Kody if you have any questions. I strive to be open to you. I hope this attitude will eliminate any possible misunderstanding and foster a good relationship between our two factions.

Comrade HongHu
CyCon Ambassador of the Human Hive

Please make comment and corrections. I will try to send it out today.

Rokossovky · October 18, 2003, 00:10

Minus the bit about the maps. Just don't mention it.

- Rokossovky

Snowflake · October 18, 2003, 00:30

Message edited.

Voltaire · October 18, 2003, 01:46

Quote:

Greetings Voltaire,

This is a personal message, from one faction leader to another.

I have been quietly informed of a conversation you have on IM with Function Corelli Omega-9, regarding the position of the Hive if there was a war between PEACE and the CyCon. I am aware that it is sensitive information, and cannot come officially yet, but would you be able to inform me of anything regarding this? Basically, I'm asking if you can tell us whether the Hive would support either side, or remain neutral? I am strongly for a Pact with the Hive, as the rest of the CyCon seem. If PEACE were to declare, though help would be appreciated, we would not need it to be written into our Pact that you would declare on PEACE. I realise this is a difficult situtation for you, and I know you cannot say much, I merely wish to inquire if you can say anything about it? I will, of course, only reveal to the rest of the faction what you agree to be.

Yours,
Drogue Beta-8

Voltaire · October 18, 2003, 01:59

Hello Drogue,

I brought up the issue since I believed that the CyCon may be curious regarding our pact relationship with the Pirates, and what it entails. Since you so desire I will tell you that our pact with the Pirates has been purely a defensive one, by this I mean we entered into the pact in order to prevent a surprise attack by PEACE forces. There do not exist any statutory commitments in the Hive-PEACE pact, thus we will not be obliged to help PEACE in any war they may enter.

As for the second issue you bring up, whether the Hive would support either side in the conflict, I can only assure you that at this time we would remain neutral. If we were to enter into a pact with you (as both many CyCon and Hive members desire) mutual defense can be negotiated, though I cannot make any statements regarding their operability for I am yet unaware of Hive public opinion on the matter (though I believe it to be favorable to such a proposal). I will say this, even if no formal mutual defense agreement will be reached, the Hive would strongly unofficially favor the CyCon, we consider you to be our natural ally, and would do everything in order to help your security. Our intelligence office possesses much information about PEACE, and we would be willing to share such information if so requested. Know that you always have a friend and partner in the Hive, even though it may not be official.

As for reveling this information to the rest of your faction, do with it as you please.

Sincerely,
Chairman Voltaire

Snowflake · October 18, 2003, 12:09

CyCon Reply:

Quote:

It has been posted in our forum and that should be ok :-) Thank you for your kind words. The CyCon is very much for strong relations between our two factions. We are currently debating your Pact offer, however we are a little apprehensive about giving PEACE that much information on us. We have almost made a complete map of PEACE territory, from looking at their base productions screens, and it is very possible to do that with ours, looking at the layout. Also, they would see which bases are probe protected and which are not. We should have our most vulnerable bases protected in a few years, but if PEACE find out which those are, they can easily aim for a different base. I want to stress that our hesitation on this issue is no reflection of our extremely positive opinions of the Hive, and purely our fear at the amount of information PEACE will have. We are certainly for a Pact, as far as the actual Pact goes, but we are a little uneasy with PEACE until our defences are built up a little more (since we lost the Pact with them we realised the need not to have undefended coastal bases).

We understand you do not wish to stagnate your research with unnecessary techs, and thus I am authorized to offer you a single trade of Doc: Ini for Gene Splicing. We are debating about units, and it is certainly a possibility, but production is not our strongest point. I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to PBEM, so could you describe the deal you wish in more detail? We gift you a unit that you do not have the tech for, and you gift us a tech?

Snowflake · October 18, 2003, 12:09

My Unofficial Reply;

Quote:

Thanks for your quick answer Function Drogue. I will bring your message back. Personally I feel your reservation is perfectaly understandable from our part. As for the unit trade, I believe your understanding is correct. I do not think there is a high likely hood that the Hive wants to get DocInit at this point since we are following a builder route and DocInit is not very much in need right now (I assume you already have the SP in bag which would further reduce the value of it to us). That is only my personal opinion. I will for sure bring you the official reply from the Hive as soon as possible.

Rokossovky · October 18, 2003, 14:33

It looks as though they might be hankering for a war with PEACE. Should we begin considering my suggestion that we take PEACE out first with cycon help, THEN go after UNI (as they seem much more willing to do this rather than go after UNI). It would take care of the PEACE and CyCon problem that I talked about in the MSN discussion with John.

As for right now, though, I would suggest informing them that "at present we cannot make any committments to a defensive or offensive agreement as we are working to develop our intelligence networks so as to allow us to make informed decisions regarding our obligations."

- Rokossovky

dacole · October 18, 2003, 19:26

I say we take out peace asap seem to be butts and militaristic, pact fully with cycon unless we want to take them out later

Snowflake · October 19, 2003, 01:05

I posted this in the CC Embassy.

Quote:

In the darkest days, when we met the powerful Drones, there were those of us who voted to wait for you, our soul mate. However, the reality had won, the Hive decided to pact with the Drones. The decision had been proved to be the right one. The pact had strengthened both the Drones, and the Hive. We had decided to be loyal, that we wouldn't betray them, if they would not betray us. It had not been a pact pre made by God, but it had been a pact that met the test of time. Then we met the PEACE, the decision was not hard. Both factions understood it was a temporary wedding. Finally we met you, our long waited friend. Why had tears run down my cheeks, for I was silently asking, if we were meant for each other, why wouldn't the god make us meet sooner. Yes the choice is hard, for every one of us in the Hive. Should we turn our back against another friend for you, or is it possible, for the three of us in it to win. Where is the place of yours in our future life? As for our heart, you have always been there.

Kody · October 19, 2003, 02:35

I could almost call that poetry.

*wonders what other hidden talnets HongHu has*

Edit:
Actually I think it is. Quite beautifully written.

Kody · October 19, 2003, 03:24

HongHu,

The two messages about the issue that have been posted are great, and will be fine for now. However, they're really only messages to keep our options open while we figure out what we're going to do.

We still need to give the official response to the cycon on our position, in relation to their joint-victory pact. We don't want to be so evasive that we say we're going to have discussion on it then nothing occurs.

So basically we still need to decide what we're really going to do and what we tell the cycon.

Snowflake · October 19, 2003, 15:14

Dear Kody you are making me blush now.
/me secretly admits that she never knows how to write a poem.

Snowflake · October 19, 2003, 15:15

Quote:

Personally, I feel a three way win is the best possible way to go. However, I realize that some people feel that in a five team game, a three team victory is too easy so should not be allowed. I don't have a strong feeling about how CyCons feel about the Drones. I also don't know what the Drones feel about the CyCons. In addition, I do not feel the time is mature yet from the Hive's point of view to talk to Drones about this.

I agree with Function Drogue and Function Delta that a pact with the CyCons does not mean an immediate break of the Hive-Drones pact. However the Hive has to think about if and when we are going to break pact with them before we make the biggest commitment. My hope is that time will solve the hard choice for us. You know, maybe when the game flows, the CyCons and Drones may feel like to pact with each other. Or maybe, there would be an important issue that the Drones and the Hive simply cannot agree upon. Therefore my feeling is that the Hive would not have the slightest problem to become your loyal pact brother, but it may need time to feel the pulse of everybody before it commits to the last final step.

Anyway, I will start a poll on this issue in the Hive forum and will bring you the official response from the Hive.

As for the issue that CyCon would not be able to pact within the next couple turns, I believe there will not be any problem. We all act based on our best judgement and I feel your steps of action are a prudent one. I haven't looked at our turn yet. I will let you know if I find out any information regarding whether PEACE has infiltration of CyCons.

Snowflake · October 20, 2003, 15:34

From Drogue:

Quote:

Thank you, and that is fine. We will wait until your trade is completed until we discuss trades with them. We would also like that tech, if there is any tech you wish from us for it? If not, we are considering how and when we can get prototyped units to you, if that would eb acceptable.

Looks like they will agree to trade prototyped unit. We need to give them more specifics. Kody, or Marshal, can you give me some details that I can convey to them?

Rokossovky · October 20, 2003, 16:48

Um, Impact weapons or plasma armour would be my goals, I dunno if they have them though?

- Rokossovky

Snowflake · October 20, 2003, 17:43

Well I need more specific than that. Say if we are going to give them eco engineering. What are we expecting in return? In other words, unit with one aspect (weapon, armour, special ability, etc) we are lacking, or two aspects or three, ect. Basically what is a fair value of the tech vs the unit.