Diplo with Pirates

[Mortius]

I prepare a greeting message:

Greetings, our Desert Inca Pirates friends!

It was a pleasure to see you. We trust that everything is going well in your part of the world.

The kingdom of the animals lives and believes in peace among all creatures, and we are looking for a peaceful and fruitful cooperation with our new Desert Inca Pirates friends as well. We believe that collaboration can take us much further than an unnecessary hostility.

We'd also be interested in exchanging some intel as well, so that we're both at an advantage dealing with other neighbors.

We have met the TEAM and Gillettes so far, and according to our information TEAM is your neighbor, who recently declared war on Gillettes. We are sorry you have such an unpleasant neighborhood, but we can assure you that you can not worry about anything on our part, as we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our two great kingdoms.

PS: We would also like to apologize you in advance for any delay in response on our part, which can be due to the fact that we have only few people participating, and we desperately searching for someone to conduct the diplomacy.

Sincerely Yours,
Menagerie Trois

Please check it for any spelling mistakes and other errors.

[Elkad]

Main message looks great.

I'd leave the PS out, as it's both unnecessary, and seems to convey some weakness.

[HitAnyKey]

Just a little grammar thing with one of the sentences. Replace your version with the below sentence:

We have met the TEAM and Gillettes so far, and according to our information TEAM is your neighbor, who recently declared war on Gillettes. We are sorry you have such an unpleasant neighborhood, but we can assure you that you do not need to worry about anything on our part, as we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our two great kingdoms.

I also agree in not including the PS. First of all, we only just met them. There is no delay. But also, everyone should know by now that diplo will be slow with so few active members capable of doing the diplo on multiple teams.

[Mortius]

Message sent:

Greetings, our Desert Inca Pirates friends!

It was a pleasure to see you. We trust that everything is going well in your part of the world.

The kingdom of the animals lives and believes in peace among all creatures, and we are looking for a peaceful and fruitful cooperation with our new Desert Inca Pirates friends as well. We believe that collaboration can take us much further than an unnecessary hostility.

We'd also be interested in exchanging some intel as well, so that we're both at an advantage dealing with other neighbors.

We have met the TEAM and Gillettes so far, and according to our information TEAM is your neighbor, who recently declared war on Gillettes. We are sorry you have such an unpleasant neighborhood, but we can assure you that you do not need to worry about anything on our part, as we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our two great kingdoms.


Sincerely Yours,
Menagerie Trois

[Mortius]

Warning message:

Pirates,

I wonder what were you thinking trying to pink dot us in such a cheeky manner.
Of course, you realize that, planting the city in such a way that it steals our Gold and our Cow, is an act of aggression, which we can not react differently than razing the city.

It is a pity that you have chosen war instead of peace, but so be it.

Menagerie Trois

What do you think? Send it or not? We can be in a better position just razing that city, and then we can even plant Gold city ourselves.

[Lord Parkin]

HitAnyKey pointed me here. As I've been away for a while I can approach this from a more neutral perspective.

If you look at this situation logically, the site their Settler is on (and very likely to settle) is 5 tiles from their capital and 6 tiles from ours. I'm not sure how long they've known where our borders are - but apparently they only met us a turn or two ago.

It's quite possible that most of the time they were planning that city, they didn't know that we were equally close to the area. It's also possible that they did know roughly where we were and decided to go ahead with the city anyway - although in that case I'm surprised they only brought along a single Quecha. My gut feeling is that they were already on their way to the site before they realised where we were.

So, the reaction... personally, I would not be so hostile. That does nothing except broadcast our intentions and alert them in advance to prepare for war. It's true that with 2 Warriors we can very likely kill their 1 Quecha if they settle... but let's phrase it in a more subtle way.

"I wonder what were you thinking trying to pink dot us in such a cheeky manner." --- It wasn't necessarily intentionally cheeky.

"Of course, you realize that, planting the city in such a way that it steals our Gold and our Cow, is an act of aggression" --- Technically the Gold resources seem to have been placed in such a way that they could equally be claimed by two nations, so it's not really "ours". But letting them know we'd consider it an act of aggression seems fair.

"which we can not react differently than razing the city." --- Not sure I'd be quite this forward about our intentions, but I could be wrong. It seems highly unlikely they'd turn around their Settler at this point either way.

"It is a pity that you have chosen war instead of peace, but so be it." --- Well, that's a bit rude/presumptive. They haven't actually "chosen" yet, so I'd leave this bit out.

Overall, I'd recommend sending a short, to-the-point, but still somewhat cordial message requesting them to leave and settle elsewhere. Be firm about our potential reaction to their Settling, but not rude. In the highly likely event that they found the city, get both of our Warriors together and attack/raze the city on the same turn. Then immediately request peace, and do our best to patch up relations - try to avoid letting it drag out (although there's a chance it will).

My 2 cents anyway.

[Mortius]

LP you are right, I tend to overreacting
The changed message was sent:

Pirates,

I wonder what were you thinking trying to pink dot us
Of course you realize, that planting the city in such a way that it steals our Gold, Ivory and Cow (all of them are closer to us), is an act of aggression, and we would be forced to react in a less civilized way. It would be a pity.

The decision is yours. We will only react to your decision.

Menagerie Trois

BTW: 2 warriors are not enough, fortunately we have 3 there, and we will be ready to raze the city on turn 37.

I'm surprised they only brought along a single Quecha.

They have only 2, the second is probably guarding their capital now.

[Lord Parkin]

Pirate response, claiming to have not seen our message prior to settling - which may or may not be true.

Hi Menagerie,

I just saw your message.
We didn't pink dot you, we settled in a good site between our capitals.
I hope you don't see this as an act of aggresion.

I'll get back to you later today.

Cheers,
Nakor

[Mortius]

Pirate response, claiming to have not seen our message prior to settling - which may or may not be true.

Come on. They saw our message the moment, their scout is on the brink of death

Besides, we have no other option as to conquer them now, otherwise we are out of the game already.

[Lord Parkin]

Another message from the Pirates, longer this time:

Hi Menagerie Trois,

Sorry for the radio silence from us.
It had nothing to do with us wanting to plant that city, but all with my lack of time to look into our mail box.
The game has been very slow going and activity has been an issue in our team.
Now that we have the actual playing of the turns under control, I can try to get a grip on the diplo situation.

Lets see...
First of all, we believe in peace and prosperity as well, as do all pirates.
Second, we are not happy with Krill is our neighbour. Who would be.
Third, we did see a great city site to our south and settled there. Since it's exactly the same number of tiles between both our capitals, we don't consider the resources "yours". Should we aquire a second set of such resources, I'm sure we can come to a mutual beneficial trade agreement.
Fourth, we would like to formalize a non aggression deal between our nations to show our good and honest intentions. We do not want to fight, not you, not now. Remember Krill....

We hope both our teams can come to a peacefull solution of this silly conflict.