MP: Morla MA noob game (running)

[Olm]

Perfect.
Things are heating up a bit, even if Jotunheim does try to keep it cold.
It didn't help him :-)
Great battle in Ministra with a great result for Man.

[shatner]

So, the diplomatic stances of the world have gotten a little confusing to those of us in T'ien Ch'i. As such we will simply throw this out there and let it have whatever impact it will make.

We are under attack. Last month we suffered unrest by bards; not an out-in-out attack but certainly annoying. However, this month we suffered assault in three of our eight provinces. Two were thugs slaughtering the local PD and the third was a full invasion force which is now besieging our castle at the Laerian Swamps (30).

Between the unrest and the lost provinces, we now have so little income that some of our forces are beginning to desert. This is all an expression of Man's ambition; we have long since made peace with Ermor and have never once attacked Man through force of arms, subterfuge or magic. Man has no justification for this war except to expand their already bloated empire. We will resist these aggressors to the bitter end but our time was waned.

We only hope the world learns from our demise and puts Man's empire to the torch.

[Olm]

Originally Posted by shatner

We have long since made peace with Ermor.

Could Ermor please comment on this?
As to our last knowing Ermor and T'ien Ch'i are at war.
If that is no longer the case, it should have been made public.

[triqui]

Tien Chi and Ermor signed a truce, where Tien Chi retreated to their own borders, leting us to conquer the lands that were us. Tien Chi offered us to do so, so we could focus our war efforts against Jotunheim alone. The only other option we had was Tien Chi threat to do nothing but pillaging our lands, raising the taxes, and creating PD in our provinces, and not defending against Man.

We, the people of Ermor, found that it was of our best interest to sign that truce, given the options, becouse we wouldn't be able to fight against two oponents at the same time in our state.

As Tien Chi was pretty clear that only there were two options: one of them was very hurtful for us (pillaging our lands), and the other one was actually functional for our alliance with Man (with Ermor being able to attack Jotunheim), we found it to be the best course of action.

This change absolutelly nothing the terms of the alliance we made with Man, though. We offered our help against the rise of Jotunheim, in exchange for Man destruction of our long term enemies. That's what we signed, and that's what's happening. Your later offer, in this thread, to give us the lands of Tienchi once they are conquered was unexpected, and raised greatly our respect for our allies. We understand you did that becouse of Ulm's political preasure. We'll be willing to take those provinces, if that helps to placate Ulm vigilance on your global dominance, or not doing so, if it's not needed. It was not in the terms of our initial agreement, and thus, you are not bounded to fulfil that requirement (not bounded to us, at the very least. Whatever are your diplomatic treaties with Ulm are not of our matter, but we'll help you with it if conquering Tien Chi becomes a worry for Ulm)

[Olm]

Originally Posted by shatner

So, the diplomatic stances of the world have gotten a little confusing to those of us in T'ien Ch'i. As such we will simply throw this out there and let it have whatever impact it will make.

We are under attack. Last month we suffered unrest by bards; not an out-in-out attack but certainly annoying. However, this month we suffered assault in three of our eight provinces. Two were thugs slaughtering the local PD and the third was a full invasion force which is now besieging our castle at the Laerian Swamps (30).

Between the unrest and the lost provinces, we now have so little income that some of our forces are beginning to desert. This is all an expression of Man's ambition; we have long since made peace with Ermor and have never once attacked Man through force of arms, subterfuge or magic. Man has no justification for this war except to expand their already bloated empire. We will resist these aggressors to the bitter end but our time was waned.

We only hope the world learns from our demise and puts Man's empire to the torch.

Lets sketch Our view of events:
We ended the NAP with TC.
We waited one turn longer than was necessary, so in the first turn after the NAP we only gathered troops at the border.
We let Our Bards loose the second turn after the NAP.
The third turn Our troops attacked three provinces.

Somewhen during those steps of escalation, T'ien Ch'i and Ermor agreed on a cease fire. T'ien Ch'i didn't tell Us.
So one can ask why? Did he just forget to relay this information, that could have prevented Our attack?
We don't think so.
We think the masters of T'ien Ch'i "forgot" it on purpose. They sacrificed their own provinces for one goal: manipulating others, especially Ulm, into a war against Man.
Now its Ulm's choice if they let their mighty nation be manipulated into a war against an old friend by the scheming manipulators of tiny T'ien Ch'i.
The nation of Man will stand to its words. We will fight this war against T'ien Ch'i and all provinces We take will go to Ermor.

[SpaceViking21]

Originally Posted by Olm

Perfect.
Things are heating up a bit, even if Jotunheim does try to keep it cold.
It didn't help him :-)
Great battle in Ministra with a great result for Man.

Good fight, though I apparently need more work on my scripting. No idea why my entire sabbath decided that Desiccation was a better spell to cast than pretty much anything else.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Olm

Lets sketch Our view of events:
We ended the NAP with TC.
We waited one turn longer than was necessary, so in the first turn after the NAP we only gathered troops at the border.
We let Our Bards loose the second turn after the NAP.
The third turn Our troops attacked three provinces.

Somewhen during those steps of escalation, T'ien Ch'i and Ermor agreed on a cease fire. T'ien Ch'i didn't tell Us.
So one can ask why? Did he just forget to relay this information, that could have prevented Our attack?
We don't think so.
We think the masters of T'ien Ch'i "forgot" it on purpose. They sacrificed their own provinces for one goal: manipulating others, especially Ulm, into a war against Man.
Now its Ulm's choice if they let their mighty nation be manipulated into a war against an old friend by the scheming manipulators of tiny T'ien Ch'i.
The nation of Man will stand to its words. We will fight this war against T'ien Ch'i and all provinces We take will go to Ermor.

As usual Man's interpretation of events is wrong and self-serving. We kept quiet about our deal because Ermor asked us to keep a lid on it. If anyone is attempting to pull diplomatic shenanigans it's Ermor. We only piped up about it when Man seemed to tell the world that they'd leave us alone to keep Ulm from entering the fray, and then attacked us. Once it became clear that our days were numbered, keeping our silence about our peace with Ermor seemed less important.

We have only ever spoken well of Ermor; they have been a worthy opponent and their dealings with Man make sense as they were driven to the brink by two committed foes. We have only spoken poorly of Man and Man has yet to do a single thing to disprove our characterization of them.

The actual exchange between me and Ermor is included below:

Originally Posted by shatner

Agreed, we'll keep quiet about this; though in the interests of full disclosure we have informed our ally, Jotunheim, of our intention to retreat from you, bunker down and try to give Man hell.

[Morla]

Interesting diplomatic talk.

The nation of Ulm, declares the NAP-3 between Man-Ulm finished.

The intentions from man aren´t clear, and it seems Man is going for the win.

Man you have 3 months to stop your invasion of T'ien Ch'i, and let that T'ien Ch'i and Ermor fix their own situation. If not YOU and I will be enemies.

[triqui]

The part of "no reference of this in the AAR" seems not to be binding for you...

I do not regret any of my acts. I want to see both Tien Chi and Jotunheim reanimated as ermorian legionaries. That is of no secret, i said so several times. I signed the NAP becouse I thought it was the best course of actions to see that goal fullfilled.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by triqui

The part of "no reference of this in the AAR" seems not to be binding for you...

I do not regret any of my acts. I want to see both Tien Chi and Jotunheim reanimated as ermorian legionaries. That is of no secret, i said so several times. I signed the NAP becouse I thought it was the best course of actions to see that goal fullfilled.

T'ien Ch'i is not accusing Ermor of any malfeasance. Their various dealings with T'ien Ch'i and Man and so on have all made sense, have all been consistent given their position. For that matter, Man's aggressive behavior has all been copacetic with their position as leader of the pack, we just can't conscious their flimsy, flimsy justifications for their aggression.

Man jumped in "to defend Ermor" because they were big and their opponents were occupied. The fact that there are paragraphs of of Man rooting for Ermor's destruction (back when Ermor was big and Man was not) makes Man's continually restated casus belli so much hypocracy and hot air.

We of T'ien Ch'i have never condemned Ermor for their actions. Heck, we don't even condemn Man for their actions, we just can't stomach the rhetoric being used to justify it. Man, if you are going to invade Jotunheim and T'ien Ch'i because we are adjacent, pre-occupied and weaker than you, don't dress it up as some humanitarian effort to save the poor, beleaguered skeletons of Ermor.

We of T'ien Ch'i want our end to come openly and if our opponent can't or won't deign to engage in open discourse then we will have no compunctions in airing dirty laundry or condemning them through diplomatic channels. At this point, all we have are words, spite and a trio of forts (one of which is under siege).