08-10-2004 21:15									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Googlie I agree. Perhaps Kass should add a post to the Embassy tech trading thread along the lines of:

Sounds great.
May I suggest an addition to the second protocol to be on the safe side? New is the italic bold text:

• Embargo on third party onward trading: - Onward trading (to any third party, human or AI) is prohibited by both Sparta and Gaia for a 20 year period following such trade exchange (subject to variance by mutual agreement between Sparta and Gaia). Nor is it allowed to turn over control to another faction of a unit with new weapons, abilities, etc... derived from a traded tech.

	08-10-2004 21:35									#92
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I concur

Perhaps though with a similar 20 turn closed window?

Kass can always say "The Full Junta has now deliberated and have added the dollowing codicil to point # 2 ............................."

G.

	08-10-2004 21:36									#93
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Yes, definitely add that too.

I'm starting to feel a little unsettled...it seems like everyone has met everyone else a while ago, and they've all been having one great big party without us. It's going to be difficult to get any firm alliances going if the others have already pacted with each other. Might they be planning a three-pronged attack as we speak? Or maybe it's just the xenoburritos making me paranoid.

	08-10-2004 22:13									#94
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quote: Originally posted by Zeiter Yes, definitely add that too. I'm starting to feel a little unsettled...it seems like everyone has met everyone else a while ago, and they've all been having one great big party without us. It's going to be difficult to get any firm alliances going if the others have already pacted with each other. Might they be planning a three-pronged attack as we speak? Or maybe it's just the xenoburritos making me paranoid.

yeah lay off the tamales

I'm a bit unsettled as well. We definately need more information. But that isn't an easy thing to get at this stage of the game. If they are allied (possibly against us) we may have to resort to aligning with the hive. Perhaps we can pay off the hive to attack someone as we were discussing earlier. I still like that plan. Although that would be a failure if that faction in question ended up taking several hive cities .

I say we make an attempt at a pact with the gaians. If we cannot do so we need to make other plans. We can't waste precious turns on a lost cause.

	08-10-2004 23:07									#95
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Let's not get paranoid (I saw that in the ACDGII, where teams were anticipating the worst)

What are the facts that we currently know:

Morgan

Morgan has the Hive and the Gaians commlinks, doesn't have ours or the PK's or the Uni, and we don't know if he has the Angels'

They just got Doc Flex in 2139, so the best they can have done by now is rushed a probe foil if they had enough spare ec's. At worst, a trannie with 2 probe teams might be setting off our way this current turn

They don't have Applied Physics nor Nonlinear math, so their best weapon is still the level 1 gun

Their best armor is Synthmetal, as they don't yet have Applied Physics, a building block to HEC's Plasma Armor (But they might have 3-res armor - see below)

If they are going for the Planetary Energy Grid (I would if I were them) then they'll have detoured thru Prog Psych (which together with Ind Econ, which they have, leads to Adaptive Economics) thus they might have thought it worth their while to collect Field Modulation on the way (needed Cent Ecol as well for that)

I'm betting that they've not yet, though

I see their techs as:

Level 1 techs

• Ind Base (they started with that)
  
• Biogenetics (they did complete the HGP)
  
• Infonets (they needed that to go thru it and Plan Nets to Ind Auto)
  
• Doc Mobility (a stepping stone to Doc Flex which they got last turn)
  
• Centauri Ecology (they did start the WP in 2138 and discontinued it in 2139)

	08-10-2004 23:30									#96
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The Gaians

The Gaians have the Angels and Morgan's commlink, are in Vendetta with the Hive, and lack the PK's and the Uni's links

They don't have Applied Physics nor Nonlinear math, so their best weapon is still the level 1 gun

Their best armor is Synthmetal, as they don't yet have Applied Physics, a building block to HEC's Plasma Armour

They have started The Weather Paradigm, so we can assume that their bases are producing crawlers like crazy (as they have nothing to upgrade them to, unless they have "Secrets" and can trance them, which helps a little)

We are significanly ahead of them in the powerbar charts, but that could be due as much to our 15 versus 11 population as anything else)

I see their techs as:

Level 1 techs

• Industrial Base (which they needed for Ind Auto)
  
• InfoNets (which they needed for PlanNets and Planned
  
• Centauri Ecology (their starting tech)
  
• Social Psych (see reasoning below)
  
• Biogenetics (see reasoning below)

	08-10-2004 23:55									#97
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Data Angels

We have the least information on the Angels

They have the Hive and the Gaians commlinks, don't have ours or the PK's or the Uni, and we don't know if they have Morgan's

They don't have Applied Physics nor Nonlinear Math, so their best weapon is still the level 1 gun

Their best armor is Synthmetal, as they don't yet have Applied Physics, a building block to HEC's Plasma Armor - but they do have Industrial Base, a stepping stone to ind Auto, which they have (running Wealth)

The techs they have that we know for sure:

Level 1 techs

• Ind Base (see above)
  
• Infonets (they start with that)
  
• Centauri Ecology (It doesn't show up for us as a tech we can trade them)

	09-10-2004 00:15									#98
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I see that they have completed The Weather Paradigm (PlanetVoice Issue #7)

	09-10-2004 00:15									#99
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quote: Originally posted by Googlie The Gaians They have started The Weather Paradigm, so we can assume that their bases are producing crawlers like crazy (as they have nothing to upgrade them to, unless they have "Secrets" and can trance them, which helps a little)

According to the Voice of Planet, they've already built the Weather Paradigm.

Reading tabloids can be useful from time to time after all.

Edit: Ah, crosspost

	09-10-2004 00:55									#100
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quote: Originally posted by Maniac May I suggest an addition to the second protocol to be on the safe side? New is the italic bold text: Nor is it allowed to turn over control to another faction of a unit with new weapons, abilities, etc... derived from a traded tech.

I'm not sure if Illuminatus has visited recently, but I used my mod powers to edit and add the clause to the protocols (as Kass is prolly otherwise engaged right now)

	09-10-2004 02:19									#101
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Googlie: Nice of you to edit that in to spare me the trouble, but *please* from now on use the UBB editor, not the WYSIWYG editor. For some strange reason it somehow redefines the post when you edit it with the latter editing mode on so that I can't edit it any longer with Mozilla Firefox. I'd have to use IE just to edit my own posts, since the WYSIWYG editing mode is "IE 5.0 or higher only".

I would have been here earlier, but my Internet connection was down.

	09-10-2004 03:22									#102
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Sorry about that (I didn't know there was a diff.

I see, btw, that the Gaians have asked for a clarification"

quote: Originally posted in the Embassy by the Gaians We have been discussing your proposal, and request clarification of your first "rule". Specifically, it could be interpreted to mean that each of us is compelled to agree to a trade proposed by the other involving equal-level technologies

No compulsion is intended. Rather the intent was to avoid "frivolous" offers of a level 2 for a level 5, on the basis that "a tech's a tech, and costs the same whatever level it is" regardless of the relative importance/usefulness of the techs in question.

But it does beg the question "Are 2 level 2 techs worth 1 level 4?" and so on

	09-10-2004 03:47									#103
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I didn't know there was a difference either. No harm done, I need not edit it any longer.

I gave them a clarification - I didn't quite fully understand that part myself; I should have cleared it up myself too before posting it.

	09-10-2004 09:33									#104
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There are too many threads that seem to be redundant (to me any ways. ) But I guess that this is the most appropriate to post this thing in...

There were a few (three actually) e-mails commenting on my new look (avatar, signature, and people noticing that I'm now in the ACDG Spartan camp) waiting for me when I got back home...
(thanks again to those of you who helped with the outfitting of my new uniform. People have taken notice.)

On a whim; I followed them up with casual chatter, which gradually led me to decide to test how deep I could get into the Gaian camps water.

I *think* I can maybe get some talks going with someone who will have the ear of the Gaian high council.

Now. I just stopped short of continuing on that tract and changed the subject to other things - while leaving the door open...

Nobody worry. No secrets, or information, were given away, except that you guys know more about computer stuff than I do - which if you know me already - is no real secret (laugh!).

Question now is:

Does the Junta wish me to explore this further?

I don't want to put myself in the place of Major Kassiopeia, nor want to become ambassador to the Gaians, or nothing lke that.

If this amounts to anything, it would be just to speed up any kind of agreement we can manage or desire.

If the answer is; "yes, I should try and persue this", then we really need to form some kind of long term foreign policy towards the Gaians and the other factions. Otherwise, for the time being untill we know where were heading for sure, it will be useless for me to try and persue this.

Edit: spelling

Last edited by KrysiasKrusader on 09-10-2004 at 09:44

	09-10-2004 10:31									#105
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Well, part of the enjoyment of these ACDG games is in the roleplaying. And each faction puts unique structure around how they are organized, especially as regards alignment with their core beliefs and philosophies.

The last game came unstuck for a while 'cos friends (and even brothers) were in different camps but chatted and exchanged opinions and ideas (and in one or two instances, even exchanged information)

If I'm not mistaken it also led to Jamski's ouster from the Hive and adoption by the CyCon. But as the CMN I had to rap knuckles a couple of times when players from different factions chatted in ICQ about the game when their respective factions hadn't even met

So while not disparaging entrepreneurial efforts, I think we should stick to roleplaying the Spartans as a faction and follow the structure that we adopt.

This will mean, as we get into a more involved game, that we need to get our most active posters more involved in taking control of facets of our empire. Perhaps each human team needs a separate ambassador, and these 3 ambassadors discuss bilateral and 3-way tech trades and bring recommendations to the Junta for approval (and maybe it's a combo of a human team and an AI responsibility). So Kass, for example, might have responsibility for dealings with the Gaians and, say, the PK's while KK holds responsibility for the Morganites and, say, the University.

More importantly, I think we need to get some devolved responsibility for Home Operations (ie build orders, research, etc) - and Maniac has proven skilled at this.

For my sins I have assumed Engineering (terraforming & crawlers) and covert ops responsibilities - I'll be happy to give up Engineering to anyone else that has the inclination

Diss is our Head of Naval Operations - with 2 (soon to be 3) gunfoils and 2 trannies (soon to be 3) we are developing a nice little merchant and armed navy. Diss is commandant of the SCC Invincible and Primus Pilus commands the SCC Hunter

Then there's our army. Wheh we started we gave each player a unit to control (an army "division", really). Zeiter took the first, named Corazon Reconnaissance Vehicle 112 (or R-112 for short). Andemagne took the next (Chiron Knights) and I took the one after (Rolling Thunder) until it was tragically lost in the great mindworm battle of 2132. Kass is the CO of Shinsengumi and Warhog is commanded by Diss.

To my knowldge we have not named a CO for the 1st Infantry Division

Of course the original intent was that in the early game the various commanders would instruct the turnplayer where to move the units, recognizing that deeper into the game we'd need to specialize in army, navy, airforce, covert ops, engineering, produxtion, etc etc

I think that time has come (see my "new decade" thread) - so maybe we need to pause and think seriously about who does what again (especially as some of the players, like GeneralTactitus and Jamski are virtually absent)

Last edited by Googlie on 09-10-2004 at 10:37

	09-10-2004 11:27									#106
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I got no probs with this at all.
Was just inquiring - cause I want you all to know everything I know!

	09-10-2004 17:42									#107
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As one of the CMNs I also feel that I need to give some input in your inquiry, KrysiasKrusader. ACDGII was the first team game and we had met some issues that we haven't encountered before. The CMNs in that game had to deal with complains from various teams about deliberate exploring of sensitive information through non official channel and voluntarily leaking of information without authorized by the team. We had some discussion about this issue in the beginning of this game. IIRC we decided communications between friends in different teams are not prohibited, and which member has authority to disclose information will be decided within each team. However, actively persueing sensitive team information through unofficial channel and/or through deception is not allowed.

This may have led to the current "non RP active" appearance of this game. Personally I feel more RP interaction through public forums should be ok. However, I would not encourage you to actively pursueing Gaian's sensitive information through private channels that would not fit in to a RP perpective. In other words, if you are an ambassordor and am able to extract information through interaction with their ambassador, that could happen in the RP world, and would be ok in my opinon. However it would not be likely that a soldier of Spartan has any close contact with a scientist in the Gaians, for example, and this kind of extracting information would not fit into the RP world and would possibly be classified as prohibited behaviors.

Of course the final decission would be made by Drogue and Method. I'm only offering my understanding against the rules.

	09-10-2004 17:45									#108
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With this understanding I would like to request any and all private chats that involves interexchange of game related information be disclosed inside the team forum. This would facilitate any investigation by Drogue. Also it would be good for me to feel the pulse of the team when writing the history record.

	09-10-2004 17:48									#109
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Sorry for the triple posts but I would also like to make a clearance about Jamski. He was not outcasted from the Hive because he had shared team sensitive information. He had chosen to leave the team himself, because he had believed something that is different from the team, and chose to leave us for that belief. He was greatly missed in the Hive.

	09-10-2004 19:34									#110
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quote: Originally posted by Googlie (Or maybe we can just give their co-ordinates and say that we'll exchange a screenshot of the vicinity we've explored - ie the seventy square tiles around our rover - in exchange for a similar screenie of the seventy or so square tiles southwest of the Hive scout - the direction that their mindworm - or a scout patrol that captured it - must have travelled)

On looking again at the map and the pics, the mindworm can't have come from where I thought it had. Southwest of the meeting point is where R-112 came from.

My current thoughts are that the Gaian mindworm came from the east, and got its rtaise from Hatchling to Larval Mass thru its fight with a Hive unit, and not via the Monolith as I originally deduced.

So I suggest that we continue R-112's journey east along that river (Illuminatus, in the Embassy, has confirmed that they moved their MW 1 tile south into the forest to let us pass), and perhaps we'll encounter Gaian-controlled territory and maybe even some bases.

	09-10-2004 20:02									#111
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Well the Gaians did not like our amendments, it looks like the trade is off. This seriously suggests that our techs were on their way to other human factions ... I hope we can get IndAut some other way

It was unfortunate that we did not remember to add the 'no-trade' clause sooner. Changing an offer like that is quite illegal, at least by swedish law. That said, it was of course the right thing to do, we don't want our techs given for free to some hostile alliance. See you in court Gaia :P

	09-10-2004 20:30									#112
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I think I spun it up pretty nicely. The Gaians HAD NOT told us that they had accepted the trade, before we added our clauses. There was NO WAY we would have known, since they failed to tell us, that we were making modifications to a trade they *had* already agreed to. We were simply in good faith that they were still discussing themselves on the trade that it would not be too late to modify it. So basically it's now at least partly their fault

As far as I understood it, the only problem they have is with the no-trade clause - and that, in turn, we can negotiate on. They are giving five turns, we are giving 20 - I say we go for ten. It'll make us come off as making a big compromise, and hopefully the trade'll be a go again.

	09-10-2004 20:33									#113
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It's a great response, Kass

And the fact that they are willing to contemplate a 5 year embargo suggests that they are not indebted to morgan re onward trading of Ind Auto (if they did indeed get it from them in trade)

I see the new turn is up - I'll open it and get the simple orders executed

	09-10-2004 20:39									#114
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Thanks Googlie. I think we wouldn't have, in all seriousness, edited anything in if we had just known they had already agreed to it. I wouldn't have jeopardised the trade like that, I would have just sucked up our forgetfulness and move on with the trade.

I hope we can all agree that the 5 year period is enough, as long as they agree to the trade. When you consider that the original deal had no restrictionts *at all*, I think we'll emerge better off from this little scuffle.

	09-10-2004 20:39									#115
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Here's the opening shot - the Gaians were willing to trade, in principle, as they say, so we just need to haggle the terms of a non-transfer and I can put our two techs in pre-accepted

I'm not hung up on anything longer than five years on this one as I think Ind Auto is crucial to us, but if you can negotiate 10 or 7, so much the better

Attachment: trade.jpg
This has been downloaded 13 time(s).

	09-10-2004 20:40									#116
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quote: Originally posted by Snoddasmannen I hope we can get IndAut some other way

The Gaian response to our query regarding the Angel comm frequency is positive, so hopefully we could get their commlink. And SCC Hunter might be close to meeting the other human faction. So still plenty of opportunity I hope. Who knows if we've met all human factions, we could even make a public statement that we're willing to buy IndAut from anyone who offer the lowest price, or next year just make the Gaians the exact same offer as now, but just tell them we can now also get the tech from two other factions.

quote: It was unfortunate that we did not remember to add the 'no-trade' clause sooner. Changing an offer like that is quite illegal, at least by swedish law.

Indeed. And it makes me worried that the Gaians might get the impression about us Spartans that in the previous ACDG the Consciousness had about PEACE, namely that they changed their trade proposal on the last minute. To prevent that, may I suggest a clarification like this:

"We are sorry you do not agree with the 20-year no-trade clause we proposed. Unfortunately neither can we accept a so short no-trade term of five years for an important technology as Gene Splicing, especially since this technology is not widespread yet.

We do hope though this incident will not undermine future relations between our factions. I'd like to stress that it was by no means our intention to act like a "pirate" in this trade and add new clauses at the last minute. Instead we at Sparta always worked from the (in PBEM games) common assumption that traded technologies were not be traded to third parties without explicit permission. It's just that we forgot to clarify that to you immediately.

We are sorry for this, but promise to pay more attention to such matters in the future, in the hope that we will not further damage your trust in us."


Edit: Ah I see other people would be willing to accept a five year term after all. Never mind then I guess.

	09-10-2004 20:48									#117
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quote: Well met, Lord Illuminatus. From now on, to avoid unlucky incidents such as these, we will keep in mind the way your decision-making works. Hopefully we will be able to learn from this experience, so that in the future we can work together without any problems. The Junta has agreed to lower the restriction period from 20 to 5 years. The restriction will cover gifting units with properties gained by the traded techs (such as special abilities, chassis, armour, weapons, etc.) to a faction without the technology, and the technologies themselves. Can we both agree to these terms? Again, I can't stress enough that now that we know how things work, we will from now on bring to the table trade propositions that are final, and will stay final until we get word from you. We have no intentions of "pirating" the trades, as it happens. We find it very important that both parties can trust each other in these kind of matters.

I really, *really* hope we can get this behind us now and, well, trade the damn techs!

	09-10-2004 20:51									#118
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So no one's interested in offering someone else the same trade but with a bigger no-trade clause?

(Just inquiring, I'll of course agree to whatever the Junta decides.)

	09-10-2004 20:52									#119
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I agree, great response Kass

People seem quite okay with the 5 year constraint, and I also think we should accept it on, second thought.

We could even offer a symbolic 1 energy credit to the Gaians in exchange for the trouble our little trade misunderstanding caused

	09-10-2004 20:55									#120
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Perhaps you could say something like, "It is important to realize that these protocols are just the default for trades, meaning if nothing is said regarding the no-trade length, it is assumed to be for 20 years. However, exceptions can always be made upon this through negotiation. Thus, we are perfectly willing to negotiate a shorter no-trade duration for this particular exchange."

Funny, right now in history class I am studying pre-World War I diplomacy and how Germany encircled itself through its diplomacy. If there's anything we can learn from that, it is that we do not want to appear power-hungry. Germany's belligerence and non-cooperation forced the other powers to draw in closer to each other and form defensive alliances and such. Otto Von Bismarck was extremely clever in portraying Germany as a "satisfied power," which made the other powers more trusting of Germany. When Wilhelm II abandoned this policy, Germany was put in a much more uncomfortable situation diplomatically.

I'm afraid that our upcoming invasion of Zak (as well as the difficulty we're having with negotiations right now) will give the others cause for alarm. Thus, we'll have to be very clever in spinning the upcoming situation.

Edit: That last message was very clever. That'll teach them to not treat us like a second-class faction by delaying for a long time on their responses.

Also, I think the little EC gift would be a great idea, although 1 EC might actually insult them more than win them over. Maybe something like 5 ECs?

Last edited by Zeiter on 09-10-2004 at 21:04