26-01-2003 07:06									#331
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel Does the tech cheapen when a civ we haven't met discovers it?

No.

	26-01-2003 07:07									#332
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Do we want to play dumb regarding their apparent deception, then, rather than calling them on it?

Remember that when we first met Vox, they already had Ceremonial Burial. Suppose they researched that themselves, and then Pottery, before starting on Iron Working. If it weren't for the fact that Iron Working costs less than it should for us to research, I would regard that as a valid explanation. (Of course assuming they're lying, that may be what they hope we believe to make the lie sound plausible.)

One thing I don't want to do at this point is start on Writing until Iron Working is firmly in hand. With how untrustworthy Vox seems to be, there is a non-trivial risk that the deal won't go through, in which case we need to research Iron Working ASAP and gold for upgrades might come in very handy. After all, if they're untrustworthy on other matters, why should we believe a word about their desire for peace?

Nathan

	26-01-2003 07:11									#333
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO 3. Interesting idea. screenshot of the F4 is ok by me, F8 needs a bit more thinking.

I don't see why, they have exactly the same information in their F8-screen. Theirs is even more informative, because it shows the extra civ they met. The score screen displays nothing than a graph of the score numbers, accessible for everyone every turn. I wouldn't know why I should pay a price for it.

	26-01-2003 07:11									#334
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Personally I think that the next two turns makes or breaks the game for Vox. And even if they do trade, I highly doubt any future trades with them, since we can outresearch them considerably and due to their duplicitous nature.

So

Does an undeclared state of war now exist between vox and gathering storm?

	26-01-2003 07:14									#335
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO 7. Spacing lessons, part 1. True, we have recently settled our 3 city,

I would avoid telling them of our third city......

	26-01-2003 07:17									#336
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Why not squarely tell them we know, or are very certain to know? I believe them to be deceiving us, but you're never 100% sure... Why not simply tell them we suspect more things are going on, it might make them think twice the next time they feel like lying to us.

Research: you have a point... but either this is great acting from betahound, or they do not want to doublecross us, maybe only slightly delay us.
Maybe waiting on turn, cashing in more upgrade money isn't bad, although if we get the camp, we'll have more money then we immediately need, and I think we should focus on what we obviously are good in: research.

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:20									#337
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And just to emphasize the point regarding tech costs and research, China starts the game with Warrior Code, so we know at least one civ we haven't met has that - probably more due to tech trading. Yet the research cost for Warrior Code is right where it should be if no one's discovereed it. Unless there's some mechanic involved that no one has yet discovered (such as tech getting cheaper just from someone else's being farther along reasearching it than you are even though they haven't discovered it yet), the cost of Iron Working is the only one that doesn't fit. (By the way, I doublechecked Sir Ralph's figures just to be absolutely certain.)

	26-01-2003 07:21									#338
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I think its a good idea to tell them our suspicions and why we think what we do. Of course, we can be much more tactful than they, that letter was apparently typed by a small boy.

Tell them that they are offbase with their accusations of another contact, prove it by the histograph. This is irrefutable evidence, as the movements in the graph should be roughly similar to theirs, although slightly different due tot the third civ.

fire back that we have concerns about their truthfulness and why.


(maybe they are throwing this out as a smokescreen, perhaps they were hoping to get another two turns in for their warmachine) (as long as we can see 3 warriors, that means three warriors not upgradeable)

	26-01-2003 07:21									#339
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph I don't see why, they have exactly the same information in their F8-screen. Theirs is even more informative, because it shows the extra civ they met. The score screen displays nothing than a graph of the score numbers, accessible for everyone every turn. I wouldn't know why I should pay a price for it.

Sir Ralph, you miss my point. Sorry about not being too clear about it, I type as I think... not always very good for nice explanations

I don't want to pay any price for it, a simple trade should be enough. No extra cash, if they want to know our situation, they need to pay (in the form of information of Civ X, but we don't tell that).

What I want to avoid is having them tell us that they can't do it, because they don't want to reveil Civ X. Fine, so cover it. paintbrush their F8, giving the civ a neutral color (white), remove their names and anything else leading to them, and trade that F8 with ours. We know a lot more, and they can trust us.

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:23									#340
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel I would avoid telling them of our third city......

Why? If they can't see that, they're morons. I'm sure most other teams suspect it... we have been topping the F11 screen for a while now.
[edit: meaning they see the drops in capital size too, and the increases in power. they can't seriously believe we outnumber them in troops 2:1]

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:24									#341
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO Why? If they can't see that, they're morons. I'm sure most other teams suspect it... we have been topping the F11 screen for a while now. DeepO

I see.

I still would avoid telling them our exact strength. Maybe they think we have more than 3 cities?

	26-01-2003 07:28									#342
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Here's what I have so far of my draft response. I'll let you go ahead and look over what I've done so far while I work on finisihing it.

quote: Greetings BetaHound and Vox Controli, On the subject of cows and bulls (and what comes from them), our analysts find it almost impossible to believe that you do not already have Iron Working. According to their analysis (and this was originally conducted the turn before the last one we took, although I have since confirmed the figures personally), Iron Working should cost us twice as much to research as Warrior Code if no nation we know has either. Similarly, Writing should require one third more research than Iron Working. Since you are our only in-game contact at present (your suspicions notwithstanding), our analysts say that only your having researched a technology should create a deviation between anticipated and actual research costs. With every other technology we can consider researching, costs (as best we can pin them down) follow a consistent pattern. But the cost of Iron Working is lower than it ought to be if you have not yet researched it, and at the rate we can research Iron Working, we ought to be able to research Writing one turn faster than we can – unless the contact situation makes Iron Working cheaper relative to its theoretical cost. If you are telling the truth, there is some great mystery here by which the assumptions our analysts base their work on is invalid. But I hope you can see why we would be extremely skeptical regarding your claims of not yet having discovered Iron Working. Either you are lying to us, or our understanding of the world we live in is seriously flawed. Regarding our own research rate, if you have been watching the Roster of Great Cities, I’m sure you have seen that Eye of the Storm has been consistently at least size 3 and often size 4 on the International City Size Scale for quite some time. Eye of the Storm has not worked land producing less than two commerce in centuries, and Hurricane has sometimes had access to two commerce and sometimes just one depending on priorities of the moment. Add to that the commerce from the city sites themselves (with capitals inherently being especially wealthy) and you can see for yourself that our research rate, although quite rapid, is not impossible. (And I should note that at Sir Ralph’s insistence, we had already started researching Alphabet based on your conditional acceptance of the trade proposal before you sent your final acceptance, leaving us a turn ahead of where we would have been had more cautious policies prevailed.) Next, in regard to your claim that Bronze Working was worth more to us than The Wheel was to you, the fact that we would have researched Bronze and then Iron ourselves had you not agreed to the deal renders such short-term comparisons irrelevant. On that path, we would have had Bronze Working in plenty of time to build any spearmen we might want, and would be getting Iron Working through our own research about the same time we will get it from you assuming you keep your word. So the true benefits of the exchange are in terms of long-term prosperity, not short-term military advantage, and on that basis, the agreement was clearly in your favor. We, unlike you, sacrificed a turn’s research to make the deal work. Further, based on what you have indicated about your own research rate, a trade at equal value saves you significantly more research time than it does us compared with each doing the research ourselves. And that is not even considering the risk on our side and (I assume) hope on yours that you might be able to exchange The Wheel and/or Alphabet for gold and/or additional knowledge. (We never requested a patent on either of those technologies and, in fact, explicitly acknowledged your right to trade them when we proposed the trade agreement. The patent concept is strictly in connection with trades involving Writing and beyond.)

	26-01-2003 07:29									#343
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no... I wouldn't tell them we are 5 turns away from our 4 fourth city, though, but our exact strength does not come from our 3 cities, but from the foresting we did in between, and they have no way of knowing that.

BTW, I just thought of something: for the past few turns, we have been dropping in size in our capital, which could also be explained as poprushing... maybe the other teams are not so sure about our real strength after all... but no harm in telling Vox we have 3 cities, otherwise the power graph would think we have a huge army running around.

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:35									#344
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Nathan, so far, so good. It's diplomatically precise, let's hope they understand this, and don't need a "learn to speak diplomatically in 21 days" course accompanying it. Then again, they may need it anyhow

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:37									#345
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I agree it is good.

What about the f8 screen with citizens blacked out. yay or nay? I say yay. doesnt cost us anything and doesn't reveal anything they don't already know.

	26-01-2003 07:38									#346
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F8: if possible, I want to trade for it. They learn a small bit of information from us, we may want to ask for something back

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:42									#347
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What about telling them about city #3? Normally they have noticed it, not telling them would be kind of deceptive of us...

DeepO

	26-01-2003 07:42									#348
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What do they learn from our F8 that they can't get from their own? I could crop the whole "score" side of the screen off and they'd still see the fact that there are only two civs shown and the date. (Of course if they're paranoid enough, they might suspect us of doctoring the picture, but I hope they're not that paranoid.

Nathan

	26-01-2003 07:42									#349
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO F8: if possible, I want to trade for it. They learn a small bit of information from us, we may want to ask for something back DeepO

what information do they learn from us, other than that we are alone. we need to establish that fact, so I think giving it away would be appropriate. It is up to us to prove that we are alone, luckily we can easily do just that. But lets vote on that. Eitherway it would be fine with me.

	26-01-2003 07:51									#350
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Well.. I doubt they are going to do it, but if I get my hands on a F8 with 2 civs including my own, while I already have 3 civs including my own, it's a small effort to subtract the two graphs, separating the three civs perfectly. It will give them more precise information than what they get now, as Civ X's power graph is interfering. We see when they are cashing some gold, but now, they don't know if this is our gold, or rather Civ X's gold that's tilting the graph.

Again, I agree on giving them F8, but at least propose to deal for it. If they do it, we know a little more.

DeepO

	26-01-2003 08:04									#351
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I don't think we have time to haggle with F8 trading or not trading. After all, we can't halt our research forever.

	26-01-2003 08:07									#352
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO Well.. I doubt they are going to do it, but if I get my hands on a F8 with 2 civs including my own, while I already have 3 civs including my own, it's a small effort to subtract the two graphs, separating the three civs perfectly. It will give them more precise information than what they get now, as Civ X's power graph is interfering. We see when they are cashing some gold, but now, they don't know if this is our gold, or rather Civ X's gold that's tilting the graph.

That could be a significant issue with the power graph, but I wouldn't be nearly as concerned about their ability to squeeze extra information out of the score graph.

	26-01-2003 08:08									#353
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Has anyone an idea why they still don't have traded techs with Civ X?

According to our minimap trades, there's a continent with at least 3 civs nearby, and CivX is for certain one of these. Now my theory is, that the 3 (or more) civs there already have traded their start techs around and when Civ X met Vox, poor Vox just had nothing to offer in return? Has anyone cared to check the start techs of the civs we know as inhabitants of continent X and try to check, if they cover all Voxian techs?

	26-01-2003 08:10									#354
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Do we have any of the Vox bigwigs' e-mail addresses to go ahead and send a cropped score graph? (The PM interface doesn't seem to allow for attachments.)

	26-01-2003 08:12									#355
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True... what about giving it to them, saying that it is another show of good will from us, and that it would please us if they would do the same. Let them take precautions not to reveal Civ X if they want to, we more or less did their exploring already, we can expect something in return, no?

DeepO

	26-01-2003 08:15									#356
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Sir Ralph, they need to have gotten ceremonial burial from somewhere.. either Civ X, or a hut. More research after that is unlikely if they have the same kind of diplomatic contacts with Civ X... if we wouldn't need it, I wouldn't bother talking to Vox, I'm sure others think the same.

DeepO

	26-01-2003 08:18									#357
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I'm guessing their contact is Lux (Ottomans), which start with exactly the same techs as Vox. RP and ND both have Ceremonal Burial, which could close off a trade for that. ND also has Pottery. So assuming their contact beat them to The Wheel, either directly or through a trade, it would be very easy for Vox to have found themselves with nothing to offer.

Nathan

	26-01-2003 08:21									#358
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Or with Civ X nearly finished on the wheel. It will be a good tech for many to have fast, so it's quite likely the wheel was (being) researched. And if you're 2 turns away from completing a tech, you don't want to give up another tech to gain those 2 turns...

DeepO

	26-01-2003 08:26									#359
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I just want to throw out another possibility: maybe Vox has fabricated this whole thing to have a "valid" excuse for backing out of the deal. What can they gain from this? Well, they can start war preperations quietly without having to strengthen us at the same time (by giving us IW).


Dominae

	26-01-2003 08:35									#360
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Dominae, certainly a possibility. However, their possible fabrication is very realistic, I can imagine myself in Vox' position being at least as distrustful of GS as they indicate in their messages. And I would more or less respond in the same way (okay, not trying to lie about research, that's stupid)

DeepO