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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Just read the two, more or less incoherent, messages from JM... wow. One voice, huh? not before long, it will be One member 
Deal: please, let someone explain to him that tiers have little to do with assessing the importance of a tech, beaker cost on the other hand has a lot importance. Tier 2 for tier 1... sigh. That's SMAC, not Civ3. And I don't need WC as return deal for alphabet, certainly not when we first of all gave the wheel for BW. No deal, I strongly oppose accepting any such deals in game, as long as we can't lose the diplomatic ends.
We have to be strict about this, or they can come back to us on every deal we do in the future...
Lux near them: the interesting thing is that this leaves a large part of the world map unsettled... there has to be a (small) continent on the Western side, with nearly no-one occupying it.
Further, writing for all contacts is already low enough, if they want to see it as all contacts then for alphabet now, and IW now for writing then, fine by me. that's tier 2 for tier 2
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Damn... I can't keep up with responding to everything
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Ralph
We need ironworking now. We need to know, where is iron. Zeits remark about the long road being an iron connecting road and suddenly renewed their claim to settle down till the Spinebreakers could really mean, that there's an iron deposit, which might be the only one in our part of the world. We could remain without iron, if we research writing now. |
Very true... I can live with it if Lookout ridge would contain a iron source, but iron in the spinebreakers? that changes everything.
Keep the turn on hold, please, until we resolve this matter. I do not want to delay researching writing, and it is obvious you don't want to start writing before we have IW.
quote:
Send notes, demand, threaten, but get us iron working now. Or else we have to research it on our own, before we begin to research writing. This delays their research as well. Tell them, that we can be either their partners or their competitors and ask what they think is better for them. If they don't give IW now, the deal is void, as is the promise of peaceful intent. |
I agree, with one exception: so far there has been little talk about peaceful intent, only about stopping to get into each other's hairs too much. quite a difference...
DeepO
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
I'd already told Jon that I figured the mystery civ was probably Lux. The most he did was confirm something I'd already deduced using process of elimination based on the locations of the other civs. (Well, that and his earlier characterization of the mystery civ as being north of Vox.) |
Ah, I was hoping that he had slipped.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Is it okay if I take my discussions with Jon into chat and see if we can hash something out? |
Yep, just as long as you shame him and his team so bad he'll agree to peaceful partnership on our terms. I think he knows Vox has behaved deplorably, and has been brought in to smooth things over. This means opportunity for us.
Dominae
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
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Nathan-
good job with the chat, it certainly clarified the position of Vox. Of course there is the outside chance that JM was lying, but his words seemed truthful. (I wonder exactly what happened to Betahound).
I like your ideas of a symbiotic relationship. Were you serious, or was this just a move to allay their fears for the time being?
I could see the two of us allying for the long term. I could not see the other continent with its three or four civs all joining together, as space must be a premium over there, moreso than on ours.
Of course, the concern is if the other continent makes Vox an offer they can't refuse. I could definately see the others using Vox as their pawn to try to weaken us. The question is: how can we guarantee peace? Keep large garrisons at the borders? Ah-we could put our strongest units outside or near some cities.
Perhaps this would be a good time to propose the irrigation system? That would probably provide them more peace of mind, and help their economy.
I anticipate being able to make the chat at 8 est, at least for a little while, hopefully some of theirs can. He said that there are 5 major and one minor player.
As an aside: assuming that we can have peace for all time with Vox, should we start a prebuild for the lighthouse, as we will have to conduct amphibious operations in a war (and we can search for the undiscovered continents).
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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After chatting with Jon, I think an indefinite-duration "each side gives the other all techs" agreement such as he proposed is the way to go. Lux has contact with multiple civs, so they're basically doing to Vox what Vox is doing to us, only worse - taking advantage of position to play tech broker. If we can hold onto an "exchange all techs" relationship until we get Map Making (probably through a trade) or a foreign galley contacts us, we won't have to make a deal with Vox for contact. In the meantime, our agreement with Vox will keep them from using their advantage of being in contact with two civs to pull ahead of us. And such a partnership is definitely our fastest path to Republic.
As for Lux, they'll have to decide which side they want to be on. They can join in the agreement to exchange all techs if they want to, or they can be left on their own but able to leverage their multiple contacts to whatever extent they can gain advantage from it.
I also see a real possibility for a long-term partnership with Vox. Right now, they're reacting out of fear that we'll attack them. The very idea of WCs seems to scare them horribly, and they don't seem to even begin to guess how badly our WCs would perform on the particular terrain we're faced with. That fear, in turn, seems to be the main cause of the instability and so forth we've been seeing. If we can get a profitable partnership going, I think we can get over the initial mistrust and work together. I also took the liberty of broaching the question of how intent Vox is on winning, and Jon sounded like their main focus is on doing well and the idea that it would be nice to win is more of an afterthought for them. That's a very valuable trait in a long-term junior partner! (Basically, our discussions for the possibility of a long-term relationship followed a pattern I figured out a long time ago - tech sharing at first and later evolving into their funneling us gold to pay our expenses so we can run research at 100% and provide them with techs. Jon seemed to like the idea. I also briefly brought up the possibility of working together militarily, and I think he liked the image of immortals and WCs fighting side by side about as much as I do.) Yes, I know this is way outside the bounds of what I'd originally planned to go into, but in MP (as in the real world), it's a lot harder to keep short-term deals separate from issues of long-term relationships than it is in SP. And I really do want a way that if Vox works with us, they can survive and prosper.
I made the following proposal to Jon regarding the current tech trade situation:
quote:
One possibility (assuming you still have the turn) would be for you to go ahead and accept Alphabet and offer Iron Working. If we accept the deal, it will constitute a commitment from Gathering Storm to either accept your deal for a "trade all the technologies we get for an indefinite time" agreement or provide something else as compensation for the fact that you can get Alphabet cheaply. And not to attack you while we're working out the details. |
Jon thinks his team will be amenable to this, so if we're willing to operate on such terms (and if they handle the interface correctly), we can very likely go ahead and get Iron Working and start Writing.
One last thing: Jon and I have an agreement to try to set up a larger chat involving people from both teams tomorrow at 8:00 PM Apolyton time (U.S. Eastern Time). I hope that's a workable time, early enough for Europeans to participate but late enough for people in the Americas to be home from work.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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The very fact that they aren't great players in a strong position who have a good shot at winning is a large part of what makes Vox attractive to me as partners. They can help us win, and we can help them do well, and both sides come out ahead in the deal. It would be a lot harder for two great powers both intent on winning to achieve a truly symbiotic relationship, especially over the long haul.
And then, too, I have a hard time philosophically with the idea of saying (in effect), "We'd like to be partners and friends, but only until we're ready to take you out." That works fine in SP, but I'm not at all fond of it in MP. (And frankly, I couldn't serve as an emissary to Vox if I didn't have at least a little hope that my words of mutual prosperity could come true.)
Nathan
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
And then, too, I have a hard time philosophically with the idea of saying (in effect), "We'd like to be partners and friends, but only until we're ready to take you out." That works fine in SP, but I'm not at all fond of it in MP. (And frankly, I couldn't serve as an emissary to Vox if I didn't have at least a little hope that my words of mutual prosperity could come true.)
Nathan |
Luckily we can win through domination and not have to take them out at all (or spaceship or culture). That way they could be around the entire game, aiding us, doing their own part, but being part of the winning team. win-win. they won't get the glory, so to speak, but with the start position they had, it would be unlikely to come through for anyone. better to play the whole game than to get swallowed right away.
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zeit
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Meet my blade!
Sep 2002
time: 06:24
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Hmm...
sleezy Vox acts out of fear- the perfect portfolio of an unstable and spine-less neighbor. Today they fear us, tommorow its Civ X. We must be cautios and maintain our advantage. I see two main stratgies in dealing with Vox: 1) play on their fear (if its true that they fear us, which in retrospective- seems logical), repeatedly reminding them the consequences of crossing us. OR- 2)Working on building trust to change their fear into willful cooperation, viewing us as allies, and so forth.
Nathan seems to have taken path #2, which is harder and costly in the short term, while we might be fooled and end up with little (no cooperation from Vox), but it's future benefits are potentialy greater than those of #1.
For the time being, i suggest more probbing regarding path #2, which means we play it nice and restrain our instinct of bullying the weak, especially on the team chat. (Must make good impression  )
btw- what time is the chat in GMT?
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Okay, a few comments. First of all, good chat, learned a lot. I don't know if I want a longterm partner, in the sense that I don't need a smaller, less experienced team hampering us until the end of the game. Their territory is the closest we will get when it comes to corruption, so I do not want to guarantee now that once we get knights we don't take them out.
But, in the short term, I think the only way is to have a good trading relation, and the path towards republic is a good one. I'd rather like it if they can research mapmaking instead of mysticism (or after philosophy), as I can imagine that no other civ is going to trade that to us, knowing our isolation.
That Vox fears our WCs is good, but stupid. It could be a ruse though, in that they know their immortals are extremely powerful too, and want to distract us by telling us how good we are. Whatever comes from these negotations, we need to keep them from going the military road, as we can't have that kind of fight in this stage of the game. That they don't trust the situation is good, and while we can somewhat relieve it, we don't want to say: hey, you can trust us indefinately, you don't need to build one single warrior anymore. We need to hamper them a little too...
Nathan: I haven't seen your proposed borders (no access to my inbox here), but I don't want to have a territory of 13 cities, while they have 10. We are the faster expanders, so if we outexpand them, we get more territory, period. 13 cities is less than 40 turns from now for us, 10 cities will take Vox, without water, over 60. Not too mention that with the jungle (which I expect to be completely part of Vox proposed territory), they gain after clearing, the best land possible. No deal (but again, I have to look at the screenshot).
Further, I would seriously keep them from settling #12 now. It is too good for us to simply hand over to them, and they won't get any benefit from it, as it will be able to grow, but not produce anything. They're a lot better of with settling the Neck, and the Northern part of the jungle, which is also fertile land.
Trades: we seriously need a couple of plans before going in to the chat, and have to agree up front that anything said there is but a proposal, and not the final thing. We need the entire team's approval if we are going to partner in the long term with Vox, and I can imagine more then a few having reservations against them.
I like the republic path, as it will put us in front. But there are a few others: we can outresearch the world towards monarchy, if we get mysticism from Vox. We can get to construction, or to currency first. So think about what we want to do with it: it seems unlikely we are going to get the GL, so when both we and Vox have a certain tech, a thrid civ will get it for free. Are we going to trade away our advantage, to get even in tech with the rest of the world? do we want to keep it hidden?
Other comment: is it possible to get that chat earlier? you're proposing to start the chat at 2 am my time, and while I don't generally need much sleep, that is a little late for a weekday (not the start of the chat, but I doubt I will get throught the end, and the after talks on our forum).
DeepO
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Dominae
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A partnership with Vox does not need to be an all or nothing deal. We should not be afraid to jump on an opportunity to take them out, if such an opportunity presents itself. Committing ourselves to being their friends for the rest of the game may sound good diplomatically, but may not be in the best interests of our team. Also, let us not be too soothed by Jon Miller. There is such a things as being too trusting.
Dominae
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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My proposed borders are designed around the idea of a permanent partnership, in which case we don't want to bully Vox into accepting what they regard as a ridiculously small amount of land. But the ten city sites Vox would end up with are not where they'd build their first ten cities if it came to a REXing contest, even a REXing contest with rules against backfilling. In such a contest, they would choose sites with a higher percentage of land tiles as opposed to coast and sea, and that don't stick some cities permanently under size 12. Basically, my idea is to help Vox make the best possible use out of a limited amount of land in hopes of thereby persuading them not to insist on more land.
I do keep some of the jungle for us, with the exact amount depending on whose cities have a higher culture in certain areas where they overlap a little. As for the site #12 area, it's much more important to Vox than it is to us; we have plenty of other food bonuses elsewhere in our nation, and they don't. If we do want a permanent partnership, or even a long-term one, I think the diplomatic gain of letting them have it is worth the cost. (And actually, my plan has them build just south of Lookout Ridge, so while we lose the wheat and fish, we can still get some of the jungle with a city 6-3 from our original planned site.)
Nathan
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:24.
Apolyton Time is 00:24. |
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27-01-2003 05:38
I'm halfway restored and make my second attempt to appear at work tomorrow.
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