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redstar1
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
Apr 2001
time: 05:26
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Apologies to Nimitz and quantum but I've received a message from DeepO regarding a trade. I have responded in a manner I hope you all accept:
DeepO,
Hi mate! I thought you had copied Quantum on both messages as he seemed to have the same as me so i didn't mention it to him. Nimitz is the new FM but as far as I know Quantum is still ambassador so you may tal kto him regarding trades etc. Can copy me if you like though as I am mostly always around.
As for us catching up on tech I don't think we had been doing too badly as we got to pop some tech huts. As of yesterday the team voted to accept a deal from GOW for a tech trade weighted heavily in our favour. You may already know we have contact with GOW. As part of the deal GOW promised to get contacts for us to save us time. However we suspect they are charging well over the odds for our contact and as such we are considering continuing our voyages eastwards. Of course, this is between us
The deal we were offered was truthfully too good to turn down but it does not tie us in to dealing with GOW in the future. For their part of it they would recieve gold from selling our contact.
The deal you suggest is a fantastic oppurtunity also, and we will no doubt bear it in mind should our current commitments fail to be realised.
I should point out however that it is team policy that maps shall never be traded. This was discussed at length and overwhelmingly supported so i hope you understand. We are treating sovereignty as extremely important and in the interests of our national security we ask the other teams to respect that.
In saying that we welcome the contact with GS and the freindship it will inevitably bring. We are unsure of your intention (or not) to receive our contact from GOW and we would appreciate your thoughts on this matter. If we require to continue sailing east we will do so, otherwise we will assign our brave Galley to another task.
I have posted your message in the team forum so it should initiate some discussion!
Hope to hear from you soon.
redstar1
quote:
DeepO wrote on 09-03-2003 23:02:
Basically, this is what we were thinking of:
- We give you the following techs (if you don't have them already, of course): iron working, literature, code of laws, mysticism, horse back riding, mathematics and all techs leading to them if you don't have them already (this should include all level 1 techs).
- We give you all contacts to other civs you might miss
- You give us your world map when the deal starts
- You give us your world map in 20 turns from the start of the deal. In the mean time, you try to exchange your worldmap with a Bobian civ, so that when we receive your second worldmap, hopefully most information on Bob is also included. Notice that you try to exchange it, there is no requirement that you succeed. We would be hoping for it, though, as it is the only real advantage we can get ourselves out of this deal, instead of denying others your cash
- you pay us the symbolic amount of 50 gold, if you somehow get our contact from Bob. If we need to purchase your contact, you agree to pay 50 gold, plus half of what it costs us.
As you can see, this should leave you with whatever reserves you got, and the primary focus of this deal is to not advantage Bobian civs any more then strictly necessary. I strongly doubt that any of them is going to offer you all this for the same price (basically 50 gold plus your WM(twice)). We think that with your UU and isolated position, you are relatively safe from invasions, so a world map might not be that valuable to you. Plus, instead of going through lengthy negotiations with a bunch of civs to get the lowest price while catching up, this deal will give you instantly everything, so that you can start researching immediately, and join the worldwide tech swapping race.
If necessary, I'd love to schedule a chat in order to explain ourselves further, or to take care of the details. Also, please note that this is but a proposal, and before we could go through with such a massive deal, it should be ratified on our board. But so far, there are very few voices of opposition, so you can assume that what I proposed above will most likely get ratified on our side.
Please notify receipt of this message, I can imagine you need some time to discuss this in team, but knowing you received, and are considering it would mean a lot to my (already tensed) nerves 
Kind regards,
DeepO
quote:
quantum_mechani wrote on 09-03-2003 18:28:
This arrangement seems quite fair... unfortunately (for this deal anyway ) our galley recently discovered a channel to Bob, which weans our first contact will have to be with a Bob civ. From where the channel is located this first civ will probably be GoW.
The good news, though, is that you will likely be able to get our contact via another civ in just one or two turns. I hope diplomatic relations with your team won't be negatively impacted by not being Legolands first contact- you can't blame us for wanting diplomatic contact many turns sooner .
I very much hope we can organize some kind of trade in a few turns, so I look forward to hearing from you.
q_m
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redstar1
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
Apr 2001
time: 05:26
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There was a previous message:
quote:
Fw: RE: possible path trade with GS? part 1
Hello redstar1 and quantum_mechani,
I'm forwarding this to both of you, to make sure everyone receives my response, and knows of the current message. redstar1, I forwarded q_m our last two communications, as it seems he was not informed. I'm unsure who I need to contact, could you please clarify this to me? I remembered q_m had problems to log on from time to time, which was my primary reason to post this to you, but I'm getting a little confused here...
As to you seeing Bob: great! The sooner the both us can get into contact, the better. We'll certainly will try to get into contact with you asap, however, if you value what we have to offer, you might want to start negotiating for our contact too.
As mentioned in my previous communication, we would like it if we could become your primary tech supplier, in order to make it possible for you to catch up asap. A strong legoland is in our best interest, while Bobian civs will be a lot more interested in making themselves strong (we do not, we simply want to keep Bob from becoming omnipotent). The discussion on how we can do that is still going on, but I think I can be a lot more specific this time.
First of all, I consider this diplomatic contact top-secret, like all diplomatic negotiations. Please keep this to yourselves, we don't particularly trust people that use quotes from negotiatons with third parties to get a better deal (believe me, it happens too often in this game). Even if this negotiation would somehow fail, it will still be top-secret to us, I hope you have the same opinions on this point.
Secondly, I mentioned before that we have no interest in draining your treasury, but we want to avoid that one or more Bobian civs gets a large amount of cash, as it won't be good for the stability on Bob. If one civ would get into a position to dominate that continent, the game is essentially over. Your cash could be just that what makes one party superiour to another.
Ourselves, we don't need that cash, well, better said we would like it of course, but don't really need it to keep our position in this world. Maybe a symbolic amount of cash would be needed to pursuade all our members of the validity of this deal, but there is something else we are interested in, which costs you nothing: your World Map. We are not interested in this to invade legoland soon (if ever), but we hope that we can reach an agreement so that we somehow can use it to gain information on Bob. It looks like in the future, some kind of action is needed to keep a civ on Bob to become too large, but we have a hard time assessing the situation, as all three civs claim to be in the disadvantage, and the information we have suggests that all three of them pose a great risk to us in the long term (e.g. in the military advisor, all 3 civs have a strong military compared to us, and we thought our military wasn't small to begin with).
... To be continued
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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I find it interesting that the deal GS offered is - despite not being bad - worse than what we got from GoW. By dealing with GoW, we were able to keep our map to ourselves. Plus completely catch up (even if not for a very long time, likely to fall behind again, if not trading The Republic around) for the cost of one cheap tech. We should consider ourselves very lucky I believe - and smart... contacting GoW first was the right decision (even if there was very little choice).
On another note, I had an idea about a future deal with GS that might make them our good friends. As you know, we shall start researching The Republic immediately after getting all the techs promised by GoW. GS is supposed to be beelining for The Republic as well.
So, the deal I have in mind is like this: let's get together and tell each other how long it shall take to research it. The one that will be able to get it quicker (I assume it would be us) would go for it, the other team would shut their research completely, saving the cash. Once the team researching the Republic discovers it, the other team would get it for a certain share of the saved cash. I would propose 1/2 of the beaker cost in gold if there is no "no tech whoring" clause, 1/3 of the beaker cost if the team getting it for money would agree not to trade it to anyone else (admittedly, this could not be the case, if we were to buy it from GS, as we would need to trade it with GoW and RPers).
I would probably inform them that we already have deals arranged (if they really are arranged by that time) with GoW and RPers, so they know what the "whoring potential" is when deciding whether to go for 1/2 or 1/3 price option.
What do you think?
It might make them more willing to trade for our contact...
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redstar1
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
Apr 2001
time: 05:26
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Someone's not a happy camper....
quote:
redstar1, quantum_mechani,
Sorry for the confusion, I should have copied both of you in all my messages. I received your previous messages, and although a little disappointed on the outcome, I'm glad that one of our primary concerns (having a weak legoland) is not an issue it seems.
A longer reply will follow after discussion by my team (plus, I don't have a lot of time right now, tonight things should get better), but some fast comments:
- We certainly understand you don't want to trade your worldmap, but we figured that of all the civs in this game, you were the team that would be least disadvantaged by trading away your world map. You are least likely to face an invasion... at least that's our analysis. We're quite protective of our map as well, but this comes from pure necessity.
- It's good to see you got more techs from huts then anticipated, and trading away philosophy was probably in your best interest in the short term. I hope you got enough out of it...
- ... because what it achieved was exactly what we feared. Now GoW not only is whoring your contact around, but also philosophy. They contacted everyone the moment you two met, denying you any possibility to trade philosophy to anyone, nor your contact. Many teams will fall for this, with as a result that GoW benefits tremendously from being in the right spot on the right time. It's hard to assess exactly how many gold they will get from it, but it will translate in to hundreds of gold pieces for them, a concentration that can be dangerous on Bob. Maybe GoW is the smallest of all Bobian civs (they claim so, we have no way of knowing), but their UU is coming up soon, and all this cash to upgrade the horses they are building right now to riders... ouch.
- we're not interested in philosophy, because between my message to you and now, we acquired it as well. As to your contact: please continue your journey towards us, I'm not sure if our team is willing to give even more gold to GoW if there is no urgent need. It's not that we don't like GoW, this is simply a matter of risk management.
I hope you still view our proposal as a way to balance things out, apart from a possible Bob map, we were not to gain anything from it by whoring stuff around, whereas GoW (or any other Bobian civ, I'm sure) will take this gift from Lady fortune with both hands.
As to your point on republic: it's an interesting proposal. Allow me to post it on our board before further commenting on it. But please realise one thing: half the beaker cost in gold with an non disclosure agreement does not seem fair in this game, don't put your hopes to high on this one, as prices have been considerably lower in general. It's not our idea, by the way, as our research has always been more then adequate, but we have to follow the flow
More later, kind regards,
DeepO
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redstar1
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
Apr 2001
time: 05:26
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More messages:
quote:
Thanks for your message redstar1.
It seems I won't get to respond in full tonight, (ah, that disease they call real life ), but I'm happy we're not very far apart in opinions. I sincerely hope you got a good deal out of GoW, that in itself might balance Bob. It's good to see you're keeping world politics in mind, it's one of the most enjoyable and complex aspects of this game.
Thanks for the clarification on republic, maybe we can get to a deal here. Indeed, I assumed you said that the no whoring clause would apply only to us. Negotiations will have to be quickly here to avoid any loss, but could you clarify one thing to us in the mean time: are you proposing this deal to other civs as well? Not that I would mind you trying to get the advantage where it can be found, but it would perhaps have an impact on our decision.
No apologies needed on how the market values tech, I'm sorry if I came on too hard. Please blame it on my bad English; it was an attempt on good advice . One of the reasons why GoW will probably be very succesful with your contact and philosophy is that they will charge bottom prices... to 4 civs. Right now, they are a middleman to you, even if it probably won't take long. This is exactly what created initial tension between us and Vox, and between Bob and Lux. I can imagine that GoW was happy for the opportunity, but I fear to what it can lead.
Speak to you soon,
DeepO
Redstar1, two more little questions (catching up on the board, but I wanted to reply to you first):
GoW did receive code of laws from us as part of a previous deal, however, there was a (limited time) no-whoring clause on it (for which they asked, BTW). Are they proposing to trade it to you? If so, that information would be of great importance to us, as it would essentially mean they are breaking a treaty. We value honesty in trades as our main priority, trust is based in most on how honorably we consider another team.
Of course, as GoW legally can't trade you CoL - assuming they keep to their part of the bargain - we would be happy to provide it to you as (part of) a deal. Would you be interested in this?
Secondly, would it be possible to know if you got a probable ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) on republic? Possibly, there is a better way than your proposal...
DeepO
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Tiberius
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Europe
Jan 2000
time: 06:26
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quote:
GoW did receive code of laws from us as part of a previous deal, however, there was a (limited time) no-whoring clause on it (for which they asked, BTW). Are they proposing to trade it to you? If so, that information would be of great importance to us, as it would essentially mean they are breaking a treaty. We value honesty in trades as our main priority, trust is based in most on how honorably we consider another team. |
Of course we will tell them that we got CoL from GoW. We don't have a clause with GoW not to tell where did we get the techs from, and it is in our best interest to have GS work/trade rather with us than with GoW. We should however ask them not to mention this to the GoW.
Be aware! We must be honest in all of our treaties This could be one of ours best advantages in the long run. We are commercial, we have potential to have loads of money, we have resources to trade, good relations with basically everybody, we can get good treaties so lets push our reputation of good traders as far as we can.
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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OK, this would be my attempt to solve the current situation in a way acceptable for both us and GS:
Dear DeepO,
We are happy to hear that you do not mind our deal with GoW. It really was in our best interest to trade Philosophy for all the yet undiscovered, but generally known technologies - we would not be able to make any contact on our own terms within at least 7 more turns, which would put us in a position much worse (at the very least, Philosophy would lose its value by that time, forcing us to spend gold).
Alas, CoL is among the techs GoW offered for the trade and made part of the deal. We feel honestly sorry for that, but we had no idea they were not allowed to trade it to us, if that's the case. As asking or forcing them to remove the Code of Laws from the complex deal would result in delaying it by at least one more turn, we would prefer you not opposing it. Let's hope there is a different way to solve the problem... I will outline few proposals later on...
Now, about the deal on The Republic. Our solid estimate is that we would have it researched no later than on Turn 89, so you could have it on Turn 90. Depending on whether you can have it earlier or not, we would suggest that:
1) only one of our two teams researches it, with the other one shutting down his research completely (or researching something else, whatever that team considers best)
2) the team actually researching The Repubic would provide it to the other team on the very turn it would be discovered
3) the price for the technology would be 1/4 of the beaker cost in gold in case that the recipient agrees to not provide The Republic to anyone else, 1/2 of the beaker cost in gold if no such clause is negotiated. (Note, please, that amounts mentioned are just proposals, that need not be very justified - we do not have a very sharp idea about how much techs cost in the big world... it would be very likely that we would be able to "divide" spheres of trading influence, adjusting the price accordingly).
Note, please, that we are currently considering trading The Republic to two other teams, exchanging it for other technologies we will need to enter the Medieval times. So if we were the team shutting the research down, we would definitely go for the higher price with an option to trade The Republic to at least these two teams.
We understand that such a deal would require quite some degree of mutual trust - for our part, we hereby declare that we do have such trust in GS to go for the deal, if accepted (indicated by the fact that we have disclosed our research potential without being granted the same).
We would like to point out that our intention was not to make a deal bringing us money or a tech advantage, but to increase the combined profit of our teams, accomodating you at least a bit for the fact that we were not able to make our first contact with you. If we both went for the same tech, we would spend twice as much beakers (combined) to get it, without actually gaining any significant advantage, as it is unlikely that either one of our teams would be able to get it sooner enough to be able to whore it around fast enough to push the other one completely out of the loop.
And now for the unlucky CoL issue... it is of course up to you to resolve the issue with GoW, but it would make our life easier if you let it be, just keeping it in your mind while negotiating your future deals... you may keep the information to yourself ATM, asking a better price in our Republic deal, you may ask GoW for a free contact with us for tolerating their breach... we leave this up to you.
I don't think we were prohibited from prenegotiating future deals with other teams, while GoW were busy negotiating the Lego contact & Philosophy deals... and as the CoL inclusion has been revealed indirectly by discussing a future Republic deal, GoW should not be able to blame us for any "disclosure" (especially if they broke a trade treaty without informing us). Still, we would prefer if this never surfaces up...
With kindest regards,
...
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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I will chime in and say that redstar1 put it better than I would be able to. To keep the game running, decisions and negotiations need to be done in a matter of hours, not days. I understand that it may sometime look like we are playing our own game, making others observers only...
It is not like that. I (and redstar1, too, I am sure) do my best to "sense" or "feel" what the team wants and use my common sense to figure out what the best way to handle things for Lego is. The very moment you tell me I am losing this ability, I will immediately slow down and wait longer for everybody's input - I hope no decision or proposal has been made so far that would be against what you, guys, would agree with.
This GS CoL problem is a very good example. I am quite sure that GS is now sitting on the save only because of waiting for our response - subject to what we agree upon with them, they will need to adjust their research, approach or not approach GoW, buying or not buying our contact etc. Indirectly forcing them to waste their timecounter time just because we'd need to "consult" would be likely to feed animosity...
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redstar1
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
Apr 2001
time: 05:26
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quote:
redstar1, some preliminary comments (these PMs keep being preliminary, it seems, I'm sorry that I can't wait until I fully got confirmation on my board before replying to you. But timing is critical...)
First of all CoL: We do not hold you responsible for what happened, you couldn't have known they were bound by a treaty to us. As a result, of course we are not going to ask for measures from you, the impact will only be between GoW and GS. I can solemnly swear it is the thruth, though, GoW was not allowed to trade CoL yet, they needed to wait a number of turns before doing that, and they violated that agreement.
The irony is that it was them that asked for the non-whoring clause, which they thought would only have an impact on what they traded to us, because the only one we couldn't negotiate a CoL trade with was legoland, while they were only starting negotiating their tech. So they abused their own rule, for the only shot they had at abusing it... talk about being opportunistic
I fully understand you would rather not have this information leak out, and I presonally respect that. You were not obliged to tell us CoL was part of the GoW deal, so we owe you on this one. However, I don't know if my team will simply 'let it pass', personally I feel that GoW needs to be pointed to their mistake. They know we value honesty in trades above all else, deliberately breaching that trust must have repercussions. What exactly the consequences will be is something GS needs to discuss, but if possible, we will keep you out of it.
It is of course possible to be vague, and ask them "how can it be that legoland is about to start on republic if nobody without GoW has contact with them, and it is highly unlikely legoland could have researched CoL themselves?". This should leave you out of the loop, again, we do not blame you for this.
After discussion on our team, I'll inform you on how we will deal with it (of course, if a certain payment is going to be demanded from GoW, what exactly that payment will be falls under our "negotiations are secret" policy.) I can tell you one thing, this will certainly mean that we would be even more unwilling to pay GoW steep prices for your contact.
On to republic: I hope I'm right that this means you have not started on republic yet, while we have already. I do not know an exact eta for it (there is a scenario we use to more accurately predict these things, so I'll ask), however I'm positive we will get it before turn 89. As said, our research is quite adequate
We have been discussing the options a little, and would like to somehow split research / cost between us, instead of being each other's competitor. Not only would it decrease cost, but it would also make it possible to delay the other teams' transition to republic, giving us a (small) advantage... I can't be more specific on this, I simply don't know how my team will react. I can tell you my preferences, and rest assured that I value your team more then any of the Bobian ones, but I'm biased as I'm your ambassador. I do not want to tell you something which I later have to recall because we can't reach an agreement within our team.
One thing I can say is that in this situation, we will certainly want to have some kind of deal in place between our two teams instead of doing the research twice. I can't say for sure we would value other techs over gold, and I certainly can't comment on whether we will ask to limit who you trade it to. This needs to be discussed in GS before I can respond to that. However, to avoid any loss, please do not start on republic if you are not willing to write of the invested beakers as a loss when we will reach an agreement.
One of the problems here is that we will need the techs to advance to a next age, so somehow, we're going to need to trade for them. I do not know who is researching what in the other teams, but as there are only 3 techs left we need, and 5 teams outside of us, somebody is going to do something double. Add to this that if a war would break out on Bob (in our analysis a very likely scenario), their research is going to slow down, perhaps even onto the point that we'd better research everything ourselves. The only other team which has a shot on doing research relatively undisturbed is Vox, maybe we should include them in a deal for techs.
One rumour we heared was that somebody has been working on construction, but this rumour came in the last days of Lux. We have no possibility checking its validity. If so, Currency might be a good option for you, but again, please do not take this advice too rigourusly, I do not know for sure.
I'll get back to you on this with more precise information, also on when we consider it possible to research republic.
Final comment (for now): please do not take my question on who else you proposed this to the wrong way, again, of course you are allowed to trade anything you want to to anyone, and future techs can be negotiated. However, we quite explicititly did not trade this information to other teams, as we were still investigating if it would be possible to break the current tech-race. We are quite sure that nobody can get the republic before we'll finish it (and your eta confirms this), and we were still brainstorming on how we could benefit most greatly from this. Again, you're most likely the team which poses the least threat to our immediate survival, so we would be happy to get some kind of deal between us going which benefits us both, at the expense of other teams.
My question had two intentions: first of all to find out if you consider us 'special' like we consider you, second it was a half attempt at finding out how many teams we could not trade the republic to if we were going to let it come without a no-whoring clause. It was easier to ask this from you, instead of needing to contact all teams separately, and show our intentions. GS has the reputation of being secretive, and there is some thruth to this...
more later,
kind regards,
DeepO
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by redstar1
No apologies necessary for the preliminary nature of these PM's. I too am coordinating this with the team and playing the timing game as well |
Just the typo.
quote:
Originally posted by redstar1
Firstly on the CoL matter. We still think things would be best left unsaid, at least for the forseeable future and we would ask you again to consider keeping things under wraps. It is your decision of course and we respect that. If you decide to pursue action then we would be grateful if you could keep us generally informed of what is happening so we can respond correctly if GOW were to confront us about it. |
Perhaps add a small notice about the DeepO's fine idea on telling GoW "how come Lego proposes a deal on Rep, when they are highly unlikely to have CoL, unless you broke our deal and traded it to them?" This would be something that would definitely keep us out of the whole thing, as GF would be unable to blame us, since he did not inform us about the problem in advance.
quote:
Originally posted by redstar1
Republic:
Assuming all goes well with our trades then we will start researching Republic immediately. That was the plan of course. It seems fairly secure that you will research it before us so we are happy to put our research plans to other tech. We would certainly appreciate a trade proposal from yourselves on Republic. |
I would go as far as lightly push our own proposal. Considering the situation, I would scrap The Republic and go for Construction instead (we should really find out whether RPers want to pursue the deal with us or not, even if it means pressing them a bit - if they do not agree fast enough, I'd make a deal on Construction with GoW instead and go for Currency+Polytheism ourselves), researching initially at 100% (on condition we sign the deal with RPers, slowing down later, timing the discovery in such a way that we'd discover it shortly before GS discovers Rep, saving cash along the way).
So, my proposal would be:
1) we give them Construction plus whatever cash they ask for one turn before they finish researching Republic
2) they give us Republic on the very turn they discover it, allowing us to trade it to (at least) RPers (maybe to GoW with some sort of a delay) at any time.
Alternatively, we might offer two of the techs they will need to enter medieval times, but no cash (kinda like our planned deal with RPers, but inside out).
This still gives a good degree of freedom for the GS to adjust the deal to their liking (1 tech + cash or 2 techs + no cash).
quote:
Originally posted by redstar1
Finally, from ourselves, I can assure you that we did not take any questions the wrong way. We appreciate your concerns and we can state that it is not our policy to 'whore' deals around. Of course we discuss deals with anyone prepared to talk but we only make offers on specific deals to specific teams on the basis of our general strategy. From experience we believe you to do the same, and other teams to perhaps have more of an 'open' trading policy. Any deal that we were to offer you would be a deal only for yourselves and we would not be getting you involved in a 'bidding war'. We appreciate GS' reputation for secrecy and we can certainly identify with it. Be assured that we treat you as you treat us |
Dunno about the last sentence... I am sort of cautious telling anyone they are "special" to us. Perhaps I would try something like this:
Speaking of "being special"... having just made our first contact, everybody is "special" to us in a way. Who is going to remain "special", however, depends on who we strike fine deals with... we are pretty flexible and have no really strong ties to any of the teams, so we are likely to find our place in this world only within a couple of turns.
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Tiberius
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Europe
Jan 2000
time: 06:26
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This is becoming complicated.
Certain/highly probable events:
- GS are working already on the Republic, probably could finish it before us
- RP are working on Polytheism, with Monarchy coming next
- ND working on Commerce, will trade it for Polytheism with the RP
- the GoW has presumably just started working on Construction
- we don't know about the Voxes; most probably have some sort of treaty with the GS
So most of the techs, if not all of them, are in progress already. We could maybe beat the GoW on Construction, but what would we trade then with them?
Anything else seems to be futile to start researching now.
The only possible deal would be then:: we research Construction, give it to the GS, receive Republic, give it to the RP, receive Currency + Polytehism, give one of them to the GS. If we do it this way, what are we going to do about the GoW, since we won't have what to trade with them? Do this "split the gold" thing with them, maybe? (give them Construction after we traded it with GS and receive half of the money they made in the meantime?) But then, they will want the Republic as soon as we get it, what the GS won't approve.
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Tiberius
The only possible deal would be then:: we research Construction, give it to the GS, receive Republic, give it to the RP, receive Currency + Polytehism, give one of them to the GS. If we do it this way, what are we going to do about the GoW, since we won't have what to trade with them? Do this "split the gold" thing with them, maybe? (give them Construction after we traded it with GS and receive half of the money they made in the meantime?) But then, they will want the Republic as soon as we get it, what the GS won't approve. |
There is no obligation to trade with GoW... if they have nothing to trade, we just tell them: sorry, guys, bad luck. I would probably focus on having only few deals, but have them carefully thought out.
Currently, I can see these scenarios, which are equally acceptable:
1) we shut our own research down completely and get Rep from GS for cash only... trade it to RPers for Curr+Poly and to GoW for Construction
2) we research Construction at less than 100%, saving some cash... we exchange Construction and some cash for Rep with GS... and trade it with RPers for Curr+Poly (no deal with GoW)
3) we research Polytheism & Currency ourselves, exchange them for Rep with GS... trading Rep for Construction with GoW (no deal with RPers, or maybe sell them Rep for cash)
So, what we urgently need to know first is, whether RPers wish to pursue the proposed deal on Republic and on what terms. Nimitz, would you take care of finding out ASAP?
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by vondrack
Currently, I can see these scenarios, which are equally acceptable:
1) we shut our own research down completely and get Rep from GS for cash only... trade it to RPers for Curr+Poly and to GoW for Construction
2) we research Construction at less than 100%, saving some cash... we exchange Construction and some cash for Rep with GS... and trade it with RPers for Curr+Poly (no deal with GoW)
3) we research Polytheism & Currency ourselves, exchange them for Rep with GS... trading Rep for Construction with GoW (no deal with RPers, or maybe sell them Rep for cash)
So, what we urgently need to know first is, whether RPers wish to pursue the proposed deal on Republic and on what terms. Nimitz, would you take care of finding out ASAP? |
Ahem... following my morning conversation with Togas, which indicated RPers were unlikely to sign a deal that would go as far as 20 turns into the future, I think I now have an idea how to proceed.
1) forget RPers... they are not playing fair with us (or, at least they do not care about us enough to justify taking special measures in dealing with them).
2) researchable techs to choose from:
Polytheism, cost 12
Currency, cost 16
Construction, cost 20
The Republic, cost 28
3) knowing that RPers are already researching the cheap Polytheism, there is no point is going after the same tech. Once they have it, they will start selling it around and its cost will go down, probably making it available from more than one source.
4) knowing the GoW plans to research Construction, I would let them do so, allowing them to have something to trade with us (we want them to be our good trading partners); they have their cities along rivers, which indicates a reasonable research potential.
5) knowing that ND started in a jungle, unlikely to have a very high research output (plus draining their pop by REXing), I'd go for Currency at 100%. We are likely to beat them to it, trading it (together with some cash) to GoW for their Construction, trading then Curr+Constr to GS for The Republic... getting Polytheism somewhere along the way... possibly even from RPers, that might be happy to have no need to trade for Currency with ND).
6) Currency will allow us to build marketplaces in our core cities, which will significantly increase our research output, further speeding up our research
7) Construction, needed for Aqueducts & Colloseums, will not be needed within at least the next 20 turns, as none of our cities is going to hit pop 6+ sooner. And up to pop 7, we will be able to handle happiness with MP and Dyes.
8) Polytheism allows nothing really special to be built and is needed only to get us to the medieval times... thus my suggestion to leave it for later.
So, to sum this up, I would suggest:
1) to GoW: propose exchanging Construction for Currency + some cash (I would suggest proposing Currency on the turn we discover it, with a no-whoring clause for, say, 20 turns... cash upon the delivery of Construction... or the other way round, their choice)
2) to GS: propose exchanging The Republic for Currency and Construction. Because of the huge research cost difference, suggest balancing the deal by cash or by putting some sort of an (in)exclusivity on the techs being traded - like we would be able to trade Republic to Bobians after some time, or they would not be allowed to trade our techs to anybody, or to Voxes only etc.
3) start researching Currency at 100%
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Tiberius
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Europe
Jan 2000
time: 06:26
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Why don't we do it this way:
Make an agreement with the Gow: we research Construction and they put their slider on 0; upon the discovery of Construction, they give us 1/4 of the money they made in the meantime. In the same time, each of us will have exclusivity to trade it on only one continent: they on Bob, we on Estonia. After they trade it with ND, they give us Currency. (it is a good deal for them; they get 2 techs and loads of money; they will need them to upgrade their horses).
Edit:
1. On a second thought, they should give us 1/2 of the money. Construction is more costly than Currecy, plus we both would gain the same 2 techs and the same amount of money. They could maybe get some extra money from ND.
2. Downside: They may not "bite" this, as exclusivity on Bob would mean for them trading constr. with the RP only, while for us exclusivity on Estonia would mean 2 possible trading partners; so they might ask for something extra; more money maybe (2/3 ?) or something else
We trade then Constr+Currency for the Republic with the GS. We don't take money from them, but exclusivity to trade Rep on Bob, after a number of turns. Given the time delay, we should be able to get Monarchy and Polytheism for it.
We get at least 3 techs and some money.
Edit: As pointed out by Radek in the following post, the biggest concern of this plan is making GoW too powerful on Bob. However, at this point, they seem to be the weakest
This is now heavily edited: after the deal, we would warn ND and RP that GoW has loads of money and their UU is approaching. This would slow down very much research on Bob, all of them focusing on a likely war. Also the possibility that one of them would build a medieval wonder would be close to 0. With us becoming Republic and the Bob civs Monarchy, we could gain a significant lead, if the war could be kept somehow balanced.
Last edited by Tiberius on 12-03-2003 at 15:46
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10-03-2003 14:13
I think GS will be a good trading partner for us in the future. 
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