Gathering Storm - correspondence & foreign affairs

[Tiberius]

No wonder the proposal was approved unanimously on their board Fortunately time is more pressing for them than for us. We will have Currency in 4 turns, while the Republic is coming later (in 6, AFAIR).

[redstar1]

DeepO,

No problem on the delay, we all have a life outside here

We are however, somewhat confused...

We understood Currency and Construction would be a straight trade for Republic as soon as is possible. We are however prepared to gift Currency and Construction one turn before you gift us Republic. This one turn difference would be the most we can afford as every turn counts.

Could you expand on 'Natural Disasters' please?

We also understood that the 'free' tech from Vox would in fact, be free. Without this deal we would be able to attain it ourselves for Currency & Construction so we would require the result to be the same with yourselves effectively acting as broker. We must have misunderstood each other on this so we perhaps need to discuss this further.

In any case, we see the deal as follows:

1. Lego gives GS Curr&Const 1 turn before Lego receives Rep from GS
2. GS are free to trade C&C to Vox on the condition that they supply us with Monotheism for free immediately they receive it from Vox.
3. GS are free to trade C&C to ND

We hope we can come to agreement on this and we hope for a long and fruitful trading relationship between ourselves. It may come to pass that we are the only two nations yet untarnished by conflict...

Apologies about the chat last night, I was not here much so hopefully next week will be more fruitful!

Many thanks

Redstar1

[redstar1]

redstar1,

no problem on the explanations, that's why we want these proposals to be precise I thought everything came from the chat, but it's only normal that both parties have a different understanding on the contents, so better to make it clear then.

Currency&Construction for republic should be okay for us, we'd prefer to have it beforehand, so we don't waste turns on less then 100% science, though. That's why we asked for immediate, but 1 turn beforehand should be fine as well.

Natural disasters: when recounting, it seems we made a little mistake, in that we missed one turn. At best, we should get republic in turn 83, and if anything would go wrong, that goes to turn 84. And it seems something is going wrong, there has been a lot of pressure coming from Bob, and it might be needed for us to change the order in which our cities are founded to better protect out territory... it's not definate yet, but that change might make republic only possible in turn 84, leaving us no time in between getting the tech, and trading it onwards.

The problem is Vox... there was some kind of implicit understanding that we wouldn't bother to settle Bob, and none of the Bobians would come bother us here. But, last turn, Vox landed a settler and a couple of immortals on Bob, and GoW is getting pissed, and threatening. They somehow think it is a common plan of Vox and GS to invade them... as a result, we need to rearrange our cities, to settle in more defensive position first, instead of going for the least corrupted, and most commerce city sites...

Natural disasters: normally this shouldn't cover changes in city placement because of external tension, the intention (and when I first wrote it, the only real reason) for that clause is because we have been hit by disease a couple of times already in this game. And, because of the bug that disease strikes for two consecutive turns each time it hits you, this can make a big difference in gathered resources... we would have been over 3 cities more powerful now, if it wasn't for disease. It was simply a clause that would make it possible for us to be unlucky in the game, without needing to feel the diplomatic repercussions of that.

Free tech: I misuderstood you, I think... I only stated in chat that we would trade it to you, implying at a favorable price, because it wouldn't be logical for Vox to give it to you for free (and neither would it for us to give republic+monotheism for currency+construction, that's about triple the beaker cost). I do not think anyone of our team will agree for this...

Sorry, hard pressed for time (I need to give classes now), more this evening. Please don't hesitate to contact me!

DeepO

[Tiberius]

It isn't republic+monotheism for currency+construction, it's republic+monotheism for currency+construction+right to trade currency+construction to Vox.

Otherwise we would just trade currency+construction for Monotheism with Vox.

I hate to say it, but: I told you

[redstar1]

DeepO,

I think we have interpreted some things in different ways, but no matter, its nothing serious and we can work through them

You have our sympathies with disease. We too have lots of Jungle but thankfully we have so far avoided any major incidents.

We fully appreciate the situation with Vox maybe be somewhat pressing for yourselves and hopefully it will not disrupt your plans too much. It may even give ourselves an oppurtunity to gain an advantage over the others

On the free tech issue... can you specify what a 'fair price' would be?
Would you be willing to consider extending the sphere of influence concept to include Monotheism? ie We get rights to trade to GOW and yourselves the rest?

If we remove Mono from the equation altogether, then the deal as we see it currently would need to be:

1. Currency & Construction for Republic, within the timeframe agreed upon.
2. Both sides agree not to 'Whore' the tech(s) received for a specified perios of time, say 20 turns.

Would this be agreeable?

Redstar1

[Tiberius]

Is this a bluff? If so,
This should bring them back on the ground. They were dreaming to ripp off Lego.

I hope it'll work, because we have an agreement with the GoW to give them the Republic. However I think the GoW will be happy to give us less money for a trade without Republic. This shouldn't be a problem.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Is this a bluff? If so,
This should bring them back on the ground. They were dreaming to ripp off Lego.

I hope it'll work, because we have an agreement with the GoW to give them the Republic. However I think the GoW will be happy to give us less money for a trade without Republic. This shouldn't be a problem.

Fortunately, the deal with GoW has not been signed yet. I have sent the final document to GoW earlier today (forgot to do that before) and GF asked for easing the no-whoring clause a bit... so there is a possibility of dropping Republic from that deal altogether, possibly lowering the price a bit... I am working on that.

[vondrack]

OK, a quick update. Talking to GF of GoW earlier today, he expressed a lot of interest in acquiring Republic from us, so dropping that from our deal seems to be unlikely (the deal is still being debated a bit, but basically agreed upon).

TOP SECRET INFO: GF told me all the Bobian civs were going to declare war on Estonians this turn. Let's see what that does for our cause... until then, we shall not respond to last DeepO's message (the last redstar's message was actually not sent - it's just a draft).

Also, I have arranged a chat with BetaHound of Voxes for 10:00pm GMT this evening - I hope to get detailed info on how likely it is or might be to trade for Monotheism with Voxes directly, bypassing the "greedy" GS. (Tibi, if you can drop into the Lego chatroom around 10pm GMT, I'd copy the conversation for you, so that you can follow it and suggest ideas. I believe that an "informal" chat would be best to start with... but if things go smoothly, we may later make it more official by Nimitz, you, and redstar joining in (whoever is online at that moment).

[Tiberius]

10 PM GMT is a little late for me (midnight, so "a hard day's night" ) but I'll try to be there.

[ZargonX]

GF told me all the Bobian civs were going to declare war on Estonians this turn. Let's see what that does for our cause

Do they intend to fight both Estonian civs? If so, things could turn out a lot differently...

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Do they intend to fight both Estonian civs? If so, things could turn out a lot differently...

Not sure... here is a short excerpt from my chat with GhengisFarb today:

GhengisFarb: What's up?
vondrack: we are having sort of tough time dealing with Estonians
GhengisFarb: Everybody is.
vondrack:
vondrack: now, what would help us
vondrack: if we can press them a bit
GhengisFarb: ND, GoW, And Roleplay will all declare war on them today, will that press them a bit?

So, it actually depends on what GF understood under the term "Estonians". We (Lego) use it to denote Voxes and GS. He might have only Voxes in mind, though...

[ZargonX]

Well, GF has indicated in the past that he feels that Vox and GS act as one (which we know not to be the case). With that mindset, though, he could balloon the conflict to involve both civs. In that instance, we would be the only civ in the world not at war, and that could benefit us greatly

... of course, it could also adversely effect us down the road, but we'll get to that later...

[redstar1]

Ok, here is the new proposal:

DeepO,

I think we probably have misunderstood each other on this issue

Let us simplify the deal somewhat. We propose:

1. Lego gives GS Currency & Construction including resale rights to Vox.
2. In exchange, 1 turn later, GS will give Lego Republic, plus 75 gold (should account for the beaker difference). GS will also grant Lego resale rights for GOW.

How does this sound?

redstar1

[vondrack]

After having almost the whole day to think the deal with GS over, I suggest we respond as follows:

Dear DeepO,

I think we probably have misunderstood each other on the issue of the free technology. Our original idea was that it would be kinda like a three-sided deal with GS, Vox, and Lego involved. GS would be providing Republic, Voxes would be providing their free tech, and Lego would be providing Currency+Construction (beaker costs approximately the same...). Everybody was supposed to get all the techs - it seemed to be a fair deal to us.

Well, we now see that it is not probably going to work, so let's try discussing two possibilities:

1) suppose we agree to get Monotheism from you for a "favourable price" - what is your idea of this "favourable price", please?

2) suppose we get all the way back to your original idea: trading Currency+Construction (resale rights for Voxes & ND included) for Republic+gold (resale rights for GoW and maybe RPers included). How much gold would you offer to balance the beaker cost difference between The Republic (672) and Currency+Construction combined (384+480=864)? The resale right part is fortunately equal on both sides...

If you can provide us with some figures for both of these option, it would help us to make our choice and proceed with the deal.

Best regards,
redstar1

[redstar1]

redstar1, I suspected this... a miscommunication, no fault or wrong intent by either side... so let's get back to the trading table then, I'm sure we'll work something out

Unfortunately, I still was unable to fully catch up to the current situation, but from our side, one of the reason to make this a double 2-sided deal instead of a 3-side one is that we need some options in how to deal with Vox. This was true beforehand because Vox is unstable, a (long term) risk to us, and we had a former deal to wrap up, but this has become even more true given the new situation.

With Vox and Bob very close to, or even in the middle of a war, they become an even larger liability. Normally, they should be able to survive to the time we need to supply cons+curr to them, but if Bob really does unite against Vox - as GF has been claiming - they will not survive much longer after getting monotheism. It could make their willingness to trade with us as a group a whole lot more difficult. Consider that, if Vox knows that GS and the Legos are getting very close, they also know that somewhere down the road they are being dropped from the head of the tech race, a position they now only have because of us.

Given this, there are two things we would like to insist on:
1) this deal will be between us two, with perhaps reasonable guesses of what others can contribute, but without them getting involved in our agreement. We'll deal with Vox separately, we simply have to.

2) as much as possible, we try to consider monotheism as something we aim for, but not something definate, as the situation with Vox does not make it a definate thing. Making it part of the deal makes sense as it will be the next tech on the market, and either one of us will need it to start on hiis new tech, but we should provide enough "plan B"s in case something goes wrong when getting it. We thought Lux would be an advantage to us if we let them stay on our continent, we were wrong... we rather not have another diplo hit because some civ gets eradicated.

Further ideas: Vox will get construction and currency from us, we are bound here by a former deal we can not revoke, nor renegotiate. They could agree to get it from you for some laugable price (which I believe they have tried to negotiate to see what the current price for techs are), but never will they pay anything valuable because they already have one source secured. If they wouldn't get the techs from us, they will not get any compensation out of our side, so anything they spend is a pure loss. (except for improved relations, which are perhaps the most valuable asset in this game)

... continued...

...

As to your questions:
1) "favourable price" could mean a lot, but basically in this context it means that we fully understand the 'first' deal of curr+constr for rep is largely in our favor, and we owe you for that. We would like to have it included in (at least the beginning of) a long term tech deal, which would make its virtual value its beaker cost, to be offsetted by a future trade from us.

If I need to put a money tag on it (mind you, my opinion, GS has not seen this yet), I would say that a favourable price should mean that for all the deals other teams might strike on that tech, legoland should get the bottom price. That should be low enough, I think, but it's hard to put a precise number of it... maybe half, or one third of 'first' price.

2) not nit-picking, but the resale part of the techs is not the same, not by far even. If we get currency+construction from you, the moment we get it, at least 4 other teams have it as well, perhaps even 5 of them (only leaving Vox as last). We could 'resell' it to them, but the actual value of it is bottom price, as in theory (without the previous GS-Vox deal) they would have 4 or 5 sources to trade it from. Further, you will resell the techs to us, instead of researching themselves. Not that it tastes any different, but those are third-hand techs we're getting

Republic, OTOH, has full resell value, you will get it before anyone else by at least a few turns, and you will have two sure buyers for it. They will still offer premium prices (and you better insist on it!), as they will not be able to get it from another source, we will not sell it to them, and will enforce NDAs on 'our' rep-deals.
Last resale comment: ND is no sure buyer for us, maybe we can enforce republic, but the other techs they will likely get before us.

So, the resale part does negate the pure difference cost in beakers a bit, meaning that difference should translate into about 40 gold or so (again, no proposal, just a personal guess!). Instead of precisely calculating the costs, we would rather have this surpluss written on our 'GS favour -- needs to be repaid to Lego' tab, and solving the difference with a future deal.

But if you want, I can start an official poll on how much we would be willing to pay in gold; I'll gladly do it if it would make the deal easier for you. We are not that short on change to risk losing friends

Kind regards,
DeepO

[redstar1]

I'm getting mightily pissed off with these guys....

[redstar1]

Ok draft response..... somewhat confrontational but I'm a bit pissed off

DeepO,

Our intelligence suggests that the Bob nations are in no position currently to seriously threaten the Vox homeland, assuming they really intend to. We are not concerned with the future of Vox.

The favorable price issue regarding Monotheism is one which is certainly difficult to quantify. Suffice to say at this stage we are happy to keep things simple and work on the origional deal.

We are still confused by your theory that all teams will acquire Currency & Construction at the same time. Our proposed deal with you does not follow on from any deals we have with other teams, and as such we expect that when you receive C&C from us, those techs will be exclusive to both our teams. I think therefore that all tech involved in this deal have 'full resell value'.

It may indeed help matters if you can discuss how much gold you can spare for this deal. We are hoping we can make a balanced deal for both sides, and begin a long line of effective, complimentary and advantageous deals for both of us.

Regards

redstar1

[Tiberius]

Is it sure that delmar didn't join them? I didn't see for a long time such levels of nitpicking.

[redstar1]

LOL

They just trying to shaft us. I say we ride em for all they have and throw them to the dogs.

[Tiberius]

I don't think it's wrong intent, but...nevertheless, it pisses me off. One don't emphisize diplomacy whole day long to nitpick then a fvcking treaty until nothing remains from it. Baahhh

If these "strategy" guys (outstanding civ players, nothig to say) won't win the game it will be because they will lose themselves in their self made labyrinth of neverending calculations.

[Tiberius]

Unless this is just a shameless try to trick us, which won't work. I'd almost prefer not to trade Curr+Constr at all to them, just to see them begging then.

[lmtoops]

I was wondering when a delmar reference would come up.

[vondrack]

OK, guys, I have read GS message and got almost as pissed as most of you, I guess... but then, I watched a fine movie and got myself "organized" again. I'm now strongly convinced we can use the situation to our own benefit.

First:

1) Keep in mind we never revealed to GS that we were the "first hand" source of Construction (at first, it was a bit intentional, then it just... hmmm... kinda "went on" ). If they believe we are just reselling it, let it be that way. We do not need to tell them. If they try to push us for even more unfair terms, we will simply stall the negotiations and quietly wait for them to come to us, begging for Construction (as they will be unable to get it anywhere else, thus left stuck in the ancient times, once done with Republic - and IF they end up stuck there, we will only benefit from that... getting a head start on the medieval research, even if not on Theology, which we'd probably normally start with).

2) I agree that GS looked like a much more reasonable trading partner early on... now, it seems like they are just another un-freaking-believably "smart" team very much determined to rip Lego off (has anyone else noticed that we strike best deals with GoW, and quite easily?).

3) Since what DeepO mentions (Rep+40 gold for our techs) is almost what we are looking for, I suggest we hide ANY sign of frustration by their cheeky approach to the deal and strike it. Let them believe they ripped us off big time. Once they find out (when we get Mono from Voxes), it'll be too late for them - and with Monotheism in our pocket, we will be able to set our own course of actions... maybe cooperating, maybe not.

4) Let's mention NOTHING about Voxes. Not even the slightest hint we are actually doing business with them, helping them, or knowing anything about their chances. GS apparently have no clue - and it shall stay that way.

That said, I suggest we respond like this:

Dear DeepO,

We are glad that we are getting to understand each other's stance better. We are now fully aware of your concerns and - even though not all your assumptions are 100% correct - we agree that in general, you often do have a point.

We understand that setting the price for Monotheism in advance is quite tricky. Let's handle it once it is actually available for trading then... we believe that GS' word is to be trusted and that a "favourable price" will, in fact, be a truly favourable price.

To make things simpler to handle, we suggest that we now work on signing a trade agreement regarding the technologies available in the nearest future: Currency, Construction, and Republic.

As our preliminary negotiations with RPers indicate they have no interest in acquiring The Republic (or at least, they pretend so... it may sometimes be difficult to tell what they truly are after), we no longer ask for resale rights to this team - as they would be virtually useless for us for the foreseeable future.

Thus, the deal we would like to talk about now, boils down to:

1) Legoland would provide Currency & Construction to GS one turn before GS would provide Republic to Legoland. Legoland would grant GS rights to resell/trade/gift Currency & Construction to Vox Controli and Neu Demogyptica. Legoland would also agree that it would not attempt to sell/trade/gift Currency or Construction to Vox Controli, nor Neu Demogyptica.

2) GS would agree to provide Legoland with Republic no later than on (its) Turn 84. GS would grant Legoland rights to resell/trade/gift Republic to Glory of War. GS would also agree to not attempt to sell/trade/gift Republic to Glory of War.

3) To offset the difference in research costs between Currency+Construction and Republic (considering the effective trading potential of the resale rights provided by both teams approximately equal), GS will pay Legoland a balance payment of 70 gold, payable on the same turn as the transfer of Republic happens.

Naturally, those 70 gold may go down to as low as 50, if they bargain... as always, let's start a bit higher so that we have some manoeuvring room later on.

Everybody, comment, please. There is no rush (for us ), so I assume we would PM DeepO sometimes tomorrow later in the afternoon or even in the evening European time.

[redstar1]

Yep, looks good.

[Kloreep]

The proposal looks good.

(or at least, they pretend so... it may sometimes be difficult to tell what they truly are after)

What's the point of this sentence? All it does is make a negative comment about the RPers and do nothing to enhance our case for our proposal. I think it should be left at saying they have no interest in Republic.

[redstar1]

Thanks Redstar1,

It's truely a pleasure to see our understanding grow. Allow me to try to improve it a little more, by responding personally, before I post your last message to our board

Further problems have risen on our tech deal. ND is, as was feared, not interested in any of the techs we could offer. We have serious reasons to believe they are researching currency, but republic as well did not interest them. This was before Vox started to negotiate for staying on Bob, so they wouldn't be getting it from Vox, and neither from you... we are wondering where republic would comes from.

This seems (maybe again under the wrong assumptions, but they're the best we can go on right now) to be because either RP is researching the republic, or GoW will sell republic to the other two once it gets it from you. We should definately rule out the second possibility, by forcing NDAs on both GoW and Vox, e.g. for a 10 turn period. If Bob deals amongst itself, we (I mean GS-Lego combined) get less profit from the techs...

If RP is getting republic themselves (which is certainly likely if they don't want to get it from you), it's actually not that bad for the world situation, any team can save more gold for trading techs then beakers needed to do their own research in the same time. If they spend beakers, with the result that both Lego and GS gets a bit less gold in total, it should still favor us because Bob has fewer gold then if they would have bought the techs from us.

One more remark; the value of currency took another dip. Not only can't we sell it to them (which we foresaw), but if they are researching it, it means that the moment you get it, it's third hand, the moment we get it, we're second last for sure. You know that the beaker cost of currency will have dropped close to half its value in game, I hope you are not offended if we regard it the same in our negotiations. Most likely, the same happens with construction, I wouldn't be surprised if actually the deal becomes in your favour if we simply swap curr+constr for republic.

If you would have asked for an amount of gold 10 days ago, I'm sure 70 gold would not have been a problem (it would have been high even then, but it would mean that we could set timing for the release of republic to the world, which we now cannot because RP gets Rep as well), but right now, I don't think my team will agree. Even the 40 I speculated about in last PM starts to sound as a supergift from us, the situation has changed quite a bit, and it forces us to take it into account while renegotiating.

My apologies, but as I still believe that honesty pays off in diplomatic contact, I have to advise you to drop the gold part of the deal, it would make its acceptance on GS's side a lot easier and friendlier. Our whole team agrees that Legoland is our main hope for getting a stable friend in this game, but not eveyone is willing to give up as much to get there. I will offer your proposal to the board, but I doubt it will get accepted...

Maybe it's good to try to speed things up, we're not that far from turn 84 anymore. I would definately meet on Sunday, to discuss this deal if it still needs debate, and start on swapping ideas on future business, to not get crammed for time. Further, I'd be delighted to exchange notes on what we think is happening on Bob, it's clear that they are our common problem in this game if we want to fare well in the (far) future.

BTW, just to confirm that we are still on track for turn 84, but that the slightest disaster (like disease, which always seems to happen at crucial times in this game) will mean turn 85. We miscalculated, and had to adjust plans because of the current threat, but our econ-wizzards wringed another few beakers out of our empire and we should get there in time. It will mean that the delay (between getting and giving rep) we had hoped for is gone, but we're happy we can at least meet our promises to you.

Greetz,
DeepO

[Tiberius]

Dear DeepO,

I can see with great sadnness that you utterly underestimate Legoland. The moment we get Currency is first hand, because we will be the first team who has it. Therefor GS will be the second team to have it, not the last one. Furthermore we are the only one sourse of Construction in the world, so in all honesty we can't see why do you think that the value of these 2 techs "took a dip".

Here is our final offer:
Currency+Construction for Republic + 50 gold.

We are sorry to inform you that under this price we simply won't sell.

Finally, we wish you from all of of our heart a sincere "FVCK YOU".

[lmtoops]

Very well put Tibi....I like your style

[vondrack]

Tibi, those guys are just joke, don't get pissed off at them so easily... this is fun! They are victims of their own feeling of superiority. All it shows is that they are either very bad liars or that their intel is simply woeful...

We will let them be and "offer" (without "accepting") both techs on the next (#82) turn, demonstrating that WE are the first hand source...

And we will either politely "honour" our offer for Rep+70, or increase it to Rep+(80-90), explaining that we were not that sure we would be the first ones to research Currency... And "now", when we know we ARE the first ones, we feel that the price went up...

They are digging their own grave treating us like this... but we will just smile politely and let them stew for a while.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
We will let them be and "offer" (without "accepting") both techs on the next (#82) turn, demonstrating that WE are the first hand source...

I like this. We could send in the same time with the save a message saying that the price of Construction+Currency has went up to Republic+80 for treating us with disrespect and not trusting us.
Seriously though, it is about time to put a foot in the door with the GS.