Official: CyCon negotiations

[Snowflake]

My reply:

I have copied the draft proposal to both Maniac and Drogue. I will now also post the proposal at the embassy. Again it is still not officially approved but I've received some feedback in favor of it.

Regarding completing the reseach in 2151 rather than 2152, I believe the right order for pbem is diplomatic screen pops up first, and then tech completion screen. Therefore we will be able to switch before it is completed. I will double check with Kody and perhaps somebody could test it somehow (I'm no expert on that unfortunetaly). Also, another operational detail is that the Hive needs to check if it is able to decrease research rate enough to make sure we get the tech 2151 or 2152 by allocating ecs away from reseach.

Also I have not heard feedback for the other trade from you. What is the thought on that? If I know more about the tech list and current reseaching tech of CC I would have more confidence in analyzing its feasibility and improve it.

Ambassador HongHu

[Snowflake]

Impaler PM

The other offers sound good, but I will need to run them past others as they are totaly new to us. We had not considered SotHB much as its a rather useless tec too us, we were going to basicaly forget about it untill we are forced to research it. Likly some kind of benificial deal can be worked out.

Cycon has not realy desided what its next reserach goal will be, we may be forced to stop Bee-lining and do research something low. If all these trades are successfull then our next tec will likly be delayed considerably due too the greater total. Their are so many developments that may or maynot happen by then that Cycon Algorithms are unable to predict likly outcomes with an acceptable degree of certantay.

Oh and by the way we see you have actualy gone DOWN on the power graph, we are conserned as to how thats possible as you pop incressed considerably?

[Snowflake]

My reply:

Regarding power graph. Let me tell you this. In turn 2146 we had 58 population. In turn 2148 we have 55. In between we also built new bases. Don't ask me why instead of pop growth we actually have less pop after building new bases. It is basically a result of prolonged negligence of officials. People are starved everywhere. I vow to not let this repeat again even if it means I have to do everything myself.

Regarding Gene Splicing trade. My information is that PUT has SHB. That's why I suggested you also try to trade this from them instead of researching it yourself. From the Hive's point of view trance is nice but not crucial, what we are really after is Neural Grafting. It is possible that if CC could get SHB from PUT (since the Hive will not be able to do so), I could talk the Hive into researching NG itself rather than asking CC to research it for us. Although Gene Splicing for SHB trade is somewhat unbalanced, I think there is still a chance for this trade to pull through given the perspective that we will have a stronger relationship and that CC may likewise go out of its way to help Hive in some other time. When we enter that kind of a relationship with trust, information and techs can be shared more freely without penny for penny calculation. The Hive has already been doing this, sharing all of our reseach info and other things with the CCs. We look forward to the day when CC has the same level of trust with the Hive.

[Micha]

Are you sure it´s a good idea to tell them about our starving-problem?

[Snowflake]

lol are we afraid to admit that some of us are not doing our work well? Plus they will learn it from Pravda anyway won't they? Not to mention they could count the votes themselves. I'm really not disclosing any more info than they already got while giving them the impression that I'm telling them everything.

[Snowflake]

Looks like Comrade Micha's the only person who ever reads whatever is posted any more. No matter how important I believe the matter is. I understand the Chairman and perhaps many others of us are having finals. I will assume the proposal is final and officially approved if nobody objects.

[Micha]

no objections, except I wouldn´t tell them anything negative about us.. We could claim the population loss is part of a secret turn advantage project involving lots of colony pods and Claire Forlani...

[Snowflake]

Ahh that's a good idea.

[Snowflake]

My PM to Maniac:

How is your negotiation with the PUT going? Do you need more time? We need to hear from you before we play our turn. Normally buster plays pretty quick. If you need more time maybe we could try talk buster into taking more time?

[Snowflake]

His reply:

Hi HongHu,

It indeed looks like we will need more time for the negotations, as all members of PUT are quite inactive to say the least. Several days ago they told us they were interested in Applied Physics and asked us what we wanted. Yesterday GeneralTacticus sent me a message saying they're presently discussing our proposal, but that he is quite busy. So I get the feeling it may still take quite a while and that it might be a good idea to ask buster to wait a bit with playing the turn.

I'm not really aware of Drogue's diplomatic policy, but AFAIK his latest proposal was to offer AppPhys and 30 credits. I don't know if PUT would accept that though. Personally if I was PUT I wouldn't, but then again they seemed really eager to get AppPhys for some reason. If PUT doesn't respond in the next day, do you want us to increase our offer to PUT? The problem is that we are quite short on cash right now, and that we can't offer PUT anything higher than 50 credits or so. So my question is, if we have to go higher than 50 credits and AppPhys to get EcoEng, would you be willing to make up for the difference and give us the credits we have to pay more than 50 credits? If so, what would be the maximum prize you want us to offer to PUT in order to get EcoEng? When we have more cash, we are of course willing to repay you part of the credits you would give us now.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3
Prime Function of the Cybernetic Consciousness

[Snowflake]

My PM to Maniac:

I have to talk to the turn player to see if the Hive could spare some ecs for this deal. However, one suggestion is for you to offer both AP and Initiative to uni for trading of Eco Eng and SHB. Make sure to stress that CyCon isn't in great need of SHB but the init-SHB deal was added to balance out the AP-EcoEng imbalance. So kind of indicating you are actually sacrificing to facilitate the trade.

What do you think about that?

[Snowflake]

Impaler's reply:

This sounds like a good next step if the Uni rejects our first offer, I fear though that Uni will take so long in considering each offer and Counter offer that they will not be ready before the Hive completes its turn.

We will negotiate with PUT up to the last minute your holding the turn if we have too, if confirmation comes from them on any deal that will give us Eco Eng then we will send PM's to HongHu, Dacole, Voltaire and General Tacticus (tell him to empty out his PM folder as it was full a ways back). Check your message boxes before posting your turn as this may come down to the wire.

[Snowflake]

Me

Also once the turn is in Hive's hand you guys can press PUT a little harder saying that you don't have too much time waiting for them since you need to make decision regarding what you are going to do in your turn.

[Snowflake]

Maniac:

Hi HongHu,

I have announced this proposal to the Collective. I'll see what others think. Anyway, SotHB is indeed useless for us. Therefore to make the tech more attractive I was wondering, if we got SotHB, would you be willing to trade that against Gene Splicing? IIRC you mentioned that you attached a great value to SotHB, the prerequisite of Neural Grafting.

Greetings,

Mani Alpha-3

[Snowflake]

Me

In the Hive's offer we proposed to offer Gene Splicing for SHB and NG. I can promise you that upon receiving SHB we could immediately transmit Gene Splicing to you without waiting for you to complete NG. I have also mentioned to Function Impaler that I might be able to persude the Hive not to ask you to reseach NG for us. However, since Gene Splicing for SHB were pretty imbalanced I cannot promise you this at this moment before I gain concensus from the Hive leaderships. SHB is not in great need by the Hive also, it is only soughted for because it is a prequisit of NG which is a prequisit of bioengineering. While NG also offers the benefit of enabling the production of two special ability units, the SHB offers trance, which is not utterly needed. The only argument I could use to pursude others to accept Gene Splicing versas SHB deal is that CyCon will appreciate getting Gene Splicing and with long lasting friendship between Hive and CyCon you would do the same thing for the Hive in the future.

[Snowflake]

People please give me your feedback on this issue. Appreciated.

[Micha]

Why do we need SotHB at all? We´re not fighting that many mindworms... Let´s just take NG and ask them for some ecs...

Another useless tech just makes our research more expensive...

Although I´m almost sure I missed something important on this issue.. If someone dared to enlighten me...

[Snowflake]

Well IIRC nobody has NG yet. We need NG for bioengineering but really we need it for MMI we just don't want to tell CC about this. However SotHB is the prerequisit of NG. So if we get SotHB we could research NG and be one step closer. Now I don't know if it is very much worth of the effor though if we only get SotHB and not NG. The only thing I might want to do it is that this mean CC owes us big and they have to repay us in some way in the future.

[Micha]

Or they just enjoy a huge benefit and say goodbye to us...

[Snowflake]

So no trade Gene Splicing for SotHB?

[Micha]

I´d say no. GS will only be traded for NG, or a real big chunk of other stuff (prototypes+ec).

Any other ideas?

[Snowflake]

I agree. We could try arrange other trades like GS trade for cruiser plus attack from water whatever it is called plus best attack. Is it too much?

[Snowflake]

Actually we don't need best attack from CC. Drone's will finish SFF in 2 turns. That means 6+ attack right?

[Snowflake]

Kody:

The university will want to delay the tech trading until after they finish enviromental economics. I think that's 2 turns away, so I expect they will want to drag their feet for another 2-3 turns and be "in talks" during that time. They will finally "close the deal" afterwards so they don't inccur the additional tech costs.

The university I think is beelining for air power. That's why they want applied physics. Even though the hive will get a tech jump of 1. The university will be too. Consequently, the trading you intend to do is mainly beneficial to the cycon. However, I understand your position and that's why I didn't say outright that this trading was doomed.

I did however ask HongHu to come up with an alternative tech trading agreement that didn't involve the university. Perhaps we can hammer out something between our two factions.

Since Honghu is Head Honcho at least when it comes to trading the problems with tech trades with the hive shouldn't be a problem now. I'm certain you're going to have more problems trading with the university as they'll be bucking for more advantage than the Hive would.

[Snowflake]

Me

She tries to do everything but she is not the head of anything at the moment. Just want to make a clarification.

[Snowflake]

Maniac:

What is your suggestion to do based on these suspicions about PUT? Just forget about the trade already, or send a clear message to PUT saying that if they don't offer EcoEng (preacceptance not necessary though) in the diplobox in their turn this year, that we will look for EcoEng elsewhere, or are no longer interested in trading? That might make them suspicious though as to why we need EcoEng so urgently, and make a trade even less likely.

Regarding AppPhys, PEACE also has AP, so they could also trade it to their ally PUT at any moment. So we figured that if PUT is likely to get AP anyway, it would better be us than PEACE that gets advantage out of it.

[Snowflake]

Me

The full 48 hours is around 2:00am Saturday but I wouldn't have time to play it then. So I'm planning to play with dacole sometime tonight. If we don't hear from you that the deal is struck then we would have to continue our own reseach and that means the Hive will finish eco eng the next turn.

It would be a shame for this would mean we both get env eco later than we could have. But I think Kody is right that you will not likely get it in time anyway no matter how long we wait and how hard you pushed. Sometimes reality is not always as we hoped. However, as Kody suggested, we can still arrange some trade that are not dependent on other factions.

[Octavian X]

So far, so good.

Someone want to tell me where this Cycon-Hive forum is?

[Snowflake]

Impaler PM to me:

Uni responds to tec trade
Uni has sent us the following Response


Uni/CyCon Tech Trade
Sent to Maniac, Drogue and Impaler[WrG]

Having discussed your various proposals for a tech trade between our factions, I can offer you the following deal: we will, as you asked, offer Ecological Engineering in our next turn, and in return, you will trade us Applied Physics and Doctrine: Initiative, and you will pledge not to trade Eco Eng to any other faction. Is this acceptable?



We may be able to get them to drop their non-proliferation requirments or include SotHB, but probly not both. I am wondering if their is anyway we could infact trade Eco Eng with you but make it seem to the University that you just researched it on your own. They will likly scream bloody murder at us if you get Eco Eng imediatly after they send it too us.

It seems we are in a Catch 22, the time needed to negotiate out the non-proliferation agreement would make the agreement moot as you will have alraedy reserched Eco Eng. I suspect the Hive will not wish to delay its research under these conditions though. If you do though then the potential for us to give Eco Eng will remain open and we can accept from UNI what would otherwise be an unviable trade.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Octavian X
Someone want to tell me where this Cycon-Hive forum is?

PM sent.