Turns 2121 through to 2130

[Hercules]

mid turn 2127 cont'd

The party boat at Liar's Lair is awaiting your views on where to go. I
can't see the point in probing Roze at present. The nearest CyCon port
is 17 tiles, Miriam is 22 approx and the PUT could be 27/29 or more. We
also could direct the party boat in a northerly direction in search of
the Hive or the Drones.

Now for another interesting and important question and a major call on
our ambassador.Flubber's skills.

The Borg are within 2 years of discovering Ind Base. The Current Borg
energy reserve is 111 ecs. We have Ind econ. In cooperation with the
Borg can we leap frog to Ind Auto.

[Hercules]

mid turn report 2127 cont'd ( final part)

1) We could buy Ind Base from Roze for another 100ecs but to make sure
it was offered to us we'd maybe need to have Applied Physics. Even
though Roze is researching Doc Mob she doesn't seem inerested in a trade
for it.

2) We could trade Doc. Mob (or another level 1 tech) , with the PUT for
Ind Base instead of Ind Econ. They might be comfortable with that in the
interim, pending deeper negotations

With Ind Base, we can deliver that to the Borg and maybe if we can
figure the way the tech offers would pan out, Ind Econ either with it or
just after. If it works out, our best buddy pact mates, the Borg, would
have Ind Auto in 2 turns. And it wouldn't do any harm to have Appiled
Physics in the pot somewhere.

On the assumption that Flubber can succeed, ( if you think this is worth
pursuing), I will pre accept Doc. Mob or Progenitor psych.

You will also note we now have free market as a choice, but

So a lot to digest.

[johndmuller]

First, a few dumb questions to get off my chest.

Thwaacckkk!! . . .Thwaacckkk!! . . .Thwaacckkk!! . . .(sound of dirks hitting the pilothouse)
Awwkkk!!! . . . Watch out there matie!! . . . Awwkkk!!!

1) Why is all this stuff in this thread instead of the turn discussion thread?

2) Why did you segment your post like that? IMhO, it is harder to read this way with the extra wasted space for all the generic post headings and footers; without any dramatic stuff like a post subject or some highlighting or other, it is hard to (re)locate the beginning of this year from the other posts in this an prior years.

3) Have you decided on a file name convention yet? As near as I can tell, you've used a half dozen or so different varieties (and I haven't even downloaded or unzipped all of them).

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A few complaints: Thwaacckkk!! . . . . Thwaacckkk!! . . . . .

(1) Some discussion on the matter of tech Research Targets would have been appropriate. As you pointed out, we will not finish this one for some time, so the selection deserved some decent consideration. As I had not downloaded the last turn (since you had already finished playing it before I was able to download it . . . so why bother then?), I at least was unaware that we were scheduled to finish our project this year or else I might have initiated some discussion.

Ethical Calc is a reasonable choice and might well have been the right one, but a reasonable case can also be made for Field Modulation - namely that we could put the Res3 armor to good use with our high exposure to NL, and that no one else is in a position to research it. Hopefully, we will be able to trade for Ethical Calc before long rather than (re)discover it after it has already been researched by someone else (and perhaps already even traded around to our other customers)

(2) Making that deal with Roz without consultation was no good . Presumably you had to go to the trouble of contacting her of your own volition (unnecessary contact with the AI can lead to unnecessary/undesired vendettas), so you could have polled the Council to see what we thought about it first. I realize that you could not necessarily anticipate all the possibilities of what might come out of these discussions and that they have to be dealt with then and there - unless you want to leave the turn sitting on your computer for an indefinite time or else take the heat for a reload (Googlie, if you are reading this, perhaps this is an area that needs to be explored: whether reloads are acceptable in dealing with sudden unexpected developments that suggest team consultation, especially those that occur in the pre-turn phase, before any not-necessarily-repeatable random events have had a chance to occur.).

Be that as it may, the post-purchase situation does have some potential, but unfortunately, there is not much time to arrange for the Borg to get IndBase. I need to think about this a bit - so I will make another post (hopefully with positive suggestions, on this and other matters, instead of gripes and cheap shots )in a little while.

[Hercules]

The post was spread out because the message limit per post kicks in for me.

I did alert me pirates (in the forum somewhere) about the impending new tech choice and asked for views and especially if anyone might know what would be offered.

As I said I considered for a good bit about the Ind Econ purchase, but our negotiations with other factions have been slow (not our Ambassadors fault), especailly with the PUT.

Their procrastination or undecisiveness was effecting our strategy In my view. Also re the purchase, this was a possibility you yourself suggested earlier.

[Hercules]

One other factor, the turns are whistling round quite fast. I think this might be because most of the factions bar the Hive are sufferering from SASS. In short there really doesn't seem to be the earlier attempt at polls and discussions within the private forums, that there was at the start, due to key player absences for what ever reason.

Like you did before, I email the mid turn, then an end turn and the turn to the Drones, hoping for some feedback, within the allowed period.

For this crucial turn I will try to stretch out things to the limit. The key is Flubber being able to contact the relevant ambassadors. If Drogue is unavailable, then maybe we should contact Maniac direct and Archaic direct.

[johndmuller]

Cap'n Herc, sorry to have called you out unnecessarily if I missed your post - I do appreciate how fast the turns seem to come (and how they often arrive at inconvenient moments after being delayed interminably when you have plenty of free time) and how the feedback from the crew is often late or completely lacking. IMhO, we do have a good case for taking extra time here if we need it. I'm rushing this so it isn't any later for you over there, if it is not already too late, so hopefully I didn't make too much of a jumble out of the post.

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Well, the Borg need IndBase ASAP to get started; we would additionally supply IndEcon and they would then be able to switch their research to IndAuto (assuming it was offered)

BTW, their research rate is not particularly better than ours is - they are allocated at 60% labs and getting 14.4 techpoints - we are allocated at 50% labs and getting 11 (we would get 12 at 60% at a cost of 1 min). Our tech cost is currently higher than theirs, 192 to 131, but theirs will be taking a jump after they finish their research; OTOH, if we are able to get IndBase and IndEcon to them before they finish, they could switch to IndAuto while still at their current tech cost (if it is offered) and finish it in just a couple of years. Our job would be to arrange for them to get IndBase (so they can switch) and IndEcon (so they have all the PreReq's for IndAuto) by the Borg's 2129 turn (i.e. their turn after next)

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If the Borg are not offered IndAuto despite having the prerequisites, they could switch to one of the two techs that we have that they do not and we could then provide them with that tech also (I belive that this guarantees the IndAuto tech would be offered the 2nd time); this would, however require an additional turn, so they would have to bre able to slow down their research. They are currently scheduled to finish their research in 2 turns (they have 109 and need 131 with 14.4/turn @60%), so it looks like they should be able to do that (although they are unable to affect the next round since that is already set in stone) - they will have at least 123 tech points, but my guess is that they will still be able to do it then, unless we want to gamble on whether or not it will be offered.

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We could cut the University in on this deal (with or without telling them or the Borg exactly what is going on). If they are offering us IndEcon, then they are quite likely researching IndAuto themselves already (unless they weren't offereed it), but the prospect of getting it before they would finish it themselves ought to be appealing nonetheless. This deal would require us to get IndBase from the PUT right away (i.e. so that we would have it on our next turn in order to be able to give it to the Borg for their following turn - any later than that and we would lose our insurance turn

It is also possible to fully enlist the PUT, to the extent of giving them the Borg commlinks (which would also give the Borg the PUT's commlinks) and having them give IndBase to the Borg this very next turn, enabling the switch to occur on the Borg's next turn, so that there would be a turn left to deal with bad luck on the offering of IndAuto. I would not be recommending this variation, however, as we would be potentially be cutting out the middleman (ourselves) in future transactions as well as allowing them the option of double-crossing us (as the two of them could do this entire deal without us (with the PUT giving the Borg both techs) if they were in direct contact and willing to make that (somewhat lopsided) deal).

If we have not been able to make the appropriate deal with the PUT before they finish their turn, we would perhaps need to instruct the Borg to attempt to delay their research by 2 turns, instead of just the one, to give us the extra time it might take to bet IndBase together, let alone the insurance turn in case IndAuto is not offered. Presumably we could get the PUT to give us IndBase for Doc:Flex (although they would have to wonder why we wanted it so badly), but hopefully we will be able to get it for either Doc:Mobility or ProgenPsych - they seem to be reasonable enough trades to want to make (especially if we let them believe that we were currently researching it ourselves and wanted to be able to switch to something more advanced); hopefully our existing contacts have not already let the wrong parts of the cat out of the bag. Getting their attention and getting them to commit to a deal in the available time for our turn may be the sticking point. I would think it reasonable to expect that we would be allowed to prolong our turn if it stalls out waiting for the famously slow Looniversituy to reply to our messages and/or make up their minds.

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It is difficult to count on getting anything in particular from the AI, so the option of getting IndBase from Roz, so that we can pass it on to the Borg is a tough one to count on and if we also have to trade her Doc:Flex first, just to get her past it and maybe get Biogenics from the Borg to avoid wasting a turn while she offers that one, it seems like a lot of trouble and it could still break down before we get to IndBase. Still, if the PUT don't come thru, I suppose we ought to try anyway. That means we would have to get the Biogenics from the Borg for next turn, sending them whatever it takes this turn (although I would think we could get them to advance it to us considering the ultimate goal we have going).

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I think it worthwhile to point out that we can also research Industrial Auto all by ourselves as our next tech (in a gazillion years) if we are willing to eat the modest cost of changing techs right now (assuming it is offered - if it isn't, we would then be well advised to switch to something that the Borg have that we don't and trading them for it). I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but if we turn out not to be able to facillitate the Borg's quick move to IndAuto, then, in retrospect, it would have been nearly as fast to do it ourselves.

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I'm willing to attempt some diplomacy later on tonight if we havn't heard from Flubber and/or anyone else. In that contingency, please give me any otherwise secret info on email addresses, etc on the PUT people that you might have..

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[johndmuller]

Now that the basics are laid out, what do we actually want to do?

Seems to me that we might want to try to get the PUT to give us IndBase, as I think you suggested in your original post, and if I were doing it, I would outright tell them something like "IndBase is going to be rediscovered very shortly unless we can get it from you first" (if they need more talking to than just offering that trade). That should explain why we are in a hurry and also make it reasonable that we would be willing to offer Doc:Mobility for IndBase, which might or might not be a reasonable deal otherwise - They seemed to be willing to offer IndEcon instead for Doc:Mobility, so we are in a funny position of having to ask for less than they were apparently offering. As to ProgenPsych, they are probably less interested in that at this point, but it would be up for trade as far as I am concerned, if they wanted it instead.

I'm not sure I know all of what has transpired so far, but reading Flubber's post in the PUT Policy thread and reading between the lines, I am almost of the impression that the PUT may be researching Doc:Mobility (having not been offered IndAuto when they first got the IndAuto PreReq's together) and so are interested in making the Doc:Mobility for IndEcon trade (which seems to me to be a bit much in our favor without there being something else going on, unless it was just Flubber driving a hard bargain again). If that is true, that they are hot for Doc:Mobility, they would be happy to trade IndBase (or almost anything) instead, and might be so glad to do it that they wouldn't be thinking about our motivations, let alone imagining that we are putting together this complicated deal.

The tricky part comes in if they don't want to make that trade - are we willing to trade them Doc:Flex for it?

I think that we need to know for sure that the Borg will want to do this before we actually make that trade (trading Mobilty for IndBase is not that bad, but trading Flexibility for nothing might be treason). Shall we initiate that dialog? I would think yes (I'm getting the impression that Flubber is off on his vacation already, so it is probably up to us). We could start with an alert that we think we can get IndBase and are they interested and go from there. We do need to think ahead a little to figure out what we want to get from them, as the Borg are the ones who seem to be getting the most out of this deal, going from 2 full research projects away to none, while the PUT and ourselves would be just getting the 1 project leapfrog.

[johndmuller]

OK, I'm gonna try to contact the Borg and the PUT to at least get their attention that we want to make a time sensitive deal (perhaps more detailed info to the Borg). Hopefully I will have time to post the messages here too.

[johndmuller]

Message to PUT

(To GT, Archaic & Mr. President)
We (the Pirates) have an interest in making a (time-sensitive) trade with you, and as Ambassador Flubber is starting his vacation, I am picking up this tast for the moment.
-(to GT): (I sent this to you because you appeared to be online at the moment.)
-(to Archaic): (I sent this to you because I understand that Flubber was sometimes negotiating with you; I also sent it to GT (because he was on-line) and I plan to also send it to Mr.President.)
-(to Mr. President): (I also sent it to GT (because he was on-line and to Archaic.)

Please contact the appropriate people in your faction and ask that they contact myself (the Cuspidore Brownbeard), Cap'n Callico Hercules and Cap'n Flubber (please cc: us all to accomodate time-zones and lifestyles).

We wish to acquire Industrial Base from you on a rather short fuse and are willing to offer your choice of Doc:Mobility or Progen Psych in consideration of your haste, so that we are not obliged to extend our turn unduly.

Thank you for your swift response.

The Cuspidore - Johndmuller@msn.com
Cap'n Hercules - cathal.mullaghan@ntlworld.com
Cap'n Flubber - sharris4141@yahoo.com

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If anyone thinks that some other PUT people should get this, feel free to send it to them.

I will most likely be off-line for most of the next 12 hours, but may get a chance to see if I have a reply anyway, which I will try to post (theoretically they will also go to Cap'n Hercules).

[Hercules]

Ok I am back and waiting developments. The key people are Maniac for (the Borg) and Archaic (PUT). Archaic'a address is xxxarchaiceternal@hotmail.comxxx

i don't have Maniac's handy.

[johndmuller]

Message to CyCon

(Sent to Drogue and Maniac)
I am also sending a copy of this to (Drogue/Maniac); please forward to whomever else is appropriate; Cap'n Flubber is starting a vacation and most likely is at least temoporarily out of contact, so I took the initiative to contact you after some internal discussion on our end. Please respond to myself (the Cuspidore), Cap'n Hercules and Cap'n Flubber (all three if you don't mind as we are in different time zones and may any of us be hard to get) and failing us three, try someone else on our faction list. This is a fairly time-sensitive thing as we are currently holding the turn.

We have found ourselves in a position which has the potential to rapidly advance the tech levels of both our factions. It is not, however, a sure thing and we wish to sound you out on this deal so that we do not go too far down the road if for some reason (like if you were a Hive agent wanting to ruin opportunities for the CyCon) you are not interested. Hopefully, we will be able to agree in pricniple to take the necessary steps to take advantage of the opportunity.

As you will be able to see in your view of our tech holdings, we have acquired Indust Econ. We believe that we may be able to also acquire Indust Base. Should we be able to do that and provide both techs to you before you finish researching the IndBase, it would be very possible for you to research Industrial Auto in just a few years from now.

We would of course need to work out a mutually agreeable exchange - that is, we would naturally expect to get the Indust Auto plus a fair recompense for the costs we have incurred and will incur acquiring the other techs.

Since our ability to acquire IndBase is not certain, and since you may not be offered Industrial Econ as a research target (and may need to research another of our techs such as Progen Psych for a turn, until we are able to give it to you to enable another switch), it would seem to be advisable for you to ****** your research by a turn or two. In light of this, we wish to make you aware of this suggestion so that you will have the time to deal with whatever internal processes you may have to take that action.

It appears that we could provide the techs as early as our next turn so that you would have it in 2129 just in time to switch to Ind Auto while still on your current research budget. That timetable does not have any slack in it, however, for either accomodating any delay we may incur in getting the IndBase or to deal with the possibility that the game may not offer IndAuto the first time around. So it would appear advisable for you to stretch out you research by changing your allocation to the extent necessary to delay by at least 1 turn.

Please advise us of your level of interest and of any areas you wish to discuss more fully.

Thank you for your swift response.

The Cuspidore - Johndmuller@msn.com
Cap'n Hercules - cathal.mullaghan@ntlworld.com
Cap'n Flubber - sharris4141@yahoo.com

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Same applies here as to other parties. All we really need them to do is to delay their research as an insurance thing and to give us more than fair value for our trouble.

[johndmuller]

Hi Cap'n Herc, I apparently cross-posted my last message with you. I'm about to hit the sack, so maybe you can take it from here for a while - I'll be back 12 hours or so from now (except for maybe a peek or two at my inbox). If you want to email these messages out (I used the PM's because I only had Drogue's email (akizeta@lineone.net) and also it was quicker) go right ahead; I know some people seem to ignore PM's (like Googlie for example). General Tacitus, however, was on-line and showed as having read my message, but no reply was sent so far. Perhaps he is doing as I requested and taking it to their leader.

Hopefully you agree with what I told them as it is too late to do anything about it, at least for the PUT.

[Hercules]

Fine I am going to copy my last email (to Maniac and co) to Drogue for completeness.

But from what you've sent and what I have sent we are both singing from the the same shanty song sheet.

Thanks for your help with this.

[johndmuller]

Reply from GT received

I got this from GT, but I am really signing off now, so please contact him yourself if you want to jump in there.

RE: Trade with Pirates
I have posted your message in our private forum and asked for suggestions on how to reply; if, however, I don't get any replies soon, then I think I have enough authority to make a decision on my own. I'll get back to you later.

[Hercules]

This from Maniac
Hi Cap'ns,
I just wanted to tell you I've received your PM and mail. In general I'm of course positive to such a deal. After all IndAut is a very important tech for us (crawlers) and for you (Doc:Ini). There are a few things I'm confused about though. I'll ask about them asap in a next PM. Oh yes:
quote:
This is a fairly time-sensitive thing as we are currently holding the turn.

Pleaaaaaaaaase do not rush things like in the previous tech trade. :beg: I expect 48 hours should be plenty enough time to deal with some things.

Another point: Have you already received a PM from our External Affairs Function Drogue? For a few days we were actually planning to contact you ourselves concerning the Believers, but it hasn't happened yet, probably because of Drogue's IRL job. Greetings, Mani Alpha-3
Prime Function of the Cybernetic Consciousness
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