Sparta-Morgan Relations

[Kassiopeia]

So maybe the mandate for our Commanding Officer, Diplomatic and Foreign Affairs, should be to get what he can from Morgan and the Angels for Gene Splicing before the Gaians embargo lifts, but take everything else off the table?

Alright. 'Everything else' includes EE, then? But what about keeping CDF out of Morgan's hands? I could suggest them 8*15.

I'll do the GS<->SocPsych suggestion to the Angels when I get back from school (three hours from now ).

[Googlie]

(to the Angels' deal)

(If the Angels bite, then at least we'll have both prereqs (Mobility and Soc Psych) to research Doc Loyalty ourselves_

And I see that Morgan has asked for a counter offer:

Posted in the Embassy by jtsisyoda

Sorry if our team as a whole is a little inexperienced with diplomacy... enough to cause hiccups, anyway. Please understand we're trying our best to cooperate in a way that helps us both equally, which in the end benefits us both the most. I'm talking about fairness.

So in the interest of seeking fairness, please make a counteroffer regarding Eth Calc. We respect your belief that it's worth more than 6 ec/turn for 15 turns, and we'd like to find a middle ground.

-COO Yoda

So maybe something along the lines of:

We appreciate your willingness to establish a fair price for Ethical Calculus, and we suggest that the following might be an acceptable compromise for both our factions:

The Corporation supplies to the Federation the technology of Industrial Economics, pays an annual licence fee of 8 energy credits for 15 years for the use of Ethical Calculus, and undertakes not to trade it to third parties for a period of nine (9) years. Furthermore, the Corporation undertakes not to build the Citizens' Defense Force

In exchange, the Federation will supply to the Corporation the technologies of Ethical Calculus, with the no-trade embargo reduced from our original fifteen (15) years to nine (9) years, and Gene Splicing, with no restrictions on forward trading as regards this latter tech

I don't know if we want to go as far as to add:

If this is accepted to Morgan, I believe that my Junta colleagues could be persuaded to explore a joint initiative towards securing Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics for both our factions

[Kassiopeia]

I can add it. I can always go back on it and say "the Junta didn't go along with my idea, sorry about that."

[Googlie]

Visited the Embassy and saw the post

[Googlie]

I'm assuming that we have a deal?

Posted in the Embassy by Mead

To summarize:

Our Offer

We give you Industrial Economics, 8 ECs per year for 15 years (120 ECs total), our commitment to not transfer Ethical Calculus to anyone else for 9 years, and our commitment to never build the CDF.

You give us Ethical Calculus, Gene Splicing, your commitment to not transfer Industrial Economics to anyone else for 9 years, and your commitment to never build the PEG.

If you agree, please send both Techs to us preaccepted and post a response here confirming your acceptance.

[Kassiopeia]

your commitment to never build the PEG.

AFAIK that's never been even a distinct goal for us, so if it makes them happy,

I'd like to hear from the other Junta members too though, but I am going to default to accepting it if I don't hear from Maniac/Krysias/Zeiter/Snoddasmannen etc. within a reasonable time - so if you are going to post the turn soon, you can preaccept the technologies as far as I am concerned.

[Googlie]

Naw - I'm off to my last game of golf with my Vancouver buddies before I head south to the desert sun in Caliufornia, so I'll prolly look for responses in (my) early afternoon then send it on its way

(They've kinda hoisted us with our own petard re: the embargo - I wanted to trade Ind Econ to Zak before he researched it (9 years, would you believe) so that he'd have something jucier for our next probe mission. Now we have to co-ordinate with Morgan if we want to move earlier agaisnt Zak re probes (ie get their permission to waive the embargo, trade with Zak, pass on whatever we get in trade plus, prolly, share the probe results for a modest cost-share by them)

[Googlie]

your commitment to never build the PEG.

This suggests to me that they're prolly going down the Progenitor Psych - Field Modulation - Adaptive Economics (PEG) route

(And prolly explains their lack of interest intitially in Gene Splicing - would just slow down their research) If indeed they are, they must think that they've died and gone to heaven when we show up ofering both Gene Splicing and Ethical Calculus for a pittance

Maybe the Junta should scuttle this trade. With these conditions of theirs it's becoming just:

Ethical Calculus <.....> Industrial Economics
Gene Splicing < ..... > 120 ec's over 15 years

That's pretty lopsided in their favor now

[Googlie]

Time maybe for hardball

Perhaps we say that we were prepared to accept less than we really felt was fair for Ethical Cal (120 versus 150) 'cos we had a potential buyer for Ind Econ, and the ec's we'd receive there would almost make up the difference.

With an embargo on its onward trading, the deal's off

(Still lots of time to renegotiate - and we'll get a sense of how seriously they want EC and GS)

[Kassiopeia]

Hmm, yes. And the PEG clause gave us a good excuse to throw out the trade.

[Maniac]

I wouldn't mind either promising not to build the PEG, but I'd like to get the embargo on IndEcon waved too.

By the way, why do they want the techs pre-accepted this year already? Can't we just offer them in the diplobox without already pressing the "Accept" button?

[Maniac]

By the way, may I suggest a reply like this to thereal_arginine?


In response to Mr. Arginine:

The Junta disagrees with the principle and the calculation of the value of stolen techs.

Regarding the calculation of what's the cost for getting stolen techs, you make several errors. This of course understandable as you have little experience with our method of technology acquisition.

First, in order to steal technology succesful, probe teams with 2 moves are necessary. This increases the cost to 3 mineral rows per probe team.

Second, it costs more than two credits per mineral to hurry a unit, like a probe team. A more accurate exchange rate would be 2.5 to 3 credits per mineral. Not being a builder faction we have no need right now for facilities, so your argument that we should use those credits for hurrying facilities holds no ground when applied to us.

Those two factors already increases the credit cost of a stolen tech (being cheap and assuming a 2.5c exchange rate) to 225 credits.

However that's not including the cost of building the transports necessary to ship the probes to their destination. That's a heavy investment in a period of the game when those minerals can be used for many other useful stuff. If you include that, the cost increases even more...

Besides that we disagree with the simple principle that self-researched technologies would be more valuable than self-stolen techs. They are simply different and equivalent strategies to obtain the same goal. As you have lots of energy, researching them yourselves is the best option for you. As we have less energy but more naval and probe power, stealing them is the best option for us. But we repeat: we do not consider one strategy inferior to another, and the techs obtained by one strategy we do not consider less valuable in trades than techs obtained by another strategy.

[Googlie]

And I'd add:

And in addition, several of the key techs we have available for sale or trade were notacquired through self research nor probe stealing. For example, Gene Splicing was purchased by us, and we traded a tech to the AI for Ethical Calculus (so I guess the latter can be analagous to a self-researched tech)

So it's not quite so simple as comparative costs for stolen versus researched technologies

[Googlie]

Posted in the Embassy (with some accompanying narrative):

SCC Hunter - 2144

[Kassiopeia]

Responses to Mead and Arginine posted as suggested.