Foreign Minister report for 2900 B.C.

[Ninot]

We have discovered the United States of America.

Here is the update.

the USA are to our north. Americans are anoyed with us, possibly because we idolize bananas. We know they have two cities, Washington and New York.

They have 3 more techs than us, Alphabet, Pottery and Mysticism.
We also know they have an untapped source of Dyes.

They have 24 gold (compared to our 13)

We know we can get Pottery from them for 2 GPT and 6 gold lump sum. Right now, I am leaning against this deal. Too expensive for a less worthy tech.

France has also discovered pottery.

From last we checked France.. they have raised 5 gold for themselves. They have tapped a source of wine.

From what I can see, this extra 5 gold probably comes from the Warrior code deal.

EDITED FROM HERE ON OUT!

So, to contrast our two neighbors, France is polite with us, and USA is annoyed with us. But USA have two cities (one probably a jungle city) and France have yet to use their second settler.

Neither nation is willing to trade Alphabet or Mysticism.

While I was meeting with Licoln, and trying oh-so very hard to get him to come see some theatre with me (no luck), my secretaries found out the following informations about France and Amerca.


FRANCE
1:The French still think we are a backwards people
2:The French military is still bigger than ours
3: The French look down upon our small culture status
4:The French fear our Warrior
5: The French have Warriors

AMERICA
1: The Yanks think we are a backwards people
2:The American Army outnumbers ours
3: The Amercians think that their McDonalds is better than our... Bananas! (fools)
4: The Americans fear our Warrior
5: The Amercians have Warriors

[Jon Shafer]

IMNSHO, we don't need pottery, and our treasury is suffering as it is, no need to inflame the problem.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Ninot:

What about alphabet and mysticism? How much would they be willing to charge for those? Both would be bloody useful...

[OPD]

considering the support we will have to pay for our forthcoming army can we afford to be getting non essential techs on lay away.

[notyoueither]

Please say no to gpt deals from here on out.

The problem with them is math. at T1 the tech is worth 100 gold or 5gpt. On turn T10 the tech is worth 50 (because more civs now have it). Bank the gold. Buy on T10. Net cost 50. Buy on T1 net cost 100.

Also, the sooner we buy, the cheaper we make the tech for our competitors. If we let them buy first, it is cheaper for us.

Conclusion. Buy tech at the last possible moment. We will soon have an army that should be sufficient to ward off threats and extortion.

BTW. What is the situation with contacts? France still has none I presume. What about the US? They must have some to have so many techs.

[Ninot]

AFAIK, France and USA have no other contacts. And we can't sell USA contacts to France, or vica-verca, so they know of each other too (unless im mistaken there)

[Spiffor]

We would need writing to trade contacts, so we can't know with whom they have contact. It's very likely the Americans and the French are in contact, as they have almost the same techs.
Plus, remember teh Yanks have a scout, and every AI starts with several warriors to explore with. If good land is connected between France and America, both are certainly in contact.

[notyoueither]

I'm so used to Rome that I take trading contacts for granted. My bad.

Ninot, what do you think of my math re gpt vs save then lump sum trades?

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I'm so used to Rome that I take trading contacts for granted. My bad.

Ninot, what do you think of my math re gpt vs save then lump sum trades?

how does rome impact trading contacts?

[Spiffor]

Free alphabet = you often discover writing before thinking of trading contacts

[Ninot]

To get Writing is easy with Rome (racing to Republic), and yeah, im the same as NYE, MOST of my games are as the Romans.. so i forgot the contact trading needed requisites.

Ninot, what do you think of my math re gpt vs save then lump sum trades?

Well, as a preference, I much prefer lump sum payments over GPT.
And, yeah.. for future trading, it will be wize to save up and then consider trading after the tech is out there after a while.

My current view on tech trading is that we should only trade for techs that are immeadiately neccesary. I traded for WC cuz it would bring the Pink plans into action quicker. I disliked the idea of trading for pottery because it isn't immeadiately needed by us, never mind it was worth more than our means.

I think I would like to only obtain techs if they are exemplary cheap, or very good for the war effort. So yes, I think well of your gpt vs. save then trade philosophy. But that is with our current economy, which by all accounts, is measly. Once we have a very fluent trade network and a respectable economic system, with more trade partners, I believe it will be much easier to trade for techs. But hopefully, at that stage in the game, we will be the ones with the tech lead. But we can only hope, eh?

[notyoueither]

You bet.

[kring]

If you plan on war with the civ, gpt is not much of an issue once you get in war, it ends.

[Spiffor]

Kring : the problem here is reputation. When you stop a lasting deal because of war, your reputation suffers, and the other AIs will remind it to you to the very end.

[Jon Shafer]

Especially on Emperor, and especially near the end.
Let's just hope we're a little more successful than the modern egyptian army.