A perspective on the history and future of the Monkey Homeland

[Arnelos]

In a 100% absolutely truthful and valid statement, the Muhammad Al-Sahaf Team pledged today that it read and has studied all of the above posts with great detail. We are watching your interchange closely and encourage you to continue your exchange with such verbose posts - as you have absolute assurances that we read every single word.

[Arnelos]

Indeed, we should tell you based upon our correspondance with the divine that their opinions and choices regarding RNG rolls and divine retribution sway back and forth on the basis of every passing post in this debate. We tell the absolutely valid and unvarnished truth: your fortunes in this war will be decided on the basis of the veracity of your posting here.

Keep it up.

[Krill]

Really, is that true? If so, we could attack with our conscript worker army and win next time we get the save

[Cort Haus]

CoD = The New Lego?



Nice try, H_E We'd be flattered by your description of us as scheming-manipulators-in-pole-position to win the game, if it resonated at all with the actual historical situation. Instead, we're impressed by your determined propaganda stance - as we are also impressed with your battlefield prowess.

The truth is devastatingly simple - we're talking Law of the Jungle here. Us or You. From our pov, Python made a decision that they needed a two-civ continent, and CoD were given first refusal on being the other one of the two civs. What choice was there? As Arrian pointed out - with no Iron, Numids to the south, weak traits, no UU worth speaking of and Python squeezed to the North - we had to sign up.

We were the better prospective (and ongoing) tech-partner, (thanks to our river) seeing as it might be a while before discovering the New World and meeting the other Civs. We'd also had good diplo relations and agreements with Python since early.

Monkey have defended excellently, and will doubtless continue to do so, - but it was our foiled warrior upgrade when the Iron vanished (sabotaged by some devilish, infernal monkey-god no doubt) that explains the lack of CoD swords in the first wave, not some evil scheme to get Python to be our catpaw.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Arrian
Looking back on it, the cash amount I eventually came up with for republic was in fact too high (400gold). Miscalculation on my part. It should have been 216 gold, actually. Basically, I forgot to cut the final number in half... for some reason I was convinced I had it right back then, but looking at it now there should have been one more reduction in the number.

Uh huh, you can say that now but we all know you were trying to be unreasonable so we would have a despotic GA.

Originally posted by Arrian
Something tells me that Monkey would have found 216 gold "exorbitant" too, though. CoD was CLEARLY trying to work out a fair solution to the issue, and your only response was "Gimme! We'll, um, pay you back later." [/exaggeration]
-Arrian

We may have seriously considered 216 gold.

But to answer this is yes, we wanted you to front us the tech, so we could at least stay close to you in the three way tech partnership and actually contribute. Because our assumption was you were actually going to keep up your pledge to us to keep the partnership intact. But of course as everyone knows you wanted to make sure we got a despotic GA, it was all part of your war plans.

As Beta said you were building the road ages before the Republic stiff. And Im not sure how we could have helped prevent that. We told you the sfae place to stash your explorer, and then all the sudden he pops for the tch 4 or 5 turns early. Not sure what we could have done about that.


*Note same usual disclaimer about having fun this is just propoganda.*

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Monkey have defended excellently, and will doubtless continue to do so, - but it was our foiled warrior upgrade when the Iron vanished (sabotaged by some devilish, infernal monkey-god no doubt) that explains the lack of CoD swords in the first wave, not some evil scheme to get Python to be our catpaw.

Mu hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

You have discovered the secret monkey weapon!

You are doomed because the Monkey Gods have you in disfavor.

[Arrian]

@ Arnelos.

Con, good to see ya, man - even if you are the enemy.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel Ahhh Uno...

I am afraid there are only a few of us that understand what the term "alliance" really means.

Nothing about "Alliance".

I just detest tech points. In trading, "alliance", or any other form of measurement.

A lesson learned from a life of collecting various different items from cards to comics to bugs (yes there's a market for bugs). Anything is only worth what someone is willing to buy it for AT THAT TIME. "books", or "tech points" are a guide at best, not the rule. Too often in PBEM's or demogames am I faced with people wanting to tab tech points and make sure they are exactly equal. Most especially annoying when that attitude doesn't swing both directions.

[Arrian]

I was for keeping tabs of tech points only when all teams in contact with each other were all agreed upon researching together. Then you can use tech points to help keep the trades relatively even. It works best when all the teams involved wish to just burn through the tech tree ASAP.

In other words, the situation on Comedia before the war, and before contact with the rest of the world. It was very important to us, since two of the three teams started with the exact same techs, and the third shared one of those as well (and our other tech, pottery, is the cheapest tech in the game).

With just three teams, all cooperating in research, tech points can work fine. But as soon as the market includes teams outside the original tech partnership, it tends to break down.

The reason people tend to want to track tech points, UnO, is so that their team doesn't get screwed. Of course, the savvy trader is all about screwing the people he's trading with by getting the best price possible.

-Arrian

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Arrian
.The reason people tend to want to track tech points, UnO, is so that their team doesn't get screwed. Of course, the savvy trader is all about screwing the people he's trading with by getting the best price possible.

-Arrian

Seriously here Arrian, Im not sure I agree on this, if a long term relationship is what you want then fair and equitable trades are the way to go.

Savvy is OK only if its short term.

Just MHO.

[UnOrthOdOx]

You're in the majority Arrian.

Don't mean I gotta like it or agree with it.

It's another one of those game things that don't translate to real life. I work in the real life and don't translate to game rules well myself. Take the selling of my house as an example: It appraises for 110K or so. Doesn't mean there's any way in hell I'm getting that much out of it. Same with Blue Book on cars.

To me as far as civ goes: Say I'm in a PBEM and lack horses. Horse back riding is going to be absolutely worthless to me. So would Chivalry, and (god forbid I still lack horses) Military Tradition. In such a case I'll be damned if I'm paying 'book value' for those.

The other problem with tech points is someone always gets screwed by having to research the 'worthless' techs in a coop situation. Then if backstabbed they are left with ****.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by conmcb25


Seriously here Arrian, Im not sure I agree on this, if a long term relationship is what you want then fair and equitable trades are the way to go.

Savvy is OK only if its short term.

Just MHO.

I might have worded that badly... 'cause I think you misunderstood me.

I agree that fair & equitable trades are the way to go for a good long-term relationship. Since that was my original hope for our continent, that's what I was aiming for. If I'd had my way, that 3-way tech partnership would still be active (although Mandril would've been a serious problem).

-Arrian

[Arrian]

To me as far as civ goes: Say I'm in a PBEM and lack horses. Horse back riding is going to be absolutely worthless to me. So would Chivalry, and (god forbid I still lack horses) Military Tradition. In such a case I'll be damned if I'm paying 'book value' for those.

Well, HBR is not useless, because it's a required tech. You need it to exit the ancient age.

The other two are, yes. In fact, Chivalry is useless to CoD, and thus we have no interest in it. No iron, no knights.

This is why a good tech partnership includes everyone agreeing to research and deals AHEAD OF TIME. That's the key. Hence: ok, Python you research philosophy (6) and something else (4), CoD researches Code of Laws (10), and Monkey researches Literature (10, IIRC). Then we all trade, and it's all good. That works well.

The problem in our situation, beyond the war of course, was that Monkey appeared unable or unwilling (IMO, mostly unable, somewhat unwilling) to come close to matching CoD and Python's research. What that meant was that even though CoD kept cutting deals with Monkey to get them tech at bargain prices, they were still falling behind. So when we got to republic, and the MM SNAFU occurred, suddenly the only options were cash or "we'll get you back in the future." The war made option #2 impossible. Even if the war plan did not exist, if I had given republic to Monkey in exchange for nothing but promises, I probably should've been impeached for gross idiocy.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

One more thing: the hut trades were IMO an interesting, creative way to get us all ahead. The idea was great, it's just that I made a mistake and nobody else caught it.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

Again, why should I pay top price for HBR when I don't need it and can wait till it's been passed around and devalued is what I'm saying. Even required techs can be relatively worthless. Sure I might eventually need it for age advance, but chances are it'll be tacked on to something later or bought for dirt cheap.

I treat it the same on the selling end too, though. I'll give things away dirt cheap just as often as I receive them. I'm not trying to weasel the best deal, just have a whole different view on what something is "worth". Better to sell a tech to everyone for cheap than to one or two for it's "book value" IMO.