How to get Medicine

[DeepO]

Fine by me, Arrian

DeepO

[Arrian]

Sent.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Reply from Vox is encouraging. See contact thread for details.

Ok, I'm outta here (work). I'll probably log on later tonight and at some point tomorrow.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by DeepO
Steam is 2880 beakers, which is a piece of cake for them, they can get it in 4 turns for sure. Electricity is 3360, which is not so certain: it is possible that they will not be able to muster the 900 bpt it requires to do it in 4 turns, and have to do it in 5.

Correction: we will have Electricity researched before Lego. Elec will devaluate to 3024 beakers, Lego can get this as they are able to produce more then our 779 bpt (780 bpt means 3120 beakers over 4 turns). Nothing to be gained here...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Please let them get Medicine or Nat, and not steam. Either would be good if they want to trade... and it would solve a lot of difficulties with GoW-ND.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by DeepO
vmxa1, the problem I see with keeping GoW out of the loop is that they won't hesitate twice, and go to Lego. I think they are mere turns away from discovering Med, they said us some 5 turns ago it would take less then 10 turns, so if they have hurried it's already theirs. My guess is they're just keeping it at 1 turn from finishing to see how much they can gain from us, or Lego. At least I would do it like that, if I was GoW.

DeepO

The thing is even if they say they are in the mood to do a deal, it does not mean anything. They have already stiffed us and delayed. So all I am saying is do no count on them. Try to deal with them, but not the kitchen sink.

We have no recourse if they say they will deliver and make a few turn after they were obligated to do it. For those reason, I will pay a premium, but not robbery.

[DeepO]

A while back, I proposed to have some kind of guarantee dealing with GoW: give them Steam plus something for Medicine, and if they didn't give it to Lego before we could use it, give them electricity as payment of them not crossing us. I still would favour something like that.

Right now, I'm kind of hopeful Vox will get the right tech. If they get Nationalism, I propose to go at it alone, and not risk anything on the GoW side of things. If they get Medicine, we can try to let Vox and GoW outbid themselves, or offer a good offer to both parties, and see who will bite first. If they get Steam, we're still bound to GoW...

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Good work DeepO, Arrian

I guess we hold our breath to see what Vox's tech is, then ...

I'd like to know whether GOW will say to us that a tech exchange rate of 8:1 against GS is a fair deal. They are using the fact that we are the only team seriously trying to hamper Lego to fleece us for everything we've got.

[DeepO]

If only GoW couldn't turn around, and sell Lego what they're offering us, everything would be fine. Lego can very well offer GoW a 4 to 1 beaker rate, and GoW would think twice on that. Really, I hope Vox gets Medicine, so we can ask GoW if they want to deal with us, or if we just go to Vox.

DeepO

[Arrian]

FYI - No response yet from GoW.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Maybe they are going to see what Vox gets as well. It will change their eta too... and probably their asking price. I don't believe they will be open to us, and tell them an exact eta, or an exact gold deficit.

When we deal with them, we have to keep in mind that so far, not one of our deals didn't get broken. They are still running with the same members as when the previous deals were broken, no reason to believe they changed their ways.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

good luck getting a response from GoW. I sent MZ probably 3 emails via poly (after his pm box was full) and never heard anything. Which is why I mentioned before that it was easier to catch him in chat (which might be what they want)

[vmxa1]

Maybe you could post on MZO and get a response. Just to say we sent some msgs.

Anyway that is my whole concern, that we have no reason to trust GoW.

[DeepO]

Proposal for message to ND, to be sent with the save. I would prefer if Arrian sends (and probably rewrites) the message)...

Hello Zayxus,

We apologize for not begin able to fulfill your wishes on helping GoW reach medicine early. For the maximum of 1000 gold they need, getting over 14000 beakers in return is a bit too much, I'm sure you can understand. We want to make you nice offers, but I guess you wouldn't accept us getting a tech like e.g. Nationalism from you for 200 gold.

Plus, the situation has changed: now that Vox received Nationalism as a free tech and not steam or medicine, the urgency has deminished. Lego can't get these for free, which leaves us enough gold to sponsor GoW ourselves, if they need any help.

That doesn't mean we don't want to trade with you. Previously, we had a deal in chat, in which ND would trade Nationalism, GoW would trade Medicine, and GS would trade Steam on an equal cost basis. Even if the value of Nationalism has now deminished (as Vox also has it), we would still be interested in a Nationalism - Steam trade. Otherwise, we would be happy to sell you Steam for gold or lux.

Are you interested in this, and if so, please make an offer. As long as the beaker to gold ratio is not 14 to 1, I'm sure we can trade.

Sincerely,
DeepO

[DeepO]

and while we're at it, a proposal for a message to GoW:

Hello GoW,

As asked previously, we would be highly interested in knowing what your fastest eta on Medicine (disregarding deficit spending) would be, and how much gold you would need to meet that eta.

You might have heared Vox received Nationalism as a free tech, which changes the situation quite a bit. We can now research Medicine ourselves, and still beat everyone else to the ToE. However, in the spirit of GAUL (which we're the only ones still keeping to, it seems, as ND has become Lego's primary trading partner), we would prefer that we get Medicine from you, as was agreed in chat previously.

Very specific: we propose the following deal:
- We trade you Steam for Medicine, as was agreed upon in chat, some 8 turns ago.
- If you keep it from Lego for at least 5 turns, we will give you electricity as an extra.
- the sooner you can deliver the tech, the more gold we would be willing to give you for doing deficit research. However, we have a quite precise idea of your research capabilities, and figure you should have nearly gotten the tech without doing any deficit spending at all. We doubt much gold is needed, but we can negotiate on that.

We know we will receive two extra techs out of this deal, but the investment on our side was biggest for sure, and we feel we're giving you a good deal. We were a bit lucky with Vox's free tech, which should make the negotiations a lot easier.

On a related note: we should schedule a chat sometime soon, to discuss the global situation. With ND helping Lego, this game is fastly becoming a disaster for us. When #1 and #2 help each other, #3 and #4 have no hope for winning unless something drastic happens. Being #4 doesn't mean we've lost already, but we're going to need your help to even scratch the might of Lego and / or ND.