Dimplo Scholia: - Vox Controli - comments

[DeepO]

Chat is good for me, but can we get a log, please? not only the end result is important, also their exact wordings.

Last message: I thought so already... they can't keep up, but they see we can. Logical result: they're toast.

Nathan, don't agree on anything too favourable for them (like giving away research, no matter the costs involved), keep a balance, try to get them into a vasal role. we've more or less got them in a good position now, and I always love having pets

DeepO

[notyoueither]

My, my. they are being somewhat erratic, aren't they? Oh well, when you are dealt lemons, make lemonade.

our idea is that we will trade you all we have that you don't, and you will do the same

Given what they have reported about the tech situation on the mainland, which should be accurate with 3 or 4 or 5 civs all in contact, then a fully open tech alliance between Vox and us is the only way to go... for now.

btw, we might point out to Vox that if they give us contact, our research rate will be increased due to cheaper tech.

One last thing... with contact being so valuable I would think that Map Making and a few boats should be a very high priority (after IW).

[asleepathewheel]

Nathan-

good job with the chat, it certainly clarified the position of Vox. Of course there is the outside chance that JM was lying, but his words seemed truthful. (I wonder exactly what happened to Betahound).

I like your ideas of a symbiotic relationship. Were you serious, or was this just a move to allay their fears for the time being?

I could see the two of us allying for the long term. I could not see the other continent with its three or four civs all joining together, as space must be a premium over there, moreso than on ours.

Of course, the concern is if the other continent makes Vox an offer they can't refuse. I could definately see the others using Vox as their pawn to try to weaken us. The question is: how can we guarantee peace? Keep large garrisons at the borders? Ah-we could put our strongest units outside or near some cities.

Perhaps this would be a good time to propose the irrigation system? That would probably provide them more peace of mind, and help their economy.

I anticipate being able to make the chat at 8 est, at least for a little while, hopefully some of theirs can. He said that there are 5 major and one minor player.

As an aside: assuming that we can have peace for all time with Vox, should we start a prebuild for the lighthouse, as we will have to conduct amphibious operations in a war (and we can search for the undiscovered continents).

[nbarclay]

After chatting with Jon, I think an indefinite-duration "each side gives the other all techs" agreement such as he proposed is the way to go. Lux has contact with multiple civs, so they're basically doing to Vox what Vox is doing to us, only worse - taking advantage of position to play tech broker. If we can hold onto an "exchange all techs" relationship until we get Map Making (probably through a trade) or a foreign galley contacts us, we won't have to make a deal with Vox for contact. In the meantime, our agreement with Vox will keep them from using their advantage of being in contact with two civs to pull ahead of us. And such a partnership is definitely our fastest path to Republic.

As for Lux, they'll have to decide which side they want to be on. They can join in the agreement to exchange all techs if they want to, or they can be left on their own but able to leverage their multiple contacts to whatever extent they can gain advantage from it.

I also see a real possibility for a long-term partnership with Vox. Right now, they're reacting out of fear that we'll attack them. The very idea of WCs seems to scare them horribly, and they don't seem to even begin to guess how badly our WCs would perform on the particular terrain we're faced with. That fear, in turn, seems to be the main cause of the instability and so forth we've been seeing. If we can get a profitable partnership going, I think we can get over the initial mistrust and work together. I also took the liberty of broaching the question of how intent Vox is on winning, and Jon sounded like their main focus is on doing well and the idea that it would be nice to win is more of an afterthought for them. That's a very valuable trait in a long-term junior partner! (Basically, our discussions for the possibility of a long-term relationship followed a pattern I figured out a long time ago - tech sharing at first and later evolving into their funneling us gold to pay our expenses so we can run research at 100% and provide them with techs. Jon seemed to like the idea. I also briefly brought up the possibility of working together militarily, and I think he liked the image of immortals and WCs fighting side by side about as much as I do.) Yes, I know this is way outside the bounds of what I'd originally planned to go into, but in MP (as in the real world), it's a lot harder to keep short-term deals separate from issues of long-term relationships than it is in SP. And I really do want a way that if Vox works with us, they can survive and prosper.

I made the following proposal to Jon regarding the current tech trade situation:

One possibility (assuming you still have the turn) would be for you to go ahead and accept Alphabet and offer Iron Working. If we accept the deal, it will constitute a commitment from Gathering Storm to either accept your deal for a "trade all the technologies we get for an indefinite time" agreement or provide something else as compensation for the fact that you can get Alphabet cheaply. And not to attack you while we're working out the details.

Jon thinks his team will be amenable to this, so if we're willing to operate on such terms (and if they handle the interface correctly), we can very likely go ahead and get Iron Working and start Writing.

One last thing: Jon and I have an agreement to try to set up a larger chat involving people from both teams tomorrow at 8:00 PM Apolyton time (U.S. Eastern Time). I hope that's a workable time, early enough for Europeans to participate but late enough for people in the Americas to be home from work.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel

I like your ideas of a symbiotic relationship. Were you serious, or was this just a move to allay their fears for the time being?

The relationship I proposed to Jon (as a possibility, if I can persuade the team to agree) is something I've wanted for a long time now but feared would not be workable because we couldn't trust Vox enough. Never in my wildest imagination did I dream that Vox would be scared to death of an early WC rush across unroaded mountains and jungles, or that such a fear might be the main force interfering with their efforts to develop a coherent policy toward us!

[Theseus]

Hmm...

* Is JM drunk, or a non-English speaker, or what? He's definitely more cooperative, but does he indeed speak as the One voice?

* I think the diplo developments here are fascinating (kudos to Nathan), but while I fear the tech advantage of the mainland civs and thus applaud these current cooperative efforts, I still think we should maintain the flexibility to take out Vox and go it alone.

* /Paranoia on: Nice positioning... "Ooh, we're afraid of the nasty WCs, they might get us before we can attack with 8 Immortals! (MWAHAHAHA!!)"

* /Paranoia off: We want these pansies as our partners? Jeez...

Call me crazy (or just call me Theseus), but I'm wondering if a flood of WCs and Galleys might not be called for here.

[nbarclay]

The very fact that they aren't great players in a strong position who have a good shot at winning is a large part of what makes Vox attractive to me as partners. They can help us win, and we can help them do well, and both sides come out ahead in the deal. It would be a lot harder for two great powers both intent on winning to achieve a truly symbiotic relationship, especially over the long haul.

And then, too, I have a hard time philosophically with the idea of saying (in effect), "We'd like to be partners and friends, but only until we're ready to take you out." That works fine in SP, but I'm not at all fond of it in MP. (And frankly, I couldn't serve as an emissary to Vox if I didn't have at least a little hope that my words of mutual prosperity could come true.)

Nathan

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
And then, too, I have a hard time philosophically with the idea of saying (in effect), "We'd like to be partners and friends, but only until we're ready to take you out." That works fine in SP, but I'm not at all fond of it in MP. (And frankly, I couldn't serve as an emissary to Vox if I didn't have at least a little hope that my words of mutual prosperity could come true.)

Nathan

Luckily we can win through domination and not have to take them out at all (or spaceship or culture). That way they could be around the entire game, aiding us, doing their own part, but being part of the winning team. win-win. they won't get the glory, so to speak, but with the start position they had, it would be unlikely to come through for anyone. better to play the whole game than to get swallowed right away.

[nbarclay]

I just sent out an idea for how we might define the borders between us and Vox. I doubt that either team will really like it, but it gives us 13 cities and them the ability to squeeze in as many as ten if they're willing to accept tight enough spacing. It went to the GS mailbox and the people on my mailing list for turn screenshots.

[zeit]

Hmm...
sleezy Vox acts out of fear- the perfect portfolio of an unstable and spine-less neighbor. Today they fear us, tommorow its Civ X. We must be cautios and maintain our advantage. I see two main stratgies in dealing with Vox: 1) play on their fear (if its true that they fear us, which in retrospective- seems logical), repeatedly reminding them the consequences of crossing us. OR- 2)Working on building trust to change their fear into willful cooperation, viewing us as allies, and so forth.

Nathan seems to have taken path #2, which is harder and costly in the short term, while we might be fooled and end up with little (no cooperation from Vox), but it's future benefits are potentialy greater than those of #1.

For the time being, i suggest more probbing regarding path #2, which means we play it nice and restrain our instinct of bullying the weak, especially on the team chat. (Must make good impression )

btw- what time is the chat in GMT?

[nbarclay]

Apolyton time is GMT-5, so that would be 1:00 a.m. GMT. (Now that I've run the calculations, I likely should have suggested an hour earlier, but maybe it won't be too terrible.)

[nbarclay]

Zeit, you don't think you'd be afraid if we were in Vox's position and they were in ours? I don't think it's "spineless" to be scared to death of a civ that could, once it gets up to speed, crush you almost on a whim. And that's doubly true when the other civ has most of the recognized experts from the strategy forum on top of its other advantages.

[DeepO]

Okay, a few comments. First of all, good chat, learned a lot. I don't know if I want a longterm partner, in the sense that I don't need a smaller, less experienced team hampering us until the end of the game. Their territory is the closest we will get when it comes to corruption, so I do not want to guarantee now that once we get knights we don't take them out.

But, in the short term, I think the only way is to have a good trading relation, and the path towards republic is a good one. I'd rather like it if they can research mapmaking instead of mysticism (or after philosophy), as I can imagine that no other civ is going to trade that to us, knowing our isolation.

That Vox fears our WCs is good, but stupid. It could be a ruse though, in that they know their immortals are extremely powerful too, and want to distract us by telling us how good we are. Whatever comes from these negotations, we need to keep them from going the military road, as we can't have that kind of fight in this stage of the game. That they don't trust the situation is good, and while we can somewhat relieve it, we don't want to say: hey, you can trust us indefinately, you don't need to build one single warrior anymore. We need to hamper them a little too...

Nathan: I haven't seen your proposed borders (no access to my inbox here), but I don't want to have a territory of 13 cities, while they have 10. We are the faster expanders, so if we outexpand them, we get more territory, period. 13 cities is less than 40 turns from now for us, 10 cities will take Vox, without water, over 60. Not too mention that with the jungle (which I expect to be completely part of Vox proposed territory), they gain after clearing, the best land possible. No deal (but again, I have to look at the screenshot).

Further, I would seriously keep them from settling #12 now. It is too good for us to simply hand over to them, and they won't get any benefit from it, as it will be able to grow, but not produce anything. They're a lot better of with settling the Neck, and the Northern part of the jungle, which is also fertile land.

Trades: we seriously need a couple of plans before going in to the chat, and have to agree up front that anything said there is but a proposal, and not the final thing. We need the entire team's approval if we are going to partner in the long term with Vox, and I can imagine more then a few having reservations against them.
I like the republic path, as it will put us in front. But there are a few others: we can outresearch the world towards monarchy, if we get mysticism from Vox. We can get to construction, or to currency first. So think about what we want to do with it: it seems unlikely we are going to get the GL, so when both we and Vox have a certain tech, a thrid civ will get it for free. Are we going to trade away our advantage, to get even in tech with the rest of the world? do we want to keep it hidden?

Other comment: is it possible to get that chat earlier? you're proposing to start the chat at 2 am my time, and while I don't generally need much sleep, that is a little late for a weekday (not the start of the chat, but I doubt I will get throught the end, and the after talks on our forum).

DeepO

[Dominae]

A partnership with Vox does not need to be an all or nothing deal. We should not be afraid to jump on an opportunity to take them out, if such an opportunity presents itself. Committing ourselves to being their friends for the rest of the game may sound good diplomatically, but may not be in the best interests of our team. Also, let us not be too soothed by Jon Miller. There is such a things as being too trusting.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

My proposed borders are designed around the idea of a permanent partnership, in which case we don't want to bully Vox into accepting what they regard as a ridiculously small amount of land. But the ten city sites Vox would end up with are not where they'd build their first ten cities if it came to a REXing contest, even a REXing contest with rules against backfilling. In such a contest, they would choose sites with a higher percentage of land tiles as opposed to coast and sea, and that don't stick some cities permanently under size 12. Basically, my idea is to help Vox make the best possible use out of a limited amount of land in hopes of thereby persuading them not to insist on more land.

I do keep some of the jungle for us, with the exact amount depending on whose cities have a higher culture in certain areas where they overlap a little. As for the site #12 area, it's much more important to Vox than it is to us; we have plenty of other food bonuses elsewhere in our nation, and they don't. If we do want a permanent partnership, or even a long-term one, I think the diplomatic gain of letting them have it is worth the cost. (And actually, my plan has them build just south of Lookout Ridge, so while we lose the wheat and fish, we can still get some of the jungle with a city 6-3 from our original planned site.)

Nathan