Announcement

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 00:00

Dissident just sent the following response:

Our foreign minister is quite tired at the moment. He must have been drinking too much ale. . Just a quick response before you begin govermental operations again. We have discussed your viewpoint. And we can understand how you feel about the exploration situation. Perhaps a compromise on our part is in order? We haven't worked out the details yet, but this is the general consensus. And we are still discussing the trade of our people's knowledge. We are not all agreed that the wheel is in our best interests at the moment. Some are in disbelief such an object can be made. But we do look forward to hammering out some trade deal in the future.

**alva** · January 9, 2003, 01:07

nice stall tactic

I say we demand their warrors to stop exploring(,at least for the duration of their discussion)

a couple of turns would help us in our city settling prob too, or make it much easier.

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 01:35

The more immediate question is how do we read this in terms of the technology picture. Do we take it as a firm no (indicating that we should research bronze and iron ourselves) or as a maybe (indicating that we might want to go ahead with Alphabet in the hope they might change their minds)? I can see advantages either way, so it's hard for me to come up with a firm recommendation at the moment.

One thing we might consider, although it's probably a long shot, would be researching bronze ourselves and seeing if they'd accept Pottery and The Wheel for Iron Working. That would also be an exchange with equal values on both sides. (And it would tell us whether they've finished researching iron themselves, since we could find out the cost of Iron Working.)

Nathan

**Harovan** · January 9, 2003, 04:36

The turn has arrived early today. Our diplomatic offer has been declined, and yes, the response is a no. At the isthmus appeared a Voxian worker, who will no doubt start to build a fortress next turn. The level of trust towards Vox has fallen to zero, at least for me.

Rodney went 1 at the hill where Grog was before. Grog fortifies at his new hill. Slash moves 8. Now they know, that they are boxed in too, at least except the 2 scouts. Tim went 1, so did Hack. Willy went 3 at the mountain, Ouch too. Crush goes 7. If Willy goes 1 next turn, Ouch will go 4 and Crush 8. This way, Willys success to south and southwest (towards the city site) will be blocked. Crush will be ready to protect our worker, if the scouts come nearer.

EotS finishes Granary and has been set to Settler. Hurricane works at fur forest again and has Warrior ready in 3 turns.

Science: Valid options are Bronze Working at 90% in 6 turns with no deficit, or Alphabet at 100% in 10 turns with 1 deficit. Our prepared decision for the case, that diplomacy fails, is Bronze Working.

Shall we send a diplomatic response, expressing our regret that Vox declined to go the way of friendship and trust, and declare the the tech deal offer null and void? We should not wait with our own research. They'll slow us by purpose. I have not the slightest hope for the Wheel+Pottery/Iron deal. Without any doubt they will continue their blockade. Perhaps the best will be, we show icy from now on, send no more offers and ignore theirs.

**alva** · January 9, 2003, 05:22

How do fortesses in neutral terrain work? Are dthey estroyed when an foreign unit enters the tile?

If they build a fortress, no others civs can reach us either. (unless having a fake war)

I suspect they will be building a road, which IMO is even worse news as this will speed up their IW by quite a few turns.
(this also means btw, their cities are very close..)

I say we go for bronze, times are just to risky now to look for long term gain.

And I don't expect any trade deals in the near future either.
We sure have to find who, if anyone is behind them. If there isn't, great, let's relax, keep an eye on them and outgrow/produce them.
When we are ready...bye vox.
If there someone else, we do have to be carefull, their tech rate can be much quicker, and they could have upgrade-money at the same time.

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 07:24

EotS will grow, barring disease, so Bronze Working should be five turns at 100% if my calculations are right. Go ahead and set the science slider to 100%.

**alva** · January 9, 2003, 07:35

Or we go for WC and take those warriors out to put some pressure on vox (not a full blooded war though).

It is an option...

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 07:51

I'm inclined to give Vox one more turn to propose their "compromise," and then I have a couple more choice passages from the Book of the Storm for them:

Wisdom 3:4 (right after my previous quote)
Actions speak louder than the loudest trumpet, and truer than the straightest line.

Wisdom 6:9
When time is important, a promise delayed is a promise broken.

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 07:54

Originally posted by alva
Or we go for WC and take those warriors out to put some pressure on vox (not a full blooded war though).

It is an option...

If we get in a fight, I want the ability to upgrade warriors. If they can upgrade their warriors and we can't upgrade ours, that could be a serious problem. (And remember, it's likely to take some time after we get Iron Working before we get an iron supply hooked up.)

Nathan

**alva** · January 9, 2003, 08:01

true,

WC would be a short solution to those annoying warriors...
It could tilt the balance in our favour regarding the isthmus(Vox backing off and agreeing to let a warrior trough)...but there is a serious risk involved.

**nbarclay** · January 9, 2003, 08:01

Duplicate deleted.

**DeepO** · January 9, 2003, 08:32

Please, hold your horses on this war talk! This is not the first time I ask for some patience, I would have been very surprised if they accepted our deal immediately. They only took a few hours for the discussion, while we are debating it for days... Seriously, do you think Vox is more 'one voice' than we are? They need time.

I can also sympathize with their tech response. Of course, they want to get the most out of the deal. So, in the first step, what would happen if they would be researching the wheel themselves? They don't want to get it from us. If they don't want the wheel, they can have pottery for BW from me as well (don't know the exact cost).
Further: they need to make sure they can sell whatever they get from us to Civ X. So, they need to have some kind of negotation with them as well.

In this respect: what if Civ X already has either the wheel, or alphabet? it is likely that a more isolated civ would go for mapmaking themselves, thus focusing on alphabet before all else. If Vox can't sell it to them, the value of alphabet goes down a lot, after all they could get it from Civ X too for another of our techs.

Re: Isthmus:
- Can we build forts yet? I thought this only came after construction. The worker is most likely building a road, so that the Isthmus can be reached with immortals and archers from out of sight. If I would be on the defense, I would do the exact same thing. It does signify that at least one of their cities is very close to the Neck.

- We need to see both deals (one on exploration, one on tech trades) separate. Nathan said in a previous message that we were annoyed, but wanted to see past that because the other issue is to serious. This is exactly how I see this. We can keep pressuring them to get our exploration done, or they stop their exploration (and certainly we can block them), we can't say: no tech deal as long as you're exploring us. It would set us back more then it would hinder them.

DeepO

**Harovan** · January 9, 2003, 09:43

War would be not to our favor right now. And DeepO is correct, that forts aren't available yet, so the road hypothesis is probably right.

I still doubt that CivX exists. It may, it may not. But Vox can not be trusted. Speaking with the voice of the foreign advisor, "they are known liars and cheats". But their attitude will fall back on themselves. I think their city/ies is/are fairly close to the isthmus. That shows, that they haven't much space. I expect room for 4-6 cities there, not much more. And if we keep Slash and Grog there to block their settlers, they will soon be boxed in, while we have plenty of room to expand. This is twice dangerous for us: They will earlier produce and stockpile military units (like we do, when preparing an archer rush while the AI REXes), while we are going to produce Settlers and Warriors at max speed and neglect our defense. They have spies in our land, who can report the sighted troop movements. Letting one of our Warriors explore their lands, could be a trap. They could place a warrior (Rodney) on the 2 tile isthmus, while we have only one in the region and can't block them. So we would need to build and relocate a third warrior to put a defense up again, what takes time and helps them to build a city there, what would be clearly to our disadvantage.

**Harovan** · January 9, 2003, 09:45

So is everyone agreed with Bronze Working at 100%? If so, I'm going to send the turn then.

**Harovan** · January 9, 2003, 10:10

Team stats:

56 (+1) Gathering Storm
65 (+1) Demogyptica
59 (+1) Glory of War
62 (+2) Role Play
57 (+1) Vox Controli
51 (+1) Lux Invicta
62 (+2) Legoland

Power went much in our favor. The +12 gold, I guess.

Announcement

Turn 28

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