DIPLO: RollPlay Team contact LOG

[DeepO]

Before the messages I quote, there were a few from Meshelic. I don't have them...
Also, I start this log, and hope everybody will keep it clean, but I'm just an interim ambassador. I hope Meshelic will continue this after he finds more time for GS.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Meshelic wrote on 28-12-2002 04:09:
I will be absent from a computer starting tonight until January 5th. So I will not be able to communicate with you regarding the PTW game.

However, if you need to contact someone, cantact DeepO or Alva848 for relations.

One thought of interest, you say that the Roleplay team has everyone elses minimap? What if we traded ours for someone elses?

Speak it over with my replacement. Contact DeepO first, then if no response after the first day try Alva848.

Anyways, see ya! Happy New Year!
Meshelic

[DeepO]

GodKing wrote on 30-12-2002 22:30:
Hi. I am forwarding this message from Meshelic so you know why I am writing to you DeepO and alva. As there is no Alva848 in the PM lists, I hope I have the right alva.

Per your request to trade for another teams mini-map, I am afraid that may not be possible. We are missing 3 mini maps, including yours. One team (Lux IIRC) we did not trade, but another team has located their capitol so we know where they are.

What I can do is trade our mini map. The one team (as I said Lux IIRC) we may be able to trade the location of their capitol as located by a symbol on our mini map. This will have to be discussed on our forum as we wish to make sure we do not adversly affect our diplomacy.

We do wish to trade with you so that we can begin formal in game trading ASAP.

RP goes well. We have an overabundance of deep fried squid - please join us in our tavern for some along with a good old beer. Our scouts are searching the world and have found may interesting sights, much as yours have I assume. I understand things are not so smooth in your leadership transition - hopefully everything will work out all right. We are celebrating the cow falling festival very soon. We throw a cow into the river and watch it go over the waterfall and out to sea - then we all eat BBQ. A very enjoyable experience. Perhaps with a mini-map exchange we can invite you to share in the fun......

Which other team were you interested in trading for? We may be able to facilitate such a trade as a neutral party. We already have formal diplomatic relations with a couple of civs, and soon our explorers will be near enough to be able to spot their cities..... something you sound interested in. Come up with some ideas of what you are looking for, and let me know. I will do what I can to work it out.

Thanks, and good holiday.

GK

[DeepO]

DeepO wrote on 31-12-2002 02:48:
Hello Godking!

Nice to hear from you. Forgive us for the not so ideal communication, Meshelic is on a holiday for the moment. He was more aware of what was going on. I'll do my best to respond to you.

Thank you very much for the tavern invitation, I always love a good squid meal. Storm Gods are wonderful to have around, they keep a watchful eye out for our sprawling nation, but they have one disadvantage... they scare squids away. Seagulls OTOH are more then abundant, so maybe one day we can trade their guano to you. (we're saving already.) I hear some rumors of our scribes that when properly processed there are magical, even flying powers in that stuff. I'm still sceptical, but our wise men have accomplished amazing things before, their future dreams should not be lightly discarded.

Lux' minimap certainly is tempting, as is those mercenaries location. We are careful when it comes to their direction, we consider them a constant threat. Our civilization is more interested in honorable trade then in backstabbing.

Allow me to discuss this on our forum however, I'm not sure how to proceed. We are certainly interested in trading with you, however the debate on exchanging geographical information has been thorough, long, and still not finished. Gathering Storm is proud to be a true democratic society, however there are some disadvantages to that as well

I'll get back to you as soon as this is discussed, please be patient with us over the coming days, as I'm certain many people want to share New Years Eve with their family and/or friends, and not on a game forum.

Happy New Year,
DeepO

[DeepO]

DeepO wrote on 07-01-2003 21:13:
Dear GodKing,

I'm sorry to be so late in getting back to you, please accept my apologies. It was not the squid catching that took us away from our mailbox for so long, but an unfortunate piling of circumstances. I hope the good news I can bring you will sweeten the sour taste you must have by now.

Meshelic was the past few days, and probably the next few weeks as well, quite busy with that mysterious stuff he calls 'real life'. As a result, I've been appointed as an interim ambassador to your glorious civilization. I hope everything is still well, and that the cow throwing party was a big success (sorry I couldn't make it).

In the mean time, we have thoroughly discussed your request for a minimap trade, and came to the conclusion that it is time for us to step out of the dark, and trade this information with you. We fully recognise that trading will be essential in this game, and if possible would want to meet with you, either on one of our borders, one of yours, or somewhere in the middle. Your people have always seemed to be coming from a trading tradition, so I hope we could honor you by offering this to you first (of course, we'll be offering to trade minimaps to other tribes soon).

As said before, our main goal in this game is to be honorable, if at any time you would suspect us of foul play or hidden agendas, please do not hesitate to contact us. I'm sure we can clear the misunderstanding, or correct any possible mistakes which we unwillingly could make.

Now, the practical side: we'd like to offer you our minimap of 3950 BC, as it should show our position at the settlement of our capital 'Eye of the Storm'. 4000 BC would be unfair, as fewer tiles would be uncovered than when the city hasn't been settled yet. We are still debating whether the current minimap, with all exploration done up to this point, is also available for trade, so for the moment please consider trading the initial minimap. Any ideas from your side on this issue are of course welcome.

Of course, we would like to ask that you keep our minimap secret from any other team, we will do the same with your map.

Further, it might be good to exchange e-mail addresses, so I can send this to you once we agree. Mine is steven_puntje_bex_apestaartje_chello_puntje_be, where '_apestaartje_' is an '@' and '_puntje_' is a '.' .

Last formality: I hereby declare that you are allowed to quote my PMs within the context of this game freely in your forum. (this to avoid any legal disputes with apolyton). Please do the same wrt to your PMs to me, so I can quote them, instead of needing to retype them.

I wish you and your team all the best, and let's hope that with this information we can agree to meet in game soon enough. I really am looking forwards to taste some of those excellent squid meals you're offering

DeepO

[DeepO]

GodKing wrote on 07-01-2003 23:00:
Feel free to quote me as well.

Your proposed trade should be fine. Sorry, don't have much time right now. I will arrange the details with you soon. Thanks.

Godking

[email address deleted]

[DeepO]

DeepO wrote on 08-01-2003 12:54:
Thank you, GodKing.

When I get back from work, I will send you our 3950 BC minimap. I certainly can understand time constraints, So allow me to send you a longer PM this evening, we might have another idea for a trade of information.

Talk to you soon,
DeepO

BTW: damn 'poly forums... it took me over an hour to post a few copies here. The price of being popular, I guess.

[Meshelic]

Thanks DeepO for doing this. Actually, before I had to leave there hadn't been too much need to speak with the Roleplayers, other than the obligatory greeting and reply. Anyways, upon my return I could not find the PM's from Godking anywhere, to my surprise.

After this next weekend I promise I will be able to get back in the swing of things. That is a cause of relief for me, as I've wanted to get involved again. Thanks again DeepO, you've been a huge help to me in my absence!

[DeepO]

Some unimportant messages followed, to exchange the minimaps. The results of these should be forwarded to your e-mail addresses.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and no problem Meshelic, just let me know when you are in charge again

BTW, would you be interested in writing a response message (further trade, lux-info exchanging, possible contacts established)? If not, I'll post one in an hour or so...

DeepO

[DeepO]

DeepO wrote on 08-01-2003 23:14:
Dear GodKing,

After comparing our two minimaps, we're happy that we are relatively close. It should be able to meet each other in a reasonable time (a lot depends on whether our nations share the same continent, of course). You indicated before that you might be interested in setting up a meeting spot, does this offer still holds? And if so, do you have some protocol designed for that?

We are at this moment discussing options here, and also to something else: Would you be interested to share if, and possibly whom you have contacted in-game yet? Again, this is just exploring options here, we are debating whether we would want it. But, in order to trade, it might proof to be important information to know of your trading partner. Do your civizilation have any established ground rules on this?

Best regards,
DeepO

[alva]

Oops, my bad

just use this one to copy your next letter if you want

(maybe link the appropriate thread to this one (first post)

[DeepO]

Alva, please take that to another thread, to keep this one as clean as possible

DeepO

[DeepO]

GodKing wrote on 09-01-2003 14:54:

DeepO;

After comparing our two minimaps, we're happy that we are relatively close. It should be able to meet each other in a reasonable time (a lot depends on whether our nations share the same continent, of course). You indicated before that you might be interested in setting up a meeting spot, does this offer still holds? And if so, do you have some protocol designed for that?

What we have done is send one of our exploring warriors to someplace near where the other civ's scout is at. We have typically traded our current mini maps, so it showed where the scouts were. Assuming we are on the same continent, we can arrange something like that. If not, we can either try and find some close land, or we will have to wait til map-making and send a boat.

We are at this moment discussing options here, and also to something else: Would you be interested to share if, and possibly whom you have contacted in-game yet? Again, this is just exploring options here, we are debating whether we would want it. But, in order to trade, it might proof to be important information to know of your trading partner.

In game we have met 2 civs. Two others are close enough that we expect to be able to meet up with them soon. Your civ we think is on another continent. OK that was a free-be.

Do your civizilation have any established ground rules on this?

Not realy. We do things rather informally. We are not so interested in the beaurocracy, but in just playing the game and having fun doing so. All of our trades must be approved by our leader, Togas. We are acting out our government at each stage. As we are in despotisim, Togas is out despot. When we get to Monarchy, Togas (if still our leader) will be King, with a bunch of Dukes, Counts, & Barrons.

This week at work is a killer for me, so I will not be able to do much in the game until this weekend. Sorry.

Thanks.

GodKing

[DeepO]

DeepO wrote on 09-01-2003 17:34:
GodKing,

What we have done is send one of our exploring warriors to someplace near where the other civ's scout is at. We have typically traded our current mini maps, so it showed where the scouts were. Assuming we are on the same continent, we can arrange something like that. If not, we can either try and find some close land, or we will have to wait til map-making and send a boat.

Well, I can tell you that we won't immediately be able to find you, at least not as long as we can't use boats. We have met with one other Civ in-game, which most likely you have contacted too.... Vox Controli. They are blocking our access to any further land exploration, and are not very friendly when it comes to negotiating. Our relation has been tense, because of implied aggresiveness from their side, which is doubly problematic as we would like to stay friendly with everyone for a while. We are a trading people... or at least would like to be, if it wasn't for our neighbours.

I assume you have met with them, so maybe you could meet at the spot where they are blocking us. If so, please leave us a note, and I'll send you a map. Otherwise, there is but one possibility, and that is getting to galleys fast.

As to exchanging current minimaps instead of opening maps: we were debating it. Allow me to ask this on our forum again, so that we could get to a fast resolution of this issue. We have a lot of ground explored, so it wouldn't really be in our advantage, but everything is discussable. One thing though, regardless of the outcome, absolute secrecy will be needed when it comes to that kind of information. We won't sell your information, and we would appreciate it if you don't do the same with ours. It's one thing to ask for someone's minimap as part of a trade, it certainly is something else when it comes to our own

All the best,
DeepO