Turn 29

[Harovan]

Turn received.

Rodney fortified at his hill. The Voxian Worker went on Rodneys hill. Willy and Tim both went 1. So far they did not stop their advance. Hack moves 1 and keeps S of Willy. Ouch moves 4 and Crush 8, so that Tim is blocked from both S and SW. Slash fortifies. No further actions.

Turn will be sent in a couple of minutes.

Screenies: zoom, power, f11. Power went back and is about the same like it was 2 turns ago, slightly to our favor, but not much.

[nbarclay]

Did you cut the science slider back to zero as I requested? I'm inclined to assume that they came to their decision after they sent their turn, and that that is why their actions this turn do not reflect their change in policy.

Nathan

[Harovan]

No, didn't see it yet. But do you really want to stall our science for a "maybe"? Vox betrayed us twice, promising things and taking it back a turn later. If you are still willing to trust them, I will take the slider back. But I would be in favor to work out another deal, like Wheel+Pottery/Iron.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
No, didn't see it yet. But do you really want to stall our science for a "maybe"? Vox betrayed us twice, promising things and taking it back a turn later. If you are still willing to trust them, I will take the slider back. But I would be in favor to work out another deal, like Wheel+Pottery/Iron.

Vox's handling of the exploration issue can easily be explained by a combination of (1) carelessness in their choice of words and (2) reluctance to give up an advantage (especially when doing so would apparently let us walk right up to their city borders). BetaHound may not even have been thinking about how quickly our warriors would run into a blockade when he wrote his message about respecting each other's rights to expand our horizons. So I'm not ready to call that a deliberate betrayal.

What other betrayal do you have in mind?

[nbarclay]

By the way, they're researching Pottery right now, so Wheel+Pottery for Iron may or may not be workable.

Nathan

[alva]

If they only just started pottery, we could try for pottery for BW. (maybe include a few extra gold?)

It's a long shot, but you never know.

[nbarclay]

Alva, what's your take on how badly they have or haven't betrayed us? Do you think the problem is one of bad faith on their part, or more along the lines of carelessness (and SP-oriented thinking about what's "proper" in regard to chokepoints) coupled with slowness to make a decision when we complained?

Come to think of it, if I recall correctly, they came to their decision within four days of the time they actually read my first message. That's not a truly horrible response time, and while it was highly irritating having them continue to explore during that time, their revelations about their homeland more or less undo that damage.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by nbarclay
By the way, they're researching Pottery right now, so Wheel+Pottery for Iron may or may not be workable.

And we are researching Bronze Working right now and also would lose the investment of 12 beakers.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

And we are researching Bronze Working right now and also would lose the investment of 12 beakers.

Which is less than one fifth of the cost of the technology. I'd rather write that off than write off all 62 beakers or so as a loss relative to everyone but Vox.


Edit: beakers, not shields.

[Harovan]

I don't call it very trustworthy to say, that they will withdraw their explorers, while continuing their pressure south. Also, I don't know what they mean by "mountains in the north".

I agree with Nathan on the matter, that they don't betray us because they are evil, but because they are careless. It's a pain to negotiate with careless people. "So we forgot our part of the deal? Oops, perhaps next turn. And if we forget it again, perhaps later...". At the time Betahound wrote about our right to explore north, they saw Grog and knew how quick he would advance. And their statement, that right behind the isthmus begins their territory is also wrong, because in that case we would see their borders, and be it only a small edge.

All this is not very apt to increase my trust.

[nbarclay]

I'm not ready to trust them 100% myself, but considering how much we have to gain if a deal goes through compared with how little we have to lose just deferring research one turn and stockpiling the gold for later use, I think waiting a turn is worth the risk.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

In regard to the accusation that they said they'll withdraw but continued south, what time did they play their turn? I'm pretty sure it was several hours before they sent their promise to withdraw. It would have been good politics to at least stop their warriors if they were seriously considering the withdrawal, but if they were any good at such politics, they wouldn't have kept moving south to begin with.

Edit: Dissident posted of having sent the turn at 12:40 my time, and the first part of the message from BetaHound was sent at 21:53 my time.

[Harovan]

Can we agree to the formula, that we trust them once more, stall our research for one more turn and offer them The Wheel again, but this is definitely the last time we trust them? Is there a way to tell them this fact? And if they decline the deal again, we won't trust them again for a very long time.

[nbarclay]

They haven't promised to accept a deal, so it would not be fair for us to view it as an act of bad faith if they do not. Rather, we are choosing to take a calculated risk on the basis that the rewards if they do decide to deal vastly outweigh the losses if they do not. Of course how they react this time certainly will have an effect on our willingness to take similar calculated risks in the future.

[Harovan]

So what do you propose to do if the trade fails again? To wait again, and again, and so on?