Turn 29

[nbarclay]

Sir Ralph, you've seen how AIs tech whore on the higher levels, right? Consider the ramifications if other teams in the game do that sort of thing only with human intelligence insead of blind chance guiding their research, and if we don't get something going in the tech trading game fairly quickly.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So what do you propose to do if the trade fails again? To wait again, and again, and so on?

If we don't have something concrete in hand by our next turn, we crank Bronze Working up to 100% and forget about trading for it. I agree that we can't hold things open indefinitely.

Edit: And I tried to make it clear to them in my latest message that the window of opportunity is very short.

[Harovan]

Vox does very well so far. They are researching at full power, perhaps trading with other teams but us in the future (mind you that they claim to have contact) and stall our research with foul promises "may be, may be not". That are the facts I see. Are they different from the facts you see?

You haven't answered my question, by the way. /EDIT: Xposted with your answer.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If we don't have something concrete in hand by our next turn, we crank Bronze Working up to 100% and forget about trading for it.

What is something concrete? Is it a promise to make the deal? This would mean their carelessness can make us wait indefinitely.

I'd say we stall the research for exactly one turn, propose The Wheel again in the game and send a diplomatic note again, that this is the last chance. And if they decline the deal in the game again or fail to return a note about the agreement to extend the deal to Alphabet/Iron Working, the deal is toast once and forever.

[nbarclay]

As a stall, the only way they could gain at all is if they try an immortal rush and one turn tips the balance in terms of whether or not we get Iron Working and hook up iron in time to stop them (if in fact that would be the only way we could stop them). For any other purpose, we'll have the gold spent and be back where we would have been long before a single turn one way or the other will make any major difference.

And the initiative in putting things on hold like this was mine, not theirs. A conspiracy theory requires that they (1) have figured out that the hold would be necessary and (2) predict that just saying they were seriously considering the deal would be enough to cause this response. That seems far-fetched to me.

And keep in mind that a trade now speeds up the time when we will be able to deal with other teams without having to rely on Vox's good graces for in-game contact.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by nbarclay
And the initiative in putting things on hold like this was mine, not theirs. A conspiracy theory requires that they (1) have figured out that the hold would be necessary and (2) predict that just saying they were seriously considering the deal would be enough to cause this response. That seems far-fetched to me.

They could just have used the opportunity.

[Vox mode]
Voice 1) They have offered Wheel+Alphabet for BW and IW. Shall we agree?
Voice 2) Of course not, but let's keep them uncertain for a couple of turns. We lay out the bait of a possible deal, but don't promise anything. If they take it, we win time for our negotiations with Civ X and at the same time they may put their science to zero in order not to waste beakers. The more we keep them from having BW, the more we know they can't research IW, won't know where their iron is (GS mode: they probably already know it!) and can't plan their growth appropriately.
Voice 1) Very good! Let's do so!
[/Vox mode]

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


What is something concrete? Is it a promise to make the deal? This would mean their carelessness can make us wait indefinitely.

I'd say we stall the research for exactly one turn, propose The Wheel again in the game and send a diplomatic note again, that this is the last chance. And if they decline the deal in the game again or fail to return a note about the agreement to extend the deal to Alphabet/Iron Working, the deal is toast once and forever.

Go ahead and propose The Wheel in-game again now. The worst they can do is reject it.

We really need a final agreement before we send our next turn because if the originally proposed deal goes through, we need to switch to Alphabet, and if we don't have a deal lined up for Bronze Working, we need to crank our research back up.

[Harovan]

I will delay already this turn and ask our diplomats to put a note together:

- We offer The Wheel in-game
- Agreeing to it in-game, they at the same time agree with a future deal Alphabet/Iron Working.
- If they disagree in-game, the deal is null and void, once and forever.

We received our turn within the Green Hours, and I will delay the turn till End of Green Hours + 4 hours, to give them time to discuss.

[DeepO]

okay, I haven't read everything here, but keep this in mind: RPG is very eager to trade, so is legoland (both we know this from discussions and stating of their goals in game). They will meet in a few turns. Already, RPG has met with 2 other teams, and think they are going to meet with 2 more soon. Talk about possible tech whoring....

If only remotely possible, we need to deal with Vox. I don't like it at all, but I would stall the research, and if they agree, we trade BW from them. There is one catch, though: we need to start the deal this turn, if we want to get BW next turn accepted. If we don't do it very soon, we are going to lose another turn. So, again offer them the wheel, Sir Ralph, and Nathan, you should prepare a message saying the urgency. We are already losing one turn of possible research, a second one would be unacceptable. I don't need to have 50 gold in our treasury.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


They could just have used the opportunity.

[Vox mode]
Voice 1) They have offered Wheel+Alphabet for BW and IW. Shall we agree?
Voice 2) Of course not, but let's keep them uncertain for a couple of turns. We lay out the bait of a possible deal, but don't promise anything. If they take it, we win time for our negotiations with Civ X and at the same time they may put their science to zero in order not to waste beakers. The more we keep them from having BW, the more we know they can't research IW, won't know where their iron is (GS mode: they probably already know it!) and can't plan their growth appropriately.
Voice 1) Very good! Let's do so!
[/Vox mode]

Not impossible, but after their last message, I have a hard time seeing them as being so deliberately sinister. (And by the way, there are an awful lot of places iron could be that they haven't seen yet. Not that they necessarily realize how many there are.)

More importantly, refusing to take risks can be the biggest risk of all because of the opportunities one misses out on. I'm all for your watching out to make sure worst-case scenarios don't hurt us too badly, but in this case, the risk just isn't that great as long as we don't let the situation drag out.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DeepO
We are already losing one turn of possible research, a second one would be unacceptable. I don't need to have 50 gold in our treasury.

Worse. We already lost one, are up to lose another one and seem ready to take more foul promises.

[alva]

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?

I don't think they have betrayed us in any way, but havn't shown us any respect either (Except for maybe their first letter (oh yes, please explore, no we are not moving Thadeus). They have treated us as an AI.

The choke was, hmm, ok IMO, I would have done the same I guess.
But not the two scouts in our territory, certainly not the last turn, they could have at least halted one to show good faith.

Does that mean we can't trade anymore, no why should it.
I wouldn't waith though to see if they are going to accept our trade the next turn. Do our research on BW, keep diplomacy going to see if we can work something out in the future and try to contact the X civ.

Maybe we can make a deal with them to cut out VOX completely. If we can get them to stop trade with VOX, even give(promise) them some land VOX is currently residing on, we should have no real problem in getting rid of VOX pretty soon (game terms).

Once site #3 is settled, we will outgrow VOX very quickly,Even up to point where we would be able to bully them (not sure if we want too, but we could).
Can we let them build one more city beyond the istmus, maybe we can (depending on iron location*). It will only divide their army and thus make it easier on us. Not to forget tile improvement.
We should however threat them the same whenever their next settler arrives, keep the warriors put, while we 'discuss' this. Stall them, annoy them and by then maybe even hope they will innitiate conflict.

ATM we got all we wanted in the first place, except contact with a third party and having the actual map tiles disclosed.
We know VOX does not have a great starting location, can't make much gold and has little space.




btw: this can be a good excuse to pour some oil back on the fire. To restart the debate what is ours and what is Vox's.

[nbarclay]

Proposed note:

[Sent to BetaHound with copies to Dissident and Jon Miller.]

Greetings BetaHound and Vox Controli,

I have just barely managed to persuade Gathering Storm to delay our research for a single turn in order to keep our original trade proposal open. Note that for the deal to work, you must agree to both phases, The Wheel for Bronze Working and then Alphabet for Iron Working (and we need a message to that effect). Otherwise, the values of the research involved do not balance (if the Mystic Editor is to be believed). And even at equal values, we would be eating a loss of a turn's research into Bronze Working.

If you prefer some other arrangement, there are two other possibilities that occur to us. If your research on Pottery is only barely started, we could exchange Pottery and perhaps a small amount of gold for Bronze Working. Or we could continue our research into Bronze Working and then exchange Pottery and The Wheel for Iron Working (assuming you have that knowledge), allowing you to shift your efforts from Pottery to something else. Or if you have any other reasonable proposal, we would be interested to hear it.

Again, I must emphasize that any arrangement involving your trading Bronze Working to us must be finalized by the time we submit our next turn. Otherwise, we will have to resume our research and a trade will no longer seem worthwhile. I apologize for the pressure this places on your leaders, but you should feel the pressure I find myself facing just for requesting this delay!

Sincerely,

The People of Gathering Storm
Nathan Barclay, Chief Economist

Edit: Added the need for a message confirming that they agree to both parts. If we interpret an in-game response as agreeing to both parts, what happens if their player somehow doesn't get word before making the counter-offer (or if they say that such a thing happened)?

[Harovan]

Ok. Conclusion:

Movements remain as described (not much choice there). Science will be set back for exactly one turn. The Wheel will be offered to VC. The turn will be delayed till 6pm GMT (1pm EST/Poly time) in order to give Vox time to discuss.

Agreed? If so, I make the turn and send the screenshots around.

Edit: Nathan, go ahead with your note. May be you should explicitly mention, that agreeing to our ingame deal means automatically agreeing to the Alphabet/Iron Working deal without the need to further negotiate.

[nbarclay]

Alva, I think you're overestimating how quickly site #3 will start helping us grow. Remember, it's been almost 30 turns and EotS hasn't produced its first settler yet. #3 will probably take similarly long, although it will be very useful once it does.

Also, once Vox gets their city built, we have no hope of establishing direct contact with Civ X (at least through peaceful means) without Map Making. But we may have some hope of securing contact through Vox once we get Writing. That provides a very good reason not to annoy Vox gratuitously. So, for that matter, does the fact that we want Vox's primary trading partner to be us, not someone else. An eye for an eye leaves both people blind, as the saying goes.

Nathan