Turn 51, 1750BC

[zeit]

Sufa sounds really good, its a short name with a nice tone (when expressed in english/american accent). Malestrom is good too, but i'd rather have this city a short catchy name, and not a heavy and powerful one like the ones we've used so far.

[nbarclay]

I opened the turn, and we have a complication. Vox is operating on the assumption that we have a "give each other all techs acquired for the time being" deal (not surprising after the chat), and just offered us Warrior Code and Mysticism. If we accept those (they're being offered as gifts from the game's perspective), we need to give them Writing when we discover it. (That would be a swap slightly in their favor in terms of costs, but about as close to even as can reasonably be hoped for.) They're also asking what they should research next; I don't know whether that means they've held up research waiting for an answer from us or not.

Anyhow, I can't get past the diplomacy screen without doing something about Vox's offer, so I'll let things sit here until I get word on what to do. By the way, the fact that Vox trusts us enough to do this is a good sign for the possibility of a long-term working relationship with them, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Nathan

[Dominae]

I suggest refusing the deal this turn, if for no other reason but to make the point that things we discuss are not final unless we say so. When will they get it together?


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dominae, as I recall, they had every reason to think the tech exchnge deal was a go. You can check out the chat logs if you want to, but it seemed to me that the people involved in the team chat on both sides were more or less treating it as a done deal by the time Sir Ralph left.

It looks like contacts aren't going to be a problem for us. The rest of the world is interested in contact with us, so Vox has a chance to make a profit selling contact, and that could also help make Vox a more useful partner longer than they would be otherwise.

What I'd like to do is go ahead and accept these techs and give Vox Writing when we get it. Then we can arrange for them to research Philosophy while we do whatever we end up doing (probably Literature and then Code of Laws, since it looks like we won't be needing Map Making for contact). And I think for the time being, a "trade all techs" relationship works okay for us. It might help Vox more than it does us, but Vox isn't our main competition. (Note that to whatever extent Vox can profit by trading contact with us to other civs, it makes them a stronger trading partner than they would be otherwise, and we profit by getting contact without having to pay or do anything.)

Nathan

[asleepathewheel]

I think we should go ahead and accept this, and give them writing later.

there is also the possiblity of hbr thrown in later. (confused about that situation)

Thats three techs for one. And three required techs, we would have to get them eventually.

And it will foster a sense of partnership between the two teams.


reading betas accounts of the mainland teams, it would seem that they are having as many problems iwth each other as we have had with vox, if not more.

[nbarclay]

I sent BetaHound a PM asking for clarification on the Horseback Riding issue, but he's not online at the moment. If Vox's not trading Horseback Riding to us was part of their deal with GoW, I'm inclined to think there's no hurry to our getting Horseback Riding anyhow. Even if it's separate, we could delay getting Horseback Riding from Vox, until we have a chance to put on a big show with GoW about how uninteresting the tech is to Egypt (and for a while after that to avoid creating any foul odors) in order to avoid being part of a situation that antagonizes GoW.

Nathan

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I sent BetaHound a PM asking for clarification on the Horseback Riding issue, but he's not online at the moment. If Vox's not trading Horseback Riding to us was part of their deal with GoW, I'm inclined to think there's no hurry to our getting Horseback Riding anyhow. Even if it's separate, we could delay getting Horseback Riding from Vox, until we have a chance to put on a big show with GoW about how uninteresting the tech is to Egypt (and for a while after that to avoid creating any foul odors) in order to avoid being part of a situation that antagonizes GoW.

Nathan

I agree. riding can wait till the end of the age, as far as I'm concerned. Dead end tech, we don't get a unit. Not sure why GoW is so bent on trading it to us.

a very odd situation.

everyone wants to know us. But Vox is holding off for the highest bidder? And will give us what they get? It seems like vox has become even more our patsy in the recent days. Lux doens't understand our partnership with vox. Intersting. This would tell me that the relationships lux has are more strained than the vox partnership.

[nbarclay]

If what Vox gets is tech, we'll get it too if the trade all techs deal is on. If it's gold, we won't, but the gold could help their research once buildings start cutting into research more (or they might use it to help buy a tech, which we'd then get).

Horesback Riding isn't quite completely useless to Egypt, since horsemen can travel places WCs can't. My usual approach in SP is that if a city can build a horseman just as quickly as it can a WC (e.g. 15-19 shields or 30+ shields), it builds horsemen, but otherwise, it builds WCs.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Got a clarification from BetaHound. It looks like GoW tried a "By clicking 'Accept' you agree to" bit that was (or appeared to be) intertwined with a deal that was already in the works, and managed to confuse Vox in the process.

My inclination is to advise Vox to (1) go ahead and provide the contacts when they get Writing since otherwise, it might sour relations with both GoW and RP, (2) make that contact contingent on their agreeing not to trade contact with us to Lux or ND (thereby preserving an opening for Vox to trade contact to those teams), and (3) just let Horseback Riding sit for the time being; we don't need it right now so there's no sense in antagonizing GoW over that part of the situation.

Nathan

[Theseus]

It's late... and I've been out and about.

But given all the recent developments, my gut reaction is to take all deals possible (max contacts with a relatively isolated position being an *extremely* good thing), be the nice guys, and then commit armageddon on Vox once we're out of despotism.

I do have a slightly more sophisticated idea in mind though, and perhaps Nathan can run with it:

Someone used the word "auction" above... there is a way for Vox, on our joint behalf, to actually run an auction, whether English (high bidder, serially) or Dutch (in this case, combined bids).

Without getting too complex, it seems to me that there are still some subtleties about who we are (the strat forum guys) that we aren't taking sufficient advantage of... fear, respect, potential partnership, etc.

[notyoueither]

More tech quicker is better.

[nbarclay]

I need to get to bed if I'm to have any hope of getting my hours bent back to something resembling normal. Sir Ralph, you're welcome to take it if you can find a consensus once the European folks start weighing in.

[Harovan]

If we take the techs (and so far I think we should), we are morally obliged to give them all our new techs too for free. This would also include all techs we obtain through the Great Library, if we really get it, without any compensation. How is the opinion of the team on this?

OTOH, if we don't take the techs, it for certain would be understood by Vox as a sign of danger. That's also not very good, given their past behavior based on fear.

What do you people think?

I will play the turn as soon as I get home from work (approximately 5pm GMT/noon EST). Before work I usually don't have the time to play a demogame turn, with statistics and screenshots. It's barely enough for "simple" PBEMs.

[notyoueither]

I think we should take the techs. I think we should give our techs. This 'alliance' may last forever, or for the next 40 turns. That is largely up to Vox.

The bottom line is that we are most likely behind at least 4 of the other civs. 5 if you count Vox having tech right now that we do not. We will not win the game of catch up on our own. Cooperate with Vox. It cannot harm us at this point.

The future is far from written, but right now we are lagging. Fix that!

[DeepO]

I don't think we can accept their techs right now. It would implicitely ratify our proposal of exchange all techs, and I don't feel that to be the best we can get, certainly not in the future. Instead, I would send Vox a message, saying we'll accept what they offered now for writing, if they want to. As we're not in a special hurry to get these techs, it doesn't matter if we now decline, and accept them next turn.

Further, we need to get the slaves deal out to them urgently. The longer we wait, the longer it's going to take us too...

DeepO