DIPLO: GoW comments

[DeepO]

literature for contact with lego: sounds a good idea, Vox can get MM from us. Added advantage is that if both us and Vox offer literature to GoW, they will never expect us to be an alliance.

DeepO

[Harovan]

2 more messages received, see the GoW diplo thread.

[Shiber]

Eek, they want to couple Philosophy with the deal.
We can answer that we do not want to purchase Philosophy for any price since we have "already made some investments into it". If we're lucky, they'll think that we are already deep into researching Philosophy.

[Harovan]

Yes, just write them that we're not interested in Philosophy.

[alva]

Vox isn't selling it, are they?

Maybe add something like;
"Is that an assumption on when you will have researched it?"

[Shiber]

Good idea.

[zeit]

I don't think it's a good idea- we tell them we're not interested in the tech, but want to know when they're done researching it?

We can just ask Vox about it, i'm sure they'll tell us.

[Aeson]

Better to ask Vox about whether they are selling it around or not.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by zeit
I don't think it's a good idea- we tell them we're not interested in the tech, but want to know when they're done researching it?

The trick is to first ask whether they're done researching it already, wait for their reply, and afterwards reply with an ambiguous message such as this: (wording should be made prettier and "diplomatic", of course) after much discussion and debate inside the team, we decided not to purchase Philosophy from your team. We have already made some investments into Philosophy, before we received your offer, and we would not like to waste the resources that we have already invested into acquiring Philosophy. However, we would be like to deal with you for the contact with Legoland.
Pretty ambiguous, I think. Does this mean that they paid some other civ for Philosophy, or that they've already begun researching it themselves? They'll never know, and they'll be so busy trying to guess what we did that they won't realized that we actually queried them for a hint for where they got Philosophy from.

[Shiber]

Sorry if my above post doesn't make any sense, I suddenly feel very tired and dizzy...

[zeit]

Okay, i've send HotE a reply- regarding the issues we've discussed before, as well as a brief response on his lateset offer.

[zeit]

HotE sure seems disappointed that we "research" philosophy. I'll try to tell him that pretty soon they won't have a monopoly on the contact, as more teams will have it, whether they sell it or not.
I'm sure he'll get the message- sell it soon, or we might find another source...

[Shiber]

Just read the latest message... GoW are pondering the possibility of offering us Philosophy for a very discounted price. Damn they're persistant.
Anyway, I wouldn't tell them that Lego might make contact with some civs on their own, before GoW manages to sell their contact to all civs. I'd rather let them find out on their own, when it's too late...

[DeepO]

Shiber, that's a given, that lego will continue on their happy journey around the continent. GoW knows that it has to be swift. I think that any delay we cause will make the price drop in itself.

Next message, simply ask them how much gold they need for it, and keep this up for a turn or two. By then, hopefully other teams will have contact, which means the price will plummet. If so, I suggest we buy it from GoW anyway, I'd rather give them a bit more cash then ND or RP.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

We already have Philosophy from Vox. GoW will see that we have it if they try to make an in-game offer and find that they can't offer it to us. So we do not need to get fancy in a way that will show us as dishonest (or at least very highly misleading) when GoW looks.

Nathan