DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[Arrian]

So if we kick in 50% of our tax revenue for 6 turns, we get education and we get a banking for astronomy trade (straight up)?

What would half of our 100% tax be? ~50 gpt? So ~300 gold?

It sounds pretty good... what do our brilliant economists think?

-Arrian

[zeit]

DeepO, why 200 gold+WM?

Are we seriously considering offering more than they have bargained for?

Since Lego is using the "we need gold" argument, and since we have a stronger case in that regard (a huge army to support), I see no reason in not saying- our gpt is low at the moment (without specifing anything), if we have to explain why we can't offer more.

our income over 6 turns is roughly 350, that makes 175 gold, a 40 gold discount (if we want to be nice) is 135 gold+WM. I don't think we should offer anything beyond 150 gold +WM. At this point, gold is quite important for us- for upkeep and maintenance.

[Aeson]

I think the lump sum + map is a good way to go, maybe even throw in a future luxury consideration. They only have 1 luxury (dyes?), and so we probably can only trade one of our luxuries to them. They'd want to get 1 from each other team instead of paying for a 2nd, and given Sistene (and their plans to build Cathedrals), I doubt they need/want them very badly.

I think we should coordinate the 2nd tech ETA's if possible. With the Collosus and at least a couple Libraries, we should be able to keep up with them, but pressing tech too hard is going to hurt us both (ie. Feudalism), and make the targets on our backs a bit more enticing to Bob. Maybe we should tie it into a trade for invention with ND, as then we could expect a ~15 turn ETA at the earliest, saving up gold in the interim.

Either that or we could say that 10 turns is our optimal ETA for Education. If we can make sure Astronomy shows up in roughly 25 turns, we'd have a shot at Copernicus in Hurricane. If it shows up earlier than that, I wouldn't expect us to get it at all. We'd also want to start researching Economics for Smith's in the same timeframe.

[Shiber]

Securing Education for Invention with ND if and after we sign this kind of deal with Lego sounds like a great idea! I'm all for it.
As for what we're going to offer Lego... whether 180-200 + WM is too high or too low is a good question. We have to consider what Lego is expecting to hear. Perhaps they're hoping for 300 gold, thinking that the legendary GS with all its brilliant economists must be making that much, and they'll be greatly disappointed when they hear numbers like 180. Still, I'd offer 180 gold + WM - if they're hoping for ~300, 180 is a good starting point for us in negotiations.

[Arrian]

Let me ask a couple of questions:

How many beakers is Education worth?

Would this deal for Education come with any sort of NDA, or could we attempt to sell it (though I suspect even if we could that either 1) lego would already have deals in place; or 2) the Bobians won't feel like spending much money for education with a war looming).

Off the top of my head, without access to the game, I'd say that throwing 200-300 gold at Lego now for Education in 6 turns plus a Banking <-> Astronomy deal after that is pretty good.

DeepO or I could ask Vondrack about the idea of slowing the pace down a bit too and see what he thinks. If we do slow the pace a bit, perhaps our payment could be in installments (if the total is 300, perhaps 150 now and 150 in say, 5 turns) so that we have some leeway for rush projects too.

-Arrian

[zeit]

I agree- hearing those sums will be quite dissapointing for them- but that's life. We heard alot of "sorry, we're low on funds" when we attempted to sell our goods, why do we feel so considerate all of a sudden.

I'm not saying we should give a hard time for Lego on this- But we don't have to think about fairness alone- this is our precious (yes it is) gold we are talking about- I'm sure Lego wouldn't have had a problem saying they can't spend much (as they have done already), and there's no reason why we could whine a bit about our own problems. Lego even gave us an opening- Vondrack did mention we have to pay alot for our "retired soldiers".
I see no reason why not at least try to start with 150 gold- as our economy is really not in such a great shape, in terms of gpt output...

300 is ridiculous- Do you really think they figured we make 100 gpt?
Let's not be that generous.

[ManicStarSeed]

Originally posted by Arrian

Off the top of my head, without access to the game, I'd say that throwing 200-300 gold at Lego now for Education in 6 turns plus a Banking <-> Astronomy deal after that is pretty good.

DeepO or I could ask Vondrack about the idea of slowing the pace down a bit too and see what he thinks. If we do slow the pace a bit, perhaps our payment could be in installments (if the total is 300, perhaps 150 now and 150 in say, 5 turns) so that we have some leeway for rush projects too.

-Arrian

Considering we are paying 200 for Chilvary, 300 for education seems in line.

I like the idea of installment (150 now, 150 later) payments. It cano only reinforce relations over time (provided that we all follow through on our respective ends). I agree that keeping some money in reserves are a good idea.

Mss

[nbarclay]

Chivalry is cost 32 in the editor, while Education is 44. So 275 for Education would be in line with what we're paying for Chivalry, although what we're paying for Chivalry is a bit on the high side if GoW can get similar or not too much lower amounts of gold from everyone else but Vox. As to what's fair, it's really hard to develop a concept of a "fair" price independent of the resale situation. The first-researcher cost for Education is about 1050 gold (I could get it as low as 1064, and an amount a little under 1050 failed), so I doubt that we want to go over 250 if Lego is going to do all the other selling. Speaking of which, does the plan for Banking/Astronomy include provisions to help make sure Lego doesn't end up with most of the sales for both techs? (I'm skeptical about the value of even 20-turn NDAs if the Bobians spend an extended period focusing on upgrading horsemen to knights, especially since they'd have to get Education before Banking/Astronomy.)

[notyoueither]

We are not paying 200 gold for chivalry. We sold feudalism for 200 gold as a hostage to get chivalry back.

We traded feudalism for chivalry. That is all. A good deal for us, but that is all it was.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by notyoueither
We are not paying 200 gold for chivalry. We sold feudalism for 200 gold as a hostage to get chivalry back.

We traded feudalism for chivalry. That is all. A good deal for us, but that is all it was.

It would have been a good deal, but it looks like GoW will end up getting the gold from selling both techs to others even though we paid about half the combined research cost. As it is, the only reason it wasn't a truly horrible deal is that Feudalism did us an enormous amount of good against Vox. Getting the gold from GoW when we needed it let us get Feudalism and do our needed military upgrades at the same time, so the value of that gold was totally out of proportion to its quantity.

[DeepO]

okay, so 275 for Edu would be roughly in line with Feudalism, even if it may be on the high side. Further, we'd like 40-50 for our WM. Further, a discount on the difference between astro and banking seems okay... so in total, would it be a good idea to go with the 200 gold + WM now (or in installments), including the future deal ?

All techs will come with 20-turn NDAs (see last message). And IMO this is not a bad thing.

Oh, Lego can't have an idea how much commerce we make, but knows it's better then theirs. But, they also can't have an idea on how large our military is... I doubt it that they know we are paying 100 gpt in upkeep. In total these two effects cancel out, so their guess of ~80 gpt left could come close (if they guessed that)... They also know we asked them 200 for Feud, and will expect a proposal around the same amount.

I'm still for it, the deal can certainly strengthen our relation with Lego (which remain the most stable partner, as we have no idea what will happen to Bob), it will get us to unis faster, we can start doing our research faster, and we set a precedent of a fair trade for techs.

Aeson: I support the idea of fixing etas on future techs, however 25 turns for Copernicus might be a bit too much. We still need to be faster then other teams can be on 40-turn research, and we can't stall too much or Lego will know what's going on. But, I think this is a good topic to discuss in a future chat with Lego, it has many advantages, one of which is less friction between the two teams doing most of the research.

DeepO

[zeit]

I still don't understand why you are so willing to give Lego so much gold for the tech: traing is not just about production costs (which seems like all we're interested in) but supply and demand as well...

In this case, Lego probably does NOT expect much from this- otherwise why say: "half of your gpt minus 40-50 gold". Again, offering 250 gold is as saying: "we earn 100gpt". I hardly believe Lego thinks so highly of us...

It doesn't look like anyone is listening to me, but how many times other teams used the: "we don't have so much gold" plea/case in order to get us to lower prices?

Why can't we do the same, let us at least TRY, explain to them our gpt is not in the sky, instead of being so eager to make it "fair" for Lego. If it doesn't work- we can negotiate and offer more, as it doesn't seem anyone here has a problem with sparing large anounts of gold.

Don't forget Lego are our main competitor now, and vice-versa: all that crap about "we don't want Bob to grow strong"- that's really convincing, given the not-so-long-ago "we don't want the GS to grow strong" expressions.

Once again, Lego didn't hesitate to bargain for what they thought of a better price before, even when it was downright insulting (like renegotiating after it seemed we agreed on a trade). I'm not saying we should do that- just explain our difficluties, offer them LESS than what we believe is "fair", because It looks like they are not expecting that much.
If that doesn't work, we can always pay more, and I doubt Lego would blow up the negotiations for a tech Bobians won't pay much for in the near future...

[DeepO]

Zeit, is it really such a bad deal in your eyes? I was fearing Lego wouldn't go for it... 250 is less then 25% of the beaker cost, plus there is the difference in cost between astro and banking we wouldn't need to pay. In comparison with Feudalism, we get a discount of some 60 gold on the price... and we sell our WM, which they otherwise also could get from any of the Bobian civs.

I agree we shouldn't support our biggest competitor too much, but right now we need some kind of ally, or we're toast.

One point though: I consider the price discussed here the furthest we would go, I would rather offer them 180 gold +WM, and see if they accept.

BTW, anybody know the exact difference between astro and banking by heart?

DeepO

[zeit]

One point though: I consider the price discussed here the furthest we would go, I would rather offer them 180 gold +WM, and see if they accept.

DeepO, It seems that we agree

Like you, I don't think its a bad deal at all- on the contrary, its quite a good one considering Astro and Banking. Taking the "upper limit" approach as you suggested is good for me. On that note: you certainly managed to get them to "pay" for the WM double or more our lower limit price for it- Good job!

I agree we shouldn't support our biggest competitor too much, but right now we need some kind of ally, or we're toast.

It seems that we're not the only ones looking for a short term (at least) ally. Lego has been somewhat "too" enthusiatic in our chat, and the following correspondence. I bet its not just DeepO's remarkable diplomatic efforts that got them to offer continuous tech deals and fairly good prices. Finnaly we have some common interest (or so it seems) with the blockheads. Will this be the beggining of a new friendship?
As cruel as it may sound- this could be our chance strike at them, and strike hard...

[DeepO]

Okay, so can I suggest it to them? (probably in about 5 hours, after work)

DeepO