DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[Theseus]

J/K

Good post, though, really.

[nbarclay]

One thing we need to be very careful about: for the time being, the plan is that Philosophy doesn't get shared with anyone outside us and Vox. So we need to avoid giving Lego the impression that they can expect Philosophy from us before it becomes widely available. Same goes for Republic when we get it.

[alva]

How about tech widely spread now, IE no future tech is on the table.

[nbarclay]

When we get our turn, we'll have Philosophy. We could put the arrangement in terms of all techs that three or more teams currently have, though.

[DeepO]

Nathan, good catch on philosophy. So far, no harm has been done, and I'll take care that the deal does not include philosophy. It was in the back of my mind, though...

I was thinking that the moment they showed even a little interest, I would enumerate what we have to offer, making a list of all techs, and contacts we can provide them. Does everybody still agree on the double WM deal? I think I'll ask for a little cash, but as said, I don't consider any cash necessary... let's hope this will be low enough for them to come to us, instead of trying the same thing with someone else.

DeepO

[Shiber]

I still absolutely love it. This trade will deprive all the other teams of Lego's gold for their techs, and deprive GoW the gold from whoring Lego's contact if we finalize this deal before they manage to sell contacts to everyone, and give us a complete map of Bob. Woohoo!
However, I'd inform Lego that we'd like them to buy (or trade for) the world map of at least one Bobian civ during this 20 turns period.

[zeit]

Re: cash from Lego- how about asking them to pay for half the cost of the gold we give GoW?
This way they won't have a hard time giving it, and makes our trade look more like what we wanted it to look like: we help you stay in the game without ripping you off, and you help us make sure the warring Bobians don't get richer.

[DeepO]

first proposal sent to legoland. this is the most important part:

Basically, this is what we were thinking of:
- We give you the following techs (if you don't have them already, of course): iron working, literature, code of laws, mysticism, horse back riding, mathematics and all techs leading to them if you don't have them already (this should include all level 1 techs).
- We give you all contacts to other civs you might miss
- You give us your world map when the deal starts
- You give us your world map in 20 turns from the start of the deal. In the mean time, you try to exchange your worldmap with a Bobian civ, so that when we receive your second worldmap, hopefully most information on Bob is also included. Notice that you try to exchange it, there is no requirement that you succeed. We would be hoping for it, though, as it is the only real advantage we can get ourselves out of this deal, instead of denying others your cash
- you pay us the symbolic amount of 50 gold, if you somehow get our contact from Bob. If we need to purchase your contact, you agree to pay 50 gold, plus half of what it costs us.

Maybe it's not perfectly worded, but it's a start. Let's see how they react.

Also, I think I left enough room to maneuver, so if anybody wants to comment: please do!

DeepO

[Aeson]

Can Legoland have any gold at all? They researched Pottery, Writing, MapMaking, BW, IW, Philosophy... who knows what else.

Maybe they were smart and left all their huts alone, but otherwise I don't think they could have had much commerce to spare.

[Shiber]

Well, they've had a LOT of encounters with Barbarians, so I'm sure that they popped (and continue to pop) enough barb encampments to make themselves a small fortune.

[Shiber]

Lego will not trade world maps...
Though perhaps, they will agree to get a map of Bob and send us screenshots (no in-game maps), if this is legal (and if our new respected member Ixnay cannot provide such screenshots from the Luxian archives).

[DeepO]

Damn... please read the messages in the lego log, they are quite interesting. I don't have a lot of time to comment right now, but here are a few quick comments:

- GoW has had to luck to not only receive lego's contact, but also philosophy.

- Lego is, or is going to start research on republic. bye bye republic advantage

- worldmap deal is off. I did point them quite hard onto the thing that whatever they give to GoW will get whored around instantly, meaning they deal with a middleman who is gaining more then them

- deals are already in place to distribute republic with GoW and RP

- they want 1/2 the gold as opposed to beaker cost from us from republic. No way, I would think. Next message I'll post an analysis to them explaining why this is bollocks, certainly after they tell us that they have 2 other teams already

- biggest point is that I'm unsure on whether we need to research republic ourselves, and ask legoland for gold, or we have to stop researching, and buy it from them. Maybe a chat is in order to smoothen this out. Currently, there is no way of knowing how far along they are already, so how much beakers wuold get lost on their side if we would ask them to stop, and give us half the beaker cost for republic, so they can sell it to other teams. It seems that we don't have a possibility to gain from it, so both researching it is foolish, because even if we would be faster, we can't sell it to others as legoland already has deals in place. A serious issue...

Other things: I don't know... will need to leave soon, I'll comment some more tonight (I hope)

DeepO

[Aeson]

Sounds like they are willing to pay us 1/2 the gold for Republic as well (if we go this way?). We should try to get them to agree that we research it ourselves. This gives us a 1-2 turn advantage in starting our revolution over the others, and we have the Religious edge over some of them to boot.

If our goal is to keep gold out of the hands of BOB, this may work pretty well. We and Lego end up with the gold between us.

I think we should ask for an exclusive right to trade Republic to ND in either case, to balance out that Lego has GoW and RP signed up.

[zeit]

Damn, i should have figured earlier that Lego would jump on the first contact they find- GoW for that matter (better than ND or RP, though).

Let's try to talk them into buying Republic from us, and split the market between us.

At least now we know how GoW got Philosophy...

[Aeson]

Didn't we trade CoL to GoW with a no-whore for 10-15 turns (depending on when we got MM from them)? Almost surely they traded CoL to Lego for Philosophy, I can't see Lego researching CoL on top of the rest of their techs, even if they got 2-3 from huts. If this is the case, I'll start working on a no Lighthouse + Vox + GoW scenario. Ixnay's maps will help a lot in this regard.

I think we need to send a message to Lego detailing the terms of how GoW got CoL.