DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[nbarclay]

We've already closed the Map Making deal with GoW, at least assuming they accepted our offer. (Edit: In-game, that is.)

[nbarclay]

Points we need to cover with Lego (if I'm not missing something):

1) We are already started researching Republic, so it would likely make more sense for us to research it than for them to.

2) Unless they have commitments from GoW and RP not to sell or trade Republic farther, an arrangement where Lego agrees not to sell it to ND or Vox themselves does not ensure us the opportunity of having half the trading rights. Expecting us to pay half the financial cost without our being guaranteed half the trading rights (or otherwise getting about half the benefits) seems less than entirely reasonable.

[Aeson]

Vondrack says they got 5 techs from huts. Likely ones would be The Wheel (can't see them researching this and IW once they have confirmation of an isolated start), Mysticism (who researches this anyways?), HBR, WC, CB...

I still don't think it helps their tech rate that much in getting to Philosophy, CoL, and Map Making. They would almost certainly be researching Writing themselves, and Map Making. Mathmatics should come before Philosophy (not entirely sure on this), and Literature and Polytheism are just as likely as Philosophy, and moreso than CoL.

Will be interesting to see what they have to say. Not sure what GoW had to offer Lego for Philosophy given what Lego would have had to have had to pop it from a hut.

[DeepO]

Nathan, there is no real way of knowing how far lego is on republic, which erxplains my question of an eta. So far, I avoided telling them we are already on route with republic, but if you all think that this is not grave to spill to them, I ill have more arguments to reason with them.

as to your #2: of course half the financial cost would be nonsense, even more so as they define it as half the gold we would get during the turns it would take them to research. If we gain more commerce during this period, we could actually pay over half the beaker cost. I've got tons of arguments lined up with them to explain this, but first of all I need replies on CoL: if we're going to sell it to them, I wouldn't mind if they are going to pay us half the beaker cost for it, or even one third would be superb. In reality, 100 gold would probably be too much to ask.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Aeson, are you taking into account that if you are researching one tech, you will not get that one from a hut? if you e.g. block writing by researching it, you could get to monarchy in 5 techs (I think). I realize that what they got is not ideal for blocking, but by changing techs at 0% research, they could do it.

As to 5 huts containing 5 techs: that's totally unlikely. Either they had a lot more huts (which would again mean their continent is huge, so far the only counterindication is that they only have one sort of luxs.), or they cheated, and reloaded in case a hut didn't provide what they wanted from it.

We got lucky with our only hut, but this kind of luck is what gets some people to win the lotery twice in a month...

DeepO

[Aeson]

Well at least that's cleared up. Blocking techs is a good point, but that means they morgaged their future (getting to MM) on luck from huts. They would have had to be very smart to save their huts, and make a huge mistake hoping for long odds to pay off.

Of course if they had 10 huts, it's not that long of odds, but still nowhere near the sure thing that beelining for MM is.

---------------

I think it all works out well for us. We stand to make more from CoL than we could have otherwise.

I also don't mind slowing down the tech rate, as long as the 'duplication' is between us (GS, Vox, and Lego) and BOB. Once Riders and Ansars are roaming on BOB, bad things can happen. I think we should recommend that Lego research Construction or Currency, and we will be willing to trade The Republic for their tech + 1/2 the beaker difference in gold (if no trading restrictions), or hopefully work out some sort of revenue sharing treaty where we split the proceeds from those two techs and don't compete with ourselves when trading them. In such a case, 1/4 the beaker difference in gold.

How we include Vox in all this is the hard part.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
How we include Vox in all this is the hard part.

Yeah... sigh. Damn Voxians, if we wouldn't need them, I would simply leave them out of the deal... If they could research one of the costlier techs, we could probably get lego on the two that were left, and still end in time for us to get a 3-partner alliance going.

I'm quite hesitant to start these kind of negotiations with 3 teams, that is simply too complex to be of good use. Look at the Vox-Lux-GS situation, or at what happened before on Bob... I do not blame Lux for what happened there, it was simply too complex to set up a partnership between 4 teams.

DeepO

[zeit]

DeepO- could you ask Lego to tell us exactly when they get CoL- so i could send GoW our message, re: Violation of NWA.

Regarding Vox being part of the tech alliance- perhaps now is the time to revise the arrangement between the two of us, and make Lego our prime partner?

[Shiber]

Please advise, urgent.

[Aeson]

Re: Lego getting our contact from ND.

ND doesn't have Philosophy right? Maybe we (or rather Vox) can just take that money that ND is getting?

[Shiber]

We'd better decide quickly, they're going to play their turn anytime soon.

[DeepO]

So this too late... totally overlooked it yesterday. I warned the legos that we are in contact, let's hope they did not already sent payment for our contact. They are right though, we should try to sell their contact to Vox, to avoid them letting spending money on someone else...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Just received a new proposal on republic from lego, basically, they sell rep to GoW, we can sell it to Vox, and as a compensation they asked for 70 gold to compensate the difference.

I tried to friendly explain to them that given the new situation, maybe it wuld be a good idea for them to drop the gold, as perhaps we would be the ones needing to ask for money. If anyone feels inclined to accurately calculate it, be my guest

(should be BeforeLast(Curr) + BeforeLast(Constr) + Last(Curr) + Last(Constr) compared to Second(rep) + Third(rep) Not sure who is in the advantage here, it's definately close)

Further:
- are there people who want to join Sunday's chat, 9 pm GMT?
- And, what are our future research plans going to be, and what would we want to let the legos search for?

DeepO

[Shiber]

Yes, I'd love to participate in Sunday's chat, but 9PM GMT is simply impossible for me. If we can hold it an hour and a half or so earlier then I could make it; of course, I fully understand if that is impossible.

I would have answered your other questions and related to your post and to your excellent quick response letter to Lego, but alas, RL calls.

[alva]

- And, what are our future research plans going to be, and what would we want to let the legos search for?

Would a strategy 'beelining' for cavalry work?

What I mean is, not researching the upper part of the tree, but Lego and us alternating on the bottom part of it, whereby one goes 100% on research, while the other saves up money to be able to go 100 on the next tech.(and using the extra cash for upgrades & rushing).
(Oh, not trading these tech to Bob of course)