DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[DeepO]

Next message sent to Lego...

DeepO

[zeit]

I suppose that if we agree to hand the Legos the gold, we could earn their trust, so that later on we might save ourselves some trouble in haggling on the MT, which will make the "daily" mangement of our future partnership far easier.

[DeepO]

Enough time has passed. I just got a message from Vondrack, that they are sitting on the save, waiting for an answer from us (becuase otherwise they would be too late in giving techs). I'm going to say to them that the deal is ratified, even if officially I should wait for 1 more vote.

DeepO

[FrustratedPoet]

/me turns up to make the vote official.

Put me down for another reluctant Yes.

[Shiber]

Btw, are we going to gift Currency, Construction and Republic to Vox (under certain terms of course; what were they again?) on turn 84? In exchange for their MT, right?

[DeepO]

Timing towards Vox might be something we need to discuss a little with Lego...

BTW, I just came in, anyone with more experience want to set up a secure chatroom or two?

DeepO

[DeepO]

channel is open, /msg me to get you invited

Thanks Shiber, for setting it up

DeepO

[DeepO]

okay... the chat has ended... I think it went realtively well. Some comments:

1. I thought it was absolutely necessary to get the Legos into an anti Bob mood, and didn't mind giving all kind of facts / opinions to convince them. I typed myself a hurting hand in doing so, but I think I got at least part of what I wanted... no more talk about "being fair to everyone, so can't delay trades to Bob".

2. Legos biggest fear is RP, because they are closest to them, and while Lego has roughly the second best military strength (as seen in F3), RP is better, and most likely the only one being better. Lego thought all that power was needed to attack them, I did explain that was not so likely, because RP has a lot of land to defend, and in the jungle, swords would be the best units to have for quite some time.
But, there were loads of comments on RP being puppetmaster, and that being the biggest risk to us, because if they can unify Bob by taking on the outside world, both GS and Lego would be targets. I think they feared RP more after that, but we'll see.

3. quite a few comments on Vox, I did mention to them we have reasons to believe Vox is going to resettle Bob soon. In rereading the chat, perhaps I didn't stress enough that this could bring unison in Bob. Lego asked if invasion was possible, on which I wholeheartedly agreed (even if I don't agree with myself here, any invasion right now would be very tricky to perform, and I doubt Bob would go for it, unless they release tensions between themselves first)), simply because if an invasion on Vox would be possible, one on Lego would be equally likely. If we get Lego into a 'fear Bob' mode, perfect.

5. Confirmation that they have currently 8 cities (and we didn't tell how much we had, only "a bit more").

Further, and this one I like most: that pyramid prebuild is a sistine chapel prebuild. I'm kind of proud of that result, I didn't tell them anything on our wonder plans, but what they said made it clear there was just one option (well, Bach could also be true, if they would reach that far). I didn't even suggest that the pyramids were a good wonder to get too, I don't think they realize the potential. Of course, they have not told us explicitly; it could be possible that they have a second palace prebuild running for Sistine, while this pyramid build is exactly that, but I doubt it.

6. Lego is saving cash, and wants more of it. They don't want pikes, but knights are sought for. Further, Vondrack nearly got a heart attack the moment I suggested that they had to pay gold for MT, we should seriously consider getting some deal where we do not ask gold for MT, it would please the legos a lot.

7. future deals: they want a tech deal with us, they fully see the potential here. I warned them that if we would go for that, it has to mean that in the future, it should be possible to discuss Bob-embargos or we would not sigh something. Also, as a first step, I proposed 10 turn NDAs on all tech we would sell, simply to keep the rest from sharing. However, I warned of the disadvantages, and explained why we had a problem with MT here.

8. MT: I said we were gonig to discuss it, which we should, and soon. But, not tonight for me, I'm too tired... I'll start something tomorrow.

9. Lego doesn't want to change to republic, for some strange reason, I think meeting RP really brought fear in those plastic hearts of theirs. It wouldn't surprise me if their 'we need to finsih a couple of units first' was meant that they needed to pop-rush stuff, instead of wanting a better defense before going in anarchy. Never mind what it is, but I didn't explain to them that there is no risk for an invasion the next 5 turns, and they could switch safely. Let them find out for themselves... or let them get the disadvantages of it too. I like the legos, but there is absolutely no reason why we need to favour them so hard that they become bigger then us.

Other comments / questions: go right ahead.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Sounds intense.

RP= Puppetmaster of Bob

DeepO = Puppetmaster of Legoland

[DeepO]

hehe... as long as they don't figure it out, we should be very happy with them being kind of following our lead. Vox did it before, and see where it brought them, now they are dead last in this game.

Yes indeed, Togas might have more diplo skill, but we haven't been doing bad so far either. And no, that was not a compliment to myself here, more an observation on our general standing in this world. No arch-enemies yet, and plenty of people wanting to strike long time deals with us. Let's keep this up

DeepO

[alva]

Nice chat

I think they have another wonder in store too, ah well, doesn't matter.

Good work.
-
One thing though, I'm not sure,we need to go after knights ourselves, since this will be a must have for many a Bobians, I'm sure we can get this some other way. Iron? (unless of course we want a small window to invade BOB, which is suicide IMO).

Then again, I quite like the bottom tech (always forget it's name though ), the ability to cross rivers with no movement penalty can be a life saver.

[Shiber]

The tech you're referring to is engineering.

Excellent chat DeepO! Congratulations!!

Lego is building the Sistine, which is interesting, because most people rate it low in multiplayer games, unless you're religious. Anyway, it's cool, since it leaves us more room for Sun Tzu's and/or Leonardo's.
Do you think Lego might change their minds and switch targets to JS Bach's? In that case, they'd certainly be more interested in a tech alliance, where one of us would research into the military branches while the other one does the religious branch.

[DeepO]

Alva, 2 wonders might be possible, but I doubt it... we'll see. At least last chat made me more comfortable with their pyramid build. Maybe in the future, when we are closer to finish it (and have to change our palace prebuild), we can warn them of our intentions, and see their reaction. Pyramids would be vastly more advantageous to us then to them, maybe we can convince them anyway. But for the moment, we can reasonably safely assume it's a prebuild, and not a pyramids build.

Also, they have 8 cities, and they did not receive settlers from huts, this result in itself is quite good to have if you don't have early settler pumps like we had. their capital is at size 5... BTW, where are the legos building the pyramids? not in their capital, no?

Shiber: maybe they aim for Bach, I would certainly do that. As long as it is a happiness wonder, it's okay. From the discussion on this board, I think most agree that happiness is important, but not that important to us, and if we are going to build wonders in our GA, Leo's and the Colossus would be better choices then Bach or Sistine. The amount of extra commerce the Colossus can generate in a large city is enough to put the slider to 10% lux without lossing beakers or commerce, this has about the same effect then Bach in our empire atm, for a lower price.

But no matter that, I think the Legos would be interested in getting to education asap, even without any happiness wonders on the way. So it is in their interest if we promise to go for MT if we don't get it from Vox, and otherwise research the military techs for them, and swap for the Northern route. We complement nicely here, so no problems whatsoever.

As to chivalry: there are a couple of reasons why I stress getting there first.
- we simply might need them, in case any war breaks out (whether we start it or not)
- other teams will not attack us easily, if they know we have knights.
- we can trade it. This may be one of the best reasons: I'm certain that we should be able to strike a deal with GoW so that they can have both iron and knights delivered to them asap. They will be happy to provide us with gold, so they can save more upgrade money if they don't have to research anything themselves. I agree the gap is too small to really take advantage here (except against Vox, as they have no horses to upgrade), so why wouldn't we try to start negotiating with all teams to buy knights from us? All it can accomplish is that they are more likely to start on one of lego's techs, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

DeepO

[zeit]

The future definitely holds many opportunties for Lego and us. If Lego values their cash so much, not going to Republic is just folly IMHO- They don't need that many units if they just want to defend, and if they need cash for upgrades- even better! lower corruption and waste!
Perahps it's just that Republic has some stigma of: "take care of your military and neighbors first, and only then...", probably left from the SP.

I also think knights would be a wise choice- i'm sure GoW would love to buy that, and besides- we'll definitely need these if we're thinking of wreacking some havoc on Bob anytime, i bet the price of this tech would be pretty high to GoW and RP...

I'll ask what HotE thinks they might offer for it.

[DeepO]

Just got a friendly message from Lego, where they let us know they have found a better deal on MT elsewhere... I'm a bit disappointed, but it doesn't matter really: we will offset any difference we might feel we have with them in a future deal. If they think they have become in a better position by getting it else where, that's okay for me.

We need to start working on that future deal, though. I'll open a thread on it

DeepO