DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[DeepO]

Last chat:

1. 230 gold, with the promise they won't go for Econ seems okay. I'll write a formal message tomorrow

2. mutual profit on reselling each other's techs: some ideas were given, Lego would be willing to give it a try on 1-2 techs. Need more time to settle... they would appreciate us not trying to resell Edu, as they haven't sold it to anyone. I propose to include in the treaty draft that we won't try to resell it without their consent, or without at least some discussion on getting some profit to them. It will do our relations good

3. Delaying of techs: they're looking at 15-20 turns after edu for Astro, and seem willing to coordinate with us so that banking gets released around the same time. This might create the opening for prebuilding a wonder, if we want that

4. Situation on Bob: not much said. It's tense... and Vondrack doesn't like RP, due to being a pain in the *ss during negotations. ND offered them NAP, and it read to me like they happily accepted that... not sure on this one.

5. founding of Vox new capital goes to plan.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Good tone in the chat. A grand alliance in the making?

[Arrian]

Great work, DeepO.

I'm fine with 230g + WM for edu.

I'm also happy with the ~15 turn ETA on Astronomy.

-Arrian (who nevertheless still thinks Lego is our biggest problem. Imagine, for a moment, them triggering their GA with Smith's. Ack!)

[DeepO]

Arrian, I agree... Lego is one of our main competitors. But I'd rather keep them close, at least we now have some idea what they're up to.

Lego might be the biggest competitor in the long term to us, but not if we would go for a military victory: we could leave Lego and Vox on their continent, and take Bob. Advantage is that we only need Bob, which, given our current military forces, don't seem such a major undertaking.

No, for the moment, I would prefer Lego to be our friends, as long as we gain as much from the friendship as they do, we should, relative to the rest, keep growing stronger.

The only disadvantage is that we can't invade Bob without facing a 3-1 war, while we could invade Lego for a 1-1 war (not that we would be very safe on our flanks, but still). But in the end, we need Bob, not Legoland.

DeepO

[Theseus]

An interesting point, DeepO... is that how you believe that we will win this game?

And where will Lego be in the meantime?

Not that I disagree (really, I don't), but we need to be thinking for the strategic long-term.

[Octavian X]

I agree with DeepO - Bob's relative proximity to Stormia will make it a prime target until we have the use of galleons and transports.

Also, we're confident that Bob is prime real estate. We're not so sure what Legoland looks like. It could be more desert/jungle than anything else.

[asleepathewheel]

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, eh?

Lego has certainly done a good job of that with us, forging a tech agreement in which we go north instead of south. Why not put everything into muskets then cavalry? Eliminate the advantage of the bob civs wth superior units. I would hate to be researching economics when bob hits us and we don't yet have invention.

[Arrian]

We should discuss with Lego the possibility of getting Invention from Vox @ 40-turn pace once they finish Engineering. Or, if we feel that is too slow, perhaps we could send them on the Printing Press -> Democracy run?

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Us planning Vox's tech path? Interesting concept

The problem with 40-turn invention is that most likely, someone on Bob will go for it. Their UUs upgrade to cavalry as well... and Leo's is a good wonder to have, then. Democracy might be a very worthy goal to pursue, certainly now that there is no WW. Might be worth it to discuss this with them. But for the moment, I would say we need to get a better feel for what will be happening on Bob before we can make such a decision.

As to long term strategic planning: what realistic options do we have for winning this game? I doubt it will go on until a space race, that's just too far away. Culture is also no option, and neither is the UN. So, what's left?
- history win: very likely, in that once one team gets the major advantage, other teams won't be pressed to continue, and the game could bleed to death.
- military win: conquest has the same problem that nobody will want to sit it out. Which leaves domination... which requires at least a very large part on Bob. So, yes, I consider this as one of our best options, even if it will be very tricky to perform due to teams ganging up on the superpower (hopefully us).

In order to gain that, we need 2 things:
- total protection of our continent
- a surprise massive invasion of Bob. Without surprise, it becomes a war of attrition, meaning others can gang together. Without overwhelming force, the same thing happens. An ally on Bob would be nice, but this is just an addition: if we plan on invading Bob, we could try to secure an ally, but once we take e.g. RP's territory, the 2 teams left will turn on us. We won't gain an ally once we are too powerful.

Where is Lego in all of this? Well, they want a peaceful victory, but at a certain point they will need to go on the offensive if they want to stop us from winning military. If we could delay that point, or keep them as friends as long as possible, they can't counter. They have the best, or second best economy at that point, but it won't help them if they don't have the military focus we have.

All this is long term planning, though. We might get an opening with Cavalry, but could also need to wait until tanks. Before that, we could try to jump in on a war on Bob (which we'll need if 1 team would start to overpower the other 2, and ourselves), but nothing truely major, I fear.

PS: I'm starting to work on a draft towards Lego, didn't get around to it (certainly not with the connection problems of 'poly yesterday)

DeepO

[DeepO]

proposed message to Lego (as it is something I'd like to immediately ratify, I'm posting it here first, to let people object if needed):

Hello Vondrack,

I'm sorry this message got delayed, I couldn't get into 'poly yesterday, when I had time to write the draft.

Further, even if it is a draft, we've ratified it. Normally, there shouldn't be any problem on your side, if there is, please let me know and I will adjust, and ask for re-ratifying it

Lego-GS Education and future tech deal

1. Gathering Storm agrees to buy Education from Legoland, at the price of 230 gold + their World Map. The 230 gold and WM will be given to Lego As soon as this deal is ratified. Lego will give Education as soon as they discover it.

2. GS agrees to a 20-turn NDA on Education, a period during which they will not sell or give Education to another team. Moreover, GS agrees to not selll this tech even after the NDA has expired, without consent from Legoland (and a possible discussion on shared profits)

3. Once education has been traded, GS will start researching Banking, while Legoland will start researching Astronomy. Once these techs are discovered, they will be swapped as equal (even if Astronomy is slightly more expensive). These techs also come with a 20-turn NDA.

4. Future discussion is needed to agree on a possible 'mutual profit' scheme for banking / astronomy, where the 20-tun NDA could be replaced with a more complicated agreement, in order to ensure both parties profit after NDAs would run out.

5. Further, future discussion is needed on the timing of these techs, so that both GS and Legoland has the best chance of distributing these techs after discovery. Possibly this will result in a common ETA for both techs, delayed from the fastest ETA possible.

6. After Banking is discovered, GS has the right to start on Economics, where Lego will research something else. GS could waive this right later, if situations change. However, they will keep Legoland informed if this would happen, so that Lego can respond in time.

7. Both parties agree that the spirit of this agreement is most important, not the exact wording. If loopholes, or possible problems would appear later, negotiations should commence to try to iron out possible conflicts before they occur.

I don't think there is any problem from Lego, so if nobody objects to this in the followin 4 hours or so, I'd like to send it to them. It is basically as discussed before...

DeepO

[Arrian]

That's pretty good - I don't have a problem with it.

-Arrian

[zeit]

Seems good...
Lets get it done

[Theseus]

Fine.

[DeepO]

I just sent it, after correcting some typos

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Send it.