Ending the tech deal with Vox: Whether, When and How

[zeit]

I see several causes for war, they don't make us look nice in Vox eyes, but perhaps in the world's eyes:

1) They drag a tech partnership were we give way more than we get.

2) They bring in Lux, that destabilizes the situation, make promises they can't keep, and increasing the risk of foreign armies landing on our shores.

3) they don't settle on BOB, although they easily can do so, and we are still limited in our settling.

All are lame, i know, but lame excuses are just lame excuses. They would be enough to disperse a cloud of rumors- "GS has some reasoning behind its war".
We're talking about morals here, which reminds me what i studies about the moral development in childs (and adults)- the first step is the "punishment phase" the child decides what is good or bad according to the power balance- the fear of retribution, and so forth. Sadly, but it seems fear rules the land of BOB- they would sympathize with Vox being overrun, perhaps, but they won't break their contact with us.

[DeepO]

I agree with most what has been said here, but let's make one thing clear: nobody wants to end the relation with Vox now, it has been profitable, and will profit us more in the near future (>40 turns). But don't we need to take steps soon to make sure Vox is not getting angry the moment we end the deal? If we can start negotiating on a similar, but better agreement for us (one e.g. in which we promise to have a 1 on 1 tech trade for many years to come, guaranteeing that we will offer them our new techs at a decent price), we should negate their complaints about us before they can become an issue.

Look at Lux: we haven't dealt with them, we only hear rumours of what has happened, and those rumours come in large from those currently at war with Lux. Still, we consider Lux has treacherous, opportunistic, and highly dangerous when signing deals. We don't have anything else to make us believe this except of the gossip from others, yet we do. Sure, Lux could have presented a bit more defense on the public fora, but I can imagine why they didn't focus on PR: it would make them leak their future plans. I'm not sure we would defend ourselves very vigorously for the same reason if we were under an gossip attack from Vox.

alseep, I don't agree on the fixed expiration date, though, as that would most likely have caused for even more tension. And for the moment, I admire the deal for stablizing our continent.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

We can't start renegotiating with Vox until we're more sure what the picture will look like when we're ready to transition to a different footing. We do need to do it early enough that Vox won't get too much extra benefit from our GA, though, especially if they don't arrange to trigger theirs at the same time.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, as I recall, one of your biggest objections earlier earlier to allying with Vox for the long haul was that you felt like we should try to find a stronger and more stable partner elsewhere when we could. Do you still think that's feasible, except maybe with Lego?

Sure, why not?

All I was saying before is that once we get geared up for military endeavours, Vox will be our most convenient target. So making long-term plans with them may not be the best course of action. And so I suggested we look for a partnership with some team on the mainland. To my (limited) knowledge, that is still possible.


Dominae

[Theseus]

Anybody know where we can find some GLs?

[Arrian]

@ Theseus.

By the way, I hope there is a way to upgrade the game to the 1.21 PTW patch. Why? Because the patch fixes the free techs scientific civs get so that there is an even chance of getting any of the "tier 1" techs. So Vox and Lux might end up getting different techs, and giving us both. Would that be great or what?

-Arrian

[alva]

Now if 1.21 would only would reset the difficulty back to monarch

[Shiber]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[Aeson]

If all the teams were willing to allow it, it wouldn't be hard at all to write up a little utility to change the difficulty back (at least the displayed one ). Not sure if the displayed difficulty and the internal difficulty is the same in all cases though.

[nbarclay]

Would it really be in our interest to change the difficulty level back? Yes, we can build cheaper temples than others, but if our cities tend toward the large end of the size spectrum, we could still lose more than we gain relative to other teams. In any case, a sudden change in difficulty level in the middle of a game would tend to mess up everyone's economic planning (including mine). I think it makes more sense to leave the difficulty where it is.

Nathan

[Aeson]

Are we at Chieftain happiness levels? Monarch would set us back a content citizen per city... but it will do that for everyone else as well.

The higher difficulty in killing barbs would help us and Vox (possibly RP) as we have eliminated all possible camp sites from our territory, and likely Vox has done the same. Could be a big difference once we and Vox hit the Middle Ages. I think the uprising stacks would be 8 Horsemen, probably in multiple places on BOB (mostly by ND and GoW) and on Lego's landmass. Of course the Horsemen will attack just as well on Chieftain, but it does make a difference (you aren't guaranteed to kill one with each Warrior in a pre-emptive strike).

I doubt anyone would want to do this though, as it does upset a lot of planning.

[DeepO]

planning is a bit of a problem, but nothing the slider can't help.

Aeson: yes we are on chieftain happiness level, and this has been bothering me for quite a while. The whole extra dimension of luxuries is out of this game, as only 1 lux is enough to keep a size 6 happy, and most of this game will be played with level 6 cities. I wouldn't mind setting it to emperor, but I doubt anyone would agree.

Further, as we have the best research, we would be advantaged if research costs would go up (if I'm not mistaken, and beaker cost of techs is depening on difficulty)

DeepO

[Arrian]

Of course the Horsemen will attack just as well on Chieftain, but it does make a difference (you aren't guaranteed to kill one with each Warrior in a pre-emptive strike)

??

Attack just as well? I must be ignorant of something here. Doesn't Chieftain give the humans a 800% combat bonus vs. barbs as opposed to a 100% bonus on Monarch? Or are you saying that the bonus only applies when attacking the barbs?

-Arrian

[Aeson]

The combat bonus vs barbarians is just for when the player is the one attacking I think.

[Aeson]

Research isn't on Chieftain level now is it? There was a spreadsheet somewhere (I think in the Strat forum) that had the beaker costs for all the techs at each difficulty level... anyone have the file or a link?