Foreign Affairs Consulate: Vox Controli

[Panzer32]

Any idea of when Vox will be done engineering? I want to know when we can start invention... our golden age will speed up the production of the Great Library remember (of course it will also speed up research I think).

[Panzer32]

had a quickey chat with Beta, nothing important except that Vox gets Engineering in 4 turns.

/me is relieved

So we can start invention soon; maybe even get our capital in on our GA!!

[Hot_Enamel]

Message from Beta.

Hi H_E! How's life at GoW? Somewhat interesting I presume.

Listen - our best wishes to you and MZ and Panzer and the rest of the crew. We have avoided wading into the fray, but it all seems very familiar to us. GS' self-righteous attitude, and their easily-hurt feelings, get to be a bit much. You guys are doing a great job in the public forum. Keep it up. I, for one, am loving it!!!

Any more city investigations you want us to do?

BTW - we could use some cash on the money you owe us. We still owe Lego money from before, and they would like repayment as well. If you want - you can send 70 gold directly to them to pay off our remaining loan, instead of it going through us. If you want to discuss repayment terms, given the current sitiuation, just let us know.

And in case it is not clear - we are pulling for you and ND!!! Oh - for a half dozen caravels and a stack of knights and immortals....

RP told us they got engineering from GS. We were trying to string them along on another deal - and then zip - they had it. Since then - we have not chatted with them at all. Nor with GS.

Our civilization is redeveloping. Three new cities formed last turn. Another 3 this turn. It will take some time to get productive, and we figure it is best if we lay low lie for awhile.

Regarding techs - a little birdie told us that we should discuss invention with you. Can we negotiate a deal of some sort? We are currently researching the printing press, although it will be some time before we are finished it.

That's about it for now. Take care guys, and good luck with the war! And with the PR campaign.

Sincerely ... Beta ... off in the Hinterland of Legos Minor (now Voxtavia).

It sucks that RP got engineering...crossing rivers would slow them up.

It also means we can expect GS to gift RP Chivalry, money & horses. When does our no-trade clause end with GS ?

I will contact Beta...perhaps we need to clarify their position with Lego. I assumed they were Lego2, but if they are running independantly, then we need to keep them in the loop. If they are trading with GS & RP, then we have to let them know of our embargo plans. I will suss out the situation first though.

Also..I dont know anything about any money we owe them ??
Can someone please confirm. Also, if we do owe them, then I suggest we offer to pay Lego back directly. With the current Lego/ND/GoW arrangement, Lego might be in the mood to just forget about it.

Regs

[Master Zen]

AFAIK we paid them all our debts, Panzer should know precisely.

[Panzer32]

It also means we can expect GS to gift RP Chivalry, money & horses. When does our no-trade clause end with GS ?

Well we've only seen one RP horse that they could upgrade... so maybe the info that they prefer MIs and Pikes is completely true.

No trade clause... can't say for certain but it will be done soon. If someone cares enough, look it up.

I am not aware of any money owing to Vox. Please ask them about it.

[Hot_Enamel]

Beta has been busy ...

I sent this..

Hey Beta ..

Just a quick reply.

I wasnt aware that we owed you any money.
I posted on the forum, and Panzer has only just responded that he doesnt know anything about it as well.

Dont worry .. Its not unusual for us to forget about these things.
Can you let us know what we owe and what for.

War news.
GS is a pain

We are yet to find a single unit to kill to start up our GA.
Both RP & GS are quite happy to hole up in their walled cities.
ND have had far better success than us, although they do have a GA, and can send in reinforcements pretty quickly.

We will let you know if we need investigations. Plans this turn almost definately dont require it. We are manouvering troops .

Invention will be around soon - 6 turns I think. Obviously, the war has caused us to choose our trading partners closely.
We are attempting to negotiate a trade embargo against RP/GS. GS see grabbing Bob land as their only hope in winning the game. Hopefully, they will also see a trade embargo against them as ensureing they will lose the game.

So the ideas being tossed around are a trade embargo until the get off bob. We have talked to Lego, and are discussing the idea.

What is you exact relationship with Lego & RP/GS. Are you still trading etc etc ...
And I guess are you interested in the embargo, if we can get support from Lego ?

Sounds like the exodis has worked out well for you. Did I see one of your cities return to your ownship a few turns back ? What happened there ?

Anyway .. keep in touch .. Tell us what we owe and what for. We too are "borrowing" from Lego, so maybe we can repay Lego back direct for you, and get them to add it to whatever we owe them.

Regards

Hot_Enamel of the GoW

Beta reaponse

Hi H_E. Thanks for the response.

I will check as to the amount. It got confusing with the first investigation because MZ sent the luxury - and we do not need it for a number of turns yet. And, I know Lego wants hard cash - so we should probably repay them directly.

We are close to Lego. We were before the exodus, and we are even more so now. We have no problems with the proposed embargos, and would honor them if the 'alliance' goes that way.
'
As part of of the Voxodus deal, GS tried to get us to sign a 'friends and trading partners for life' deal, including no embargos, but we refused to sign it. It was dropped from the final deal. I will need to go back and revisit the exact wording with GS, but I don't belive our deal precludes us from anything you are proposing. And believe me - we are chomping at the bit to get back into it. It will be quite awhile before we can help militarily.

We have had no official dealings or even conversations with GS or RP. They pretty much ignore us.

Lego and Vox stay in touch pretty regularly. We have agreed to lay low for awhile.

Yes - the Voxodus is working well. We will soon have a larger civilization - in terms of number of cities - than we had on Estonia. It is fun rebuilding - almost as much fun as the public forum fireworks.

There was a quick exchange of cities with GS right at the time of the exodus to teleport our units - but since then - there has been no transfer of cities. Someday - we hope. When we get astronomy - we can reach North Estonia by sea very quickly.

Anyways - I will check on the amount owing - and our deal with GS.

Take care - hope you get into the thick of the war soon.

... Beta.

[Hot_Enamel]

He also sent this, regarding the money ..

Hi H_E!

Harry pointed me to a post I had sent MZ:

Hi MZ! Very entertaining times. Nothing like the start of a war to spice up the forum.

Our team is on-side with the alternate deal NOT to provide engineering to RP. Essentialy they, RP, cancelled the original deal - and tried to renegotiate - because of cash shortages - so we are somewhat OK with this. We also think it would be somewhat two-faced to do our 'spying' deal with you - but then to trade engineering to RP when it will help them in the war.

So - 40 gold, plus a tech, plus a lux for 20 turns - that was what we discussed. We are OK with it. Are you? Please let me know. Thanks.

If yes - that will be 35 gold for the original way-back-when deal, 80 for the Toledo investigation, and 40 for the RP-cancellation deal .... cash register rings it up - cha ching - 155 gold. But no luxes for awhile. Thanks.

All the best with the war!

Regards ....Beta.

The issue may have been that MZ sent the deal with the cash - but it included the lux which we cannot use for awhile. And the deal was that we would set the period we were to receive it for. I informed MZ and did not accept the deal, but the cash was never re-offered. We did get the 40 gold for the cancellation of the RP deal, but not the 35 for engineering, or the 80 for the investigation.

You can check the saves, but we are pretty sure about this. Let me know how you want to handle it.

Thanks. Much appreciate it. ... Beta.

Panzer/MZ .. can you check what has happened.
Respond direct to Beta if you want.

[Hot_Enamel]

And finally ... I got some details of their agreement with GS to let them live :

Basically,
1. They had to give GS Engineering
2. They have to sell their next free tech to GS at a fair rate.

GS wanted a "friends & trade for life" clause, but Beta refused.

Beta seems fine with the embargo against GS...other than their free tech.

[Hot_Enamel]

Message from Beta

Hi H_E. Trust all is well with GoW.

We have rechecked the turns and you do owe us 115 gold. You may recall the turn - or I'm sure MZ will - where you sent the 115 gold, plus the luxury, but we did not accept. The 115 consisted of 35 for engineering, and 80 for the first city investigation. But we did not accept as we do not need the luxury now, and it was agreed that we could ask for it at a future time.

If the 115 as a lump sum is a problem, you can break it up over a couple of turns or something like that. We really could use the cash though - as we need to buy some city improvements to get our civ back up and running. Thanks.

Trust the war is going well.

Stay in touch. All the best ... Beta.

Panzer .. can you please check this. GS are throwing mud at us, and its not the right time to start an argument with a future allie regarding non-payment of gold.

[Panzer32]

I looked into this, and it is false. Look at the 30bc save and the turn report. We accepted engineering for 35 gold and 80 gold. Also, looking at the 30 and 10bc saves, you can see that we lost about 100g somewhere, including gaining about 45 or so gpt for 30bc and losing 10gpt for 10bc. Thats what I found. Please tell Vox to review their monetary status around 50bc to 30bc (because they're after us in the turn order).

[Hot_Enamel]

Thanks Panzer...

I followed the above, and also get the same.
I have emailed Beta

Regs

[Hot_Enamel]

Issue has been resolved :-

H_E- this is strange. But good news for you. We have worked out the math, and we did receive the 115 gold, in the same way that the calculation from your end indicates that it did get paid. So we are all square.

The strange part is that we can't figure out how the deal happened. The cash does show up in our treasury to start the next turn. And the two diplo moves I made were to send the 115 gold AND wines back to you unaccepted (we didn't get enegineering until later that same turn - given the way the turn works) and later I sent engineering accepted, by itself. So what Harry and I are trying to figure out is how you were able to add the gold to the deal, and still have it shown as accepted by us.

Here it is in other words - excerped from our forum. My inquiry followed by Harry's response

So - it looks like it did happen - I just don't know how.


I don't know how either. I checked the 50 BC save you sent. It starts up with a trade deal from GoW containing 85 gold, wines, and 30 more gold. The deal is unaccepted. We do not have engineering yet so we can not put that on the deal. The game will not let you skip the deal to come back to it later. You must respond, so what I said about modifying the deal is not right. After the GoW trade the deal from Lego with Theology comes up. Then the game goes through the city stuff and we get engineering. The only thing I can think of is that we sent a deal for engineering accepted and then GoW modified the deal to add gold, and maybe the game figures that if you accepted nothing that accepting more must be OK so it leaves it accepted and GoW completes the deal. Sometime if I find the time I might try to setup a scenario to verify if this is possible. Whether that is how it happened or not, the money works out to show that we did get paid.

So - can you verify that when you open that turns save, what deal is on the table, or what you did (if anything) other than accept to make the deal work.

Obviously no rush on this - but it is an interesting study in the game mechanics.

Sorry to bug you guys when you had in fact paid up. It was the way that it happened that confused us. But the math and pluses and minuses verify that we did receive it.

Looking forward to getting to the bottom of this... regards ...Beta.

[Panzer32]

I think what they did was accepted the 80g and 35g and then later sent engineering accepted - so they were really seperately sent deals that we made.

[Hot_Enamel]

From Beta

HI HE. Yes, I got his message. We have been sleeping on Vox for awhile. Actually, we are about to invade as part of a combined, GS, Lego, Vox initiative to finish off the warmongers and their demogyptican allies. hehe.

No - we have been hibernating. I will get back to Aggie this evening. GS might now up the ante for us to invade little Bob.

Congrats on your victory. And I think you are doing the right thing keeping it quiet. GS doesn't react well otherwise.

Thanks for the heads up. Will contact Aggie. If you chat with him before I do - pass on my apologies.

...Beta.

I told him we had a minor victory over GS.

[Hot_Enamel]

Message from Rhothaerill from Vox

Hi H_E,

Just checked on Pamplona from last turn. It was 166 gold to investigate the city. That is unfortunately out of our league at the moment so if you do desire us to do the investigation in the future we will have to ask for the gold up front.

Good luck in your war.