A message from the roleplayers

[Spiffor]

Here is what Godking sent me to my Inbox.

"Hi Spiffor;

As you might know, we on the RollPlay team are considering not playing carthage. We are currently voting on the issue (which is very close). Is there any interest from your team regarding this civ still? would you or another member of your team be willing to enter into some form of negotiations regarding this? As you are the only player on your team that I know, I wanted to approach you first. If you feel it appropriate, please feel free to forward this PM on. Thanks.

GodKing"

I don't really know what we can "negociate" since I don't see how a consensus might be attained, but I think we should participate anyhow. Do you have any ideas ?

[ZargonX]

Well, despite my earlier reservations, now that I've played with Carthage, I think they may suit our needs quite nicely. As you said, I don't really know how we would negotiate; I guess we would just be trying to convince them not to play it. Did the results of the RPS ever get released? If they did, I would think that would solve the matter. But, I guess it can't hurt to talk to them about it. Maybe we should wait and see how their vote goes?

[Spiffor]

Jack_www let us know we have lost.

[Jack_www]

I dont know what the hell is up with the Role Players. Togas does not know what to do. I just wish they pick a civ and get over with it. Maybe they should just flip a coin or something.

[Spiffor]

Togas sent me another PM asking for ideas about their problem, and what our stance is. They had a poll to decide between Carthage and Spain, but it was a draw.I replied him we sure would like to play Carthage but we understand they picked it.
As solutions, I told him of flipping a coin, but also that they could create characters for both Civs and test what's more fun. I also suggested they have a big debate and repoll in a few days.
I'll keep you in touch if I get new PMs. If you have any other ideas, you could PM Togas or Godking (I think Godking has done this from his own initiative)

[redstar1]

Well from what I gather we lost the RPS no? In which case I don't think theres anything we can do until the RP team decide.

Being a fan of roleplay myself I'm not entirely convinced theres much material in Carthage but thats up to them. Its coming up on 2 weeks roughly before the game is due to start and I think in order to prepare we really need to know what Civ we are going to be playing before the end of the weekend.

Obviously Carthage is our first choice but thats out of our hands really unless we can persuade the RP team otherwise. Egypt was second choice for me and for the team but on reflection I'm not sure its perfect. I'm veering more towards Persia now, especially for the Immortals.

I'm going to post another poll just to see what the thoughts of the new members are as well as if our own have changed.

[Jack_www]

Here is a message I got from Togas:



"Jack,

Here's a few things that have been discussed in our thread about what to do with the Carthage dilema.

Some of my tribesmen have felt that we could "trade" favors for Carthage. I'll list of few of their more reasonable requests here:

Agree to give us two of the ancient era techs, or one of the middle ages techs after our civs meet up.

Declare war on someone we're at war with ... sort of an early game mutual defense agreement.

Agree to give us "most favored nation" trade status where you guys would sell us techs and maps at a cheaper price than other nations.

Promise not to declare war on us at any point in the game prior to 1000 AD.


What do you think? Do any of these requests sound like a reasonable trade?

But all that aside, I DO want to stress that I want to see our nations work together in the coming game. I hope that we can engage in a healthy and productive trade agreement ... research different techs and trade them, exchange maps, do RoPs, back each other in alliances, etc. I hope that this early Carthage issue doesn't affect our relations in the game and I look forward to working with you further.

--Togas"


Thus as you can see we can still play Carthage, we will just have to make a deal with them.

[Spiffor]

I agree with
- the "most favored nation"
- the non-war clause

I'd negociate on :
- giving techs. I prefer offering them very pleasing deals, but not giving them completely offhand.

I'd refuse :
- The automatic alliance clause. I'm very glad the Roleplayers want to have a good relationship with us, and we should be more willing to ally with them. BUT, we cannot commit ourselves so much before knowing what the precise situation will be.

Overall, if the Roleplayers are sincere (which will be known only once the game starts), those "concessions" they ask for is simply a good allied policy. I'd be very happy if we could have trustful allies in the game, and I assume they'd be very happy too.

Carthage is good, and we can make concessions for it. However, it's not great enough to accept blindly all the suggestions.

With my position, I assume the roleplayers will be happy to give us Carthage, because I assume they don't expect us to accept everything.

[redstar1]

I think it looks like they are sincerely willing to trade for Carthage and I think its definately worthwhile considering. I like the 'Most favoured nation' option and I certainly think we could see our way to having a special relationship with the RP team. Certainly their philosophy seems to be most similar to ours....

[Nimitz]

They seem like the only ones we may ever have long term good relationship with.

[ZargonX]

I'm ok with the "favored trade" status the non-agression agreement, but I wouldn't give them any free techs or anything right off the bat.

I mean, it's entirely possible they may decide not to go with Carthage anyway, so to ply them with massive bribes for something we could get anyway by default isn't a good plan.

But, overall, I do favor developing a strong relationship with them.