A word of warning from GoW

[Spiffor]

I was chatting with a member of GoW yesterday. He asked not to disclose his identity, so I'll respect his wish.

He warned me about Neu Demogyptica, who plays the expansionist / religious Arabs. They alledgedly have contact with 2 other teams than GoW, and are supposed ot be technologically advanced.

My personal conclusions of this warning are :
- I doubt I have been the only one warned of the ND danger, and it is very possible several teams gang up on them early, to avoid them becoming way too powerful.
- There is a large landmass out there where at least 4 civs grow. If GoW is indeed in our landmass, then we might experience early wars sooner as we'd want.
- GoW either wants us to be wary of another team than them, or they really intend to associate us in their concerns.


My contact also told me of GoW's concept of "guaranteed trade" : we discuss a trade even before making in-game contact. Should the trade become outdated (for example, they offer Warrior Code for Alphabet, but discovered Alphabet before making in game contact), they still give the tech regardless.
This concept needs a high level of trust, and I advise our ambassador to GoW to know more about this.

Lastly, my contact talked about how potent an alliance between builders and warmongers would be (in which I agreed).
I don't know what were lies and what were truths in his words, but I assume he mostly spoke the truth, since very few critical information was given, excpet the rise in power of ND.

[vondrack]

Interesting information, Spiffor... my impression is that GoW are serious about cooperating with us, seeing ND as the primary threat at the present time. Considering the fact that they are (one of) our closest neighbours, I am all for being as friendly with them as possible. Being friendly and having just one heavily guarded bottleneck should be enough to make us safe from their direction. And that we definitely want.

I guess it would be a fine gesture to trade our minimap now. I would suggest trading the minimap BEFORE we found our second city, to disclose as little important information as possible. The later, the better (so that Conan manages to move into the blocking position), but definitely BEFORE founding the Eastern Shore City, so that they do not know what direction we expand in. What do you, guys, think?

[Tiberius]

I'm also for friendly relations with GoW. They need an ally against other teams, nobody can win/survive on their own. A builder/warmongerer alliance is definitely a very powerful one.

We should trade the minimaps, I guess, as a gesture of good will. They could decide to attack us, but with the mercenaries defending our cities, I think they have more to lose fighting instead of cooperating with us. We could exchange techs and luxuries/resources, maps and so on. Having them fighting our wars would be probably our biggest profit in this relation.

[Spiffor]

Vondrack : i absolutely agree. Maybe we should set up a poll about the issue ?

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Vondrack : i absolutely agree. Maybe we should set up a poll about the issue ?

There is no need - a recent poll about trading our current minimap authorized (by the majority of 6 votes out of 12) trading our minimap with GoW. Thus, I am hereby authorizing ZargonX, the Ambassador of Legoland to Glory of War, to trade our 3150BC minimap for their 3150BC or newer minimap (I have just sent the minimap image to ZargonX via email).

EDIT: Besides, I would like ZargonX to find out more about what kind of "guaranteed trades" GoW currently offer. Tell them we might be interested in The Wheel and Iron Working, being willing to trade for anything we currently know, plus Pottery and Writing (once we research them). This is not not say we would exchange all of what we know for all of what they know. Just that these techs are available for trade. Let they say what they offer for a "guaranteed" trade.

I believe it is okay to offer even Writing, 'cause if they agree to the deal, Writing will be the obvious choice for us.

EDIT #2: I must have been out of my mind, speaking of Literature instead of Writing... corrected in order to minimize confusion. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Tibi!

[Tiberius]

Radek, didn't you want to say "writing" instead of "literature" ? Literature seems a little too much for me to give away. Otherwise I agree with the plan.

If things are going well with GoW, we should start thinking on signing a special treaty with them, including research sharing, a mutual non-aggression pact and other clauses. But first things first: let's see their reaction when they find out that we are neighbors.

[ZargonX]

Ok, I am sending the mini-map along to Panzer32 tonight. Hopefully, we will hear back from them soon, with their own mini-map. From there, I will broach the discussion of future trades.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Radek, didn't you want to say "writing" instead of "literature" ? Literature seems a little too much for me to give away. Otherwise I agree with the plan.

If things are going well with GoW, we should start thinking on signing a special treaty with them, including research sharing, a mutual non-aggression pact and other clauses. But first things first: let's see their reaction when they find out that we are neighbors.

Doh... of course I am talking about Writing... I honestly don't know what I'd do without you, Tibi. You seem to be so good at telling others what I really wanted to say...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
I honestly don't know what I'd do without you, Tibi. You seem to be so good at telling others what I really wanted to say...

Do I sense here a shadow of critisism ? I only wanted to help Nah, I must be paranoid and can't recognize a joke anymore

I can't wait to see their minimap ....

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Do I sense here a shadow of critisism ? I only wanted to help Nah, I must be paranoid and can't recognize a joke anymore

I can't wait to see their minimap ....

I was serious, no sarcasm nor irony involved. This was for the second time you corrected something I said completely wrong, while thinking of the correct. No criticism at all. Just keep correcting me!

[ZargonX]

Ok, the mini-map has been sent to GoW as of one minute ago (7:54 EST). We'll see how quickly they get back to us with their map, at which point I will send it directly to Vondrack.

[Jack_www]

My personal Opion of this is that it may very well be dissinformation. GoW is willing to be bought off by the highest bider. They may very well be trying to get us to hire them to go to war with ND. I would be carefull trusting GoW. Allthough as allies they would be great to have if they could be trusted.

But I also see reason to believe GoW. The fact the ND refused to receive our abassadors before in game contact, when all other teams were recieving abassadors. I would like to start asking around the other teams and see what they dealings with ND have been, and if they have gotten a simmilar respon from ND as we have. Might help clear the picture up.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jack_www
My personal Opion of this is that it may very well be dissinformation. GoW is willing to be bought off by the highest bider. They may very well be trying to get us to hire them to go to war with ND. I would be carefull trusting GoW. Allthough as allies they would be great to have if they could be trusted.

GoW certainly realizes that unless ND poses an immediate threat to our empire, we are unlikely to hire them... now, if we suppose ND has a contact with GoW, then they are not to our south -> they can't be a threat to us now.

Even if GoW is unaware of where we are, which I doubt (I assume they got the same kind of information about our location from Togas as we did about theirs - that's why they pursue diplomatic contact and even informally propose trading... not having an idea about where we are, it would make little sense or would at least be very premature)... so, even if they are unaware of where we are, they will realize we are not going to hire them in the near future.

Originally posted by Jack_www
But I also see reason to believe GoW. The fact the ND refused to receive our abassadors before in game contact, when all other teams were recieving abassadors. I would like to start asking around the other teams and see what they dealings with ND have been, and if they have gotten a simmilar respon from ND as we have. Might help clear the picture up.

This is a good idea. May I ask all our ambassadors to contact their counterparts and try finding out what kind of relations they have with ND? I understand we are unlikely to gain any significant info, but at least, we can try.

[Tiberius]

A say let not jump on ND now only because the GoF warned us. They've refused our ambassador because (they said) until we meet in the game there's no point to discuss things. This is fair-play attitude, so I say we should wait before we declare ND the black sheep of this game. It does help to be careful, but so far we have no reason to trust one team more than another. (except maybe the RP).

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
A say let not jump on ND now only because the GoF warned us. They've refused our ambassador because (they said) until we meet in the game there's no point to discuss things. This is fair-play attitude, so I say we should wait before we declare ND the black sheep of this game. It does help to be careful, but so far we have no reason to trust one team more than another. (except maybe the RP).

Well, ND is the only civ with the expansionist trait, IIRC. That makes them the black sheep almost automatically, because thanks to this trait they are likely to gain an initial advantage, indirectly forcing other teams to cooperate against them in order to neutralize their potential. This demogame will most of all be about balance. Anyone gaining a lead is likely to lose allies and friends...