Roleplayers - correspondence & foreign affairs

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Nimitz
I've had a chat with RP's ambassador to us and as usual I got some info. RP will be most likely waiting awhile before switching to the republic. Oh, dont tell togas or we may lose the ambassador to an accident he said more then he should.

This information only proves how bad shape their economy is in. If it is better for a religious nation to remain in Monarchy instead of switching to Republic, then they must be in troubles...

[ZargonX]

Well, some more interesting RP news... I was approched by BigFree tonight for a chat, and here are the contents...

ZargonX|around> yes, sorry
ZargonX|around> been running around my house
BigFree> np
ZargonX|around> so, what would you like to discuss?
BigFree> about Chivalry...
BigFree> are you selling?
ZargonX|around> I am afraid we are not in a position to sell
BigFree>
BigFree> we detected that 3,maybe 4 civs have it.
ZargonX|around> I have not checked yet, but it seems possible
BigFree> we have confirmed GoW
BigFree> we highly suspect ND
BigFree> is GoW selling to you?
ZargonX|around> I would guess that Chiv would be priority one for those two...
BigFree> yes, no doubt
ZargonX|around> are you worried about the UU influx on Bob when that happens?
BigFree> yes
BigFree> maybe GoW and ND figure their UU's cancel each other out and decided to use against RP
ZargonX|around> hmmm... that's definately a scary situation
BigFree>
ZargonX|around> have they expressed any antagonism towards you?
BigFree> not yet, but they are relectant to chat
ZargonX|around> hrmm... definately a discouragging sign...
BigFree> plus GoW wont sell to us yet
ZargonX|around> oh? did they give a reason?
BigFree> just that we should a few turns then ask again
ZargonX|around> ah
BigFree> ND. power graph spiked
ZargonX|around> yes, I noticed that too
BigFree> we figure it was upgrades
ZargonX|around> though, they aren't very talkative to begin with :P
BigFree> hehe true
ZargonX|around> any other exciting happenings on Bob these days?
BigFree> other than that, no; we don't want no excitement either! ;p
ZargonX|around> hehe, I can appreciate that

So, looks like RP doesn't have Chiv, no one wants to give it them, and it's making them pretty nervous. You may notice my "Zargonian Dodge" about the who gave us Chiv (And by Zargonian Dodge, I mean I ignored the question ) It's out of our hands anyway, as we cannot possibly give them Chiv for 20 turns. But, as I've said before, I'd look for some action on Bob soon...

[Tiberius]

Well, I was preparing to post something I've written offline an hour ago or so, a post that it is also confirmed by this chat:

This is sort of intel info and I didn't know where to put it (maybe we'd need a dedicated thread), so here it comes:

Changing the research to Chivalry and playing with the slider gave me Chiv. in 9 turns working on 40% science(64 beakers), which equals a total of 576 beakers.
Now, the original value of Chiv is 768, which means that at least 2 civs (probably 3) have Chivalry already. We knew about GoW, so who are the others? Possibly GS and one more team.

One more piece of info: our military is weak now compared to ND.

Combining the 2 pieces of info: ND has Chivalry and are upgrading their horses to Ansars! Ouch!

The question is now: do GoW have iron? I forgot to check in the save if we can give them iron or not and also if GoW is trading with ND or not. ND has 2 iron deposits, so if they are trading iron to GoW, RP is toast, because they wouldn't do that without a NAP

[vondrack]

Until Astronomy, we can't trade anything to others, so I do not think there is a way to check whether GoW has iron.

And BTW, this news (RPers being nervous because of Ansars and all) made my norning brighter...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
Until Astronomy, we can't trade anything to others, so I do not think there is a way to check whether GoW has iron.

Right. I forgot about this.

Anyway, if ND are serious about winning this game, they should use their Ansars against someone, and that someone will be GoW or RP, no doubt about it. GoW are quite harmless without iron so it is possible that they are the target, easpecially if ND fear their Riders. But the RPs could be the target just as easily, with their beautiful land begging to being conquered

[ZargonX]

Ok, it has been a busy diplomacy night from RP. They have been bombarding me from all sides:

-Firstly, they know we have Edu (it was pretty obvious) and they are intersted in arranging a deal. I told them I'd put together a proposal and get back to them.
-More importantly, they are in a state of panic about the situation on Bob. Arnelos is convinced World War Bob is about to break out, and BF essentially begged me for a Lego assistance pledge. I told them we can set up a team-to-team summit tomorrow to discuss the issues. I'll get back to them with a time that's good for most of us.

Anyway, sleep time now, but I'll post deeper impressions of the chats tomorrow.

[Tiberius]

We have a no-landing and NAP treaty with ND, so at best we can send them money or techs, but honestly I'm not very eager to do that.

One more thing: this can be another RP bluff, to make us give them money and/or techs or to drag us into a yet non-existing war and then cry "wolf" pointing to us. No, thank you.

Either way, I think we could agree that we don't really want to help RP, unless they get into real trouble. (by trouble I don't mean war, but losing several cities)

I think that whatever is boiling on Bob, we better stay out of it.

Did you ask them if they have anything to give us for Edu?

[vondrack]

I very much agree with Tibi. I see no need to help RPers at all - no ingame reasons and even less outgame reasons. Speaking outgame, I would love to see them gone. Speaking ingame, of course... well, I just hope we will not have to help them too much in order to keep the balance of power.

Our NAP with ND is valid and will not be broken by us. There is something like elementary honour. I do not believe we should provide RPers with techs that are not military-oriented (what good would, say, Edu do to their ability to wage war?). And as we are not going to have any military-oriented ones any time soon... well, you get the idea.

Regarding our support - as Tibi says, I would wait until they actually start losing cities. Several of them and not just useless border villages. I would then revisit the idea... but until then, let them reap what they've been sowing for centuries. And if we eventually help them, it will cost them. It will cost them.

Regarding the Education - I see little need to rush this... I'd trade for gold and nothing else. I would send them a trade agreement draft with all the usual legal mumbo-jumbo (NDAs etc.) with the actual amount left out and ask them to fill an "appropriate" amount in. If we like it, we trade. If not, bad luck. Nothing presses us to sell. Besides, every turn we delay the trade (up to about 10 turns) is fine for us, since we are getting closer to another tech of ours (Astro), making it more difficult for them to research anything valuable faster than us.

[Tiberius]

We still have to honour that bloody "most favoured nation" clause. Which means we must give them Edu cheaper than to any other civs. The only money trade involved so far was with GS, and namely Edu for 230 gold. So for 180-200 gold we'd be more than happy to sell them Edu.

[vondrack]

Yep, ~200 would be fine with me (and still a bargain for them). The price was actually more than 230, as the deal included the GS World Map valued at ~50 gold, too (and, OTOH, one research point of difference in our favour on the Astro/Bank swap, of course).

[Tiberius]

Well, let's consider that the diffrence between Astro and Banking was paid with the WM. So, Edu was 230 gold.

[vondrack]

If you pay 230 gold for a 1056 beaker tech, then it would be a bit strange to pay 50 gold for a 96 beaker difference... that's why I pointed out the price was actually a bit higher.

I am not trying to prove you wrong , just pointing out that the accurate way of determining the price in gold we got from GS for the purpose of calculating the "most favoured nation price" for the RPers would be 280/(1056+96)*1056=257 gold. So, anything under 250 gold fulfils our obligation.

A sidenote: Voxes are going to receive 100g+5gpt for Engineering from the RPers. That's 200 gold for a tech that is almost 20% cheaper... a proportional sum would be ~240 gold. I would start on 240 and reluctantly go as low as 200, talking about our children being hungry, clothes being badly worn out etc.

[ZargonX]

Yes, I'm pretty sure the only thing RP could possibly give us is gold. How about this for an "initial offer"

Edu for: 240 GP and a 20 turn NDA.

Now, they probably won't go for this, and will whine for a lower price. Our absolute lowest should be 200, though maybe we could also finagle a WM out of them if we play it right Though, if they are so worried about war, I don't see how they'd really be in a position to spend so much gold on techs. Perhaps this really is just a way to try and get a sense of how we're doing...

As for the war help, I personally think helping them is pointless, regardless of my personal feelings towards the team. If ND and GoW both go against them, us throwing money at them won't help. We are not in a position to send military aid, and even if we did muster a force, that would just piss off the other Bobians, setting us up as the next target. I think RP is going to have to work themselves out of this corner on their own.

[vondrack]

Agreed with your assessment, Zargon.

And I would also start on 240g+20t, setting (internally) the lowest price acceptable for us to 200g+20t. Them crying for help in the form of Education is just plain false, since Edu will do absolutely nothing in terms of military - no new units or military structures...

I am absolutely sure they would do NOTHING to help us against ND or GoW, should we get attacked, so we should not do anything for them either.

[Tiberius]

I think that 240 is a bit too high. It is a correct price, but not a "most favoured nation" price. Therefor I'd start with 220 and settle on 180.

I tell you: we will hurt them with a 240 offer, and there's no need to make them hate us.