RP Tech Trade Offer

[BigFurryMonster]

And got this back:

Dear BigFurryMonster,

Before going to your most recent thoughts: I would like to address a possible Tech Trade.

We would like Horseback Riding. We would like to trade to you Mysticism, as it is in hand and we can trade as soon as you have Hoseback Riding.

We would like to give the original tech owner a trade advantage - that is we will not trade Horseback Riding to anyone for 10 turns and we ask that you not trade Mysticism for ten turns. This will avoid our competing against each other at least for those ten turns, and therefore following the laws of supply & demand, make each tech more valuable.

So, with the stipulation mentioned above - I refer to as the No-Trade Clause, we would like to trade our Mysticism for your Horseback Riding.

Once we have completed Writing, we can work on trade particulars at that time.

Is that acceptable? Let know your thoughts.

Now back to your most recent PM.... I am glad we both value are friendship and will keep it confidential. We hope that this friendship will prserve us both for centuries to come.

We are very interested in ND's settlements, since if they go South of the Jungle they are going to run right into us. Can you tell us how close you, GoW and ND are together and is ND trully pinned in?

We do want to expand south, but I'm afraid its size may be overstated, so competition from ND may not be good. But we will monitor ND, as you will, and hopefully they will not bother either of us. Should you hear anything specific from them we would appreciate a "heads up", and, we will do the same. Lets hope neither of us needs to call upon the Alliance, but at least each of us can sleep securely knowing we are not alone in a world of enemies.

I will let you know what our next tech research will be - last I heard it was MapMaking. What will Lux research next?

I await your reply,

jdjdjd of España

[BigFurryMonster]

We'll have to tell them that we are not interested in Mysticism. They will want to know why. We cannot say we have it already (they can check that). Either we tell them about Vox or make up some kind of excuse.

Are they trying to deny us Writing?

[ixnay]

It seems that way.

[WarriorPoet]

Hmm....just ask for writing...we'll get mysticism from Vox...or am I confused...ugh, some days the life of a soldier no matter the odds seems so much simpler...I'm glad we have dedicated ambassadors!

[Jon Shafer]

Can't we just say we're researching Mysticism? Everyone but Vox thinks we are...

[BigFurryMonster]

Yes. Now that RP knows we got HBR from GoW, there is no need anymore to let them think we are researching HBR. So we can tell RP that we are researching Myst ourselves.

[BigFurryMonster]

jdjdjd sent me this:

Hello Friend:

I am writing of a new matter that our Great Despot, Togas, has interest. ND has indicated that a warrior of yours has stumbled into their land. I assume it is another lie or misunderstanding, they claim they have strained relations with you. We are curious if you do have strained relations with ND and if you think war may be of some imminence. We are against such a war, as war between Lux and ND we fear will only build the strength of GoW, and GoW may use such a war to betray all of us. And at this early stage, it is detrimental to all of us if the balance of power tilts towards any one civilization. Any information you can provide us would be of great help.

On another topic, we were told by GoW that you traded Horseback Riding from GoW and that they asked you to not trade it to us. I assume this is yet another fabrication, and I'm sure once we complete the tech trade we have previously discussed, that will quell this rumor. But again, it is of concern to some Spaniards and I ask if you can confirm that this is a lie and then we will know, as I already believe, that Ottomans and Spanish are the only people to be trusted in this world.

I understand if all this annoys you- I must say it annoys me. But I am but a pawn and so I play my role and would appreciate any information.

I await your reply on this and the possible trade I PM'd you about last night.

I remain your humble servant,

jdjdjd, Friend and Ambassador to Lux Invicta

Interesting:

• They are against a war. What if war breaks out anyway? Due to the fact that ND has the most cities and score, and that we have an Alliance with RP, I'd say they are likely to choose our side.
• They are trying to drive us away from GoW. I don't know what is happening between RP and GoW, and I especially do not understand why they don't want to trade between each other.
• We will "quell the rumor". I propose we tell them about what GoW feels about the deal and let them confirm that we left all space open for GoW to trade for Writing. Then we have a legitimate claim towards GoW.
• I will ask them why information has been leaked towards GoW.

[Jon Shafer]

I'll elaborate more tomorrow (it's rather late and I need sleep badly), but I had a long chat with Togas, in which he stated that they never meant to break any deals with us, and GoW knowing of our alliance was something completely new to him, and he suspects some sort of treason or huge misunderstanding. I warned him in a very strong tone about how there have been quite a few rumors about, and he seemed sincerly surprised, and hoped to work things out between us. Hopefully we can work on our relationship tomorrow...

[BigFurryMonster]

I hope to see you online! Good night, master Trip.

[Jon Shafer]

Here is my chat log with Togas. Of course, there's some exaggeration and taking sides in order to make sure the good guys come out on top. I'll have a summary later when I have time. :P

Session Start: Mon Jan 27 22:52:02 2003
Session Ident: Togas
Session Ident: Togas (~tom_ogas@adsl-63-196-117-134.dsl.frsn01.pacbell.net)
[Togas] Say hello if you get free. I figure I oughta chat with you first before my overreacting teammates do
[Trip] ?
[Trip] I'm here for a bit
[Togas] OK, quick recap:
[Togas] My team and GoW had a big pow-wow this evening to try to resolve some issues we were having with them.
[Togas] GoW told us a few stories that I need to verify with you.
[Togas] They claim that there is a three-way tech alliance
[Togas] That they traded you Horseback Riding
[Togas] That you will later give them Mysticism
[Togas] That you cannot, by treaty, trade us Horseback Riding.
[Togas] That you have contact with Vox
[Togas] ... and I think that about wraps it up. As you can see, my boys are all chattering away about what all of this means.
[Togas] I take it all with a grain of salt, so to speak, and wanted to talk to you first to see what you had to say.
[Trip] ahhh, very interesting indeed
[Trip] much of that is true, some of it is off
[Togas] can you tell me what is true, because GF has told us some wild stories in the past.
[Trip] We agreed with GoW to not trade you HBR first, out of respect for them
[Togas] but...? My impression is that you were going to trade it to us
[Trip] if there was to be no deal between you and GoW
[Trip] right now GoW is upset with us, because of some iffy-ground on our official agreement
[Togas] what is your official agreement?
[Trip] GoW thinks it's not to trade HBR to you guys
[Trip] the document we have says that only if GoW trades HBR to you guys that we can't trade it
[Togas] Interesting...
[Trip] anything else you have questions about?
[Togas] I was going to blow off GoW to trade with you
[Togas] Given the choices, I'd rather trade with Lux than GoW
[Togas] So are you guys in a 3-way alliance as GF says?
[Trip] yes, that would please us too
[Trip] what do you mean by a 3-way alliance?
[Togas] He told us GoW, ND, and Lux all agreed to do a 3-way where you don't trade with anyone outside of the alliance
[Trip] that's not true
[Togas] what is true?
[Trip] there were some restrictions on trading (e.g. GoW asking us not to trade HBR to you)
[Trip] but nothing like a full ban on trade
[Trip] to be honest, we haven't traded with ND in many many turns
[Togas] what about after Riding? Is it that any tech GoW researches you guys aren't supposed to trade to other people?
[Trip] nope
[Togas] so do you guys have sort of a "don't trade our teches to anyone else" sort of deal?
[Trip] not that I'm aware of
[Trip] we're not THAT mercantilistic _
[Togas] OK. Any truth to their comment that they traded you HBR?
[Trip] what did they say?
[Togas] that they traded you HBR many turns ago
[Trip] not too long ago
[Togas] so what are you guys researching?? I'm confused. I thought it was HBR.
[Trip] nope, mysticism right now, last time I checked
[Togas] damn. Do you know that we have it?
[Trip] I'll have to make sure with BFM, since he's played the turns recently since I've been busy
[Trip] really?
[Togas] yep. Goodie hut
[Trip] I wasn't aware of that... maybe I've been busier than I thought :P
[Togas] I had jdjdjd tell you guys in a PM.
[Trip] woops
[Trip] :P
[Togas] how many turns you have, maybe you can start something else??
[Trip] we're not too far away
[Trip] we don't have anything to trade you for it though, so it's a moot issue :P
[Togas] some gpt or something would work. We wouldn't rob you for it. Would save us both time if you guys got it faster and started on Polytheism. We want to get to Monarchy, too
[Trip] yes, true... I'll have to bring this issue up with my team to discuss
[Trip] hopefully we can work out a deal
[Togas] do you guys know what GoW is researching next?
[Trip] not sure
[Trip] I know ND is doing math
[Trip] but that's about it
[Togas] oh yeah. One more thing. They told us you had contact with Vox. Do you?
[Trip] We are trying to make contact with Vox now, as we believe we might be able to reach each other between continents soon... we've been working out some possible deals with them
[Togas] lucky devils
[Trip] hehe
[Trip] perhaps
[Togas] what I don't get is .... if we trade with GoW ... how will you guys get Writing?
[Trip] hopefully we won't get wrapped up in the whole Vox and GS thing :P
[Trip] we were hoping to get Math from GoW, then trade math to you for Writing
[Togas] ND wanted to give us math ... would depend on who makes the sale first
[Trip] I figured that :P
[Trip] under what terms would you trade it to us instead?
[Togas] Not sure. I'd have to think about it.
[Trip] :P
[Togas]
[Trip] right right
[Trip] we'll expect a response on this issue within due time, of course
[Togas] Hey, could you guys throw in contacts with Vox? We might trade you instead of ND if you could offer us that
[Trip] not sure, we'd have to discuss that
[Trip] we would value such contact at a very very very high price though
[Togas] how valuable do you think that contact is?
[Trip] well beyond a single tech I'm afraid
[Togas] well, until we get mapmaking, then we could go contact 'em ourselves ..
[Trip] of course
[Togas] do you guys have any problems with GoW at all? We seem to get into scuffles with them far too often?
[Trip] they are pressing our border in the north, and encouraging us to act with caution around you
[Togas] why us?
[Togas] are they scouting you guys out with warriors? They'd deep probing us ... saying that they want to know what luxes we have
[Trip] same with us
[Trip] they're also trying to alienate our two civilizations by quite a few comments :P
[Togas] are you guys OK with that? They might meet up with Vox
[Trip] not much we can do about it but complain...
[Togas] we have 2 warriors blocking their travels.
[Togas] trying to make it as difficult as possible ... rubbing each other a bit the wrong way
[Trip] haha, how exciting
[Trip] I'm surprised you two are so anxious to trade
[Togas] I think they were counting on us to give them writing and now that we're annoying each other, the trade is in doubt
[Togas] I'd almost not trade them just to piss them off a bit more
[Trip] LoL
[Trip] I'm sure that would make GF happy
[Togas] you guys could easily block off a peninsula or something. Not let GF get contact with Vox. That's what I'd do.
[Togas] I enjoy making GF miserable. Brightens my day
[Trip] LoL
[Trip] you're easy to please my friend
[Togas] He's easy to annoy
[Trip] we don't have enough forces in our peninsula to block them off without being vulnerable to ND
[Trip] yes I know, I've seen it often
[Togas] I have no idea what your world looks like ... where is ND going? is there just one big open field or something that everyone's rushing to go to, or is it more involved?
[Trip] everyone is very close to each other... much strain between all 3 civilizations
[Trip] there is some good land to the south of GoW that could go to either of the 3 civs
[Trip] so there's a lot of name calling, squabbling and broken-treaties to be had
[Togas] so who's going to win out?
[Trip] not sure yet
[Trip] depends on who goes to war first probably :P
[Trip] and who can get the upper hand
[Togas] my biggest concern is just that ... who goes to war with who... who wins who loses, etc
[Trip] yeah, me too :P
[Togas] I'm just hoping that it doesn't turn into a Glory of War fest ... big battles are their dream.
[Trip] yes, that's our fear too
[Trip] their name and reputation are less than ideal for close neighbors
[Togas] We're far away from them and we're already butting heads. I can just imagine what it would be like to be next to them
[Trip] hehe, just be glad that's all you have to do
[Trip] I must be going very soon, but I have one last issue I'd like to quickly discuss with you
[Togas] certainly. Go ahead
[Trip] it's come to the attention of my team that repeatedly your team has given out vital information to other teams, which is GREATLY disturbing to us
[Trip] we do not look lightly upon this, and are very skeptical with any agreements with you in the future until you can prove you've broken this habit
[Togas] vital information ...?
[Togas] for example?
[Trip] our alliance with you, the tech offer of HBR that we JUST sent
[Trip] both of which were assumed to be confidential
[Togas] our alliance IS confidential
[Togas] I was unaware that the tech deal was confidential, so I apologize for that.
[Trip] GoW has told us many things
[Togas] We had no idea about the treaty you had with GoW until they brought it up. We were going to tell them to go blow off because we had made a deal with you instead.
[Trip] which they would not know otherwise, unless your team told them
[Togas] my team doen't want them to know about our treaty. I don't know who could have told them, but it wasn't us.
[Trip] GF has been talking about you threatening them with a Lux-RP alliance for weeks now
[Togas] We've been haggling with them about their warriors for the past 2 weeks now. No chitchat or rumors. Things have been very tense with them
[Trip] I don't see how he could fabricate that story
[Togas] he's full of ****.
[Togas] You can quote me on that.
[Trip] how could he have known such a thing?
[Togas] I don't know if he does, frankly. He might. He may have made it up.
[Trip] I know for a fact that none on my team would give information regarding the alliance... the secrecy was the most important factor in us agreeing to it
[Togas] the secrecy IS paramount to us.
[Togas] we included it in the treaty, you know.
[Trip] hmmm... Whatever has happened here, my team is VERY skeptical of you keeping things secret at this point... fairly or unfairly as that is
[Togas] I'm annoyed. Not with you, but now I need to figure out how this got out, or if GF just got lucky
[Trip] might be a bunch of quirks, spies, whatever
[Trip] but it's of great concern to us, as I'm sure you can imagine
[Togas] let them know that it's unjustly. But I'm going to to regulate on my team just to make sure
[Trip] okay
[Trip] from now on I'll have all PMs and vital content sent you marked with *CONFIDENTIAL* so you know not to disclose knowledge of it
[Togas] I hope and pray that one of my many little roleplayers didn't blab ... if they did, I'll be VERY pissed, but I can honestly tell you, I don't want GoW to know because I don't want GoW and Nd to ally themselves against us
[Trip] GoW has gotten very upset with us, and ND has threatened war many times
[Trip] try to play off our involvement in the whole tech-trading... if they think we have something to do with you not trading Writing for HBR, then they will be VERY upset... most likely to the point of preparing for war soon
[Trip] do not take these words lightly...
[Trip] we have seen ND forces massing at our border for some time now
[Trip] we fear that one wrong move may give way to a great conflict
[Togas] I can understand your fears. We don't want to see a 2 on 1. It would drive us into the conflict to try to protect you
[Togas] we also worry that GoW will take payoffs from both of you, and grow to be a very powerful force as a result of a northern war
[Trip] these words are comforting great Togas
[Trip] please, try to avoid speaking friendly of us around GoW anymore...
[Trip] at this point, they only look at us with fear and interest
[Togas] Well, they look at us in about the same way
[Trip] they feel threated, since they are aware we have an alliance, and news of a tech trade between us may push them over the line
[Togas] two things:
[Togas] 1) Is there any way to fix your relationship with ND to avert war?
[Togas] 2) Do you still want to trade HBR for Writing, even though it will anger GoW?
[Trip] 1) it's possible... but the ball's in their court... they've been threatening war, mobilizing forces. We have done neither
[Trip] 2) As long as you can make it seem as though there's another reason for NOT trading Writing for HBR
[Trip] confront them with having a spy about the alliance thing
[Trip] something like that
[Trip] stir up trouble
[Togas] May be difficult. My ambassador has a breakthru with them. We may reach a settlement on the issue.
[Trip] a breakthrough of what sort?
[Togas] diplomatic breakthrough. Possible understanding. They are offering to give us HBR and gold now.
[Togas] I'm reluctant to take it, though. But if it will help your relations with them, I'll consider it
[Trip] it's a possibility... as long as we can acquire Writing through other means
[Togas] but what could you offer for writing since we have writing and mysticism?
[Togas] seems like we leave you guys out in the cold :/
[Trip] we will soon have mysticism, so we can cover that for now
[Trip] once we get math, we will trade it to you for writing
[Togas] we could get math from ND... and we could trade ND mysticism.
[Trip] yes, that's possible
[Trip] but we wouldn't look too favorably on it
[Togas] you guys have a good thing going, but we also like to trade. I want to see us cooperate a bit more. Maybe we can both discuss it with our teams, see what we can come up with?
[Trip] yes, that would be good
[Trip] do you have any messengers?
[Trip] It would make contact much easier
[Togas] jdjdjd is my official guy to your team, is that what you mean?
[Trip] I mean something along the lines of AIM, ICQ or MSN
[Trip] I'm often on them, though I have a lot of work to take care of, so I don't stop by here often anymore
[Togas] I have MSN on my cpu, but I need to open it up and dust it off a bit
[Togas] send me a PM with your contact info and I'll set it up tomorrow. Maybe start running it in the background on my computer
[Trip] okay
[Trip] sounds good
[Togas] I'd better let you go.
[Trip] I must be going now... already down to 6.5 hours of sleep as it is
[Togas] Cool
[Trip] hehe
[Trip] you bet
[Togas] Good talking to you, as always
[Trip] indeed
[Trip] hope to talk soon again
[Trip] I shall send that PM
[Trip] farewell!
[Togas] Sleep well
[Trip] may it be so
[Trip] 'Til lata
Session Close: Tue Jan 28 00:07:56 2003

[WarriorPoet]

Good, RP definitely understands the severity of the issues at hand. We should allow him to blow us off on the HBR for writing trade...it may be our only hope of preventing needless war.

The mysticism thing was an exageration right? I thought we had our science at 0. Perhaps we should switch to writing, and get communications setup with GS ASAP. They will be a better partner than Vox.

Let ND and RP trade for now, more war evasion.

Persue comm with GS, and ignore Vox once we have it.

[BigFurryMonster]

Nice conversation! If we plan to go through with this deal (I favor that), I plan to send jdjdjd the following:

Hello jdjdjd, Friend of Lux!

So - ND is complaining to you about one little warrior? Well - it is true that we saw a yellow line in the jungle, but we did not cross it to annoy them. It was merely the shortest route between A and B. Actually, we did not mind, since scouts of ND have roamed our lands since the beginning of time. But we don't complain. Hell, no. We have something better to do. Like trading.

We have, indeed, an agreement with GoW not to trade HBR to you =unless they don't trade it to you=. Since this has been the case - the deal was cancelled, I presume - we talked to you about the trade. What worries me here is that GoW seems to know about this, though the messages I sent you were marked confidential. We need to talk about that - do you think there is a spy around? We sure did not tell them of our Alliance, or of the trade.

GoW seems not to believe us. Therefore, I need you to confirm to them that we held off the Lux-RP trade until you cancelled the GoW-RP trade. Only when he receives such information from two sides (from you and from us), he will be convinced that he's seeing ghosts. Therefore I ask you - can you send GhengisFarb a PM, with a copy to me, confirming this info? Thank you in advance.

We would like to stress that we look forward to trading with you in the future. We are nearing the completion of Mysticism, so we have no interest in that tech. However, we might be able to acquire the Mathematics tech soon, which we offer to you for trade. We have information that ND will acquire it, too, however, and we ask you to get it from us. ND is getting stronger, and we fear that trading with them will not put that to a halt. They have us boxed in, and we fear that war may be immiment. We have some troops standing by, though, so they'd better not attack anytime soon. But... if things start to heat up, can we count on your support?

In the meantime, your despot Togas and my president Trip have had a meeting. Trip told me that Togas said you have some troubles with GoW in the scouting department. Is there any indication that their units might come our way? If so, please tell us.

Your friend in the North,

BFM

EDIT: message sent.

[CiverDan]

Things are sounding a little bit better....We do need to atempt to at least open some dialougue with ND again. Not contacting them is just asking of trouble. We should be able to patch things up with RP. They gain nothing from being angry at us and certainly wouldn't gain anything from a war, with anyone, due to the amount of space they have to expand. This must be why they are trying to avert any kind of conflict that they would likely be drawn into due to their (now) known alliance with us. Personally i think someone from RP leaked it by accident. RP gains nothing by making it know, only potentially hinders their own development.

[WarriorPoet]

I don't think the leak was an accident, but I don't believe it was maliciously done either.

[BigFurryMonster]

Got this from jdjdjd:

Hello BFM,

Glad to hear from you! Very glad to hear ND misinterpreted your actions.

With regards to the matters you mentioned, I will have to get instructions from our Leader Togas. I have not been online in two days, and you have some good questions I have no answers for right now. I'm not sure what impact your deal with GoW will have on this trade, if any, but I'm glad you told us of it and I hope we can still work on a deal.

Are you interested in HBR for Writing then?

One last thought, if I find out a Spaniard (or alleged Spaniard if he is a spy) is divulging my private negotiations with outsiders, I will lose my mind in rage - and vengeance will be swift. The loser of this game will most assuredly have the biggest mouth.

I willl respond further as I get more answers for you,

i remain,

jdjdjd, Friend and Ambassador to Lux Invicta