Discussion on our Civ Choice

[GodKing]

I just sent this to Spiffor

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

Hopefully if they are interested, this will get them to start negotiations.

[Arnelos]

I fully agree on keeping other teams ignorant of the details.

[Arnelos]

However...

I also think we should spin this as something other than a gracious gift to the Builders to everyone but the builders...

I don't want the other 3 teams to think that we're SURE to end up in an alliance with Legoland to start planning against it...

Let the builders know (there's only 6 of them...) in PRIVATE just what we're doing and what we plan in terms of getting along with them... but don't let anyone else know that.

I'd rather the other teams thought we just didn't want to play Carthage because Carthage was a "pure builder team we didn't want to play" and DISCARDED IT without caring whether the builders took it.

Keep that in mind...

[Ninot]

just some comments on that message you sent Spiff

what im weary of is telling them how much we dont want to play Carthage

if they know we arent going to play it, and we are just trying to jip them on a deal, they wont do us any favors

we should make it sound more like it really is... We are going to play Carthage, unless the Builders want to make a deal

after all, that IS the story, isnt it?

[Ninot]

Well we gotta look at what we want the Builders to think...and what we want the Others to think.

We want the Builders to think we WANT Carthage so they give us something for it

we want the Others to think we have no deal at all with the Builders.

So, what kind of web do we weave?

[Arnelos]

btw... while I think we should get something in return from the builders for giving them Carthage (if we do), I'm against attempting to EXTORT FROM THEM...

We should sit down with them and tell them different idea of things we'd like in return and let them see if they can come up with an offer that's good enough for us rather than the other way around...

In other words, tell them we're thinking about "Selling them Carthage" and tell them some initial ideas we have on price. Then let THEM throw back something of a proposal on what they can accept.

Be nice about it, but haggle over it. Don't play this as extortion...

[Arnelos]

Here's an idea... have a representative from our side a representative from their side sit down in an IRC chat and haggle out a mutually acceptable price.

[OliverFA]

Maybe GodKing proposal is a bit too much. But we cannot expect them to accept whatever proposal we make to them as is. They will probably want to negotiate it. So asking a bit too much is ok to me

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by Ninot
Ninot is a spannish name, dont'chya know?

I thought it was French. How do you pronounce it?

[Crousto]

If we decide to change civ, it's obvious that we should announce it publicly as late as possible... Everyone thinks we'll be Carthage so they're probably building strategies with this fact in mind, and they'll have to start their plans all over again when they'll learn that we've changed our mind

[mrmitchell]

Yeah, we can have a NDA with Legoland as a part of the deal to give them Carthage...

[ruby_maser]

for the record, I think it is a bad idea to sell Carthage to the builders. A jesture on our part is the only way I think we will get anything out of them later on... in terms of building a better relationship or helping each other out. I don't think that giving them an equal deal now will help us when the game starts because they won't feel that they owe us anything.

[Togas]

All 17 of our members have voted on this critical issue. Frankly, I wish the vote were not so close.

My decision was to give Carthage away if the # of vote in both of the "give away" categories was greater than the "keep Carthage" votes. That decision will not change, HOWEVER

I am going to go to the builders and tell them that WE ARE TIED about if we should give them Carthage or not, and ask if they can help us break the tie. Then try to arrange for a negotiation with them about this important issue.

I'm sure no one will object to this decision.

I will report back to you with my results.

--Togas

[Ninot]

I beg to differ

6 want to keep Carthage

8 want to give it away, but only 6 are sure they want to be Spain.

Overall, the team does want to make a deal

[Togas]

Yes, we do have 8 vote to give it away as compared to 6 votes to keep, but my story to the builders will be that we're tied and I'd like their "help" resolving this situation so that my team can comfortably give up Carthage.

Hopefully I can get them to be the first to suggest that they make some sort of "trade" and then we can begin to discuss the terms of a trade that might make my team happy with the choice to part with Carthage.

As of now, I have not heard back from Jack. I still await his response.

If any of you know other Builder types, you might want to leak out what our current "dilema" is.

--Togas