Lego FA thread 1

[Jon Miller]

I am cool with it

Jon Miller

[Beta]

I had sent a note to vondrack of Lego asking about Legos minor. This was the relevant part of his response:

"The exodus option is still open on our side, yes. We have no plans to settle Legos Minor in the near future. If you consider this solution seriously, let us know - we would probably want to plop a city on Legos Minor, to be able to jump you there fast. We are quite committed to supporting you whatever way may be needed - I am actually surprised to see that there are no "ranters" appearing as your war efforts get more and more bogged down... I guess everybody is slowly realizing, how powerful an enemy GS might be, if left unchecked..."

Also - he confirmed that RP is solidly behind us.

[Wittlich]

Well, this is good news at least!

[Beta]

Received from vondrack of Lego. The Exodus is now an option.

"BTW, the Legos Minor plan has now the needed support. Leo (lmtoops) has posted today, expressing FULL support. He apparently feels very strongly about it.

We will have a new settler ready in 2 turns. As we do not have any site we would need to settle urgently, he could be sailing across The Legoon to Legos Minor in 2 more turns. I am going to post a poll now to make the plan officially adopted.

I will email you an outgame image of Legos Minor shortly. Post it in your forum and let us know where you'd like The Other One, your new home, planted. I would suggest a central location, so that noone else knows what is going on (only coastal areas have been charted by GoW so far, so inland locations are unlikely to appear on any map, but ours).

Gotta go, will send the map ASAP."

[HarryH]

Beta,

I would like to get the Legos Minor pic and a current game save ASAP so I can create an exodus plan. I will be out of town Friday afternoon through late Sunday so I would like to work on the plan tonight and tomorrow.

[Beta]

HarryH - I do not have it yet. Vondrack says it is coming shortly. I have just logged on after midnight here after a 16 hr workday - so I won't be on long.

Great to have you back.

[Eli]

I've been doing some sucking up to Lego :
Me to Vondrack :

In the name of Vox I sincerely thank you for the effort you invested in the planning of our future city sites, and your team for agreeing to accept us on Lego Minor and help us getting started.

Hello, Eli,

You are welcome. I know Vox is a small team and that you had quite a lot to take care of recently. I happened to have some spare time - and a handy Photoshop template allowing me to easily shuffle city radii around...

I don't claim my city placement to be best/ideal/optimal - do have a close look at the proposed locations, please, and check whether what I wrote about them is true. I may have oversought something. In SP, I almost always go for the perfect spacing, so planning tightly packed settlements is something I'm less than trained in. I kept shuffling cities back and forth for some time to best cover/use the available land and moved 2 cities from "almost final" locations only after putting down the comments... realizing that what looked "nice" on the map was less than optimal production-wise. But the truth is that most of what seems to be a result of "diligent planning" is in fact dictated by the geography of Legos Minor. With so many mountains, city sites are precious and you have only little choice.

Anyway... I must say I was pleasantly surprised to see that the terrain that looked so bad may actually be put to some decent use after railroads and electricity. You'll probably have troubles with food & shield production in the beginning, but you're likely to become a commercial power to be considered after some time. I hope Voxes can still leave quite a trace in the "future history"...

I'm sure Legoland will provide more substantial aid as the game progresses and your new homeland develops. It will be in our best interest that you become more than just an exiled nation, barely surviving in a mountainous refuge... but I would rather not promise anything ATM, since we are struggling to get our empire into order after switching the government few turns ago.

Take care & good luck!
vondracek

[Beta]

Received from vondrack - as part of a PM to me.

Well... some good news re: your Legos Minos refuge settlement. I have worked out a way to make the defense of the new city less of a headache for both of us - I realized we had a chance to build a worker in Panama (that's where the settler will be sailing from) this turn without affecting our builds/plans and send him along with the settler, joining him to the city right after founding it. Thanks to pop 2, you will be able to pop-rush a spear immediately after we hand the city over to you - which will be on the very turn we found it. Will make fending barb raids off much easier (Legos Minor is swarming with barbs). We have just one military unit there ATM and sending many more is not exactly what we would be dying for. Still struggling to set our mainland defenses properly up.

Time schedule:
the upcoming turn: settler finished in Legopolis, worker finished in Panama (escort sword already on Legos Minor, hunting barbs)
then 2 turns to move the settler to Panama
then 3 turns to get aboard and sail over to Legos Minor
then 3-4 turns to reach the site of your new capital (the bonus grass would be 3 turns, the regular grass would be 4 turns)
then 1 turn to found the city and hand it over to you.

Can you hold that long? Or at least keep a settler of yours alive so that GS cannot finish you off? If not, we would have to gift you one of our mainlaind cities temporarily, but that would be something we would REALLY like to avoid... would make things too messy.

[Beta]

Figured this was overdue - given that ZargonX is now Lego's official leader:

Greetings ZargonX of Lego!

My apologies that we have taken so long to write directly. I hope you appreciate that we have been somewhat occupied with other matters.

First of all, let me congratulate you on your election to the position of esteemed leader of Lego. Your election is proof of the wisdom of the people of Lego.

Secondly, Vox wishes to extend its extreme gratitude to Legoland for both its assistance in the recent war, and now, more importantly, for the extension of a lifeline in the way of Legos Minor and the settler. It is both magnanamous and noble of you to do so - to say nothing of how welcome it is to Vox at a dark time such as this.

Thirdly - and following on the second point - you have the assurances of all Voxians that we are your sworn allies for the remainder of the game. Despite the tactics we used against GS, we are a trustworthy nation. We will do all within our power to assist you in this game, both militarily and technically. From a FA perspective, we will make sure that we co-ordinate our trades and related efforts with you.

Notwithstanding the above commitement, Vox is committed to remaining a free and noble nation, and one worthy of being your friend.

And last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank vondrack for his official and personal support over the last while. It has been good to have someone you can trust unequivocably.

Now - for a status report. We are close to finalizing a peace deal with GS. Just some minor details to work out. Discussions are amicable.

Our first galley - with settler and spear has set sail. ETA is some 17 turns. Teleported workers will get there before it - but this gets our galley and another military unit out of Vox. Two more galleys to come.

The rest will be done via workers gifted to Lego - and the remainder of our military and settlers teleported to the new continent when we gift GS our last city. The schedule is being worked out. The peace deal gives us 18 turns to 'transform' our population.

We will need to discuss FA when things get settled. We can give you our perspective from the recent war.

We also need to discuss loan repayment.

So - once again - thank you to the people of Lego. We look forward to being neighbours.

Sincerest regards ... Beta of Vox.

[Beta]

His response:

Re: Vox to Lego
Beta,

Thank you for your finely worded message! Your delays in contact are fully understandable, given certain situations I just wanted to let you know that I will be getting back to you with full details of the plan, from our end, so we can work them out together. However, I am a little short of time at the moment, as I am headed out for the weekend. However, perhaps we could get together for a chat early next week? Just let me know when is good for you!

Thanks,
Zargon

[Beta]

Received from Lego today. Looks Ok to me. Nothing we can't live with. In fact, in some areas quite generous. I was a bit surprised at the no war declarations without their approval, but given our -er - history, and their situation, it makes sense. If I was them I would not want Vox to drag me into a awar I was not ready for. Here it is, along with some rationale for certain clauses:

Treaty of The New Voice (draft)
Hello, Beta!
Hello, People of the Vox Controli!

We at Lego have spent last few days internally discussing the general guidelines regarding our future coexistence - you on Legos Minor, us on Legos Major. We believe it would be good to sign a "treaty" - not because of distrusting you or your intentions, but to make sure we both understand our future in pretty much the same way.

So, here goes a draft of our treaty. It's by no means an ultimatum - but it's something we'd be happy to sign, it does express our wishes and hopes.

Note: Beta, find a couple of my personal notes at the end of the message.

Treaty of The New Voice

1) Legoland agrees to give Legos Minor to Vox Controli as a new homeland. Legos Minor is defined as all land beyond the isthmus of Invoice/Benelux (see the map).
No Vox Controli settlement may be founded South of the site marked as "Southernmost Vox Controli City on Legos Minor". Considering the land shown on the map attached, Legoland will settle no more sites than Port Hammer and Invoice/Benelux.

(The map did not show up - I will forward it viea PM.)


2) Legoland will, at its earliest convenience, found and gift a 2-pop city on Legos Minor to Vox Controli, in a location specified by Vox Controli. Legoland will make reasonable efforts to protect this city from barbarians until Vox Controli is able to protect it with its own forces.

3) Neither Legoland, nor Vox Cotroli will ever accept a city trying to defect (aka "culture flip") to the other party.

4) Vox Controli will never declare war on another civ without Legoland's approval and consent. Legoland will never declare war on Vox Controli, except for fake/staged wars as needed for GA triggering, combat training ("GL factory") or worker exchange. Fake wars would be declared with the approval of both parties involved.

5) All techs researched by either Legoland or Vox Controli must be shared with the other team upon request. Any techs requested under this clause are subject to a permanent Non-Disclosure Agreement; the team receiving the tech may not trade/gift/resell it to anyone else without the giving team's permission. This does NOT apply to techs acquired by trading with third parties.

6) If Legoland lacks a strategic resource Vox Controli has, Vox is obliged to provide it to Lego upon request. If Legoland has a surplus of a strategic resource Vox Controli lacks, Legoland is obliged to provide it to Vox Controli upon request. In both cases, a reasonable balance may be requested in exchange.

7) As soon as reasonably possible, Vox agree to build a warrior to keep in reserve for triggering Legoland's GA (a sacrifice to a Merc).

8) Vox Controli agrees to prefer trading no maps of Legos Minor to other civs.

=============================

Now, a couple of my comments: us providing you with an outgame image of Legos Minor is now "official" and approved by the Lego team.

Basically, the very essence of the treaty is the Point 5, on the joint/shared research. Not sure if it needs any extra explanations - I do believe this will be a win-win scenario for both parties. As for Point 6 - we believe it is HIGHLY unlikely that Legos Minor could have a strategic resource Legos Major would lack... but just in case, we would like to reserve the right to request it. Considering your limited production capacity on Legos Minor and the hopefully high commerce, it would certainly make sense even for you to trade that rare resource to us (allowing us to build the respective units "from scratch", using our strong shield base), building cheap "resourceless" units instead for upgrades yourselves. Hope this will be no problem.

Let us know if there is anything you would like to change or add - we are open for discussion.

With the best regards,
(and on behalf of the President of Legoland)
vondrack, The Military Architect of Legoland

[Wittlich]

Actually, I myself agree with the treaty as written. I agree Beta, Lego has been very generous and rather undemanding in their treaty request.

[HarryH]

I agree with the treaty. I too have been thinking about the fake wars in item 5. Timely creation of a GL or too may provide to be crucial in completing some great wonders.

[Wittlich]

I haven't thought about that - having a Great Leader in our back pocket to rush a wonder is a good idea.

[HarryH]

Lego has already said they want to build the Sistine Chapel. Unless they have already started a palace pre-build I doubt they will get it. Now that the war is over and GS wants to get back to building, I expect them to be researching up the Theology and Education branch. So, we can help Lego get SC by doing a fake war to create a GL. In turn, they can help us get a GL. I would like to use the GL to get JS Bach's or possibly Copernicus' Observatory.