Team Info and Contacts - Imperio

[MyOtherCar]

I would be willing to chat ingame to Imperio, if I even had the faintest idea how to log into the game
Seeing how easy Imperio is wiling to switch from Templars to PAL to us, I don't really trust them to keep their promises. I think we should continue to go after Templars: Constantinople is to good a city to give away. If Imperio wants to take it, they'll have to work for it at least.
About their argument about being in the middle: seems to me they are afraid that they get to bear the brunt of the attack from PAL if they ally with us.

[Dreylin]

I like it, but would prefer we change the last sentence of the first paragraph to something like:

Also PAL are busy with Rabbits and then are far more likely to go after Banana than threaten our continent.

EDIT: on second thoughts:

Also, if PAL ever finish of the Rabbits, they are far more likely to target Banana next rather than look to jump to our continent. If we ally quickly against them we can support Banana, then the fighting will be in PAL's land, not yours!

[sooooo]

Have we all gone crazy? We've been trying for months to stop this horrible 2-front war. It stops us fighting effectively, hands the game to PAL and has decimated our research. And we're willing to pass up the opportunity to end all of this for Constantinople?

This is not just looking a gift-horse in the mouth, it's ripping the head off the gift-horse and skullf*cking it.

Let's look at the upsides:

1) We get our trade routes back with banana, rabbits and imperio. That's massive! Far far better than mercantilism.
2) We get to wipe out templars soon. It's not going to be easy with just our southern troops. Their big stack will not come out of defensive terrain. With our monster stack in the north it'll be taking candy from a dead templar.
3) We are on the way to stopping PAL. We can't trust Imperio, but hopefully we can get some tech/resource deals in the short term. I don't care if they betrayed templars. I don't want them to be our BFFs, I just want my trade routes back for a while! As long as we know we can't trust them we can take opportunistic deals. Maybe we can even convince them to close borders with PAL.

The downside is that we give up Constantinople. Boo hoo!

If we keep going with demanding Constantinople then there'e no chance of a deal.

[darrelljs]

What shrine income?

Someone mentioned that as a reason they might want us to raze the city. I assume by your question that there are no shrines in the city?

Lets not drop the word "master" with them. I think they can get into an alliance as equals.

Equals ?! You are kidding right?

I'm okay with sooooo's simple draft, which doesn't mention Constantinople at all.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

...
1) We get our trade routes back with banana, rabbits and imperio. That's massive! Far far better than mercantilism.
2) We get to wipe out templars soon. It's not going to be easy with just our southern troops. Their big stack will not come out of defensive terrain. With our monster stack in the north it'll be taking candy from a dead templar.
3) We are on the way to stopping PAL. We can't trust Imperio, but hopefully we can get some tech/resource deals in the short term. I don't care if they betrayed templars. I don't want them to be our BFFs, I just want my trade routes back for a while! As long as we know we can't trust them we can take opportunistic deals. Maybe we can even convince them to close borders with PAL.
...

1) Are we certain about that? I thought Mercantilism with as many cities as we had was very powerful.

2) We don't wipe out Templars. We get one more city. Not agreeing to deal with Imperio gets us 1+ cities. How is that worse? Does Templars really staying alive with Acre and Damaskus really hurt us?

Both those points made, I'm still not opposed to this deal. I won't mind for a second using our northern stack to capture Jerusalem. And I think overall we'll do more with our time in a NAP than Imperio will. I just want us to be very conscious that we're giving a lot of help to our #2 rival for very little in return. A cease fire and 10-turn NAP will give us essentially all of the benefits with essentially none of the costs.

EDIT: To be clear, the short Soooo draft that doesn't mention Constantinople looks fine.

[Swiss Pauli]

Have we all gone crazy? We've been trying for months to stop this horrible 2-front war. It stops us fighting effectively, hands the game to PAL and has decimated our research. And we're willing to pass up the opportunity to end all of this for Constantinople?

This is not just looking a gift-horse in the mouth, it's ripping the head off the gift-horse and skullf*cking it.

Let's look at the upsides:

1) We get our trade routes back with banana, rabbits and imperio. That's massive! Far far better than mercantilism.
2) We get to wipe out templars soon. It's not going to be easy with just our southern troops. Their big stack will not come out of defensive terrain. With our monster stack in the north it'll be taking candy from a dead templar.
3) We are on the way to stopping PAL. We can't trust Imperio, but hopefully we can get some tech/resource deals in the short term. I don't care if they betrayed templars. I don't want them to be our BFFs, I just want my trade routes back for a while! As long as we know we can't trust them we can take opportunistic deals. Maybe we can even convince them to close borders with PAL.

The downside is that we give up Constantinople. Boo hoo!

If we keep going with demanding Constantinople then there'e no chance of a deal.

I fully support sooooo's position. Our current advantage over Templars seems to have clouded people's judgement about our real position in the game: we're talking 27 base turns to Astro whilst running BUR guys, and break-even at 35% research. That sucks so badly that we have to run cap-in-hand to Banana for sponsorship.

And Templars hasn't yet resorted to the 'Rabbit-roadblock' defence which will be a world of pain. Nationalism & the draft may clear the roadblock, but it will add 11 turns to our research of Astro.

I've said it quite a few times already that we can afford to be generous to Imperio because of the awesomeness of this team. Let's not blow a transformational deal over Constantinople: allying with Imperio will make us a world power again, not some backwater player who beats on Templars for kicks.

[Sullla]

Let's send sooooo's very quick message. Ideally, we get Imperio to turn on Templars first and then hammer out the exact details of cooperation second. (I'm aware it may not happen that way, but let's take a stab at it.)

I'm also prepared to give up Constantinople to get Imperio on our side. Just about anything to get out from under this 2 vs. 1 dogpile benefits us. Then we can take our Imperio at our leisure later on.

[Dreylin]

Agreed, there's no way that we'll ever get peace with Imperio if we claim Constantinople - we're having a hard enough time asserting our right to the area around Jerusalem, let alone the city.

Constantinople is theirs, like it or not ... but we don't have to lift a finger to help them take it. We should be concentrating on trying to convince them that Jerusalem can be kept as-is so we don't have to re-build it from scratch. I like Imperio as little as the next guy, but it's infrastructure & research that is going to defeat PAL and we can't concentrate on that with Imperio threatening us.

[Kodii]

And here awakes the Canadian.

I don't even see why we would want Constantinople at all, especially if it will endanger our potential cooperation with Imperio.

In order to make things work in our favour, we need to make a list of things that need to get done in what order.

Obviously the first step would be to get Imperio to declare war on Templars, the in a close second, to get a peace deal worked out between us and Imperio.

We should be willing to give up a reasonable amount (that means Constantinople and razing Jerusalem) to make that happen.

The third step is to determine the details of our cooperation. My current problem with Imperio is that I feel they will only team with us once all these details have been hammered out. Therefore I think it is important to make the necessary "concessions" (ie Constantinople and razing Jerusalem) to get the ball moving.

Most importantly however, is that we do not forget our real ally in this game. We would not be in this current position of negotiating with Imperio if it wasn't for Banana. The least we can do is send them a short message to let them know we are currently in discussion with Imperio.

[sooooo]

OK, I went ahead and sent this one:

Dear Imperio,

We have discussed and agree to raze and resettle Jerusalem in return for you signing peace with us on T151 and agreeing a NAP. You must declare on Templars by the end of T153.

There is no need to mention to PAL any of our discussions.

Do you agree?

Team RB.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd like to get dsplaisted & MyOtherCar's offers for a chat in Spanish to Imperio:

We are happy that you are talking to us but we think our communication suffers because of the language difference. A couple of our newer team members speak some Spanish and we think it would be helpful for you to have a live chat with him in Spanish to help us understand your concerns better. If you agree, let us know what times would be good for you and whether you would like to use MSN Messenger, gmail chat, Skype, IRC, or chat in-game.

[MyOtherCar]

Okay, I concur. Getting Imperio on our side is more important than Constantinople. But we have to cinvince them that they have to do some work by themselves to get it (ie. declare war on Templars). There are two things holding them back:
a: they want to be strong enough to feel that they have a shot a victory after PAL's been defeated.
b: they are currently afraid of PAL turning on them the moment they declare on Templar.

So somehow we should reassure them that we will take the fight to PAL lands as soon as Templars are finished.

Oh, and I agree with Kodii in that we should keep Banana posted on the diplomatics on our continent.

[sooooo]

Oh, I realised that we need to know before our turn ended so I sent this clarification:

Sorry, I meant signing peace at the start of T151. We want to know during our 16 hours.

I didn't say this turn because there's only 2 hours left.

[sooooo]

Could we just ask the same thing as Swiss asks in Spanish?

[sooooo]

I send this too:

Sorry for the third email

One more thing: PAL probably won't declare on you for a long time and it is not nice of them to threaten you. You are PAL's only tech trade partner and they are busy with Rabbits and Banana. We will help you against PAL.