Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[mostly-harmless]

Sunrise, I understand your point. But keep in mind we are a long way from their shores, and access could well be blocked by an Imperio city in the next couple of turns, which means researching writing first, then negotiating open borders, then carrying all that military towards PAL's land. That will take more than just a few turns and it will leave us somewhat crippled. Imperio and Templars both have a sizable army.

As for the Monarchy trade. I would certainly mention it, but not setting it in stone yet.

mh

[regoarrarr]

We do have the option of just saying No, we're not going to make this alphabet trade.

But I think that wouldn't be a great idea. It would be a huge diplomatic hit (especially if it is just whiplash playing the game himself) and make it likely that they would never trade with us for the entire game

And as the only team with alphabet, they're likely to get IW / archery from someone else soon anyways

[sooooo]

I think it's pretty crazy to conisider turning our population into chariots and galleys. We could have built 5 settlers too, if we wanted. Instead we built 3 settlers, some workers and some archers. Because we thought it was the best strategy.

I don't think a civ having 6 cities necessarily gives them a huge advantage. How well improved are their cities? They can't keep slaving forever. We have less cities but have worked cottages, mines built, metals soon to be hooked up, plenty of space for more cities and a better defence. We have expanded fairly quickly, but sensibly - keeping our cities improved to a decent level while doing so.

We have no idea what the other island looks like. It's hard to judge PAL's long term prospects.

[sunrise089]

@Sooooo - I consider your answer above the best counterpoint to my argument. If PAL is not situated to run away with the game than we can afford to play conservatively. As to whether we could have really built 5 settlers...I'm not convinced we could have. PAL may have had better spots to settle than us, and PAL probably didn't have to deal with neighbors building 7 quetchuas without metal or horse.

Now as for the difficulties of a PAL attack...I think we can mitigate them somewhat. We would want at minimum 4 chariots and 2 galleys...so that's really only 1-2 slaves per city. As for the timing...we have 10 turns before they're ready to trade anyways, right? We could easily stall for 1-2 turns, then we could gain another turn by trading sailing for writing, then "forget to log it" for another turn, and still not act too suspicious. So that's 14 turns. If we could make our attack happen in 20, that only gives PAL 6 turns to research a military tech and build some defenders.

I do think a PAL attack would necessitate serious diplomatic efforts with Imperio and Templars. We'd want at minimum a non-aggression pact with both neighbors, based around all of us expanding into the other continent. We'd also need Imperio to promise not to block off our sea route by settling their city on the coast, and we'd need both teams to promise not to reveal our plans to PAL, nor trade archery or IW to them. Even better would be an agreement for them to supply either the galleys or the chariots. Is all the above possible? Maybe (probably) not. But I did want to put the option out there.

In summary, I just want to make sure we're not being so risk-averse we throw away the game. I don't claim to have the best handle on how PAL's expansion plans will impact their long-term success or failure, but at some point in the future it may become apparent they are unstoppable without military action. If that happened I imagine we'll be kicking ourselves for not acting when they had a warrior-only army.

[regoarrarr]

The other thing that I think is likely that even if we are "successful" in our attack, we are likely to have the end result be that we both lose to some 3rd team.

What we REALLY want is for some OTHER team to attack (or at least slow down) PAL. Then *WE* can be the 3rd team and win

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by regoarrarr
The other thing that I think is likely that even if we are "successful" in our attack, we are likely to have the end result be that we both lose to some 3rd team.
...

This is the reason I suggested military action only as part of a continent-wide plan to divide up the other continent. In fact, one of the main reasons for my suggestion of a military alliance against PAL is that I am worried about military buildup by our neighbors and would feel much safer if those Imperio Chariots were on another continent.

PAL's expansion rate is only half of the problem. The other half is the arms race on our continent. Two most obious solutions to both problems are an alliance against PAL, or an alliance with PAL.

Even if we take neither of above options, we should talk to our neighbors about some form of arms control treaty. (I'll think more about it and post some ideas in Imperio and/or Templar threads later.)

[Sullla]

Whoa! The hawks are out in force today, it seems.

As the one playing the turns right now, let me state this bluntly: we are in absolutely no position to attack PAL anytime in the near future. Even if we would like to do so, it would take dozens of turns to first build galleys, then sail them oh-so-slowly around the northern extreme of our continent, then down to PAL's southern location. We couldn't get there until at least T100, and I think PAL could easily handle a bunch of chariots by that time! And that's still assuming Templars or Imperio would be willing to grant us Open Borders to ship a large number of military units past them...

It's a non-starter guys. We're going to have enough problems getting a single SCOUT unit over to the eastern continent right now. If you don't believe me, try logging into the game and checking out our current situation.

Similarly, torpedoing a trade that was agreed upon by both sides is very bad business. We do not want to do that, as it will greatly discourage any other teams from working with us in the future. Even if we feel the trade with PAL benefits them more, we need to go through with it at this point. For the record, I'm not overly worried about this individual trade - more PAL's potential to line up tons of future ones with their five diplomatic contacts.

Overall though in the long-term, we should indeed try to limit our deals with PAL and see if we can negotiate an arms agreement on our continent. Much as I hate to say it, working closely with Templars in terms of teching looks like an attractive option. (They are not a threat militarily or economically. Only way they can win the game is through culture, and we'll keep a close eye on that!) Imperio... well, hopefully we can come to some kind of an understand with them.

We can always try talking to Banana and Rabbits as well, even if we haven't met them in-game.

[ruff_hi]

I'll be sending the above email to PAL when I get home tonight - about 6 or 7 hrs from now. Speak now or ...

[Zeviz]

The email sounds good.

[ruff_hi]

email sent

[Swiss Pauli]

[wakes from his summer-long slumber]

How about contacting the rabbits to see, firstly, whether they are happy to talk before meeting in-game, and secondly, whether they can fill us in on the situation on their island?

[Sullla]

Whoa, Swiss Pauli is alive?

Good to have you back!

[ruff_hi]

email from PAL

Hi Realms

Lets talk about the next round of tech trades …

Part of the reason we wanted to know when you will complete Iron Working and Sailing is so we can make a reasonable assumption regarding when we you guys will get monarchy.

When can we expect Monarchy?

If you would like, we can get Monarchy after Alphabet otherwise we will peruse CoL.

We can probably get either technology in about 10 turns after alphabet.

Once we know who is getting what, we can formally propose a tech deal.

Thanks,

whiplash

sent back this reply ...

whiplash,

Email received - passed onto team. In other news, I am stepping down as RBs emailer - will be replaced by another team mate.

Ruff

[Zeviz]

I feel uneasy about continuing to trade with them. If they can get Monarchy in 10 turns, how does their research rate compare to ours?

[mostly-harmless]

I got the same reservations like Zeviz. I am more in favor for getting in touch with IMperio and Templars first to see what their ideas are before agreeing to another PAL trade.

mh