Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[Swiss Pauli]

email sent:

Hello again,

Thanks for the recent emails regarding the Code of Laws-Monarchy deal. We were obviously very concerned when we saw that your team had traded in Monarchy from Imperio. However, we are happy with your proposed swap of Monotheism for CoL, and we're willing to consider further deals requiring co-ordinated research.

We have Monotheism now, so when you research Code of Laws we will trade. When you expect that to be? Regarding our future plans, we expect to pursue some techs on the upper part of the tree - we have not finalised the details yet, not least because Monarchy is an important tech for us.

We'd be happy to trade in either Metalcasting or Feudalism in the next deal, so let's see how things look when you've completed Code of Laws. How does this sound?

I hope I've found a vague-but-positive wording. Let's see what the feedback is...

[Sullla]

I think it sounds great, Swiss Pauli.

[sooooo]

Yeah it sounds fine. Good work.

[sooooo]

Have PaL just whipped 3 times this turn

[mostly-harmless]

Good message.
And yes PAL has again whipped 3 times. They have done it before though.

mh

[ruff_hi]

email from PAL ...

Hi Realms,

Yes your concern is understandable, but we are a trust worthy group; if we win this game it will not be down to underhanded diplomacy manoeuvres (winning at all costs is not our style).

Moving on … We have a request, which we require a response to within this turn. We ask you guys for horses for a few turns, we don’t believe you guys need to make chariots right at this moment and we have given you guys skewed technology trades in the past. We feel our relationship is mature enough for you guys to grant this fairly small request.

We have Code of Law next turn and will be ready to make the trade – But do not want to wait until then to trade horses.

As for out next technology, we have not discussed this just yet, but as soon as we do we will let you guys know.

Thanks,

PAL

This is interesting - need them this turn because they have massive whip overflow? Do we tell them that we know why they want them this turn [Nahhh]. But don't they have horses - or have they failed to hook them up properly.

I would lean towards YES because of their response to their bungled Col / Mon trade. Are we using our horses at present?

I replied with

Email received and communicated to team. We will discuss internally.

Team RB

[mostly-harmless]

Interesting indeed.
I can't log in right now, but I am pretty sure I saw Horses for PAL in the trade table.
It could be that only a part of their empire is connected to horses though and their road and river network suck big time.
Someone please check whether they have horses or not.
If they do not show up, then they have traded them away (to Rabbits?). If the horses show up we have to ask them why they need our horses.

And here the paranoid scenarios from the C&D dept.
Scen1: Banana is surely the weakest team and has not logged in a while (4 turns). So Pal could think the best time to take them out is now. A swift attack with Chariots bypassing idle Banana units and taking their cities in three turns might be PAL's plan. Since the AI does not take over if a turn is not played by the humans it will be a walk in the park. If they have traded their horses to Rabbits, they probably have come to an agreement with them to split up Banana lands.

Scen2: Giving away our horses, means we cannot produce axemen counters for 10 turns (trade cancellation restriction). There is a remote chance that PAL has teamed up with Templars to take us on. Templars doing the dirty work, PAL making sure we can't produce chariots. Unlikely.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Scenario 3: PAL just had their horses pillaged, and lost a trade for a happiness resource, and needs to get ours to get the deal back. Probable.

Scenario 4: Rabbits have declared on PAL. Improbable.


My reply would be along the lines of: ok, but in return we want Ivory for 10 turns in the future to train some Jumbos. It's a big commitment to give away horses right now as relations with Templars are rather tense.

[Swiss Pauli]

Also, them having CoL next turn kinda eradicates our wriggle room on tech trade discussion

[mostly-harmless]

Someone please log in and check whether Horses are on the trade screen for PAL and their current trades with Imperio (gold vs. ivory) and Templars.
Once we know this we can make a decision on the reply, I suggest.

mh

[ruff_hi]

a few points ...

A resource only appear on the trade screen if it is available at the capital.
Any trade between Civs occurs at the capital
The deal can be canceled by PAL trading back our horses at any time

Note: horses are not on the trade screen for PAL.

[regoarrarr]

A thought I had while in the shower this morning

We agree to trade horses, but with the caveat that they not trade CoL to any other teams for the 10 turns that they have horses.

This would delay the CS slingshot if in fact imperio is counting on a CoL trade

[sooooo]

Hmm, I think we should give them horses for 10 turns but say that we may ask for some jumbos in the future. 10 turns of jumbos could be very useful to us to counter knights. If we don't agree to this then we won't have much bargaining power later on. I don't think we should add the 10 turn CoL caveat suggested by regoarrarr.

[Dreylin]

Given their offer of Mono-CoL to make up for the botched Mon deal, it seems a bit much to ask them for two caveats from this deal.

If Imperio are relying on trading CoL from them for CS slingshot, then that deal is almost certainly in place already and PAL are not going to want to put that on hold and damage their relationship with Imperio.

I think the reciprocal Jumbo offer later in the game is a good one.

[ruff_hi]

Do we want to email them for more information re their horses - like, what happened, didn't you have horses? Are you under attack and need to build some chariots, etc.

Sort of leading to ... "is there anything else that we can do to help?"