Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[ruff_hi]

I would change ...

'We also look forward to completing our long-awaited CoL trade next turn.'

... to ...

We also look forward to completing the CoL / Mono trade in the next turn or two.

It slightly waters it down (removal of 'long awaited') and improves the accuracy - Priesthood is 2 turns away.

[sooooo]

Maybe we could also add a comment about their 4 gold resources

[regoarrarr]

Reply from PAL
=========
Barb issues ... We have a chop in one of our cites (hence horses this turn is so key) ... Which means we can make a chariot and kill both axes before they breaks our gems, causing unhappiness, and possibly break our cows too. The city they are approaching has an axe in it therefore will not fall, but we can't attack as it's across river - City is only connected via a river ... no roads.

We have horses, which will be hooked in 4 turns (maybe 5), at which point we can give these horses back.

Thanks,
PAL

[ruff_hi]

lets send this ...

PAL,

We're happy to make our horses available to you, and will offer the trade in game. We anticipate there will be a time in the future when you can return the favour by allowing us to borrow Ivory for a similar period.

We also look forward to completing the CoL / Mono trade in the next turn or two.

We do want to warn you of something our intelligence department has noted about Imperio. We believe Imperio is likely to complete the Oracle in the near future, and feel they will attempt to "slingshot" a valuable tech. We feel it is vital that Imperio not gain any further tech advantage by gaining access to CoL in the next few turns. Doing so would offer them the opportunity to slingshot Civil Service, and gain a possibly insurmountable tech lead. They have already told us they are researching Math right now. Therefore we're asking that in the interest of both our teams' success you carefully weigh any decision to trade CoL to Imperio until the Oracle has fallen.

Team RB

[Zeviz]

Would mentioning Oracle to PAL jepardise our own attempt, by encouraging them to finish it quicker?

Aside from that, Ruff's proposed text looks good. (Although I'd add some mention of Imperio's 4 gold mines.)

[sunrise089]

Kept other changes, added my original concluding sentence back in. I don't think they should "carefully consider" CoL trades, I think we should explicitly make it clear we view it as diplomatically damaging for them to trade CoL under any circumstances.

Either draft is OK though, so the people with email sending powers can choose.

EDIT: If my language is too strong, I'd actually get rid of the horse-for-elephant line before the "for any reason" line. If we're offering no-strings-attached horses we certainly have a right to ask for no CoL trade with Imperio.

"PAL,

We're happy to make our horses available to you, and will offer the trade in game. We anticipate there will be a time in the future when you can return the favour by allowing us to borrow Ivory for a similar period.

We also look forward to completing the CoL / Mono trade in the next turn or two.

We do want to warn you of something our intelligence department has noted about Imperio. We believe Imperio is likely to complete the Oracle in the near future, and feel they will attempt to "slingshot" a valuable tech. We feel it is vital that Imperio not gain any further tech advantage by gaining access to CoL in the next few turns. Doing so would offer them the opportunity to slingshot Civil Service, and gain a possibly insurmountable tech lead. They have already told us they are researching Math right now. Therefore we're asking that in the interest of both our teams' success you not trade CoL to Imperio for any reason for the next ten turns.

Team RB"

[Zeviz]

Ruff's version is much better. It says exactly same thing, but without the chance of offending PAL. Either they will find our arguments persuasive, or they will not. Phrasing the suggestion as a demand doesn't make it stronger, just more aggressive.

I am still worried that we might give away to PAL the fact that we are going for Oracle ourselves.

[Dreylin]

It's a risk certainly, but is it a bigger risk than having them trade CoL to Templars and they get CS?

Besides, as of right now they can tell that we have neither Priesthood nor Marble and don't know that's going to change so quickly.

[sunrise089]

PAL gains by letting us get Oracle rather than Imperio. We gain by letting PAL get Oracle if they don't get Civil Cervice with it. We gain by PAL going for Oracle and loosing to us because they don't have workers in place to chop and marble. We both loose if Imperio gets Oracle and slingshots CS, that's the worst case scenario.

I continue to like my draft better. "Carefully weigh" simply doesn't mean the same thing as "not trade for any reason." Dreylin's (I think Ruff just quoted it) version is much kinder, but it doesn't explicitly ask them not to trade. PAL can make the trade and say "well, we considered carefully" and how upset can we (justifiably) be?

EDIT: I wonder if global productivity is falling because of the RB players refreshing the tread and posting so frequently during (US) business hours

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by sunrise089
...
I continue to like my draft better. "Carefully weigh" simply doesn't mean the same thing as "not trade for any reason." Dreylin's (I think Ruff just quoted it) version is much kinder, but it doesn't explicitly ask them not to trade. PAL can make the trade and say "well, we considered carefully" and how upset can we (justifiably) be?

I agree that the meaning is different. I simply think we shouldn't make that kind of demand from anybody we want to remain our ally. "We loan you horses, you'll loan us ivory" is an even trade. "We give you horse and you break a pre-arranged trade deal with your ally" is extortion. Think of how we would react if Templars or Imperio made this kind of demand from us.

EDIT: I wonder if global productivity is falling because of the RB players refreshing the tread and posting so frequently during (US) business hours

Productivity already takes a hit every month when RB reports are posted.

[sooooo]

I like Ruff's draft better. We should send something soon and offer the trade in game if they haven't done so already.

[regoarrarr]

I don't think that sunrise's is too demanding.

Maybe instead of

Therefore we're asking that in the interest of both our teams' success you not trade CoL to Imperio for any reason for the next ten turns.

Something like

We are sure that you will agree that in the interest of both our teams' success neither of us trade CoL to Imperio for any reason for the next ten turns.

(of course we can't trade CoL to them anyways because of no tech brokering but I thought that made it sound better)

[Dreylin]

I like reg's new wording of the beginning, but one of the things I was trying to avoid in my version was setting a turn-based limit on the trade.

I think that saying "not for ten turns"

rather than "until the Oracle has been built"

makes it far more obvious that we have designs on the Oracle.


Compromise:

"We are sure that you will agree that in the interest of both our teams' successes, neither of us trade CoL to Imperio until the Oracle has fallen""

[sooooo]

Can we just take a step back and look at what we are asking. If they say "no, we have planned to give Imperio CoL", what are we going to do, refuse them horses for four turns? Of course we're not. All we can do is let them know our intelligence and make them make the best decision. They are going to make the best decision for themselves, as we would in the same situation. Demanding concesions like this in response to them asking a favour is just bad manners. Ruff's is the best draft.

[regoarrarr]

soooooooo i agree that if they come back and say that we're planning to trade Imperio CoL than there is nothing we can (or should) say about it.

But I don't think dreylin's revision is demanding at all.

Plus, this way we might get a 1 or 2 turns heads up of the trade that could help us temper our Oracle/Currency happy dance