Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[mostly-harmless]

PAL is industrious and they have Mathematics for better chops. They currently have no marble, but we have no idea if they cannot get their hands on some on short notice. Also, as mentioned in the turnplayer thread, PAL cities are now outgrowing our cities due to access to 2-3 happiness resources (gold, ivory, gems), therefore having an altogether better production rating.

This tells us, we just cannot trade away Literature until we see those two scientists sitting at A1. The same goes for Aesthetics at the moment.

Interestingly, PAL has converted to Caste System, putting an end to their whipping spree, that could explain the GNP increase prior to the Great Lighthouse.

As for the trade, I don't see us under any kind of pressure to agree, as their part of the trade is still 8 turns away.

mh

[Sullla]

Just echoing others here, we absolutely can and should make this trade. This will land us the coveted Bureaucracy + Great Library + Academy combo in the capital at an early date, and is really the only way we can hope to keep up in tech with PAL and Imperio. Keep in mind as well, if we don't make this deal, PAL is likely to make the same offer with Imperio, and lock up out of the loop. Furthermore, remember that with No Tech Brokering, it's better to research lots of inexpensive techs yourself, and then trade for the big pricey ones.

What we need to do is tell PAL we agree, but tie them up in diplo-speak for a couple of turns. I'd make them a counter-offer on Drama, and ask if there's another tech they'd prefer us to go after. That will eat up a turn or two, then we can negotiate the final stuff as we cash in our Great Library pre-chops. Since we will be landing Great Library in 6 turns, we should be relatively safe, so long as we hold off on Literature until like 2 turns before our ETA is due.

This is a great opportunity, we can't afford to let it go by without taking it!

[mostly-harmless]

We would still need Mathematics first, though.

mh

[sunrise089]

@M_H - Yeah, but hopefully Imperio will agree once they've translated the message. If not, I'd offer them the explicitly better offer of Aesthetics+Mono for Maths and send it in Spanish. Maybe send that in 24 hours if they've not responded by that time.

Sullla's recommendation for a Drama counter-offer email sounds great to me. Is there any tech that makes sense to offer, or do we just want to ask them what they will accept instead?

[regoarrarr]

Well I think our first step is to hold off another day or so before replying. Just in the general idea of stalling for time... But I agree with everyone else - make the trade but not till we have GL in the bag.

[ruff_hi]

How about a quick email that basically says 'YES' but stalls as well.

PAL,

This is a good trade offer (CS for Drama / Aesth / Lit). Team RBs first reaction is YES but we are currently researching other options for some of the techs you suggested that we don't currently have. Some of these options might change depending on what happens in-game and / or your tech preferences / feedback.

We'll get back to you shortly.

Team RB

Do we have a history of our tech trades so we can compute the current beaker balance?

[Swiss Pauli]

The beaker balance with PAL was supposed to be evened out with the Mono & Monarchy for Code of Laws trade: it's not our fault they messed up that deal.

Seeing as we want to make the deal, I'd note that we might need to swap Drama for HBR depending on in-game issues, and we'd be prepared to hand over Aesthetics in a couple of turns if they agree. How does this sound?

[mostly-harmless]

Hmmm, I don't like how easy we are giving in to trade them stuff before they even have Civil Service. Keep in mind that we are hurting them on another front (via Rabbits). So their estimate of 8turns to CS might be overly optimistic in the face of rabid rabbits.
I don't see why we should give them tech up front in that case.
We can agree to the trade Aesthetics&Literature&(to_be_named) vs CS, but it will go ahead when they have CS visible on their table.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

One of my reasons to put Aesthetics down early is to seal the deal. We can then propose to change terms when we read in the log that, much to our surprise, Heliopolis gets razed...

[sooooo]

Erm, I don't like giving PAL techs before we get anything in return. They are rather untrustworthy (and have screwed us over before).

[mostly-harmless]

If you want to seal the deal and then PAL turns out to be very slow in research, we might end up waiting forever for that CS to appear.

And consider this, there are 3 world wonders sitting at Aesthetics, there are two national wonders sitting at Literature. We really don't want to give PAL (industrious!) a headstart on those.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

mystery double post

[Swiss Pauli]

I don't think the Aesthetics Wonders are an issue as we're not chansing them, but it seems we find PAL too untrustworthy for us to put anything down upfront.

In that case, let's suggest that we might need to swap Drama for HBR and remind them that the beakers traded can be considered equal before this trade.

[Swiss Pauli]

More from me: do we still want to make a run at music for the Great Artist? PAL might well have them same idea to use him for a 'combat bomb'.

[Dreylin]

Two thoughts:

The suggestion that we may want to offer HBR as a Drama alternative - do we really want to be helping PAL with military techs?

Since Aethetics is the pre-req for Lit & Drama, won't the trade have to be run over two turns anyway? Can we roughly estimate PAL's bpt from their 8t CS prediction and when they researched their last tech? If so, we can calculate back how long it would take for them to cold-research Lit and thus when we could guarantee beating them to GL....