Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[sunrise089]

Well lets see...we're going to research Maths ourselves, we might get Rabbits to research HBR, we need to research Drama ourselves to trade it to PAL, we want to get Metal Casting from Templars...so what does that leave for PAL to research that we would want to trade for? Maybe construction?

[Dreylin]

Well it's not likely we'll have anything to trade to them for a while though....

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok. We didn't send the email drafted by Dreylin, and I suggest a change of approach:

-Mention that Imperio is running espionage against us, and push them to cancel the Ivory trade by bringing up the Horses gift. They give us Ivory now, and Imperio Ivory later. They can only say no.

-I think we need to research Construction after HBR to get a resourceless unit (as well as the possibility of Jumbos). Imperio's first move will surely be to disconnect our resources at Cape Town. PAL can trade Construction from IMperio, so they may not be impressed with our choice, but we need to look after ourselves atm!

Again, I won't we around today to follow this through, so someone else will need to send our definitive reply.

[mostly-harmless]

I'd rather reserve the horses gift for PAL to give us iron, should Imperio succeed in disconnecting our copper.

Hi PAL,
we register increasing signs from Imperio to become aggressive towards us (laying down of road network towards us, running the espionage slider towards us, getting military techs in place, not replying to our repeated diplomatic efforts).
Our current efforts are therefore directed to protect us against an attack of one or both of your neighbours. Horseback Riding, Mathematics & Construction are therefore top of our list at the moment.
We can only hope that our efforts will succeed in deterring IMperio and Templars from attacking.
We would like you to do what is possible on the diplomatic and trade front to convince them to stay peaceful.
Also we would like to give you a heads up on the option that we might need you to gift us metal for a limited period of time, should our adversaries succeed in disconnecting our sources.
In more peaceful matters, we would like to trade you wine for your ivory in a few turns.

Regards
TBR

Comments.

mh

[Dreylin]

Not sure about the mentiion of needing metal - we may not want to reveal yet how tenuous our supply is.

Also, don't forget we still want to meet Banana....

[Swiss Pauli]

@mh - I think our best bet is to have Imperio delay their invasion long enough for us to muster enough of a serious deterrent. Thus weakening their military by denying them 10 turns of Jumbo production would be a better option than asking for a supply of metals (does PAL have any spare?) in a time of war, which I see as more a fall-back if they decline to cancel the Ivory trade.

[mostly-harmless]

Hmm, not sure I like that.
Anyway, PAL does not need spare metal. Remember, we gifted them our only horses back then.

mh

[sunrise089]

I agree Swiss - lets ask PAL to just swap the order they award Elephant to the teams based on 1) Imperio has already had it for some time, and 2) Imperio is gearing up to attack. Then during the war we can offer wine+past goodwill over horses in exchange for metal. If PAL balks at the Jumbo swap, we can ask for Iron instead then.

[mostly-harmless]

Is it worth to wait a few turns, until say T110 when we have Betty Hur in place to actually check Imperio is producing Cats & Phants?

mh

[Sullla]

We know they are building longbows already. And we don't even need to wait 5 turns; Billy Jean Tell will be able to see into Mutal next turn. This dilemma will resolve itself (one way or another) within the next couple of turns.

I don't know if that means we should wait to respond to PAL though... I'd probably be in favor of contacting them early and often, as the situation develops.

[mostly-harmless]

Ok, fine. I have only limited access to internet & game over this week, so someone else please go ahead with the message.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

How about this:

Hi PAL,
Thanks for the reply on the Ivory trade, but we're not entirely happy with your proposal. Please remember that we were the team that supplied you with Horses in your hour of need, so we would ask you to support us in our difficult time.

Thus we would like you to cancel the Ivory trade with Imperio, and to ship that Ivory to us. When the duplicate trade with Banana is over, then you can once again supply Imperio with Ivory.

As to our research, Construction is essential, and Imperio won't trade with us, so we must learn it ourselves.

[Sullla]

I think we can do a better job of wording that one. It comes off as very demanding, and we're not in a position to be demanding that PAL do what we say.

[Swiss Pauli]

I don't really agree that the wording is the main problem, rather there's no way around the fact that we're asking a lot of PAL. Maybe 'thus' could be replaced by something fluffier like 'in light of this', but I don't see that we're demanding anything: 'we would like' isn't exactly threatening them with bodily harm if they don't comply

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I have to agree with Sulla here. "Not entirely happy....", "Please remember that...", "we would like you to..." and "...then you can..." sounds a bit arrogant and very demanding to me, although I'm not entirely sure how it sounds to a native speaker. I don't think I would be able to come up with something better, but I think a more humble approach, or something sounding more like a proposal than a demand, would work better diplomatically.

We do ask a lot of PAL, so it's even more important not to offend them IMHO.

-Kylearan