Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[Swiss Pauli]

email sent:

Hi Cres

It seems that a race to Liberalism is developing amongst the teams. Team RB would like to propose joining forces with PAL to win this race. It would work like this:

In beaker terms, Engineering + Education = Paper + Philo + Liberalism.

Team RB would provide Engineering and Education, and PAL the other three techs. PAL would then 'gift' Team RB the free tech from Liberalism. In this way each team reaps the benefits of Liberalism without having to invest all the beakers itself.

It's an unusual plan, but one we hope you'll be interested in.

We look forward to your feedback.

Cheers,

Swiss Pauli

[Swiss Pauli]

email sent:

Hi Cres,

Does PAL have any feedback on our proposal?

Best Regards

Swiss

[Swiss Pauli]

email received:

Hiya Swiss,
I have posted this reminder message in our forums. PAL has not given me any feedback for you guys.

-cres

I thanked him for the update.

[sooooo]

A potential draft.

Hi PAL:

From your lack of feedback on our proposal it seems you are not interested. That is fair enough. We are still interested in philosophy though and we suspect that you are holding it back because it is a pre-requisite for liberalism (a perfectly understandable approach!). Thus we propose the following deal: We trade engineering (due in 3 turns) for philosophy and we will not persue liberalism. We are an honest bunch and we hope you can trust us on this.

Cheers,

Realms Beyond

[Kylearan]

Hi,

do we really want to say we won't race for Liberalism at all? Someone mentioned the danger of PAL sandbagging, so what about saying we won't race for Liberalism for the next X turn? (Not sure how big X has to be to make feel PAL comfortable trading Philo to us while at the same time preventing them slingshotting a much later tech...)

-Kylearan

[sooooo]

Hi,

do we really want to say we won't race for Liberalism at all? Someone mentioned the danger of PAL sandbagging, so what about saying we won't race for Liberalism for the next X turn? (Not sure how big X has to be to make feel PAL comfortable trading Philo to us while at the same time preventing them slingshotting a much later tech...)

-Kylearan

I can't think of a good way of phrasing it though . Or we could just rely on Imperio or Banana getting the tech if PAL get too cheeky.

[Swiss Pauli]

Mostly fine by me, except I'd change the last sentence to: 'We have other priorities than Liberalism, so we see the deal as a win-win.' I'm not sure that PAL will come back with a 'yes' straight away: I think they will probe us on our 'priorities', at which point we can tell them about Nationalism.

As to stopping them sandbagging, we could say 30 turns as an opening offer, then negotiate a longer time, or remove the time constraint altogether depending on PAL's feedback.

And it's 'pursue' (think Trivial ).

[sooooo]

On reflection, I don't think we need to be too worried about PAL sandbagging liberalism. Banana have said that PAL will trade them paper and I don't think Imperio will be too far behind them. I don't think PAL can sandbag liberalism too much, especially if they want to trade education for anything. I think if we're going for philosophy and guilds then we will not be the ones to pressure them not to sandbag the tech.

Any more opinions?

[Zeviz]

Sounds good, but the last sentence is too defensive. They haven't even accused us of lying, and we are already declaring our honesty. So I'd send this message without last sentence.

[sunrise089]

I think we should include the 30-turn thing. It doens't weaken the offer much (not at all if PAL doesn't want to sandbag or can't) but it DOES keep our options open. Remember guys, we got the GL and HG against Industrious civs, so we can't be sure Imperio or Banana will keep tech pressure on PAL.

[sooooo]

But we cannot follow the 30-turn threat up. If we research nationalism and then gunpowder, then paper, education and liberalism that will be a long, long time in the future. PAL will realise this (if not liberalism then they will guess we are going for nationalism or guilds) and will just be suspicious of where we came up with 30 turns. I don't like it - it just adds unnecessary complication and is a threat that will be clear we cannot follow through.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

while I don't perceive a X turn clause as a "threat" per se, I agree that PAL would probably realize we won't be able to get Lib in 30 turns anyway - so yeah, maybe we should really make things less complicated and leave things out. Problem is, if our continent gears up for war, it all depends on Banana to put research pressure on PAL - I'd hate it if they slingshot Biology.

-Kylearan

[Swiss Pauli]

So how about this version:

Hi Cres,

Judging by the lack of feedback on our 'shared Liberalism' proposal it seems you are not interested. That is fair enough. We are still interested in philosophy though and we suspect that you are holding it back because it is a pre-requisite for liberalism (a perfectly understandable approach!). Thus we propose the following deal: we trade engineering (due in 3 turns) for philosophy and we will not pursue liberalism. We have other priorities than Liberalism, so we see this deal as a win-win.

We look forward to your feedback.

Cheers,

Realms Beyond

I'd expect PAL to probe us on our plans, so it would be good to get something out to them soon, as there could be an exchange of emails before (hopefully) they agree.

[regoarrarr]

Sounds good to me

[Dreylin]

How about: "and we will not immediately pursue Liberalism" I'm not sure I like a blanket promise to not go for it at all, and this way is fuzzy. As SP says, we're probably in for a string of e-mails on this anyway, so if they need us to clarify it then we can.

Otherwise, I like the letter.