Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[Swiss Pauli]

Yeah, but it was always a question of trust, and PAL isn't prepared to run the risk that trusting us entails. At least we managed to smoke out the real reason behind their veto.

Should we propose to trade them Nationalism for Education (after they've secured Liberalism)? I'd say yes as we want to get maximum value from our own reseach efforts.

[ruff_hi]

Oh well.

Didn't Sooooo basically tell them our plan was to go for Gunpowder/Nationalism?

Yes but that was in-game. They have nothing to show other teams if we do go the lib route. I think we put together a fancy legal looking document that binds us not to go for Lib, send that to them with the trade offer. It is worth it.

[sooooo]

I think we should wait to see what happens this turn. If we are at war then there's more likelihood that PAL would believe us.

[Zeviz]

What if we send them something like this:

We promise that if you trade us Philosophy, we will research Nationalism and another technology before researching anything on Liberalims path. We can CC Banana on this email thread, so we'd lose both of our main trading partners if we break this pledge. The potential value of trading with you and Banana is far more than we could get from breaking this deal and going for Liberalism ourselves.

For another reason we aren't going to go for Liberalism right away, see attached screenshot.

And we'd attach the screenshot of Imperio's stack on our border.

[sunrise089]

Hehe, I like it Zevis.

[regoarrarr]

Yeah - I can't see a downside to asking

[ruff_hi]

Sorry - I don't like that email. I much prefer something like this ...

PAL,

As we have said previously, we are not researching towards Liberalism. Our offer of trading Engineering for Philosophy still stands but we will enhance this offer with a caste iron guarantee that we will research neither education, nor liberalism for the next 35 turns (up to Turn 165). Further, we will not seek to acquire, nor accept via trade either of these technologies from any other party (excluding yourself) for the same period.

Team Realms Beyond has a definite game plan for the foreseeable future that does not involve liberalism, nor any technology (excluding philosophy) leading towards liberalism. You can probably determine the reason for this game plan from the attached screenshot.

Regards,

TRB

... and include the screenie that is mentioned above.

Am I right in assuming that the current turn is T130? If not, I would set our 'guarantee' to expire on T165 and adjust the number of turns accordingly.

[sunrise089]

I prefer the first email, but Ruff's is fine as well.

[Dreylin]

I like the plan, and (marginally) prefer Ruff's version.

[Zeviz]

There are only two things that we could aim for that require Philosophy: Liberalims and Nationalism. So if we promise not to go for one, we are obviously going for the other. Which means we might as well say it directly. And we should explain to them why we will not break our word. They are MP people, so some of them might not understand the importance of long term reputation. So I still prefer some version of my message. (Or some other message that explicitly tells them that if we break our word, we'll lose more than we gain. And I like an offer to CC Banana to make the consequences of breaking our word more damning.)

EDIT: Just to clarify, we already gave them a "cast iron guarantee" and they told us "nope, don't trust you". So whatever message we send has to explain why breaking our promise would cost us more than potential gain from Liberalism.

[ruff_hi]

in typical american style ... we have an act from the senate and a similar act from the house ... now we need to come together ...

PAL,

As we have said previously, we are not researching towards Liberalism. Our offer of trading Engineering for Philosophy still stands but we will enhance this offer with a caste iron guarantee that we will research neither education, nor liberalism for the next 35 turns (up to Turn 165). Further, we will not seek to acquire, nor accept via trade either of these technologies from any other party (excluding yourself) for the same period.

Further, TRB will send a copy of this agreement to Banana (and any other team you specify). In this way, if we break this agreement, the diplomatic fallout and resulting damage to our reputation would vastly out weight any benefit we might gain from breaking this pledge going for Liberalism ourselves.

Team Realms Beyond has a definite game plan for the foreseeable future that does not involve liberalism, nor any technology (excluding philosophy) leading towards liberalism. You can probably determine the reason for this game plan from the attached screenshot.

Regards,

TRB

[sunrise089]

Ok.

[Zeviz]

Looks good, but just one more clarification: Instead of "we will research neither education, nor liberalism for the next 35 turns Further, we will not seek to acquire, nor accept via trade either of these technologies from any other party (excluding yourself)", say "we will neither start research on Education nor accept it in trade from anybody besides yourselves for the next 35 turns."

This closes the loophole of almost researching education and finishing it exactly 35 turns from now.

[sooooo]

I like it but I'd like to send it as part of a longer email when war is declared. I'd like to offer them the posiitons of Imperio coastal cities and ask for military assistance.

[Zeviz]

I'd like to send a message like this now, just in case Imperio takes some time to declare. We can also include screenshots of Templar stacks in the south. (If Templars decide to back down, the screenshots will look less intimidating.) It will also be good to try to secure the trade before starting Golden Age, although that seems unlikely.