Team Info and Contacts - PAL

[mostly-harmless]

Get rid of the "... maybe ..." And maybe say they are supporting the wrong civs. Once we are out of the picture, they will have three enemies around them.

mh

[sooooo]

OK, I'll admit that I wrote my draft after a night in the pub, so on reflection Dreylin's draft looks more mature. Any more comments on it? I'll send something out before the turn is finished.

[sunrise089]

Guys, I can't write a full draft right now, but can the following thought please be included: (feel free to rephrase)

"We understand you have come view our civ as your main rival. While a case can be made that Imperio's land and geographic position makes them a greater threat, we can also understand while you would consider us your chief competitor. However, that view should have gone out the window the moment we entered into a 2-front war. Any GNP or other advantages are completely burned away in cut off trade routes, unit upgrades, etc. By allying with the civs that keep trade income and have to devote fewer cities to military builds you just ensure Imperio and Templars are even more likely to conquer us. Past PAL decisions seemed to suggest you wanted parity on our continent, to ensure none of us grew strong enough to challenge us. That made sense. Dogpiling on us now does not make sense. If anything you should be sending us elephants and not Imperio so we can prolong the war.

[Zeviz]

I like a version of Sunrise's message, or my original message, perhaps incorporated into Dreylin's message. (However, it's 1am here, so I can't make a draft out of it.)

[sooooo]

Any more opinions on Dreylin vs Sunrise's drafts?

[Dreylin]

I like sunrise's actually.

[sunrise089]

How about:

PAL,

We understand you have come view our civ as your main rival. While a case can be made that Imperio's land and geographic position makes them a greater threat to you, RB can also understand why you would consider us your chief competitor. However, that view should have gone out the window the moment RB was forced into a 2-front war. Any GNP rates or other advantages we have are completely eliminated by cut off trade routes, unit upgrades, etc. By allying with the civs that get to keep trade route income and have to devote fewer of their cities to military builds PAL just ensures that Imperio and Templars are more likely to quickly win the war in their favor. Past PAL decisions seemed to suggest that you wanted parity on our continent, to ensure none of us grew strong enough to challenge you. That made sense. Dogpiling on us now does not make sense. If anything you should be sending us elephants and not Imperio so we can prolong the war.

Anyways, your recent trade with Imperio and the cancelling of our Ivory deal clearly indicates that you have decided to take Imperio's side in our continent's war. We are somewhat suprised at your decision since it's scant turns since Imperio were feeding military techs to your enemies the Rabbits...maybe if we did the same, you would side with us?

Given your recent actions we have cancelled all existing deals between our two nations. We would like to keep an open dialogue however, so we welcome you reply.

TeamRB

[Dreylin]

looks superb.

[Zeviz]

Looks good.

[mostly-harmless]

Looks good. You can put in taht they gave Templars Civil Service extra cheap as well.

mh

[sooooo]

Fine by me, will sent today if no objections.

[Kylearan]

Looks good! Not sure about the irony part ("...maybe if we did the same, you would side with us?"), as I prefer clearer messages in written communication, but the letter is fine even with that bit in.

[ruff_hi]

seems like concencus - sending email - slight modification from the above to include 'trade to templar' as well as trade to Imperio.

PAL,

We understand you have come view our civ as your main rival. While a case can be made that Imperio's land and geographic position makes them a greater threat to you, RB can also understand why you would consider us your chief competitor. However, that view should have gone out the window the moment RB was forced into a 2-front war. Any GNP rates or other advantages we have are completely eliminated by cut off trade routes, unit upgrades, etc. By allying with the civs that get to keep trade route income and have to devote fewer of their cities to military builds PAL just ensures that Imperio and Templars are more likely to quickly win the war in their favor. Past PAL decisions seemed to suggest that you wanted parity on our continent, to ensure none of us grew strong enough to challenge you. That made sense. Dogpiling on us now does not make sense. If anything you should be sending us elephants and not Imperio so we can prolong the war.

Anyways, your recent trade with Imperio and Templar and the cancelling of our Ivory deal clearly indicates that you have decided to take their side in our continent's war. We are somewhat suprised at your decision since it's scant turns since Imperio were feeding military techs to your enemies the Rabbits...maybe if we did the same, you would side with us?

Given your recent actions we have cancelled all existing deals between our two nations. We would like to keep an open dialogue however, so we welcome you reply.

TeamRB

[sooooo]

Loooooong conversation with PAL this evening. In fact, so long that the chat log only showed the most recent half when I took screenshots. Does anyone know if it is stored somewhere?

So, from memory:

We explained pleasantries and he said he was enjoying the game etc. I said I got an error saying they were running different versions of the files and he said he was running the "boat mod" - apparently all MP players run it and I should ask sunrise what it is. Sunrise?

He asked how the war was going and I said nothing much was happening. He then said that not much was happening with rabbits either.

He said that rabbits apparently had a big early military build up - 4 axes and a spear and they felt threatened. Not sure I believe this - they had 6 cities and 6 warriors for defence at one point. I teased him about the "can I borrow horses to kill a barb" trick they pulled and he seemed embarrassed but we shared a joke about it.

I said we were suffering from lack of trade route income and he said we shot ourselves in the foot by cancelling OBs and resource trade - he did not realise that we lost trade routes when war was declared. I explained it to him that we got no benefit from them and he said it made sense now. I explained our cancelled resource deal was due to us popping gems (not strictly true). He said he would have silver to trade in the near future.

He then went on to say that their land was terrible because it had no rivers. I told them my heart bleeds for them. He says that their continent is smaller than ours and I corrected him. He said his capital is bad but should improve. Hmm, all we can see is two cottaged floodplains but I doubt it is as bad as ours.

And then the discussion about the ivory shenanigans:

[sunrise089]

Boat Mod (unofficial Firaxis-produced patch): When Firaxis patched Civ for the last time they broke direct-boating on enemy units on land. In other words if you placed units in galleons and then tried to attack an enemy city without landing those units (critical in industrial and later eras) the game would go out-of-sync. (Thanks Firaxis!). The MP community organized an unofficial patch developed by a Firaxis staffer and requires it for ladder games. It isn't a mod, but it does change some game files so it gives the "different version" error. I get it whenever I log into the demogame and casual MP players get it when they try to log into ladder games.

Then only point we should make with PAL is the same one I want to make with Imperio - it is wrong to view our greater number of cities as a long-term advantage over Imperio. Yes, it's a production advantage, weighed against a larger border to defend. But because of land differences and trade route differences, we do NOT have a commerce advantage over Imperio. That, plus the Imperio-Templar alliance should be a factor in PAL's Elephant gift.

Could we propose PAL give us Elephant again, or trade for it, until one side captures a city? Then they can withhold it from the side with more city captures? That would seem to be much closer to "keeping the balance."