Team Info and Contacts - Banana

[sooooo]

So I don't know if he misunderstood my question about the templars research triangle, but he said he would write to the templars. I was OK with that because they might have better relations than we do. He also mentioned being able to leverage them entering his cultural borders. I think I asked "What do you think about emailing the templars about Drama", and he thought I was asking him to do it.

Maybe we can also email them in a day's time to follow up the offer. The templars seem to need a bit of nudging when it comes to diplomacy.

[ruff_hi]

new email

Realms Team,

A couple new points of interest to go over this turn:

1. We sent out an email last night to Team Templar outlining your 3-way trade proposal, as well as your good intentions toward them. As of this time, I have not received a response. I also left a message in-game today for them to check their email.

2. It seems that we have met Imperio this turn, and it looks like our team will have the chance to negotiate a Machinery for Feudalism trade with them once we actually talk. While I can think of two reasons this would not sit well with you, I am not sure I can pass up the opportunity. Please give me your thoughts on this, as it would obviously affect your Engineering-Feudalism proposal.

I'll be in touch as these situations are updated.

Regards,
Donovan

[ruff_hi]

new email

Realms Team,

A couple new points of interest to go over this turn:

1. We sent out an email last night to Team Templar outlining your 3-way trade proposal, as well as your good intentions toward them. As of this time, I have not received a response. I also left a message in-game today for them to check their email.

2. It seems that we have met Imperio this turn, and it looks like our team will have the chance to negotiate a Machinery for Feudalism trade with them once we actually talk. While I can think of two reasons this would not sit well with you, I am not sure I can pass up the opportunity. Please give me your thoughts on this, as it would obviously affect your Engineering-Feudalism proposal.

I'll be in touch as these situations are updated.

Regards,
Donovan

[Dreylin]

Hrmm, that would leave us having to self-research Feudalism, right? Maybe we can make him a better offer...?

[sooooo]

Well, it's nice that he is honestly telling us his thoughts and that he is considering making what would be a good deal for him. Obviously the trade he is proposing to make would be disasterous.

Now ... how to make an offer that's better than the one Imperio will offer him. Not an easy task! We could ask him what he wants not to make that trade? Probably wise to send an email saying "don't make the trade yet, we are thinking".

Team Banana,

1. Thankyou for emailing templars. We will both await their response, which can often be slowed by their bureaucracy/voting.

2. You are correct that that deal would not sit well with us We understand that the deal would normally be a sensible deal for you to make. We are trying to think of a better deal to dissuade you! We will try to think quickly. Feel free to make suggestions

Realms Beyond

[sooooo]

Any opinions on sending our my stalling letter? It needs to be done before Banana enters too in depth negotiations with Imperio.

One idea I had was that if they research Feudalism for us, and permanently withhold Machinery from Imperio, we would gift them a tech at a later date of higher value than feudalism. That tech could be one such as education (or nationalism). But this can be discussed over the next turn or two.

Thus they get Engineering and the other tech for the beaker cost of feudalism. In return we organise a monopoly against Imperio as they did to us with Metal Casting.

[regoarrarr]

I like your letter and I like the basic framework of your embargo plan

[Dreylin]

I like the framework and the outline of the delaying letter. I would change "that deal would not sit well with us" to something gentler like "that deal is not one which we would desire to have go through"

[sooooo]

I have sent the delaying letter with Dreylin's ammendment.

[Zeviz]

The idea sounds good.

Another idea would be to abandon Engineering completely and rush PAL to Liberalism. However, I am not sure we could win Liberalism race.

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we're approaching this from the wrong perspective: he's not worried about Imperio having Machinery, but he would effectively be backing out of the agreed HBR + Eng for Feud + Compass trade.

I don't see Imperio having Machinery as the end of the world: it just makes the military situation even more deadlocked. The real pain is having to research Feudalism ourselves.

I would suggest that he will get trade value out of Feudalism: aside from our deal, there's Templars (to whom Imperio don't want to sell such a key defensive tech as they surely plan to attack them), and PAL (with whom Imperio isn't talking). That's a solid return.

Also, if he backs out of the 2nd part of the deal then he's basically traded HBR for Compass: we will be forced to write off the beaker difference as a 'penalty fee' for him breaking our contract.

He should therefore look to set up a trade with Imperio that doesn't involve Feudalism.

[sooooo]

I think we're approaching this from the wrong perspective: he's not worried about Imperio having Machinery, but he would effectively be backing out of the agreed HBR + Eng for Feud + Compass trade.

I don't think he is particularly worried about either of those things. Those are the two issues he mentioned that we would have.

I don't see Imperio having Machinery as the end of the world: it just makes the military situation even more deadlocked. The real pain is having to research Feudalism ourselves.

Of course. We have to convince him that he wants to research a tech that he could get for free.

I would suggest that he will get trade value out of Feudalism: aside from our deal, there's Templars (to whom Imperio don't want to sell such a key defensive tech as they surely plan to attack them), and PAL (with whom Imperio isn't talking). That's a solid return.

This is a good point and should be noted in our email.

Also, if he backs out of the 2nd part of the deal then he's basically traded HBR for Compass: we will be forced to write off the beaker difference as a 'penalty fee' for him breaking our contract.

I doubt this is a big enough factor to dissuade him from picking up a tech he would have to research for over 10 turns.

He should therefore look to set up a trade with Imperio that doesn't involve Feudalism.

Of which there probably is not a fair trade, and anyway we'd rather Imperio don't get machinery.

-----

Let's face it: banana have no chance winning this game. Giving them a tech will not change that. Giving them a economic tech further down the line may help us because we need to keep them researching quickly to trade with us. I think stopping Imperio getting machinery will be pretty useful to us. Not only will they not have access to maces, but also it's a pre-req for engineering so they can only move 2 squares in their own territory. That makes their defence and attack much weaker. Plus they can't field pikemen to stop our own mounted units. I think I'll draft up an offer today and put it to the team.

[mostly-harmless]

I agree with Swiss, that IMperio getting Machinery is not the end of the world. They are already loosing the arms race we are engaged in.

The thing is, that Banana must fear PAL in ~40 turns. That's a big incentive to get Feudalism now and spend the saved beakers on something else.

Not sure if gifting them Education or something similar later is good enough. I am also not sure we should give up valuable techs like this that easily.

mh

[sooooo]

OK, m_h and Swiss do you propose allowing the trade to go ahead or do you wish to make them a different offer?

My idea is this:

Banana,

We have an idea.

We wish to tempt you away from making your proposed machinery/feudalism deal with Imperio. If you continue to research feudalism and go ahead with our feudalism/engineering trade, then we will make a gift to you at a later date. We are not sure which tech we will research after engineering, but we will be almost certainly be able to gift one of the following: Paper, Philosophy, half the beakers to Education or half the beakers to Nationalism.

Thus you can make the trade with Imperio and receive feudalism (you would save 1000 beakers). Alternatively you could spend 1000 beakers on feudalism to gain knowledge of engineering and another 1000-1300 tech from us, which should be a gain of 1300-1600 beakers. There are additional benefits: Firstly you gain the ability to trade feudalism to other teams. Imperio are not talking to PAL and will probably not trade feudalism to templars since they border them. You could trade it to both of those teams. By researching feudalism you could potentially multiply your investment many times over. Secondly you earn our goodwill. We are enjoying this RB-Banana relationship because you are always prompt to reply to emails we think this is very useful in a demogame. You may find Imperio to not be the most helpful of teams, let's put it that way.

Realms Beyond

[mostly-harmless]

Ok with me. Could we perhaps get the mentioning of Nationalism out of it? We don't know who else he is talking to so openly.

mh