Team Info and Contacts - Banana

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I like sooooo's idea and mail. This gift won't really harm us, but has the potential of forming/strengthening our alliance with banana - which is needed and beneficial to both of our teams.

-Kylearan

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd prefer to leave gifts out of the first email (to save them for the second round), and stick to pointing out the benefits of learning Feudalism himself, and that we'd appreciate him not backing out of the deal we agreed. He'll come back with a counter-argument about the beakers he'd save, and then we'll get a better idea of the incentive we'd need to offer to seal the deal.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I'd prefer to leave gifts out of the first email (to save them for the second round)

Normally, I would agree with you - i.e., that we should leave us some room to maneuver and not come forward with all we are willing to give on the first try. However, In this case I think we should do *all* it needs to take to secure some kind of alliance with Banana.

Soooo's draft shows our good intentions and builds up trust, and I don't think we have the luxury nor the time for many more rounds of diplomacy here. We *need* a close ally, given the game situation. Yes, we might end up giving more to Banana than we will have received when the game has finished, but overall it will improve our situation dramatically if we gain Banana's trust and goodwill, and not trying to haggle and not relying on second rounds to save some beakers goes a long way to this end IMHO.

-Kylearan

[regoarrarr]

I agree with Kylearan

[Swiss Pauli]

@Kylearan - you're stance presupposes that Banana accepts our offer without negotiation which is by no means certain. And don't forget that I've been the primary advocate of an alliance with Banana, and I can assure you that we already have his trust and goodwill.

[Dreylin]

I support the idea of offering the gift now, but as a compromise maybe we halve the offer and call it a Tech Credit on future trading. Offer a 500-600 beaker credit for future trading without mentioning any techs, then if he does push back for more, we can offer to double the credit and say something like "OK, we're now willing to double our offer of credit to ~1000beakers, e.g Paper, or half of Education"

[sooooo]

I'm still for the 1000 beaker full tech because whether it's 500 beakers or 1000 is irrelevant to banana's chances in this game. I don't really see what we lose by offering more. I'm willing to bet that banana will not want to negotiate on the 1000 offer. They don't seem that greedy and it is a very good deal for him. In situations like this when we can afford to give up beakers (our GNP is far higher than his) I prefer the dragons-den approach to bargaining which is to make a decent offer and stick with it. If he does come back and ask for more we will simply say "We've made a very good offer, we are sticking to that offer".

If we cannot agree then we put it to a vote. So far I believe (and correct me if it's wrong) we have:

sooooo - full tech
m_h - full tech
kylearan - full tech
regoarrarr - full tech
Swiss Pauli - do not offer tech in first email
Dreylin - offer a 500-600 beaker credit in first email [EDIT: full tech but willing to compromise :P]

[Dreylin]

Well actually, I tend to agree with offering the full-tech, but was proposing a compromise route to try and get everyone on-board.

[sooooo]

Ah, very diplomatic. Speaking of Compromise, what happened to him?

[Zeviz]

Sounds good, and I agree about not mentioning Nationalism.

[Swiss Pauli]

I think that's enough votes in favour of the full tech offer.

[sooooo]

I have sent the email, sans nationalism reference.

[Swiss Pauli]

email received:

Team Realms,

Your offer sounds like a good one, though we could really use Serfdom STAT. As far as the future techs you are offering, PAL will likely be getting us Philo (we just got, actually) and Paper. But we would definitely be game for half the beakers of Education --- how do you gift something like that, in gold?

Anyway, consider it done. I too enjoy the relationship we have built up to this point, and would like to see it continue. I'll consult you if Imperio makes some other request for Machinery, and will not trade it to them without your approval.

Regards,
Donovan

[mostly-harmless]

That guy is too nice to be true.

mh

[regoarrarr]

To answer his question, how I was envisioning it would be that we trade Education (1800 beakers say) for something of 800 beakers value. But we could do a few other things I guess