Team Info and Contacts - Banana

[sooooo]

With banana planning to finish guilds soon, it is important for us to discuss tech with them. Here's a paragraph for a future email. It includes my plan for astronomy, which hasn't had much feedback in the tech thread, but I put it in anyway.

We would like to talk about future tech plans. We don't want to appear to dictate your technology route, but we think it is useful to let you know what we see as priorities. We hope you won't be offended and hopefully you will come back with feedback and we can come up with a plan. Our first priority is gunpowder, to allow us to draft better units than macemen from the theatre-network we are currently constructing. We also want astronomy because it gets us our trade routes back, lets us build obsevatories and is an important military tech. Getting our trade routes back will really supercharge our research. Our plan is: you research gunpowder after guilds. We will head for astronomy. We realise that this is asking you to delay paper again. However, we think it is best for both teams. We get the ability to draft our muketmen sooner, which we see as the key to winning the war on our continent. You get the same benefit, which would boost your defence against PAL. Also we both get astronomy sooner in this plan (since if you do not go for gunpowder then we would need to get it first). We think domination of the seas is vital for both of our teams and we really need our trade routes back. Us researching faster means you getting techs faster too! We realise that you wanted paper to trade maps with other teams and we hope to compensate you delaying this by offering screenshots of whatever we can provide you in the meantime. I have persuaded the team that we will be willing to trade maps in-game once one of us researches paper.

[mostly-harmless]

Sounds good.
We even (as a remote possibility) might gift or sell them our galley. After all if PAL does not open borders again, we are sailing into a dead end now. Bringing the galley back just takes too much time.
Just an idea.

mh

[sunrise089]

Looks good Sooooo.

Good idea M_H, though I sort of feel bad for the poor ship. It's been sailing for what, 2,000 years?

[sooooo]

I think we may as well send the email seperately, I'll just wrap it with a Dear Banana and a Realms Beyond. Any objections: speak now or forever hold your peace.

[mostly-harmless]

Send it. The galley think is not for now, anyway. There is still a lot of coast to sail along for the old lady.

mh

[sooooo]

Email sent.

[sooooo]

I wonder what banana are up to. It's been 3 emails that we sent since we got a reply from them.

[sooooo]

Aha, the email arrives.

Team Realms,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I've had a lot going on, both offline and in-game. I'll keep it brief here, and come back with more detail later.

1. We accept an NAP until Turn 200.

2. Your tech needs seem to match ours, so I am not offended at all! I was thinking Gunpowder - Chemistry as our next moves. Astronomy would fit in nicely and would help us get more troops to your continent when the time comes (we are still looking at around 15 turns until possible engagement with Templars). Would you get Nationalism before or after Astronomy?

3. Thank you for the screenshots. They are very enlightening. Can you tell me if there is clear passage for my Galley on the north side of your continent, or will I meet up with icebergs?

I'll write more later. In the meantime, please let me know if there is anything else you would like me to address.

Regards,
Donovan

[mostly-harmless]

1.) good.
2.) 15 turns for them to go for Acre is not bad and times nicely with our Bloodbath. However, I think they might be better off diverting that effort into defense against PAL.
3.) No problems to tell them there is free passage on our continent but not on theirs.

mh

[sooooo]

Suggested email:

Dear Team Banana,

Thanks for your reply. We are pleased you share our interest in gunpowder! We are researching nationalism right now; it is due in 7 - 9 turns. After that our plan is to save up some cash by running 0% science while waiting for our next great scientist. Then we can lightbulb optics and go full steam for astronomy.

There is a path to the north of our continent but there is no path for a galley to the north of your own continent. A caravel should have no problems though.

The main information we need for you is (1) your eta for guilds so that we can prepare cities to build knights and (2) your knowledge of what PAL/imperio/templars are researching if you have that data.

Thanks,

Realms Beyond

[mostly-harmless]

Looks good.
mh

[MyOtherCar]

Looks good to me too. Finally a team that works constructively with us.

[sooooo]

Email sent.

[sooooo]

I chatted to banana in-game. The main points:

1. He will get guilds in 2 turns (T144).
2. PAL get nationalism in 3 turns. He does not have research info on imperio or templars.
3. I floated the idea with him that we'd ask to borrow ~100 gold for 2 turns to get nationalism sooner. He seemed receptive. I suggested to offer him our galley as an interest payment.
4. Banana were building the Mauseleum of Mausollus but were beaten to it by PAL. They will get gold compensation next turn.
5. He still needs health resources but we do not have anything spare that he doesn't have.

[mostly-harmless]

Point 3 is interesting. We could certainly give up our scouting mission with the galley (and he with his for that matter), if we do a map trade. Both galley can than be used by Banana for military actions.
However, we have to have paper first and we should include a non-disclosure clause for at least 20 turns or so.

mh