Team Info and Contacts - Banana

[sunrise089]

This turn of events isn't good. It will be even worse when PAL cuts Banana's iron and we have no gunpowder and no knights.

The hardest thing for me to figure out those is why PAL is being so one-sided. At this point Templars+Imperio still have more combined population and land then us, plus they have trade routes, elephants, and more trading partners. Why go so far as to gift techs?

The only thing I can figure out is that it's a MP tendency to marginalize "total noobs." They may be ignoring any objective standards of who they should be helping and instead simply assume they can always deal with Imperio better than RB, even if we're near defeat and Imperio has control over their entire continent. Truthfully, in some MP games that type of thinking works, but I think they're taking it too far here.

EDIT: Big crosspost.

@Soooo - I love the disinformation about us hitting Jericho only after Nationalism is in

[dsplaisted]

I say we go ahead and send soooo's draft.

EDIT: Actually, we may want to emphasize how dire banana's position is. When the NAP expires they will likely face a huge army from PAL. They NEED to start building/drafting muskets ASAP.

[Swiss Pauli]

@sooooo - PAL is forming an alliance against us, not with us but aside from that I think it covers most bases.

@sunrise - we're by far the biggest threat to PAL seeing as only one team can win the game. Imperio-Templars are OK together but apart they're no threat. As long as PAL sees us doing OK (e.g. settling cities) then they'll keep pumping up our enemies. I'd expect them to stop this if they see our enemies making progress: stalemate suits them just fine.

[Zeviz]

The suggested text looks good.

[sooooo]

Email sent.

I chatted in-game with banana. He said that PAL offered them a NAP until T220 in return for severing all deals with us. He said he would tell PAL he is rejecting the deal on Thursday. Guilds was traded for paper and music. The banking deal is for 700 gold, which apparently some of which he owes them from a previous trade.

[sunrise089]

Can we offer them 700 gold instead for banking?

Frankly, If I were Banana I'd take the NAP extension if it wasn't so clear PAL will declare anyways as soon as RB is sufficiently weakened.

[dsplaisted]

Is there a possibility that Banana can take the NAP deal with PAL and continue to work with us, perhaps using a creative definition of "severing all deals"? Would this be to our benefit?

[sooooo]

Is there a possibility that Banana can take the NAP deal with PAL and continue to work with us, perhaps using a creative definition of "severing all deals"? Would this be to our benefit?

Very unlikely, since that severing deals would mean cancelling our iron.

[Zeviz]

Can we offer them 700 gold instead for banking?

Frankly, If I were Banana I'd take the NAP extension if it wasn't so clear PAL will declare anyways as soon as RB is sufficiently weakened.

700$ frop PAL to fuel research that can be given to us is better than a tech from PAL that can't be given to us.

[MyOtherCar]

no need for a draft - I think that is good to go.

No drafting till Nationalism....

[sooooo]

A quick reply from banana:

Realms Team,

Thank you for your gift of the Discovery! I have big plans for it as a Galleon someday in the near future. That said, let me know if I am able to make a canal out of two adjacent tiles within my cultural borders (SW of Doal). I am pretty sure I read that somewhere, but never confirmed it.

Next let me give you my thoughts on why I will continue the Banking deal with PAL. We discover it in 4 turns and should get 500 gold from PAL to obtain it. With that 500g, we will be able to run at 100% research for the 6 turns it will take us to get Gunpowder. This is a net research time of 10 turns (possibly 11) total until you receive Gunpowder.

Gunpowder right now takes us 9 turns to research, and we do not have the gold to speed it up at this point. So you would only lose a total of 1-2 net turns by us going for Banking first. Secondly, PAL getting Banking should make them spend less on troops to get Banks up and running. Last, getting Banking will help us to improve a binary research program via our high commerce cities. Yours too, if you can spare the resources to build them.

What is your ETA for Nationalism and Astronomy? Do you see being able to have Astronomy in 11 turns? We have no problem fronting you tech again, but let me know.

FYI, PAL actually discovered Nationalism this turn (now working on Liberalism in 20 turns). This means they may make good on their promise to gift tech to Imperio and Templars, and that would be a pretty scary one for them both to have.

How are we going to handle the Iron? You have had it for nearly my entire tenure here, and your extension to T154 (which should be OK by me) will fall almost exactly on when we discover Gunpowder. We may have to lower the cycles to 5 turns --- there's also a chance I may need it briefly before T154, but I will let you know. Any chance you can throw us some spare Wines for our troubles once we are able to draft?

Last thing --- tell me a bit about the Apostolic Palace. At this point, PAL and Templars have anough votes (70 of 94) to elect a Diplomatic victor, with you and Imperio as the other members. Do you think there is any chance that Templars would agree to give PAL the win if they fall quickly? Do you know what city it's in? Give me your insight on this, as I have no idea how the AP works.

That's all for now. Let me know what you think.

Regards,
Donovan

The Doal thing he mentions is that there is a 3-tile strip that separates his desert peninsula, one tile of which is the city of Doal. He wants to know if he builds forts on the other two tiles if he would have a canal.

[MyOtherCar]

I believe that would work as a canal.

With regard to the diplomatic victory: are all civ's christian? Only then do we need to worry about a diplo victory.

[sooooo]

OK, let's take a stab at this:

Hi Team Banana,

Banking: We accept your decision about this. Be careful with PAL that they will have the 500 gold by the turn you expect them to have it. You can watch their gold count in the tech screen.

Nationalism: If, on turn 147, we could borrow 120 gold from you then our eta for nationalism is 4 turns, T149. We would pay this gold back on turn 151. Let us know if this is OK with you. This leads us on to ...

Astronomy: It is very difficult to calculate an eta for astronomy. If we manage to land the Taj Mahal ahead of PAL (sshhhhh!) then it will dramatically change. Getting nationalism a couple of turns earlier from a banana-loan would be great for our chances of the Taj Mahal. If we don't then it's about a 20 turn tech. But that could also go up or down with other events. Even if we don't get the Taj, it should give us a decent amount of cash to spend on defecit research for astronomy.

Iron: Unfortunately the game will only let us do it in 10-turn stints, since that is the minimum allowed period for a resource trade. We really do appreciate the years you have supplied us with iron. We will be happy to gift you wines - we have a rather fine Burgundy - would that suit? Also we will have a spare rice in about 12 turns we can also gift to you.

Apostolic Palace: No one can win a diplomatic victory if you do not let chrisitanity into your lands. If you see a templar christian missionary, close borders immediately.

Canal: We checked the worldbuilder and unfortunately a canal cannot stretch along those 3 tiles. A boat cannot move from a fort to a fort.

Regards,

Team Realms Beyond

[ruff_hi]

does he know how to use WB / single player game to test if it will let him build a canal?

[mostly-harmless]

He should not be comcerned about an Templar & PAL diplo win (because PAL can win the game any way they want) but a Imp & Tem majority. And PAL has made sure thats not going to happen, by actually converting to Christianity (with only one city) to double their votes.

mh