Team Info and Contacts - Templars

[Dreylin]

I'm with Sooooo about telling them off a bit as well, but maybe if we present it as an attempt to clear the air before moving forward - and invite them to do the same?

Hi Hercules,

So what you’re saying is that when Templars agreed to the three-way with Banana & RB you knew that the proposed trade between yourselves & RB would not go through and yet you didn’t even mention it to us!? All it would have taken was a quick "We agree to the trade in principle, however we already have a deal lined up for Construction, can you suggest another tech?" We realise that TeamRB can be unresponsive at times when internal discussion gets going, but we like to think that we communicate relatively promptly on important issues.

Sorry, I think the team needed to get that off our chests and clear the air somewhat before continuing.

(BTW, if you have specific grievances with us we welcome the same candid feedback from you; we do want to know how we can best improve and move forward with our teams’ relationship.)


Moving on; how would the following strike you as a way to restructure the trade agreement?

You offer: Drama & Theology
We offer: Engineering

In addition, because of the small Beaker difference; Templars would also allow RB a “first refusal” to trade your duplicate Calendar resources for ours (Dyes, Silk, Wine) for mutual benefit.

In recognition of our desire to work together in the future, we would also like to re-raise the NAP issue as our previous agreement has now expired. We would propose a 20turn self-renewing (at 10t intervals) arrangement to be put in place on receipt of acceptance from Templars.

Regards,

TeamRB.

Maybe a bit sterner / blunter than Soooo's draft, but also inviting them to do the same and then firmly drawing a line under it before moving forward.

There is a ~20% difference in Beakers between the two sides of the trade, so I wondered if we could sell the first-refusal option to them as mutually beneficial. (Even though because of the respective numbers of cities, any 1-for-1 trade is in our favour.)

[ruff_hi]

My son threw my phone down the stairs this morning and I didn't ignore him; I told him off sternly. Yet I don't want to cut off dilpomatic relationships with him - I want him to learn not to throw telephones down the stairs. I hope my son will be of value later on too, but telling him off was still the right thing to do.

Totally agree with this. My dog (Dixon) is getting in the habit of growling and 'attacking' other large dogs on his daily walk (guess this is what happens when you have an intact male who thinks all bi*ches are his) ... anyway, after I man handle him away (combination collar grab and wrestle) he gets put into a 'sit' and then a 'down' until he has regained his composure - he hates this and complains about it to me (bark, bark) but knows what is coming and has learnt to stay down until I say 'free'.

[mostly-harmless]

Not sure the calendar resource trade thing is worth the extra beakers. (20%!, this is why Templars & Imperio don't need libraries, as they get their 25% bonus from us in lopsided tech deals all the time)
We would have to wait for them to connect up their 2nd sugar tile, which does not even give any of their cities any benefits, as it is too far away from Jerusalem. Plus both sugar tiles are still under jungle.

With our dyes, silks and theatres we can go all the way up to size 14 in A1. No dire need for sugar at the moment. In fact Templars should be the ones asking for our excess happy resources soon.

So I think the beaker difference should be carried over to the next tech deal with them, which shows a lot of trust from our side!

mh

[sunrise089]

@Swiss - Honestly I'm not too worried about engineering. Against skilled rivals it's a thread, but in our upcoming wars I suspect out stack will kill all of the enemy units in about the first battle anyways.

@Sullla and Soooo - I tend to err on the side of Sullla's short-term benefit/long-term cost strategy, BUT Soooo is right about the tech trade debacle - that isn't just an unbalanced diplo exchange, but rather they lied to and tricked RB and Banana.

[Zeviz]

We should ask for cash to compensate for unbalanced beaker cost instead of a resource trade that benefits them. Aside from that, the message looks good overall, but don't include the "Sorry..." line and the paranthetical that followed. And I'd CC Banana on this message, just to show that we really don't like people going back on pre-arranged deals.

Remember when PAL gave us a free tech in similar circumstances?

Actually should we tell them that when PAL broke a pre-arranged deal with us, they had given their side for free to compensate? "While we aren't asking for a free Drama, we expect at least a discount on the next trade." (And include the discount in our proposed trade offer.) Also, make sure Banana is CCed on the email (perhaps including like "CC: Team Banana").

[regoarrarr]

I like bringing up what happened when PAL broke the deal for (what was it - Mono? Monarchy?) and the CC

[Swiss Pauli]

I feel the need to vent. Don't send this

Dear Tin-can Soldiers,

We are less than happy with Templars recent beahviour. You managed to give Banana the impression that the three-way with Banana & RB was agreed, yet you knew that the proposed trade between yourselves & RB would not go through. So would you care to explain yourselves? We'd like to work with you, but you're demostrating all the diplomatic skills of Tokugawa the AI.

May your death at our merciless hand be swift but extremely painful.

Luv n hugz

Team RB

I feel the need to vent. Don't send this

[quote]

[sooooo]

For the record, I do not believe that they had a deal set up for construction when they agreed to banana. I think they just traded for it when they saw Imperio had it and it would make the beakers add up for the trade for theology. Then they fibbed about having a prior deal. Not that it makes it OK of course

[Swiss Pauli]

For the record, I do not believe that they had a deal set up for construction when they agreed to banana. I think they just traded for it when they saw Imperio had it and it would make the beakers add up for the trade for theology. Then they fibbed about having a prior deal. Not that it makes it OK of course

Actually, I think Templars said to Imperio: 'if you don't trade us Drama for Construction then we'll make this trade with RB', as I feel it's more likely they got Compass for Theology.

I think they've convinced Imperio that we're the big, bad dog, and they're using that as leverage to make Imperio their golden tit of tech

[sooooo]

I have no idea how to cobble the rainbow of approaches and suggestions posted here into an email.

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we need to break it down into small pieces, starting with an email telling them we're not pleased that they seemingly agreed to a deal that they had no intention to fulfil, and asking them whether they want to work with us in the future.

Then, depending on their reply, we can float trade proposals past them. If these go well, then we can propose a NAP (if it suits us), and so on.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

My son threw my phone down the stairs this morning and I didn't ignore him; I told him off sternly. Yet I don't want to cut off dilpomatic relationships with him - I want him to learn not to throw telephones down the stairs. I hope my son will be of value later on too, but telling him off was still the right thing to do.

That's a flawed (albeit funny ) analogy. Your son is not on the same level as you are - he's a child! He will be educated by your reaction and do better next time because he loves you and wants you to be pleased with him. I doubt Templars love us or want us to be pleased with them. If we treat them like a misbehaving child, we will come across as arrogant and patronizing. We came across as not very friendly before (border agreement!), and it doesn't matter that they are idiots. What matters is how they perceive us, and I seriously doubt they will speed up communications if we tell them off; instead, they will be pissed off completely which we might regret later. I don't think you fear your son might come back later together with your neighbour's son to burn down your house and you're not sure if you can stop them.

What do we lose by turning the other cheek and responding friendly?

-Kylearan

[ruff_hi]

What do we lose by turning the other cheek and responding friendly?

-Kylearan

The opportunity to honestly share our feelings. This is a great chance to rap them on the knuckles. The key is to quickly move on. Either we go as is, or we wrap it in some humor ...

"Arggggggggggg - you guys are killing me. Please be up front with us regarding your ability to honour your agreements.

Phew - got that out of my system ... now, how about blah blah blah to resurrect this cockup of a tech trade deal"

[mostly-harmless]

What do we lose by turning the other cheek and responding friendly?

We will eventually be running out of cheeks.

They deliberately screwed us with the Construction tech deal, make no mistake. How are they perceiving us when we turn the other cheek? How do we respond if they screw us with the next deal/promise we make?

They need to be told that this is not acceptable behaviour. And we need to tell them what PAL did, when they made the same "mistake".

mh

[sooooo]

Ruff, that sounds interesting, do you want to compose a draft along those lines?