Vox Embassy

[binTravkin]

I can do that but only a bit later, not at home atm. Say in an hour or 1.5.

[N35t0r]

I'd prefer later tonight, but It'd be hard on you euros... We might want to arrange something for this weekend, as well.

[ForesterSOF]

Saturday GMT 1900

[binTravkin]

If someone wants to come discuss, #ac is up at apolyton server with me and Impaler there.

[PJayTycy]

I'll check if I can idle in #ac at work...


[edit]Seems like I can't, irc doesn't pass through our proxy[/edit]

[Lacero]

me neither
I'll try and hang out there when irc is open at home though.

[PJayTycy]

message proposal :


================
Dear Vox,


We were busy finishing our 3 world wonders last time we met. Now this task is over, we think it's necessary to come back to you.


First of all, we'd like to talk about the iron working gift. There are a few things that must be made clear. The main point here is this:
We want to help you as much as possible, with as low a risk of detection as possible.

Now, what does this mean for iron working:
--> We want to give it to you in a timeframe where GS can reasonably think you researched it yourselves. Which means at +/- 75% of the time you would have needed yourself.
--> In order to fool GS into that, however, you should not be researching other techs in the mean time. It's no use delaying our gift of iron working to you, if you research something else the turn before it. The fact we sent help will be as obvious as before.
--> We therefore propose you to change commerce allocation to 100% gold, 0% research. The extra gold will be usefull to upgrade units in the war, while we will be able to send you techs at the same rate as if you had done 100% research.

Also, our scout is now at the southern border of the continent, below GS territory. We will continue to walk east. If we sign open borders, our scout would be able to walk through your territory and we'll tell you the locations of all bonuses we encounter. So, you might be able to hookup iron with a road and a mine, even before you get the iron working tech.

Last but not least, we want to give you some of our foreign intelligence data. Through score and power graph analysis, combined with the info about the failed attack on your capital, we believe the strength of GS' complete army, as of turn 850 BC is like this:
2 warriors + 2 skirmishers + 4 spearman
We are not 100% sure about the 4 spears, it could be 4 axes too (or even city walls), but we believe it to be spears as a counter unit for horses (which you might be building as a counter unit for catapults).



For the glory of the One Yang,

Team Alpha Centauri
======================



What do you think ? (especially Impaler, as you've had the previous chats with them, where they were pretty angry)

[binTravkin]

I'd say if you cut this part

If we sign open borders, our scout would be able to walk through your territory and we'll tell you the locations of all bonuses we encounter.

it'll be ok

I doubt we want OB with them as that would be immediately detected by GS and raise suspicion.

[PJayTycy]

It might be, but GS never asked us for anything like that, nor did we agree on something like that. We only agreed not to send techs and military help.

We can tell it's to get our scout back to the north without having to walk through GS territory, or to increase trade, or whatever...

[binTravkin]

Yes, of course, we can always make up an excuse, but while GS are better trade partners and we haven't backstabbed them yet, we shouldn't do it.

They could actually request info about Vox territory from us as their 'friends', which would lead to a tricky situation.


About the original message - you could tell them to research Monarchy if they really want to research something

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Yes, of course, we can always make up an excuse, but while GS are better trade partners and we haven't backstabbed them yet, we shouldn't do it.

I don't see signing open borders as a way to backstab GS.

Originally posted by binTravkin
They could actually request info about Vox territory from us as their 'friends', which would lead to a tricky situation.

With GS' military freely roaming through Vox' lands? I think they've seen most (if not all) of Vox' territory already.

Originally posted by binTravkin
About the original message - you could tell them to research Monarchy if they really want to research something

I'd rather not. If they research something the turn after we sent them iron working, our cover is blown as well.

[binTravkin]

Well, it would take them some 50 turns to get Monarchy, that's one of those techs which if revealed will be revealed in so far future it wont matter anymore.

I don't see signing open borders as a way to backstab GS.

My point was that before we (if ever) have openly confronted GS, we shouldn't do a single thing that would make them suspicious.
They are very profitable trading partners up to this time and we should try to keep them as such as long as possible.

[PJayTycy]

Well, without telling Vox the location of iron before we gift them the tech, they'll be too late to do anything with it.

Ofcourse, to misguide GS, we could also declare war on Vox. The only downside of that is our scout can't use the roads in Vox to quickly cover much ground. However, this might be even more suspicious as we gain nothing by declaring war instead of open borders.

[Impaler[WrG]]

If we find Iron in Vox territory we might want to consider a plan in which Vox receives iron working from us builds up their Iron mine along with a gold stockpile and then when things are ripe we gift Machinery to allow them to upgrade their archers (which should have some descent defense promotes) to Crossbowman. This could potentially keep them alive against the full brunt of GS onslaught expected to fall upon them in ~30 turns. This will provide us enough time to bring the veterans of the Banana Peel war to the south ware Vox can be protected indefinably, eventually leading to a conquest of GS at a later date.

On and I do SPECIFICALLY remember agreeing to GS request that we would not sign open borders with Vox. The phony war scouting seems the only means of not tipping our hat. We could just tell GS theirs no ware else for us to scout so were declaring war and we will share all the data with them (which they already have anyways).

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
On and I do SPECIFICALLY remember agreeing to GS request that we would not sign open borders with Vox. The phony war scouting seems the only means of not tipping our hat. We could just tell GS theirs no ware else for us to scout so were declaring war and we will share all the data with them (which they already have anyways).

Ah ok.


Well, I'll be leaving till saturday now, so I can not send the message anyway. Also, don't wait for my input to send something during my absence.