AC Diplomacy

[Krill]

Damnit. Just wondering, but why haven't we swapped to complete masonary when we need it to get construction? And what tech trades do people suppose we put forward to AC iof we don't go ahead with the ones stated as of the 20/02/07?

[notyoueither]

No time for debate.

Bashed off a quick message.

We would be more than happy to finish Poly early and would glady accept your offer of a 75 beaker credit.

About Masonry, how soon will you finish Alphabet? Perhaps we could shoe horn that in as well.

Reagards
nye

[notyoueither]

Sent pic with this message.

Greetings Centaurians

We felt that it would be good to reciprocate with your generous provision of a map of your near lands. We would never dream of sharing the shot you sent us with another civ and we would ask that you not share ours with any other civ either.

Large blue dots mark our cities. The red one to the East is The Voice. There is no path outside of culture between us and Vox. The smaller light blue dots mark a path around our borders.

We hope all goes well with you.

Regards
nye

[Hot Mustard]

So, recapping for my clarification:

From us to AC:
Archery (85)
Masonry (114)
Polytheism (143)
Mathematics (357)

Total: 699

From AC to us:
Iron Working (286)
Alphabet (429)

Total: 715

What I'm confused about is this 150 beaker IOU/credit now turning into only 75, and when Polytheism makes up most of the original IOU anyway. ??

They have estimated to finish Alphabet around 1000BC, and we'll also be finished Mathematics by that time. So for trade timing, maybe:

975BC: Polytheism + Mathematics for Alphabet
875BC: Archery + Masonry for Iron Working

-or-

1000BC: Archery + Mathematics for Alphabet
875BC: Polytheism + Masonry for Iron Working

It is possible that we'll be finished Masonry by 850BC, due to overflow and increased income.

[Krill]

I really suggest we get masonary and polytheism asap (masonary first) and trade them to AC so that they are not delayed in getting Judaism. If they know that they can get to Judaism by trading techs with us they'll trade the techs with us instead of pushing to research the techs themselves.

It takes us 4 turns to get masonary, and a futher turn to get polytheism. I suggest we put 2 turns into Masonary (48 beakers) then a turn into polytheism to finish it off, and then a third turn into masonary that should finish of masonary due to the overflow from polytheism. So those 4 turns of research should get us IW the turn after AC finish Alphabet, and we would only be 4 turns from finishing maths and then trading maths adn archery for alphabet. The bonus of doing things this way are we help out AC and don;t have to screw about with masonary being a bottleneck; we need masonary for construction, and if we are waiting on AC to finish masonary then we're being delayed from taking out the Voice, and we really don't want that to happen.

[Krill]

And that is taking into account a slow masonary due to increasing support and maintence costs; we really should have some overflow after completing those four turns of research as it looks like a few civs have masonary.

[Hot Mustard]

Now I see what you're talking about (from other thread).

We can jump from task to task, as Krill mentions, to get them Masonry a little bit sooner. I suppose the question is whether AC can wait until 850BC for Masonry?

Another aspect of this which hasn't been discussed is whether we want another early religion on this continent. We're taking out Vox because of religion, and then we'll have our own. While they are currently friendly, helping AC get a religion seems at best odd and at worst in conflict with our approach so far.

If we think they'll get it anyways, then it might be advisable to help them do so, for the sake of relations and future favours.

[Krill]

[q=Sheng-Ji Yang]
To Gathering Storm

That is indeed great news you are so forthcoming, centaurians are feeling very thankful.
We finish Alphabet in 4 turns and would like to start work on Monotheism as soon as possible.

If you could finish and trade both Masonry and Polytheism some 6 or 7 turns from now, that would be just excellent, but 8 or 9 turns wouldn't be a disaster either, we just hope we manage in time to grab the religion.

If you research and exchange both of those techs ASAP and due to that we manage to found Judaism, we'd be indebted to you by 150 beakers, which you can later use to balance out a tech deal or purchase a cheaper tech outright, if not, we'll stick with the trade deal we had so far, plus the offered 75 beakers IOU.
We'd also be open to include Monotheism in any future deals, should you ask for it.

Your friends @AC[/q]

[Krill]

We could send them Masonary and Polytheism on Turn 76 earliest, Turn 77 latest, if we start masonary next turn.

[Arrian]

Given the above, yeah, we should prolly switch.

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

Very good. Let's switch.

[Hot Mustard]

Okay then - I'll just go re-figure all those advance turn orders..

[notyoueither]

I'd say do Masonry first. Let's have it ASAP so that if they say... 'we don't want to wait anymore'... we can say 'we have Masonry and will have Poly next turn.'

I must say, the 150 beaker credit is great as well.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Krill
It takes us 4 turns to get masonary, and a futher turn to get polytheism. I suggest we put 2 turns into Masonary (48 beakers) then a turn into polytheism to finish it off, and then a third turn into masonary that should finish of masonary due to the overflow from polytheism.

Unfortunately, the beakers don't work out nicely. I calculate that we can deliver 122 beakers before 1000BC - one short of finishing both Polytheism (9 left) and Masonry (114).

The best we can do is finish them in 6 turns with a nice big overflow to help Mathematics. Since AC has to broker the trade (Alphabet), and they are after us in the turn order, the soonest we can accept, they can accept, and they get the techs is actually 7 turns, or 950BC.

Then we can finish Mathematics in 875BC or maybe 900BC and conclude the second trade in the turn following.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Hot Mustard
Another aspect of this which hasn't been discussed is whether we want another early religion on this continent. We're taking out Vox because of religion, and then we'll have our own. While they are currently friendly, helping AC get a religion seems at best odd and at worst in conflict with our approach so far.

Just to play devil's advocate - any thoughts on this?