AC Diplomacy

[Krill]

I'm pretty much in agreement with Arrian; getting AC as an ally would be very useful to us, especially if AC understand that we are happy to have them go and kill Nana so long as they do the same for us and Vox.

[Arrian]

Caveats about possible misinformation aside, I also really liked their apparent disappointment with the lack of a "team victory" option. Not because I approve of team victories in Civ - not at all. But this indicates a possible team-wide desire for long-term partnership (awww, how sweet) within AC. Having a trustworthy (to the extent that word is even applicable in a game such as this) friend/ally/trading partner is a powerful thing. As ND and GoW about that. In the end, we will probably have to fight, but we'll get to that later. MUCH later.

-Arrian

[Randolph]

Before this completely degrades into a vomit inducing love-fest, lets not forget that AC is in a very good position right now, and they're playing the game that best suits their situation at the moment. Vox is marginalized, Banana is semi-incompetent (in DG terms), and we're partially bogged down in a war. By acting nice with everyone, and focusing on economic growth AC is probably hoping to painlessly slide into continental dominance.

It seems to me that we will be better off if banana stays in the picture. AC has more to gain from eliminating Banana then we do, and it would be best to avoid the continent going bi-polar with AC in the driver's seat. If banana remains a stable power (even if comparatively minor) well after vox is eliminated then we leave open the possibility of spitting Banana ( ) later. There's no reason to consider Banana the property of AC right now (unless this is really necessary to keep them out of the vox situation, but I don't think they could do much about that even if they wanted to).

I like the way AC is playing also, but I assume we still want to maintain an edge?

[Ennet]

Keeping both ways open is fine i guess, Nana would make for a worse ally in an intercontinental war tho. So it strongly depends how the situation develops on the other continent.
Should Horde & Sara war it out, with mercs playing both sides, then it wouldnt matter much. Whoever won would be alone with a civilization who is only loyal to money.. Should Horde & Sara, dominate the other continent together or alone, a powerfull ally could be of good use..

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Randolph
I like the way AC is playing also, but I assume we still want to maintain an edge?

Absolutely. However, at this point it is a matter of gaining an edge rather than maintaining it.

Ennet: Good points.

[notyoueither]

Message to AC.

Hello

We have not heard anything from you regarding tech trades or anything else.

Do you have any reaction to things discussed?

nye

[Hot Mustard]

Originally emailed by Sheng-Ji Yang
Dear Stormians,


Nye had a chat with Impaler last week about the lack of communications from our part. As Impaler told you already, he has stepped down as diplomat. We don't yet have a candidate willing to replace him and put as much time/effort into the job as he did.

You can consider the above our official sorry-message. The rest of this message only contains facts and proven roads to success in civ4.


Bananas and Tech Trade Treaty Terms

First of all, here is a part of the last message we sent to the bananas:

We are very interested in this tech trade, but, there has been some discussion going on about the trade. The "terms" which Gathering Storm sent both of our teams were something we could agree with 100%. However, you wanted to change a few of those points. Untill now, we stayed aside and let you and GS argue about it. However, due to the long long silence, we feel the need to speak up.

[...we don't agree with Banana's changes to point 2...]

The wording of point 2 could be:
2. each of the three civs agrees not to retrade any technology acquired in trade from one of the three; without prior agreement of the researching nation.

We also think the 6th point about duration is not necessary. This treaty only outlines the basic "rules" of tech trading amongst our teams. It does not force anyone of us to trade some tech. The precise tech exchanges will be agreed upon on a case-by-case basis. Whenever a tech exchange is agreed upon, these rules will apply by default.

The inclusion of their fifth point (about making tech-exchanges known to each other) is a non-issue for us. Be it included or not, it doesn't matter. We didn't mention anything about it in our message to the bananas. As we have no preference for/against that point, we think it's better if GS and Banana decide about that themselves.


GS-AC tech trade

We will gladly accept your offer of adding Polytheism to the tech deal to make it ~98% even.
We would like to trade as fast as possible, so here is a proposal to do this trade in 2 steps:

From GS to AC <=> From AC to GS
After we discover Alphabet :
Masonry (114) + Polytheism (143) <=> Iron Working (286)
257 <=> 286

After you finish Maths :
Archery (85) + Maths (357) <=> Alphabet (429)
442 <=> 429

Total : 699 <=> 715

How is your research going currently? Do you think Masonry and Polytheism will be ready to trade when we finish Alphabet (in 9-10 turns, around 1000 BC).
When do you think the second part could be done (ie: your ETA on Maths)?


Maps and scouting around GS territory

We would like to thank you for the map of the land south of the isthmus. It is of great help at this moment to make the ocean-link between our lands. As our scout is nearing your territory, we send to you the route we will try to take close to your lands. First of all, we don't want you to be surprised or guessing our intentions. The route on the screenshot is what we will try to follow. Secondly, we are a little in doubt about the feasibility of this journey. As we all know from the graphs, you recently settled a second city on a high food / high gold terrain. We assume you have settled on or near the floodplains in the screenshot. This might have blocked the passage near point 6 (especially if there would be a culture expansion soon). If so, could you be so kind to tell us before, so we can try to move in another way. Is this generally considered a safe area to move through ?

http://www.imagebee.org/viewer.php?id=7592GS_shot_plus_ACscout.jpg

Maps and scouting around AC territory

Some turns ago we noticed your warrior to the north of our cities (on the marble hill). We have not seen him any more since then. Did you run into troubles or are you simply exploring other areas? To help your efforts here, we provide you this map :

Our cities are not visible on this map, but they are here:
1) On the roaded hill at the mouth of the Huang He
2) On the grassland at the other end of the road.
3) 4 tiles North and 1 tile West of number 1
We hope this will prevent your warrior from walking into dead-ends.

http://www.imagebee.org/viewer.php?id=9683AC_shot.jpg

We hope to hear back from you soon !


Team Alpha Centauri
For the glory of the one Yang.

[Arrian]

Excellent message from them, I feel.

Their message to 'nana about the treaty sounds good to me.

I like the tech trade proposal for trade between AC & GS.

I think we should let them know asap that their exploration route will work, barely, as they will see (they will skirt our borders).

HOWEVER, they will shortly be able to scout areas to our west that we have not scouted. There could even be huts out there. Maybe we should punch out a scout real quick.

Notice the land to the west of our continent in their screeshot? It could just be a small island... but you never know!

-Arrian

[Arrian]

So... anyone else have any thoughts? To sum up mine:

Their comments to 'nana: agreed.

Tech deal: approved, great. I love this plan, I'm excited to be a part of it, let's do it! [/Ghostbusters]

Their exploration route: approved, have fun guys (but, um, perhaps we should get a scout out there first...)

The info they provided: many thanks! We should consider reciprocating (perhaps we could get them to give us an ironclad pledge not to distribute such info to any other team, with us pledging the same wrt to the shots they've given us).

We can tell them spiney is now off in the frozen north, and we're pondering where to send him next.

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

Whoa. Why no reply to this? I'm not paying too much attention lately. I tuned in today only because it's a holiday.

[notyoueither]

Proposed message to ACen seperate from the 3 way treaty message.

Dear Centaurians

Please consider this our apology for being late to respond to your last message. I, nye, have been looking for a replacement myself as RL obligations have occupied more and more of my time. I will undertake to pay more attention in the absense of someone else from the Storm stepping forward and being able to take over for me.

As for the treaty, please see our seperate message. We accept your wording for point 2, and Nana's wording for point 1 and their proposed 5th point. The treaty would incorporate ideas from each and thus all can be happy with it.

Turning to our tech trade plans:

GS-AC tech trade

We will gladly accept your offer of adding Polytheism to the tech deal to make it ~98% even.
We would like to trade as fast as possible, so here is a proposal to do this trade in 2 steps:

From GS to AC <=> From AC to GS
After we discover Alphabet :
Masonry (114) + Polytheism (143) <=> Iron Working (286)
257 <=> 286

After you finish Maths :
Archery (85) + Maths (357) <=> Alphabet (429)
442 <=> 429

Total : 699 <=> 715

How is your research going currently? Do you think Masonry and Polytheism will be ready to trade when we finish Alphabet (in 9-10 turns, around 1000 BC).
When do you think the second part could be done (ie: your ETA on Maths)?

We are on Mathematics first. We will finish in ~9 turns. After that we can quickly finish Polytheism and rapidly complete Masonry (7 or 8 turns total). We can then proceed with tech exchanges. Alternatively we could send Mathematics for Iron Working and then follow up with Masonry, Polytheism, and Archery for Alphabet.

Regarding maps and scouting. We thank you for the map you sent us. Our warrior is currently in the far North. The map you provided will aid us in our decisions of where to go. The land that is apparent to the West is interesting.

As for your explorer's route, our second city was South of our shot. We have just settled a third city that is on the map we provided. Following close to your porposed path you should still be able to get through as expanded borders are not high on our list of priorities at the moment. As for moving next to our borders, don't worry about it. We are well on the road to a lasting freindship and we feel no reservations in the activity of your scouts. We would also be happy to provide information if we spot dangers to aid your scouts in opening a sea route although it is unclear when we will be able to found a port to help with trade routes.

We hope that all continues to go well for our developing relationship and the treaty between Nana, ACen and ourselves.

Regards
nye

[notyoueither]

Do we want to take the next step and give them a shot of our land to help their scouting?

Can we grind out a scout to beat them to the unknown huts?

[Arrian]

I forget the math on EotS's builds... but I don't see why we couldn't stick a scout in there after the 2 axes...

Though there is a barb warrior out there to the west. I'd hate to spend a turn or two building a scout just to have it whacked by a barb warrior...

I think I'm comfortable with showing them a clean map of our lands and surrounding area.

I wonder... do you think we could show them a screenie of the west and ask that they not pop any huts they may find out there? As in: feel free to scout, you have our leave, but we haven't had a chance to pop any huts out west and would be appreciate it if you left them be.

Or is that asking too much?

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

As long as we don't see any more approaching Vox units, I would be okay with a Scout.

Right now we'll get Maths in 6 or 7 turns.

[Arrian]

Here is how the production would work out...

Right now EotS is at 25/35, producing 13h/turn. That will leave 3h overflow after this axe completes. I think we want a 2nd axe asap, so that axe completes 3 turns later with 7h overflow. Then we could fit in a scout in 1 turn with 5h overflow.

-Arrian