Team Blood Oath Horde Diplomacy

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Dumb question I need ask snoopy.

"war" for the purpose of gifting a worker?

Aside from the sketchy nature of such a deal in terms of C4DG rules, I'm not even sure the game allows the gifting of units to a team with whom you are at war. Does it? I'll have to go try that out.

I still don't like this trade idea, regardless of the alleged value of scouts in the early game nor the Horde's desire for this deal to reach fruition in order to cement long term friendly relations.

This isn't pangaea, so we are not going to have a very much more to scout out until we get Astronomy, and can actually transport units to the other continent(s). Also, like was mentioned in the chat, barbarians are just around the corner, at which time we are very likely to lose our scout(s) anyway.

Do they have any other units to offer? A chariot might be nice. Otherwise an archer, but considering we can pump out axemen I find them less interesting.

How about a chariot/archer for 10 turns rental on a worker?

[Kloreep]

On the DOW issue, I think UnO's imagining letting the Horde capture the worker. Though that still doesn't answer how they give the scout to us, so this deal may well be impossible. (Or can you gift on the border? I haven't gifted much before.)

Frankly, I hope it is impossible so that we don't have to literally turn them down. I would like to copy UnO's estimate on where the Horde is, based on the information Sarantium made the mistake of dropping in our lap:



It may not be a long journey, but neither is it a hop, skip and jump. To actually send a worker to them now, it'd have to have military escort. That means either us or them taking a military unit out of the action for a number of turns (a full 10? and that's just one-way) to do this. And if the Horde doesn't pay for travel time, we'll be losing the worker for a lot longer than they pay for.

So, the deal is just not worth it, purely on an exchange value basis, if we have to provide much more than just the worker; I think we'd be providing far more than the value of a scout. But let's assume that the Horde does provide everything, which is to say they escort the worker both ways, and pay for the worker during travel time both ways, not just when it's working for them. The escort would be asking a fair amount of them, but let's assume they're willing. That leaves paying for the travel time... Which, again, is about 10 turns either way. With 10 turns actually spent in Horde territory working, that's still 30 turns total. While I think 10 worker turns might be a fair exchange for a 15-shield unit, but 30... losing a worker at all is a huge hit. Losing one (and keep in mind we have only one at the moment), especially this early in the game, is just not worth our while IMO, no matter how far out of their way the Horde goes to make it so.

What it really comes down to for me is not losing our worker. If we do, we have to either build a new one, or do without any new improvements for a while, which would really hamstring us. Even if we only gave up the worker 20 turns from now, that would still be too soon IMO; we need to pump out cities + get them set up as fast as possible, and stopping to build another worker would majorly slow us down there. If we really want another scout, it takes 3 turns to build, let's do that. (Whereas another worker would take 6, and that's once the pigs tile is pastured.)

I really don't think worker renting is going to be worth our while until borders move closer with each civ's expansion. That, or until Alphabet and/or Currency allows people to trade us gobs of money for travel time and possibly escort fees. And as always, we need to get enough workers for ourself first.

[polarnomad]

Some good points. If the game mechanics do not make this transaction impossible, then we should probably politely decline their request.

[UnOrthOdOx]

A quick test determines, yes, it is impossible to gift while at war. Would require open borders at the very least.

So, while they could capture the worker, we'ld be unable to be paid at present time.

Anticipating their response, we still need to come up with a price for rental or purchase.

[polarnomad]

I don't follow. If it's impossible then why do we need to some up with a price? Do you mean for when one of us has Writing? If so, I still don't think it's a good idea. Call me paranoid, but if anyone has even thought about what our self-imposed rules imply, they will want to stifle our production and expansion capabilities as early as possible. Building them a worker or giving them ours will do just that.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yes, for after writing.

I'm not so quick to just tell them it's not going to happen. We want to at least appear open to the possibility.

Remember, also, if they fail to return the worker on the alloted turn, which, frankly, I find most likely actually, not that they would neccessarily MEAN to, but it's a difficult thing to coordinate, we can call it an act of war and seek compensation for breaking the contract.

[polarnomad]

Writing is a long way away. Perhaps 20 turns. Especially since we're switching from the oasis to pigs in 3 turns.

True, we could declare war, but take one of their cities that encroached on our planned expansion because we were hampered by their desire for a worker, which they then fail to return on the exact turn? It's a gamble, and the punishment isn't really proportional to the enfraction. Not that we necessarily need to take the severity of the enfraction into account...

[UnOrthOdOx]

We never made promises punishment would be proportional. I personally feel punishments for breaking deals must be especially severe.

[Kloreep]

Purchase should be fairly straightforward once we figure out a general cost we want to set for hammers. Especially since with workers, the cost of the experience doesn't need to be taken into account.

Rental is a different matter. How to value worker turns is a bit difficult... I think the easiest way would probably be to set a "lifespan" for a worker - for example, 50 turns - and have the cost per turn be a fraction of the cost to purchase a worker (for example with a 50 turn lifespan, 10 turns rental = worker purchase cost*10/50=worker purchase cost/5)

[UnOrthOdOx]

SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Good evening.
PLATO says:
Hello there!
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
I have some sad news from Team Mercenary...
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
We ran a sim. Such a trade is impossible due to game mechanics at the present time.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Well, you could capture a worker all right, but you would be unable to pay us for it at the present time.
PLATO says:
Oh really? I thought you could trade units. hmmm....

SirUlias@AOL.com says:
They have to be INSIDe the receivers borders. Which we can't do without being at war, which also prevents gifting.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
We need open borders, basically.
PLATO says:
I see. That is a bit of a problem
PLATO says:
Interesting...
PLATO says:
So you guys will need open boarders in order to trade units. That could be a bit dicey when you are trying to service two competing customers couldn't it?
PLATO says:
Does your team have any ideas on ways in which we could co-operate at this point?
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
It appears at present we are incapable or actually exchanging things in-game. I expect that to change relatively quickly. If you guys get a proposal, however, we would always consider it.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Would you perhaps be interested in an exchange of screenshots? sn00py already posted such was allowed by the rules.
PLATO says:
That could be very useful to us both. I will bring that idea before the great council right away.
PLATO says:
I have not played enough of Civ4 to know exactly when unit trading becomes possible. At what point do you think we would be able to trade units (eithier unit for unit or for cash)?
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Ah. Open borders is available with Writing, enabling unit for unit trading.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Tech trading occurs with Alphabet, enabling unit for tech trading.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Currency will enable unit for gold trading.
PLATO says:
I guess that is the path you are persuing then? Also, is it not possible to research some techs out of sequence?
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Out of sequence? It is a more complicated tree than Civ III, yes. As for our tech path, we will be working towards enabling those trades, yes, but we also need to see to our security and growth as well.
PLATO says:
I agree. You just never can tell in this world...hehe. Growth seems to be the keyword for us as well right now.
PLATO says:
Well, hopefully we can both continue on paths that will enable us to have a mutually beneficial relationship.
PLATO says:
BTW, is espionage part of your services?
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
Certainly.
PLATO says:
Excellent. Is there anyway possible to pay you for services at this time (other than the aforementioned screenies)?
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
It would appear at present, we could only trade for information in return (including screenshots)
PLATO says:
There may be some possibilities there. I will need to discuss with my council first though
PLATO says:
I will be back in touch as soon as I have discussed these ideas.
SirUlias@AOL.com says:
I look forward to hearing from you.

[inamirrordarkly]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
PLATO says:
BTW, is espionage part of your services?

-snip-

PLATO says:
There may be some possibilities there. I will need to discuss with my council first though

This could have been quite interesting had we been able to scout Sarantium.

[snoopy369]

I AM NOT sn00py!!!!

[Kloreep]

Of course you aren't. But you have to admit your nicks are a little close.

I wouldn't worry about it, sn00py. Everyone knows who you are even if they get your name mixed up.

[Togas]

An important note: We are not bound to sell off/rent out every unit that we own. That worker we have is absolutely critical to our early development. I cannot fathom any early deal involving that worker that would be profitable to us.

Let's not dwell on this deal or try to make it work. Let's smile about it. Thank them for engaging us. Welcome their desire to work with us. Talk fondly about our future benefit to their team, and then CHANGE THE SUBJECT to a potential deal that is palatable.

IMO, let's talk to them about exchange of intel for now.

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

Greetings Lord Uno!

I would like to get together at your earliest convienience to discuss some of our personel needs. Please PM me a good time to talk on msn or just find me online!

Looking forward to it!

PLATO
Cheif Ambassador of the Horde

I'm afraid I cannot chat for some time. My home PC's hard drive fried, and I wont have it fixed for a week or so, yet.

I can conduct business via PM's over the weekdays, I'll post and see if someone can chat with you. In the event you need assistance over the weekend, best send a PM to Kloreep and CC me on it.

-UnOrthOdOx
Team Mercenary Representative.