Hello all! This will be the SABER thread to conduct diplomacy with the simpleminded GONG. You'll soon notice that each team we've met will have a separate diplomacy thread instead of 1 main thread for all diplo. This was only issue with dutchfire, who otherwise did a fantastic job for 3 terms as our Chief Ambassador to the Barbarians.

Basically, I think GONG has the potential to be the first civ eliminated, by a possible joint SABER-Council attack when we both get our UUs. Especially since GONG is in Feudalism and apparently going for 100k, they could be easy pickings for the two SCI civs.

Since we just met GONG, I'll try to be amicable with them, but expecting things to turn more frosty soon enough since they're pretty much allied with BABE, our mortal enemies. Diplo with them will be a fresh start, since we don't know what to expect, but I'll do my best to get info, tech, gold, or whatever in exchange for as little as possible of SABER assets. :salute:

Have we even exchanged introductory emails or anything with GONG? We're just assuming the (apparent) friend of our enemy is our enemy. We might as well talk to them if we can find out who their contact is. We don't have to tell them anything about our military plans if they start fishing for information to help Babe.

Maybe their alliance isn't as solid as it might seem. Maybe a wedge you can put in it.

GONG culture turn 119 = 1079
GONG culture turn 120 = 1267

They are already at +188 cpt :eek:.

Maybe that other wonder they were thinking about building was TOA.

ok, I plan on sending a basic hello email to GONG's gmail today. Anything specific I should mention or just go general, "hope we can be friends and trade yada yada yada".

Also, I'm as shocked as you Chamnix, how could they be gaining over 100+ cpt at this point? According to CAII, we're at +7 cpt. :scared:

They probably have a ICS with the pyramids and fuedalism and are whipping away. Wait til it doubles. :eek:

ok, here's an introductory letter to GONG. please read and judge:

Dear GONG,

Greetings from across the ocean! It seems that by the mercy of the Great Meleet we have come to met, even without our boats reaching another's shores. Regardless, my people hope to have a long and fruitful friendship with your civilization for many years to come. May trade occur in abundance between the crafty Ottomans and the cultured Celts.

Bye for now.

greekguy, SABER Chief Ambassador

Do we really want to describe ourselves as "crafty"?

I was trying to point out something that is supposedly secret yet obvious to all the other teams. Our blockade is officially only known by us and BABE, but all the teams know it, just like everyone is soon to realize GONG is going for a culture victory. Kinda like taking a dig at each of our civs. :p

If you don't think crafty is a good word, how about "quick thinking" or "clever"?

I sent the letter to GONG today, replacing "crafty" with "clever".

Their reply:

Dearest SABER,

You managed to dig up our address before I got around to it and we appreciate your note.

We too look forward to a long and fruitful relationship in this very odd world of Rik.

I am only one voice amongst the Gongers but I would very much like to have some straightforward discussions regarding current world politics and kick off our long and fruitful friendship.

You are always welcome to contact me at this address, in my private diplomatic offices at jbgocubs@gmail.com or while I'm contemplating our mutual interests on MSN, jb1964. PM's can only be addressed in the evenings.

Best Regards,

jb1964, Team Gong's Chief, and only, ambassador

I'd prefer to call us "determined" or "steadfast" but the horse is gone, no sense in closing the barn now. Maybe for the future.


I'd say were dug in like a tic, but that's not very flattering now, is it? :lol:

There's nothing wrong with a little self-mockery...

I would very much like to have some straightforward discussions regarding current world politics

I am very interested in what they have to say. Our view on current world politics is that Babe and GONG are allied and FREE and the Council are allied. SABER is not in tight with anyone, but Babe has given us a rather violent shove away from them. If GONG thinks we can work together despite our strong dislike for Babe, then we're all for it.

Greekguy, he uses MSN, right? Are you going to come over to the dark side :devil:, or will you try to get him to use AIM?

I figure we can meet each other halfway and use Gmail's chat feature. :p

Anyway, I'll try to chat with him soon, and I'll of course talk about the world situation and alliances and such..but should I talk to him about us buying techs from GONG or do we only want to continue our exclusive deal where we give Council all our gold to get on par w/everybody else. :D

I think we are pretty much committed to buying the remaining Ancient Age techs from the Council, but after that, I don't see why we shouldn't solicit bids from anyone else. If their prices are significantly cheaper than the Council's, we have to do what is in our best interest.

A little announcement for everyone:

After some thinking, I've decide that having to do day-to-day diplomacy w/3 teams is a little much for me, even in with all my free time in summer. So, in that vein, I've been talking with Nobody, and he's agreed to take over as GONG Ambassador for me. He'll handle the the day-to-day diplo, while I'll conclude any treaties w/GONG or sign off on any tech deals, and other major things. I'll tell GONG's representative, jb1964, at our first chat, and then pass the reins to Nobody.

Just had a chat w/jb1964. Some interesting stuff he said:

9:43 PM jb1964: ok, this is all the window I get to type in?
me: yeah, i'm pretty sure it is
9:44 PM jb1964: ah, figured out the "pop out" expands the box....
me: yeah, makes sense
this is only like my 3rd time using this, so I'm no expert
jb1964: I sorta was thinking "disconnect" but hey, it worked....
9:45 PM anyways, how goes...
me: things are going good, both in rl and in the game
jb1964: good to hear
me: my team is really hoping to have a good relationship w/GONG
9:47 PM jb1964: So are the Gongers... We're trying to convince the Babes that it's in our best interest to pull Saber into the fold but they're a bit pissed off at the moment.
me: yeah, it seems the world is being split off into 2 camps
BABE and GONG on one side
9:48 PM and FREE + Council on the other
jb1964: I think the Free/Council Axis was the first to form...
We sat around like couch potatos
me: yeah, they met fairly early and started a tech alliance right outta the gate
:lol:
9:49 PM yeah, well, in teh current situation, SABER is kinda the "swing vote"
jb1964: When Gong found us they were trying to figure out what to do w/ us and you...
me: you mean BABE, right? ;)
9:50 PM jb1964: yes... correct... :p
me: anyway, if my read of world politics is correct, SABER can push any alliance to the magical number of 3, giving a huge advantage to whoever we side with
jb1964: Whether this goes the way of the warriors or turns into a political, cultural battle I don't know....
9:51 PM But 3v2 sounds better than 2v3
me: yes, truly it does. :p
I'm sure you can imagine we currently aren't inclined to join BABE, given recent events that transpired..
9:52 PM jb1964: I'm sorta surpised that the FC Axis hasn't invited you in?
me: we have diplo going on w/all the civs we've met, and that would include BABE and Council
9:53 PM jb1964: well, Babe got the GLib and that was a huge asset... They decided to use it to double their lands and we were just glad they were not pointing guns, or MW's, at us..
9:54 PM me: I can imagine, though your Gallic swords would be able to put up a good fight
jb1964: Now that we have contact w/ the rest of the world, unfiltered contact that is, we're trying to figure out how best to move forward
me: you guys have contact w/FREE?
9:55 PM jb1964: We did make it plain that a band of GS's would make quick work of 3/1 MW's and that retreat was not an option
9:56 PM Yes, free found us and sent contact to council
me: we lack contact w/FREE
maybe we could possibly trade for it from you guys
Council is being greedy and unwilling to let us talk to FREE
9:57 PM jb1964: Well, frankly, I'd rather let Council be bastards while we work on softening up the Babe's heart to work out a long term agreement w/ Saber
9:58 PM I've been feeling up Free and Council and I don't think we can drive a wedge into that relationship
me: Good to hear you're trying to get BABE to come around
..and, I agree, FREE and Council are really tight
jb1964: Hey, it make sense, you know that, I know that, but the Babes are being stiff-necked for the time being.... but they can't stay that way forever
9:59 PM Just to let you know, there are factions in Babe that think as I do
me: Agreed, eventually logic will kick in over emotion, and BABE will acknowledge us
10:00 PM interesting to hear that...though I never expected the whole team to agree on hating us. ;)
jb1964: But they're a vocal minority for the time being... I think I'll have to enter into some back channel talks
me: sounds good
10:01 PM jb1964: Hey, I have to watch a movie w/ the wife... I'm already in trouble so I had better move on for the time being....
me: ok, just want to add one more thing
jb1964: ping me whenever you would like.
me: i'm a little pressed for time over teh summer, so I've appointed Nobody to be GONG ambassador for now
10:02 PM he'll handle day-to-day stuff, while I'll do major stuff, like conclude treaties, big tech deals, etc.
so, we should talk again just not that often
10:03 PM jb1964: one moment
sorry, phone call from great aunt.... uncle died yesterday
10:04 PM me: ouch, my condolences
10:06 PM jb1964: OK, yes, summer is winding down and there's much to do... as I get any valuable feedback I'll be glad to share... I'll ask the powers that be about sending Free's contact to ya'll..
me: ok
10:07 PM You said you gtg, so talk to you some other time

Seems like GONG knows the reality of the situation. FREE and Council are really tight, and if we join them, then BABE and GONG are done for. It also looks like GONG is trying to reel in BABE and get them thinking straight again. Good to know someone is thinking long term. Also, we might be able to work out a deal to contact FREE, seeing as Council has not been agreeable to such an arrangement.

In our gmail:

How about contact w/ FREE for first right of refusal to trade luxes?
Hey Saber,

When we get to the point where we can trade over the oceans it would be nice to have a partner ready and waiting. We would like to have first right of refusal to trade luxes straight up if both teams have not expanded past their continental homelands. With that the relative value of a lux is about as even as it can be. Heck, this is a good idea even without offering up the contact.

Thoughts?

I'm not really sure what this means. Do they mean we can't trade luxuries with anyone without their approval, or just that we have to save one of each luxury for them to be traded for one of their luxuries on demand? If the latter, then considering we have 5 wines and 5 gems, it's a no-brainer if they are throwing in contact with FREE (but I'm not really sure if they are).

However, we should find out ASAP - I know our poor Commander in Chief will protest, but if we are going to trade for contact with FREE, then I would prefer to disband our curraghs for shields than send them on suicide missions (and pay unit costs until they sink).

I'd prefer to send the curraghs to blockade a Babe port.

In my current dictionary Babe = The Mongols and as anyone who's ever played a team game with me will testify, DenyD always says "The Mongols must DIE" :sniper: :hammer:

We can't blockade a port without declaring war on them.

[/QUOTEHowever, we should find out ASAP - I know our poor Commander in Chief will protest, but if we are going to trade for contact with FREE, then I would prefer to disband our curraghs for shields than send them on suicide missions (and pay unit costs until they sink).[/QUOTE]

:mad: :gripe: :old:

I think that we should still send our curraghs out to find FREE and explore other lands, as there are many benefits from eliminating the black..

Anyway, I think GONG means that once we can trade luxes, they want the privilege to get first crack at any of our spare luxes in exchange for their surplus luxuries. It means we'd by trading luxuries mostly w/GONG and denying them to Council and FREE, which is what the Celts want. A move like that would definitely hurt relations with Korea, so we should be sure before we take such an action.

I guess instead of blockade, I should have said play dead skunk in the middle of their path and make them go around us.

Anyway, I think GONG means that once we can trade luxes, they want the privilege to get first crack at any of our spare luxes in exchange for their surplus luxuries. It means we'd by trading luxuries mostly w/GONG and denying them to Council and FREE, which is what the Celts want. A move like that would definitely hurt relations with Korea, so we should be sure before we take such an action.

We have enough spare luxuries that we could trade with everyone - we have 5 sources of gems and 5 of wines.

We have enough spare luxuries that we could trade with everyone - we have 5 sources of gems and 5 of wines.

I don't think that's a coincidence, either. No exclusivity contracts for such a meager payoff, especially about such a future event, who knows when we'll have ocean trading.

I think we just need clarification on what they mean. Every luxury except ivory is very abundant - the Council has gems, and I would wager that they have 5 sources of them. We don't know anyone with wines yet, but I'd bet that Team FREE has 5 sources of wine. I don't think there's a lot of incentive to be stingy with our luxuries as long as we get GONG's luxuries in return.

Is someone (Nobody or greekguy) following up on this? Depending on what they mean by "right of first refusal" this could be an offer we want to jump on.

The latest arrival:

Interested in Peace and tech sharing for a very long time to come?

Hiya Saber,

I'm floating a trial balloon here to get your thoughts...

Given the configuration of this world it really looks that all teams will be hanging out for a very long time to come.



If the Gongers were to invest in Saber and gift you up to technological parity we would like that deal to come w/ a long-term peace agreement, luxury swapping, and technological cooperation. Technology would be researched and shared evenly. This would include the free tech Team Saber receives at the beginning of each new age. Technology would not be shared in any way with team Free and Council.



An agreement of this nature is going to pit Teams Saber, Babe, and Gong against teams Free and Council. But given the nature of how contact unfolded it's the world we're stuck with and there's too much momentum, in my opinion, to fracture the Free/Council alliance. After our agreements run out w/ the Babes we could align with Free & Council ourselves but that's not our first choice.



Now, team Babe is still not on board with this, however, if we announce a long-term peace agreement with Saber it will force the Babes to set aside their grudges and create the 3v2 scenario, and edge, we both are looking for.



Also, do you have any treaties or agreements with either Free or Council that would prohibit an agreement of this nature? If so please advise me so I'm not trying to negotiate the impossible.



Thanks,



jb

In the immortal words of Arte Johnson:

Vvveeeerrrrryyy Interrrreesssttting

Not sure I want to ever trust Babe, but this does present an alternative path if the Free / Council combo becomes difficult. I'd still worry about what happens when Free & Council are gone. That little voice in my head is screaming "IMCOMING".... However, there's another little voice saying the Free & Council are likely to do the same.

Based solely on the players on each team, I think it would be easier to separate the Frouncil than the Bongs, but this is premature. I just want to know what they meant with their contact with FREE for "right of first refusal" offer. Let's start with a deal like that, then think about long-term alliances.

ok, I'll give Nobody the night to write up a reply. If not, I'll write up something tomorrow morning.

ok, since Nobody hasn't posted anything, I'll write up something. how's this:

Dear GONG,

You brought up some interesting proposals in your message. However, since we are more fond of tackling one agreement at a time, we would like to hammer out and possibly agree concerning a trade of FREE contact in exchange for luxury "right of first refusal". We assume this phrase means our teams would agree to trade spare luxuries with each other before shopping around for prices with other teams, no? If so, then my team is interested in this suggestion. So, maybe we if we figure out the details, we could get this deal in the books soon.

Bye for now. :)

greekguy, SABER Chief Ambassador

I feel like I should say more, but there hasn't been that much discussion about the proposal. I'd assume we like the deal, though there are details to agree on. How soon would we get FREE contact? Would the "right of first refusal" last the whole game or have a time limit, etc?

I like the deal - contact with FREE should be immediate or it's not worth getting. We could meet them ourselves anytime now.

But yeah, really we need GONG to tell us what they mean, and we can work on the details, but the concept seems OK.

The letter looks fine - you will probably have to chat with jb at some point to work out exactly what they mean.

ok, I sent the message. and I agree, a chat will be necessary to work out the details.

Will BABE just stand by while GONG goes for the 100k? (For that matter, will we?) That would be something to consider when thinking about the strength of their alliance. BtW I don't know the answer, it just seems like an important point.

In our gmail from GONG:

Hi greekguy and Team Saber,

Yep, you interpreted "right of first refusal" correctly. I'll put this in front of the other players this evening and try and get agreement to this quickly so we can send you the contact.

This should be a no-brainer but then again, we're the knigs of "no-brain".

Much thanks for the reply.

Regards,

jb

Sounds reasonable, as long as it doesn't trap us from trading with anyone else, letting them have first go doesn't sound bad, we have enough for everyone, 5 of each.

Do we know what luxuries they have and what they lack? We could offer them 20 turns of one of our luxuries once transport is available for a tech we lack and save a bit of gold. Peaceful relations are going to be required with most other nations until the late industrial age. We could leverage not being part of either alliance and serve as a trading partner for both.

Do we know what luxuries they have and what they lack?

We know they don't have wines or gems.

should I send back a reply to GONG saying we agree to the deal, in order to ensure we get contact w/FREE on our next turn?

Based on their last letter, it sounded like the ball was in their court.

(and ask GONG what happened to contact with FREE, and what GONG's prices would be if we bought techs from them).

Chamnix posted that in the Council diplo thread, so here's my proposed letter to GONG based on those parameters. comments welcome:

Dear GONG,

With the passing of the last few turns we were anxiously expected the arrival of Contact with FREE from the Celts, and yet no emissary has arrived. We were wondering what the trouble is? If you were looking for a response to the last letter, than I'll officially state here that we agree to the deal. If there's anything else to discuss on this item, please write back about it.

Also, we were curious in how much it would cost us to buy some Middle Ages technology from your team. We're currently undecided on whether we'll purchase techs from you or Council, or research them ourselves. If you could tell us your prices, it would help us in making that decision.

Bye for now.

greekguy, SABER Chief Ambassador

p.s. Nobody's been a no-show, so I'm still handling diplomacy with you guys for the time being.

message sent..

Reply from GONG:

Sorry guys, I've been out of the loop w/ RL and I can only get to gmail at work. With a new job, the start of the school year, and three children playing three different sports I'm going to be hit-and-miss these next few weeks until I can get everyone in a rhythm.

I'm a bit miffed that contact has not been sent but will follow up w/ my fellow teammates.

There was some debate amongst everyone (about 5 of us) about just sending the contact. That must be were the breakdown occurred.

Regards,

jb

Another turn, still no contact; another week, still no word on tech prices.

Is it time to ask GONG if they are determined to make us join the Frouncil Alliance since GONG doesn't really seem to want to deal with us?

This in from GONG:

OK guys,

The Team Gong majority would like to sell contact w/ FREE to you but nobody's putting a price on this thing. I hardly think it's worth dickering over but we're going to need some nominal compensation for it.

BTW, why the heck are The Council withholding it? FREE and Council speak w/ one voice so I can only imagine they're trying to get some gold out of you and then split the proceeds w/ FREE.

jb

I thought we had a price - we were giving them right of first refusal on our luxuries as they suggested.

Can we barter contact w/Free as part of a tech deal with the Council? It should come pretty cheap, and now that they need cash, pretty easily. And will this barter firm up the right of refusal with GONG? Playing one against the other?

The good thing with buying all we can from the Council right now is that they won't use the money for even faster tech advancing but for military units, which then maybe are eliminated by the BABEs anyway...

Can we barter contact w/Free as part of a tech deal with the Council? It should come pretty cheap, and now that they need cash, pretty easily. And will this barter firm up the right of refusal with GONG? Playing one against the other?

The good thing with buying all we can from the Council right now is that they won't use the money for even faster tech advancing but for military units, which then maybe are eliminated by the BABEs anyway...

Both good points. I think we should turn up the heat on our negotiatons with both of them asap rather than let opportunity pass us by. Chamnix predicted a war between the others, hopefully it'll be a nice long one with lots of causulties and not much progress on either side.

Chamnix predicted a war between the others,

I didn't mean to predict a war between the others as much as wish for one :please:.

But yeah, time to tell both Council and GONG that we really want to start buying techs, and if they don't tell us their prices, then we will buy from the other.

Right now, I think we would like to get Engineering and Feudalism from the Council, and Theology from GONG. I don't really want to wait until the Council receives permission to sell Theology - if they eventually get permission, then we can consider buying other techs from them, but let's start moving on the ones that are currently available.

In our gmail:

We sent you Contact with Free. Is 60 gold an equitable amount for it?

GONG

Good work. I believe we should delay our answer as long as possible. Even if we have to reply with the replies they sent us (for a couple of weeks any way...).

I wonder why they came rushing to our door? Is our forum open to everyone? ;)

I'm pretty irritated that they offered us contact with FREE for right of first refusal of luxuries, we accepted, and then they said they wanted something else.

As far as why the hurry now, if Astronomy is known, then most likely FREE will have a boat sailing to our shores any turn now.

Erik zegt:
hi
jb1964 zegt:
hiya
Erik zegt:
how are things?
jb1964 zegt:
Going well, you?
Erik zegt:
pretty good too
jb1964 zegt:
Actually I'm doing battle w/ mmy friggin' computer at the moment
Erik zegt:
lol
jb1964 zegt:
Photoshop had died on me and I have ~5500 picts that I'm trying to work with
Erik zegt:
5500, I can imagine why it crashed
jb1964 zegt:
three kids in swimming, soccer, football and tennis.... It's a bit nutty about here
jb1964 zegt:
Hey, interesting developments in the world of Civ
jb1964 zegt:
It appears the babes found a landing spot for the rest of their forces
Erik zegt:
okay
jb1964 zegt:
on Council island
Erik zegt:
main island? or some small island?
jb1964 zegt:
Main
Erik zegt:
whow, that's big news
jb1964 zegt:
So, have you guys been getting good prices from Council are are they being a pain?
jb1964 zegt:
BTW, I'm still smacking around my teammates over the contact w/ FREE
Erik zegt:
the prices we've had were pretty decent
Erik zegt:
yeah, you sent it and asked for gold while we had an agreement on the luxury thing, right?
jb1964 zegt:
It's stupid, I wanted to send it long ago
jb1964 zegt:
We sent it?
Erik zegt:
I believe you did
jb1964 zegt:
good....
jb1964 zegt:
Keep the gold
Erik zegt:
okay, great
jb1964 zegt:
Let's just try and weather the current insanity
jb1964 zegt:
Did you come to a different agreement w/ any other Gonger for the contact?
jb1964 zegt:
I've been outta touch w/ the team
Erik zegt:
no, we just got a message:
"We sent you Contact with Free. Is 60 gold an equitable amount for it?
"
jb1964 zegt:
Well, do what you think will keep both of us out of trouble
jb1964 zegt:
I think I'm about to be fired as diplomat
jb1964 zegt:

Erik zegt:
lol, well, it's not like they have many replacements, do they?
jb1964 zegt:
Nope, they're pretty much stuck w/ me... but I'm catching flack for being a bit too forthcoming
jb1964 zegt:
BWT, the name's John
Erik zegt:
have you thought about selling techs to us? With the Great Library and all, that shouldn't be too much of a problem (why didn't we build it )
Erik zegt:
My name's Erik (I think Eric is a more common American spelling)
Erik zegt:
I'm going to eat now, I'll be back soon
jb1964 zegt:
Sorry, walked away...
jb1964 zegt:
Ya, my middle name and my son's name is "Eric"
jb1964 zegt:
As far as techs go we're sitting on our butts right now letting the GLib do the trick.
jb1964 zegt:
I'll have to get back to you later on cooperation options... I have to run to a football game for the other son...
Erik zegt:
okay, well, see you later then

Chatting with jb1964

Well, at least we get it for Free! ;)

Let's buy some cheap Technology now. :goodjob:

I take it my orders are to accept contact with FREE, and not send any gold to GONG in return, right?

Also, would our Chief Ambassador like to set up a thread for Team FREE, so when (if?) the save comes in, I'll post whatever information we can get in that thread.

I take it my orders are to accept contact with FREE, and not send any gold to GONG in return, right?

Also, would our Chief Ambassador like to set up a thread for Team FREE, so when (if?) the save comes in, I'll post whatever information we can get in that thread.

Sounds right to me. By the way, I believe greekguy's back again.

I agree. Let's set up a chat right away. Talk Techs. Talk Techs. Talk Techs.
The clock is ticking...

Turn 128 - GONG sent us contact with FREE but without accept so we still don't have it...

GONG is building Leonardo's Workshop in Dark Side of the Moon - expect it to complete next turn.

damn, I guess they want gold, and their ambassador can't talk them down on this issue (based on his last chat w/dutchfire). I think we're gonna have to give them gold, as we need FREE contact more than we need a few dozen gold.

The last chat wasn't really conclusive - jb didn't even know they had sent contact. I think he was still trying to convince them gold was unnecessary.

Maybe send a friendly reminder (to jb)? I know I could forget clicking accept in a pbem game :blush:

Maybe send a friendly reminder (to jb)? I know I could forget clicking accept in a pbem game :blush:
A friendly reminder sounds good. A quick chat? If a delay is necessary, then let's just give the gold. Let's get some Techs.

I don't know that there is a problem - GONGers just don't seem to be all on the same page. Looking at the order of events:

1. GONG played the save and sent us contact with FREE without accept - at the same time they sent us a note asking if 60 gold would be an acceptable price.

2. Then jb and dutchfire chatted and jb said forget about the gold.

3. We got the save and saw contact sent without accept.

I know it seems like forever because the pace of the game has slowed to a crawl, but jb hasn't had a chance to convince his teammates because the save hasn't reached GONG yet after the jb/dutchfire chat.

This is true, but it would be nice to have contact with accept in the next save. With or without the gold. Let's find out one way or the other so there is not another delay. This is getting old.

Turn 129 - GONG sent us contact without accept again. I think the first job of greekguy's replacement is to find out what they want.

@Cyc: GONG's Ambassador seems to be jb1964, his MSN address is bloomy@fuse.net

This is true, but it would be nice to have contact with accept in the next save. With or without the gold. Let's find out one way or the other so there is not another delay. This is getting old.

I hear a volunteer to be the ambassador to GONG!

Oops, I posted that before I read Calis's appointing you, so never mind.

Although, it sounds like you're ready to get to business. I'm hoping you are going to be a bit more effective and actually get something from GONG.

I just hope GONG isn't just stringing us along to get what they can from us as a good cop-bad cop with BABE. I said that about 5 turns ago, if they are strongly allied with BABE then why would they go against their ally?

And what the h*ll is it with FREE anyway, Why haven't they wanted to get contact with us from the other 3 lunkheads teams?

Do they have the Great Library? (that was so long ago) It might be that only Council has gotten Education and they are trying to get as many free techs as possible before it expires.

I'll be curious to see what happens if/when Council lands a unit on Babe's island. I'm wondering how tight the Free/Babe link is.

And what the h*ll is it with FREE anyway, Why haven't they wanted to get contact with us from the other 3 lunkheads teams?

Why would FREE care about contact with us? They no doubt know we are backwards so we have nothing to offer them, and they are not permitted to sell us techs because of their deal with the Council :lol:.

Do they have the Great Library? (that was so long ago) It might be that only Council has gotten Education and they are trying to get as many free techs as possible before it expires.

GONG has the Great Library. Since Council has Education, you can bet that FREE has Education as well, and the Great Library is already dead.

Since Gong probably has Astronomy, do we know if we have a sea route to them? It might be nice to offer a luxury exchange. Starting to wean them from Babe would be a good thing and the extra lux would help our cash flow.

We don't have sea routes anywhere - there will be no intercontinental trading until someone can cross oceans.

Recieved from GONG:

You guys have never replied on the offer of 60 gold for the contact. So... did you want to negotiate, us to give it for Free for some future consideration or ? Please let us know so we can accept the offer ingame.

GONG

My recollection is they offered us contact with FREE for right of first refusal on luxuries. We accepted.

Then they sent us a note asking if 60 gold for contact with FREE was acceptable. Before we got the save, jb told us not to send the gold.

In my email to the General I spoke of them giving us contact w/Free as part of our Tech deals. I think this might fly. We should NOT give any gold to Gong for the contact. They are probably aware that Free is sailing to our shores or whatever. I have not spoken with Gong and do not intend to until I hear from the General. Should be tonight.

In fact, we might want to hold onto the save as long as possible this time. Can you do that?

I can if necessary, but I would really prefer not to if at all possible. This game is moving abyssmally slowly already (2 turns per week for the past 7 weeks), and I would rather try to keep it moving unless you think a couple extra hours is going to change significantly the way we play the turn.

Well, as expected, Council has not replied to my email yet. Their offers/answers would make our next turn decisions a little easier to make. MSN is acting really weird. Let me see what I can do.

I sent this gmail to GONG:

It appears that long before I came on board as Saber Ambassador, Gong agreed to give Saber contact with Free in exchange for first right of refusal for luxuries. Is this not true? If I am mistaken, please correct me. Why have your demands for this contact now changed? Has our relationship changed? What is our current relationship? Customers?

A quick response would be appreciated. This game is dragging on very slowly, and I fear we will lose participants.

Cyc
Saber Ambassador

I've also sent jb an email saying basically the same thing.

GONG has not been directed to do anything by their ambassadors. The last two messages prior to the one you responded to have received no reply from Saber.

"Given the configuration of this world it really looks that all teams will be hanging out for a very long time to come.

If the Gongers were to invest in Saber and gift you up to technological parity we would like that deal to come w/ a long-term peace agreement, luxury swapping, and technological cooperation. Technology would be researched and shared evenly. This would include the free tech Team Saber receives at the beginning of each new age. Technology would not be shared in any way with team Free and Council.

An agreement of this nature is going to pit Teams Saber, Babe, and Gong against teams Free and Council. But given the nature of how contact unfolded it's the world we're stuck with and there's too much momentum, in my opinion, to fracture the Free/Council alliance. After our agreements run out w/ the Babes we could align with Free & Council ourselves but that's not our first choice.

Now, team Babe is still not on board with this, however, if we announce a long-term peace agreement with Saber it will force the Babes to set aside their grudges and create the 3v2 scenario, and edge, we both are looking for.

Also, do you have any treaties or agreements with either Free or Council that would prohibit an agreement of this nature? If so please advise me so I'm not trying to negotiate the impossible.

Thanks,

jb "

We have enough luxuries for an even exchange with you once the time comes. We only ask for a token amount of gold, ie just offer something, anything, 30-60 gold or whatever. And please keep the lines of communications open for the future if at all possible :).

I am going to reply back with their original offer, but we really should have replied to them earlier. I don't think GONG is telepathic...

Blame greekguy for our unresponsiveness ;).

I guess we have to make a decision if we want to join their alliance. If we do join the BONGs, then I think the most probable result is that either we will break our word at a time when it is most convenient for us, or we will lose the game because we will eventually be on the wrong end of a 2 vs. 1. I'm not really too fond of either choice. Besides, I don't really want to be aligned with Babe anyway.

It depends in large part on how long-term they are thinking. I would say no to signing an agreement that lasts until Frouncil is eliminated. I have no problem with long-term peace with GONG. Luxury swapping is fine. If they are giving us 2-3 Middle Age techs, then I am OK with promising our free IA tech but not necessarily the Modern Age one - our alliance may not last that long. Tech shared equally is OK, but I think our research is likely to be much faster in general than either Babe's or GONGs (Babe insists on fighting, GONG is not in Republic and probably has :whipped: unhappiness and significant maintenance costs).

I think we tell them that we have no long-term deals with Frouncil, but we have just arranged the purchase of a tech package from Council. We are not looking for handouts, but we would be happier puchasing techs from GONG instead of fueling the Frouncil's research with more gold if GONG makes us a reasonable offer.

How about this:

GONG,
Thank you for the reply. It all sounds good, but we are trying to be extra careful what entanglements we become involved in. We definitely would not have a problem in a long-term peace with the GONG team, but not indefinitely. Let's say maybe a peace treaty that coincides with this equitable Tech trading deal (to include our Middle Age freebie) for a set amount of turns. We could work with you on this.

We've just completed a Tech deal with Council, but we have no long -term deals with Frouncil. Because of the tension in negotiation with FRouncil, our current peace treaty with Council may be up for re-consideration shortly. That remains to be seen.

So a SABONG deal may look good in a turn or 2. What are your thoughts on this?

Cyc
Saber Ambassador
------------------------
EDIT: Message sent.
Sound good? Or would you like to modify it in any way?

Received:

I really dont know what has been agreed to, the last message in our Saber Diplomacy subforum is a discussion on what contact is worth. I guess you will have to track down JB. His MSN is bloomy@fuse.net.

It is not enough to haggle over. What prices are Council offering techs for so we may Walmart them out of business?

:)

OK, I just read the gmail. We are cemented into our current deal with Council, Engineering and Mono, right? or wrong? What nexxt? Start the bid wars? :)

Just curious but any thought towards forming our own alliance with Gong & Council against the other two. That would leave Free & Babe hanging and allow the new allies to burst ahead in tech. The three of us could then use IA units to eliminate the two tech slackers, setting up a three way tussle for the crown. Just a wild hare loose in my skull, please feel free to reject as you please.

I am not opposed to a three way with these guys. Let's see what happens in the next couple of weeks, before we start negotiations.

OK, I just read the gmail. We are cemented into our current deal with Council, Engineering and Mono, right? or wrong? What nexxt? Start the bid wars? :)

I think we already agreed to Engineering, Theology, and Education from Council, but everything else can come from the lower bidder.

Just curious but any thought towards forming our own alliance with Gong & Council against the other two. That would leave Free & Babe hanging and allow the new allies to burst ahead in tech. The three of us could then use IA units to eliminate the two tech slackers, setting up a three way tussle for the crown. Just a wild hare loose in my skull, please feel free to reject as you please.

We could try, but I really doubt it will be that easy to split Frouncil and BONG.

Just curious but any thought towards forming our own alliance with Gong & Council against the other two. That would leave Free & Babe hanging and allow the new allies to burst ahead in tech. The three of us could then use IA units to eliminate the two tech slackers, setting up a three way tussle for the crown. Just a wild hare loose in my skull, please feel free to reject as you please.

I really liked that idea when I first proposed it about a month ago :p Too bad it probably doesn;t have any chance now than it did then.

I think we already agreed to Engineering, Theology, and Education from Council, but everything else can come from the lower bidder.

The feeling I get from Niklas/jb is that the first two are a done deal, but Education is tentative but held together with hope. I believe Education should be on the auction block. I should have posted this in the bid wars thread...

jb is on GONG. We are getting those techs from the Council.

The latest note from General_W did keep open the possibility that Education would not be tradeable, but they have to let us know this turn whether we will get it from them or not. I would prefer not to back out of buying Education from Council - we don't have a firm contract, but we are pretty close, and I think it shows bad faith to back out now.

Besides, GONG's prices probably won't be that much lower, and we do want Council to do some serious damage to Babe :sniper:.

Understood. The Council should have the save now, so we should expect to get an offer of Education for approx. 435 gold. Let's hope they are listening to the wind and will lower their profit margin.

Am I supposed to give GONG gold for contact with FREE? How much?

Send no gold to GONG. The last gmail I sent them said we expected contact w/Free with ACCEPT button at no charge. Niklas said to ask jb about it and jb said forget about any gold. That should cover both GONG factions (jb and Niklas). Free is free!

Please post any messages you send to our rivals. We like to keep up-date-date without having to hunt through our gmail for it ;). The message Cyc sent to GONG:

I agree. It's not enough to haggle over. jb says forget about the gold. So we'll expect to see contact w/Free for the FROF on luxs in the next save WITH an accept button.

We have a deal set up already w/Council for Engineering and Theology. That may be written in stone, I'll see. After that, the field is open. Education, Invention, Banking, Gunpowder, the works. I'll try to give you lowball prices. I'll be in touch.

Cyc
Saber Ambassador

Of course, we definitely won't get it this turn because the last couple messages were exchanged after GONG had played the save, but hopefully next turn...

Sent just now:
We are about to get the save from The Council and would like to know now what you will be offering Education for. This is very time sensitive. Please repy with a solid answer. Thanks.

Cyc
Saber Ambassador

As I have not received an answer from GONG, I took a step I may regret later, and have just sent this:

Hello again. Although I have not received an answer on either your intent to send contact w/Free for free (actually for the already agreed upon First Right of Refusal), or your ballpark offer for Education. I think my world spins faster than everyone else's (or the other way around).

Still, I'm sending you the Ballpark that the Council will offer. They are saying 33% of monopoly costs. If you're really going to try and imitate Sam Walton, Chamnix is looking for a substantial difference in your offer to compensate for pre-negotiation with The Council. I guess they have the edge right now, and this percentage will probably remain, but that's debatable.
Hope to hear from you real soon,

Cyc
Saber Ambassador
____________________________

Let's se if that get's the Gong to sound....

:lol: Sure, blame me for wanting a discount :lol:

:lol: Sure, blame me for wanting a discount :lol:
Sorry, I would probably just take the low bid. I hope there's no offense taken. It's true and may get us a substantial cut, who knows.

Just call me the teflon Ambasador.... :cool:

No offense taken - I just thought it was funny.

Thinking of the timing - the turn we are about to receive is turn 131. I think we need Education on our turn 133 if we are not going to waste any shields, so the way this game is going that means we probably need an answer no later than around the middle of next week :rolleyes:.

OK. I'm workin' on it. There's been a lot of communication in the last three days, so let's hope it continues. I just saw Niklas online here, but he hasn't answered, so I don't know what's up with that.

It's confusing - the person with the CFC name Niklas is on Council. We get emails from niklas greback who is on GONG, but I don't know what his CFC name is :crazyeye:.

Cyc, just checking in, I like your ambassadorial style :thumbsup: I don't know what we'll end up getting but you're definitely trying. :cool:

Thanks Marsden. I always enjoy reading your posts.

I'm thinking I may have done something wrong, though. Now The Council has held onto the save for 2 days and I haven't heard back from GONG. Just when we were getting down to the nitty-gritty, we hit gridlock. Let's see if it breaks open today.

It's always a lot easier to send a message saying we are interested in selling you techs (which is what they've sent pretty quickly before) than saying we will charge x gold for some specific tech (which is what we're asking them for now). We wouldn't necessarily be that fast with a firm offer either, so we have to be a little patient.

so we have to be a little patient.
:D I realize that, Chamnix.
It's just that it's not like we asked them 2 days ago. This has been going on for weeks. You know that, everyone knows that.

Damn good attempt at trying to pacify me tho, ;) I like that. Keep up the good work...

How about this:

Dear GONG,
It's amazing how time flies by. We must be having fun.

The Saber people would now like to ask of you which Techs you might want to sell to us and for what price? We realize how difficult it can be to send an email back with this type of information, but our gold is burning a hole in our pocket. We'd thought we would once again try to throw some your way.

Techs we are looking at are Feudalism, Banking, and Astronomy. There's even a possibility of us researching a Tech such as Banking and trading that for something else. Have you been contemplating any Tech deals with Saber? We'd love to hear about them.

Sincerely
Cyc
Saber Ambassador

I still think GONG is stringing us along as a nice half of the BABE-GONG alliance. You know, keep us talking, get information and give it right to BABE to help them kill us.

I still think GONG is stringing us along as a nice half of the BABE-GONG alliance. You know, keep us talking, get information and give it right to BABE to help them kill us.
Oh, yer right. I think everyone is stringing us long. Everyone is lying. That's why I prefer the DGs that pit a human team against AI teams. You know the game is going to cheat even before the first turn. You don't have to worry about who is lying more or who you can trust.

But we have to write something. And beating round the bush gets us nothing but a dusty bush.

And I think the only thing the BABEs are going to kill are our galleys.

Email sent.

Received from GONG:

You never answered the question on how much Council was selling their techs to you for. So give us a roundabout figure if you dont mind.

Apparently they didn't read this:

As I have not received an answer from GONG, I took a step I may regret later, and have just sent this:

Hello again. Although I have not received an answer on either your intent to send contact w/Free for free (actually for the already agreed upon First Right of Refusal), or your ballpark offer for Education. I think my world spins faster than everyone else's (or the other way around).

Still, I'm sending you the Ballpark that the Council will offer. They are saying 33% of monopoly costs. If you're really going to try and imitate Sam Walton, Chamnix is looking for a substantial difference in your offer to compensate for pre-negotiation with The Council. I guess they have the edge right now, and this percentage will probably remain, but that's debatable.
Hope to hear from you real soon,

Cyc
Saber Ambassador
____________________________

Let's se if that get's the Gong to sound....

Maybe they wanted the amount in gold, not percentage of monopoly. I didn't know what percentage of monopoly translated to until I asked. Guess I should have just given them the gold amount.

Looks like I was going to edit that first sentance in the email and then changed my mind. Maybe I hought GONG DID have telepathy. :)

I'll write another email.

Just sent now to jb and GONG

I sent this on 9/17. I guess you didn't get it.....

Hello again. Although I have not received an answer on either your intent to send contact w/Free for free (actually for the already agreed upon First Right of Refusal), or your ballpark offer for Education. I think my world spins faster than everyone else's (or the other way around).

Still, I'm sending you the Ballpark that the Council will offer. They are saying 33% of monopoly costs. If you're really going to try and imitate Sam Walton, Chamnix is looking for a substantial difference in your offer to compensate for pre-negotiation with The Council. I guess they have the edge right now, and this percentage will probably remain, but that's debatable.
Hope to hear from you real soon,

Cyc
Saber Ambassador
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Don't spend any time on the first sentence of the email. Looks like I meant to edit it and then forgot to finish.

Cyc
Saber Ambassador

Received :

We are discussing and will let you know as soon as a decision has been reached.

GONG

In our gmail:

So what about 25% of tech costs for Education, Astro, and Gunpowder? As well as Banking from you in exchange for Chemistry and 80 gold (1/3 cost of monopoly)? We are still discussing but there would be no point if such a deal is not workable on your end. If this is workable on your end we will get it finalized on a vote of the team.

Team Gong

Well, let's see... Education we should already have this turn from Council; Gunpowder we can't buy unless we have Feudalism and Invention first. Chemistry is more expensive than Banking, but they want to give us Chemistry and 80 gold for Banking. Other than that, they are right on top of things :rolleyes:.

25% sounds doable, but which techs we buy will need some adjusting. We just need to be careful that BONG and Frouncil don't decide that instead of undercutting each other, they should just make a deal that neither will sell us techs :scared:.

Perhaps we should ask jb if they're willing to trade other techs than these mentioned?

I agree - if they are up through Gunpowder already (very odd that they have Education, but the price wasn't reduced for us :confused:), then I would say we should try to buy Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder, and Astronomy at 25% each. That should be a total of 1350 gold - we can reasonably expect to complete the final purchase on turn 137 if we don't research between now and then. At that point we can begin Banking for real and exchange it for Chemistry (plus or minus some gold).

We might actually reach tech parity with BONG by around the end of the Middle Ages :clap: (although I'm afraid Frouncil might still be ahead of them).

One suggestion for our Chief Ambassador - please try to avoid actually agreeing to a deal with GONG before GONG agrees to it. Use language like it sounds workable or we'll vote on it, etc. I may be paranoid :shifty:, but I'm afraid GONG is going to tell Council that we agreed to buy techs from GONG, then GOuncil will agree that neither should sell us techs, and we get nothing.

Turn 131 - GONG gave us contact with FREE.

Time for the Head Diplomat to work his magic - Let's see if we can get a 3-way auction for our gold

I'd be shocked if Council and FREE would bid against each other - I'm not sure I would even try that.

Has anyone seen Cyc around lately? He hasn't posted anything for 4 days...

We really should keep the momentum going on these talks - GONG sent us contact with FREE which is definitely worth a thank you note. They offered to sell us Education, and we just showed up with it - I think silence from us is going to make them assume the worst.

Also, we should start talking to FREE ASAP. Are there any diplomatic-type people out there?

What about:
Dear Team Gong,

Our diplomats were pleased to see that contact with Team Free arrived last turn. It's always a good thing to have more friends.

We also recently received an offer to buy techs, although we are greatly interested in buying techs from you, that specific offer didn't work out for us. As you will probably see when you'll open the save, we recently acquired Education and to get Gunpowder like you proposed, we'd need to have invention and feudalism. Apart from that, the offer looked interesting. Hopefully we can work out a deal that will work out for both of us.

Our proposal is buying Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy at 25% of the monopoly price. That is a total of 1350 gold. Would that be agreable for you?

We hope to hear from you soon,

Team Saber

Looks good to me - the only thing I would change is this:

Our proposal is buying Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy at 25% of the monopoly price. That is a total of 1350 gold. Would that be agreable for you?

I would add something like:

If you think something like that is workable, then we will vote on it.

I'm just paranoid that GONG is going to show our letter to Council. I think we should keep the option to tell Council that we were never going to accept the offer anyway right up until GONG says the offer is definitely OK from their end.

Looking at it again - I'm also not sure we want to refer to FREE as another friend when talking to GONG.

Draft 2:

What about:
Dear Team Gong,

Our diplomats were pleased to see that contact with Team Free arrived last turn. It's always good to know what the world really looks like.

We also recently received an offer to buy techs, although we are greatly interested in buying techs from you, that specific offer didn't work out for us. As you will probably see when you'll open the save, we recently acquired Education and to get Gunpowder like you proposed, we'd need to have invention and feudalism. Apart from that, the offer looked interesting. Hopefully we can work out a deal that will work out for both of us.

Our proposal is along the lines of buying Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy at 25% of the monopoly price. That is a total of 1350 gold. If that's agreeable for you, then our team can have a vote on it.

We hope to hear from you soon,

Team Saber


I changed line 2 and added the vote on it clause. I also changed the first line of the third paragraph, as it would be silly send a proposal and saying you aren't sure of it yourself yet :confused:

OK by me..

Sent. ..

Their reply:

OK, this woke me up...

Hi guys. We'll certainly reach a deal w/ you for these techs. The 25% of monopoly seems low when the lowest cost for the last to research in a five person game is 55% of monopoly.

Since we've been researching these techs w/ the Babes we've essentially been getting them at 50% monopoly. If Saber was an equal research partner in this you would be paying 33.3% of monopoly as we traded techs about. But I understand that you have options here so lets round down to 33% and split the difference between that and 25% to get to 29% of monopoly. To me, this seems to be a fair offer.

If 25% of monoply is 1350g then 29% is 1566g.

Please put that up for a vote.

BTW, I was glad to see we pass along the FREE contact. I would like to know if your ability to discuss matters directly w/ FREE matters at all. From what I can tell there's little room between Free and Council so negotiating w/ one would be equal to negotiating w/ the other.

That's a little different than what we've got going on w/ the Babes. They're not keen on negotiating w/ anyone and seem hell bent on fomenting war. The only reason they have not turned their guns on us is that we serve the vital role of research partner. And despite taunting Whomp repeatedly over his beloved White Sox he didn't take the bait. ;) I was sort of looking forward to carving up MW's w/ GS's but that will not come to pass now.

My understanding is that The Babes are still pressing the campaign w/ The Council but are paying a heavy price for little return. The fact that the Babes are being tight-lipped about the whole thing makes me wonder how bad things are going.

If The Council does take some losses and loses some of their luster in the eyes of FREE it would be nice to see if we, Saber and Gong, could build up a relationship w/ FREE to try and put a gap in the Council/FREE relationship. That new dynamic would make this game much more interesting. More complicated... but still more interesting.

Sorry for the thesis... I'll stop rambling for the moment.

Regards,

jb, Wayward Gong Ambassador

That's an interesting read.

I have to say I'm not too fond of GONG's negotiating style of proposing a price, then, if we say it sounds OK, raising the price. They are acting as if 25% were our idea, and now they're bargaining, but 25% was their suggestion to begin with when they offered us Education, Gunpowder and Astronomy for 25%.

With respect to jb's assertion that 33.3% is a fair cost (splitting the monopoly price 3 ways), one could argue that any alliances behind the Frouncil Alliance in tech would not have paid monopoly price anyway. The cost of researching a tech that Frouncil already know would be about 75% of monopoly - divide that 3 ways, and what do you get?

Or one could point out that many of GONG's techs cost them exactly 400 shields (=1600 gold) in total, but we don't know how many techs or which techs they got from the Great Library.

I'm also not sure not his 55% number for a tech 4 tribes know. I would get 55% also if I applied the formula I thought was correct, but it doesn't seem to work - before we met FREE, Feudalism cost 600 beakers = 62.5% of monopoly. If a tech known by 3 tribes cost 62.5% of monopoly, that would lead me to believe that a tech known by 4 tribes would cost 50% of monopoly. If we divide the profit to be made by the sale equally between us and GONG, then we would get 25% again. (But I'm not sure of the tech costs - I can check when I see the next save).

Anyway, I would pay 29% if we had to - it's still a lot better than self-research.

Chamnix, Would you post both offers so that we can check them in the same post. (ok, I'm lazy).

I like the idea of Gong dumping Babe and partnering with us. Perhaps we could make a deal to supply them with techs while that take out Babe :evil:

Here they are...

So what about 25% of tech costs for Education, Astro, and Gunpowder? As well as Banking from you in exchange for Chemistry and 80 gold (1/3 cost of monopoly)? We are still discussing but there would be no point if such a deal is not workable on your end. If this is workable on your end we will get it finalized on a vote of the team.

Team Gong

Dear Team Gong,

Our diplomats were pleased to see that contact with Team Free arrived last turn. It's always good to know what the world really looks like.

We also recently received an offer to buy techs, although we are greatly interested in buying techs from you, that specific offer didn't work out for us. As you will probably see when you'll open the save, we recently acquired Education and to get Gunpowder like you proposed, we'd need to have invention and feudalism. Apart from that, the offer looked interesting. Hopefully we can work out a deal that will work out for both of us.

Our proposal is along the lines of buying Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy at 25% of the monopoly price. That is a total of 1350 gold. If that's agreeable for you, then our team can have a vote on it.

We hope to hear from you soon,

Team Saber

OK, this woke me up...

Hi guys. We'll certainly reach a deal w/ you for these techs. The 25% of monopoly seems low when the lowest cost for the last to research in a five person game is 55% of monopoly.

Since we've been researching these techs w/ the Babes we've essentially been getting them at 50% monopoly. If Saber was an equal research partner in this you would be paying 33.3% of monopoly as we traded techs about. But I understand that you have options here so lets round down to 33% and split the difference between that and 25% to get to 29% of monopoly. To me, this seems to be a fair offer.

If 25% of monoply is 1350g then 29% is 1566g.

Please put that up for a vote.

BTW, I was glad to see we pass along the FREE contact. I would like to know if your ability to discuss matters directly w/ FREE matters at all. From what I can tell there's little room between Free and Council so negotiating w/ one would be equal to negotiating w/ the other.

That's a little different than what we've got going on w/ the Babes. They're not keen on negotiating w/ anyone and seem hell bent on fomenting war. The only reason they have not turned their guns on us is that we serve the vital role of research partner. And despite taunting Whomp repeatedly over his beloved White Sox he didn't take the bait. I was sort of looking forward to carving up MW's w/ GS's but that will not come to pass now.

My understanding is that The Babes are still pressing the campaign w/ The Council but are paying a heavy price for little return. The fact that the Babes are being tight-lipped about the whole thing makes me wonder how bad things are going.

If The Council does take some losses and loses some of their luster in the eyes of FREE it would be nice to see if we, Saber and Gong, could build up a relationship w/ FREE to try and put a gap in the Council/FREE relationship. That new dynamic would make this game much more interesting. More complicated... but still more interesting.

Sorry for the thesis... I'll stop rambling for the moment.

Regards,

jb, Wayward Gong Ambassador

Actually, I was hoping to see the Gong vs Council offers to decide who we should do business with. If I remember correctly, we we've made it to education and are about to research banking (+ some gold) and trade it to Council for Astronomy. They weren't sure they'd be able to sell us any of the lower path techs. So now we're talking to Gong about buying our way up the lower path (and maybe trading them banking).

Is that a close to accurate summation?

We never got a real offer from Council, but if anything, it looks like their prices are increasing instead of decreasing:

Joshua says:
What if you were to reserach Banking (1560), and we traded you Astronomy(1680) for it it, and you also pay us 200 gold. I know that doesn't seem like a *great* deal for you - but it does let you more than double your research. And realistically, after these "we're on fire" sales of a few techs, we're probably not going to be able to trade with you anymore.

It's possible we may be able to sell you more techs after Education,
(Feudalism? Invention?) but be forewarned those deals will have to be
approved by FREE and the gold split with them… giving us far less room
to haggle on price.

P.S. Just so you know, we have proposed the "Banking +200 gold for
Astronomy" idea to FREE. Our team seems to be on board for this swap –
provided you'll agree to not trade Astronomy around? If FREE agrees,
we'll let you know, and then it'll be up to you. Would certainly make
for a roaring entrance into the Middle Ages!

We have sent you the 435 gold for Education plus the extra 20 DAB gold. We are now looking forward to our next possible Tech purchases. We were wondering about Feudalism. What price might The Council be putting on this Tech these days?

Cyc,

I'll post this question, and see what The Council thinks.
Thanks,
General_W

The last note was a week ago.

erik zegt:
hey
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
hola
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
working from home today...
erik zegt:
who am I talking to again? (I know it's someone from the MTDG)
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
Let me get this right... Saber, correct?
erik zegt:
yep
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
jb, Gong
erik zegt:
okay
erik zegt:
we recently received your thesis
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
where are you located? US, UK, other?
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
haha
erik zegt:
the Netherlands (Dutch means from the Netherlans )
jb1964 zegt:
OK... never been there...
jb1964 zegt:
My brother-in-law is from Denmark... I hope to get there sometime
erik zegt:
ah well, I've never been in the US either
jb1964 zegt:
I have not checked... has Saber responded?
erik zegt:
not yet
erik zegt:
(I'm reading the thread now)
erik zegt:
I don't believe your math has got us totally convinced just yet
erik zegt:
you said that splitting the monopoly cost 3 ways results in 33% each, but (according to the formulas), the cost for any of us to research a tech already known by Free-Council is 75%, and splitting that price three ways results in 25%

chatted a bit with JB, but he seems to be offline now

erik zegt:
hey
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
hola
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
working from home today...
erik zegt:
who am I talking to again? (I know it's someone from the MTDG)
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
Let me get this right... Saber, correct?
erik zegt:
yep
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
jb, Gong
erik zegt:
okay
erik zegt:
we recently received your thesis
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
where are you located? US, UK, other?
Cubs Magic Number 4 zegt:
haha
erik zegt:
the Netherlands (Dutch means from the Netherlans )
jb1964 zegt:
OK... never been there...
jb1964 zegt:
My brother-in-law is from Denmark... I hope to get there sometime
erik zegt:
ah well, I've never been in the US either
jb1964 zegt:
I have not checked... has Saber responded?
erik zegt:
not yet
erik zegt:
(I'm reading the thread now)
erik zegt:
I don't believe your math has got us totally convinced just yet
erik zegt:
you said that splitting the monopoly cost 3 ways results in 33% each, but (according to the formulas), the cost for any of us to research a tech already known by Free-Council is 75%, and splitting that price three ways results in 25%
jb1964 zegt:
was away
jb1964 zegt:
for techs known by them... yes, I'll accept your math
jb1964 zegt:
When we researched the lower tier the techs were only known my Council, we suspect...
jb1964 zegt:
Counci and Free held back on sharing so as to not give us free techs by the Great Lib
jb1964 zegt:
sorry got booted
jb1964 zegt:
OK the diff was between 1350 and 1566.
erik zegt:
yes, that's right
jb1964 zegt:
Without going back and forth to the point of making us nuts...
jb1964 zegt:
The Gong consensus is 1400g. That's 50g over your initial offer and ~160g below the 33% mark
jb1964 zegt:
I've got to get on a conference call for about an hour... will be abck
jb1964 zegt:
back
erik zegt:
so, how many percent is that?
jb1964 zegt:
if 1350 is 25%
jb1964 zegt:
then 1400 is 25.9%
erik zegt:
correct
erik zegt:
I think we can agree to that, I'll post it in our team forums for confirmation
erik zegt:
so that's 1400 gold for gunpowder, invention, feudalism, astronomy?
jb1964 zegt:
per yor email... "Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder and Astronomy"
jb1964 zegt:
As long as your monopoly cost of 5400 is correct
erik zegt:
okay, just checking if we're still talking about the same thing
jb1964 zegt:
i did not check it
erik zegt:
I believe it is correct
erik zegt:
(but I have to admit, I didn't check it personnally either)
erik zegt:
so you'll send us feudalism and astronomy (do you have it already?) as soon as possible (next turn?), then invention, and then gunpowder, how should we arrange the gold payments?
jb1964 zegt:
we don't have astro yet
jb1964 zegt:
5400 is correct
jb1964 zegt:
1400 is then the agreed upon number
jb1964 zegt:
and thatis for the techs mentioned
jb1964 zegt:
we'll send feud next turn... if we get astro prior we'll send that as well
jb1964 zegt:
currently only one of the Council/Free group has Astro...
jb1964 zegt:
We think it's FREE as Council has been running the lower teir techs
erik zegt:
(lunch)
erik zegt:
okay, and we should send the gold for each tech the turn you send the tech?
erik zegt:
I just got word from our bean counters, we'll be able to pay the entire sum of 1400 gold over the next 6 turns
erik zegt:
What about a price/tech of:
Feudalism - 250
Invention - 340
Gunpowder - 375
Astronomy - 435
So we'll send you the first 250 gold for feudalism next turn, then 340 gold for Invention 1 turn later, 375 for Gunpowder 2 turns after that, and 435 gold for Astronomy 2 turns after that (if you have the tech by then of course)
erik zegt:
does that sound about right?
erik zegt:
(still there?)

Het volgende bericht kan niet worden bezorgd aan alle geadresseerden:
(still there?)

erik zegt:
are you back?
jb1964 zegt:
hey, back
erik zegt:
okay, did you get the last few messages I sent?
jb1964 zegt:
yes, that seems like a resonable transaction... if anything changes, like the availability of the tech I will let you know
erik zegt:
okay
erik zegt:
anything else we need to discuss?
jb1964 zegt:
nope, I posted the payment schedule so KillerCane will send techs on schedule
erik zegt:
okay, great, Chamnix should be sending our payments in time too
jb1964 zegt:
good, anytime you want to ping me about the game feel free...
erik zegt:
sure

25,9 % seems pretty decent to me

:agree:. Great job, dutchfire :thumbsup:!!

When will we have 1400 gold?

Also, I think the way to handle this is to let them give us astronomy and feudalism on the first turn, invention on the second and gunpowder on the third right? And we should give them a part of the 1400 gold lump sum every time.

Rounding a bit, the price by tech should be:

Feudalism - 250
Invention - 340
Gunpowder - 375
Astronomy - 435

We had 359 gold last turn and should be increasing at about 175 gpt. We won't have enough for both Astronomy and Feudalism just yet, and it will take us about 6 turns to come up with 1400. As of last turn, I don't think GONG had Astronomy yet anyway, but whatever you can work out will be fine - just let me know how much gold to send.

I thought we we're going to trade Banking for Astronomy. Buying it is better (unless we break a deal). I agree that buying a tech every 3 turns is a lot better than researching them at least 4 turns. Is that light at the end of the tunnel us actually researching a monopoly tech?

I updated it again (and jb seems to be gone again)

@denyd: The Council "If FREE agrees, we'll let you know, and then it'll be up to you."

I haven't heard a thing since, so I figure it's a no go.

I thought we we're going to trade Banking for Astronomy. Buying it is better (unless we break a deal). I agree that buying a tech every 3 turns is a lot better than researching them at least 4 turns. Is that light at the end of the tunnel us actually researching a monopoly tech?

Dutchfire's right - we sorta kinda have an offer from Council (pending FREE's approval) that if we give them 200 gold and give Banking to both FREE and the Council (worth 1560 beakers to each of them), then they will give us Astronomy as long as we promise not to trade it to anyone else.

Or we can buy Astronomy from GONG for 435 gold with no restrictions.

We never agreed to the deal with Council so no deal would be broken.

I thought we we're going to trade Banking for Astronomy. Buying it is better (unless we break a deal). I agree that buying a tech every 3 turns is a lot better than researching them at least 4 turns. Is that light at the end of the tunnel us actually researching a monopoly tech?

I didn't know that was finalized? We might be able to get out of it if this is better, which it sounds to be.

I mean, not to break a closed deal, but if it isn't closed it could "break down in negotiations" right?

It was definitely never agreed to - we never even said it was interesting to us. In my chat with GW, all I said was "I'll ask my team", and I don't think SABER ever mentioned it again.

final update in post #136

What kind of reaction do you think we'll get from our new GONG friends when Babe tells them we have landed on Babe's island :satan:?

Received :

Hello Team Saber,

As things progress in this game I suspect that Gong and our nutty research partners are going to be paid visits by Frouncil and it would be nice to not have to be looking over our shoulder at Saber. Therefore I would like to offer up an open-ended invitation to discuss a peace agreement between Saber and Gong.

Additionally, since we have a mutual interest in keeping our research partner (The Babes) unmolested I would also like you to consider signing up for a spot of non-aggression w/ our rabid partners. I know they're not the most savory group of gals but we're stuck with 'em. They're still trying to chew on Council, inhibiting the broader plans of Free/Council, and we would like them to keep it up for as long as they can hold out because it certainly takes the focus off the rest of us.

I would like to go for long term peace to help to form, bit-by-bit, the block of three that the Babes have resisted. Hwoever, if you have a different idea I would be glad to hear it.

Certainly we must have peace during our tech sales so I'm looking to structure something that will keep that kind of cooperation fueled.

Regards,

jb of the Gongers

PS: It seems Council tried a similar block of their shores as Saber did but sadly thought a worker was good enough to repulse a landing. That doesn't work so well. Other than that we've got very few details out of the Babes. I'm still afraid that once they stall out or get tired they'll actually abandon their lands. All the more reason to keep things on good terms between us, Sabong!

PS: It seems Council tried a similar block of their shores as Saber did but sadly thought a worker was good enough to repulse a landing. That doesn't work so well. Other than that we've got very few details out of the Babes. I'm still afraid that once they stall out or get tired they'll actually abandon their lands. All the more reason to keep things on good terms between us, Sabong!

Ouch!

Having a non-aggression pact with both sides of the conflict would be... interesting.

GONG can't know about our Button Pusher yet - only Babe will be able to see him. I don't know how GONG will react to him.

I don't see any problem with a long-term peace deal with GONG. I do see a problem with a long-term peace deal with Babe - even if we don't actually want to attack the Bangles, I think we want the threat of attack to be there so Babe has to worry about it.

We can't even offer to stay out of Babe's territory because they could build culture there. The best we can do as far as Babe is concerned is promise to stay out of where their borders are on turn 133, or promise not to move directly next to a city of theirs, but even those we would want to be relatively short-term promises.

GONG probably won't be happy with us if we don't promise peace with Babe. I think we should stall - tell GONG we'd be happy to discuss peace with Babe if they contact us. Hopefully, Babe will just refuse to talk to us, and then it is their fault.

Even if they will talk to us, we will not move Button Pusher "until the peace talks are concluded." If the peace talks actually make progress, then maybe we can sabotage the talks by demanding Babe make a public apology for attempting to attack us earlier before we sign anything. They will never go for it, so we won't get a peace deal with Babe, which I think is exactly what we want.

I'd say hold back on our potential sabotages for now to try to make the lack of a peace deal Babe's fault if possible. For now, I would just tell GONG that we are interested in a peace deal with GONG, and we are interested in discussing peace with Babe, and Babe should contact us directly if they want to talk.

Received message entitled "Sent you Feud, thanks for the cash.... If this was ebay I would give you positive remarks... :p"

Hey guys,

I played my first turnset ever last evening.

It was late, I was watching the baseball playoffs and Monday night football as well with a beer in front of me so who knows what actually happened.

Anyway, I find the diplomacy screen a little messed up but I'm pretty sure I took the cash and I'm fairly certain I sent Feud.

Please let me know if everything arrived in good shape.

Regards,

jb, ambassador and very part time turn-player

I guess we'll see if we get it.

I think if anyone talks to GONG and mentions our interest in peace with both GONG and Babe, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to volunteer the information that we landed a unit on one of Babe's islands. And of course we will move him if Babe really wants peace with us, but we have to hear it from them :satan:.

Wow! What a turn of events. I am really glad things are moving forward.

dutchfire, Chamnix, and everyone really, great job. This is what we were looking for back before I was called away to the badlands, where I was unable to get internet. Well, I got it once, but only had time to read. I'm pretty much caught up now, and I can't tell you how pleased I am. Sorry for the unannounced absence. It just happened. I'm not saying I'm back, but I will be around more frequently.

This is great. You've pulled it off. In my opinion, it looks like we might be Tech leaders in the future, plus have a 3-way, maybe a 3-way + 1. Things are looking up.

This in from GONG entitled Hey guys... again, thanks for the cash and Feud is on its way to you... One other urgent topic... :

Hey gang,

I understand that you've put a warrior in the Babe's territory. Please don't start a war w/ them at this point or force them to divert resources. We like them as our tech partner and we're happy to work w/ you as a buyer of cheap techs. The techs you've purchased are not complete, I think Astro's missing... Sticking your finger in the Babe's collective eye (a lone warrior?) is just going to muck things up.

BWT, are you mulling over our peace proposal or are you not interested? Please let us know your thoughts.

Thanks,

jb

I think we say we are interested in a peace deal (we moved our warrior there before we got GONG's last message about peace). We can work on peace with GONG now, and if Babe is serious about dealing with us, then they can contact us. (BTW, our warrior is not in Babe's territory :p)

I don't think we are actually interested in peace with Babe, but we don't want to tell GONG that.

Are we willing to admit to Gong that we're just messing with Babe as a bit of :nya: :nya: after they parked an invasion fleet off our coast?

As of now, we're just visiting and not even in their lands. If we were within their borders, they'd have a legitimate gripe. As for the peace proposal, we'd be happy to discuss it with Babe, but they seem to have lost our number. For appropriate compensation, we'd be happy to remove our tourist from neutral territory.

I'm not sure we are just messing with Babe - I could definitely see using that warrior to reserve a place to land real troops :shifty:.

Regardless, I agree with your second paragraph, but I'd be careful not to emphasize "for appropriate compensation". I would say something more along the lines of "unit locations and movements can be part of the peace agreement" so it doesn't sound like we are going to extort them.

Of course, if it comes to it, then we will definitely extort them, but I think we want to look like we are genuinely interested in peace first.

EDIT - one other thing to mention about why we won't move our warrior without a peace deal if it is an issue to GONG. Babe's letter to Council as Babe withdrew from Council's land mass (bold added):

OK, I guess we will go over to SABER again. You are no fun to play
beach games with. Your manners vs. visitors have a lot to ask for.
Either you don't allow us into your resorts or you burn them down. I
would not recommend you to try to develop a tourist industry.

How can we be expected to believe they want peace with us?

Dear jb, dear Gongers,

Everyone on team Saber acknowledges that peace is the best way to live. Our team will do everything it can to keep relations with other teams peaceful if it's possible. At the time we sent the warrior over (before your message about peace), it seemed like the best thing to do. It is just a peaceful explorer outside of Babe territory, whose main job was to see how things were going on Babe island. As you'll understand, we were still afraid of a Babe invasion, as their dealings with us had been all but peaceful.

We'd be very interested in long term peace with team Babe, and unit locations and movements can definitely be a part of that. So if Babe is serious about peace, let them contact us.

Yours,
Team Saber

As with the Council message, feel free to edit/send this

Sent .

Quick response from the GONGers:

Team Saber,

Thanks for the thoughtful note.

I don't really mind if you torment the crap out of the Babes w/ your warrior as they have certainly earned a fair amount of grief, especially from Team Saber. And in hindsight, I think your warrior-explorer is a good idea. I'm glad you're open to peace.. even w/ our crazed pals in purple.

Anyway, I would like to propose we start out w/ 20 turns of peace between Saber and Gong while we explore a long term agreement that can be more comprehensive.

I know that the Babes would appreciate a similar short term agreement w/ Saber but are probably not going to be interested in tying their hands for the long term. I would advise that you decide on a minimum number of peaceful turns you would like with them and then hold to that number. In this I think you hold the upper hand. The Babes are prone to distraction and I would rather they focus on harassing The Council and researching techs w/o the chance to once again look lustily upon Saber's shores. But I will leave that to them to manage.

If I have not already congratulated you upon your blockade of the Babes I would like to do so now. Plain and simple, it was a smart move. For whatever reason the Babes signed us up as neutral, and not having any other contacts we were a bit over a barrel, so they could go marauding. Obviously The Council is a target of opportunity but I'm glad it turned out this way.

Gmail is the best way to communicate w/ me. I no longer have access to Civ Forums at work so PM's are not picked up until late in the evening.

Regards,

jb

I don't have any objection to 20 turns of peace with GONG - I can't imagine that we would want to attack them within the next 20 turns.

As for Babe, as dutchfire already said: "So if Babe is serious about peace, let them contact us." Until Babe at least acknowledges our existence, we can't even begin talking about peace with them.

Whoa, that was quick!

I don't even think we *can* attack Gong within 20 turns, so a short term peace is certainly okay.

edit: Whoever talks to them, be sure to mention the whole "peace also means not landing units on eachothers territory etc." to avoid Babe-Council like affairs.

If anyone talks to GONG, I'd like to ask them why they haven't traded Education to Babe. The only reason I can think of is that they are planning what Council suggested - GONG eventually giving the Great Library to Babe.

I don't expect them to admit that, but I am curious what reason they will give.

Received from GONG:

Hi Saber,

I just took a look at the save this morning and the diplo screen shows that I'm trying to send you two instances of Feud. Since this is my first shot at turn player and the diplo screen sucks I'm just dropping a note to make sure that you got Feud and the 250g in there isn't what you send last time.

Please advise.

Thanks,

jb

To save time, I just replied:

Hi jb,

We did not get Feudalism (and you did not get our 250 gold yet). I think you hit "send" last time instead of "accept". We have already accepted, so if you accept now, then the trade should go through. I'm not sure what cause it to show Feudalism twice, but I have seen that before, and it shouldn't create a problem.

Chamnix

The only reason I can think of is that they are planning what Council suggested - GONG eventually giving the Great Library to Babe.

I know I've been gone a while, but I've been doing a lot of back reading. I can't find where The Council suggested that GONG would eventually give the GL to Babe. Can you fill me in?

It was first brought up by General_W in a chat with dutchfire here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5716893&postcount=174). The relevant part said:

Josh zegt:
we also have a concern that I'd be interested to hear Chamnix's take on... the idea that GONG could trade the city with the Great Library to BABE after it's been rendered obsolete by Education. If BABE helf off on getting education for long enough, they could potentially get a lot more free techs that way.

Chamnix is aan het gesprek toegevoegd.

Koekenbakken 1/12 zegt:
"we also have a concern that I'd be interested to hear Chamnix's take on... the idea that GONG could trade the city with the Great Library to BABE after it's been rendered obsolete by Education. If BABE helf off on getting education for long enough, they could potentially get a lot more free techs that w" by the General
Koekenbakken 1/12 zegt:
would that be possible?
Chamnix zegt:
yeah, should be possible
Josh zegt:
Hey there! long time no see
Chamnix zegt:
hi there
Chamnix zegt:
I didn't even know I was part of this convo until I just got back to my desk a minute ago
Koekenbakken 1/12 zegt:
you weren't until a minute ago
Chamnix zegt:
did I miss anything good?
Josh zegt:
of course. Everything Dutchfire and I talk about is of ground shaking importance.
Chamnix zegt:
lol - do you publish cliff notes?
Josh zegt:
if the price is right
Koekenbakken 1/12 zegt:
I'm going to post the missing part of the chat in the forums now (if CFC allows it)
Josh says:
I wonder if the admins would consider that kind of a great libray swap an exploit? It'd be an amazingly powerful move.
Koekenbakken 1/12 says:
chatlog's up
Chamnix says:
What did we decide in the rules on city trading?
Koekenbakken 1/12 says:
I'll have a look
Koekenbakken 1/12 says:
"2.5 - City Trading and Misleading Naming
Teams are not permitted to trade cities with the intent of teleporting units. Teams cannot name or rename cities or units with the names of technologies, resources, maps, units, or gold, nor can they rename units to pass them off as another unit type to confuse the other teams. If in doubt, teams should contact the administrators about their proposed name.
"
Josh says:
hmmm. no teleporting units... nothing about wonders.
Josh says:
naturally. it's a wild idea.
Koekenbakken 1/12 says:
we could ask the admins
Josh says:
yeah - when I get a chance, I'll maybe put togeather a letter. there's quite a bit of time before this is possible anyway
Chamnix says:
I don't see any reason they wouldn't be allowed to do it.
Josh says:
yeah. that's kind of what I'm afraid of
Chamnix says:
I'm at a loss for ideas on how to stop it


A page later, General_W said this:

Josh zegt:
(ok, and we may have the beginnings of an idea to deal with the Great Library elevator threat... but that's a topic for after the invasion has been dealt with)

As far as I remember, it hasn't been brought up again since then.

GONG accepted our 340 gold but neglected to put Invention on the table :rolleyes:. If a Foreign-type person could inform them that the 340 gold is not a gift but a payment for Invention, I'd appreciate it.

Wot?!! I am no foreigner, mind you. Boot I wheel send a note off to da Gongers....

Turn 136 - We have received Invention from GONG. This turn we are sending them 375 gold which is intended to purchase Gunpowder.

Hi guys,
I'm back.
And I missed 2 turns :rolleyes:

If anybody talks to GONG, please ask what their estimated time of completion of Astronomy is. We only want to know because we'd like to send boats around the world exploring (not because we are going to attack Babe or anything :mischief:).

No need to ask... received from GONG:

Hi,

Just to let you know whe are prepared to sell you Astro in turn 141 for the agreed 435 gold:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
erik says:
I just got word from our bean counters, we'll be able to pay the entire sum of 1400 gold over the next 6 turns
erik says:
What about a price/tech of:
Feudalism - 250
Invention - 340
Gunpowder - 375
Astronomy - 435
So we'll send you the first 250 gold for feudalism next turn, then 340 gold for Invention 1 turn later, 375 for Gunpowder 2 turns after that, and 435 gold for Astronomy 2 turns after that (if you have the tech by then of course)
erik says:
[ ZoneAlarm Security alert: Session not encrypted because evldrunen@msn.com is not protected by IM Security ]
erik says:
does that
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, are you guys interested in purchasing Chemistry?

I was just about to ask jb.

Well, that's good news.

erik zegt:
hi
erik zegt:
how are you doing?
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
still there?
erik zegt:
yes, I am
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
I guess I should fill the Gong guys in what's become of me
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
I have not been on the Civ Forum for weeks, probably more than a month....
erik zegt:
well, you've probably missed 2 or 3 turns then
erik zegt:
could you ask your team how astronomy is coming along?
erik zegt:
never mind, I just saw an incoming e-mail from your team
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
For a while there I was the diplomat and turn player... it was too much for me to deal with and then real life came crashing down
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
I ran into some problems w/ my parents but they're getting resolved
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
It's tough to get old
erik zegt:
I know
jb1964 - The guy from Gong zegt:
OK, I'll try and plug back in and ask the team to forgive the unexcused absense

Yes to all of the above AND Chemistry. :D

Good work.

I agree - Chemistry would be nice to trade for. GONG has (supposedly) been researching Astronomy, so I guess Babe researched Chemistry. I wonder what GONG paid for it? Since Babe doesn't have Education, it can't be an Astronomy for Chemistry deal...

Anyway, we can offer to research Banking, then get Chemistry for Banking once we complete it. Chemistry as a monopoly costs 240 beakers more than Banking, so they may want some gold thrown in. On the other hand, Banking is actually undiscovered still so GONG's real cost of researching Banking themselves right now would be greater than our real cost of researching Chemistry ourselves right now, but that could change if either Frouncil member completes Banking soon.

I think we should try to swing some kind of Banking for Chemistry deal with GONG - hopefully straight up, but I would be willing to give up some gold if necessary.

I noted that last turn someone got Banking...

Therefore, do we still want to put resources towards Banking?

I kind of also like the idea of somehow working Banking for Chemistry. The only problem I see is that I highly doubt they will trade straight up.

It had to have been Council or FREE who picked up Banking - GONG has supposedly been doing Astronomy, and Babe doesn't have Education. Unfortunately, we don't have anything to trade to Frouncil for Banking. We could try to buy it, but based on past negotiations, they will probably only sell if we promise not to trade it to GONG, so then we would be stuck doing Chemistry ourselves (or buying that from someone as well). Since we've already invested some beakers in Banking, I think it is probably better to complete it ourselves and work on trading Banking (plus gold?) for Chemistry.

It's GONG that has it, correct? Chemistry leads to Newton's, which strikes me as something they would want going for 100k.

Banking doesn't help them other than adding chances for more gpt.

I think we will end up trading Banking + 100-200 gold for Chemistry.

Chemistry is known by 3 of our rivals - I think GONG may be the one that doesn't have it, but they can get it from Babe - in any case, GONG is the one that asked if we were interested in trading for Chemistry

In any case, we want Chemistry, but we should push hard for a straight up trade. Personally, despite beaker costs or whatever, I like Banking better.

I think we should send a note ASAP at least to express some interest in a Banking for Chemistry deal. They are supposed to complete Astronomy this turn, and we don't want them to start Banking next, or we will lose the trade opportunity.

Draft 1:

Dear Gongers,
Our citizens are looking forward to Astronomy, finally they'll be able to explore the wide world without risking their lives. We've offered the gold already, so if you offer Astronomy next turn and accept, we'll be ready to sail.

On another note, you mentioned that you have Chemistry. Would you be willing to trade it for Banking?

Yours,
Team Saber

Looks good to me...

'We'll be ready to sail'

This sounds strangely threatening, anyone else read it this way?

Well, dutchfire did just talk about exploring the world (not attacking or anything like that). I didn't read it as threatening, but if you did, then maybe it should be changed.

True, however it is hard to anticipate how it will sound to them.

How about 'We've offered the gold already, so if you offer Astronomy next turn and accept, our good people will be able to carry out their dreams.'

That follows up on 'Our citizens are looking forward to Astronomy, finally they'll be able to explore the wide world without risking their lives.'

Plus no one will think of 'dreams' as 'attacking'. :lol:

edited and sent

Good work, people.

Received via gmail:

Dear Sabers,

When opening the save there will be two diplomacy boxes, the 1st with our acceptance of the payment from our part (pls accept), the 2nd with Astronomy (already accepted).

As for the swap of Chemistry for Banking our team is still considering the option.

Best Regards,
Gong

I suppose they didn't really have a choice regarding the 2 diplo boxes. When they opened the save, the first thing they saw was our offering 435 gold, but they didn't have Astronomy yet. They accepted our offer, then the science advisor told them they completed Astronomy, and they could send it to us with accept.

Nonetheless, I don't think we should accept sending them the 435 gold before we see the Astronomy box just in case :twitch:. We can still send them the gold with accept, so they will receive it the same time either way. The only downside I can think of to doing it that way is that they will know we didn't completely trust them, but oh well.

While the lack of a bothered explanation on their part is disconcerting, we really shouldn't compromise our relations. Should they blame us for being careful? Hmm...

We *really* want Astronomy here, if we are to launch our invasion on time. We could always tell the world of their treachery if they robbed us, but that would not get us Astronomy still.

We don't want to compromise our relations unnecessarily, but in about 5-6 turns, GONG is certainly going to be mad at us anyway ;).

:blush: Right.

Would opening the save, declining the gold trade, and then checking if there's a tech trade, and then reopening the save be illegal? I think it shouldn't,but it might be worth asking.

I opened the save and declined to give 435 gold to GONG - it turns out they did not send us Astronomy.

I will send 435 gold to them again (without accept) and see what happens. Our attack will delayed until at least 1 turn after we planned.

That hurts. I'll try to contact JB soon.

I don't necessarily think GONG was trying to screw us. I'm not that experienced with PBEM diplo - it's possible that you cannot send 2 different trades, and their attempt to send Astronomy was just ignored by the game. It's also possible that they legimately forgot. It just doesn't seem likely that a team would blow their rep like that for an attempt to steal 435 gold, especially since they didn't even get the gold. If they refuse to trade Astronomy, then they blow their rep with us for no gain at all.

I guess we'll just have to see what jb says.

I don't necessarily think GONG was trying to screw us. I'm not that experienced with PBEM diplo - it's possible that you cannot send 2 different trades, and their attempt to send Astronomy was just ignored by the game. It's also possible that they legimately forgot. It just doesn't seem likely that a team would blow their rep like that for an attempt to steal 435 gold, especially since they didn't even get the gold. If they refuse to trade Astronomy, then they blow their rep with us for no gain at all.

I guess we'll just have to see what jb says.

Remember how many times they tried to sell/give us contact with FREE? Here take, now pay for it, you don't already have it? They probably forgot.

If it happens again, just mail their ambassadors head back to them with a note pinned to it. A gentle reminder.

I don't see the potential gain for them either. But seriously, how hard is it to 'forget'? :rolleyes:

Turn 143 - no Astronomy from GONG...

Maybe they were stringing us along, and know we want to attack BABE???

Turn 144 - we got Astronomy! Full speed ahead!

EDIT - and Banking is due in 1. We need an answer ASAP on Banking for Chemistry type deal. If GONG won't do it, then we should try to buy it from Frouncil. We will have no required techs to research next turn unless we know what the Chemistry situation is.

Turn 144 - we got Astronomy! Full speed ahead!

EDIT - and Banking is due in 1. We need an answer ASAP on Banking for Chemistry type deal. If GONG won't do it, then we should try to buy it from Frouncil. We will have no required techs to research next turn unless we know what the Chemistry situation is.

So they're just completely incompetent morons, not lying cheats? :crazyeye:

I think they are both :). I think they would have screwed us if we sent them the gold with accept, and they probably were considering not giving Astronomy at all, but they finally realized they wouldn't gain anything. I think they made it clear how far we could trust them :backstab:.

Even though it has only been a couple turns, it has been almost 2 weeks since we offered Banking for Chemistry. I don't think it would be too pushy to send a reminder to ask where they stood on that. I don't know if we want to tell them why we need an answer soon, but ideally we would like one before our next turn (whenever that will be).

It looks like jb has been MIA for a while, so we will probably just have to send them mail instead of chatting until they provide another contact.

Even though it has only been a couple turns, it has been almost 2 weeks since we offered Banking for Chemistry. I don't think it would be too pushy to send a reminder to ask where they stood on that. I don't know if we want to tell them why we need an answer soon, but ideally we would like one before our next turn (whenever that will be).

It looks like jb has been MIA for a while, so we will probably just have to send them mail instead of chatting until they provide another contact.

I don't think it is necessary to tell them why, but I would not be against it if it was needed to make the trade.

draft1:
Dear Team Gong,

We haven't been in contact much lately. It seems your ambassador jb has vanished. Still, we're glad that the astronomy trade worked out okay. Diplomacy in PBEMs is complicated.

We contacted you some time ago about trading Banking for Chemistry, we haven't had word about that so far. Are you interested in that deal?

Hoping to hear from you soon,

dutchfire
Team Saber

Looks good to me.

Sent it

How long will we give GONG to reply before we look elsewhere? I think we still prefer to trade for or buy Chemistry, but we can't wait forever. On the other hand, it would be kind of awkward to ask Frouncil their price, but then have GONG get back to us with a good deal (which we accept) before Frouncil replies.

I'm not sure what the best approach is - anyone have any ideas?

Ask a half-question. Suggest to Frouncil that such a trade might be in our interest, and try to hint that we would like a quote on it. If we don't go up and ask "Hey, we want to trade Banking for Chemistry, what do you want for it?", it will be easier to back off.

On the other hand, since we can research Chemistry in 4, what's the rush to buy it?

If we get it from Frouncil, it will most likely be a straight purchase, since I think at least one of them has Banking.

We can research Chemistry in 4, but it will cost us somewhere around 1000 beakers, and we will not make up much ground on the tech leaders if we spend 4 turns on it. If we can buy it for say 500 gold and get it in 1-2 turns from now, I think we are much better off.

Would it be so bad to say to Frouncil "How much for Chemistry?" If they get back later or whatever by the time we have it, we can just say, Oh nevermind, it was too much or got a better deal or blah blah.

It's not as if they don't know the tech tree, Chemistry is what we need next, there isn't any other way about it.

Or am I just too rude for diplomacy.

There's definitely something to be said for the direct approach, and deal with whatever fallout there may be if we have to. Since another day has gone by with absolutely nothing from GONG, I'm starting to favor talking to Frouncil - my main fear is that I don't want Frouncil and BONG to realize we are swapping back and forth and taking the lower seller and collude to fix prices on us, but we can't wait on GONG forever. We have to keep advancing in tech.

I certainly see what your saying, but wouldn't they have to be stupid not to know were shopping around for the best tech prices? It's not like there are minor tribes or others than the 5 of us teams. And Babe really doesn't count, and we don't trade with ourselves, so it's just the two of them, Gong and Frouncil. If they both don't sell they can't take away our ability to research. I just don't think that would be revealing anything. However, it might be pointing out something with a neon sign that they didn't realise on their own, so I do see what you are saying, as I said. But then I said they'd have to be stupid not to see that, so... I'm not cut out for diplomacy, am I.

Maybe we could encourage Babe to attack Free! I'd buy that for a dollar!

However, it might be pointing out something with a neon sign that they didn't realise on their own

I think that's what I'm trying to say. In the beginning, we were buying techs exclusively from Council, so Frouncil had no reason to cooperate with GONG. When we switched to GONG, it was at a time when Council was overcharging us, so Council understood that we did what we had to do.

Right now, GONG thinks we are their partner, so they wouldn't consider colluding with Frouncil to cut us off - that would just cost GONG our money/techs.

I think it is good for whoever we are trading with to feel like we prefer trading with them, and as long as their prices are reasonable, then we won't change partners. If we jump back and forth too many times, then we lose that, and I think we could get in trouble.

It is unfortunate because I think we would be better off trading with GONG so we could catch up together instead of giving money to the tech leaders. But I still think we have given GONG enough time on this one, especially since I think there is a reasonable chance that they have no interest at all in Banking - they may not care about any MA techs except those on the path to Military Tradition, and they will get the rest using the Great Elevator.

they may not care about any MA techs except those on the path to Military Tradition, and they will get the rest using the Great Elevator.

I think this is really the key, let's not wait any longer. Whatever happens with Frouncil/GONG, it happens.

I think it is good for whoever we are trading with to feel like we prefer trading with them, and as long as their prices are reasonable, then we won't change partners. If we jump back and forth too many times, then we lose that, and I think we could get in trouble.

See, this is the subtlety that I wasn't getting myself. Maybe I belong in the stupid box, as well.

145 is in, and no word yet. I will go with the 1 scientist approach on Chemistry for this turn, but we really need some idea if we are going to get Chemistry from someone else before we receive 146. Fortunately, I can't play this turn tonight anyway - it will be at least 14 hours before I can play, but I guess we should talk to Frouncil ASAP to see if buying Chemistry from them would be possible.

I've been trying to contact jb by MSN for a couple of weeks now, and he hasn't responded yet. Since they haven't responded to our e-mail either, I fear they don't want to trade.

So be it - let's contact Frouncil and see what their price would be.

Stop the presses! Received via gmail:

Dear Team Saber,

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner.

We can send chemistry next turn for banking plus 90 gold if you are still interested.

PrinceMyshkin

As monopolies, Chemistry is 240 beakers more than Banking. Although right now Chemistry as the fifth researcher is cheaper than Banking as the third researcher, I still think the deal is worth taking - I don't really mind giving GONG Banking (since they will probably take the Great Elevator eventually), and there is no way we could get Chemistry from Frouncil for 90 gold.

Trading with GONG also means we could get Chemistry right away (if they "remember" to send it :rolleyes:), and we should agree with GONG on which techs each will research next.

I'd like to go for Metallurgy to allow us to time our Siphai builds better since we'd have control of that research path. They can go for Physics and we could trade again.

Great news! Accept it immediately!

Great news! Accept it immediately!

:agree: :agree:

That is good news, getting closer to our UU.

draft (I know it's short, but it does the job):

Dear PrinceMyshkin, dear Team Gong,

Chemistry for Banking and 90 gold sounds perfect. We will offer our part of the deal as soon as possible.
For the future, it looks like the next techs are Physics and Metallurgy. Would you be interested in splitting these two techs between our civs, and trading so we can both get both techs?

dutchfire
Team Saber

Nothing wrong with being brief... but we might as well also inquire about what's next since they don't get back to us that quickly. Are they researching (or do they already have) Physics or Metallurgy? Will they trade whichever one they are getting for the other?

I know this isn't strickly important, but which costs more? IIRC, physics, but IDURC. :(

Their base cost is the same - either would be 1920 beakers as the first researcher on this map.

I've sent the edited letter, now hope they'll respond this year.

Sorry for the delay, but in checking out our Science slider, we can discover Chemistry in 3-4 turns ourselves at 40-50% research. It may be too late to propose, but perhaps we should wait until we secure Chemistry and then see if we can trade Banking for Physics if they already have it.

If not, this trade is fine and we can put our Universities to work on the next big tech. We have an opportunity to make great strides in research unless we have other plans in place.

I'll catch myself up and see what our main goals are and see where I can contribute.

Long time no see Donovan, welcome back!

The point is that researching it ourselves will cost us way more than 90 gold, and it will cost us research time. That's why we want to trade for it.

Totally understandable. It would be a gamble to see if they had anything for Banking afterwards anyway. I am interested in hastening our reseach (we have built the infra for it), but this is not the thread for it.

Thanks for the quick response!

We will have Physics in 3 turns. I think we ought to tell GONG ASAP that we are researching Physics, and if they are interested in trading for it and/or cooperating on Magnetism/Theory of Gravity then they have to less us know within the next couple turns.

Dear Team Gong,

Regarding tech trading, we are currently researching Physics and expect to finish it in 3 turns. If you are interested in trading for that tech, could you let us know as soon as possible? It would be great if we could trade Metallurgy for Physics for example.

Hoping to hear from you soon,

dutchfire
Team Saber

Note: You have to have Physics to research Magnetism. Is our intent to trade Physics to Gong then go research Metallurgy while Gong researchs Magnetism and then trades it to us. We could then trade Military Tradition for Theory of Gravity and get to the Industrial Age.

Note: You have to have Physics to research Magnetism. Is our intent to trade Physics to Gong then go research Metallurgy while Gong researchs Magnetism and then trades it to us. We could then trade Military Tradition for Theory of Gravity and get to the Industrial Age.

I don't think GONG is reliable enough to just gift them the tech, and hope we get something back. Therefor, I think it's better if they research Metallurgy.

:agree: Let's try to get Metallurgy from GONG, but dutchfire's first draft has a type - it says Magnetism instead of Metallurgy.

I've edited it, shall I send it away?

Sure :thumbsup:.

Done .

Received via gmail:

Dear Team Saber,

I believe we are interested in trading metallurgy for physics, but need to check with the team. We could do this in three turns. I will get back to you in the next two turns.

Regards,
PrinceMyshkin

By then we will have many units on the Bangles Island, but after all, we are doing Babe a favor by giving them extra war happiness...

Well, cool. Good thing we went with Physics. Looks like we might be able to research Magnetism quicker than making a deal for it.

Received via gmail:

Dear Team Saber,

The Gongers are amenable to a metallurgy for physics trade.

PrinceMyshkin

Theory of Gravity for Magnetism next?

Sounds good, I hope not too good to be true.

Sounds like a deal. Then we sacrifice 50 BABES to the RNG for Steam Power?

Never mind, I think we need virgins, and right now the BABES are pretty well ... uh, past that point. :D

Seems like PrinceMyShkin is running GONG as a one-man show. At least it's a reasonable one-man show though.

We have sent GONG Physics so they should provide Metallurgy. Please let them know that we have started Magnetism if they are interested in continuing tech cooperation (or exchanging luxuries).

Regarding tech cooperation - I don't think we want to wait for GONG to do Theory of Gravity for us. It will take us only 8 turns to complete both Magnetism and ToG, and I suspect GONG may have trouble completing even ToG that fast. I guess we could ask them how long it would take if they were going to do it.

I would say we are willing to sell both Magnetism and ToG to GONG at a fair price. If they researched Military Tradition (or if Babe researched it and have given it to GONG), then we might be able to trade Magnetism and ToG for MT and gold (unless we buy ToG from Frouncil).

Dear PrinceMyShkin,

Thank you for moving forward with the Physics/Metallurgy trade. We eagerly await your end of the Tech trade. We have begun researching Magnetism and hope that you will remain interested in continuing tech cooperation and/or a possible luxury trade deal. Perhaps if you are now researching Military Tradition, we might be able to trade Magnetism for it. Would you be interested in something like this?

Team Saber

Rough draft.

We don't have to give away too much in our first offer. Maybe we can get Military Tradition for Magnetism alone - the beaker prices are not very different, and Magnetism has a lot of value on this map.

Edited and sent.

Turn 151 - GONG did not send us Metallurgy for Physics; I'm sending Physics again without accept.

Another note - GONG has iron hooked up now :hmm:.

Do you think we should send them a copy of "How to Conduct Trades in PBEM Games 101"?