Gentlemen

The appointed ambassador to the Mavericks per earlier designation is:


Their capital, likely to be right east is

T41

SPAMALOT, Pop 5 (90 000).
14 % of world population (we got 17,65 %)
1 % of land area (we got 2,69 %)

This suggests they got only one city, but most likely they got out a lot of workers, likely chopping a wonder right now.

Their UB is already into play, Trading Post, giving all their navies an added Navigation 1 bonus of 1 added move.
Berserker, their UU, will come around the time of Civil Service, and these can in tandem with their galleys or caravel land fast on top of us with 3 moves per turn movements.

In order to counter this threat, we need asap metal casting (and iron working for that matter) as well as machinery, which enables us to be safe with swordsmen/axemen/spearmen for the short term, and we need clearly crossbowmen to counter their berserkers.

CDZ is a specialist in naval invasions, and is one of their core talents I have witnessed both in Civ3 and Civ4 demogames.

I think finding CDZland, redefines our need to the lower tech-tree by a huge margin.

A movement three invasion force, granted the border we saw is their capital Spamalot, would reach Continuum in 7 turns, and even faster for the city we were planning at the southern end of the peninsula. I think we should also redirect our city build plans in order to make sure we settle the mainland before we settle whats on our island. Maybe complete the warriors (1 turn) and build 2 more settler turns until sailing is complete, then jump to build the galley, and back to settler to ship them over for scouting and establish better city sites as we get IW (Resonance?), and then go heavy in for settling all we can.

We can see their demographics in 8-9 turns. as we need 29 EP to see their demographics and we got 4 EP per turn by default.

Well, the espionage number goes up if they build up points on us now too. Usually I find it's around 60 or 70 that if both teams are even demographics appear. And if we make contact with others we'll have to see who we put espionage on.

But other, more important stuff - I think it bears repeating, that they can't invade Continuum/the homeland of the Q before Astronomy. No team will be able to any other I'd be pretty confident in saying, because everyone is surrounded by ocean - the only way to do so would be if an enemy city got really close and won ocean tiles through culture. However, I do know they could still be a threat, they will have one of the stronger navies all game, and if they dominate the main continent area militarily that could be just as bad.

Lastly, know there is some duplication here, but I think we should send a short PM, to their turnplayer, with our contact info if nobody has done so yet, and also be ready to work on an official (email through our embassy) message. Also, again, not sure anyone was stepping up to diplomat with CDZ specifically. I can do that, I know others are waiting for certain teams perhaps, and we'll probably meet another team or two in not the longest time so others like Bowsling could be ready for that I guess.

Earthling you should be our diplomat to the vikings. Please send BCLG100 a friendly but succint pm with our team email and asking for theirs. We need to get this going asap.

Yeah, that sounds doable, and I agree it's certainly time we get things going. Again, if this really is Vikings (their city being right there too, not India's) that means it's really seeming to me like some other teams off in the distance, Merlot/Mavericks/whomever are probably already in contact and working together - enough time has passed for anyone to make contact.

Edit: I'll post the intended message here shortly for approval. Are they actually calling themselves "CDZland" in game - like is that what the mouseover on their unit says. Or should we just call them CDZ?

All right, message to BCLG100 of CDZ:


Greetings, people of CDZ. Explorers from our great civilization Quatronia have made contact on this momentous occasion, with the ships under command of captain BCLG100, and it is a time that will be remembered for ages hence. There is much I am sure we would like to talk about. Please feel welcome to reach our embassy at quatronia10@gmail.com and we'd love to hear from your diplomats and their contact information shortly.

Thanks,
Earthling, of the Q

I think they are just CDZ, short for civ duel zone. Omit the land part. And no need to get approval for a quick pm. Just say something like:Greetings Team CDZ, it's good to meet you guys! :) We would love to get a conversation going with you, our team email is {insert email address}. Could you send us yours? Thanks. Earthing, Team Quatronia

I'm sure many other teams have been talking for days now. So getting caught up diplo-wise this weekend is important.

Well, yeah, about the same, I'll send it now then if that's all right. Then we can work on something more substantial through our team email.

Great. Now that we have the initial pm sent we can start crafting our first letter. Here is a sample "first contact" diplo mail from the last MTDG. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7654108&postcount=14)

My take on CDZ is that they are a tight-knit and fun group of mp players. They have their own internal jokes and team culture which seems to be laid back. Some of their running themes seem to be that they are lazy and like to spam. But behind the jokes and camraderie I see a highly skilled no-nonsense team.

I think it would be a mistake to approach these guys with role playing or excessive formality. That would just annoy them. And since they are playing the vikings we don't want to be the team that they decide to drop the hammer on!

Personalities play a bigger role in these games than people like to admit. So even if we turn out to be ideal allies for them on paper, if we rub them the wrong way they will come after us. As I stated elsewhere, these guys will probably be the first team to DoW in the game (they are going to want to use their beserkers before they get obsolete).

What we want to do is position ourselves as:

a.) a team they can get along with
b.) a team they can trust and don't feel threatened by
c.) the team they benefit the most from trade and cooperation wise
d.) a team they would like to take to the later stage of the game with them

I think that all sounds pretty good and I agree. I'm guessing they are going to be a competitive force overall - but even not worrying about a team's level of skill, the Vikings are dangerous in the mid-game. Having them as allies and attacking some third team is about as well as things can play out. I wouldn't mind outsettling them/leaving them behind in economy, except the problem is they would likely turn on us as a war target.

Still, if we make contact with a couple more teams, we'll have to see who our allies could ultimately end up being. There's little chance we come out ahead in the long run being directly antagonistic against them, unless we get the other team on the very next side of the star working against the Vikings, and that would be hard to pull off. Fortunately we should have a bit of economic and cultural lead, such that we can safely settle our side of the Viking continent. If getting on the good side militarily with the Vikings involves splitting that petal 50/50 I think we could live with it.

Unfortunately not heard back from BCLG but I'll check my PMs later today, hopefully he's been back by then too. An email from our team embassy could be a nice start. On top of typical formalities we could probably announce ourselves as the architects of the world's first great wonder and enlightened by Buddhism etc... - the things we would share anyway, and they will also know in-game too.

Good analysis cav. I think it's spot on.

An email from our team embassy could be a nice start. On top of typical formalities we could probably announce ourselves as the architects of the world's first great wonder and enlightened by Buddhism etc... - the things we would share anyway, and they will also know in-game too.
Sounds good to me.

Received this- BCLG said they'd already sent an email message, and then copied via pm. They apparently sent a message to the wrong email account, mentioned again we are using quatronia10@gmail.com

Theirs should be:

team.cdz@gmail.com

They don't have an official diplomat yet, contacting Robi D or BCLG should be fine, but I'd go with their team email next. Guess we can work on an introductory message/response, and perhaps mention Stonehenge at this point for instance if we want to.


Hey,

So not the e-mail in the game tracking thread? I sent this there earlier;

Hello from Team CDZ, very nice to meet you etc!

We don't have an appointed diplomat right now, nor an appointed turnplayer really. However, if you wish to get in contact with us then feel free to use this email or PM Robi d or BCLG100 on cfc. Have you been searching for people for long?

Anyway, pleasure to meet you guys

Best,
BCLG

Best,
BC

Good thing, Earthling, please prepare a mail, present it here, and contact them, and we are game.

Working on a full email soon, I'll edit it into this post by later today if we have approval/any revisions whoever wants can send it from the team email account. If someone else has something ready to go they could put it up to, I'd be happy to sign my name to it representing our general diplomatic embassy anyway.

Ideas - we mention SH and buddhism, briefly but just because they would ask anyway. Might joke about it being funny that the Vikings ended up in the "South" part of the world. They'll know that anyway from what they've seen of the map. I'd go with typical lines about future cooperation, but I don't intend to reveal much, just get another message sent off, should have it written up a little later if you all are waiting on me.

Know it's a double post but a mostly prepared mail. Not trying to reveal too much info, we can cut back if we want. Or say more straightforward, for that matter, like add parenthetical statements saying "We founded Buddhism" or whatever.



Greeings, people of CDZ and the fair city Spamalot. We know our explorers aboard the Rio Grande would love to regale you with tales of their homeland, though they also will be moving on. You perhaps may pay our lands a visit sometime likewise, though it is a bit of a journey. However, our diplomats will forevermore be in contact with your leaders and are eager to begin important business.

It is maybe a coincidence, to have discovered you Vikings on the warm Southern seas of this world but it is better than being far away from us perhaps in the distant north. We now may surely profit from trade and travel between our peoples. We believe we might have espied the borders of your city, Camelot, just south of this current location, but only from such a distance that the land itself couldn't be made out - perhaps better spotted as the culture of your people extends further outward. Our capital's greatest construction so far is already a treasure wonder of the world and like yourselves we look out on a realm across the waves. The Q are a people strong in faith as much as in worldly manners. We would delight in future cooperation as our empires expand and our scientists and merchants seek to make progress.

For now, feel free to contact our embassy anytime, we are sure there is much more to discuss.

Team Quatronia

Earthling, Ambassador

Very good, send it!

My first impressions:

Beautiful prose but i'm worried it is the wrong approach with CDZ. These guys are going to want plain language and a little bit of substance right away.

Southern seas is a potential giveaway, they may still be speculating on the map. I'm fine with clueing them in but we could gain points by offering it to them

Proposed rewrite: Greetings, people of CDZ. We are glad to meet you guys and hope we can get some good relations going that will lead to profitable cooperation and a lasting friendship. :)

You asked about how long we have been searching. The answer is our whole life baby ;)

But seriously, we were wondering the same for you guys. Would you like to exchange when our boats set out turn wise? We think sharing info would be a good way to get the ball going between our two teams. First 3 techs would also be a good info exchange.

A few things we will volunteer in good faith to start off with:

*We centered the map with Stonehenge and can tell you that our workboats are kicking it in the south on the map right now.

*Our starting location is an island with wheat, spices and silver that we can trade to you.

*If you proceed to the south and then west with your boat you will reach our lands. We were wondering where our wb should go to make contact with your borders?

Anways, this should get us started for now. Our take on this game is that alliances are going to be huge. So we are looking for solid friends they we can move forward with.

Feel free to contact our embassy anytime, we are sure there is much more to discuss.

Team Quatronia

Earthling, Ambassador

I would much prefer Earthlings version, I see little need to give away our coordinates now, as they will plan around this. I would not give away the 2nd workboat either. We should signal we can trade them wheat and silver, we leave out spices for now.

By "our workboats" i meant the rio grande and the viking boat. Does it not read that way to a CDZ audience? If anything I think my email makes it sound like we only have one boat out.

And they know our workboat came from the south so its not really giving away our coordinates. What it does do is make it look like we are open and friendly by volunteering info (that they will soon find out anyways).

And at the very least we need to acknowledge their question about how long we have been searching. That is a test from them and ignoring it would give a bad impression.

Didn't send it yet because this is just the type of team input we need, but anyway I guess we could be ready to send soon.

I actually agree that particular question of theirs could be addressed more directly. However, all indications seem to me that they will not have as much map info to offer as we do. I wouldn't tell them how long the workboat has been out exactly nor the location of our capital, as well as the overall "layout" of the map. We could say it's been a long search or that we have yet to meet others yet though - and that's also true.

I know in the future they may want more direct information. How about something like this - but again, I'll go with any message that's generally ok by the team, it doesn't have to be too complicated.


Greeings, people of CDZ and the fair city Spamalot. We know our explorers aboard the Rio Grande would love to regale you with tales of their homeland, though they also will be moving on. You ask how long we have been searching - the answer is our whole lives baby, the sailors have been rather lonely :)

But seriously, we are wondering the same - the world is large and many lands distant yet to be discovered. We have met no other sufficiently civilized peoples besides yourselves, only glimpses of savages or animals. You perhaps may pay our lands a visit sometime likewise, though it is a bit of a journey. However, our diplomats will forevermore be in contact with your leaders and are eager to begin important business.

It is maybe a coincidence, to have discovered you Vikings on the warm Southern seas of this world but it is better than being far away from us perhaps in the distant north. We now may surely profit from trade and travel between our peoples. We believe we might have espied the borders of your city, Spamalot, just south of this current location, but only from such a distance that the land itself couldn't be made out - perhaps better spotted as the culture of your people extends further outward. Our capital's greatest construction so far is already a treasure wonder of the world and like yourselves we look out on a realm across the waves. (Note we have map centering from SH, by the way.)

The Q are a people strong in our spreading Buddhist faith as much as in worldly manners. Our farmers cultivate the finest grains and we have productive mines of the most exquisite argentum, though we are sure you have similar riches as well. (We have wheat, spices to be accessed someday, and silver). We would delight in future cooperation as our empires expand and our scientists and merchants seek to make progress.

Anyway, our diplomats would love to hear what else can get us started for now. Our take on the future is that alliances are going to be huge. So we are looking for steadfast friends that we can move forward with.

For now, feel free to contact our embassy anytime, we are sure there is much more to discuss.

Team Quatronia

Earthling, Ambassador

I agree with cav scout's take on the message-composition. Look at what they sent us:

Hello from Team CDZ, very nice to meet you etc!

We don't have an appointed diplomat right now, nor an appointed turnplayer really. However, if you wish to get in contact with us then feel free to use this email or PM Robi d or BCLG100 on cfc. Have you been searching for people for long?

Anyway, pleasure to meet you guys

Best,
BCLG

"very nice to meet you etc." Nothing else story-wise. They don't want an RPGy interaction that most of the other teams will warrant.

I say we save your version, Earthling, and use it when we meet the next team. CDZ will prefer straight to the point types of communication.

Ok decent compromise, as we are not to give away too much info, and we may like to trade them something.

Well, we could work on a revised, down-to-earth version. The thing is I think cav_scout's message reveals a bit too much info, but a similar style with the info we do want revealed I could do.

Also, that was in a PM from BCLG, they presumably don't have a diplomat with an official message ready either, so I'm not entirely sure what they will be like all game. Nothing new on our gmail account though - again anyone free to check at any time I'd say, at least for me even though I'll be the ambassador here don't have to wait for me if they send a message and I'm not online.

We could certainly shelve that message, though realize much of it will change anyway depending on the team we meet, obviously not talking just about the Vikings. If we meet the third team soon though everything about Buddhism, SH etc... is still relevant.


Edit: unless someone else beats me to it in a xpost, A more-direct message to CDZ:

Greetings, people of CDZ. We are glad to meet you and hope we can get good relations going that will lead to profitable cooperation and a lasting friendship.

You ask how long we have been searching - the answer is our whole lives baby, the sailors have been rather lonely, ;). They'd set out while our capital spent many long years building a grand wonder at home. And for that matter, the ship spent some recent time in a frenzy of excitement and anticipation because the navigators could barely see your borders across the sea, but not enough to make contact. We figure it's the fair city Spamalot just south of where our boats met and about to expand it's culture sometime soon?

But seriously, we think sharing info would be a good way to get the ball going between our two teams. First 3 techs would also be a good info exchange.

A few things we will volunteer in good faith to start off with:

*As you may know, due to Stonehenge centering we can tell you that our workboat and yours are kicking it in the south on the map right now

*We haven't met anyone else, our exploring boat intends to sail onwards and perhaps together we can contact the next civilization on the other side of you.

*Our starting location has spare wheat, spices and silver that we hope to soon trade with you.

Feel free to contact our embassy anytime, we are sure there is much more to discuss.

Team Quatronia

Earthling, Ambassador

I think we do not need to be explicit about our starting position being an island, we should leave that particular info out. We should also state that we see their borders in the south, when we come down to them.

Actually just put that in, to ask them to confirm if it was their borders we just spotted/right around where. I'm pretty sure they will figure everyone started on an island, because it is only fair from the mapmakers/kinda obvious, but sure.

When we have a third/fourth voice supporting this revision of the message it's ready to be sent I think, thanks everyone. CDZ has their team email in the main forum thread/think it was posted here recently too, and we'll send this via quatronia10.

I like your message above in post 22.

Message sent. First substantial contact went off well I'd say, we'll see what CDZ is up to, and they really could be up to anything, from expanding themselves (worries here) to something military, to going for Colossus or some wonder or an even weirder strategy.

Also, are we going to want to sticky embassy threads someday, or do we feel they'll be active enough/kept up with anyway? Another thought is that if Provo doesn't want to constantly update the OP with our "status" on treaties and stuff I or someone else could start off a final/permanent thread about CDZ, though that's a lot of threadmaking.

Looks like we have another good ole team Q 50/50 split! :D We need to get more opinions before we send anything I think. Anyone else care to weigh in? The sooner we decide the better.

Edit: ugh...xpost... actually a "missed a whole page of discussion" kinda xpost :lol: I think the message sent is awesome :)

Sorry, I saw that as me, Regent, and Provo happy on the newest - the one in post 22- message, which dispenses with most "diplomatic roleplaying" and tells them the info we're ok with them knowing. It's quite similar to yours as well for much of it.

Nah its all good, my post #27 was just behind the times... :rolleyes:

One little point though- you said that you thought my draft gave too much away. But the only thing that you cut was the part about how they can find us if they go south (which is the direction they are headed anyways and the direction they know we are coming from).

And my draft didn't mention anything about meeting another team yet. I consider this MUCH more important info than the obvious direction of our capital.

I also didn't mention that we saw their culture. Instead I asked them to guide us to where we can make border contact, which was kind of a test.

Hmm, I must've read it as Provo did too and thought you mentioned we had a second boat. Know right at the end there we cut out the part about ourselves being on an island. The thing is we actually are about to make contact with another team and if anything this version sounds like it's just them.

Though on that matter I would love it if we could encourage them to send their workboat further east/north, rather than our way. We'll have to really see how to ask them if they have another workboat or any tidings from further east/north themselves. Not sure if they have two workboats, one already making contact with other teams, ends up being a good or bad thing (in another 15-20 turns we will probably find the next team after Vikings anyway)

I also prefer cav scout's version and agree with RegentMan's analysis.

When I read earthling's message it really stands out to me that we are not sure if it is their border we see with a really hamfisted attempt to hide the fact we're asking, which rubs me the wrong way.

Even though the overall message is more direct, I feel that cav scout's version is more subtle about confirming if they are next to us. Cav scout's ventures very little information that is of any value about our civ, but it is more clear about its intent and we would be able to figure more about their attitude/temper from the response to it. We'll find out of those borders we see belong to them within a few turns anyway, how they answer the question is far more interesting to me than the answer itself. A more flowery message invites a more cryptic response.

I agree that we shouldn't tell them about our second workboat. Since we built SH they may be inclined to assume that we only have one anyway, which I wouldn't feel any need to correct.

It's obvious that a fair amount of work went into RPing that first message and I agree with regentman that there are definitely some other civs out there who would really appreciate it with just a little tweaking of the details.

Yeah, again, we did go with sending a mostly non-RP message, and really it's no offense, just a different style. Any of the flowery message is shelved/scrapped though we'll see the style of future teams down the line.

If CDZ doesn't want to go with much RP-ish stuff that's really fine - the preference of their whole team/being able to work with them is what matters, and in fact it's never hard just to discuss things in civ-game terms.

Lastly - anyone always feel free to check our team email, though we haven't heard back yet, a day or two is probably to be expected anyway.

Yeah, sorry, I missed some of the posts that were already made when I wrote that so it's mostly to be ignored.

I received a PM from Robi D - basically they just confirmed they received our message. It seems we are happy to communicate through our email "embassies" and I appreciate all your support and input, we'll move forward on diplomacy together as a team.
Greetings Earthing, (no pun intended)

We have received your email and i have posted it for my people to read and discuss. You should get the official reply in the next day or so, we are a pretty efficient mob

I think the team email is the best way to go as anyone can access it but your welcome to PM me here too.

Hope to talk with you further in the near future

Regards
Robi

Also what I responded

The Quatronians are also quite happy with the team email for now. If you have anything important said in a PM I hope you don't mind if I repost it on our forums though.

Thanks for the heads up.

Earthling

Received from CDZ, Robi sent me a kind and short PM too, but they did as they said and got back to us today.

Hello Earthing,

On behalf of the CDZ people I extend to you and the people of Quatronia our warmest greetings. We are greatly encouraged by your warm and open correspondence and wish to return the favour in kind. The information you kindly provided has caused much discussion amongst our people.

We haven’t met anyone else either up to this point so it nice to have met you. You may not know this but lions are terrible conversationalists.

Our boat has some other duties to perform at the present time so it can’t go along for a joint voyage at this time, so we wish your fearless crew a safe onward journey.

Our fine homeland has an abundance of crabs, sugar and gold so it would seem there is great potential for a trade agreement in the future once we can discover and open trading routes between our nations.

I am sure that our nations could learn a great deal from each other and prosper from cooperation into the future as new possibilities and capabilities emerge.

As you say there are many things to discuss but I won’t overload this first letter with to many things. I’m sure your people will need time to talk over all the possibilities just as mine do. But I do hope we can come to some agreements in the near future. Feel free to contact us at any time if there is something that you wish to discuss.

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ


Right, so some thoughts - with recent other happenings, we are certain we've mapped out where the Viking capital is. They say they have crab, sugar, and gold. This would make sense in explaining why some teams appeared to go with fishing and building workboats first, as we saw in Demographics as the start of the game - they might also have a higher GNP than average, for the gold on the ocean tiles and actual gold itself.

Nothing major revealed, and I suspect their workboat heads our way as we can only really expect, it's hardly like there's any other real "duties" the workboat has.

That said, we can certainly keep them in the dark about Mavericks - they could easily expect we don't find anything till the Rio Grande gets further around to the next civ. What I would like to know about CDZ is what they are thinking of teching and building, if we are to be able to hope we get some trade for Alphabet off or something. But that's a given, they'll want to know the same about us.

Probably work on a draft for another response by tomorrow, and we'll need all the time we can get into diplomacy at this point. Meanwhile we'll see what is also going on with the Mavericks.

Edit - for CDZ, I think our priorities are the following, just to consider for the next message.
1. Encourage them not to expand straight towards us; this can be subtle by so long as they don't do that, it helps
2. Keep them in the dark about other diplomacy for a while. Because we honestly do know they and Mavericks on the other side of us can't meet for a while. We'll let them think our other workboat heading further out is the only explorer we have, maybe imply we'd like to work with that third team, depending on our strategy.
3. Just for form, establish further diplomatic conventions. They sent us a message that while humourous (barbarian lions) wasn't entirely matter-of-fact. Do we try being a little more RP-ish for a while? Obviously if our strategy is going to end up more towards the begrudging/hostile side of things than open and honest allies, RP-ish for now could slow things down and keep them from going after us yet.

About your points:

1. Lets not start pissing on trees to mark our territory just yet, all this will do is get us on their death list. There will be a time for that later.

2. Yes keep them in the dark.

3. No more RP. They responded the way they did based on the tone of our note. Stalling with RP means we will loose the friends race with their other neighbor.
------------------------

A few points of my own:

1. I suspect they are telling the truth about meeting us first. This is good, we need to capitalize on the advantage of first contact to get in tight with them.

2. They read our offer to follow our boat to the east as an attempt to keep them away from us and whoever is on the other side of us. Not good. We should reply back with directions to us. We can also say that we will give them a heads up for any interesting discoveries we make on our voyage east (we will define "interesting discoveries" anyways we want of course ;) ).

3. They want to open trade routes and trade resources. Very good. We should tell them we want open borders and to trade crabs/wheat and silver/gold as soon as we can. The need for Writing could be a sedgeway into talking about tech trades.

4. We want to ask them about what kind of tech trades they might want to make. We should volunteer our first 3 techs in good faith (not a huge secret really) and see if they respond in kind.

5. We should offer a NAP.

I was actually going to quote all of your points for in-depth, but since I agree with almost all actually there's no need and it would be confusing, here goes more simply:

For #1, I agree, because it sounds to me like they got their workboat lost/wasted time on that inlet. Still, they could feasibly be contacted by the team on the other side of them sometime. We will know exactly when/how long we have before they reach the Mavericks though.

I certainly could be fine with dispensing with more RP - and that naturally means we can't be obstructionist about things like territory. Rather than roundabout mentioning such things we'd just not mention them at all, not stir the hornet's nest.

As for how to deal with them - well, resource trades (good for us but better for them, remember, from the sound of things), a NAP, and tech goes hand in hand.

I do think they might be concerned about our mutual workboats' situations. So recommending they would find us in the general westerly direction, and we'd keep them informed of "interesting discoveries" sounds good enough.

Volunteering our basic tech sounds good. Though I'd almost rather volunteer Sailing, because Sailing will be necessary to resource trade, and we are just about to get it. They might have it too though, but just to be on the same page. It's obvious what we have religion-wise, and that everyone naturally gets Bronze Working.

But no matter how we deal with them in the future if we let them know we're on the Writing path that's a good start. If we really want the Vikings as allies, we seek them to research useful stuff. If we don't, well, we'd still want them to think we would go Writing/Alpha and trade, just perhaps suggest less useful things for them. Best of course if they actually want to go down an expensive sideroute themselves, for whatever reason (Iron or Colossus etc...)

We should probably work on another message for tomorrow but I may be a bit busy. Definitely want another round of messages before the end of the *next* turn.

With each island surrounded by ocean tiles, will that delay resource trading until Astronomy? Or does border-encompassed ocean count as coast, in trade route terms?

And what else is new? I agree with cav's points.

I wondered that myself regentman. In single player I've often been frustrated trying to figure out what exactly allows or blocks a trade route. I'm sure there are hard and fast rules, but the nuances of them are beyond me.

I think it will be very hard to "encourage" them not to settle in our direction without making some kind of power play or locking down a pretty serious partnership (not that I am opposed to that).

I like the "interesting discoveries" line. It has the smell of a lie that just might be true without making excuses for trying to keep them away from us. Genius.

I think our goal for any relations we have with the vikings for the next 100 turns should be to encourage them not to attack us. Whatever the appropriate level of friendship is to accomplish that has my support.

I tried to hold myself back, but I felt compelled to point out that it is spelled segue rather than sedgeway =).

I tried to hold myself back, but I felt compelled to point out that it is spelled segue rather than sedgeway =).

Ummm... :rolleyes: Congratulations, you passed the test ;)

With each island surrounded by ocean tiles, will that delay resource trading until Astronomy? Or does border-encompassed ocean count as coast, in trade route terms?

It will not block all the way until Astronomy I think. It may be possible that each team will have to settle a city on the "mainland" though. In other words we may not have resource/trade connection right now, but when we settle Resonance and they settle somewhere else on their coast somewhere, then we would be connected. We won't be able to scout out their land up to their capital otherwise due to ocean and it's the same for them scouting us though.

In other news, if we're reaching a consensus on some long term diplo-related things I definitely want to be on the lookout and censor anything that would ever make us seem hostile to Vikings right now - seems like we might be wanting to keep them as friends. So yeah, we can't exactly say anything to outright discourage them from "settling towards us." It's more on in-game actions and situations that pan-out. For instance if we get that peninsula and garrison it just well enough, and fully settle out the Resonance/Cosmos/etc... plan that just means we've claimed the territory on our side at least, kind of an unspoken thing.

Again, I don't think it's actually possible to even stop them from settling a couple cities on their own side of that "petal" especially if mountain ranges on in the middle, so we just wouldn't try to.

But ultimately is does matter how they are feeling and how well we need to work with them to keep them from attacking us, I agree. If the team on the other side of them just treats them poorly, it could be easy; on the other hand CDZ may decide to be bloodthirsty against everyone and it could be hard. But keeping up a firm idea of our tech situation and possibly some other things promoting alliance, like a mutual set of resource trades, could work.

I'll work on drafting up a message that we can probably send this next turn, and for that matter anyone who has some ideas on waiting for the Mavericks can also be ready.

I don't think CDZ will be bloodthirsty to both of its surrounding teams- a two front war will not bode well for them. However, I do believe they will attack one of their neighbors. We just have to make sure it is not us who gets the DoW...

Well, taking into account the general ideas we have, cav_scout's list seeming pretty definitive, here's a first draft of our message to CDZ. I know I probably should cut things more to the basics. Not sure we are entirely decided on a "Non-Aggression Pact" to CDZ but guessing that we might I put that in there, it can be modified or removed if needed.

Keep in mind their last message, that this is partly a response to:
Hello Earthing,

On behalf of the CDZ people I extend to you and the people of Quatronia our warmest greetings. We are greatly encouraged by your warm and open correspondence and wish to return the favour in kind. The information you kindly provided has caused much discussion amongst our people.

We haven’t met anyone else either up to this point so it nice to have met you. You may not know this but lions are terrible conversationalists.

Our boat has some other duties to perform at the present time so it can’t go along for a joint voyage at this time, so we wish your fearless crew a safe onward journey.

Our fine homeland has an abundance of crabs, sugar and gold so it would seem there is great potential for a trade agreement in the future once we can discover and open trading routes between our nations.

I am sure that our nations could learn a great deal from each other and prosper from cooperation into the future as new possibilities and capabilities emerge.

As you say there are many things to discuss but I won’t overload this first letter with to many things. I’m sure your people will need time to talk over all the possibilities just as mine do. But I do hope we can come to some agreements in the near future. Feel free to contact us at any time if there is something that you wish to discuss.

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ


Dear Robi,
Your envoys have been well received and the Quatronians again extend a welcome to their neighbours.

As for one matter we're certain you may catch sight of the Rio Grande again soon, already successful explorers for having met you, hope they don't startle you around the coastlines you may seem from Spamalot. If your captains are heading right to your West you will likely visit our fine homeland in maybe a dozen turns, give or take how you zig and zag, and if that's the journey you desire we welcome the trip. Our boat progresses to the East and will naturally keep you apprised of any interesting discoveries if you haven't gone far that way yet.

We would certainly be pleased to be able to trade resources and perhaps open our borders to regular merchant routes soon. Crabs and wheat, and silver and gold are bounties both our peoples would surely like to share. Though there is one concern, as even with the knowledge of more advanced sailing, we worry the oceans may still diminish trade, but are not sure (It seems to us, that ocean tiles only passable while within one team's culture could cut off OB or trade routes, though we hope and expect this can be remedied before Astronomy)

Nevertheless we hope to progress towards trade and peaceful relations in the future. We soon intend to pursue the art of Writing which should eventually allow us to advance our civilizations even more. So far our in the early years of our city's founding our scientists discovered many essential techs from Bronze Working to the theological studies of Mysticism and Meditation, and the domestic boon of Pottery; as is obvious our people have also long known the basics ways of the sea and Fishing. As mentioned we seek to develop the art of Writing soon enough too. Perhaps we could develop a plan for trading technologies, we don't know what your priorities are for now but much could be accomodated, and our scholars themselves could be ready and willling to discover Alphabet for trade.

Our last concern regards savage peoples or perhaps threats we may discover from other civilizations, that can take up time and attention, and knowing you are a good people and grand neighbors, we are interested in living in peace with you now. We would like to propose a 50-turn Non-Aggression Pact, on the high seas or on land, that is a first step to greater friendship and mutual understanding, and should not propose any barriers to trade or exploration that we know of.

Thanks again for warm receptions of our diplomats and as the years pass, hopefully not too fast right now though as there is much to do, we'll continue to be in reach anytime you need us.

Ambassador Earthling, Team Quatronia

My take:

Again a great letter Earthling but probably still too formal and gamey. This is perfect diplo language for any of the other teams, just not so sure for these guys. I say we just lay it all out there with them in hopes of speeding up the courtship.

My version:
Dear Robi,

Your envoys have been well received and the Quatronians again extend a welcome to their neighbours. Festivities have been readied in our capital Continuum and Diana prepares to break out her gold rope and... oh wait, we aren't the Amazons! :lol:

We are guessing you guys would much rather keep the conversation real and to the point instead of trading tedious emails back and forth. So now that the ice is broken shall we dispense with the RP formalities and discuss the game? :)

Anyways, we agree that hooking up trade routes should be a mutual goal. If you head south with your workboat you will go around a penninsula and then reach our lands in around 12 turns. Our boat will continue to head east to look for your culture and then find the civ beyond you. We will keep you appraised of any interesting discovering we make in case you haven't gone too far that way.

Just so you know, we are on an island surrounded by ocean tiles (we suspect you guys are too). We were able to get our workboat out with a culture "bridge" across one of these ocean tiles (again, we suspect you have the same set-up). So do you guys know if we can get trade routes pre-astronomy the way things are looking? We think that maybe it will work since our culture is touching coastal tiles that you can reach, just haven't gotten around to checking yet.

Tech wise we have researched Agriculture, Myst, BW, Meditation and Pottery. Going for Sailing right now to be followed by Writing. What is your tech situation? It would be good if someone gets Alpha soon of course to get some trades going on.

Finally we were wondering if you guys would be interested in a NAP. Say for 50 turns to start with?

Again thanks for the warm welcome. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Ambassador Earthling, Team Quatronia

I love that joke about not being the AMAZONs, nice.

I really don't know the members of this team that well again though, so if you feel something this direct is better, and everyone else agrees, that would be fine. We probably could be ready to send whatever our final version is tonight. Most of that message is good to use as a baseline, and I approve in general if we are ok with that as a team. It probably is good to ask them in this one though if continued diplo in that style is ok, great that you put that in there.

One thing - I didn't actually count the time their workboat would take, so around a dozen is both an estimate from me and for them, I'm not sure it's exactly twelve.

I'm not so sure about the way that trade route discussion goes either. Because if they haven't thought directly of that, this could encourage them to get settling the coastline quicker, and we probably want to at least have things secure for our own cities. Of course we're not telling them that, just not helping them brainstorm otherwise. It's something to mention, I just might revise that part. The parenthetical description I used or if different wording is out there it's fine; the part from "So do you guys know..." sounds maybe kinda lazy on our part here ;)

It seems to us that ocean tiles only passable while within one team's culture could cut off trade routes, though we hope and expect this can be remedied before Astronomy

Well yeah i even had a sentence where i said we are lazy but i edited it out :lol:. I just whipped that up really quick so I agree it could use some polishing.

I do think it's good to pose a few question to them though. We can learn alot about their demeanor towards us from their responses.

EDIT: Based on the screens you posted Earthing (thanks!) it looks like we may have already passed their culture "bridge."

Yeah, don't know how we missed it, maybe workboat auto-path'd to stick as close to the coastline as possible. Just hope the screens help a little in general. They could possibly have a "bridge" on the other side though, won't rule it out yet. Shouldn't really matter either though as long as our workboat can actually make it around the coastline, which it should.

If people are in agreement on cav_scout's version, I could be ok with sending that tonight - and if I'm not back around which I might not be till tomorrow, if there aren't major changes anyone could send it on the gmail for me with my name on it still if you want, that's fine, I won't ever ask to be that "official" about diplomacy.

If we're trying to be actually specific about workboat movement we might want to verify how many turns, if not it's not a big deal, and we could revise the ocean/culture bridge discussion. But all the major points and goals of this message are good, I'd conclude the next draft is ready to go by me. :thumbsup:

Love the Amazon joke. :lol:

Either version works for me, but I would send the second version. Short and to the point.

2nd version is good.

Agreed.

I sent the 2nd version.

Very good, we can now wait for a response.

I'm beginning to wonder about these guys... It's been about 4 days and we haven't heard back from them. Now this in itself isn't a big deal- it takes time for a team to draft a response, people go away for the weekend etc.

But we also had two members of CDZ jump on Provo in the Indiansmoke thread. Now I don't think that Indiansmoke was trying to push Provo's button's and elicit a wild response... but whether intentional or not that is exactly what happened.

The way that thread looks to an outside observer is:

a.) Quatronia is the first team to get a wonder and move to the top of the scoreboard.

b.) Indiansmoke makes a joke in the public forum (with the underlying intent of putting Quatronia in the spotlight and maybe get us to reveal info, etc).

c.) Provo overreacts badly, making an open accusation againt Indiansmoke. Provo's venom makes Smoke look like the aggrieved party.

d.) Provo's overreaction tweaks CDZ's team ethos of laidback fun, humor, respect and justice. They call out Provo in the forum and have their eye on him now like the technoviking.

Basically I think it's possible that they are now more wary of our team. Remember, practical considerations are often trumped by personal emotions in this game. Players and teams have been known to run their civs into the ground just to get some licks in on someone they don't like. And if they are looking for a target (and they are) then anyone who offends their sensibilities moves to the top of their deathlist.

Anyways, I don't see much we can do at this point other than wait and see. It seems best to just let the whole thing blow over... although maybe an apology or a consilatory message in that thread from Provo would help (seems to be what Robi D was fishing for).

Bottom line is we need to be prepared for the possibility that these guys won't be our friends and that we are going to have a powerful rival for a neighbor. If it pans out this way then having the Indians as true friends and allies would be critical.

Yeah, it's possible they are fishing for info and being extra wary, which is why it's good we'll be making contact with CDZ's other neighbor soon. I'd love to see CDZ's other neighbor be worse/more annoying, but on the other hand if they are a team we could work with, that's still a possibility. I think sticking with Alphabet and playing things close/undecided on alliances right now works in that regard.

If we don't get a message back soon perhaps a brief PM asking if they are sure the last message of ours was received? I could re-quote the message there, ask Robi D if anything is up; they could be taking their time for any number of reasons though and I wouldn't get hasty. Certainly the actual game turns are taking a fair amount of time too...

I think you exaggerate the CDZ response as a team, look at BCLG, a brit teenager who has more than 18000 posts already. He likes to kid around. Remember, Indiansmoke got a name for being merciless both on the forums and in-game, and really, people would be wary with these. Either way, CDZ would target either us, or the team north of them, and the type of civ we meet next there, would decide plenty.

My response to Indie, which was dismissive as it should be, would win over more people other places. Remember, Indiansmoke is not THAT popular, and people know his style from long ago.
Mavericks answer was kind of open anyhow, whereas CDZ was very closed even before this.

The initial message you wrote to CDZ, Cavscout, has by no means been reciprocated, and their boat has been on its way towards us since we met. I still think being dismissive to main forum action was fair enough from my side, which still gives us plenty wiggleroom later .

Well i'm pretty sure BCLG is a 22 year-old law student... but yeah, the CDZ guys seem to like to kid around. My point is we don't want to inadvertantly stoke their passions and get some forum-kid type vendetta against us. Loosing the metagame PR war means enemies > allies = we loose.

I still think poking out Merlot as potentially the bad guys down the road would be good. After all, Indie made this a directed measure, and over-emphasizing the thing by targeting me to his team internally, as he probably is not that popular. I guess, since Merlot after all started with mysticism, and failed to get both a religion, and Stonehenge for that matter, and they finally realized that happiness was hard to come by for "Merlot". My guess would be that Indie lost some support internally, and that his attempt to fire after me was his little Greek twisted version of the Falklands War, which was all about targeting something external in order to rally his people behind him.

His behavior could also show they might be heading for Ballcourt (3 happiness), which means a direct route through math and construction, in order to compete on happiness parity, as they forfeited both religion and Stonehenge (which you need to be charismatic anyways to get advantage from, and they gambled we would not go for it).

Well, I asked Robi D in a short PM if we'd gotten their email address correct and all, I'm pretty sure we should have and they got the last message, maybe it's just a hold-up on their end, but I'm not too worried about it yet.

I don't think we're really in too much trouble regarding enemies or diplomacy, it's really still very early and nothing bad or wrong has really happened.

As for MERLOT - I do think there is some up with them, it's been that way for a long time. They could be working on some plan and diplomacy etc... but it's also possible they've fallen behind, done poor micromanagement, and with only one turnplayer/"King" of the team aren't taking their turns very well anyway. But they are not our near neighbors at least and trouble they stir up hopefully does not come our way. At this early point when we go after Alphabet we could still just easily trade with anyone and if some teams turn out not to be good allies for the long run that's fine, we can't ally with everyone anyway.

I do think it's slightly promising news if India hasn't explored a lot, that they are not too likely to get overexcited/head out and meet CDZ early or something. Right now we have some good cards, having the most knowledge about what everyone is doing and I think we have decent plans internally/domestically too.

Short message (by PM) from Robi D. Guess we be on the lookout on our email account, whomever checks in here could check on that, I'll look again later today too. It's all right if they had some delay, I'm not worried, though maybe surprised they didn't have some other diplomat/player at least check on the messages, it seems like they have some active people.

Hi Earthing,

Sorry for the delay in responding, I assure you there is no malice behind it. I unfortunately caught a case of the flu over the weekend and am only now starting to get back up on my feet so our reply will take a little longer than usual. And while I can't say anything officially, unofficially your letter was well recievied.

Regards
Robi

Just a short bump, we're still awaiting a full response to the last message as far as I know. However, I'm thinking that regardless, tomorrow we ought to inform them we ran into a MERLOT workboat. We said we would tell them exactly that sort of thing, and they discover in a turn or two anyway, it's no big deal, but just something to be on the ball about. (We'll also check/verify that CDZ/MERLOT have no other diplo/espionage contact yet though, that they weren't hiding something)

Edit: I'd like to send a short message today, so here's what I'm proposing:

Greetings people of CDZ,
We bring some more news from our explorations we think is of importance. A flotilla of fishing boats led by captain Indiansmoke, of the nation MERLOT, is approaching from your East; they ran into our workboat, and likely will come across your waters quite soon, in maybe 3 or 4 turns.

While we know we await more discussion of plans for the future in mutual interest, just wanted to give you this heads up as soon as we could.

Earthling, Team Quatronia

I like it.

All right, since this is just a simple message, and time is rather the more important thing, since we just met MERLOT, I'll just send it. Still hoping we get a full response to our last real message sometime soon though, they said they are on it now.

Message received from CDZ. Doesn't appear to have gotten/responded to anything about MERLOT yet, this is a response to our last message (see here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9268805&postcount=44))

Dear Earthling,

Once again I apologise for the delay in our reply to your message. With regards to the map, we have also started on an island surrounded by ocean tiles and like you we used a culture bridge to get our workboat accross. Our workboat explored north between the two landmasses that we could see however that led to a dead end. We haven't done any more exploring at this point but we will be launching some new vessels soon and will keep you updated on what or who we find.

There has been a lot of discussion amongst our team whether or not a trade connection is possible over an ocean tile with a culture bridge prior to astronomy and to be honest we are unsure, its not a situation that comes up often. All we can say is that we will have the knowledge Writing shortly so we will find out then. With the other technologies, we already have Sailing but don't have Agriculture.

Finally with the Non-Aggession Pact of 50 turns you nation offered. We are happy to agree to it, although we suggest we make it run to the 100th turn for simplicity as that is just about 50 turns anyway

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ

Pretty much what we expected. They don't have another boat out but that's confirmed as they did not head towards MERLOT yet either. Interesting what they are doing on tech, we probably should emphasize in our next message that we are teching Alphabet; but if they go Math or Iron Working or even a couple other things that's all good.

Yeah, sounds like they might be going for Alphabet too... ideally we would like them to tech something else.

So I agree we should tell them that we have already started Alpha and we were wondering if they would like to trade something for it down the road?

(Oh, and have we started Alpha?????? I have no idea what is going on in the game anymore, the turn tracker thread is worthless at this point :( ).

It would be good to get a reply to them SOON so they don't start on Alpha also.

Dear Robi,

Thanks for the reply back. No worries on the delay, we know it takes time to put a letter together and get the whole team to look it over and stuff. Maybe one day our relations will develop to the point where we can comfortably bounce informal messages back and forth as diplomats.

Anyways, we have already started Alphabet and we were hoping you guys would want to trade something for it down the road. Did you have any plans for what you are doing after Writing? We think Math or IW would be useful.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

We are two turns away from initiating Alphabet, so we need to impress on them, that we are already in the process researching Alpha.

We also need to bundle in Agriculture with CDZ in an agreement, and ask them if they have hunting, animal hubandry or anything like that.

That would be fine, though I doubt they have hunting or AH if they don't have agriculture. Still, they have to have teched something.

I don't lexactly ike the statement about "Maybe one day our relations" because I really don't prefer to do things that way myself, and in the near-term, might not be available often enough to really do that, I'm going to have a few weeks where I'll check in maybe once a day or something, and don't want that kind of impression on messages, unless someone else has a different suggestion I'm not quite understanding. I think I see the intention, just not the implications - getting quicker messages and agreements is fine, I don't want to handle a zillion PMs or other messages that don't go through the team email. If their team specifically asks for something like that, fine, we'll adapt, but rather not start on that path ourselves.

But yes, I like telling them about Alphabet, I don't think there is too much more to tell right now, though perhaps say that we're pretty sure the "trade over oceans" will NOT work right now, we've checked it out in singleplayer and we don't actually have resources available to trade so it must mean we have to wait.

Ok, how bout this revision? It removes the objectionable sentence and adds Provo's good ideas.

Dear Robi,

Thanks for the reply back. No worries on the delay, we know it takes time to put a letter together and get the whole team to look it over and stuff.

Anyways, we are poised to start Alphabet and we were hoping you guys would want to trade something for it down the road. Did you have any plans for what you are doing after Writing? We think Math or IW would be useful.

You mentioned that you don't have Agriculture- that is certainly something we could trade to you if you can hold out until we get Alpha. We were also wondering if you could help us backfill some of the early techs that we bypassed. Do you have Hunting, AH or stuff like that?

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

This sounded fine, I don't think it's been sent yet but I'm ready to do so today, so last call if anyone else has thoughts, additions, or changes on what we want to say to CDZ right now.

Sent the message (yes, past tense, they should have it now ;))

They should meet MERLOT soon too but it would be great to have a solid plan with the Vikings, say if they get Iron Working as we'll have Alphabet, hopefully the response is favorable.

Hey I just realized we didn't respond to their question about whether turn 100 was an acceptable marker for the NAP. Perhaps we should send them a quick note to remedy this and give a much needed bump to our conversation.

Dear Robi,

We just realized that in our last message we neglected to confirm our agreement to turn 100 being the intial expiration for the NAP. This just makes plain sense and we readily accept- a NAP until turn 100 with the option to renew of course. :)

Anyways, we anxiously await your reply about tech trading possibilites. We see friendship and cooperation between teams as essential to this MTDG. We think you guys are a solid team and if we work together we can both go really far in this game.

Earthling
Team Quatronia

Sure, if no objections anyone who wants could send this by tomorrow morning; I am fine with the message, but we could of course use more voices. I do hope they are around/receiving and discussing messages, since the next full one we send will probably be a doozy about the tech trading alliance - regardless of whether we accept AMAZON's deal, even if for some reason we decide not too, we'd still have to give heads up on that then.

Just noticed this in our Gmail account:

Hi Earthling,

Unforunately the game has been down for a while and I have not been able to log in. This means I haven't been able to look at the beaker values of all the techs so the team can make a decision about a tech swap, so our reply will take a bit longer.

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ

My first reaction is that this sounds like a stall tactic. They need to log into the game to compare tech values? But perhaps it is legit, whatever...

We could respond back with something like:
Dear Robi,

Civfantics has a great resource page with beaker values for tech:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/techs

This gives generic beaker values. The in-game values are different of course based on difficulty level ect. But the relative value between techs stays the same, so it's quite handy to compare beakers. Alphabet is 300:science: while Iron Working is 200:science: for instance. Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

Here's their latest message:
Hello Earthling,

The tech boffins and bean counter here in the CDZ have been doing their thing in regards to your offer of a tech swap.

With regards to your offer of Alphabet, we looked at the techs we have currently or will have in the very near future. We can in return offer Iron Working and Masonry. Please let us know if this proposal works for Quatronia.

On a different matter in my last letter I suggested that your offer of a 50 turn NAP be slightly changed so it runs until turn 100 for simplicity, however you didn't not answer in the affirmative. While it can be assumed that you are happy for a NAP between our nations given your offer for swapping techs, we would prefer to have a clear response one way or the other as in our experience working with assumptions can lead to arguments in the future.

Finally I can inform you that we have also met Merlot's fishing boat flotilla. We will of course inform you of any further discoveries.

Regards
Robi, CDZ

I think we should send them the copy of the ETTT that Amazon sent us, and throw in our two cents. If we frame it right, they should accept since it would be by far a better option for them.

Yes, our next message probably should explain the full ETTT offer, it would be a good place to start, I'll help work on that tonight too, but before we get writing too much we should consider the goals of the message, for discussion and agreement:

-Agreed/no problem with Non-Aggression suggestions, that of course makes sense
-Propose the ETTT, letting them know they will be in an alliance of 4 teams if all continues to go well, and what tech cooperation this entails.
-Avoid duplicate tech efforts, if they suggest, perhaps saying Iron Working would be duplicated as things stand, though I don't exactly have a better idea; maybe they do Masonry then Code of Laws once we get those prereqs in for all alliance members?
-Stress to them that MERLOT is out of the alliance, and should be handled with caution; also we've got a lot more exploration and knowledge than CDZ so I'd help them clear up some of that, give them a better outline of the overall map.

CDZ might already be halfway thru IW. Probably best to ask them EXACTLY where they stand, particularly if they are interested in joining the ETTT. Indicate that this has been offered to us by team Amazons and that we're not the instigator. Credit where credit is due after all.

We don't need them to do Masonry, the ETTT already has it. We need to find out how far they are into Iron Working. If they have beakers invested in it we might want to switch something else.

They may already have Masonry as indicated in the last communique. Let's hammer out this deal and at the same time I believe we should be thinking about an overall strategy for the ETTT based on what we know thus far. I.e. what are we heading for? say a 10 tech horizon? who should get Liberalism / Music / Economimcs / CoL / Theology?

Also, make sure you copy and paste the original agreement so they are signing on to the right thing.

I don't have a lot of time/Internet access right now, but I'm happy with a blank check/you all can sign my name onto these diplo messages, I'll try to be back full time in a week. Anyway, I still approve of offering the ETTT and we probably should work out who will be teching what.

Ok, here's a draft:

Dear Robi,

First, we must come forward and admit that we in fact have two exploring workboats that set out from our homeland a long time ago. We have met every team except one, Sirius, who we will meet shortly. The layout of teams around the star-shaped continent is as follows (going clockwise): You, Quatronia, Mavericks, Sirius, Amazon, Merlot.

Even though the Amazons are furthest away from us, we have met them since they also sent out a workboat some time ago. Amazon has informed us that they are working on the Great Wall. They are very eager diplomats, and have sent us the deal below. They brought in Sirius before us, and Sirius already had knowledge of alphabet, so we are able to begin trading right away. We will act as liaison between yourselves and the rest of the alliance at least until Amazon's boat reaches you (they've just met Merlot).

We have accepted membership into this ETTT that Amazon proposed, and we (that is, Quatronia, Amazon and Sirius) wish to offer you membership as well. Here it is:

The ETTT

The Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty

The Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty is the governing treaty of the Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance (ETTA), which is composed of the members of the ETTT.

Section 1. Members of the ETTT
1.1. The AMAZON, Sirius, Quatronia
Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members
2.1. New members may be added by unanimous agreement of all current members.

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

2.3. A member may be removed at any time if they are proved to have violated any of the terms of this treaty.
Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms
3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.

Section 4. Trading Policies
4.1. Members agree to trade freely and generously with all other members.

4.2. Members agree to trade with non-members only with unanimous consent from all other current members.

4.3. Members will be open and forthright about research plans to avoid duplication of effort and ensure rapid progress.

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.
Section 5. Amendments
5.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by any member. The proposed amendment must be sent to all members.

5.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon the agreement of all members.

We look forward to hearing from you again shortly. We hope you accept membership into this treaty and that we can work together as allies in the future.

We should probably send this today.

Here is my proposed revision. I removed some stuff they don't need to know yet like how the Amazons are going for the Great Wall.

Dear Robi,

Thank you for your note. We apologize for neglecting to confirm our agreement to your NAP revision. It was one of those no-brainer things that slipped away from us. Adjusting it to turn 100 just makes plain sense and we readily accept- a NAP until turn 100 with the option to renew of course. :)

We wanted to let you know that we have another exploring workboat that set out from our homeland a long time ago. We have met every team except one, Sirius, who we will meet shortly. The layout of teams around the star-shaped continent is as follows (going clockwise): You, Quatronia, Mavericks, Sirius, Amazon, Merlot.

Even though the Amazons are furthest away from us, we have met them since they also sent out a workboat some time ago. They are very eager diplomats and share our belief that alliances and cooperation will be key in this game. They proposed an exclusive tech trading treaty (ETTT) which we agreed to. Team Sirius has also joined and we are now looking for a fourth and final team to complete our trading cooperative. The Amazons, Sirius and Quatronia would all like CDZ to be that team.

The treaty is as follows:

The ETTT

The Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty

The Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty is the governing treaty of the Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance (ETTA), which is composed of the members of the ETTT.

Section 1. Members of the ETTT
1.1. Teams Amazon, Sirius and Quatonia.
Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members
2.1. New members may be added by unanimous agreement of all current members.

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

2.3. A member may be removed at any time if they are proved to have violated any of the terms of this treaty.
Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms
3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.

Section 4. Trading Policies
4.1. Members agree to trade freely and generously with all other members.

4.2. Members agree to trade with non-members only with unanimous consent from all other current members.

4.3. Members will be open and forthright about research plans to avoid duplication of effort and ensure rapid progress.

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.
Section 5. Amendments
5.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by any member. The proposed amendment must be sent to all members.

5.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon the agreement of all members.

We really hope you will be interested in joining. The benefits are pretty great. Sirius has already teched Alphabet and we got a windfall of techs right away. Since tech trading is enable for this MTDG it is inevitable that the ETTT is going to dominate the first stage of the game. The two teams outside of the ETTT are going to rapidly fall behind.

It won't be too long before you meet the Amazon workboat. They are very anxious to lock in the last member of the ETTT. While we understand that something this important takes time to discuss we hope that you can decide quickly. If you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to let us know.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

Yup, sounds good, just don't forget to edit the first clause indicating that us, Sirius and Amazon are all part of the agreement. Hopefully you can wait for one more "aye" before sending, though this should go soon.

Yep, that's good Cav Scout. I'm happy with that. It's important to give credit, to team Amazon, where credit is due ;-)

I sent it. I apologize if anyone had any concerns, but we need to move fast.

I'm going to send this:

Dear Robi,

We appreciate it takes time to discuss something as substantial as the exclusive tech trading treaty we shared with you. While the benefits should be obvious, we understand it's still a pretty momentus decision. Again, if you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to let us know.

We really do hope that Team CDZ will choose to become the fourth member of the ETTT. We have all agreed to wait to hear from you before we make the offer to someone else. But if we don't hear back soon we will have to assume that this is something that you just aren't interested in. So please let us know how you guys feel about the treaty.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

I think we need to take a firmer stance than 'soon'
Our deadline for the Ultimatum should be the end of the NEXT turn (slightly more than 60hrs away). We should indicate this in the polite message.


Dear Robi,

We appreciate it takes time to discuss something as substantial as the exclusive tech trading treaty we shared with you. While the benefits should be obvious, we understand it's still a momentus decision. Again, if you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to let us know.

Should Team CDZ choose to become the fourth member of the ETTT, we look forward to working with you. As timing is critical we urge you to move swiftly. The team have agreed that we would wait to hear from you before we make the offer to someone else however if we don't hear back within the next turn we will have to assume that this is something that you just aren't interested in. So please let us know how you guys feel about the treaty.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia


Changes in Italics
Does that sound too demanding now?

I'm going to send this:

Dear Robi,

We had hoped to hear back from you by now regarding the ETTT proposal. Again, let me stress that the Amazons, Sirius and Quatronia would all really like you guys in the ETTT.

At this point timing is critical and we urge you complete your deliberations. If you would like to join the ETTT we need to hear from you before the end of this turn. If we don't hear from you we will have to assume that you have declined.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

No fluff, no fuss. Succinct.
I like it! :D

I'm not a fan of rushing them. If they need the time to discuss, we should give it to them, just like we expected a little more time than the other teams when it came to the early turns in the game. I don't like being rushed by the Amazons, and I'd rather let CDZ join (or decline) the ETTT on their time than them declining it because we pester them. I would send the first message, minus a line:

Dear Robi,

We appreciate it takes time to discuss something as substantial as the exclusive tech trading treaty we shared with you. While the benefits should be obvious, we understand it's still a pretty momentus decision. Again, if you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to let us know.

We really do hope that Team CDZ will choose to become the fourth member of the ETTT. We have all agreed to wait to hear from you before we make the offer to someone else. So please let us know how you guys feel about the treaty.

Sincerely,

Earthling
Team Quatronia

This way it is in no way demanding, and the subtle line of "to hear from you before we make the offer to someone else" will make it clear that a decline of the ETTT means choosing the 2 side in a 4v2.

Tell the Amazons to wait. We can block Merlot's or Maverick's entry if the Amazons get crazy and send out an invite.

Actually we've sent both messages.

We still haven't heard from them since we made the original offer. I would be alot less concerned if they had sent us a note after our polite reminder.

Ah. I just read "going to send" and assumed it wasn't yet.

Ah. I just read "going to send" and assumed it wasn't yet.

Ah Sorry, I probably could have held off a bit longer before sending. This one was a timed follow up that we had scheduled to go out tonight though.

I really hope this gets CDZs attention. They might be thinking that they can shop around a bit first and maybe get an rival alliance going with Mavericks and Merlot (who they already seem to be more fond of than us). But since we let the cat out the bag and revealed the ETTT we really need to know soon. Letting them take as much time as they "need" effectively gives them the reigns of the ETTT. Giving them a deadline though will really put their feet to fire and force them to get off the fence.

If they have been leaning towards the ETTT and just wanted to see if they could somehow get a better deal then this will be the push they need to commit.

But if they don't want to be in the ETTT then they can't continue to drag it out any longer after this turn.

But since we let the cat out the bag and revealed the ETTT we really need to know soon. Letting them take as much time as they "need" effectively gives them the reigns of the ETTT. Giving them a deadline though will really put their feet to fire and force them to get off the fence.
Bah, there you go making sense again.

I hope they choose to side with us- out of the three teams they're the ones I like the most.

At the end of the coming turn (T57) it will be have been approx 1 week to decide if they want in or out. More than enough time to discuss and run a poll about it UNLESS they were already negotiating something else. I can understand why Amazons are keen to firm this up. Every turn of delay weakens the treaty and assuming CDZ don't go for it we have to negotiate with Mavs whom we MUST convince to join as CDZ (and assumably Merlot) will know immediately what we're up to.

HAZZAH!

We have word from the CDZ people!


Hi Earthing,

Thanks for your patience. There was a delay to the begining of discussions as some of the team members raised concerns that it may not have been within the rules to enter a treaty with a team not met in-game, so we requested clarification from the admins. That's all been cleared up, we concluded our discussions and I am pleased to say that Team CDZ voted in favour of joining the alliance. You may pass the word onto the other team

Regards
Robi


Let the word go out. Please inform our treaty partners!

:woohoo: I officially declare today, July 6, to be ETTT day.[party]

:clap: RegentMan is a happy camper.

tech update from CDZ:

Hello to our fellow alliance members,

As per the alliance agreement Team CDZ would like to inform you that we are researching Metal Casting

Regards
Robi, CDZ

Ok, we need to send CDZ a message about their settler party we've spotted. Something like:
Dear Robi:
Thanks for letting us know about Metal Casting. We are researching calendarDo they know this? They should.

Now, down to business. We seem to be caught in a bit of a settler race (which you are obviously winning). We would like to propose that whichever team gets the stone share it by occasionally gifting it to the other team when they need it to build a building, such as Moai Statues. We will be sending out a settler shortly, and that city will have a free monument in it, and therefore more culture.

We don't want this issue to harm our alliance in any way, and we are perfectly happy to accept you beating us in a race fair and square (though that's not to say we aren't going to try to settle). We would also like to let you know we do not plan on building the Pyramids or the Great Wall.
It might be best to wait for them to settle first...

I don't like this message in that it will probably sound annoyed. Basically, we know the settler/city is there, so it's a bit late to discuss things. If we'd caught them a couple turns back they might have told us "oh, our settler will be there first) but we can't really do anything about it now.

If anything, suggesting culture battles or the like could get annoying. If we must later on we can fit in a city where we have room (if they settle in place, we could settle by the southern Oasis+clam, and our culture will win out down there).

But we do need a message for just in general catching up with things. So if the team still wants to talk about the stone I guess that's all right, if not we'll draft up another one talking about tech, exploration maybe (ask about any more MERLOT ships at the least).

I say that we should send this right away, rather than waiting for them to build the city. We don't want them to already have the clear upper edge on a stone race when we propose the stone-sharing deal. Also, scratch the sentence about the monument, we don't want
a) to act threatning or
b) encourage them to build a monument as soon as the city is founded, working the stone. If they did that, both cities would have a monument around the same turn, nullifying the Stonehenge advantage.

Yeah, the part about a settler race and monuments is definitely something I wouldn't suggest. They beat us here (they've whipped a little too, I think) and that's kinda that, we certainly made some choices that put this at risk. Our third city on the island should be awesome anyway though and hopefully in the long term we haven't lost too much, make up for it with cities elsewhere, Indian side and more maybe.

I would think a polite discussion about Stone and wonders is still all right - I'm still ok with making clear we don't need Pyramids, Great Wall but might like Maoi, and suggest they should check out Maoi if they haven't planned such as well. But we shouldn't come off as greedy for the stone - they probably won't hook it up/have a worker over too soon realistically either.

The interesting problem is that where they settle determines how many cities are on the peninsula. If they settle further south, NOBODY (due to city-closeness rule) could settle another city down there, and so be it. If not, again, I think we could probably make Cape City fit just fine - we'd actually be "stealing" the oasis and one clams tile from them, but really it's fair game and we should win out in culture. Buddhism could help, especially when we get the shrine it should start spreading for free. So I could see us getting that city fifth or something and it still would work.

Yeah, I was just trying to think of something to put down. I just feel we should say something to them about the situation, let them know we don't mind them taking that spot. We could also mention the marble hypothesis. (we might find marble on the northern peninsula) Our priority is to make sure any races we have with them don't impact our relationship.

I suspect they will settle where they landed. It gets them the stone, the oasis and 2 clams and has the potential to be a production powerhouse.

Of course we could (and should) settle Cape Town to get the whales, oasis and 1 of the clams. This would prevent them from locking up the entire peninsula and we have the culture advantage.

We will explore more north with our warrior in the next few turns and maybe something juicy will be revealed. But I would be ok with Cape Town being our 3rd city (it could work the oasis right away).

I'm not a fan of that message- it'll dampen relations with CDZ. To that end, won't Cape Town do the same? I'd rather side with them post-ETTT and a culture-hungry border city this early won't help the situation.

Well I want CDZ to stay with us post-ETTT too, and I think this is a strong possibility as we can make Amazons look like the bigger threat.

But who know how the future will unfold. Having a city there for early warning is pretty important. And pushing up against their culture is unavoidable anyways because of the lay of the land.

This initial phase will see us and CDZ scramble for the best land on our shared petal. Both teams will stay friendly and polite and it will come down to who gets settlers to the choice spots the fastest. Meanwhile, both teams will leave Merlot and Mavericks unhindered on their respective petals since those cities can just be taken later by war. I actually hope Mavericks founds a bunch of nice cities we can gobble up later.

Barbs will probably found a couple of cities too. ;) It is unfortunate though the juicier land appears between us and CDZ, the MERLOT and Maverick petals are weaker. We have one good clam site easily on our side of Mavericks but yeah, as far as I'm concerned we'll get Mavericks eventually and right now no need for extreme pressure on them.

Actually, I'm fine with Cape Town next, I do expect CDZ to settle in place fwiw, which means the city is possible. I didn't think the team would back that but maybe I guessed wrong - I could certainly go with Cape Town, and the Oasis situation really does make that area more attractive. I would prefer Singularity over Resonance but that's more of a domestic thing.

So how about a new message just talking about technology and exploration, to be sure we are all on the same page still - or do we still want a part about stone (for wonders) just not debating over borders and culture and settler racing?

We need to ask these guys if they will sink the Mavericks workboat coming their way.

I think we both need to send off another message anyway, and the workboat situation is time-relevent, so I entirely agree.

I'd propose our message should have the aims of:
-NOT discussing Stone/settling right now - that's over, we don't want to be complaining, and it's not a big enough deal to set off diplomatic problems
-General updates about how the ETTT is going and tech progress, so we're all on the same page.
-And of course, discuss the workboat situation. We can handle the MERLOT workboat so for them it's basically denying passage to Mavericks 10+ turns down the line (by the way, their CULTURE should be able to handle Mavericks by that time I'm thinking, so the onus would be on Mavericks to DoW if they wanted through - all CDZ has to do is not open borders).

So here's a newer/updated message draft for approval:

Dear Robi and citizens of CDZ,

We are glad to hear you are doing well, it's been a little while since we've had much to discuss but only because these have been peaceful and prosperous times. Thanks for letting us know about Metal Casting. Our people continue our growth, technological discoveries, and settlement as well, and we can't say we are anything but pleased with how advanced we and our allies are becoming. We are closing in on Calendar, as agreed with our mutual allies, and of course you too are welcome to request it any time as soon as we are done - it's a vital tech with all the plantation resources we all have. We think the current situation otherwise involves AMAZONs teching Monarchy and Sirius might have Currency in the near future, that is all good news as long as we're on the same page.

In other matters, while we do not believe this has ever been officially established as part of our alliance, we feel it couldn't hurt to inform you what we know of world wonders and religions moving forward - namely, the Q are rather happy where we stand, and don't intend to compete with our allies, if you are after wonders like The Pyramids or Colossus or perhaps a more interesting choice from the current era. We can't guarantee you won't have competition from civilizations like the Mavericks (India) though, so just a heads up.

Meanwhile, there's a final concern that's come to our attention and is perhaps most urgent right now, if we could do justice in explaining it, as it requires cooperation from all of us so we don't move forward doing something recklessly. Namely, we feel it's in the interests of the members of the ETTT to hinder the exploration and contact between the MERLOT and Maverick civilizations. We intend to deny a MERLOT workboat passage past our borders, a galley available if necessary, and we believe that Sirius will be blocking off another boat around the northern passage. However, these efforts come to naught if we can't block out all boats from both of the civilizations - and Mavericks have another workboat coming around too. We would rather not see anyone unnecessarily embroiled in war - we wouldn't want to stomach war with Mavericks right now and MERLOT as your neighbors you probably do not want to overly anger, the same goes for our mutual allies I think. However we are alright keeping MERLOT at bay from going too far, but we do need your help if we intend to block off the Maverick boat - when it gets around to your borders it would be great if you could keep them closed and not let them through, thus they won't reach MERLOT's waters either.

Something for your consideration - as always, if there is much to discuss, we welcome your envoys when you see fit. But on the particular matter of what to do about MERLOT/Maverick workboats, it would be great to have a quicker response so we can be sure of our final decisions (feel free to coordinate with AMAZONs too, we are coordinating with them and Sirius as they have enemy boats up north to deal with too).

Ambassador Earthling


Message is a draft and not sent yet of course, any critiques more than welcome, know I tend to make things lengthy. Also, we're probably hoping to get some coordination with our Sirius embassy and so on about the workboat situation.

looks good to me. Might put in that we need to know before this turn is up whether they will kill the Mav boat or not. If they won't then there we really need to consider if killing the Merlot boat is worth it.

To keep things simple we say something like: "The basic concept is that you and the Amazons block or kill any Maverick boats while Sirius and Quatronia take out any Merlot vessels."

We made need to consider sinking both ships then.

I think cav_scout's summary is really good, and yeah, we need to get to the point more directly.

Remember though that it's not this turn we're actually killing the MERLOT workboat - it does mean we need to send a "warning" message though, but we've got 2-3 to work this out with Sirius and CDZ if needed. Though of course I agree it would look stupid for us to be the only ones declaring war to kill a workboat, so we need a decision one way or another - I don't think it's worth it for us to take out Mavericks' workboat, it will just lead to too much hostility/make us worry too much about military situations.

I like the message.

Right, if there aren't any other concerns, and feel free to suggest any edits, I think we're ready to send in the next 12 hours or so/next approval we get from the team. I'd probably change this quoted section including cav_scout's good suggestion

We intend to deny a MERLOT workboat passage past our borders, a galley available when necessary, and we believe that Sirius will be blocking off another boat around the northern passage. However, these efforts come to naught if we can't block out all boats from both of the civilizations - and Mavericks have another workboat coming around too. We would rather not see anyone unnecessarily embroiled in war - the same goes for our mutual allies I think. We are all right keeping MERLOT at bay from going too far, but we do need your help if we intend to block off the Maverick boat - when it gets around to your borders it would be great if you could keep them closed and not let them through, thus they won't reach MERLOT's waters either. The basic concept is that you and the Amazons block or kill any Maverick boats while Sirius and Quatronia take out any Merlot vessels.

message continues...


Also should probably have a better signature, know I didn't put one at the end of the last message...I know I haven't personally been sending every message (and I hasten to say, not that I mind from the team) but it's still good in my mind to represent our team unity. So I'd have something slightly more elaborate like

Sincerely,
Ambassador Earthling
Team Quatronia

Again, I can check in again and send this right away tomorrow morning, all the input and thoughts so far were great (I know the discussion about settling/stone was important, now anyway we shouldn't be getting into any trouble against CDZ though). But any more input is great as always, thanks.

We made need to consider sinking both ships then.

Problem is we agreed to a NAP with Mavericks. So we can't honorably attack them right now, CDZ has to do it.

I think the proposed message kinda beats around the bush too much. We need to be very direct and clear about what we are asking them to do. I'm sure they will see the value of preventing contact.

Well, it's not been sent yet (or, I'll check, nothing new on the team email). So what's a shorter and quicker revision that we want then? I'll approve anything on the same lines (as in, getting the same points across, tech, and the workboat situation, but NOT arguing/discussing about where we and they are settling land) anyway but always want to be sure the team knows what we're sending.

A more succint version. We need to send something soon!

Dear Robi and citizens of CDZ,

We are glad to hear you are doing well. We haven't had much to discuss in a while but only because these have been peaceful and prosperous times.

Thanks for letting us know about Metal Casting. Our people continue our growth, technological discoveries and settlement as well. We are very pleased with how advanced the ETTT membership is becoming. We are closing in on Calendar and will be starting Compass after that.

In other matters, while we do not believe this has ever been officially established as part of our alliance, we feel it couldn't hurt to inform you what we know of world wonders and religions moving forward. Namely, the Q are rather happy where we stand and don't intend to compete with our allies. We can't guarantee you won't have competition from civilizations like the Mavericks though (they claim to be going after The Pyramids), so just a heads up.

Meanwhile, there's a final concern that's come to our attention. Merlot and Mavs both have explorer workboats in our waters and they will meet each other shortly. We think it's important to prevent this from happening and keep them isolated from each other. So we are going to DoW against Merlot and sink their boat.

We will let the Mavs boat pass a few turns later (without knowing what we did) and they will move on to your waters. We are hoping you will deny them passage. If you don't have open borders with them then they would have to DoW to pass. Then your galley could take them out for forcing your borders.

Anyways, we hope you agree that it's in the interests of the members of the ETTT to hinder the exploration and contact between the Merlot and Maverick civilizations. We believe that Sirius will be blocking off another boat around the northern passage. If you and Amazons stop any Mav boats while Sirius and Quatronia stop any Merlot boats we can all avoid war with our direct neighbors for the time being.

Earthling
Ambassador
Team Quatronia

This sounds fine, and yes, I'm ok with sending it quickly. Sorry we didn't get something sent earlier but without revisions/input from everyone didn't want to rush it. Anyway, I approve of this condensing of the message too and since we did agree on the general purpose, it's definitely time to get this all through to CDZ.

That's pretty much spot on.

I'm RegentMan, and I approve this message.

I just sent it.

I'm not sure if we sent anything on the stone yet but I would suggest that we not characterize it as sharing the stone but rather asking them to use it when they aren't. If I were receiving the message I would take that a lot better.

We don't really have grounds to ask to share it as we might with some other things. It's theirs fair and square. They made some sacrifices no doubt to get it. On the other hand, we're friendly, and in a situation where they aren't using it anyway they ought to be willing to do us a solid and let us use it. If I remember right Moai Statues are only 250 hammers or so, they build very quickly with stone, we wouldn't need to borrow it for long.

We've received 2 messages from CDZ, one of which was sent to the whole ETTT.
Greeting ETTT members,

Team CDZ agrees with the proposition put forward by Irgy to get to Astronomy as quickly as possible.

Also we have finished Metal Casting and have started on Machinary.

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ
Hello Earthling,

It probably a good sign that things are running smoothly when there is not too much to talk about.

Thank you for the heads up about Mavericks possibly building The Pyramids, we will keep you informed if we look to construct any wonders. We have finished Metal Casting and are starting on Machinary.

We regards to stopping Merlot and Mavericks meeting, we agree that we should try to stop it happening and we will deny Mavericks boat passage through to Merlot by any means.

Regards
Robi, CDZ

Sounds great on all counts, good to hear from them.

As for the stone - I agree again we really don't want to be pushy right now. We got beat to the spot, and also it's long past - if we'd managed to have a settler heading there a bit sooner, got a message to them maybe 3 turns before they even settled, then a plan for straight out sharing stone could work.

As it is, I agree it couldn't hurt to ask down the line to borrow it for Maoi or something when they are not using it, but it's some time out and I'm not overly worried.

I do think, though this isn't specifically foreign relations, we will want to verify what can be found on the Maverick-side petal. I'm still guessing there is marble and possibly more significant resources, though it does happen to be desert.

Wow, CDZ just screwed us- they built a city right where we originally planned to found Cosmos!

Who would have thought they would be so brazen to found a city in what is clearly our sphere of influence...

My immediate response to this is F&*K! :mad:

In the long term we knew that Asymptote was a trade off and I'm stunned that they would be so brazen. It's an aggressive move and it's showing us that the gloves are off Gents!

Do we really want the site? If so how do we plan to get it back?
I'm thinking right now it's not a problem as we can just settle elsewhere but long term we should nab it. We have options in this regard: Fight / Flip or Swap.

Of the three I'd favour a swap but they probably wouldn't go for it.

Heh, I'd be tempted to settle right above (2 tiles +1E) Spamville, and effectively steal their northern clams, leaving Spamville as a 1-clam mudhole being mostly outcultured to boot. Would make a convincing trade at that point, since they would be stuck with Spamville as an utterly worthless, indefensible city and unless they wanted that consequence would have to accept a city trade agreement. (So we could offer trading that newly founded city back for our Cosmos spot)

If we ended up keeping the city, it could still work out fine seeing as it can share banana and tiles with Resonance in the short term and act as a military stronghold if it must, and the city has plenty of grassland and so on otherwise. Whipping both Resonance and that city could work out - Resonance working its clam and whipping effectively and the Banana going to the other city till it also gets a clam up.

But that would probably lead to conflict sooner than either of us might like. Our other response is to go on like normal, eventually we would settle 2N of where they settled Cosmos. So we'd get one of the Cosmos clams and incense up there and we'd clear out the jungle.

Still not happy about this. I wish we'd gotten REXing earlier I guess, but CDZ is nonetheless being rather brazen, they do not have the economy/techrate to really make this type of expansion viable on their own and we definitely don't want them getting too much out of abusing our alliance (again the whole ETTT was bound to do some things like this, it's just interesting).


Edit: The more I think about it the more I like a couple of lines of thought. Here's what I'm pondering:

We are definitely getting into a metagame of trying to outsettle CDZ as they are trying to do to us, to see what happens in the eventual long run when the ETTT breaks down. We haven't headed towards the Indian continent just as they probably have not gone near MERLOT. So ceding too much here could definitely get us into trouble.

With that said, I think we should either try to immediately defuse the situation, or make strong moves that will result in the chips falling as they may.

If we want to work out a trade or compromise on future settling, I think the very best option is a quick message to them, suggesting we gift them a settler unit, ie. the one currently being built in Continuum, in exchange for the city on "our" side of the landmass. If they want other minor compensation, that's also possible. This could be accomplished soon, we don't lose much really in our settling plan, it's fine and dandy if they accept.

If we do send this first message, I'd feel perfectly justified in settling towards their side afterwards, in the Banana/Clams spot as mentioned before (really, it would be a good city, even better if they build the clams workboat for us as it seems they just might, and then we should automatically steal it by culture very fast. To do this I would send the worker to farm 1E of the Banana after the Banana is done, that farm could of course be shared by both cities, and the worker could move to chop the forest at the new city too anytime it wants or mine more hills or whatever).

Another city trade at that point is possible but we've given them fair warning. And we would certainly come out ahead in military and land if that settling scheme works out. A walls + some axemen (we could stockpile some gold and some warriors to upgrade in the near term, part of a whip at Resonance perhaps) should hold the city fine against any crazy ideas - if we get to the point in the future where real war/invasion will occur, we'd already know it and have things prepared anyway. And in any future wars, or if they cut off OB or something, they are the ones isolating their cities (Spamville, Cosmos) while we shouldn't lose any real connections or military lines to ours.

Settling to cut off Spamville without any warning/discussion is probably kinda harsh, but I'm not fully against it if the team thinks that is the right move.

Our last option of course remains to ignore this completely and just work around it. Just make stronger moves for the Indian side and develop our economy and production to still be the strongest. But I'm really not sure we can be certain to make the most gains in a war against the Indians yet - well Astro is many dozens of turns off anyway, but even with it the Mavs could bunker up and we don't know what serious will do. So staying even with our neighbors CDZ is probably worth quite a bit versus future gains on that other peninsula we'd have to literally fight the Mavs for.

Yes, a city trade is a good idea. But that was a big kick in the pants fromCDZ< but we probably should have antcipated that. Though I don't know how they got there so fast.

All CDZ has done is whip settlers/boats/units. We can see through Demographics that they are focusing mostly just on production and expansion - basically they've just been a couple turns ahead of us at each juncture. Everyone in the ETTT alliance is probably on somewhat the same lines but we just need to watch out that someone isn't becoming a total dead weight, it's still only an alliance that won't last forever, not like we are permanently tied to them so we want to stay even for the future.

This isn't a matter of opening old discussions or worrying about past decisions, but we did seriously slow down our REXing by Stonehenge at the start, and we knew it. However with the religion and wonder we are in a stronger position economically. So the idea that we hope continues to work is that with superior culture/economy we will get everything we need anyway.

It does put us in a bad spot diplomatically though, because even though CDZ has been just as aggressive in settling as we might be, our cities will be the ones putting on cultural pressure and that could tend to annoy another team.

But I'm definitely looking for ideas on how we would work out a trade to start, I really have no clue what CDZ might think about it though. Getting Cosmos back would be cool enough though and we hopefully wouldn't have to resort to anything else.

Wow- a lot can happen in a few days. I don't think this is a response to the asymptote founding (although I agree they probably would have taken it if we didn't)- I think that CDZ is just trying to get as much land on the peninsula as possible to get an advantage over us, expecting us not to retaliate since we are allied (this smacks of the AI space filling strategy- they probably think that if they settle it, then its their land). I think they might go for a city for settler deal if we make a promise to return any flipped cities on the peninsula.

If we have to take an aggressive stance (aka more than a few warriors) than we should wait for machinery.

I don't hope that we'll have to resort to an aggressive stance. A few warriors is probably it, the only thing is we'd have gold for an option of an upgrade or two to axes, we could keep the gold in the bank though. But I don't expect them to want to escalate to actual combat over anything yet, it's not worth it for either team really.

It could get hairy in terms of culture war though. I do think they just want land, don't know what's going on MERLOT-side for them though (for us, India really has been insular so we're not in a hurry to do anything there).

I'm really up in the air about offering a deal yet though. In the turn discussion thread, I think I could see the merits of the intermediate city site a couple others wanted to settle. If we are going for a trade it's also a question of when we offer it. Right now if we just trade for Cosmos back that is said and done but I'm not sure they'd accept that - I think if we offer such a deal once and they reject it that's about it and a poor scenario to be in. If we're in a better position to make a final deal/understanding of whose land is going to be whose, that could be worth it, and if we and they get settling more, any trade deals would be more complicated.

Always looking for everyone's thoughts though. This seems like the issue of the day for a while, seeing as we are pretty set on technology, build orders and so on getting these foreign affairs sorted is a good focus.

I just remembered- we can sweeten the pot by offering Buddhism if it doesn't autospread, since CDZ is nowhere near getting a religion of their own, although this would help their culture. We also have to worry about them potentially getting one in the future, and having a holy city on the peninsula.

Can we reasonably assume india is being very insular? As far as I can tell we haven't checked up on them hardly at all and we've given them free reign to settle the petal between us.

I think we're pretty sure they've settled at least three cities on their home island (including cap) and only four total, plus put a lot of production into wonders, switched to civics like Police State, etc... It's not a guarantee, but we can always check if they are settling more cities. So they've haven't gone too far yet, at least.

Hmm that is a pretty darn aggressive move by CDZ- definitely hurts my view of them. We could try to do a trade of some sort, but I could really see them just saying "We got there first; sucks to be you." Especially considering their stance in the Test Pitboss thread.

So a counter-pressuring city would be fun, but we don't want to handicap ourselves by doing so.

Well, I think we're all pretty well decided on the middle bananas city, think it's a good call.

After that I'm open to suggestions, I could really go either way though so whatever the team wants. Another pressuring city I feel would be the one by Spamville, it will steal their clams and overlap some with Resonance if that is what we want. If not, then we'd just be going for Singularity and other solid and resource-plentiful sites. Still have some turns to decide too.

Since we will be building our city in two turns, and our next settler will be built in three, we should have a ready-made message to send them:
Greetings to our friends and allies CDZ from the Continuum.

We noted with regret that the most recent city you founded, ereh rO, is built on the coast facing us on the peninsula that separates us. Quatronia takes the position that such a city lies in our "sphere of influence", lying as it does on our coast.(We might want to give more reasons as to why we consider that spot ours.)

We recognize, however, that we did not communicate that to you previously, and that our teams have not even discussed the issue of settling on the peninsula, let alone deciding on spheres of influence. To that end, we would like to come to an agreement regarding the division of the peninsula to avoid a costly settling competition.

You'll notice that our newest city, Pulsar Plateau, is situated directly between your northern cities, and effectively cuts ereh rO off from the rest of your empire. We would like to offer to trade Pulsar Plateau for ereh rO.(Or offer a settler. Wasn't sure what we wanted to do here exactly.) Not only is each city more conveniently located for both nations in terms of access, both nations will acquire a new resource.

Furthermore, we propose the following agreement, assuming you accept the city trade:
1. CDZ and Quatronia agree not to further settle south of the freshwater lake on the peninsula.(Subtly hinting as to the consequences of not accepting the deal.)
2. CDZ and Quatronia agree not to settle on the coasts furthest from their respective homelands.
3. CDZ and Quatronia agree to return any city on the peninsula flipped by culture.(Sweeten the pot.)

Please reply soon with your answer or counter offer.
Earthling (or however you want to end it)


I think we should offer to trade cities, they're more likely to go for that, and that's three each on the peninsula. The agreement is a way of agreeing on spheres of influence, and a way to let them know of the consequences of not agreeing to it- we go and mess up Spamville by building the retaliation city.

This is a very good start, we'll probably need some time to think things over but I agree it's along the lines of what we might want to discuss. I really like how you've put some of the ideas - the freshwater lake is a good boundary, at least for us if we had Cosmos/ereh Ro we'd be ok with it.

We simply don't know if they would want to trade cities, or gift units and gold, or what, or if they'd even accept, so I'm not sure what to offer along those lines.

But we probably should settle Pulsar, just keep this in mind, everyone else's input welcome.

(Oh, and I don't mind at all how you end things, probably some of the other messages have established a standard, but again I recognize what's being said is by the team and I'm not looking for any vetoes or anything like that as a diplomat. So really same as always, I'm happy to continue work on my part to keep up with CDZ especially though just for generaly info)

I like the thrust of the message and agree we should send this (with refinements/modifications) soon. I think we should keep Pulsar Plateau though instead of trading it. I would rather plant a city on their coastline that will get the middle bananas and then trade it for Cosmos.

I highly doubt CDZ will give us four cities on the peninsula unless we have a settler in the retaliation spot ready to go. We need to decide exactly how we plan to sort this out. (I thought that trading Pulsar was the plan.). I think there are three options:

1: Trade Pulsar Plateau for ereh rO. That gives each country 3 cities on the peninsula, and is what the message was written for.
2: Use the next settler to go to the retaliation spot (after building PP). Then offer to trade the settler for ereH rO. This would involve not communicating with CDZ until that settler gets there, as we don't want to alert them to our plan. EDIT: A better plan here would be to offer them a settler after building PP, and if they don't take it to move it to the retaliation location and offer it again, and build the city if that fails.
3: Build and keep Pulsar Plateau, but move on to build Singularity next. We would change the content of the message, but still send it to deal with the issue of borders. CDZ might agree to trade for a settler.

After looking over things further, I like the city spot of Pulsar Plateau and agree we should keep it. I like option 3, we can just send them a message informing them that the location of ereh rO annoys us, and we don't want them to build on our coast again. We can also agree not to build south of the lake again, hash out some boundaries, and maybe agree to trade away a settler. If they respond negatively to our message we can always retaliate- it is a more flexible plan.

I like option 2 with the edit the best.

The way you've put it probably clears up some confusion. So I'm thinking:

1) I always wanted to keep Pulsar, when we were discussing plans before probably I had assumed that was a consensus. So I'm not really for going to this option. Also trading Pulsar for Cosmos specifically still results in the same culture pressure and all - any deal we work out I'm thinking we want both of those cities in the end.

2) A pretty straightforward plan really. I think this has the best possible outcome if things go right with CDZ - if they agree to a deal, they get a settler/Retaliation spot, and we get Cosmos back. If they don't agree to any deals at all, then we just have a city in a Retaliation spot, not the end of the world either. This is probably the least honest/open diplomatically but I'm ok with that, it's really part of the game and it's not like our alliance has been really strong/everyone has been in excellent communication this whole time. I doubt they will want any real hostilities yet either, the ETTT is too important/valuable.

3) It is more fair in some ways and more flexible, but I'm willing to risk things for plan 2 as you put it. The one thing that could convince me is if we see some major developments on the Indian front, because if we're going to need to focus on that peninsula more maybe just settling Singularity and heading over there is better for economy/long-term. I don't think that would be my conclusion right now yet though, and also I don't think we're quite in place with all our other units/cities to go harass India yet. So if we have a Retaliation settler we can probably settle Singularity fine and then just a little delay before Indian side.

So just to be clear - I'd go with 2, it should be manageable, and if turns go by quickly enough we won't have too much time to fret over diplomacy - ie. give CDZ the heads up before the Retaliation city, which means they need to consider their response. Really due to how slow diplo has been even if we went with option 3 it might take a while to hear back in which case we may miss a window for the Retaliation city or something.

I still favour culture bombing Pulsar Plateau so 1 is not an option for me so 2 would be my preferred option. Having said that I don't really like the retaliation spot based on the fact that it's not a great city site and we will be stuck with it draining our economy.

I'm predicting that they don't go for it.

I'm also kinda predicting they don't go for it in the end, unfortunately. So I'm still trying to balance what options would give us the best position if they don't go for it, versus the chance of working something out - and I think my final answer is still option 2 as well. I'd definitely try to help get a message finalized later today or sometime soon, but as always looking for any other Q's thoughts.

The one southern retaliation spot I still would like to stress isn't that bad - not as good as other spots like Singularity right away obviously, but just for recognition. We get a clams, and share banana with Resonance, and have grasslands and grassland hill. Again, I want to stress how the clams work out - it will be in the first ring of our city, so as soon as we have one border pop, we effectively apply that additional 10 :culture: per turn. So we're pretty much guaranteed to take the clams by culture after a short while. It is a dangerous game being played there, versus just settling somewhere easy like our homeland, but I still think retaliation has to be a reasonable response.

If we don't like settling on their coast across from Resonance we could settle North of "ereh rO" (their Cosmos) to box it in and get the spices. Or settle above "Or Here" on their coast.

EDIT: I meant incense not spices. :crazyeye:

I like this option now that it is unlikely we'll be going to the Maverick peninsula (we'll need military to do that) with the settler built next. (It can finally build Singularity.) I like the spot across from Resonance- it isn't a bad spot and it really screws up Spamville. We should send them a message when we are 1-2 turns away from building, so that's plenty of time to draft one up.

It's strongly looking like the Maverick peninsula is going to be a long battle now, I agree with that too. So if we're going to get a settler for Singularity anyway, this next one definitely looks like it could work somewhere on the CDZ side.

North of Cosmos would actually be ok by me too, probably a little more diplomatic with CDZ too. I'd be happy for an informal poll/vote on such an idea, I'm not dead set on having to go by the Spamville site (I do think it is at least a viable option though).

Well heck, lets found a city north of ereh rO and then another one North of Spamville right after. :) That should give us enough cities on the CDZ peninsula.

If we are lucky CDZ will then see that ereh rO and Spamville are both surrounded, chokeable and possibly flippable. So trading cities with us then looks more appealing (especially if we sweeten the pot with gold, permanent gift of bananas etc.).

If we are really lucky CDZ will see the benefit of trading ereh rO for the 2nd settler before he founds North of Spamville.

EDIT: Question- does the free monument stay in a city if we gift it? If so this would be worth something to CDZ.

EDIT: Question- does the free monument stay in a city if we gift it?
I don't recall for sure, but I don't think so.

Here is a revamped message:
Greetings to our friends and allies CDZ from the Continuum.

We noted with regret that the most recent city you founded, ereh rO, is built on the coast facing us on the peninsula that separates us. Quatronia takes the position that such a city lies in our "sphere of influence", lying as it does on our coast.

We recognize, however, that we did not communicate that to you previously, and that our teams have not even discussed the issue of settling on the peninsula, let alone deciding on spheres of influence. To that end, we would like to come to an agreement regarding the division of the peninsula to avoid a costly settling competition.

We currently have a settler on the peninsula heading east to your coast just north of Spamville. The city it will found will have your clams inside its borders, and will obviously put more cultural pressure on Spamville. While we do not begrudge you the city of Spamville, we will not tolerate the aggressive settling policy undertaken by CDZ in building ereh rO.

We would like to offer you a deal to settle this issue. We will gift you the settler near Spamville in exchange for ereh rO. Also, to lay out future boundaries, we propose the following:

1. CDZ and Quatronia agree not to further settle south of the freshwater lake on the peninsula.
2. CDZ and Quatronia agree not to settle on the mainland coast adjacent to the other's homeland.
3. CDZ and Quatronia agree to return any city on the peninsula flipped by culture.
Please reply soon.
Sincerely,
Ambassador Earthling.
Just a few points:
1) We might want to elaborate more on why we consider ereh rO to be ours. While it may seem obvious to us, it isn't to them, and I couldn't think of any other reasons.
2) I tried not to sound too aggressive, but we are pulling off a fairly aggressive move, so I put the blame on them by condemning their "aggressive policy".
3) The small agreement is to make sure they don't pull any stunts with the settler they give us, and to finalize the issue. (The city flipping point might help get them aboard and could diffuse any future conflicts.)

I like this message quite a lot, I'll keep checking in and see if we could have revisions and agreement on if it's what we want to do tomorrow.

I might say a couple of things a little differently, but the overall content sounds really good, and I personally would be happy to send a message before finalizing another city-founding right now - if this deal actually goes through it probably is the best overall deal that could happen for both sides. Namely on a few revisions, the first one is making more clear we are not acting entirely out of spite:


We currently have a settler on the peninsula heading east to your coast just north of Spamville. The city it will found would overlap nicely with our city Resonance but would also have some of your current tiles inside its borders, and will obviously put more cultural pressure on Spamville.

And then after:
We will gift you the settler near Spamville in exchange for ereh rO
I might add something like:
If there is other minor compensation or ideas you would like to suggest that would further facilitate this specific exchange, we're open to hearing so.

(then it continues)
Also to lay out future boundaries...

To clarify I don't think that the city of ereh rO is ours, I think that the land it sits on is sacred to the Quatronian people who are indigenous to that region. They have requested that we ensure it's returned to be part of our cultural lands.

Earthling, I think you should go ahead and send it with the revisions you've proposed. We need to give them time to come up with a response. The only thing is that I intentionally did not suggest that they give us a counter offer, as that would hint at weakness. I want to put them on the spot a little and force their hand into this deal by holding the threat of anti-Spamville over their heads. I think that if they have a counter offer they'll send it anyways.

I see your point exactly, don't want to go too far on that. I'm happy to send the message soon though - if no other major objections. Perhaps this revision (of that whole section) makes things a little better:

We would like to offer you a deal to settle this issue. We will gift you the settler near Spamville in exchange for ereh rO; thus, the settler would just be yours and can go wherever else you would like. If there are other ideas you would like to suggest that would further facilitate this specific exchange, the settler for ereh rO, we're open to hearing so. Also, to lay out future boundaries, we propose the following:

I sent the message, I think we mostly were in agreement on major points and that it's on a tighter timeframe, and nobody spoke up since last night.

We should probably send a PM to ensure that they've got the message and will respond soon, since our settler will be ready shortly.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Where are we on the timer (I think settling falls under the moving units rule and we can't do that after our allotted slot in the war is over)

We can beat CDZ to music I think.

Our GNP is higher and we have plenty of gold saved up while they only have 5:gold: in reserve. We can tech Literature in 2 turns or Drama in 3 and then go straight into Music. I'm guessing CDZ is teching Literature right now but we can go Drama and still beat them.

I think we should declare our intentions to get Music before CDZ does. We could say we are going Drama followed by Music. Teams will either let us have the Great Artist without a fuss or they will complain. If they do complain then we can go with the bulb idea and everyone will think we are being nice and conciliatory.

:)

I like it! To the victor go the spoils.
Of course it's possible that they're just researching Literature to unlock HE / NE and won't go on to music...

Either way we should deny them the GA and take it ourselves.

I like it too, that would set us up well to be the nice guys here.

Got a PM from BCLG, in response to my earlier PM which I mentioned was just asking if they'd properly received the message.

His response wasn't formal/I don't want to unfairly quote it, but he said they will be considering the matter, and also that they might be unlikely to accept.

Anyway I'm going to look over some other things, and we are very close on just settling the city anyway, I wouldn't wait more than one turn, and we'd still have to get this Music problem worked out (which is why I'm hoping we can find a way to otherwise just make sure we get that right.) I would be ok if we went after Music (and confirmed this to Sirius etc... with Sirius going for Astro and all) and I would agree to using the free great artist for a bulb, that would be the smoothest thing for the alliance.

A reply:
Greetings to Ambassador Earthling and Greetings to the people of Quatronia,

We are very confused by your accusations. The city ereh rO and its people are members of the CDZ Kleptocracy for centuries and are therefore very deeply rooted in our society.

When the city was founded there was plenty of space available and thus your claim of aggressive settling is completely unfounded. As it was already our 3rd city on the peninsula, the location had been open for grabbing for quite some time.

We hope that your access to the newest technology called Paper will allow your historians for accurate descriptions of events. The Quatronian people were the ones that founded 3 cities within 3 tiles of CDZ cities. So your accusations of aggressive settling must be a ridiculous sort of reverse-psychology that we won't be dragged into.

Regards,
CDZ

I think this nails down us going for music and culture bombing the hell down there!

Everyone needs to make sure to check the new "music race" thread for an important update. We might need to switch to music in like 30 mins...

Just had this exchange with BCLG:



I don't remember us saying this, I believe this should have been apparent following our research of literature. We're now on music and have already invested 2-3 turns iirc.

Regards
BCLG

Here is where you guys said you would be doing Machinery:

Greetings fellow ETTA members,

Team CDZ will we finishing Machinary in a couple of turns. We were planning to do Feudalism but if Sirus wishes to take this task on then we will need some feedback so we don't end up doubling up on a tech.

Regards
Robi, Team CDZ

And the response from Sirius:

Fellow ETTA members,

Based on feedback from other teams, we will pursue Paper next to enable trade map trading. This is not necessarily a high priority for us, but other members seem to have the immediate tech needs covered. Our current understanding of the research plans are:

Sirius: Paper
Amazon: Theology > Construction
Quatronia: HBR (partial) > Optics
CDZ: Machinery > Feudalism

We are always open to discussions of alternatives.

Quatronia alerted us to a Holken at the eastern end of the arm between us and Mavericks. Our settlement on this arm has been under constant barb attack, so we have not been able to fully scout this arm. We are even uncertain of the location of the Mavericks city. The only unit we have nearby is a wounded archer, which is far enough away that it is doubtful it could prevent the Merlot unit from contacting Mavericks, and is likely to be ineffective. If the Holken takes an indirect route (i.e. it heads north) we could intercept it with an axeman.

Sincerely,

Trystero, Team Sirius

So we figured you guys would be doing Machinery as indicated and are puzzled why you went the Music route instead without giving anyone a heads up. Oh and if i'm not mistaken you guys have just one turn into Music now.. what is your ETA for completion?

-Cav

BCLG put this out to the ETTT:

To keep everyone up to date, after a few private discussions with Quattronia (i forgot to CC people in and CFC does not have a respond to all). CDZ is well on its way to Music and as far as I am aware Quattronia is finishing off HBR or Feudalism if Sommerswerds team doesn't take over it, though I am unsure if they've chosen to finish Drama.

CDZ would like to take the opportunity to apologise for the lack of communication, as expressed to differing people at various times a lot of us have been caught up with affairs outside of the game (hence the revolving door of turnplayers recently).

Unless there are any objections CDZ was planning on following the path towards Nationalism.

I.e. Drama, (if Quattronia are not finishing researching it) Philosophy, Nationalism.

Such an extensive time to research these will allow us to avoid mistakes again should RL events re-occur.

Regards
BCLG
CDZ



Sommerswerd,

You guys will be teching Feudalism? I remember that CDZ said they would be teching Feudalism after Machinery. But then instead of doing that they seem to have gone Aesthetics-> Literature. :confused: Could all the teams clarify their tech plans so we are all on the same page?

Here is my understanding so far:

Quatronia: Drama (2 turns)-> Music (6 Turns)
Sirius: Astronomy
Amazons: Construction-> ?
CDZ: ?

-Cav

We are definitely not teching Feudalism and never said that. That's underhanded by CDZ.

Perhaps we should say something like we'll get Drama but a little slower than we anticipated due to having to upgrade/fight Maverick triremes or something.

Anyway we'll really be teching Music, and if we win the music race and allies aren't happy we use the GA to bulb anyway. At this point we simply have to have it out of the hands of CDZ because they certainly seem like they would use it to culture bomb without listening to any diplomatic objections.

We are definitely not teching Feudalism and never said that. That's underhanded by CDZ.
Yeah, after reviewing threads for another post, I can say we've never even mentioned that.

We should warn them about the threatened Maverick attack...

We should warn them about the threatened Maverick attack...

Agreed.

And this would be a horrible thing for us to agree to or even entertain. Mavs would immediately blab on us and get the ETTT to kick us out and take them in.

This is my suggestion for a letter to CDZ.


Greetings to our valued Viking allies of CDZland!

It has come to our attention that there is heavy cultural tension between the Quatronian city of Pulsar Plateau and the CDZ cities of Or here and ereh rO. We are uncertain how this has happened, but we have noticed that we have been losing tiles steadily around Pulsar Plateau. Possibly this is because you are running your cultural slider quite high.

As a result of this we have been forced to funnel a lot of our cash into Culture instead of Science, which makes us presently unable to fulfill our honourable duties for the ETTT. While we regret the divisive circumstances around the founding of these cities in the past, we hope that we can put the past behind us and coexist peacefully on the southern peninsula as we have been doing so far.

In the present situation, the city of Pulsar Plateau is only 51% Quatronian and 48% CDZian. We will politely request that you reduce the cultural output of the cities around Pulsar Plateau, and in the unfortunate circumstance that the city should flip, the new Quatronian Government will not tolerate this and will politely request the immediate return of the city to the Quatronian Continuum.

Best Regards, with hopes for a mutual and beneficial continued peaceful coexistence between our nations,
Caledorn - Turn player for the Quatronian Continuum


Please give me feedback on this, and any suggestions for alterations in the message. As soon as we agree on it, hopefully ASAP as the turns progress about 1 turn per 24 hours now, I will send it off to socralynnek on a PM. :)

Excellent!

Looks good, you can send it.

I noticed a small typo in there: We will politely request that you reduce the cultural output of the cities around Pulsar Plateau. It should say "We politely request". Corrected that, and sent it to Socralynnek :)

We quickly received a response from Socralynnek, which reads as follows:


Hello new Leader of Quatronia,

the CDZ culture slider has been at 0% for the whole game. CDZ cities are profiting from the Corporation "Creative Construction" which increases culture as side effect. If you wish, we can spread it to your city, which will increase culture there.

CDZ would decline taking over Quatronia's city culturally anyway, so be assured that the city will not flip to CDZ.

Best regards,
socralynnek


So should we take them up on their offer of spreading "Creative Construction" to our cities?

Any other comments? :) I feel obliged to send them a polite thank you response, preferably with the same speed they responded to us, so would like to send off a response to them today :)

Not sure about cities in general, but would them spreading it to that one city help reduce the amount of units we need to garrison to prevent it going into disorder every so often.

(Yup I think a thank you is in order -- that email from them was pretty much everything you/we could possibly hope for)

Yes, we can accept their offer and say thank you. They'll profit from spreading it, so they can do so when they wish,

Agreed. A quick thank-you note will do it.

Here is my quickly drafted suggestion for a response:


Thank you for your quick response!

We're very relieved and happy to hear that you have no interest in culturally flipping our city, and you are more than welcome to spread the Corporation to our city. This will benefit both you and us, which is in the interest of both our nations. It will also enable us to reduce the cash we put into culture so we can funnel the cash into science again to fulfill our part of the ETTT.

We are looking forward to continuing our mutually beneficial cooperation as valued allies!


I might be a bit subservient in it, so any modifications will be welcome if you think it necessary or wise. :)

I sent off that missive to them, since there was at least a general consensus we wanted to thank them and allow them to spread the corp to our city. :)

Turn log for last turn coming up in the Turn thread later this evening.