Here's their greeting.

Greetings to the Mavericks,

Our intrepid explorer, Jenny, has spotted your island domain and when the news made its way back to the AMAZON homeland, enthusiastic celebration and displays of AMAZON prowess broke out in the streets. After recovering, our diplomatic offices has worked tirelessly to get out this greeting to you.

We are happy to meet the free-thinking Mavericks. We have heard rumors of a great Oracle that has been erected in your lands for the divining of the will of the gods and that it has inspired your researchers in their studies. We are further impressed by your religious spirit in founding Hinduism. The gods play a special role in AMAZON society so we are pleased to meet kindred spirits.

The people of The AMAZON respect the Mavericks, not only because of their obvious achievements even at such an early date, but also because we have heard of the many formidable and talented people who label themselves Mavericks. We hope that we can work with the Mavericks and we hope that our relationship will be a mutually beneficial one.

Just as we heard rumors of your many wondrous and religious accomplishments, you have undoubtedly heard rumors that we have been trading knowledge with other teams. We want to tell you that we are still looking for trustworthy people with whom to build a strong and profitable relationship.

The AMAZON are impressed with your breadth of knowledge, particularly your mastery of Temple Building (PH), your skill at crafting Bronze Statues (MC) and your studies into the existence of one supreme Goddess (Monotheism). The last one in particular intrigues us... we are after all an Alliance of Omnipotent Nations. Accordingly we too are currently searching for the knowledge of which of our many Goddesses is the One True Omnipotent Goddess. We have narrowed it down to Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Persephone, Artemis and Hippolyte...

Of course our Princess Diana has adoring fans who insist she is the living incarnation of a Goddess... and there are also a few Zealots who believe our Matron Saint Zenobia was the reincarnation of a Goddess, but we have considerably winnowed the field, and Monotheism will be just the boost we need to settle this debate once and for all. That is until the next Ultimate AMAZON Warrior is crowned. By rule, our Ultimate Warrior is allowed to name the Goddess that all must worship until the next Ultimate Warrior is crowned. Needless to say this makes some of the goddesses very interested in the outcome of these competitions which tends to make them interesting.

We are interested to know whether the Mavericks wish to discuss an agreement whereby their vast accumulated knowledge would be shared with The AMAZON? Our people are anxious to meet the scholars of the Mavericks and share discoveries.

We are willing to share information with you in the spirit of cooperation. Our explorers have noticed that the Great Mapmaker who made us all has a great love of symmetry and that our islands appear to be arranged around a star-shaped landmass. Our explorers have also found a large amount of clams around the edge of each arm of the star and a few Whales. It seems that each civilization has an island which has a number of unique resources. The AMAZON has been blessed with an abundance of Sheep and Silver and also have some sources of Deer and Fur. What resources has the Great Mapmaker seen fit to bestow upon you?

We look forward to receiving your reply.

Sincerely,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

My gut response:

We suspect they are rookie players, but until we know more about them, we cannot discount them.

They offered information voluntarily, they obviously wish to be friendly. It would probably be beneficial to reciprocate for now. We are weakest now.

They want Monotheism apparently, but it looks like they already have it? It looks like they can research Theo now in obsolete's screenshot. Can we offer them something for Writing and Alphabet that is not Metal Casting?

I don't think anyone knows we founded Judaism.

We should try to trade for Princess Diana. She sounds hot.

This message seems out of date already, since they picked up mono from someone else. Unless.... unless they only picked up the pre-req. just now, and something weird is going on with the WANT'S TECH that always happens with the AI.

I did find it strange that they didn't mention Judiasm either, since they mentioned the rest of it. Looks like they said TOO MUCH apparently :P

I say, let's keep Judiasm a secret for now, since this may keep them guessing and they didn't ask. What is interesting, is they HAVE NO RELIGION. So Mono really is not helpful to them at all here. Not all all, UNLESS they want to make a very quick beeline up to Theology to get their own religion. That's what I suspect at this moment.

I feel like we lost a whole turn of tech & trades last turn, unless they only got alphabet this turn. I think we should at least shave off the last 4 turns on sailing so we can research something else. This is 4 tech turns that are no longer needed.

BTW, as for ROOKIES, after browsing their thread of Virgins, it seems the only one on their team that should know what he's doing is MeInTeam. He usually does only immortal though, so there's probably a few tricks under the hood he doesn't know how to capitalize off yet. Regardless, that's all they really need to pull their team along.

One problem for us, he knows a little on how I play by now, and I'm sure he's read Snaaty's stuff a million times over. So... they MAY predict a few moves by us later on. There is a good chance he even predicts our Mids sling-shot right now too, but there isn't a thing they can do to stop it at this point.

Try to ask them right now, if they already have Mono, or if it's just a gui glitch. You don't have to get into diplomacy. Actually, I can send a pvm also to the last they sent me to get this info asap. It's rather important.


*edit.

Actually never mind, I just realized you are right, tech screen shows they are ABLE to research Theo. So they MUST have Mono. We are 1 turn too late from the deal. So I'm certain now they got it from someone else. It definitely was not Hannibal.

I'll send them a message -- Priesthood for Writing then? Sets us up to trade for Alphabet. I could ask to see if they'll chip in the rest of Sailing too.

Tell them we are just finishing off sailing now (so we wish they were a little sooner), that way they won't feel like they are doing such a big favour. As for Writing, go for it, but writing is much more beakers than priest, so they may not want to. But remind them we VERY POWERFUL techs, like MC and will be happy to cut in our CLOSE ALLIES into our deals.

Anyhow, if everyone has alphabet, it doesn't become very useful to us anymore. It seems to me that someone prematurely traded that around. Or maybe two teams went after it at the same time.

Tell them we'll also gladly open borders to them this turn for their trade-routes if they wish to show their good faith in this deal.

Greetings Team AMAZON,

We welcome the opportunity to exchange information with any friendly nation we may encounter. It appears you have already acquired the knowledge of Monotheism at the time of this writing, so congratulations on your discovery.

We propose an exchange of information to be executed on the current turn.

In exchange for Priesthood, would you be willing to offer Writing, as well expedite our discovery of Sailing? Such a gesture of goodwill would go a long way in instilling trust in the Maverick people.

As a sign of goodwill, we would like to offer you the right to enter our territory and trade with our merchants.

We are also curious what your current and planned research is, so that we can perhaps work together on our discoveries.

TheMike,
Team Mavericks Diplomat

Anyhow, if everyone has alphabet, it doesn't become very useful to us anymore. It seems to me that someone prematurely traded that around. Or maybe two teams went after it at the same time.

Very good point about alphabet. It is probably better to just monopolize MC for now.

I'll add the point about OB.

Also send them a message asking what are their current tech path they're going after so we prevent double-teching the same ones we can trade.

edit made

Alright, let's hope those VIRGINS do us a favour here.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and send it without waiting for everyone to approve. Sorry :(

I think we can build and maintain our relationships better if we communicate more frequently and more fluidly. We are probably not responding to Quatronia in a timely enough manner when we communicate with them, so that's why the line goes stale. To that effect, I think we should enlist a couple more diplomats and give them freedom to communicate with other teams in friendly terms or casual exchange of information, as long as it is posted in the diplo thread after it is sent.

Things like big trades and DOWs should be discussed and approved ahead of time, of course.

Thoughts anyone?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and send it without waiting for everyone to approve.

That's ok. We already lost a precious turn and lost what could have been a powerful Mono trade deal. Let's not lose any more.

Response sent.

Trade is now initiated (we can always cancel before they accept).

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and send it without waiting for everyone to approve. Sorry :(

I think we can build and maintain our relationships better if we communicate more frequently and more fluidly. We are probably not responding to Quatronia in a timely enough manner when we communicate with them, so that's why the line goes stale. To that effect, I think we should enlist a couple more diplomats and give them freedom to communicate with other teams in friendly terms or casual exchange of information, as long as it is posted in the diplo thread after it is sent.

Things like big trades and DOWs should be discussed and approved ahead of time, of course.

Thoughts anyone?

Yeah, that's fine. Unless there is a game-breaking deal going on or something where the tiniest slip sends us falling to the gates of Fail you're right in that it doesn't require the approval of every member of the team.

Besides, perhaps a minor "blunder" or two on our part in communications could promote the idea that we, too, are just a bunch of rookies. :mischief:

Grrrr. I see both of them have logged in, yet none of them accepted our deals, nor did I even get any PVMs.

Grrrr. I see both of them have logged in, yet none of them accepted our deals, nor did I even get any PVMs.

They're just proving Mike's point...;) they're checking, checking with team, double checking, and slowing communications down while the turn timer ticks on.

My last PVM reply:

Hi obsolete,

Thanks for your reply. Just an FYI that we have to talk about any tech trades with the team before anyone can log-in and accept/offer them in game... So we just went ahead and exited out of the diplomacy screen without accepting the trade. Sorry about that.

But we will be talking about it within the team and getting back to you soon to let you know what we think about trades.

Sommerswerd

9 Hours left, no deals yet?

Hmm, I see they've hit end-turn already. Leads me to believe they have no further interest in any trades now that they got Mono from someone else.

9 Hours left, no deals yet?

Nothing in the inbox. Maybe we should be private messaging their diplomats.

I'm not sure who are their diplomats, but give em a shout to see what the hell is going on.

I bet you they did some dealings behind our back so to speak, and Hannibal will be the next to get Mono (from Cyrus). Lets see....

I'd rate this team as middle of the road, couple of good players. Depends if TMIT hangs around or not, he's not so great at the pitboss mutliplayer game (imo of course) Silent Con and Sommersword will ensure they have a decent empire i suspect; as they are experienced players.

I would suspect that they will attack us in the not so distance future, I can imagine certian players will encourage a backstab after being nicey, nicey up front.

Personally I want nothing to do with them, it's outrageous that Memphus has been allowed to join their team.

If we get backstabbed, then I'm going to make sure it hurts them. But I must say, I'm getting quite annoyed at how we did Carthage a favour when they asked as soon as they could for OB, and then we just keep getting ignored here. I have sent them private pvm more than once so I am sure they are aware of the deals, and yet... they just ignore us.

Well, looks like we have no choice for now but to self re-search all this other stuff. So that's even more delays while it seems tech-trade galore is going off with everyone else. I will say this... I wouldn't DARE want to leave anything exposed to the both of them.

I also asked Cyrus in pvm where their workboat came from, of course this is not answered. Hmm... quite convenient.

As for Memphus though, name is familiar. Was he the one cheating in the last pitboss?

We seem to be in diplomatic quarantine, I would imagine that a good opening line for all other teams is let gang up on Obs and Snaaty - look what the've achieved already.

Do we have a plan B? If we end up alone facing the world?

I'd not call anyone a cheat without proof, but Memphus left the game under a cloud. I have no doubt he was in the know about what happened if not solely resonspible.

Well even if by a miracle he wasn't cheating, he surely had the worst sportsmanship that game also, and that was even WITHOUT the cheating. Just what you expect from a CHEATER! :P

As long as he is not at the reigns again, then I won't worry TOO MUCH about it. I do hope they didn't make the same mistake again and not turn on RNG dice. I think Civfanatics was just asking for someone to exploit that though. That's the first thing in any game that should have been modified.

Since it seems we are being conspired against, maybe it's time we play some poker. Let's play DUMB to it, and instead leak a few things to Cyrus that makes them question things about their CO-SPIRATOR.

E.g. if we get a tech from a third party, let's let Cyrus thinks we got it from Hannibal (for some future agreement, etc). Then let Cyrus wonder if he is in fact getting co-conspirated against by his own conspirator, etc.

we are in a bad position right now (which was to be expected with our start), cause we dont know enough neighbours. as soon as we sail out and meet some more, we can overcome any tech deficit, thanks to techtrading on, so no worries here... ...but we really need to send our scouts out the direct line

whats there on the island next to us we will see soon enough

I know Silent Confusion who is the diplomat for Amazon, we were talking on another matter when this game came up. Am i allowed / does any one have an objection if I have a little chat with him - promise to post full details of whats said.

I don't want to step on any toes, but we could do with knowing their thoughts and how they see things panning out.

I know Silent Confusion who is the diplomat for Amazon, we were talking on another matter when this game came up. Am i allowed / does any one have an objection if I have a little chat with him - promise to post full details of whats said.

I don't want to step on any toes, but we could do with knowing their thoughts and how they see things panning out.

I'd say go for it. At this point, any dialog is good dialog. Just let us know what you talk about.

We are already being conspired against, so I don't think how you can make things worse. Go for it... touch out to someone.

"Go to the ah Tattaglia's, uh, and ah, make them think that ah you're --

you're not too happy with our family and -- and ah find out what you can. "

"Go to the ah Tattaglia's, uh, and ah, make them think that ah you're --

you're not too happy with our family and -- and ah find out what you can. "
That didn't end well for Luca. ;)

Edit: go for it, KM.
These are the two weakest seeming teams to me. We need to meet the others asap, before fully evaluating the diplo situation.

go for it

Managed a brief chat with Silent Con. Got cut short as I had to go out.

Sirus are north of us, with Amazons north of Sirus. They seem very touchy and also to read alot into our diplo messages. I belive that they think we are aloof and going it alone, they probably have been talking to the Q and have made some bad assumptions.

We need to put more into our diplo if we want to make friends and not get f'd over and left badly behind in tech at the first oppertunity, at a guess Sirus, Q and Amazons are allied or at least trading.





(8:53:13 PM) Morgan: Afternoon Silent
(8:53:35 PM) Silent: Hi
(8:54:06 PM) Morgan: got time to chat about the MTDG2?
(8:54:26 PM) Silent: What you want to talk about?
(8:55:11 PM) Silent: I says you appear to be offline. Is this normal?
(8:55:25 PM) Morgan: got invisible mode on
(8:56:04 PM) Silent: Oooh. Spiffy.
(8:56:13 PM) Morgan: question 1, would be is your interesting in cooperating where it's mutally benefical?
(8:56:26 PM) Morgan: *your team
(8:58:00 PM) Silent: We are keeping our options open at the moment. There is discussion on our team about this. Some were a little underwhelmed by the trade that was proposed.
(8:58:40 PM) Silent: So some of them are worried this speaks for what will happen in the future between us.
(9:01:23 PM) Morgan: Sorry checking what trade it was, personally i'd agree that trade was a little light on our side, but we have bigger techs, that would need beaker balancing, hence i think we offered that trade. I can assure you that we are prepared to offer beaker for beaker in all trades
(9:01:56 PM) Morgan: may i ask whta teams you have met so far?
(9:03:21 PM) Morgan: we have met the Q conti and yourselfs
(9:04:45 PM) Silent: Our Work Boat traveled past team Sirius and also met Quatronia's work boat before reaching you.
(9:05:52 PM) Silent: Is there a reason your team did not answer our question about which resources you have been gifted? The avoiding the question also raised a few flags.
(9:06:07 PM) Silent: I mean which resources you have?
(9:08:58 PM) Morgan: We have dyes,rice and gems. It seems that was overlooked in our response, please accept my apoliogies.
(9:09:36 PM) Silent: I will convey them to the team.
(9:11:09 PM) Morgan: Am I corrct in assuming you trade Alpha to the Q?
(9:12:45 PM) Morgan: going back to the trading, what techs would you be interesting in trading?
(9:13:35 PM) Silent: This I cannot answer as it requires a team decision. But we will listen to any reasonable offers.
(9:14:13 PM) Silent: Why did you guys want to grab a second religion?
(9:17:43 PM) Morgan: We were heading to Theo, but it seems events have overtaken us.
(9:18:26 PM) Silent: What kind of events?
(9:18:37 PM) Silent: Barb troubles?
(9:19:17 PM) Morgan: do you have barb issues on your home island?
(9:20:04 PM) Morgan: sorry got run, back in 30mins.
(9:20:24 PM) Silent: Ok. We can talk some more if I'm still on.

it seems that was overlooked in our response, please accept my apoliogies.

roflmfao!

We really need to patch up relations with both civ's we know.
Just talk nice to them and give them info they think is valuable.
We might even want to go for a trade in their favor to get things going.
Can't do this on our own....

There is NOTHING to patch up!!

There is NOTHING to patch up!!

Maybe thats the point ;)

If your not in an allience and tech trading is on then your pretty much screwed, by the time you meet the other unlucky unallied team on the other side of the world your stuck between 2 trading blocks. Billy no mates very quickly becomes the subject of dog pile.

Maybe thats the point ;)

If your not in an allience and tech trading is on then your pretty much screwed, by the time you meet the other unlucky unallied team on the other side of the world your stuck between 2 trading blocks. Billy no mates very quickly becomes the subject of dog pile.

:goodjob:

a demogame is won or lost via the diplomacy. if we manage to pull out of this hole, we need our diplomats for doing so.

-> diplomats, go out and do something...

on the other side, beeing the one dogpiled by 2 neighbours also can be fun, burn down everything for your last stand and try to do as much damage as you can to ONE neighbour:)

Meeting Sirius is #1 priority, I don't think that is much point havin a huge panic until we do. Not to say we should communicate and drink the kool aid, but we get better returns on tech trading and will be able to build better alliences with Sirius in the picture.

Greetings Team AMAZON,

We wanted to reach out and say hello to our neighbors.

Are there any questions that you may have for us? Are there any concerns that you feel we should address for you? Is there anything that we might be able to do to help the AMAZON people?

Also, have you had any trouble communicating with Team Quatronia? We have been unable to get a response from them for quite some time.

Please let us know.

Thanks!

TheMike
Mavericks Diplomat

Made an edit to ask if they had communications issue with Q.

I've sent this message to AMAZON.

The message in the Quatronia thread has not yet been sent because it has a trade offer in it.

Found Silent to be online this morning, had a little chat.

(10:22:40 AM) Morgan: Hello Silent
(10:23:29 AM) Silent: Hello
(10:24:33 AM) Morgan: Sorry to hear about your misclick - I can sympathize, not the first time a game has been messed up due to babies/young children with curoius fingers
(10:25:00 AM) Silent: Yeah.
(10:26:00 AM) Morgan: Do you want the support of our team?
(10:27:32 AM) Silent: Honestly, I would like to have the support of all of the teams. If someone else did this I would be totally on their side. So yes, I would like to have your support.
(10:29:48 AM) Morgan: I think most of our team would like to help you out.
(10:35:11 AM) Morgan: Although must be honest and tell you some of our team feel we that we are diplomatically isolated, they wonder if team Amazon has any interest in being a long term friend and possibly ally to the Maverick team.
(10:45:06 AM) Morgan: We will probaly remain neutral. You have our email address, we welcome all diplomatic contact.
(10:46:07 AM) Silent: I understand. We will certainly keep the communication lines open.
(10:47:42 AM) Morgan: I understand. Team Maverick will return to the diplomatic wilderness.
(10:48:06 AM) Silent: Personally, I hope we can find a way to work together in the future. I'm open to any suggestions.
(10:48:58 AM) Silent: Feel free to email or PM me if you have any concerns or questions I might be able to help you out with. I will do what I can.
(10:49:11 AM) Morgan: I have one now.
(10:49:35 AM) Silent: I'm listening as always.
(10:50:49 AM) Morgan: We would like to offer metal casting for trade, please let use know what you would be preapared to offer for it.
(10:53:12 AM) Morgan: We would like to closely cooperate and build a long term allience with your team and one of your neighbours. Is this a situation that you welcome or have you deicided the medium term goals and postion of team amazon. We would prefer to know rather try to dance around diplomatically.
(10:55:13 AM) Silent: The medium term goals of The AMAZON are currently being discussed. There is a flurry of activity, I'll be honest, but I don't things are fully decided yet. There's been talk about the benefits of an AMAZON-Mavericks relationship like you mention.
(10:57:24 AM) Silent: I will convey the message about Metal Casting and put in a good word for you guys. We are a diplomatic team though and just recently we had a string of polls go not in the way I wanted, but that's what we've decided to do. I'm sure there will be polls on this issue and discussion.
(10:58:37 AM) Silent: Again, I think there are some real benefits from allying ourselves with the Mavericks. I will let you know, once I find out one way or the other. I don't want to dance diplomatically. I much prefer straight-forward diplomacy.
(10:59:22 AM) Silent: You will not hear silence from me. That's not my style. I will tell you what our team decides to do.
(11:01:37 AM) Morgan: Glad to hear there could be a relationship we can build, we rate your team as one of the stronger, i'm sure you've seen our team roster and see we have a few great players too. The fact we are near to each but not neigbours is always encouraging.
(11:03:35 AM) Morgan: I hope we work together, in the last MTDG I was on Team Cav - we build a great relationship with Kaz, so I'd hope some of your team would remember our core values and how well we fitted together.
(11:05:13 AM) Silent: We have a few players on our team from Team Kaz and they have constantly been pointing out the strength of the Kaz-Cav bond from the last game. They are a vocal component of our team.
(11:06:11 AM) Silent: I myself am new, so I only know what they tell me.
(11:06:47 AM) Silent: But they have said just about the same thing as you just said.
(11:07:24 AM) Morgan: Sweet, I'll make some posts in our forum, give our diplomat a job and ask him to send some nice words to your email box. Maybe keep the momemum going see if we can get a bit closer.
(11:08:01 AM) Silent: Any little bit can help.
(11:08:54 AM) Silent: I would suggest making a point of how it will help strengthen the AMAZON position, because that's what we're discussing for the most part.
(11:09:10 AM) Silent: I think that'
(11:09:16 AM) Silent: s what people want to hear.
(11:09:37 AM) Silent: We have talked about going other ways though, so I can't promise anything.
(11:10:47 AM) Morgan: Will do, i think i have an idea of how to phase it that would help our cause. could i ask what you thoughts are about our southern neigbour the Q, they have been a little distant and abuprt with us recently
(11:11:47 AM) Silent: We have found that they have a very slow diplomatic and bureaucratic system, so we thought the same thing when we first met them.
(11:14:06 AM) Morgan: We suspect their alligence lies elsewhere, which suits us tbh, i personall don't rate them, apart from earthling (ex Cav), i question their commitent and wonder how active they will be in 100turns.

We need to send a email, i've got some thoughts and silent has been very nice in setting expectations


Greetings Team Amazon,

It was with great sadness that we read of your mistake, we thank you for the explanation that reached us through neutral ground.

The young 'Uns can, whilst increasing population, bring their own challenges, as fathers we offer our vocal support and hope this mistake can be recified at the earliest oppertunity.

We see this situation as way to bring our empires closer together, perhaps a closer working relationship could be the silver lining of the current cloud? We offer for trade a technonlgy of creation, with this you could build a forge that will increase happiness if you have the resources required, we have the resource and will gladly trade when possible. What can you offer for the Mighty Metal Casting?

Some of our rulers feel a kinship with your ruling council, they remember a past life where we cooperated and conquered whole landmasses together. We hope these are not dreams and that working together we increase the size and scope of empires, we invisge a time where we can stand shoulder to shoulder and crush our enemies ecomonically and if nessercary with advanced military force.


We hope we can soon be friends and possibaly allies


Team Mav



Just a rough draft, make any changes etc and send it out ASAP, TODAY.

We will probaly remain neutral. You have our email address, we welcome all diplomatic contact.

I know clear well what this means. For those who still can't read well between the lines, it means they are going to do the exact same thing they've been doing this whole time. In other words, a faction block against us.

I love that response about the "just send it in an e-mail", lol, like wtf does he think we were doing this whole time?

That was me saying "We will probably remain neutral" to the reload issue.
Between the lines - "i was saying our response to a reload was for sale"

but yep, before he opened up a bit it did look crap, but I think if we send a suitable email we may have made a friend.

I really need to add the Satire TAG to my witty posts. I noticed quite a few people on the forum didn't pick up on it in a few cases lately, and then the name-calling starts.

Anyhow, I think you still got my meaning!

Nice work! I think your message is fine, go a head and send it.

I also may have accidentally reported your post when I went to click Reply :blush:

Sorry chaps, not able to send it, please send it if possible.

found the following waiting for me when i logged back on to msn
(7/10/2010 10:30:04 AM) Silent: I would support you if the roles were reversed. Have no doubt about that.
(7/10/2010 10:38:18 AM) Silent: We have certainly talked about the possibility. We had already established relationships with other teams before we met you, however, and that somewhat limits our options. We are not opposed to working with your team, and we respect many of your players, just saying that working with you is going to be difficult in the near future due to the arrangements we've made with other teams.
(7/10/2010 10:39:52 AM) Silent: We are willing to consider working with the Mavericks down the road if it works out that way. As I said, if only we had met you sooner things might be a little different right now.
(7/10/2010 10:40:37 AM) Silent: Our allies have made provisions about working with you, so our hands are tied in some respects.
(7/10/2010 10:41:24 AM) Silent: We can still share information and help each other through communication, but I think anything more visible could bring up issues.
(7/10/2010 10:42:24 AM) Silent: Of course our foreign policy is up to the team, so I am really just the messenger. If the situation changes, we will have to reconsider.
(7/10/2010 10:43:20 AM) Silent: Hope you understand and can appreciate the honesty, even if it means you chose to not support a reload due to us not being able to be allies in the near future.
(7/10/2010 10:43:53 AM) Silent: Why didn't you guys send out work boats?
(7/10/2010 10:44:07 AM) Silent: If we'd met sooner...
(7/10/2010 11:19:25 AM) Silent: Our team has been thinking of going for an early wonder, but we suspect that your team might be building another and we couldn't hope to match your production with forges/OR and your Fast Workers. There's not a chance that your team would consider informing us if you're building any more wonders, so that we don't waste our hammers on it, is there? You can ask your team about it.
(7/10/2010 11:22:21 AM) Silent: They didn't really say I could ask you about that, but I thought I'd give it a try anyways.
(7/10/2010 11:24:29 AM) Silent: Well, I'm going to have to go to bed soon. It's 3AM where I am. I'm glad I got to talk to you. I'll try to keep the communications flowing between our teams. And I'll let you know when we decide something.

After this reload business, I think these guys do not deserve any help from us. They can always ask for reload if they don't get something!

Silent: Why didn't you guys send out work boats?

I see, so it's all our fault now... Wonderful.

Considering we didn't start with fishing in the first place, and were more concerned of an early planned imp-rush by their doing....

Looks like still no word from them in the mail. Not even a thanks...

Alright, now I"m getting REALLY F*CKING PISSED.

I caught Sommers logging in for the second time around 12:45 am tonight. I then click on diplo panel to catch him and chat and force him on the spot.

I just typed one line:
"How long are you guys going to ignore us?"

He immediately panics, and just types "?" then instantly and rudely kills the chat right there.

I don't know what else it's going to take you guys to wake up and smell the coffee here... They are NOT our allies, nor do they ever want to be. All we did is make things worse by granting them the damn reload.

I am so &@(^$#^ pissed. I want to just whip a trireme right now and head up there and blast the sh*t out of anything else floating in their waters. And I'd sure like to do that for most the game.

Please................... give me permission to send up some triremes up there. I am begging you...

Please.. Please.. Please....

i'd say we become GHANDI SUPREME BADASS MOTHER:):):):)ER

Alright, now I"m getting REALLY F*CKING PISSED.

I caught Sommers logging in for the second time around 12:45 am tonight. I then click on diplo panel to catch him and chat and force him on the spot.

I just typed one line:
"How long are you guys going to ignore us?"

He immediately panics, and just types "?" then instantly and rudely kills the chat right there.

I don't know what else it's going to take you guys to wake up and smell the coffee here... They are NOT our allies, nor do they ever want to be. All we did is make things worse by granting them the damn reload.

I am so &@(^$#^ pissed. I want to just whip a trireme right now and head up there and blast the sh*t out of anything else floating in their waters. And I'd sure like to do that for most the game.

Please................... give me permission to send up some triremes up there. I am begging you...

Please.. Please.. Please....

At this point, I'm not against some heavy-handed diplomacy, but lets not overreact. I would rather send a stack of triremes, because a single one can be sunk by a pair of galleys. We would need to have some more ready for the inevitable counter-attack from Q as well.

We get pyramids in 8 turns...then we whip granary and can start whipping triremes with %25 war-civic. Of course, Snaaty is going to come along and say no, no, no we need settlers out first!

BTW, when Cyrus closed the chat, that was no accident. He (Sommer)then waited around in game still ignoring us until I finally exited. I left a public message "Good luck" when I left, but believe me it took a lot of self-control.

I think that these two threads for diplomacy are as good as closed. It is obvious that we offered more than we were supposed to under normal circumstances (meaning, no islands). I think that it is also obvious that Q and Amazons will not work with us in the future, there is no hints for that. I think we should pick one and send tririems asap. I wote Q!

I'm open to it, as long as we have a strategy in mind. Our goal should be to cut them off from the main island and blockade trade routes. I'd prefer to do it with a sizable amount of triremes and have some ready to defend the retaliation that will likely come from AMAZON.

No.

We need to wait until we meet Sirius. The if we get stonewalled we can rule the seas.

I agree to wait for Sirius, and I started chatting a bit with Robi D from CBZ, just to set up some things, nothing official yet since we haven't met ingame, but small talk.

I 100% support trireme diplomacy now. Waiting to meet Sirius doesn't do us any favors. Rule the seas now - our window regardless of whether the one team was bluffing about MC is closing regardless. We know the two aren't going to work with us and will work against us. Not only do we need them for defense, but crippling one of them early will send a message to the other to not screw with us and may bring them back to the negotiating table to at least talk with us. I'm all for whipping a trireme (preferably two to really box him) and smashing Cyrus.

I think Q should be are target though!

Hmm, looks like they finally sent us some more lies:

Hello to the Mavericks,

Our Captain, Sommerswerd recently received an in-game message from obsolete, asking why we were ignoring the Mavericks. We apologize if we gave that impression, as this was not our intent.

In a previous message to us, you proposed a technology trade that included Priesthood and Monotheism. We have not responded specifically to that trade proposal, because, as you have no doubt noticed, that trade is no longer beneficial to The AMAZON. We did not mean to offend your people by not sending you an official communique stating our intentions regarding these technologies. In our future dealings, we will endeavor to more quickly inform you of our reaction to any agreements you suggest.

We were somewhat puzzled by your most recent communique, and we feel that the most productive way for us to respond would be to rephrase some of your questions. More specifically... Is there any new useful information that you have learned about our rival civilizations, or the map we inhabit that you can share with us? Have you entered into any agreements with any of our rival civilizations? Is there any useful new information about the Maverick Empire that you wish to share with us? What goals do you have for the relationship between our nations? What steps or tokens of goodwill might the Mavericks willing to make in order to move relations between our nations forward? Is there anything that you feel willing to do in order to help The AMAZON? If so, we are anxious to hear from you.

Finally, we have had no trouble whatsoever in communicating with Team Quatronia. However, from our initial meeting, we have been very open, and forthcoming in our exchanges of information with them, as we were with you. Additionally, we have endeavored to be very generous in our trade agreements with them.

Sincerely,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

Not only are they full of sh*t again, but it seems they only wrote this to see if they could learn anything else from us that they don't know. I wonder if something just rattled the diplo-chain somewhere else on the map.

Anyhow, lets play along stupid here and tell them everything they already know, like where Carthage is, etc. Let's also let em know (or think they know) that we signed a future deal with Carthage, but we're not allowed to talk about it (at their request). Let's see if that causes some distension between their faction :P

we have been very open, and forthcoming in our exchanges of information with them, as we were with you.

Buwahahaha!

I'm sorry, but this just cracks me up so much. It's not even a weak attempt to lie here anymore... no wonder they preferred to ignore us, they simply can't lie worth a damn.

I think our response should be somewhere along the lines: How about YOU give US info, because you DIDN'T offer us ANlTHING until now, and now you are ASKING for stuff without OFFERING anything. It is more than obvious that you and Q are isolating us, so we COULDN'T learn anything that your "mighty" people know!

Every time I read their spam I first want to write some hate-mail back. However, it's best we play along as stupid for the time being. Just about every line ticks me off like...

What steps or tokens of goodwill might the Mavericks willing to make in order to move relations between our nations forward? Is there anything that you feel willing to do in order to help The AMAZON? If so, we are anxious to hear from you.

So now it's OUR FAULT that we don't have good relations with them? WTF. Is there anything that WE feel willing to do for them?! Like what... bend over and take it up the a$$ too, as though everything else wasn't enough?

Fine.. write them a reply, show that exact quote from the letter and tell em we have been patiently waiting to help them out this entire time, but since they kept refusing to acknowledge us or discuss trades, IT IS THEM that made it impossible for us to help them.

Capishe!?

Whow knows, just maybe there's a 1% chance they will turn around at that.

Interesting co-incidence now. I see they only sent this letter now, to co-incide with them completing The Great Wall. What does this mean?

heres goodwill - play nice and we wont destroy you first

Here's a (nice) letter I drafted up. What do you think?


Dear brave Amazon warriors.

Thank you for finally getting back us once again. In exchange, we’ll try to answere your questions and see how we can help your people out.

You did ask us what we could do to help the Amazons. Well, there were a lot of things, unfortunately we had waited all this time while hearing no news from your diplomats. Needless to say, this has been our main bottleneck, and we assumed either your diplomats were trying to cause your own civ a downfall, or you felt you were getting enough help from elsewhere so didn’t want anymore.

The Mavericks are finishing up shopping around for the best deals, but as we understand it there is nothing we have that you want at this time, so unfortunately we can not help you out there. Perhaps in the future though, you may want to think again. Maybe you would like to spread a religion from us, or other such things? We have been getting some offers for those as of late. In the meantime we haven’t settled yet on any major concrete deals, except for one with Carthage. However, due to their request, we are not liable to discuss it.

It is a shame that we are not working closer together; there are many big techs our traits can bring in, but you force us to work with other allies instead.

In the meantime, there is one growing area for concern. We’ve noticed for a few turns now you are hammering spy points against us. This is very unsettling, and we would appreciate it if you could stop treating your ally in this matter. This can only result in a bloody conflict with each other, and we’d rather keep the Amazons as an Ally than a Foe. Blood is a big expense.

I'll be going out tonight, and I'll return after midnight or sun-rise. If I don't get any feedback on this by then, I'll send the letter myself, since we have to speed up these bottle-necks while we can.

I agree.

To me it sounds like developments with a third party. Otherwise, I don't see any point to this email, unless they're just having fun at our expense. Maybe they're getting snubbed by someone?

I would just tell them to go f*** themselves, and really vaguely suggest that we may be striking up another alliance OR that we may be building some ships. I'm not very good at these things, but something like:

Dearest Amazons,

The Maverick people deeply regret our inability to properly assist our friends and neighbors in the past. As we have benefited so greatly from our alliance thus far, we can only wish that we had in our possession appropriate "tokens of goodwill" to repay the debt. Alas, we are but a poor nation.

It would appear, however, that great developments are afoot, which may well result in us acquiring some treasures in the near future. You may rest assured that, in such a case, our thoughts would be only of how our new-found fortune may benefit our Amazon friends.

Yours truly,
Mavericks.

I like babybluepants response a little better.

I think we should tell them how we can help them (religion spread, resource trade, Metal Casting) and see what they ask for. This will tell us what their biggest need is, and possibly give us some insight as to how close AMAZON/Quatronia are to Metal Casting. Its possible that this is an elaborate misdirection coordinated by both teams to get us to trade Metal Casting prematurely. Of course, we won't be accepting any deals, but we can dangle.

Basically, list how we can benefit them and play nice while we gear up for war. It feels nice to tell them to eff off, but lets not do anything to piss them off. I want us to be the ones dictating the aggression, forcing them to react, rather than the other way around.

I was trying to be completely sarcastic. I think we've made enough offers and they've snubbed us each time. I don't see why that would change. Q and them are well ahead of us already. If they wanted a deal, they'd at least feign to offer something.

We should just tell them that we're cooking up another deal and see how they respond. Gamble on them having problems with Sirius. We're obviously not giving them MC until after we've met Sirius and fully evaluated the situation, even if WE got the better end of the deal.

I caught a non-regular turn-player for Carthage on last night. After some difficulty, I got them to accept chat and we made a little small talk. Just trying to keep up foreign relations.

From what I gathered, Cyrus is far, far away from us. This may not be so bad for us, since it means a 2v1 early dogpile by them is out of the question. On the other hand, it means our triremes wouldn't get there any time soon either to do much damage.

That said, if we BS someone then, it should switch over to Carthage since so far he's the closest. I think we should double our efforts to PRETEND to want to be a great ally. And keep trying to plot a weakness to exploit.

One thing we need to do is get a spy over on their continent somehow. We could do so by dropping off a missionary later on, with a hidden spy as well when the time comes. May have to wait until optics though.

If we could catch a capital weakly defended, etc...

I keep feeling more and more that spies are very important this game. But when I looked at past pit-boss games, it seems no one really built any. I find that very puzzling. Am I missing something here?

I thought Sirius was our immediate neighbor in the north, with Amazon beyond them. At least that's what we were told.

We can never believe what we are told, until we see it for ourselves.

BTW, not that I'm going to make an issue out of it, but isn't anyone telling us about Sirius, BEFORE we meet Sirius against the rules?

Mike, since you're the official diplomat, could you send them the e-mail.

BTW, I sent another pvm BLUFF to Sommer. I asked him if he'd be interested in trading for our Machinery. And if so, when is the earliest he could UNLOCK the trade. Note, they don't have MC so it's pretty hard for them to tell where we may be at right now.

Finally caught up with all of this stuff.

This ... doesn't look good. :( Looks like a repeat of last game with us in the SANCTA position. I'm going to check the other threads.

Alright, since I don't see any response from Mike, does anyone know what the PW was for our diplo-email account?

I logged in to check if vikings had finally met us yet. Nope. I really don't get those guys. They have the most to gain from circum nav bonus, but looks like they really screwed that one up all to hell. Don't they start with fishing even? Amazing..

Just as I'm leaving, I catch Sommer logging in. I decide to chat, sure enough, he's finally all willing to talk now that I sent a PVM for a machinery deal. He stated his team was DRAFTING up some sort of deal/response now.

I then left it at that since he got disconnected (or possibly fake disconnected, lol)

Dearest Amazons,

The Maverick people deeply regret our inability to properly assist our friends and neighbors in the past. As we have benefited so greatly from our alliance thus far, we can only wish that we had in our possession appropriate "tokens of goodwill" to repay the debt. Alas, we are but a poor nation.

It would appear, however, that great developments are afoot, which may well result in us acquiring some treasures in the near future. You may rest assured that, in such a case, our thoughts would be only of how our new-found fortune may benefit our Amazon friends.

Yours truly,
Mavericks.

This is still has not been sent by us. Do you guys want me to email it?

I don't like that so much anymore :D , and it's a touch outdated.

Sounds like obs has been communicating with them since then. Maybe he should propose a different response as a consequence?

The Maverick people deeply regret our inability to properly assist our friends and neighbors in the past.

This sounds to me almost like we are admitting blame.

I"d like to post the other response I mentioned, but I'm not sure what our pw is.

* Edit

Alright, I did a search, found the PW and checked our mail. Nothing new in so far. So I sent the last draft I had drawn up. I put a random name down so they don't THINK it's me writing both.

So you sent out the response?

Yes, I sent them this one:

Dear brave Amazon warriors.

Thank you for finally getting back us once again. In exchange, we’ll try to answere your questions and see how we can help your people out.

You did ask us what we could do to help the Amazons. Well, there were a lot of things, unfortunately we had waited all this time while hearing no news from your diplomats. Needless to say, this has been our main bottleneck, and we assumed either your diplomats were trying to cause your own civ a downfall, or you felt you were getting enough help from elsewhere so didn’t want anymore.

The Mavericks are finishing up shopping around for the best deals, but as we understand it there is nothing we have that you want at this time, so unfortunately we can not help you out there. Perhaps in the future though, you may want to think again. Maybe you would like to spread a religion from us, or other such things? We have been getting some offers for those as of late. In the meantime we haven’t settled yet on any major concrete deals, except for one with Carthage. However, due to their request, we are not liable to discuss it.

It is a shame that we are not working closer together; there are many big techs our traits can bring in, but you force us to work with other allies instead.

In the meantime, there is one growing area for concern. We’ve noticed for a few turns now you are hammering spy points against us. This is very unsettling, and we would appreciate it if you could stop treating your ally in this matter. This can only result in a bloody conflict with each other, and we’d rather keep the Amazons as an Ally than a Foe. Blood is a big expense.

I have not received anything else in pvm from my (un-official) machinery inquirey.

I am hoping this may incite them to break down their faction against us if they THINK they could get machinery. Anyhow, even if it doesn't work, just POSSIBLY we could get some other things from Theology as well.

For now, we are stuck in the worst position of the prisoner's dilemma. But as the prisoners grow, eventually someone can't resist and the chain breaks. I hope it's sooner rather than later. Sadly, STILL we can't find anyone else.

Alright, looks like our diplomatic account has received an OFFICIAL e-mail by them.

To obsolete and the Mavericks,

Our Diplomat is on sabbatical, and I, the Zenobian Captain, have been authorized to respond to your recent messages.

We Zenobians are intrigued by your offer to trade Machinery, however, we have noticed that you do not yet have Machinery. In order for us to determine what steps we would be willing to take in order to obtain Machinery from you, we would first need some idea as to when you will actually have Machinery. We would not want to make any commitments until you obtain Machinery, or at least know for certain when we could expect to receive it, because Machinery is such a valuable, expensive technology.

Also, we can not trade for Machinery because we don't have Metal Casting and we have no plans to research it in the near future. The reason for this is three-fold. First, we have prayed to the powerful Sea-Goddess Doris and recently christened a boat in her mighty name. In return, she has promised to keep our homeland safe from Naval invasion for many years, so we will not need Triremes.

Second, the Goddess Aphrodite has informed us that her husband Hephaestus, blacksmith of the Goddesses, does not wish us to build any forges at this time, because without a more Organized Religion system, they would be far too expensive and time consuming.

Finally, Athena, Goddess of wisdom has made it well known to Zenobians that the mighty obsolete, creator and mastermind of the world famous WE/SSE strategy is a prominent advisor of your team. We therefore think it highly unlikely that we would succeed in a race to build a Giant Colossus. Additionally, our Goddesses might be offended if we were to build such a large male statue.

For these reasons, we think it unwise to sacrifice any resources to obtain that which we cannot use. It would therefore be difficult for us to offer you anything for MC, as it worthless to us, and as we have explained we will not be researching it for the same reason. We are anxious to hear your suggestions as to how this problem could be resolved.

Sommerswerd,
Captain of The Zenobians

Once again their lies shine through. They mentioned earlier they were just about to get MC, and now they state something totally contradictory. (I thought so!)

We should tell them the TRUTH, on when we were going to bulb Machinery, so they are in fact not getting any official lie from us. Let everything check out. And we'll finish up by telling them since they won't be getting MC, we'll use the GE on something else then.

That way they feel they left themselves out of a great bargain. While we were trying to do us both a big favour.

Wow! That actually seems to have worked. :D Well done, obs.
Yeah, let's give them something more specific, and then pull back. Makes sense to me.

Well now that we got them talking... what do you think of a response like this? :

Dear mighty Amazons:

Thank you for your swift response. We saddened yet puzzled that you would consider such a powerful and key tech such as Metal Casting as useless. We understand that you feel it is de-valued due to the Colossus not being available.

However, for a fair price we could throw in a monopoly bargain where we agree not to transfer MC to a third party until you have completed building the colossus. Mavericks not building it would of course be part of the contract. With this water-based map, and all your growing cities, this should be a very wise investment.

As for the religion problem, Obsolete mentioned he did send some private messages out to others bargaining for missionary exchanges. We are sorry if you were not included on this list. We’d be happy to gift one to you for a fair compensation. It does indeed seem you are badly in need of a religion. Losing out on important civics and happiness can be very painful.

At the time of this writing, we will be bulbing machinery in 4 turns. That should be T-68. If on the other hand, it turns out we can not work out a fair trade with anyone, then we may default to saving our GE for rushing a world wonder instead.

I did some brief checking through our repository. To be fair to the Amazons, they did not exactly tell us they were a few turns short of MC in any official letter.

HOWEVER, Carthage, who was in cahoots with Amazons did in fact tell us this, and this is a direct quote from the official diplo responses.:

we are getting Metal Casting soon, and getting it a few turns in advance would not be helpful at all.

I'm not sure what a few turns to them means, but this e-mail arrived on the 13'th. And they are certainly not even researching it at this point (yes that is confirmed). So, it looks like a failed bluff.

I don't want to start cross posting here so I'll post later in the other thread.

Should we use GE to build Pyramids (which I think we should do), it would give us an option to bulb GS later on and then according to DaveMcW's article about order of bulbing we would need only alphabet to bulb Machinery with GS. I think that is better plan long term, I don't know how many turns it would delay us though?

I am > 90% sure we will build Pyramids next no matter what (assuming no bad RNG). I'm leaving a little lee-way in case we get a really beneficial deal here that gets us out of this dogpile vs us.

I swear, those two are sticking together through thick & water. Eventually though, we MAY crack them. What I really want from them hardcore now is Alphabet more than anything. Because the others we meet I fear are not going to have alpha either. Which means meeting them is almost as pointless.

I am so desperate, I'm going to renegade on deals if I have to.

I am > 90% sure we will build Pyramids next no matter what (assuming no bad RNG). I'm leaving a little lee-way in case we get a really beneficial deal here that gets us out of this dogpile vs us.

I swear, those two are sticking together through thick & water. Eventually though, we MAY crack them. What I really want from them hardcore now is Alphabet more than anything. Because the others we meet I fear are not going to have alpha either. Which means meeting them is almost as pointless.

I am so desperate, I'm going to renegade on deals if I have to.

All right, so basically:

Option 1 is to build the Pyramids

Option 2 is to bulb Machinery only if that will get us an ally because that is more important than a wonder here. Need to figure out what to do about the Carthage/Hannibal and Persia/Cyrus/Amazon alliance.

And yes, obsolete, I too couldn't find anywhere in an official letter where Amazon said they were close to discovering Metal Casting.

I think we don't need machinery now. Just stick to the original plan and build Pyramids with the GE. There is enough time to keep out of trouble if we build a few triremes.

The Pyramids are nice, but getting an ally is even more important. I still think, nonetheless, that we will end up building the pyramids.

Obsolete had a draft for a letter to Quatronia about Machinery, but I seriously doubt they will consider that if we send the letter to them.

If we build mids in four turns, we stick library somewhere in there, run 2 scientists and with the discount on alphabet we could have it in some 14 turns from now, and with 8GPP we should get Scientist in 29 turns from now.... And then machinery, correct me if I'm wrong on this math here.
I think this might be slow, but I still think mids give us better edge, since we ARE spiritual, and we should abuse HR, Representation and Police State.
We should bulb Machinery only and ONLY if Amazons are to commit themselves 100% to us. In the mean time we should start trireme policy against Q anyway.

It's possible Amazons may end up FAKING a deal/agreement with us, only to prevent us from getting Mids... That's a little scary...

If worse comes to worse here, and they don't want to deal again, we at least SHOULD have some brownie points for ATTEMPTING to make yet another deal with them.

I agree with Ahmed. Stick to the plan and work from there.
What good would Machinery do us now?

If nobody has MC (which seems to be the case), Machinery does us no good - we'd have to 'give' them MC just so they can also have the option of also getting Machinery later. I vote stick with the Mids and abuse our SPI trait. And I'm 100% behind some trireme diplomacy, especially given how close Q is to us - we could do some damage here...

I'm very surprised that we still didn't get ANY answer from these guys after our last email. Should we follow up?

We should also start thinking about how the war affects our diplomatic strategy. They may not know that we know that they are at war, maybe we can use this to our advantage. What this does prove is that Cyrus and Han have a strong alliance which may prove to be unbreakable. However if we meet Pacal, he may be in need of our triremes, very interesting...

I received a PM from Sommerswerd.

To obsolete, THC and the Mavericks,

This is just a note to let you know that we are still considering your recent offers. As a gesture of goodwill, we have directed our espionage away from you as you requested. We would like you to show good faith by doing the same.

Sommerswerd, Captain of the Zenobians

Yup, I was just coming here, got the same PVM. Looks like my semi-bluff (we'll keep targeting you despite the G-Spy) worked... Now for something more interesting..

The fact he sent it PVM to more than one user makes me think they are desperate to avoid targeting them. Seems they must have something they really are anxious to hide. Hmm!

DMOC do you know how the spy points work? If Cyrus started accumulating pts vs us earlier... So in theory it will take us longer to view his demo, than it takes him to view our Demographics. I'm wondering if we can tell if they only stopped because they could see our demo? Does it go by total spending over all, or by total spending versus target. What I mean is, if Cyrus has more points vs us, does it cost us more to see HIS demographics than he is charged for ours?

I just realized something. I bet you they decided to focus all spy points vs Pacal since they are at war with them. The issue about.... ohh we stopped targeting you to be nice may be just bs.

Obsolete - no I was under the impression that if we are even in EP points on each other, we are even in the amount of points we need to see one's dempgraphics regardless of who spent it FIRST and who spent more LATER. I could be wrong, so I may make a forum thread about it to ask someone about the code.

I just realized something. I bet you they decided to focus all spy points vs Pacal since they are at war with them. The issue about.... ohh we stopped targeting you to be nice may be just bs.

I agree.

What do you want to do about it? Do you think it is worth it to reduce our points towards them?

We could say something like:

We are willing to reduce points on you. However we already have other agreements and we need to put our points on someone. If you could direct us to other people then we may be willing to put points on them. We also know that because of the war it is likely you would put points on our enemy, Pacal, than you would on us, so I doubt how much this is a diplomatic gesture.

Obviously something less offensive but it's a start.

I wasn't sure if we should drop the hint we know about their war.

I'll tell them once we even-up in points we'll stop throwing them at em.

How far away are we from seeing their demographics? It's pretty clear that they're not hiding anything just redirecting at Pacal and trying to score some cheap diplo points. If we don't have that much to gain from the spending maybe we may as well play dumb and give the small token of goodwill. We could still remind them that the points aren't yet even...

We don't have to tell them that we know about the war, just that we believe that they are redirecting towards Pacal -- no need to mention why.

I'd do it to try to make them happy -- they at least seem willing to try to work with us, much more than Quatronia.

Point our points at Willem, I suppose.

Hmm, I don't know what's going on. I tried to make a friendly post on the main Cyrus thread, and I see it was deleted for spam??? I also received an infraction from the mods despite I was trying to touch base with them.

I simply don't get it. I thought I saw others not on certain teams make posts into other team threads. I don't know... this is my first pit-boss.

I got another message from Sommer with a nasty header, he's not happy.


Just to let you know, you guys did not switch your espy off of us as promised. We will switch our espy back to you unless you can confirm that we are not putting espy against each other.


I sent him this response:

Dear Sommer. I have posted your last pvm to the forum for the rest of the team to view and we are discussing this. However, we have not TIED the spy score between us. You still have far more pts on us than we do on you, and many others so far feel fair is fair. After all, you guys wouldn't do a tech trade with us that you wouldn't think was fair either.

We suggest you stick to targeting them on Pacal for now.

I decided to leak out the info we knew about Pacal. He may draw the wrong conclusion and believe that Willem has been dumping us information already. :P

That dolt Sommer sent another pvm:

Thanks for your quick reply. Our request was in response to a letter from the Mavericks, penned by THC, which said"In the meantime, there is one growing area for concern. We’ve noticed for a few turns now you are hammering spy points against us. This is very unsettling, and we would appreciate it if you could stop treating your ally in this matter." We interpreted that to mean that you wished to stop putting espy points against each other as a gesture of a desire to work together. It seems we were mistaken. Sorry about that.

Dear Sommer. I have posted your last pvm to the forum for the rest of the team to view and we are discussing this. However, we have not TIED the spy score between us. You still have far more pts on us than we do on you, and many others so far feel fair is fair. After all, you guys wouldn't do a tech trade with us that you wouldn't think was fair either.

We suggest you stick to targeting them on Pacal for now.

Just to let you know, you guys did not switch your espy off of us as promised. We will switch our espy back to you unless you can confirm that we are not putting espy against each other.

I'm thinking on sending the dolt this in pvm:

Sommer, we do not take kindly to threats. We are willing to be friends, you are not mistaken there. However, friendship takes 2, not one. So far you have not even lifted a finger for any trade deals, and instead you hammer us with espionage, while suddenly getting antsy if we just try to close the gap.

Furthermore, should I remind you that after someone made a severe misclick on your team, our team voted in favour to save your ass. There were other leaders who didn’t want us to do you this huge favour, but we did regardless. And now I have to ask, why did we do such a thing when the only thing we seem to get out of you right now is threats? This is no way to treat someone who has been willing to be a friend from the get-go.

Obsolete, I would send the same message but probably in a different tone. I have a feeling that Sommersword is not your biggest fan atm. Maybe if we had someone else sending messages for the time being we could get the same message across without annoying them too much. For now, this he said, she said stuff is doing us no favors diplomatically.

I don't think that's the right tone for this message. How about something like this (first draft):

Dear Amazon,

We understand that you don't want us putting points on you. However, in our opinion, if we are truly going to be allies (which we have done to great lengths to your team) then we should have an equal amount of espionage points. At the moment, we still have XXX to go and we will stop once we are even. The fact that we are putting points on you only reflects that you put points on us first.

We are still interested in working together. Remember how we were the ones who proposed some technology trades to you?

Team Mavericks

Ok I"ll send it in the pvm.