So we met Pacal, who is in a rough spot like us, so they are basically our friend by default.

I think a Mathematics for Alphabet trade is imminent.

We should find out what we can about Ragnar from them as well. My gut feeling is that Ragnar can be convinced to join our side, though I can't explain why.

Ragnar will only join our side if they feel trying to hit Pacal will be too costly. And that's unlikely right now since the other 4 already have macemen unlocked. However, eventually Ragnar and Carthage have to DoW each other. I see he just placed another city on Carthage's landmass. It's just a matter of time...

We are also not going to trade math for Alpha. We are going to trade EVERYTHING WE HAVE, for EVERYTHING THEY HAVE. No matter how lop-sided any deals may be. We can not afford to treat this like a business transaction.

I agree with total tech parity and we should really think through a longer term collective tech plan, after Alpha and Math. Let's find out exactly what their tech capacity is.

We'll need defensive techs (LB + XB) fairly soon. The alliance is teching much faster than I like - I guess that what you get from a heavy food-commerce start.

Ragnar will only join our side if they feel trying to hit Pacal will be too costly. And that's unlikely right now since the other 4 already have macemen unlocked. However, eventually Ragnar and Carthage have to DoW each other. I see he just placed another city on Carthage's landmass. It's just a matter of time...

We are also not going to trade math for Alpha. We are going to trade EVERYTHING WE HAVE, for EVERYTHING THEY HAVE. No matter how lop-sided any deals may be. We can not afford to treat this like a business transaction.

:goodjob:

we gift them everything we have as soon as they have alpha, inform them about our research plans, and we politely ask what they can offer us.

do they have alpha?

diplomats, please write something in the direction obs pointed out (...hello pacal-team, we will happily share all our technologies with you. can you provide alpha for this deal? we can give you metal casting, math, soon theology (with all pretechs) and are going for construction. if you could provide hbr anytime soon, it would be great, because we have access to phants. we feel like we really should be closely working together because blahblah 4 against us, blahblah, we also should try to establis traderoutes ASAP to share the phants with you if needed...)

I don't think we can trade them our fants or anything, since we'd need astronomy for that.

I don't think we can trade them our fants or anything, since we'd need astronomy for that.

no we dont. as soon as they have a city on the central landmass, we should be able to trade ressources with them (i think...)

I have a family emergency and will not be around for the next several days -- I can't write up a message for Pacal.

no we dont. as soon as they have a city on the central landmass, we should be able to trade ressources with them (i think...)

We can't trade resources with anyone else on the central landmass either, even though we can see the cities and have traderoutes to them. We need astronomy I believe. Also, Pacal already does have a city on the other landmass.

Dear Team Pacal II,

We have recently contacted you in the game. First of all, we hope that our meeting can lead to an alliance between our teams. This game has been hard on us, as the other 4 teams have ignored us, probably similar to what happens to you. To us, this means you are our friends automatically.

We have several deals in mind. Would you agree to an Alphabet - Mathematics trade? And in addition to that, we need to find a way to establish trade routes with each other.

Best Regards,
DMOC for Team Mavericks

Something like this?

I would go for even more, just say "it's 4 vs us 2, we need to help eachother out as much as possible, when you get alpha we'll give you all our techs and you give us all of yours." No point beating about the bush and worrying about individual trades and beaker costs. Even if the deal is lopsided, anything that makes them stronger makes our enemies weaker.

I would go for even more, just say "it's 4 vs us 2, we need to help eachother out as much as possible, when you get alpha we'll give you all our techs and you give us all of yours." No point beating about the bush and worrying about individual trades and beaker costs. Even if the deal is lopsided, anything that makes them stronger makes our enemies weaker.


:goodjob: yes, no point in doing a beaker count and individual trades.

"it's 4 vs us 2, we need to help eachother out as much as possible, when you get alpha we'll give you all our techs, which are math, metal casting, priest, mono and poly and it would be great if you would give us all of your techs then.

we also have elephants (2 of them) which we would like to share with you. so we need to find a way to trade ressources.

we also would like to coordinate research with you. our next goals are hbr and construction, to make best use of the elephants. it would be ideal if you could research construction or hbr after math."

...something like this. no need in keeping back any info.

this is the message from them, no one checked our email?

Greetings from His Majesty, Emperor Indiansmoke I of Team Merlot!

It is with much joy that we finally are able to greet the nation of Team Mavericks! As your people are most likely aware of, we are already at war with two of the members of the four-way alliance that has been established between the other teams, and one of the reasons we are at war with them is because Team Quatronia decided to sink our scout boat that was trying to locate your people.

As things are headed in this world, we are hoping to quickly establish a mutual and full alliance with your nation, to coordinate research and collaborate on trying to minimize some of the advantage the nations of the alliance has already gained.

His Majesty would also like to inquire if your nation has any open agreements with any of the nations in the four-way alliance? We have only the two wars at the moment.

We are eagerly awaiting your response, and look forward to a hopefully long-term beneficial collaboration with you!

Sir Caledorn
Imperial Head Diplomat of Merlot
on behalf of Emperor Indiansmoke I

I sent Snaaty's message with some addition:

Dear Team Merlot,

We apologize for delay in answer, but we will try to get back to you faster next time. At this point we find ourselves out of any deals with any of the other nations (we didn't even trade with anyone so far). It seems to us that rest of the world felt endangered with our fast Wonder advances and our gifted players who established these tactics.

At this point we feel no need to withhold any information from you and recommend following:

it's 4 vs us 2, we need to help each other out as much as possible, when you get alpha we'll give you all our techs, which are math, metal casting, priest, mono and poly and it would be great if you would give us all of your techs then.

we also have elephants (2 of them) which we would like to share with you. so we need to find a way to trade resources.

we also would like to coordinate research with you. our next goals are hbr and construction, to make best use of the elephants. it would be ideal if you could research construction or hbr after math.

On behalf of team Mavericks
Ahmedhadzi Junior Diplomat

Good stuff Ahmedahzi, its also good to see that they're on board. We definately need to chat with them about other more strategic stuff as well i.e what is their settling strategy? What is their land like? How can we get trade routes? Also we need to pick their brains to see how they think they can turn the 4vs2 into a 3v3.
At least we have a friend now :)

Perfect, it's good to see they are on board as well. I was worried there might be some issues the way they're role-playing/governing their team with their 'King" and all, but it seems the two of us are on the same page. To be honest in a four versus two scenario, I'd take the strong 'two' over the shaky four (see: Carthage/Vikings city scenario. It's clear there's something amiss between these two). It's also good to see Q as a mutual pain-in-the-butt here - they're ignoring us while sinking their work boat meant to find us. We don't have to worry about any diplomatic complications if they were in cahoots with Q.

A pvm from indianSmoke:

we have no elephants, so idially we want feudalism next, but since we are 2vs4 it would propably be best to tech techs they already have teched to get the bonus.

We have Alpha in 2 turns, so lets wait and see maybe they tech construction or HBR by then.

We have around 400 cash so can tech 100% a long time.

BTW have you got a city in central continent?

What do you want me to send them back?

Yes, we have a city and tech HBR next?

What do you want me to send them back?

Yes, we have a city and tech HBR next?


more or less like this, yes... ...add some more infos:

we have 1 city on the central landmass and 3 cities on our starting island. we are about to found the next city there within 2 turns to claim elephants on the central landmass. our elephant city is deep inland in the jungel.

our plan is to get out fast 3-5 cities on the central landmass because there is great land nearby our starting island (green land with lots of food. we are going a FE, so we could whip an army fast). we want to pack our cities close and then gear up for war immediately with elephants/catas against the closest of the 4 enemies. waiting would only make things worse, because we would fall further behind in tech. we think that the 4 might make the mistake in teching some infra-techs and therefore we see our window of opportunity up to turn 120 or so...

coordinating this with you would be great. if we could get a landbased connection on the central continent would also help.

so the techpath of our choice would be:
we tech hbr, you tech construction after math (establishing traderoutes would be great to gift you elephants too). after that we can go for feudalism.

we have a chariot scouting the inner continent.

+repeat that we have 2 elephants and ASAP when we manage to establish traderoutes we want to give them one of them

+we also can tech construction after math, but hbr would be better i think to get stables up for shock elephants...

They told me in pvm that they want to go for feudalism for long bows. I said I really don't think defensive will work vs humans as it does vs really dumb AIs. We will try to have a private chat on msn or skype or something since the game is bugged and won't allow multiple log-ins anymore.

I'm not quite sure we can get and sustain a trade route with Merlot. If they don't have ivory, how is Const/HBR supposed to benefit them in the short to mid term? IMHO, Machinery > Feudalism in that case.

OK. So can we settle on what do we want from them, so I can send them email? Or will you handle this Obs by skype?

I'm not quite sure we can get and sustain a trade route with Merlot. If they don't have ivory, how is Const/HBR supposed to benefit them in the short to mid term? IMHO, Machinery > Feudalism in that case.

it will absolutely benefit them, even if we cant trade ivory with them, for four easy reasons:


1.
to survive in this game, they need construction. no idea how they plan to survive in a HI game without it (no catas = rip). lbs dont really help here without catas. lbs simply mean death comes a little slower and with more big stones on their heads...

2.
HAs are amazingly versatile in HI games. you can do quick attacks and they come inbuild with shock if you have a stable. so not even spears are a save defence. with enough HAs and catas you can even stop berserkers + XY and such if you have enough numbers

3.
we will go berserk with our phants and might very well end up REALLY crippling one of the 4 idiots. so it might essentially turn into a 3vs2,5 (with us ending up with 1,5 of the land)

4.
feuda costs the double of the above techs. we cant share research on it... ...so what´s the point in researching this way???
(if they plan to go down this road, they better go for machinery to stop the berserkes, lbs dont really help here:rolleyes:)


not going for construction and hbr is plain stupid. each tech should be like 5-6 turns, if each team researches one of them its fine. if they dont see that, we have a problem (and i mean not only the missing elephants...)

I already mentioned earlier that I didn't see how longbows was going to save them from the war vs HUMAN opponents.

I will try to talk some COMMON SENSE into them through MSN if I can. Unfortunatley they don't even use skype. Hmm, seems to be a very inexperienced ally, sad for us. On the other hand, they were smart enough to send their UU over to us as fast as they could so maybe we are being a little too hard on them at this time.

So are we set on Constr/HBR? I support that btw.

Obsolete - skype, seriously? :lol:

Email from Merlot 4 hours ago

Greetings to all of members of the Mavericks,
It is wonderful to see that you are open and willing to engage in a positive and beneficial relationship with our nation. We are equally open to the idea of trading technologies, resources, and much more to further both our empires.

Your honesty proves your nation is an honourable one. The alliance you face is one that both of us can share our experiences from. From this, we should be active in supporting one another so that our nations may continue to flourish under the almighty guidance of both our leaders.

Regarding trade opportunities, we have Corn, Wine and Gems that we can share with your people.

To prove to you our good intentions, His Majesty, King Indiansmoke I, as well as both the leading Ambassador Sir Caledorn, and me, Ambassador to Mavericks, Sir Snaker8, are wanting to begin a live-chat style discussion on several issues of interest to both countries. This can be on MSN or whatever messenger client you deem as the most viable option. If we are to engage in a live discussion, we ask that at least one of your ambassadors is present in the discussion.

Since this is an international community, we also require that all participating members state their time zone, so that a conversation may be scheduled which will minimize conflict with real-life hours of the day. We will also require email contact information relevant to the chat.

The citizens of Merlot await your reply,
Sir Snaker8
Imperial Diplomat of Merlot

sounds good. some points:

1. one of our diplomats should do the live chat, not the turnplayer (as requested from team pacal)
2. we already have stated here, that we are willing to share all our technologies, ressources etc for free, so nothing much to discuss here... ...hand it out
3. we also have pointed out what techs we need (hbr and construction) and why, so also not much to discuss on this matter

-> go diplomats, now it gets interesting, please react fast:)

I sent them email that I will be available for chat this weekend. If someone can do it before that let me know.

I sent them email that I will be available for chat this weekend. If someone can do it before that let me know.

:goodjob: sounds good.

They can tech much faster than us right now. Next turn they should get alpha, after that we trade Math and hopefully you can talk them into teching Construction for us, since they can get it much faster. We should go after the cheaper HBR, especially since they don't have fants and it seems they don't want to tech it anyway.

No answer from them so far

I got another pvm from IndianSmoke:

So what next? How about we research machinery and you go CoL? You can ten go CS while we go compass optics.

How does that sound? We really need to tech techs they already have to get research bonus.

I got another pvm from IndianSmoke:


replay the pvm:

1. our diplomats are waiting for the answer on their official email confirming a chat (we want the chat...)
2. they should tech construction, after that machinery sounds fine (we need construction)

we will give them all our techs, so they should do this for us (adding hbr)

http://img37.imagefra.me/img/img37/7/9/4/obsolete/f_y92ebgm_dc85bf0.jpg

I got another pvm. Seems they are going for Machinery nevertheless, they claim catapults are useless right now and insist it's better to go for maces and xbows...

So now what?

* Edit *

Ok, I'll stockpile gold for a few turns and then we can re-evaluate. I don't think Machinery is so bad. We have iron hooked up, so we know we can get a few X-Bows as well. I am waiting for them to give me an ETA on machinery now.

Another PVM by them...

We are at war with persia and carthage so we log in after the first half of the clock.

Going HBR and construction is bad IMO. We need bureocracy in order to keep up in tech as much as possible.

You have eles but we don't and you will sacrifice alot of tech this way.

Holkan is around the dutch border between a dutch axe and an archer.

We did not lose any race, we went for meditation late as we needed worker techs first. We have not even tried to build any wonders, just focused on developement.

I still didn't get any email via official sources, I guess it's up to you and pvm Obs.

...
Ok, I'll stockpile gold for a few turns and then we can re-evaluate. I don't think Machinery is so bad. We have iron hooked up, so we know we can get a few X-Bows as well. I am waiting for them to give me an ETA on machinery now.

we need these elephants. and we all need catapults. they are really acting stupid here.

if we have enough gold to research hbr, we should do this NOW. if not, we should stockpile gold untill we can do so (we always should research that way btw)

ok, let them go machinery, we go then hbr first, next construction. like that we can build stables in our cities right away. we will give them the techs ASAP once we have researched them.

I think it is better we go Currency first, then we gift them gold to keep their sliders up to 100%.

Another pvm...

I've been thinking, maybe Ghandi should tech currency, then we could gift you gold to keep your slider on 100% while we grab cheaper stuff with specialists.

Currency is a must yes, the question is do we tech it after or before Civil service?

A nice gambit is going CoL and you going caste and getting a merchant who will bulb Civil service. So tech path for you would be CoL, currency and merchant bulbs CS.

Think about it...

Yea, CS really benefits the FIN guys if they have a heavily cottaged capital. It'd be okay for us with the gems, but we can't really kill people with money... There's clearly a lack of tech-philosophy going on between us two - we want to stifle one of them militarily on the mainland, they want to play break even with beakers to keep up technologically. CoL does nothing for us really so I see no point other than to cheapen how much CS will cost and I'm not sold CS is the best option given our situation. Currency I see a reason for though, so I could get behind a Currency/HBR/Construction route. If they want CS, they should take CS with their beakers, not have us burn one of our Great People to do it their way.

PVM:

This is not good news....we are far behind in tech and if we don't rush to catch at least a bit we will have no chance (already close to no chance). Crossbows are sufficient to defend at the momment, catapults are useless at this point...there is much land to be settled still, noone will be sending you big stacks just yet, it will be mostly 2-3-4 units, if any.

You might not know me but I am very experienced in multiplayer, have been playing civplayers league and tournaments for 4 years (although not very active last 6 months) and have played more than a dozen pitbosses winning more than half of them....so believe me I know what I am talking about.

Please consider the CoL (caste), currency merchant bulb CS option. This will accelerate our tech ALOT, saving crusial time, construction we can get very fast a bit later if needed.

Don't get fooled by the fast tech pace, no one has the ability to slave and send large armies yet and even if they do they need galleys to trasport which is hideous.

Stacks will come after Astro and on your island, by then we will have construction and catas but we need to push tech as much as possible now.

Please rethink

we wont bulb CS:eek:

if we run scientists, we can get our beakers up drastically. with what i could live would be CoL, then currency and we provide them with money and they go for CS. we cant runs specialists anyways untill we have finished settling our planned cities, so our research will be bad some turns more

to make a proper planning, i need 2 things:

1. new and actuall sandkasten
2. an overview over the known land to make a good settling suggestion

but please only restart research AFTER we can get what we want in 1 turn

...

as i see it right not, there are no neighbours really close by, so we dont have anyting to rush with elepults rigth now anyways, so lets give them what they want...

I'm confused. First you said we won't bulb CS, but then you said give them what they want...

Like I said before, Machinery is the best defensive tech for now, so no objection there. Xbows maul melee units, which is all that most players can spam at this stage. I agree that no one has anywhere near the production capacity to pump medieval units in significant numbers for now. We'd need forge/barracks/stable in multiple size 6-10 cities first, if not also Theo, before thinking about going on any kind of offensive. Do we even have the ability to build that infrastructure just yet? If not, I don't see a reason not to go for Currency-COL-CS. I wouldn't bulb with a GM, though, that's silly.

We are so bad with infrastructure, we don't even have granaries yet...

* append *

If we go for currency now, we can get it in just over 10 turns. Since we need it anyway, I don't mind going for it now.

I'm confused. First you said we won't bulb CS, but then you said give them what they want...

meaning we can research currency-col. but not bulbing cs. we should run anytime soon some gs...

This message was sitting in inbox for 3 days!!!

Greetings to all of members of the Mavericks,
All of Merlot has been very joyous knowing how productive our relationship is. We all envision, and know that it is possible, that our two empires may act in sync for researching. Working as an united team, instead of two separate nations, will aid us both in overcoming future obstacles (as well as current ones).

Our King has a plan that our nation may research machinery (for defence and progress toward optics). Then in turn the Mavericks research code of laws for the purpose of using caste system, so that they may make a merchant. After which, Merlot will research compass, followed by the Mavericks researching currency and “bulb” civil service. Merlot will then research optics and astronomy.

If you do not want to use the “merchant bulb”, our King still has a plan to hopefully satisfy both parties. Like before, we will research machinery, and then the Mavericks research Code of Laws. We will then research civil service, since our rate of research is faster. The Mavericks are then to proceed by researching currency and compass, and we then research optics and astronomy.

It is to be noted in particular that it is imperative we obtain astronomy soon. Astronomy is extremely vital to the survival and prosperity of our civilizations, and so it would be wise to progress towards it.

These choices of technology (or more specifically, the order in which they are) will allow us to have a much better rate of research for future technologies. Since we are outnumbered by many foes, it may be wise to attempt to remain as close as possible in technology.

If you have any thoughts or opinions on any of the matters discussed, please feel free to share with us.

The citizens of Merlot await your reply,
Sir Snaker8
Imperial Diplomat of Merlot
on behalf of Emperor Indiansmoke I

Mmm, I thought we had more than one diplo person selected to check the official emails and draft up official responses and such. We should vote some new ones in I guess. We can't keep playing like this, and it's part of the reason we got into this problem in the first place.

I agree. I mean I don't mind doing it. But it is obvious that NO ONE is checking it except me. I honestly forget to check sometimes. I'm not sure if have more than 5 or so active players now.

Snaaty is asking for sandkasten for days now. It hurts my heart but I just don't have time to make it now.

What happened to Mike anyway?

yup, interest is dropping somehow...

but now to the message:

simple respons:

yes, we agree. we are also almost done settling our peninsula. after that we will be able to fully use our specialist economy and our research will be much faster soon.

add some blahblah and out with it

Another response from Pacal in our Private Messaging.

What is the situation now on your front, and with your opponents?

Sadly we have shifted now down to 5'th place in the military ranking.

Carthage is off researching music, mainly for the GA. He either will run a golden age at some time, or use it to culture blast the hell out of Ragnar's bordering cities.

we are still n2 in power and we will have machinery in 3 turns.

Amazon have parked 4 axes and an archer on a hill outside our city...we will soon drive the off with crossbows.

someone should send them the message i have drafted (2 posts above):)

obs, if we really have lost all our diplomats, if you have time, inform them via your pm channels that we agree on their proposal and that our eco will soon gather speed cause we have almost finished settling our peninsula and will run lots of rep.scientists

Hmm. Well I'm a bit confused. So you really want me to tell them we are willing to bulb CS with a merchant? I thought you were dead-set against it earlier :P

Hmm. Well I'm a bit confused. So you really want me to tell them we are willing to bulb CS with a merchant? I thought you were dead-set against it earlier :P


almost:rolleyes:

tell them what we are up to (settling our cities as planned and then going full research with scientists)

and

that we will research CoL first, then currency (their latest proposal). we wont bulb cause we wont have a gm. if we get one, we still wont bulb cause we will research fast enough soon.

I'm also totally against bulbing with a GM on two counts. 1) Where the hell is it coming from, and 2) if we did get a GM I'd rather trade mission it to keep the slider at 100% for longer. Surely it'd be worth more beakers that way rather than a shot in the arm bulb. We should finish currency, then switch to CoL. We have a bunch of cities that would benefit from the extra trade route and since we don't have the infrastructure up yet in most cities (library/granary) we aren't really ready to go mass specs yet.

What happened to Mike anyway?


I'm still around, but I've had a death in the family recently, and started a new job... travelling, etc... It's been hectic. I apologize for my lack of activity.