Embassy with "The Brotherhood"

Both messages look good.

Works for me.

Me too.

Actually that is excellent! It shows ownership which is Role Playing and it is to the point. It gives them something to think about in regards to "reasonable frame of time".
It also offers a great opportunity for the Brotherhood to open the flood gates of information. We are at a small disadvantage so they will compensate far more then they would have normally.

Assuming their messages are voted on as well, it will be toned down but we have given them the knowledge that we intend on changing our government, which if that is broke down it shows them direction and they will respond with direction but more. The next 2 exchanges are critical, a lot can be said in a few words but more times than not, its a lot of words.

Edit; If we can bait them with the question hidden in a quote like.
We commend you for your exploration of the Sea, I am sure finding new coastlands is worth recognition.

They could say that they have been at it a while, or we have the most vessels sailling or we are well on our way to mapping the entire sea or simply it was just good luck.

Thank you Eclipse.

By the way, according to their curraghs location, I am almost sure they also have met Die Kueche.

From the Brotherhood:

Dear Calis, "who knows a lot that is hidden",
dear Eagles,

our foreign minister is still confused about the very different ring in the posts that we have seen from you so far. But it takes a knight to stand above such things, and reach the hands out for friendship, even if they had been pushed back already once.

However, without wanting to become technical, we still must point out that it is "Knights who say Ni" and not "Knights of the Ni". Anyway, back to the topic.

Some of our Knights Brothers claim to read subtle messages out of your latest post; messages, they say, that could remain veiled to those that are unattentative. Their analysis says that you may still seek for a fair partner to develop and share those ideals of liberty and freedom, and may not have found the right people to do that with.
We need to state that, while their understandings of subtleties are very sensible at times, these brothers were sometimes simply drunk the night before...

So we would like to learn a bit more about how your plans in the nearer future, or even the more distant future, are.

We would like to engage into such talks and some details, as we just met and need to learn many things about each other. We, too, are striving towards the ideals you mentioned. You may have guessed that we already mastered that tech that you are currently researching. We can assure you that it is a nice thing to know these "Code of Laws" as early as possible, and that our people are very happy about the justice it brings to them and the paths for further research it opens up. We had to learn some means for better defenses in the meanwhile, but now we started on a government tech which we believe will improve our abilites a fair lot.

This opens up another question, that is, why you should continue to invest beakers into said technology, and we do not find another way to let your people participate its benefits, and find a way how our people can also benefit from such a co-operation as well. Some say, that we gave you some support for your research simply by meeting you on your coast, however, we have no clue how this actually works, when we sent only sailors and an emissary, and no scientists on our boat.
One thing we need to know however, if we start negotiations about trades and other means of cooperation, is whether your tribe is free to do so, or whether you did already enter into obligations that require that we have to talk to another party as well. Being a reformed sort of knights, we would be open for that kind of diplomacy also, but for obvious reasons we need to know.

Maybe you can soon give us some information on how you see this, and then we could arrange an intense discussion between our chief emissary (Sir Lanzelot) and probably you (Calis) to quickly get to a point where each of us can derive how our peoples can benefit from the happy fact that we met here on the shores of this very nice continent.
(Read: We suggest to have you two in a chatroom soon, and the log posted for further discussion within the teams.)

templar_x
todays spokesman of the Knights' Brotherhood

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I think we should wait until Lanzelot writes us the real letter. But not wait for too long.

I think you are right. His hands are tied by the other knights.
It is very well written and offers only a small amount of information.

It is really showing supremacy or control over us in dialgue
IMO this is good news and can be used. Our next letter could give a little to the attentative knights but only enough to allow them to again feel the dialog is a game.

Lanzelot's games are mostly dialog driven. Meet him in a game and you're going to get pages of detail.

Bowsling said:

I think we should wait until Lanzelot writes us the real letter. But not wait for too long.

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Did I miss something? Where do they announce another letter?

Here is a proposal for an answer. I filled it with numbers and offers that cam eto my mind. So please feel free to comment, criticise and appreciate.

Dear Brothers of the Hood,

Of course we already guessed your path of research. And as you already assumed it’s a path that we also want to follow as it gives us more power.

As for the Code of Laws that we are currently researching, I see no reasonable way to include it in any deal, as we will have it finished very soon. It is true that our meeting reduced he difficulty to invent such a code, but we see it as given and not a proactive aid you gave to us, to be frank.

But nonetheless, we really would like to co-operate with “The Brotherhood”. We can assure you that so far we are not in any deeper negotiations with anybody, thus, we are free to negotiate right now without affecting any other deals. But as you also pointed out, we would like to speed up negotiations. So we would like to make the following rough plan that has to be filled with numbers, of course:

You already started researching Republic that needs 700 beakers to be researched. We would like to get it as soon as possible of course.

Our offer would be to research the following techs and give them to you as soon as they are done, or you need them (considering the costs reduction effect for our common opponents):

This would also be our preferred order:

Map Making: 300
Literature: 250
Mathematics: 200

We added 50 beakers as a kind of interest for your prepayment of Republic, if that is agreeable for you.

Of course we could also accompany this tech treaty with a non-aggression pact for a certain amount of time, if you would agree to this.

We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Calis of the Flock

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I like it.

I like that too. The reason I stated that we should wait is that the letter stated that templar_x had written it, and, well, it was clear that he had written it. It was a very surprising near attack on us.

But I like that message.

Looks good. Maybe you should mention that you've given the techs in the order they'll be researched, the Brotherhood will no doubt be looking forward to getting mapmaking.

CharlemagneXLII said:

Looks good. Maybe you should mention that you've given the techs in the order they'll be researched, the Brotherhood will no doubt be looking forward to getting mapmaking.

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Good point, but then I will put Literature one position up, as I see this as more important than Maths.

Thank you!

If no other (contrary) comments will come, I'll post it in the embassy this evening.

Communication from The Brotherhood on May 4 said:

our foreign minister is still confused about the very different ring in the posts that we have seen from you so far. But it takes a knight to stand above such things, and reach the hands out for friendship, even if they had been pushed back already once.

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This distrubs me.

Different ring? One was a quick missive to communicate a 'WHOOPS!' and the other one not; it was 'normal'. It is like having a guest arrive while you are in the bathroom and having to yell through the door, 'I'm busy!' and then talk to the guest as if nothing had happened. Who is going to take offense at that? Do you point out the different tones of their voice?

I may be reading too much into that paragraph, but it doesn't set well with me. It sounds odd, almost provactive in nature.

Which tells me that The Brotherhood is slightly paranoid. They inferred too many things from our previous and brief communications. Touchy, too, in referring to pushing back the hand of friendship.

But to try to correct them of their initial wrong impression probably won't help matters any. Ignoring it altogether, which we have done here, is a better response. In due time they will figure out that they over-reacted and over-responded.

CommandoBob said:

This distrubs me.

Different ring? One was a quick missive to communicate a 'WHOOPS!' and the other one not; it was 'normal'. It is like having a guest arrive while you are in the bathroom and having to yell through the door, 'I'm busy!' and then talk to the guest as if nothing had happened. Who is going to take offense at that? Do you point out the different tones of their voice?

I may be reading too much into that paragraph, but it doesn't set well with me. It sounds odd, almost provactive in nature.

Which tells me that The Brotherhood is slightly paranoid. They inferred too many things from our previous and brief communications. Touchy, too, in referring to pushing back the hand of friendship.

But to try to correct them of their initial wrong impression probably won't help matters any. Ignoring it altogether, which we have done here, is a better response. In due time they will figure out that they over-reacted and over-responded.

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Thank you for stating your impression. I will keep the answer as it is right now. But if there will be more such replies from them, we have to bring it on the table.

Wasn't there a post from us accusing them of cheating?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419974

They are walking on eggshells with us. Or they were.
I think we are OK.
If the todays spokesman of the Knights' Brotherhood is Lanzelot or the voice of Knights' Brotherhood there is a big difference. From the meeting a new game started and we are loosing it. Who is "templar_x"? "knights of the Ni"? And "Knights who say Ni" and not "Knights of the Ni".

This is my first "Demo Game" so I am unsure of the RPG element of the Dialog, If it common we have some work to do. We need to BE the Eagles in all ways. They almost understand us more so from our recent post to them.

Early on they quoted "would like to know whether in principle you are interested as well"(trade). This was possibly our first test but there were more. Like above names and references above.

"Welcome from Knights' Brotherhood!" Was their opened line and this is how we should have addressed them. So far we haven't got that right. I'm sorry I skip around when I write, when I try to cover details it is how my brain works but to write I have a fair hand.

Our next exchange should be about in part of the most recent post to them. We have added the cost of techs and offered them a deal in beakers, this could be considered the apology for being aggressive to start with.

"who knows a lot that is hidden", "Some of our Knights Brothers claim to read subtle messages"(from us) I say "Game on". If we greet them properly we could offer them a challenge in return. We offer the same techs and in the same order but separately for Republic but now require a retainer we will hold and return, lets say gold. Would a some of gold now pay a benefit to us now? Make in concept a profit and return to them the original amount, the profit for each of the 3 techs we keep. Maybe we can break even the equivalent of the 50 extra beakers. Is the package deal as it is now a "to good to be true" exchange and worth not messing with.

We should just ask them if they have concentrated mostly on sea travel, I don't think that would be something they'd keep secret. If they answered yes, I would have, because it a formidable position to be in which brings me to the next part of this, if they have a few ships and they have Gold and those ships are upgradeable after the exchange of our first tech they might consider upgrading. If we ask for a little gold and they don't have it, it will cause them to discuss their research slider and backing it off might be what they do. If they have it or almost and we get it, they can't use it.

Sorry I have gone on so long, please tell if what I have said is over doing it, if this kind of thinking is put to the team and take from it something. I have imagination I'm just weak at counting shields and beakers, I simply let my Governor handle it and compensate elsewhere. I really think we should get some gold from them some how to slow them down and challenge them.

We should ask again where they are in reference to us, they are going to get map making anyway and most likely trade maps and from here start using the Dromon,s muscle. Getting a good map means we will show the other players who we are and knowing that we have the potential to control the sea will cause each team to reexamine thee position toward us and possibly compensate with more lighter ships which translates to less melee units. Many agree the worker is the most powerful unit in the game but think of the feeling being landlocked because someone else controls the sea just outside their border. It causes all kinds of mind games, and struggles. Shall we spread our wings and show the power of the Eagles.

Request our first Dromon t be named "Nemo" if it has not been called

Eclipse4449 said:

They are walking on eggshells with us. Or they were.
I think we are OK.
If the todays spokesman of the Knights' Brotherhood is Lanzelot or the voice of Knights' Brotherhood there is a big difference. From the meeting a new game started and we are loosing it. Who is "templar_x"? "knights of the Ni"? And "Knights who say Ni" and not "Knights of the Ni".

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The knights are from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At wikipedia.


Link to video.

This is my first "Demo Game" so I am unsure of the RPG element of the Dialog, If it common we have some work to do. We need to BE the Eagles in all ways. They almost understand us more so from our recent post to them.

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Most of the RPG stuff is merely for flavor; it makes the game more fun but in the end it is just for show. It is not critcal but it does add some spice and zip to the game.