Team Free Embassy

Opposed to us getting more money? :crazyeye:

Care to elaborate on why? – Keep in mind that FREE is currently way ahead of us in score, land controlled, and has near double our population.

Imho, they owe us a few good deals… but I’ll be quiet and listen now :)

No but in my opinion wer'e playing with fire here. We could of convinced them for a 60 40 split. In my opinion it's not if but when free finds out. Like you said about land and population. What happens when they make contact.
 
Well, if they find out we can always make some sort of offer to compenste them if need be (after first trying to explain our way out of it). :D
 
I would be pretty psst.
 
Well – I can't imagine that there's anyway they'll ever find out. It's exceptionally unlikely that FREE and Saber will ever discuss the details of our trade.
It's possible FREE would have found out we sold Construction to Saber, but I think there's actually a really good chance we could have not even told FREE and totally gotten away with all the gold.

Besides, if FREE ever does find out, we can just say "it's our strong opinion that since we risked the seas and invested the shields in boats to make that contact, and we did the diplomatic heavy lifting and maneuvering to make the trade happen… and in light of the fact that you're running away from us in score, we think we pretty unquestionably deserved a larger portion of the gold. We did split the gold with you – just not 50/50, which we never claimed – and we hope you will recognize that it was still a good deal for both of us and for the alliance." – I'd be surprised if FREE really made too much of a stink about it after that. We have other potential options for alliance. Afaik, they don't… hence, they need us more than we need them.


Note: I still strongly support the alliance with FREE – and I think we need to be fair with them. But I don't think our split of the gold was in anyway "unfair."


Ok – so I still haven't sent a letter, but conversation here seems to have died down, I propose sending this modified version my previous suggestion here asap, (now including zyxy's suggestion) and will do so in the next hour or so unless someone really objects?

Dear FREE allies,

Thanks for getting back to us so quickly, it's appreciated.

We're liking your MAAP II proposal so far, we're still just tinkering with some ideas to balance out the Polytheism thing. As you know, beakers become relatively less valuable as the game goes on, so we'd rather not wait till the Industrial Era to settle the books.

We have some scary news! The evil empire of BABE just showed up off our coast. Thankfully, it's just a boat with no units. Anyway, per our treaty, we're letting you know.

We've already had a chat with Saber, and they've agreed to not trade construction to anyone else. It turns out, they also know BABE, and so we're going to be delaying the transfer of Construction to them, to hopefully avoid lowering the cost for BABE. (As we're sure you'll agree, we want to delay BABE getting to the Middle Ages for as long as possible!) We will, of course, send you your share of the gold as soon as the transfer takes place.
Some good news is that BABE appears to be three techs away from the Middle Ages… our cooperation has placed us ahead of our rivals! :clap:

We'll be writing back soon with our response on the MAAP II trade, but we wanted to pass on this big news right away.

Finally, we've started work on learning Invention, and the "7 year festival to celebrate reaching the new age" (read: anarchy) has begun in our lands.

All the Best,
Your brothers in bluish,

General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

EDIT: Sent to FREE gmail

I think we should leave our ideas for "settling the books" for further discussion here.
Look good?
 
ok thanks! :)

Sending now, to FREE gmail...

:salute:
 
Ok – so I've been tinkering with this, and here's my VERY rough draft of a response to FREE on the MAAP II agreement.
There's A LOT of stuff I'm just creating out of thin air here with no discussion, but I'm hoping that putting some concrete proposals on the table will help us to focus our discussion into specifics to get this done more quickly!

(without quote tags, for easy editing by all!)

-----------------------------------
Dear FREE allies,

At long last, our response to your proposal for the Middle Ages!
We'd like to suggest going beyond just a tech arrangement, and do a full treaty including peace, foreign relations, etc… and call it the MAAP II agreement.
Hopefully you're open to that idea.

Following is our proposal for the MAAP II:

I. Peace
  • FREE and The Council agree to extended the period of guaranteed peace with each other through the middle ages.
  • The "15 turns notice of intent to cancel" clause of our long-standing peace treaty may not be activated until after the swap of our Industrial Era Bonus techs.

II. Mutually Assured Advancement Plan - II
  • FREE and The Council agree to continue to cooperate to get into the Industrial Era as rapidly as possible.
  • Both teams agree to not execute a "slow burn" in getting technologies slower in favor of stockpiling gold, unless explicitly approved by the other team.
  • Both teams pledge to do their level best to not undermine the alliance in rapid advancement of knowledge.
  • The following MAAP II agreement may only be modified by joint agreement of the teams.
  • The MAAP II naturally expires after the exchange of our Bonus Industrial Era technologies, but both teams hereby express a desire to continue to work together on a MAAP III agreement for the Industrial Era.

The MAAP II
Code:
[U]FREE[/U]                                  [U]The Council[/U]
				Poly Imbalance (720)
Monotheism (1080)               	Invention (1320)
Theology (1200)                  	Gunpowder (1440)
Education (1320)                 	Chemistry (1800)
Astronomy (1680)                	Metallurgy (1920)
Banking (1560)                  	Magnetism (2040)
Physics (1920)                     	Military Tradition (1920)
Theory of Gravity (2040)

[B]Total 10,800                        	11,160[/B]
* Exchange IA bonus techs without regard to beaker value

III. Optional Techs and Their Wonders
  • There are several wonders in the Industrial Era that are attached to techs not covered by the MAAP II agreement. They are: Knights Templar (Chivalry), JS Bach (Music), Shakespeare's theatre (Free Artistry), Smith's Trading Co (Economics), and Magellan's Voyage (Navigation).
  • If either team would like to build one of these wonders, they must first notify the other team and then the alliance can jointly determine if the tech can be gained without unreasonably slowing down the coordination on getting Physics, on unreasonably slowing the advance to the IA. If the tech can be gained without unacceptably slowing things down for either team, then…
  • For Knights Templar or Smith's Trading Co., the team getting the wonder will supply the tech (Chivalry or Economics) without charge or expected compensation in beakers in exchange for building the wonder unchallenged.
  • For JS Bach, the team building the wonder will agree to give one of their surplus luxury resources for free for 40 turns in exchange for non-competition.
  • For Shakespeare's Theatre, only democracy need be shared in exchange for non-competition.
  • For Magellan's Voyage, the team that builds the wonder agrees to turn over their world map ONE time at the request of the other team (this request can not be made later than when Replaceable Parts is learned by either team) in exchange for non-competition. The traded world map may not be subsequently traded away without the permission of the other team.

IV. Required Technology Wonders
  • There are several wonders in the Industrial Era that are attached to techs that ARE covered by the MAAP II agreement. They are: Sun Tzu's Art of War (Feudalism), Sistine Chapel (Monotheism), Leonardo's Workshop (Invention), Copernicus' Observatory (Astronomy), and Newton's University (Theory of Gravity).
  • Both teams agree to just assign the "rights" to each wonder to either side. These "rights to build" may be traded away to the other team in any negotiations that may come up.
  • Team FREE shall have the right to build: Sun Tzu's Art of War, Copernicus' Observatory, & all remaining AA wonders
  • The Council shall have the right to build: Leo's Workshop, Newton's University, & the Sistine Chapel

V. Balancing the MAAP II Techs
  • Seeing as how the MAAP II tech plan leaves The Council with a heavier load, team FREE therefore agrees to one of the following 3 options to make up the beaker imbalance.
  • Option 1 – FREE trades their world map in exchange for balancing the beakers. The map will be delivered at the request of The Council, but the request must be made before or at the time of the discovery of Physics.
  • Option 2 – FREE trades away their "right to build" Copernicus' Observatory
  • Option 3 – FREE agrees to pay 50% of the beaker difference in gold… 180 gold.

VI. Defense Against All
  • If either team is attacked in the next 40 turns, the team that hasn’t been attacked will provide 20 gold per turn to the besieged team for the duration of the invasion, or up to 300 gold total (15 turns), whichever is less.
  • For purposes of the DAA, an “invasion” will be defined as any enemy units on shore, or waiting immediately off-shore, with war being officially declared and actual fighting starting within 5 turns
  • Each team will immediately notify the other of any sightings of enemy ships with their (approximate) locations and heading. Each team will also notify the other if any foreign team begins making aggressive demands or sends other signals as a possible prelude to war.
  • As a defense against other's catching us in our technology lead, both teams agree to not trade, sell, or otherwise transfer any technology to foreign teams without the express permission of the other ally.

----------------------------------

Ok – so there's quite a lot there! I hope this start is helpful!
Let the editing and debating begin! [party]
 
That is very inspired work General. Handling the optional tech wonders differently from the required tech wonders is great. So is adding the poly imbalance into the MAAP II totals.

Too tired to do any real editing. I suggest part III, bullet number two not have us jointly deciding. The realilty is one team wants to build the wonder so all that's needed is for the other team to ok it. Compensation is being built in by the rest of part III, so no negotiation is needed. All that's required is a yes or no from the other team.

I don't have a counter suggestion but if FREE takes option 3 and gives us 180g for poly then we're not getting paid in beakers which we preferred. As much as I'd like their map and the right to build Copernicus and Newton's I wonder is either worth that imbalance? Especially since we were going to try to get those wonders basically for free. Well, maybe tomorrow I'll have a counter proposal on that.

All that said, I would not be against sending this proposal as it currently stands.
 
There is something else that we should think about.

An attack may tend to cause 1 team to have to stop most, if not all, research to gain gold to cash-rush reinforcements.

It may also allow a team to triggers it's GA (FREE right now, us after we get our deadly cannons)

If we get a strong attack from babe and cannot research for several turns.. that's a lot of beakers....
 
@ Donsig… glad you’re liking it so far! Good point on Article 3, point 2. I’ll edit that in version 2.
And I totally agree with you on the 180 gold option for FREE… that seems to be the obvious choice for them, unless they really don’t care about Newton’s University. Frankly, I think I’d rather have the gold than their map. And as for beakers… I just don’t see any way to smooth out 360 beakers in the MA.
I hope you come up with something brilliant!! :)

@AutoTeller – another very good point. We should probably write something into the DAA part of the treaty. How about we add a bullet point that says…

“if either team is attacked, both teams will be relieved of their obligations to continue research at top speed on the MAAP plan, in recognition of the enhanced need for gold. When the invasion is over, normal obligations will resume – but both teams pledge to be generous towards the other if the MAAP needs to be adjusted after the invasion due to setbacks from the fighting.”

Hopefully that covers most of the points you raised. The GA is pretty much just a positive thing, and will help us or FREE survive / recover from any attack if it happens. I’m not sure we need any special language regarding that?

Keep the good ideas and thoughts coming!

Here’s a spoiler with Version 2:
Spoiler :

Dear FREE allies,

At long last, our response to your proposal for the Middle Ages!
We'd like to suggest going beyond just a tech arrangement, and do a full treaty including peace, foreign relations, etc… and call it the MAAP II agreement.
Hopefully you're open to that idea.

Following is our proposal for the MAAP II:

I. Peace
  • FREE and The Council agree to extended the period of guaranteed peace with each other through the middle ages.
  • The "15 turns notice of intent to cancel" clause of our long-standing peace treaty may not be activated until after the swap of our Industrial Era Bonus techs.

II. Mutually Assured Advancement Plan - II
  • FREE and The Council agree to continue to cooperate to get into the Industrial Era as rapidly as possible.
  • Both teams agree to not execute a "slow burn" in getting technologies slower in favor of stockpiling gold, unless explicitly approved by the other team.
  • Both teams pledge to do their level best to not undermine the alliance in rapid advancement of knowledge.
  • The following MAAP II agreement may only be modified by joint agreement of the teams.
  • The MAAP II naturally expires after the exchange of our Bonus Industrial Era technologies, but both teams hereby express a desire to continue to work together on a MAAP III agreement for the Industrial Era.

The MAAP II
Code:
[U]FREE[/U]                                  [U]The Council[/U]
				Polytheism Imbalance (720)
Monotheism (1080)               	Invention (1320)
Theology (1200)                  	Gunpowder (1440)
Education (1320)                 	Chemistry (1800)
Astronomy (1680)                	Metallurgy (1920)
Banking (1560)                  	Magnetism (2040)
Physics (1920)                     	Military Tradition (1920)
Theory of Gravity (2040)

[B]Total 10,800                        	11,160[/B]
* Exchange IA bonus techs without regard to beaker value

III. Optional Techs and Their Wonders
  • There are several wonders in the Industrial Era that are attached to techs not covered by the MAAP II agreement. They are: Knights Templar (Chivalry), JS Bach (Music), Shakespeare's theatre (Free Artistry), Smith's Trading Co (Economics), and Magellan's Voyage (Navigation).
  • If either team would like to build one of these wonders, they must first notify the other team and get their approval that the tech can be gained without unreasonably slowing down the coordination on getting Physics, on unreasonably slowing the advance to the IA. If the tech can be gained without unacceptably slowing things down for either team, then…
  • For Knights Templar or Smith's Trading Co., the team getting the wonder will supply the tech (Chivalry or Economics) without charge or expected compensation in beakers in exchange for building the wonder unchallenged.
  • For JS Bach, the team building the wonder will agree to give one of their surplus luxury resources for free for 40 turns in exchange for non-competition.
  • For Shakespeare's Theatre, only democracy need be shared in exchange for non-competition.
  • For Magellan's Voyage, the team that builds the wonder agrees to turn over their world map ONE time at the request of the other team (this request can not be made later than when Replaceable Parts is learned by either team) in exchange for non-competition. The traded world map may not be subsequently traded away without the permission of the other team.

IV. Required Technology Wonders
  • There are several wonders in the Industrial Era that are attached to techs that ARE covered by the MAAP II agreement. They are: Sun Tzu's Art of War (Feudalism), Sistine Chapel (Monotheism), Leonardo's Workshop (Invention), Copernicus' Observatory (Astronomy), and Newton's University (Theory of Gravity).
  • Both teams agree to just assign the "rights" to each wonder to either side. These "rights to build" may be traded away to the other team in any negotiations that may come up.
  • Team FREE shall have the right to build: Sun Tzu's Art of War, Copernicus' Observatory, & all remaining AA wonders
  • The Council shall have the right to build: Leo's Workshop, Newton's University, & the Sistine Chapel

V. Balancing the MAAP II Techs
  • Seeing as how the MAAP II tech plan leaves The Council with a heavier load, team FREE therefore agrees to one of the following 3 options to make up the beaker imbalance.
  • Option 1 – FREE trades their world map in exchange for balancing the beakers. The map will be delivered at the request of The Council, but the request must be made before or at the time of the discovery of Physics.
  • Option 2 – FREE trades away their "right to build" Copernicus' Observatory
  • Option 3 – FREE agrees to pay 50% of the beaker difference in gold… 180 gold.

VI. Defense Against All
  • If either team is attacked in the next 40 turns, the team that hasn’t been attacked will provide 20 gold per turn to the besieged team for the duration of the invasion, or up to 300 gold total (15 turns), whichever is less.
  • If either team is attacked, both teams will be relieved of their obligations to continue research at top speed on the MAAP plan, in recognition of the enhanced need for gold. When the invasion is over, normal obligations will resume – but both teams pledge to be generous towards the other if the MAAP needs to be adjusted after the invasion due to setbacks from the fighting
  • For purposes of the DAA, an “invasion” will be defined as any enemy units on shore, or waiting immediately off-shore, with war being officially declared and actual fighting starting within 5 turns
  • Each team will immediately notify the other of any sightings of enemy ships with their (approximate) locations and heading. Each team will also notify the other if any foreign team begins making aggressive demands or sends other signals as a possible prelude to war.
  • As a defense against other's catching us in our technology lead, both teams agree to not trade, sell, or otherwise transfer any technology to foreign teams without the express permission of the other ally.
 
very good. :thumbsup:

I'll try some more sophisticated comments during lunch break...
 
Ok, so I've had a bit of rest. Not sure I can come up with anything brilliant but in looking over the last page of this thread it sure looks like we already sent a counter-proposal on the wonder allocation. We haven't yet heard back from FREE about it. While I agree we should proceed in drafting MAAP II I think we should stick with our original wonder allocation and see what they say. If they agree then we have Copernicus and Newton - and still can ask for poly compensation. If they send a counter proposal we can try the wonder allocation in this latest draft.

As for compensation for poly, let's give them the options of their map, a surplus lux for 20 or 40 turns or 200 gold.

If I've missed something here (like we didn't send that wonder conunter proposal or FREE already responded to it) - please don't hesitate to bring me back up to speed.
 
On the VI. Defense Against All
I consider the 20gpt or 300g rather low - that's just three MDI upgrades. That won't help a lot. :nono:

Even if we were not the ones that are attacked, I would be willing to lower sience to 50% of possible max to face the situation. The balance of the powers (= a failure of BABE's attack) is too much in our interest to leave an ally with a mere 300g just to spare some money and go on with the show.

Each of us should be able to provide at least 50gpt for the time of the invasion - now that be a defensive treaty! :old:
 
I agree with what Paul says. 50 gpt sounds a lot better, considering the risks we'd be facing.
 
ok - I agree with what you're saying about the amount of gold - but I'm just copying what was in the treaty with Saber.
At the time, I remember thinking that 50gpt might very well be 100% economy for either of us.

But it's a different situation with FREE as our closest ally... and also because we'll both be in Republic.
I'll change the DAA to be 50gpt.
(And remember that will make it actually 80gpt if we're attacked, because of the gold from Saber)

Do we want to approach Saber about raising the DAB to 50gpt also?

Re: Wonder Distribution... we never did hear back from FREE on that... so I just assumed that they were still debating it.
The only think I don't like about the way I've currently written this treaty is that we don't get Newtons. Otherwise, it's pretty much everything we want anyway. ... also, the previous wonder distribution didn't take into account dealing with the optional techs... something that is really necessary, imo.
So I'm not sure it's a good idea to go back to the old proposal...

But I'm open to persuasion!
 
I don't think we should raise our treaty with Saber. I reckon 80 gpt we will recieve will be enough. Then again, an mdi upgrade costs 90, so we might increase the deal with SABEr by 10 gold so we could do an upgrade every turn. Not more than that though.
 
I agree with sirdanilot, I think we should keep the Saber treaty at the lower number. If we are attacked we'll manage with what we get from both sides. If they are attacked they can come ask us for more at that point, and we'll have them compensate us in some way. ;)

I like the new wonder distribution and optional tech deal better than the old one. I don't quite agree with the compensations though. For Chivalry I agree that it's enough to just get the tech. But for Smith's and Shakespeare's, what good would the tech do the other team? For Magellan and Bach it looks reasonable.
 
We might need to include a rule for the case that the second ally is also drawn into the war.

Is the ally obliged to dow the aggressor also? It only makes sense if active fighting is intended, otherwise it would just provide nice war happiness to the aggressor... :mischief:

While I don't think any aggressor will ignite a two front war, it might be good if allies helped each other not just by money but also by units, especially navy as I suggested in the SABER thread. :old:

I don't think that should lower the financial support (unless he is attacked directly) but one could argue that when the situation occurs. :hmm:
 
sirdanilot and Niklas said:
I don't think we should raise our treaty with Saber.
Ok – I'm fine with that. Maybe when we're both into republic, I'll ask Saber in a chat about raising the gpt by 10… just to see what they think.

Niklas said:
I like the new wonder distribution and optional tech deal better than the old one. I don't quite agree with the compensations though. For Chivalry I agree that it's enough to just get the tech. But for Smith's and Shakespeare's, what good would the tech do the other team? For Magellan and Bach it looks reasonable.

Re: Smith's Trading (Economics) – getting the tech for economics will double the effect of building wealth in all our cities. If the game goes all the way to a space race, we're likely to have quite a number of cities building wealth… so it'd be handy to have economics for free.

Re: Shakespeare's (Free Artistry) – getting Democracy is generally pretty useless… unless we end up in violent conflict that drives our War Weariness way up and our government collapses anyway. It's possible that by the time we emerge from Anarchy the war will be over and we might want to adopt a Democracy to improve corruption rates and safeguard us against propaganda. I know, I know… extremely unlikely. But it seems about as likely as either FREE or us wanting to invest 3,600 beakers just to get 8 more content citizens in one city. If you want to replace this clause with something else, I'm happy to do it… I just can't imagine that it will really matter.

Paul#42 said:
We might need to include a rule for the case that the second ally is also drawn into the war.
That's a good point… but as you mentioned, it seem really unlikely to happen. No one wants to fight a two front war. Naval invasions are hard enough as it is. If our ally can help by sending some boats over (very difficult and costly without the great lighthouse) then that would be wonderful… but I think it should be left informal. IE, we could offer to send some boats to help in exchange for sending 15 gpt less (or vice-versa).
I think the treaty should just cover the most basic element for simplicity's sake (and it's already quite long) – and the rest we can work out based on our good relations with both teams.

That's my 2 cents anyway!
 
I agree, it would be nice if we could send boats to each other but I don't think it should be in the treaty unless we can reach each other without danger of sinking.

Of course that should change if one of the teams has an island city near the other.

I thought Babe had an island city near saberland? If so, we might include in the treaty that they block that harbor with saber ships or something, or even attack it. Just a random idea :crazyeye:
 
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