Team Free Embassy

Wonderful!

Nitpicks (sorry, can't help it :)):
- Perhaps replace "we accept your revision without argument" (from the letter) by "we accept your revision"? The word "argument" sounds negative.
- The headings of the scrolls say "Council" instead of "The Council".
 
Ok – I’m cool with changing the “argument” part.
But I intentionally left off the “team” and “the” parts of both our names. Made the header look too long, imo. If everyone disagrees and wants “Team FREE and The Council” to be the header - I will, of course, be happy to change it.


So, here’s version 2.1 for feedback:
Spoiler :

Dear Brothers of FREE,

We salute you as our brothers and have declared a holiday in your honor!

We accept your revision, and are excited to be entering into this treaty with you.
We have prepared a formal version of the treaty for a more formal signature, if that’s acceptable to you? The seal of The Council has already been stamped upon it, and we look forward to having it returned with your seal as well.

To Peace and Glory Together,
- Speaking with the voice of The Council, General_W
















More thoughts/revisions?
 
And just at this time we get another contact...

Should we put this on hold for a few days while we see how things develop with SABER? I'm just bringing it up so that we're clear on this. I don't think that FREE will really object if we trade some (non-crucial) techs with SABER - especially if they get some advantage out of it.

Perhaps we can even forge a triple alliance...
 
Perhaps we can even forge a triple alliance...

Hmm...perhaps, my guess is that sabre have already met someone, but by the trade ideas put forward by dutchfire in the chat, it seems unlikely that they have traded much techs with the other civ.

Generally, I am more sceptical towards a triple alliance than a two party one. More people, more scheming and backstabbing etc....
We also don't know what FREE will feel about a 3 party deal.

A lot to consider, but very exciting news all the same!
 
FREE are less likely to want to go a military route later in the game. I would prefer to see a two-way alliance with FREE, leaving Saber behind. That said, no point in not getting what we can from them first.
 
FREE are less likely to want to go a military route later in the game. I would prefer to see a two-way alliance with FREE, leaving Saber behind. That said, no point in not getting what we can from them first.

Agree on this.:thumbsup:
 
:agree: as well.

Let's go ahead and do this deal with FREE, tell them about Saber, and see if we can't do at least one deal with Saber to help us all out. (with FREE's agreement)

Does the Council agree with this basic plan?
 
What if we modify the start of letter to read like this…

Dear Brothers of FREE,

We salute you as our brothers and have declared a holiday in your honor!

We accept your revision, and are excited to be entering into this treaty with you.
We have prepared a formal version of the treaty for a more formal signature, if that’s acceptable to you? The seal of The Council has already been stamped upon it, and we look forward to having it returned with your seal as well.

However, we already have our first challenge to this deal! The Council has just made contact with team Saber! This new discovery has not caused any wavering in our commitment to the alliance with you, but it does present an opportunity. In their initial communication, Saber expressed a desire to trade with us to obtain Iron Working and Ceremonial Burial in exchange for Warrior Code, the Wheel, and some gold. That saves us each one tech to research at the end of our MAAP, and we’d be willing to give you 60% of the gold we manage to negotiate out of Saber.

We think this would be very positive for our alliance, and even though we haven’t officially signed documents with you - we’ve decided to wait on starting serious negotiations with Saber to see if you’ll agree to it.
(Saber also wants a deal to get to Republic apparently, but we don’t see any way that would be helpful for our alliance – so we’ll stall for now, and decline later.)

Please respond quickly with how you’d like to proceed on the tech deal with Saber, and with your official seal on the alliance deal.

To Peace and Glory Together,
- Speaking with the voice of The Council, General_W

It’s a major download of info – but I’m hoping that the (not-so) subtle reminders of how nice we’re being combined with a pretty generous offer of gold will get FREE to happily go along with this.
(Note: I think FREE needs to get more of the gold, because we’re saving more beakers than they are – Wheel is 120 beakers, WC is 90)

What does everyone think of that?

We should probably send something to FREE asap if we want to respond to Saber in anything even approaching a reasonable time-frame.
:salute:
 
Well, we now have contact with SABER and from turn 71 we can see that they don't even have writing! Which means they don't even have literature and they're scientific! :crazyeye:

The cost of currency has dropped which means SABER should have that tech - a tech on our side of MAAP. If my assumptions are correct we have more than enough room to bargain with SABER here:

We need currency and the wheel (600 beakers base cost) from our side of MAAP and warrior code (90 beakers) from FREE's side.

SABER needs writing (240) and philosophy (180) which we discovered; literature (300) which both we and FREE discovered; and iron working (180) and ceremonial burial (60) which are FREE discoveries.

That's 690 beakers we need versus 960 they need. We can sure make a deal here.

We should certainly tell FREE we accept their revision but we need to get figure out a SABER deal and its impact on MAAP.
 
So what are you proposing Donsig?

I'd argue that we've got a good thing going with FREE, and helping the Ottomans too much is a bad move in the long term.
I don't mind giving them CB or even IW... but I'm not sure I'm excited to pass out Writing, Literature or Philosophy. (Meaning, no deal is possible for their Currency).

Besides, I think it's VERY odd that Dutchfire didn't bring up those very important techs when I asked what he was interested in. Translation = they've already got a side deal ready to go for at least Writing and Literature, and aren't likely to deal with us on that anyway. That, or they’re about to discover Writing on their own.

Now I could be totally misreading this, but even so – it still seems like sticking with FREE is our best bet no matter what the case is with Saber.
 
The amount of gold SABER will give in the CB+IW for WC+WH deal is probably around 15 (if anything, they didn't positively say), so it's not really somehting to fight over, but I don't see why we should give most of it to FREE. Our sailors have been risking their lives, so I think we can freely share the two techs with FREE, but the gold is ours (it goes into the sailor widows pension fund or something like that).

Really, FREE cannot complain with a deal like that, they are getting two techs for free and without any effort. And the treaty hasn't been signed yet, so if we wanted we could make the deal and give them nothing (that wouldn't be wise, just pointing out that we could). Being nice is good, being a pushover is not.

I agree about not dealing for currency, at least not yet.
 
I'd argue that we've got a good thing going with FREE, and helping the Ottomans too much is a bad move in the long term.
I don't mind giving them CB or even IW... but I'm not sure I'm excited to pass out Writing, Literature or Philosophy. (Meaning, no deal is possible for their Currency).

Well, I was just asking in the SABER embassy thread whether we should be helping SABER along by trading them literature, etc., so I see your point about the long term. Since BABE and GONG aren't scientific they probably won't be keen to research literature and if we (meaning The Council and FREE) don't trade it to SABER then SABER has to research it themselves. I guess my next question is if we want to slow SABER down why even trade them iron working and ceremonial burial? I'm not against such a deal but it seems to me that if we don't want to make any further trades we should hem and haw a bit so as to drag out the first trade and thus delay any discussion of further trading.

BTW, we don't want to put FREE and SABER in contact yet.
 
Ok sounds like you (donsig), zyxy, and I are all on pretty much the same page here. I agree with everything you both wrote. (except the gold thing. I’ll hit that in a second)

While I agree we really don’t want to put FREE and Saber in direct contact, I DO think we want to be open with FREE that we’ve met them, and get some kind of agreement from FREE on our trading with them.
Anyone disagree with that?

And if we ARE agreed on the big picture, then how about the details of the letter to FREE?

Speaking of details – zyxy has argued that we keep all the gold. Obviously that’s good for us, but I personally think that extra goodwill with FREE is more important than the ballpark of 10 gold we’re talking about giving away here. Sure, FREE will hopefully recognize that it was our work, our risk, and that ultimately this deal is good for them even without the gold. However, keeping all the gold ourselves is certainly NOT balanced. We get credit for the more expensive tech, AND all the gold?!
Of course, we could just offer to split the gold 50/50, but that still leaves FREE potentially feeling a bit slighted. Whereas if we just offer them 10% more of the gold, then they can really look at this deal and feel good about it all around.
And I think that feeling that we’ve been more than fair is ultimately going to be worth much more to us than a meager pile of gold. Things have to flow both ways in an alliance, imo.

Just my 2 cents. Of course, I bow to the will of the council!
:salute:
 
I agree with what General_W says, though I think we should be explicit in our letter about why we're sending them gold at all. Right now the letter doesn't say, and we cannot be sure that they are up to that kind of thinking. I would also say, re a deal towards Rebpublic, that we might stall and decline later, since we don't yet know what FREE thinks about it.
 
I don't see any point in haggling over the small amount of gold we might get from SABER. I agree that by handing them a few coins now we will reap many benefits later. The letter looks good (assuming the suggestions made by Niklas are incorporated).
 
I agree we should tell FREE about SABER (but not the other way around).

The gold is quite irrelevant. (I would even accept the deal without gold.) Because of the low amount involved, I'm ok with handing 60% of it to FREE, though I don't agree with the reasoning.

Under these conditions I would certainly not make a trade for currency.
 
Okay, I should not reply before I catched up with all your ideas... :rolleyes:

I agree with having more intense feelings towards FREE and being reserved towards SABER.

Play open with FREE even before signing the treaty. Good style is our game this time. :rolleyes:

I also agree (now) to not trading for Currency asap. Let's start on Construction and think about currency when we are about to start on it.
Give SABER some time to think about why they as a SCI civ did not go straight for literature as it is written in the books :D
 
Ok – exciting to see were starting to draw to a consensus here.
I’ve incorporated Niklas’ very excellent suggestions, and I agree with zyxy that Saber should not be told about FREE at this point, and that a currency deal just doesn’t seem like a good idea.
I even agree that the gold is largely irrelevant in and of itself – but I do think it has symbolic power in showing our willingness to share and be fair. :)

With that, here’s version 3(?) of the letter:
Dear Brothers of FREE,

We salute you as our brothers and have declared a holiday in your honor!

We accept your revision, and are excited to be entering into this treaty with you.
We have prepared a formal version of the treaty for a more formal signature, if that’s acceptable to you? The seal of The Council has already been stamped upon it, and we look forward to having it returned with your seal as well.

However, we already have our first challenge to this deal! The Council has just made contact with team Saber! This new discovery has not caused any wavering in our commitment to the alliance with you, but it does present an opportunity. In their initial communication, Saber expressed a desire to trade with us to obtain Iron Working and Ceremonial Burial in exchange for Warrior Code, the Wheel, and probably some gold.

While the deal we’re on the verge of signing with you already covers those techs – we still think it would be a good move for us to do this deal with Saber. We’d be happy to give you both of the techs from Saber for free… as that saves us each one tech on our respective sides of the MAAP.
Also, since the tech we’d be saving is a bit more expensive, we’d even be willing to give you 60% of any gold we manage to negotiate out of Saber (it’s not likely to be very much).

We think this would be win-win that’s very positive for our alliance, and even though we haven’t officially signed documents with you - we’ve decided to wait on starting serious negotiations with Saber to see if you’ll agree to it.
(Saber also wants a deal to get to Republic apparently, but on the surface, we don’t see how that would be helpful for our alliance – so we’ll probably just stall for now, and likely decline later... unless you have other thoughts?)

Please respond quickly with how you’d like to proceed on the tech deal with Saber, and with your official seal on the alliance deal.

To Peace and Glory Together,
- Speaking with the voice of The Council, General_W













Look good? We should probably send this off sometime today, ideally.

EDIT: Sent 4/22/07, to FREE gmail.
 
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