Team Free Embassy

Well, maybe we should send it together with a reply to the letter free will most likely send soon (in reply to our proposal), instead of sending it separately.
 
I think that this is already basically covered by point #4 of the last letter we sent to FREE. If they agree to that, then I'd say it covers our potential DAB treaty also. I don't think we need FREE's permission to give away our own gold (ala the gold transfer provision of the proposed DAB).
 
Ok, General_W, you're correct and I'm fine with waiting for their reply on this.

I have sent the note below to inform FREE of the age change and the tech exchanges. I hope everyone is ok with this.
Title: The dawn of a new age!

Dear FREE,

On turn 94, The Council discovered Polytheism and left the Ancient Age. As our free tech we received Engineering!

Assuming that we will reach a fair deal on Polytheism, we have sent this tech to you, with accept. You should receive it when you get the next save. As expected we were not able to send you Engineering yet, we will do that next turn.
We kindly request that you send us your free tech with accept, so that we can start researching in the Middle Ages on the next turn. In anticipation of a new tech alliance we will start on the bottom part, that is, either Feudalism, or (if you get Feudalism for free) Invention.

Best wishes,
The Council

EDIT: do we need to send a quick note to FREE and SABER about Zeus? Our peaceful intentions, etc?
 
Ok, General_W, you're correct and I'm fine with waiting for their reply on this.

I have sent the note below to inform FREE of the age change and the tech exchanges. I hope everyone is ok with this.
Title: The dawn of a new age!



EDIT: do we need to send a quick note to FREE and SABER about Zeus? Our peaceful intentions, etc?

I would. They probaly know and our getting kind of worried.
 
I am thinking we can tell them that SoZ was our backup plan for Lighthouse, as well, and that it gives us a slight edge defending ourselves against the threat of mounted warriors.
 
What does The Council think about asking FREE for some information on their map? I'm not talking about their territory map but some info on what they've explored beyond their island. Specifically, if they have explored to the SE or NW of their home island and found any sea lanes that information would be very helpful to us. In return we could give them some info about sea lanes we've discovered and this would all be done in the name of helping both of us figure out where BABE might attack from.
 
Got a response to zyxy's letter…

Greetings to our Middle Aged Friends in The Council,

We are delighted that you have made the jump to light-speed, er, the Middle Ages. Wonderous new things exist to be learned and enjoyed. We will follow in your footsteps this turn and, if the Great Meleet is kind, we won't learn anything of Engineering!
Time will tell, but whatever we learn we will send in trade and inform you by email.

And congratulations on building the Statue of Zeus in The Silo the city now known as The Admiralty.

Our current ambassador to you, azzaman333, has stepped down due to real life issues. Taking his place will be Empiremaker. He will pick up where azzaman333 left off and will soon be in touch with you.

Sincerly yours,

Art Parry
aka CommandoBob
Turnplayer of the FREE

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...

So no word yet on selling techs…. it doesn't sound like FREE is overly worried about our SoZ build – but it's probably still worthwhile so send a note explaining what happened. Plus, this will give us a chance to hurry them along on a response to our last note.

Here's the letter I propose sending:
Dear FREE allies,

We are eager to welcome you into the middle ages! We await the hopefully good news of what new knowledge you'll bring to the table.

We're sorry to hear about Azzaman333, and we send along our wishes for a speedy resolution of whatever hinders him. In the meantime, we look forward to working with Empiremaker.

Two quick points we'd like to cover…

First of all, we just want to send along our personal assurances that the Statue of Zeus was built for purely defensive reasons, to help safeguard us from a potential Great Lighthouse powered attack by the Mounted Warriors of BABE. We were actually planning on building the Great Lighthouse ourselves, and were two turns away when we heard the sad news that BABE had beaten us.

Secondly, we're eager to hear back from you on our last letter, as we're now entering the Middle Ages, the Bridge part of our proposal may be obsolete before we even get word back from you! Thankfully, we trust you that this won't be a serious issue. However, we are hoping to hear your feedback on the possibility of selling technology to Saber asap, so that we can respond to their last letter.

Please write soon and tell us the will of FREE.

To glory and bright future for both of us,

- General_W, speaking with the voice of the Council

How's that look? I'd like to send this (or something like it) later today.

@Donsig – I think that's a good idea. Before he left, Azzaman333 actually brought up the idea of trading FREE's world map for our territory map. I think this is a good plan, but should be addressed in the MAAP 2 agreement, not before.
 
New letter just in from FREE:
Dear The Council,

I am the new ambassador to your nation. Azzaman expects to be back on
June 15. Until that time, in addition to sending communication to our
usual Team FREE Gmail account, please send it to rm5 AT Qwest DOT net.

Regarding your earlier letter, we would be happy to agree to numbers 1
and 3. For balancing Polytheism, we would like to do extra research
in the Middle Ages to make up, and we can re-evaluate the difference
when we enter the industrial ages.

We are still discussing trading with other civs, but at this time, we
would like to continue the agreement in the original MAAP, and
evaluate trades on a case by case basis.

We would also like to discuss two new points. First, map trading. We
think that this would be good for both of our nations because then one
of us won't have to spend the effort mapping what the other team has
done. We can hammer an exact trade in future letters, but we want to
put this on the table. Second, wonders. In the Middle Ages, there
are many good wonders. Four wonders in particular are strong in this
game, and we would like to reach an agreement giving one team
exclusive rights to each wonder. The five in contention are Sun Tzu,
Leonardo's Workshop, Magellan's Voyage, and Smith's. Because FREE and
The Council are the most advanced Civs, we should be able to pick and
choose wonders. We can discuss which team gets which wonders in the
future.

Again, congratulations on the Statue of Zeus.

Sincerely,

Empiremaker


for reference, our letter to FREE:
Spoiler Title - A New Era :

Dear FREE Allies,

The end of this age draws near, and it's time for us to set the stage for a glorious new era.

We hope you remain excited about building on our foundation of friendship and moving forward into even closer cooperation and alliance.

We have 4 points that we believe need to be addressed in the short term.

#1 – A Bridge
Based on our work on Polytheism, we estimate that we will enter the Middle Ages on turn 94. Since The Council is researching the last tech needed to advance to the Middle Ages, we will be the first to enter the new age. Unfortunately, game mechanics prevent us from sending our bonus era tech on the same turn as we send Polytheism. Therefore FREE will enter the MA as soon as they get the save, and could possibly draw the same bonus tech as The Council.
This makes it very difficult to craft a balanced MAAP II proposal until we know what each of our Bonus Techs will be.

We'd therefore like to propose a very broad agreement, called The MAAP Bridge to cover the turns immediately following the advancement to the new era. This Bridge treaty will be quickly replaced by a full MAAP II agreement once we both know what our Bonus Techs are.

As the Scientific Civs in this game, we hope you'll agree that getting our Alliance to Education rapidly is a top goal. Since The Council will be suffering from a revolt to Republic soon after the era advancement, while team FREE will already be in Republic – so we’d like to propose that whatever the outcome of our Bonus techs, Team FREE should immediately start on the Monotheism, Theology, Education path. The Council will work on the bottom Feudalism/Engineering part of the tech tree while the MAAP II agreement is formalized.

#2 – Balancing Polytheism
We also need to reach an agreement on how to handle the Polytheism imbalance as we leave the Ancient Age. We appreciate your offer of ½ your GPT post-republic, but we think it is not an entirely fair valuation of the change to the MAAP. Perhaps you didn't realize this when you made your offer (it took us a while to figure this out too ), so let us explain why: Polytheism is worth 360 beakers, and in the original MAAP, FREE would contribute Polytheism. Now that it was transferred to The Council, this puts 360 beakers less on the side of FREE, and 360 beakers more on the side of The Council. Therefore, the total imbalance amounts to 720 beakers. We would like to suggest two options to restore the balance:
1) FREE repays the beaker amount in the MAAP II agreement, by taking on a 720 beaker higher load than The Council. The tech division can of course not be worked out exactly until we know our Bonus Techs. The period of anarchy that The Council has to go through should provide FREE the time to gather these extra beakers.
2) Option two is a gold payment. We'd be willing to accept 1 gold for every 2 beakers, which amounts to 360 gold. (Also, we'd be happy to allow you to pay that off over 10 turns if you choose this option)

We're willing to postpone a decision on balancing out the MAAP until after the era advancement, as long as you agree that this imbalance will be made right by either of these options. In the interest of keeping all options on the table for now, we will not accept your gold payment this turn.

#3 – Peace in our Time!
We'd also like to advocate extending the "guaranteed peace" clause into the Bridge Treaty so that we're both covered until the full MAAP II agreement can be reached.

#4 – Selling Technology to Saber
Finally, it's come to our attention that we may have the opportunity to sell a technology or two to Saber. Given the rise of BABE as the biggest threat to world peace (with their Super Galleys and Mounted Warriors) – we believe all 3 scientific Civs (You, Saber, and Us) are under the biggest threat. If BABE were able to conquer any of us, they will almost certainly become unstoppable. Hopefully our big tech advantage will provide us some measure of safety – but Saber, we believe, is in real danger. Therefore, we think giving them some minor help by selling some techs would be profitable for our alliance, but also a safety hedge against Babe. It hopefully goes without saying that we'd share any gold profit with you. What do you think?

We know there's a lot here, but how does all that sound?
Let us know your reaction on each of these 4 points, and we'll be happy to work up some more formal documents for signing.

All the best,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council


So – it's pretty much good news. They don't want to give us a blank check on trading with Saber (totally understandable) – but this is probably enough of an approval to at least start talks with Saber on selling knowledge. However, we might have to tone down our offer to just specifically deal with Construction, and maybe have some caveat in there about needing approval from our ally.

I'll post a possible draft in Saber's Embassy thread here soon.

In the meantime, what do we think about the trading map's idea?
In light of us wanting to get more info about where BABE might be, this sounds like a really good idea to me.
 
Interesting that they don't mention Sistine Chapel...
 
I believe we should bring saber in on this deal. (provided they can pay to catch up.) If we don't it seems pretty likely we will be on the wrong side of a 3-2 alliance system.
 
@cubsfan – ever heard the saying, "two is company, three's a crowd?" ;) Problem with bringing Saber along with us is that since they are the Ottomans, they will be a serious menace if the get their Sipahis in time to really make use of them. They may not attack us if we're in an alliance with them… but if they take out someone else (GONG or BABE?) they'll be in a good position to go on to win without us. Partnering with FREE is much safer, as they're less likely to conquer anyone else… making the game more likely to go to a Space Race… which would be our strong suit.

@Niklas - I wouldn't read too much into that.
Normally I'm never interested in building the Sistine Chapel either… since I almost never build Temples… and therefore hardly ever Cathedrals… making Sistine useless.
Of course, I'm generally never in this much of a bind on luxury resources.

Still, we could easily agree to a division of MA wonders and just quietly slip Sistine onto our side.

Off the top of my head,

The Council
  • Leo's Workshop
  • Sistine Chapel
  • Copernicus Observatory
  • Knight's Templar


FREE
  • Sun Tzu
  • Smith's Trading
  • Magellan's Voyage
  • Newton's University

Other thoughts/ideas?

EDIT: Aigburth is right, missing the science wonders is much more puzzling... but there's no reason not to include them in a deal as well... as I did above. See what they say to that.
 
Sounds pretty fair. But they might not want to give us Templars due to us having SoZ but mineswell give it a try.
 
Aigburth is right, missing the science wonders is much more puzzling... but there's no reason not to include them in a deal as well... as I did above. See what they say to that.

What if we just divided up the wonders they mention and remain silent on the others? Wouldn't that just mean either of us could build those not mentioned? If we're planning on a space race with FREE why let them have either Copernicus or Newton without working for it? Of course if we know for sure we don't want to build one of these then we might as well let them have it and lock up a wonder we do want.

EDIT: We should let them know we want to share map information. How much we want to give them is the big question. In light of BABE getting the Great Lighthouse and our strategy of marrying FREE (which is not the same as a free marriage) we should have no qualms about sharing our map. The operative word is should. I must be honest, I have qualms. We cracked the map, they haven't even found another contact which means they may have done little exploring and may be in the dark about the reality of our world. I'm not really sure if keeping them in the dark gives us any advantage over anyone, but I'm also not sure if revealing all we know of the world would help matters. Heck I'm not even sure if they'd figure out what we did if we gave them our map! :lol: I say we get drunk, take the plunge and trade maps. If they really want to give their world map for our territory map, let's do it. Gotta have some trust if your marriage is gonna be successful.
 
When did we crack the map?
 
When did we crack the map?

Lot's of posts to catch up for a new Member of The Council... :smug:
We might want to release a manual for quick reference... :D

Aigburth made a draft map of the world as we extrapolated after we did some exploration - and for now it was validated correctly.
Look here for the first draft.
edit: :eek: crosspost with 45 minutes delay :eek: I should read and write faster...

That's why I'm not too enthusiastic of sharing maps with them...
However if they even think we changed our wonder city's name :rolleyes: I doubt they invest too much brain on how the world is shaped... :p

So FREE might be the only civ I would give our map to - yet I'd rather keep the map limited to screenshots of the shallows of the oceans... :hmm:
We would be suspicious if we don't want to share our maps, right? In a "good marriage" (a paradoxon? :D ) this should go without saying...

So: Maptrading (our tm for their wm) is okay with me :mischief:
 
I don't know if we should tell them we attempted to build the lighthouse, they might start seeing us as very agressive, especially if we propose, in the wonder division proposal, to let us build the knight's templar. Don't tell them information they don't need and didn't ask for, unless it's advantageous to us. Although we should of course tell them we didn't mean any agression when building the soz.
 
They should certainly know that our traits and UU make us a peaceful builder like them and that GLH, SoZ and KT are just defensive options for us. :hmm:

But history shows we should not take too much for granted. I'm still quite shocked that some seem to think we changed our town's name after we built SoZ :rolleyes:

I would feel slightly insulted if I was told such obvious things but maybe we should do it...
 
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