SANCTA Embassy & Intelligence

Well, I'm not sure what we should say. Kaleb, I don't agree with your analysis that SANCTA hasn't put much thought into diplomacy. I think they've already figured out we are allied with Team Cav and they're just putting feelers out to be sure. I think we should just reply and say we want to trade for metal casting.

Here's my suggested reply:

Dear General Daimyo,

Your offer is nice but what we're really interested in is metal casting. Care to make an offer that includes this tech?

donsig of Kazakhstan

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How about this as a stop gap in case you and/or the Don don't feel like it / have time. (A standard string-em-along) message. I am good at these BTW (Just ask Provo)

Namaste and Greetings Ninjas,

Our people have had a chance to consider your proposal and we are very much so inclined to accept your invitation to visit your Daytime Shopping Market. We will provide Writing in exchange for your knowledge of Sailing. However, the word at the local Clam Bake Hut is that your people have not yet obtained the necessary knowledge of Sailing so your handcrafted goods have not yet arrived. We are anxious to display these knicknacks in out huts as our people believe they are fertility symbols. So before we agree to such a deal and bask in the glorious glow of trade, we need to know what turn your people will finish learning the secrets of Sailing agreed? We wait very patiently for you... OK Ninjas?


Always butter you Clams,
donsig

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I don't agree with your analysis that SANCTA hasn't put much thought into diplomacy

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What I mean is they haven't made much effort to form alliances of their own. They haven't sent out a workboat until very late as they haven't made contact with Saturn yet.

We were the first people they had contact with and their initial dialogue with us was minimal. They can't have decided we had an alliance with Cav just from the few techs we traded with each other.

SANCTA and Saturn haven't met yet? You are sure of this?

If we're getting sailing from MS then we shouldn't string SANCTA along about such a trade. Wouldn't it be better to string them along by asking for metal casting?

donsig said:

If we're getting sailing from MS then we shouldn't string SANCTA along about such a trade. Wouldn't it be better to string them along by asking for metal casting?

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Right but they already have Metal Casting. What if we offer to trade and they say yes? There is no more string-along.

Either way, if you want to use the letter I drafted, you are free to make any changes you want. It was just to help out if you did not feel like writing it. I would say, dont focus too much on the details of the proposal, since we are not going to trade anyway.

They've already said a flat no to Cav when they asked for MC, so they'll most likely say no to us. When we proposed MC in a trade before they didn't actually say no to it...

Saturn have said they haven't made contact with anyone in the UN thread.

donsig said:

If we're getting sailing from MS then we shouldn't string SANCTA along about such a trade. Wouldn't it be better to string them along by asking for metal casting?

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I disagree. It give us good cover to be able to say that we got sailing elsewhere for a better deal. And it encourages them to research sailing 1st which will significantly delay their tech progress.

Kaleb said:

They've already said a flat no to Cav when they asked for MC, so they'll most likely say no to us. When we proposed MC in a trade before they didn't actually say no to it...

Saturn have said they haven't made contact with anyone in the UN thread.

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We don't really care if they tell us 'no' to the metal casting trade. We're just rrying to string them along. And you don't really take the Saturn remark seriously do you?

Saturn have blurted things out before. They might be telling truth. I don't know if it's serious or not

Let's aim to say something to SAN this turn. I'll hold off ending our turn until we've got something to say.

I think we can just say we prefer to look at trading with techs we actually have first as we both have techs to trade. We can say we offered a trade for Metal Casting before but they didn't take us up on it. We want MC so they can name their price.

This is simplest way to stall things IMO without looking too suspiscious.

Can SANCTA see what techs we have? If not then let's not tell them we don't have certain techs. I still think my short note about metal casting is good enough.

They can see our techs based on what we have to trade and what we can research as displayed in the diplo screen. I like the idea of continuing to press for Metal Casting, this the best way to string them on.

How about something like this?

Thank you for your offer and sorry for not responding to your previous suggestions. As you can see we needed to stick with the tech we were pursuing at the time and couldn't afford any deviation from that path. But we didn't want to disclose this fact as the rewards of the tech depended on us getting it first and we suspected a rival may also be after it.

Regarding your latest offer, we would much rather talk about trading techs we currently have as we surely have techs you could benefit from and we would still like the knowledge to make a statue of our glorious leader.

What could we give you in exchange for this knowledge?

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I can try and Boratify it later...

Once we've been able to send this I'll end the turn as all moves have been done already.

Your proposed note looks good. If you don't want to translate it into Boratese just sign your name instead of mine.

Ok, I can sign off as deputy foreign minister maybe

sounds good to me.

Ok here's what I am going to send:

Greetings Ninjas,

Great nation of Kazakhstan now following way of Kungfucius. We wish to extend to you the fifth bond, friend to friend.

We also commend to you wise words of Kungfucian sage, Mr. Miyaki. He say "Wax on, wax off." We not entirely sure what he mean, but now every man in Kazakhstan have very smooth legs. It give great feeling, you should try.

We say sorry to you for not giving a reply last time you send us message. We very busy at time trying to create new system of making laws, and not want to make any distraction away from this path. We also think other nations could be trying to make law system, and we wanted to make it first, for glory of Kazakhstan!

We think that we already have some knowledge that can make benefit awesome Ninja people. We still want to make statue of glorious leader, but need knowledge of making metal things. Much better to discuss trade with things we already have to trade, no? "A clam in hand, is worth two in the sea" (we think Mr. Miyaki say this as well).

What can we give you that make you give us knowledge of making metal?

donsig
Foreign Minister Great Nation of Kazakhstan

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Love it. You're going to give me a reputation for comedy that I don't deserve.

It strikes me that offering to trade writing for sailing is a good idea. As I understand the situation:

A) We are the tech rate leader, but production laggard
B) Sanc is the production leader and we are somewhat afraid of them
c) We are not sure of their relationship with Saturn, who we have not found yet.


Trading away writing for sailing is good for several reasons
1) It would divert their tech path towards something non-military. Besides, we will benefit from sailing greatly as we will have 3 coast cities after founding the iron city. So the trade will benefit us more than them in all probability.
2) It may better our chance of grabbing Judaism, if they change their tech plans. If we grab Judaism, and if they do not have a religion, they then might be forced to divert their teching even further towards Taoism or even Islam, which would be extremely good for us, because we do not want them going after military techs.
3) Our boat going W may find Saturn soon. If so, we have several options
a. Broker writing to them as well (double dipping)
b. If Sanc and Saturn trades writing, then we would have a piece of intelligence about their relationship
c. If Sanc and Saturn do not have have a relationship already, we can build a relationship with Saturn with this tech. Making the rival of our rival more powerful is a good thing. It would also pre-empt a chance for Sanc and Saturn to build their relationship. Sanc does not have a lot of trade currency, especially if they do not want to give away MC.

Mikotian,

Welcome aboard! You are going to love the MTDG format, this is my first game and I'm hooked.

I like the analysis and arguments you lay out regarding a writing for sailing trade with Team Sancta. Only thing is that we have a tech partner (Team Mad Scientists) already researching sailing. So a trade with Sancta probably isn't necessary if Team MS comes through for us.

Why can't we get MS to switch their tech? that seems easy enough. In the end, we will "save" those 200 beakers (or however many) for another tech--maybe get MS to research currency?

The point is that we are planning to broker writing to almost everyone already (certainly our allies). We are basically getting a chance to "triple dip" by offering it to at least Sanc, but possibly also Saturn. It seems that this would lengthen our tech lead and also possibly lead to diplomatic/intelligence benefits.


And yeah, this thing is a lot of fun