Hannibal/Quatronia Diplomacy

There is a response from Quatronia in the inbox, but Gmail is giving me trouble and I'm about to head to a job interview. Someone wanna grab it and post it here?

Quatronia said:

Hello again from the Q,

We must extend our congratulations on building the Oracle, a very worthy project. The national gods teaching new techniques of metalworking never hurts.

Our merchants also are willing to export some items of desire, as we have rich deposits of a sparkling metal our people are calling silver. There are also some plants that are excellent with other foods nearby, but our farmers cannot figure out how to properly harvest them.

Our wise-men are coming close to devising a way to write that relies less on pictures but on consistent symbols grouped together to represent words. They estimate that this system should be finalized within 16 turns. This should enable our two great lands to share our discoveries.

Your people are the first that we came across heading north; you are our neighbors. There is a large peninsula in between us, and another peninsula just past our homeland. The land is variable, as some of it is excellent, but some of it is very arid. This peninsula can form a natural boundary between our people.

Your Friends and Allies,
Ambassador Bowsling
Team Quatronia

Click to expand...

10 chars

So, they have silver and spices. I guess everyone did get a monopoly on 2 resources, one early and one Calendar. Sailing and an explorer WB are in order soon - it seems we have that covered in Sandkasten.

What do they mean by peninsula exactly? I'm finding it hard to imagine what they're suggesting as a boundary from their description.

Our wise-men are coming close to devising a way to write that relies less on pictures but on consistent symbols grouped together to represent words. They estimate that this system should be finalized within 16 turns. This should enable our two great lands to share our discoveries.

Click to expand...

Someone fire off a response to these WISE-GUYS that telling us 16 turns is meaningless, since we don't know what TURN # when that 16 was viable. Either gives us a god damned date here, or give us the TURN NUMBER it's supposed to be completed at.

Send them an example.... We'll have the oracle built in one turn.... (8 turns ago that is..)

I think there might be star shaped continent in the middle, so what we see right now and what they passed is just peninsula, and they didn't bother to go into bays of this landmass.

16 turns on alpha, if the email is sent to us on: date Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 4:00 PM as it says in inbox I would assume that they will have alpha on T63 or T64. By our sandkasten plan that is the turn when we make landfall with our two warriors Marko and Polo.

A star shape is actually a nice estimate seeing as that was the design for last map.

Improved silver gives one more commerce tile than improved gems do, right? If so, I hope their silvers are not riverside.

We should keep a tally of all the resources teams have.

Maverick

Dyes, Gems

Quatronia

Spices, Silver


My theory is that since there are 6 teams but only 3 early happiness resources with mining
(gold, silver, gems), two teams will have the same mining resource.

I never checked on the commerce issue for silver. Mainly because it's only found on really piss-poor locations where you're settling that only for the happy boost.

Don't forget that they have clams AND wheat, whilst we only have rice. Not to mention strategic resources, although I think its safe to assume that they have none either...

Alright big news. Actually I violated one of our rules. I chatted to Provolution tonight. Actually, he was the one who contacted me. It turns out, they have just finished researching Writing this turn. So, suddenly the diplo window opens and he starts off congratulating us on our shiny wonder.

We start getting down to business, and I start blasting him for his Diplos taking their sorry ass sweet time in exchanging e-mails with us, and how important it is to get our messages going.

He mentions that his team isn't that experienced and most of them don't even show up anymore (I don't doubt this is primarily the truth). However, I would not underestimate the guy himself. He seems to know a bit about whos teching what and who is doing what. I'm sure they've been studying the scoring a lot more than we have.

He did think we were going after Theology right now. To be honest, I don't know if he REALLY thought that, or if he was just probing. But probing doesn't make sense anymore because we agreed that we should avoid duplicating techs, and keep trading up different paths. When I think about it, I can totally see how they would think we were going after Theo. It's quite possible that's what the other teams think we are going after as well.

He confirmed that around T65 they will have alpha and we can trade. I asked him if he had copper, he said no (I believe him), so it looks like they may not be that interested in Colossus, but naturally they'd love MC just for the benefit of triremes.

He indicated they will probably go after math then currency after Alpha. But also were thinking on going for CoL and hopefully grabbing the last religion with it. Haha, I hope they do! He mentioned for religion denial, but I think that's only part of the reason (wink).

They suggested we should maybe go up Iron Working (which is not a bad choice), also suggested Calendar, but most important mentioned Feudalism for LongBows. He did stress Feudalism, so I don't know. Maybe they are pretty worried about something...

I told him I was hoping to persuade my team to go after TGL (and yes that's telling the truth).

Anyhow, we'll have make up our minds in the near future.

BTW, he asked if we could open borders for trade routes. I told him I'd be happy to but had to clear it up with the team first, or I'd get into lots of trouble again. So, I am taking it up with you guys right now.

Technically, they get the bonus, and we won't. But I think we should still do it, because it will probably speed up their alpha sooner, and what's good for them is good for us. Not to mention, goes quite a way for improving our trust...

Pro also said if there are any more delays with their diplo guys, to drop him a PVM on the forum.

We need other allies and fast. The Q are only going one way ( Hint: it's not up)

we should gain time and have them believe that we are trading mc for alpha + writing for sure (without lying, so we have to choose our words carefully). IF we will do this trade in the end depends a lot on how we will do with the other teams we meet.

we also should tell them that, if we do the trade, they arent allowed to trade mc to others (and we arent allowed to trade alpha to others... ...why should we, so we can only gain in this agreement)

but so far, i dont see how and what we could loose doing a trade mc gainst writing + alpha in turn 65 or so, so there must be really important reasons for not doing this trade (like ragnar threatening us with war if we do)

-> but in no way we should neglect researching some early key techs ourselves, like AH. we need to see the "thin cows"


@ kingM:
can you explain why the q will go down? so far, they have played pretty good in my opinion, so if you know more then i do about them as players or team (in fact, i know nothing about them), then please share it

Draft, let me know if I am missing anything.

Greetings Q,

Based on your description, it sounds like Alphabet will be discovered on T65. Is this accurate?

We would like to set up a trade on that turn. Metal Casting for Writing + Alphabet?

We would ask that you do not share the secrets of Metal Casting with any other civilizations. We want to prevent the production bonus of forges and the early naval advantage of triremes from falling into the wrong hands. We would not share the secrets of Alphabet with anyone else either.

We would also like to set up a resource trade for as early as possible. We propose Wheat and Clams for rare and valuable Gems. Combined with the forges you can build with Metal Casting and the Silver you already have, this is a significant impact on the happiness of your citizens. Please let us know if you feel this is fair.

Best,

Team Mavericks

Sounds good to me.

Don't forget, they have med, and we have poly that's another trade.

I think Iron is much better to check for than Horses BTW...

Obs, in your convo you said he stressed Feudalism. I'm going to assume/suggest that this is because they need the longbows because of a potential threat, namely Ragnar. Once we start exploring we can confirm this, but I suspect that this means we've got Ragnar close to us.

Provo quit half way through a pitboss he was HOSTING, without so much as a goodbye. He also quit the last MTDG early I believe. You can check BOTM rankings for an assesment of how skilled he is at high level civ. I don't know any other of the team, but it seems there are far fewer than when it started.

All my opinion of course, probably wrong.

If it was in a single player pitboss i'd be finding other friends then invading at an appropiate moment.

I'm going to be sending them the message I composed tomorrow unless somebody objects.

If we trade MC for alphabet, we may not gain too much if we can't initiate trades with others though.

Also, we should trade MC only on the second turn. There is a chance, after they give us writing, the next turn they back off from giving alphabet after getting MC. It should be clear they get MC on the same turn we get alpha.

alpha is also good for building spies (fogbusters that cant be killed) and research, so i usually consider it worth it

send it out

Sent the message (finally). Sorry, I've been busy the last 2 days -- long hours at work.