Innovia Embassy

[General_W]

Innovia Embassy


Last Update: Turn 109

Team Innovia
Leader: Saggioun the Wise
Civ: Saladin, Arabia
Traits: Philosophical, Spiritual
UU: Camel Archer
Contact: Turn 107

Current Trades: None
Resources Available for Trade: No Route Established

Technology to Trade: none
Missing Technology: Monotheism (100), Iron Working (200), Currency (400), Metal Casting (450)

Gold to Trade: 38 (1gpt)


Known towns:

Wheelville(Capital) Hindu Holy City / Kashi Vishwanath
PloughLand
Sinsberg
Chowderton
Polynesia
Magaden

Spoiler for First Contact Info and Note:

Dear Saggioun the Wise & all Innoviates,

Greetings from the golden halls of Epsilon Eridani! The Leader of Epsilon Team sends you his warm regards.

Our humble scout, "Dark Puma" has caught sight of your Might Warrior, Discoverer ... we are very pleased to meet you, and look forward to mutual cooperation with your glorious people.

We are a naturally peaceful people, and if you’ll agree, we believe there is much we can learn and trade together. We see that we have no immediate opportunities for trade, but if you're interested, we'd like to offer you the chance to catch up in technology by purchasing some technology from us at a steep discount (how does 50% of the beaker cost in gold sound?). We’d even be willing to transfer you desired knowledge immediately, and let you pay over time.

But we don’t want to jump the gun too much! What are your interests in a relationship with Epsilon? We stand ready to sign a peace deal if you’d like to start there?

We eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely Yours,
Foreign Minister General_W
Epsilon Team!

[lost_civantares]

w00t! We meet a 3rd victim!

I think we are pushing the trading a little too much, especially since it is over half of our letter. It definitely should be in there, but I agree with the letter, we are jumping the gun a little. I think the part about the discount should be in another letter, not quickly spit out in front of them as soon as we meet.

[Memphus]

I also Agree With Lost_civ at this point we just want to establish contact.

Keep in mind they won't know we have met for 1-2 more days pending on the save (Loco=>Pfiffle first)

[DaveMcW]

Once again, I am extremely eager to sell Innovia any tech we have.

Sell tech-tech at 80%, or tech-gold at 40%.

[General_W]

I agree with Dave, I’m extremely eager to sell techs. The more people we have buying, the more profitable it is for us.

However, LostCiv and Memphus may be right – this letter is quite possibly too much for a first contact letter.
So – here’s a toned down version of it.

Version 1.1

Dear Saggioun the Wise & all Innoviates,

Greetings from the golden halls of Epsilon Eridani! The Leader of Epsilon Team sends you his warm regards.

Our humble scout, "Dark Puma" has caught sight of your Mighty Warrior, Discoverer ... we are very pleased to meet you, and look forward to mutual cooperation with your glorious people.

We are a naturally peaceful people, and if you’ll agree, we believe there is much we can learn and trade together. We see that we have no immediate opportunities for trade, but if you're interested, we'd like to offer you the chance to catch up in technology by purchasing some technology from us at a steep discount.

But we don’t want to jump the gun too much! What are your interests in a relationship with Epsilon? We stand ready to sign a peace deal if you’d like to start there?

We eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely Yours,
Foreign Minister General_W
Epsilon Team!

Thoughts?


P.S. My full update won’t come till tomorrow. Sorry! later night than I expected.

[General_W]

No further feedback? I plan to send this note by the end of the day.

[peter grimes]

Sorry - I didn't know you were waiting for me

Yes, I think it is good.

[General_W]

ok - Sent!

[azzaman333]

Their high food suggests that they could be using a specialist economy?

[General_W]

Yeah – I think it indicates 2 things…

1) They prioritized getting a lot of cities (as evidenced by their 6 cities already!)
2) They are also focusing at least somewhat on specialists… as they got a very early great prophet even without a wonder to fuel the GP points. This also makes sense given that Saladin is a Philosophical leader.

Still – It looks to me like they are in danger of being crippled by expanding too fast without the economy and cottages to support that growth.

[gbno1fan]

Also they could be candidates for a well planned pillaging campaign. If we focus efforts on pillaging the cottages they do build, we could easily cripple them since they don't have a widespread economy.

[General_W]

Word from Innovia with the save:

Greetings Team Epsilon
I must say that it was a pleasure to finally meet your team.
We are always interested in new technologies, and co-operation with other civilizations, so our foreign ministry will most likely contact you soon.
Dutchfire

Guess we'll wait to hear from their foreign minister!

[General_W]

Word in from the Innovians!

Dear Epsilon,

I am the Foreign Minister of the Team Innovia, and on behalf of all Innovians I greet you and all Epsilonians in friendship.

We've heard much about your nation. Some decades ago a man came with something he called a "television" and showed us a "broadcoast" of what we now recognize as your nation.

We Innovians are a peaceful people and have no wish of any bloodshed, so naturally we agree to your peace proposal. Not only that, but we also look forward to possible trades with you. We are willing to hear and discuss any proposals you might have.

As our name implies we are very interested in this aspect of life that's called innovation. We also see that you have done well in this area and your offer of selling some of that knowledge to us is most welcome.
To be more specific, we are interested in hearing what you would want in return for Currency?

We have a lot of possibilities to discuss and maybe it would be best if we could arrange a chat. Would that be possible? I'm in GMT +1.

Best regards,
Theoden,
Foreign Minister of Innovia

PS. You have probably guessed it since I'm responding via PM, but PM will be the best way to contact me as I will see a message sooner that way.

What should we offer to sell Currency for? I'd argue for more than 50% - maybe 60 or 70 ? Since it's a monopoly tech still?
Thoughts?

[Memphus]

Correct See if they will bite for 60% or 70%, at the very least 50%

But I would lay it out in payment plans this turn.

Why 50,60 or 70?? Being a monopoly tech explain it to them this way. The have 3 payment options over 10 turns

They can start payments next turn and half way through, we will transfer Currency (for 60%, lets say in 5 turns)

Or we can transfer it first in goodwill, for 70%, and payements begin thereafter.

Or they have the option to make payment over 10 turns at which point we will then give them currewncy (50%)

This way the ball is in thier court and they can make the call. Any of them work for us and eve nat 50% we still do good (not to mention we get 10 turns of +gpt first )

Thoughts?

[General_W]

Memphus – good ideas!
I don’t like asking them to pay for something for 10 turns at 20 gold per turn without us giving anything… just seems fishy, even if our intentions are honorable.

So I’m proposing just offering the first two. And maybe suggesting some other techs to them also at 40% because Loco already has them…

Draft version 1:

Dear Theoden & All Innovators,

Thank you for your warm letter – it was very well received by The Leader, may he live forever. He has pledged his word to peace with your people.

Now to the matter of trading knowledge! We must confess, our dear Leader is a bit reluctant to let go of Currency so soon – but in the interest of building a strong relationship, we have devised a couple scenarios that we hope you will find acceptable.

Currency Trade A)

We send you currency right away on our next turn. You only pay 70% of the beaker cost in gold!
Currency = 400 = 280 Innovia price. – payable in 14gpt for 20 turns.

Currency Trade B)

We send you currency half-way though your payment program. You only pay 60% of the beaker cost in gold!
Currency = 400 = 240 Innovia price. – payable in 12gpt for 20 turns. Currency transfers after 10th gold payment is received

We hope one of those is acceptable – if not, we’d be happy to hear your counter proposal.

Also – if we could interest you in some of our other technologies… The Leader is prepared to make you a very special offer on Monotheism(100 ) for just 40 gold. (payable over 10 to 15 turns) or even Iron Working(200 ) for just 80 gold (payable over 10 to 20 turns) – either one we’d be happy to transfer right now, and let you pay along with your payment for currency –or pay before you pay for currency. Whatever you’d like to do.

Any or all of this interest you?

Sadly, I’m at -8 gmt, so it may be hard for us to catch up over IM – you can get all my different address from my CivFantatics profile. Maybe we’ll get lucky!

In the meantime, PM works well for me also.

Looking forward to hearing back from you and arranging some mutually profitable deals!

Foreign Minister General_W
Servant of The Leader
Epsilon Team!

Comments? Feedback?

[Memphus]

I like it let's let it go!!!

this way they see that for premium techs are more expensive (currency, which makes sense as technically they could capitalize on them) but for other techs they get an even better discount (also makes sense since if they were to resaearch them there would be greater modifiers )

[azzaman333]

It looks good.

[General_W]

Ok - thanks for the feedback!

I'll send it right now...

[General_W]

I have reason to believe (or just paranoia perhaps) that we'll shortly be seeing Loco swap our knowledge of Currency with Innovia.
I'd like to potentially forestall that by lowering our offered price to Innovia on Currency.
I'm hoping to avoid being completely honest on our motivations – but I don't want to lie… especially with the great likelihood we'd get caught!

So here's my draft.
Please offer feedback!

Dear Theoden & All of Innovia,

We're not sure if your long delay in responding is a bargaining tactic or not… but at the risk of encouraging this kind of silent treatment, we'll begrudgingly admit that your tactic has worked!

Cries have gone up in the Golden Halls that we have demanded too much of you for our knowledge of Currency. For this, I must take the lions share of the blame.

We would like to humbly retract our previous offers, and instead offer you Currency(400 ) for just 200 gold. If you agree, we'll transfer our knowledge right away, and then you can pay over time… say 10gpt for 20 turns?

We're sorry to have wasted your time earlier, and hope that this offer will elicit a more speedy response!

All the best,
Your Friends at Epsilon,

Foreign Minister General_W
Servant of the Leader
Epsilon Team!

Thoughts on this?

[DaveMcW]

I think Innovia is well aware of Loco's proposal and they will see right through you.

Chalk it up to lessons learned, and start with a better offer next time