Do we want an Embassy with Persia?

Well we made it – our first attempt to cross the sea North-East of New Falcon’s Haven has resulted in us meeting Persia!

It will currently cost us 76 gold to establish an Embassy (we have 583 in our coffers) – so do we do it?

Do we establish an Embassy with Persia now?

If we don’t do it now, when do we?

It wouldn't hurt to establish one..

why not, we ought to have them as an ally.

What are the advantages of having an embassy?

1. We can sign a ROP, but it is only valuable if we are larger and get money. And we need the map to evaluate this option.
2. We can sign military alliances, but this does not help us, because they are on another continent unreachable by AI galleys.
3. The attitude is improved; valuable, but not essential.
4. If we do it now, we don't have to pay more later.
   [/list=1] I would first trade for the other contacts, maps, available techs, see whether there are smaller civs willing to pay for ROP, establish embassies with them first, only establish an embassy with Persia if we have ample funds left after all this.

My first reaction was: Yes of course. After reading tao's remarks I've changed my opinion to: "Why do we need it now?".

I personally believe that the issue of an Embassy is very much secondary to getting the best our of the trades for our contacts at this point in time.

I do not think we should hold back (Persia'll only demand them if we do), we need to maximise what we get, contacts with other Civs, techs, maps (maybe get one contact first with one of our contacts, contact the new Civ and sell our same contact for the next Civ etc until we've met them all and can get the best deal for our remaining contacts) and then sell back to the Civs on our continent as well if they have anything worth getting. Then, out of the money we get build Embassies with the Civs that we are likely to want as allies if we end up at War with that continent. They appear to be ahead of us now, maybe a war amounst themselves will slow them down a bit.

Furiey has it just about right - trade first, then embassies

10 turns have passed, we have large amounts of money, and lack knowledge what goes on in the new world (regarding wars). Thus I would now advocate to establish embassies with everybody.

PS: Whenever I establish an embassy, I take a screenshot of the capital's city display for future reference.

As tao says - 10 turns have passed and we have loads of gold! So is it time to establish some Embassies?

So do we establish any? or for the bargain price of 287 gold do we go for the lot!

like tao I would go for the lot, we then have all options available to us for alliances if one of the Civs there declares war - and yes we definitely want screenies of the capitols when we establish them (screenshots of capitol where Embassies have already been established can be found in the Term 2 Foreign Affairs thread).

If we are going to buy techs from the Un-Embassied civs, establishing an embassy is worthwhile.

Aaaargh - meant to post a poll on this...

Anyway, It's now 720 AD. The English have established an Embassy with us, so it's Persia, Aztecs, Zulu and Iroquois we still need to decide on. The price has increased slightly, it's now 289 gold for all four.

I beleve it will not hurt to establish an embassy in Persia. It can certanly help us to see what there capital is currently building.

poll is up here