I want to toss in my 2 cents on the MAAP II proposal.
I think a more limited agreement to just get us to Theology and Invention is fine, but I think it should more of a "let's agree to this while we nail down the details of a full MAAP II agreement"
If we come across as only wanting the deal to last for 4 techs – we risk creating more feelings of paranoia on FREE's side that we're not fully committed to the Alliance. Given the recent misunderstanding, I think we really want to avoid that.
Therefore, I think we should draft a full-bodied MAAP II to send to FREE, and if they don't immediately agree to it, we can propose a temporary solution to cover the bridge into the Middle Ages while we finalize a full deal.
I'd propose something like this:
A New Age Dawns
Approximately Turn 95 – We enter the Middle Ages and swap Bonus techs, if applicable.
For the purposes of insuring both sides against risk, we hereby agree to trade our bonus techs without respect to their beaker value… ie, if one team gets Feudalism and the other gets Monotheism, the team that got Feudalism will NOT be considered 120 beakers short in trade balance.
Since The Council is researching the last tech needed to advance to the Middle Ages (polytheism) 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. Also of consideration is that The Council will be suffering from a revolt to Republic immediately after the era advancement, while team FREE will already be in Republic.
Balancing out the Ancient Age
First a bit of clean up from the Ancient Age… Since The Council was able to secure a deal with Saber for Warrior Code (FREE's side) and The Wheel (Council's Side) – and because The Council has taken on researching Polytheism from FREE's side of the tree - the original MAAP deal beaker counts are off.
It is The Council's opinion that in the interest of goodwill, we should just count The Wheel and Warrior Code as being a wash. We don't think it would be very neighborly to expect you to repay us for Warrior Code when we just got it from Saber. Hence, we propose just deleting those items from the MAAP and counting everything as being in balance between us on that knowledge.
[NOTE: not to be included in this letter – what I've actually done on my spreadsheet is left Warrior Code on Free's side, but made it worth 0 beakers. Wheel stayed on our side, and became worth 30 beakers so that the overall trade balance didn't change. You could argue that this actually helps us because we get 30 beakers "for free" because we traded for it – which is actually how I personally view it. The other position is that it helps FREE because they didn't have to do any work for the jump in beakers. I really doubt they'll argue the point, especially since I'm proposing that we're be very magnanimous on Currency. It's a small point, and I think we should just gloss over it as I'm attempting to do here]
That still leaves Polytheism to deal with. Since we're doing it instead of you, that actually has us leaving the Ancient Era with a 720 beaker heavier load than you!
However, in an effort to demonstrate even more goodwill, we've decided not to count our knowledge of Currency on the MAAP either, even though it took quite a bit of work and strategic planning on our side to get it. This is a 480 beaker swing in your favor!
and brings the total imbalance down to 210 beakers that you would owe us leaving the Ancient Age.
In practice, it turns out to be pretty difficult to find a tech swapping agreement of MA techs that will balance out 210 beakers. Would FREE consider paying the Council just 40% of that beaker value in gold and then we call things even?
Well, I'm out of time now – my break is over! I will continue this when I get a chance… but I wanted to post what I had done so that others can comment / offer ideas for balancing out the treaty.
Ideas?
EDIT: Note – I spent a fair amount of time on my lunch break playing with a spreadsheet to balance out 210 beakers in MA trades and couldn't find a good way to do it. It's complicated by that fact that we don't know what the Bonus techs will be… but my gut tells me it's probably best to just get the gold and start with a clean slate.
I'd be happy to hear other ideas.