Aloha communication thread

[Theoden]

IMHO we should give them the open borders and then try to get information from them. I think that they will tell the info about the barb city once we give them OB and giving it to them would you present ourselves as diplomatically unreliable.

I will wait until the poll is done before drafting a reply.

 

[Mauer]

I think we should give them OB. It's a small friendly gesture, just keep an eye on them. Besides, this whole diplomacy thing could be grounds for their reasoning to make an early push in our direction. Friendliness, not naivety though, would be our best bet at this stage of the game in my opinion

 

[dutchfire]

I think they might be getting tired of the time we take to decide, but we'll really disappoint them if we don't make open borders at all.

 

[Theoden]

Proposed reply (the poll was 3-1 in favour of open borders):

Greetings again Aloha,

We've been experienceing administrative problems with the open borders, as we are stuck with this inefficient despotic government. Next turn, however, there should an ambassador coming your way with the official agreement.

In the meanwhile we might as well prepare our trading ships to the trade that we will be doing with your cities once the agreement is in place. Can you give us some directions as to which corner of this world that your great nation occupies?

Theoden,
Foreign Minister of Innovia

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Simon is a pretty straight shooter. If he trusts us, we can go a long way. I'd be honest with him and answer his question.

 

[dutchfire]

I've been talking a bit with Simon (BCLG100) over MSN about the game, the contact was pretty good.

 

[DaveShack]

I've been talking a bit with Simon (BCLG100) over MSN about the game, the contact was pretty good.

Please post a log, if you have one.

 

[Theoden]

Aloha is about to receive the turn with our offer, so I have sent the message since there were no complaints.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The logs are often the best part.

 

[dutchfire]

Please post a log, if you have one.

I'll post a log next time (I disabled auto-logging, I prefer freedom), but we didn't say much, just that I had started a poll about the issue, and that we would probably offer it after the poll had finished.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, looks reasonable so far. Just be careful not to get into the habit of answering questions from them without receiving our own answers from our questions to them first. That might start to give them the impression that we're weak and easily manipulatable, and might make it trickier to keep the relationship an even-sided one in future. (Though I must say I don't know much about BCLG100 myself, so I could be wrong and he's just a decent bloke who is merely curious. )

 

[DaveShack]

I'm going to post the following in the Loco thread too:

Epsilon has the look of a runaway, and we can't tell if they are working with Piffle to achieve that or if they're sitting on some prime real estate and doing it themselves. As we saw in the pitboss, a runaway can grow to the point where a challenge becomes impossible, even for several civs in an alliance. Add on that the apparent pitboss winner DaveMcW is Epsilon's honcho (though BCLG looks to be a clear 2nd place so downplay this a bit), and it doesn't take much to figure out where this game is going if we don't do something about it.

We need to aim for a 2 or 3 team alliance to challenge Epsilon's growth. We won't be able to do much about the land situation, but a tech alliance can at least keep up so we're not hopelessly outgunned when the time comes. I would like to propose a long-term agreement for non-aggression and planned research to avoid wasting beakers on overlaps. We at least have more than enough land to expand for the forseeable future.

 

[Theoden]

Taking our neighboors land would be another way to counter Epsilon, though. Just as DaveMcW said about the pitboss game:

Really, the only way to counter my assimilation of 3 civs (RegentMan, Theoden, Saladin) was to assimilate 3 civs of your own. Or peacefully combine 4 civs into one permanent alliance with a predetermined winner.

We've already tried suggesting a tech alliance to Loco. Maybe we should suggest it to Aloha instead?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

DaveMcW was a brilliant Civ III player. It does not surprise me that he has studied Civ IV and is a master here as well. I think we need to get everyone into a anti-Dave alliance. It may be the only way to beat him.

 

[dutchfire]

21 November:

CFC Civ 4 MTDG

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just an informal approach.

I noticed you guys had alpha. So a couple of questions

1. Any interest in a hunting - mysticism trade?

2. If yes would you be interested in a more encompassing tech trading arrangement.

All the best
Robi D

 

[Theoden]

It seems we agree on accepting their offer so how about:

Hi Aloha,

We have discussed your offer and come the conclusion that these terms are acceptable to the Innovians. Formally we agree that:

Aloha will give Innovia the tech of Hunting
Innovia will give Aloha the tech of Mysticism

As for your proposal about a more encompassing tech trade arrangement, do you have any specific ideas? We can't commit to a full-scale tech trading arrangement right now, but we're open to any suggestions.

If there are no protests I'll send this tomorrow.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The trade looks good.

What about the second portion of their offer? What kind of tech trading agreement wouls we want with Aloha?

 

[dutchfire]

Let's wait with commitments until we've met everyone.

 

[Theoden]

What about the second portion of their offer?

I agree with dutchfire, we should hold back a bit with the long term tech agreements. I'll add a neutral answer to the question.

edit: updated suggested reply to Aloha.

(Post number 2000! Sigh...)

 

[Theoden]

Update...

Before I sent our reply to Aloha, BCLG asked for a chat to discuss the deal(s). We're about to arrange that chat.

I have a few questions to the team though:
How much of a tech trade arrangement are we willing to agree to, if at all?
How do you log conversations in msn?