Cavaleiros Embassy & Intelligence

[Indiansmoke]

Believe me Donsig, Cav are WAY ahead of us. The only thing that can keep us competing is our financial trait.

But you are right there is nothing we can ask for to keep the balance of power....EXACTLY my point....this whole balance of power thing until scientific method is a joke...because when it starts to have some meaning like you said, we will part ways!!

 

[donsig]

Believe me Donsig, Cav are WAY ahead of us. The only thing that can keep us competing is our financial trait.

But you are right there is nothing we can ask for to keep the balance of power....EXACTLY my point....this whole balance of power thing until scientific method is a joke...because when it starts to have some meaning like you said, we will part ways!!

Indiansmoke did you ever form an alliance or do any negotiating in any of those 600 MP games you played? The balance of power idea would indeed be a joke if we ignored it up until the turn we part ways. That is not what anyone is suggesting. The idea is to have the balance of power in place at the time we part ways. This will of course require much negotiation along the way. We begin this process by keeping track of who is ahead and why and then we take steps to bring about a balance. It would be helpful if you and the others who are experts would tell the rest of us why we are behind right now. Then we can brainstorm ideas to rectify the imbalance. Since the showdown is a long way off we don't have to concern ourselves with achieving an instant balance of power. We've got time to get there. We also need a few things in place, like currency and safe land and sea routes between us, before we can take advantage of all the trading mechanisms.

When we first allied with Team Cav there was no balance of power. We were teching faster. We gave more beakers than we got, not to give us tech parity, but to benefit the alliance - and ourselves. If we hadn't been so generous with Team Cav they would not have been able to give us civil service so quickly. We were also generous with Saturn and hopefully that will pay off as feudalism and Saturn closer to us than to SANCTA.

I believe one of your stumbling blocks in this is that you are used to gaining whatever advantage you can in an MP game and then running with it. This is a good strategy given your mastery of the game but you must admit it works best when you have inferior opponents. I do not think we should assume the other teams are inferior to us. Another stumbling block is related. You think that once Team Cav gets an advantage they will not give it up. You can't believe they would give us something for nothing when it nullifies their advantage over us. I think they would readily do that if they think they will gain a bigger advantage over us and everyone else by doing so.

 

[Kaleb]

Well bith Cav and MS have been prompt in giving us techs when we needed it. Cav are ahead on a number of points and are nearly on a par with tech. If we war with SAN they'll get ahead on this too. All the more reason to share techs without counting beakers!

The best thing for us right now is for Cav to focus on tech rate and roading towards our conflict area. A few scouts in the region will also be really helpful for us.

SAN's mfg and army won't count for much if they are far behind on tech. If we can eventually take their cities we'll be much better off than Cav getting cities from Saturn.

The key for us now is to improve our pact with MS as we'll likely be stuck with them for a while. Officially we have the same relationship with them as Cav.

 

[damnrunner]

If Cav is a bit ahead that is ok. When the alliance splits it will be us and MS vs Cav. Which is to our advantage. But that will not be for a long time.

As to beaker counting – we are still ahead regarding the number of beakers shared. And people should not freak out about how “far behind” we are. We are not.

At 100% science both our GNPs are 121 (us) and 150 (them). That is 29 more GNP for them. But GNP is gold+beakers+culture+espionage right? They have 2 world wonders which together should generate about 15 culture when including the free monuments. So all else being equal, right now they get 14 more beakers per turn (at 100% science) than we do (that is with multipliers).

However, in the next 5-10 turns we will get 3 more cottages for our capitol and 2 free scientists. That is +9 base commerce and +6 beakers in our capitol alone which will also benefit from significant multipliers. Then add on another gold mine and a few more cottages around our flood plains city. We will then be back in the tech lead.

 

[mikotian]

Cav has much more land and cities than us, so I think they will start to pull ahead, especially as we are warring with Sancta.

In the short term I think Kaleb is right. We need to get them to road over here and start massing some troops. We are close to gaining a decisive tech advantage (HBR + Machinery next), and we should press that advantage when we get it.


Nevertheless Indiansmoke asks a vital question, which I've been stressing for a while now. How do we address an imbalance of power?

We MUST resolve this question mutually before we proceed further. Without this answered at least conceptually, this alliance has a good chance of bogging down and falling apart. I do not agree with Donsig that we should only focus on right now and solve today's problems only.


Fortunately, as our empires eventually connect, I think imbalances of power will be easier to resolve--we could exchange units for example. Also, if we carve up a part of Sancta's land, imbalances of power would be resolvable as well--we could take an extra city, or exchange cities, etc.

I can think of several major levers to pull to address an imbalance of power:
1) ceding great people
2) ceding cities
3) ceding units
4) ceding gold

of these, (2) and (3) are the cleanest measures, as their impacts are measurable and perpetual. (1) is useful if we settle the GP as a specialist, or make a special building. The economic impacts of that can then be cleanly measured (relatively). However, using a GP to bulb a tech would be useless for balance purposes, because the fruits of that bulb would be shared freely.

(4) is problematic, because (4) does not actually increase our power. What it does is allow us to run deficit research for a longer period of time, but the fruits of research is shared freely so it doesn't make us more powerful after the end of the alliance.

But, with (1) (2) and (3) as viable options, I'm sure we can craft some rough guidelines on how to balance power.


I already suggested that "balance of power" should be based on at least GDP, mfg, and soldiers. A cumulative imbalance of 50%, or an imbalance of 25% in any category would have to be addressed promptly. I leave that on the table at this time as a starting point for further discussions.


One challenge we must work through right now is something Indian brought up. What do we ask now or in a similar situation in the future, if an imbalance does develop? Currently, I don't think we are imbalanced, but let's just say hypothetically.

We can't get units, great people, cities, land, whatever. So obviously we have to be willing to be flexible... For example, we can ask for a firm war commitment, and for them to allow us to tech music. But being flexible is tough. The more we bend the rules, the less stable the alliance may potentially become...

 

[damnrunner]

One challenge we must work through right now is something Indian brought up. What do we ask now or in a similar situation in the future, if an imbalance does develop? Currently, I don't think we are imbalanced, but let's just say hypothetically.

I have said this a few times before but I think it makes sense to address imbalances as they develop. Doing so preemptively is not liable to work.

I think we are better off defining what an imbalance is - and then if that situation is reached at some point in the future - figure out a way to work it out.

It is flexible and is probably what will end up happening anyway. We can come up with a great way to balance power now - but 50 turns down the line it will probably not address whatever situation has actually come up.

 

[mikotian]

I really don't think we should plunge in without a plan. If we do that I think we have a good chance of ending up in an absolute morass.

Imagine an example:
It's 50 turns from now and we are getting sort of close to the point where it's time to part ways, but not quite yet. But us and Cav are both thinking of it. Cav develops to the point where they are "imbalanced" and more powerful than us, based on the definitions we lay out.

What do we say to them? There'd be no starting point even for negotiations. In fact, in this scenario, it gives the leading party incentive to drag the negotiations on as long as possible until the term of the treaty is up... In which case the weaker treaty is probably toast.

Or even, we find ourselves in a similar situation in the midgame. We think there is an imbalance but we have no clue how to resolve it. The argument then degenerates into recriminations and bitterness. Why give us the headache?

Obviously, we won't anticipate every situation. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't prepare for the most likely situations and most importantly come up with a way to resolve our disputes fairly and quickly. I mean, when have you ever seen a treaty or a piece of legislation or even a contract drawn up without enforcement mechanisms? I have never seen one. And in my experience, contracts without enforcement and dispute resolution get broken.

I'll give a simple example of the last case. I have a good friend who is renting out a room in his 2 bed room condo. He found a potential tenant that he liked, and entered into a loose verbal contract to receive $xxx at the first of each month. There was no deposit or anything. It went okay at first, and then the guy started falling behind. My friend tried to get $$ from him, and only received excuses... But at this point what do you do? The guy SEEMS honest, and he does pay... but only partially and usually 3 weeks late. Do you kick him out? But he owes you so much $$$ and you would lose valuable rent while the place sits empty. It's a really tough situation. Finally, the guy left without any warning and stiffed my friend with the unpaid balance of rent. Needless to say, my friend drew up a formal lease with a deposit and stipulations for kicking out tenants for not paying rent for his next try.

I can just picture our relationship deteriorating into this state. Let's say Cav "owes" us. Maybe they make some excuses, maybe we get into a big fight. Maybe they do a half-assed job of remediating the situation. Bottom line, we are not happy and we are stuck. But, if we had some terms laid out, we'd hopefully resolve the situation quickly, or barring that, we'd be able to gauge Cav's intentions and react faster. For example, if they COULD resolve the issue, but keeps making excuses, then *maybe* something's up.

Even if everything doesn't mesh up perfectly, we can say something like: look at this treaty we have. There are clearly at least 3 courses of action to correct this imbalance. We can resolve this in 5 turns if you want. etc. Now that's a much more useful starting point than scratching our heads and starting from square one.

 

[donsig]

Nevertheless Indiansmoke asks a vital question, which I've been stressing for a while now. How do we address an imbalance of power?

We MUST resolve this question mutually before we proceed further. Without this answered at least conceptually, this alliance has a good chance of bogging down and falling apart. I do not agree with Donsig that we should only focus on right now and solve today's problems only.

I can see that I've been doing a piss poor job of getting my point across. I don't recall saying we should only focus on right now. I was trying to get some others on this team to stop worrying about right now and look at the future.

One challenge we must work through right now is something Indian brought up. What do we ask now or in a similar situation in the future, if an imbalance does develop? Currently, I don't think we are imbalanced, but let's just say hypothetically.

First of all, as I said in an earlier post, there's nothing we can ask for right now to address an imbalance of power. There's absoutely no point in pondering this question right now. The game has to go on some more turns before we can seriously address any balance of power issues. Also, having an exact balance of power is not important right now. As other teams fall by the wayside it becomes more important.

Second, it is even more pointless to try to figure out how to address a hypothetical imbalance. If we can't even tell whether a balance of power exists right now or not then how could we ever hope to find a balance? We do not want to enter an agreement where balance of power is rigidly defined up front. Since we can't really define it the chances are good that we'll make some definition that we will regreat later. We need a flexible definition that will fit whatever scenario we end up in. mikotian, why don't you use your suggested guidelines to see if an imbalance exists now? That would be very helpful to our discussion.

We can't get units, great people, cities, land, whatever. So obviously we have to be willing to be flexible... For example, we can ask for a firm war commitment, and for them to allow us to tech music. But being flexible is tough. The more we bend the rules, the less stable the alliance may potentially become...

The stability of the alliance stems from us trusting each other and putting the alliance first. In the alliance that Team Cav has suggested we would not have to invoke an imbalance of power in order to get help from them. They would help us because that's what the alliance needs. If we lose the war with SANCTA then the alliance goes down the drain. If we need music so we can culture bomb our way out of a bottleneck then they would agree since a bottled up ally isn't much good. The alliance Team Cav wants is one where we stick together until the other three teams are gone (or have no hope of winning). The reason we haven't made progress on any of this is we have not yet (as a team) embraced the idea of allying with with Team Cav till the others are gone. Some of us see this merely as a marriage of convenience where we should be able to jump ship whenever we see something better walking down the street. Some of us not too long ago thought SANCTA might be looking better. Until we decide as a team that we want Team Cav as our number one ally till it's just us left we're just gonna argue over pointless stuff.

 

[cav scout]

Mikotian is right on the money here. If this "balance of power" principle is left intentionally vague then it's an arrangement practically begging to be exploited.

By the way, what is the current beaker imbalance right now with CAV and MS?

 

[mikotian]

The stability of the alliance stems from us trusting each other and putting the alliance first. In the alliance that Team Cav has suggested we would not have to invoke an imbalance of power in order to get help from them. They would help us because that's what the alliance needs. If we lose the war with SANCTA then the alliance goes down the drain. If we need music so we can culture bomb our way out of a bottleneck then they would agree since a bottled up ally isn't much good. The alliance Team Cav wants is one where we stick together until the other three teams are gone (or have no hope of winning).

Unfortunately, I don't think this is how real life works. Trust may be very well and good for now, but what do you think will happen when the alliance is nearing the end (because for example Cav and Kaz are by far the 2 strongest civ left)?

I have to say, by that point, if they are not jockeying for advantage and position, we should do so and kick the daylights out of them when the alliance does break apart.

Of course they are going to help us today. They need us for now--there are a lot of enemies left. You view that as trust, I view that as intelligent diplomacy and strategic positioning.

Like I said before, contracts (and yes, a treaty is a contract) without enforcement and dispute resolution break. It's naive and dangerous to expect otherwise. I know you have a rosy view of Cav's intentions. Sure you've played with them before, and you may very well be right. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't set out a fair contract from the start.

And as for defining imbalance of power:
give me their demographics and I can easily apply the standards I've provisionally laid out. It's not hard, and the bands are wide enough as to be pretty flexible, in my opinion. And if anyone would come up with improvements or other suggestions on how to define "balance of power" I'd be all ears because I think we need to get it done.

Lastly, I obviously think we have to be flexible. There's simply no way of avoiding it. But there's a difference between flexible and being completely amorphous.

 

[mikotian]

The reason we haven't made progress on any of this is we have not yet (as a team) embraced the idea of allying with with Team Cav till the others are gone. Some of us see this merely as a marriage of convenience where we should be able to jump ship whenever we see something better walking down the street. Some of us not too long ago thought SANCTA might be looking better. Until we decide as a team that we want Team Cav as our number one ally till it's just us left we're just gonna argue over pointless stuff.

You seem to have a view that our relationship should be akin to the one between two brothers, or between husband and wife. Trust rules and we can both be counted on to support and help each other through thick and thin.

I very honestly think you are the only person on the team that trusts Cav to this extent.

Brothers and spouses don't say to each other "ok we'll hang together right now, but when we are both 45 years old, we pull out 6-guns and have a duel on main street". This situation almost BY DEFINITION does not promote unconditional trust. But in fact, this is EXACTLY the relationship we are trying to form with Cav.

No. I don't think of Cav as family. But that does NOT mean I don't think we can have an equitable, long lasting, and mutually profitable relationship with them. To extend the analogy-- I think of Cav as a business partner. And business relationships end.

My aim is to have a nice, long, profitable relationship, but also make sure the relationship is fair (to loosely use the word), stable, and protects our interests (i.e. not leave us up a creek when the alliance ends; or make sure Cav doesn't stiff us).

Yes, that means I support a treaty largely as laid out by them. And I support this treaty for somewhat different reasons than you I suppose.

But I also want to A) define balance of power and B) come up with a way to fix any imbalance of power. These two conditions, in my mind, are essential to the long term success and stability of our relationship.

I've put my suggestions down on both counts and I highly encourage other suggestions or input.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Right now what matters is the success of the KazCav alliance. If we know Team Cav isn't about to screw us over right now then it doesn't matter if they are better positioned than us right now. The balance of power becomes more important the closer we get to the showdown with Team Cav, and that's a long way off. In the mean time we really need to stop fretting about the techs we give Team Cav and work with them to eliminate SANCTA

I agree, but aparently Cavalieros don't, because they are not sending any units to aid in the destruction of SANCTA. The war with SANCTA is here! The opportunity to destroy the first non-CavKaz rival is upon us! Do they want to get rid of SANCTA or not?!? If you are determined to keep warring with SANCTA now (I think we are unprepared and should ask for peace BTW) then you should see that Cavalieros should be pouring everything they have into getting rid of SANCTA now. If they truly want the kind of alliance that you claim they do, why haven't they demonstrated this intent by sending units to help us? The answer is, because they just want us to gift them tech until we die. They seem to have no real desire for a one-nation style brotherhood-type alliance. If they did, they would regard SANCTA's DoW on us a DoW on them as well since we would theoretically be one-nation ... right?

We still haven't given them aesthetics or hunting. Nor have we given the Mad Ones aesthetics or archery. While we haven't withheld these techs saying we want specifc compensation for them we haven't given them up either. Yet you think Team Cav should drop everything and declare war on Sancta now. If we had acted as true brothers and given all techs as soon as we learned them then we could admonish Team Cav for not immediately declaring war on SANCTA and rushing to our aid. Since we've only given techs grudgingly we can't seriously expect Team Cav to rush to our defence.

You seem to buy into the idea that if only we had not mentioned tech parity and agreed to tech-gifting, Cavalieros would have embraced us as brothers and be rushing to our aid... This is not correct. We have constructively agreed to tech gifting alliance, because we have gifted all techs requested. We Have Not witheld any tech at all. The only reason we have different / more tech is because of the misguided attempt to hide the alliance from SANCTA. As I have already said many times, SANCTA is aware of our alliance. There is no reason to try to conceal demographics of tech trades. So this excuse is just that, a pitiful, cowardly (on Cavalieros part), inadequate excuse to leave us undefended. They are not helping us because they have no intention of respecting the alliance.

Finally, I have already said that Cavalieros declaring war is irrelevant without them sending units. What I want from them is gifted units or a military presence near Angle. I would rather they did not DoW and just gifted us some units TBH. But they deliberately avoided that issue. They hope that sending us CS is enough. It is not. If they don't contribute units to the war then they are false friends, period.

 

[damnrunner]

@ Mik and others

Question on Measurement
Balance of Power can be measured pretty straight forwardly - from demographics for example - as you suggest. I think the demographic page however is not the best metric as it can be gamed - culture, gold, and beakers all count towards GNP but only gold and beakers really matter. Population also is a bit inaccurate as a pop 2 city counts for more than 2 pop 1 cities. So we still need to come up with specific metrics for how to measure balance of power. This is not hard - there are many options - but we need to be on the same page.

Question of enforcement:
I agree that an enforcement mechanism is needed. And I think what I proposed does address this. If an imbalance develops - one team has to take action so that the metrics we decided to use get more back in balance. That is pretty straight forward. I am wary of anything more complicated as this give us flexibly on how each team can address imbalances.

 

[donsig]

Random ramblings. I can't do more than this right now because it is really frustrating going over the same ground time and again to no avail.

A model for the alliance: Yes, I think we need to be married to Team Cav right now. The business partner model for the alliance is not strong enough since it is way too easy to dissolve. The marriage model isn't perfect either since we both know the alliance isn't meant to last forever. Perhaps a parenting model is even better. Try thinking of KazCav as the two parents of a child (the alliance). We need to do whatever it takes to see this child of ours survives. We will both make sacrifices and use our respective strengths to nurture the child. Throw in the marriage model - say we're staying married for the child. We know once the kid is grown (in this case once the other three teams are gone) we get that divorce we've longed for and really put the screws to our partner for the misery they've caused us while we had to remain married to them. We also know that as the child gets older he will need less and less care and we can therefore look more and more to our own needs - something we know our marriage partner will be doing.

Enforcement: We can look at our treaty as a pre-nup agreement. We can even consider it a contract. But no matter what we consider it there is no enforcement mechanism available other than what we can do in the game and what we can convince the others teams to do. We can't sue Team Cav for breach of contract. It's a lawless world we live in so ultimately we must either trust our partner or not have any partners. It's really as simple as that.

Showing trust: Sommer's says that if Team Cav really, really wants this marriage kind of alliance then they should already be charging to our aid against SANCTA. Well, Team Cav proposed to us and we haven't said yes or no yet. But we've taken so long in answering that they must be thinking we really want to say no. Even if we say yes now they may wonder if we're only saying yes because of the war with SANCTA. In other words they may wonder if we really want to marry them till the others are gone or if we just want to marry them till the SANCTA war is over. We have refused many times to show our trust.

Withholding techs: We have withheld techs. We still have aesthetics and hunting and they don't. Why are we waiting for them to ask for these techs?

The balance of power: This is a goal for the end of the alliance not for right now. The idea is that our two teams stay united and eliminate the other three teams. We both know we will have to face each other at that point. We also both realise the incentive that exists for both teams to break the alliance prematurely. The balance of power is intended to ensure both teams have an equal chance of winning the game once the alliance ends. If the alliance results in one team having a significantly smaller chance of winning then that team is going to break the alliance before the other three teams are gone. We must look at the balance of power in terms of who has the better chance to win the game.

Defining the balance of power: Right now who has a better chance of winning the game? Why do they have the best chance? Answering these quesitons will help us define balance of power. I understand the desire to have the definition all set down in black and white but I don't think that can be done right now. If someone has a definition please give it to us. I think the best we can do now is come up with some rather vague guidelines. As the game progresses we can steadily hone the definition and make it more specific..

Jockeying for endgame position: Even if we accept Team Cav's alliance model, both teams know they will be jockeying for the better endgame position. We would negotiate a balnce of power and it's quite possible that we'd both be happy with the agreed upon end balance. It is also quite possible that both teams could end up thinking they've made a better deal than the other. It would then boil down to whoever had the better endgame strategy and who did a better job of negotiating a balance of power that was actually in their favor.

Ending the alliance prematurely: There is no guarantee the alliance will hold together. It is quite possible we won't be able to adequately define and negotiate an acceptable balance of power. If one or both of us feel taken advantage of then the alliance will crumble while there are still other teams left to ally with. Given our propensity to want an equal contribution on both sides this is a distinct possibility.

Is a long term alliance worth it? This is what we have to address first. We already have one team member saying we can't win if we're left alone facing Team Cav. If that's true then this discussion is moot and we should be spending our energies more productively. Let's assume we ally with Team Cav and can find a balance of power satisfactory to both teams. Can we still win? If so under what conditions? I think it was Smokey who already said we could only win if we both agreed to go for a space victory with both teams starting Apollo at the same time with the same techs. I assume our tech advantages would outweigh their productive advantages in this scenario. Are there any other possible scenarios?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Random ramblings. I can't do more than this right now because it is really frustrating going over the same ground time and again to no avail.

Im sad you feel like no one is listening to you, because I think I understand fully what you are trying to say, and I am convinced of most of it. I still disagree with a few things.

A model for the alliance: Yes, I think we need to be married to Team Cav right now.

Yes I agree with this and your illustration was an excellent, spot on analogy. It made the issue very clear...

Enforcement: It's a lawless world we live in so ultimately we must either trust our partner or not have any partners. It's really as simple as that.

Agreed. There is no way to enforce anything... We should really drop discussion of enforcement. The only way to punish a refusal to bring the alliance into balance, is to leave the alliance... which would be a poor remedy for the team that is behind in the balance of power.

Showing trust: Sommer's says that if Team Cav really, really wants this marriage kind of alliance then they should already be charging to our aid against SANCTA. Well, Team Cav proposed to us and we haven't said yes or no yet.

I stand by my statement that they should be contributing units to the war. This is where we disagree, Donsig... We "said yes" already. Our union (what we affectionately refer to as the CavKaz treaty) was solemnized way back in 2080BC (Turn 48) . The treaty reads in relevant part:

§0. Treaty Duration and cancellation terms
* This treaty will last indefinitely, and can only be cancelled by written notice 20 turns in advance.

You may respond, well the treaty dosen't say anything about contributing units or declaring war on aggressors against the other CavKaz nation, but the treaty also does not say anything about being obligated to gift tech on request, does it? What is does say, is that the alliance is permanent (like marriage) unless canceled, in writing, with notice (like divorce).

Cavalieros whole argument about us gifting tech was based on the premise that tech gifting was the act of a "marriage" type alliance and if we wanted to be married , then we should gift tech. Since we gifted tech as they wished, this was proof that we accepted the "marriage" type interpretation of the alliance that they proposed.

You seem to be saying that we are married when it's time to gift tech, but we are just dating when SANCTA attacks us.

Withholding techs: We have withheld techs. We still have aesthetics and hunting and they don't. Why are we waiting for them to ask for these techs?

We are "waiting" for them to ask for the tech because we (Cav and Kaz) are still foolishly trying to hide the alliance from SANCTA. The original reason Cavalieros instructed us NOT to gift hunting, was because if we did, SANCTA would be aware of the alliance. C'mon Don, you know this... Please stop trying to imply that we are holding back tech from Cavalieros. You know as well as I do, that if Cavalieros asked us to gift Aesthetics AND Hunting this turn, we would do so without hesitation.

The balance of power: This is a goal for the end of the alliance not for right now.

Yes, this should be obvious to everyone.

Defining the balance of power: I understand the desire to have the definition all set down in black and white but I don't think that can be done right now.

I agree.

Jockeying for endgame position: It would then boil down to whoever had the better endgame strategy and who did a better job of negotiating a balance of power that was actually in their favor.

Agreed.

Ending the alliance prematurely: There is no guarantee the alliance will hold together.

I agree and think this is related to the enforcement issue. We have to trust our ally to some extent. Trust but verify. I want them to verify that they want to stay "married" by protecting their spouse when she gets attacked. If my husband lets SANCTA smack me around, what good is he?

Is a long term alliance worth it?

Yes.

 

[damnrunner]

In response to sommers' comments on enforcement.

Spoiler :

Enforcement: It's a lawless world we live in so ultimately we must either trust our partner or not have any partners. It's really as simple as that.

Agreed. There is no way to enforce anything... We should really drop discussion of enforcement. The only way to punish a refusal to bring the alliance into balance, is to leave the alliance... which would be a poor remedy for the team that is behind in the balance of power.

We can't make enforcement happen - just like in the real world. But we can include an enforcement provision that addresses how we will remedy imbalances. Essentially an agreement to have arbitration when an imbalance emerges.

Yes either side could break the agreement. But the idea is for the alliance to be worth more than either team's cost of balancing. How else does anyone propose making a balance of power work without a method of rebalancing when things do end up getting skewed.

 

[damnrunner]

A suggestion

I think that by having some votes on what we want / don't want we could help narrow the discussion in a way that would help us reach a final conclusion.

Sommers - could you construct a series of votes to help narrow our discussion on the Team Cav treaty.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sommers - could you construct a series of votes

My thoughts here.

 

[mikotian]

Question on Measurement
Balance of Power can be measured pretty straight forwardly - from demographics for example - as you suggest. I think the demographic page however is not the best metric as it can be gamed - culture, gold, and beakers all count towards GNP but only gold and beakers really matter. Population also is a bit inaccurate as a pop 2 city counts for more than 2 pop 1 cities. So we still need to come up with specific metrics for how to measure balance of power. This is not hard - there are many options - but we need to be on the same page.

Question of enforcement:
I agree that an enforcement mechanism is needed. And I think what I proposed does address this. If an imbalance develops - one team has to take action so that the metrics we decided to use get more back in balance. That is pretty straight forward. I am wary of anything more complicated as this give us flexibly on how each team can address imbalances.

Yes. and Yes.
We are now saying almost the exact same thing. I don't care exactly how balance of power is measured, as long as it's clear, reasonable, and relatively flexible. We can manipulate the demographics numbers in a variety of ways, the final result will be similar. Just don't make it too complicated. In fact, I think simpler is better.

Enforcement:
We are saying almost the exact same thing. The only thing I did extra was outline several levers to pull in order to bring the demographics numbers (therefore balance of power) back in line. Frankly, there isn't that many things you can do in Civ to manipulate the demographics numbers in a large-scale way, and I think I've provided most of the available methods in my list.

 

[donsig]

@Sommers: SANCTA figured out a long time ago that we've been trading techs with Team Cav. Everyone knows we're trading techs with Team Cav so why are we still waiting to give them hunting?

We can't make enforcement happen - just like in the real world. But we can include an enforcement provision that addresses how we will remedy imbalances. Essentially an agreement to have arbitration when an imbalance emerges.

Arbitration needs a third party. Who will that be? Someone outside the game? Surely you're not suggesting one of the other teams arbitrate our secret alliance that exists to eliminate the arbitrator? All we can do is try to build clauses into the treaty that define balance of power and remedies to any imbalance. If you have any concrete suggestions for such a clause let's hear them. I think it's a bit too early for specifics.

Yes either side could break the agreement. But the idea is for the alliance to be worth more than either team's cost of balancing. How else does anyone propose making a balance of power work without a method of rebalancing when things do end up getting skewed.

We will have a method when the time comes. It will take time to define the balance of power and remedies for imbalances specifically and this will have to be done in stages as the game progresses.

I think the idea of some discussions and polls to help us reach a decision here is a great idea.