RegentMan
Deity
I'm RegentMan, and I approve this message.
Embassy to CDZ Land
- Thread starter Provolution
- Start date
I'm not sure if we sent anything on the stone yet but I would suggest that we not characterize it as sharing the stone but rather asking them to use it when they aren't. If I were receiving the message I would take that a lot better.
We don't really have grounds to ask to share it as we might with some other things. It's theirs fair and square. They made some sacrifices no doubt to get it. On the other hand, we're friendly, and in a situation where they aren't using it anyway they ought to be willing to do us a solid and let us use it. If I remember right Moai Statues are only 250 hammers or so, they build very quickly with stone, we wouldn't need to borrow it for long.
We don't really have grounds to ask to share it as we might with some other things. It's theirs fair and square. They made some sacrifices no doubt to get it. On the other hand, we're friendly, and in a situation where they aren't using it anyway they ought to be willing to do us a solid and let us use it. If I remember right Moai Statues are only 250 hammers or so, they build very quickly with stone, we wouldn't need to borrow it for long.
CharlemagneXLII
Prince
We've received 2 messages from CDZ, one of which was sent to the whole ETTT.
Sounds great on all counts, good to hear from them.
As for the stone - I agree again we really don't want to be pushy right now. We got beat to the spot, and also it's long past - if we'd managed to have a settler heading there a bit sooner, got a message to them maybe 3 turns before they even settled, then a plan for straight out sharing stone could work.
As it is, I agree it couldn't hurt to ask down the line to borrow it for Maoi or something when they are not using it, but it's some time out and I'm not overly worried.
I do think, though this isn't specifically foreign relations, we will want to verify what can be found on the Maverick-side petal. I'm still guessing there is marble and possibly more significant resources, though it does happen to be desert.
As for the stone - I agree again we really don't want to be pushy right now. We got beat to the spot, and also it's long past - if we'd managed to have a settler heading there a bit sooner, got a message to them maybe 3 turns before they even settled, then a plan for straight out sharing stone could work.
As it is, I agree it couldn't hurt to ask down the line to borrow it for Maoi or something when they are not using it, but it's some time out and I'm not overly worried.
I do think, though this isn't specifically foreign relations, we will want to verify what can be found on the Maverick-side petal. I'm still guessing there is marble and possibly more significant resources, though it does happen to be desert.
My immediate response to this is F&*K! 
In the long term we knew that Asymptote was a trade off and I'm stunned that they would be so brazen. It's an aggressive move and it's showing us that the gloves are off Gents!
Do we really want the site? If so how do we plan to get it back?
I'm thinking right now it's not a problem as we can just settle elsewhere but long term we should nab it. We have options in this regard: Fight / Flip or Swap.
Of the three I'd favour a swap but they probably wouldn't go for it.
In the long term we knew that Asymptote was a trade off and I'm stunned that they would be so brazen. It's an aggressive move and it's showing us that the gloves are off Gents!
Do we really want the site? If so how do we plan to get it back?
I'm thinking right now it's not a problem as we can just settle elsewhere but long term we should nab it. We have options in this regard: Fight / Flip or Swap.
Of the three I'd favour a swap but they probably wouldn't go for it.
Heh, I'd be tempted to settle right above (2 tiles +1E) Spamville, and effectively steal their northern clams, leaving Spamville as a 1-clam mudhole being mostly outcultured to boot. Would make a convincing trade at that point, since they would be stuck with Spamville as an utterly worthless, indefensible city and unless they wanted that consequence would have to accept a city trade agreement. (So we could offer trading that newly founded city back for our Cosmos spot)
If we ended up keeping the city, it could still work out fine seeing as it can share banana and tiles with Resonance in the short term and act as a military stronghold if it must, and the city has plenty of grassland and so on otherwise. Whipping both Resonance and that city could work out - Resonance working its clam and whipping effectively and the Banana going to the other city till it also gets a clam up.
But that would probably lead to conflict sooner than either of us might like. Our other response is to go on like normal, eventually we would settle 2N of where they settled Cosmos. So we'd get one of the Cosmos clams and incense up there and we'd clear out the jungle.
Still not happy about this. I wish we'd gotten REXing earlier I guess, but CDZ is nonetheless being rather brazen, they do not have the economy/techrate to really make this type of expansion viable on their own and we definitely don't want them getting too much out of abusing our alliance (again the whole ETTT was bound to do some things like this, it's just interesting).
Edit: The more I think about it the more I like a couple of lines of thought. Here's what I'm pondering:
We are definitely getting into a metagame of trying to outsettle CDZ as they are trying to do to us, to see what happens in the eventual long run when the ETTT breaks down. We haven't headed towards the Indian continent just as they probably have not gone near MERLOT. So ceding too much here could definitely get us into trouble.
With that said, I think we should either try to immediately defuse the situation, or make strong moves that will result in the chips falling as they may.
If we want to work out a trade or compromise on future settling, I think the very best option is a quick message to them, suggesting we gift them a settler unit, ie. the one currently being built in Continuum, in exchange for the city on "our" side of the landmass. If they want other minor compensation, that's also possible. This could be accomplished soon, we don't lose much really in our settling plan, it's fine and dandy if they accept.
If we do send this first message, I'd feel perfectly justified in settling towards their side afterwards, in the Banana/Clams spot as mentioned before (really, it would be a good city, even better if they build the clams workboat for us as it seems they just might, and then we should automatically steal it by culture very fast. To do this I would send the worker to farm 1E of the Banana after the Banana is done, that farm could of course be shared by both cities, and the worker could move to chop the forest at the new city too anytime it wants or mine more hills or whatever).
Another city trade at that point is possible but we've given them fair warning. And we would certainly come out ahead in military and land if that settling scheme works out. A walls + some axemen (we could stockpile some gold and some warriors to upgrade in the near term, part of a whip at Resonance perhaps) should hold the city fine against any crazy ideas - if we get to the point in the future where real war/invasion will occur, we'd already know it and have things prepared anyway. And in any future wars, or if they cut off OB or something, they are the ones isolating their cities (Spamville, Cosmos) while we shouldn't lose any real connections or military lines to ours.
Settling to cut off Spamville without any warning/discussion is probably kinda harsh, but I'm not fully against it if the team thinks that is the right move.
Our last option of course remains to ignore this completely and just work around it. Just make stronger moves for the Indian side and develop our economy and production to still be the strongest. But I'm really not sure we can be certain to make the most gains in a war against the Indians yet - well Astro is many dozens of turns off anyway, but even with it the Mavs could bunker up and we don't know what serious will do. So staying even with our neighbors CDZ is probably worth quite a bit versus future gains on that other peninsula we'd have to literally fight the Mavs for.
If we ended up keeping the city, it could still work out fine seeing as it can share banana and tiles with Resonance in the short term and act as a military stronghold if it must, and the city has plenty of grassland and so on otherwise. Whipping both Resonance and that city could work out - Resonance working its clam and whipping effectively and the Banana going to the other city till it also gets a clam up.
But that would probably lead to conflict sooner than either of us might like. Our other response is to go on like normal, eventually we would settle 2N of where they settled Cosmos. So we'd get one of the Cosmos clams and incense up there and we'd clear out the jungle.
Still not happy about this. I wish we'd gotten REXing earlier I guess, but CDZ is nonetheless being rather brazen, they do not have the economy/techrate to really make this type of expansion viable on their own and we definitely don't want them getting too much out of abusing our alliance (again the whole ETTT was bound to do some things like this, it's just interesting).
Edit: The more I think about it the more I like a couple of lines of thought. Here's what I'm pondering:
We are definitely getting into a metagame of trying to outsettle CDZ as they are trying to do to us, to see what happens in the eventual long run when the ETTT breaks down. We haven't headed towards the Indian continent just as they probably have not gone near MERLOT. So ceding too much here could definitely get us into trouble.
With that said, I think we should either try to immediately defuse the situation, or make strong moves that will result in the chips falling as they may.
If we want to work out a trade or compromise on future settling, I think the very best option is a quick message to them, suggesting we gift them a settler unit, ie. the one currently being built in Continuum, in exchange for the city on "our" side of the landmass. If they want other minor compensation, that's also possible. This could be accomplished soon, we don't lose much really in our settling plan, it's fine and dandy if they accept.
If we do send this first message, I'd feel perfectly justified in settling towards their side afterwards, in the Banana/Clams spot as mentioned before (really, it would be a good city, even better if they build the clams workboat for us as it seems they just might, and then we should automatically steal it by culture very fast. To do this I would send the worker to farm 1E of the Banana after the Banana is done, that farm could of course be shared by both cities, and the worker could move to chop the forest at the new city too anytime it wants or mine more hills or whatever).
Another city trade at that point is possible but we've given them fair warning. And we would certainly come out ahead in military and land if that settling scheme works out. A walls + some axemen (we could stockpile some gold and some warriors to upgrade in the near term, part of a whip at Resonance perhaps) should hold the city fine against any crazy ideas - if we get to the point in the future where real war/invasion will occur, we'd already know it and have things prepared anyway. And in any future wars, or if they cut off OB or something, they are the ones isolating their cities (Spamville, Cosmos) while we shouldn't lose any real connections or military lines to ours.
Settling to cut off Spamville without any warning/discussion is probably kinda harsh, but I'm not fully against it if the team thinks that is the right move.
Our last option of course remains to ignore this completely and just work around it. Just make stronger moves for the Indian side and develop our economy and production to still be the strongest. But I'm really not sure we can be certain to make the most gains in a war against the Indians yet - well Astro is many dozens of turns off anyway, but even with it the Mavs could bunker up and we don't know what serious will do. So staying even with our neighbors CDZ is probably worth quite a bit versus future gains on that other peninsula we'd have to literally fight the Mavs for.
All CDZ has done is whip settlers/boats/units. We can see through Demographics that they are focusing mostly just on production and expansion - basically they've just been a couple turns ahead of us at each juncture. Everyone in the ETTT alliance is probably on somewhat the same lines but we just need to watch out that someone isn't becoming a total dead weight, it's still only an alliance that won't last forever, not like we are permanently tied to them so we want to stay even for the future.
This isn't a matter of opening old discussions or worrying about past decisions, but we did seriously slow down our REXing by Stonehenge at the start, and we knew it. However with the religion and wonder we are in a stronger position economically. So the idea that we hope continues to work is that with superior culture/economy we will get everything we need anyway.
It does put us in a bad spot diplomatically though, because even though CDZ has been just as aggressive in settling as we might be, our cities will be the ones putting on cultural pressure and that could tend to annoy another team.
But I'm definitely looking for ideas on how we would work out a trade to start, I really have no clue what CDZ might think about it though. Getting Cosmos back would be cool enough though and we hopefully wouldn't have to resort to anything else.
This isn't a matter of opening old discussions or worrying about past decisions, but we did seriously slow down our REXing by Stonehenge at the start, and we knew it. However with the religion and wonder we are in a stronger position economically. So the idea that we hope continues to work is that with superior culture/economy we will get everything we need anyway.
It does put us in a bad spot diplomatically though, because even though CDZ has been just as aggressive in settling as we might be, our cities will be the ones putting on cultural pressure and that could tend to annoy another team.
But I'm definitely looking for ideas on how we would work out a trade to start, I really have no clue what CDZ might think about it though. Getting Cosmos back would be cool enough though and we hopefully wouldn't have to resort to anything else.
CharlemagneXLII
Prince
Wow- a lot can happen in a few days. I don't think this is a response to the asymptote founding (although I agree they probably would have taken it if we didn't)- I think that CDZ is just trying to get as much land on the peninsula as possible to get an advantage over us, expecting us not to retaliate since we are allied (this smacks of the AI space filling strategy- they probably think that if they settle it, then its their land). I think they might go for a city for settler deal if we make a promise to return any flipped cities on the peninsula.
If we have to take an aggressive stance (aka more than a few warriors) than we should wait for machinery.
If we have to take an aggressive stance (aka more than a few warriors) than we should wait for machinery.
I don't hope that we'll have to resort to an aggressive stance. A few warriors is probably it, the only thing is we'd have gold for an option of an upgrade or two to axes, we could keep the gold in the bank though. But I don't expect them to want to escalate to actual combat over anything yet, it's not worth it for either team really.
It could get hairy in terms of culture war though. I do think they just want land, don't know what's going on MERLOT-side for them though (for us, India really has been insular so we're not in a hurry to do anything there).
I'm really up in the air about offering a deal yet though. In the turn discussion thread, I think I could see the merits of the intermediate city site a couple others wanted to settle. If we are going for a trade it's also a question of when we offer it. Right now if we just trade for Cosmos back that is said and done but I'm not sure they'd accept that - I think if we offer such a deal once and they reject it that's about it and a poor scenario to be in. If we're in a better position to make a final deal/understanding of whose land is going to be whose, that could be worth it, and if we and they get settling more, any trade deals would be more complicated.
Always looking for everyone's thoughts though. This seems like the issue of the day for a while, seeing as we are pretty set on technology, build orders and so on getting these foreign affairs sorted is a good focus.
It could get hairy in terms of culture war though. I do think they just want land, don't know what's going on MERLOT-side for them though (for us, India really has been insular so we're not in a hurry to do anything there).
I'm really up in the air about offering a deal yet though. In the turn discussion thread, I think I could see the merits of the intermediate city site a couple others wanted to settle. If we are going for a trade it's also a question of when we offer it. Right now if we just trade for Cosmos back that is said and done but I'm not sure they'd accept that - I think if we offer such a deal once and they reject it that's about it and a poor scenario to be in. If we're in a better position to make a final deal/understanding of whose land is going to be whose, that could be worth it, and if we and they get settling more, any trade deals would be more complicated.
Always looking for everyone's thoughts though. This seems like the issue of the day for a while, seeing as we are pretty set on technology, build orders and so on getting these foreign affairs sorted is a good focus.
CharlemagneXLII
Prince
I just remembered- we can sweeten the pot by offering Buddhism if it doesn't autospread, since CDZ is nowhere near getting a religion of their own, although this would help their culture. We also have to worry about them potentially getting one in the future, and having a holy city on the peninsula.
I think we're pretty sure they've settled at least three cities on their home island (including cap) and only four total, plus put a lot of production into wonders, switched to civics like Police State, etc... It's not a guarantee, but we can always check if they are settling more cities. So they've haven't gone too far yet, at least.
RegentMan
Deity
Hmm that is a pretty darn aggressive move by CDZ- definitely hurts my view of them. We could try to do a trade of some sort, but I could really see them just saying "We got there first; sucks to be you." Especially considering their stance in the Test Pitboss thread.
So a counter-pressuring city would be fun, but we don't want to handicap ourselves by doing so.
So a counter-pressuring city would be fun, but we don't want to handicap ourselves by doing so.
Well, I think we're all pretty well decided on the middle bananas city, think it's a good call.
After that I'm open to suggestions, I could really go either way though so whatever the team wants. Another pressuring city I feel would be the one by Spamville, it will steal their clams and overlap some with Resonance if that is what we want. If not, then we'd just be going for Singularity and other solid and resource-plentiful sites. Still have some turns to decide too.
After that I'm open to suggestions, I could really go either way though so whatever the team wants. Another pressuring city I feel would be the one by Spamville, it will steal their clams and overlap some with Resonance if that is what we want. If not, then we'd just be going for Singularity and other solid and resource-plentiful sites. Still have some turns to decide too.
CharlemagneXLII
Prince
Since we will be building our city in two turns, and our next settler will be built in three, we should have a ready-made message to send them:
I think we should offer to trade cities, they're more likely to go for that, and that's three each on the peninsula. The agreement is a way of agreeing on spheres of influence, and a way to let them know of the consequences of not agreeing to it- we go and mess up Spamville by building the retaliation city.
I think we should offer to trade cities, they're more likely to go for that, and that's three each on the peninsula. The agreement is a way of agreeing on spheres of influence, and a way to let them know of the consequences of not agreeing to it- we go and mess up Spamville by building the retaliation city.
This is a very good start, we'll probably need some time to think things over but I agree it's along the lines of what we might want to discuss. I really like how you've put some of the ideas - the freshwater lake is a good boundary, at least for us if we had Cosmos/ereh Ro we'd be ok with it.
We simply don't know if they would want to trade cities, or gift units and gold, or what, or if they'd even accept, so I'm not sure what to offer along those lines.
But we probably should settle Pulsar, just keep this in mind, everyone else's input welcome.
(Oh, and I don't mind at all how you end things, probably some of the other messages have established a standard, but again I recognize what's being said is by the team and I'm not looking for any vetoes or anything like that as a diplomat. So really same as always, I'm happy to continue work on my part to keep up with CDZ especially though just for generaly info)
We simply don't know if they would want to trade cities, or gift units and gold, or what, or if they'd even accept, so I'm not sure what to offer along those lines.
But we probably should settle Pulsar, just keep this in mind, everyone else's input welcome.
(Oh, and I don't mind at all how you end things, probably some of the other messages have established a standard, but again I recognize what's being said is by the team and I'm not looking for any vetoes or anything like that as a diplomat. So really same as always, I'm happy to continue work on my part to keep up with CDZ especially though just for generaly info)
cav scout
The Continuum
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2008
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I like the thrust of the message and agree we should send this (with refinements/modifications) soon. I think we should keep Pulsar Plateau though instead of trading it. I would rather plant a city on their coastline that will get the middle bananas and then trade it for Cosmos.
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