Embassy to Team Quatronia

[Sommerswerd]

I guess that went out before you noticed we met a CDZ Galley headed our way...

 

[SilentConfusion]

I guess that went out before you noticed we met a CDZ Galley headed our way...

Yes. I sent that before we met CDZ.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Here's news from Quatronia:

Dear Amazons,

We can guarantee that no CDZ or Merlot workboat will ever reach the Mavericks via the southern approach that goes past our island (we can easily sink them). The Merlot boat is still a long ways off and CDZ used their one boat to explore their channel and then hook up crabs. And since there are no canals through the middle and you and Sirius have the northern approach blocked... the Mavs are effectively isolated.

Just so you know the Mavs noticed our tech trades and withdrew their offer of MC for Writing + Alphabet (which we were stalling on). They are now proposing a much more guarded trade, offering Monotheism for a bunch of tier 1 and 2 techs worth twice as many beakers. We are stalling on this as well.

The Mavs seem like a nice team off to a solid start. Their only mistake seems to be not sending out workboats. They would probably make good ETTT partners if CDZ doesn't work out. So we are still very much open to that.

CDZ has had this weekend to discuss the ETTT, so we will send them a "time is short" note right now. If we don't hear from them in 24 hours after that we will send another note giving them a 24 hour ultimatum. Does this sound good?

Techwise we are doing Archery right now as a place holder. CDZ is researching Iron Working so if we get them onboard we can start whatever tech the ETTT needs (MC, Calendar, etc.). If we can't get CDZ then we would like to start IW.

 

[SilentConfusion]

What does this message say:

Quatronia is serious about sinking boats to keep the Mavericks isolated.

CDZ built a Work Boat.

They know about the center of the map.

They have a Crab resource, which they improved with their Work Boat.

The Mavericks offered Q Metal Casting for Writing and Alphabet, but have since withdrawn that offer.

The Mavericks then offered them a lopsided deal just like they offered to us.

The Q is stalling them.

They are practical about the alliance and would accept the Mavericks instead of CDZ. I'm sure they have calculated that this still leaves them with a non-ally front.

CDZ does have the deal and are taking their time. It has not only been Q being slow.

The Q is teching Archery, which I think we are actually happy about. We didn't think any Alliance member would be teching it in the next 10 turns.

They say CDZ is "teching" Iron Working, but CDZ has already finished it (last turn) so maybe this message was written before that.


Here's a draft of a response:

Dear Quatronians,

There are no boats close to reaching the Mavericks the other way. Merlot has not sent a Work Boat in our direction. We did recently meet a CDZ Galley near Merlot's lands. This would require us to have two Galleys of our own to make sure we can sink it, if necessary, but we should know who's in and who's out by the time it can get to us.

The Mavericks never asked us to trade Alpha for MC, but they recently offered us Priesthood for Writing and Sailing. We we're pretty underwhelmed by their response. The beaker values are lopsided just as in the second deal they offered you and they avoided answering our question as to what resources they had even though we had shared our information with them. We think they overestimate the bargaining power they have with us and that they don't really understand what they are up against with our Tech Alliance. We actually finish Priesthood next turn. They will see that their bargaining power is diminishing quickly. We can give you Monotheism, as we got that last turn. Do you want us to gift it to you? We can agree to gift techs as soon as we get them instead of waiting for a request, but with the fourth member not yet set, we thought it better to ask if you want us to gift it now or wait.

We completely agree with you about not sending out Work Boats being a mistake. Both of our teams seem to realize the value of early exploration. It is no accident that our two teams are two of the teams in the Tech Alliance. The Mavericks have done a good job of getting the Oracle done quickly and grabbing Metal Casting. But the Two Work Boat Wonder built by The Continuum and by The AMAZON (at a much lower cost than the Oracle) has already earned both of us more beakers than they got from the Oracle and will continue to give us beakers in the form of this continuing Trade Alliance.

We will also stall the Mavericks until we hear back about CDZ. As I said we met CDZ this past turn. We are glad to hear they have the ETTT and are considering it. Your plan of sending them a "time is short" message followed by a 24 hour ultimatum is a good one. If they cannot answer in that time then they do not want to be a part of our Alliance. If they realize what that will put them up against, they will most likely join. We hope to hear from you as soon as you hear confirmation from them. We are currently stalling both the Mavericks and Merlot who are asking about what's going on with our Tech Trading. Once we have our fourth member, we don't have to be as gentle with the other two.

Thank you for sharing your tech plan with us. Archery should be helpful in securing and protecting any cities we place on the central landmass. We noticed that CDZ has finished researching Iron Working. We have a theory that the unforested Plains hill in the center of our island is an Iron resource. Do you by any chance have an unforested hill in the center of your island as well?

This is all for now. We will keep you informed if anything interesting comes up on our end and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

 

[Sommerswerd]

The Mavericks offered Q Metal Casting for Writing and Alphabet, but have since withdrawn that offer... The Mavericks then offered them a lopsided deal just like they offered to us.

I sense a little bit of 'guilt-tripping' on the part of the Continuum here... As we suspected, they wanted to keep the alliance a secret, in the hope that they would be able to get Metal Casting. But that hope was misguided, because the only way they could get Metal Casting would be to give up Alpha. That might be a great trade to the AI, but it is not worth it playing against humans. Giving a non-ally Alpha would be a grave error, because it would instantly allow them to pursue a seperate tech alliance. Better to let them tech Alpha themselves... no matter what they are offering for it. Alpha is worth WAY more than the 300 it costs to tech, because it allows you to share tech. I am glad we exposed the alliance and sunk that trade, because it would have not been a good deal for the alliance. As SilCon has already said, our beakers are worth WAY more than non-allies' beakers. Essentially our beakers are worth triple what Mavs' beakers are worth.

CDZ does have the deal and are taking their time. It has not only been Q being slow.

I'm not convinced. CDZ is taking their time only because the Q are allowing them to do so. It is not the result of any lengthy in-team discussion process. CDZ is just hoping to meet another team (like Mavs) who can give them an option of joining someone besides the Q and us. Sirius did the same until we gave them an ultimatum, and Quatronia did the same as well, until we turned up the heat. CDZ is not being slow, they are being prudent and choosey. They will not make a decision until they have to, but when they have to (ie., they are given an ultimatum) they will decide immediately.

The Q is teching Archery, which I think we are actually happy about. We didn't think any Alliance member would be teching it in the next 10 turns.

Just remember that once the alliance has Archery, we will soon start seeing barb Archers IIRC. Also, "placeholder" means that they have not decided to tech Archery yet. They are still deciding what to tech. It might be IW, it might be Archery, it might be something else. They have not commited to teching anything yet.

They say CDZ is "teching" Iron Working, but CDZ has already finished it (last turn) so maybe this message was written before that.

That might just be a mistake/typo as you say... maybe it is language from an older draft they were working on. Or maybe they just did not notice that we already met CDZ.

Ilike the letter... my additions are in Bold and subtractions are Struckthrough

There are no boats close to reaching the Mavericks the other way. Merlot has not sent a Work Boat in our direction, however, we did recently meet a CDZ Galley near Merlot's lands, headed our way. This would be costly for us to stop, requiring us to have two Galleys of our own to make sure we can sink it, if necessary, but we should know who's in and who's out by the time it can get to us.

The Mavericks never asked us to trade Alpha for MC, but they recently offered us Priesthood for Writing and Sailing. We we're pretty underwhelmed by their response. The beaker values are lopsided just as in the second deal they offered you and They avoided answering our question as to what resources they had even though we had shared our information with them. We think they overestimate the bargaining power they have with us and that they don't really understand what they are up against with our Tech Alliance. We actually finish Priesthood next turn so they will see that their bargaining power is diminishing quickly. Our Alliance does not need Monotheism from them. As you may have noticed, we can give you Monotheism, as soon as you request it in-game. as we got that last turn. Do you want us to gift it to you? We can agree to gift techs as soon as we get them instead of waiting for a request, but With the fourth member not yet set, we thought it better to ask if let you decide for yourselves whenyou want us to gift it to younow or wait.

We completely agree with you about not sending out Work Boats being a mistake. Both of our teams seem to realize the value of early exploration. It is no accident that our two teams are two of the teams in the Tech Alliance. The Mavericks have done a good job of getting the Oracle done quickly and grabbing Metal Casting. But the Two Work Boat Wonder built by The Continuum and by The AMAZON (at a much lower cost than the Oracle) has already earned both of us more beakers than they got from the Oracle and will continue to give us beakers in the form of this continuing Trade Alliance.

We will also stall the Mavericks until we hear back about CDZ. As I said we met CDZ this past turn. We are glad to hear they have the ETTT and are considering it. Your plan of sending them a "time is short" message followed by a 24 hour ultimatum is a good one. If they cannot answer in that time then they do not want to be a part of our Alliance. If they realize what that will put them up against, they will most likely join. We hope to hear from you as soon as you hear confirmation from them. We are currently stalling both the Mavericks and Merlot who are asking about what's going on with our Tech Trading. Once we have our fourth member, we don't have to be as gentle with the other two.

Thank you for sharing your tech plan with us. Archery should be helpful in securing and protecting any cities we place on the central landmass. We noticed that CDZ has finished researching Iron Working. We have a theory that the unforested Plains hill in the center of our island is an Iron resource. Do you by any chance have an unforested hill in the center of your island as well?

This is all for now. We will keep you informed if anything interesting comes up on our end and we look forward to hearing from you.

That is what I would change. If you are concerned about my reccomendations, then feel free to ask, or just use your best judgment. You have been an AWESOME Diplomat SilCon

 

[SilentConfusion]

I am very happy with all of those changes. Some of them, I should have known to change, but that is why we are a team. We are stronger together than we are individually. And, I believe, together we are stronger than the other teams, even if they have players, who, individually, are stronger.

And thank you. I feel I have put a lot of effort into it. I think right now we are doing very well diplomatically. This is mostly due to the team having such good ideas and coming up with good fundamentals (like the value of exploration). I just hope to keep making our plans go the way we would want them.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Did we already inform the Continuum that we were building the GW? I know we told Sirius but I don't remember us telling Quatronia.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Did we already inform the Continuum that we were building the GW? I know we told Sirius but I don't remember us telling Quatronia.

We did send them something. Only thing is shortly after that we were both talking about CDZ and how quickly that should happen, etc. They didn't respond regarding The Great Wall. Do you think they would try to build it even after we told them that potentially ruining our intra-alliance relationship?

 

[SilentConfusion]

Here's the draft as it stand with suggested corrections taken into account. Any more suggestions before we send this?

Dear Quatronians,

Merlot has not sent a Work Boat in our direction, however, we did recently meet a CDZ Galley near Merlot's lands, headed our way. This would be costly for us to stop, requiring us to have two Galleys of our own to make sure we can sink it. If you give CDZ a time limit like you suggested we should know whether they are in or out before they can get to us.

The Mavericks never asked us to trade Alpha for MC, but they recently offered us Priesthood for Writing and Sailing. They avoided answering our question as to what resources they had even though we had shared our information with them. We think they overestimate the bargaining power they have with us. We actually finish Priesthood next turn so they will see that their bargaining power is diminishing quickly. Our Alliance doesn't need Monotheism from them. As you may have noticed, we can give you Monotheism as soon as you request it in-game. With the fourth member not yet set, we thought it better to let you decide for yourselves when you want us to gift it to you.

We completely agree with you about not sending out Work Boats being a mistake. Both of our teams seem to realize the value of early exploration. It is no accident that our two teams are two of the teams in the Tech Alliance. The Mavericks have done a good job of getting the Oracle done quickly and grabbing Metal Casting. But the Two Work Boat Wonder built by The Continuum and by The AMAZON (at a much lower cost than the Oracle) has already earned both of us more beakers than they got from the Oracle and will continue to give us beakers in the form of this continuing Trade Alliance.

We will also stall the Mavericks until we hear back about CDZ. As I said we met CDZ this past turn. We are glad to hear they have the ETTT and are considering it. Your plan of sending them a "time is short" message followed by a 24 hour ultimatum is a good one. If they cannot answer in that time then they do not want to be a part of our Alliance. If they realize what that will put them up against, they will most likely join. We hope to hear from you as soon as you hear confirmation from them. We are currently stalling both the Mavericks and Merlot who are asking about what's going on with our Tech Trading. Once we have our fourth member, we don't have to be as gentle with the other two.

Thank you for sharing your tech plan with us. Archery should be helpful in securing and protecting any cities we place on the central landmass. We noticed that CDZ has finished researching Iron Working. We have a theory that the unforested Plains hill in the center of our island is an Iron resource. Do you by any chance have an unforested hill in the center of your island as well?

We will keep you informed if anything interesting comes up on our end and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

 

[damnrunner]

Looks good to me! Though should we say that we are also going to put pressure on CDZ now that we also have contact with them.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I would be in favor of taking over the treaty negotiations. I just don't think Quatronia seems to know how to close the deal. I am confident that if we told CDZ right now that they have 12 hours to sign or they are SoL, they would sign... however Quatronia would probably be offended if we asked to take over now.

I am a little concerned that maybe Merlot is more persuasive than Quatronia. Maybe if we let Quatronia know that:

We ask your blessing to take over the treaty negotiations with CDZ. We are hoping that maybe a fresh voice to CDZ might persuade them to be a little more decisive. We planned on opening up talks with them, starting next turn if there is no objection from our friends in the Continuum.

 

[SilentConfusion]

PM from Cav Scout, telling us they gave CDZ an ultimatum (the end of this turn). So now CDZ has us applying some pressure and Q giving a deadline. And if not then we take Mavs. Sirius is going to be the one to convince if we have to take the Mavs because they would then not have a free border. We should probably let Sirius know that CDZ has until the end of the turn.

Here's the PM:

SilCon and Sommers,

I sent CDZ another message saying we need to hear from them by the end of this turn if they want to be part of the ETTT. We haven't heard a word from them since we made the offer 4 days ago. So either they are slow at diplo or they think (mistakenly) that they can survive without the ETTT.

So if we don't hear back from them with a rock solid and joyous "we are in!" by the time the turn rolls we will let you know and you can send an invite to Mavericks.

The Mavs are pretty desperate for an alliance with all the tech trade offers they have been making us. They have several Saturn players from the last game who know the importance of tech alliances. So i'm guessing they will jump on an offer if you send one.

-Cav

EDIT: I replied with the following:

Cav,

Thanks for letting us know. We recently met CDZ and they did reply to our welcome message without much delay, so they are most definitely capable of sending diplo messages quickly. We think it's necessary to put the pressure on them.

Hopefully they will realize they're better off "in" than "out." Let us know when you hear something, one way or the other.

The Mavs do seem pretty desperate. I think they planned to have a lot more bargaining power with MC. I think they will probably join if given the opportunity.

Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on this.

-SilCon

EDIT: And then he replied thusly:

Ah thats good you have contact with CDZ now too. Maybe you can send them a note of encouragement. I can't blame them for wanting to ride the fence as long as they can to feel out what the other diplo and trade possibilities are. But now that they know there is a time limit it forces them to commit if they want to be in.

We already did that.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just got this PM from cavscout

Just wanted to let you know if you haven't heard from them already that CDZ accepted the invitation to join the ETTT.

We made contact with Sirius too so it would be good it we got a tech plan going between the teams. Someone should probably tech MC soon in case Mavericks decides to try blockade break with triremes (they seem to have been whipping).

-Cav

Whether it was the letter to CDZ from us or the ultimatum that we gave Quatronia that did it, our 4-way seems to be set now.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Got this PM from Cav Scout:

Subject: Work Boat Exchange

SilCon,

We were thinking that since we both sent out two workboats we could just exchange boats in each others territories by gifting. This way we wouldn't have to make the long voyages back and could hook up some clams sooner. This also avoids loosing them to Merlot or Mavs. What do you guys think?

-Cav

 

[Sommerswerd]

A very good idea IMO.

 

[SilentConfusion]

I agree that this is a good idea.

Draft of a simple reply PM:

Cav,

We think that exchanging Work Boats by gifting them when they reach each other's territory is a good idea for the reasons you suggested. We would be happy to agree to such a plan.

-SilCon

 

[Sommerswerd]

Dont forget to put in that PM to Quatronia that the Mavericks workboat is headed their way.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Sent the following PM to Cav Scout:

Cav,

We think that exchanging Work Boats by gifting them when they reach each other's territory is a good idea for the reasons you suggested. We would be happy to agree to such a plan.

Also we have noticed a Maverick Work Boat just ahead of ours heading in your direction. If you can sink it we can really keep them isolated for a long time.

-SilCon

 

[SilentConfusion]

Received the following PM from Cav Scout:

Cool. We just need to get our respective boats into each others cultural boundaries.

And just so you know Merlot has a galley right in front of our workboat coming up on you from the south. We think this galley will try to make contact with Mavericks, especially when we take out their workboat that is going to be coming past our territory. So maybe Sirius can take it out with a trireme after we have MC.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We should let the Q know where the Mavs workboat is relative to them, just in-case they can't see it, or missed it for some strange reason. A quick PM is probably good enough.