Embassy to The Mavericks

[Sommerswerd]

Did we ever send the note to Mavs?

 

[SilentConfusion]

No we have not sent that message.

Reason = Diplomat not doing his job properly.

Will send out now, however, and need to get out diplo messages to other teams. Am in the middle of moving.

Our Captain, Sommerswerd recently recieved an in-game message from obsolete, asking why we were ignoring the Mavericks. We apologize if we gave that impression, as this was not our intent.

In a previous message to us, you proposed a technology trade that included Priesthood and Monotheism. We have not responded specifically to that trade proposal, because, as you have no doubt noticed, that trade is no longer beneficial to The AMAZON. We did not mean to offend your people by not sending you an official communique stating our intentions regarding these technologies. In our future dealings, we will endeavor to more quickly inform you of our reaction to any agreements you suggest.

We were somewhat puzzled by your most recent communique, and we feel that the most productive way for us to respond would be to rephrase some of your questions. More specifically... Is there any new useful information that you have learned about our rival civilizations, or the map we inhabit that you can share with us? Have you entered into any agreements with any of our rival civilizations? Is there any useful new information about the Maverick Empire that you wish to share with us? What goals do you have for the relationship between our nations? What steps or tokens of goodwill might the Mavericks willing to make in order to move relations between our nations forward? Is there anything that you feel willing to do in order to help The AMAZON? If so, we are anxious to hear from you.

Finally, we have had no trouble whatsoever in communicating with Team Quatronia. However, from our initial meeting, we have been very open, and forthcoming in our exchanges of information with them, as we were with you. Additionally, we have endeavored to be very generous in our trade agreements with them.

I will send this immediately.

EDIT: Sent. Changed "recieved" to "received" but otherwise identical.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just got this PM from obsolete:

Would you be interested in trading now to gain Machinery? If so, how many more turns before you can unlock this trade with us?

Hi obsolete,

Thanks for your reply. Just an FYI that we have to talk about any tech trades with the team before anyone can log-in and accept/offer them in game... So we just went ahead and exited out of the diplomacy screen without accepting the trade. Sorry about that.

But we will be talking about it within the team and getting back to you soon to let you know what we think about trades.

Sommerswerd

I did not reply, but I would like us to send a reply soon. I did notice that I told them we would respond to their tech trade proposal, which we did not do.... oops.

I also think this news is worth mentioning to our allies, if only to put them on notice that we are aware of it as well in case they already knew and didn't tell. Maybe they are only talking to us because we are the only ones communicating with them. Or maybe they are trying to wedge themselves into the alliance with offers of expensive tech. We should keep communicating to figure out which.

I have a few other comments...

I think trading anything to Mavs is probably counter productive, although, Machinery is on the path to Navigation IIRC... so maybe its worth some consideration at least?

I am sure they would make any reasonable trade with us at this point just to get in the loop. That's probably why they are beelining expensive tech like Machinery... desperately trying to create incentives for someone to trade with them. They may be going for Optics.

If they do have Machinery, that means they will be able to build Crossbows when they get Archery, and Iron Working.

I suspect that their real goal is to figure out if we are teching Metal Casting or if we are getting it from another team. I would favor telling them we don't have Metal Casting (which they already know) and that we have no need whatsoever for Metal Casting right now, so we are not sure how we would be able to trade them for Machinery any time soon.

Obviously they will be incredulous when we tell them we don't need Metal Casting, as that was probably a keystone of their strategy. So it would help to have a simple believable explanation. If we can convince them that we don't want MC, without giving away that we are getting it elsewhere, we may be able to get them to get more generous in their offers of tech and info. Maybe say:

We are intrigued by your offer to trade Machinery however, we can not trade for Machinery because we don't have Metal Casting and we have no plans to research it in the near future. The reason for this is three-fold. First, we have prayed to the powerful Sea-Goddess Doris and recently christened a boat in her mighty name. In return, she has promised to keep our homeland safe from Naval invasion for many years, so we will not need Triremes.

Second, the Goddess Aphrodite has informed us that her husband Haphestus, blacksmith of the Goddesses, does not wish us to build any forges at this time, because without a more Organized Religion system, they would be far too expensive and time consuming.

Finally, Athena, Goddess of wisdom has made it well known to Zenobians that the mighty obsolete, creator and mastermind of the world famous WE/SSE strategy is a prominent advisor of your team. We therefore think it highly unlikely that we would succeed in a race to build a Giant Colossus. Additionally, our Goddesses might be offended if we were to build such a large male statue.

For these reasons, we think it unwise to sacrifice any resources to obtain that which we cannot use. It would therefore be difficult for us to offer you anything for MC, as it worthless to us, and as we have explained we will not be researching it for the same reason.

Maybe this will convince them to gift MC to us, or at least give us more info about their tech plans.

 

[Sommerswerd]

obsolete just contacted me in game to ask about their proposal to trade Machinery to us. I quickly acknowleged his PM and told him we would get back to them before he had a chance to start complaining about us ignoring them again.

Spoiler :

I checked the tech window in the diplomacy advisor screen. Mavs do not have Machinery yet, so they are either teching it now, or they are considering teching it and they want to see if it is worth it (ie., will they be able to trade it to anyone) before they start.

Spoiler :

As you can see from the spoilers, Machinery is a very expensive tech and they would have had to have been teching it almost as soon as they got MC to be close to getting it.

Mavs dont have hunting so they cant tech Archery yet, and they dont have IW, so they are not a threat to get Crossbows anytime soon, but they could get IW and then go for Compass-->--> Optics

Merlot also has Monarchy now, so they could trade for Monarchy if they were able to meet Merlot.

Also, Q has to be able to see the Mavs workboat by now so I don't know if they really have any plans to sink it... MAybe they cant see it, because it is 2 tiles away from their border.

Spoiler :

 

[Sommerswerd]

I will send this to the Mavs shortly if there is no objection:

EDIT: Sent this to Mavs after reading/posting the message from Mavs below... checking for conflicts, etc...

Spoiler :

To obsolete of the Mavericks,

Our Diplomat is on sabbatical, and I, the Zenobian Captain, have been authorized to respond to your recent messages.

We Zenobians are intrigued by your offer to trade Machinery, however, we have noticed that you do not yet have Machinery. In order for us to determine what steps we would be willing to take in order to obtain Machinery from you, we would first need some idea as to when you will actually have Machinery. We would not want to make any commitments until you obtain Machinery, or at least know for certain when we could expect to receive it, because Machinery is such a valuable, expensive technology.

Also, we can not trade for Machinery because we don't have Metal Casting and we have no plans to research it in the near future. The reason for this is three-fold. First, we have prayed to the powerful Sea-Goddess Doris and recently christened a boat in her mighty name. In return, she has promised to keep our homeland safe from Naval invasion for many years, so we will not need Triremes.

Second, the Goddess Aphrodite has informed us that her husband Hephaestus, blacksmith of the Goddesses, does not wish us to build any forges at this time, because without a more Organized Religion system, they would be far too expensive and time consuming.

Finally, Athena, Goddess of wisdom has made it well known to Zenobians that the mighty obsolete, creator and mastermind of the world famous WE/SSE strategy is a prominent advisor of your team. We therefore think it highly unlikely that we would succeed in a race to build a Giant Colossus. Additionally, our Goddesses might be offended if we were to build such a large male statue.

For these reasons, we think it unwise to sacrifice any resources to obtain that which we cannot use. It would therefore be difficult for us to offer you anything for MC, as it worthless to us, and as we have explained we will not be researching it for the same reason. We are anxious to hear your suggestions as to how this problem could be resolved.

Sommerswerd,
Captain of The Zenobians

I added a request for them to tell us when they will get Machinery, as this is actually pretty important for us to know.

What I am hoping is they may be getting desperate enough to trade Metal Casting for Writing (and maybe Alpha) in the hope that they will be able to meet Merlot an start trading. Alpha is useless to them as long as we keep them isolated. Maybe we can promise to broker a deal with Sirius or Quatronia that gets the alliance MC, and Machinery for Writing and Alpha and a 'possibility of future trades.' At this point they might be feeling like they have little to lose.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just noticed we got this yesterday from Mavs:

Dear brave Amazon warriors.

Thank you for finally getting back us once again. In exchange, we’ll try to answere your questions and see how we can help your people out.

You did ask us what we could do to help the Amazons. Well, there were a lot of things, unfortunately we had waited all this time while hearing no news from your diplomats. Needless to say, this has been our main bottleneck, and we assumed either your diplomats were trying to cause your own civ a downfall, or you felt you were getting enough help from elsewhere so didn’t want anymore.

The Mavericks are finishing up shopping around for the best deals, but as we understand it there is nothing we have that you want at this time, so unfortunately we can not help you out there. Perhaps in the future though, you may want to think again. Maybe you would like to spread a religion from us, or other such things? We have been getting some offers for those as of late. In the meantime we haven’t settled yet on any major concrete deals, except for one with Carthage. However, due to their request, we are not liable to discuss it.

It is a shame that we are not working closer together; there are many big techs our traits can bring in, but you force us to work with other allies instead.

In the meantime, there is one growing area for concern. We’ve noticed for a few turns now you are hammering spy points against us. This is very unsettling, and we would appreciate it if you could stop treating your ally in this matter. This can only result in a bloody conflict with each other, and we’d rather keep the Amazons as an Ally than a Foe. Blood is a big expense.

THC, second acting diplomat.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just to keep things in order, I will post what we sent to Mavs here, after the letter we got from them.

To obsolete and the Mavericks,

Our Diplomat is on sabbatical, and I, the Zenobian Captain, have been authorized to respond to your recent messages.

We Zenobians are intrigued by your offer to trade Machinery, however, we have noticed that you do not yet have Machinery. In order for us to determine what steps we would be willing to take in order to obtain Machinery from you, we would first need some idea as to when you will actually have Machinery. We would not want to make any commitments until you obtain Machinery, or at least know for certain when we could expect to receive it, because Machinery is such a valuable, expensive technology.

Also, we can not trade for Machinery because we don't have Metal Casting and we have no plans to research it in the near future. The reason for this is three-fold. First, we have prayed to the powerful Sea-Goddess Doris and recently christened a boat in her mighty name. In return, she has promised to keep our homeland safe from Naval invasion for many years, so we will not need Triremes.

Second, the Goddess Aphrodite has informed us that her husband Hephaestus, blacksmith of the Goddesses, does not wish us to build any forges at this time, because without a more Organized Religion system, they would be far too expensive and time consuming.

Finally, Athena, Goddess of wisdom has made it well known to Zenobians that the mighty obsolete, creator and mastermind of the world famous WE/SSE strategy is a prominent advisor of your team. We therefore think it highly unlikely that we would succeed in a race to build a Giant Colossus. Additionally, our Goddesses might be offended if we were to build such a large male statue.

For these reasons, we think it unwise to sacrifice any resources to obtain that which we cannot use. It would therefore be difficult for us to offer you anything for MC, as it worthless to us, and as we have explained we will not be researching it for the same reason. We are anxious to hear your suggestions as to how this problem could be resolved.

Sommerswerd,
Captain of The Zenobians

The Mavs mentioned a deal in the works with the Q that they can't tell us about. I guess we just have to ask the Q about it. Maybe that is why the Q arent sinking the workboat... they might be still trying to trade for Metal Casting. If we tell the Mavs we don't want it, it might help Quatronia broker a better deal... Not sure what the Q are up to.

 

[SilentConfusion]

swift reply from Mavs:

Dear mighty Amazons:

Thank you for your swift response. We are saddened yet puzzled that you would consider such a powerful and key tech such as Metal Casting as worthless. We understand that you feel it is de-valued due to the Colossus not being available.

However, for a fair price we could throw in a monopoly bargain where we agree not to transfer MC to a third party until you have completed building the colossus. Mavericks not building it would of course be part of the contract. With this water-based map, and all your growing cities, this should be a very wise investment.

As for the religion problem, Obsolete mentioned he did send some private messages out to others bargaining for missionary exchanges. We are sorry if you were not included on this list. We’d be happy to gift one to you for a fair compensation. It does indeed seem you are badly in need of a religion. Losing out on important civics and happiness can be very painful.

At the time of this writing, we will be bulbing machinery in 3 turns. That should be T-68. If on the other hand, it turns out we can not work out a fair trade, then we may default to saving our GE for rushing a world wonder instead.

Team Mavericks

 

[damnrunner]

Hmm - this leads to interesting thoughts with respect to Mids.

I am apt to share this info with our allies and do a crazy backstab to Mavs. We agree to a trade. Then share the tech.

This leaves them with no comparative tech advantage and a completely wasted GE. Granted they probably are building Mids anyway right now - but they then miss using the GE for another wonder - such as Parthenon.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sent this via PM to the Mavericks:

To obsolete, THC and the Mavericks,

This is just a note to let you know that we are still considering your recent offers. As a gesture of goodwill, we have directed our espionage away from you as you requested. We would like you to show good faith by doing the same.

Sommerswerd, Captain of the Zenobians

My goal is to get them to stop espy against us, so we can focus it on our wartime enemy, Merlot. They asked us to stop espy against them, and we were doing this turn anyway, so we might as well make the most of it. We can already see thei demographics graph lines so we don't need espy on them right now anyway.

 

[Sommerswerd]

obsolete acknowledged the message...

Ok thanks for the PVM, I'll let the others know.

But they are still putting Espy against us, so I sent this PM to obsolete:

Just to let you know, you guys did not switch your espy off of us as promised. We will switch our espy back to you unless you can confirm that we are not putting espy against each other.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Just got this reply PM:

Dear Sommer. I have posted your last pvm to the forum for the rest of the team to view and we are discussing this. However, we have not TIED the spy score between us. You still have far more pts on us than we do on you, and many others so far feel fair is fair. After all, you guys wouldn't do a tech trade with us that you wouldn't think was fair either.

We suggest you stick to targeting them on Pacal for now.

I sent this response:

Thanks for your quick reply. Our request was in response to a letter from the Mavericks, penned by THC, which said

"In the meantime, there is one growing area for concern. We’ve noticed for a few turns now you are hammering spy points against us. This is very unsettling, and we would appreciate it if you could stop treating your ally in this matter."

We interpreted that to mean that you wished to stop putting espy points against each other a a gesture of a desire to work together. It seems we were mistaken. Sorry about that.

I will put our espy back on Mavericks. hopefully this will get them to reconsider espy on us. Once we settle the first Great spy, no one will be able to match our espy anyway.

 

[Sommerswerd]

A PM reply from obsolete:

We understand that you don't want us putting points on you. However, in our opinion, if we are truly going to be allies (which we have done to great lengths to your team) then we should have an equal amount of espionage points. At the moment, we still have XX to go and we will stop once we are even. The fact that we are putting points on you only reflects that you put points on us first.

We are still interested in working together. Remember how we were the ones who proposed some technology trades to you?

The statement that "allies need to have the same amount of espy is patently false, because we do not have espy equality with Sirius or Quatronia. You just don't need espy on trusted friends, because you can just ask them whatever you need to know... So, It seems like one or more of the following is going on:

1. They want to get enough espy on us to see our demographics (or tech choice), and they will just keep making excuses for not stopping until they get to the point where our demographics are visible. Then they will "magnanimously" offer to stop putting espy against us.

2. They have only met The AMAZON, The Continuum, and (just recently) Sirius, and they have already promised the other two not to put espy against them (we know they at least have a NAP with the Q), meaning they have no choice but to target us. Otherwise, they may have just decided that out of those three teams, we are the least desirable as a friend, so they have chosen to offend us rather than offend the other two.

3. They met Merlot or made contact with Merlot somehow, without me noticing it (I will double-check in-game on this). That would mean that they know we are at war with Merlot, and they are betting that we are desperate to put our espy on Merlot instead of them. They may also have been able to just piece it together by other means... who knows?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Mavs just passed us in score

 

[damnrunner]

Mavs just passed us in score

Nothing to worry about - this measures population and we have been doing a ton of slaving. It is a very poor way to determine who is winning. I am sure Mavs would much rather have their army back than be above us in score.

 

[2metraninja]

They just got the Hanging Gardens, Also, they were left alone to settle a whole peninsula unchallenged, that's why

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes and that was my point. Mavs are getting big and powerful. Score is a good way to get a big picture of how we are doing relative to the other teams. It is not the whole story, but make no mistake, Mavs passing us in score can not be ignored as meaningless or inconsequential.

Mavs are probably planning next assault on the center. The next SOD they send will be much larger... and they will scout with spies next time. We should be prepared for another assault near Nabaxica, probably a feint towards Nabaxica, then redirect towards Anjennida. If they are using spies, they will see that we are weak there. We can use our Espy to see what they are building and sending our way. I would like to be prepared for them again... even better this time.

 

[damnrunner]

We should have help from our allies by then though. If it is just us taking on M&M we won't hold the center long.

 

[2metraninja]

I saw two East India Men in striking position between Comet and MavsHI, Lets hope they do something.

And we have visibility of Mavs cities from 3 turns I think. They are big and they have army, but they are guarding their coastal cities on Comet, fearing from another seaborne attack like the one that razed Jumbo City.