Piffle – Official Embassy

[General_W]

Piffle Embassy


Last Update: Turn 109
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Team Piffle
Leader: Pifflenatress
Civ: Elizabeth, England
Traits: Philosophical, Financial
UU: Redcoat

Here are the First letters we received from Piffle:

Spoiler :

Howdy, The!

One of our warriors, Bubba, in a drunken stuper as usual, stumbled into the jungle last night and almost ran inta Dark Puma. We really hope that Dark Puma wasn't offended by Bubba's lewd and obnoxious behavior!

Hey, listen, The! I hope you don't mind me using your first name, seein' as we just met and all. We're havin' a git together Saturday night. Why don't all ya'll stop by! Its going to be one hoot'n holler of a good time. There'll be plenty of beer, course. We'll throw a few brats on da grill and just get schlockered! What d'ya say, The?

Later,
da Piffles

Eh up, Epsilon lads and lasses!

Well, we'll go t'foot of ar stairs - we've met up at last!

Ar' Bubba were walkin' through t'jungle and would tha credit it, but who turns up but yor Dark Puma, who looks a bit o'a fearsome fella, right. Wor'a tha bin up to? - ee's tekken his time abart gettin' ere.

Anyroad, 'ows abowt meetin' up for a bit o'a natter so we's can get t'know each other betta like? We ort to reely, see'in as we're both int'same part o'this Sirian world.

Lookin forrad t'earin' from yer,
t'Piffles

Here’s the first letter I’m proposing to send. I’ll leave this here for at least 4 hours for comment before I send it off.
EDIT: Sent to Whomp, Koondrad(turn player), Tubby Rower (UN rep), and their team e-mail.

Dear Piffle,

Greetings from the golden halls of Epsilon Eridani! The Leader of Epsilon Team sends you his warm regards.

We have met your brave warrior Bubba in the jungle of this glorious land. And although your warrior’s ways and speech are… strange to us... we are pleased to learn that we are not alone in this world, and look forward to mutual cooperation with your glorious people.

Although it should not be mistaken for a sign of weakness – we are a naturally peaceful people, and if you’ll agree, we believe there is much we can learn and trade together.

So how say you? What are your intentions for this world?
We eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely Yours,
Foreign Minister General_W
Epsilon Team!

Current Tech Plan:

Spoiler :

Epsilon Gives:
1. Scientific Method (2400)
2. Communism (2800)
3. Constitution (2000)
4. Biology (3600)
5. Corporation (1600)
6. Assembly Line (5000)
= 17,400 total

Piffle Gives:
1. Steam Power (3200)
2. Physics (4000) + keep Great Scientist
3. Railroad (4500)
4. Electricity (4500)
= 16,200 total

 

[gbno1fan]

I like the letter and have no suggested revisions - just wanted to get a "yes" vote in.

 

[Memphus]

Very good

Things to keep in mind now:

They will know we have writing if they don't (option for open borders)

They know we only have one city (thier second one is called hamburger, in the diplomacy screen)



With our peace letter they may ask for open borders, the problem with this is in roughly 5~10 turns they will see the outside of our capital and we will not know where theirs is, I don't think we should grant this until we can also explore their homeland

 

[General_W]

I agree – no point in signing an open borders agreement at this point. And I’ll start using the diplomacy screen to gather more info on our rivals.

Just received this from Whomp at Piffle….

Hi General W,
This may sound strange...but haven't we met before? I'm getting deja vu' or something.

Well Piffaliens, as we're called, are an unusual group with wide ranging personalities. You are more than welcome to converse with any of our team members. Generally, it's whomever is available but in the meantime I can get the discussions rolling whenever you'd like.


I'm available on AIM and MSN at bawhompATyahooDOTcom and our team gmail is teampiffleATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers,
(Still a) Major Idiot Whomp

He’s referencing some of the dealings we’ve had with each other from the Civ3 MTDG. Although I’m just the Domestic Minister over there – so I don’t believe I have any “baggage” with Whomp that will hurt Epsilon Team.

Here’s the response I sent…

Dear Whomp,
My… your name does seem vaguely familiar somehow… but that can’t be… as we just met, and all. Perhaps a previous life? Of course, I don’t really believe in that sort of thing… ah well.

I’ll continue to send out bursts of letters/spam to multiple “Piffaliens” as our glorious peoples have need to talk. If anyone wants to be added to the ‘Official Epsilon Do Not Spam’ list – just let me know, and I’ll stop bothering them. (except for really great offers of windshield repair and ‘male enhancement.&#8217

It appears our current trading options are rather limited – but as you are interested in talking about any topic, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

At your service,
Foreign Minister General W
Epsilon Team

 

[General_W]

This just in from the Piffles…

Hi Epsilonians,
Would you be interested at working a deal aimed at getting alphabet?
Mellpiffluous Whomper

What should we say?
Please discuss.

 

[Memphus]

Well I think we should say yes.

But game mechanically speaking, it will be tought to do because you can't negotiate technologies before, since we can't talk about that....

Ideally we want to have them research it and have us trade CoL for it and other minor techs they may have (hunting / fishing for example)

 

[DaveMcW]

Yes, we are interested! It would be helpful if Piffle clarified their proposal to say who is going to research Alphabet.

Of course we would prefer that they research Alphabet, but we don't want to tell them that until we have to.


There is no ban on discussing techs before Alphabet.

 

[General_W]

Ok – here's a draft response.

I'll leave this up for at least 24 hours for comment before sending.
(Longer if we have a lot of edits)

Dear Whomp and all of Piffledom,

Your letter was well received in the Golden Halls of the Eternal city.
The Leader wishes me to convey our interest in a deal with your people revolving around this idea of an "alphabet."

What exactly did you have in mind?
We look forward to further discussion and negotiation.

Until then,
Foreign Minister General W
Servant of The Leader
Epsilon Team

We could consider adding a phrase about "our current research doesn’t exactly take us in the right direction to get Alphabet – perhaps you could take this route, and we could then offer knowledge from other fields?"

That of course tips our hand a bit – but we're going to have to give out some info at some point if we're going to make a deal happen.

Comments?

 

[Memphus]

There is no ban on discussing techs before Alphabet.

Well that is great !

My understanding was that we could not talk about who had what tech because we didn't have the alphabet yet.

BTW this brigns up another good question, can we try to extract what wonders and such they are building? (I.E. not that we are buildingthe parthenon, but find out that they are?)

 

[General_W]

No further comments on adding a line about us not wanting to research Alphabet?

 

[Memphus]

Well at this point don't say we don't want to, but try to extract how they would like to do it. If they volounteer (To research it) ...then we should be a tad argumentative but in the end agree (stating that ultimately we are putting alot of trust in them)

Also make sure in no way shape or form we give away any tech that we have reasearched, if anything mislead them to the top half of the tree (incase they have met king kong and are trying to find out if we have priesthood )

Either way by the tiem they have alphabet we will have CS

 

[General_W]

ok - understood and agreed.

Message sent back to Whomp.

Dear Whomp and all of Piffledom,

Your letter was well received in the Golden Halls of the Eternal city.
The Leader wishes me to convey our interest in a deal with your people revolving around this idea of an "alphabet."

What exactly did you have in mind?
We look forward to further discussion and negotiation.

Until then,
Foreign Minister General W
Servant of The Leader
Epsilon Team

 

[General_W]

Just heard back from Piffle...

Sorry for the delay Gen.W.
I had another hat to put on recently.

OK...here's what we were thinking.
One team goes for Writing + alpha (120 +300 =420 ), and the other goes for metal (450). The metal team also gets 30ish gold?

A peace agreement?

Let us know your thoughts.
Mellpiffluous Whomper

Well - since we already have Writing, we either need to clear that up for them - or volunteer for the Aphabet route.

Thoughts?

 

[DaveMcW]

Alphabet sounds like the best tech for us. In addition to being closer, it also blocks them from getting Writing until they finish Metal Casting.

I am always paranoid that someone will do the Metal Casting slingshot, but it probably won't be Piffle. It would take a very flexible team to prebuild the Oracle without knowing whether they want Metal Casting or Code of Laws from it. And starting the Oracle now will be too late to beat us.

 

[General_W]

I agree totally Mr. President.

How's this for a draft response:
(as always, at least 24 hours for comment before I send it)

Dear Mellpiffluous Whomper,

Don't worry about the delay in the least! I've been a bit… distracted… myself of late.

The terms you outline seem both straight-forward and fair.

The Leader wishes me to convey our desire to take the Writing/Alphabet path while you learn the secret of working metals.

A peace agreement only makes sense for our two great and noble peoples. Shall we agree to a specific timeline for guaranteed peace? Or would you like the peace to extend indefinitely with just some kind of a "10 turn notice" clause for either team to exit the peace?

Your response is eagerly awaited in the Golden Halls.

Sincerely Yours,
Foreign Minister General W
Servant of The Leader
Epsilon Team

 

[lost_civantares]

Any thoughts for the gold too? Or are we going to let them make it a matter for debate?

 

[Memphus]

Yeah I definetly Agree taking the Alpha route for us is the better one not to mention if things go sour (all though how could they at this point??) we would still be able to trade with other neighbours, while they would be stuck.

Actually I just thought of this as well:

if we meet someone else we have 1 turn on Piffle to trade with them, (before piffle has a chance )

Finally I think it may be wise to convey our wish to finish our current technology, and then to begin on the Writing Alphabet path (if they try to time it we can say we are starting writing in 10 turns ...although if they have a half a head on their shoulders they should be able to see that we already have writing (open borders) In any event I say we offer open borders in 10~15ish turns to show our act of good faith on the way to Alphabet

 

[DaveMcW]

When can we expect to have Alphabet, given that we will finish CoL and revolt to bureaucracy first?

We can point out that gold will be available with currency, so they can either wait for it or include 30 in a later tech deal.

And I disagree with open borders, it is only useful when we have a trade route or a unit in their territory. They already have a big advantage by exploring us first, no need to make it bigger.

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

in principle, the tech trade sounds fair. But that would mean we're stuck researching Alphabet next, right? I have to admit I'm not sure exactly which techs we know already and which we still lack...I think we don't need to research anything else to be able to do something useful for the next X turns, but I just wanted to point that out.

Regarding open borders...I'm against that, at least so early. Let's meet some more teams first before giving away access to our lands and too much information. Who knows, maybe we'll decide to do a CKN rush and Piffle might be a good target...another reason is that our cities are defended extremely lightly (and probably will be for some time to come - warriors don't count in my view), and I'd prefer not to give that away.

-Kylearan

 

[General_W]

I am also opposed to open borders at this time.
Until we have a potential trade route, there's no reason to even seriously consider it.

I'm assuming the lack of comment about the peace treaty means that people are pretty open to formalizing our current state of peace. (any disagree?)

I'm adding a line about when we'll start research – and I'm keeping it vague. Judging from the wording of their letters, it appears they don't know we already have writing.

Also – I've added a section about the gold. I don't think they'll have a problem with it.

Here's the reworked version:

Dear Mellpiffluous Whomper,

Don't worry about the delay in the least! I've been a bit… distracted… myself of late.

The terms you outline seem both straight-forward and fair.

The Leader wishes me to convey our desire to take the Writing/Alphabet path while you learn the secret of working metals. We will commence work on this path as soon as we complete our current research.
However, I am informed that without knowledge of something called "currency" we cannot figure out how to pay you the 30 gold gap in value. We therefore propose to pay you the gold as soon as we have the knowledge to do it – or else repay you sooner by arranging another technology trade where you come out ahead by a similar amount.

A peace agreement only makes sense for our two great and noble peoples. Shall we agree to a specific timeline for guaranteed peace? Or would you like the peace to extend indefinitely with just some kind of a "10 turn notice" clause for either team to exit the peace?

Your response is eagerly awaited in the Golden Halls.

Sincerely Yours,
Foreign Minister General W
Servant of The Leader
Epsilon Team

EDIT: SENT!