Team Saber Embassy

[General_W]

I'm assuming this is also good to go, as we've all previously agreed on this.

I'll wait till zyxy has actually played the turn, then send this off, unless someone objects before then.

 

[General_W]

I'm also going to add this P.S. to the letter:

P.S. Just so you know, we have proposed the "Banking +200 gold for Astronomy" idea to FREE. Our team seems to be on board for this swap – provided you'll agree to not trade Astronomy around? If FREE agrees, we'll let you know, and then it'll be up to you. Would certainly make for a roaring entrance into the Middle Ages!

 

[zyxy]

Looks good to me.

Turn has been played.

 

[General_W]

Alright. Great!

Off it goes…

Sent to Saber gmail and to Cyc. Title: "Good News and More"

Spoiler :

Dear Saber Friends,

We have momentous news to report! BABE has withdrawn the vestiges of their main stack from our lands.

They still have a sizeable force (about 8 units) that is either in control of our island, or else sailing to our mainland so we're not convinced that the invasion is over – but it's looking good.

They sent us an odd note with the save – here it is in its entirety:

OK, I guess we will go over to SABER again. You are no fun to play beach games with. Your manners vs. visitors have a lot to ask for. Either you don't allow us into your resorts or you burn them down. I would not recommend you to try to develop a tourist industry.

You can see why we are concerned for you. We suspect this may just be a poor attempt at humor, but we wanted you to be totally in the loop. We'll also, of course, keep you posted on any BABE ship movements we observe.

If you would still send the 20 DAB gold with the next turn, as we very well may have a second invasion force hitting our northern beaches next turn, we'd appreciate it. If BABE really has truly packed up and left, we'll refund you that gold.

Also – we have good news on Education. Our friends at FREE have agreed with the wisdom of selling this knowledge to you. We stand ready to send it for 435 gold (33% of monopoly).

Hope all is well in the land of Saber!

Your friends,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

P.S. Just so you know, we have proposed the "Banking +200 gold for Astronomy" idea to FREE. Our team seems to be on board for this swap – provided you'll agree to not trade Astronomy around? If FREE agrees, we'll let you know, and then it'll be up to you. Would certainly make for a roaring entrance into the Middle Ages!

 

[General_W]

Letter back from Saber,
Title: The Next Step

Dear Council,
The Saber nation wishes to thank you for allowing us to purchase Education. We hope once again, that you found good use for the gold. Thanks also for the info on the BABE action.

We have sent you the 435 gold for Education plus the extra 20 DAB gold. We are now looking forward to our next possible Tech purchases. We were wondering about Feudalism. What price might The Council be putting on this Tech these days?

Sincerely,
Cyc
Saber Ambassador

Do we want to keep selling them things?
Should we wait to see what the verdict is on the Astro/Bank deal from FREE first? (I'd say yes.)

 

[zyxy]

I think we do want to keep selling, but I would like to hear from FREE first on splitting the gold and on the Banking deal.

Same price, perhaps?

 

[General_W]

I propose we send this note off to Saber:

Dear Saber friends,

We have good news. FREE has agreed to our wild-idea proposal to get you involved (at least once) in our joint research.

As a refresher, the deal was:
Saber researches Banking (1560), and sends that plus 200 gold to The Council.
The Council sends the secret of Astronomy(1680) to Saber.

From our discussions with FREE, we’d like to refine the deal a bit by adding these clauses:

• The Council would send Astronomy immediately, Saber would send Banking upon discovery.
• Saber must acquire Banking within 12 turns, excepting an invasion or other reasonable catastrophe.
• Saber agrees to not trade Astronomy with BABE or GONG.

We’re aware of the fact that this isn’t an amazing deal, but we still think it will work out quite nicely for you – as it would put you firmly ahead of GONG and BABE, give you a key tech for exploring and defending yourself, and effectively double your research for one more tech.

If you don’t want to do this – it’s ok, we’ll still be friends

Please let us know either way, so that we can map out our future tech plans. After we resolve this deal (one way or the other) then we can also talk about the sale of Feudalism you mentioned earlier.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!
All the best,

Your friends,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

P.S. BABE continues to build up forces on the island they took from us, and sail ships along our coasts. So far, they haven’t landed any more units on our homeland. If you’d like to suspend the 20gpt DAB payments, that’d be ok with us. We’re going to try to sink as many boats as we can… so for now, this war is at sea.

Note: we can easily do 200+ beakers even at 60% science. Saber should be able to get Banking in 8 turns, no sweat. So 12 turns is very generous… but should be fast enough to not slow us down in advancing to the middle ages.

Thoughts on this?

We have till our next turn comes around – but it’d be nice to get this off even sooner.

 

[zyxy]

Looks good except I would drop

We’re aware of the fact that this isn’t an amazing deal, but we still think it will work out quite nicely for you – as it would put you firmly ahead of GONG and BABE, give you a key tech for exploring and defending yourself, and effectively double your research for one more tech.

If you don’t want to do this – it’s ok, we’ll still be friends

(and rewrite the line after this) because it's a statement going against a deal that we want.

I would also drop

If you’d like to suspend the 20gpt DAB payments, that’d be ok with us.

 

[Paul#42]

agree with zyxy's remarks.

No need to gift money away, we are still under attack.
And we will probably stay until SCI is ours again.

And the 12 turns seem a little too many to me - I'd hate wait a single turn too long for our railroading...
Won't 10 also do the job? Or would that be too demanding?
We should have asked before about their research capability...

 

[Niklas]

I agree with everything zyxy said. I'm not sure about the 10 vs 12 turns, how long until we expect to have our side of the research completed?

 

[General_W]

Ok – that all makes sense.

On 10 vs. 12 turns - I can’t imagine we’ll be done faster than 12 turns. I mean, we still need to do Magnetism and Theory of Gravity… (not to mention Military Tradition, which is still on our side also!) can we do both of those in 6 turns while at war? It’s really not in Sabers interest to drag their feet anyway – I just wanted to set an upper limit to avoid any unforeseen problems.

That said, I’m happy to change it to whatever we think we can get Theory of Gravity done in... I just don’t want to come across as overly demanding to Saber when it’s un-necessary. For now, I’ll leave it at 12.

Here’s Version 1.2

Dear Saber friends,

We have good news. FREE has agreed to our wild-idea proposal to get you involved (at least once) in our joint research.

As a refresher, the deal was:
Saber researches Banking (1560), and sends that plus 200 gold to The Council.
The Council sends the secret of Astronomy(1680) to Saber.

From our discussions with FREE, we’d like to refine the deal a bit by adding these clauses:

• The Council would send Astronomy immediately, Saber would send Banking upon discovery.
• Saber must acquire Banking within 12 turns, excepting an invasion or other reasonable catastrophe.
• Saber agrees to not trade Astronomy with BABE or GONG.

This would put you firmly ahead of GONG and BABE, give you a key tech for exploring and defending yourself, and effectively double your research for one more tech.

Please let us know what you want to do (either way) so that we can map out our future tech plans. After we resolve this deal (one way or the other) then we can also talk about the sale of Feudalism you mentioned earlier.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!
All the best,

Your friends,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

P.S. BABE continues to build up forces on the island they took from us, and sail ships along our coasts. So far, they haven’t landed any more units on our homeland – so we will use this break in land-combat to continue sinking as many boats as we can… for now, this war is at sea.

EDIT: Sent to Saber gmail & to CYC e-mail 10/3/07

Good to go?
Anyone have an analysis on our likely tech pace?

 

[donsig]

Letter looks good to me.

I think our tech pace depends on our treasury which depends on what we spend on the war effort.

 

[Paul#42]

Well you should not count MT to the techs towards the IA.
Imagine the impact of the free techs Nationalism and Steam Power on the defense. :wowo:

It might make a difference and FREE and us both have to do two techs too advance in Era. While we will likely take more than 10 turns we also have a "make-up"-turn till we got all free techs and traded them.

So if SABER gives us Banking in 12, we might very well get Nationalism (if we are lucky) by turn 14...

But maybe less than 6 turns per tech indeed is quite high-flying...

 

[General_W]

I wasn't counting Military Tradition, that's why I only said 2 techs … I was just mentioning it so no-one started thinking we were done with the MAAP II deal after 2 more techs.

I agree with you – there's NO WAY I want to delay for even a turn getting into the Industrial Era. I just don't want to demand that Saber finish in 10 turns when we won't be ready to advance for 15 anyway.

Does anyone think we'll be able to do it faster than that?

Currently, at 50% science and bleeding cash, we can do 196 beakers per turn (according to CAII, which I think doesn't include specialists) … so say 200bpt.
At that rate, Metallurgy will take 9 turns (1920/200) and Theory of Gravity will take 10 (2040/200)

I'm sure that as we rebuild cities we can maybe nudge that up a little, but I already rounded those turn times down. Does anyone here really think we can turn science up to bleed even more gold while also getting ready for phase2 of the BABE invasion and also trying to retake Subcommittee Island?

If anything, I expect those turn times to be even longer.
So – if we're 19-20 turns away from getting our 2 techs needed to advance to the Industrial Age, I see no reason to demand less than a 12-15 turn maximum from Saber.

Am I missing something?

No matter what, we should send a letter soon, so that if Saber agrees they can get started asap.

 

[Paul#42]

convinced. Okay for me.

Send it.

 

[General_W]

Thanks Paul

I'll send this letter later today, unless someone else speaks up?

 

[General_W]

ok - it was another insane-busy day yesterday.

Sending this letter now!

 

[Paul#42]

message from SABER:

Dear Council friends,

Although your offer definitely sounds good, we're sad to say that it has come too late. Because we knew of the difficulties in trading with you because of your dealings with Free, we decided to look around for other prices. Another team (GONG) made an offer that we really couldn't refuse, so we signed a deal with them. Sadly, that deal makes this offer unacceptable for us, as we always honour our deals.

Let it be known to the Council that our nation is, and always has been interested in dealing with the Council. So always do feel free to come round our door if you have something to offer us.

Yours,
Team Saber

What deal are they talking about?

Did they already get Astro from GONG?!?
Or is this just a denial of our banking proposal?
I guess both?

This might threaten Cope's for us.
I'm surprised they did not finish Sistine's yet. With all their Cathedrals and whipping unhappiness that would be huge for them...

 

[cubsfan6506]

I think this is for the better. I think gong and Babe might of fallen out.

 

[zyxy]

Indeed, it's not quite clear which deal they are refusing, but I assume it's the Banking deal. Their excuse is really lame: "difficulties in trading with you"... we have never been difficult.
They took 4 days to compose this after we sent our proposal for a Banking deal to them. Obviously, they didn't have the GONG deal in the books at the time we sent our proposal, so that excuse (keeping their word, blabla) is also nonsense.

Dishonest dealing - that's what this is called.

It looks like we are at the bottom of a dogpile.