The ETTT

[CharlemagneXLII]

This will be a thread where we discuss the Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty, such as deciding what each team should research, suggesting any amendments, etc. This is so we don't have these discussions branched off into 3 embassy threads and the main strategy thread. Here is the body of the treaty:

The ETTT​

The Exclusive Tech-Trading Treaty​

The Exclusive Tech Trading Treaty is the governing treaty of the Exclusive Tech Trading Alliance (ETTA), which is composed of the members of the ETTT.

Section 1. Members of the ETTT

1.1. The AMAZON, Sirius, Quatronia, CDZ.​

Section 2. Addition and Subtraction of Members

2.1. New members may be added by unanimous agreement of all current members.

2.2. A member may be removed by unanimous consent of all other current members.

2.3. A member may be removed at any time if they are proved to have violated any of the terms of this treaty.​

Section 3. Treaty Duration and Cancellation Terms

3.1. The treaty continues indefinitely until it is canceled.

3.2. The treaty can be canceled at any time by the mutual agreement of all members.​

Section 4. Trading Policies

4.1. Members agree to trade freely and generously with all other members.

4.2. Members agree to trade with non-members only with unanimous consent from all other current members.

4.3. Members will be open and forthright about research plans to avoid duplication of effort and ensure rapid progress.

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.​

Section 5. Amendments

5.1. A proposed amendment may be submitted by any member. The proposed amendment must be sent to all members.

5.2. A proposed amendment will be adopted upon the agreement of all members.​

 

[CharlemagneXLII]

Here is Galdarian's proposed tech paths that all teams appear to be following.

Spoiler :

Sirius is researching currency, we're on calendar, CDZ is on Metal Casting, I'm not sure about Amazon, though they've picked up priesthood and mono, and are likely going for monarchy.

 

[galdarian]

Yeah, not sure what techs beyond the current other teams are going however we should nominate the next three as:

Calendar
Compass
Optics


Reasons: Mostly because we want the +1 Circumnavigation bonus. It's critical to our long term game plan to get it. The sooner we nominate this as our desired tech path the less likely the other teams are to question it.

In the meantime we should be pre chopping a city so we can build a Caravel on the first turn after picking up Optics. IMHO We should build it in Quatron which saves us 2 turns of movement and then it should go west...
We may also need Slavery to pull this off.

If we decide to go down this course it will consume the next ~30 turns.

PS> Attached is an updated tech tree. I will update this attachment in this post periodically.

 

[cav scout]

Galdarian, your first tech tree turned out to be right on the money

I also agree 100% with your reasoning for our next 3 being Calendar-> Compass-> Optics.

I think we need to go easy on talking about optics though. The way we should play it is finish Calendar, start Compass then inform everyone we have started compass. If anyone asks why it's for our UB. We then just "naturally" start Optics right after Compass and inform them after the fact.

One thing to consider though is that we will be passing up on the top of the tech tree and first dibs on all those wonders.

 

[RegentMan]

I also like the CCO plan.

Maybe it's not my playstyle, but wonders are never really a big deal in most games for me. Are there any on the top that we would really want?

 

[Earthling]

I am alright with giving up dibs on the great library or a couple other wonders right now.

If there is any wonder I would want, I would go after that stone and the hanging gardens - it really is a nice bonus, free pop and permanent health to go with it, we could afford the chopping as we have forests and have the happiness. But we already have Math, so that is more a matter of just getting there/willingness to invest in it (it would detract from more settlers in the short term) as long as none of our ETTT allies are really mad (and really, if they want GL or Colossus or some other sweet wonders that's kinda fair).

But in short - I think CCO as we're calling it is a great call. And yes, I'm ok with our allied nations going after other wonders, and if there was a wonder I'd even worry about right now, I'd do the simple HG, and even then I wouldn't be upset if we decided against. Later on maybe we want the Spiral Minaret/Sankore but that's a bit down the line.

 

[cav scout]

Hanging Gardens does fit perfectly with our traits and all the moves we have made to this point. We should figure out a way to fit it in after we REX a bit.

 

[MrBanana]

There is a problem I have with the treaty:

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.

his doesn't seem right to me. A civ could develop their military or REX and abuse the system, inbstead of reaserching their fair share. That probably isn't that bad of a strategy, now that I think about it.

 

[cav scout]

Isn't that exactly what we are planning to do?

 

[RegentMan]

There is a problem I have with the treaty:

4.4. All technology shall be shared openly, upon request, without regard to beaker value.

his doesn't seem right to me. A civ could develop their military or REX and abuse the system, inbstead of reaserching their fair share. That probably isn't that bad of a strategy, now that I think about it.

Yeah I wondered that too. We'll just have to wait and see- if one team does it, then it would be a good excuse to make it 3v1 when Merlot and Mavericks go.

 

[cav scout]

Well I think every team is going to do it to a certain extent. I know we are planning to spam cities for a while now to claim important land. If our economy takes a hit in the short term and our research drops no big deal, we will still be making progress on the tech tree and complying with the treaty.

 

[CharlemagneXLII]

We could put forward and amendment requiring every team to report their beaker output periodically so any major discrepancies are noticed.

 

[galdarian]

You might end up with a team just lie about it. How would you enforce it? I think it would be better to report next Tech and Turns to completion. That would be more transparent.

 

[cav scout]

Lets be careful not to propose any amendments that might turn around and bite us later. The ambiguity in the ETTT right now gives us freedom to maneuver.

 

[TyBoy]

It would be really hard to lie about it in any meaningful way. We can all easily track when a team finishes it's previous research project and when they finish their next one. Ballparking their beakers from that wouldn't be rocket science.

I really like the idea in general, although we could just keep general track of it ourselves if we take good notes on when new techs become available for trade.

 

[Earthling]

I'm not trying to step on toes here with us or other teams so I should say I'm really neutral on this. On the one hand, we can't ever be sure what all the other teams are thinking and "amending" the ETTT could be a complicated or annoying process. But we certainly could make the treaty more fair and transparent overall.

Another concern is the pace of the game and other developments - generally, the faster things are going, the more I'm okay with ambiguity, since the general purpose of the alliance, to leave the other teams behind, would be realized, and new alliances/developments would probably start to follow. If we keep things very slow and methodical between the four teams though, and certainly teams may begin to think they might want agreements on land, spoils of war etc..., then more equal tech and beaker exchanges are a good place to start.

 

[RegentMan]

Let's just cross that bridge if we come to it. We knew this was a possibility entering the agreement, but it hasn't occurred yet, so no need to worry.

 

[CharlemagneXLII]

There is an interesting flame war on the thread "test pitboss game" between members of the other three ETTT teams. The most interesting things to be gleaned from this are that CDZ seems to value in-game treaties very highly, and pretty much equates deal breaking with cheating (I personally don't think they're worth the paper they're written on), and that Sirius and CDZ have likely taken a -1 -2 "You insulted me on the internet" modifier in relations towards each other.

Now, back to the game. I have two issues to raise:

1) We should make sure the ETTT is on board with the grand alliance idea. I think the treaty in itself eventually has to lead to an alliance because of the exclusive nature, but we should make sure all teams agree that we have to take out Mavericks and Merlot. I'm pretty sure Sirius is aware of this, and I believe we mentioned the idea to Amazon.

2) We need to begin discussing what happens next, after 6 has become 4. We want to start preparing for the situation now so we get a favourable situation. We don't want to be stuck in the 1 side of a 3v1. It will likely split off into a 2v2, since that makes it so each team is in pretty much the same position. My idea is to ally with one team, against the other two, then make a secret alliance with our neighbour we are supposed to be at war with. while the other two are bashing in each other's brains, we betray our "allies" and would have the element of surprise. (We would also have less casualties from a false war.) As I mentioned before, CDZ values treaties highly, and would probably not expect to be backstabbed so thoroughly.

 

[RegentMan]

I also personally value treaties and loyalty highly. I don't like agreeing to things I know I will not adhere to.

 

[Earthling]

Some thoughts:

-I've noticed a few other players joining other teams have openly said they do not intend to really "play the game" and are just hanging out - some have been rather trollish in general as far as my memory serves me. I don't know how much of the talk being referred to is related to new or inexperienced players, or even people not really participating in the actual gameplay on the teams. Of course, we don't know what's going on internally, but with huge teams like AMAZONs, I have the impression a lot are really just hanging on and not entirely involved with day-to-day game decisions.

Of course, fresh players are always welcome with the Q too, never wanted to give the wrong impression. But we're smaller and much more on the same page, if a team has 30+ players and some almost never check in - but argue on the forums (???) - maybe it's not representative of the whole team and we should be fair.

-The whole "treaty thing" was a big problem in previous democracy games I've seen here. The last civ4 BtS one in particular, people took treaties very seriously and were reluctant to break them, leading to heated words.

Most particularly, CDZ is a team heavily related to another forum and perhaps hasn't seen how things can go in previous games here. I'm not surprised they would be surprised or upset.

In my opinion, I would also say treaties are really pretty worthless, and backstabbing at some point down the line is to be expected. Nothing in a treaty is remotely close to game rules, enforceable by the admins or something. However, just the same things have been said about various treaties, "non-aggression pacts" and so on in other games. I would not be surprised by people breaking them, but I'm not surprised by others getting all angry about it either.

But I was very much against tech trading, THE major element of treaty problems, in the first place. It gets so many people up in a knot about "you PROMISED to trade us X000 Beakers of Tech" when really such agreements get broken. Not to mention leads to blocks like our own ETTT and alliances in previous games, where some teams are just left behind. Period. I do think this game could have used a commitment to more teams having fun just roleplaying and sticking with treaties and so on, in good sportsmanship, or creating the most level and competitive ground possible but where treaties/tech/vassals (thankfully these are out) and so on were minimalized by game settings, and teams couldn't go after each other on personal/out-of-game levels.

Anyway, I'm glad we weren't too involved in those arguments, and we are keeping our word and being fairly honest with our allies. Really, I know we have to look ahead to the 4-team finish, but a lot could happen, we just want to do well with getting an empire in place, take out our share of juicy Maverick land p) and have all angles covered. Especially if managing a naval defense/chokepoints gets easy enough this could even win in a non-military (space or culturaL) victory but that would be a couple hundred turns away.