TNT Files - Term 6

[Chamnix]

The letter looks fine - fe3333au has chatted with them periodically, I think, so they know we are not ignoring them, but we really should try to send them something firm soon.

I guess I'm wondering how far we are willing to carry TNT. If Dnuts attack, then TNT can't build the Great Library, and they really shouldn't spend money on research because they want to rush things, what do we do? There's no point in giving them techs like Theology even if we felt like giving free techs. We could help them out some if we went to Gunpowder, but they couldn't pay for it.

I think what it comes down is that I don't have a lot of confidence in TNT's research ability despite all their libraries. They don't seem to have many towns, and they are all spread out and doubtless mostly corrupt. I think the best way to get techs from them is via the Great Library, plus it would be good to have someone build it, so we don't have to worry about it anymore.

I think we should continue with the original plan. We start on Theology, and TNT starts the Great Library. We can insert something additional into clause 5 about TNT being forced to abandon the build due to war started by someone else, we help them with cheap techs similar to them being beaten to it by someone else.

I think we should know if there is going to be trouble early enough to do something about it. If we have to switch to the bottom half of the tree, then I think we still should be able to catch up since we will be the second or third ones researching each tech.

Conclusion of all this rambling - my opinion is to continue as planned with the GL gambit (proposed agreement generally as outlined above), insert a clause about TNT being unable to complete due to being attacked then they get cheap techs, and MIA should start researching Theology ASAP.

 

[General_W]

Conclusion of all this rambling - my opinion is to continue as planned with the GL gambit (proposed agreement generally as outlined above), insert a clause about TNT being unable to complete due to being attacked then they get cheap techs, and MIA should start researching Theology ASAP.

This is probably our best bet.
(Unless total war with KISS breaks out... then we'll probably want the Military Techs while TNT does the peacefull ones and just forget about the GL. Either way, we should know in another turn or 2)​

I guess I'm wondering how far we are willing to carry TNT.

Well, if you want my point of view… (of course you do!)

I'd haul their sorry butts all the way to the Industrial Era.
Giving an ally all our techs in exchange for them dragging down the economies of our enemy and giving us a bonus "Theory of Evolution" type wonder? Sign me up!

I'm looking at TNT in very pragmatic way.
With our help, they will continue to be a thorn in the side of Dnuts (by at least providing competition for land and a military threat requiring the Nuts to divert funds to defense), - not only dragging down one enemy of ours, but also dragging down any potential Nuts/KISS alliance. ALSO – with our help, TNT is willing to give us a free Industrial Era tech (without the 600 shield investment of the ToE)! This is a great advantage for MIA. ALSO – even with all our help, TNT doesn’t present any credible threat to our chances of winning the game!

What more do you want!?!?

If they're actually able to get some extra techs for us (either by research or by great library stealing) – then all the better. That's just gravy as far as I'm concerned.

Spoiler What about the DNuts? :

Sure, Dnuts might be a more appealing and more technologically useful ally – but they are also a much bigger threat, much closer to our land, and already have warm dealings with our mortal enemies the KISS. Exclusive trading with them is just too dangerous imho. If we can work out a tech deal every now and then – fine… but Dnuts could potentially threaten us for the win. TNT won't do that.

 

[peter grimes]

I find one thing unsettling about the way we are treating TNT. We are judging by their past performance (dismal) that they will continue to make mistakes, and therefore not be a threat to our domination of the game.

But there is really no reason to think that TNT will continue to be out-gamed by us. I'm not saying that we shouldn't bring them to the Industrial Ages with us. I just don't want us to slide into an unfounded security, only to be shocked by a Giant at our door.

 

[Chamnix]

If they're actually able to get some extra techs for us (either by research or by great library stealing) – then all the better. That's just gravy as far as I'm concerned.

I agree with most of what you said, but we absolutely must have gravy. As good as our research ability will be, and as helpful as TNT's free tech could be (there is always the chance we will get the same free tech), MIA by itself cannot outresearch KISSNuts combined. If TNT doesn't bring the gravy, then either we have to find someone else who will, or we might as well cancel the entire dinner.

EDIT - @peter grimes - you are right, and I was thinking the same thing. However, I think the active players they have now are beatable by MIA. There is always a chance that someone else will join the game (or an inactive will become more active), and we'll have to reevaluate, but I do feel confident that we can outplay their current cast.

EDIT 2 - Just an off topic question - does anyone else worry at all about the threads being opened after the game? We can be kind of insulting sometimes secure in the knowledge that the insultees can't read this, but eventually they will be able to...

 

[General_W]

I agree with most of what you said, but we absolutely must have gravy. As good as our research ability will be, and as helpful as TNT's free tech could be (there is always the chance we will get the same free tech), MIA by itself cannot outresearch KISSNuts combined. If TNT doesn't bring the gravy, then either we have to find someone else who will, or we might as well cancel the entire dinner.

This is only true if we have someone else to invite to dinner!
You want to work out a tech deal with KISS? (I think not)
Do we really want to link arms with Dnuts? (Again, I think not)

So we're basically going it alone anyway. An alliance with TNT only improves our situation… I don't really see how it limits our options any more than we're already limited by strategic considerations.

But there is really no reason to think that TNT will continue to be out-gamed by us.

I hear what you're saying, but it's no longer just a matter of being out gamed. (although I DO agree with Chamnix, I think our current active players will out-play TNT every time)
The real problem facing TNT is that even with extensive technological support from MIA, they lack the infrastructure, lack the towns, and lack the relationships with other teams to stage a real revolt against their MIA masters.
Simply put, they are so far in the hole that even with a boat-load of free techs, they will still remain far behind us. And as they grow increasingly dependant on us as the brains of the Alliance, they will become increasingly unable to do anything to stop us.

Not that we should rest on our laurels! We'll have to stay vigilant of course. But unless we do something stupid (or, ehem, end up mired in a long war that grinds our economy into the ground) it's hard to imagine how they could turn their game around even with superior play. They're just too far behind. You can recover from a deficit like TNT's if you're playing against the AI… I'm don't think they can do it against 3 highly skilled teams.

Just an off topic question - does anyone else worry at all about the threads being opened after the game? We can be kind of insulting sometimes secure in the knowledge that the insultees can't read this, but eventually they will be able to...

- I've wondered that myself!

Realistically – there is SO much in our forum, I expect people only to read the major stickies we flag as worthwhile for others to read.

I expect the other teams to read our "MIA History" thread, glance through our "Looking Glass" thread, and maybe some of the really snoopy ones will read highlights out of the Presidential Updates. It's kind of hard to imagine someone slogging through all our diplomacy threads – there's so many of them and they are so long!!
<--- Reading all MIA diplomacy threads

Even so &#8211; I think we should leave some kind of "Open Letter to KISS, Dnuts, & TNT" that's flagged at the top of our Forum, it can say something along the lines of "This has been a great game and, despite what you may read in some of these threads, we have tremendous respect for all of you and we have enjoyed playing this game immensely" &#8211; which I'm sure is true for all of us. Maybe each MIA team-member that wants too could even add a personal note to the other teams?
No matter what, I think we all realize that this is a game (and an immensely fun one at that) and bashing the other teams is just a part of the smac-talk that makes this so much fun.

 

[peter grimes]

I'm not worried about the threads being opened up - I fully expect the other teams to give us equivalent treatment.

Will any of us harbor a grudge against any individual KISSer after we are able to read their side of the Demise of the Green Alliance?... On the contrary, I think we will come to have a deeper respect for them. unless, of course, they turn out to be idiots

And then, one must realize that to be singled out in our private forum, that player must have made quite an impression on us - and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[General_W]

RE-posted for our sick Diplomacy King...

TNT seems pretty eager to hear from us, and we probably ought to send at least a little something to let them know we're not ignoring them.

In my on-going effort to save Fe time and spur early discussion, here's a rough draft for a letter that we could hopefully send asap.

EDIT: Added a paragraph about technology on Fe's directive.

Dear Friends, Allies, and all around wise-guys,

We have to apologize for our slowness in responding to your letters. Rest assured, we are working hard on crafting a new proposal to continue to vault our peoples to world domination.

Unfortunately, our efforts have been hampered by ongoing and tedious negotiations with KISS. At several points, these negotiations have been on the point of breaking down and war starting. Obviously, if we can't get a deal with KISS and have to go to war with them, our long term strategy will change dramatically. If we do manage to get a peace deal, then our strategy will be totally different again.

Hence our difficulty in putting together a long-term vision to synch up our respective strategies. (We can't match our strategy to yours if we don't even have a firm strategy ourselves! )

As negotiations have progressed with KISS, many members of MIA have gotten the growing impression that KISS is only pursuing these negotiations because they want to use their army to attack a different target. Obviously, as KISS has expressed a desire to attack you back when our relationship with KISS was more open, many MIAers are worried that once/if we have a peace deal, KISS may turn their army of Gallic Swords overseas to your lands.
Now, we feel that this would be stupid of them and we're optimistic that you would handily show them the error of their ways! (KISS has done dumber things before)
However &#8211; If you're also fighting a war with Dnuts&#8230; a KISS invasion suddenly becomes a bigger problem.

We understand that dealing with the Iroq can be just as frustrating as dealing with KISS &#8211; but we wanted to give you a heads up &#8211; in case there is anything you can do to secure continued peace with the Nutters.

(Please don't misunderstand &#8211; these are only suspicions from the paranoid among us. We have no hard evidence whatsoever of any KISS plans. If we DO get wind of something concrete, you can be sure we'll let you know!)

Finally, we look forward to learning the secret of Engineering from you, and rest assured that we stand ready to provide knowledge of Chivalry anytime you request it. We believe you will find this knowledge to be a hit with the ladies&#8230; as well as good for killing things that get in your way!
While we nail down final plans, it'd probably be smartest for you to just stockpile cash after you complete research on Engineering. But of course, that's up to you.

Anyway, this is a long letter for having said so little &#8211; but we're confident you'll be patient with us while we try to nail down what's happening with KISS so that we can turn our attention back to long term planning with your people.

All the best,
Your friends over the Sea,
Team MIA

What do you all think?

I can start work on another letter with more specific proposals if we'd rather just go straight for that?

 

[General_W]

In AIM chat, Fe seemed to like this proposal.

It dosn't say a whole lot, so is anyone opposed to sending this?
I think it'd be nice to just keep the lines open with TNT.

We can craft an actuall proposal to send them once things are settled with KISS.

Comments?

 

[Chamnix]

I'm not opposed - now that another turn or 2 has passed, do you think we should add something specifically mentioning they should stop research after Engineering, or do you think they will do that on their own?

 

[General_W]

- Best to put it in!!

I'll edit and add that.

Do you want to send this Mr. President?

 

[peter grimes]

Send it!.... Send it now!

 

[Chamnix]

Sent to teamTNT via gmail...

 

[General_W]

This just in with the Save...

Greetings Dear Friends across the Sea!

We rec'd your recent message and hope to have a formal reply soon. Have sent a trade offer for engineering though without *accepting*. Hope to be able to ship gems next turn when our harbor is complete. We need workers.

signed
donsig
President of the Republic of Iron
Hereditary Grand Vizeer of the Ironic and Iroqi Peoples

Not sure why they didn't send with accept?

But it sounds like we may be able to get gems for some workers?
That is if Chamnix dosn't have a siezure at the mention of that idea!

 

[fe3333au]

This came in with the save

Greetings Dear Friends across the Sea!

We rec'd your recent message and hope to have a formal reply soon. Have sent a trade offer for engineering though without *accepting*. Hope to be able to ship gems next turn when our harbor is complete. We need workers.

signed
donsig
President of the Republic of Iron
Hereditary Grand Vizeer of the Ironic and Iroqi Peoples

Seems they are very very very eager for our citizens.


They have offered Engineering ... let's take it!

Send a letter (if not already mentioned in previous one) tell them we are happy to send Chivalry as soon as they lets us know in a save attachment ... that way they can build horses and then do a massive update to Knights to surprise any unexpected visitors.

 

[fe3333au]

OK ... It seems even blind freddy can see that TNT are going to be a target for a concerted double prong attack

What are we going to do?
> Warn them ... YES!!!

> Send Spotters (Land and Sea) to assist in early warning?
> Send units to block (Land and Sea) primarily KISS?

Do we want to?
Can we afford it?
How much support and propping up must we do to support a team that is clearly playing an 'interesting' and perhaps doomed game style?

What do we get out of it?

If they are doomed, do we want to gain some spoils of war. ... what is in our best interest to do

In their best interest ... TNT should turn their research off and gear up for war.

 

[Chamnix]

Proposed letter to TNT:

Dear Friends,

Thank you for sending us Engineering, but we really need you to send it with accept. Our workers are exhausted by having to keep swimming across our rivers. They keep taking days off to rest after crossing, and there is still much work to be done.

Did you not send Engineering because you require Chivalry at the same time? You are welcome to Chivalry at any time you want it &#8211; we weren&#8217;t sure if you wanted to build more horses for upgrade first. What I have attempted to do with the save is accept your offer of Engineering and send Chivalry with accept as 2 separate trades. Since I am not too experienced with multiplayer, I am not positive it will work, but it seems like it should. That way, you can accept sending us Engineering and choose to accept or not accept Chivalry depending on your needs. If you choose not to accept Chivalry yet, you just have to let us know when you want it, and it will be yours.

Also, just to let you know, kentharu of Team MIA was chatting with Nobody of Dnut, when Nobody let this slip: &#8220;You might want to warn your people that the TnT-Doughnut border is getting a little hot&#8221;. He refused to confirm or deny that Dnuts were planning on attacking you, but we wanted you to be aware that you must remain vigilant.

Sincerely,

Chamnix
Team MIA Turnplayer

 

[General_W]

Looks good - I don't think there's any reason not to send that ASAP - it's just informational and looking for clarification on the tech swap.

Although - you might consider making the paragraph about trading workers a bit more clear.
We can't even trade them workers even if we wanted to - correct? What's there is fine, but you might add - "at this time, we still don't have the ability to trade workers overseas. We think maybe we need Astronomy for this"

Or am I the one confused about this?

I know Chamnix dosn't like this - but I still think we should be open to sending a few workers to TNT - they need our help, and if they'll give us permanent access to Gems then I still think it'll be worth it in the long term. We can more easily bear the cost of building some extra workers to send to TNT.

 

[Chamnix]

Paragraph about trading workers? I didn't mean to mention anything about trading workers right now - I was just babbling about the delay in crossing rivers on our continent because we don't have Engineering (although, yeah, I was putting a not-so-subtle hint in there that we still need workers too), but I guess I better drop that so it's not misunderstood.

Anyway, "permanent access to gems" for MIA assumes TNT will have permanent access to gems which I think is a pretty big leap of faith right now.

 

[General_W]

Anyway, "permanent access to gems" for MIA assumes TNT will have permanent access to gems which I think is a pretty big leap of faith right now.

Oh Ye of Little Faith!

Ok, ok - so TNT doesn't merit a lot of faith... but certainly they merit some cautious hope.

They've got a strong head-start on key military techs - Dnuts and KISS don't appear to be cooperating to the extent that we first feared - and with even modest economic and tactical support from us, they should be able to at least hold their own.

And if things go really bad for TNT - we can just attack the Dnuts from behind! after even 15-20 turns of infrastructure builds, we should be able to support a pretty heavy hitting war against an unprepared Dnuts with their forces all stuck in the jungle.
We hammer them for 25 turns, then sue for peace, and get ready for KISS (if we haven't managed to negotiate an extension of the peace)

Not ideal... but possible.


------

I think we should try to have a "summit at malta" meeting with TNT, and just ask them "how are you planning to win this game?" - and if they don't have a good answer, we can suggest our "Win with Air Superiority" plan. I think they'd like it.

If they like it, we can tell them - "look, in order for this plan to have the best chance of success, it's critical that you stay alive and reasonably strong in the research department. We suggest you do whatever it takes... including giving up control of one of the Luxes you grabbed... in exchange for long-term peace with Dnuts. You can get glorious revenge on them later when you bomb them into the ground... but just play nice till we can catapult ourselves into the IA."

If they have some other plan - then we can consider it, and look for ways to maximize that.

Thoughts?

 

[Chamnix]

I agree that TNT can "hold their own" and by that I mean protect their core, but I think that DNuts can certainly raze some outlying cities, and those are the ones with the luxuries unfortunately.

I guess we should continue doing one thing at a time. Let's get peace with KISS, then plan the Great Library (or not) with TNT, then we can talk worker exchanges with KISS and/or TNT.

Letter sent to TNT:

Dear Friends,

Thank you for sending us Engineering, but we really need you to send it with accept. Our units are exhausted by having to keep swimming across our rivers, and bridges would save us much time.

Did you not send Engineering because you require Chivalry at the same time? You are welcome to Chivalry at any time you want it &#8211; we weren&#8217;t sure if you wanted to build more horses for upgrade first. What I have attempted to do with the save is accept your offer of Engineering and send Chivalry with accept as 2 separate trades. Since I am not too experienced with multiplayer, I am not positive it will work, but it seems like it should. That way, you can accept sending us Engineering and choose to accept or not accept Chivalry depending on your needs. If you choose not to accept Chivalry yet, you just have to let us know when you want it, and it will be yours.

Also, just to let you know, kentharu of Team MIA was chatting with Nobody of Dnut, when Nobody let this slip: &#8220;You might want to warn your people that the TnT-Doughnut border is getting a little hot&#8221;. He refused to confirm or deny that Dnuts were planning on attacking you, but we wanted you to be aware that you must remain vigilant.

Sincerely,

Chamnix
Team MIA Turnplayer