Rego's putting out feelers for information again. Guess I'll work on a response at some point - a bit exhausted from all this frustrating back-and-forth with Moogle at the moment.
Hi Lord Parkin,
How's it going? Not much over here, but I always find it interesting to touch base every now and again just to see what's going on. Over here we're excited to found our 5th city in a few turns, but it's tempered somewhat by the fact that some people already have 8 :-( Speaking of "8:-(" I think that's the name of one of Plako's scouts <g>. Ah well, we'll continue plugging away and I guess see how things go.
So in other world news, it seems kind of early for the Pyramids to be built, don't you think? Especially given that I haven't seen any stone (or marble) on the whole map? As for us I think we're done with wonders, at least any time soon, given that there are 4 Industrious civs on the map. Do you know who it was that founded Judaism? It just showed up as "in a distant land" for us but I don't know if it was luddite (who we haven't met) or if just meant that we don't know about the actual city where it was founded?
Anyway, just checking in - hope to hear from you soon
Hm. This SleepingMoogle situation is getting pretty interesting. It might be a good idea to hold off on any "walls of text" for the time being. I'm not suggesting we ignore him, but I don't think we should say anything substantive or try to fix anything in any setting other than a live chat. It seems like these messages are doing nothing but aggravating him further.
What's your plan for pacifying him? It seems like a lot of his vitriol stems from a perceived betrayal on our part. Maybe some kind of apology would help here? We can try to emphasize that this is a misunderstanding of how binding your past conversations with him have been. Which, after all, it is, isn't it? He seems very irate, and I think some verbal concession would do more to calm him down than pointing out to him that we've already beaten him to the wonder.
By the way, how confident are you really that we can beat him to the wonder? If we can't reach an amicable agreement with him, do you think it would be worth it to build it anyways, from a diplomatic standpoint? Long term, I think that someone who feels that they have a legitimate grudge against us could do a lot to hurt us, even just by coloring the other teams' perceptions of us.
I think I agree with you there, a chat will accomplish a lot more than a wall of text can. In fact it's quite possible the walls of text are having the opposite effect that we want, aggravating rather than fixing the situation. If only he'd just get online and make himself available, we could avoid all of this. It makes diplomacy so much trickier when you can't talk one-on-one in real time with someone.
Offering an apology for the misunderstanding seems like a reasonable idea. Technically I think he's the one more responsible for the error since I didn't interpret things that were never said nor go off my head about them, but details like that aren't important and are only going to further aggravate things. I'll have a think about other methods by which we might be able to make him see some reason.
I'm pretty confident he couldn't beat us if we went all-out for the wonder. However, it's important not to lose perspective (as SleepingMoogle seems to be doing right now). Doing a mad rush towards the Hanging Gardens with only 5-6 cities hurts you more than it helps you, especially if you're whipping 3+ population in the process. If only we can talk some sense into him... we'll see, I guess.
Quick diversion to a domestic matter. Do we send this Worker along with the Settler to the Pig-Gold site (to immediately start hooking up the Pigs when the city is founded), or should he road the way to the city first? I'm pretty sure we'll want to hook up the Pigs as soon as possible, and the delay of a road connection shouldn't matter as we'll have Sailing when this city's founded. Just thought I'd put it out there though for something new to talk about, considering I haven't been posting much on domestic matters lately.
Definitely move the worker with the settler. Building that long of a road is going to be a monumental waste of time. I'm more wondering why you're settling such a distant city, but the gold and pigs do warrant it.
DMOC Wrote:Definitely move the worker with the settler. Building that long of a road is going to be a monumental waste of time.
Yeah, I figured as much. Thanks for the input.
It does leave us slightly more vulnerable to attack for a small time, but I seriously doubt either Nakor or Plako will break their NAP's over this. (Plako shouldn't anyway, as that city was a condition of our NAP. And Nakor should have other things to worry about than breaking a NAP to wage a wasteful war he can't win.)
DMOC Wrote:I'm more wondering why you're settling such a distant city, but the gold and pigs do warrant it.
The maintenance drag will be a bit of a burden initially, yeah, but the Gold kind of makes up for it. The thing is, if I leave that spot around much longer it's going to get snapped up by someone else. I figure it's better to take the temporary minor economic drain and secure a good southern border, than to end up with Nakor (or possibly Plako) chewing up the land down there and causing Felidae to be at or near our southern boundary. That wouldn't be good.
I'm #1 in GNP at the moment anyway (fluctuating turn by turn but definitely remaining in the top 3), so I figure I can afford the small hit for a greater long-term reward.
Received another message from SleepingMoogle, no change.
Lord Parkin,
If you felt there was a personal attack in my previous message, then I apologize because that was not the intent. Perhaps the comparison was not quite perfect, but I hope the idea behind it makes sense at least.
Anyway, chat is unfortunately tricky for me as during working days I'm limited to a small window during the evening (this will probably be morning hours for you right?), but honestly our discussion is at a deadlock and I don't see any real possibilities of progress either way. You're confident you'll build the gardens and so am I. I'm not quite certain what you would have to offer to persuade me to drop the wonder to you, but your suggestions so far are pitifully short of the mark.
The main problem I have with all of this right now isn't even that you are going for the wonder, but rather they way in which you're doing it. Even if your decision to switch to the Gardens wasn't made until after the Pyramids was finished, then certainly it has been a plan B for a while. A plan B that you neglected to mention to me until you told me you were taking the Gardens.
And there's another major annoyance: You're both cocksure and arrogant in your negotiations. In all the suggestions you made so far to work this out, not one includes you giving up on the wonder and that suggests to me you never even entertained the thought. Instead, you asserted you were taking the wonder and there's nothing I can do about it, and you offer consolation prices that we both know don't even come close to the value of the Gardens, along with threats that I'd just be wasting hammers if I'm persisting in this.
If I'm to take a guess, between the two of us you're the one who's worried about losing the race. If I was having any doubts, I would have been doing exactly what you're doing now: offering concessions to try and make you drop out of the race. But I am confident, so there really is no need for me to do that. Again, I would suggest to you to switch your aims elsewhere. If you're that sure the Great Wall is an awesome wonder on this map, then perhaps you should go for it instead.
-SleepingMoogle
PS. I'm not quite sure where I'm badmouthing or backstabbing you, but that accusation seems to be quite far off the mark as well. No offense taken though. :-)
However, I did manage a chat with him a few hours ago, which proved a little more successful. I went for the angle of laying out in plain sight exactly what would be gained and lost by rushing the Hanging Gardens. Because the truth is, it's a huge waste for him regardless of whether he gets the wonder if he continues with this rush.
me: (...) I thought I'd point out exactly what the HG offers and doesn't offer if it's rushed. You have five cities at the moment, right? Perhaps able to found six before your expected date of the Gardens, maybe seven at a stretch?
I'm presuming a rush will require whipping at least 3 population (if not more), because you know you're in a competition
So that means a sacrifice of 3 population to gain 5-7 population
Each population point is worth 30 hammers through Slavery, right? (Most will have to be whipped almost right away due to the low happiness cap.)
So you have a net gain of 2-4 pop, i.e. 60-120 hammers, in return for an investment of 300 hammers.
Essentially, rushing out the Hanging Gardens would mean that you'd be paying 180-240 hammers to gain the equivalent of a (poor) single health resource.
Because you have a net loss of 180-240 hammers even accounting for the extra pop
So when I said you end up losing by rushing the HG, I really did mean it
He questioned why we didn't have the same problem, so I explained.
SleepingMoogle: I could probably ask you the same question. :-) Is the wonder worth so much to you that you'd rush it at 6 cities? me: I'll have more than 6 cities upon completing the wonder.
(...) It's also a poor deal for me, but not nearly as poor. I at least get some turns of use out of the extra pop thanks to my Charismatic trait. Plus I'll have a stronger baseline of cities at the start.
(...) In my case, it's touch and go whether it's worth it. In your case, it's a definite (and considerable) loss by rushing the wonder.
(...) I agree that the HG is decent in the right circumstances, but I don't see how you're doing yourself any favours by putting yourself in a lose-lose situation (even if you get the wonder, it's not worth the cost)
After a bit more chatting, SleepingMoogle pretty much got to the point that I'd suspected all along - emotions rather than logic were the main factor here. He essentially agreed that he wasn't going to get anything out of building the Gardens, and that "pride" was the only remaining reason he wouldn't switch.
SleepingMoogle: Alright, you have listed a number of reasons for me not to go after the wonder.
(...) getting the gardens is something of a matter of pride for me now. :-)
I asked him if there was anything we might be able to do to make giving up the Gardens more appealing, and he said "possibly". Still not great, and still unlikely anything will be sorted out, but at least it's improvement from the previous position. We'll see what (if anything) happens.
I really do hope he sees some sense. Honestly, rushing out the Hanging Gardens at the fastest possible speed will be a waste for him regardless of whether he gets the wonder or not. However, if he prefers to act emotionally rather than logically, there's not much I can do to convince him to let us settle more cities before we build it. He has an opportunity to get a very favourable deal out of us for essentially doing nothing - I wonder if he'll take it.
Good to see that you managed to find SleepingMoogle in chat. Relations seem quite a bit warmer now. Even his initial message, which, I'm assuming, you received before the chat, is considerably less confrontational. It's interesting that he's admitted that getting the wonder is now a point of pride.
That aside, though, he does have some good points that we can learn from, I think.
1. He is correct that we have kept the HG as a "plan B" without telling him. Of course, from our perspective, we never committed to not contesting him for the wonder, but clearly he did not and does not agree. I think we should be very careful about making our diplomatic positions explicit with all players, and with him in particular. Maybe setting up some type of NAP-like agreement with regard to wonders to differentiate between casual talk and diplomatic commitments? I think getting him to understand that we mark a distinction between the two is more important than getting the HG itself. This episode really goes to show how easily mis-communications can happen, and how we really shouldn't make any assumptions the attitudes of other players.
2. I think he raises a valid point in calling some of our messages arrogant and cocksure. I hope you won't take this criticism personally, Lord Parkin, since the majority of what you've said to him is very reasoned and clear. However, I do notice certain passages that could certainly be interpreted as overbearing from his perspective.
For example, in your first message:
"Just to be clear - as it seems you may have forgotten - our primary build date for the Hanging Gardens really is a no-contest. We're already ahead of you in that race, and if you force our hand (as you seem to be trying to do), you will not beat us and will only hurt yourselves by trying."
Now, all of this may be perfectly true, at least from our perspective. But from his, I think we offend him in this single sentence in 3 ways.
1. We insult his intelligence by suggesting that he's lost sight/forgotten the facts in the span of a few paragraphs.
2. We insist that he has no hope of winning the wonder in a straight race, thereby implicitly disrespecting his empire's strength, and by extension his empire-building skills.
3. We inform him that his current decisions are incorrect and "will only hurt [him]". Now, this might be true, but if we were in his position I doubt we would appreciate Plako coming in and matter-of-factly letting us know what was in our best interests.
This section, also from your first message, has essentially the same issues.
"The Hanging Gardens isn't a particularly useful wonder to you anyway, especially with so few cities. I still don't understand why you don't see that. What's the point in sacrificing everything for a failed attempt at a wonder that won't do much for you anyway?"
Also, he's right that we never considered letting him have the wonder. By not even entertaining the idea we effectively stop treating him as an equal. I think our insistence that we could take what we wanted regardless of what he did, and that his best course of action would be to salvage whatever deal he could get, indicated a lack of respect on our part. Given his admission that building the wonder is a point of pride, I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that this was the largest contributor towards the recent souring of relations between our two factions.
Parkin, if any of this is useful to you, or if something I've said is unclear, let me know. I can go into more detail or explain some of my criticisms.
Finally, maybe this is just me, but I've found that more often than not emoticons just come across as disingenuous or even condescending. Am I alone here?
If anyone (Parkin, Irgy, assorted lurkers) disagrees with any point I've made, or how I've made it please let me know. I don't pretend to be a master of tact or diplomacy. I'm just trying to look at all of his from Moogle's eyes, and to figure out what we can do differently in the future. After all, his hostile reaction caught us (well, maybe not you, Irgy) off guard.
Anyways, it seems like whatever apology you made or whatever you said to him, Parkin, did a lot of good. Hopefully we can move on and forget this misunderstanding.
I completely agree with Senseless's long post (I don't completely agree about emoticons though, I think it depends entirely on how you use them). Personally I wouldn't call it a misunderstanding so much as an unfortunate excess of understanding on SleepingMoogle's part Possibly a little off target at times, but pretty good considering the lack of information he has and the variety of subtle misdirection in what you've told him (yes it's basically almost the truth, but that's the most effective sort of misdirection really isn't it?).
Sounds to me like you're well on the way to charming your way through it though like you usually do. He'll be apologising for stubbonly outracing you to your wonder soon I'm sure.
![[Image: Pig-GoldDecision-1.jpg]](http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l323/LordParkin/Realms%20Beyond%20Pitboss%204/Pig-GoldDecision-1.jpg)
