RB PBEM #2 - Justinian (SPOILERS!)

[Dreylin]

Starting the trading merry-go-round with my neighbour:

Hey Sitting Bull,

Congrats on landing Alphabet; now the real fun starts with trying to arrange all the tech trades!

I am going to be relying heavily on you to be a middle-man for me over the next few turns; I have found no way of making contact to my East, only dead-ends. Your Warrior is closing in on the NE extreme, and though I have "border-jumped" to a new landmass SE of Constantinople, that has proven to have no onwards connections either. I see that once The Oval pops borders you will have similar access, so that may tie back down into Krill & Darrell; but that is one-way access as well, so all my contacts will have to be made past you to the West, and I'm a bit behind on that. I have a Galley now exploring round an island NE of the Ivory and hoping it will make a connection down to Ruff.

Anyway, to sum up; I will need to trade via you to get techs from the others.

My best guess for CoL is that it's due t60, so I'm going to start finalising trades with yourself and others. I note that you don't have Mysticism yet and will need it to pick up before grabbing later religious techs; I'm happy to front this to you immediately either for a small credit later, or simply as a "brokerage fee" to be my middle-man going forward.

I would like to trade CoL to you for Currency rather than Alphabet, though I realise that I would be waiting a while to receive your part of that deal. Perhaps my fronting CoL and Mysticism to you will offset the beaker difference between the two techs?

I'll also be contacting the others and trying to finalise trades now that I have a firm ETA for CoL; I'll pass on any info I get on their tech ETAs.


Oh, final thing; I've just started the build on my first Missionary, due to complete in a couple of turns. If you are still OK with our previous agreement regarding my settling the Copper site, I will dispatch him down to you ASAP. It would be useful if you could station a unit North of The Oval to make certain there are no Barbs in the region - I can see through the Desert, but the plains forest hill is still fogged from my side.

Cheers,

Dreylinian I.

[Dreylin]

And the problematic guy next:

Hey de Krill,

So I'm here to talk details ... if you're still interested in trading with me? 9-)

First though, there is a wrinkle; I have fully mapped to my East and there is no link through, it's all dead ends. There is a landmass South of SL, but that'll take his border expansion to galley-jump, and so he'll be the only one who can use it to make contacts. So we are going to meet to your East and my West (once we've been through everyone else). I have a boat on the way, but since SL has only just met Darrell, it'll have a long way to go.

Fortunately, with full tech trading enabled, we can still trade via the intermediate teams ... provided we have already given one of them the techs. So my question for you is: have you lined up trades with SL & Ruff (whom I should meet soon enough) for all of your available techs, or is there a sub-set that would not be available immediately?

Regards,

Dreylinian I.

[Dreylin]

Yaz next:

Hey Yaz,

So I now have a firm-ish ETA for CoL of t60; do you have one for Monarchy yet?

I don't think we'll have met by then, but SL will have CoL the turn after it's complete, and I imagine you have a deal with him already for Monarchy. I've already primed him to act as middle-man for me, since my exploration has been somewhat lacking.

There is a ~50b difference between the research costs in my favour; do you have any other small techs that would be available for trade (I'm trying to get a line on Poly if you've got it), or shall we leave it as a credit until the next deal (or Currency allows us cash deals)?

Cheers,

Dreylinian I.

[Dreylin]

Finally, Ruff:

Hey Luff,

My ETA for CoL is firming up now at ~t60, and it seemed a good time to get in touch and talk trades. Judging from what I know of the world from SL, I should have a boat reaching your borders around that time so we'd be able to make the trade right away - depending on your ETAs, of course.

I'd like to swing a deal with you for both Aesthetics & Literature if possible, and am prepared to agreed to no-trade and no-build clauses as required. I also have most of the first two rows of tech available to trade to make up the difference, or can give beaker / cash credits as necessary.

Let me know what you think,

Dreylinian I.

Yes, I'm aware that I haven't contacted Darrell yet, but based on his previous message his Maths ETA is a few turns behind mine, and I want to find out more about what techs I can pick up from the others before finalising which additional tech(s) I pick up from him.

[Dreylin]

SL's onboard:

Hey Dreylinian,

I think the "real fun" hurts my head but lets go for it!

I am happy to act as a middle man for you however, I am getting Myst from Darrell in a staged trade for some techs down the religious line however, I appreciate the offer to front me the tech. I will happily enter into a Currency - CoL trade and am happy to waive the beaker difference if you are to front me CoL before I send you Currency. On the subject of a brokerage fee - I would say Priesthood in a few turns time? That tech is going to be very cheap considering the 100% bonus for known civs (2 at least). Does that sound reasonable? Of course Ruff will be able to do the same job but I'm not sure that he has so many trades lined up.

You should be able to tell from the map I sent a few turns ago where ruff's lands are in relation to the Ivory island.

I have just completed a scout who will be heading to the island near The Oval you mentioned but he will be waiting on a galley to complete and so will fog bust the area between our lands - I have a dog soldier to munch on that warrior who killed your scout but rather irritatingly, might leave The Oval unhappy for a turn to do so... hey ho - better than being pillaged.

Cheers,
Sitting Bull of the Native Americans

Sitting Bull,

That all sounds good to me; CoL-Currency confirmed (both with no-trade, I assume?) and I'll send you Priesthood as soon as you've got the pre-req. BTW, I still need to pick up Poly myself, where are you getting that from?

Missionary will be on his way soon; I'll confirm when he's on the way.

Dreylinian I.

[Dreylin]

Sounds like I'll be able to nails down a deal with Ruff as well.

Greetings Dreylinian I,

I should be finishing Aesthetics pre T60 and I am interested in a trade of Aesth (300) and Lit (200) for Code of Laws (349). I would require a iron clad no trade clause on both of these techs as well as a no build clause on The Great Library. Further, the Lit trade might be delayed as I have an agreement not to trade it for a few turns after I finish it. I am missing some early religious technologies as well as Animal Hus and Masonry. I would be interested in a trade for them. I have archery and Sailing that you might not have.

BTW - have you lined up a trade for Alphabet?

I would also be interested in Open Borders.

Regards,

Luff_Hi of Japan

The no-trade on Lit is a bit odd; I'm guessing that someone is after a head-start on researching Music and is using that as a lever to give Ruff a better deal? The only other reason I can think of would be to get your HE out fast and then pound troops into a neighbour ... but since I have no unit with more than 3xp, it doesn't seem likely that anyone other than Ruff or Yaz has a unit approaching 10xp to enable HE.

Luff,

No, I've not lined up an Alphabet trade yet - since I'm not going to have met many (anyone?) for the first round of trades I'll be using SL as a broker. If you're picking it up though, that shouldn't be a problem.

This is close on pure beakers:

Aesth (300) + Lit (200) + Archery (60) = 560

CoL (350) + AH (100) + Myst (50) + Med (80) = 580

I don't have any problem with the no trade & no build clauses you mentioned, but would require a no trade from my side on CoL & Med. How much delay are you expecting to be tacked onto Lit, and what's that delay worth in terms of our trade?

Regards,

Dreylinian I.

Knowing about Darrell's plan to bulb CS, I've been thinking about alternative paths for my next research, and Drama is pretty high on my list for Hippodromes ... maybe I can rush through that and get a lead on Music myself, eh?

[Dreylin]

Chatting with Yaz to iron out a deal:

yazilliclick: Hey Dreylin

me: hi

yazilliclick: I don't have Poly, went meditation instead as it was cheaper of the two.

me: Fair enough

yazilliclick: I've got everything else in first two rows except archery though
So if there's anything there that interests you then let me know

me: Masonry maybe?

yazilliclick: Yup that's a possibility. I can't recall beaker counts but I'm sure nothing works out quite equal so then you may owe me a couple or something but no big deal

me: I think Masonry's 80
so that's 30 back in the other direction I think
what's your ETA on Monarchy?

yazilliclick: Not 100%, just settling 3rd city and switching tiles to coins next turn but it's a ways out still. Probably 10T maybe 11T Might be able to speed it up a bit but need to take a turn to get some coin saved as well to push it.
Was expecting to have save by now so I could check heh

me: Well, how about I front you CoL for Masonry
and you get Monarchy to me when you finish
and we call the beaker difference cancelled out?

yazilliclick: Works for me
Now back to writting up my turn 50 summary. Exciting stuff :P

me: heh, cool

Excellent, now to see if I can cut a deal with Darrell....

[Dreylin]

Proposal sent to Darrell:

Hey Darrell,

So SL has finished Alpha & I have an ETA on CoL now: ~t60

How does Maths & Mono for CoL sound to you; will you want a chit for the extra 20b?

Cheers,

Dreylinian I.

[Rowain]

Nice deals. Looks like not beeing on the tech-trading early on didn't really hurt you.

[Dreylin]

Spanner in the works for the Ruff trade; if neither of us are planning to pick up Alpha, and Ruff doesn't want to trade with SL, then our trade may be problematic to execute....

Dreylinian I,

Those trades sound just right. I am prepared to waive the 20 beakers if you remember that I did. I will follow up with the team requesting the Lit delay and let you know. At the moment, I am thinking of not trading for Alphabet and I haven't got a deal in place with SL that covers any tech. Do you know anyone else that we can use as a broker?

Ruff

PS: I am playing another pbem game as your civ and my name is 'Ruffian I'.

Ruff,

Hmmmm, that could be a problem since I haven't actually met anyone other than SL yet. The next easiest facilitator I can think of would be Yaz; if you guys have Open Borders and he could get a unit to your NE in the next half-dozen turns then I could possibly meet him at the same time I sight you, and I believe he has an Alphabet/Monarchy trade already set up with SL. I know Darrell's on his way East, but I think he's a bit far off - and further South - to be around in time.

Regards,

Dreylin.

This solution is also excellent for me, since I'd get to meet Yaz all that sooner myself.