No giving up stone until our other source is online or wonders are built. They can have the stone as soon as they hook it up.
If we accept lopsided trades as proposed, would expect a NAP length long enough to exceed the expected length of the game. Not sure if t175 effectively does this or not.
Otherwise Novice's list looks reasonable. With the clarification that 'get' means gift, cancel-able if surplus is lost. Adding a 10-20t rolling nap after t175 may be a good idea as well.
CFC can help us improve the stone. At the very least they can road it before borders expand. I think maybe they can quarry it too post border expansion with OB?
We can expand the borders quickly using the mish from FF, as long as our 90% spread at ST succeeds first.
Yep. Let them have the stone so long as it's a surplus. And if they want to advance the timetable of Stone being connected, then they temporarily gift us workers.
If they want Stone now? Nope, sorry, we have plans for it. But we're happy to gift it long term. And in return, we'll want temporary gifts of marble, with say 10 turns notice.
That is a done deal in my eyes. I wouldn't even quibble very much; I'm happy to trade an excess stone and an excess spices more or less permanently in exchange for 75 turns of protected peace. By T175, I believe we'll be in a such a strong position than only a large dogpile of teams will be able to take us down, and we've seen how not effective that tends to be in this game.
scooter, we will need our own stone resource until T106 according to our micro plan. We will not be connecting the second stone resource at Starfall for some time yet, not until roughly T110, so we'll definitely be giving away our only source for some time. It might be easier to get their diplo guy into a chat and spell out the things that we want, namely access to their marble at a later date (we don't need the happiness stuff that they have), an agreement that friends don't engage in spy stuff against one another, and a few more turns of stone on our end. But the key thing for me is that we definitely want to agree to this deal. It's a godsend for our larger strategic goals.
Please don't insist on them gifting us 3 gold/turn as part of the deal.
Echoing Sullla that this is a done deal. However, I would engage in a friendly negotiation. For example, I would ask for help to hook up stone in the form of them lending us a worker, I would also ask them to gift us their first luxury surplus resource that we don't have whenever they get one. FWIW, I interpreted their request for stone not to be immediate. So, in summary, I would start a message along the lines of "great, our team agrees with your terms, here are a couple of minor things that we'd like to suggest".
Chat with CFC Wrote:scooter: hey Caledorn, you got a few minutes? Caledorn Yeah, no problem I'm playing DOTA2, but just a practice match against bots. If I don't respond immediately it's because I'm fightimg something scooter: ok no problem! I'll just type away, you can just respond whenever you get moments Caledorn Perfect scooter: overall our team is pretty receptive to your full offer. we do have one or two comments/questions
we're definitely willing to gift surplus spice/stone throughout the NAP. the only glitch is the second stone is roughly 10T away from being hooked
and from the language of your message its sounds as if you're asking us to gift you stone immediately, regardless of when the stone on your border gets hooked. i'm not sure if that is possible right now... is that an issue to you if we wait until the surplus is hooked? Caledorn Hm. That may actually be outside my jurisdiction to respond to without team approval, so I can't really respond quickly on that one :/
However, I should be able to get a response pretty quickly (10-20 hours) scooter: Ah yeah I understand.
ok great!
that was the only potentially signfiicant glitch, but other than that we are happy with the deal
one other question
let me check a map first to make sure i have this straight, heh Caledorn Usually I have a great deal of leeway with what to respond, but this is a pretty important deal for both our teams, so I'd better not overstep my bounds with the team
And shoot scooter: my understanding is you guys either have a marble under your control or you have one nearby. if at all possible we'd like to make a short-term trade for that in the future if we could line it up for a 10T window that you don't need it
it's hard to give a specific date on that one obviously as I'm sort of talking loosely - it was just something a few teammates pointed out... it's just really useful for building stuff like national epic whenever we get to Lit
and I'm sure you guys will have to discuss that as well Caledorn I am sure that can be arranged at some point yes, but indeed you are correct that I need team approval on that one as well scooter: Yep! understood. we actually will have our own source of wine pretty soon so we probably wouldn't trade for that, but some sort of short-term marble trade in the future would be wonderful if it can be worked out
so anyways, whenever you hear about the stone thing just drop me a line. I will be around a little bit tomorrow, but you may not catch me. no rush! Caledorn Sounds great I will let you know as soon as I have a team response tomorrow scooter: great! also so you know - if the stone need is very pressing to you and you have a spare worker, you could help hook it and that could speed it up by a couple turns. obviously that would not be necessary, but just know that it's an option if you're in a rush to use the stone
but we're partially having to wait for Starfall's borders to pop so we can even improve it Caledorn That's an option too yes, so I'm sure the team will take that into consideration too. scooter: sounds great. thanks!
In short, he's going to have to check with his team on both of these things. FWIW, this is pretty consistent with my impression of his involvement in his team's decision-making, so I would not read into that too much. This is more or less what I expected.
Ok, draft to WPC. Here's their original message for reference:
WPC Wrote:Hello scooter,
Sorry for the late reply. I was a little swamped with experiments at the university.
We are very pleased that you see our plan in a positive light.
Actually, I thought about the possible 3rd party involvement that might mess up our plans.
(and I realized that I should have written it in the initial proposal about 5 minutes after I had sent it.)
So, we understand that aspect very well.
How about we just add to the list that "If either of our teams get involved in conflict or have to deal with some 3rd party threat, the turn 150 plan can be put on hold or cancelled if necessary"?
Naturally we should consult each other if such event happens, and I believe that both of us would understand the changed circumstances.
So, with that kind of clause, can you "put your name" on the dotted line?
It would be a kind of pinky swear to walk the path to the turn 150 plan provided nothing happens that puts our nations at risk.
So, with that idea in the air... lets go on to your questions.
1)
Our clever builders with freakishly enlarged craniums have made some further calculations.
We think that we can provide at least 5 catapults at YOUR disposal at that point. This number may increase... perhaps.
More units could be provided steadily in the following turns.
2)
We have a complete knowledge of the terrain in their core, so planning for protected attack routes through i.e. hills will not be a problem. As for cities, they have one at the shore of the lake between our and German lands. Their capital is 6 tiles west from that. I think they have at least one city even west that you should see also. To the north they had 2 cities some turns ago, but I believe it will increase with at least one more before turn 150.
3) They have a single copper resource next to the city by the lake (NW tile from the city). That is actually quite vulnerable location and could be taken out quickly. They probably have a horse resource further in west that we were not able to locate.
Looking forward to your reply.
Again... Feel free to ask any questions.
Draft:
Draft to WPC Wrote:Tatu,
Our team is agreed on all points and ready to move forward with the plans. We have been hard at work trying to wrap up one of the two necessary NAP extensions that will allow us to be fully into this, and we're hopeful the other can be taken care of soon too. Also, thank you for your answers to all your questions! That was very helpful.
We've been talking about the catapult issue, and we wanted to suggest an idea. We were thinking it might be better if you keep your catapults, and we turn this into a true two-prong attack. We'll have Construction and catapults before T150 for our own personal protection anyways, so it won't be too much hassle to have our own. This will save you a lot of hassle in discreetly getting them to our land. If you think you can get together a credible force of your own, we can coordinate with you to make sure we both hit the German team at the same time. That should make it extremely hard for them to reinforce against either of our attacks. Do you think this is a realistic plan for you? We're very open to discussion on this of course!
Also, I have a suggestion to tighten our agreement. Can we mutually agree that any potential peace deal with the German team must include the approval of both your team and ours? If the German team wishes to negotiate, we would be agreeing that they must negotiate with both of us together as one entity. Ideally we would completely wipe them out and not have to worry about this of course.
Thanks!
scooter - Team RB
I'm a little tired and about to call it a night, so I expect there will be a couple errors in this draft, and I also am confident you guys will find them.
I'm playing DOTA2, but just a practice match against bots. If I don't respond immediately it's because I'm fightimg something