Flying Colors

[Misotu]

Good news! And although we have only sea at one end of our position, there is some land still at the other end. So things are looking pretty good over here too.

Still quiet - but it really does look as if Miriam is stuck on a teeny island with no boats and no formers. What a pity   

[thedarkestcolors]

Or she had an evolution debate with the University and they chose a practical demonstration to prove their point.

Oh dear.... this year brought quite an unexpected surprise. Good of course... to some extent, but quite devastating as well. But more on that later, new plans need to be made.

[Misotu]

 

Well whaddya know ... huge map, acres of land and ocean and the map generator places the only two human-controlled factions next door to each other on the same bit of land.

Gotta love SMAC.

Lucky we're such good mates, eh? 

So we got to the in-game diplomacy quite quickly. Few things worth knowing:

1.   You can either send an offer and leave your status as "negotiating" or you can do what people call "pre-accepting", which means that you put in your offer and click the accept button immediately. This is particularly useful for things like pacts and treaties, which are always 2-way so if the other player also accepts it's fine. It's also useful for sending a technology urgently. You have to take care with this when you are receiving a pre-accepted offer, because doing something other than clicking "accept" will change the other player's status to "negotiating", which means you have to wait another turn to get whatever it is they are offering. Can be very annoying if you muck up accepting a tech you're just about to research yourself!

2.   If you simply type a message in but don't make an offer, the other player may miss your message altogether because the screen doesn't always (ever?) pop up unless there's an actual offer of some sort. Some people tackle this by sending a private message through the board to say that in-game diplomacy has been sent. I usually simply offer something harmless - as far as I know offering 0 energy will do the trick.

3.  In-game messages increase the game file size dramatically over time so it's best to keep them to a minimum really, esp. in a 2-player game like this where we don't need the confidentiality!

Anyway, I have accepted your offer of a Pact (of course) and would be most interested in a bit of tech trading too, if you are so minded Friend Chairman 

[thedarkestcolors]

You seem to be a magnet for those kind of constellations Though a land-Mass I still have to see in this map

Really lucky! Otherwise I'd be toast, with only claimed land and ocean all around.
Thanks for the info about the in-game-dipl. Looking forward to some tech. trading. I wasn't sure if I can do pact and tech. trading at the same time so I did only the pact.
Are maps not traded automatically like when you do a pact with an Ai? We can keep Communication in here.

So Biogenetics sounds good for me.

[Misotu]

Maps are not traded automatically in MP, even when pacted, so we need to do a map exchange soon.

Biogen for Doc Loyalty is a good for us and I have sent you this accepted. Once you've accepted that trade you might consider offering your map - I'll send you mine. It's not ... ahem ... extensive.

You can offer tech and/or pact and/or treaty and/or energy and/or map simultaneously - the system is quite flexible.

Well, no chance of us being toast now. The AI's days are seriously limited - their only hope is distance from us 

[thedarkestcolors]

After reading the points on dipl. again, the maps would have been a trade I should have send with negotiating (rather then accept) status right?
Very true, Santiago is not among the lucky ones when it comes to distance ;)

[Misotu]

I've accepted your map and sent you mine by return. Oh dear. Bit unfortunately. What would you say to letting me take that base when it reaches pop 2 in exchange for some tech, Friend Chairman?

We do, of course, have a relationship of Perfect Trust, but it would just make me feel a teensy bit more comfortable .... 

[thedarkestcolors]

I happen to like that little outpost where it is. Lack of room to settle is among my biggest concerns, so giving up a city would require substantial tech benefits and I doubt you have the tech to make such a trade worthwhile.
That little Embacy on the tiptoe of an appendix of your island is quite out of your way anyways and with all that room to the east to settle there should be no reason to be bothered leaving a few acres of land to my humble settlement. Apart from that I shall leave the rest of your tasty, resource loaded mainland to you.

You are quite lucky that you have Razorbeak Wood where it is, I was going to put my base close to there first, but then thought I'd rather put a barrier to the expansion of Santiago ;)

Meanwhile the "lost" worm showed up and ate my former. Now that will throw me back quite a bit.

[Misotu]

Fair enough, although on the tech front Gaian researchers have just beaten the Uni to Secrets of the Human Brain and grabbed an extra tech 

Otherwise, nothing much is happening ...

[thedarkestcolors]

Hehe I congratulate. My researchers have chosen to discover something totally useless (for the moment at least) instead. Researchers, tzz, just won't listen to the whip.

Here the hunting season has started, hopefully someone can get this little [**a thing that has perfected super suction**] of a worm, before he opens a zoo on ireland (aka my "mainland", the colony to the east has been christened northern ireland and my embassy shall be known as scotland and captain cook has set out to discover australia, but with my luck he will either find death or canada, with Uni playing the frenchies)

[Misotu]

heh. Well needless to say SotHB wasn't exactly our preferred tech so really it just slows down our research rate for getting to the stuff we *do* want. But hey ho. We soldier on ...

[thedarkestcolors]

My scout chickened out of taking on that worm, he claims a fortune teller told him that this is not a good year to take risks, what an idiot. Makes me furious, but what can I do, he is the only one with a weapon anywhere around, got to handle him with kids gloves or I'll end up with riots all over the place.

[Misotu]

Despite your reputation for ruthless autocracy, Chairman, you're really just a bit of an old softie aren't you? 

[thedarkestcolors]

Charming as usual ;)

[Misotu]

My middle name. Lady "Charming" Misotu