Trading techs in Simultaneous game (PBW)

[Dragonlord]

OK all, I have a question again. It's pretty confusing.

It seems to me that in Sim movement games, it takes 2 turns for Messages/trades to go back and forth rather than the 1-turn immediate response you get from the AI in solo play. Right?

Here's the thing. In my current PBW game, both myself and my neighbor are newbie human players. We have a T&R alliance and wish to trade tech, one of mine for one of his. Can't say which techs right now since other players in that game might read this post too
We have sent *general* Messages back and forth agreeing to the trade. We are now in
turn 9.

Here it gets confusing.

On turn 6, I sent him the proposed trade message (actual trade message, not general) with some accompanying text. I expected that he would receive this message on turn 7, accept it, and by turn 8 we would both have the other player's tech. To my disappointment, on turn 8 I received nothing from him. So, I re-proposed the trade (sent a new trade message) and sent him an email saying he should accept the trade in turn 9, so we'd have the benefits on turn 10.

I just loaded turn 9, and see that HE has *also* sent me an almost identical trade proposal on HIS turn 8. The weird thing is, in stead of a straight tech-for-tech deal he is now asking me for my tech PLUS the Comm channel of a race that I have NOT met yet. Since the name of the race is given I assume HE has met this race, so why ask me for the comm channel?

As best I can figure, the way out of this:
On my turn 9 I ignore his trade proposal. I will email him telling him to accept my straight tech-for-tech deal on HIS turn 9, so hopefully tomorrow (turn 10) all will finally be as we intended it.

I'm worried because I think I read a thread somewhere about identical trade Messages canceling each other out...is/was this tru and if so how did that occur and is it fixed in 1.41 ?

Hope anyone can shed some light...


[This message has been edited by Dragonlord (edited 27 June 2001).]