10-02-2004 23:09									#31
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Sleepy, don't let him have it. It's not worth it. Better to let that little tidbit from Arnelos fester in V's mind. Traitors! Traitors everywhere! AHHH!



-Arrian

	10-02-2004 23:12									#32
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian Sleepy, don't let him have it. It's not worth it. Better to let that little tidbit from Arnelos fester in V's mind. Traitors! Traitors everywhere! AHHH! -Arrian

echo echo?

restraint is good

Plus he has no idea if it is his team of one of his "allies"

mwahahaha

I wish there was some other piece of obscure evidence we could drop on them, something only one of them knew about.... mix it up.

	11-02-2004 01:52									#33
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It is festering in vondracks mind, alright - see his latest - he's very unhappy about it. If it was just a clumsy blurt-out to a team-mate on another game in a chat, by someone (Sharpe?) who's already left over a chat-indescretion (to us), he could relax. The question is, would he suspect it?

	11-02-2004 02:07									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus It is festering in vondracks mind, alright - see his latest - he's very unhappy about it. If it was just a clumsy blurt-out to a team-mate on another game in a chat, by someone (Sharpe?) who's already left over a chat-indescretion (to us), he could relax. The question is, would he suspect it?

Is this becoming too true-life or what? Here's to hoping Vondrack in a fit of paranoia cracks down in their private forum and gets deposed. funny stuff.

	11-02-2004 05:29									#35
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Back on topic:

I do not favor a grand alliance at all. It is now in our interests to see each of the three major powers at each others throats, in an ever-escalating arms race, while we outbuild Lego.

	11-02-2004 05:42									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus Back on topic: I do not favor a grand alliance at all. It is now in our interests to see each of the three major powers at each others throats, in an ever-escalating arms race, while we outbuild Lego.

I think we all agree on that, at most we would probably agree to embargo lego and agree not to invade GoW through the duration. It looks like we have to be involved somewhat, to get the ball rolling.

	11-02-2004 06:01									#37
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The rolling ball could be a tech deal to lock Lego out. Our priority is to economically weaken Lego - and the first step is to isolate them in Tech. This is essential as they can build Smiths in 7 turns and start a GA. If they trade for late MA tech they can do 4-turn Industrial techs, pick up Vox's freebie, and beat us to the ToE.

On thursday, (see GoW log) there's a chat with GoW and ND to hopefully discuss a possible 3-way deal on industrial tech. We can emphasise the importance of not letting Lego trade for the last few MA techs, if it's not too late, or they can spend their GA on expensive Industrial ones.

	12-02-2004 02:15									#38
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for the chat tomorrow (I'm not sure if i can make it yet) we need to bring up the following issues, IMHO:


lego
-have econ and nav
-can trigger golden age with mag or smith
-sistine perpetual prebuild
-vox free tech looms
-3 way splitting of spying costs to determine lego troop positioning, city builds


need a tech embargo because
-in golden age, the most they could discover is 1 per 4 turns, if they are caught up with us when they reach GA, they will be cranking out a new discovery every 4 turns, and have factories built very soon. Very scary. If they need to spend 8 turns of their golden age merely to catch up to us, so much the better.


Probable nap with GoW/Nd throughout engagement
-if they're worried we'll break it if we don't send more than a handful of units, we need to pursuade them. Of course we have the same concerns. Not a lot of trust. One thing in our favor is that while our actions violated the spirit of the previuos NAP, it was all passive.

we can't commit much, and we can't commit anything without cavs and muskets, so we need saltpeter and mil tradition.

Alternatively we could support via cash instead, using the power of Leo's again to push through, though that would leave GoW in a very strong position post-war.


Goals of conflict with lego
-total elimination?
-cripple them, razing legopolis, jackson, and nearby powerhouse cities
-what to do with vox during and after the war

post lego legoland
-partition it 3 ways?
-leave it de-militarized with perhaps colony cities on the luxuries?


I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting about.

	12-02-2004 02:19									#39
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edit: originally a double post, but new thoughts


depending on the outcome of the chat, we might give GoW a heads up that we will be finishing coperni' faster than they will, so they might want to change the build. Just a friendly helpful note, I think I would be pissed if my friend held out that info on me. Of course, if they stop building cop next turn, no need, but...Also the note would be outside the 3 way chat, so ND wouldn't know about it.



Also RP before stated that tehy would "open the books" for us regarding the Vox war. Perhaps now is the time to at least ask them what role Lego played in that, if any. depending on what info we got, we could use it in our 3-way chat, at least as a throwaway line.

	12-02-2004 03:23									#40
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Yes to the stuff about Lego & tech trades. As for war against Lego, they can mention the subject first if they want to discuss it, but I don't think we should be anything more than 'interested in the idea' and see what they want to say about it.

We are now a passive builder civ, with no plans or capacity for war. That's our position, but we don't want to reveal that at first if we can get them to lay down some cards, real or fake, first.

On Copernicus, that could be a prebuild for something else - ToE, Uni Suff, Intelligence Agency (no, too soon).

I think the main reason for the chat is supposed to be Industrial tech. We say yes to that, because we have to keep Lego out of the loop. I suppose one idea is that we each do one of Nationalism, Steam and Medicine - though we're not so bothered about Nat unless we need Espionage. What we want is Medicine for Steam and Industrialisation for Electricity. 'Trouble is, we don't want to be level when we get Electricity.

	12-02-2004 04:46									#41
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I would agree we should let them drop any war tidbits first. I would not think that they have any expectation of us giving them a heads up on any wonders races we are in.

Has anyone alerted us, for any reason other than to try to get an exclusive? Would it be a problem for us if they did have to eat some shields? If it is a good idea, I would make it very close to the last turn.

	13-02-2004 06:01									#42
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we need to merge this thread with discussion from the tech deal thread.

possible plans for an invasion of lego. estimates are 20 cav 10 muskets +galleons

upgrade cost 1200 gold

my thoughts copied from another thread:

estimated 1200 gold for the upgrades. how much is pike to musket. I'm thinking the primary use for the defense is to eat an attack, which having the same defense and hp, the pikes would go first, so perhaps we wouldn't need to upgrade the pikes, as hopefully we would only receive 10 attacks upon landing.

so if you cut out the pike-musket upgrade you would cut out a huge chunk of that expense. Add that to the 600 ND is possibly giving for physics and we aren't down much, are we?

	13-02-2004 06:25									#43
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Doesn't the Musket have a def of 4 as the pike's 3.

	13-02-2004 06:29									#44
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yes sorry I meant that a pike has the same defense as a cav, but would be the first to be hit when attacked. Meaning that sure, muskets would be more likely to survive, but if they received any damage, the cavs would take the subsequent hits.

am I clear this time?

	13-02-2004 06:51									#45
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Ok, I got it.

	13-02-2004 07:12									#46
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1. A huge assault might kill Lego which is maybe more than we'd have bargained for. Perhaps we could gain a hundred tiles, but we'd need a GL for that to be productive. We couldn't hold it against the others. We'd want a balance of power, including Lego, on that continent, but could it be controlled?

2. We are geared up for civilian builds, especially wonders. The Smiths thread is planning shield and beaker targets trying to co-ordinate Sci Meth, ToE and Hoover. Shield expenditure for the mainly naval builds wouldn't be massive, but it would slow our science down by delaying libs and cost us research time. Switching research off to pay for upgrades doesn't fit with our race for the ToE. However, see (4)

Offsetting this, we can sell techs to ND for cash, and Lego under siege won't be dashing for the ToE. If they aren't prioritising Mil Trad and Nat now, they would have to if attacked.

3. Sea wall. It would be surprising if Lego didn't make a decent job of this, but they they have higher spec units than us, so are 'average' but with less units. If GoW/ND land in the east it'll be harder for Lego to defend the west.

4. ToE : The proposed war might help us get the ToE, if it forces Lego away from Sci Meth. and we control the tech rate with GoW. GoW's research power isn't strong, though. They're flat out now on Mil Trad for probably another 5 turns before they can raise the other 200 they owe us. They might be pushed to get Medicine in the 13 turns we're expecting to do Steam + Elect in.

	13-02-2004 07:25									#47
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5. RP. We'd need our units off their sea wall, and last time we heard from them we were suggesting they build marketplaces. Maybe time for a chat with them.

6. Timing. MZ said "couldn't you get 20-30 units together in the medium term"? We can do medium term much easier than short term. Short term would mess us about. But if they get started, we can turn up later to help if needed.

	13-02-2004 07:25									#48
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I did not mean to say we should eliminate them, but it may be out of our hands. That is why we need a deal that divides the land.

How we can impose and maintain it, is another problem. We would likely have some time to deal with that. I would not expect Bobians to come for us right away. That would be dangerous for them to control. They would have to look over their shoulder. We offer them the chance to keep everyone form each others throats for a time.

I would have to think Lego is contemplating right now, gearing for war. They must have some grave concerns about their future.

If we do go ahead with the tech deal (and I hope we do), they have to realize the danger. They will have to switch to MT or get it some place, unless they are ready tobet it all that an invasion is not coming until tanks.

They do not have the luxury of having their landing zones protected until marines. They do not have the luxury of knowing that their land is not enough to win the game for anyone.

	13-02-2004 07:31									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus 6. Timing. MZ said "couldn't you get 20-30 units together in the medium term"? We can do medium term much easier than short term. Short term would mess us about. But if they get started, we can turn up later to help if needed.

With the cash coming, can we not afford to upgrade to calvs, given the tech and SP?

If an invasion goes off, the tech race is going to go our way and the wonders will probably not get built by Lego or if they are they will be of no use to them.

	13-02-2004 07:36									#50
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BTW what about making some pikes, instead of warriors as replacements? Pikes and become so much more later.

How much longer would it be to build them? How fast would you need replacements if an invasion goes off anyway. I mean it should be pretty safe for a time.

	13-02-2004 08:11									#51
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I would think that we could safely pull our units off the far south and south east wall. One thing we could do is to station our galleons down there a few squares out to give us a heads up if something comes our way.

	13-02-2004 08:20									#52
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How are you feeling about this CH?

I was leaning against military action, but in light of the power of lego, we might not have a choice. Get them now before rails or wait til marines.

And I think this is playing into Gow/ND hands, as eliminating/crippling Lego would get them much closer to victory. If they owned bob and lego, they could declare a joint victory. Perhaps we should inquire about that before any agreement. We don't want them to take half of lego, then gift cities to one or the other and win by domination. Not that I think Zen et al would be satisfied by that, but is a concern.

Ideally of course, lego would be gutted, losing their wonder cities, but have enough units to push off the invaders and recapture all their land, I just don't see how that will happen.

What we could do:
1) land units
2) take a coastal city, withdrawing a handful of survivors to stormia early
3) take second coastal city, withdrawing a few more cavs
etc.

meaning that we would be attacking lego, but we would not be using our full force, instead pulling a few units off each turn. We could claim that we lost more units than we actually did (no one will know the better) giving lego a better shot at driving us off Legoland and thus driving GoW/ND off.

	13-02-2004 08:54									#53
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I don't see GoW and ND doing anything like that. It would be so unsatifactory. They will gamble on out playing each other after whacking Lego and then us.

We almost have no choice but to to go along and make an effort to get land and hold it.

It is either the three of us or the three of them, which do you prefer?

They want us to commit about 30 units to ensure we do not get a free ride. We have to send about that much to try to get land and keep it. When and how to stop the war is the tricky part.

	13-02-2004 14:33									#54
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I say we avoid upgtrading pikes to muskets - the cost is horrendous compared to the cost of upgrading knights to cavalry (20 gold IIRC). As sleepy said, the value of pikes and muskets are very nearly equal as far as the initial offensive is concerned - they would be there to take the first hit and ensure the cavalry are healthy for our offensive. Then we'll need to start getting some riflemen to hold the territory - thankfully resource free, and we get the tech shortly after the attack start from NDs research (although again, upgrade costs are going to be an issue since we can't slow down our tech pace to Sci Method - incidentally, it's very good news that GoW are willing to go with researching Medicine and Industrialisation - although you notice they get the more expensive techs in return for the cheaper ones, with no extra cash - that might flag how much stock we're putting on ToE).

With the extra cash from ND, should we investigate another city or two to try and uncover more of the western lego territory, or investigate a known coastal city to see any sea wall units in its radius.

	13-02-2004 16:29									#55
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel we need to merge this thread with discussion from the tech deal thread.

Yes, but I don't know how we do that. We'll have to juggle, I'll try NYE

	13-02-2004 16:44									#56
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quote: Thread to merge with: Copy the URL of the thread to be merged in the box on the right. Note: all posts from the thread specified in the box to the right will be inserted into their relative positions in the thread 'Current Diplo : RP GA and GoW/ND Tech deals', and the thread specified on the right will be deleted.

Are you sure you want this?

	13-02-2004 16:51									#57
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Hmmm, Maybe merging them would have other problems. Perhaps we can steer discussion or war and tech on their seperate threads. The issues have become intertwined, somewhat.

	13-02-2004 16:53									#58
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For my part, without having read all this, aiding ND to eat Lego directly by weakening ourselves further, would be folly, IF all things were equal.

Unfortunately, Lego long ago decided not to have a build off against us, and chose to place themselves squarely in our tracks.

Hmmm... ND wins or Lego wins....

Frankly, I would choose ND after the stuff Lego has pulled in this game. Unlike some of you, I have a relationship with vondrack, and a great deal of respect for him. However, like you, I want to see him eat the fruits of his labours in this game.

However, know this. A world without Lego is a world where ND wins. Be sure you know what you want before you do it.

	13-02-2004 16:54									#59
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In short form, if we are not to win, we are picking the winner. Make sure we chose wisely, and ensure we extract what we want from the arrangement.

	13-02-2004 16:57									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Hmmm, Maybe merging them would have other problems. Perhaps we can steer discussion or war and tech on their seperate threads. The issues have become intertwined, somewhat.

OK. Let me know if you need me.