13-02-2004 19:52									#63
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Ok, I figure Lego's FP is east of Quanto Mechanico.

Taking that out would be huge. Perhaps too huge? Hmm.

LZ1: QM88 (Sandonorico12). This puts our forces in the best spot to hut for that FP I think is inside. It's farther away from us, though, and we're more likely to be sighted.

LZ2: Forkmouth4. We could probably waste Forkmouth, with is a size12, so it's worth something.

LZ3: PanamaVox22. Best defensive landing terrain (mountain). Not much in the way of juicy targets, though.

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 19:53									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian They need to start the invasion ASAP. We can always lag behind and land later. If GoW & ND land in the northeast around Lego's major wonder cities, we might just be able to land in the southwest and take a shot at Lego's likely FP location. That does carry a certain appeal. But this business about them needing us, and expecting us to field forces equivalent to their own (MZ said 30/30/30 for Cav, right?) is silly. -Arrian

good idea. we could land 2-3 turns after GoW/ND. Probably 90% lego forces move to support leaving the west a bit exposed. We spy and lego pleads for our help in the meanwhile. Personally speaking, lego begging us for help would be very satisfying. And by waiting 2-3 turns, we would have more of a guarantee that its an actual war this time. I think GoW would go for it, if we play up the espionage angle and the longer transit time across the sea. One tricky aspect is that we could only have saltpeter for one turn, as otherwise lego would suspect something was up. We would have to get mil trad. within what, the next 6 turns? Obviously we can't go without cavs.

	13-02-2004 19:55									#65
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither OK. Let me know if you need me.

we always need you, sniff sniff

	13-02-2004 20:01									#66
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian You posted our limitations yourself: we have 2 galleys in the east, 5 turns from a harbor. In the short term, we cannot assist. In the medium term, if we strain, we might be able to drop off ~5 galleon loads of troops (20 units, say 8 musket, 12 cav). ... They need to start the invasion ASAP. We can always lag behind and land later. .... But this business about them needing us, and expecting us to field forces equivalent to their own (MZ said 30/30/30 for Cav, right?) is silly. -Arrian

Agreed. MZ said 'medium term' and 'token force'. This we could achieve, especially with ND gold. In fact, with Ironclads in 10 turns we could maybe use them for Galleon cover.

We need ND/GoW to get on with it asap, and Magnetism could be important, unless they've been building a lot of galleys.

So we could offer :

1. NIA (Non-Intervention-Agreeement) keeping GS off Bob for the duration of 'Operation Unblock' - whose war aims (damaging but not destroying Lego) would be part of the deal.

2. Intelligence provision (city investigation) for early stages of the war duing official GS neutrality period.

3. Stormian Expeditionary force (~20 units plus sea support) to arrive in Lego's south-west later in the conflict, not sooner than ~ T191

At some point we needed anyway to build a modern navy (ironclads) for future defense, and at some point we'd need to spend gold upgrading our pikes to inf. We might as well also get some value from our fast-movers.

	13-02-2004 20:03									#67
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel good idea. we could land 2-3 turns after GoW/ND. Probably 90% lego forces move to support leaving the west a bit exposed. We spy and lego pleads for our help in the meanwhile. Personally speaking, lego begging us for help would be very satisfying. And by waiting 2-3 turns, we would have more of a guarantee that its an actual war this time. I think GoW would go for it, if we play up the espionage angle and the longer transit time across the sea. One tricky aspect is that we could only have saltpeter for one turn, as otherwise lego would suspect something was up. We would have to get mil trad. within what, the next 6 turns? Obviously we can't go without cavs.

GoW or ND would have to send us SP accepted on their turn, then we accept it, upgrade, and immediately declare war to void the deals, and send peace accepted. This will screw up our happiness for a turn - add that to the economic impact. On ND/GoW's turn, they accept peace and send luxuries accepted. On our turn, we accept luxuries and send ours back, again accepted. Then everyone's back to normal.

Here's the thing: even if we pull it off right and Lego never sees us having SP, all they need to do is listen to their F4 advisor tell them that the "best unit the Gathering Storm has is Cavalry!"

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 20:06									#68
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quote: Personally speaking, lego begging us for help would be very satisfying.

	13-02-2004 20:06									#69
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian Here's the thing: even if we pull it off right and Lego never sees us having SP, all they need to do is listen to their F4 advisor tell them that the "best unit the Gathering Storm has is Cavalry!" -Arrian

Good point. And that would be a tad more suspicious

How can we get it without drawing suspicion.

I remember Lego once offered us SP, but we can't give them anything other than a lux, which we would then have to break the deal, though we could do a sp for 2 turns, lux for 5, maybe they would go for that.

	13-02-2004 20:08									#70
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Anybody hear from Theseus lately?

	13-02-2004 20:10									#71
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Agreed. MZ said 'medium term' and 'token force'. This we could achieve, especially with ND gold. In fact, with Ironclads in 10 turns we could maybe use them for Galleon cover. We need ND/GoW to get on with it asap, and Magnetism could be important, unless they've been building a lot of galleys. So we could offer : 1. NIA (Non-Intervention-Agreeement) keeping GS off Bob for the duration of 'Operation Unblock' - whose war aims (damaging but not destroying Lego) would be part of the deal. 2. Intelligence provision (city investigation) for early stages of the war duing official GS neutrality period. 3. Stormian Expeditionary force (~20 units plus sea support) to arrive in Lego's south-west later in the conflict, not sooner than ~ T191 At some point we needed anyway to build a modern navy (ironclads) for future defense, and at some point we'd need to spend gold upgrading our pikes to inf. We might as well also get some value from our fast-movers.

1. Fine, though "damage but not destroy" has its own problems.

2.

3. Maybe. I'd rather we start out saying the team is against military involvement, but we're happy to assist in other ways. If we DO get involved militarily, I'd like to actually gain something. This conflicts with #1 - leaving Lego alive.

Oh, I wish I knew where the coal was! And the rubber! And the oil!

As for a modern navy... I'm wary of spending lots of production power on Ironclads. They do not upgrade, IIRC, to destroyers. Then again, maybe that's ok... I'm not sure. I haven't paid attention to industrial age naval units in a while...

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 20:12									#72
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Lego won't see an SP trade, only a trade line which already exists. I'd imagine the assault to be well underway before we get SP. If they then start reinforcing their west it just weakens their first front, and we are doing our job.

We could play PsyOps, though. We only have to upgrade ONE knight and get a leak to Lego to look at their F3 advisor, see that Cav and they might start weakening their front line. We might not even have to turn up.

	13-02-2004 20:12									#73
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel Anybody hear from Theseus lately?

No, I haven't. He must be really busy IRL.

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 20:13									#74
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel Anybody hear from Theseus lately?

He popped in a few days ago. I PM'd him today.

	13-02-2004 20:17									#75
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Lego won't see an SP trade, only a trade line which already exists. I'd imagine the assault to be well underway before we get SP. If they then start reinforcing their west it just weakens their first front, and we are doing our job. We could play PsyOps, though. We only have to upgrade ONE knight and get a leak to Lego to look at their F3 advisor, see that Cav and they might start weakening their front line. We might not even have to turn up.

F4, oddly enough. I don't know why, but it's the main foreign affairs advisor who tells you what a civ's best unit is.

PsyOps is interesting, but do we really want to go through all the necessary hoops to do it (I'm thinking of the faux war vs. ND or GoW necessary to break the SP trade, and the subsequent turn of lost luxuries)?

Also, bear in mind that if we don't go along for the ride militarily, we have ZERO need for Military Tradition. If we do go along, I guarantee you GoW is going to try and trade us MT for ToG... which in my eyes is a ridiculous trade. We do not need MT, unless we do what GoW wants, so we serve them doubly. That irritates me.

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 20:18									#76
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We've been offered land on Lego. Aggie said that if we got a leader we could build a Palace there.

It wouldn't surprise my if some in GoW fancy seeing a 2 power world. GoW on Bob, GS on Stormia and Legoland - in a huge crazy showdown.

Seriously though, in the chat I said we'd be doubtful of our capacity to defend any holdings on Lego - but it might give us a chance of resources.

What if we have no coal? There'd be some on Legoland for us, I expect.

	13-02-2004 20:23									#77
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quote: Also, bear in mind that if we don't go along for the ride militarily, we have ZERO need for Military Tradition. If we do go along, I guarantee you GoW is going to try and trade us MT for ToG... which in my eyes is a ridiculous trade. We do not need MT, unless we do what GoW wants, so we serve them doubly. That irritates me.

The war serves us too. Our expenses would be marginal compared to the others, (they land first and take the initial counter-blow) and a reduction of Legonian power is a handsome prize.

If Legoland ended up with Lego in the south, in their second, but smaller & less developed core, with the north split btw GoW and ND and us, it's a wonderfully unstable position that leaves us with the least to loose. ND & GoW have each other to worry about, right.

And we need GoW to research Medicine, and they won't have the cash for ToG.

{edit} quote and last para added.

	13-02-2004 20:26									#78
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Why do we need to break the SP trade? ND have about four. Faux wars are messy, we don't want to lose our lux.

	13-02-2004 20:32									#79
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why don't we try to get mil trad+SP out of ND for Magnetism . still unbalanced based on need, but at least then we don't have ToG on the market.

	13-02-2004 20:33									#80
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We'd need to break the SP trade because otherwise Lego would see that we had a source of SP from somewhere, which might alert them.

Regarding them knowing from F4 about our cavalry - does the advisor give you info about the best unit, or just the best one seen? I'd imagine the former, but with the F4 comment that "the best unit (that we know about) is" makes me wonder if you're not guaranteed up to date information.

	13-02-2004 20:36									#81
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I would swear that I've been given outdated information from that advisor, the last unit seen afield rather than overall best unit. should be easy enough to check, but does the same rule apply to pbem as sp?

	13-02-2004 20:37									#82
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That's possible, Sleepy. I don't tend to pay attention to the idiot advisors anyway...

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 20:44									#83
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who knows anymore, not me, i don't pay attention to him either. Does lego? I don't know.

	13-02-2004 20:49									#84
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do we honestly believe that GWND (hmm, very similar to pwnd) will stop with mere destruction of the largest lego cities? I've gotta think that once lego is broken, gwnd will keep at it til they're erased, otherwise ww for probably rest of the game. I wouldn't be suprised if gwnd destroyed our troops on legoland after lego is gone.

I wouldn't be suprised if this was part of the whole ND/GoW rp agreement as well, ND takes RP land, GoW takes Legoland. What did CH say? Whe will we see Gow own half of bob?

	13-02-2004 20:53									#85
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Exactly. when MZ said "we'll share out the land" I had to bite my tongue because Zayxus was there, albeit quiet. (It must be difficult for him to follow at times.)

	13-02-2004 21:01									#86
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Remember. Lego will be in a GA and have strong local production from (initially) two cores. If they have a few dozen Muskets GoW-ND will have to pay to cut those down. GoW have Leo's, but logistics and low production compared to Lego.

If GoW-ND made massive gains fast, we can say "whoa, you're doing fine". If not we turn up and try to tip the balance.

If Lego did fall completely, the Bobians might want to declare victory, or they might want to settle matters on Bob first, which suits us. They cannot fight each other, threaten us, and defend Bob and Lego from us.

	13-02-2004 21:02									#87
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maybe we should ask them if they intend to resettle the land.

clearly we are not satisfied with carving out 3 portions, regardless of equality. They wouldn't go for a limited resettling, would they? say colony cities on the luxuries, resources and nothing else? Or maybe 3 cities each with a DMZ in the middle?

ND won't be the one resettling anyway, regardless of deals, they have a ton of land left on bob (oddly the entire east side, maybe they wanted more launch points at lego on the west?)


by doing this, we are playing into the hands of gwnd, we are providing the deathblow to their greatest threat. But what choice do we have now?

	13-02-2004 21:06									#88
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I reckon GoW's rational list of targets should be :

1. Lego
2. ND
3. GS

ND's rational list of targets should be

1. Lego
2. GoW
3. GS

I see an opening for us, there.

	13-02-2004 21:13									#89
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Don't totally forget Vox, fellas. They're over there. Open up a power vaccum, and you never know...

The idea of moving our palace to Legoland is, IMO, a pipe dream. More than holding land on Bob ever was. As Cort pointed out in the chat, there is just no way we could hold a chunk of Lego.

-Arrian

	13-02-2004 22:10									#90
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You have some good points, but I don't think we have many options. As it is now Lego has the edge and if we are to have much of a shot, we need more land and to take Lego down a few pegs.

Then Bobians will be in a better position, but so will we. It seems to me it is either the three of us vs Lego or the three of them vs us.