06-03-2003 09:42									#1
	News Flash: Lux is Dead. Enter the AD-FREE zone

I just got the following from BetaHound:

quote: Hi Nathan. You may have read it already, but Vox Controli made a decision this evening to take back Portia, thus eliminating Lux Invicta. We can talk at greater length later, but right now I am kind of worn out. It was not a decision we took lightly, but the situation was indeed becoming untenable for us. Trip and Lux were quite a handful, and a number of things were not playing out well in the international arena, courtesy of them. I am somewhat saddened by it. It is only a game, but it is unfortunate for one team to exit so early. Ah - the value of diplomacy. If it had worked, it would have been interesting to see if they could have come back. You should also know that the decision was unanimous at our end. There is an announcement in the public forum. That will be our only public comment on the matter. We have some fence-mending to be done, and I will need to talk to you further about the GoW and map making situation. A couple of other things - I was able to get philosophy down another turn through some tweaking and prioritizing - now 2 turns remaining. And any thoughts on what we should plan on reseraching next. We should compare notes about what the other civs are doing. And oh yes - RolePlay offered us literature this turn. We need to discuss both RP and GoW and how we keep them from getting wind of, and getting upset with, our trading relationship. We have not mentioned philosophy to anyone at this point in time. Regards - from a sombre Beta.

	06-03-2003 09:58									#2
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Holy crap!

So is the deed done yet, or is Vox moving their troops into place now? I'm assuming Lux did not have any defense, and Vox just walked in. Is this correct?


Dominae

	06-03-2003 10:23									#3
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ACK! That means no BOB minimap or full map...

(is it legal to allow refugees from Portia to flee south with their Maps?)

	06-03-2003 10:30									#4
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson ACK! That means no BOB minimap or full map... (is it legal to allow refugees from Portia to flee south with their Maps?)

They couldn't have waited three ****ing turns? (or however long til we got mm)

Jesus

	06-03-2003 10:31									#5
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Portia was undefended when we took our last turn, and had a Voxian spearman next to it. Vox's turn is before Lux's. (Or, more correctly, was before Lux's.) I wonder whether Vox thought to grab Lux's newly built worker with their warrior before reclaiming the city.

	06-03-2003 10:33									#6
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Portia was undefended when we took our last turn, and had a Voxian spearman next to it. Vox's turn is before Lux's. (Or, more correctly, was before Lux's.) I wonder whether Vox thought to grab Lux's newly built worker with their warrior before reclaiming the city.

knowing vox, my guess would be no.

	06-03-2003 10:37									#7
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Trip tried to be much too clever for his own good. I suspected this might happen when Trip was wailing about how hard done by Lux was... after Vox threw them the life line, they were ungrateful at the price of the rescue.

Ces't le vie. One of the Euros may feel free to correct my butchered French.

	06-03-2003 10:53									#8
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The question now is, are we going to take in any of its members?

I see on the main page that Ixnay is looking for a new team, I think that he would be a decent addition, and I would be that he has all the lux maps saved. (is that legal?)

	06-03-2003 11:01									#9
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btw, I reviewed the Lux member list. Some of them may wish to join other teams...

Apocalypse would be OK. Although, I don't think I've seen him around at all lately. He is not a big Civ3 personage. He has been around the boards for a long time though.

BigFurryMonster. He would be welcome in my book. Very dedicated and has some talent as evidenced in the ISDG.

ixnay. Again, not a big Civ3 person, but a vet of this site and welcome here as far as I am concerned.

punkbass2000 and Trip... punkbass I am familiar with from the C3DG. He would be OK. Trip... is Trip. A very dynamic person and someone who could add some spice to GS, assuming he wants to join another team that is. I would want to know more about what others think about either of these two.

All this assuming that we want to take on any new members, that is. I assume that some will knock so we should address this.

	06-03-2003 11:14									#10
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One potential bit of awkwardness is that any Lux members we let join us will get an inside view of our communications with Vox regarding Lux's survival. We need to make sure we don't let in anyone who won't be able to handle the situation in a mature manner - especially since they will be privy to a good bit of other confidential Storm material.

Nathan

	06-03-2003 11:18									#11
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Agreed. They must be warned and must agree that the past is the past and that GS claims their loyalty now.

That being said, I think the record in this forum would show how far we tried to go out of our way to accomodate Lux, even when conditions were being changed on us, and as a Warrior stood passive and did not strike the blow that Vox finally did.

	06-03-2003 11:28									#12
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Knowing their record, I would be hesitant to bring in one of their ambassadors.....

What kind of time table are we looking at here? If we are going to offer someone admittance, should we do it in the next day or so, so that we can have our pick? I think we need to get one member, if just to get information.

How will this work?

We offer, he agrees to the conditions. He exits lux. enters Gs. He can't be a member of two teams simultaneously, can he?

Are there rules about downloading some of the information from the lux forum via the new member (taken before he switches officially?)

	06-03-2003 11:34									#13
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I second the suggestion to welcome or petition for BigFurryMonster; his talent is evidenced by his contribution in the IDSG. Trip himself can be a handful, but he has good game-sense and thinks outside of the box. Both would be assets to our team (and, like the Great Library, would be useful to get as denial to the other teams).


Dominae

	06-03-2003 12:11									#14
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I don't mind any of them joining, though I don't know any of them very well. I think we have a sufficiently strong foundation established to keep the focus that has been set for the team regardless.

	06-03-2003 14:02									#15
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I guess someone can untop the Lux contact log. It's not like we'll have any pressing need for it now.

	06-03-2003 14:23									#16
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Gosh, all this crap tells me one:

Let's get rid of Vox ASAP

With such unpredictable decisions they are a security risk for us.

I would agree to take 2 or 3 Lux members (Trip, BFM and ixnay maybe), but not the whole bunch.

	06-03-2003 15:30									#17
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Yes, I think that Trip, BFM, ixnay and maybe Apoc would be good additions to the team.

Trip, although unpredictable at times , would make us stronger I think .... although he's VERY used to being the leader and I can't see him dominating our team ... it's questionable how much of a 'team player' he is .... hmmm ... I dunno, other people know him better than I do.
BFM has a proven track record of knowledge of the game and putting the work into getting things done.
I don't know how much ixnay knows about Civ3, but he's certainly a nice guy and it'd be good to have him on the team.

Our team is good enough and big enough already I think .... we should only consider taking the cream of the crop from Lux, but you all know that anyway.

	06-03-2003 15:32									#18
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Oh, and I also agree with Sir Raplh that Vox are dangerous and volatile. As soon as they become more useful to us dead than alive (which might not be too far away now?) then we should strike.

We've already got a few barracks online .... are we going to wait until a mass-upgrade of Knights with Leo's Workshop before attacking? Or do we want to go with an Ancient Age attack?

	06-03-2003 16:10									#19
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Wow, shocking news indeed...

Regarding accepting members of Lux: I'm not entirely sure about this... sure, some of them could contribute a lot to our team, but I'd rather wait for some other teams to accept members of Lux and see how well they fare. Maybe it's just paranoia, but I'd rather not let GS become the first test subject for member transplants...
Regarding Vox: great. Now we can't get Lux's map of Bob or any minimaps of it, nor can we get a second free initial mid-ages tech. The least we deserve from Vox is a good explanation.

Why do you guys think Vox did this anyway? The only possibility that I see here is that Lux decided that it was no use to continue in their state and threatened to go kamikaze and raze Portia and thus take some revenge on Vox for blackmailing them. In that case, Vox did the right thing by salvaging whatever they could.

Btw, have we passed the 20 gold to Lux yet? IIRC I read that we were still waiting for some sort of a clarification from Lux before sending the gold, but in case we already have, we should demand it back from Vox, that got Lux's gold when they retook Portia.

	06-03-2003 16:16									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Shiber I'd rather wait for some other teams to accept members of Lux and see how well they fare.

Fair enough, but I think there are only 3 or 4 members of Lux that we would want to recruit (if any) and they'll be at the top of most people's lists.

If we want to recruit any of Lux's members we should contact them a.s.a.p, otherwise all the best ones will be gone.

	06-03-2003 16:23									#21
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If Lux hadn't behaved so unpredictably, I don't think Vox would have. This situation certainly doesn't help my confidence in Vox as a completely stable and reliable ally, but what ultimately got Lux killed was that they were working at cross purposes to Vox's and making themselves inconvenient in the process.

We and Vox created a plan that would have let Lux live. Instead of following that plan, Lux struck out on its own, eventually pushing things to a point where GoW viewed Vox as Lux's puppetmaster. (What ever happened to the idea of Lux's laying low and keeping their presence on our continent a secret?) That situation not only gave the impression of Lux as unreliable and opportunistic, with little regard to what its actions might cost Vox, but also apparently made Lux's continued existence a serious diplomatic liability for Vox. So it's not terribly difficult for me to understand why Vox did what they did.

Nathan

	06-03-2003 16:36									#22
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Vox not waiting for a map is very unfortunate , to say the least...
(Could we still ask for a scrrenshot of Bob? Hey, we had good intentions with Lux )

Taking on members (with a history) is something else. Hmm, a lot of beans are going to be spilled which ever way it/they go(es), and we certainly can't take all of them.

re: my gut feeling is to to take them out asap, but's let's wait at least until we get their free tech.

As NYE said; C'est la vie....

	06-03-2003 16:54									#23
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quote: Originally posted by FrustratedPoet If we want to recruit any of Lux's members we should contact them a.s.a.p, otherwise all the best ones will be gone.

IMHO it's better to miss out on a few opportunities for getting some additional good members to our team than to do something that we'd regret later. That's just an opinion, and if the rest of the team wants to invite several members of Lux, I won't stand in your way.

Btw, I won't mind if we contact ixnay right now and tell him that he's welcome. He seems like an honest and modest person.

	06-03-2003 17:00									#24
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I tend to agree with you Shiber, taking on one or two seems fine and even preferable (getting a few facts staight will give us a better overall picture), but I wouldn't be comfartable with taking on too many.

Ixy

	06-03-2003 17:04									#25
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Regarding Luxians for our team, I'd say let it run its way without doing anything. If they come asking, we could accept a limited number. If not, fine, we don't need them. And what concerns Trip, well, he's either a team player or a non player in GS.

	06-03-2003 17:04									#26
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I've posted an informal poll about inviting any ex-Lux members in another thread. We can hammer out the details there and leave this thread for discussion of the in-game situation.

	06-03-2003 20:17									#27
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Well, in the long run, all Vox did was weaken themselves.

I think that Sir Ralph is right. We need prep time, though, so no war will be possible for a while.

But we should start working on an offensive force. Let's have the barracks towns start pumping out vet warriors for swordsman upgrades (5-6 of them?) and then start building WC's and a few spears.

-Arrian

	06-03-2003 20:24									#28
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Given my repeated neglect of ambassadorial duties towards Lux, I'm sort of glad they're gone. Can I be an Economist now?


Dominae

	06-03-2003 20:26									#29
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By the way, what in the HELL was Trip, et al. thinking?

-Arrian

	06-03-2003 20:28									#30
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Lux were wildly overplaying their hand, it seems. They were in no position to make demands of anybody - least of all Vox who they owed big time for saving their asses.