31-03-2003 04:04									#1
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"WAR!! (duh duh) What is it good for?

Absolutely noth... Absolutely clearing our continent of the Voxian scum!!

Say it again, now:

WAR!!"

[The above song lyrics contain no derision, arrogance, or unprofessional sentiment... just good ol' fashioned WARMONGERING!!]

Here is my thinking:

The approach to Dissidentville is highly disadvantageous to fastmovers, in that no matter how we attack, there will be an opportunity for an Immortal preemptive counter-attack. Thus, I would certainly prefer Swordsmen (D2) across the mountains (an excellent path would be 88 from Arashi).

Additionally, the iron colony is on a mountain, so, assuming at some point we want to attack it (maybe not), and assuming fortified Spearmen or Immortals, a tough proposition for Horsemen / WCs.

Lastly, I worry about towns built on hills up north, and would want the extra strength of a 3 attack.

Sooo...

I'd like to see a stack of, say, 2 vet and 4 reg Swords and 2 Spears take out D-ville, continuing on to the north 888 to where the road branches.

If we have the capacity, it might be interesting to also present 2 or so WCs 9 from D-ville... if one survived, it could pillage the road to the colony one to two turns earlier (certainly creating a dilemna for Vox).

While this is happening, a few reg Swords and the WCs stay back on defensive, with strong Spearmen encampments at key defensive points, especially 9 from Arashi, and of course in the forward towns, in order to create killzones. It'll be interesting to see what Vox does with any units protecting the colony.

I do NOT, btw, want to pillage the road branch tile, but rather the tile to its east (8899 from D-ville).

Concurrently pump out WCs / Horsemen, and sweep north to the jungle road branch tile... make this our forward encampment, heal up, and destroy any Immortals foolish enough to venture south. When ready, deliver the coup-de-grace, using the oh-so-convenient road to attack 778 over the hills.

BTW, this would mean that we do not have to build the NW-most town next to the iron, but instead 777 from Arashi.

WAR!!

	31-03-2003 04:08									#2
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So... you think Vox is not going to be of any help against Bob, and thus need to be dealt with asap? I'm not saying I don't agree, but I'm absolutely not sure on that.

One thing's for sure: if Vox does not give us a reason to keep them around now that we will get MT, they would be better gone.

DeepO

	31-03-2003 04:14									#3
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO So... you think Vox is not going to be of any help against Bob, and thus need to be dealt with asap? I'm not saying I don't agree, but I'm absolutely not sure on that. One thing's for sure: if Vox does not give us a reason to keep them around now that we will get MT, they would be better gone. DeepO

Sure, they can do the famous Settler Flanking Maneuver, last attempted by Joe Comicus of the Blitheringians...

Never heard of Joe Comicus?

Never heard of the Blitheringians?

Hmmm...






J/K

	31-03-2003 04:20									#4
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that's not what I meant, if they settle a city, they will divert attention to whatever we could do at the same time on bob... no matter if they will lose it again in 3 turns, at least Bobian forces would be drawn to Vox, instead of to us

DeepO

	31-03-2003 04:29									#5
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So far away...

	31-03-2003 06:16									#6
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so apparently Vox is going to invade Bob for the second time? I hope they have one ally over there at least, as otherwise they will get slaughtered by all three. Maybe GoW is only temporarily holding onto East Wittlich in order to cool the situation whilst preparing for a two front attack on ND?

What about a marine action to take Elipolis on the second turn of the war. That way we wouldn't need to cut the road. I think it would be better to take the isthmus early, else it would be difficult to take. We could, I think, hide a couple galleys on the eastern side of the island which could insert units one square north of Elipolis, thus isolating their entire southern territory.

I would love to see insertions in the north, would cause much chaos, but I think we need more intel on their territory. Anyway we could tell them we are reconning Bob, but travelling along Vox coast?

	31-03-2003 20:28									#7
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel I would love to see insertions in the north, would cause much chaos, but I think we need more intel on their territory. Anyway we could tell them we are reconning Bob, but travelling along Vox coast?

I'd rather not lie to them straight in the face. Let's not tell them what the mission of our galleys is; if they don't ask - good, whereas if they do, we don't have to respond immediately and Vox would most likely not suspect us, thinking that we are merely on our way to reconning Bob... by the time they find out, a diplomatic message will not be necessary.

Btw, do you think it will be wise to open a thread in the public forum as soon as Vox gets the turn in which they can see us landing? It certainly won't be pretty, but it's better than letting Vox open their own "We were attacked by treacherous GS! Let them burn!!" thread.

	31-03-2003 21:07									#8
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Shiber, I'm not sure how we would need to handle it, but in any declaration of war, we should prepare for a propaganda war on the public forum. Screenshots, perhaps, but at least a thread in which we explain our reasons (or whatever can serve as an excuse of a reason).

However, if we want to play honorably, we will declare war before actually moving a unit into their territory. I'm thinking of even needing to disband Grog, or at least not move him the first turn, because otherwise it may be interpreted as a cheap trick, and used against us.

Actually, that might be a good way to start a 'we declared war to the Voxians' thread: show two screenies of Grog, first sitting on his mountain inbetween Voxian cities, next one where he dies by suicide, in the name of honor. I'm certain FP or anyone else with a good writer's pen could come up with a nice story on how it was necessary to sacrifice our first born (even before the advent of tanks). Nobody wanted to do it, but we were forced, and thus our first act of war would be to kill our own if we wanted to keep our honor clean. Grog, the Kamikaze warrior.

DeepO

	31-03-2003 22:16									#9
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Oh boy- i just love war plan threads...

I trust the tacticians to make battle plans- and economists to provide the support, the Diplo school will have to deal with propaganda though, and this is part of the warplans as well:

Any thoughts on our casus belli?
A Voxian invasion to Bob might be part of one- the instable nature of Vox, and the dangers of a counter-offensive into our territory made us decide it's our best course of action...
Vox's lack of cooperation in regard to our technology trading relations (about to happen, probably) and no consultation whatsoever on matters that endanger the continent safety- like the handling of the Luxian affair, and their repeated attempts at Bob, was more than a sign- it won't be too long until the Voxian could have turned their resetless Immortals at our direction...

Any further posturing of honor and dignity is also important, but we need some serious arguments as well, although i don't think our image would be hurt that bad- they're Vox- the Bobians don't really like them, GoW really suffered in their attempts to negotiate with them, so why would probably get some credit from them. Lego, OTOH, might prove a problem, if Vox manages to represent this as a backstab.

	31-03-2003 22:25									#10
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quote: Originally posted by zeit Lego, OTOH, might prove a problem, if Vox manages to represent this as a backstab.

Good thinking. Perhaps we can immune them from Vox's counter-propaganda by giving them an early warning; they'd certainly appreciate the gesture, and might see Vox's attacks on our integrity, which are sure to come following the declaration of war, in a different light.

Edit: it could also be worth mentioning that Vox always got the best deals from us, yet they refused to cooperate.

	31-03-2003 22:37									#11
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Certainly we need to get Lego on our side before starting a war, but in case of Vox, this might not be such a problem. They know already they're annoying to us, while most of the Bobians outright hate them. Further, their comments on Vox going for Bob again as "why do they keep trying?" don't show much sympathy for them either...

Casus Belli: why not be blunt about it, and say it was the most likely target.
- 1st reason: we're cramped for space. We have to expand somewhere, so if Bob want us to expand onto Bob instead of taking our whole continent, they should say so. Instead, we chose the territory closest to us, and most easily defendable after the war

- 2nd reason: Vox are unstable, and thus a risk for our safety. The last incursions on Bob were also bad for our diplomatic standing with the rest of the world, and if Bob would have invaded Vox, we would have one more enemy presence to deal with.

- 3rd reason: any incursion we might think of, any reason like 'we like you guys, we thought we could help', anything at all could work. We could talk about stalling deals, not wanting to listen to diplo advice (Lux, 'invasion of Bob') and thus harming us indirectly. We could even say: Oh, we thuoght they were going to attack, as they were massing up forces. So we took them out first.

etc.

DeepO

	01-04-2003 01:15									#12
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quote: I'm thinking of even needing to disband Grog

NEVER! GROG LIVES!

Anyway... I'm not sold on war just yet. However, if it's to be done, we need a mix of sword and WC. Preferably, however, I would like to go in with Knights. We know Vox has upgraded some Immortals, so they will do bad things to a slowmover stack (and a fastmover stack in jungle/forest/hills). Therefore, I'd want a few spearmen or pikemen for cover - to eat up the Immortal attacks. They would need to be vets.

We don't have those troops, do we? Nope.

I propose this: the Spartan Academy comes up with a couple of different "Orders of Battle" for an invasion of Vox. These are presented to the economists (think of it as procurement requests) and they let us know how long each OoB would take to assemble... and how much damage each would do to other plans.

The first OoB can be Theseus' suggestion.

My suggestion would be a force of 4 swords (upgraded... meaning some regular, some vet, right?), 4 pikemen and 12 Knights (upgrades from horse or WC). Obviously, we wouldn't have time to plunk down Leo's for the upgrade, so full price on those knights.

Second suggestion might be a larger force, with us taking a shot at Leos. That would involve waiting quite a bit, but using a larger force. Something like 8 pikemen + 20-25 knights. At that point, screw regular swords. If we have some vet warriors, fine, otherwise, go straight knights. Either upgraded or built.

Keep this in mind - removing Vox will have 3 main benifits: 1) wiping out an unpredictable, unstable neighbor with a nasty attack UU; 2) gaining us some land. Note that the land in question isn't all that great; and 3) giving us complete control of our continent, and removing the possibility of attack via Vox's lands (either by Vox or via a Bobian civ that used a RoP w/Vox or conquered Vox and moved on us).

Removing Vox will also cost us: 1) units lost in combat. Never assume a war will be easy; 2) The production/gold required to send those units into combat with enough numbers/quality to win; 3) diplomatic goodwill from other civs, maybe.

The biggest reason I see to go in would be benifit #3: control of our continent. The Bobian civs stand a pretty good chance (barring some sort of quagmire war) of eventually outstripping our economic output. But owning our own landmass would force any would-be agressors to invade us, and I'm reasonably certain that we could make life VERY difficult for any such "visitors."

-Arrian

	01-04-2003 03:37									#13
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I suggest that no one speak a word of anything to any other teams prior to us having the save on the invasion turn.

We can hold it for 24 hours while the diplomats chat and prepare the groundwork. Then it will not be a surprise to anyone important. and we will be able to place our own spin on the event.

Anything said to any other team must be assumed to be known by Vox within 4 hours or less of it being said. Do not give them, or anyone else, any time to prepare during their own turns.

	01-04-2003 20:57									#14
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I agree nye, with one exception: if we would get into a 'alliance' with Lego, we have to warn them in front that something is happening, without precising what it would be.

In case of a war, I fully agree we need the 24 hours, not for war planning, but for diplo contacts. We'll need them.

As to propaganda: we can prepare many of these things in advance, so we shuld do so.

DeepO

	03-04-2003 18:32									#15
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I think we should seriously debate whether or not we're going to wage war on Vox in the near future or not. After that we'll get into exactly when and how exactly. We also have a thread for the military buildup, which is obviously influenced by answer to the question: "are we going to go to war in the near future?, but has life of it's own- 'cause we need to build some sort army anyway.


Now, do we want to wage war on Vox in the near future (sometime around our GA) or not?

I personally think we should, we should strike while they're still strongly antagonized by Bob. Vox is currently making preparations (or so they said) for a return to Bob, after they consolidate themselves there, or, more likely kicked out again, one of two things may happen: Vox turns to us with their Immortals, or the Bobian take their chance at Vox, possibly even at us- viewing us as unable to take care of Vox, and indirectly supporting it. With the boost we'd get from the Pyramids and our GA, the army necessary to get the job done will can be raised in relatively small effort.

Please give your own answers to the question.

	03-04-2003 19:04									#16
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My view is that we should bide our time and look for targets weakened by warfare elsewhere. That could mean Vox if they get weakened fighting the Bobians, or it could mean a Bobian civ if the Bobians start fighting each other (conceivably with Vox on one side or the other).

Nathan

	03-04-2003 21:27									#17
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I agree that we would probably wait until Vox has taken some of its forces to Bob. But going to war shouldn't be that opportunistic IMO- we need to prepare for it, make sure our forces are ready in time.
In this regard: i think Vox's Iron should be our first target- i also don't think we should wait for Vox to build a serious force- with their not-so bad naval capacity (2 galleys right now) they could ship those back, because they have little to lose. Striking as soon as we're ready to take their Iron, hold the Isthmus and make sure our homeland stays safe is the time to attack Vox.

	03-04-2003 21:33									#18
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Intuitively, I would say we take on Vox first, and because we can be reasonably sure we will conquer them if we are in a GA, and can end that war shortly after our GA in the midst of acquiring knights; we should have enough resources and time to then turn our eye towards Bob.

If we would go for Bob first, Vox stays another factor we have to take care of (either by defending against them, or by making sure they join the invasion), and this in itself troubles me. I would rather get Vox's influence out of the picture, it would make our game easier.

However, withtout Vox, we don't have the possibility of backup either. Finding someone willing to divert attention from Bob becomes a lot harder, unless we can get GoW in on the action. So that certainly is a disadvantage we have to take care of: do we really expect to grow so big from taking Vox that we can take on 2 teams at once without support?

Three more things to keep in mind:
1. Purely economically speaking, Vox's land isn't that great. And in order to make it work, we need to move our palace, or build the FP closer to them eventually. So how would we be doing that, and wouldn't it be easier to take e.g. RPs land, and move our palace there?
2. We still have diplomatic things to resolve with Vox before we can go to war. Our situation is dubious at best, are we confident we can adequately resolve that without a large diplo-hit?
3. Very soon, our cities will start to grow, and we will have no room left to peacefully expand to. Either way, we can't wait long with going to war for ground, or we lose possible growth potential with cities bumping into the size 12 limit. So if we don't declare war to Vox, who can we attack, or where can we settle fast enough for us, not to lose pop-momentum?

BTW exploring galleys should become more of a priority in our plans, if only to see what kind of islands are out there. Maybe there is quite a bit of land left to peacefully expand too, and we simply don't see it.

DeepO

	03-04-2003 22:15									#19
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There are 161 tiles up to the bottleneck. Vox claims a 6x4 landmass above there, which makes 185 total tiles on our landmass.

On a standard map there are 100*100/2 = 5000 tiles overall. The water level is 70%, which gives a remarkably consistant 73%. That means 1350 land tiles. Coastal tiles vary quite a bit from map to map, so I'll just ignore them for right now. Just keep in mind we have probably the highest coastal to land tile ratio continent. Lego might be close in that regard.

Our continent, with it's 185 land tiles, comprises 13.7% of the entire landmass on this map. There are 4 other civs to divide up the remaining 86.3%, giving each of them 21.575%... If we and Vox co-exist on this landmass, at most we will have 1/3rd the landmass of any of the other civs.

	03-04-2003 22:18									#20
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I'll just add that I don't think Vox's land above the bottleneck is that small, probably closer to 40-50 tiles, but it still leaves us both on the short end of the stick.

	03-04-2003 22:31									#21
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I had some sort of plan in my head- just a plan, but it still makes sense.

We take on Vox- eliminating a potential threat, securing the entire continent, with the obvious benefits (Vox's land isn't so great, but up untill the isthmus there's some pretty good real estate- some grassland and even more after we've taken care of the jungle- which we have the capability to do). Towards the end of the war, or perhaps already at the start of, we sign secret NAP's with GoW and NDE- we have reasons to believe GoW will be quite willing to do so. After that's done, RP is politicaly and geographically isolated- it is less of a threat. If we find an island- good for us, we take advantage of our situation and safely develop it. If we want, we take the war to Bob- with raids or full scale invasion in RP's territory. We could further increase our involvement by aiding GoW or NDE in an attack against RP (most likely NDE) while promising to divide the land and promise those not involved we won't get near their territory.

It's just an idea, but i think taking out Vox out of the equation will make our life much easier, and might pave our way towards domination- siding with Vox is our only other chance- and i tend to dislike that prospect . A real military alliance with Vox will ruin most of our chances of keeping the Bobians from uniting when we land troops on their territory. Lego joining along might be a bit too much to consider right now- but maybe if they know the scale of forces involved, they'll be convinced to send their boys in as well.

As for clearing the issues with Vox- we could arrange something- we don't need to lie- they have ignored us, and we'll let them know it's over in our perspective, and that any further deal should be negotiated speprately. After that the only thing left is the border-treaty, hardly something to wave with. That kind of treaty cannot be interpreted as life-long NAP, war will be officialy and honorably declared, no deceit or backstabbing.

	03-04-2003 23:01									#22
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zeit, your PM box is full. Please clear it out so that I may SPAM YOU!! Just kidding...I'm just trying to answer your PM.

	04-04-2003 00:44									#23
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Crap, the border treaty. I didn't think about that. I can see that being used by Vox to try and blacken our name if we attack them. Then again, they haven't played a very smooth diplomatic game, so we should still be able to outmanuever them on that front.

By the way, how do people feel about Dissidentville (or whatever we may choose to rename it) as a FP location?

-Arrian

	04-04-2003 01:14									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson Vox claims a 6x4 landmass above there

Actually, I'm not sure how they interpreted that, their land may be bigger then thought. IIRC they said something like 'Nowhere does it get wider then 6 tiles, and it's roughly 4 tiles high'. If you would check what we already settled, you'd see that at most, our continent is 6 tiles wide, and if you count the distance from Typhoon to Arashi, it's 8 tiles.
It's reasonable to assume that Vox's pensinsula is about half the size of what we have within our cultural borders.

Because a tile is not square, but diamond shape, double the number of tiles exist then what you expect. So, Vox's part would be 48 tiles, not 24...
It's only a marginable difference, of course, as we still need land if we want to keep growing at the same rate as others.

DeepO

	04-04-2003 01:30									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian By the way, how do people feel about Dissidentville (or whatever we may choose to rename it) as a FP location?

I'd like to see Vox's peninsula first. If it's just a load of desert and plains then perhaps it would be wiser to position the FP a little south of Dissidentville (Arashi perhaps) so it would favor the currently viewable (read: grassland-ish) part of our continent over the cities in Vox's peninsula (assuming of course that we place our FP while keeping in mind that we may would want to relocate our palace to Bob later on).

	04-04-2003 02:08									#26
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Maybe, Shiber. But then again, I've been thinking about the difficulties sure to be involved in getting a foothold - let alone really putting roots down - on BoB.

Unless the Bobians get into a really nasty war, and one or more of them is willing to agree to our joining in, it is difficult to forsee capturing, holding, and developing territory over there.

On the other hand, with ownership of our own (admittedly mediocre) continent, we could go turtle (militarily speaking) and win peacefully.

I'm not after Ultimate Power in this game. Just win, baby!

-Arrian

	04-04-2003 03:12									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian On the other hand, with ownership of our own (admittedly mediocre) continent, we could go turtle (militarily speaking) and win peacefully.

If we resign ourselves to never getting a foothold on the main continent, we're leaving ourselves open to the (very real) possibility that one civ will end up dominant there, in which case we're no longer competitors for the title. The war will take its toll, surely, but with twice our landmass and no one to stand in our way, the lead civ will definitely pull ahead before the game is done.

Best-case scenario at this point would be to get a Great Leader while wiping out Vox (preferably toward the end of the war), claim some free land on the main continent (sell our souls if we have to) and rush a Palace or Forbidden Palace there.


Dominae

	04-04-2003 03:23									#28
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We could put our FP in Arashi or even Tempest, then if we get a Leader, rush our Palace up N of the bottleneck (just where would depend on the terrain).

This would give us the opportunity at having a few productive cities on BOB if we can somehow claim them, and probably put culture flips in our favor. ND's and GoW's Palaces being so far away.

	04-04-2003 15:45									#29
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So you're saying that we could culture-flip cities on the other side of the crossing to Bob?
It's possible, but wouldn't the previous owners of the city try to take it back? Certainly, they will have enough forces in standby near the crossing to deal with the flip, so we'll have to transfer lots of garrison units as soon as we flip the city. This would mean that we'd have to keep lots of defensive units near the crossing (which we should do anyway, to deal with any Bobian invasions) and ready to board a galleon and land in the flipped city.
Actually, I'm starting to like this... we can keep a formidable force and two galleons near the crossing, invest much into culture and stay on constant standby until we flip a city on the other side of the crossing. We then put loads of our latest in city garrisoning technology on a boat, drop it into the flipped city, hold off the first wave of attacks, fortify more units, establish our beachhead on Bob and continue the invasion by force at will.

	04-04-2003 20:55									#30
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I meant if we do have a foothold on N BOB (peacefully or militarily), the cities will be easier to hold onto culturally with our Palace in former Vox lands. They would also be more productive.