16-04-2003 01:04									#31
	Increase Your PM Length

okay, okay, our Historian is p*ssed. So we kind of highjacked his thread.

Well, if we want some kind of objective history written, maybe we should behave, just like we ask of Trip. I'll try to start of, by giving my views on how the war came, and our first turns (last turn I have no idea about, haven't read the chat yet).

This will be very preliminary, as I've seen a few times that becuase of later facts, your view on previous events tend to change drastically

So, how did this war with Vox came to us, why did they attack us? My opinions:

1. They invaded Bob, and were scared to hear the reactions, especially that invading Bob meant immediate war from all Bobians. So, another target had to be found, and quickly because their immortals were about to lose most of their appeal.

2. We we'ren't exactly friendly at that time. We explicitly mentioned to them that they were of little use to us if they continued to be at less then half our research power. We supported them in words, yes, and I honestly believe that if it wasn't for us keeping back, trying to nurse Vox into something good, they wouldn't even had gone that far. We would have faced war earlier, which was something we wanted to avoid.

On top of their research inability, which was starting to bother us in our "trade all techs you come by" deal, they were creating problems on other fronts. We had problems with GoW, which was angry because we didn't want to buy HBR from them at bottom prices (but even a bottom price is too much if you can get it for free). We had problems with Lego too, who snooped a deal for Monotheism from us, which we more or less were entitled to (at least, this is how we thought of it at the time). The Vox tech deal needed to be stopped, and we clearly stated that to Vox.

Add to that that our territory was getting awefully full, and as a solution we were looking which side we should settle to, Vox being a logical way. So, long term plans were being made (starting from the Pyramid GA, which we never got) to attack Vox, after some necessary buildings first.

3. Vox, and other teams, have been seriously mislead by the military advisor, judging power only on that vague indication. All are right in that our military power was smallest of the world, however with the warning by Grog, and the production ability of our empire (which was at the time 20% bigger then the second in numbers of cities, 50% bigger then Vox) we knew we could survive for long enough to be able to make them appear weak to us. I also think that Vox was kind of wrong on the easyness of a slowmover SoD, we know what is coming, and can prepare. The next few turns it will turn out if we were right.

4. Other teams played Vox. RP is certainly very suspect in actively sponsoring the war against us, as they see us as the biggest threat to them, and want someone to hamper us, without needing to pay much in war resources themselves. GoW, with their fake invasion and other things are certainly a bit suspect too, even if possibly they now realize it would be better to switch horses, and bet on the one having most chance to win.

A large foundation of Vox's reason could have come from hearing rumours of us planning to attack them. I can understand RP telling them this (even if they haven't heared any rumours directly from us, we weren't in contact for over a full month before the war broke out), and possibly Lego too (which heared we wanted to handle the tech situation with Vox, one way or another). This was a mistake, and I largely take responsibility for it: I should have been more careful with what I said to Lego. Later chats have been more on the Bob thing, then on our goals in-game.

How did the war progress?
First discussion of the war was not where we wanted to build units, which, and how many of them, but was about whether we would rush Feudalism along to get it in 3 turns, or to delay it instead, and go for the cash. Strangely enough, GoW, and possibly others, assumed we were going to need it asap, while we actually liked to delay Feud, just to keep it from Vox's hands. What really made us research the tech asap was the commitment of GoW, who wanted to pay in front if we would put the slider to the max, and who threatened to research it themselves (thereby robbing us of half our profits on the tech, and giving Vox a possible trade partner) if we were not fast enough.

So we went for Feudalism, but only after 1 turn of hording cash.

Next discussion was about the strength of Vox. Quite fast came the idea that Vox had 20-25 immortals at most, and so far it has sticked. (We do see most of those already, though). Immediately, both Monsoon (size 1), and Arashi (size 4) were deemed expandable, and our cities rushed to build barracks and units instead of aquaducts and other nice stuff.


Sorry will continue this later.. visitor has arrived.

DeepO

	16-04-2003 01:23									#32
	Support Apolyton

I echo many of DeepO's comments.

We were caught with our pants down, thats for sure. We were determined to play this game the "right" way, ie not breaking the treaty, allowing the 10 turns before war, so we were quite unprepared when war broke out. We also bought the whole second bob invasion ruse.

We have suspicions that RP is funding and providing tactical advice to vox.

1. Vox has more immortals than they should have had based on their own economy

-I think 13 are visible at this time and one killed.

-they are in despotism and can't rush buy immortals

-their iron was severed several turns ago in order to build warriors, they can build an estimated 3 warriors per turn.

-these warriors are then upgraded using their gold, maybe 30 a turn at 100% tax and cash from RP. Their taxes alone would be insufficient to upgrade this many immortals.

We also have suspicions that GoW is involved:

-possible faking of intel screenshots to mask the amount of immortals

-this fake war that they want to have with us

-the second bob invasion-did they let us know right away it never happened? I think they said they landed then withdrew a turn later, but I doubt it happened in the first place.

OTOH, they gave us 200 gold at the most crucial time, allowing us to complete feudalism and shore up the defense.


I'm not sure what will come of this war, the monsoon-arashi front looks dicey, but I think we will be ok.

God only knows what would have become of GS if:

Grog wasn't in place

and

Vox didn't give us 6 turns warning

and

Vox didn't land the two immortals to the east to take out Ouch, thus allowing us to trigger our GA.

	16-04-2003 01:32									#33
	Increase Your PM Length

Re: pyramids

One turn from completing, we were very disappointed, but:

primary purpose was to trigger the peaceful GA (IMHO), so luckily Vox took care of that for us.

Heated debates among the library, lighthouse, and sun tzu.

eventually, during a chat early today, we decided on lighthouse, several votes swithed fromthe library and sun tzu

why?

We opened the turn and moved the advisor around.

We saw a new 2 immortal landing to the east and a new set of four (?) near dissidentville.

Sun Tzu in a peaceful world (ironically ) would have been preferable as we would have to eat 100 shields to go lighthouse, but as we were so undermanned, we needed the estimated 7 units we could produce instead.

Sun tzu would have been great, not only for the free barracks but also to deny Bob its powers.

the library was favored by a few, but not enough due to its limited duration, and MP target.

The lighthouse was eventually decided on due to the extra movement, which will be needed for the vox invasion and possible bob invasion.

It wasn't so much wonder vs wonder as it was wonder now and 7 turns of units vs a great wonder.

	16-04-2003 01:32									#34
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

I think we will lose Monsoon, but we should be able to hold Arashi.

I'm really not sure about the involvement of other civs. All I know is that Vox has been unstable & unpredictable all game long and finally decided to roll the dice on an invasion.

Their poor (in our opinion) decisions with respect to their REXing, the Lux situation, and their Bobian adventure led us to belief them totally inept, to the point where we failed to arrange a proper defense (though we were discussing a military buildup right when they declared war on us).

They are inept, just not totally. And managing a warrior -> immortal upgrade just isn't that hard (especially if you can get funding from other civs). So, in retrospect, we were too cocky.

Still, I believe we will win this war. We will most likely lose a city, but we will crush them in the end.

I'm more irritated by the loss of the Pyramids, actually...

-Arrian

	16-04-2003 01:39									#35
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Irritation on losing the pyramids is a strange thing, isn't it? I'm feeling it too. Which in itself is strange: Lego is actually 2 turns faster then what we originally planned (our GA speeded the wonder by 1 turn), and we anticipated that in the beginning. However, it is one of those times that, because we believe too much in ourselves, we forego caution. We have delayed the build by a few turns by focusing on settling asap, giving as much shields to EotS as possible. If we hadn't done that, we would have ended up with the pyramids, but most likely with a couple of cities more. I'm not sure what's best, because as said, one of our primary goals was to get into our GA.

But still, a shame. Good thing that Vox declared war, or many of us would have been sad about our loss. It would have been a perfect monument to burry Grog

DeepO

	16-04-2003 02:08									#36
	Tired of ads?

Thanks to those who are going out of their way to accomodate me in this thread. My apologies in case anyone was upset or insulted in any way.

From my POV, I start this thread, ask some questions, and recieve no/very very few real responses, then when I try to ask about things in other places where I might get answered (e.g. the chatroom), I get told to "bugger off" and to "post in my own thread." In addition to this, while I was posting "spam" in other threads, mainly in an attempt to ask or request something (screenshots, save files, some of which also which weren't answered), GS was doing the same in my thread in addition to not answering my questions to begin with. To say the least, I was very upset and even felt insulted by this attitude. To those who have had no part in this, I want you to know that I hold nothing against you and if you are in any way upset by my comments I apologize.

Thanks to those who posted in this thread. I will be able to add much more to the Chronicle now...

	16-04-2003 02:17									#37
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Thanks for your point of view.

What other questions do you have?

	16-04-2003 03:09									#38
	Put an end to popups!

Going out of our way? Not really... I figured that if Lego is worth it to write pages of views on the situation, 'our' chronicle is worth that too. Plus I enjoy telling about this game, a lot of my friends have to endure that too

So... where were we.

We anticipated long ago, in discussions on defensive ability, how our cities were supposed to change to military units immediately in case of a threat. However, this can be a nice idea, but in order to actually perform it, a lot of discussion was needed to get most out of our switch. Undoubtedly, a few minor mistakes were made along the way, but seeing back on those 3 first turns, it seems we did ok. But we needed about every hour of the past few days to get from a vague idea to a real plan.

One of the things that made this so difficult is because we have been juggling with workers all game long. We formerly decided to boost Tempest population, because it can create 1-turn horsies / pikes in our GA. However, the war was a few turns too early, in that we don't have an aquaduct there. So, EotS gets boosted, builds a barracks, and gets upgraded from a worker pump into a troop training city.

Next big event in this war is the contact with GoW. We agree to get to Feudalism fast, if they provide their payment (the same as we offer to everyone else) a few turns before we would sell them the tech. (which is fine for us, it gives us both more money, and we can keep it from Vox for the next 10 turns, if both GoW and ND keep their word).
Further, they want a sea RoP, because they have a galley which will want to start scouting our coast soon. In return, Aeson asks for scouting information, which, even if we suspect the information to not be 100% reliable, still is a wonderful idea: we couldn't keep GoW from scouting anyway. The first screenshots surprise us, in that we see very few Voxian units. We can't believe that they really are going to attack us with 4 immortals, thus assume GF might have been creative in photoshop again.

The turn later, some more units appear, however not many of them. And they're still 4 turns away of directly attacking one of our cities.

GoW is a source of diplo gossip, confirming to us that RP is 'paying' Vox for the war (possibly in return of a tech), confirming that the 2nd invasion of Vox was a ruse, that in effect no units have landed on Bob, confirming that RP was demanding that GoW would go for Feudalism themselves, instead of buying it from us.

Lastly, they asked us to stage a ruse of us own, by letting us invade by two horsies, taking screenshots, and screaming murder on the public forum. (*** Have we declined their offer already, BTW? ***). The whole thing takes away much of our naivity on the diplomatic front, these guys cannot be trusted.

Last point to document maybe the discussion on the pyramids. As said, main goal was to start our GA, which we didn't need them for, but one of the attraction points was to have a peaceful GA, with double growth. It has been said a few times that one of the reasons why other teams tend to ally against us is because we appear biggest, or most powerful, or whatever. Our last score jump hasn't done good, getting in a GA (now that we screamed everywhere that Vox was not going to eat us, instead they were going to be eaten) will make others wary, and taking more territory won't help either. If we got the pyramids, we would certainly face an alliance soon, but OTOH we would also have been strong enough to defend ourselves against multiple opponents. We would have grown into a monster, prime target for everyone.

Nothing is said others won't look at us as a monster anyway, but at least we can make Lego think they have made a target out of themselves too.

*****

BTW, Trip, your last questions are out of date, which was also the reason why they were never answered: these were pre-war questions, asked hours before we entered the war. Ask new ones if you want an answer

And, now that I reread them, and in hindsight, it strikes me that you asked for how many turns we had left at our Pyramids build. I would have never seen it then, but now, it looks like the race was close, and you wanted to ask how close it was exactly. One of those points where, even if you don't want to, you give out more information then necessary. It's simply unavoidable.

DeepO

	17-04-2003 04:52									#39
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Trip, can you give us some ideas on which parts of our history you are not really up to date with? I still don't know how you're going to do this, and in what kind of detail you seek to document things (where's that example you promised ), but if you want us to get back a couple of months (eg by giving our views on the Lux situation), it may be better if this gets asked sooner rather then later.

Would it be possible to get a list of questions on previous times, which we can slowly fill in whenever someone feels like it? I want to record a bit more of our history, but not every day.

DeepO

	17-04-2003 04:54									#40
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Right now I have most things on every team since Lux, getting more detailed as time goes on.

I may or may not go back before that date, depending on how much time I have to do such things. Questions about those times would fall under "To be continued" for now.

	21-04-2003 10:34									#41
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Any new questions on the war or otherwise Trip?

	09-07-2003 23:55									#42
	So What's the Plan? Get a bigger avatar today!

If GOW attacks ND then GS attacks RP? Are there alternate versions?

Hmmm, lots of acronyms in there.

	10-07-2003 00:52									#43
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

That is my hope, Trip. I want RP's land. I'd actually prefer GoW's land, I think, but that means 1) fighting Riders and 2) not destroying RP.

One alternative is GS+ND+GoW versus RP.

I suppose ND + GS versus GoW and RP is also possible.

-Arrian

	10-07-2003 00:56									#44
	Get a bigger avatar today!

If it's 3-on-1 won't that leave a power void on the other continent?

	10-07-2003 01:12									#45
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I don't want 3 on 1. First off, 2 on 1 would work fine, so why would the 2 want us as a 3rd wheel? What could we get out of it that would a) benifit us and b) be defensible?

No, IMO it's gotta be 2 on 2.

-Arrian

	10-07-2003 01:21									#46
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

But what does everyone else think?

It seems everyone is screaming "KILL RP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!" so I have to know for sure what you guys are plotting.

	10-07-2003 01:38									#47
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Well, I can't speak to that, but I can speak to the "screaming kill RP at all costs" impression you have.

RP has what I see as the 2nd best land on Bob, perhaps in the world (dunno what Lego's continent actually looks like).

GoW, IMO, has the best land I've seen to date. ND has ok land, but is stuck between the other two. No way we're gonna invade and try and grab the middle of the continent! That's crazy.

No, it's either the north or the south.

GoW is up north. They have Riders, they're militaristic, and they have dropped a number of hints that suggest (to me, at least) that they would like to set up some sort of partnership/alliance with us. Relations have been pretty good, even though they landed units against us in the Voxian war.

RP is down south. They don't have their UU yet, and it sucks anyway. They are still REXing, and have recently done a palace jump (that gives them excellent long-term potential). Relations between GS & RP have, historically, been rather, um, cold. Ice cold. And there really hasn't been much of a thaw. Their core cities are close to the coast (much closer to us than GoW's, for instance) and our 4-move galleys allow for an effective surprise invasion. With GoW, we would have to either sail 'round (and give up surprise) or land in the east, and fight our way across the continent against Riders counterattack.

So, for me, the choice is clear: take down RP. ND... well, they kinda get screwed by the whim of the map generator.

-Arrian

	10-07-2003 02:16									#48
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

We are preparing contingency plans for when war breaks out on Bob, which it seems very likely to do in the next 10-20 turns. We can't help it that our best option almost always will be to hit RP...

If ND and GoW attacked RP, I wouldn't mind helping RP out, but we would have to forgo most of our other options (NAP's) to keep that a possibility.

	10-07-2003 04:09									#49
	Put an end to popups!

Helping RP against ND and GoW? I just hope we don't need to ask for their help against ND and GoW

I think it's safe to say that we might be planning invasions right now, nothing is going to happen unless we are a bit more sure on the diplo side of things... without an trustworthy ally on Bob, all bets are off.

DeepO

	10-07-2003 04:57									#50
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Trip But what does everyone else think?

Just for the record I'm against attacking RP with things as they are atm. But I think there is alot of support for such an a course of action. Especially with the way things are concerning GS-RP, RP behaviour recently can be seen as provocation.

Also I'm uneasy about trusting GoW.