19-06-2003 14:42									#1
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Consider the scenario:

Vox succesfully leaves Stormia with 22 pop points plus whatever workers they already have, sets up shop on Lego minor with 4 size 6 cities (or, more sensibly 7 size 3 cities, more or less). They then gift all their cities to Lego, Lego captures the last city, and the Vox team members all migrate to Lego.

Net result: Lego settles the rest of its continent at a stroke, already has the Pyramids for the fast growth of the new cities, and has a large voting population of people that have a score to settle with us, now in a new, super-powered multi-civ. The new civ can reasonably claim not to be bound by our cease-fire treaty with Vox.

This, I think, would be a terminally bad state of affairs for all concerned, for the Bob civs as well.

Scenario number two:

Much as one, except that Vox doesn't gift the cities to Lego, and the teams don't merge, but do have a partnership as close as if the teams were merged (members having access to both forums for instance). Net result is much like before, except that 'Lego' now has the possibility for four corruption reducing centers on their continent, can research two techs at the same time, and stays below the radar on the powergraph, and possibly in other teams minds as well. They can merge at some later date when victory is assured, to claim the win for Lego-Vox (the civ that chokes on plastic bricks).

Could Lego have made such an offer to Vox? It is quite possibly in Vox's interest to take it, since it would keep them in the game in a big way, with a shot at being on the winning team.

Do we want to allow a Voxodus if this is what is going to happen? Lego+Vox on the histographs looks like a scary idea. And should we raise the possibility of this with Bob civs? It is all very well them wanting peace, but they wanted peace with Vox on our continent. Peace with Vox of our continent is much the same as us wiping Vox out, in terms of our security and military threat to Bob. But has the disadvantage of greatly strengthening Lego, which is in no-one's interests. It might be worth discussing this with the Bob civs to see a) what they might have heard from Vox and/or Lego that they are willing to share b) to point out to them what their diplomacy has one (probably not a helpful thing to do thought) and c) to keep the idea in their minds that Lego is growing into the big bad, and that Lego-Vox researching and tech trading themselves while Bob fights (and doesn't research) could gift a huge tech lead to Lego, and d) to see what ideas they can come up with to counter Lego, or at least work on breaking a Lego-Vox alliance.

	19-06-2003 15:00									#2
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I did consider scenario 1 before, but if this is the way will get played there is not much that can be done about it. (besides IIRC we considered/thought about it too -GS+vox-).
I think our conclusion at the time was that it was borderline cheating and I hope other teams will see it the same way.

	19-06-2003 15:02									#3
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Will they be having 4 or more cities to start with ? That's as much as they have right now, I thought they would weaker/smaller for time to come.

	19-06-2003 15:07									#4
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#2 is very possible. I know that Eli is doing this in one of his PBEMs (and I have made it clear to him on one occasion what I think of this strategy; though we know that Vox doesn't abide by "honor" or "morals" like we do).
I wouldn't talk with the Bobians about this though. They'll only say "well, you should have eliminated Vox or kept them on your continent, we told you not to go for a Voxodus" and even though this is hypocrisy and bullshit, the end result would still be that they will be even madder at us.

	19-06-2003 16:09									#5
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I think it would work out very well for us if they do such a thing. It would make Lego (or Lego/Vox) the defacto target for everyone either way they do it. (that big, and done in a shady manner)

If they go for a strong Vox as the second head on a two headed giant, they either have to take advantage of it (ie. making it obvious) or it isn't a problem and could even be beneficial as Lego would have to give over a lot of their territory to Vox, keeping either team from being able to dominate the tech race. If they make it obvious, start not trading away their techs, or however else they can take advantage of the situation, it's not going to go over well for the reasons mentioned above.

	19-06-2003 16:32									#6
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I don't know how much Vox would like to see such alliance happen: We might consider a scenario in which Vox does not cooperate (and I don't think Lego would go for war over this- they'll just stop the support and deny further Voxian spreading).

I also hope Lego would be honorable enough not to pull such a thing- but that's just hoping.

I do agree we need to consider acting diplomatically, but only after Vox is out, and we get an agreement ratified.

	19-06-2003 18:03									#7
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If they do that (#1) it means war. At that point, I say we just go out in a blaze of glory. Full speed ahead and damn the Numidians.

#2 is similar to, but beyond, what we wanted to do at one time with Vox. We wanted to coordinate things so that Vox was our junior partner, it's just that we never wanted to grant access to each other's forums. Something tells me that Vox wouldn't be up for it, but I could be wrong.

-Arrian

	19-06-2003 21:34									#8
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#2 is similar to what I said before on the Lego comment thread: the only reason for Lego to take on Vox, and even would go so far in paying us Theo in order for it to happen, is that they want a vasal. They can have them, for all I care, but we need to prepare for when it happens. Diplomatically, that could create the biggest openings, as we can ask what the Bobians think about this (And I would certainly do it, the next time we chat with any of the other teams). No agression towards Lego, simply ask Bob what they think, and they will reach their own conclusions.

DeepO