14-07-2003 13:30									#1
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... is not good.

They do not have Chivalry. Likely they will very soon from Lego, but it may well be too late.

Looking at the map, they are more vulnerable from the West than they are from the East. As Zaragosa goes, so too does Espana. From the fortress of Zaragosa, Ansars can attack Leon and Pamplona without warning. At the point that Pamplona falls, RP is finished. Toledo, New Madrid, and Barcelona are cut off from iron, unless they find an outside source and a favourable palace relocation. They would still be cut in two, fighting Ansars and Riders who move as fast in RP territory as RP foot units do themselves.

We are strong still vs everyone. So it is difficult for us to say who holds the upper hand. It is doubtful that they who lack chivalry do, even though they were the last team that we eclipsed. That fact, RP's power at a late date, is the only reason we could or should feel hopeful about in this matter. Given time and surprise, most any of us could cut RP up like tonights squid dinner from NDs position let alone with help from GoW.

We live in interesting times. What should the Storm do about it?

	14-07-2003 13:43									#2
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What if... [spit balling mode]

Lego is motivated by the reality of what happens when the warmongers of Bob are done with RP? It takes them time to build boats, yes. That is time in which RP is devastated by GoW and ND. That leaves two on Bob.

What happens if Lego takes GoW, and we take ND? A 2 on 2 to determine who will be left to control the fate of the world. And, we are left to tend to our own possible gains on South Bob while 'rescuing' RP.

Could it be set so that in a worst case, GoW is given refuge by us and becomes our 40 turn tech puppet to match Lego's Vox? We never attack GoW. However, we have an altercation with ND's attitude towards the sanctity of Bobian soil. During that altercation, ND is devastated. No skin off GoWs nose, is it?

hmmm.... we have options.[/spit balling mode]

	14-07-2003 13:58									#3
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We have options. We can wait till the war breaks out, and then ally up with RP against ND. I'd like to follow Theseus' plan, but we probably won't have the time to ship around forces, even with the Lighthouse. Time matters. Without Chivalry, RP won't stand long against 4.3.3 Riders and 4.2.3 Ansars.

Can we prepare an invasion of ND (I don't have a map here at work)? It could be started 1-2 turns after the war on Bob breaks out. I suppose there will be a big *****ing and moaning in the public forum, we could join in for a while and then offer RP help under the condition, that we sign an official alliance against ND and at the same time a NAP, say, 20-30 turns. I'm positive, that they'll be scared to death and will gladly accept.

I suppose, as soon as ND sees they're under siege by us (still the strongest civ, with a merciless reputation), they'll distract their forces from RP and go against us. GoW alone won't be able to blitz RP. Their options are either to fight a long bloody war against RP or to join ND in the war against us, thus breaking the NAP. Too bad it's secret. We should send them a warning, that if they break it, we feel not obliged anymore to keep it secret and will make their betrayal public, which should be bad for a civ of mercenaries.

This approach gives us either 2 wars 1 vs 1 (GoW vs RP and GS vs ND) or one big war 2 vs 2 (GS and RP against GoW and ND). That should be, what we want.

Last edited by Sir Ralph on 14-07-2003 at 14:51

	14-07-2003 14:05									#4
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Another option (a crazy one and much of a gamble, I know) would be to let GoW and ND finish off RP and wait until they ship the bigger part of their armies to Lego (hopefully them, and not us), and at this time invade their big, but poorly defended continent.

	14-07-2003 15:09									#5
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ND and GoW will take some time before they finish RP until they ship their forces to Lego- and we don't know how the war ends up there. It could be either of the two controling all or nearly all of Bob, and the anti-Lego alliance could easily collapse.

Taking RP when you're pressed with territory (ND & RP) and heading off-continent to Lego after you have almost infinite amounts of land are two completely different stories, and I very much doubt both teams, especially the one gaining most spoils out of this will be overly enthusiastic about it.

Attacking ND will probably mean RP gets saved, while GoW can't keep on fighting them alone, and we are stuck in a brutal war with a considerable tactical edge for the defender (just look at the map, damnit- its a fortress!), and might end up with a 'so-so' territory between the two other Bobians (considering we'd get rid of ND completely).

Our best option IMO would be to strike RP at right moment, behind the frontline (NM and Barcelona), from there to head east to their capital, or if its too late- sweep SE along the minor towns, with settlers supported army (right now, we have the best settler-pumps, besides Lego maybe), take their cities and fill in inside the gaps- this along with our powerful army and strong economy to back it would keep the other two off our backs for some time, disrupt their territorial division ideas, and grants us a decent foothold on Bob.

Then it would be the time to get Lego into this...

	14-07-2003 16:29									#6
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Concentration of force can do a lot to negate the size and power of our armies. If we would try to hold a few Bobian cities against ND, they could pick one target and swarm it with almost no warning, achieving local superiority in spite of our larger overall army much as we do when attacking AIs. Further, trying to hold southern cities would hurt our concentration of force compared with a strike straight into ND's heartland. I'm far from convinced that carving off a piece of RP for ourselves makes sense unless both GoW and ND are willing to let us keep it.

	14-07-2003 16:34									#7
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So what do you propose to solve the situation?

	14-07-2003 16:40									#8
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I'm wondering how far ND and GoW are allied. Would it be possible to get a contract on ND in the next 20 turns or so? In that case, I would take RP (with the right planning, we should be able to get half their territory), and later on focus on ND.

GoW knows that ND could very well backstab them once the RP war is done, so we might pursuade them to do the same... if Bob gets into a 2 team-continent, we would be best if one of those 2 teams is us.

DeepO

	14-07-2003 16:53									#9
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I go to a fair for the weekend, and things have suddenly got very interesting...

I think there are problems with all our options. While I used to think that ND + GoW vs RP was the ideal, with us also attacking RP, I came around a while ago to the view that that scenario probably wouldn't let us keep our hands on any territory on Bob without having to fight off ND at least to make a claim to it. RP and ND against GoW would have been better, since then we can claim territory as a price for helping GoW, and they'd rather accept that than be eliminated by the alliance against them.

I think that that is the only way we get to keep land on Bob - by helping the civ on the wrong end of the dog pile, when they'll be willing to let us keep the land (until they are strong enough to do something about it). In the case that now looks very likely, that would mean helping RP, which is never a nice prospect, although if it is in our interests... But since we have a NAP with GoW, our only option there is to attack ND. Or cancel the NAP with GoW ("the concensus was that we didn't want a NAP, and our ambassadors exceeded their authority during the chat (due to pressure from GoW), so the NAP is not ratified and is invalid, although we will of course keep the discussions we had completely secret"). Neither looks good, but then, nor does getting into a 3 on 1 vs RP where we won't be welcome to keep the land.

So, we have to decide which of our options is the lesser of three evils. Or just not get involved at all, except maybe to help RP in some way to try and set up the situation where ND and GoW [i]need/[i] our help because they can't break the front line defence. Or try and persuade ND / GoW to let us keep land on RP (or claim a corner of RP, settle some of the vacant land, and then make peace, hoping that RP can survive as a buffer zone between us and ND, although that probably will turn into a 'get rid of the invaders' matchup before too long).

Ideally, we'd like to know what Lego will do. If they are going to help RP and attack GoW (do they have a NAP with GoW as well, or just ND (as reported by GoW)), then we can find ourself in the situation where ND need our help, and we get some land.

I don't know how long we can afford to wait before we see what Lego is going to do though. At the very least, we shouldn't attack RP until we see the first town change hands, so we know the war is real, and RP's defense will be elsewhere. Likewise if we are going to attack ND. And that will give us a bit more time to secure the north (currently Vox) and organise some kind of landing blocking party.

	14-07-2003 20:40									#10
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At the moment I'm entirely against any plan that would rely, even slightly, on any agreements and understandings with RP. Even if their continued existence practically depends on us and they have to do what we tell them to, it doesn't mean that they'll cooperate. No, they'll look for ways to save themselves that won't mean hurting their self-pride and dignity.

I like Zeit's plan to claim territory by conquering lands and quickly filling in the holes (like the settlers in Israel do . Btw, I strongly oppose this policy in RL, but I think it's great for our case). We seem to be building good ties with GoW - let's keep it up, and hopefully at some point they'll desert ND in our favor and together, we will conquer and annex that part of Bob and turn it into a 2 civs continent, with us being the 2nd civ of course.

	14-07-2003 20:49									#11
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Attacking ND might ruin any chance of partnership with GoW for the entire duration of the game. This is really important to them (it should, since this war is a game breaker or maker for them), and they wouldn't like us to spoil it, not after they've spilled all the secrets in front of us. If we attack ND, GoW will hold grudge for us for at least half a year.

Anyway, the joint GS+GoW+ND chat should be coming up, and a lot could change after that chat.

	14-07-2003 20:53									#12
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I agree, Shiber. I think we should attack RP, grab some strategically defensible land along the coast, and then work to set up a GoW+GS attack on ND which allows us to stay on the continent with a good portion of RPs land (if not all of it).

-Arrian

	14-07-2003 23:40									#13
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We could stay out of the war and hit lego instead, while Bob is busy.

Positives:

No allies to help lego (save vox )
probably pretty weak militarily-few if any offensive weapons to counter, few if any cats
in the chaos of the bob war this would be quite a suprise.
Probably few cities with barracks, (fewer veterans, but probably several elites due to fighting barbs. wonder what they have been training, NMs or swords?)

negatives:
initial attack has to be crippling, as they enter their Golden age
long transit time to hit legolopolis, possibilty of discovery north of GoW
likely that the Bob war will be finished before we can land on Lego.

	14-07-2003 23:43									#14
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What is the strategy for posting in the public forum once this hits? We just stay silent or say that we won't get invovled (yet) Now that we actually have a few days heads up on the pr front, we should actually have a cohesive plan to avoid the pitfalls of the past.

	14-07-2003 23:58									#15
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Stay the heck out of the mud in the public forum. It is likely that there are going to be some very high emotions. Even if we do not see evidence of them right away, the wrong things said at the wrong time could either push the buttons of some of the GS haters on RP or dismay our new friends in GoW.

	15-07-2003 00:12									#16
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Silence is absolutely not an option, or it'll make us look either suspicious, or isolationists, or both. We need to participate in the public fun; however, we need to keep our posts to the fun threads and not to go beyond harmless and funny trash-talking. In other words, set our phasers to amuse.

	15-07-2003 00:22									#17
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Even if we do not see evidence of them right away, the wrong things said at the wrong time could either push the buttons of some of the GS haters on RP or dismay our new friends in GoW.

Yes, especially in light of the fact that things said months ago about GoW are part of the reasons for this war.

I think short messages saying something like: We're glad that we're not on the receiving end of an attack this time. or "pass the popcorn" are ok, but stuff like "RP reaps what it has sown" etc, though they would be fun, would not be advisable at this point.

In the chat with GoW we could clear other subjects, that we just want a peaceful resolution (while standing by in case we're needed ) or other Togasisms that we've heard before. A bit of roleplay from us for a change to turn the tables on RP. (oh I would love to throw a barb about their lack of diplomacy, but we must not be sore winners)

	15-07-2003 00:26									#18
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What, exactly, do we gain from the land grab against RP on Bob that would be worth its cost if ND is willing to fight to take the land from us? Granted, there's an outside chance that we could get a leader and move our palace there, but with no elite offensive unit more powerful than a WC and with the relatively small number of RP units we'd probably be facing, that seems like a major long shot. I can see participating in the disection of RP if ND agrees to let us keep what we capture, but if it looks like keeping lands on Bob would start a war with ND, we need to either stay off Bob or attack ND on our terms.

I don't see hitting Lego on our own before Magnetism as a viable option. Distance is way too much of a problem.

	15-07-2003 00:28									#19
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Do we let GoW know about that RP galley?

1. It might have passengers

2. If we don't tell them they might view that as a slight betrayal

3. If we do tell them, they might ask us to kill it, thus we would no longer be a "neutral"


Another topic.

This war will disrupt our luxury trades, correct (RP has what, one or 2 trades going with us now?)? We need to figure out what to do about acquring the new ND or GoW luxes or having cities on Bob on the luxes ourself.

	15-07-2003 00:46									#20
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RP has two luxuries that they are trading to us: Gems and Silks. If/when Vigo falls, we will lose our supply of Gems, but we can arrange for RP to replace that with Ivory. Currently, only when Barcelona falls will we be cut off from trade with RP, if I understand correctly. We might have some trouble if we enter the war and war weariness kicks in, but if we plan our invasion well and set our forces in a way that would make RP attack us, we can enjoy some negative WW for a while.
GoW and ND are both Republics, and they will suffer War Weariness (according to Sir Ralph, this is one of the changes in PBEM in 1.21). They will remain with our furs, and their wine and spices - just 3 luxuries. Even with marketplaces that's not much, but at Chieftain, I think that they can keep their cities in order (GoW's biggest city is Imperial City at 8 pop, ND's is Dar-El-Killam at 7), at least until WW gets really harsh. Then they might ask for our incense, so we need to figure out what to say.

	15-07-2003 01:24									#21
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On a sidenote what do we do when/if RP contacts us concerning the war. I'd like to have some sort of party line I can give and also what things I can and can't talk about?

	15-07-2003 01:29									#22
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I was going to say that we could trade ND for silks and gems, but as there is no road to those cities from the north (and no harbor there) that is a no-go

Won't we lose silks when ND takes Santiago? I see another silk at barcelona and one at toledo as well, however the toledo doesn't look to be roaded and that town will fall rapidly.



Another thing that just occurred to me.

GoW doesnt want us settling on Bob because.....
they have divided RP into East/West halfs, and GoW has claims on the Eastern portion, possibly west to pamplona. We would be eating into their portion.

Reasoning: Nd has left an alley along the eastern seaboard for riders to travel through without entering ND territory. I would think that even with an alliance, the NDs would be wary of tricks, so pushing them to the outer rim would mitigate the fears a bit. Plus, the terrain on the east isn't as bad, can ride grasslands for some time, only a few squares of hills and jungle. Also, if they were on the ND's roads with RoP, they would be forced off at several junctures where the road terminates at a city.

Thoughts?

My questions left are: does GoW head straight for Toledo, or do they go a bit around and hit bilbao first. and:

how could RP not see this coming, especially if GoW has been stalling on an MPP for a turn or two.

I'm just impressed that ND has seemingly worked its way out of a horrible position sandwiched between two "friendly" civs. Or perhaps its more that RP has worked itsself out of its strong position. Hard not to gloat about their failure in diplomacy, ain't it.

	15-07-2003 01:38									#23
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quote: What, exactly, do we gain from the land grab against RP on Bob that would be worth its cost if ND is willing to fight to take the land from us? Granted, there's an outside chance that we could get a leader and move our palace there, but with no elite offensive unit more powerful than a WC and with the relatively small number of RP units we'd probably be facing, that seems like a major long shot. I can see participating in the disection of RP if ND agrees to let us keep what we capture, but if it looks like keeping lands on Bob would start a war with ND, we need to either stay off Bob or attack ND on our terms.

Unless we can convince GoW that it's better for them, long-term, for ND to disappear. We attack RP, keep some cities and fortify the hell out of them. Then, if/when ND attacks our offshore holdings, we give them a big fat bloody nose and GoW kicks 'em in the ass.

I know, I know, I'm assuming GoW would go along with that. I can't help it. I really think they will.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 01:41									#24
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So what will we do?

1) Attack RP and risk a later war against GW+ND?
2) Attack ND and try to maintain the balance of power?
3) Do nothing and end up as the dwarf in this game (not counting Vox)

?

	15-07-2003 01:41									#25
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An addendum to my prior hypothesis:

If GoW takes East RP, then in effect we have a GoW wall on Bob with a narrow gap to strike ND through, definately not a good situation for us. We could take a few cities, but run into the problems Aeson has described. And with the 30 turn NAP in effect, we can't do anything to GoW.

So maybe we should hit barcelona and new madrid (pardon my mispronunciation, my ole Missouri accent gets the best of me) and force the issue with the other bobs.

The good thing is that their infrastructure sucks and rrs are not going to make them inpenetrable (like they will for us ) too many gaps on a huge continent to protect everything completely.

	15-07-2003 01:46									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph So what will we do? 1) Attack RP and risk a later war against GW+ND?

I vote for this one and then try to change the GoW-ND equation.

The problem is that we would seem like opportunists to the world. the good thing is that the outside world consists of lego and vox. But if lego is sympathetic to RP, some bad blood for a while (until we kill them too)

we need some invitation language from GoW, not sure if we have that yet. And we need some other excuses to invade as well.

	15-07-2003 02:22									#27
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I have to say sleepy's scenario makes alot of sense- good thinking there!

As for our options:

Fighting ND at this point is not an option- they are quite heavily fortified, and I doubt they're leaving their homeland undefended. Going there will be tough- imagine facing their Ansar Panzer-divisions (can't help it, they're german ) after a long and tiring march over the mountains and hills...

That's not an option, not until we have an ally to hit them hard from another direction- like from the north (the Dar-el-Kilam-Anagramaskus route seems safe enough for fast movers, and puts ND in a serious problem, if the two towns are taken). Helping RP in another way- monetarily maybe, but I doubt how much that is going to help, especially in the first days of fighting...

Its amazing what a serious problem ND is giving us- they are supposed to be the poor sandwhiched nation, yet it seems they stand to gain the most out of this war, and are in a very good position to keep us at bay. However, I still doubt ND will be willing to fight straight on against us, when the war against RP is still raging. We all know war can be unexpected, and RP might have a lucky day, or some ace up their sleeve- if that won't save them, it might at least hurt ND probably (their the closest, and the more powerful of the two allies, I believe), this might make the war more problematic and slow for both- so going after us (and we're helping, after all ), might not seem like their best option at that point, probably not without an ally (and GoW will not side against us for the next 30 turns).

We could do that, or perhaps just build like crazy for the next period, trying to catch up with what soon will be a monstrous powerhous, but then we'd be wasting gold in upkeep for our large unused army.

A dillemma, to say the least.

We should try the diplomatic angle first- perhaps we could get a share of RP for our help against them, but then we'd be throwing away the settlers-tactic options...

This reminds me of Germany at the end of WW2- RP is fighting against the powerful land based armies of the northeners, while hoping the overseas invading forces would liberate them first- though I doubt Togas would be pleased to see us liberating his towns .

	15-07-2003 02:35									#28
	Full PM-box? Change here!

We have to get on Bob, and GoW saying ND won't like it shouldn't turn us off it. Of course no team is going to like us getting bigger... but no team is going to like any other team getting bigger.

If ND+GoW take Bob for themselves, I really think one of them ends up winning this game. Probably the one who backstabs the other one first/best. ND would be in the best position once RP is taken out, and GoW is in the best position right now if they are willing to do what it takes (ROP rape ND sometime during the height of the festivities). Both of them are just going to get stronger, and if they are in bed together for the rest o fthe game, our best shot at beating them (to hold onto a portion of Bob) is now. Waiting is just going to make that eventuality harder.

Hitting ND is going to be very tough for us considering their terrain... hitting us in SE RP if we set our cities up right is going to be even tougher. Most of SE RP is very defensible, and the landscape would negate the +1 advantage their Knights get. Ansars would be little better than 60 shield Med Inf. We could set up the mountains as a 'no cat passing' zone, and keep the bombardment advantage to ourselves.

Remember, we have an economy that is close to double that of ND or GoW. Even in their GA we should be able to out produce either of them. We just have to set up our defenses right so that at worst we are trading Pikes for Med Inf (probably on a 1:2 ratio), and at best we are trading Pikes for Ansars/Riders (probably closer to a 1:1.5 ratio).

If worst comes to worst, and we end up losing all our holdings on Bob, we aren't really in much worse shape than if we don't try to hold it at all. In fact we should be able to guarantee that if anything, we hurt GoW and ND at least 2-3 times the losses (in pure production) we take. Not to mention collateral losses in regards to keeping territory that would be productive from them, and limiting their capabilities to improve their new found land for the duration.

Waiting to deal with Bob is going to mean instead of facing two civs both weaker than us, we will be facing two civs both stronger than us. Diplomatically, maybe we can turn one side against the other and pick up the winners scraps in that case. Right now we have just as good of chances Diplomatically (if not better, as the ND/GoW bond could only grow stronger due to trust if this war goes off without any backstabbing), and much better chances in pure power ratio.

Sorry for being so repetitive, but we have to be on Bob to win this, and I can't see a better opening than right now developing. They've invited us to come, but not stay. That's as good as we will ever get from either of them.

	15-07-2003 03:56									#29
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I stay with my former opinion (which more people have, it seems ): first take as much from RP as possible, then try to get GoW fighting ND instead of Lego.

If I reread the chat with GoW, it seems ND is asking us to stay of the continent (which means that, contrary to what they said, they fished after opinions on our involvement), not GoW. Further, GoW stresses that they see us as an ally they want to keep (and so favour us in the long run over ND).

Both are practicaly invitations: GoW has considered the possibility of us wanting to join, but not wanting to leave. They know that if not RP, GoW would be our likeliest candidate to invade. They want to be a better friend to us then ND is, to keep us from overrunning them (ND is stronger then GoW). So I think that if they didn't consider that option already, they would be easily persuaded to take on ND once the RP dust is settled.

The only obstacle is that if ND and GoW have a MPP, and because of us RP falls too quickly and we're forced to take on ND rather quickly (say 10 turns into their GA), it could mean we would face a 2 front war. But if we don't take RP territory, the end result will be the same: the threat of a joint ND-GoW invasion remains, and at that point they together would be stronger then if we can keep Bob from becoming a 2 nation continent.

The other option (attacking ND, helping RP under cover of our GoW NAP) would certainly piss GoW off, is more dangerous, and holds more risk. 3-1 might not be very honorable, it works.

Some thoughts remaining:
- RP is not going to go down so easily. They are strong, can afford to lose a couple of cities (although there are key cities they need to keep), and have or had a large number of small, unconnected cities. Further, they have been saving cash for a long time, haven't done any research, and don't need to buy chivalry, nor education. My guess is that they have upgraded quite a bit of warriors (even regs) to MIs, or are still able to do so. You can also expect cats, their terrain favours them (next to jungle), and they weren't planning on going offensively but needed the defense for a long time now.

- Lego don't really enter the equation military, but actually the more they sponsor RP thru money, the better. The more upgrade or rush money RP has available, the more ND and GoW will bleed... and we need to make sure that we strike decisively, leaving no option for them to recuperate.

DeepO

	15-07-2003 06:19									#30
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO The more upgrade or rush money RP has available, the more ND and GoW will bleed... and we need to make sure that we strike decisively, leaving no option for them to recuperate. DeepO

Great discussion guys...

I am leaning towards Aeson's version of things to be. I can see a VERY strong forward defensive position in the lux area of RP's SE territory.

I'm still intrigued by an attack on ND, though... we have such an overpowering economy, what if we used the terrain to OUR advantage, loading up our attacking stacks with scads of defenders, and just wading our way in?

* Theseus looks off into the sky with my "John Wayne" look.

DeepO, I'm not quite sure what you meant by the last paragraph...