15-07-2003 06:30									#31
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GoW has been sitting on the save for nearly 24 hrs now. You don't suppose they are thinking about a double cross of ND or RP has gotten wind of the plans and trying to buy them off?

	15-07-2003 07:11									#32
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quote: 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?

What if GoW decides to use a unit or two to block our path along the Mountains? Worse yet, what if they use a couple more to hem our stack 'in' (forcing us to move onto flats to be able to move) until our NAP expires...

	15-07-2003 09:05									#33
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I think Aeson has it. Grab what we can when the moment is right and trust that our diplomacy can improve dramatically.

Part of that diplomacy would be to make sure that Lego is aware of what is at stake with this war. After it, either they or we will be targetted. We would be on Bob and more vulnerable in the field perhaps, but Lego would still be the civ with the big land and time to develop it peacefully. Neither ND nor GoW will ignore that.

If ND and GoW cannot live with us on Bob, then we team with Lego, and go 2 v 2 to practically decide the game. If GoW and ND accept us, then perhaps we can look forward beyond RP to Lego.

However, what about after RP and Lego? Then it is 3. 3 is a much more dangerous situation than 4. Yes?

I say we take what can be taken from RP, then ride the waves of the 4 power system to see where it can lead us.

	15-07-2003 10:01									#34
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I agree with hitting RP now.

The problem is we have to get ready quite quickly.

We need, IMHO, to take New Madrid the turn Toledo turns to mud and ride the fault line south taking Barcelona, Barcelona, to spiceworld. Net gain early in the war: 3 medium coastal (or nearby) cities with 2 distinct luxuries.

Looking at the map, I would say that, since the war begins next turn, the gow horde is currrently at the shield square 63 of Mavdad. (based on GoW stating the attacks would begin on war turn two) Or they could be further if RP has pickets outside of their territory (one would hope so) but from this point the riders would be unseen from spies on the RP mountains and able to strike Bilbao (note: bilbao is on a hill) in 2 turns and Toledo in 3 turns. (or 4 turns if the mountain is occupied)

After toledo falls, GoW can hit New madrid in one or two turns, depending on if they want to strike across the river.

An estimated minimum of: 4 turns for GoW to take New madrid

So we would have (though my estimates haven't been that accurate in the past ) about three turns (including this one) to ready the forces and land them before GoW could take them at the earliest. The fourth turn would be the attack.

3 turns is plenty of time to ship units across. How many for the first wave? 14 units? 7 galleys now on that coast.

About the RP galley-do we waste 2 galleys to sink it immediately, or do we let it do its thing. If its the latter, I would feel better if we planted someone on Grogs mountain just in case they want to drop off a pair of swords or something.

Note: the RP galley is named "Santa Maria" I would expect there to be two more ships lurking, the Nina and the Pinta somewhere between us.



Of course the major problem with this is the doublecross. Unfortunately when we receive real confirmation of the war, ie. toledo falling, it will be too late to take new madrid, unles gow needs to time to heal. Of course even then it could be a ruse, trading cities and what not. we can tell probably through the verbiage inthe main forum. These turns are crawling now, increases the likelihood of a leak and RP trying to change the equation.

	15-07-2003 13:58									#35
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I'm moving in favour of attacking RP as being the least problematic of our options. If need be we can work with ND and GoW on a "we're keeping the cities for now, but we can try and work something out once the war is done" line, which they'll probably go for (they can't expect us to get involved without being able to establish a base on Bob can they). And we can try and arrange a deal with GoW where we split the continent at ND's expense once the war is done.

I don't think we should hit the RP galley yet - once RP are attacked it'll probably be moving away fast, and we can keep GoW informed about where it is (if we know), while saying that we don't want to attack it yet because we give up our advantage of surprise (and if RP think they can get us on their side, that's something else for them to discuss which might distract them from war planning to some degree - even with 20 people working on a situation for 24 hours, it is still possible to miss things).

	15-07-2003 14:06									#36
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We leave the galley alone. Why would we want to divert RP attention away from the decisive areas of action? Which are far from our LZs btw.

	15-07-2003 14:11									#37
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Of course we leave it alone, no hostilities yet.

It's time to ship the first wave, this turn or next. Perhaps it's wise to land a turn or 2 after the war begun. This way we'll probably face less defenders, as they'll be on their way to the north.

	15-07-2003 14:13									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus DeepO, I'm not quite sure what you meant by the last paragraph...

Well.. there was talk that we might anger Lego by attacking RP, and there was talk that Lego is the closest partner RP has. If that's true, it wouldn't be so much a 3-1 war, but more a 3-1.5 war, where Lego helps RP with money, as they don't have troops they want to commit, but have a good economy they can use to destabilize the world (or at least Bob).

If they do, I would welcome it in full: it means RP grows stronger, but will go down anyway, only damaging the attackers more. But, we need to make absolutely sure that we don't get damaged by that extra punch RP gets from Lego, so where ND and GoW can slug it out in the jungle, we should have a surprise, decisive strike. I know that that means less chance for leader farming, but so be it. The longer we wait, the more Lego's money becomes important.

There are other consequences: we want Lego to invest gold into the lost cause of RP, which they will only do for as long as they don't see RP as a lost cause. Which, in time means we can't even hint at attacking RP, on the contrary, we could, once the war breaks out between the Bobians, hint at coming to RP's help. They might try to bribe us into helping RP (the Legos certainly are manipulators), or give RP the money to bribe us. As long as Lego loses gold, and RP can damage ND and GoW (but not us), all's well.

DeepO

	15-07-2003 14:18									#39
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We sit the fence quite cutely, I would say.

We are fans of none of it, to anyone. We wink at GoW and ND, but to RP and Lego we are aghast.

We move when the situation dictates that we must to preserve a balance of power. I would say that our troops and galleys are in position to invade, but we wait for Zaragosa to fall, then we move. We can then tell Lego that we could wait no longer lest ND gain the strategic sites we need to prevent them from locking us off Bob. It is the truth. They will believe it.

	15-07-2003 14:19									#40
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Landing 2 or 3 turns after the war started seems ideal, yes. Later and we risk that RP is gone already (not much risk though, neither of their jungle fortresses will fall in 1 turn only, they're too heavily defended). Sooner, and we attrackt too much attention.

One of RP's galleys will be scouting the Lego passage, the other one is very likely on their North West as well. That is, if they have 3, it could very well be a ruse.

DeepO

	15-07-2003 14:21									#41
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We have to prevent ND from breaking through the jungle, and starting to claim 'our' Bob territory. So we can't wait too long... but that should show once Bilbao(? the most Northern RP city) falls

DeepO

	15-07-2003 17:23									#42
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DEATH TO ESPANA!

Let's get this show on the road!

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 19:36									#43
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Has anyone worked out a plan for how we would defend holdings on South Bob against a ND attack? Defenders have to worry about everywhere attackers might attack, while attackers can focus their forces much more heavily on one particular point. Using cats in our defense would be extremely dangerous because while they can help us hold, they fall into enemy hands if a tile they are on is captured. Further, unless we can hold every tile of high ground within Ansar range of our new cities (which, I'll remind everyone, will be the smaller 9-tile size for quite some time), the rugged terrain could actually work in an attacker's favor by making it impossible to do preemptive strikes on favorable terms.

Saying that the terrain is defensible is easy enough, but until I see a solid plan for how we could defend the land using the forces we can expect to have available (and still keep reasonable forces at home in case of a GoW backstab), I'm not going to believe it.

Nathan (also known as Doubting Thomas )

	15-07-2003 19:42									#44
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I'll start working on one, Nathan.

You just get those troops on the galleys, ok?

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 19:57									#45
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Part of this depends on exactly what our target list looks like, and what we think we can take. Here is my initial take, for people to discuss/tear apart:

Obviously, we want Barcelona. I would, however, move it 1 tile west (4) soon after capture.

The area around New Madrid is pretty important. I would want a city 1 tile NW (7) of NM, plus a city 1,2 of NM to help protect Barcelona.

The tricky one is the city south of Barcelona. I'd like it, b/c of the luxury supply, but it isn't very defensible, and at that point we're talking about 4 cities.

I think we could defend 3. They will all be on hills. With pikes, cats and knights/med inf for preemptive/counterattack, we should be ok.

This is going to be pretty fluid, I think. Things could move really fast here. ND & GoW have 3-move attackers.

IMO, we need to get over there and get started ASAP! I'm talking about moving 2 cities and building a 3rd, so we need settlers... though I would think we could rushbuild at least one from a captured town. Those towns probably need walls, at least one should have a barracks, and one needs a harbor.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 19:57									#46
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A few things I can think of:

1. NAP with ND (for 15-20 turns)

2. Defensive alliance with GoW (har har, worth its weight in crap that would be)

More seriously:

3. Loads of pikes and cats, with pickets on the mountains

(too bad muskets are too far off, RP will be resolved in 7-8 turns, the heavy fighting at least)

What a generic answer eh? Truth be told, we don't know if they will even attack us, what do we have, GoW's word? Whats that worth? And we don't know what cities we would be able to capture to defend. So its hard to say, and it will be difficult holding 2 or 3 cities from an entire army of ansars, but lets hope that RP can take a bite out of them and at least slow them down a bit.

Like I said before, we would be taking land,in my estimation, from GoW, not ND, thus they wouldn't care as much, one would think. We spin it as they asked for help and we were taking the cities as our price of participation and to make up for the luxuries lost when they invaded.

Hitting RP is risky, but its far riskier to sit on the sideline.

	15-07-2003 20:12									#47
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Another option, if we capture Barcelona and via good luck manage to keep the harbor, would be to build a city 7,7 from Barc to protect it. That might be better, actually... capture Barc, rush a settler, build the new city.

We may need some native workers over there to build a road or two, too.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 20:17									#48
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel 2. Defensive alliance with GoW (har har, worth its weight in crap that would be)

So true, so true.

	15-07-2003 20:20									#49
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Besides... am I the only one who's anxiously awaiting a royal *****fest in the public forum? That'll be funny.

	15-07-2003 20:24									#50
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The wait is killing me, Sir Ralph. I'm with ya!

We must confine our pleasure to this forum, though.

What do you think of my suggested defensive positioning?

Once we have that worked out, we need to think about how we will divide our forces to defend our holdings.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 20:24									#51
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Yeah when does the war get announced, I can't wait for the *****in to start.

I was hoping it would be announced in IRC to get some first hand reaction from RP.

	15-07-2003 20:28									#52
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I'm going to put this in my sig:

quote: I'm glad it's out, I just hope that it's settled. I don't particularly care to read pages and pages of justifications and excuses and complaints and rants about who's guilty of what and who's at fault for what. I don't care. I don't think most of us do. There is no moral highground. This is a game where warfare is a critical and necessary aspect of attaining victory, and a good war will really make this game exciting. - Togas

Should be appropriate, eh?

EDIT: Togas' name is actually a link, that isn't visible in the quote.

	15-07-2003 20:30									#53
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That might be over the top. But if you're gonna do it, I'd wait until Togas starts whining and put add in the whining quote too... for, um, comparison.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 20:32									#54
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Sure, before Togas starts to whine, it would be pointless.

	15-07-2003 20:34									#55
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Hey, I'm just making sure you're gonna do it right, that's all.

-Arrian

	15-07-2003 20:43									#56
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very cool SR

	15-07-2003 21:01									#57
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The wait is killing me too.

I doubt that anyone is going to attack Bilbao, and I doubt it is seriously defended either. Assuming GoW is going to attack down the eastern side, it makes sense to go straight for Toledo. If Bilbao is worth having, they can mop it up later when they have troops to spare, rather than waste what might be vital resources somewhere that isn't important. Concentration of force works.

ND might go for Santiago for the spices, or Zaragoza as a big production center, but both of these are with walls behind rivers, which could give ND heavy losses. Or they might bypass those and head for the mountains 33 of Leon, from which they can threaten to attack four towns at once (Zaragoza, Leon, Pamplona and Salamanca), which would put RP in a bad situation.

If I'm RP, I have heavy defenses in Santiago, Pamplona and Toledo, and reserves plus active defense (MI, horses if they have them) in Leon and just outside Pamplona, plus of course small garrisons on coastal towns and good landing sites. I don't think I'd cover flat landing sites due to lack of sufficient troops (or workers - they are way behind on developing tiles). So ND and GoW may have a pretty tough nut to crack if they want to attack front line cities, and whether they do or not they'll probably draw off the active defense pretty quickly. New Madrid probably has a sizeable garrison both to reinforce Toledo and to counter us landing on the Barcelona road, which is very vulnerable for them. If GoW come hard enough, that should draw off their resources there.

The first sign of war we are likely to see (if any) is Toledo or Santiago changing hands. Oddly, we need ND and GoW to do the right thing at the start and concentrate on one town each so we can see evidence that the war is real, and then we have to hope they go after multiple targets to break up their attack so that RP can hold on (just).

	15-07-2003 21:46									#58
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SR: awesome.


re: defense

I know vulture discussed this before in another place, but how much defense do we need on the homefront, which portion can we devote to the war effort?

How do ansars fare against fortified pikes in cities with walls?

I think one of the towns we take is on a hill, Madrid perhaps? And there are rivers involved at some points.

I agree with arrian, put pikes on the mountains and hills and rush barracks and walls.



Not to be a wet blanket, but would our entry in the war cause GoW and ND to ally with RP to drive us out, or would it be too late at that point. I would hate for Togas to be able to weasel out of this, even temporarily.

	16-07-2003 07:21									#59
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We should be able to hold 3-4 cities initially if we place them right. They need to all be within range of a common reinforcement site, and be augmented by forward lookouts. Each city would want Walls, Barracks, and at Temple. The culture would be mostly so we can eventually build roads out to the forward lookouts that only we can use, and can wait till later of course.



Blue: City
Red: Central forces location
Yellow: Outlooks

Given that we should be able to build at least 2 Pikes for every Ansar/Rider we face, I think we can have a garrison large enough that we could withstand their attacks just about indefinitely. Each city is going to be on Hills, with Walls, and can never be assualted without at least a turns notice. That should allow us to keep numbers superiority in any threatened city.

At worst, we should be able to kill 60-70 shields with each Pike, and evacuate our Catapults in any hopeless situation. Our cities there will be corrupt, so if we do happen to lose them, it's not a big loss to us. We just have to make them very expensive to take. If GoW/ND don't attack us, then we can expand S keeping the same spacing/reinforcement principles for new cities.

	16-07-2003 07:26									#60
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So in that case, Aeson, you would have us capture then abandon the spice city? And abandon madrid and move inland a square (I might be wrong on that)


Would it be completely unfeasible (is that a word) to take and hold the spiceland?