23-07-2003 09:37									#1
	The Bob War Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

This war is becoming a game turning point. I think it's also going to sprawl across all the correspondance threads if a thread isn't started.

First off, I want to comment on GoW's new statement of devotion to Lego: I think it's worth as much as the electrons it's made of, even if they themselves don't realize that. The only case in which I see this actually meaning anything is if Lego intervenes on Bob, but fails to stop GS getting some expansion room. This would mean disaster for ND and GoW and would eliminate their chances of winning the game; they'd be in complete revenge mode and would be very good Vox-style junior allies. If, however, we don't intervene, I don't see much chance of their pro-Lego stance remaining; if we do intervene and GoW and ND wipe out RP, they still have a chance at the game, and so while we might not be their next target after RP, that's pretty much all the benefit I see in the intervention + strong ND and GoW circumstance. In short, let's not start thinking they are our game-long allies...

However, that said, we definitely need to tip the balance back to ND + GoW. This is a sticky situation as far as our GS relations go, as we essentially gave them a thumbs-up for intervening on Bob; we really should have argued against direct intervention in hindsight. Oh well; what's done is done, and we can just reverse our position. We need to get GS off Bob or at least confined, that is definite.

BTW, anyone else find it funny this momentous war is happening just as the game date is about to switch to AD?

	23-07-2003 10:57									#2
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This is a tough decision to make. The safest path is to continue a semi-isolationism. We can support both sides and let them hammer away at each other. Meanwhile we continue to build our empire. Of course we run the risk of one team (GS most likely) dominating the war and coming out much more powerful.

I take it back, the safest path is doing what I stated above and .... secretly building a very strong, invasion ready army. My hope would be that the army is not used, but in case things start going bad on Bob, we can get involved.

I would continue with the Defensive Army plan (proposed by Vondrack and approved) on the East coast and in strategic areas. Delay the West Coast part of the plan and build the offensive army instead.

In any case, it's bed time....Leo

	25-07-2003 07:24									#3
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Some observations from the 10bc save:

ND has been cut off from both of its iron sources except for their Vigo city - I would imagine that is ND's next target perhaps or Zaragoza to cut off their horses.

GS can trade iron to RP though - watch next turn to see if that is the case.

Hmm GS gave RP their Inchon city? Rather unusual isn't it? Especially as there isn't any ROP agreement between them...

	26-07-2003 21:15									#4
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Recent public discussion seems to indicate that GoW, ND, and GS have all teamed up vs. RP. I'm going to try and do some digging to find out what the **** is going on over there. If GoW is scared of GS, allying with them and letting them take Spanish cities isn't really the best way to go about things, I would think...

	28-07-2003 02:49									#5
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In a chat with GS today, DeepO declined to disclose what the Inchon gifting was about. It struck me that was probably a stack jump to the Eye of the Storm, like the Voxodus on a smaller scale.

Whether this was just a speedup of a small stack or if it was a major shift of forces, we can't know.

	28-07-2003 03:27									#6
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I suspect that GS is preparing for an invasion into the eastern sections of initially ND then GoW to grab large sections of Bob.

	29-07-2003 07:50									#7
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In case anyone is interested - the known world consists of:

Bob - 677 squares
Mystery Isle - 18 squares
Legos Major - 353 squares
New Vox - 83 squares
Stormia - 200 squares

Total known land squares = 1331

NOTE: My count might be a little off as I was going fairly quickly - but no more than 20 or 30 squares max if even that...

Needed land squares for domination victory - 70% of 1331 = 932 squares PLUS 70% of world's population

Percentage of known world land squares in Legos Major - 353/1331 = 26.52%

Percentage of known world land squares in Legos Major and New Vox (Legos Minor) (353+83=436)/1331 = 32.75%

Bob/Borconia + Stormia + Mystery Isle = 895 - amount needed in addition to this 37 squares ! .... (Yikes that is too close...)

	29-07-2003 10:10									#8
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Should GS conquer entire Bob, the game is over anyway, domination or not ...

	29-07-2003 13:28									#9
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We need to ensure that if GS does come a-knocking, the Bob civs won't just lay down and raze cities before them. We need them to pack those cities with units to hurt GS as much as possible.

	30-07-2003 14:34									#10
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It is about time to establish a roadmap regarding our actions on Bob.

1. How many GS cities we would tolerate on Bob?
2. If GS will not retreat, what immediate actions we can take? Embargo against GS, or only (moral+tech+economic) support to ND+GoW?
3. War preparations. When, where, with how many units, our military objective?
4. Finally, we must work on an official Lego opinion about the whole thing. We will be asked, probably sooner than later.

	30-07-2003 15:02									#11
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Let's see:

Decision:
2 or 3 GS cities on Bob would be the max we could accept, I think.

Actions:
nr. 1: announce GS about our decision through the private channels and then make our position public; make part of the public announcement that we don't support the war against RP
nr. 2: tech+economic support to ND+GoW, as much as it's possible, without hindering our development and military upgrades. This part is tricky, because they can use our help against RP, too. Must be careful in doing this.
nr. 3: Luxury+tech embargo against GS, obviously without breaking signed treaties and agreements between us. No declaration of war yet.
nr. 4: sending the military (only if GS gains too much terrain and ND and GoW asks for it). The purpose of our military actions would be a) destroy GS cities on Bob if possible; b) weaken its military; c) cut of their supply lines. This part should be kept secret.

	30-07-2003 15:18									#12
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Radek, if you don't mind, I copied your post from the GoW thread here.

quote: Here is what I believe we shall do: 1) PM or chat with GS - make it very clear that with accepting New Madrid, they and RP crossed the line between what we consider "balancing the power" on Bob and what we perceive as a full scale, aggressive invasion of Bob. Tell them we now believe RPers have decided to more or less resign from the game (New Madrid was one of the best RP production centers), giving whatever is left to them to GS. We do not see this as acceptable. 2) Depending on how GS responds, we shall either make our stance public or continue the negotiations privately, perhaps trying to arrange a "limited war", guaranteeing we would not attack their homeland in exchange for them not attacking us on Legos. If they accept, fine, if not, fine, too. I am going to draft a message to GS. Will post it ASAP for comments.

Yep, this is what I was talking about. PM or chat with GS and prepare in the same time a public announcement; however don't post it yet.

	30-07-2003 15:24									#13
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quote: perhaps trying to arrange a "limited war", guaranteeing we would not attack their homeland in exchange for them not attacking us on Legos.

Hmm, I don't know. This is equal to letting them know that we will attack them On Bob. I thought this should be a suprise. We ought to scare them with an embargo and support for ND+GoW and keep the military plans secret.

	30-07-2003 15:38									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Tiberius Let's see: Decision: 2 or 3 GS cities on Bob would be the max we could accept, I think.

With taking New Madrid, the line has already been crossed in my eyes. Not only they are now having three cities on Bob, but the TREND is simply too dangerous. If RPers are willing to gift one of their "core" cities (and New Madrid WAS on of their core cities) to GS, then I am no longer willing just to watch.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius Actions: nr. 1: announce GS about our decision through the private channels and then make our position public; make part of the public announcement that we don't support the war against RP

Agreed. See my post in the GoW thread. Just that I would not rush with public announcements. Have it ready, yes, but hold it until there is need/proper time. I would consider it bad manners to post such an announcement before letting GS know through diplo channels.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius nr. 2: tech+economic support to ND+GoW, as much as it's possible, without hindering our development and military upgrades. This part is tricky, because they can use our help against RP, too. Must be careful in doing this.

Well... if they use it against RP, their problem.... The treaty we have with RPers prevents us from directly attacking RPers and "joining any wars against" RP, but not from supporting civs that are at war with someone else.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius nr. 3: Luxury+tech embargo against GS, obviously without breaking signed treaties and agreements between us. No declaration of war yet.

Yep, agreed. If GS responds negatively to our note, terminate the lux deal (not a big deal for us). I would honour the Astro/Bank deal, but if they wish to cancel, I would not mind (as Astro is a strategic tech, while Banking is not).

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius nr. 4: sending the military (only if GS gains too much terrain and ND and GoW asks for it). The purpose of our military actions would be a) destroy GS cities on Bob if possible; b) weaken its military; c) cut of their supply lines. This part should be kept secret.

Now this is something I do not completely agree with. I believe we should start moving our troops to Bob NOW. With the limited capacity of our fleet, we will need some time to get those knights and mercs over to Bob. If we start only when GoW & ND get into troubles, it will be too late. I would suggest starting NOW, assembling a decent force in the GoW or ND rear. That way, we will be able to strike IMMEDIATELY if GS succeeds in their counteroffensive.

To this effect, we need to talk to ND and GoW:

1) We need an embassy with GoW - should be established this turn.
2) We need RoP with both of them - should be offered this turn.
3) We need them to agree to our troops starting to gather at a designated place in GoW or ND territory, somewhere quite far from the front line and from the sights of GS troops. This assumes some trust from their side, of course. I would ask them to pinpoint the location.
4) Make sure they understand our forces will engage GS and GS only.

	30-07-2003 15:40									#15
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Perhaps it is time for an "unofficial" response in the Manifesto thread by one of us (not Zargon or Vondrack as that would be considered official by the teams). Indicate that this is your personal view and not necessarily the view of Legoland (others have used this trick, why shouldn't we...)

One thing to include in this "unofficial" response for certain would be to indicate that it is felt that Legoland cannot stand off this issue any further; but the team is divided as how to deal with it (would give us some wiggle room for our "official" response).

Feel free otherwise to list our grievances against RP, our waryness in GS's intervention on Bob, and perhaps a little history of our relations with the other civs. Perhaps also reveal the differences between how GoW and ND dealt with our map situation and how RP constantly demanded our map in uneven trades to their benefit...

Perhaps it is also time to reveal what ND told us about GS wanting an anti-Lego alliance, and that we also know about RP's manuevering against us in the past.

Re our official response - we should inform GS that they are crossing the line and we would regard an invasion of GoW or ND's core areas as a territory grab and thus unacceptable to Legoland.

	30-07-2003 15:54									#16
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OK, so the roadplan until now:

1. Talk to GS. (see above)
2. Prepare a public announcement but don't post it yet.
3. Establish an embassy with ND and GoW this turn.
4. IMHO wait with the RoPs. Not only our troops are several turns away from their land, thus we don't need them yet, but also GS could find out. Let's wait until we will actually need them.
5. Talk to ND and GoW about: what kind help do they need: money, tech, what? Also let them know that we could send troops earlier, and ask for a "corridor" across their lands. Especially ND should be aware that we will brake a treaty with them. Tell them about the RoPs. Tell them we will fight GS only. We should also tell them that we are negotiating with GS about their retrieval and in case of succesful negotiations, we won't intervene.
6. Start moving our galleys and troops in position.

New proposal:
7. Slow down research a bit and start saving money.

Last edited by Tiberius on 30-07-2003 at 16:00

	30-07-2003 16:02									#17
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Steve, see my diplo note draft in the GS thread, please - and comment.

I would not like to involve ourselves in the public thread and I would certainly NOT include most of the info you have mentioned. The reason is very simple: we'd disclose a lot of confidential info we learned from other teams and GS/RP would better know what they are standing against (and perhaps, why, too).

I understand that you believe we should give our REASONS to get involved in this war. Well - we do not need to give any. The simple "balance of power" is enough. RPers know what they did (besides, we will not join any war against THEM - their city gifting trick is going to backfire on them now). GS knows we do not want to let them grow to keep our own chances high. These two do not care about our reasons - it's the fact that we will fight against them that matters. The others (Vox, ND, GoW) do not care about our reasons either - what matters for them is we are going to fight GS.

The only thing that would result from publicly posting all of our reasons and "reasons" would be a ping-pong-like argument about which reasons are valid and which are not... better avoid that, please.

	30-07-2003 16:11									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Tiberius 3. Establish an embassy with ND and GoW this turn. 4. IMHO wait with the RoPs. Not only our troops are several turns away from their land, thus we don't need them yet, but also GS could find out. Let's wait until we will actually need them.

Agreed. A better idea than mine.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius 5. Talk to ND and GoW about : what kind help do they need: money, tech, what? Also let them know that we could send troops earlier, and ask for a "corridor" across their lands. Especially ND should be aware that we will brake a treaty with them. Tell them about the RoPs. Tell them we will fight GS only. We should also tell them that we are negotiating with GS about their retrieval and in case of succesful negotiations, we won't intervene.

What about sorting out what kind of help we can provide to them (among ourselves) first?

Here is a quick list of what I can think of:

1) free Astronomy ? (assuming they give us their next tech for free, too)
2) workers ?
3) catapults ?
4) gold ?
5) dyes in exchange for their luxuries

I would directly ask for the corridor - even if they think they can hold against GS, I would still start moving our troops immediately. I assume they will be cool with that.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius New proposal: 7. Slow down research a bit and start saving money.

Only after discovering Astronomy, please. This tech is almost game breaking for us. Caravels carry 3 units, not 2 like Galleys, and have the defense of 2 (at the expense of mere 10 more shields). Plus, we will be able to get GoW & ND luxuries. We can slow down afterwards.

	30-07-2003 16:29									#19
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quote: Originally posted by vondrack What about sorting out what kind of help we can provide to them (among ourselves) first? Here is a quick list of what I can think of: 1) free Astronomy ? (assuming they give us their next tech for free, too) 2) workers ? 3) catapults ? 4) gold ? 5) dyes in exchange for their luxuries I would directly ask for the corridor - even if they think they can hold against GS, I would still start moving our troops immediately. I assume they will be cool with that.

Astronomy: I agree. We could maybe pursue Vox to gift Engineering to ND, so that they would be able to save some money? Being used against GS, should be enough payment for Vox

Workers and catapults would be fairly easy for us to build quickly and hand them to ND or GoW.

Gold: I don't know. How much gold we have? I can't see the pics from the Chronicle thread. I would prefer not. We will need money ourselves. The fact alone that we will pay for the embasies is a financial help.

Dyes: absolutely. All luxury exchanges which don't include GS will help us and hurt them (don't forget, they will lose 3 luxury trades!)

quote: Only after discovering Astronomy, please. This tech is almost game breaking for us. Caravels carry 3 units, not 2 like Galleys, and have the defense of 2 (at the expense of mere 10 more shields). Plus, we will be able to get GoW & ND luxuries. We can slow down afterwards.

OK. You're right, astronomy will help us more than some money we could spare in the meantime.

PS Btw. I agree with Radek in regard to commenting the war in the public forum. What's the point discussing about who's right and who's wrong? This game is about winning, so unless someone's breaking the rules, why would we accuse them? For trying to win?
Moreover, I am strongly against using private data we learned from others to justify our intervention.

	30-07-2003 18:11									#20
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It would be perferable not to honor the Astro/Banking deal. Astronomy would help the GS war effort considerably. It would open up Legoland to invasion on our West/Weak coast.

It would be foolish to give Astronomy to GS.

We could time the discovery of Astronomy with the Declaration of War. In this way, we do not reject the tech trade until after the war declaration.

	30-07-2003 18:16									#21
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Giving ND/GoW catapults is an excellent idea. I think they would quickly accept.

I think we need to start sending our troops to Bob now. Simply because it would be easier and improve our response time. If we are deep within ND/GoW, we are unlikely to get caught.

	30-07-2003 18:39									#22
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quote: Originally posted by lmtoops Giving ND/GoW catapults is an excellent idea. I think they would quickly accept.

We should gift all of them (4, 6?) at once (in big groops) to avoid declaring war to ND/GoW every other turn. We can gift cats and workers only by letting them being captured.

	30-07-2003 18:50									#23
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Yes, letting them being captured - that was my idea.

	30-07-2003 19:48									#24
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It might be worthwhile asking ND and GOW about us establishing a 'citadel' or two on Bob. I don't fancy sending troops over there without knowing how long they are going for and without having somewhere to pull back to and have a rethink. Ideally we would have 2 small cities, one around ND/GOW and one in the south. We can keep ND/GOW happy by keeping these small (built on hills for maximum defence), and providing city screenshots on request to ensure we aint planning on staying.

This is based on the way I conduct invasions on SP. Pull a settler and as much defence as you can muster, build a small, well defended city somewhere and then start piling the troops in. I find it essential for restoring heath of mounted units in particular who can move back and forth much more quickly.

I would also imagine we will be conducting warfar purely based on getting GS off Bob, or at least getting them to the point where they accept that a major presence, or any at all, is not welcome nor tolerated.

	30-07-2003 20:00									#25
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That is actually a good idea. We could make ND and GoW agree with this, promising that we would destroy or gift these cities to them after the war.

	30-07-2003 20:26									#26
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Yes, exactly. I think we are at the stage where even if they don't trust us they probably realise that we have no intention of winning this game by any means other than peaceful and that we have no interest in retaining a presence on Bob.

What I think this will also do is make GS think twice. They won't necessarily know about our pact with ND/GOW and we may be able to put some sort of plan together to stop the war and let everyone live happily in peace...

The one thing we shouldn't do is leave Lego even slightly undefended...

	30-07-2003 20:30									#27
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Definitely an idea worth considering and worth discussing with GoW and ND. This city would also make trading workers possible.

	30-07-2003 20:49									#28
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A quick look at the minimap suggests theres one place and one place only this city can go, and I imagine RP/GS won't like it, but sure, thats how it goes

	30-07-2003 20:50									#29
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I think the citadel idea is a very good one. So good, in fact, that I'm going to start picking out sites

The events in the public forum will help us achieve this end, I think. GS' constant arrogance and general unpleasantness to ND and GoW will basically keep them in our court no matter what. They'll want us to help slaughter GS in any way possible. Hopefully we'll be havign a 3-team chat tomorrow, but in the mean time I'll whomp up some Bob force plans.

	30-07-2003 20:56									#30
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quote: Originally posted by lmtoops It would be perferable not to honor the Astro/Banking deal. Astronomy would help the GS war effort considerably. It would open up Legoland to invasion on our West/Weak coast. It would be foolish to give Astronomy to GS. We could time the discovery of Astronomy with the Declaration of War. In this way, we do not reject the tech trade until after the war declaration.

First: Astronomy alone does nothing for GS, but put them one step closer to Navigation that actually allows crossing the ocean. If they focus on researching Navigation, they will not be able to research Invention and Gunpowder, which I consider good for us.

Second: I would personally feel that trashing our deal with GS would go beyond the line of honour/dishonour. It was part of a bigger deal and they paid upfront, so they should get what they paid for, even if it may not be exactly in our best interest (but as noted above - if they really focus on Navigation, they will only be losing time with a dead-end, non-mandatory tech, while we will be speeding up the gunpowder branch... and if they do not use Astronomy to get to Navigation, even better - we'll get a tech we will be able to use, they will get something they basically already have thanks to The Great Lighthouse).