01-08-2003 14:48									#31
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Shouldn't RP have given us all of their treasury? They are about to lose some of it when ND takes Zaragoza...

As to the movement of GoW's troops: will someone please explain to me the mysteries of movement once and for all?
I thought that when you move, you pay the movement cost of the tile that you moved from. Hence, if GoW is currently sitting on a mountain, which costs 3 MP, and they have 3 MP, they can move as far as just one tile in every direction.
Or do you pay the movement cost of the tile that you're moving into? In which case, GoW can be outside NM if they want to, or move 2-4 and threaten both Toledo and NM.

	01-08-2003 14:55									#32
	Put an end to popups!

movement cost is according to the tile you are moving to. Jungle-3, Mountains 3 (I think) hills 2 forests 2 swamp 2 plains 1 grass 1 tundra 1 desert 1

and the problem of the fork is looming.

	01-08-2003 14:59									#33
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I believe we gave our word to Lego that this trade will go through- so we should commence research, and keep some pocket change for us, at least until RP can actually upgrade these.

Gifting NM back- sure, unless of course it puts our defense efforts at a risk.

Next turn will be crucial on the eastern front- will GoW play it safe and stick to the mountain? Will they bash their riders against the walls of Toledo (I feel like they won't, but life is full of suprises )? Or will they make a dashing manuever and place themselves on Toledo-2, or NM8?

If they stick to the mountains- that means they pass the ball to our court- we should keep pounding with Cats, and send some nasty suprise to their border towns, as our WC's are much better used as harrasers than coastal pedestals, don't you think?
We also could spare the galley up north for this kind of manuever-I'm talking about a low-cost, limited "village burning" operation, just to put the fear of the Storm into them, as a response to their aggressiveness (we could even say something on the main board, perhaps this will make them think more of this is coming, something like: "while making an effort to defend poor RP, our forces were deliberately attacked by the barbarians, and therefor called for a military action against them, blah blah blah...).

	01-08-2003 15:03									#34
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Well, at least NM is a city on a hill...

	01-08-2003 15:05									#35
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Moving 24 would be the obvious choice for them, since it forces us to split our defences. Does the mountain at Toledo 2 have a road on it? If it does, and they go for NM8, then at least MI in Toledo can attack riders on NM8. If not then only our knights are going to be able to counter (plus MI in NM).
If they go 24 to Toledo 2, then we can hit them with any MI from both cities, so they'd be trading off better defensive terrain for possibly facing more attacking units.

Is it worth building an outpost on Wittlich City 89? On a mountain, they have a 4 tile observation range don't they, which allows us to keep a good eye on movements around port isolation (without GoW necessarily knowing about it) and covers a lot of the possible galley hiding places that GoW might consider if trying to invade northern Stormia. It wouldn't cover anything south of Port Isolation, but would give good coverage north of that.

	01-08-2003 15:10									#36
	Inflate your Upload Space

I think that GoW might go for Toledo this turn. They know we have a lot of galleys, and believe that the Inchon maneouver was to help us get units to Bob as quickly as possible. One of the lessons of the Vox war was that they were too indecisive in attacking cities - the extra turn or two allowed us to get a very solid defense in place. Hopefully they've learned that lesson (another lesson is of course to spot the ways in which this war is different from the last one, so the previous lessons might not apply), and thinking that our troops are still in transit, might go for the quick kill (especially given our '1 turn repsite' NAP message). Another lesson of the Vox war was how good catapults are against large stacks on mountains that refuse to attack you. We've pinged their elite, which might just bring that lesson back to mind for them. We've said a lot about catapults in the past, so lets hope they remember we have lots of them, and attack before they get worn down.

	01-08-2003 15:15									#37
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

What if.......

we switched to the great wall now, instead of next turn.

GoW notices that we started it and think "holy shite we have to hit it now before the wall goes up"

Thus they can't do the forking because the wall will be up, better take chances against toledo now.

Just a thought for some psych warfare. Of course, chances are they wouldn't notice the build and chances are they won't deviate from what they are doing anyway.

	01-08-2003 15:53									#38
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Vulture: Yes, Toledo-2 is roaded.
Sleepy: Good idea, it might just work

	01-08-2003 16:25									#39
	Put an end to popups!

I thought we were discussing last night that NM8 couldn't be reached because the only tile going towards it (NM88, or NM87, I'm not sure without the screenshots) was a jungle, and not forest?

Sleepy: I like the idea, and it could work... however if they even half have the idea to switch their GL to the GW (possibly losing shields), it could backfire a lot. But combined with the rest of psych warfare, it could very well work...
If we go for it, I strongly suggest we mention it somewhere, like e.g. to Lego. Something like "Well, at least with the GW, we will be a lot safer". I'm sure I can spill this information without falling out-of-character

DeepO

	01-08-2003 16:37									#40
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'm going from the screenshot, but NM88 definitely looks like forest to me rather than jungle. Did someone with the save check the terrain?

	01-08-2003 16:37									#41
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

DeepO: Unfortunately, it is a forest tile and not a jungle.
You make a good point regarding the GW. This could seriously blow in our faces.

	01-08-2003 16:53									#42
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Hmmm... even then, I would still give NM back to RP. in case they don't go for the tile, RP will notice, and can have the production of that city. Plus, unless I'm mistaken, they will receive the 20 gold anyway.

DeepO

	01-08-2003 18:04									#43
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

If we give NM back to RP, can they actually defend it?

-Arrian

	01-08-2003 18:17									#44
	Suffering from ads?

I don't think so.

	01-08-2003 18:24									#45
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

We haven't got long before we have to pass the turn.

	01-08-2003 18:37									#46
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

well, is Nathan awake already?

DeepO

	01-08-2003 20:46									#47
	Tired of ads?

If we want to, we can set up another galley chain for next turn, meaning we can unload some pikes and MIs (knights will be all on Bob anyway) in Sirocco and use them to defend NM if that needs to be. This decision has to be made during RP's turn, of course... but since the number of troops we have to transport towards Bob is falling each turn, some more chaining to get them there faster can very well be beneficial.

DeepO

	01-08-2003 21:03									#48
	Got spare money?

I'm back now. For the record, the tiles 2 and 2-3 from the GoW stack are both forest.

The issue with NM is that if we keep the city, we can rush the remaining shields (we have ten now) of a cat or a pike, thereby getting some use out of the shields we have there now. If we give it back, RP can get a lot more out of it, but if they have to give it back to us again next turn because GoW is threatening it, we throw away both our ten shields and the ten plus RP can get from it. Thus, if GoW doesn't threaten it, we're better off giving it to RP, but if they do, we're better off keeping it. And GoW moving to Toledo 2 for a fork is one of the moves that would threaten it.

The companion question is how our giving NM back to RP vs. keeping it might be likely to affect GoW's actions. If they go for NM, will they move straight in, move to Toledo 2 for a fork, or move 2-6 and try to sneak in from the north (in which case RP could keep the city long enough for walls or a cat before giving it back)? Do we want them to go after NM or go ahead and hit Toledo? And is keeping NM or giving it back more likely to get GoW to behave how we want them to?

Very complicated, and I don't have any clear answers myself even now (much less at 3 a.m. - it looks like NYE is a time zone west of me).

Regarding the Great Wall, I very definitely don't want GoW getting any ideas of switching to it themselves!


By the way, I just checked, and they've switched their prebuild to Sistine now, meaning the suspicion that they were going for Leo's was almost certainly correct. That could get very, very nasty for us if they use fake wars with ND to cut off their iron temporarily to build horsemen instead of riders and then upgrade them.

	01-08-2003 21:07									#49
	Inflate your Upload Space

We don't have any galleys in a position to use chaining next turn; our galleys have been too busy maximizing our numbers of troops landed this turn and next turn. We have four that can make pickups next turn and unload in Sirocco the turn after.

	01-08-2003 21:11									#50
	Tired of ads?

Wow, this has been quite the story catching up on. I'm way to far behind to even consider getting involved, but I'm still waiting with bated breath.

Certainly exciting

	01-08-2003 21:23									#51
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Good to see you around.

Much of the driving forces that shape GoW's actions are emotional, we've seen that already. If we give NM to RP, in my opinion we very much increase the odds that GoW will go for a fork or directly to NM-8 instead.
My vote is to keep NM. Furthermore, I would like us to quickly send a note to RP explaining that we're considering keeping NM for the moment for these reasons, and asking whether that spoils their plans. I'll do it myself in half an hour if noone objects, since time is short.

	01-08-2003 21:40									#52
	Put an end to popups!

I'll need to finish playing the turn in just a few minutes. Any more thoughts?

	01-08-2003 22:31									#53
	Remove this text

I still favor giving NM to RP... even if it would waste 20 shields if we're wrong... but at least it would gain RP 20 gold (at expense of 5? for us?), it's not a total waste.

As to galley chaining: I thought it was possible with one galley, but it doesn't matter if it's not. And it's very diffcult to compute these paths from screenshots of previous turn, let me tell you

DeepO

	01-08-2003 22:32									#54
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Oh, and welcome back, Randolph! I can imagine you have a lot of catching up to do, much has happened the past months. Let me know if you want a brief introduction...

DeepO

	01-08-2003 22:36									#55
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I'd really rather play it safe with NM and keep it for now.
If we keep it, then to GoW, it's just another city. It has even greater defense bonuses (city defense bonus in addition to hill defense bonus, +40% more than Toledo), and it delays GoW's attack by a turn, during which we can catapult them and bring more forces. (of course they don't know that if they went for NM, it would make things much worse for us; hopefully these fears that I've listed will paralyse them and they will be unable to do anything original)
If we give it to RP, it suddenly becomes very very lucrative in the eyes of GoW, the team with the famous "thread of grudges"-based decision-making process. They will abandon all their fears of possibly miring 14 riders and charge into NM.

	01-08-2003 22:36									#56
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Okay, I'm out of time. I'm going to keep NM until we see what GoW does and rush a cat there (40 gold). If, at the beginning of next turn, GoW is poised to hit NM, I'll see if I can catch it in the build phase and switch to rushing a pike. I'll also hang onto Chivalry and our gold, since it's doubtful that RP will be able to use them in their turn.

	01-08-2003 22:44									#57
	Got spare money?

Turn and shots sent.

	01-08-2003 22:58									#58
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I started working on a message to let RP know, but thought better of it.
If indeed there is a mole, GoW will know where to go next turn.
We ought to see if we can get a hold of one of the prominent and trustworthy figures in the team (Arnie, BigFree, Togas) on IRC.

	01-08-2003 23:00									#59
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I see we rushed a cat in NM
meow...

	01-08-2003 23:03									#60
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Indeed, we need to let RP know why we did it. It could be sent in such a way that a possible mole would turn GoW to attack Toledo, though. By simply mentioning "we can defend NM for sure if it remains in our posession, and if the need is there" it should be clear that in case GoW goes for NM, they will not be able to take it. I'm not sure if we don't want to lure them, though.

DeepO