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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:30
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The idea was floated again recently on GCA becoming a vassal state, furnishing us with a second Palace and FP, basically doubling our potential GNP and Mfg. This was proposed by GhengisFarb once before in return for CDG continuing to exist. The issue became moot when CDG was eventually eliminated. However, this brings up the idea of what we could accept from GCA in return for their survival - peace terms perhaps.
I see no need to ask for terms if we are demolishing GCA - we will take all we want from them anyway, so why let them get away with some of it and leave us with useless troops? However, remember their war with CFC? They had great RNG luck, and even when CDG turned on them with IMMORTALS, the RNG favoured them heavily again - to CDG's demise. What if such a situation was to repeat itself for our upcoming war, even with a fraction of its potency? We might have lost 2/3 of our force reaching Random Outpost (the edge of the old CDG lands).
If we were to suffer Pyrrhic victories, what would we aim for at the least? The old CDG lands as far as Random Outpost seem a good aim, and we could demand Sodapopolis and Port Blacksand for ourselves or CFC. This would confine them to their starting "bulb" of the landmass, but still leave them with 2 Silks, 2 Iron, Horses and Furs. I do not think we could expect them to give up any of their original lands in negotiations, nor would I expect us to be able to keep them unless they were contiguous with the northern parts we had captured already.
So, to other things besides land. How feasible would it be to demand Silks for perpetuity (well, until we connect them for ourselves West of Equilibrium)? Otherwise, all we could get is cash (several hundred sounds like a fair amount) and maybe tech (but that would rely on them developing the tech instead of weapons and giving it to us instead of using the time to reinforce). And what then? Do we attack again in the future, to finish them for good?
Or is the whole idea of settling with the work half done ludicrous? I would certainly like to see them gone for good beyond all other possible outcomes, but what if we don't have the success we feel is certain and our GA starts to run out? Could we afford the war to last longer than the GA's 20 turns, with the more even odds and our war weariness? So post your thoughts, and if you feel there could be a situation (however unlikely) that we would best settle than drive ourselves into the ground with a prolonged war, what your thoughts on minimum aims should be.
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Dominae
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Depending on the level of concessions they give us upfront when they become our vassal, it may very well be worth signing that accord. Something like:
1. Disband all your military units except for X units at the chokepoint to CFC.
2. Gift us these cities.
3. You cannot expand beyond this line toward us, and beyond the chokepoint toward CFC.
That would be worth it, regardless of long-term possibilities. We would then have: 1) most of military still intact, 2) maybe even our GA and 3) breathing room to expand like crazy and try to catch up to the civs on the other continent.
There is no reason for us to expect to GCA them as vassals forever. We should expect treachery, and be prepared for it. With GCA a minor power and almost complete control of our continent, I'm sure we could take care of them once they rebel.
This is, of course, assuming they are ready to be our vassals. If they are without hesitation, we should definitely expect treachery. But that's fine: as long as they accept our initial list of conditions, we will have the upper hand (far stronger than we do now). We would basically be daring them to betray us.
To sum up, requiring them to be our vassals should not be regarded as the start of a peaceful relationship, but rather a diplomatic blow in our campaign to eradicate them. Who knows, they might just accept.
Dominae
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Master Zen
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of naughty
Jan 2003
time: 23:30
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I second what FP said.
Resentment will stay forever, GCA would lay low and ultimately wait for someone else to assist and make us lose. It seems people here are forgetting that the mentality of a demo game is not much different than that of a PBEM. Once you get your ass kicked, all you want is for the guy who beat you NOT to win. You know your chances are gone but if someone else can snatch the victory, it is a psychological victory to you that your biggest rival didn't win. Thus, in that sense you did "beat" him by eliminating his chances of victory.
However, more than that, most players won't stick around playing vassal. They'll fight to the end. CDG was the exception because GhengisFarb is an Apolytonian at heart and he's the kind of guy who always has crazy schemes in his head. He would have had fun playing the vassal as a one-man team I can assure you, but for the same reason, think of why every other member of CDG jumped ship. None of them would have accepted to keep on playing under these conditions.
I ask, would any one of us accept playing vassal to GCA in the very unlikely event we would lose? Hell no. So, what makes any of you think GCA would act differently?
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Dominae
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I invite you all to re-read my post above.
1. We ask if they want to become our vassals, with a certain list of terms.
2. They refuse or accept.
3. If they refuse, we fight it out (no change). If they accept, we take all the stuff as described in our terms, then wait for the opportune moment to destroy them.
We *know* they're not going to be our loyal vassal... why play dumb about it? We can always get CFC to declare war on them and then come to CFC's aid if we need an moral excuse.
Everyone here is big on getting "something instead of nothing". If GCA is willing to sign a treaty whereby they give us a bunch of stuff, why not take it? As we all know, no treaty is binding in this game (especially not when treachery is suspected).
Dominae
Last edited by Dominae on 19-09-2003 at 23:35
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Dominae
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They may think it is in their best interests to agree to our terms. We'll never know if we do not give them any.
Dominae
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BigFurryMonster
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EMPEROR of Cats
Feb 2002
time: 06:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Master Zen
Once you get your ass kicked, all you want is for the guy who beat you NOT to win.
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Well, sometimes it can be a bit different.
In the intra-site demo game, Lux Invicta was beaten by Neu Demogyptica. Glory of War later joined the war in a sneaky manner. Actually, they broke a treaty with us while ND just said: "we're going to take your lands".
If ND, at some point, would have offered us to become a vassal state, I might have thought about that option seriously. In fact, our feelings to ND were better at the time than towards GoW.
Later, we became a vassal state of Vox and got betrayed. Good to hear that Vox is now a vassal state of its own.
This might not apply here, though, but it's something to think about.
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MrWhereItsAt
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New Year's Resolution: 2005 is the year of Where It's At - come get some.
Nov 2001
time: 17:30
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All this discussion of whether they will seriously consider the idea of becoming a vassal or not is fine, but mere supposition. Would we should concentrating on here is what we would ask for if such an eventuality were to, er, eventuate. Also, could we expect it to work like this forever? There's no fun in the game if you have no ambition, so IMO this should be seen as a temporary measure at best - lasting some tens of turns perhaps. If we go by this reasoning, it is this timeline we need to keep in mind when thinking about what they could give us.
Cities are easy - I would say all cities we have captured at that point in time (of course), and BoP and all GCA cities left in old CFC lands should become ours as a minimum. We would get guaranteed furs in perpetuity, have them research a 40 turn tech (Chivalry? Monarchy?) for us. We must be given details on all their cities and units, also on income/expenditure, so we can determine how much cash we can demand that does not allow them to support any more units than they have, demand they disband all units with an offensive strength more than 1 and maybe even get some weaker defnse units to sit in the open for us to kill at our leisure to attempt for GLs.
This last point I am least sure of, because I feel no team would accept this - in fact I expect no team to give us all their income/units details. The most reasonable of course depends on the exact circumstances, but I would expect access to furs, gpt, some cities as I have mentioned and disbanding of units to all be likely deals we could make.
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Dominae
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+1 to killing of GCA completely.
But also:
+1 to giving them our terms first to see if they comply. We lose nothing by doing this!
Dominae
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19-09-2003 18:06
). But that is based on a mutual trust, not the almost certain state of mistrust from both parties that would occur were we to try to force GCA into a vassal state.
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