After action report "The Great Bobian War"

[Rhothaerill]

On the Utility and Use of Marines

It starts near the end of page 4.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Thanks but I only see three pages, how many posts per page are you set on?

EDIT: Nevermind, found it. I feel your pain.

[vmxa1]

Maybe I am out of line here, but let me pose one possiblility for any team to go on.

They could feel that they have an obligation to the game and to their comrades.

Not to mention what Rhothaerill said, they could be starting to have fun and feel it is a learning experience.

Of course I can think of a few others and don't really know the answer.

[Hot_Enamel]

It would be nice to hear RP's answer though...

Given that the threats we received from them consisted of them saying they would not become like Vox.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
It would be nice to hear RP's answer though...

Given that the threats we received from them consisted of them saying they would not become like Vox.

That's true. They did say no matter what the outcome, no matter what they may later say, they would only have one goal for the rest of the game and that goal would be to see GoW destroyed.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Hey, RP, can you explain why you ultimately decided to stick around? Really.

Why do you want to stay? I don't think I could, frankly.

In all honesty, I feel becoming a minor player is a fate worse than death. Don't understand it at all. If you all remember back I was the only one not on GS saying the same thing back during Vox as well, so I haven't changed and it's nothing personal against RP, just something I don't understand too well.

There's a lot I'm just not going to talk about, but I will say the following:

Any civiliation in the game who wishes to have RP Team's help in deciding the outcome of the game (to our limited ability of being able to impact it), you are free to contact us about such possibilities. We are even willing to work with those teams we have fought in the past.

In essence, RP Team wishes to play the role of a friendly spoiler. The question at this point is not so much what purpose is there in RP Team staying around for its own benefit, as our own benefit no longer matters. The question is what benefit we could be to other teams still on the board and how that might make the game slightly more interesting.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

So, in other words, Vox? How much you willing to pay to buy back your homeland?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Aggie
That would be so funny. Actually I agree that things are not as straightforward as they might appear.

I've noted earlier that many issue that came up in negotiations have not been mentioned. This implies that though the pot has cooled down this game is still at least on simmer. I think of it as a volcano that is dormant, not extinct.

Very much so. There's a good deal of the Bobian War diplomacy that I haven't talked about and a good bit I'm sure others have not talked about. The ND/GoW/Lego situation, in particular, is not quite what has been discussed here, as with the role of RP or even the role of Vox.

It's still a very interesting world out there.

Right now there are 4 teams with a chance to win outright and 2 others who could be kingmakers. Interactions between teams will be the deciding factors more than tile count or even raw production. To be honest I have no idea how these interactions will play out in the future. Its possible that old alliances will be changed or even reversed and old friends will be on opposite sides of conflicts.

This, if anything, is the role that Vox and RP have left to play. Personally, my job in this game at this point is sitting around waiting for you guys to realize that we could be conducive to your aims and consulting us about how we could be involved in them (yes, that's an open invitation to send Togas and I PM's ).

Now lets gets back to what happened, not what will happen.

I have 3 questions for RP.

1. Why did you not try to counterattack Salamnaca the turn we took it, simple math says that we could have had no more than 2/3 Riders there?

As I recall, we were concerned about ND's force of Ansar warriors we were sure was just out of sight. The concern was that if we took Salamanca with part of our force, whatever we sent would get cut off and killed by ND on their turn. Sure, we'd have "reclaimed" Salamanca for a turn, but each individual unit holed up behind walls and catapult protection in Palmplona (as a total tally of units) made attack of that city more prohibitive. Every unit sent out might be easier to kill on a per-unit basis on better terrain, sure, but would also make the TOTAL assault force needed to defeat Pamplona smaller.

2. What was the purpose of you large move of troops later on toward "The Alamo"? Was it to tie our forces into a defense of this town or was it a true offesnive threat.

When forces from within Pamplana finally DID head out into the field near Salamanca (by then called "The Alamo"), it was under orders from BigFree. That was the turn that GoW insisted on replaying because of some bug. What happened with that turn was that BigFree sent out a good portion of our army, against what Togas had written in the orders thread to do, and it REALLY pissed me off... When we got the turn back to be replayed, I insisted on following Togas' original orders to keep the troops INSIDE the city (rather than when he'd acquiesed to BigFree's moves when we'd been sitting on the save for more than 24 hours the first time and just sent what BigFree had done without changing it), but was overruled by Trip, who told me we had to do the same thing as before.

Ultimately, because GoW pounced on the retreat of part of that force back to Pamplona, I was able to kill a number of GoW Riders when I played the next turn and BigFree can claim credit for that setup. That said, I would have VERY VERY VERY STRONGLY preferred that we had kept all of those pikemen and medieval infantry INSIDE PAMPLONA, making the eventual force GoW and/or ND would need to take the city significantly larger. We must have lost some 8-10 units in that operation just take down a few GoW riders. Sending out pikemen into the mountains off the road network where they couldn't get back to Pamplona in one turn was idiotic, in my opinion.

BigFree's rationale, as I recall, was that it was supposed to be a manuever to encourage GoW to keep more riders in the south, making the GS invasion of the northeast more likely to do some damage. I remember that GS was skeptical that this would work that way and I remember that I was highly against moving 1-move units off the roadnetwork out of Pamplona REGARDLESS of what it might gain elsewhere.

3. Did we get a GL in Pamploma forest when you destroyed our forces there, is that the reason you use pike or did you simply want to make a point that you still bite. This was in my opinion a move a agonized over at the time(and to some degree still regret), but in the end decided I would rather have you attacking than fortified in Pamploma.

No, you did not get a GL. I think I've explained that one above. BigFree moved our troops out of his own accord, Togas just accepted what BigFree had done and sent it on without changing it because we'd sat on the save for more than 24 hours (Togas had been on vacation or something and came back angry because no-one had actually SENT the turn out).

When I discovered what had been done, I was incensed! Togas and I had just discussed the very turn before how unwise we thought it was to move so many 1-move units off the road network and I'd managed to convince him we shouldn't do it. That was in Togas' orders.

So when we got the turn back AGAIN after you guys wanted a replay to avoid some bug, I wanted to keep our troops home. It was Trip that wouldn't let me do it.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Thanks for the insight, Arnie. Now could you please take a break from you Pulitzer writing posts and play the Balderdash save?

[Cort Haus]

Personally, my job in this game at this point is sitting around waiting for you guys to realize that we could be conducive to your aims and consulting us about how we could be involved in them (yes, that's an open invitation to send Togas and I PM's ).

May I just quickly remind the formum that Bob + Stormia does not hit domination?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


May I just quickly remind the formum that Bob + Stormia does not hit domination?

How about Lego + Stormia?

[Aeson]

Yeah, for all you guys know, we could have a huge inland sea in the middle of all those tiles you've been so diligently calculating

Not unless there is another landmass out there of close to equal size as the hole. It's also very unlikely to get a landmass of that shape and size given the continents setting (I don't think I've ever seen one).

Outside that, number of land tiles is rather consistant to map settings. There could be some small lakes, but nothing large enough for sea (and thus affecting domination limit).

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos
When forces from within Pamplana finally DID head out into the field near Salamanca (by then called "The Alamo"), it was under orders from BigFree. That was the turn that GoW insisted on replaying because of some bug. What happened with that turn was that BigFree sent out a good portion of our army, against what Togas had written in the orders thread to do, and it REALLY pissed me off... When we got the turn back to be replayed, I insisted on following Togas' original orders to keep the troops INSIDE the city (rather than when he'd acquiesed to BigFree's moves when we'd been sitting on the save for more than 24 hours the first time and just sent what BigFree had done without changing it), but was overruled by Trip, who told me we had to do the same thing as before.

Its good to hear that Trip interferes with more teams than just GoW.

I recall there was a little tactic that GoW considered doing that would of utterly destroyed GS forces on Bob. Trip stuck his nose in, and although he did not ban it outright, he made his opinion known, which swayed a few GoW votes against using it.

[notyoueither]

That sounds like an interesting tactic. Would it involve Gramphos' tool?

[Jon Shafer]

Actually it involved getting double-duty out of Workers to conveniently get 20 Riders past the GS army, destroying everything behind it.

Needless to say, I did not look favorably on such a maneuver.