After action report "The Great Bobian War"

[Master Zen]

I remember a turn we had to replay because of an order which was not followed. It involved pillaging a road which was in our orders but the person who played the turn forgot to do it. I replayed and sent the save along... hmm... perhaps it was more crucial than I tought...

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Trip
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.

Yes...well...

It fell into the area of...RP & GS used a "questionable tactic" to warp units into the battle arena from a different continent. Then why couldn't we use a similar "questionable tactic" against those two teams.

Eye for an eye...sort of thing.

But it is irrelevent anyway... it was not done thanks to the ever vigilant eye



Note that you didnt ban it though...you just posted your opinion that you thought it unfair. (GS was in retreat IIRC)

[Arnelos]

Well, from what I understand, GoW at the time was still assuming that the unit warp was of GS' entire army from their north to their south. The reality is that the only units warped were one Roleplay Horseman and a few catapults.

Questionable tactic, to be sure, but it wasn't at all what you guys thought it was. The fact that GS' army was ALREADY in the south when the war started wasn't even something Roleplay Team had entirely expected, either.

I imagine that GS moved the bulk of their army south when Glory of War alerted them to the plans of a joint invasion of RP. How much faster would RP have fallen if GS' army really was still in the north?

Though, I suppose if GS' army were to have been in the north, they could have just launched an invasion of GoW straight-off. Sure, RP Team would have ended up a burning wreck in no time without GS' help in the south, but how much damage could GS have done in the GoW north before ND and GoW could run all the way back home?

One one hand, it's an interesting hypothetical. On the other hand, it's really immaterial: that's not what people did.

[vulture]

If our army had been waiting in the north with enough galleys, then I suspect we'd have invaded GoW to trash their cities and try to cut a deal with ND where we let them overrun RP, while we took and kept GoW territory. That would have been my personal preference anyway. No idea whether ND would have gone for it, and I'm pretty sure Lego would have kept out of the RP-ND side of things and just gone up against us (probably by researching Navigation and gambling on whacking Estonia while our forces were on Bob).

I seemed to be the only one one our team paranoid about Lego's ability to invade from our east; everyone else seemed to thing that they wouldn't do it since they were a bunch of builders (Hah!) or that it was a gamble we had to take anyway (possibly true).

I still think our big mistake of the war (apart from letting GoW into the south at the start) was not keeping all our units in a huge stack. ND / GoW were able to make good use of the stack combat effect to wipe out stacks of knights on hills (4 attack vs 6 defence), which despite appearances ends up with fewer losses for the attacker than the defender. Any time they could bring a 2:1 advantage to bear (and with 9 moves on roads, it's not that hard), we suffered disproportionate losses and their relative advantage increased - magnified by GA production and cheap upgrading of course.

If the south hadn't fallen, RPs pike production would have kept up with losses and we could have fought everything to a standstill, which was the best we could have hoped for I think. Eventually ND / GoW would have to give it up as counterproductive (or find some good alternaive strategies, which they no doubt would have), and we'd get to keep about 1/3 of RPs territory in return for our help, which would have been enough to keep us competitive.

[Aggie]

Basically the above mentioned tactic consisted of us building a connecting stretch of road to hook up with the road netwrok of Gs in the south. By that time we had almost 40 riders in the area and were going to get ND to move the workers to the spot then we take them and rush build a road.

We were considering moving around 20 riders to the Hill outsider barcelona and the next turn we'd had Barcelnona, New Madrid and Socorro. This force then would have trapped the GS forces while other rider/ansars(30 or so) would have come in from the west to destoy them both in the south and Ne of Pamploma.

You can see the temptation, but the plan was rejected due to the double worker movement/work. As it was we settled for attacking the GS units we saw on the hills and near the SP to cover moving the workers to complete the road. This delayed the action a turn thus removing the element of surprise and allowing GS to destoy the key road 2E of Bacelona.

Aggie

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Well, from what I understand, GoW at the time was still assuming that the unit warp was of GS' entire army from their north to their south. The reality is that the only units warped were one Roleplay Horseman and a few catapults.

Yep, you fooled us.

But when we were talking about using the double worker tactic, you had already come clean about what had really happened.

It was towards the end of the war, when we knew GS/RP were retreating. It would of wiped out most of GS's army and probably got us a few cities as well.

I wont post what Trip said in our forum, but I think we correctly guessed he didnt think it was fair to use it against a team we had already beaten fairly.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by vulture
If our army had been waiting in the north with enough galleys, then I suspect we'd have invaded GoW to trash their cities and try to cut a deal with ND where we let them overrun RP, while we took and kept GoW territory. That would have been my personal preference anyway. No idea whether ND would have gone for it, and I'm pretty sure Lego would have kept out of the RP-ND side of things and just gone up against us (probably by researching Navigation and gambling on whacking Estonia while our forces were on Bob).

Now that...would of clearly broken our NAP

[Arrian]

That NAP was clearly a mistake. NYE rushed into it in chat (since you guys insisted on it before you would tell us your plans - hey, fair enough), and I think he knows that was a bad idea. We had a policy of no NAPs with Bobian civs - no favorites, let the chips fall where they may and we can jump in whenever we want.

This is why I was pushing for our troops to be already loaded on galleys, ready for invasion - so that when war broke out we could react relatively quickly. As it turned out, our reaction time was faster still, because we had advance warning of GoW/ND's plans.

I would have preferred if we had stayed officially neutral. Then we could have hit you from the north, and probably would have.

-Arrian

[vulture]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel

Now that...would of clearly broken our NAP

Not at all - we would just have been looking after them [your cities] for you for the rest of the game, in a spirit of mutual co-operation

[UnOrthOdOx]

I can't believe how much heartache that little NAP I insisted on has caused both sides.

I wouldn't do things any different now, though. At least not from the time I took over handling your diplomacy there. Some of the things before that I would have porbably changed, but oh well.

We needed that NAP, we didn't like the way you did your lux trade, frankly, especially how the 1-turn notice clause was kinda stuffed in after it was agreed...It was clear you wanted the ability to attack us if you wanted there. Shoulda known...can't blame me for trying.

[Arrian]

I would have personally objected to an outright invasion of GoW in violation of our NAP, by the way. Not that it matters, since it never happened and you guys think we broke the NAP anyway. :shrug:

NAPs, Schmaps. I don't bother with those in MPdemogames anymore. They're a waste of time & effort.

-Arrian

[vulture]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
We needed that NAP, we didn't like the way you did your lux trade, frankly, especially how the 1-turn notice clause was kinda stuffed in after it was agreed...It was clear you wanted the ability to attack us if you wanted there. Shoulda known...can't blame me for trying.

Our policy was not to sign NAPs. Having luxury trades be anything other than cancellable on demand was tantamount to a NAP - if they were written to be valid for 20 turns and then cancellable at any time after that (as per SP mechanics) then we would have felt ourselves to be unable to go to war until the lux trade expired. We didn't want to do that (and why should MP trades be 20 turns just because that is what the SP mechanics indicate). We took the same policy with anyone, because we wanted to give ourselves at least the option of getting involved in a war on Bob, and 20-turn lux deals would have prevented that. Of course we wanted to have the option of attacking you, if that is what the situation demanded. If lux deals were equivalent to 20 turn NAPs (for us, even if other teams viewed things differently) we probably would have been much more cautious about signing any lux deals at all.

Or such is my understanding anyway.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Yep, you fooled us.

No, unfortunately we did not. It was hoped that no one would even NOTICE the unit warp. Not only did you notice, but you assumed that the unit warp was worse than it was.

So I don't think we were fooling anyone.

The only thing we DID manage to keep under wraps for a very long time was just how truly miniscule of a gain we made by use of unit warp. The question is... was that really a secret WORTH keeping?

:shrug:

[Cort Haus]

We would have certainly noticed the double-worker move had it happened on our retreat. We spent hours planning that retreat - pillaging the road to the hill outside Barca, and you couldn't have touched us on the next turn. Our best move of the previous dozen possibly! If we'd been smacked up that turn then we would have known about the double-worker shuffle, alright.

We agreed the cease fire around the next turn, ISTR. Had you chased us down, we'd have got most of our Knights off that next turn, and the turn after, when you could have hit us, I think we'd have got all the pikes/MI/cats on the hill by Sirocco for a farewell show down, leaving a few loose units coming back from Toledo & Pamplona for easy pickings. I doubted you'd hit the stack, thinking you wouldn't want to risk losing even a few units in a war that was already over.


It all ended sweetly though, with all the units now home, retired and relaxing on the beaches of Stormia for an era ...

[Aggie]

I will say at the worker idea that we were not aware of Gs's retreat. But since the 20 Knight force had been defeated it was reasonable to assume that you were somewhat vulnerable. Thus the decision to finally push into full offensive mode.

Basically what we finally settled on was to destroy forces w of Barcelona first. Then fortify near where the SP ended up being to prevent anymore forces coming up.

Then there would have been 2 options either the other riders/ansars could attack through the Pamploma area or they could go south to push north with the other riders. Which it would have been was dependent entirely on what GS's response was to our move/attacks toward the SP. To be honest I was concerned that you all were planning to plop a settle near there and build a city.

Obviously the turn after the SP fell we were informed that you were retreating off Bob and it is bad form to shoot people who have fought so well in the back. After all we you still are a real power and we need to have a chance of good relations. Thus when we knew you were leaving we let you retreat in peace.

Aggie