After action report "The Great Bobian War"

[Arnelos]

Oh yeah, I remember that... we had an RP galley scouting the ND fleet coming north and reporting to GS on its progress. They moved the cats into position and finished them off.

[Arrian]

The GS fleet performed admirably in the war. They fared MUCH better than their landlubber counterparts.

IIRC, I was big on getting those cats into position to ping the ND ships. Yay! I actually did something right during the war.

-Arrian

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
No-one's mentioned the GS naval victory over ND's expeditionary fleet. 4 yellow galleys were coming round the south coast, presumably to do some damage to our ferry system - except they never got there. We still had some catapults, which moved to the coast to ping the ND ships, which were finished off by our galleys.

Never heard a peep from ND about it. Are you sure they were Roleplay galleys painted yellow?

[Darekill]

GS drowned our fleet.
Well... the ships were empty and never of much use anyway...

[Master Zen]

GS also sank one of our ships, the Albatross IIRC (loved that name).

We did sink an RP ship if memory serves correctly.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Master Zen

We did sink an RP ship if memory serves correctly.

I think I heard that RP ship hit a small dolphin and that's what sunk her.

[Cort Haus]

Notice on BigFree's screenies how GS were camped out on what we now know is Saltpeter to the west of Barcelona.

Around that time some dysfunctionality saw us switching from Invention to Astro and back to Invention. By the time we decided to go for Gunpowder it was a few turns too late.

Guys, what would have happened if you'd opened the save to see Muskets in Pamplona?

[Arnelos]

Um... didn't we have intelligence information indicating that there was a source of saltpeter in that vicinity at that point already, Cort Haus?

I seem to recall filling you guys in about that, considering it was RP that was told about the saltpeter source while the war was still ongoing. In fact, I seem to recall even having a discussion with notyoueither about trying to secure it, assuming it was where we were told it was.

I also remember having a discussion with at least someone from GS (Arrian?) in our alliance military operations channel while doing one of the turns about how we might get it so that RP Team could get gunpowder, that source (or another source traded to us) of saltpeter, and enough money from GS to upgrade all of our pikes to muskets in Pamplona.

In fact, a good bit of the Legoland diplomacy in the back half of the war was about trying to get gunpowder and a source of saltpeter since, from what we were told, it might not be easy to link up the source that existed in southeastern Bob.

[Cort Haus]

Well, Arnelos, if that's the case it's a further example of things going pear-shaped at GS. The only 'Intel' I was aware of by the time I started playing the turn was a rumour that there was none on Stormia.

We did, near the end, ask the third wheel of the tricycle if there was any SP on what we held on Bob, and we were told there wasn't, but we weren't seriously expecting them to tell us otherwise. We just wanted to see what they said a few turns ahead of finding out ourselves.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Um... didn't we have intelligence information indicating that there was a source of saltpeter in that vicinity at that point already, Cort Haus?

I understand this is not going to happen until the game is over... and quite likely not even then... but I'd really like to know how you got this "intel" - since the only possibility was someone from Lego, GoW, or ND to tell you (nobody else could have legally known where it was). Personally, I consider the person that disclosed that information nothing short of a traitor.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
We did, near the end, ask the third wheel of the tricycle if there was any SP on what we held on Bob, and we were told there wasn't, but we weren't seriously expecting them to tell us otherwise. We just wanted to see what they said a few turns ahead of finding out ourselves.

Not sure about the third wheel... , but it was us getting the question (as everybody knows, I believe). I recall us not answering promptly due to RL interfering... and because we had to discuss the response internally. It was a bit difficult to answer honestly without giving out info that could work against our allies (though we were aware of what Arnelos touched in his last post - that GS/RP somehow learned about the source of saltpeter in the Southern Bob... the info was not 100% confirmed, but the rumour was there). The thing was that GoW/ND did not always communicate their/your troop positions for battlefields we were not involved in. So when we were asked, we honestly did not know if that unclaimed saltpeter was actually claimed by someone's troops or not - and there was no easy way to find out without asking about the troop positions (which was not usual between us & GoW/ND & naturally impossible with GS due to indirect hinting). Eventually, IIRC, we worded the response as precisely as we were able to - but it might have sounded evasive. And depending on what one considers "close", maybe even (fully or partially) false... but the fact was the source was closer to the ND territory (MErida) than to the GS territory (Barcelona) at that time.

[Cort Haus]

That's OK Vondrack We knew you worded it so that it could technically be true, seeing as you could legitimately claim to not know our exact troop positions etc.

It was an awkward question, I'm sorry, but we were in an awkward spot. If I had been in your position I would have said "We're sorry, but we are unable to disclose that information". So maybe use that one next time, when we ask about the rubber / oil ?

[Aggie]

We assumed once you camped out there that you knew where the SP was and most of our plans were oriented toward that area to account for that fact(thus pamploma became target of opportunity(at least with GOW) instead of the primary target(ie Barcelona and the harbors)). So I am surpised about you all not knowing, I always assumed in diplo discussions that this whole SP issue was like a dance where both know the answer but neither will admit to that fact. Actually you can still hope for a source to be exhausted and have it appear in Stormia.

Aggie

[Aggie]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

Guys, what would have happened if you'd opened the save to see Muskets in Pamplona?

Simply we would have roaded the mountain s of Pamploma(3 turns), moved all catapults there and just blasted away until the city was 6 or under. Then we would have attacked.

Of course we would have launched a concentarted attack on the SP first. But I'll admit this was one of my fears and something we really didn't want to happen. Our numbers and speed allowed us to deal with pikes with minimal loses, but muskets on hills are 6 instead of 4.5 and much scarier( 7 vs 5.25 if forted).

Though from my experience in this game if they had been located on the forest SW of Pamploma they would all hve been killed anyway. . That location almost always really went against the defender. Perhaps its a "cursed square", actually that would be an interesting concept for civ4. Have locations(unmarked) where the defender is unusally vulnerable and the opposite would be fun too.

Aggie

[ZargonX]

(though we were aware of what Arnelos touched in his last post - that GS/RP somehow learned about the source of saltpeter in the Southern Bob... the info was not 100% confirmed, but the rumour was there).

Yes... one of the great unanswered questions from the war. Did someone have a double agent working for them?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Aggie
We assumed once you camped out there that you knew where the SP was and most of our plans were oriented toward that area to account for that fact(thus pamploma became target of opportunity(at least with GOW) instead of the primary target(ie Barcelona and the harbors)). So I am surpised about you all not knowing, I always assumed in diplo discussions that this whole SP issue was like a dance where both know the answer but neither will admit to that fact. Actually you can still hope for a source to be exhausted and have it appear in Stormia.

Aggie

We guessed you were after Pamp because of SP, but thought it was on the high ground around Pamp and the Alamo, not by our ill-fated city site (amusingly named Fort Liberation). The idea was to defend the coast there and establish a base, but we got drawn north, first hoping to strike at the Alamo, then once we'd s-l-o-w-ly built up and realised you'd probably got a ton of riders there by then, ended up staying there to deter attack on Pamp.

Then we didn't have the numbers to found a city on a spot where we'd already lost 2 stacks. That was our problem. We could get numbers into a place, but our opponents could get numbers everywhere, it seemed.