The Whore of Babylon Speaks - GoW Official Statement

[Kloreep]

Yes, Lego thought it was cheese too and that's why we were glad to get it with wonders. Apparently didn't stop us from putting it in, though.

[ZargonX]

I thought we had agreed not to do the warrior-GA thing? Ah well, so goes memory...

[Kloreep]

Yes, we agreed to at some point. But since that was included in the treaty, I'm imagining it was after the Voxodus.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by DeepO

Well, that's why I would have welcomed an attempted invasion right after Lego. We were stronger than you on our home ground. Against two opponents you can't win, but this would not have been a stroll in the park, it would have cost you.

DeepO

It was impossible. We needed to send most of our transport fleet to the east, plus our carriers, plus most of our navy. In fact, we still didn't send the fleet because of the threat that Lego's ghost navy still presented to us, it was only until Lego disbanded their fleet that we started sending the navy east.

Just fyi, on the exact turn we attacked you and RP, our last two carriers got within striking distance of RP. That's how long it took.

As for the transports, we sent 10 IIRC from the Lego veterans, and built 3 more in the east during that time (note that we have very crappy eastern coastal cities). It was all timed so we'd be able to invade RP and then land in Stormia ASAP. It's quite suprising just how little this invasion took in terms of preparation. Nothing like that against Lego with specific timelines and movement paths, this almost seemed improvised yet the execution was flawless, of course, we would've prefered to land at Dissidentville had it existed.

[Master Zen]

Also, another interesting thing, GoW and ND never conducted joint planning in this war other than in selection of targets for nukes on the first turn strikes, ND simply asked us not to hit certain cities since those were supposed to be their targets.

That's why there was no joint invasion, ND had yet to achieve naval dominance in the south sea and they didn't think they could land at the time. And given that we were ready, we decided to go for it alone.

The only other useful bits of communications were simply ND's spy in GS which they used to provide us with GS's troop strenghts (tidbit: we tried every turn to plant a spy in GS and failed miserably each time ) as well as sharing pictures of the naval situation.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Master Zen
(tidbit: we tried every turn to plant a spy in GS and failed miserably each time )

Since the game is over, I suppose I should tell you that chances of failure following the loss/plant failure of a spy are very high, and you have to wait several turns for your chances to approach normal.

Hence why we risked going for someone's spy (GS, I think) at the beginning of the invasion. It was a gamble... but if it worked (which it did) we knew we'd buy at least several turns of GS inability to investigate cities right when they were forcing us to try to balance our city defenses vs. Marines.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Beta


Yes - very different.

If that is in fact the timing of the 'shared victory agreement' then IMO, I would say victory by any team is null and void.

If GoW, ND, or Trip had come forward and said, btw, "It has been determined that a shared victory is possible", can you honestly tell me you don't think that would have changed the course of the game. C'mon.

As it is - two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions.

Can someone please confirm when it was 'deemed' that a shared victory was possible? Did it pre-date the Lego invasion?

MZ - can you please confirm when the 'shared victory' was deemed possible?

[Master Zen]

In 1030 AD when the treaty was shown to Trip who gave the ok. Had he deemed it illegal we would've scrapped the plan, plain and simple.

[Master Zen]

As to whether "two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions." honestly I think that's a weak argument.

Every team had to play under the assumption that X and Y teams could possibly be allied against them. It changes nothing that the two last standing teams simply decide to not fight and share the victory.

I still have not heard a shred of conclusive evidence that this game would have been any difference from a shared victory or a "ally until we destroy everyone else and then duke it out among ourselves" which apparently would have been a valid strategy as far as most arguments here are concerned.

This is the main reason I honestly don't understand why all the complaining. The shared victory changed nothing since ND and GoW would have followed the exact same course, getting rid of every team one by one until we remained. Then we either would've duked it out, played a space race or left it to any survivors to decide on the winner via a UN victory. We simply decided that should we reach that point, we'd do nothing.

If any team should be whining it should be GoW and ND since niether can now claim a full victory. The fact that we are perfectly happy with the result is all the more ironic given the responses of those who played in teams that lost.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by DeepO
UnO, PR because of the forum? No... you still underestimate what kind of effect the forum had at the time. Not a single friendly word, only threats, taunts, and flame wars whenever we made a post.

I never said a single word against GS until the NAP. And I still stand by my stance that you broke it in spirit. You knew our plans, you purposely blocked our path, you were warned continuing to do so would be seen as an act of aggression in violation of the NAP, you continued to do it, and you sent a written declaration of war to our ally, who you KNEW we were allied with in the war. If that is not breaking it, I don't know what is.

I came out in support of you when everyone was *****ing about you being elitist. I didn't care about you being the Strat forum gurus. I didn't care that you would deny members, or at the least encourage them joining other teams. I said so publicly. I came out in support of you during and after Vox. I made it a POINT never to say anything bad, and to say when I agreed with you.

Yes, there were friendly things mentioned. Go back and look. They may have been drowned out.

[Hot_Enamel]

Just on this point...

I proposed that we made Trip our official game umpire many many months ago.
Almost everyone rejected the idea.
It happened soon after the Bob war.
GS was already using the F1 exolit.
They also warped cats to RP.
We were talking about the invasion of Lego, using ship chaining.

I think GoW was one of the few teams who wanted these tactics classed as exploits.




Trip had no authority to deem the GoW/ND treaty as acceptable or not.
We tossed the idea at him , and I think he said that he could not stop us if we wanted to follow through with the idea.

And since GoW needed the treaty to be kept secret. He would not be allowed to "report" it to the main forum.

[Kloreep]

ND and GoW might have followed the exact same course. Can you say that of other teams?

As I said, the only reason I'm not angry about this is you say you would have simply stuck to the kill-em-all pact with ND if not for the shared victory treaty. Fine. In that case, things would play out exactly the same. But if the thought of shared victory had entered my head as a valid treaty, I would have been screaming to make offers when we got cut off on tech in the Ind.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
It's quite suprising just how little this invasion took in terms of preparation. Nothing like that against Lego with specific timelines and movement paths, this almost seemed improvised yet the execution was flawless, of course, we would've prefered to land at Dissidentville had it existed.

I wouldn't call it flawless... If you had nuked Elipolis 1 or 9, instead of Elipolis itself, you could have taken out GS for all intents and purposes that first turn. Nuking the city directly eliminated any possibility for a blitz on your part.

No idea why you didn't try to get a rolling invasion on GS. At worst, if it had looked like it wouldn't work, you could cut the roads by Elipolis.

[Aeson]

Just wondering...

Did Vox have any units warp to Estonia by giving up the city on Bob?

[Theseus]

Of the various threads in this thread, I'd just like to say that I always thought UnO was pretty straight up... he calls'em like he sees'em, both for good and bad. He *can* be a bit unruly at times... but what the heck.

And I have a personal confession (again, not the team, just me): I still don;t think we technically broke that NAP, but we sure bent it into a pretzel. I was not happy about it then, I'm not now, and I'll not repeat same in any of the individual or team PBEMs I am in now or in the future.

/me thinks: That damn honor code. Hmmm...