Radical Idea

[notyoueither]

Is Vox's heart still in this fight? Their words do not seem to indicate such. There has been a total absense of Vox chatter in the general forum after the slaughter. Beta's last post reworded (copied) Vel's suggestions.

What do you think they will think when they wake up next turn to see us create another wonder?

If peace were possible, would it be good to gain that? Would we be willing to grant a charitable peace for the sake of finishing our GA productively? Surely, we could not cease to build units, but the build up of Tempest and the research of Chivalry could help a great deal in 20 turns. Not to mention a harbour or 2, and a temple in OG and Monsoon.

Would we be willing to accept peace at as small a price as say, D'ville and consessions where up to the bottle neck near Eliopolis were ours?

What do we gain by doing this? Well, if Vox agreed...

Would we rather have an FP at Eliopolis, or near Madrid? Think about it. Vox, RP, and we are strong to the world. We could take RP with a little luck and some planning, and Vox could tie down GoW. With the Lighthouse RP lays as a jewel for the plucking, but not once they gain Astronomy. What would ND want to do in that situation? Side with RP and GoW to repel us, or content themselves with the Western half of Bob and take their chunk of GoW?

Can we find a win-win-win of a triple alliance over the bones of 2 of the biggest sh*t disturber civs in the game to date?

[Aeson]

If we could get ND in on it, sure. Vox has sort of leveraged everything they have to hit us though, and wouldn't be a whole lot of help.

The problem is ND.

Why are they delaying getting Feudalism (and getting a shot at Chivalry first)? The only answer I can come up with is they trust GoW rather completely. They really are putting themselves at a huge risk if they are hoping to aquire Chivalry from GoW, especially considering they don't even have Feudalism yet.

Perhaps GoW has a Chivalry for Iron deal with ND? Even that doesn't seem very safe for ND, as GoW could just get Iron from RP, Vox, Lego, or us... then upgrade and roll over ND.

[notyoueither]

Agreed. Continental politics are... complicated. However, if we timed it right, we could be at RP's throat before the continent could do much about it. Knock the strongest continental for 6 and then see where ND wants to sit. Unless RP's Eastern cities are sitting full of troops and not their walled fortresses to the West (where their iron is).

The big question is how much time and effort do we really want to spend on Vox to gain an FP with limited benefit compared to one on the south of a pacified Bob?

[Aeson]

Well if we were going to hit RP... the first Galley would probably want to head out much sooner than the others... and drop some units on/near their Iron. Given the Lighthouse (and all that sea SW) we might even make it undiscovered all the way... and even if we don't it's just one Galley.

Also there is a lot of open land S of RP... we might be able to find a bit of it that RP isn't watching and ferry a large force there to make their way N. (they are probably barb hunting all over down there though)

[Aeson]

If GoW and RP gang up on ND, I think we have to hit RP ASAP... even if we have to give peace to Vox to do so.

[notyoueither]

We can land 40 knights within reach of Madrid (if we had them and the gallies) with RP having no clue on x-1 that it is coming. The Lighthouse is a great thing in MP.

[Aeson]

Aye... that was the original intent of the scenarios I was playing. I think we could still land close to 60 units (over the course of ~6 turns) by the end of our GA even after taking out Vox.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Aeson
If GoW and RP gang up on ND, I think we have to hit RP ASAP... even if we have to give peace to Vox to do so.

That's a no brainer. But will it be for Vox?

Who wins by this war? Us? Not really. We gain a tempting area for an FP, but one which ultimately is not too helpful. Them? Maybe when it started and they thought ultimate victory was possible, but I doubt they still think so now unless the save opens on unexpected vistas for us.

What has Vox always wanted? An unquestioned alliance with us to take on the world. Well, we blew that when we reopened the tech agreement. Perhaps now we could acknowledge that either they or we can assure that neither of us wins the game. However, if we cooperate, one of us is very likely to win. I think they would welcome the opportunity to stop the slaughter and renew a commitment to look beyond our shores for spoils.

One thing for sure. They woke us up from the slumber of endless building, building, building. They now would have an equipped and capable ally against Bob.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Aeson
Aye... that was the original intent of the scenarios I was playing. I think we could still land close to 60 units (over the course of ~6 turns) by the end of our GA even after taking out Vox.

Well. If you think that we can take out Vox in 14 or so turns. That is great. BTW, how do we do that?

[Aeson]

If things work out well (if Vox pulls a Lux) it could be over in 10 turns for all intents and purposes. If we can salvage most the roads, 14 turns with what we can put together in the next 5 would be about right.

We might not have taken out Vox in those 14 turns, but it will be academic at that point. As long as we stick to Pikes and Cats holding newfound cities to leapfrog to the next, Vox can't touch us with Immortals (not that they'd have Iron for long).

[vulture]

I think that 10 turns is a little optimistic. Lets not underestimate defences the way Vox seems to have to date - we can assume the Elipolis is going to have a huge stack of defenders, so we need to park a large stack next to it to pin lots of them down, and make a big landing elsewhere.

Courtesy of the GL, it is possible to sail up the west coast out of sight of Vox lands (unless there are some galleys in the area, which there will be unless we kill them) and land on hill Wittlich City 9 with the traditional knight/pike forces, which immediately threatens 3 cities (Wittlich City, The Voice, Miller Town). If they are wise they will have a unit there to prevent such an eventuality, but that still leaves a hill at WC 8 which threatens WC and TV, or if we will accept worse defense, plains at WC 3 or WC 2, threatening WC, MT and Betabythesea.

You could also read 'threatening' as 'vulnerable to counterattack from' of course...

But much like our current situation, getting troops to WC 9 in particular forces them to defend 3 towns (plus still having enough in Elipolis to hold that). But getting there is 5 turns sailing (with the lighthouse). Add in at least a few turns of combat after that, and a few in preperation, and getting galleys to Monsoon, and it is looking as though 10 turns is optimistic. No way we break through Elipolis without a second landing IMHO. What odds on a city wall, and at least 10 spearmen (possibly pikes is things go wrong, and we have to plan for worst case scenarios).

[Arrian]

You know, NYE, I was pondering hitting RP just last night. Because yeah, the FP would be a lot better over there than up by Vox.

I doubt Vox will make peace, but I would at least be willing to consider peace in exchange for Dissidentville.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

I really like the idea! Yes....Vox is dead and they know it. That much is apparent in their tone. I think we could get peace on our terms, but....it could also carry some element of risk. We would need to devote some (not insignificant) portion of our resources to guarding the border so as to avoid a knife in the back while prosecuting the war against GoW (or RP). And, I really like the notion of using the rest of our GA to do something other than building troops (there are a couple of wonders we could spit out in short order if we wanted to....)

The problem I see with it though, is that IF we invade Bob, we could cement the three powers on the continent together, under the common banner of driving off the foriegn invaders. Granted, odds are good that they'll smell GoW/RP blood and join the pile on, but the possibility exists that it could go the other way.....so if/when we hit GoW/RP, we need to do it quick and decisive....none of the d*cking around that Vox did in their war on us. We blow through them like there's no tomorrow and wrap the war up quick. Hurt them so bad in the first 3-4 turns that they simply cannot recover. If we do that, then yeah....I'm all for it....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

If you like, I can informally put a feeler out to the Voxian who contacted me just before their first attack to see if they've had enough. If so....and before they lose the rest of their army....perhaps.....

-=Vel=-

[FrustratedPoet]

That (once again) depends on what we see when we open the turn.

If Vox's last turn went badly for them we should gently ask them if they want to negotiate peace.

If they lucked out and did well then there's no point in mentioning it.

The save is currently sitting in Sir Ralph's and Nathan's mailboxes. I don't think SR will be around until the weekend, but whenever Nathan wakes up we should have some idea what the situation is.