Vox defeated?

[Arrian]

Yeah, like a civ with Numidian Mercs has barb trouble!

Vel, I have another idea... I posted it in one of the other threads, but I will mention it here:

What if we work out a deal with GoW for:

1) A luxury trade
2) A Non-agression Pact
3) A "GoW will not tell other teams about GS troop movement" pact.

Then, we load 2-3 galleys full of troops (a couple of pikes, our Elite WCs & a couple of med infs) and send them N/W along GoW's north coast, eventually arriving off the coast of Legoland (hopefully we can work out a map deal by then so we have some idea of where to go). This puts us in position to 1) obliterate Vox and/or 2) cause trouble for Lego, or 3) come down the West coast of Bob and mess with ND or RP.

Of course there is always 4) do nothing and/or recall those troops.

Whatcha think?

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Sounds good to me (tho I'd still rather not let Beta get away). The forces you mentioned committing to it won't cost us much, but given the current size of Vox's military, I am not certain that it'd be enough to take Vox out.

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

3) A "GoW will not tell other teams about GS troop movement" pact.

Why would we trust GoW to keep their mouths shut? They say they never break a deal, always honor contracts, but they sent us edited screenshots to 'honor' their deal with us it seems.

Any strategy that depends on one of the other civs keeping a secret is probably going to fail.

-----------

Those troop numbers would probably only get slaughtered if we landed them. Even Vox could deal with that landing by the time we get there. I wouldn't mind a galley or two on the W coast of Bob though, just in case we need to land on RP's Iron in the near future. A couple Pikes would be good for that.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Aeson
Any strategy that depends on one of the other civs keeping a secret is probably going to fail.

I agree with this. The less we put ourselves at the mercy of other teams the better. I doubt they'd think twice about screwing us over as soon as a better offer comes along.

When GoW say that they always honour their deals, what they really mean is that they honour their MOST RECENT deal. Like Aeson said, they had no qualms about double-crossing us on those screenshots when Vox paid them off.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Aeson
No, I wouldn't. If any civ decides to take them out right now, it's not going to help them to have a few more Pikes to die. Their army isn't helping them all that much against us right now...

It's going to hurt Vox in the long run to keep their army. It's going to slow down their exodus, and thus they start rebuilding later, and all the while having to pay way too much in support costs. Think of it like wandering around with your Settler at the start of the game, getting warriors from huts so that your first city is better protected.

Sure, they'll have to pay killer upkeep now, but that would save them plenty of shields and time to rebuild these pikes later (I believe we're talking about 16 30 shields units, that's 480 shields).
IMHO, we're so small and disadvantages now that we have no hope of defending ourselves from anyone anyway does not justify giving up on building some sort of a military anyway.

[Arrian]

Hmm, ok, ok, good points.

Especially about secrecy. What was I thinking?



My bad.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

It's ok
Open brainstorming is always welcome

[notyoueither]

Vel, re Vox escaping. We can't stop it, and we'd be tilting at windmills trying to hunt them down. The point is that other teams are fond of them, and anyone would welcome a 40 turn research puppet.

Say Lego gifts them a city, we raze North Stormia, and launch an expedition to destroy Vox. We arrive in Lego waters undetected. We find Vox's new city and it is their only one. We land so they know we are there. Assuming that this unlikely scenario occurs, RP will grant them an isolated burg, it would be well worth it for them to get control of the puppet.

What we would accomplish is that other teams would see us as vengeful (true) and unreasonable (true to the subjects making the observation). We would lose more. We would also lose any possibility of ever normalising relations with Vox and Beta.

At this point I believe that we can normalise relations with Vox, and with Beta most likely. When I ranted at vondrack in that chat, I did it for a reason. Whatever I said was going straight to Beta (or at least the jist of it) as well as being reported to Lego and other teams. From hanging in the public chat it was clear to me that many members of other teams could not understand why most of GS would be so furious with Beta and Vox. Some people thought we were the bad guys for personal attacks on Beta (accusations of lies, etc.). I made it clear, and I believe the message got through (it helped that I know vondrack and he was inclined to listen to me) that the lies and the way they were being presented as well as received were personal attacks on all of us in GS, and that some of us were near leaving the game over it. The next day, Beta posted the mia culpa.

I think Beta now knows that an Iraqi information campaign against another team in an intrasite game is a very bad plan. I think he is more than capable of realising that the cost to Vox of this war is entirely of their own determining. I think that Vox will get over it. I think we should too.

[notyoueither]

I do not think that Vox is in a position to refuse us Engineering.

[notyoueither]

btw, it seems that Shiber and I are in the middle of the discussions. Are Nathan and MSS inclined to take over, or should Shiber and I continue? I sort of backed off after late Saturday/early Sunday, but if desired I can continue with Shiber.

[Arrian]

When I ranted at vondrack in that chat, I did it for a reason. Whatever I said was going straight to Beta (or at least the jist of it) as well as being reported to Lego and other teams. From hanging in the public chat it was clear to me that many members of other teams could not understand why most of GS would be so furious with Beta and Vox. Some people thought we were the bad guys for personal attacks on Beta (accusations of lies, etc.). I made it clear, and I believe the message got through (it helped that I know vondrack and he was inclined to listen to me) that the lies and the way they were being presented as well as received were personal attacks on all of us in GS, and that some of us were near leaving the game over it.

Well done. Vondrack had PM'd me after I suggested a GS-Lego chat, but I didn't get it until this morning. I responded, got a response, and responded again. I kinda said what you said in my own way.

Regarding Vox, I totally agree with your take on this: we don't really have a choice now, since Lego is going to harbor them. We need to cut the best deal possible & make peace. So let's get on it! Let's convince them to use teleportation to speed their exodus, and let's get tech out of them.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

IMHO, we're so small and disadvantages now that we have no hope of defending ourselves from anyone anyway does not justify giving up on building some sort of a military anyway.

They actually lose shields in the long run though. They want to have 1 city start building Settlers in 18 turns... when they could have 6 or 7 building Settlers in 15? It's going to mean the difference of 1000's of shields, commerce, and food in the long run.

Optimally it takes 14 turns to double your city count (up to the expansion limitation), and they are putting themselves almost 3 doublings behind. Probably their terrain would be 20 turn doublings, but they do have Workers to add, so that drops it down. Still they are putting their entire empire ~20 turns behind most likely, for a good portion of the game (they will start catching up when their cities hit their population limits and expansion is no longer possible).

[zeit]

Vox hasn't shown great efficiency in their in-game decisions in the past, there's no reason to believe they would do so again.

However, if they are helped by a member of our team, I'm sure they would appreciate it, and it would help normalizing relations as well, I believe.

Aeson, what do you say about being the head of the Voxian Aid Program (VAP)?

Just remember, you'll have to actually DEAL with Voxian (don't worry, we'll get the de-contamination chamber ready by the time you're back... ).

[Theseus]

It would be good if VAP started soon... we need Hawks, and Doves, and VADers... WAIT, they must Hawks too!!

"The banana is strong with this one." "lol"

[DeepO]

One thing I seem to have read in their proposal, but others don't is that it seems to me that Vox is asking for time to get all their pop, except the last 1 in a city, off to Lego Minor.

In case we help them, they expect us to turn their size 5 cities into 2 settlers and 1 GS Size 1 city. So, the question is not so much if Vox will get 7 cities from us, instead of 1 city from Lego (if we teleport them away), they already have a plan on how many cities they want to start with. It remains about timing, and with the teleportation trick, we can do better.

If we want to shave off another turn, we palace jump them with 1 city remaining on Stormia. I'm not saying it will be 100% fool proof (and I don't know the exact details of the palace jump equation either), but any city they gain from Lego should be able to grow to size 2 in 10 turns. If, at that same time, all Voxian cities are size 1, they can gift all but one to us, disband their capital, move into their last city with all their troops, and give it to us. I think that saves 1 turn at least.

Sending galleys is just plainly stupid, of course.

DeepO