The RP situation

[Shiber]

Silence is absolutely not an option, or it'll make us look either suspicious, or isolationists, or both. We need to participate in the public fun; however, we need to keep our posts to the fun threads and not to go beyond harmless and funny trash-talking. In other words, set our phasers to amuse.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Even if we do not see evidence of them right away, the wrong things said at the wrong time could either push the buttons of some of the GS haters on RP or dismay our new friends in GoW.

Yes, especially in light of the fact that things said months ago about GoW are part of the reasons for this war.

I think short messages saying something like: We're glad that we're not on the receiving end of an attack this time. or "pass the popcorn" are ok, but stuff like "RP reaps what it has sown" etc, though they would be fun, would not be advisable at this point.

In the chat with GoW we could clear other subjects, that we just want a peaceful resolution (while standing by in case we're needed ) or other Togasisms that we've heard before. A bit of roleplay from us for a change to turn the tables on RP. (oh I would love to throw a barb about their lack of diplomacy, but we must not be sore winners)

[nbarclay]

What, exactly, do we gain from the land grab against RP on Bob that would be worth its cost if ND is willing to fight to take the land from us? Granted, there's an outside chance that we could get a leader and move our palace there, but with no elite offensive unit more powerful than a WC and with the relatively small number of RP units we'd probably be facing, that seems like a major long shot. I can see participating in the disection of RP if ND agrees to let us keep what we capture, but if it looks like keeping lands on Bob would start a war with ND, we need to either stay off Bob or attack ND on our terms.

I don't see hitting Lego on our own before Magnetism as a viable option. Distance is way too much of a problem.

[asleepathewheel]

Do we let GoW know about that RP galley?

1. It might have passengers

2. If we don't tell them they might view that as a slight betrayal

3. If we do tell them, they might ask us to kill it, thus we would no longer be a "neutral"


Another topic.

This war will disrupt our luxury trades, correct (RP has what, one or 2 trades going with us now?)? We need to figure out what to do about acquring the new ND or GoW luxes or having cities on Bob on the luxes ourself.

[Shiber]

RP has two luxuries that they are trading to us: Gems and Silks. If/when Vigo falls, we will lose our supply of Gems, but we can arrange for RP to replace that with Ivory. Currently, only when Barcelona falls will we be cut off from trade with RP, if I understand correctly. We might have some trouble if we enter the war and war weariness kicks in, but if we plan our invasion well and set our forces in a way that would make RP attack us, we can enjoy some negative WW for a while.
GoW and ND are both Republics, and they will suffer War Weariness (according to Sir Ralph, this is one of the changes in PBEM in 1.21). They will remain with our furs, and their wine and spices - just 3 luxuries. Even with marketplaces that's not much, but at Chieftain, I think that they can keep their cities in order (GoW's biggest city is Imperial City at 8 pop, ND's is Dar-El-Killam at 7), at least until WW gets really harsh. Then they might ask for our incense, so we need to figure out what to say.

[OPD]

On a sidenote what do we do when/if RP contacts us concerning the war. I'd like to have some sort of party line I can give and also what things I can and can't talk about?

[asleepathewheel]

I was going to say that we could trade ND for silks and gems, but as there is no road to those cities from the north (and no harbor there) that is a no-go

Won't we lose silks when ND takes Santiago? I see another silk at barcelona and one at toledo as well, however the toledo doesn't look to be roaded and that town will fall rapidly.



Another thing that just occurred to me.

GoW doesnt want us settling on Bob because.....
they have divided RP into East/West halfs, and GoW has claims on the Eastern portion, possibly west to pamplona. We would be eating into their portion.

Reasoning: Nd has left an alley along the eastern seaboard for riders to travel through without entering ND territory. I would think that even with an alliance, the NDs would be wary of tricks, so pushing them to the outer rim would mitigate the fears a bit. Plus, the terrain on the east isn't as bad, can ride grasslands for some time, only a few squares of hills and jungle. Also, if they were on the ND's roads with RoP, they would be forced off at several junctures where the road terminates at a city.

Thoughts?

My questions left are: does GoW head straight for Toledo, or do they go a bit around and hit bilbao first. and:

how could RP not see this coming, especially if GoW has been stalling on an MPP for a turn or two.

I'm just impressed that ND has seemingly worked its way out of a horrible position sandwiched between two "friendly" civs. Or perhaps its more that RP has worked itsself out of its strong position. Hard not to gloat about their failure in diplomacy, ain't it.

[Arrian]

What, exactly, do we gain from the land grab against RP on Bob that would be worth its cost if ND is willing to fight to take the land from us? Granted, there's an outside chance that we could get a leader and move our palace there, but with no elite offensive unit more powerful than a WC and with the relatively small number of RP units we'd probably be facing, that seems like a major long shot. I can see participating in the disection of RP if ND agrees to let us keep what we capture, but if it looks like keeping lands on Bob would start a war with ND, we need to either stay off Bob or attack ND on our terms.

Unless we can convince GoW that it's better for them, long-term, for ND to disappear. We attack RP, keep some cities and fortify the hell out of them. Then, if/when ND attacks our offshore holdings, we give them a big fat bloody nose and GoW kicks 'em in the ass.

I know, I know, I'm assuming GoW would go along with that. I can't help it. I really think they will.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

So what will we do?

1) Attack RP and risk a later war against GW+ND?
2) Attack ND and try to maintain the balance of power?
3) Do nothing and end up as the dwarf in this game (not counting Vox)

?

[asleepathewheel]

An addendum to my prior hypothesis:

If GoW takes East RP, then in effect we have a GoW wall on Bob with a narrow gap to strike ND through, definately not a good situation for us. We could take a few cities, but run into the problems Aeson has described. And with the 30 turn NAP in effect, we can't do anything to GoW.

So maybe we should hit barcelona and new madrid (pardon my mispronunciation, my ole Missouri accent gets the best of me) and force the issue with the other bobs.

The good thing is that their infrastructure sucks and rrs are not going to make them inpenetrable (like they will for us ) too many gaps on a huge continent to protect everything completely.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So what will we do?

1) Attack RP and risk a later war against GW+ND?

I vote for this one and then try to change the GoW-ND equation.

The problem is that we would seem like opportunists to the world. the good thing is that the outside world consists of lego and vox. But if lego is sympathetic to RP, some bad blood for a while (until we kill them too)

we need some invitation language from GoW, not sure if we have that yet. And we need some other excuses to invade as well.

[zeit]

I have to say sleepy's scenario makes alot of sense- good thinking there!

As for our options:

Fighting ND at this point is not an option- they are quite heavily fortified, and I doubt they're leaving their homeland undefended. Going there will be tough- imagine facing their Ansar Panzer-divisions (can't help it, they're german ) after a long and tiring march over the mountains and hills...

That's not an option, not until we have an ally to hit them hard from another direction- like from the north (the Dar-el-Kilam-Anagramaskus route seems safe enough for fast movers, and puts ND in a serious problem, if the two towns are taken). Helping RP in another way- monetarily maybe, but I doubt how much that is going to help, especially in the first days of fighting...

Its amazing what a serious problem ND is giving us- they are supposed to be the poor sandwhiched nation, yet it seems they stand to gain the most out of this war, and are in a very good position to keep us at bay. However, I still doubt ND will be willing to fight straight on against us, when the war against RP is still raging. We all know war can be unexpected, and RP might have a lucky day, or some ace up their sleeve- if that won't save them, it might at least hurt ND probably (their the closest, and the more powerful of the two allies, I believe), this might make the war more problematic and slow for both- so going after us (and we're helping, after all ), might not seem like their best option at that point, probably not without an ally (and GoW will not side against us for the next 30 turns).

We could do that, or perhaps just build like crazy for the next period, trying to catch up with what soon will be a monstrous powerhous, but then we'd be wasting gold in upkeep for our large unused army.

A dillemma, to say the least.

We should try the diplomatic angle first- perhaps we could get a share of RP for our help against them, but then we'd be throwing away the settlers-tactic options...

This reminds me of Germany at the end of WW2- RP is fighting against the powerful land based armies of the northeners, while hoping the overseas invading forces would liberate them first- though I doubt Togas would be pleased to see us liberating his towns .

[Aeson]

We have to get on Bob, and GoW saying ND won't like it shouldn't turn us off it. Of course no team is going to like us getting bigger... but no team is going to like any other team getting bigger.

If ND+GoW take Bob for themselves, I really think one of them ends up winning this game. Probably the one who backstabs the other one first/best. ND would be in the best position once RP is taken out, and GoW is in the best position right now if they are willing to do what it takes (ROP rape ND sometime during the height of the festivities). Both of them are just going to get stronger, and if they are in bed together for the rest o fthe game, our best shot at beating them (to hold onto a portion of Bob) is now. Waiting is just going to make that eventuality harder.

Hitting ND is going to be very tough for us considering their terrain... hitting us in SE RP if we set our cities up right is going to be even tougher. Most of SE RP is very defensible, and the landscape would negate the +1 advantage their Knights get. Ansars would be little better than 60 shield Med Inf. We could set up the mountains as a 'no cat passing' zone, and keep the bombardment advantage to ourselves.

Remember, we have an economy that is close to double that of ND or GoW. Even in their GA we should be able to out produce either of them. We just have to set up our defenses right so that at worst we are trading Pikes for Med Inf (probably on a 1:2 ratio), and at best we are trading Pikes for Ansars/Riders (probably closer to a 1:1.5 ratio).

If worst comes to worst, and we end up losing all our holdings on Bob, we aren't really in much worse shape than if we don't try to hold it at all. In fact we should be able to guarantee that if anything, we hurt GoW and ND at least 2-3 times the losses (in pure production) we take. Not to mention collateral losses in regards to keeping territory that would be productive from them, and limiting their capabilities to improve their new found land for the duration.

Waiting to deal with Bob is going to mean instead of facing two civs both weaker than us, we will be facing two civs both stronger than us. Diplomatically, maybe we can turn one side against the other and pick up the winners scraps in that case. Right now we have just as good of chances Diplomatically (if not better, as the ND/GoW bond could only grow stronger due to trust if this war goes off without any backstabbing), and much better chances in pure power ratio.

Sorry for being so repetitive, but we have to be on Bob to win this, and I can't see a better opening than right now developing. They've invited us to come, but not stay. That's as good as we will ever get from either of them.

[DeepO]

I stay with my former opinion (which more people have, it seems ): first take as much from RP as possible, then try to get GoW fighting ND instead of Lego.

If I reread the chat with GoW, it seems ND is asking us to stay of the continent (which means that, contrary to what they said, they fished after opinions on our involvement), not GoW. Further, GoW stresses that they see us as an ally they want to keep (and so favour us in the long run over ND).

Both are practicaly invitations: GoW has considered the possibility of us wanting to join, but not wanting to leave. They know that if not RP, GoW would be our likeliest candidate to invade. They want to be a better friend to us then ND is, to keep us from overrunning them (ND is stronger then GoW). So I think that if they didn't consider that option already, they would be easily persuaded to take on ND once the RP dust is settled.

The only obstacle is that if ND and GoW have a MPP, and because of us RP falls too quickly and we're forced to take on ND rather quickly (say 10 turns into their GA), it could mean we would face a 2 front war. But if we don't take RP territory, the end result will be the same: the threat of a joint ND-GoW invasion remains, and at that point they together would be stronger then if we can keep Bob from becoming a 2 nation continent.

The other option (attacking ND, helping RP under cover of our GoW NAP) would certainly piss GoW off, is more dangerous, and holds more risk. 3-1 might not be very honorable, it works.

Some thoughts remaining:
- RP is not going to go down so easily. They are strong, can afford to lose a couple of cities (although there are key cities they need to keep), and have or had a large number of small, unconnected cities. Further, they have been saving cash for a long time, haven't done any research, and don't need to buy chivalry, nor education. My guess is that they have upgraded quite a bit of warriors (even regs) to MIs, or are still able to do so. You can also expect cats, their terrain favours them (next to jungle), and they weren't planning on going offensively but needed the defense for a long time now.

- Lego don't really enter the equation military, but actually the more they sponsor RP thru money, the better. The more upgrade or rush money RP has available, the more ND and GoW will bleed... and we need to make sure that we strike decisively, leaving no option for them to recuperate.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Originally posted by DeepO
The more upgrade or rush money RP has available, the more ND and GoW will bleed... and we need to make sure that we strike decisively, leaving no option for them to recuperate.

DeepO

Great discussion guys...

I am leaning towards Aeson's version of things to be. I can see a VERY strong forward defensive position in the lux area of RP's SE territory.

I'm still intrigued by an attack on ND, though... we have such an overpowering economy, what if we used the terrain to OUR advantage, loading up our attacking stacks with scads of defenders, and just wading our way in?

/me looks off into the sky with my "John Wayne" look.

DeepO, I'm not quite sure what you meant by the last paragraph...