The RP situation

[notyoueither]

... is not good.

They do not have Chivalry. Likely they will very soon from Lego, but it may well be too late.

Looking at the map, they are more vulnerable from the West than they are from the East. As Zaragosa goes, so too does Espana. From the fortress of Zaragosa, Ansars can attack Leon and Pamplona without warning. At the point that Pamplona falls, RP is finished. Toledo, New Madrid, and Barcelona are cut off from iron, unless they find an outside source and a favourable palace relocation. They would still be cut in two, fighting Ansars and Riders who move as fast in RP territory as RP foot units do themselves.

We are strong still vs everyone. So it is difficult for us to say who holds the upper hand. It is doubtful that they who lack chivalry do, even though they were the last team that we eclipsed. That fact, RP's power at a late date, is the only reason we could or should feel hopeful about in this matter. Given time and surprise, most any of us could cut RP up like tonights squid dinner from NDs position let alone with help from GoW.

We live in interesting times. What should the Storm do about it?

[notyoueither]

What if... [spit balling mode]

Lego is motivated by the reality of what happens when the warmongers of Bob are done with RP? It takes them time to build boats, yes. That is time in which RP is devastated by GoW and ND. That leaves two on Bob.

What happens if Lego takes GoW, and we take ND? A 2 on 2 to determine who will be left to control the fate of the world. And, we are left to tend to our own possible gains on South Bob while 'rescuing' RP.

Could it be set so that in a worst case, GoW is given refuge by us and becomes our 40 turn tech puppet to match Lego's Vox? We never attack GoW. However, we have an altercation with ND's attitude towards the sanctity of Bobian soil. During that altercation, ND is devastated. No skin off GoWs nose, is it?

hmmm.... we have options.[/spit balling mode]

[Harovan]

We have options. We can wait till the war breaks out, and then ally up with RP against ND. I'd like to follow Theseus' plan, but we probably won't have the time to ship around forces, even with the Lighthouse. Time matters. Without Chivalry, RP won't stand long against 4.3.3 Riders and 4.2.3 Ansars.

Can we prepare an invasion of ND (I don't have a map here at work)? It could be started 1-2 turns after the war on Bob breaks out. I suppose there will be a big *****ing and moaning in the public forum, we could join in for a while and then offer RP help under the condition, that we sign an official alliance against ND and at the same time a NAP, say, 20-30 turns. I'm positive, that they'll be scared to death and will gladly accept.

I suppose, as soon as ND sees they're under siege by us (still the strongest civ, with a merciless reputation), they'll distract their forces from RP and go against us. GoW alone won't be able to blitz RP. Their options are either to fight a long bloody war against RP or to join ND in the war against us, thus breaking the NAP. Too bad it's secret. We should send them a warning, that if they break it, we feel not obliged anymore to keep it secret and will make their betrayal public, which should be bad for a civ of mercenaries.

This approach gives us either 2 wars 1 vs 1 (GoW vs RP and GS vs ND) or one big war 2 vs 2 (GS and RP against GoW and ND). That should be, what we want.

[Harovan]

Another option (a crazy one and much of a gamble, I know) would be to let GoW and ND finish off RP and wait until they ship the bigger part of their armies to Lego (hopefully them, and not us), and at this time invade their big, but poorly defended continent.

[zeit]

ND and GoW will take some time before they finish RP until they ship their forces to Lego- and we don't know how the war ends up there. It could be either of the two controling all or nearly all of Bob, and the anti-Lego alliance could easily collapse.

Taking RP when you're pressed with territory (ND & RP) and heading off-continent to Lego after you have almost infinite amounts of land are two completely different stories, and I very much doubt both teams, especially the one gaining most spoils out of this will be overly enthusiastic about it.

Attacking ND will probably mean RP gets saved, while GoW can't keep on fighting them alone, and we are stuck in a brutal war with a considerable tactical edge for the defender (just look at the map, damnit- its a fortress!), and might end up with a 'so-so' territory between the two other Bobians (considering we'd get rid of ND completely).

Our best option IMO would be to strike RP at right moment, behind the frontline (NM and Barcelona), from there to head east to their capital, or if its too late- sweep SE along the minor towns, with settlers supported army (right now, we have the best settler-pumps, besides Lego maybe), take their cities and fill in inside the gaps- this along with our powerful army and strong economy to back it would keep the other two off our backs for some time, disrupt their territorial division ideas, and grants us a decent foothold on Bob.

Then it would be the time to get Lego into this...

[nbarclay]

Concentration of force can do a lot to negate the size and power of our armies. If we would try to hold a few Bobian cities against ND, they could pick one target and swarm it with almost no warning, achieving local superiority in spite of our larger overall army much as we do when attacking AIs. Further, trying to hold southern cities would hurt our concentration of force compared with a strike straight into ND's heartland. I'm far from convinced that carving off a piece of RP for ourselves makes sense unless both GoW and ND are willing to let us keep it.

[Harovan]

So what do you propose to solve the situation?

[DeepO]

I'm wondering how far ND and GoW are allied. Would it be possible to get a contract on ND in the next 20 turns or so? In that case, I would take RP (with the right planning, we should be able to get half their territory), and later on focus on ND.

GoW knows that ND could very well backstab them once the RP war is done, so we might pursuade them to do the same... if Bob gets into a 2 team-continent, we would be best if one of those 2 teams is us.

DeepO

[vulture]

I go to a fair for the weekend, and things have suddenly got very interesting...

I think there are problems with all our options. While I used to think that ND + GoW vs RP was the ideal, with us also attacking RP, I came around a while ago to the view that that scenario probably wouldn't let us keep our hands on any territory on Bob without having to fight off ND at least to make a claim to it. RP and ND against GoW would have been better, since then we can claim territory as a price for helping GoW, and they'd rather accept that than be eliminated by the alliance against them.

I think that that is the only way we get to keep land on Bob - by helping the civ on the wrong end of the dog pile, when they'll be willing to let us keep the land (until they are strong enough to do something about it). In the case that now looks very likely, that would mean helping RP, which is never a nice prospect, although if it is in our interests... But since we have a NAP with GoW, our only option there is to attack ND. Or cancel the NAP with GoW ("the concensus was that we didn't want a NAP, and our ambassadors exceeded their authority during the chat (due to pressure from GoW), so the NAP is not ratified and is invalid, although we will of course keep the discussions we had completely secret"). Neither looks good, but then, nor does getting into a 3 on 1 vs RP where we won't be welcome to keep the land.

So, we have to decide which of our options is the lesser of three evils. Or just not get involved at all, except maybe to help RP in some way to try and set up the situation where ND and GoW [i]need/[i] our help because they can't break the front line defence. Or try and persuade ND / GoW to let us keep land on RP (or claim a corner of RP, settle some of the vacant land, and then make peace, hoping that RP can survive as a buffer zone between us and ND, although that probably will turn into a 'get rid of the invaders' matchup before too long).

Ideally, we'd like to know what Lego will do. If they are going to help RP and attack GoW (do they have a NAP with GoW as well, or just ND (as reported by GoW)), then we can find ourself in the situation where ND need our help, and we get some land.

I don't know how long we can afford to wait before we see what Lego is going to do though. At the very least, we shouldn't attack RP until we see the first town change hands, so we know the war is real, and RP's defense will be elsewhere. Likewise if we are going to attack ND. And that will give us a bit more time to secure the north (currently Vox) and organise some kind of landing blocking party.

[Shiber]

At the moment I'm entirely against any plan that would rely, even slightly, on any agreements and understandings with RP. Even if their continued existence practically depends on us and they have to do what we tell them to, it doesn't mean that they'll cooperate. No, they'll look for ways to save themselves that won't mean hurting their self-pride and dignity.

I like Zeit's plan to claim territory by conquering lands and quickly filling in the holes (like the settlers in Israel do . Btw, I strongly oppose this policy in RL, but I think it's great for our case). We seem to be building good ties with GoW - let's keep it up, and hopefully at some point they'll desert ND in our favor and together, we will conquer and annex that part of Bob and turn it into a 2 civs continent, with us being the 2nd civ of course.

[Shiber]

Attacking ND might ruin any chance of partnership with GoW for the entire duration of the game. This is really important to them (it should, since this war is a game breaker or maker for them), and they wouldn't like us to spoil it, not after they've spilled all the secrets in front of us. If we attack ND, GoW will hold grudge for us for at least half a year.

Anyway, the joint GS+GoW+ND chat should be coming up, and a lot could change after that chat.

[Arrian]

I agree, Shiber. I think we should attack RP, grab some strategically defensible land along the coast, and then work to set up a GoW+GS attack on ND which allows us to stay on the continent with a good portion of RPs land (if not all of it).

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

We could stay out of the war and hit lego instead, while Bob is busy.

Positives:

No allies to help lego (save vox )
probably pretty weak militarily-few if any offensive weapons to counter, few if any cats
in the chaos of the bob war this would be quite a suprise.
Probably few cities with barracks, (fewer veterans, but probably several elites due to fighting barbs. wonder what they have been training, NMs or swords?)

negatives:
initial attack has to be crippling, as they enter their Golden age
long transit time to hit legolopolis, possibilty of discovery north of GoW
likely that the Bob war will be finished before we can land on Lego.

[asleepathewheel]

What is the strategy for posting in the public forum once this hits? We just stay silent or say that we won't get invovled (yet) Now that we actually have a few days heads up on the pr front, we should actually have a cohesive plan to avoid the pitfalls of the past.

[notyoueither]

Stay the heck out of the mud in the public forum. It is likely that there are going to be some very high emotions. 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.