Bob : What next?

[Cort Haus]

1. Carry on against both GoW and ND.
For: Their GA's must nearly be over and WW should be an issue soon - may get favourable terms from both.
Against : still facing 2 civs with 3-movers, and unable to strike them at home. Lego (also against us) are winners of any meatgrinding. At least ND have muskets.
Possible Opening : Remind Lego that they may be lining their own coffin by opposing us. (Already done in latest PM to vondrack)
Possible Outcome : (this space left blank until something positive comes to mind), or Lego win.

2. Try to make seperate peace with GOW without giving anything away.
For: Better to fight one than two. Chance for GoW to change their mind about hitting ND.
Against: GoW will still be at war with RP, and could take Pamp without fearing counterstrike.
Possible opening : Remind GoW that we can still deliver their contract, and make the alternative expensive for them. (Already done in latest PM to Aggie)
Possible outcome : We keep what we have - which can include 'Fort Liberation' (Barca-4441), Spices SW of Barca and everything east of Toledo if we build some cities on these sites in the next few turns. We'd also have Pamplona - sending RP to N.Stormia. GoW are welcome to stay at war with RP, as they can't touch them in the cocoon. We can then strike at ND in the Southwest. Or, GoW treat peace as a cease-fire and strike us later (or sooner) while we're busy with ND.

3. Run Away
For : Get out of the kitchen, turtle, and let the others fight it out amongst themselves. Build up and deal ourselves back in later. If we have SP, a stack of Cavalry and a Navy, we may find we have new diplomatic options. More urgently - there is a fear and a possibility that Lego and Vox could be on their way from the east and we need to block the east coast of Stormia in a few turns.
Against : Represents defeat on Bob and relegation to last-place amongst the powers. Fear of eastern assault partially-mitigated by sight of 10 Lego Knights near Yellowknife.
Possible Outcome : Would leave Bobian Superpower, but could shake up the bag in GS favour diplomatically. Chance to re-group and strike later under more favourable conditions.

Unknowns

1. Saltpeter. Until we have this we don't know where we stand, and cannot make key decisions. See timing.
2. Nature of GoW deal with ND. We can only speculate -eg: we can deliver RP off Bob, but if ND's payment to GoW was half of Spain, and we're holding it, GoW won't get paid, so might as well carry on against us.


Further Considerations

1. Assumption is that GS consensus does not exist for war with Lego, preventing us from hitting GoW/ND at home.
2. We have to defend what we hold in Spain - at some point consolidation is better than expansion.
3. Fear exists of Lego/Vox attack.
4. We are weakened in Spain if we divert strong units to coast-guard
5. Abandoning the North increases our options in the south and / or offers coastguard


City Placement

1. Fort Liberation could be founded in two turns (if Barca-66 is safe - can be checked from FL tile), and a city on the spice-ruins tile in three turns - if these can be defended. A city on the hill-ruins at Toledo 6999 can be reached by the settler on the galley in two turns.

[Theseus]

I think that carrying on the slugfest is wasteful. I would rather follow CH's thoughts on settling with GoW... and ND, if possible, quickly build out our little chunk of Bob, and move on. The price? We get RP off of Bob.

As much as I am tempted to explore the alternative, not knowing about saltpeter we could get severely tripped up in terms of Cav revenge.

A thought occurs to me though: Whether we end up keeping our Bobian possessions, or return to Stormia and turtle... ain't it gonna take an awful LOT of shields for ND and GoW to build up on Bob?

[Arrian]

We may have lost the war, in the sense that we failed to protect RP from destruction, but we still did quite a bit of harm to ND/GoW (GoW in particular), which was the primary reason we allied with RP in the first place. The reasoning, as I recall it, was to prevent those 2 civs (or, indeed, any two civs unless we were 1 of the two ) from splitting that massive continent. Ultimately, we may be unable to prevent that, but we've sure as hell delayed it and made it costlier than it otherwise would have been. So in that sense, this wasn't a total loss.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Bob prospects : update

Options are now significantly narrower than when the thread was posted.

We have, I think, 8 knights and about 15 other units (pikes, MI, cats) around Pamp and Barca, plus the Jungle Guard around Toledo.

12 Knights from the north can be on Bob in about 5 turns, plus about 3 on S, Stormia and another 3 in the oven.

So assuming no further losses (BIG assumption, I know) we can have 25+ knights on S. Bob in five or six turns - by which time we may have gunpowder.

Whatever our intentions and mistake, our loss at Pamp-1 has bought Pamplona time. We have just heroically defended the Spanish capital, and GoW will need to replenish before launching their final assault, and Togas is saying they've a ton of Pikes in there. I doubt they'll waste time on our mountain stack.

Meanwhile, ND may have hinted in public that Barca may be at risk - I'll check this (or if anyone else remembers it, post the link). We have 3 galleys sauntering southwest down the coast. If they loiter around the ND cities it may delay an assault on the Barca defences in time for reinforcements. Speaking of which - we could build a city at 'Fort Liberation' (we'd surely need another name) in two turns, but we'd have to weaken the surrounding tiles to defend it. We might also just watch them charge past to our vacant rear. Seeing as they participated at the forest of Doom, ND may be resting too.

The rest of our military (footsloggers + WC) are doing the N.Stormia sea wall and hanging around S.Stormia. Question - do the coastal cities need units in them?

If, when we've got Gunpowder, we find ourselves holding some on Bob, with none on Stormia, we'll be wanting to hold it. However, we'll need more units to defend this, and would have to switch some of our civilian builds to units. If we cut Iron, we have to hold off research, so that's not appealing, though maybe some spear to pike upgrades would be good value.

If there's some on Stormia but not on our bit of Bob, and we can't get peace-with-land with both foes then we're off.

If there's SP on Stormia and our bit of Bob, then we have something to trade.

Given our losses and the need for civilian builds, I'm ready and happy to play the 'Fortress Stormia' scenario. I also think that Pamplona may be too strong to be lightly traded away. Better for GoW to spend what it takes to take it, and I don't see any kind of deal with them coming anyhow.

[Theseus]

1. Yep, we need a different name for Fort Lib!!

2. Coastal cities do no need defenders in them.

3. As we consider our defensive posture on Bob, for the love of god let's always keep in mind the 3-move advantage.

[Theseus]

Ya know, it just occurred to me...

What say we re-approach GoW?

Think about: We posture as if the loss of the Knights, while damaging, was not enough to deter us, and that we STILL have the might to smote ND.

Can't hurt, right?

[Cort Haus]

You're joking . I'm through with GoW. They've had 3 PM's in a row from me searching for alternative peace terms.

[Theseus]

Nah, I am serious!!

If you are right that they took a lot of pain in destroying our Knights, and they are STILL faced with a chock-full-o'-Pikes Pamplona, and they MIGHT be facing additional GS hordes... who knows?

[Cort Haus]

Yes, but just read UnO, H_E, and MZ on the public forum. They have no intention of doing business. They want RP and GS out of the game, because they think we have legit reasons to hate them so can never trust us. They assume that everyone else holds the grudges they do, and like themselves, would sell their own grandmother to win the game. Some GS-ers might do that too, but not all, I'll wager. Certainly not me. Nor RP, from their contributions to the WW thread.

GoW have probably been delayed at while, but they overflow with self-confidence. They are convinced they will win their way, eliminating their enemies from the game. Aggie sees the game more like we do, so would do business with us, but he thinks like us, not like GoW.

So, if GoW won't even respond to serial requests for peace talks of any kind, they're hardly gonna embrace the grand plan.

Anyway, why bluff about GS hordes? I outlined our military strength in the update above, and it amounts to the capacity to hold limited land for a limited period then thats all. After that we can produce about five knights and four or five pikes in the following eight turns while the round of essential growth and commercial builds complete.

I think GS has a far better chance of winning territory on Bob when not facing an alliance of three, and we'll only break that alliance by getting off Bob and letting the others fight it out while we develop our small but powerful civ.

If we lose many more units, we won't even have enough to defend Stormia, let alone even a modest patch on Bob.

Finally, if we were to have an ally on Bob, I now think it should be ND, as Sir Ralph has argued. Help them crush GoW, and force Lego to come begging to us, or then work with ND to destroy Lego. Both paths have their appeal, but in the short term I don't see offensive options available. We need to step back and see which way the wind blows. If all three civs are still allied against GS/RP, then Togas was right - the game's absurd - but I don't see that happening.

[asleepathewheel]

I agree with much of the above

I don't think any of us would want to kill off another civ out of spite, its just not who we are. We are cold hearted, sure, but we are rational. Look how we allied with RP, if GoW was in our position, they would have let them rot.

I think we should hold out on Bob as long as possible, with the units in place. don't make it easy on them. Once Pamplona falls, this turn or next, then our holdings will be swiftly overrun. fine, so be it. I think we should stop transferring units over there, and just keep a token force. Perhaps we could play it like the vast majority of our forces were lost inthe pamplona disaster?

How do we rate in the F3 screen? We could keep every unit unfortified on stormia, would skew our power down a bit.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
We may have lost the war, in the sense that we failed to protect RP from destruction, but we still did quite a bit of harm to ND/GoW (GoW in particular), which was the primary reason we allied with RP in the first place. The reasoning, as I recall it, was to prevent those 2 civs (or, indeed, any two civs unless we were 1 of the two ) from splitting that massive continent. Ultimately, we may be unable to prevent that, but we've sure as hell delayed it and made it costlier than it otherwise would have been. So in that sense, this wasn't a total loss.

-Arrian

We also have a vassel. This is not formalised yet, and we need to persuade the down-tailed RP-ers to start thinking about this. I know some wise heads among us fear a backstab, but I can't believe that BigFree & Togas want to blow their personal reputations on a betrayal of absurd proportions.

Whatever we've lost on Bob, and whatever the forces arranged against us now, we've also earned ourselves the reputation of being the best ally of the game so far - in terms of sticking at it when the chips are down. That may count for something yet.

What we could do with is an analysis of the productive potential of N. Stormia once RP have a palace there. We can then plan what RP can afford to pay us and then make a formal proposal. Perhaps a 40-turn research project if one could be suggested, and max gpt to pay us and rush some improvements.

[Arrian]

I would be more in favor of them researching at max a cheaper tech while we research at max a more expensive tech, and then swapping with a permanent no-trade clause on RP's side. This could get us caught up in tech, and put us in a position where we can research stuff no one else has and trade it on the world market. Then it might make sense for them to go 100% tax, although I don't think forcing them to fork it all over is necessarily smart. They need some for their own rush building.

RP should also take over the northern coastal blockade, allowing us to move our guys to the south. Since I'd rather they didn't waste any money on barracks upkeep, I'd say their blockade units should be catapults. This serves 3 purposes: 1) blocks the coast as well as any other unit; 2) any hostile ship dumb enough to come within range is gonna get pinged; 3) if we do get involved in another intercontinental adventure, we can take those bombard units - our cities, which all have barracks, need not "waste" themselves building bombard units (I hate using a barracks city to build a unit that has no hp).

-Arrian

p.s. Hmm, I wonder what Vox's deal with Lego is. I wonder if we could somehow find out...

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Arrian
RP should also take over the northern coastal blockade, allowing us to move our guys to the south. Since I'd rather they didn't waste any money on barracks upkeep, I'd say their blockade units should be catapults. This serves 3 purposes: 1) blocks the coast as well as any other unit; 2) any hostile ship dumb enough to come within range is gonna get pinged; 3) if we do get involved in another intercontinental adventure, we can take those bombard units - our cities, which all have barracks, need not "waste" themselves building bombard units (I hate using a barracks city to build a unit that has no hp).

-Arrian

p.s. Hmm, I wonder what Vox's deal with Lego is. I wonder if we could somehow find out...

I don't know. Do we really trust them that much? I can see several scenarios where they would double cross us just to get their old land back. If we don't have muskets to stack in Elipolis, just in case, I would be leery of doing this....




Oh, a thought.

We calculated, roughly, what we would need in terms of land to win. What would a unified Bob need? Would Northern Stormia be enough to net them the win? They could either come at us (nigh impossible if not done soon) or they could take on lego (a much less defensible mass, but with better units defending (possibly more now)

Maybe we could figure out (whoever can do that or has some map utility) how much land bob needs and how much land lego needs. If lego cannot win by conquering us alone (which I doubt they can) then we should try to get some deal out of them, to aid our protection. something like, Lego, you have nothing to gain by our destruction, as your culture is far beyond ours etc etc but if our continent would fall to a unified bob civ, then bob would win, throw in some numbers. At which point, lego would say, well, we are going to ensure that there is no unified bob civ...hmmm I'm rambling and I'll stop now...

one more thing, the longer we hold out on bob, the more units they will probably have to crank out, Gow, ND. Bet they'll get itchy with 50 ansars and riders each just sitting around....

[Cort Haus]

Thanks, Arrian, good points.

I was thinking about cats for the sea-wall - you've just confirmed the value of that approach.

Also, the initial thinking on RP was that they'd be demilitarised under a GoW deal up there, but this doesn't apply now. I think it's 26 units to cover the coastline ~ 5 builds per city. Assuming size 6 with some coastal tiles worked for about 16 commerce per city - that's 80gpt. Subtract say 30 for unit upkeep leaves 50gpt.

Yes, they should certainly be able to do some research of devalued techs OK with that.

[Cort Haus]

ah, cross post.

If BigFree & Togas want to backstab us for GoW, they'll have comitted surely the worst betrayal in demogame history to date. As they're both playing other demogames, this would have serious repercussion for them and their teams.

It's not the same as the usual aggressions or backstabs that are required to win a game. The simple prospect of outliving GoW could go down as a personal, moral victory for RP.

So I see the risk as low. The benefits of having them work N.Stormia for us are high - they can research, as has been indicated here, and can fund their own sea wall. That leaves us 26 more units for the south.

We might need a poll / discussion thread for the fate of RP, and we definitely need some thoughts from RP about it. I wonder if we could get some public agreement whereby if they break our terms they forfeit their (limited) autonomy and we get control of their save?

We could approach RP and say that opinion is divided at GS over whether we can trust them not to betray us - what sort of guarrantee can you offer?