Turn 380AD

[Theseus]

Yeah, basically, being GS / the Strat guys, we have been a target from Turn One.

vx, you know how you have never paid much attention to AI attitude? Uh, that f*cked us up here, in a way.

You are Navy, right? Well, I'm a Marine... never friggin' give up! I'm sure you heard this back in the day: When Chesty Puller and the troops were surrounded at the Frozen Chosin Reservoir, he said "GOOD! No matter which way we shoot we'll hit one of the b*stards." (Thanks for picking us Jarheads up, btw, you old squid )

We ain't done, not by a long shot.

[vmxa1]

Ok, I will load up the save to see if I can figure out who is who.
I still don't know what civ represent Lego, but it can't be hard to tell.
This is a PTW game I take it, don't answer I will soon know.
So ND/GoW/RP/Lego and GS is that all the civs? What is the map size?

How to do handle the game? I mean does CH do all the plays and report back with some screenies? Do you have a set period of time to take you play?
Come to think of it I don't even know how PBEM works.

I will read the those two thread, assuming I can find them.

[asleepathewheel]

Lego has the big western continent, light green (?) in color. vox has the subcont to the north of them.

Bob, N to S: GoW-ND-RP

I think its standard. At one time Vox stretched down to Dissidentville (huge open jungle between that and elipolis)


basically how we currently are working is, we think about the next move while waiting to have it emailed to us. If you would like the save directly, pm Vondrack. we then have 24 hours to make our moves (we have generally been the slowest group)

any other questions?

[DeepO]

I won't comment on the Bob situation, I leave that to those with more feeling for the current situation. However one thing you might look out for: you've got enough blocking troops in North Stormia to have them sailing for 2-3 turns in our waters before they can land any troops. Good... now make sure we've got some cats ready to fire on their boats if they come close. Also, keep in mind that with astro, they can cross sea tiles, so make chokepoints with galleys (can also serve as lookouts): by blocking Beta114, B111 and B112, you make sure they will end in reach of a cats on B1 or B2. With a couple of galleys, this can be done, they will not attack empty galleys with loaded ones...

I'm not saying that's the specific spot to block, just make some blockades elsewhere if these are better suited... and try to stack galleys if possible. Those blocking galleys can, after cat fire, be used to take out any appraoching boats.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

vmxa1,

Great to see you here!

It can take a little time to get a handle on what's going on, but feel free to ask anything. I joined a few months ago and was a little unsure at first, but before I knew it I was in the thick of things and then playing the turn. I'd never played PBEM before either. Theseus had been playing the turn until recently, but there some intermittant bugs in the game, and it's crashing on his PC when he hits F1, so I've been playing the last few. Before that NYE was playing the turn.

PM vondrack to get on the save list, and load it in PTW from the main menu. Avoid loading it from within another game - strange things can happen. Apparantly there's a way to load it via multiplayer too, but I don't know that.

Password is : OneToRule

Protocol is that only the turn player makes any moves, and documents them on a turn thread like this one. It may be that officially only the turn player should opens the turn but in practice it's near impossible to participate in any detail without looking at the save. Besides, with occasional bugs causing problems on some machines, it can be necessary.

Each team has 24 hours to play their turn, with the 'Save game thread' on the gen forum being updated by the sending player. Only posts indicating the passing of the save go on that thread, comments go on the 'save game comments' thread.

Next up, I'll describe how the thread structure works on this, our private forum ...

[Cort Haus]

Deepo,

thanks for the comments on the defences - I shall study them closely, as I'm not sure atm how to proceed on building and arranging these defenses. Until the grand saltpeter drama on Bob is resolved, we don't know how many units we shall have and need. All I do know is the want a good load of galleys (we're not doing badly here) for starters, and a mobile wall. It would also be good to know what sea techs the enemy have. Astro we can probably deal with, Nav is more scary.

[Cort Haus]

Thread Structure

Each turn has a thread for it - covering strategic and tactical discussion - if people are available to discuss it. Proposed moves for discussion and actual documented moves go here, and screenshots usually from the end of the move.

All civs have a diplo log, where correspondance (usually PM's, but sometimes IRC chat or email) are recorded here but no discussion - which goes in the 'comments on diplo' threads for each civ.

There are topped threads (some unused) which aspire to be focal points for economic, military and other discussions. Ideally we'd have enough fully active members to continually drive thinking and discussion in each of these areas, together with full-time ambassadors for each civ. In practice, we don't currently have the resources for this.

As a particular issue arises, such as our recent drive to forge an alliance with one of our foes, GoW - or major strategic/tactical decisions such as 'do we attack, defend, or run away' - a thread might get opened to focus dicussion on that issue. An example is the "What next on Bob" thread.

[asleepathewheel]

I like the idea of using some galleys as blockers. Due to the low load capacity of galleys, any decent sized invasion would need a ton of them, and probably can't spare 2 for every galley we have in the waters. And I wouldn't mind forcing them to attack a galley with a full capacity galley. Might buy us some more time until they get frigates.

[Cort Haus]

Other Teams (for vmxa1)

Here's some more detail on the other teams and structure of alliances :

Glory of War (GoW)
Civ : China
Colour : Black
Status : Power
Leader : Aggie
Other key figures : Master Zen, UnOrthOdOx, Hot_Enamel
Team Clown : Ghengis Farb
Start Location : North Bob

Ostensibly a mercenary civ, but determined to win at almost any price, these are our heated rivals - though friendships and mutual respect do still exist between us. Many of these guys are grudge-bearers extraordinaire, and they've resolved to remove us and our allies RP from the game. They give the impression that they would sell their own grandmothers to win. Theseus and I recently shifted whole mountain ranges trying to get a deal with them, but to no avail. Part of their playstyle is to use propaganda and high emotion on the public forum against us and RP. Currently allied with ND (and Lego) against us. Following the failed alliance attempt, they've also snubbed three offers of peace talks since. Their leader Aggie does not have a grudge against us or RP, and would personally have taken our offer (considered to be attractive and fair even by GoW naysayers) to ally against ND.

Neu Demogyptia (ND)
Civ : Arabs
Colour : Yellow
Status : Power
Leader : Darekill (I think)
Start Location : Mid-Bob
aka : The Yellow Stain

A team of German-speakers who run their affairs off-Apolyton, not much was known about them, but recently some of their members have joined ptwdg2 teams and so are becoming members of the 'Poly community. Probabaly the most respected team in the game - they've played well, been successful, and are likely second-favourites to win after Lego. Currently allied with GoW (and Lego) against us. Apart from a bit of bragging and taunting from them, and reaction from us, we don't have attitude problems with this team who, despite our attempts to organise a backstab by GoW against them, seem to bear us no grudge.

We tried to open channels for peace talks with them but no reply.

Lego
Civ : Carthage
Colour : Green
Status : Power
Leader : vondrack
Start Location : The huge continent of Lego (to themselves)

Self-declared builders, though in practice machiavellian manipulators, these guys were given a golden gift by the RNG - a huge continent to themselves. When GS defeated the Bob-backed Vox aggression, Lego arranged for Vox to be spared as a vassel on the rough peninsula on the north of their landmass.

Becasue of the awesome early economic and military success of GS, vondrack saw us as a major threat, and covertly backed GoW and ND against us - at least in a military MPP (Lego had Knights defending the GoW homeland and threatened us with war if we attacked there) and possibly with tech as well.

Vondrack insists that his policy against us was not personal, but that he feared our capabilities. Our aim on Bob was to defend Spain (RP) and to gain territory there for a second core and a chance at having enough production to win the game. Well, thanks ultimately to Lego - probably even more so than our own errors - we failed, (though damaging GoW's prospects too) and now we're hanging on for a chance of a turn or two of saltpeter. Lego has been a big winner of the Bobian war with GS, GoW & ND crushing a lot of each others shields, and RP removed from contention.

Once we're off Bob, it is possible that Lego will seek to ally with us, who they supposedly wish to prune as a contender, but maintain as a power to balance ND and GoW.

Lego is the source of the rumour that we have no saltpeter in Stormia. This could be to force us to continue the fight on Bob, weakening ourselves, GoW and ND to Lego's benefit.

Role Play (RP)
Civ : Spain
Colour : Light BLue
Status : rump state, unnoficial vassel of GS
Leader : BigFree
Other key figures : Togas, Arnelos (going inactive)
Start Location : South Bob

Rapidly over run by the three-move Ansars and Riders (in golden age), their Spanish lands are believed to be GoW's payment from ND for their current enterprise. GS's stubborn defense of part of Spain has hit GoW rather more than ND, and although GS have lost a lot of units, the other side have too and without the GS losses Pamplona (now Spanish capital) would certainly be in GoW hands. We believe there is either Saltpeter near Pamplona, or GoW have a leader and they want an FP there - it's an ideal site.

RP had been accused (mainly by GoW) of some unfair trading, threatening posture, and lack of understanding of the interests of other teams, and that's why they got jumped. They now recognise that they didn't play well diplomatically, but insist that they've paid the price.

When Pamplona falls, their palace should jump to Miller Town in North Stormia, from where we hope to charge rent (gpt) while defending the coastline with a sea-wall.

Some at GS fear that RP could backstab us, letting the enemy in to Stormia, so we should cut them loose. Others of us feel we need them to produce commerce for us in land we cannot use for some time (corruption). The debate is unresolved. Downheartedness at RP means they are slow to enter into discussion with us as to their future.

Vox
Civ : Persia
Colour : Red
Status : Lego Vassel
Leader : Beta
Start Location : Estonia (north Stormia)

Attacked GS with 40 immortals and lost. This was well before my time and I'm in shock and awe of this GS achievement. GS allowed them to leave Stormia and set up as a Lego Vassel. They still have their immortals and are an ever-present concern to GS, especially as some in GoW desire their reinstatement in Estonia.
Supposedly don't do anything without Lego's consent, and Vondrack insists he has no wish for Stormia to be attacked by anyone, and would seek to intervene on our behalf if anyone did. So vondrack says ...

Lux
Civ : ?
Colour : ?
Status : Dead
Start Location : somewhere on Bob

Killed of early by GoW and ND, I think.

[Cort Haus]

Theseus,

I've no idea why you shouldn't put jam on a magnet. Its an Eddie Izzard thing - St Pauls letter to the Corinthians, telling them what to do and what not to do. Putting a sock in a toaster is a comic image, but jam on a magnet isn't. Put them together and you get a surreal contradiction that is in itself funny, because it throws up the question "what's that all about".

[Cort Haus]

Galleys

It seems that the galley is an OK ship for us for now. It has the same stats as a caravel, does it not - but without the load capacity? That's OK, we don't want to spend shields on load capacity when defending, so with a good bunch of our galleys, they'll need extra boats to attack ours first, rather than sending dozens of riders into the hands of our galley fleet.

[asleepathewheel]

Was it 40 immortals? I think it was closer to 20-25, but....


A huge victory none the less.

a valiant picket grog gave his life for perhaps 10 turns warning of a large immortal horde. A mistake by Vox to land a pair of immortals near hurricane, which allowed us to trigger our Golden Age a few turns before the first immortal wave's arrival. A vox army that didn't know the lay of the land, only our capital's location (carefully guarded territory map) traveled down the spinebreaker mountains while we pinged them to death with catapults. Had they attacked sooner....their indecision proved to be costly. We gained a GL used for Sun Tzu. We built the Lighthouse (was prebuild for pyra that we lost 1 or 2 turns before lego completed)Using the lighthouse, commander Arrian landed a settler and pikes next to the vox sole iron deposit, simultaneously landing another settler, guards south of elipolis, cutting off the entire vox army in the south. We then captured Elipolis. Vox sued for peace via the public forum and we reluctantly bowed to public pressure.

The PR front has been our weakest area to this point and was Vox's strongest ally. Vox would routinely vet its diplo messages to us and public messages to the forum with the other 3 english speaking teams, thus we would be blindsided by well thought out responses and attacks. I believe that Vox was a pawn of the others. The GoW peninsular city of Port of Isolation was originally a voxian colony, which was garrisoned by quite a few immortals. When threatened by the 3 Bob nations, Vox left the island. At the time, we thought that was all there was to it, but some agreement was reached....perhaps 10 turns later Vox announced they were returning to Bob with war on their minds, however this was a ruse and a turn later they threw Grog down off his mountain.

During the vox war, a GoW ship was charting our western coast, we commishened them to report what units they saw (the sole road from vox proper to dissidentville hugged the coastline). GoW has acknowledged faking the screenshots they sent to us. A few turns later, the GoW galley dropped two horses next to our city. We had forewarning of such, GoW was paid by a third civ to interevene (lego or RP) and was "fulfilling" their contract. we killed them the turn the landed, though it did divert resources from the besieged Arashi.


After lego and others begged us to allow vox to leave, we began rebuilding, our golden age over. Not long after, ND and GoW decided to destroy RP, we asked that we get part of the eastern coast, we were denied. We were approached by RP and we joined their defense. The war has been going on for many many turns, and only now are we finally being driven off bob, 2 civs in ga's are too much for one civ ferrying units and another that had a skeleton defense. Its been an ugly war, politically, emotionally. Lego has committed itsself to the defense of GoW. For some reason, even though we have little land, they still fear us greatly. W wolf in builder's clothing.

[Cort Haus]

Well, you know how these tales grow in the telling

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Well, you know how these tales grow in the telling

Indeed. The fear of such numbers led to the (in)famous Ralph-Theseus transcontinental telelphone call.

It might very well have been around 40 towards the end of the war adding the casualtie and the handful that hadn't arrived south. We nearly lost elipolis to a huge stack of them towards the end, but held and they left.

[vmxa1]

Thanks all for the info. I am not surprise that those teams would have been concerned about GS. The list of players is very impressive and I can see why the 40 Immortals got a whacking.

I have to swap out my main PC today as it is going in (again) to see if I can get it to behave. I am swapping out the MB for a better one. Replacing the 1GB pc2700 with Muskin pc3200. Adding a 10k rpm Raptor as the main HD and putting the 7200 as a dual boot for Win98 or ME (so I can play old games).

Trying to get it to stop crashing in civ games. Anyway I will drop in my backup system an dnot be down all that long.