What to post publicly about the war

[DeepO]

Arrian, I know you didn't. But I think that that has triggered Zargon's exclamation over "those brilliant tactics leading to our demise". Perhaps not your posts, but I had to correct you (it wouldn't have been fair to vulture, as he really was the first), but that did rub it in a bit more.

All these small things, lead to big frustrations in the end... it is understandable, and even if I personally might think that they could have avoided at least part of what has happened, they have the right to be upset.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
I think we should just shut up for a bit. Even if we think Zargon is overreacting, it's understandable that he and other Legos are upset.

Yes, let's go quiet for a bit.

[vulture]

Originally posted by DeepO
Arrian, I know you didn't. But I think that that has triggered Zargon's exclamation over "those brilliant tactics leading to our demise". Perhaps not your posts, but I had to correct you (it wouldn't have been fair to vulture, as he really was the first), but that did rub it in a bit more.
DeepO

Some ideas, such as Inchon (or Fort Stanwix for that matter) deserve a lot of credit becaue they are genuinely creative solutions. Using tranaports to attack is hardly the same; half the team would have spotted it, and it's largely random who mentions it first. No doubt someone on the team is thinking "I've been using transports in the attack for years (when appropriate); it's too obvious to bother suggesting".

[DeepO]

vulture, that may be true, and in this instance I agree completely. It was not the idea of the century (nor was the 8-art chaining idea of Aeson, btw. Give the team an hour more, and someone else would have thought about it for sure). But if someone has to be mentioned as being the first, I would appreciate it that the first gets mentioned, and not the second.

I'm very thoroughly convinced of the team efforts here, but of course, in case a certain idea is mentioned first by me, I wouldn't like someone else to take the credit for it. However, in many cases, there have been simultanuous ideas. Look at Inchon/off: Inchon was Arian's, I think, Inchoff was mine. Before it was executed, those 2 ideas were forgotten at least 2 times, re-invented, adapted, and combined. Who is the inventor of the Inchon/off approach? I don't know... I keep the official credit as "GS".

Besides, I've seen in many instances the last couple of days, that in that respect the turn player is by far in the disadvantage. I may post as much posts as the rest of the team combined, but many of these are about practical things, not radical new ideas. The reason for this is quite simple: While I post a screenshot, and start chaining units, or counting units, or whatever, the rest of the team has nothing else to do but to keep on thinking on strategies. I've seen it happen a couple of times: I spend half an hour of placing text on screenshots, indicating troop strengths, veryfying that information, and posting it eventually, only to find that someone has taken that time to actually think on what could be done with those troops. A bit frustrating, you know.

I'm not bitter on this, but I wouldn't mind losing the controls, and do some more innovative thinking... which is why I'm so focused on this being a team effort, and not a personal glorification thing. This game holds a bit from all of us, so let's be proud as a team, instead of thinking on who did what.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Heh, well I thought the transport & artillery things were brilliant. Granted, I was looking at it more as an observer than an active participant in the planning.

I for one have *never* used transports on the attack, and I have only once, as far as I remember, used any sort of ship chain - and that was yesterday afternoon, and it was with 3 units. It's something that I don't even consider normally. I didn't plan the chain in advance - but I saw the possibility and used it that once.

So I guess to me the ideas of chaining across arty, bombarding the BBs and then attacking with transports were pretty impressive

...

Inchon was originally a very basic idea which was fleshed out via long discussion and the addition of the Inchoff landing. Like you say, by the time we executed the landings, they were had long since been team ideas, rather than individual ones. That's the whole purpose of a demogame. But people tend to like to identify certain moments or ideas that lead to greater things.

Wasn't it vulture who suggested the additional strike north of Inchon that finally broke Vox? I remember that vividly. It started as a "hey, let's try this" suggestion, and ended up being a stroke of brilliance (IMO).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Chaining...well... I tend to do that a lot. I hate the waits involved in shipping units, plus in SP games it really is too powerful. the AI will never see you coming, or try to do anything against it. So you don't need protection, and by putting a well placed net around a civ, you can chain into all coastal cities with marines as long as you've got enough transports in your starting harbor. Chaining the arties was a good idea, but it came as a kind of solution to "hey... only 3 ships blocking... 12 ships to attack with... what can we use to get our chances up". A good idea without any doubt, but like I said, an idea that surfaced in the first hour after getting the save. Give it a day more, and others could have thought about it too. Aeson has done many more (minor perhaps) things which freaked me out as I never thought about them. I didn't think of this as his best idea, even if it may have had the largest impact.

I'm not sure on the Inchon one, if it wasn't you, it could very well have been vulture, Nathan, or Aeson. I'm positive on Inchoff, and also on the combination approach, in both cases it was my first mentioning. Inchoff came before Inchon, btw, but that I only found out months later... I mentioned it about a month before we were able to launch the Inchon attack, and that idea surfaced. It was also more like a "hey, look at that spot, if we settle a city there Vox is ironless". And I totally forgot about it (thought Nathan was the first), until someone linked to a post in that specific thread a couple of posts above mine.

Very strange sensation, to discover an idea was first mentioned by yourself. And I don't care whether Nathan used it (subconsciously perhaps) as basis for his idea, or if he had never seen my post and reinvented it. I do not intend to ask for any credit for it, that is not my intention in mentioning this, it's just that even if the Inchon/off strategy was brilliant, it was remodeled so many times over the weeks, that no single person should say "hey, that was me. Look what I've done!". I know one thing: in the Inchon/off case, I think Nathan should be remembered as the one who was responsible for the attack... even if the idea might not have been his, he calculated the thing perfectly (granted, Vox was some other opponent than Lego, there you could actually plan something weeks in front, and don't change your plans at all).

So you see, I consider all of this too subjective. We can agree on certain things: Inchon/off was to our knowledge never been done before, and was the perfect strategy for the situation.

Fort Stanwix, seeing that we as a team had not considered it at all, was equally brilliant. GoW could never have broken through, it basically broke their whole invasion, taking half their troops with them. Knowing that this had been planned weeks in advance (perhaps not the exact spot, but any forking spot would have been ideal) is really awesome... which makes it double sad that we were able to attack Lego from behind. Nobody is going to remember Stanwix as the same kind of brilliance as Inchon/off, as it didn't work.

These things should be, to all involved, be remembered as classic Civ tactics. And at that moment, it would be very wrong to hang one name on them... or it has to be the name of the team.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, even if we guessed it relatively soon, the idea of Vox to let its empire produce vet warriors, and transporting them to the one city which was connected to iron was also very nice... too bad for them they didn't protect it well enough, and we found out relatively quickly. Another one of those brilliant ideas that people forget far too soon, as it happened on the losers side.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Stanwix was awesome

[asleepathewheel]

Does Zargon not remember what WE went through twice? They have not received one tenth of the verbal assault we did in the vox and bob wars.

[DeepO]

Yeah... better than our transport charge, in my eyes.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Does Zargon not remember what WE went through twice? They have not received one tenth of the verbal assault we did in the vox and bob wars.

Exactly. I expect he'll blow himself out after a while as long as we ignore him. When things have calmed down it might be possible to remind him of the above fact.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
Yeah... better than our transport charge, in my eyes.

DeepO

I agree. Simple. Beautiful. Ingenious. The perfect response to a settler landing. Perfect except for that tricky back door.

Added to the repertoire, not that I could ever use it against the AI

[DeepO]

Let's not remind him. He has no idea, and let's keep it like that. Nobody deserves the kind of abuse we felt.

He's disappointed, but he has been on the tip of his chair since this war started. For him, I think it actually is good that the war ended so suddenly. Imagine 2 or 3 months of this, and still have Lego lose the war. Every turn, 50 bombers hitting targets in Legoland, buildings that couldn't be rebuild, citizens becoming unhappy... that kind of war brings true exhaustion. This might not be the best way, but at least it's a short pain without any suffering.

Only... in the long run, Lego would be in the advantage, of course. even if GoW can easily outproduce them.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Interesting to see UnO walk in and then bite his tongue. Only to relax and take a friendly pop at us.

[vmxa1]

I think you touched on the real calmity for them. They have been on top of the world for more less the whole game. Now they are going to be dusted.

It woud be easier for someone that has been an also ran most of the time to finally be axed.

Pluse I suspect that the reputation and respect that is felt for some of the GS team members makes them want to beat GS more than the others.