Turn 244 : 1270 AD Part II

[DeepO]

CH, in that case don't. This can wait a couple of hours at least. Everbody invested a lot of time in the game the past week, maybe too much time.

Theseus is right... if we don't take a break for a moment, we might all burn out. I know how difficult that is when important things keep on happening around us, but I was actually thinking on posting something publicly

please forgive us, but gathering storm is nearing mental breakdown. For us, the game is on hold for 48h. Please don't do anything requiring our attention in the mean time, as we will try not to look into this forum, or our own private forum, and thus will not notice it. In case any problems would arrive, we will be back in 2 days. I'm sure more teams can use the beak.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

We should let GoW finish their turn first.

Or :

Please forgive us, but Gathering Storm is facing exhaustion, sleep deprivation, unemployment, destitution, relationship breakdown, social collapse, and all the usual symptoms associated with intense DG play.

Of course some people might say that this is precisely what GS deserve but that can't be helped, under the circumstances.

However, for health and sanity reasons we really must take a 48-hour break from both the public and private forums, and hope that other teams can also use the breather.

[Cort Haus]

or combine the two ...

Dear Vox,

With the momentous geo-political changes occuring in the world, now seems a good time to renew and develop our friendship. Unfortunately we as a team are too exhausted from the demands and rigours of conflict to immediately enter into a dialogue with yourselves with the full focus we'd like.

However, once we've had a RL breather and caught up with our lives a bit, we would be keen to open a dialogue with yourselves regarding the future and the possibility of a fruitful and peaceful partnership in the years ahead.

Yours, etc
GS

[alva]

CH
---
I agree with Sleepy, if it was me beeing Lego - at this point in the game - I would end it too.
It's too late for them to start rebuilding and the mental knock-out they got this turn, is enough to call it quits.

[Cort Haus]

On reflection, we don't really want to do anything to hold up Lego from getting their turn. I'm not sure if I'd ever want to open the save again if I was them, but they might want to get on with it.

There's no reason to hold the game up specifically - we just want to open channels with Vox without getting too involved. I think the latest draft does that.

[Theseus]

I'll say it again: Just reading all the posts to catch up was *exhausting*. You guys who actually played through the last turn should get some rest.

[DeepO]

Yeah... I'll go over MZ's proposal in a couple of hours. Right now, I've got some other urgent matters to tend to.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

I don't read the first CH to Vox post as confrontational, but I have the advantage of knowing its intent We shoould get something off to them that is concilitory soon.

[vmxa1]

The MZ msgs is sensible, but would really hand them a lot. I am concerned that they did not make much in the way of renumeration. Little acknowledgement of the opening we provided.

The possibility that the pretend war will shutdown our harbors, deprive us of rubber and cancel any lux deals is scary. I do not know if they can make peace and send rubber at once in MP, maybe?

In the long run the idea is good, but I would have like to hear something about the out come of Legos capitol and the rubber on the land.

I thought they mention abandonment of the capitol and a new city, but I am not sure if that is correct. If it is, then I feel a bit better. Either we get the wonders or the must be destroyed.

One problem we have is we cannot afford to press real hard at this time.

[DeepO]

us losing lux is not really an option right now. We are not prepared for this... we would lose quite a few cities. That in itself is enough reason to veto any declaration of war. Plus, we would need to wait for 1 more turn before those deals are reinstated.

That is a major disadvantage is in itself. I really do not want to lose half our cities to disorder.

There are other considerations as well. Yes, they do not acknowledge what we did for the both of us, and are quite greedy... I think that that one sentence I sent in reponse did set them to think on this, though. While it is tricky to push too hard at this moment, we can't let them roll over us either.

As to the exploit side of things... I don't like fake wars. Just yesterday I said that declaring war to RP, to start their GA and end our mob was too cheesy for me. Now, GoW wants to do it for their own personal goals? Hmmm... at this moment I'm far from convinced it is a legitimate reason.

They are going to take 3 of our slaves, and destroy 2 marines. What do we get in return?
- 170 gold, half of the price of stealing Lego's map.
- rubber, which we would have gotten anyway in normal circumstances
- all the cities we need (these are undefended, heavily resisting cities. We would lose up to 10% of them the first turn.)

What do they get? safe cities. Safe forces. and our inability to attack much. Lego's forces can only go one way: they can come to us (or stay where they are)

It's not a good deal at the moment. Either we change it so we get more out of it, or we outright dismiss it. We've got enough reason: the only fake war we did was against ND, to solve a bug.

So, my vote: no to the extended proposal of them. we don't gain anything, and it 's cheesyness factor is off the scale... besides, when losing lux, we would really get hurt. They can prepare for that by setting their slider, we cannot.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Yes, there are far too many negs for us in the MZ plan. We should decline.

DeepO, shall I ping that second Vox message off? I think it's a good start and there have been nods.

[vmxa1]

I agree we cannot take the deal for our own sake and it would be a slap in the face to Lego.

I would tell them we did not use a fake to go into mob or start GA's and do not want to use it to further crush Lego or save troops.

The rest we can talk about. I don't mind thel oss of the marines, but to not even mention any compensation, is a bit disconcerning.

I don't know if it is greed or an over sight. We have to recoqnize that they can see we are ripe for the pickings, if they get to do it their way.

[DeepO]

and to follow up on this, here's my proposal to send to MZ. CH, please do not send it yet, I'm sure we want to wait for other opinions, not in the least for Aeson.

MZ,

This proposal of yours has made us think... a lot. While it is certainly inventive, we've got a couple of big problems with it.

First of all, declaring war on us is quite unacceptable right now.

- the 3 slaves and 2 marines are not really an issue, we can afford to lose those. We were hoping to use them as distractions for Lego anyway, to lure them out of their cities, or at least let them battered tanks not heal next turn. That's not really the point. More casulaties have fallen, and a lot more will before we are done with Lego.

- however, it is our understanding, that by declaring war we would lose our lux deal. We would lose the ability to receive rubber from you. You can't offer peace and lux at the same time, without an accepted peace deal, we don't have open trade routes. While the rubber would be bad, the lux is disastrous... you can compensate for this by using the slider, we can not. We would lose many cities to disorder (the un-ww doesn't help enough, we are already getting hit by Lego ww)

- and, we do not like fake wars. We have discussed this in the context of RP as well, and decided against it. We are not going to start RP's GA by sacrificing one of our units. Nor are we going to fake a war to get out of mobilization. So we can't fake war, just because a couple of our slaves are in the way either.

Further, what real benefits would it bring to us? As far as I can tell, not much. Smith is the only thing worth it on Legoland right now. It would be cool to keep Legopolis, just for that one wonder. But it holds a serious risk as well. Legopolis is in disorder, and while I didn't calculate it precisely, it has somewhere in the region of 10-30% chance of flipping next turn (10% when not in disorder when we get it, but it was built before EotS, so there is no way to set entertainers if it is in disorder)

The same happens to all other cities: flipping chance of undefended cities, in disorder, with many resisters present are simply huge. There is no point in keeping these cities, they are best abandoned. The aqua and hospital in them are costing more in upkeep that the corrupted commerce can bring us. Don't forget, Lego still has 14 transports... somewhere. If one wrong harbor flips to them, we enlarge the problem, instead of controlling it.

Do we gain extra protection for our exposed units? Not really. Your cavs are not important at all, if Lego would attack them, they have served their purpose twice. They are not going to do anything more, except perhaps be used in a future settler blitz. Our tanks (and the couple you will have left in the open) are not important either. We have some 25 tanks in the open, Lego is welcome to attack them. They will lose lots of units doing so, and expose all other units which we can easily pick clean.

Besides, the tanks Lego still has (only a good guess, but this will be very close to the truth):
1 2/5
11 2/4
1 1/3
2 1/4

there are only a few tanks that can actually win from a cav, let alone from a full health tank.

So... no gain, a lot of costs, and possibly even the public outcry to deal with over unfair tactics. No thanks, not worth it.

Cutting Abilene from the rest is different. Abilene does not hold 2-move attackers (well, a couple of cavs, but who cares), but if we can keep the defenders to reach Jackson or Dye, we would be best off. All this pillaging of roads does not have to be seen from the attackers side, only from the defenders side. 50 infs, plus an inf army should be pinned in Abilene if we can. Where those damaged attackers go is not important right now.

I can understand that from your side, it would pay off to cut off most units, and declare war on us. However, think of your ally, please. For us, there is no gain, only a lot of costs. We weren't selfish when we attacked Stanwix (to be correct: we knew it would be very important to our alliance, even if in the end it would gain you a lot more gold and those 29 artilleries than we would gain by it), so it is our hope you also see our point here. We are not helped by this manoeuvre, on the contrary even, it costs us a lot.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
DeepO, shall I ping that second Vox message off? I think it's a good start and there have been nods.

Yes, go ahead. I'm sorry I hadn't commented on that before. It looks good, exactly the right tone

DeepO

[DeepO]

vmxa, a bit of a cross post. I agree... I'm not sure of all your points are handled in the proposal, but it will be close.

DeepO