Turn 259: 1340AD

[notyoueither]

From their unit counts, they are a hard shell.

Bring another tac nuke or two along to break hard points though, if you feel it needed.

[notyoueither]

Land the nukes on corners where they hit the city, but leave most rails intact. You can clean up in a single turn if you have the initiative and they are not prepared.

[notyoueither]

We could get UnO on the line and tell him we are willing to be their mercenaries.

We could sell them the game with a couple of provisos.

[vmxa1]

The first nuke will cut all roads in the 9 tile radius. So you would need a target that leaves one setion in place. Two hits would leave the target cleared with just 1 hp units.

A third shot clears it so you just walk in.

[Aeson]

I don't think nukes are to be used. We can defend ourselves and compete in a space race now, so why throw the game away now? Without Uranium we had no choice, and gutting ND, though a long shot, was something we had to put ourselves in a position to try to do. Since we were set up for it, we tried it anyways. Now I don't see much point in it. This war is dying out it seems. ND doesn't look like they want to come out of their shell. We can't invade.

Using nukes is not something we need to do. It guarantees failure unless we can take out GoW at the same time.

As for 1 turn crossings, we can't do it rolling and not risk the loss of our ships and units. We will be in view of Recon missions and ships from cities, in range of Bombers and tactical nukes. A few nukes from ND and we'd lose all our units.

I think at this point we should be working towards a nuclear agreement with ND, GoW, and Vox.

[vmxa1]

Makes sense to me, if it can be done.

[Krill]

Makes sense to me, if it can be done.

Anybody up for a fourway chat?

[notyoueither]

Well damn. I am a minority.

Very well, carry on then.

[DeepO]

If possible, I would prefer a space race as well. However, how exactly are we going to sell this to ND? They took our part of Lego (we can't forget that if RP was settled there, we would have a tech/econ advantage), retreating now is not exactly something grand of us. ND can afford to stay in war, for as long as they can't be hit by our nukes. Their infrastructure is already built...

I don't like the situation at all, I've got to say. some diplo action might be good, but e.g. if we can get some form of compensation out of this (lux? land?) it wuold be best.

I like nye's idea as well... even if it surely will mean we lose, it seems to have more chance of being fun.

DeepO

[Aeson]

Originally posted by DeepO
If possible, I would prefer a space race as well. However, how exactly are we going to sell this to ND? They took our part of Lego (we can't forget that if RP was settled there, we would have a tech/econ advantage), retreating now is not exactly something grand of us. ND can afford to stay in war, for as long as they can't be hit by our nukes. Their infrastructure is already built...

ND is up to 30% Lux, so while they may be in better shape than us, they are losing a lot of ground to GoW economically. I would be suprised if they want to continue this war at all. While they had us by the balls when our only potential source of Uranium was on Lego, we are now a much less "soft" target. What might have looked like a "free" landgrab on Lego has cost them already, and would almost certainly cost them (and us) the game if the conflict lasts too much longer.

I like nye's idea as well... even if it surely will mean we lose, it seems to have more chance of being fun.

I'm ok with doing that if that's what the team wants. I just want us to be clear that it will mean our elimination, and that currently we have a decent shot at a Space Race win if peace is restored. GoW isn't just going to sit back and wait for us to do the same thing to them if it works against ND, and if it doesn't, we don't get that far anyways.

[Krill]

Simple point: Maybe we ought to pillage the uranium, and restore the mine, so it won't deplete. It won't decrease the amount of shields (actualy it will increase by one...)

edit: ...compared to before the uranium appeared.

[DeepO]

I agree that there are losses on ND's side as well. Which is why I proposed to ask something in return for ending the war... the land is worth something to us (meaning GS and RP). ND's biggest reason to go to war has gone, so maybe they want to give something back, I don't know. Maybe far fetched and not 'good' at all, but even if Vox settles the land, and we get something in return (e.g. 20 gpt), we are better off.

As to ending the game in a blast: I'm not sure... I only wanted to say that I can see, and understand nye's point, and it has some appeal. I prefer to win, of course, but if it gets a purely technical question of who's able to race fastest, it won't be a lot of fun. Apart from gloating once it's finished of course, and that also counts for something

DeepO

[Krill]

I'll be honest, I would prefer to go out in a blaze of glory, than to win via dull but efficient play...but I think this game has been anything but dull, and has been and still is played very efficiently

However, I can't see us going out in a blaze of glory. I can see us dying, yes, but not the blaze of glory (i.e. taking out half of ND). ND have a weaker defence than we do, but we don't have much that can be used to destroy that defence. Nukes are the only answer. There are two ways to get Nukes. Trade for them or research it ourselves. i woould try to get GoW to give us the tech(space flight?) for Mini, and we help them with the research cost by sending them money.


I would like to try and chat with MZ about this. It would be wise (IMSHO) to keep GoW in the loop.

[DeepO]

well, personally, one of the reasons for me to try something now, is that I'm starting to have it with this game. It takes too long... I loved it so far, but that love is gone, mostly because we don't have a lot of things to look forward to, there are no clear goals anymore.

But I agree, Krill, we don't have a good chance of doing a lot of damage either, at least not on our own. And going out in a blaze of nothing seems the supidest way of all. Which is why nye's proposal has some appeal: if we would be mercs for GoW, we can be sure there is some action left.

OTOH... we played very well so far, and giving it up doesn't really appeal to me either. I don't know... a bit of a confusing decision, really. Most importantly at this point is if our president sees a good, honest way of finishing, after all he needs to do it and we're 'only' advisors.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Something would have to be done to make PBEM move along to make them more appealing. More than two years, is insane.

A real turn around rule that was enforced to make play move. Sort of like an SG game. 24 hrs to pick up 48 to play and pass on. You are allowed so many extension like in a pool match. This covers real life issues, otherwise the monitor plays the turn with no special effort. IOW we do not want to see a monitor play the skipped teams turn, better than they would.

Some rules like that to keep things going. Fewer human teams. This game was fun when action was on the menu, not so much fun when the turns just sat around or worse yet had bugs or rulings needed to be made.