DIPLO: RollPlay Team contact LOG

[DeepO]

Togas,

as you can see in the public forum, we cleaned out Legoland. The last Lego stack should be dealt with by GoW, which makes going for Legoland no longer an option for you. Please return home to make sure the remainder of your troops survived.

There are still 2 Lego groups of transports at large, one of which is currently at Panama Vox 47 (4 TR) (the other one (3 TR)in the Deep South). Neither the Last Legos, nor Vox has any marines, so to avoid them landing, resurrect your sea wall, please! I noticed you had a settler in San Antonio, as long as he can't be shipped to Legoland, move him onto the coast to keep Lego from landing.

We would still like the exact position of the sunk Nina. We didn't spot the 1/4 Sub (but couldn't reach its assumed spot with a sub). Maybe next time.

We did scout near to where your ships are supposed to end if they sail straight to San Antonio with a sub. You should not find a sub directly in your path. We can't guarantee you won't be attacked next turn by one coming from farther out of sea.

Last point: with the war over, we finally had time for some upgrades. The defenders on your mountains and hills are now all MI, instead of rifles. Although it can be obvious that you face the biggest risk in your city closest to GoW, the rest should be relatively safe. We are scouting for ships on your SW, and maybe over time can set up pickets on your N side as well... not right now, though.

No word yet on any negotiations for RP land on Legoland, MZ is unavailable, so all negotiations have cooled down. Continue with the settlers and your defense, we are optimistic we can give you more land, especially after Lego attacked you, and made you more or less officially part of the alliance.

DeepO

[DeepO]

We did indeed lose the Nina. Our other two ships (Pina & Santa Maria) are on their way home by going DIRECTLY west to your waters first, then heading up the coast.

Our last 2 transports are nearly home and will offload units for seawall next turn.

We are at war with Legoland ... 3 of our cities went into WLTP day.

--Togas

[Cort Haus]

to Togas

Hi Togas,

DeepO, your regular emissary from GS, is unavailable atm so I'm stepping in here for now.

First, are RP interested in territory on Legoland?

Second, ND Forces are as follows:

3 Settler
38 Worker
20 Marine (+8)
14 Cavalry
64 Infantry
40 Tank (+2)
1 Mech Infantry
1 Frigate
17 Transports (+3)
1 Sub
5 Destroyer
1 Battleship
18 Bomber
4 Ansar

We fear that they are gearing up for an attack on Stormia. While we are taking steps to defend against this possibility, would you guys be interested in a security policy involving a settler in a boat at the pole and a settler in our core?

Regards,

-Cort Haus

[Cort Haus]

from Togas

Yes and Yes. We will make the arrangements this turn. We have a seawall in place, but it will not hold back any sizable force.

We are deeply interested in land abroad. Please let us know when and where we can begin settling.

--Togas

[Cort Haus]

to Togas : Back to Bob!

Hi Togas,

Thanks for your message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can about holdings on Legoland.

Meanwhile, if I may convey a quick message from Aeson, can you get all your Conq's sailing South down our West coast? ND are mobilised, so it's gonna happen. When it happens, it'd be cool to be able to deal a bit of damage to their production advantage, If GS can hold a coastal city for a turn or two the Conqs could roll in and have some fun on the old stomping grounds.

Maybe fate was saving them for this when the Lego War was over a bit quickly for them We don't know where GoW stand on this yet, but there are no Radio Towers on Bob.

Once more unto the breach etc,

-Cort

[Cort Haus]

PS to Togas

PS - You can drop a settler off on your way. The Game tile by Cyclone is probably the best place for it.

[Cort Haus]

PPS to Togas

Sorry, Togas I'm getting my left and right mixed up again!

The East Coast is of course the route to go, as the West coast would be within sight of ND & GoW.

On Legoland, it's looking like there is a consensus that RP can expect extensive territory on Legoland - possibly most of GS's half in fact. Discussion continues, but I hope you can welcome this news in the meantime.

-Cort

[Cort Haus]

to Togas

Togas,

Sorry this is a bit late - you've already played your turn this round. I hope you're well and looking forward to stretching your legs on Legoland.

As you will by now have gathered, we sent you most of our cities on Lego, and Radio. Flight will be sent next turn, and Computers the turn after that. We suggest you keep enough cash over the next couple of turns to upgrade your Infantry to MI.

If you can build an FP (not in the City opposite Port isolation) soon and PJ to Lego that would probably be best, though you will need some Infantry/MI to protect the holdings before then.

Here's the map of the land-split with GoW on Lego :

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=26621_LegolandSplit.jpg

This will help you plan your city placement and border expansion. Note that the southern mountain has Uranium on it, which you will want to factor in to your defence and city-placement.

Regards,

-Cort

[Cort Haus]

from Togas

Cort,

We'll have to stop the annual payments in order to do some necessary upgrades, etc, and to rushbuy some minor improvments overseas while we prepare for our PJ.

We have sent a settler south, please tell us where you want him.

Also let us know where to station our floating Conquistadors.

We're going to put our efforts into resettling and preparing the new land. Right now it's heavily corrupt and to do a PJ, we're going to need a big pop swing overseas. I'm going to have to beg some of our experts to come back and help us with this feat. Any help GS can give is greatly appreciated.

What is going on with ND? We see that they have cities on old Legoland in the GoW section. Was that allowed by GoW? Is there a possibility of some friction between the two teams? Can GS and GoW combine to take out ND?

[DeepO]

Togas,

we've put a bunch of workers on Legoland on CoBW 87. These are a gift, capture them, and offer us peace again. The 3 others we've got running around we'd like to keep for the moment.

We'll need to re-establish trades and our RoP of course.

Did you find someone to assist you in the palace jump? If not, I'll see if I can give you a plan. Prime consideration for the moment is that you have to get your capital down in size quickly. Build only settlers and workers (settlers if they can be built in 1 or 2 turns, otherwise workers. At least one settler to re-establish the city).
It could help to keep your other cities on Estonia at size 11 or lower, but normally it doesn't matter: you will have to rush a aquaduct in your new capital, and poprush it to size 12 anyway. With the new workers you are given, this should not be too much of a problem.

If you need help, I'll work out a detailed plan, just let me know.

When are your transports arriving in your new home land? I think it should be possible for you to relocate in (a lot) less than 10 turns, but the arrival of your troops determine this.

BTW, as long as you don't have a palace, obviously you would be best off if you put all citizens on food to grow asap.

Oh, and another BTW: do not spend too much money, gold is at a premium. You need it for your upgrades, you need it for rushing an aquaduct (if not possible to use a river, but I guess not). And we could certainly use it to get to miniaturization asap...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,

Don't capture those workers just yet, it seems that in the formula for the PJ, foreign workers only count as a third of yours. We will have to swap your future capital around , and add those workers ourselves before giving it back to you.

There is some discussion going on on the best place to build your FP, one possibility may be to completely relocate you to Legoland. It may very well be that this will gain you more than staying on Estonia. Nothing decided yet, we're still thinking through options. So, the best place to build your capital is also not really fixed, although Aeson has build the cities with a plan in mind:

As for the target city, it should be Ft Spinebreaker IMO. I set this city up with a ring of cities at distance 4/4.5 thinking towards this, 4 already built, and another site available at Ft Spinebreaker 889 (claims Uranium) at that distance.

The best to proceed, is that you build (rush) an aquaduct there, give it back to us, we add the workers, and give it back to you ready to palace jump. At size 12, it would always become your new palace.

It may be that your old palace would be destroyed best if we take it from you by force... at least some of the commercial buildings will remain intact.

More from Aeson:

RP should probably give us all the Stormia cities. Don't bother building the FP up there as they can get more use out of it on Lego (combined with the use we'd get out of N Stormia, especially if defense concerns are taken into account) I think.

We need to have Santa Barbara repositioned in any case. It's too much of a target/threat between us and GoW. I would also move San Antonio 89, El Paso 99, and Monterey 8. San Deigo is ok as no rolling invasion could reach it. RP's FP may be more useful over on Lego up by Deluge (probably repositioned 4 onto the coast). If they build the FP up there with a 3 distance ring they should have almost no corruption on Lego.

We could then just start feeding Workers from our 2 pumps and all the cities being repositioned to RP to help them build up their Lego populations ASAP.

One comment from me: If that becomes the plan, San Diego would best have a CH and possibly a PS before gifting it to us.

The Escape Settler you dropped on our coast would best be positioned on SandStorm 1, where it can't be in our way in case of pollution, and is absolutely safe for at least 1 turn of invasion

The ND threat has diminished a bit, there have been some talks with them to defuse the situation. so maybe the defenders in that transport stack of yours would better go to Legoland... more on that next turn, this turn no decision needs to be made.

BTW, we could use another 100 gold somewhere in the next 5 turns to be perfect for our research... other than that please use whatever you need to upgrade your defenders, and rush that aquaduct!

Anything else? Let me know...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,

first of all, we are still discussing this, nothing decided yet.

Do you really want to disband all of those cities? Ever since we moved in, we have invested quite a bit into markets, banks, factories, and stock exchanges in our primary cities. Our focus has been on building up our commerce, and we have done so. It's a bit late to be moving cities around.

We understand this. However, it is a question of use as much as of safety. We can't defend those cities for you adequately as we can't enter them. And you can't build enough defenders to keep them safe. That alone is a prime reason to relocate you to Legoland completely, because you can defend Legoland as you will be the largest presence there (even larger than Vox), and neither GoW nor ND is going to attack you there without running the risk of getting invaded in force by us. The situation has been our best bet for many months, but we are quikly running out of options.

As to moving cities: It is a choice we've got to make, and it has not been decided yet. I agree completely with Aeson that we have to think on our safety: if moving cities means we can delay a rolling invasion by one more turn, the gain will far outweigh a couple of lost factories. Don't think of this as a loss to you, you did very well in building up commerce, but we are moving into a new period and hence should rethink our strategy as well.

The PJ will require the disbanding of Monterrey, one of our finest cities. While we have yet to come up with a better plan, we do want to caution you to consider this matter very carefully, as there is a strong population concentration in the cities around Monterrey and the jump is not going to be an easy feat to acomplish. It may be better to simply build a FP in the new land, as it will surely cost us much less as we will not be destroying thousands of years of production.

Building a FP on Legoland will take forever. We can PJ you in 4 turns, guaranteed. We will need a bit longer to pump your population, but in 10 turns you should have double the pop you had on Estonia, and more workers will keep coming. All we've got to do, is to make sure you build the aqua asap. And we've got to keep a city over on Legoland, so that we can give you slaves from within our capital.

Monterrey: there is no need to disband all buildings, and lose all pop. If we take it from you by war, we will keep a lot of market structures, possibly the factory too. And it will be the fastest possible way.

Pop concentration around Mon: no problem either. You give those cities to us before jumping, and afterwards we can give them back to you (if we don't keep them, of course). All you lose are your cultural buildings, which you don't have in abundance.

In summary: I understand you are attached to your 'old' cities, while we tend to just find an efficient way of playing this game. I am sorry, though, that keeping Monterrey is out of the question. If we want to get you set up on Legoland in a timely fashion, the city needs to go. Don't think you are going to be alone in the move. Yes, you will have to build markets and factories again in newly settled cities. But with our help, this should not take too long. You will need pop to do so, but you are going to receive enough workers from us. We are looking at middle-long term here: in 15 turns, you should have the same, or better economy than you currently have, and keep on growing. I'm perfectly serious when I say we want you to outgrow Vox.

Our transports do not have defensive units in them. They are filled with Conquistadors. We were asked to put them to sea when the possibility of an Arabian invasion was looming. Our defensive units are all at home on the seawall.

In that case, keep on going, but stay out of sight of ND! However, maybe 1 transport should divert to Legoland. ND has cities there, as well as GoW. In case of war breaking out, you need to have some kind of offense to claim Legoland for your own. We can't help you there, we'll have our hands full with Bob and/or Stormia.
Further, it will certainly be a good idea to start thinking on getting those sea wall defenders over to Legoland as well. Maybe an extra transport can help, I'm not sure. A chain could certainly help a lot, but I guess you won't have enough transports to set that up... for the moment, your defenders are doing well on your current homeland, no question about that.

DeepO

[DeepO]

THIS plan will be perfect!

As said, it is still under discussion, in no way the final plan yet

Before the PJ, you are better off with all your cities. We can only capture Monterrey the moment we give you back your future capital (Spinebreaker) at pumped size. So for the moment, build whatever you can, the moment you jump production will fall to nearly zero anyway. Avoid the use of gold, though, and if you could build a CH or a PS in San Diego, it will help us when we take over the city.

We're not attached to our slightly old cities. We're far more attached to the memory of our lost cities from our homeland than we are for the Vox cities we inherited. We're happy to give them back to you. We just want to make sure that our efforts of building up those cities will not be wasted. We want to make sure that the commerce and shields invested in them is put to use.

The commerce is in no way wasted, it was part of the reason why Legoland fell. But all good things must end sooner or later, and it seems that the commerce function of those cities is done with. We'll try to salvage what we can though.

At this moment, we're looking into what we can keep. Santa Barbara nearly certainly has to be disbanded as it is too high a risk. If so, moving Monterrey would keep GoW from gaining a cultural border on Stormia... but again, we're going through options, and westill have a few turns before the final decision.

A quasi-military jump is perfect. We'll rush the aquaduct this turn (providing we have the gold for it) Rush it in Spinebreaker?

Yes... but only rush it if shields are present in the city (it should, you received them last turn). We're still short on cash...

We have 2 transports at home that will begin ferrying defensive units to Legoland immediately.

Sounds good... but maybe keep all tiles that are within sight of GoW staffed for the moment, like nothing has changed. We do not want to give them any ideas.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,

we're discussing options right now, as it seems our plans for your relocation have changed a lot. Obviously you're not alone in this war against ND.

Any ideas are welcome, but for the moment would it be possible not to play any definite moves before we have some discussion on this? Particularly your troops are important: there is a good chance that we need some kind of diversion on Legoland (possibly reclaiming the territory, or attacking ND), while we prepare for an invasion of Stormia or ND. Please don't move your troops before we get some more discussion on this, we don't want to be late in warning you what is happening. We would like you to be present from the start this time, instead of arriving late because we were late in communicating our plans. And there is no definite plan yet.

If you open the save, we would certainly welcome some more information on what has happened. Which cities were attacked, which remain (none, I guess, all disbanded), do you spot Lego and things like that.

Keep strong in these difficult times,
DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas, an update.

a bit more certain than last time, but still not fully decided yet, is that we are going to invade ND. We are trying to get into contact with both them and GoW, but so far without much luck. However, ND is at this moment about equal size in military, and has possibilities left for upgrades (they have been in mobilization for a while now). It is a bit of a battle against the odds, but that is exactly what we're aiming for.

If we want to succeed, there are a few things we must get:

1. First of all: We need ND to invade us on Stormia. Without this, their defences will be too good to penetrate. Of course, we'll try to sink as many of their transports as possible, but we're counting that one of the ways of doing a lot of damage is to give 1, or a couple of our cities to ND.

2. we need diversions. And we've got a big one here: Legoland. We will be sending troops asap, but the whole point is that we can only send a couple, and must pretend we send a lot. ND is doing the same more or less, one of the reasons to attack you on RP would be to draw our troops away from Stormia. We are going to play into that, and give them some MIs, possibly a few tanks to harrass them with.

3. This is also were you would probably fit in best. Obviously, you need to worry about your defenses in Estonia. But the troops already under way, to Legoland or ND, should probably be best diverted to Legoland. This, 'to claim back your territory' in public, but in reality to draw as much troops as possible from Bob so that we can attack ND.

4. You should be 2 or 3 turns from landing your troops (I haven't looked at the save so don't know your exact position), but please coordinate landing with us. We will try to get troops up there asap. We hope you will still have cities over there at that time. (hum... sidenote... let me get back to you on this.) If we can time it so that 1 or 2 turns after landing on Legoland we invade ND, it would be perfect to draw forces.

5. propaganda. We are trying to set up a campaign, so that it seems like we are going back to Legoland. If at all possible, we'll try to lure them into invading us. Please don't blow our story here. In no way should ND suspect that we're aiming for them, or there is no chance of success.

Okay, back to those cities. Right now, you can't defend them, and it will take another turn at least before you can land troops to do. My suggestion is the following: Whatever you can hold, you keep. ND will be pushing on next turn, so if you've got size 2 cities left, draft a MI. The other cities would probably be best in our hands, so give them back for now. I don't think ND will attack us yet, and we can put a defender in there (that doesn't mean we will put a defender in there, this will depend on what we can do with the limited troops we do have). When you are ready to land, we give them back to you. Coordination is key.

Lastly, one very important request. I was not aware of it, or would have warned you. It seems you are blocking our transport lines, blocking harbors even. Please stop! We need to get our transports to Lego or to ND, and are still building ships everywhere. Aeson just warned me that Hurricane is about to finish a BB, and to quote: "It will be leaving port next turn whether RP is still there or not. "
Timing is everything, so far the schedule is to attack ND in 4 turns, but losing one ship for one turn can mess everything up. So please, stay 1 tile out of our harbors! The whole sea between Stormia and Legoland is free of enemy ships (except a few Voxian pickets), so use the room you've got.

Okay. Any questions: shoot. We would still want more info of course.

DeepO