Will we allow Vox to save Lux?

[Shiber]

I wish I could see the look on GhengisFarb's face when he tries to figure out how come Lux hasn't disappeared even though they eliminated all their cities on Bob and scanned the entire continent.

[notyoueither]

Could horsemen slip past our picket in the North and into the new city without our knowing it?

[FrustratedPoet]

Although I respect the opinions of those who have argued in favour of the plan, I am still against it.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Theseus
I am still more or less against this...

Soon enough, it wouldn't matter if we're against this or not. Lux will put a lot of pressure on Vox, and maybe gleam some gold, and eventually Vox would fall under the pressure and give Dissidentville to Lux whether we agree or not (after all, who are we to tell Vox what to do with their cities?).
Might as well give a conditional approval and present a list of demands before the ball leaves our court.

Originally posted by notyoueither
Could horsemen slip past our picket in the North and into the new city without our knowing it?

You mean a horseman that Lux might send?
Not if they have no access to horses.

[Dominae]

Let's see what happens between Lux and Vox, and then call a poll. It seems we're pretty much against this idea, but I think this is an important enough issue that we should vote on it.

Theseus: your PM box is full.


Dominae

[Harovan]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Could horsemen slip past our picket in the North and into the new city without our knowing it?

yes

[notyoueither]

Sorry. This proposal is the icing on the cake for me.

First Lux antagonise a neighbour into attacking them. Then they raze their own cities, one by one. Now we hear that Vox wants to gift them a city on our border to preserve them.

Does any of this sound very unlike the behaviour of war gamers to you? There is a feint hint of something not to pleasant in the wind today...

[Harovan]

It sounds idiotic. Lets get over it with a simple no.

[Dominae]

nye, I'm not sure what you're getting at...

Maybe Lux's decision to go to war was not a very good one. But, hey, things happen. If it looks like they're losing ground, razing their own cities is a good idea.

The only thing I cannot understand is why Vox wants Lux on our continent. As far as I can see the arrangement benefits us more than them.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Vox + Lux is a stronger opponent than Vox alone! In Vox's hands, Dissidentville is of marginal value due to corruption. In Lux's hands, it's a good city. Thus, having Lux move onto our continent would significantly increase the total strength of potential opposition here. Further, while we could take out Lux if we don't like their behavior after they move here, the operation would waste resources we'd rather spend elsewhere.

I do see some potential good coming out of such a situation. With a city on our continent, Lux could abandon their original capital, meaning that not a single Luxian city would fall into enemy hands intact. (Actually, I regard abandoning cities to prevent their capture as very much against the spirit of the game, but it doesn't bother me too much when it's being done to our opponents rather than to us.) And we and Vox could require that Lux pay us slaves and gold in exchange for being kept reasonably current in technology as part of the deal. If I felt like we could trust Lux to be a good neighbor, letting them move in might be reasonable.

But the fact is that Lux's record as a neighbor stinks. Remember how annoyed we were at Vox's coming near our cities with exploring warriors? I get a very strong impression that Lux did a lot worse to ND. Then there's the trade manipulations Lux engaged in. That doesn't sound like a team I'd especially want for a neighbor.

Nathan

[zeit]

It doesn't matter if we don't want to do that- Lux will probably persuade Vox, so our best bet will be to make very high demands that will:

1)Make Vox think they better not do it
2)Make LI and Vox agree to our (heavy) demands- making Vox a puppet city, while benefiting us, while both benefiting Vox, and hurting them a bit.

We can, OTOH, tell Vox we are strongly against this move, and hope they get the picture- but if they don't, we lose the opportunity, and great termoil might result, in a way that forces us to act militarily (what we could do anyhow).

The option are clear, and i'm in favor of the first. I suggest the demands we should hand to Vox are:

1) Lux will not be allowed settle on any sites other than those

2) Lux will not build any military forces- save workers which are not allowed to venture south of the Voxian land, according to the agreed upon border treaty, trespassers will be caught and captured. Building any military unit will result in the declaration of war against Lux.

3) The Iron resource will not be connected to the Luxian city, and will remain under GS military control, should the need for Iron arise when our homeland resource depletes, the Iron could be connected, and shipped (free of charge) to GS, as this Iron site was supposed to fall under GS's territory

5) Lux's territory will be closed to foreign military- while GS saves itself the right to post military watching units for monitoring purposes, as well as holding the tile on which the Iron resource is located.

5) *This one is not disclosed to LI, and also kept indefinitely secret- we don't want this ever to be spilled to anyone*
- Vox will share us X% of the gold that was gained from LI- in exchange for giving Dissidentville.

6) Lux will sign a peace treaty with ND and GoW.

7) This deal is completely secret, and save article #5, all of its details, and its existence are to be kept secret, known only to the 3 parties: VC, LI and the GS.

Of course, Vox has to explain LI what's the deal with the Iron first, but one important thing i think is very important- we should not in any case negotiate directly with LI- this could backfire on us. We don't want them be able to tell the world we are deeply involved in this mess- we should keep our hands as clean as possible.

But of course, if the team wills it, we just strongly oppose this move, and maybe even threatening a war with Lux if this goes through.

[Meshelic]

I say we just abolish the whole plan altogether and invade the Voxians. Their contemptable regime must be overthrown!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

From my conversation with Trip (intercept 4) all what they want to do is build a settler, build a boat and leave.

[zeit]

Vox + Lux is a stronger opponent than Vox alone! In Vox's hands, Dissidentville is of marginal value due to corruption. In Lux's hands, it's a good city. Thus, having Lux move onto our continent would significantly increase the total strength of potential opposition here. Further, while we could take out Lux if we don't like their behavior after they move here, the operation would waste resources we'd rather spend elsewhere.

Nathan- check my "no Luxian military whatsoever" demand. Even if they settle more sites (which i doubt Vox would let them anyhow), with the slight hint of them building any unit- BOOM!, they're gone. Besides, that gives us the excuse of holding military forces up near the border, and perhaps a cause for future war with Vox...

[notyoueither]

From reading the log with Trip, it seems we will not be able to stop Vox from gifting the city to Lux. My guess is it happens this turn.

IF Lux builds nothing but 1 Warrior, and

IF Lux does not settle any other sites, and

IF Lux gifts us their map, and any other tech that they may have,

THEN I would live with it.

btw, pressuring Vox for a cut of the pie was and is a very big mistake. This is a Vox deal; their contact and their wasted Settler. They are now a bit more worried about us because of our insistence on contact with Lux AND our asking for a share of the coin. I suggest we put their minds at ease by telling them the truth. We wanted contact with Lux to see what we could get before they went down. Mostly, I was interested in the Lux map, and still am.

last btw, our city site is adjacent to the Iron. That means the Iron is ours and can never fall into the Lux borders after we build that city.