What should we do with our GA?

[nbarclay]

I think it makes sense to move this disccusion to its own thread.

We need to start thinking about what our goals for our GA are. Do we want to plan on major military adventurism during the early medieval era, or do we want to focus mostly on our economy for longer-term gains?

This probably needs to be thought of more in terms of contingency planning than in terms of something absolute, since circumstances in the rest of the world will have an impact. One thing's almost for sure, though: if we want to fight on Bob, we need Leonardo's and massive upgrades to knights (since other civs will quickly acquire the tech for pikemen) - and we'd better be prepared to fight Riders and/or Ansars with China and/or Arabia in a GA.

[FrustratedPoet]

I would favour a military operation of some kind, fueled by our GA.

I suppose the options break down as:
1) fight Lego - I don't think this is even worth discussing

2) fight Vox - they are closest to us and we could make good use of their land, perhaps with a palace jump to the middle of our continent. They would be relatively easy to defeat I think, since we have more numerous and more productive cities than them.
I think we should stay out of any of the fighting Vox might do on Bob - but if ND or GoW start to get a foothold on our continent we may have to react, which brings me to...

3) Attack the whole of Bob (since they would obviously unite against us if we invaded), probably as part of a GS/Vox/Lego "coalition of the willing" .
Clearly this is a MAJOR undertaking, and Nathan is right when he says we would need Leonardo's for a massive upgrade to Knights. The most dangerous path, certainly, but worth discussing, I think.

[FrustratedPoet]

I favour option 2.

As Nathan rightly points out, fighting GoW, ND and RP would be hard enough (even with allies), but when you consider that the war would trigger their GA's it seems far too risky to me. I'm not sure if Vox or Lego could really match up to the military power of the Bob Civs, so it's questionable how much an alliance with them would benefit us.

On the other hand, Vox look doomed already. GoW and ND seems fully determined to wipe them off Bob, and GoW at least have expressed an intention to follow Vox back to our continent.
The idea of a significant and bloodthirsty GoW/ND alliance to our immediate north is very concerning. If we strike Voxian lands before the Bob Civs can get there then maybe we can gain complete control over this island of ours.
Such a development may very well lead to a Bobian alliance to check our growing power, but at least in this scenario we would be better equipped to fight them.

I think that, whether we want it or not, Vox will die in the near future - and after that I think that GoW at least, possibly ND and RP too, will come after us. They must know that we represent a major threat to them if they give us time and room to expand and develop.

War with Bob seems like a likely scenario come the middle/end of the medieval era - and I think we will be best equipped for that war if we invade and capture Vox's land.

The Voxian pie is going to be cut up whether we like it or not - so how big a slice are we willing to grab for ourselves?

[Aeson]

I think we should stay off BOB until such time as the love triangle collapses (might be very soon anyways), or unless we can get NAP's with our non-targets. Even then it's risky because we stand to end up facing 2 civs who both see us as the biggest threat after the NAP's expire.

Vox is the obvious target, and we can build the FP in Arashi rather quickly to make everything up to the bottleneck in decent corruption territory. If we do this, I'd be in favor of starting the FP right now, as the Barracks there isn't terribly important if we're just going to hit Vox. Our other cities can more than handle the military buildup.

Maybe we get lucky and get a Leader, in which case Arashi would be pretty well timed for Leo's or another Middle Ages wonder. If not, we have a pretty good elipse of productive cities. Later on, we could use a Leader to jump the Palace to BOB if such a need arises, and Arashi would be almost perfect for our FP in that case.

If we do hit Vox, only about 1/3rd of our GA will be required for the military buildup, if even that. If our research capacity compared to theirs is any indication, we'd be at ~4x the production capacity of Vox until we triggered their GA. Done right it could be all but over by that point. The rest can be used on Libraries and Universities, to really take a tech lead if Lego wants to come along.

[Theseus]

Isn't Vox' GA likely to get triggered rather soon?

[alva]

If it were not for the others civ getting their GA too, I would be in favour of invading BOB, but yeah, as it stands, it looks like we will have to wait until war breaks out among themselves.
-
I'm still hoping either GoW or ND contacts us, to attack Vox (open a second frontline), which would:
a: gives us a smaller Rep hit (at least in the eyes of Bob)
b: we could get some kind of compensation and perhaps some guarantees not to get backstabbed.
If they don't, perhaps we could contact them in a few turns?

[asleepathewheel]

I prefer to take out Vox.


I can see an alliance with GoW forming to take out ND, as they have been the most agressive in the game. I think GF's last communique was an attempt to win our favor.

Hm Vox's GA is likely to be soon triggered. How does that change things? Will they build all immortals to attack Bob?

Hmm.

What if-

They asked GoW to attack their immortal, thus triggering their GA. They use the 20 turns to build up to "attack bob" but instead attack us?

[alva]

The power bar will hopefully give us some info on that. But yeah I have also considered it.
-
Trading in Vox for GoW (perhaps even more irratic) is not something I'm foreward too...

[DeepO]

Vox seems the logical choice (sorry, commenting here without totally knowing the current situation on Bob), but isn't that exactly the problem? Shouldn't we do something less foreseeable? Is Bob really going to invade Vox, or are they trying to get a common foothold here, so that in a few turns time, we get attacked by a couple of civs? Not verry likely, but still...

At any rate, there are multiple things we need to start to take care of, the first being the 'alliance' with Vox. We can NOT afford to take a rep hit here, we need our white communion souls () to further deal with Bob, and Lego afterwards.

Further, we might not need the military to take out Vox, but we will need to it to defend our continent adequately. Going for Leo no matter what could be a good idea, as one of the things we can be reasonably sure about is that Bob will unite against us if we take on Vox. Multiple invasions of Bobian forces should be a given, which we plan for... if it doesn't happen, fine, but we can't risk getting caught with our pants down.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

I think the past few days have made it clear that us initiating a war on Bob would be folly. No, the only way we are going to get in there without facing all 3 Bobians is by waiting for the war to start between them.

I am a bit torn about attacking Vox, but it seems to be our best route for expansion. I had a radical idea yesterday. Would it be cricket to invite Vox to join us?

[zeit]

Vox is definitely a goner. They seem to cling to their city- which means bloodshed on the land of the Bobains. GoW, and perhaps ND as well, fighting it out on Bob against Vox, which uses it's GA to fend them off. This would definitely cripple Vox, as they'll be fighting for their homeland (they promise us gains from a tech alliance in the future- But everyone thinks they are goners, who would commit themselves to a long term with them?). Vox won't use their military against us, as they know we're they're only chance of having real friends, and i think means something for them.
However, their use to us will be none: no techs, no money. I think they should be our next target- even with a GA in progress.
Vox has played they're cards badly- and gambled on a move against the Bobians, while forcing them to abandon their partnership (their contribution has been little so far, and we won't see any of it, except for one free tech, for, well, most likely forever).

In short- our relation with the Voxians will soon come to an end, as they really won't have nothing to offer us anymore, after that, sadly (or not ), we'll have to kill them.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Would it be cricket to invite Vox to join us?

Do you mean for them to transfer their cities to us and then join our forum? I'm not sure that would be within the rules of the game.

Of course, as Bob has no idea what our continent looks like or our forces, we could probably pull some ruse off, as long as Vox wouldn't spill it.

Hmm. If Vox were to gift us their cities over the course of a few turns, it could could be seen as an invasion by Bob, and since they dont' know how weak militarily we actually are....

I would prefer the direct route of destruction, as I don't think Vox would either keep this quiet or allow this to happen.

But surely they know they are faced with destruction?

[notyoueither]

I was thinking Anschluss.

The military advances to occupy largely undefended cities. The population (players) are welcomed into the enlarged team.

They are certainly small enough for it.

[DeepO]

You mean inviting Flash? No thanks... Some of Vox's members would be assets to us, but not all of them, and I can't start to compute what the diplo hit of such a move would mean wrt our position in this game. From then on, it would be a world-against-GS thing... we might win, but I'm not sure I'd like it.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

flash quit, and I would never agree to him joining this team. I wouldn't have a problem with any of the other Vox members.

There may be a diplo hit, however I am considering the long term prospects of a large and united Bob. Would people who were near each other's throats react so swiftly and in unison to Vox's settler?

Will the Bobians look kindly at us as sole occupants of our continent after a bloody war? I don't think it will make much of a difference how we get there. The 'hit' will be when they think we are growing to be an equal of them in future potential.