An opportunity?

[notyoueither]

I caught up with Jon Miller. I have posted the important bits in the Vox contact thread. I seriously doubt they are interested in accepting punitive terms.

They are not even seeing Arashi as much to be concerned about.

[asleepathewheel]

NYE:

Who said: [20:24] the screen shot looks in our favor (arashi)?

I assume JM. Was that his own opinion based on the screenshots or his teams general sense of the situation.

Sounds like Beta is playing the role of despot, designing everything. Is he one of Togas' allies in the other games?

[19:08] i guess getting support from Bob helped choose GS.

At least some confirmation. I suspect that before long we will have harder info.

They are confident they can eliminate us. I think they are in for a rude awakening.

[Aeson]

Nicely done NYE.

It sounds like they feel Arashi is already theirs? That would be a very cruel wake up call.

[nbarclay]

Immortals = Attack 4.
Pikes = Defense 3.

Arashi is theirs, no sweat, right?

I'll bet their evaluation of the odds is about that simplistic.

[asleepathewheel]

They probably don't realize its on a hill

I wonder who approached vel, probably JM, he seems to be the most reasonable of the bunch.

[notyoueither]

Thanks for fixing it up, Aeson. I always forget those silly things.

I agree, the conclusion is that their confidence is very high. They are discussing whether to switch to settlers.

I am very glad we withdrew into Arashi. No matter what happens, most of their first wave will break on the gates, and they will be none the wiser as Pike after Pike pops to the top.

[asleepathewheel]

I can't believe they would think we would crumble so quickly as to start building settlers. Did they think we would beg peace if Arashi fell?

[notyoueither]

Look at it from their POV. Some time ago they become strong, to our weak. That does not change, and they still have a number of Warrior to upgrade. They examine their options and decide to go after the one team who is weak instead of the 3 teams on Bob, because they have a very good unit, and power on their side.

The war started 5 (?) turns ago, and they are still strong to our weak. Why should they reexamine their decisions and assumptions prior to having any information to contradict their assumptions?

At this point, I feel we should delay any talk of cease fire prior to their next turn being complete. We want them to break on Arashi. After that, they will get a lot easier to deal with.

[Aeson]

I agree with NYE. Delay, delay... until they get sick of it and attack. Sounds like delaying isn't very popular in Vox anyways, shouldn't take long.

[nbarclay]

They're still strong relative to us, so they probably figure that if they're ripping into our territory, the tide will turn in their favor. It sounds like they don't even begin to guess just how potent our forces can be at turning the tide, or just how much depth and production we have to keep going even if they would take a city or two.

[Aeson]

The other way to read it is they plan on bypassing Arashi completely. Almost certainly for EotS (only other target of worth they can see).

[Theseus]

Cease-fire... delay.
Break on Arashi.
Head for EotS.

What do we prefer?

How doe we make our preference come true?

[nbarclay]

From how Jon sounds, I don't think they see any need to bypass Arashi. And if the city were on flat ground without walls, they would likely even be right.

[Aeson]

Break on Arashi is our best bet, but only because on their way to EotS they might take the split between Arashi and Tempest.

If we reject a cease-fire outright, or make outrageous demands, it might goad them into hitting Arashi ASAP, or it might make them wary. If we sorta play along with cease fire talks, but never sign anything, it might give their confidence a boost and make the attack on Arashi more likely... but that might lead them to grander goals... 'leave Arashi for our next few Immortals, these ones will go ahead to the next city'.

It's hard to say, either way could work, and either way could backfire. Probably our best bet is just to be quiet, delay, and at least not convince them to not attack Arashi by saying the wrong thing. Show a bit of interest in a cease-fire, but not much... moderation.

[notyoueither]

Plinking with Cats could make them decide they need a decision sooner rather than later.

Advancing into our territory and bypassing Arashi? What gamer would ever do that? Have you ever done that playing Civ3? You don't know what is waiting over the next ridge. You don't heal. Why ever would you consider that you could win at 'the next city' if you could not win at the first?

No. They will throw themselves at Arashi.