Lego

[UnOrthOdOx]

How much can we trust them?

Yes Im a paranoid bastard, believe it. But, I smell ROP rape...

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I don't know, if they stay out of it we may be able to take RP and GS on our own.

[Hot_Enamel]

I am pretty sure we can trust them.
I have been emailing Vondrack in the Misfits game...here are some snips

BTW... does Velocyrix irk you as much as me? I had a post written, responding to his "Yep...by now, I think the folks who began their comments in this thread by stating that it just wasn't so have seen some pretty good evidence to the contrary....we've had folks come here and say that this is, in fact, a thought in their head and/or the thoughts in the heads of some of their team mates." post, but scrapped it just before submitting. It's just hopeless, you can't reasonably argue with someone who selectively listening to only what he wants to hear. They (GS) are locked in a mindset nobody is going to change.

I guess we better kick their ass and move on.

Cheers,
Radek

Hi,

> Togas's last post was hilarious. I am still smiling over it.

I just can't believe he could have meant it... is the guy completely broken now? Being just a shadow of the once unmatched machiavellian politician? He now sounds much more like a hippie... )

> The problem is, that whenever you are on the the wrong end of a
> beating, you lash out. We were expecting it from Togas, and have
> been very surprised that he has been so quiet. Trip even posted in
> our forum that he could not wait for us to post our declaration of
> war, just because he wanted to see Togas explode.

Actually, Togas is a very complicated person with a horrible temper. I sometimes feel as if two different Togases were playing PtWDG and ISDG now. There was only one Togas when ISDG started. His total fiasco with
the opening CDG talks, when he made them our enemies in less than two chats, was EXACTLY how Lego became hostile towards RP in PtWDG (even if not openly). He was taking the very same aggresive stance towards his partner in negotiations every time. But, what is interesting, while he seems to have learnt a LOT in ISDG, where he is now mostly the voice of reason and, let's say, certain "noblesse" (like his
stance re: declaration of war on GCA, which I support 100%), he keeps doing the very same mistake in PtWDG over and over... heck, even when he and his ambassador came to us (it was after this whole flameware thing erupted), begging for whatever help we could provide them with, he started with accusing us of keeping your (GoW/ND) plans secret, not warning them in advance. Fortunately, one very calm guy from our team was doing the talks that Thursday (with me being in the first joint GoW/ND/Lego chat at the very same moment ... he managed to remain friendly. I would probably have not. )

I believe wherever Togas has the time to think his reaction over, he will act reasonably and like a good diplomat. However, in "live" chats, he will fail utterly, whenever things get tense... he seems to have big troubles controlling his temper at the very moment.

> GS's ego is getting in their way. They refuse to believe that their
> ingame actions could be used as a basis of attack. They dont do
> anything wrong, and therefore there must be an ulterior motive. ie..
> every hates them because they are the best lol

Yep, exactly. I could not say it better.

> In Game - GS are going to be very difficult to dislodge. So will RP.
> RP have consolidated every unit they have got into pampalona. Its
> going to be very hard to break them. We are more concerned about GS
> now. If RP wanted peace, we would probably negotiate it. But Togas
> has made it clear, that they will accept nothing unless it includes
> gifting back all their cities and land. And thats not going to
> happen.

Well, I do not think I am able to give you good advices as far as the strategy of the war against RP/GS is concerned. But I would leave RP be now. In anarchy, they are not building anything, researching at 1
scientist... as soon as they stick their noses out, you kill 'em...

GS is the enemy to fight now, agreed.

> The only thing that is going to dislodge GS is the trade embargo. I
> hope you are prepared when it gets announced. It will make the
> current flame wars between GoW & RP/GS will look like friendly
> banter.

Well, we are not sitting on a fence this time (hm, as if Lego was sitting on the fence any time... we are just not making our side publicly known... . [b]We do not plan to trade any more techs with GS[b] now, after the Astro for Banking deal being cancelled. Our sole motive for honouring that deal was to not alert GS too early (and, yes, even Legos have some kind of a "honour code", though I am quite scared to use the term). And I believe it's working. They still seem to hope we will not join the party... not soon enough. Otherwise, I can hardly believe they would be so self-assured regarding their victory. Lego is a power to consider, even if not as strong as GS yet.

> Re Togas .. he is all words I think.

GF put it in a marvellous way - Togas is bottling it all up and posting everything at once in one big chunk every other week. And that's SOME reading then... ))

> Re Lego and a pure building strategy would not win
> GoW has a pure military strategy and would struggle.

Well, the thing is that such a analysis was/is too simplified and assumes that teams will stick to "pure" strategies - which is not the case. Lego claims to be a builder team, but as you can see now, at the very first moment we started to feel our military involvement was needed, we did not hesitate and decided to go to war. "Builders" seldom FEAR or chicken out of wars, they just prefer AVOIDING them.

But to be honest - Lego is not overly limited with any "theme". We are playing pretty much like GS, I'd guess ("efficiency" and "planning"), just that our opening play was far inferior to theirs (but then, our
starting position was worse then theirs - in short-term; long-term, it's much better). It's only now that we are starting to catch up. We are not as good as them in boosting everything up during the 100 turns or so...

But our long-term strategy is coming to fruition now. 10-20 more turns and we will most likely get ahead of GS economy-wise. We'll see how it goes... they can still surprise us, methinks...

The first ~50 turns were almost boring for us... and had we not that extreme luck with goody hut techs, we would have - at least for a considerable amount of time - probably fall behind a lot. Or fall deeply indebted to you for a catchup deal (which was in reality still great, but actually profitable for both sides)

> Everything was going swell, right up until the "We claim half of Bob & we
> are going to screw you on the writing deal" happened.
> We looked elsewhere, and started to feel out Lux & ND.
> Then Lux picked a fight they could not win... so we just fell into a loving
> partnership with ND.

I will sign every single word about the [b]RPers being "agressive" as far as their diplomacy goes.[b/] Lego has had its own share of it and that's the primary reason why we were very reluctant to help them even before we decided to join your side. We just don't like them. We would even prefer GS over RPers... but I have to admit that we are glad to have the two teams we like least together as one enemy.

> Had Togas not been so aggresive, this war probably would be with completely
> different allies.
> But as it turned out, ND have been great allies.

I swear we are doing all we can to get our troops to Bob ASAP. Not a single turn has been wasted so far (unlike the screw-up Zargon did with the gunpowder research. I am still angry about it... if you do not know what I'm talking about - he FORGOT to set our research slider last turn, so we stayed on 100% tax for one more turn, even though we did get Invention from you and were able to start a 5-turn gunpowder research... grrrr...).

The first caravel (1 elite knight + 2 vets) is already on its way and shall land in 2-3 turns near Arnablanca), the second caravel shall be upgraded this turn and will set sail the turn after (3 vet knights), another one should be finished in 2-3 turns and will ferry three more vet knights. In the meantime, we are switching a good deal of our production to military and fine-tuning most everything else for a switch to military production (few aqueducts and some courthouses).

I just hope we do not come too late. We haven't been really expecting this turn of events... and thus, were not ready for such an effort. But we will do our best - and I believe that in the long run, GS should not be able to defeat our alliance. Especially because they will fall behind in tech research.

My opinion...We can trust Lego for now.
They dont like RP or GS.

These have been "private" emails between myself and Vondrack...although I assume what I say probably ends up in their forum as well.
Please dont quote any of the above in any of the public forums.

Regs

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Any recent updates on Lego?

[Master Zen]

3 Lego knighs landed in ND territory this turn. One of them is elite.

[UnOrthOdOx]

When are we paying for their research? How much are we gifting? when are we getting Gunpowder?

How many turns before they are ready to make an actual impact on this game?

I'm waiting for them to RoP rape both us and ND as well. I will actually laugh should that happen...

[Aggie]

Well they are giving us GP this turn. They have troops already moving through nd and will be stationed 2se of Macao in a largely defesnive posture. We were donating 25gpt to help their research, but they said if it would help us we didn't have to pay since they had built up a reserve. As far as an rop Rape, with 10 knights against the forces we have, they might get macao but that is all. If they had wanted to betray us to GS, they could have done it numerous times so I am inclined to trust them. But of course that doesn't mean they won't betray us.
Aggie

[UnOrthOdOx]

I was under the impression they were sending 20+ knights.

Did that change?

As for RoP raping, Im just a paranoid bastard. No, they probably wont, but that doesn't mean I like foreign troops patrolling our boarders. And...if I were them, I would be at least considering that option. But, then, I'm evil.

[Master Zen]

Remember UnO, that no one but us thinks like GoWers

We'd backstab our own mothers if they ever dared play a PBEM against us

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Any chance on getting Lego to get a screenshot of Pamplona to us?

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Nevermind, Lego has already sent to GS. Maybe next turn......

[Hot_Enamel]

From Memory ...

Lego has a NAP with RP so they wont take a pic.
Nor will they attack or engage their troops.

They will only fight GS.

Vox on the otherhand... will take pics of anyone we want.

[Aggie]

HE could you pm vox and see how much a screenshot of Pamploma cost. This way I can prepare the budget for it.

The turn all forces will be in position to attack is 310 though the 1st 5 will be in postion to attack in 290. The great thing about this movement is that its like a football play where the reciever can either cut right ot left, thus allowing us to react.

Additionaly there is always the option of looking for the biggest,baddest GS stack they have and just pounding it, with a 30 rider force, victory is basically assure.
Aggie