Gathering Storm - correspondence & foreign affairs

[ZargonX]

Hmm... an interesting turn of events. I think this may solidify the ND-GoW relationship, as I can't imagine they would fight amonst themselves while GS makes its way onto Bob. However, this is going to pitch everyone in the world into war but us (and our little Vox buddies!). We are probably going to get ahead in the building race, but we need to keep our military up as we are soon going to be pretty weak compared to the others, I'd imagine.

[Sharpe]

Wow!

This development should help out RP quite a bit - and should prolong the war. I suspect that there will be a lot of fury about this in the public forums. I suspect that for the moment they might bypass the GS cities and wait for reinforcements to arrive to take them on.

However, now we will be forced to side with one side or the other as we can't afford the possibility of being outside a GoW-ND vs RP-GS alliance system.

We don't have to declare war but undoubtedly GoW+ND will be contacting us asking for our help. We have to decide whether to support them or support RP financially.

I think we have 3 alternatives:

1) do nothing
2) support GoW and ND - preferably financially and technologically
3) support RP financially and try to get a more formal alliance with GS

We don't have enough strength to deal with either "alliance" (and I agree with Zargon, this will strengthen the GoW-ND alliance).

EDIT: Ignore this section below as I may be changing my viewpoint, I am just leaving this in case anyone has read it already and brings it up later.

Our best alternative might be to covertly support RP financially and get luxuries from both them and GS, but try to become GS's major partner rather than RP wigging their way into it... but the real danger is that GoW and ND would find out and we are much more vulnerable to their military.

The ultimate reason that I don't trust a GoW-ND alliance is that they have been by far the most militant forces in the game so far. If they do declare war on GS, the only civ that they would not have declared war on at one point or another would be ironically us...

[Sharpe]

K, have read Vondrack's posting of his chat with GoW (and I mean ALL of GoW - seems as though they had their entire team there vs just him on our side )

I am changing my post above re my recommendation and will post further comments in the GoW thread.

[vondrack]

Alright, time has come for an action. Here goes my draft diplo note to DeepO/GS (I will not send it until I hear from at least a couple of you):

Esteemed Ambassador,

It is my sad duty to inform you that the people of Legoland watch the ongoing transfer of Spanish cities to Egypt with worries and diminishing understanding. With New Madrid, one of the Spanish finest production centers, handed over to you, we cannot but assume the Spaniards are more or less resigning from the game, letting you take over their positions. This unfortunately goes beyond what we expressed being content with - this is no longer "balancing the power on Bob" in our eyes, unless by "balancing the power" you actually meant seizing that power to yourself.

The people of Legoland, until now friendly and happy to trade with your glorious nation, would not be able to stay neutral in this conflict, should you armies intervene and the territory of Gathering Storm on Bob grow. The reason would be the very same as your original reason to get involved in the Great Bobian War - maintaining the balance of power.

Respectfully,
vondrack, FAM of Legoland

[Tiberius]

OK from me

[ZargonX]

Looks good Vondrack. I am going to write a draft for the public forum, as well.

[redstar1]

Should add in a line at the bottom....

'Yum Yum, come get ya some!'

[vondrack]

PMing the message to DeepO.

[vondrack]

Message from DeepO:

Vondrack,

it's good that you inform me before more draconic measures are decided upon: New Madrid will be in possession of RP in their next turn (50 AD). We needed it for 2 turns, to make sure we can build a beachhead in their cultural borders without having to declare war, and to facilitate transporting our troops to the front.

AFAIK, it never was intended that we would gain New Madrid out of the treaty with RP, it was a temporary transfer, just like all the other cities we were gifted thus far. Of all the RP cities, only the harbor cities on their East coast interest us, and in establishing another harbor town of ourselves (taking minimal territory, as it will be very close to New Madrid) we will gain the strategic, defensive position we set out for. We consider that a small price to pay for the loss of troops we will undoubtedly suffer in defending RP. Those cities that we want will stay with RP for as long as they can be defended (which hopefully means until the end of the war): for us, these would be highly corrupt cities, and in RP's hands they can produce a lot more. And RP is going to need all the production it can muster. They are nowhere near resigning (I haven't heard any rumour of it, on the contrary, they're optimistic to the outcome, all things considering), and I'm not sure that even in such a case, GS would accept their cities. It is not our style to win ground from a dying team.

I'm a bit sad after reading your note, although I do understand it. But it seems the GoW talks have turned you... GS is being pushed into the evil imperialistic role GoW want everybody to believe, while in reality, we only try to defend against the imperialistic nations on Bob. We would have been perfectly happy if GoW didn't broke our NAP, so that we could have defended RP through peaceful means. Now, we will have to get involved military. Again, we're foremost interested in keeping the balance intact by helping RP, it would have been quite easy to take all our troops and drop them in the middle of GoW territory, and let RP be overrun. If we really were going for Bob, that would be the tactic to follow. It would leave 2 devastated nations, instead of a slow, bloody, balanced war.

Please, ask me questions if you want to, now with the war officially going on between us and GoW, we can answer a lot more. Also, a few things can be disclosed because they won't matter anymore (like "Yes, we have troops on Bob. GoW will see the first of them next turn"). The people of GS still value a friendly relation to Legoland, and I'm sure that your concerns will be taken into account in our discussions.

Best regards,
DeepO

[vondrack]

I am of the opinion that we should honor our Astrobanking deal with GS. As we have made it quite clear to both ND and GoW that we will assist them only in case their homeland is threatened (and not against RP, we can keep building LEF on Bob, while not being in the state of war with GS... the longer they believe they do not need to include Lego in the war equation, the better - because the bigger the element of surprise will be when they find out.

And a side-note: despite DeepO's desperate efforts, I certainly do not believe what he says about the GS plans on Bob. Not at all...

[lmtoops]

Astrobanking??? I think that's a tech in Galactic Civ

You bring up another good point. I must agree that we need to honor this agreement to keep up the deception.

[vondrack]

One more minor reason: if we break the deal with GS, I would personally consider it very justified if they in turn break the no Sistine clause. I do not really expect them to try building Sistine's the hard way, but they may get a spare GL and rush it just to hamper our own plans.

AND: if we keep our involvement hidden for the moment, GS will have little reason to start researching Navigation - as they will not plan for attacking us across the Big Ocean. The only reason might be to help RPers reach their GA (but they would still need our approval to trade Education to RPers), but... GS does not care about RPers, certainly not to this extent. All they want is at least part of Bob. So - if they get Astronomy from us and have little idea we are actually allied to their enemies, they will most probably start researching something else - likely Invention... which will keep them busy for several turns, allowing us to either do Music Theory in the meantime, or research Navigation ourselves first.

Looking at it from different viewpoints, I believe that it will be better to honor the deal, get Banking, give Astronomy and even pretend negotiating another tech deal to find out what they plan to research next (I bet it will be that Invention).

[ZargonX]

I agree with your reasoning on going through with the deal, Vondrack. The only sticking point would be if GS forces our hand with a much faster-than-expected move forward in Bob.

As for their motives...

We needed it for 2 turns, to make sure we can build a beachhead in their cultural borders without having to declare war, and to facilitate transporting our troops to the front.

and

Of all the RP cities, only the harbor cities on their East coast interest us, and in establishing another harbor town of ourselves (taking minimal territory, as it will be very close to New Madrid) we will gain the strategic, defensive position we set out for.

So, they just want a beach head to transfer large numbers of troops to, but only for defense? I think they need to be more honest with themselves... The only reason you establish a beachhead is for an invasion. If you're content to sit at home, you don't need troops on another continent

[vondrack]

Of course, all of what GS pretend to "intend" is just pure bull****... they are in for a kill, that's as clear as a day. I don't mind, they sense their golden opportunity... but they could at least be honest about that. All the fuss about "balancing the power", "establishing the beachhead" and the like is just disgusting... trying to convince others that taking the cities from RP was NOT HOSTILE towards GoW is ridiculous - it is as if we took the cities and then tried to convince ND we broke no treaty, since we landed no units...

And that's why Lego goes to war this time!

Finally, the two teams we like least are bound together. And we can happily plot and fight against them.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
Finally, the two teams we like least are bound together.

This alone would be enough reason for me to go to war against them! Let's go bonk some heads! :rambo: