Trip's Corner

[ZargonX]

Well, as we've said on several occasions, our purpose is to keep teh balance. We haven't initiated hostilities against GS yet, and at the moment we're basically serving as backup in case GS tries something tricky with a behind-the-lines landing. If the situation changes, we'll change with it

[vondrack]

Mind you, this is how I see it - others may have a bit different reasons for agreeing to and supporting our involvement in the Great Bobian War.

It's true that GoW and ND seem to be doing quite well on their own. Though - I believe that the real fight is yet to begin. I do not think GS would be such a pushover. The real point of break is yet to come, IMHO - and should we make the decision only then, it would be too late. OTOH, if we just ferry our troops to Bob, station them in the heart of their homelands, wait 20 turns until the war is over and then ferry them back, we would still be on the winning side - proving we WERE ready to commit to the mutual cause, proving we WERE one of the Allies. Hopefully gaining more teams that would at least have no reasons to attack us. And if the tide turns and GoW/ND start losing ground, we WILL already be there to help things go OUR way or at least try to.

It seems obvious that RP will go out of business sooner or later (they actually ARE out of business already, at least I believe so). There are only three possible future Bobian setups then:

1) GoW and ND (preferred by Lego)
2) GoW and ND and GS
3) [GoW or ND] and GS

The first variant is preferred because Bob is about twice as large as Legos Major - means that GoW and ND would be about the size of Lego (as far as the area is concerned). BUT: their lands would not be as developed as ours and they would have spent huge resources on conquering Bob first and splitting it equally then, using up their GAs mostly on military production (unlike us, hopefully).

In short: we believe we would be able to "outbuild" Bobian powers, partly thanks to that we would need no war to dominate our landmass. GS contained on Stormia would become a second rate world power in the long run, because of the size of their homeland.

OTOH, if GS seized a solid "beachhead" on Bob or even took out GoW or ND, we would have to compete with THEM for the first place - and there would be the sword of Damocles hanging above our heads, because GS could, at any time, attempt to overrun the other Bobian team and practically win the game. It seems easier to handle this threat NOW then having to handle it later...

Plus... yes, I have to admit it. I personally feel little love towards the teams of RP and GS. There are numerous fine folks there, but the teams just get on my nerves.

Kinda "joining the right cause" for me, too. I guess I'd fail trying to estimate how much of my support for the GoW and ND alliance is based upon strict ingame reasoning (see above) and how much is fuelled by emotions or personal grudges I hold against the teams of RP and GS.

If you skim through the logs, you will notice a distinct difference in how GoW and ND treat us compared to what we were through with RP and GS. Plus, the public forum... oh, well... I just prefer getting along smoothly with GoW and ND (and Vox) - for all kinds of reasons. They seem to be much more "compatible" with us.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Trip
Just curious, but why is Lego so eager to throw in their lot with GOW and ND?

Because in our opinion GS has the biggest chance right now to win the game, especially if they manage to gain territories on Bob. With GS pushed back on Estonia, our chances to win the game will be much better. We are hoping to outbuild everyone and win peacefully

Edit: crossposting with Radek. I said the same thing as he did, only in a more concise manner

Other than that, Radek is right, personal grudges do play a role in such decisions, despite what some people may think. And we (I, at least) don't judge teams based on the public forum, but on personal experiences. So far, GOW, ND and Vox were the better partners for us.

[Sharpe]

Plus... yes, I have to admit it. I personally feel little love towards the teams of RP and GS. There are numerous fine folks there, but the teams just get on my nerves.

RP sure - although at one point I was strongly supportive of working with RP, their diplomatic blunders and arrogant attitude has made even me wish for their destruction.

GS has been mostly honourable with us - and so far surprisingly have kept their word and seem to be concentrating on "liberating" the former RP territory instead of attacking the GoW and ND homelands. (Though admittedly the RP area is by far the most desirable territory on Bob so maybe this shouldn't be a surprise).

However, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that the Bob civs will attack into Stormia at some point in the war - but we cannot allow that (as much as we can't allow GS to get a foothold on Bob). So I suspect that we might have to use our slowly accumulated forces on Bob against our current allies.

Unless we can get one of the Bob civs into joining with us against the other Bob ally, we will likely need GS to work with us as a counteralliance against the Bob alliance. Does anyone really expect GoW and ND combined to stop their military aggression with control of Bob? NOT LIKELY - seeing as how they have declared war and attacked every civ except Legoland. I can see them attacking Stormia to destroy GS or at least damage them as much as possible then turn on us.

The only deviations I see that is possible is either us being attacked earlier OR the slight possibility that the Bob civs will turn on each other after damaging GS.

[vondrack]

Just a couple of comments on Steve's post:

I will agree that GS has been mostly honorable with us, especially after the Vox-GS war. The grudges I had with them dating back to the "legendary" chats with DeepO would be forgotten in the light of their heavily improved approach to diplomacy.

But I still have a problem with GS as a team - I just don't get what their problem is. Their postings in the public forum are simply tiring me to death. It's all the time the same song over and over. I hope I do have some understanding for other people wishing to have a different kind of fun with PtWDG and a different perception of honour, but do I really have to be fed with this stuff on regular basis?

Getting back to my dilemma about whether it's emotions or reason driving my desire to side with the enemies of GS and RP... perhaps the most accurate would be that it's mostly emotional in case of RP (as they were no real threat to us) and mostly rational in case of GS (as they are THE real threat to us).

As for GoW and ND attacking Stormia in the future... I'm less than sure about it - once GoW and ND conquer the whole of Bob, they will not need to care about Stormia. At least we made it crystal clear we would not support an invasion of Stormia. And I would agree that if plans of such an invasion emerged, it would be time to rethink our allegiance.

I may be foolish, but I lean towards trusting GoW and ND on that their goal is to conquer and equally split Bob between themselves. BTW, ND attacked Lux and RP in the past. GoW attacked Lux, GS, and RP (ignoring fake wars with Vox here). Worded this way, it doesn't sound that aggressive, especially if we consider the proclaimed mercenary nature of GoW.

[Kloreep]

My reason: I want RP and GS off Bob.

GS I have a neutral emotional view of, but they are currently our main competitor and could become powerful again given more land.

RP I simply dislike as a team. They've declared themselves our friends all game while offering us mostly horrible deals and trying to get others to attack us. (Though I understand the latter wasn't anything personteamal; seems like they've been trying to get everyone to attack everyone else since the start of the game.)

And, as already stated, this is an easy way to establish better relations with GoW and ND, perhaps while not fighting at all; if GS never gets to ND or GoW's cores, we won't see a single battle. While I don't think anything will prevent a team from attacking us if they see it as the thing to do, I do think it could move us lower on ND's potential target list. (We're already low on GoW's list, I think, with GS a big fat #1, at least for some of their team members.)

[Tiberius]

Just one more thought: as much as everyone dislikes RP, we wouldn't have intervened in the Bob war if GS hadn't got involved. I believe that our team decisions are based mostly and especially on reason. If helping RP would be a must to win the game, we would help them eventually, even though that would be an utmost difficult decision to be taken

As for GS: yes, they were mostly honorable with us and apparently they lost some of their early arrogance along the road. Lately they are a much better partner, true. No, wait, lately they truly behave as a partner, not a big brother. Our war against them is based on reason. However having them sitting always on the moral high ground is tiring, indeed.

[vondrack]

Well said, Tiberius - especially the part about us not intervening if GS stayed out of the conflict.

Trip - if you dig through some of our threads (mostly the RP diplo thread, I think, perhaps some of the war related ones, too), you will find out that when GoW and ND attacked RP, we were inclined to support RP - despite all our grudges we had with them. Since we saw that as the best way to keep our chances to win high. A three-civ Bob (without GS) was THE prime choice of ours, as every one of those three Bobian civs would be smaller than us - just like GS and Vox. But once GS joined the party, the situation changed dramatically. It was no longer about RP's survival and about the balance of power on Bob. It was about (preventing) GS's dominance and about the balance of power in the world.

[redstar1]

Its also beginning to look like we might avoid any direct conflict ourself, and we should be able to minimise the diplomatic fallout. GOW and ND look like holding their own, and if this is the case, we can slink back to Legos unseen. If GS break them and head inland then we will be there, ready and waiting, rather than having to gather up forces there and then.

At the minute though, we aren't at war with anyone, we haven't officially chosen sides and the perception may just be that we are unhappy with GS' involvement and 'unable' to assist RP in battle.

At the minute we are on an all round winner I think....