The Current situation with Vox

[History Guy]

True, yes. But I believe Egypt has a good idea of the terrain of Persia. They'd certainly notice it.

[Aidun]

The best we can do if we want to help Vox is to keep GS confused

Duke Aidun Cian of Zaragoza

[mrmitchell]

Hmm, confusion, deterrent, Iron, which one?

Each has thier benefits and their downsides:

Iron
-Vox can struggle some more against GS.
-However, we don't know if they need the Iron to keep struggling.
-Also, GS will know that it's us

Deterrent
-No actual fighting
-We firmly let GS know we mean business
-We firmly throw away any usefull delaying of Total Stormian War
-Peacekeeping is for nations that already have bases in 75% of the rest of the world, like the US, not for us, goddammit!

Confusion
-We confuse them, firmly letting them know we need business AND that we want to make up
-We might possibly make more difficult the Vox war
-We might delay our own Total Stormian War

[BigFree]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Hmm, confusion, deterrent, Iron, which one?

Each has thier benefits and their downsides:

Iron
-Vox can struggle some more against GS.
-However, we don't know if they need the Iron to keep struggling.
-Also, GS will know that it's us

Deterrent
-No actual fighting
-We firmly let GS know we mean business
-We firmly throw away any usefull delaying of Total Stormian War
-Peacekeeping is for nations that already have bases in 75% of the rest of the world, like the US, not for us, goddammit!

Confusion
-We confuse them, firmly letting them know we need business AND that we want to make up
-We might possibly make more difficult the Vox war
-We might delay our own Total Stormian War

GS will not know it is us, there's no way to tell AFAIK. If I'm wrong, someone please explain to me the how it is otherwise.

Granted, GS will very likely suspect it is us, but they can not know.

If we give Vox Iron, we should build another Harbor immediately so that if GS come to blockade our Harbor in Barcelona we have another that can continue to supply Vox. The only way that I know that GS can tell it was us, is to blockade our only Harbor and then see that Vox doesn't have Iron on the next turn. So, we either build another Harbor or have enough Galley's to clear their blockade attempts.

[Aidun]

There is one thing we shouldn't forget: our main goal in the game is to to let Spain gain victory over the others.

When we have to build an extra harbor to help Vox because otherwise GS might think we are helping Vox, we have gone too far with helping Vox. Helping a nation is OK to some extend, but keep in mind that we should help Spain first, Vox is still second and should remain second.

Duke Aidun Cian of Zaragoza

[mrmitchell]

GS will not know it is us, there's no way to tell AFAIK.

I can't remember the details, it's in this or one of the other threads, but it was reasoned only us and ND could trade Iron to Vox.

-Lux can't trade them
-GoW doesn't have Iron
-Lego does/doesn't have an oversea connection? (This was one of the things I couldn't remember)
-ND doesn't have a port?
-We've got a harbor and a well-known extra Iron coming through.
-Vox...
-GS certainly won't

See? They're already suspecting us already!

[Aidun]

Suspecting is something different from knowing, señormitchell. In addition to that GS can't be sure that Vox doesn't have iron or GoW doesn't have iron and whether ND has a harbor or not. The reason for this is because they probably don't have an up-to-date worldmap. Sources of iron can suddenly pop up and disappear.

I have another idea to confuse GS more: if we don't trade our own map and say that we have lost our second source of iron in a way that they believe us, they will be even more confused. Only one person, who is not at the top of the team, like Togas or BigFree could mention.

It would be even better if he would erase his post after a day to let it seem that Togas had become angry of such a major mistake: telling the enemy that we have only one source of iron left.

Aidun

[History Guy]

No, Duke Aidun, you are mistaken. It is clearly evident that if they see the Persians building with iron in future, they will blame someone for it, and the only someone they can blame is us. Iron sources popping up and disappearing would be all too convenient in their minds, and they'd point the figure at the suspect on top of the list.

Don Iago Calamari de Toledo

[Togas]

Here's what is obvious from the diplomacy screens:

If you have an embassy with a nation (and Vox and GS have embassy connection), you can see that any OTHER nation has a trade deal with Vox. You just don't know what that deal is.

If you go to each nation's diplomacy screen you can tell if they are missing a resource you posess. It will be grayed out if you can't trade it to them, but you at least know they have demand for it.

Right now no one has a trade deal with Vox. What has to happen, if we want to confuse GS, is that ND and us both have to enter into a trade deal with Vox on the same turn ... ND would have to give a luxury, we'd give Iron.

If GS has an embassy with GoW or ND, they will see that the two have a trade deal, they will also see that we have a trade deal with GoW (our silks for wines trade). If GS can't pinpoint who is giving iron to GoW and who is giving iron to Vox they MIGHT not be able to track it back to us, however, if they've been keeping track over time and figured out somehow that ND is giving iron to GoW, then they'll know that we are giving iron to Vox.

It's going to be very hard to deny that we're doing this trade.

--Togas

[GodKing]

Why deny it. If we do it, we can do 2 things.

First, stand proud and say "Here is Iron, now survive and if possible prosper." This will counteract the "sneak" factor each team suspects us of. Just give it and say, "yep, we gave it. So what. What we got in return is a fair deal."

Second, at the same time we give iron, GS will declair war on us. They have to in order to attempt a blockaid. That is the way Civ3 works. But what if we give them something so as to not cause a blockaid? What if we send them some luxurie. I am sure we have an extra one or two. Just offer it to them free. If they question it, say that it is part of the iron deal. They get a lux to keep the iron flowing. If they feel that Iron is so important that they still want to declair war - so be it. They loose also.

[Togas]

GK, this is an excellent proposal.

IF we end up selling Iron to Vox, we should state so publicly, and you should contact GS to explain to them why we did it, and also offer a gift to GS of a luxury to help ease their fears.

Perhaps tell them that we want to sell them the luxury in 20 turns, but for now, we'd like to give it to them for free to show their people the great benefits of Spanish luxuries.

All this assumes that we end up selling Iron, which also assumes that we receive a fair price for it.

--Togas

[BigFree]

I like this proposal. It will confuse the hell out of GS.

[astrologix]

Good point GodKing

It solves the iron issue, and we win diplomatically !

Great

[astrologix]

I we adopt this solution, we MUST connect a silks luxury and the iron ASAP.

Who can evaluate how long will it take ?

[History Guy]

If we do this, I would prefer we take the course laid out by Senor GodKing rather than any so far proposed.

Don Iago Calamari de Toledo