The Other Teams: An Assessment

[ThePlagueRat]

Our secret motto should be:

"The consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. When you have no form, spies cannot find anything out and the enemy cannot produce a strategy."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Where 'army' refer to this group. See?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Ninot
I only have one comment


i disagree that we should trust Lux Invicta over Gathering Storm.


While it is true that Gathering Storm has admitted they want to whipe the floor with atleast one team... Lux Invicta has barely said anything.

Lux Invicta may very well be just as much warmongerers as any team in the end, and because they are the most enigmatic team outside of us... we must be wary of them.

Gathering Storm might be a team we can harbor. If we can aid them somehow to reach their goals, we can gain from that. And knowing PRECISELY one of their goals, this can be easy.

But when it comes down to it, I think we should be be just as wary of both of the teams. While my opinion is that Gathering Storm would be the better partner, either team might serve us well.


But be careful with what you dont know. At this current time... which team do we know less about?

Ninot,

I DID SAY that I believed that Lux Invicta was the most dangerous of all of the other teams. So I agree with you on that issue, but I think we can still work with them if a mutual interest can be found (but we can only trust them so far as a mutual interest exists... beyond that, they are the most dangerous team out there).

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by ThePlagueRat
Our secret motto should be:

"The consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. When you have no form, spies cannot find anything out and the enemy cannot produce a strategy."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Where 'army' refer to this group. See?

Reminds me of the boardgame Diplomacy.

I learned all the best leasons I ever learned about diplomatic deception and trickery by playing that game with some of its masters in the Origins Diplomacy Tournaments... (Origins is the annual International gamers' convention which has typically been held in Philadelphia or Columbus in the U.S.).

Anyone else ever play much Diplomacy? If not, I heavily recommend you invest in doing so... you'll learn more about Togas' point here than with any other game... the game pieces and their relation to each other are only a minor element of the REAL GAME, which is the effort to convince other people to do what's good for you and (ultimately) bad for them

[Crousto]

Interesting quote from the public forums (it only confirms what we were thinking) :

'We consider ourselves to be a warlike team as well'

Sir Ralph (Gathering storm), replying to Donegeal (Glory of war)

[Thud]

One of my favorite board games.

What was the Sun Tzu quote for the SMAC wonder that prevented probes? Something very similar. If this was a SMAC multiplayer game, I would definietly use that. Nice sidetrack, eh?

[Ninot]

Well, i still think making a deal with Trip's team a bad idea

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Ninot
Well, i still think making a deal with Trip's team a bad idea

So, in other words, making a deal with Lux Invicta is like making a deal with Lucifer... Yeah, that's probably fair.

[GeneralTacticus]

What was the Sun Tzu quote for the SMAC wonder that prevented probes? Something very similar. If this was a SMAC multiplayer game, I would definietly use that. Nice sidetrack, eh?

I used to have it as my sig; it was 'If I can determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can conentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless; if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it, nor the wise make plans against it.'

[Arnelos]

There are TONS of good Sun Szu quotations... barring anything else, just go read his whole book

[ThePlagueRat]

It's a nice book.
IMO the doctrine of formlessness could apply to our foreign affairs...

[mrmitchell]

I will try to find it (the Sun Tzu book)

...checks gutenberg project...

[Arnelos]

One thing to keep in mind is not to over-obsess about one line or piece of advice in The Art of War and apply it to other areas where Sun Szu has differing advice.

For instance, keeping one's formations formless sounds all well and good and is advisable for counteracting the intelligence efforts of one's opponents, but is not always a good idea for every aspect of diplomatic relations - something Sun Szu covers in other areas of his work (and other wise writers through history have said as well).

[Arnelos]

*bump*

(for MrWhereItsAt)

[ThePlagueRat]

Hmm, you are probably right about our friend Sun Tzu, señor.

Well, listen! I gotta bit of advice for the foreign policies,
stuff that I have figured out by reading in our forum lately.
Basically, it uses a divide and conquer approach:
There are different approaches to different situations.

1.With ambassadors as friendly spokesmen to other civs,
we can make use of the MAASK-technique.(tm)
(Ministers And Ambassadors Speaks Kindly)
Normally, it's the official job of an ambassador to make a friendly approach.
This can prevent a crisis in certain cases,
and give us opportunities of trade and pacts.
The MAASK-technique makes our appeareance polite,
but formless anyhow.

2. Foreign political discussions done within our board here would
be the essential plotting needed to achieve victory.
Our leader or ministers activates the plots when neccessary.
Here we divide the tasks upon the other civs:
e.g. send friendly ambassador, or hassle to aggression,
or just trick'em with the pokerface maask?

3.Finally, decision on whom to conquer at a certain stage.
If the previous steps had been done properly, this works out pretty well too. To "conquer" in this context could also mean to
deadlock another civ so they have to give up something...
Pacts, backstabbers, conspiracy, and mil. strenghts play an important role here.
(Further... how to do them in: This is another discussion that takes ingame issues,implementation, tactics, etc.)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Re: The Other Teams: An Assessment

Originally posted by Arnelos
THE OTHER TEAMS: AN ASSESSMENT

2. A Long-Term Partnership with Legoland

They're the only ones who can really be trusted in the long run (especially if we prove ourselves trustworthy to them) and the meet the minimum requirement of being "able to live with the other teams".

:rotfl: Oh how wrong we were.

Sorry guys, just got into some nostalgia (see my sig )