WHAT IF... ND takes out Lux?

[GodKing]

With permission from Togas, tomarrow GhengisFarb and myself will have a private little - very unofficial - chat about what each of our teams can and will do if this situation happens.

I think that we should start preparing now, and plan on striking ND from the rear, then once they start to march on us, GoW then attacks them from the new rear. This is tricky and would involve trusting GoW.

Prior to this conversation I want team input. This is the place. What do you think we should do?

PS - Only GF knows about this, and NOBODY (except Togas, who gave me permission to do this) is supposed to know about this. DO NOT TELL ANYBODY. SUPER MOST TOP SECRET CLASSIFICATION.

[ThePlagueRat]

ooc:

Ok, good luck man. Just be a little careful with Ghengis.
He can lie you straight up in the face and still pretend to be a niceguy. He is kinda roleplaying too ya know...

e.g. you can ask some questions about how they will proceed in relation to ND, and if they can defend against ND if ND turns their bloody swords on them. etc. Just ask him all the important questions and you'll be just fine.

If we could achieve what you suggested, trusting those guys could still be a trapdoor. We don't know who they will backstab first and last. Anyway, it's still just another chat.
We can ask ourselves... who will Ghengis&Co benefit most from, by backstabbing now?

[GodKing]

Good advice. I didn't plan on trusting him, but a good swift kick kind of reminder doesn't hurt.

I basically want to ask him

a) what is his current military streingth
b) what is he planning on doing for the next 20 turns.
c) if Lux falls (and I know both GF and myself thinks it will) what is ND next objective? IF (and a big IF it is) ND thinks like I do, they will have 8 swords by the end of the campaign (including 2-4 new recruits and 1-2 elete), and be next to a the GoW homeland. What do you think they will do?
d) if Lux donates the last of their failing resources to us and GoW, ND is sure to think hard about going after one of us? Who would be better, us next to a huge ND or GoW and us attacking ND on two fronts?

This is the kind of thinking I am having and it appears GF is doing the same. Therefore, I hope to give him a couple of tidbits, such as we are connecting Iron NOW, for as much real info as possible. I want to make sure I don't screw up (GF is good at that) which is why I am making this very public to our team. Any and all help is appreciated.

GK

[E_T]

This situation isn't good, no matter how you look at it. And we can blaim it on Lux (GF had told me that a while ago ). With Trip being so pigheaded and having delusions of removing ND from play, this is were we have gotten.

We need to try to convince Trip that he's wrong and get ND to back off, if we can get some concessions (highly unlikely).

I'm not liking any of this

E_T

[OliverFA]

If ND takes Lux they will become very powerful.

That's why the diplomats should try to earn as much time as they can (I'm learning a lot by looking at how you work!) meanwhile in the back lines we get prepared for the worst.

In my opinion Lux is sacrificable and can be given to ND by GoW and RP, but not too soon. Lux must lasts long enough to let us build our defences and remove the "R" from REX.

What we need is time, and to use this time wisely. So I hope that diplomats play any sort of dirty tricks to slow ND while we get prepared. Mmmmmmmmmm... That reminds me of something I've seen these days on the news. Could be? Naaaaaaaa!

[GodKing]

What I am proposing to send to GF - comments please.

GF:

Hello. I think that we have a common fear. ND is marching on Lux, and is set to destroy that one city. If they play like I do, they will just keep on marching and take over 2 more cities. This will leave Lux with only one last city and their one settler. They will in effect be dead. The only reason I see ND leaving that last city is that it would be auto razed if they attacked it. The settler would survive probably because it is mobile and ND couldn’t catch it to get the two slaves.

Lux is now dead. RIP. The brought it on themselves.

ND however is set to kick some major behind. I don’t know how big they are, but if they are smart they have two cities with barracks, one that is and one that isn’t connected to iron. They have little or no research, and are falling behind the rest of us. But they are probably making 15+/- gpt, meaning that the veteran warriors they are making in city #1 every 2-3 turns are marching to city #2, and being upgraded to swords right a way. In the next 30 turns they can potentially have upwards of 15 veteran swordsmen, and perhaps an elite or two as well. That is considering losses in their Lux campaign.

With their scouts, they have a large mobile pillaging force. A very good and cheap unit to pillage a critical roadway or two.

Their gains against Lux places them as by far the largest civ on our continent. They have some of the best land for growth and production. They also have a large military with experience. What would you do if you were them?

To the South is a moderately sized civ, the Spaniards, who have been founding new cities along the edge of the dense jungle that separates the civs and have some attractive luxuries in their domain. They are a peaceloving civilization that probably isn't expecting an attack.

To the North West is a slightly smaller civ, the Chinese, who have been talking of making war from the beginning of time. They already have a large portion of their army within striking distance of the Chinese capitol, the center of their production. The Chinese have a mobile armed force, consisting mostly of horsemen, but are merely starting production of it. Difficult, but not impossible, to defeat if attacked before large numbers are made. They have excellent reconnaissance of the land, and are within close striking range.

What would you do in their position? If it were me, I would spend 20 turns taking out Lux, 10-20 turns building up roads and defense, regrouping the army and doing some recon. Then, around turn 35 or so, launch a sneak attack. Remember – all civs are human, so there is no real political consequences to sneak attacks like you have with the AI. Take out the GoW’s capitol, with a couple of suicide scouts out for resources and luxuries. After the initial rush forward, it turns into a slugging match. Horses will not win in a slugging match – so you turn your forces into raiders and do a lot of damage to their homelands, while sending your reserves to stop the ND advance. Eventually, Peace is reached, but most likely at the cost of GoW. ND is hurt badly, but they will recover fast. Then they only have to march south and they own the largest continent.

This is not acceptable. Mostly because I would be one of the losers, and so would you. This was the strategy I proposed to Togas at the start of the game, but it was rejected out of hand by all those peace loving squid eaters. Oh well.

So, what are we to do about it. To be honest, Spain is not ready for an offensive war at this time. Due to the barbarians, we have been building purely defensive units to go with our settlers and protect our cities. We are in the process of building our barracks and offensive military units soon after. We are, in fact gearing up for the possibility of war.

WE DON’T WANT WAR. War is bad for business. We are businessmen. It is and it has been our intention to win this game through diplomatic means. If ND takes out Lux., there is only one option that we can see. We must take down ND.

So, some preliminary questions – how far is down? Do we take them out? Do we just reduce them so that the three of us are relatively equal? How far do we go?

I would recommend that we take them down enough so that they are a good buffer between our states. I would not like to see them eliminated, and if we take them down to far they will in essence be gone and no longer having fun. Who would want to continue with only a couple of cities and no chance to win (other than Trip….)? We estimate that we will have around 8 cities for our homeland. You, from what I hear, have space for 6 or so. When ND takes our Lux, they will probably have room for around 14. Therefore, including the last two from Lux, there will be room for around 30 cities total. I propose the following: GoW and Spain each grow to around 12 cities each, and leave the rest for ND. Any cities we take will probably be in or near enough the jungle to need lots of work. You would end up with a mix of old Lux and ND cities. We shall attempt (without the map I do not know if this is possible) to NOT have any joint border. No offence, but we don’t completely trust you (would you trust your team if you were us?)

Actual Battle plans – well, we will probably need 20-30 turns to have a sufficient offensive force. Hopefully, Trip is stubborn enough to delay ND for a while. Then, while ND is regrouping and preparing to march (you must be our eyes and ears), we can launch a preemptive strike in the south. Unfortunately, I don’t think our strike will have much force behind it, but we will be geared up for the long run and should be able to hold our own weight. Once the ND army moves south to counter us, you march in from the north. Germany should be used to a two front war, and they will know what will result from it in the long run if they stick with it. Therefore, we hope to make peace with them leaving them strong enough to be sovereign, yet weak enough to no longer be a threat to either of us.

This is all contingent. All of this is theoretical and based off of my delusions and suppositions. That is why Togas gave me permission to talk to you OUTSIDE of any normal channels. Plausible deniability is the phrase I do believe. I would like to hear your thoughts and comments. I can stay after work today (ends approximately 5pm EST – so I can stay until around 6 or 6:30 as needed) if you would like to chat. Otherwise, I will be around on Sunday I suspect helping UnOrthOdOx put together the Gazette. Or you can just email me at Godking@prodigy.net or use PM’s. Up to you. PM me back to let me know when and what will work well for you. We do have some time, so I don’t think there is any rush.


(note: Some edits performed by Togas. The version above is acceptable for the sort of speculation GK is doing. The above plan is not "authorized" by Spain, GK is merely discussing options and theories and if he and GF settle on one, we will then consider it.)

[Hot Mustard]

This gives away way too much information about us, without any promise of reciprocation. If you were going to chat with GF, and give away bit and pieces, so long as he was doing the same, I might agree to reveal half as much as you do here.

[DAVOUT]

Are you sure that Lux has more than 3 cities?

To be franck, I think that you describe our weakness in a very tempting way. You speak too much of our problem, and I think that you should put the focus on GoW problem : we are just trying to help him, within certain limitations, rather than worrying for us. Our only worry is to see ND becoming too strong in the medium term, but presently we feel perfectly secured behing our jungle.

If you tell Ghengis that we are weak or that we feel weak, he will abuse of it. And if he is able to assess our weakness acurately, no need to detail it with complacency.

Just my 2 cents

[Crousto]

I agree with Dejon and DAVOUT, you give away far too much informations for free, especially on our military weakness (however, they'll guess that easily as they know how far our iron is from our capital ).

Also are you sure that a scout can pillage?

[ThePlagueRat]

I think dejon is right. Do not sell us out... Just ask them some questions instead.
If he is willing to answer our question, you should answer something similar.

e.g. Yesterday I asked Trip in the chat (unofficially) "How are you gonna survive in the Ptw-DG now? Have you given it up?" He said: "I just made up a plan " . Then I asked him why he does not beg anyone for help. He was BS-ing all the way about triple alliances and so on. I told him I would like to help him if I could. (and that was my BS part of it) See...
It was just an regular BS-chat with me trying to gather info without any vital information exchange. But I felt like he just didn't give a shÃt about this whole game anymore.

[Arnelos]

I would trust for Togas to edit GodKing's proposed statement so that it is acceptable to the Despot and his own wishes for what should remained classified in this situation and which of the family jewels it might be ok to disclose in order to drive the point home to Glory of War (which, as GodKing presumes, NEEDS to have the point driven home...).

Let Togas edit it before it goes out.

[E_T]

Why have we not asked ND to remove their Scout?? especially with this situation that is up north??

E_T

[Togas]

I have performed an edit of this letter. It is now acceptable and gives away little of our actual weaknesses.

--Togas

[Arnelos]

The edits are good. Go with it.

[astrologix]

Hey ! I don't like this letter at all !!!

It should be 1/4 long than this is.

I mostly agree with dejon, DAVOUT and Crousto.

My bad english don't let me to explain this better. Sorry.
But I don't like it