After action report "The Great Bobian War"

[asleepathewheel]

good thread

I am a bit suprised at how much stock you put into our victory over Vox. I guess theres a much different perspective a world away from ground zero of a conflict, but we didn't have a superpowerful army afterwards. And what we did have were primarily slowmovers, pikes mi's and cats, very few wc's. And we had very little of a navy. So, unless my memory is horribly off, we couldn't really afford to fight a two front war-didn't have the pieces at the start of it, and by the time we had a credible navy, Spain was about to be overrun, so we coudln't divert any forces north. We did discuss doing this I think. Its all very fuzzy to me.

[GhengisFarb™]

More documents:

**CLASSIFIED INFORMATION**
**OFFICIAL WARMONGERS ONLY**

OFFICIAL ORDERS

General Aggie you are hereby ordered to assume
command of Task Force Ziggy. You are to locate
and eliminate target dubbed Zargon X.

We believe this target is a laundy soap of deadly
scope. MOPP equipment will be issued prior to
departure. Avoid contact with local authorities.

***WARMONGER HIGH COMMAND***
***NEED TO KNOW STATUS ONLY***

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
The real victors of the war, of course, didn't lose a single hitpoint.

This is rather interesting and I've heard it from practically every GS and RP member, that we've practically handed out victory to Lego. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Think about the pre-war status quo. Did either GoW or ND have a shot of victory as things stood? Hell no, even RP was poised to become the dominant nation on Bob thanks to their superior land and resources, with the potential to outdo GS in the (very) long run.

Did Lego benefit from this war? Of course they did, and tremendously, and I am still not saying that GoW or ND have victory assured for either one of us, but at least our chances for it are now a long shot but not impossibly remote.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by ZargonX
As an insider, I also appreciate the teams coming and discussing the issue involved with the Bobian War. I would also appreciate it you would continue to declassify information, including, but not limited to, troops movements, production plans, and future goals.

* ZargonX gets his notepad...

**Glorious Warmonger Game Objectives**

(In chronological order)


1) Destroy Lego

Motive: just because

2) Destroy the Gathering Storm

Motive: bring Vox back

3) Destroy Neu Demogyptica

Motive: because they still haven't sent those pics of Claudia Schiffer I asked for. And to resettle Lux Invicta

4) Auto-raze all GoW Cities

Motive: a Lux vs Vox space race will be fun to watch.


**END**

[Arrian]

I was going through our old threads pre-Bob war and I found a gem (in terms of "oh my, what if?") of my own creation:

07-07-2003 12:09

Calling all StormHawks! Calling all StormHawks!

A PROPOSAL: "OPERATION ROGUE WAVE"

Here it is, folks:

I want to set up an alliance with GoW to attack ND & RP, with us getting RPs land (or most of it) and them getting ND's land.

I think we have a window of opportunity here that shouldn't be missed. We are militarily powerful and have 4-move galleys (and a lot of them). GoW now has the tech for Riders, and we can upgrade mobile forces to Knights. We can provide them with the iron they would lose if they attack ND. I don't think ND has Chivalry, and if they really are researching Engineering, they can only get Chiv soon via trade with Gow or us, I think. RP is still REXing.

We have not yet completed our luxury deal with RP, due to a disagreement re: NAP. That suits me just fine.

I would want an explicit alliance with GoW stating that they will attack ND, we will attack RP, and setting up the future border between us. I would also seek at least a 20-turn NAP between GoW and GS starting when the war ends.

Make no mistake: I am proposing a war of aggression, plain and simple.

What say you, StormHawks (and StormDoves, of course)?

-Arrian

This was shot down in short order. Basically because people thought that if we presented the idea to GoW and they didn't like it, they would leak it to other teams and we'd be screwed.

It was, IIRC, my one and only "evil plan." It's especially amusing because we ended up pouring so many resources into a fight to save RP, not conquer them.

I felt free to disclose this because it was just an idea - and one we never pursued. Apologies to our beloved allies, RP, of course. You had such tasty land!

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Master Zen


This is rather interesting and I've heard it from practically every GS and RP member, that we've practically handed out victory to Lego. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Think about the pre-war status quo. Did either GoW or ND have a shot of victory as things stood? Hell no, even RP was poised to become the dominant nation on Bob thanks to their superior land and resources, with the potential to outdo GS in the (very) long run.

Did Lego benefit from this war? Of course they did, and tremendously, and I am still not saying that GoW or ND have victory assured for either one of us, but at least our chances for it are now a long shot but not impossibly remote.

It didn't benifit Lego directly, but rather indirectly. A war between Bobians meant no invasion of Legoland, which many of us believe = Lego victory. Leave them alone with that gigantic continent of theirs, and they will win. That was the basic thought. Unless, of course, you or ND can unite Bob in time to surpass Lego, despite Lego's inevitable intervention to prevent said unification (this would have to happen reasonably soon).

So that's what we're saying. Not that ND & GoW hurt their own chances of victory. Your odds of winning have increased... it's just they are still well behind Legos, and many turns have gone by. The clock is ticking.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Not having been in the game at the time, it does seem to me that most of GS are only saying it is good for Lego. Not that it was bad for GoW. All teams other than Lego had the same problem, they could not win with the land they held at the time.
The only question was how to get more and from whom, when and how.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Oh we're digging up postings now. Let's see if my completely insane ones (even by GoW standards) are still around.

Of course the obvious:

Look, I couldn't believe it, but GS is willing to discuss allowing us a beachhead.

Here is what I say.

We agree to their peace.

Get everyone together, and say we need 20 or so turns before we can attack ND.

Now, Lego, ND, and Vox all need in on this. During those 20 turns, ND gifts us our land and we get our payment for this war.

We ship a mighty stack of pillaging to our new beachhead. I am thinking plenty of riders and 10 or so muskets. More muskets the better.

Lego ships over a conquering force to Bob. We should allow Vox to ship over what they have to Estonia as well, to help defend the beachhead.

When it comes that GS thinks we are attacking ND, Lego and ND attack GS on southern Bob, our stack of pillaging heads right through RP and into the Heart of the GS. Remaining riders can begin breaking down RP and making any holes in blockades for the pillaging force.

With just 4 Riders in the stack of muskets, we could pillage 4 squares and have them all safely under the musket guard again.

I believe Lego will agree to this to remove both GS and RP from the game. I would suggest gifting all of estonia back to VOX, but that is because I think it would hurt GS more than simply taking them over and I'm a vindictive jerk.

GS is so keen on seeing a world pile on, by god let's give em one.

Most the rest is paranoid ramblings:

Why is GS been so quiet lately?

Just a warning how vulnerable our capitol is to a naval landing. With the lighthouse, isn't it possible for them to have a task force well out of sight off our shores?

This is the same tactic as Inchon/inchoff as well, BTW, so not without precident in the minds of GS.

Back before our mutual war:

Just an idea, needs refining:

Contact GS (My home comp is down right now, someone else will have to):

Tell them ND attacked
Tell them we want to remain neutral
Explain our position to them:
we cannot attack ND, they cannot attack RP, but perhaps there is a way we can both profit here.

Tell them the following:
We are signed to a deal, they are signed to a deal, and these deals are contrary to each other. It is in our mutual best interest therefore for one of us to get out of their deal. The only ways to do this are as follows:

Us backstab ND: Not going to happen
Them backstab RP: Not going to happen
Us ensure the swiftest destruction of RP, thus eliminating the ND contract and opening ourselves to new ones with GS.

Ask for a RoP, but make it understood that ND will be informed if GS is comming from our northern border. We agree to allow them to tell RP of our movements as well.

Why they should sign:

RP seems willing to gift away threatened cities, we agree to threaten the cities that GS wants first. After all, it still reduces RP cities, does it not? We have no beef with GS.... It still accomplishes our goal of wiping out RP AND it gets GS what they desire from this conflict.

Agree that we do not interfere with them and ND, they do not interfere with us and RP. Perhaps even hint at the possibility of straight up sharing Bob with GS. Let us destroy RP, we will help with ND after our deal with them is done?

By the time this is all over, Vox will have some force again, We get Lego building to war, even if ND is wiped out, with proper diplomacy, a good chunk of Bob to ourselves and Vox/Lego behind us, we can still screw GS.

And of course it wouldn't be complete without this little gem from the eye himself after the very first chat we had with you guys:

There is a very special place in hell waiting for you

[Master Zen]

I won't even dare to find my posts....

There is a very special place in hell waiting for you

save me a spot will ya?

[Arrian]

My attempts at devious evil planning pale in comparison.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

That's just a sampling, too...

Where is the eye. I think he should come input some unbias review in this thread...

[Hot_Enamel]

Just as a matter of interest....

When GS accepted RP's alliance, accepted cities, and attempted to goad GoW into attacking, did anyone in the GS forum speak up and say that it possibly broke the GS-GoW NAP ?

In the GoW forum, we saw it as a blatant break of our NAP.
We could see, that within the Civ programming rules, a NAP was not broken because GS did not do the first attack. But this was one of the reasons for our claim that "you are treating us like AI".

I don’t really want to get into the argument if GS did break the NAP...we agree to disagree... but I am interested if it was unanimous in GS that their actions did not break the NAP.




And I agree with Aggie…
I felt I was a very lone voice in the GoW when I demanded that we immediately take the RP cities on the very turn they were given to GS.
Other members believed we could negotiate with GS (Given that we had a good relationship with them). We chose that route, and retreated from the cities.

I made about 3 different drafts of a “Public Announcement” trying to convince GoW that we should take the cities. In the end, MZ’s manifesto was published…but IMO, it was 3 turns too late.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Where is the eye. I think he should come input some unbias review in this thread...

Always watching.

Unfortunately, this thread is basically an unofficial sharing of info for kicks, and if I should say anything besides my own opinions or views of what happened, it may cause future ramifications. Unless, of course, the teams in question give me permission to reveal their dirty secrets.

As for my own opinions, I will stick solely to past events, almost entirely involving the war itself which I am sure will not affect the future game.

As far as the geo-political situation, I saw the GS-RP alliance forming quite a bit before it actually occurred. RP was getting desperate, almost certain the double hammer would fall on them, whereas it was clear at the time that GOW + ND would never allow GS a home on the main continent. I figured this staunch attitude would prevent GS from trying a 3-on-1 on RP, knowing that it would thereafter become a brutal 2-on-1 against GS, whereas they could keep it a 2-on-2 if they had allied with RP.

Militarily, the war was quite exciting.

RP's army at the onset was quite large, though it lacked Knights which I believe may have had a great impact on the war. ND managed to strike out with its 3-move Ansar to pillage roads and prevent RP from counter-attacking rather early on, after forcing the abandonment of Zaragosa due to the threat of ND striking past the front lines and taking an undefended Pamplona. The times when RP did counter-attack, it was too late in the campaign and they took similar losses to what they inflicted. By the time RP was ready to counter-attack, the need to defend two fronts and lack of material compared to 2 civs in their GA prevented any possible significant breakthrough without significant GS assistance, which was never really attempted in the West. Without it, the war in the West was merely a waiting game for ND to build up enough units to take out RP, who had lost most of its productive cities and whose counter-attack capability was sharply reduced with every action.

In the East, the biggest impact was probably GS preventing GOW from getting to Toledo 2 and then marching southwards from there. Had GS covered that tile, GOW might have been sufficiently bogged down to allow GS reinforcements to arrive and turn the tide when GOW had to eventually get off the mountains. Once "the Alamo" was created, GS needed to deliver a strong attack to wipe it out before it was reinforced... however, ND and GOW managed to combine forces and wiped out a fairly significant stack of GS Knights and Cats instead. IMO, that was basically the end of RP-GS' chances to be victorious. I was also amazed at how effective Leo's was in bolstering the GOW army. They know how I like to tease them how their early city placement and domestic planning showed they were warmongers who didn't realize you needed an economy to have a good army () but the building of Leo's was probably their best overall decision of the entire game, even if it did cost them 70 turns of production in their capital.

The war also saw a variety of military strategies employed to try and defeat opponents which were quite interesting to analyze.

ND struck out fast and quick with its Ansar Warriors and forced RP to withdraw from Zaragosa, one of its best cities, to avoid the threat of it being bypassed and Pamplona captured. Once RP was holed up in Pamplona, ND focused mainly on teaming up with GOW to deal with GS. RP made 1 or 2 counter-attacks (one of which almost captured Leon/Loewenmutt - though it was only possible due to the majority of ND's Ansar being out of action at the time and even if they had captured the city the ND Ansar would most likely have reigned havoc on the victors) but for the most part ND could ignore RP's presence and shuffle around Ansar to deal with GS once a road linking the West and the South had been finished.

In the East, GOW was hell-bent on avoiding combat any way possible. They danced around all over the map which was ultimately quite effective. Once the south had been conquered, GOW with the help of ND sought to defeat GS land forces, which it managed to do with the combined might of 2 civs in their GA + Leo's. After the first battle things were basically over.

I've always been rather curious about GS's strategy during the war. Their initial unloading and blocking of GOW in the East was quite good, but the failure to stop GOW from getting into the south and hoping so whole-heartedly that GOW would try to attack Toledo really paved the way for how the rest of the war would go. The BIGGEST mistake that GS made was allowing GOW and ND the opportunity to combine forces on a single front. As long as it was 1-on-1 on each side of the map GS had a shot at winning. As soon as GOW got formed up in the Alamo, there was no way GS could have driven them out, except, as I said, a strong forceful attack on the city - but only one which would have prevented ND from assisting in the defense of the city. As long as it was effectively 2-on-1 there was almost no chance of GS making any headway.

After either wiping out Alamo or stopping GOW first in the East, GS would then have had to have made a strong push in the West to dislodge the entrenching ND forces and drive them back across through the jungle. As long as ND held flat land in the West, GOW could help them pin down all GS+RP forces with their own reinforcements, which were eventually quite numerous due to Leo's.

Also, at some point the RP Army would have had to have been rebuilt around Knights as well, because even if all of this had occurred, GS' strength would not have been enough to push through the jungle up into ND and beyond.

For most of the war it was clear who had the initiative. Whenever GS tried to recover it, it always played right into GOW-ND's hands, and always ended badly for them (first battle SE of Alamo, Battle of Pamplona Forest, the landing in GOW's east). Other than those incidents, GS was always one step behind GOW-ND who so effectively used their forces together that any mistakes on GS's part would be severely punished (as they were).

Basically, from the very onset of the war recovering anything beyond RP territory would be a very tall order for GS, and doing so after GOW had penetrated into the south would have required a miracle. As MZ said earlier in the thread, at one point there were something like 70 ND-GOW-Lego Knight-equivalents vs. 30 GS ones. Even if you take out Lego's units and the losses each side incurred, GS would still have been greatly outnumbered (by superior units) - unless they were able to win spectacular victories with few losses.

So that was the war in a nutshell. Go fight another one, they're quite fun to watch from above.

[Aggie]

I'll admit it was something having Unortho and Mz as negotiators.. I'm have attacks of concience and try to make peace and before I'd gone a day into negotiations they'd turn the peace deal into evil plan #1001. It's amazing and I'm a little awestruck. My best evil plan was the "raze it all and leave the GS knight stack in the mountains" plan.

Here the actually wording cica ~290. [/QUOTE]
"5) The now you see it, know you don't. Our 30 riders let all the attack forces surround them at alamo, and then leave razing the city.

We destroy roads and take pamploma. Assuming the ND has attacked it first 15 of ours should win. Then the rest rush towards the mountains(attacking any units in the pass, if few).

They keep advancing(say 10 by now) to the outskirts of New Madrid and toledo(we might not do both, I am hesistant to commit to splitting without knowing the enemy positions).

Next turn we take those and the Gs port. Due to slow movement the GS super stack is unable to respond, resulting in extreme advantages for us with the isolated Gs units.

Unortho once said we need to reinforce our unpredicatableness, I say this does that and more.

[/QUOTE]

Just an insight into some of our options, usually we'd make some plans and most couldn't happen for some reason or another, but they were made none the less. At this time we were considering the vulnerablity of Merida(before ND took it over) so we were wondering if it was even necessary to hold these cities. our plan was to lure GS/RP forces to the Alamo. what would happen then was what this option refered to(for the record there were 5 other options).

This plan was superceded when RP moved their stack toward Pamploma and the 1st big battle in that forest took place and we also launched the 1st big push toward Pamploma.

Also i'm glad to see you were able to add in some good comments Trip, there are advantages to being the all seeing eye.

Aggie

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Arrian
This was shot down in short order. Basically because people thought that if we presented the idea to GoW and they didn't like it, they would leak it to other teams and we'd be screwed.

It was, IIRC, my one and only "evil plan." It's especially amusing because we ended up pouring so many resources into a fight to save RP, not conquer them.

I felt free to disclose this because it was just an idea - and one we never pursued. Apologies to our beloved allies, RP, of course. You had such tasty land!

-Arrian

This was my chief strategic fear from near the start of the game, actually. I should post the thread I made before the game even started and the later arguments I made that a GS-GoW alliance was the absolute worst thing that could EVER happen to the planet.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Arnelos
This was my chief strategic fear from near the start of the game, actually. I should post the thread I made before the game even started and the later arguments I made that a GS-GoW alliance was the absolute worst thing that could EVER happen to the planet.

Yes, yes! Please post that. That sounds good.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Just as a matter of interest....

When GS accepted RP's alliance, accepted cities, and attempted to goad GoW into attacking, did anyone in the GS forum speak up and say that it possibly broke the GS-GoW NAP ?

In the GoW forum, we saw it as a blatant break of our NAP.
We could see, that within the Civ programming rules, a NAP was not broken because GS did not do the first attack. But this was one of the reasons for our claim that "you are treating us like AI".

I don’t really want to get into the argument if GS did break the NAP...we agree to disagree... but I am interested if it was unanimous in GS that their actions did not break the NAP.

Do the *particulars* really matter? As you've said here, it seems the spirit of an agreement is what really matters, not the letter.

If that is so, all of the following caused whatever price they did:

* GoW attacking RP, whom they were allied to
* GS accepting cities from RP, while GoW was "at war" (BUT NOT IN GAME) with RP and GS-GoW had a NAP
* Legoland actively helping GoW and ND destroy RP, with whom they had a NAP

As I see it, on technical grounds you could offer an argument that none of them really violate those agreements. In terms of the spriit of such agreements, however, all of them do.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Master Zen

This is rather interesting and I've heard it from practically every GS and RP member, that we've practically handed out victory to Lego. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

In a sense, MZ, you've got a point. The tile count for each continent divided by the No. of Civs starting on each continent gave Lego > 400, the Bobians < 200, and GS & Vox 99 each. All sides but one had to try and do something about it, and the geography meant it was not surprising that Bob would be the key battleground in the early mid-game.

So from that perspective the die was cast in 4000BC. The point remains, however, that the longer the combatants were meatgrinding, the further they would fall behind the non-combatants, of which one was in pole position to win the game.

If GS hadn't made the mistakes, of which the ones I witnessed ultimately involved stepping off hills & mountains, we'd still be there scrunching shields now, and even if we'd succeeded in the short term there would have been another war soon after to try get rid of us.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by vondrack
At this moment, I would like to note that we did not want to get involved in the destruction of RP, at least not directly (read below). We made this very clear to GoW/ND, agreeing to commit our own troops only to the defense of their homeland territories. I fully acknowledge, though, that pretending Lego "did not enter the war against RP" would be ridiculous. Yes, we helped to free GoW/ND's hands. However, from our PoV, it was an inevitable side-effect of our decision to oppose the GS expansion onto Bob.\

Ah, but you did get involved in the destruction of RP. I know relations between RP and Lego were certainly not stellar at the point I came back to my team in August and found them in disrepair, but there is a point that must be made here. In the eyes of a number of people on my team, Legoland violated a non-aggression treaty with Roleplay Team when Legoland chose to actively support and provide aid to a belligerent party in an existential war with RP Team.

So every time I tried to convince my team that we should try to repair relations with you guys and that getting you guys to side with us was the key to turning the tide and winning rather than losing in the long-run, the response I was continuously met with was "Why should we trust them? They betrayed us.", etc. Over time, the resentment on RP Team toward Legoland just grew and grew... by the midpoint of the war (not even when I switched to being blunt when talking with people from Legoland about what we knew was really going on) it would be safe to say that Legoland was probably despised even more than Glory of War...

After the last chat with vondrack, I didn't even bother to post most of the chat and censored much of the parts I did post to the RP Forum because I knew posting it would accomplish absolutely nothing other than getting the team all riled up again about how much they resented Legoland's betrayal.

These days, almost all of that is gone thankfully. People who were that upset either just went back into inactivity or calmed back down when the game outcome really no longer mattered to RP Team. Hell, even relations with GoW can be reasonably nice from now on as far as we're concerned. Earlier, the two of us on RP Team who did somewhat "go native" when it came to trying to repair relations with Legoland (in particular) and kept trying to turn that around when the rest of our team was against it were Aidun and I.

From the very beginning, we put a lot of emphasis on keeping our alliance secret - it was obvious that as long as GS were planning for one opponent less, we had the element of surprise on our side. As RP kept calling for help (I honestly say that the last chat with Arnelos really hurt - from the personal PoV... as I had to tell him things I knew were very cruel... sorry for that, Arnelos), it was impossible to maintain the "neutral stance cover" for too long. In the end, it was mostly about keeping our military presence on Bob secret.

Your alliance was far less secret than you thought, for a variety of reasons. To be honest, the only reason I and others didn't see it earlier than we did was that we allowed ourselves to be willfully deluded into believing that Legoland "wouldn't do that". That despite whatever souring of relations had taken place earlier, you guys wouldn't get yourselves actively involved in our destruction. It was little more than wishful thinking that unfortunately clouded our judgement during the early stages of the war.

It did not take all that long, however, before the weight of evidence eventually had us convinced that Legoland was supporting Glory of War and ND. First, there was Master Zen. We spent enough time around him that we noticed the sea change in his attitude and his level of confidence about events that were unfolding. Over time, it became more and more apparent that MZ had some great coup he'd managed diplomatically that he could hardly contain himself from revealing. Given what else was going on, we already suspected what it was, which caused us to redouble our efforts to convince Legoland to switch sides.

The problem, as we saw it, was that Legoland's leadership seemed to have gone into tunnel-vision concerning the wisdom of allowing GoW and ND to take over all of Bob. Our goal was thus to do everything in our power, throw every argument we could, just be downright annoying if need be, to convince at least one or two Legolanders of folly of helping the GoW-ND alliance achieve victory over all of Bob. Our goal was then to use those individuals to argue our case inside Legoland and back them up with as many conciliatory gestures as we could possibly make to Legoland. At least in my estimation, the outcome of the war and RP's survival on Bob was going to be made or broken based upon whether Legoland switched sides.

In the end, it became VERY apparent that we weren't going to get Legoland to switch sides. As a last ditch desperate attempt, I told I think ZargonX first and then vondrack straight out what we knew about their alliance with GoW and ND, how long we'd known it, how long earlier we'd suspected it, and why we thought they were marching themselves into a more dangerous world than the one they could work with us to build.

That last-ditch desperate attempt did get vondrack to come out of hiding and talk about what he mentions in his post. It did not, however, get Legoland to switch sides.

As for other ways in which we knew about the Legoland involvement, we had several beyond just watching MZ. Part of it was analyzing and discussing the reactions we were getting from various Legoland negotiators. I remember that the responses and reactions for Kloreep and ZargonX were the most helpful since their seeming aloofness and very coy attitude in negotiations caught us as being yet another sign of what was really going on. Finally, we had some rather intimate details by mid-war of what Legoland was really doing that I'm not willing to talk about until the game is over.

When everything from all of those sources was put together, it did not take all that long for us, especiallly the slow ones to accept it like me, to realize what was really at work. We also have some other theories about what was going on and still is, but obviously I'm not going to discuss that... that can be saved for another time.

8) And yes... at a certain moment, it became obvious that GoW/ND were clearly winning and RP/GS had very little to no hope of turning the tide (with no saltpeter). Our help was no longer really needed... I believe the cheap and fast gunpowder research we did for GoW/ND allowed them to raise quite a lot of extra riders & ansars... while still benefitting from the muskets (and generally, from knowing about the saltpeter deposits).
But we haven't considered a backstab or even withdrawal at any time, as... as... well, first, as we are not really heavy into backstabbing... and second, as we would pretty much lose all of the non-tangible, trust-related gains - remaining true to our alliance through the uncertain times till the victorious end was always considered a better (the only, in fact) option.

See, this is precisely the problem from the PoV of many on RP Team. Legoland had a non-aggression pact with Roleplay Team (in fact, technically that non-aggression pact is STILL active, I believe). Furthermore, Legoland and Roleplay Team in earlier years had had quite a cooperative relationship which only later broke down over (I believe) a poorly written treaty. When it became apparent that Legoland was the one supporting GoW/ND in their war to destroy RP, violating every bit of spirit left in the Legoland-RP treaty, that backstab was taken far more harshly by many on RP Team than the Glory of War one was. Afteralll, the entire team had expected Glory of War to behave that way.

The very fact that some on the team, principally Aidun and myself, were working to get Legoland to switch sides was actually met with resistance by some.

All I can say is that after being on Roleplay Team and seeing how people react to what they perceive to be near universal betrayal from all quarters, I think I can rather intimately understand what is driving Mr. Lucky in the ISDGs... in fact, the idea of holing ourselves up on Stormia and remaining at war to cause GoW and ND WW for the rest of eternity was seriously discussed in our forum before we'd finally been pushed off Bob and people either left or calmed back down.

Ultimately, however, the right thing WAS done (as many of us ultimately insisted) and RP Team has continued to behave honorably. Grudges are dead and irrelevant at this point for a team whose only purpose for continued survival is to play a friendly spoiler role for any civ(s) that wish to at least give us some role in wider events.

GS, RP - on a personal level: sorry for what happened. From another (individual) PBEM game of mine, I know how it feels to see one's meticulously crafted plans or a tidy, happily developing empire to collapse. Honestly, I have come close to believing that PBEM, and especially DGs with the insane amount of work contributed by their players, are simply not my cup of tea. Crushing the AI is somehow... more enjoyable, I would say. Crushing humans is not much fun, unless I'm able to consider them a true enemy (which I'm not). Crushing a friend or friends brings me little joy, knowing how much efforts must have been wasted for the defeated party... It's only slightly better than getting crushed, knowing how much efforts I wasted myself, actually...

Yeah, you and I discussed this at the last Legoland-RP chat we held at mid/late war (as written about above). As I said then, I do not like to hold grudges and I do what I can to keep these games as far away from becoming "personal" as possible. I've played enough highly cutthroat games over the years where I've both been backstabbed by friends and backstabbed friends to have learned it's just an accepted part of how the games work and it does not mean that people are untrustworthy individuals or upstanding people outside of playing an extremely cutthroat game.

I've certainly caused as much misery over the years through backstabs as anyone has ever brought on me, so I don't take it personally. Everyone is in the game to win and people will do what they have in order to meet that goal. Deception is just another tool which can be useful for meeting it. I understand, however, that a lot of people came into the PTWDG thinking very differently... and a lot of them got burnt out and left.

In retrospect, I wish we would have remembered/known to have done more to warn people just what this type of game means. People say this is the first game of its type, but it really isn't. It really really helps to keep yourself from getting too emotionally invested or to have a thick skin if you're going to play such a cutthroat game. Quite frankly, multiplayer DG's may deserve a warning label...

[Hot Mustard]

This has been a great read.

I have just one question for the other teams:

Given RP's starting position, would you have attempted to settle westward across the continent, sealing it off from the Northern civs?

(Please try to answer without bias from what has occured in the game.)

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Deception is just another tool which can be useful for meeting it. I understand, however, that a lot of people came into the PTWDG thinking very differently... and a lot of them got burnt out and left.

In retrospect, I wish we would have remembered/known to have done more to warn people just what this type of game means. People say this is the first game of its type, but it really isn't. It really really helps to keep yourself from getting too emotionally invested or to have a thick skin if you're going to play such a cutthroat game. Quite frankly, multiplayer DG's may deserve a warning label...

I agree. Perhaps its just me, but Gathering Storm has been hit the hardest by this. We've lost a veritable who's who of the strat forum. Nbarclay. R.I.P. Dominae. R.I.P. Aeson. R.I.P. and other great players like Alva and Frustrated Poet and Shiber, no more. I can count on one hand, literally, the people who have posted in our forum recently, and two of them, Cort Haus and VMXA1 were mid-season acquisitions. Well, ok, there are a couple more than a handful, but its nothing like it was at the beginning. Luckily for GS, Cort Haus is in charge and has done a fantastic job transitioning us to whatever the future holds...

I'm not sure why these players have all moved on, maybe burnout, I know Nathan was particularly burdened by the game, and what you see of Stormia is a result of his and Dominae's work. Maybe it was that we as a team were used to beating up the AI (easily) and just didn't know what it took to plot and scheme in MP play, hence the ahem, honor code, ahem. I know I certainly could have had a thicker skin at certain points... I mean Sir Ralph was begging us to build a military, but we were so focused on build build build. Luckily the few units we had saved us at the start of the Vox war. A bit too trusting, especially when we were planning to attack Vox, though in the bit distant future.

Anyway, that's just my pov, my teammates, present and former, might disagree with my assessment.

[Aggie]

I agree with all those who find SP more fun in the sense that your not destroying what another person has built up(and since the AI has that 1/2 production advanatage, it doesn't even spend that much). I find it very hard destroying what another person has built quite a long time developing.

For example, the turn after we took the southern cities me and MZ had a chat with Togas and Arnelos. I literally felt sick during that chat know we were basically dismantling RP's nation. That was the reason that in many chats with both GS and RP, I'd find myself looking for solutions that unfortunately were simply not to be found. Including many proposals that I knew would be rejected but that we had to try.

This does bring us to the diplomatic side of the war. Almost from the moment we took the south, there were negotiations of one form of another to bring about the end of hostilities. Unfortunatly I suspect many of these are still considered state secrets since plans that were discarded then might one day come to pass. But the fact that they occured does indicate that there was a desire to find a peaceful resolution, unfortunately these talks didn't bring fruit.

Aggie

[GhengisFarb™]

Personally, I find Roleplay's planning and strategy the most fascinating. They really went all out to planning ahead and setting pieces in motion throughout the game. If I had to choose one forum to be able to enter and read it would be Roleplay's just to see how all of the planning and implementation came about.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by dejon
This has been a great read.

I have just one question for the other teams:

Given RP's starting position, would you have attempted to settle westward across the continent, sealing it off from the Northern civs?

(Please try to answer without bias from what has occured in the game.)

Of course.
RP did nothing wrong trying to claim as much land and the best land as possible.
I assume every team tries to do the same.

What they did do wrong was upset their potential best geographical ally. Had that not occured, RP would have had someone to back their claim up.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'll admit it was something having Unortho and Mz as negotiators.. I'm have attacks of concience and try to make peace and before I'd gone a day into negotiations they'd turn the peace deal into evil plan #1001. It's amazing and I'm a little awestruck.

I think MZ and I kinda feed off each other.

That said, one of these games, I really want a chance to work with Arnelos as well. Hell, I was against him on the old Hawk/DIA arguments, against him here...for once, I'ld like a chance to work WITH him on something and maybe catch a break.

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel


Of course.
RP did nothing wrong trying to claim as much land and the best land as possible.
I assume every team tries to do the same.

What they did do wrong was upset their potential best geographical ally. Had that not occured, RP would have had someone to back their claim up.

And I still do not understand what happened there, frankly.

I just know Ghengis and Togas had a pissing match and our forum turned into a death on RP no matter the cost from that point, more or less.

I DO know we went into the game hoping RP was close and wanting to ally with them more than anyone else, figuring they might enjoy allying with the 'evil' team in the game.

RP: WHY NO KNIGHTS?

Or rather, have any of your members changed their opinion on the value of Med Inf vs Knights?

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos


Do the *particulars* really matter? As you've said here, it seems the spirit of an agreement is what really matters, not the letter.

If that is so, all of the following caused whatever price they did:

* GoW attacking RP, whom they were allied to
* GS accepting cities from RP, while GoW was "at war" (BUT NOT IN GAME) with RP and GS-GoW had a NAP
* Legoland actively helping GoW and ND destroy RP, with whom they had a NAP

As I see it, on technical grounds you could offer an argument that none of them really violate those agreements. In terms of the spriit of such agreements, however, all of them do.

Arnie,
I agree, there have been some very suspect deals made that could be considered as not in the spirit of the agreement.
Certainly GoW is not, and has never put itself on a pedistal, as a shining example of playing with honor.

But also do not forget the "exploring warrior incident" GoW had with RP.
I know you were not around during that time, but from the GoW PoV, RP screwed us over after we thought we had a tech deal.



The "Legoland actively helping GoW and ND destroy RP, with whom they had a NAP" is an interesting one.

If Lego signs a NAP with RP.
Then RP signs an alliance with GS.
Is Lego then forced into a NAP with GS ?

The Lego/GoW deal was quite explicit in that they would NOT help us in the war against RP.
Indirectly they did, by doing a bit of chest thumping with GS. But that was done more to protect GoW than it was to hurt RP.

What a tangled web we weave


GS said they backed off in our east when they saw the Lego knights. Trust me... by the time GS finally got into position, we had enough Riders in the area anyway, and Lego wasnt needed.
In fact, I think that the GS knight invasion of GoW's east might of found themselves with the "here one turn - gone the next" disappearing act had they attempted to attack.

[Panzer32]

Here's a pictorial description of a few events in the war:

During the first stage of the war, I was the leader of GoW, and thus I have many more shots of then rather than later in the war.

Here is an early plan that I made, when we finally decided Bilbao was to be taken (note that a) Toledo was given to GS that turn and b) There were about 12 riders in that stack.) A pretty ambitious plan...



The Butcher of Bilbao...

[Panzer32]

Very early, just got to the RP border and look whats waiting...


This is the turn we ended in the hills. It was a risky decision, but one that allowed us to reach the crossroads the NEXT TURN, which gained us 4 cities in the turn after that.

[Panzer32]

Unfortunatly Ghengis has deleted his "operation southern bell" pic from the web but it involved moving onto the crossroads and attacking 4 cities at once, all of which we were successfull, and it got us Salamanka AKA The Alamo.

This one is Aggie's shot. We attacked several RP units IIRC in Pamplona forest but I'm not sure if this is the famed battle of Pamplona forest... note the GS troops in the south that we were unsure whether they would go north or west. They ended up camping out on the mountain 63 of Alamo, where the 2/4 pike is now.

[Panzer32]

This is 7 turns later (end of turn). The Battle of Pamplona forest (the real one) had finished the turn before this move of us from Alamo. It was quite confusing to us that GS seemed to see where the saltpeter was and was camping out near it...



Here's 1 turn later, when we reclaimed the saltpeter tile:



After that, GS decided to leave Bob. We used reinforcements and ND's great help to take Pamplona in 400 AD, about 400 years after the war had begun!!