After action report "The Great Bobian War"

[Master Zen]

I remember a turn we had to replay because of an order which was not followed. It involved pillaging a road which was in our orders but the person who played the turn forgot to do it. I replayed and sent the save along... hmm... perhaps it was more crucial than I tought...

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Trip
Actually it involved getting double-duty out of Workers to conveniently get 20 Riders past the GS army, destroying everything behind it.

Needless to say, I did not look favorably on such a maneuver.

Yes...well...

It fell into the area of...RP & GS used a "questionable tactic" to warp units into the battle arena from a different continent. Then why couldn't we use a similar "questionable tactic" against those two teams.

Eye for an eye...sort of thing.

But it is irrelevent anyway... it was not done thanks to the ever vigilant eye



Note that you didnt ban it though...you just posted your opinion that you thought it unfair. (GS was in retreat IIRC)

[Arnelos]

Well, from what I understand, GoW at the time was still assuming that the unit warp was of GS' entire army from their north to their south. The reality is that the only units warped were one Roleplay Horseman and a few catapults.

Questionable tactic, to be sure, but it wasn't at all what you guys thought it was. The fact that GS' army was ALREADY in the south when the war started wasn't even something Roleplay Team had entirely expected, either.

I imagine that GS moved the bulk of their army south when Glory of War alerted them to the plans of a joint invasion of RP. How much faster would RP have fallen if GS' army really was still in the north?

Though, I suppose if GS' army were to have been in the north, they could have just launched an invasion of GoW straight-off. Sure, RP Team would have ended up a burning wreck in no time without GS' help in the south, but how much damage could GS have done in the GoW north before ND and GoW could run all the way back home?

One one hand, it's an interesting hypothetical. On the other hand, it's really immaterial: that's not what people did.

[vulture]

If our army had been waiting in the north with enough galleys, then I suspect we'd have invaded GoW to trash their cities and try to cut a deal with ND where we let them overrun RP, while we took and kept GoW territory. That would have been my personal preference anyway. No idea whether ND would have gone for it, and I'm pretty sure Lego would have kept out of the RP-ND side of things and just gone up against us (probably by researching Navigation and gambling on whacking Estonia while our forces were on Bob).

I seemed to be the only one one our team paranoid about Lego's ability to invade from our east; everyone else seemed to thing that they wouldn't do it since they were a bunch of builders (Hah!) or that it was a gamble we had to take anyway (possibly true).

I still think our big mistake of the war (apart from letting GoW into the south at the start) was not keeping all our units in a huge stack. ND / GoW were able to make good use of the stack combat effect to wipe out stacks of knights on hills (4 attack vs 6 defence), which despite appearances ends up with fewer losses for the attacker than the defender. Any time they could bring a 2:1 advantage to bear (and with 9 moves on roads, it's not that hard), we suffered disproportionate losses and their relative advantage increased - magnified by GA production and cheap upgrading of course.

If the south hadn't fallen, RPs pike production would have kept up with losses and we could have fought everything to a standstill, which was the best we could have hoped for I think. Eventually ND / GoW would have to give it up as counterproductive (or find some good alternaive strategies, which they no doubt would have), and we'd get to keep about 1/3 of RPs territory in return for our help, which would have been enough to keep us competitive.

[Aggie]

Basically the above mentioned tactic consisted of us building a connecting stretch of road to hook up with the road netwrok of Gs in the south. By that time we had almost 40 riders in the area and were going to get ND to move the workers to the spot then we take them and rush build a road.

We were considering moving around 20 riders to the Hill outsider barcelona and the next turn we'd had Barcelnona, New Madrid and Socorro. This force then would have trapped the GS forces while other rider/ansars(30 or so) would have come in from the west to destoy them both in the south and Ne of Pamploma.

You can see the temptation, but the plan was rejected due to the double worker movement/work. As it was we settled for attacking the GS units we saw on the hills and near the SP to cover moving the workers to complete the road. This delayed the action a turn thus removing the element of surprise and allowing GS to destoy the key road 2E of Bacelona.

Aggie

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Well, from what I understand, GoW at the time was still assuming that the unit warp was of GS' entire army from their north to their south. The reality is that the only units warped were one Roleplay Horseman and a few catapults.

Yep, you fooled us.

But when we were talking about using the double worker tactic, you had already come clean about what had really happened.

It was towards the end of the war, when we knew GS/RP were retreating. It would of wiped out most of GS's army and probably got us a few cities as well.

I wont post what Trip said in our forum, but I think we correctly guessed he didnt think it was fair to use it against a team we had already beaten fairly.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by vulture
If our army had been waiting in the north with enough galleys, then I suspect we'd have invaded GoW to trash their cities and try to cut a deal with ND where we let them overrun RP, while we took and kept GoW territory. That would have been my personal preference anyway. No idea whether ND would have gone for it, and I'm pretty sure Lego would have kept out of the RP-ND side of things and just gone up against us (probably by researching Navigation and gambling on whacking Estonia while our forces were on Bob).

Now that...would of clearly broken our NAP

[Arrian]

That NAP was clearly a mistake. NYE rushed into it in chat (since you guys insisted on it before you would tell us your plans - hey, fair enough), and I think he knows that was a bad idea. We had a policy of no NAPs with Bobian civs - no favorites, let the chips fall where they may and we can jump in whenever we want.

This is why I was pushing for our troops to be already loaded on galleys, ready for invasion - so that when war broke out we could react relatively quickly. As it turned out, our reaction time was faster still, because we had advance warning of GoW/ND's plans.

I would have preferred if we had stayed officially neutral. Then we could have hit you from the north, and probably would have.

-Arrian

[vulture]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel

Now that...would of clearly broken our NAP

Not at all - we would just have been looking after them [your cities] for you for the rest of the game, in a spirit of mutual co-operation

[UnOrthOdOx]

I can't believe how much heartache that little NAP I insisted on has caused both sides.

I wouldn't do things any different now, though. At least not from the time I took over handling your diplomacy there. Some of the things before that I would have porbably changed, but oh well.

We needed that NAP, we didn't like the way you did your lux trade, frankly, especially how the 1-turn notice clause was kinda stuffed in after it was agreed...It was clear you wanted the ability to attack us if you wanted there. Shoulda known...can't blame me for trying.

[Arrian]

I would have personally objected to an outright invasion of GoW in violation of our NAP, by the way. Not that it matters, since it never happened and you guys think we broke the NAP anyway. :shrug:

NAPs, Schmaps. I don't bother with those in MPdemogames anymore. They're a waste of time & effort.

-Arrian

[vulture]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
We needed that NAP, we didn't like the way you did your lux trade, frankly, especially how the 1-turn notice clause was kinda stuffed in after it was agreed...It was clear you wanted the ability to attack us if you wanted there. Shoulda known...can't blame me for trying.

Our policy was not to sign NAPs. Having luxury trades be anything other than cancellable on demand was tantamount to a NAP - if they were written to be valid for 20 turns and then cancellable at any time after that (as per SP mechanics) then we would have felt ourselves to be unable to go to war until the lux trade expired. We didn't want to do that (and why should MP trades be 20 turns just because that is what the SP mechanics indicate). We took the same policy with anyone, because we wanted to give ourselves at least the option of getting involved in a war on Bob, and 20-turn lux deals would have prevented that. Of course we wanted to have the option of attacking you, if that is what the situation demanded. If lux deals were equivalent to 20 turn NAPs (for us, even if other teams viewed things differently) we probably would have been much more cautious about signing any lux deals at all.

Or such is my understanding anyway.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Yep, you fooled us.

No, unfortunately we did not. It was hoped that no one would even NOTICE the unit warp. Not only did you notice, but you assumed that the unit warp was worse than it was.

So I don't think we were fooling anyone.

The only thing we DID manage to keep under wraps for a very long time was just how truly miniscule of a gain we made by use of unit warp. The question is... was that really a secret WORTH keeping?

:shrug:

[Cort Haus]

We would have certainly noticed the double-worker move had it happened on our retreat. We spent hours planning that retreat - pillaging the road to the hill outside Barca, and you couldn't have touched us on the next turn. Our best move of the previous dozen possibly! If we'd been smacked up that turn then we would have known about the double-worker shuffle, alright.

We agreed the cease fire around the next turn, ISTR. Had you chased us down, we'd have got most of our Knights off that next turn, and the turn after, when you could have hit us, I think we'd have got all the pikes/MI/cats on the hill by Sirocco for a farewell show down, leaving a few loose units coming back from Toledo & Pamplona for easy pickings. I doubted you'd hit the stack, thinking you wouldn't want to risk losing even a few units in a war that was already over.


It all ended sweetly though, with all the units now home, retired and relaxing on the beaches of Stormia for an era ...

[Aggie]

I will say at the worker idea that we were not aware of Gs's retreat. But since the 20 Knight force had been defeated it was reasonable to assume that you were somewhat vulnerable. Thus the decision to finally push into full offensive mode.

Basically what we finally settled on was to destroy forces w of Barcelona first. Then fortify near where the SP ended up being to prevent anymore forces coming up.

Then there would have been 2 options either the other riders/ansars could attack through the Pamploma area or they could go south to push north with the other riders. Which it would have been was dependent entirely on what GS's response was to our move/attacks toward the SP. To be honest I was concerned that you all were planning to plop a settle near there and build a city.

Obviously the turn after the SP fell we were informed that you were retreating off Bob and it is bad form to shoot people who have fought so well in the back. After all we you still are a real power and we need to have a chance of good relations. Thus when we knew you were leaving we let you retreat in peace.

Aggie

[Cort Haus]

I was surprised you didn't stroll round Pamplona towards New Madrid. Perhaps our Knights between Alamo and Pamplona we deterring that, as they were deterring the attack on Pamplona.

We wanted to build up strength around that Saltpeter (not that we knew it was there - we just liked the hills) and build a city there, but ended up diverting forces to the Pamplona/Alamo stack, and we didn't have the right amount near Barca to be able to push the settler forward and found it.

Thing is, if we'd held back those forces in the SW for the 'Barcelona Barricade', Pamplona would have been taken sooner and the front line would have gone anyway. The feeling was that we had to try and defend Pamplona, and we didn't have enough to do anything else. We did, but they were coming south from the GoW landings (there were more troops than you saw in the north, btw ).

Despite damning myself for the atrociously stupid and incompetent move that lead to our final defeat at Pamplona, (for which my soul will burn for eternity), the facts remain that we could never, ever have defeated 3 civs with superior units and with us missing an essential resource and facing naval logistics requirements - to gain a permenant, viable ecomonic base on Bob.

[Arrian]

I still can't believe we don't have any saltpeter on Stormia. I mean, look at it!

Bah. We don't need no steeking Cavalry!

We better have coal and rubber, damnit.

-Arrian

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos

No, unfortunately we did not. It was hoped that no one would even NOTICE the unit warp. Not only did you notice, but you assumed that the unit warp was worse than it was.

So I don't think we were fooling anyone.

The only thing we DID manage to keep under wraps for a very long time was just how truly miniscule of a gain we made by use of unit warp. The question is... was that really a secret WORTH keeping?

:shrug:

Probably not ... it was an "exploit" that GoW thought so grave, that we were very close to using an "exploit" in return.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
We would have certainly noticed the double-worker move had it happened on our retreat. We spent hours planning that retreat - pillaging the road to the hill outside Barca, and you couldn't have touched us on the next turn. Our best move of the previous dozen possibly! If we'd been smacked up that turn then we would have known about the double-worker shuffle, alright.

I dont think we planned on keeping it secret.

In fact, we probably hoped GS would realise what happened. It was to show much GoW disliked GS/RP using the warping exploit, and that we were willing to fight fire with fire.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Arrian
I still can't believe we don't have any saltpeter on Stormia. I mean, look at it!

Bah. We don't need no steeking Cavalry!

We better have coal and rubber, damnit.

-Arrian

Well Trip claims he was able to remove all future resources from you island in retaliation for not welcoming Lux to your island.

[vmxa1]

Ok what the heck is the "warp" and double duty worker exploit.

I vaguely recall reading somthing about workers being able to road and still move in MP, not exactly sure how that works.

[notyoueither]

vmxa1,

The warp is putting units in a city and then gifting that city to another civ. The units in the city are then transported to the owner's capital. GS did do this to both send a couple of RP horse back to Pamplona when they were on a boat near on our coast and to lend some assistance with some cats that were left out for the horse to capture and take back with them. The horse were landed, then next turn they DoWed, captured the city, captured the cats and moved them into the city with the capturing horse. Peace with us and the city was then sent accepted. When we accepted the peace on our turn, the horse and the cats went immediately to Pamplona. I don't blame GoW (or ND) for being choked about it from the POV of now, after lengthy discussions of what are and are not exploits. At the time it was more in the spirit of 'you know, we could do this' with not a lot of thought about the implications.

Double worker duty would be if civ a moved the workers into a tile, using their movement, and then civ b comes along and 'captures' them upon which they can then have the workers build a road. If civ a moves before civ b in the order towards civ c, then those workers can have two turns of actions before civ c can react. Given how things had gone, if ND and GoW had done that, I really can't say that I would have criticised them for it.

[Hot_Enamel]

GS/RP warp...

Rp had 1/2 horsemen in Stormia
GS allowed RP to capture a number of GS catapults
GS gifted a Stormia city to RP.
RP moved the horsmen & catapults into the city, and gifted it back to GS
On RP's next turn, the Horsemen & Catapults were "warped" back to RP's capital, which was very close to ND's front line at the time.

Only RP/GS know how many catapults, and if it effected the war.



GOW's double duty workers.....

This would only work, because GoW follows ND in the turn order.
ND moves some workers to an unroaded tile.
On GoW's turn, we "captured" the workers, and roaded the tile.
Thus, the workers moved on ND's turn, and roaded on our turn.
This extra tile of road, would of allowed our Riders to move in and cause quite a bit of damage to GS.

So incensed was GoW that GS/RP used the "warp" exploit, that the worker double duty ....came close to getting the vote...but didnt pass.

[Hot_Enamel]

I am a slower typer than NYE

[vmxa1]

Ok, that would seem to be something the game rules should disallow, but I don't know if it would always be detected.

I can see where someone needs a list of house rules for these types of games.

[Arnelos]

A lot of these things became understood to be things we shouldn't do BECAUSE of the PTWDG. This game started roughly 1 month after PTW first came out, so the myriad number of multiplayer bugs and exploits (especially in PBEM games) were new and we'd even DISCUSSED the need for establishing house rules before the game started, largely because I don't think anyone really knew what that most of the exploits existed yet.

In the process of playing this game (and as exploits and bugs were found though normal PBEM play by players all over the place), I think we refined just what we thought was exploitive and what was not. For instance, it didn't take all that long until GS (in particular) became quite insistent that our alliance should not use the unit warp in the future and that it probably wasn't a good idea to use it the first time.

So in this respect, the game has been what it was supposed to be, a learning experience.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Arnelos

In the process of playing this game (and as exploits and bugs were found though normal PBEM play by players all over the place), I think we refined just what we thought was exploitive and what was not. For instance, it didn't take all that long until GS (in particular) became quite insistent that our alliance should not use the unit warp in the future and that it probably wasn't a good idea to use it the first time.

So in this respect, the game has been what it was supposed to be, a learning experience.

Certainly had GS/RP made this comment publically, I doubt GoW would of been so pissed.

The only comment from GS, was that "It is possible to warp units in SP, so why shouldnt we be allowed to do it in MP".

[DeepO]

What I always thought was strange about the unit-warping, was that GS organized a unit-warp for Vox, and nobody complained. That warp was much more involved, warping all their remaining forces and 5-6 settlers IIRC, but it wasn't seen as an exploit to anyone. After all, the only reasonable alternative was for them to rush some galleys, disband half their forces, and only get 2-3 settlers with them, instead of everything we let them have.

Don't forget the cat-warp was only a couple of turns after we gave Vox the plan to do their warping. Those cats were retreating from the Vox front, and just passed that city when we thought of it. IIRC, I was largely responsible for the cat-gift idea, and there was no discussion whatsoever on the exploit-level of the cat-warp... we simply didn't consider that anyone would mind.

And as I'm commenting on the war, let me state what I think was the main reason why GS did so poorly in this war: our team was totally burnt out, there was no leadership during the war. While others poured all their energy in planning the war, we were messing about, doing turn-to-turn orders. Nearly all the mistakes we made (Toledo-2, the 'worker'-settler group disaster, focusssing on Alamo at the wrong time, etc.) came from people playing the turn because otherwise we would have gone too much over the 24h period, while those who handled it previously were not ready. In the first 10 turns of the war, we maybe had 5 players, none of which had clear orders what to do. It's only after Cort toke over, that we got our focus back, just in time to do a clean retreat...

There were a couple of other things that went wrong. For instance, we did had a long-term plan to invade GoW massively once the war was in full swing. But... due to burn-out of most members supporting it, it never went beyond the planning stage. It would have required leaving RP on their own for a while, with only the support we had given it in the first 5 turns (which were still a decent amount of units), rushing all of our production to the North. However, a large part of our gold was used somewhere in the middle of the plan to upgrade WCs to knights, and help RP immediately, instead of using that money to upgrade our invasion forces. So... about the time we now 'invaded' GoW, we only had that minimal force ready, instead of the massive force we initially planned for.

I think the war would have gone a lot differently if we kept our focus on that plan. RP would have been destroyed anyway, but the GoW core would have been gone as well, and most likely ND would have been damaged before the forces of the South, or Lego could have reacted. However, that's a lot of ifs, and given our activity not possible at all... this war came at a very bad timing for us, if it had been around the time the Vox war started, we would have done it a lot differently. Or perhaps if it happened now, it would be differently, with our new player dedicated to the job...

No, the one thing I learned is that you need a strong leadership, a strong player to play a demo game. I'm glad that Nathan (which did a superb task) got a worthy replacement with Cort Haus, I'm not so happy that in the time of the transition, we lost a war, and had to retreat our allies to former Vox territory.

DeepO

[Beta]

Originally posted by Aggie
Well the war is now over so I suggest in the spirit of cooperation and learning(which really is the goal of this game) we exchange reports and questions about the war. In this questions I suggest we reveal info to get info. Of course much is still classified and I don't want anybody to give away info, but much can still be said.

I'll start.
At the begining of the war I feared 1 thing and 1 thing only. A GS invasion of our east. Why no invasion? If there had been an invasion it could have upset our building schedule and could have forced us to commit less troops to the south.

Aggie

What war??




btw - great thread.

[Catt]

Great thread!

I haven't been back to this forum in some time. I represent one of the (no doubt) numerous non-players who for months regularly stopped by this forum to see how the game progressed. I'm confident that many posters and lurkers spent a lot of time reading through the public forum threads, even if not interested in playing (or able to devote the time to play).

In the thick of the Bobian war, public information slowed to a trickle and the public forum seemed to be largely dead. It was at that point that I asked GS, since I "know" many of them as posters, if I could have access to their private forum just to look back at how the start went and what the state of the game was at the present. They graciously allowed me in as a non-participant observer. Unfortunately, it was really hard to get a sense of the game from reading old threads, and particularly threads from only one viewpoint. I gave up trying to digest the mounds of information going back from the beginning.

A thread like this one is so valuable and interesting to non-players! Speaking for myself, I'd love to see similar AARs from even before the Bobian war. Understanding how each team's REXing and early approach to the game was formed and executed would be great, and the process of back-and-forth from different team perspectives (such as in this thread) gives a sense to the flow of the game that looking at one private forum can't. Keep it up

Catt

[WhiteBandit]

One interesting thing to note, I remember participating in some diplomatic discussions with GoW before the war broke out. Our first sense that something fishy was in the air was when MZ kept stonewalling us and stalling on trying to get a tech trade with RP. I believe we needed Chivalry and MZ kept coming up with all sorts of excuses.

It was at this point we knew something was up. We figured an attack was imminent and immediately setup plans to prepare. We figured we had anywhere from 5 - 10 turns before an attack began. (In reality it was somewhere around 12 turns before we were attacked).

Our entire civilization went into military building mode. However, this wouldn't make a difference. We had mostly peaceful intentions, so our army was never too large. Plus, we were in the middle of a full on REX of the southern part of the continent, so GoW basically caught us with our pants down. Our production never had a chance to produce what we needed.

The other factor that convinced us we were sure of GoW attacking us was looking at ND's strength relative to us. They went from something like being weak to us, to being strong to us in a matter of 5 turns. All the while, MZ was still putting up a smoke screen by saying how they were thinking of attacking ND soon.

Noble intentions, but the fact that it was obvious GoW was stonewalling us in regards to techs (as well as EVERY other civilization kept saying strange excuses), we knew a reaming was imminent and we could only prepare the best we could. We figured we had a chance against GoW. Once we saw NDs strength increase drastically though, the picture became clear and we knew our chances of survival were slim.

It was then we started negotions with GS in earnest.

How long were you guys planning the war against us for if I may ask? We had roughly a 12 turn heads-up which isn't too shabby in my opinion. But 12 turns doesn't makeup for 40 - 50 turns of planning or more.