What is the Babes explanation for not wanting a peaceful means to enable their GA, then?
An excellent point and we should put that question to Whomper.
I should have said, "OK, so you're getting Monarchy from some other source or when should we expect the MW landing?"
Can peace deals be broken?
I have not read the rules but I don't think even the most dastardly among us would break a peace deal in this game. Some things need to be sacred.
[Edit: From the Rules thread - "Most importantly: allow breaking of in-game treaties. It's your reputation. The admins don't care what happens to it." So, if one team wants to backstab another they can certainly do that. Once.
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We do want some deal, I think, but not at the cost of commiting us to aggression, right?
I wasn't serious about attacking anyone at the end of my thread w/ Whomp. He made the suggestion (GS landings) just to see my reaction and I took the conversation up a notch to see his. Unfortunately I lost my IM connection, again, at that point and don't know if he ever saw that comment. It might be wise to build on his thought of our using GS's... maybe give him the impression that, although few in number, we have enough to make another team miserable. That is, once we discover if we have iron.
If they think we have GS's running about they will never land MW's on our shore.
Given our city density on the coasts it wouldn't be too difficult to simply deny the Babes the ability to land.
Prince, it's not that I think Babe is going to drop off 20 MW's to destroy us it's that at this point I think 2 or 4 swords dropped off anywhere on our lands could be a real pain in the butt.
Let me put it this way, if you could land 4 swords (or MW's) on our shores at this point, when your military advisor tells you that we're weak, would you do it?
Babe's upside: they could get just about anything out of us they wanted or wreck a couple of cities before we rushed and gathered enough archers to deal with the problem. The long lasting setback to us, at first thought, would not be small but also not unrecoverable.
Downside, at most you'll cause some havok and have earned yourself an enemy for the rest of the game. Albeit, a weak, culture crazed enemy.