Team SABER

[Empiremaker]

Hmm.

Do you think that Saber would vote for us in the UN, in order to prevent The Council from winning?

EDIT:
Given the right preconditions, that is.

Only if they cannot win. But if we invade them, they probably won't want us to win either.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just received from Saber, along with Turn 265

Team FREE,

The final countdown has begun! The Council completed researching Space Flight. That might be a hint of what they are trying to do. We expect them to launch their Space Ship with the next ten turns, which gives a really nice number for a countdown, don't you think? They do need only two more techs! As you probably know, there is a small island a wee bit off your home continent that supplies them with rubber, which is ONE of the resources needed to build this darn Space Ship (and nice military units of course). Denying them this source of rubber should be in the interest of EVERYBODY (except The Council of course).

Feel FREE to help FREEing the world of the threat of an upcoming Spaceship launch by The Council!!

End of submission!
Calis as the voice of
Team SABER

 

[CommandoBob]

How do they know this? And how can we verify it?

 

[Empiremaker]

How do they know this? And how can we verify it?

Ask the Council for Space Flight, with the following reasoning: If SABER sees us get Space Flight, they may get nervous and not have a well-planned invasion. Plus we confirm if The Council has Space Flight.

 

[CommandoBob]

Received from Saber while we held Turn 265 (but not seen until the Turn was played).

Team FREE,

Our great - yet a bit slow - investigator just recognized that the situation is even more dicey than we first thought:

The three SS parts that can be built after researching Super Conductors and Satellites do not even need rubber. That means, if The Council is going to complete Apollo next turn (which is rather likely), they can start the builds of the part(s) that need rubber and after that it doesn't matter, if they still have rubber available, or not.

In conclusion - as we see the situation - immediate action is in demand...

As such action, we suggest immediate carpet bombing of Council's core with all available aircraft and preparing an assault on their homeland ASAP as Saber is currently doing.

Calis as the voice of
Team SABER

 

[CommandoBob]

My last letters to Saber were all about our grand invasion of The Council. I don't think they will believe anything I say.

My mental letter to Saber in response what we received before the turn had these main points (but not in this order):

1. Indifference to The Council's possible win.
   • Even if Free didn't win, The Council did, and we've been friends with them a long time. We could live with that.
   • The game would be over and done with. (Free at last!)
   • Saber didn't win.
2. Rubber is needed to build only one piece of the spaceship, the Exterior Casing.
   • Invade the Old Gong Isle if you want, we don't care.
3. Prove what you say.
   • Words aren't good enough.
   • Show us what you know if you want us to really attack The Council.

With their second letter I was planning to add:

1. We moved our ships between The Council and Saber towards the ends of the Saber-Council sae.
2. We cannot inform The Council on what we do not see.

Those were my thoughts on a reply.

I was hoping to get Saber to capture The Old Gong Isle and then invade Gong, so that we could build the UN. We would need to move Babe or gift them another city, so the plan wasn't fully completed. However, if Saber is bombing The Council as they say, they might invade. They have the Armies and transports to do it. And that works in our favor also.

 

[Empiremaker]

We've never been timely with out letters, so we can stall until we are ready to invade them. When we launch our fleet, we can show them were ready to invade (with a cropped screenshot). Hopefully they'll send troops, making our landing easier.

 

[CommandoBob]

PM I received from Marsden of Saber, sent yesterday, April 27, 2009 at 8.09 pm. Or maybe that is when I opened it. Anyway, that is the timestamp on the message.

Hi, Art.

Are you guys still in this or what? I'd like to win, are you satisfied with Council winning? Or do you have a plan, I hope.


Just checking in, my best to Mrs. bob.

 

[Empiremaker]

Could the invasion be launched this turn? If so, tell them we're sending a fleet, and show the screens to prove it. We just won't tell them the fleet's true destination.

 

[CommandoBob]

I have received two Notifications from Cyc of Saber regarding our intentions. Unfortunately, I cannot find the messages to post them here.

Notifications are a new feature. I'm sure I'll find the messages in due time, but I wanted it in the record that we have had some contact with Saber before I opened their latest email.

The last communication with Cyc occurred as I was about to leave town.

 

[CommandoBob]

Received from Saber with Turn 267.

Dear Team Worry-FREE ,

It has been about 30 turns since Saber first started ranting about the dangers of a Council space launch. For reasons of your own, you opted not only not to help Saber prevent it, but you actively aided Council. You gave them war happiness to keep their luxury spending down; you gave them a source of rubber that Saber cannot take away; and you threatened Saber’s mainland so we could not commit all our troops to attacking Council. In return, you apparently gained a promise from Council that they would not launch/would not research Space Flight/would not do something before a certain date or occurrence so that up until now, Council has not researched nearly as quickly as they are capable of.

All that is water under the bridge. Council now has Space Flight and is less than 10 turns from launching. It must be obvious to you by now that you have no chance of reaching any victory condition before Council launches. It should also be obvious to you that Saber will not be able to delay the launch on our own. It is probably already too late to stop the launch even if FREE and Saber work together, but we would like at least to try.

We need effective communication and close cooperation to have any chance of preventing an easy Council victory, and yet you still fail even to acknowledge our letters. Please let us know how you plan to stop Council ASAP or at least let us know that you have given up and will not try so that Chamnix (and CommandoBob) can stop wasting time trying to play the save carefully.

Team Saber

 

[Empiremaker]

I guess the fundamental question is how close is The Council to launching. If we attack the council and eliminate their space potential, SABER can easily attack us, but if we attack SABER, the Council could launch or attack us. I think we need to attack SABER ASAP. Like launch next turn, and tell SABER were sending a fleet to the Council, but in reality send the fleet to SABER.

 

[CommandoBob]

Sent to Saber while we held Turn 269 but before we played the turn:

Dear Comrades in Orange,

Please forgive our tardiness in replying. I was out of town for a week and then had computer issues when trying to play Civ3, so Elephantium played in my place.

Regarding The Council
We are concerned about The Council sneaking off-planet, but we don't share your level of interest.

Granted, we (Free and Saber) have not a history of working together, so we don't exactly trust each other. We have dealt with The Council for many turns. We expect them to play to win, just as both of us are doing.

But unless you can provide us with some proofs (some things that we could verify on our own) I don't think that the people of Free are going to sanction Free invading The Council.

Things could change, however.

Sincerely yours,

Art Parry
aka CommandoBob
Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...

 

[CommandoBob]

Received from Saber while we held Turn 269.

Dear Team FREE,

I am sending you this note without my teammates having seen it first because you have the save, and every turn is crucial at this point. You can verify Council's tech path in game using two bits of information:

1. The cost for you to research a tech.
2. The cost for you to steal a tech.

For example, check your saves for turns 264 and 265. On turn 264 you will find that researching Space Flight would take you 9000 beakers. On turn 265, researching Space Flight would take approximately 7700 beakers. From this drop, you can tell that someone completed Space Flight on that turn.

On turn 264, an immediate steal of a tech from Council would cost us 1,674 gold. On turn 265, an immediate steal of a tech from Council would cost 1,698 gold. This increase means that Council picked up a tech on that turn. You can also check the cost of stealing a tech from Saber - it will not have changed from turn 264 to 265 proving that it was not Saber who completed Space Flight.

Team Saber does not have nuclear power or miniaturization, so we cannot directly test the beaker cost of The Laser or Robotics, but every time the cost to steal a tech from Council increased, it means they learned something, and it is not that hard to guess what they researched. It is absolutely certain that they have only to research Superconductor and Satellites before they can launch.

I am sending you this quick note in the interest of time, but if you need more details (for example, specifically which turns to look at) or a more thorough explanation of how to check costs, please let us know ASAP, and I or one of my teammates will be happy to provide it.

Of course Council is playing to win as are we all, but the difference is that while Saber and FREE are not close to winning, Council is about to reach a victory condition unless Team FREE develops some interest in stopping them immediately.

Chamnix
Self-Proclaimed Spokesman for Team Saber

 

[Elephantium]

Let's be direct, shall we?


------------------


Dear SABER:

We're concerned that, if we invade the Council as you wish, you'll turn around and invade us while we're doing your bidding. What assurances can you offer against that scenario?

 

[Empiremaker]

Let's be direct, shall we?


------------------


Dear SABER:

We're concerned that, if we invade the Council as you wish, you'll turn around and invade us while we're doing your bidding. What assurances can you offer against that scenario?

Why threaten them with anything? It would be better to show them screenshots of an an invasion fleet, tell SABER its going to The Council, and invade SABER and get domination before The Council launches.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just sent to Saber in while we still hold Turn 269.

Dear Comarades in Orange,

Thank you so much for your quick reply. That does give us a way to check on The Council's tech progress.

It had not occurred to me to use the price to steal techs as a way to gauge if a tech had been learned. I tend to use CivAssisst II for such things, but I haven't been able to open a save from this game since Turn 227/228. I emailed the mods back in March but have heard nothing in reply.

Sincerely yours,

Art Parry
aka CommandoBob

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing

 

[CommandoBob]

Received from Saber with Turn 271.

Dear Team FREE:

Here is a picture of our latest recon over Councilland so you can see which tiles have already been hit, and which ones you should aim for. As you can see, we have done some damage, but we haven't really been able to slow Council's research ability so far (check the cost of stealing this turn - Council now only needs 1 more tech ), but hopefully with the 2 of us working together, we will still be able to stop them in time.




Please let us know which tiles you hit so we don't waste recon missions over already destroyed terrain.

Thanks

Team Saber

The image is very revealing. It can be enlarged, also.

 

[CommandoBob]

Not sure what it is worth, but...

in the bottom left hand corner of the image Saber's ships are visible. An Aircraft Carrier is active, 4SW of The New Yard. 1N of the AC is a Cruiser?

 

[CommandoBob]

Proposed letter to send to Saber before we play Turn 271.

Remember, we need Saber to invade The Council and make The Council lose hope of winning before they (The Council) will vote for us in the UN, which we can rush with our SGL outside of Freedom Central.

Dear Comrades in Orange,

The Council's Space Ship victory appears imminent, but not yet a given. FREE is quietly pleased at their desire to sneak off planet and their ablility to get so close, but is not ready to concede the game to them at this point.

If Saber's calculations are correct, and only one tech is left, then we have a few turns that need to be spent wisely.

From what we have heard from The Council, the bombing is affecting War Weariness, which in turn will slow down their research. We suspect that they cannot learn a new tech in 4 turns, and even 5 turns will be very difficult. Not impossible, just difficult.

One key feature of the Space Ship is that it is built in the capital. Knowing where it will be built and when it will be built, we can kill it before it launches.

We will have ships and units heading towards The Chamber next turn. It will take them about four turns to get into place. We feel that if The Council does learn this last tech on that turn, they will build their space ship. Let them. We can capture their capital and destroy that rocket while it is still on the ground. If they do not learn it that turn, we just hang around, waiting until they do.

If we capture their capital too soon, the capital city just changes, and the new capital may be out of reach.

To do this we need two things from Saber. First, of course, is accurate information about when The Council learns this next tech. Second, the cities on their east coast need to be lightly garrisoned. The best way for that to happen is that Saber invades The Council.

We've expected an invasion the last two turns, somewhere around The Nursery. That city is very far from The Chamber. It is possible that you could capture their capital in only a few turns, but we don't see how. And The Council won't stop trying to win just because you invade. If anything, they will try harder.

While we don't want The Council to win, no one seems very supportive of a general war with them.

Sincerely yours,

Art Parry
aka CommandoBob

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...