Vox Public Announcement

[Beta]

Given the events of the last while, Vox Controli would like to make a statement to the world.

First to the nation of Gathering Storm. We publicly acknowledge our fault, and our treachery in starting this war. Devious methods were used at the start of the war to gain the advantage of surprise. We recognize fully the cost of the war to your nation - despite the fact that it was a rather one-sided event.

Therefore we officially and publicly apologize to Gathering Storm.

We also apologize for our recent attempts to sway world opinion, which although based on desperation and a faint hope, were nonetheless slanderous towards Gathering Storm.

We would also like to congratulate you on your military victory. It was brilliant from start to finish. I am afraid "Immortal Beloved" is destined to be a chapter in "The Worst Military Disasters of the Last 6000 Years" - thankfully a long time from being published.

To the other nations of the world - Vox thanks you for your support, in whatever form it has taken over the last number of turns.

Vox is defeated.

...........


On a personal note - I apologize for my role in the tone of the public conversations over the last few days. I do this for fun, as do we all, and although our intentions over the last week were strictly 'in-game', the personal nature of the democracy game itself makes that a difficult road to navigate.

So - as I believe I said in an earlier response, I bear no malice towards GS. I have the utmost respect for them and their members (especially after the butt kicking we just received). I am sorry that the tensions in the game have led to more ill will than was intended.

I wish them - and all the teams - the best of luck in this game.

Sincerely - Beta.

(and I bet when you first read the title of this thread - you said to yourself - "Ah no! Not another Vox public announcement!" Well, it may the last for a long time. )

[Theseus]

Thank you, Beta.

/me bows in respect.

[Harovan]

Despite our recent differences, a big thumbs up for this post. It witnesses fairness and sportsmanship. I accept your apology (for myself) and apologize for any form of sarcasm I might have shown towards you and your team in the period of our tensions. The members of our team will see this similar, I'm sure.

But there is a question left. What concrete consequences does Vox face? What means "defeat"? Surrender? Voxodus? Or what?

[Aeson]

Don't be so hard on your troops or your tacticians. Your tactics were brilliant in many regards, and the overall campaign was a very near thing to disaster for GS.

[alva]

/me shakes Beta's hand and offers to to join him for a beer, or two, hmm, ok three then, that's it though. What? onz vor de rood, owkey. Thatzs zit thou, the misssssesss is waitin'. ohh bugggeer it, zhe'z goonnnna be pizzed of anywayy, damn women, who needz thme anywayy héy.Let'zz ged pizzzedd. I love ya you khnow, you r lik a brodder to meee. olé olé olé we ar the champions....


anyway

[Shiber]

Beta,

Not only that I acknowledge your apology, but I greatly appreciate it. Sir Ralph couldn't have put it better, IMHO: it witnesses fairness and sportsmanship. I would also like to apologize for the harsh PM that I have rencently sent you - in the last few days, I have come to understand more about Vox Controli than ever since the beginning of the game (pity, though, that I needed to witness this unfortunate turn of events to realize all that).

However, I don't want this to be the last public announcement from Vox. Many were correct to point out that this game is intended primarily for fun - and I can testify that the war, while having its downfalls, was the most fun part of the game for me so far, both in-game (fun was not as much in seeing our troops succeed in combat as it was in planning their movements; oh boy, that was so much FUN) and out-game (the poems, the Grog jokes, the fake pictures, the al-Sahaf reports and so on).

Surely there is plenty more fun to be had in this game. I take it that we will have the island to our own soon, but only the Almighty Chicken in the Heavens knows when war might break out on Bob, or when we might be invaded by a fleet from abroad. But regardless, there are many challenges in builder/culture mode as well.
Vox will have a new neighbour (I take it that it shall be Lego Land), and I'm sure that you will have a lot to teach to each other. Vox can teach Lego about war with civilized enemies ( , but it's true, so far they only got to fight barbarians), and Lego can teach Vox the ancient lore of Geometry (which they have applied into the Pyramids ).

Beta,
I wish you will have as much fun out of this game in the future as I intend to have.

Best regards and wishes,
Shiber.

[ZargonX]

Lego can teach Vox the ancient lore of Geometry

Ancient lore? Hell, all Legomen are born with a knowledge of geometry! When you're shaped like a ****ing block, you just understand these things by nature

[Shiber]

I believe that the doctrine of social interlocking is also hereditary knowledge to the people born in Lego Land
Edit: sorry, I realized that I'm threadjacking Beta's thread

[Arrian]

This is about the last thing I ever expected.

Wow.

Beta, thank you for this. I'm stunned.

-Arrian

[Eli]

But there is a question left. What concrete consequences does Vox face? What means "defeat"? Surrender? Voxodus? Or what?

An official peace proposal was sent via the diplomatic channels.

[FrustratedPoet]

Beta:

[zeit]

Apology accepted, Beta.

I have sensed that you intended having fun when starting with the Voxian war report, and despite what has happened since then (and perhaps due to that, in a sense), I heartedly accept your apology.


On the brilliant manuever part- I wasn't here when this war started, but believe me when I say, that in certain, alot of talks about GS's "final stand" were made...

War is indeed a dirty and painful experience when fought between humans, and I'm glad this one is over (sorry to disappoint the StormHawks ).

[WhiteBandit]

This post nearly brings a tear to my eye. Very well written Beta.

Despite what I have myself have said, I still wish your team the best of luck.

Whatever happens, I still hope you and your members play an active role in the game (whether Vox remains around or not).

[Aidun]

Beta. It is good to see that peace has returned between Vox and GS and you and GS, maybe not ingame, but out-of-game-peace is more important than that, no, most important.

I think that GS will soon rule the Voxian Lands. Perhaps the Voxians want to participate in ruling their lands but then under another flag? Perhaps Beta, you can become GS's Minister of Desinformation?

Whatever the Voxians decide to do, good luck, and don't forget to let us know something of you from time to time.

Aidun

[notyoueither]

Thank you, Beta.

[GhengisFarb™]

Is Vox ceasing to exist?

[notyoueither]

A Voxodus is under discussion.

[Beta]

It is interesting how much better I slept last night than the few before it.

[ManicStarSeed]

/me hands Beta a flower


Mss,
StormeDove

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Beta
It is interesting how much better I slept last night than the few before it.

GhengisFarb glances at Beta's avatar.

Did you find a more comfortable tree?

[GodKing]

Glad to hear personal relations are working out so much better.

On a personal note - Not having seen much of the war, if there is an opportunity to show it all I know I would be appreciative (screen shots of critical actions as well as reports). I can understand that neither side may wish this information to come out at this time.

Speaking as a member of another team (in the most non-official way possible) I want to see you guys keep going after eachother. Come on, destroy that road network. Burn down those cities. Disband all those workers. Come on guys - War is Hell - go to it ( ) [just razzin ya all!!!] It would make the lives of all us other teams so much nicer with both of you out of it.... oh well.

Headless Ghost of GK

[Arrian]

@ GodKing. Yeah, I'm sure you'd like that.

As for screenies of the war...

Well, as a general, part of me would like to keep our troop strength and losses secret.

Additionally, up until the Inchon/Inchoff landings and the landing near & capturing of Elipolis, the war was actually kinda... boring. Not for us or Vox, but for an outside spectator.

Vox sent two main stacks of immortals into our territory. At first, we could not stop them. We just didn't have enough troops. Luckily for us, they didn't have our map, so they didn't quite know where to go.

In the east, we fortified swordsmen on moutains to block their advance while we produced more pikes - some of which eventually replaced/reinforced our swords (which ere upgraded to med infs). In the west, we holed up in a hill city with walls (Arashi) and stuck everything we had in there.

Vox might have done better if they would have just hit Arashi right away. We had virtually no army when they killed Grog and announced the war, and by the time their stack arrived at Arashi 9 (huge internal debate within GS on whether to try to hold A9 or retreat to teh city), we really didn't know if we could hold the city - we though we should, but a bad RNG run could easily have cost us the war right there. Instead, they didn't appear to be able to decide what to do, and marched past it, sticking to high ground. This threatened a second city, but also gave us time. Meanwhile, pikes & catapults were being produced like mad. On two occasions, Voxian forces came down out of the mountains. Both times our forces destroyed them... with light casualties. The second flatland battle resulted in the birth of Grog on Wheels (elite* WC) and the subsequent construction of Sun Tzu's.

Eventually, we had enough pikes to defend ourselves, and our cats began to wear down the Immortals. Finally, after a LOT of cat shots, we killed off the (then retreating) main stack, and turned our attention to the eastern group. This was the group destroyed recently - and mentioned in some detail (with screenies by Shiber) in the other public announcement thread.

The fact is that the final battles in our territory were mostly against 1hp units, after many turns of bombardment. Like I said, kinda boring.

The Inchon/Inchoff landings were orginally conceived while we were still working on the invasion stacks. I came up with a much more simple operation (just Inchon) that was then embellished by many other team members. The end result was a large landing force that ended up cutting Vox's main troop force off from their core, and also cutting their iron.

It was during this phase that Vox finally attacked a city of ours. And I must say that their Immortals did quite well. We took fairly heavy casualties defending Inchon, but we had brought a lot of pikes, so we held, and they couldn't really afford to lose the immortals they lost then and during our turn's counterattack. We also used our Lighthouse enhanced galleys to push on and grab Elipolis. If hostilities were to continue, I'm reasonably certain we could capture/destroy Vox's core in the next few turns.

There. A reasonable summation of the war, without an concrete troop numbers

-Arrian

[Eli]

we really didn't know if we could hold the city

[Arrian]

Oh, I assure you Eli, if you guys had hit it, it would have been ugly for both sides. Hills, walls, fortified pikes...

It would have been a meatgrinder.

-Arrian

[Dis]

I still demand the surrender of certain nations. You know who you are

[Dis]

I really didn't want the war in the first place. I knew the terrain just didn't support it. But we felt like we were enclosed on all sides, and had insufficient good land to do anything. Defensively I knew we were in good shape early on- when the threat of war loomed upon first contact with GS. The chariots couldn't do much in the rough terrain that early in the game. Later in the game I feared GS was too close to getting pikeman, and didn't like the prospects of an offensive war.

But I knew coming out of those mountains would be dangerous to say the least.

[GodKing]

Thanks Arrian. A good summery. Sounds like the "lession" learned is to attack in force, and be decisive - just don't move in and wait and see what happens. Even if the action wouldn't have been the best, any action would probably have been better than just waiting.

Are you sure you just wouldn't want to pillage all those roads and destroy all those cities? Come on, you know you want to do it

[Arrian]

We may want to move some of 'em, how's that?

GS had some advantages. Vox did indeed wait too long. That, perhaps even more than not attacking Arashi, may have been the big mistake. Once we got pikes, those immortals were gonna have trouble.

-Arrian

[GodKing]

Originally posted by Arrian
We may want to move some of 'em, how's that?

Well, I guess it is a start.

Again, thanks for the summery.

The headless ghost of GK

[Beta]

Arrian. great summary.

But I have to ask...

Three things:

1. How much sooner would we have had to attack to make a difference regarding feudalism. 6 turns? 12 turns? As it was - it was a near run thing in terms of timing.

2. How significant was it when we left the Immortal exposed on the plains earlier on - the victory that triggered your GA? Had we just forgotten about the warrior and stuck to the mountain chain- could we have denied you your GA and reached significant objectives earlier.

and ...

3. This one hurts. We may have made some tactical, or even strategic mistakes in this war, but I made a serious rookie error in leaving the tile north of Elipolis unconvered. There was a warrior and several spearmen nearby who could've done the job. We were also mass producing warriors to cover all the coastal tiles.

So the question is (and I'm not sure I want to hear the answer) if we had successfully blocked you from landing - and pulled all our pikes and Immortals and pults back to Elipolis (which is what we were doing - we actually had no intent to take Inchon), do you think we could have held North Estonia.

.... Beta