Grasslands Gambit: Difference between revisions

* Sky Bunker Team: Fastest, Antea, Fastest's friends (3-5 people)

* Ground Bunker Team: Core DGP pvpers (3 - 5 people)

Additionally, a set of "primary targets" were established for each of the teams. These targets either had large stores of Gang Shi wealth, were transport points inside of the vault, or were a core component of Gang Shi's defensive infrastructure (such as auto-brewers or bulk pot storage). Quanton was also able to locate a significant design flaw in the vault - there were only 8 doors that allowed transit between rings, each pair of doors located on the vault's cardinal axis. The Ring's Team were informed that if these doors were CTRed, anyone from Gang Shi who logged into the vault would not be able to easily transit the rings or ground bunker.

The secondary targets were the ring and bunker walls along with traps inside of the rings along with portions of the floor. This was by far the most time consuming target. The tertiary targets were the trench doors / walls, sky-defenses, and exterior lodestones.

== First Strike on Black Mesa ==

On 8th December 2023, on the anniversary of the insiding of the [[Vault#The Crucible (Columbia)|Crucible]] on [[CivClassic 2.0|CivClassics]] and also a day after the anniversary of the [[Wikipedia:Attack on Pearl Harbor|attack on Pearl Harbor]], Icenia and Yoahtl launched an surprise attack on Black Mesa, Gang Shi's main pearl holding vault. A Reddit post was made, called "Pearled Harbor" (an allusion to the [[Pearled Harbor]] event in [[CivClassic 2.0]], which in turn was an allusion to the attack on Pearl Harbor), claiming that Icenian and Yoahtl fighters had disabled and ctr'd most of the vault with the help of an unnamed insider (later identified as Antea4204), before explaining the coalition's stated reasons for the attack.<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/CivMC/comments/18dkxm7/pearled_harbor/</ref>

=== Pre-Operation ===

Prior to the beginning of the operation, the Icenian Senate and Yoahtlan Council was briefed on the situation and existing plan. Following the briefing a vote to declare war and launch the operation was called in the Icenian Senate in which all Senators unanimously voted in favor. Following this, numerous Icenian and Yoahtlan military personal were briefed on the plan and brought into the Operation Discord. From there they were told components of the plan and were sent to Altepetl to prepare.

Icenian and Yoahtlan forces began to congregate in the operations discord around 6pm, EST and waited until the time of the attack, approximately 3am, EST. During this time, Gang Shi activity was closely scrutinized and assessed to see who would be on during the night and early morning. An extremely limited number of DGP people remained online to monitor activity, while the remainder checked Gang Shi discord and CivMC General for any activity. One by one, Gang Shi players went to bed, by 1:00am all but ComradeNick, a Gang Shi Council member had went to sleep. By 2am, Nick was still online however, speculations were beginning to arise in the Operation Discord as to whether Nick was botting, afk, or had "fallen asleep at his keyboard."

It was decided that a scout had to be sent to determine what, if anything Nick was doing. Jaydon was chosen to scout MtA, Nick's primary residence. Upon entering MtA, Jaydon was immediately messaged by Nick and struck up a conversation and was then able to verify Nick's location. With Jaydon distracting Nick with a lengthy discussion on newfriend housing, Quanton decided that it was now or never and gave the order to begin the operation. DGP forces interdicted Gang Shi's iceroad and began CTRing the road to Black Mesa. Initial fears of discovery diminished when Nick appeared none the wiser of the ongoing operation.

=== Destruction of Black Mesa ===

Due to Nick remaining online, a change in the initial plan had to be implemented as it was no longer tactically sound to log in 15+ fighters at the same time as Nick would have immediately known something was going on. Quanton implemented a strategy of a "Slow Trickle" to get fighters online. Every 15-30 minutes a new fighter would log in and then join the assault team. The fighters chosen to log in were chosen based on how suspicious it would look for them to be online. Core Icenians like Lagiacrus, Shadno, and Juniortide were told to wait as any of them being online would be suspicious. Antea then began adding the Assault Team to Gang Shi groups.

While the "Slow Trickle" tactic was ongoing, DGP forces spent approximately 45 minutes CTRing the route to Black Mesa. During this time, Antea, who was logged out at Black Mesa logged in and began destroying loot chests in the sky bunker and burning the loot.Following this, Antea CTRed portions of the Skybunker and ground bunker to better control the area.

When the bulk of the Assault Force reached Black Mesa, fighters rapidly spread out throughout the Vault eliminating primary targets and securing core transportation sites in the vault. In under 15 minutes the bulk of the doors and lodestones in the vault were under DGP control. During this time, the ground bunker was secured and loot stores were destroyed.

The second major hiccup of operation occurred when Antea attempted to destroy Gang Shi's auto-brewer; a waterfall from the broken brewer hit a patch of pots which in turn caused the entire chunk to crash. Several DGP fighters were simultaneously disconnected. The DGP collectively held their breath as they waited to see if Nick would notice the 4+ fighters all disconnecting at the same time. Fortunately for the DGP, no alarm was raised and the attack on Black Mesa could continue unimpeded.

Another hour or so passed and the DGP were able to CTR the vast majority of the rings. At this point DGP leadership decided it was time to send in everyone. It was assessed that Gang Shi fighters would soon begin waking up and logging in; secrecy was no longer critical and it was time to get as many people in the vault as possible. With the additional fighters, the DGP were able to CTR most of the sky limit sky defenses, inner trench wall, and floor of the vault.

DGP forces were beginning to break the bastion tree when Gang Shi - Axis leader, Chosentwicelol logged in and jumped into VC with Nick. At this point Antea received a message from Chosen and it became apparent that the word was out - the Assault Team had been detected. Given the level of damage to the vault, Quanton ordered a complete withdrawal. During the withdrawal, numerous DGP fighters were removed from Gang Shi groups but were able to safely return to Yoahtl due to the iceroad the team had secured earlier.

With all DGP fighters safely back in Yoahtl, Quanton posted "Pearled Harbor" to the CivMC subreddit beginning the Grasslands Gambit War.

==Continuation of the War==