Grasslands Gambit: Difference between revisions
Added an essay on DGP's Preliminary Planning. Will hopefully continue edits.
(User:SneedBoy please provide evidence for this claim otherwise it will be reverted) |
(Added an essay on DGP's Preliminary Planning. Will hopefully continue edits.) |
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* Estalian seizure of Blacklight (GS Capital) and Black Mesa Vault.
| combatants_header = Combatants
| strength1 =
| strength2 =
| casualties1 = One player killed, not pearled<br/>One player pearled, later freed (as of 11th December 2023)
| casualties2 = * 3 vaults griefed
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| bullets = true
| {{Combatant||ChrisChrispie|}} (President)
| {{Combatant||Quanton_Biscuit|}} (Speaker of the Senate)
| {{Combatant||JuniorTide|}} (Lieutenant)
| {{Combatant||Lagiacrus}}
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== Background ==
Gang Shi had initially been dissolved in the [[SEC–Gang Shi War]] in April 2023, as part of a war between Gang Shi and the [[Security Enhancement Coalition]], including Icenia and Yoahtl. Following the end of the [[Butternut-SEC War]], in which Icenia and Yoahtl, still in the SEC, fought a failed war against [[Butternut County]] and fighters from Gang Shi, Gang Shi was reestablished (with the SEC dissolved). Subsequently, Icenia and Gang Shi were the subject of several incidents,<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/CivMC/comments/17u0xqo/gang_shis_drama_factory/</ref> including the TNT-bombing of unreinforced Icenian structures and the pearling & spiking of 2 Icenian senators. Meanwhile, Yoahtl and Gang Shi signed a non-aggression pact to ease post-war tensions and promote peace. But after a leak including plans to divide and conquer Yoahtl, Icenia and other nations (detailed extensively in the "[https://www.reddit.com/r/CivMC/comments/18dkxm7/pearled_harbor/ Pearled Harbor]" post on the CivMC subreddit), Yoahtl and Icenia decided to preemptively strike Black Mesa, Gang Shi's primary pearl holding vault.
== Preliminary Planning ==
=== Initial Plot ===
On the evening of November 29, 2023 a meeting was arranged between Fastestgrass and several Icenian and Yoahtlan officials where Fastestgrass stated that he intended to inside Gang Shi and damage the Black Mesa Vault as much as he possibly could. With the help of an insider, later revealed to be Antea4204, Fastest planned to add several of his friends to Black Mesa groups and then have them break as much of the vault as they could before being caught and pearled. Following the reveal of this information, the beginning of a significantly more detailed plan was drafted by Quanton_Biscuit, Gjum, Huskydog9988, and Shadno and a planning discord was created.
=== Information Gathering ===
After speaking with Fastest and determining exactly what Antea had access to, Quanton requested a censored download of the Gang Shi discord as it was determined that Antea was still an admin in the Gang Shi discord. The download was scrubbed for personal information by Antea and Fastest prior to giving it to Quanton and access to the download was never extended further. Following the completion of the war, the download was deleted.
Following this, Gjum and Husky requested Antea perform a JA List command for each Gang Shi snitch group they had access to (this provided exact snitch coordinates for every major Gang Shi snitch group). Using this information, Gjum was able to create a web map highlighting every snitch Gang Shi owned, which ones were dormant, and what groups they were on. Using this map, the DGP were able to create a map of Gang Shi's iceroad and bunker network.
While analyzing the Gang Shi discord, Quanton was able to find web maps of Butternut's iceroad network, a complete list of who was in Gang Shi's council, fighter counts, estimates on Gang Shi wealth and ongoing projects, client states under Gang Shi's rule, numerous descriptions of Gang Shi's server wide goals, strategy discussions on how they would fight a war with Icenia or Yoahtl, admissions to crimes committed in foreign nations, and huge amounts of incriminating evidence suggesting that they were planning a war with Icenia and possibly Yoahtl.
Another major breakthrough occurred when Antea and Fastest were able to secure a schematic of the Black Mesa Vault. Additionally, a webapp was created that allowed the DGP to determine active times for Gang Shi's citizenry.
=== Assault Plan ===
After gaining access to the Black Mesa schematic, Quanton examined the design and developed a detailed plan on how to assault the vault. A major obstacle that the team faced was that Antea only had "member" level access on bastion groups which prevented the assault team from placing anything inside of the vault, pearling, or removing the bastions. Due to this, a more complex plan was developed that would maximize attacker safety without the need to build structures within the vault. The plan included splitting the Assault team into three different groups:
* Skybunker Team: Fastest, Antea, Fastest's friends (3-5 people)
* Ground bunker Team: Core DGP pvpers (3 - 5 people)
* Rings Team: Less experienced DGP pvpers and support (9+ 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 autobrewers 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, skydefenses, and exterior lodestones.
=== Training ===
Following the creation of the Assault Plan, Drekamor was brought into the planning discord and created a private practice server which included the Black Mesa schematic. Following this, each of the team leaders, along with a limited number of trusted fighters began familiarizing themselves with the vault and practicing CTRing specific areas of the vault. Several members of the planning team including Drekamor located the optimal break locations for the Vault's bastion tree.
To assist with the plan, Gjum created a branch of Nexum (DGP's client mod) to include waypoints of lodestones, targets, and other useful utilities.
=== Subreddit Post ===
After analyzing the discord leak, Quanton began writing a subreddit post designed to justify the use of a first strike, expose Gang Shi's server wide intentions, cause a diplomatic / public relations crisis, and convince members of Gang Shi's client states to stay out of the war. The belief held by the Planning Team was that hitting Gang Shi on every front (including the subreddit) would both shock them and cause mass chaos, further reducing their ability to retaliate following the strike on Black Mesa. There was also a significant portion of the post intended to inform and convince the Elysian Pact to join the war on the DGP's behalf by highlighting the threat Gang Shi posed to Nara, one of the Elysian Pact's members.
=== Other Tactics ===
Gjum, Drekamor, and Husky developed a system where they could disable Gang Shi's snitch relay by adding a member to the snitch group and then spamming snitches via rapid movement. This tactic proved to be effective but also resulted in several player's game crashing so use was discontinued.
Since Antea was still an admin in the Gang Shi Discord, the DGP intended to have Antea delete all snitch relay channels in the discord, then ban all Gang Shi members once the attack group was discovered to further cause chaos and slow Gang Shi's response time. Additionally, there was some consideration given to deleting all channels in the Discord but this idea was abandoned as everyone in the planning team agreed that it would be a war crime and would be taking things too far. The discord related plan had to be abandoned when Gwua randomly demoted Antea a few days prior to the attack.
Shadno and Drekamor determined a way to add DGP members to groups and then hide them from the group admin, thus allowing limited DGP members to continue to be on groups even after the initial insiding incident was discovered.
=== Day Two Planning ===
Once the Black Mesa assault plan was complete and the subreddit post prepared, Quanton, Husky, Gjum, Drekamor, and Shadno developed a broader strategy for the war and created a list of "next day" targets. Due to most of the DGP fighters needing sleep and the likelihood of a Gang Shi counter attack, it was determined that a shaping operation was best and the primary targets would be iceroads and exposed bunkers as this would limit Gang Shi's ability to consolidate fighters and launch counter attacks. Once the targets were identified, specific commanders were chosen to lead team that would target each Gang Shi position.
=== Final Preparations ===
The final question that remained was how to get the Assault Team to Black Mesa. The entirety of Gang Shi was city bastioned so any tunnel the attacker's were to dig would have to be unreinforced thus presenting a massive safety issue. Quanton determined that it would be safer to dig from Yoahtl's capital, Altepetl into a Gang Shi iceroad, then CTR that iceroad all the way to Black Mesa. This would provide a secure retreat route for the Assault Team and would also disable a Gang Shi owned iceroad.
Final preparations were made and it was determined that the first strike would occur on a Thursday night / Friday morning as that was the lowest activity period for Gang Shi. Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, Icenians traveled a secret nether road from Icenia to Yoahtl to mask the fighter deployment. Additionally, all troop transfers were staggered as to not alert Gang Shi of the military buildup. Finally, a supply bunker was established in Altepetl and a pilot hole was dug to the border of Gang Shi.
==Course of the War==
=== First strike ===
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>
=== Attack on Florence ===
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