alt.WAR, Fixing War's problems by writing a new book Options

[Doc Chase]

Ok, so what would be possible reasons that make Atzlan go to war with Amazonia?

You can take the Epileptic Tree out of the setting, but still have them fighting a 'defensive' war by suckering Amazonia into making a sanctioned strike on their facilities. They want land, or telesma, or minerals in the Amazon Basin, but they can't just go and take them. They have to have justification.

There has to be something of enough worth in the Basin to commit trillions of nuyen in combined arms, training, and coordinated ritual magic to take it. Minerals are one. Telesma another. Fresh water a very possible third. The rainforest is powerful enough on its own to regrow at an amazing rate, enough to overgrow settlements. Ancient Mesoamerican power sites may have something to do with it.

That all being said, what do we think it is? I think it's a combination of all the three. The Basin has untapped power in it. Based off the Azzies ideology and their Path of the Sun, regaining the old power sites to make into teocalli may not be out of the realm of possibility.

[sabs]

Yeah, I get why Aztlan would want the basin.

But they have to want it bad enough to try and wipe out Amazonia, or at least large chunks of it, and to go up agaisnt A Great Dragon and his friends (There are 3 Dragons involved in Amazonia.. Though they might not all be Greats)

That's a serious War. And maybe that is AZT's final plan down the line. AZT is kind of a weird place, they're run by a pair of Corrupted Great Dragons, so who knows how crazy they're willing to get.

The question remains, why is Amazonia fighting a siege on a city that is
a) completely out of their comfort zone
b) along incredibly narrow, easily destroyed supply lines
c) of no strategic interest to them

Now, if you make Bogota the central military hub for AZT in the south, and they're doing combat missions into the heart of the Basin. I guess that's a bit better. I think I see it going like this:

Azt has major hunting/retreival operations going on out of Bogota. It's fairly safe for them. It's a major airport.
They hire Mercenaries and Big Game hunters to go into Amazonia and bring back magical lucre. Naga hides, Giant Spider poison sacs, what ever. They also do Dune like "lumber runs" where they have special LAVS. They fly in, clear a section of forest, and fly back out. They then turn around and use that wood for "Authentic Amazon Forest Furniture™" or some such crap.

The Amazonians are none too pleased, but they're facing a REAL war in Venezuela. With tanks, massive troop movements, etc. So they've got mostly guerrila and merc units that are based from forward camps in the Jungle. Rules of Engagement for the Mercs are seriously restricted from the Amazonian side.

The Amazonians are running small guerilla units into the mountains and trying to attack Bogota.

That could work...

[sabs]

Ancient Power Sites
Magical Ingredients and components for making Foci
Minerals

//warning delving into Earthdawn cross over crap//
Maybe the Amazon is a source of True Wood? and possibly True Water?
It's possible that deep inside the Basin are things AZT knows about that their Great Dragons want?

It's possible that the whole war is a power-play between the 5 Great Dragons involved in this thing?
The Horrors are coming back, perhaps theres resources in the Amazon Basin needed for 'something'

This all kind of fits into the Power-Sites idea, actually.

//end of Earthdawn Cross over crap//

[Doc Chase]

Aztlan has proved they can take down dragons. What if Amazonia's greats draw their power from the Basin?

Take the basin, take the dragons - take the country?

[sabs]

That's certainly acceptable motivation for Aztlan.

It's especially good if Amazonia doesn't know that's what's going on.

That still doesn't make Bogota worth anything, other than a place you want to cordon off if you're Amazonia.

[Doc Chase]

It would make sense to take it as a staging point, as you said. Use the airport to get heavy materiel into the Basin as forces push forward. You never want to put all your eggs in one basket, so take Bogota, launch from Maracaibo, and send the really heavy stuff into Caracas.

Given Amazonia's guerilla warfare tactics, it would make sense for them to infiltrate the city and do what they can to disrupt the Azzie resupply - which would create theatres in all those hotspots.

[sabs]

Yes, but Bogota looks more like an Israeli city. Constant threat of a terrorist attack, but not say a combat war zone. A Heavy AZT military presence, curfew, constant 'terrorist' attacks by Amazonian guerilla forces. Tons of Shadowrun work. You've got Mercs from the Amazonian side being hired to run operations against the Azt forces doing incursions into the Basin.

[sabs]

Caracas is managing to stay a Free City because of the Corporate Court? AZT has been warned that the Omega Order on them can be reinstated if they try and take Caracas?

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

That's certainly acceptable motivation for Aztlan.

It's especially good if Amazonia doesn't know that's what's going on.

That still doesn't make Bogota worth anything, other than a place you want to cordon off if you're Amazonia.

I don't know, that part of War!, at least how I read it, makes sense to me.
Bogotá and some 100 kilometers to the east and west along the Cordilleras are a free-demilitarized zone that neither Aztlan nor Amazonia might have forces in it.
After the cease-fire, Aztlan began regrouping for a major final strike to take control of the Amazonian Basin (for whatever reasons) when Yucatán and later on Ghostwalker happened. They decided to aircrop the forest with Sangre Del Diablo to prevent Amazonia of sending ground troops through the jungle (because that is the only truly low-profile way of sending guerrilla troops to a city on top of a mountain surrounded by jungle.
Aztlan is not fighting to take over Bogotá, I mean, not only for Bogotá. Bogotá is just the tip of the blade. A ressuply base for whatever they want in the Basin (telesma, power sites, minerals, water, whatever).
Anyway, how are we going to do this? Google docs?

[Doc Chase]

Caracas is managing to stay a Free City because of the Corporate Court? AZT has been warned that the Omega Order on them can be reinstated if they try and take Caracas?

Yes. Bogota, if I recall, had no such protection from the UN and the Court when Caracas became a Free City. They have a corporate presence there, obviously, but Aztlan itself cannot move in to take it over or it risks a second Operation Reciprocity.

When Ghost Cartels ran its course, AZT had the backing of the UN and Interpol and primarily targeted Rivieros and KondOrchid, who didn't have the power to resist a AAA-rated corp. This leaves Caracas ripe for a shadow war between the Amazonians and the Azzies, though by 2073 the UN may have been bought off enough that AZT can move in. If I remember right, S-K did that with Berlin.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Caracas is managing to stay a Free City because of the Corporate Court? AZT has been warned that the Omega Order on them can be reinstated if they try and take Caracas?

Possibly. Caracas is far away from Bogotá and whatever recognized borders of Aztlan anyway(although it would be a better ressuply stage for operations inside the Basin), at least with Bogotá, they can make a claim of disputed territory with Amazonia.

[sabs]

I only have Google Maps to look at, and I've never been to Bogota. That being said.
if Azt was going to throw man eating trees as a way to distract Amazonia. They would put them in the Amazon basin, some 60 km South East of Bogota, on the other side of the Andes. Really, It wasn't necessary. A couple of Garrisons with modern equipment could hold Bogota indefinitely from an Amazonian army. As long as said Army didn't have a Dragon. Troops with bad equipment and Paracritters do not fair well in Mountainous country. Especially when they're native to a jungle.

I think that Bogota is the Blade being slipped into the kidney, while Amazonia is busy dealing with the AZT army in Venezuela.

But everything else I think is falling into place. I think the Man Eating Trees need to get ignored (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) but that's just my 1 vote.

If Bogota is the only point of combat? AZT has already lost. You cannot bring in a conventional army through a treacherous mountain range and into a Rain Forest Swamp/Jungle of epic proportions and hope to get anywhere.

The only spot in South America to have a serious land war, is Venezuella. Brazil's impossible to hold against Jungle Native Paracritters that include Naga, Wyverns, and Shapeshifters of every ilk.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Well, Cali is mentioned as being attacked by Sirrurg and Cali is way southwest of Bogotá inside the DMZ. It makes sense for the war being fought through the whole Cordillera. Also, it is mentioned that when Aztlan declared war, their teocallis were performing some kind of ritual to prevent the regrowth of the jungle for a short period of time. I don't know, I think that somehow AZT was able to create a forward base inside the Basin and needs Bogotá to keep ressuplying it. Seriously, how the hell you want to make a book about a war and DO NOT put a map in it?
What you guys think?

[sabs]

That I like

There's a Forward base in ... Villavicencion maybe? Or perhaps Cumanbo.
That they are resupplying from Bogota.

The Amazonians are enganged in Guerilla warfare through out the mountains.

Maybe they suffer from the problem that their only air units are Wyverns and Condor Shifters?

Really? Cali?
That's practically in Peru.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Yes, Cali is one of the cities that belong inside the DMZ.
And Cali is nowhere near Peru. It is closer to Equador and even then, some 500km north of Equador. And while Vilavicencio would be a nice forward base. I really meant a FORWARD base, something like Miraflores, somewhere where the old colombian-brazilian border used to be, the book says that somehow AZT is moving towards Manaus. I don't think they are really trying to conquer the whole country, but perhaps getting close to the Dragons' lairs might force them to capitulate?

[Nath]

Whatever remains of Colombian and Venezuelian offshore oil reserves may also worth picking up the fight. Amazonian troops getting anywhere close to the shore would not be a good news for Aztechnology and Pemex.
Still, I wouldn't go for the purely economical reason. If there was something really significant, there would be more than just one corporation involved (yes, I know, War! involves Horizon on the Church and Amazonian side). Politically, losing Yucatan was a major loss of face for Aztlan. Nationalism alone can explain the urge to oppose Amazonia.

The cartels may have been stockpiling weapons over the years. No matter how much damage the 2071 strikes have made, Aztlan has to move in to prevent the cartels from establishing strongholds in the area, from which they could destabilize neighboring countries. Enrique Uribe of the Olaya cartel was clearly supporting a Colombian independence agenda, and the new head of the Andes cartel is an Amazonian senator.
Also, I can imagine Amazonia doing what Libya did in the 1980ies. You'd have a bunch of training camps run by in Amazonian controlled territories, run by Green War and Primeira Vaga, where terrorists from all over the world go, with little regards to what cause they actually defend. IRL, there are a bunch of IRA and ETA members in Colombia, who trained the FARC and supplied them with weapons. They moved to Venezuela later, with the blessing of the current government.

The actual reason for the war can be as simple a Aztlan and Aztechnology trying to use the momentum of the international crackdown on tempo to pacify the area, while it enjoys support from other megacorporations and governments. They believed Hualpa would not go to a full scale war to defend terrorists training camps and cartel operations, but they underestimated the influence Sirrurg had on the Amazonian military apparatus.

[hermit]

Yeah, Bogota is an odd place for the center of this war. If they were to push for Manaus, I'd expect Aztlan to land troops in Caracas, seize the place, probably using local warlords bribed into service to keep things calm, reassure all other megas they're not gonna take whatever they have away from them and then set up a staging area in and around Caracas (where, if I am not mistaken, the majority of fighting in Ghost cartels' finale took place), to push through the forest from there. Or, even more sensible, just make an amphibious landing in Manaus and seize/destroy the city, then reinforce and go for Metropole. Because really, how is Aztlan EVER going to secure the Basin when the entire damn Basin wants to fight them. It's like the Azzis are the corp guys from Avatar. They cannot possibly win there, they can only establish bases. They can take the cities, maybe (taking Metropole I imagine a total nightmare), but how will they conquer the rainforest, ever. In Aztlan's long history of ill-devised wars, this is the worst. But this is South America, home of the soccer war, so it does not break my suspense of disbelief.

I would like to help with this project. I've got some ideas for gear.

Welcome then! Shoot your ideas here, until I get that Forum done.

@River Basin: Amazonia is larger than that. It's absorbed a number of neighbouring countries.

As for motivations, the two countries have been hating each other on principle since Aztlan sourcebook. Amazonia strongly disapproves of Aztlan's industrial ways, Aztlan wants to expand, and the ancient forces behind both are VERY MUCH at odds anyway. Even if the Horror pact faction in Aztech is somewhat on the back bruner now, Amazonia is full of entities that violently hate anything touched on principle, and at least oen of it'S leaders - Sirrug - hates human civilisation on principle because the idea that a mundane, human built missile might just take him out makes him ANGRY.

They have enough motivations to trade blows. They had for some time. This was bound to happen. It really didn't need those trees. But maybe that's just a pretext anyway. We sure can explain it away like this.

As for the action ... I like what you dug out so far, but that seems rather ... immobile. A very, very bad start into a war of conquering for Aztlan. Maybe Aztlan wants to seize Manaus by sea? that would at least spice things up a bit.

[sabs]

I honestly think that Caracas needs to stay a free city. It's a better story.

AZT is fighting a 2 prong war.

1) they're fighting in Northen Venezuella a land war over the oil fields.
2) They have a forward base at Millaflores (Having looked at the map, that's an awesome idea Brazil
3) Bogota is used as a major airport/base to supply/reinforce Millaflores
4) They are involved in the Bogota area in a war against the Cartels (who have Amazonian support)

At the forward base they are involved with several operations
a) they are logging
b) they are collecting magical ingredients
c) they are branching out to find and destroy terrorist training camps that are deep in the Amazon jungle.

If you put the Northern Battle Line right around Route 5 and 13.. between say: Barinas and Calabozo.

You can have major Merc groups working out of Caracas.
IN Caracas you can have AZT/Amazonian Berlin like Cold War with Mercs and Shadowrunners caught in between.

And yes, it's a bad start for AZT. But that's assuming that actually land Grabbing the Amazon basin is actually the goal. If the goal is something completely different. Lets say they're looking for an Artifact of some kind, or they're hoping to draw Sirrug into a fight where they can kill him.

Lets say.. one of the Horror Corrupted Great Feathered Serpents is in Millaflores, in human form, disguised, with a cohort of Mages, and heavy armaments, just waiting for Sirrug to show up personally.

What the war is /about/ does not have to be anything related to what the war is officially about, or what most people think it's REALLY about. We can leave several hooks in for GMs to decide what's cool for them.

[Grinder]

Ancient Power Sites
Magical Ingredients and components for making Foci
Minerals

//warning delving into Earthdawn cross over crap//
Maybe the Amazon is a source of True Wood? and possibly True Water?
It's possible that deep inside the Basin are things AZT knows about that their Great Dragons want?

It's possible that the whole war is a power-play between the 5 Great Dragons involved in this thing?
The Horrors are coming back, perhaps theres resources in the Amazon Basin needed for 'something'

This all kind of fits into the Power-Sites idea, actually.

//end of Earthdawn Cross over crap//

Earthdawn tie-ins = (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

Why do we want to keep Bogota as a main hotspot of the book (and war - or vice versa)? If it doesn't make much sense for Atzlan to use the city as a base of operation in a war, let's drop it. We're not here to use War! as a starting ground, are we?

[sabs]

Mariacabos and Caracas make /much/ more sense as the main cities.

But Bogota has some possibilities.

Yeah, I love Earthdawn tie-ins too.. and I love it when there's 5 or 6 possible reasons for everything thats going on.

Idealy there's several layers of stuff going on

1) Great Dragons running AZT are doing shit to mess with Great Dragons running Amazonia
2) AZT is trying to get more resources/power for them
3) Amazonia is funding eco-terrorism
4) Ares and S&K are funding Mercenary groups to evaluate new toys.
5) True Wood coveted by AZT to work on cornering the Orichalchum market

[hermit]

I honestly think that Caracas needs to stay a free city. It's a better story.

It will, I thought. Aztlan will just use it ass a staging area. Of course, a couple people will panic anyway, but Aztlan has no need for a second omega order threat. But yes, following your ideas, Caracas could also become a mercenary staguing area, kind of a neural zone where everyone moves their guys through.

1) they're fighting in Northen Venezuella a land war over the oil fields.
2) They have a forward base at Millaflores (Having looked at the map, that's an awesome idea Brazil
3) Bogota is used as a major airport/base to supply/reinforce Millaflores
4) They are involved in the Bogota area in a war against the Cartels (who have Amazonian support)

At the forward base they are involved with several operations
a) they are logging
b) they are collecting magical ingredients
c) they are branching out to find and destroy terrorist training camps that are deep in the Amazon jungle.

If you put the Northern Battle Line right around Route 5 and 13.. between say: Barinas and Calabozo.

You can have major Merc groups working out of Caracas.
IN Caracas you can have AZT/Amazonian Berlin like Cold War with Mercs and Shadowrunners caught in between.

(...)

What the war is /about/ does not have to be anything related to what the war is officially about, or what most people think it's REALLY about. We can leave several hooks in for GMs to decide what's cool for them.

Sounds lik a good outset, yes. But we need a somewhat believable (I know, the soccer war; Venezuela-Colombia near-war recently over Chavez' ego, but still ...) official reason too. "THEY ARE PLANTING TREES! TO ARMS, MY NA'VI BROTHERS! FOR THE FOREST!" ... just don't cut it. Even Hitler staged a polish attack on a broadcasting station before Germany invaded Poland. The SpecOps team caught red handed might work, but ...

Earthdawn tie-ins = (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

Thirded. Also, we need to do something with the photosynthetic elves. I loathe how metavariants are invented and then put on a bus. They're a bit dorky but they have such a nice na'vi vibe. Wyvern/Lesser Roc riding Xapiri Tépé (adepts that are attuned to the animal and have animal empathy with the animal handling skills from RW). Sirrug's shock troops, also used in the mountain fighting. What you say?

Why do we want to keep Bogota as a main hotspot of the book (and war - or vice versa)? If it doesn't make much sense for Atzlan to use the city as a base of operation in a war, let's drop it. We're not here to use War! as a starting ground, are we?

Seconded. Besides, that way it's harder for the Temple to pursue legal action.

And yes, it's a bad start for AZT. But that's assuming that actually land Grabbing the Amazon basin is actually the goal. If the goal is something completely different. Lets say they're looking for an Artifact of some kind, or they're hoping to draw Sirrug into a fight where they can kill him.

Lets say.. one of the Horror Corrupted Great Feathered Serpents is in Millaflores, in human form, disguised, with a cohort of Mages, and heavy armaments, just waiting for Sirrug to show up personally.

Nice. Maybe they're looking for an abandoned city int eh rainforest? ED never made it to America to my knowledge, so we can go nuts there, and I vaguely remember an old, old adventure module that had a mage go into the deep amazon and come back changed from some ruins found there. Will have to look that up.

1) Great Dragons running AZT are doing shit to mess with Great Dragons running Amazonia
2) AZT is trying to get more resources/power for them
3) Amazonia is funding eco-terrorism
4) Ares and S&K are funding Mercenary groups to evaluate new toys.
5) True Wood coveted by AZT to work on cornering the Orichalchum market

1) Sorry, AZT is run by Horrors, not great dragons. It just has a bunch (cabal ...) of regular dragions, at least a couple of them tainted.
2) yep
3) News at 11, but 'war on terror' is a good pretext. AZT couild retrospectively 'discover' how Amazonia was sponsoring terrorists during the Yucatán war.
4) And to train their forces at jungle warfare. SK cooperating with the French Foreign Legion out of French Guyana. Amazonia is pissed and maybe makes threats to annex it. Proteus threatens to shut down Amazonian sea trade. The Corp Court has several long sessions to resolve this.
5) They make it into combat-oriented foci and ship them back to the troops. Or we pick up the "enchanting on the side" stuff from War - the AZT troopers are outfittingh themselves with True Wood based magical goodies to gain an edge in the forest. But I dunno, it seems the writer didn't quite know enchanting rules and rules for extended tests. Maybe the AZT army mages do this in R&R though.

[Kot]

Nice. Maybe they're looking for an abandoned city in the rainforest? ED never made it to America to my knowledge, so we can go nuts there, and I vaguely remember an old, old adventure module that had a mage go into the deep amazon and come back changed from some ruins found there. Will have to look that up.

Well, ED was just the beginning of the Age of Legends. I bet Thera expanded that far, judging by the lore mesoamerican cultures had, and their penchant for Death Magic.

And i'd second that 'corrupted dragons' metaplot line. All those Verjigorm victims had to go somewhere. And i bet only a few of them are awake by now. Maybe even just one. If we ignore the botched 2nd edition ED storyline, maybe Vestrivan is still there? That would also mean we have lost Vasdenjas somwhere during the downtime (Dunkelzahn took over his duties, now passed to Lofwyr), or he overslept. More than Icewing/Ghostwalker.

And going back to the topic, i can brew you some info on Polish warzones - i.e. the 'joint' TriCity corporate campaign vs. the toxic warlords of Mazury, Poland vs. Pomerian Awakened/pagan guerrillas west of TriCity, and the shadow war in TriCity, where power struggle slowly turns into mercenary/shadowrunner raids on opponents facilities and territories.

EDIT: What if Atzlan just wants to be sure the Skyhook will be in their territory?

[lokii]

Since some of you go on about how there are no maps and you have to draw one to get an overview of the situation has everybody seen this post? I made some maps that show the border region right before the war broke out, the at this time contested territory is also marked. The maps are not perfect but they should be able to bring everyone on the same map page. ^_^

If you include Asian hotspots you might want to consider going back to the Shadows of Asia maps. The Almanac revised the Asian geography. There appears to be no in game reason because none of these changes are commented on in the Almanac neither in the timeline nor in the geography part of the book. Most extreme example Henan has lost a third of it's territory to Sichuan and a small part to the Canton Confederation, but there is no mention of this in the Canton chapter. Also Shaanxi has lost a good chunk of its territory to Gansu of all places, but Gansu isn't even mentioned in the write-up on the country. They basically took a version of the Asian geography which sets most of the region back to the 2000 country and sub-national administrative borders. I think the reason for this - and there I can theoretically empathise - is that the SoA maps are not in Mercator projection and it's a real pain to include them in a Mercator map. Of course for my own world map I went through exactly that pain, so ... Anyway judging from the German translation of the Almanac which includes a massive errata that was approved by Catalyst the new Asian geography will stay. I will revise my own blank world maps (for example Mercator version: http://shadowhelix.de/Datei:Weltkarte_2072...nk_mercator.svg ) in the foreseeable future, but it could already be used as an alternative that features the SoA geography of Asia. I think I can relicense the maps if necessary but they would have to be used non-commercially a requirement that is set by the GADM dataset I based them on. I think that's a given though. Well, as I said you might want to consider using the state of SoA. I'm not saying that you cannot change things but since the changes remain completely unexplained and also going back to the 2000 borders seems the most unlikely thing to happen, well I think you catch my drift.

Maybe Aztlan wants to seize Manaus by sea? that would at least spice things up a bit.

Erm, Manaus is smack in the middle of northern Amazonia, you can reach it via the Amazon and the Rio Negro but it's a long way from the sea. Something like 500 km at the closest distance.

[sabs]

The problem with that Map from the lovely Germans.. It means that AZT and AMazonia are fighting a giant land war.. on a mountain range that's 9000 to 12000 Feet up. (3000 to 4000 meters)

Ask the NATO allies, fighting a land war in that kind of terrain sucks. And looking at the topography of Afghanistan vs That area.. Afghanistan is flatter, and at a lower altitude.

Why would AZT roll 'tanks' through High Mountain Passes. It's just.. crazy.

[lokii]

The problem with that Map from the lovely Germans.. It means that AZT and AMazonia are fighting a giant land war.. on a mountain range that's 9000 to 12000 Feet up. (3000 to 4000 meters)

Just so there is no misunderstanding the red area in the map is not a suggestion of a combat zone it is just what they have fought over in the small-scale border skirmishes in the past, the territory that is contested between Amazonia and Aztlan since 2050. It should pretty accurately reflect the area marked on the Shadowrun Anniversary and Almanac maps. And yes this is a giant area 20 year stand-off.

BTW: Tthe Aztlan Sourcebook is really instructive on this. We should think about quoting the section "Southern Border (Amazonia)" in full here. Some choice parts:

Along the southern border, the tactical situation is very different. The terrain is much more restrictive - rugged mountains and deep valleys, most of them blanketed with heavy forest.

Aztlan has tried to mark and secure the border by clearing forest and laying fences. However, because the magic that has so quickly reforested Amazonia causes the jungle to encroach on these cleared areas at an astonishing rate, Aztlan seems to have given up this practice.

Why would AZT roll 'tanks' through High Mountain Passes. It's just.. crazy.

Well if there are tanks in use around Bogotá in War! (I wouldn't know, I don't have it and I sure don't want to get it) this just shows how ill thought out this whole campaign is.

I actually see two major goals for an Aztlan campaign: going for Caracas or cutting off Amazonia from the Pacific Ocean by conquering the Cordillera Occidental range down to Ecuador (and that is assuming that Amazonia cares about direct access to the Pacific though Aztlan might still have other reasons for wanting it). I cannot imagine them descending on the Amazon basin. They would find themselves in territory that opens up to nothing but Amazonian rainforest, which itself is kinda the enemy. There is nothing to conquer for a long time (Manaus is 1000 km away), though of course one could invent some critical sites within the jungle but they would probably make more for hit-and-run targets than goals for occupation. And the whole slash-n-burn and deforestation strategy really bit the Azzies in the behind in the Yucatán War, so it would be crazy for them to try it on Amazonia (unless one invents some plot device why it works this time). So I in my assessment the best thing they can hope for on this front is dominating the mountain region to the point where they can freely raid the Amazon basin within a certain range and support some mobile resource gathering operations like logging or brute force mineral extraction.

EDIT: The Amazonian locus would make for a prime military target. As I understand it, its a key element in speeding the growth of the Amazonian rainforest. I don't think its location has ever been pinpointed but if it were located in northern Amazonia, well that is one target the Azzies would really die to hit.

This post has been edited by lokii: Dec 21 2010, 01:04 PM