Turn 2163

[Snowflake]

From buster

Turn done. Cycon took back DBTS with a probe including 4-5 of your units and then destroyed it and the road leading from it. We destroyed three units - two of which were drop sam - which they probably used to clear out of some airunits of yours to clear the way for their probe.

This means progress that way down is going to be hard as their nearest bases are well out of drop range and they now have some kind of airforce to hit at units sent that way while they are without cover.

Ama is still 10 turns or so off (need adaptive doctrine first) and to go after Cycon the direct way we either need that or huge amounts of units.

On looking it over I actually suggest to go through Angels territory and then hit Cycon from the south. We should keep a significant presence in Uni land so we keep up the pressure but I suggest you start making a couple of millitary ships down south they do not need armor and dont need high weapons either but should be on cruiser/destroyer chassis for speed (will be needed to take Angel sea bases) and a couple of transports (as we cannot drop into sea bases). I do not have an exact map of the area in case you cannot drop into any angel mainland city you should consider raising land.

If we have to send lots of units that way ferrying them all over will get too cumbersome.

We are now completing a bunch of Aerospace complexes and next turn will go back to choppers. Our main bases are able to output one per turn. We will be sending them down to assist the attack on angels.

On the Cycon for now I think you should just take any target of opportunity & keep an eye out but otherwise there is not much that can be done that will get anywhere quickly. Taking the Angels route will end up quicker and give you a bunch of new bases in the proces.

As a note you are by now most likely infiltrated by Cycon.

Looks like I didn't do a good job on DBTS. I thought that I have destroyed the roads. But I guess I didn't destroy enough roads. (And I think there was a former close that I should have destroyed also.) I think from now on I'm not going to touch any military units. I will leave the war aspect completely to Comrade Rubin.

[Voltaire]

The Drones seem in agreement with our plan to open a second Angel front. HongHu do not be hard on yourself, you did a good job, the CyCon are putting up a fight (in truth I’m glad they are since it makes things more interesting). I agree with Busters suggestions, we need to still keep up the pressure on the University front and maintain a presence there, the Drones can do the majority of the real work on that front, that way the CyCon will not be able to effectively mount any counter-invasion plans against us. Once we have the second front open they will be unable to defend both, if they defend one the other falls, and vice versa. Time is on our side, the CyCon are now looking to do as much damage as possible to us, make our victory cost us; what we need to do is decrease our potential losses.

[Rubin]

Comrade HongHu, I did review your orders during last year and I found that you had done exactly what Foreman buster asked us to do. In addition, I did not notice any unfortunate orders. You did, in fact, very good! Of course, the recent events present a minor setback for the Hive--this is, however, not because of your orders--rather, CyCon is putting up the best of their defenses and counter offensives. Finally, we were actually not fully prepared to advance further via former University territory. However, we did concur with the plans of Foreman buster. Now, we know what to expect and we shall be fully prepared next time we strike CyCon!

Well, Comrades, it is time for us to clarify a few issues.

Firstly, the Central Military Committee suggests that the Free Drones sustain a massive offensive threat near the CyCon west front. There is little reason in having the Free Drones redirecting their forces to our Data Angel offensive. CyCon should face a constant threat and massive forces near their western frontline. They've presumably spent considerable resources preventing the hivean foothold in their territory. The Free Drones should take advantage of the Free Drone superior numbers and not let the CyCon army rest! (This is a diplomatic issue and should not be a matter for the CMC.)

Secondly, we should now decide on the prospects of a Data Angel invasion. The Central Military Committe officially supports the invasion of Data Angel territory. However, Foreman buster's suggested limited naval approach is currently not supported by the Central military Committee. Fellow Comrades, please voice your oppinions on our strategy! There is still time to decide on a 'new' strategy!

The current plans are to mass drop units and Choppers for the Data Angel invasion. We should be able to launch the offensive very soon--in 1-3 years perhaps.

Our naval transport is heading for Bones Island and we have two units ready to airdrop onto the Island.

General fortification of our bases is slowly, but steadily, progressing and we currently rely on aerial reconnaissance for early warning defenses.

Comrade Rubin
Chairman of the Central Military Committee

(Edit: What is the status of the University?)

[Snowflake]

Comrade Rubin, I'm glad that you come back at the best time. My understanding is that Foreman buster's suggestion does not differ from CMC's strategy. (His suggestion regarding naval units are only needed for capturing the few DA sea bases.) I have discussed producing a drop colony pod in place of DBTS so that the Drones can maintain our presence in the PUT front. I hope you can pay the embassy a brief visit if you have time. Or I could copy everything back here if needed.

[Snowflake]

Kody suggested crippling CCs economy by destroying infrastructures.

Buster

This kind of stuff happens - it is no disaster. We could have been hit by a probe from a sea transport too.

The problem with going after the infrastructure is the distance. Planes are effectively out of range - except if you loose leg 2 making them suicide planes as they cannot get home and with only one hit there is not much there worth hitting that exceeds the value of the plane youre sacrificing.

What would be viable is sending out Kamikaze choppers as they can make multiple hits - choppers with impact (value4) weapons will do just fine and are cheaper to produce. It is worth doing to wipe out their crawlers and formers but the point is they don't have much (7 crawlers I believe). Still to keep them busy yes we should do that but it is not goiung to make much difference. They don't have much infrastructure of value anyway (no boreholes for instance). Infrastructure warfare is relevant if say your tech rate and economies are somewhat balanced and you want to tip the scale in your favor. This is not the case here - we do two techs in 5 turns they do one in 50. We don't need to worry about the long term, if we end up racing to transcend there is no question who will get there first. The problem is really how to get it ended in the not too distant future.

Going the direct route will be difficult for the following reasons:

A) we are fighting down a very narrow passage - meaning they can concentrate all their defense in one area and they now have 3 choppers and a plane (that will all be upgraded to gas I am sure) plus one more coming this turn.

B) whatever defender we stuff into the city will be no match for a gas plane/chopper until we get AMA (about 10 turns) and the city will almost certianly get quickly wiped. Cycon already went down the atrocity route by destroying the base - they can be expected to carry on like this.

c) we will then repeat - and it can go on for quite a while - even if we come with a much larger force getting a toe hold will be hard - especially now when Cabool stays in place. It is like attacking down through a narrow valley - it does not require a lot of defenders to hold you out just a few strong ones.

Going through the Angels is in my view much preferable for the following reasons:

a) we anyway have 10 turns kill until we get AMA

b) Cycon may go after them giving us that many more bases to take care of.

c) Once you enter the drop and chop age tha AI (especially a technically very inferior one) is a piece of cake. They are not programmed to defend against and will crumble = it will be quick (5-6 turns max I would reckon).

d) Once Hive has taken over the Angel bases we are very close to Cycon heartland (much closer than now) and from Angel bases many more Cycon bases are reachable.

e) It will force them to stretch out their forces to cover other places making the chance of an attack going the DBTS way succeeding that much higher.

In my view it is definately a safer and in the end probably faster solution. It means Cycon may now get 5-7 turns of relative calm but also that they crumble shortly after and be gone in probably 15 - not more than 20.

If the chance gives we can still create a new base and we should harrass them with cheap disposable choppers but I doubt we will be given such a chance so we meanwhile should simply work on making a wider front.

And taking the Angels is not a long drawn out diversion - it will be as easy as uni. We can suplly most of the choppers (can have 10 or so down there in three turns) you make the drop units to take the bases, plus ships and some probes and whatever else you wish - we go in three - current forces can stay where they are and keep Cycon on the defensive. If some chance offers itself we grab it - but if it doesn't we wil be knocking on their backdoor at the opposite end about 8 turns from now and this they will not be able to make into a war of attrition - scorched earth type of scenario. For that the front is just too wide and too close to home.

Meanwhile we keep them on the defensive with harasment choppers & maybe dropping bases closer or whatever - but the fasting way to get a real breaktrough where defenses just crumble is through Angels. They will have to wipe about half their bases to regain distance once we knock on their door that way.

Anyway I suggest you discuss it - but that is the way I would choose. Will give you a bit of extra target practice before the final showdown with Cycon too.

[Snowflake]

yoda at Drones forum:

We could build a drop colony pod, or Hive could, and put it where DBTS was. Or we could do a drop transport for carrying a regular colony pod. We could keep the drop transport in case we need to drop more colony pods later.

buster

That is a possibility - however to be viable it would need to be Hive doing it as they have instant aerospace complexes and covering the units meanwhile will be tricky. Additionally as it will be size 1 it will only require one succesful gas hit to wipe it. To avoid getting such a base instantly wiped will be very tricky before AMA and requires evaluating each turn what you may get by and how to get around it/take steps to prevent. One mistake and the base is gone. It is just too tricky to be worth the risk of more loosing tech through probing at this point in my opinion.

Going for Angel meanwhile is a plan much less prone to go wrong. It will give us a wide front with several built up cities to attack from and at the same time stops Cycon from bolstering their ranks by taking them on themselves. Additionally it will give the Hive a bunch of juicy fast growing bases.

Having entered the age of drop & chop the AI is such an easy target as this kind of warfare is just not part of how it thinks so slicing through will be no problem. Even without the map I dont think it should take more than 5-6 turns to take them out. And then we have several avenues from which we can hit Cycon. By then putting a new base where DBTS was is probably more viable as they will be forced to cover a much larger range of possible attack points.

me

We can do a drop colony pod I think. It will be size 3 because we have the PTS SP. And I suppose we could drop a few probes there to fense off the probe attacks. But I need to check how soon we could produce a colony pod. The larger bases are far from the location, and the near bases may not have good production capability. Also I'm not sure what we can do against gas planes.

We could still open the DA front while preparing the new DBTS base.

[Rubin]

Regarding the Free Drone issues:

The Central Military Committee is currently opposing intensifying hivean military activities near the former University territory. However, it is in our interest to aid the Free Drones. If the Free Drones need a new frontier base they are perfectly able to produce both the Drop Colony Pod, the Drop Transport and all the requested 'drop' defenders. These tactical units can be transferred to hivean control and the Hive shall set up this new frontier base.

The crucial point is the allocation of hivean resources and the Central Military Committee suggests we keep a strong focus on the strategy which we plan to pursue, e.g. invade the Data Angels. The Free Drones should have sufficient resources to continue their 'own' campaign near the CyCon western fronline.

Please note: he official stance of the Central Military Committee is open for re-evaluation!

---

Finally, what is the status of the University? Either they have surrendered to the combined forces of the Hive and the Free Drones or they have been eradicated. There are no alternatives! Which is it?

Comrade Rubin
Chairman of the Central Military Committee

[Snowflake]

They have just opened a thread in the public forum announcing that they will not surrender. So they will self destruct this following turn.

[Frankychan]

Finally, PUT is ka-put.

[Snowflake]

I'd appreciate orders for military productions from the CMC. Could Comrade Rubin produce a summary for our military units, like how many do we have now, and how many do we need in the future?

[jtsisyoda]

Originally posted by Rubin
If the Free Drones need a new frontier base they are perfectly able to produce both the Drop Colony Pod, the Drop Transport and all the requested 'drop' defenders. These tactical units can be transferred to hivean control and the Hive shall set up this new frontier base.

This is probably the best way to go if we decide to do it. But buster has a good point: until AMA, it will be hard to insure we keep the base versus their gas choppers.

[Snowflake]

I will try to do the turns tonight. Hopefully I can get some orders for base productions before I start to play.

[Rubin]

Comrade HongHu, the military production orders remain unchanged. We should be producing various aircraft (40%) and various airdrop troops (40%). The remaining production capacity is intended for specific infrastructure improvements.

Aircraft: We mainly require Red Apaches for the Data Angel invasion. However, we also still need more Yangbombers and Yangfighters.

Airdrop troops: Probe teams, garrisons and the odd fast attacker are requested.

Our forces are currently evenly distributed providing good defensive coverage. This also suggests that our production is under no particular stress and we do have time to form a decent strike force (two air divisions and two drop divisions for the invasion).

Of course, the Free Drones may wish to directly support our initiative by contributing to the size of our strike forces. Unless we suffer heavy casualties during the next few years the Free Drones can expect to have any supporting military unit returned.

Finally, our military production has been steady during recent years and we should keep the current priorities for at least a few years. Once Datajack Roze is dealt with our production may receive new priorities.

Comrade Rubin
Chairman of the Central Military Committee

[Snowflake]

Thank you Comrade Rubin. I'll do the turn right now. You can expect the half turn in about 1 hour.

[Snowflake]

Here's the unfinished turn with military units not moved. Please check if the military production is sufficient. If not you can change some non crucial base productions to military.

Another thing to note: Sunspot activity in the next 20 turns. Would it impact anything such as infiltration info for DAs?