Invasion plans for University/Lal Axis

[Maniac]

Sounds great.
A possible problem, do we have anything left we can trade to Zak, in order to make Lal speak to us?

[Googlie]

Just Doc Initiative. It was unclear from the discussion thread whether the concensus was to trade/sell that to Zak to see if he'd change to the MCC in time for us to capture it. I was leaning towards not giving it to him so that he'd complete the ME at University Base before we arrived.

In the 2148 turn, Lal will talk to us right after we talk to Zak, even if we refuse everything Zak offers.

In fact, he'll talk to us even before we talk to Zak. But somehow with the combination of events in the actual gameturn I couldn't get him to talk. Unless I did call him up, but wouldn't sell Morgan's commlink. He clams up therafter, refusing any trade at all. (I don't remember in the gameturn if I did call him, but am deducing that I must have, 'cos in every other circumstance, simulating, he responds to a call. But that would have been before Maniac saw the Morgan-Uni contact, so I would have refused the Morgan commlink in any event)

So let's see if we can finesse a simultaneous sale of each others' commlinks this next turn. If we can get Morgan to agree to 40 ec's (or even 30) and at the same time sell theirs to Lal for 20, it'll rank right up there with the Gaians' doubledeal of yore)

On a side note - we know that Zak has 2 Ogres roaming around. It'd be good to get a plasma sentry or 2 over to UB pretty soon after we take the base .............. plus ........... get those Elite rovers hunting them down (or a probe that can subvert them, maybe?)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Just Doc Initiative. It was unclear from the discussion thread whether the concensus was to trade/sell that to Zak to see if he'd change to the MCC in time for us to capture it. I was leaning towards not giving it to him so that he'd complete the ME at University Base before we arrived.

I agree with that.

Btw, just in case Lal wouldn't want to talk to us after all without trading with Zak, I was thinking we could perhaps contact Zak and offer him a small sum of credits. I guess that should count as a trade of sorts. Still have to test whether this could work though.

[Googlie]

I looked in the simulated run about repaying our loan and borrowing again. He has 179 and we owe 180, so I thought that he'd reloan us 1/2. Trouble is that we repay 180 and reborrow just 119 (1/3rd) so that's not so good!!

[Googlie]

Bad news (sort of) .....The uni are building up their defenses at University Base (there's a lurking, damaged mindworm)

[Googlie]

We're going to be hit with drone riots at UniHQ, as we'll have at least 2 if not 3 attacks on the base to take out a defender, and each atatck destroys a base facility. These will likely be, in order, rec commons, holotheater and then the creche

(And doesn't each attack reduce the pop by 1, or is that just for air attacks?)

We need to send doem Hol;ites over with the second wave (currently a rover and a Longstrider are being prepped for the reconstruction force.

We can build a Hoplite there, byt I'm thinking we need to produce more Hoplites and Crypteia in our Homeland bases (rather than crawlers for the moment)

[Snoddasmannen]

So how and when are we actually invading Arcadia? It was discussed earlier in this thread but I can't see if a clear conclusion was reached. Is it next turn or do we need to wait yet another turn to have time to deploy?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
(And doesn't each attack reduce the pop by 1, or is that just for air attacks?)

AFAIK a pop is lost when you:
a) capture a base
and
b) destroy the last unit in a base.
So 2 pops lost in every base we capture => University Base will have 5 population left. So if it would be necessary to prevent riots we could always make all workers technicians. Could cause starvation though.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
So how and when are we actually invading Arcadia? It was discussed earlier in this thread but I can't see if a clear conclusion was reached. Is it next turn or do we need to wait yet another turn to have time to deploy?

Next year!

[Googlie]

We attack next turn

Mercury moves 2 tiles east, (solid green, below) and unloads Shinsengumi to land (yellow) who attacks, killing off the synthmetal defender currently being built. Being Elite, it should still have another mp left, so will also then kill off the scout patrol.

Next, Chiron Knights will land and engage the syntharmored Impact squad, then with its remaining mp will take the base.

Mercury will then enter the base (dotted green line) and unload the remaining 2 units who will have all their mp's left.

Then that 3rd Impact rover will mosey down to Koppernigk Observatory (1 mp), take out the synthsentry there (2nd mp) and take the base with its 3rd mp

Mercury will then head back towards Vladivostok to collect the 2nd wave - and in fact will overnight rest at its current location (it'll have 7 mp's in 2151, its basic 5 plus the 2 from the MCC)

We should get some 50 ec's or so from the 2 bases (out of 6 that he has, with 216 energy reserves, a good chunk will find its way into Spartan koffers)

A still unresolved question is at what point do we call Zak to get him enslaved - or do we incorporate those - and the otehr 4 - bases into the Spartan Federation?

[Snoddasmannen]

Sounds great! Let's just hope that:

a) There are no formers or anything else blocking the road from UniBase to KopObs
b) None of Zaks probe teams are out on the move (he has a fair amount of cash...)
And we should also be aware of the mind worm hanging around university base.

I'm just curious, why didn't we upgrade Spartan Kel to a marine? He would have been very helpful in destroying the defences in UniBase.

And hey, should we call up KrysianKrusader? As I recall, he wanted to be notified when something exciting happened - well this is the most exciting thing yet

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
Sounds great! Let's just hope that:

a) There are no formers or anything else blocking the road from UniBase to KopObs

Hmm - good point - he does have a former homed to KopObs, as well as a colony pod rumbling about somewhere, clogging up the roads

b) None of Zaks probe teams are out on the move (he has a fair amount of cash...)

he doesn't have a single probe unit built - nor does Lal (so Arcadia is a probe-free zone)

And we should also be aware of the mind worm hanging around university base.

It looks like it's 70% to 80% damaged

I'm just curious, why didn't we upgrade Spartan Kel to a marine? He would have been very helpful in destroying the defences in UniBase.

Marine comes with Adaptive Doctrine, which we don't have yet

And hey, should we call up KrysianKrusader? As I recall, he wanted to be notified when something exciting happened - well this is the most exciting thing yet

I e-mailed him last turn to say the invasion fleet had sailed

[Maniac]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Googlie

Sounds like a plan! How will we call this whole operation btw? I was thinking about Operation Barbarossa, seeing Zak's Russian and the Spartans are sometimes depicted as fascists, but this may be a too sensitive name for some...

Mercury moves 2 tiles east, (solid green, below) and unloads Shinsengumi to land (yellow) who attacks, killing off the synthmetal defender currently being built. Being Elite, it should still have another mp left, so will also then kill off the scout patrol.

Next, Chiron Knights will land and engage the syntharmored Impact squad, then with its remaining mp will take the base.

Minor question: would the scout patrol (as weakest unit) not be attacked last, after the two synthmetal defenders? Not that this will have influence on the attack though I think.

Then that 3rd Impact rover will mosey down to Koppernigk Observatory (1 mp), take out the synthsentry there (2nd mp) and take the base with its 3rd mp

Problem here may be that the base is only size 2 (2 turns away from growing to size 3 right now IIRC), so will be destroyed.

We should get some 50 ec's or so from the 2 bases (out of 6 that he has, with 216 energy reserves, a good chunk will find its way into Spartan koffers)

Yeay! The UoP reserves are funding our war. (Or funding crawler upgrades for the CDF of course)

A still unresolved question is at what point do we call Zak to get him enslaved - or do we incorporate those - and the otehr 4 - bases into the Spartan Federation?

In the invasions I played with the simulator, Zak never surrendered. Let's hope it's different here.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
I'm just curious, why didn't we upgrade Spartan Kel to a marine? He would have been very helpful in destroying the defences in UniBase.

I guess you mean amphibious. That would cost 30 credits, while Kel already has an impact weapon. So little bang for the buck IMO. For that cash we can almost hurry us a brand new impact infantry.

It looks like it's 70% to 80% damaged

Indeed. So if necessary I guess Spartan kel could easily deal with it for some extra cash. (Which if I read correctly won't attack yet in Googlie's plan outlined above)

[Googlie]

In playing with the sim, it appears that after we physically move into the base it'll drop to size 6, and will lose the rec commons, holotheater, and rec tanks (ie will just be left with the HQ, Network node and the creche. 4 of the 6 pops will be drones, even after we land all our troops, so we'll need to convert a couple to specialists.

I don't think that there'll be much left by way of minerals for rehoming units - so perhyaps its first build should be a Hoplite to help in freeing the elite rovers to carrry on with the invasion

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
I don't think that there'll be much left by way of minerals for rehoming units

So, referring to the 2151 turn planning thread, does that mean you would opt not to burden our conquered lands with supporting our troops, and thus limit our rehoming to only two units (to make use of the two free support slots)?

Problem here may be that the base is only size 2 (2 turns away from growing to size 3 right now IIRC), so will be destroyed.

Thinking further about this, we could perhaps destroy the Koppernigk garrison, but not yet take the base. Destroying the garrison would reduce the base to size 1. As a consequence only two instead of three nutrient rows would have to be filled, and Koppernigk would have enough nuts accumulated to grow back to size 2 the year after. Thus we could capture Koppernigk MY 2152 without destroying it.

[Modo44]

Will the new bases be able to (re) build structures fast (less than 10 turns)? If yes, don't rehome our invading forces, so the new land can become productive faster. If no, by all means rehome the invading forces - it won't mean much over there, while giving us back some production at home.

Of course, this assumes that rehoming will be possible at all. Meaning, those bases have to be taken first.