Invasion plans for University/Lal Axis

[Modo44]

Personally, I'd secure Monitoring Station first. It's too valuable to leave it to probability.

[Snoddasmannen]

I also support accepting Zaks surrender if it appears. We will want to give a lot of those bases back to him anyway, and time is of the essence.

[Googlie]

We also need to check whether, after accepting Zak's surrender and then turning on Lal, Zak has grounds to abrogate his surrender and join with lal in fighting us (iw does a prior submissive status supercede a later one?)

[Snoddasmannen]

Another option is to bribe Lal to declare war on Zak. Then we'll have Zak all to ourselves. This was terribly expensive a while back, 500 ecs or something like that, but maybe they'll settle for Adaptive Economics now that Zak is so weak

Btw, programming-wise, I am not so sure they would keep track of at which time an alliance is made. I wouldn't think they really had a double-submissive in mind when designing the game. It should be subject to some neat testing.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
Another option is to bribe Lal to declare war on Zak. Then we'll have Zak all to ourselves. This was terribly expensive a while back, 500 ecs or something like that, but maybe they'll settle for Adaptive Economics now that Zak is so weak

Just ran a parallel turn to see what the diplo position would be.

If we ask him to attack Zak, and offer a tech, he'll give us the "He's done me no wrong " speech

If we instead ask him to "Name his price", he'll declare Vendetta on his pact bro' for 450 ec's

If Zak becomes submissive and then we enter Vendetta with Lal, Zak stays in a submissive pact with us

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Googlie
The intent of moving onto that particular tile was to avoid the possibility of losing one to a foray by the about-to-be-built Uni Impact squad. The base is linked by road thru the monolith to that sunny tile, and we'd be just above it, within striking range (albeit a rush attack with its final 1/3rd mp).

Are you sure about that? There doesn't seem to be a road on that river tile, and it costs full mp's to go from a road to a river tile or vice versa. It's only when you travel along the river that it gives you a movement bonus.

Anyway, I like their position since those who have infiltrated the Uni can't see all our forces

[Googlie]

You can see the road from the base screen, but not from the general map:

The yellow box is where Manaic was asking why I didn't go there (we're 1 tile to its northwest)

The solid yellow line is 2/3rds of a Uni move, with the attack being the third (coming from Otk-Obs)

[Googlie]

They could also attack with their next-turn-comp[leted impact infantryman from Mon Stat:

[Maniac]

Some replies to the messages of today and yesterday:

Originally posted by Googlie
And it looks like Zak is prepping for an attack on Argos (why else an impact Infantryman? - for that % bonus of infantry attacks base)

I'm glad he didn't decide to build impact rovers. Those would be much harder to defend against.

Originally posted by Googlie
Our plans were to take Otk-Obs, then move over the road to Climatic Research to secure that eastern shoreline (and deny infiltration/techsteal to Morgan - that's the longstrider's mission (currently in Argos) - he'll next steal the Uni's maps then garrison ClimRes against probe action

I'm afraid Climactic Research can't be captured, as it's only a size 2 base. It would be destroyed upon entering it.

(I say take the maps, 'cos in one of the parallel turns for AI diplomacy purposes we got the message form Zak "I have a very nice map of Morgan territory ..." and while I think I've been able to piece it together pretty accurately from their base screeies, it's always good to get confirmation)

Q: If Zak became our submissive ally, would we also get the maps he acquired from other factions (ie, the Morganite map if we're lucky)?

Originally posted by Googlie
The intent of moving onto that particular tile was to avoid the possibility of losing one to a foray by the about-to-be-built Uni Impact squad. The base is linked by road thru the monolith to that sunny tile, and we'd be just above it, within striking range (albeit a rush attack with its final 1/3rd mp).

Ah good thinking!

(The 2 units with Kel are Warwag - rehomed to Argos) and Chiron Knights (homed to MT) - 50% damaged after killing off the mindworm. In reserve - the second wave - are Castor Horsemen - homed to SC2 and Shinsengumi - homed to AU)

Thanks. This'll make it easier to update the Unit Inventory.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
I also support accepting Zaks surrender if it appears. We will want to give a lot of those bases back to him anyway, and time is of the essence.

This has been suggested before, but I really don't understand what's the advantage of doing that. Sure, Zak should be able to produce a few more labs than us. But on the other side, we lose the population, minerals, credits of the returned bases, along with all the territory and terraformations around it (and Arcadia is much better terraformed than our continent!).

So when comparing the advantages and disadvantages, I personally think it's much better to keep everything we've conquered.

[Kassiopeia]

Yeah, I concur that the real estate in Arcadia is second only to Central Hiveria, and acquiring as much of it as possible is a priority. But with the Gator situation possibly escalating, getting Arcadia over with ASAP is, IMHO even more important.

Hopefully we can make the decision about annexing or not annexing the University after we have determined whether the Morganites will back off without a show of force. (I assume they will have the pretext for vendetta once we destroy the probe foil? Or not?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I assume they will have the pretext for vendetta once we destroy the probe foil? Or not?

Destroying that probe foil would cause a Vendetta.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
Destroying that probe foil would cause a Vendetta.

Unless they're in our coastal waters and we take the second choice:

• Annihilate them
• Interrogate them and return them unharned
• Do nothing

But see my post elsewhere. In the absence of any information as to where that 'Gator is, making contingency plans is fine, but rattling sabres is a bit "overreacting", is it not?

Oh - and re the Uni bases - see my post in the 2154 thread re: the simulation runs and Zak turning over Monitoring Station to us

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44
How many bases will Zak have left, after we capture the 3 we plan to take now?

Here's an overview of the remaining University bases:



As you can see, the University has five bases left.

Monitoring Station (size 7) and Otkrietia-Discovery (size 4) can of course be captured without destroying them.

Then there are two size 2 bases and one size 1 base.

If we wanted to, Budushii Dvor could be captured the same way as we captured Koppernigk Observatory/Argos. First destroy all defenders, thereby reducing the base to size 1. It has sufficient nutrients accumulated to grow back to size 2 the year after. So then we could take over the empty base.

This is not the case however for Climactic Research and Mendelev College. Mendelev College is size 1 so would be destroyed no matter what. And Climactic Research has too little nutrients accumulated, so would too be destroyed.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Unless they're in our coastal waters and we take the second choice:

Problem is the sea borders of a land base only extend one tile into the sea. So it would have to be a real coincidence should the Gator be in exactly that one tile of sea territory we'll have in the north after founding Messena.

I wished Firaxis would have extended sea borders a bit further. Then you could set up a naval probe defence without having to declare vendetta.

[Googlie]

When we get more mineral-rich and build a seaformer or two, we should back up our Modo Doctrine by planting some sea sensor buoys for advance warning of incursions into our declared no-go zone (or have a couple of trawlers with deep radar installed working some ocean tiles)