The Council of War

[wuy3]

Good strategy, although I'm worried that they might really form 3v1 alliance vs us if we keep cycling wars. It'll be obvious the 2nd time around.

[Googlie]

Which really begs the question - and calls for a strategy discussion - as to whether we need to maintain 2 battlefleets and 2 standing armies - one in southern Arcadia to deal with the Angels and Gaians, and one in northwestern Laconia, for Morgan forays (and eventual Hive supression)

e.g. the Laconian Command task force would have 2 or 3 cruiser transports, adequate coastguard cutter (AAA defenders?) and each carry four amphiunits, with a probe team or two going along for the ride (although with the HSA their need would only be to counter enemy algorithmically-enhanced ones, and we'd see them getting produced).

Air support would be crucial as well, staging out of a westcoast airstrip (as we discussed 30 or so turns ago) or else from carrier decks

The intent would be to swiftly deal with any threat, or to project power in the event that they (Morgan) got stroppy with any actions we took (such as techstealing)

The Southern Arcadian Command would, ideally, be half as big again, given that it's focus might be twin-pronged at both the factions there

To build in the north - or redeploy - would take 6 - 10 turns, so we are not talking much action this century.

But if there is concensus that this is the way to go, then our infrastructure - and builds - would need to support this (as well as our research being geared towards the necessary weapons and armour)

It would really mark the beginning of the end-game, as there'd be no turning back once we embarked on invasion. Morgan second time around won't be such a pushover as were the Angels

And we need to infiltrate the Gaians - they are gaining in population (at least relative to the Angels and Morgan) but we are "flying blind" as regards them. maybe it's time to send 2 or 3 probes their way in a trannie, and risk their wrath if we happen to destroy a probe defender or two in the process

Thoughts?

[Modo44]

My thoughts for the moment, after taking a brief look at last year's save (some answering Googlie's post).


I think we need to prepare a big invasion agains Morgan, to go shortly after the one against Gaia.

I also think we simply must have two separate fighting forces. The Spartan territory is now too big to shift units effectively, except maybe for a part of our air force. The danger of overstretching our forces is our single greatest vulnerability at the moment. Meaning, we should take care of it as soon as possible.

It seems the Angels could only become dangerous if we stop patrolling southern Arcadia, so let us junst not do that, and we should be ok.

If we can, we really should infiltrate the Gaians. They are actually capable of popbooming, no? That could be dangerous, with Mindworms being a possibility to negate our technological advantage, at least in part.

I think Morgan would be very upset, having another war with us due to any action. The question is: Do we care? In other words: How big an advantage would Fusion be (i.e. can we capitalize on it quickly)?

Originally posted by wuy3
Good strategy, although I'm worried that they might really form 3v1 alliance vs us if we keep cycling wars. It'll be obvious the 2nd time around.

Well, let it become obvious, then. The thing is, they could have prevented our growth last time around, but now it will most probably be too late.

After what the Angels have done to themselves, effectively taking that faction out of the game, we do not need much more to be powerful enough to win a 3 vs 1 fight. I think this calls for a powerful strike against the Gaians, that should at least hurt them badly (again, not trying to completely wipe them out). They are in range for aircraft, so that gives us some kind of advantage. If we can bring them down in 2-3 turns, there would not be enough time for everyone to form an alliance... And a 2 vs 1 would be easy, methinks.

I would suggest, that we finish whatever basic structures can be done in small bases (maybe, finally, the Rec. Tanks ), and whatever advanced structures make sense and can be done quickly in large bases. Then, we should switch to 100% unit production, which means quite a large military growth on a per-turn basis. I mean, we have bases that are production monsters already, with some Boreholes still to come...

I know, war can put our long-term infrastructure development plans in jeopardy, as we might be forced to commit to even more unit-building than normally. But, again, it seems like to committing right now is the right thing to do.

[Maniac]

Once we get Fusion Power, I'm all in favour of executing a grand-scale invasion of everyone.

Now we don't have Fusion Power yet though, I'm kinda uncomfortable with building up our military, as it means it will all become obsolete only a few years after being built.

[Googlie]

And that's a very valid point.

With fusion, better weapon/armour units are cheaper (and speeder crawlers cost the same as infantry ones, but can range further afield)

But it costs a packet to upgrade fission units to fusion.

So maybe our older units (which will have higher battlefield morale) will suffice against the Angels/Gaians, with a handful of critical upgrades- letting us focus our industrial bases on producing fusion-powered units for the Morgan war

that would mean prepping those bases with the infrastructure - aerospaces, boreholes (genejack factories?) and oodles of crawlers for instabuilds

Maybe each base needs it's own mini-strategic plan, with step-by-step tactics spelled out for turnplayers to pursue

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
So maybe our older units (which will have higher battlefield morale)

Even that isn't true I think. All units we produce in bioenhancement centers immediately have elite morale. So our entire army, navy and air force already is obsolete. They'd probably be more useful by being scrapped to produce new higher moral fusion units.

[Modo44]

Which gives me an idea. We send a whole lot of units against the Gaians. Given that we do not have them infiltrated, we should assume that we will lose many units in an invasion anyway. We make it (at least partially) a suicide mission, set to end just before we get Fusion Power. And, of course, we will be prepared to rebuild units quickly once the tech is there, and unit count down (along with the Gaian score being down). Does this sound doable (i.e. is such close timing possible)?

On a general note, we have the capacity to accept losses, and our military is pretty powerful as it is. It's not like our units are useless, they are only obsolete, which is a huge difference!

[Googlie]

Maybe we sell some of our techs for obscene amounts of Morgan money and then upgrade with the proceeds - a sort of self-financing invasion?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Googlie
Maybe we sell some of our techs for obscene amounts of Morgan money and then upgrade with the proceeds - a sort of self-financing invasion?

Have we not tried a similar thing already? Do I remember correctly, that we failed to get the "obscene" part working?

[Googlie]

Well, the other thing we could do, as we approach Fusion, is to position 2 or 3 cruiser probes within range of some Morgan, Angels and Gaian bases, then pass the vote to rescue the fusion core, and then pilfer credits from all the other factions (leaving Zak his 500, of course, which we'll then extort from him - and also Yang, in the hope that he'll do some damage to Morgan with his credits

[Zeiter]

Hmmm, a Morgan invasion is personally what I would prefer next. They are, in my opinion, still the main threat. They have a great economy, fast tech research, great mineral production, and they will soon be pop-booming via golden ages. AND they are right next door. Instead, if we just had to deal with the two southern hemisphere powers, they would either have to go after southern Arcadia, or they would have to sail the treacherous waters all the way to our northern shores where all of our extremely productive cities are situated.

So this is what I propose: continued attacks on the Angels, barring a favorable truce deal, and a build up for a Morgan invasion shortly after we get fusion. I estimate for the Morgan invasion we would need:

10 F-9*2's (40 min rows)
10 B-12*2's (30 min rows)
3 Kaj Kaoos (6 min rows) - we can produce these before we get fusion)
2 8-1-12*2 copters (8 min rows?)
6 8-1-2*2 chaos rovers (18 min rows)
6 drop chaos squads (30 min rows?)
6 cheap 6-3-1*2 missle squads (18 min rows)

Total: 150 min rows

And even this may be going a little bit overboard. Nevertheless, right now we're producing something like 28 minrows/turn, + credits. Therefore, using all of our productive capacity, it would take us about 5 years to assemble this force. If we only used the northwestern half of our empire to produce this force, it would take just 10 years.

Once we have assembled such an army, it will be well-nigh invincible, I imagine, with its mostly elite morale and fusion reactors. Thus, we could promptly take this army against the Gaians or Angels after we finished with Morgan and just steamroll to the rest of the game.

[Googlie]

Competing, though, for scarce funds would be our garrisons - we need to upgrade the vulnerable ones to 3-res AAA police - and certainly go on an aerospace building/MM'ing program for those bases within drop range of Angels/Gaians/Morgan bases

[Modo44]

Yup, defensive measures have to be kept in mind. We own a big territory, which makes us vulnerable to targeted attacks. It would be nice to have standing defenses in addition to the present quick-response capabilities. The former is to prevent bases getting razed in 1-turn blitz attacks, which is a real threat now.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44
(maybe, finally, the Rec. Tanks )

Three recycling tanks give 3-3-3. One sky hydroponics labs gives some 15 nuts at the moment!

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
Competing, though, for scarce funds would be our garrisons - we need to upgrade the vulnerable ones to 3-res AAA police

Only elite units are worth upgrading though.