The Council of War

[Modo44]

Originally posted by vishniac
Which one is the most dangerous 1) short-term 2) long-term ?

Short-term: Hive - they have units headed our way.

Long-term: Morgan, if allowed to recover and establish a tech lead.

Originally posted by vishniac
How many units to bring down which one?

We need only a small force now against Morgan. It will be a pain for them, since they have no effective defenses against amphibious harassing. But we need to ultimately crush them, meaning as many units as only possible in the long run.

The Hive front depends on how much they concentrate us, and how much on other factions. And if we only want to stall them (i.e. not taking bases), then we might do with an even smaller force.

Originally posted by vishniac
Can we hope to contain one with a diplomatic action?

The Hive, certainly, if we take bases.

In case of Morgan, we need to ask ourselves if we want peace at all. If they will not agree to a big lump-sum payment (fat chance ), I think we have little to gain here.



EDIT: How about continuing the diplomatic illusion? Does it have any chance of success? I posted this in the Morga-Sparta relations thread. Please answer there.

My first idea was just telling Morgan:

"Your stalling tactics in negotiations and your numerous transgressions against Sparta, have been recognized as a direct threat. We have deemed it necessary to use pro-active defeses and strike first. Enjoy." In other words, a simple "it is war" statement.

BUT, we might try this:

"Your insincerity and stalling tactics have lasted long enough. We have decided to take action to make absolutely sure you hear our words. Yes, it required a blow you would notice, and never forget. But we still hope our relations can return to normal.

Now you hopefully listen. We require you to:

• Immediately resume all per-turn payments you stopped without agreement.
• Give back the 50 ecs payment you took for the lost probe. A payment we never agreed to give.
• Full reparation for the Hunter. Meaning the rushing cost of a similar unit.
• Returning to Treaty status with us.
• A tribute of XX ecs to stop further Spartan military actions. Yes, pay or suffer.

We are still ready to talk about selling technology. However, and let this be clear, only for a lump-sum payment."

Even if they would not agree, we could make the impression of going for peace to some of their members. We can add something about being busy with Yang ad not wanting to keep a 2-front war going. And, in fact, we would be going after Yang, at least for a while. What do you guys think?

[Googlie]

What Now?

In 2162, we launch our airforce, with a fledgling strength of 2 missile needlejets.

Also that year, the GeneralTacticus will reach safehaven at Climactic Research, and the Njord and Vladimorei will link up for some serious tagteam foraging.

The SCC Iaci will complete sea trials, and will head south to link with the SCC Invincible whose crew is currently enjoying some R & R in UN Great Refuge

In 2163 the Heimdall will make contact with the Pegasus, and can take on her cargo of R-112, the 3rd Ogre and the podpopped Unity rover.

We need to develop our short-term and mid-term (and possible longer term) military strategy.

Choices are, (as I see them - there may be more, and they are not necessarily exclusive)

• pinprick aggravations of Morgan, such as naval shelling of coastal and 1-tile inland improvements like forests, farms and mines, and bombing of in-range opportunitic targets such as crawlers (especially upgraded ones), formers and anything else that moves
• a vigorous air campaign to seek and destroy Morgan ships at sea
• in conjunction with either one or both of the above, and after we get the CDF built, enter a phoney war stage for a handful of turns, and embark on a massive infrastructure build up - rec commons, creches, research hospitals and tree farms, and force a pop-boom on ourselves, then "gird our loins" for a major landwar once more
• a vigorous interdiction of Hive movement towards our 2 key southern bases of MT and 2NS, by deploying the noodles there and patrolling the fungus between our territories
• a concerted effort to rid our continent of the Hive by capturing/destroying Laborers' Throng and Hole of Aspiration
• longer term we could even lower the seabed at 47:31, making Great Collective into Great Atlantis - that'd need planning, though, and constant air cover to stop the seaformer(s) being shelled. But with our command of the seas it'd make us pretty immune from Yang
• A raid (with the Heimdall's cargo) on Yang's southern shores - we have no probe teams in the vicinity, so can't capture and hold bases, but how about capturing and gifting them to either the Uni or to Lal? Anything that weakens Yang strengthens us
• an outright invasion of Morgan - with the intent of capturing - and holding - the bases we get
• an outright offensive against Yang, either alone, or partnering with the Gaians and dividing the spoils. While they won't be too keen to see us get stronger, they need to do something dramatic to improve their standing in the game (maybe, for payment of much needed ec's, we soften up a base or 2 from the air and the Gaians enter from the ground with their wormy army)
• launch a massive probe offensive, infiltrating the Angels and the gaians - damn the torpedoes - and also on Morgan and Yang, using probes to assassinate researchers for example (don't let Morgan get to clean reactors by taking out his accumulated lab points, or yang get to air power)

Thoughts?

[Zeiter]

I propose:

1. We move against the 3 Yang footholds on our continent and secure the isthmus chokepoint near Great Collective. We can accomplish this by:

A. Bringing up the 3-unit task force sailing in the southern oceans right now.
B. Bringing our frontier forces in Minas Tirith out against Yang.
C. Providing air cover and easily empty bases with our air force.
D. Building two or three cheap crypteias to garrison the conquered Yang bases.

We could accomplish this with mostly existing hardware, only making a minimal investment with regards to the crypteias. Thus, we should be able to pursue this objective simultaneously with other actions.


2. We move against Morgan with the intention of gaining a permanent foothold in Morgania, and eventually securing the HGP and PEG. This would require:

A. Building up our Morgan-sector airforce (not counting our minimal Yang airforce contingent) to a fleet of, I'd reckon, at least 10 needlejets.
B. Building at least 4 crypteias.
C. Building at least 4 offensive ground units.
D. Building 2 Mercury-class transports.


3. Hunt for mind worms. We can divert one or two of our frontier rovers in Minas Tirith for this task.

I suggest an emphasis on crawler production, and a postponement of any extensive facility building until Morgan is vanquished and/or the situation drastically changes. The only facilities that I might consider building during this might would be recycling tanks.

When we get Int Int, our drone problems will be easily solved by cheap police units, so there's no need for Rec commons. Children's creches and pop booming can wait until after Morgan, when we will be able to tolerate a switch from fundy to demo.

As for terraforming, I suggest we generally try to build some boreholes. Otherwise, forests.

Infiltration of the others can wait until we have finished with Morgan.

All this time we should, of course, divert a few air units to patrol duty to guard against probe foils and such.

[Zeiter]

Theoretically, it looks like it would be possible to drive Yang from our continent by 2165. We could clear out the bases with our air force. We could also use our air force to block the isthmus crossing to Great Collective, which would help us hold those bases. We could rushbuild crypteias in each one, although I think Hole of Aspiration would be in less danger with regards to probes. A less ambitious proposal might be to first concentrate on capturing and securing Laborer's Throng. It seems that the only problem would still be probe defense.

Laborer's Throng would also give us a launching pad from which we could harass the Gaians a bit, if anything happens with them.

[Modo44]

I have said this a little while ago.

1. Send out a harrassing force to Morgania ASAP. Obviously this can now be accomplished by our Air Force.
2. Secure the chokepoint against Yang, by taking those two bases.
3. Conduct a massive sea invasion against Morgan. This time - taking bases.
4. Clobber Yang to the point of a truce, or even subjagation.

I think we should still consider Morgan a theat and therefore start clobbering him before a major infrastructure build up. After the first damage is done, we can consider again, whether some bases can start on infrastructure.

Good idea about draining Morgan and Hive lab points.

[Snoddasmannen]

Wow these are interesting times for sure! Well these my thoughts:

• We might as well use those noodles now. We should harass Morgania and inflict any damage that we can on them. They are still #1 threat to win this game by far. This can be accomplished with noodles from either west Sparta or east Arcadia.
• We should use a couple of noodles if necessary to grab the two Hive colonies on our continent and secure a choke-point. This is not critical, but certainly not bad. Gifting them to Zak sounds like a great idea too (I'd prefer not to give them to Lal since he can turn on us at any moment). We have units coming in from the south, like Zeiter indicates, which can do most of the grunt-work.
• Let's continue to bombard Morganian coast. But why shell units? They'll just be damaged right? We won't be able to destroy them, and a damaged crawlers crawls just as well as a healthy one. Better to focus on infrastructure like forests, mines, and lets not forget roads!
• We don't need all our noodles to be missile. We can get impact noodles for half the price (20 mins rather than 40). Those are still just as effective for blocking roads or defending land/sea units, and hey they can still take out almost anything we'd like to throw them at (like green morgan plasma units in bases). Fort Soup and OA would each be able to build an impact noodle every turn (23 and 18 production respectively)!
• A two transport attack on Morgania sounds wonderful. 4 probe teams/Crypeia sounds great. But gentlemen ... There's no reason for us to hold those special projects if Morgan is defeated. We will already have won the game.
• I don't think we should clobber Yang yet. He's very useful in subjugating the Gaians and acting as a buffer. First Morgan, then perhaps Yang.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen [*]We don't need all our noodles to be missile. We can get impact noodles for half the price (20 mins rather than 40). Those are still just as effective for blocking roads or defending land/sea units, and hey they can still take out almost anything we'd like to throw them at (like green morgan plasma units in bases). Fort Soup and OA would each be able to build an impact noodle every turn (23 and 18 production respectively)!

Sounds like a very good idea.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen [*]A two transport attack on Morgania sounds wonderful. 4 probe teams/Crypeia sounds great. But gentlemen ... There's no reason for us to hold those special projects if Morgan is defeated. We will already have won the game.

No reason not to use overkill, though. Might make it easier to convince others, that we have won.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen [*]I don't think we should clobber Yang yet. He's very useful in subjugating the Gaians and acting as a buffer. First Morgan, then perhaps Yang.[/list]

Here, I disagree. You see, by securing a choke point against the Hive, we will have offensive units free to be moved to other places. While attacking Yang looks like diverting from the main goal, it could quickly provide fresh units against Morgan - as soon as he is contained. I mean the units, that would otherwise be tied down keeping our long border safe.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Modo44
Here, I disagree. You see, by securing a choke point against the Hive, we will have offensive units free to be moved to other places. While attacking Yang looks like diverting from the main goal, it could quickly provide fresh units against Morgan - as soon as he is contained. I mean the units, that would otherwise be tied down keeping our long border safe.

Right, I completely agree Containing the Hive is a very good idea.

I misunderstood a previous post where you said:

4. Clobber Yang to the point of a truce, or even subjagation.

Reading that post now I assume you mean to do this after conquering Morgan, I mistook it to say that this was something you were suggesting as a plan right now. Attacking Yang now has been discussed before, I just wanted to reiterate my scepticism of this idea.

[Googlie]

Some comments on the comments:

• Naval Shelling and Air Bombing
  
  I didn't mean for the naval forces to take on ground units (rather, shelling of farms, mines etc) versus bombing (aircraft) of crawlers, formers, units-in-transit, etc
  
• Impact Aircraft
  
  Having a handful of 20-mineral impact noodles for air cover is brilliant (maybe even think of making some of them 30-mineral Impact Interceptors - they'll be used mostly for blocking land unit attacks on our forces, and with their 100% air superiority bonus will be able to form our fighter squadrons for some time to come - at least until fusion drives and chaos weapons)
  
  AU, FB and RG could certainly produce an Impact Bomber every 2 turns, while FS and OA (if we home the supercrawler to there and work the mine with it) could produce an Impact Bomber every turn, or two Impact Interceptors every 3 turns or a Missile bomber every 2 turns. By the start of MY 2166 we could have an air force (max) of the current two Missile noodles plus 14 Impact noodles - quite impressive in anyone's book!!
  
• Capturing Hive Bases
  
  We could always divert back the Disco Volante to do duty as a probe defence until we get a Crypteia up and running
  
  If we took Great Collective, we'd be subject to incessant arty attacks from Social Engineering Den (within 2 tile range) so we'd need to mount a concerted air attack on that base every so often to bleed it of Hive arty

[Zeiter]

Do the Morganites have the capability to produce AAA units yet? Does anyone have this capability?

We definitely need to focus on securing a foothold in Morgania as soon as possible. Right now we have limited range with our aircraft, but once we obtain a launching pad on that continent, we can bleed their whole continent dry. All we would really need to secure a foothold would be 1 transport with 2 crypteias, 1 missle rover, and 1 skanky's seleni. Air support could accomplish the rest. If we landed at Vander Eudaimonics, we could use air cover to block the roads leading to that base, preventing any counter-attacks and/or probe team operations, no? Then we would have our launching pad.

So, what forces do we have on hand, or when can we build the forces necessary for such an operation?

Also, once we unload Heimdall's cargo near Laborer's throng to join that theatre, we can sail Heimdall over to our western shores and use it in our Morgan operations.

Edit: With the Vander Eudaimonics operation, we wouldn't even need an offensive unit. We could accomplish it with a team of 3 crypteias and 1 skanky's seleni, I believe.

Specifically, what this operation would need would be 3 or 4 aircraft of varying strengths to take out base defenders in VE. We'd then need another 3 aircraft to block the passage between Morgan Vulcanology and VE. Then we'd need 3 more aircraft to be standing by to take the places of the previous 3 the next turn when the previous 3 aircraft blocking the passage to VE would have to re-fuel. And then we'd have our transport team.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Zeiter
Do the Morganites have the capability to produce AAA units yet? Does anyone have this capability?

No ... Nobody is close. You need Advanced Military Algorithms, and for that you need Adaptive Doctrine, which nobody has... I guess Yang could go research for it, but that would take him at least 15 years.

All we would really need to secure a foothold would be 1 transport with 2 crypteias, 1 missle rover, and 1 skanky's seleni.

Yeah, that could very well be enough to wreak some havoc. If we get 10 B-n noodles, we can use a couple of them to capture Vander, a couple to block the roads and park the rest in the base. The next turn, we will have all the options in the world to do damage

Maybe we should hurry a mercury class transport in Minas Tirith and rush it over there. We have a crypteia completed in Craterwest and we should be able to get some Skankies out there too.

We've talked about this kind of attack before, are we up for it?

[Zeiter]

I'm up for it. By Googlie's calculations, we could have an airforce of 2 B-6's and 14 B-4's. That would give us 2 B-6's and 8 B-4's that wouldn't be tied down with blocking the passage to VE. If we set sail with a mercury-class transport from Minas Tirith in 2163, we could arrive at VE by 2166.

As for what crew we could put together, don't we have the longstrider that was just returned to MT? And I believe we have 2 other crypteias there, do we not? And then we could throw in one of our frontier impact squads or something, or we could have that missle rover visiting the monolith hop on board as the transport sails by the crater coast.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Zeiter
As for what crew we could put together, don't we have the longstrider that was just returned to MT? And I believe we have 2 other crypteias there, do we not?

No - the returned Longstrider is now the sole probe defender at MT. there was another, but he is now en-route to defend at 2NS, while that one there boards the Hermes for shipping to Iaca

But let's think outside the box a little. Craterwest is 8 tiles from Vanderbase.

For 50 mins - 2 turns at OA, plus a handful of ec's - we can build a transport aircraft (range of 4 with fission power, and a cargo of 1 - and 6 and 2 with fusion upgrade) and ferry units over to Vanderbase after we take it.

So if we have that airtrannie sitting half way there when we bomb and invade the base, it can then land and drop off the Crypteia. 4 turns later it's back with another. A lot faster than with cruiser transports by sea (albeit our cruiser trannies can carry 4 at a time). But it is an alternative - and it can shuttle units such as formers between Vladivostok and Arcadia University (7 tiles), altho that's not so vital as both are seaports and cruiser transports would be more efficient - if they can be spared.

Talking of which (AU), we should plant a base in the forest west of AU (northwest of Argos), as technically it is neutral territory right now (as is the whole wasteland north of OA and V V, up to Cape Wrath, and east of Sparta Command as well as southwest of Fort Superiority - see map below)

[Modo44]

Having an air trannie or two seems like a good idea. It would fit in with the general air force build up.

But why do you call that neutral territory, and why should we put bses there? It is within Spartan borders. I can see how we could use the site near Arcadia University, but the other place is so barren, it would hardly do anything.

[Zeiter]

Regarding the air trannie idea, it sounds neat, but I don't know if it would be any better than just having a sea transport. As I understand it, we would be able to transport 1 unit per every 4 turns between Sector Craterwest and VE. But with a 7-movement sea transport we could transport 4 units per every 2 turns, could we not? And the sea transport is 1 min row cheaper. We'd just need to plan ahead a bit with the sea transport and move our units to the craterwest coast the turn before they get picked up. I just don't see the advantage right now of investing in an air transport.