The current target! (around MY 2194)

[Modo44]

The question is simple: Whom do we attack now?


My idea was to use a standard oscillating war to finish all human-controlled factions, then going for the Hive. This would mean the current target are the Gaians, a faction which has been growing dangerously lately...

Snoddasmannen proposed that we go ahead and kill the Angels for good, while we have the technological advantage (Fusion reactors).

And, of course, you could have your own ideas. In that case, please post them.

[Modo44]

My opinion remains unchanged. While we would certainly "take care" of the Angels, this would give the Gaians more turns to expand further, probably giving them a population lead. Which means all kinds of bad news, as pop is power (i.e. they could capitalize in a way they choose). So, I think we should leave the Angels be, weak as they are, and go after the really important target which is Gaia.

[Googlie]

I'm swayed by Modo's arguments, so I, too, support going against the Gaians now

One drawback is that we don't have infiltration, so don't really know how much of a threat they are right now, but one thing is sure - they are growing as fast (faster?) than we are, and it's not through conquest. If we wait ten or twenty turns then maybe they'll be too big a steak for us to chew on

First step should be infiltration

[Snoddasmannen]

Great initiative Modo!

In the spirit of a violent political debate I obviously stick to my previous choice of the Data Angels

But let's make a few things clear. I am not suggesting we leave the Gaians alove forever. They should be attacked very swiftly after dealing with the Angels, and I believe they can be. The only interesting question here is:

How much will an attack on the Angels delay an attack on the Gaians, and will it be worth it?

I believe both Modo and I agree on this question, only not on the answer to it.

If we play our cards right, we will not suffer too many casualties figthing against the hopelessly inferior Angel fission units. We can just pick up our units on transports and fly the noodles back to Southern Arcadia and attack the Gaians almost right away (save a few turns for repairs). So how much of a delay? What is the answer to the first part of my question? If the invasion takes 5 or 6 turns, and then say another 4 or 5 turns to reposition forces, that gives 10 turns.

The rewards of capturing Heaven is (obviously) more territory and bases for us. It also clears our back from opportunistic counter attacks on South Arcadia while we are attacking Gaia. Perhaps most importantly, we will have eliminated a worthy adversary from the game. I think it is worth it.

Modo is suggesting we attack the Gaians now. We will not be able to do this before they and the Morgans have fusion. We also do not know anything about the defense capabilities of Gaia. If we are unlucky, we will grind to a halt against a well defended Gaia (funded by Morgan credits), then turn back to Heaven finding stacks of fusion units waiting for us. Then we are in trouble. With my plan the worst that can happen is that we crush Heaven, then find Gaia too strong for us to attack right away. Fine, we now have much more land than them, we can out-build them. Eventually we will be able to take them out.

So my suggestion is: Take out Angels while trying to infiltrate the Gaians, then attack the Gaians as soon as we can. I think we can win the game with this strategy.

That said, attacking the Gaians right away will be fun too

[Modo44]

Let me make this short for you, Snoddasmannen:

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
So how much of a delay? What is the answer to the first part of my question? If the invasion takes 5 or 6 turns, and then say another 4 or 5 turns to reposition forces, that gives 10 turns.

Count another ten turns of popbooming for most of the Gaian bases. Really count it, and then tell me we can afford to wait.

If that is not enough, remind yourself what happens when one's territory grows, while enemies are crawling everywhere. Would you care to explain how we can safely keep the new bases on yet another, distant continent, and still have enough units to even think about attacking the Gaians?

Oh, I almost forgot this one. If we kill the Angels, there will be too few factions for us to effectively profit from the Planetary Datalinks. It will become much easier for the others to keep us out of the loop.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Modo44
Count another ten turns of popbooming for most of the Gaian bases. Really count it, and then tell me we can afford to wait.

Yes, this is my question paraphrased. It is an extremely difficult question! I welcome the opinion of the very experienced MP players on the team to answer this. I personally think we will be able to take them out after the Angels, but of course it will be more costly.

Taking the Angels out later will also be much costlier than right away.

If that is not enough, remind yourself what happens when one's territory grows, while enemies are crawling everywhere. Would you care to explain how we can safely keep the new bases on yet another, distant continent, and still have enough units to even think about attacking the Gaians?

So who will attack Heaven while we are attacking Gaia? Gaia?! Morgan? I certainly don't think either of those will. But you have a point in that Yang might do it if we are unlucky. But the AI is usually not a good invader anyway, and worst case is that we lose that land to Yang, and we can recapture that later at our leisure (he is not a contender for winning the game).

I would sooner have Yang threatening Heaven than the Angels threatening Southern Arcadia, at any rate.

Oh, I almost forgot this one. If we kill the Angels, there will be too few factions for us to effectively profit from the Planetary Datalinks. It will become much easier for the others to keep us out of the loop.

Oh come on, it's not like the Angels are researching anything on their own. If the Gaians and Morgans want to keep something from us now, they just don't give it to the Angels.

Taking out the Angels straight away is such a great opportunity for us. We have fusion, and for a few precious turns, they won't! We have a free opportunity here to knock out an adversary, I think we should take it.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
Yes, this is my question paraphrased. It is an extremely difficult question! I welcome the opinion of the very experienced MP players on the team to answer this. I personally think we will be able to take them out after the Angels, but of course it will be more costly.

How experienced exactly do you need to be to add, say, 50 population points spread about evenly over their bases?

Or, to put it differently, how much can 10 more turns do for you once popbooming is over? All that with units being built in, say, 10 cities with an average build time of 3 turns.

Of course they might know nothing, and be stupid enough to think that we will not attack anyone, hence letting military builds slip down the queue. Yeah, right, except the fact that we will virtually tell everybody what we intend by killing the Angels for good...

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
Taking the Angels out later will also be much costlier than right away.

Aww, come on. Which one is the bigger faction? The bigger one will also grow faster (and that is counting only linear growth, no popbooming and stuff). I thought you should be able to do the simple math.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
So who will attack Heaven while we are attacking Gaia? Gaia?! Morgan? I certainly don't think either of those will. But you have a point in that Yang might do it if we are unlucky. But the AI is usually not a good invader anyway, and worst case is that we lose that land to Yang, and we can recapture that later at our leisure (he is not a contender for winning the game).

You do remember how many Neeldejets Yang has, do you not? You do remember that we have no idea what the Gaians have? Besides, even "just" getting infiltrated or "just" holding 6-8 units there would be bad at this point in my opinion. We can spread all we want once we know for sure the Gaians can not do bad things to us. Before that is established, and since they are growing rapidly, leaving them alone is a big risk.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
Oh come on, it's not like the Angels are researching anything on their own. If the Gaians and Morgans want to keep something from us now, they just don't give it to the Angels.

That is not a major point either way, just one more chip to add. Remember their free techs, from having people infiltrated. Remember that they could simply trade. And if that does not happen, they will be sitting ducks much longer than you think, so why the freakin' rush?

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen Taking out the Angels straight away is such a great opportunity for us. We have fusion, and for a few precious turns, they won't! We have a free opportunity here to knock out an adversary, I think we should take it.

The only problem is, 10 turns is not "straight away". If we had an invasion force ready to go now, I would not object to this. But fact is, attacking here will delay us elsewhere.

[Zeiter]

Am I the only one promoting the Morgan option? Hrumph! Well, this is my reasoning:

*The only two factions still with the capability of doing serious damage to us are the Morganites and Gaians.
*If we can take one of them out and acquire their industrial/scientific capacity at the same time, then we will have achieved a threshhold after which our might will grow exponentially more quickly than that of all the other remaining factions combined--in short, we will have clinched the game.
*Of these two factions, the Morganites will be the easier one to conquer. We have infiltration already. They are close. They are dependent on the HGP to a certain extent for their drone control--if we take that out, they'll be momentarily crippled. We can build up an invasion force and mount an attack before they get fusion. The same cannot be said for the Gaians on any of these accounts.

I can draw up a concrete 5-year militarization plan and strategy for attack, if desired.

[Maniac]

I would too support an attack on the Morganites.

[Snoddasmannen]

You make good points Modo I still believe taking out the Angels right away is a good thing to do, but since nobody else is supporting it, I am prepared to flip-flop on the issue and support an attack on somebody else instead

But who? There is support for two factions now.

It would be very interesting to see a 5 year plan for an attack on both the Morgans and the Gaians. Can we really pull of a fast attack against Morgan when most of our land units are in south arcadia? I want to see slides and pictures and read motivational speeches I don't think launching an attack on either Morgan or the Gaians within 5 turns, or even 10 turns is possible. Prove me wrong!

[Zeiter]

Militarization Plan Golden Dawn:

Objective: To create an industrial production and mobilization plan for launching a successful attack on the Morganic Empire by MY 2199 (before they acquire fusion power).

Important considerations:
*As of MY 2193, the Morganites possess no capabilities for land-based counter-attack (no high-weapon land units).
*As of MY 2193, the Morganites possess 12 high-weapon aircraft, of which 7 are tactical SAM-capable aircraft. Therefore, the Spartan invasion force should have a minimum of 12 aircraft.


The city-by-city rapid militarization plan for Laconia:

Fort Buster: Can build two ELITE F-8's (40 mins each) in four years with a little rushing. Or, alternatively, two chaos lifters (same cost).

Olympus Academy: Can build two ELITE F-8's (40 mins each) in four years with minimal rushing. (or, chaos lifters).

Rio Grande: Can build two F-8's (40 mins each) in four years. (or, chaos lifters).

Santiago Citidel: Can build two F-8's (40 mins each) in four years with a minimal amount of rushing. (or, chaos lifters). Can also send its ELITE 1-<3>-1 sentinel along on the GH cruiser (see below).

Messena: Can build either two B-8's or two chaos choppers (both 30 mins each) in four years.

Gythium Harbor: Can build at least one ELITE cruiser transport (min cost 30, capacity 8 units) in three years. Furthermore, this cruiser transport would have 8 moves/turn, allowing it to unload in Vander Eudaimonics in just two turns, setting sail from Gythium Harbor.

Minas Tirith: Can build one chaos rover (cost 30 mins) in two years (with some rushing) in time to be shipped off on the GH cruiser transport. Can also send along its Battle Ogre.

Two Nuts Strand: Can build one chaos rover (cost 30 mins) in two years, in time to be shipped off on the GH transport.

Sparta Command: Can build one really sweet Amphibious chaos rover (cost 40 mins) in three years with minimal rushing in time to ship with the GH transport. Can also send along its Battle Ogre.

Vladivostok: Can build one chaos rover (30 mins) in two years with minimal rushing in time to ship with the GH transport.

Sector Craterwest: Can send along its ELITE Kaj Kaoos (perhaps upgraded), its F-6 (perhaps upgraded), and its Battle Ogre along with the GH transport.


Total Laconian invasion force:

*1 cruiser transport (cargo 8)
>>>Cruiser transport land unit team:
***3 Battle Ogres (can help with defense and drone control)
***1 ELITE 1-<3>-1 sentinel
***3 chaos rovers
***1 amphibious chaos rover

Air Units:
*4 ELITE F-8's (or chaos lifters)
*4 other F-8's (or chaos lifters)
*2 offensive aircraft (either bombers or choppers)
*1 F-6 (could be upgraded)
*1 ELITE Kaj Kaoos (could be upgraded)

Total air units: 12 (9 with SAM capability).


But that's not all. That's just the eastern Laconian invasion force. We also have productive capacity in Northern Arcadia and troops in Southern Arcadia at our disposal, with which we could mount an attack on the western coast of Morgania:

Troops on hand already in Southern Arcadia:

1 Mercury Class transport (cargo of 4, can be upgraded for cargo of 8). This transport is 4-5 turns away from southwestern Morgania. If it set sail in MY 2194, it could reach Morgania in MY 2198 or MY 2199 and engage in a deadly simultaneous joint two-front attack with the Laconian force.
>>>Troops that can be shipped with the transport:
***1 Missle infantry (this one and all the following ones can be upgraded)
***1 Janissary
***1 Steppenwolf
***1 R-112 Amphibious Missle attack rover
***1 ELITE Skanky's Sileni
***1 Citizen's Defence Force
***2 ELITE probe teams


Southern Arcadian air force (but not all of these need participate in the invasion of Morgania):

*3 F-8's (with fission reactors). Note: one of them is ELITE. Also note: these and all below could be upgraded.
*5 B-6's
*2 B-4's
*3 F-6's
*1 ELITE Kaj Kaoos

Total air units in Southern Arcadia: 14 (of which 6 have SAM capability).


Militarization plan for Northern Arcadia:

Tegea Harbor: Can build 1 F-8 or chaos lifter (both cost 40 mins) in three years with minimal rushing.

Fort Superiority: Can build 3 ELITE B-8's or chaos choppers in three years.

Arcadia University: Can build 1 B-8 or chaos chopper in three years.

Ironholm: Can build 1 F-8 or chaos lifter in three years with some rushing.

Argos: Can build 1 F-8 or chaos lifter in three years.

Fort Liberty: We have a transport in Northern Arcadia. That means we can assemble a western land force to attack Morgan Mussels or some other part of the Morgan west coast. We can assemble this land force in Fort Liberty. There, we can produce an ELITE amphibious chaos rover there in Fort Liberty in two turns (cost 40 mins). Then we can build a sweet little ELITE 6-3-1*2 unit (cheap--30 mins) in one turn. Then, we could MM a sweet ELITE drop chaos rover (cost 50 mins) in one turn with that crawler working two minerals on (85,17). If we started this in MY 2194, we'd finish production in MY 2198, meaning we could set sail that year and reach Morgania (maybe establish a beachhead at Morgan Mussels) in MY 2199, right on schedule for the now three-front attack!

Total three-year production capability for Northern Arcadia: 7 aircraft (of which 3 have SAM capability).


------

Summary of forces available (including already existing forces and forces to-be produced according to the militarization plan) for Operation Golden Dawn:

Eastern Laconian force: 12 air units (9 with SAM capability), 8 land units.
Western Arcadian force: 21 air units (9 with SAM capability), 11 land units.


...invasion strategy will be formulated shortly...

[Zeiter]

Golden Dawn eastern front (Laconia division) invasion plan:

1. Gythium Harbor transport cruiser will arrive at Vander Eudaimonics with 1 mp left. The Amphibious chaos rover will take out two defenders, and air units can take out any others. Once the base is emptied, it can be captured by a Battle Ogre (which will perform defense and police duty) and the cruiser transport can move into the city, unloading all of the other units into Vander Eudaimonics.

2. Air units, assisted by chaos rovers, will attack and capture Morgan Vulcanology.

3. Chaos rovers, assisted by kamikaze air units or air units with enough movement points to reach it, will attack and capture Impaler Polymers (and the HGP!).

Edit: Actually, we wouldn't even need to capture Morgan Vulcanology in order to get to Impaler Polymers! We could just escort the chaos rovers past Morgan Vulcanology through zones of control and over to Impaler Polymers with air cover.

4. SAM air units already in flight halfway between Laconia and Morgania will land in the various captured Morgan cities and brace for a counter-attack. The elite 1-<3>-1 sentinel will move into Impaler Polymers, and a Battle Ogre or two will move into Morgan Vulcanology. Any air units or chaos rovers with mp's remaining could also capture Scorpio Ski Resort in the same turn.

[Zeiter]

As for the western front (the Arcadian divisions), there are a number of options. The transport now anchored in Defiance Freehold can make it into Choke on This in 4 turns (it's exactly 28 moves!). The transport could make it to other points on the western Morgan coast in 4-5 turns.

If Morgan keeps his air force concentrated in Choke on This, the obvious thing to do is sail up to that city and let our amphibious rovers unleash hell on Morgan's air force. If we can take out a good part of his air force there, then the threat of counter-attack on the captured cities on the eastern front is drastically lessened. If we could manage to actually capture Choke on This, then we could land some SAM air units already in flight halfway there into the city to help secure it (or, if we don't capture the city, we can have the SAM air units provide air cover for the transport). We will also have two probe teams coming along on that transport, so we could even try to incite drone riots and subvert the base!

Meanwhile, we can pound Morgan's west coast with air attacks, and then send the planes to the captured cities on the eastern front to refuel and bolster our eastern front forces.

[Zeiter]

I would like to add, if we are going to go with Operation Golden Dawn, then I'd propose that we concentrate on building chaos needlejets instead of chaos copters, especially in the Arcadian cities. The ability of the needlejets to attack cities makes them much more useful for this specific operation. Needlejets also cannot be attacked by regular, non-SAM ground units, which is not the case with copters.

[Snoddasmannen]

Very impressive work Zeiter! Unless I see some equally impressive work for a Gaian attack, I am leaning towards this new enemy Come on Modo, break out your Photoshop skills!