Turn 128, 10BC

[nbarclay]

An alternative to selling Wittlich's harbor would be to pillage tiles and cut it off. The down side is that that would interfere with troop movements a bit.

[Theseus]

Nathan, what will we have in the way of free troops after the third wave to RP?

[nbarclay]

Turn and shots sent.

[DeepO]

Before we pillage roads in Voxia, can we upgrade a bit there? The Lego chat seems that we don't need to hurry that hard with research, we can easily get away with running at 100% for another 5 turns.

Further, we don't need the pillaging now, we have a couple of turns left.

Oh, and what about upgrading a few WCs to hamper Port Isolation? I still like it, if we can suplement with 1 pike and a MI.

as to defense of Elipolis: if we can block invasion spots up North, we don't need that much units. Just incase, I would bring a few more units down, we might need them sooner then expected. Also note that in case we need to load them into our second wave, we probably need to telepoort them to EotS, otherwise we lose one turn because we can't unload into the newly build city next to NM. They shouldn't load near Monsoon, but near WW to keep the gallleys with MP remaining.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Nathan, what will we have in the way of free troops after the third wave to RP?

That's farther down the road than I've tried to run projections on so far.

[DeepO]

Oh hell.. one minute too late with my comments... nm then

DeepO

[DeepO]

Selling Witlich's harbor is most likely the only possible solution, we can't have our road network up there compremised. We can expect GoW to land a couple of troops in ~5 turns, and former Voxia seems a logical choice. They have 3 galleys in the neighbourhood by then, so we need troops to block their possible invasion paths (and this could become tricky if they split up)

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I didn't teleport units from Inchon because we should have plenty of units for the second wave without them.

[notyoueither]

Just a point, we need forces in the North capable of dealing with 6 Riders. GoW has at least 3 galleys. Blocking them from first turn landing is one thing. Dealing with them when they slip further down the coast on their boats is another. A Rider epidemic up there would be unpleasant. Keep in mind that if we attack with MI, we will need second units to kill after retreats some of the time.

[Aeson]

Maybe we should rush another Galley in Wittlich? If RP keeps their Galley around (which we could request), that would give us 2 Vets and a Reg to deal with a possible 3 Galley invasion.

First we block the channel, force them one way or the other. It takes them time to backtrack through Port Isolation. First turn landings are all blocked (we need to do this ASAP). That gives us the ability to attack, with good odds to sink at least 1 vessel, probably 2. It also directs their invasion fleet N or S to start.

After the second wave, I think we need to get 3-4 of those S Galleys up N to supplement. If we are at war, we could blockade Port Isolation completely then, or make an Inchon type landing along the N coast if we have gotten to that point. At the very least, showing GoW we have 5-6 Galleys up there would make them think twice about committing any troops away from their homeland.

[DeepO]

One other thing I thought about was to have 1 of those cats we promised RP to go up there... reverse naval bombardment works very well in civ. But... too late for that, those 7 cats are on route to RP by the next turn

and an extra galley could always be good, although I'd prefer to use the money for the moment on upgrades. But, we have the commitment of Lego that we can stall research a little, meaning we can have another 5-6 turns of 80% tax if we want to.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Oooh, let's definitely talk to RP about using their galley to help block landings...

Let's ask for de facto control of that boat!

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Nathan, I couldn't find it in a quick scan... can you give me a quick walkthrough of the 10BC moves?

[nbarclay]

The trailing galley has a settler and a pike from Dissidentville.

The middle galleys have two pikes (one elite), three MedInfs, and a cat.

The galleys farthest toward RP have three knights and three cats.

I moved the two elite WCs back to Elipolis, and a regular WC that was in Dissidentville to Arashi. I also upgraded our remaining five horsemen in Arashi.

I repositioned our WCs in the north to block all possible one-turn landing sites except the mountain, which a regular MedInf now in Beta-by-the-Sea can occupy next turn.

I started pulling some of the forces from Inchon south, and moved the rest to Elipolis (except for the cats, which are ready for RP to grab them). I also moved some other forces that had already started south farther along their way.

I hope that's good enough to get a clear picture. Somewhere in this, I posted the exact force mix in Elipolis, but you can probably find that as easily as I could.

[Theseus]

Thanks Nathan.

I just loaded up the 10BC save, and followed Nathan's general directions.

Some comments:

* I forgot what a friggin' behemoth we now are militarily... ND and GoW have no idea, trust me. I didn't repeat Nathan's conversion to military production, but we are friggin' scary.

* We have the power to do whatever we want. Seriously. I don;t mean that defending RP won't be a heck of a dance, but if we can get throught the next few turns, HOTDAMN. I can see up to 40+ units contributed to the Defense of the Spanish Realm. Then? We want to go after ND across the mountains? We want to threaten GoW up north? No problemo, we just need a little time. If anything, we are short on Galleys to get our troops where they need to be.

* While Zaragoza can stand up to one turn of ND's attack, it still worries me, esp. with our Cats there. I would push VERY hard for RP gifting Toledo to us in order to get their troops to the west that much faster.

* Arrian's plan for a forward town at Mavdad9998 is great... add in some defenders at Mavdad99 and 98, and we close the eastern corridor for GoW, unless they end in ND territory... which will be contentious, I am sure!

* I can see RP with appr. 1/3 of the continent, in the SW, with us having a C-shape encompassing GoW and ND territory plus the east coast.

* Let's keep a close eye on what happens to ND and GoW's scores when their GAs kick in.

Good sh*t... this is FUN!!! I recommend everybody load up a save... much better feel for what's going on.