Return of the Blockheads

[vulture]

I've brought this up before, but now might be a good time to do it again.

At the moment, we are extremely vulnerable to invasion from Lego. Lego, you might remember, has recently acquired astronomy, and is possibly researching Navigation at the moment. They have time to build up a good store of caravels while they are doing this. So when navigation arrives, they could easily have 10 plus boatloads of caravels ready to go where they are needed.

It's pretty obvious why Lego would want to go and attack someone, so the question is who would they attack?

GoW / ND both are relatively easy pickings for them, but in golden ages, and
with plenty of troops that can get to an invasion point fairly quickly. They could do plenty of damage, and end up in a situation where Bob is (very roughly) evenly split between us, Lego, GoW, ND, RP in the not too distant future.

RP are obviously not much of a target for Lego.

GS - they know we have a large military presence of Bob, and dominate the waterways between us and Bob such that we are unlikely to be worried
about a landing from GoW. If and when we go for the landing in GoW's core, they'll have to guess that pretty much our entire force is away from home. This leaves them with a beautiful opportunity to drop 10 caravels loaded with Numidian Merc and Knights on our shores, and try to rip through our core in very short order. The future in this case could look like ND and GoW sharing Bob, while Lego own Legoland and Stormia (and Vox have Lego Minor, at least for now). If they can manage an FP on Stormia, ND and GoW are facing an unpleasant prospect - being behind in tech and facing an opponent with two large, productive islands, while gunpowder is around so there is little danger of an invasion until cavalry, and not much hope for one after railroads and riflemen.

I.e., if Lego decide to invade us while we are busy on Bob, they could quite
easily lock up the game there and then.

So although we need to commit large numbers of troops to Bob to win this war, we should keep enough in reserve to defend our core at the absolute least. At the end of the day, we can afford to be driven off Bob more than we can afford to lose southern Stormia to Lego in a surprise invasion. And we wouldn't get much notice of an invasion.

NB if Lego get wind of our intention to invade GoW by sea (info leaked through Vox, depending on what we tell them) - I can't see any good reason why they wouldn't put together an invasion fleet ASAP. From their point of view, there doesn't appear to be another course of action offering such nice outcomes.

[Arrian]

It is something to worry about, yeah. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there isn't a helluva lot we can afford to do about it. We are committed over on Bob, and any protection vs. Legoland invasion would require that we hold more troops on Stormia to block the coast.

Maybe we can spare some warriors from our iron-cutting scheme to block the coast around Hurricane and a bit north of that. But I don't see how we can do much more right now. If Legoland hits us, we're screwed.

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

Yeah, we can't defend every landing spot on the east and northwest. Just impossible. Hopefully if we can get vox to attack GoW, it would provide some protection for us. We do have a lot of workers, right?

[vulture]

We'll never have enough troops to block all possible landing sites (although we can block the good ones, obviously), but I do think we need to keep enough pikes and MI (and knights for that matter) around to make a serious dent in any attempted landing. The problem is that that is pretty much an entire expeditionary force. So do we go ahead with our planned attack on GoW in the north, or use those troops to keep our core secure, and delay the
invasion until we can afford another mass upgrade to launch an invasion?

There is the line of thinking that if we get kicked off Bob, we're more or less out of the game anyway, with ND and GoW sharing that continent. In which case, our only hope of winning is to gamble either on Lego leaving us
alone during this war, or on our being able to keep a lrage part of Bob with the forces already there (which I have my doubts about).

BTW I know that human nature is to automatically look for reasons why the current plan is the right one, and then to find those reasons more plausible (blokes, in particular, hate to change plans mid-stream, if you'll forgive the crass generalisation), but please, please can we try and look objectively at which approach gives us the best chance to win the game. Taking the gamble might be the right way to go, but if it is, lets do it for the reason that it is right, not just because it is the current plan.

Vulture, suffering sleep deprivation due to an ill 5 year old...

[Theseus]

I don't see this as being a major risk... a home defense of say, 4 Knights in each of North and South Stormia should be sufficient, and will not be needed for some time yet (i.e., post-GoW invasion).

That's my gut reaction; BUT, keep'em coming, vulture... I am reminded of SR's entreaties for a stronger military once upon a time.

[zeit]

Seriously defending with ground troops is not an option if we want to make any headway against GoW or ND before Gunpowder kicks in, and GoW begins cranking Riders and Musks, which puts our entire effort in great delay. What we could do is keep some coast guard, to give us some warning, as well as a chance to sink a few... We really can't defend anything and gain ground. Our mistake is that we've waited too long before preparing to land against GoW, and now they have a serious edge.

I do share the opinion that Lego is a big risk right now, and if I were them I would seriously consider invading us, as we're the only real favorites left, besides them of course...

In short, we have to find a cheap way, to protect ourselves, and also work in the diplomatic front, perhaps through a NAP of some sort?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by zeit
In short, we have to find a cheap way, to protect ourselves, and also work in the diplomatic front, perhaps through a NAP of some sort?

That's what I was thinking. Or an agreement with lego of some form or kind.

I think thats a job for Vel, if he's around.

[Velociryx]

Sure thing! Tell me what you want them to agree to, and I'll give it a go!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

The defense against a would-be lego invasion would be to simply cut our iron again the turn it happened and hurl spearmen and their ilk in the way of their very good, but horribly expensive attackers.

How embarassing to lose a cav to spearman fortified on a mountain.

Sure, we'll lose lots of guys that way, but the fact is that in short order we can totally ring the attackers in and pump enough bodies into the line to stall the advance.

Then, when we solve the immediate problem, we do mass upgrades and suddenly we're a whole lot more dangerous to them and their attack force.

[Arrian]

BTW I know that human nature is to automatically look for reasons why the current plan is the right one, and then to find those reasons more plausible (blokes, in particular, hate to change plans mid-stream, if you'll forgive the crass generalisation), but please, please can we try and look objectively at which approach gives us the best chance to win the game. Taking the gamble might be the right way to go, but if it is, lets do it for the reason that it is right, not just because it is the current plan.

Fair enough. But things on Bob have not played themselves out far enough for us to seek an alternative. If we manage to make some headway, we might be able to bring GoW/ND to the negotiating table and work something out. I doubt it, but it's possible. If, on the other hand, we get smacked around, we will then have to withdraw, probably making room for RP in North Stormia. But we haven't had a decisive engagement yet.

I'm not necessarily against changing "the plan" midway. Look at our switchover from being all friendly with GoW and intending to hit RP, to being RP's friend and ally. Though I was uncomfortable with it, I concurred with the decision, because logically it made the most sense to me.

And I'll admit that I'm doing what I often do in Civ: shooting for the moon. I wanna win, and I'm willing to take fairly big risks to do so. Since I do not believe we can prosecute the current war while providing adequate homeland defense to prevent an invasion by Legoland (or destroy such an invasion on the beaches), I'm willing to roll the dice on the war at hand, and simply accept the fact that if Lego comes knocking, we might go down like a house of cards.

Others may disagree, of course. That's just my perspective on the matter. I see our Bobian adventure as a "crossing of the Rubicon" moment. We rolled the dice, bigtime. The result... tough to say just yet.

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

I agree with Arrian, we are committed. We should see it through. Either we damage GoW / knock them out, or we lose a sizable army trying.

I also agree with vulture. The back door is wide open, and we should do something about that. The something we do should be diplomatic though, at this point.

[Velociryx]

Well....I stand ready to assist, tho, I will tell you guys that I'm on the brink of doing something either TOTALLY insane or absolutely brilliant....haven't quite decided which it is yet....

Yes....having made my second mortgage payment, with the job market sucking wind, Vel is walking away from his cushy job with no prospects for the future lined up.

Steppin' away from the comfy edge on pure faith...I love it!

So...I'll prolly have some free time in the next span of days as the job search machine kicks into high gear!

-=Vel=-

[Fried-Psitalon]

If I may suggest- marines are a long way off, and there are no Vikings to be seen. If we post fortified boats along the coast and out a little ways in the direction of Lego, we can get what will probably be a 1-turn warning that they are coming, 2 turns if we're very lucky. Provided our entire coastline is roaded, we can then throw up a front of workers and warriors/spears/whatever is around along the area they will try to land.

They'll sail straight in at first, not knowing what we have waiting for them. When they see it, they'll spend the next turn sailing one direction or the other trying to get past the blockade. If we have preparations well in order, we should be able to shift our front to meet their boats and continue to prevent their landing. Eventually, they'll get past our shifting front and/or split up their boats and force us to allow one force on, but anything we do to slow down that assault will buy us time to get more units into position to deal a counterattack on their landing. If we can force them to leak their forces onto our coast one chunk at a time, it'll be that much easier to deal with them - even if we force them to split their forces half and half.

I realize this is a somewhat unorthodox strategy, and it will require a moderate amount of "blocking units" but it IS sound. I've used it with galleys (much easier there, slower sailors) to great effect- there's nothing like hearing someone rant and rave at you because your impis are blocking his force of 40 immortals.

And on another note, could we get a screenshot of the overall map posted every turn, too? It'd be helpful not to have to load PTW every time I wanna think a bit.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
I realize this is a somewhat unorthodox strategy, and it will require a moderate amount of "blocking units" but it IS sound. I've used it with galleys (much easier there, slower sailors) to great effect- there's nothing like hearing someone rant and rave at you because your impis are blocking his force of 40 immortals.

Amen. The trick in this case, IMHO, is to get Lego to declare war on us first, before they land. Then if we can delay their landing for sometime, we can hope the WW will set in. Also, if their caravels end adjacent to the coast, we can bombard with cats and then hope to use our galleys to take out the last hp. I think a rolling defense of cats and warriors (cheap!) with a few galleys would be perfect.

We know that lego has a dearth of luxuries (only one I think) so perhaps they are waiting until they can secure trades with GoW and ND for the southern Bob luxes before hitting us. Losing the lux or two we trade them will hurt quite a bit, otherwise.

[Velociryx]

Therein lies the giant's weakness....with only one luxury, they cannot afford a protracted war....groovy....

-=Vel=-