GAUL - The attack on Legoland

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Also, I am involved with testing a certain product, which shall remain nameless, which I am sure all of the people on this team would want to see have all the TLC given to it that it deserves.

If you're testing what I think you're testing, I hope you can help them get it closer to "right" this time...


And I agree with you about the leadership situation. I think myself in particular was a bit snippy at times, and that's not all that appreciated by the turn player who spends 10x the time the rest of us spend on the game. Which is why I think its gone smoothly post-bob.-one person plays the turns and we throw out some advice here and there.

I think the point that needs to be made is that we stand behind the turn player's final decision and we move from there, regardless of the results. With the crap in the main forum, we don't need that in here as well. This is especially important in the near future as we could find ourselves eliminated....

granted, our participation level has dropped dramatically, but I think that's a result of this latest turn replay and severe RL time crunches.

[notyoueither]

Agreed fully. I have utmost confidence in DeepO and CH. I would not second guess either of their final decisions. Things have gone smoothly precisely because people like them stepped up and got done what had to be done.

[Aeson]

Just checking in. Thanks for the welcome.

Here's my take (which seems pretty much like what you had in mind).

If we're not going to take any 3 move units, we should take a few some settlers instead to allow tanks to do the same job (assuming we decide on taking the initial-strike force along at all). Would building a few settlers screw up any build plans, or can it be fitted in to one of the smaller cities without too much trouble?

I agree we should have at least a few Settlers.

3-4 Settlers will make Tanks deadly. Need to take a port with Marines, move the Settler(s) and the Units a tile inland, sell off everything (and draft), raze the captured city (I think this leaves no roads on that tile, so moving the units first is important), build a new city inland, and if close enough attack the next do so, else repeat. (If this is just too cheesy I understand )

To get the Settlers built (the more the merrier ) we can use some of the Workers laying around to provide the pop points.

(I agree we should avoid having any teleportation of Transports. This only happens when you gift a city though, they just die if you disband. So we have to be able to move the Transports of the city before razing.)

Lego's FP city should be the target we try for the first turn. It's probably worth a good 25% to them (in addition to the loss of whatever cities we raze/abandon), and if they are relying on the luxury slider at all down S, they may lose quite a bit more.

I'm looking for a better map (just going by the mini-map and memory), but IIRC their landform was so straightforward that we know within a tile or three where their FP just about has to be. Each Settler can get us a tile closer. An Explorer can give us the lay of the land to know just where to build.

It will take a Settler to get us 6 of Quanto or Sandorico and that would likely put us in position to hit the FP. Their FP should be in that area. Lego seems to love 4 tile spacing. Initial radius of the captured city gives us 1 tile inland. Initial radius of the new city gives us 1 more tile. The 3rd tile is the Tank's first move, and the city should be on the 4th.

First turn captures should all be razings (before or after capture) unless we take a Hill City/Metro. Otherwise we'll be able to better defend our own military camp(s). Razing for Workers could help us eat up counterattacks and/or quickly build up one of our camps for a defensive bonus, but might help Lego do more drafting. Capturing, selling off surviving improvements, and then disbanding will send unhappiness into our closest city. After we have a city on Lego it won't matter though.

RP goes after us but before Lego right? I think we should drop a coastal city the turn of landing (8 of Sand or 2 of Quanto) and give it to RP, so they can hit the shores running with their Conquistadors and make Lego pay for any open cities they leave in the S to deal with us. RP will distract Lego and can tear up an awful lot of terrain.

That would put us at a minimum of 3 Settlers in the initial landing, and 4 to be sure to get to the FP IMO.

If we can have Cavalry, I think we should take a handful of them along, maybe not in the first group, mostly in the 'diversion' Transports which can bring them up once the landing has been made. There will be situations where pillaging or counterattacking a unit a tile too deep for other units would be useful.

[DeepO]

wow... too much info in this thread to answer to right now... I've got a bit of work to do first

Aeson (and everyone else): the last posted screenshots are here

you will also find information on our economical capabilities through the Adam Smiths thread, including what kind of force we can bring to the fight.

Please keep the comments coming, they are very valuable! I'll give my take on things as fast as possible.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and so far the plan is to get 6 settlers ready by invasion time, but more are also possible. but that will require worker-to-settler conversions, I think

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
I agree we should have at least a few Settlers.

As said, so far we're planning on 6 of them, 5 of them will certainly be ready to be on the initial invasion transports. More or possible (Cyclone is producing 2-turn explorers now, but could get to 3-turn settlers), but in that case be fast to ask

3-4 Settlers will make Tanks deadly. Need to take a port with Marines, move the Settler(s) and the Units a tile inland, sell off everything (and draft), raze the captured city (I think this leaves no roads on that tile, so moving the units first is important), build a new city inland, and if close enough attack the next do so, else repeat. (If this is just too cheesy I understand )

not cheesy at all, in my mind. We need tactics like this to seriously harm them, on units alone we're not going to get there. Economically, we might be focused on one task, but Lego can easily outbuild us.

On thing I would like to add to this, is that we somehow need to keep a harbor city intact, for future reinforcements, and delivery of coal and iron to Legoland (needed for RRs)

To get the Settlers built (the more the merrier ) we can use some of the Workers laying around to provide the pop points.

So far not necessary to spend workers, but what do you mean by the more the merrier? Would there be any use for e.g. 10 settlers? As these are within our grasp, if we can go with a few less eplorers or so.

(I agree we should avoid having any teleportation of Transports. This only happens when you gift a city though, they just die if you disband. So we have to be able to move the Transports of the city before razing.)

This is going to be a problem: the first maps indicated that, if we want to threaten multiple cities with our transport fleet, and keep them out of range of Lego's art, we're ending our fleet into a city, without possibility to move them out. We seriously need to take this into account

Lego's FP city should be the target we try for the first turn. It's probably worth a good 25% to them (in addition to the loss of whatever cities we raze/abandon), and if they are relying on the luxury slider at all down S, they may lose quite a bit more.

Well, this is a bit of a difference with the plans so far. You may be right, though. The first plan I drafted, called for taking one coastal city, pillage or bombard all surrounding tiles, and wait until all our reinforcements arrived. This makes it difficult for them to counter attack (only bombardment possible), while we could conserve forces in the battles to come.

Here, you're saying we better punch as hard as possible in our first turn, which possibly means compromising our defense, leaving units open for counterattack. It's an interesting idea, but isn't this riskier then my approach? Certainly, we could harm Lego a lot by taking out their FP, and denying them the possibility to build more units is also a very worthy goal, but don't we risk that we loose a lot of units, which we can't easily replace?

I'm looking for a better map (just going by the mini-map and memory), but IIRC their landform was so straightforward that we know within a tile or three where their FP just about has to be. Each Settler can get us a tile closer. An Explorer can give us the lay of the land to know just where to build.

See post above, with some of our maps. Also, in the first pages of this thread, you will find some analysis maps. No strike plan exists, though.

Oh, while you're at it: when we're gone, it would be nice to have some kind of home defense plan ready as well... preliminary map and discussion can be found here.

It will take a Settler to get us 6 of Quanto or Sandorico and that would likely put us in position to hit the FP. Their FP should be in that area. Lego seems to love 4 tile spacing. Initial radius of the captured city gives us 1 tile inland. Initial radius of the new city gives us 1 more tile. The 3rd tile is the Tank's first move, and the city should be on the 4th.

explorers could tell us what we need... I've got one reservation, though, and that's that Lego can guess we would be going for their FP, meaning the area will be heavily defended. Maybe a longer route, using more settlers would be better?

First turn captures should all be razings (before or after capture) unless we take a Hill City/Metro. Otherwise we'll be able to better defend our own military camp(s). Razing for Workers could help us eat up counterattacks and/or quickly build up one of our camps for a defensive bonus, but might help Lego do more drafting.

How so? explain please, there is some mechanic at work I'm not so familiar with.

Capturing, selling off surviving improvements, and then disbanding will send unhappiness into our closest city. After we have a city on Lego it won't matter though.

Only problem I see, as mentioned above, is that we better have a harbor city. but perhaps we can capture one after we take out the FP, if enough forces remain.

RP goes after us but before Lego right?

Yes indeed... which is a shame, as RP can't scout for us, while Vox can scout for Lego (by looking at our cities)

I think we should drop a coastal city the turn of landing (8 of Sand or 2 of Quanto) and give it to RP, so they can hit the shores running with their Conquistadors and make Lego pay for any open cities they leave in the S to deal with us. RP will distract Lego and can tear up an awful lot of terrain.

This was the plan from the start, however... would Lego be so dumb to leave any city undefended? I see RP more as pillagers... last communication we had, they were preparing 2 transports worth of conqs... a lot of damage to Lego's infrastructure.

That would put us at a minimum of 3 Settlers in the initial landing, and 4 to be sure to get to the FP IMO.

no prob whatsoever, I was planning for this.

If we can have Cavalry, I think we should take a handful of them along, maybe not in the first group, mostly in the 'diversion' Transports which can bring them up once the landing has been made. There will be situations where pillaging or counterattacking a unit a tile too deep for other units would be useful.

Mhhh... I agree it would be useful, the only reservation I've got is whether it is worth the cost. We will have to get SP and Mil Trad from GoW (which comes at a price), and more importantly, any knight we can't use for rushing something means in general one less unit. I'm only using them where e.g. a destroyer would be build in 1, instead of in 2 turns...

While explorers, we can pillage better, they don't cost us anything, and have a chance of retreat to a safe place (cavs are always lost). They don't attack units, nor take cities, though.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Learn the lesson. Give the player room and insist that he take it. Leave one of us, or two if they share a lot, to make the final life and death decisions. Make sure they are comfortable with it and that they know it is their call in the end. Advise them, let them play the game, and let them win for all of us.

While I don't particularly like it, you might be very right here, nye. The bobian war was a bit of a mess, with muliple people playing, mulitple plans, and too few focus from us as most of us were tired from the previous war (for myself: I missed large parts of it because I was in Thailand atm)

However, I'm not sure if I want to be the player, and have that responsibility. There's a big difference in getting us on our feet economically, and taking offensive / defensive decisions... I would very much like it if at least one other member takes the position of MoW, general, military planner, or whatever you want to call it. Not to have the day-by-day operations (as I'm sure, with a general outline, I can do those), but for the larger setting in which to maneuver. In case I would not be the player, I would volunteer to be such a planner, however it takes simply too much time to do both.

Maybe, when the war starts, I think differently on this (as I'll have a break in the mean time, being on holiday again), but right now I'd rather have a group effort, with perhaps final responsibility for me, but not the grand decisions to make. Any other volunteer is more then welcome to take over, though, I'll gladly step aside!

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
How so? explain please, there is some mechanic at work I'm not so familiar with.

Ithink that Aeson is talking about razing a city then fanning the workers a tile into enemy territory which would save us one attack by lego, assuming we would have enough.

the problem of course, is with RR, at most lego would only have to take out one, if they wanted to. we could bombard tiles around the LZ, but probably not enough to prevent cavs from hitting us.



As far as the 2 attack models we have, I'm not sure which I prefer at this point. The initial shock and awe that aeson is calling for or the established beachhead with reinforcements.

Depends, IMHO, on what GoW does. If they actually follow through with their attack, then I think we should push hard in, if they don't we should reinforce. The problem of course is, we have to make that decision on turn one, not turn two...

[DeepO]

sorry, should have been more clear... I was more interested in how it would give them more drafting potential, not how they eat up counterattacks

and how to attack: it becomes time that we decide this, so we can draft plans accordingly.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
sorry, should have been more clear... I was more interested in how it would give them more drafting potential, not how they eat up counterattacks

and how to attack: it becomes time that we decide this, so we can draft plans accordingly.

DeepO

I'm not sure what are drafting rules?

Any city above 6 can draft one per x turns?

I don't think you can draft turn after turn, but the extra workers would help keep their cities at size 12 or above for the defensive bonus.

[DeepO]

I'm not sure on drafting either, which is why I asked. I know you can draft 1 unit under demo, 2 under rep, each turn, and that it gives one unhappy citizen per drafty, for 20 turns... but I'm not sure in how far this is accurate, or complete.

I've been thinking on how to prevent Lego from drafting units during the build phase of the first turn, but the only way I see possible is if ND stops their lux trade to them, and RP first trades them incense, and later on attacks them. Alternatively, we or GoW demolish Bach's. This will have effect that most of their cities get into disorder, which means they don't have the chance of breaking into city view, to draft units in dangerous places. But it's a long shot. And if they finish research that turn, they are going to get into F1 first, meaning they can adjust the slider before production starts...

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

I can play the turn when, or before, the shooting starts, while DeepO does the planning - and I'll follow the orders.

If my taking the turn-play responsibility frees DeepO for more military and economic planning then I'd jump at the chance of helping my team that way.

However in war particularly, decisions often need to be taken on-the-fly. Ideally the turn is opened, and things arising discussed before playing it. However when time is limited this is not always possible and even the best plan can hit the rocks.

The time I spent as turnplayer before was well suited to my SP playstyle as a passive builder - which is my usual Civ-playing mode. I was in my element, so to speak. DeepO took it a stage further (and well beyond most people's abililty) and introduced stunning detail and mathematical precision to the task. I couldn't have done that, but I'd certainly be out of my element making key military decisions in the coming conflict.

That's why I was so disappointed that Theseus eventually didn't follow up on the MoW role. For the job we face it's guys like him that we need up top with DeepO now, not guys like me.

[vmxa1]

Aeson or anyone that needs a save or two let me know and I can email it. Post here or email me vmxa at sbcglobal dot net.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I can play the turn when, or before, the shooting starts, while DeepO does the planning - and I'll follow the orders.

I'm considering this... as you know, I won't be availble to play the first 2 weeks of September, so perhaps it would be an idea to make that period a week longer (either beforehand, or afterwards). That would allow me to plan some things.

However, there's a problem, in that I'm quite busy atm with work, and I've got a deadline set for the end of August. In case I can make that, I'll have time. Otherwise... well... work first, of course, gaming later. I'm not sure if this fits the schedule well. Planning should ideally be done before building, and certainly before invading, and I'm half fearing that the remaining 18 turns will end somewhere in the middle of my holiday. Gladly, Thailand has evolved far enough so that there are cyber bars every 100 meters, albeit with questionable connections

DeepO

[Aeson]

Originally posted by DeepO
As said, so far we're planning on 6 of them, 5 of them will certainly be ready to be on the initial invasion transports. More or possible (Cyclone is producing 2-turn explorers now, but could get to 3-turn settlers), but in that case be fast to ask

not cheesy at all, in my mind. We need tactics like this to seriously harm them, on units alone we're not going to get there. Economically, we might be focused on one task, but Lego can easily outbuild us.

This is the main reason I think we need to strike for the jugular the first turn. The other is GoW.

We might be able to recover and even win this war if GoW doesn't end up helping out, as long as we hurt Lego enough to draw about even with them. Without their FP we can compete, at least for a while.

On thing I would like to add to this, is that we somehow need to keep a harbor city intact, for future reinforcements, and delivery of coal and iron to Legoland (needed for RRs)

I would recommend the Hill 2 of Quanto, or 21 of Sandorico (2 Settlers needed to build there).

Quanto 2 would be our harbor city, Quanto 7 would be the harbor for RP, and Quanto 6 the inland camp.

Or, Sand 21 would be our harbor city, Sand 8 would be the harbor for RP, and Sand 6 would be our inland camp.

So far not necessary to spend workers, but what do you mean by the more the merrier? Would there be any use for e.g. 10 settlers? As these are within our grasp, if we can go with a few less eplorers or so.

Every Settler can give us a target with Tanks at 3+ movement. Poor man's version of Panzers... though in some cases we could stretch that movement out quite a ways. We need the initial Settlers (6 is looking good), and then a steady flow of new ones. Also, if we're razing, we'll eventually want a flood of Settlers to claim land once it can be held. Can't let GoW/ND claim the whole island after we do the work.

From looking at the better maps, I think to reach the FP from Sand would require at least an extra Settler, perhaps 2.

This is going to be a problem: the first maps indicated that, if we want to threaten multiple cities with our transport fleet, and keep them out of range of Lego's art, we're ending our fleet into a city, without possibility to move them out. We seriously need to take this into account

I might prefer our ships to be hit by Artillery than to face the same Artillery in a city when attacking with Marines. The number would be the clincher, if it's enough to allow Lego to sink us, then we definitely don't want to be in range, but if it's only enough to hurt our ships a bit, it works out better for us. Are we building the intelligence agency? I would prefer it to Battlefield Medicine as we can use Settlers for that (in almost all cases it will be better to heal in a city so that our force numbers are hidden).

Sand 441 would be a good spot if we are going to hit Sand. I'd say we need 3-4 extra Settlers to go that way though. Probably be worth it in any case as Quanto will eat up more Marines than the extra Settlers will eat up slots in Transports.

Our diversionary force could get close to the shore and draw Artillery fire, getting them out of the cities. Quanto 114 (with the main fleet at Sand 441) would allow us to do some ship chaining into Quanto if necessary, and could draw out Lego's land based Artillery to the SW of Quanto.

Well, this is a bit of a difference with the plans so far. You may be right, though. The first plan I drafted, called for taking one coastal city, pillage or bombard all surrounding tiles, and wait until all our reinforcements arrived. This makes it difficult for them to counter attack (only bombardment possible), while we could conserve forces in the battles to come.

If we are sure GoW (and ND) will be doing their part, this would be the best approach. In that case attrition is on our side.

If this is GoW thinking "Lego is a problem, let GS hamstring them while we drop another '2 Horsemen' to help out", then we'll be in for a dogfight with just Lego. We won't beat them if they aren't seriously injured in the first turns of the war.

If it's a complete backstab... well 2 (or 3) v 1 no one is going to survive at this point. Even if we stayed all at home we couldn't fend off GoW and Lego.

If GoW had ever honored an agreement... it would be a tougher choice. If they help out, great, if not, we need to have been planning for it. (no use planning for the third option as nothing can be done)

Here, you're saying we better punch as hard as possible in our first turn, which possibly means compromising our defense, leaving units open for counterattack. It's an interesting idea, but isn't this riskier then my approach? Certainly, we could harm Lego a lot by taking out their FP, and denying them the possibility to build more units is also a very worthy goal, but don't we risk that we loose a lot of units, which we can't easily replace?

The units left open would be:

Marine who takes the harbor city.
Tanks who attack the FP city but retreat or don't get the final kill.*
Tank who takes the FP city.
Tanks who attack any other city, retreat, or don't get the final kill.*
Tank(s) who take the other city(s).

I think at most we leave exposed 10 Tanks. I can't see them having more than a handful of Inf in the FP city, as piling there would be suicide for the rest of their empire. Probably enough inland Infantry to deal with Cavalry, but they can't have enough to deal with Tanks+Settlers so even if they think of that they still have to put the (non-Cav required) Infantry in the Coastal cities where they will be most effective.

*Because we would be razing the cities, we could cover these Tanks with a city so that only Cav could reach them. An Infantry or two would make them pretty safe.

explorers could tell us what we need... I've got one reservation, though, and that's that Lego can guess we would be going for their FP, meaning the area will be heavily defended. Maybe a longer route, using more settlers would be better?

I would be suprised to see any Infantry outside cities to block the way. There are just too many tiles to cover, and it would make taking the cities much easier.

How so? explain please, there is some mechanic at work I'm not so familiar with.

Drafting, then adding back the population in Workers, lets you keep productive up to your happiness limit while getting the units still.

This was the plan from the start, however... would Lego be so dumb to leave any city undefended? I see RP more as pillagers... last communication we had, they were preparing 2 transports worth of conqs... a lot of damage to Lego's infrastructure.

I doubt we would find any. Once Lego knows that Conqs are out and about, there definitely won't be any. This ties up a handfull of Infantry that otherwise could be brought to bear against us. Desperation would otherwise make them more likely to leave cities which probably can't be attacked open. Since just about anything can be attacked with Conqs, they have to stay honest.

Mhhh... I agree it would be useful, the only reservation I've got is whether it is worth the cost. We will have to get SP and Mil Trad from GoW (which comes at a price), and more importantly, any knight we can't use for rushing something means in general one less unit. I'm only using them where e.g. a destroyer would be build in 1, instead of in 2 turns...

Ok. I fell under the impression we could do it without much cost. (Thought I read somewhere we already had SP being given us)

Sounds like you are using them as would be most effective.

-----------------------

Looking at the larger map, I think the FP city is probably 77774 of Logville. Logville is on a river (the screenie is grainy, so I'm not sure of this) which extends at least 7777.

The Hill 44 of Crossing wasn't improved when last it was seen (could they have had an IW city here?), neither was the Hill 411 of Crossing. Yet a Desert in the area was Mined (Crossing 444). No reason to mine a Desert if those Hills are in the same city radius. Given the shape of the improved tiles, this leads me to believe there definitely is a city at 77774 of Logville. It's probably on a river. It's 4 tile spacing from Quanto. Would have an Iron Hill in the radius. Would allow for a city 4-5 tile spacing between Quanto (4 spacing) and Tiberium. It's also the perfect place for their FP.

This puts the FP further from Sand than from Quanto, and there would almost surely be a city inbetween Sand and the FP (by the route we would be going). The second city could be at Sand 666 (within a tile of there in any case), with the spacing which Tanks could reach it without Settler help. Then from there we could reach 77774 without Settler help either!

The second city would be most likely to be lightly defended. It adds a few Tanks we would be leaving in the open, but lets us raze another city, which probably is worth the cost. (We could build a city on the Tanks and cover with an Infantry... would eat up a lot of Cavs even if they did attack).

I think Sand should be the city we hit, and Quanto the city we should try to make them think we are hitting. Our diversionary force coming up from the S to Quanto 4111 the turn our landing force gets to Sand 4411 (moving 69966, 66666, 66622 from Hurricane) would look like we are converging both forces on Quanto after a feint to the N and S a bit. Quanto would be the only target that could be hit by both forces, and so would require the most defenders.

Then the Conqs should try to cut off Quanto completely. 14 Conqs could do it, giving us and extra 2 turn respite from dealing with the Infantry Lego puts there, and probably send Q into starvation and severely damage their production (minus the FP bonus too hopefully).

To make Q1 less likely to be covered, that should put our diversionary force at Q4111... so that Q1 wouldn't be covered with Artillery (and their escorts). Conqs would be able to get to Sand 22 on Rails (we need to make sure RP understands they need to get all the way into the port city, and then likely back out if they don't want to lose their transports), then it's only 3 moves at most to get to all 7 tiles surrounding Q. If there are any Lego units on coastal tiles, Marines from the diversionary force would need to take them out.