GAUL - The attack on Legoland

[DeepO]

Okay, next question we need to urgently solve: What to take with us on our invasion forces, and where.

We will have 3 groups of transports:
- North fleet, consisting of 15 transports. 3 of them are needed for chaining if we follow Aeson's plan (and I see no reason not too). So 12 transports cargo at most. Of those, 10 transports can load their cargo without risk, 2 are not sure as we can't prevent Lego to break the chain if we really want to.
We can easily build another transport from Hurricane if that's wanted (one of those 15 will finish next turn). Otherwise, we build a DD. Rushing a transport is not needed IMHO, as I made sure we have 3 more transports in the current turn (1 of those goes to the Deep South fleet).
- South fleet. No chaining ships, but 8 filled ships with their defenders.
- Deep South fleet, consisting of 3 transports. These are already en route, to Abilene 11114 (nothing else is possible if we don't want to delay the invasion, so there was little discussion about this choice)

To fill, we've got:
- 14 art
- 24 workers +1 in 2 turns --> 25 total(1 chain)
- 9 settlers +1 next turn +1 in 2 turns --> 11 total (1 chain)
- 20 rifle (upgradable to inf now, to MI in 2 turns)
- 57 inf (upgradable to MI in 2 turns, ready to move in 3)
- 36 Marines + 4 next turn + 12 in 2 turns --> 54 marines (12 chain)
- 70 tanks
- 4 explorer + 1 in 2 turns
- 1 fighter + 1 next turn

We've got to decide how to divide those.

The 48 marines are obviously going into The Northern fleet. Which leaves 32 certain spaces. Further, 5 settlers (precise number later on, I think we should aim at being able to both get to the FP and to Quanto.) leaves 27. At least 1 explorer and 3 workers leaves 23. No arts, means, leaves e.g. 15 tanks and 8 infs.

Mhhh... not so good. We should aim for one more transport built in Hurricane, so our active Northern force is 1 larger.

summary:
Northern force consists of 16 transports. 3 of those are chainers, and left behind empty. 11 are guaranteed to deliver their troops, another 2 transports can deliver chained troops in case Lego doesn't disturb our chain.

Troops on the boats are:
- 40 marines
- 5 settlers
- 1 explorer
- 3 workers
- 22 tanks
- 9 infs

chainer 1 brings 8 extra marines if it succeeds
chainer 2 brings possibly 4 more marines, 4 MI, or 8 MI.

South transport can bring 8 transports worth of troops.
e.g.
- 5 settlers
- 5 workers
- 48 tanks
- 22 infs

Deep South is empty.

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There are a couple of thoughts on this. I can rush a couple of marines so they're sure to be build next turn, instead of in 2 turns. In that case, they are present in the initial force, without the risk of Lego breaking the chain before they are aboard. (the 12 marines in 2 turns are too much to put on 1 boat, leaving 4 of them at risk). The OG one is relatively cheap (160 gold) as will the Inchoff one (~120 gold). The others are very expensive (320 gold at least). We could e.g. rush those 2, get 50 certain marines, and risk the other 2.

Alternatively, we could chain 2 transports in turn 241, with 1 of those 2 returning to Hurricane in 242, and one continuing on its track towards Sando. Which means it's available again in turn 243 to chain. We would lose capacity in our main force, which means we might need to rush a transport (worker + 272 gold) in Hurricane to complete in turn 241.

We could of course have a combination of both solutions, but our gold supply is not limitless.

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The problem with our force, is that while I would have Quanto in mind as a nice secondary goal, we can't depend on it. If Lego puts 20 infs and a dozen cavs in that city, we can't get through with our tanks in the Northern fleet. A shame really, as our invasion would really shine if we can land both our fleet in the first turn.

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defenders: we're a bit short on them, but this is because the chains following will consist of mostly defenders, I guess. As we will be building at least a couple of tanks (we've got 3 cities capabable of 1-turn tanks/marines/bombers, but not of 1-turn MI), we could choose to add more tanks to our initial landing force if we see our chain still exists. However, I think everyone agrees that an MI is worth more then a tank, in case we can meet our main objective: the FP.

DeepO

[Aeson]

I agree that we need 1 more Transport from Hurricane.

Having 12 of our Marines in the chain is troublesome. I think we need a couple more DD's (even if each costs us a Marine or two) to protect the chain from Subs. Either that or drop a DD from the main fleet (or move the sentry killers after they have done their jobs) on each of the chain hubs.

[DeepO]

I was going to look into it, but at least some of the picket destroyers were going to go towards our chain, and not all of them can reach the Northern fleet (DD 6 for instance).

12 marines in the chain is not ideal, but 8 of them are certain to be in our main attack fleet, nothing Lego can do to prevent that. So we're talking about 4 marines we might loose in case Lego takes out our initial chaining ship. If we would put 2 DD on that (one possibly damaged), we should have a good chance... but our supply of DD is not infinite either.

The main problem I've got with building another DD is that it has to come from somewhere. Hurricane will finish a transport next turn, and building a transport there from scratch (so no rushing) means it would be perfectly timed to chain on turn 242. We can rush it, and rush a DD, but that will mean a lot of gold, or a lot of lost defenders (320g per transport / DD).

There is an alternative, though... again How important are our picket ships up North? We have 2 of them that are, for as far as we know, out of range to attack anything the first turn. Lego will know their positions, so in case they want to destroy them can do so undetected (Magellan gives a DD 6 moves). Why don't we use these as well? The closest one can protect the chain on turn 241 if we choose to have a Northern position. The last one will likely take one more turn to be of use, but at least that's one turn won.

Oh, we could be very lucky, and somewhere run into that lost sub, or save our Northern sub and let that one cover our transport on turn 242. I half expect it to attract the Lego lost sub, though...

DeepO

[DeepO]

This makes me think... do we want to declare war on Vox? The only reason to do so, is that they can't spy on us for Lego. However, if Lego can plant spies, and investigate cities for us anyway, it won't matter, I wuold think...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Aeson, any comments on the break down of our forces for both fleet? We need those numbers next turn, and I'm far from certain on what I proposed

DeepO

[Jon Shafer]

Sail for great justice!

[DeepO]

we'll try... the injustice of Lego having all that fertile land, while we start on this crappy island with immortals closeby you mean

Now get out of our strategy discussion thread, darn eye!

DeepO

[Jon Shafer]

Bwaaaaaahhh!

[Aeson]

Ok. 4 Marines we can do without (and building 2 DD's would cost us 4 Marines anyways right?). I was under the false impression that the 12 were going to go 4 (unhinderable) then 8 (in doubt).

The DD's to protect the chain the turn of invasion still might be a good idea. They can be built later, or brought in from sentry sinking duty survivors.

As for troop compositions, we have 80 slots on "sailing day", reserving 3 Transports for chaining, and 3 for receiving the chain results. If we build the Hurricane transport does that give us 88? We certainly could use more Tanks on D-day.

I think we should drop down the number of Inf a bit, maybe all the way, in favor of Tanks. Lose the Workers. We should get a lot of them from razing cities right? That way we can take a few more Tanks. Our "holding Lego" is going to be dependant on GoW landing to split the counter-attack, and having MI for chaining, not Infantry (just 9 will not hold up against 50+ Cavalry and some Tanks). Our "damaging Lego" will depend on how many Tanks we have*. 22 may be too few.

Try to get the landing day chain in place, and ship over as many MI as possible. MI will eat up Cavalry much better than Infantry (no retreat and better defense).

Also we only have 64 units in the S fleet to send.

So:

Troops on the boats are:
- 40 marines
- 5 settlers
- 1 explorer
- 34 tanks

chainer 1 brings 8 extra marines if it succeeds
chainer 2 brings possibly 4 more marines, 4 MI, or 8 MI.
chainer 3 brings possibly 8 more MI.

South transport can bring 8 transports worth of troops.
e.g.
- 5 settlers
- 5 workers
- 36 tanks
- 18 infs

*Assuming we take a beachhead, otherwise it doesn't really matter what we take besides our Marines, right?

[Aeson]

So at D-day we could have:

52 marines
5 Settlers
1 Explorer
34 Tanks
16 MI

If we don't have the MI, we probably won't hold onto much. just pick a city (the coastal one) to put the surviving Tanks in and hope they are stil lthere for our second landing. They just have to hold against the Tanks Lego can build in 1 turn, and the Cavalry. Tanks might be a better defense against the Cavalry anyways.

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One thing we have to consider is where the Cavalry are. If Lego is smart and puts them (and even the Horsemen) in the coastal cities, we might not have enough attacks to eat through them after the Infs. For that reason perhaps we should try for even more Marines. We can expect about 12 Infantry backed up with 9 Artillery average in each "threatened city. Then 8 Cavalry and a Horseman.

The Cavalry and Horsemen will simply eat up an attack each. So if we need 50 Marines to get through 12 Infantry, we need 9-10 more Marines to get through the Cavalry and Horsemen. A D-day chain available to bring across 8 Marines would be important.

[Aeson]

If they do draft and and stack all their new builds in the 7 coastal cities, we might not get through at all. It would be a huge gamble on their part to leave ALL their cities other than those 7 empty though. A single Marine and a bunch of Cavalry unaccounted for would basically take destroy everything they had.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
Ok. 4 Marines we can do without (and building 2 DD's would cost us 4 Marines anyways right?). I was under the false impression that the 12 were going to go 4 (unhinderable) then 8 (in doubt).

That's my fault, I made a mistake above. Chainer 1 is guaranteed to succeed, it's chainer 2 and 3 that are at risk.

The DD's to protect the chain the turn of invasion still might be a good idea. They can be built later, or brought in from sentry sinking duty survivors.

built later: I could build on from Blizzard, but that needs one more turn to reach the first chaining position (If I got it right, on turn 244). This is without rushing. Count on at least 1 sentry sinker, 1 from our main stack (with the empty transport, we can risk that), and if we don't need the warning 2 more from up North who currently are on sentry duty. 4 DD, of which one possibly damaged, spread out over 4 turns and 3 positions... not ideal perhaps, but okay, right?

As for troop compositions, we have 80 slots on "sailing day", reserving 3 Transports for chaining, and 3 for receiving the chain results. If we build the Hurricane transport does that give us 88? We certainly could use more Tanks on D-day.

Yes, 88.

Try to get the landing day chain in place, and ship over as many MI as possible. MI will eat up Cavalry much better than Infantry (no retreat and better defense).

I think we can more or less guarantee 8 MI in chainer 2, as only subs can reach it (the rest we can spot right now). The extra 8 MI on chainer 3 (which are shipped the moment they are deployed) are less certain, but have a good chance.... that gives us 16 defenders at most (tanks defend as well, of course)

a bit of a correction:

Troops on the boats are:
- 40 marines
- 5 settlers
- 1 explorer
- 34 tanks

chainer 1 brings 8 extra marines guaranteed
chainer 2 brings possibly 4 more marines, 4 MI, or 8 MI.
chainer 3 brings possibly 8 more MI.

South transport can bring 8 transports worth of troops.
e.g.
- 5 settlers
- 5 workers
- 36 tanks
- 18 infs

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
One thing we have to consider is where the Cavalry are. If Lego is smart and puts them (and even the Horsemen) in the coastal cities, we might not have enough attacks to eat through them after the Infs. For that reason perhaps we should try for even more Marines. We can expect about 12 Infantry backed up with 9 Artillery average in each "threatened city. Then 8 Cavalry and a Horseman.

The Cavalry and Horsemen will simply eat up an attack each. So if we need 50 Marines to get through 12 Infantry, we need 9-10 more Marines to get through the Cavalry and Horsemen. A D-day chain available to bring across 8 Marines would be important.

True... but the problem here is that we need to build those 8 marines beforehand. It won't cost us any MI, but will cost us tanks or bombers. And in case they're not used, I'm not certain what we'll do with them later on.

I would like to have 8 tanks available for D-day chaining as well. Suppose we investigate Quanto, and see it is not so heavily defended as we thought. Suppose we've got 20 marines left from the attack on Sando. Both of these assumptions are not that far out... in this case, going for Quanto would make a lot of sense, as our reinforcements in the Southern fleet can not only take the FP, but it will also give a harbor (Quanto), and barracks in the cities we keep from Lego. That means an extra 18 infs upgraded to MI...
In case we are close, but e.g. can't get the final horseman hiding in Quanto, we will be gratefull we can also ship over 8 tanks, or a couple of tanks and some MI.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
If they do draft and and stack all their new builds in the 7 coastal cities, we might not get through at all. It would be a huge gamble on their part to leave ALL their cities other than those 7 empty though. A single Marine and a bunch of Cavalry unaccounted for would basically take destroy everything they had.

Yeah, I don't see them gambling like that. Vondrack doesn't seem to take much risks, and Kloreep will remember the doughnut attack he suffered a couple of months ago. He didn't have empty cities, but just had 1 defender in each of them. I think all their interior cities will have a minimum of 2-3 defenders, but some of these defenders could e.g. be a cav.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

It would be nice if ND could float a couple of ships out around Lego's east coast to maybe help prevent the 'hard shell' defence in the west that could thwart us.

Also, we'll see how may lux are going ND->Lego when we spy, but if ND could pull them out it would make drafting hurt more for Lego (who'll get a War-Joy boost initially).