Turn 229: 1140 AD

[vmxa1]

Ho many we need for home defense will be largely dependant on how big of a surprise the invasion is to Lego.

IOW if they are not coming for us as we head out and do not detect us immediately we should not face a massive attack at home.

If we go on the basis that ND and GoW are in on our side and send a fair size force, we do not need a great deal of defenders at home.

Will we still have pickets or recons, so we do not get surprised? If so we should be able to use our rails to make up for any shortages at home.

Lego will not have that capacity if all three of us land in more or less unison.

[Aeson]

The Carriers can be (air superiority) decoys and help protect the fleet.

We probably will be hitting a non-metro Sandonorico, so what are the odds on that? Also, isn't Quanto on a hill? So we could expect a metro-hill there. Again, what are odds on that?

I would say upgrade 5-10 MI for back home after the war has started and espionage is taken care of (or if Lego is threatening a landing). Marines will not have an easy time taking out MI so we need a few to "show" forted on any split cities if Lego does come with a landing party, and then can back them up with upgraded Inf as needed.

10-15 MI for the invasion. Park 3 on any Tank stacks left in the open, and 3-4 MI in any city we keep. Then back them up with Inf. If it goes as planned, that would give us a port and inland city to hold (6-8 MI) along with tank stacks near the FP gateway city (if necessary) and the FP city itself (6). 10-15 Inf should be sent. They aren't going to do us a whole lot of good over there until we have a Barracks up and cash to upgrade anyways.

That would leave us with 50 Inf/MI back home. It's obviously not enough to keep us safe from any planned invasion, but should be enough if Lego decides to go out with a bang and loads up to go hit us on the spur of the moment (read low numbers of Marines).

We need to save a lot of cash for spy missions, which is why I recommend so few MI at first. Anyone familiar with the mechanics of planting a spy in PBEM? (I don't even remember how it works in SP very well..) Does the other team get a message if you fail? Can you just keep trying if you fail or is there a waiting period?

[Aeson]

So we'll have:

23 Destroyers
23 Transports
100 Marines/Tanks
15 MI
15 I
2 Explorers (should be enough considering that Conqs will be along too)
6 Settlers

That gives us 7 free transports? Take those further S near Quanto 1144, Put 5 Destroyers and on the stack... so if Lego is going to sink ships it would be best to try and sink those 12. Maybe pull their Bombers/Fleet that way instead of our main attack force.

I think that would be enough to give us a diversion of at least some effect. Especially in regards to swinging Lego's troops towards Quanto instead of Sand or Fork. Set it up so only Quanto can be hit by both groups, while keeping them honest in Abilene and the city down on the tip of the continent (no name in the screenshot).

That gives us a split on 5 cities. If GoW can get a few more we should be in good shape. The cost is that we can't include more units in the initial landing, but we will be pretty close as it is to sending all we can send.

[vmxa1]

I was thinking that it would be unwise of Lego to send last ditch at us anyway. This is because we are not so close to them and should have time to defend.

A last ditch from them can reach Bob quickly. If they do not have the troops out to sea already, why would they not throw them into their defense?

[DeepO]

Aeson:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3035589#post3035589

This are not the exact simulations, I mean, somewhere in this forum other things are burried, specifically for 10 infs defending. But I can't find it.... maybe vulture still knows where he posted it.

As to gold for MI upgrades as opposed to spying: I've been counting what we'll need for upgrades.
- Galleons to transports are 80(?) each, 960 total
- infs to MI are 20 gold, 1140 gold
- rifles to MI are 80 gold, 1600 gold

In total, this gives us a maximum of 3700 gold for upgrades, as we won't upgrade knights or med infs. Largest part of that comes from rifles left behind, which are lowest priority to upgrade.

Much depends on whether we want to research ahead towards MA or nukes, but if we stop research after computers, we'll be making some 500g per turn (espially if RP helps). It's difficult to estimate, but I think we can have some 5K in our treasury at D-day, ready for upgrades and spying. I'm more inclined to at least upgrade all our invading MI. Extra defenders can be found in marines

As to spying: I have no clue how it works in PBEM, and only notions how it works in SP. One thing I heared is that we can't implant a spy while at war, as we needed an active embassy... but I'm not even sure on that information.

An extra decoy fleet won't be bad, especially if we could make sure Lego does not have our military plans. Could we dig for spies before invading, and be sure they can't insert new ones? Also, that fleet does not necessarily be empty, it could carry some (non-critical) reinforcements. I was thinking on some settlers and workers, which could be chained into port on the next turn. If not attacked, the other way could also work, in that they enlarge the reach of any left over marines.

vmxa1: I agree it would be unwise of Lego to try to attack us, however, this may very well be a last ditch attempt. If we don't destroy them in the first turns before D-day, they will have plenty of transports (or caravels). If they see they can't make it, I wouldn't be surprised if they ship al units over to us, only drafting defenders in their core. At least they could find some honor, by invading us. And, as we're smallest, we would make the easier target, especially if we land a large force on their continent. Also, don't forget Vox.

DeepO

[vulture]

Hey all. I've been unable to get any response at all from 'Poly for the last three weeks, and it suddenly re-appeared for me last night. So now I've got to catch up with everything.

For the simulations of marines, weren't there some links to the various results from the topped military thread?

[DeepO]

I got the link I quoted like in the topped thread, yes... but I remember something that you made specific simulations for 10 infs as well... can't find that one.

Oh, and not that much to catch up to, it's been calm lately. Silence before the storm

DeepO

[vulture]

So it's kind of like a ... 'gathering' ... storm.

Hey - I've an idea for a team name...

I've dug up some of the articles I posted with simulations:

The marine vs infantry lookup tables in seveal posts starting with the ones linked. Basically gives the chance for N marines to take a city with M infantry defenders (with some artillery and tanks also present, in some cases), with a variety of defensive combat bonuses.

Tank / marine invasion force simlations for a mixed force of tanks and marines invading a civ with various coastal and inland cities defended by a fixed number of infantry (basically to look at whether it is better to stack defenders in coastal cities, or to defend inland ones too).

There were some other posts - one was purely marines vs infantry, which is essentially all in the first post, but it went up to 40 marines vs 10 inf (although with a minor bug in the program which changes some irrelevant results, such as 4 marines vs 1 infantry). Haven't found that one yet. I think there was one more set of simulations which I can't remember anything about.

Will keep looking

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
There were some other posts - one was purely marines vs infantry, which is essentially all in the first post, but it went up to 40 marines vs 10 inf (although with a minor bug in the program which changes some irrelevant results, such as 4 marines vs 1 infantry). Haven't found that one yet.

That's the one which would be most useful now... but I didn't find it either at first sight.

DeepO

[vulture]

I've found it! It's cunningly hidden in the Spartan Academy thread...

Link to relevant post

As previously mentioned, there is a minor bug. The problem was that although units got promoted from elite to elite* correctly (i.e. with no extra hps) I forgot to add in something to stop elite* units being promoted, which lead to them getting an extra load of hitpoint taken from somewhere more or less random in the computers memory. If this was a nice large number, they could become effectively immortal, having a few billion hps or something. Which is why for 40 marines vs 1 infantry, the marines don't win 100% of the time. The problem is worst with 1 defender, and is only 0.7% there, and is much smaller for any relatively evenly matched scenario, so for pretty much any purpose the numbers are good enough, and certainly are in the right ball park (which is generally all we need).

[vmxa1]

IIRC you cannot plant spies while at war and cannot spy during war without a spy.

The "expose enemy spy" requires CIA as well.

[DeepO]

so, if we 'expose enemy spy' right before attacking them, we are sure they can't spy on us? Can you expose a spy while at war, so could they do the same to us (if they have the CIA, of course)?

Oh, vulture... the link you gave was close, but still not really that one simulation I was looking for... as far as I see, it doesn't have numbers of 40 marines vs 10 infs. It could be that you simply gave those, though, instead of building a full table. Hunting that down won't be easy without a search function.

DeepO

[vulture]

Oh, you're right. Didn't look that closely. I did post a tale of 10 v 40 though, since I found a copy of that table on my work HDD. Haven't got time to dig it out and reformat it for posting right now though, so I'll stick it up somewhere when I have the time.

The file was created on the 24th of Feb, so it should have been posted at that time. But I haven't had any luck tracking down where it ended up though (and its easier for me because I can see which threads I've posted in).

If only there was a private forum search feature...

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
(and its easier for me because I can see which threads I've posted in).

Yeah... for the past 6 months, I posted in every single GS thread, with very few exceptions. I can't help you there

DeepO

[vmxa1]

I don't have the CIA built yet in my game, so I cannot say for sure. They will not be able to spy on us without a spy during war, so if we can know they do not have the CIA built, they will not be able to investigate. Of course if they do not have the Espionage at all they are screwed.

I would not think they will be able to in any case as I would not think they will have cash for such a long shot. If I were them and war was started, I would rather spend my money on rushes or a key tech a turn sooner.