Turn 240: 1250 AD

[DeepO]

Sorry guys for the delay, I just returned home after a busy weekend. It wasn't planned I was staying over at friends.

I'll get to the save as fast as I can take a bath, and have some lunch, I'm starving.

DeepO

[DeepO]

This is taking forever to do right... sigh... but at least there are some results to show

Here's a teaser



DeepO

[vulture]

Bye bye little ironclad. Those poor sailors, betrayed by Lego's unwillingness to invest in its navy properly...

[DeepO]

I'm done fighting, and am loading our units into boats. Just some quick results: All visible Lego ships have been destroyed. We lost one DD, but 2 DDs forked that Ir... so all our targets have been met. And not accounting for Lego subs, there is only one ship which could possibly be attacked next turn, the sub shadowing the BS stack.

Well, I suppose they could launch a counter offensive from one of their cities, But that's not of big concern right now.

More coming when I've finished the turn

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Did I miss the start of the war? Has GoW send troops? It is nice to see the rng was not unkind.

[Jon Shafer]

This is the first turn.

[DeepO]

well, nothing very special about the rng: the only attack which had a 50% chance of failing succeeded. All the others were in our advantage.

Sorry to keep you all waiting, but finding our troops and dividing them over our ships proves more difficult than expected. I just searched for 20 minutes to find our last marine Damn... hiding on a fur... not so nice of him

DeepO

[DeepO]

Standing Info

2 forest remains, D-ville 99 and WoC 23.

Defense Plan
Aeson's comments
GoW war plans
Invasion plan

Start

- RP sends WM + 100g. Sending WM, iron and furs in return.

- EotS builds Marine, start Marine.

- Hurricane builds transport. Starts airport (placeholder, we currently don't have oil)

- Elipolis builds fighter, starts airport (placeholder)

- Tempest builds Marine, starts Marine.

- WoC builds Marine, starts Marine.

- SA builds Marine. Starts Marine.

- 1200 gold, 70%, 710bpt, -232 gpt. (computers in 1 of 9) 5631/6240 beakers collected.

Modern Era Tech Cost



shortrushes
- we don't have any MI to disband anymore... 2 choices: a worker, or an explorer (no way I'm sacrificing a rifle for this.)
- going for explorer... we won't immediately need him anyway.
- shortrush to settler (25 shields, 100 gold) (this was the last rush in SA, probably).

- shortrush to knight in OG (10 shields, 40 gold)

forces

(- 2 galley)
- 14 art
- 24 workers (+.1/turn)
- 9 settlers (+.53/turn)
- 20 rifle
- 57 inf
- 40 Marines (+8.24/turn)
- 70 tanks (+.25/turn)
- 24 DD
- 26 transports
- 2 carrier
- 3 sub
- 3 explorer (+ .14/turn)
- 2 fighter (+0/turn)

- Strong in strength to GoW, to ND, and to Lego.

Legoland forces:

- 2 settler
- 15 worker (-2 since last turn)
- 8 horsemen
- 51 Cavalry
- 85 infantry (+1)
- 61 artillery
- 16 ironclad
- 15 transport
- 8 subs (+2)
- 8 DD
- 9 BB
- 2 bomber (+1)

CH, could you give this to GoW? They might be interested

A question: would anybody be interested in storing this information in some kind of intelligence thread of sorts? Just to have all the numbers on their forces, over all the turns. It would provide a nice source of information, but I don't feel like doing it (sorry).

- Lego navy in Mare Nostrum
- 3 subs
- 6 ironclad (expecting one more up North)
- 4 DD (expecting 2 more up North, at most)
- 7 BS (looks like their defense force)


Moves

- 2 inf (from SS and EotS) pillage road and RR on the oil. 4 workers (moved beforehand) build road, RR and irr.

Battlereport

DD from Hurr 6 moves to Ir (forgot to record its name). We attack, and declare war.



I can't take screenshots while the battle is occuring, don't know precisely what's happening. I wanted to have the sinking moment, but instead it only lets me have the 'after' image. Sorry.

the following is a screenshot on how the battles occured, to picture it easier.



(DD1 is the first, but it was moved before the screenshot was made. Sorry, didn't want to reload because I forgot to do it beforehand).

DD1 attacks Ir ... . DD 4/4.
DD2 attacks Ir Southfork. DD 1/4.
DD3 attacks DD Achilles. DD 2/4.
Sub1 attacks DD Poseidon . Sub 2/4.
DD4 attacks DD Argonout. DD 2/4.
Sub2 attacks Sub U-Q2. Sub 1/4.
DD5 attacks DD Athena. DD 2/4.
DD6 attacks Ir Dagger. DD 2/4.
DD7 attacks Ir Sledgehammer. DD 3/4.
DD8 attacks Ir Maul. DD destroyed. Ir Maul 3/4.
DD9 attacks Ir Maul(3/4). DD promotes to elite 4/5.
DD10 attacks Ir Iron. DD 3/4.

Total: 12 attacks, 11 won, 1 lost, 1 promotion.
We lost 1 DD.
Lego lost 7 Ir, 2 Sub, 4 DD.

end of battle screenshot:


Moving remaining ships. Darker red polygon indicates attack range of BS stack. Lighter red indicates bombing range of BS stack.

North fleet to be covered by 7 DD now, with 4 more close by for next turn. South fleet covered by 5 DD. Deep South covered by 1 DD, 3/4.



Loading transports:
North fleet gets
- 40 marines
- 5 settlers
- 1 explorer
- 34 tanks
with 3 empty transports, that makes a convoy of 11 Tr.

South fleet:
- 36 tanks
- 4 settlers
- 4 workers
- 2 explorer
- 18 inf

both carriers carry 1 fighter. Did some scouting with one, but without much effect. Can they spot subs, BTW?

With our forces gone, I'm looking into our defense plan. taking into account that there is no way Lego can attack us with marines for the time being.
on Stormia, we've got:
- 20 rifles
- 36 infs
- 14 art

each city takes 2 inf, except inner most cities (we simply don't have the forces). All mountains get a rifle. The rest is distributed to WoC, hurricane, Elipolis. Our defense is minimal, I'll be glad once we've got MI covering our cities.

End of turn screenshot:


workforce shuffles

- WoC takes grass from Inchon instead of coast. tweak next turn in case we can get to 100 spt with the coast.
- Inchon canges to tax man instead of grass.

- WW gives desert to OG. Takes coast instead.
- OG loses WLTKD next turn, and would otherwise end up 1 shield short.

Current Builds

I want to change all possible builds to MI next turn. If GoW would attack, they would wait best to D-day. We would lose rubber, making MI inpossible to build (unless we secure a source on Legoland). As precaution, let's start those, and if GoW keeps friendly, change them back to tanks / bombers or whatever.

Another note: we will loose WLTKD in many cities next turn. It should not affect many cities.

Eli : bomber in 3. Will lose spt next turn, make it more suitable to 34 spt builds.
Inchon : Explorer in 2
WoC : Marine in 1
Inchoff : Marine in 1
D-ville : Marine in 1
Santa Ana : Marine in 1
Blizzard : Tank in 2 (losing shields, can't be helped)
Monsoon : Marine in 1
Arashi : Marine in 1
WW : Tank in 2
Tempest : Marine in 1
SS: settler in 3 (shows 4)
Hurricane : Transport in 2
OG : Marine in 1
EotS : Marine in 1
Bolderberg : Marine in 1
Cyclone: settler in 1(worker next, we've got 10 settlers at this point)
Tornado : Marine in 1
Typhoon : Marine in 1 (lost WLTKD. Hopefully not catastrophic)
Sufa : Worker in 1


Diplo

- Lego Mot Transport (and tanks) to be expected in turn 242.

- Vox discovered or traded for Marines last turn! Both they and Lego currently have it. Does this mean we need to get a spy into Vox asap?

- pillaging oil for RP. Instant rebuilding, once the deal ended. A bit of a problem is that oil was a package deal with iron and furs... the whole deal was cancelled once the oil was unavailable. Offering iron and furs accepted to RP. Changed Hurricane to transport, and Elipolis to bomber (marine would take too long).

Other

- Something I haven't noticed last turn (I can't say for sure if I just didn't post it, if it was some kind of bug, or if it simply wasn't there...): Leopolis has the symbol of the Lego CIA next to its name. Apart from Arashi, it is the only city which shows a CIA. It's logical to assume it only shows once espionage is discovered, but it could also be that Legoland finished it last turn. At any rate, we can be certain they can build spies.

- What is Lego building, when it is not building units? I only count 3 new units last turn. It's too early to prebuild tanks in most of their cities, are they going for mass airports or something like that? Currently, I can spot one airport: Legopolis. Vox has none, GoW has none, ND has 5(huh?).

- cost of removing the Lego spy (does anybody even consider them not having planted a spy with us?) = 310 gold (safely).
- cost of investigating Sando = 114 gold.
- cost of investigating Quanto = 219 gold.

Diplo Bug with GoW. - slightly concerned about lux expiry.


Next Turn

- evade enemy forces, and sail forward

DeepO

[vmxa1]

DeepO you are doing some job, just great.

*vmxa bows and smiles*

[Theseus]

:applause:

[asleepathewheel]

clap clap

[DeepO]

Thanks We're not over the pond yet, though

One correction: our Northern fleet consists of 10 full transports, and 3 empties, so a total of 13. Not 11 as reported...

add 8 in our Southern fleet, 3 in the Deep South, and another 2 in port in Hurricane. Last TR is complete in 2 turns, to a total of 27.

I'm looking into what to do next turn.
1. I think, first priority would be to see where the BS stack is. Maybe we can spot it immediately, maybe we need to use our Sub (if still alive).
2. assess the damage Lego will do to our ships. Many of them are currently wounded, and without cover... ideally for Subs.
3. In case we've got a half chance of damaging the BS stack, I think we should go for it. We should have 4 wounded ships able to bombard, and another 8 full health DD in range (or nothing in range at all). If those 7 BB are the only thing we spot, we can at least damage them. It's a lot more favourable to attack them, than it would be to get attacked.
4. In case we are out of range, we try to stay out of their attack range (which will be very unlikely). Lego can have 2 shots at our Northern fleet before we are safe. If they play it well, and with good intelligence, it will be hard for us to get by undamaged. A lot depends on how many subs they have deployed in 'our' sea.

Any guesses at the strategic decisions Lego is going to make when they open the turn?
- go for the supply lines with the BS?
- focus on subs to prevent chaining?
- try to block with the BB stack?
- go straight for the first fleet they spot?
- rely on still-to-build bombers to give us a good beating before moving the BBs in for the kill? (can be done at least on turn T-1, as bombers have range 6, and our TR only range 5)

I wonder how much of the thinking work can be done beforehand. If at all possible, I'd like to avoid any major decisions while playing the turn (deciding where a ship should stop to keep out of range is one thing, deciding where to move the whole fleet a totally other).

Something I also noticed while playing this one is that the format I've been using for the turn threads doesn't work well in a war. I think it's going to become more fragmented, where I post a screenie and some explanation, and leave time for arguments while I do the economic stuff. Really major decisions will get 24h or so, in such a case the time limits don't apply anyway.

I hope this war will make this game interesting again to many of our members. We've been building too long, planning too much... at least we can have some fun now too. Well... assuming all goes well, of course

DeepO

[Theseus]

Yeah, as I've been catching up I've had my eye on those BBs quite a bit. I'd think they'd pretty much come straight south... make it almost impossible to divert south around them, and yet still be able to support any coastal actions in western Lego. I say full steam ahead, depend on empty Transports and warships for protection of the main stack, don;t worry about the chaining ships, and damn the torpedoes!!

I'm not frantically worried about Subs or Bombers, nor about their trying to create a BB-shield.

BTW, my most sincere compliments to all who have carried the game thus far... fantastic!!

I have also PMed to Vel's account... I am sure he would want to see / hear about this!

[DeepO]

I'm kind of hoping Lego would move their BBs straight South. That would leave them open for attack from our main stack. We can at that position bombard them with DDs in total 12 times, with all of our ships getting under cover of the main fleet. That should be enough to get a hit on all the BBs.

But the question is more if we would try to take them out, or not. I count at T-2 (next turn) 11 DD which can defend a TR (as it has to be at least 2/4, otherwise the TR will be first to get hit), and 2 empty TR. We could e.g. use 6 DD to bombard, and use the other 6 4/4 DDs to have a shot at the BBs. Very likely, we will kill 2-4 BBs, and still have 6 ships defending before any marines are sunk.

Only damaging the BS also works, though. We've got more ships than them, if we both keep bombarding each other, we should get the advantage in the end. But I wonder how safe that is

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, I think we should not underestimate what Lego can build in navy in the next few turns. With their economy, they should have cash to burn for rushes... add to that all marines / airport / whatever build changes, and we can face a fleet of another 10 DDs in 2 turns.
(currently, only 4 DDs are left. Following Lego's picket line logic, these should be situated close to home in ND and GoW reach. But with a bit of rushing, any marine / inf / building build can be switched to a 1-turn DD)

Keep in mind, Lego currently isn't mobilized. But that won't take long, I'd gather.

DeepO