Turn 243: 1265 AD

[DeepO]

Arrian, the landing spot hasn't been set into stone yet. But only flat land is possible for landing, yes.

As to hitting the DDs: I'm still not completely convinced, but I'll follow the popular vote. One at a time

Getting more navy: You're right, also if we want to set up a supply line. I do have an idea for chaining in a couple of turn, where we eliminate 1 hub from the chain by setting up 'double' hubs. It should mean we need a bit less pretection from DDs. However, at this moment, we have other priorities. I'll build a sub In WoC, and a TR in Hurricane, but for the moment that's about all we can miss in production. We're shipping another 6 MI off Stormia, soon there won't be any MI left.

DeepO

[Theseus]

So the main objection to the North Plan is that stationing the fleet at Q774 results in the Arty threat?

What if we split the fleet into two elements:

A. 'Safety First' at Q7744
3 Destroyers
1 Carrier
13 Transports
(6 empty)
47 Marines
4 Settlers
4 Workers
1 Explorer
(Total of 56 units)
1 Fighter

[If necessary, I *believe* we can make the Settlers even safer by making sure they are on a Transport with only 7 units (disbanding a Worker, for instance)]

B. 'Mobile Threat' at Q774
3 Destroyers
1 Carrier
9 Transports
(all empty)
1 Fighter

What does Lego do then? Seriously, think about it!

No matter what, this still provides for a combined land/sea assault on Qanto, assuming we can break through whatever blockade they present.

Also, depending on what happens to the 'Mobile Threat', we can chain Marines onto those Transports for an attack on Sando.

[vmxa1]

My recollection of actions on stacked ships is that once the DD's get redlined, you will have empty TR's pop to the top for defense.

As those get damaged, the next undamaged TR will pop to the top of the stack.

If you do nothing with the cargo, they will go down with the ship, but I am not sure what happens if they are "awake". It could be that they will drop to an empty, but I have never seen this occur. The AI does not send empties.

[Theseus]

Nope, I don;t think it matters if the transported units are awake. I *think* that less than fully loaded Transports are the last in line in defense, though.

[Aeson]

I don't have access to Civ or I would test. Someone please test.

The scenario should be simple to create.
Coastal city for the player.
City somewhere for the AI.
AI Battleship 2 tiles from player's city.
1 HP Transport next to AI Battleship
4 HP Transport in player's city.
Units to put in the Transport.

Then play the scenario. Stick the units in the Transport. Move it on top of the 1 HP Transport. Declare War on the AI. End turn. See if units survive. Repeat with waking the units.

[Theseus]

I'll do it...give me a bit.

[Cort Haus]

Wow, that'd be cool - dynamically self-allocating passengers!

"Auto life-boat to friendly floating transports in the event of being sunk. Defy enemy battleships and amaze your opponents and allies alike! "

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Theseus
What if we split the fleet into two elements:
...
A. 'Safety First' at Q7744
...
B. 'Mobile Threat' at Q774
...
What does Lego do then? Seriously, think about it!

If we go N, it's what we should do. I don't think we should go N though.

Most likely destroy our mobile threat (as it forks 4 cities) leaving us only able to hit Sand and Quanto with the safety fleet. This can be accomplished with conventional attacking, as at best we can hope to keep 3-4 "mobile" Transports. More likely Lego uses some Artillery and we lose all the "mobile" Transports though.

They can then pile into Quanto with ~50 Inf or equivalent and defend Sand with ~25 Inf or equivalent which we can't break through in either case. Fork and Abilene will be out of reach.

No matter what, this still provides for a combined land/sea assault on Qanto, assuming we can break through whatever blockade they present.

We can do the same thing to the S though. Split on Abilene and Tip for sure. The differences are that Abilene gives us better odds because it's not on a Hill and Lego can't use their BB attacking our Marine carrying Transports in any case. Both are in our favor.

It still doesn't make it likely we take Abilene, but 50 Inf in Abilene gives us ~30% odds to take the city compared to ~3% in Quanto. It takes 56 Inf in Abilene to do what 50 Inf in Quanto will do.

[Theseus]

BB vs TR test

Trial 1
Reg TR with 6 M
Con TR
BB sinks Reg TR and all Marines

Trial 2
Reg TR with 6 M
Reg TR
Con TR
BB sinks empty Reg TR

Trial 3
Reg TR with 6 M
Reg TR with 5 M
Con TR
BB sinks Reg TR with 5 M

[vulture]

1) Can we afford to investigate Forkmouth? You'd expect the regulation 10 inf and 10 arty there, but the tanks don't seem to be evenly spread, so that may be all that is in the city, which would be do-able.

2) Theseus: was that with the marines awake, or sleeping in transports?

3) Lego has a spy. As far as we know, anyway. It is possible that they tried and failed a spy mission after they exposed our spy, and lost their, but we shouldn't count on that. So they can steal plans next turn, which they almost certainly should do if faced with two stacks of transports - they'd want to know what was in each stack before attacking. Any plan relying on that info being unknown to Lego should take this into account.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Aeson
We can do the same thing to the S though. Split on Abilene and Tip for sure. The differences are that Abilene gives us better odds because it's not on a Hill and Lego can't use their BB attacking our Marine carrying Transports in any case. Both are in our favor.

As I see it, those are the only two key differences to going south.... doesn't do a lot for me.

Much more important to coordinate what we are doing with GoW. They key problem that Aeson highlights is that Lego has the ability to overstock WHICHEVER cities we want to fork with defenders and arty... we need to find some strategy that takes that ability away, and yet provides for a joint land/sea assault on our part. Perhaps in conjunction with GoW we can accomplish that.

I have to go out for about 2 hours. 'Til Lata...

PS: vulture, that was with the Marines loaded onto the TR while it was already at sea, meaning not with 'L' but rather by moving onto the sea tile location of the TR.

PS 2: Yes, I would anticipate a Lego spy. The two-element fleet still works even if they know the composition.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Theseus

Much more important to coordinate what we are doing with GoW. They key problem that Aeson highlights is that Lego has the ability to overstock WHICHEVER cities we want to fork with defenders and arty... we need to find some strategy that takes that ability away, and yet provides for a joint land/sea assault on our part. Perhaps in conjunction with GoW we can accomplish that.

Well, I posted this before... but in combination with GoW also doing a combined land / sea attack, we can threaten 6 cities. That should be enough to leave 1 city open. Further, next turn Lego can't risk to keep all its cities undefended (as I think they have now)

I think it's critical we have a reailistic threat on a city by sea, a city which we can't reach over land. It doesn't have to be a big one, we just need the pression. Perhaps a N invasion can also provide this, but no matter how you turn it, the invasion will be more prone to danger. Ships close to the shore are more in danger, and the North plan lets Lego calculate how many ships it has to bomb before it starts on the full transports, with enough ships nearby to create a major problem. On top of that, the blocking problem remains: Lego has at least 12 ships nearby which can be distributed over the different tiles to keep us from getting near a city. Blocking can't happen in the South, or we have to assume some 8 hidden Lego ships within range. I'm not saying the South is absolutely guaranteed to be safer than the North, but from what we have spotted, with the information we've got, it looks like that to me.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
1) Can we afford to investigate Forkmouth? You'd expect the regulation 10 inf and 10 arty there, but the tanks don't seem to be evenly spread, so that may be all that is in the city, which would be do-able.

Well, we can do it, but if at all possible I'd like to avoid it. Forkmouth is little over 200 gold to investigate. That's 5 I to MI upgrades we could use.

3) Lego has a spy. As far as we know, anyway. It is possible that they tried and failed a spy mission after they exposed our spy, and lost their, but we shouldn't count on that.

wouldn't we be warned when they lost a spy in an attempt to steal technology, or our mil. plans?

So they can steal plans next turn, which they almost certainly should do if faced with two stacks of transports - they'd want to know what was in each stack before attacking. Any plan relying on that info being unknown to Lego should take this into account.

Hmmm... I don't fully agree. I'm not sure as I haven't checked it this turn, but stealing plans is very costly. I thought that stealing Lego's plans would cost us over 5000 gold. Lego has a little voer 1400 gold right now, and without help from Vox only can get to less than 2400 gold next turn. It's not enough for stealing plans.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Theseus
[If necessary, I *believe* we can make the Settlers even safer by making sure they are on a Transport with only 7 units (disbanding a Worker, for instance)]

While you're testing, could you also test this? It would be important to know whether half full transports get picked before full transports. It could help us a lot with the marine / settler transports, no matter in which scenario we are.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Originally posted by DeepO

While you're testing, could you also test this? It would be important to know whether half full transports get picked before full transports. It could help us a lot with the marine / settler transports, no matter in which scenario we are.

DeepO

I did, and my original assumption was backward: partially full ships defend first.