Turn 243: 1265 AD

[DeepO]

If this war takes long, I think that is precisely the weak spot of Lego. They mobilized... they needed to as otherwise we would overrun them. But, in their case there is a major problem with this: they are under attack, and can't rebuild. GoW destroyed a factory in Legopolis (which probably had a coal plant as well), for the rest of this war Legopolis will have half the production.

I'm only starting to realize the impact of this... if we could bomb all factories of Lego, we probably outproduce them! We don't even need to take cities (although the FP is a very juicy target, of course), we just need to damage critical buildings.

That doesn't mean we have to focus solely on bombers from now on, we still need tanks to finish the job, however in case we see a rolling invasion is only something from our dreams, and this war is going to be bloody and long, we could win because of pillaging tactics.

So if blitzing doesn't work, make them suffer instead.

BTW, is it possible to bomb a wonder? Sistine and Bach are powerful for Lego, and would be hard to miss. Without them, we could also cripple their economy.

DeepO

[Krill]

Wonders can not be destroyed in PTW by bombing (I think), unlike in C3C where that happened due to the bug with the GW.

[DeepO]

What about a FP?

DeepO

[vmxa1]

While it is true and it was good that GoW busted some structures, I doubt that will be our salvation. This could work to start an invasion, but not after.

We either capture or raze some cities or we are going to be tossed off the land. This will happen in a few turns. If RP got a bunch of pillagers down first or second turn and was able to race out and wreck the tiles, then we could hold on until we broke thier production.

[Cort Haus]

I expect the same applies for the FP. Whacking Factories and Cathedrals would certainly be an effective way of weakening Lego, and is a point in favour of the airports route. No point having regs if Lego have vet fighters. With naval superiority they might consider carriers to attack us if they're not preoccupied.

Downside of airports is pollution - we'd lose a statistically higher number of builds. I was wondering whether a little explorer pump could provide shields to recover a polution hit after turn 1 of a build.

[Cort Haus]

If RP did manage to land, what are the chances of their Conqs finding something they could kill? Not hight, I expect, but an RP GA would be nice.

[vmxa1]

The Conq would probably just be used to pillage, no attacking, unles the city was nearly undefended.

[DeepO]

RP would probably have a very hard time finding something to kill, unless we (or they) can soften the target beforehand. But they only need to kill 1 unit in the whole Lego campaign, they are here for the pillaging.

vmxa, while I half agree with you, I also half disagree. True, invasions have to be swift and fast to have effect, anything stretched out is good for the defender (certainly in the case he is gaining on tech, and outproducing us). However, if Lego plays it smart, we are not going to have any rolling invasion. All they need to do is to isolate us from their road network, and we can't take 2 cities in 1 turn.

At the very least, they can identify juicy targets, and isolate us from these. All this would have been different if we would have been able to take a city last turn... which also means that we need to discuss the new situation (as we are doing).

For me, this means 2 things. True, we can't have a rolling invasion, and will have to slow down. Consolidate what we conquered, prepare for the next strike, and work gradually until we see an opening in their defense. But OTOH, this will also mean Lego won't have the easiest of time to toss us off their continent either. We won't stretch out this fast, but concentrate on defendable positions. While not taking a city in the first turn could mean we lose 30-40 units before we conquer anything, it also means that we've got a good chance we will be on Legoland 5 turns longer.

Realistically, even if things go bad, how long can we expect to last? 10 turns? In that time, we can build ~90 units (each airport distracts 2). An extra 20 tanks will be good for us, but will hardly be the game breaker, and it's far from certain we can send them to Legoland (unless we build airports, which we'll probably should). an extra 20 bombers, over those 10 turns, means 10-15 destroyed cities. We will destroy half their production, and half their economy, including their researc power. We can be tossed off their island, but if we manage to do that, we will have hampered Lego enough for this war, and have met one of our objectives. It would take over 30 turns before they get to the same level again, while we are not damaged, and only need to rebuild our troops. In that respect, pillaging with bombers is, IMHO, far superior than having an extra 20 tanks, or MI to use.

I do agree that all depends on how fast this war is going to be, and how Lego is going to respond the next few turns. But the point that we either succeed, or can only do a bit of damage before being driven off is exactly the main idea behind bombers for pillaging.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, there is another thing to consider: because we are in mobilization, we have to do the maximum possible to ensure that Lego doesn't damage us too. They have 1 carrier, which is not that bad (plus, all their bombers are on land). The moment they build more, we've got to be able to sink those carriers, or protect against their bombers. Losing factories would be disastrous for us, even more than for Lego.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

We are not that fart apart. I suspect that Lego will have to concentrate on GoW first as to damage to homeland.

This is because they already have lots of bombers, already have more units to land or have landed than we do. They are closer to them.

If they go hard to hit the invasion of either of us, they will likely lose a lot of their forces. This will allow one of us to start doing damage.

The beauty of airports is they can built vet fighters if we need to defend bombers. They are not real effective, but they can also recon. This lets us find those carriers. We get instant transport of tanks/MI.

I can't recall if you can send workers in PTW, you can in C3C. Anyway I just wanted to get one more perspective out there for consideration.

[DeepO]

What concentration is concerned, I've been thinking too on Lego's options.

Situation:
GoW has bombers, no MI, airports, and sea supeririority on their side.
We've got the best land based defense next turn, no bombers, are in trouble at sea, and have no airports. Also, we've got the biggest army.

Given this, I think Lego is going to do 2 things:
- As long as we don't have airports, our chainers are our weak link. Lego will focus on this, also because they've got plenty of ships on our side. We will lose control over the sea.
- On land, they have to prevent GoW from constructing an airport. Add this with our increased defense from MI, and GoW will be the focus.
They can't have 2 wars at the same time, but they can do a combination, where they focus their land units on GoW, while concentrating their naval units on us.

vet fighters: they would be good to have, yes. Even if a bomber kills a fighter, that bomber won't bomb that turn. Next turn, a fresh fighter could be present. On scouting, they are far from ideal, though. Lego has a range of 6 at sea, while fighters only have a range of 4. They see 2 tiles, meaning that they have to be very precisely positioned, and we need a lot of them to cover for al posibilities... plus, a fighter which scouts, can't be on air superiority next turn.

For scouting, we would be helped a lot more with a couple of subs.

Oh, and you can't send workers, all population has to come by sea. Which is why I hope our chain will survive for at least one more turn... next chainer would consist of 4 settlers + 4 MI.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Yes, I expect Lego will come for the chain. Should we consider placing a spy in Vox?

[DeepO]

eventually, we need a spy in Vox. I'm not sure when, though... we can use all the money we've got for upgrades.

DeepO