Turn 244: 1270 AD

[vmxa1]

I would not expect them to declare war on us and give us a happy boost, unless they are in position to do real damage.

BTW my question was not acquisitory, but inquisitive.

[Velociryx]

I see no reason that this could not be a war of conquest. Given that Lego is fighting a two front engagement, if we can take even one city, we deal them a terrible blow, and from there....

-=Vel=-

[vmxa1]

That is what I see. If we bust one city and Gow does some damage. It will not be long beofre they will not be able to out produce us.

They are going to have to be very careful with those stacks of arties. If they are captured or even destroyed, they will be hard press to hold the invasion back. That makes it hard to put them in play and attack either civs invasion force.

Well we will see soon how it comes out.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
We need enough cash to investigate Abilene and Tip. If there is enough left, then we can plant the Vox spy.

It depends on whether we get money from GoW or not, and if we somehow would be able to capture a city on Lego with a barracks and harbor intact. Currently, we've got enough cash for the investigations, exposing the spy, rushing a bit, and planting a new spy. But in case we can upgrade infs to MI on Legoland, I'd prefer that over planting a spy with Vox.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vmxa1
BTW my question was not acquisitory, but inquisitive.

vmxa, that's how I read it, yes... and it was a good question, in that it made me (and others) think on what exactly we could gain for the money. Please keep in mind English is my 3rd language, I do not always understand the finesses of what I write. I surely didn't want to sound offended in any way, on the contrary.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I see no reason that this could not be a war of conquest. Given that Lego is fighting a two front engagement, if we can take even one city, we deal them a terrible blow, and from there....

A lot depends on how they will react, but it will be hard for them to keep us from gaining a city next turn. And if they can keep us from taking a city, GoW will have almost free passage...

I'm not saying we shouldn't go for the territory, but for me personally, this is not the goal. It can be a dream, and we can work towards it, but if we have to retreat in 10 turns time, or are utterly destroyed, we won't be defeated if we can damage Lego enough to get at the same level as us, production and economic-wise. We made the mistake with the Bobian war that we thought that with our superiour forces (in number, not in strength) we were over confident, and were seeing ourselves as the new lords of Bob. Let's not make the same mistake again, even if we currently have both more and better troops, and an ally which can do something useful instead of RP's laughable defensive force.

Success will mean damaging Lego more then we get damaged. Conquering Lego means winning the lottery. Now, I don't mind going for the jackpot, but I'm not going to be fixed on that when a minor price can work for us as well.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vmxa1
That is what I see. If we bust one city and Gow does some damage. It will not be long beofre they will not be able to out produce us.

mhhhh... I'm not sure, but at this very moment, I see Lego producing twice as much as us, maybe even more. That's a lot...

They are going to have to be very careful with those stacks of arties. If they are captured or even destroyed, they will be hard press to hold the invasion back. That makes it hard to put them in play and attack either civs invasion force.

Yeah, those arties are going to be very interesting. with only marines, they could do it to put 10 art + 20 inf on a forted hill, and be sure we could not break through. But now that we've got 68 tanks to work with, and hopefully some bombers soon, this will change completely. My guess is that apart from some naval bombardment, and attacking our 8 orphaned marines, those arties will form a SoD together with e.g. 40 inf, and only be moved as one. And wherever they go, we'll see an instant fort from their workers. Anything else makes it impossible to keep the arties, and some decent city defense for Lego.

This is one of our advantages right now: we only have a point defense, Lego has a spread defense. Arties work best with point defenses. In a few turns, we're going to have problems with them as well.

BTW, there will be a couple of spots where they can be used, and left in the open. At least, as long as no conq's are present. With enough pillaging, arties can pillage roads, and stay out of reach of any of our units. But pillaging, while not good for our progress, diminishes production for Lego as well... auto-damaging, if you wish

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Yup, that is what I was thinking. They will have to be careful with those arties and that means not slamming us or GoW with them or risk them. Holding them back from all out use, is good for us.

What I meant by out producing them, is if both GoW and us managed to grab a city. We will then be in a position to smash a bunch of their production. Putting them in an inferior position.

That may not come to pass, but I have hopes. If RP actually gets a few conqs running lose, that will also cut their production.

I feel we will have to do more than just bust a city and some pillaging to come out in good shape. If we do that, the dam should burst and the alliance can put them out of the running.

If we cannot, then they will kicks us all of the land and be back in business in short order.

I agree that if they are forced to rip up a bunch of roads for defense, that is all good. You know that most of the cites are tightly balanced and will fall into a serious loss of production.

They will have to divert lots of gold or use entertainers to stay out of anarchy in some cities, in that scenario.

Yeah, I know many, maybe most are not native english. Everyone does so well, it is hard to tell.

[DeepO]

Most damage will come from bombing cities, though, and not from pillaging. RP's conqs will be nice to have, but this is exactly why we need bombers, and lots of them. Without bombers, Lego can lose half their cities, and still be better than us. This is double true if that half of their cities are outer cities, like Quanto, Sando or Abilene. Quanto would hurt, but the rest? I doubt it.

The effect of pillaging / bombing roads by us will be partly corrected by Lego, I guess. At least, I would do it for as much as possible. Pillaged improvements is not the same as pollution: the moment a city builds a unit (e.g. their capital) they can cycle through all cities, adapt tile allocation, and rush where needed to keep finishing in time. Because of the lack of options in mobilization, this will be expensive in certain cases, but then again they can always adapt where they want to build what. In case a tank is too costly, build an inf, that sort of thing. Pillaging roads and mines is not going to be a large problem for them, unless it is really done en masse. Think 20 conqs at least for 1 city.

What we really need is factories destroyed, or caths. That is going to hurt in a city. Maybe we should start to keep track of that, what was destroyed in what city... or at least compile a list once we've got bombers and arts to use.

As to entertainers and slider for happiness: yes indeed... but I fear we will be hit first. I remember that somewhere I calculated that as long as we could get by with 30% happiness, we needed to stay in republic. I'm not sure how accurate that still is (as it depends on upkeep costs). Once Lego has radio and MI, they can go 70 or 80% happiness if needed.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Hmmm... radio. I forgot about this... in a few turns time, Lego is going to build defence grids everywhere. We better hurry, or we got an extra 100% on those defenders...

DeepO

[Theseus]

Reading the last exchanges, an idea occurred to me:

How much more damage can we do, and how much can we lessen Lego's options, if we capture all of those Arty?

A lot, I think.

Considering our goals for aggression, perhaps we might prioritize developing a strategy *specifically* to draw the Arty out, and take them, with a (unexpected?) grand suicidal destructive attack to follow.

[DeepO]

Interesting... but how would we do something like that?

There are a couple of problems in such a suicidal attack, the biggest one being that we can't reach much from a one-city position. Sure, 60 arts would be enough to utterly destroy the 2 or 3 cities we've got access to, but that still keeps Lego with some 25 intact cities. Now, if that BB stack would be close, it's a different story

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Yes, I see capturing the arty as one of the mainstay goals of a sucessful campaign here. Not only would it be a crushing blow to morale, but it would see a huge "production shift" in that all those shields they invested in producing the arty are now "gifted" to us.

Same goes with capturing cities. It will turn the production tide twice as fast (well, not really, after accounting for corruption), but the point remains that every city we capture means one less production center for Lego AND one more for the Stormia/GoW side. This twin-edged sword, biting into their productive capacity and increasing ours, will erode their advantages very quickly.

True, as the campaign progresses, we will begin to see many of the problems that they face presently (defending along multiple fronts as we expand), but if they're stacking all their defenders towards the edges (donut-style), and the center is hollow, and devoid of much in the way of defenders, then the settler-blitz to the center could see us capturing a fistful of cities in a single turn, provided we break through somewhere, and THAT would wreck them overnight.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

nice meta-idea, Vel. Focus on taking from Lego what we can use as well. In the case of the arties I agree, with the cities, like you said yourself, the gain for us is minimal for the moment.

For the moment, we would do well in capturing and using arties, but once we get in a more difficult position to defend them, we should not hesitate, and use them to rush improvements or units. We are not morally connected to the units (we didn't build them in the first place), so the moment their use is diminishing and the risk of capture is increasing, they are better used as scrap material. Each art will give us 20 shields.

Donut-defense and settler blitz: there is a slight possibility Lego does not see the danger of settlers, and will focus on the outer shell as we don't have 3 move units. However, even with only tanks we are dangerous. This coming turn, there is no way they didn't pillage all roads around us, so we can only threaten 3 cities, and all inner Lego cities can be empty. But maybe in the future this will be different. Also, don't forget the transports: they won't be able to destroy all of them (it will be close, though), making them possible city-to-city chainers as well. If we get a break navally, and capture a city, we could go further. Lego will recognise this, and to avoid the risk should spread its defenses.

Next turn, and the one after that, the situation will be at its best. Around that time, we'll get to the point where Lego will at least hesitate to pillage all our roads (if we take one city, we can still threaten 2 or 3 others directly, even with all roads pillaged), as it requires a lot of units, possibly left in the open. That will be the best time for a settler rush, as Lego will continue to build loads of tanks over the next few turns, and our available troops will go down. After that period, we might never get a chance to pull something like this of.

Strangely enough, one of the best units Lego should be building are explorers, as they can pillage, and move out of harms way. At this point in the war, they will be better than tanks, and only cost 1 fifth.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

What are the risk to capturing a city vs razing? I would really hate to see a city flip back. I am inclined to raze all cities for the denial.

Capture means garrisons and we cannot spare much for that, especially since the production will be nil. Raze and found a new one or leave it a burned out hole.

I know you get road access, but really if we get to that point, we are solid. In C3C we could capture, send out the units and then abandon the city. That way we do not have to defend or worry about a flip.

Capture, sell off all structures and then abandon.

I would think they will have a massive SoD with those arties and they will be too expensive to capture, until we have done a ton of damage to the empire.

When we can bomb the stack with combine forces from GoW, then we can think about a capture of the arts.