Turn 244: 1270 AD

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Are we confident that Lego have no defenders left for all these cities, both south and north?

No. Best thing would be to check out Jackson and Dye, and count. But even if Legopolis has 10 infs in it, it will most certainly fall! If they put everything in Legopolis, it will still fall to GoW's 36 tanks. Nice, no?

DeepO

[DeepO]

to MZ:

GoW / MZ,

A situation update, how we are doing.
As already mentioned, we took a calculated risk, chained 8 arts to Legoland, bombarded the 3 BBs blocking our entrance to Quanto, and together with a fighter bombing and a 2/4 DD attacking, we managed to get the BBs down to 1/5, and 2 2/5 BBs. At this point, it seemed certainly worth it to go at it with our transports (11 empties waiting nearby)... we managed to beat the BB stack, and even have 4, possibly 5 transports ready to get troops into Quanto. Right now, we're debating what to do, and this will certainly take another day to get right. What is certain, is that we've got a pretty good idea on where the FP is (at Logville 77774, in case you're interested), and we can get there for sure. That city is gone.

The rest will depend on what we'll encounter. So far, it seems that we can reach at least 4 other cities, maybe even more. We can take Sandonorico, but that's as far up North as we can get. And we can't reach a couple of their Southern, and Eastern most cities. Again, as we don't have their map, we can't say this for sure, but it certainly looks that way.

So, our turn is not over yet, but by taking a risk on those BBs, Lego is going to bleed. We have no intention at all to try to hold on to what we conquer, as it would spread our defenses way too thin. Also, we still have most of Lego's army to worry about, which is still in Abilene. But we were here to damage Lego enough to keep them from ever becoming a player again, and this turn, we are going to do our share to accomplish that. Any further gains (land, resources, etc.) will be decided in the next 5 turns, but we doubt we're going to see the same rush again, or Lego should start to be stupid in how they play (and they most certainly have not done that so far).

But now, on to your side.

About attacking Fort Whatsit (). You mention that in case you still have some tanks left, you want to attack the fort. Well, forget about that. You will have enough units left, and with your bombing capacity, you can most likely get most of those units redlined. A marine against a 1/4 inf is a sure kill, so don't think your marines are all of a sudden worthless! We don't think there is any option, you simply will have to push through. You will never have such a chance again. Lego slipped, and if you don't beat them to death, they will recuperate. GS taking out the FP will be nice, but if they lose half of their cities, including nearly all of their core, including their palace and FP, they are dead.

So, now is not the time to think about consolidating your forces: ever single unit you can, should join into the attack. That means every bomber you can spare, every artillery you can spare. If that means exposing your artillery, so that Lego is certain to capture it next turn, so be it. It will be well worth the cost (also to us, as those arties would be turned against us more likely than against you). If this means it is your last turn on Legoland, as Lego can kill all what is left of your invasion force, so be it. It is but a small price to pay. And we're not so far yet, as we've got a plan, which will make it possible for you to have a more or less decent invasion force next turn (or at least the turn thereafter). So please, study this carefully, and tell us what you think.

There are a couple of assumptions here. First one: Lego was not as lucky as they could have been, killing the maximum of your troops (59), leaving only 33 troops in your stack (outside arties). It would be extremly hard for them, though... not only does it mean they succeeded in every single fight, but they would have needed to build 20 units during last turn as well (and as we both pointed out, the number is probably closer to 15, meaning a maximum of 49 units killed)
Furhter, Aeson pointed out something else: tanks, retreating from infs would be kept alive as well. Every tank retreating, distracts another 2 from the maximum. So, we find this a safe assumption: you will have a minimum of 40 units left in your stack, most likely closer to 60.

Assumption 2: Lego has left its cities, which they think you can't reach, empty. Again, this seems logical to assume. Quanto was empty, which we had a direct path of attack to. So why would they leave a door open for us, if they would have closed it for you? Another indication is planting the forests: on our side, one forest was planted, for you two. Indeed, by only using cavs, those forests make no further protection necessary, even if Stanwix would fall. It seems as Lego had overseen the settler blitz method in its defense.

Third assumption: You didn't lose all your possible chainers. But that seems a long stretch, as it means 2 separate stacks have to be destroyed, of at least 6 ships.

Fourth assumption: you don't get the longest strike of bad luck, ever seen in a Civ game (I'm talking 3 tanks in a row losing against a single spear). If that happens, no plan will be any good.

So, the plan.
1. We still don't know if you have 8 cavs left on Bob, or not. If you don't have them, break into the build queue at first possible moment, and make sure you will build 8 of them. Pollution might strike, so build at least 9. Pollution might strike where you intend to build the chaining transport, so make sure that build is safe as well. In case you don't get there, sacrifice defenders (you can do this from within the city view screen, during build phase)

2. Use all bombers to bombard Stanwix. Use all artillery to bomb Stanwix. In case yuo're lucky, and 1/4 units start defending before all your artillery bombardments are gone, wait a bit. There are a couple of cavs you might want to hit later on, before attacking them.

3. Use all your units to get through. Marines should probably attack first (8 attack is not so bad, plus they are likely to have some good health left), wounded tanks last (possible to take out 2 cavs with a 1/4 tank, but a 2/4 inf is much less likely).

4. At this point, we assume you will have conquered Stanwix. Most likely, you will have got over half your troops left, normally including some defenders, and some tanks.

5. Now, the settler blitz. Raze Stanwix.

6. Build the city, with the settler on Legoland. Let's call it city 1.

7. Unload all your waiting troops into city 1. chain your 8 cavs into city 1.

8. move 8 cavs, 4 settlers, and 5 tanks to where Stanwix used to be. The rest stays put for the moment (note: this might be changed, but more on that later)

9. Raze city 1.

10. build city 2 with one of the settlers.

11. City 2 will have 29 captured artillery from taking Stanwix. Use that to destroy the forest (taking the road and RR with you). Move a tank, to capture the 3 workers present (they build a forest last turn). Legopolis should be empty, walk in, and enjoy the celebrations of capturing Bach's and Smith's. Restore the road with the workers.

12. move everything to Legopolis 4 (so the 8 cavs, 3 settlers, and a couple of tanks).

13. raze Legopolis. Build city 3 at Legopolis 4.

14. from here, a cav can reach Panama.

15. from Panama, a cav can reach Port Hammer.

16. From city 3, a cav can reach Kloreepville.

17. Move everything to Kloreepville 4. Raze kloreepville. Build City 4 at kloreepville 4.

18. from here, a cav can reach Invoice.

19. From City 4, a cav can reach Sharpehaven.

20. From Sharpehaven, a cav can reach Forkmouth.

Don't worry about Sandonorico, we will have conquered that by that time.

This leaves 2 cavs, a couple of tanks, and a settler. You still have an open RR connection to City 1, so in case you need more tanks, you can get them easily. This will have destroyed all we currently can see on the map. You can scout out more... a cav and a settler can cross a distance of 5 tiles. A tank and a settler can cross a distance of 4 tiles. Tanks can go 3. So, at the very least, you will be able to take another 3 cities with you, most likely more.

In total, at least 11 cities (including Fort Stanwix) are either gone, or under your control.

Now comes the sad part... there is no way you can defend these. You've got enough troops to defend one city, maybe (but that would be risking it) 2. Also, you will have 27 arts, and a lot of wounded units on the place where you built City 1. It might be a good idea, to spend your last settler on rebuilding that city: so move the settler into position, move everything with movement left over there, destroy city 2, and build city 5 where city 1 used to be.

Don't forget, with the captured arts, you have now > 50 arts to protect, and only have something like 30 tanks to do so.

However, this does not mean Lego can just wipe you out. You will have taken 12 tanks, leaving only 15 tanks of Lego, most likely distributed over Jackson and Dye fields. With your razing - and ours - they could at most build 10 more next turn. You have plenty of units, artillery and tanks, left to pillage all the roads leading to your position (if you don't build a city, build a fort. You will have tons of slaves from all the razing). Only 25 tanks at most to attack you, and some 50 units remaining before they can get to the artillery. You will be safe.

there are a couple of variations here.
- You could defend one city, but that will probably mean you will lose your 27 artillery. While your task might done, it wouldn't make ours any easier
- It could be so that Legopolis is defended. (it should be scouted out for sure). In that case, either bombard it with the freshly captured artilleries (exposing them), or simply put your 36 tanks against them. Legopolis will fall.
- You could try to hold on to Legopolis (it has two important wonders), But that is risking it: it has a high chance of flipping back to them. Plus, in that case, you can't reach Panama, one of their most core cities and likely candidate for the palace jump.

One other thing: you are going to receive loads of money from this. Not only does Lego still has 1200 gold in treasury, but also every city you raze, improvements can be sold beforehand. A factory (of which you're going to encounter at least 9) is 60 gold... this counts up. We wouldn't dare to ask if you could let some of that gold slip our way (for giving you any ideas or so ), but perhaps we could help each other: we are short on cash, and both of us could be helped if we would steal Lego's map right now (it costs 336 gold, which is about everything we can spare. Otherwise we would propose to do some investigation for you as well). Maybe you could pay us this turn turn, for our stealing now, and in return you get a perfect roadmap of where your cavs and settlers might take you.

I hope this will be of some help.

DeepO

Addendum: there is some concern on our team if you are certain to take Stanwix or not, and seeing the criticality of this, it would make a difference to know for sure. In case you don't have enough troops, we might be able to come to your help, but all this hangs together with a lot of ifs, and thens. We don't know for certain, but we might be able to hop our way to Fort Stanwix, reaching it with something close to 30 tanks. We can take a couple of cities doing so, but those 30 tanks are non-recuperable, and it would most probably mean we can't take the FP. Further, we need to take a couple of cities, which you get 'for free' once you would get Fort Stanwix.

To be certain, there is a relatively unconventional question we need to ask. If you know your troop strength of last turn (which you do, otherwise just open last turn's save to check it), we could enter a spy into you. Or at least, we can try (not certain it succeeds). For those 147 gold pieces, we will have our private battle report... So, do you want us to spy on you? After that, Lego could keep their battle reports from us, we still would have a pretty good idea what is going on.

[Aeson]

Another thing to consider is if we might want to try to head N and help GoW break through also?

Settler1 could get us to Sand, Yellow, and B1.

B1 could get us to R3.

Sand + Settler2 could get us to Red or Fork (or possibly a city N, NE, or E).

R1 could get us to Zargonia (or possibly a city NW or W).

So it's conceivable that we get more than halfway there with 2 Settlers and 3 Tanks. No idea if 2 Settlers would be enough to make it from there to Fort Whatsit. We could hold the Explorers back until that point and then check, or steal Lego's map to find out.

We'd end up needing 4 Settlers and at least 7 Tanks to get there. That leaves us with up to 22 Tanks we could hit Fort Whatsit with, and have taken Quanto, Yellow, Blue, Sand, Fork, probably Red, maybe Zargonia, and 1 or 2 other cities along the way.

Whether or not it's possible to get there with 4 Settlers I don't know though.

[DeepO]

renumbered some things. I know it's far from nice, official English, but I couldn't be bothered anymore to try to form coherent sentences. MZ will understand my half Dutch- English

Besides, it's getting 5 am here. In a moment, someone is telling me to go to bed again

DeepO

[DeepO]

Aeson, do you really see a way that the plan I just posted (cross posted eith you, I know) doesn't work for GoW? Zargonia might not be possible for GoW to reach, but other than that....

We migth help them, but righ now, we're the ones needing help. Besides, I don't want to put them in a position where they get too many ideas about keeping the North. Taking 11 cities will mean they know they can't defend it. If we would buffer them from the South, they might think that the 8 or so cities they do take, are defendable. In that case, we would have gained very little on Legoland, while they would have gotten half of it, counting on us for their defense.

Think abou it: with enough pillagers, they can create a barrier from East to West, which only tanks can cross. These land 1 tile from their new cities... open for counter attack. If both us and them commit to this pillaging, we might be able to pull it off. But where does it leave us then? I much rather have them take out the whole North, and afterwards be forced to raze it. However builds new cities there is of no concern of me, I simply don't want GoW to double their territory.

DeepO

[Aeson]

I think it works.

I was just thinking that it would be best to try to hurt Lego as much as possible this turn. If we open up the center for GoW to move through they could possibly take a few extra cities.

What are the odds on GoW (low end of expected number of survivers) taking Fort Whatsit?

[DeepO]

It's very hard to calculate exactly what the worst odds for them are. The biggest problem are going to be those 20 infs, but what kind of damage do 20 bombers and 27 arts can do to them?

Assuming there are going to be 40 units left in GoW's stack (should be a bit the worst possible, I think), of which 20 are full health marines, they should be able to take out 20 infs, 12 more or less damaged tanks, and 3 cavs, even if 29 arts are protecting it. Arts on defensive bombardment can only take 1 hp, right?

The biggest problem would be if only 35 units remain in GoW's stack, with no tanks. But the chances for that... I don't think it's even possible.

Would it be possible that we get an explorer that high up, to scout what GoW has left? not without taking Zargonia, most likely

DeepO

[DeepO]

Besides, something else: none of those units is fortified, they all moved.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Also, might there be any subs lurking in transport-lanes near NI & Quanto? The last thing we want is for one of those to spoil the party.

I missed this... CH, not anymore. We have taken some risks with chaining the arties (but nothing could be done to prevent that, we can't leave a hub without defender), and by moving the carrier so that the fighter could bomb the stack. Now, all necessary tiles are scouted, and we don't need to divert from any of those safe lanes.

DeepO

[Aeson]

Good thought on the Explorer. If we are going to take X cities, I'm not sure if it matters which direction we take them in as long as it includes the (likely) FP city.

We could also gift cities to GoW instead of razing them to keep movement lanes open.

[Aeson]

We are also going to be increasing our treasury a bit in the conquest. Something like 50g per city I'd think. Maybe buying their Map, or planting a Spy with GoW (with their permission of course) would be feasible because of that.

[DeepO]

something else: Lego has pillaged quite a bit (I don't know if I posted this before, I certainly have thought about it yesterday night). In all, 4 RRs and a fortress has disappeared. They didn't use artillery for that (all art in Abilene bombed our MIs, it could be that we find some in Quanto (we will find a bomber there, if I'm not mistaken)), so that means 9 units who needed to pillage, and retreat. 5 of those units will have to be cavs or explorers, as there is no possibility to pillage and retreat to safety with tanks or horses when the last road is gone (the 5th being the fortress), and we haven't seen anything else in Abilene. Also, if a units pillages, no attack can be made.

most likely, the pillagers have been 3 horse, 2 explorers, 4 cavs.

Hmmm.. that helps us nothing. 6 cavs have been used for rushing (or were destroyed in an attack?), which covers the pillagers.

One minor remark: Lego has 6 cavs, all of which we spotted, and all of those are full health, and vet. I doubt they attacked with any of them. Maybe they have attacked with one of the cavs that disappeared, either by losing a fight, or by rushing after it got damaged. It wouldn't surprise me, if they simply left the cavs were they were, and used them solely for scrapping.

DeepO

[DeepO]

we can already buy a map.

our current treasury is 546g.
Stealing Lego map: 338 g. (did I mention 336 to GoW?)
planting GoW spy: 147g (safely)

But you're right, I forgot to include that in my report to them. I'll update it. With a spy, we know if they can take Stanwix or not.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Addendum: there is some concern on our team if you are certain to take Stanwix or not, and seeing the criticality of this, it would make a difference to know for sure. In case you don't have enough troops, we might be able to come to your help, but all this hangs together with a lot of ifs, and thens. We don't know for certain, but we might be able to hop our way to Fort Stanwix, reaching it with something close to 30 tanks. We can take a couple of cities doing so, but those 30 tanks are non-recuperable, and it would most probably mean we can't take the FP. Further, we need to take a couple of cities, which you get 'for free' once you would get Fort Stanwix.

To be certain, there is a relatively unconventional question we need to ask. If you know your troop strength of last turn (which you do, otherwise just open last turn's save to check it), we could enter a spy into you. Or at least, we can try (not certain it succeeds). For those 147 gold pieces, we will have our private battle report... So, do you want us to spy on you? After that, Lego could keep their battle reports from us, we still would have a pretty good idea what is going on.

Added to the report. CH, this is going to require a couple of PM's again

DeepO

[DeepO]

Actually, come to think on this, this is not such a bad idea if we elaborate on it. If we take those cities, we create a path down to us. If we then give those cities to GoW, and coordinate very precisely, GoW could again take cities we would otherwise have to leave alone. If we can't get to the FP, GoW can. With their cavs, they might even reach those cities we can't reach...

Wow... did the Lego defeat just got bigger?

DeepO