A change of focus

[DeepO]

keep on putting it out there, vmxa. It's appreciated.

Maybe up until last turn, we could settle for peace with some cities left. But right now, when they are at the brink of losing everything but 1, possibly 3-4 cities? We just can't do that. And I doubt it if they want to. If I would be in Lego at this point, I would call for one giant attack, do the damage we can, and die honorably. They already know from Vox and RP, that staying in the game as a minor power is no fun at all. And they would become the smallest of all.

So I think, that they won't even consider a peace treaty with this carnage. I'm not sure if they can abandon their capital, they can't give it for sure, but in the end, something like is going to happen. While it used to be different, this turn has made it a fight to death for them.

WW: I'm not perfectly sure how it works, but currently, we're not feeling a lot. If we reach peace quickly, we still have to get everything into position again... only moving our transports back is taking 3 turns, and let them get on the other side to check on ND takes another 5 or so. By that time, we would have the troops we need, and are ready to invade.

GoW probably needs a bit less time, even if they so far lost a lot more troops. And they have universal suffrage. The border between these tow nations is so large, that any attack will punch through the first defense. Given the settler blitz, a single attacker is going to cut a path right through the empire, taking out the palace. This is true for both ND and GoW. This is especially true for as long as there are no MIs to defend. There is very little to stop this initial attack. However, it won't be enough to keep any land, and the counterattack will be bloody as well. After doing that 2 times, you end up with devastated land, no offensive troops, and about the same border as at first.

The only possible way to tilt the balance would be a joint attack. So either we will be approached, or we're next.

DeepO

[zeit]

GoW probably needs a bit less time, even if they so far lost a lot more troops. And they have universal suffrage. The border between these tow nations is so large, that any attack will punch through the first defense. Given the settler blitz, a single attacker is going to cut a path right through the empire, taking out the palace. This is true for both ND and GoW. This is especially true for as long as there are no MIs to defend. There is very little to stop this initial attack. However, it won't be enough to keep any land, and the counterattack will be bloody as well. After doing that 2 times, you end up with devastated land, no offensive troops, and about the same border as at first.

A truly frightening balance of terror (is that the right expression in english?), with both sides knowing that the opponent's second strike could be at least as devestating as it own initial offensive...
Lego doesn't have the option for this kind of counter-attack, and certainly weren't fully aware of this kind of tactic, so in this war it can be safely said that the settler-blitz has won, but the next war, possibly a land based conflict between two mammoths?

It can't guarantee a quick, clean victory, even with numerical superiority.

Seriously, someone must come up with an efficient counter-tactic for this blitz. honestly, doesn't it seem like an almost too potent tactic?

[DeepO]

Zeit, there are two effective ways of stopping it, but the problem is, neither will work well on a broad defensive line.

1st one is pillaging the roads. No roads, no blitz. This can be done beforehand (if you feel invasion is imminent). Let's take the example of Stormia... even if it is not ideal beacuse our cities are cramped together, it is easier because we have a very long stretched land. You could cut the roads near Elipolis, over the whole stretch of land, and create a barrier no settler can take (Elipolis itself could be lost to tanks or MA).
Do the same right after Elipolis, and you create a stripe of land, which is independent from the rest. Do the same 1 band of cities further, and you got a perfect defense to settler blitzing. The problem is, of course, that in our case you would also lose half your commerce as there are no roads anywhere. And you need airports / harbors in every band, to make sure luxuries and resources are present everywhere.

Second possibility, but this will only work before MA, is to create bands of forest. If you do this right next to the cities, and have cities close enough together (or pillage the roads on those tiles which are not ideal), you stop all 2-movers. So while the attacker can build settlers, and diminish the distance their tanks have to travel to 1 tile (and then attacking or stepping into the city) like we just have done with Lego, their tanks will be stopped before being able to reach us. This works best in hilly terrain, as a hill has the same effect. It won't help against 3-movers, but as long as there are no MA, MI will keep the cavs away. Mountains are in this respect ideal, as they eat up more mp, and not even cavs or MA can reach them.

A combination of these two approaches will work best. Forests to keep the road open for the defender, so that he can reach all bands, while pillaging the roads in cases where this doesn't work (forests are only effective next to a city, and the attackers side even).

Actually, I've been thinking on this for the past day or so, in between all the other stuff, and I think we should really apply this to Elipolis. We only need 2 forests next to it (facing RP), and we can create a reasonable barrier. Now that this settler blitzing is out of the closet, we're at grave risk. 2 forests there will cut into our production, but at least it should provide for 1 turn warning in case GoW decides to come from us through RP. (together with adequate defensive forces in Elipolis, of course, otherwise cavs are still going to get through)

One turn is all we need, to transform our empire into a defensive stronghold. This settler blitzing tactic only works once, next turn it is possible to abandon the cities that are undefendable, pillage roads everywhere, build forests where possible, and generally transform from a highly accessible, productive empire, into a stronghold which has lost all its production over night.

For us, the cost of this might be reasonable. We've got the spinebreakers which are better than forests (although we might need to relocate Monsoon to just next to the spines, while in the Voxian war we were glad it was one tile off). We can create fortresses at those tiles which we absolutely can't miss. And if we only need e.g. 3 bands in our empire, we only need 3 of those stripes of green (green lungs, as it where. The environmentalists would be pleased!).

But look at the cost of this in an empire the size of ND, or GoW. It's huge! Plus, they have the added problem that we can work in bands, but they have to work in squares, grouping e.g. 4 cities together each time. Their cities are not so close together, meaning a lot more roads have to be pillaged (actually, in many cases an extra city is favourable, which is a bit counter intuitive).

I think I'm going to put the 2 forests on the agenda for Elipolis next turn. Right now, our biggest risk is RP's 1-tile passage to GoW. We can minimize that risk for the cost of something like 3 spt.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and we really should be thinking of relocating Monsoon one tile 9 of where it currently is. That will make it perfectly protected from attacks from the North, while not having any influence on its production or economic output. It does mean every improvement has to be rebuilt, which is no small feat.

DeepO

[DeepO]

If I was in GoW's / ND's case, I would create stress points. Given the terrain, and given the above protection mechanisms, it is possible to e.g. protect 3 cities with the majority of your defenders, while isolating the rest with forests / roadpillages. The main problem is that you can never hold a broad defensive line, even if defenders have a longer life than attackers. So identify which sites you need to keep, double it's defensive force, and simply make the rest expendable, but without creating any openings to your hinterland.

But in the end, the best measure against these tactics, is to switch your opponent to your ally, and invade someone else.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DeepO
If I was in GoW's / ND's case, ....

But in the end, the best measure against these tactics, is to switch your opponent to your ally, and invade someone else.

DeepO

This is the line of thinking that says we can't just hope they'll helpfully destroy each other and let us through.

Also, if GoW don't break through, Lego will possibly have a leader with which to rebuild their FP and keep their southern cities at full power. Without further damage they could still be on a par with us for production and commerce. If GoW do get through Lego are finished, but there's still the matter of their undefeated military if they go barbarian. They might even side with ND on the grounds that ND never attacked them, so why not help them win?

[vmxa1]

If they had MI instead of infantry, they would have made things so much harder. They could have used fewer defenders in their stacks and then had an MI in the cities at risk.

If you can force a landing, rather than amphip taking a city, you get to pound on the invaders. That is easier for someone with a smaller landmass. They have fewer coastal cities and can pack them or even abandon a few.

Given those 60 odd arties (of Legos) we could make an amphib real hard with a few MI's to sit on them. Then use the arties to punish the landing force as Lego did to GoW.

[DeepO]

CH, I'm not certain I'm following... partly, yes, but the whole of it.

In case GoW can't destroy Stanwix, Lego will be extremely limited in what they're going to do next. They don't need an FP right now, as Abilene has become their palace... their Southern cities are already productive. Lego's main problem is that a doughnut is not defendeable: that whole patch of RRed, free terrain is freely useable for every settler / tank combination. We just gave them the worst defensive line you can get. They can only try to keep us from getting on that RR, or next turn, they are about to lose most of their cities anyway. It's just not defendable. If GoW doesn't destroy Stanwix, Lego will put everything on 2 goals: defending Stanwix, and keeping us from their roads.

This has little to do with the ND / GoW situation, though. It's very hard to defend against this kind of settler blitzing for large empires, with large borders. But you can be sure that neither of the two is going to leave its inner cities undefended. And the moment hostilities erupt, we're going to see some pillaging as well. Now that the tactic is shown to be highly effective, more people are going to think on how to prevent it, or at least minimize its damage.

But again, those Bobians' best option is to keep the peace for a while longer, and attack either Lego (unlikely they will play any role in this), or us.

Or, we get invited to join in the war. 1 on 1 might only damage both sides, without killing anyone easily, but 2 on 1 remains a certain kill... if two nations settler blitz their way through an empire, most of its defenders / attackers will be gone as well. And without those, no decent counter attack is possible, if you intend to survive another turn (which is exactly what Lego is facing in the event of Stanwix holding on)

DeepO

[DeepO]

I agree, vmxa. For our defense, we are going to have to look into a couple of things.
1. navy. This won't help with GoW using RP as an extension board to get to us, nor will it help for ND when they use their closest crossing (but we still have a galley there, and that galley hasn't seen anything for as long as it has been scouting). We do need a navy, including lots of subs, to minimize the sites they can go to, and to block forks whereever possible. If they want to circumvent our navy by going for those few spots which they can reach risk free, we know where they are going to (begin Elipolis, and WW)

2. more artillery. MIs are not covering tanks, in case they are pummeled first. Look at what Lego did to our MIs in the open: granted, we didn't bring many, but only 8 artillery knocked 6 of those MIs to 2 or 3 hp. If they used their full 62 arties, all our defenders would have been so seriously hit, that they had free reign on our tanks. They have chosen the other option (take it out on GoW), and I guess it was a simply question of numbers... we could only reach 1 city, so less defenders are needed on our side for keeping the full stack at bay. GoW forked 2 cities... double the defenders, so each attacker destroyed is worth 2 defenders less to worry about.

In hindsight, we got lucky, as otherwise we would have landed on Q 21 (the fork) for sure. Making us the target.

3. fighters / jets. Bombers are very serious threats from now on. Each CV of bombers hitting an MI gets it down to a level where marines can take it out relatively easy. Navy is not going to defend against this, in the very narrow sea between us and Bob. So, we need to cover our cities with fighters, especially in those cities which can be reached without warning.

Other than that, I'm thinking on defensive buildings too. We can build those while still in mob (although I'd rather build more MI right about now), but I'm not sure on how bombardment works. Do they target the defensive buildings first? Coastal fortresses, do they help against marines? And what about those other things, defense networks or what are they called... I never built one in my life. If they add 100% to our defense, while remaining relatively hard to dismantle, these have to become priority once we've got 2-3 troops in a city.

DeepO

[Dominae]

Do RP and GoW have some sort of NAP? Because it seems to me that if RP decides to attack GoW at this very moment, GoW goes down and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. Then we crown ND the champions of this game.

Or am I missing something?

[DeepO]

well. a bit. RP has one unit on its territory: a freshly built inf in their capital. All the rest are in 5 transports off our coast, on their way to Legoland. They are not going to mount a big invasion with that one inf

Besides, RP only lives by our rules, at least what these kind of things are concerned. They can't start wars to our allies just like that.

And similarly, GoW has free access to RP right now, and they know it (they can see the city on the other side of the channel, and that one is empty). But they also know we have sworn to protect RP, so attacking them, means attacking us.

DeepO

[DeepO]

We should also decide what to do with RP, BTW. Pillaging is hardly worth it anymore. I'm not sure they should continue on their way to Legoland, when their units could perhaps better defend their own territory. I know they are not going to like that, but we never anticipated this war to end so abruptly. Well... or nearly end.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

I am with you on the idea that they should head back. We can gift them some cities on Lego after the dust settles. IIRC they would get their best defender in a gifted city and could send over more soon.

We would be then starting to get some defenses up at home.

I think you are talking about civil defense? Is it in PTW as well as C3C, I think so, not sure.

[vmxa1]

If they have a settler or two in the boats, those can continue on as soon as we see a safe path. Any scrappable units like explorers could come as well, but any defenders are better in the homeland.

They can get their satisfaction by having some land of their own. I would really like to get them off of Stormia, so we can controll it properly. They acted a bit to sluggishly at times and not 100% the way we needed, such as some of the trades the initiated.

We can send them some cash to help with the cost up relocation down the road.

[Cort Haus]

It's true that RP did once frustrate us to the point of us having to vote about their future, but since then they have been sending us 100 gold every turn and haven't been any trouble. That's a lot of gold over a period of time. Now we could probably get some output from there ourselves, but commercially I think it 's fair to sauy they've paid their way.