Turn 244 : 1270 AD Part II

[vulture]

Are we sure that the infantry aren't fortified? That would make a huge difference. But I see now reason not to fortify them; they didn't attack, and have only had to move on RRs, so they should be able to fortify quite happily, shouldn't they?

[alva]

Hmm, yeah, you're probably right.

[vulture]

DOH! Have we considered the possibility of using propoganda to flip Stanwix to us, or since it's too late now, GoW doing the same to flip it to them? Or does propoganda work the same as culture flipping, and there are far too many units in the city to have a chance?

And do defensive bombards fire against 1 hp attackers when there is no lethal bombard? GoW might be able to use up some of those defensive bombards where they have no chance of doing any damage, although that might be giving easy promotions to defenders which would do more harm than good. 1 hp attackers vs elite defenders?

[notyoueither]

Does propaganda work against a democracy? Is Lego a democracy?

[notyoueither]

I have never used it.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
Let MZ have some fun figuring out exactly which path to take.

Agree... but perhaps we might want to mention that it seems to us that all empty cities can be captured. That way, it still leaves fun for him, while we can be sure the outcome is like expected.

Oh, I do want to mention 2 things:
- that for our fleet to be safe, we would like to have Jackson destroyed, even if Dye fields might sound like a juicier target
- and that we should meet to split the spoils of this war, but that we expect them to destroy everything, not risking Lego taking revenge by retaking cities.

I can see GoW thinking to keep e.g. Legopolis, with its two important wonders. That would not be possible if it wasn't for us...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by notyoueither

You should really come up with a name for the Quanto strike which allowed this... it's far more important than Toledo 2 ever could be, and that's a name that's already immortal...

I would humbly submit 'the Thesean Gambit'. After Bob, it is the least he deserves for proposing the idea of merchant raiders.

My apologies, but IMO that's a bit too much honor for T in this specific attack. Sure, he said it last turn, but that didn't influence my thoughts on this (last turn it wasn't possible as we didn't have the arts, and it is very specifically the combination of land based arts and the empty transports which did it). The moment Aeson mentioned the arts, it was clear that we could use the transports for a blockade. The Abilene one would have been easy, btw, without any risk.

So far, I still prefer the "operation watergrogged". Let's not attach anyone's name to it, many people have given their ideas, and influenced how we came to this moment.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Bingo!

We learned during the 1st ISDG that manipulating the build ques alters the RNG under certain circumstances. Wonders specifically do it every time. Other things might as well.

We discovered this because I would change city production to a wonder as something was finished during the beginning sequence, so that I could easily see which cities needed to be reset to the instructions of the MoI. One turn with combat vs barbs nobody could reproduce what I did, because I wasn't telling anyone about the 'que marking' that I was doing, because it wasn't part of the 'official moves' and shouldn't have mattered. It turns out it did matter. We looked into it, et voila.

Actually, this is a bit of a problem. As we don't have such clear MoI orders beforehand, it is needed to cycle through the queue a couple of times, to see what needs to be build, and what needs to be changed. This was so far too much of our strategy, and one of the reasons we can do unexpected things, we can't give this up. I can't post how many times I changed what either, already the overhead of playing this safe is very substantial.

Would it be an idea to go through the build queues, post what's going on, and after that reload, and do it as clean as possible? At least that should make sure we can reproduce our results exactly. I'm more then a bit embarrassed with this situation...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
BTW Is there any danger that we've blocked GoW from all the roads they need to get to Legopolis? I've only glanced at the final map, but it seems to me that we have units (tanks or MI) on all the paths they need to get from a city at their landing site (or adjacent to it) to get into the corridor, unless they take Dye Fields or Jackson first (both of which are defended, aren't they?)

Huh... I certainly hope not. I thought that once they got Legopolis, and rebuilt Stanwix, they are free to roam the land.

I'm going to check, this would be a terrible mistake to make!

DeepO

[DeepO]

Phieuw... vulture, Legopolis 6 is open to them. They have to put Stanwix at the exact same spot as it use to be, but other then that there is no problem. They could even shift it a tile or so, as long as Legopolis 6 stays accessible.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Even if GoW can't get to the empty cities Lego are ruined - they've lost their happiness wonders and their FP. We weren't banking on either destroying Lego or holding their land, the aim was to weaken them.

Biggest problem I see is that GoW might not be able to chain its cavs. But even then, they could do some serious damage with settlers and tanks.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

DeepO, do you still think GoW can break through Fort Whatsit? Vulture calcs suggest only 23% chance.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by vulture
Are we sure that the infantry aren't fortified? That would make a huge difference. But I see now reason not to fortify them; they didn't attack, and have only had to move on RRs, so they should be able to fortify quite happily, shouldn't they?

vulture, while you're at it: look at the results of our tank attacks to be sure. 6 out of 16 destroyed, with 11 defensive bombardments hitting... that doesn't sound like those infs were fortified to me. It would make them have a defense of 25 against our tanks of 16. 15 sounds a lot more convincing

Sure, they might forted for display purposes, but not for the actual computation of their defense value. And after all, they moved, even if it was over a RR.

Other things:
GoW has 20 bombers, and 26 arts. If arts hit, they can strike twice... it looks to me that nearly all of their surviving inf should be down to 2 hp, or less. A 4/4 marine wins from a 2/4 inf in a city, unfortified, over half of the time... and GoW has double the amount of marines as Lego has infs left.

Infs are perfect attackers, especially to damaged units.

and the order in which you do things might change the outcome considerably.

Nah, have a little faith GoW has to break through

DeepO

[vulture]

Is Stanwix on a hill or something? I'd assumed they were on a plain, which in a size 1 town, fortified gives 13.5 defence for infantry.

Only (on average) 9 arty and 7 bombers will attack actual units. Arty have 2 rof, so they can do 2 hp damage, but it's not guaranteed - each hp is lost independently IIRC (bombers have 3 rof, so if they get lucky they can do even more damage). The combined artillery / bombers will score 17 or so hp damage on average (very roughly calculation in my head); approx 9 from arty and 8 from bombers.

So there are going to be quite a few 3/4 infs left, and we are going to be dealing with 3/4 marines attack a fair fraction of the time once the 11 defensive bombardments are taken into account.

It's probably not as bad as 23% if they play it sensibly, but I'd be surprised if they were favourties to break through, however much we need them to.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Does propaganda work against a democracy? Is Lego a democracy?

no it doesn't. But Lego is a republic

I had the odds yesterday... I'll check it out. But I don't think GoW has a spy, so this is a bit wasted as a discussion. I wish you had given this idea earlier, vulture, as it certainly is a very promising one!

DeepO