Legoland: The Grand Defense Plan

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by Sharpe
- I agree with rendelnep - how does this plan stop a concentrated invasion in one spot?
- The Mystery Isle factor - if they wanted to, GoW could gather together a huge force on Mystery Isle and with its closeness to us, send large amounts of reinforcements quickly - similar situation exists in the southern crossing near RP

Early warning is the key. We can put ships at these key locations. Maybe land a warrior on mystery isle (probably not).

Originally posted by Sharpe
- How "undefended" will our coastal and interior cities be in this plan? I have been advocating at least 2 defensive units per city on the east coast and at least one per city in the interior in the past for example. We can't afford to lose cities even temporarily due to the thousands of shields in buildings that could be lost if any city fell.

We can be smart about where to put extra defense. I think 2 def. on the east is smart, but camps can be used for interior defense. IMO, no need to fortify interior cities.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- What about enemy blocking units that would prevent us from properly reinforcing any invasion spot who block roads and pillage our terraforming. Unfortunately all of the Bob uniques are mounted units and for blocking and pillaging, both the Rider and Conquistador would be terrors for using such tactics (more likely the Conquistador admittedly).

Early warning...but even if we have no warning, we have one turn to respond. They may pillage a few tiles, but as long as we protect our key resources we will be fine.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- How do bombardment units fit in this plan especially as they only have a range of 1 currently and so need to get close to the action with adequate defensive units to prevent their capture? Also how do we deal with enemy artillery units or worse yet ship based bombardment ? (admittedly ships are not much of a concern yet)

Very good point...we need to incorporate this into the plan. The bombardment units could be used to block advantagious landing spots, or just stay in the cities. This needs to be discussed.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- Since the teams see the iron and horses in Panama, it will be a major target of any attacker. (Remember how both Vox and GS were desperately trying to remove access to the other team's iron)

We will definitely get early warning for Panama. We are OK in Panama from the East and West. Of couse we do have other costal strategic resourses, that are exposed.

If I were planning an invasion of Legoland, right now. I would gead to the far South. There is iron and horse resources. I could transport a large force and set up a couple of town, before we could respond. At least we have barb-hunter roaming the South; they are our early warning system.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Sharpe
I agree with the early warning galleys too - that was one of my concerns about the plan - every turn we have advance notice is a turn more we have to prepare for an invasion.

As said - early warning galleys are definitely a fine idea.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- I agree with rendelnep - how does this plan stop a concentrated invasion in one spot?

It does not. Just like keeping permanent garrisons does not. A stack strong enough will always do some harm, possibly even take a city. This plan makes it more likely though, that we will be able to hold - as whatever size the invading stack would be, we will have MORE units defending the city compared to if relying on permanent garrisons.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- The Mystery Isle factor - if they wanted to, GoW could gather together a huge force on Mystery Isle and with its closeness to us, send large amounts of reinforcements quickly - similar situation exists in the southern crossing near RP

Well, sure - but all it would take us would be to use a bit stronger "military camps" along the coasts closest to Mystery Island and Spain. The likely invasion directions do not affect the principle of the defense system, just call for keeping stronger forces along the most exposed areas (which we sure can incorporate into the plan).

Originally posted by Sharpe
- How "undefended" will our coastal and interior cities be in this plan? I have been advocating at least 2 defensive units per city on the east coast and at least one per city in the interior in the past for example. We can't afford to lose cities even temporarily due to the thousands of shields in buildings that could be lost if any city fell.

Undefended = with no units inside them. That's the key. That's the very essence of the defense plan. Keeping permanent garrisons in our coastal cities actually mean that these units are - at any one moment - available to only ONE city: the one they are stationed in. They cannot reach the neighbouring city in 1 turn - thus, the defense strength of any city would be equal to its garrison only.

It is very important to realize that even if the cities would have no units permanently stationed in them, it would be GUARANTEED that on the very turn enemy lands any city would receive a garrison STRONGER than one we would be able to keep there on a permanent basis (since because of the positioning of our units, the city under threat would receive not only units it would normally have as its garrison, but also units which would normally be stationed in the neighbouring cities).

It just "looks like" there would be no garrison - if you look closely at the map, you will realize that the white camps are ALWAYS positioned in such a way that units need only 1 turn to move to the closest city and fortify there.

For defenders: move one tile long the road, move into the city, fortify. All in one turn.

For artillery: move one tile along the road, move into the city, fire at the enemy stack. All in one turn. On the next turn, when the enemy attacks the city, fire at the attacking units.

For horses: move one tile along the road, move into the city, attack the enemy stack - if victorious or withdrawing from the fight, unit stays in the city. All in one turn.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- What about enemy blocking units that would prevent us from properly reinforcing any invasion spot who block roads and pillage our terraforming. Unfortunately all of the Bob uniques are mounted units and for blocking and pillaging, both the Rider and Conquistador would be terrors for using such tactics (more likely the Conquistador admittedly).

This was one of the issues I was specifically addressing. There are two possible solutions - the first one is mentioned in the opening post: it's the first set of "yellow camps". Those ensure than enemy CANNOT block reinforcements from reaching the city on the turn of landing, as there is always at least one road tile leading to the city enemy cannot land on.

The second solution (probably the better one) is having troops (10 of them total) control the tiles that might allow the enemy to cut the links to a city. These tiles are easy to see - wherever a white line crosses a yellow tile, enemy would be able to land in such a way that the unit camping "behind" the tile would not be able to reach the city and fortify on the same turn (they would only be able to reach the city, but not fortify).

Originally posted by Sharpe
- How do bombardment units fit in this plan especially as they only have a range of 1 currently and so need to get close to the action with adequate defensive units to prevent their capture? Also how do we deal with enemy artillery units or worse yet ship based bombardment ? (admittedly ships are not much of a concern yet)

See my paragraph above - arty units actually fit it very nicely, as they "move, enter the city, and fire" - all on the very turn enemy lands next to a city. Plus, they are ready for defense fire on the very next turn.

As you say - naval bombardment is a non-issue at least until ironclands.

Originally posted by Sharpe
- Since the teams see the iron and horses in Panama, it will be a major target of any attacker. (Remember how both Vox and GS were desperately trying to remove access to the other team's iron)

There is one significant difference between that situation and ours. They KNEW about ALL of their strategic resource locations. In our case, nobody knows if and what resources we have in our interior. Spending units on trying to seize Panama iron & horse is futile, as we are likely to have backup resources further inland.

I actually consider Panama very unlikely target of an invasion, as such an invasion would totally lack any element of surprise - we would be able to see the invasion fleet coming 2-3 turns before the landing. That is very unsound from the attacker's point of view.

Note: I agree with Leo - if I was planning an invasion of Legos Major, I would go for the far South/Southwest. But there is nothing we can do about that, aside from settling that part of our landmass ASAP.

One final note:

This defense plan is not meant to be an ultimate solution to all kinds of possible invasion scenarios. NO PLAN CAN BE. If 20 Knights land next to our city, then that city is a toast and there is no way in hell we could prevent that.

However, considering the same total number of units, this plan gives us relatively better chances to defend against invasions. Say, we'd have those 2 defenders in every coastal city. Enemy knights land and on the next turn, attack our city, defended by 2 mercs (we have no way to reinforce the city faster than in 2 turns, as the neighbouring cities are more than 3 tiles away). OTOH, if we take those 2 defenders from every coastal city and position them in the "white camps", ANY city enemy knights land next to will have 4 mercs defending it on the next turn when the knights attack. Just try it using the maps I posted - you will see it works.

So - while we still have roughly 2 defenders per every city, we are actually able to deploy them in a more flexible and effective way, using them wherever really needed. Our problem is that we do not know where the attack will be coming from. Keeping "strong enough" garrisons everywhere will kill our economy (upkeep). Keeping "strong enough" garrisons in cities "likely to be attacked" will only make the enemy strike somewhere else.

By having NO units in ANY city, the enemy will not know WHERE to strike and HOW MUCH units he will be facing. Plus, as I explained above - we will be able to face the invasion stack with more units than if relying on permenent garrisons.

[rendelnep]

Well in the worst case scenarrio 'they' could try to attack all 17 of our Legoland Major coastal cities except panama and the one on the penisula similtaneously with a single Middle aged ship load (3-4). Of course that wouldn't happen because we would see all their ships. If they use calvary and we don't discover riflemen before then we could be in one case of serious s*** but that isn't likely to happen - at all.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by rendelnep
Well in the worst case scenarrio 'they' could try to attack all 17 of our Legoland Major coastal cities except panama and the one on the penisula similtaneously with a single Middle aged ship load (3-4). Of course that wouldn't happen because we would see all their ships. If they use calvary and we don't discover riflemen before then we could be in one case of serious s*** but that isn't likely to happen - at all.

Actually, I think the end of the middle ages, when Cavalry and Conquistadors come into play, is the most likely time for us to be attacked. Caravels will have come by then, maybe even Galleons, making transport more efficient and better defended.

But the news isn't all bad for us. Musketeers get +1 defense just by being fortified. Add in a +50% city or wall bonus, and that means 7 defense, just managing to top Cavalry; or a +100% city+wall or hill, and fortified Musketeers will be at 9 defense! Not too shabby. And if we can control our source of saltpeter - trading it to Vox to build Mercs, then mass-upgrading when the deal ends - we can build a very big Musket army with some monetary investment.

[Tiberius]

I finally had time to read through this plan. The first thing that struck me was the posting time : 4AM Radek's time!! Couldn't sleep ?

I must say that I like it. I'm not going to repeat here everything is good about it, Radek pictured the advantages quite well.
What I like best about it:

1. the element of surprise and unpredictibility: the enemy won't know where our troops are and what are we planning to do.
2. twice as many defenders as compared to having permanent garrisons
3. the flexibility: rapid troops movement and deployment in short time


Now, my ideas/observations:

1. First, the biggest flaw (but the enemy should guess our plans to do this): a decoy landing. Landing troops near a city, "sucking" all the defenders from the area in that city and then landing a bigger force near one of the now undefended cities. (this is of course no different for any other type of defence, unless I'm mistaken; except for the "unit-chain" defence).

2. I know this means more troops, but I'd like to keep in all coastal cities one unit. Not because the plan wouldn't allow proper defence, but to trick the attackers. One would investigate at least one city before attacking, I suppose. Seeing only undefended cities would make them very suspicious. Let them see one defender and think they are lucky that we are so stupid.
Besides, more troops never hurt (only the finances )

3. I still would like to see 3 stacks of fast reaction forces (horseman->knights) deployed in the 3 areas discussed before (north, central, south). This would be good to counter overwhelming landings and/or decoy landings. These troops would stay in their base cities until it is absolutely clear where the main attack takes place or unless the defenders are overwhelmed. Unless I'm mistaken this rapid reaction force should be able to reach any coastal city whithin one turn.

4. Warning ships, of course.

5. Was it something else? Hmm, I'm trying to remember ... Ahh, I'm getting old
Ah, yes: pretty please permanent garrisons in strategically important cities (Jackson comes in mind) Can I negociate 2 units in every such city from our MA?
Edit: in addition to the "white" and "yellow" troops, of course. This way Jacksson would have at least 6 defenders in case of an attack (2 perma-defs, +4 white defs + some yellow defs)

All these troops from Radek's plan, including my or other's additions, would be still fewer than filling our coast with units, so the plan has a big from me.

[Sharpe]

2. I know this means more troops, but I'd like to keep in all coastal cities one unit. Not because the plan wouldn't allow proper defence, but to trick the attackers.

I agree I would feel much more comfortable with one unit per city in our coastal cities. Besides wouldn't any foreign ship that passed directly by a city see that our city was empty otherwise?

Actually I think that just to be safe we should have one unit per city everywhere, not just the coastal cities. We shouldn't forget the speed of Spain's Conquisadors. If they managed to land and we couldn't counter it immediately, they could be 6 squares away the next turn and could perhaps capture one of our interior cities.

Another possibility is say the situation similar to the ND landing. What if they land and we fire off a threatening PM demanding their withdrawal. They agree, and so we don't attack, and then they change their mind and move inward instead - that is another reason to have one unit per city in our interior just in case. The possibility of losing a thousand or more shields of buildings due to not protecting a city with at least one unit is a much more damaging situation than the 1 gold per turn that these units would each cost.

3. I still would like to see 3 stacks of fast reaction forces (horseman->knights) deployed in the 3 areas discussed before (north, central, south).

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense to as they can be used a speedy shock force.

pretty please permanent garrisons in strategically important cities (Jackson comes in mind) Can I negociate 2 units in every such city from our MA?

I absolutely agree with this. Any wonder city should have more units especially if it is on the coast - more importantly any SMALL wonders must be heavily protected as they would disappear of course if the city fell unlike great wonders. Most important of these is of course our Forbidden City wonder city.

[lmtoops]

I would not defend inner cities. It's a waste of resources. In the example you gave, until the invaders have left we would take up offensive and defensive positions in all reachable cities. If some one lands an invasion army on Legoland, the WAR is on. I would have no problems attaching their army immediately.

We could put a defender in the coastal cities. If not in the city, the unit can be stationed on a hill/mountain outside the city. This would take away an advantagious landing position.

If the strategic city is inland, I would leave it undefended.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Kloreep
Actually, I think the end of the middle ages, when Cavalry and Conquistadors come into play, is the most likely time for us to be attacked. Caravels will have come by then, maybe even Galleons, making transport more efficient and better defended.

Agreed on the timing of a possible invasion. End of the medieval times or the very dawn of the industrial time is the most likely moment others will make their try. And I expect AT LEAST TWO TEAMS ganging up on us. Maybe three.

Originally posted by Tiberius
I finally had time to read through this plan. The first thing that struck me was the posting time : 4AM Radek's time!! Couldn't sleep ?

Oh, he could... and would... just that he wanted to have this stuff finished. He actually started at about 10pm... but it was a lot of image & writing stuff to do.

Originally posted by Tiberius
1. First, the biggest flaw (but the enemy should guess our plans to do this): a decoy landing. Landing troops near a city, "sucking" all the defenders from the area in that city and then landing a bigger force near one of the now undefended cities. (this is of course no different for any other type of defence, unless I'm mistaken; except for the "unit-chain" defence).

Actually, this decoy landing should not be that much of a problem. Especially with the "full" version of the defense plan implemented, with all the white and yellow camps, the units moved into the city under the threat of the invading stack would be IMMEDIATELY replaced by units from the adjacent yellow camps (that's what the lines starting in yellow camps and ending in white camps are for - they are never longer than 3 tiles, which means a 1-turn movement along roads), making it possible to counter any other landing with the same force as the initial decoy landing.

I admit that it will take some time to get our defenses to fully cover all white camps (WCs) and yellow camps (YCs).

Originally posted by Tiberius
2. I know this means more troops, but I'd like to keep in all coastal cities one unit. Not because the plan wouldn't allow proper defence, but to trick the attackers. One would investigate at least one city before attacking, I suppose. Seeing only undefended cities would make them very suspicious. Let them see one defender and think they are lucky that we are so stupid.
Besides, more troops never hurt (only the finances )

Thinking of this, it may be a good idea... I agree that it is not our intention to make the potential invader suspicious, planning for "the unexpected", but to make him believe our defenses are weak, underestimating our strength, sending a weaker stack. It's all about being warned well in advance - once we KNOW there is a war upon us, I believe we will be able to outproduce even two teams combined. The only problem is the first impact.

Originally posted by Tiberius
3. I still would like to see 3 stacks of fast reaction forces (horseman->knights) deployed in the 3 areas discussed before (north, central, south). This would be good to counter overwhelming landings and/or decoy landings. These troops would stay in their base cities until it is absolutely clear where the main attack takes place or unless the defenders are overwhelmed. Unless I'm mistaken this rapid reaction force should be able to reach any coastal city whithin one turn.

Well, not sure how would we determine "where the main attack is actually coming from". There may be more than one decoy landing.

Thanks to how our landmass is shaped, mobile units stationed in WCs/YCs along one coast need mostly just a single turn to move over to WCs/YCs on the opposite coast, so I am not sure we need three extra stacks stationed in Legopolis, Farmerville, and Karina. Once we have our defenses set up, we can assemble such forces - "just in case"... But I would leave that for later.

Since all WCs are just 2 tiles from the nearby cities, it means mobile units from a given WC can immediately attack stacks landing near one of the cities closest to that WC, plus they can move even to the cities next to these two closest ones. And I am not even mentioning the possibility of moving them to the other coast...

Originally posted by Tiberius
Ah, yes: pretty please permanent garrisons in strategically important cities (Jackson comes in mind)

Edit: in addition to the "white" and "yellow" troops, of course. This way Jacksson would have at least 6 defenders in case of an attack (2 perma-defs, +4 white defs + some yellow defs)

Considering we would basically go for one defender per city, this means one extra defender per important city, which should be doable.

Originally posted by Sharpe
Actually I think that just to be safe we should have one unit per city everywhere, not just the coastal cities. We shouldn't forget the speed of Spain's Conquisadors. If they managed to land and we couldn't counter it immediately, they could be 6 squares away the next turn and could perhaps capture one of our interior cities.

Well, the thing is we would ALWAYS have something to counter an invading stack with. I will grant you that conquistadors with their effective movement of 6 are not to be neglected - but their A/D stats (3/2) suck. Any landing zone would be immediately hit by 2 WC forces. Plus, any interior city within the striking range of the conq's will be able to receive garrisons from the camps on the other coast.

Plus, keep in mind that attacking an interior city (even if you know where it is, which is not exactly the case for all of our interior cities - only Legopolis, Karina, and future Oasis locations will probably be known) is strategically quite unsound and will unlikely be planned for. Whatever you send to conquer such a city, will most probably die within a turn or two, since you will have no means to reinforce it. So, yes, it is something not to be neglected, as the enemy may resort to a suicide attack just to raze the city, but the probability of such an attack is low, I think.

Besides, when you look at the map and all the camps, it's quite a thick defense belt...

Originally posted by Sharpe
Another possibility is say the situation similar to the ND landing. What if they land and we fire off a threatening PM demanding their withdrawal. They agree, and so we don't attack, and then they change their mind and move inward instead - that is another reason to have one unit per city in our interior just in case. The possibility of losing a thousand or more shields of buildings due to not protecting a city with at least one unit is a much more damaging situation than the 1 gold per turn that these units would each cost.

The only reason we did not strike immediately after ND landed their unit was that it was just a single unit, moreover an unarmed scout. As Leo correctly pointed out, landing a stack of military units on our landmass is nothing but the declaration of war - there will be no threatening PMs, we shall strike at once. Just like GS did when GoW landed their two elite horses, pretending they were only "observers".

Originally posted by lmtoops
We could put a defender in the coastal cities. If not in the city, the unit can be stationed on a hill/mountain outside the city. This would take away an advantagious landing position.

And this leads me to a small tweak to the proposed 1 unit per coastal city rule. Let's basically have one unit per every coastal city, but wherever necessary, use this unit to control the "strategically important" landing tiles that are vital for being able to move and fortify troops from the closest WCs into the city in 1 turn (there are/will be 10 such tiles along our coast). This actually addresses two concerns at the same time.

[vondrack]

OK, so I believe we basically agree that the plan is ok, with two major additions/changes:

1) naval screen
2) one "perma" defender per every coastal city, positioned either directly in the city or used to control a strategic landing tile close to that city (making sure WC forces get into the threatened city in time no matter what)

So, let's start talking about what we need to do to make this "dream" come true:

1) let's consider the Eastern Coast only for this moment
Until Astronomy (and quite likely until Navigation), our Western Coast is reasonably safe, protected by the vast ocean. Western Coast cities shall do with a perma garrison of one (reg) merc. Panama should have one more garrison unit (merc or medinf), just to be extra safe.

2) let's start with the coast between Jackson and Zargonia
That's where our cities already are. Once we found Crossing, let's extend this line down as far as Logville.

3) road network goals:
Jackson-D.F. area: already in place
D.F.-Tarzania area: non-existent, three jungle tiles (S, S-S, and S-S-S of D.F.) need to be cleared and roaded
Tarzania-Zargonia area: mostly in place, just a single jungle tile (S of Tarzania) needs to be cleared and roaded

4) military presence goals:
Jackson: 2 elite mercs
Jackson-D.F. WC: 1 merc, 1 medinf, 1 horse, 1 cat (all vets)
D.F.: 2 vet mercs positioned NW & S of the city (controlling the vital landing tiles)
D.F.-Tarzania WC: 1 merc, 1 horse, 1 cat (all vets)
Tarzania: one vet merc stationed in the city
Tarzania-Zargonia WC: 1-2 mercs, 1 horse, 1 cat (all vets)
Zargonia: 2 vet mercs stationed in the city (since it has only one WC close by

Considering what we already have, we will need:
a) 1 merc, 1 horse, 1 cat for the Jackson-D.F. WC
b) 1 merc for Dye Fields
c) 1 merc, 1 horse, 1 cat for the D.F.-Tarzania WC
d) 1-2 mercs, 1 horse, 1 cat for the Tarzania-Zargonia WC
e) 1 merc for Zargonia

Total: 5-6 mercs, 3 horses, 3 cats. Considering we have Jackson, Panama, and Forkmouth producing units right now and Sharphaven in 6 turns, I believe we could make it - for the next ~10-15 turns like this:

Panama: finish the merc (2t), then worker (1t), merc (3t), merc (3t), worker (1t), then marketplace (~8t)
Jackson: finish the horse (1t), then worker (1t), walls (2t), cat (2t), worker (1t), horse (3t), worker (1t), cat (2)
F'mouth: finish cat (4t), horse (5t), merc (5t)
S'haven: finish barracks (6t), merc (5t), merc (5t)

plus:

Zargonia: naval units only, once the harbour is finished.

I would use the workers from these cities entirely for clearing & roading the four jungle tiles identified in the "road network goals" part.

[vondrack]

Oh, I forgot about one important thing: once we acquire Chivalry, we'll be unable to build horsemen. So we need to do it as follows (moving horses to the front slots, as it is better for us to build horses and upgrade them to knights then to build knights from scratch ATM):

Panama: finish a horse (2t; needs a switch), then horse (3t), worker (1t), merc (3t), worker (1t), then marketplace (~8t)
Jackson: finish the horse (1t), then worker (1t), walls (2t), cat (2t), worker (1t), merc (3t), worker (1t), cat (2)
F'mouth: finish cat (4t), merc (5t), merc (5t)
S'haven: finish barracks (6t), merc (5t), merc (5t)