The War: 1265AD

[lmtoops]

Battle Report from DeepO/GS:

Originally posted by DeepO
Battle Report Turn 243: 1265 AD




- DD attacks 3/5 BB Legopolis. DD sinks. BB 2/5.
- DD attacks 4/5 DD At Abilene 4411 (forgot to note the name). Defensive bombardment misses. 2/4 DD.
- DD attacks 2/4 DD Myrmidon. DD sinks, Myrmidon 2/4
- 3/4 DD attacks 2/4 DD Myrmidon. DD 3/4.
- 3/4 DD stumbles into (reg or 3/4?) sub at Abilene 47. DD 2/4.
- 3/4 DD stumbles into sub at Abilene 411111111. DD destroyed.
- 4/5 DD attacks sub at Abilene 411111111. DD 1/5.

Total: 7 battles, 3 lost. We lost 3 DD, Lego lost 2 DD and 2 Subs.

DeepO

[lmtoops]

First we can claim success. GS could not use their Marines to take any cities. They are not threatening multiple cities. And they have no terrain bonuses. I would say that we have done great

Now let us see how we do on the GoW Eastern Front.

[Kloreep]

I'm somewhat confused about those marines in the north. What's the deal? They can't have any mech infs or tanks in that stack since marines only have 6 defense, IIRC. They might have settlers, but that's not going to get 1-move marines to a city.

Hmm... if they do have at least 1 settler with the stack, perhaps they plan to simply found a city on the coast and re-load them in to transports, with their move intact, should the stack survive. In short, they figure the marines are safer for the turn on land than they are packed in to transports. If this is the case (lots of marines plus some settlers in that stack) then we need to either eliminate this stack or eliminate their transports to be safe from this stack for the turn.

We'll have to see how crackable that southern stack is. Those Mech Infs look fierce.

[lmtoops]

I think that is a good assesment concerning the marines. It seems to be the only logical explaination.

[rendelnep]

Legopolis the chicken has landed.....

[Tiberius]

A few things that crossed my mind after a quick look on the screenshot:

- they probably landed the marines there for IMHO 3 main reasons: 1. They wanted to distract some of our units, keeping them away from the main stack; 2. They didn't want to slow down the main stack with 1 movers; 3. They felt unsafe to leave them on the sea ( a big for our navy)
Of course, 4. is what Kloreep says

- big question: do we want to build a fort city directly East from the GS stack? They woulnd't be able to build their own fort city, but we would have to defend two cities next turn. It is true though that one of them is a metro, and the other one would be on a hill.

- we will have to count the transports and the marines. It could be that they landed some/most of marines to make us feel safe from the sea, but they moved some transports away from the battlefield, trying to sneak in behind our lines. What Kloreep says could also be an idea (and a good one): found a city, load the marines and in the same turn attack from the sea.

- the fact that they didn't attack any city might be a sign that they have no spy with us, and they were afraid to throw all the marines against an elusive target. But it could also mean that they have a spy, investigated the cities and realized that there is no point to attack them.

- the more we make them to maneveur the better for us: we have 60 arties and only 2 more turns until radar towers.

[rendelnep]

Anyone else noticed 'last turns massacare'. Funny, what did this war open with? I see some opportunities for propaganda .....

[Tiberius]

Well, fortunately it was a massacre, was it not ?
And I wish for many more such massacres to come

[vondrack]

Yeah, I do not particularly mind massacres... I mean, those which we massacre our enemies in...

Anyway - I posted here in the morning, but the post is gone... nothing really important - just that I believe the situation could be worse than this. The uberstack directly threatens only Abilene , Q.M. can be protected simply by cutting roads.

Those marines... hm, no idea what good they are to GS there...

We'll see what GoW comes up with...

[Kloreep]

Re: GoW bombing report.

Ouch.

Just ouch.

This is how we lose the war... we're on the defensive in the era of flight.

If we can't at least get things back in to the water where their carriers will be in danger, we're goners. We need to win this upcoming battle so we can get back in to the air and sea.

[Tiberius]

Agreed. We are losing it in the air. We really need some fighters. Badly.

[vondrack]

While I agree that we need to do something about this terrible bombardment, it's our artillery, tanks, and infantry that must buy us time to build some fighter defenses...

Thanks to all that extra time (we haven't seen a fresh save in two weeks), various wild ideas have crossed my mind. But this one is good, I believe.

Inspired by Kloreep's remark in the chatroom some time ago, I experimented a bit with the algorithm used to determine the "top defender" in a stack. Results obtained lead me to believe that it's very simple: whichever unit has the best odds to survive the attack, will defend.

Now, this may not sound all that new, but...

a 4/4 tank is a better defender than a 3/4 infantry

Which brings me to my idea... GoW's stack that landed presumably between Jackson and Dye Fields, will have a handful of infantry and than a ****load of tanks.

What about this: we use our artillery to knock at least 1hp off every infantry in that stack - 62 arty pieces should be enough for the job. Then, GoW tanks will become top defenders - and we send our tanks in. A 4/4 tank kills a 4/4 tank in 79.2% cases (and does not allow it to withdraw). That's 4 out of 5. Considering we will have about 35 tanks to attack with, we might be able to destroy around 25-30 GoW tanks, leaving them with only slightly over 20 fresh tanks to threaten our cities with (and we hopefully bomb these down, so that they are not 4/4).

This would significantly reduce our needs for defenders on the East Coast - allowing us to stuff Abilene with a lot of infantries, hopefully fending off GS' assault.

And why attack GoW? Well, several reasons - only infantries to crack through (using our arty)... once an infantry loses an hp, it lets a 4/4 tank defend. Second, their tanks threaten two cities of ours, so by killing one GoW tank, we are actually freeing two infantries of ours for duties elsewhere. Third, they have less tanks than GS, so we should be able to leave them with a severely reduced tank forces...

...plus... they piss me off with that aerial bombardment...

What do you think?

[Kloreep]

Sounds good to me.

Also, remember that Tanks have Blitz. So tanks that only suffer 1, or no, HP damage could attack again. Perhaps we could actually wipe out their stack? (Or at least destroy & severely damage the tanks in it.)

[vondrack]

I have re-checked the numbers and here is a quick run-down:

An attacking 4/4 tank has...

...38.5% chances to kill a 4/4 mechanized infantry
...55.2% chances to kill a 3/4 mechanized infantry
...73.9% chances to kill a 2/4 mechanized infantry
...90.7% chances to kill a 1/4 mechanized infantry

...69.6% chances to kill a 4/4 infantry
...81.0% chances to kill a 3/4 infantry
...90.7% chances to kill a 2/4 infantry
...97.2% chances to kill a 1/4 infantry

...79.2% chances to kill a 4/4 tank
...87.8% chances to kill a 3/4 tank
...94.2% chances to kill a 2/4 tank
...98.4% chances to kill a 1/4 tank

Which means that the top defender in a mixed stack should be chosen in the following order:

38.5% -> 4/4 mechanized infantry
55.2% -> 3/4 mechanized infantry
69.6% -> 4/4 infantry
73.9% -> 2/4 mechanized infantry
79.2% -> 4/4 tank
81.0% -> 3/4 infantry
87.8% -> 3/4 tank
90.7% -> 1/4 mechanized infantry or 2/4 infantry
94.2% -> 2/4 tank
97.2% -> 1/4 infantry
98.4% -> 1/4 tank

Cracking through an MI escort means bringing all units down to their last hitpoint. OTOH, cracking through an infantry escort means taking a single hitpoint off of every unit.

I have verified the assumptions for tanks and infantries using a custom-made scenario. If I find some time, I will check the MI bit, too.

[vondrack]

Could not resist at least opening the save, and do the F1 trick.

- Legopolis at 60spt. It would probably be best to shortrush an explorer for 160g and switch to a fighter.

- GoW landed S-SE of Jackson. Their fleets seem to only threaten Jackson and Dye Fields (from what I can tell from the city screens).

More aften coming back home.