The War: 1265AD

[vondrack]

Opening sequence including the F1 trick phase posted in the Chronicle entry. The only thing I did was I rushed a vet fighter in Legopolis (120g), as it seemed to be the only meaningful thing to do.

Here is the Western Theater situation:



The marine stack NW-NW of Quanto Mechanico is just 8 full-health vet (4/4) marines. IMHO, it can be safely ignored, as there is no way it could attack anything valuable next turn.

The stack of doom N-NW of Abilene is the core of GS invasion army:



Someone check it, please, but I have counted the following numbers:

4 workers
1 settler
2 explorers
12 mechanized infantries
22 infantries
57 tanks
8 marines
==================
106 units total

I believe the best we can do is to cut all roads around this stack (to prevent extreme combat settling) and stuff as many defenders into Abilene as possible.

Note, please, that GS did a smart thing - they left most of their marines aboard (must be the fleet led by the carrier, W-W-SW of Abilene), threatening directly or indirectly Q.M., Abilene, and Tipperary. Our healthy ships are too far to attack them (that's why they kept attacking with their DDs until our ships were down to 1/x this turn).

They could use these marines to take e.g. Tipperary and use a transport chain to move some of their landed tanks to somewhere else. We have to keep that in mind - possibly either heavily defending Tipperary or even disbanding it.

There are things to do here, but I believe that we should first take care of the situation in the East (to follow in a separate post).

[Tiberius]

The freaking stacks are unbelievable when you scroll through them.

I counted the GoW stack as follows:
- 1 settler
- 42 infantries
- 16 tanks
- 27 artileries
- 34 marines

Interestingly enough, they landed most of their marines, and only a handfull of tanks, which makes me believe that they want to build a city first and then unload everything in it next turn.

We would be able to counter this building a fort-city.

GoW has only a max. nr of 8 marines left on the sea (they have a total nr of 42) so we should be able to defend Jackson and Dye Fields easily, if we manage to kill their landed tanks.

Unless I'm missing something, I find that GoW used a very poor strategy. Hmm, let's think it over again, maybe there is some hidden danger.

Edit: I counted the GS forces as well. The result matches the nr. given by Radek.

[vondrack]

Here is the Eastern Theater situation:



The stack of doom N-NW of Abilene is the core of GoW invasion army:



I have counted the following numbers (check it, please):

1 settler
42 infantries
27 artillery
16 tanks
34 marines
==================
120 units total

I am totally puzzled by the composition of this landing force. I may be missing some diabolical plan of theirs, but at the moment, I believe GoW made a colossal mistake. They landed all but 9 their marines! Why?! And they only landed 16 tanks!

This sounds like an ideal situation for our counter-fort strategy. 42 infantries we should be able to crack through with our artillery. It's very likely we will use up all of them, but it should be enough. Once their tanks start defending, we send in the steel beasts. The GoW arty will lower the 80% odds of our tanks, but it's still the best we will be able to get. If we (and I believe this should be doable) cripple their tank forces, we simply build a fort SW of the landing beach, preventing them from building their own fort. Their invasion forces will be trapped on land, unable to attack pretty much anything (surviving tanks will most probably be damaged, other units will be out of striking range).

We will only have to make sure to defend our anti-fort heavily, to keep it at all costs. But that should again be doable.

I have to go for about an hour now, but I will post a more detailed plan of our counter-attack then. Well, basically, it's easy... shell all their infantries, expose the tanks, send in our tanks, kill/cripple theirs. Depending on the situation, we might wish to keep attacking even after finishing with their tanks, since our tanks will have very good chances even against the bombed-down infantries... but I will still post a detailed plan first, since we have to think twice about where to attack from...

[Kloreep]

57 tanks is bad news for us in Abilene. I agree we can't do much for the moment besides cutting the roads around them. (And we'll have to get down to the bare bones. That's 8 units tied up with pillaging. We at least have some explorers, right?)

The GoW stack should be maintainable so long as we build and stuff a counter-fort. If we can take out those tanks, we can leave Jackson and Dye Fields lightly defended. We'll be without protection of walls or city size inside that fort, though. We'll have to take in to account the bombers and artillery, and after that we'll need to make do with 12.5 strength infantries. Not pretty.

[Kloreep]

Another thought: 4 workers is enough to road & rail a tile in one turn. So:

GS moves the worker stack to a tile on their next turn, founds the city, and rushes a harbor/airport to get iron and coal.

Next turn, the workers road & rail, and they break out with combat settlers.

We better end this turn able to take on half the GS stack next turn (either nabbing the workers or taking their city). Otherwise, short-term isolation won't do anything but delay the inevitable.

I really hope we can take out the GoW stack. If not, I don't hold out much hope for turning back this invasion.

[Tiberius]

One more thing GS can do next turn: move the stack one tile to the east and threaten 3 cities at once.
They probably don't know right now where Ahhmyfoot is, but they have explorers so they can find out.

What are they doing with those marines there is a total mistery to me. But we have to destroy the transport anyway. Actually we can safely sink 2 transports, and even two more if we risk sending in 3x 2/4 BBs.
This is maybe of less importance, but I think denying GS the capability to transport fresh troops to our continent is vital, if we survive the first assault.

[vondrack]

Well, if we see them doing this (moving workers), we simply pillage more tiles. It will cost us, but we will still be able to delay them. Fortunately, they can't do it "as a surprise". We will be able to see what they are planning and respond accordingly.

[ZargonX]

Dealing with the GoW stack first I'm a little puzzled by their landing strategy, also... but, if they made a mistake, let us capitalize on it as best we can!

As for GS... I think K is right; we need to be able to deal with them immediately next turn. In the meantime, let's get those roads cut however we can...

[vondrack]

OK, unit summaries first:

Our (military) units as of this turn:

2 settlers
17 workers
2 explorers (only )
3 horsemen
12 cavalry
94 infantry (all vets)
38 tanks (36 vets + 2 regs)
62 artillery

6 ironclads
15 transports
1 carrier
8 submarines
8 destroyers
8 battleships
2 fighters
3 bombers

GS (military) units as of this turn:

7 settlers (1 landed)
24 workers (4 landed)
3 explorers (2 landed)
55 marines (8+8 landed, 39 still out at sea)
20 riflemen
25 infantry (22 landed)
68 tanks (57 landed)
34 mechanized infantry (12 landed)
14 artillery
2 galleys
22 transports (21 visible to us)
2 carriers (both visible to us)
7 destroyers (5 visible to us: 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 2x4/4)
2 fighters

GoW (military) units as of this turn:

5 settlers (1 landed)
22 workers
43 marines (34 landed, 9 still out at sea)
11 cavalry
58 infantry (42 landed)
52 tank (16 landed)
27 artillery (all of them landed)
22 transports (20 visible to us)
4 carriers (3 visible to us, E-E-SE-SE-SE of Jackson)
20 destroyers (14 visible to us)
1 fighter
19 bombers
4 riders

[vondrack]

To find out what we can use for our counterattack, let's start with determining what we will have to defend next turn.

Jackson - exposed to up to 9 marines and whatever is left of the landed GoW tanks. Can be bombed by up to 15 GoW bombers. Estimate: 10 infantries (plus some damaged tanks?).

Dye Fields - same as Jackson, but lower defenses. Estimate: 15 infantries.

Counter-Fort - whatever is left of the GoW SoD. That's going to be a load of (mostly full-health) marines, a lot of damaged infantries (2/4-3/4), and few damaged tanks. The Counter-Fort defenses may be supported by artillery to make it difficult for the GoW units to score kills. OTOH, we need to consider the damage done by GoW bombers (12 of them, it seems - maximum of 15, if the fourth carrier makes an appearance). You basically need 2 marines to have a slightly over 50% chances to kill a fortified 4/4 infantry (considering that our defense bombardment succeeds in 50% cases) . Estimate: 20 infantry plus maybe some tanks and a handful of artillery.

Abilene - exposed to 57 tanks and 12 mechanized infantries. We will be able to make Abilene pretty much unaccesible via water, since we have the new 4/4 DD in Q.M., three 4/4 transports, three 1/x DDs (Castor, Pollux, Romulus), and one 2/4 BB (Panama) within the reach - that's 8 vessels to block two tiles. GS only has one 3/4, one 2/4, and one 1/4 DD to try breaking through - the rest of their vessels are transports and carriers (attack 1).

2 vet tanks have 50%+ chances (71.4% actually) to kill a defending infantry. 2 vet MIs have slightly over 50% chances to kill a defending infantry. So we will need like 2/3 of the attackers to be safe. (57+12)*2/3=46 infantries.

Quanto Mechanico is out of reach of any GS land unit and can be made unaccesible via water by stuffing two or three 4/x BBs of ours just W of the city. Can be left defenseless.

Tipperary - exposed to up to 39 marines. If we add up the infantries needed to safely keep our major cities, it's obvious that we will not be able to properly garrison Tipperary. We can either disband it (after selling all its improvements) or leave it defended with just one token infantry, cutting all roads to it - hoping GS will miss this easy target (if not, they will take it, but will be unable to break out of the city anyway). Not sure which one is better. I would probably go for hoping they will miss it, leaving only very light defenses there and cutting roads.

So... to sum things up: if we put up with leaving Tipperary pretty much up for grab, we should be reasonably fine, as 10+15+20+46=91 infantries (and we have 94 of them).

Means that more or less all our tanks and all our artillery can be used to deal a major blow to the landed GoW units.

And before I proceed to the strike planning, let's make a summary of our pillaging needs:

2+2+2+3=9 pillagers to cut the GS SoD
(2+2+2=6 pillagers to cut Tipperary)

That's 15 pillagers - we have 12 cavalry, 3 horses (can be used to cut the tiles right next to Abilene), and 2 explorers. That's 17, which is enough to cover our needs for this turn.

[ZargonX]

I think we'll have to bite the bullet on Tipperary and focus our defenses as you've planned.

[Tiberius]

Don't forget that we can also bomb the GoW stack with out battleships from Jackson. That's two more possible extra hits.
Or maybe it'd be better to go out, kill 2 DDs, and go back in Jackson??

Plus, those tanks that attacked once and didn't suffer more than one HP damage, can attack again once that the artillery cover is gone.

I think we have good chances to completely wipe out the GoW tank brigade and maybe even some infantries. Attacking GoW infantries really depends on how many tanks we want to keep undamaged to strenghten our defences (that if our initial attacks go well, that is).

We should also keep some workers on dye tiles, just in case. GoW might consider them worth for bombing.

[Jack_www]

I have been thinking. I think, like you said vondrack, that GOW is going to build a city there and then next turn unload all their tanks in the city. I think that they will try to use settlers to get to Legopolis next turn and take it. That is only thing that makes any sense to me. What do you guys think?
Also is there any way to stop them?

[Kloreep]

It would take 6 units to isolate Tipperary. I believe we only need 4 to isolate the GS stack if we stick to our guns in Abilene.

We have 17 units that aren't particularly valuable in combat. Some of those are disbands this turn in order to fuel production, I'm sure, but 10 units should be acceptable.

However, will this really save Tipperary? I'm sure they'll see we've cut off the city. I think they'll know what that means even if they don't/can't investigate the city. And any Tanks they can land in the city after taking it can immediately move; if there is no city there, units are confined to the shore for the time being.

I'm leaning toward abandoning Tipperary, since we obviously cannot defend it.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jack_www
I have been thinking. I think, like you said vondrack, that GOW is going to build a city there and then next turn unload all their tanks in the city. I think that they will try to use settlers to get to Legopolis next turn and take it. That is only thing that makes any sense to me. What do you guys think?
Also is there any way to stop them?

Yes, there is. If we can cripple their stack in terms of attacking power (i.e. kill or heavily damage all their tanks - 16 of them), we can build our own temporary counter-fort next to the tile they have landed on - GoW will then be unable to build their coastal fort city (it's not possible to build a city right next to an existing city, no matter whether yours or not).

If we can hold that fort city (a matter of having defenses enough), they will be trapped. At least for one turn (until they reload those marines into the transports again). But even one turn would be golden.