The Gathering Storm war-plan

[PJayTycy]

It is time to start to work out our war-planning for the first few turns.

Things I want to see in this plan :

• Assign units for :
  ==>Killing GS' forward unit
  ==>Scouting the defenses of GS' 2 northern cities (do we use a suicide scout or defend our scout ?)
  ==>Barb-city (attack it or atleast prevent barb-attacks behind the frontline)
• City production queues for military units
• Technologies that might change our war in the short-term (I expect none, except maybe trading horseback riding)
• Resources linking that might change our available units (horses, ivory)
• Timing of all ground units to reach GS' first city
• Timing on the marine units to reach any of GS' cities

[binTravkin]

==>Killing GS' forward unit

Rear chuck or mace coming down from Mhasa.

==>Scouting the defenses of GS' 2 northern cities (do we use a suicide scout or defend our scout ?)

Mhasa is producing an explorer, which, using Woodsman II will be an excellent scout. It is 3 turns from being finished.

==>Barb-city (attack it or atleast prevent barb-attacks behind the frontline)

There will be a constant stream of units past it for next 10 turns, so there should be no problem for some rear unit to capture it.

City production queues for military units

3 cities are currently assigned building military only - Tassagrad, Xian and Mhasa.
Xian is now building mace (3 turns until finished), Tassagrad - chuck (1 turn), Mhasa - explorer (3 turns).

We can also assign DongJing to the task in like 6-7 turns, but apart from that the next city seemingly available is the eastern caravel city (it will have 9+ hammers base and a good amount of food), which is like 15 turns in the future.

Mhasa will be able to use its forest resources to gain at least 144h extra worth of production.

More detailed queues later.

Technologies that might change our war in the short-term (I expect none, except maybe trading horseback riding)

HorseBack Riding + Paper(to quickly finish Guilds) + Feudalism + Guilds - Knights in 8-10 turns, enables Gunpowder
Engineering - +50% road movement in 5-6 turns if started immediately

Resources linking that might change our available units (horses, ivory)

Horses in ~8 turns (at the same time with Guilds)
Ivory - need extra settler

Timing of all ground units to reach GS' first city

I guess you mean first strike units, or units enough to overcome that city.
I'd put that in 4-5 turns.

Timing on the marine units to reach any of GS' cities

In 2 turns a mace and a chuk departs from Xin Guangzhou to south. It will take 5-6 turns to land near 1st city, so will probably be late, +3 to land near 2nd city.

[-SafaN-]

2 points:

- i rather not use the forests in mhasa because it will be our versailles city
- i rather want the naval troops to be behind enemy lines: for an easy capture if they didn't expect it, or pillaging

[Maniac]

Do you guys plan to attack cities with Longbowmen in them?

Personally I'd say with the capture of Monsoon, the main war goal is already achieved, and everything else is extras. So unless we run into an easy target, I'd say we should try to pillage as much as possible instead. Didn't cottage their flood plains IIRC?

[binTravkin]

I don't see that much problem with longbowmen vs chucks + macemen.
The collateral damage will be very helpful.
We should be able (and definitely should) to storm first two cities with the forces we have (4 maces and 10 chucks) and proceed ahead with upcoming 2 maces (finished this turn in core cities) and extra units (maces/chucks/cats) we will be able to produce until we have knights.

[Impaler[WrG]]

As the first GS city seems to be abandoned we can and should raze it next turn and continue marching south as we extend our invasion road with our work crew.

Our planning should now focus on archiving a critical mass of troops at the second GS city in good order so as to be able to smash through the defenses that will likely be gathered their. I suspect they will position much of their catapult and longbows forces their and attempt to weaken our stack by hitting us with catapult collateral thus leaving us so weak we are either unable to take the city or suffer such losses that our campaign stalls.

If we find this is the case we could bypass the second city and march towards Moscow and attempt to capture or raze it. In addition If they pour all their defenses into that second city then the navel flank could prove devastating by bringing a force into their undefended core area. The key will be to bring forces ware they aren't defending themselves sufficiently.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
I don't see that much problem with longbowmen vs chucks + macemen.

Due to it being possible to win entire wars in SMAC without losing a single unit, I'm kinda not very good at estimating when a war is profitable in Civ4, where losses are inevitable.

What's considered the acceptable number of hammers to lose ourselves in order to make Gathering Storm lose 10 hammers?

[binTravkin]

You're too used to Spartans in ACDG3.
I'd say the acceptable number is more than 15

I agree that we should have the needed troops to overrun 2nd city, but I disagree that it should be passed in case too well defended. It is imperative we take that city since that gives GS elephants.

[PJayTycy]

If we fear catapults and collateral damage, we can spread out our attack forces around their city instead of focused on one tile.

[Lacero]

We'ver got a good plan so far with lots of options, galley reserves and units being built and knights eventually (we need to offer the trade to sarantium next turn for horses).

We don't need to plan too much in advancee as we're flexible enough to adapt to what happens. Lets just go south and see whats in their second city, I think we do have to take it now but if the defence is extreme theres no point hrowing units at it for no reason. We'll come up with something when we know.

Also, are we going to post a public declaration of war for the others? Or not? Won't GS if we don't?

[Mart]

I wonder if they cleared the forest north of the city and between mountain peaks. If not, that's a good place to approach.
Bad is that we would need to stack - catapults.

[binTravkin]

I think we will have to go around that direct entrance to that city due to reasons mentioned, but our workers will help a lot and moving around will allow our rear to catch up for a more impressive hit when we do.

We don't need to rush with Sarantium trade but it should be done within the next 5 turns.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
I'd say the acceptable number is more than 15

Just checking to be sure: this is only counting the hammer value of the city defenders, not the hammer value of the city itself?

[binTravkin]

This is counting only military vs military since the hammer value of an enemy city is an unknown value.
I don't really see the point of bringing the cities into equation either - then the ratio would become even more in our favor and it wouldn't correctly describe the dynamics.
You get to destroy the enemy cities once you have overwhelmed his military and to overwhelm his military you either need to be smarter (unmeasurable) or bigger (hammers them/us ratio) or both.

[Maniac]

Other question. What's the goal of this war according to you guys?

Is it accomplishing complete destruction of GS no matter the cost, as soon as possible? Or is the goal to de facto put GS out of the game, weaken them, with actually colonizing their land as a long term goal?

If the goal is the latter, wouldn't it be more cost-efficient to pillage all their terrain improvements and road network instead of throwing lots of units at their cities (with resulting war exhaustion)? If they want to counter pillaging, they'd need to move their longbowmen out of their cities to attack, where the odds are more in our favour compared to us attacking longbowmen in cities. Or they'd need to build other units than longbowmen, which makes attacking cities easier for us, if we switch plans at a later point.