RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[ATrain]

Seems like every team is talking about taking out Spulla. Do you think it will be possible for them to all coordinate an attack?

[BobRoberts]

I'll be curious to see what happens!

Feeling it could be anything from a Spulla stomping, through to a ragtag band of units just feeding them XP in nice GG sized bundles.... the numbers Dantski/Jowy are bandying about sound quite impressive? 2 stacks of ~8+ offensive units - not nice!

Merry Xmas y'all. Nice to escape a roomfull of relatives for a few minutes.

[antisocialmunky]

The max is a 4 on 1, the other factions (Korea, Rome, and IKZ) are just too far away to meaningfully assist.

I don't think that HRE will be ready for any sort of attack. The Ottomans however can help with their Athens army after they kick Byz off the mainland. I think they can get to Pink Dot to still matter. It would be a pretty decent idea to burn those units on something useful. However, I think that if Speaker a can hold his ground for the first couple turns, they'll win. The real problem is that its a 3 prong attack at 3 different targets, all of which are predictable:

Jowy's 1 movers goes for White/Black.
Dantski's 1 movers follows the Via Sullla.
kathlete's 2 movers hit Pink Dot.

Interestingly enough, the attack that has the highest chance of success IMHO (Kathlete's HA/Chariot stack against Pink) will probably decide the war since it might cut off the metal supply to India.

I still favor India to win though.

[Shoot the Moon]

I think it will depend on how long the attack takes to occur, and how well India can sniff it out. My best guess is that they will soon ask Dantski for an extended NAP to secure one flank, as Jowy has (stupidly) made his intentions clear, and when Dantski refuses/stalls those NAP negotiations, they will start to become more suspicious.

If it is going to be a turn 100 attack (as Athlete/Kalin's email to HRE seem to indicate) I suspect it will be too late. 25 turns from now, Spulla should have a nice sized army (especially considering Jowy's diplomacy blunders) and a substantial tech lead.

[Krill]

Need to capture Antietam to cut Spullla metal permenantly, or manage to pillage it and interdict the tile. That's not an easy thing to do. OTOH, Spullla are going to be massively hampered by unhappiness with all of the whipping that they'll be doing, with the associated loss of teching ability and growth.

I don't think Spullla will die, but I don't think they'll get a peace deal out of it, in which case they are going to have a very hampered growth period afterwards.

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, I don't see their metal geting cut off unless Fredricksburg falls. Then there's chariots.

To cut off the metal early requires coordination with Dantski since he's the only one that can realistic take out Antietam before alot of stuff if whipped out unless HRE can move some troops up for the attack. Like I said coordination.

But to be honest I think that Dantski is probably the weakest of the three. Lets not forget that Antietam is the production city as well...



.. and its on a hill, surrounded by grasslands, and across a river from Dantski. Taking the Via Sullla will land them on one of the spice tiles which should give them about 4 turns to do something about it since Dantski AFAIK only really has metal hooked up last I heard. I guess kathlete could try but they wouldn't be able to use anything that can defend.

They seem to be easing off the farmer's gambit a little so I don't think the whipping will quite be as bad.

[Shoot the Moon]

Don't forget that Spulla also has iron in their territory.

[Krill]

The only way for Antietam to fall is a stack of HA (plus some chariots) moved onto the spice tile at the end of the turn, then moving to the cow ile on the next turn to split Antietam and the capital.

So, to make sure the limited number of units are met, and those are the weakest ones that could be met, Jowy needs to move up near the start/middle of the turn with a stack of swords/axes plus a spear (like 2/5/1), and move them to the hill tile E NE of Chancellorville (with a road on the adjacent plains hill within Jowys' culture they can move in without being spotted).

Then Spullla move up units to 1S of C.Ville. Then hopefully Ottomans move up some fastmovers (just a handful of HA) from the tile 3N2E to within reach of F.Berg, along with the attack from Dantski, but make sure Dantski moves last. The aim is to make Spullla slave useless units instead of spears so the HA stacks have a beter chance of succeeding.

That would probably be enough to raze Antietam, or at the very least F.Berg and C.Ville, but it is really hard to pull off, they need to be really organized, and all of them need to know the lay of the land and get this planned out before they even start building the army. And the problem is, by the time they are looking at attacking the next round of cities will be out, they could have better units etc, 40% culture.

[antisocialmunky]

Does Dantski even have his metal hooked up to all his cities? I think they'll expect Jowy + Dantski but not kathlete.

[BobRoberts]

Wonder whether Spulla will have construction before T100 - a defensive cat or two could make a godawful mess out there, if they have the units to back it up?

Wonder if anyone will tip them off - Kathlete seem very free with their plans... the Incans perhaps?