[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Hashoosh]

You mustn't be afraid to dream little bigger

Why not C5 Modern Armour with Commando?

[Fintourist]

Since they are probably using numbers to communicate I'll send this message to Commodore to say we're stuck between a rock and a hard place and expect to get attacked on both borders in five turns. Obviously he'll interpret that as a request for catapults.

That's good!

And yep, happy to see some machine guns coming up. We kind of want a huge pile of hitters so that we can clean a 100+ unit modern stack, but MGs are excellent units if we need to actually defend a tile or if we need to slow down a possible attacker while retreating And yup, let's keep Jamestown in Infantry/Cannon duty, I feel like we could use a round of siege units, but in the hope of reaching Artillery it's probably nice to build almost complete Cannons that will auto-upgrade when we actually reach the tech (as discussed).

Good job overall!

[BaII]

They can take medic promos I believe. Though I don't think that's particularly strong.

[Old Harry]

Turn 238

Com says he'll attack dtay in six turns? Possibly a bit late for us, but I'll take it.


What do we build next in Agincourt? We're going to be blockaded pretty soon so whipping a bunch of units before the pop starves away is an attractive option. We could put in a Factory first, but unlike commerce the Bureau hammer bonus isn't multiplicative so that makes the Factory feel a bit less shiny. We can also run some spies with our Jail bonus, is another 12 EPs a turn worth sacrificing 18 gpt for? I think so...


In other news, we're doomed. Mack's western fleet is currently ten Destroyers and nine transports. His stack of Artillery and Infantry disappeared. Presumably onto the boats. That's nearly 40 units that can be delivered to the city of his choice at the drop of a hat.


So here is some disaster planning. Mack knows we know, so there's no reason to stage where the fleet sits (on the red Xs) - we can't do anything about destroyers so he might as well start from the green Xs. He can unload next to most of our decent coastal cities on T0 of the war and his destroyers can block our galleons from entering or exiting BoP and Cannae, so we really need to decide what we're doing before T0. On T1 of the war he can unload by Agincourt. Also his two-movers can hit Konig, Tet, and Madrid from four tiles into his empir. So I think we want all our rifles in these cities, to delay their fall by at least a turn.


This is the planned rail network - we should complete it in time. On the mainland Dunkirk can be staging post for every city except Ulm. On the island pretty much anywhere can be the staging post.


And this is it all together.


These are our troops. Whaddaya want where? I'm looking to upgrade all the appropriate Mele units to Machine Guns sooner rather than later so that they can start building a fortify bonus. Muskets need to become Infantry - starting with the higher XP ones and stopping when we run out of cash perhaps?


Here is a generous donation to our new evil overlord. Possibly not the best way to spend 100 hammers right now, but there was a hole I wanted to fill


Demos and power. I think we've scared Mack into stopping building units...

I didn't end turn - too tired to be sure if we need to do upgrades straight away or we can wait a bit.

[Hashoosh]

Rocky 2: The Mackotining

Jokes aside, can archery -> MGs? I forget, but if they can, CG would be super swell

[Old Harry]

Bowmen can but longbows can't.

[Fintourist]

Com says he'll attack dtay in six turns? Possibly a bit late for us, but I'll take it.

I'm not sure about Com cities, but that looks more like mackoti attack to me? Although Endor would not make sense in that case.. Maybe Com wants us to attack both dtay and mackoti? Anyways, if Commodore would be targeting mack it would work perfectly for us if mack attacks us, but I assume that before that happens we would still take enforced peace with mack and grind to Artillery if given a chance? That would also maybe enable skirmishing with dtay..

What do we build next in Agincourt? We're going to be blockaded pretty soon so whipping a bunch of units before the pop starves away is an attractive option. We could put in a Factory first, but unlike commerce the Bureau hammer bonus isn't multiplicative so that makes the Factory feel a bit less shiny.

Agi does not need that much seafood if it is blockaded so I assume that we will have time to whip it later. Maybe just another infantry?

In other news, we're doomed. Mack's western fleet is currently ten Destroyers and nine transports. His stack of Artillery and Infantry disappeared. Presumably onto the boats. That's nearly 40 units that can be delivered to the city of his choice at the drop of a hat.

Well let's be ready! I don't think mack is able to produce masses of Amphi units so we should be able to make the initial attack costly by putting infantry in our coastal cities. And if he lands he needs a big enough stack that we can't wipe it out via collecting every imaginable nearby unit via railroads. So a stack of infantry is ordered at least for Cannae & Omdu etc.

Also his two-movers can hit Konig, Tet, and Madrid from four tiles into his empir. So I think we want all our rifles in these cities, to delay their fall by at least a turn.

Agree, rifles are most useful there, this is luckily also something that we will see in advance. König has not really been vulnerable to 2-mover strikes in the past: Check the culture on the tile SW-SW of the city, because it might be possible to regain the control of that tile.

This is the planned rail network - we should complete it in time. On the mainland Dunkirk can be staging post for every city except Ulm. On the island pretty much anywhere can be the staging post.

Sounds very good, Ulm is a low priority city anyways. Many thanks for your effort here! On the island it would be important that VV is part of the railroad network, because we keep quite a few units there and every hitter counts if mack lands a stack (probably obvious, but I did not see a dark line connecting the city)

And this is it all together.

Just want to say thanks for these screenshots

I'm looking to upgrade all the appropriate Mele units to Machine Guns sooner rather than later so that they can start building a fortify bonus. Muskets need to become Infantry - starting with the higher XP ones and stopping when we run out of cash perhaps?

I didn't end turn - too tired to be sure if we need to do upgrades straight away or we can wait a bit.

Yeah, I don't think that we need to be too hasty with upgrades because of fortify bonus, better to still monitor the situation and keep the research option open. That said, it seems that you have some selected upgrades in mind for the most vulnerable cities and of course I'm fine with burning some cash. Btw, damn for that low-odds artist, that Great Person could have been 10 extra upgrades.. Btw2, thanks to railroads I assume that Infantries are now our most value-adding units so that should be our priority in production after this round of MGs (MGs and Cannons having their own use of course), or how do you see that?



Couple additional (probably obvious) things:

1. Let's put at least 3 airships in position (our long southern border, e.g Ulm, König & Omdu) to scout most of mack's attack possibilities in advance. One should check the Ulm/island region so that Jamestown is safe, second checks the possible land attack to Tet-area, third checks the western area (amphi attacks to our island). Hmm.. maybe we need a fourth airship if these three don't cover all the possible attack tiles against König..
2. When peace is nearing to an end let's make sure that all the vulnerable cities have hammers in a useful unit (infantry/MG) so that we can whip them immediately if needed (I see that you are doing it already)
3. Btw, have we offered peace to 2metra yet?

[Old Harry]

What do we build next in Agincourt? We're going to be blockaded pretty soon so whipping a bunch of units before the pop starves away is an attractive option. We could put in a Factory first, but unlike commerce the Bureau hammer bonus isn't multiplicative so that makes the Factory feel a bit less shiny.

Agi does not need that much seafood if it is blockaded so I assume that we will have time to whip it later. Maybe just another infantry?

I'll put hammers into Infantry, Cannon and Machine Gun. Its -14 food if the coast is blocaded, which we can't even last one turn of with our current food reserves...

In other news, we're doomed. Mack's western fleet is currently ten Destroyers and nine transports. His stack of Artillery and Infantry disappeared. Presumably onto the boats. That's nearly 40 units that can be delivered to the city of his choice at the drop of a hat.

Well let's be ready! I don't think mack is able to produce masses of Amphi units so we should be able to make the initial attack costly by putting infantry in our coastal cities. And if he lands he needs a big enough stack that we can't wipe it out via collecting every imaginable nearby unit via railroads. So a stack of infantry is ordered at least for Cannae & Omdu etc.

A little bit of testing makes me think we can trash a stack of 20 Artillery and 20 Infantry with 15-20 cannon and 20-30 Infantry... Our only problem is that he can land 40-unit stacks on both coasts at once!

Also his two-movers can hit Konig, Tet, and Madrid from four tiles into his empir. So I think we want all our rifles in these cities, to delay their fall by at least a turn.

Agree, rifles are most useful there, this is luckily also something that we will see in advance. König has not really been vulnerable to 2-mover strikes in the past: Check the culture on the tile SW-SW of the city, because it might be possible to regain the control of that tile.

Currently 59/40 in his favour. Not sure when that changed, but I think one of our better options is to strike first, take Bursa and artist-bomb it and then try to hit whatever he has behind. I'm not sure we'll get the chance to strike first though

This is the planned rail network - we should complete it in time. On the mainland Dunkirk can be staging post for every city except Ulm. On the island pretty much anywhere can be the staging post.

Sounds very good, Ulm is a low priority city anyways. Many thanks for your effort here! On the island it would be important that VV is part of the railroad network, because we keep quite a few units there and every hitter counts if mack lands a stack (probably obvious, but I did not see a dark line connecting the city)

I'll offer 2mn peace now, which means we don't need so many units in the city (dtay doesn't have any transports nearby), but yeah, that will be linked up, just not as a priority...

I'm looking to upgrade all the appropriate Mele units to Machine Guns sooner rather than later so that they can start building a fortify bonus. Muskets need to become Infantry - starting with the higher XP ones and stopping when we run out of cash perhaps?

I didn't end turn - too tired to be sure if we need to do upgrades straight away or we can wait a bit.

Yeah, I don't think that we need to be too hasty with upgrades because of fortify bonus, better to still monitor the situation and keep the research option open. That said, it seems that you have some selected upgrades in mind for the most vulnerable cities and of course I'm fine with burning some cash. Btw, damn for that low-odds artist, that Great Person could have been 10 extra upgrades.. Btw2, thanks to railroads I assume that Infantries are now our most value-adding units so that should be our priority in production after this round of MGs (MGs and Cannons having their own use of course), or how do you see that?

I do want to do some more testing to figure out what our best options are for a force mix, but I guess you're right, once we have enough cannons and enough cover to prevent amphibious attack, Infantry is our best bet.

Couple additional (probably obvious) things:

1. Let's put at least 3 airships in position (our long southern border, e.g Ulm, König & Omdu) to scout most of mack's attack possibilities in advance. One should check the Ulm/island region so that Jamestown is safe, second checks the possible land attack to Tet-area, third checks the western area (amphi attacks to our island). Hmm.. maybe we need a fourth airship if these three don't cover all the possible attack tiles against König..
2. When peace is nearing to an end let's make sure that all the vulnerable cities have hammers in a useful unit (infantry/MG) so that we can whip them immediately if needed (I see that you are doing it already)
3. Btw, have we offered peace to 2metra yet?

1. Will do
2. I think hammers in Infanrty, MG and Cannon would be a good idea in most cities - that way we get new units every turn the cities hold out
3. I just offered white peace and ended turn - I wonder if he can see the gathering storm and will make demands? If so there is no reason to give in - our Frigates are useless against Mack anyway, so they might as well police 2MN (although dtay doesn't have that many Ironclads, so maybe we do want peace to use them against him? Hmmm...)

[Fintourist]

Currently 59/40 in his favour. Not sure when that changed, but I think one of our better options is to strike first, take Bursa and artist-bomb it and then try to hit whatever he has behind. I'm not sure we'll get the chance to strike first though

Yeah, if the attack seems dead certain and we get some kind of an opening let's not hesitate too much and just pull the trigger. That said, there still isn't a stack inside our land or even especially in an aggressive staging tile... and this game has surprised us multiple times already, so let's see what happens. I'm still crossing my fingers that we would experience one further offensive war in this game instead of going down in a rain of blood. Declaring on mack and razing a city or two is certainly an invitation for a rapid elimination, which even at this point does not sound thaaaat appealing.

Wow, that paragraph is a nice example of trying to somehow tie together five incomplete thoughts..

I do want to do some more testing to figure out what our best options are for a force mix

Ha! That would be awesome Btw lurkers, this is maybe the best thing with playing with OH, 240 turns of struggle and he still has energy and interest in simming speculative fights Hey THH, are you reading currently? If it comes down to a big fight in the near future we could once again have use for our bloodthirsty tactician..

And as a final comment, I like your thoughts about how to prepare for a possible attack (ie how to squeeze the max amount of units out of threatened cities).

[TheHumanHydra]

I am still reading, but I'm pretty distracted as I've recently moved and started a new job and still have to read over my training materials etc. So I'll have to see how much I can do.