RB PBEM #1 - Gandhi [spoilers]

[Cyneheard]

Fortunately, there's a hill 1S of Corinth.

How much gold would it cost you for an upgrade to MG?

[Ruff_Hi]

Ok Ruff, I discussed your strategy with ladder players Metallian and Astax, and they agree you are in excellent shape if you can land on a hill. They asked me to remind you to bring a GG healer with you and just let Sooooo collateral you, and claim you can sit and heal as many turns as you want due to unkillable machine guns on hills.

I don't have a GG healer - haven't fought any wars yet. I should get one with the very first turn at Corinth. I have a chariot ready to go .

Bonus technique they mentioned: Build with three promos, promote to Formation, and upgrade to Machine Guns. That way even lots of cavs promoted to anti-siege won't have odds on flat land.

I don't think that I need to upgrade to MG to get formation - my reading of the promotions is that I can promote to Formation from Drill II. Oh oh - wait ... formation isn't open to siege.

How much gold would it cost you for an upgrade to MG?

I can upgrade a mace to MG for 131g. My most experienced mace has 3XPs. So I will have to milk 7 more XPs to get one to formation before upgrading it to a MG. I guess that will take me a while.

[Ruff_Hi]

I'm happy to play the other side, but I don't know if the scheduling will work out. When do you want to try it?

I am pretty flexible at the moment - when are you available?

I'll update my game scenario with a projected unit tally (see above) and should have a game ready to go by tomorrow some time. I'll post it as a hotseat game so others can play with it but we should be able to open the scenario as a IP or similar game.

[Ruff_Hi]

Attached is version 2 of the hotseat game featuring the battle for Corinth. I've updated Sooooo's units and mine based on where I expect the numbers to be by T145.

What strategy would you use as the Good Guys to defeat the Bad Guys?

Note: The units on peaks are just placeholders and cannot be used during the battle. Also, I have some additional units actually in Death Valley that I will not be using during the battle (crossbows, maces, etc).

[Speaker]

If you have 5-10 machine guns to cover your stack and are able to move your whole stack onto a hill, he will not be able to kill them. As long as you have some sort of medic to heal your units while you bombard, you shouldn't have any problem obliterating the city. Machine Guns are significantly overpowered in certain (defensive) situations considering they take no collateral damage and have no counter until Marines. They defend at 27 on a hill, and with all the first strikes, will completely slaughter Cavalry.

[Ruff_Hi]

If you have 5-10 machine guns to cover your stack and are able to move your whole stack onto a hill, he will not be able to kill them. As long as you have some sort of medic to heal your units while you bombard, you shouldn't have any problem obliterating the city. Machine Guns are significantly overpowered in certain (defensive) situations considering they take no collateral damage and have no counter until Marines. They defend at 27 on a hill, and with all the first strikes, will completely slaughter Cavalry.

I don't have a medic yet - plan is to promote my sole chariot to Medic III with my first GG. I should be getting that GG on the first day of battle.

I also don't think that I will be bombarding ... I am going to burn at least 1 spy on a revolt. I expect that the battle will take a few turns, so I might bombard on the 2nd turn with the cannons that survived the first turn.

[Speaker]

Ideally he'll burn all his cannons, not fully realizing that Machine Guns take no collateral damage. If he hits you with 5-10 cannons, your units, aside from the MG, will be heavily damaged and in no shape to attack. You can't even get a unit with Medic 1? If you have any city with a stable and barracks, you could get a medic 1 horse archer/knight/currasier/cavalry.

[Ruff_Hi]

Ideally he'll burn all his cannons, not fully realizing that Machine Guns take no collateral damage. If he hits you with 5-10 cannons, your units, aside from the MG, will be heavily damaged and in no shape to attack. You can't even get a unit with Medic 1? If you have any city with a stable and barracks, you could get a medic 1 horse archer/knight/currasier/cavalry.

I just ran some tests using the hotseat game I posted above (note: no unit has any XP, so no units can promote).

My first test ...

Sooooo hits me with all of his cannons, his cav and his Cuir. I have so many units that the collateral isn't that bad - it is spread across a number of units. I take Corinth 2 or 3 turns later.

My second test ...

Sooooo doesn't hit me with anything - just turtles. I spy revolt, send in the cannons and then my cav & rifles. Mass slaughter. Second turn I bombard with my surviving cannons and take Corinth.

I don't see that my units will be too heavily damaged via collateral to kill his city. Regarding promotions - my MGs will all get Drill (that is all they can get) while I will promote some Rifles (maybe 3 or 4) to Guerilla II (+50% defense on hills) - They will probably defend in front of MGs against the Cav. The rest of the units will not get promoted pre Sooooo's turn. I will promote them before I attack so that I can prom-heal back a lot of their strength.

[Speaker]

I would recommend you put the promotions on the cannons for your test. The difference in collateral damage between unpromoted and promoted siege is pretty massive.

[Ruff_Hi]

Ok. Here is another sand pit hot seat game. This time, all of the units for the Good Guys (me) and the Bad Guys (Sooooo) have 5XPs to play with. I ran a test only giving my units 1 promotion while allowing Sooooo's to have 2. Corinth still fell, but my losses were heavier.