It's possible that we could take a few cities from Dreylin while his army is elsewhere. The one problem with that is attacking Dreylin elsewhere would open up our western cities to attack by his main army, which must have something like 30 rifles/cavs inside it. There would be no reason for him to stop his offensive, and he could roll right through Donovan and into us. We really would like 5 turns to crank out about 20 more infantry before we start poking the bear like that. From what we can tell, Dreylin hasn't lost much of anything to Donovan during his campaign thus far. A few units for sure, but nothing significant.
Pictures from the start of Turn 315:
![[Image: RBPB33-192s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB33/RBPB33-192s.jpg)
Unfortunately the REM vs. BGN war is over already. BGN razed a new city of REM's (which is surely what that dispute in the tech thread was about) and then they signed peace. This is good for us since it destroys their trade routes and REM is obviously down a city. The bad news is that this won't do anything significant to slow down REM. He used his other Great Merchant and the Great Scientist from Physics to pop a second Golden Age, as we expected, and now he'll be off building factories and coal plants with his GA + Organized bonus. I think REM's strategic position is probably the best in the game right now. He's going to have the tech lead and the production lead going forward, and best of all, he still has a soft target to conquer in the form of BGN. REM has a very small border with Dreylin, so he doesn't have to worry about the blue menace like we do. If we could somehow swap our position on the map with REM, I would feel ten times more confident of winning this game. Ah well.
Also note that someone sent a spy into our territory, right at Hydraulic Ram. Dreylin would seem to be the obvious candidate, but why use a spy when he has airships? Perhaps it was Donovan? Who knows.
![[Image: RBPB33-193s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB33/RBPB33-193s.jpg)
We finally have vision into the city of Dolphins, right where Antiseptic (RIP) used to be. It has about what we'd expect for defense: 3 rifles and a cavalry, all of them unpromoted. Note that there is no glow surrounding those units, which means there are no promotions to take either. This pretty much confirms what we've suspected all along: Dreylin has a swarm of low tech, zero or one promotion rifles and cavs. Three-promotion infantry could slice through them with ease, assuming that we can just get enough of them not to be overwhelmed with raw numbers. Hedgehogs has 1 rifle on defense.
Anyway, these cities certainly don't seem to be very well guarded. If we didn't have such a gigantic front to defend with Dreylin, if they didn't have a huge army off on our western border... argh.
![[Image: RBPB33-194s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB33/RBPB33-194s.jpg)
If we want to make a play for Donovan's city of Sector 19, here are the units we have in the vicinity. Not a lot, unfortunately. We cannot realistically make an attack until Turn 317, so let's hope that Dreylin doesn't grab it this turn or next turn and make it a moot point. We have the galleon dotted in red at the southern edge of this picture. That ship grab the rifle we just landed at Kaplan Turbine, then move into Hydraulic Ram T316 (where it loads up the two infantry), and then move and attack off the ship on T317. In the north, we can build a galleon at Radio this turn, move it a tile northwest of the city T316 while loading the infantry and rifle, then move and attack off the ship T317. Three infantry and two rifles are probably enough to take that city... we have to hope so, since we're not going to get more units in this area in time to matter. (Radio can build an infantry eot 316 so it will not be left empty.)
If we were able to capture Sector 19, I would consider that a very successful poaching operation. I doubt we can get anything beyond that.
![[Image: RBPB33-195s.jpg]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19563179/PB33/RBPB33-195s.jpg)
Finally, if we did want to go after pindicator, here's what that might look like. Pindicator has 12 cities right now, and we have visibility here on 9 of them, plus we know one must be at the red dot I indicated. His last two cities are almost certainly on the southern island. The geography of this part of the map is tricky, and it's important to remember that ships can only pass through forts in your cultural borders, not in neutral territory or enemy culture.
I would stage boats on the two white dots. We need two strike forces, one to take Balakirev and the other to take Kabalevsky. (If we had enough ships, we could also go for the red dot city on the first turn of the war but that's probably pushing it.) The southern strike force moves through a fort and attacks Balakirev off the ships, while the northern group does the same thing at Kabalevsky. We build a fort tile with workers on the tile 2 east of Induction Coil to facilitate the next move. The southern group moves through that fort and lands on the tile NW of Tchaikovsky while the northern group lands next to Borodin and captures the northern red dot city. From there, the ships take Rubenstein and circle south along the coast towards pindicator's capital. Cui would likely be the last city taken or close to it.
This would be a very difficult war - I want to emphasize this. Pindicator has Mining Inc. and he will spam machine guns, which will be nasty to defeat. Honestly, if we could snipe off the western half of his land and then sign peace, I would be overjoyed with that result. I'm still not sure if it's better to attack pindicator or try our luck against Dreylin. Don't forget this fact either: pindicator has Railroad tech and is therefore able to research Combustion. He could have destroyers and transports available quite soon. It might be better to attack him and take out his oil immediately at the start of a war just to ensure that doesn't happen! (The oil is right by the red dot city and quite vulnerable.)
Scooter, I'm hoping you can post with your thoughts on bigger strategic direction sometime today. I'm hesitant to do too much planning until I get your thoughts. It's a shame all this action is happening over a busy holiday weekend in the USA.
Pictures from the start of Turn 315:
Unfortunately the REM vs. BGN war is over already. BGN razed a new city of REM's (which is surely what that dispute in the tech thread was about) and then they signed peace. This is good for us since it destroys their trade routes and REM is obviously down a city. The bad news is that this won't do anything significant to slow down REM. He used his other Great Merchant and the Great Scientist from Physics to pop a second Golden Age, as we expected, and now he'll be off building factories and coal plants with his GA + Organized bonus. I think REM's strategic position is probably the best in the game right now. He's going to have the tech lead and the production lead going forward, and best of all, he still has a soft target to conquer in the form of BGN. REM has a very small border with Dreylin, so he doesn't have to worry about the blue menace like we do. If we could somehow swap our position on the map with REM, I would feel ten times more confident of winning this game. Ah well.
Also note that someone sent a spy into our territory, right at Hydraulic Ram. Dreylin would seem to be the obvious candidate, but why use a spy when he has airships? Perhaps it was Donovan? Who knows.
We finally have vision into the city of Dolphins, right where Antiseptic (RIP) used to be. It has about what we'd expect for defense: 3 rifles and a cavalry, all of them unpromoted. Note that there is no glow surrounding those units, which means there are no promotions to take either. This pretty much confirms what we've suspected all along: Dreylin has a swarm of low tech, zero or one promotion rifles and cavs. Three-promotion infantry could slice through them with ease, assuming that we can just get enough of them not to be overwhelmed with raw numbers. Hedgehogs has 1 rifle on defense.
Anyway, these cities certainly don't seem to be very well guarded. If we didn't have such a gigantic front to defend with Dreylin, if they didn't have a huge army off on our western border... argh.
If we want to make a play for Donovan's city of Sector 19, here are the units we have in the vicinity. Not a lot, unfortunately. We cannot realistically make an attack until Turn 317, so let's hope that Dreylin doesn't grab it this turn or next turn and make it a moot point. We have the galleon dotted in red at the southern edge of this picture. That ship grab the rifle we just landed at Kaplan Turbine, then move into Hydraulic Ram T316 (where it loads up the two infantry), and then move and attack off the ship on T317. In the north, we can build a galleon at Radio this turn, move it a tile northwest of the city T316 while loading the infantry and rifle, then move and attack off the ship T317. Three infantry and two rifles are probably enough to take that city... we have to hope so, since we're not going to get more units in this area in time to matter. (Radio can build an infantry eot 316 so it will not be left empty.)
If we were able to capture Sector 19, I would consider that a very successful poaching operation. I doubt we can get anything beyond that.
Finally, if we did want to go after pindicator, here's what that might look like. Pindicator has 12 cities right now, and we have visibility here on 9 of them, plus we know one must be at the red dot I indicated. His last two cities are almost certainly on the southern island. The geography of this part of the map is tricky, and it's important to remember that ships can only pass through forts in your cultural borders, not in neutral territory or enemy culture.
I would stage boats on the two white dots. We need two strike forces, one to take Balakirev and the other to take Kabalevsky. (If we had enough ships, we could also go for the red dot city on the first turn of the war but that's probably pushing it.) The southern strike force moves through a fort and attacks Balakirev off the ships, while the northern group does the same thing at Kabalevsky. We build a fort tile with workers on the tile 2 east of Induction Coil to facilitate the next move. The southern group moves through that fort and lands on the tile NW of Tchaikovsky while the northern group lands next to Borodin and captures the northern red dot city. From there, the ships take Rubenstein and circle south along the coast towards pindicator's capital. Cui would likely be the last city taken or close to it.
This would be a very difficult war - I want to emphasize this. Pindicator has Mining Inc. and he will spam machine guns, which will be nasty to defeat. Honestly, if we could snipe off the western half of his land and then sign peace, I would be overjoyed with that result. I'm still not sure if it's better to attack pindicator or try our luck against Dreylin. Don't forget this fact either: pindicator has Railroad tech and is therefore able to research Combustion. He could have destroyers and transports available quite soon. It might be better to attack him and take out his oil immediately at the start of a war just to ensure that doesn't happen! (The oil is right by the red dot city and quite vulnerable.)
Scooter, I'm hoping you can post with your thoughts on bigger strategic direction sometime today. I'm hesitant to do too much planning until I get your thoughts. It's a shame all this action is happening over a busy holiday weekend in the USA.
. I just figured it's worth outlining in greater detail the thing rolling around in my head. In the meantime, we have units to build regardless. Your city-by-city plans looked good and pretty much in line with what's in my head. I'll have more thoughts on all this later after I've digested all this a little more.
