[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[Dp101]

I find it hilarious that the 5 year plans you are using in this game are so detailed and tightly made that having one missionary go to the wrong place is going to be "hard to work around"

[Sullla]

I mean, it's not a crippling blow or anything but it does make our task a little bit harder. The interesting thing is that we don't really need religion all that much in the powerhouse cities that are churning out infantry right now. Having 9 XP instead of 7 XP is very nice and all, but it's not an immediate difference. However, having our ships start with 10 XP instead of 8 XP lets us start with Navigation II promotion for 6 moves instead of 4 or 5 moves, and that really is a game-changer. This means that we end up wanting to spread religion in our ship building cities first, which are typically our second-tier cities. It's kind of counter-intuitive but those are the most important cities to have Theocracy running. Delaying the religious spread to Battery means that we have fewer 6 move ships to work with when we declare war.

Anyway, scooter and I think alike and a lot of the worker moves ended up being the same as what I wrote anyway. It's not really that bad, scooter oversold the issue in his post earlier today. I did write out worker micro for the current Turn 318. There, I'll bold it so that scooter will spot it even if he's half asleep again.

I will have more time to work on this tomorrow, but quick thoughts for the current turn:

* Putting zero defenders of any kind of Kaplan Turbine is a little too risky for my tastes! Not sure what happened there. We have an infantry and a rifle in the galleon nearby; I'm thinking that we keep probably 1 infantry and 1 rifle in Kaplan for now, and ferry some of the other new infantry to Battery.

* There's a new infantry out of the capital and Telegraph. Let's send them both down to the southern island, for defense and staging on ships later.

* I queued up a cannon build in Cotton Gin. We'll use a forest chop to complete it in time for the upcoming attack in 5 turns.

* Three workers are going to halfway complete the fort SW of Kaplan Turbine this turn. Obviously cancel that worker order after issuing it! Just a reminder not to let Dreylin see the workers building an obvious canal.

* What we really need from Battery right now are 6 move galleons. But we need religion in the city for that, so we'll build some 5 move frigate for the time being. Those can always be promoted to Combat II instead of the Navigation route, which means that they hold value either way.

* Induction Coil needs to produce another 10 XP galleon. It's needed up near Textile Island, along with the previous galleon and frigate out of there.

* The Hindu missionary is most needed in Contact Process, not Spinning Jenny. However, I'm more worried about Penicillin, which has only 1 infantry and 1 rifle inside, and which can be hit by cavs out of Dreylin's border city. I suggest dropping off the 2 infantry on the galleon into Penicillin this turn, and then spreading religion in Contact Process with the missionary next turn. (We have exactly enough moves to do both, if we unload the infantry off the boat this turn and move into Contact Process' city tile next turn.)

* I would move the Haber Process infantry into Dynamite; 3 infantry should be enough to keep it safe for the moment. Let's move the 2 outdated rifles that we landed on the mainland last turn to the tile north of Haber Process. They'll be able to move to either Penicillin or Dynamite as needed from there.

* Radio keeps alternating ironclads and infantry, 1-turning them as it goes. Pasteurization infantry to Hydraulic Ram for the moment. That gets us to 4 infantry in the city, which is a pretty strong force against anything other than a dozen Dreylin units.

I have a slight strategic variation for our war planning that I'll outline tomorrow. It's essentially the same thing but a little more risk for a bigger gain to ourselves. Good luck with the turn scooter.

[Fluffball]

I find it hilarious that the 5 year plans you are using in this game are so detailed and tightly made that having one missionary go to the wrong place is going to be "hard to work around"

Sulla already covered it, but an entire promotion on a unit every turn is a pretty big deal. But I think their real plan with that minor mishap is to just keep the lurkers interested.

[scooter]

Turn 318

ALRIGHT. Let's do better, yeah? I'm kind of amazed my worker choices weren't that bad last turn. Really should have had Sullla cover the turn, but I badly underestimated how late it would be by the time I was able to play. The game goes on.



Dreylin again was unable to take a city, and Donovan scored another GG out of it. Dreylin did too of course. I've got a slight paranoia of a Commando trick from him incoming. We may want to reshuffle some defenses in the coming turns. Anyway, I'm glad to see Donovan's piddly army with a handful of Infantry are giving Dreylin some grief. We already have way more Infantry than Donovan, so it gives me some hope.



Speaking of Dreylin - for all the planning, we need to assume he sees every single bit of it no matter how we hide things due to this picture. His airship there can see any tile that we can possibly stage from, so he'll be very ready. I expect his southern island city has an airship in it, so I imagine the same is true there. Just FWIW.



SPOILERS: I'm wondering if Sullla's higher risk/reward play that he's going to show us tomorrow has something to do with this. That's my bet. Assuming we capture the island city, this tile forks "c" (unless he planted it inland), Goats, Donkeys, D-horse, and Geese. 6-move Galleons, it opens up a lot of possibilities.

If we can squeak out a Privateer, it would be really nice. It would help tremendously for seeing on the water in advance.

This screenshot also demonstrates why Combustion is the uber-tech here. If we had Destroyers before a neighbor, we could do stuff like this all day with Amphibious units on board. Defending all of these cities at once is extremely difficult.



I loaded up the Infantry that was already headed north from Steam Engine onto this Galleon.



Down here I used the Galleon that was already in Kaplan to move NE-NW, chain the rifle/infantry into it, and then return into Kaplan unloading the pair. That freed up the other Galleon to go into Cotton Gin to pick up the freshly built Steam Engine Infantry, and then move onto the Whale tile here to pick up the fresh Telegraph Infantry as well. I also moved the fresh Frigate up here out of Battery. I just had a brief vision of Dreylin somehow sniping Battery amphibiously and taking down both ships with it.



Quick FYI: your plan had these two chopping this tile, but it seems like neither of us noticed that "G" was coming from an unroaded tile and therefore didn't have enough movement points to also chop. I really should have caught that before actually moving the worker, but hey, if that's the worst that happened, it's still an improvement.



Picked up just over 100k soldier points last turn. That pace will continue for awhile.



We're now up to 21 Infantry with 4 more completing EoT (several boats too). We also have the cash on hand to upgrade around 8 Rifles to Infantry if absolutely necessary. We'll be over 40 by the time the war starts without any upgrades. Granted, a lot of those will be tied up defending cities, but it's still a nice chunk. Dreylin had best be building a lot of siege if he knows what's good for him.


Sullla - anything in particular you'd like to do with that brand new worker at Cotton Gin? I think in the morning if I haven't heard from you, I'll login and load him onto that Galleon with the Infantry pair. South island could always use another worker.

[Sullla]

Yeah, I completely forgot about the fact that we completed a worker last turn. Well, I wrote him into the micro plan for the current turn - we have plenty for that guy to do. He will allow us to finish a much-needed grassland hill mine for Contact Process next turn.

Let's look at what Turn 319 has brought:



After getting no free religious spreads for virtually the whole game up to this point, we had a free spread into Kaplan Turbine about two turns ago, and then TWO free religious spreads this turn. Spinning Jenny and Contact Process are the happy recipients, and both of them are cities where we really did want our state religion for Theocracy purposes. Ha! We'll take it. The missionary on the galleon can now unload on the mainland and head for Dynamite, which is the next city which will need Hinduism. The missionary that we just finished in Telegraph is of course heading to Battery.

Does anyone else get a kick out of a city celebrating "We Love the Dictator" day?



Bad news: both Dreylin and REM picked up techs this turn. They are burning away at research right now in their respective Golden Ages. Dreylin has picked up Steam Power - now able to research Assembly Line - and REM picked up Electricity. I feel that REM's choice is a slightly odd one, but I guess he wants the economic benefit from windmills and watermills, which will be magnified by his Golden Age. Perhaps he's also forgotten that Industrialism doesn't give you tanks and battleships unless you go to Combustion first to connect oil. I've made that mistake myself before in other games, and it's always embarrassing. But I assume REM knows what he's doing here, and he wanted Electricity for its own merits.

Now let's dig into more of the strategic planning for our attack. Only 4 turns left to go - ETA is Turn 323. (We really do have to hit now before Dreylin picks up Assembly Line and starts whipping/drafting infantry everywhere.)



Here's the overview of Dreylin's main territory. Again, his main core is off to the west side of this screenshot, while the second core captured from Gaspar/Noble is on the east side. I believe that the former Gaspar lands should be the focus of this war effort from us. We need that territory to remain competitive in this game, and I believe that it's more vulnerable than it appears. Dreylin's main army is off in Donovan's territory, and if we can hit the right spots, we can potentially cut off this land from the rest of Dreylin's empire.



Here is the crux of the war: the territory just north of Textile Island. This is where we're going to succeed of fail. I've been thinking through the logistics, and we should be able to attack with 4 full galleons of units: I'm planning on 11 infantry and 1 cannon for this initial assault. I don't think we need a lot of siege units because our infantry should get odds to win against most of these units, especially if we can hit with a collateral unit first. I also think we'll only hit a sizable defending stack at Dolphins, and elsewhere it will mostly be infantry against rifle easy cleanup.

We will put our one non-promoted galleon on the white dot tile, along with our frigates and ships of the line. Contact Process is going to build two ironclads, one of which can also sit on that tile, while the other will be slightly behind it. Hopefully this will look like a zone defense play to Dreylin; we have defensive naval ships in place and a single galleon to reinforce where needed. We will also have 3 different 10 XP galleons which we'll promote to Navigation II on the turn of the attack. I think we should put them on the yellow dot tiles, all of which can reach Dolphins for an attack. The ship inside Spinning Jenny will also have the option to hit Hedgehogs as we sail past, which we may or may not want to do depending on how the rest of the attack goes.

Dreylin will definitely see our ships with his airship, but hopefully he'll think the are defensively placed. I'm hoping that he doesn't realize we can promote them all to Navigation II and hit with 12 units all at once. It's worth point out as well that Dreylin is not currently in Slavery civic, and we have been playing after him on the turn splits for some time now. Even if he sees us move into position at the end of turn 322, he won't be able to whip at the start of Turn 323 and have those units in place to defend.



The other half of our attack is in the south. We'll have the same component of forces here, 4 galleons carrying a planned 11 infantry and 1 cannon. Once again, three of them will be 10 XP Navigation II galleons, while one of them will be a standard 4 move galleon. We put the normal galleon inside Kaplan Turbine on the white dot tile, which shouldn't look that unusual since we've been doing that repeatedly in recent turns. The 6 move galleons can stage on the yellow dot tiles, where it looks like they are in a defensive zone again. Unfortunately, because we didn't get our missionary into Battery sooner, our frigates over here will only be 8 XP units and therefore need to stage on the red dot tile, since they can only move 5 tiles and not 6 tiles.

One other note: we can make all these ships face to the east. That will make it look like we're planning an attack on that city off in the bottom right hand corner of that screenshot (Pigeons). It might help, who knows.



On the second turn of the attack (T324), we push through Dolphins to the city of Geese. Presumably most of our infantry will still be alive and can promote from having crossed from 9 XP to 11 XP; we can even take C2/Amphibious/Pinch or C2/Amphibious/Formation on these guys. I expect Geese to be lightly defended in any case, so with luck we can smash on through to this large and strategically important city in Dreylin's backlines.



Simultaneously, after razing the island city on Turn 323, scooter notes that we will be in position to fork 5 different Dreylin cities. I was thinking the same thing - that old adage about great minds thinking alike. Dreylin will likely respond by thinking we're going to attack the capital, and if we would see it with minimal or no defenders, then yeah, we might have a chance to attack it. More likely, Dreylin will cram units into the capital, leaving a path for our real target: the city of Ducks. Hopefully this city is also weakly defended, and we can raze it, again on Turn 324. Remember, Dreylin won't get a lot of time to defend against all of this. We're attacking at the end of Turn 323, and then he has no time to whip before we're attacking again. (He will have the opportunity to draft if he stays in Nationhood.)



If everything goes as planned, this is the overview map: Dolphins and Geese captured, three other cities razed. We would then defend those two captured cities while pushing to grab the remainder of Dreylin's territory in former Gaspar lands. Note that they would be completely cut off from the rest of his empire, and relatively vulnerable targets. Elsewhere, we would defend our territory from Dreylin and look for potential opportunities, but mostly concentrate on absorbing the Gaspar lands. I would also try to grab this land and then get out of the war as soon as possible; a really successful war would last 5-10 turns and then get us back to teching. We don't need to eliminate Dreylin in this war, just secure more land and stop his snowball from getting out of control. Gaspar's lands are worth about 8 more cities, and that's the real prize here.

Other thoughts:

* I will try to post again at some point tonight with some more specific unit moves for the current turn. I don't think we'll be up to play for a bit, since we have to wait for Dreylin to do his moves first (and we're now on the 36 hour timer).

* Any interest in revolting from Police State back to Representation on Turn 322? It would surely throw off Dreylin, and we arguably don't need the extra unit production. Most of our cities are getting capped on overflow as they 1-turn units. (The only place that would make a real difference are our second-tier cities, but having the specialist bonus to research would help our sagging economy a lot.) We can decide in a few more turns, obviously.

* If we're going to start a diplo countdown to war with REM, now would be the time to let him know. We're at 4 turns left and counting down.

[Dp101]

Do you think REM might have grabbed electricity to make a play for Broadway?

[Elkad]

The 5-fork spot. Do you have a way to get visibility on the targets? (Privateer?)

And why cannon on the boats? Just to drop off for defensive plays?

[Sullla]

Happy resources are pretty abundant on this map. I would be really surprised to see anyone research Electricity just for Broadway (which also requires spending the production to build the wonder). It's even more surprising to me that REM wouldn't want to get Steel, which is a cheap tech and heavily discounted by virtually everyone else in the game already having it. Hopefully the fact that both Dreylin and REM are ignoring the drydocks at Steel will let us catch them off guard with our highly promoted ships.

A privateer would be quite nice to have around, more so in the south than in the north by Textile Island. I don't know if we'll have time to squeeze one out, but we certainly should think about it.

The cannon is for suicide collateral damage to be applied to a single defending stack. There's enough defenders in Dolphins to make it worthwhile, and I'm sure that the invisible city in the south has 5-6 defenders as well. Use a single suicide unit for collateral damage and then the infantry clean up behind them. We would be bringing more but since infantry get such good odds against rifles we don't want to waste valuable galleon slots on units that can't actually kill defenders.

One other nice thing about Dreylin and REM skipping Steel: no defensive cannons for either of them.

[Elkad]

The cannon is for suicide collateral damage to be applied to a single defending stack.

Thought you were staying amphibious. Or did you just forget cannon can't attack amphibiously? (since 3.17?)

[scooter]

I definitely think REM is pursuing Industrialism. Perhaps it's the Marines that he's after? If he can get them going before Dreylin or whoever gets Destroyers, he'd do just fine running them off Galleons. Plus they nullify Machine Guns. I can see him getting some good value out of that.

The cannon is for suicide collateral damage to be applied to a single defending stack.

Thought you were staying amphibious. Or did you just forget cannon can't attack amphibiously? (since 3.17?)

I certainly did forget this... That's a pain.



FYI: I did offer the 4g-4g trade to REM earlier today. I'm going to go ahead and play now. We do need to play after Dreylin in the order by the time we declare, but we're enough turns away from that still.

edit: nah, I'll wait for him until tomorrow just in case. Still 26h left on the timer after all.