[Spoilers] GES, Roland & Friends (Mansa of Egypt)

[luddite]

You can also hit his tundra cities through yuris and if you want, you could shuttle some troops over to Comm or yuris's lands and attack the former MNG lands from the other sides.

The best option is probably a coordinated attack of:

1. Comm from the south on MNG's lands.
2. Yuris from the north on RL7's core and MNG's lands.
3. You attack his core from the south and the tundra from the west.
4. Given the size of his holdings, there is no way he can have enough navy to defend everything. A few targeted naval strikes is all it would take to really string out his defenses.

The value of this map for the attacker is the sheer number of ways to fork someone. If you can even get control of any part of the oceans, you can fork 3-4 cities simultaneously. If you have modern armor on there, he simply cannot defend everywhere.

I think your plan to go Adv Flight is a good one.

Well yeah- the problem is, if I send in more than just a couple of transports, it's probably not worth losing that many hammers just to kill one city. He can also do the same thing to us, razing cities anywhere we don't have enough navy, and we have a lot less cities to lose than he does. That's why I'd like to keep most of our navy on defense. I'll definitely look for weak cities if I can get them, though.

[luddite]

Trying to coordinate battle plans with Comm and yuris right now. It'll be hard though, since we all have a very different situation.

Seven just researched radio, which I assume was for Christo Redentor. They still don't have nationalism, though, so it'll be a while before they get assembly line.

[luddite]

Well, we've all switched to mercantilism, which will hopefully slow down Seven's tech a bit.

My streak of 1 turn techs finally came to an end... didn't have quite enough beakers to finish physics in 1 turn.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

How many was that? 30?

[luddite]

Some funny demos

last in land area, approval and health... but #1 in production! That's the effect of a golden age, plus being first to build factories and coal plants. I just finished the ironworks in ballast point.

I wonder if 3 gorges would actually be worthwhile in this game? It's so expensive... but it would provide extra health. Anyway, combustion is up next, which will help our health at the expense of happiness.

[luddite]

How many was that? 30?

Aesthetics, literature, machinery, guilds, banking, gunpowder, replacable parts, rifling, construction, engineering, constitution, democracy, economics, corporation, chemistry, steel, railroad, compass, optics, astronomy, assembly line, scientific method, steam power, and fascism.

24 techs, all in one turn .

[luddite]

I started building the Pentagon in Stone. It'll only take 4 turns . My reasoning was that I'll be really short on happiness once we get plastics (obsoletes fur), so it would be nice to run free religion instead of theocracy. And it'll at least deny it to RL7. They now have combustion and industrialism...

[luddite]

So, I forgot that we need fission to actually use Uranium- physics only reveals it. That means we'll need to research plastics before we can start building battlewagons. It's OK though- plenty of other stuff to build in the meantime, especially marines.

I'm wondering whether it's worth going for fission. I feel like losing our oil isn't such a big deal in a sequential turn game, because if someone pillages it, all we have to do is destroy the units there and replace it immediately with a new workboat, so there's no loss of production. If he has enough navy to park it there and deny the oil permanently then we're pretty much dead anyway. So I think I'll go straight for advanced flight after plastics, and ignore uranium.

[luddite]

RL7 got plastics this turn (140). Annoying, since I'm still 2 turns away. Comm still doesn't have electricity, and yuris doesn't even have assembly line yet. So RL7 will definitely have and edge in battleships when the fighting starts... very troubling. To make matters worse, RL7 have the circumnav bonus, so they can position their ships 1 tile outside of our range to get the collateral initiative.

Also, Comm's resources are in a terrible location. Right on the corner, totally exposed to RL7. I suggested that he build a fort on the uranium and put all his ships there. Maybe I should gift him some battleships?

[luddite]

Here's our latest emails, about the war plans:

Hello all,

So, I've been giving some thought to our war prospects with RL7, with their recent discovery of Plastics. I don't think our chances are exactly stirring, but with coordination we might be able to get some traction. RL7 has two oil supplies, one 2SE of Bree, and one 2SW of Hollin in their French holdings. If we can cut this oil immediately, they will be able to make no more tanks or fighters. Similarly, I expect their first strike objectives will be to hit my city of Zingara, which annoyingly covers both my uranium and my oil, and probably a pillaging force/ attempted raze towards Egypt's oil. Our supplies are ridiculously exposed, while theirs will take a lot to reach. It sucks, but that's where we are. I'm not going to put much faith in being able to protect my ocean oil, and so Fission/ uranium is how I'll be making my navy. We need to start planning/gathering intel on what we can bring to each front and what they will have to attack.

Luddite, how many fighters will you have by turn 150? How many tanks/marines? How big of a navy?
Yuri, what kind of force composition will you be looking at assuming RL7 doesn't hit you early?

Hope the planning is fun,
-Commodore

Yeah, I'm a little worried that they got plastics so fast, but I think we still have a chance.

My thinking is that going for oil supplies is a bad idea. With battleships, the defender actually has a big advantage- if they move a stack in to pillage our oil, we can then slam it with collateral damage battleships. All it really costs us is one workboat. And, with fission, you can use uranium to make boats too. So I'm not planning to go after their oil at all.

Instead, I'm just going to focus on defending with battleships, while taking whatever chance I can get to raze a weakly defended city with marines. With the three of us all coordinating, we might be able to overwhelm their defense. After 2 more turns I'll have plastics, and can start building at least 2 battleships per turn. 2 or 3 turns after that I'll have flight. By turn 150 I'll have 10 - 15 battleships, marines, and fighters. I can also upgrade all my rifles into infantry, to defend the coastal cities.

It's too bad that you have just one city for both oil and uranium. I guess you'll just have to focus on defending that city no matter what. The really annoying thing is that they have the circumnav bonus, which means they can position their fleets 1 tile out of range of ours, forcing us to retreat or let them attack us with collateral damage. That's going to make things extremely difficult. I guess we'll have to just spread out, to avoid collateral.

Comm, I suggest that you build a fort on the uranium tile outside Zingara, and stash most of your fleet there. That way, he can't attack Zingara without getting in range of your fleet. And maybe you should research fission instead of combustion and plastics, to try and get battleships out a little sooner?

yuris, you probably won't be able to get modern ships before the fighting starts, so that'll make things really difficult for you. But, RL7 can't really attack you without leaving themselves vulnerable, so I guess you'll be OK. Just try to pressure them as much as possible. You might be able to take some of their cities with infantry transported on galleons.

Anyway, I'm excited to see how this goes

PS does anyone have any spare resources they could send me? I'm really hurting for both happiness and health.
-Luddite

I'll do my best! I have no idea where I'll be in 10 turns
research-wise; I finally had to obsolete Colossus this turn, and while
the hit was not as bad as I feared, a loss of 150bpt is surely
significant. The GA ends very soon too, next turn is the last

Good news is, I managed to collect a lot of gold while getting cheap
techs on beaker overflow, and will be able to upgrade a large part of
my forces. Then I'll do my best to defend and be opportunistic in
razing Seven's city whenever there's an opening

I intend to have a decent-sized force of Cavalries, Infantries and
Cannons, probably around 60 units total. Should be enough to defend,
don't know if it will be enough to attack. My hope is to get to
Artillery and be able to build Anti-Tanks by the time the war starts,
but not sure if it will be possible with research rate dropping so
much

As for resources, sorry, I checked what we have, and we only have
extra furs which we're already sending to you. And ivory which you no
longer need. Sorry

Cheers
Yuri

I'm a little worried that Yuri is just going to charge in with Cavalry and infantry, and get utterly wrecked by artillery and tanks.