Gavagai, the God-Emperor

[Gavagai]

Not much time has passed from my last report but a lot of stuff has happened:

This:



this:



this:



and, of course, this:



Gawdzak took the northern island from Donovan, Dtay captured Furungy's easternmost cities and GermanJoey took AdREM's northern colonies (some of them were taken from 2metra who recklessly decided to jump in). Really annoyed by this last one. Basically, GermanJoey can't rely on my friendship anymore, he tresspassed into my domain for too many times. At some point I will come for him.
Actually, GermanJoey is making himself really vulnerable. Even without this new holdings his empire was a logistical mess and he has just added yet another separate landmass. Right now it's an excellent time for Gawdzak to attack him: Gawdzak has a powerful army and no other good targets (I have 22 Frigates now, so attacking me would be a bad idea).
Other important foreign news is Donovan capturing HAK's capital and eliminating him from the game. He had a little bit more units than me, so I decided to allow him to do that. Here is what I cooking for him:



Most probably, artist next turn and this guy will culture bomb Hydraphur when the moment comes. After HAK's culture has disappeared, this area is very vulnerable to culture bombs.
Speaking of culture:



Donovan's culture graph behaves weiredly and I suspect that he is toying with culture slider (he can't be building culture as he doesn't have Music). Very stupid on his part if true. I'm going to have redcoats in eight turns, Donovan needs units of the next tier desperately and his GNP is abusmal, especially given that he is in GA. However, it would explain early second rings for his young cities, slow tech progress during GA and this:



I controlled this Icense just a couple turns ago but now Nanjing got a fourth ring and claimed it. This may have important strategic implications. Besides the fact that Medusa's vulnerability dramatically increased, Nanjing now controls a tile 1S from Tianjin. Before it would have become clear from Chinese culture if I had captured Tianjin (can be done amphibiously) and I would have a way to reach with 2-movers a tile 1NE from Tianjin where Donovan keeps his stack. This new development makes attacking him much more difficult.
And yet I decided to do it. With all my competitors making swift gains, I have no other option but to follow suit. The plan is to research Rifling while stockpiling Muskets and then mass upgrade them into Redcoats. The rough plan is to assemble a stack of about 35 Redcoats, 10 knights, 10 cats and move it towards Nanjing while surprising him in the south via culture bomb (I will certainly need to take former HAK's capital ASAP to deny Donovan The Great Wall and Chichen Itza).
This can be done by about T200. Another option is too delay the attack by a few turns and then attack with cannons but I have a feeling that I'm going to have a pretty short window until Donovan builds enough grenadiers/cannons of his own.
Also this:



May be will capture it next turn if it remains undefended.

[Gavagai]

Yet another week and time for yet another update. This time I will be primeraly speaking about a war with Donovan which is going to start in two turnes.



Initially, I wanted to give myself more time to prepare but decided to reschedule the attack to an earlier date. The reason for this were strategy which my foe has chosen. One of the ways to run specialist economy is to alternate between "research" and "production" phases. You run specialists during "research" phase and work mines/workshops during "production" phase.

Few turns ago Donovan switched into a research phase which he used to tech Printing Press and Replaceable Parts (by now). During this phase he produced very little military and yet failed to tech any military tech. On the other hand, after he techs Rifling he would be able to switch into "production" and catch up by building Rifles.

On the other hand, I got Redcoats this turn, will have enough gold to upgrade more then thirty units which are already deployed as needed next turn and attack on the turn after next. I decided that it would be the point where I would have maximum relative advantage and waiting any longer would only make my position worse.

Donovan, however, complicated things by starting a GA this turn and revolting into US/Slavery. I'm puzzled by this decision: he doesn't have Rifling yet, what he is going to rush? Anyway, it made the war only more urgent.
And this is where I get to my military plans. The general strategy of the war will be to exploit my ability to directly threaten his core. I will move my main stack to Beijing, forcing him to tie all his resources there as this is a spot which he will be forced to defend. Simultaneously I will make spread out attacks on periphery, forcing him to either surrender it or weaken his Beijing group.

I'm going to start the war with three operations, two of them simultaneous and one slightly delayed. Let's go through them.



This is operation "Faith", the kernel of the whole war plan. A stack of 24 Redcoats, 11 Knights, 2 Muskets, 1 Longbow and 8 Catapults will move towards Nanjing and then to Beijing. Donovan's stack in thei region is located in a tile 1NE from Nanjing and currently, 2 turns before war, consists of 3 CKNs, 4 cats, 6 Knights and 1 Axe. NOT ENOUGH. He also has some modest static defenders in Tianjin and Nanjing.
Nanjing will fall for sure, Beijing can be possibly saved but I'm prepared to accept this result. In this last occurence I will try to compensate on other fronts, though getting Pyramids and all these towns is extremely desirable to say the least.



This is operation "Hope". It revolves around using the Great Artist and attacking by surprise the group in Cheerious. I'm going to have 20 Knights, something like 8 Redcoats, 3 trebs, 6 cats and some assorted junk. Should be able to kill his units comfortably enough. He doesn't have any other serious military in this region and I doubt that saving it will be his priority. So, I think that taking over all former HAK's cities wouldn't be difficult.



This is operation Charity which will happen in three turns after the start of the war. I'm going to drop six Redcoats on a tile 1SE from Chengdu. By that point he should be moving everything to the east in a desperate attempt to save Beijing, the city may be even empty. The primery purpose of this operation is, of course, denial as Chegdu is one of his most important production centers and also a logistical hub. But I'm going to keep the city as, I think, I should be able to capture everything to the west and I doubt that Donovan would want to commit resources to recapture it.
My further plans aren't yet that detailed but I'm going to take some of these three coastal cities amphibiously:



Of course, Tianjing is the most important one here.

Also, I'm secretly building up a northern flotilla to attack Shandong. Or, alternatively, this flotilla could be used to reinforce Beijing group.

[Rowain]

Thanks for your update and the detailed warplans

[Gavagai]

Not a true report now (sorry, have no time/energy) but Donovan ran all his collateral and 10 knights into my "Faith" stack without killing anything. He should have saved them until he is able to include them in a bigger stack. Really, this appears to be a very common mistake - that's how Zanth lost the most of his empire in AlaePB...

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

How many collateral units did he use? The faith stack as you described it above is a large stack. Just estimating, even 10 cats is very, very low to do much damage (let alone "enough" damage) to the rifles in that stack if he is attacking with knights. Ten cats is just over one hit per unit on average, if all collateral hits are evenly distributed (of course they are not, so you have strong outliers that are unscathed). I'm hoping he used a significantly higher number than this before committing his attack units. If not, better luck next time!

[Krill]

Attacking against rifles, pretty much want to attack with one cat per rifle if you are then going to attack with muskets, assuming the rest of the units in the defending stack number about half the number of rifles. At least, that's the rule of thumb I use.

[Gavagai]

He had 4 cats and 3 CKNs.

[Gavagai]

As a result - his capital will most probably fall next turn...

[Gavagai]

Beijing has fallen and 4 more cities this turn only.

[Gavagai]

Really hate this crap. I waited patiently for almost two hours for 2metra to play and then Plako immediately logged in to block me. And then GermanJoey will log in and then someone like dtay will log in and it's 2 p.m. in Moscow. In the morning I will need to go to a job, won't have time to play a long war turn. So, when exactly I'm supposed to play, being the first in the turn order?