RB PBEM #1 - Charlemagne [SPOILERS]

[kalin]

Not really, and I have zero interest to get involved to be honest.

Sorry to hear, you're doing great in here and seem to be having fun too. Maybe you can give MP a second chance?

Kalin

[mostly_harmless]

Sorry to hear, you're doing great in here and seem to be having fun too. Maybe you can give MP a second chance?

Kalin

Give me a large RB team like in the Apolyton game and I might be swayed. But the current RB-MP games, especially the diplomacy and the connected disputes do not appeal to me.
Anyway, I am not a good player, and anyone with a bit of time at his hands can do a proper C&D job.

It appears to me, that what little reputation I have, comes from the fact that I created a Excel table 2 years ago.

mh

[kalin]

Give me a large RB team like in the Apolyton game and I might be swayed. But the current RB-MP games, especially the diplomacy and the connected disputes do not appeal to me.
Anyway, I am not a good player, and anyone with a bit of time at his hands can do a proper C&D job.

It appears to me, that what little reputation I have, comes from the fact that I created a Excel table 2 years ago.

mh

I think you underestimate yourself here If you want to join RBP3, drop a PM to any of the JANK Food team members... we are a rather large team

Kalin

[Swiss Pauli]

Well played, mh

[mostly_harmless]

As expected Dreylin retreats his infantry stack south. Unfortunately he pillages the roads on the hills behind him. Not only does that prevent me from hurting his stack further but it also closes the door on the opportunity to raze New Damascus with a suicide squad and go out of this game with a little surprise. New Damascus is size 17 but only lightly defended and holds 8 air units! I would have war-engineered my railroads to the border, sidestepping his infantry stack. And then attack with my 2movers (tanks, cav and a couple of Great General inf). It would have lost me a lot of good units and workers but it would have been worth it.
Anyway, not going to happen now with the pillaged roads.
Dreylin continues to bomb my tiles with his land and carrier based fighters and bombers.

Using Medina as a cheap spot to conduct espionage missions (50% discount due to culture) I steal Fascism for the bulk of my epts against Dreylin. That allows me to instantly move to Police State on my last Golden Age turn. +25% military production. Nice.
But I lose the happy bonus from Bureaucracy, so I have to whip a Buddhist Stupa in Aachen next turn.

I am in a motivational hole again. Dreylin does not want to talk after his latest defeat, so I just sit around 10 turns waiting for his next uberstack of, what 150 units? Thrilling!
He now outproduces and outGNPs me 5:1, has 4 times the population points and still twice the soldier points.

If he had better planned his latest attack he would have combined it with a amphibious landing. Also the splitting into two stack was not clever. He would still have his tanks if he had come after Vienna with one big stack.
I have commented at the paratroopers in an earlier post already.

The problem is that his defeat is not really changing the game balance, as Ruff seems to be stuck at sooooo as well.

Ah well.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Ah, yes. Forgot to present "The Green Dent"

Ruff making peace with sooooo and going after Dreylin now to halt the green race to victory? Now that would make for an interesting game.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Tile bombing continues. My worker can only restore 3-4 tiles each turn. Positioned a few SAM Inf on important tiles. Got one bomber intercept.
Producing ~4 units per turn, a mix of Tanks, AT, SAM, Marines, MGs.

Ruff and sooooo seemed to have a big fight over Sparta. It still stands, though. I relocated a fighter detachment to Greece to see if I can cause any mischief.

mh

[kalin]

Just curious, what is your research plan? Also, what are your research capabilities?

Kalin

[mostly_harmless]

Just curious, what is your research plan? Also, what are your research capabilities?

Kalin

Non existent and meagre.

I was going for Military Science to get a Military Academy up. And it is a cheap tech.
I was expecting to be on the retreat, really. So I did not want to waste beakers on a tech I will never see.
There is not much useful within reach, I am afraid.
At least in terms of military techs.
Everything is too expensive.
Soooooo is going for Radio, but what good will a couple of bombers do against an overwhelming Ottoman airforce.
Keep in mind that my production capabilities are very limited and my mines and towns are constantly being targeted by bombing missions.
I am actually debating whether to turn off science altogether and invest into espionage, just to cause some more trouble for Dreylin.
This game was over for me 40 turns ago or so.
Its just thanks to Dreylins inability to take a core city that I am still breathing.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Weird. Dreylin positioning 20 tanks and his MedicIII HA next to the border, where I can just reach them after roading a tile. If it is bait, I am sure will take it.

I am not committing all my good troops, though.
1 worker roaded the launch tile (the pig tile SE of Vienna).
5 suicide artilleries (out of my total 8 ) die but injure the stack.
Then I use 8 out of my 10 ATs in Vienna to attack (the two with the highest fortify level remain in the city). They are all Drill III or IV but cheaper than Infantry. All of them win, coming out of the fight slightly injured.
Then three of my tanks. (Two have the chance to either attack again or retreat to Vienna. I retreat them, as they have nice XP levels.)
Then a mix of SAM and Inf. The mopping up is done by the almost obsolete Cavalry stack. Most of them can retreat back to Vienna. The last one finishes off the Medic III GG HorseArcher.

So I killed 20 healthy Tanks and a GG for the cost of 5 Artilleries and 1 Infantry.
I also expose my attacking stack of 8ATs, 4Inf, 1Tank 1Cav, 1SAM & 1worker to annihilation next turn.

When Dreylin attacks this position next turn, I will lose all my units, making this battle about even on unit count, but in my favour hammer-wise. Since I expected only one last battle at Vienna, in which I would lose the city and all units to a tank-storm without the chance to fight back, I think that my decision was ok.
Who knows, I might even take down a unit or two (there are 12 green-lined units in this stack, that need to be taken down). And I give his airforce something to do apart from bombing my tiles.
Shame I lost those 3 workers at Vienna the other turn. They would have had the chance to help instant-building a fort on that tile.

In other news, my fighter detachment to Greece (3 units) managed to destroy a Ottoman town and village (one failed attempt).

Also Dreylin has split his Paratroopers. Finally he figures out, that I cannot defend against multiple incursions. If he combines this with an amphibious landing in the North, he got me. Why he is not doing it already, I have no idea. Little stacks of no more than 4-5units all advancing at the same time will completely blunt the collateral edge of artilleries and leave me awfully understaffed.

Well, his decision.

My constant reshuffling of fighters to try to gain a temporal local advantage seemed to have worked to some extent last turn. Intercepted a bomber and two fighters. Shot down one of the fighters, damaged a bomber, but also lost one fighter myself and got another injured one. But it forced Dreylin to relocate new fighters away from Vienna.
I now moved 4 fighter wings back to Vienna to force him to put some of his fighters on interception missions instead of bombing missions.
And also his swarms of Combat I Interceptors are no match for my Combat IV Fighters. Its a pity aerial combats do not show up in the combat log.

mh