[Spoilers] Dreylin's short visit to a late Era

[Dreylin]

I think the score for t320 can be reported as:

Us: 1 - REM: 1

He canceled OB, but we still completed AL at EoT. 1 to Us

OTOH, he found 2 additional Workers:


1 to REM.

I'm brainstorming for alternatives, but I don't think there is a better option than postponing the attack on Donovan (8th Inf in ZO & whipped Gren in S19) and declare War on REM - hitting his stacks with our Airships - and then offer Peace. We could also move a chunk of our Cav stack to the hill 78 of ZO / 69 of REM's stack in order to threaten both. Not sure about this though; REM couldn't hit us, but Donovan could ... and if we're using the Airships on REM, then his Inf will at least be full-strength and not attacking across a river.

I didn't have a chance to check how things were situation in our East; whether he's in a position to threaten our holdings there.

But overnight I did also realise what else is visible on the left of this shot:


A canal city that give Scooter naval access to S19! So we are going to have to raze it when we take it unless we can bring in a bunch more units first - which predicates on solving the stand-off with REM....

In other news, Donovan attacked our Naval stack with his Frigate and lost, while retreating his Frigate/Galleon in the North. And Llamas spat out a GSpy.

Civics Revolts due this turn: Slavery is a no-brainer, and we need to keep Nationhood. Question mark is over OrgRel vs Theocracy - are we going to spend the next 5t building more troops, or more Factories?

[OT4E]

With Org rel whipping factory takes 3 pop, while without factory it requires decent prebuild or 4-pop whip. Also dont have religion everywhere and need to fill that gap finally.

OTOH theocracy gives us some double promoted Infantry and we are in golden age so possibly making 20 hammers of prebuild into factory is not that big deal.

Situation with REM I will comment when I join game. Have you unloaded workers on the hill our army is standing on?

[Dreylin]

Have you unloaded workers on the hill our army is standing on?

No, the ones I had loaded last turn were not in range of landing there, so they are now SE of Alpacas ... I did load some more, but I think that all but one are too far away to reach this turn.

I didn't have any time this morning to even look at the East, but as of last turn REM had Air superiority over there with 4 Airships in range to our 1. We probably want to hold off running that flight until we know whether we'll be declaring war or not. On the Scooter front though, you should probably run the flights from Dolphins, Koi & <the island city offshore Goats that I can't currently remember the name of>. The last should give us a view of whether he has his Galleons in range of hitting S19.

The Galleon standing offshore Goats is positioned to be able to drop into the island city if needed. Currently it contains a Cav brought in from Cats; it can be dropped in Goats if we need it out West more urgently.

To hit Donovan we'd need all of the Airships in Theatre, so we can't really run any extra flights with them before deciding how to proceed. OTOH, I didn't have a chance to check where the Airship that was bumped from REM's Capital ended up, so that may give us flexibility. Airships in Zebu cannot reach REM's troops, so they could hit S19 anyway - unless we wanted to relocate them to, e.g. Staalplaat, to more directly affect the front.

A note on the sims I ran: I was not taking any care in finessing the attack, I just threw the pile of Cavs at the city and then saw if follow-up was needed from the 1-movers. It's likely that we would not need to use all the Cavs in the attack and can clean up redlined Infantry with Rifles/Gren instead if we'd rather have full-strength Cavs available. There are a couple of better-promoted Cavs in the landed stack than in my sim, but some are also injured.

REM has Naval superiority on both fronts, but our air force probably evens things in the West. In the East we are vulnerable. T319 signs should be valid from before REM played, so his fleet may have stayed still last turn.

[OT4E]

Since REM didnt declare us war, we might be able to pillage road under his stack. He has 4 workers to restore it and build road next to it, but he cant reach ZO or our wounded stack unless he turns into Serfdorm. He is in GA so he can do it but I believe he wont do it because he wont be able to go back to Caste before his GA ends

[Dreylin]

We have Cavs in Guineafowl that can pillage the forest road from under his stack once Donovan's Culture is gone, but can't he just re-road that tile and the tile 6 to be able to reconnect & hit us at ZO? Or just go up the Pigs road to hit GF?

I was wondering about the possibility of a "carpet of units" that would force his stack to bounce backwards if he declares war, but we'd need ~6 at my guess (forest and 9, 99, 96, 6 & 63) and he could just pick them off individually at low cost to himself.

[OT4E]

We must pillage:
- road under his stack (1st cav from GF)
- pigs (2nd cav from GF)
- workshop 4 from ZO (2 wounded cavs from DZ's former cap)
- windmill 7 from ZO (rifle from GF+wounded cav from the main stack)
- farm under Staalplat to deny him attacking the city (3rd cav from GF)

[Dreylin]

We must pillage:
- road under his stack (1st cav from GF)
- pigs (2nd cav from GF)
- workshop 4 from ZO (2 wounded cavs from DZ's former cap)
- windmill 7 from ZO (rifle from GF+wounded cav from the main stack)
- farm under Staalplat to deny him attacking the city (3rd cav from GF)

2 comments & 1 for me:

1) I had somehow overlooked that the Cavs could pillage multiple times with fewer than 3 spaces moved

2) that leaves quite a lot of units (including the 2 Cavs to come from HB to cut off his Cav stack) out in the open that he could pick off one by one should he choose to, and I suspect that he would choose to. (wouldn't you?)

3) Having wounded Cavs available from the main stack assumes that we attack from the current tile rather than moving 4 across the river and attacking from there. I didn't sim the Cavs attacking across the river and I'm not sure whether we can get the odds to not do that.

[Dreylin]

3) Having wounded Cavs available from the main stack assumes that we attack from the current tile rather than moving 4 across the river and attacking from there. I didn't sim the Cavs attacking across the river and I'm not sure whether we can get the odds to not do that.

Wait, even if we attack across the river we can't get a road underneath the attacking stack, so moving off the stack hill will cost the second movement point entirely anyway, won't it?

[Dreylin]

Two other (bad) options:

1) We raze the city - does he still declare and hit our wounded Cavs? (probably)

2) We leave 1 redlined unit alive in the city - it gets lots of promotions next turn, Donovan adds another full-health Infantry, it doesn't address REM, and we suffer nasty WW for 1+turns.


I'm still not seeing a better option than declaring, weakening with Air Power, threatening the stack with our Cavs 78 from ZO (adding the ones from GF), and then offering Peace.


BTW, I'm also leaning Theocracy for 5t as that may be an added push to REM into making the "right decision". Did you set builds while you were in; if not, where do you recommend we start Factories over addl. units?

[OT4E]

That's reasonable sacrifices to win position. My only concern is that he regroups and prepares to attack us. And the question is what we can bring and how soon. We need fort near GF to be able to sail in and deliver forces to both GF and ZOO, but it must be in GF's culture to let it happen.

I am almost convinced to Theocracy. We are fine with a few factories we prebuild, they can be whipped with 3 pop, and some of our core cities can indeed produce some double promoted infanties.

It is also possible that if we do not advance in getting rid from REM in DZ's land we can make a landing group to throw into the western sea and unload to Percy. Will be nice exchange and great opportunity to establish control over DZ's land even if we get ZO razed after all. My feeling about war with REM are optimistic in general. We can get some problems with scooter, but BGN and pindicator can enter on our side.

But the main thing is position. If you see some better opportunity for us letting DZ live you can consider retreating for now. But I think that DZ will give REM ZO without any battle and this will put us in even worse position that we have now even if we lose 7-10 units in siege and 5-7 by letting REM snipe other units down.