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

[Dreylin]

One idea came to my head. If everything looks grim and obviously we cant defend whole coast and make strong naval presense in all seas at once, we must focus on counter attacks. I am serious. If scooter goes for us, we must go for him from the side we still have some advantage. He wants to take Dolphins? Then we come and raze Radio.

If anyone finds this way of self destruction satisfying then let it be. We cant let our cities fall without taking down some. Our only advantage is that we can recover quicker. But if we do not make troubles for our invaders and can only rely on their mercy, we will fall sooner or later.

Cross-posted with this and missed it; I think we missed our window to hit Radio earlier; he's just building up too much there now and we don't have an attack vector with Donovan's city still there.

OTOH, maybe we can pivot to attack Penicillin and remove the Southern threat to our core? If we surrender Yaks to REM, we can bring the Cavs across from Silkworms and we have 2 Galleons in the core that can bring some more down after we ship them out of Donovanland or just bring the newbuilds.

Withdrawing from Yaks also gives us the time needed to bring Airships into the Theatre and equalise that battle with REM.

[OT4E]

To be honest I do not think we can any other choice than fighting 1:2. There is simply no reason for both Scooter and REM to stop with the small gain, unless one of them sees that the other has gained to much, but unfortunately this will make us sacrifice too much and we cant afford it. Even if the one of them takes peace he will return in 10 turns with something more terrible and destructive.

So imho we need to take this challenge and fight both. As I stated above we can only try to bite them in return. Scooters cities are protected, but what if 20 cavalries get in the middle of his land? Same with REM. They cant slave, remember and we dont need to try to gain from those attacks.

[Dreylin]

Yeah, I don't hold out much hope that we can convince either one to back off, so maybe better to go for one throat while delaying the other. Scooter has no other target, and practically no other neighbours, while REM has BGN & pindicator to worry about. So hitting Scooter seems the right approach.


Dynamite is our way in since we can hit it from the fog; plan would be something like:

This turn: Galleons evacuate 1-movers from Donovan & prepare to drop by Chameleons; Cavs move into Guineafowl.
Next turn: drop 1-movers (in Fort?), pickup Cavs, move S of Goldfish
T+2: Galleons end move in new Fort 99 of Zebu
T+3: Capture Dynamite & unload infinite Cavs

We can pull the MG out of HoneyBees and pick up some Inf from the Island to defend a counter-attack aimed at the city, then launch the Cav stack towards wherever looks poorly defended.


Alternatively we stage T+2 at Zebu, line up 6 Workers to Fort the tile 2 of the city, and hit Radio out of the fog. I think we've got the Workers around to be able to do that.

Also, if we can hit Penicillin at T+2 (or even T+1 if practical), we might be able to distract his attention from this front and he'd move some units away.

[OT4E]

We can only enter the fort in our territory as far as I know. Zebu can get that tile in 3 turns I think.

Looking at the scooter's position it seems that he is going all for our inner sea where our cap is. 4 of our core cities are there: Goats, Donkeys, Ducks and Geese. Losing those is the worst thing that can happen, so I guess we might need to whip ships there even from scratch and even right now when it looks like we have 1 more turn. This is the only thing that can save us. SotLs will never come in time, so we need to spam frigates imho. Keep in the mind that his galleons can have +1 movements as all his ships.

But scooter cant see everything so we might get him trapped, though it will take really a lot of ships and some tactics. May be we prebuild fort on the island without showing him what we do. If we manage to keep that city, we can hide our fleet behind it on the clams.

[Dreylin]

Yeah, and he can attack that area from the South as well - which is why I think we need to pull the Cavs from Yaks and a couple of Galleon-loads from the Core to try to take out Penicillin in the next 2t. Of course we're also vulnerable through Dolphins, so we need to hold there.

[Dreylin]

Any thoughts on where we target our upgrade monies?

[OT4E]

I thought about Yaks, but if you want to abandon it, then we'd better keep money if we are not attacked right this turn.

We will need to go for Combustion once we establish some kind of balance on fronts. It gonna cost us keeping 10 CG units in each city, but I think we will do it finally.

[Fluffball]

Super minor lurker request, feel free to ignore if you're busy with a war.

Could you post an overview shot of all the cities you're talking about so the lurkers can follow the strategies? Maybe a globe shot if that does it?

[Dreylin]

I'll see what I can do about an overview. I've been trying to post overviews of the war fronts, but I guess I've been focusing more on the enemy territory rather than our own!

[Dreylin]

t322 -

Overview shots:


Yaks on the Eastern front with REM. I upgraded the Rifles to Infantry and Drafted, then attacked out with the Cats, but I kept the Cavs out. We can use them to counterattack or for Scooter Attack plan #1.

I also hit the Frigates with the 2 Airships available and relocated 4 more into Silkmoths. Canaries on the island seems secure, but he can burn Dogs if he has anything in the Galleons - which I'm not convinced of.

Donkeys, Ducks, Geese & Dolphins along Scooter's North:


We can hit Penicillin on t324 with our Eastern Cav stack (~6Cavs) and 2 Galleons filled with Cavs/Inf. That should cut him off from launching his Northern fleet into our Core area from the South.

Here's Scooter's NW - our border with both him and Donovan:


I'd not realised that the route through the island would require a second border pop here. I crunched the numbers and I couldn't get a second pop at Zebu in 3t, with only 2t of GA left I couldn't find quite enough hammers. But I did find a second route through the island to Dynamite - double Fort through Koi.

We can fill the Galleons and stage them behind the island, then see his reaction to the attack on Penicillin and decide whether or not to hit at Radio or Dynamite.

The Northern interlands (like that name!):


Scooter seems to be aiming his main invasion this way, but we have a few more turns of grace here. Note I didn't whip Goats, although most everywhere else...

The West, Guineafowls, Chameleons & REM's advance:


Bombarded his fleet, moved the Cavs into GF and evacuated the 1-movers from Donovan's Cap - let REM take it with his lack of Siege.

The Core:


Hopefully not to be hit Chickens is working on beating Goats to the next GP - due in 3t with GA, will see if that's achievable after the GA ends in 2t.