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

[OT4E]

Civstat shows we have lost 2 cities to scooter. And I guess we shall continue losing but we need to make it costly to attackers.

[Dreylin]

Ugh, and I'd convinced myself we had another turn before he hit us.

Sizes are consistent with Dolphins (kept) & Hedgehogs (burnt), but I guess we'll see when BGN gets around to the turn.

[OT4E]

I noticed that you didnt whip enough this turn. I thought it was almost decided that we whip from scratch everywhere we cant get unit.

Lets point the cities we can keep and forget about cities we cant keep. And we must control the sea line to our core which we cant afford to lose.

[OT4E]

All we can do is to rely on hill defenses and CG promotions. Also I'd think about stacking cavalries + some siege for counter attacks. For naval attacks we'd better use Infantry from now.

Our problem +1-2 movements on scooter's navy, but he will have to come close to bombard and then we must be able to kill his navy. The main rule of the defending we must either abandon city we cant defend or must be ready to counter attack to finish all the attackers. If we dont finish attackers then we just give gold and gg points for our enemies.

[Dreylin]

Actually, most of the cities were either too small to dry-whip an Inf, or had generated enough overflow to 1t an Inf or a ship. I have also held back from whipping the Core cities - in particular Goats and Chickens (until it pops the GP next turn) - since they are still pumping fast with GA hammers.

What I didn't do was to Draft a full round, and in particular, Dolphins, because it was using the Pop to 1t a unit.

[Dreylin]

t324 (pre-turn) -

Dolphins:


Last 3 were against Hedgehogs, so we kept the city (for now). He landed additional units into the city to hit our Cavs, so he would only have injured units left to pass through and hit Geese.

And Rats:


A "better" exchange here, but the Frigates are now out of position.

REM pounded Silkmoths:


We can probably hold for 1t, but then we either abandon or lose it.

I actually found his Western Airships relocated to our East, so there's only the pile of units here:


Here is our small Naval force in the interlands:


But with the road cut and the other Cavs blocked off, we probably don't have enough to be worth trying to take it (2 of the Cavs are injured), and these units can be more useful elsewhere.

We do need to decide how to defend this region, however.

And then there's what we do with this:


We can add a 6th Galleon full of Cavalry and a 7th Galleon loaded with Infantry. They can return to the Core to protect it, swing down to Honey Bees to take a shot at Glitch mode or ...

line up for an attack at Scooter:


Radio is too well defended for an amphibious assault and his Siege is there; but we could take out Dynamite with a pair of Galleons and then land the contents of 4-5 on the marked tile to hit at Haber Process. With the exception of Dynamite, his cities are 4t away; he might be able to bring in something via Galleon, but we can scope that out ahead of time.

(Moves to land here would be the same as heading back to the core.)

So we need to plan a withdrawal in the East, defenses for the interlands, and decide where to send this pile of Cavs. Looking forward to discussing tomorrow.

[OT4E]

Wow it doesnt look good at all. 4 turns is too big time for reaction. I believe we'd better use those cavs to take back one of our cities. The main idea is to exchange them in attack and after airships. Defending against amphibious infantry they are not usefull, but they still must prevent him from taking cities in 1 and let us bring reinforcements.

I didnt think that he can use our route through Dolphins to attack our core. It is very bad. I think we must do our best to block this path. Also think of bringing more to Goats.

[Dreylin]

Wow it doesnt look good at all. 4 turns is too big time for reaction. I believe we'd better use those cavs to take back one of our cities. The main idea is to exchange them in attack and after airships. Defending against amphibious infantry they are not usefull, but they still must prevent him from taking cities in 1 and let us bring reinforcements.

I didnt think that he can use our route through Dolphins to attack our core. It is very bad. I think we must do our best to block this path. Also think of bringing more to Goats.

Yeah, I think you're probably right. As satisfying as it would be to burn a few of his Core cities, we probably do need to put these Cavs to a more constructive use to prevent him from doing the same to us.


North:


Here, he has 4 Galleons, but he lost 2 units and a third has landed, so he is only able to use 9 against us this turn. He can reach Goats or Ducks - except we probably consolidate our fleet off the Southern tip of the island, which blocks his route to that city. So this turn we just need to pack Goats with enough units - there are a few Infantry trickling down from Ferrets via Llamas, and the Cavs from the Galleons at Ducks can reach, so we should be safe.

The Cav fleet from Donovanland can be landed on Chickens' Deer this turn. It needs a road, but that's easily fixed. From there it can reach Goats, but not unfortunately Donkeys, next turn. That's the farthest and fastest it can get into play. I'd probably keep 1-2 Galleons loaded up (probably the injured Cavs to give a little healing chance) to give us a bit of flexibility going forwards.

There are additional units on the island that we can pull off to feed the Interland defenses, but we probably don't want to draw down too much as Scooter can still challenge us here.


South:


I didn't highlight his fleet here so will need to confirm, but he probably has 5 injured Infantry still loaded S of Dolphins. So we'll need to Draft some defenders for Geese and probably move the surviving Cavs in as well to pad the numbers.

There's also the Galleon off Hedgehogs with 2 more injured Inf loaded that might have the promos to be in range. I think we probably want to keep some units in Hedgehogs to prevent him from just landing in the city and pursuing our retreating stack.


East:


Reinforcements are 2t away, so it's probably better to return them to Cats and prepare to be Sieged there. A Draft & upgrade(?) gives us 6 Defenders verses 7+ attackers (need to check the "chain" stack for addl. Cavs). If we hit the top 4 Infantry with the Airships we might be able to delay his attack for a turn, but maybe not. The alternative would be to evacuate the Airships and then decide whether or not to pull the Infantry back as well. They could retreat to the forest Hill, which could only be reached by the Cavs. Then we turn Cats into Zoth Ommug v2 by stacking units.


West:


Speaking of Donovanland, if we're bringing the Cav stack back to our Core, we probably should be thinking about contingencies plans to evacuate and abandon our two cities out here. There's not much profit in them for us and they tie down a bunch of resources best used elsewhere. It'll take us 2-3t to get the Galleon fleet back down this way - enough time to use the Pop to whip out some Infantry. I've already pulled some of the Airships out of this region, but with REM pulling his out, I think we need to pull more of ours back to the Core as well.

Scooter is still at Peace with Donovan and they have OB, so he could walk right up to HB if he chooses; but there's been no sign of movement in Radio just yet. However I think he's sent a couple of Ironclads south through the fort towards Ferrets, so I've been looking for a route to bring some of our Western Fleet up through GP to reinforce the North.

Chickens will generate the second GP at EoT, so we can go back to GA.

[OT4E]

We still have 35 cavalries, but its power if they are hidden. They can sail 4 tiles and travel 5 more by foot and still be able to attack. I think we must use it to give a fight for one of our cities. Catapults+airships can give them really good odds.

Also it is a shame having just 35 cavalries while we could have 100 and walk through the barriers to Steam Engine. But our main mistake was neglecting fleet, we should be making ships for last 10 turns and we could have avoided the catastrophe. What is done is done...

Few thoughts:

Watch out this galleon.

Just as a revenge plan, may be we finish forts. Of course if we somehow keep this city. Here we can jump out and make some fireworks on scooter's island. How much do we need to sail there? 10 turns? Oh navigation promotions are so good..


Do not leave units unpromoted in the cities under attack, I noticed that our cavs in city died with 95% odds.

And do not hesitate to sink down this:



And I doubt there is a way to keep Silks, unfortunately. Not sure if it is worth to run GA, but I guess the brighter moment can simply not happen.

[Dreylin]

Also it is a shame having just 35 cavalries while we could have 100 and walk through the barriers to Steam Engine. But our main mistake was neglecting fleet, we should be making ships for last 10 turns and we could have avoided the catastrophe. What is done is done...

Well we spent the last 10t researching through to Assembly Line with Wealth Builds, so not building anything kind-of hurt us. Anyway, the root cause was building up to attack Donovan rather than consolidating our existing lands and concentrating on growing/teching. Indeed, what's done is done.

And I doubt there is a way to keep Silks, unfortunately. Not sure if it is worth to run GA, but I guess the brighter moment can simply not happen.

Probably it's a bit of a Catch-22, we'd like to save the GA for a better time, but we won't reach a better time without using the GA.

Do you think it's best to abandon Silkmoths this turn, or try to hold for another turn?

Also, a mechanics question: if a loaded Galleon is injured, the units onboard are injured by the same percentages, correct? So if we leave a Galleon infront of Koi & Ducks, his Galleon would first have to win the <50% battle, but even then would likely have taken enough damage to make the attack on even a single unit in the city pretty low-odds and 2 Units a near certain loss. Although of course he likely has promos pending to improve that, but even then would he take the low-odds shot with the Galleon?