[SPOILERS - PBEM17] novice and spaceman - Suryavarman of India

[novice]

Full text in the UN thread newspaper clipping:

The Global Gazette

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Netherlands blames India for sunken ships

Eurasia correspondent Mark Willacy and wires

The 12,000-tonne destroyer HMS Invincible sank along with the battleship HMS Unsinkable, the transport HMS Unkillable and the battleship HMS No Really after being split in half in mystery blasts in the Sea of Jaffa on December 23.

The Dutch defence minister says an Indian torpedo attack is the most likely cause of the sinking of so many of his country's warships.

The 12,000-tonne destroyer HMS Invincible sank after being split in half in one of a series of mystery blasts in the Sea of Jaffa on December 23, leaving 40 sailors confirmed dead and six still unaccounted for.

The Indian government in Capital has denied it was behind the sinking of the ships and until now, Dutch officials have been reluctant to point the finger of blame south of the border.

But Dutch defence minister Dai Tou-Young says a large torpedo is the most likely cause of the sinking.

"A bubble jet caused by a heavy torpedo is thought to be one of the most likely things to be blamed, but various other possibilities are also under review," he said.

Several unidentified sources have been quoted in recent days as saying an underwater explosion was the cause of the sinking, but Mr Dai is the first minister to make the link explicitly since a probe into the sinking began.

President Leek Myuwn-bak has vowed a "resolute" response to the disaster, calling the worst peacetime loss of life for the Dutch navy a "wake-up call" and describing India as the world's "most belligerent" state.

He declared a five-day "national mourning period" for the 46 sailors until Thursday, with public shrines set up in Jerusalem and other cities nationwide.

The disputed Jaffan Sea border has been the scene of lethal looks and stubbed toes ever since the First Dutch Empire bluffed the Indian peaceniks out of the area in pre-medieval times.

[spacemanmf]

Full text in the UN thread newspaper clipping:

Haha, great work. Safety in hiding in Aleppo - I like it.

So not only did we get Robotics, but also Democracy, Fascism and, er, Music. If Shoot picks up Flight or Satellites we get that too.

[spacemanmf]

I also notice that Darrell is researching, although not quite at full tilt - Composites in 3. Shoot is deficit researching.

Power numbers.

When we receive the turn:

Us: 3.05m
Dave: 3.93m
Darrell: 2.97m

Before we end turn:

Us: 2.71m
Dave: 3.17m
Darrell: 2.97m

And after we end turn we jump back up to 2.84m.

Ugh, we get Emancipation anger kicking in after ending the turn.

[spacemanmf]

A quick scan of the previous turn shows that Dave had 3.70m power then (and 3.15m the turn before). So we might expect around 4.25m power after his last turn.

We found out from Darrell that he killed 12 infantry (20k each) and 3 cannons (12k each), 276k power. So he was up to 4.20m.

Hard to tell exactly what we killed due to the crazy naming schemes, but I think it was 4 infantry (3x40k), 11 battleships (11x40k), 2 destroyers (2x30k), 10 transports (10x16k). Plus two lost cities.

120k + 440k + 60k + 160k is...780k + 2 cities, but he lost 760k. Hmmm...

We did a lot of damage anyway. We do know that he has another stack of boats in Jericho that may well head our way. We were told he had 6 battleships and 12 destroyers. That's 600k of power right there.

Anyway, enough rambling, it's Christmas Eve, dammit!

[spacemanmf]

I haven't had moved a unit yet in the turn, but I did have a peek earlier as discussed. In particular, I've not scouted with the airships - what visibility range to do they get? I wanted to scout so that I saw as wide an area as possible.

I think it probably makes sense to sit tight with our naval forces since they seem safe in Aleppo, using the bombers (which I'd forgotten could lend a hand when we chatted before - we'll get much better odds than 1% therefore) to take out the cultural defence at Jaffa and launch a land attack with our landed units.

We may be able to keep it if we don't lose too many battles since we have so many units there, but we can make that decision at the time.

I've been chatting a bit with Darrell - he is moving his units south in numbers next turn. He recommended keeping everything safe this turn. I agree since we are so outnumbered navy-wise that we can't do much damage without getting our boats wiped out when Dave moves.

We have missile cruisers reinforcements there in a couple of turns. We can produce quite a few in the next 2 turns - 3 cities can complete them EOT, with 5 completing them in 2 turns (plus I'm guessing 2 of the 3 cities can complete them in 1 turn), so we can have 10 missile cruisers built in 2 turns.

We can get a 1-turn transport in Material Gain as well I think, then everywhere else on marines. We can switch to Slavery to whip some of these. I can't remember where we were with Nationhood, but we can draft either before or after revolt. Given the number of boats completing next turn it's probably a good idea to be in Vassalage at the end of next turn rather than this one.

Finally, we have Emancipation anger as I alluded to before. However, 10% on the culture slider solves this in all but Investment, which is going to starve EOT anyway so that will solve it's own problem (it will just lose a specialist, I think).

[novice]

Resting up in Aleppo and bombing then razing Jaffa sounds good to me. We can pick up the rest of the troops on Jaffa island and load them on transports in Aleppo, ready to strike out next turn.

I opted to stay in caste system and vassalage last turn to maximize our ship production, since that seemed more urgent than whipping and drafting land units.

The extra anger we're seeing is war weariness of course, the emancipation anger has been there all along. We also got Fascism from the Internet though, so Mount Rushmore + Mausoleums + Police State should eliminate all war weariness issues.

Got it, I guess.

[novice]

OK, I bombed Jaffa's defenses down to 5% and sent in the infantry, opting to save our Marines for amphibious attacks. Our infantry started out with 12% odds and we lost 6 or so taking the city.

I didn't realize that the city has The Statue of Zeus! Getting rid of that should be helpful. The city has the SoZ, a Bank, Grocer, Market, Colosseum, Academy, Observatory, Coal Plant, Factory, Forge, Drydock, Harbour, and Granary.

I still vote that we raze it as I don't want to spend resources defending it, and Dave still has the naval dominance there. OK with you, Spaceman?

The air strikes also defogged the area around Jaffa, and Dave has three stacks totalling 23 destroyers, 12 battleships and 1 missile cruiser. That still beats our 13 destroyers and 9 battleships/missile cruisers handily. Let's hope Darrell can start sinking some ships too.

Shoot's the one with Robotics, Dave is miles away. So the dutch missile cruiser means that Shoot is providing Dave with military.

[spacemanmf]

I didn't realize that the city has The Statue of Zeus! Getting rid of that should be helpful. The city has the SoZ, a Bank, Grocer, Market, Colosseum, Academy, Observatory, Coal Plant, Factory, Forge, Drydock, Harbour, and Granary.

I still vote that we raze it as I don't want to spend resources defending it, and Dave still has the naval dominance there. OK with you, Spaceman?

Hmmm, I dunno. How many turns of disorder? It feels such a shame to raze it. He doesn't seem to have many troops/transports to be able to take it back, although he has started to build marines hasn't he.

I guess the question is where do we go from here? If we do conquer Dave, we presumably have to go after Shoot. The more cities we have the better. I feel like taking the gamble.

[novice]

Razed Jaffa, ships are healing in Aleppo and hiding in other ports. Marines are loaded on Transports in Aleppo, ready to strike out. Newly upgraded Mech Infs are defending the city. Darrell will gift us 4-8 bombers which will provide air support next turn.

Building two national wonders and lots of ships. Drafted 3 mech infs too.

The Internet has already been pretty useful for us by giving us Robotics, Flight and Fascism.

[spacemanmf]

And Music! You've been queueing up cathedrals, right? Actually, did we ever build any temples? Anyway, I digress.

What's the plan for next turn? Scout, bomb, raze a couple more cities?