[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[NobleHelium]

Moving Constantinople 1E loses the clam, no?

[oledavy]

Moving Constantinople 1E loses the clam, no?

Gah, I'm blind - corrected now.

[zakalwe]

Beware of forts. (Just in general, don't have any particular tiles in mind.)

[oledavy]

Beware of forts. (Just in general, don't have any particular tiles in mind.)

Good call. I've been keeping an eye of NoSpace and Darrell's workers, and so far they've all been building workshops and railroads - I haven't seen anything sketchy yet - but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

[oledavy]

So, I drew two very important conclusions from my WB tests:

1. Bombers are bitches.
2. In a naval fight dominate by battleships, whoever attacks, wins.

If my fleets are going to survive facing aircraft, I need flight for carriers and fighters pretty desperately. Destroyers just suck at intercepting.

Sorry for not updating t170 & t171, but I was busy spamming posts in PB6 and there was nothing groundbreaking to report. I'll do a big write-up for t172 and elaborate on tactics I'm going to employ to try and weather the coming storm.

[oledavy]

Found this while browsing and thought it appropriate.

[oledavy]

Just got the t172 save in, things look pretty bad. All nine Indian transports have been promoted to Navigation II for nine movement points, forking my entire southwest. Edessa, Constantinople and Jaffa are in serious danger of falling. In the north, Darrell's fleet poses a less serious threat, but his air force is going to put a serious crimp in any naval operations in the north.

EDIT: Only 2 have Navigation II, while another one has Navigation I. Still, eight cities in my southwest are being threatened

[oledavy]

Alright, let's do this.

[SIZE="3"]Turn 172[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]One Turn Until NAP Cool-Down Expires[/SIZE]

Cue Theme Music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_gGC4JmJmI

I can never separate Gob Bluth from "The Final Countdown" after watching Arrested Development.

So, in the south, NoSpace has played their hand:



In that fleet, they have:

8 battleships
13 destroyers
9 transports

They have a transport by itself farther west, it's presumably unloaded and fresh from the shipyards of Overexposure. Regardless of any troops aboard, it does not introduce any new threats. Providing overwatch for the fleet are four bombers (courtesy of Darrell) based out of that fort in the picture and 4 airships in Cash Cow. His fleet forks a grand total of eight cities making it the biggest threat right now.

Each front presents its own challenges. The problems I have facing NoSpace are twofold. For one, my cities in the southwest are spread out over four islands, in addition to the main continent, and are easily forked. The other is that between refrigeration and circumnavigation, all their ships are significantly faster than mine. This creates a dilemma, in that while I need battleships to win the battles at sea, they're slow and I really need destroyers in order to keep pace with the Indian ships. My long term plan to deal with it is to rely on my battleships initially - as the powerful core of my fleet to fight and win my defensive battles - and build up a horde of destroyers around them to take the fight to the enemy fleets if they operate out of range of the battleships.

Opposing NoSpace at sea I have (before ending turn): 16 battleships, 11 destroyers, 11 transports and 4 East Indiamen. In a straight up fleet engagement, I could crush the Indian fleet (and believe me, it was temping not to just say screw the NAP and attack them to end this threat). Short of a mistake, NoSpace are not going to give me the chance to do so. However, my battleships provide a powerful zone defense and can limit the areas where their fleet can operate safely. So, this was the distribution of forces I arrived at (shows units produced after ending turn).



Shown in the black are the potential attacks available to Nospace. Their transports' base move is seven, but two have been promoted to Navigation I and another to Navigation II. However, my saving grace vs. NoSpace is their lack of air support. Landings for them are going to be costly.

Frederick the Great once said: "To defend everything is to defend nothing," and that is certainly true in this case. First priority was to defend Edessa - staffing the coast tile southwest of the city. They can bring 13 destroyers to bear on the tile, plus the two transports. I moved every ship close enough to defend the tile, bringing me up to 3 battleships and 9 destroyers. Even with bomber support, he would have to feel very lucky to attempt this landing. Even if he managed to sink my fleet, the city is staffed by a infantry and tank, which should be enough to fend off four units. Nonetheless, I moved the HMS Surprise with my two GGs out towards Hattin as a precaution. Second priority went to defending Jaffa, so I threw the rest of my fleet into the bay providing access to the city. With 30 warships in the bay, there is no way they can break through to the city. Even if they did attempt the naval battle, my destroyers from Edessa and the recently produced ships would be available for an immediate counter-attack to mop up their fleet. My fleet there is heavy on battleships, but has a couple destroyers to intercept the bombers/airships. I threw the East Indiamen in just to serve as warm bodies, though they will get upgraded next turn. The bay is serving as the central basing point for my fleet, since it defends Jaffa and is roughly in the middle of the front. To support it, I have 9 workers on the island to fort tiles as needed. I already forted the tile NW of Jaffa to get another East Indiamen into the bay, and stuck a pair of infantry into the fort so he doesn't just land troops in it. I had 2 workers sink a turn into forts on the tiles W and SW of the city as well to provide me with options. Lastly, I moved four airships into the city to provide overwatch.

After staffing Jericho (see next section), I threw all my leftover bodies into Constantinople, getting four infantry and two marines in there. I believe he only has four units within reach. If not, the city is screwed. However, there was nothing more I could have done, my defenses have been stretched to the max. Sidon got the short end of the stick here. There were no extra defenders left to go to my Forbidden Palace City when all was said and done, and the city is only guarded by a single infantry, recently upgraded. Rhodes is equally screwed with only a single infantry on defense too. Beruit, Damietta and Aleppo are guarded by 3 units each, and would take a little bit of effort to take. Depending on how they deploy their forces, NoSpace could raze as many as five cities next turn. While this would be a deadly blow, it would allow me to destroy their fleet piecemeal and go on the offense in the south. I just hope they are not that successful.

The Visible Indian Military:




In the north, Darrell has massed his fleet:



Darrell's fleet does not pose as big a challenge, his ships are faster yes, but not as much as the Indian warships are. He also only has almost all destroyers with only a single missile cruiser produced in Japan this last turn. y cities are also harder to fork in the northwest. However, the real problem comes from his air force:




18 Bombers

That's enough to absolutely shred any fleet I put up to oppose him, not to mention the poor defenders of my cities. However, unless he's hiding a pair of promos on one of those transports, he only threatens Jericho from that tile. He's seven tiles away from both Acre and Constantinople. However, four of those transports are from the war with Rego, and there is no reason to sit on a promotion that long when he could have used it then. The fifth was produced in Indian before he went into theocracy, so it's only at 4XP as well. Acre and Constantinople will be toast if I'm wrong, but I feel absolutely sure Jericho is the only city he can boat next turn. It does seem a might suspicious he would position the fleet seven tiles from either, but I'm willing to chalk it up to playing the save in a rush.

So, his fleet consists of:

23 destroyers (including an ex-Indian one)
1 carrier (2 Jet Fighters flying defense)
5 transports

My main fleet in the north consists of 12 destroyers and 6 battleships (heavier on destroyers to counter his aircraft). I might be strong enough to attack him if he didn't have a gazillion planes, but as it is, all my fleet can do is hide and wait for fighter cover. If I leave it out he'll annihilate it. So, here's the force distribution I arrived at:



Note the ring of death formed by his bombers and the wimpy garrisons in all his cities. I can't wait to get my own transports up here....

I moved the fleet into Jericho to wait out the storm. I would rather he didn't take the city and kill my fleet, so I threw most of my available units into defending it. 5 transports mean he can land a max of 20 units, so I staffed it with 21 (16 infantry, 5 cannons). I'm reasonably confident it won't fall next turn. I put all my leftover forces into Constantinople. Everything else is guarded by a single infantry. I need to get workers back on my continent from Jaffa ASAP to give me forting options for increased flexibility. Things are going to get really nasty when he actually starts forking my cities.

In the Far East, I had a pair of battleships available far away from the primary fronts, so I positioned them to be annoying:



Overexposure, the island that should have been mine. NoSpace only has a destroyer in the area, and has been using the city to bang out transports and destroyers. I'm hoping to interdict the flow of reinforcements and pillage their nets.



Likewise, Darrell has few forces this far East, so I'm taking the opportunity to annoy him as well.

Seeing the small garrisons in most of Darrell and NoSpace's cities gave me an idea.



Most of the ex-Incan cities just got dry docks up, so I'm going to build a couple transports and some destroyers to supplement those battleships and go see if I can raid any cities. I sent an inquiry to Shoot if he is willing to toss me any marines over here. I have several infantry on standby with a couple airships supporting at the moment, and it wouldn't take too long to assemble a strike force.

Darrell is now producing mech infantry though, which, if he deploys them to guard his cities, will make them extremely difficult to take.



I have about one turn of upgrades left to do (a few rifles, a warrior and four East Indiamen), but I think I'm going to go straight into researching Flight, as none of these upgrades are vital to my defense. There's also the little matter of repaying Shoot at some point

I have three turns of golden age left, and continue to pump out navy at a rate of about 9 ships/turn. As I briefly alluded to earlier, I've also started producing marines in some of my cities for a counter-attack. NoSpace and Darrell both started golden ages of their own, and switched back into military/production rushing civics. Nospace in particular have been abusing the Cristo Redentor like crazy. However, my military remains almost as big as both of theirs combined. If this was a 1v1, I would simply annihilate them, tech backwardness notwithstanding. Meanwhile, Shoot recently became number #1 in GNP....

My military right before the holocaust.



So, it all begins next turn. Turn-playing will probably be slow because of the holidays, but I think that was going to be unavoidable for a war on this scale, a true World War III.

As things stand, I stand a very slim chance of winning this war. I'm outnumbered, and playing on a map that definitely does not favor the defender. However, going to take as many Indian and Egyptian bastards as I can with me.

Let's kick some ass.

aragon:

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Did something I should have a long time ago, and started re-reading Ranamar & Seven's thread for PBEM19, including Seven's Handy Dandy Explanation of Modern Warfare to Regoarrar.

So far - Seven, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - I think I've been following all your tenets pretty well. If anything, I need to bang out a few more airships to maintain visibility over the entire map. The key thing is just going to be getting forces together large enough to mount a counterattack, defending is just not a winning proposition.

If I can bring the Indian fleet to battle on my next turn, I'm going to shuffle forces south and prepare to launch an assault. I can't operate against Darrell until I get aircraft of my own. I need to try and remove his bombers from that fort north of Cash Cow, and set up for Operation Going Commando. I'm hoping they'll be so distracted with running recon and attack missions against me in the north, that they won't bother to check out Shoot's territory and notice a small fleet moving onto a staging tile to raze Investment.

Of course, I may open the next save to find all my fleets sunk and this exercise will have been rather academic.

[oledavy]

Diplo Update

Can I get marines over on Rego's old continent?

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]I'll see what I can do. Do you want marines produced over missile cruisers (and for that matter mech inf)?

Also, could you let me know whether that missile cruiser I just gifted you has 6xp for you? I can never remember if xp transfers with a gift...if not I need to promote them before I gift them to you I guess.

Shoot[/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Updated Ledger

t172: 1 Missile Cruiser (and now Nospace will know I am gifting you units...this could be interesting).

Total:
Total:
1 GS
3 inf
2 destroyer
1 battleship
1 missile cruiser
[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey,

Mix of the three would be preferable. I need mech infantry on my continent, marines on Rego's continent, and missile cruisers just in general. Perhaps your city with the GG produces missile cruisers, while your cities nearer to Rego's old continent produce marines and the ones closer to my core produce mech infantry?

Pretty sure XP transfers over, I'll confirm when I see the next save.

Please let me know when you have radio + flight. Bombers would be amazing for me.

Cheers!
Dave[/COLOR]

Shoot has been pretty helpful so far. He's been flying recon flights over the Indian core and informed me that NoSpace were hiding marines outside the visibility radii of their cities. The big question certainly is how the allies react when they realize Shoot is aiding me.