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

[OT4E]

REM has declared:



And scooter is roading us, doesnt look like establishing trade route:

[Dreylin]

Well, the Southwest isn't a problem; even if he controls the sea, we can bring in everything that has been focused on Donovan plus our air force to keep him at arms length and eventually push back. The question is what we do about the East, and about Scooter.

My first instinct is to make some easy concessions to secure a quick Peace with REM, which will allow us to focus on rebuffing Scooter. Even though he's only got the Airships as Siege, I don't think Yaks is defensible with the current forces so we probably need to Draft and then fall back to Silkmoths. Perhaps we also evacuate from Canaries and see whether he'd be satisfied with those as a prize.

Pretty doubtful though, since he's not landed anything on the island this turn which means he's probably thinking to use them against Dogs - or just to secure the Desert Hill (which is of course where we pull back to, isn't it?).

Scooter's road is probably mostly a distraction; I'm pretty sure his intent is to amphiboiusly attack through the island Forts and is hoping to run around our backlines and threaten the Core - Goats, Donkeys, Duck & Geese are all pretty vulnerable with our fleet off elsewhere (and small). This is the area we really need to reinforce as he'll have a wide range of options to target. Hedgehogs we probably ignore/abandon and pull everything back into Dolphins.

What do you think?

[OT4E]

In southwest he will keep wounding our units, not a big deal, but we finally need some healer.

I do not think that we need to give up Yaks, why? He cant take city with what he has sent by land, and I doubt he will have good odds from the water. We can have 6 infantries+4 cavalries there. Cavalries will defend if he promotes pinch on infantry. If you block both tiles above the city he wont be able to bombard this turn. Galleon+privateer on one tile and SotL on the other. Next turn we will have 40% and more reinforcements, especially better air support.

But despite of what you decide about Yaks, we shouldnt try to make peace with REM. His peace with BGN is about to expire and everyone's war works for us in general. We have Kremlin and we can spam units and literally fight for every tile. I think we must regroup our fleet and give a major fight for DZ's territory starting from razing Percy and planting his lands with our own settlers which we need to prepare also. Attack is the best defense in our case.

[OT4E]

And bombard his frigates with airships.

[Dreylin]

In general though, I'm less concerned about REM than I am Scooter; the main gain from ceding Yaks is to consolidate our forces more towards defense of Dolphins and that border with Scooter.

Ditto, the North where we are particularly vulnerable to boating and I'm not sure of the best way to set up our defenses - do we try to compete with him Navally, or just stack up units so he has to bring overwhelming force to bare?

[OT4E]

Navy and airships are the best defense, but we dont have time to build ships. I think we need to build both and search for some kind of balance. I'd make ships where we can make them in 1, and push units where he can hit us in 1-2 turns.

I have to go to sleep now. Take pause if you see that the situation is too complicated and we need brainstorming.

[Dreylin]

t322 (intermission) -

Overview shots:


At Dolphins we're not in danger this turn, but could be hit next turn if he chose - but I don't quite read him as ready for that. He's not coming through the island on that timeframe though.



Here we definitely have 2t of production before he can hit us, but it would be much easier for him to take the short route through the island.



His first Cannon, and also the first Galleon in our Core sea; not ready to hit us this way yet ... except I've just realised that he can push the force from S of Dolphins through Penicillin and strike at Donkeys. We need to look at this again.



I think we need to Fort through the island to Koi to bring the Rifle Corp back to Donkeys/Goats ASAP. He's only got a single Galleon over here, and we're both mired in Donovan's culture so we have the movement advantage with our Cav stack. Also, I note that BGN has positioned his Ironclads towards REM, so maybe there's hope.



I'm still in two minds about trying to hold here at Yaks; he hasn't got any Siege & can't bombard, but he can dink us with his Airships and does have the promotion advantage.

I've set my suggestions for unit builds and marked the suggested Draft locations; we probably need to whip everywhere that has hammers invested ... and then look at dry whipping in a couple of locations. I've also marked which Airships I'd pull out to which other fronts. Take a look and let me know what you think, meanwhile we continue to discuss Yaks.

[OT4E]

Yes, we need whips everywhere. Scooters navy is terryfying, we will need 15+ships to block him from any path he chooses and if we dont have enough we probably lose everything. So I guess we focus on infantry, try to use fortify, and get ready if he lands.

May be whip frigates in the interlands and try to clean seas one by one? We also need galleons and be able to raze something in counter attack if he goes all in attack.

[OT4E]

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.

[Dreylin]

The question I think we need to think about / discuss is whether we think it would be possible to buy REM into Peace within the next 2-3turns, what we'd need to give up to do so, and whether we'd be willing to give that up without a fight.

With 10t Peace with REM, I think we can focus on Scooter and repel his invasion, but dealing 2:1 I don't think we can generate enough units in the right places in the next few turn in order to have a chance.

REM can see Scooter gearing up against us, so the calculation for him may come down to whether he sees it as better for him to join forces with Scooter and erradicate us, or to make some quick gains and then sit back and watch us pound each other.

I don't think we can count on anyone else getting too involved in things; neither pindicator nor BGN have a large army, although pindicator is certainly shaping up to finish Combustion in the next couple of turns and upgrade his massive Frigate fleet ... the question is what he does with it. We've been decent friends and geographically it really doesn't make much sense, but would he hit REM or Scooter? (BTW, I offered him another Iron for a 90g lump sum - he's still teching so no gpt possible, but that would be another Inf upgrade)

I feel sorry for Donovan; he was a couple of turns max away from being eliminated and now he's going to have to hit end turn for another couple of weeks minimum before anyone can be bothered to deal with him.