[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Mjmd]

That is quite the butchers bill.

I would say gold should be for tech unless you see other opportunities. I would almost think north has more now? Although you still have to protect your southern stuff. This is a pretty weird shape / combat.

FYI pretty sure your fleet NE of Salem is within range of Siga battleships if they take extra movement.

[Miro]

T247:

A dark day in China as we learn that the Commando promotion exists! Blood on Clock has become Bloodier on Clock.



Mining Co. HQ gone, Oxford gone, NE gone, GSpy gone. Lots of infrastructure. Possibly some ships, too, if they were in BoC at the time.

It hurts, but I want to play 100% war now and not tech so much. So this is not the greatest loss in the world, this is just a tribute.

[Mjmd]

AH SHOOT. I Should have warned you about that. I've experienced that enough and been paranoid enough in other games. I blame being sick for a week straight and then I was focused on battleships. Again, a situation a non green never would have thought of.

Defenses against commando units are obviously 1) Have multiple units in cities 2) You can't undo it, but don't railroad everything. 3) Place units along the few railroads you have. This also helps vs nuke commando razes later.

See if anyone else is willing to get off their butts. That definitely puts you really far behind. But Gira off the bench could be quite an ally and he even has quite a bit to gain.

[Miro]

AH SHOOT. I Should have warned you about that. I've experienced that enough and been paranoid enough in other games. I blame being sick for a week straight and then I was focused on battleships. Again, a situation a non green never would have thought of.

Defenses against commando units are obviously 1) Have multiple units in cities 2) You can't undo it, but don't railroad everything. 3) Place units along the few railroads you have. This also helps vs nuke commando razes later.

See if anyone else is willing to get off their butts. That definitely puts you really far behind. But Gira off the bench could be quite an ally and he even has quite a bit to gain.

And here I was laughing about xist not finishing railroads everywhere. Makes sense.
Commando is pretty shit in SP, but I remember someone mentioned that AGG / CHA leaders may settle GGs to pump out Commando units, but xist isn't either of those so I stopped thinking about it.

I loaded 5 more Transports and I'm headed into NA waters to stay out of xist's Battleship range and target his Moai island. Plan to unload T251 next to city and ram 4 Cannons into the city T252.

Asked Gira, former bestie, if he wants to go to war. This turn, coldrain will settle the southern island where we razed xist's last city of our last war. He returned Fish for Fish T246.

[greenline]

What are your options for striking back in the near term?

[Miro]

T255 Update:

Short strike summary about 4 sneak Tanks over T248 - T251 before we get to all of the south sea shenanigans:

I noticed an underdefended city of xist's on his western border with Gira, so I used a Transport to load 4 Tanks and unload them in Gira's city. They'd be able to hit is city from 6 tiles away.
My 4 Sneaky Tanks were spotted in Gira's lands because xist posted an Airship into one of Gira's cities (I didn't know Airships could post up in other people's cities!)
I killed his Airship and still set up in range of xist's city. He rushed my Tanks first with a few units and killed 1 Tank while losing 1 - 2 Cannons, a Tank, and 2 - 3 Infantry when I hit them back the next turn.
He reinforced his city. I retreated, but I'll take the small win.




T248:
I asked Gira to join war, never heard back. I loaded up 5 Transports, sending them to Salem island.

My strike plan with the Transports was to stay out of range from xist's Battleships. With 2 moves, I could threaten his Moai island with no way for xist to stop me from landing:


All of xist's Battleships are posted up in Siga, where I marked "Navy" on map.

T249:
I finished Biology and Xist landed on Salem island. He didn't have enough to break Salem and I could have fought his invasion force, but my Transports needed to move to (2) in above to set up for the Moai invasion.



And I was right! His forces on the island weren't enough to take on Salem's defenses.
But I didn't consider his Transports in Motya.

T250:

Xist built a road, ran 4 Cannons into Salem, then brought Transports to help him crush the island. He kept Salem, didn't raze. I get it, but I was surprised - I'm on auto-raze mode.

Here's what he left in Salem:


What's worse, xist's navy moved towards Thapsus (his Moai island):


I felt so stupid. SO STUPID. When I teach kids chess, one of the lessons is that your idea for a move should never start with, "IF my opponent doesn't do <x>, then this will be so good!"
It's a childish gimmick. And here, I moved my entire navy and 5 loaded Transports away from my island in hopes that xist and his arsenal of Airships wouldn't think about why my entire fleet is moving west.
Repositioning his navy is an obvious move. Damn.

But I still had 5 loaded Transports vs his leftover forces at Salem and could clear some Destroyers while I'm at it! 1 Transport had Cannons, but I had another loaded Transport coming from the east, so it's still 20 Tanks/Infantry ready to fight.

I spent a long time setting up a simulation of the fight in WB and won 17 / 20 times. Unfortunately, when I attacked, it played out like the 3 / 20 losses.

Outside of Battleship range, I set up a big boat bubble around Salem:


This turn got to me. First, I felt childish when my gimmick was put in check, then I saw some hope and logged out to test simulations, then I logged in and failed, logged out again from deflation. Eventually got back to round out the turn.

T251:

Xist cleared some of my navy and reinforced his island. I asked Gira and coldrain to go to war with xist.

Gira's reply:


I bring back my Transports, sending them to the southern ice because they couldn't reach far enough to get to shore and I didn't think to build a Fort in my tundra. The big boat bubble worked so well last turn that I gave it another try to save those Transports as well as my freshly loaded Transports so I could attempt to hit Salem again next turn.



A-B-C here is Battleship #, Destroyer #, Transport #. The one Transport near Salem is empty.
To you experienced players, this may look moronic. But poor Miro thought he understood the Battleship lesson and had no idea that his Sunday was about to get ruined!

T252:



Ouch. Ouchhhhhh. Bro! I guess these 3-unit stacks are just to mitigate losses and take positions, they can't come close to trading efficiently even when you have coast bonus.

Xist killed the 1 empty Transport, but my loaded ones in the south are still in position to invade Salem!

And then as I went back and forth between my notes and the game client, I accidentally clicked a Transport to go straight north, up next to Rome. *sigh*
That made the difference, I couldn't hit Salem now 
In my notes, I wrote about how tired I am and how much it sucks that for the past several months, Gira and coldrain were fine closing borders with me, coldrain even DoW'd me with xist, but neither of them will close borders or do anything to stand up to xist. I mainly just wish it wasn't a 4-player game after taking out Rickety. I like interaction with other players and it sucks having them all go dark.

xist has 406 war weariness and coldrain built the Statue of Liberty.

T253:

Xist heard my woes about having no interaction with other players and sent me a peace offer. I ripped it up.



Quite on the warfront. I lost that one Transport (after emptying) by Rome, but it took out a Destroyer first! Little victories.

T254:

I loaded up to invade Salem again, this time without the big boat bubble. xist finished his NE.

T255:

xist finished Forbidden Palace and Hermitage.

I unloaded on Salem island and xist has retreated some units a bit ago, so we'll see how next turn goes.

I also haven't teched at all in this time, Flight is about 5T away. Gira finished Flight and Biology. Coldrain will have Flight in 2T. xist will have Flight in 3T.

[greenline]

I think I recall that in an industrial start PB game (Pb32 was it?), small ship groupings ended up being very vulnerable to airship strikes softening them up for other ships to attack. But it's definitely a difficult lesson to put in practice considering how few competitive MP games go that late in the tech tree.

[Mjmd]

T251 & T252

Probably my bad. Something I failed to mention is that you have to be able to hit back to make trades good. I'm assuming he hit you and then retreated into his cities with his damaged ships? If it had been more in the open and you could chase him down even with destroyers vs damaged ships you would have come out ahead. This was never a problem in my experiences. In my close quarter game we were in stalemate until nukes which makes retreating into cities a bad idea. And in the none close quarters game opponent could never retreat into cities.

Airships make any kind of sneak attack VERY hard. And yes they can be in other players cities. They are vulnerable there however. Same with ships btw. My 2nd game I lost a ship in a neutral port as I was unaware of this.

Your teching is going to be REALLY bad without your corp HQ. Its pretty key you aren't late to nukes. Its fine if he is a little ahead as project takes a bit, but don't fall behind more than 1 tech. Getting Salem back seems important, but after some wealth builds may be needed.