[PB78] Dreylin boldly goes

[Dreylin]

T227 - War.

Donovan is whipping the be-JAY-sus out of his cities again already - although mostly 1-pop which hardly seems efficient. Then again his cities are comparatively small and we do have a surfeit of Happy in this game so maybe it makes sense. He is showing 6t from Rifling but is also spending money on upgrading Knights to Cuirs, so I figure the next few turns will help his defenses more than my offenses so I hit the button and declare war.

Side note, quick demos before we kick off:



Mostly for the nice round Power number.

The plan is to hit and take Trebakka and Sssla, weather the counter-attack with the movement advantage of Railroads, and then either go on the offensive or sue for peace with the new gains.



Trebakka should fall next turn. No walls in the city, so I brought enough wooden collateral to take down the defenses and allow the Cannon to lead. He can bring in some units from Toranor, but they were mostly older so I should have enough hitters to clear them out. I will likely continue to raze Toranor to create a buffer, but then this army will turn NW towards Gav-land.



Sssla should fall in 2t. Ironclad bombardment + the two Cannon will strip most of the defenses next turn while I drop off the second wave of troops, then I should have more than enough to take the following turn.

The rest of my armies are positioned for zone defense - primarily for the NW and W pictured above. I do also need to keep some forces in the South since Donovan still has a sizeable force in Magic-land and might try to run through Superdeath's culture to hit me. I asked SD to close borders with Donovan, but we'll see. I have no plans for my own attack through SD, but have some units in the area watching. I also chose not to capture and delete a trio of Workers on the Chapel border - though I did kill a teleported Knight outside Lwaxana. I probably lose that city fairly quickly, but it's being culturally crushed and is hard to defend. Still, I will get a Machine Gun in there next turn so it won't be cheap to take.

I haven't switched civics yet; I want to keep my options open and see how things go. Research is still for Corporation in 3t, but I may delay that for upgrade $$ if I think I need it.

[Hitru]

Interesting times. Any other targets than those two cities?

[Dreylin]

A lot depends how Donovan responds; what I want is for him to defend aggressively - i.e. move into my culture where my movement advantage allows me to cover. If he doesn't attack out, I'd probably be happy to sit back and fortify borders. If I can get rid of a chunk of his stack however (or Superdeath joins in early), that opens up some options to push.

A couple of potentials:

• Securing the Northern coast of La Forge's lake (gav-land) would let me move my armies much faster than having to loop around the bottom.
  
• From there, pushing West at Reticuli to gain control of Sistine would be a bigger fight.
  
• Once Sssla has fallen, my Ironclads & Galleys can harass the cities surrounding that lake, which should tie down chunks of his forces to defend.
  
• Pushing West from Troi would be the second front to force him to split forces.
  

Pushing East from Chapel & Trebakka is not ideal as that corridor is culturally crushed by Superdeath and any gains for me would be limited and more exposed to him eventually, but keeping a force threatening the area will be important to keep Donovan's defenses present and unable to pull away to another front.

[Dreylin]

T228 -

As expected Superdeath said "watch the map" so I'm doing that. There was also another diplo window that I clicked through accidentally which was probably from him? AP result at the turn roll, then a white Peace Treaty offer from Donovan ... maybe after I take these two cities.

No sign of a counterattack yet, I assume he's massing troops somewhere. So on to Trebakka:



Cannon wins were at 35%, 58% & 66% so got a bit lucky there. The rest were all at >90%. Moved the rest of the stack forward towards Toranor which has half a dozen mixed units in it.

Bombarded at Sssla and ready to take it next turn. It looks like Donovan decided to race for Rifling ASAP rather than spend anything on upgrades yet, so I don't foresee any hurdles taking it on schedule.

I think Superdeath may be planning to chase a Cultural victory; he's certainly spreading a variety of religions around to some core cities. I suppose I should start thinking about that too.

[Dreylin]

T229 -

First things first this turn; I get a message about losing a Horse Archer to a Knight in the South, so I go looking for it.



Whoops! I didn't even know it was there before it popped ... I hope it was loaded. The solo injured Knight was spotted 3S, 1E of Street Tacos - probably doing the same "keep an eye on this approach that I am doing. I divert my own Knight and a Rifle down here to keep a stronger eye out.

Still no sign of a big stack yet, which has me nervous. I get eyes on Reticuli and find the Pikes, but the mounted units are out of sight. I'm assembling a mounted force to go after Firma if he doesn't reinforce, but Xedalla looks vulnerable.



70% odds from the first Rifle, and the city is razed since I can't easily reinforce and hold it. I did unload the second Rifle, to make it a non-trivial effort to clear them out. You can also see the border force about to fortify on that ruined fort hill to guard the pass.

It looks like I forgot to take a picture of Toranor; Donovan evacuated the gunpowder units leaving 2 Spears, a Dog Soldier and an Archer. Unfortunately I only have 5 Knights in range and that doesn't give me good odds, so I have to advance the stack onto flatland. I move the reserves up onto the hill as well to counter-attack if he hits the advance force.

Of course the meat of this turn is at Sssla, which falls as expected:



Cannon luck somewhat restored as each of these were at 35%-ish. I immediately give the Gold to Sulu and juggle a few more tiles back to Crusher as well. Loaded Galleys are dropped off back in Sulu for redeployment, and the unused attackers are loaded for future harassment along the coast.

I hum and ha about switching research to MilTrad before Corporation, but I want to start building Wall Street ASAP so leave it as-is. I don't think I'll be able to 1-turn MilTrad afterwards, but we'll see.

[Dreylin]

Went back in to make sure I had promoted the stack at Toranor (I hadn’t), and while I was there took a moment to check distances. I’m feeling much more confident that a counter-attack will not reach before I have a chance to delete that city.

Also worth noting that going back through my signposts and memory, at the point I attacked he had few siege units available and those were mostly stacked on his East. Quantity is likely being fixed by the whip, but stacking them together will still take time so I don’t expect a significant hit at my forces here.

[Dreylin]

T230 -

Toranor razed at the cost of a Cannon:



I'm pulling back on this front for now and looking at options in the West.

MilTrad is going to take 2turns - not because I am short of $$$, because my beaker output is not high enough - so I'll run one at 10% and the other at 100%. I should finish with ~1,000g in the bank for possible upgrades. Donovan will finish Rifling this turn, probably with very little in the bank. I expect some heavy whipping from him next turn. I think it's right to detour an upgrade my 2-movers before pushing for Assembly Line; I've looked at a couple of attack vectors that Cavs will make possible (or at least not a bloodbath). I'd love to also grab Democracy and get the Statue building, but I think it's the right call to Industiralise first. I'll see where Superdeath heads after Physics...

[Dreylin]

T231 - here we go!

A wild stack approaches:



Well I wasn't planning on advancing further anyway, but good to know that I've drawn a significant force over to this front. Advanced troops retreat back to the forest hill, and I reinforce Trebakka incase he decides to throw the stack at it. Because of Superdeath's culture here, I can run a Sentry out to that Workshop and back to keep an eye out for movement.

This is also the turn when I realise that I can take Formation after Drill 2, so I put some upgrades in that direction.

On the other hand, I underestimated the naval game:



AKA, terrible Ironclad luck FTW! All those Ironclad wins (at 80%) resulted in the unit being redlined within one hit of defeat. I'm jockeying some stuff around, but it's basically going to be hunker and defend on this front for a while until I can rebuild the fleet.

MilTrad will finish at 90% & -300g. I have ~2 Cavalry set to queue upgrade on the turn roll, and will probably spend the thousand on upgrading a few more. Donovan whipped off ~30pop in 10 cities this turn which is somewhat frightening, but not in any way sustainable - his graphs are tanking. I'm confident I can hold him off without significant damage, but I will be strongly considering civics options next turn. I think a 6t round of Drafts is the best option for mass unit production with minimum impact on economics. I'll lose ~50c before modifiers (and some of my recently gained Cultural ground), but I lose more than that going from Rep to Police State and the pop-to-hammer conversion rate is much better than Slavery (if less flexible).

[Dreylin]

T232 -

Definitely underestimated how many of those whips went into ships:



I killed one Frigate on the rebound, but I'm restricted to port now and will need to go Astro to break back out. So I decided to hold off the Nationalism revolt for a turn to make sure I can get Asto in 2t, and also to see what Donovan's taste is for Peace. I expect none or "return our cities", but doesn't hurt to ask and see if he's willing to negotiate.

I kept most of my banked gold to fund Astro, but I did upgrade a couple of Knights to Cavalry for ... purposes.

I also got this from Superdeath:



I had asked for Sugar & Wheat and offered Coal a few turns ago and thought it had just got overlooked, but turns out it just got delayed (SD is typically playing every other turn roll, so diplo can be slow at the moment). Problem is he got the wrong half of the request; it's the Wheat I'm really after for the health; happy is A-OK, and the Sugar wouldn't affect enough / the right cities. I intended to send something back, but forgot. Ah well, I'll probably p-lay again before he does and that will give me a second chance ... to forget again.

[Dreylin]

T233 - Hrrrrmmm.



No enough to take the city yet, but if he drops another 15units next turn then it's in trouble. So I have to position to give myself a chance of dropping off reinforcements next turn:



I was originally intending to leave these empty, but if Donovan blocks the city access on the "remember" tile, then I don't get the option to drop anything next turn even outside the city. So I put a pair of Rifles on the two unpromoted Galleys and left the C1 ship empty incase he attacks and gets lucky with rolls. McCoy is 1turning an Ironclad now that Ironworks is up and running. I flirted with a Trireme build to queu upgrade to Frigate, but decided against because 1) I wasn't at all certain that would actually happen, and 2) even a Nav1 Frigate wouldn't be able to hit "remember" next turn. So I went with the certain Ironclad build. I also twisted Dr. Crusher to complete their Ironclad this turn (borrowed the plains lumbermill from Picard and hired a bunch of raw Specialists for the extra few hammers)

The backup plan for reinforcing will be to upgrade the Galleons next turn, but I think that would get units there too late to make a difference. Anyway, interesting times!

Oh, and you can see that I've shuffled some tiles and applied the Ironworks Engineers to trying to force out a GEng ahead of Sulu for the next GPerson. Corporations are calling...