I figured I'd ask questions about this turn here, so everyone can see it.

A) What to do about research? I kept research at 0% cause I didnt' feel we had consensus.

I see 3 options:

1) Keep at 0% for another turn
2) Research Robotics (can get in 6)
3) Research space flight (can get in 6)

B) Defense of the homeland

I want to start bringing subs home, to concentrate on probable attack routes from SABER. SABER has 17 transports and a huge stack of surface ships - there is no chance of our surface ships breaking through their screen if they choose to mass their units, so subs are only bet to send invaders to the bottom. (SABER has 48 warships + 3 carriers)

Do you guys agree with this as a plan?

OMG - 48 surface ships?? Does that include transports (of which there were 16 , the last I heard)?

damn - when did chamnix get so angry? :lol:

No - that's 48 destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Specifically, 31 destroyers, 15 cruisers and 2 BB's. 3 carriers, 17 transports.

I think they have more destroyers than we have surface ships.

My vote is get robotics now.

Start researching again. Robotics.

Where are these subs now?

robotics now. :rockon:

They will likely not have all transports in one stack but rather use a ship-chain. So it's ~9 transports to sink.

How are the odds of a sub to sink a vet transport? :confused:

I would keep research off and pile up gold, with the idea of amassing enough gold to research the remaining 4 techs at the maximum rate. What we have been doing is researching a tech, then turning off research for a turn or two to get enough gold to research the next tech and then start the cycle over again. Let's save up all the gold now in one shot and then blast through robotics and then the remaining techs. This strategy gives us a few turns to figure out if we'll have any imported luxuries and - more importantly - helps hide what we are doing. With some well placed diplomacy (and the information enemy spies are taking back) we can convince our opponents our number one priority right now is defense. AT noted that he thinks we are almost average compared to FREE militarily. That's great news because it makes FREE the more tempting target for SABER since FREE's forces are divided among two continents. Let's add a pile of gold so SABER will be even less tempted to attack us. Then we rip through the remaining techs and time our Apollo and SS builds for the very end.

For defense, yes concentrate the subs and let's build more ships. Do we prefer subs or surface ships?

Okay, convinced. Pile some more gold - will we need 10 turns' income? :sad:

I'd rather have surface ships to be honest, the subs are simply to slow. Also subs are somewhat weak. And we don't have to pay insane upkeep for swarm of subs. We can hide our surface ships in cities (in stacks of 4+) so they don't die on the initial attack.

Btw don't forget to set all builds to something that has mobilization bonus except for the final turn of completion. A transport doesn't get the bonus, so no point in "building" them except for the last turn.

I'd rather have surface ships to be honest, the subs are simply to slow. Also subs are somewhat weak. And we don't have to pay insane upkeep for swarm of subs. We can hide our surface ships in cities (in stacks of 4+) so they don't die on the initial attack.
So what are these surface ships good for? :dubious:

They won't sink anything but lone ships, probably scouts.
If we are attacked, the enemy fleet will likely be stacked with 30+ surface ships. No chance for our navy to push through.
It would be great of course if our fast surface ships could get around the spear head and attack the 2nd part of the chain - but I'd assume that will be hidden in a harbor... :dunno:

Our surface ships might help protecting the subs once they attacked.
And we might plant some of them even outside our EWS on the coasts that are not inside double transport's range where we might detect and destroy the 2nd chain part... :hmm:

Once we see the stack we can attack it with our surface ships. Let's be frank, naval combat is basically whomever attacks wins in the modern era.. If we can attack with our ships we will win most of the battles. The problem with subs is that they can't sit in ports waiting for enemy stack to show up, we have to sit in the "open" unprotected, because they only have 5 moves (they need 6-7 moves). With a ship we can hide in our ports and still attack the stack (yes, it might have bombard bonus, but we have odds on EVERY battle! It is all about the first strike!

With a ship we can hide in our ports and still attack the stack (yes, it might have bombard bonus, but we have odds on EVERY battle! It is all about the first strike!

But that means that we're going to need at least 1 more unit than the entire attacking stack :dubious:

At least with subs, the attacking sub can directly target the transports. After all, we don't care how many destroyers they have as long as we can still sink the transports. It's the transports that matter, not the destroyers.

17 subs could sink 17 transports - might not, but could get a lot of them.

If they stacked up their ships, we would need at least 65 ships to sink 17 transports. We don't have 65 ships - we don't even have 65 ships + bombers.

Okay, convinced. Pile some more gold - will we need 10 turns' income? :sad:

AT calculated we'd need about 6500g (assuming we are running lux at ten percent). We're making about 650gpt at zero research so, yes we need ten turns' income. The good news is we already about three turns' worth.

If they stacked up their ships, we would need at least 65 ships to sink 17 transports. We don't have 65 ships - we don't even have 65 ships + bombers.

This is why I'm still on the side of subs. There's no sense in investing precious shields and upkeep in units that can't sink transports. Can bombers target transports? Sadly, this is part of the game is far, far beyond my comfort level :blush:

No, fraid bombers can't. Subs (and nuclear subs, of course) are the only ones who can.

Well, we have both less surface ships and less upkeep now.

I guess I'll upgrade our tanks - I'm glad I didn't dump them last turn after all.

btw - I assume everyone will be fine with me running minimum research.

Should I go to 0 or run 10% or so, which would allow us to build up some beakers for if we can beat off saber quickly?

Should we continue to build subs? I am thinking I should change sub builds over to bombers/arty/MA/something else - I assume they'll airlift reinforcements if they can get a toehold.

Did someone say that we don't have as many mobile sams as we'd like?

I think 10% science is not a bad idea.

I see no sense in collecting any beakers in this situation.
Lets get any gold we can to repell this serious threat. :shifty:
Maybe we should raise lux by 10% to prevent riots in case of ww? :hmm:

Let's draft in any city and metro. Where should we place those units? In cities or in the open? Too bad we cannot draft MA... :rolleyes:

Agree with Paul. I see no reason to put gold into beakers now.

We may need an extension after taking a look at the save. :shakehead:

We certainly will - but we could still wait for the save before we request it.

Although it might be funny to post a request before we're up ;)

Well, I think setting research to 0% now is probably right - we can talk about setting it to 10% later.

I think setting lux to 10% makes sense - we got some happiness and I don't think we lost it all, but I assume we'll get pounded next turn on SCI and we really want our core to continue churning out 1 turn MA as long as it can.

Lux at 10 and zero research sounds right. Drafting as much as possible, too.l As for the disposition of our forces we need to see what our EWS shows first, but our first priority to to prevent SABER from taking any cities on their next turn.

I'm not going to draft in cities that are currently making 1 turn MA, though, or those that are MM'd to produce 2 turn MA's.

Should I draft in a city that is size 7 and on the coast?

Should I draft in a city that is size 7 and on the coast?

That depends on whether the city is threatened by SABER transports.

Saying this not paying attention so if it doesn't make sense ignore it, could we go nuclear and nuke their stack?

If a city is about to shrink to 12 or 6 or misses a crucial production capacity, just join a worker before drafting.

We should not add SABER slaves because they will turn angry while we are at war with their nation (although they were sold once upon a time... :rolleyes: ).

I think we only have ten domestic workers right now and we might want to use some of them to build radar towers.

I'd rather sacrifice some slaves for radar towers.

We won't have any unit upkeep trouble any more after SABER has landed... :shake:

I think we cannot abstain from drafting any Mech Inf we can.

However our workers might be better planting forests around landing zones... :crazyeye:

Maybe FREE could give us some slaves along with a town in former GONG land? :groucho:
We should certainly ask for it. They will know (like we did) that their best resistance to SABER is a widespread care package for us. We should make sure they know that. :old:

We must keep enough workers to plant a ring of forests.
The rest should probably go into radar towers.

This is mission critical time. We can't worry about space race or "after the war" right now. It's all about survival. I say we draft, rush buy, and otherwise squeeze out every single military unit we can.

= my 2 cents.

What I'm planning is planting forests where I see the biggest threats and putting down radar towers. I'll also rush some more workers in < size 7 towns to get more radar towers.

Do radar towers work for ships, as well?

I have the save.

Pollution 2S of The Aerie

Chamber MA->MA
Treasury MA->MA
Gulag MA->MA
Institute MA->MA
Arboretum jet->jet
Greenhouse worker->worker
Whale pond sub->sub
Phoenix Sam->sam

SABER wacked all of our subs and most of the ships on our east coast. We have 2 subs on picket duty on the west coast, 1 NW of SCI, 1 in port in the nursery and 1 newly built in the whale pond

We have a cruiser SE of The Pier, an injured cruiser NE of the Hideaway, a veteran destroyer NE of the shallows, 3 BB, a carrier, a cruiser and 2 transports between SCI and our mainland, a destroyer E of The Ways, a destroyer S of FREE land, a destroyer between SABER and former GONG land.

My plan:

Use jets to find transport stack around the homeland and SCI. We are a little light in EWS in the south, which is a problem.
If SCI is not under attack, relocate bombers to the mainland to help defend against assault - if SCI is under attack, try to sink transports.
Upgrade all tanks
If we are in danger of an attack, try to cut off the ability of SABER to expand if they do get past the initial city - pillaging rails, planting forest.
Move a marine to where FREE says they will plant a city, so they can't do that easily.

We have a bunch of subs being built this turn - unless we are not under attack, I plan on turning those into MA, bombers or mobile sams:

I also plan on rushing MA. I will draft mechs unless I see absolutely no transports nearby.

Is it possible to do some of the EWS recon and post screenies? I know this means going back in and replaying the save but isn't that allowed if we redo the same recon moves?

That is what I'm planning.

I have attached the results of scouting to the south and west. This stack (2 carriers, 4 cruisers, 1 destroyer and 9 transports) are the only attack force that can land.

To the east of those is another destroyer. We have a cruiser in the area which cannot reach the main stack, so I think he'll whack the destroyer.

we have a couple of fighters that can attack the stack - everything else is out of position.

it looks like there isn't anything attack SCI, so, unless they have another stack someone I can't see, they will probably ship chain 54 units (9*6).

they can directly attack The Nursery with 8 bombers and what I think are 12 marines, some cruiser/destroyer bombardment. We can put enough in the Nursery so that they cannot possibly take it.

Alternately, they can land on the sugar next to the nursery or either of the grassland tiles between The New Yard and The Pier.

We currently have 52 MA, plus the 7 we get from upgrades, plus 5 that complete next week.

My thoughts:

Stick a stack in The Nursery. Build a radar tower on the mountain to the east of The Nursery and stack a bunch of units there, too, to keep it from being whacked.

I'll play this tomorrow.

Lol. 7 tiles out? We can put 20 units in The nursery and we will never lose :D

I wonder if they are gonna chain units or they gonna split their army up attacking 2 points.

Also a few questions. Can you bomb radar towers away?

And if you plan on rushing AT, remember to short rush something cheap and let the shields finish the build, so we don't waste to many shields, and no rushing in cities with 0 shields either since that is double up.

Also get our bombers back to the mainland, no point in bombing useless boats when we can bomb usefull units next turn :)

Yep, seven tiles from The Nursery seems like a clear mistake now.
I wonder if they got some surprise proving me wrong... :rolleyes:

At least we'll live another turn... :smug:
Should we build a settler and send it to FREE? :crazyeye:

Do Saber have Magellan's?

Edit: Of course they don't, we do!

Do Saber have Magellan's?
Do they know Electricity - just in case they captured GLH from BABEs :shifty:

Ah, checked. ;)

I'd even think the movement displayed with the stack already includes any wonder or trait provided bonus, right?

I have attached the results of scouting to the south and west. This stack (2 carriers, 4 cruisers, 1 destroyer and 9 transports) are the only attack force that can land.

...

it looks like there isn't anything attack SCI, so, unless they have another stack someone I can't see, they will probably ship chain 54 units (9*6).

they can directly attack The Nursery with 8 bombers and what I think are 12 marines, some cruiser/destroyer bombardment. We can put enough in the Nursery so that they cannot possibly take it.

Alternately, they can land on the sugar next to the nursery or either of the grassland tiles between The New Yard and The Pier.

My first question concerns our EWS. Were we able to do a full recon of our perimeter (including the area around SCI)? You seemed to hedge a bit on SCI.

Assuming there are no other transports in range it would seem the most SABER could bring to bear next turn are 12 marines and 8 bombers. Assuming they all attack and win (not likely but a worst case scenario) we would need 21 units on a tile to prevent a landing. With four potential landing tiles we'd need 84 units. We have 101 (counting marines, tanks, armor and mech infantry) but 25 of the mech inf is on islands. That leaves us 76 units which is 8 short, though this can be easily made up through drafting.

Can they bring more?

Well, we must remember that The Nursery is within bombing range of the rubber tile SE of Cattaraugus. Do we have any recon of that area regarding the presence of an airfield there? If they have one The Nursery could be facing another 10 bombers.

I'm not quite sure how ship chaining works but it seems to me SABER could build a few transports on their next turn that are in range of that stack of 9. New Saber Babes, Dirk and Estoc are port cities six tiles away from the transport stack. Does that mean any units loaded onto transports there could not attack on that turn since they would have to use their movement allowance to transfer to other transports? Kukri is only 5 spaces from the stack so a new transport there could carry more units that could attack. Since SABER can also build more marines we could be looking at 9 transports full of marines.

So The Nursery could potentially be hit by 18 bombers and at least 12 marines. We can see 17 SABER cities on their mainland (besides Kiruk). If each makes a marine that would be 39. They may or may not have 15 more cities to build marines. :dunno: I doubt they would bring 54 marines any way. The value of taking a city lies in what can be done the same turn and that requires some fast moving units.

Still, in order to ensure we don't lose The Nursery next turn we'd need a 73 unit garrison. (They could possibly bring 18 bombers and 54 marines to attack.) We have 76 units, can draft 22 and airlift one back from SCI giving us 99 units to work with. That leaves only 26 units left to cover the other three tiles where SABER can land.

Some recon on that tile near Cattaraugus would be valuable. No airfield there now means The Nursery wouldn't have to work about being bombed from that point. We should keep in mind also that SABER has another carrier somewhere that could possible add 4 bombers to the attack even without a Cattaraugus airfield. Can we tell where their bombers are based on the ships they bombed? :hmm:

It just doesn't seem we can categorically prevent a landing. We can prevent them from taking The Nursery but can't do that and stop them from landing on one of the other three tiles.

Do we play the odds and try to garrison The Nursery with what we think is enough and do the same on the other landing spots

OR

Do we stuff The Nursery with as many as 73 units to ensure its safety while leaving the three landing spots at risk?

If we choose the latter strategy, how to we handle the three landing spots? Do we leave them entirely open OR defend them as best we can? They may be bringing armies to land.

I've concentrated solely on worst case scenarios here, mainly because I am ignorant of combat odds for these units. We do have our SAM battery in The Nursery and one mobile SAM that can garrison The Nursery. The Nursery doesn't have a barracks so we can't move the tanks there and upgrade them this turn.

The number crunchers will have to take it from here.

I was planning on letting them land on open ground - I think any forces we put on the ground will get bombed and beat up. I'd rather have them land there than move to a position where they can threaten multiple cities and perhaps actually take one.

As for SCI - I did run an EWS around it and found no stack of ships.

I was planning on letting them land on open ground - I think any forces we put on the ground will get bombed and beat up. I'd rather have them land there than move to a position where they can threaten multiple cities and perhaps actually take one.

I agree. A landing in the open is the best we can expect.
Actually it's too good to become true. :dubious:
Even if it is a couple of armies stacked with mobile SAMs we should be able to kill them with MA.

The whole thing smells like a feint. They could have easily threatened multiple towns and even put their ships into range so they threaten to land-and-move from several cities. This would have been a real nightmare.

What would we have to pay for their military plans? :groucho:
Maybe it's worth an investment. Or did they uncover our spy? I'd have if I were them... :hmm:

We can still see the make-up of SABER's military so our spy must still be there.

It would cost 3698 to immediately steal their plans. It would only cost 44g to investigate Cattaraugus. Would that show an airfield if there was one? It would cost 100g to investigate Kukri. We have 1937g and rake in over 660gpt with research off.

I think it might - i think investigating them both makes sense, and I'll do so before playing on - I think we'll find the other transports (and probably carriers) in Kukri.

I haven't had a chance to look at the save myself, but I agree with the general chatter here - main thing is to have our cities well enough defended to avoid losing one to bombers and 12 marines. That should be easily doable.

If we stack our Mobile SAMs in the vulnerable cities, maybe we can take out some of their bombers if they try! :thumbsup:

If they can't land all 120 units (it does seem too-good-to-be-true that they've only got 9 Transports in range... but as long as we've double checked, I'll take it!), then we should definitely let them land in open terrain unopposed. [EDIT: by "open terrain" - I'm assuming we'll try to block any mountains and preferably hill tiles on which they could conceivably land]

Even if they bomb around the landing site, our MA should still be able to roll over the damaged terrain to get at their stack, right?

If we shore up our vulnerable cities, draft MECHs like crazy, and rush buy everything we can lay our hands on (focus on tanks & Mobile sam) then maybe we'll actually have a shot at this?

I'd say get as much units as possible in any kind of way now. There is no point in waiting to see what is gonna happen now. There is no time to lose. Bulk up for the bumpy ride.

I will move workers around so they can reroad any tiles that get pillaged by the bombers, since workers can't get hurt by bombers.

If they land this force next turn, I feel pretty confident we will repel them or at least beat holy hell out of them, enough that they may drop to weak vs. FREE, which might scare them a lot.

If they do NOT land next turn, life gets more complicated

Should we be moving our transports so we can ship chain some mech infantry back from SCI? :dunno:

We have to be aware that SABER may bring more than 12 marines. If they are ship chaining from Kukri they can bring the 12 marines they have now as well as any they finish making on their next turn. Any chance we can get those investigations done and the info posted before playing out our turn?

Chamnix must know how many units we have available. Do we really expect him to land 54 units just for us to kill them?

sure - I can ask for an extension and play the game tomorrow.

I'm thinking at the end of the turn if there is money left try to expose a SABER spy.

We have to be aware that SABER may bring more than 12 marines.

You've made this statement a couple times now. But we know, from our spy, that as of last turn Saber only has 12 marines. They could build more, of course. But for now –that's all we have to worry about.


If they do NOT land next turn, life gets more complicated



Chamnix must know how many units we have available. Do we really expect him to land 54 units just for us to kill them?


This is what's worrying me also.
There are 2 possibilities…
A) Chamnix does NOT know how many units we have, and they've underestimated us, thinking we've focused to much on economy for the space race. They will land this turn and get a nasty surprise.
B) Chamnix is NOT planning to invade next turn, but in 2 or 3 turns.


I'm not sure which is more plausible actually. I still can't believe our good fortune that there's no stack of all 17 Saber Transports in one place. Very very happy, but also shocked.

Either way is good for us… but we need to prepare for Option B.

How do we do that?
Rush a couple Nuke Subs maybe? To survive any new ships will probably have to stay in port – but if we rushed a couple nuke subs, with our Magellan Bonus, they have a range equal to Saber's transports… maybe they'd work?
Maybe the money would be better invested in Mobile SAMs? If we can prevent Saber from making good use of their Bombers, we'll be a long way towards defending our island.
Or finally – perhaps some rush-built Artillery is in order? We can't possibly get enough to pound a stack down in a significant way, but it could sure help us in taking out the Armies Saber is likely to land.

Thoughts?

ok - ran some investigations of Kukri, Cattaraugus and also Estoc, from which they could also reach the stack.

I;ll post the screen shots - highlights of information we gleam:

1) Neither Kukri nor Estoc having any transports in them - Kukri is building a battleship, Estoc a marine.
2) SABER is running 80% tax, 20% lux - no research, at all.
3) SABER has some serious weariness issues - even with 20% lux, estoc has 2 clowns. SABER is in mobilization, as well. Maybe we should have offered to negotiate peace between them and BABE?
4) SABER has only 1 source of aluminum hooked up - it's on one of the 1 tilers, up north. I think they have a 2nd aluminum on former BABEland - I assume they don't have any on their home island. If we cut that, we might get a bit of a break.

Well, I was going to take some more screen shots of the world, but I closed the game by accident. I spent 268 gold on investigations and the 7 armor upgrades will be another 420 gold, so there is another 1200 or so for rushes.

My worries:

I can only account for maybe 8 of the 33 SABER destroyers. I also have no idea where their other carrier and 8 transports are, nor where maybe 1/2 their cruisers are. They may be planning a secondary assault on us, they may be planning an assault on FREE... they may just have decided that they had to attack us now and the rest of their forces were out of position.

SABER forces from F3

12 marine
9 inf
10 tank
73 mech
71 MA
18 arty
17 trans
3 carrier
33 destroyer
8 MS
18 bomber
12 jet
5 army
13 cruiser
1 sipahi
13 captured arty

You've made this statement a couple times now. But we know, from our spy, that as of last turn Saber only has 12 marines. They could build more, of course. But for now –that's all we have to worry about.

I'll buy that now because AT investigated Kukri and Estoc and found no transports. But before we knew that there was the possibility that SABER's other 8 transports were in Kukri with another set to complete next turn. SABER could also have been building more marines set to complete on their next turn (in other cities). Any new marines could move by rail to Kukri and board the transports there (without using movement points), these transports could then sail to the other stack of transports, the marines could have boarded those transports without using movement points, the newly loaded transports could then have moved next to our shores and all those marines could then have attacked - and all this could have happened on SABER's next turn. (If I'm wrong on this will someone explain it to me - I never use ship chaining myself but I think this is how it works.)

Since we checked the cities that could possibly ship chain and found no transports we can now safely assume that the most SABER can bring is the 12 marines they had on their last turn. This is good since we can easily protect The Nursery. It also means that if they move so as to threaten other cities next turn (rather than land next turn) we'll (probably) still have to deal with only 12 marines.

This is what's worrying me also.
There are 2 possibilities…
A) Chamnix does NOT know how many units we have, and they've underestimated us, thinking we've focused to much on economy for the space race. They will land this turn and get a nasty surprise.

If they have a spy (which costs only 100g) they will know how many units we have and how many of each type just as we know how many they have. With SABER sitting on a huge pile of gold how I don't see how they would have failed to plant a spy. Poor as we are we scraped up the gold. I'd say this possibility is very small.

So it seems more likely that SABER will invade in two or three turns. The longer the better for us. Is it possible this is a feint to get FREE to attack us so SABER can attack FREE? :dunno: We'll have to just cover our behinds and wait and see.

There are two bombers in Cattaraugus and 5 in Kukri. Doesn't look like there is an airfield on that rubber tile. So the most SABER can bring next turn is 12 bombers - maybe not even that cause the third carrier isn't within our EWS.

I don't think they have 12 bombers on their carriers - I hope they do, to be honest, cause if they do, our 17 bombers and 4 or 5 fighters will make mincemeat of their carriers after they land.

My guess is that they only have 2 carriers here with 2 jets and 6 bombers. I'm also pretty sure they will land this turn, cause if they don't, they run a risk of having those transports sunk by bombers.

I'm actually pretty surprised how light the defense of that stack is.

These are a main production centers, their spt and how many shields in the box they have:

The Treasury 122 0
The Chamber 122 0
The Gulag 120 0
The Institute 80 0
The silo 78 78 (pollution - over 80 without it)
The admiralty 64 64 (building MA)
The Aerie 62 62 (buildnig MA)
The Arboretum 54 0
The Iglo 54 54 (Jet)
The Meeting Room 36 72 (sub in 1)
The Bayou 29 97 (destroyer in 1)
The Red Tape 25 25 (Sub in 3)
The Pier 23 112 (destroyer in 1)
The Phoenix 17 0
The New Yard 17 51 (Mobile Sam in 3)
The Ways 17 78 (Sub in 2)
The Nursery 14 14 (sub in 7)
Chamsuri's Cove 13 78 (sub in 2)
The beach 5 79 (sub in 5)
The marina 9 9 (transport in 11)
The Dislodged 5 85 (sub in 3)
The squeeze 5 41 (sub in 12)
The Whale Pond 4 (sub in 25)
The Tower (SCI) 3 33 (harbor in 9)

My thoughts:

The top 7 all have barracks and are producing our MA. Two of them which are producing 2 turn MA could produce 1 turn artillery, which may be a better use of them - 4 artys might be better than 2 MA in 2 turns.

We have 5 mobile sams, but 4 of them are on SCI - I can airlift 1 back to the mainland each turn.

I think subs, right now, are not all that useful for us.

My thoughts:

Turn The Arboretum to 1 turn artys
Let The Silo finish it's MA, then artys
The admiralty and Aerie build 2 turn MA
The Arboretum switches to a bomber
Meeting room and switch to mobile sam.

New yard has it's SAM rushed.
The Nursery is switched to a SAM and is rushed.

Chamsuri's Cove, The beach, The marina, The Dislodged, The Squeeze and The Ways switch to artys, rushing where needed.

if I can, short rush another SAM in The Phoenix, but with nothing in the box, that might be expensive (short rush a worker, than whatever is left)

The Bayou and the pier switch to bombers.

Basically, stop building jets and subs, get some artys and more bombers.

This will give us a bunch of mobile sams and some 20 odd bombers on the mainland.

The northern cities all get switched to artys which will be useful against an attack.

Thoughts?

If they have a spy (which costs only 100g) they will know how many units we have and how many of each type just as we know how many they have. With SABER sitting on a huge pile of gold how I don't see how they would have failed to plant a spy. Poor as we are we scraped up the gold. I'd say this possibility is very small.
True – but gold isn’t the only reason to avoid planting a spy.

It’s possible Saber was afraid that planting a spy would tip us off to their hostile intentions and avoided it for that reason. :dunno:

My guess is that they only have 2 carriers here with 2 jets and 6 bombers. I'm also pretty sure they will land this turn, cause if they don't, they run a risk of having those transports sunk by bombers.
I think those are both good guesses. I don’t know that I’m as sure as you – but I’d give a 65% odds that Saber lands this turn.



The top 7 all have barracks and are producing our MA. Two of them which are producing 2 turn MA could produce 1 turn artillery, which may be a better use of them - 4 artys might be better than 2 MA in 2 turns.

We have 5 mobile sams, but 4 of them are on SCI - I can airlift 1 back to the mainland each turn.

I think subs, right now, are not all that useful for us.

I think getting 4 Artillery instead of 2 Modern Armor is a great plan. Especially in view of the smaller stack Saber is likely to land. Combine that with the high probability that their invasion will include at least one army –having some more artillery could make a huge difference in the survival rate of our Modern Armor.

I think we should airlift the one Mobile SAM back, and try to rush buy at least one more.

re: Subs... you're probably right. those shields are better off as bombers artillery and Mobile SAMs for now.



if I can, short rush another SAM in The Phoenix, but with nothing in the box, that might be expensive (short rush a worker, than whatever is left)
If you disband a worker in the city, you’ll get 2 shields into the bin (iirc) and that lets you avoid the penalty for rushing an empty box (or is that just a Civ4 thing? :lol: )



…
Basically, stop building jets and subs, get some artys and more bombers.

This will give us a bunch of mobile sams and some 20 odd bombers on the mainland.

:agree:

I’m sorry I don’t have time to look at the save and offer more specific feedback – but I think you’ve got 100% the right goals at this point.

Mostly we need Artillery, Bombers, and Mobile SAMs.
Of course we want to keep adding to our stack of Modern Armor also – but we’re really hurting in the other categories more.

Having more Mech Infantry is also a plus, but we can draft those in a pinch.
And speaking of that… I don’t see any mention of a plan to draft units? Are you thinking our risk level is low enough right now that we don’t need to interrupt our production schedules for this?

I’m personally ok with that as long as we have enough artillery and bombers at the start of the next turn to be confident we can deal with any landing Saber is in position to make.

Bombers, artis are useless. Get us modern tanks, even if they are regular. Doing 1-2hp dmg is peanuts compared to killing actual units. If we win without taking big dmg, we can even attack again, the bomber and arti can't. We have good odds on EVERY battle (remember we did radar towers for a reason!)

MA can attack multiple times, which it surely will be able to do more often if it stays alive. Artys and bombers will reduce their strength, so they will be easier pickings.

I can see the argument for both sides...but we are short on bombers and arty now.

A mixture of units does not make the stack better. Going all out MA is better imo. There is no unit that even comes close to the power of an MA when you look at the cost.

Also the statement about 4 artis vs 2 ma is incorrect!
We have 6 ma ready next turn and only 1 city without enough shields to produce 1 ma next turn, it can't produce arti either (no wt bonus!).

I checked some numbers and if we focus on MA using our gold to short rush, we could have as many as 17 Modern armors built next turn! (10 regular) Bringing our total up to 76 (including upgraded tanks).

With that many tanks there is absolutely no way that Saber can kill us without help from FREE.

I agree. MA are most benefitting. :agree:

Arties can backfire if they are captured and bombers might be easy picks if their city / tile is captured.
MA hit twice or even three times and defend. That's fourfold value.

How do MA do against an MA army on a hill?
How many vet MA do we need to take out a 15/15 MA army with arty cover with 90% confidence?

So, the unit is almost to be considered as broken then?

We decided long ago that armor was our best defense and I think we should stick with that. Artillery and bombers do not get the mobilization bonus. I don't know that bombers are useless though. They can attack ships off shore, but with our navy virtually gone we can't really hope to sink anything with bombers, can we? We do need to ensure we have enough workers around though. It costs a worker to plant a radar tower.

This all seems way too easy though if SABER just lands 54 units. I can't see them landing 54 armor, not with all those armies. And they'll want to have a settler or three along. Not knowing where those other SABER transports are should make us very wary. I guess we should leave the ship chian ni place as is in case the other half of SABER's transports show up off the coast of SCI.

We decided long ago that armor was our best defense and I think we should stick with that. Artillery and bombers do not get the mobilization bonus. I don't know that bombers are useless though. They can attack ships off shore, but with our navy virtually gone we can't really hope to sink anything with bombers, can we? We do need to ensure we have enough workers around though. It costs a worker to plant a radar tower.

This all seems way too easy though if SABER just lands 54 units. I can't see them landing 54 armor, not with all those armies. And they'll want to have a settler or three along. Not knowing where those other SABER transports are should make us very wary. I guess we should leave the ship chian ni place as is in case the other half of SABER's transports show up off the coast of SCI.

Mobilization is a good point.
Didn't consider that.

I did in fact think about bombers as an attack for towards their ships.

And I agree on the last part. A skilled player would not throw in a little expeditionary force for it to be most likely gobbled up like that. I smell a feint of some kind.

More exact:

We currently have 11 workers and 25 slaves.
We have spent 268 gold on espionage and 420 on upgrade. Our gold is now: 1249.

The simple stuff first:
The Bayou to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Pier to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Chamber to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Gulag to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Silo to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Treasure to build MA: Complete in 1 turn
The Admiralty to build MA: Complete in 1 turn

And this is where it gets a little tricky:
The Meeting room:
Currently: Sub - 72s, production: 36s
1. Give tobacco mine from The Silo to The Meeting Room
2. Mine plains SE of The Meeting Room with 3 regular workers, so it gets 40 shields (50-10), then Rush buy a cav (80s) for 32 gold and switch build to MA
Result: The Meeting room will complete MA next turn, with no waste.

The Beach:
Currently: Sub - 79s, production: 5s
Rush buy Modern Armor, it costs 164g.
Result: The Beach will complete MA next turn with 5 shields wasted.

The Ways:
Currently: Sub - 78s, production: 17s
1. Mine only irragated grass in range with regular workers.
2. Change taxmen to Policemen
3. Shortrush submarine for 88g and switch to MA
Result: The Ways will complete MA next turn, with no waste.

The Dislodged:
Currently: Sub - 86s, production: 6s
1. Give Mined game and mined bg from The Phoenix to The dislodged.
2. Rush Buy mech infantry for 96g, and switch to MA
Result: The Dislodged will complete MA next turn, with no waste.

Chamsuri's Cove:
Currently: Sub - 78s, production: 14s
1. Rush Buy mech infantry for 128g, and switch to MA
Result: Chamsuri's Cove will complete MA next turn, with 4s wasted.

The Igloo:
Currently: Jet Fighter - 54s, production: 54s
1. Clear Pollution with 5 workers and 2 slaves use it in The Igloo.
2. Take regular mined grass 2 squares SW of The Igloo from The Silo and give it to The igloo (move used lake tile, which you can then give to Chamsuri's Cove, instead of it's taxmen).
Result: The Igloo will complete MA next turn, with no waste.

The New Yard:
Currently: Mobile Sam - 51s, production: 17s
1. Switch 1 ocean tile to one of the unused mountains
2. Rush Buy Mobile sam for 196g, and switch to MA
Resulta: The New Yard will complete MA next turn, with 1s wasted.

The Red Tape:
Currently: Submarine - 35s, production: 25s
1. Rushbuy Submarine for 300g and switch to MA
Result: The Red Tape will complete MA next turn, with 5s wasted.

The Institute:
Currently Modern Armor - 0s, production: 80s (or so).
1. Disband slave (or worker if you prefer to use 2 slaves for previous worker tasks).
2. Rush buy Cruise missles for 232g and switch to MA
Result: The Institute will complete MA next turn, with some 20s wasted, but if we give some tiles to The Arboretum it can do 2 turn armors with 62s prod.

Summed up Result:
Complete next turn:
17 Modern Armor and 13g left.

This still leaves us with 22 slaves or 21 slaves left to move, depending on which worker you disbanded. It takes 2 workers or 3 slaves to complete a road in one turn.

I'm fine with building regular MA's, if everyone thinks that's a better way to go.

The reason why bombers may not be useless is because they have very little protection for their stack of transports - we might be able to kill some expensive naval units, including transports - won't help with the first run of units, but might help keep a 2nd group away.

I don't THINK we need to draft mechs yet.

We could draft mechs out of The Red tape, The Squeeze and The Marina for only one lost commerce per mech, I would draft out of those cities for sure. Drafting from the rest i'm not to keen on, as the loss is much greater. Such as losing defensive values from metros, cities.

Btw, Free got Fission this turn to.

Do not forget to plant Radars wherever SABER might attack (The Nursery + covered coastal tiles). :old:
Where possible, two tiles from the coast so no battleship can shell them.

Cover those radars with Mech Infs and Mobile SAMs if possible or jet fighters on sentry duty.

I'd limit drafts to those possible without too much hurt. :agree:

I think the mountain AT suggested earlier was good idea (assuming the tower covers 5x5 tiles, like the jet), put a few marines/mechs and on the mountain and it can't be destroyed, at least not by their puny airforce.

I don't plan on contesting the open tiles they can land on. They'll just kill whoever is there with a bomber anyway.

Btw, Free got Fission this turn to.

:hmm: Don't like the sound of that. They also have a leader, don't they? We must keep an eye out for Manhattan.

Very good work on the MMing for more MAs Yilar.

I think they have an MGL, not an SGL.

Btw, how does it work out with tech costs, once a civ gets the tech? It gets cheaper right?

Say FREE were to get Space Flight in say 8 turns, would there be a pricedrop in amount of breakers needed and if so how much?

Say FREE were to get Space Flight in say 8 turns, would there be a pricedrop in amount of breakers needed and if so how much?
Back when we were five it was like 11% IIRC.
Not sure what it's like with four of us but one could take a look at one of our monopoly techs back when CA2 still worked... :rolleyes:

Maybe FREE starts an attempt for a diplomatic victory? :eek:
That is imo the only vc that should have been disabled for this game...

There would be a price drop, yes.

I think it's a larger drop with only 4 in the game, but I don't remember how much of a drop it is.

Would it be big enough to drop our maximum research time from 5 to 4? The monopoly cost was 9000 (I think), at 2k breakers@100% it would have to drop about 1000breakers or about 12% to 8000 for us to do it in 4 turns..

ok - I'm pretty much swayed on the Modern Armor thing - but are we sure we don't want at least a couple more Mobile SAMs?

If we had a least a few Mobile SAMs that would allow us cover our mountain tiles with stacks of Mechs with much less risk.
I'd really rather not have to attack Saber Armies stationed on a mountain tile :ack: - especially if we've decided to forgo building any artillery.


We could draft mechs out of The Red tape, The Squeeze and The Marina for only one lost commerce per mech, I would draft out of those cities for sure. Drafting from the rest i'm not to keen on, as the loss is much greater.
:agree: I'd draft out of those 3 cities, and that's enough for now.


Btw, Free got Fission this turn to.
I'm 90% sure it's ~11% discount when another Civ that knows a tech no matter how many players in the game.
Still, this is disturbing news.

Btw, AT when you do play the save. Remember to set all builds that are not completing this turn to something that gives the mobilization bonus (except for the harbor in the island city, which we can't change due to rules).

absolutely.

I'm ok with not building artys, but I agree that we should build a couple of mobile sams instead of regular MA. We build a lot of MA each turn, anyway.

It's not 11% regardless of how many players in the game. IIRC it's 50% discount once all players know the tech (obviously no one will actually have 50% discount since they would have to have it then already), and a flat distribution between. So with 5 players, each other player that has the tech would lead to a 10% discount. With 4 players, that's 12.5% per other player.

However, I have no idea whether killed players are counted, so I can't say whether it's 10% or 12.5% in this case.

oh yeah - I was thinking it was 12.5% in every case (hense my " ~ " before.) :)

Glad you know what you're talking about at least, Niklas! :thumbsup:

The formula can be found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4807833&postcount=2

(this is one of the first threads we had in this forum!)

basically, with 4 civs left, 1 team having a tech gives us a 15% discount. If we whack BABE, it becomes a 20% discount.

I'm going to play it in an hour (7 pm EST) - unless I get a lot of objection, I'm going to follow Yilar's outstanding MM plan, though I will probably make an extra mobile sam or two.

I'll pull back all the bombers from SCI, and the planes from the carrier, as well.

Sounds good Mr. First Chairman! :thumbsup:

Go! Fight! Win!

I agree with Yilar's plan for the most part, though I would really like to avoid the extremely expensive regular MAs in The Beach and The Red Tape, and the one from The Institute is also much too expensive for my tastes. If you could build SAMs in the two former, and mm The Institute to build manually instead, I would be happy. That's still 14 MAs, assuming you don't want to build yet another SAM or two, which I would also be fine with.

Go go go! :)

Thanks for all the input!!!

I think next turn will be easier - if they land, it will be one big, long, bloody battlelog. If they don't, I'll try to bomb their little fleet.

If they land on the continent, capture a city and unload all the explorers raping every rail/road within the reach of their stack we are doomed.

A good alternative for MA is TOW´s

If they land on the continent, capture a city and unload all the explorers raping every rail/road within the reach of their stack we are doomed.
At least next turn it should be impossible - their ships cannot enter The Nursery. :smug:

Thanks for all the input!!!

I think next turn will be easier - if they land, it will be one big, long, bloody battlelog. If they don't, I'll try to bomb their little fleet.

Have to remember they built Mobile Sams. Do these work even if on transport?

Have to remember they built Mobile Sams. Do these work even if on transport?

No way they do. It is the transport who has to defend. The units are loaded into it.
It is not like when in a city, that there are several units defending, depending on air or land units attacking it.

Well I tested it, the mobile sam DOES work on transport :eek:

Well I tested it, the mobile sam DOES work on transport :eek:
:(
that is completely irrational

Well I tested it, the mobile sam DOES work on transport :eek:

:ack: Good job to test it. I'd have bet quite an amount of money that it won't work... :mischief:

I guess I'll keep learning new stuff about C3C in ten more years... :hammer2:

seriously?

you know - I bet you that SABER doesn't even know that.

For all I know, this is the first time anyone has even tried it (assuming they have)

That radically changes how I deal with that stack if they don't land :(

Best we can do with bombers right now is knock out Sabers 2-3 boat stacks. Unless we wanna try our luck vs the mobile sams.

gaaa - If we had known that, we could have included a transport with Mobile SAM in our bigger stacks of naval units. poo.

Let's just hope that Saber does NOT know that. It's not something I ever would have thought to even test.

gaaa - If we had known that, we could have included a transport with Mobile SAM in our bigger stacks of naval units. poo.

Let's just hope that Saber does NOT know that. It's not something I ever would have thought to even test.

On the bright side if we had done that, SABER would know for sure now... ;)

Should we test some more impossible game mechanics?
I mean, did anybody really test if explorers are unable to move on after landing? :shifty:

:yup:

It's too late now, but we really should know what to expect from those explorers.
My money says they CAN move after landing. Why else would Saber build them? :crazyeye:

There's no defense to that, if they can do that - they would just bomb away any units we put to block them.

But I just ran a test, and the explorer couldn't move after unloading onto a grass tile.

I tested it also and the explorers can't move after landing.

whew! That's good news.

So what DOES Chamnix have up his sleeve? :hmm:

It may be our rapid buildup took them by surprise.

1140 AD, SABER had 53 MA and we had 16
1210 AD, SABER had 71 MA and we had 46. We have been outproducing them nearly 2-1 in MA - given that we are doing this AND researching - they may just have said "we have to go now!!"

That's the optimistic way of talking, of course - that we forced them into a hasty invasion. ;)

Wonder what they will think next turn when we have more MA than them :p

Battlelog from Saber:

By The Marina:

4/4 destroyer vs. 4/4 sub -> 4/4 destroyer

West of The Greenhouse:

5/5 destroyer vs. 2/4 cruiser -> 4/5 destroyer

South of The New Yard:

4/4 destroyer misses bombarding the 2/5 cruiser
3/4 destroyer misses bombarding the 2/5 cruiser
4/4 cruiser vs. 2/5 cruiser -> 4/5 Saber cruiser

Northwest of Babe Colony:

2 bombers sink 4/4 sub


I thought we were gonna put our boats in our cities so we didn't lose em, guess that is out the window now :(

No marine attacks, very interesting. Let's hope FREE hurries up, I want to see that save! :bounce:

Should we start a new thread now for turn 239?

That battle log could serve as the inaugural post :)

Maybe we need to do our second ever clairvoyant poll:

Did SABER land, or didn't they?

Wonder what they will think next turn when we have more MA than them :p

Battlelog from Saber:



I thought we were gonna put our boats in our cities so we didn't lose em, guess that is out the window now :(

I did some scouting with those boats.

And I must have screwed up with the sub near The Marina. That was supposed to be out of harms way :(