Preparing for a possible invasion.

Aigburth said:

Well, what else am I to do with this new info except produce some more map analysis



If what Saber tell us is true, I think this places Babe on the beta continent (as I named it on my previous map).

Two galley's seems too small for an invasion force, my guess is they each contain a settler and escorting unit, probably bound for the island to our north west!

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If that is a correct annalysis it seems odd that babe would go after us. Free would be a much more logical target considering that that we are farthes from Babe.

If they are at Beta continent, the two closest would be Gong and Saber. If Gong and Babe are the other way around, then the two closest would be Gong and Free. No matter how you look at it, we are far away from them. The only reason I can see for them targeting us is that they fear us in the long run.

or see us as an easy target in the short run.

I really think we should take this seriously, and put some millitary at the coast they are going to land on (was it south west? south east? don't remember).

What we can do to counter a threat and perhaps look like a less easy target:

- upgrade 3 (veteran) warriors to MDI for 270 gold.
- switch The Institute to (regular) horse. This will cost us a few shields, but not many (6, IIRC).
- use the remaining settler to found on a 1 tile island, simply because a mainland location couldn't be defended in case of an attack.
- build a road connection between The Admiralty and The Ways.
- keep workers away from the shores, unless protected.
- move galleys to the most likely point(s) of attack. If the above map is right, that would probably be via SABER, so either from the NW or the SW.

I would focus defenses on the SouthEast, where we have a decent roadnet and our most valuable towns. The North and West are quite undefensible at our current troop levels and the state of our road network.

I agree with zyxy.

I also think we maybe should switch our scientists to taxmen. No, it doesn't make a lot of difference, but we can use the gold to perhaps cash rush spears/pikes.

I think we'll get an AC before BABE lands, as well.

zyxy said:

- upgrade 3 (veteran) warriors to MDI for 270 gold.

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This has to wait some turns... but we should draw those warriors (plus some regulars) to the Admirality.

zyxy said:

- switch The Institute to (regular) horse. This will cost us a few shields, but not many (6, IIRC).

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I agree to press the panic buttom here. This is one of the few actions that also work immediately.

zyxy said:

- use the remaining settler to found on a 1 tile island, simply because a mainland location couldn't be defended in case of an attack.

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IIRC BABE should come from S-SW. I don't think they sail around our whole island to land where we are about to found our final towns.

zyxy said:

- build a road connection between The Admiralty and The Ways.

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Roads all around the coast are good. We'll want to seize our home field advantage and have our units at speed 6 while the BABEs do 1-2 tiles per turn.
So roads are more important than mines and irrigations right now. clearing jungles should be delayed.

zyxy said:

- keep workers away from the shores, unless protected.

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If we got enough units around, workers should block strategical important tiles. I recall someone telling that workers can't block landings in C3C. This sounds strange to me. How does this work? Is the worker captured?
I never saw this happen, can anyone confirm or disprove?

zyxy said:

- move galleys to the most likely point(s) of attack. If the above map is right, that would probably be via SABER, so either from the NW or the SW.

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If they really attack now, their force might be rather small, like 5 loaded galleys. They might try to sail a rather indirect route where we won't detect them too early so they could launch a surprise attack. I wonder if they also discovered the distribution of the continents...

zyxy said:

I would focus defenses on the SouthEast, where we have a decent roadnet and our most valuable towns. The North and West are quite undefensible at our current troop levels and the state of our road network.

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Should we ask them to leave our shores before their scout maps our coast?
Should we ask SABER to do the same?

I still wonder why they should have told SABER about their intention to attack us. I can't find any advantage of such a move...

Re their anarchy - they might have timed the attack with the end of their anarchy so they would have their Golden Age right after founding a republic. For such a move, only SABER and The Council are designated victims. No chance to counter such an assault with an own Golden Age.

Their first force might be small, just enough to trigger a Golden Age and cause some chaos...


edit: One more thing we could do right now: In The Igloo (18 shields in stock) we could get a reg spear by disbanding a reg warrior. A pike might help giving our horses shelter...

There has been discussion about blocking the coasts (for defensive purposes) in the SABER thread. I think it's a good idea. While we can''t really defend our whole coast that way we can target the areas we think BABE will target. At the very least this may give us some turns to prepare for an actual landing.

Now, some questions. Where are the most likely areas of our coast that BABE would approach? (We all look to Aigbrth here for some more map analysis.) What units would be best to use in such a strategy (warriors, pikes, MDI, Ancient Cavalry, horsemen or a mix)? How many units could we support for such a defense? How much of a coastal road network do we want?

donsig said:

There has been discussion about blocking the coasts (for defensive purposes) in the SABER thread. I think it's a good idea. While we can''t really defend our whole coast that way we can target the areas we think BABE will target. At the very least this may give us some turns to prepare for an actual landing.

Now, some questions. Where are the most likely areas of our coast that BABE would approach? (We all look to Aigbrth here for some more map analysis.) What units would be best to use in such a strategy (warriors, pikes, MDI, Ancient Cavalry, horsemen or a mix)? How many units could we support for such a defense? How much of a coastal road network do we want?

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Initially, I though of a core of 4 units of so at each expected point, but with a horsie or two on each flank of those cores, so that they could be moved to another core if needed.
This depends on the city locations and roads too of course, and I have not looked into it in detail.
For example: If our coast is like this and the p's are pike and the h's horsies: -------------ppphh---------hhppphh---------hhpppp--------

Horsies could move between the cores to reinforce.
And Trebs in the centre of those pikes?

Not sure if this is a good idea at all, I just had an initial though I wanted to share before I forgot

Looks like I cross-posted Donsig in the Saber thread, I think this is the best place to discuss coast blocking so I will repost here.

For reference I have included two of my previous map analysis posts here: -





I already suspect BABE to be located on beta continent based upon what SABER have told us about BABES's galley's and island settling, it would be nice to find out from SABER where they think BABE are located to hopefully confirm my suspicions. If we can confirm that BABE is indeed on beta, for instance, then we know they will have to come down either routes beta1 or beta2. Route Beta2 would require them to sail some length along SABER's coast, giving us plenty of warning and thus making beta1 the biggest threat. In such a scenario we would want to block our north west coast, if SABER sees BABE ships sailing along its north coast then we divert troops to our south east (though not all troops as it could just be a diversion).

In conclusion, its vital we get as much intel as possible on where BABE are located. General_W, could you possibly bring this up in your next chat with Dutchfire?

I will certainly see what I can get out of Dutchfire as soon as possible.
In addition to ground forces, I think it would be immensely valuable to get even just a couple boats out to try to keep an eye on the most likely passages.

While I'm pretty sure (90&#37 that Saber will warn us, there's a small possibility that they may cut a deal with BABE to avoid getting hit.
I really doubt it… but still, trust but verify.

The focus of our defense should be in the North where that passage connects, but I'd feel better if we could get a Galley into that little strip there between us and Saber.

I think it is absolutely true that babe is where you show it. Why? Cause if they were on the other continent, they would have met FREE before SABER. Everybody is next to two civs.

This means that BABE will come from either the northwest or the southwest and we can pretty well be sure they won't be coming from the East.

The BABE galleys have a movement of 4 tiles. Once they reach the coast (we hopefully blocked), they can move to either direction and drop their units immediately, which makes a block of at elast 10 tiles necessary.

If roaded, horses and ACs would do a good job, until roaded a worker will do it best - ah there was this new thing I questioned somewhere else: Are we sure that workers can't block anymore in C3C? I already learned some completely new things here so I won't be too surprised but I never saw or tried that before...

However our workers would take their time to get there and to road those tiles and can't improve our core in the meantime

please just read below!

Ok – should have waited a bit more before posting…

Here's version 3!

Force requirements…
To be safe from the shortest notice BABE invasion: 3
To be safe from the turn two of a BABE invasion: 13
To be extra safe from the turn two of a BABE invasion: 16

What do you think?


Does this look right, or am I missing something?
And I'm pretty sure (99&#37 you can't block with workers in C3C

I just did a little test and confirmed that, in fact, workers don't block landings. Neither do scouts nor settlers.

Your analysis seems sound, assuming they come at us from the North. They might come from the South, in which case we have more territory to cover, I fear.

I assume the same is true for catapults?

AutomatedTeller said:

Your analysis seems sound, assuming they come at us from the North. They might come from the South,

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Are you talking about the un-confirmed Southern passage?
We REALLY need to go take a look for that.

If they come from the South-West, ala their Curragh that made contact - then we should have warning from Saber, correct?

I didn't test cats. I'll try that, too.

There almost has to be a southern passage. And yes - we should get warning from SABER. Or FREE, if they come that way. But it looks like peace for us and bad times for SABER.

It will be interesting to hear about the cat test.

Would a city on the watcher island see further than just a unit stationed there? A city on the northern island would be an even earlier look out. With 30 turns of peace we should reconsider settling that island.

Turning to the General's line. One of the three first turn tiles is one we've earmarked for a city, as are two of the second turn tiles. Getting those cities in place cuts the required units to 2 and 10. We would also need a road network up there.

For what it's worth, I still think the invasion would come more to the west but we really have no proof there is a sea lane there.