The Maverick Invasion

Our recent map trade has proven very beneficial for the war effort:



We have some details to hammer out.

The first being which city should we attack first: Iron City or Injinya? Should we be cocky and split and attack both? I'd rather be safe than sorry and stick with one. Iron City's fall probably won't deny them iron due to some heavy culture, so I'd lean towards assaulting Injinya first. The mavericks don't have optics yet, so for now we can sit two tiles outside a border the turn before we actually attack.

The second being what do we do depending on the defense of the city. I assumed we'd go in amphibiously- when does this turn unacceptable? What defense is so suicidal that we call off the attack? I guess it boils down to what casulaties are we happy with?

Well it looks like we can launch this turn after we finish upgrading our last two loaded warriors to maces (do they stay loaded after upgrading?).

We can get the injinya in 4 turns or Iron city in 5. I think we should target Iron city though. We want to be able to choke their iron asap to shut down their crossbow production. And presumeably landing on or adjacent to Iron city will put us near their one source of iron.

EDIT: note that the angled direction I have us coming in at allows us to move from outside visual range to within striking distance in one turn (one of the exploits of a tile map ).

I would rather go for Injinaya since it is faster and easier to resupply. The iron is inland (right in the middle probably), and will very likely still be reached by Maverick culture. Also, Gold City is nowhere near any gold, so that is not necessarily a good indicator.

I would recommend landing beside the city if you see a crossbowman inside. Ultimately, RegentMan, you will have to decide whether or not to strike, though you will have around 20 hours to ask our opinions if you move right at the beginning and then attack at the end.

With Injinya they will get a 1-turn warning that we are coming though (thanks to optics). If we attack Iron city from an angle we could potentially take the city from the sea before they even know we are coming. And we will then be better positioned to pillage their iron which will be essential to stopping their crossbow spamming.

I hadn't seen they had optics before, so Iron City it is- the one turn wait is worth the complete surprise. We should move our caravels to the point after we attack to try and cut off the island from the mainland, so they cannot reinforce from there.

But If we move our caravels away what will stop their 2 triremes (soon to be upgraded to caravels) from raiding our seafood?

Oh yeah. Let's build more caravels then!

I'd actually say build more galleons in the short term as these are more useful than caravels and attack at 4 vs. a caravel's 3.

I guess it depends on how close we are to chemistry, which we will hopefully find out soon.

Something strikes me as odd so I guess I should check: Don't galleons have four movement even without circumnavigation? (checked - seems to be yes...) Can't we move still from out of sight and hit Injinya anyway?

I would actually try to hit both cities at once if possible. If we truly expect/hope they won't have enough defenses and a straight out amphibious attack would do it, that far maximizes our gains.

If it succeeds, that's two cities before they know what hit them. If it fails, worst case we simply don't disembark from the Galleons or don't disembark onto open/indefensible tiles, next turn both forces can regroup and land together to siege a city.

I still like Galleons overall for more boats and getting a force over to the peninsula soon as well. They don't seem to have much siege - if we could land some maces and trebs where they can't easily counterattack, the trebs will do quick work pretty soon.

With optics Mavs will be able to see 3 tiles past their culture. Since their culture is two tiles out to sea now that is 5 tiles total of enemy visibility that we have to traverse before we strike...unless we hit them at an angle like the one near Iron City

I wouldn't risk splitting our stack until the final move turn. At that point we can send one galleon (with all maces) in to take a look at Iron city. If it is easily attackable we take it and then reinforce with one more galleon load. The other galleons then head straight to Injinya instead of moving next to Iron City.

cav scout said:

With optics Mavs will be able to see 3 tiles past their culture.

Click to expand...

Is that really true? I mean not to doubt the plan then, if you're right that's right and the strongest and safest plan is coming in at an angle like you've said. I'll check on it too if I find anything interesting, I just didn't remember how much sight you could get over water, usually don't care or rely on planes/airships in sp lategames anyway.

I certainly wouldn't split before the last turn either, don't get me wrong - it would of course be to send one galleon at most to see if another city is empty on the turn we land anyway, don't split or reveal our hand before then. Just that if we're not in position to do that (make it to two cities) we could consider if it's worth the risk. Though just taking Iron City the first turn but not losing anything/still able to move in on subsequent turns is also great of course.

Hmmm I just checked our screens and It looks like I was wrong about optics pushing our sight distance to 3 tiles over water.

So I suppose we could sneak attack their Southern city. I think the other reasons to go after Iron city first are still valid but more than anything I just want to attack the Mavs . So whatever you guys want to do, i'm on board (except just don't split the stack until we know for sure what we are up against!)

Well it's good that we now have a more precise understanding of that, it's not something I ever worry about with AIs so I never really think of it. I vote for the southern city since it's faster, easier to reinforce, and I remain skeptical that Iron City is, in fact, near iron. But it's not a big difference really. I think we should use one boat at a time to attack the city (if the attack is amphibious), and if we manage to capture the city with enough troops left over we can move on to the next city. If it's too risky to attack amphibiously, we should land all 12 units on a hill outside the city, since the counterattack could do some damage.

This is what we see:

The plan is to unload the other ships on that hill. The offshore one is out of moves.

Or is it the plan...?

Sounds good to me. If you put the off shore one on to the rice you might cause some distraction, but it might be safer to leave them in. It's interesting that one of those units is wouunded, I wonder why that is.

We have a tactical move to make next turn. As expected, the mavericks retook Injinya.

For reference, here is the mavericks' home island:


Our stack can reach the sea next to Injinya (Beta Centauri) in three turns (two if they go SE-SE onto the gems). Our galleons can drop off our trebuchet reinforcements onto an Injinya-adjacent tile in three turns.

1) We can keep the trebuchets a secret right up to them landing IF we move our iron stack next turn (moving SE-SE-S). Of course, the mavs might put two-and-two together when they see our stack move next to Injinya that reinforcements have arrived.

2) We can also not move the iron stack next turn and instead wait until the turn after (moving SE-SE then). However, this would require our galleons to be seen the turn before they're able to drop off their cargo.

I'm thinking of heading with 1).

What do you guys think? Both of these ideas are based off of the idea that we're still going to hit Injinya next. Is this still the case, or does Iron City or even the capital present a better option? There is that maverick stack to watch out for- Sirius unfortunately did not have an impressive garrison (at least not one at full health). Also, once our iron stack leaves, that opens it for re-hooking up.

What would be nice to know is if Sirius has any reinforcements. I see a fast worker 1 turn away from the iron, so if we go for Injinya, they will have time to make a few iron units before we turn to Iron City. Would it be feasible to leave a defender or two on the iron? If they attack it, it will come out of the stack at Injinya.

I guess I'm leaning towards option 1.

Me as well. If we delay, all we do is give them more of a chance to heal with option 2.

They have lots of forces showing, including 2 cats... so our stack is actually in some danger. We need to stay on the hills for sure right now. If we were to step out onto the flatland we'd probably get clobbered. It might be best to to take the long safe route back up to iron city and capture that as a foothold once our trebs arrive by sea.