SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

bcool said:

I would like a few hours to comment on any war plan

If I get that then I’m okay if you play Mitchum

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I won't have time to put a proper PPP together tonight, so this may be tough. Maybe I'll play some turns on Friday if we can't get it lined up for tomorrow.

You have some great ideas here on modern warfare. I'm not being critical, but I'm taking my minimalist approach here. If we don't need it, let's not waste the effort trying to make it happen. I used that filter when reviewing this post.

bcool said:

-Flight in 1 turn
--Airports in Moscow and other key cities that can build them in 1 turn)
----can move workers/ military units to where we need them in 1 turn

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I'm not sure that flight in 1 turn this is necessary. Any city that has the production to build a 1-turn airport is currently building space parts. Any fighters/bombers we build can be re-based anywhere on the map in 1 turn, so we don't have to build them right away. I would prefer to run 100% gold and to use gold to upgrade a few thing. I like the idea of airports to be able to get units from Moscow to Chengdu in 1 turn, but I think learning it in 2 turns is fine.

bcool said:

--upgrade/build 6+ fightes for defense against roosy’s airships and later to station on aircraft carriers (and to soften up targets
---aircraft carriers really work well with marines for island assaults, they make the difference (fortified riflemen in cultural defensive city need a little softening up even for marines)
--4+ bombers to soften up targets/ destroy key resources

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I think Roosevelt's island cities will be very easy to pick off (LA, SF and Sea). Those on his mainland southern coast can be reached from Old India or Old China by fighters/bombers. As we take cities we can move our air force forward to always provide air support. I think aircraft carriers would be nice, but are not necessary. Plus they would take time to build and to get into position. It's a bit overkill...

bcool said:

--somehow get uranium in 2-4 turns (for 1-2 ICBM/tactical nukes)
--sushi executive sent by airport to city in ice with nearby uranium?
--sushi executive to flip uranium on Gandhi’s lands
---settler to settle next to roosy’s uranium when we take out the city next to it (not easy since this is where his stack is

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I'm not sure we need uranium. I think this war can be easily won with Modern Armor, marines, our current units upgraded to infantry, fighters, bombers, transports and a few destroyers.

bcool said:

---hit roosy’s city with the statue of zeus in it first

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This is a good goal, but not a requirement, right? If WW becomes a problem, we just raise the slider. Had we fought Roosevelt earlier in the game, this would have been a key move.

bcool said:

submarine for tactical nukes and/or cruise missiles
--cities with ~60 production can crank out cruise missiles especially if they are far from the action.
---nice for island hopping or nasty high promotion rifleman

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I've actually never used cruise missiles. In fact, I don't fight too many modern wars. I tend to do most of my warring the in the BC and early AD years. But again, I think this is a luxury that we can live without. Although I'm speaking without any experience here...

bcool said:

switch to slavery but not police state
--represention would allow us to tech refrigeration and robotics in a useful timeline
---refrigeration +1 water movement is big
----robotics 3 pop drafts of mech infantry, missile carrying battleships
--Or advanced flight (gunships anyone? you have to love them)

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With how close Roosevelt's cities are, I think hopping from one to the next can be done without Refrigeration, although it would definitely help boats built further away get into the action 1/2 to 1 turn sooner I guess. I like mech infantry but I prefer modern armor. Do we really need them? A drafted infantry should be quite effective against riflemen, I think. Our battles may be 90% instead of 99%, but they should do the trick (said without doing any math).

bcool said:

Kamchatka has drydock now, use for aircraft carrier / destroyers /submarine
--Fish does as well but not very good location anymore
--New channel for boats from Fish?

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I think Fish is too far away to build boats. Kamchatka is an excellent place to build our North Sea fleet though.

bcool said:

With slavery food =hammers so more seafood resources
--settler in city settled on the coal (for 2 seafood resource sites to the south)
----new cities have a net +30 research/ wealth just from trade routes
--fish north of China?

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I saw that settler and was wondering what he was slated for.

bcool said:

--don’t draft in highest pop cities including GP Farm (since trade route income is based on those high pop cities empire wide)

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OK, but once we've upgraded our old troops, why do we need a lot of gold?

bcool said:

--use fighters/bombers/spies to prevent roosy access to oil and uranium
----use them to destroy all of his key happiness resources (especially nice to do with fighters and aircraft carriers)

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Taking out oil and uranium make sense. I would prefer to use the air force to soften up defenders though, so I would put a low priority on bombing happiness resources.

bcool said:

--flip roosy to different civics (does this cause him anarchy if a spy does this?) If it doesn't probably not worth it.

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Even if it doesn't cause anarchy (which it should since it does if someone asks us to change), it should prevent him from changing to war civics for 2 to 3 turns. It's worth a try.

bcool said:

--build the Cristo Redeemer. So can whip, switch back to caste system next turn for hammer bonueses, then whip the following turn, etc. Dip into serfdom if necessary.

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Seems like a lot of hammers for this. I would prefer to use the high-hammer cities to crank out modern armor.

bcool said:

--use Ivan the Terrible for some evil purpose.

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Maybe we can name our submarine Ivan...

bcool said:

--whip airports (OF into units) in key but not so great production cities.

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Good idea, although if the city has poor production, it won't be building too many units unless it whips/drafts a lot. I guess both whipping and drafting make a lot of sense for a quick buildup. When can we afford to leave Caste System? T0, T+1 or T+2. What other civics make sense. I would vote for:

Police State
Nationhood
Slavery
Free Market
Theocracy

bcool said:

--land units where barracks and GG are, air units where production is lower and have airports high promotion planes have great range option sometimes key, boats where drydocks are.

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Good point.

Here would be my high-level attack plan, which should commence on T+3 or T+4.

DD (D-Day)
Capture SF with Stalin marines
Capture LA with Stalin marines
Capture Atlanta with marines and air backup.
Capture Xian with modern armor and air backup.
Move a stack of modern armor to NY-SW. His SOD may attack, which would be good. If not, we'll need the spy and 20ish tanks.
Drop off a stack of India infantry/artillery (upgraded) at Philidelphia-NE.
Drop off a stack of India infantry/artillery at Boston-NE.
EDIT: Maybe try to drop off a stack at Washington-NE if we have enough units.

DD+1
Take NY, Philidelphia and Boston

DD+2
Load healthiest troops onto transports in the North Sea and Indian Ocean.

DD+3
Drop off troops next to Washington and Chicago.

DD+4
Take Washington and Chicago

We don't need to take Seattle (we can have one unit protecting 3 workers clearing thee fallout tiles NE of here). Or, the marines from LA/SF could take it.

We don't need to take Hangzhou, but we can later in the war. I prefer to get units into Roosevelt's heartland ASAP. Later built modern armor could take Hangzhou around DD+3.

This plan would have us building a ton of modern armor starting on T0. We would also build several transports for the North Sea in Kamchatka and one of the Old China cities. I would also upgrade most of our galleys and feed several of them through the Chinese Canal. On T+2, we would start building fighters and bombers. I guess that would have us starting the war on T+4 or so. We should be able to amass quite a force in that time and get the rest of our units on boats and into position.

Thoughts on this high-level plan? If it looks good, I'll start putting together a build plan for each city and a general idea of which existing units I plan to move where for the war tomorrow AM.

Looking good, bcool.
Sorry guys, I don't have time today or tmr to study the situation. Mitchum's plan sounds ok.

The outline looks good to me.

The outline is fine with me. I fell asleep last night drafting a PPP but this is how far I got:


Moscow (119 base) – Builds modern armor, shuttle on railroads to the west (we may want to optimize the RR path). Build stack in Chengdu for New York stack.
Fish (84 base) – builds marines, shuttle to Kamchatka
Siberia (133 base) – builds modern armor, shuttle to Kamchatka
Kamchatka (50 base) – builds transports, whip for 1 turn builds – we should start this build now to set up the transport chain
GP Farm (37 base) – builds workers
This gives us 1 transport + 2 modern armor + marine + worker per turn. Send out a transport every turn until we set up a transport chain from Kamchatka to Chengdu (or wherever we’ve pushed our front up to). This will let us teleport troops to the front in one turn.
Pigs (39 base) – builds airships/workers on cycle; swap to fighters/workers with flight
Bananas (47 base) – build airships/fighters/bombers
Rostov (42 base) – build airships/fighters/bombers
Cuba (28 base) – build airships/fighters/bombers
These cities build our mobile airforce for wherever we see necessary
Bahamas (72 base) – marines (whip so that it’s 1/turn)
Bermuda (93 base) – marines (every turn) until overflow allows a modern armor (1 turn)
Jamaica (36 base) – transport (whip /2 turns)
Yaroslav (32 base) – transport (whip /2 turns)
Stagger the transport builds of Jamaica and Yaroslav so that they build a transport every other turn. Build a transport chain to Los Angeles and later western America, invasion goal
Haiti (63 base) – transports (start this build now to begin transport chain)
Bcool (84 base) – marines for Haiti
Crabbes (41 base) – whip marines for Haiti
Iron Spice (47 base) – workers for Haiti
Yekaterinburg (34 base) – workers for Haiti
Make this transport chain join the Bahamas/Bermuda chain; goal is to send marine/worker stacks to start cleaning up west coast of US
Ex-India
Delhi (37 base) – build marines (whip every other turn)
Vijay (31 base) – build transports
Bombay (34 base) – build transports
Pataliputra (34 base) – build workers
Agra (28 base) – whip transports for English cities
Calcutta (31 base) – whip transports for English cities
Transports are to prepare to ship over Indian workers; two whipping cities are to whip 4 transports for England
Ex-England
(build military for Indian transports to attack from south)
Ex-China
(build military to attack by land from east)

Given our production and how much time we have, I'm not really concerned about finishing. BUT, somebody please make sure we run a counter espionage mission against Roos THIS TURN to make sure he doesn't blow up a space part. I don't think he can, but just to be safe...

I'm fine with either police state or representation. I think flight will be more useful than +25% military production as we'll want an air force (bombers mostly) to attack his cities amphibiously.

Also, we should revolt him into caste system while we're still in it. It'll keep him from whipping more military. We may want a city to build some spies so that we can keep him out of "military" civics. Probably overkill but it can't hurt.

If War target is T+3

reasons for flight in 1 turn makes sense to me
Allows you to build fighters/bombers next T+1
Transport them to the front T+2
Attack T+3

If you don't do flight in one turn, or if you do

You can build 12 cruise missiles this turn or next turn (one for each of the riflemen in New York
build transport in Chengdu this turn and next, upgrade galley coming in (T+2) there is another galleon coming in Hangzhou right now so you don't need to upgrade this galley or can choose not to build one of the following transports, transport from Kamchatka T+2), transport from Shanghai this turn, galleon from Indian ocean (23 units can hit New York T+3) (assuming you can build that many for the boats)

bombers/fighter next turn can soften them up as well if you did flight in 1 turn. Crushing New York takes out Statue of Zeus and gives us access to Uranium.

You don't need uranium, but 1 tactical nuke costs 250 hammers (and can do what 12 cruise missiles can do or what 12 bombers can do) it is dirt cheap. tactical nukes is the minimalist approach

By the way slow down other cities so you can get a good odds GM from Rheims T+2 (will need to up the number next turn)
I don't think you can build an airport in Rheims next turn but maybe, then Merchant can do a trade mission T+3 for all the upgrades you want. (looking at the numbers the airport in Rheims next turn is close need every hammer you can get)

Merchant can probably just walk to roosy's nearest city and do the trade mission T+3 without the airport. (before the DoW obviously)

Given our production and how much time we have, I'm not really concerned about finishing. BUT, somebody please make sure we run a counter espionage mission against Roos THIS TURN to make sure he doesn't blow up a space part. I don't think he can, but just to be safe...

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good idea! spy in Troy can do this.

critical ideas blow up uranium next turn (or this turn to be safe since he could finish combustion in 1 turn even though is says 2?)
We really don't want roosy getting a modern navy.

airport in low production cities can be used to transport units built in high hammer cities.

So you move Modern Armor from Moscow for example to Bananas (with a few more railroads maybe) then Modern Armor flies out next turn, then every turn after that.

Capture Xian with modern armor and air backup.

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Use artillery on Xian and Hangzhou since after the first turn the artillery we have is useless. So can sacrifice if necessary all the cannons we have on these cities and mop up with units that haven't been upgraded. Leaving other units to drive into his lands or amphibiously strike deeper in.

If you take out New York DD+0 then you can take out Washington and Chicago DD+1 with the units that are still on the boats you used (likely not very hurt because of the cruise missile and air support)

Airport in Chengdu if possible so you can station more planes there. Or a fort on the front to station more planes there too could help.

edit: And an airport allows you to airlift multiple units to this city each turn.

I don't need a city by city build list. The war outline was enough for me to comment, just mention key builds like transports/airports. I assume you build the military units where you can with the least number of turns. Building planes and missiles far from the front.

If you want to edit the war outline and give me another chance to comment this afternoon I'm happy.

I understand my suggestions are not necessary. I think several of them would make the war go faster, and while I understand it isn't necessary lets put on a show for those watching

shyuhe said:

Also, we should revolt him into caste system while we're still in it. It'll keep him from whipping more military. We may want a city to build some spies so that we can keep him out of "military" civics. Probably overkill but it can't hurt.

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I'm studying the longer posts but wanted to say that if we're running military techs, it's not possible to switch Roosevelt out of them, right? I'll revolt him out of Slavery just before we switch into it.

You can only switch him into a civic you're running at that moment, I believe.

Airports in cities like Bananas are a great idea, bcool. Perhaps one in Cuba could combine with a Galleon or two and transport from Bahamas/Bermuda. We definitely want one on Bcool Island somewhere. Maybe Nottingham for London/Canterbury.

I don't mind using some nukes, if we can get Uranium. It would be only too appropriate in this scenario.

Just remember that we'll have to clean-up any fallout from nukes. I'm pretty fine with any plan at this point, as we can probably wrap this up in 6-8 turns instead of the 12 we have.

Also, I'd be willing to declare war on Roos early to get him to move his SOD from NY towards Chengdu. If we leave it sparsely defended, it's quite likely he'll go there and we can easily slaughter his sod while we build our army to move in.

I'm actually not convinced slavery is necessary. The loss of hammers from our workshops is a pretty big negative.

In low production cities where we might have to whip units, a cruise missile or plane would often be just as effective and can be transported in 1 turn without an airport or transport chain.

If we do switch to slavery, you might be able to start the cristo redeemer in some decent pop city with factory and power this turn and whip it and get out of slavery the next turn...

what does a whip give for a wonder 30/1.33 or 22 hammers? then *2 = 44 hammers. So you would need 972 hammers invested for a 12 pop whip? hmm... so 243 hammers per turn if do it in 4 turns. Probably not likely, but 5-6 turn cristo redeemer seems doable with a bit of OF.

Of course Siberia could build it in 6 turns from now without whipping.

bcool said:

I'm actually not convinced slavery is necessary. The loss of hammers from our workshops is a pretty big negative.

In low production cities where we might have to whip units, a cruise missile or plane would often be just as effective and can be transported in 1 turn without an airport or transport chain.

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I'm fine either way. I was just thinking about the loss of Caste System hammers this morning.

bcool said:

Of course Siberia could build it in 6 turns from now without whipping.

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Getting it that late does nothing as far as I can tell. The main military buildup will happen in the next 4 to 6 turns. After that, civics won't matter, right?

babybluepants said:

Airports in cities like Bananas are a great idea, bcool. Perhaps one in Cuba could combine with a Galleon or two and transport from Bahamas/Bermuda. We definitely want one on Bcool Island somewhere. Maybe Nottingham for London/Canterbury.

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You need one city pumping units feeding another city with an airport (or it can be the same city) since and airport can only airlift one unit per turn. I'll look for cities to pair for this, but without slavery it may take some time for cities that could use airports to build them... I would look for one city to build units and the other to build an airport and then planes/missiles.

babybluepants said:

I don't mind using some nukes, if we can get Uranium. It would be only too appropriate in this scenario.

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By the time we get uranium, the game will be over... or at least the militry buildup will be. I prefer not doing anything out of the ordinary to hook up uranium, but will hook it up if we get it "naturally" via culture.

bcool said:

If War target is T+3

reasons for flight in 1 turn makes sense to me
Allows you to build fighters/bombers next T+1
Transport them to the front T+2
Attack T+3

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I think T+4 is a more likely target to have a proper army to hit him hard. That gives us T0 and T+1 to build modern armor/ships and T+2 and T+3 to build fighters/bombers and missiles.

Plus, there are a lot of galleys way south from the Indian War. They will never see any action or be able to hold many troops unless they are upgraded. I would prefer to use our gold to upgrade a few ships/vetran units than to learn flight in 1 turn, which will cost us almost 1,500 gold. I think we can still effectively use Flight if we learn it on T+2. This gives the modern armor built on T0 and T+1 time to move into position too.

bcool said:

You can build 12 cruise missiles this turn or next turn (one for each of the riflemen in New York

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Good idea. I just tested this and a cruise missile drops a rifleman to 9.2/14. Plus, guided missiles can reach NY from Chengdu!!

bcool said:

build transport in Chengdu this turn and next, upgrade galley coming in (T+2) there is another galleon coming in Hangzhou right now so you don't need to upgrade this galley or can choose not to build one of the following transports, transport from Kamchatka T+2), transport from Shanghai this turn, galleon from Indian ocean (23 units can hit New York T+3) (assuming you can build that many for the boats)

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OK. Why do you think it's important to take NY on D-Day as opposed to DD+1? I'm not worried about the 100% WW, are you? I would prefer to use our North Sea fleet to move units all the way to Washington and Chicago.

bcool said:

bombers/fighter next turn can soften them up as well if you did flight in 1 turn. Crushing New York takes out Statue of Zeus and gives us access to Uranium.

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I still think T+4 is a better target for our initial attack. I'm not worried about Zeus or Uranium. If we had Uranium on T+3 or T+4, what would we do with it at that point?

bcool said:

You don't need uranium, but 1 tactical nuke costs 250 hammers (and can do what 12 cruise missiles can do or what 12 bombers can do) it is dirt cheap. tactical nukes is the minimalist approach

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OK. So we get Uranium on T+3 or T+4 (assuming our culture gets that tile right away, which is not always the case. We build a tactical nuke on T+4 or T+5. We move it into position on T+5 or T+6. By this time, the war should be almost over... Am I missing something?

bcool said:

By the way slow down other cities so you can get a good odds GM from Rheims T+2 (will need to up the number next turn)
I don't think you can build an airport in Rheims next turn but maybe, then Merchant can do a trade mission T+3 for all the upgrades you want. (looking at the numbers the airport in Rheims next turn is close need every hammer you can get)

Merchant can probably just walk to roosy's nearest city and do the trade mission T+3 without the airport. (before the DoW obviously)

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I just counted tiles and he would just barely miss getting there in one turn (unless I counted wrong). A GM can move 20 tiles on railroads but slows down on fallout, right? Maybe he can reach Xian if we build a RR on the horse tile (19 tiles) and perform the trade mission that turn. How much gold will we get? Plus, units upgraded can't move that turn. I think this is a great plan if we can have the cash on T+3, upgrade and then attack on T+4. However, this would prevent us from attacking a turn early as shyuhe suggested, drawing our Roosevelt's SOD. I need to think about this some more...

bcool said:

critical ideas blow up uranium next turn (or this turn to be safe since he could finish combustion in 1 turn even though is says 2?)
We really don't want roosy getting a modern navy.

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How convenient that we have a spy on that tile.

bcool said:

airport in low production cities can be used to transport units built in high hammer cities.

So you move Modern Armor from Moscow for example to Bananas (with a few more railroads maybe) then Modern Armor flies out next turn, then every turn after that.

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Without Slavery, it will be hard for those low production cities to build airports. I need to look for good city pairs as I said above. One city builds an airport and then missiles/planes and it's sister city builds modern armor.