Grand Strategy Thread

[AutomatedTeller]

true. That would suck - but they will still have to either take a city or spend a turn getting stacks of modern armor beat on.

And MA aren't all that much more expensive than tanks, anyway.

[General_W]

Radar Artillery and Civil Defense buildings are both brilliant additions to the Yilar Entrenchment Scheme (The Y.E.S. )

According to my combat calculator, a Mech Infantry (12.18.2) would win, even against Modern Armor, 78% of the time in a city with Civil Defense.
Obviously, this would be even better in a Metro with Civil Defense.
EDIT: Bah - I forgot that a Modern Armor is a 3 move unit... that means they'd be able to retreat from combat with our Mech Infantry. So, basically - we're looking at 32% win, 31% retreat, and 36% lose to the Modern Armor.

An attacking Marine would only have a 4.7% chance of killing a Mech Infantry in a city with Civil Defense.

This would vastly reduce the number of Mech Infantry we need to hold against even a very determined assault.
Of course, we'll need to maintain significant offensive forces/bombers in case they decide to land a stack of their own Mech Infantry and combat settlers.

Too bad most of this goes out the window when FREE/Saber get nukes.
I can't remember - in C3C does a nuke strike wipe out all the defenders? or just redline them?

[General_W]

Hmm - sorry for the double post here - but I just stumbled across something pretty interesting.

When a Modern Armor [24.16.3] (120 shields) attacks a fortified Mech Infantry [12.18.2] (110 shields) in a City with Civil Defense (+135% defense) - the results are:

Defender wins: 33.5%
Attacker wins: 31.6%
Attacker retreats: 34.8%

However, if we were defending with our own Modern Armor - we give up 2 base defense points - but we take away the enemies ability to retreat! In a Modern Armor vs. Modern Armor scenario, the results look like this:

Defender wins: 61.3%
Attacker wins: 38.7%
Attacker retreats: 0%

So the attacker wins 7% more - but at the expense of of being destroyed nearly twice as often!

Not only do we improve our kill ratio against any potential invaders - but we would also have a much stronger counter-attack threat / be ready to deal with landings outside of our cities.

Perhaps we need to focus on building Modern Armor instead?

[Niklas]

Yes! Of course we do! It's been so long since I played with Modern Armors - they are awesome, and only marginally more expensive than MechInfs.

We should start building Tanks for upgrades then. Good thing SABER is headed for SynFibers.

[Yilar]

We should consider going wartime soon.

[Ekibiogami]

I concur with the modern armor idea. Not only do they take away the enemies ability to retreat and allow for inland skirmishing, they can also be used for an invasion if need be, although it seems that an invasion would not be prudent right now.

I would also like to point out that (radar artillery soon?) artillery can really make a dent in the modern armor's health, so if we can allocate most of our artillery to the general area of their attack, our armor won't have to work so hard.

A mutual nuclear protection pact would be a good idea.

[donsig]

I'm on the modern armor bandwagon. We need that tech treaty with SABER!

Originally Posted by Yilar

We should consider going wartime soon.

Do you mean mobilization or are you suggesting we go on an offensive?

[PrinceMyshkin]

^^I'm pretty sure Yilar means mobilization, but he'll correct me if I'm wrong. I think it might be a good idea after the remaining 5 turns of GA and these last few infrastructure builds complete. Especially since I think it unlikely Free will accept peace except for an alliance against Saber. They probably want to get modern armor asap since they have built so many tanks and will look to go offensive soon to prevent either a Saber or Council Spaceship win. GA shields on units until the end of war sounds pretty

I would like to see a treaty worked out with Saber pretty soon as well.

Put another on the modern armor bandwagon as long as naval and air superiority are maintained.

[AutomatedTeller]

I think we should consider going active in our assault and start taking out transports.

I think we can safely assume that FREE is mobilized, or at least was.

Transports do not get the shield bonus under mobilization, so those will always be the weak link in FREE's ability to make war - if they have no transports, I don't much worry about their ability to land units.

We are, what - 40 turns from being able build all the parts? There is no doubt in my mind that FREE will attack someone before then, probably BABE first, since they are backwards. If they take out BABE in the next 15 turns or so, they will be very close to a domination win - they won't be there yet, but they will be close - take over the islands, then start taking coastal cities that are lightly defended...

[donsig]

Originally Posted by AutomatedTeller

If they take out BABE in the next 15 turns or so, they will be very close to a domination win - they won't be there yet, but they will be close - take over the islands, then start taking coastal cities that are lightly defended...

SABER has three cities on the BABE continent on turn 215. This means FREE has to fight SABER to take control of BABEland.

Originally Posted by AutomatedTeller

I think we should consider going active in our assault and start taking out transports.

We should certainly consider it. Trouble is our navy is small and we have few good ports for building ships. If we send our subs in search of FREE transports then they won't be available at home if FREE (or SABER come calling). But, wouldn't it be good for us if FREE uses those transports to attack BABE? Not that I want to see BABE go the way of GONG but if both SABER and FREE have units on the ground over there then they are sure to come to blows. Isn't that what we want? Wouldn't that bring SABER closer to us?

As for mobilization, that is tricky. We can't un-mobilize until we make peace with someone. I don't see FREE offering peace. If we're stuck in mobilization can we build Apollo? I know we discussed this before.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Originally Posted by donsig

As for mobilization, that is tricky. We can't un-mobilize until we make peace with someone. I don't see FREE offering peace. If we're stuck in mobilization can we build Apollo? I know we discussed this before.

I was curious about this and just checked some old saves to make sure. You can only complete the Apollo Program or any improvement or wonder in mobilization if it was already started. You cannot build it from scratch once mobilized until war ends. The UN and the Manhattan Project can both be built during mobilization if we would want to. Maybe mobilization should be put off until we have acquired space flight and only if we remain at war?

[Yilar]

Originally Posted by donsig

SABER has three cities on the BABE continent on turn 215. This means FREE has to fight SABER to take control of BABEland.



We should certainly consider it. Trouble is our navy is small and we have few good ports for building ships. If we send our subs in search of FREE transports then they won't be available at home if FREE (or SABER come calling). But, wouldn't it be good for us if FREE uses those transports to attack BABE? Not that I want to see BABE go the way of GONG but if both SABER and FREE have units on the ground over there then they are sure to come to blows. Isn't that what we want? Wouldn't that bring SABER closer to us?

As for mobilization, that is tricky. We can't un-mobilize until we make peace with someone. I don't see FREE offering peace. If we're stuck in mobilization can we build Apollo? I know we discussed this before.

Hehe, i see you don't use mobilization to often. The trick to get back to peace time is simply, just break peace with a friend and then sign peaty the next turn. We do it all the time over in the multiplayer community, though we do it instantly. You can even prebuild things, coastal cities producing 200 shields battleships for 10 turns and then switching over to something else.

I would advise AGAINST attacking free atm, we are VERY weak at home, and if free comes knocking on our door we are at risk of dying. We should finish up the things that can't be built under wartime (mobilization) quickly and switch to wartime. I don't think radar artilleries are worth it, while they do nice damage to units they cost the same as a modern armor, which can KILL the unit with very good odds. The only scenario where radars become variable is with units sitting on mountains and i would honestly rather use bombers for that. Lets not make the same mistake FREE did when they attacked us and give the enemy a chance to capture our units.

[Paul#42]

Originally Posted by Yilar

Hehe, i see you don't use mobilization to often. The trick to get back to peace time is simply, just break peace with a friend and then sign peaty the next turn. We do it all the time over in the multiplayer community, though we do it instantly. You can even prebuild things, coastal cities producing 200 shields battleships for 10 turns and then switching over to something else.

You are right, some of us are not familar at all with mobilization. From what I read though I remember that extra shields gained through mobilization are lost when you switch from military to civil build.

And the tricky thing about the "friend": WHO is our friend? Who is a friend of a nation close to win if being not friendly can spoil this victory?
Right now I'd just trust BABE but it's also a friend you never can be sure that he survives the next turn.
I'd hate to try to make such a deal with SABER (or FREE). They might stay at war just to spoil our plans.
We'd suddenly find ourselves in a must-win-war a turn before we could launch with ten towns busy keeping their prebuilds...

[Yilar]

Either way I think we should start working on a plan to get into mobilization, maybe after nuclear power?

oh and the shields are not lost when you convert.

[Paul#42]

We had already started a discussion on mobilization. Maybe we should discuss the topic over there.

Reading that thread reminds me that we should have gifted a town (The Stopgap) to GONG so they could hide a settler in our territory to keep ww up for FREE...

Not sure if this would have been good style...
But kuningas would certainly eat his keyboard while searching the world for the missing GONGers...

[peter grimes]

Mobilization is too risky at this point...

What infrastructure builds do we need before we can start on Apollo?

Also, I don't think that sinking Free's transports is wise quite yet. All that will do is serve to paint a target on us. Much better to hope that FREE goes after Babe, so that Saber and FREE will be forced to engage

[donsig]

So, if we need a friend, perhaps we should try to get a BABE settler smuggled over here. It would be quite ironic if this got to the point where BABE kept playing on just to help us.

[Niklas]

That would be totally brilliant!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Gong had a settler to put on a boat we were going to send your way this turn, but never got the chance. Of course, if all out nuclear war had occured turning most of the world to a desert and stopping all VC's we would have wandered off somewhere to rebuild with all the 2-food irrigated desert tiles and attempted a comeback.

[Niklas]

So what would be the best way? Resettle The Stopgap, and gift BABE some gold for rush-disbanding with a settler there?