War Planning for Aloha

Talked a bit to Conroe today, and we need to come up with a definitive plan. Some ideas kicked around are:

1) Take Kia Ora and Ciao on the first turn via Pirate attack. Units then try to get to the horses at Privet to disable them.

2) Sail right into the Gulf between Hej and their capital, and take one or both. They might see us coming and would have 1 turn to prepare. We could hide in a new town to be built north of Chappaquiddick SE of the pigs.

3) Some combination of the above or something completely different.

Here is the dotmap:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=152326&d=1178064501

I'm copying this post from strategic affairs thread for easier reference. It is our original invasion plans from a chat that Killercane, Whomp, and myself had about a month ago.

Conroe said:

The basic idea is to begin the assualt with our Galleons positioned 4 tiles away from Kia Ora. Line of sight over water is 2 tiles beyond the border. By placing our forces at 4 tiles, they won't see the fleet. We then declare, invade, and capture Kia Ora all on the same turn. This would mean attacking from the ships, and thus a 50% penalty. But cavs versus axes makes it a moot point.

Hit 'em hard; hit 'em fast. Our doctrine for victory!

But, the whole thing breaks down if Kia Ora gets a border expansion. Hopefully that won't happen in the next 20 turns. But it is a possibility. The city is generating at least 5 culture per turn, and more than likely 7 cpt.

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As Killercane noted above, we are thinking about expanding the invasion to include Ciao on the eastern side of Aloha's empire. Ciao would be attacked using the 6 cav's that Epsilon is going to build for us.

Okay, so am I correct in thinking that the ToF would be nine cavs for Kai and six for Ciao?

That makes me nervous. If we are doing pirate attack it seems that our casualties could be high and we wouldn't be able to keep the cities.

I like the idea of a two-pronged attack, but splitting up our forces to that degree makes me nervous.

What about concentrating on Kai as was initially propossed with follow up defensive forces for keeping it.

See if we can arrange a galleon swap with Epsilon and three cavs in the area of the red dot. Have them do a hit and run on the horses near Privit and perhaps hang around to KEEP the horses off-line. (Maybe we could even talk Epsilon into keeping a galleon and three cavs near that red dot to gift back and forth when our raiding force gets weakened?)

In the meanwhile we consolidate Kai and reassemble our naval force to hit Hej/Aloah. If we needed to, we could also keep one Galleon available to ferry troops to Kai and hit Caio overland.

Just another proposal. I really HATE splitting forces until I KNOW what I am getting into.

Kickbooti said:

That makes me nervous. If we are doing pirate attack it seems that our casualties could be high and we wouldn't be able to keep the cities.

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I ran a test in WB earlier today. I put in 4 boats loaded with 6 cavs and 6 cats. Those went up against a city with 40% cultural border, with two CG1 Musketmen defending.

The first thing that I discovered was that Catapults cannot bombard from sea. They can collateral, but no bombarding. So that means we have no way of lowering the city's defenses.

Basically, 3 Cavalry was enough to take the city with only a single loss. Tried the test again, but this time with the CG1 muskets having the full 25% fortify bonus. In that scenario, it took 4 Cavalry with 2 casualties.

All of this was done without the assistance of any suicide cats. And going up against a worse case scenario of promoted muskets. I'm not too worried about the initial assualt.

What does worry me is crippling Aloha before they can get their hands on Cossacks. That is one of the reasons Killercane mentioned going after Privet. Aloha's horses are outside of Privet.

Kickbooti said:

Okay, so am I correct in thinking that the ToF would be nine cavs for Kai and six for Ciao?

What about concentrating on Kai as was initially propossed with follow up defensive forces for keeping it.

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The original plan was to hit them at Kia Ora in a sneak attack and then quickly move onto their capital at Aloha.

Now there is no way that Epsilons 6 Cavalry can be in position in time to participate in the initial assault. So the idea is to attack Ciao on the first turn, raze the city, and march on Privet to secure the horses.

The red dot idea has merit. I'm thinking that is something worth considering ... Because the idea of splitting the forces isn't so much to take cities, but to prevent the appearance of Cossaks. Your red dot idea goes right to the heart of the matter! I like that! And it also increases the odds that we will actually hold onto the horses, once they are razed.

But I'm also thinking that losing two cities before you even know that you are at war would be a huge psycological blow to Aloha. Someone with some MP experience correct me on this point ...

- Are we sure that they are Aloha's only horses? are they trading any away?

- I'm in favor of splitting forces as suggested, but I think that either we need to be building settlers (in just one city) or keeping a couple of the cities.

- was Epsilon supposed to be in this war? I'm not sure that we want them helping if they weren't supposed to be involved, as they'll expect payment of land, gold or both for "helping" however small. And since this is our opportunity to get up to speed with them, I think that it might be best to do this as much by ourselves as possible

Tubby Rower said:

- Are we sure that they are Aloha's only horses? are they trading any away?

- I'm in favor of splitting forces as suggested, but I think that either we need to be building settlers (in just one city) or keeping a couple of the cities.

- was Epsilon supposed to be in this war? I'm not sure that we want them helping if they weren't supposed to be involved, as they'll expect payment of land, gold or both for "helping" however small. And since this is our opportunity to get up to speed with them, I think that it might be best to do this as much by ourselves as possible

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That was my question exactly, the horses thing. Conroe thinks that they are. C, can you confirm from an old save prior to us hooking up horses? It just seems like they had 2 at some time but I dunno.

Epsilon is not supposed to be in this war but I bet they try to sneak settlers in if we raze too many cities.

In fact I dont like razing cities at all. Aloha's cities should be well placed and they come with population (which we need). The only thing is protectin' em. If we go with the Booti Horse Thrust Plan (tm), right to the heart of the matter, it will be a bit easier to protect. We can hit Privet, maybe even burn it, then hit Ciao and keep it while the other forces move into position.

killercane said:

That was my question exactly, the horses thing. Conroe thinks that they are. C, can you confirm from an old save prior to us hooking up horses? It just seems like they had 2 at some time but I dunno.

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I believe it is their only source of horses because everybody else only has 1 source. And horses don't randomly pop up like metals do.

But I went back to the 820AD save, which was the turn before we connected our horses. Aloha had only 1 source of horses available to trade. They also had no trade deals other than OB agreements.

killercane said:

Epsilon is not supposed to be in this war but I bet they try to sneak settlers in if we raze too many cities.

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I'd have to go back and read the fine print of our contract, but I am under the impression that Aloha's lands are ours and Loco's lands are theirs. We then split (as evenly as possible) Innovia's lands.

killercane said:

In fact I dont like razing cities at all.

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Seems you are not alone. But trying to hold Ciao could be the difference in taking the horses.

Although the more I think about it, I really like Kickbooti's idea of going straight for the horses. It is not as bold of a move, but it is probably safer. I figure we can see what their tech does over the next 10 turns before we decide.

I don't know, though, some of you MP folks tell me ... would there be a psycological benefit to capturing 2 cities on the first turn of the war? In other words, is it worth our trouble to plan it out?

What about we forget Ciao, send 2 galleons loaded with cavs to Privet, take and hold Kia Ora, and then go for the capital and Hej with boats and boats of catapults? We can move all axes up to Kia Ora and upgrade them up there. It shouldnt take but a few maces/cavalry to take Kia Ora, with or without catapults. If they do have a lot of troops there we can destroy em with cats.

We can then take Ciao at our leisure, and make headways into the interior. Without Hej and their capital they are cooked.

To get up to Privet we might have to send cavs up through Epsilon and only send empty galleons there so that will take some planning.

Some production numbers (assuming I can add):

We can have 13 cavs ready to go in the next 14 turns. This includes the Chariot upgrades, but it does not include the Epsilon units.

Alternatively, in that same 14 turn period, we can have 11 cavs and 3 CG2 muskets. The advantage of the CG2 muskets is that they free up the cavs from having to defend the captured cities.


My guess is that 6 cavs, attacking from the sea, will be more than enough to take the Aloha capital. And another 4 cavs for Kia Ora. With support from the cats, of course.

I like the plan of ignoring Ciao and going for Privet with Epsilon cavs.

The thing is that these other cities won't have the production to generate cossacks like their capital will have. I'd actually be completely fine with taking Kia Ora and their capital and holding them and ignoring (for the moment) the eastern cities. Leaving those cities there will allow us to reinforce our western forces and (as an added benefit) will keep the rumored Epsilon settler horde at bay.

If we take Kia, the capital, and Privet/Ciao, we wont have to defend those cities, and we can always use maces brought from the rear. More cavs no muskets! Cats everywhere! No more buildings other than the grocer! Units units units! Give Robi and BCLG a taste of their own poi!

I reworked the attack plan to include the city of Hej, as Killercane suggested. Originally we were just going after Kia Ora and Aloha.



We will need to train 12 cavs, and a few more cats and boats as well. It will take 16 turns to get all of the forces equiped. It will then take another 3 turns to get all of the forces to the staging area. So we would potentially be looking at declaring in 19 turns.

killercane said:

If we take Kia, the capital, and Privet/Ciao, we wont have to defend those cities, and we can always use maces brought from the rear. More cavs no muskets! Cats everywhere! No more buildings other than the grocer!

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Not sure I agree with you on the maces over muskets ... Aloha had horses connected up long before anybody else did. And I recall someone saying that BCLG preferred the ponies. My guess is we will be defending those cities over there against Knights. Those Knights will chew up our Macemen. Whereas a CG2 Musketman will be a pretty good defender against an Aloha attack.

I dunno, I think I still prefer 2 cavalry instead of 3 muskets. Kia wont need to be defended I dont think (they would have to first bypass the capital which we will hold), and each cavalry can do well enough defending vs. Knights.

Will we be getting Engineering anytime soon to upgrade the spears?

Edit: We can sail the cavs up to the tundra above Privet, drop em off, and then return our 2 galleons. This is a 12-14 turn round trip but we can reuse the galleons closer to home. So as soon as we get the troops for this we need to head that way, and have them positioned to get there the quickest (dont know where that is). We also need to avoid any Aloha boats including that galley of theirs.

killercane said:

I dunno, I think I still prefer 2 cavalry instead of 3 muskets. Kia wont need to be defended I dont think (they would have to first bypass the capital which we will hold),

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Alrighty, no muskets. At least not in the first wave. You are probably correct in that they won't counter at Kia Ora. They are going to see all of those Galleons sailing up thier coast heading towards Pearl Harbor. They are probably going to start moving in extra troops to defend Aloha (least I'd do that). We may need the extra offensive strength. Probably ought to work in an extra boat or two, as well ....


As for Privet, I have not worked that into any of my numbers. I was thinking of using the Epsilon troops for that part of the campaign.

With my extremely limited MP experience, from a logistics standpoint, taking Kia Ora and Ciao in one turn and threatening their capital and Hej from there would be staggering from a psychological standpoint. That's half their lands in 3 turns.

A lot more data will be welcome, and hopefully Epsilon comes through with some nice maps for us.

Edit: forgot the logistics bit. I meant to add that it would take a bit of time to move troops all the way around to take the horses, a point which has been made prior. But I felt it worth re-iterating. If we could get Epsilon to do that for us, it would be wonderful... but it would also put us in their pocket.

Been playing around in excel -- it looks like we can have 14 cav's, 12 cat's, and 9 boats in the next 15 turns. Is everybody OK with those numbers? Because if they are adequate, we can be in a position to declare in 1230AD.

Can the boats be at Destination Red Booti Dot to let off cavs sooner? In other words, let the troops off there on say turn 10, and have the galleons be coming back down to pick up reinforcements to go to Kia Ora after the main wave goes in? Say on Turns 18-20.

I haven't figured out a good way to integrate the attack on Privet into our war plans. Your idea of a 14-turn round trip to drop off some cavs was a good idea. But, that 14-turn round trip pretty much means that those boats are not available for the main assault (at least not for a 1230AD assault).

At least not in a way that I can visualize in my head. I guess before we can answer your question we would need to know how many troops are needed for the Hej/Aloha assault.

Well how soon can we have about 6 cavalry? Those can be first on the ships to go up north.

Edit: It will take 6 turns for them to get there. We could pick up some more troops above Argyles Watch to take on Ciao. I dont know about this however, as we wont have enough troops maybe for the main assault. We need to figure out what to do with all the maces (axes) we have. 6 of them can either burn Ciao or at least provide a distraction upon landing. I have to think that the cavalry above Privet would be as surprising as Aloha troops coming from where our silver is.