questions for 241

[General_W]

Let's not forget to investigate "Free the Council" city.
FREE's been as good as gold to us so far... but still. Perhaps we could do that as part of our pre-turn discussion here? That's an easy step to re-do for the turnplayer. It's vital for planning to know if FREE has rushed an airport there. (as unlikely as that seems)


As for fighting for vs. Abandoning Subcommittee Island... I'm not set either way yet either. But I’m leaning towards trying to keep it.

With FREE pretty clearly on our side, it looks like this might be our golden shot to defend SubCom Island and kill some Saber units there.

Especially if, as AutoTeller says, we can replace by building 12-15 of the Tanks we send up before Saber could turn around and come back at our mainland.

We haven’t fully settled the issue of whether it’s better to kill a bunch of Saber units now, or to let them live to fight FREE… but this is sort of a half-way option for us.

Maybe we can bloody them enough that we become a less appealing target… about the time they uncover FREE’s treachery towards them… and then we have our ideal scenario of a FREE-Saber war while we go back to building our SS and rebuilding our navy (with more subs hiding in port this time!)


I think we should leave Whomp’s settler alive for now. I also think it’s worth a shot to send a transport out to see if an invasion of Saber’s Cattaurugas.

 

[Niklas]

If FREE's city is empty and we plan to raze it no matter what, we don't need to know if there would have been an airport there or not.

 

[tomasjj]

Lets check with FREE about access to rubber. That might also play a part in the decision on what to do with SCI I reckon.

 

[Yilar]

Ditch SCI, we can't possibly defend it, even if we were to land 20 MA, and even if we keep the city they can take out the rubber easily... We should instead focus on getting rubber somewhere else. Like from Free or by taking the saber rubber island to our west, like I suggested earlier. As for bombing the boat stack we would most likely just lose a bunch of planes and maybe damage some boats. We only have like 4 bombers that can bomb the ships anyway. It is not worth throwing away planes to damage boats in my mind.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I ran the EWS around the west side and also did an investigation of cattauragus and the other two towns on that island.

We have 2 transports in The Greenhouse. If we move 1 to the spot marked with the red dot, then we can shipchain units to attack Cattaraugus, though we can't dock. Our carrier can get in range to bomb cattaraugus, as well, plus can probably bomb the airfield.

We'll bomb the hell out of that destroyer, as well.

 

[Niklas]

The stack is out of bomber range anyway so it's useless to discuss bombing it. We have 0 bombers that can bomb the ships.

Fighters sent to bomb the ships would do battle with the Fighter defenders. AFAIK there are no modifiers that apply to that battle so it would be 50% that our fighter is shot down and 50% that we shoot theirs down. But only the fighters currently on SCI could reach, and we may want to save those for another day. And we don't want to try on the southern stack since there'll be SAMs on those ships.

Looking at the save, I don't make much of our chances to keep SCI, like Yilar says. I don't think it impossible, only incredibly unlikely. If we were to try to keep it, here's what I'd do:

Disband Oka. There's no way we could hold it, and it would only give SABER some free territory on SCI. Of the other two, we could only hope to defend one. BABEcolony is on flat land and The Tower is on hills, so the latter would be our stand, disband BABEcolony. The Tower also conveniently has a Barracks and plenty of shields in the bin. Use those to rush an Airport so we can lift units right in next turn, since the airfield is too vulnerable.

Put all Mechs in The Tower. BABE could only reach it with Marines on the ships, and with the two MA armies, who would only get one strike each. They also couldn't strike both the town and the airfield, and only MAs and the armies could reach the center tile, so if they do advance then we'd have a shot at them there when the turn comes back with anything we'd lift to the airfield. An army could pillage the Rubber tile with the Radar Tower so we can't expect to keep that, but even without the bonus we should be able to do some serious damage to their stack (and then that army wouldn't also attack).

If they advance all their MA and armies to the center tile, that's two armies and 16 MAs. There's no way we could hope to kill that with anything we'd airlift in. Offa's calculator can't handle defending armies unfortunately, so I had to wing it a bit. I'm not sure how clever it is with blitzes either, but some half-relevant tests give that 20 veteran MAs has maybe somewhere around 5% chance to kill those two armies and the 16 MAs.

On the other hand - if instead of attacking we move all our airlifted units into The Tower, there's no way they would dislodge us. The turn after that, we could retake control of the island, unless they make a stand in the mountains or something. But by then FREE would be doing their thing, so... Still, it could take a while to reconnect the rubber.

All that said - I'm not sure if it's worth all the resources necessary to set this up. That's something like 14 airfields to build since I count only 4+2 airports, and it redirects ~20 MAs or more up to The Tower. The doesn't strike me as so much of a problem, seeing how we have quite a lot of them anyway, and FREE is about to strike.

I'm ambivalent. There's no question to me that this is the plan I would pursue if we were to try to hold it. But do we?

 

[Niklas]

We have 2 transports in The Greenhouse. If we move 1 to the spot marked with the red dot, then we can shipchain units to attack Cattaraugus, though we can't dock. Our carrier can get in range to bomb cattaraugus, as well, plus can probably bomb the airfield.

What red dot is that? EDIT: Weird, the attachments didn't show first time I looked.

Also - don't we need at least one ship to protect an outgoing transport. Otherwise I bet it would just be bombed.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think we have a sub in The Phoenix we can use to cover.

It's a risk - but I'm not sure they would even know it's there. We keep bombing ships they send out that way and they have no jets on that little island.

I like the idea of falling back to the Tower and abandoning Oka. They would almost certainly just move to that hill and sit there - they COULD move an army there, but if we put 7 (I think we have 3 cities with airports), we could probably whack any army they do put there.

We can also create more airfields.

 

[donsig]

I'm in favor of trying to defend SCI if we have more than just a hope and prayer of succeeding there. If we airlift units to SCI they won't be able to move till the next turn, right?

 

[General_W]

Looking at the save, I don't make much of our chances to keep SCI, like Yilar says. I don't think it impossible, only incredibly unlikely.

On the other hand - if instead of attacking we move all our airlifted units into The Tower, there's no way they would dislodge us. The turn after that, we could retake control of the island, unless they make a stand in the mountains or something. But by then FREE would be doing their thing, so... Still, it could take a while to reconnect the rubber.

I assume you just changed your mind as you were typing?


Anyway – I really like your proposed plan to defend SCI.

I think it’s totally doable under the plan you’ve outlined – the question is whether or not it’s worth it.

To me – it seems abundantly worth it.

We get to pin down half(+) of their army in a battle that would be great to win, but that we can also afford to lose. We buy FREE time and wage war on territory that is A) Favorably close to our homeland and yet B) Not on our critical homeland.

If we, as I think we should, simultaneously launch an invasion of Saber’s under-defended Cattergarus Island – we could be in a pretty good shape. When FREE attacks – Saber will more than have their hands full. If they stay to fight us on Subcommittee Island, FREE will pound them. There’s no way they’ll let that happen. We’ll recover SCI as soon as Saber knows that FREE isn’t really on their side. We may even keep our second island we captured from Saber when they’re forced to prioritize defense of BABEland and their homeland.


Final Cleanup notes: I agree with not risking any planes on boats. I also think we should send at least one escort with our transport if at all possible. And oh yeah - I forgot we were razing FREE the Council anyway! oops. Can I request a screenshot of our victorious unit ontop of the rubble that was the FREE city. Mostly I want the little box that pops up to say we've captured the city. May or may not use it in some propaganda.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

yup

I will definitely make a pic of that.

And yes - if we airlift units, they won't be able to move.

But the only units that can hit them are the armies and, perhaps, marines still on the ships.

Should we rush a nuke sub down south? I think we can short-rush a transport for 150 or so gold. a Nuke sub is in range of that stack and, if they stay where they are, we can take out another transport.

How about one up north? Dunno how much it would cost - they are completely out of range right now, unless we rushed it in The Tower itself.

 

[General_W]

A rushed sub in the south sounds good to me.
The more we can sink of Saber's forces, the better.

I'm not sure about rushing one in SubCom Island. If it were cheap enough, it could be a good idea.

 

[Yilar]

No more rushing please! They are not invading our mainland, they will likely go back home after they take out the SCI island.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Yilar has a point. The Pier can build a nuke sub in 3 turns anyway and if we do take their island, they are likely to move that stack there anyway.

 

[General_W]

yeah - that makes sense.
Forget the rushing

 

[Niklas]

If we do go for the SCI plan I outlined then we must not forget to rush an airport in The Tower this turn. Without it we couldn't hope to bring in more reinforcements if needed, since SABER will likely take control of our airstrip there.

Remember that a screenshot of taking FREE The Council would not show any wounded units, so using it for propaganda purposes might not be the best. That is, unless we want some doubt to seep into SABER's minds, while still keeping our hands clean...

 

[tomasjj]

Good job, Niklas!
The Tower idea sounds like a good one.
A couple of radar artys in The Tower wouldn't hurt...but we are short on arty I seem to recall. And we don't even have robotics right?

We get to pin down half(+) of their army in a battle that would be great to win, but that we can also afford to lose

I like this part, General W.
There is a military expression for this but I cannot remember it. The Germans kept large parts of the Royal Navy tied up just by keeping the Tirpitz up in the Finnmark-fjords.

Be aware that if we start building up with more forces that might incur some naval activity as they might force some reinforcements or regrouping. We should keep that in mind when considering our Pearl Cattaraugus attack. We should also consider the timing of that attack and how we should tie it in with the SCI plans, and FREE's activities. I would feel uneasy sending a fully loaded transport over towards their island with little escort.

 

[RFHolloway]

I like this part, General W.
There is a military expression for this but I cannot remember it. The Germans kept large parts of the Royal Navy tied up just by keeping the Tirpitz up in the Finnmark-fjords.

"Pinning the main force" if I remember correctly - that is the first part of outflanking, you can't easily outflank something if it can move.

 

[donsig]

I agree to The Tower plan and the Pearl Cattaraugus attack. If we actually get that city can we rename it Pearl Cattaraugus?

 

[Yilar]

Good job, Niklas!
The Tower idea sounds like a good one.
A couple of radar artys in The Tower wouldn't hurt...but we are short on arty I seem to recall. And we don't even have robotics right?

Artis are generally a complete and utter waste of shields in multiplayer. Most big battles only last 1-2 turns making the artis rather useless. Assuming you are not playing against total newbs or have certain map advantages, such as chokepoints. The only time I would actually consider building artis of any kind is if the enemy is sitting on mountains/hills and won't come down. What works great in SP does not necessary work great in MP!