Questions for turn 238

[AutomatedTeller]

I figured I'd ask questions about this turn here, so everyone can see it.

A) What to do about research? I kept research at 0% cause I didnt' feel we had consensus.

I see 3 options:

1) Keep at 0% for another turn
2) Research Robotics (can get in 6)
3) Research space flight (can get in 6)

B) Defense of the homeland

I want to start bringing subs home, to concentrate on probable attack routes from SABER. SABER has 17 transports and a huge stack of surface ships - there is no chance of our surface ships breaking through their screen if they choose to mass their units, so subs are only bet to send invaders to the bottom. (SABER has 48 warships + 3 carriers)

Do you guys agree with this as a plan?

 

[peter grimes]

OMG - 48 surface ships?? Does that include transports (of which there were 16 , the last I heard)?

damn - when did chamnix get so angry?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

No - that's 48 destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Specifically, 31 destroyers, 15 cruisers and 2 BB's. 3 carriers, 17 transports.

I think they have more destroyers than we have surface ships.

 

[dl123654]

My vote is get robotics now.

 

[tomasjj]

Start researching again. Robotics.

Where are these subs now?

 

[Paul#42]

robotics now.

They will likely not have all transports in one stack but rather use a ship-chain. So it's ~9 transports to sink.

How are the odds of a sub to sink a vet transport?

 

[donsig]

I would keep research off and pile up gold, with the idea of amassing enough gold to research the remaining 4 techs at the maximum rate. What we have been doing is researching a tech, then turning off research for a turn or two to get enough gold to research the next tech and then start the cycle over again. Let's save up all the gold now in one shot and then blast through robotics and then the remaining techs. This strategy gives us a few turns to figure out if we'll have any imported luxuries and - more importantly - helps hide what we are doing. With some well placed diplomacy (and the information enemy spies are taking back) we can convince our opponents our number one priority right now is defense. AT noted that he thinks we are almost average compared to FREE militarily. That's great news because it makes FREE the more tempting target for SABER since FREE's forces are divided among two continents. Let's add a pile of gold so SABER will be even less tempted to attack us. Then we rip through the remaining techs and time our Apollo and SS builds for the very end.

For defense, yes concentrate the subs and let's build more ships. Do we prefer subs or surface ships?

 

[Paul#42]

Okay, convinced. Pile some more gold - will we need 10 turns' income?

 

[Yilar]

I'd rather have surface ships to be honest, the subs are simply to slow. Also subs are somewhat weak. And we don't have to pay insane upkeep for swarm of subs. We can hide our surface ships in cities (in stacks of 4+) so they don't die on the initial attack.

 

[Yilar]

Btw don't forget to set all builds to something that has mobilization bonus except for the final turn of completion. A transport doesn't get the bonus, so no point in "building" them except for the last turn.

 

[Paul#42]

I'd rather have surface ships to be honest, the subs are simply to slow. Also subs are somewhat weak. And we don't have to pay insane upkeep for swarm of subs. We can hide our surface ships in cities (in stacks of 4+) so they don't die on the initial attack.

So what are these surface ships good for?

They won't sink anything but lone ships, probably scouts.
If we are attacked, the enemy fleet will likely be stacked with 30+ surface ships. No chance for our navy to push through.
It would be great of course if our fast surface ships could get around the spear head and attack the 2nd part of the chain - but I'd assume that will be hidden in a harbor...

Our surface ships might help protecting the subs once they attacked.
And we might plant some of them even outside our EWS on the coasts that are not inside double transport's range where we might detect and destroy the 2nd chain part...

 

[Yilar]

Once we see the stack we can attack it with our surface ships. Let's be frank, naval combat is basically whomever attacks wins in the modern era.. If we can attack with our ships we will win most of the battles. The problem with subs is that they can't sit in ports waiting for enemy stack to show up, we have to sit in the "open" unprotected, because they only have 5 moves (they need 6-7 moves). With a ship we can hide in our ports and still attack the stack (yes, it might have bombard bonus, but we have odds on EVERY battle! It is all about the first strike!

 

[peter grimes]

With a ship we can hide in our ports and still attack the stack (yes, it might have bombard bonus, but we have odds on EVERY battle! It is all about the first strike!

But that means that we're going to need at least 1 more unit than the entire attacking stack

At least with subs, the attacking sub can directly target the transports. After all, we don't care how many destroyers they have as long as we can still sink the transports. It's the transports that matter, not the destroyers.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

17 subs could sink 17 transports - might not, but could get a lot of them.

If they stacked up their ships, we would need at least 65 ships to sink 17 transports. We don't have 65 ships - we don't even have 65 ships + bombers.

 

[donsig]

Okay, convinced. Pile some more gold - will we need 10 turns' income?

AT calculated we'd need about 6500g (assuming we are running lux at ten percent). We're making about 650gpt at zero research so, yes we need ten turns' income. The good news is we already about three turns' worth.

 

[peter grimes]

If they stacked up their ships, we would need at least 65 ships to sink 17 transports. We don't have 65 ships - we don't even have 65 ships + bombers.

This is why I'm still on the side of subs. There's no sense in investing precious shields and upkeep in units that can't sink transports. Can bombers target transports? Sadly, this is part of the game is far, far beyond my comfort level

 

[AutomatedTeller]

No, fraid bombers can't. Subs (and nuclear subs, of course) are the only ones who can.

 

[donsig]

Well, we have both less surface ships and less upkeep now.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I guess I'll upgrade our tanks - I'm glad I didn't dump them last turn after all.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

btw - I assume everyone will be fine with me running minimum research.

Should I go to 0 or run 10% or so, which would allow us to build up some beakers for if we can beat off saber quickly?

Should we continue to build subs? I am thinking I should change sub builds over to bombers/arty/MA/something else - I assume they'll airlift reinforcements if they can get a toehold.