DEF-SAT for the turn 1550 AD

[RedBull]

(I liked the idea of the MODALTSIR...gives a catchy name to something we all need to read)

1550 A.D. DEF-SAT (Department of DEF ense S trategic A ction T hread)

Most of my posting has been on the topic of the planned conquest of the Zulu civilization...and all of the posts have been spread out over many threads. So I thought I'd make something to regularly post to gather all defense topics into one spot.

Before I start to walk through the plan as it should unfold, take part in the poll as to whether or not we should take action in the first place against the Zulus. I want to make sure that we're doing the right thing here.

At any rate, it seems that our order of action should run something like this:

1. Begin bringing 2 galleons to the beaches near Doughnutia. At this point, the action to hike taxes and stockpile cash for libraries, as well as this purpose, begins.

2. Tax hike period ends; 3 knights/dragoons/cavalry (unit type will change throughout the maneuvers) are to be rush built from Doughnutia.

3. As mounted units are loaded on board a galleon and begin heading north, a second galleon either just arrives or has arrived at Doughnutia. 4 engineers are rush built, sent on board, and begin to follow the first ship; first ship picks up lone mounted unit near Nemoville, for a total of 4.

4. First ship makes beachhead on roaded square to the south of Ulundi. Then and only then will we begin a revolution to temporarily switch to monarchy. Ulundi is first city to be taken. Switch support of mounted units to Ulundi, fortify one in Ulundi, and proceed to send the other 3 via the Zulu road system to Bapedi, Hlobane, and Zimbabwe. Whether or not units are lost, begin to build/rush build mounted units out of the captured Zulu cities.

5. As the first four Zulu cities fall, ship full of engineers makes landing directly to the west of Bapedi and start to help the captured cities catch up improvement-wise to the initial CFC cities.

6. Final Zulu city falls. (Most likely Isandhlwana.) Zulus are defeated. We immediately begin revolution to return to Democracy. If not already, science rush begins for CFC. As we return to Democracy, attempt peace talks with the Greeks.

And that should pretty much do it. Feel more than free to support, oppose, suggest, or modify.

 

[Octavian X]

It sounds like a plan to me. The sooner the Zulu go, the better.

 

[Elsaak]

I do support too.

 

[TheViking]

Let's teach the Zulus a lesson !!

The reason I suggested sending a few engineers along with the invasion force was to quickly build railroad between cities in Zululand (we really need a new province name here) if we have discovered railroad when we start the invasion. The engineers would then be returned to Coresux.

It could be nice to have finished building Statue of Liberty before this war. Then we can use communism instead of monarchy (I like avoiding fundy for the challenge) and we are not constrained by Oedo years as we are without SOL. Also we are IIRC required to finish the game with a spotless reputation which makes this all the more necessary.

 

[funxus]

I'll be honest, I'm not very fond of the idea of leaving Demo.

War is not my strong side, but I'd do it quite differently. I'd empty the three cities of Hlobane, Ulundi and Bapedi with cavalry, and make sure we had one move left on some unit in range of each city. I.e. capture all three cities at once without talking to them. Then maybe sign a treaty, build up the offensive units and infrastructure and while doing this constantly ask them to leave and place units in their terrirtory to provoke them to declare war on us. Second time we get their capital and Intombe. Isandhlwana isn't much to worry about, we should get it too, but there's no rush.

This is just another way to wage war on the Zulus, not as quick maybe and we might need a few more units than with the other plan, but the rest of our empire could continue almost as usual except for some money we need to transfer to South Africa (?, maybe New Holland, Africa, New Britain). Not the best names, but historically they were defeated by both of them.

 

[RedBull]

I like the idea of getting that Statue before we start, and taking our chances with the SoL and staying with a Democracy throughout...but again, that runs the risk of being forced a peace treaty due to good ol' Senate, and therefore the risk of having to break a treaty and sloppy up our reputation. Plus I'm trying to plan this war while saving as much money as absolutely possible for the planned improvements without missing a beat.

With the SoL, we can switch to Commies as we set foot in Africa (or whatever), not have the anarchy, not worry about breaking treaties to finish the war, switch *back* to Democracy, again without anarachy, and in the long run save more money for more improvements/etc due to fewer necessary units.

 

[RedBull]

I posted this in the 1550 turn thread not too long ago:

"Maybe I should sit down with the game, calculate how much the war's going to cost, and be sure to stock up that much more (a couple extra turns at a hiked tax rate). We could then keep that money free until the science rush is full speed ahead or even winding down, and *then* take it to the Zulus with modern units. Maybe we should try the peace talks with the Greeks first, so that we don't need to worry about someone coming in the back door while we're busy to the north."

 

[funxus]

Unless we switch to fundy, I don't think there is any other way to get more money than in demo. With a sci rate at 40%(one tech every two turns) we'd be making over 550g per turn to spend, and with a sci rate at 10% (one tech every six turns) we'd get more than 1000g per turn. This extra money would definitely cover up the expenses on more units (which we'd probably need later anyway), and we'll still get techs quite often.

I feel that we're not really in a big hurry to terminate the Zulus, which is why I don't think we should revolt.

Just to fill you in before planning the war: When we started the game we decided that we'd have to keep the reputation through the game, so we can't break any treaties. Inciting revolts isn't allowed either.

 

[RedBull]

Well, then we'll go to Fundamentalism when we do decide to go with it. We're not sending any diplomats, so inciting revolts is a non-issue. Our reputation won't head south because we're already in a state of war with them. None of that should be a problem.

I do think it would serve us well to make peace with the Greeks first. And I think we should start the attack after our science rush is done with. Basically, I think the war plan itself should stay the same, but put it off until we have peace with the Greeks and the science rush is over, and switch to a fundamentalist government when we do it.

All in all, I think we still plan to go to war, but not yet, and to switch to fundy, not communism. No reputation changes will happen, no revolts started.

 

[funxus]

I know you hadn't said anything about breaking treaties or revolting, but they are good and common ways of beating your enemy, so I just didn't want you to make the effort of planning anything that we weren't allowed to do.

I think I formulated myself a bit wrong in my last post, what I meant was that I'm 99% sure that no other government would give us more money than demo, except for fundamentalism which I don't know. I don't know if fundy will give us more money than demo. I assume that a celebrating fundy could give us a whole bunch of money, but we'll probably fall behind in science.

Maybe we should try and collect pros and cons for each gov, and vote for it?

 

[TheViking]

Falling back in science shouldn't be a problem because we would probably need to leave democracy for only a few turns (the numbers are turn numbers):

(1) Revolt on the turn our units land in Africa. Important: Revolt *before* they land because landing can lead to contact with the Zulus and a senate-signed treaty. Take the first city. An alternative could be to delay taking the city one turn and build a fortress the moment we land and load the units into it but I don't think this is necessary.

(2) We become fundies or commies. Take more cities if possible, maybe after building some railroads. Maybe buy some stuff in Africa (probably barracks and/or cavalry).

(3) Take more cities and then revolt.

(4) Choose communism or fundamentalism. Take more cities if possible. Talk to the Zulus and be as rude as possible, reject any cease fires/treaties and finally demand tribute. Then revolt again and choose demo.

Depending on how well things are going we could omit step (3) and revolt in step (2). Adding one more turn could also be necessary. This plan only works if we have the Statue of Liberty; in that case the fundy/communism period can be arbitrarily long but without SOL we either must accomplish everything in 2 turns or we would need to stay in monarchy (since fundy/communism wouldn't be available) for a longer time than necessary. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if we were allowed to bribe cities since then we would simply buy the Zulu empire (except for Zimbabwe), either by bribing or by subverting if not at war.

At the end of (4) at most only a small part of the Zulu empire still remains and we are still at war against the Zulus.

Now the question is how many units we want and which units (engineers, cavalry, cannons, alpine troops, diplomats etc., IMO mainly cavalry and engineers but maybe a couple of alpine troops since the Zulus are probably too primitive to be able to kill them but they would probably try it).

PS I'm sure fundy gives less $$ than demo because of our advanced trade network.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

I would not do this if the revolution is to Monarchy. Our cities would be in massive disorder or our luxuries would have to go through the roof. Either research fundamentalism (it's not far off our current tech path) and then time the attack with the Oedo years, or build the statue so we can use fundamentalism.

 

[RedBull]

Well, like I said before, we only need a galleon full of cavalry, or even an alpine troop or two. And there's no way I'd do this under a monarchy either...I say we get the Statue before we start this. Fundamentalism looks like the way to go. It may give us less money than Democracy, but it's only a temporary thing.

I think the war plan itself is solid, it's just up to the Science and DA offices to decide when to let me put the little red phone in front of funxus. (I think we should send our boys in after our science rush is over.)

EDIT: I mean, *initially* we'll only need to send a galleon full of units. The rest will come out of the Zulu cities as they're captured.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

SO if I understand correctly, the plan is
- research up to railroad (including tactics and refrig) then lock down science. Somewhere in here we're supposed to be getting a bunch of libraries.
- Rushbuild some 4 legged-soon-to-be-cavalry units homed out of Doughnutia
- Build Statue of Liberty somewhere
- Revolt to Fundy when about to attack.

Is that right? - Sounds fine to me...I'm pretty easy going about the whole thing at this point.

 

[TheViking]

This is roughly the plan from the MODA's point of view, yes. Much of the $$ we have now and what we get in the next 1-2 turns from taxes and a caravan delivery will be spent on engineers and libraries plus some four legged units in Dou. Shortly before starting peackeeping in Africa we'll build SOL (by then the science rush will be winding down).

Once we have made all science discoveries of interest we'll set science to 0% to prevent us from prematurely discovering industrialism, conquer the Zulus and build all of the infrastructure outlined in MODALTSIR.

More detailed plans (polls) from the MODA's point of view will be presented once funxus has played.

Regarding the war plan, I strongly recommend sending two galleons to Africa, one loaded with engineers to build railroads and possibly fortresses. The MODA is ready to temporarily assign 4 engineers to DOD operations but they would be returned to Coresux once the peacekeeping operations end.

 

[RedBull]

Good deal about the engineers, but like I said in the other thread, keep the engineers *well* out of harm's/bribery's way until the Zulus are down to one city. I'm pretty sure a couple days ago I said somewhere the engineers could easily be accomodated in an existing galleon.

(As for my back burner, I've printed out a hard copy of our current maps and gotten a copy of modern unit stats, and I'll be busy oggling Athens even as Zimbabwe burns...and hopefully after *that* we can finish off in peace.)

 

[funxus]

The engineers IMO should come in when the first cities are captured, and their purpose is to build at least roads in the beginning so that our cavalry can transport faster to their unconnected cities. When the Zulus are conquered we can assign them to build a railroad network before returning home. How about sending an AT along instead of one of the engineers. Its purpose would be to protect the engineers as their approacing zulu cities (Intombe and Isand.) while building roads. The reason an AT is good is because of it treating all squares as road squares. That's probably the best use of any defensive units we're sending along. The rest of the defensive units we should get locally.

 

[RedBull]

Great idea, Mr. Prez. Maybe we could unload two of the engineers at first, and keep two behind to start following up, building rails after we're halfway through conquering the cities. (This is exactly how I got armor over to the Indians in one of my games a couple months ago. It worked beautifully!)

So the build plan for Doughnutia would then be two 4 legged units, then an AT, then a caravan, right? And the galleon loads would be 3 cavalry and an AT on one, and 4 engineers on the other.