DuneWars: Battle for Arrakis

Ahriman · Nov 9, 2009

We might be better off to build a real defender who will get the barracks bonus, rather than upgrading 0xp soldiers. Mahdi Fighters with a mix of shock, and combat/improved shields will be good defenders, with no maintenance costm and city defender or drill guardsmen can do ok too.
Save the gold so that we can buy units once we have offworld trade.

Being able to buy units from the Guild is a very good way of being able to respond to invasions; we can just instantly buy troops in whatever city is threatened.

Slvynn · Nov 10, 2009

Yep, prolly more ilitary in cities. Current amount is not enough.
Good point on unit building and Guild. You're right - we better save this cash for homeworld units.

negyvenketto · Nov 10, 2009

One day Paul had a vision. A vision of large flying war vessels. He called his Science Advisor.
'Is there anything you want to report.'
'Yes, Sir. We just made a breakthrough on the field of Great Houses.'
'Sounds interesing :crazyeye:

I would like you deal with something more useful. You should conduct applied science. We need air superiority for a successful war. Let's working on this field.'
'We will do our best, I think we need to develop Offword Trade first'
'All right, just do it quickly'

Ixian ambassador applied for audience. Paul couldn't believe to his ears, convert to Landsraad??? 'This is your lucky day, I don't execute you for this insult, go with peace ... for now.'

Paul looked the latest reports and immediately called his city governors.
'Gentlemen, I'm shocked Al Aqabah, Sihaya Ridge recruiting unexperienced Zealots :confused:

Our Holly war needs men, not children. Lets build barracks to train them!'
He also had to talk with the leader of the Intelligence Service.
'We have focused on Tleilaxu for a too long period. It was useless. It's better to see the demographics of all other Houses. You should rearrange your agents.'

Bene Tleilax also tried to improve relations, but Paul had a feeling this is not the right way. 'You sould pay us tribute, not ask' We don't forget and forgive.

Chani came to see her loving husband. 'I have a wonderful surprise for you and for our empire. I'm expecting babies, a boy and a girl. Are there any names for them in your mind?'
'Oh, I'm so delighted. [party]

The boy should be Leto, after my father. Please choose a name for the girl.'
'Her name will be Ghanima'
'In a few years time we can send them to war to encourage our troops, to make them even more fanatic and loyal our House.'

'Sir, we revealed the secrets of Offword Trade and heading for Air Power'
'Great news'
'A Landing Stage is constructed in Arrakeen, Sir. We have to choose a trade connection'
'Decisions, decisions ... I hope I won't regret, but I choose Caladanian Wine. We don't need anything right now, but some fine wine from our distant home world is always heartwarming.'

'Sir, our expeditionary forces reached the pole.'
'Which one, North or South.'
' :dunno:

you know, ... the one with the filthy tleilaxi cities. Their defense is pretty weak.'
'Great, attack!'

'You are victorious!'
'Great! My sun will arrive soon with the reinforcement. Go for their capital!

'They beg for peace!'
'Hmmm, all right for now. At least our troops can heal and we can use their map of Arrakis. Our knowledge of the planet has rather big holes to fill.'

'Look at that, Sir. They have a distant town.'
'Don't worry, send some Mahdi Zealots there while we are at peace, then we can gift it to our Fremen Brothers.'

'Sir, do you wish to talk with the Harkonnens?'
'Send them away, deny anything they want.'

'Sir, a child has born in New Bandalong. The locals respect him as a Great Prophet.'
'Give him support, make him settle down.'

'Sir, please take a look at the finances.'
'Hm, the science rate is down from 90% to 55%, that's bad, start to build Tribunals here and there. We have enough troops right now.'

Spoiler :

AnotherPacifist · Nov 10, 2009

Why not marble from offworld? It would speed up a lot of wonders (now that we have plenty of cities we can devote one to wonders, e.g. Arrakeen).

Ahriman · Nov 10, 2009

The long term benefits of marble are very very low, currently it is one of the worst resources in the game. Happiness resources are what we want. Caladaanian Wine is guaranteed to Atreides, so in general it would be better to take another resource first (like Soostone) and then get wine as the second resource.

Just to be clear: you did capture the Tleilaxu polar capital, right? It looks like it from the minimap. You might want to clarify that :-)

We don't want people thinking that you made peace before capturing the city.

Lets pick up Way of Liet and start terraforming before we push for air power.
And then maybe to water discipline for the windtrap boost, to give us the water to build some catchbasins without starving?

I'll play this tonight (~12 hours).

Deliverator · Nov 10, 2009

Ahriman said:
Just to be clear: you did capture the Tleilaxu polar capital, right? It looks like it from the minimap. You might want to clarify that

negyvenketto said:
Captured Tuek's Sietch (Master Scytale)
...
Captured Qulumriyah (Master Scytale)

So both Tleilaxu polar cities are captured.

That automated log thing is quite cool. I'm guessing that is a BUG feature? I think I've seen something about logging in the BUG options.

negyvenketto · Nov 10, 2009

Ahriman said:
The long term benefits of marble are very very low, currently it is one of the worst resources in the game. Happiness resources are what we want. Caladaanian Wine is guaranteed to Atreides, so in general it would be better to take another resource first (like Soostone) and then get wine as the second resource.

I checked the cities before the decision and nowhere needed happiness or health. We are water limited.

Just to be clear: you did capture the Tleilaxu polar capital, right? It looks like it from the minimap. You might want to clarify that
We don't want people thinking that you made peace before capturing the city.

What is polar capital? How many capitals they have? :crazyeye:

I captured two cities, one was his capitial at that time. They still have one city on polar region + the (new) capital .

negyvenketto · Nov 10, 2009

Deliverator said:
So both Tleilaxu polar cities are captured.

Oh, I see. The reason of the confusion was you thought they have only 2 cities there, but there were 3 of them.

That automated log thing is quite cool. I'm guessing that is a BUG feature? I think I've seen something about logging in the BUG options.

Yes, it is, if you enable it

Deliverator · Nov 10, 2009

Oh, I see. The reason of the confusion was you thought they have only 2 cities there, but there were 3 of them.

You're right, my mistake.

Slvynn · Nov 10, 2009

Also it will be nice idea to see what techs aviable for trade
Ix is weak and have Choam and Landsraad HC. Attacking him will not cause any diplo penalty.
Nice job on positioning armies. Things look good

Perhaps after clearing Tleilaxu Ix will be easy and tasty nut to crack.
As another possibility - to attack Witches - The army is already there, and that will make good hold on that land mass to attac Corrino/Harkonnen/Ordos

Also important note: We have OB with ordos.
We might use their land for delivering huge stacks to Shaddam's land.
Seems we have chance to get Executrix to our cause - he is backstab dog and cant be strusted, but he already have some cities under Mahdi. Few more Mahdi spreads over Imperial and he is our ally.

negyvenketto · Nov 10, 2009

I thought we hate everybody (except Fremen) and not trading with them.

Ahriman · Nov 10, 2009

So both Tleilaxu polar cities are captured.

Ahh, didn't notice the log posted.

I checked the cities before the decision and nowhere needed happiness or health. We are water limited.

Irrelevant. We should not be looking backwards, we should be planning *forward* for the future.
We will change to Way of Liet and start terraforming, which will massively increase our water and allow for very large cities - if we can keep them happy.

Don't just get what you think is useful now, we can't swap these contracts later, get what will be useful for the entire game.

I thought we hate everybody (except Fremen) and not trading with them.

I was tending to not trade with anyone except Fremen for roleplay reasons, but that wasn't an explicit restriction in our gameplan. I'm happy to go either way; what are peoples' thoughts on this? How about, we don't trade with anyone except if we think we can turn them to Mahdi?

Protected trade for Mercantilism will be useful in the future too.

Is the consensus that Ix should be our next target?

Another thing on the weakness of the polar cities: do we agree that these should have fresh water, or at least that the ice extractors should provide fresh water? So that adjacent cottages get a hammer?

Slvynn · Nov 10, 2009

Ahriman said:
I was tending to not trade with anyone except Fremen for roleplay reasons, but that wasn't an explicit restriction in our gameplan. I'm happy to go either way; what are peoples' thoughts on this? How about, we don't trade with anyone except if we think we can turn them to Mahdi?

That should be right RP wise - we are ok if someone want to adopt Mahdi. If one wont/cannot convert - he'll die sooner or later, but lets say we might to try to work on conversion of 1 not-fremen AI at time. We are interested in that.

Also i think inquisitors already have sence. We need to clear our cities from other religions.

Slvynn · Nov 10, 2009

I have also idea of gifting 1 suspensor transport to Fremen. That will help him alot and he will settle new cities.

Ahriman · Nov 10, 2009

'Sir, please take a look at the finances.'
'Hm, the science rate is down from 90% to 55%, that's bad, start to build Tribunals here and there. We have enough troops right now

A thought; is this just from city upkeep, or is the no-upkeep for mahdi-fighters not actually working? We should check.

Also i think inquisitors already have sence. We need to clear our cities from other religions.

Is this really a short-term priority? We don't really suffer much harm from having foreign religions, as long as we also have mahdi. Its a 1 unhappiness, thats basically it. And don't we only have a couple of cities that don't have Mahdi?

I have also idea of gifting 1 suspensor transport to Fremen. That will help him alot and he will settle new cities.

Seems reasonable. We could give them a settler too, and a mahdi fighter.
Alternatively, we could settle the city for them, to make sure they don't put it somewhere bonehead, then give it to them.

We will need to examine Ix; if they have maula guardsmen (which they probably do by now) then zealots alone might not cut it.

Slvynn · Nov 10, 2009

Ahriman said:
A thought; is this just from city upkeep, or is the no-upkeep for mahdi-fighters not actually working? We should check.

Is this really a short-term priority? We don't really suffer much harm from having foreign religions, as long as we also have mahdi. Its a 1 unhappiness, thats basically it. And don't we only have a couple of cities that don't have Mahdi?

Seems reasonable. We could give them a settler too, and a mahdi fighter.
Alternatively, we could settle the city for them, to make sure they don't put it somewhere bonehead, then give it to them.

We will need to examine Ix; if they have maula guardsmen (which they probably do by now) then zealots alone might not cut it.

You forget Mahdi temples. Which are very good for us, and will buy those hammers of inquisitors.

Mortars is what i am thinking and offworld units as short-term solution to Ix defences. Perhaps we can gamble for roller-2 and a hornet from Guild.

Also we need guard masters being built - their advantage over Mahdi Zealots in defence is clear, even with more support cost they have.

Ahriman · Nov 10, 2009

You forget Mahdi temples. Which are very good for us, and will buy those hammers of inquisitors.

I didn't forget anything. We can build Mahdi temples anywhere we have Mahdi religion, and we have only a couple of cities without Mahdi religion.
Its not worth diverting to Theocracy tech and spending hammers to build inquisitors just so we can spend hammers on mahdi temples in order to save hammers on units.

We'll do it eventually, but not right now.

Ahriman · Nov 10, 2009

Ok, loading the save. I won't have time for a lot of commentary.

Wow, thats a lot of zealots and transports that we have. I start shuffling troops down to prepare for a war with Ix.

I build our second landing stage in our shrine city, and get soostone.

I contact Malky, and he has several techs we don't and we can't trade him Maula Pistols, so I assume that means he has Master Guardsmen in his city. Trying to take them with just massed zealots would be incredibly bloody. We need mortars, at a minimum.

The Ecazi have heavy troopers, and suspensor destroyers. Lets not invade them for a while....

The Harkonnen demand Caladaanian wine, sheer effrontery. As if we'd waste such delicate vintages on their crude palates.

I settle Cave of Tears to the west, then give it and a transport and a zealot to the Fremen.

Air power!

Time to churn falcon thopters and hornets.

I upgrade some hawks to falcons, and send them off to raid the Corrino.

I'm going to get Protected trade (for Mercantilism) and Caste System (for Faufreluches), those should be very large economy boosts.

We get a great scientist in sihaya ridge. I use him for an Academy in Arrakeen.

I settle Al Gharb on the west end of our island - not sure why we didn't do this earlier, its a prime city site. 3 groundwaters and a mesa.

More terrible Fremen city placement. Why not 1S? For 2 more bonuses, losing almost nothing?

We are second most cultured (after Shaddam).

The Ordos declare war. Probably paid to by Shaddam. Mercenary scum.

They're still too far to really prosecute it, so maybe we'll divert raiders to them.

I disband some of our obsolete soldiers; not worth paying upkeep on them.

Thopter fight!

Corrino send a huge stack to our polar conquests, 1 turn before my thopter reinforcements arrive. I set research down to zero to get gold to buy units from the Guild.

I send a worker out of the city in hopes of luring the gunships away.

I kill 4-5 suspensor gunships, but can't stop them landing 3 transports.

I buy a guardsmen and move Leto II in, but I doubt it will be enough.

I sneak a spy in to scout the Ixians.

The city holds! The guardsmen destroys a charging roller, and the thopters I moved in for support help mow down charging waves of hardened bladesmen.

But an Ordos stack arrives right adjacent on the next turn, waiting to unload. Teamwork by AIs launching amphibious assaults? Is our AI really that good?

I trade Law of Arrakis to Liet-Kynes for 10 gold (and his map), and sell jihad to the bene gesserit for 330 gold (maybe they will join us?) to buy a bunch more units, and use these with some zealot support to wipe the ordos off before they unload.

If our transport AI was better, and the Ordos had unloaded immediately after making landfall, then we would have been screwed.

I lose a homeworld falcon thopter at an 89% win... which makes me sad.

But the thopters hold the enemy off, (with some strafing support) and save our city. The city fathers (recently installed by my zealots) inscribe a monument "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Everyone praises them for such an original sentiment.

I mop up the remnants next turn. We have lots of great generals, and start settling them.

I revolt to Faufreluches, which will boost our specialist economy dramatically.

The spy gets spotted, alas, but we can scout with recon runs anyway.

I step down.

I suggest we get chemical explosives for mortars, and way of liet to start terraforming. Raid the ordos with thopters backed up by hornets, and consider making peace with Shaddam and invading Ix.

We need to be careful about the Ecazi, they are way ahead of us in tech.

Slvynn · Nov 11, 2009

Ok i looked at save

Shaddam ready to sign peace with paying us 90 gold, 3 per turn and world map.
There is a good stack ready for x and i gonna buy more caryall and transport from guild and thats will be enough.

I though we gonna make quick final blow to Tleilaxu before Ahrimans set, but now its late to do that. So, i will sign peace with Shadam and will start mass invasion on Ix.
Ecasi are quite potent and they are very near.

My tech aim will be Solaris Economy (+25 commerce, and +2/3 health from water souks), then Kanly for now (Vendettas) . Its a perfect match to our civic set and our wellfare which is based on warfare.
I will play in more like 12-14 hours from now, meenwhile we can discuss abit.

As for Theocrathy - we already have that one. (Another Pacifist bulbed it once)
I will cleart our cities from heathen religions. All should follow the way of Mahdi. All others should be put on the sword.
Mahdi temples will help then in those cities, which ones we will convert. After Kanly i think i go somewhere into Aerial combat - earlier we get it - better for us and since we are warmongers - there are alot of nice tools for us on that way. Perhaps liquid Fuel after kanly.

I propose to go for terraformation later. At now enemy have superrior tech units, later it will be even worse. Wen eed to catch up abit. Kanly + Missile launchers will be a great help. When we will get Air combat we will take back our offensive great avantage, our xp count for Thopters and air units will be 11!!! (lvl 3) (Desert Airfields , which add more 1 trade route as well). Buzzard thopters with desert promotions will be nice match for suspesor destroyers, and Suspensor carriers will allow us to use Horners and Locusts at our will for offence. Being civ that favor Air combat having Suspensor Carriers is very good bonus. Our Hornet class units will help us at any point on the planet. Missile Launcher and MZ for the land assault, and desert fighting and ocassional strikes on land should be done with swarms of Hornet-class (Locust/etc/etc) units and Buzzard Thopters.

negyvenketto · Nov 11, 2009

Slvynn said:
I have also idea of gifting 1 suspensor transport to Fremen. That will help him alot and he will settle new cities.

Fremen settlers are sandriding, but nevermind.

How many landing stage can we build? I hoped it wasn't a big mistake to pick the wine.
I'm surprised the Tleilaxu still alive :confused:

I miss the point. I we don't like the city upkeep, just give it to the Fremen. It's easier than building a settler and gives us experience, too.

DuneWars: Battle for Arrakis

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