GR6 - Battening Down the Hatches!
1750 AD (0)
Oh boy, is this going to take a while. Let's go for a sparse report with a bunch of pictures.
The UN has not been started. We have 47% land area and 62% pop. We need something on the order of 520 tiles to reach domination. The Ottomans have 20% land area in 2nd place. 520 tiles is something like 18 cities with judicious placement, or 30 without. Yup, this is going to be a while.
The Celts have 7 Bombers and ~260 defensive units. I suspect that would mean an average of 15 units in each city.
Maybe we need to look for an alternate target. Once we get Bombers of our own we can probably suck up a bunch of the Celt units.
I would almost guess that the Celts lack aluminum as they don't have any units that require the resource. If they actually don't have the stuff, we can only lose by UN vote.
Begin by safely stealing the WM from England. We now know where the Celt Oil is located ... by Richborough, on the opposite side of the continent from our Armies. Need Bombers soon! When we nail it, they cannot import any from another nation. If we can get to Bombers and Tanks, we're home free.
<Return>
1755 AD (1)
Lose a Galleon to a Sub, get bombed a few times. Start a couple of Courthouses in anticipation of stealing Flight. 50 spt = 2-turn Bombers.
It will cost 3222 gold to steal a tech from the Celts. We'll have that in 4 turns.
One more turn of waiting and the we can go after Entremont. Probably on turn 3.
Then have a colossal MP mess as the trade route to the beachhead gets cut off.
1754 AD (2)
It's kind of cute the way the Celts drop units off on one turn and then they retreat on the next.
A few riots nonetheless, and someone dropped off some units somewhere. Oh, and somewhere in there we lost an Army. Methinks the Beachhead is going to be lost next turn.
Dispatch the invasion and set up to attack Entremont next turn. I think the Celts go before the English, so the Beachhead city should be safe. Actually, I just thought of something sneaky ...
1756 AD (3)
The Bridgehead city is lost to the
English! I never suspected that a single Cav could beat an Infantry behind Walls, but what do you know? I would have abandoned the city on our turn anyway.
Three rounds of pollution, no landings. Recapture Beachhead and scuttle about 8 MoW in the process.
Take a break to play Frisbee.
Abandon Beachhead. We cannot hold it without multiple Infantry armies and some artillery. Once we get Flight and can knock out the Celt Oil we can regain control of the seas. It is pointless to venture out with boats until we can start to thin out the Celt fleet.
Mediocre bombardment and then lose 18 or 19 HP in killing 1 TOW. This is gonna take a while. Hopefully I can trick them into drafting Entremont back below Metro.
1758 AD (4)
The bombing is becoming more intense on the Celt continent. We also get a 2 TOW and 6 Cav landing in ex-Arabia. Dispatch without loss.
Lose 3 ships to subs, unfortunately the game won't let me bombard tiles where I can't see the units.
Bomb and kill 1 more TOW in Entremont. C'mon, you know you want to draft it down! Our entire invasion force might just go up in flames from the Bombers. We can't reach the Oil from here.
Investigate size-1 Batshireet and realize the Garrison is 22 units. I'm not entirely sure how we're going to win this thing, except "Tank Armies".
1760 AD (5)
A dozen units land on our shores. Safely steal Flight from the Celts.
The Celts only have 9 units defending Entremont, but they also have a Civil Defense that our Artillery isn't hitting even though I thought that was supposed to be the first thing to go.
Kill the dozen units that landed. Now back to Entremont ... kill 3 TOW, leaving a full health Cav army and the Infantry army to defend the stack. The Fortress on the mountain will probably finish just as I'm ready to leave.
Start a number of Airports and a few Fighters and Bombers. Want vet Fighters for sure, and vet Bombers wouldn't hurt.
1762 AD (6)
Dispatch another Celt landing. Really pondering how we are going to win this.
.... Continued ....
With the "plan", we don't have as much need to steal techs right now. So upgrade four Galleons to Transports. The trip can be made in 2 turns, and I think we can lay-over in a spot that is out of reach of the southern Celt Bombers. I'm not sure the fleet will sail on my turns, but I can assemble it. I will aim for 4 Transports, a pair with 4 Flak each and a pair with defensive units. We already have the settler on the mainland.
Then upgrade a fifth Transport. This one will go west to snag the Celt Oil.
The Celts only have three Subs, so something will have to get through if we don't get attacked by Bombers.
Next turn I will try to starve Entremont.
Arbela is on an Airport as a pre-build for another Army. We could lose another one here soon.
1764 AD (7)
It's starting to look grim for our Infantry Army. Even in a Fortress on a Mountain the Bombers aren't missing much.
At least one of the Celt Subs is chasing Mongol ships. This just might work.
Kill off a couple of landings. The Ottomans land next to the undefended city in ex-Arabia, the Celts land next to Tureng.
Remove about 6 food from Entremont.
The Western Fleet should have a 2 Destroyer, 1 Cruiser escort. The Eastern Fleet looks to have 3 Destroyers and whatever Frigates you choose to put out there. Frigates might make good sub bait.
1766 AD (8)
Lose the 1-member Cav Army attacking a Sipahi that was escorting an Ottoman settler.
Oh well, we were at our limit anyway so swap Arbela from Airport to Army. I kind of figured we'd lose one, just not this way.
Suicide missions, food deprivation completed around Entremont. Maybe it will starve now.
Entremont should starve in 3 turns, so the next player might get a shot at doing something interesting. Unfortunately, they still have money so the troop count will go up. On the good side, no Aluminum.
1768 AD (9)
Destroyer finds a Celt Sub. Bring in the Artillery to red-line and then let 'em have it with the "Ash Cans of Doom!". Nuts. They still have 3 Subs in the water.
Use our first Bomber to sink an injured Celt Destroyer. They have 4 more of those. The Celts are doing a beautiful (or lucky) job of not having their boat stacks end up in range of our Artillery. I guess we need more Bombers to defend our shores.
Good bombardment round at Entremont, but we're not in a hurry. I'll wait until the Metro defensive bonus is gone. So up to the next guy. We actually aren't in any danger of losing an Army there, we have too many armies for a sufficiently injured one to end up on top.
Now the Celts are trying to sneak in a city by the Silks. This could be problematic as we aren't yet ready to launch.
There are Bombers based in Tabriz, so we'll need to cover the Transports with multiple Destroyers.
1770 AD (10)
The Celts land 17 units by Tareng. Good we have so much Artillery already over there.
While killing a landing in ex-Arabia, finally pop an MGL on this round. Unused, probably best put towards an Airport over there. Or maybe not, we can build an Airfield on territory we control.
Kill the group of 17 that landed at a loss of 1 Cavalry.
Final Notes:
The fleet could launch on this turn. I leave it up to the next player whether it goes now, or whether we wait another turn. Big logistics picture to follow.
The Leader is also unmoved. We can go one over our army limit if we so choose, but that requires getting this guy out of ex-Arabia. We have the units to fill a Cav army on the island, but we only two steals from Tanks so it might be better to wait. It would be easier to fill an empty army on our home island.
We could safely steal another tech in 2 turns, but we probably need to conserve some cash to rush stuff at the Beachhead. If we don't intend to open the path to it we may only need a Harbor as we can build an Airstrip on the tile next to it. (Assuming we re-found on the rubble). And Barracks are always useful.
I suspect we are at the final tipping point. The Celts have < 20 turns to build the UN before we have a Bomber SOD. Once we the SOD, they will no longer be able to invade our territory and we can ruin any and all cities in front of us.
The Western Fleet has to spend 3 turns at sea, and I don't think it can launch on this turn. We also probably want more units in that stack. Be careful about pulling stuff out of our mainland cities, we have MP problems.
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