Grand Strategy Thread

[General_W]

I don't have the exact count, but doesn't FREE have to capture 4 of the main continents to win a domination victory? I mean like even with our continent completely covered and one resource island we only have 19% land mass. Quick math: 19x3 = 57%, meaning they have to get another 9% from a 4th continent. I think it would be easier going for conquest over domination.

Yes – but remember that this only accounts for the land % needed for Domination. They'll also need 66% of world Population. As long as we maintain over 33%, they can't win via Domination. Even with 4 continents, FREE will likely be holding lands with devastated populations. If they're going to win militarily, it will require burning some of our cities down… either with Nukes or the old fashioned way.

The key here is speed, we can get nukes out in some 10 turns I reckon, with free's sentry line consisting of cruisers we can sneak in nuke subs in without them seeing them. The biggest problem is the fact they only have capacity of 1. Which means we need quite a lot of subs to make a decent chain, but either way it is still cheaper than building icbms. Also we are at no risk of free nuking back as they don't have fission or space flight.

If we are going to go to war with FREE, I agree this is our best route.

Still - if we start shooting Nukes off, we'll take FREE out of contention for the win… but more than anything else – that probably just helps Saber towards victory, since we lack the forces to actually conquer even a Nuke-devastated FREE.
Even the attempt to invade would be certainly met by a back-door invasion of our homeland by Saber. (who will be no longer restricted by our peace treaty)

I'm afraid that if we're going to nuke anyone, we'll have to nuke everyone.
Now I'm really feeling like Dr. Strangelove.

And I haven't even mentioned the consequences of radical global warming on our Space Race plans.

The idea has merit – but I don't think it's a better option than trying for the SS win while FREE and Saber fight it out…

 

[Yilar]

I have my worries that the other teams will not simply sit back and wait for us to win with spaceship. We are gonna need to get saber and free to attack each other, or have enough to defend ourselfs.

Btw, how do we plan to string Saber along with techs?

 

[General_W]

FREE has a huge head-start on tanks. I think Saber will need all the tech help we're going to give them just to stay competitive.

I have my worries that the other teams will not simply sit back and wait for us to win with spaceship

No doubt. Hopefully they'll be bloody enough from fighting each other, and we'll have enough of a defense network to survive when they finally do turn on us.
We don't have the military to win any other way... so I don't know what other realistic options we have...

 

[Niklas]

Tanks or even Modern Armor will do them no good if they are sunk on the way to our shores.

I think the investment is prohibitive for such a scheme, fun as it may be. Like General_W I think we should plan for our defense network and nothing else. I'd rather use an ICBM to sink a stack of 10 ships than send it onto an enemy town (I assume that's possible?).

One thing struck me - how plausible is it that whoever has a spy in our lands could sabotage our production of space ship parts? I never use espionage myself so I have no idea what the costs of doing that would be.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

One thing struck me - how plausible is it that whoever has a spy in our lands could sabotage our production of space ship parts? I never use espionage myself so I have no idea what the costs of doing that would be.

The costs of sabotaging production go up the closer the build is to finishing. If a part or pre-build is only one turn away from completion the cost could be somewhere around 5000 gold. It has a good chance of succeeding after the usual 80% chance for the spy not getting caught succeeds.

This works great against the ai who will never change the town they are building the part in or use a pre-build, but could only buy at best 2-3 turns against a human team. 2-3 turns may make all the difference, though, in the spying team catching up and tech and beating us to space with their builds or staging a massive and successful attack on our capital forcing us to start over on the spaceship.

 

[Ekibiogami]

Yeah, fellas, it is a conundrum. It seems to me that pretty much the worst idea is building the Manhattan project ourselves. it would be a waste of shields and in the end i think it would not be good for us, especially if we want a SS victory.
The bitter reality of it is that any civilization could simply nuke the hell out of us making it really hard to build parts. Also global warming would be hampering to the SS production.

It seems to me that we must do 5 things.
1) Ask for a peace treaty with FREE and kiss up.
2) Build up our defenses (more) (I really like what you guys did with the subs!)
3) Try to pit FREE and Saber against each other- we have to time this right but the time to build the SS would be right before the end of this war, with prebuilds, and when both civs have heavy casualties and WW has rendered their cities less productive.
4) NOT build Manhattan Project- but if someone else does, well.. good for them we'll build nukes.
5) Hope and pray that after the war no one has the capability to mobilize their forces and mount an effective assault on us.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

If someone (FREE) builds manhatten, it will happen in a way that is timed to correspond with a set of ICBM's.

We do not have to worry about that until satellites is discovered, however, so we should probably hold off on Satellites until near last.

 

[Paul#42]

Just a weird idea:

Democrazy
Does it make sense to spend 8 turns after our GA researching PP and Democracy and another 8 turns of anarchy to enter democracy to be more spy-proof? Okay, the eight turns of anarchy already answers this...

In those eight turns they would pretty sure beat the holy s**t out of us and war weariness would already make us switch back to republic before we even entered democracy...

Forget it.

Genetics
talk about crazy ideas:
If FREE should be able to build Longevity they might grow population extremely fast. (AGR+Pyramides+Longevity )
Is it worth researching and building it to avoid FREE getting this? For us it's rather useless though...

 

[Yilar]

Just a weird idea:

Democrazy
Does it make sense to spend 8 turns after our GA researching PP and Democracy and another 8 turns of anarchy to enter democracy to be more spy-proof? Okay, the eight turns of anarchy already answers this...

In those eight turns they would pretty sure beat the holy s**t out of us and war weariness would already make us switch back to republic before we even entered democracy...

Forget it.

Genetics
talk about crazy ideas:
If FREE should be able to build Longevity they might grow population extremely fast. (AGR+Pyramides+Longevity )
Is it worth researching and building it to avoid FREE getting this? For us it's rather useless though...

1:You're completely right, the extented period of time needed for it makes it not worth it.

2: Would be dumb, I have my doubts they are teching as fast as us, they would need 3 techs to build it, if they are at 6-7 rate that would take them 20 turns, meaning we could get tanks and rape them before they even completed the wonder. Plus the reward is limited as all their core cities are size12 already and only the farms would grow faster.

Btw, what kind of deals do we have with saber about bringing babe into the future?

 

[Paul#42]

2: Would be dumb, I have my doubts they are teching as fast as us, they would need 3 techs to build it, if they are at 6-7 rate that would take them 20 turns, meaning we could get tanks and rape them before they even completed the wonder. Plus the reward is limited as all their core cities are size12 already and only the farms would grow faster.

I thought about the other continent(s) where they will have lots of size 1 towns to grow quickly and spit out settlers.
But you are right, they would need it now, in ~20 turns that continent should be flourishing already...

Btw, what kind of deals do we have with saber about bringing babe into the future?

None at all.
The opposite is true, once our proposed treaty is signed, we are not allowed to tarde any tech to them (or any other of SABER's foes)...
SABER does not have any interest in BABE's future as they are fighting them.
So if we want to push them, we should do it soon...

 

[Yilar]

I thought about the other continent(s) where they will have lots of size 1 towns to grow quickly and spit out settlers.
But you are right, they would need it now, in ~20 turns that continent should be flourishing alaedy...

None at all.
The opposite is true, once our proposed treaty is signed, we are not allowed to tarde any tech to them (or any other of SABER's foes)...
SABER does not have any interest in BABE's future as they are fighting them.
So if we want to push them, we should do it soon...

Pyramids only work on one continent (the former gong one). Not sure about the other wonder as i've never ever built it.

Can't we secretly sell babe techs every 4-5 turns for a low amount of gold if any at all? It is in our interest keeping babe alive at this point. Once Saber gets MA they won't be able to hold them back without tows or mechs inf drafts.

 

[Paul#42]

Pyramids only work on one continent (the former gong one). Not sure about the other wonder as i've never ever built it.

This Longevity thing works for all towns. So that's double growth, on Ex-GONG continent (with Pyramides) even 4x growth!

Longevity is a huge wonder if you are still growing or pop-rushing.
For us it's - waste of time. For FREE it might be worth building it, especially if they need to get 67% of the population and want to avoid fighting all rivals...

 

[donsig]

Interesting way for FREE to boost their population. Still, they need the land area, too. With each turn counting I think a detour away from space techs is dangerous.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Assuming they go for domination, I think there's a good chance that they will go for it - but they'll go for synthetic fibers and maybe stealth first.

 

[donsig]

I know I said a couple days ago that a detour away from space techs is dangerous but I'm wondering if we should acquire advanced flight. The defensive bonus from radar towers could be very helpful. I'm not sure if these towers destroy the underlying improvements or not. Perhaps researching this tech could be another favor we get from our friend Whomp.

If FREE refuses to accept peace, at what point (if any) should we initiate hostile actions? What actions should we take? (This question assumes FREE hasn't actively attacked us yet.)

Basically I'm asking if we should ever strike FREE first, and if so, how. SABER's stance has a bearing on this, though I can't see SABER doing much of anything until they are finished with BABE. They only reason I can think of to strike BABE is to give them war weariness. I do not understand the ww thing at all. If we inflict ww on FREE are we also giving ourselves ww?

If we are going to initiate hostilities I think we should direct our efforts towards the eleven tiler with Sid City. They have an airfield on that island from which they can bomb The Bayou. Not a good thing. Perhaps we should use this war to eliminate that strip.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

I know I said a couple days ago that a detour away from space techs is dangerous but I'm wondering if we should acquire advanced flight. The defensive bonus from radar towers could be very helpful. I'm not sure if these towers destroy the underlying improvements or not. Perhaps researching this tech could be another favor we get from our friend Whomp.

A radar tower costs a worker, covers a two-tile area providing a +25% defense and attack bonus for units in its range. They do not destroy improvements, but can't be built on fortresses, barricades, or airfields. It might be a nice tech to have, but I don't think we want to spend 4-turns on it. We are prevented by our new treaty with Saber to give scientific method, atomic theory, or electronics to Babes while they are at war with Saber. They probably won't last more than 10-turns anyway, though I hope they do, but espionage is probably the most we could get from them.

If FREE refuses to accept peace, at what point (if any) should we initiate hostile actions? What actions should we take? (This question assumes FREE hasn't actively attacked us yet.)

Basically I'm asking if we should ever strike FREE first, and if so, how. SABER's stance has a bearing on this, though I can't see SABER doing much of anything until they are finished with BABE. They only reason I can think of to strike BABE is to give them war weariness. I do not understand the ww thing at all. If we inflict ww on FREE are we also giving ourselves ww?

If we are going to initiate hostilities I think we should direct our efforts towards the eleven tiler with Sid City. They have an airfield on that island from which they can bomb The Bayou. Not a good thing. Perhaps we should use this war to eliminate that strip.

I guess I agree with some posts in other threads we shouldn't attack Free just yet. Hostile actions against them are probably 4-5 turns away and should be limited to ships within our EWS. Also, I've looked at the map and Free cannot target our land or cities with bombers from their airfields. Bombers only have a range of 10-tiles. If they get stealth, they could hit some cities, though. Stealth bombers have a range of 16. They could bomb our ships, though.

I'm glad we have our EWS working and I hope we one day we have enough forces to sink an invasion fleet before it comes. For the near future though, we can only really spot a fleet. We couldn't expect to kill more than 1-2 transports right now before they land. We only have 40 ground units now to react to an attack and can make some conscripts by drafting. I'm still sceptical Free will ever give us peace. They have got to know we can beat them to space. War is their only chance to stop us.

 

[donsig]

I've looked at the map and Free cannot target our land or cities with bombers from their airfields. Bombers only have a range of 10-tiles.

FREE has an airfield that can bomb The Bayou. The Bayou is a few tiles from The Chamber. There are only two reasons I can see for placing an airfield on that tile:

1. To place fighters there in case we want to bomb that tile to force a landing there.
2. To place bombers there to bomb The Bayou in preperation for an attack on our core.

FREE has had our map for a long time. They know where our core is. I think it is very important that we strike that airfield in a few turns.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

You're right, I thought it was just out of range. They can also use that airfield to gather units to be ready to load transports in an invasion. I agree, it probably would be a good idea to strike that airfield soon, then.

Edit: Bombers can also reach the Bayou from the town of Freeborn next to the airfield. Bayou looks like a good place for air defense.

 

[dl123654]

Maybe next turn we should get a look at that airfield to see whats there, fighters and they are being defensive, bombers and they might be ready to soon be aggressive.

 

[General_W]

STOP THE PRESSES!

We got a new letter from FREE... perhaps we can still save peace with them!
More in the FREE embassy thread...