Grand Strategy Thread

[AutomatedTeller]

They can bomb us from FREEBorn, as well.

What it IS useful for is airlifting - you can only airlift one unit at a time from an airfield.

We can ask them to remove it as a sign of good faith. They'll be able to recreate it if they want.

 

[Paul#42]

I think the discussion in the preturn discussion thread better belongs here.

I still think we are still in quite a comfortable position. Whoever of SABER and FREE attacks us first will have a disadvantage against the other one. Maybe this gets them to fight each other before attacking us. Whoever gets us to join him has the best chances. Unless the two of them ally against us of course...

Nevertheless we should keep building up our defense but we should not delay our main target more than by a few turns to prioritize military.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

What will be tough will be if SABER takes on FREE and starts winning - in that case, we will almost be forced to attack SABER, because 4 continents = domination win.

I doubt that FREE will be able to take out SABER unless they move while SABER is attacking BABE, because of the tech advantages SABER will have.

 

[Paul#42]

Oh, these current turns of peace will help FREE to build up their already huge tank army.
I'd rather see SABER at risk and FREE preparing an attack.

I recon that's why SABER takes so long to conquer BABE, they need to push their home defense as well to not make too much a juicy target...

 

[donsig]

This seems like a very good time to return to our discussion of Grand Strategy. From the beginning we've dreamed of reaching the stars. We've worked towards that goal all this time. We've met most of our goals thus far, losing out only in the races to the Great Lighthouse and Hoover Dam. We've survived and we've reclaimed SCI. We're technologically advanced. Now all we have to do is figure out how to stay that way and also defend the land and resources we need to launch our ship into space.

The major strategic decision we must make concerns the timing of our Apollo build and launch. There are two competing methods with different pros and cons:

1. Build Apollo as soon as we can and launch later, also as soon as we can.
   • Pros
     • Allows us to reduce our dependence on rubber by building or at least starting the one SS part that requires that resource.
     • Reduces our need to defend SCI by reducing our dependence on rubber. We should keep in mind that we still need rubber to produce modern armor and mechanized infantry.
     • Once Apollo is built we can remain mobilized for the duration (assuming we don't lose Apollo).
     • We don't need to use pre-builds for the space ship parts.
   • Cons
     • We become a target for aggressive action by our rivals.
     • The longer Apollo exists, the longer our rivals have to find it and destroy it.
     • Rival spies would be able to track the progress of our space ship parts builds and hence our technological progress.
     • We give our rivals time to prepare a precision strike on The Chamber in order to destroy our space ship.
2. Build Apollo as soon as all required techs are researched and (using pre-builds) complete the space ship and launch the following turn.
   • Pros
     • We give our rivals a minimum time (one turn) to destroy Apollo or our Space ship.
     • We keep our rivals in the dark the longest about our progress.
     • We stay under the radar and keep the target off us longer.
     • We can stay mobilized until a few turns before building Apollo. Even longer if someone builds Manhattan.
   • Cons
     • We are subject to a last minute cutting of our rubber supply, delaying our planned launch until rubber is recovered. The same can be said for aluminum and uranium though we have two sources of these.
     • We have to demobilize for at least one turn to build Apollo.
     • We have a limited number of pre-builds available in mobilization.
     • This requires careful planning of the pre-builds and an accurate estimate of when we will finish researching the last tech.

Comments?

 

[General_W]

Pretty good summary Donsig.

After reading that, I'm even more strongly in-favor of option #1 - "Build Apollo as soon as we can and launch later"

Not only for the reasons you outlined... but also because I don't think "We become a target for aggressive action by our rivals" is really a "Con" for option #1. I'm pretty sure that this will be the same for either plan.

I also don't really think that this: "We give our rivals a minimum time (one turn) to destroy Apollo or our Space ship" is a really "Pro" for option #2... I mean, if Saber and FREE can both easily guess what we're up too anyway, they could both already be planning to strike The Chamber right now. True, under option #2, the loss of our capital doesn't mean the immediate loss of our Space Ship... but it would probably mean we've lost the game anyway - so it's irrelevant.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't know which option is better. Timing research correctly has a problem I just realized, though. When either Saber, Free or both decide to attack us we will lose the luxuries we have from them. When we declare peace with the Babes to demobilize we will lose the +25% war happiness. We could be down to 3 luxes and be forced to use the lux slider to avoid riots. This could be very bad for our research rate especially when combined with a depleted treasury and high unit support. It could give Saber or Free more time to react. Also, espionage gives them the option to sabotage production giving them more time as well.

 

[donsig]

From the preparing for a possible invasion thread:

While I think it good to prepare for all possibilities, I believe an attack on us is not coming soon. It is Free who is much weaker than we are as they have twice as many cities to defend and are much more susceptible to a blitzkrieg and are also completely lacking in air defenses as far as we can tell.

If SABER does go after FREE then it becomes a race between us trying to get into space and SABER getting enough tiles for domination. We're still at least thirty turns from completing the research we need for the SS. That seems like an awful lot of time for SABER to use collecting tiles. What can we do to help FREE if SABER does attack them?

We could give them advanced flight. Tech-wise there's not much else they'd need. It seems to me we'd have to get involved militarily in order to delay SABER's advance. We could use our ships to hunt down SABER transports but once SABER gets a city on one of FREE's continents they can rush an airport and then airlift units in.

I think if SABER does attack FREE the attack would be on GONG's old lands. SABER would want to destroy BABE and also make FREE have to transport or airlift units from their core to the battlefield. All four of our transports are part of the SCI Chain and so it would take us some time to build or move transports into range to get any units to old Gongland. Perhaps it would be a good idea to put some of our eastern cities to work building transports soon.

If SABER attacks the old GONG continent we could ask for a city there or an ROP so we could ferry over a settler and build our own in a neutral tile. If we could then afford to rush an airport or build an air strip we could airlift units over to augment our transportation system. We'd only be able to airlift 5 or 6 units per turn. Not sure if we'd have any impact on SABER's advance. An if their blitz is successful we wouldn't have time to deploy any forces.

If SABER captures a third continent they will be very close to the domination limit. What would we then be able to do to prevent them from getting the few remaining tiles they need?

 

[peter grimes]

Rather than send units to try to halt their advance in Old Gong, could we possibly retake land from Saber in Old Babe? There's a chance it would be lightly defended. But we'd need intel first, clearly.

 

[Paul#42]

After SABER attacked FREE we'll have like five to ten turns to react I'd estimate.
No need to make any changes to our current strategy imo.

 

[General_W]

It's fine to spitball ideas around for how we might react... but the REAL situation could be very different from what we expect.
Like Paul says - we'll have time to react if it comes up.

Let's not panic - things really are going about as perfect for us as they possibly could at this point. We've survived our most vulnerable time, we're mobilized and building military rapidly with a ready exit strategy (thank you, Whomp), our militaristic rivals are relatively evenly matched and are likely to go to war with eachother before turning on us.

All things considered - I'd say our situation is excellent.
We've got some big challenges ahead, but I wouldn't trade our situation for that of any other team at this point.

 

[Paul#42]

Now that SABER has taken our SCI, what will they do next? And how can we influence that?

Assumptions
1. SABER's long term target is domination (no doubt imo). FREE is the only necessary victim - our territory is not sufficient.

2. SABER's attack on us was a short term target just meant to criple us to hinder our space race.

If these assumptions are right, they must turn against FREE next.
The earlier they do so (without losing / distracting more forces to us), the better their chances for a success against FREE.

SABER now has to keep us from SCI (distracts forces) and to deny us any rubber source.

If we strike back soon (or take any other rubber source), they will have to invest more forces to do so, delaying their focus on long term target.
If we stay quiet, they might feel save and focus on their long term strategy and attack FREE.


If those assumptions are wrong, they might want to defeat us before turning against FREE.
We can try to prevent that by making that war so expensive so FREE would be the winner.

We can also try to get / hope for FREE to attack SABER. In that case, it would be best to try for multiple rubber sources to distract SABER's forces and give FREE opportunity to attack SABER.

Conclusion
I'd favor to not take any rubber source now but try to defend our homeland and start research again.
Military Builds are Tows, Jets, mobile SAMs and subs and destroyers in harbors.
We might still claim that one-tiler with rubber by placing a Mech Inf (and maybe a settler) there. SABER might miss that and we could get rubber within two turns anytime.
I wonder how FREE would think about that...

 

[tomasjj]

Interesting to look at it in a larger strategic picture, but there are also more tactical reasons for us to get a new rubber source.

You touch on one reason here: Tying down troops, both on SCI and Cattaraugus Island.

If we strike back soon (or take any other rubber source), they will have to invest more forces to do so, delaying their focus on long term target.
If we stay quiet, they might feel save and focus on their long term strategy and attack FREE.

2. With rubber we can build better units.

3. With rubber....we can build the casing!!


I want us to start research again though.

 

[Niklas]

Without Rubber, we become the weaker target between us and FREE. Domination could be achieved by taking our continent and former GONG, that might be seen as easier than trying to take FREE's homeland.

I'm definitely in favor of taking Rubber now.

 

[peter grimes]

Taking rubber now will also force Saber to use more units for anything they plan against us. This will make it easier for FREE to hit Saber.

Delaying access to rubber may seem counter-intuitive, clever, and perhaps sends a curious message to Saber.... but I think that we are worse off in the long run if we don't go for it now.

I'm in support of going for two sources at once: the Free one-tiler and a sweep of Saber's Catarraugus isle.

 

[General_W]

Congrats on thinking outside the box though, Paul! Seriously - we need to do that from time-to-time.

But I think the pro's for getting rubber ASAP outweigh the potential gamesmanship options of sitting without it.

 

[donsig]

Yes, let's go (now) for the two sources of rubber we have a chance at.

 

[Paul#42]

I bow to the majority.

How about not settling the one-tiler before we lose the 11-tiler again to SABER?
Maybe that gives us some more time before SABER can take it away again.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think we have to take the 11 tiler this turn - if SABER thinks about it, they'll reinforce it. Besides - I think it's a great message to them "yes, you can take rubber away... we'll just find another source. Can you protect every source of rubber on this world?" Psychologically, I think it's a good touch.

Besides besides - they still have a LOT of units very near our mainland - we need to be able to build MA again!!

As for research - I think we do need to restart, but I think we need to think about stealth - with stealth bombers, we can cripple a civs production capabilities - say we kill a factory and a market in their capital and another city - that's 4 stealth bombers.

I do not think we can afford to sit back and hope we can build the SS without being attacked. I would expect that if we do that, we get nuked.

I'd hold off on the 1 tiler.

 

[Niklas]

I don't agree with holding off on the 1-tiler. I think we should grab it now, while we're still "at war" with FREE.

I also agree that Stealth Bombers are nice, but a single SAM could nullify the advantage. Also, before we rule the seas again (of course we will!), we can't really get any stealth bombers to where they could do those precision strikes.