Post M&M situation

[2metraninja]

I though there is need for a new thread to discuss the situation after M&M are gone.

I have to say, that we have full visibility on the 3 teams remaining. I took screenshots, but will upload them later.

Most of the armies are concentrated between QHI, Hoag and Comet. Sirius have good stack at the center of Starland. CDZ have nice stack near The Library too. All the home islands except QHI are lightly defended. Sirius have large amount of destroyers and are making more, however Q having destroyers must have been a surprise for Sirius and they may lose some lonely ships and temporary lose control of the sea. Sirius will be mad at us

 

[Sommerswerd]

Once again our espy shines

Yes they will also be mad or frustrated when they see my latest letter to them. We basically tell them exactly the truth... Leaving the ETTT is like the same thing as declaring War on AMAZON because we have no use for them as allies if they are not providing the free tech. If they leave ETTT, then they are just trying to fast their way to victory and leave everyone in the dust with no consideration of how we have kept M&M down all these years while they build and tech freely... Now they want to take their big score and developed cities and fast tech and good economy and run to the goal with it, and leave AMAZON behind. Why would we condone that?

 

[2metraninja]

Here are some screenies from the post M&M world. Serious nation and army those Sirius have, no doubt. But they lack our main and most powerful weapon - our Captain Sommerswerd and his diplomatic skills

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[damnrunner]

Thanks those are great screen shots!

I think the core question right now is can we pull off an attack on Sirius. What do our generals think?

I think we could take the cities on Anjennida pretty easily. At least the two big ones that are withing easy striking distance from Kongo and Saber. With 4 spys and 10 cavalry could take down the cities before Sirius could reinforce them and I would suggest we then raise the cities and pillage all those built up cottages. The cities in the Northern spire will then remain vulnerable to attack but Sirius will have ample time to reinforce them.

On the flip side our cities on the SW spire are very vulnerable. If move up reinforcements from the Merlot war we will have decent reinforcements. But to be successful any attack will need to be well coordinated with Q to sink Sirius's naval presence in the area and then combine forces to kill Sirius's trapped land forces. At the same time we will need to hold the center of the star against a counter attack from the spire Sirius controls.

Both us and Sirius are in a position to raze weak cities on our respective home islands should either team be caught off guard. If we go to war we need enough ships in the area to counter Sirius and should have a transport of rifles ready to at least threaten Sirius. They should be able to reinforce their home island, but it will divert units away from other areas. Since we can view their cities we are in a great position to know where they are weakest.

 

[damnrunner]

If after discussion we realize we can't pull off an attack on Sirius we need to instead focus on either CDZ, dog piling Q, or just sitting tight.

 

[Sommerswerd]

One thing about relative army strenght - our army has more experience than anyone else and we have the capcity to pruduce higher xp units than Sirius due to our Great Generals. Production wise they slaughter us as they have bigger cities and also have dikes. As our cities get larger and if we get the Mining Inc Corp we will probably be fairly close in production potential.

Yes IF(and ONLY IF) we get Mining Co, and quickly spread it to all cities, we will have comparable production to Sirius. Also, If we get all the Commercial Buildings (Wall Street, Apothecary and Market and Shrine) in Our Holy city, we would have very good GNP as well. Sushi Co would seal the deal, making us a Commerce Power, AND a Cultural one.

That is why I am pushing so hard for us to start a GA, switch to Pacifism, and quickly go for our Engineer, Prophet and Spy. We have to assume that Sirius is thinking the same, and trying to get an Engineer of their own. CDZ already has 2, and could wake up and smell the coffee at any minute. That's why we have to hurry, hurry, hurry and get Mining Co while CDZ is still in Zombie mode and Sirius hasnt gotten an Engineer yet.

Also, we really really need to strat teching and make a Go for medicine. Yes Sirius can beat us to it, but they have no G.Merchant. If we hurry, we may be able to get Medicine before they can pump out a G.Merchant.

Lastly, we need to do all this stuff before the fighting starts, because there is no way we are going to be in Pacifism while a War is going on.

 

[2metraninja]

Here are the screenshots update. Quite large screenies, but useful for seeing the whole picture

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As we can see, Captain Sommerswerd did launched the GA I was hesitating for few turns already, waiting to get time to upload the screenshots and put a vote. For me this is the right decision too. We will have the Medicine in 4 turns and hopefully be the first and able to found Sids. Also, with some luck (about 33%) we can well have the Mining Inc. too if we pop up a Great Engineer. Strange, CDZ used their (or one or their) Great Engineer to found Creative Constructions. This was something we not ever considered, but the reason behind this can be the count of stone and marble available to them if they dont count on someone gifting them resources.

As you can see, Sirius are monstrous with their economic and productive potential and the gap between them and the other teams is quickly widening. If it was up to me, I would have reach for the other ETTT members asking them to start a procedure of voting Sirius out and declaring them a war ASAP. We still stand a chance of winning against them if we attack them combined. Q seems to hold for now, and the group of transports that Sirius had on their shores just disappeared, meaning they decided it will not gonna work. Once we have our Oil back (or contact Sokralinek and asking him to gift us Oil, as they have 2 or 3, we can upgrade our galleon fleet and start making plan for invading Anjennida and Bode, while Sirius main army is still on Comet and near the QHI. Maybe we must vote to take that route while it is not too late yet?

 

[2metraninja]

Another thing is to ask CDZ for their Great Engineer - just to be sure that we will found Mining Inc.

Now when they decided to go for Creative Inc. instead of Mining Inc. their Great Engineer is no longer much valuable to them. The worst scenario will be that they may be promised it to Sirius. This will mean that we have already a 2vs2 situation.

I think we must approach Sokralinnek right away. And as I dont know better diplomat than Sommerswerd, maybe it is time he and his diplomatic genius to shine once again and possibly put us back in the business by getting Sokrallinek/CDZ on our side. Only I cant think what we can promise them to make them cooperate Sirius are far better at this, as they can fight Q and can promise CDZ the second place, securing the loyalty of the CDZ, because at this stage, they dont have any chance for the second place against us.

 

[2metraninja]

Ugh, I made a mistake - I was some 10 turns ahead in the timeline probably In fact we are discovering Biology, and just then we need to discover Medicine for Sushi.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Another thing is to ask CDZ for their Great Engineer - just to be sure that we will found Mining Inc... Now when they decided to go for Creative Inc. instead of Mining Inc. their Great Engineer is no longer much valuable to them. The worst scenario will be that they may be promised it to Sirius.

Looking at the last screen you posted, it looks to me that CDZ founded Creative Constructions AFTER I changed our civics and so probably AFTER I took the screens and logged out. If this is true, then they used their last G.Engineer to found ConstructaCo, and they dont have anymore Engineers to found Mining Co., which is good for us. Plus Mining Co competes with ConstructaCo, so they would be foolish to found both anyway. But that also means they dont have anymore Engineers to give Sirius.

Strange, CDZ used their (or one or their) Great Engineer to found Creative Constructions. This was something we not ever considered, but the reason behind this can be the count of stone and marble available to them if they dont count on someone gifting them resources.

I think there are 3 reasons they maybe did this, founding Constructacon instead of Mining Co:

First, Mining Co gives only, while Constructacon gives massive as well. They have a culture war already with Q on Hoag, and they probably are anticipating one with us on MHI, plus they already have one with us across the Marthaton-Troisland channel. So they are probably planning to use Constructacon to win the culture wars. Plus they dont have a G.Merchant, and they probably figure that they will lose the SushiCo race so they better get Constructacon while its available.

Second, Mining Co conflicts with alot of other Corporations (AluminInc, Constructacon, DeBeers) so if you are going for the super-Corporation City with 4 Corporations in it you cant get Mining Inc, because you need Alumininc, deBeers and Constructacon. So maybe that is what CDZ is doing, trying to make a super corps city.

Last, it is possible that the mapmaker hid a nasty suprise on the Map, little or no Aluminum. If this is the case, only the one with Alumininc would be able to make Jet fighters and such. So maybe they want to save room for Alumininc by not getting Mining Co.

 

[damnrunner]

I think our best prospects is for a quick blitz followed by a defensive strategy as we build up our production and economy.

1st Phase - The Blitz
I think a 1st objective would be raising their cities on Jennilund (thinking of the once close to us, the ones in the far north can be saved for later as they are not all the strategic). These cities are commercial powerhouses and give Sirius easy access to several of our core cities. We need to strike 1st to raze these cities before they can be well defended and especially before they can use them to threaten our cites. I suggest razing them as it will be hard to defend them and if recaptured they would regain their powerful cultural borders. By using spys to drop city defenses we should be able to take these cities in one turn with sufficient cavalry. While we do have a decent stack from our war against Merlot, it does not appear that we have enough cavalry to undertake a 1 turn assault on these cities. For this reason a limiting factor in when we might want to DoW would be the time it would take us to build ~10 cavalry units.

Our main stack is strong enough to threaten any of Sirius's more dispersed armies. Question is - where do we focus? I would propose we look to capture the two cities on the landmass just north of the QHI. It will take pressure off our ally and will put our cities on that peninsula on much stronger defensive footing.

Sommers had mentioned going for their production core which is on the mountainous Bode spoke. If we could pull this off we could break them, but I think they can probably put up good enough defenses that we could only grab 1 or at most 2 cities. It would be a blow, but so would taking the 2 cities on the spoke just north of the QHI.

The War at Sea: We have two naval options. 1 - Link up with the Q navy in an effort to sink or at least badly bloody the Sirius navy blocking teh Q home island. 2- Threaten the SHI. If caught completely off guard we may be able to raze one of the SHI cities which would be a major blow. They probably will be able to prepare adequate defenses. However, in doing so they will need to divert troops from other areas where we will be attacking them on land. The downside of going for the SHI is that we loose an opportunity to join with the Q fleet to sink Sirius's fleet. Once at war Sirius will be more cautious about stationing their fleet in an areas as exposed as they currently are.


2nd Phase - The Slog: At this point we play defense with the bulk of our army at Nabaxi thereby positioned to quickly respond to any invasion force from either land or sea. Eventually we invade Bode with a combined army with support from Q. In an attrition war our espionage trait will prove devastating. We can easily cripple the many cities on Bode with Poison+unhappiness missions while we bide our time build our armies and improve our cities.

It will be in our interest to keep the war going with Sirius for a long time. No team has any more room to expand and we need to let our many cities grow and improve. So the longer we can build up our cities, the better relative position we will be vs. Q and CDZ as they already have cities that are pretty much fully developed.

 

[2metraninja]

I think our best prospects is for a quick blitz followed by a defensive strategy as we build up our production and economy.

That is pretty clever and makes a lot of sense. I was definitely thinking about blitz, but then I was not quite sure how to proceed after the element of initial surprise is gone.

I suggest razing them as it will be hard to defend them and if recaptured they would regain their powerful cultural borders.

I was thinking about this too - capturing vs razing. Razing is sure thing, but then we dont gain anything for the war of attrition we intend to wage with Sirius after the initial blitz. Still not sure about this. It is very important if Q managed to destroy the bulk of Sirius army at QHI. If this is the case, combined with the damage to Sirius army we will do by striking first and surprising them, this will leave Sirius with almost no concentrated army. Maybe we still have to look at the tactical situation and decide whether we raze or keep as we go.

For this reason a limiting factor in when we might want to DoW would be the time it would take us to build ~10 cavalry units.

10 cavalries are quite a big aim for us. We have 6 cavalries at central Starland and those other 4 will take time to complete. In this regard, I will advocate switching the next turn to slavery and Nationalism. If we are going to fight heavy war, we will need to be able to produce army quick.

Our main stack is strong enough to threaten any of Sirius's more dispersed armies. Question is - where do we focus? I would propose we look to capture the two cities on the landmass just north of the QHI. It will take pressure off our ally and will put our cities on that peninsula on much stronger defensive footing.

Also, it will deny Sirius their 2 developed source of Oil. The third their Oil is on Jennilund, which can be also ours soon and is not developed at the moment, so for good amount of turns, Sirius will be unable to replenish their oil fueled fleet.

It will be in our interest to keep the war going with Sirius for a long time. No team has any more room to expand and we need to let our many cities grow and improve. So the longer we can build up our cities, the better relative position we will be vs. Q and CDZ as they already have cities that are pretty much fully developed.

Good point. Although I think we to commit ourselves fully in the crippling/destroying of Sirius, we must still think for the period after this.

The only unknown factor is CDZ. Those guys dont have big army, but can play us very, very bad favor if back-stab us while we are busy with Sirius. They are also teching Flight, which is military technology. Lets hope we will get response from them shortly so we to know what they intend to do.

 

[2metraninja]

Hey, guys! Is anyone able to log in and see do Q destroyed the Sirius SOD on QHI? From this single event the course of the war and the game itself will change drastically. Cav Scout played his turn already, but I am at work and cant see if he annihilated them.

 

[Majic]

I logged in and checked. The landed SOD is still there, unharmed.

 

[2metraninja]

GRRRR!!!!! What those guys are doing!!!!

 

[2metraninja]

Not that I am surprised - I knew they will not attack. Only thing I dont know now is what will follow.

 

[nabaxo]

We should've taken the chance to backstab while Sirius' SoD is far away from their Home Island.

 

[Sommerswerd]

There is no backstab. Sirius violated / cancelled all treaties with us so there is no dishonor in attacking them as we have no treaties with them. I sent an in game message to cav scout last time I logged in, so if Q doesn't attack, they are just being cowardly and shortsighted.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of switching to Nationalism and Slavery at the end of the GA or even right now. We have our Engineer so we don't need Pacifism anymore. Should we go back to Theocracy for the exp, or OR to spread Christianity and Islam to Myrine for our Shrine, or Free religion for Tech bonus? All three are fine with me, but regardless, we MUST prevent Q from being destroyed as they are our only reliable partner against Sirius.

Sirius gets Infantry in 3 turns. We have to hit them now as it will be harder later.

 

[2metraninja]

I just CANT see why Cav Scout would not attack!!! To me, this is a no- brainer. I cant find real sensible explanation. It is just..... I cant bear it... I cant think of a single reason for them to not attack. I just cant....

 

[nabaxo]

Have we founded Mining Inc yet?