Top Secret War Room

I've never been gone here but it is ME, not Tubby ;), who is the chronic slacker. Well that and I am very busy putting a thesis together. Anyway, I will play a turn soon or at least open a save and have a looksy. I feel detailed warplans that span over more than 5 turns will not be as valuable against a human opponent than they are against the AI. Not that it's completely useless of course.

First thoughts, without opening a save:
1) I feel we cannot afford to protect our core very well at the start of the war; we'll need every GS we got. Yes, there will be barb uprisings but hopefully our GA will kick in early and GS production will be sufficient to deal with that. After 5-10 turns we should be aware of ships trying to drop off troops and taking empty core cities.
2) I assume MIA will not just give up their most nothern (lux) towns and will use the 10 turns to stack hoplites in there. Probably best to bypass them altogether at first. With the GS speed, we can afford to.
3) I still like the pillaging option, but only in their core. If we pillage in the north, we should be careful not to slow down our GS speed. We CAN afford to destroy a road or two to disconnect their luxes though. Roads in enemy territory are useless to us anyway, and if you use the movement points of GS correctly, it doesn't matter much.
 
I make wise cracks and Mondy Morning Quarterback. So far as I can tell, it's Sunday morning. But never fear, I'll be here to provide the wisdom of hindsight...
 
I opened a save, a couple of thoughts and observations:

- F4 told me MIA has Med Inf... this is bad news.
- MIA has a lot of cities, but most of them are small.
- We need to start gathering our GS, leaving a couple behind for barbs and protection of the core.
- I would propose to gather the GS near Senilityville, take out the spices at Flaxon Musk, then proceed south towards their iron sources near the capitol, taking cities if we can. Chuck Norrisville will have to wait initially, but should be targeted before peacetalks commence.
- We need to stop research after construction... we'll need money to rush.
- WW will be a problem. How's that monarchy deal with the Nutters coming along?
 
If MIA has MDI and they are average to us, I would recommend against a war. We need to bee-line towards Cavalry. Their hoplites will be able to protect their MDI in a slow roll over us.
 
Here's where our units are...



Here's our curragh spying a MIA galley.

 
I would rather keep an eye on it to see if they load up troops. but yes it could come home.
 
On the curragh. Do we need to ask permission to move through their lands?

The reason I moved the fortified GS is because it will have time to scout the coast and get back to the hill by turn 104.
 
If our plans GoTH, we have enough time before they get to us to build some artillery.

Pillage their roads as needed.
 
I'd say no on the curraph Whomp. The treaty just says (I guess it's still in effect) that it just can't stay on the same tile.
 
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The following screenshot is saved in my personal webspace, so as to avoid the risk of getting compromised by loading it on CFC. I apologize for the size and bytecount.

Discussion to follow.



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Here's a proposed plan "in case things get ugly".

Current tactical situation:
  • A town will be founded on "Green Dot" next turn.
  • We are "weak" to MIA. My guess is that they did a basic warriors-to-swords gambit.
  • MIA has at least one Curraugh on each coast, effectively giving the potential for seaborne diversionary attacks on either flank.
  • Our two forward towns are surrounded by jungle. Each has a mountain in its 9-tile radius.
  • Our Gallic Swords are generally concentrated in the vicinity of these forward towns.
As I see it, this is how things could get ugly.
  • Team MIA could send troops toward towns on either coast, or our core.
  • We would need to keep troops at home to guard against this.
  • MIA could then send troops to the mountain outside Effing Whomping Rower or the mountain outside SenilityVille.
  • Prying a Stack of Doom off either mountain would be very costly to us.
  • Reinforcing either position would be difficult. Reinforcing both would be nearly impossible.
If things get ugly, this is what I propose we do:
  • Choose the place we fight; a battleground with terrain that favors our speed.
  • Evacuate those towns on the front, and abandon them. The last Gallic Sword out should pillage the road leading to the town.
  • Let MIA contend with the jungle, and plod towards our "line in the sand".
  • Consolidate our lines behind the yellow line.
  • Yellow dots are proposed towns.
  • Everything behind the yellow lines needs to be roaded, to help our speed.

My guess is that MIA wants to hit us soon. I say we plan a skirmishing campaign to clip their wings, and then mount a counter-offensive.

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Why not build temples (or libraries) in EFW and Senilityville for cultural expansion, put some spears on the mountaintops, build fortifications up there with the workers that will clear the kill zones and if need be make an arrangment with MIA that our men can stay on those mountains regardless what the cultural border does?

That would give us the high ground, and a nice position for a cononade in the future should they get upity.

Curious as always...
 
Please bear in mind - abandoning those towns is a contingency plan; I don't relish the thought of abandoning two towns (and attendant luxuries) and "going retrograde" at the start of a war. This contingency plan is designed to put our troops in a position to win the war. I see this as a choice between two evils:
  1. Losing two towns.
  2. Losing a bunch of troops defending two towns, and then losing the towns anyway.
Kickbooti said:
Why not build temples (or libraries) in EFW and Senilityville for cultural expansion
Because there is no guarantee that a border expansion will gain territory in the right direction; our borders already abut the Greek borders in those two towns.
put some spears on the mountaintops, build fortifications up there with the workers that will clear the kill zones
Have a good look at the terrain around those towns and do the math. To do it right, you're looking at these tasks:
  • Roading 2 mountains.
  • Building forts on 2 mountains.
  • Clearing 12 tiles of jungle.
That's a lot of worker turns.
and if need be make an arrangment with MIA that our men can stay on those mountains regardless what the cultural border does?
My contingency plan is for a time (not of our choosing) that hostilities break out between us and MIA. If/when we reach that point, the only "arrangement" is war.
That would give us the high ground, and a nice position for a cononade in the future should they get upity.
Getting the high ground and keeping the high ground are two different matters. If MIA gets even a small stack of swords and hoplites on either mountain, it will be very hard for us to pry them off with Gallic Swords. If we build forts on those mountains and they get troops on those forts... it goes double.

Personally, I'd love it if we could clear out all that jungle, get forts on those mountains, and get 3 archers and 3 or 4 pikes in those forts. But from where we now sit we don't have Feudalism and we don't have enough workers to pull that off.

Again, what I've laid out here is a contingency plan, not an invasion plan. We can continue settling and work on our "line in the sand" in the meantime.
 
Admiral Kutzov said:
the solution to this conundrum, lies with our diplomatic corps. And me keeping silent.
Here's something for the diplomatic corps to work with: Grinder - a lone Gallic Sword near the Greek border, south of the jungle.

As an act of "good faith", we could withdraw him to our homeland, if MIA doesn't like him there.

If we wanted to wrangle something out of the deal, we could ask MIA for a limited right-of-passage for JUST GRINDER, and only for as long as it takes to get him home. No "real" right of passage, more like a "right of tress-passage"...

And of course... we should take notes of whatever Grinder sees on his way home. :D
 
The reason we're weak compared to MIA is because they are cash rushing hops and MI. I have a strong feeling they turned off research since they knew they had a tech lead. The reason I recommend signing a short term peace deal is because we are already getting something in return (tech discount, lux etc) and it gives us time to get the critical "4" attack and "4" defend units online along with our fast "3" skirmishers. If 50 turns is too long, fine. We can shorten the length of the peace.
 
OK, we're opening the war room back up. Planning has officially begun on a possible war with MIA. We need intel, screenshots, intel, order of battle data, intel, productivity data, oh and did I mention intel.
 
It is too early to come up with detailed plans, and thanks Bugsy for spearheading our planning/intel gathering.

But, since talking is cheap and sometimes interseting, Boern had an idea that I think we may want to consider. Maybe I'm slow, but I had never thought about settling cities right on the border as an opening gambit. Put rush a rax and maybe a wall and you have a forward base that would be hard to ignore.

As we look at maps of the border we may want to keep an eye out for locations where this would make sense.

The other thing I mention just to keep it in our minds is another large-scale naval invasion. If we have the technology to dump some muskets and cannon on a hill either to distract from a mobile force sweeping down from the jungle, or a mobile force that will pillage the punk out of the Greeks, or if it is to establish a beach-head that would allow us to bypass the jungle or even a raider force that would raze cities, whatever the tactic - naval infantry is cool.

And to prevent that we should make sure that we have the ability to see/stop any naval raiding from MIA. If we trust the Nuts we could each take a side of our continent, if we don't we just bite the bullet and build the navy. I can't wait for the Impressive Idiot Fleet.

There, just talking to talk.
 
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