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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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Okay, very hypothetically, an invasion plan for Lego. Would also work for ND or GoW, I'm sure, but as Lego is the hardest target and on top of our competitors list, I'll go for this.
I assume we have one ally, e.g. GoW. Without them, it could still work, but at greater cost and risks. Main risk would be to be attacked on our home land by GoW or ND, to be sure, we need a protection pact with e.g. GoW so that they won't attack us, and will attack ND should they join Lego.
1. buildup phase
for this plan, we need the following:
- tech superiority to Lego. we should have both tanks and marines, with flight a surplus (otherwise we should be on our way for flight when the invasion starts, so that bombers and fighters can quickly rebase once we're gaining ground). Preferably, Lego should not have Combustion yet, or only just, which means we need a 12 turn advantage over them. If we get ToE, they will not have tanks for sure, as I don't see us giving away AT and electronics that easily.
- one big navy, consisting of at least 20 destroyers, and 15-20 transports. Also includes 12 or more privateers (more on those later) If we have flight in time, 1 carrier can also work nicely
- main army of ~30 marines, ~20 infs, ~20 art, ~20 tanks, ~10 explorers, ~20 workers. Settler for good order, you never know if it is useful.
- reinforcement army of ~20infs, ~20 art, ~30 tanks, 20 explorers (which could be replaced by RPs conquistadors, but we'll need the initial bunch)
- once on our way, bombers to replace the arts. Can also be part of our reinforcements. After that, all forces we can build are nice, mainly tanks and infs.
- some gold for necessary rushes, like barracks. Nothing fancy.
- to get here, we need mobilisation. And we should not be too slow in research either.
- If at all possible, we first of all get a spy positioned, to check their strength. Especially their navy interests us.
2. pre-war positioning
Our transports are filled with the first wave, and our navy (minus privateers) sails as one block, out of spotting range of any of the pickets. Precise positioning can vary, but I would think somewhere near the South of Lego would be best, because it would leave us the most options to sail to.
Then, the privateers move in position. This assumes Lego does not replace the caravels with ironclads, otherwise privateers are of no use, and should better be replaced by destroyers. They will be spotted, but there is nothing we can do to prevent that. And a lone scouting galley can check what kind of navy Lego is keeping behind their line.
Next turn, the picket line either has to move back, or will be attacked by our privateers or destroyers (whichever we can use). The idea is to get the picket line out of the way. With privateers, we can do this without starting a war, meaning we can enjoy our non-WW empire for one turn longer. With destroyers, we need to attack. Important is that the picket line is gone over a longer distance then we need: if they have 4 picket ships, all 4 should be destroyed, so they don't know where we will attack, and can't concentrate their defenses on one spot.
Our navy sails through the breach, and preferably so that we still have a few landing options.
GoW on the other side of Lego does exactly the same thing: get rid of the pickets, and start maneuvering a large navy towards their land.
3. Start of the war
One or 2 turns later (depending on exact landing spot), we can attack a city. Don't bother with a mountain landing spot, or a hill, just pick one of the cities, preferably one not build on a hill. Either we, or RP investigate a few cities that are good candidates. Normally, we should be able to fork a possible attack to at least 2 places. We pick the best city.
Our destroyers move into position, and bombard the city, normally with all this power, we can damage the defending troops, destroy any walls, and with a bit of luck get the city to below size 6 as well. If investigation sees only a few defenders, we spend as little bombardment on the city as possible.
Our marines attack. There is no way Lego can defend a city, already bombarded, to a force of 30 marines. With a bit of luck, we have at least half of them still ready to fight a second time, in a neighboring city. This will depend on how many defenders are in the city, of course.
if we can still risk it, we try to take a second city in the first blow. However, no need to stretch ourselves, if at all a risk, we don't. Anyway, we move transports with infs, arts, and tanks into the city. Bombers which should be ready by now are rebased to the city. We clear the surroundings of the city of enemy troops, for as far as we can, taking special care to take defensive positions. We rush a harbor (using a disbanded transport as prebuild), or a barracks if we have still a harbor present. And the workers we brought build fortresses (we can at least build 2 mountain forts).
Last step: we use our explorers to break all RRs leading to our beachhead, and doing as much pillaging as we can. Taking out resources or luxs are of course a plus, but first of all we need to take the RRs down. If possible, we move our explorers out of the way, of course, to use them again later on. But if we lose some, so be it.
Now, with the city firmly in our grasp, we await the rebound.
If we can, we can take two cities, but we have to make sure we can position a huge number of defenders in our cities, we can't risk losing them again to Lego. I think we will be able to only do it for one city
4. spearhead
If possible, we let RP land a bunch of conquistadores on our land, but only if they can be relatively protected the first turn. These can be used to first of all start their GA, secondly to go pillaging more inland.
Also, in between the bombers still arriving, we take a few fighters as well, which are excellent scouts.
Next, we set up a supply line for our reinforcements. Depending on Lego's navy, we can risk running a continous line, or we have to do it in convoys, which of course transport the same amount of troops, but only in batches. At least we can hold a few transports in our beach head, which can shuttle the last 2 tiles for free.
We hold our cities for 2 or 3 turns, waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. If GoW has a succesful strike as well, or if we get lucky in defending, we can risk it to take one more city. But we make sure not to overstretch, defending is the game for the moment. Our bombers (the number of which should grow considerably by now) wreak havoc on Lego's terrain, concentrating on resources, and on possible forts. If we spot Lego troops roaming around, we bombard these for good order as well, but most importantly we destroy their road network. We do not bombard cities... yet.
Once our reinforcements are present, we advance on the cities. (coastal first, as they can be bombarded by our navy) We should be able to cut off part of their cities from the rest, and take those. We keep our best defenses in our initial spearhead, and extensilvely use bombers to lose as little forces as possible. This is the hardest part of the war, as Lego can outbuild our attackers with defenders, and thus be a very though nut to crack. We need to take some cities, without risking what we just gained... If this doesn't work out as we plan on, we should consider retreating, and waiting for better chances.
5. consolidation
Once we've damaged a considerable amount of their cities, and taken a part of it, we can think of taking them out. This phase can only start if we're considerably stronger then them, and with healthy troops, and all our reinforcements on Legoland.
Now, the idea is speed. Until now, we spend most on keeping our forces safe, but no more need for this, we need to get Lego down as quickly as possible, before WW starts to bite us. (BTW, if we need to switch to Monarchy, so be it). bombard what we can, take what we can, and don't bother too much with defensive positions anymore (don't let us open up so we can be mopped up, of course). Get them down, and meet with GoW, which hopefully is doing the same on the other side as well. In this stage, we can split our forces in multiple stacks, instead of only taking a SoD to avoid being attacked and defeated in one turn.
Don't wait for letting all our troops heal, just rush. Don't pillage their terrai, leaving just one heavily guarded RR open for our own troops, just bombard the cities, attack, and rebase.
6. conclusions
We need a massive number of troops. And, if we can be quick enough in tech, we can have loads of tanks and bombers, while Lego only has infs, and no good attackers (they will have some cavs, but who cares). Timing can be perfect, if we get the ToE: those two techs we gain are too hard for them to easily research. We should only share these with our allies, to avoid devaluation (not even RP). At the time they're still completing factories and hydro plants, we can have a huge force ready
But, to do it right, we need an ally. GoW is a likely candidate, but has ND to think about. If ND does not want to join, and do not help Lego as well, they are the obvious target: we get to MI and MA, and roll over them.
The problem is of course our defense. We can use radio to keep us safe, but will need a good army to spot incoming forces, and deal with any boats before they become a problem. The good thing is, we can base our defenses largely on bombers and subs / destroyers, while Lego should not be given that opportunity. They should not have flight, and should not have be allowed to build many destroyers before they are invaded. And I welcome their transports guarded by only a coupld of destroyers, and mostly ironclads.
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So, what you think, as a hypothetical game?
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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RoPing with GoW: not really favourable. I've been thinking on this, and don't see how we can surprise Lego. They will have 2 turns advance warning time, and we will have to deal with that. I don't see any other option.
That doesn't mean they should see us coming, and that's precisely the plan with dismantling their picket line before they have flight (and thus scouting fighters). With their complete line gone, they have no idea were the attack is coming from. If both us and GoW do this, they are completely left in the dark, and it still is a surprise.
the 2 turns can be used by them by going full out on troops, changing builds everywhere, rushing defenders and ships, and if they think on it, getting into mobilisation.
But the effect of this is limited, we're not going to make the same mistake as Vox did in our first war: We knew they were coming, but instead of hitting us at full force at the first possible time, they started to mass their forces during the turns that followed the initial attack. If they would have packed their immortal SoD the turn before Grog died, instead of 2 or 3 turns afterwards, we would not be talking in this forum.
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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It's not meant to be a definate plan on how to invade them, it is more meant as a starting point for some discussion on the topic.
Also, with a rough guess of what we'll need, we can start working on plans how to build stuff. If we know we need 30 marines, and 60 tanks before even starting our trip, we can calculate how our cities are going to provide these numbers. If we plan on upgrading a lot of cats and pikes, we can calculate how much gold we'll need, and how long that will take us.
A few things become more obvious to me:
- we can benefit from going all out on tech. We maybe even need to be in front, just because we need superior units, and not just massive numbers. We don't have the production to build twice as many units as Lego, which is what we would need if our tech levels are similar
- We need an ally.
- We need protection on our home front
- As the gap is relatively small, we need precise timing, and long-term plans. We need factories, not cathedrals. We probably don't need hospitals either, except in a few cities.
- This will not be a surprise attack. At least, we can't mask until the last turn that we're going to attack. We can try to mask it up until 10 turns or so in advance, but that's about it. There is no chance of mass-upgrading our units, as marines, tanks, and bombers are 'fresh' units, which can't come from upgraded ones. People will notice our power graph, and will act on it.
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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Perhaps, I'm not looking at the map right now. But I doubt it: GoW was talking of Lego's mighty picket line, so they will probably guard the passage between Bob and Little Bob.
Add to that, that if Lego knows it's its weak spot, it will be highly defended. Also, I think it leaves us less options to choose landing sites (again, not sure as I don't have the map in front of me): the South on our side has the advantage that we can choose on 4-5 cities in 2 turns, and 2-3 cities with our navy one turn away from invasion.
I'm not ruling it out, but it is hard to perform. We need marines, in any case, to have any chance of a landing spot.
I don't see many other options then to take a city in the first turn, sail our infs in, fortify our infs (which have not moved yet, so enjoy full fort bonus), and wait for the first attack. If we invade onto a mountain, we will need double the amount of defenders to have any chance. We will not be able to pillage roads, nor attack units closeby, that will all have to wait until T +1 (with T being invasion turn). RRs makes this incredibly hard.
So, we need marines. Period. No invasion without them. Which means we need that tech. Which also means we need time to build them (30 marines, with factories and Hoover, and possibly mobilisation takes 2-3 turns to produce with our whole empire. With good planning, that's 2 turns after Amf. Warf is discovered.
After we build them, we have to transport them. 3-4 turns to Lego, depending on where we are. To GoW territory, that's what, 10 turns? A lot of time, time Lego can use to get up to date...
Of course, we could set up a shuttle service, transporting our marines to the front instantly. 32 marines fit in 4 transports, so for instant transport we need 4 transports per turn won on shipping time. I was planning on having some transports ready to ship the reinforcements, so these transports can have double use, but having 40 of them just to get to Bob in a reasonable time? That's a lot... Some 12-16 can also do the job on the other side.
It will be possible, probably, but it will cost us a lot for that one turn improvement on surprise.
But, something else which just came up with puzzling on the above. Let's say we have 15 tiles sailing from Stormia to Lego, so our navy can do it in 4 turns, using all movementpoints except for the last bombardment turn (we can enter the conquered city on the last turn). Now assume all our forces except the marines are in transports, well covered with destroyers we'll need to bombard our target. This is called our navu from now on.
Further we have 10 empty transports. The goal is to get 4 transports full of marines to Lego in time. Assume we have 16 cities, all capable of building a marine in 2 turns (given some rushing). (I know that last bit is not really true, but they can do it in 3 turns on average)
Now follow the following:
T-3:
- Our navy sails into position (just outside scouting range of the picket line). Included are 4 empty transports
- that leaves 6 transports at home
T-2:
- We discover Amp. warf. switch to flight
- with decent prebuilding, we can finish 16 marines this turn. We start on 16 new.
- those 16 marines embark on 2 transports in harbor, and sail to our navy
- they switch boats
- we defeat the picket line, or force it to retreat if they have spotted us
- our navy (including the 2 marine transports and 2 empties) sails to Lego. 2 empty trans are left behind
- still 4 empties at home
T-1:
- navy moves closer.
- 2 empties sail from port to 2 empties in the middle of the sea
- those last 2 move forward to where the navy started.
T:
- 16 marines are build, embark, and sail to empties.
- these transport them to the next bunch
- which transport them to the last two empties in the navy
- navy sails forward, bombards a city, and have 32 fresh marines to attack it.
T+1:
- with an extra 2 transports, our first bunch of reinforcements can tranniehop to the city.
T+2:
- we discover flight.
- we end a whole bunch of bombers, as they have been prebuilding for 2 turns. These are instantly rebased.
- with an additional 2 trans, 16 more reinforcements can reach our beach head.
T+3
- from now on, we can have a steady stream of reinforcements, and bombers insta-delivered to Lego.
This includes as much as possible the element of surprise: Lego will not expect that the turn we discover marines, we will attack their pickets. They will be the least prepared we can have them to be, any turn after that they will grow more and more wary.
Also, having 32 marines show up, only 3 turns after discovery, when the continent is 4 turns sailing away will be a surprise to say the least.
This is all ideal, of course, and I realize we will need probably one turn more, and need other stuff like adequate cover for our unprotected trans as well. But it would set up a steady supply line. It would be a pain to plan, though, especially as we should keep in mind we need to somehow involve our ally (if we ever get one) in this as well.
DeepO
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Krill
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On a cold wet rock, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dec 2003
time: 05:34
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Ok, if we do invade, and I really think it should be when, do we go it alone, or trade techs with GoW so that they can build tanks and help us take Lego down.
Since we don't know if ND will help us, we have a problem: if we give techs to GoW but not ND, they might think that we are going to attack them, or get angry and join Lego.
If we give them techs, they might gift them to Lego, thus we are shooting ourselves in the (metaphorical) foot. We also lower the research price for Lego.
We should, in my opinion, go it alone until about T-5, and then start gifting GoW techs. If GoW have tanks, instead of infantry, then Lego are going to be so much easier to kill.
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WarriorPoet
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This is a very detailed plan. If it goes according to how you wrote it originally...LOL...then we should go ok.
Why would GoW not take the opportunity to attack us? Why wouldn't ND do the same? I have to believe that Lego is the diplomatic power in the world, and GoW is very opportunistic it seems. This is my gut feel, but I almost tremble with the thought of a crippling flanking invasion by GoW once our second wave lands in Lego land...
Where would ND stand in all of this? Best case senario would have them remain neutral, unless GoW attacks us, which is more probable than ND attacking us.
What are our thoughts on my possible paranoia?
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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Paranoia? Not really, I would call it very real threats. However, if GoW doesn't attack Lego now, it will not be able to do so later. Lego is for sure the #1 power in this game. GoW also fears us, or at least should do so, we still have the power to mount a decent invasion of their lands.
ND seems to be a bit dormant right now, not gaining much in power other then the new cities they are building, and improving. That could be our chance... however, once they see the kind of numbers were talking about, I'm sure they will beef up their defenses, and become a very serious threat later on. But we're not there yet.
What are our guarantees? basically, we will have enough reinforcements on our continent waiting (not everything will land in the first turn, as this will not be a rush, it can't be), which should be able to deal with possible invasions of our own. Further, we need scouting fighters, and picket ships. We will be able to spot if GoW also invades, due to the drop in power from both them and Lego, changing of cities, and hopefully spying. But it stays a risk.
Oh, the plan has changed somewhat: privateers are out (was a bit silly really, it would have been fun though), the date has been postponed a bit to let us build more troops, and the numbers for our invasion forces have been upped as well. (see the topped Smith's thread for new guesses).
The basic plan remains: build factories, get a tech advantage, build loads of tanks and marines, attack most of the picket ships, capture one city using marines, pillage suoroundings so Lego can't reach us easily and brace for impact on the rebound. When reinforcements arrive, slowly gain some land, and when the time is right rush forward and take whatever we can reach.
DeepO
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:34
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what are the rules on drafting again? I never use it SP.
something about can only draft if above x citizens, can only draft x number/turns, x amount of unhappiness.
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WarriorPoet
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Arrian is right. This is a short term tactic and only under the most dire of situations, because of the happiness and pop penalties.
However, it can save your hide if you get involved in a surprise invasion.
On the paranoia aspect:
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one with concerns. That said, however, I'm with you guys on the need to cripple Lego. The only way to beat a Juggernaught is to hamstring him before he's in full gear. I also believe that we have no other choice for victory in this game.
I would suggest that we try a landing strategy that takes at least 3 cities out in the first two turns. I'm sure you're already considering this, but the way I have read some of the planning, it seams that we're talking more about an assault in one location.
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:34
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WP, any plans so far have been very simple and are certainly open for suggestions, so please do make them. it's always better to discuss different options
The reason why I suggested one landing site, is because when we land, we need to hold for the first turn what we attack, without any risk of being pushed out to sea. The more land we try to keep, the harder that will get. Concentrated defenses mean that in the counterattack, Lego will face all of our defense, instead of half, or one third of them. It also means that in the initial invasion, our chances to actually conquer our landing spot are nearing 100%.
But, I'm interested in any other plans you have... more options means we have a bigger chance of success.
DeepO
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:34
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also, IMHO, if we razed all the coastal cities but couldn't gain ground on the interior, I would probably consider it a successful campaign. Looking at about 1/4 to 1/3 of lego destroyed as a minimum goal.
razing cities would help out with RP as well: we raze the city and fire the b's ships 2 tiles inland destroying all roads, then the Conq's land and are more secure, then run wild.
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22-03-2004 02:32
I'm away on holiday / vavation this week - I'll comment on it when I'm back.
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