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E_T
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Orlando, Florida
Mar 2001
time: 00:36
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Well, I was telling this to Arnelos the other night:
GWT with Pyramids can quickly settler CGN lands for GCA
GWT with Pyramids can pump out LOTS of workers, gift them to GCA and GCA can add them to Newly gifted cities - Instant Pop Increases of size 6 or greater.
So, with the Pyramids, they can get GCA up and running very fast, so that they can help with their research and upgrades
WITHOUT Pyramids
GWT can still build a lot of settlers for GCA, BUT their cities won't recover as quickly
GWT won;t be able to pump out workers for GCA's pop increases and still be able to recover as quickly.
AND Don;t forget the Colossus. It gives that river/coastal city a huge amount of trade, more than our 2 best cities combined.
IMHO, Also taking out Parth is not something that we should pass up. Even if they do get a GL and quickly rebuild their FP, they will have lost a large portion of their Manufacturing and trade.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:36
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Things we know:
- GWT's had their FP up for quite some time. Most of their cities (after fast growth) were capable of 10+ SPT during their GA. Ruhrpott itself was able to attain 30 SPT, second only to Webringen. Some of these large amount of shields have gone towards Aquaducts (in 3 or 4 cities). That leaves a lot more shields. What did they do with the rest of those shields? Either A) they went into improvements (Markets) and thus GWT is much stronger economically than we're giving them credit for, or B) they built units, and they're SOMEWHERE. My simming showed GWT capable of producing up to 80 Ansar with their GA production. But we've only seen around half that. They could, feasibly, have produced a great number of units that are hiding out in Webringen and Ruhrpott.
- There have been a number of naval incursions along GWT's coastline. These have included operations by both CGN and ourselves (the PoA, eventually sunk by GCA outside of Anja).
When these took place, GWT had a VERY large number of units along the coast. When CGN sent 2 (empty) Galleys along the coast GWT had around 8 Swordsmen, 5 Horsemen and 6 Spearmen watching them just from the coast alone. This was while CGN was bearing down on GWT with their Sword Army (eventually destroyed by a large GWT MI assault).
In our case, we also saw a fair number of units tracking the PoA despite having only 1 Warrior onboard.
These incidents show that GWT does recognize the threat of naval landings, even while a major threat (CGN's main army heading towards Flammburg and Wustenblau) is first and foremost with regards to their attention.
Who knows how many units GWT actually has hiding? They got a LOT of "missing" shields during their GA. They went somewhere. Perhaps to units that are around Ruhrpott and Webringen right now.
Maybe I'm alone, but I would rather see an overkill landing outside of Ruhrpott (razing OTHER cities in case they DO rebuild their FP soon!) than to see 2 understrength ones outside Ruhrpott and Parthemuende and see both fail.
Unless someone can PROVE that is not the case, then I will prefer the more conservative aim. Because when we have nothing to go off of and the stakes are so high with this operation I would rather ensure that at least one objective is achieved.
Last edited by Trip on 10-05-2004 at 12:25
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Aidun
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The Hague, the capital of the civilized world
Nov 2002
time: 06:36
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GWT is typically single strike minded, that's my experience from the PTW DG. They also spend litte efforts on trying to conceal anything, that's how I was able to predict the actual start of the Bobian War 10 turns before it started with an accuracy of about 1 to 2 turns. Still I don't like taking the risk of trying to hide this Iron thing for them. Just one GWT member with the idea of looking to our land is needed to let the entire operation fail because they know that we are building a big force, just as I noticed a strange "mistake" of ND-GWT. Unfortunately Roleplay still lost the Bobian War, even with this information, but that was merely due to the giant size of the attacking armies.
"Divide and rule" Caesar wrote, and he is right. Spain could not prevent the Dutch independence because their troops were divided, while the Dutch troops weren't. But divide and rule has two meanings:
1) By dividing your forces you reduce the strenghth of both by a bigger factor than the amount of groups you divide them over. If you split your forces in two groups, each of the two groops need the same amount of protection against offensive enemy forces as the one force, because there is a bigger chance that one of the two groups will meet offensive enemy forces than the one force. And when one of the groops meets the offensive enemy forces, your own offensive units in that gruoup have to still survive the large scale attack. Dividing your forces is therefore more expensive.
2) By dividing your forces you can force the enemy to divide his forces by creating multiple fronts. This is actually what Caesar meant and what happened in the Eighty Years' War by coincidence: at the same time Spain was attacked by various nations who did not have some alliance with each other. We are already using this strategy in our attack on GWT: the CGN front is one front and the Ruhrpott front is the other and the eventual Parthemunde another one.
All 3 fronts are fairly distant from each other, so it is difficult to transport troops from one front to the other. Thus if our attack would cause any trioop movement, that movement is for us insignificant throughout the first 4 to 6 turns of the attack, since the enemy troops won't be able to damage us in those 4 to 6 turns. Therefore we can use the non-movement model for 4 to 6 turns, because since GWT divided their troops over their cities and kept lots of troops seperated for the attack on CGN, the positions of their troops are, for at least 4 to 6 turns fixed and won't change within this amount of turns.
This means that when we know the size and composition of the city defences of GWT's most important cities, we can say with a high accuracy that this size and composition wont change very much throughout the first 4 to 6 turns after GWT has spotted us.
Considering this situation of no movement and knowing the composition and size of GWT's defending forces, we can set a main front for our attack on GWT. This can be logically either the Westfront or Ruhrpott front, or the Northeastfront or Parthemunde front, because at the southern front there is little to gain and that front is only used to keep the enemy forces divided.
After we have determined our main front we can think of our strategy:
1) One strategy is to attack the second front with a small force that pretends being big, just before the attack on the main front. Result is an initial focus on the second front and the turn after when the main front is attacked there is panic, because there is no way they think they can manage a three-front war. The slight delay will cause a slight confusion in the military planning in case they attempt to still move troops: the troops will initially be moved towards the second front.
2) Another strattegy is to attack both the main front and the second front at the same time. The result is that they feel overwhelmed and the panic effect is bigger, but they focus directly on the main front and this attack therefore doesn't cause any confusion.
3) A third strategy is to attack the main front first and delay the second frond attack with one or two (but not any more) turns. The result then is that they focus on the main front and adjust eventual troops movements to this front. Then when the second front is being hit, they may feel overwhelmed and might panic, but this will depend on whether we succeed to make the forces that attack there look bigger than they are.
4) Of course there is also the fourth strategy that uses only two fronts: the southern front and the main front and no second front. Result of this attack is quite the same as the 3rd, except that the feeling of being overwhelmed and the panic is less. Of course this type of attack will have the biggest chance to succeed simply because there are more troops involved in the main attack. The effect of this strategy my but be smaller than that of the others, but that depends on the size and composition of the defending forces on the two fronts. If this size is small, and the troops are weak, a this two-front attack will have a less destructive effect than one of the three-front strategies with because of the second front. However, if the amount of the defending troops is big or their composition strong, it is just the other way around.
Depending on what information we will acquire about the composition and size of the defences of the important cities, I prefer Strategy 1, because if the main force might be spotted sooner than we wish it would, can still do Stategy 2, and from earlier analyses I know that there is quite some risk for this. But if we do Strategy 3, we cannot turn that into another strategy if the scenario I just pointed out would happen. Of course, if the information about size and composition of the defences are in favor of the conditions for strategy 4, I prefer that strategy.
Aidun
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Aidun
3) A third strategy is to attack the main front first and delay the second frond attack with one or two (but not any more) turns. The result then is that they focus on the main front and adjust eventual troops movements to this front. Then when the second front is being hit, they may feel overwhelmed and might panic, but this will depend on whether we succeed to make the forces that attack there look bigger than they are. |
IMHO, I think many people are missing one point with this small ivnasion force somewhere else: You're talking about invading into the midst of GWT's productive core, possibly moments after they are invaded by us on a sensitive spot. If they have no iron connected, they will connect it within 1 or 2 turns. Meaning that they will immediately upgrade whatever horses are built in their core (as Ansars are quicker to move to the front), so that their core will be saturated with Ansars. Also, all builds will change to Ansars immediately, which over the course of those 2 turns means that excatly their core will build fresh units.
If you land 4-6 knights in their core, 2 turns after the main invasion, you will be met with 10-20 Ansars that can reach that invasion force. Those knights doesn't stand a chance. And this is assuming that the moment the main invasion starts, GWT will remove all their defenses from their core, and towards Rurhpott. Those 10-20 Ansars are freshly build, or upgraded.
So my view: either you attack Partemunde with sufficient force (at least as large as the Rughrpott attack), and preferably on the same turn, or you don't invade there at all. Since there is no option of getting such a force, it will be better to group our forces into one attack.
And second view: Either you mask the iron cut perfectly (meaning both road and mine present whenever GWT can look), or don't bother and spend workers on something that is only a half-solution.
DeepO
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E_T
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Orlando, Florida
Mar 2001
time: 00:36
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The Caravels are listed as being under these Groups:
Group A - Initial Landing In GWT - 5 Muskets, 1 Settler and Knights
Group B - Follow-up group landing in city - Elite Knights and the rest.
Parth Group - Possible Units headed to Parth. Either 6 knights OR 1 Musket and 5 Knights.
Group A (7 Caravels OR 6 Caravels & 1 Galley, 1 settler, 5 Muskets, 14 to 15 Knights):
- AIS Hunter - moves to HoD, Upgrades, then moves to Jump off point. Can Load up either at HoD or Cyrene
- AIS Vengance - Upgrades and loads up at Incensity, then moves to Jumpoff
- AIS Seeker - moves to just north of Cyrene, loads up with Knights Togas & Hightower, moves to check out possible sea route. Point of No return for Incensity Upgrade is at Remebrance 8-8-7-7-7-7. It can also scout out to just past the Parth Jumpoff point and still return and be a part of Group A, but without the upgrade.
- Galley from Inc on 620AD. Upgrades. loads and moves to Jumpoff normally
- Caravel from Hisp, built 650 AD. Loads up outside Cyrene and moves to Jump off point.
- Caravel from Lum Ban, built 670AD. Can load then or in 700AD at point north of Hisp. Will be in Rembrance when we get Nav, which is in Group A distance.
- Caravel, built in HoD in 680 AD. Can load then or in 700AD at point north of Hisp. Will be in Remembrance when we get Nav, which is in Group A distance.
Group B:
(Plan #1: 2 Caravels, 6 Knights) OR (Plan #2: 3 Caravels, 9 Knights) OR (Plan #3: 4 Caravels, 12 Knights):
- Plan #3 Caravel, built in Hero's in 650 AD (or Lum Mus in 660 AD). Loads up at time of build and heads off. THis can be loaded up at a later time, from the latest at Memoria, but the units have to get to that city first.
- Plan #2 OR #3 Caravel from Mongoose Abyss, built 670AD. Can load then or in 690AD at point north of Hisp. Will be in Remembrance when we get Nav, which is in Group A distance.
Can be a Group A unit for 8 gold shortrush more, being built in 660 AD.
- Caravel, built in Protuberance in 680 AD. Loads up at time of build and heads off. THis can be loaded up at a later time, from the latest at Memoria, but the units have to get to that city first.
Can be a Group A unit for 8 gold shortrush more, being built in 670 AD.
- Caravel, built in Incensity in 710 AD. Loads up at time of build and heads off.
Parth Group (2 Caravels, 1 Musket & 5 Knights - these can be part of Group A):
Both of these ships can also be a Group A ship with loading up outside of Cyrene.
- Caravel, built in HoD in 650 AD. Loads up and head to it's jump off point.
- Galley, just built in Hispancia. Moves to HoD and Latest date for Upgrade is 640 AD and loads up and heads off on 650 AD (with other ship)
E_T
Last edited by E_T on 11-05-2004 at 06:39
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Master Zen
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of naughty
Jan 2003
time: 23:36
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This is my take on this.
First of all, "divide an conquer" is not what we are aiming to do here. Caesar's famour phrase had a far more political connotation than it did military. It was used against the fractured Gauls rather than the united and far more capable forces of Pompey which he always met head on (and admittedly won in no small part thanks to his infamous luck). It's modern equivalenet is that which Britain practiced on the weaker and unwilling allies of its major enemies during the Napoleonic wars and WW2 (Spain and Italy respectively).
The Parthemunde strike is your classic military gamble. It has admittedly a very high probability of failure, but with a potential utility in victory which makes the attempt seem quite attractive. Bascially it calls for the destruction of one of GWT's main assests with just 6 knights. Risky? Yes. Possible? Also.
----
The first think to think about regarding the feasability of this strike is to see if this will interfere with the efficiency of the Rurhpott strike. These are 6 knights which could not be included in the invasion force of this city. Trip has presented us with some probability charts against 10 muskets. These show that adding those extra 6 knights give an almost 100% victory change against 10 muskets and without them, barely 70%.
However, the fact is that the main detraction is not an absurd number of Muskets in that area (and 10 muskets is frankly, absurd), but rather, a large gathering of as-yet-unseen Ansar. How many Ansar can there be around there? We have no idea and we would be quite foolish to even guess. But think about this. If those 10 hypothetical muskets are coupled with 6 stray Ansars in striking distance then the odds drop again. If there are more Ansars, we are screwed. The question is: will those 6 knights REALLY make a difference if we realize (too late) that our landing will make Omaha Beach look like Baywatch? Is the marginal utility of these 6 units comparable to the possible benefit of destroying Parthemunde?
Back to Parth. GWT's Ansar route does not take the Ansar hordes within striking distance of Parthe (it's over 9 tiles away) that means we can at least be sure that the Ansars heading north will NOT be able to take a distraction soon enough. The only threats to the Parthe invasion are rushed builds and stray units already there.
Now, it's time to think like GWT. If we were suddenly invaded by GWT in the AP area, would we leave a sizeable army up north anyways? It would be fallacy unless we were confident we could defeat the southern invasion with a sufficient allocation of units. In other words, if GWT has enough forces to be waiting for us at Parthe it will likely be because they will be more than capable of trashing our Ruhrpott invasion force also. No, now put yourself in GWT's shoes. A highly confient GWT will be waiting for us, and our chances of victory are not assured.
My personal feeling is that GWT will either be caught with their pants down completely, or they will respond vigorously and successfully. I honestly don't imagine a middle ground. We are already gambling OUR CHANCES OF VICTORY on this strike. We might as well gamble on taking Parthe as well.
That said I understand why people are reluctant to do this. The old adage of "don't split up your forces" is quite true. However, Trip has misinterpreted it and used it as a general and unbreakable rule for the sake of the current arguement. Splitting up forces is quite acceptable when 1) you already have sufficient force to likely achieve your main objective based on your calculation of enemy dispositions and 2) your secondary objective is of suffient value to risk the reduction of strength in your main force. The decision to split forces will therefore be based on our very subjective (and possibly incorrect) assessment of our own needed power vs. the projected resistance of our enemy. And frankly, we have no effective way to know the latter.
In my opinion therefore: I honestly don't see how 6 knights will make or break our Ruhrpott strike and therefore think that the risk of possibly taking Parthemunde against the odds is worth it.
Finally, a bit on CFC. From the chat I get the impression that Trip is reluctant to get CFC into this because they will "likely screw it up". This is utter BS. Even a failed CFC invasion in the Ansar transit route is a distraction to GWT and will ease pressure on our own forces. Considering that not only they are our allies but they are willing and eager to contribute (and get their GA out of it) shunning them becasue of allegged incompetence is not only arrogant but STUPID. I would be more than glad to use CFC's contribution and can gladly assist them with the necessary planning and implementation. No offense Trip but I think that you need to get down from the clouds a bit and be a bit humble in this regard. If CFC can help, they sure as hell can't make it worse for us.
-MZ
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10-05-2004 03:30
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