20-08-2004 08:37									#1
	What do we do with the fleet now? Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The situation after moving AIS Ambitious 8-8



There's no way we're going to land anytime soon.

What do we do now?

	20-08-2004 10:06									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Take all of our ships out of sight. Then sail them South and do as much damage to GCA as possible.

	20-08-2004 10:09									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Take all of our ships out of sight. Then sail them North and wait for CFC to land, looking for our own beach north of Wiesental.

	20-08-2004 10:16									#4
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I guess you can't wake up from that dream you're having Trip!

	20-08-2004 10:19									#5
	Tired of ads?

I'll repeat again - going after GCA will not do very much damage. Trying to find a landing site on GWT's coast doesn't cost us anything but a few turns. Even if it is blocked and we do later decide to go after GCA, they're not going anywhere and they're not going to suddenly have a force of 60 War Elephants.

Good things come to those who wait... some people need to learn patience and explore every route before they're so anxious to give up something with a good result that they simply happen to disagree with.

	20-08-2004 10:29									#6
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

The more turns we waste the more turns GWT and GCA have to build units to counter our landings. GWT may have switched away from military production after the conclusion of the CGN war. But, now after seeing our fleet and our ability to make a landing, they will now be building military like mad to try and block every single LZ on the whole Continent. Now, I know that's a lot of units! But, how many units away do you think GCA and GWT are away from being able to accomplish that? The don't even really need to cover every LZ because they have Galley's standing as pickets. Those 3 move Ansar will be able to cover a lot of ground upon one of their pickets seeing a stack of our ships. If they saw only one that had an ability to land on any one turn, they would go ahead and let it land! They'd just kill it!

I think if we did find a LZ up North (which I don't really think is possible anyways) they would decimate our Knights with those Ansar now in the area. I would think they have at least 20 in the area if not 30 by next turn.

I think our only realistic option is to go home or to go look for trouble with GCA.

	20-08-2004 10:38									#7
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Do you have any idea how many Ansar it would take to cover EVERY LZ? There's 37 within 2 Knight-turns of Ruhrpott alone. Count the east as about 50 more. That's 90 units to cover both ends properly. That ignores everything in the middle that we could have snuck through, the chokepoints which CGN used to have, and all of CGN's territory. GWT's economy isn't that strong, you know...

And GWT hasn't stopped producing units since the last war, they've actually continued or if possible, even increased their production. We were once average with them a dozen or so turns ago, yet despite upgrading 20 Knights a few turns later we remained weak. So the opportunity NOW isn't really any better than it WAS.

GCA isn't going anywhere, and the only way they could block LZs down south is if GWT moved a significant *Ansar* force down there to meet us, freeing up even more tiles in the north which are vulnerable to landing. Do you really think that GWT would keep a large number of units in the south when they have no idea where our 10 Caravel stack with 30 units is or where it might land?

The opportunity to strike GCA isn't going anywhere. The opportunity to hit GWT and do damage to them is.

	20-08-2004 11:06									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Perhaps we could swap Consulships, BF...

	20-08-2004 13:21									#10
	Tired of ads?

I think we need to do as much psychological damage to GWT/GCA as we can. I suggest splitting up our fleet and do both of Trip's and BF's suggestions. Keep the big stack out of sight, but make 'em think we're deploying boats everywhere along their coast.

Hopefully, they will respond by producing as many Ansars as they can. This will slow down their economy, because they can't produce anything else AND the Ansars will need upkeep cost.

Then, we go for a space ship victory.

	20-08-2004 19:02									#11
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Agressive behavior combined with never say die behavior usually pays off well in civ III:

Therefore I agree 100% with BFM, split up to two big forces out of sight combined with scouts that they do see throughout. Harass them is the big winner at this point.

No matter what they do we will be ahead:

Every worker GWT has doing blocking a tile, is a worker doing nothing.

Every military unit GWT has blocking a tile far from where the War Elephants want to land is one more out of theatre for their operation.

And if GWT decides to sudenly build nothing but cheap land based military units until every single coastal tile is filled to prevent anybody from landing, we win the tech race!!! (That's no normal improvements being built while their unit costs sky rocket. If they switch to Monarchy to cover the unit costs, they experence anarchy during the switch and less science during Monarchy and if the switch back to a peaceful govt, additional turns of anarchy in route)

And all this even if we never land.

	20-08-2004 22:03									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

GWT hasn't yet seen our big stack, we can tell because none of those 3 Galleys are fortified. If they were, there would be a white line around one of the Galleys' HP bars.

We have to make sure we keep it at least 4 tiles away and out of possible sight until we want to land.

	20-08-2004 22:30									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Oddly enough, I'm with Trip on this.

They cannot cover every possible landing site and they do not know what we have available to land.

They cannot move into ocean tiles.

They can only scramble about in fear and paranoia, especially after CFC lands on the opposite coast.

Pull back slightly. Sneak around out of sight. MAYBE send 1 ship south to "accidentally" get sighted.

If we can land, we'll evaluate the LZ to see if it's worth it. If we can land on a mountain tile, just imagine how difficult it will be for GWT to attack our 3 defense units, doubled, with their 4 attack units.

Threaten as much as possible. Obfuscate our true aims. If we get a shot at the FP, take it. If not, play cautiously, carefully, and always keep them uneasy and guessing about what we may attack. Force them to spread their defenses and fork their defenders between equally viable targets.

This is our one and only chance to fight them where we have the Ocean advantage. They are at our mercy. Let's terrorize them.

--Togas

	20-08-2004 22:48									#14
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Yes, exactly. There's no reason to run home scared with our tails between our legs. We're still the ones with the upper hand, we can afford to wait many turns for our opportunity.

	20-08-2004 23:04									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I agree with Trip and Togas

Why would we go home? What would all those knights do at home, when GWT doesn't even have a chance to reach us? Terrorize them and unload if there is a chance to do sone damage.

Last edited by Tiberius on 20-08-2004 at 23:11

	21-08-2004 00:02									#16
	Remove this text

I think GWT has seen our stack. Are you sure that in a stack of 3 Galley's you'd be able to see the one who is fortified in that stack? Also, how do you know the Galley wasn't fortified at the begining of their turn, seeing our stack, then unfortified and then moved into another position?

	21-08-2004 00:26									#17
	Support Apolyton

No way to know what they did last turn because I'm not psychic.

In any case, what we do know is that they don't have any Galleys fortified there now and able to see us now. They could have seen the big stack 3 turns ago for all we know.

	21-08-2004 00:33									#18
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I'm all for keeping them hopping by sailing our fleet (or fleets, divvied up) in and out of their vision, moving around and forcing them to block their coast.

HOWEVER, as they approach navigation (or magnetism, if they ignore Nav), we need to be prepared to race home in a hurry so that we may block our coast.

-Arrian

p.s. Landing against GCA, IMO, is taking a big risk (of our units simply being annihilated) for the chance of little (real) gain. It might FEEL good to smack down Lucky's crew, but in my mind the risk/payoff analysis doesn't look good for taking a shot at GCA.

	21-08-2004 00:35									#19
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

GWT doesn't even yet have Education, so we have a bit of leeway to work with. And IIRC, they're still at war with CGN, so WW is a major concern for them still .

	21-08-2004 00:43									#20
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Understood. Once they have Astronomy, though, we need to begin withdrawing our fleet (the units need to come back, obviously the ships will go back out again, as pickets).

-Arrian

	21-08-2004 05:55									#21
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Agreed. I have a screenshot with necessary pre-Navigation picket locations. After they get Nav though, we'll need something more complete...

GWT will come...

	21-08-2004 22:36									#22
	Support Apolyton

I've been away for a week, and probably mised something, but while reading this I have Trip's plan rated as my #1 preference and BFM's as a possible alternative, but no preferred alternative.

Aidun

	22-08-2004 07:47									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Trip GWT hasn't yet seen our big stack, we can tell because none of those 3 Galleys are fortified. If they were, there would be a white line around one of the Galleys' HP bars.

White lines do not appear on forted ships' HP bars. There's NO way to tell if GWT's ships are really forted or not.

	23-08-2004 09:09									#24
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Ill go with Trip and Togas on this.

Terrorize them if nothing else for a while. It will at least cool down there production machine.

	23-08-2004 15:23									#25
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I support Trip's, BFM's, and Togas's views

	23-08-2004 15:43									#26
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I agree, pull back a bit and force them to build units to cover their coast. Our best hope is to out-tech them, snag important later wonders (i.e. ToE and Hoovers) then out-produce them in the late game. Remember we have yet to have our GA, they have had theirs already.

	23-08-2004 20:53									#27
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

There will be no need to make a massive retreat when thy hit Naviagation. Caravels only have an attack factor of 1. Them building Caravels with the intention of attacking us would also put us ahead of the game.

	23-08-2004 21:59									#28
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by joncnunn There will be no need to make a massive retreat when thy hit Naviagation. Caravels only have an attack factor of 1. Them building Caravels with the intention of attacking us would also put us ahead of the game.

But when they get Navigation they'll have the capability of attacking us. We don't want potential pickets and coastal defense forces out sailing aimlessly when that happens. We either want to have landed and done damage or to have gone home by then.

	24-08-2004 00:27									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I have a better idea, not to implement right now, but maybe in about 10 turns if no opporunity for landing develops in the mean time after our caravels forces have been positioned in maximum annoyance potiential.

Slowly rotate caravels home to drop off the units but:

1. As soon as they drop off the units send them back empty!
2. Only have two caravels out of his theater at a time!

I think this would be powerful psychological warfare to keep our worthy adversies on the defensive. (His units would stick to the coastline instead of being loaded onto his own Caravels. )

quote: Originally posted by Trip But when they get Navigation they'll have the capability of attacking us. We don't want potential pickets and coastal defense forces out sailing aimlessly when that happens. We either want to have landed and done damage or to have gone home by then.

	24-08-2004 01:26									#30
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by joncnunn I have a better idea, not to implement right now, but maybe in about 10 turns if no opporunity for landing develops in the mean time after our caravels forces have been positioned in maximum annoyance potiential. Slowly rotate caravels home to drop off the units but: 1. As soon as they drop off the units send them back empty! 2. Only have two caravels out of his theater at a time! I think this would be powerful psychological warfare to keep our worthy adversies on the defensive. (His units would stick to the coastline instead of being loaded onto his own Caravels. )

That is a good idea period. Regardless if we make a landing or not.