09-12-2004 02:45									#211
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text of email exchange, copy in log :

to MZ:

quote: We chained 8 arty over, pounded the 3 BBs outside the otherwise-naked Quanto and slammed 9 transports (and a destroyer) against them. We broke through! I'm not sure yet what we do from here but DeepO reckons we might get a shot at taking out the FP.

and his reply ...

quote: Wow that's great news! I'm all the more convinced now that GoW has to take a shot at taking Fort whatever-the-name-is if enough troops are still there. I don't think Lego could have built more than 15 tanks to be honest as they also built additional infantry and didn't rush all the Cavs. Hopefully our tanks are still standing and if they are, I think we do have a shot.

	09-12-2004 02:57									#212
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Get on with the turn, man, this is the climax of the game!

	09-12-2004 03:20									#213
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Should we tell GoW that if they give us troop numbers once they get the save, we can give them odds of taking Fort whatsit to aid their decision?

	09-12-2004 03:22									#214
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Good food takes time, Trip

As I recall, Aeson asked the question "Do we have 8 Artillery we could chain across?". He needs to see this.

	09-12-2004 03:52									#215
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Sorry guys... right when I was eating, some friends dropped in unexpectedly. I couldn't move them out the door any faster.

As to rushing along: no way, Trip. I know you're anxious to watch the show, but this turn will not be played tonight. It takes time to see all options, and we need that very badly right now, this is too critical.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 03:58									#216
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Wow!!! nice one!!!

I guess Lego were a bit too daring leaving the city completely undefended.

Don't listen to Trip, take as much time as is needed
Perhaps clear objectives and feesability of possible strategies is needed.

Looks like 4 transports can make it into port!!!!!!!

	09-12-2004 04:01									#217
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quote: Originally posted by vulture Should we tell GoW that if they give us troop numbers once they get the save, we can give them odds of taking Fort whatsit to aid their decision?

No... we should do something else. MZ is talking about if the tanks survived, he attacks... if none of the tanks survived, he should still attack. There is no choice here, GoW must put everything they got into the attack, no questions asked. They will never get such a chance again.

He thinks to use the tanks, and marines perhaps as they are no use anymore (again wrong assumption, btw), but that's just plain wrong. Every attacker is a chance of taking out a defender. Whatever is left of the tanks can take out (bombed) infs, after which the marines go for it, after which the infs do their thing. And even if the stack is very badly damaged, they will be a lot better off going for Fort Stanwix. In their wettest dreams, GoW did not anticipate to take 8 Lego cities in one turn. And if you put the anticipated cost of that in shields, it is easily worth the units they put into it.

But no worries, I'll write them a convincing report After all, we just used transports to take out BBs...

DeepO

	09-12-2004 04:15									#218
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Okay, transport capability. We've got 4 transports which can end their turn in Quanto (with chaining of course). This will leave 2 4/4 TR in the open (NI 8). Further, we can use one more to deliver units to Quanto, but without mp left. (that will normally be the 1/4 TR already at Quanto 4, and we need another 4/4 TR at NI 8)

So, in total, we've got a maximum of 40 places, of which 8 have moved.

We need 1 marine to take the city, being one of the moved units.
We need all our settlers (4), moveable.
we need at least 4 tanks or MI.
we need all the explorers we can get (2).
So, that leaves us with 7 non-moveable places, and 22 moveable places.

If we decide we want to get in, do our damage, and get out, not all of those places will be needed. Also, we will have to raze Quanto, most likely, so we will have slaves which we can use to construct fortresses, radar towers, or roads. There are 3 workers which would be an easy catch, but we can only go for them if we're sure about what we're there for.

Something else: our stranded marines of last turns come into play again. We have moved one to scout Quanto, and another one is damaged. But that still leaves 6 full health, and 1 3/4 M that we get "for free". Not bad I would say...

Now, I'm going to see what we know of the terrain, and where we think the FP is. I remember some discussion about this in various threads, so this is going to take a while to compile. We should also consider that now that we don't have to expose any spies (at least if we can convince GoW to go for it), we will have enough cash to steal Lego's map (338 gold, safely)

DeepO

	09-12-2004 04:16									#219
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You should know by now to take my prodding with a grain of salt.

quote: Originally posted by OPD Looks like 4 transports can make it into port!!!!!!!

I see 6?

	09-12-2004 04:17									#220
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A bit of a cross-post with OPD here... apolyton (or my connection) is lagging terribly.

First things first: we need a situation report on what we know of the layout of the land. I'm on it

DeepO

	09-12-2004 04:18									#221
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Trip, it's best if those transports also transport something

DeepO

	09-12-2004 05:11									#222
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With the 4th BB naked in port, our transports (who had already completed their job) have just knocked out half Lego's Battleship fleet (rounded down). We hoped the naval luck was due to swing round to us.

We could probably recoup the map costs from GoW and ND if we did steal Lego's map. Another thing is that GoW might actually like us to have a spy so we could tell them their unit status in advance. MZ asked us for the info in case we had it this turn.

IF we could knock out the FP and IF GoW can break through Fort Whatsit (great name, MZ should call it that in their propaganda) and destroy much of their northern core then it would be mission accomplished. I hardly dare believe it possible.

On the Resource front, Lego has 1 Rubber and 2 Oil. One of the Oil is next to Jackson, and the other is probably in that thar desert we're looking to cross in the Quest for the FP. Depriving them of one or both of these might be useful - though Vox could sort them out if needed. Is there an explorer available who might pillage the second oil if we see it? Lego wouldn't know their Oil was gone until after Vox's turn.

Speaking of Vox, I wonder if RP fancy a little diplo mission. The RP fleet is on the Stormian coast, possibly unsighted by Lego subs. It might not be too late for RP to feign an air of neutrailty in an approach to Vox.

	09-12-2004 05:31									#223
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CH, I've been drawing maps for the past hours or so (results nearly finished), but maybe you could ask something to GoW. If they are interested in paying us for our map, we could do it right now, without any guessing. That most certainly would make life easier...

I'm not sure we want to pay for it ourselves, we can get pretty far with striking out what we know, and we do have 2 explorers we could use. Once we've got Quanto, we see a bit more as well...

DeepO

	09-12-2004 05:32									#224
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oil: we've got 2 explorers, but they can only pillage one tile per turn, right?

DeepO

	09-12-2004 05:37									#225
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Legend following

DeepO

	09-12-2004 05:50									#226
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okay. First of all, I combined two screenshots. If you hide all improvements, you see more beneath the FoW, so I cut that out and pasted it on top of a normal screenshot.

Next, I put an orange line, depicting what territory Lego can use with all the cities we do see.

The Yellow square Y represents the tile we saw last turn, which was not used by Quanto. Y1 - Y4 are the tiles where that city could be.

In Pink, the tile which has a mined hill (you don't go around mining hills without good reason). P1-P6 are possible city locations, of which I think P2, P3 & P4 make most chance. The other 2 tiles within the pink line are not possible, one is a mountain, the other a forest (which would be gone if a city was there)

Blue: another mined hill. B1 - B7 possible cities.
Green: an irrigated desert. Now, I'm not sure on either the green, or the red tile, as one of those could be used to transport water to the other side of the hills. But it is RRed. G1-G3 are possible cities, and seeing that they both are also blue, and next to a river, it makes sense.

Red: an irr, RRed, saltpetered desert. Again not sure on the irr, and for a resource also not sure on the RR. R1 to R3 are possible cities.

Further, in white there are 2 tiles, which haev no improvements. The white lines correspond to that, which seem to indicate that G1=B1 is a city position, and R1 another. But, be warned: one of those white tiles is a desert, which is the last tile to improve... and seeing that there is also still forest present (so not all improvements were done up till now!), it could simply be waiting for workers to finish more important tiles.

My guesses (because they remain guesses):
- B1=G1,
- P4 (P3 a close second)
- Y2 (Y1 a close second)
- the R's, I don't know. R2 perhaps?

Anything I missed, or any comments, please let them be known.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:02									#227
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Once we take Quanto, we will know the yellow city. We will need 1 settler to take it. That same settler gives us Sando ( a bit of revenge, I guess, for not letting us take it the first turn )

Depending on terrain, that should give us the green / blue city without further settlers, or with one settler at most.
So at least 2 more remaining.

1 more settler should get us to the red city. That fogged tile 7 of Zargonia is grass, meaning Zargonia should fall as well if it's R1. R2 needs another settler.

At this point, either we still have a settler to spare, able to get to the pink city, one city up North (rubber!), or positioning ourselves for attacks on Logville or one of the other coastal cities, or we don't have a spare.

Also watch out: in case we want to keep Quanto, we will have to rebuild it. Which means another settler to spend there. We could of course also move our forces into another city, which we can keep (Sando, or one of the others).

Now, where is the FP? My guess is as good as yours, but I think G1 makes an excellent spot.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:22									#228
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here's something I dug up, a quote from Aeson a couple of months ago:

quote: Looking at the larger map, I think the FP city is probably 77774 of Logville. Logville is on a river (the screenie is grainy, so I'm not sure of this) which extends at least 7777.

That tile, is called B1=G1 in my map. Good... at leasr we both ended up with the same conclusion, B1 is the target for our mission.

quote: The Hill 44 of Crossing wasn't improved when last it was seen (could they have had an IW city here?), neither was the Hill 411 of Crossing.

This is the "white" hill

quote: Yet a Desert in the area was Mined (Crossing 444). No reason to mine a Desert if those Hills are in the same city radius. Given the shape of the improved tiles, this leads me to believe there definitely is a city at 77774 of Logville. It's probably on a river. It's 4 tile spacing from Quanto. Would have an Iron Hill in the radius. Would allow for a city 4-5 tile spacing between Quanto (4 spacing) and Tiberium. It's also the perfect place for their FP. This puts the FP further from Sand than from Quanto, and there would almost surely be a city inbetween Sand and the FP (by the route we would be going). The second city could be at Sand 666 (within a tile of there in any case),

Interesting. I don't really get the reasoning behind putting a city on Sand 666, or one tile off, but both R2 and R3 are on tile off Sand 666. However, we know there is one more city, the Y one (Y2 makes even more a believable target), pushing the Sand 666 city a bit farther to the East.

We're seeing desert, we see a river. Could there be floodplains near the Y city, making it a worker or settler pump? We know Lego has been building workers, even while at war. Up North there isn't any suitable place, and worker pumps are ideally small cities, close to the palace (or FP in case you're late), crammed in between other cities...

I don't think we really need a map

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:26									#229
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I'm not sure the yellow city is reachable from a settler outside Quanto, as it's culture borders will include the hill.

I think G1 is a likely city and probably FP site - it's right for the undeveloped hill.

	09-12-2004 06:40									#230
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Hmmm, if the FP is at G1 then Y2 is the most likely Y-site as it is 3 tiles away. A city at Y2 would allow us to get a tile of culture at Y4 if we built at Quanto6. If there's a worker pump at Y3 or Y4 it will stand in our way and we won't get a direct route to B1/G1.

	09-12-2004 06:44									#231
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO oil: we've got 2 explorers, but they can only pillage one tile per turn, right? DeepO

Yes, but the other Oil is up by Jackson - if GoW can spare two bombardments - which might be precious.

	09-12-2004 06:50									#232
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I'm thinking on what to take with us, but that's not as easy as it seems. It's a bit of a risk we'd be taking. If we try to defend one of the captured cities, we could have something close to 30 units in there (all units we land without movement at Quanto are stranded there, so those don't count), of which 7 of them are marines. That's not terribly safe from counter attack. However, keep in mind that this time, we can pick the terrain, and we can do some pillaging, making it only possible for Lego to attack with tanks or cavs (cavs they only have 6, tanks 15 (Jackson + Dye) plus whatever they manage to build with their crippled empire). 30 defenders might be enough, and a marine stops a tank as well (getting killed in the mean time, but that's not that important). I think we definately have to put some pressure on Lego next turn.

There is somerthing else to consider. Lego is not able to take New Inchon next turn, we would have to disband units to make it possible for them. So that's safe... 40 marines would make it a safe harbor. We need somehow to put our attackers onto Lego's RR network... we've got plenty of defenders and workers, to go to e.g. NI 9, keep the tile, and RR it next turn.

However, Lego will of course spot this, and will try to pillage surrounding tiles. So, to be any good, we need another tile full of defenders next to NI9... but these can be forted, in a fort we create with the slaves we'll get from razing cities.

One last point we have to think about: Hub 3 will be destroyed next turn, there is no question about that. We might be able to lure Lego into doing something else, but it's only our chain which has given us the edge this turn. In stead of blocking Abilene, they should have destroyed our lone transport (which they spotted, there was a sub next to it!). Without hub 3, we can't send more settlers over. Without settlers, no blitzkrieg. I think this means that we have to think of putting one extra transport out. Create a hub 3 backup... and now that we will destroy 4 BBs, and another sub is gone, we can put a transport out of reach of the Abilene blockers. But it will mean we sacrifice 8 moveable troops into Quanto, so if we want to defend one of our captured cities, that defense just got 8 MIs thinner.

There are a lot of options here. I'm atm inclined to move a transport out, move a defensive force on NI9 or 6 (as Lego has to pillage 5 tiles from NI6 to keep us from the RRs), move whatever we've got left including marines on Quanto 2, fort the tile with slaves, and use all other slaves to create a net of radar towers around the tile. Every radar tower will mean another one of Lego's units losing a mp, and they do not have so many fastmovers left.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:53									#233
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus I'm not sure the yellow city is reachable from a settler outside Quanto, as it's culture borders will include the hill.

CH, it will depend on where we'll find the yellow city, but we can always put a settler out to reach it, no? If it's at Y1, Y3 or Y4, put a settler on the Y tile, and go over the desert / fp. If it's at Y2, build a city at Quanto 8.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:56									#234
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Hmmm, if the FP is at G1 then Y2 is the most likely Y-site as it is 3 tiles away. A city at Y2 would allow us to get a tile of culture at Y4 if we built at Quanto6. If there's a worker pump at Y3 or Y4 it will stand in our way and we won't get a direct route to B1/G1.

This I don't get. I'm also thinking of Y2, but why would Y3 or Y4 be a problem? if we take one of those cities, G1 is within direct reach! (well, if the tiles next to G1 are not all hills, in which case we need another settler to get around them)

DeepO

	09-12-2004 06:59									#235
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Yes, but the other Oil is up by Jackson - if GoW can spare two bombardments - which might be precious.

No bomber-bombardments, all of those should go to Stanwix!

However, there is another option. all those arties in Stanwix are to be captured. And the moment they take Legoplois, they only need 2 arties to reach that oil. So in case they don't mind losing those 2 arties again to Lego, they can bomb it.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 07:07									#236
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If they have a city with culture at Y3 or Y4, their culture border will always take precedence over ours. That border will extend onto the hills, so if we build a city at Quanto9 or Quanto6, we will need 2 MP to get onto the adjacant hills.

	09-12-2004 07:10									#237
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus We need to run some calcs, but I believe that our Destroyers, backed up by empty Transports ON THE ATTACK, can break through at either of Sando or Quanto.

------------------

Excellent city placement analysis there DeepO.

We can capture Lego's Explorer with one of our N Marines after taking Quanto. Use it to scope out the route to B1.

We know we are taking the 4 Settlers. We know we are taking 1 Marine. We know we want at least some Tanks. So the first Transport would 1M, 4S, 3T. Once we have the map info from Lego's Explorer we can decide on what the other Transports should carry.

	09-12-2004 07:18									#238
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus If they have a city with culture at Y3 or Y4, their culture border will always take precedence over ours. That border will extend onto the hills, so if we build a city at Quanto9 or Quanto6, we will need 2 MP to get onto the adjacant hills.

I still don't see it, CH. If Y3 or Y4 is a city, we can build at Quanto 9. for Y3, that leaves us to move 8(free)63 to take the city, for Y4, that is 9(free)62. They won't take a hill, distance 2 from them, and only one from us...

DeepO

	09-12-2004 07:23									#239
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson We can capture Lego's Explorer with one of our N Marines after taking Quanto. Use it to scope out the route to B1.

I totally forgot that you capture explorers, instead of destroying them

quote: We know we are taking the 4 Settlers. We know we are taking 1 Marine. We know we want at least some Tanks. So the first Transport would 1M, 4S, 3T. Once we have the map info from Lego's Explorer we can decide on what the other Transports should carry.

Not so fast. Let's say we want to go for defending the forest at Q1 (against pillaging). That means we can use 7 nonmoveable forces to keep it, and the one marine needed to enter Quanto. In which case, we would be wasting one unit we could e.g. put on defense near a rubber city or something similar.

The problem then becomes: what do we want to have as non-moveable defenders? We don't need the MI in NI (infs will fend off those few tanks just as well), but we're not so rich in MI either...

I know this is a bit nit-picking, as after all it is all about 1 unit. But we have just won a war, because of one unit Lego didn't put where it supposed to be, I'm not going to make a similar mistake when I can avoid it.

DeepO

	09-12-2004 07:25									#240
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quote: Without hub 3, we can't send more settlers over. Without settlers, no blitzkrieg.

We can rush Settlers. No "Recycling Blitz", but we can disband units to get enough shields for the Settler instead. Even with resistance the Settler will complete if all the shields required are there. So if we keep a Lego city, it will be worth a Settler a turn if we are willing to disband 2 Marines to get it.