02-10-2003 10:10									#1
	Turn 145: 300 AD Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Notes for this turn:

OPD and I had an interesting chat with Bigfree today, I think we narrowly prevented them from basically falling on their sword. Togas wanted to move 5MI's and 5Pikes to Alamo7 to draw fire so that we could hit either a weakened alamo or meridia, basically sacrificing those units. Luckily Bigfree was against said plan and he was playing the turn.

RP is getting quite anxious and I can't blame them, especially due to the lack of communication between our teams. NYE's been doing more importantn things, as have I and others, so these things have been neglected. It has been proposed to allow one member from each team to view the others' forum as a liason.

Another thing they wanted: us to establish a new base north of New Madrid and us gift them Sirocco,. OPD and I hopefullly dissuaded that talk, as it would slow down any southern movement.

What happened to our members? I see several still posting in the PBEM threads and elsewhere on this site, but they've rarely posted for some time here. We need some fresh blood to stay us through these rough patches. Alva, FP (both!) etc, and others were valuable members but havne't poked around here lately (Note: I'm not including those such as Nathan who announced their lessened activity)


Militarily- I think we should move our knight stack 4 (?no map handy for me) and prepare to hit meridia in +2 turns. WE have to do something sometime, and I'm worried that the longer we wait the more likely RP will act without us and hang the alliance.

comments? I know that post was a bit...wordy

	03-10-2003 02:03									#2
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Countrary to popular belief this turn is 290AD and not 300AD.

RP offers us its WM for Education... are we entitled to trade it to them? Methinks there was a NTA, or am I wrong?

We have iron... what are we supposed to do with it? Trade to RP? Upgrade our units? Pillage again? Or what?

In the Theater of battles not much has happened. Here's a picture. Discuss. I can play the turn tomorrow. We have a holiday here, so I have time.

	03-10-2003 02:08									#3
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Countrary to popular belief this turn is 290AD and not 300AD.

how embarrassing, last time I start one of these threads Maybe NYE can fix it if he gets the chance...

quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph RP offers us its WM for Education... are we entitled to trade it to them? Methinks there was a NTA, or am I wrong?

I don't think we can trade it yet, but must check. Is there any reason to trade it?

quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph We have iron... what are we supposed to do with it? Trade to RP? Upgrade our units? Pillage again? Or what?

Upgrade. I think we are already shipping one to RP. Not sure about repilliging.

quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph In the Theater of battles not much has happened. Here's a picture. Discuss. I can play the turn tomorrow. We have a holiday here, so I have time.

RP is getting antsy, perhaps we could move the large stack to the hill, meridia 6-6-9, to hit there next turn?

edit: dumped screenshot

	03-10-2003 02:40									#4
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Re Education: A trade window pops up, where RP proposes WM (accepted) for Education. Theseus must have offered it (by accident? or a bug?)

	03-10-2003 04:38									#5
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I don't know what the hell happened. I do not remember offering Edu... I did open some diplo dialogues, but did nothing.

Lemme look at the save.

	03-10-2003 05:20									#6
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OK, here's how I see the military situation:

1) We are positioned for an attack on Merida. All we need to do is load up Pikes, Knights, and Cats at Merida66... this forces both aggressors hands. It might be bloody if they go for the forward stack. If the go to cut off supply lines, we counter with the MedInfs.

2) On the other hand, if we want coordination with RP, we have to go for X (whatever they named they city at P111). Unfortunately, we have only the one Pike at P22, and RP is not quite ready.

I'd suggest going for Merida with the current troops now. Let's get some more Pikes and Cats at P22, and bring the southern reinforcements in for an attack on X from there, in conjunction with a revitalized RP force. Their job will be softening with Cats and at least some vet Knights (I don't know... do they have any?), while our job will be to take the town. RP's MedInfs should be held as a reaction reserve. I do not think anyone is going to be attacking Pamplona... this may sound crazy, but when we are ready for a joint attack I'd like to throw caution to the wind and empty it except for one Pike.

I'd also like to NOT attack Essigbar... it is our turn to play follow the leader as the leader, so let's make them waste their 3-movers by following around our 2 southernmost Knights in the hills, maintaining a threat on Essigbar. Save it for after Merida.

It is almost time to completely friggin' dismantle these bastards... diplos, do whatever it takes to keep them from pulling the trigger too soon.

Also, we can research Astro in 6 turns at -37gpt... we may want to consider this just for Caravels, esp. in the north.

Lastly, I screwed up, and started sending non-upgraded WCs to Bob... please deal with that FIRST.

	03-10-2003 11:52									#7
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Notes for the turn...

Col in Arashi was a place holder. That should be changed to knight. IF we complete the FP at Elipolis, we will need to build down and disband Arashi (disband then immediately rebuild with a settler).

We need 3 workers joined to Elipolis to enable it to build the FP (or anything else) in a timely manner.

All units remaining on Stormia go north. They are the cadres for upgrades for the GoW invasion. That includes a couple of WCs loaded last turn.

ND navy to the South! 3 gallies. Suggest we gather forces and sink them.

Keep the navy out of sight in the north! Except for what they already see (which is 1 elite galley).

We have 9 ho, 17 wc, 6 sp, and 3 war to upgrade as it is. We do not yet have enough gold for all that. Keep the iron hooked up for now.

Bolderberg is at 10spt, perfect for production. We do not need workers or settlers from there. We have 3 granery cities with ample food. Our pop units come from those three cities. We do not need settlers or workers from any other cities. Please change the production there.

	03-10-2003 11:55									#8
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Finishing the remaining cities on spear as spears would be good. We are going to need a lot more infantry in future, and the upg cost is cheap.

	03-10-2003 11:56									#9
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The remaining horse and wc's should be good too. We will need them if we continue to fight.

	03-10-2003 14:01									#10
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Re Education. We completed the deal (sent our accepted offer) for it in turn 122. Turn 123 was the first turn we could have traded it. With a 20 turn NDA, that means that turn 142 was the 20th turn we could have traded and didn't, and turn 143 was the first turn we can trade it. So we are in the clear with it now.

	03-10-2003 18:02									#11
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I'd move those southern knights to Essigbar 9 (mountain).

Theseus - we can't put cats on P22, since they are wheeled and there is no road.

ACK! on the non-upgraded troops. So be it, we can fix that.

We definitely need to sink those ND ships.

-Arrian

	03-10-2003 21:28									#12
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I think we should get RP to build us a city 2 NW of Pamp, anyone of the 3 grassland tiles this side of the river would be good.

The immediate culture we'd gain would let us hit either of the 2 ND cities at a moments notice. We don't have forces their to do that but thats not important as ND would have to defend as though we did.

With immediate walls the city would be as easy to defend as Pamp as the 3 moves would have to cross the river to not have the river defence bonus, and so would not be able to attack then retreat into their city in the same turn.

Whats more it'd block that direction off from an attack on Pamp, the only problem would be building the city without getting killed in the process.

Edit - we could get a city there before they'd have a chance to react but it'd use an expoit, the same one they used. We station a stlr nearby, then gift RP two of our workers, they move the workers onto the city spot, undefended, on our turn we then take back the workers and build a road the same turn, then move the stlr in along the road and build

Last edited by OPD on 03-10-2003 at 21:38

	03-10-2003 22:20									#13
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I will open and play the game soon. Some questions remain: Why is the bulk of our forces in the north? Are we planning an invasion there? Or is it just for defense? Shall I upgrade units till we run out of gold, or do we need gold for some obscure trade promise? And what units shall I upgrade, more fastmovers, footsoldiers or a mix (depends on our plans and the terrain).

Sorry to have to ask, but I didn't pay much attention in the past few weeks...

	03-10-2003 23:20									#14
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The plan is for a crossing near Port Isolation. Upgrade to suit your tastes for 10 boat loads of troops, and reinforcements (second wave).

We have no need for gold other than upgrades. I was curious to see how close ND and GoW could get to us in total strength though, so I was not upgrading anything yet.

The entire issue of the Northern invasion should maybe be discussed again in light of what happened in the South. That would warrant its own thread. Arrian and Theseus should have something to say about it.

	04-10-2003 01:39									#15
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I will be able to discuss it this evening.

nye, did I read somewhere that your idea of the northern attack would be to send EVERY unit currently on Stormia?

	04-10-2003 03:45									#16
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I just opened the save and had a look:

The good news: We have an ungodly number of units to upgrade, giving us a TON of hitting power. I didn't go in and upgrade them during the production phase, as I'm not playing the turn for real. Many of them are outside of cities anyway.

The bad news: We need to get those units to the front pronto, and I'm kinda dubious about this attack up north. Plus, we've got those ND galleys in the south, with only 1 of ours nearby.

ND has a big stack next to the Alamo... yikes.

A couple of things:

If we switch the citizen in dissidentville that's working the iron mountain to the bonus grass, we can still finish the warrior next turn, while getting extra growth.

We can upgrade many, but not all of our troops. I went with mostly mounted stuff, and ran out of cash.

Some of the galleys have un-upgraded guys on them... they need to disembark and be replaced by upgraded troops.

I think Arashi should switch to a marketplace. Yes, I know we're going to abandon it eventually, but we're a ways from that, and what with us running at max tax right now, it will pay off.

Tempest is *just* over 20 shields/turn. That's good for 1-turn cats, or 3-turn knights with some short rushing. Not sure what to do there.

Can we turn a citizen from way up north (the voice?) into a scientist, to at least start cutting turns off of Astronomy? I don't think it would hurt.

As soon as we can, we should add 3 workers to Elipolis.

Shall we consolidate our Southern Bobian forces at Merida 6, 6?

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 03:55									#17
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Hmmmm, a good discussion going on. I think this turn is going to be very important, for various reasons.

- First we need to decide, where we will operate next and thus, what units we will upgrade and where.
- Second we need to decide, what to do with our galleys. We need to split them off to sink the ND ships in the south, and to support a massive landing in the north, if we decide so
- Third, we need to decide, what we will do with our forces on Bob. May be we should aim to start a deception 1 or 2 moves before a possible landing.

Further, we need to decide whether we go for Astronomy or not. Caravels would certainly prove useful for a landing operation due to 50% more capacity.

I'll go to bed, it's getting late here. I can play the turn in ~8 hours, may be we can find an answer for the one or other question meanwhile.

	04-10-2003 04:59									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus I will be able to discuss it this evening. nye, did I read somewhere that your idea of the northern attack would be to send EVERY unit currently on Stormia?

Not every unit. the coast guards would stay. The idea was to land across the straight and gradually grind GoW into the dust. That would take most all fo the units in Stormia plus a few more I would imagine.

It was not my plan. It was discussed at length by DeepO and Vel, I think. At the time it was a good plan. However, we now lack the element that was required to make it work. That being a credible threat in the South of Spain.

Maybe we should be reinforcing the South with a view towards finishing GoW and ND off in that theatre and then pushing ND out of Western Spain. Perhaps we could use a number of our boats as a decoy in the North to pin GoW down up there while we clean ND's clock.

You and Arrian are the generals. I would like to hear what you two propose.

	04-10-2003 05:12									#19
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Deciding where we want to strike is our top priority- GoW, ND, or the defense/offense in southern Spain?

This war can't be won in the south, and landing there will only get us some time, or buy us some ground. We won't save Spain by doing this- like we've said before, Spain will be safe only when its enemies can no longer threaten it. Leo's is in GoW's hands, and every turn we waste not hurting GoW warproduction is another turn they crank out cheap Riders. The same goes for ND, but they are near the end of their GA, and without that awesome wonder.

If we can cripple GoW or ND, we've gone more than halfway towards securing ourselves a position on Bob. Spain is in our hands, our allies/vassals. We just need them to hold a little bit more, and keep a credible diversion- what is going on in the south is a wonderful distraction, but we mustn't be tempted by it ourselves...

Use our forces to destroy GoW, and we've nearly won the war.

	04-10-2003 05:56									#20
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We have two options:

1) Upgrade in the north, and load it all on the galleys up there, and land up by GoW, and do as much damage as possible.

Advantages: our ships are up there, and we might just be able to hurt GoW.

Disadvantages: we could be throwing a shitload of units into a doomed attack. Spain could be destroyed if we don't counter ND/GoW down south.

2) We scrap the northern invasion, and re-route to the south, including operations vs. ND's galleys (if possible, I'd like to see if we can hit them with cats from the coast prior to attacking their ships).

Advantages: more limited goal, and thus higher chance of success. Might save Spain's life.

Disadvantages: more limited goal. No damage done to GoW's homeland. Most of our ships have to move a while prior to being in position.

I'm torn. My heart would like to hit GoW. My head says it's too risky. Theseus, what do you think?

Non-military thoughts:

If we are going to turn research back on, I think we ought to build some libraries, and maybe a Uni in Hurricane. We have more units than we can afford to upgrade for a while. During the time we need to raise the cash to upgrade them, we can be building the improvements. Then we can turn science on. This appeals to me, honestly. Our economy is rockin', but we're pouring it all into the military... and meanwhile Lego sits and builds. Plus, there is military advantage to be had in getting Caravels.

I'm gonna load the save up again and look at the map... I want to think about where I'd land if we do go with an attack up north.

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 06:05									#21
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Hmm... for hitting GoW, I think I'd land on Yellowknife 332, if it's open. If not, Y333 or Y223 would have to do.

For ND, I think Mavdad 699.

If we do it, I say go for broke: pure knights.

Another thing we could consider: land a large stack of pikes/med inf, and immediately send the galleys south after that. Meanwhile, horsemen from the north move down into Stormia proper, while we upgrade fastmovers down there. The galleys assemble in a few turns and then bring a horde of knights to S. Spain.

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 06:10									#22
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Game mechanics question: now that iron is hooked back up, will the cities due to complete warriors/wcs/horsies/spears next turn automatically switch back to medinf/knights/pikes before they complete the lesser units? I think, from my experience in SP, that they will. Thus, some build order switches may be in order.

I will stay online, but will be back and forth between the computer and the cribbage game I've got going with my gf (yeah, wild a crazy guy I am, playing cribbage on a Friday night).

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 06:40									#23
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I think they will stay on the set builds unless some condition or other is filled. I have heard that that condition is trading tech. I am not positive though.

	04-10-2003 07:06									#24
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Ah. Well then, we leave them be.

Any thoughts on my other comments?

I apologize for my rather rambling posts... I actually came up with 3 options:

1) Full-on knight invasion of GoW or ND (so 1a and 1b)
2) Med inf/Pike invasion of either, and galley re-routing to the south (2a, 2b)
3) Abandon northern attack, go all-out in the south.

I kinda like 2, come to think of it. Northern diversion, maybe we do some damage, at least we tie up some units and inflict some casualties, and perhaps buy us & RP some time.

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 07:15									#25
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Forces up north that could be upgraded:

Miller town: 1 vet WC. There is also an elite WC which I assume we don't want to upgrade, and 3 knights in there.

Beta: 2 WCs, 1 horse, 4 spears. Also 1 elite WC.

Witt: 2 horsies.

Eli: 2 spears.

So 6 upgradeable fastmovers (540g), 6 spears (120g). Plus 3 knights and a couple of pikes...

8 galleys in the vicinity... 16 units we can carry. 9 knights, 7 pikes.

We also have a number of units sitting around in the interior (not blocking coastal tiles). I think these should all be put in cities. Sitting in the open, not on the coast, serves no strategic purpose.

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 07:18									#26
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I like going to the South. With the force we have built we have to be able to do some serious damage.

As for feints to the North... send 6 empty galleys sailing along GoW's Northern coast and I'm fairly sure we will distract them.

	04-10-2003 07:21									#27
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We'll need those galleys to move troops, though. Although I note that two of our coastal towns (O.G. and Whirlwind) can build galleys in 3 turns each. I'd do that.

Maybe a 4-5 galley feint in the north (maybe with a few pikes on them to take advantage of any opportunity to land & pillage) would do the trick, and everything else moves south?

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 07:26									#28
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Sounds like the basis for a plan.

	04-10-2003 10:51									#29
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I'm signing off for the night... it's late. I'll try and check in tomorrow (today, heh) when I get up.

-Arrian

	04-10-2003 15:11									#30
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I know things are tough down in the south, but can we really allow ourselves and RPto not try and end this war? I'd rather wait some more and land 40+ units on GoW soil than to throw them to the stalemate in the south. We once said we will feint to the south, and strike their heart, but now it seems we're rather content with bashing one anoter in the south, letting this war go on and on, letting Lego grow bigger, and wasting our production on a more costly war.

The way I see it, not landing in the north in 10 or so turns means a very long war, one that we will lose in the long run- when Lego joins in.

If you fear for Spain's life, I suggest we ship those very few units we can allow to spare south, to help us hold ground, and use the rest for the manuever that could win the war...