PBEM5I scooter's Duel thread

[scooter]

The pathetic part about all this is that the second city was even more needless than the first. I had tons of units nearby, I merely neglected this third one. See, the transport had been out of range of the third city for quite some time, so I simply forgot to consider that it moved back within range. I actually have more military than Dazed and I had way more than enough in the area, but it was just a ridiculous mistake.

[scooter]

Alright, Just played T374. Amazingly, despite losing two key cities, here's the MFG graph:



That's strongly inflated by golden age, but I'm using it as best as I can to push out an army:



Dazed has LOTS of lightly defended cities. I built 4 battleships and a destroyer, and just finished a transport. The plan is to fill it with 5 units (tanks/marines), go out on the lake, fork a few cities, and hope he can't reinforce them all. I've pushed his ships out of my waters, so he shouldn't be able to do much about it. I've been using airships, and his 3 closest cities are defended by exactly 1 infantry apiece.... Though he has lots of airships so he'll see it coming. Either way, I'm going to try to turn the pressure back on him. We'll see how it goes.

[scooter]

My airship found something noteworthy:



I'll have to keep an eye on that. That said, the Paratrooper needs to land and then attack the next turn right? So I'm not sure what kind of damage could actually be done with it. Still - need to make sure he doesn't try to hit a backlines city.

[scooter]

Military at EoT376:

[scooter]

Here's what I have in mind:



That spot allows me to hit all five cities. Given how low his power is, one city would be guaranteed to fall unless he somehow killed my naval stack. I'm moving onto staging next turn, then "first move" the following, then that spot. He'll see me coming a mile away (he has a fleet of airships), but we'll see if he can do anything about it. At the same time, I hope/plan to move in a stack of tanks from the south - with the hope of taking down 2 cities in one turn. Should be interesting.

[scooter]

Played T378, here's my staging tile:



My cursor is hovered over his naval stack - mine is bigger which is very reassuring. Just need to hope that his airships don't have a big enough impact to swing the odds - which I'm nervous about honestly. I'm adding another Destroyer to the stack, as you see one finishing in Uxmal at EoT - and it's 8 moves barely gets it to the "first move" tile next turn. Actually, I made a mistake. My stack should go 1S of "first move" next turn, as that provides for coastal defense bonus.

[scooter]

I also have around 10 tanks in my SE city. It's not a huge threat on it's own, but in conjunction with the naval assault, it should actually pose a decent threat. I thought I took a screenshot, but apparently it failed or something.

[scooter]

The invasion continues:



If this can somehow be successful it will break his back. Not sure what my chances are though. My tanks will move in next turn when I move onto the fork tile.

[scooter]

The big question is how much damage can all his airships actually do? Can they hurt me enough for his naval stack to do serious damage? If so, I'm in trouble. If not, he's in trouble. And stink, I forgot to move onto the coastal tile. Such is life.

[scooter]

Next turn in. Tense turns. Dazed sent it with the sentence "This will be interesting"... So I open the save, and he has moved his boats to the north to cover his northern city:



The cursor there is hovering over Altun Ha. He also hit my stack with those 3 airships... Starting to think my boat placement was actually good as it was far enough away from his southern airships. Worked out after all. Unfortunately, those airships are doing real damage... So I'm slightly nervous... But then again, he doesn't have enough ships to kill me next turn even if he wins every battle (not likely) so I should be set. I would love it if I can raze two cities next turn, but let's not get TOO carried away just yet .

Southern front:



That extra infantry is just there to defend the stack for 1T so that I can attack next turn. If I actually attack will depend on what I decide to do with the naval invasion... This is merely an extra force to give him trouble.

Fingers crossed. Very nervous right now... Hope Dazed plays the turn quickly.