Our Strategy....You Probably Haven't Heard of It

[oledavy]

Doh, put Beijing in the wrong spot. Looking at the map I just drew, the target for Beijing should be One West

[WarriorKnight]

We haven't discussed it as a team yet, so it may be subject to change. However, here is the route I had in mind:



We stage in Marlo, then follow the route I have drawn out. There is a good chance I've missed something, but this path seems to offer the best balance between sticking to the defensive terrain, not having to cross any rivers, and offering maximum two-mover flexibility. The one change I would possibly make is moving onto the forested hill the first turn. However, no matter what route, we're going to have to spend one turn on the flatland at the threshold of the city. If all goes well, we slam Beijing with everything we've got on t192. I'm hoping to field ~150 units for this event.

I think first turn we should move SW of Macau. That way we don't immediately show our intention of invading Beijing, and can either raze Macau with little effort if he retreats his stack, kill a ton of units if he reinforces it/does nothing, or have a hill to defend on if he wants to counterattack.

Crossing a river doesn't mean much. Not revealing that we intend to attack Beijing immediately however means quite a bit, as Leewyn could interpret our invasion as a attack on Macau when it isn't.

[Shoot the Moon]

I think first turn we should move SW of Macau. That way we don't immediately show our intention of invading Beijing, and can either raze Macau with little effort if he retreats his stack, kill a ton of units if he reinforces it/does nothing, or have a hill to defend on if he wants to counterattack.

Crossing a river doesn't mean much. Not revealing that we intend to attack Beijing immediately however means quite a bit, as Leewyn could interpret our invasion as a attack on Macau when it isn't.

Agreed. Keep in mind though I am liable to lose some or all of those tiles culturally due to them running the culture slider.

Also, I'm rather partial to naming the attack about something to do with their culture slider. That thing is damn annoying!

[oledavy]

I don't think Lewwyn will mistake our attack for anything other than an assault on Beijing. I think it would be more prudent to leave Macau hanging on the vine, and come back to kill it after the presumed fall of Beijing, rather than expend troops to take it on the way there; troops that might turn the tide outside the walls of the Chinese capital. The game is won or lost here, and anything short of all-out might not cut it.

That being said, I see the argument for moving onto the grassland hil the first turn, then NW->NW->N->N. It may lead him to concentrate some units in Macau that will give up their fortify bonus in the capital. My concern regarding the river is that Lewwyn dots the hills with penny-packets of one or two guerilla II units to impede our progress and force us to expend our own units to advance. Since Beijing is on a hill, forces promoted to guerilla would not be wasted in the final battle. I would rather not have to cross a river and potentially give Lewwyn a good chance to impede our progress.

We should message Lewwyn after we invade and ask him to rename Beijing, Armageddon Would be more fitting.

Or perhaps we call this Operation Armageddon?

[WarriorKnight]

I think we leave our EPs on Team #1. Teams #2 & #4 are approaching irrelevancy, so it would be pointless to have their graphs.

Agree, but we do have a semi-decent EP output with all those courthouse now, and it would be nice to know everyone's power levels.

- We now have 1/4 GG's to unlock commando units. This one, we use to make a unit to qualify us for West Point. I say we attach him to a 7xp machine gun produced out of Shoot's HE city (Military Instructor + Theocracy). We can then slap 5 promotions on the Machine Gun. I would recommend promoting him up to Drill IV (and a 5th promotion of our choice) and use him to cover our invasion force. With all those first strikes, he'll get good odds of destroying anything that attacks him before it even inflicts any damage, a pretty good way to counter the massed catapults Lewwyn is going to throw at us. Furthermore, he'll come up as top defender for awhile, which means we can probably get him up to Level 6 for West Point in short order. The potential problem here is that if he comes up short of a sixth promotion, we can't attack with him to attain it.

Err.. Doesn't level 6 require 26xp so 7 + 20 will qualify right? I don't know what your referring to by the 6th promotion which is level 7, but it hardly matters since it doesn't make a significant difference to us.

- The assault on Omar demonstrates the sheer number of units we're going to need to counter massed catapults - just to absorb the collateral damage. Machine guns mean we probably won't have to worry about Lewwyn inflicting any kills. With the MGs covering, we can afford to not promote any of the units in our attacking force other than the MGs. When we reach the walls of the city and get hit by collateral, we promote and heal everything, then start our assault.

While Leewyn surely has more cats/Chukonu's in reserve, given he just used 10 cats to take Omar I doubt he has several more at this moment. Probably a moot point though, as he should definately have more by the time we're ready.

Also I just remembered that MG's aren't immune to Chukuno collateral. Nothing we can do about it but something to keep in mind. EDIT: Actually not only MG's but all types of siege are vulnerable to Chokonu collateral. Better keep all our siege unpromoted then.

After we reach railroads, I strongly suggest we research Music and Military Tradition. It will enable us all to pump out a last minute wave of mounted units to catch up to the 1-movers and stage for the invasion, and allow us to upgrade all our knights into cavalry.

Alright so tech path is SP -> Railroad -> Music -> MT, with Combustion slotted in somewhere whenever Team 1 go for it. After that should probably be Bio or Assembly Line?

I don't think Lewwyn will mistake our attack for anything other than an assault on Beijing.

Possibly, but you don't know for sure. In the meantime we give Leewyn a chance to make a mistake by forking another city. Even if he doesn't fall for it, there's no major downside compared to your approach, and if he does then all the better for us.

My concern regarding the river is that Lewwyn dots the hills with penny-packets of one or two guerilla II units to impede our progress and force us to expend our own units to advance.

Since we're going to have to be on a flatland tile just before Beijing anyway, I don't see why sticking to the hills is essential. Sure if both are empty I'll take the hill, but if he's defending the hills then we can just ignore them, and the only major difference I can see will be he might send all his units to attack us earlier then we expected, which is still better for us then if he attacks us just outside Beijing (because he will have less time to build units).

[oledavy]

Err.. Doesn't level 6 require 26xp so 7 + 20 will qualify right? I don't know what your referring to by the 6th promotion which is level 7, but it hardly matters since it doesn't make a significant difference to us.

You'e right. I miscounted the promotion levels

[WarriorKnight]

BTW, Railroads make every unit move 10 tiles a turn, rather than costing 1/10th of a unit movement. This means that building Cavs last to catch up with the main stack won't work, as they'll move the same speed as MG's and other units (assuming a perfect Railroad, on roads they're still better). This doesn't mean we shouldn't research MT, as I'm sure we'll still use Cavs, just not as a catch up to the main stack.

[T-hawk]

BTW, Railroads make every unit move 10 tiles a turn, rather than costing 1/10th of a unit movement. This means that building Cavs last to catch up with the main stack won't work, as they'll move the same speed as MG's and other units

Right. 2-move units actually cost 2/10 of a movement point per railroad tile. And so on for units with more moves. Cavalry can catch up to 1-movers through enemy territory, although that would mean you'd split your stack.

[dazedroyalty]

Right. 2-move units actually cost 2/10 of a movement point per railroad tile. And so on for units with more moves. Cavalry can catch up to 1-movers through enemy territory, although that would mean you'd split your stack.

I never knew this. I guess there's some logic to it since if a unit was on a train, it wouldn't matter what the unit could do, just what the train could do.

[Shoot the Moon]

WK, feel free to end my turn after you play/gift gold.

Also, next turn WK should make sure to end turn first. There are some nice Kremlin-powered whips I'd like to make use of