War Tactics and Combat Sims

[Zargon]

After their recent excellent play building up, I'm not really expecting them to screw it up now, but perhaps we could be positioned to counterattack on turn 171 when they take the city? Perhaps they move in with the small stack there and the rest of their stack is more than 2 tiles behind the small stack and so can't catch up by then.

[Sullla]

Definitely keep preparing for the worst-case scenario, but I do think there's a good chance that Apolyton is going to fail in their invasion execution in some kind of spectacular fashion. Remember, this is the team that has a shockingly bad road network in their own territory, built windmills all over the place (seriously, windmills?!), and has a rifle 2E of Bursa in this very picture on an unroaded hill. Hopefully we can crush them the moment they try to move their big (?) stack of rifles onto flat ground.

Here's a serious question for you to consider: what part of the turn timer split is the team planning to claim? I would think that the second half is again better, since then we get the chance to watch what they do and whip afterwards, and they would be ill-prepared to defend any counterattacks into their territory. If we do want the second half, then we need to avoid doing anything on T170 and wait to play after them. Above all else, we would need to avoid ending our turn until after they acted. If we want the first half, then we need to be ready to play immediately at the start of T170 to get locked into the first half.

One way or the other, I would suggest deciding the team's opinion on this now, and be ready for next turn. (Maybe this was discussed on stream, I haven't been watching those.)

[Zargon]

The second half is tactically better, but the first half allows us to abuse the lapse in spy CE missions and prevent them from doing the same, if that's something we're planning to be diligent in doing, just as soon as we stop rolling so terribly in getting our spies caught. It's not immediately obvious to me which half is better.

[MWIN]

First has some advantages defending when you are weak (or has weaker forces). We can kill their units before they promote and heal.

[novice]

First half also lets us draft and promote survivors from last turn's battles before this turn's battles. That seems useful when wiping invading stacks - First half, we attack their stack. Second half, they can't promote, and their survivors retreat. Next turn, we promoheal and attack the stack again.

I know second half is the conventional wisdom - what are the advantages of the second half in this instance?

X-post with MWIN.

[Cyneheard]

First has some advantages defending when you are weak (or has weaker forces). We can kill their units before they promote and heal.

Agreed.

Re: Poly's set up: is it possible that they might be worried about us counter attacking them? Or maybe they're planning to split their forces, which would make my day.

[Zargon]

By the way, it looks like CP and Poly are setting up for taking the first half, given that they both played and ended turn pretty damn quick on this turn, the turn before. If we want the first half, we'll have to fight for it.

[MWIN]

Delete. Doesn't apply to this mod...

[scooter]

I loosely prefer first (though I could be convinced either way), but as someone said, it does indeed look like we'll get second given how much those two teams rushed to end turn this time around.

[NobleHelium]

First half is probably better but like 1) I'm not sure if we even have enough EP to run a counterespionage mission (unless we have stationary spy bonuses which doesn't look feasible), 2) we're not really set up to play flexibly enough to get first half.