Agents Of Empire/Strategy

Gwyne Fleet

So Gwyne has a fleet coming to attack us. If they move quickly and directly, I believe the soonest they can arrive is the Landing phase of Turn 13, and the soonest they can attack is the Fighting phase of Turn 14. If they move slowly or stop to regroup (after their allies were just swallowed up by the wormhole), we might have a little more time.

What are some of our options for dealing with them, and the pros and cons thereof?

• Build military space units - inky has lifted the four-turn minimum for building space units! So here's a possible strategy:
  • On Turn 13, The Space Whale travels from Boumfadour to Elvis, carrying the Reef Riders and probably also some Kelp or Chemicals for later processing. Bram and the Lewison Clarks explore the heck out of a new region on Arroyo. Elvis makes two units of rank-2 refined goods (Large Energy Weapons).
  • On Turn 14, The Space Whale ships the Large Energy Weapons and the Reef Riders to Arroyo. Bram and the Lewison Clarks finish exploring the new region up to Explored-I (plus a bit). Then they use the terraformer to help build a shipyard on that region, upgrading it to Factory-I (normally 25Mc, but only 15Mc because of the terraformer).
  • On Turn 15, Bram, the Lewison Clarks, and the Reef Riders finish exploring the new region up to Explored-II. They use the terraformer to upgrade the shipyard on that region, bringing it to Factory-II (normally 25Mc, but only 15Mc because of the terraformer -- thus spending all of our money). Arroyo's new factory region constructs two rank-2 warships using the Large Energy Weapons. (Normally 28Mc each, reduced to 12Mc with their Good Military: Floor(12/(2+5)) = 1 rank-2 good apiece.)
  • On Turn 16, the warships go wherever they're needed. And they are awesome.

• Build military air units - We could consider doing this instead of the space units, but I think the space units will be better overall.

• Build ground troops - A PC action can't substitute for a factory anymore, and we probably want to focus our factory-based building on space units right now. Elvis does have a recipe for making a couple cheap units once, so we may as well go ahead and do that, at least.

• Try to steal some space units from the fleet - The Gwyne fleet is full of military ships. So we could just try to take some of them. At least, if we have collective testicles the size and hardness of an asteroid made of solid astro-diamond. Maybe someone with elite hacking skills could take control of their computers? Or maybe we could just fly up with one of our current rank-1 fighter ships, boost its effective rank with the help of a PC and a fate point, and board the enemy directly? Or something?
  • Jude might be able to spend his time in Turn 13 preparing some clever strategy/devices to do this when the portion of the fleet heading towards Elvis arrives there, especially if he has help from the Farlight Institute.
  • Seve took over a military vehicle earlier by acting distressed, getting boarded, then using his land unit to fight the guys hand-to-hand. Maybe this tactic would work again?
    • That could be a good idea. But while that's totally the kind of thing a pirate would go for, is it the kind of thing a Gwyne soldier would go for? And would they immediately get blasted by the other nearby Gwyne ships? If we think this could work, then Thunderchild and the Yowlin' Yoshis could meet the part of the fleet that's headed toward Arroyo part-way. Jota 22:00, 15 August 2011 (PDT)

• Take back Vefna - This seems like something we should certainly try at some point. If we throw enough military units at it and add in a PC or two using an Adventure action, then we can probably wrest control of the planet back from Gwyne. I am not sure what exactly this would gain us, but I suspect there should be at least some useful stuff there that we can use in the fight. If we're really lucky, they might even have some space military units there that we can take control of. Here's one strategy we could use for the attack:
  • On Turn 13, Thunderchild could pick up either the Yowlin' Yoshis or the Fightin' Fighters (or both) and take them to Vefna. Likewise, the Reiglight Revenge could pick up the Foreign Legion and do the same. Jude or Rick would probably go with them.
  • On Turn 14, they would be able to attack and hopefully take back the planet, with Kyil assisting from the other side.

This seems like it's got a pretty good chance of success, but the downside is that all the units who go to fight on Vefna won't be available to defend Elvis or Arroyo. In particular, we probably want someone to be on Arroyo to defend the new factory region we're constructing in order to build our warships. So how about we try it with just the Reiglight Revenge and Foreign Legions, plus a PC from Elvis?

• Something else - Any other ideas?
  • It looks like Dark found a crashed Gwyne ship on turn 12 which he could likely salvage.

Given Dark's military expertise, perhaps he can answer some of the questions we have, like how soon before the Gwyne fleet actually attacks, how useful ground units will be, or how much power we need for an assault on Vefna.

What does everyone else think? Jota 23:13, 14 August 2011 (PDT)

(Dark speaks:) Definitely we should consider deception and delaying tactics. Perhaps the easiest would be to direct the enemy to the places we want (which turn out to be well-defended decoys) to have time to build up our military.

That seems like a good idea. Are you suggesting tricking them into attacking unimportant regions on our planets or into missing our planets entirely? Perhaps the Space Whale and the Reiglight Revenge could toss a few radio transponders out into deep space while they're in transit on Turn 13, to make broadcasts that sound like they're coming from our units, and hope that the attackers go after them before going after us? (Then we'd need to maintain radio silence on the real planets for the trick to work.) Jota 17:03, 15 August 2011 (PDT)