Perhaps a stupid question from someone who doesn't play F&E... but WHY are the Gorns retaining so much in their treasury? Is that usual?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 07:38 pm: Edit

I'm not quite sure, honestly. Jason might be saving up for a rainy day? I dunno.

For my money, the Gorn could still be doing just fine, economically speaking, if they were spending another 20EPs a turn on, like, BC conversions and extra CVs or something. But, well, it might all become important at some point?

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 08:15 pm: Edit

I figure the Gorn capital is safe for now so no need to over spend just yet.

If it looks like the Capital is under threat then there will be a big spending spree by the Gorn.

As for how the game is going, Im fairly comfortable at the moment. I think the Hydrans are starting to cause trouble and look forward to the Tholians deciding whether or not to kill an SB when they go feral.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - 09:13 am: Edit

Yeah, as the Gorn, I'd probably be a little more aggressive with builds--maximize cruisers, convert some CC/CMs, and build extra CVs now and then. And also possibly build a second SB in the Capital where it looks like there is space to do so (i.e. a few turns ago :-).

But at press time, yeah, the Gorn Capital isn't in any real danger of falling any time soon.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - 05:03 pm: Edit

I am probably being over cautious given thr Gorn economy is going to quickly disappear even if the Capital survives.

By Dana Madsen (Dfm330) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Been following this for a while and it has been an interesting read, good job guys for playing and posting.

Got bored and went back through a number of months of posts, came up with the following numbers. Just my two cents on analysis.

On T16 the alliance add 28 new ships(63 built less 35 killed) and the coalition added 14 new ships(58 built less 44 killed). T17 the alliance added 33 to the coalitions 22 and T18 the alliance added 30 to 26. On T19 they have currently added 57 to 42 with the alliance half of combat to go (which generally has advantaged alliance in that they get to pick more fights against province raiders).

All of the above is base hulls, not counting fighter factors so given they have 4 sets of free fighters to 3 they are probably up a few more ship equivalents there as well. Call it +50 on ship count to the alliance over the last 4 turns.

That's the alliance good news. The bad news, the coalition is spending an average of 400 EP each turn on builds, conversions and repairs (plus adoptions and stuff). That gets them about 58 new ships a turn and they are at first stage exhaustion. The alliance spends about 300 EP a turn to build 63 ships and about 80% of them are FF's and only two races are at exhaustion. If the feds lose much more income they may start leaving ships unbuilt each turn (or the Gorns may need to put spare cash on tugs). Anyways, guess I'm saying that the alliance could see their ship building hit hard when the Feds get exhausted or the Kzin and Hydrans go to 50%. They really don't have much fat to cut when it comes to putting hulls on the board. However the coalition can probably deal with next stage exhaustion by slowing down on expensive conversions and still keep up total ships built.

So sometime soon the alliance needs to use the extra ships they are building to start reclaiming territory both for the extra cash that they will need and to take it away from the coalition. If they can't reclaim territory the 10 to 15 new ships they are up each turn might turn to 0 or go negative.

Close game though. Could very well end up a draw or a minor victory.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Yeah, at this point, I think the Feds have more ships in Fed space than the Coalition do; I think the Hydrans have more SEQ in the Hydran theater than the Coalition do. And I think as time goes on, that disparity will just get bigger.

Like, for example, as much as I am poised to land on the Fed Capital, I honestly suspect the the Feds could pin me out if I tried (I haven't done an exact SEQ count in a while; maybe I'll do so soon)--every time I look at trying to get into the Fed Capital, all I see is constant getting pinned out. So I go in other directions most of the time. I might be able to cut the Fed Capital off from the Off Map zone at some point, but I think the actual Capital is mostly immune from assault.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 04:45 pm: Edit

I sure hope so !!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 07:22 pm: Edit

Ok, so I'm doing a quick, non extensive ship count in Fed space. At the current moment (now that a lot of Coalition ships are pinned already), I got about 190 some odd unmoved, unpinned Fed SEQ in/around the Capital. I am counting about 165 unpinned Coalition in range of the Fed Capital. This is not taking into account currently overpinned Coalition ships (i.e. a couple Klingon FFs pinned by 4 Feds in numerous places).

So I think, currently, there are easily more Fed ships that can defend the Capital (and neighboring SBs) than the Coalition have ships that can reach the Fed Capital. And this isn't even counting fighter squads on the SBs and AuxCVs in the Capital (to say nothing of the SEQs of fighters on capital PDUs).

If the Feds want to keep the Coalition out of the Capital? They can do so. I mean, like, the Coalition can probably do other things (hit/kill neighboring SBs, try and cut the Capital from the Off Map), but it seems pretty certain that unless I move a *lot* of ships into Fed Space, I can't realistically get into the Fed Capital if they want to keep me out.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 08:28 pm: Edit

Yeah but I have the choice of:
1. fully defend the Capital and lose everything else
2. mostly defend the Capital and be aggressive elsewhere so that you dont have double my economy

Unless I constantly try and find ways to cut you off from supply Im in a WORLD of hurt long term.

Hopefully the Kzinti and Hydrans can cause a bit of trouble as well. With the Gorn mostly doing not much at all...

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 08:46 pm: Edit

The Gorn can get reasonably scary when they start churning out 3 or 4 cruisers a turn, build extra carriers, and have a second SB over their capital :-)

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Carriers I can picture, but the cruisers would just get smashed every time I put them on the line. That becomes very expensive.

I think that it is all the carrier groups which are keeping the Alliance in the game.

So any spare coins they have will most likely go towards carriers.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 10:43 pm: Edit

The Gorns may match each Romulan Modular DN (DemonHawk, MegaHawk, or OmniHawk) with a CVS or BCV at their option. This is in addition to the normal carrier production limit.

Been building any of them Peter? Seems like I can smash out some carriers if so !

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 01:06 pm: Edit

I have not made any modular DNs, mostly due to not paying attention. I'll make sure to let you know if I do.

Yeah, the thing with the Gorn cruisers is that, yeah, they get vaporized when they are on the line, but you can easily build 4 per turn (CC or CC for DN; BC; CM; convert HD>CM), which means that when you inevitably fight over fixed defenses, you can have insane lines; if you had a line full of cruisers over those two minor planets I took this turn, for example, I would have still directed the PDUs on the first turn (meaning the cruisers live), and you would have had a compot of, like, what:

DN, [CV, CLE, BDE], [3HD, 3BD], 2BC, (2PDU)=111 (or 121 with admiral), and 5 or 6 EW.

Which would have been pretty scary. I mean, like, yeah, you gotta set up reserves appropriately, but still.

Over one of the Capital SBs, a line of DN+10 or 11 cruisers is gonna be nuts. And with the out of turn cheap repairs, you can go on an offensive (i.e. kill BATS or whatever) and recover instantly.

I mean, yeah, the Gorn lose cruisers (although keep in mind that even with a mauler, it takes 20 to sink a BC) if they use them, but you can make a lot of them, and as the Gorn are mostly gonna be fighting over PDUs and bases from here on out, they are less vulnerable than you'd envision.

By chris upson (Misanthropope) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 03:48 pm: Edit

going full Eitzen, overcrippling a battle tug for -11, gives you a fair chance of losing no cruisers, even against a serious romulan fleet. 2 EPs to talk the romulans into walking away from a fight they can win isn't a terrible alternative.

i mean, i favor the carrier groups, but keeping a line of 10+ compot monsters available definitely adds options. the CM conversion at least, seems worth the money.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Will keep all this in mind next turn... assuming the Capital doesnt fall hehe.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 05:48 pm: Edit

BTW with a 2xPDU planet I would probably trade cruisers for cruisers if I was the Coalition. Not just go for the planet.

So even if I had a heap of cruisers, as the Gorn player Id still protect the big ships and save them for 4 PDU planets and SB and the Capital. Where the damage output in theory massively favours the defender.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 05:59 pm: Edit

I dunno; killing the PDUs first doesn't seem out of the realm of reason; on the second round, when the PDUs are gone, revert to CVs/BG ships, sure. But I don't know that as the Romulans, I wanna spend time fighting over PDUs when I could kill the PDUs.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 06:02 pm: Edit

I like the tactic of always killing heavy cruisers and bigger whenever you can. Unless you are losing a couple of ships per trade.

By chris upson (Misanthropope) on Friday, October 19, 2018 - 11:19 pm: Edit

if you've got the depth in the hex, i agree trading over a minor makes sense, especially if a mauler is essentially manufacturing more damage than the PDUs contribute. *putting* the depth in the hex so that you can lollygag may involve taking less ground than would otherwise be possible.

feds for example are losing a couple carriers a year to budget limitations where killing carriers at that rate is well beyond my ability at least.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Saturday, October 20, 2018 - 09:01 am: Edit

(Chris, I really enjoyed your phraseology of "Going Full Eitzen"; Richard, I enjoy that that is a thing that can be said :-)

AT19

The Gorn have retroactively adjusted their econ (based on this discussion, Jason was all "Huh. 100+ in treasury. That is more than I realized...), and instead building a CMV and some escorts (paying full for fighters), leaving him with a more reasonable 75EPs in treasury.

Moves are well underway.

In Hydran space, the Hydrans are all back in supply, and not really attacking anything ambitious. Just some province raiders and ships by the Old Colonies. The Hydrans seem mostly done moving.

In Kzinti space, the Kzinti are attacking a lot of things, but mostly province raiders and overpinning hexes with reserves in them (to avoid chained reserve movement). The have avoided Lyran base 1407, where there is a reserve that can move (the only one in the theater that is unpinned), but it won't really be able to affect much. The Kzinti also sent a fleet into the edge of Fed space to beat up some province raiders. Kzinti seem mostly done moving.

On the Fed/Klingon front, so far, the Feds have attacked numerous hexes of province raiders, sent a roughly equal fleet to the Coalition holding planet 2403 (about two dozen ships on a side, with the Klingons ahead); sent a giant fleet (130+) to B10 held planet 2509 (110+ Klingons), to prevent some chain reserve motion; they will take back planet 2610 (which is only held by a lone, sad, E4 and no reserves are able to save it).

On the Fed/Rom front, lots of province raiders are being hit, they have started pinning planets 3210 (almost 100 Klingons) and 3509 (about 90 Romulans), but haven't fully pinned them yet.

In Gorn space, mostly just province raiders hit so far.

As of press time, 29 battle hexes, and plenty of ships left to move.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, October 21, 2018 - 05:39 pm: Edit

AT19

Movement seems to be winding up. The Fed seem to be amalgamating fleets to pin as much of the Coalition as possible, so that their reserves can't save any Fed advantaged fights (and it is now clear that the Coalition need to start being a lot more clever with their reserve placement; the Feds have too many ships...).

The Gorn moved most of their ships to attack Romulan held planet 4705, again, pinning a reserve, and having about 30 ships more than the Romulans. It remains to be seen if they will fight to try and recapture the planet or not.

A few ships left to move.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, October 21, 2018 - 06:03 pm: Edit

AT19

I spoke too soon! Movement is done!

There are a total of 32 battle hexes. Most of them are "Numerous Alliance ships will beat up a Coalition FF", or "equal sized pinning fleets will fight until one side is sick of losing FF escorts and out of fighters, and then they retreat" but there are a few large, potentially bloody, fights--planet 2509 has a huge Fed fleet vs a huge Klingon, B10 led fleet, which may or may not see the Feds want to try and take the planet back; the Gorn and Romulans have a similar fight at planet 4705.

Most Coalition reserves were pinned (see above; need to be more clever next time...); a Klingon reserve (in 0617) and a Lyran reserve (at 1910) both didn't move, as there was nothing useful they could go to (the Klingons would stil be outgunned in either hex they could go to, where currently they are just losing an E4 in both hexes; the Lyrans could contribute to the fight in 2509, but then they'd end the turn out of supply, and probably not worth the expeditionary costs). One Lyran reserve went to go shore up the defenses at planet 1105; one Romulan reserve went to go kill a Gorn DD in 4006 (saving an SEH from possible death).

I expect a heavy death toll, frigate wise, this turn.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, October 21, 2018 - 06:11 pm: Edit

We can only hope that there is a heavy death toll, and not just with Frigates !!

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Sunday, October 21, 2018 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Two unmoved reserves, in that case, the question of 'is there anything within six they need to be?' if not then it should be 'is there a battle that that can move them within six of?'