Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

uju32 said:

My perspective is that there's a balance to be made between retaliation, deterrence, and proactive.
If we spend much of our plan focuses responding to Nod provocations, we'll end up being led around by the nose and not actually addressing the root reasons why they are capable of offering those provocations.

It hasnt missed my attention, or yours, that every major Nod operation in the last year or two, from Gideon to Bintang to Krukov,has relied on critical support at a key juncture from India-sourced cyborgs. Or that even Nod are beginning to have issues with throwing Militant light infantry agaist GDI heavy metal.

Right now, my mediumterm focus is to get us to do Karachi. Securing the logistics pipeline there will do several things
1)It reduces our military commitments used to guard the current two logistics routes to one, which allows us to redirect the excess troops to offensive action or a strategic reserve
2It allows us to funnel military resources in so the Himalyas can act as a jumpoff point into Krukov's Central Asian soft belly.
3)It also allows the Himalayas to pressure India, meaning the Indians have to spend more effort on local defenses and fewer on helping other warlords.

Smacking Krukov now would feel nice, but we cant really follow up on it, yet.
So we wait. Just like we've waited everytime Mehretu has pulled one of his assassination ploys.
Delayed gratification might be a dirty phrase, but it applies here.

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Believe you me - I want Karachi more than anyone, I spent a solid week brainstorming the details with Sword before it was presented to the thread. Thank you for making its thread debut post, by the way, it was appreciated!

And you're right - Karachi is our main mid-term objective. The thing punching Krukov's factories out with Auroras though is that it's a short term one.

The plan (and inspiration) for the Karachi Sprint starts with getting war factory refits first, and that's capital goods limited. We're about to hit the energy surplusses we need to go hard on heavy industry, but that's the turn after next at soonest that we can finally do the sprint itself, and that's if we risk a capital goods shortfall by doing it the same turn HI sectors is supposed to complete.

With aurora dev this turn and aurora deployment next turn, doing the most time critical part of smacking Krukov can happen without interfering with Karachi - and the deterrence value will pair nicely with the surge of GDI steel from refits to cover for the construction period.

And then once Karachi IS completed, phase 5 in particular? The Auroras will come in handy once again to start making strikes on India itself with Karachi as the FOB. This is critical, because the logistics cooridoor the sprint will create does not interdict the travel path that the cyborgs were shipped along to get to Krukov, so establishing the ring of steel is only the first step to addressing India's far-flung patronage.

As such, I firmly believe that far from needing to choose between them, Krukov retaliation and the Karachi Sprint are priorities that benefit each other.

Again though. We have 7 major warlords right now. They are all gaining strength. They are all centralizing. They are all aiming to be the grand poo-bah. And one of them will achieve that goal, no matter what we do.

Why is targeting Krukov more important than our other military priorities or pre-existing commitments? It certainly isn't his weapons. Everything he can do, we do better. It isn't his tactics, as he is one of the more "moral" NOD warlords. It isn't his political skills, as other NOD warlords are better at recruiting new members and uniting NOD. His forces aren't currently massing for an attack (like Gideon), preparing a new round of assassinations (like Mehretu), nor are they capable of shutting down our global economy by getting out of their chairs (like Bintang). He's just the latest warlord to slap our face, and he's just returned to the back of a long line of warlords looking to do so.

If we are looking to increase our technical capabilities against a single warlord, as opposed to generalized upgrades against all of them, he's one of the last ones that we should be targeting.

Rakuhn said:

Why is targeting Krukov more important than our other military priorities or pre-existing commitments? It certainly isn't his weapons. Everything he can do, we do better. It isn't his tactics, as he is one of the more "moral" NOD warlords. It isn't his political skills, as other NOD warlords are better at recruiting new members and uniting NOD. His forces aren't currently massing for an attack (like Gideon), preparing a new round of assassinations (like Mehretu), nor are they capable of shutting down our global economy by getting out of their chairs (like Bintang). He's just the latest warlord to slap our face, and he's just returned to the back of a long line of warlords looking to do so.

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I answer this in bullet point 2: Because he's politicking the best, did the worst damage, and because he's the only one we can hurt significantly right now.

To address specific claims though:

Krukov is ithillid confirmed to have made the biggest splash among his peers - so no, there are not other warlords better at recruitment than him.

His tactics are a consequence of the tools available to him. He doesn't rely on assasinations because he has very little access to shadow teams. He does open warfare with heavy armor because he has captured GDI factories and can use that to improve his standing because that's just way more visible and 'glorious' than the usual skullduggery. When he gains more tools from successful consolidation, his tactics will change to match.

As for individual threat, Bintang can't "get out of her chair" as you put it without significant support - Ithillid laid out the scenario of her deciding to go all out as ending with her being utterly crushed by GDI because she literally runs out of ammo and gets counter-stomped. This is something that she can only realistically attempt once she's part of a larger coalition... and wouldn't you know it, the nod warlord with the best industrial base that could supply her is also the one I want to destroy the industrial base of.

Mehretu and Gideon meanwhile are threats we cannot proactively stop, only prepare to receive - and we're already preparing the best we can for those two.

Or at least, we can't proactively stop them by direct action. If the deterrence is successful, that could delay their action. This should underline why I want to do Auroras so badly, and why I think they're a valuable addition to the leadup to Karachi - it helps buy us relative safety to get the sprint completed successfully without some other fire tearing us away from it.

This is the lever we have. We either use it and get some results, or don't and deal with the consequences. There is no "punch out some other warlord" option to take instead.

Rakuhn said:

Why is targeting Krukov more important than our other military priorities or pre-existing commitments?

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Opportunity. We have the chance to kick over his sandcastle, winning a major victory for GDI. That's a pile of territory to take, many civilians we can liberate, a huge amount of our global military's focus that can be spread out elsewhere, and a massive propaganda coup. Krukov failed to breach GDI's lines, but doing this would show that GDI can retaliate.

As the updates keep telling us, Cherdenko's intelligence was a super lucky win for us. Yet we're wasting it by not giving the military the hardware they need to act. We already lost a window of opportunity with the nat 100 on the Long Range Sensor System; why should we double-down and make the same mistake with the Aurora Strike Bombers?

And should it really be on us to choose military strikes? If the Air Force had their bombers when Cherdenko gave the intel, they'd have attacked without our input. We wouldn't have any say in the matter. Why do we think we know better in this?

Derpmind said:

By all accounts, Cherdenko's intelligence is a super lucky win for us, and we're wasting it by not giving the military the hardware they need to act. It's not really on us to choose military strikes, anyways. If the Air Force had their bombers when Cherdenko gave the intel, they'd have attacked without our input. We wouldn't have any say in the matter. We already lost a window of opportunity with the nat 100 on the Long Range Sensor System; why should we double-down and make the same mistake with the Aurora Strike Bombers?

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From my understanding, we gave up on the LRSS opportunity when we chose to let reallocation have its pound of flesh. That was the price of reviving the government and the economy outside of the Treasury.

Likewise, doing Aurora right now comes at the cost of our areas of military readiness...although if Apollo is any guide not all that much--basically a die or two a factory, two or three factories.

I would prefer to get at least a phase of shells and a stage of ablatives out first? Maybe Orca Refits? But I can see the rationale for going Aurora first.

TripleTango said:

I would prefer to get at least a phase of shells and a stage of ablatives out first? Maybe Orca Refits? But I can see the rationale for going Aurora first.

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Shells is at only 7% chance of completion in the leading plan (plan derpy), and is not invested in at all in the runner up (plan I Want Philly). Steel Chair Edition has one less shells die compared to the vanilla version, but we're still about as well set up to complete it next turn as before.

Ultimately, Aurora does not change the shells deployment timeline much, and we mainly need them ready for Karachi, which is 3-4 turns out still because of the capital goods crunch bottlenecking factory refits.

Philly Pacifier Edition of course has no change in shell investments at all since it's a modification of Plan Philly, and what gets investment there will be heavily dependent on how Philly itself rolls. If some variant of I Want Philly wins, I think it's clear we'd want to finish it next turn if at all possible to capitalize - the rest of our priorities would follow from whatever it takes to make that happen.

[X] Plan Derpy Hitting Krukov With A Steel Chair Edition
[X] Plan I want Philly Pacifiers Edition

Eh, sure. My plan ain't winning, and I do like the idea of springing a little surprise on Krukov.

I like Auroras but I'm not sure we should take them right now.

However, that said? The Aurora aircraft are not one and done. They'll be an alpha strike for Krukov yes. But then they'll be on deck for whatever the military needs done. I'm sure there are tons of targets that they would love to hit with an air strike.

To expand on the "we're the Treasury" point - our job is to provide the military with the tools they need. Developing and deploying Aurora bombers would provide additional short-mid-range bombing capacity, but would also provide a certain amount of long-range high-accuracy bombing ability, which would be useful now given the intelligence windfall we got, but will give the military another tool in their kit overall.

Granted, we have a ton of possible avenues to pursue to strengthen our forces. More shells/better artillery will allow our mobile forces more freedom to act, since our fortifications will be better defended. Orca refits gives our air force an overall boost, which will help across the board. Havoc is an investment in the future, because it will lead to both future tech improvements, and a boost to ZOCOM capability, but likely less so immediately.

Auroras will be useful, but we are highly unlikely to see any in service sooner than 6 months at the earliest... but likewise, other projects (aside from the 1-die cleanup ones) are also things that won't help immediately. Is it worth pursuing the Auroras? Yes. Is the argument that they will be helpful against Krukov's factories sound? I consider that iffy.

[X] Plan Derpy Hitting Krukov With A Steel Chair Edition

I enjoy the idea of the personification of NOD and the GDI fighting in a wrestling ring only for the Treasury to throw in a steel chair. It's also a good plan, but ignore that.

Prime 2.0 said:

Ultimately, Aurora does not change the shells deployment timeline much, and we mainly need them ready for Karachi, which is 3-4 turns out still because of the capital goods crunch bottlenecking factory refits.

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We need shells in general, and soon, to have actual stockpiles on zero hour. Which can happen earlier than Karachi.

Nod's time in the wilderness has passed. The enemy has their vote now. We should be ready for war not on Q1 2060, or any other time of our choosing, but tomorrow. We cannot afford to neglect the essentials on the assumption that NOD will let us gear up for Karachi in peace.

TheFourthman said:

I like Auroras but I'm not sure we should take them right now.

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The best time (we could have known) to take them was last turn. The second best time is now. Krukov won't stay distracted forever, even if he never does realize

Lightwhispers said:

Is the argument that they will be helpful against Krukov's factories sound? I consider that iffy.

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Oh no, I'm not arguing that auroras would help against his factories, I'm referring to it as a fact that was settled via WoG. I just asked him to get it reconfirmed after you posted just in case I was off base, but auroras being what we need to hit the factories is indeed what he meant.

Lightwhispers said:

Is the argument that they will be helpful against Krukov's factories sound? I consider that iffy.

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No need to cite QM statements from the Discord. It's explicitly stated in the last two turn's results posts:

Ithillid said:

• Air Force

With the missile problem well on its way to being resolved– although none would gainsay more supplies being available– the Air Force has reassesed its priorities. The most important of them is the A-16 Orcas, but the Wingman drones are not far behind. Beyond that, Cherdenko's intelligence has led to the Aurora bomber being increased in priority. However, the key systems at this point are not more new airframes but rather new tools for airframes, especially things like the Wingman Drones and other means to increase pilot efficiency.

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Prime 2.0 said:

Oh no, I'm not arguing that auroras would help against his factories, I'm referring to it as a fact that was settled via WoG. I just asked him to get it reconfirmed after you posted just in case I was off base, but auroras being what we need to hit the factories is indeed what he meant.

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I wasn't saying "I doubt that Auroras would be helpful in taking out the factories, if we had them now."
I was saying that I think there's a decent chance he'll move them before we actually get enough Auroras in service to hit them. Because I doubt that will be any time before 9 months from now.

To much to do only some much time to do it in yet again.

Lightwhispers said:

I wasn't saying "I doubt that Auroras would be helpful in taking out the factories, if we had them now."
I was saying that I think there's a decent chance he'll move them before we actually get enough Auroras in service to hit them. Because I doubt that will be any time before 9 months from now.

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Ah, this again.

I was worried about that too, a bit - but that's been firmly kiboshed by the uprising of Krukov's underlings in the east. He can't afford to take those factories offline, because he needs to produce war material to bring his people to heel on top of also needing to replenish his depleted stocks from the St Petersberg attack. And that's given plenty of time for InOps to get in and catch wind of any attempted migration that could happen later.

And we know inops is there, because their reports on Krukov's internal politics is why we know about those uprisings in the first place. It's too late for him to be able to move his factories in secret.

But even if he still could - even if he knew we knew about them and thus had a reason to move the factories at all - that's more reason why we need to do this now. Krukov has his hands full for now. And as for the timespan in which we can get auroras out, do recall that deployment projects finish with the item produced being in service, not beginning to be in service. We'd be hitting him in 6 months, not 9.

Derpmind said:

Opportunity. We have the chance to kick over his sandcastle, winning a major victory for GDI. That's a pile of territory to take, many civilians we can liberate, a huge amount of our global military's focus that can be spread out elsewhere, and a massive propaganda coup. Krukov failed to breach GDI's lines, but doing this would show that GDI can retaliate.

As the updates keep telling us, Cherdenko's intelligence was a super lucky win for us. Yet we're wasting it by not giving the military the hardware they need to act. We already lost a window of opportunity with the nat 100 on the Long Range Sensor System; why should we double-down and make the same mistake with the Aurora Strike Bombers?

And should it really be on us to choose military strikes? If the Air Force had their bombers when Cherdenko gave the intel, they'd have attacked without our input. We wouldn't have any say in the matter. Why do we think we know better in this?

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My perspective is that the best we can do before Kane gets back is to knockout one warlord, and choose who is going to be the face of our primary opposition.

So sure, we are in a good position that if we invested heavily we can really, really, hurt Krukov. But I maintain that doing so doesn't actually help us any more so than generic damage to NOD operations (the default military investment result), and is in many ways actively harmful to us.

When we knock Krukov out of the running, we are going to see the following affects:
-The rest of NOD is going to unite now that they see that they are defeatible while divided (as opposed to waiting a few more years for Kane to come back)
-The rest of NOD will move from fighting for prestige, to fighting for survival
-We reduce NOD's internal factionalism
-Kane's right hand will be selected from Bintang, Mehretu, Gideon, or the unknown Indian warlord. (Stahl and Reynaldo are unlikely due to their relative weakness).
-NOD re-focuses away from mechanized land battles (where we can win most engagements) towards the other warlords' specialties (where we have more difficulties)
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for following the rules of war (such as providing for POWs, or not targeting ambulances), thus encouraging the NOD warlords who were following them to abandon them
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for being less ideologically hostile to the GDI, thus encouraging "neutral" minor warlords to radicalize

Taking out, or seriously hurting any warlord, is a massive escalation in our war. I'd much, much rather do an equivalent, but less provocative, amount of damage to NOD as a whole. If we are going to take out a warlord, the closer it is to Kane's re-emergence, the less opportunity cost we will pay. And if we are going to take out a warlord early, I'd much, much rather take out one of their more corrupting factions.

[X] Plan Derpy Hitting Krukov With A Steel Chair Edition

I was skeptical about being able to rush Auroras from bar napkin to existing in sufficient numbers for a deep penetration raid into NOD territory. If Krukov's busy with having to re-conquer a bunch of rebelling subordinates though I don't think he'll be able to spare the attention and lost production to break down and move all the factories so maybe we DO have a window.

I'd still prefer some Infra dice going into the ICS so we can start chipping away at that before we run down our logistics too far and have to do something less efficient but faster. Not enough to stop me from voting for it though, staying ahead of the curve on arcologies is fine too. Sure the immediate yelling has died down but if we want to keep people quiet we have to keep up the trend.

-We demonstrate that we provide no consideration for following the rules of war (such as providing for POWs, or not targeting ambulances), thus encouraging the NOD warlords who were following them to abandon them. The same guys who use slave labour and other crimes against humanity All the time and you are saying they follow the rules they break all the time what? Like are you trying to say something else like or something what!??!

Rakuhn said:

My perspective is that the best we can do before Kane gets back is to knockout one warlord, and choose who is going to be the face of our primary opposition.

So sure, we are in a good position that if we invested heavily we can really, really, hurt Krukov. But I maintain that doing so doesn't actually help us any more so than generic damage to NOD operations (the default military investment result), and is in many ways actively harmful to us.

When we knock Krukov out of the running, we are going to see the following affects:
-The rest of NOD is going to unite now that they see that they are defeatible while divided (as opposed to waiting a few more years for Kane to come back)
-The rest of NOD will move from fighting for prestige, to fighting for survival
-We reduce NOD's internal factionalism
-Kane's right hand will be selected from Bintang, Mehretu, Gideon, or the unknown Indian warlord. (Stahl and Reynaldo are unlikely due to their relative weakness).
-NOD re-focuses away from mechanized land battles (where we can win most engagements) towards the other warlords' specialties (where we have more difficulties)
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for following the rules of war (such as providing for POWs, or not targeting ambulances), thus encouraging the NOD warlords who were following them to abandon them
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for being less ideologically hostile to the GDI, thus encouraging "neutral" minor warlords to radicalize

Taking out, or seriously hurting any warlord, is a massive escalation in our war. I'd much, much rather do an equivalent, but less provocative, amount of damage to NOD as a whole. If we are going to take out a warlord, the closer it is to Kane's re-emergence, the less opportunity cost we will pay. And if we are going to take out a warlord early, I'd much, much rather take out one of their more corrupting factions.

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There is the opportunity to get out in front of Project Varyag, and I have to disagree re:rules of warfare and ideological hostility.

But overall I have to agree that we are better served improving our military readiness in general. Aurora would be useful, but Shells and Ablatives are vital, LRSS only slightly less so, Orcas help a lot everywhere, and mass Zone Armor lets us transition ZOCOM back into our elite spearpoint/Red Zone force.

[X]Plan I want Philly
[X] Plan Derpy

Manowl said:

-We demonstrate that we provide no consideration for following the rules of war (such as providing for POWs, or not targeting ambulances), thus encouraging the NOD warlords who were following them to abandon them. The same guys who use slave labour and other crimes against humanity All the time and you are saying they follow the rules they break all the time what? Like are you trying to say something else like or something what!??!

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All of the NOD warlords are evil fucks. That is easily granted. So are we. We do regularly kill civilians in our military operations after all, and we have conducted false flag operations against our own civilian population in the past. But there are gradations of evil. And there is the possibility of reducing, or increasing, the total amount of evil that is going to be committed in the future.

And fundamentally, I believe that reducing the total amount of evil requires that we focus our efforts on the worst of the worst. Get rid of Mehretu and Reynaldo, who deliberately kill medics, even if those medics are treating their own men. Get rid of the warlords that are assassinating anyone who tries to make peace with us. Get rid of the warlords that will conduct terrorism within the blue zones to incite suspicions, hatred, and oppression between our citizens. Then focus on the more conventional military threats.

As the worst members of NOD are removed, resolving our issues (whether through force or diplomacy) with the rest of NOD will be far easier and less bloody. I'd rather pursue a future where the nature of the war between NOD and GDI is that of an (perhaps irreconcileable) ideological conflict between two nations, rather than one of escalating hatred and atrocities.

Rakuhn said:

When we knock Krukov out of the running, we are going to see the following affects:
-The rest of NOD is going to unite now that they see that they are defeatible while divided (as opposed to waiting a few more years for Kane to come back)
-The rest of NOD will move from fighting for prestige, to fighting for survival
-We reduce NOD's internal factionalism
-Kane's right hand will be selected from Bintang, Mehretu, Gideon, or the unknown Indian warlord. (Stahl and Reynaldo are unlikely due to their relative weakness).
-NOD re-focuses away from mechanized land battles (where we can win most engagements) towards the other warlords' specialties (where we have more difficulties)
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for following the rules of war (such as providing for POWs, or not targeting ambulances), thus encouraging the NOD warlords who were following them to abandon them
-We demonstrate that we do not provide consideration for being less ideologically hostile to the GDI, thus encouraging "neutral" minor warlords to radicalize

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Unite under whom? With the frontrunner gone, any suggestion of doing that would be followed by squabbling for the big chair. That would not reduce factionalism, and it would not demonstrate a clear threat to the rest of nod's existence because we clearly did it in retaliation and it was a precision strike enabled by detailed intel, not overwhelming force.

Krukov is the only person who fights on the open battlefield with heavy armor anyways, of course other warlords won't do it, they don't have Predator tanks.

The stuff about "No consideration for those who follow the rules of war" is just complete nonsense. We're still taking in PoWs, we'd have gone out of our way to limit collateral damage by using precision bombers instead of just ion cannoning the things, and the example of how we cooperate with those who are ideologically mild in the middle east is stronger than any message that could possibly be construed from us retaliating against Krukov who was trying to destroy a blue zone arcology full of civilians.

This is fearmongering, plain and simple. But I'll offer a prediction of my own:

Krukov has a major plan of his own, and it's not just about snowballing. It would be silly to think he launched his attack on St. Petersberg without considering what he needs to continue that plan, and despite his losses he considers the attack to have been a success. So if we don't knock him down while his eastern warlords are rebelling, it is reasonable to assume that it will have the following effects:

Ithillid said:

Lastly, he knew that Krukov had at least one major project in mind, dubbed "Project Varyag''. Though Cherdenko does not know what it entailed, it had taxed the Eastern Warlords in tributes over the past years.

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-The eastern warlords will be brought to heel and he will force them to pay out the nose as punishment for their rebellion.
-Those reparations will immediately go towards the completion of Project Varyag.
-Project Varyag will be used against GDI.

That's a much more tangible threat, if you ask me.

[X] Plan Derpy Hitting Krukov With A Steel Chair Edition

We know that Krukov is running "Project Varyag" in the Urals. I'd like to hit that project now rather than waiting for him to spring a surprise on us at a time of his choosing.

The arguments about Nod panicking and uniting behind a warlord...this is, in my opinion, inevitable. If they don't do it when we hit Krukov, they'll do it when they look at the strategic situation and realize that they're losing too much of their recruiting base. Success against Nod encourages Nod to get their act together, no matter what form that success takes. It is a testament to the strength of Nod's factional divide that they haven't already begun to unite; if they continue much longer as they are, they will reach the point of no return.

HousePet said:

Are we though?
We need about 200 more income by the end of the year to activate the extra dice we get from Philly 5.

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Yes, but to make that happen we need either:

1) More glacier mines (tough on ZOCOM) which require more Logistics, which we're not getting in a timely manner unless we collectively just cut it with the Housing construction which is not very popular as far as I can see...

2) Or more vein mines which require more Capital Goods, which we really don't have this turn anyway...

3) Or a broad variety of actions in which we do the best we can with a grab-bag of projects, accepting that there will be a second income dry spell in the very first turn(s) after Philadelphia Phase 5 comes online. Which seems to be what we're actually doing.

I don't feel like I can in good conscience recommend throwing the action to refit the refineries on any income option much more attractive than:

...

a) Red Zone Containment Lines, which is about to hit a point of diminishing returns and we might want to see what Phase 6 looks like before committing to a ton of expensive dice spending on it.

b) Offshore Platforms, which are so painfully PS-expensive that we really don't want to shock this project and it's objectively a lot better to slow-walk at least the first phase.

c) Railgun Harvester Factories, which are kind of low-margin to the point where refitting the refineries starts looking good by comparison if only for the transuranic output and reserve capacity, and

d) Tiberium Prospecting, which is excruciatingly low return on investment from a reward-per-die perspective to the point where, again, refitting the refineries starts looking good by comparison, because getting +2 RpT from a single Tib die on prospecting just isn't that much better than getting +0 RpT from refitting a refinery.

...

This is one of those times when I wish we COULD spend Tiberium dice on MARVs.

@Ithillid , this is a Hail Mary pass, but is there any way we could ever plausibly make that happen?