You Are: A sector admiral of a strained imperium.

[X] Loot Them. You have almost three battalions of power armoured marines backed by the guns of your cruisers. Storm the starports, seize civilian shipping, load everything of value you can confiscate over the course of a week. (Will take about 7 days, will grant Wealth depending upon Strategy rolls, in the range of 10-50).

[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

Frankly, given our average diplomacy I'm not too hot with demanding tribute. So looting it is.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Press The Attack. Send your two cruisers into the teeth of the planetary defences and their handful of likely ill crewed vessels, go for the big prize.
-[X] Endeavour leading the charge. Peregrine is too exhausted to face opposition head on, so it would not. Endeavour shall strive to deal with local fleet and Peregrine will lurk in outer reaches of the system to avoid being jumped while listening broadcasts made by flagship for orders to jump in and engage.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

So, I've seen a lot of commentary on Slaves v Tribute.

Does anybody have any analysis or arguments on returning home or pressing the attack?

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

I think that slaving might be the more efficient option here but I want to RP Napoleon and drift towards his brand of politics and away from things the Ancien Regime would do.

buli-buli said:

So, I've seen a lot of commentary on Slaves v Tribute.

Does anybody have any analysis or arguments on returning home or pressing the attack?

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I don't want to pit our two cruisers against a Monitor.

buli-buli said:

So, I've seen a lot of commentary on Slaves v Tribute.

Does anybody have any analysis or arguments on returning home or pressing the attack?

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Return home, if the enemy fleet isn't coming to us then it is to much of a risk to attack the main system. While we owned these static defenses, I wouldn't want to do that while there are other ships including a capital ship about.

Returning home lets us keep everything we've taken so far (2 light cruisers, 1 corvette and 1 attack skiff) plus whatever we get from the last looting option without taking any further risks.

Pressing the attack means fighting through another set of orbital defenses with another capital ship, a corvette and several skiffs in support. It also gives more time for reinforcements to arrive from New Theia. But if we succeed there would be an order of magnitude more wealth to take.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

The most precious resource we have right now is time and demanding tribute seems to take the least time.

we have won 3 stunning victories in a row on this raid, but it's worked our ships hard. The risk of New Thea's fleet arriving to link up with the remains of the Chuang Mu fleet while our ships are tied up with looting or taking on slaves is a bit too high for me.

We've levelled up our XO to the point that he'd make a decent captain, we've harvested an enormous amount of PC and wealth. We have everything we needed, plus captured some lovely NASP ships.

I think we can retire from battle with some satisfaction.

SirLagginton said:

Frankly, given our average diplomacy I'm not too hot with demanding tribute. So looting it is.

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Remember Sones is here to boost Reinhard's diplomacy and subterfuge.

fasquardon

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home.

buli-buli said:

So, I've seen a lot of commentary on Slaves v Tribute.

Does anybody have any analysis or arguments on returning home or pressing the attack?

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We have gotten most of what we want. Since they aren't going to come to us no reason to risk ourselves.

Having just been reading War Without Garlands, I feel obliged to take up the lesson from that book and recommend we not "victor ourselves to death". We're good, but logistics and the friction of war means that we can get beaten down over a long enough timeframe. Especially if we don't take the time to attend to combat readiness.

buli-buli said:

So, I've seen a lot of commentary on Slaves v Tribute.

Does anybody have any analysis or arguments on returning home or pressing the attack?

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Sure do.

It took us 1 day to crack their defenses. Given that we aren't taking a strategy malus due to lack of scouts now, we did that because they had Strat 9 running the defenses vs our Strat 22. I suspect their main defenses are better, just not good enough, so it's likely we can get a greater success there and crack those defenses quickly. Once we start, they'll be forced to engage us with their fleet.

They have 1 monitor, 3 attack skiffs, and 1 corvette. The skiffs will get a multi attack penalty, but it will be a lesser penalty, so not too much a big deal. They'll get eviscerated every time Endeavor takes a poke at them.

Realistically speaking, the only reason that we should be worried about sticking around is reinforcements. Our PC is more than capable of handling the enemy fleet if need be.

Remember how ship combat works: it's Tactics score of the commander + crew quality + any multiship penalties + firepower + 3d6, and only the losing side takes damage. The monitor is the only threat really, and it's actually not that much of a threat. It's called out as an "elderly" ship that doesn't even carry ordnance aboard normally (the update calls it out as being loaded up during the vote) and the corvette is getting pulled out of the yard. I very much doubt they have anything better than Experienced crew, maybe even Regular because these ships aren't seeing much action.

The combat system is funny in that it's really dependent on the quality of the captain. The Monitor is actually only Firepower 6 vs the Endeavor's Firepower 5, and we have an Elite crew. Realistically, that means our ship actually is likely to have a +1-2 advantage over the enemy in rolls, and they are unlikely to have higher than Tactics 14-- probably lower, because 14 was the Sword of Democracy's Admiral and she was a very good officer. It's more likely that the Monitor has Tactics 12 or so, meaning that the Endeavor is likely to have a roll advantage of 10 or more in every clash. This makes it very hard for the monitor to land serious hits.

The corvette doesn't worry me because it's unlikely to have more than Tactics 9 and Firepower 2 and an Experienced Crew. So +12 to the roll vs Endeavor's +29. They literally cannot hurt the Endeavor unless they get a fuckton of multi-attack penalties or roll 18 while we roll all 1s.

I expect Combat will look like the monitor trying to punch us out while everyone else goes after our CL and Endeavor/CL rapidly punch out Attack Skiffs to remove the multi-attacker penalty, then the corvette, then we circle and cherrytap the monitor.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

[X] Slave Raid. Use the threat of your cruiser's guns and your marines to force tens of thousands of people in high value professions to board confiscated civilian vessels then take them back to the empire as serfs, both extremely valuable and hostages to the system's further behaviour. (Time taken variable, will require Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, will give 10-40 Political Capital and 10-60 Wealth).

[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

I want to use the slaves to bat out an battleship.

[X] Loot Them. You have almost three battalions of power armoured marines backed by the guns of your cruisers. Storm the starports, seize civilian shipping, load everything of value you can confiscate over the course of a week. (Will take about 7 days, will grant Wealth depending upon Strategy rolls, in the range of 10-50).

[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)

[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

Lets avoid victory disease people.

@Packrat out of curiosity, how long would it take us to get a BC delivered if we "bought" one with our personal Wealth?

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Press The Attack. Send your two cruisers into the teeth of the planetary defences and their handful of likely ill crewed vessels, go for the big prize.

I'm in favor of pushing our luck in this situation, for several reasons. First and foremost because I believe we can get away with it, Strauss is complete bullshit and reinforcements are still a turn away. We picked the hardest possible mode specifically for this absurd Marty Tzu, it's time to cash in on it.

Secondly, the bitch with her OP fleet is being sent to overshadow us. We want to make her jump straight into the teeth of a pissed off NASP with heavy reinforcements and an admiral meant to match us in open battle, and the best way to do that is to make as impressive as possible victory here, so she'll have to try and one-up us. All according to plan, of course.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

Forgothrax said:

Realistically speaking, the only reason that we should be worried about sticking around is reinforcements. Our PC is more than capable of handling the enemy fleet if need be.

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This is flagrantly false. While in most other respects your analysis was on point, it overlooks four things.

One, we'd be attacking with two ships. Two, we don't captain both. The other ship can afford to take a few hits from the skiffs, but if the battleship sneezes at it, it will die. Or surrender. Statistically, it would get picked apart by the multi-attacker penalty alone.

Three, while you are correct that we could probably take on their entire fleet with just the defenders, that is not the case if they have heavy defenses. Remember that pirate base? How durable the dang thing was and how many rounds it took to destroy when backed up? That is what we would be in for. These defenses would be shooting at us every single round of combat.

Four, the enemy Commodore is going to remain under the cover of the heaviest defenses despite heavy pressure to mobilize. He's either cowardly and stupid, because this is going to bite him in the ass, or he's smart enough to realize the situation he's in. Him having good strategy and tactics would be enough to flip the delicate balance required for the Endeavor to solo everything.

Now, maybe, maybe, we could survive that and win. However, even my best hope for the fight would have us losing the ship we bring along, damaging the Endeavor, and lacking the capacity to enforce our demands with limited marines, crew, and ships. On top of that is the looming threat of NASP reinforcements when their money maker is attacked.

[X] Demand Tribute. Demand that the local citizens surrender then pay tribute, loading all available shipping with high value manufactured goods before sending them up into space with sacrificial crews. (Time taken and yield variable, depending upon Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, in the range of 5-75 Wealth)
[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

The knock on consequences of slaving make me adverse to it.

[X] Slave Raid. Use the threat of your cruiser's guns and your marines to force tens of thousands of people in high value professions to board confiscated civilian vessels then take them back to the empire as serfs, both extremely valuable and hostages to the system's further behaviour. (Time taken variable, will require Diplomacy and Subterfuge rolls, will give 10-40 Political Capital and 10-60 Wealth).

[X] Return Home. You have achieved your goals, return home with your prizes and/or loot.

I think the problem is the name. "Slave Raid", of which we arent actually enslaving. We would be forcefully relocating the population into debt servitude, of which all them will be provided base income and neccessities of life. Essentially, they become what we once were.
(They would also make a useful deterrent against the reprisal coming.)

Azurath said:

I think the problem is the name. "Slave Raid", of which we arent actually enslaving. We would be forcefully relocating the population into debt servitude, of which all them will be provided base income and neccessities of life. Essentially, they become what we once were.

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Soooo ... slavery. In any case, we already have plenty of hostages, and NASP can hardly be unfamiliar with Imperials seeking to take advantage of 'those soft-hearted fools'.

Azurath said:

I think the problem is the name. "Slave Raid", of which we arent actually enslaving. We would be forcefully relocating the population into debt servitude, of which all them will be provided base income and neccessities of life. Essentially, they become what we once were.
(They would also make a useful deterrent against the reprisal coming.)

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Exactly why we shouldn't do it. We had to claw our way out of that hell, why would we want to take people away from their homes and force that on them?