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Okay, this takes us out of the realm of strategy and into motivation.

Since Dan announced the game and laid out the factions, the Russians (the REAL Russians, not the game faction) have been bragging about how good they are, calling out Tenzin for military ineptitude, and the like. The only way they can win is to play, or to try to catch the victors as they are loading up the loot, or if we conquer Minerva, ambush us on the way home.

Only the first option gives them a decent chance of winning.

He likes you. He only teases people he likes.

The trucks have to make at least one more trip home and back so we'll plan on a lot of rounds, but I'll be surprised if even half of our mortars survive the first minute of battle. We'll hold out some of our mortars until we see where the counterfire is coming from, and try to take it out, and we'll definitely have white phosphorus mixed in that barrage

Here are some things to keep in mind about Minerva. The land they control has some resources, but the city does not, which means that everything they have had to be transported. Nothing we've seen of theirs is exceptional for either range or payload, and the vehicles that WOULD have large payload capabilities would require wider roadways.

This means that they have a lot of limitations for very heavy things like forges, foundries, refineries, and the like (I'm still talking about the city itself). thanks to the Tien Shan Range, they probably have water, and have hydroponic farms, but what they DON'T have is unlimited ammunition, or the means to make more when they run out.

This limitation is also the reason they don't have interior defensive walls or a citadel, since every sack of cement they used to make concrete had to be carried in, and up 'til now they haven't needed more.

Under classic conditions, a besieged city usually fell to starvation and disease, but that won't happen here. Minerva will fall when the defenders no longer have the ability to keep us from breaching the walls. Every round they fire is one less round they have, and if we can make them waste those rounds, so much the better.

This brings me to another point. I strongly believe that the Russians have tanks (see turn submission), and if they do , we're going to let them have the roads to attack from while we crawl up into the hills. If you were a defender, would you rather focus on some dangerous wall-destroying tanks, or a bunch of half-baked peasants digging holes in the rocks?

Thoughts?

Try putting yourself in their shoes with the limitations that I outlined, and consider how you would set up your defenses. Then look for holes in what you thought of that a sneaky attacker could exploit. Because that's what we're going to do.

Oh ok, well then your team returns home, doesn't notice any minerva settlements in the area as they return home.

The mysterious clouds and other things are at the final destination city (according to rumor).

Well, I meant that they make a forced march home, looking for any traces of life when they can but not exactly checking every possible clue. I need to stop simplifying my translations.

They're given a house to stay in. With Minerva guards stationed outside just to keep an eye on you.

I'm probably a little confused. You're referring to the one studying vehicles and tracking? They went back to HQ afterwards. If you mean the one that started exploring to the west, they are still exploring. Quoting you: "Ranger team that was scouting area at Aral sea returns, moving 50-100 km west from known Minervan towns ad looking for any other settlements."

Ok, follow up answers.

Your prototype for automatic fuel loading/etc is functional, and you can start producing them, yes. They aren't perfected yet, but they work.

Well, glad my random bad event wasn't that bad then I figured I would start small

Ok, you are succeeding at conditioning these prisoners. I still don't understand why. Because who will capture them? Minerva? In that case they would tell about you.

Ok, +10 (or so) % probability success for raider operations

The locals you find are most just tiny settlements of a couple families each. They don't have much to offer, they are just barely surviving in these areas. They were decently friendly to you, because you seemed less scary than raiders, what with uniforms and etc.

The attackers (they pinned down your scout team, who managed to hold them off until your second team could catch up and chase them off. Only light injuries to your scout team. They took cover and waited for back up.) are standard type crappy raiders. They have some old guns they've found and live by stealing and pillaging poor farmers and families like the locals you met.

The highway and railroad are still there, but very damaged. The railroad especially. People have been pulling up the wood and metal in the railroad track to use for fire and metal sources. So you could repair it. I'll say overall it's like 50% damaged.

The highway is blocked by lots of rubble, broken/burned cars and trucks. The weather has dug deep potholes in the asphalt in many places. Your APCs have to go pretty slow (max speed 40 kph) to avoid all the problems. So the highway is usable, but very damaged, would require removal of lots of stuff, and repaving to be very usable.

The team from the aral sea start exploring west from the top 2 Minerva towns all the way to the Caspian sea, and don't find any evidence of Minerva towns this week. By next week they'll finish that area and return and report.

Tracking Minerva vehicles you just see that the jeeps (more now, at least a dozen) come from deeper in Minervan territory, are stationed out of the towns, and do regular patrols. The patrol routes vary, with no discernible pattern yet. You also see that 2 big APCs come in, bringing the diplomatic delegation and a couple dozen heavily armed and armored soldiers. Basically looks like a Keleres type group.

RE the crates, it's pretty destroyed, enough that there is no way you can use it. But you can see that yes it is much more sophisticated than anything you have. Your scientists can barely even figure out what is what, because it doesn't use traditional computer chips or motherboards like you are familiar with. The battery is completely destroyed. Your scientists determine that it was the source/center of the self destruction. Best they can determine is that it is orders of magnitude more effective than your battery/energy storage technology.

The parachutes are in good condition, you are able to figure out how they work. If you want to try to engineer some sort of control system for them that will take a couple weeks. Requires pretty delicate motors and fast computational responses to wind and altitude variables.

Ah, your training is going ok. You'll have a slight bonus when fighting them. Nothing really big because you've only been observing from far away so far.

Construction: building new buildings and industrial centers is a big task. I'll assume you are building smart and step wise. At the end of next week you'll have partial production, but won't reach full capacity for a month. Expanding the engine workshop is about the same, but you are starting with something so each week your production will increase partially.

You don't really find many more criminals or raiders in the area. Minerva has done a pretty good job getting rid of most of them.

Your jamming tech sounds interesting. Keep developing it.

One big thing to make sure to plan for this Friday's post, is what your people in the diplomacy will be doing outside of the diplomatic talks (which hopefully can happen via messaging during the week. If you want to skip the fluff, and just send me a basic idea of terms/what you're willing to agree to, we can maybe finish it more quickly).