Turn 100, 570BC

[nbarclay]

They could have done it without detection, but using how much time? If all they had for the operation was a single galley, at two turns per round trip, it would have taken sixteen turns to ferry sixteen units around. Add to that the time required to move the troops down through the jungle to Dissidentville and that's a lot of time for GS to decide maybe it needs some defenses after all. Attacking Grog gave us two turns' more warning, but it sped up their attack by a great deal more than that. (And on top of that, they would have needed a road either 9-9 or 9-6 from Dissidentville to sneak immortals in past the Hack, who was stationed 2-3 from Dissidentville.)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Aeson
They did that to a limited extent I think. But it takes a lot of time for them... and their Immortals were getting close to being made obsolete.

Excellent point. Imagine if we had gotten Chivalry during the time they were shuttling immortals into position!

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
They could have done it without detection, but using how much time? If all they had for the operation was a single galley, at two turns per round trip, it would have taken sixteen turns to ferry sixteen units around. Add to that the time required to move the troops down through the jungle to Dissidentville and that's a lot of time for GS to decide maybe it needs some defenses after all. Attacking Grog gave us two turns' more warning, but it sped up their attack by a great deal more than that. (And on top of that, they would have needed a road either 9-9 or 9-6 from Dissidentville to sneak immortals in past the Hack, who was stationed 2-3 from Dissidentville.)

Of course this is all conjecture at this point.

Galleys cost the same as immortals. How many have we seen, or rather how many did they likely have at the beginning of this escapade? 15 perhaps? Build 5 galleys instead of 5 immortals and you can land ten in two turns on that deposit. With roads, thats 2 turns to D'ville from their iron deposit. Not to mention if they had built one road D2 on their jungle, that would let them get to Arashi in 3 turns. I doubt we could have saved it then.

That would be what, two or three more turns to get their army to dissidentville than they took this time? Well, its not like we were building any military units until they attacked grog. What would a ten immortal stack at d'ville circa 690 do to us, esp if we weren't in golden age (which but for that screw up of there's we wouldn't have been)

edit: and we know they had been planning this for some time, they had time to build that road from their iron to d'ville before attacking.

[nbarclay]

With 20-20 hindsight, a plan built around more galleys and more surprise would have worked a lot better. If they had bypassed Ouch and landed three galleys full of immortals on the mountains outside Hurricane, holding Hurricane would have been a huge problem and holding Sandstorm too in the process would have been impossible. And three or four galleys could have ferried lots of troops around Grog.

But consider what Vox knew at the time. With the way we were REXing, it had to look like we wouldn't have much in the way of big cities. They had no reason to believe we had a size-11 Hurricane, or to think we would or even could double EotS's size so quickly. Then there's Tempest, Bolderberg, Cyclone, and Tornado, all where Vox couldn't see them. Based on what Vox knew, their production in a golden age would likely be competitive with ours not in a golden age, so the warning Grog gave us would be of only limited value.

It's what Vox didn't know (and still, I imagine, doesn't fully realize), plus their giving us a chance to trigger a GA so close to when they triggered theirs, that gave us the production we needed to foil their wonderful plan.

One other thing about time: they used a ruse about invading Bob to get us not to worry about their being strong militarily compared with us, but that would have worn thin if they took a long time and no invasion materialized. For all they knew, we were already trying to close the gap that their immortal upgrades from their first landing on Bob created, and that could have been especially nasty for them if we had tried to close the gap by building lots more veteran warriors for upgrade.

[asleepathewheel]

Good points Nathan. We have no idea what Vox has been thinking, if they have been manipulated into attacking by Togas or if they thought we were just ripe for the taking and badly miscalculated.

I hope that we can bring in one member of their team, perhaps Wittlich, he seems rather neutral to us (or whomever approached Vel about the cease fire) so that we could learn more about their motivations.

with this, I think we should move back to discussions about this turn, my apologies for the off topic spam.

[nbarclay]

One last off-topic thing to consider: as long as Vox's gold held out and they were set up to build and upgrade warriors, a galley was worth up to three immortals, not just one.

[vulture]

I get the impression that Vox didn't actually have a clear plan - it was a case of 'invade, and we'll see how things go'. Going for Monsoon is a case in point. A well organised plan would have focussed their forces on a single target. Diverting a small stack to attack Monsoon was always going to be a bad idea, especially when they could use the spinebreakers to get to Arashi. Their current position on Arashi 2 is a good one, forcing us to defend two cities, but at the expense of giving us enough time to do so. They just didn't have enough troops in their first stack.

Do we have enough spare pikemen to stick on each on Arashi 3 and Tempest 3? It wouldn't hold either mountain, but would probably cost them an immortal to move onto either, and trading 30 shield units works in our favour, since we have better production. (Okay, so they're building warriors and upgrading, but in total cost of shields and gold, pikemen are cheaper for us than for them).

BTW do we have a model of Vox lands to determine their gold/shield production exactly? (Use the editor to create a scenario with their lands on the correct map size, to see how they do with GA, corruption taken into account correctly). It would be useful to know exactly what gpt they are generating, to know what their warrior production and immortal upgrade rate is like.

[nbarclay]

As long as Vox has their full stack threatening both cities, we need every pike we can get in Tempest and Arashi. If Vox wants to move to a place where they're no longer threatening both cities, I have no objection at all.

[Arrian]

If they don't attack next turn, we'll get 6 cat shots at their stack, and then maybe we can make Theseus happy by hitting them with some med inf attacks.

I hope they attack, though, since that's to our advantage. Then we can counterattack & wipe them out.

Re: wonders... it sure would be nice to snag the Colossus in Hurricane. It requires 8 turns of GA production. I think it's worth it. If we beat Lego to it (dunno if they're even building it), we deny them their GA (since they're despots, maybe that's not the best idea ). All I know is that Hurricane with +1 commerce/tile until Flight sounds good.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

One request:

Can we switch EotS from pikemen to Horsemen next turn? I still think we need more hitting power.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Arrian
One request:

Can we switch EotS from pikemen to Horsemen next turn? I still think we need more hitting power.

-Arrian

Aren't MedInfs more useful at this stage?
We're still fighting inside our territories with our roads so we don't need the speed of horsemen, and soon we may be marching on mountains and jungle - again, not ideal for horses.

[Velociryx]

Amen to that.....while we're steaming along, it'd be AWESOME to snag another wonder or two....and that one's quick to build....

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Shiber

Aren't MedInfs more useful at this stage?
We're still fighting inside our territories with our roads so we don't need the speed of horsemen, and soon we may be marching on mountains and jungle - again, not ideal for horses.

Valid points. However, EotS is producing 30 shields/turn. That means that producing Med Inf takes 2 turns and "wastes" 20 shields.

There are more efficient places to produce Med Inf, I believe.

My current concept of our counteroffensive (to take place AFTER we crush the main Voxian stack on the Spinebreakers, and hopefully fight a decisive action vs. the Eastern Voxian Immortal group) is to simultaneously do the following:

1) Hit the units 6, 9 of Monsoon with all of our catapults and then follow with whatever Med Inf we have left. Then, move most of our pikemen up onto that mountain. Hopefully, Vox will have completed the road for us

2) Load an eastern galley with a couple of units to try and go cut Vox's iron.

3) Mass units/galleys in the west for Operation Inchon.

The short answer is yeah, we could use more med inf too, and we will build it (probably in Arashi?), but not much more. Once we punch through the Spinebreakers (particularly if Inchon succeeds as I hope), horsemen/WCs are more valueable.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Wonder: I tend to support building the Colossus in Hurricane, even right away. Still, it largely depends on the results of the next turn - if it turns out well then I'd be all in favor of starting the Colossus in Hurricane (especially with knight upgrades coming up relatively soon).

Btw, isn't it about time that we build a harbor and start producting a veteran navy?

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Arrian
Valid points. However, EotS is producing 30 shields/turn. That means that producing Med Inf takes 2 turns and "wastes" 20 shields.

I thought that we could somehow adjust EotS to lower production in exchange for more commerce. That way, we would still be producing MedInfs at a rate of 1 per 2 turns, but is waiting really bad enough to justify building much inferior units at 75% of the price?

1) Hit the units 6, 9 of Monsoon with all of our catapults and then follow with whatever Med Inf we have left. Then, move most of our pikemen up onto that mountain. Hopefully, Vox will have completed the road for us

Game mechanics question: if Vox builds a fortress, will they be able to bombard us from the fortress? Or does the ZOC effect only inflict damage on units passing from one adjacent tile to another, not on units entering an adjacent tile or parking on it?
If it's the latter, then I support this idea.