Contingency planning - the fork

[vulture]

Perhaps I've been a little slow, but it occurred to me today that Vox could put us in a bad position next turn, potentially. Consider what happens if they western stack moves next to Monsoon, the Arashi stack moves east to Sandstorm, and the western stack moves to threaten the same town. And leave the 2 units on Arashi 2 where they are for now.

We can do enough to hold Hurricane, which is the important thing obviously. I hope. We have the pikes and other units on Sandstorm 6 that can move in to defend (and attack), and WCs on Arashi and Tempest can move into Hurricane and attack the stacks from there. The units on Hurricane 2 can move to SS 6 to stop the immortals taking back to the hills. The slowmovers in Arashi can attack the stack threatening Monsoon. But even with average success in combat, if we want to ensure Sandstorms safety, we run a fair risk of losing Monsoon. Plus our catapults can only be used if we are willing to leave them out of a city at the end of the turn, which may be risky.

What other defensive approaches can we find?

[Theseus]

vulture, did you mean the *eastern* stack also moves to threaten SS?

I'm pretty sure that we'll be fine if all Immortals are on open ground.

Something to consider during the next production phase, however.

[nbarclay]

If Vox brings enough forces down on flatlands to justify it, we can switch Arashi to a WC instead of short-rushing something more expensive and rush two additional WCs. That would give us at least nineteen units to attack the Voxians, and unless Vox finishes their road during the turn and can put new troops from Dissidentville next to Monsoon, they can have no more than fifteen units for us to have to deal with (even if they don't leave anything on Arashi 2). With reasonable RNG results, Vox would have few survivors against such an onslaught, especially since more than two thirds of Vox's force would start with three hit points or less. And Sandstorm can have three pikes (two from SS6 and one from Hurricane) plus probably some wounded offensive units in it to defend against any surviving Voxians.

If Vox would wait another turn and reinforce such an attack with new forces from Dissidentville, their odds of taking a city would be a lot higher (especially if our luck with cats is poor). But even if they would succeed in taking a city, it would be a Pyrrhic victory for them because the vast majority of their offensive forces would be destroyed in the process. I can think of far worse fates than trading Monson or Sandstorm for a chance to slaughter the bulk of Vox's army on flatlands.

By the way, if Vox tries that, my inclination would be to protect Monsoon and give Vox a shot at taking Sandstorm - and let Vox try to get even one immortal out of their entire two-pronged attack force back home alive.

[Theseus]

What he said.

[DeepO]

Well, it's an interesting thought. Given what Vox knows of our current defenses, and how they will be destroyed anyway if they keep being in our territory without actually attacking us, it may very well turn into something like this. Realistically, it's about their only shot at taking one of our cities, and even if they realize that any city they take is not going to stay theirs for long, they might go for it. Declaring war, and not taking anything has to be very frustrating, and this is about their only shot at some honor in this war.

It would also make sense for them to have waited one turn, idling in our territory, because their new road could make reinforcements to Monsoon possible. I agree with Nathan, that it seems Monsoon is more important to us then Sandstorm, even if I still consider both cities expandable.

DeepO

[DeepO]

OTOH, they might still think they can damage us by going for EotS, dragging the war a bit longer, but with a possible 'true' victory instead of the fake Sandstorm one.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I'm not really expecting them to go for the fork, precisely because it would be a last, desperate, essentially suicidal bid to take a single city before they die. If they're ready to give up on the game, they might do it, but if they want to make a fight expensive enough that we'll consider peace as an alternative, their best bet is to retreat on the western front before their units get pounded farther. (Of course if they try to retreat and they still just have two units with three hit points each on Arashi 9, there's no law that says we have to let them, especially when we have six cats in the area. )

[Arrian]

Yeah, let 'em do it if they feel like getting their army killed. By the way, the chance that they might do something like this is one of the reasons I've been arguing for more attack troops.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Ditto Arrian. With medInfs, we should not be overly shy attacking damaged Immortals on hills and even mountains.