Turn 101, 550 BC

[nbarclay]

Are we better off with six units on Sandstorm 6 to keep Vox from taking it, or four to dare them to try? Right now I have three pikes and a medieval infantry sitting there; I could supplement that with a horse from EotS and a WC currently in Sandstorm if we want to. If Vox attacks Sandstorm 6, we currently have three vet medieval infantry and two regular swordsmen in position to clean up the mess.

[alva]

Sorry for not contributing, but I made a wrong move and therefore have knoledge I shouldn't have.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Any objections to using all our western pikes to plant five on Arashi 9 and five in Arashi, and to moving our remaining Tempest regular medieval infantry into Arashi? That would leave an elite WC showing as Tempest's top defender if Vox moves its stack back south.

Fine. Can we put an extra MedInf on A9? (belt and suspenders)

[Theseus]

On the eastern front, I say play from strength... why throw out a dare, when we can instead face them down, and hopefully get them onto open ground?

[nbarclay]

Team Scores:

238 (+5) Gathering Storm
228 (+3) Neu Demogyptica
192 (+2) Glory of War
226 (+3) Role Play
151 (+2) Vox
232 (+3) Lego

[nbarclay]

If we wanted to, we could move our regular MedInf from Tempest onto Arashi 9 instead of into Arashi. But Arashi 9 is unroaded, so a MedInf there can't help if Vox would go after Monsoon in conjunction with a suicide attack on Sandstorm, and he couldn't be fortified in Arashi next turn if Vox moves back south to threaten Tempest again. I think five pikes and a 3/4 MedInf should be more than enough to defend Arashi 9 this turn, and we can reevaluate the best allocation of forces next turn depending on what Vox does.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
On the eastern front, I say play from strength... why throw out a dare, when we can instead face them down, and hopefully get them onto open ground?

As things stand, Vox can tie up a dozen or so of our units around Hurricane with a mere five of their units (and only two of those veterans) just by sitting there doing nothing. If Vox is willing to attack on terms favorable to us, I'm inclined to encourage them so we can free most of our eastern forces for other uses.

[Theseus]

Yeah, you're right... the RNG gods would have to be insanely pissed off at GS for that not to be enough, especially given Vox' damage.

We are in good shape, except the possiblity of Voxian horsemen.

Time to start thinking of the counter, and building as well.

[nbarclay]

We've been checking the trade situation regularly (and I checked it again this turn), and it's still showing both horses and iron as things we could trade to Vox if we had peace and a trade route. So unless that's lying to us, we don't have Voxian horsemen to worry about.

[nbarclay]

I went ahead and moved our northwestern galley 8-8, and all he really discovered was ocean. Now the options for the remaining moves are (1) turn back, (2) keep exploring to the north, and (3) move inland to give Vox another cause for concern and maybe get them to tie up more troops guarding against what we might do.

[nbarclay]

Theseus, do you still want the extra units on Sandstorm 6, or would you rather go with my idea of daring Vox to attack it?

[nbarclay]

I moved the western galley back 3-3 to see if there are any Voxian forces on the mountains south and southwest of Dissidentville. There aren't. I decided to split the difference on Sandstorm 6 with five units there; Vox would have to win five battles out of five to take the tile (albeit the last one against a WC).

[nbarclay]

Closing screenshots and turn sent. As I closed the turn, Bolderberg's build time for MedInfs dropped from three turns to two (thanks to a new mine), so that city can now build MedInfs in three turns without a need for rushing. We're thus better off saving our rushing gold for elsewhere. O.G. might be an interesting target since I think it's now up to five shields per turn. We could do a short rush during the build phase next turn and have a MedInf ready the turn after.

[nbarclay]

By the way, mav_son still hadn't read my PM as of when I sent the save, so I copied it into the e-mail with the save. That should be hard to miss.

[Theseus]

Well played.

I'm still catching up in the Strat forum... caught the 'suboptimal' thread over the weekend, and I do want to say, Nathan, you are as good as it gets.