Vox's iron colony

[Shiber]

@ Inchoff

[Arrian]

Ok, we all seem to like the basic two-pronged assault idea. So let's do it.

The remaining questions are these:

1) Do we rush the galley in the West like Nathan suggested, allowing for 9 military units to escort our settler for the Inchon landing, or do we stick with 4 galleys over there and save our cash (or perhaps rush a temple instead)?

2) Timing. We want to get this show on the road soon, right? Well, then we need to begin withdrawing our scout galleys, and massing our troops. This also means we need to finally finish off the Voxian stack in the Spinebreakers. Are we set to do all that, or are we rushing things? Basically, I'm saying we need to work out the nitty-gritty (including allowing time for med infs we use vs. the Voxians to heal).

3) We also want to march on Dissidentville, right? There are two options: through the mountains (safer on defense, but they could put a spear or two up there and make it nasty, particularly since we can't move our cats there until we build a road) or North from SS, then West though flat lands.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Vox should be down to around two 2hp immortals (and the rest 1hp) after this turn's round of bombardment, so we should be in good shape to finish them off. I'm hoping a couple vets manage to avoid being damaged in the process.

Rushing the galley in Whirlwind would cost 40 gold or less. That seems like a relatively low price for the improved odds of survival (and of minimizing losses) that two extra units in Inchon would bring.

Regarding Dissidentville, if Vox withdraws most of its troops from that area to deal with our landings, they should be vulnerable to softening up by cats as a preliminary to taking the mountains on the way there. That would reduce the cost of a cross-mountain strike to a more manageable level. And with a road (which would only take a couple extra turns with five workers on the job), we could still get fast-movers in on the final action. Alternatively, if Vox keeps heavy forces there, we might actually want to ignore Dissidentville for the time being and sealift troops around it to go after Vox's core.

[DeepO]

Can we time it so it comes together with a border expansion in SS? Perhaps by rushing a library there, instead of a temple (only gives an expansion 1 turn sooner, but might be better in the long term anyway)? If we can do all things at the same turn, Vox will be overwhelmed for sure.

It's obvious that the 7 wanderers have to go asap, after that, I see 4 objectives. (Inchon, Inchoff, SS, D-ville). The closer we can put these events, the better. But we have to expect that Vox knows at least one of those objectives: D-ville, so that might come 1 or 2 turns later then the others, let them waste resources on what they expect, and the moment they are withdrawing their defenses for other positions hit them with the obvious attack on D-ville.

DeepO

[Shiber]

1) If we can't do both, then I'd like to rush the galley first.
The temple is necessary in order to be able to prevent the SS stack from retreating and healing. Once we block their mountain retreat 8 of their current location with pikes landed from galleys and expand our borders, they will have no choice but to either sit there and take cat shots, attack pikes on mountains or risk going on flatlands.
But I estimate that as soon as we establish Inchon or Inchoff, that stack would leave its current position and move to either sites, so perhaps that temple won't matter anyway. That is, I want this temple; I think it's necessary that we build up culture if we're going to conquer Voxian cities anytime soon and Sandstorm is a nice place for a temple. But I doubt that the plan to put it into use militarily against the SS stack would have a chance to prove itself.

P.S. We absolutely have to cover the tile 8 of the SS stack before doing Inchon or Inchoff, that way we can force Vox to move to flats if they want to attack either sites with the SS stack.

[DeepO]

I agree on covering the tile 8 from the SS stack, I also thought about that (but forgot to mention this). Could this be done before we move towards Inchoff? Do we have access to another Western galley soon too? Do we want to use one? (the problem is that the moment Vox sees our scouts retreating, they know something is coming, and will prepare the Inchoff site against invasion anyway.)

DeepO

[Aeson]

I still think we should take D888 if it's open ASAP (3 turns 4 units or 4 turns 8 units), regardless of what we are trying to do later. Every turn we wait to cut the Iron probably equals 2-3 Immortals. It also increases the chances that Vox gets Feudalism and upgrades Spearmen. By my count, we need 8 turns to do Inchon/Inchoff.

D888 cuts off Iron to the core, and to Dissidentville. If it is blocked, or becomes blocked while we are transporting troops, we are still in perfect position to do Inchon.

[Arrian]

Fine by me.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

If we either rush a settler with gold in Sandstorm or build a settler in Hurricane and use our nearby workers to replace the lost population immediately, we could load our galleys for both Inchon and Inchoff two turns after our upcoming turn and land our troops the turn after that. Either of those approaches would add a bit to the expense of the operations, but I view the value of cutting off Vox's iron sooner as more than sufficient to justify the investment.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by DeepO
Can we time it so it comes together with a border expansion in SS? Perhaps by rushing a library there, instead of a temple (only gives an expansion 1 turn sooner, but might be better in the long term anyway)? If we can do all things at the same turn, Vox will be overwhelmed for sure.

It's obvious that the 7 wanderers have to go asap, after that, I see 4 objectives. (Inchon, Inchoff, SS, D-ville). The closer we can put these events, the better. But we have to expect that Vox knows at least one of those objectives: D-ville, so that might come 1 or 2 turns later then the others, let them waste resources on what they expect, and the moment they are withdrawing their defenses for other positions hit them with the obvious attack on D-ville.

DeepO

By damn, I like this thinking... let me read the rest of the thread.

[Theseus]

I'm loving this... the feint / delay in the mountains is beautiful.

I'm jumping in and out... can someone (Arrian?) post a comprehensive plan for the attack north? I think it (our plan) should include *everything* as I believe we can afford to take the time to "break things... slowly... carefully" to quote, uh, somone.

BREAK... VOX... SLOWLY... CONFUSION... CAREFUL...

DESTROYED.

F*cking rape... rape pillage and burn, that is. A great way to start a religion.

Seriously, this is good stuff, but needs pinpoint planning.

[zeit]

If we either rush a settler with gold in Sandstorm or build a settler in Hurricane and use our nearby workers to replace the lost population immediately, we could load our galleys for both Inchon and Inchoff two turns after our upcoming turn and land our troops the turn after that. Either of those approaches would add a bit to the expense of the operations, but I view the value of cutting off Vox's iron sooner as more than sufficient to justify the investment.

Nathan- does this include a 5th galley on Inchon and a 3rd on Inchoff? Another one on each front will help us a great deal, as you suggested, and I think we should work to make it possible even if that means we have to change some of our production plans in order to get the galleys in time.

I'd support rushing settler with gold at SS, or even building one at Hurricane- depends on where the Economists find it more efficient to carry out.

Landing in 4-5 turns is great! we have to make a real headway and not let this war turn into a Medieval trench-war (which is just what has become of it... ), once the pressure on the Spinebreakers is off- in the next turn probably, we must press on Vox- surrender might seem like a plausible alternative for them.

On that note- what are we planning to do with the folks near SS? I assume we'll be paying them a visit with Cats, but I don't think we could take it out with minimal losses in less than 5 turns. But than again- I'm sure we could spare at least 2 pikes from there in order to fill another galley...

[Shiber]

As DeepO and I have said (in another thread, IIRC), we have to block the SS immortals by landing pikes on their mountain retreat route (8 of their current location). These troops may leave either when SS's cultural boundaries expand and they won't be able to heal from cat shots anymore, or when we set up Inchon/Inchoff and Vox would decide to pull back these immortals.
By landing 8 of them, we force them to either stay and eat cat shots, hopelessly attack pikes on mountains or go on flats trying to escape from us.

[zeit]

Their chances of escaping, even without a blocking move- is close to nothing- they have no where to go- and they'll have to make it through at least two tiles of flatlands- with our WCs/Horsies in a perfect opportunity for GL's/promotions.

I suggest we pull one or two galleys the next turn- by the time we land 8 of their position- our Cats could take one shot. At the same time, we should send some WC's/Horsies to SS8- in a perfect position to make an attack against incoming Immortals without risk of retaliation (even in the turn after, should things go wrong).

[Arrian]

Theseus,

I don't have an exact picture of how things are going to go...

First off, as Shiber points out, we have extra work to do on the East coast.

We still need to build a second settler and get 2 more galleys.

If we're going to use 7 pikes + 2 med inf + settler for Inchon, and 4 pikes + med inf + settler for Inchoff, we need to muster up 11 pikemen that we aren't using for defense/blocking purposes.

I'm not sure we have that many spares. So I guess we will need to build some more (1 more turn of pikes from the big two, I suppose). THEN horsies.

I'd ask for the save so I could count up our available troops + what we can build/short rush + our galley positions = exact moves, but I'm going to be completely MIA this weekend. I'm going to be in NYC at my friend's bachelor party (great weather for it, huh, Theseus? ) and even when I get back, I'll most likely be unable to get off the couch for a day or two.

-Arrian