Turn 107, 430 BC

[zeit]

Inchon and Inchoff- these are the keys for breaking the defensive perimetres around D'ville. I just can't see Vox not pulling most of it's forces from the mountains to counter our landing. around one to two turns after that the first wave of reinforcements will arrive to the two cities.

I don't know how much force we could muster around D'ville by that timeframe, and if that's enough for a serious attack (given how much Vox pulls out of the area). Therefor, I propose we make a move from the SE against D'ville- by using Task force Alpha- few slow moving Med Infs (perhaps 3) covered with Pikes, escorted by several WC's/Horses- to take out surviving Immortals, as well as to protect the western flank from oncoming Immortals (which will spend at least a turn on flatlands). Vox will have few Pikes by that time, so hopefully we won't run into a seriously protected Immortal stack trying a flanking manuever.

Task force Alpha could park at the staging point where it could be easily transfered to another position (reinforcements to the landing, or for a direct assault at D'ville). We would launch this task force in the unlikely (yet one that holds great potential) event that Vox decides to keep the forces south of D'ville, to reinforce them, or even to stage their own mini-attack of their own with the forces there- meaning less forces in D'ville itself.

A risky bussiness, to say the least, but could be worth it if Vox doesn't allow us to move through the mountains.

What do you think?

[nbarclay]

The big question in my mind (and I don't have an answer off the top of my head) is whether we could pull off such a move without taking away from our assault on Vox's core. Vox's core has to be our first priority because that's where the vast majority of Vox's production is. On the other hand, taking Dissidentville would give us a land route to bring in reinforcements instead of being stuck purely with naval routes.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Remember that someone here said fortification in the middle of the turn doesn't count.

Are you absolutely sure about that?
I had no idea...

Of course if Vox pulls enough of their troops back from Dissidentville in order to deal with Inchon and Inchoff, a march on Dissidentville through the mountains will start looking very good.

I agree.
Another event that might lead to a change in the prospects of the mountain approach would be if Vox tries to land near Monsoon next turn and fails horribly. That would take care of most of the units that we'll have to break through in order to approach D'Ville from the mountains.

But if Vox doesn't give us that opening, I view Vox's core as a higher piority than taking Dissidentville. After all, their core is where the lion's share of their production is, and it's probably seriously underdefended at the moment thanks to their large number of troops around Dissidentville.

Originally posted by nbarclay
On the other hand, taking Dissidentville would give us a land route to bring in reinforcements instead of being stuck purely with naval routes.

That's an interesting dilemma. I tend to like attacking Vox's core first.
Right now, they can't be expecting such an attack. Even if they're considering this option, they can't prepare for it because then they'd spread their defenses too thin and won't have an effective force anywhere. However, once we take D'Ville, they'll realize that the next "logical" step would be Eliopolis, so most of their forces will be sitting behind their so-called Maginot line in Eliopolis. That's very close to their core, especially with the advantage of roads, and so the odds of a successful landing at their core would be greatly diminished.

Btw, I understand that the plan is to rush walls in both Inchons once the towns have been founded. We are making sure that we'll have enough gold for two 0-turn wall rushes, right?
Not that I don't trust Nathan, on the other hand; but I'd just like to minimize the human error factor.

[nbarclay]

I'm not 100% sure we'll want to spend the extra gold to rush walls in Inchoff the turn we build the city. If Vox hits the landing fairly hard the first turn, or if they move a heavy force from Dissidentville to D888 right after we land, the extra turn for the walls could be critical. But if it looks like we'll have time to wait a turn and still get the walls up before Vox can hit us hard, the cost savings might outweigh the risk. Inchon gets walls immediately no matter what; we have no idea what forces Vox might have in their core that could hit us there.

Yes, I'm keeping in mind the need for gold to rush walls (160 gold per city, right?), but thanks for the reminder. I do miss something every now and then, so it's nice having other people watching just in case.

[zeit]

Focusing on Vox's core- that's our top priority, for sure, but let's not get cocky- Vox has more forces than we see, and they'll most likely be able to seriously threaten Inchon and Inchoff in the first 2 turns (untill we have walls, which further diminishes their odds), let alone stop us from mounting an offensive. We can't count on a quick blitz towards their core, not with the amount of forces we'll have in there untill 6 turns from now (the next for the landing, plus five for the next major wave of reinforcements).

If we manage to hold unto at least one of the Inchons for the next reinforcements to arrive is quite an accomplishments, and I would view it as a success.
Striking at the core will probably take another wave of reinforcements at the least (although we'll have some more galleys by that time, but still...). This is at least 10 turns from now, and we could use a road connection by that time.

As for the dilemma Nathan raises- I don't think it's such a troubling one, or choices given Vox's moves a turn or two after the landing are clear: If Vox's keeps it's forces around D'ville, we'll probably stay away from a direct assault- so we'll need few forces around. Some of these forces should be shipped on the first wave (as much as possible, given the size of the fleet). I believe that by that time with the rest of the forces we could stage this mini assault at D'ville, and still effectively defend A98.
The major risk we take is the possiblity that Vox's decides to stage a counter-offensive on Monsoon. Although this would be suicidal of them to do (not with regard to this assault, but generally to their ability to keep fighting us), and highly unlikely, judging from how the played it so far, I think no one wants to see us losing a city at that point.

If Vox decides to pull back most of their offensive units from the mountain, as expected, I'm all for making a push towards the town, perhaps with WC's attacking from the flatland opening, I think there are few objections for this move.

[Arrian]

Our WCs are not going to be very effective (at least against Dissville) facing pikemen.

They can be, if we get a bit lucky, but they can also get slaughtered. Best case scenario is that they take off a hitpoint and the run away.

I would like to take one of the Inchoff galleys up the coast to see if they have pikemen in any other cities (obviously, after we land our Inchoff force).

Oh, and I'm not sure we definitely need to rush wall in either Inchon or Inchoff - it all depends on what they have in the area. Inchon is the more important one, though.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

I'm not sure about attacking with WCs through the opening east of D'Ville... we may be able to kill some units, but we cannot defend ourselves against the counter-attack that is sure to follow.
On the other hand, if we can get knights by that time then I'll all for it because knights have enough defense to deal with counter-attacking regular or wounded immortals. If we don't, such a maneuver wouldn't seem very appealing to me - even if we do kill some Voxian units by that maneuver and force Vox to go on a counter-attack while our troops at the spinebreakers can break through, we still lose too many potential knights.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Arrian
I would like to take one of the Inchoff galleys up the coast to see if they have pikemen in any other cities (obviously, after we land our Inchoff force).

I object. If we scout the shores of their core area ("Northern Estonia"), we will definitely tip off Vox about our intentions.
Besides, I'm not sure if our scouting efforts will produce any value. There could be 7, even 10 turns between the time that we perform the scouting and the time that we reach Vox's core with loaded galleys.