Turn 108, 410 BC

[nbarclay]

I got the save and went ahead and did the Inchon and Inchoff landings. I also bombarded Vox's eastern immortals, hitting with three out of seven cats.

Vox cut their road 9 from Inchon (3-3 from Elipolis), which means any forces in Elipolis are going to be delayed trying to counterattack. At the very least, our pikes will have a fortification bonus going for them by the time Vox can counterattack in any significant strength. Inchoff is in greater immediate danger; there's a regular immortal and a vet immortal right next to it.

Vox now has at least three cats, two shown in the screenshot at D8 and one under the Spear at Inchon 3. At Inchon 7, Vox has a vet spear and a vet warrior.

I'll play the rest of the turn this evening (U.S. time), but I thought everyone would like to know.

[Arrian]

I got the save and went ahead and did the Inchon and Inchoff landings. I also bombarded Vox's eastern immortals, hitting with three out of seven cats.

I can't believe it's actually underway! Woohoo! I'm so psyched that both landing zones were open! Vox is in for a shock.

Thanks for the update, Nathan.

-Arrian

[alva]

Vox cut their road 9 from Inchon (3-3 from Elipolis),

Woo-hoo, finaly I'm back in
-
Nathan, before you leave, could send the save?

[Shiber]

Re: Turn 108, 410 BC


I've waited for this moment for so long...

Originally posted by nbarclay
At Inchon 7, Vox has a vet spear and a vet warrior.

Alva: I can send it. Address?

Btw, we have to start discussing whether we want to rush o-turn walls in Inchoff.
So far it looks to me like that won't be necessary, so we can save 80+ gold and do a 1-turn rush.

Cat success in the east: 3 hits is just a bit below average. It's not dazzling success, but it'll give Vox something to think about.

[nbarclay]

Save forwarded. Alva, was finding out where the road was cut the thing that forced the vow of silence on you?

[Velociryx]

Anybody got a screenie of the latest action? Been away doing CB stuffs, but still lurking....

-=Vel=-

[Shiber]

Vel: good to have you back!
You can find the screens in the softhome box.

[zeit]

Vox is probably preparing for a siege against D'ville- Cats could work for them like they worked for us. I bet that's what they are thinking right now. They could be thinking, OTOH, that it's time to put some pressure of their own, but I hardly believe that's what they are planning for with three cats and no mountain roads for them.

[alva]

Save forwarded. Alva, was finding out where the road was cut the thing that forced the vow of silence on you?

Yep, I though it was quite important (or could have been)

[Arrian]

Vox was clearly preparing to defend Dissidentville.

Those cats could be a PitA, but I favor simply bypassing Dissidentville for the time being and attacking Vox's core - where their cats will be of no use. We can use our galleys to ferry troops northward. Meanwhile, our cats continue to pound the eastern immortals, and we hold a few units in reserve to deal with any attempted breakout/advance from Dissidentville.

Good to have you back, Alva Heya, Vel! Things are lookin' up, eh?

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Does anyone know if we can 'invade' their unprotected cats? Never tried it, but if we can land a pike on top of their cats, thus capturing them, it would be great. I doubt it, but as said, I never tested this...

Other than that: a 0-turn walls in Inchon seems worth it, Inchoff should be seen as a diversion, and not something we want to spend ridiculous money on. We're doing fine (certainly after seeing ND has a total of 159 gold) moneywise, but we can't be foolish about our reserves.

Further: I wouldn't mind D-ville for the moment, we should instead focus on staffing Inchon, and using that force to attack their core. They won't have iron down there, so it should be relatively easy to take (certainly compared to D-ville). After we start damaging their core (and they will have more cats there, I'm sure), I wouldn't be surprised if they give up, and start doing dumb things because they know they've lost. With 1 city left, no team will want to stay in the game.

I'm mighty curious how Vox reacts to this internally, it's kind of obvious they weren't expecting this. Otherwise, they would have kept more troops within direct striking range of Inchon, and would have blocked Inchoff.

BTW, perfect timing on Inchon-off/SS expansion Certainly will give them something to think about

Some speculation (more things to do, so still no Internet time today): Vox will try to recuperate part of their SS force by moving it out the way, prolly cursing that they didn't do it last time. But, with the barrage they got from our cats last time, they will not simply sit by, and wait for us to finally kill their force when it's down to 1 hp. The only exception is if they gamble, and start moving troops closer to Monsoon, hoping to spread our offensive forces.

Further, seeing 7 cats on SS6 let's them think there aren't many cats in reach to defend Monsoon (which is correct, BTW), so if they want to reach honor in this fight by attacking one of our cities (they haven't fired a single shot at any of our cities yet, which must be frustrating), they will do it next turn. They might try to take out the spears for Inchoff, which is another possible route for them, but they have to realize that Inchon is untouchable once a city is built. And right now, there aren't enough troops in the neighbourhood to attack us there. (with one possible exception, which I doubt it: they could have most their troops at Inchon 336)

Really, this is great stuff, certainly has put the fun back in war. I'm surprised both landings happened according to our best plans, I thought at least one site would have been blocked, and needed changing our plans mid turn.

BTW, instead of using our cats on D-ville, I would rather ship them over to Inchon, once they become available. D-ville is hard to take, and I would prefer waiting until we have dealt with both their core, and the SS stack. It might be predictable, but I doubt Vox is going to sit by with their D-ville defenders when we're marching thru their core.

Another BTW (today is a good BTW day ): can we have a galley chain going? we have enough galleys to make a straight 2-units per turn chain from inside Monsoon to Inhon, while making sure next turn our galleys are in the same position to do it again. The only advantage I see is that will mean none of our units are in transit, and can be offensively used the moment they arrive at Monsoon, so we don't lose units there. But, I'm not sure if that's enough of an advantage to bother... plus we would limit the amount of units that can be transferred in one turn...

DeepO

[Arrian]

I don't think we need to rush the walls in Inchon at full price. I think we can hold off 1 turn and pay 76 gold for them.

Good post, BTW, DeepO. We cannot steal their cats via landing units on them. They, like normal combat units, prevent non-amphibious units from landing.

-Arrian

[Shiber]

Re: Turn 108, 410 BC

Originally posted by nbarclay
Vox cut their road 9 from Inchon (3-3 from Elipolis), which means any forces in Elipolis are going to be delayed trying to counterattack.

I think that this is the most beautiful part about this turn. Don't you agree?

Regarding Vox's cats: actually, they could pose a problem... they could knock down our walls. When a cat bombards a walled town, the bombardments attack the walls first (odds are calculated according to the bombardment defense rate of the walls improvement, which I believe is 4, or rather 6, thanks to the hill bonus). So our walls might absorb two cat hits or three, but they can go down, and then we'd have spent 160 gold on absorbing two or three cat shots.
The comforting part is that Vox can either wait until they can assemble a force of a few pikes to defend their cats before they approach Inchon (they may have some already en route from the north so it actually might not take a while), or send the cats defended by mostly immortals and exposed to a counter-attack.
My hope is that they won't be expecting MedInfs (they'll never see them since they're on the galley that hasn't unloaded yet, and by the time we unload, Inchon will be set up and the number and types of troops inside the city will be unknown to them) and so they'd station their cats outside the city, attack, and with some luck our MedInfs will be able to capture their cats.
Man, that would be awesome! 3 free cats... :drool:

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't think we need to rush the walls in Inchon at full price. I think we can hold off 1 turn and pay 76 gold for them.

I disagree. It's too much of a gamble.

Btw, there's a vet MedInf in SandStorm-1. I suggest that we move it into Arashi so it could assist if Vox tries to move onto Monsoon next turn.

[Shiber]

OneToRule.

Hopefully, soon our password shall become reality! *ROARING THUNDER* MWHAHAHAHA!!