Turn 109, 390 BC

[alva]

We should make all attacks as planned this turn. Change nothing.

That depends doesn't it. If we have no plans to ever go to peace, sure go for it, but there is sense in wasting good units to no avail.

In the end I think it's best to follow SR advice, they've been around long enough and with them gone, perhaps we can some good deals going with one of the bobians or Lego.

[ManicStarSeed]

Originally posted by alva

We should make all attacks as planned this turn. Change nothing.

That depends doesn't it. If we have no plans to ever go to peace, sure go for it, but there is sense in wasting good units to no avail.

Yes it does I am not talking about a blind charge. All I am saying is that we should go ahead with this turn as if there will be no peace with vox.

I am of the mind that They should get a settler on a galley and go far away because we now claim this contenent.

Mss

[DeepO]

First of all, no matter what we decide, we should go on with the turn, like nothing happened. If Vox wanted us to negotiate now, they should have done it on their own time, not ours. So, no mercy now, no armistice, no response to Vox even. Let them sweat.

I'm inclined to go for the "no peace for Vox on our continent" option... when we last considered peace, the situation was clearly not this goodlooking. Accepting minimal payment (i.e. land) would seem such a waste of investment of resources and thoughts.

It's not only the prospect of going to war that is something to look out for (instead of a 'dull' peace), this is also about getting back in first position. We need the pop, and possibly the cities. If Vox threatens to start to commit suicide in large numbers, it would be an idea to accept peace as we lose our goals, but we're not there yet. I think we could test that theory by not attacking the Voxian cats, but take the hill next to Elipolis instead with our immortals. If they abandon Elipolis next turn, we know what they're up to... and I doubt we'll find much resistance there. D-ville is also easy prey, as are the units we have trapped on our side of the Neck, given a couple of turns. So, we don't win by accepting this low peace proposal.

Nathan: any reason why you don't name Inchoff Inchoff? Winds of change sounds like a perfect name for the first captured city. Otherwise, we risk confusing ourselves

Further thoughts: Inchoff is safe for the moment, the only thing that could happen is that Vox reinforces their mountain defenses, we might need cats there, transported by our galleys on the East. But, I doubt they will go for it, I think they have deemed their iron colony lost, and will focus on trying to protect their home turf instead. I wouldn't be surprised if at the moment, there are very few spears there, and no pikes. Warriors are worth more as immortal upgrades if they have the cash.

cat-attack: I wouldn't mind gambling, and attacking with at least one immortal, and see how it goes. If the vet pike falls in the first round, we've got a good chance of taking the cats. Using a vet pike on a 1 or 2 hp immortal is a no-brainer, on a 1 hp fort. spear the same. Against a 2 hp fort. spear, the situation changes, it becomes a lot trickier.

If we would decide against an attack, I would take the hill near Elipolis instead, and fortify that with most immortals, and a pike. If we would attack, and our first immortal falls without scratching the pike, or only denting it, we should keep all our forces in our cities, and fortify. And build a 1-turn walls (not 0-turn).

As to what needs to go on the galley: elite WCs, or 1 elite, and 1 vet seems a good idea. With proper positioning of a galley (i.e. 4 tiles from entering Inchon), we can use a mini galley chain next turn, and use those WCs immediately on the offense, if needed.

While we're at it: Nathan, could it be that you miscalculate the numbers of galleys needed for a chain? To me, there doesn't seem to be a difference: you need 4 galleys for a stationary chain, 2 for a moving one. You only win 1 tile on Monsoon, but as that doesn't lead to a even ratio, the effect will be hardly noticeable, not noticeable at all as long as we don't drown in units (so we can spend 2 turns at sea with them, instead of only 1 turn).

Wittlich's harbor: This is a problem. We might need to divert 2 galleys North asap, to block access to the harbor. If we do that, we need to send a message to the teams that have iron which they can send to Vox, that we would appreciate them staying out of this war, as providing Vox with such a crucial resource would certainly be seen as direct military help to our enemies. If they want to ally with Vox, this would be a perfect way of showing their attentions (might even make that into a public announcement on the end of our turn, when we announce the destruction of Vox's colony and iron source)

I think teams are going to think twice about doing that to us, and we should make a warning that it might lead to a state of war, technical or otherwise. We can't go around declaring unprovoked wars just so we can block trades.

If we block (and I would really like to see our galleys move now, not in a couple of turns after a shipment of troops to Inchon), we have to think about something else: GoW's navy. with 2 galleys, we can block access to our continent, but only if one of them is positioned in GoW's territory. We should make clear to them that we do not want to see that ship sunk, either diplomatically, or by reinforcing it with another galley. Or, we should send 3 galleys, so we can stay out of GoW's territorial waters.

Is it an option to rush a 0-turn MI in Inchon, instead of walls? if they can't reach us, we don't need walls anyway, and I somehow doubt we're going to see a huge stack of immortals there soon.

BTW, can we see enemy troops from within the production window, in production phaze? If so, we could decide on rushing the walls next turn, if Vox moves more troops in.

D-ville: let them retreat, we can position our forces, but do not move any attackers in sight. Let them retreat for one more turn, after which taking D-ville should be easy. We might start moving workers closer to the East of the spines, to start on a road towards D-ville (over grass is good enough, as long as they stay out of sight) asap. Could become quite handy later on

Production: Tornado might be switched towards a aquaduct if we have enough slowmovers already or to a horse and an aquaduct later, otherwise I wouldn't change much. we might start to consider building settlers in Cyclone again, but I would build at least one more worker, we're going to need them again. Lots of land to improve, as Vox left the place rather rough

Last point: found Inchon before attack any Voxian units, for as long as it lasts, we should enjoy the unweariness bonus. I don't know if we still get additional happiness, but if so, it's still better to attack units in our own territory, then in neutral space, I think.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Shiber
In Eli's own words (translated from Hebrew): "We will not disband Eliopolis, but according to the responses in the forum to your landing I see a wide support for surrender. GS's conditions seem very reasonable. Of course, I can't promise anything by 100% but I'm sure by 99% that such an offer will be accepted.
Pass an official offer to Beta and I'm sure that we'll have an agreement this turn."

Did we send them any official offer, or even an unofficial one the past turn? (I mean outside of your conversation with him right now, of course). I can imagine our demands are reasonable to them, if they know that within 2 turns, we could have the same situation without peace. Land for peace is no option anymore, we're too powerful for that... no matter how our real life relations might be, Vox hasn't been friendly to us in game, we don't need to give them presents like Santa Claus.

Let's first of all play this turn, think about a good public message, and then assess our situation wrt Vox and play according to that. If we would capture their cats this turn, there is little reason to ask them to 'give' to us, and the balance would have shifted even more. We're getting to the point where we're over double, maybe even triple their power, certainly once their SS stack has been dealt with, and those units become free for offensive roles as well. They're dead if we want to, so the least we could ask for is unconditional surrender... but I still prefer them off our continent.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DeepO
If we would decide against an attack, I would take the hill near Elipolis instead, and fortify that with most immortals, and a pike. If we would attack, and our first immortal falls without scratching the pike, or only denting it, we should keep all our forces in our cities, and fortify. And build a 1-turn walls (not 0-turn).

As to what needs to go on the galley: elite WCs, or 1 elite, and 1 vet seems a good idea. With proper positioning of a galley (i.e. 4 tiles from entering Inchon), we can use a mini galley chain next turn, and use those WCs immediately on the offense, if needed.

If we're sending WCs, then let's send our two elites that haven't generated a leader. I'd like us to send MedInfs as well (MedInfs to kill the pikes, WCs to get the easier kills).

Wittlich's harbor: This is a problem. We might need to divert 2 galleys North asap, to block access to the harbor. If we do that, we need to send a message to the teams that have iron which they can send to Vox, that we would appreciate them staying out of this war, as providing Vox with such a crucial resource would certainly be seen as direct military help to our enemies. If they want to ally with Vox, this would be a perfect way of showing their attentions (might even make that into a public announcement on the end of our turn, when we announce the destruction of Vox's colony and iron source)

I think teams are going to think twice about doing that to us, and we should make a warning that it might lead to a state of war, technical or otherwise. We can't go around declaring unprovoked wars just so we can block trades.

Is it an option to rush a 0-turn MI in Inchon, instead of walls?

Inchon isn't connected to iron.

Last point: found Inchon before attack any Voxian units, for as long as it lasts, we should enjoy the unweariness bonus. I don't know if we still get additional happiness, but if so, it's still better to attack units in our own territory, then in neutral space, I think.

We are still enjoying the effects of war unweariness, and AFAIK we'll keep enjoying these effects until the war ends in-game.
In SP, killing in neutral territory or in territory that isn't yours but isn't of your enemy's either doesn't add WW, while killing in your territory or in enemy territory does. In MP, AFAIK it doesn't matter.

[Shiber]

DeepO: we sent nothing official to Vox. Also, AFAIK my random contact with Eli was the only contact between members of Vox and GS outside the public forum.
I'm in favor of sending Vox an official proposal next turn, proposing that they gift us D'Ville and three cats and commit to giving us their bonus industrial tech, and mentioning that the issue of Eliopolis can be negotiated (if they refuse to disband it, perhaps we can demand five free catapults instead or something).
Now let's start chopping jungle and founding new cities again, all the while preparing to invade RP.

Btw, we have 4 hours and 30 minutes left to play this turn.

[Aeson]

Vox has no Pikes North of the bottleneck, and maybe no Immortals either (probably only a few at the most). We basically own their land until they build a Harbor somewhere.

Vox's free tech gives them far too much negotiating ability with the other teams. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't double cross us again at the start of the Industrial age, and that could easily set us back 5-10 turns in the tech race.

I think Vox needs to be eliminated completely from the game before the Industrial Era. Vox almost surely gets Nationalism in 1.14f right? We'd be the only ones without Riflemen for a while. I also think we need 1 more Leader from this fight to actually come out ahead.

Any discussion about peace should be during Vox's turn, we need the time!

-------------------------

I think we should try to take the Cats. We have a failsafe if things go horribly wrong now (peace), and Vox can't really know if things go horribly wrong. If we do take the Cats, it gives us a better footing for negotiations.

Have we built Inchoff yet?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
Vox has no Pikes North of the bottleneck, and maybe no Immortals either (probably only a few at the most). We basically own their land until they build a Harbor somewhere.

Problem: they built a harbor last turn, in Wittlich... the only spot on an otherwise superb situation for us

Inchoff has been built, yes.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Shiber
In SP, killing in neutral territory or in territory that isn't yours but isn't of your enemy's either doesn't add WW, while killing in your territory or in enemy territory does. In MP, AFAIK it doesn't matter.

Strange... it's not very intuitive that killing in your own territory is considered more evil then killing on neutral ground. The only reason I can see for such a rule would be to try to avoid the 'take city first, sweep up surrounding troops later' strat. But on pure defense, you shouldn't be punished by unhappiness

DeepO

[Shiber]

Not necessarily. When you're defending against an aggressor, you get a happiness bonus (resulting from a surge of patriotism) in order to be able to fight for a while - but if you lose too many units, your people will cry for peace because the death tolls will be too much for them, and they would rather lose their freedom or pay taxes to a foreign power than have the providers of their families die or become crippled.

[Shiber]

I'm off to bed. I can't wait 'til tomorrow.

[Aeson]

Do they have Iron/Horses hooked up then?

[Theseus]

Originally posted by ManicStarSeed
I am of the mind that They should get a settler on a galley and go far away because we now claim this contenent.

YES.

Peace will come when this land is ours, and not one second sooner.

Do the doves not remember the betrayal, and the shame of Vox troops bespoiling our territory? Nor the insults and public lies?

So Betahound rolls over and bares his doggy throat to the now alpha? Makes me wanna puke.

I say step on that throat.

[nbarclay]

I did the attacks on the cats, and Vox got lucky. Their pike won with one hit point left, we took their spear, and the regular immortal won with one hit point left and then got promoted to veteran. Our victorious MedInf lost one hit point.

[nbarclay]

I'm bringing the galleys south to pick up additional units. In terms of establishing local superiority, bringing our troops north faster should do at least as much good as denying Vox iron in their core will. And if Vox waits to concentrate their forces, they can hit Inchon with at least eleven immortals in four turns. Right now, we need reinforcements both to minimize losses on defense and to provide a strong counterattack capability against the survivors. (I'm not dead set against peace, but I intend to plan in terms of continuing the war.)

I went ahead and started our two leaderless elite WCs on their galley trip north. I positioned four pikes, five MedInfs, and a cat at Arashi 6 so we'll have our choice of what to load next turn. I brought the eastern galleys back south with an eye toward loading probably four cats and two MedInfs turn after next (and landing them the turn after that) in an effort to stage a breakout from Inchoff. I'd love to reach a point where our eastern galleys can assist in the Gathering Storm Shuttle Service.