Turn 111, 350 BC

[nbarclay]

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:

- 466 gold, + ~107 gpt

Check this and every turn to see if we lost some war unweariness due to the killing of troops within cultural borders and therefore must readjust the lux slider.

Urgent questions:

Military:
- Focus on defending Inchon, or try to make a move on one of Vox's deeper cities?

Economy:

- Rush walls in Inchon in the production phase?

TBD.

Diplomacy:

Thread library:
- Standing orders for workers (Orders last revised April 5.)

[nbarclay]

The opening screen showed two interesting things. (1) Vox left D1 open, so if we plant a pike there and they don't dislodge him, we'll have a ground route to Dissidentville, and hence to the rest of Vox. (2) Vox moved their eastern stack 7, down off the mountains.

I then went into the production phase and started poking around city views. Vox actually uncovered Inchoff's iron tile, opening the way for us to put pikes there and not need cats to stage a breakout, but they have lots of forces near Inchon. Visible forces include:

Inchoff 4: 1 regular pike.
Inchoff 4-7: Two units, led by a vet immortal.

Inchon 6: Eight? units led by a vet pike. (If I remember what someone said correctly, eight is the maximum nuymber of marks that appear, so if my count is correct, there could possibly be more.)
Inchon 9: Eight? units led by a vet pike. Reinforcements from their core?
Inchon 8: Two units led by a vet spear. (Last turn there were two vet spears there.)
Elipolis: A Vet spear showing; what's beneath it is unknown.
Inchon 3-3-2: Four units led by a vet pike.

Do I assume this means we want walls? If Vox had additional immortals in their core that they're only now showing, fighting around Inchon could get nasty, or they may just be trying to retreat around the city. (Or perhaps even to keep both options open, depending on how peace talks go. If it were a pure attack, I would have expected them to put attackers from their core on the hill.)

[nbarclay]

I went ahead and went through the production phase, rushing walls in Inchon. Full Voxian deployments next message:

[nbarclay]

Inchoff 4: 1 regular pike.
Inchoff 4-7: One regular and one vet vet immortal.

Inchon 6: One hurt (1/4) and one healthy vet pike, one regular pike, and three veteran and five regular immortals.
Inchon 9: One vet and one regular pike, three vet immortals, and three cats.
Inchon 8: Two vet spears
Elipolis: A Vet spear showing; what's beneath it is unknown.
Inchon 3-3-2: A vet pike, two regular immortals, and a vet and a regular warrior.

Dissidentville 2: A vet pike and a vet warrior.

I moved a pike onto the iron tile by Inchoff to take a look, and he saw nothing of interest

[nbarclay]

I went ahead and took three cat shots at the immortals, scoring the second needed hit with the third shot. They're all down to one hit point. I'm thinkng of maybe letting WCs do most of the work finishing off the immortals so we can send a pike and five vet MedInfs to Inchoff. If Vox continues to pull toward their core, those units can combine with some of the pikes already there and march overland to reinforce our Inchon forces.

In the meantime, we can grab D1 move our pikes from Arashi and Arashi 9 onto the iron tile (replacing them shortly with pikes from the Hurricane area). I can pull five workers off their current duties and have them on the iron tile next turn (faster than that would delay reinforcing Inchon), and we can bring in troops to take Dissidentville whenever it looks like it makes sense to do so. (That might be a good job for our main cat force to help with.)

[nbarclay]

With Vox having a spear (and no telling what else), and with eleven healthy and one injured immortals by Inchon, I'm reluctant to try an end run around Elipolis. Also note that the most we could involve in a landing by Elipolis this turn in terms of offensive forces is a cat, four MedInfs, and an elite WC, and getting that much would require having our galley that dropped off the WCs pick up and re-land troops instead of heading back for reinforcements.

Further, our best odds against Elipolis would come after we get some cats in the area to level its walls and ping down any pikes that make it there a bit. If I felt confident that we could take the city, I'd consider the attack worth it to cut into Vox's production, but as things stand, I don't think the rewards are big enough to be worth the risk.

[Theseus]

Nathan, I gotta go to bed... so just a coupla thoughts:

* Let's use our Cats... Walls= Bad, and they are fairly easily destructable.

* Am I on drugs? Has Vox actually attacked us *ever*?

* Can we tell if Vox has traded for iron?

Although we are in MP, let's not forget some of the principles: for instance, to quote my co-General, let's break things... slowly... carefully. Given their response, we seem to be on a trajectory to take out Vox... fine, good... GLs?

I don't want to be overconfident, especially in the face of of some many Immortals (effing scary), but we are in pretty good shape. We don't need to rush.

[nbarclay]

Vox did attack us at least once. Of course that was when their attacker was an immortal and all we had defending was a warrior - Grog. Actually, I'd love to see them try to hit Inchon. Anything that costs them a significant percentage of their remaining immortals can't be all bad.

[Shiber]

Vox also killed a vet pike on a mountain once with one immortal (they were lucky). But that is all.

I have to leave in about a minute, so I'll just say that I agree with Theseus - let's knock down the walls first.

[Aeson]

It looks to me like Vox is running back to their core with all their troops, otherwise why move Pikes (the ones guarding Cats) and leave them unfortified for a turn if everything is going to hit Inchon anyways?

We can beat them to their core with our Galleys. 4 Vet Med Inf, a WC, and a Pike would split Wittlich and Millertown. They're running scared it looks like... must be a reason?

[Aeson]

They killed 2 Pikes on Mountains with no losses actually... one at SS6, and one at A2... pretty lucky.

[Aeson]

Are our Elite WC's in range of Vox's stack near SS?

[Aeson]

Here's what I think we should do:

Turn 1: Land a Pike, 4 Med Inf, and a WC on E7 this turn. A pillage/diversion force. Everything else stays in Inchon of course.

Turn 2: Move the WC 8, pillage, and cover with the Pike if the tile is open (good chance it will be, as we look threatening to Elipolis). Load the Med Inf into the Galleys, ship another Pike over to load as well, and send those Galleys to BbtS 111. If the tile isn't open, we can either pillage both E7 and E8 if they are open (sacrifice the WC) or load everything back on the Galleys.

Turn 3: Galleys move to Wittlich 1 and drop the 4 Med Inf and the Pike on Wittlich 3/Miller Town 4. If we see Pikes in Wittlich, we could (and probably should) abort before landing. WC moves 8 and pillages if it's open, Pike covers.

Turn 4: WC and Med Inf can attack Miller Town, or Med Inf can attack Wittlich. If Wittlich, WC moves 8 and pillages, Pike covers.

Pillaging the road gives us another turn or two to play around in their core. (they probably have more roads than we can see, but we could detour to take out important roads if necessary) In the case of E78, we could then move 8 again and do the same thing next turn if it's open, buying more time for our four Med Inf.

This is a bit of a gamble that Vox doesn't have much to anything at all (Warriors) defending their core. The odds can't be any worse than if we wait for them to stack up in Elipolis though. It's likely the only way we'll have shots at non-Pike units with our Med Inf, without going through Pikes first... and in size 5 cities to boot. It also gives us the opportunity to deny Vox a chance to trade for Iron.

The other benefit is that Vox will have to send much of it's force further N than Elipolis. Inchon will have time to get our Cats and make a good, slow, safe play for Elipolis.

[nbarclay]

Unfortunately, I'd given up on Vox's coming out to play and moved the elite WCs to Inchon since that seemed like where the action was likely to be.

My biggest concern about going for Wittlich and Millertown is that Vox might pop rush a galley in Wittlich. The idea has to be tempting ito them n an effort to disrupt our delivery of troops by sea. And if a brand-new galley happens to be in the wrong place (which just happens to be the logical place for a Voxian galley to move on its first turn), it could make a landing between those two towns take an extra turn, and then either attack or sit on the tile we'd need to unload from to get the fork. Also, if Vox positions its troops currently at I9 centrally, they could get into Millertown between the time we land and the time we could hit, cutting into our advantage of surprise by quite a bit. (And if a newly built galley spots us, they would have every incentive to reposition some troops farther back.)

To do the landing safely, we'd need five galleys (one for defense), two pikes, four MedInfs, and the two elite WCs. (Using both elites is practical for the Wittlich/Millertown landing, since the WCs would not have to unload the same turn they load for that operation.)

If Vox didn't leave us the apparent opening to attack Dissidentville, I'd say going after Wittlich is definitely a bad idea because it would delay the reinforcements needed for our main attack too much. As things stand, it might be worthwhile, but I'm skeptical. (The difference is that as things stand, we'll probably want our cats for an assault on Dissidentville, after which they can move overland to reinforce Inchon almost as quickly - and far more safely - than we could deliver a main attack force by sea.)

If we do that attack and Vox hits Inchon after all, we'd have eight pikes but no other units to stop them. If their cats get our wall, that could be a bit close for comfort against six healthy vet immortals, five regulars, and a 2/4 wounded vet.

[nbarclay]

Aeson, unfortunately, the WCs in the area are our elites. I don't think we want to be using those for suicide or quasi-suicide missions.