Turn 111, 350 BC

[nbarclay]

By the way, I forgot to mention it, but I moved our spare settler last turn to where we can position him for our northeastern desert city (7 from the northernmost mountain by Hurricane) this turn and found the city next turn if we want to.

[nbarclay]

Vox pulled a fast one and I almost missed it. One of the spearmen on I8 was on I8-9 last turn, and the spear in Elipolis pretty much has to be one of the two that had been on I8. Did they just change their minds, or are they trying to create an illusion of more units than they really have? In the latter case, a strike deeper into their core looks even better.

[Shiber]

Good catch Nathan!
Yes, it does seem to improve the prospects of a deep strike.

[Dominae]

Could someone post or PM me the password for our turns? I've long forgotten it. Thanks.


Dominae

[Harovan]

Sent

[Dominae]

Thanks, Sir Ralph.

When did RP move their Palace?


Dominae

[Arrian]

Recently... a turn or two ago.

I say we do a landing and see what happens... if we need to evacuate, we can evacute.

We definitely need our cats up north now.

-Arrian

[vulture]

I guess that they want to pull their units back to the core, so that spearman on I89 had nowhere to go but the hill on I8, and I suspect the only reason they didn't stick both spears in Elipolis is that they wanted to make taking the hill cost a bit. A landing behind Eli outflanks them, forcing them to pull those spears back. That still only leaves them with 3 spears plus whatever help can be pulled in from BbtS or HH - probably warriors at the moment. The Eli attack might still be viable, but a shot at their core now might be more productive, especially if they are flooding units south to try and hold Eli long enough for their stacks to get past Inchon.

Did they really move their warrior on the mountain at I32 to I332, moving it further away from Inchon? If so, it looks like they want to get the warriors to D'ville - looking for the give away town trick to move them north, and use a quick iron trade to upgrade them? That would also give them all the D'ville pikes in The Voice next turn, able to move to defend their northern towns the turn after. That's probably going to happen before we can land up near Miller Town - although we can hope that they haven't got enough pikes to defend two towns adequately, giving us a shot at one of them.

If we go for the landing behind Elipolis, that gives us the option of moving back on the boats to head north if they keep D'ville, or try and take Elipolis while it is still relatively undefended if they abandon D'ville.

[Dominae]

I believe they're planning on moving all their forces into Eliopolis, and gifiting it away. That would put a relatively major obstacle between us and the end of Vox, since we would have to go completely naval, and they have enough units to cover every coastal tile north of the chokepoint.

Assuming I'm right about Eliopolis, I think we should make a move for Beta-by-the-Sea immediately. We land 2 Pikemen on the hill south of it (hopefully there will not be a unit there, and if there is we can always just unload as a diversion...their Immortals only get to move on Roads the turn after next). All other units go into Inchon to brace for an attack, although I doubt it will come. When we see that their Immortals are in fact making a run for Eliopolis, we move everything we can muster to join those two Pikemen. We can then grab Beta-by-the-Sea and have a nice foothold behind Eliopolis.

Oh, and now that we've taken care of all Voxian forces near our core, we should think of what we want to do with all our units that have nothing to do anymore.


Dominae

[vulture]

Why would they gift away Elipolis? It's the strongest point in their defence, once they get some troops into it. And once they are past it, they are only 2 turns away from most towns, 3 for the furthest ones. That only gains them 1-2 turns moving to get to the north, where we don't currently have any troops. Eli is the town they need to keep to have a strong defence (it gives them more spare troops for everywhere else in their core).

[vulture]

I'd guess that we want to move most of the eastern units into galleys to sail up to Inchoff to clear out the immortals, or continue further north to give a second landing in Vox's core between The Voice and Harry's Hideout, just to give them more to think about.

We do need some defenses around the core in case of surprise naval landings, but with out galleys everywhere we should get a few turns warning to prepare before anything bad happens.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vulture
Why would they gift away Elipolis? It's the strongest point in their defence, once they get some troops into it.

The problem for them is that we have super-Galleys that can strike basically anywhere at any time. They would have to spread their forces very thin to protect everything. Sure, they could have a major bulhead at Eliopolis, but that's useless when all their cities behind the bulkhead start falling.

So, they make a deal with, say, Glory of War: "We gift you Elipolis in exchange for X (whatever)". All their troops get teleported back to their capital, and in two turns they are immune to naval invasions. After that they can build a few more troops, regain control of Elipolis and fortify it.

The team that offers assistance could even finesse us diplomatically by saying that they're "on a peacekeeping mission to ensure Big Bad Gathering Storm does not wipe out Poor Defenseless Vox". We would have to declare war on that team to get through Eliopolis, making Eliopolis far better-defended to Vox than any number of Pikemen.

I honestly think this is their best bet for survival. It would be very bad for us. We need to take some cities behind the chokepoint now.


Dominae

[vulture]

Well if they gift it to GoW, we don't have to declare war. And if they gift it to someone else, we take the city, refund any money stolen from their vaults, throw in 50 gold for good measure, and apologise profusely whilst explaining that no way where we going to let that stop our invasion of Vox, since the recipient team has no business being on our island.

Might not go down too well though...

EDIT: it would work better if we contacted the team, explained what Vox had done, and offered them 50 gold for the city (plus whatever gets stolen from their vaults, so we don't have to wait a turn for them to gift the city to us) (or we say we are prepared to buy the city even though we could take it, and ask what they want for it). If they agree, all well and good. If not, they lose those 50 gold (but we still ought to give some compensation).

[vulture]

Plus, they can't really do that before they get all their units to Elipolis, and they are 3 turns away from that right now, unless everyone is going to turn around and go back to D'ville and await magical transportation via gifting from there.

We still have a small window of opportunity on Elipolis, I think. Not that I have the save to really know what is going on...

[Dominae]

Might not go down too well though...

Exactly. They're betting we will not declare war on another civ at this point, even if it is just to take one city.

In any case, the opportunity is there to grab Beta-by-the-Sea. Why not make a lunge for it next turn?


EDIT: Oops, sorry Dominae - meant to reply with quote, but hit 'edit' instead. Have attempted to put your post back how it was.