Turn 127, 30BC

[notyoueither]

Coincidentally, a bunch of Vox cities are in our lap and GoW has reported as the turn they declare war on RP.

Recommend, move all forces in the South a full turn towards the North. We have seen false reports of conflict elsewhere before. GoW does not have a sterling record with us re agreements. Let's be on the safe side, call it maneuvers.

[Octavian X]

Sounds like a plan. We can afford to take this precaution to prevent GoW from gaining a stronghold on our continent.

Keep an eye on that cape seperating us from Bob...

[asleepathewheel]

We should also trail the RP galley, right, in case we want to sink it soon. It might have stowaways.

I think most of the forces are already in Elipolis, but we should move some to the new cities

[vulture]

Definitely get forces into the north to stop GoW (or anyone else) swiping a few of the Vox cities. It doesn't slow us down much and possibly saves us a big loss.

[vulture]

According to Vondrack, we now have the save. Do we have lots of nice, juicy Vox cities in our pocketsses?

[nbarclay]

We now have Engineering and all of Vox's Stormian cities except The Voice. I assume we're supposed to take The Voice. Then what?

Forces of the Storm:

1 Settler
21 Workers
8 Horsemen
24 Pikemen (1 elite)
14 Catapults
10 Galleys
13 War Chariots (3 elite, no leader; one elite+leader)
19 Medieval Infantry (about four of them regular)

We need to make a decision on which of those forces we want in North Stormia, which we want to use in our invasion (and in what order), and which we want to keep other places at home.

Our current deployments in the north:

2 vet WCs roaming around former/current Voxian lands

Elipolis:
2 Elite WCs
3 Catapults
5 Vet MedInfs
4 Vet Pikes

Inchon:
8 Vet Pikes
4 MedInfs (3 Vet, 1 Regular)
4 Vet WCs
4 Cats

We also have two pikes garrisoning the Inchoff area; presumably, we want to move those elsewhere since reaching Inchoff would not be particularly practical and the city isn't of particularly great value now that Vox is leaving.

[Arrian]

2 regular WCs

We built regular WCs? I knew we had one once, but it was killed. We built more?

I'd start upgrading the vet horsemen bit by bit.
I'd pull all elite forces south to load onto galleys at some point (except the elite* WC... he can hang out for a while, perhaps getting upgraded soon).
I'd leave the regular and vet WC's up north for a while. They are the most expensive upgrades (the 8 horsemen will cost us 80 each, and that will take a little while).

Our invasion force should be mostly pikes & med infs, with a couple of knights and cats (plus a settler).

I think we should prioritize roadbuilding on all coastal tiles, particularly the ones up in the former Voxian lands. That way, our units (WCs come to mind) can patrol there and block any attempted landings.

Nathan - what is our research situation? Have we started on Banking, or are we at max tax? We're going to need a lot of money to a) upgrade horsies to knights; and b) pay for temples/walls/barracks in our Bobian cities, plus 1 harbor in our planned replacement for Barcelona.

8 horsies X 80 gold = 640 gold
10 WCs (non-elite no leader) X 100 gold = 1000 gold

I don't see those WCs getting upgraded for some time. Looks like the horsies only for the near future.

Temples (after 1 turn wait) = 116 gold each.
Barracks = 156
Walls = 76
Harbor = 316

Temples X 4 = 464 gold
Barracks X 4 = 624 gold
Walls X 4 = 304 gold
Harbor X 1 = 316 gold

1708 gold, plus 640 for horseman upgrades = 2,348 gold.

Um, wow. We might be able to skimp a bit (one of those cities can probably do without a barracks, perhaps the harbor can wait a little bit...), but that's a big price tag.

-Arrian

[vulture]

Nathan - can you email or post a screenshot of the whole continent please? All the ones I have are missing the top few tiles of (ex)Vox, and I want to see what the situation is like up there re roads.

[nbarclay]

I just sent out a screenshot of North Stormia. That should give you what you need to fill in the missing pieces. (I figured sending just that part of the map zoomed in would be more useful for seeing the tile improvement situation than sending the whole continent zoomed out.)

The reference to "regular" WCs was a misprint. I sometimes have trouble with thinking of veterens as "regular" in the sence of not having been promoted yet. I usually catch myself, but...

[vulture]

As far as I can see, a garrison at Miller Town 2 would have the potential to move into any town in the north in one turn, and could block any landing site south of Wittlich City (and north of Elipolis). Fast movers there should be able to reach any landing sites further north. But bear in mind that a single galley can unload in one of nine different tiles on a straight coast, and more on a concave one (e.g. A galley 777 from D'ville has 15 tiles that it could drop troops on in principle, ignoring towns) So we need to commit a fair number of troops to block all landing sites, and need to have all coastal tiles roaded (fx: taps foot waiting for email to arrive with map).

8 pikes at MT2, 6 MI and MT8 and 6 WC in MT itself should provide enough blocking power to secure the north. Possibly that is overkill, but I'm allowing for us messing up and allowing a landing force to hit the beach, when we have enough firepower to do a fair amount of damage to them - at least enough to stop them taking a town with 8 pikes in it before we can get reinforcements there. Then again, if 10 riders is the size of army that Bobians think is sufficient for a land attack...

For the south, we have more warning of course, at least until astronomy.

If we are committing of the order of 10 pikes to RP, we are going to need more units available when astronomy rolls around in order to protect the south as well as the north. We can concentrate more fast units in the south (WCs that are waiting for us to get enough cash to upgrade). If we are taking mostly MI to Bob, then we have close to 15 fast units available for landing site blocking duty, and they can be dumped in D'ville at the moment, allowing them to reach anywhere from 1 tile south of Elipolis to 1 tile north of Whirlwind. We get advance warning of any attacks further south than that at the moment, so we can react as appropriate should we need to.

[Arrian]

Ok, I kinda figured it was something like that.

Anyway, I think the vet WCs, the elite* WC and the regular med infs should be the forces we keep home to block landings (plus some pikes, of course).

The vet med infs, a bunch of our pikes, the 3 elite WCs, the horsies (upgraded to knights), and most (or all) of our cats should go over to Bob.

Vulture, I do think your proposal is a bit of overkill... but I understand the caution. I think an additional galley or two might work wonders, though, so we can block/sink incoming enemy galleys.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Research situation: I've been holding off starting research on the theory that (1) we hadn't chosen our course of action yet and (2) we could research more efficiently once Hurricane finished its library (which it just has). With the Hurricane library and our FP in Arashi now complete, at our current rate, Banking would take eight turns at a small (~+15) surplus or seven at a small (~-10) deficit. We have 616 gold, but 60 of that is committed to go to Vox.

[asleepathewheel]

What is the impact of the FP? Are things a bit better in the north? (I know this was a temporary move)

[Arrian]

So 556 gold available for use. Can you upgrade some horsies this turn, then, Nathan?

What do you think about my projection that we need ~2000 gold for the basics of this invasion?

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

By the way, the library in Hurricane puts us at first in Literacy. We don't have a huge number of libraries, but we do have them in three of our four biggest cities.