Turn 93, 710 BC

[Aeson]

No other troops could have made it to Dissidentville by now. Grog's early warning guarantees it.

GoW is a slight risk to be misleading us, but we will know in 2 turns if the information they are feeding is correct or not. At that point we can choose to go offensive or defensive mode.

[DeepO]

Actually, we should have thought this would happen, this is useless information. The attack force has just left sight, and won't be spotted again until they moved onto the spines. They are currently blocked from sight by the mountain, and will be gone before the galley can move. It could still have moved later though (at least 1 MP remaining on that galley), I hope Gow has another picture to send.

DeepO

[DeepO]

This also explains why we have not seen them on the sines yet: that spear and 3 immortals are 1 tile behind the main force, so can only reach the spines next turn. So, the rest has just waited...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Scratch those last 2 comments, Grog should have spotted them earlier

DeepO

[Aeson]

1 of the sentry Warriors would have made it into Dissidentville this turn for upgrade. The other is still a turn behind.

[Aeson]

I didn't see the image in the mailbox, thanks for posting it Sir Ralph.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
Scratch those last 2 comments, Grog should have spotted them earlier

DeepO

I'm not so sure, wouldn't a group to the 6 of Eli be hidden from grog? That would only be, if I am looking correctly, 6 squares from d'ville.

I think this group are the reserves, I think the main force is already in D'ville.

But again, this is speculation, we will know for certain when we see the next turn, if they move on us.

[nbarclay]

The swords don't work this turn if Vox moves the spear onto the unimproved grassland between the mountains and Monsoon.

And I just don't see that much chance of Vox's bypassing Arashi. That's something the AI does, but it's hard to imagine even a marginally competent human player making that mistake - especially if he knows cats will be pounding him along the way. And if Vox does bypass Arashi, consider what WCs could do attacking and then retreating out of range to heal if we can keep Vox off the mountains. Even WCs that retreat after doing a hit point or two of damage would accomplish about as much as a cat can be expected to, and while some WCs would die, more would win outright.

In any case, building a plan around what happens if the enemy does something stupid does not seem like a good idea. Time, roads, and the ability to heal battle damage are all on our side if Vox tries to bypass Arashi. So I think it's best to gear our deployment toward defending Arashi, and if Vox tries to go around that defense, we can take advantage of their foolishness without needing cats.

[Aeson]

We can use our Warrior to block that move if we want to.

[DeepO]

GoW is before Vox in team order, right? I assumed that this picture was taken right after we sent last turn, so that immortal on the mountain is still eliminator. If so, we should still need to see Vox's troops. Otherwise, they have passed already.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The swords don't work this turn if Vox moves the spear onto the unimproved grassland between the mountains and Monsoon.

And I just don't see that much chance of Vox's bypassing Arashi. That's something the AI does, but it's hard to imagine even a marginally competent human player making that mistake - especially if he knows cats will be pounding him along the way. And if Vox does bypass Arashi, consider what WCs could do attacking and then retreating out of range to heal if we can keep Vox off the mountains. Even WCs that retreat after doing a hit point or two of damage would accomplish about as much as a cat can be expected to, and while some WCs would die, more would win outright.

In any case, building a plan around what happens if the enemy does something stupid does not seem like a good idea. Time, roads, and the ability to heal battle damage are all on our side if Vox tries to bypass Arashi. So I think it's best to gear our deployment toward defending Arashi, and if Vox tries to go around that defense, we can take advantage of their foolishness without needing cats.

I agree with Nathan above.

I do think cats would help the defense of Arashi nicely.

[Aeson]

We don't lose anythign by leaving Monsoon open. Our forces aren't out of place... they are just in place a turn earlier.

Sure Vox probably won't go for it with more than a Spear. So we don't need to defend it. If their Spear goes for it, kill the Spear (we can get our Spear back into Monsoon if they send it W anyways). That's one less Spear.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
(wonder what they think about that GoW galley?)

Let's hope that they fear that it is carrying troops and leave two immortals to take care of GoW's troops as soon as they land.

[asleepathewheel]

Can we send the save soon, I'm getting anxious to see what happens next.


Oh, is Typhoon still building a galley? Could we spare a pair of swords to go north to raid the homeland of vox? I know, I know, probably not. But after the next turn, we will have a good idea of their force and what we need in defense, perhaps after the initial repulsion then.

[nbarclay]

What I'm hoping is that if we leave our spear in Monsoon as long as possible, Vox will deploy immortals in a direction that's good for taking Monsoon but bad for taking Arashi. That buys us time, and depending on what forces Vox has that we don't see, time could be something very valuable.

The question is, what advantage do we gain by abandoning Monsoon sooner rather than later?