Turn 93, 710 BC

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
We can have 4 pikes ready at the tile 9 from Arashi, wouldn't that be enough to force 20 immortals of the mountain? The problem is, though, that if they move to the other side of the river, we would get disadvantaged (better defense) when attacking them from Arashi. They would to, of course, but if I was Vox with 20 immortals, I would first of all try to advance to Arashi (it's bigger, plus has a better access route), not Monsoon. Then, when faced with 4 pikes, I would go over the river. Next turn, I would take all I have, and either advance on SandStorm, or go for Arashi anyway. Keeping wondering around in enemy territory is not something you want to do with 4 attack units picking away at you.

But the thing is, what do they know about our cities? We know they can see monsoon, as they have named it. But what else can they see?

Another vox mistake: they should have sent out scouts. They have no clue of anthying other than monsoon and EoS (I think)

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, Don't foret one thing: Vox has more cash then it can use. One very good way of investing it would be in investigating cities they can see, so a trap in Arashi might not work exactly as planned if they see what is coming. Better to leave some units out of our cities, out of sight, but in reach for as long as possible.

DeepO

How do we know what the treasury of Vox is? I assume that RP is at least feeding them some bank, as it would be per their nature. Now in a GA, they can make some more, but I don't know what we're facing. They could be saving it to upgrade spears (har-har) or more warriors to immortals. probably be too pricey to do more than a couple I would think

[DeepO]

Re: cats: sure, I like those. But can we really build them now, instead of going for spears first?

Asleep: They know Monsoon and Arashi because they can currently see them (they have a spear on a mountain 2 tiles away), further they know there is a city at the space sandstorm is, if I'm not mistaken, because they should be able to see the start of its cultural borders. Further, they know EotS, of course, but that's it.

They should send out scouts, but any scout would be killed immediately. They could send their galleys, though, to have at least some scouting done.

Treasury: they had roughly 10 warriors to be upgraded, and can't use gold in any other way in game (except for trades). Further, they have been at 100% tax for at least 20 turns or so, after we got Polytheism they said they were starting to gather cash. That should be good for some 400 gold in itself.

Add to that what they have gotten from selling Monotheism, and possibly republic, and you get to another 600-700 gold (GoW indicated 225 gold for mono, both RP and ND will have received similar deals. Lego got Mono for 70 or so gold).
Last income: they have gained 95 from us the moment we started the war. And currently, their GA is at least giving some better commerce.

What did they paid for in the last 20 turns? well, upgrades for 10 warriors, meaning 400 gold. Probably 200 or so gold for the WM, maybe as part of the mono deal. And that's it...

Counting it all up, and they would have some 500 gold at least, most likely more. And investigating a city isn't that expensive if it's not too big.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, GoW asked somewhere if Vox would pay back whatever they got from GoW, in case they would conquer Port isolation. So, there would be some more gold going to Vox's coffers there.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by DeepO
Counting it all up, and they would have some 500 gold at least, most likely more. And investigating a city isn't that expensive if it's not too big.

DeepO

Ah, add gold from RP and you have quite a lot.

What I would do then, if I were Vox, would be, taking into consideration the pathetic infrastructure (shield production) and large bank account, to sever the iron connectoin, build a ton of cheap warriors, then blow the bank on the upgrades.

There is no way they could outproduce us if they were doing immortals, but if they did cheap warriors, then upgrade, then they would be better.

Of course, the key is to hold the iron deposit and road, and keep the ability to rebuld the connection.

[Aeson]

Monsoon is building a Temple. We are likely to lose Monsoon anyways... so it should switch to a unit of some sort.

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

Vox investigating cities with their gold is the best thing that can come from it. Much better than having that gold in RP's hands building infrastructure or upgrading units. Diplomatic missions are not available while at war with the target civ until spy's (at least not in single player). So anything Vox knows about our cities they knew the turn they set up the embassy to the turn they attacked us. They can't see what we are doing now.

[Aeson]

Also you can't investigate a city that you can't see on the map. So at most they could have investigated Sandstorm, Arashi, Monsoon, and Tempest(?).

That doesn't really give them much idea of what we are capable of.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Aeson
Also you can't investigate a city that you can't see on the map. So at most they could have investigated Sandstorm, Arashi, Monsoon, and Tempest(?).

That doesn't really give them much idea of what we are capable of.

Can you run your scenario from Vox's perspective to see exactly what they can see of our land, or would that be too difficult or impossible.I'm thinking they dont' know the names of sandstorm or tempest (and therefore coudlnt investigate them.

[Aeson]

I really have no idea how far S they explored, other than that they never actually saw Hurricane or EotS.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Aeson
I really have no idea how far S they explored, other than that they never actually saw Hurricane or EotS.

I think their spear's location is the furthest south and their immortals last position was the furthest south that they've progressed, but don't quote me on that.

[Harovan]

There's a intelligence picture from GoW in the GS mailbox

[nbarclay]

Keep in mind that catapults are wheeled, so we'll really just have one mountain tile in what we expect to be the main theater of operations that we can bombard Vox from without having cats and their defenders on less defensible terrain. And that tile is far enough north that we won't have much in the way of cats in time to make use of it. That limits cats' value if Vox tries to bypass Arashi, and I seriously doubt that cats would do as much good as WCs defending against a straight-in attack.

If we position WCs outside Arashi and outside Vox's line of sight, they give us an ace in the hole. An "investigate city" operation won't tell Vox about them, yet they'll be in striking range. If we can pummel Vox's attack force a bit outside Arashi with WC and medieval infantry strikes, and then face them with three pikemen and other miscellaneous units defending the city (with walls, on a hill), I think we stand a chance of breaking their attack there.

And does anyone really want to bet against Vox's choosing a straight-in attack on the closest major city?

Regarding leaving Monsoon undefended, I'd rather not invite Vox to walk into it with a single spearman. That's not enough of a diversion to be worthwhile. If we can kill spears when they move onto our roads, we can leave our spear in Monsoon stay for up to two turns and still get him to Arashi in time for upgrade (using the trick of having him move in with his movement exhausted but shift-Uing another pikeman). With a little luck, Vox will send some immortals in that city's direction if they don't know what's there. (The down side to planning to defend the Arashi area against pillaging spearmen is that we'd have to attack with regular swords before upgrading them to medieval infantry. On the other hand, victory lets us withdraw and heal/upgrade and means one less spear defending Vox's immortals when they make their move.))

And I still don't like the idea of setting up a situation where we only have two shots at Vox's eastern vet immortal - and one of those with a wounded elite. That gives him probably around a 25% chance of surviving to continue to plague us - much higher than that if we refuse to commit our elite unless the immortal is already seriously injured. There is an enormous advantage to outnumbering an opponent and being able to ensure that if one unit causes damage, another can exploit the damage, and another can exploit any additional damage the second unit can cause if the second fails to achieve victory.

Nathan

[DeepO]

Monsoon would be the ideal place to rush a catapult if we have the cash for it. Our reserves are going to be build up quite easily, so we could spend all we have on rushes we otherwise would not commit mone to. If we can keep Arashi, we don't need to retake it later.

Tempest: Vox was never able to spot that place, so it can't be investigated.

I agree that it won't give them a good idea on our production, however, if we later think on using Arashi as a support center for traps surrounding it, investigating could work very well. But indeed, it's better that they investigate us, instead of giving the gold to others.

BTW, the gold Vox is currently getting from RP is already included in that rough estimate of mine, as it would be payment for their techs. So Vox has no access to the full amount yet. They could agree to buy Monarchy from RP, though...

Last BTW: Nathan, you posted above that Hurricane only needed 10% lux, because of Vox attacking us, that's not true, is it? I thought WW was not a part of WW, and this would be a WW thing. Without it, no citizens would get happy if attacked, so that should come from the GA increase in commerce only, right?

DeepO

[DeepO]

Monsoon's defender: I'm not sure. Would Vox move it's spear towards Monsoon if it was not defended? In that case, it would be easily dealt with with a couple of WCs, which is another unit down, and another possible chance for promotion. If so, moving the spear towards Arashi could be worth more then trying to kill the immortal in the East. That one can't attack at the same instance as the main troop, AFAIK

DeepO

[Theseus]

Things I'd like to see:

All of our Warriors upgraded. We should build some more vet Swords though, just in case and for offense upon Feudalism (don't forget, our own march north should be on teh Spinebreakers too).

Pile as many WCs into the northeastern valley as we can... the two that are 6 from Arashi now, and more on the next turn. We want to kill any Immortals that are near-term accessible there, delaying / degrading their main attack, and otherwise force Vox onto and then off of the Spinebreakers.

A fortified Spear 9 from Arashi. If we can get that mountain roaded in time, that becomes our forward base. A fort would be cool, although by no means necessary. By virtue of having offensive tiles on BOTH the mountain tiles and in Arashi, we create a larger killzone.

I think Walls for Arashi are not necessary, as the goal should be preventing Vox from ever having an opportunity to attack it.

1-2 cats at most, from the non-barracks towns. All towns go military except for absolutely required infrastructure. Consider some poprushing.

Later, Pikes and MedI for the attack on D-ville and the isthmus town, and WCs for all else.

[nbarclay]

I could doublecheck when I get home, but I'm pretty sure happiness is higher than gold and furs alone can account for. And come to think of it, I'm practically positive I got a happiness boost in the Euro-PBEM as a result of Alex's attacking me. (You might want to open your own Euro-PBEM save if you have it handy to see how your happiness is being affected by my having attacked you.)

It is entirely possible that the happiness boost that comes being attacked exists in MP but that the negative effect of war on happiness does not. (By the way, I'm pretty sure I've seen happiness boosts in SP when I was attacked while in a government that doesn't suffer war weariness.)

Nathan