Holding Arashi 9

[Theseus]

OK, so our northwestern discussions break down into:

Attacks on Arashi, Monsoon, or both (or a bypass)
SoD versus split forces

And the latest screenshot is the one with 4 Immortals 88 of Arashi and [EDIT] 8 more 889 of Arashi.

Yes?

[EDIT: Corrected by Aeson below]

[Aeson]

There are 3 Immortals and a reg Spear 88 of Arashi, and 4 vet Immortals, 4 reg Immortals, 889.

[Arrian]

What exactly do we have at our disposal in and around Arashi when we open the turn?

The Infocenter, as FP said, is not up to date (you can see the difference in the screenshots - we have pikes, not spears, there are no units "6" of Monsoon, etc).

From what I can tell, this is what we've got in and around Arashi:

3 vet pikes
2 vet swords
2 regular swords
2 regular warriors
4 vet WCs, 1 elite WC

We also seem to get 2 new WCs this turn, but they will spend their turn moving toward the front.

Am I miscalculating?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I'd love to manage 1 pikeman + 1 med inf upgrade (reg warrior) if possible. If not, 2 med inf upgrades.

We need hitting power as much as we need defense.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

We've already upgraded all our spears to pikes. So the only way we'll be spending gold on pikes is if we get a chance to use short-rushes to finish one or two of them this turn.

My own feeling is that defense is our paramount concern at this particular moment. If we can make it so Vox has to either attack large forces of pikes on mountains or move through flatlands, they're dead (barring exceptionally bad luck with the RNG) because time and mobility are on our side. But if Vox can blast through our defenses on a mountain, they can hurt us without giving our offensive units (especially our WCs) good odds for preemptive strikes.

[DeepO]

If the ND deals goes along as planned, we should have over 320 gold to spend on rushing, if we want to. That's 80 shields we can rush, as long as we don't rush empty queues. Although I don't particularly like upgrading reg warriors to med infs, we maybe need to as fast as we can safely do it. Also, even if I agree that our pikes are highest priority, we should have some way of attacking large amounts of immortals on mountains. Getting some catapults would certainly help, med inf against a healthy immortal on a mountain is a bit too expensive for us. And we only have 6 mountain attackers atm.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

If we intend to hold Arashi 9 or die trying, the warriors are probably going to be the only units we get a chance to upgrade this turn. All our swords are needed as defenders, either on Arashi 9 or around Hurricane.

[notyoueither]

We should be able to rush 2 pikes this turn, Nathan.

[nbarclay]

Are you talking about the partial rushes during the build process at the beginning of the turn if we can catch the city views in time, or something else?

[notyoueither]

Something else. We can seed Arashi with a worker, or 2, disbanded and rush to a WC, then switch to a Pike which would complete the next turn.

Tempest may not need a rush, but can do likewise without needing any seeding if we start 2 from a Pike.

[Aeson]

I think we should upgrade at least one of the Swords in Hurricane to a Med Inf this turn, possibly 2 (a vet and a reg, so we can have a vet Sword fortified 6 of Sandstorm so our vet Med Inf wouldn't be the first to die if they hit that way).

If Vox blows through our Pike that will be 8 of Hurricane, we need to be able to kill their units while on a Mountain. Otherwise we face a sticky situation where we have to defend Hurricane, our Workers 6 of Sandstorm, and our Iron (we can leave this open for 1 turn, as they can't move onto it and pillage it the same turn). We just don't have the units to do that.

They will likely have a full hp Immortal, one at about half health, and the other one dead. 2 Med inf should be able to kill the full health, and 2 swords get the low health one.

[Aeson]

I think we will be able to rush Monsoon's build (a Cat?) because Arashi will finish it's walls before it gets to Monsoon.

I'm not sure if there is anyway to get into Arashi before the walls finish. I can't figure out any way to do it in 1.21f (don't have a 1.14f install currently). Anyone know of a way?

[DeepO]

Yeah, Monsoon should be rushable no matter what. A cat sounds nice, as said before, as long as we can be sure to get it to Arashi or Arashi 9 safely.

As to disbanding workers to see rushes: please only as a last resort, those workers are worth a lot more then the 10 shields invested in them. 40 gold would still be a super price to buy them for, 40 gold spent more on rushes is worth saving a worker from destruction, IMO. Of course, if we don't have the 40 gold, and need it immediately, there is no other choice left.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I hate the thought of disbanding workers too, but if it comes to losing a worker or a population-4 city (Arashi), I'll take sacrificing the worker. We'll have to see how things look when we get the turn.

[nbarclay]

Aeson, we don't have to kill the immortals around Hurricane to win, just stop them long enough for reinforcements to arrive. I think having our swordsmen fortified is more useful than upgrading to medieval infantry in that regard.

If we have two regular and one vet swordmen fortified on Sandstorm 6, Vox would need some pretty good luck to break through in a single turn - three victories in three combats, two with odds slightly against them. Penetrating Hurricane 8 with a pikeman and a fortified regular swordsman on it would also be difficult, and would leave our swordsmen on Sandstorm 6 in a position to either attack or move into Hurricane or onto the iron. Either way, we can have our first EotS pikeman ready to defend whichever city might be threatened. So with reasonable luck, Vox's surviving forces will be forced to lick their wounds a bit, giving us time to build up a level of defensive force they can't penetrate.

Regarding the iron, we could move our WC 6-9 from Arashi onto it if we don't need the unit to attack this turn. That would prevent a Voxian naval landing, and Vox can't reach the tile by land without going through Hurricane 8. After two more moves by us, our galleys will be far enough north that Vox won't be able to land on the iron at all without our seeing it coming.