An opportunity?

[DeepO]

Great chat, nye

I too think they will be going for Arashi. It sounds like they think it's merely a provincial town, defended by a few chickens. I would hold all talk about cease fire until after the next turn. It is as I said, they think they might get a lot out of not attacking us, gold, tech, maybe a city even. And, they think it will be hard for us to accept such a peace, certainly as we screamed a lot on the forum.

The 'no hill around EotS' comment was a minor slipup, I don't believe for a minute that JM was saying it was unfortunate for us. However, maybe it also signifies that they are hesitating to go for EotS, as there is no protection for 2 turns. I wouldn't be surprised if a second wave is gathering, to meet with the first one (after taking out Arashi), and to proceed to EotS. Plus, it sounds like they don't think there are more troop producing cities out there, and that if they can conquer EotS, we would be dead.

It all sounds too good to be true, so maybe this is exactly the case. Maybe JM is, as he says, not so informed on the situation. Maybe this was a carefully planned conversation, in that the information given was PR-talk, instead of Vox's real feelings. The idea that they would need to stop building immortals, and start on settlers is a hilarious one, and even a bit over the top, they can't be serious, right?

But assuming he was telling the whole truth, this will be fun. Indeed, let's see what the next turn gives, and start pounding their stack with cats. It should give them an incentive to go for our cities now, instead of planning to build settlers

DeepO

[DeepO]

As to reasons: yes the military advisor is the biggest problem. I think GoW has the same analysis problem, if we want to keep them out of our territory, we might suggest to them to check the mil advisor next turn before attacking us, as they are now weak.

As said, we have been weak, they upgraded, and so far we haven't become average again. And yes, most likely they still have more troops then us, although it will start to come very close. A WC is worth what, one third of an immortal? In reality, it has about the same strength...

Second problem is that they seem to seriously underestimate what we can build in 5 turns. They say we would outproduce them if left alone (in fact, they have been discussing cease-fire too, but I think they already decided it would be too dangerous if it would be for e.g. 10 turns, and damn right they are), but it seems they aren't aware of exactly how good we are at producing. With their 50 shields, and maximum 3 unit per turn output (if they upgrade warriors, if by some unforeseen thing they have iron connected, they can build less then 2 units each turn), they might estimate we are 50% better then that, while in reality we're 150% better. And because we can rush, it will be closer to 250% better, or over 3 times their production.

Thrid cause is our restraint at trash talking. A few days ago, Aeson posted that he wasn't going to continue, as it might turn ugly fast for one team. First thing I thought when I saw it was: Hey, we're saying here they _will_ bite dust. Then, if starting from Vox position, I realised it could for them be a lot easier to interpret that Aeson didn't want the trash talk no more because he was going to lose.
Then there is the message of Nathan, in which he says to be surprised by the amount of forces they throw at us. Well... I'm surprised too... that it wasn't double the stack we're seeing now. Now that would be a challenge!
Next Vel appears out of the blue, to 'help us out of a dire situation'. And, one of the first things he posts is a compliment to the Vox generals.
Lastly, we're not talking about killing immortals anymore, we're talking about passing GaS, and about our wet chickens, who will prevail!

I have to say, if we would have had a deliberate media campaign to make us look weak in the eyes of Vox, we couldn't have done much better. We wanted to be more humble, and don't slam Vox into the ground because we would have done things differently, but instead of appearing humble, we're appearing as the arrogant strat-masters that are starting to realise they are about to lose. That cease-fire proposal from Vox was something they asked out of pity, just like they wanted to save Lux too. You gotta love these guys, caring so much for their enemies

DeepO

[nbarclay]

DeepO, did you expect that Vox had so many immortals around before they attacked, or was it the fact that they did attack that caused you to think they probably had so many? Once the war started, we started planning in terms of Vox's having pretty big numbers, but I don't remember any of our pre-war contingency planning thinking in terms of these kinds of numbers.

That was what I was getting at in my post: not only did we not expect an attack, but we hadn't contemplated what we would do if Vox threw quite this big a force at us. So we had to develop new plans from scratch.

[DeepO]

I know what you meant, but see it from Vox's PoV. For them, it could only be interpreted as a sign of 'Wow... we caught GS totally of guard, and they are starting to realise how strong we really are'

Personally, I was not expecting those kind of numbers pre-war at all, but, like everybody here, didn't gave it much thought either. It was only the moment when they attacked Grog that I started counting, and came to a maximum of 20-25 immortals at that time. After that, there have been no surprises: at most, Vox can have 40 immortals right now, but my guess is it will be closer to 30. (plus some spears).

I was surprised that the first stack we saw was not as big as we feared, and I consider it a strategical error of them. But, they didn't know we were so close to pikes and had only one entry point to defend. So, all we can say about it is that they should have brought more troops (certainly as they have more troops) in the first wave, gambling more... playing too conservatively is not good if you want to strike one big punch to the enemy heart, or die trying.

DeepO

[Aeson]

Advancing into our territory and bypassing Arashi? What gamer would ever do that?

There are situations where bypassing a perimeter target for an interior one makes sense... mainly resources. Even then it's risky though, especially for a mostly offensive stack.

The only way I could see them doing this is if they had a map of our territory and were heading to split Arashi and Tempest. Their first stack could be in relatively good shape in 3 turns (they probably wouldn't expect Catapults, at least not many), maybe down 3 HP's. They won't see that it's Catapults... if they find units down a hp they might think we tried attacking and lost, so it could end up a confidence boost. Their second stack just coming up to Arashi would put us in a bit of a bind. Of course waiting to combine the stacks would be best for them in any case.

Don't think they have the map, so they probably throw 3-4 Immortals at our Pikes and then wait for reinforcements once they see they are losing more than winning. The RNG could make a big difference though, if they get 'lucky' in the first couple fights it may draw them into a full attack (which would probably end up as an unlucky result for them). If they get unlucky, they may only attack once or twice.

[DeepO]

Even if they don't scratch a pike in the first attack, and promote him to elite, they won't stop right then, I think they should be unlucky with 3 or 4 units before stopping. Or, they would scratch 2 consecutive pikes, promoting them, and getting a fresh one each time, that would be enough to make them stop.

The only thing I hope for is that they don't get too lucky, in that their first 3 immortals take out 3 pikes...

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and cats: we posted on the forum that we had cats, in the hopes of them not passing Arashi. I'm sure they noticed.

DeepO

[alva]

Do cities give ZOC ability?
It does, doesn't it?

[nbarclay]

Once Vox starts injuring our pikes, it's going to be very hard for them to cut their losses. If they keep attacking, they have a hope that our defenses will cycle back around to a wounded pike that can then be taken out more easily. But if they call off their attack, our wounded pikes get to heal before they can attack again, so they'll have lost units attacking our pikes for nothing. That's doubly true if they don't take our defensive bonuses sufficiently into consideration in their initial thinking.

[notyoueither]

I think everyone is familiar with the combat calcs. I don't think we should take anything for granted.

[nbarclay]

I'm not taking anything for granted, but they sound awfully sure of themselves compared with what I would expect if they know they're facing defenders with an effective defense value of greater than six versus their immortals' attack value of four. In any case, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[notyoueither]

Actually, the cfc Combat Calc shows a 54% chance for 7 pips of Immortal to overcome a Pike in our circumstances. I'm not sure how they will look at the odds, but that don't look too bad from the POV of someone who is Strong to our Weak.

OTOH, how many fresh Pikes will they see, how fast, and how many of their units will they be prepared to bash upon the walls.

[Aeson]

Aye, their odds aren't that bad (well, not as bad as they look) if they go through with it and attack with their whole stack... whether they realize that almost all their kills come at the second half of their stack or not is the question. Of course, we could have 10 Pikes in there for all they know (if we had gone mostly Spears instead of WC's we would)... and their stack would have almost no chance of even denting our defense even if they continue. So it's a tough call for them at around attack 4.

If they go through our 5 pikes, we can almost be sure they will attack with all 11. Makes it a bit interesting as the last 5-6 fights are all mostly 50:50, and so things can really swing one way or the other fast.

[Theseus]

Note: Our WCs in Arashi sould NOT be fortified.

Correct?

[notyoueither]

Will they retreat if not? I've never seen a unit retreat from a city.