Turn 65, 1440BC

[Ennet]

Woody I, let Grog go down gloriusly -again.

[Arrian]

They slipped an archer around us to the north?? When did that happen?

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

Oh - and it looks like they're determined to kill Grog - taking another archer out of the city.

[Krill]

Well, if they are going to throw archers at him until he is dead, then woody1 for sure; more archers he kills the less we have to kill later.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Krill
Well, if they are going to throw archers at him until he is dead, then woody1 for sure; more archers he kills the less we have to kill later.

Agreed - I change my vote.

[Arrian]

It really should only take two archers... the first will likely lose, but wound Grog pretty bad, the second will take him out. But as before, woodyI all the way for the best possible odds.

I think we have a concensus on that.

...

HM, you've played most of the turns... were you aware they got an archer out into the open like that?

-Arrian

[Krill]

IIRC they were shadowing grog when he went through Vox territory the first time; they could have sent one up north the moment grog left, and we wouldn't have known about it.

[Blake]

Wow lol they really are going for the moral victories here, rather than to cause us as much real harm as possible. On the other hand it does mean that our policy of not putting TOO many units into their territory is paying off.

As to how the archer got out - they must have pulled a sly one and done a "shuffle" through the forest and onto the forested hill - each turn we'd have seen the same archer count, but they actually trained one and shuffled. It would certainly have worked and while it would be detectable by fortify numbers, we didn't attempt such detection.
It also explains WHERE that production went... I thought they must have been working on something more expensive but they actually just slipped an archer out. Also pretty clever keeping that archer to the north hidden until they actually needed to spring the trap - if the warrior+archer had killed off Grog then the Archer would've been free to continue over to bother us.
(edit: it's also possible that it's an archer they sent out much earlier which has now returned, but I don't think that works as well... it would've had to go to at least banana borders then returned home, that's a long return journey)

It is nice to see that Vox have been doing something with their time other than just awaiting their fate (even if those actions don't improve their situation).

[Hot Mustard]

One of the benefits of not naming your units, I suppose. (Though you could do the same thing with named units - renaming them all - but it would take a bunch of work.)

It may also have been possible for them to have sent it north before they built the rest of the Archers - around the time when we went East with Grog.

[DeepO]

That northern archer might have been an attempt to quickly run out with a settler. With Grog gone, an settler can go by undetected. It would make our lifes a little less comfortable if they could change a second city, even if the end result isn't going to get changed.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, if you promote a unit, you still keep the fortify bonus, right? I thought I saw some ghosts where promotion sets foritify to 0% again, but can't remember to be sure. It's been a while since I last played a game.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Right then...

Turn 65, 1440BC

Units

Warriors
Grog: 2/2, 2/2 Exp. Forted (Choke), promoted to woodsman I.

Spinebreaker: 2/2 8/10 Exp (W2). Move 7-7, hit the coast.

Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Forted (EotS)

Skirmishers
Zidane: 4/4, 0/2 Exp Forted (Choke)
Materazzi: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Forted (Choke)
Beckham: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Moved 3
Cantona: 4/4 0/2 Exp. Fort (Winestrom)

Worker I: Cottage (4 turns)
Worker II: Farm (1 turn) (1 turn of Road done on this tile) - farm complete, worker w/o moves.

Science
Current (21/turn): Mathematics (40/357) (13 turns)
Polytheism 134/143

Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 5)
WF: 1, 7, 44, 47, 78 - same
Growth (-/turn): 0/30
Production (12/turn): Settler (65/100) (3 turns)

Winestrom (Size 1)
WF: 4 - same
Growth (4/turn): 18/22 (1 turns)
Production (1/turn): Skirmisher (6/25) (19 turns)

-Arrian

[Ennet]

They might have run around with it when they abandoned the gold hill? Didnt they move back an archer from there?

[Arrian]

DeepO - I promoted him and hit fortify and double-checked just that, and the game says 25% fort bonus is in effect.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I'm vaguely concerned about that northern Voxian archer. Our next city will be the second floodplains city, NE of EotS, right? It does not at this time have a defender. Winestrom is building a skirmisher, pitifully slowly. EotS could punch one out after the settler is done.

If they send that archer westward, we will need to defend our cities and our worker.

-Arrian