Turn 73, 1120BC

[Krill]

And 9 works for Cantona.

[Hot Mustard]

Re: Turn 73, 1120BC

Turn 73, 1120BC

Units

Warriors
Spinebreaker: 0.5/2 9/10 Exp (W2). Heal (8 turns)
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. Forted (Choke)
Cantona: 4/4 0/2 Exp. Moved 9
Schumacher: 4/4 0/2 Exp. Forted on Hill

Axemen
Axemen I*: Forted on desert Hill - hub point

Workers
Worker I: Cottaging (2 turns)
Worker II: Farming (4 turns)


Science
Switch to 100%

Current (28/turn +10?) Polytheism complete, start Masonry (3 turns)
Mathematics (235/357)

Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 5)
WF: 1, 44, 74, 7, 78 (same)
Growth (-/turn): 0/30
Production (12/turn): Axeman (26/35) (1 turn)

Winestrom (Size 2)
WF: 4, 7 (same)
Growth (5/turn): 10/24 (3 turns)
Production (1/turn): Granary (19/60) (41 turns)

Taz City (Size 1)
WF: 2 (same)
Growth (3/turn): 12/22 (4 turns)
Production (1/turn): Skirmisher (4/25) (21 turns)



For the moment, the forested hill is clear.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Krill
BTW I wasn't joking about throwing Zidane at the archer in the Voice. If he dents the archer enoug hthis war would be over this turn, and considering what those 3 skirms are actually doing...we won't actually lose anything if Zidane just dies. Move the other skirm up next to the city...and just shuffle this axe up after the next one has been built.

Unless they have an archer about to, or ready to, complete.

[Krill]

Odds of 2 archers killing 1 skirm on forest = odds of 2 skirms killing that archer. Can't argue it both ways.

And even then, if they waste 2 archers to kill one skirm then we win anyway. Two less archers to kill in the Voice when the stack arrives.

[Krill]

The problem is that those 3 skirms are not doing anything apart from sitting on tiles and costing us upkeep. Vox aren't even bothering to garrison the Voice anymore, they are just leaving some archers in their lands. Why are we leaving the skirms there? To stop Vox from improving their land? To stop them moving units into our land that we would slaughter anyway?

[Hot Mustard]

Maybe start a military [thread] discussion on the use of the skirms? (Because so far we're not seeing discussion on your ideas each turn in the turn threads.)

[Randolph]

Originally posted by Krill
Why are we leaving the skirms there? To stop Vox from improving their land?

You say it so scornfully, but isn't that the whole point of choking? We deny them economic growth while we grow and build a military. Every turn that we deny them two shields (which is what I believe we are doing IIRC), we effectively kill 2/25 of an archer, without any significant risk to our units; And we prevent improvements near our units; and we tie up a few of their units. That sounds like a much more useful application of our resources then a hopeless role of the dice.

[Blake]

Meh the odds of winning are pretty low.

If we throw both skirmishers at the Voice we have ~20% chance of winning.
If we hedge our bets we can view it as sacrificing one skirmisher to have a ~15% chance of winning with the second (something like 70% no-fight, 15% fight and die, 15% chance fight and win).

To me, the odds don't really look that good. I'd probably go for one in four, but one in six? ehhh.

Units do have utility. 2 Skirmishers is nearly a worker. Our attack force will be mostly pults, so we will need defensive units for city garrisons. Under HRule they'll provide +1 happy, probably needed. While the benefit of an individual skirmisher is fairly small, the odds of this paying off are also fairly small.

In any event they'll be useful when it comes time to take down the Voice, we'll likely need mop-up units to prevent Vox living an extra turn. It's also possible that we'll be able to indirect the return of some Vox units by placing our skirmishers north-west of The Voice.

[Hot Mustard]

Not to mention that they can't get a worker out into the field safely...

[Randolph]

Originally posted by Blake
Meh the odds of winning are pretty low.

If we throw both skirmishers at the Voice we have ~20% chance of winning.
If we hedge our bets we can view it as sacrificing one skirmisher to have a ~15% chance of winning with the second (something like 70% no-fight, 15% fight and die, 15% chance fight and win).

I was actually thinking the odds were lower then this, but at 20% I'd say it might actually be a reasonable risk.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Krill
The problem is that those 3 skirms are not doing anything apart from sitting on tiles and costing us upkeep. Vox aren't even bothering to garrison the Voice anymore, they are just leaving some archers in their lands. Why are we leaving the skirms there? To stop Vox from improving their land? To stop them moving units into our land that we would slaughter anyway?

Those are good tiles, for unimproved ones.

We are choking them, the object of which is to slow down the enemies ability to produce while we build like bunnies, right?

[Krill]

In the simplest possible sense, yes. But there isn't any point gauding tiles that they simply can't use...they have 4 pop. They are using the two plains forests, the cow and the flood plain. Theyare the best tiles that Vox can use. If The Voice grows to size 5 they would actually get more use to pop rush than worj any other tile.

If vox want to improve those tiles with a worker what are we going to do about it? Vox have enough units to hold any single tile and the capital, two tiles if they want to use a single archer in their cap. The fact that we have skirms is a moot point, we would lose those skirms to archers after we tried to take any tile with an improvement on it.

If Vox want to pop out a settler, what are we going to do about that? We won't actually see the new city, we don't have any troops to even go searching fo it.

The point is those 3 skirms as of now aren;t doing anything. Blake raises a good point about them actually being worth something after the war but for hapiness purposes we could just cut copper and then spam warriors, and I'd say that sacrificing one skirm for the possibility of becoming the game pre-eminent power is a pretty good trade, considering what that one skirm is doing right now.

[notyoueither]

nm. I think I misunderstand what krill is proposing.