Turn 32, 2760BC

[Blake]

Seriously, I'm going to sleep soon .

Anyway I do still think we shouldn't go in too hard, it's okay for Vox to be in a panic, but we want them to be in the state where they're inclined to make mistakes, rather than resigned to defeat... because once they think they really have no chance at all in all probability they'll just turtle up... so it needs to be an uh... mangable threat, a single skirmisher plus Grog would probably qualify as that, but 2 skirmishers so soon is going to make thier position pretty hopeless.

It's like this - it's a good thing if they lose some forces breaking the choke, because then they'll be weakened enough to simply crush. But if we get an unbreakable strangehold on them, they wont even try to break it and will just stubbornly hole up.

By the way it does seem they're training a worker at the moment... either that or they're continuing to grow to size 5. If I read demographics right they are running 10f/turn (2 surplus), 5hpt and 10cpt.
The discounted Bronze Working is giving us (at 10cpt) 13beakers/t, so it will take them 13 turns to research. It seems that Vox are at most 1 turn into it.
Our skirmisher, after being created, will take 11 turns to get to the far side of The Voice.
I guess we could go into starvation to pop him out right now to give him some time to set up camp.

But anyway, the demographics numbers tell the story - Vox simply CANNOT have a worker, archer and bronze working before our skirmisher gets there, they probably plan to train a worker and then whip out the archer. But then again they might really be growing to size 5 and training archers, in which case they'll have 2 by the time Skirm gets there, but no progress on a worker.

I dunno, maybe we should pop the skirmisher out right now and send him over to The Voice (via a north-east, south-east zig-zag to keep the vox warrior moving), once he gets there he'll either have nothing to do (no worker) or nothing to stop him (no archers), I don't think he really needs another skirmisher for backup.

[Krill]

dp

[Krill]

I thought Vox was already size 5?

[Krill]

Also what if Vox have copper and we don't? Would it really be that hard to kill a lone skirm with 2 or 3 archers, and then hook up copper while our 2 weak warriors sit around twiddling their thumbs?

[Randolph]

How about only moving one (the first) skirmisher into Vox’s cultural borders, but keeping a second (and third if we have one) just out of sight? This would give Vox an incentive to bloody themselves trying to break the blockade, while having a back up to maintain the choke in case they succeed.

Of course if they have copper in their radius, I’d prefer that they turtled over risking them gaining access to axes.

[Velociryx]

That's entirely within the realm of possibility (that they have copper and we don't).

All we can do in the turns between now and the discovery of BronzeWorking is steel ourselves up for whatever the game hands us.

To that end, we need growth, a scout, and as many skirmishers as we can put to the field.

Once we have them, we certainly need to send them to Voxian lands, and the first will be on his way soon.

Once we know what the copper situation is, we'll be in a better position to know how to best deploy our forces, but yes, I agree that at a minimum, we'll need two skirmishers over there, and 1-2 warriors--preferably 3 skirms and 1 warrior, but that will mostly depend on how the situation unfolds.

In any case, I feel that the best long term investment we can make is to focus on growth, even if it means slightly slower skirmishers NOW...we have a window of opportunity here, and since we cannot kill them with 2-3 skirmishers, it seems to me that the best use of that window is to get ourselves in a position where we can crank out a steady stream of whatevers (size five gives us that).

I also think that while we don't want them turtling, the main reason NOT to deploy absolutely everything we can throw at them, as soon as we get it would be one of holding back...playing our cards close to the vest, rather than all on the table. Sure, put enough force over there to make it dicey for them, but until we know what the copper situation is, we won't have sufficient info to know how to best uses the forces we have available, IMO.

-=Vel=-

[Randolph]

Vel,
Isn’t the idea of putting three skirmishers and one warrior around their city in competition with the goal of not forcing them into a situation where they are likely to turtle? I agree with Blake that if we have that many units around their sole city there is a good chance they won’t make a serious attempt to break out, and simply lose hope and try to make life difficult for us.

There might be a good strategic reason for them to have moved their warrior back “9,” but if it really is either premature fear of a hypothetical future skirmisher, or unilateral appeasement, then Vox is already suffering from some morale [edit: added 'e' to end, must have been a Freudian slip based on the PTWDG ] problems.

[Arrian]

I don't understand that move at all. I would understand staying out of range and moving around to see if there was good defensive terrain to fortify their warrior on (seeing as the floodplains they could see are obviously NOT such terrain), but to just run away?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I'd like to get that Skirm out ASAP. I'd like to shadow Vox's roaming warrior with one of ours, recall Spiney for city defense, and send the Skirm over to Voxian land. If they DO have copper, I want the skirm over to fortify on top of it.

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

Turn 32, 2760BC

Units
Grog: 2/2, 1/2 Exp. Fortified on Vox gold
Spinebreaker: 2/2 7/10 Exp (W2). Moved 33
Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Fort in EotS

Worker: Mine (complete in 2 turns)

Science
Current: Bronze Working (10 turns)
Polytheism 134/143


Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 3) WF (2,4,8)
Growth: 3/26 (6 turns)
Production: Skirmisher (4 turns)

Diplomacy
None

Other
None

[Hot Mustard]

Gave it several hours and we got some good input here. The voices for extra food were the most numerous, which I happen to agree with. The sooner we're larger, the sooner we can crush Vox, who are not presently a real threat.

[Arrian]

Fine with me. Good job, all.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Randolph,

Yes and no...again, I'm thinking timetable here.

By the time we GET to that point (three Skirmishers and a Warrior), they will have had a corresponding amount of time to build their forces.

Ours will have to be arranged in such a way that they can gain local superiority on any tile of their choosing (this is to say that if we make good on the choke, then our forces will not be congregated into a stack, but will be spread out, occupying their best terrain so as to prevent them from using it. Thus, they could strike out from the city and overwhelm a tile, and we would not be able to respond to that with all our forces, as they're all slow movers, and some are sure to be "out of range" to counter-attack, before the survivers moved back into the city, so no...*in the timeframe we're talking about*, I don't see it as being at odds at all.

OTOH, if we magically showed up at their doorstep with that force now, this turn, damn right they'd turtle....they'd be so scared that they'd not set foot outside again, but with the force total building up gradually, and giving them time to respond, nahhh, I think they're gonna at least "get" the local tile superiority thing, no matter how scared they are.

-=Vel=-

[notyoueither]

If I don't miss my guess, we are wasting a beaker per turn by sitting at 11 comm.

I'm testing for tech devaluation. So far I can't put my finger on why we are getting 3 extra bpt. I got the 3 extra bpt whether or not I gave BW to Vox (with contact) in the sim. I got 3 bpt for free whether at 9, 10, or 11 comm. At 12 comm it increased to 4 free bpt.

This matches with our last three turns.

The message is go for multiples of 3 comm into science, and we are losing a free bpt by staying at 11 comm into science over 12.

Also, we are slowing down our growth.

[notyoueither]

Nana and Vox discovered techs this turn.

Neither could have disc BW since soldeirs increased 5000, and 1000 of that was an increase in the worst.

What is strange is that Vox got tech two turns in a row. It is less starnage considering that Vox went 15 turns with no new techs. My guess is they were on some tech when the scout incident happened and they changed to Archery when Grog was approaching. They have now switched back and finished the first tech.