Turn 48, 2120BC

[Hot Mustard]

Turn 48, 2120BC

Units

Warriors
Grog: 2/2, 1/2 Exp. Fort ?
Spinebreaker: 1.7/2 8/10 Exp (W2). Heal (1 turns)
Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Fort in EotS

Skirmishers
Zidane: 4/4, 0/2 Exp Forted
Materazzi: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Fort ?
Beckham: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Move 9

Worker: Mine (3 turns)

Science
Current (13/turn +1): Agriculture (85/85) complete, start Pottery (9/114)
Polytheism 134/143

Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 5)
WF: same (4, 8, 7, 87,9)
Growth (-/turn): 0/30
Production (9+2/turn): Worker 42/60, complete in 2 turns
Culture (2/turn): 92/100, expand in 4 turns (will include Copper)

[Hot Mustard]

What should be a boring turn has something unexpected: the Vox warrior on the Plain Hill (watching Grog) has disappeared. It may have gone scouting, and could find Banana. Should we give chase?

Also, The Voice is using the Flood Plains now, along with the Cows and 41 of the city. Our next Skirmisher will be in play in 3 turns - shall we head to the 41 tile? Are we choking the appropriate tiles?

I'll give a few hours for response to the the bolded question before playing the turn as planned (forting Grog).

[DeepO]

we should try to keep an eye on the warrior... not because they can discover banana, but because they could try something in our lands. However, can't we use spinebreaker for that? Grog is blocking one of the best tiles.

As to which tiles to block: the fp is also one of their best tiles. But as long as we don't have enough units to block more forests, it's only gaining them 1 commerce. It might be a good idea to get a skirm over there now, though, so that it can fortify to 25% before they get any ideas.

DeepO

[Hot Mustard]

After healing, Spinebreaker will continue to explore the area around Banana-land. He'll come back eventually, but we can't know when.

Are you recommending moving the Skirm on the forest at Voice-4 to the FP?

[Hot Mustard]

Re: Turn 48, 2120BC

Turn 48, 2120BC

Units

Warriors
Grog: 2/2, 1/2 Exp. Forted
Spinebreaker: 1.7/2 8/10 Exp (W2). Heal (1 turn)
Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Fort in EotS

Skirmishers
Zidane: 4/4, 0/2 Exp Forted
Materazzi: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Forted
Beckham: 4/4, 0/2 Exp. Moved 9

Worker: Mine (3 turns)

Science
Current (13/turn +1): Agriculture (85/85) complete, started Pottery (9/114)
Polytheism 134/143

Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 5)
WF: same (4, 8, 7, 87,9)
Growth (-/turn): 0/30
Production (9+2/turn): Worker 42/60, complete in 2 turns
Culture (2/turn): 92/100, expand in 4 turns (will include Copper)

[Mudhut]

I guess I see the forest grassland tile 4 of The Voice as being pretty important -> keeps our forces all together, you know? If we give up that tile and Vox take it with an Archer (or two) then it's hard to keep our forces North and South of the city together.

What are we trying to block, exactly? I seem to remember this being resolved somewhere else, but can't find it. I mean, we want to block their "best" tiles, but "best" depends on how you value food vs hammers vs coins in this particular situation.

My subjective rating of their "best" tiles:
01-the floodplains (3/0/1 - there is 1 of these)
02-the plains gold hill (2/0/2 - also because of risk of building mine - 1 of these)
03-the plains cow (2/1/0 - also because of risk of building pasture - 1 of these)
04-the forested grassland (2/1/0 - there are 3 of these)
05-the forested plains (1/2/0 - there are 2 of these)
06-the grassland river (2/0/1 - there are 6 of these)
07-the river plains hill (0/2/1 - there is 1 of these)
08-the grassland hill (1/1/0 - there is 1 of these)
09-the non-river grassland (2/0/0 - there is 1 of these)
10-the non-river plains (1/1/0 - there are 3 of these)

Now, if we have three skirmishers and one warrior (which we will have in a few turns time!) then we need to block the four best tiles, which would be: the fp, gold hill, cows and a grassland forest.

BUT there's really no point blocking the cows while there is plains forest unblocked, is there? So Grog may as well stay where he is, blocking that. This is good because it's a turn away from the Voice.

So the question really becomes how do we recapture the gold hill from The Vox? Here's a plan as a starting point:
1-We move two skirmishers (Zidane and Materazzi) to the tile 2 of the voice, then we'd threaten the gold hill. I mean, the first Skirm would die, but then the second would win, would it not (anybody got the exact math?)
2-This would force Vox to move their archer currently 3 of The Voice to the gold hill, if they want to keep it.
3-Then we could move one skirm across the river 6 tyo the plains forest. With skirms in each of these locations, they can't ever reinforce the gold hill.
4-Then we just wait till Beckham arrives (or possibly one more skirm after that?) and attack the gold hill in force.

OK, that's a starting point, let's discuss.

[Arrian]

The cow tile is just a grassland forest during the choke. There's very little chance they'll dare try and pasture it.

The gold mine is slightly different, as archers get an extra defensive bonus on hills (plus the usual 25% bonus). So it's possible they might try to mine that.

But they've already got an archer up on that hill, and we're not going to waste the hammers on getting them off of it. The gold hill, therefore, is also off my list.

So is the plains forest tile next to the gold hill, for the same reason (already claimed by Voxian archer, not worth attacking).

That leaves the floodplains and all forest tiles not already claimed. We're covering all but one of the available forest tiles already. I say the next tile we want to cover is the floodplains.

By doing so, we do several things:

1) cut off their best food tile, and also cut their commerce slightly
2) Offer some protection for Grog: this way, in order to get to him (and the plains forest he is covering), they have to march past a skirmisher on flat ground, exposing them to the possibility of a battle in which we will have the odds edge.
3) Possibly tempt them into attacking the skirm(s) forted on the floodplains. In order to do that, they would either have to attack across the river, which should result in nasty odds, or they would need to move their forces to either Voice6 or Voice9 first... again exposing them to attack (or, alternatively, allowing us to decide to retreat).

Accordingly, Beckham should move 9-6-3-3, arriving at the floodplains shortly. edit: or 6-3-3, and swap with Zidane (or is that Mazz?).

-Arrian

[Ennet]

Im fine with moving the new skirm up there. As for the cow, we have two skirms in adjent tile with Beckham being able to move in in one turn if we place him on the foodplain. If they try to pasture it we'll be able to make a nice trade.

[Krill]

WTF? Someone named a Skirm Beckham before Rooney?

C'mon, Rooney fouls a hell of alot worse than beckham, and I thought that was the order of naming the Skirms. The worse the foul they commit in the WC, the higher up the naming order they are...

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Krill
WTF? Someone named a Skirm Beckham before Rooney?

C'mon, Rooney fouls a hell of alot worse than beckham, and I thought that was the order of naming the Skirms. The worse the foul they commit in the WC, the higher up the naming order they are...

I have been waiting for someone to complain about Beckham, though not specifically for that reason. As I said at the time, I don't know football, so it's up to you gents that do to keep me supplied with names. Since I haven't any presently, Rooney can be next on the list.

[Hot Mustard]

Arrian, your post makes sense to me, but keep in mind that before we started choking the last couple of tiles, they were not working the FP - they appear to value production over anything else at the moment. Given that, do we want to choke what they value, or what they should value?

[Ennet]

yeah the empty grassland forest would maybe be the best choice..

[Mudhut]

Originally posted by Arrian

But they've already got an archer up on that hill, and we're not going to waste the hammers on getting them off of it. The gold hill, therefore, is also off my list.

But any 1-to-1 trade of skirmisher for archer is actually good for us, isn't it? Every archer that dies outside The Voice is good for us, because it's fighting at less than the maximum defensive bonus.

I know we're waiting for Cats and all, but we still need to get rid of all their archers eventually to take the city -> therefore I still advocate moving two skirms next to the gold hill, so that we can attack the archer there (losing one skirm, winning with second).

Now, I don't think we'll actually get to attack, because they will probably move the archer from the plains forest onto the gold hill. And obviously we're not going to attack two archers on a hill with two skirms. But this is still good for us, because we can then secure both forests between the gold and the Voice.

[Arrian]

Do you think it would be a 1-for-1 trade? I don't know the combat odds off the top of my head, but 3 + 25% for fort, +25% for hill + 25% for archer-on-hill = 5.25. We could very well lose 2 skirms to that archer. And for what?

-Arrian