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**Blake** · July 5, 2007, 02:43

Okay I got around to loading the save, so here are some thoughts and stuff...

Winestrom and Catapults: I guess we could go with continuing the Library at Winestrom - towards the end of getting some scientists ASAP for an Academy in EotS.

I would think that 3 Catapults would be enough, that is 1 from each city. The EotS catapult should arrive at about the same time that Taz grows to size 4 and gets the catapult whipped. With only 3 pults we will however want to preserve our Axemen for an assault against The Voice, meaning no pissing them away on Horses.

Worker I - Camping the deer is somewhat pointless but w/e, Originally I had suggested founding Furs on well, the Furs. Now I think it'd be better to found Furs above the Furs, such that it can work the Deer and maybe the grassland river below EotS, if we clearcut and cottage it - this can be seen as a way to pre-develop those cottages for when EotS gains the caps high enough to work them. Furs would be permanently EotS's ***** and always give up needed tiles. Furs does not gain anything by being further south - the exchange in tiles (assuming maximally greedy EotS) is the +2 city commerce for a plains tile.
Don't ask me on the timetable for founding Furs, but since it'll have 2 improved tiles to work it wont be a bad deal.

But I do say that Worker I should chop the Forest, right now, doesn't matter what it goes onto, EotS needs all the infrastructure it can get. We wont need the deer health for uh... like 12-15 turns I think (we do need the health once Taz hits size 5 (wont be for ages due to whip), because Taz needs to grow to size 6 for settler whippage). That is an odd-numbered forest tile so we lose no health by cutting it.

As for cutting more, I spy Rice and Wheat, Cows, Fish, Crabs and potentially Bananas which is +8 Health w/ Granary, so I think we can safely afford to cut most of the forests around EotS, especially the grassland river ones.
As such I may suggest that worker 1's activities be:
Chop the current forest.
Move 1 and chop the forest on the furs river, this will cause EotS to go unhealthy but I think it's worth getting the hammer influx X turns earlier in exchange for X food (turns of -1 health). Road the tile to connect the rivers.
Camp the deer.
Chop a 3rd forest.

**Blake** · July 5, 2007, 05:33

Okay since I had the save open, more strategy...

We need to be figuring out how to get workers and settlers at maximum speed, we are being pulled in multiple directions, we want to expand north asap to block off AC - I strongly support trying to get the Banana/Ivory/Horses site up there, but we'll need to move quickly - we want to found the lower ivory site first, to get access to elephants and to not be founding our city punkishly forward of our territory (which would be an invitation for AC to use their CKN's on us before we can answer them with Elephants - we don't want to make AC want to attack us, since they probably wont really want to, so that needs we need to stake a credible claim up North).

The quickest (least sacrifice) way to get a settler will be growing Taz to size 6 and whipping.
A 3rd worker would be very nice, I would suggest landing the two EotS chops on the worker (so that EotS's growth isn't stalled while we still get the worker) - however getting a granary in EotS would also be a worthy use for the hammers - A chopping worker provides about 7.5h/turn, while the granary doubles the food surplus, which will be 5f/turn, both are good deals with the worker possibly edging ahead because it's more front-loaded (it takes a whole food bar for the granary to kick in).
Unfortunately "having" to work the silver in EotS severely limits our ability to use it as a whip pump. We could go with chopping a worker, growing to 6, and then stalling at 6 to train a settler or settlers.

Returning to Winestrom, I suggest the Library + Scientist plan, the limiting factor at Winestrom is a lack of improved tiles, and we are short of worker time - it would be ideal to grow to size 6 and whip there too, but there is that lack of improved tiles / worker time, and scientists don't need tiles... getting a fast(ish) Academy will give us OMGWTFBBQ research speed, although it does mean a significant reduction in our expansion speed, we aren't exactly research poor so it may not be a good deal... but given the lack of potential GPP pump cities I'm inclined to say we should go with scientists to just get that 1st GP out nice and early, then we can forget about them for ages.
Wines will actually still eventually grow to 6, so we can grow it to 6 (working 1 then 2 scientists), then whip it, then let it regrow and assign the scientists anew, that's probably the best compromise.

The Voice will of course be coming into our possession in maybe about 10 turns, it needs a significant amount of worker investment, we could probably have it train it's own damn worker just because our other 3 workers will still be occupied - Worker I probably building a road to The Voice (we'll need at least 2 workers over there anyway), Worker III chopping around EotS, Worker II building a road north.

Anyway in about 3 turns the Vox war is Over (the war machine will be complete), and it's time for full economic mobilization towards maximum speed expansion, tempered only slightly by the need to not be TOO tempting a target for CKN's, I would think that having our Skirmishers (rather than Axemen) do city duty up north would be enough (since a Skirm on defense beats a CKN) - I don't think that AC would seriously attack us, but it's bad play to tempt them.

**Krill** · July 6, 2007, 17:37

Food for thoughts. The Voice has 6 forests. That is 180 hammers, or 3 more workers. Getting a worker over there and then chopping out another worker or two would be quite useful for getting all of our other cities up and running. Also it has gold that needs hooking up (the borders will expand due to the holy city effect, and with that gold and hooking up the deer EotS can grow to size 7, furs and the cow from the Voice will grow EotS to size 8). As for the rest, I pretty much agree with Blake, though I would consider getting out a settler (or two, maybe) from WS before a library.

Also, if we get a temple in the Voice we can start working on a GP for the shrine, though it will take a fair while...so starting sooner rather than later would be wise for that.

As to the attack, I think we ought to get out more than 3 cats; we are likely to lose all of the cats attacking the Voice, and Vox are going to have atleast another archers in the city, maybe 3, so to kill a total of 7 archers to kill, it would be wiser to get a total of 5 or 6 cats together in addition to the axes so that we dont fail in the attack if we get unlucky.

**Blake** · July 7, 2007, 02:00

No way man. 3 catapults are plenty.

Basically here's how it works.

Archer health goes down like this as it receives damage from unupgraded catapult collateral:

2.6 -> 2.3 -> 1.9

Catapult vs Archer with 3.0 health: 28% odds
Axe vs Archer with 2.6 health: 61% odds
Axe vs Archer with 2.3 health: 80% odds
Axe vs Archer with 1.9 health: 86% odds
Skirm vs Archer with 1.9 health: 75% odds

A catapult deals damage to 6 units, and may damage or kill the primary target. Meaning 7 units are damaged per attack.

With 3 pults, there will be 18 hits of ~0.4 damage and 3 hits of a highly variable amount of damage.

Against 7 archers, each one will tend to take 3 hits, being reduced to 1.9/3, typically some will be damaged more, and others less. But on average, the whole garrison will be knocked down to 1.9 health.

While it's not inconceivable that the fight will last for 2 turns, the odds are bad enough (for us) that our units are guaranteed to get 2 exp, meaning they'll all be able to promote. A Vox unit will basically have to win 2 fights in order to promote to CD 1, it's far from guaranteed that their survivors will be able to promote.

I did a bunch of combat runs, the units on each side I went with:

VOICE: 8 archers and 1 warrior (9 units)
STORM: 3 Catapults, 5 Axes, 4 Skirmishers (12 units)

I believe that's overstating Vox's position and possibly understating ours, I suspect we could bring in more skirmishers if we wanted. But it's moot.

I did 20 combat trials and recorded total losses:

Rounds where there is no figure in the 2nd column were won outright in the first turn. I only counted total losses, altough the majority of the time losses were Catapults or Axemen. In the event where it went into the second turn I promoted the healthiest axe with CR 1 and attacked.

As you can see, 75% of the time we win outright in the first round.
On average, we lose 2.45 units, maximum losses was 5 units, leaving us with 7 units.

It is a bit streaky, like should the first catapult win then we totally clean up, because then the collateral damage is intensified on the remaining units. If all the catapults die, then it's not so good, that's the kind of event that results in losing 5 units.
But the idea of losing more than half of units? Inconceivable. 3 catapults is plenty.

edit:
Something else to note is the chance of a Vox archer surviving the 3 catapults intact. In order for this to happen it must avoid collateral, and the only way it can do this is by being the top defender and winning every single combat round against all 3 catapults - in other words it has to win 12 rounds in a row, the chance of this is approximately 0.2%. Any archer which has taken any damage at all is going to be a 60% fight for the Axemen, meaning that 3 catapults is enough, for all intents and purposes, to give easy battles for the remaining units.

**Krill** · July 7, 2007, 07:35

Fine. And if we lose the first 3 cats what are we going to do about the second Voxian city? Leave it be so it can grow in culture? If we get those extra cats then we are more likely to have the majority of our axes and skirms left in one peace, as well as having a few cats left over so we can then march on and wipe Vox off the face of the earth instead of pissing away the axes and having to rebuild everything for the attack on the horse city.

**Blake** · July 7, 2007, 16:49

The horse city is of little consequence - I imagine we'll just burn it anyway so it's not imperative that it comes into our hands quickly.

Bear in mind that a catapult has about a 40% chance of surviving - they can retreat, after all. The chance of losing all 3 catapults is low.

Regardless, the horse city wont have time to build up to 40% culture.

There is an excellent chance that our force will simply smash The Voice with truly minimal losses - 2 losses is about the median. I don't see how that justifies waiting for 2 more units to be trained. We'll still lose just as many units because the losses are nearly always one of the first 3 catapults - the ones which must face full hp archers, bringing more catapults will not reduce our catapult losses.

**Hot Mustard** · July 10, 2007, 11:21

Lots of great input - thank you!!!

The save is here - here is a screenshot after only moving the Skirmisher to reveal their second city, Moscow. The city has 1 archer and 2 horse archers.

We can also see their worker, and an archer is keeping tabs on our stack. Add in the 5 archers in the Voice, and we may be seeing all of the Vox units at once.

So, do we turn back the stack now, and how so? (1, 2, or 4)

**Blake** · July 10, 2007, 15:28

Okay.

How do Vox have 2 Horse Archers? Ugh. Well whatever we do, we can't move next to the city. They can kill 2 axes and camp. If they try to kill our axes, we want to have a counter-attack chance.

So looking at it, I suggest moving the axe stack 4, then 4-1-1 (or 1-4-1), basically getting into the forest corridor ASAP.
Furthermore we do want to secure those forests so Lara and Schum should be moved into the forest, then next turn Lara can move into the forest and keep it warm for the axe stack.

The Wines catapult should move out, with Pronger coming back to escort it.

Coincidently moving our axes along the north also makes it more difficult for Vox to bring the horse archers over and try to intercept our catapult, since if Vox ever attacks our axe stack in the open, or moves the horses adjacent to it, then the axes can bumrush the horses.

Wines should start a Spearman, let it grow, then next turns growth can be put on the plains forest. Hum... actually maybe put the farm worker on the plains forest now, still growth in 2, and we get the spear a turn faster. That's actually still faster than needed if Vox moves directly to Wines, but if they threaten Taz it'd be better to have the spear a turn earlier

I suspect that Vox will brain-deadidly pile their horse archers into The Voice for the last stand so I'm not sure if we want a 2nd spear, but if we do it'd be best to get it from EotS probably - chop the forest of course. We don't NEED spears, 2 axes will handily kill a horse archer and in a city a HA is worse than an Archer, we just don't want Vox to get any ideas about harassing our cities.

Finally as for Catona (for next turn) we probably just may as well put him in the forest next to moscow (or the forest behind him if Vox puts horses in the forest), he'll have something like a 56% chance of winning vs a HA and since he only costs half as much, it's a good deal.

**DeepO** · July 11, 2007, 04:08

I tend to agree with Blake here... get the Voice asap, burn the horse city once we feel ready.

DeepO

**Krill** · July 11, 2007, 06:41

Move the skirm so that it can see into the horse city before we move the axes please.

**Hot Mustard** · July 11, 2007, 08:11

WTF, where did my post go?

**Hot Mustard** · July 11, 2007, 08:14

Posted this sometime yesterday but 'Poly lost it. Just briefly, Vox has 2 horse archers and 1 archer in the horse city, which was revealed by moving the skirm there closer. Move stack which direction back to Voice? (1, 2, 4)

Edit: Hmm - the image in this post is not showing up - here's the url http://apolyton.net/upload/view/22578_575BC-Vox0000.JPG

**Arrian** · July 11, 2007, 09:24

2 horse archers!?!! WTF?

Our axes (in the open) are in serious trouble. They can't back to a forest tile before the horsies hunt them down. Fook.

-Arrian

**Arrian** · July 11, 2007, 09:25

Time to build a spear, apparently.

-Arrian

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