29-05-2003 00:31									#1
	Turn 106, 450 BC Full PM-box? Change here!

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:

- 161 gold, +129gpt

Check this and every turn to see if we lost some war unweariness due to the killing of troops within cultural borders and therefore must readjust the lux slider.

Urgent questions:

Military:
- Our plan was to take A98, but Vox has moved their forces on that tile to A88. What now? Shall we try to storm Monsoon-99, perhaps?

Economy:

Production Phase:

Diplomacy:

- Still working on a possible deal with Lego for Feudalism + gold for Theology (Lego was supposed to respond yesterday).

Thread library:
- Standing orders for workers (Orders last revised April 5.)

	29-05-2003 01:06									#2
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I'll probably be sleeping when Nathan plays this turn, so I've decided to post my general thoughts right now.

Vox was wise enough to pull back their forces on A98, but there is another target in sight: Monsoon-99.
In order to launch a realistic feint on the spinebreakers (something that IMHO we absolutely must do in order to have a successful Inchon), we must attack now. The target is Monsoon-99, and the gameplan is relatively risky, but it's our only choice (unless we decide to disband the idea of pulling a feint).

Monsoon-99 is within striking range of our cats. Last turn, there were 2 regular immortals on that tile, and judging by the screenshots, that hasn't changed - this means that 4 successful cat hits are necessary, which is quite possible with our 7 cats. This will expose our cats to attack by vet and reg immortals on Monsoon-96, but vet fortified pikes will stand a 50% chance of prevailing against a vet immortal, and a 66% chance of prevailing against a reg immortal, assuming that they are not wounded by cats when they attack (~50% chance of that happening) - that is the risky part that I spoke of. However, any immortals that attack and win but get wounded may become easy prey the following turn should Vox not have sufficient healthy forces in the area to cover them up.
Once we've captured Monsoon-99, we will garrison it with pikes. All in all, we'll need pikes to defend the cats in Monsoon-6 and to keep Monsoon-99 (in order to look convincing). This can come at the expense of Arashi and A9, which are not under any immediate threats and can be relieved of most of their defensive forces without putting ourselves under any additional threat.
Should this operation's immediate objective, which is capturing Monsoon-99, succeed, we will have achieved the following:

1. We will kill 2 regular immortals, probably with no losses to ourselves in the early stage.
2. Vox will be alarmed, and by the number of pikes, cats and medinfs in the area, will not expect an Inchon.
3. Vox will be tempted to pull more forces towards the spinebreakers ("Finally, they are coming down from the mountains and outside the walls! We can fight them on conditions relatively good to what we had in the Arashi theatre! CHARGE!"). This will increase the impact of Inchon.
4. Vox will most likely try to retaliate and attack Monsoon-6 (where we shall initially fire from). Should we manage to get 4 hits in the initial stage and still have remaining cats that haven't fired, I recommend that we fire at the immortals on Monsoon-96 to reduce that risk. Voxian forces that will attack Monsoon-6 will first meet cat fire, which will have a ~50% chance of effectively lowering vets to regs and regs to conscripts. Even if none of the cats hit, we should still have less casualties than Vox, statistically speaking.

Last edited by Shiber on 29-05-2003 at 01:37

	29-05-2003 01:40									#3
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Of course, if we need too many forces for Inchon that we can't pull this off, we can just move the pikes on A9 one tile 8, along with the workers (to road for our cats) and some MedInfs (to make the feint look more convincing).

	29-05-2003 03:14									#4
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As much as I'd like to pull off this kind of maneuver- I'm afraid we can't spare the forces, and allow ourselves to lose such a hefty amount of Pikes (and Cats?) at this point. I say we keep on roading, making it look like we're preparing for a siege on D'ville. Meanwhile our Cats should go and bombard the Immortals off of SS- The amount of troops we've got tied up there is inconceivable- we have about 3 times the forces Vox has there. We haven't suffered much from that untill now- because we havn't lacked forces on the defense, and we havn't moved to offense yet (where every troops counts, and you know it better that I do- we'll have to storm gates of town with fortified spears/pikes, and we'll need plenty of cannon fodder for that).

That's gonna change soon- we'll have to support our Inchons forces with something- how long are they gonna last without support? maybe 3-4 turns, being optimistic. Those force on the east could be ready by the time the galleys are back, to help out the pinned down pikes at Inchoff- which, if we pull off, could win the war for us by making Vox sue for peace, even if they don't- they have no Iron, right? (hopefully).

I say we move our Cats to the eastern theater this turn.

	29-05-2003 04:32									#5
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We definitely don't have the troops to go after the iron tile. Keep in mind that we would need not only pikes to cover the cats but also pikes to cover the MedInf units that storm the tile if we want a credible (and defensible) attack. And if Vox would get lucky and take out half the pikes that will be left in the theater after we launch Inchon, they might be able to start threatening our territory again.

Moving units onto Arashi 8-8 would increase the threat to Dissidentville without spreading us as thin, but we need to be careful that we don't leave Vox an opening to take Monsoon in the process. Units on Arashi 8-8 can't deal with Voxians who attack onto Monsoon 9.

I'll be home to start playing the turn in a few minutes.

	29-05-2003 04:53									#6
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I went ahead and ran through the production phase since I didn't see anything that looked like it needed rushing.

	29-05-2003 04:59									#7
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Landing at Hurricane 8-8-8 completed. I went ahead and made all the eastern moves since everything went as expected.

	29-05-2003 05:06									#8
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Economic stuff:

If we do a 4-shield (16-gold) short rush in Tempest, we can get a MedInf instead of a pike next turn. I'm also planning to put Cyclone on workers, and I'd like to build a temple in O.G. (to get to the whale) and start a courthouse in Whirlwind.

	29-05-2003 05:26									#9
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If there are no objections, I'd like to move a WC from Arashi 9-6-8-2 to do a little scouting now that our road on Arashi 9 gives our WCs a bit of extra mobility.

If we short rush a new MedInf in Tempest as I suggested, we should be able to get away with using all six of our western MedInfs (three vet and three regular) not committed to Inchon for an Arashi 9-8 diversion. In a pinch (if Vox is feeling especially suicidal), the Inchon units can help cover Monsoon next turn instead of loading, and after that, we'll have a MedInf completed in Bolderberg this turn and one completed in Tempest next turn to augment our WC forces (which, by the way, now have the first Typhoon WC added to them). I'm thinking in terms of sending three pikes and two workers along with the offensive units.

	29-05-2003 05:44									#10
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I'm fine with everything but the Arashi98 diversion... let's keep our units on roads

	29-05-2003 05:55									#11
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I like starting the road to Dissidentville. If we put 5 Workers and enough units to defend them, our units will be on roads next turn, right? If we aren't building up Tempest this would be my vote.

Can we get a look with one of the Galleys at D2 and D1 first though to see just how many Immortals Vox could bring to bear on A98? 5 Workers are a lot to risk, but we should be able to make them safe (D3 can be checked out by the first unit onto A98). It also will look like we are headed for Dissidentville ASAP.

	29-05-2003 06:03									#12
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I just realized that the Arashi 9-8 move could easily backfire. Instead of moving troops forward to protect Dissidentville, Vox might move some backward, and hence closer to our landings. So we might be better off holding our troops back.

With my proposed WC scouting trip, I see no significant risk to moving our troops one tile off the road. The only move Vox could possibly make to take advantage before we could get back on the roads would be an attack on Monsoon, which would (with any kind of decent luck) give us a chance to take out lots of Voxians relatively cheaply and easily.

But I'll leave the call up to Theseus unless others start injecting opinions. If we don't want the units off roads, I'm thinking maybe put two regulars on Arashi 9 where they could help out against the eastern immortals if Vox moves them off the mountain and leave the rest in Arashi so Vox won't know what we have. (Unless, of course, scouting suggests a different deployment.)

Theseus, what do you recommend?

	29-05-2003 06:13									#13
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D2 and D1 have one regular immortal each. Vox also has a regular galley at D4-7!

	29-05-2003 06:15									#14
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I went ahead and scouted with a WC. Vox has a regular immortal at D3-3.

	29-05-2003 06:20									#15
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Galley situation analysis:

If we don't attack Vox's galley, we risk having it attack one of ours on the way to Inchon and we're likely to have to tie up a lot of troops shadowing it down the coast if it doesn't. If we do attack it and succeed with our first attack (odds a bit under 50-50), Inchon can proceed essentially as scheduled using a galley rushed in Monsoon. If we need more than one galley to sink it, Inchon gets delayed. Or we could rush a galley in Monsoon next turn to cover our other galleys, which would deal with the risk of a Voxian attack on our galleys but not with the problem of having to shadow Vox's galley if it heads south.

	29-05-2003 07:14									#16
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It is time to sink the Vox scow, now that we have sufficient forces to assure it's demise. We have 3, right?

	29-05-2003 07:17									#17
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Three within striking range. Any more votes for/against what may be the world's first naval battle?

	29-05-2003 07:21									#18
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Take out the galley.... RAMMING SPEED!!!!!!!

Still against A98... it's also not a particularly good road path to D-ville.

More thoughts in a few minutes.

	29-05-2003 07:24									#19
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The most important road I can think of, if we can get it done quickly enough, is at A6, for the Return of the Cats.

That said, we have to anticipate a fairly significant response from Vox the next move... in the east? in the west?

	29-05-2003 07:32									#20
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Aye eye, admiral. Ramming speed it is. First galley preparing to ram.

	29-05-2003 07:33									#21
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The Voxian galley won, taking only one point of damage. Preparing a second attack.

	29-05-2003 07:37									#22
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Our second galley won, taking one point of damage.

We're in trouble. Vox now has Feudalism and a vet pikeman in Dissidentville. There's also a vet. warrior at Dissidentville 8.

	29-05-2003 07:38									#23
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The bastids!

How did they get feudalism? Damn! Everyone has feudalism!

	29-05-2003 07:39									#24
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I just checked the trade situation, and everyone has Feudalism now. So much for our hopes of a trade with Lego.

	29-05-2003 07:44									#25
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No problem re the pikes.

We've got production power out the yin yang; so we break things... slowly... carefully.

How 'bout we revisit the war plan?

Inchon, Inchoff, and the SS trap are all still on. But where I'd been anticipating a *slow* move up the Spinebreakers in order to deal with the Monsoon Threat, we instead pump out some more MedInf for Monsoon defense, and some WCs / Horse to more aggressively move north through the cental plains.

The delay? Two turns?

Our overwhelming force just needs to be more overwhelming (at a number of units versus unit strength level).

Yeah, I know, it sucks to be investing so much in our military, and we're all chomping at the bit to be building... but let's have done with Vox for once and all.

	29-05-2003 07:51									#26
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Inchon is now delayed by at least a turn, at least assuming we don't want to telegraph it. I'm tempted to rush galleys in both O.G. and Monsoon, with an eye toward adding a couple extra MedInfs to the Inchon attack. A one-turn delay in Inchoff would let us add a fourth galley and either a pike and a MedInf or, if we're inclined to replace a pike on SS6 with a MedInf (finished in Tornado this turn), two pikes. (I really don't want Vox already speeding troops toward Inchoff when we land on Inchon.)

One catch on the eastern front is that Vox may very well try to sealift their troops out of the trap we have them boxed in.

	29-05-2003 08:00									#27
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If Inchon succeeds, my inclination is to ignore Dissidentville (albeit not the troops in the area), sealift forces around the city, and go straight for Vox's core. With how seriously we were shafted on Feudalism, does anyone want to bet Vox won't be able to get a new iron supply just as fast as they can build a harbor?

	29-05-2003 08:17									#28
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Arrgghh, this is a b*tch.

How about we:

1. Keep Inchon, Inchoff, and the SS Trap on schedule.
2. Maintain enough troops in and around Arashi and Monsoon to deal with any threat there.
3. Delay the ground attack on D-ville?

I think we are all agreed, iron-denial and the massive disruption we intend are the priorities.

	29-05-2003 08:37									#29
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I think I just came up with a plan to make an on-schedule Inchon work without telegraphing it and without making it suicide. If we rush a galley in Monsoon, that will give us four galleys for the initial landing, which could handle six pikes, a settler, and a MedInf. Our wounded galley could tag a bit behind with two more MedInfs, and would (if Vox has units ready to be attacked) unload in the city so our MedInfs could still attack at the same time as if they were part of the initial landing. As long as Vox doesn't have (and can't get) another galley into the action, and as long as they don't move a unit onto D1 (from which they could see our main attack force), it's probably a viable strategy.

	29-05-2003 08:39									#30
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I ****ing KNEW IT! I knew they were gonna get feudalism before we could muster an invasion.

DAMNIT.

In my opinion, this makes the Inchon/Inchoff operations even more important.

Dissidentville just isn't that important once we cut them off at the neck. We can leave it until we can bring overwhelming force (and perhaps our catapults) to bear.

-Arrian