11-06-2003 06:11									#1
	Turn 111, 350 BC Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:

- 466 gold, + ~107 gpt

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:
- Focus on defending Inchon, or try to make a move on one of Vox's deeper cities?

Economy:

- Rush walls in Inchon in the production phase?

TBD.

Diplomacy:

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

	11-06-2003 06:36									#2
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The opening screen showed two interesting things. (1) Vox left D1 open, so if we plant a pike there and they don't dislodge him, we'll have a ground route to Dissidentville, and hence to the rest of Vox. (2) Vox moved their eastern stack 7, down off the mountains.

I then went into the production phase and started poking around city views. Vox actually uncovered Inchoff's iron tile, opening the way for us to put pikes there and not need cats to stage a breakout, but they have lots of forces near Inchon. Visible forces include:

Inchoff 4: 1 regular pike.
Inchoff 4-7: Two units, led by a vet immortal.

Inchon 6: Eight? units led by a vet pike. (If I remember what someone said correctly, eight is the maximum nuymber of marks that appear, so if my count is correct, there could possibly be more.)
Inchon 9: Eight? units led by a vet pike. Reinforcements from their core?
Inchon 8: Two units led by a vet spear. (Last turn there were two vet spears there.)
Elipolis: A Vet spear showing; what's beneath it is unknown.
Inchon 3-3-2: Four units led by a vet pike.

Do I assume this means we want walls? If Vox had additional immortals in their core that they're only now showing, fighting around Inchon could get nasty, or they may just be trying to retreat around the city. (Or perhaps even to keep both options open, depending on how peace talks go. If it were a pure attack, I would have expected them to put attackers from their core on the hill.)

	11-06-2003 07:19									#3
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I went ahead and went through the production phase, rushing walls in Inchon. Full Voxian deployments next message:

	11-06-2003 07:29									#4
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Inchoff 4: 1 regular pike.
Inchoff 4-7: One regular and one vet vet immortal.

Inchon 6: One hurt (1/4) and one healthy vet pike, one regular pike, and three veteran and five regular immortals.
Inchon 9: One vet and one regular pike, three vet immortals, and three cats.
Inchon 8: Two vet spears
Elipolis: A Vet spear showing; what's beneath it is unknown.
Inchon 3-3-2: A vet pike, two regular immortals, and a vet and a regular warrior.

Dissidentville 2: A vet pike and a vet warrior.

I moved a pike onto the iron tile by Inchoff to take a look, and he saw nothing of interest

	11-06-2003 08:03									#5
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I went ahead and took three cat shots at the immortals, scoring the second needed hit with the third shot. They're all down to one hit point. I'm thinkng of maybe letting WCs do most of the work finishing off the immortals so we can send a pike and five vet MedInfs to Inchoff. If Vox continues to pull toward their core, those units can combine with some of the pikes already there and march overland to reinforce our Inchon forces.

In the meantime, we can grab D1 move our pikes from Arashi and Arashi 9 onto the iron tile (replacing them shortly with pikes from the Hurricane area). I can pull five workers off their current duties and have them on the iron tile next turn (faster than that would delay reinforcing Inchon), and we can bring in troops to take Dissidentville whenever it looks like it makes sense to do so. (That might be a good job for our main cat force to help with.)

	11-06-2003 08:10									#6
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With Vox having a spear (and no telling what else), and with eleven healthy and one injured immortals by Inchon, I'm reluctant to try an end run around Elipolis. Also note that the most we could involve in a landing by Elipolis this turn in terms of offensive forces is a cat, four MedInfs, and an elite WC, and getting that much would require having our galley that dropped off the WCs pick up and re-land troops instead of heading back for reinforcements.

Further, our best odds against Elipolis would come after we get some cats in the area to level its walls and ping down any pikes that make it there a bit. If I felt confident that we could take the city, I'd consider the attack worth it to cut into Vox's production, but as things stand, I don't think the rewards are big enough to be worth the risk.

Last edited by nbarclay on 11-06-2003 at 08:25

	11-06-2003 10:10									#7
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Nathan, I gotta go to bed... so just a coupla thoughts:

* Let's use our Cats... Walls= Bad, and they are fairly easily destructable.

* Am I on drugs? Has Vox actually attacked us *ever*?

* Can we tell if Vox has traded for iron?

Although we are in MP, let's not forget some of the principles: for instance, to quote my co-General, let's break things... slowly... carefully. Given their response, we seem to be on a trajectory to take out Vox... fine, good... GLs?

I don't want to be overconfident, especially in the face of of some many Immortals (effing scary), but we are in pretty good shape. We don't need to rush.

	11-06-2003 10:25									#8
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Vox did attack us at least once. Of course that was when their attacker was an immortal and all we had defending was a warrior - Grog. Actually, I'd love to see them try to hit Inchon. Anything that costs them a significant percentage of their remaining immortals can't be all bad.

	11-06-2003 10:31									#9
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Vox also killed a vet pike on a mountain once with one immortal (they were lucky). But that is all.

I have to leave in about a minute, so I'll just say that I agree with Theseus - let's knock down the walls first.

	11-06-2003 11:25									#10
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It looks to me like Vox is running back to their core with all their troops, otherwise why move Pikes (the ones guarding Cats) and leave them unfortified for a turn if everything is going to hit Inchon anyways?

We can beat them to their core with our Galleys. 4 Vet Med Inf, a WC, and a Pike would split Wittlich and Millertown. They're running scared it looks like... must be a reason?

	11-06-2003 11:26									#11
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They killed 2 Pikes on Mountains with no losses actually... one at SS6, and one at A2... pretty lucky.

	11-06-2003 11:28									#12
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Are our Elite WC's in range of Vox's stack near SS?

	11-06-2003 11:51									#13
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Here's what I think we should do:

Turn 1: Land a Pike, 4 Med Inf, and a WC on E7 this turn. A pillage/diversion force. Everything else stays in Inchon of course.

Turn 2: Move the WC 8, pillage, and cover with the Pike if the tile is open (good chance it will be, as we look threatening to Elipolis). Load the Med Inf into the Galleys, ship another Pike over to load as well, and send those Galleys to BbtS 111. If the tile isn't open, we can either pillage both E7 and E8 if they are open (sacrifice the WC) or load everything back on the Galleys.

Turn 3: Galleys move to Wittlich 1 and drop the 4 Med Inf and the Pike on Wittlich 3/Miller Town 4. If we see Pikes in Wittlich, we could (and probably should) abort before landing. WC moves 8 and pillages if it's open, Pike covers.

Turn 4: WC and Med Inf can attack Miller Town, or Med Inf can attack Wittlich. If Wittlich, WC moves 8 and pillages, Pike covers.

Pillaging the road gives us another turn or two to play around in their core. (they probably have more roads than we can see, but we could detour to take out important roads if necessary) In the case of E78, we could then move 8 again and do the same thing next turn if it's open, buying more time for our four Med Inf.

This is a bit of a gamble that Vox doesn't have much to anything at all (Warriors) defending their core. The odds can't be any worse than if we wait for them to stack up in Elipolis though. It's likely the only way we'll have shots at non-Pike units with our Med Inf, without going through Pikes first... and in size 5 cities to boot. It also gives us the opportunity to deny Vox a chance to trade for Iron.

The other benefit is that Vox will have to send much of it's force further N than Elipolis. Inchon will have time to get our Cats and make a good, slow, safe play for Elipolis.

Last edited by Aeson on 11-06-2003 at 11:57

	11-06-2003 12:46									#14
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Unfortunately, I'd given up on Vox's coming out to play and moved the elite WCs to Inchon since that seemed like where the action was likely to be.

My biggest concern about going for Wittlich and Millertown is that Vox might pop rush a galley in Wittlich. The idea has to be tempting ito them n an effort to disrupt our delivery of troops by sea. And if a brand-new galley happens to be in the wrong place (which just happens to be the logical place for a Voxian galley to move on its first turn), it could make a landing between those two towns take an extra turn, and then either attack or sit on the tile we'd need to unload from to get the fork. Also, if Vox positions its troops currently at I9 centrally, they could get into Millertown between the time we land and the time we could hit, cutting into our advantage of surprise by quite a bit. (And if a newly built galley spots us, they would have every incentive to reposition some troops farther back.)

To do the landing safely, we'd need five galleys (one for defense), two pikes, four MedInfs, and the two elite WCs. (Using both elites is practical for the Wittlich/Millertown landing, since the WCs would not have to unload the same turn they load for that operation.)

If Vox didn't leave us the apparent opening to attack Dissidentville, I'd say going after Wittlich is definitely a bad idea because it would delay the reinforcements needed for our main attack too much. As things stand, it might be worthwhile, but I'm skeptical. (The difference is that as things stand, we'll probably want our cats for an assault on Dissidentville, after which they can move overland to reinforce Inchon almost as quickly - and far more safely - than we could deliver a main attack force by sea.)

If we do that attack and Vox hits Inchon after all, we'd have eight pikes but no other units to stop them. If their cats get our wall, that could be a bit close for comfort against six healthy vet immortals, five regulars, and a 2/4 wounded vet.

	11-06-2003 12:50									#15
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Aeson, unfortunately, the WCs in the area are our elites. I don't think we want to be using those for suicide or quasi-suicide missions.

	11-06-2003 13:09									#16
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If we land on E7 this turn we can cut their roads though, and they can't get to Millertown in time to do stop us from taking/razing it. To even counterattack the city the turn after we'd take it (if we take it of course) they have to get through a Pike (and WC) first, and they'd only have 3 Immortals in that first stack to attack with.

It also would give them good reason to keep their stacks moving N, increasing Inchon's safety by quite a bit. It's going to look like we're trying to take Elipolis, and given what we can land, and what they probably have in there, they're going to need their Pikes and Cats to move onto E6 next turn, otherwise they can't hit our stack at all, and can't take back Elipolis for extra turns if we did break through.

If they are going to blow their entire offensive force trying to take Inchon (they would lose most of their Immortals remaining to do so, even if they're lucky), all the better for us... especially if we take their Harbor out in the meantime. We aren't going to have good chances to counterattack as they are pretty well covered by Pikes, so our Med Inf and WC aren't all that useful in there at this point.

If it comes down to it though, I'd trade razing Miller Town and/or Wittlich for having Inchon razed (and most of Vox's offensive capacity killed) anyday. Our success isn't assured in our raid, but we still have very good odds with just 8 Pikes if Vox attacks Inchon.

As for the Galley problem, we could then just land on Wittlich 2.

	11-06-2003 13:17									#17
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So we're going to use that Elites WC's to do what? Attack Pikes fortified in Elipolis once they get there? Upgrade it to a Knight?

It seems to me that Vox is in deep trouble at this point, as long as we can keep ahead of their troops going N. Inchon caught them with their pants down. Iron not hooked up, and building Warriors for upgrade. Once they get ahead of us, it's going to be long and drawn out, and our casualties are going to be higher than Vox's in every city we have to take. We have the units to be successful at it, but this is our big chance to do some cheap, effective damage. It's not guaranteed, but I think the odds are much higher than sending those same Med Infs against Pikes fortified in Elipolis later on.

	11-06-2003 15:11									#18
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I have to agree with Aeson- our WCs are close to useless in
Inchon, and taking Elipolis now has almost zero chance to succeed (with 4 Immortals + Cats to attack it just after we take it, if taken in the first round of attacks). And WC are next to useless where they are, especially when Vox seems to rush at least part of its troops back home.

A suicide mission with our WC- I won't object that if we have a chance at taking on Vox's core- and this window of opportunity is nearly close.

Nathan- we'll have plenty of time and opportunity to get into a bogged down siege against Elipolis, if this operation fails. Our lose will be close to nothing in terms of overall war-production. We'd lose perhaps a turn of GA production. OTOH, our chances for hurting Vox so bad that its game over for them are too good to pass on.

I say we load those WCs, and get them along with our 4 Med. Inf, a Pike and a Cat (or two Pikes). The rest can stay in Inchon for now.

Think about it- our main advantage over Vox in defense was mobility- our WCs hit them from no where and disappeared before they had a chance to react. Our last chance to be at a mobility advantage again is this turn.
Let us not waste this chance.

	11-06-2003 15:21									#19
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If we want to go after Vox's core, I'm inclined to go for stealth rather than trying to cut Vox off. If Vox moves to reinforce Miller Town, Wittlich City (which should be considered our primary target due to its harbor) is still likely to be almost as vulnerable. And there's a very real chance that if Vox doesn't see us making active moves to go around them again, they won't move to reinforce in time. In that case, having an extra elite WC (six offensive units instead of five) could significantly improve our odds of getting Miller Town and Wittlich City both in our raid, taking out a third of Vox's core.

I'll leave the turn open until probably around 10:00 a.m. Apolyton time, but I probably won't have much time for further discussion. My current inclination is to go for a five galley/two pike/four MedInf/two WC deep raid (using an empty galley as escort), keeping our forces out to sea where hopefully Vox won't see them coming until it's too late.

	11-06-2003 15:34									#20
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I just realized something that may throw a damper on our scheming. Miller Town is within three tiles of The Voice, Harry's Hideout, Beta-by-the-Sea, and Wittlich City. That makes it both a great place for whatever central reserve Vox might be able to pull together and a place that can be reinforced easily from its neighbors. Vox could even pull off a cascade, reinforcing Wittlich from Miller Town and Miller Town from the other three. I think we pretty definitely need to think in terms of hitting Wittlich first, since if we go after Miller Town first, there's a chance the attack will fail and a bigger chance it won't leave us enough survivors to hit Wittlich.

	11-06-2003 15:48									#21
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I've done the usual combat odds for the immortals next to our city. I'm assuming their pikes won't attack. For their three catapults, I'm assuming 1 hit (which is slightly optimistic in Vox's favour, but the difference between that and reality is pretty small (IIRC there is an equal prob of a cat attacking population, improvements or defenders, and since they can have no effect on the first two, on average only one cat gets to attack a pike, and is about 50:50 to do damage)).

I have their attack force as 6 veteran immortals and 5 regular (and 2 more regular can arrive next turn, and attack in 2 turns).

With 6 pikes defending:
34% chance of losing the town, 6.2 attackers killed on average, most likely outcome 7 dead immortals, 2 defenders survive
With 7 pikes defending:
11% chance of losing the town, 6.9 attackers killed on average, most likely outcome 7 dead immortals, 3 defenders survive
With 8 pikes defending:
2% chance of losing the town, 7.3 attackers killed on average, most likely outcome 8 dead immortals, 5 defenders survive
With 9 pikes defending:
0.2% chance of losing the town, 7.5 attackers killed on average, most likely outcome 8 dead immortals, 6 defenders survive.

Pike defense value is taken to be 5.25 (fortified, on hill, no town bonus). I'd say that 8 pikes is the minimum we would be happy with in Inchon next turn. I can live with a 2% chance of losing a town, but not a 11% chance (except in an emergency, but if you are willing to take those kinds of risks normally, you'll lose one sooner than you expect).

	11-06-2003 15:53									#22
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If we use two pikes to cover an assault, that would leave eight.

	11-06-2003 15:53									#23
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What are the chances that we could drop a few units behind Eliopolis to pillage the roads. It looks like the pike/immortal stacks that are retreating (if they are retreating) are the only thing that can really save them. If we could slow them down a couple of turns we could wreak alot more havok in their core.

One pike and 2 WCs woulc probably buy us 2 turns.

	11-06-2003 15:55									#24
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I went ahead and took out the eastern immortals. No losses on our side, and one WC promoted to elite.

	11-06-2003 15:56									#25
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

We can decide which to hit when we get there at least. The landing site (if not blocked, or the galley path blocked) splits the two cities.

Without hitting the roads, my fear is that Vox isn't just running into Elipolis, but that they are running back to their core realizing we could hit them there too. If so, we could expect Vox's N Inchon stack in Miller Town, with the other stacks a turn and two removed for support.

The landing on E7 might look like a complete failure to Vox (or almost complete) depending on how many units they have in the city (and if they have a Barracks). They don't get to see the battles on our turn, so if we suddenly are missing our Med Infs, they could be fooled that we have lost them attacking and are just settling for some pillaging with the WC. Depends on if they can see BbtS 111 and our Galleys.

	11-06-2003 16:02									#26
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To highlight that chance that Vox is fooled into thinking we attacked (and failed), maybe we should only drop 2 WC's, a Pike, and a Med Inf. Even if they have a Spear and a Warrior in the city, there is a decent chance we'd lose an attack with a Med Inf against the Spear, and a WC against a Warrior.

	11-06-2003 16:02									#27
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quote: Originally posted by OPD What are the chances that we could drop a few units behind Eliopolis to pillage the roads. It looks like the pike/immortal stacks that are retreating (if they are retreating) are the only thing that can really save them. If we could slow them down a couple of turns we could wreak alot more havok in their core. One pike and 2 WCs woulc probably buy us 2 turns.

The problem is that we have only a limited number of units in the area. WCs we use to pillage can't be used to attack, and pikes we use to protect pillaging WCs can't defend Inchon or the attack force. If we want eight pikes and a cat on Inchon, we only have two pikes, four MedInfs, and two elite WCs that we can use for other operations. So the more we put into pillaging to set up a deep strike, the less we have available for the strike itself.

	11-06-2003 16:02									#28
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About Miller Town and Wittlich- If we land between the two towns- we force Vox to split whatever defenders they have, and we get to pick where to attack.

	11-06-2003 16:07									#29
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Nice job in the desert BTW!

	11-06-2003 16:09									#30
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Remember that we don't get to see what's in each city except for the first defender, so if Vox has a vet spear in each city, they could have anything (short of a pike) or nothing beneath it.