Dom and Lucius had finished discussing stage one of Lucius's city plan, and Lucius was now starting to discuss Stage two of his plans.
"Stage two all depends on our growth and the direction we go. Ideally I would like to build a small wall around the stage one boundaries and call this the inner city of Riverside. When we then extend to Stage two, we can convert these 5 districts in to more central ones, with our further out districts then becoming the next layer of our growth." Lucius continued. "The housing would then be in the outer districts, with only key members of Riverside living within the central districts."
"So premium housing, what of the other central districts, would they then move out and also converted?" Dom asked.
"Correct, premium housing for the key members of the town. The other inner distctricts would be converted as well, as there would be no point having buildings like the lumber camp in the inner city as it grows to encompass it. Some districts we may decide to maintain though, such as the farming district. We need to see the future growth before we decide on what they would be then." Lucius replied. "There is also the river that we may expand across."
"It's a great idea Lucius, I am really happy that I have you with me." Dom replied honestly. "I couldn't have come up with any of this on my own."
"This isn't my expertise, I am a farmer and a defender, but after speaking with the others and getting their ideas this is what we came up with." Lucius added. "Ideally we need someone with administration skills, rather than leadership like myself. If we can get a strong administrator then we could have some real potential to grow"
Dom was impressed with Lucius's thinking and openness, he really wished he had someone like Lucius in his real life. Unfortunately the closest adult he had with this sort of knowledge was a gargoyle with much hatred towards him.
"We have 12 more days before I can get any more help, at this rate we could potentially have another 240 villagers by then, plus hopefully another 60 warriors" Dom commented. "I'm sure that is still within our manageable limits. Obviously we never know if other opportunities will arise during that time."
"It is within our manageable limits," Lucius replied, "And we can always pause on your daily arrivals if it isn't. Gan Ning mentioned he remembers his old state had many administrators, but they are not all good and trustworthy. It is better to take our time with our key leadership growth."
Whilst they were talking, Subutai had entered the room behind them and had been stood quietly, listening to what they discussed.
"Are you both finished now?" He interrupted, tapping his hand against his waist.
"Yes we are." Lucius replied, knowing that Subutai had entered a while ago, but choosing to carry on. Dom on the other hand almost jumped out of his skin in surprise. Making Subutai and Lucius smile at his reaction.
"Good." Subutai commented, before walking forwards and re-arranging the segments of the table so that it looked like it had before Dom and Lucius had entered. He then took to the centre, standing in front of Dom.
"This is us." Subutai commented, pointing at the central segment with a long stick that he had concocted out of nowhere. "This here is the river that runs beside us, and this one here is the trees to the forests in the north. That is the segment that we call the Riverside City. The three segments that are across the river are currently flatlands. This is because we have not crossed the river and explored across there yet. This is something that we ideally need to do soon."
Subutai then pushed the three flat segments away that represented the space across the river. Leaving six segments in the middle of the room, at three metres long by two metres wide.
"This segment here represents the flatlands to the east of the city, we have explored to the end of this segment and it is currently more open land. A great place for city expansion in the future. When we have explored further we will have an additional segment added." Subutai continued, before removing that piece from the table. "The Shepherds have planned a route and this should be explored in the next few days."
"These three pieces here are the forest. As you can see in the central one, around halfway through there is a small figure of a Bear, depicting the location the bear was met and the Tiger Cubs mother was located. Other than that the three units are the same and are covered with calved trees, for now. We need to do much more exploration of these to mark any hidden locations, but we are not set up to fight any creatures that we may find, so it can wait." Subutai finished, before removing these pieces, just leaving the one in place next to the City segment. "If we send out a small force and it meets an adult Tiger or another Bear, we could be in for some real damage."
Lucius collated the segments that had been removed and pushed them to the back wall tidily, where some other blank segments lay, ready for work on them as their area of understanding grew. Slowly the fog of war was lifting on the surrounds of Riverside.
"This final segment is the mountain, or at least the part facing us. You can see that the river runs down the side and the piece starts to grow." Subutai continued, "Lucius, please bring me the pieces."
Lucius then collected two pieces that had been pushed on the back wall and brought them across. Placing them behind the mountain segment. The table was now a four metre long by 1 metre wide. The furthest segment was the city segment, with two mountain segments in the middle, followed by another segment.
"These here are the mountain rising closest to us, and then the next one is it dropping. Ideally I believe this mountain alongside the river could take up at least four segments, before it potentially grows in to a mountain range." Subutai explained. "However, this final segment is what I want to discuss. As the mountain drops and the river continues, we are met with a small woods, followed by this town here."
On the final segment was a small town, a collection of buildings, including a small town centre, some houses and some larger buildings. The architecture was strange to Dom's eyes, not recognising it from anything he has seen before.
"This is the the town that Gan Ning discovered. Since our latest reports from those that have been coming back and forth, the town consists of a smaller version of our warriors hall, some house, a granary and another unique building we couldn't identify." Lucius commented, taking the lead on this part of the conversation. "They have identified no more than 50 members in the community, all wearing animal fur around their waists, with very few wearing anything above. The warriors that we have identified seem to be wearing a similar outfit to the civilians, but also have a big cat of some kinds head fur as a helmet. They are not armed with anything major, mainly clubs and javelins."
"We believe that there should be no more than 15 warriors, as well as their leader, or tribal chief." Subutai interrupted. "He seems very well built and is covered in markings from the limited information we have gathered. We believe that with the numbers we currently have, we could take the village. The key worry is that the villagers could also fight, in that case their is a higher chance of risk and even failure."
"Have we drawn up a plan to attack?" Dom asked.
"Gan Ning has come up with a devious plan. We need to create a diversion, pulling out their warriors to the edge of the forest here." Subutai answered, pointing to the the edge of the woods on the nearest side of the village. "Once they are in location, our Hoplites that will be in waiting, will lock shields and march out of the woods in formation. We should be able to use our much longer range to easily control the pace and defeat them swiftly."
"How will the diversion work?" Dom asked.
"Gan Ning will sneak in and set fire to the Granary here." Subutai replied, pointing at one of the buildings quite central in the town "Before making himself very obvious and running towards the woods, having their warriors chase after him. When he gets here he will meet our main force, the Hoplite."
"There is a lot of risk on Gan Ning in this plan." Dom replied seriously. "If he makes a mistake or is caught, we could loose one of our key members."
"There is always a risk in war." Subutai replied, "But we have to trust in our men to succeed. He wouldn't have put the plan forwards if he wasn't confident in his own ability."
The setting fire to the granary idea really resonated with Dom, it reminded him of a similar tactic his mother had used in the Battle for Riverside. It had worked in a similar way for her, but they had lost the overall battle. This would be a skirmish in comparison, and he would win this.
"As long as we maintain the tight formation that Alexander has shown us, we can beat anything in front of us." Subutai continued. "Our only weakness will be if we are flanked from the sides by the villagers or unknown warriors we haven't spotted. We are confident in the numbers though. The Hoplites will be in rows of 5 wide and 4 deep, so a comfortable block of 20, unless we wait until tomorrow and we can add another rank."
"How do we defend against a flanking attack?" Dom asked.
"That is where the rest of Gan Ning's plan comes in." Subutai replied, "Myself and Gan Ning will be on the right flank once he runs towards us, in the forest ready to slow down any villagers, whilst the right row of of the Hoplite formation will drop spears and take up swords, turning to the right. We aim to create a box formation with each side covered with shields. Yourself and Tomyris will be on the left to do the same."
"I disagreed with sending you to battle." Lucius commented. "But we don't have any other option, we could send the guards, but then we would have no one to defend here if the bear or anything from the forest attacks."
"It's fine!" Dom replied, "I really want to be involved with our first attack."
"Gan Ning is stationed along the riverbank with a runner currently. I can send a runner up to him and give him a signal of when to be ready to attack." Subutai commented. "We are ready to go when you are. The latest Hoplite to join can slot in to the back of the formation for now."
"What will be the signal?" Dom queried.
"That's Genghis's job." Subutai replied with a smile.