[Spoilers] 0x49-y: Marxist-Joaoist Praxis

[luddite]

Jeez playing a naval duel is stressful, like a third of my day today was civ. The problem is I've already made a number of blunders that have set me back significantly (though to be fair so has scooter, perfect play under these conditions is impossible) so I feel really paranoid every I move my units around. Anyways, some of scooter's troops may escape Willa Island, but I'll make it tough for him at least. Things could still really go either way, the Viking + circumnav advantage is so huge, and Scooter's supply lines are a lot shorter than mine. It's funny, I feel like I definitely would be favored to win if I had the move advantage and not him, goes to show how powerful vikings are on big & small.

I feel that! Well, I never played a naval duel in this game (actually I don't think I ever played a serious MP naval duel...) But I still get how stressful the warfare is in a MP game here. It's like months of work can go up in smoke instantly if you make one wrong click! I was also feeling really paranoid every time I moved units around, even just basic moves. And it gets even more crazy when you're playing against the vikings who have so many possible moves they can make with their insane movement speed.

[luddite]

Some reasons for optimism:





OPERATION OVERFJORD 2 turns out, I'll post my plans next turn. Any other questions people want me to address?

Would you mind posting your financial screen and city list? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the game state here. I was very confused, seeing your huge lead in the power graph and hearing that you wanted to concede. But I guess you have a lot less land units than I expected.

[scooter]

LFG



Now the whipping begins

Did you have a backup plan if you missed that Engineer for Kremlin?

Turn 90 Report

<snip>

Ironically for Jaoa, my greatest strength this game has actually been vertical expansion. Utilizing the massive food bounties in my starting 3 cities, I've been able to grow Hampstead and Coyacan to healthy double-digit populations and my early diligence on cottaging this area is now starting to pay off with massive commerce being generated in the Hampstead-Coyacan-Gori megapolis.

I won't quote this whole post, but I really enjoyed this one, and this quoted portion I think was spot on. I was really impressed by how much tech you were able to wring from your empire without FIN. I never got good vision on your core, but your mid-game tech output was better than I expected. So even though I was able to figure out your plan, you still executed faster than anticipated at times. This post helps make the "how" really clear.

More Thoughts on PB73 Geopolitics:

So the first principle I have here is that this game will not last very long. It's almost certain that either Scooter or I will win and we both know that. We already border each other and will have an even longer border once he eats Yuri. Any attempt by either of us to peacefully build up or annex territory from Luddite/Cairo will be incredibly vulnerable to a first strike from the other. So if Scooter and I are game theoretically ensured to go to war, when is the best time for me to fight?

<snip>

I will invade Scooter on T120


<snip>

I'm calling my shot. Within the next 50 turns the Viking Menace will be destroyed!

Another fun post and super enlightening to see your planning. What's especially impressive about this post is it's really close to what happened - meaning your beaker/bulb calculations/timings - it all looks pretty much how I remembered it happening.

(still reading)

[scooter]

Scooter takes down Yuri's capital, but has to raze it bc of Yuri's hovering cataphracts, I guess it also un-orphans the fish. Scooter's power spike has been impressive, he definitely has enough to finish Yuri off at this point. On the plus side, it's going to take him a fair bit of time to annex and begin to develop his new lands, at which point my frigates should be knocking on his door.

In other good news, Scooter and I exchanged a fish for fish with 25g on each side, implying a pesudo-NAP finishing right at t120. If I were Scooter and had full knowledge of my plans, I would declare war on me right away to try to disrupt my GA as much as possible before I can spawn the GPs to bulb down to astro/chemistry, but I imagine he'll want to go into builder mode after finally finishing up his game-long war with Yuri. I also just teched Optics this turn and will be whipping out a couple rounds of caravels for scouting and deterrence.

 

7 turns to GA, 25 turns to D-Day 

So, I actually did give a lot of thought into just attacking you next. I really wanted to! Basically I concluded that I had an edge over you with 4-move Galleys + Zerks that would be brutal for you to deal with, and if I could knock you out or at least get a couple key razes in, the game was mine.


The problem was you absolutely spammed Triremes to death, and I was whipped to the bone already from dealing with Yuris. Basically, I spent all my hammers on an army/navy meant for Yuris (not Triremes, basically), and I was gonna need to build a Trireme/Caravel navy from scratch as a pre-req. So I couldn't figure out a way to get enough of them out to really come at you. And I knew from your POV it was "NAP or Trireme Choke" so I opted for the former and decided to bet that I could blow past you in tech once I could consolidate my conquests. As you'll sort of see in my thread I correctly figured out Chemistry was your target, but getting there was a bit slower for me than hoped, which is what made things so dicey.

In other news, Scooter has 1500 gold saved up which I worry is for an astronomy push. Even then, my best estimates of his current research would put him ~15 turns out, but one weakness of the above plan is it means I can’t double bulb astro until t116

This was a Trade Mission FWIW. You were correct in here that I could not bulb Astro, but by my math a Trade Mission was nearly as valuable, and my high movement boats made it feasible. I got two of them off - not sure if this is in reference to the first or second.

[yuris125]

It is impressive how much your trireme spam accomplished - in addition to what Scooter is saying, I was also thinking of sailing phracts your way once it become clear that Scooter was prepared. But your triremes in the straight between us made it not an option

[scooter]

If Scooter really pushes galleon production he can raise up a sizeable fleet ready for a first strike when our NAP expires. That could be pretty scary, especially if he sails it up close to my core at which point he could fork a bunch of my cities:



Now if he did this I definitely wouldn't be able to save every city, tho I think I could defend the important mainland ones. But if he's trying to do this he'll have to get the fleet in position 5 turns after astronomy comes in and with 3 turns of travel time from his core, so he would have to mass upgrade his galleys to pull it off. I should know if he's going for that soon as he will have to start moving his troops to stage on Greg island within the next turn or 2; so far I've seen nothing. Alternatively, he might choose to go for a less elaborate attack that threatens my front cities in the south and west, or my islands to the southeast. A castle + 2 longbows and a crossbow in every city he could threaten should make such an attack quite expensive, and with frigates I should be able to clean up the fleet + army before it makes it home, so even if he can burn a core city I think the overall exchange might still be acceptable for me in the long term.

I had a good laugh at this, because somewhere in my thread I wrote a post highlighting this exact tile and discussed the merits of doing it. I backed off for several reasons, but I definitely thought about it!

Scooter researching engineering after astro instead of upgrading his galleys...he sees where this is going. But I am now 4 turns away from chemistry, while even if he pops a 2nd GA is still at least 12 out (pretty sure he's still lacking feudalism -> guilds -> gunpowder -> engineering)

Any questions people have for my next update?

Yeah by this point I had long since known what you were doing. Engineering felt absolutely necessary for Castles + movement. Castles just meant you'd take longer to bombard, but also the trade routes would be economically useful - plus with Stone they were cheap. And the movement obviously was essential for me to defend. I had given up on any offensive ambitions and decided to hunker down, basically.

All my gold is going into trireme->frigate upgrades, and after that there's still a fair amount of obsolete junk I can juice up.

Oh that is how you got so many Frigates. The raw number was insane to me. So, between the upgrades and EP investment you did, do you think you could have gotten another tech if you had skipped all this? Or were you just too broke post-Colossus and with the unit support?

And of course, we have other plans brewing beyond the principal naval strike. As you guys probably already know, I was able to take out one of Scooter's better cities on his east coast after he left it defended with just 2 longbows and a spearman last turn. That battle spawned my first great general (legit the first benefit I've gotten from my leader traits in 25 turns), which I spent on a stack of 4 knights, 3 of which will get upgraded to c2 + amphibious marines. And the last of the 4? He's going hunting 

You know what's sad about this GG Knight that harassed me constantly? I knew you might do this, and in fact I remember at one point I meant to whip a second unit in Thessalonica the turn you did this because I wanted to be able to tank a hit and reinforce. And then I just... forgot to do it. And then I still had a 1-in-3 dice roll to save it, nope. That city had a settled GG in it too! Then the second one was just a mistake. Like you said - it was so hard to play perfectly when you have to count ocean tiles constantly. I definitely felt your stress over the main theater the same way.

[scooter]

Any chance you can post your civ password so I can see what things looked like for you at the end? I'm still incredibly curious what you had left beyond my vision (if anything), as that was the main thing I was trying to figure out. Also curious how happy-constrained your cities were.