Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[BRickAstley]

Davy, I just wanted to give encouragement, you have played an incredibly good game, and your thread is top notch. only so much you can do with other actors pushing levers everywhere. Keep up the good play/reporting.

[Emperor K]

Yes i have enjoyed reader your thread, thanks for your reporting.

[oledavy]

Alright, I have arrived at a decision. I'm going to take you through my evolving train of thought as the day has gone on, and play my turn in a couple hours when I get home. 

So, first off, let's get the obvious out of the way. Stealing Woden's money and taking Jerusalem would be an objectively shitty thing to do, I'm not sidestepping that. I don't play these games to be a nice guy though. Moreover, Woden started it. He will argue that allying with Archduke was not against the letter of our partnership. It certainly was against the spirit of it though, and has left the game in the balance and me in a rough situation. He even admitted that it screwed me over in the Diplo thread. So, insofar as two wrongs make a right, I would consider it a justified response from where I stand. 

Regardless of what Archduke may bluster in the diplo thread. Here is the cold hard calculus I am facing. Archduke has double my pop, and nearly double my cities. He has easy next door conquests. We have tech parity at the moment, but his long-term position is significantly stronger than mine. Both our culture and science rates will continue to grow linearly, his faster than mine. But hidden, is the fact that his production and gold, arguably the two more critical stats at this point in the game, are also going to grow much faster linearly than mine. 

I have the Arsenal, a major boon and the reason I'm competitive. But he has +1 movement on all ships and a lock on two GA's at a time for the rest of the game. My previous math estimate was wrong, as was predicated on him having to attack higher strength ironclads. realistically, he can two-shot my frigates with his GA buffed frigates, attacking as they are at a ~15 str. difference (factoring in DW). This means I need 3 ships for every 2 Archduke has. VA is not going to cut it forever unless I get more production. 

I don't trust Woden at all. His newfound cooperativeness in the diplo thread in the aftermath of screwing me has not left me swayed. He will sell me out in a moment if he feels it improves his position, not that I would expect anything else from someone playing to win. But, I can't count on him, the raisins he is offering me right now do not mean he is suddenly going to work with me again when his alliance runs out. It's a tossup in my mind whether he decides to send his battleships against me or Archduke. I'm also frankly tired of Woden trying to play every side in every conflict. 

But, with all that context aside, this decision is not about revenge, justice, anger, or anything like that. 

It comes down to a simple calculus: 

"Does stealing Woden's gold and taking Jerusalem give me a better chance to win the game."

I've already briefly considered the possibility of taking the city but not stealing his gold. But considering he will likely be equally livid with me for either one or both, I might as well go for the whole enchilada. 

So, screwing Woden:  

Pros: 

1. Jerusalem, a city that marginally increases my chances to win
2. 350 gold, a very nice amount for my cash-strapped economy that marginally increases my chances to win. 

Cons: 

1. Woden's everlasting ire. 

This can manifest in three principle ways. 

1. Woden telling Archduke all my movements.
2. Woden trying to interdict me with his units.
3. Woden coming after me with his UU when our alliance runs out.

The first two actually make Archduke more likely to win and me and Woden less likely to win, as cathartic as I'm sure they would feel for him. The last one is hard to predict how it would impact the outcome of the game, and will depend much on what transpires in the coming turns, but could similarly throw the game to Archduke if he is still the major threat at that stage. 

Theoretically, losing the possibility of conquering Jerusalem and 350 gold shouldn't tilt a player sufficiently that they give up all hope of winning. So, with that in mind, Woden realistically will just have to suck it up if I backstab him, because if he wants to win, that means not screwing too much with my ability to counterbalance Archduke, at least until he is strong enough in his own right. 

But then, I realized my premise is fundamentally wrong. 

Over and over again, his alliance with Archduke being only the latest example, Woden and I see the geopolitical situation in fundamentally different ways. It's the source of all my anger with him, his seeming insistence in acting in ways that I perceive as lessening his chance to win. In short, I can't expect Woden to do things I think make him more likely to win, and he's just as likely as not, in the event of a backstab, to do all three of these things and more. That gave me pause, but that's when I arrived at my final realization. 

I can't count on Woden to act in ways that increase his chances to win even if I don't backstab him. He certainly jumped at the alliance with Archduke. What's stopping him from waiting out this alliance with me, and attacking me anyway if he has decided I am the bigger threat after consuming Spain? Am I to believe he has just now finally had a change of heart and sees the world the way I see it?

So in effect, there is no choice in my eyes. Woden will continue to be Woden. He will play both sides, and act in ways that not just me, but Singaboy too, see as fundamentally against his own self-interest. The fact that he so perfectly articulated in the Diplo thread why he would not have been invaded had he chosen not to ally with Archduke, yet still uses it as a justification to have allied with him, just boggles my mind. He will never act in ways I can predict, because his read on the geopolitical situation is fundamentally different. 

So, we're stealing the gold and taking the city. 

Get your popcorn ready. I estimate the fireworks will start tomorrow morning.

[BRickAstley]

       

[oledavy]

Thank you very much for your words of encouragement BrickAstley, it means a lot to me 

Thank you too Emperor K!

Anyway, with the dramatic decision made, time to get on with the turn. 

Turn 135



Singaboy offered me a DoF, and I saw no reason to not accept. What strange times these are. A mere 15 turns ago, we were at each other's throats. Now, we're allies? 

Woden offered me 350 because he was using the rest of his gold to upgrade two frigates. 



Unfortunately for him, my fleet will beat his there. 



Still, interesting things might transpire. I need to not hit the city too hard on the first turn that he can take it on t2. 

If he's smart, he'll declare on his turn and move his caravel in to block me from having both tiles next to the city. 

Further east, I concluded the siege of De Soto, and sank CFCJesterfool's caravel. 



I'm provisionally calling Spain's home island Neptune for now, and renamed the city Triton. In a nice surprise, the harbor was complete! 



I had not realized it was. That's +2 TRs over the last couple turns   I'll get another when I take Jerusalem. 

I might even be able to give Archduke some competition for the Modern Admiral at this point, although the industrial one is definitely out of the question. 

Getting 2 GAPs for every harbor is just really really hard to beat, even if you are focusing on harbors. 

In the west, the Spaniards have rolled out another caravel. 



I'm still reluctant to put my fleet south of Neptune. So for now, I'm focusing on Jerusalem, while the fleet around De Soto joins the third fleet to take Hong Kong. It looks like there is a city just a tiny bit farther down the coast there that I might be able to get. I'll just be leaving a couple frigates around Triton to help mop up the heavy chariots on the land, otherwise the colonial marines (i.e. swords), will be handing the defense of the city and probing a bit inland. 

Sucked it up and purchased a missionary this turn. 



I need my religion on Neptune for DoTF. That third university will have to wait. 

I also finally worked out builder micro this turn. I'm shoving out a couple more from Io and Ganymede in addition to the initial 5. Over the next bunch of turns, I have 36 improvements to make and resources the harvest. I should be set for the big (and hopefully game winning), sub push. 

Right now, I am set to get Electricity on t152. I'm enduring a three-turn delay to see if I land the 14% shot from Mendeleev. It also gives me 8 turns to build 3 privateers for the eureka, and allows me to cram out a last pair of Caravels from Titan. This additional time won't be wasted, as I can pre-build privateers in all cities that will upgrade in queue to subs. Between turns 152-170, I hope to swamp the seas in submarines. I just need to make sure my economy keeps up. They are really expensive at 6GPT to maintain. 

The intel from Woden confirms what I speculated.

Archduke has 8 frigates and 4 caravels, and they are located right around here for now. 



By comparison, I have 9 frigates and 6 caravels. I need three more vessels to reach fleet parity. Two will be produced next turn. 

Running the ideal, perfect engage scenario, where everything fires or attacks every turn, and Archduke gets the first strike, the climatic battle at 17 vs. 12 looks like this: 

Archduke kills 6
I kill 3

11 vs. 9 

Archduke kills 4
I kill 3

7 vs. 6 

Archduke kills 3
I kill 1

4 vs. 5

Archduke goes on to win from there. But one more ship tilts this prolonged exchange in my favor. My odds get better the more ironclads I have too. 

So yeah, we're right on the cusp of having fleet parity with the English, but they still have an edge. More than the strength boost, that first strike is just extremely hard to deal with. 

In the short term, I will be detouring towards gunpowder, with the longer term goal of being able to upgrade my swords to muskets to aid in my conquest of Spain. I will also need to upgrade at least one ironclad to boost my city strengths. 

Other than that, I need to save in order to fund my swollen navies, and need to save to upgrade privateers to subs.

[oledavy]

Note to self: Finish my temple and get an apostle next so I can boost my GPT with faith beliefs.

[oledavy]

Turn 136

The knife has been plunged. 





There's no turning back now. This is the beginning of my push for the win. 

Woden has an inkling what's going on, but the penny won't drop until this afternoon. The Axis and Allies quote leads me to believe he is going to align with England, but I honestly am not too bothered if that's the case. 

Little does he know Axis and Allies 1940 Global is my favorite board game! 

Anyway, I took surprisingly few photos of what I did this turn, but a ton of the starting situation when I opened the save. 



Military Engineering in. 

I realized I miscalculated last turn when estimating when I would get Mendeleev, and he will take a couple turns longer than I thought. 

Welp, so much for cute plans, we're burning hard for electricty. The ETA for it is now t148, 12 turns out. My detour to Military Engineering didn't cost me any time on that front, and now I get a cool extra hammer each turn 



JUST LIKE THE GYPSY WOMAN SAID. 

At any rate, I will go mine it shortly to push Callisto's hammers even higher. Industrialization mines mean any hill tile, even that crappy desert hill the builder is currently on, can suddenly be turned into an amazing hammer tile. Lysithia certainly appreciates any shields it can get, hammer starved as it is. 

Apparently, the new layer for religious units means your religious units can be attacked inside your own cities. 



HE LIVES

 

That apostle has frickin debater, but Divine Wind apparently applies to religious units and comes up extremely clutch for me. Not only am I able to live another day to start converting Triton to the one true fatih, but I am able nuke the chariot with my frigate, move a sword to the tile, and then purge the Spanish infidels, ending the religious threat to the region. 

Here was the deal Singaboy offered



I saw little downside the accepting. He could betray me and share all my positions with Archduke, but Woden is probably already down for that, and Singaboy legitimately really needs me. 

Accepting revealed there is indeed a Spanish city south of Hong Kong. 



The eastern fleet contigent will go here next. The other three Spanish cities look like they are all on the inner coast. I hope they are....it will make my task much easier. 

Here is Germany. 



There is now virtually no way Archduke can sneak up on me. Surprise is off the table, it's now a complete numbers game. 

Notable is the fact that Germany is about to settle two inland cities, bring their total of those up to 4. 

Looking at his homeland, I begin to see why Archduke was so successful. Kiel and Zitronheim are both really easy to take from the sea. And losing Kiel would have killed his economy. Zuckerstadt and Salz Am Meer are both harder nuts to crack, but by that time Singaboy was more or less defeated and sending the rest of his fleet west. I still really want to know what he was doing with all that time with access to Press Gangs before Archduke arrived, but eh, c'est la vie. 

So, I'm honestly not too worried about Singaboy. Yes, Archduke is probably going to come back after him, but the fact that half of his cities will be inland and he still has a decent army means it will be extremely hard for Archduke to kill Singaboy. However, I need to make Singaboy think sailing to his aid the moment he is attacked is my top priority, when in reality, if Archduke does that, I'd rather finish off Spain, secure Saturn, AND THEN go to his aid. I don't really care it he loses half his cities again before I get there. 

The other consideration here is that Archduke and I are both on the cusp of submarines, so the timing of my fleet's arrival in his waters or vice versa will be extremely impactful. 

At any rate, I'm monitoring the situation for now. I imagine after Woden declares for Archduke, Archduke will feel he has a freer hand to come into my waters and fight me. Alternatively, he may attack Germany to make me come to him. The latter is probably his best option. I'm prepared for either possibility. 

At this point, more than anything else, Singaboy's morale is the most important resource the Germans have. If nothing else, I need to keep his head in the game, even if my fleets are slow to arrive. 

Anyway, back to the war. Here is the full situation that confronted me in the south at the beginning of the turn. 



I have no idea what that caravel is doing....

I killed it without any issues. 

In the east though, I've come to realize this encampment overlooks the quickest route into Spain's home waters, and he seems determined to defend it if he can. 



I moved my front caravel back and left another one in wait a few tiles behind it. Hopefully he falls for the trap. Should I decide to try and go south of Neptune, I'll have a major decision on my hands regarding whether to reduce the fort or bypass it. Nice placement though, I'll say. 

Around Triton, I cleaned up the apostle, as previously discussed, and used naval gunfire support to kill off a couple heavy chariots and push inland a little. 



He pillaged the campus, sad, but expected. The marines are now all ashore, and with the city being converted to Mormonism next turn, will have the DoTF bonus. I'm going to try and peek over the hill line to the south and see what awaits me closer to Spain's capital. Pillaging that IZ for gold would also be nice...

[oledavy]

Note to Self: Send a builder to harvest those crabs around Triton.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I have to express a rare moment of disagreement with you, here. 

I'm not sure that taking Jerusalem is worth the costs. Yes, Woden is going to play both sides against the middle. Yes, he's flaky and unreliable. He's a fencesitter, 100%. But I feel like Jerusalem is going to push him off the fence, and he's going to tumble down onto England's side. Before, you could count on passive support or a sort of benevolent neutrality, which I think was not to be discounted. The intel on Archduke's fleet, for example, would be great in setting up a favorable fleet engagement. Now, though, you'll lose that and instead Archduke gets to learn where your crucial traders are. You lose Woden as a trading partner for the rest of the game - it's not like his gold and luxuries haven't been valuable. In return, Jerusalem is a marginal city. It's more valuable as a strategic position between you and Woden than as a city itself.

Essentially, I disagree with your logic that you can't count on Woden to act in ways that don't harm his chances of winning, so you should go ahead and stab him. In other words, you're going to guarantee you can't rely on him, guarantee he will do his best to screw you, in return for, well, Jerusalem. 

I dunno, I just feel like this move has a lot more downsides than it does upsides. 

But, it's done. I suppose this mostly increases the urgency of obtaining a final solution to the Archduke problem relatively quickly - when the alliance expires in ~25 turns you'll have a swarm of angry MGs coming at you from the west, and if the fleet is tied up in a slugging match with England it'll be curtains for the OIA then. Seems like the main impact then is to speed up the timeline of a final settlement of this game. 

I love Singaboy's proposed inland cities. It looks like he learned his lesson from the British invasion and is settling more defensively. Since he can't hope to build a fleet to resist England at sea in the short time he has, I guess htis means he's aiming at protracted resistance inland while waiting for you to provide relief - the Bataan option, in other words. I think it's a good plan for survival, I hope you don't take too long conquering Spain that the gesture is wasted.

Anyway, thanks again for your reporting, and good luck in the future turns.

[oledavy]

I have to express a rare moment of disagreement with you, here. 

I'm not sure that taking Jerusalem is worth the costs. Yes, Woden is going to play both sides against the middle. Yes, he's flaky and unreliable. He's a fencesitter, 100%. But I feel like Jerusalem is going to push him off the fence, and he's going to tumble down onto England's side. Before, you could count on passive support or a sort of benevolent neutrality, which I think was not to be discounted. The intel on Archduke's fleet, for example, would be great in setting up a favorable fleet engagement. Now, though, you'll lose that and instead Archduke gets to learn where your crucial traders are. You lose Woden as a trading partner for the rest of the game - it's not like his gold and luxuries haven't been valuable. In return, Jerusalem is a marginal city. It's more valuable as a strategic position between you and Woden than as a city itself.

Essentially, I disagree with your logic that you can't count on Woden to act in ways that don't harm his chances of winning, so you should go ahead and stab him. In other words, you're going to guarantee you can't rely on him, guarantee he will do his best to screw you, in return for, well, Jerusalem. 

I dunno, I just feel like this move has a lot more downsides than it does upsides. 

But, it's done. I suppose this mostly increases the urgency of obtaining a final solution to the Archduke problem relatively quickly - when the alliance expires in ~25 turns you'll have a swarm of angry MGs coming at you from the west, and if the fleet is tied up in a slugging match with England it'll be curtains for the OIA then. Seems like the main impact then is to speed up the timeline of a final settlement of this game. 

I love Singaboy's proposed inland cities. It looks like he learned his lesson from the British invasion and is settling more defensively. Since he can't hope to build a fleet to resist England at sea in the short time he has, I guess htis means he's aiming at protracted resistance inland while waiting for you to provide relief - the Bataan option, in other words. I think it's a good plan for survival, I hope you don't take too long conquering Spain that the gesture is wasted.

Anyway, thanks again for your reporting, and good luck in the future turns.

I think your counter-argument is sound, and I have had second thoughts on the decision as the day has progressed.

I will counter though, that regardless of any other factor, I believe there was a strong chance Woden would have come after me anyway when our alliance runs out. Meaning I would need to defend against him and lose access to resource trades no matter what. Especially if I succeed in taking down Spain, its really easy for me to see a scenario where Archduke sweet talks him into thinking I'm the bigger threat (which who knows, I may be at that point). Actually, I very reasonably expect to be in the lead by the time my alliance with Woden runs out. 

Even if he would have otherwise decided at that point to fence-sit, then I would still have to keep my fleet tied down to oppose him should he move against me.

Regarding the vision issue, I'm not too worried about that to be honest. Archduke already knows the direction I need to come from, since Woden's vision lights up the other way already. Exact location and size I don't really care about as the war at sea at this point is not a tactical game, it is only about numbers. If he shares information with Archduke, let him. At this point in the naval game, whoever attacks the other in their home waters loses, so its a question of which one of us can force the other to fight us on our home turf. 

Finally, while Woden is likely now to attack me purely out of revenge, even if Archduke is still ahead after our alliance, I believe he was already likely to do so because: 

1. Woden begrudges me for his loss in PBEM2 and came into this game wanting revenge. 
2. He is just as likely to misread the situation and not realize Archduke is in a stronger position (in this specific future scenario).

Having said all that, I'm more certain in my move. I think this was the time to abandon all pretense and get the most I could out of Woden before pushing for the win. 

Still, I welcome the debate, and think you raise some good points. I'll be very curious to see what the lurkers who have perfect knowledge and know more intimately Woden's thought processes think after the game.