It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oh, good. I'm glad everyone is a fan. I imagine Japper, Rowain, and Emperor will like it less, but sucks to their assmar, as I always say. 

The trick, of course, is getting Archduke to agree. It takes two to tango, and he could be dead-set on going to war with me. Then again, he has made radical changes in alliance on the eve of war before:

So there's reason to hope. One major goal in the next 7 turns will be convincing the Duke to see things my way using AI diplomacy only. Oh boy. Here goes!

Turn 123

Here's the situation on the home front as I open turn 123:




Arabian shipyards continue to work day and night. The sound of hammers, men shouting, and the winching of canvas echoes across the continent as ship after ship slides down the ways. A quad pops out of Escobar and another one is immediately queued. My main limiting factor is going to be gold - I don't have quite the builder labor I wanted, with too many charges concentrated into too few workers. It'll take a few turns to get everything harvested. I can get 6 on the first turn.

Down here at Moustakas, though, the native forests are stripped completely bare as we finish no less than 4 quads in 2 turns with this harvest:




That worker will now embark and join the other for a pair of Magnus crabs to get the gold to change these bad boys into frigates. Moustakas's long-term production is more or less borked, with the loss of those two riverside mills, but ships now are more important. It can quietly work on a harbor and campus and then fill it up with faith purchases. 

Meanwhile, the caravel maintaining the watch on the Dutch coast counts 13 ships of various types - which is actually fewer than I have on my own coast facing the Duke, to say nothing of the growing fleet of ships around Moustakas. I mass damn near 28 ships by the start of next turn, far more than I'll have gold to upgrade.






That's all the upgrade space Archduke has, though, so he's dealing with his own geographic problems. 

In the north, the latest barb incursion is repelled. I COULD send my sword north to clear out that camp - I probably should, before hte barbs spawn in enough numbers to threaten Zobrist or Davis. IF I can swing this Dutch alliance, and if I have the gold, I'll upgrade my slingers to archers and send them north with the sword and a frigate in support to stamp out this nuisance. 




Meanwhile, ANOTHER English settler appears. Emperor has been pumping out settlers like mad since he signed his renewed DoF with the Archduke:




I view this as good news for me. Emperor is a thorn in Archduke's side, not mine. The stronger he gets, the more likely Archduke won't want to risk his massive fleet in battle with me (especially since I think my fleet is somewhat larger and growing fast - we'll probably be about evenly matched, apart from the Sevens). Furthermore, there's a period of vulnerability after expansion like this (just ask Japper in PBEM4). Emperor has NOT been building military, and his tech rates, while decent, have been slightly laggardly. He might reach frigates in the ~20 turns he has until his new DoF expires - in fact, he almost certainly will - but he won't have the Quad base to upgrade that I will. 

At the end of turn, Archduke's milscore is 886, compared to my 600 - which doesn't take into account the 4 quads I finished during the turn (I don't think), which yeah, makes us about evenly matched when you factor in his 6 heavy chariots. He has far more gold in hand than I do, but I have crab harvests incoming. I'm holding off until I finish Square Rigging to harvest, though, since yield is tied to number of techs/civics finished, and in the meantime I can benefit from the crab gold - you can see the way my income has been steadily eaten up by the naval expansion program. 

By way of contrast, Emperor fields 366 strength, Teddy 362, and Japper 355. All our neighbors combined outweigh the Dutch only slightly. Archduke and I's combined strength of ~1500 is a lopsided 3:2 in our favor, the reverse of what you'd expect from raw numbers. Furthermore, a look at the tech tree shows that only Archduke and I have finished Caravels. Rowain's tech is identical to my own but his number of techs researched is exploding - while I'm doing a deep dive to square rigging, Rowain is emphatically not. And he's scientifically more advanced than Emperor or Japper. Japper has half the tech rate of anyone and has had for ages, and he's building more holy sites. I get that he can faith purchase Jongs, but those won't save him if he a)can't research them in time (what tech are they on? Hang on, lemme look 'em up...Mercenaries!? Japper's culture is much worse than mine and I only just finished mercenaries!) and b)has vastly superior numbers of Arabian or Dutch ships assailing him. Japper has the production capacity but not the tech to defend himself. Rowain has the tech, but is sitting on 5 cities and at least 2 of 'em are inland (unless his continent is way narrower than I think - actually not impossible, given Archduke and Emperor's narrow landmasses - still, only 5 cities). Emperor presently has neither the tech nor the capacity to compete, but he is working on turning those around.

So, short term plans: We're going to delay our Civil Service policy swap until turn 128, when Square Rigging is in. That way we can drop Maritime Industries and run both Conscription and Professional Army. Conscription is worth something like 30 gpt at the moment, so I'm giving up ~60 gold here, but that's something that has to be done. I need the policy swap timed correctly. Next, we'll head towards Monarchy and a 6-slot government, which we will boost next turn when Zobrist finishes the temple. Zobrist will buy a wat and build my second trader of the game (I finished a lighthouse back when I thought I had that luxury), everyone else will pump ships until the last minute, when I swap over to either finishing walls or go to Harbors/Campuses. On turn 128, we'll begin upgrading and then offer an alliance/joint war to Archduke. 

Scores and overview:

[shallow_thought]

That little video clip was awesome.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Heh, I'm glad you liked it. It helped vent some of my frustration with foreign policy in PBEM7. 

Turn 12

We tick closer to war. A quiet turn that took me a REALLY long while to play, as I pored over the map to see if I missed anything.




Zobrist finishes its temple, which ticks me closer to Monarchy and gives me exportable production in the form of faith. The temple is the equivalent of +2 production empire-wide, as long as it's being used for Campus or Theater square buildings, wats, missionaries, apostles, or land units. I've got enough demands on it that I'll need every scrap I can get. 

Interestingly, I'm really liking Earth Goddess more than I thought I would. I thought it was basically a consolation prize after losing out on Goddess of the Harvest, Open Sky, and, well, basically anything useful, but it's really doing well for me. My faith shot up to ~30-40 points and has slowly ticked up from there, mostly as mines spread around the empire and reduce appeal. It's been a great bootstrap, though - my faith generation has consistently run well ahead of Japper's 20-30 fpt, even as I've only built 2 holy sites and he's got at least 4 by my last count. Contrast my pantheon with his - he's running Divine Spark, and what's that doing for him? He has no campuses or theater squares, so the GS points and GW points are wasted. He did get a faster GP, but he also slapped down a holy site before anything else at his capital - Japper really likes the early district play, I've noticed. But, no one was racing him to the first religion, and all he got out of it was Defender of the Faith - not bad, but not the best on an island map - and Choral Music, which again, not bad, but it lets his pantheon totally go to waste. He's building Holy Sites instead of Campuses, and the culture gained lets him feel he can skip theater squares entirely. In other words, his pantheon choice has done nothing for him but land him the first religion a few turns sooner - and he's used that to totally ignore his pantheon since. Compare it to Archduke's God of the Open Sky, which is what keeps him slightly ahead of me in the culture race, or Rowain's Goddess of the Harvest, which I'm still jealous of (need to do the math someday to see who got more faith out of their pantheon - me, or him). 

Meanwhile, Rowain and Archduke have small but persistent science leads over me - no more than about 3-4 points, usually. I finally figured out how that's happening. Check this out:








They're all running specialists, which gives pure science at the expense of food and other yields. I can do the same in Cain, Escobar, and Morales (soon), and when I do - my science rate shoots up to 70 points! I dial it back down because I need the production more, but if I get a peaceful chance soon, then for sure we'll crank up the science and race through the tech tree. So don't tell anyone, but the Arabians actually have a lead in science now and we're still filling out campuses and research buildings. : I have two more campuses placed, and 2 harbors placed, each of which will give +3 science each if I get the opportunity to finish them. 

Similarly, gold income is down, but we'll be running Conscription in 4 more turns. That's +30 gpt at the moment as my swollen navy devours the coffers. So demographics wise I feel okay, maybe even leading - I'll do a survey next post. 

Finally, you may notice I've got 3 envoys in the bank. Those are for Mohenjo-Daro:




I've quietly moved Amani into place for her envoys, and I'm sitting on the rest. The play here is to wait until it's clear which way things are going with the Archduke. If war, on the turn the DoF expires I'll dump all my envoys into Mohenjo and declare war on the 'Duke. I'll claim suzerainity and MD will follow me into war, which in turn will kick out Amani and some of his envoys. He'll find himself unable to respond quickly, even if he has envoys up his sleeve. I think Amani gets kicked out in the event of war, I seem to recall that from singleplayer. Could be misremembering, though. Anyway, if peace, then I'll not bother and just come raze the city with part of my massive fleet. And by raze I mean conquer, because burning it down would be stupid. That will cost Archduke about 10 cpt, from his theater squares.

Civics-wise, we're going to pause Civil Service next turn. Our next targets are Monarchy for the government, and then Mercantilism for Press Gangs. 
Research is going to finish out square rigging. Stirrups is paused - I do want to get out some heavy chariots, but a more modest number, maybe 5, for an inland strike force that operates with naval support. Instead, I'll scoop up all the 1-turn techs on the bottom of the tree, including Engineering, Construction, Machinery, etc. Then it's a push for Steam Power and ironclads, the next key naval tech.

Military power - we're about 100 points behind the Archduke. Account for his HC army and we're at rough naval parity at the moment, and I'll get about 5 more ships out before we lose Quadrireme access.

Scores and Arabian overview:





Notice how the other 3 powers are clustered around 260 points, and Archduke and I are clustered around 325 points. That and the individual categories breakdown tells you a lot about the state of the game atm.

[suboptimal]

Heh, I'm glad you liked it. It helped vent some of my frustration with foreign policy in PBEM7. 

As a genlurker for that game diplomacy was definitely a mix of uncomfortable horror show, I can't look away from this car wreck and a little bit MOAR POPCORN.  That video was definitely a highlight of it.

Regarding the Earth Goddess pantheon I have to wonder how well that would work in conjunction with a religious Australia. 

Enjoying the reporting, keep it up! 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I am three turns behind. Try to catch up this afternoon.

It's a lot harder to keep up to date when playing two PBEMs instead of one, I find. With one, I could load up the save, play during my window, and then either have enough time to report OR report during my afternoon window. With two, though, my morning window is ALWAYS occupied with playing the save, and the afternoon frequently is, too. At which point I'm burnt out and not ready to report.

You guys haven't missed anything major. More Dutch ships gather, more Arabian ships arrive. We're 2 turns from Square Rigging and offering the alliance.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay, let's keep this short. We're up to

Turn 126




Escobar finishes another quad and has juuust enough production to squeeze out one more before Square Rigging hits. I might even delay it for a turn if that lets me get out one more quad somewhere else - Moustakas, I think, will be close. It's worth looking at, but I need enough time to upgrade and I want Frigates in hand to convince the Archduke to join with me and rule the galaxy as father and son instead of thinking it's an act of desperation.

The state of the empire is much the same:




Zobrist finished its temple, bought a Wat, and is working on a trader - my second! We're up to 50 faith per turn, which translates to 10 turns per Madrasa. That's roughly 22.5 production per turn, which is a rate not achievable by cities like Morales or Hosmer. We're saving for either our second madrasa, or another apostle to evangelize Crusade. Not sure yet. With +5 science and +3 faith per madrasa, they're a much better ROI than purchasing a library (160 faith for 2 science and no faith). So Cain gets its Madrasa before Morales gets the Library. Then we'll buy the library/madrasa combo in Morales before working on Zobrist or Hosmer or Davis (three places I intend to have campuses), etc. A library is a 4-turn build. I love Jesuit Education and Arabia! 

Morales finished my third campus, bringing me to 8 districts at last - 3 campuses, 2 holy sites, 2 harbors, 1 government plaza. That SHOULD trigger the discount for Theater Squares, Commercial Hubs, Encampments, and Entertainment districts, but I foolishly already placed Morales' theater square, so no discount there. I've also got 3 harbors down, at Perez, Cain, and Moustakas. No, 4, I forgot Colon's harbor. Definitely suboptimal district planning on my part - I was stuck in the old mindset of "lock in costs early" and not in the "land discount" mindset. Cornflakes has much to teach me, and it's an area to improve for next game. Anyway, Morales is at the housing cap and has no immediately useful military builds, so I order up a granary. 

Same picture, but with scores. I haven't commented on the difference in Archduke and my scores, I think it's telling the same story every time. No real news there.




At the same time, three turns ago I started tracking Archduke's fleet more closely. The little bomb icon is a galley, the little bulls-eye is a quad. Every single discovered Dutch ship is in this shot:




Known Dutch forces:
13 Galley = 325 mil
11 Quad 275 mil
6 HC = 168 mil

Total = 768 milpower. 
Unaccounted for: ~ 200 power, so another 8 ships, approximately. 

Arabian forces:
6 galleys
24 quads
1 sword (1 warrior)
3 slingers

I threw in my land defenses. On the whole, Archduke's army and navy outnumber mine. However, I have more ships actually concentrated in the theater, I'll have city defenses to slow him down a bit, and my force composition I think is a bit better. A Frigate beats a Caravel in a straight fight. I don't have much offense for taking cities, but this is a defensive fleet. 

Coming up with the gold to upgrade is the next challenge. I have 400 in hand, and a lot of chops coming in. I need to calculate next turn exactly how much upgrading I can do. Archduke has 2400 gold, which is enough for a good chunk of his ships, but like me he can't upgrade everything. I think I'll upgrade my Caravels first, purely because they're so much more precious at the moment. Quads I have more of. Then again, maybe I should just go all Frigates and pull my galleys back to safety around Hosmer? Hmmm...

[williams482]

I'd upgrade maybe two caravels just to keep your options open for a lucky city capture or the like, then upgrade as many quads as you can. Frigates are flat out better units, and you need as many as you can get.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I have two turns to post, in more detail later, but quick hits:

1)Sent the Alliance request to Archduke. Odds he takes it? Maybe 55%? Slightly more likely than not - let's go beat up the other weak civs! Or just have things out now, winner might rule the world, or might get eaten by neighbors who have caught up.

2)Instituted Conscription, salvaging my economy.

3)Upgraded 12 Frigates, tanking my economy. I could have done one more, but I'm at -10 gpt and I left myself 12 turns to figure that problem out.

4)Japper declared war on Emperor.

[williams482]

Japper declaring war now is rough timing for that alliance. What better time for Archduke to deal with you than when his closest rival is dealing with an attack?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think my request broke Archduke, he's held the save for 20 hours without notice as he ponders what to do.

If I were in his shoes, I'd attack me. Japper's attack on Emperor makes the calculation simple: I see that our power is about equal, but I also see that I have more gold, and a positive gold income, while Arabia is losing gold and will be bankrupt in 13 turns. That means I kill whatever high-level ships I can find, refill my own losses with upgraded replacements, and plough on to victory. It'd be bloody but it'd settle matters in the Netherlands' favor and probably decide the game. 




On the other hand, I've carefully throttled my science. Don't want to spook him. An alliance would avoid a wasteful war, and I have ~15 turns to carefully prepare my massive fleet to intervene in the Anglo-Indonesian war at a decisive moment. Emperor's capital is vulnerable, and all of Archduke's knights can transfer over before the DoW. Meanwhile Arabia will have a rough go at America, between America's bonus, his inland cities, and Arabia's lack of army. 

So is this an ultimately winning move for me? Well, probably not. But I'd rather not get my shit kicked in for another month or so, and besides, I've used hte last two DoFs to make enormous strides. I really am on the cusp of an economic revolution with Harbors and Campuses ready to go across the board. 




I lose out on 2 quads that were near completion by finishing Square Rigging - I forgot tech processed before production - but ultimately I couldn't afford to upgrade those anyway, so slowbuilding is actually a decent option here. I slot in Conscription and Professional Army, of course, which briefly revives my economy to +30 gold before the upgrades immediately tank it. 

Just in time, too, as the first 7s appear:




If it does come to war, I think my only real chance is an alpha strike as best I can manage. Take, burn, or sink as many Dutch ships as I can. Harvest more copper and crabs for backup upgrades. Try and neuter Archduke's immediate threat to me while crash-building replacement ships, and make this a brutal war of attrition. No one wins, but at least I don't lose. In a best case, I somehow neutralize the Dutch fleet and can burn the two cities nearest me. I liberate Hattusa, and then contemplate a decisive naval assault into Archduke's home waters to the south. 

The post upgrade military. 12 Frigates, all told. About half my total military:




I have about 10 turns before I run out of gold. I can actually move myself to break even, at the expense of food and production across the empire. I have a better solution. I'm grabbing Naval Tradition, which unlocks Double Harbor Adjacencies card. That's actually better than double Campus adjacencies, since I get science from harbors 'n commercial hubs, and it'll knock out about a third of my deficit in one fell swoop, giving me about 13-15 turns until bankruptcy. At hte same time, I'm frantically going to be finishing Harbors and then Lighthouses across the empire, which we'll use to get up to 5 trade routes or so. We run those to Muscat or other gold-generating locations. I also have some Fish that can be improved, and generally I can plug this dam. I have no idea where Archduke's gold is coming from - he doesn't have that many harbors completed from the GP screen. Maybe just more gold-producing resources? I'll have to take a look.

Scores:






I have some more crabs 'n copper ready to harvest over the next few turns, so we can do emergency upgrades as needed. I plan to hoard most of the gold, however, until I need it.