[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 109

Played in a hurry and forgot my overview shots. No change in strategy, but yeah, Sub's promotions, plus a shade too few galleys on our part, have led to the collapse of the Matilda front:




The city should survive turn 109, but it will fall on turn 110. That's dire, since it means Ilmatic's best defense is gone. However, I don't think it's fatal, not yet. 

If sub swings south, he'll run into my nest of galleys, then ahve to push through ANOTHER 1-tile choke to take TCD, and he has 5 turns to do that before my frigates are up. I don't thiiiiink he can do that, not considering 2 of those turns will be burned on, er, burning Rodeo. If he swings north, he'll put Ilmatic under serious stress. The best place to hold is probably Matilda II:




Try and preserve 4 galleys Marco. Matilda II will hold up sub for at least 2 turns, maybe even 3! Then the final fallback point at Ilmatic. I'm not SURE I can save Ilmatic with my frigates, but I will have frigates by turn 114 and I think Cartography by turn 119. At that point I can run him down and if we swarm him with galleys and frigates, we should manage it. I'd pull in your eastern squadron as reinforcements, though. 

If Ilmatic falls, it can't be razed, but Australia is seriously set back. We won't be out of the game but Marco will need to recover (again). The western cities and southern cities should be okay, but we might need to start training units in The Blueprint. 

It's a grave turn, but we ain't beat yet.

[marcopolothefraud]

Suboptimal kills 4 Australian galleys, and Rodeo is now wide open with no defenses whatsoever. I have pulled back my remaining ships in the north to Point Matilda II - though if Sub keeps killing 4 galleys a turn, he will likely destroy my northern fleet in 2-3 turns, no matter how many reinforcements I throw at it.

This is also my first turn without the +100% production bonus. Now Illmatic is back to 2-turn or 1-turn Galleys. The good news is that MBDTF can still do 1-turn galleys, at 36 production/turn. The bad news is that those Galleys will take forever to reach the front.

Illmatic may fall before we get to Frigates. Hopefully my MBDTF-recruited ships can hold the line at Low End Theory, though I'm pessimistic. 

The western cities and southern cities should be okay, but we might need to start training units in The Blueprint.

I have no land unit production cards plugged into my government. It will take 8 turns to train a Crossbowman in the Blueprint.

The only good news is that Ljubljana requests a Declaration of Friendship. I decided to take it, without consulting you...I hope that's okay.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, that was the right move. It will ensure that their DoF with the Archduke ends before either of us are exposed to either team, so they're slightly more likely to fight. Moreover, with jongs now loose in Australian territory we are quite occupied. 

Mistakes I made in my reckoning:

1)Forgetting about the +5 bonus from escorting units
2)Underestimating how rapidly the jongs would promote. 

Both of those things push Suboptimal into the 1-shot kill territory, which more or less makes it impossible to hold back the jongs as we have been with sheer numbers. Instead, the constricted terrain now works against us, since we c an't mass enough units to actually sink one. 

Oh, well. If we can hold LET we might be okay. 4 turns to frigates, about 5 turns til I might conceivably be in shooting range, 8 turns or so until I have Cartography. 

Turn 110




One Russian galley sunk, to give suboptimal's 7 jongs a total of 5 kills. That really is higher than I estimated - I expected the 7 to combine for an average of 3.5 galley kills per turn, but that's twice in a row he's gotten 4 or 5. That's more than our empires can actually produce in a turn and is unsustainable long-term. Have we bought enough time to scramble frigates into the field? I guess we'll find out. 

Imagine if sub had come at us with 7 or 8 jongs from the beginning instead of 4! Thank God for small mercies. Australia will be wounded by this attack, but I hope not killed. 

Setup at Matilda. Rodeo is gone next turn:




Nor are there really any Australian galleys between subotpimal and Ilmatic. This is very bad. I have more than enough galleys to fight but I can't get them into the fight for 8 more turns, when the oceans will open up. I think the best hope then will be to combine my 5 frigates and my, uh, 16? galleys to swarm the jongs from the deep ocean. Jesus. 

That...should work, though. The issue will be chasing down sub's ships, so that's where marco's delay comes in. Thank God sub has shitty science or he'd be near to Cartography himself. 

I could build so many nice things at Borodino:




Instead it's built something like 10 galleys in the last 10 turns. Thankfully it can just about grow to its IZ, which I will chop and place, but not build, not until I know I can spare Borodino off Frigates. It'll be one of 5 shipbuilding cities. So, let's calculate how rapidly I can get out frigates. Niter is 4/turn, if we include Australia, 8/turn (we might need to, although Australia should build at least ONE frigate of his own at MBDTF. In fact, once he gets Square Rigging, MBDTF might be on nothing else. The trouble is marco cannot afford frigates, but we can temporarily give him Russian subsidies. THis is why Crabville would come in handy!). Borodino can hit 31 cogs on max production, so 1 frigate every 9.3 turns. This compares favorably with Sub's 1 jong every 12 (he bought a builder this round...). 

Knyaz Suvurov has 3 excellent infrastructure projects it can't build:




It can hit 28 hammers or so towards units on max production, or a frigate every 10 turns. Between this and Borodino that consumes native Russian niter supply. 

Navarin is at 31 already - with a single builder it could get up to 37. That's a Frigate every 7.5 turns, or a Caravel every 6.5:




Caravels will become available 4-5 turns after we unlock frigates, projecting my science improvement in 4 turns. My intention is to build galleys until then, otherwise to swap to Caravels wherever we lack niter to get out a frigate. This will probably be a frigate city over Knyaz Suvurov, which can build Caravels slightly faster. 

Petropavlosk is about 15 turns away from contributing:




Once it does, though, at size 4 it will hit 29 hammers, good for a frigate every 10 turns or a caravel every 8.2. 

Mikasa is weaker, only reaching 22 or so:




11 turns for a Caravel, 13 for a frigate. 

In the far east, Olsyabya might need to contribute for the defense of Marco's peninsula:




10 turn Caravels, 12 turn frigates. 

Note that 2 caravels will reveal Exploration and Press Gangs. Once that's beelined, we will be at one frigate every 5 turns or so (well beyond our niter ability to sustain) and 1 caravel every 4-5 turns. That will come out to two frigates and 4 caravels every 5 turns, 4 and 8 after 10, etc, etc. Any one of those build waves is equal to the Indonesian fleet, and they'll be coming out every 5 turns at that point. That's beyond suboptimal's ability to compete, and we haven't factored in Australia at all. Sub is fighting two highly productive civs and the only reason he's making progress is the UU that's more or less invincible...for a few more turns. 

Losing cities sucks, BUT...Rodeo is a marginal city, TCD should survive, Ilmatic can't be razed, and LET is a marginal city as well. It'll suck for Marco and he'll be set back by this Indonesian invasion, but he won't be killed and he won't be out of the game. He can recover under a Russian umbrella, and most of my production is buried deep in the tundra where no one can easily get at it. Plus, our team is still relatively the same: Norway is weaker than Australia and will be even losing a few cities, since he doesn't have Australian adjacencies + Work Ethic. Japan is tiny and increasingly backwards outside his high-adjacency campuses and harbors, and will struggle to build anything he researches. And China is off in wonderland and is mostly good for feeding Indonesia gold, which is helpful but hardly all that he could be doing. 

So the long-term prognosis remains the same. My next beeline needs to be for Exploration, obviously, since that will be a massive power spike. At that point, well, we will roll Indonesia back. Hopefully 30 turns is enough to secure ourselves while Phoenicia and England get into a bloody slap-fight. 

In the east:




7 turns until Fuji is active, when it will build a harbor most likely before entering Caravel stage. Donskoi needs 3 turns to finish the lavra, then just awaits Australian conversion. 3 turns until my science spikes as well, to keep pace with Indonesia and possibly bypass Japan. Still chasing England but he's got a time limit on his science. 

The west:




3 quads done, 2 more finishing- should I build a 6th out of Navarin? I should be able to squeeze it in, but I'll need gold to upgrade it from somewhere. Probably better to have it than not, I can get the gold eventually. Must remember to swap off the builder, should have swapped TO a builder in Petropavlosk since we'll have Feudalism ready in 5 turns (swapping to Mercenaries in a few turns to sync up with SR).

Our new far western colonies:




I have a daisy-chain of great writers preventing ljubljana from body-blocking my second settler, which will probably piss him off. 30 turns until he can do anything about it and he might be at war with England in that time, so he can go kick rocks. I have decided that the western island should be Svalbard for its joint Russian-Norwegian heritage. I intend one more settler for the island - it could be purchased in Mikasa in 2 turn's time, but depending on how quickly my cities grow I might purchase it in one of the new colonies instead, taking the pop loss, so I can avoid the sail. It might be faster, and I can shift Magnus east to repeat the process - I've eyed a good tundra site on that big eastern island. 

Will this backfire the way my earlier wave did and bring down Phoenicia and England on my head? Possibly! But what should I do, give up the islands without a fight just because they MIGHT attack me? Screw that, they've got other problems and I think I can build enough to buy peace with one - which will buy peace with the other since then THEY'D be in a 2-front war. 

Keep the faith, marco! We're not out of this thing yet!

[marcopolothefraud]

No report today, because nothing much happened.

Rodeo has been razed, but Suboptimal (for some reason) hasn't moved his Jongs north. Maybe he's worried about the Russian threat and wants to eliminate CMF's fleet first - there are definitely a few ships missing from the College Dropout front.

All of my high-production cities are making Galleys, though I'm pessimistic about their chance of survival. I *did* suddenly suzerain Valletta, and I faith-bought a Monument in one of my newest cities.

[marcopolothefraud]

Note that 2 caravels will reveal Exploration and Press Gangs. Once that's beelined, we will be at one frigate every 5 turns or so (well beyond our niter ability to sustain) and 1 caravel every 4-5 turns. That will come out to two frigates and 4 caravels every 5 turns, 4 and 8 after 10, etc, etc. Any one of those build waves is equal to the Indonesian fleet, and they'll be coming out every 5 turns at that point. That's beyond suboptimal's ability to compete, and we haven't factored in Australia at all. Sub is fighting two highly productive civs and the only reason he's making progress is the UU that's more or less invincible...for a few more turns.

Losing cities sucks, BUT...Rodeo is a marginal city, TCD should survive, Illmatic can't be razed, and LET is a marginal city as well. It'll suck for Marco and he'll be set back by this Indonesian invasion, but he won't be killed and he won't be out of the game. He can recover under a Russian umbrella, and most of my production is buried deep in the tundra where no one can easily get at it. Plus, our team is still relatively the same: Norway is weaker than Australia and will be even losing a few cities, since he doesn't have Australian adjacencies + Work Ethic. Japan is tiny and increasingly backwards outside his high-adjacency campuses and harbors, and will struggle to build anything he researches. And China is off in wonderland and is mostly good for feeding Indonesia gold, which is helpful but hardly all that he could be doing. 

So the long-term prognosis remains the same. My next beeline needs to be for Exploration, obviously, since that will be a massive power spike. At that point, well, we will roll Indonesia back. Hopefully 30 turns is enough to secure ourselves while Phoenicia and England get into a bloody slap-fight. 

-_- This is a plan, I suppose. I really hope we can hold onto College Dropout, because I quite like its terrain.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

In the worst case, you can use your high production to rebuild the settlers for the cities, though starting from scratch obviously sucks. I think long-term though you're still better off than Norway and Indonesia, maybe even Japan, as long as we can limit the damage.

Hopefully sub comes south towards TCD, because if he goes for Ilmatic I'm not sure we can save the city. I will shift my reserve galleys over since he's sinking so many a turn - I can make maybe 4 per turn maximum if I put every city on it and that would have meant no quads for frigates. I can get perhaps one final round of galleys out before Cartography, too. So we need to hold 4 turns, then emergency frigates can fight at TCD.

I really want to wait for Cartography, though, because 5 frigates can't win a head-on slugging match against 7 jongs. I need the maneuverability and as much galley support as I can muster, to try and hit sub first, and then use the galleys to cover my frigates and soak up fire. If we can hold TCD until then - call it 8 more turns, a very tall order - then we can trap and destroy his entire fleet.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Marco, will you post a screenshot of the map reveal from Valetta? I don't get it since I'm not the suzerain.

I'm racking my brain over defending The College Dropout. Here's what I think:

if Sub goes north with everything, we almost certainly can't hold Ilmatic, but Australia loses no more cities. If he comes south, we will probably lose TCD. He's just killing galleys too fast now that he's promoted...however, I can delay him a while in front of the city, and there's a decent spot for a frigate ambush short of Cartography. If he comes south and slugs it out with my frigates, then he loses his entire fleet, and the war, at the probable cost of TCD. I think that's our best hope. Ideally we save everything. We'll see. I'll play the turn now - I've got one or two more tricks up my sleeve.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 111

4 turns to frigates. This will be a close one, boys, and it will require a great deal of sacrifice, but I am growing increasingly confident that we will win this war. The only question is how much damage Australia takes in the process. 




The start of the turn greets me with Valetta's diplomatic shenanigans. Hopefully that sucks up some Chinese envoys, since with Apadana it's the only real way to try and gain Antananarivo (which would be a massive cultural boost for Russia). I also find 2 of my galleys shelled by Jongs and 1 by a barb in the far East. 

Well, let's start with the positives. I found Admiral Nakhimov:




This is a tundra city that shouldn't offend the raiders too much. The 6 adjacency lavra is on a forest, so to save production I route the builder down there. We won't be able to dump all the production into the lavra this turn, since I have to start something, so I begin a monument. I'll get about 15 production overflow to maybe start the lavra. With no prospect of conversion in sight and needing to speed this build up as much as possible, I also work the 4-food rice to grow into some production. After my next settler purchase I should be able to afford a missionary to come here and get the island started. 3 charges for 3 cities, perfect. 

Further south my warrior engages the barbs. These 4 units, and an exploring Heavy Chariot, will likely be the only survivors of my army:




On the other side, I finish off a barb quad that spawned:




Earning a promotion in the process. I dearly wish my quad had survived on this flank, so I could clear the camp, but alas, it did not. I might begin a crossbow out of Donskoi to hopefully clear the camp before it starts spewing out Frigates to ruin my day. Marco, be sure to convert from the sea if you didn't know you could do that - it'll save you disembarking and speed up the city's conversion by a turn. 

So here's the plan to hold The College Dropout, or, failing that, win the war by sinking the Indonesian fleet:




I will, of course, continue to feed ships into the meat grinder. But with only a few ships able to enter through the narrow straits each turn, I can probably only delay sub for a turn or two, if he gets lucky dice rolls. He will fairly rapidly be able to force his way towards the city, but we need to hold him back as long as we can. 

Now. 

My first step towards doing that is playing my last card: I deploy my nearby archer and heavy chariot into the water. I'll have a third up soon. 

See, escorting units ALSO need to be fired on in order to be sunk before you can occupy the tile. And they can stack with galleys. If I'd thought of this sooner, I'd've had my interior cities turning out scouts or something to provide more bodyblockers and we might have held at Matilda. As it is, it's too late. BUT I can buy myself 3 extra shots with these guys - or possibly one extra turn of delay on the jongs. That might make all the difference. 

Second, I have now pinned Point Lepanto. This will be my mini-ambush of the jongs. 

In essence, to fire on The College Dropout, sub will need to fight his way across the bay - should take 2-3 turns - and establish positions directly next to the city and directly east of the crabs, next to the forest. Those are the only two positions from which he can fire on the city, with probably anotehr jong on the crabs in fire support of any blocking units we have outside the city. All 3 tiles are in range of Point Lepanto. If he comes down, I should be able to sink one jong and possibly injure another. Plus, I can flood in galleys then to try and limit the return fire to only one jong - two shots will sink a frigate. 

The hope is to draw sub into a firefight across the straits as he greedily goes for my frigates. He might get some, too. BUT I will be ~4 turns away from Cartography, which is the second part of my trap:




Gathering at Point Luck is my reserve fleet of galleys - unable to squeeze itno the battlefield, they're waiting to mousetrap the Indonesian fleet. Furthermore, I have 5 quads out, which is all I can afford to upgrade in terms of gold and niter. So every city that can build a galley in the meantime, is. That's about 8-9 turns of galley production from 4 cities, which is close to another 12 galleys. When we research Cartography, suddenly I can maneuver against the jongs, and we will sail due east across the sea and trap the jongs against the coast, while my surviving frigates (I will try to preserve at least 3-4) provide fire support. 3 galley attacks will cripple a jong, promoted or no, and 4 will sink one - and finally I'll be able to launch all those attacks. If sub gets sucked into the fight for TCD, and for Point Lepanto, then we have an excellent chance to sink his entire fleet - I rate it higher than 50%! And if the 7 jongs on the map go down (might be 8 by then), he'll have no easy way to replace them, while I'll be racing for Exploration and the ability to double my fleet size every 4-5 turns. GG Indonesia. 

So, Australia is in danger of losing two cities, but we shoudl win the war, and Marco will have a breathing space to rebuild and recover in peace while I go maul Indonesia. That's the plan. 

Still no Chinese ships so Roland is totally irrelevant. 

Marco, I'd continue to build galleys from your eastern cities and transfer everything you can to Matilda II. Also, be sure to pull back a bit behind the chokepoint - you want to expose yourself to as little jong fire as possible, so massing just behind the 1-tile choke will maximize your chances. If you get a few turns to get some galleys in place, we can hold Ilmatic. 

If sub goes north with his whole fleet while leaving a jong or two to cover his rear...well, shit. Then we probably lose Ilmatic but try and delay, and I try to engineer a new ambush. 

Please come south, sub. 

East:




All economic builds. 4 districts and 2 libraries coming online in the next 8 turns, for +18 more faith/production, 14 science, and 3 gold. 

West:




Military builds, except for inland cities. I manipulate tiles at Aleksandr to enable the Campus build next turn, saving the Builder for Serfdom. Final Mikasa settler purchase next turn, then Magnus goes to Donskoi and we buy a missionary for Svalbard.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Minor points:

Thank God Work Ethic wasn't nerfed. I can live with fewer tiles at my cities, since I have low pop. It kinna sucks for lavra plants, but whatever, Russia was a bit overtuned anyway. I was just terrified that they'd pull something like 'Work Ethic no longer affected by adjacency cards' or something and halve my imperial production in a stroke.

Also, I offered a silver for dyes trade to Norway, still need to round up those amenities.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 112

Only 2 turns until frigates are unlocked, 3 until our first squadron is operational. Can we hold Ilmatic for 3 turns? It will be tight, but we should be able to hold LET, certainly. Marco getting his capital pillaged will suck but again, once the Indonesian fleet is sunk, the war is as good as over. 




The game starts me off, as usual, in the west. Indonesia sank 3 galleys but I finish 4. 3 galleys is a good sign - less, and I'd worry that he was tearing north with everything he had, more, and I'd worry about holding TCD. Let's look at the situation at Matilda:




He sank my 3 outermost galleys, but Australian reinforcements are already piling in. I don't THINK he can blast through all this and capture The College Dropout in only two turns, but I'd sure like him to try. Our best chance to end the war quickly is for him to shove his head into the noose we're preparing - by turn 115 that area will be a hotzone with frigates, and by turn 120 we'll have a massive force of galleys closing their jaws on him. 

If sub pulls back to the north, it gets harder - we have to chase the jongs. But we might be able to still pull off a trap in Ilmatic Bay. 

It looks like I'm one of the first to have the opportunity to build the new units, the man at arms and trebuchet:




But of course we can only build more galleys. Even a quad is a waste now since it would waste upgrade niter. I'll start a frigate here in two turns instead. 

At Svalbard, we are two turns (I believe) from settling Admiral Ushakov, while my small army clears out the barbs wandering around and establishes a foothold.




I also purchase my third and final settler for the island, and chop the monument into a lavra. I can do one more chop and plant an amber mine without loss of production, too. Settlers cost about 700 faith now - 350 production, more than a frigate! - but I make that much faith in less than 4 turns.

With my work ethic cities churning out ships and my massive faith income about to fuel an army after I run out of spots to settle, I'm going to be in pretty monstrous position soon. I've also got the fourth-highest science...which is about to jump by 11 points into a rough tie for SECOND highest science, and my rivals are either dependent upon Free Inquiry or are lagging badly in expansion (fun fact: my empire score this turn exceeded Archduke and Kaiser's combined...and I think I have more productive cities than either, which means there's a fair chance Russia alone is more productive than both their empires put together). I have the second highest culture, though not by much, and my 13 cities compares favorably with other teams. 3 more cities in the near future, plus the liberation of my central spots soon. I just need to not surge TOO far ahead, even at war, lest all 3 teams unite against me again. We need Australia on firm ground and able to defend himself - but we're getting close there, too. Work Ethic will let Marco build frigates as fast as anybody, and if he survives the jong attack in relatively good shape he should quickly snowball away, too. 

I start my fifth campus:




This one good for +9 science once it's complete with a library. That will get me very close to English levels of science.  More, more, more! Actually this is the last campus for a while, so my surge in science will top out around 100 points until I can get universities up. That's the next destination after Cartography, I think. 

It's due in 9 turns, but I rejigger things to get that down to 7:




Note how much IA wants a builder - it's working 4 unimproved tiles and only 3 improved ones. It has a builder 1 turn from completion once we have Serfdom in place. That will take care of it for the immediate future. 

An Indonesian galley nears Luck:




I don't engage. Let him come south if he wants, then I can get him with two galleys instead of one. If he scouts me...eh, he scouts me. 

Overview of the east:




Marco converts Donskoi and the city is Operational - thanks, man! A granary first, as is standard, then monument while we grow. A harbor is our likely second district here - without the sea we'll never grow past 4. I might someday have a campus, and at Reformed Church I'm willing to sideline this city for some time to get out St. Basil's. It's 920 production, which would probably take 30 turns native. I will have some magnus chops available, good for perhaps 150 each, which drops it down to maybe 20 turns native. Then we'll have as much food, production, and culture as we could want, plus it's Russian so screw everyone else, it's mine. 

Probably not worth the 3 frigates I could build instead, tbh. 

And the west:




No news. Finished the water mill, growth in 6, working on a builder until then. Then a Harbor. 

I have 3 or 4 lighthouses available soon and I desperately want the trade routes, but damn near every city is needed for ships at the moment. Regret. 

The front: