May 15th, 2021, 15:31
(This post was last modified: May 15th, 2021, 15:45 by ljubljana.)
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Okay, I think I want to try it. Those earlier screenshots show each frigate shot doing roughly 8-10 damage, right? 6 of those should put it into kill range of The Revenge.
Worldbuilder is not playing nice with me, and is giving me some kind of lua error about mod incompatibility whenever I try to start a new game with it, even after disabling all the mode but the ones required by the map. So I will just ask - Woden, do you see any mechanical problem with the plan of moving each of my frigates 1 or 2 tiles closer to the ironclad, swapping with the caravels in the way as they go, then having them all fire? It should be fine for a single caravel to swap places with two different ships on its turn, right? And a frigate can attack just fine after swapping places with a caravel that was in the way, right? And if I move the Revenge 1E, swapping with the caravel there, it will be able to hit the ironclad if needed?
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(May 15th, 2021, 15:31)ljubljana Wrote: Okay, I think I want to try it. Those earlier screenshots show each frigate shot doing roughly 8-10 damage, right? 6 of those should put it into kill range of The Revenge.
Worldbuilder is not playing nice with me, and is giving me some kind of lua error about mod incompatibility whenever I try to start a new game with it, even after disabling all the mode but the ones required by the map. So I will just ask - Woden, do you see any mechanical problem with the plan of moving each of my frigates 1 or 2 tiles closer to the ironclad, swapping with the caravels in the way as they go, then having them all fire? It should be fine for a single caravel to swap places with two different ships on its turn, right? And a frigate can attack just fine after swapping places with a caravel that was in the way, right? And if I move the Revenge 1E, swapping with the caravel there, it will be able to hit the ironclad if needed?
If i understand correctly, yes you can swap ships and they can still attack. ZOC only prevents you from moving more than 1 tile next to the unit. You will still be able to attack.
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Okay, I finally got worldbulider working, and the only issue I can see us running into is that you can't swap tiles with a unit that has already fired and you can't swap with a unit more than one space away. So I will have to be careful of those issues. But I think we can make that work.
Am I all clear to go ahead with the ironclad plan?
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(May 15th, 2021, 15:58)ljubljana Wrote: Okay, I finally got worldbulider working, and the only issue I can see us running into is that you can't swap tiles with a unit that has already fired and you can't swap with a unit more than one space away. So I will have to be careful of those issues. But I think we can make that work.
Am I all clear to go ahead with the ironclad plan? Go for it!
May 15th, 2021, 16:09
(This post was last modified: May 15th, 2021, 16:10 by ljubljana.)
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I think I will have to leave one frigate exposed to a caravel attack to pull it off because of the way ship swapping works. That is irritating but definitely worth it IMO - are you okay with that? I can have that frigate be the one on the far west where only unpromoted caravels can reach, which should help. Furthermore, even if it dies, I am upgrading a frigate this turn anyways and building another in 2t.
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(May 15th, 2021, 16:09)ljubljana Wrote: I think I will have to leave one frigate exposed to a caravel attack to pull it off because of the way ship swapping works. That is irritating but definitely worth it IMO - are you okay with that?
Yes
May 15th, 2021, 16:46
(This post was last modified: May 15th, 2021, 17:11 by ljubljana.)
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Turn 130 - Phoenicia
It took all six frigate shots and a pricey melee attack from The Revenge, but...we got it  .
I also took a few potshots with my leading caravels at TAD's caravels, the thinking being that this will soften them up in preparation for the attack next turn against the frigates. TAD is now faced with what seems to me like a pretty nasty set of options. He could throw a bunch of attacks at The Revenge, and almost certainly kill it, but every frigate he uses in doing so will be in serious trouble on the counterattack. It is also not clear what to do with his wounded ships - conventional wisdom is to retreat them, obviously, but he needs as much cover as he can get in this area with the ironclad gone. If I manage to make the ships retreat by partially damaging them, that is as good as killing them for our purposes, since it would open up a strike on the frigates. And if TAD fails to kill The Revenge next turn, I will just retreat it to Linear A and have it fully healed and ready to re-engage in just 2 turns.
I also upgraded a frigate this turn, and will upgrade a caravel on the next to help block TAD's southern fleet. They may be able to get to me before we can stop them, but I should have a nice line of Embolon caravels ready to block them for at least a few turns in that case. And, as we have established, a few turns shoooould be all we need for you to hit back with mass-upgraded caravels of your own. Meanwhile, my first hand-built caravel will arrive next turn at Hieratic, and I am getting 2 more ships in 2 turns and another in 3 (at Geneva, no less  ).
Note that, despite my predictions of doom, I didn't actually need to leave a gap in the caravel line this turn to make all this happen. The reason is that, while ships cannot swap positions with those that have already fired or attacked, they can move through them to a position on the other side. I therefore was able to take a fresh caravel and simply plug the gap when it appeared, and then get a hit in against a frontline TAD caravel as well.
edit: I think the most likely thing for TAD to do next turn is to essentially just kind of rebuild the wall. He can move three caravels from the west over to the east and another three from the south up west to keep me boxed in and save his frigates, though that might be giving up on the idea of getting a total surround depending on how many caravels are in the fog. I am also not sure what ships he will be able to kill on his turn if he goes with that. Against The Revenge, he would have just three frigate shots and one unpromoted caravel attack unless he rams the wounded ships into it - I actually do not think that will be quite enough if the frigates do about 10 like I was doing to the ironclad (it is at 65 health currently). He might also be able to snipe some of the ships I used for potshots on this last turn, but I don't know if he can both do that and finish off the Revenge. Either way, I am not sure how well a wall manned by unpromoted caravels and no ironclad will be able to hold up against my Embolon ships.
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Good Job! I think with the pillaging from my longboats and your turn here, our chances in this war are looking better. My biggest hope now is that my longboat over by Kaiser can withstand another attack from the frigate. I think if Kaiser gets a good dice roll, he will be dead but if he doesn't I can speed up Guilds and have better odds when attacking TAD.
May 15th, 2021, 17:12
(This post was last modified: May 15th, 2021, 17:38 by ljubljana.)
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It's early, but the longboat pillaging is looking incredibly crucial. TAD is expecting us to eventually get a numerical advantage if left alone, but there is no way that he is expecting for you to magically show up with a full 10 caravels in 2 turns. If it weren't for the longboats, we'd be badly outmassed for some time to come, but with 1000 magical free gold from pillaging we might be able to take the lead in ship numbers almost immediately.
So this is why Norway is such an automatic pick on water maps!
By the way, I think this war is yielding some insight into the question we had at the beginning of the game about the importance of settling inland with only one tile exposed to the sea. There is no way Linear B would still be standing right now if its position were any more exposed than it is .
May 15th, 2021, 17:38
(This post was last modified: May 15th, 2021, 17:40 by ljubljana.)
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Oh, and I offered roland an economic alliance this turn, too. If I were roland, here is what I would say in response to that: "Well, they have way more TRs to us than the reverse, but their milpower is cratering and we can't afford to let TAD get too strong, so we'd better give it to them for geopolitical reasons". Luckily for us, my cratering milpower reflects TAD murdering my scout ships and not any actually militarily significant losses  . I am hoping we can keep looking like we're getting creamed to the outside world for as long as possible so that they will be more likely to send us aid...although your caravel mass-upgrade should disabuse them of that notion pretty quickly.
I wonder if CMF would give us some gold or niter if we asked, actually? As far as the milpower numbers are concerned, it appears to be very much in their interest to do so...
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