[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

I'd say let's see what TAD's boats do and how much I'm able to kill and then decide which way to send your ships. I imagine you will be able to trap a decently-sized contingent of TAD boats either way, the question is which way will get you more. It might also be worth thinking about splitting them depending on how this all shakes out.

But yeah, playing the turn now. I am definitely anticipating another multi-hour session, but hopefully not as bad as last time...

[ljubljana]

Phase 1:



Holy crap, TAD has so many frigates... I killed another 2 so far, for a total of 7, and he still has six left! That means he started this war with a straight-up two to one edge in frigate numbers in addition to the super-ironclad. He had so many frigates that the only reason he hasn't killed us is that they've been blocking each other from firing on us this whole time!

Still have four more frigate shots and three caravel attacks. Let's see what I can string together here...

The key thing to note is that the highlighted frigate has only 6 movement (so no Dockyard boost). That means that if I can kill the GA, it will have only 5 next turn, and won't be able to reach my frigates in the back unless the blocking caravel dies first.

[ljubljana]

Turn 132 - Phoenicia



Well, this was just about the best I could do, I think. On the very turn that TAD's units close in from the south to trap me and send me to my doom, my navy almost miraculously threads the needle in the north to stay just ahead of them. This is why TAD stopping to retake WotW was such a crucial break for us IMO - if his southern ships had been here just one turn sooner, I couldn't have pulled this off and would have been in serious trouble on this past interturn.

Anyways, I got 4 frigates, the two redlined caravels, and the pillaging galley at Linear B. But wow, the TAD ships just keep coming. I was hoping we could more or less polish off his frigates this turn, but there were even more in the fog so it was not to be. My caravels are at least more or less in the front, which is good, and at a +13 CS advantage with the GA too far away to help, TAD can't do that much to the frigates this turn even if he does manage to reach them. But my caravels are looking really thin...I do think we're probably going to need your ships to finish him off, unless we want to invite a ton of caravel on frigate attacks to reverse our tenuous gains. Still, though, TAD's navy in this area now finally resembles mine in strength, and with 4 fewer frigates, at least from what I can see. But he will get a good strike in next turn, and has a fair chance to take out enough of my ships to make me sweat with all those frigates still out there.

You can also see that, unfortunately, I do not think there is any guaranteed way to save your trader. I could have put the caravel on it, but it will just get surrounded and killed if I do, and then TAD will get both traders and my lighthouse next turn. Instead, I move the caravel onto the Cothon tile, where it has at least a chance to live (though probably not if TAD uses two caravels and the frigate on it) and will protect the lighthouse and one trader if it does. In addition, we have our one silly little saving throw in the form of the bireme 4 SE of Linear A, which will protect the traders if it lives. TAD can reach it with one caravel, one frigate, and a galley, and the former two would one-shot it, but at least that would mean TAD has to commit one more real ship over here chasing down a bireme instead of in the west shelling my precious frigates. It is also not a given that TAD will be able to find it, and my real hope is that he will move a galley up to try to kill the trader, notice that he can't, and then be ZoC-blocked from moving the galley out of the way to get in his full 3 attacks against the caravel.

WC results:





It sounds like World Religion doesn't matter at all, which is good because it went in a completely different direction from what I predicted, with TAD/Kaiser voting for CMF (?) and roland/sub voting for TAD (?!). Everyone seemed to think it was worth spending diplo favor on, though...I wonder if they all had the same misconception as I did?

The zero great admiral points are actually really bad for us, though. That means when CMF attacks us in 25 turns, their ironclads will have a boost from their Renaissance GA and we will not be able to match that on our ironclads. We will have Twilight Valor and Wars of Religion to compensate, I guess, but CMF will stack Oligarchic Legacy with Wars of Religion too to zero that out. Not a fun scenario to contemplate... We would have stopped this if we had coordinated our votes, too, and I kind of think that at future WCs (should we manage to stick around for that long) I should refrain from taking the turn until we have explicitly done so. I do dislike holding up the turn during a WC vote, but the gameplay benefits from coordination can be quite significant in the right circumstances.

Finally, it's been a while since I posted a full domestic screenie:



We sure do like boats . I will upgrade some more frigates in 5 or so turns when Guilds comes in, and will build some more quads in Hieratic and Linear B next for that purpose. Cuneiform is on a caravel instead of a quad, though, because it will finish quickly (effectively as quickly as the Abjad and Abugida ones after factoring in travel time) and we badly need more of those at the front.

I should also mention the new research target - we got a nice boost this turn from Printing finishing for another +3 CS from diplomatic visibility, and I picked Mass Production to work on next. That's not really because of the shipyards (though those will be nice if we ever have time to build them), but because it's the only one I already have the boost for and it's also the only one to reveal an industrial tech when discovered (most of the first-column industrial techs have two prereqs, but there is one that just requires Mass Production). There's not much else worthwhile in the second column of the Renaissance, I think...the only other tech I can see an argument for is Gunpowder for +1 hammers on quarries, and I have exactly two of those. If you think I should research something else next, though, obviously feel free to speak up and I will gladly do so .

Lurkers might also be interested in Geneva, with Woden's magical new navy barreling northwards to relieve my exhausted ships...



...and Oracle Bones, on the Russian frontier:



And to think I thought waiting for two weeks from my second COVID vaccine dose (May 8) felt like it was taking forever before. These last few turns have felt like an eternity, and that's not a gripe about turn pace - life-and-death, skin-of-your-teeth wars of annihilation just really take a lot out of you in a game like this .

Three turns into the engagement, we have lost six caravels, a caravel armada, and a bunch of outdated ships, and have killed an ironclad fleet, four caravels, nine frigates, and a galley. In terms of modern ships, that is almost a 2-to-1 kill ratio, and tactically things have unfolded almost exactly as you predicted when arguing for this attack. Thank you so much for talking me into this . I don't know how it happened, but I thiiiink we have just maybe pulled off a miracle and turned the tide here. I am in awe of your strategic wisdom, and am really, profoundly grateful that you are on my team and not on TAD's .

[ljubljana]

Also, I think you said your ships were heading west instead of north - what target did you have in mind? I think that, with the number of ships TAD still has here (and with more newly-produced ones surely about to sail out of the fog), we may want to focus on trapping and killing TAD's ships while we still can and liberating Writing on the Wall to unlock full damage against walls before we go after any core cities. Pillaging TAD's core will be awesome, but on balance it might make more sense to delay a few turns to kill as many ships as we can. TAD's eastern ships in particular are very vulnerable to being surrounded right now - if your caravels sail up from the south next turn right as I (hopefully) finish off the frigates in the west, I don't think any of them will be able to escape. Note that even killing trapping and killing the galleys is pretty good for us at this point in the war, since TAD can't rebuild them and they are the most efficient way for him to spend his gold income.

[Woden]

Three turns into the engagement, we have lost six caravels, a caravel armada, and a bunch of outdated ships, and have killed an ironclad fleet, four caravels, nine frigates, and a galley. In terms of modern ships, that is almost a 2-to-1 kill ratio, and tactically things have unfolded almost exactly as you predicted when arguing for this attack. Thank you so much for talking me into this . I don't know how it happened, but I thiiiink we have just maybe pulled off a miracle and turned the tide here. I am in awe of your strategic wisdom, and am really, profoundly grateful that you are on my team and not on TAD's .

You have fought brilliantly and do believe with my caravels arriving on the battlefield next turn, we can kill TAD's fleet. 

As for why I am sailing west, I want to trap TAD's navy and if I am south of him, I can engage both sides of WotW, where if I come up the eastern side WotW, I only trap half his navy. I will wait to see what he does on his turn to make the final call. I think if I can reach and attack any boats, I will but I doubt I can reach anything on my next turn. We will see.

Tech-wise, I think it is good to go for anything you have boosted at this point. You will lose the bonus 10% to boosts, so make the best of it. For me, my research is going to Printing, than make my way to Stirrups->Education so I can get Universities and improve my research rate. After that, I think we need to find where ironclads are located and coal to build them. On the civic front, my goal is to get Reformed Church and then Mercantilism for lumbermills on my remaining Jungle. I might have you research that one down the road since you should get a Merchant some time soon-ish, maybe? Maybe put some research into if you are looking to put it somewhere while you wait for me to boost Reformed Church for you.

[ljubljana]

Trapping both sides of TAD's fleet sounds great! We can see what he does first, especially since I am not sure how much longer the western ships can even last if there aren't more on the way, but sounds like a good plan.

Tech priorities also sound good to me. I am hoping that because we need both Industrialization and Steam Power for ironclads, at least one of them will be located deep in the tech tree to give us some grace period before CMF shows up on our doorstep with them. Boosting those techs is going to be something of a nightmare, though... I think once I feel comfortable coming off of military builds, I will have Cuneiform go IZ - Shipyard - Workshop and then do Lighthouse - Shipyard in Geneva to get started on that. As for the second workshop (thankfully with the April patch we don't need 3 anymore), ideally I'll be able to put it in Nsibidi so that I won't need to waste any workshop builds on a spot where I won't eventually build a factory. Linear B is also an option if we decide I just need to get it done ASAP though.

Mercantilism also sounds like a great goal after RC. I don't have that much jungle left, but I would get three or so lumbermills out of it which is not bad at all. Unfortunately, I do not think a Great Merchant is in the cards though...somehow roland has been pulling 6+ Great Merchant points for a long time and has snapped up all the Classical ones and escalated the costs well out of reach. Nobody else had any CHs at all the last time I checked, though, so at least we won't be the only team that has to hard-research this.

Hey, here is a fun thought - in 50t or so after I get all these IZs up, it might actually be worth considering a Machu Picchu build if it's still on the board! With my current pinmap, it will be worth 16 hpt after the doubling card, which pays back in 25 turns, plus it will give a decent 6 gpt as well. That is a better payback horizon than even a 10-hammer shipyard, to put it in perspective. If Cuneiform runs out of infra to build while I'm stuck on campuses everywhere else, I might just consider doing that...

[Woden]

Part of me wonders if I should just go for the jugular and sail straight to TAD's cities and start pillaging anything I can. Again, probably wait to see what he did on his turn but is an option and it could slow him down and force him to disengage your fleet to protect his cities. Could speed up research and gold/faith generation.

[ljubljana]

I don't know, I think we probably want to kill his ships first. He can run away pretty effectively in open waters with his +1 movement from the Dockyards, so this is probably our best chance to clean out his fleet, and I don't think we can actually take any cities unless we do that. Probably better to divert for a few turns to make sure we get as many of his ships as possible. Once his navy is dead he will not have many options for both stopping your pillagers and saving his cities.

We can see what he does first, though. If we think I can kill his frigates on my turn, you might only need to trap his eastern ships, in which case maybe you can spare some ships for pillaging now. Not sure though...I might lose all my caravels on my turn (actually I would say I will probably lose all my caravels if TAD stays and fights) in which case I might need some of your ships to shield my painfully-exposed frigates while my caravel builds finish up.

We may also want to start thinking about strategies for attacking TAD's cities after you liberate WotW. I'm inclined to think we should go for one target at a time, at least at first, with your caravels shielding my frigates while they take down the walls and then you getting in the last few hits to take the cities. We will need to be careful to make sure you take all the cities where possible until the loyalty thins out a little, since I will have no prayer of holding them in a dark age. Then we can think about reallocating them later when the war is over. Maybe with Akkad liberated it will eventually be possible for us to split up, with mixed forces of berserkers and frigates working on multiple different targets, but I'm not sure - we should probably see how the first city or two goes before thinking about that.

As for targets, Official Visit could be a good first target, since it will hurt TAD's production and niter generation rates, and we could then swing south relatively easily to start fixing the loyalty situation. We could also go for whatever TAD city is in the fog on that peninsula to the north of Official Visit. That one should be easier to hold, but we'd then have to go for Official Visit next which could be a challenge since our ships would need quite a bit of travel time to move between the two. Another question is whether we should plan to raze the first few cities for loyalty reasons before we try conquering for real. Idk, what do you think?

edit: Okay, here is my high-level plan for a return to infrastructure builds. Whenever I feel safe about our ability to kill TAD/Kaiser with the current fleet (so after 1-2 more rounds of ship builds at least, probably), I will start easing some cities off of ship builds. Prioritization will be as follows: Industrialization + Steam Power eurekas > lighthouses + traders > strong IZs > campuses > weak IZs/aqueducts. The first few cities to come off of ship builds will therefore be Cuneiform (IZ + workshop + shipyard), Linear B (IZ + workshop), and Geneva (lighthouse + shipyard). The cities that don't have lighthouses will then build those (plus traders for Isolationism), then campuses and IZs where applicable. After swapping into Isolationism, I will put Cuneiform TRs in every remaining mainland city to grow them up to size for IZs and campuses. At some point I will want to pause all of this for a wave of Colonization settlers, but probably not before the cities mostly have their campuses and libraries up. We need to optimize for surviving CMF's upcoming attack, and we need coal and ironclads for that, not weak new cities that won't contribute much in the next 30t.

[Woden]

Turn 132-Vikings
Start turn off with finishing Guilds and Buttress. I look around and pillage one of TAD's trade routes for 180

My trader is still around and it looks like TAD has retreated. I move a caravel up...
   

Kaiser has a missionary sitting on the southern island. Since I can't reach TAD and I don't want him to get first strike, I move my boats just out of sight of his boats and the missionary. If he moves something my way, he will see me but I am close enough to strike next turn. I am getting slightly better odds than his caravels. He has +6 CS (Printing and Admiral ability) and I have +9 (Oligarchy Legacy card and Military Alliance). He will get better odds with an Admiral, so maybe I won't have a fleet next turn. But that should give ljubljana a free turn to hit his navy more. 

I did upgrade another longboat with the pillage gold. I dropped Raid for the Oligarchy Legacy card. I went back and forth between dropping Raid or Professional Army. I figured I can use the next 6 or 7 turns upgrading and then I can leave Professional Army for a while. 

Did you send me a trade on your last turn? Got a notification of a canceled deal from you. Something I don't think I have every seen.

[ljubljana]

Turn 133 - Phoenicia



Here is my somewhat-daring deploy for this turn. Basically, I am daring TAD to stay and fight me and trade off ships that he can't afford to lose. TAD won't do that, but what he will do is try to cram his ships through that narrow strait between their current position and Official Visit. Most of them will make it, and will be a thorn in our side moving forward should we choose to attack there (I haven't the faintest idea how we can dislodge even a small number of ships from such a strong defensive position). But I am hoping that some of the more distant ships (especially the eastern caravels) will not be able to fit and so can be swooped upon and devoured by my frigates next turn.

This turn, though, I could only reach a few galleys that TAD used as meat shields, plus the one redlined caravel I trapped up north last turn. I do kill the three galleys I could reach, both to deny TAD the ability to cheaply convert his gold into caravels and to prevent them from serving as meat shields next turn, when we should have actual targets.

I also take the momentary break in the action as an opportunity to finally promote all my frigates. I think the naval war is wrapping up here, so I go with Bombardment for all of them - that will give them something like 70 strength on offence against TAD's cities, enough to have some hope of taking down the walls in a reasonable timeframe. I do have two more left to promote next turn, though, which could take Line of Battle if you think it's worth having a few of those hanging around.

Tactically, I'm inclined to think you should advance your boats as far forward as you can next turn, even if that means giving TAD a first strike - he won't kill more than 4 of your boats, and if he does he will lose more on the counterattack, which he cannot afford to do in his position. Also, depending on how many ships TAD leaves north of the straits for me next turn, I maaaay be able to redline Writing on the Wall for you to liberate on the following turn. Probably not, but it might be worth making sure there is a ship or two in range just in case.

We really need to decide on our first TAD city target post-WotW soon. Official Visit seems a natural choice but it will be heavily defended, with a number of TAD ships likely to escape there and potentially capable of stalemating us at the straits for some time. We could also try to circle around to the south and get at the TAD city state down there, but I'm a little nervous about letting our fleets wander that far from home. There should be TAD cities in the north, too, which will be lightly defended since his whole fleet is down here, but it will be a long journey around the peninsula to reach them, and the more time we spend wandering back and forth, the more time TAD will have to reinforce and the further behind we will fall in development. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Also, where are your zerks headed? IMO, they would make a great compliment to our main attack force, with the ability to land and get in extra hits on the somewhat-sheltered TAD cities without even needing a battering ram once you liberate Akkad, and should probably join us at Official Visit (or wherever our first targets end up being). Right now, I am concerned that TAD will be able to stalemate us on defense for long enough that we won't be able to make gains against him before CMF attacks; we will probably want to concentrate as much force as we can at the point of attack to make sure that doesn't happen