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

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Tactically, Woden has a lot of experience - probably more than any player other than Archduke - and is not to be underestimated. He has grown a lot since his disastrous whalloping by Alhambram in PBEM2 and fought very effectively in PBEM15 and 18. That said, Woden is the type of player who relies on lots of preparation and holding the initiative, and he can be caught flat-footed and outmaneuvered at times - very similar to Bernard Law Montgomery for an analogy.

Eg. in PBEM15 he carefully prepared and unleashed a rush on Jester that overwhelmed the Ottomans, making good use of his Persian troops, and in PBEM18 he had a good first strike on Ichabod's empire and really effectively overran Kaiser. That said, though, both advances required attacks on unprepared opponents, and while he did very well, he also stalled against Ichabod. He got complacent, Ichabod regrouped, counterattacked, and even drove Phoenicia back until nukes finally tipped the balance Woden's way. In PBEM4, too, he was caught unprepared by oledavy and had his navy sunk in a devastating Japanese first strike, effectively deciding that game.

So, for Woden, the key is not to fight him on his terms, but on yours instead. I think isolating and knocking out most of the Norwegian navy will be key - ljubljana will be pressured by marco in the east, and is less experienced, and is more backwards overall. He won't be reaching ironclads or coal anytime soon. So, I would do your best to use Admiral Magellan and our +3 total movement (Great Lighthouse + Golden Age bonus) with everyone else to dictate terms. Then, the decisive blow will be the simultaneous land invasion, aimed at pillaging and burning Woden's empire - particularly his Plaza, IZs, and Campuses in descending order. Accordingly, I think it might be worth it to burn the Chinese cities and go over to the defensive there - every turn you save faith now is an extra turn to buy a Cossack/courser later. Cossacks won't be able to take cities but they should be quick and tanky enough to pillage, especially if we could somehow squeeze in Logistics on top of everything else (no idea where that is in the Civics tree).

ljubljana I only have PBEM19 to draw on. He was skittish and passive with his units, so he might be prone to overreaction. I also think he might make mistakes through inexperience, either being overcautious in his deployments or, less likely, not cautious enough. His morale is probably more brittle than Woden's, so getting Woden to effectively give up (as is possible if we deal a naval defeat followed by a powerful land invasion) should knock him out, too - I expect he'll defer to Woden's judgment on many things as the 'noob.' That said, he did outfight Archduke, twice, so he's not to be underestimated as a tactician.

(Re: Outfighting Archduke - I suspect a large part was that it was 2 on 1 vs. Archduke both times. Japan has effectively provided zero support to England in both the galley age war and the renaissance war, while Woden I think made good use of Norway to participate both times. That, I think, was the difference. Marco won't leave us to fight alone).

so, tactically, concentrate on force preservation and denial. In China, if he retakes Glen Kamara, use your knight to take it back and kill a unit. If he kills the knight, I'd pull the courser out of the city into Frigate cover, so you can retake the city next turn, killing a unit and burning it. Fil Helander...I don't know if we should hold it or burn it. I don't know that we'll have time to take Valetta (a valuable outpost and great denial value), but leaving it alive is also super annoying. ANyway, keep as much of the fleet alive as possible for the Big One and build up a faith reserve to unleash in Norway. Heimdall is a good first target if Woden doesn't contest it.

[civac2]

What does pillaging the government plaza do?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It cuts off Woden's ability to purchase land units via faith using the Grand Master's Chapel. That will force Woden and ljub to try and dig out our raiders by diverting production from ships, or by keeping on ships and conceding the inland to us, which will lead to the gradual collapse of his science and production. Basically, the goal is to gradually strangle Woden to death while we throw everything at his navy.

[williams482]

Turn 152:

Roland ran counter to my expectations. Armstrong Okoflex still stands (although our knight is dead), but what was briefly Scott Bain is now Andy Firth, Rangers goalkeeper:



My initial plan was to respond by razing this city, but the appearance of yet another quad in the waters here leads me to believe that Roland has another coastal city on the other side which is building ships. As I'm pretty sure there is a passage around the northeast end of the Indochinese continent, we can't be having that. It would be pretty easy to retake the city with two caravels, devote a frigate and two more caravels to killing the two quads and damaging the frigate, then set the rest of them either promoting, or blasting away at ground targets of opportunity. A lightning strike on their capital while Victor is still establishing just isn't going to work: our frigates just don't do much damage to the walls right now, and our fleet is much more mobile than Victor is. I'm going to smash as much stuff as I can right now, and if we really need to capture Allan McGregor with Victor present, we can try to kick him out with a spy.

Plus, we get fleets in 8 turns. Those are going to be a huge help in that narrow harbor.

Step one, I sent a healthy unpromoted caravel to take down most of the city's hit points, then finish the job with another unpromoted caravel that was injured in the attack last turn. Scott Bain lives again! Despite some subsequent tactical blunders from yours truly (failure to move the admiral to boost each attack, moving the second frigate which wasn't waiting on a promotion to a spot that didn't allow him to hit the Chinese ground troops) we kill two quads and an archer and take the frigate down to exactly half health:



The city will flip back in three turns, and will likely be retaken by the Chinese Man at Arms before that. I don't care, because we can easily retake it with the caravels we have on hand. This city's ultimate fate is likely to be burned down to nothing once the canal is no longer valuable to us, so damage sustained on repeated captures and recaptures is irrelevant.

And hey, while we're on that topic, our courser abandons Armstrong Okoflex and flees for the hills. Roland has a considerable force right outside the city ready to retake it, and once they do we'll hit back with a 72 strength city strike, march the courser back in, and burn it to the ground:



That is a force strong enough to retake Adios Hermanos if Roland is so inclined. That city will complete ancient walls in 4 turns, and I faith purchased a crossbow to further enhance it's defenses. I fully expect that to be the final faith purchase on this continent. Michelangelo gets a better look at The Obvious Child, while our courser in the area prepares to occupy a third ring diamond mine next turn for subsequent pillaging. My leading caravel of the Bortus strike force reveals that there is not, in fact, a passage through here:



Well, oops. Honestly I'm kinda happy I remembered this information I wasn't really supposed to have completely wrong, and the lack of passage here is definitely favorable to our aims because it means any city on the northern coast will be totally unable to hurt us without a canal city in place. Furthermore, Bortus is suzerained by Roland, who has 18 envoys in there. Suboptimal has one. That means that ships built in The Obvious Child also cannot get out into the larger world unless that team declares war on Bortus (which would make us the Suzerain). So this is definitely good for us. It does make my recapture of Scott Bain just minutes ago a rather silly error, but oh well. Such is life.

Turns out 50 Ways did hit back pretty hard, dealing 61 damage to our frigate. That unit pulls back to heal, and another frigate freshly repaired out of Scott Brown moves up far enough to strike again next turn, if the fancy strikes me. My plan for this area is to wait a few turns, then once that injured Man at Arms has healed, move up both Men at Arms, both crossbows, the courser, a knight (entering the wines tile from the water, to complete the siege), the treb, the bombard, and the siege tower up in striking range of the city, then hit it with a frigate and have a second healthy frigate ready to fill in if that unit is injured. That should be enough firepower to grind down the walls in a few turns (likely with some losses) and take the city. Hopefully the capital will be assigned to a mainland city instead of Graceland and we're able to pull essentially the same trick again without dealing with the palace guard defensive bonus, although Graceland is strong enough and surrounded with bad enough terrain that I'm not sure how viable that will really be.



With overflow taken care of, Galileo teaches us the wonders of sanitation:



We overflow 308 beakers into Economics, which should complete next turn with fairly modest overflow into Industrialization. I've had a builder sitting on a copper tile outside Petro for several turns now, waiting to harvest. I think next turn will be the time for that, allowing Magnus to move elsewhere (perhaps to hurry along Sevastopol's canal). Thanks to our limited niter supply and the perpetual nature of Ironclad coal requirements, quadreme builds grow increasingly common. I hope that we can crank out enough of these fast enough that they don't all upgrade in queue, allowing us to halt production for a few turns prior to the war and upgrade for a greatly reduced overall niter cost. Of course, that likely depends on us having enough coal that building more ironclads in that time is a viable alternative.

Our spy has finally arrived at Connor Goldson. If this were still a relevant war I'd establish a listening post, and if I had no fear for this spy's well being I'd probably try to siphon 456g. Instead I tell him to gain sources, which is a complete waste of time because our alliance with phoenicia expires in 5 turns and we'll want him listening in on them ASAP.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

On the whole, positive developments. China has really dug out a large army, rapidly built after he just turned out a fairly sizeable navy, too. However, I think he's down to about 5 cities total, and only 3 of quality - the capital, the Stonehenge city, and the Pyramids city.

I think the canal city should be razed if we're not going to full-bore conquer. My biggest fear, actually, is China razing the city behind your caravels and cutting them off in the northern ocean, which would cost us some valuable ships. If he only has the one weak port city on the northern coast, and no other egress from the ocean, razing and withdrawing the fleet might be best. The enemy units being so thick on the ground means we'd need to make a substantial investment in science and faith to really conquer this area, which if we had no time pressure would be easily done.

Pushing to conquer 50 Ways...I think the capital will move to Graceland, since it's larger than the Obvious Child and Diamonds. Loyalty pressure might grow worse for sub, in a Dark Age and with an isolated city, but as we found out in PBEM18 a determined player can cling to a city with his fingernails in the face of overwhelming loyalty pressure, so that can't be counted on. But Graceland should fall to a determined attack, and upgrading an ironclad will give Hermanos a defensive strength of 60, or 70 if we actually garrisoned it with one. That will be a tough nut to crack, and might also be worth building medieval and then renaissance walls for the extra hp - we know how much damage a frigate strike + a crossbow can do, so we can use the city as a honeypot to suck in Indochina's units while we win the game.

Pity we haven't heard from Marco. I am wondering about how necessary battleships will be - we're finding out how tough cities can grow compared to Frigates, and Steel of course (BBs are at Combusion) would give all of our cities near impregnable-to-frigates defenses. But Woden can also grab Steel and then we will need BBs to crack him, I think. I'd win the naval fight first before we go Steel hunting, though - more ships for now. Once we sink the fleet, to secure the win we can scoop up Steel and Combustion.

[williams482]

If we do think frigate navies being stymied by walls is a serious possibility (and our big troubles in little Indochina do point to that being legitimate), what do you think of trying to actually build out the campus complex on Svalbard? Currently those cities are building ~10 turn ironclads, and they could get their campi done in only slightly longer. Those three would have a combined adjacency of +10, so +20 bpt with the doubling card (which we've been running constantly anyway). That's a ~11% increase in research rate, which will be significant if we do need to sprint for battleships but a clear loss relative to three ironclads if we don't.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I definitely would love to get those up and running, as well as factory complexes up in Navarin and Borodino. It's just we have two competing priorities right now:

1)Getting as many hulls into the water as possible in an effort to beat the raiders before they get their Anglo-Japanese conquests online
2)Getting science infrastructure as high as possible to rapidly reach Steel defenses and battleships (plus Military Science when practical)

Building for one directly competes for production with the other - it's a shame I couldn't get the Industrial Zones to fit at, say, Imperator Aleksandr and Oryol so we could do both, but unfortunately I didn't think that far ahead.

I think focus on winning the fleet battle first, then while they rebuild get the Svalbard complex up (and possibly the factories on the mainland), then we chase Steel/Combustion to put them away. The good news is the raiders will face the same competing priorities, and I fear them putting more ships out more than I do them trying to fix their busted-ass science.

[williams482]

Turn 153:

Economics completes:



We start the critical Industrialization tech, due in 5. No notifications of attacked or damaged units, but Scott Bain came within 5 HP of falling, and Armstrong Okoflex is now Cedric Itten:



We'll start here. One of our lovely Bombardment/Rolling Barrage frigates blasts 96 points off the recently recaptured city's hit points, and our courser waltzes in once again:



This time, however, there will be no renaming. The city and it's cache of architectural wonders are razed down to nothing, save a few incongruous strips of asphalt crisscrossing the otherwise empty plains. 

War is hell.

At Scott Bain, however, it looks like Roland may have shot his bolt:



The Man At Arms and frigate are swiftly dispatched. The treb, unfortunately, survives, as I clumsily assumed without confirming that I could one shot it with a frigate, then promoted my fourth frigate before discovering my error. That unit will likely survive. With one caravel already at risk and (I believe) a very low chance of the city changing hands next turn, I decide to do a little poking around back here. As it turns out, good guess on the city location:



We could capture or burn this city with relative ease as soon as next turn, but there's no point. It's pop four, with only the harbor for districts and merely pedestrian production tiles to work, plus it will be locked out of building useful ships once Scott Bain is flipped, recaptured, and razed. Next turn we pull out of this sea entirely, and seal it off as soon as possible.

Now, should I purchase a knight in Scott Bain, considering that I still have the city? That unit would cost 370 faith and 20 iron. On t155 it could pillage a mine in Scott Bain for 257g, then on t157 pillage a pasture for 128 faith. From that point on it could charge off north towards Joe Arribo and pillage as much as possible before being shot down by city defenses. Unfortunately, that's not fast enough. If I could buy a courser right now I probably would, as five movement would allow the unit to complete those pillages on the next two turns, instead of 2 and 4 turns from now, plus whatever it can pilfer in the north. Unfortunately we don't have the horse stockpiles for that, so oh well. I pass on the Knight.

The rest of the turn is little more than minor repositioning, and the 306g copper harvest at Petro. We will complete our first ironclad next turn, and begin rapidly eating into our small stockpile of coal Archduke has been so helpfully replenishing for us. Hopefully our own coal is plentiful and conveniently located. Ironically I was one of the people helping balance the map, and I don't think I looked into that at all... so if we get screwed here, I've only myself to blame.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

For the record, I estimated Morelos's y-coordinate based on the coast behind Fil Helander, and the x-coordinate by just sticking it about equidistant from the capital as Helander was, just in the opposite direction. I was badly off on Diamonds, but pretty close on Obvious Child, I think.

The canal is flipping to rebels next turn, right, so we can't purchase a courser NEXT turn for those valuable gold pillages? Getting ~300 gold in return for 200ish faith is a nice return, and it hurts China more. But with the rebellion, yeah, probably not worth delaying, nor is it worth risking a frigate squadron getting isolated in order to burn down the weak Chinese city.

5 turns improvement on my coal timeline! Then it's a question of pushing for Steel (which would make us more or less immune to Norway), or going for the Cossacks/line infantry. I'm not sure which is best, still. Cossacks would be unbeatable in Raiderland and might be sufficiently demoralizing IF we can win the naval battle for the other guys to throw in the towel. Say we bleed a good portion of Woden's fleet, capture Heimdall, and spew out a few cossacks before the city flips. Meanwhile Marco can liberate one of the two city-states near Svalbard and get double ship production to throw at Phoenicia...yeah, that might be enough to clinch the win. And Woden HAS to be running out of pillage science, so we're getting to BBs/Steel defenses much sooner than he is.

[williams482]

Unfortunately I think the courser would be trapped inside the city and destroyed when it flipped on the subsequent turn.

Although, maybe we can still get everything we want just by stringing things out a bit. Time is basically irrelevant here, our ships are plenty close enough to fight the Raiders where they are, we just need to make sure we don't trap them. There's a decent chance burning the city will cost us a caravel when it teleports away from the ruins because dumb (well, 50/50 but best to avoid that if we can). If we capture and keep once it flips, buy the courser, pillage, and once it flips again the courser can raze the city with all our ships safely on the western side of the isthmus, well that's just about perfect for us.

The only risk there is Roland marching an army of substance up to contest our recapture of the city, but the terrain is terrible for that and our frigates would rip him apart. I think I'm going to try it.