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

[williams482]

Hm, what if we kept Darwin in reserve while working on Steel naturally? If they show up to begin besieging our cities (most likely Norwegian berserkers either on Thesa near Nikolai or on Svalbard near Graf Apraksin), then we pop him and grab the tech right in their faces, which would be a lot of wasted movement on their parts.

My concern is that we'll outright lose a city or two on the opening turn(s). The Raiders definitely have the firepower to take an unwalled city or two in one turn. Do you think maximizing the surprise from our defensive bump is worth risking a city or two?

Because this is Civ 6, there's also overflow management to consider. We really want to make sure that 1500 beaker burst only goes into two techs; ~1000 to complete already-boosted Steel, then ~500 overflow into something relatively expensive. Any overflow off that second tech will be lost. That means we can't really use Darwin to blast through a bunch of older techs, and Steel is really the only high cost option available. We can still wait to use him on Steel until we judge the time is right (in a perfect world, he completes Steel and overflows into Military Science), but our options are definitely limited.

Re: the spy, remember you can manually cancel missions! A bit late now, I suppose. Oh, well.

Really? God damn it. 

Civics plan looks solid to me. Makes the best use of our limited card slots, although giving up Press Gangs...well, Woden has the same issue. Possible solutions - Forbidden City/Alhambra (we have no encampments for Alhambra and Forbidden City is expensive). Or just find a better government, no advantage over Norway there - Woden's empire pop nears ours in size now and he has his pantheon helping him out in culture.

Alhambra is a brilliant idea! Probably too late now, but I'll check for a city with a free district slot and 4-5 available chops next turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Honestly, only two cities really seem possible - Imperator Aleksandr or Oryol, everything else is a possible shipyard. For example, Sissoi Veliki is a perfect privateer city. Sevastopol SHOULD have the district slot, as should Knyaz Suvurov, but I don't think they could get Encampent -> Alhambra out in good time.

As for Darwin/Steel, prioritize research efficiency over any tactical tricks like trying to surprise the raiders. It's a luxury that we don't really need and you're right that the risks balance the rewards of mildly pulling some units out of position.

[williams482]

If we can get Alhambra, which is a big if, it's worth making sacrifices at a shipbuilding center. Just a few turns of +100% ships without hemorrhaging money will make that profitable, so any city that can do it in a reasonable timeframe without delaying the Electricity boost will be used in that capacity.

[williams482]

Turn 161:

The Enlightenment is one turn from completion as expected. I swap to Nationalism to get it within one turn, and will swap off yet again next turn. Suboptimal shot our frigate at Graceland, and that ship flees southwest to heal up and prepare for battles that matter. At Hermanos only one Chinese knight remains, cowering behind a mountain to escape the fire of our guns. With the crossbow useless for the turn, I transfer it to the water and purchase Pike and Shot units at both Hermanos and Scott Brown:



Sadly, there is no viable spot to build Alhambra in the time we have available. Sissol Velki would be the best place, but it still needs to grow to pop 7 (31 turns naturally, or chop a fish and be at a food deficit forever) and just getting builders down there will take up most of the time we have left before war breaks out. I wish we'd thought of this 15 turns ago, with proper preparation it would have been an excellent play.

Here is the initial concentration of the Russian fleet off the eastern coast of Svalbard:



More ships stream in to join them every turn. My plan for the war at this stage is simplistic, but hopefully effective: we will mass the bulk of our ships together to the northwest of their current position, set a screen of Great Scouts at the edge of our first strike range, and dispatch any fleet deployed against us as violently as possible in those relatively open waters. Currently Woden has about 600 milpower worth of ships deployed in that area, which if they stay there would be excellent targets. If The Raiders decide to go all Fabian on us, we'll systematically capture, liberate, and/or burn every city we can reach safely. Local geography makes this area a relatively sheltered one, perfect for us to make a lair out of it while still being able to wreak havoc on the Norwegian core:



This approach would leave our cities exposed, but with Steel in place just before the start of the war, I highly doubt Ljubljana and Woden can batter down our cities faster than we can batter down theirs. Marco won't have that advantage, but he can use his fleet more defensively, with the primary objective of preventing the Raiders from hurting him as much as I'm going to hurt Woden. If Marco is ignored, he can make a mess of the former Axis territories just next door, which haven't been fortified at all.

Ground troops do not play as much of a role in the early going as I had originally hoped, because we are going to be slower to Cossacks than I had originally hoped, and We'll have a hell of a time upgrading into them cheaply given the policy card situation and lack of cheap/boostable civics to kick off those swaps. Most likely any army we can conjure up will have to be faith purchased inside captured cities for 680 faith per Cossack, which is viable but definitely slower than landing a half-dozen coursers and upgrading them there.

It's worth noting that Steel actually has significant offensive value in that captured cities automatically get whichever walls were not destroyed in the process of taking the city. For example, if we took Hemdal (which only has ancient walls at the moment) the city would be ours with 300/400 points of wall defenses in place. As long as we control the waters, and Woden doesn't have an army of siege engines sitting in his core, we'll easily be able to keep any cities we take. The only danger to them will be loyalty.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Any idea what Woden's been up to to get the 16-point jump in science? Completing campuses/libraries, policy swap? If he's building science it's a good sign for us, policy swaps less so.

Heimdall and Freya look like excellent first targets (Baldur is mostly irrelevant and I would leave it to mop up duty after pillaging the harbor, although it would throw Phoenicia's weird Oracle Bones into rebellion), and would be good bases. Don't even worry about having to faith-buy from scratch - either way it's production that they can't match, on their home island. It's about the extra pressure. Even 6 insta-cossacks via upgrade wouldn't be able to take cities without the fleet, and 1 land unit can do just as well as 6 when the fleet is clearing the way to take cities. So the only loss is in initial pillaging.

I do wonder if Woden is going to stuff some of those fleets into his cities. And, obviously, a lot of those will be ironclads probably in the next 7 turns. He can slow down a conquest by a fair amount doing that, due to city strength defenses. I'd prefer he leave them in the open, obviously. But as long as we get one city on the mainland, then the pillaging campaign can go ahead. Then even a stalemated sea war will ultimately start to tilt in our favor, as we kick out their science and production supports in the hinterland while keeping our own intact core pumping out ships. If we get the upper hand in ships and establish a blockade, then the game is over. They'll never be able to regain naval superiority and will be stuck on their islands for us to grind down. The game has always been about ships, something I think roland and suboptimal failed to understand despite his taking Indonesia.

[williams482]

I might not be focusing enough on objectives here. We need to build and keep building more ships, always more ships, to keep pace with the Raiders even during the war. Sacrificing strength bonuses is an obvious no-go. Dropping Conscription (worth ~80 gpt) hasn't been seriously considered either, but maybe the best use of our substantial gold reserves really would be to allow us to run a deficit for a while so we can keep building ships at double speed?

The argument against is basically that we can't upgrade as much stuff, but our primary limiter on upgrades is always going to be resources anyway, and simply getting as many hulls in the water as we possibly can will likely outstrip the benefits of incremental (and undiscounted) upgrades. And that we're going to lose even more income as out trade routes to the Raiders are lost and have to be redirected to slightly less profitable destinations in Australia.

Another slightly whacky option once we complete Urbanization would be to run neither of those, and slot in Force Modernization instead. Churn quads, which are cheap enough that this game's dumb overflow rules will limit the actual production benefits from Press Gangs, upgrade one every turn, and rely on caravel upgrades to keep our melee ships in the best strength possible. I don't love this choice, but if we find ourselves lacking in frigates specifically it could be worth a go. Of course if things do progress that far maybe Sissol Velki will actually get Alhambra up. I definitely should have moved MAgnus over there, he's not doing a damn thing in his current location.

[williams482]

As for the science bump, I'm not 100% sure but I think it's mostly captured infrastructure. Between t158 and t160, Woden's beaker rate jumped by 12 and his empire score by 21, while Kaiser's beaker rate dropped by 10 and his empire score by 15. One city changed hands, a relatively weak one (although likely equipped with a campus) in the former Japanese core. The unaccounted for increases could have been campus infrastructure, although unfortunately I am not tracking rival Great Person points to confirm.

[williams482]

Turn 161 World Congress:

I decided to vote on these things:



The exercise is, of course, entirely pointless, as I have one vote per proposal and cannot coordinate with my far more favor-endowed teammate. Unfortunate, because +/- 5 combat strength for a unit type is one of the big ones. 

Such is life.

[civac2]

Ah, the marker-based communication protocol fails here. That is unfortunate. These extra congress turns do seem to be a bad idea in general.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Writing from my phone so abbreviated- wedding is in 30 days and we're in the midst of moving from S. Korea to S. Africa so little time to write.

Anyway melee nerf is good news I think. Hits Norway's main unit and we're limited in ironclad by coal, so hurts us less than it hurts them.

Woden has fleets and will get clads soon, watch for him stuffing his cities and avoiding battle. If so, Ljubljana is Achilles heel - poor science, only caravels, no Steel. Bypass Norway and hit nearby Phoenician cities- even Cuneiform. They will have to come out and fight or lose the city, if they do, game over. We pray for army and pillage out science and industry = gg. Marco must keep up pressure from his side for this to work, otherwise they concentrate against us.

I think we have advantage for now, if given time to develop conquered lands we will lose that edge.

Too bad Marco/Kaiser/Archduke all checked out, very heavy lifting left for us. But Russia is strong as two nations!