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

[roland of gilead]

not a great turn for them i don't think.

didn't take my city and now it has walls. only a matter of time of course but still not ideal for them.

[williams482]

Things look to be as expected around Diomede, although my Cossack took more damage than I anticipated.

At Marshall Mathers, not taking the city was definitely intentional, and done so they could pillage a little more. That's probably what the debate was about. Walls is better than no walls, but they'll have no trouble taking that city as soon as they decide they want to.

Did my request for horses not go through? I see you still have the full 50.

[roland of gilead]

Things look to be as expected around Diomede, although my Cossack took more damage than I anticipated.

At Marshall Mathers, not taking the city was definitely intentional, and done so they could pillage a little more. That's probably what the debate was about. Walls is better than no walls, but they'll have no trouble taking that city as soon as they decide they want to.

Did my request for horses not go through? I see you still have the full 50.

i offered you 30 back so you will have them on your turn. Misclicked. 

well i moved troops up if they hang around being silly perhaps i can hit them some.

of course perhaps that is what they really want. to pull me into battle so they can destroy me.

[williams482]

As we know your crossbows can't do shit against those ships, so don't try. Definitely do try to kill off that berserker and any other potential pillagers though, we don't want them getting any more pillage rewards than absolutely necessary. I'll try to get the drop on those Norwegian ships who likely have similar objectives in mind.

[roland of gilead]

unfortunately the crossbows don't do much to the berserker.

but i have troops moving into the region as best as possible.

[williams482]

Oof. I guess not, that sucker has 58 strength, presumably +10 against ranged attacks (and I would assume +7 in melee and +1 speed to boot, on top of the innate +10 attacking... yikes).

Good luck.

[roland of gilead]

Oof. I guess not, that sucker has 58 strength, presumably +10 against ranged attacks (and I would assume +7 in melee and +1 speed to boot, on top of the innate +10 attacking... yikes).

Good luck.

think it is 80 plus strength. 

i am making a cannon so my walls are stronger shooting. 5 turns though

[williams482]

Turn 174:

Rifling completes:



Woden has completed research on Steel, so our odds of conquering his core can be safely set at nil. The next all important tech is refining. I can research Ballistics in 4 turns, which has some marginal military value and leads to Radio and Replaceable Parts, neither of which is worth a damn. Those two and Flight each reveal exactly one other tech behind them. Only Replaceable Parts is conceivably boostable (three line infantry units), but I won't be throwing Niter at that any time soon. I think that means the smart play is to start on Flight, taking the fastest possible path to a 1/3 shot at refining for Oil and battleships.

My cossack corp is down to 59 HP thanks to Abugida and it's garrisoned frigate. That's worse than I expected, and bad enough that I wonder if sending single cossacks charging into enemy lands is even a good idea. That doesn't stop the single cossack purchased in Mitla last turn from going charging into enemy lands, it stops right next to Hieratic and will hopefully be able to take out it's campus next turn. Ljubljana has two farms near Demotic which should help these guys heal up a bit as they tank fire from cities and the occasional frigate. I decide to gamble a bit with the injured cossack and head for Woden's Plaza (the only source of pillage culture within reasonable reach), but I am blocked by these jerks:



93 damage proves inadequate to the task of removing that unit, so there's a pretty good chance my cossack dies next turn. I did at least take out a trade route in the bargain.

I don't remember how many Admiral points Woden generated last turn (what, write things down? Pshaw to that), but it was definitely less than the 36 he got this turn, and that was before I pillaged his lighthouse in (W)Odin. That probably means he's running projects (or he repaired a few harbors last turn, and/or swapped into the policy card that gives an extra +2 admiral points from shipyards, of which he has a pair). Current ETA is 12 turns out, and I should expect that much sooner. Woden getting an admiral in play before I can grind down those disgustingly strong promoted ironclads would be yet another crushing blow to our chances.

As for a lesser blow to our chances, Bruindane doesn't want us pillaging their fishing boats. Can't imagine why, but that's clearly what this caravel is here to prevent. Shame on me for tipping my hand, now I have to kill it. "Fortunately" I don't believe I have enough firing positions to get all of my ranged ships in on the action anyway, so I send one of my Rolling Barrage frigates over to take the top off that unit, and the two privateers slip in to finish the job. That allows our promoted ironclad to pillage his way to full health, and sprint back towards the battle:



Unfortunately that bombard is certainly going to take a bite out of our privateer next turn. Can't be helped, unfortunately, as (I think) moving the ironclad next to the caravel to free up a safer firing position would have eaten all it's movement thanks to ZoC even after the zone-of-controling unit died, and moving back a tile would have still burnt enough to make reaching the battle next turn difficult. So gross, but that's what I get for failing to be subtle around a not-quite-totally-impotent enemy.

I do have a trickle of reinforcements coming up from the core shipyards, but unfortunately Woden is not without reinforcements either:



That ship is most likely the former garrison of Hod, come to join the second battle of Diomede. That aforementioned trickle has no chance of ambushing and sinking this ship, it's far too strong. Ugh. I'll just hope to stay out of the way and eventually sneak some privateers in around it to hit those frigates.

Okay, on to the main event. Can we kill anything? Well, the ironclad we took shots at last turn is still looking pretty dinged up. Our frigates shoot it for 15, 16, 16, and a fatal 10, and we finally have our first dead Norwegians:



Bloody hell, this is not going to go quick. It does at least open things up to take out another unit, and we successfully tag team the privateer with a frigate shot and an injured suicide caravel:



Now we have a flanking advantage on that double promoted ironclad. Can we take advantage without throwing away anything we can't do without? That unit looks like it has ~80 HP and it's at -2 due to damage so I'm going to assume that's where it's at (why am I not giving this information?). Two LoB frigate strikes would average 11 and 11, so 58 HP. Our 80 HP ironclad with three units flanking (and one Norwegian supporting) would average 31 (taking 29). Two injured caravels would be able to smash their way in and finish the job.

Or, well, they would. If I could count. Sadly that skill seems to be beyond me, as I brilliantly shifted a caravel into an attacking position, without the movement remaining to actually attack. Can I still get the kill by substituting a 68 HP ironclad for the other caravel? Baring shit dice rolls, yes. Should I? It's nowhere near as enticing as throwing obsolete and injured ships at the enemy, but killing this ironclad is almost certainly worth doing. Frigate 1 shoots for 12, Frigate 2 for 10, Ironclad 1 strikes for 33, takes 25, and earns a promotion, and our 68 HP ironclad finishes the job at the cost of 21 HP, also earning enough EXP to promote, and +3 era score for killing a veteran enemy. These two half health, promotion eligible ironclads are suddenly very valuable, and I should be willing to make some sacrifices to keep them alive. What are their chances? And should I risk leaving our admiral on the more exposed of the two in order to get better coverage?

First off, we're a little lucky with the condition of the caravel which killed Woden's privateer. I didn't plan this, but that unit has just enough health to most likely survive shots from both frigates, but not enough health to survive a mostly-healthy ironclad assault. If Woden kills that unit with an ironclad, there would only be space to hit the to-be-promoted ironclad with one ironclad and both frigates, unfortunately the distinction is mostly academic because a healthy ironclad and the frigate fleet will most likely be enough to kill that unit. So no, don't leave the admiral on that tile.

Previously I had been making sure to leave the Admiral on a tile where his influence extended to the ironclad on the reef, leaving that unit just barely strong enough to survive everything Woden could possibly throw at it. Now that battle lines have broken down, the privateer is dead, and their are potential soft targets scattered all over the place, I think strengthening the middle of my formation is more important than ensuring that unit's survival. Woden can now kill it if he so desires, but he'll have to spend frigate and ironclad attacks to do it, and doing so won't prove nearly so rewarding with more tiles blocked up east of that point.

My final deployment is as so:



I have also upgraded one of my double promoted caravels to an ironclad, and purchased cossacks in Graf Apraksin and Seniavin. Woden may notice the bump in city strength there and put two and two together on what I'm trying to do, but it's definitely worth it. We're long term underdogs here, we need to be taking risks.

I am tempted to purchase a cossack in Adios Hermanos (and then maybe another next turn, for a corps), then either using it to pillage or to spearhead a genuine push against Diamonds. The three coal there is as valuable as ever, and Bruindane seems to have units clustered on their west coast. Plus, that city is only 62 strength. What the hell, I'm going to do it. If that unit can pillage four things then it's paid for itself. Probably not worth making a corps though, unless I think we really can take Diamonds.


Mood for today: cautiously optimistic. I think we're a little better than 50/50 to win the naval battle here with enough strength remaining to continue projecting power in this theater. What comes next if we do, I dunno.

[roland of gilead]

I took suzerain of Valetta because i could.

may be able to buy some walls with faith.

[roland of gilead]

i move in to attack. will be brutal but hey ho.