Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[oledavy]

Woden's diplomacy sort of alters my calculations. He seems content to let Archduke win

I mean, not much you can do either way in that case.

It could be a bluff. The fact that he posted for the first time in awhile in response to our exchange yesterday tells me he's concerned at the very least. 

But you're right, I'm not sure I can actually trust Woden to do what would need to be done even in that case. If that's what its going to be, I want the satisfaction of wrecking Woden's chance to win myself - which would require me having the Venetian Arsenal. 

As an aside, DoTF gives me some tools I can potentially use to weather the storm. 

Consider this: 

A Frigate fleet, on a coastal tile within a city radius. 70 strength, same strength as his MGs. Attacking with the +7 naval promotion, depending on where he is I could hit for 77-82 str. There are ways I can potentially make this work, the numbers and the timing are just the issue. The fact that both of them can combine together and hit me at once is by far the biggest concern. 

I could even Slot in Land Surveyors and use my gold stash to purchase necessary tiles around Lysithea as the battle progresses.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hm, frigate fleets are something I didn't think of. You can produce them for the same cost as frigates, which makes them CHEAPER than Woden's MGs (I think), AND you have more cities to build them in. If you could just boost them with a GA we'd be in business for attacking.

[Mardoc]

Did you happen to get before and after information on your production for finishing Spain? I'm curious to see how much effect the occupation penalty and war weariness had on your civ.

[oledavy]

Eight Turns Later

So, after Woden turned down my last offer to avoid a dogpile, I decided the best thing to do was, in practical terms, stage a rage quit. Ragey posts in the Diplo thread, no posting in my thread, no logging in on my account. 

I'll have to wait until after the game to see if this actually influenced Archduke and Woden's decision-making. However, my purpose was essentially to make them overconfident, more prone to mistakes. If I gave the impression of not trying anymore, of being annoyed and desperate, perhaps they would be more flippant and feckless in pursuing their attack.

Woden made a huge mistake, and as of this moment (t167), I'm all but certain I have won the game. I was in a leading position on t159, but not so leading that I could overcome a dogpile from the qualitatively better fleets of England and Brazil. Up to t166, Winning was most likely going to  involve finding a way to prevail in an all out naval battle. Then, to my utter shock, the win just fell into my lap. Now, I fear their combined fleet no longer. 

I've been monitoring the game and the diplo thread from an alternate account, messaging turn reports to Chevalier and Mardoc. In the coming hour, I'm going to upload this back log, and then report on the turning point, the Battle of Beija-Flor Bay. 

Stay tuned.

[oledavy]

(To Chevalier)

Hey! It's me, Dave. I'm not trading Europa away  - going to try and weather the storm.

I'm emailing you from another account because I want to make the others think I rage quit. I've already made a post in the diplo thread to that effect. If I stop posting, and my account becomes inactive, they will be more likely to get overconfident and make an error. 

I will upload all the turn reports I email you to my thread after awhile, but for now, what happens in the game is basically between you and me (especially since nobody else is reporting right now).

With all that being said.

Turn 161

The big turn was here at last. Time to finish a plan I've had since very early this game....










Apparently a city counts as a unit for the Military Science Eureka. This kill immediately shot my science up by about 18 and my culture by about 20. Getting to work that Natural Wonder near Nereid without the penalty is huge. Research times on both my tech and civic dropped by a turn.

Now I can fan out the military to make better use of retainers.

The WW still hasn't come off.



I really hope this all isn't from my conflict with Archduke.....

At any rate, maybe some will come off next turn.

I went ahead and checked citizen allocation on all my Spanish cities. Here is my new south on the isle of Neptune.



It's worth noting I didn't lose a single unit taking Spain.

Or earlier fighting them around Jerusalem

Or razing Pizarro. Zip, zilch, nada.

With I could say the same for fighting Archduke....

Here's the situation around Brazil.



And when I finished:



I continued my attack on Magueria this turn. I also nailed a Portuguese caravel and crossbow that were wandering around, anything to get experience.

The plan here is to raze the city, killing the invaluable frigate I've boxed inside it. It should take me 1-2 more turns to burn through the city. The big attack comes next turn. Additionally, I might try to raze Lisbon, hurting both Woden and Archduke (who have 6 envoys in it). After that, it will be time to hightail it back east. Salguerio is such a good city, and unfortunately is just going to take too long to grind down. Woden did a good job here defending against more advanced units. Hell, if he upgrades next turn, I could have some major problems in the south still.

I'm also considering bombing Tijuca from the sea and sending in a land unit to kill it. I bought a knight to potentially effect this.



I immediately regretted this, as it will take 4 turns to get there, and if he upgrades before then, the city can one-shot the knight   I will need at least one more unit to make this work. Maybe I can pull something from Spain in a decent time frame. At any rate, at least having a melee unit gives me some options as far as recapturing things on my own mainland I didn't have before (hope it doesn't come to that).

I also bought a worker in Spain to hook up the coal.



Now I'm in saving mode. My GPT is pretty miserable right now due to the expenses I face every turn for units 165. However, they are about to start going down. Worst case scenario, I can run Conscription, and more importantly, in six turns I'll start combining units into fleets, saving me about 50-70 GPT.

I'm basically in saving mode from here until battleships. Every frigate fleet I can upgrade will be invaluable. Over the coming turns I'll be working hard to grind science and gold any way I can to get to my next power spike. In the meantime, I am producing ships like mad to hold the line. In the right situation, I can potentially hold my own, but it will require some care and luck.

Not knowing what Archduke is up to is really worrying me. I'm probably going to start detailing units towards Ceres next turn to make sure he doesn't blitz my core with that fleet that was around Germany. However, he still has at least 2 GA's and his frigate fleet there...



So, maybe he's going to finish Germany instead and link up with Brazil? Hard to say for sure. Currently the 1 sub, 2 ironclads, and 1 frigate of that fleet are unaccounted for. There is also at least 1 ironclad and 1 sub east of England.

Brazil has at least 8 frigates and 1 caravel at present.

To compare, I have:

4 Subs
8 ironclads
15 frigates

Every city that can is trucking away building more of the things.

All of my trade routes are now running to Toronto, all but a few. Not as good as Lisbon, but safer. Hopefully Archduke doesn't realize my vulnerability there and launch a land campaign against the city. I don't have navy to oppose him in the area at present.

Random leftover images. Woden's frigate blockaded in Salguerio.



Surviving this dogpile is going to at best be a near run thing.

The best thing Archduke can do is try and finish off Germany while Woden fights me. I also am hoping Archduke attacks my eastern periphery, rather than combines with Woden. The two of them together will be extremely difficult to deal with.

I'm probably going to have to adopt a strategy of trading cities for time. I can lose cities and keep trucking, but if I lose the fleet, it's GG.

@ Woden


It seems that the devil´s most latest trick has failed. Dangle the VA in front of you and me and then let us tear each other apart.
With his conquest of Spain done, the mask has finally been torn away, if you check out science, culture and power you see Oledavy in a pretty dominant position.


Alas I am not sure if we can survive the onslaught, but we will surely try.


Any non-essential naval forces of mine will make haste to your shores, I will try to finish the conquest of Germany on foot and with some bombard ships possibly. Keep your strength and wits about, even if Oledavy bloodthirsty tears down cities of you as he has done with me, we will prevail.
At the moment I do not really mind who of us two wins this game, as long as Oledavy who time and time again has played one against the other has to be defeated. To my shame it worked against me in the first war against Singaboy, where Singaboy was right, Oledavy was by far the greater threat.


@ Singaboy


I am not sure if returning your cities against an unsure promise of an alliance is a smart by now, especially as your strength navy wise is seriously depleted. If you did not send that scout and that ship to scout my fleet for Oledavy and supported him, I think we could have found an accord, why else would I have done that sub optimal peace for rather useless and exposed Norwegian cities.


@ Oledavy


Nicely played so far, Oledavy, but it seems you did not offer the VA after all, unsurprisingly because what you wanted was Woden and me to separate over it, not actually cede it.

Relevant

He's already destroyed any chance of peace with Singaboy and getting that WW off, and now apparently is going to try and finish off Singaboy while using half of his forces to support Woden.

Good.....

It's interesting how different the evaluations of strength are in the diplothread. I'm not sure how much is propaganda and how much is sincere, but Archduke seems convinced he's surviving by the skin of his teeth and he's still probably doomed. If it's sincere, what's he basing it on? By eating Spain and half of Norway, my crude math suggests you ought to have the largest empire now (since England has half of Norway and half of Germany, and Brazil has just his core), so you should have fairly dominant science and culture. Worth checking the scores.


If that is so, then time is indeed on your side - you should reach battleships long before anyone else. They're still weaker than MGs, but promoted and in coastal waters they can go toe to toe with them and win. The other priority obviously must be Cold War for International Waters. If you can survive more or less intact and reach that to crank out half-cost subs and BBs, then the writing is on the wall for the Allied Powers.


Okay, so surviving until you can reach that: Your fleet numbers look good, although they could start to dissipate once the  MGs start to one-shot units. But Woden has ~10, with no easy ability to produce more. I think the strategy of razing and burning as much as you can along his coasts is the best plan for now. I'd leave an observation force near the English fleet, but otherwise throw every spare unit into murdering Brazil - Woden can't be everywhere and you have the advantage in numbers, so overwhelm him. Maybe you can convince him to cry uncle, maybe it's to the death, either way, the fewer coastal cities he has, the better. IF you can knock him down to 1 or perhaps 2 shipbuilding cities, and tear the heart out of his fleet the way you did Archduke's, I think you can shift your attention back to England and follow the same strategy: Take, burn, or sink as many ships as possible, and raze every city accessible from the water.


I thought about suggesting the Doomstack, like Archduke's fleet, but that just plays to his strengths (GAs) and gives a nice big fat target to Woden's MGs. I think with your numbers it's better to attack in multiple places at once, running up WW, savaging their economies, and generally trying to fight as much of the war on THEIR soil as possible. Note that they've all got pillaged cities, while your core has been untouched. You've lost more units, so the war weariness balances out, except that you've grown in territory and taken more luxuries, and removed Spain as a factor, so if anything I think you might be BETTER off than the Allies in economic terms.


It's just a matter of surviving the 2 v 1 until International Waters lets you unleash the power of the VA for the last time. I think you can do it if you stay aggressive, keep 'em off balance.

I read this message before your other one and was trying to figure out who this lunatic sending me an incomprehensible message was. x_x


Yeah, Archduke's a great tactician, but his strategic sense remains shaky. I like this move.

Turn 162

I'm feeling increasingly unstoppable every turn, although there was a good reason for it this turn.



15 War Weariness gone, now down to a balmy 30  

Thanks to Liberalism and Retainers though, I'm managing okay.

Alright Woden, time to face the music.





I burned the city and turned my attention to Tijuca and Lisbon. Woden suzerained the city this turn, just in time for me to wipe it off the map  

Still no MG's, but it can't be long now. I must be wary. The fleet has begun its withdraw to the home waters. 4 more ironclads will be added to the fleet next turn to help me weather the storm.



Near Germany, Trier is about to fall, but at least Singaboy apparently nailed a British sub somewhere! I imagine off his east coast. One less for me to deal with.



Archduke recruited his 5th GA though.



And the next one is hella expensive.



I will need to run more than one district project to get them in time for battleships.

The new Toronto-based economy.



And despite this, Archduke still leads in score.



He's right in that I am now stomping in the important categories though.

My military strength is nearly 2,000 as opposed to Archduke and Woden's 1,000 a piece.

Archduke's science is at 85.3, while his culture is at 53.1 Long-term, I have this game in the bag. It's making it through the next 18 turns (the approximate time it will take me to finish steel), that will be the hard part.

Sounds like the day of MG reckoning has arrived. Woden tells Archduke he has 7 (with more to come).


I think that's actually manageable. If you can concentrate your frigates, hide the subs among them, you can probably pick off a fair few. He certainly can't overcome the fleet AND raze the empire in 18 turns, and the more time he spends chasing you off his coast, the better. If nothing else, picking off ironclads will make it impossible for him to actually TAKE any of your cities.


I know there's a dozen crises on the map and not enough resources to deal with them, but something to prop up Singaboy might be a good return on investment - if his morale collapses, as it might if he thinks he's been utterly abandoned to his fate, Archduke will have an easier time cleaning him up and then hitting you from the opposite side.


Still, I think this war is winnable, and who wins this war wins the game.

(To Mardoc)

Hey! Messaging you from my newly created alternate account. I'm not logging into "oledavy" for a little bit and am using this account to monitor the game. I don't know if it will actually do any good, but ceasing logging in and posting might convince Archduke/Woden I've given up, and cause them to doubt their conclusions and/or get cocky in dealing with me.

Don't worry, I'm still keeping up with reports. There will just be a delay in posting them to the thread.

For what it's worth, I'm very aware that I'm winning at this point, most of my stuff in the diplo thread has been bluster. The challenge is the next 18 turns. If I make it to battleships with enough frigates and gold to upgrade, I've won. But, Archduke and Woden can do a lot of damage in the intervening time, and if I don't play my cards very carefully, I'm screwed.

Conquering Spain lost me 15 WW, that combined with the additional yields dramatically increased my culture and science. It did not do as much for my production/faith/gold, and the additional hammers will have relatively little impact on how things pan out due to low production potential of every coastal city except Halimede. I might be able to cram a couple extra ships out of there though.

To answer your question though.

t162 - My stats:

SPT: 145.1
CPT: 90.6

t162 - Archduke's Stats:

SPT: 85.3
CPT: 53.1

I am running Rationalism, but not Meritocracy (+~20 CPT) or Natural Philosophy ( +~20 SPT) Having to run Retainers and Liberalism in particular hurts my ability to boost specific areas of my economy.



Turn 163

The MG reckoning is upon us....



Remarkably, he wasn't able to kill my frigate near Tijuca. I had a very hard decision to make. Kill Lisbon, hurting both the English and Brazilian economies, but possibly leaving several of my ships open to counter-attack from MG's in the fog.

By the way, the fact that MG's have an effective strike range of 8 (as opposed to 6 for my ironclads, 6 for my frigates, and 5 for my subs), is really awful and means that barring a flub from Woden - our fleets blundering into each other - he will almost certainly get the first strike. Archduke will too thanks to his movement buffs.

Anyway, I decided to play it safe and withdraw.



Almost my entire fleet is in the above frame, 15 frigates, 12 ironclads, 4 subs.

I'm pretty happy with how the pre-emptive strike on Woden went. I managed to burn down his second best coastal city, pillage four trade routes, sink 2 frigates (a major win right there), kill a musket, and do some assorted pillaging. All at the cost of zilch. I also think I can get out of here without losing any ships, and if Woden gives chase, I will have the opportunity to defeat some of his fleet in detail.

So, time is on my side. 17 turns to Steel. The challenge actually will be having sufficient gold to upgrade battleships (really regretting that knight purchase about now...). However, the plan is the same: shove out as many frigates as I can in the interim. Having a backlog to upgrade as I get more gold won't be an issue. So, time is on my side, with my SPT and CPT, eventually, slowly, I'm going to just be able to run Archduke and Woden over. They have to kill me now or they lose.

Here's the minimum fleet I expect coming my way:

Woden:
7 MG's (The number he gave is consistent with the number I expected).
1 Caravel

Archduke:
3 Ironclads
1 Sub
3 Great Admirals

Obviously I expect a little more than this. This is a very scary fleet. Especially Archduke's sub, which will hit like a truck for 85 strength.

The biggest problem I face is that I will almost certainly be first-struck, which means my navy not only has to be bigger due to the 2v1 and qualitative differences, but I also need to be able to weather the first hit and hit back just as hard.

This is where DoTF is going to come into play. My little used Defender of the Faith belief (and probably forgotten about by Archduke and Woden) just might save me the game.

Lysithea is where the fight will happen. With a large number of coastal tiles where I will benefit from DoTF and lots of coast, this is the perfect place to make a stand - astraddle the main route to Europa. I predict Woden will link up with Archduke and come through the channel to the west to get here. He may alternatively try a southern approach towards Jerusalem/Charon, but I will be similarly well-positioned to defend should he do that.

Priority Number #1: The fleet must survive. At this point in the game, armies, districts, even cities, are largely immaterial. They're only relevant insofar as they help me produce more and better ships in a decent timeline. The OIA is now this fleet. I can lose every city, but if the fleet is intact, I can still win.

I will go into battle with three units:

Ironclads
Frigate Fleets (+1 Solo Frigate Leftover)
Submarines

Due to the amazing power of Divine Wind and DoTF, ironclads sitting around Lysithea will be at 75 strength, equal to Archduke's ironclads and only 5 strength below the ranged striking power of Woden's MGs. I will shove a bunch of unpromoted ironclads around the city to protect it and absorb the first strike.

Second, all frigates will combine into fleets, both to save on costs and because they're pretty worthless otherwise. This also makes the most of the promotions I've been able to cram on half of my fleet. Along with the Embolon Ironclads, they will be held in reserve for the counter-attack after Archduke and Woden launch their first strike.

Third, my subs. I will use them as my primary hitters. They are the best thing I have facing Woden right now. I will hide them in corners, nooks, and counter-attack once the alliance has committed to the attack

So, that's the marching order.

A frigate fleet attacking from my territory into a coastal tile with a promotion hits for 87 strength, as hard as a MG fleet. A sub doing the same hits for 90 strength. An embolon Ironclad attacking out similarly hits for 82 strength. I don't think any of Woden's ships have promotions, so I have an edge there.

Granted, these are ideal scenarios, and in practice, I think these will constitute less than half of my attacks. But, at current numbers, if I can kill most units with 2-4 shots, I think I should prevail, even getting first struck. Of my fleet components above, all of them will take at least 2 shots from them to kill, and raising that number as high as possible while reducing my own is the best way to come out ahead.

However, there is another threat looming....



Could be nothing. Either way, I've dispatched my spare frigate to protect the city and all the vital trade routes. Hopefully Archduke just wants to pillage and has not realized its importance.

I burned Mendeleev this turn. He had a 33% chance of speeding my path to Steel up by 4 turns. Sadly, he popped Sanitation (two neighborhoods normally). Nice, but this game will likely be decided by the time it becomes relevant.

Bummer about Mendeleev, but at some point the dice have to even out this game (well, no, they don't, but I hope they will!).


I think by and large the battle plan is sound. With any luck, Woden/Archduke will be cocky or rushed in their deployments and will make mistakes. They may not realize how hard you can hit, and if just one of them takes a foolish risk you can hammer him, and that will probably decide things right there.


I don't want to get overconfident, though. Archduke's GAs put up a much better fight than I was counting on (I expected mutual annihilation, but he escaped with a modest squadron), even though I stand by my assessment of the North Sea as a strategic win for the OIA (reasoning in brief - Germany is alive and most of England's navy is on the bottom, you won time to savage Woden a bit before the breaking of the alliance, and now you don't have to fight the combined unbloodied forces of both powers boosted by a conquered Germany).

Yeah, I have to say, despite losing two major battles in a row to Archduke, I have become increasingly happy with the way things have turned out.

Notwithstanding the dogpile that stands a decent chance of taking me down - I sense that may have just been inevitable though.

No though, if I hadn't detailed forces to attack Norway, I wouldn't have Toronto to send TRs to right now. If I hadn't sent forces to Spain, I wouldn't have gotten the massive windfall of that WW being lifted or the additional yields. It's frustrating because both battles around Germany were lost by paper thin margins - one by a couple of minor moves/misunderstandings that snowballed into a loss, the other lost almost entirely on RNG. Still, at least we had the numbers/positioning to win these in theory. Neither was a bad idea in a vacuum. And losses aside, the OIA has fared pretty okay in this war. We've had a ton of WW sure, but I haven't lost any cities.

Meanwhile, both Archduke and Woden have lost at least one core city and been subject to pillaging, etc. Things panned out to also get them involved (I think overcommitted in both cases), to taking Germany. Can you imagine an alternate game right now where Singaboy hadn't sunk those 4 Brazilian frigates for me? I would have had that many more MG's to deal with. Or can you imagine if Archduke was sending all his fleet after me now instead of keeping a couple units to harass Singaboy (in addition to the losses and WW Archduke has sustained at the hands of the Germans).

All things said, while the tactical side of things has been brutal, I feel like this long, complicated, and bloody World War has worked to our advantage.

The challenge is just going to be leveraging it into a win.

Hey! Messaging you from my newly created alternate account. I'm not logging into "oledavy" for a little bit and am using this account to monitor the game. I don't know if it will actually do any good, but ceasing logging in and posting might convince Archduke/Woden I've given up, and cause them to doubt their conclusions and/or get cocky in dealing with me.


Don't worry, I'm still keeping up with reports. There will just be a delay in posting them to the thread.

Huh!  That's an approach to the game I wouldn't have considered.


Thanks for the update.  I'm very glad to hear your public updates will be coming eventually, anyway.

For what it's worth, I'm very aware that I'm winning at this point

Heh - that's more than I am - and you're darn near my only source of info, other than the diplo thread.  I know you're ahead in science and culture, but I don't know how much those matter for winning.  At least at this point in the game when you're already engaged in what appears to be the final war .

The challenge is the next 18 turns. If I make it to battleships with enough frigates and gold to upgrade, I've won. But, Archduke and Woden can do a lot of damage in the intervening time, and if I don't play my cards very carefully, I'm screwed.

That much I figured out.  Although it's hard to figure out what you've got and what you're facing, especially when my best source of info is...Woden's reports in the diplo thread .  Plus, of course, so much of this is new ground - until your most recent report I didn't consider that there could be a way for frigates to stand up to Minas Gerae.  But just stack up enough consecutive bonuses, and I guess it could work.  At least in theory.

Conquering Spain lost me 15 WW, that combined with the additional yields dramatically increased my culture and science. It did not do as much for my production/faith/gold, and the additional hammers will have relatively little impact on how things pan out due to low production potential of every coastal city except Halimede. I might be able to cram a couple extra ships out of there though.

That's a bit surprising to me, too.  I thought that Spain would be useful for more production than that.  Is it just that CFC never had the chance to build infrastructure, since he's been in such a long war with you?  So the cities could eventually be more productive, if your crisis wasn't the next 18 turns?

Did it at least shave the time to battleships, or is that dictated more by preparing the gold and pre-built ships?

Heh - you just want to keep me hungry


Thanks again for feeding my curiosity!  You didn't leave me anything to ask this time, other than hoping you've got Chevalier on this distribution list too.  I guess one question: how fast are Minas Gerae, and how invincible?  Do you have to run away in advance, or can you wait until you see them, or even wait until they concentrate?  I'm sure you've got a delicate dance ahead of you to buy time without spending too many units in the process.

Best of luck going forward

(To Mardoc)

I get into this a bit in my next post (t163), but I'll recap  it briefly. And yes, Chevalier has been getting all of these. I'll be doing a monster post including our messages back and forth in a little bit. Look for a giant dump sometime next week perhaps. I'm just transferring all the reports to a Google Doc at present.

Anyway.


MG's have a move of 6. With a range of 3, this means they have an effective strike range of 8.

My effective strike ranges are as follows:

Frigates: 6
Ironclads: 6
Submarines: 5

This means that unless he positions poorly, he will get the first strike.

They have 70 melee strength and 80 ranged strength. I could deploy a ironclad fleet against them (380 effective hammers), in coastal water, and only come up to 75 strength versus their ranged attack.

However, overlooking the extra +10 strength in both melee and ranged strength, the biggest thing to fear facing MGs is their cost.

430 hammers, and they are industrial, meaning they are an effective Modern Era ship that you can build efficiently before International Waters.

So, that ironclad fleet I mentioned earlier? That will lose the 1v1 versus on of these terrors due to first strike? It costs nearly TWICE as much to get on the field as an MG (380 vs. 215) in effective hammers (presuming the right policies are being run).

If Woden had the production to produce a ton of these things, or hadn't lost as many frigates fighting Singaboy, I would be done. The only reason I can hope to fight him is because I have Venetian Arsenal. This means I can actually produce ironclad fleets and the like at a similar cost. That makes it a 195 vs. 215 hammer exchange. I still don't win the 1v1, but it only takes a few more ironclad fleets than he has MGs (+ some DoTF magic), to turn those numbers in my favor. Woden is hamstrung by most of his productive cities being inland without harbors. He can't get out tons of these things in a hurry - especially now that he can no longer upgrade.

I just have to do this versus Archduke too...... who can build 195 hammer ironclads that are the same strength as my 195 cost ironclad fleet (when in shallow water).

At this point, it's all about if I can put a fleet ~1.5 times the effective strength of their fleet into the combat zone around Lysithea before they arrive.



Turn 164

Blargh....



Well-played Archduke. Very astute of you to figure out where my TRs were heading.

Okay, so we're about to face a money crunch, to the tune of about -48 GPT if I re-route all of my TRs domestically immediately.



There's only so much I'm going to be able to do domestically to raise GPT. Things will get better once I can combine units into fleets, but I still need a lot more gold if I want to do some battleship upgrading.

Not having a trading partner sucks. By comparison, Archduke is making about 150 GPT. Mine is only going to get worse when two more frigates come off the lines next turn.

The solution hit me after the turn:

Sell one of my Spanish cities with a Harbor to Singaboy for all his Gold + Citrus, then run all my trade routes to it. I wish I had thought of it this while playing the turn, but c'est la vie. If Singaboy doesn't accept, then it is what it is.

The challenge right now is balancing future concerns versus present survival. If I don't survive to battleships, then all the gold I earn right now won't be meaningful. But if I don't have sufficient gold or frigates when I get there, then there is no salvation. There is an argument for just spending all my gold now on things that help my short-term, but I would rather not mortgage away my ability to win this war for an only slightly increased chance of winning the battle.

My dilemmas are not helped by the fact that I desperately need more government slots Natural Philosophy would make me about 25 SPT right now, Meritocracy about the same in culture, Conscription would save me a crap ton of gold. But they're all out right now in lieu of Liberalism, Retainers, Triangular Trade, Press Gangs, and Rationalism.

Then there is my nightmare scenario of Archduke or Woden stealing all my gold with a spy   I want to get my own spy out as soon as possible to defend my CH if nothing else.

On my next civic swap, I'm going to have some very hard choices to make, gold or science, amenities or culture. I can't do it all.

Anyway, in addition to trying to unload a city on Singaboy, here's what else I am doing:


- Harvesting a couple more crabs
- Building markets and banks in Neptune and Callisto
- Running Projects that generate gold in low production cities
- Working gold tiles where applicable

So many concerns in fighting this war, the short-term need to survive, and the long-term need to have a ticket to better units. This navy is just so expensive to maintain. I would rather have a cheaper qualitatively better navy than my swollen zerg swarm.

Abroad, Woden took Young.





Nobel is interesting. Right now though, my priority remains the next Great Admiral. The next GM might be someone who could improve my gold situation (if it's Rockefeller). I will be keeping an eye on that.

My navy continues to withdraw and assemble to defend the homeland. All of it except one frigate is in this frame.



One frigate, my odd-number one, is watching things around Enceladus and Toronto. It may be able to get in some harassment.

I briefly considered detailing an ironclad, combined with the pair of frigates that are completing over there next turn, to try and retake the city. However, I can't run the risk of not having them for a final battle. Losing Toronto is frustrating but survivable. Losing the battle ends it all.

Besides, there is an excellent chance he just razes the city.

Again, kudos to Archduke for finding a way to leverage his land military power to hurt my economy/try to distract me.

I think in the coming turns, a lot of cities will get units to 1t from completition and then hold them there. Additionally, I'm going to focus on getting more ironclads out (now that I have two coal), and combining all of my ironclads into fleets.

My mind has been spinning at a million miles per hour the last day to try and think of ways to survive this battle. I think I need to have National Identity (-50% strength reduction from damage) slotted in for the battle. I just don't want to put it in sooner than I need to because government slots are at such a premium right now.

Logistics (+1 movement to units starting in your territory) offers me a potentially interesting way to get a first strike in. I doubt they would be expecting it - so it would be good for the surprise factor. However, by increasing my effective strike range for ironclads and frigates to 7, it still leaves me short of their engagement ranges. Moreover, it would mean I fight away from DoTF.

Worth considering though. I think I'm going to use Divine Right as a cheap swapper civic, and research it to 1t, ready to swap in these military civics if I need them.

Next Civic target is Mobilization by the way. I will be combing 6 of my ground units into 3 corps in the coming turns for the inspiration, then I'll power through Urbanization and grab it for the -2 GPT per unit policy and the ability to deploy Armadas.

[oledavy]

Turn 165

Alrighty, time to get in Woden's head. For reference, here's a map of Brazil. 



For the record, I actually think he's being entirely truthful. His strategy is terrible though. It would be better for him and the Brits to link up and attack me together. A wider front just favors me and my numbers. I think he's also being sincere in his offer to send an invaluable MG to attack Germany. I doubt Archduke will let him do it, it he does, good. It doesn't weaken my position at all to take a turn allocating my forces in such a way to take advantage of his division of forces if he's being truthful

Anyway, so right before the war dec, Woden had 2 frigates and 1 caravel south near Portela, 4 frigates northwest of Grand Rio, and one in Salguerio. 

I'm Woden. I'm cocky right now because Dave is on the run. I have the most badass unit in the game right now. I want revenge for him burning my city, I feel the need to attack NOW, and I really want Jerusalem back to salve my pride. It would make a lot of sense for him to want to train up to Line of Battle while he's waiting for Archduke to get in range, maybe find a nice OIA city to hit repeatedly while he's waiting. 

So, if I had to guess on the locations of his fleet right now, I'll bet he has his 2 MGs and the caravel around the rice island, and the other four either between Portela and Lisbon, or heading north to protect Salgueiro. The one that started around Salgueiro is irrelevant at the moment. 

I'm willing to bet that not only does he have a three ship vanguard, but he's going to be feckless in moving it up. And why shouldn't he be? His ships are invincible. Woden is smart though, he'll end turn where there is ocean when he can, just in case. So, you ask, are their ocean tiles in range of Jerusalem? 



I've deployed most of my fleet in the area to be able to hit these three tiles next turn. We'll see if he takes the bait. Worst case scenario, I lose a couple ships because I underestimated the distance between my navy and his lead ships. Best case scenario, I get a first strike in and remove a couple MGs from contention right off the bat. 

We'll see what happens     

With a couple extra military units, I'm moving out a few spare scouts to watch the sea approaches to my land and assist me in getting eyes on the incoming British and Brazilian fleets. 

I also am entertaining this possibility. 



I could hide all my subs in this inlet and get a first strike on his ships as they pass by. Alternatively, it could turn into a death trap for some of my best units. But.....if I sit all the way in there, he can only attack me with a couple units each turn. 

I think I'll move my subs in there next turn, depending on what happens to the south. I've got to use their invisibility to the max here if I can, use them to help mitigate the first strike disadvantage. 

In the east, I actually think Archduke waited a turn to attack the city. 



I took advantage of the moment to hit his bombard. Now he has to retreat it or lose it. He should still take the city though. I think my trader will be inside it next turn, so he'll get a free TR kill   

Trier fell to the Brits. 



I went ahead and offered the previously discussed deal to Singaboy. Hopefully he accepts, or at least sends a counter-offer. 



Anyway, here is the city I'm offering up. 



Triton is a great little city, with a bit of worker attention it could be amazing. It already has two completed districts (one pillaged though).  However, at this point, it's more useful as somewhere I can send TRs to for 10 gold, 1 science, 1 faith. It also doesn't help that it doesn't have a luxury, right now, amenities are at a premium. 

I didn't get a shot of all my navy lying in wait, but this image shows what all my core cities are building. 



No navy is being built outside this picture, so this should give you a good idea of when I can expect additional units on the field.

[oledavy]

Thanks!  I don't think I realized until this post how close together your territory and Woden's are.  I had this image in my head of you spending 5-10 turns just in retreat across the ocean - not already being home

I'm confused by your first picture - what indicates "The MG reckoning is upon us...."?  Just the increase in city strength?  Or am I not recognizing the MG icon?

I'm also curious - approximately how many ships do you add to your fleet every turn?  How will you tell if you're winning a battle of attrition?

I like the idea of an ambush. Hit back, make him as cautious as possible.


The splitting of their fleets is a terrible idea, obviously - you can pile everything onto Woden and gank him. Even if he does terrible damage in return, Archduke's fleet is too small to cause much harm before you rebuild. Only danger would be losing the VA, and you can probably preserve enough units for that.

Turn report coming tomorrow, but I've won.
Woden let me first strike his fleet  

He moved up separate from Archduke and now I get to destroy him in detail.

Killed on MG and damaged another. Most importantly, one of his MG fleets is stuck in ZoC, even if he runs away with the other three. I will probably lose 3-4 ships on my turn, but it doesn't matter. If he stands and fights, at least two MGs will die next turn, and that's a trade rate I'm willing to live with. I'll see you guys in the morning!

Turn report coming tomorrow, but I've won.

Woden let me first strike his fleet  

He moved up separate from Archduke and now I get to destroy him in detail.

Killed on MG and damaged another. Most importantly, one of his MG fleets is stuck in ZoC, even if he runs away with the other three. I will probably lose 3-4 ships on my turn, but it doesn't matter. If he stands and fights, at least two MGs will die next turn, and that's a trade rate I'm willing to live with. I'll see you guys in the morning!

I figured some sort of tactical mistep was likely, that you wouldn't end up fighting the idealized duel you described - but I admit I didn't see it coming this early!  

So you're approximately trading one-for-one old ships for new?  

Does it change your plans any?  I guess step one is to finish the current battle.

Dunno how to do celebratory emojis but wonderful news!

[oledavy]

Turn 166-167

The Battle of Beija-Flor Bay

When we last left off, Woden was making sounds that he was going to launch an assault from the south separate from Archduke's attack. I laid a trap, and waited to see if he would walk into it. 




He killed my scout southwest of Jerusalem. Okay, looks like I was right as to his proximity, but he didn't occupy the tiles I thought he might. I guessed he was probably further southwest than I pegged him as being. 

With this in mind, I decided to move up a Sacrificial Ironclad to find his fleet, maybe I could get a few hits in on his vanguard if it was southwest of the original trap spot. 



Oh. 

OH.

The southern attack was a feint. I know that MG has two others behind it due to support bonuses, and what's better, a lot of my fleet is in range. I moved forward a little more and. 



That's 5 of Woden's 7 MGs right there. (two are in a fleet, a bad move facing me since I have lots of cheap weak ships that a generic MG can generally one shot anyway). 

I'm guessing the other one from his western and southern fleet contingents is southwest of Charon, maybe with the caravel in tow. The one from Salgueiro is irrelevant at this point. There's no way its close to the battlefield. 

I pounced in with everything I had in range.



6 attacks later, 1 MG is sunk and another is damaged. In ocean, it would take me about 5 attacks to kill each one with my weak fleet, but in the shallows, it's taking me about 4. It helps that a lot of my line of Battle Frigates were in the vanguard for extra punch. The critical thing here is that I've pinned him against the coastline. He can at most get 2 ships out, but the fleet is doomed.  

The only question is whether he stands and fights and kills 3-4 ships, or runs, killing one and leaving the fleet for me to kill. Either way, it's a monumental victory for me already. 



He stood and fought. But, critically, he only killed one ironclad (and damaged another). His wounded MG promoted, and the one to the south did not come into the battle zone. 

He really should have gone all out to escape or gone all out to fight. This just means I survive with more ships now. 

The limiting factor here is actually the width of the battlefield and the relative low striking power of my ships. Still, with some clever maneuvering, I can get 12 attacks in. 

Both MGs are sunk, and the fleet is redlined. 



He'll probably kill a couple ironclads on his turn, using the city, CB, and MG fleet. But I don't care. 3 MGs and 1 MG fleet for 3 ironclads is a trade I never thought I would get in my wildest dreams. 

Woden's fleet is effectively done, I can now turn everything to face Archduke, go back to raze Lisbon, attack Tijuca, retake Toronto, the possibilities are endless. 

Fingers crossed, but this was probably the game right here, the last chance they had to stop me. 

Woden invited defeat in detail by not combining with Archduke, moved his fleet too close thanks to poor recon, giving up his first strike, and positioned his fleet against the coast where it could be trapped. Just an amazing turn of events, I can't believe he blundered this badly. Now, the only thing standing between me and my win is Archduke's fleet.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'm going to interject here to complain for a moment about the Minas Gerais being Civ 6's idea of a unique Brazilian uber-unit.

Look, my hobby is naval history (I'm a history/English teacher by trade). I've got most of Friedman's battleship books on my shelf. And, frankly, the idea of the MG is ridiculous. A late-industrial unit capable of smashing even modern battleships, for cheap production costs to let you cram out a bunch? Maybe makes sense for game balance, but historically this is nonsense.

So basically in the late 19th century the South American powers were doing the same thing the European powers had always done - jockeying amongst each other for influence, fighting wars over territory (the Pacific War) or all-out wars of annihilation (the Champas War wiped out most of Paraguay's male population to a degree I've never seen equalled, not even in WWII Germany or USSR). Part of this jockeying, of course, was battleships - any modern country had to have modern battleships!

So Brazil was building their own homegrown BBs, but then the English, Americans, and Italians started coming out with Dreadnought-class designs and made any pre-Dreadnought ship totally obsolete. Most people know Dreadnought, but in case you're unfamiliar, in brief: She had an all big-gun armament, instead of a mixed big and medium-armament (this made fire control much easier and enabled greatly increased engagement range over pre-Dreads), and she had turbine engines instead of reciprocating, which enabled her to run at higher speeds at a longer time. In short, Dreadnought could hold any pre-dreadnought outside her range and pound her to death without the other poor bastard getting a chance to reply.

So here are the Brazilians with a bunch of obsolete ships coming down the slipways. So, they do the logical thing: they scrap their native designs and buy a pair of dreadnoughts from Britain. Did the British sell their shiniest, best ships? Of course not! Dreadnought was launched in 1906, the Minais Gerais was launched in 1910 - but in those 4 years the British had already built the first superdreadnought.

So the MGs were already slightly out of date when they were commissioned. Their 12 12-inch guns were relatively weak (most navies were moving to 14 inch or even 16 inch guns), the quadruple triple-turrets were unwieldy and difficult to use, the fire control was out of date, and the boilers were not up to modern stands. Ultimately the Brazilian government wisely decided to cancel the 3rd member of the class (she was sold to the Ottoman Empire in 1913 instead, but at the outbreak of WWI the British seized her and renamed her the Agincourt, which helped drive the Ottomans into the Central Powers' arms). The two completed ships, Minais Gerais and Sao Paolo, were delivered and operated in the Brazilian navy for decades. They were involved in the famous Revolt of the Lash mutiny, and both ships helped put down a handful of uprisings, but otherwise they never fired a shot in anger, even during WWII (when Brazil was an Allied power) - the venerable ships were simply too vulnerable to face a modern navy, while (by way of contrast) British, Italian, American, and Japanese ships laid down at approximately the same time all served with distinction in the war.

Long story short: The MG class was a cheap export battleship the Brazilians bought to bully their neighbors, they were out of date from the moment their hulls touched water, they never accomplished anything of note, and were finally all scrapped. Makes no sense as a Brazilian uber UU.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Anyways (you posted as I was writing that rant), fantastic news! Smashing 5 out of 7 of his MGs basically neuters him. I count 3 cities that can effectively build at this point - Salgueiro, Grand Rio, and Portela, and that last one looks kind of weak.

I see two main courses here: Raze Grand Rio and Portela to basically take Woden out of the game permanently, then sail to face down Archduke, or do it in reverse order.

Arguments for Woden then Archduke:

1)Woden has a very small fleet, but has ships probably building. He's weak and vulnerable now, and razing those cities will mean he will never, ever be able to build enough to threaten again. Leaving him will let him scrape together a defense force and hurt more later.

2)Follow up victories! It's a serious blow to his morale, there's no way he can have made effective plans for defense yet, nor positioned units to do so.

3)(Not confident in this one)From there you could push to England's opposite coast and commence the game-winning razing of his own coastal cities, effectively securing OIA naval supremacy for good.

Arguments for facing Archduke first:

1)His fleet is on the way, and you need to cover the VA. You can face it in the open with all your reconstituted fleet, and eventually attrite him away.

2)Archduke is the main opponent to winning the game, beating him is the shortest route to get there.

3)It will show support for Singaboy, and keep Germany in the game.

I think the bolder play is to go for Woden's cities now, but the safer choice is to turn and face the English. Woden prebuilt a bunch of frigates and won't be able to do that so easily again - it'll be many turns before he can rebuild his fleet, and by the time he does you'll be closing in on battleships (and have built an even bigger fleet in the interim). I think I vote Archduke, to avoid any nasty surprises and reversals of fortune. Let's consolidate the victory.

(And no having your cake and eating it! Lost the last two English battles by paperthin margins, so bring everything!)