The Archduke and Chevalier Pay the Danegeld

[TheArchduke]

I managed to loose the screenie of after in the west.

Before:

   

Yeah, Utrecht is the target. The Pikeman of course is back inside. Sigh.

Anyway, getting in position to attack Wales, and I start to block Rouen with 2 longboats with 1 going to put Wales under siege.

In the east, 2 cabalarii come and kill an archer. Really?

   

I kill 2 archers with my berserkers and bring everyone out of dodge. We invest a lot into Wolin, maybe too much, but we can afford the slight delay thanks to Utrecht. Question is what do we do with those 4 berserkers then? Pillage Germany proper?

   

Also techtree, settlers next:

   

And we get a GG to add to Wolin.

   

From now on we will buy berserkers in Thetford to engage Rouen, we need 2 pillages next turn to make that happen.

Score and amount of pillage is looking good.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Woah, those knights are really far from home! They came all that way just to kill one of our archers? The nerve of those jerks! But Wolin seems well in hand, with 2 more beserkers and a longship on the way. We're also neatly positioned to keep Sweden out, so I think we can consider the east more or less locked down, unless we want to invest in settlers. That seems like a poor use of gold, though - the real gain in score comes from pillaging and eventually capturing cities, not from cities of your own, so I think we should save our cash for beserkers in the west.

In the west, it's a mixed bag. The quick conquest of Theretford is great, and we can keep pillaging to keep our conquest rolling. Wales is also a good intermediate target. However, we need to decide how to react to Utrecht.

It's an interesting play by Norway. They effectively concede all of England to us, since our army can race for York and Scotland before their follow-on forces can arrive. But by way of exchange, they get access to France. They also get to fight the entire French army for a bit, which seems like good news to me. I think it COULD be a good move for them, if they can also grab Rouen and lock us out of France - France for England seems a decent trade, more or less. Grabbing Scotland and getting locked out of France would probably have given us the win for sure, so I think this makes sense. 

With that in mind, I think the twin cities of Winchester and Rouen are key to us. If we can snag both of those while the Norwegians are bogged down at Utrecht, then they've given up their English base in return for the much crappier Utrecht and can beat their head against unending waves of Frankish knights. If they get Rouen, we can still add all 5 English cities to our bucket, and focus invasion efforts in Germany and pillaging efforts in Spain. 

Looking at the save, could it be possible to go for broke? Split our English forces, and send half south for Wincester + Rouen, and half north for York + Scotland? 3 berserkers and a longship can take down a city in 2-3 turns, with pillaging and promotion support. If it works, Norway's Utrecht gambit has more or less failed and we're in a dominant position to win, I think.

[TheArchduke]

Only if we can buy more berserkers. If we block Rouen completly with 2 longships we should be able to keep it for us until help can arrive. Winchester is a nightmare to take without siege though.

I think our counterplay needs to be a concentration on Rouen and York after Wales. Complete block by longships needs 5 of those.

Also they sacrificed a lot of pillaging which helps our snowball in scoring.

Buildwise I think the core should do harbour shipping. Handbuilding Berserkers at home is just not worth it, at 320 gold those buggers are nasty expensive, that is why I am not risking a single on of them.

[TheArchduke]

Damn Franks...  Not something that ever happened in my test games. Wolin could go wrong. Check this bs:

   

They are out to get us, I double down, Sweden however gets a longship in.

   

West:

Getting Tamworth softened up.

   

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The Frankish AI NEVER sent a knight all the way over to fuck with me in a test game, either. That's appalling bad luck.

[TheArchduke]

2 bits of bad news, 1 bit of good news.

   
Bad news. We have a majority religion. We raid a lot more then the others and we will have less from raiding from now on, not that we will stop, though.

   

The east is a nightmare. The frankish knights continue to attack us, and we barely manage to kill both. Grotsnot is cockblocking our ship and will block another tile with his berserker.

   

I move around and try to offer the archer for the city, we may loose a berserker here.

   

In the west, good luck, a pikeman moves out and we immeaditly kill the city. Rouen is blocked by our ships as is York nearly. England will be ours, I hope.

   

Settler costs 160.

After a LONG time thinking about it, I decide to buy an archer east and a berserker west.

If we can occupy 4-5 tiles near Wolin that city will be ours. But if we have 4 berserkers there we will waste a lot of time getting them west.

Another berserker west however means Rouen is ours very soon as is York.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'm more optimistic than you. It looks like we have the force needed to grind home Wolin, with the knights down. We might lose a beserker, but the city will be worth that if we get it. The only danger now, I think, is a Swedish snipe.

As for the religion, I don't think it's bad news. Yes, we lose out on our pillaging bonus, which sucks, BUT in terms of VP I think this is ideal.

For the lurkers who don't know all the rules of the scenario, here's how religion, pillaging, population, and victory points all interact:

1)The bottom half of the civics tree is locked until you gain a majority religion (Christianity, always).
2)Holy Sites do not produce great prophet points. Instead, you gain a religion once you pillage enough faith from the map.*
3)When you convert to Christianity, you lose your bonus +100 gold per pillage. This is the heaviest blow of conversion.
4)When pagan, you get 50 VP for each faith tile pillaged.
5)When Christian, you get 50 VP for each pop point added.

*The vast majority of tile improvements to pillage are monasteries, which grant +25 faith when pillaged. They get destroyed when you take a city.

What this adds up to is that from here on out, we gain a lot more from conquest than we do from pillaging. Why do I find this good news?

Well, yes, losing the VP and gold from pillaging sucks. But I think it's GOOD to hit that marker sooner rather than later, because our conquest train ain't gonna stop. Everyone - Sweden & Norway too - will hit the faith threshold at roughly the same point, and then have to rely on good old-fashioned conquest. Until then, though, their conquests will gain them no VP, while we'll be continuing to race ahead as cities fall into our lap. Norway, for example, will get no VP from conquering Utrecht. They'll continue to get VP from pillage - until they also convert, which should have them at roughly the same total points from pillage that we got. Ditto Sweden, which REALLY needs to convert ASAP since their game is based around settling Russia, not pillaging England and Spain.

So basically, converting this early (before turn 10!) means we're ahead of the curve, is all. Our enemies won't get more points from pillaging than we did, but our conquest points are going to start rolling in sooner than theirs. We grab Rouen, and I think we're a good way ahead of the competition.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I loaded up our save to get a peek at the score, and I'm not sure religion works as described. It seems that you get points from ALL pop existing when you convert, not merely pop added AFTER you convert - we have 650 points from religion, which corresponds to the entire empire. 

So maybe there's no advantage to early religion after all. Still, if they focus on pillaging only gold sites to avoid triggering a religion, it's bound to slow down their snowball in other ways. I don't think it's too big a deal, other than losing the 100 gold per pillage. We've pillaged THREE times as much as our opponents - Sweden is stuck in the back of the Baltic, no surprise, but Norway's entire military is tied up in this Utrecht misadventure, and we're slowly pulling away from them.

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, I am feeling a bit better after your analysis. Shall I provide you with end of the turn saves (before handover so you can keep a better track of our progress?)

[Mardoc]

Thanks for the explanation and summary. It is helpful to lurkers but also to ourselves to go over this again.

Seconded! That was a very clear explanation that gives me a decent idea of what the stakes are here, and also tempts me to get Civ6 just for the scenarios. How many scenarios are there, anyway? Do they come with the base game or only with some expansions?