[Spoilers] Gröt and Bänzai lose several screws assembling a Sweedish Strategy

[Grotsnot]

Mostly-end-of-turn save for Banzai to wrap up as I have to go to bed.
(We're discussing this on Steam right now so, don't worry, won't delay turn-passing )

[Banzailizard]

I went through and did the math for Norway like I did for us.  Well I did it more roughly.  I looked at all the housing they have and assumed the worst case scenario of their filling all their housing up. This was I think a reasonable assumption because most of their cities are going to get maybe 1-2 more housing than their current pop and can probably managed that one growth.  I made a few exceptions where they had say 4 housing above their current population and did a rough food/per turn calculation to find how much growth I expected in those places.  They also have a city (in Greenland I think) that I cannot observe.

The results are that I expect them to get at maximum 23 growth more of pop vs our 33.  We can probably get more than that with settlers and they might get less than that depending on growth, but take it as a minimum baseline that we can be 10 pops ahead. That means we really need Tunis or Rome.  If we can secure one of them (and of course Sicily and Neapolis) then we are more or less in the clear, just need to run the turns down and see how gold and faith shake out.

Basically our goal is the same as before.  We need 3/5 remaining cities on the map.  If we get that, we have pretty securely won. 2/5 means we still have a slight chance.  1/5 means we have largely lost. If one of those cities falls to Denmark or just does not get taken due to standoff, well then 2/5 should be just fine as well.

I also noticed while looking at their lands that they have built a lot of lumber camps and mines.  I am not sure why, especially this late in the game.  Maybe they were from earlier or from the AI.

[Banzailizard]

Since I had a few moment over lunch, and I will have that midterm tonight I downloaded the turn. It will be a busy one. Some good news first though

1. The Danes accepted our lux good trade so most of our cities are now content. Once we fix the marble in Sicily or Neapolis and finish the EC in Ladgoa we might even have a happy city.
2. I am reasonably sure we can secure Sicily if we move the zerker to under the LS with formation promotion.
3. I applied the policy for growth, it shaved a turn or two off a couple of our especially low growth settlements. Really hard to say if it will produce more benefit or not over running other cards since it might let us just barely get one more pop. 60VP is a lot mind, so maybe it is worth the risk? I think we should though use it on a government with more slots. Not sure if we should skip it now or not. If I had the time I would set up a spreadsheet and calculate.
4. the Norwegians moved off the coast where we wanted to settle. I think they mean to kill the barb camp for the gold which is fine. I suggest we move and delay settling for one turn, that way we can harvest the copper for gold.
6. I am thinking either a trader or an EC in Kop. Thoughts?
7. A new settler in Apu is possible. It will take 12 turns we need to see what we can reach in 5 turns to settle (17 turns left in the game). If nothing then we should focus on a different building.
8. We can fully chop the Riga settler so I think we should. The pop loss also free's up an amenity for one of our other cities.
9. Bad news the Norwgians will land on the NA coast next turn.
10. More bad news, their zerker killed the HC, they now have two spots near Venice to our one. That makes conquest there unlikely, though if they do not get it that is ok too.
11. More barbs everywhere in Russia.

[Grotsnot]

Haven't seen the turn yet. Will also try to remember to post up screenies >_>

1) Yay! It was +8 for them and +4 for us so I guess we adequately sweetened the pot.
2) Nice, nice. All 3 LS in the area have Formation so I was planning on jumping back in the water to smash it down. Did Norway bother to land on the west coast and hurry us along?
3) Hmm. Maybe? It seems like a policy that we'd need to have for as long as possible to pay off. 60VP from just one marginal growth is enough to outweigh the equivalent 600 or 300 - only question is whether there are in fact any such growths.
Sadly I think we probably need to stay on Viking government again. We can smash down Sicily before a potential swap but then we still need to kick over Neapolis and contest the other CSs. Do you remember how much FPT we lose with the swap? We're also dropping something for Serfdom, remember. I think at this phase the extra utility of outweighs a little bit of VP edge that has. We still might want to buy troops to beat up Russians, a Siege Tower for Italy, or maybe another Settler.

4) If we're not expecting to get enough Settlers out for all our sites, I'm kinda inclined to stick with Operation Hog The Coast and plant on the Tornea pin. Is that what you were suggesting, too, or did you mean turn south instead (toward "Caen")?
6) I'll need to compare completion times. I'm guessing another Serfdom-Builder isn't needed anywhere it could reach in time? Would the housing from a farming triangle net Kop an extra growth?
7) There's always Gotland for an End-of-Game settle. It's a bit of a crap site but it still nets 50 or 60VP (whether Apu recovers the Settler pop, respectively).
8) Agreed that'd be good. Didn't remember having a Builder ready over there, which are you thinking?
9) Humbug. We might be able to delay them a little but they'll most likely get the city then. Thoughts on Siege Tower in Dyrr to head to Rome or Naples? My concern is that when they see it they'll buy one in Pisa and we'll be back at the status quo but 200some poorer.

10) At least with only 2 dudes (assuming Denmark's LS stuck around?) we might be able to snipe it or tee it up for the Danes to grab it.
11) Wheeee... plopping some settlements down will help at least. Gotta clear Minsk out and then mostly focus on containment and escort duties.

[Banzailizard]

Swapping out both fair policies loses us 40-60 fpt. 

Yes I meant turn south towards caen so we are not settling on the copper but can instead harvest it.

We have a builder in the forest near Riga that we recaptured from the Barb's.

[Grotsnot]

RE Settler: I was leaning toward north onto the Iron. Get to chop the Copper and get the Furs in the 1st ring for growth

[Banzailizard]

Ok settling on iorn works too.

[Banzailizard]

Quite note, Norway gained 3 population last turn. I just want to keep an eye on them for the pop starving method in case they learned of that too, so when you get a chance post the EOT save and I will compare to last turn.

[Grotsnot]

All right, I'll post up the EOT when I get home. We've got another turn tonight so I'd better get those screencaps posted >_>

We got Guilds:


Hmm... I'm suddenly wondering if after all that back and forth and calculation on policies I forgot to actually lock in Serfdom replacing Simultaneum. That would rather suck. Might have to eat the gold cost to flip this turn
I don't have a screenshot of the "after", so hopefully this one actually got applied


Costs us ~22/turn for 5t but will get us something like 8 or 10 additional Builder charges for farm housing and CH/Harbor/Settler chops
 
For the main event over in Italy:


Holy moly they have a lot of boats  
We can send a token force down to North Africa to try and contest it but I'm considering it basically theirs. We take Sicily though and start encircling Neapolis:


I suspect that unless Norway diverts a unit from Rome, we'll be able to claim all of the rest of Neapolis' siege tiles. Results in Sicily and Neapolis for us, Al-Q for them and Rome&Venice up in the air.


Hopefully Denmark sticks around at both places. As long as they do we have an advantage over Norway: if the RNG screws us in an assault and we redline a city instead of taking it, the Danes can snipe it. And denying it to Norway is almost as good as us getting it

Also note the Settler in that pic - it ended its turn where the Horse was and will settle Salona next turn. We're tentatively planning on purchasing a Siege Tower over there to try and get a leg up around Rome. For now, we stare at each other and slowly heal. If the Danish Zerker leaves and gives the siege tile to Norway we're a bit hosed but otherwise I think time is on our side.


Meanwhile up North we're dealing with barbs around Minsk and have another 2 cities going up next turn up in Lappland:




Also chopped that Settler in Smolensk who is headed up to Belozersky
There are also barbs in southern Russia but our dudes in the area need to heal up. Also have a Horseman in production in Tmutarakan to assist. Needing to devote an annoying amount of energy to keeping these jerks away. They seem to be spawning rather faster than usual... Purchased a Zerker in Ladoga and swapped Kiev over to to finish that one it started oh so long ago to hunt down the bastards.
 

Scores:


And, since our builder in Spain finally gave us eyes on their last city, here's  a broad overview of the Norwegian Empire vs the Swedish Empire




--




(builds are not all accurate - we changed a few things around afterward)

Planting 3 cities next turn and about to have a very nice growth wave: combined comes out to nearly 20 pop growth over the next 3-4 turns

Not looking too shabby overall. I think we've clawed our way up to something approaching even odds

[Banzailizard]

Actually with those pictures I do not need the EOT save. I can just compare these to last turns save. I'll have to do that when I get home. On turn 39 they had 2 7's in Norway and I think a 7 in Spain so that might have been their three pop.