[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Turn 55 - Phoenicia



As you predicted, TAD did not attack Akkad this round. I did spot one of their galleys with close to full health (presumably the one that attacked), but wasn't close enough to the city center to defog the other tile, so I'm not sure if there's a second galley there (though I think it's a fair assumption). But...TAD lost 35 milpower last turn, way more than we'd expect from just one CS attack. What's going on with that? Here is the crucial piece of information:



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm reading this as a strong signal that TheArchduke has divided their navy, with presumably two galleys off attacking Bandar Brunei somewhere and the other two tied down here at Akkad! That'd be a coup for us if so - if no reinforcements are coming, we're in a great position to deny this attack and perhaps take Akkad ourselves. If TAD's two galleys stick around next to the city next turn, or make the mistake of trying to head towards the Phoenician coast, we can inflict serious damage with a first strike next turn, moving the western bireme to 1SW of the pinned TAD galley position, then declaring war to cut off the English ships' escape route. If the TAD galleys move south away from the city to try to lure out the Akkadian galley, we're also in a strong position, with the ability to swoop in and occupy the tiles next to the city center while TAD is fighting the Akkadian galley (probably not next turn, but the turn after that). The six biremes we'll have in the area in two turns should be quite able to fight off only a portion of TAD's navy even if they scout our pincer movement next turn and start sending in reinforcements. I'm hopeful that the ships north of Akkad won't be scouted, though, since the English galley would need to commit to ending its turn not adjacent to the city to do so.

Domestically, I switch onto BW to get the eureka for you, which seems like a strong return on the beaker investment I'm making by not waiting for the era change. DT will also finish next turn, giving the second Pingala promotion and inspiring the civic for you in preparation for our charge up to PoliPhil. The tile picker will finally grab the forest at Cuneiform next turn, and I plan to lay down the GP to lock the cost in place while preventing iron from invalidating its placement, though the actual next production target for the capital will of course be the last two turns of the settler. I also get a quest for Hattusa, which is...to send a trade route . Oh well, there's always next era, I guess. I also see that Suboptimal has sent a galley down to scout out our continent. I need to pay attention to which way it goes next turn - if it heads north towards Phoenicia, the capital will need to slot in another Bireme after the settler to keep the Cothon from being pillaged.

edit: After BW finishes, I'll start researching Shipbuilding, which should finish around when the era changeover occurs. I wonder if I should start moving the northern warrior south to potentially embark to put Akkad under siege? That would leave us pretty defenseless against barbs for a few turns, but could make taking the city much easier in the event that we can't get the galley to leave. I could also build another warrior in Linear A after this bireme to achieve the same effect.

[ljubljana]

More mid-turn discussion:



Bandar Brunei fell this turn, wherever it is, so the ships involved will be healing up and conceivably heading towards Akkad soon. That means I think it's now or never on attacking and trapping these English ships before reinforcements are available for TAD. What do you think? An attack would give them the DT inspiration (my discovery this turn was the first globally), which is probably worth more in culture than the ships are in hammers. However, killing these ships may be our only viable route to taking Akkad (though we may be able to still deny it to Archduke by keeping ships in the area). I am a little nervous that more English relief ships may appear from the south in time to kill the trapping bireme (the one that's currently selected, which would move SE-SW through the English galley before declaring war), but I think we probably have a couple of turns before that happens, which is all we need. I'd probably also have to DoW Akkad and occupy the free tile next to the city center to pull this off, as otherwise its ZoC will block us from getting to the English ships with the eastern bireme next turn. If we can kill these ships, I think we'll get a clean shot at Akkad, but at the cost of a war with England that could get hot in a hurry.

Alternatively, we could simply keep three or four ships here to try to deny Akkad, then send the other 2-3 over to one of the scientific or cultural CSs (Mitla?), which would be a much easier pickup than Akkad is now looking to be. I'm not sure if TAD is going to pour more ships into this area or try to draw the galley out (right now it looks like they've retreated one tile from last turn, as far as they could in one turn, so maybe we should expect them to keep going?), but either way I think three biremes should be plenty to deny the conquest, especially if we occupy the other tile next to the city center. I highly doubt we can take and keep the city with that plan, but maybe taking Mitla instead would make up for that. There would still be a route to taking Akkad with this wait-and-see approach, if TAD pulls back to successfully draw the galley out and we're able to occupy the two tiles next to the city center and the one tile occupied by the TAD galley with biremes, we'd just need a few things to go right to pull it off, and I'm not sure how easily we'd be able to hold the city afterwards.

What are your thoughts?

[Woden]

He ain't going to do anything until that galley is out of the city center. If you attack him now, you might have more galleys show up next turn and probably will be blocked in, assuming he came from the west. IMO, hold off and see what happens. Hit him once he starts attacking the city, when his galleys are injured. Not sure if you can kill a galley this turn anyways, you can only hit it twice. Might be enough, might not. Then his other galley sails away and there is nothing you can do about it. I say keep you Briemes close but don't attack this turn.

[ljubljana]

It wouldn't be about killing the galleys this turn. The tactical idea would be to move the selected bireme SE-SW, through TAD's galley, to block off its escape to the SW. Then, we would declare war without attacking to trap the galleys next to Akkad while moving the two biremes north of Akkad south to cut the galleys off from the east and west. There would then be no way for either galley to escape, and we should be guaranteed to kill both over the next two turns unless reinforcements arrive. The resulting position when we DoW would look like this:



I don't think there are any reinforcements nearby because TAD just took Bandar Brunei this turn with what must be at least two other galleys, and I think his milpower is low enough that there can't be any others off in the fog. Over the next few turns, though, those galleys at Bandar Brunei will heal up and head off somewhere, and we won't have that guarantee anymore.

That said, if you think that plan wouldn't be worth doing, I'm happy to hang around and see if they draw out the galley for us. In that case, do you think I should keep all the biremes in the area, or try to send some towards a different CS?

[Woden]

You can if you think it is right. I just don't see what we gain right now. They gain a bunch of culture from a DOW. You are not going to be able to take Akkad with the galley in there either, at least not until you get into Oligarchy.

[ljubljana]

Okay, that's fair enough. I'll hold off for now.

[Woden]

Also, I would rather attack his homeland now, with his boats out grabbing city states. If we attack him at Akkad, it gives him time to build walls and better defenses.

[ljubljana]

Hmm, I think harassing their homeland might make sense, but I'd be very surprised if there were any cities we could make progress against with just boats, with or without additional defenses. All the other capitals we've seen have been accessible by only one sea tile, and TAD's is probably the same, and unless they're being very incautious (which would be pretty out of character) I doubt any of their other settlements can be attacked more easily than that either. I think a dedicated attack on TAD's homeland (ie, with a ground invasion) seems unlikely to work for essentially the same reasons it was unlikely to work against suboptimal/roland, namely that we're still very far away from the tech for swords and horses and also don't really have the production to build up an invasion force quickly.

Turn 56 - Phoenicia

Here's the deploy I go with instead of trapping the English galleys:



It looks like the English are retreating to the south, judging by their positions now relative to last turn - if they do that again this turn, they won't scout us, and we'll be able to occupy both tiles next to the city if TAD manages to draw the galley out. Right now, I'm just kind of aimlessly massing biremes down here in anticipation of some kind of fight over Akkad in the coming turns - do you think that's right, though? Mitla's at 33 strength too now, so it's no easy mark, but I'd be open to sending some biremes over there instead if you think it's a good idea. Also, the cultural CS to the east of Norway looks weak now (24 defense strength) - do you think it might be smart to throw 3 longboats at it now before it gets its defenses up? That would hurt our culture production, but we're about to hit PoliPhil, after which that won't be quite as important as it is now, and it would keep us from falling too far behind TAD's expansion pace.

I'm now pretty sure TAD is going for a classical Dark Age, with only 8 ES still. What I don't understand is why...the answer has to be Twilight Valor, right? That would let them fight our UU boats on equal footing, and the drawback of TV, inability to heal outside your territory, doesn't matter for boats anyways. I'm not sure that's worth giving up a GA with a UB harbor replacement, but I'm interested to see how it's going to work out for them. The others have mostly picked up the ES pace, except MPF, who at 16/25 may end up stuck with a Normal Age.

Domestically, I finish DT and start PoliPhil, due in 7. That's just enough time for the settler and GP at Cuneiform - I'm thinking about starting the AH as soon as the tech comes in, though it will take a long time with no forest chops. Linear A finishes its bireme next turn, and will build a settler, another bireme, or maybe a builder to chop out the AH.

It's still early, but I think I'm ready to give a shout-out to the surprising power of the bireme. That extra movement point is exactly what we need to keep an eye on TAD's galleys like this, letting us move forward two to scout their positions then back two to avoid being scouted ourselves. It's also the only reason a trap like the one I proposed was even possible. 5 strength and a point of movement doesn't seem that significant in the abstract, but I'm starting to think it may be better than it looks in terms of early confrontations with galleys such as this one.

edit: waaait, I think I messed up this deploy. I shouldn't have stuck those two biremes together in the west there, the northern one of that pair should be 1NE of where it is now. If TAD scouts to the west now, they'll see two biremes ready to pounce instead of one scouting, and the game will be up. Oops ...well, hopefully we won't get punished for that. If they do scout west, I guess I could feint at their homeland (which must be nearby) with those two biremes to try to draw the galleys away, then sneak in with the other four to take Akkad...

edit2: I guess if I mess things up over the next few turns, I could just kind of force my way in here with Oligarchy in 7t. TV can’t help TAD before they hit PP, so there’s a window coming up where my biremes will have 9 more strength than those galleys, which is strong enough to do real damage to Akkad itself too...

[Woden]

Turn 85
Finally founded my 3rd city...
   

The city starts on a longboat. The city will probably be one of my more productive cities because it has a whole 2 plains hills with a 3rd one 3rd-ring in the south. Luckily the spice tile has a couple of production on it and I can mine the jade down the road. I desperately need to get Construction researched for some lumbermills. 

I am 2 turns from founding my 4th city. A longboat finishes at Odin and I think I might put out a few builders. The city finally grabbed the tile by where I want to Government Plaza and I need to harvest the cows so I can start building it.

[ljubljana]

Turn 57 - Phoenicia

I open the save to no visible TAD ships. I move the usual scouting bireme forward two, and...



Looks like TAD retreated to the south, as predicted. They also can't have scouted our ships, as otherwise their galley wouldn't have had enough movement to retreat out of visible range like it did. That's good, we avoided getting punished for my misplay last turn and TAD should still not know we're here. But the galley is still in Akkad...that's annoying. What will it take to get it to leave, do you think?



Here's the deploy I go with this turn. Still the two biremes next to each other, but this time I think that's not a mistake, as I highly doubt TAD will double back their ships towards Akkad just to scout them. With this positioning, if the galley leaves Akkad next turn, we can swoop down with our biremes, double-attack the city-state, and use more biremes to wall off the attacking biremes on all sides from potential English attacks. If the galley stays in the CS, I plan to swap to Oligarchy in four turns (when the era change should finish PoliPhil) and attack the CS then, when we have Oligarchy up but before TAD has access to Oligarchy + Twilight Valor. It does hurt to give up the extra amenity and (especially) housing from Classical Republic, but conquering an extra city is surely worth it.

We also find the English borders, which are very close to Akkad indeed. Looks like TAD has a barb camp suspiciously close to their cities - that must be because they're keeping it alive to avoid being pushed over the Dark Age threshold.

You can also see that I finished the sixth bireme in Linear A. I debate the next build for a while, and ultimately go with a builder, to hook up iron (which spawned 1NW of the city) and to chop out the AH to get a free builder out of the fourth city (the settler for which I plan to build right after this builder). That means even more of a delay on my expansion, but I think it's worth it, both for the free AH builder itself and for the fact that chopping out the AH lets the capital start on +150% hammer settlers that much more quickly.

What should I do with the upcoming governor titles? That's an interesting question - the no-pop-lost-from-settlers Magnus promotion seems very powerful here with a +150% hammer settler city, but would require displacing Pingala to a smaller city. The other compelling option is Liang 1 to boost builders and Amani 1 to get a ton of free ES next era bouncing around to all the city-states.

Internationally, the main thing to note is that TAD got another civic to pull even with me at 6 discovered. Could that have been DT? I don't know...I'd need to check to see if they've moved into the classical era in the civics tree. It was a 10t research, so it might be, but their culture rate has been lagging mine quite badly, so I'm not sure how they've kept up in terms of number of civics researched if one of those was the super-expensive DT.