[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Turn 60 - Phoenicia



Looks like TAD's going for Akkad, or at least going for denying us Akkad. Hopefully my having shown them all our ships a few turns ago will make them think twice about actually committing to an attack until they have Oligarchy and TV in place. That's probably still around 10 turns away, since they're still working on DT, which would give us just enough time to eat Geneva and get back in position quickly enough to contest Akkad.



Bireme positioning after the withdrawal. You can also see that my warrior has finally found those missing barb units just kind of hanging out unproductively at the site of my third city. The warrior there should be enough to get rid of them, but I've activated the second warrior just in case...though, obviously, given the significant margin by which I am last in terms of expansion, I can hardly afford much of a delay here.

PoliPhil in next turn, and I'm unsure about whether to go to Classical Republic or immediately into Oligarchy. The extra point of housing from CR would be huge in these housing-starved dry coastal cities, though at the moment only Linear A would see immediate benefit due to the lack of Cothons at the new cities. Oligarchy, on the other hand, will greatly aid our CS push and our plan to keep TAD out of Akkad. I imagine the right move is to swap to Oligarchy for now, then into CR later once the newer cities get Cothons up if the combat situation allows for it? I'd hate to lock us out of Oligarchy in the event of a TAD attack, though, so it might be a while before things seem safe enough to make that switch.

In today's episode of CS watch, take a look at Mitla - its defense strength dropped into the 20s this turn as well! Seems like a good chance for a pickup, and it would be much easier to defend than Nazca.

[Woden]

If you go classical republic first, you can't go back if you need to switch to Oligarchy without anarchy. When are you going to build the ancestral hall? If you go into Oligarchy first, build the AH, then you can switch governments and have the legacy card for Oligarchy (+4 CS to melee units). Same if you want the classical republic legacy card, you get whatever government you are in when the first government building is built. So the question is what legacy card do you want?

[Woden]

Turn 60
I open the save to this...
   

I suspect they are looking for the Defensive Tactics boost and Australia's production boost but the thing is, they fixed this particular abuse of the team system awhile ago. I think now instead of him declaring war on us, then us declaring war on his teammate (giving the boost), they both are declaring war on us (no boost). I could be wrong and may have to run a test but regardless, this seems sketchy. 

Anyways, my wolf pack will let them know they made a mistake. I am in position to take Vilnius next turn (if slinger stays in city) and then will go harass their coast and cities.

[ljubljana]

lol does this mean I'm about to be at war with someone I don't have contact with? I wonder how the game's going to handle that . On top of that, I was delaying contact with them to avoid wasting ES, and the era change happens this turn, so if this is going to give me contact with Russia, I'll succeed in that goal depending on whether the game decides that "contact" was made on my turn or on CMF's turn . What a weird edge case for us to have to negotiate.

I'm planning to build the AH as soon as the GP completes in the capital. I'll do some thinking about this...probably Oligarchy with the CR card beats CR with the Oligarchy card due to having more flexible policy slots (since CR + Oligarchy card leaves no room for any other military policies). The Oligarchy card will stay useful later in the game, though...

[Woden]

You should get the points on your turn. I also positioned my longboat to grab circumnavigation next turn, so you should get a bunch of era points in the first few turns of the new era.

[ljubljana]

Turn 61 - Phoenicia



Apparently not...those 3 ES points I have over the baseline 30 are from being first to a tier 1 government - the 4 points from contacting CMF were wasted . How frustrating, especially given the tight margins we're likely going to have for a second Free Inquiry GA. Be prepared for me to argue for a +3 campus at Linear A in 20 turns or so despite the city's production specialization and low food cap just for the 3 ES. I could also do a +5 CH at the capital following the same logic if we can get the city large enough, which would at least benefit from FI while giving +1 hammer to all the trade routes.

Anyways, after PoliPhil, I head for Craftsmanship and Shipbuilding, with Military Tradition to follow on the civics side to unlock support bonuses in time for the Geneva attack. Of note: after PoliPhil is the best possible Medieval civic for me, the awesome Naval Tradition for +100% harbor adjacencies, plus it's worth 4 ES from being the first Medieval civic discovered and from the envoy + Amani. I may start working on that as soon as right after MT despite its 20t eta, and will prioritize a Quadrireme in the near future for its inspiration. You can also see that my warrior took enough damage on the interturn to force a delay of the third city, which is annoying, but not too bad - it's favored to survive next turn, I think, I just didn't want to bet the settler's life on it.



I swap to Classical Republic and this weird-looking set of policies for the next few turns. Discipline to keep the warrior alive long enough to get the third city founded, and UP shaves a turn off the Linear A builder while being generally useful. For the last policy, I'm not really building anything boostable right now, so Caravansaries is the best of a bad lot for +2 GPT. I'll swap out of that for Ilkum as soon as Craftsmanship comes in, of course, given the third city's planned builder, and will change UP back to Colonization as well for the Linear A settler.

Two questions for you at the end of this turn. One: due to the ES situation, I'm thinking about taking Amani next turn and delaying the attack on Geneva for a few turns until she can establish there and give us suzereignty for +2 ES - does that seem worth it to you? Two: I'd need about 120 of your gold next turn to both buy the sheep and a trader in city 3 - does that seem like a good use of our collective funds to you?

[Woden]

Two questions for you at the end of this turn. One: due to the ES situation, I'm thinking about taking Amani next turn and delaying the attack on Geneva for a few turns until she can establish there and give us suzereignty for +2 ES - does that seem worth it to you? Two: I'd need about 120 of your gold next turn to both buy the sheep and a trader in city 3 - does that seem like a good use of our collective funds to you?

Magnus in your capital to chop out the Ancestral Hall and then take the no loss of population promotion might be better. Then you can crank out settlers at +150% in your capital. We can figure out era score, you can forgo the aqueduct at Linear A and go for a +6 (?) commercial hub (+2), we will get circumnavigation for +4 next turn, a splendid campus (+2), an Admiral, if you can get a bunch of settlers out you could get largest empire (3 more cities than anybody else). 

As for gold, I will send you 120 on my turn.

[ljubljana]

Magnus into the AH is a good play, and would save a ton of food at the capital once we get the AH and lighthouse up. It's certainly very tempting to go for that...but I'm not sure how possible it actually is to make the ES math work without Amani. I think splendid campus/CH are worth +3 each, but that's still only 11 guaranteed with the admiral. IIRC the GA threshold for me is 62, or something like that...that means that, in addition to all of the above, we would need to find 18(!) more points somewhere. It's just hard for me to imagine how we can pull that off without the 10ish free ES from moving Amani around. Even with Amani, it will very likely still be tight.

Are there a bunch more freebies that I'm missing somewhere that would make this doable? I guess we'll get 2 or 3 from medieval techs/civics, and can maybe get 2 from a denouncement + DoW. We could get 2 more from a horseman + sword, and maybe we'll get lucky with a barb camp spawn or two. Even if all that happens, though, we'll still be 10-ish points short without Amani - I just don't see how we can make the math work out without her.

There are some other options, though. I guess I could take Magnus now for the chop and delay Amani until the AH promotion, since we only really need to get her ~30 or so turns before the end of the era to cash in all her ES (though this would lose us 2 ES from Geneva, which we need to attack ASAP). I could then try to find Recorded History and hard-research it (there's no way I'm going to build 2 campuses) for the no-pop-loss Magnus promotion. Alternatively, we could give up on a second GA and just hope the extra settlers will carry us to victory...but losing Free Inquiry in the upcoming age will cost me a LOT of beakers per turn, since I'm not really expecting to build many campuses between now and then, quite possibly enough to dig me into a serious tech hole.

I guess, all else being equal, the first plan (taking Magnus now, then Amani with the AH, then Magnus II at RH) probably makes the most sense? Even that's kind of messy, though, since it costs us the Geneva ES and who knows how long it'll take to locate RH. If we did take Amani before Magnus, we'd lose a few hammers from the chop at the capital but could suzereign Geneva before attacking for 2 ES, and would also have the option of moving her up to the full 8 times (assuming a 40-turn Classical Age) to maximize ES gain if we can get enough envoys in place (which is admittedly a little unlikely since almost all the CS want me to send them trade routes again ) What do you think?

[Woden]

Turn 61-Vikings
Turn is finally moving again and I start the turn off with...
   

Look around to see what is going on and I declare on Vilnius and attack with 3 boats...
   

I was able to redline it and will capture next turn. They did move the warrior into the city center so it will take another turn. Funny thing happened when I declared war, I have grievances against Phoenicia...
   

Now to make this clear, I declared and attacked Vilnius. Because of our alliance, Phoenicia declares war and now I have grievances against them for declaring war. Nice job on testing this out for Teams Firaxis! 

Finally, I move my longboat and become the first to circumnavigate the world...
   

[Woden]

If you don't plan on getting Magnus' no pop los promotion right away, then go for Amani now. You don't have a lot to chop, so Magnus can be delayed. Run Amani around for the era points.