[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Turn 68 - Phoenicia



Well, Akkad's totally doomed. Wow, I don't know what happened here. Or, rather, I didn't know what happened here when I took this screenshot, but I figured out what it almost certainly is after I moved this ship away - Oligarchy + Twilight Valor, hence TAD's 1 diplo favor this turn. Still, I didn't expect it to make that much of a difference...thank goodness for our double UUs, or we'd be totally outclassed at sea by these English ships.



Geneva attack ready to go next turn, with all five ships in range of the city center thanks to a very conveniently-timed Mathematics research, for the extra +1 movement that the last ship needs to get into place. Military Tradition + Oligarchy swap also ready to go, with the AH and Linear A's settler finishing up next turn. Cuneiform will start a bireme to stall the next settler build until Magnus gets established, and Linear A will start Limes walls, then a quad to give us some chance at the all-powerful (for me, anyways) Naval Tradition inspiration. More ship builds now will also give us more support for a potential alpha strike at Akkad...or more naval power in this area with which to head off a potential English/Japanese alpha strike against us. Why am I suddenly now worried about that possibility? Well...



As the one opposing team without a firmly-established religion, I'm reading this as a big red flag for potential aggression towards us, if not now then 40 or so turns down the road once Kaiser assembles a landing force to go with TAD's double-buffed galleys. We have the world's largest military, but it's all ships, so if they're able to land Crusade-buffed swords on our continent it'll hardly matter. If it wasn't already clear, this really drives home just how careful we're going to need to be about keeping a large mass of ships in this area at all times once Japan's milpower starts increasing.

[Woden]

Turn 67-Vikings
Open the save to...
   

and...
   

I slot a few policies to help get builders out...
   

I move my boats near Rapa Nui and will begin the attack next turn. My southern boat scouts out Russia's land and finds a juice campus target for next turn...
   

Another builder is out at Odin and all but Frigg start builders. I slot in Construction to get lumbermills up and running. I see that TAD has almost finished off Akkad and has a few redlined galleys. Since you think you have 5 attacks at Geneva, there is no room for my longboats, I am going to go check out Akkad and assess TAD's position there. 

As for taking Crusade, that is a little worrisome. I think I am going to have to run the +2 prophet card to speed up my prophet.  I have 4 turns until the holy site at Frigg is complete and then I might build a shrine. I don't think this is an immediate threat but will become one down the road. I am going to have to think about getting a few cities down by the natural wonder to get a few splendid holy sites for faith generations so we can defend against conversion.

[ljubljana]

Turn 69 - Phoenicia

Here comes the big one. Ok, deep breath...



Mathematics and Military Tradition come in, and I swap to Oligarchy. Policies for now are Limes/Maritime Industries/Urban Planning/Conscription. Cuneiform finishes the AH and starts a 3-turn quadrireme (not the bireme I said I'd put here last turn, as I want this quad to come out quickly enough to hit TAD at Akkad to inspire Naval Tradition if we go with that plan). Linear A finishes a settler, which heads towards the '3' site (the future Linear B), and starts Limes walls, due in 4. I appoint Magnus with the AH title; 3 turns from now, I'll finish Recorded History for the settler promotion while swapping out of Limes/UP and into Colonization/Republican Legacy. Magnus starts heading into Cuneiform, displacing Pingala to Linear A, which dropkicks my once-strong economy off an enormous cliff, as expected . An envoy comes in, which I send to Mohenjo Daro, since it's a culture CS that we'll want to suzereign sooner than later due to its exposed position. Amani, meanwhile, heads for Mitla, because, uh...



Akkad has fallen. "Writing on the Wall", huh? For whom, dare I ask? Also of note is the lack of a Twilight Valor bonus on that galley, huh? Why did TAD go for this Classical Dark Age, then? Well, I'll certainly take it - a 4-point CS advantage for all our ships, even for the first turn or two of a hypothetical war assuming they have a civic swap available, could make a huge difference.

On to Geneva:



Wow, that was easier than I expected. Okay then. Looks like Geneva actually did manage to build a monument before our attack, so I'll repair that before starting the Cothon, obviously. Even that repair project is taking 10 turns at 2 hammers per turn (which will at least be 3 at full loyalty), and the Cothon will take approximately forever, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'm going to need to figure out some way to get a builder down here for the wines and hill mine, which I naturally have no idea how I'm going to fit into my build order. These biremes, meanwhile, will spend probably two turns healing to full and will then join your ships in pushing towards Akkad.

[ljubljana]

Turn 70 - Phoenicia



Not much going on. Boats at Geneva heal up. CMF/marco declare on Hong Kong, which is presumably what all the Russian boats are off doing instead of keeping you from pillaging their Campuses. Cuneiform apparently shaved a turn off the quad, which is now due next turn...I don't know why that happened (lots of overflow from the AH, I guess?), but I'll take it . Not sure where the quad should go, though - down towards Akkad is the obvious choice, but I could also send it east to Mitla and try to do a tactical DoW over there with the goal of killing a unit for the Naval Tradition inspiration. I guess the right answer depends on whether we expect to attack TAD soon. Any thoughts?



Akkad continues to look vulnerable. I should be able to send my Geneva attack force northward starting either next turn or the turn after that, and at 5 movement per turn they should get here pretty quickly. I think we should be able to trap the TAD galleys in Akkad against the coast, with your longboats attacking from the ocean where they can't be hit back, then take the city with whatever healthy ships remain, with my Geneva biremes ideally arriving right around when we finish cleaning up the galleys. We might be making a gamelong enemy of TAD by doing so, and we have no realistic hope of attacking their core, but it could be worth it to take away their CS conquests and keep their empire score lead from getting any wider. If we don't want to attack TAD, I'll probably keep a few biremes in the area to deter them and explore a little, while sending 2 or 3 up the east coast of the continent to go eat Mitla.

[ljubljana]

Turn 71 - Phoenicia



Not much to report this turn either. Settler started in the capital, Cothon finishing up next turn. Linear B will be founded next turn as well, and will open with a monument. I'm planning to use the free builder charges on a lumbermill, a mine, and probably to chop out the monument with the forest on Linear A's future IZ tile - that's probably the most impactful use of this forest, to get the new city rolling so it can start working on its Cothon and a builder for its food tiles.



All the ships at Geneva are between 96 and 99 health, so I decide that getting to Akkad one turn earlier is better than waiting another turn to heal off tiny amounts of damage. The ships will be there in 4ish, and are getting there via the English coast to spot and potentially intercept any reinforcements that might be on the way.

[Woden]

Sorry for the lack of posts but work is really busy right now. Question, do we attack TAD...
   

My ships are sitting in the ocean and I can hit his ships without him being able to counterattack. I can work redline his ships while I wait for your ships to come and take the city. I did lose a ship taking Rapa Nui because it built a galley the turn I declare, then a barb archer showed up. I will also probably lose another redlined one due to the archer this turn. Regardless, I have 3 ships near the city formerly know as Akkad. 

Question is, do we want to start a war and make a game long enemy? I think I am, better to control the oceans around our island than let someone gain a city to launch attacks on us. What are your thoughts?

[ljubljana]

I'm on board with attacking TAD. Who knows if it would really make a game-long enemy of them - if you and Ichabod can ally in PBEM18, anything's possible in the name of cooperation against a common enemy or runaway. What I don't want is to allow them to just walk all over us despite our (quite possibly temporary) position of naval superiority, and they're also the game's leader in empire score, so it's a good meta move to try taking a few of their cities away. We should probably keep the war objectives limited to seizing control of the seas and taking their two CS conquests away, though - I don't think we have a prayer of assaulting the English homeland, though forcing non-economic builds there would be nice.

When do we want to DoW, though? I can see an argument for waiting a turn or two for my ships from Geneva to get closer - if we attack this turn, I think you might kill their ships over the next two turns or so and then have to wait around a few turns for my ships to show up. Those turns could be critical in terms of TAD getting reinforcements to the city in time, especially since it gives them time to finish a civic and swap into Twilight Valor and Bastions to make our lives significantly harder. On the other hand, though, some of their ships are still healing from the Akkad attack now, so maybe it makes more sense to attack now while they're still somewhat weakened. What do you think?

[Woden]

Maybe we wait a turn or 2. Let your ships get closer. The plan would be for me to declare a turn or 2 before you get there and weaken his ships, then you clean them up and attack the city while I watch your flank. If we start now, I would have to end a turn in coastal waters if I kill a ship, exposing me to counterattacks and then might be too damaged to provide a decent defense while you attack the city.

[ljubljana]

That sounds like a plan to me!

Hmm, this is totally unrelated to anything...but I wonder if we could cheese our way into the "largest empire" era score points by gifting each other cities for a turn to get over the "3 more cities than the nearest rival" threshold . It's worth 3 ES each, so it's probably worth considering given how tight the math is likely to be - I could give you all my cities one turn to trigger it for you, then you could return the favor on the next turn to do the same for me. Is there any downside to doing this, besides presumably losing any hammers those cities have invested into their current projects (and the fact that, if this works, it's definitely at least a little exploitive)?

[ljubljana]

Turn 72 - Phoenicia

Open the save to the discoveries of Irrigation and Recorded History. I put one turn into IW (waiting on the Engineering eureka next turn) and start crawling with appalling slowness towards the uber Naval Tradition. Hopefully with the war against TAD coming up I'll be able to inspire that sooner than later. As for the policy swap...



Colonization for the 6 extra hammers/turn in the capital, Maritime Industries because multiple cities will be on boats next turn, and Conscription is obvious. Finally, Republican Legacy gets Linear A growing again and bumps fully 3 of my 5 cities, including the capital, into the happy range on amenities, so it seems cleanly worth it over Urban Planning.



Linear B is founded this turn, and it starts an agonizingly slow monument that I'll probably end up chopping out most of. Hieratic finishes its Cothon and starts a bireme, I guess, to explore the northeast for more possible settling spots and to defend the new Cothon in case suboptimal comes calling. Linear A will start another bireme next turn to help out against TAD, since I'm actually on pace to be able to buy the trader in Linear B around when Linear A could finish it anyways.



Tactical situation at the former Akkad. I don't see any other TAD ships coming to reinforce here, and we'll have 10 in range in two more turns. I'm beginning to get cautiously optimistic about our chances here, at least as far as the initial attacks go. Now that I'm thinking about it, ugh, I should probably have embarked my two warriors to get the city under siege. Oh well, there should still be time to do that if I hurry. Actually, wait, maybe I should just upgrade one or both of these warriors into swords instead of rushing right to the trader purchase, which would not just help put the city under siege but would also give me 1 ES and more meaningfully useful attackers.