[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 77




Pretty sure many other powers have quads out now. Quads will let us hit Norwegians that come near the coast, but on the whole they have never really impressed me - the ranged attack is limited by the cramped coastal waters they operate in, and it's too weak to damage anything other than a galley, really. Quads are mostly good as frigate upgrades, I feel like. I'll want a bevy, naturally, as many as I can afford, once we have niter and frigate tech. Actually, now that I think about it, quads will probably be important support units since niter will be so precious. 

Speculation: Should two players combine their niter and only have one field frigates? That is more efficient in terms of policy cards and great admiral usage, but it does halve the available production lines capable of shipbuilding. That might not be such a drawback, though, if my hypothesis that niter stocks and not shipbuilding capacity will be what's most important. Worth considering. 

Woden helpfully neutralized Kaiser's suzerainty and allows me to declare war without worrying about the "declare on suzerain" rule, which exists pretty much precisely to prevent cost-free conquests like this. 




We do 76 combined damage. We should do about the same next turn with one fresh and two injured galleys, and finish the city on 79 with 3 injured and 1 fresh galley attacking:




With the little island south of Nazca scouted, I pin 2 more cities on Novaya Zemlya. If I can get some military up here to clear out the barbs infesting it, I can squeeze three cities around the coasts. It'll be neatly secured by my navy and serve as an excellent forward base. The land isn't fantastic but land is land. So take it we shall. I can probably begin settlement here by turn 100. Don't think I can get a monumentality settler here in time, but my first hand-built ones out of Aleksandr will head this way. 




Down south, it's a delicate dance, mostly because of that warrior. If I kill the slinger, I might lose my warrior to the barb. I fortify the exposed warrior and hit the slinger with the other, redlining him. We'll see how the heals vs damage balance out, but I might be able to stall long enough to get my archer here to put some shots in. That will settle this, then heal and push for the camp. 




Also visible in this shot - I was able to step and place the farm on the same turn, too. Clearly I have no idea how movement works. That speeds up our timeline NOT to chop at Sevastopol, which I have reconsidered, but to send the builder south after the settler to chop instead. I can delay settlement by a single turn to have the builder get into position, then chop the forest into the lavra on its own tile at Sissoi Veliki. The reasoning behind this is the 8-turn arrival date of Sevastopol's lavra. I can speed that up by 5 turns or so with the chop, BUT Sevastopol won't convert for 7 more turns and I can't speed that timeline up. Without FWHW the lavra is just so much fancy doves, so I would actually gain little by finishing it early. We'll hand build it instead, giving up one turn of 12 production there BUT gaining the chop of the forest in the south in exchange. 




My missionary arrives at The Blueprint next turn and will convert the city on turn 79.

Speaking of religion, Kaiser has the River Goddess pantheon, Marco - that's an extra 2 amenities and 2 food for each riverside holy site. Nice to have but definitely not getting the same value out of his pantheon that I am out of mine. 

Hell, I've only got two stubby rivers anyway. It's an island, babe. 

Abroad, England and Norway and Phoenicia are severely blooding each other, although Archduke finished some more ships this turn. I hope ljub and Woden use their extra shipbuilding capacity to the fullest and throw more ships into the fray! The longer this fracas lasts, the better for Roland/sub/marco/me. 

Overview:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

oh, marco, don't forget to delete your iron pins. I can see it on my own now.

[williams482]

Monumentality gives builders +2 movement. Very helpful little boost, which I completely forgot.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 78

The only notification as I open the save is of Nazca firing on my western galley:




Health is manageable and we have ample reserves - ample enough that I might divert the follow-on ships to Mohenjo-Daro right away. We'll need probably 10 more turns to navigate a way there and take the city, but it's a task worth doing. Woden and Kaiser are distracted by each other, and I'm not sure that sub is nimble enough to launch a surprise attack with his large galley fleet. If he does, worst case, I lose Nazca. I think the chance of taking MD is worth the small risk of losing this city, so we'll go for it. 

At Oryol, the barbs are being kind for once:




That setup is MUCH less threatening, as the slinger is neutered and my warriors can for sure outfight that warrior. I cross the river with my archer and cleanup should (-knocks furiously on wood-) be routine from here. 

Oryol is now a size 2 tundra city pulling in 19 production per turn, which is more than almost every other city. I start an archer to put the nail in the coffin here - I can send it overseas after I clear out the southern camp:




Next turn I can swap Discipline for Agoge to speed this up further. Then I'll want a granary to speed size 4, a monument 'coz it's cheap, and probably a builder in some order. This city is officially up and running as of this turn, however! 

At Nazca, my three galleys redline the city. I have a 4th and a 5th coming around the island, but in retrospect that's a waste:




The city will fall on turn 79, one turn ahead of schedule. 

Now, what to do with the wolfpack? I see several possibilities:

a)Keep everything around Nazca as a garrison, scouting the immediate area but alert for any Indonesian counterattack. 

I do need more scouting knowledge and there's lots of islands to settle near here. This would safeguard my conquest - the most conservative approach.

b)Send the entire wolfpack to Mohenjo-Daro. 

Goes all in on conquering a third city-state, on Australia's behalf. This would give our team, supposedly the most buildery of all, the same amount of conquests as the warmonger Wodenjana team. The risk is to Nazca, leaving it entirely exposed to an opportunistic strike. I'm leaning more this way, as noted above, than option b.

c)Split the pack - keep my 3 ships nearby Nazca to heal and garrison, send the other 4 to Mohenjo-Daro. 

This is in some ways the riskiest of all. My 3 ships can't fight the estimated Indonesian navy of 8 ships alone, nor can my 4 ships guarantee that we can conquer Mohenjo-Daro if other powers can interfere. I'd hate to come up just short. What I COULD do is split the difference further, sending 5 or 6 ships to MD and using the remaining ship or two to scout the surrounding area. I'm leaning this way best of all. I think it's the most efficient use of my navy at the moment and lets me continue to get value out of all these ships. 

Final situation at Nazca - note the Norwegian warrior that came to play:




I have a warrior en route who will also stake a claim to that island, since it seems like a vital Russian colony. Ironically, these cities will never be as dangerous as my tundra cities, without DOTAWE, but they can still contribute more conventionally, and serve as bases to faith purchase units in upcoming eras. 

Thanks to Monumentality, my missionary reaches The Blueprint and converts it, netting Marco a cool +5 production in the city:




That can become +10 whenever he wants, of course, easily beating out Urban Planning just from this single city. If we can get more holy sites up and cities converted, then the gap will grow. I think Australia is on the right track and is starting to narrow the gap here. 

Marco also scouts Japan's expansion city of Milne, a very nice place:




This would probably be our first target in a future anti-Japanese war, since it's open to frigate attack and is closest to our island. However, there is no campus yet. I'd like to find Kaiser's supercampus as a likely target for future attacks or even opportunistic raids. If I were Norway, that's definitely what I'd be doing. I'd use my +50% bonus to churn out a swarm of longships, then use the ocean navigation to outmaneuver English or Japanese defenders, look for isolated targets, and torch them. Now, it's possible that's what Woden is doing, but it seems to me from the fog that Phoenicia, Norway, England, and now Japan too are locked in a straightforward slugging match out there. All 4 civs have lost military power - each team combined now fields only about as military power as Indonesia or Russia alone, basically! 

Anyway, we can't participate until Privateers, but I am thinking about a pirate navy as a strategic possibility. Just a small one, just used for targeted raids on important infrastructure (campuses, harbors, holy sites, theater squares - none of this plantation or pasture nonsense). 

Overview:

[marcopolothefraud]

Thanks to Monumentality, my missionary reaches The Blueprint and converts it, netting Marco a cool +5 production in the city:

That can become +10 whenever he wants, of course, easily beating out Urban Planning just from this single city. If we can get more holy sites up and cities converted, then the gap will grow. I think Australia is on the right track and is starting to narrow the gap here. 

Hooray!

In my opinion, Miln is somewhat of a weird target. With so many adjacent-to-coast tiles, it'll be very easy to surround - but those tiles will also give Kaiser a +5 combat strength bonus. Razing it with Horses and Swords could potentially work, because it's built on flat land, and Quadriremes could potentially cut off land access from north of Miln. This might ensure that we have full control over the vulnerable eastern part of our continent.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Thanks to Monumentality, my missionary reaches The Blueprint and converts it, netting Marco a cool +5 production in the city:

That can become +10 whenever he wants, of course, easily beating out Urban Planning just from this single city. If we can get more holy sites up and cities converted, then the gap will grow. I think Australia is on the right track and is starting to narrow the gap here. 

Hooray!

In my opinion, Miln is somewhat of a weird target. With so many adjacent-to-coast tiles, it'll be very easy to surround - but those tiles will also give Kaiser a +5 combat strength bonus. Razing it with Horses and Swords could potentially work, because it's built on flat land, and Quadriremes could potentially cut off land access from north of Miln. This might ensure that we have full control over the vulnerable eastern part of our continent.

Yeah. I don't foresee a serious Classical or Medieval invasion of Japan - that's right when Japan is at its strongest and neither of our civs will have reached its peak yet. As I envision it, our best tactic will be to build strength for the Renaissance and Industrial Eras. Then, Russian production and Australian science should combine to get us either a decisive number of frigates or a tech advantage to BBs/DDs and we can go for a target of opportunity. If Milne is seriously defended by a Japanese fleet, we definitely don't want to meet Kaiser there. Instead, more likely we'd want to stretch his defenses by threatening other cities, and hit him where he's weak. 

Right now, I hope that he and Archduke keep getting plastered by Carthage and the Vikings and plaster them in return. The more production burnt up in this war, the better, as long as no one conquers too much of the other guy. If we could get away with a cost-free raid, though, that might be worth thinking about...hm...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 79




Yay, finally time to start dragging Russian science into respectability! I also get a governor title, so that'll go to Magnus to enable the settler purchase next turn (need to allow KS to finish its settler first or it throws off all my plans). 

I also discover Marco and I have made a bit of a micro blunder here:




I didn't know Marco was going to research Construction through to completion - I was building the ancient walls in Borodino purely for the Eureka. I'd land the Eureka and finish the tech next turn, passing the eureka on to Australia. Now my production into the walls is mostly useless. I think marco just meant to research up to the boost himself and forgot to swap off, which is something I do a lot. Oh, well. Lesson learned - let's be cautious about coordinating our techs. I'm going to unlock Aqueducts next turn and start one at KS right away, whcih should take about 6 turns to complete, Marco. I'm also going to build a pair of temples as soon as I can in order to find and boost Monarchy, so we can race to a tier 2 government as rapidly as possible. 

I set up my new government:




Lots of cheap culture policies will enable flexible policy swaps, but for now I keep Conscription to maintain gold flow and swap in Agoge over discipline to maximize the hammers out of Oryol. Scripture is obvious I trust, and Colonization comes out (no loss of hammers on the Knyaz Suvurov settler - it's all overflow that would vanish anyway) and slot in Natural Philosophy for a 6 beaker boost.

With the new government, our research rates are looking quite respectable - Marco and I are now second in total generated science, behind the Central Powers, albeit dead last in generated culture. Australia generates the #2 science but #8 culture in the game, while I now rank at #4 and #4. However, we're first in total faith generation (76 per turn, ahead of Rolandoptimal's 70 and lightyears ahead of the warmonger teams), second in gold (28, behind Rolandoptimal's 39, to 21 for Wodenjana and 8 for the Central Powers), and probably first in total production, though I've no way to truly estimate that. City count is good, so overall I think we're in good shape. We must continue the Australian improvement drive, but with my religion spreading and his settler push, I think Australia will be in a good place in 20 turns, as well. We might be behind the combined Indonesia/China team if they continue to develop as they have, but not far behind, and I think we should be ahead relative to the warmongers. Barring unforeseen developments, of course. 

Nazca falls to my initial 3 galleys:






It's not a great city but it comes with a few good tiles and a luxury, and will be an excellent base for settlement of Novaya Zemlya. I rename it and Hong Kong to Shikishima and Mikasa, respectively, to suit my naming theme while still enabling other players to distinguish former city-states from self-founded cities:




Swap off food until I can get a granary up. Repair the monument first, no good lavra locations. This will be a "normie" city. The rice will be important though since I think I can recruit as many as three more settlers via monumentality (after the one out of Sevastopol next turn) and I'd like them all to come from here to settle Novaya Zemlya.

Now, what to do with the wolfpack? I can't send them to Mohenjo-Daro, alas, because the city has thrown up walls and my galleys will dash themselves to pieces against those:




Nor is a raid on Milne in the cards. Quite apart from probably being heavily warded, there's only one sea tile to attack, which more or less makes the city immune to galley attack. It'll require land units or frigates to take that city, so an opportunistic raid to burn the city is out. However, Marco DID find one source of Japanese science, and I wish there were a way to point Woden in this direction:


 

12 science! That's a 6 adjacency campus! Figure 2 is coming from the Plaza. The reefs would take it to +4, so there's probably a city and a holy site neighboring it. Figure the harbor finishing will be worth another +1 to take it to +14, or more than a third of Japan's total science. My privateer squadron at least will have a target in mind when I build it. 

With no prospects of further conquest, I'll scatter the wolfpack. There's plenty of islands to explore around here - I'll map out the area, while sending one ship as far west as I can go:




Marco, if you go as far east as you can with your exploring galley, we should both be able to reach Geneva and get the circumnavigation bonus for +3 era score. I'll get 2 more great people for +2, I'll settle 3 tundra cities for +3 more, can train an iron unit for another, finish a splendid harbor at Borodino for another handful, train an apostle possibly, etc. I have 20 turns to assemble about 25 era score and that circumnavigation bonus will be very handy to get a second golden age, which woudl let me continue monumentality for the outlying islands. 

Overview:




We shall finish 2 settlers next turn. KS will start an aqueduct, while Borodino will go for a builder (to harvest the aqueduct marsh) and then a temple to increase faith generation. The turn after that, our ancestral hall will finish, and we will begin a settler for Petropavlosk, while Oryol will begin probably a granary to speed growth to size 4, then a builder (to chop the campus tile). My governor title will go into Liang and Oryol will likely become a builder pump (or Sevastopol). I will have 3 cities founding ~82 (Oslyabya, Sissoi Veliki, and Navarin), with 2 more due soon (Petropavlosk and Admiral Seniavin, on Novaya Zemlya). Wheeee!

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 80

Well, I took the plunge and got Aryabhata, who gives 3 random Eurekas to Classical and Medieval Era techs.


Kaiser, Suboptimal, and maybe even Archduke have a big strategic dilemma. Are they going to play hot potato with Euclid, a garbage Great Scientist, in hopes that no one else can get Hypatia?



I don't want to play Aryabhata right away, because I want to get as many good Eurekas from him as I can. Notably, there are no leaf techs in the Medieval Era, so all techs are very important. Not shown in this image are Currency and Iron Working (both leaf techs and relatively worthless).

- Apprenticeship and Machinery are really easy to get. Education has already been acheived.
- I can count on CMF to build an Aqueduct and give me Military Engineering.
- Military Tactics (kill a unit with a Spearman) will be doable, but a little hard.
- Stirrups (have Feudalism civic), Castles (have a 6-policy government), and Buttress (build a Classical Era or later Wonder) will be the hardest eurekas to get.

In conclusion, I probably want to get the Eurekas for Currency, Iron Working, Apprenticeship, Machinery, Military Engineering and maybe Military Tactics as quickly as possible. This will be hard, given that settlers are more important right now and that I don't have much income to buy my way out of these Eurekas. Hmm...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Let's see:

* Currency: have a trade route or have Russia finish it.
- Currency is a one-turn tech for me, but I'm resisting unlocking Commercial Hubs, since they're mostly useless to me. A trade route is desperately needed for Australia. We might consider me fronting you the gold for a trader when we can afford it as the best way to achieve this.

*Iron Working
- Have an iron mine or have Russia finish it. 2-turn tech for me. Going to research it soon. Easy.

*Apprenticeship
- 3 mines. Just need the builder labor for it. Easy. Waiting for Russia is a long time, since I'm a ways off from Apprenticeship. Ancestral Hall builders?

*Machinery
- Have 3 archers, or have Russia finish it. I can have 3 archers soon, but I don't know where Machinery is. Whether it's easier for you to build 1 archer and upgrade the slinger or for me to finish the tech remains to be seen. Put a pin in this one for now.

* Military Engineering:
- Build an aqueduct or have Russia finish it. I am finishing it in just a few turns as soon as I get my aqueduct finished. Easy. Ignore this one.

* Military tactics
- A little challenging. I really want military tactics, though, to unlock Huey. It's one of the few wonders China can't rush with builders, I can build it with a DOTAWE city, and it'll be *amazing* in my land - +1 food and +1 production in 16 tiles, +4 amenities! I must have it. I'll likely head here after Military Engineering.

* Castles
- Wait for Russia? We can get this as soon as I unlock Monarchy, which should be straightforward since I'll get the inspiration and I'll beeline it once I do. That will let me get Castles.

* Stirrups
-No idea where Feudalism is. I have terrible land for farms. I would need to build 4. I can spare the builder labor, though. Put a pin in this one.

* Buttress
I can actually get this with Huey.

So, in conclusion, we can actually hit a lot of these. It looks like my tech path should be Military Engineering -> Military Tactics (have we found it?) -> build Huey -> Buttress/Castles. You should build 3 mines and an archer, I'll send you the gold for a trader and an archer upgrade for Machinery and Apprenticeship. That leaves Buttress, Stirrups, and Castles as the hardest to obtain, but all doable.

We're definitely to the point where we need to carefully coordinate our builds and research to maximize things, though.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Speaking of Huey Teocalli:

Rough plan outline:
Build it at Oryol for maximum amenities + Production potential. Prebuild 1 4-charge Liang builder (use the campus chop builder for this). Move Magnus to Oryol 5 turns before project start.
Oryol has 19 production at size 2 for the 710 production wonder. Assuming no modifies, we are looking at a maximum build time of 36 turns.
3 forests can be chopped (one is being chopped into a campus): The amber forest, one across the lake, and the superfluous survivor after the campus chop. I will lose only the translake forest production, since the other two are on mineable tiles anyway. From 3 chips, with Magnus I can expect ~300 production.
*410 production remains. At size 2, we would build the wonder in 21 turns.
*I will also be running my trader out of this city - I want a road since I intend to use this as a builder pump down the road. With population growth and the trader, we can expect ~25 production towards the project. This cuts build time to 17 turns.

A long time to tie up one city, but it's an extra luxury's worth of amenities and the extra food and production will be very, very valuable in the tundra.