[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

Turn 74-Vikings
I am a little surprised by TAD movement near Rapa Nui...
   

He attacked the city but should have know the galley would die. I ended last turn with one galley in the ocean and another in the city. I hit him with the one in the city first and then followed up with the one in the ocean. One less galley to deal with. I am a little worried he has more close but doubtful, given the number of boats near Akkad...
   

TAD killed one of ljubljana's briemes and has more boats coming from the south. I hit his lead boats a few times but not able to bring anything down to where your quad can kill anything. There are a bunch of barbs near Rapa Nui that you could easily kill but it might be too long a journey for the boost. 

Here is my core...
   

I think I switched Odin to a quad after this picture but not 100%. My production is minimal right now and need builders but also need ships. One builder is finally in place to improve the bananas (for culture and gold) and iron at Thor and I have another heading to Loki (under the campus pin) to chop and lumbermill. I think Frigg will have to build builders and a trader after the shrine, as all my coastal ties should be on boats.

[ljubljana]

Turn 75 - Phoenicia



Lost another bireme this interturn, the one that was about to promote, and still without killing a single TAD ship. I'm getting seriously outplayed here. I decide to try to change that by switching up the pace of attacks this turn - I move one bireme to the south to hit the isolated TAD ship, which gets it into promotion range in a way that shouldn't be snipeable this turn, and I move my healthiest remaining bireme into the spot where my ships keep getting killed. Hopefully your longship promotions will be enough to turn the tide here, because right now I really feel like this situation is turning against us. At least the sword and warrior are almost in position, so we should have some chance to put the city under siege if we ever manage to clear out the galleys here.



The situation at home. It's hard to justify anything other than 2-turn biremes at Linear A given how touch-and-go this war has become. I should maybe consider making biremes at Linear B too, which chops out its monument this turn. Cuneiform gets the fifth city settler this turn, and this is the one place where I don't think more biremes are a good idea, with the ROI on Magnus settlers as high as it is. I need more of pretty much everything right now, with multiple builders required to keep the cities growing onto useful tiles and the third trader still unbuilt (and probably doomed to be purchased with gold at this point). More ships first, though, obviously.

[Woden]

Turn 75-Vikings
Forgot to take screenshots this turn but all my longboats promoted and were not able to attack. I did attack a Japanese galley the other side of the world and did about a 30% damage to it.

One thing to note, why do you have 3 briemes to the south blocking 1 galley. You should have at least 1 providing you a support bonus on your brieme just south of Akkad. We don't share any support bonuses, so you are on your own for those. Maybe move one to support your other boat.

[ljubljana]

Turn 76 - Phoenicia



This situation is really starting to look concerning - Japan's now building troops in earnest, too, and we've fallen behind TAD/Kaiser's team in combined milpower. I resort to trying to bait TAD into killing my weakened biremes in ways that will leave ships exposed, since 1-1 ship trades favor our 12-5 ship edge in this area. That, at least, is my rationale for hiding ships this turn - I didn't really have one last turn, so you're right to point out that I should be focusing more on support bonuses. Hopefully we can also find some way to pick off that very weak galley before it starts healing or promotes again, too.

Oh, and I finished the fifth city settler in Cuneiform, which starts another (of course). I don't know where it's going yet, though - probably the last spot on the west coast by your Frigg, since the east coast spots are still open to attack from Suboptimal and the central spot just doesn't have that much to recommend it. I'm really going to need to find a way to make some builders soon, but Linear A is locked into 2-turn biremes for the forseeable future, so that's not how it'll happen. Maybe I'll delay the trader to buy one, though obviously I don't exactly like that idea either.

[Woden]

Turn 76-Vikings
I set it up so you should be able to kill 3 of TAD's galleys...
   

I would kill the ones closest to Akkad, then you can trap his last galley there and get the support bonus when he attacks. Also, if you can't kill the east one with you quad, kill it with a Brieme. Better to get the kill than to let him live. Finally, are you keeping your sword off shore from some reason. He seems to be in the same spot for a couple of turns. Bring him to shore and start attacking the city.

[ljubljana]

Turn 78 - Phoenicia



Woden saves the day again, and I do pick up the three galley kills. Trading the three biremes TAD killed last turn for these three galleys seems like a great exchange to me, opening the door to a real Akkad attack - next turn, I can land the sword (which didn't move last turn because I had no good way to keep it safe from TAD's ships) and warrior to put the city under siege and start working its health down. The last redlined galley should be ZoC-locked, so unless it has a promotion waiting, we should be able to kill it next turn. There's an English/Japanese galley pair in the yellow coming from the SW, but I should be able to block them with my promoted bireme while we work down the health of the city.

I imagine TAD's going to retreat the injured galley into the city to buff its defensive strength. If that happens, I guess the best play might be for you to spend a turn healing those longships to the south of the city to help them take the place of my initial biremes when they are inevitably murdered by the city defenses. For the two galleys in the west, assuming the weakened one doesn't promote and they both stay in place, it might make sense to attack the full-health galley rather than sniping the weakened one, as I have two more attacks ready on the full-health galley next turn that might be able to finish it off, as well as plenty of ships in range of the redlined one.

Unfortunately, dammit, I also made a big, stupid mistake that's going to help TAD out a ton in the long run:



  

I, unthinkingly, took the first GA to appear, Artemisia, who gives 1 promotion to a naval unit when retired. The next GA is...Themistocles, who gives a free quadrireme and a permanent +20% hammers to naval ranged production! Ugh. I even realized a day or so ago that I should pass on the GA in case this happens, but when it came time to actually play the turn, I forgot. Dammit, this is why I need to actually take notes in these games...



I finished HBR research this turn, opening the door on the following quartet of equally-unboostable techs. No clue what I should go for next - maybe Stirrups, I guess, just because knights are strong units and the +1 food to pastures will really help out with growth at some of these cities. I'll want to spend some time in Maneuver before it completes, though, to build a heavy chariot (to upgrade to a knight) and horseman (for era score). That probably means I can't actually finish the tech anytime soon, as my cities' build order is seriously preoccupied at the moment .

I guess what I should actually do is try to build a third mine somewhere and prioritize whichever research leads to Apprenticeship. I doubt I can manage a +3 IZ this era even if I pull that off, but it's still a good medium-term target since so many of my cities benefit from IZs.



Domestic screenie. I think the Hieratic bireme is going west again next turn, which means that city will need to slot in yet another to scout and defend the Cothon. Similarly, despite my intense, burning need for builders, there's no way I can afford to take Linear A off of 2-turn biremes anytime soon. Cuneiform's settler push offers an extremely sad possibly solution to the builder problem...namely using the free builders from the next two cities to improve tiles at Geneva and Linear B, respectively . That's pretty sad, but it's probably the right move. Wow.

Do you think thrawn is playing the turns for TAD these days? I haven't seen TAD post in their thread in ages, but thrawn posts pretty regularly, and TAD did post in the organizing thread about a five-alarm fire at their work that makes it difficult to play the turns on time. To be honest, I kind of hope so - any amount of revenge for my epic PBEM19 trouncing is pretty welcome by me

Oh yeah, one more question - what are your longships from Rapa Nui up to? It could be worth sending them up to eat Mitla, since I already got the 2 ES from there and the city's defense strength is at 20 as of now. I can provide a couple biremes from Hieratic to help you out if needed.

[Woden]

Turn 78-Vikings
I had to retreat one of my longboats since TAD brought up a quad...
   

Other 2 are healing. Also, finished a quad at my capital but will be a while before he enters the battlezone. He will probably try and take care of the barb camp south of Rapa Nui. It is coastal so I can grab the camp after the quad kills the spearman. My warrior also attacked the barb camp by Nazca. 

ljubljana, if you have no immediate need for gold, I am in desperate need of a trader and could use about 90 gold in about 3 turns.

[ljubljana]

Turn 79 - Phoenicia



TAD/thrawn shot my redlined bireme with their new quad, but failed to kill it and knocked it into promotion range. That plus another promotable bireme from killing TAD's galley last turn gives us a solid pair of Embolon biremes in the west this turn that should be difficult to crack. In the north, I finally pick up the Naval Tradition inspiration by finishing off the redlined TAD galley with the quad. I also take a potshot at the fresh TAD galley with my bireme - seems worthwhile to put it into kill range of the bireme + quad next turn, and my bireme should still be safe unless TAD has another galley in range to attack next turn off in the fog.

At Akkad itself, things are looking...really good, actually! If the TAD galley stays in the city, I should take it next turn with attacks from two full-health biremes and the warrior. If they attack out at the eastern of my two biremes, they'd need to kill it outright to buy the city another turn to live, which probably requires a highroll, and if they fail it'll knock us into promotion range. Holding the city and forcing a cession from TAD to make it useful will remain important questions, but I don't see how they can keep the city from falling in the next few turns unless they have a wave of reinforcements in the fog.

Maybe this is premature, but it might be worth having a discussion about what further objectives we might have for this war beyond Akkad. My nominations are fourfold: solidify control over the sea between our two islands, protect Geneva from an English/Japanese counterattack, look for the other CS that TAD conquered and try to take it away from them, and scout the English coast to try to pillage as many Royal Dockyards as we can. Especially the latter objective could yield a huge influx of badly-needed gold for traders, and is one of the better levers we have for making this war painful enough to TAD to force the cession of Akkad. Actually, now that I think about it, do you think it's worth delaying the conquest a turn to pillage the cotton with my warrior? We could really use the gold, so much so that it might be worth it.

Also, what do you think about liberating Akkad before conquering it outright? Will that give them a bunch of free units? If so, it's not worth it, but if not, it's 2 free era score, and I'm sad and behind and desperately scrounging for any source of ES I can come up with right now.

Speaking of which, there's actually one reason for us to hope TAD does successfully attack out of the city with the galley this turn - defeating it with an unpromoted bireme appears to be worth 3 ES! Not sure if that will trigger if I capture the city with the doubly-promoted galley inside, but I hope so. Anyways, if TAD does pull that off, please do your best to redline the galley without killing it outright so I can pick up this precious source of era score.



On the other side of the world, what do you think about sailing your new quad up north to attack Mitla instead of around the world to Akkad? I can have two biremes there to support you in 4 turns, which should (I think?) be enough to take the city at its current defensive strength. That would also give us enough of a presence in this area to protect those east coast city sites, once we get around to settling them.

Also, I went ahead and sent you 90 gold this turn, just to make sure I didn't forget.

[Woden]

I can sail to Milta. I have a couple of more longboats in the area too, one healing in Rapa and one sailing north of Rapa. 2 longboats, 2 biremes, and a quad shoudl be enough to quickly take the city.

[ljubljana]

I guess the question with Mitla is, do you think that's too greedy of us? We might need one or both of the Rapa Nui longboats at Akkad - the longboats are really holding our position together over there. Also, the two biremes I would send over there could be at Akkad in a few turns too. What do you think is the minimum number of boats we can commit to Mitla and still be sure to take the city? 3 or 4, maybe? If so, do you think peeling off some boats to do that is worth not having those boats at Akkad? I'm inclined to think so, especially since we need boats on the east coast anyways in case suboptimal decides to try anything, but I could absolutely be talked out of that - we're in a hot war with TAD/Kaiser and it could be that since Mitla can wait (because it's cut off from sub by ocean tiles), maybe it should wait.