[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I'm also surprised, as I was when my and TAD's quads got two-shotted earlier - I guess I've been seriously underestimating just how fragile they are. Something to keep in mind the next time I convince myself that it's a good idea to use one for something other than frigate upgrades, I guess .

Sounds good re: CMF. I don't think we're in that much of a hurry to attack - obviously it'd be a mess if they decide to claim the ES by declaring Formal War themselves (and they're probably in a similar ES crunch due to needing another Monumentality GA), but I don't think the odds of them doing so in the next few turns are all that high.

EDIT: Dubious thought I had that I want to document before forgetting about it: I think after the builder buy I'm going to want to save up cash and try to buy the lighthouse at Cuneiform so we don't have to take it off of settlers. I honestly wonder if I shouldn't be making settlers in more than one city - not right now, probably, since my development's lagging pretty badly, but maybe after Hieratic does the trader?

[Woden]

Feel free to declare on CMF, my warrior has made it to land and free from a galley attack.

[ljubljana]

Pre-flight era score math:

We're currently at 46 points, and need 62 for a golden age. The following points are guaranteed unless I mess something up:

horseman +1
medieval tech +1
floodplains farm +1
Monarchy +2
CMF Formal War +2
Cuneiform CH +3
Linear A Campus +3

That's 13 points, for a total of 59. We will get another +1 from a second Great Admiral as long at TAD does not build another Royal Navy Dockyard in the next 9 turns. The last two points can come from:

first horse unit +1
first medieval tech +1
tundra city +1
Oracle Bones +2
Barb camp clear (where my embarked warrior is headed) +2
Natural Wonder/desert city +4

I think that's close enough to guaranteed that I shouldn't bother waiting for CMF to maybe suzereign Mohenjo-Daro, and should just dump all my envoys into it now to try to keep the free housing going for as long as possible. I don't really see what else I can usefully do with them, and it's pretty obvious that free housing in all my saltwater cities is worth way more than +2 culture from dropping one into Anantanarivo instead. Okay, I think that's the tentative plan.

[ljubljana]

Two quick questions:



Someone's attacking Mohenjo-Daro, probably CMF. What happens if I suzereign them? According to our earlier discussion, the answer is "nothing", right? We won't get pulled into some war we don't want or force them to make peace?

Second question: as you can see, TAD did not accept my peace offer and is still building troops. Dammit, this is all my fault - if only I had screenshotted that deal and alt-tabbed instead of mindlessly hitting escape. I'm really sorry about that. But, anyways, the question part of the statement is this: do you think I should hold off on phony war-ing CMF for now to avoid giving TAD more reason to stay at war with us and perhaps try some offensive action? I'd have to come up with some way to make up the rest of the era points if so, but that's probably doable - I'd just have to settle by the natural wonder, or both clear the barb camp and settle Oracle bones, or something like that.

[Woden]

Two quick questions:
Someone's attacking Mohenjo-Daro, probably CMF. What happens if I suzereign them? According to our earlier discussion, the answer is "nothing", right? We won't get pulled into some war we don't want or force them to make peace?

Nothing happens.

Second question: as you can see, TAD did not accept my peace offer and is still building troops. Dammit, this is all my fault - if only I had screenshotted that deal and alt-tabbed instead of mindlessly hitting escape. I'm really sorry about that. But, anyways, the question part of the statement is this: do you think I should hold off on phony war-ing CMF for now to avoid giving TAD more reason to stay at war with us and perhaps try some offensive action? I'd have to come up with some way to make up the rest of the era points if so, but that's probably doable - I'd just have to settle by the natural wonder, or both clear the barb camp and settle Oracle bones, or something like that.

Declare on CMF, what could go wrong? Better to get the next Golden Age than scramble for points. I really am no sure what they are doing around Akkad. They are just sitting there, blocking the path. I did send a ship around the north to see if anything is coming from there (didn't see anything). How far is Cartography on the tech-tree? Maybe they think they can get there soon. Regardless, I have enough boats near Rupu to handle anything CMF throws at us.

[ljubljana]

Turn 87 - Phoenicia

what could go wrong?

Well, I found one answer:



..it didn't give me the points? What the heck? Proof via the grievance log that I did, in fact, declare Formal War:



What did I miss here? Does Formal War not count as a CB for purposes of triggering the ES points? I admit I've never been desperate enough for ES in a single-player game to actually try this, and didn't test it before making this move because it seemed so obvious that it would work, being that Formal War is explicitly listed in the "Casus Belli" section of the diplo screen and all. But I guess not? Or maybe this is some kind of weird MP-specific issue?

Anyways, turns out that CMF is suzereign of Yerevan, so we meet them:



...and, well, staring at this screen in disbelief for a few minutes actually gave me the beginnings of an idea. CMF has three envoys in Mohenjo-Daro, the same as us. That means if I move Amani out, just for a turn, CMF will get suzereignty and Mohenjo-Daro will declare on us. Amani can only go to Anantanarivo, since she can't be reassigned to a city-state we're at war with...but I just picked up a second envoy from Military Training completing this turn. So, if I move Amani out, give CMF suzereignty, then dump my two envoys back into Mohenjo-Daro to take it away again...



...crisis averted . That's at the cost of two envoys, but envoys are rapidly losing value as the CS get eaten, and I was thinking of dropping envoys here anyways just to enjoy a few turns of that awesome suzereignty bonus (freshwater everywhere!) before Mohenjo-Daro gets conquered. I immediately reassign Amani back to MD to get that online, bringing MD into war with TAD, Kaiser, marco, and their erstwhile suzereign CMF . I'm actually now unsure of who attacked MD...all four of those DoWs appear to be new, meaning either that MD was previously at peace with all those civs or my shenanigans forced a peace and re-declaration with someone. I wonder if it's possible that the wall damage I saw this turn was just due to a barb quad or something? That'd be awesome, if so - getting to enjoy infinite magical freshwater for any significant length of time would make these envoys very well-spent.



And here's the pile of notifications CMF will have to deal with the next time they open the save . CMF's great at C&D stuff, which is part of the reason they're a good target for this kind of thing - it shouldn't take them too long at all to figure out that this DoW indicates ES gamesmanship rather than any actual hostile intent.

What's that? Policy swap? 47 bpt? 40 gpt? ...right. I start on D&P - Monarchy, and make the following swap:



Out of Maneuver and back to Conscription because the horse is done, and out of Republican Legacy because Linear A hit size 4 (and MD suzereignty means I no longer need the housing anyways) and into Naval Infrastructure to finally get my economy rolling again. Finally, the only ship I'm currently making is 6 hammers from completion in Linear A, so I swap from Maritime Industries to Limes to get the now fairly urgent-seeming walls going in Writing on the Wall. I think about starting some in Geneva, too, but hold off for now because that magnificent +5 Cothon is just 11 turns away and I can't stand the thought of delaying it. I'll probably do walls there after, though, as well as in Oracle Bones, and end up staying in Limes for some time as a result.

Actually, on that topic, I'm starting to think that Oracle Bones might be better placed south of Rapa Nui than east of Vilnius. That eastern island is just so exposed to attack even if we settle inland, and I don't know how we'd keep it from running into loyalty problems in the medium-term once it's surrounded by foreign cities (the site's already down to -5). Southern Oracle Bones would be a significantly weaker city based on the (admittedly incomplete) information we have, but if it's a weaker city that we actually manage to hang on to, I'm not complaining.



TAD, TAD, TAD. Why has TAD changed their mind about wanting to make peace with us? They haven't advanced any units (though they are still making military builds)...I guess maybe they just changed their mind now that they've established a defensive position and don't want to free us from the occupation penalty at Writing on the Wall? Still, though, if that's their plan, it chains down their navy here for the forseeable future. Here's hoping they eventually change their mind about having changed their mind.

As far as a Cartography rush, I don't think that's too likely, since Cartography is here:



As we can see from the slider, TAD, like everyone else, still doesn't have a single Medieval tech, so they can't be less than 30 turns or so away from Cartography. I guess they could be planning to tech to knights and coursers and land a few of those at WotW to try to crack it? I'll send the new horse down here just in case, and upgrade it when Castles comes in if I see a spike in their city defense strength. Along those lines, I should also probably adopt a somewhat less passive long-term positioning with my biremes than shown here, in case they do try to land troops on the west coast of the island.

Oh, one more thing - I tried to start Linear A's campus this turn, since the Cothon at Linear B finished, but it looks like it's not getting the boost? I don't know where my math went wrong...I have the GP, Holy Site, Campus, Cothon, and Encampment unlocked, and have now finished 1 GP and 4 Cothons. Is it going to update between turns or something, or am I missing some of the details about how the boost works? Thankfully, though, it doesn't matter that much - the full-cost campus is down to 11t with the new lumbermill, so I have time to finish both the horse and the mostly-completed bireme first.

[williams482]

The district discount only updates after a new tech/civic is completed because  , which is why it didn't kick in here. techs and civics are also processed before builds, so in a situation like this the only way to get the discount on that campus would have been by finishing the Cothon, then completing a tech/civic on the following turn (or during the turn via boost), then placing the campus. 

As for the formal war, it definitely doesn't count as a casus belli for the purposes of the Nationalism boost, and apparently the same rules apply for Era score. 

Sure would be nice if this game actually communicated stuff like that, wouldn't it.

[ljubljana]

The district discount only updates after a new tech/civic is completed because  , which is why it didn't kick in here. techs and civics are also processed before builds, so in a situation like this the only way to get the discount on that campus would have been by finishing the Cothon, then completing a tech/civic on the following turn (or during the turn via boost), then placing the campus. 

oh yeeeeah whoops I totally forgot about that. Well...sigh, it's probably too late to fix it, because the only cheap techs and civics I have available are...Currency, which unlocks CHs, and D&P, which unlocks Theater Squares . I don't think I have time to wait for anything longer because I need Currency by t92 to start the CH and I need D&P by around the same time to get Monarchy done before the era change. Oh well, I guess. Thankfully, Linear A ended up with enough production that it's not going to make a difference in terms of whether or not I get the GA.

Sure would be nice if this game actually communicated stuff like that, wouldn't it.

A noob like me can dream

[Woden]

Turn 87

Looks like TAD/Kaiser are going to use this moment to push on Akkad...
   

We have boats coming from the north and the south. I send my mostly healed longboat to the north and decide to give my other 2 healing boats another turn to heal. I suggest retreating back to the pinch points in the south, then my boats can engage next turn. In the north, you can hold your position and I can at least attack with 1 longboat next turn and can have 2 attacks the following turn. 

Be careful with your settler on the east side, CMF has a galley by Vilnius and another one by our southern tip. I attacked the one by Vilnius with the city walls and my quad and longboat will be near Vilnius next turn to push back any advance from CMF. 

Domestically, builder finishes at Thor and it resumes its monument. Builder from Loki has made it to a forest tile at Frigg to lumbermill. It will lumbermill the forest tile, then chop a jungle, and then hook up the horses when they are grabbed. Builder at Thor heads to the spice tile, then will chop a jungle into a harbor when I can run Veterancy after getting into Monarchy. 

Probably will have to think about a round of boats and walls everywhere when I can get the cards in play.

[ljubljana]

Turn 88 - Phoenicia

TAD shows up with one of those cryptic diplo messages that I don't understand:



Any idea what the conventions are for how I'm supposed to be interpreting this? Is a threat relating to them getting knights in 6 turns, or something like that? But then why offer 22 iron instead of something more suggestive, like 48? It doesn't match anyone's beaker totals or anything like that either, this turn or last turn when it was sent. I don't know quite what to make of this...though I do reject the offer, naturally, since I'm not sure I see a credible threat to Akkad here even with their spiking milpower. I'm just not sure how they're expecting to break our defensive position with only one attack per turn at the choke points...though again I'm pretty new to serious Civ6 warfare, and so could absolutely be proven wrong.



I see two threats that are credible, though. One is that they could land ground troops on Akkad isle, especially knights/coursers, which I'm not in much of a position to stop unless we can cut them off at sea. Thus, I think in the north we'll have to try to reclaim the west coast somehow to keep that from happening...not that I have much of a sense as to how we can do that. The other threat is that the southern group of ships will swing east to Geneva, at which I have zero defenses. If those ships disappear next turn without joining in at Akkad, I'd bet that's where they're going, which probably means we'll have to use your longboats down there in conjunction with biremes to try to block and/or trap them.

I really don't want to have to do another round of ship builds instead of the trader and builder...we're really going to start falling behind if we can't make some kind of economic investments soon. Obviously, though, I'll do so if I have to. I don't think I can take Linear A or Cuneiform off the urgent ES-granting districts they're about to start, but maybe once I get the policies slotted in I can squeeze in a few 2-turn biremes there.