[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

A couple of other random thoughts:

1. Kaiser may have ill will towards me and not really want peace with us. I don't want I could have done to him that would warrant it (PBEM18 ). I know there is the idea that each game should be judged independently but everybody wants revenge if they get stomped, its human nature.

2. Same will go for suboptimal, I think he will probably be our biggest threat down the road. I have been fighting with him for a few PBEMs now. Once he hits Jongs, I can see him launching an attack on me, especially since I am pretty backwards right now (low production) and may seem an easy target. 

3. Anybody makes any really progress against us, others will join because we are the biggest naval threat in the game, so we need to start thinking defensively.

[ljubljana]

IDK about Kaiser wanting revenge - it's definitely possible, but you'd think they'd have sent more units over here if so, and would have stopped TAD from offering that initial peace treaty where they conceded Akkad. And yeah, I agree that not giving back Akkad is the right choice, at least unless we get dogpiled and get desperate for peace.

TAD gets the next admiral in 5 turns at 6 points per turn - I'll be at something like 50/60 points when they get it. I agree that it could be worth buying, though I also really need the gold for builders, one of which I was hoping to get this turn. A builder purchase is also worth 1 ES from the floodplains farm east of Demotic, which I have been including in my math so far. It might be possible to get both, but I'm not sure it's the best investment given how badly I need builders.

Totally agree about expansion and defense being the focus for now. I'd love to switch over another city to settlers in addition to Cuneiform, or maybe two even (Hieratic and Demotic maybe?). Not sure I can afford to do that right now though given the extent to which I'm lagging in infra and the need for (ugh) another round of ship builds.

Woah, wait, apparently it's worth 2 ES to have a Great Admiral oversee a unit being killed for the first time! I'm just using mine to scout the approach to Geneva right now - I'm absolutely going to move it back ASAP to try to make that happen. Not sure if it'll count if the unit that gets the kill isn't actually boosted by the GA, but it's definitely worth a shot.

I'm very worried about us being dogpiled, either now or at Frigates - every turn we stay in eternal war with TAD is another turn in which our eastern CS look like a tempting target for a Russian or Indonesian attack. I don't know what we can really do about that though, besides not courting conflict any more than we have to. I'm going to offer sub/roland a DoF unless you stop me, though, which could help at least forestall the attack until we're not at war with literally everyone else.

Spoilers from Woden's PBEM18 thread (so don't read if your name is Ichabod or williams482):

On the subject of revenge, another reason to get a DoF with suboptimal now might be to lock in 30 turns of peace before you start nuking their cities into the ground in PBEM18

[Woden]

I think we got outmaneuvered here...
   

Since it is your cities in danger, how do you want to proceed? Do you have any archers in the queue that could handle the quads? Would you like me to proceed north with my 2 health longboats and chase them down? Or do you think you will need them in the south?

Holding the save until I hear from you.

P.s. I don't think your cities are in much danger in the near future but you will get pillaged and that is going to hurt your science.

[ljubljana]

I'm actually not sure this is all that bad for us, other than the pillaging (which is annoying but hardly fatal). How much does your promoted longship do to the westernmost TAD quad in the north? If you can get in a good hit and cut off their retreat, I'm not sure how those ships can beat a longship and a few biremes. They're going to pillage us, but I'm not sure what else they can do. I don't have archers ready, but I'll slot in biremes at the 3 northern cities - Cuneiform will get one in 2, and the other two cities in 4/5. We will probably lose some Cothons for a few turns, but I think we can use that wave of ships plus maybe one of the southern longships/biremes to kill these pillagers if all else fails. I don't think it's a good hammer trade from TAD's perspective to get two quads and a galley trapped and killed just to take my Cothons offline for a few turns.

Also, that Kaiser quad looks really vulnerable - do you think we can two-shot it this turn with your injured longship and my healthy bireme? Another option for your longships is just to ignore the pillagers this turn and focus on that quad - if we can kill that, we might be able to force the other ships in that area to flee or risk encirclement.

If there are not too many more ships out in the fog to the NW, I think we can use this chance to go for a breakout to the west and cut the two groups of ships off from each other. This is a little risky in that the southern group might turn around and go for Geneva, but what if you move the longships west so that they can hit the westernmost promoted TAD galley next turn? If that ship dies and there aren't more ships in the fog, my biremes could swoop around and trap the remaining Kaiser/TAD ships in the central area.

Idk, what do you think are the best moves from here? I'm not very experienced with MP war, so I'm pretty deferential to your thoughts about this kind of thing. I'm still more worried about that southern group eating Geneva, where it is a big threat, than I am about the pillagers, especially if it's just those 3 ships we can see, so I think the healthy longships should probably stay down there.

I'm also probably going to offer sub a DoF this turn, is that okay? I also wonder if there's anything I could offer them that might induce them to help us out with that promoted galley of theirs...I doubt it, but it would be a totally phony war from sub's perspective, and maybe they'll think we're collapsing and want to maintain the balance of power rather than turning on us themselves.

[ljubljana]

Turn 90 - Phoenicia

TAD sends us the same peace offer, but with 7 gold this turn instead of 6. Well, I guess they weren't trying to count down towards anything. Honestly, I have no idea what they're going for here. I try to disambiguate:



Those are CMF's science and culture numbers, and should still be CMF's science and culture numbers when TAD moves thanks to the turn order. This is about as unambiguous a way as I can figure out to signal "let's go rein in CMF together"...which is to say, it is still probably very ambiguous . I imagine TAD will probably either send us back the same deal but with us returning Akkad, or will try to find some other way to convey whatever message they're going for here, since it should be pretty clear at this point that whatever they have in mind is not making it through my thick skull...

Having not been stopped, I do also send DoF offers to both China and Indonesia. I doubt they'll accept, but it would sure be nice to have at least one calm front in the medium-term, and, again, I can't think of any reason why we'd want to attack them anytime soon.



Here's the obnoxiously complicated situation at Writing on the Wall. I'm being conservative with my Bireme health (three of them healed this turn instead of attacking) in the hopes of winning the war of attrition. I haven't attacked any of their ships more than twice either, so my fingers are crossed that I haven't knocked any into promotion range, while my biremes are picking up Embolons left and right with leftover experience from the earlier battles here. If none of these ships retreat or promote, we should be able to kill a fair few of them next turn.

yeeeah the north looks pretty nasty though. Killing a quad with one longship attack is a nice pickup, and it seems unlikely that they can revenge kill both of your ships on this next turn. If they try to keep heading for Cuneiform, it looks like there's no way to save the other quad at Linear B either, since you've trapped it nicely with your ZoC. I also move the horse up in case they try to take a shot at one of the city centers, though fortunately I think that's somewhat unlikely.



I slot in Naval Infrastructure and start building the cavalry. Cuneiform should be able to make 2 biremes in 3 turns and still have time for the 6-turn CH, and the other cities will make their biremes...uh, eventually. Linear A probably doesn't have time for one, since it would take 2 turns and I'm expecting the 10-turn era change warning to hit next turn.

Do you think I should buy a bireme? That would cost 260 extremely wastefully spent gold, but maybe this is enough of an emergency that I should think about it to keep the Cuneiform Cothon from being pillaged. I do absolutely need to buy a 300 gold builder at Demotic before the era ends, but I should barely have time to do both if necessary.



Also, do you know if the "settle on a floodable river" ES bonus will trigger twice in the same era? I've pinned what looks like a decent spot for the southern Oracle Bones site if so, and if not I'll put it up by the volcano.

[Woden]

Turn 90-Vikings
TAD was able to kill my less healthy longboat but in return, I killed his half healthy galley...
   

In the south, I retreat my half healthy longboat to heal and hit one of TAD's galleys. I could have redlined his quad but would have lost a longboat to the quad in the backlines. I figure now, he can attack with the healthy quad but my longboat will survive. I am having the quad and longboat south of Geneva come and join the fight. There is a chance the longboat in the north will die but he will have to sacrifice his redlined galley to do it and I figure 2 galleys for the price of one longboat is a good trade.

Elsewhere, builder completes at Frigg and I start another to be chopped out next turn. My longboat south of former Rapa Nui found a barb sword on the southern island, so we will have to be careful there. Quad from the north is sailing south to kill the spearman.

[ljubljana]

Turn 91 - Phoenicia

As expected, we do get the 10-turn era change warning. Here's hoping no other element of my math gets proven wrong in the next 10 turns...



Here's TAD's peace offer for this turn. 20 gold? What in the world is that supposed to mean? My response is to try again:



Let's be friends and go rein in CMF. I would have offered a diplo favor on my end too to make that a little more clear...if I had any .

Tactical situation:



I kill a Kaiser galley and a TAD galley, and narrowly miss a second TAD galley due to lowrolling. That might have knocked it into promotion range, but oh well. Unfortunately, I did mess that attack up by moving before attacking, which apparently cost my attacking bireme a +2 flanking bonus. I thought this would be retained if I shuffled units around as long as I still had other biremes next to the attacker, but the interface disagreed, so I'll keep that in mind in the future. 

We've regained control of the west coast of Akkad isle, and unless there's another wave of TAD ships in the fog, I think we're going to break through here. The quad and redlined TAD galley can't easily retreat without help either, because the bonus movement of the bireme will let us catch them if they try. They might manage to kill your promoted longship, but if they do, I give us very good odds to surround and kill the group of northern pillagers over the next few turns. They could also turn around and kill my northernmost bireme (with good rolls), but that would leave your longship alive while sacrificing the quad and perhaps also the redlined galley.

I'm increasingly starting to like our position here. I think splitting the ships to go for my Cothons like that has left TAD vulnerable to defeat in detail - hopefully they will recognize this and take one of my peace offers sooner rather than later. I really don't see how they make progress against Akkad in the near future - I'm keeping a close eye on that southern group in case it turns for Geneva, and we should prepare to occupy the approaches to that city with longships ASAP should this group retreat.

Notice also two details in the south. One is my GA, which I ask TAD as nicely as I can to please kill for me so it'll teleport to Akkad and I can pick up the 2 ES from winning a combat with it . The other is a Kaiser missionary with the Crusade religion - obviously we need to keep it from getting to Akkad at all costs. I don't really think that'll be much of an issue with the current setup though, especially with the sword occupying the only land approach. It does have to get within one tile of the city to spread the religion, right? And I assume it also can't do so while embarked?



Here's the situation in the north. This hurts, but...I buy a bireme in Cuneiform to keep the Cothon alive. It would be at least 10t before I could repair it due to the mandatory CH build, so this decision costs 260 gold but saves 80 gold, 80 beakers, and 20 or so hammers while denying gold to TAD. I'll still barely have enough gold to buy the builder at Hieratic before the era change, as required. What I probably won't be able to do is upgrade a courser or buy a unit in Oracle Bones to help with barbarians, but I think this was the right choice. The capital will make biremes on both of the next two turns, which should be enough to get rid of this galley and start pressing in on the group of pillagers.

[ljubljana]

Hmm, I'm going to have to be careful to not actually finish Divine Right until the turn before the era change unless we can get peace with TAD before then. I need every turn in Oligarchy that I can get to hold our position together down here. And, yes, I am starting to regret not having access to Oligarchic Legacy...although, with Mohenjo-Daro about to be conquered, the Republican Legacy housing is starting to looking pretty appealing again for after I switch over to Monarchy.

Also of note is that my DoF requests to sub and roland were rejected, as predicted. I'm definitely expecting them to turn on us with that increasingly large navy and try to steal some of our eastern city-state conquests, and maybe sooner rather than later. I'm planning to propose peace to CMF as soon as the game allows it to make that look at least a little less appetizing.

[Woden]

Also of note is that my DoF requests to sub and roland were rejected, as predicted. I'm definitely expecting them to turn on us with that increasingly large navy and try to steal some of our eastern city-state conquests, and maybe sooner rather than later. I'm planning to propose peace to CMF as soon as the game allows it to make that look at least a little less appetizing.

I am starting to get a little worried here. I could see sub/roland using our war against everybody else to launch an attack, especially on our city state conquests. Sub's Jongs come online at Mercenaries, so sometime in the Medieval Era. Not sure where it is located, might have to get 6 more units out to find it. If I were sub, I would be racing towards Mercenaries and go after someone as soon as I get them. He also has a nice stash of gold. Do they (sub/roland) have friendships with anybody? Will have to check. Regardless, if your neighbor is at war with his other neighbor, they become a prime target because you can assume their military is on the other side of their island. So, it could be us or Kaiser/TAD. Anyways, I need to look at getting more military (archers->crossbows), DotF, and walls at my capital. Also, my next tech is going to be Machinery.

I was planning on a round of settlers but I think that has to wait. I have been playing a farmer's gambit on my defenses, relying too much on ships that now are mostly in the west. I need some land units and defenses just in case. Good thing it looks like we are hurting TAD/Kaiser in the defense of Akkad, maybe they will rethink pushing an attack.

[ljubljana]

I don't remember if sub has a DoF with anyone, but they're nowhere near Kaiser/TAD, so really it can only be either us or CMF. If they've been doing their C&D work properly, they will also have seen that CMF's milpower has been pretty static (indicating their war with us is largely phoney) and TAD lost a city to us (indicating our war with them is hot, or was at some point). Let me put it this way - if I were in sub's position, I would already have ships on the way to attack at Rapa Nui and Vilnius. I'd be scared of the walls, maybe, and so would want some land units as support too, but I'd at least be poking around to check out our defenses (which they have been doing) and probably would attack as soon as I had a ram and a couple swords.

I really hope we can hurt TAD enough to get them to reconsider a white peace in the next 10 turns. If I have to swap out of Oligarchy before we make peace, they'll get another window to attack, and we'll probably end up tied down here even longer... I really should have listened to you and gone with Oligarchic Legacy, Republican Legacy is pretty important for my development but I don't think I'm going to get to do as much of that as I wanted to at this point anyways .