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

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 93


Rodeo, north of College Dropout, has been founded. The silver city east of Illmatic will be due on turn 95, and there's a city east of MBDTF that is due on turn 96.

I took CMF's advice, and ultimately decided to make a Harbor at Rodeo. After chopping a Marsh and making a Lumber Mill, it'll have 3 population and 8 production (temporarily doubled to 16 production) per turn. Along with a forest chop, hopefully that'll be enough to finish the Harbor quickly.

That settler south of the Blueprint will be my first city on the big continent in the south. Let's call it...New Zealand. Given Kaiser's loyalty pressure, I think our continent is just about as full as it can be, and all of my Illmatic settlers will have to take a super long route to get to the south.

Finally, I think I'm ready to activate Aryabhata. CMF will boost Castles for me next turn, and Military Tactics will also be 1 turn away from the eureka. CMF, could I have some gold to upgrade my slinger? That would give me 3 archers for the Machinery boost.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Why am I planning to stop jongs by throwing quads at them? Quads have shitty defense and the same attack strength as galleys, but cost twice as much.

If numbers are my goal, with MI galleys are effectively only 32.5 production. My two shipbuilding cities can 2-turn those fuckers, sometimes even 1 turn with overflow. That's 4 galleys every 3 turns from two cities alone. I can add in Mikasa and Shikishima, as well. 

With oligarchy, galleys will be fighting at 34 to 45 strength. That means they'll take about 44 damage to inflict 16. If I get a promotion, however, they'll be hitting at 41 vs 45 against jongs. Welllll, now - now the galley takes about 35 to inflict 25. 

Faith income is 150 per turn. The next great admiral is 750 faith to purchase outright, or 5 turns of generation. A great admiral would let my unpromoted galleys fight at 35 to 45, or taking 45 to inflict 20. My promoted galleys, if they survived somehow, would be hitting jongs at 46 vs 45...and I can build fucking 10 galleys for every jong. 

Screw the quads. Let's build galleys! Spam them at sub and his half-dozen jongs will be sunk before he can build replacements.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

plan: skip a settler to buy a great admiral. I wish I'd thought of htis plan before buying the next settler, but oh well. Let's see if I can snag Gaius Duilius. Meanwhile, Borodino, KS, Mikasa, and Shikishima will all go to boosted galley production to hit my 600 strength target instead of quads. I'll roll with 4 quads. Gold is too precious to really spare for upgrades anyway.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 93




Finish our harbor, finish Divine Right, swap into Monarchy, and recruit Homer for a bevy of era score. Golden Age secured in the next age. That doesn't solve our current problem of not having any gold at all and jongs bearing down on us, but whatever. I'll work it out.

Unfortunately, Archduke took the Great Admiral and the medieval one is super expensive:




He also doesn't boost galleys. So, so much for that plan. I'll make do with 34/41 strength galleys against 45 strength jongs. I don't have enough to repulse the initial wave entirely, but if I have, say, 12? 

My quad finishes at Olsyabya and immediately picks up the barb quad:




So Naval tradition is boosted. I'll work on that next. I do need to pick up flanking and support bonuses at some point, obviously, so I'll 1-turn that soon.

West east and center:








Sub fortified in place. I'm not sure I'll be able to finish the walls in time. I might consider saving gold for a knight upgrade to defend my cities, but I could also save faith and buy the knight with the GMC. Lighthouse is a 4-turn build because it will help me longer term, even if it delays some galleys. Otherwise every naval city will be throwing out galleys until we hit more strength than anyone else. And they'll all go to Shikishima. 

Sorry for low quality. Tough stuff at home at the moment.

[marcopolothefraud]

Err...I think I'm following your reasoning, and I can understand how Galleys are probably more cost-effective against Jongs than Quadriremes. Hopefully we manage to upgrade them into Caravels, too. But if we manage to destroy (or nullify) the Indonesian navy, stalling them long enough to throw away their tech advantage, would we be left with a lot of dead weight and wasted production/time on those Galleys? They seem to be units that will obsolete quickly, and large packs of them won't be nearly as helpful as large packs of Frigates or Battleships.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

well, realistically, a lot of them are going to get blasted to smithereens by jongs. But if they're NOT, or if sub for some reason accepts a DoF with us all of a sudden, then I can swarm them at Norway or Japan. Frigates will need escorts, after all.

Building quads is just really slow compared the benefits, and our gold income is so poor that most quads won't translate into frigates. It'll be easier to hand-build them using my production (about 10 turns per frigate, pre-card) than to upgrade a large pack. The clincher, though, is jsut examining how much more cost-effective galleys are compared to quads. Half hte production, in return for no ranged attack and the corresponding inability to influence the land - but two galleys will beat one quad every time.

[marcopolothefraud]

Sorry for low quality. Tough stuff at home at the moment.

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope things clear up soon.

Turn 94

I popped Aryabhata and got the Buttress, Military Tactics, and Stirrups eurekas. There was a 50% chance that I could've missed out on either Military Tactics or Buttress, so I'm glad that the dice roll worked in my favor.

There's tons of 4-yield tiles in "Turtleville"...which I'll probably name "Scum F*** Flower Boy" after the *amazing* 2017 rap album. Notice how the English/Japanese/Phoenician/Norwegian war has ended. This is very bad news - Phoenicia/Norway has been in a phoney war with us, but that might heat up soon.

Overview of the core cities. I chopped a marsh at Rodeo, which is currently working high-production tiles at the (small) expense of Illmatic. Illmatic seems to be hemorrhaging population, so I'm going to move Pingala to College Dropout and Magnus to Illmatic soon. I'll time this settler to finish with Magnus.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

With jongs about to come down on our heads and now both our neighbors soon free for offensive action (15 turns until Japan can attack, Norwegians already sniffing in the east) we need to probably set DefCon2. Now's the time to get out ships as best we can. Can you afford Galleys if we run conscription?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 94

With us now facing the delightful possibility of facing both jongs and the raiding team in the near future, I am starting to get irritated. Screw both teams, if either of them fucks with me I will burn their cities to the ground. Ships from now to the end of time. I don't need to build anything else in Borodino or Knyaz Suvurov if I don't want, the interior cities can handle that. Screw 'em. 




We're going for hulls in the water and cost effectiveness. I have 3 quads and 8 galleys out at the moment, by turn 100 I can make that 3 quads and 13 galleys, which I think is the largest navy in the game. Obviously I won't stop, duh, I'll keep spamming ships out until I've sunk every last jong and I've unlocked Frigates or Caravels myself. Then I'll spam THOSE and go ruin someone else's day. 

By turn 110, we'll be able to faith purchase land units as well:




So as soon as I share a landmass with someone, well, time to replicate. 

Inland, I chop another campus:




+6 science due in 4 turns, which would be good for first in the game if Kaiser for some reason stayed stagnant in that time. Still, it'll keep me neck and neck with Japan and speed us up getting to frigates. Once I hit those, I am confident I can build them better than anyone else, if I have the niter for it. I've got 2 native sources and a third at Shikishima, which I probably won't hold past Jongs appearance ca. 100. The plan is to cede the colonies and bleed sub back to the homeland, until we've either sunk all his jongs or we have ~6 frigates of our own, at which point we will counterattack, sink his ships, and then reclaim the islands at our leisure. 

Since I have concluded that we can't hold these lands in the face of a concerted Indonesian/Norwegian/Phoenician/Chinese(? Is roland doing literally anything militarily or is he just...like...building Petra? What is China's plan? I can't work it out at all. How does he plan to win the game, just shovel gold at Indonesia?) assault, it seems dumb to just settle free cities for sub to take. I divert the settler to the mainland instead, we'll send it to the tundra island near Hong Kong if I can secure that sea, and I move Magnus to the comparatively safe Oslyabya to faith purchase a settler for the tundra island near Yerevan instead. I can chop out a quick lavra there and ahve another shipyard, dedicated to supporting Australia against Phoenicia/Central Powers. 

But, well, I can't fight 3 civs alone, marco, not against a technologically superior foe. I can only zerg rush basically one opponent at a time, so Australia will need to start getting up a self-defense force. You get +125% towards galleys, thankfully, so at least you can kick them out quickly. 




I...don't know where Australia's latest settler is going, but there's lots of barbs. I NEED the builder out to connect my niter near Oslyabya - 4 niter/turn is 1 frigate every 5 turns, which will just about match my production capabilities. I might be able to bum niter off Australia, too, that might be more efficient and ahve him concentrate on Caravels. Dunno. We'd need to talk it over. My quad will hover near Oslyabya for 5 turns, then escort the settler. 




Also, can't justify more settlers I can't defend. We'll buy an apostle next turn and take DoF over religious colonization, if possible. Not a great belief but solid, and will make defending my homeland much easier. 39 strength galleys vs 45 strength jongs, definitely capable of swarming any idiot that sails near my shores. 

East and west:






Need to see if there's any way to grow Navarin faster. I need size 4 -> Harbor and then I will have 5 cities capable of building ships. Petropavlosk will make 6 but that is 20 turns away probably. 

Once I hit that, though, I'll probably just build ships until everyone is dead. 

Sorry, home is still stressful (long story) and I'm highly irritated at sub ignoring my DoF AND Norway/Phoenicia warring with seemingly everyone EXCEPT the guys with the OP unit before they get the OP unit.

Serves me right for developing Russia well, probably.

[marcopolothefraud]

I...don't know where Australia's latest settler is going, but there's lots of barbs. 

Err...sorry. I don't have vision of Yerevan and its whereabouts, so I thought that this route might've been a slightly faster route to get to the new continent in the southeast. 

To be honest, settling the new continent now would only outstretch myself. Maybe I should reroute that settler north of MBDTF? Or would that just make it easier for an invasion force from Mohenjo-Daro?

I don't have enough time to play my turn right now, but I'll probably get to it in about 6 hours or so. I will switch over many of my cities to settlers. (Maybe a builder at Illmatic, so it can chop ships with the Magnus bonus..)