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

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

With Indonesian ships in the area, and a really uncertain security situation, settling the far continent now would be overstretch. Once I can get Dmitrii Donskoi putting hulls in the water, we can probably settle one of the nearer ones. However, Australia would need to handle most of the defense of that area - it's vulnerable to both Japan and England, and I can't sail most of my navy there in any reasonable time before Caravels. If we settled it, right at turn 110 the Royal Navy would probably come calling.

I think settle two cities near the Eye of the Sahara, one north on the oasis and another, crappier, city on the coast. The city on the coast will struggle to feed itself, BUT it can borrow a forest from MBDTF to chop out a holy site (with Magnus, I think - chops give 1/3 of a district always, so 2/3 of the district gets you most of the way there). Both cities will be slow burners until they get their holy sites up (I think +9 on the oasis site, +7 on the eastern coast), but once those sites are up, then you'll have +18/+14 production at both cities and they can contribute anything that food allows.

With that, we probably need to slack off on settlers until we've got a DoF with at least ONE other neighbor besides the expiring one in 15 turns. I can fight one team, I think, more or less to a standstill with Work Ethic galleys. I can't fight two, and I can't defend Australia and myself. So you'll want to get back into Conscription, and make use of your pantheon to get those ships out. I'd shoot for ~300 total military score, eyeballing it. You're at 150 now, so you need about 5 galleys to be safe. With +225% production from all Australia's bonuses that should be doable in 15 turns.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay, I ran some tests in a duel map and I think we should be okay, barring a worst case scenario.

First, the easy scenario: galleys vs. longships, assuming a Norwegian attack at Mikasa (literally the only city in the empire Norway could threaten).

Outside my borders, my galleys had a slight disadvantage, I found, even running Oligarchic Legacy (which I'm going to swap into at the next opportunity, assuming the earliest jong date or Norwegian attack is ca. t100). However, with OL and DotF enabled, inside my borders I hit the longships harder than they hit me. I didn't test production, just pitted about 8 longships against a similar number of galleys, and while the galleys were worsted (outside my borders), the fact will be that Woden simply can't kill galleys fast enough, not as fast as I can produce 'em. 

So, nothing at all to worry about there.

Then I tested jongs. I fought outside my borders first. Two galleys combined to attack a jong at about a 34 - 24 exchange for both, which left the jong at half health and two galleys at 2/3 health. Follow up fire would of course kill both my galleys, but I would have more behind that and if the jong didn't retreat it would be sunk. So one jong crippled per two galleys lost, not a great ratio. Terrible, in fact. 

BUT

I can replace my galleys far, far easier than suboptimal can replace his jongs. If I lose, say, 4 galleys for every jong sunk - well, that sucks. BUT Galleys effectively cost 32.5 production for me, to Jongs' 300 production for Suboptimal until he gets alllll the way to Exploration, wherever that is. I figure if we face the early scenario, we'll be fighting about 6 jongs. If we face the middle scenario, 10-12. That'd be bad but I have more time to prepare. ANyway, tyhe point is, once suboptimal has his fighting edge worn down a bit, then he'll eventually hit critical mass and be unable to sink a galley a turn because his jongs will be too injured or retreating ot heal. At that point, unless he flees, he'll go all at once. 

Bottom line for jong attack: I will certainly lose Shikishima and Vladimir. However, that should be all I lose, and frankly, both cities effectively cost nothing! I spent faith to found Vladimir, about 4 turn's worth. Both contribute almost nothing in terms of production or research to the empire, they're more colonial outposts. The Russian core will remain entirely intact, because I don't think suboptimal has the force ot hack through the fucking locust swarm of galleys I plan to hurl in his face. He'd be better off from a selfish standpoint going for Norway or Japan, since he might make critical gains there, but obviously from a metagame standpoint Russia has to be cut down. 

But I don't think he can do it. He'll take my two colonies (I'm withdrawing the third settler, dumbass idea to try and plant a third city when I know I cna't hold that area...yet) and then he will stall out if he tries to take Knyaz Suvurov. At that point, I just hold out until Frigates, oh ho ho ho and then the tables turn. 

This all depends on me building galleys until the end of time, but guess what? With Conscription, galleys are free. We'll put so many hulls in the water a warrior could walk to You Can Call Me Al over a bridge of boats by the time I'm done.

Worst case scenario: Combined Norwegian/Phoenician/Indonesian assault:

First, fucking ouch. What did I do to provoke that? 

In this scenario, we are severely hurt. We lose Mikasa and we have ab loody fight at Knyaz Suvurov. But again, I don't think we lose any core cities. In this case, the big winner is probably either Sub or the Central Powers, since I will drag a lot of military power from all three players down with me. I'll lose tons of production into galleys, obviously, but it has to be done. Here, our best bet would be to hopefully get one or the other team to peace out after giving them a bloody nose, lick our wounds, then rebound and counter-attack with frigates down the road. 

Actual worst case scenario:

Everyone ignores me and goes for Australia. 

Marco can do the same galley spam tactics, just without the benefit of DotF in his home waters. He will have even BETTER production than me for 10 turns or so, after that, though, things will get dicey. His cities are also badly positioned as regards fleet concentration, with massive peninsulas separating most of his harbors from each other. Not his fault, but the map wasn't kind to us there. In this case, my best tactic is probably a counteroffensive at Norway or Indonesia to draw away units. I'll need to swap in some quadriremes to handle walls, though. Galleys are great at ship to ship combat and rotten at attacking cities. 

Anyway, fingers crossed that I'm overreacting, that the war with Norway remains a phoney war, and that sub either chickens out or I get to sink all his jongs and then get my revenge with frigates in ca. 20 turns.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 95




I pass Castles on to Marco and start on Apprenticeship, to upgrade my mines. Then we'll probably go Machinery to get a crossbow to defend ourselves. Marco, do you want to research Machinery next or shall I build an archer? I can do either easily.




Up at the colonies is most of the action. I finish off my builder, on the off-chance that suboptimal DOESN'T invade, but for the most part I reach the conclusion that Shikishima can't be held. I can't decalre war on suboptimal because we need the Australia bonus, and so I would need to expose myself to a first strike. What I CAN do is pull most of the fleet back to Cape Chelyuskin, along with my settler here, and make our stand there. 

Sub founded a city on my border using the settler we spotted last turn, no surprise there. 

Here's the fleet pulling back:




We yield the colonies. Like I said, total investment here is 400 faith for the settler. 3 turns' generation. So I'm okay giving this up. Russian core strength will be unaffected, but losing two cities will hopefully defuse some of the hostility to us. 

I will try a slick play with Antananarivo:




I move Amani with 4 turns left on Naval Tradition. I will finish one turn before she establishes and drop in a 2 for 1 envoy, then the next turn Amani establishes and flips suzerainty to me. As long as Sub and Roland don't declare war while he holds suzerainty, I should pull this off. Then I'll get a nice +10% culture. 

China's culture and gold spike as he finishes Petra and the Wall:




That's no issue, though. Culture isn't really threatening at this point - witness [PBEM 18 spoiler]

Suboptimal's England in PBEM18

for that. China will speed along to various civics, and inspire them for suboptimal, but on the whole China STILL hasn't put boats in the water, I think, going by milscore/era score. His army is about the size of Australia's. If they invade Russia, I shall arrest them. 

The gold is more of a problem, since he can feed it to Indonesia for jong upgrades...IF he'd gotten more quads out. I'm not sure how many he has, but his milscore isn't THAT high. With the two of their combined gold, an attack in 5 turns is probably the 6 jong scenario. If in 15 turns, it'll be a 12 jong scenario, but we'll be closer to Caravels ourselves. If we get there sooner than Indonesia, we can outmaneuver them on the high seas. 

Ljubljana stretches his empire wide:




That should be a fairly simple conquest with the GMC. Assuming I can beat the Phoenician navy. Actually, don't even need to - it's a short hop across the strait from my island, I just need enough galleys to escort one settler, then we pray for an army there. EZPZ. That city has no production and can't defend itself. 

Two turns until Mikasa becomes a contributing city:




Ship, then walls, then ships. Until peace, then granaries and try to grow to a harbor. It'll be very tough for ljub and Woden to take this city once walls are up and ships are being spit out 1 per turn from the 3 contributing cities. 

Navarin will grow in 3 turns, and then should grow in about 6, so 10 turns until I can start the harbor, call it 20 until I can build ships from there. But that will effectively make us immune to conquest. 6 cities spewing out ships, plus eventually Petropavlosk. We should be okay. 

Our defense plan is to hold at what I have designated Point Luck:




As in "Good fucking luck." 

It's a one-tile passage. Suboptimal can hold on the north side, sure, but to push through, he will need to crowd his ships through. He'll be able to kill 1.5 galleys at most from this point - 2 shots to kill 1, then the ship that moves up can fire on a second. I can stack all my ships behind with support bonuses, and fling them at anyone who tries to force the passage. Furthermore, look how close it is to my two core cities:




Knyaz Suvurov builds 2 galleys every 5 turns. Borodino builds 2 every 3. So every 15 turns, that's 16 galleys. Each one is totally free of upkeep so I can literally do this all day. Good luck chewing through that, Indonesia. Now, can I push north? No, not unless sub stupidly gets all his ships sunk. But I don't need to push. I just need to hold. 

The longer I hold, the closer we get to frigates and Caravels. I should be there within 20 turns. If Suboptimal doesn't take Knyaz Suvurov by then, then he's never conquering Russia. I can build ships faster than he can, even with faith-purchased jongs. He needs 600 faith per jong. That's 12 turns of production. So if he doesn't beat me before I have Frigates, he loses. I will build up a critical mass of ships, THEN push north and reclaim my colonies. THEN I'll use the GMC to faith-purchase a mighty army and sweep him off the island.

So bring on your jongs, suboptimal, you will find Russia no easy meal! >

Overview of the east:




No changes. Builders. Oslyabya must connect its niter, more important than the single quad or two galleys it could build in that time.  

West:



Petropavlosk next turn. Lavra due on turn 100 or so. Navarin active in 2 turns, but it'll need to grow before it can contribute ships. 

Overseas, Ljub founded another city in the fog, I think China founded a city but can't recall if I reported that last turn or not. Lots of teams trying to catch up. I think I have the strongest core so I can still maintain my advantage even if we face an assault from two teams. I hope I can bloody ljub and Woden enough to convince them to back off, if they come. If they don't, I know I can hold sub at Point Luck.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Marco, I think the same tactic will work for you. Start churning out galleys and you'll want to hold the narrow coastal connections near Rodeo. Ilmatic, The College Dropout (should finish its Holy Site first) and Rodeo can contribute (I'd put Rodeo on right away, harbor is too long). You won't need as many as me - we just need AUstralia to have a tripwire force to keep Indonesia away from the mainland until Russian galleys can arrive and gum up the works. If he has 6 jongs, about 12 galleys should do the trick. Doable if you start as soon as you can and just keep pumping. Conscription will solve all gold issues, galleys cost 0 maintenance.

I'll look over Australia next turn and pick their own Point Luck (whatever Marco wants to call it).

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 96

I don't have much time to report, but I'll do the best I can. Unfortunately, my scouting galley wandered too close to Phoenicia and was killed.

My 7th city, Scum F*** Flower Boy, has been founded. Unlike Rodeo, it doesn't have a food resource to chop for an instant population boost - I don't think spending 95 gold on the cattle would be smart. Still, it's got plenty of good tiles, and that campus pin could be a +4. (+2 for the turtle-reef, +1 for being adjacent to a Harbor and City Centre, and +1 for Charming Appeal.)



The rest of my empire is utilizing my +100% production bonus as well as it can, I think.
- Illmatic has 2 turns left on the Settler, but Magnus won't be slotted in yet. So it's building a Galley to fill up the time.
- The Blueprint has finished a Shrine, but it can't make a Missionary yet, and it can't make any ships. It's producing a Builder to mine some of the Illmatic hills.
- My settler next to the Blueprint is ambling towards the north end of our continent.
- College Dropout and MBDTF both have 1 turn left on their builds, and they will switch to building ships.
- Rodeo has only 10 turns left on its Harbor! Maybe it's a mirage, because it's running on double production, but I hope that Harbor makes itself useful soon. Although...given how dire our war will be, should I switch it to ship production instead?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 96

Everyone other than me in this game irritates me: 




So ten turns wasn't enough, they'll go ahead and give 'em THIRTY to fuck around with other players before having to worry about their flank. Do...do Kaiser and Archduke think they'll be better off vis a vis other players in thirty turns rather than ten? Sure giving Team Viking a free hand to Cothon expand and raid to their heart's content is going to leave them WORSE off at the end of this DoF, not better? 

I can't fault them too much, though. As much as it annoys me (and believe me, it annoys the hell out of me), they're probably mentally beaten from losing a city and a bunch of ships. Archduke basically never posts anymore, Kaiser got eliminated in his other PBEM, so they'll probably play unfocused for fifteen turns then come to screw around with us because why the hell not. This is obviously a dream come true for Woden/ljubljana - on the brink of falling into irrelevance due to their constant warring, they'll get a new lease on life, an opportunity to expand OR to annoy the hell out of me. Obviously attacking Russia with all their fleet that's not doing anything now (Phoenicia has the highest military score in the game, at 531. How many biremes is that, mate? For what, one city?) isn't going to win them the game. But they've got shit all else to do with it. 

Now, hopefully the war with us is still phony and Woden really wants to raid all those juicy Chinese coastal provinces, and I'd happily help 'em do it! That would benefit BOTH of our teams much more than an idiotic war, wherein they can do nothing other than irritate me around Mikasa or raid some Australian coastal improvements (or burn Australia down, but how does that help them, exactly? Doing their enemies' work for them?). I suppose we can offer peace next turn. If not, well, we'll move from DefCon2 to DefCon1. 

If they think fighting Russia will be easy, well, they've got another think coming:




Fuck around and find out, jerks. My galleys now can fight on equal terms near my cities and will be in such swarms that anyone who comes near will drown in their own blood. We Have Reserves. 

Anyway, defending Australia is a headache and a half:




Here in the far east we have two coastal cities. We need at least a small squadron here, probably 6 galleys with 2 or 3 quads to really be impregnable. Oslyabya and, soon, Dimitrii Donskoi will be able to help a bit but MBDTF really needs to do the heavy lifting here. Marco, settle your cities quick and start cranking out galleys, I think. 

Anyway, holding the south coast should be enough, Marco can hold the north coast, and the terrain is constricted. An extended slugging match favors us, tactically, since it lets me get closer to Frigates. 

The north is hugely difficult though:




The huge-ass peninsula north of Ilmatic makes it hard to use one squadron to defend all three cities. The huge-ass desert makes it hard for the east coast ships to help on the north or west coasts. The best I can hope for is that there's only a narrow passageway in the north, near the point. Marco can do the same thing I am and gum the place up with galleys, zerging into jongs until suboptimal gives up and sails home. We need to hold him for about 15 turns or so, so we'll need at least that many galleys apiece. Marco, I'd just start building them and don't stop until we have peace or we're dead. 

Anyway, it's a 4-turn sail from Borodino to Point Matilda, so Marco needs to hold for 4 turns against Jongs on his own. That means 8 galleys. I don't know the timeline for that from his cities, but, uh, sooner is better than later. We don't have ten turns to wait for the harbor, I don't think. Get some lumber mills down and swap to ships. Numbers are our only shot. 

At Shikishima, the retreat continues:




I have 6 galleys and 2 quads here. The two quads will go to Mikasa, the 6 galleys will hold at Point Luck. By era flip I should have fully 10 or 11 galleys, able to defend Point Luck or Mikasa as needed. We'll need time to transfer to Australia or to pressure suboptimal at Shikishima if he goes for Australia. So I'll keep building.

Overview of the East. We keep building because I need that niter and most of these cities can't contribute ships directly:




Overview of the west:




Petropavlosk will get a chop next turn to speed the campus along. It will faff about with a granary and monument and maybe even walls, then a harbor.

[marcopolothefraud]

Here in the far east we have two coastal cities. We need at least a small squadron here, probably 6 galleys with 2 or 3 quads to really be impregnable. Oslyabya and, soon, Dimitrii Donskoi will be able to help a bit but MBDTF really needs to do the heavy lifting here. Marco, settle your cities quick and start cranking out galleys, I think. 

Anyway, holding the south coast should be enough, Marco can hold the north coast, and the terrain is constricted. An extended slugging match favors us, tactically, since it lets me get closer to Frigates. 

Thanks for the advice. I'll shift Rodeo and College Dropout to galley production next turn, then. I'm thinking of making *just one* Quadrireme in MBDTF, so it can sit in Flower Boy and garrison it until it falls. (It is built on flat land, after all.)

Gah, being targeted for war is no fun. It reminds me of Singaboy in PBEM4, though our chances are probably better than his. Why do you think Kaiser/Archduke are being inactive? Both of them have been excellent and reliable players in the past.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah. I don't mind being targeted by one team, but Indonesia spurning us and deciding to mess around with us JUST AS Woden and ljub decide it's the perfect time to let bygones be bygones with the other team and leave their massive fleet with nothing to do but come after us feels super irritating.

We SHOULD survive. Due to Russia's limited coastline and high production, I'm supremely confident that apart from the two colonial cities I won't lose anything in the fight. It's Australia I'm concerned with. I could use my fleet to protect Oz from ONE enemy team, with good scouting you know which way they're coming from and you can intercept. But two teams, 3 civs (China doesn't count)? That's going to stretch me thin. I think in serious cases I'll have to possibly even yield Mikasa and throw all my ships east in an effort to swarm down Jongs going for Ilmatic.

Anyway, you've done a good job getting production turned around with all these cities, which puts you in line with the average civ now. We just need to prioritize food and production above all else at each city - but first we have to hold them. So ships.

One question about TCD - does it have time to finish its Holy Site? It's +4 and is already converted. That's +8 production with scripture, or +16 towards ships - which is effectively one extra galley every four turns. So if it only takes 4 turns to build it...well, after 8 turns we'll be even in total galley count, and from 12 turns on we'll be ahead. I think you need to grab theology, though - after Divine Right, probably.

I'm super excited for you to get a missionary and send it to MBDTF. That will become, let's see...+18 production from the holy site with Scripture, +36 with Australia's war bonus, or +72 production per turn towards ships with Marime Industries. That's 1 quad every 2 turns, or a galley every. single. turn. No one will be able to conquer your coast then, and you should be clear to begin efforts to settle the southeastern continent!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I THINK we'll be okay. We're going to fall behind a bit, as my development and expansion will stall, obviously.

Ljubljana will grow rapidly in science as he finishes Cothons and lands another Free Inquiry. That does give him ~30 turns though to put together some real campuses or his research will collapse.
Archduke similarly will EXPLODE in science at the era turn, probably doubling or more - it looks like every city has an RND at least placed, although I'm not sure how many he has finished.
Roland seems content to build wonder after wonder, and he's killing it in culture but his research is lagging. So is sub's. Honestly, if they don't make massive gains with this attack - like, conquering all of us, or razing every single rival - they're going to have shot their bolt, I think.
Woden is badly behind in every category - no districts, practically, no religion, not even a respectable military anymore. He could spend the next 15 turns just working to catch up.
Kaiser has been on a plateau for a while. He needs to start overseas colonization soon.

So, bottom line: Let's assume we can survive more or less intact for, call it a 30-turn war (on the long side). At the end of it, we'll be behind, but to quote John McCain, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. Once I am free to leave military builds we should be able to explode upwards again. There's lots of tundra to either side for me to expand on to, or, as I am increasingly leaning, I will SAVE my faith and unleash the Grand Master's Chapel on my enemies, one island at a time.

Anyway, let's survive the next 30 turns. Galleys are the key to that, enough galleys that no one can kill all of 'em. We'll be more or less permanently in conscription, but we can upgrade some of 'em later and use 'em all as escorts. They're cheap, cost-effective little boats. I've grown very fond of them!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

This time I ran a three-person test on a Tiny map. Two Russian Work Ethic cities with Dance of the Aurora, two Australian cities, against 6 Indonesian jongs. Didn't research Cartography with any of the three civs. 

The results were comforting. We can pull this off, BUT it's going to be blood soaked. In essence, we'll want to hold on the FAR side of chokepoints (like Point Luck) and swarm any ships that come in. But if you have, say, Ilmatic, The College Dropout, and Rodeo all on constant galley duty, you should be able to produce so many galleys that Indonesia literally can't hack through all of them to reach any of your cities. Sub would need to bring about 12 Jongs, not 6, to have enough concentrated firepower to blast through and reach a city. 

If the Jongs defend a chokepoint, they can hold it more or less indefinitely - can't get enough damage into 'em to kill them before they promote heal, and all the while they're blasting galleys to smithereens. But they can't kill us fast enough.

So I think the play is galleys for us from every city. MBDTF and Oslyabya will combine to produce a defense fleet for SFFB - SFFB might also want to chip in. That fleet needs to be able to hold off a Japanese, English, or Phoenician fleet long enough for reinforcements to arrive. KS, Borodino, Rodeo, Ilmatic, and TCD should build a fleet to defend Russia's north coast and Australia's northwest coast. Finally, Mikasa will throw up walls and build galleys on its own to defend against Norwegians or Phoenicians coming from that direction. I shall also place my archers there, and attempt to reach Machinery for a single upgrade (I save everything else for frigate upgrades - NOT Caravels. Galleys do everything caravels do except cheaper. Frigates have some punch). 

The key is GALLEYS. i tried it with Quads and the little bastards get one-shot by jongs. Their defense is too low. Galleys can either attack and be eliminated on the next turn, or defend and soak up TWO attacks. Two jongs to sink a single galley is 100% a trade favorable to us. We hold them off until one of our enemies gets frustrated and gives up, or we reach Caravels and I build more and better ships and drive them away. 

How does that sound for a basic defense plan? It SHOULD get us out of this jam while only losing my two 'free' colonies.