Note that the only exception to galleys over quads is MBDTF - it won't be facing Jongs, just longships/biremes/Japanese galleys/English GA-led galleys, so a small amount of quads supporting a larger amount of galleys would be okay.
Once Australia has enough ships to consider that coast "safe" you can settle the coastal desert cities and start getting WE holy sites set up by the natural wonder.
Turn 97
Overview of my cities and their production. I chopped a marsh at Low End Theory to boost its population, but it's struggling to find good tiles to work!
There's a lot of clutter in these images, and it's a little bit hard to see production build times for each city. I tried to go into the report screen, but it only showed the production builds of each city - not the number of turns in which production would be finished.
Also, Illmatic has had all its good tiles cannibalized by the cities around it:
It's working a lot of un-mined hills! Hopefully the builder from the Blueprint will come in soon and rectify things.
(April 2nd, 2021, 20:00)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: 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.
Actually...I'm thinking of venturing a little bit deeper into the Renaissance Era tree before doubling back and getting Apprenticeship or Machinery.
Machinery would be nice to defend from Horsemen/Swordsmen attacks, but I'm crossing my fingers that spamming Galleys/Quadriremes/Ancient Walls will be enough to defend my most vulnerable cities. (Anyway, I don't have the policy card that boosts production of Crossbowmen, because that comes with the Feudalism civic.)
Once I finish Buttress technology, I will reveal the lower-left technology. There's a 1/3 chance that it'll be Printing (gives +3 combat bonus), Cartography (unlocks Caravels), or Square Rigging (unlocks Frigates). I daresay that any of these three techs will be more useful than Machinery in the short-term.
CMF, I think you should beeline the upper-left technology of the Renaissance Era too. If we have vision of those two techs, there's a (6/9)(5/8) = 42% chance that they'll be relatively useless techs, and a 58% chance that they'll be relatively useful techs.
We need Machinery to unlock the next tech behind Apprenticeship, is the only reason I asked. I'll crank out an archer really quick and pick up Machinery myself right after Apprenticeship, so no worries. Your research plan seems sensible. Printing would be a drag since we're ages away from being able to research and build Universities - Caravels or Frigates would offer more substantial defensive benefits (and I'll be inspiring Cartography soon, I have 3 cities nearing Harbor eligibility).
As for Low End Theory, you are in desperate need of gold! Your income has been near 0 for ages - why not get plantations down at Rodeo and at LET? That would be +4 gold right there, plus the cities could use the tiles to grow. LET really wants to hit size 4 to work the iron, silver, and sugar, with a harbor and campus. Builder from Blueprint to Ilmatic looks good. Everything else looks sensible - possibly swap SFFB to a galley, at least until you have your garrison in place, then once we feel confident in holding the city we can get the harbor out.
Flower Boy will chop the forest hill where my campus pin is. That's why I haven't started a galley (well, I'm actually leaning more towards a Quadrireme) yet.
And yes, of course I'm going to put some plantations down. Maybe I was a little too greedy with production improvements - part of me is still operating with the mindset that 2 production = 8 gold, which is growing less and less true with my abysmal gold balance.
I think one quad to garrison each city, and perhaps a handful more to flank potential attacks in the east only (quads just die against jongs) might be practical, BUT crucially quads cost TWO gold to upkeep but galleys only cost ONE. That means you can have infinite galleys, in theory, with conscription, but quads will be limited by our combined gold - and thus the more quads we field now, the less upgrade gold we have later for caravels or frigates. Again, always about balance.
In general, it's about balance. Production is usually the best currency because it lets you buy the others in greatest abundance. Production can become campuses for science, it can become traders for gold, etc, and it gives returns at much greater rates than trying, I don't know, buy a library for gold would be. But you need all of them! Overemphasizing science early, for example, will lead to you unlocking techs faster than you have the production to use what you're unlocking - high science but low production makes it especially hard to get districts down, for example, ebcause district cost is based on techs completed. Overemphasizing production...is actually hard to do. But if you've built too many buildings and are losing gold even with a skeleton military, well, that's a time.
S tier: production. Becomes anything.
A tier: Faith IF you have a plan to use it. Science. Always useful.
B tier: Gold. Culture. More is better, gives you more flexibility. Not crippling if you fall behind.
C tier: Faith if you have no plan. Diplomatic favor. The WC is too random and favor too arcane to really build a strategy around it.
D tier: Tourism.
Australia has lots of science and increasing production, inflated thanks to its civilizational abilities. So we need culture and gold. Culture can come, when possible, from monuments in the new cities - that's all I've been using and my culture trails only Sacred Places/Choral Music China and Goddess of Festivals Norway. Gold must come from harbors or, not likely, commercial hubs. Unfortunately, due to the present military emergency, we can't get harbors for Australia out yet. BUT once the threat is passed, if Australia can get
1)Harbors + lighthouses for international trade routes
2)Work Ethic holy sites for internal production
I think you'll be all set to grow. The base will be in place. In this case, international trade might be a necessity in order to support the economy - you can make a lot more gold and, hopefully, science and culture, trading with Russia than you can based on internal routes, and there's lots of policies that can boost international trade to make it more worth our while. Because it takes so long to build things, in general, try to anticipate what your next need will be well in advance. For example, Australia has finished a bunch of settlers, which will be fantastic down the road - IF we can hold the cities. so, next need? Military. How do you know you have enough military? Eh, I generally evaluate other's military score and gold incomes, with a bit of knowledge of the tech tree, to predict what's enough. I set targets.
Once we finish military, what will come next? Well, we've gotta pay for it somehow, so harbors, gold improvements, etc. will likely be needed. And by that point we'll be ready to improve our science with libraries, universities, and new campuses, on it goes.
No turn today. Archduke held the save. Guess he's doing stuff for Easter. Hopefully it'll be there in the morning before work...but we lose a whole day because suboptimal can't play in the mornings. Bah.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Classical Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the great mountainous island of Novaya Zemyla. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
The wind passed over the sea, where a great fleet of ships labored southwards. Their oars beat the water, until the wind swelled their sails, carrying the beating sound of the drums up and beyond the fleet.
It lifted and tousled the robes and skirts of the people huddled on the ships - men, women, and even children. The mothers held their infants close, glancing with furrowed brows and anxious eyes back at the island slipping over the horizon - once to be their home, now too close to their enemies for safety. The navigators and captains scanned the blue horizon ahead, seeking the first sight of land and security. The wind swirled around them and pressed on.
It passed by an island, its snowy trees glinting in the sunlight, the cool waters lapping around the docks and piers of a bustling village:
It raced and played along great foundation stones, dropping into the water, wrestled into place by men lifting their voices in hymn. The hymn was carried on the wind, echoing around dozens of small boats, their nets bursting with fish, sailing to and from the docks - even over great oared warships, their decks lined with grim-faced soldiers clutching great bows of yew and sinew.
The wind skipped with the water, whipping the waves and driving them in great beats against the foundation stones, as the ring of rock gradually grew higher and higher, the men urged on by others in gaudy, embroidered robes, leading the hymn. The chill ocean, the warm sun, the smell of fish, the songs of the newly converted - peace and industry.
The wind left Mikasa and flew on, along the coast. It passed by great craggy mountains, looming over the waves, and eventually over the horizon slid the towers and spires of a great city:
The wind danced around a lighthouse, its beams flashing out over the ocean, and dove to soar at waveheight, up towards the docks. The docks and piers, miles and miles of wood and rope and tar and humanity, spilled along the water and up the great river next to the city, alive with fishermen and traders, soldiers and diplomats, their voices mingling to a dull roar. And above, through the early autumn snows descending on the busy streets, the domes and spires of the great capital of Borodino.
The wind dove ashore, over the quiet quadrangles and quaint buildings of the University of Borodino. It spun and wove through the trees and parks on the outskirts of the city, and over the stone walls, and down to the harbor side, where it found a small boat - sleek and long, its tall mast even then being stowed alongside - pulling into a quiet, unobtrusive pier.
A man leapt off the boat and hurried ashore. He moved urgently, anxiously, but in control, casting glances about him, seeking the quickest way forward, but not racing. He hurried through the busy dockside district, past row after row of ship hulls, growing and taking shape like a tree surging from a sapling to an oak. He ducked past stevedores and construction workers, over the constant sound of sawing, hammering, and swearing, as galley after galley slid down the ways to join the growing Imperial Russian Navy.
The man passed under the great stone gates to the city proper, and past the ramshackle wooden tenements near the walls. Though the sun was warm on his back, a light dusting of snow covered the streets - another tundra storm brought in from the vast chill lands to the south. He came to the great palace itself, soaring arches and domes, minarets and spirals reaching for the heavens, and past the many galleries and arcades and courtyards and receiving rooms until he came into a quiet room in a sun-drenched, small little courtyard far from any traffic or prying eyes. He opened the little wooden door, slid it closed behind him, and wound through dusty and narrow stone hallways until he came to an office, with little more than a desk, a lamp, and mountains upon mountains of papyrus. He reached into the pouch he carried, removed a leather tube, and slid that onto the desk.
Sitting at the desk was a man, old, grey, hooded and cloaked even this deep into the palace. A weathered beard protruded from the hood, and within was the glint of eyes alive with intelligence. An ancient, gnarled hand reached out and grasped the tube - a twist and it was open. The man withdrew the parchment from inside and glanced only over the first words written:
Jongs. They come.
----
Yes, friends, the Jongening is upon us! Gitarja finished a civic, her and Qin Shi Huang's treasuries vanished overnight, and suboptimal's era score spiked by 6 points. Russian intelligence is confident that we have not only pinpointed the total number of jongs, but where they are and when they will arrive. More on that at the end of the report, let's resolve everything else first.
First, we start the turn at Mikasa, which has finished its quadrireme. The city has at last converted to Fine Weather, High Waves, and production tripled overnight from 5/turn to 15/turn. We start on walls, which will take only 2 turns to complete, finishing just as we swap off Limes in 2 turns. That will make the city fairly secure against quadriremes and longships, with a small fleet in support. At 15 hammers/turn it can produce about 4 galleys every 10 turns, which will make it tough for Norway and Phoenicia to sustain a long-term assault on the city with their bases so far away. The city will finish walls and then begin ship production, desperately as I want a granary.
At Borodino, the lighthouse finishes:
It produces effectively 54 hammers every turn towards 65 cost galleys, letting it get out something like 3 every 4 turns. This is the economic heart of the empire and the cornerstone of our growing naval strength. It will be put on ships until the crisis is past. I'd like eventually an aqueduct and then to grow to size 10 for the industrial zone. For now, though, ships, and probably frigates in the future, niter allowing.
Navarin finishes its lavra and is declared Activated, the same turn as Mikasa:
Production spikes from 8 per turn to 22, and it quickly begins a granary. I also put the city back on growth configuration. Reaching size 4 quickly is essential, so that it can build its harbor and take its place as a contributing shipbuilding center. Until then, basics - granary, monument, then either a shrine or a builder.
Petropavlosk has its lavra chopped:
That cuts the build from 17 turns to 4. The only issue here now is conversion. I can't get the damned religious interface to give me a straight answer on when it will convert to FWHW:
The reason this is an issue is city growth. Right now I have it at minimum, duh - work the high production amber tile to get the lavra done as quickly as possible AND to convert as quickly as possible. But I also have a new trader to place, and I'd seriously like to position it here to start rapid growth to size 4 and the harbor. But if I do a trader, will the city grow before it converts? If it does, like at Imperator Aleksandr, conversion will be seriously delayed and the attendant benefits of Work Ethic.
Well, what the hell. Maybe it'll update next turn. I can afford the trader because:
I am one turn from being able to afford my next settler. But Magnus is 2 turns from establishing at Oslyabya, so I have one turn's worth of income to play with. Coincidentially, you'll note, a trader is one turn's worth of faith income for me. So I can afford this without diverting faith from the all-important continuing snowball. I'd LOVE to have placed this settler and the apostle-settler (the faith I spent on DoF) on the central island south of Shikishima, but at the time I thought that it was impossible to hold. So I'll go for the tundra areas southeast of the starting area instead.
Anyway, long story short, I buy a trader in Petropavlosk to try and jumpstart the city. Hopefully it won't grow the city faster than I can convert it.
On the island, I start to pull out my sword. We will try to evacuate him to the southeast, to Australia. If I can, great, if not, at least he soaked up some fire and bought us some time until Frigates. The rest of the fleet is pulling south of Point Luck. We will defend Mikasa and Knyaz Suvurov from there.
Overview of the east:
No changes. Once Oslyabya gets out 5 galleys I think I shall take Yerevan, because others are dumping envoys into it AND most annoyingly it cuts off sea passage from Australia. If not for that, I might consider leaving Yerevan to boost my lavras, as I have been. With the cut off, though, it has to be under Russian control. So we'll kill it in ~8 turns, then sail to reinforce Australia.
Overview of the west:
No surprises.
------------
So let's discuss the jongs.
This turn is why I take 5 minutes every turn to quickly jot down everyone's scores, science/culture/faith/gold/military scores, and their resources. Most of the time it doesn't tell you too much beyond "X and Y are battling" but when you have consistent turn-by-turn information you sometimes get turns like this.
As noted, score tracking reveals an Indonesian era score spike of 6 points, coupled with a civic completing. That on its own is suggestive but not conclusive, however, China and Indonesia's combined gold reserves both vanished on the interturn. Roland was consistently making 46 gold per turn, so he SHOULD have started the turn with ~346 gold. Instead he's at 105. Where did the other 240 go? Probably to Sub. Sub should have started the turn with ~675 gold, but instead is at 192. 475 gold missing. So he spent about 720 gold, between his own reserves and Roland's. Jong upgrades come to 185 each, so 720 gold gets you...not quite 4. Wait, that's only 555 gold, so what did he spend the other 165 on??
Well...
He's missing some iron. In fact, he's missing about 30 iron, or...3 swords' worth. 3 sword upgrades is, uh, 165 gold.
...wait, what!?
This rant became really long, so spoilered for length:
He's coming at me with four Jongs!? And he can't even upgrade all 4 on the same turn??? I've been preparing like mad for a BEST-CASE attack by 6. Instead, suboptimal not only can't even muster that much, but he squanders fully 20% of his possible force on...swords? The hell are swords gonna do, man? Jongs are your killer app! Anything in range of the coast, you take! Anything outside of the range, you ignore - three whole swords certainly aren't going to do much!
I'm sorry, guys, but this is a catastrophic blunder by rolandoptimal. They have two real advantages over other teams: Roland's ability to build wonders for the price of a builder, and suboptimal's full-era-in-advance frigate, supplemented with some things like extra builder charges, faith-purchasing naval units, kampungs, etc. And so far, they've...well, Roland seems to be chasing wonders without much of a gameplan in mind beyond "wonders are cool." Note his Petra city - he built great wall improvements on Petra desert hills, preferring to stack more culture over production in that city. The only military smaller than Roland's in the entire game is, er, marco's, but Australia has financial difficulties and a bit of a blundered opening as an excuse. He's fixing it and is growing and learning. Does...does Roland even know he's made a mistake?
And as for suboptimal...This is what he does every time. He's half-assed a navy and half-assed monumentality, so he got 4 kinda crappy cities on the island, nothing on his mainland (he has more cities on Sakhilin than he does on his starting continent! Is it all a tundra-ridden wasteland like mine? Or...is he doing his baffling habit of refusing to settle productive land again?), and a pathetically small contingent of jongs.
Let me say again: this is catastrophic for that team. Their BEST chance to win the game was to build a force of (resource-free!) jongs and conquer a neighbor with it. Now, the best prospect for conquest would be either of the two lagging teams on either flank, of course - Woden has only longships and not even that many (although, as we've seen, he could 100% swarm a small force of jongs to death, even better than I could, with his production bonus, combat strength, and best of all, ocean maneuvering to let him truly swarm.), and if they hit them while that team was busy with the Central Powers or launching hare-brained attacks on us across the map they'd have a decent enough prospect. But we're the bigger threat to win the game, so, fine, fair enough. I sort of expected this ever since I triggered the "3 more cities than anyone else!" era score, which was a bit of an alarm.
But even if you attacked Woden or me or Kaiser, you can't expect to just show up with a token jong or two and expect us to fold, man! You need force! You're squandering your best shot to win the game by half-assing like FOUR total jongs and expecting to sweep all before you! Unique units aren't "I win" buttons, my guy, they're assets and you still need to use them to win. Jongs are tough customers but by no means invincible, and shit, I think Russia could handle this attack singlehanded. Australia will probably be able to hold him off provided Marco is disciplined about sticking to galleys in his dockside cities.
EVEN IF we weren't prepared and sub captured, say, Rodeo, and sank the Russian navy near Shikishima in a first strike (God, I hope sub is hoping to do that. He'll be disappointed when he finds both cities entirely deserted of defenders.*), how on earth would 4 jongs make enough progress to, say, knock Australia out before every other team hits Frigates? What's suboptimal's plan once everyone else gets frigates? Does he HAVE one? What's roland's plan to win the game? When will China bestir itself? Does he have one?
Sub: Never half-ass two things. Whole ass one thing.
notice that I whole-assed monumentality expansion, until the security situation freaked me out. Now I'm whole-assing defense until that's safe. Then I'll either whole-ass GMC conquest or another round of whole-ass monumentality before whole-assing some other conquest. FOCUS. Multiplayer is not single player! The AIs are terrible so you can fuck around and try to build nice pretty sandbox build queues, but against human beings you have to assume they are trying just as hard to win as you, and unless you use something you have that they don't (Lavras, cothons, breathtaking adjacencies, etc.), then you will not win.
I'm spoilering this entire rant because HOLY SHIT this is one of the clumsiest things I've ever seen in multiplayer Civ.
We even know where the 3 jongs (oooh, so scary) are:
Three water tiles at his capital. The only other water tiles visible in the entire Indonesian empire (y'know, the civ that gets bonuses for settling on coasts, has good coastal adjacencies, and has a UI that can only be built on coast) are at the conquered city state far in the northeast. Wanna bet there's three jongs sitting in those exact 3 spots right now, with maybe 2 quads waiting around to get upgraded?
Jongs should have 6 movement with mathematics, and I don't think he has any Great Admirals (again, refusing to build harbors...in a shipbuilding game with a shipbuilding civ. This is like a case study in lunacy), so I plot out their likely movement:
We'll get Ovid to give us some confirmation next turn. I can expect an attack on turn 100, maybe 99 if I miscounted. Finishing the walls will be CLOSE. It won't save the city but it will buy me another turn, and at least I can sting something a little bit and make it heal.
Here's where the Russian forces are on the eve of war. The main fleet is concentrating at Point Luck:
From there, as noted, I can swing south to defend Mikasa from Dido/Norway, north to hold off all four! jongs, or swing east to reinforce at Rodeo if Marco can survive for a few turns on his own. I don't like my prospects attacking north, even with only 4 jongs - in the narrow passages around Shikishima he can slaughter my guys all day. No, regrettably, those cities are lost.
The army is concentrating on the coast near Mikasa:
My archers would get slaughtered by jongs and wouldn't do much in return, but can cheerfully blast quads, biremes, and longships, so they'll defend there. The warriors are there in support to flex either north or west as I deem fit. I have vague ambitions of sending my settler over the sea to the tundra isle, shared with Phoenicia, but need to make sure I have the ships to escort him first.
My only other assets are the quad healing in Oslyabya and a galley finishing a circumnavigation and heading to join the eastern defense fleet of Australia. He might join in the attack on Yerevan first ca. t104.
I'm in almost disbelief. If we could get peace with Dido/Harald we have a chance to ambush and sink the Indonesian navy, since sub is clearly overconfident. I'd love to lure him in to Ilmatic or Borodino and then spring a trap with all my galleys, but I can't do that while I also have to fight the other two.
Kaiser rejected an offered DoF, because of course he did. I'll offer peace to the other two next turn, not expecting much, but sometimes life has pleasant surprises.
*had I known the lunatic was only going to come at me with 4 jongs I probably would have tried to defend north of Shikishima. Oh, well, I always assume my opponents are more competent than they are.
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Guess he's doing stuff for Easter. Hopefully it'll be there in the morning before work...but we lose a whole day because suboptimal can't play in the mornings. Bah.
