[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[williams482]

AA Guns cost 455h, a roughly 10 turn build in our stronger production cities without the production discount in place. There's no card on those until Class Struggle, AKA never. We do have a smattering of chops left, and two builder charges that we can save for them. Penguins has the most, assuming we aren't clinging to preposterous hopes of chopping out Statue of Liberty there in 90 turns or so. I'll move Magnus next turn in preparation to chop out our first AA gun, probably to there.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If we could get 3 out, and preserve some semblence of an army until then, we could station them at Blackhawks (ha) if we hold it that long, or behind the river at Blues. That SHOULD give us a bubble of immunity to aircraft, so if Ichabod was relying on them then he might find himself stalled. What's the range on AA? I've literally never built one because I've never seen an AI plane, ever.

It's a fun puzzle to figure out how to stop, though! Boy it must have sucked to fight Americans in WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

[williams482]

Turn 245:

An English rock band looks on at the Phoenician soldiers who have so brazenly pushed through this crack in the Canadian border towards the English heartlands. If not for the three turns left on our DoF, this would be terrifying. As is, only Woden's curious disinterest in moving military units within our borders leaves lingering doubts about his real target.



Penguins has completed it's supply convoy, which moves up to the front where it can provide bonus movement to two artillery and three cavs next turn, as desired. We start a Field Cannon, due in 4 turns as expected. John Lamarr has repaired it's aqueduct, otherwise there is no change to Brazil's deployment near Blackhawks. Outside Belém, however, things look just a little bit busier:



The observation balloon is now a drone, and there are now two supply convoys, an additional artillery army, another spec ops, and an AT crew (although the AT crew army previously visible has vanished). The gossip screen reveals that Ichabod and Suboptimal made a trade both this turn and last. Suboptimal has completed Combined Arms and promoted three destroyers, although bizarrely only one takes Embolon (the others pick Helmsman and Rutter). I suspect the two of them are coordinating a response to Woden's attack, although of course we will continue to prepare for the worst. This could get interesting.

Oh, and a "significant blizzard" decided to show up and pillage our lumbermill at Capitals, with designs on further destruction for "the next two turns." I'm not sure if that includes this turn or not, probably not. Awesome.



Penguins does appear to be the best of our cities with significant chops remaining, so Magnus heads over there to help out building AA Guns. If Brazil turns on Woden instead of us I'll save the chops and crank out 3-4 of them the hard way, 11 turn builds in most of our core cities. They cover their own tile plus all adjacent tiles, so we'd need a lot of them to get full coverage over a real carpet, but with a little repositioning three would cover our whole defense force. I don't know much about air combat in this game, so I'm not sure if overlapping air defense is beneficial. I guess I'll have to do some research.

Our Builder scampers down towards Capitals to enact repairs. The storm is going to head in that direction, so if it kills the unit I'll feel a right idiot, but I have no idea how far that storm could reasonably go or where would actually be safe so I dunno what else to do.

Suboptimal has at least one AA gun of his own, plus a fighter, but still not a whole lot as far as ground units. I guess we'll see how much help that can offer.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 246:

Woden has not declared because his alliance with England technically has not expired yet, presumably that will happen next turn. If it doesn't, I'm the target, and will need to rapidly reposition my troops from the Brazilian front. I must admit though, the force Woden has so brazenly pushed up next to the English border is fairly underwhelming:



All told, that's 856 milpower (counting the field cannon). A significant force, especially with the aircraft present, but only 15% of Woden's military. If that were all he planned to bring, I'm very confident the current Canadian military would be able to stop him from making serious gains in England. Clearly he has more troops somewhere, and railroads make rapid transit much easier, but why keep so many of them so far back that even we can't see them, and why be so obvious about showing Suboptimal that you're in position to attack him? Something doesn't smell right here.

Is this an attempt at deception, somehow? Is Woden just trying to guarantee that Suboptimal will be cowed into granting a DoF (which from what I know of Suboptimal, he was probably going to accept anyway), then planning to turn on us? Or is he perhaps trying to bait an attack from Ichabod by assaulting England with a token force, planning to crush the Brazilian military on a counterattack and push forward into their cities with his real army? Next turn should prove illustrative.

That bloody blizzard seems determined to wreck my Tank build timing at Red Wings:



After repairing the lumber mill, that tank is still 6 turns out. It needs to be done in 3 or the price will jump back up to full. A cav would take 7 turns, any other units even longer, so switching off to another unit doesn't help anything. Repairing the niter mine next turn will only shave off one turn, and no other tiles can be repaired quickly enough to fix the ETA. That means investing hammers into units is of minimal value right now, and I'm better off repairing the snow-pillaged shipyard to restore our maximum productive capabilities as soon as possible. Ugh. We start on that, due in 5 but likely to finish in 4 with repairs.

Much to my surprise, Phoenicia claiming Great General Marina Raskova has granted us access to John Montash. That renders the six turns spent on a supply convoy rather wasteful, but we will certainly take it.



Also of note, we are actually going to need to delay Advanced Ballistics by a turn to complete a cheap and discounted field cannon at Penguins, lest it be upgraded in queue to a much more expensive machine gun that we cannot finish before the world congress rolls over. Or, maybe we just don't bother? So many of our builds are timed to complete in three turns, simultaneous with the current schedule for Advanced Ballistics, and being able to go right into AA guns (overflow and all) would be very nice. I can swap Penguins over to a cav, which would also take 3 turns. Yeah, that's a better idea. We need those AA guns stat, delaying them to get out a field cannon is just silly. At current production Penguins would waste a fair amount of overflow off that cav, so I micro to pick up an extra gold, cutting a turn off the artillery build in Stars in the process.

Our tank fresh off the Assembly line at Blackhawks takes a detour into former Egypt, spotting another 87 Phoenician milpower in the general vicinity of the front, and an English Rock Band fresh off what I can only assume will be it's final concert at Big Ben.

The Brazilian deployment at Belém appears unchanged.

Scores:

[williams482]

If I were smarter, I would have redeployed the Blackhawks defense force to Kings this turn. Woden has probably made up his mind about what he plans to do, but those undefended Canadian cities must look pretty appetizing, and showing our full strength and readiness has to make it a little less likely that he changes course and comes after us.

Oh well. We'll find out next turn if we're about to get crushed, and probably 10 turns later Woden's thread will reveal how much that decision cost us.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

A significant portion of Woden's strength is probably in his navy and air force. The navy could hit most English cities and he might be relying on his bombers paving the way for a few tanks to take sub's inland cities. That way he keeps most of his strength held back against a Brazilian invasion.

[williams482]

Turn 247:

Very important turn here. What is Woden up to?




Uhh, wow.

Suboptimal had the first strike and took it, but whatever damage he was able to do was nothing near what was necessary to save himself. Woden, in return, dropped at least three nukes and captured four cities, liberating former Yerevan and Geneva, burning Howard and Smiler to the ground. I clearly massively underestimated the amount of air power Woden could bring to bear all at once here, and with Suboptimal so woefully unprepared the results are devastating. Army or no army, our cities would have fallen even more easily, and still might if Ichabod doesn't post his inevitable surrender fast enough, because all of England will be smoldering ruins within five turns.

Speaking of, Ichabod offered us a DoF. I don't really want to be Woden's next target, but I don't think a DoF with ichabod is likely to change his thinking in either direction, and my hope is that Ichabod just wants to feel secure about his flank before attempting a decapitation strike on Woden. One helpful piece of information: I know Woden is running a gold deficit because I cannot ask for GPT in trade. Our DoF expires in two turns, and I'll have a whole bunch of trade routes freed up when Foggy Dewhurst falls some time in the very near future. The absolute best case scenario for us, assuming Ichabod neither takes decisive military action nor surrenders outright, is to survive as an impotent rump state for Woden to send foreign trade routes too so he can prop up his economy while shredding the Brazilian defense until they surrender. To the best of my knowledge Woden has no reason to hold a grudge against us (he at this time should be totally oblivious of the scorn we have shown for some of his city naming choices) and plenty of reason to want to get back at Ichabod, so there's a possibility he might accept an economic alliance to boost those trade routes. We also don't care about trying to score a cultural alliance, because Woden is burning cities instead of capturing them to avoid English culture flips, and we can probably settle the former Smiler location (once christened Lightning on our ancient pinmaps, and now again) to help reinforce Wild and Bruins in the unlikely event that that loyalty specifically becomes a problem.

So this paragraph started with Ichabod offering a DoF, and ends with the conclusion that I should send Woden an economic alliance. I have done so. Regarding the DoF I think I'll take that too. Woden should recognize that I am not a genuine danger to him regardless of where my loyalties lie, and if Ichabod takes the DoF as sufficient cause to attack, perfect. I accept.

Wild has completed it's tank and resumes the University, due in 5. Kings drops it's scientist specialists for a desert mine and the rice to get the cav build down to the necessary two turns, I'll likely reverse that next turn. The Red Wings builder repairs a niter mine, cutting the Shipyard repair time down to 3 turns. With peace assured on the Brazilian front, and a definite incentive to look at least a teensy bit prickly on the other side of our empire, I redeploy the Canadian Defense Force:



This is not a very good deployment, and I know it. Unfortunately with Woden's air strike capabilities and the lack of static defenses, this amorphous blob with the strongest units up front and the ranged units behind, with as many as possible enveloped beneath our Great General's aura of military wisdom, is the best we can hope to do. It's true purpose is to communicate to Woden that we are prepared and will fight him, however impotently, if he chooses to attack us. We're scrawny, not much meat on these bones. Not worth the bother, no siree.

If woden refuses the alliance but does not immediately attack, this force will pull back and plan to hold the line at Blues. Wild, Bruins, and Kings are totally indefensible against this kind of attack, and I don't want to lose my army to the opening salvo of nuclear strikes I anticipate whenever Woden deigns to turn on us. Blues, at least, has static defenses set up in helpful locations, and a mountain chain cordoning off one side. If there's a relevant ground battle to be waged, it will happen there.

We have two envoys, and they go directly into Yerevan and Geneva. I reassign Amani to Geneva, and move Reyna into Bruins to cover for the loyalty penalty from starvation, which without a governor would put Bruins in the red. That penalty will go away once the tank is complete, but the food deficit is sadly necessary to get that unit out before the wold congress turns over again.

The era will almost certainly roll in 12 turns. There is almost no chance we could reach normalcy in that time, although I admit I haven't really looked. I think there is almost no chance we are still playing the game at that time, though, so I don't care. In an absolute worst case, running B&C projects at Wild and Bruins will keep them at normal era loyalty, and the 20 loyalty bursts will allow a margin for the occasional other project.

I would be moving my lesser units in for a closer look, but if Woden accidentally nukes one of them that might result in a war declaration. I seem to recall some silliness where the Canadian surprise war immunity actually means you can nuke them without a war declaration, but I don't want to test that here.

Oh, and our spy finished his listening post. I start another one, because why not. Indeed, why not? Because we are now declared friends, and I could try stealing tech boosts instead. Oops. Oh well.

Scores:

[williams482]

It's official: with the (massive) losses Suboptimal has taken this turn, we are now the only civ in this game to have never lost a city, and if Woden does turn on us we'll at least be the last civ to do so. There's a lot of stuff that went into that result which we had nothing to do with, but I'll still take it as plenty of reason to celebrate. 

[Jabah]

I think some (all) of the others are in golden age with the special dedication that allows denounce & war in the same turn.

[williams482]

Jabah got it. Ichabod and Woden are both in Heroic Ages, which makes it overwhelmingly likely that they took the To Arms! dedication as one of their three. That gives +15% production towards military units, but more importantly unlocks a special kind of casus belli that can be used immediately after denouncement and generates fewer grievances. Normally a pretty marginal dedication in multiplayer, but in this game it neutralizes one of our very few useful abilities.

I guess it's possible that Woden didn't take it, but I have to think it looked more appealing than +2 movement to naval/embarked units and free pop in new cities on foreign continents. Unfortunately there's no way for me to know until the end of the game.