Quote:Chevalier, you really do have a gift when it comes to writing. I loved the tribute to Robert Jordan, you were reasonably close to his writing style (I've spent thousands of hours reading or listening to the Wheel of Time audiobooks and it's not easy to imitate without turning into a parody). I would comment further if I weren't heavily spoilered on this game - loving the detailed reports! ![[Image: thumbsup.gif]](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif)
Thank you for your kind words! Honestly I only got into Wheel of Time because Sanderson finished it, and A Memory of Light was everything I wanted (I LOVE fantasy novels with over 150 pages of just detailed, tactical battle where you can follow the ebb and flow of the fight, you know who's where, doing what, but also full of images of fighting and it all makes sense - not many like that), but now when I reread I find myself liking Jordan's portions a lot more than Sanderson's. I wanted to try and get as close to the tone as I could.
Obviously, I can only do normal turn reports for a few weeks or so before I get bored and need to change things up to challenge myself. Hence why I do pastiches of other writers or reports entirely in verse or that one time I made a video.
Anyway, thanks for keeping the lurker thread active! I'm a little sad that the Civ VI lurking community isn't as lively as the IV one, because I love reading the comments from the peanut gallery. Can't wait to get into this lurker thread after the game is done.
ON WITH THE TURN:
Turn 98
The new launcher has absolutely borked FRAPS, so I upgrade to Bandicam after some battling with the start of the turn. So no capture of the countdown, but 2 turns remain until the Medieval Era. I'm thinking to take Monumentality again - I debated the one that gave me culture for districts, saving my faith for Grand Master's Chapel attacks, but ultimately concluded the snowballing possibilities with Magnus and Monumentality settlers are too great to pass up. I WOULD blow Chinese culture out of the water, though, if I tried, since I have districts complete in every single city.
We continue our slow exodus south. The settler will be at Point Luck on turn 99, which I expect is the turn suboptimal will declare war up at Shikishima. We'll safely escape to the mainland, where my plan is to use the refugees eventually to establish a tundra city on the far side of the bay near Mikasa.
Borodino finishes a 1-turn galley (I guess overflow from the lighthouse? I dunno) and immediately starts a 2-turn galley:
My military score has risen to 434, not counting the latest two galleys, which actually pushes us to 494. The really concerning thing is that Woden, ljubljana, and Archduke have all continued frantic ship production and now boast scores of 364 (up 90 points from last round - 3 longships intended for a Russian attack? Are they trying to move in concert with sub?), 602 (consistent 11-10 point improvements minimum since turn 87, up from 308 at that time), and 443 (up from a low of 265 on turn 93, roughly the time that they made peace). I'm starting to seriously worry that I'm facing a 3 vs 1 here, which I think is a bit unfair - Ljubljana has expanded just as much as I have, has built more ships than I have, and has just as high research as I have, so why should Archduke sign a DoF with HIM and not with ME? Especially since I'm facing jongs.
We haven't hurt anyone this game, bah.
Well, they won't get me with galleys, and I can build frigates better than any one team, so hopefully we can break apart this baffling Russophobic coalition.
Down south, Oryol finishes the campus:
I decide a library is the best investment of the available choices of granary, monument, walls, or units. Walls are obviously idiotic since no one will ever invade here before the end of the game, builder needs are presently being covered by the smaller cities to the east, and while I would love to reinforce culture (since Marco and I have the net lowest culture in the game - Australia should have the opportunity to build monuments right after this war, hopefully) or growth, I don't need more pop for a little bit since I just hit size 4. A library speeds me on the road to Caravels more than any other build, which is the best way this city has of contributing militarily at the moment. It will also bump up Great Scientist points to the highest generation in the game, and I really, REALLY want Hildegaard in the medieval era - she'd be worth an astonishing
+16 science at Petropavlosk, a +25% gain over current rates!
I will even faith snipe her again, if it comes to that.
Onwards to the colonies, where my sword is evacuating:
I realized this turn that I made an error with my Jong Prediction Pins, since suboptimal of course moves after me, he should reach the turn 98 pin on turn
97, meaning he'll be in position to attack on turn
99, not turn 100.
That's a bit disappointing, since it's 1 turn before walls finish, but if he doesn't have a galley ready to take the city on taht turn I should get walls up anyway and get a free shot. Actually, shit, this might be my only shot since if I finished them beforehand he'd just wipe out the walls before I got a chance to fire. So even though the city will certainly fall on 99 or 100, this way I might get a chance to do a little bit of damage first. Neato!
I'm really, really tempted to go with Ovid and see if my prediction of the Jongs' location was correct, but I decide that if suboptimal thinks he has the element of surprise, it's better not to disillusion him. I fumble around with Ovid instead and let sub think he has one more turn, possibly, before I "realize" I'm under attack. Lurkers can see the pins above and judge for themselves if I was right, if I see jongs on my turn 99 (now turn 98) pin I'll assume I was always correct:
I also park Ovid in what I assume is the most obnoxious square possible, unless sub wants to declare war a turn early. He really should, he loses nothing by it, but I know he hates altering plans once he's set them so maybe he'll still delay, which would be a hilarious use of a great writer.
Over on the western front:
The quad heads out to escort in my second archer, which will take station on the island. My criticism of Woden last round also twigged me to a good use of my warriors - garrisoning Mikasa's vulnerable coastal improvements against raids, duh. I reposition them. I will keep my fleet hovering here, between Point Luck and Mikasa, and will need to decide how to commit if I face simultaneous attack. The priority is Rodeo, not Mikasa, which is an acceptable loss and can keep itself safe besides. But maybe I can get reinforcements here more quickly...
After much waffling, I move the trader out of Petropavlosk. It'll just grow too fast if I run the trade route, and I'll lose Work Ethic for a bit. Better to delay, and run my NEXT trader here to grow to size 4. Instead, I much more sensibly move it to Navarin:
Between that and some tile cannibalism, Navarin is going to be eligble for a harbor in 6 turns, on turn 104. That will be 185 hammers at that time, which is about an 8-turn build, so I can get ships out of here as soon as turn 112! In essence, Woden and ljubljana have 14 turns to get here, overwhelm the 2 archers, 1 quad, walls, and several galleys, before they have to deal with Mikasa AND Navarin spitting out 2-turn galleys. 1000 combined milscore or no, they just wont' be able to get the hulls here to beat me at that point.
So the west is pretty solid. How about the East?
A LOT of Japanese sniffing around, a bad sign for 12 turns from now. We have 3 cities to defend the outpost of SFFB:
Oslyabya and MBDTF can both get out galleys and quads incredibly rapidly, between Work Ethic and Marco's bonus. MBDTF is excellent even before conversion, but within ~8 turns marco should have the missionary over here to convert it and pick up an instant +9 hammers (+18 once you can run scripture! Beeline there after you get Monarchy!). This front is more distant from Phoenicia and Norway, but by no means inaccessible, and there's a remote chance they'd try an assault on both wings at once. More likely, though, is England and Japan descending on Australia - why else is Archduke building ships and rejecting my friendships? What's he going to do with them, attack suboptimal? (actually, they could easily take that northeast city-state...ah well). I think the narrow terrain around SFFB favors us, though. We can pack in galleys and replace them faster than they can be sunk, especially with no jong spearheads.
In 8 turns I will use Oslyabya's new navy to seize Yerevan. I will also faith purchase a settler next turn, settle Dmitrii Donskoi, and chop out a lavra. All three lavra-fueled shipyards will then begin galley production to support Marco. Those ships will be operationally entirely his. I will focus on the west and northwest.
Here's the main danger to Australia:
Marco, it looks like you sent your fresh galley east, but I think it'd be better served going
west to Rodeo. It's a long sail to SFFB and we have jongs capable of reaching Rodeo in
3 turns if Suboptimal rushes past my cities and goes for it. I don't think he'll do that but the bottom line is we have <10 turns to get defenses in place at Rodeo. Let SFFB depend on the other cities for support - Rodeo is much more important.
While I'm in Australia, Marco has two settlers out, so I pin what I think the two cities on the peninsula should be:
Both would get crazy adjacencies from their holy sites which would solve all production problems in this barren terrain. To get them up, there are 3 forests available to chop - the early finish on the holy sites will more than repay the cost of giving up the forests. It'd be worth waiting for Magnus to do the chops, though, since Magnus gives half a district instead of only 1/3 of one. Food can come from the sea, like in Russia. Basically, these would be Russian cities, and I think you can see how effective those are turning out to be!
Once we have the galleys to defend the cities, we can settle them.
News abroad. Kaiser finished the Ancestral Hall, so we can expect him to finally expand off 5 cities:
He has almost no pop in his 5 cities, too. Entirely dependent on those powerful adjacencies but he won't be building many frigates with that empire.
Ljubljana is playing Phoenicia right:
He has lots of 8 or 10 adjacency Cothons, I wager, and each one is giving him gold (50 gpt) and research. The good news is Russia is keeping pace in research and expansion even without gimmicks like that, and unlike ljubljana I have way more faith and, I bet, more production. My pop is also significantly higher. But ljubljana is doing well - he's leveraging the Cothons into a huge fleet, a massive wave of expansion (he is second only to Russia in city count, and will move into first soon when I lose the colonies), and has state of the art of research alongside Japan and Russia. Unlike my scathing remarks on suboptimal, roland, and Woden, I think ljub is doing a fine job.
In the excitement of jongs I forgot to report Roland finished Mahabodi and evangelized:
Wats is a good pick and one I probably would have taken myself. But he once again wasted a ton of era score (he's overshot the mark by about 20 points!), while I'm going to save my second apostle for hte era flip. I will likely take Meeting Houses as a consolation prize, though Woden will get his religion soon and might take those (taht would be dumb, since he would then ahve to build an absurd amount of holy sites and expensive shrines and temples to make use of it - never be worth it), with Stupas as a backup.
Here is the Indonesian "island" empire, to reinforce my points from yesterday:
No coastal cities, no coastal districts, at a time when he has the premier naval unit in the game. There's no helping some people.
Anyway, after he takes Shikishima, sub will face a choice - either commit to the east, against Australia, or go right for the jugular and lunge south at Russia:
Now, if -I- were sub, I'd first of all have brought about 6 more jongs. But I'd go south while I have the advantage - I want to get to Russia's core and burn as much of it as I can before he can get to Frigates. Australia won't last long without Russian support, but Russia can fight me hard even if I take out some outlying Australian cities. So figure sub will come south: This is designated Case Luck.
But he might go for the nearby Rodeo instead, which looks tempting. He would have easier initial gains here, but long-term this would probably be a weaker choice. However, we have to honor the threat. I have designated this scenario Case Matilda. Point Matilda is where I think the strategic defense of Australia should rest - spam galleys in that area, Marco, and you can hold sub away from Rodeo long enough for the Russian navy to reposition. Then he'll never get anywhere. But you need the initial forces in place - if we lose Rodeo, sub will split us in half and Ilmatic will be entirely dependent upon its own galley production for defense.
That wouldn't be
fatal but we'd have to launch aggressive attacks on Sub's rear near Rodeo, so he could only divert two jongs or so to the "offensive" against Ilmatic. But recapturing Rodeo would be extremely difficult before Frigates, and it'd be a base for Indonesian upgrades and faith purchases. Sub has 50 fpt so we can expect a new jong every 12 turns or so (600 faith), hsi income is 16 gold per turn, but Roland's is 45, so combined 60 - that's a new upgrade for his quads every 3 turns or so.
I think I've exhausted my material for the day, so here's the daily overviews:
Sevastopol finished a builder, which created fishing nets to speed up size 4. The next builder is intended to work on the Feudalism boost - I need 4 farms for Feudalism. Right now, though, I'm chasing Mercenaries, so I will get an archer out of Navarin (to help with defense and inspire Machinery), then I just need 2 more units. Chariots are 3 turn builds, so I will need to start a pair soon. Then they can become knights later and buff city defense.
West:
Note that Navarin's growth is out of date.
Australia:
![[Image: KInBRcO.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/KInBRcO.jpg)