Turn 101
Everyone except Norway secured a Golden Age. This catapults Archduke into the research lead, though he has a lot of ground to makeup, and props up Ljubljana's science. The good news, I think, is that with me, Kaiser, Roland, ljublana, and soon enough Marco all researching a renaissance tech the medieval era will be a short one. The two Free Inquiry civs have until then to get some real research infrastructure down or they'll stagnate and grind to a halt. Similarly, Woden is already ages away from anything and will find his longships obsolete within 15 turns. What will he do then, I wonder?
Did I say two FI civs? I meant 3 - Kaiser also opted for Free Inquiry over Monumentality, doubling his Harbor's adjacency for 12 gold/12 science per turn. Not bad. He didn't get a lot of value out of monumentality, I think - no settlers, just builders.
I opt for Monumentality again:
There was an argument to be made for PBV since I have so many districts, it would have taken me up north of 50 culture per turn. The saved faith could be spent on the Grand Master's Chapel. With 2 harbors, also, soon, I could have pushed Free Inquiry at a pinch as well. But with such a high faith income and so much tundra nearby, it'd be insane to NOT leverage that into snowball (literally) expansion as best I can. If I can get peace with ONE SINGLE TEAM I think we can run away with things here.
This turn's ongoing minor fuckery with suboptimal:
Taking inspiration from PBEM18's wars, I anticipated lots of pillaging of my improvements when Sub invaded. So, when I transferred all my tiles to Vladimir Monomakh, I ALSO flipped the camp over to Shikishima. Thus I deny sub a nice little chunk of pillage gold and slow down a jong upgrade by a bit. It's petty and small but it gives me satisfaction to fight back in this way and in messing with him with the Great Writer. The writer is now in an annoying spot up in some woods, where sub will have to divert an entire military unit to root it out.
Speaking of, I think I know more or less sub's entire military. He's got 600 points, ballpark. 220 points in the 4 jongs we know of. A further 144 in swords, now we see TWO heavy chariots, makes for 420 altogether. The remaining 180 - he has 2 quads and 2 galleys we have seen, for 110. That leaves only 70, and I saw a slinger on the island, leaving only 50ish unaccounted for. That's another slinger and a galley, most likely. It's VERY unlikely that he has 2 galleys we havent' seen, but possible.
So the entire Indonesian navy is:
4 jongs
3 galleys
2 quadriremes
against:
12 Russian galleys
3 quadriremes
8 Australian galleys
2 Australian quadrimes = 20 galleys and 5 quads.
Note that sub's 600 points is now outnumbered by Marco and I's combined 815 points. Even throwing in Roland's 200 (still no ships though!
) and the 'attackers' are already outnumbered. FURTHERMORE, note that most of sub's cities are building walls, not units, AND I'm pretty sure that sub finished a district this turn (or grew two pop points...), so this joker is building civvie stuff at home, NOT follow-on jongs. He'll be able to faith purchase one more in 3 turns, bringing him to 5 total, but after that we'll have Frigates on the field before any more jongs show up.
So, yeah, for the 80th time, this attack is doomed.
Have I been unfair to suboptimal? Did he intend an invasion of us at all, or was this just meant to be a quick, punitive strike to secure the central area and he'll offer me peace on turn 109 in return for yielding my two cities? That might be what his play was, and certainly makes more sense than an 'all-out' attack as weak as this, but in THAT case, why did sub build 4 swords and 2 chariots? It's like he intends to land an army somewhere and go for inland cities, he knew he didn't need those to take Vladimir. Did he intend to attack Norway or Kaiser? But no, we know he didn't intend that, because he locked himself into peace into the frigate era (personally, I think that was also a huge blunder by sub - Norway is slipping into irrelvance and Japan desperately needs to expand, not fight a war - both teams *crave* peace, so why offer it to them? [wait a minute, does that mean I SHOULDN'T offer them peace? Hmmm....] At least keep your options open so if this attack (purely hypothetically) were to come to grief outside Rodeo, you could switch gears and descend on Norway).
But maybe the units are just meant as a garrison for Sakhalin. He'll take that, and Novaya Zemyla, and use his jongs to control the seas around the "Indonesian Archipelago" and get lots of kampung cities up with kampungs and coastal districts. That...doesn't explain the non-coastal settles, but it SOUNDS like a suboptimal play for sure. From there he builders his way ahead. If that's his plan, I hate it a -little- less than this invasion, because at least it would make sense of his weird force mix. But I would still hate it, because it totally squanders Indonesia's big sell. I dunno. Can't wait to read suboptimal's planning documents for this attack to see what his mentality was.
Moooore worrisome is Japan:
That bastard Kaiser is gearing up for an attack on Yerevan! This is totally unacceptable! If he takes it, I can't declare war to get it back because of Australia's bonus. I miiiight be able to loyalty flip it from Oslyabya - it's an iceball with no value to Japan. If he razes it...eh, I can replace it with a Monumentality settler. But ideally I'd take the already settled city. I have 2 galleys and a quad available, with a third galley entering in 2 turns. I'd like to wait 4 and have 4 galleys and a quad, surround the city, and and keep Kaiser from sniping it.
Kaiser might be also going to surround the city and keep me out of it. That's possible. In that case, I should save my envoys and Amani and neutralize his suzerainty, booting him out, then declare war.
This area is going to be a minor flashpoint soon, keep watching, folks.
I should be able to settle Donksoi on 106, barring complications, and attack Yerevan on 105.
One turn til Petropavlosk is active:
It's already making 16 faith per turn, ahaha. Entirely surrounded by tundra, with nearby mountains, and 2 neighboring lavras, it has a +8 adjacency. This city will be NICE once it matures.
Just across the bay is Mikasa's defensive setup:
4 ships, 2 archers, walls, and a shipyard make this a tough-nut to crack short of an all-out assault. My harbor at Navarin will be active in 6 turns as well, and then we will average 1 new ship every turn in these waters. That's more or less immune to what Woden will be able to scrape up.
Marco, you have 6 galleys available right now. I'd wall up either like this:
All 6 giving each other support (you have Military Tradition, right? If not, make that the next stop), and keeping Sub AWAY from Rodeo if he comes. OR stick ships just on near side of the 2 1-tile chokepoints, again in triangles, to keep sub from pushing through the narrow area. I've started shifting my reinforcing ships this way, but I need to keep close to reinforce my own 6 ships near Point Luck. I also shifted my 2 galleys at Mikasa back north in case I need them.
We hold at Matilda until I've got my fleet just south of that point near Rodeo, then we can let sub in (the north entrance) and then we swarm him in the open waters. Together we'll have damned near 20 galleys attacking 4 jongs, he'll be overwhelmed.
Overall theater, with Jong approach points as of THIS turn pinned:
In the east, here are good defensive points:
The forward area near
Inaccessible Island is good to defend against a Punic attack. Ljubljana would only be able to attack each point from a single tile, and he won't be able to sink galleys like that. Your ships, meanwhile, would have mutual support bonuses. To the rear, a good fallback point against Phoenicia is the two-tile passage, blocking access to your northern coasts and to SFFB's territory, although he could concentrate attacks on the southern ship. Against Japan/England, or as a final fallback against Phoenicia, the 1-tile access to the south and the 1-tile access to the north would let you hold more or less indefinitely given reinforcements from MBDTF. I'd set up your galleys in some of those positions until I take Yerevan and get my Eastern Squadron into position in these waters, then I can take over those duties and the Australian navy can shift north to enable settlement in the desert coastal spots.
I've got Ovid nearing his sentry point, he'll reach it next turn, to give early warning in case the Phoenicians come this way.
Against Norway, there is no chokepoint defense. Just gotta mass ships and fort up.
Internationally, Woden got his prophet but no religion yet - I expect saving him for this turn for the era score. I'll probably take an apostle too and grab my worship building next turn, since I can't settle at the moment. Nothing else that I noted, other than that the Duke and Ljub both have 5 Cothons/RNDs apiece. I fixed NOrway's district score in the spreadsheet, he has none except that one holy site, I think. Maybe 2 holy sites. Difficult to say. No campuses or harbors still.
Overview of the east:
SV finished the shrine. Rather than start the temple, I wanna get 2 heavy chariots out for Mercenaries. Why HC? Because they're cheaper than swords and more useful than scouts, that's why.
Overview of the west:
Military builds or growth builds. No surprises.
WC next turn, I hope we get through it today if possible.
![[Image: 6ajQNEI.png]](https://i.imgur.com/6ajQNEI.png)