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

[marcopolothefraud]

WORLD CONGRESS RESULTS

England, Japan, Phoenicia and Norway all voted to double Great Admiral points, so they easily won that resolution. For some reason, Roland of Gilead and Suboptimal didn't coordinate their votes for this resolution. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, but it still strikes me as weird.

We won double luxuries from Turtles, through Woden and Ljubljana voted for Mercury, and it came down to a lucky tie-breaker. Whatever - I think Woden and Ljubljana won't be too bothered by this loss.

Turn 102

I see a Jong at Point Matilda, so I park my 6 Galleys in front of Rodeo. Two more reinforcements are coming from Illmatic, and College Dropout will finish a ship next turn. I think Suboptimal might be overextending himself just *a little bit* here, because I still see two Quadriremes lurking off of Sakhalin.

Will he survive, or will he fold up? Living like a bronco, lifestyle wild and untamed. Sit sip at the top, a long list of no named Misfits can't wait to get a chance to say fuck you to the ones that say fuck you, 'til you doing yo' thing, Codeine and Cocaine cartels. Who leads the charge of this young mob?

- "Pornography", Rodeo, 2015

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Right. Things will look dicey when you open the save tomorrow, Marco, but remember it's all under control. We've got a plan in place and it's a good one. More detail below, but basically I think there's a very strong chance we'll be looking at two more fleets attacking us within the next ~2-3 turns. 

Turn 102




2 turns to Games and Rec, then it's showing 8 to Mercenaries. That will come down in the meantime, but we'll want it in hand for Frigate upgrades. I might hold Mercs one turn from completion until the turn I get Square Rigging, to enable a policy swap on that turn. Marco's culture looks much more respectable now - still worst, but by a much smaller margin, and in line with everyone else's. 

The game starts me off at Mikasa, where I note a new Viking raider has shown up. I give him a sniff and find:




Ah. All right then. I know of at least 4 Norwegian longships in the neighborhood now - the one skulking around to the south, these two goobers, and the fourth was up near Shikishima but was last seen heading south. Accordingly, Russian intelligence from this patrol data thinks that an attack on Mikasa is imminent. 

Worse, though, is this:




Ovid got zapped by SOMETHING in the fog before he reached his sentry point. We know China has no ships. It's all but impossible for it to be Sub's missing galley, although not entirely. That leaves either Norway or Phoenicia out there, in range of Marco's eastern squadron. It miiiight have been a scouting galley - I hope that's what it was - but Woden's had oceangoing ships for centuries now, why would they possibly need more scouting? I think we need to treat this as another serious invasion attempt. 

Here's the sitch:




Thankfully Marco has reached his blocking positions. If it's Norway, then Woden would have split his ships very widely in an effort to strike us with weak squadrons on both flanks. That seems unlikely. Instead, what I suspect, Marco, is after the raiders signed peace with Archduke and knew sub's jongs were pointed our way, they realized we'd have our hands full and are going for some opportunistic raiding and pillaging. Phoenicia's waters are just on the far side of Archduke, we know, and he just sank your galley in that area a few turns ago. So, probably ljubljana is going to attack your flank and Woden will attack mine, once everyone's ships are up. 

The good news is unless ljubljana brought longship support - which means Woden throwing less than he could at Mikasa - he will not be able to take marco's city with biremes alone. Marco has numerous chokes to block up the Phoenicians where only one bireme can attack. I think it'll take two or three attacks at least to sink a galley, so if Marco just sits on the defensive it'll take AGES for ljub to get here. So even if he has all 20 galleys coming down that path, SFFB should be pretty safe. Marco will be getting ships out faster than ljubljana can sink 'em. 

Man, I love galleys. 

In ~10 turns too I'll have three shipyards on the area, and 10 turns after THAT I can have frigates in these waters:




Tentatively I can begin to work on Yerevan next turn, but that opens up the possibilities of Japanese sniping. I'd like to wait 3 and go in with one extra galley. I've got an enjoy in hand and could move in Amani to boot him from suzerainty if that's the route I need to go, as well. The settler is well-escorted and can't be attacked by Japan before t110 anyway. Yerevan and Donskoi will need time to get their lavras set up but after that they should be good to go. 

In other news, we meet Valetta:




Also a good city-state to have, and it'd be a good way for Marco to dump his faith. He's making buckets now that he's running Scripture for +stupid production empire-wide. 

Woden at last got a religion and sure enough he only had the one holy site with a shrine:




Jesuit Education when he has no faith economy, and pilgrimage which needs him to spend faith on missionaries to spread it. This was probably more about having a religion in place to combat the Central Powers' Crusade, more than a serious effort to get value from religion because jeez he's getting nothing really. With no immediately accessible settling sites, I purchase an apostle for my final belief, which will probably be Meeting Houses for even more production - a good way to convert faith into an ongoing benefit. 

Navarin places the harbor, which is a 5-turn build. It'll finish on turn 108:




Gotta get this archer out first. Once the harbor is done, though, this place will be basically off-limits to longships. But how much garrison do I need until then?

Woden's estimated order of battle is 8 longships, and I know of the locations of 4. So figure I'll face 8 longships and his 3 quads - call it 11 ships. My own assets are a set of walls, 3 archers, and 2 quads, in addition to the shipyards adding reinforcements. So, to be safe, I had better leave at least 6 galleys here. The rest I'll shift over to Matilda where we can try to mousetrap sub maybe. 




Suboptimal left a galley and a jong at Shikishima, probably going to come join the party next turn:




That means Marco is going to lose only one galley on sub's turn (he probably already has lost it, as I type this) and will have a second one crippled. The turn after that he might lose 2, and then 2 on the turn after that. But at that point my ships will be arriving, and he'll be pouring in reinforcements, too, so I see no way this attack can seriously pose a danger to Rodeo. The two quads are basically useless, and while he has the faith to purchase a jong in 2 turns, he is making gold very slowly and Roland just blew all his gold on something else last turn. Sub really isn't making any kind of effort to field the most effective attacking force he can, is he? Note that Marco and I now have 1000 combined military score to his stagnant 600 (too bad Wodenjana have closer to 1100 combined - but we're only outnumbered 1.5 to 1 here, Marco, and we have the better tech and the better production. Long-term we are winning this war.). 

Let's see...other news. Archduke flipped into the double harbor adjacency policy, I think, although he finished a civic LAST turn, not this one - maybe it took a turn to register? Or he finished a government plaza this turn. I dunno. Anyway his science is sky-high, entirely explained by this:




92 gold per turn! Yowza! And he'll be at Frigates in no time with Kaiser paving the way and his roaring science. At that point, this team will be very, very dangerous. I'm not confident in my abilities to bury him in numbers, since I won't be able to support THAT many frigates until I get more trade routes up, and he will have Great Admirals, extra movement, and the gold to upgrade a lot of quads very rapidly. The good news, though, is that Archduke hasn't unlocked Niter yet. Marco and I lead the world in niter production:




8 per turn for our team while no other team makes more than 2 at the moment. We should both have full stockpiles when I upgrade, so I should be able to build or upgrade 10 Frigates in...uh, 15ish turns. I'll burn through my stocks on upgrades, then borrow Marco's stocks to begin production in all my shipyard cities. We won't be first to unlock frigates, ljub and Kaiser will both beat me there, but we CAN be the first to FIELD frigates in significant numbers. 

Let's see...Kaiser's science spike came from flipping into harbor adjacency, as well. He had to drop Natural Philosophy to do it, though. Forgot to check if he's in Monarchy or not - culture is one weakness of that team. 

That's everything, I think. Overview of the east:




Chopping Sevastopol's campus next turn; Sissoi Veliki grows in SIX turns not 11 now that I've got it some more fish. It will chop its campus on turn 108 - this will bring in about 12 more science all told and help me keep up with Kaiser, more or less, especially since libraries are no-brainers. My goal is to hoard all my GS points, watch Kaiser take whoever is up (pray he doesn't skip), and snipe Hildegaard the instant she appears. If she doesn't appear, then I shall skip the healing Great Scientist. Oryol is going Monument -> Granary to get its basic infrastructure in place and then will begin life as a builder pump. Gotta hook up my turtles, fish, and farms in the north and west! So much to do!

Overview of the west:




No changes. Petropavlosk converts and steals Navarin's fish to grow for its own harbor. 

[marcopolothefraud]

(Ignore the Harbor construction at Rodeo. I'm not *actually* making a Harbor; I was just curious about the build time.)
Suboptimal has not killed a single ship.


Naturally, I just redeploy my Galleys to lure Suboptimal a little closer to Rodeo. I see 3-4 Russian Galleys that can arrive before turn 105 - let's hope
they're not too late.


Elsewhere, I meet two Phoenician Biremes off of Flower Boy, but my screenshots didn't process. I have 2 Galleys and 2 Quadriremes in the area; one Galley is moving to the frontline and MBDTF is making another Galley.

Next turn, MBDTF should adopt a religion and I should be able to found another city.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 103

I played this turn in a hurry, because tonight is busy, so neither the gameplay nor the report will be up to my own standards. It happens sometimes. 

I just barely miss Machinery, but will overflow a bunch of science into Square Rigging:




So we're looking at Square Rigging on or around turn 115. That gives me plenty of time to finish Mercenaries, and will let me accumulate 12 more turns' worth of gold in the meantime. I will make ~50gpt in that time, or 600 gold, added on to my warchest of 440 gold, giving me in total 1040 gold for upgrades. A quad to Frigate upgrade costs 165 gold with Professional Army, which I will of course have, so in theory I can upgrade 6 frigates on the turn. However, each upgrade will ALSO cost 10 niter, with Retainers, assuming I run both, so I can upgrade at most 5 frigates in one turn. All right, I need 2-3 more quads out then, at that point I can hard-build Frigates. My income will drop by 3 gold per frigate, so we're looking at an 18g/t drop for maintenance costs in the first wave, increasing as I build more. If Marco gives me his niter on the turn after, I could either upgrade my 6th (good idea probably) or start up to 5 in the production queues. At 280 it'd be about a 7-turn build per frigate for my capital and about 10 for the other cities, I think, if I can get sufficient mines up. Once we reach Exploration, however, those build times will drop to 3 turns in the cap and 5-turns elsewhere, so my only limits will be niter and gold. Excellent. 

So Marco, the plan is to hold until turn 115, at which point I'll upgrade all my frigates, then bring all 5 - escorted by galleys - either up to Shikishima to strike there and then cut off Sub's jongs, which will die with no place to run, OR we go straight for Rodeo, depending on how in danger the city is in. As long as you and I both bring 2 new galleys or so into the theater each turn (from your 3 cities and my 2), sub will never really be able to break through, so I'm leaning towards the aggressive route. I'll head north, swing west around Novaya Zemyla, and swarm Shikishima much like sub did. Then recapture Vladimir, find or sink the jong fleet, and then proceed north en masse, rolling up the island until sub accepts peace. Ultimately sub will be no real threat at that point, so how much we pursue the war with him depends on the global situation. 

On with the turn! 

I evangelize my religion, resulting in this:




Note how much more widespread my religion is, with 3 Aussie cities also converted and helping Marco out. 18 production per turn in MBDTF! Doubled! 36 production per turn just from the holy site! Give us a screenshot of the inside of the city, Marco, so we can see how crazy that is. It's worth getting the campus out before turn 109, I think, IF ljubljana will cooperate. 

Over at Mikasa, I arrange my 6 galleys and 2 quads thusly, mostly due to movement restrictions:




This is roughly 1/3 of my total navy. I'd love to take these ships north and flank suboptimal from the rear, but I can't do that with Norwegians and, apparently, biremes massing. 

The presence of ljubljana's bireme is mixed news. On the one hand, he split his forces, something you should never do if you can avoid it. Imagine losing a battle for want of a ship while half your ships are stuck uselessly on the other side of the map! Better to identify the key objective and concentrate everything you ahve there, rather than risk failure on both fronts. ("Why didn't you take your own advice and throw everything at Rodeo, then?") Because I think Rodeo can hold with the ships I initially sent, Marco's crash-shipbuilding, and my own new builds all being diverted there. That's something like 6 new galleys every 2-3 turns all flooding that way, at at time when suboptimal can kill perhaps 1.5 per turn. Sending these 6 ships (the quads would just die, no point in them) would just jam up my own seaways (unless I flanked...hm...) and be ultimately superfluous, while I'd risk seriously annoying raiding and pillaging in this area. 




Anyway, looks like we're facing a combined attack on both flanks. If Norway sent longships to help ljub on the eastern front, that's a bit concerning for Australia. If he did not, well, Marco can hold at the chokepoint he's selected all damn game against ships without ocean-going capabilities. Ljub can't sink either galley in a single attack, and each galley can be replaced with fresh ones from new builds. And this process can be repeated on the two tiles behind that, and the two behind that, and in the city itself. So with no longships to help break through, ljub is done here. 

Marco, if he withdraws, I THINK you'll be clear to settle your two coastal cities and get your campus out, which will give Australia better-than-Russia science. The new cities if threatened can get out a garrison galley, for Japan. The main issue is weak Australian gold generation - it'll be ages for you to get the tiles needed for the holy sites and the chopping, although at least the northern oasis city will be viable on its own without the holy site. The southern one is a hot steaming pile of garbage without it, sadly - it has a future as a shipyard at least. 

When I see Japanese ships moving next to Yerevan, I somewhat hastily declare war:




The trick will be to avoid the possibility of Kaiser sniping the city. The catapult is a concern, too. I was afraid if I waited two more turns he'd have 3 ships adjacent to the city, making it hard for me to capture. But in retrospect Amani would ahve just taken 5 turns to establish, booting Kaiser out, and I could ahve struck then in safety. So this was a misplay on my part. I'll just try to power through it and take the city. Even if it DOES fall to Japan my loyalty pressure will crush it, and Japan can't use the shitty terrain, and if he razes it then I can do a monumentality plant here to get my shipyard. 

So no great harm done. I will NOT declare war on Japan for this city, though - Australia's bonus is too good to give up in an aggressive war over Yerevan, of all places. 

Sub decides to wall up his recent conquests:




WHY build walls instead of more ships? It just feels insane to me. You're on the attack! Go take Australia! But his military score hasn't budged in SIX TURNS - the last jong upgrade was the last military unit he bothered with. Baffling. In the same six turns Australia's military power has risen 355 points and my own has gone up 240. Fun fact: Marco and I are now the largest combined military in the game, ahead of Wodenjana, and unlike Wodenjana we've got the production and tech to stay relevant. 

See, Woden's increasingly in trouble, I think. He's got a fairly sizeable longship navy, but his science stinks and his gold income isn't much better. He has no campuses (still), no harbors (still), few cities (still), and I think he's increasingly going to be an anchor on Phoenicia's neck. Phoenicia has lots of cities but they have low pops (lower than the iceball empire!), and his science is going to collapse in ~30 turns unless he desperately grows and gets out campuses, meaning Ljub will get Frigates and Caravels but then run out of steam. So he can't compensate for both players. 

In other words, Woden will be stuck in about 15 turns with an obsolete longship navy and no real way to remedy that, slowly laboring to Caravels himself. Ljub will help a bit, but he has to get his own house in order. No, I honestly prefer Archduke and Kaiser's positions. Kaiser needs to expand, for sure, and Archduke has a LOT of ground to make up (plus the same gimmick research economy), but on the whole the team is better balanced and they will be poised to be strong in the coming era. 

Sub has shot his bolt and is going nowhere. China seems oblivious that this is a multiplayer game, not a singleplayer. 

So, if Marco and I can get peace soonish with one team, crush whichever idiot doesn't make peace iwth us, and then resume peaceful expansion and building, I think we'll be in very good shape indeed. Accordingly, I offer peace to Woden:




Now, it might be this fool thinks I'm offering from a position of weakness, and will try to have a go at Mikasa first. But my ships actually get odds on his longships in my waters, so he needs numbers - and 'owzeegonnadothat when I have two harbors spitting out 2-turn galleys in that bay, eh? All the while he'll be under fire from 3 archers and my walls, and in 15 turns my city will hit with the strength of frigates. But I thought I'd offer, now that ljub can see that he won't make any ground against Marco and Woden can see I'm prepared on this flank. 

Position in the north. 16 galleys, not counting new builds, against 4 jongs, 2 quads, and a galley. Sub has no new builds because he hates winning.




Little worried about the south, since he can choke off most of my galleys at that one-tile passage. Then he can work on the city - I'd really like us to hold the narrow strait if we can so TCD and Russian reinforcements can still get in. But you just have to delay for 10 turns, and even if we lose the city at this point, it's honestly not that threatening - 10 turns until I can take it back, after all.  

In the meantime we'll just keep throwing galleys at him until he runs out of ammo or gets bored of killing them and sails away. 

East. Campus chop is in. Will be worth 7 total beakers with a library (until I can get a harbor next to it). 




West. No changes. 

[marcopolothefraud]

So Marco, the plan is to hold until turn 115, at which point I'll upgrade all my frigates.

18 production per turn in MBDTF! Doubled! 36 production per turn just from the holy site! Give us a screenshot of the inside of the city, Marco, so we can see how crazy that is. It's worth getting the campus out before turn 109, I think, IF ljubljana will cooperate. 

Gotta say, I'm feeling a little pessimistic about this plan. It seems like I'll be burning lots of hammers (in the form of sunken galleys) for no gain whatsoever, whereas Suboptimal at least gets to farm XP off of my ships. Counterattacking him would be even less productive, given the lack of bonuses in this chokepoint-ish area. Rodeo was a bad place to have this battle, IMO...


One galley dies, presumably from 3 Jong attacks. Now all four Indonesian Jongs are in the vicinity...so I can expect to lose 2 per turn. The good news is that Illmatic, Rodeo, and College Dropout will all make a Galley next turn.


It's very concerning to see Kaiser's settler off of my continent, so I sent one Quadrireme to investigate him. I think he might settle the northern tip, and then MBDTF will have to crank out some Crossbows to defend from a land invasion as well as a seaborne one.


Ljubljana/Woden have accepted peace with us and withdrawn. They have Declarations of Friendship with our main competitors, I think, so they're probably going to work on infrastructure. Maybe it's worth noting that Woden has *finally* thrown away all of his main bonuses.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Peace with the raiders is fantastic news. That frees up my entire Mikasa garrison to sail for sub. Rather than pile the ships in around Rodeo, I'll try and move those 7 at least to harass Shikishima or his coast. I can't outrun jongs but I can divert them, perhaps, or do damage if he doesn't pull any off. For Australia, this means that your eastern territories can go over to infrastructure. The eastern fleet can cover the new cities from Japan. So on the whole a good interturn for us.

And yeah, all the production going right to the bottom stinks but it's better than the alternative - which is Rodeo getting captured or, worse, razed. The constricted terrain makes it tough for us to get at the jongs, which means we have to stay defensive.

Looks like sub sank my galley that was near you, so two more ships down. Each one only costs 30 production, so he could sink 40 galleys with these 4 jongs and we'd still come out ahead if we eventually sink him.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 104






Crossbows in, though now that I know Frigates are on the horizon I shan't waste the gold to upgrade them. The turn also opens with the welcome news that, though Woden rejected my peace deal, Ljubljana accepted it. That was why I sent it to both - you automatically decline a deal when you close the screen to have a look around, a lovely artifact of Civ VI's largely SP design. By sending both they didn't need to offer me peace, they could just accept it on ljub's turn. Always make it easy for your enemy to do what you want. In this case, I didn't WANT to fight Woden - I'd rather have those ships and resources free to concentrate on stopping the jong offensive cold. 

Which it more or less has been, already. Sub is content to sit at range so far and plug away happily at whatever targets we offer him. 

With Marco having blocked the direct access, I content myself to bring up most of my ships and direct the main action of the turn at Yerevan:




It SHOULD be impossible for one ship to take the city, which is all Kaiser can get adjacent to it...this is a gamble, however. With any luck the city should fall next turn. Control of these two islands and of SFFB to the north gives us a good crack at that eastern continent, with it being very difficult for Japan to send units there. All of Kaiser's ships are VERY far from home at this point. 

In the center, sub makes his first jong purchase, and he and Roland have enough gold for a sixth if they combine:




That SHOULD be all the jongs we face, perhaps the final quad upgrade, giving a total of 7. That's enough to make things sticky at Rodeo, but we just need to hold for about 10 more turns. I have a campus due in 4 and natural pop growth will add a little more science. 10 turns is something of an eternity since we've already been at war for 5, but we're also 8 turns into the jong era at this point, too. 

With peace broken out, I flip Magnus over to Mikasa. In 5 turns I"ll purchase a settler and try to settle both pinned spots:




There is a slight danger here from the proximity of the raiders, BUT a couple of points:

1)One city is a tundra plant that they can't use anyway.
2)The harbors face my budding industrial center of Mikasa - Navarin - Petropavlosk and will be defensible from the sea. 
3)Land defense will be handled via the GMC, with me making enough faith to purchase a military unit every turn if I wish. 
4)They'll be more busy, I think, with their nearer neighbors from now on. Archduke will come back mad and Norway is increasingly falling behind, so they won't want a war with me over these marginal cities. 

That's the hope, anyway! These will push me to 14 cities, counting Donskoi and Yerevan (before they hatch...knock on wood), and if I c an reclaim my two colonies in the center and settle the central island as I wish I'll be up to nearly 20, with a heavy force of frigates in hand and blood in my eye. 

Domestically, despite the war, we're in good shape, since actually 2 cities have been carrying on the bulk of the war effort:




Knyaz Suvurov will place a discounted harbor next turn, though I can't build it yet. I want to get 2 or 3 builders up here to plant 2 mines, 2 forests, and about 3 fishing boats, then once we hit a pause in shipbuilding i'll quickly get out a Harbor -> Lighthouse. Obviously that can't come until the jongs are dealt with, so not for 15 turns at least. I have until then to get

a)Liang's title from the GMC, and establish her in Oryol
b)To have Oryol pump out the builders for the Feudalism boost and the Knyaz Suvurov TLC.

If possible, getting Sevastopol and Sissoi Veliki to have builders ready to pop alongside Oryol at Feudalism would give me 16 charges to play with around my lands, enough to last a while. That should be doable with some planning, I'll look into that. Can I afford to run serfdom for a turn? Hmmm...Maybe. It'll depend on Civics. 

Final setup at Matilda:




3 more Australian galleys should enter the fray next turn, plus 8 Russian galleys in the area. That's good for about ~4 more turns, so we're slowly closing the gap until Frigates. 

Overview of the East:




A bit of micro at Sevastopol dropped that build time although the ribbon didn't update, I believe, but I may be misremembering. Oryol is going HC instead of Granary since I need to replace my lost sword and swords take 5 turns to build instead of 3, and I just want the Mercenaries boost. One HC is heading to explore that far east continent, the other two I'll either bring north to use as city-takers on sub's inland plants or send to the west and help fortify that continent. 

And the west:




Mikasa takes advantage of the lull to try and get out a quick 3-turn granary. It has housing as long as I'm in Monarchy but the food is still needed to speed up size 4. Then I can place a harbor at last and the city will be more or less in its final form. 

Forgot to do the spreadsheet, will load save later tonight and do that. So no international news as yet.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Didn't get to spreadsheet last night. Perhaps today. 

Marco, just to show you where my mind is at - 

I'm evolving 3 plans for our frigates. 

Option A - little solution: I sneak the first Frigate force, screened by my galleys, to the point south of Rodeo, using the galleys to keep sub from getting visibility. Then I spring out and ambush the jongs and go for a slugging match with galley support. This is the most straightforward, and safest option, and has good prospects for netting at least a couple jongs plus saving Rodeo in a timely manner. 

Option B - big solution: We go for Shikishima first, or sneak the frigates past it, and ambush the jongs from the rear. Promises total destruction of Sub's offensive force and we scoop up everything after that. Has the downside that he might see me coming, also requires Rodeo to hold out just with galleys for a few extra turns. 

Option C - grand solution: I bypass Shikishima and sail directly for sub's capital with my first 5 frigates and 7 galleys. We seize the capital, essentially ending the war at a stroke. Downsides are this would take a very long time, the risk of discovery is fairly high (thought not certain), and Rodeo would have to hold out an extra ten turns until my new build frigates finish and they sail there. 

Right now I'm inclined towards the little solution as the safest and best. Jongs are a bit faster than my frigates so after the initial trap is sprung suboptimal could escape, unless I send the 7 galley force to cut him off at Shikishima and catch up to him as he blasts through those guys. But once we sink the ~7 jong force we face, it'll take him 12 turns per new jong, compared with me rolling 2 new frigates off the line every 10 turns or so, so the war would basically be won.

[marcopolothefraud]

Well, we don't have to decide on a frigate plan just yet. It all depends on how dire the Rodeo situation is on turn 112, right? But I agree that Option A is the best, especially if we face sudden attack from Kaiser/Archduke.

No screenshots this turn, sorry. MBDTF completes a Campus, taking me to 66 science/turn. The new city of Aquemini is founded, and starts a +7 adjacency Holy Site, but it doesn't have many workable tiles and will likely be a burden for a long time.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, we don't have to commit for about 10 days, but we can debate. I'm leaning towards either Option A or combining it a bit and sending my galleys to cut off jong retreat. Sub's jongs DO hit harder than my frigates with their unit buddies and his promotions, so we'll need first strike and superior numbers to win.

As for Aquemini, yeah. I'd just grow it for now on its one decent tile, dump production into the HS, and then once you can afford/acquire the woods at MBDTF then you can drop in a Magnus chop and that should get the Holy Site mostly out, at which point the city will be "active" and can build anything.

Also, looking forward to your next rap entry! Nas was in the news again over some video, and I only knew who he was because of you!