[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Yeah, as soon as Mercenaries comes in, I'm going to swap out almost all my policies and start building Limes walls and Maritime Industries quads in as many cities as I can. Writing on the Wall will get ancient walls just fine (5 more turns in Limes), but medieval walls are way out of reach - 220 hammers at 5ish hpt just isn't feasible even with Limes . I guess I could reroute a trader there to get 4 more hpt, which might baaaarely make it possible? Not sure if that's worth doing, since that trader's food would be better spent growing Linear B up to size, but it's worth considering at least if the math works out. At least the walls will give enough extra housing that the food won't be completely wasted. I guess I should swap off the lighthouse and start putting hammers into the walls even pre-Limes at that city just to get slightly better odds on finishing in time too, now that I'm thinking about it. Geneva actually has a somewhat better chance of getting to Medieval Walls in time...I already have a TR there, and once the builder finishes it will hit something like 15 hpt. If I have to lose one of those cities, Geneva's much stronger than the former Akkad anyways, so that at least seems cleanly worth doing.

Crossbows on every tile probably isn't going to happen - I have no archers, and they have such a big malus against ships that it's probably better to just use the gold to upgrade more caravels and frigates anyways. I can upgrade a courser and put it in the city, though, which might be worth doing even though it comes at the cost of a caravel I won't be able to have. I should have enough gold (1600ish) for a decent number of upgrades when the DoF ends, but the niter will be a limiting factor, and TAD + Kaiser will probably have more than we will if they save like they should. I might end up cutting it really close on the Cartography research time, too, though I think I have enough extra bpt coming over the next 3 turns that I'm more likely to barely make it than to barely miss it.

I'm curious as to how much gold my capital's worth to you per TR. TAD and roland are probably making something like double whatever the answer is since they're overseas, which I bet comes out to something absurd like 22 gpt. I really underestimated the degree to which building this CH here would help fund the army that may later end up conquering me...

Reminder for future me, though: I need to bring my warrior home (to old Akkad) from his scouting mission pretty soon. If I upgrade a courser and move it into the city, I'll need him to occupy the tile that my horse is currently on to delay any ground troops that TAD might try to land.

[ljubljana]

Is it ok if I offer CMF a DoF? This turn is the midpoint of our TAD DoF, so if we're going to, now is probably the time to do it. I'm also open to the argument that we should wait and see if they start making progress against suboptimal - right now I think it's more important to make sure we don't get attacked at the same time as TAD attacks us, but it's at least conceivable that they'll totally rout sub and need to be reined in in the next 30t.

[Woden]

Is it ok if I offer CMF a DoF? This turn is the midpoint of our TAD DoF, so if we're going to, now is probably the time to do it. I'm also open to the argument that we should wait and see if they start making progress against suboptimal - right now I think it's more important to make sure we don't get attacked at the same time as TAD attacks us, but it's at least conceivable that they'll totally rout sub and need to be reined in in the next 30t.

Go for it!

[ljubljana]

Turn 110 - Phoenicia

I do offer CMF the DoF while trying my best to make my ships look scary by surrounding their settler. That probably won't change any minds in the Russian diplomatic corps, but maybe if we're lucky it'll be read as presenting a dichotomy between a DoF and a renewed war in 5t.



Back at home, Mitla finishes a +3 Cothon and starts repairing the Granary, which will at least yield some tangible benefit in the small handful of turns before it needs to switch onto Limes walls. Meanwhile, Writing on the Wall starts on its walls again even though it's not in Limes, because I'm seriously desperate and need to scrounge for every penny I can if I want to get medieval walls up there before TAD can take the city. I also move a bunch of workers around (almost giving me flashbacks to Civ3) and finally mine the unimproved jade that Hieratic has been working without interruption for the past 50 or so turns . That puts me over the amenities threshold at a few more cities, including Cuneiform, for a nice boost in just about everything.

In the best news of this turn, TAD spent some gold on something that isn't a ship upgrade with which to come kill me! In the worst news of this turn...



Wow, is that CH at Cuneiform making a serious run at our list of top 10 worst mistakes this game or what. TAD probably got close to 50 GPT from those two TRs alone, and will surely have way more coming as the rest of their lighthouses finish. It now looks like TAD's pillaging expedition during our war has paid off big-time for them even though their ships got trapped, not because they did much damage or anything but just because they got the visibility on my capital that they needed to run these huge trade routes, which I can't effectively respond to myself because (IIRC) we don't have visibility on TAD's GP city, wherever it is.

Is there an easy way to scout around in TAD's territory that I'm not thinking of to try to get visibility on their strong cities? I guess I could offer them Open Borders, but they'll probably see right through that...

The one small silver lining on this is that TAD will now lose 66 GPT or so by attacking us, which is a pretty strong disincentive towards doing so when CMF is also a possible target. They will only get one trading post in Cuneiform for +3 total CS when these all complete, right? If they're going to get three trading posts and +9 CS, we'll pretty much have to attack them before they do complete just to avoid getting crushed. At least these new TRs are long enough in duration that we'll have no problems pulling that off. (They are new TRs, I've been checking this screen every 2-3 turns and this is the first time I've seen them.)

We might be getting close to the point where we should start thinking about our grand strategy once this round of DoFs ends. I have very little interest in fighting TAD, and am tempted to ask them for a renewal, then eventually throw the big frigate fleet I intend to make for self-defense at China if they remain preoccupied and navally defenseless. On the other hand, though, if TAD isn't going to attack us and crash their economy, there's a real risk they'll go for CMF instead and simply run them over, in which case maybe we shouldn't commit to a DoF so we have some chance of doing something about that if needed. I think the answer depends on the relative viabilities of us attacking China when the DoF ends (or thereabouts) and of TAD attacking CMF at the same time...not sure I have more concrete thoughts than that one at the moment (I'm hastily typing this up while unpacking after a move) but I think we should start seriously thinking about what our plans should look like in the medium-term future.

EDIT: One more piece of news: Kaiser was the first to a Renaissance tech sometime in the last few turns, with what is almost certainly Square Rigging. TAD will surely be close behind; I expect to get there in 9ish turns depending on how many more beakers I can scrounge up. Our one saving grace is TAD's niter supply, which is only 2, and, since they don't have SR, that can't be from a frigate upgrade and must mean they just hooked up their first niter last turn. TAD will probably badly outnumber me in caravels, but in frigates we may be able to match them just because we'll both be niter-limited rather than gold-limited on that front. I just need to find some way to position my ships such that their caravel superiority will have limited impact...maybe I can turn that little strait west of Writing on the Wall into a pseudo-choke since I think almost all of their navy is in the south right now.

[Woden]

Turn 109
I found my 9th city...
   

The city starts  a harbor. The builder will hook up the dyes and that will provide a little extra culture to help grab tiles. I swap governors around, Liang goes to Heimdall for the added district production and Magnus goes to Thor because I am going to do a little chopping there. 

Machinery finished this turn and I decided to 1-turn Currency so I can place a commercial hub at Frigg. The Campus finishes next turn and it will complete a library before building the CH and market. My missionary reached old Akkad adn will start converting it next turn. I am pretty sure it will take both remaining charges to convert since there is little religious pressure from my currently cities. I will also will convert Geneva next turn (hopefully). 

One good thing about TAD getting a bunch of gold from your capital is that he will be less likely to want to go to war with us and lose his income. As a note, caravels are fairly good at killing frigates. If we are going to defend, it will be better to have more caravels than frigates. You will still need frigates for support fire but we will have to make sure we some gold for caravel upgrades.

[Woden]

T110-Vikings
Both Currency and Naval Tradition finish this turn and I realized after I palyed my turn yesterday that it was probably a mistake finishing Currency. My first Campus finished this turn and with the next few districts finishing over the next 5 or 6 turns, I probably could have gotten the discount and placed a few encampments at Thor and Loki for defensive purposes. I will have to figure out how soon I can get it with and without finishing Apprenticeship to see if I can get a discounted commercial hub and the encampments. I might have to finish Military Training before Apprenticeship to get the discount going. It does unlock my unique unit, which might be good if we attack someone. They suck on defense but are fairly good when attacking in enemy territory.

Anyways, I swap out Serfdom for Natural Philosophy for a little more science. Other than that, not much else going on. Spearman finishes next turn. How soon do you need Mercenaries to complete? Right away or can it wait a little?

[ljubljana]

Turn 111 - Phoenicia



Machinery comes in, and I start Square Rigging, due in 8. As for Mercenaries, I think I want it in 5ish turns, so I can time the policy swap to Naval Infrastructure to coincide with the builds in Hieratic, Linear A, Linear B, and Cuneiform, all of which will start quads. Does that give you enough time to put culture wherever you want to put culture? In the meantime, I'll start on Navigation for Press Gangs; after Mercs, though, I'll switch to Medieval Faires to promote Magnus.

I also made a few tile improvements and got Pingala established in Demotic, which will get another tile in 2. Seems like the best place for him to go given how many second-ring tiles this city needs and its decent growth potential.



CMF accepted our DoF, and now has two settlers headed towards our island. Maybe we're going to lose this DoF by effectively ceding most of this island to them (since we sure don't have the settlers in place to contest it). Then again, though, it's still probably worth it to not get stabbed by them while we're off fighting for our lives against TAD or attacking roland. I guess I should really be glad that they had the colonization of this island (which wouldn't be worth all that much to us anyways) as an incentive to get them to agree.



Look at TAD's gold income . 147 gpt, with probably more than half of that coming right from Cuneiform. Ugh, what a mess. They'll easily be able to outmass me and take WotW if they want to, especially with Kaiser also saving and presumably joining in. All I can really do is hope they think CMF and marco are easier marks, which I guess they probably are given TAD's financial dependence on us, their lack of Great Admirals, their preoccupation with sub, etc.

Make no mistake, though - TAD and Kaiser are going to attack someone with mass-upgraded frigates and caravels around the time our DoF lapses (at the very least, if they don't, it'll be a big and uncharacteristic strategic mistake given their naval superiority). If it's us, we'll have to face them down with no help from CMF, outnumbered, and at a CS disadvantage, and, to be honest, I'm probably losing multiple cities. While I don't think they'll be able to conquer us outright, I do think whatever chance we have to win this game will probably be gone. That means we want it to be CMF/marco...but if it is, they're a softer target than we are and stand a good chance of collapsing outright IMO. In that case, we lose the game anyways unless one of the following two things happen: one, we're well on our way to conquering sub/roland ourselves, or two, we stab TAD or at least keep enough ships around that they can't fully commit to their attack.

So which of these avenues should we play for? I don't know...for the former plan, we'd want to extend the DoF with TAD and just hope we can kill China faster than TAD can kill CMF, which I guess is plausible? For the latter, we'd hold off on extending the DoF and run a higher risk of a game-ending attack to try to blunt TAD's momentum. I guess I slightly favor the former plan just because, if successful, we'd be one of two leading teams instead of one of four roughly equal powers? I really don't know, though - what are your thoughts? Either way, I see no reasonable scenario in which we can avoid war on the 30-turn scale, so we'd better be ready for that...

[Woden]

I think I will offer a DoF to Kaiser and TAD in about 5 turns and see if either bites. Maybe they will use that to keep up the income. And if TAD is making that much income off of you, all my trade routes are heading towards your capital. I will have 2 new ones in 6 turns and my existing one should be ending as soon as it gets back to it origination city in 7 turns. If they bit, I think we should continue to improve our empires and let the other teams duke it out for a bit. No need to jump in right away, let them beat each other up a bit. They we can attack when they are weaker and we are stronger.

[ljubljana]

I think they're making more off TRs to Cuneiform because they're sea TRs and get some kind of multiplier from that. Not sure if you'd get the same from TRs that would be by sea because of limited trader range, but where there is a land connection between your cities and Cuneiform, though I'd imagine you would. We should have a better idea of how much they're making per TR next turn, though, since we can see how much their GPT jumps from the new route.

Other than that, sounds like a plan, although if TAD conquers CMF they're going to get stronger faster than we can... Not sure what we can do about that if we're in a DoF with them, although I guess if we offer in 5 turns we'll have the chance to stab them in 35 turns, which might be soon enough that they won't have consolidated any Russian gains.

[Woden]

I think they're making more off TRs to Cuneiform because they're sea TRs and get some kind of multiplier from that. Not sure if you'd get the same from TRs that would be by sea because of limited trader range, but where there is a land connection between your cities and Cuneiform, though I'd imagine you would. We should have a better idea of how much they're making per TR next turn, though, since we can see how much their GPT jumps from the new route.

Other than that, sounds like a plan.

I will make the same because all my routes will also be by sea, or from my coastal cities, because it is more than 15 tiles from your capital and I don't have any trading posts to extend the land range.