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

[Jabah]

Russia giving cities after founding and gaining some tiles from Russia special ability was specialy considered a little too much...

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 114

Naval Tradition finishes, giving me a chance to swap policy cards. After some thinking, I swap out Oligarchic Legacy for Agoge. (Ideally I would slot in the Policy card that boosts Crossbowmen too, but my Culture isn't that good yet.)

Oligarchic Legacy won't do much for me now that my Galleys are one-shot kills anyway. But the Blueprint can potentially make some cheap Swordsmen and defend the inland chokepoints. We already know that Suboptimal's land army is much larger than mine, and I don't think Crossbowmen are strong enough to stop him. Once I get enough Swordsmen, I will slot Oligarchic Legacy back in, for some nice 39 strength Swordsmen (not counting terrain bonuses). Men-at-Arms will make them 49 strength.



Illmatic lies defenseless, and I can only see 3 Jongs hugging the coast. (There are probably 3 more that are hidden in the fog.) I rename the city to "Demak Sultanate", after the Muslim regime that toppled Dyah Gitarja's Majapahit. Small gesture, but it may be important.

I have cannibalized every tile that I could away from Demak Sultanate and towards the Blueprint/Low End Theory.


Unfortunately The Low-End Theory doesn't have a good 1-tile chokepoint to amass ships in front of. But the city only borders 1 naval tile, which I'll name Point Phife (after rapper Phife Dawg). This is the location that I'd like to hold onto.


Not pictured is the fact that I suzerained Valletta, and faith-purchased a Monument in one of my newer cities. I thought about purchasing Ancient Walls, but Frigates deal full damage against Walls, and they would be virtually useless. I don't think I've unlocked Medieval Walls yet, and I probably wouldn't have had enough faith to buy them anyway.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 114

Not a moment too soon. In fact, really about 5 turns too late:












I blow the team's entire stock of gold and my own personal private stock of niter on 5 frigate upgrades. I wish we could have scraped up more gold, but my harbor and lighthouse builds have been delayed by the need for ships. I hope I'll have a space soon to get those out, but for now...well, here we are. I create the First Frigate Division in the waters outside Borodino. It'll be a 5-turn sail to reach LET with my lead frigates, probably more like 6 if I want to give a good, grouped up blow. Happily, Cartography is also due in 5 turns. So, my plan is to head north with most of my frigates, escorted by galleys to avoid letting sub get in a first strike. Then, ideally we'll trap him in the bay around LET, which might or might not be razed (my money is on the city falling), I'll use the frigates for offensive punch and the galleys to swarm down cripples. 

Anyway, for the first time in the 20 turns since sub started this conflict we can fight on something like equal terms. His ships are still qualitatively better, and are more experienced than mine, but we have numbers on our side. Quantity has a quality all its own. 

More on the front later. Let's handle domestic stuff first:




Behind Square Rigging lurks Astronomy (boostable), Banking (boostable), Cartography, and Gunpowder (boostable, but difficult - will need an encampment and only Oryol will have the spare slot). Only Kaiser got here before me, and my science has surpassed his, so we'll be getting to Cartography within 5 turns of him. He might get it next turn or the turn after, assuming a beeline. 

Civics:




A quick hop into Feudalism to get out of Retainers and Professional Army, then we will chase Civil Service while boosting Exploration. Civil Service and Exploration are undoubtedly the two most important civics at this point in time - Civil Service is good for a +5 strength boost to all units once Marco gets there and is more or less mandatory for all teams (Australia must beeline this!), Exploration will let me slot my build cards and double Caravel and Frigate production speed - Frigate output will be limited only by niter, Caravels only by my gold output. 

As for gold, I will get a nice boost of +20 or so when Cartography finishes, and I can run some trade routes to Geneva for another +20 or so, which I might do to get income up into the 80s. I REALLY wish I could stick with galleys, cartography or no - they're 1-turn builds in most cities now, they are nearly as fast as caravels, and sure, they melt, but they're cheap and free of upkeep so I can swarm the little bastards everywhere. Ah, well. Anyway, gold generation is our team's biggest weakness at the moment (apart from the horde of barbarians pillaging and burning Australia), so that is probably the next project. 

I ask Marco for his spare niter:




Actually, I go back and throw in a lot of iron, too. I have no immediate need of it, I'm mining a lot, and if Marco wants swords or knights he'll need it. With 30 niter, I can start my first scratch-built frigate (under way at Navarin as a quad at the moment), and my second one can start in two turns (Borodino, probably). Those will be near 10-turn builds, so the first won't be out until turn 123 at the earliest, but we must start as soon as we can. Sub will be up to 8 jongs next turn - really counting on Cartography and my galleys to be the equalizers here. 

I also opt to offer sub mercy:




If he returns my cities to me, no hard feelings, I'll spare his fleet and we will have peace.

For the ten turns or so it will take me to sail to Call Me Al, that is. 

He won't take it, but like the Muslims of old I felt obligated to at least offer so I can say I gave him a chance. 





Over on Svalbard, Admiral Ushakov founds, giving me 14 cities with another settler on the map. It places its Holy Site on the rice, overriding 4 food in favor of 4 faith and production - which will of course be doubled, a worthy trade. The nearby marsh tiles can feed the cities in the meantime and will suffice us to get to size 4, for harbors, and then we'll have food enough to get to size 7, for a campus. The city works the cow pasture but will get its lavra chopped most of the way next turn. Nakhimov will grow next turn and its lavra completion time will drop, but the real timeline here is for my missionary to arrive and convert the city - that will happen in 8 or 9 turns. At that point, I can convert all 3 cities on the island. 

Svetlana I'm thinking I should move 1 tile west, onto the coast. That will enable early ship builds...but since I have so many shipyards, maybe this would be more sensibly kept inland until size 4? A third possibility is a cheeky plant on the NORTH side of the mountain, which would enable a city adjacent to the niter source in the south. I could buy the settler out of Nakhimov and scurry it over really quick. THe northern city would not have good lavra placement BUT would have lots of good tiles. It'd be vulnerable to the raiders, of course, but I have Frigates and Caravels and for now, they don't. Longships and biremes will struggle to take the city, and on land I have the Grand Master's Chapel - good for a unit every turn out of the city. That might be the play. 

In the Far East:




Lots of barbs will contest my efforts to tame the tundra here. There's a TON of tundra hills which will give beaucoup production, but almost no food. Is it worth settling one tile off the river to get the sheep second ring? I should still be able to chop the lavra out, and with 2 sheepies I might juuust be able to crawl to size 4. Even if I can't, I'll have a little shipyard here. Hm. Yeah, the housing doesn't matter without food, we need to settle on the forest. 

Marco does a good job defogging Japan:




Miln and Tibbet's Brook are both very vulnerable to the budding Russian/Australian industry in the east. Our eastern shipyards - we have 5, between the two of us, soon 6 - can throw ships right at both cities, and they're Kaiser's two finest. Once the border with sub is secure, we will do that for certain - a torch and burn raid, meant to more or less knock Japan out and put Archduke on his own. If we are secure against sub, and I can hold off the raiders, that will be basically a game-winning move as eliminating our last real rival team from contention. 

That's a ways down the line, though. 

Here's the frigate timeline, marco:



The earliest we could reach either Ilmatic/Demak Sultanate or LET is turn 118, one turn before cartography unlocks. That does mean we could be launching a counterattack to regain your capital as little as 5 turns from now. Sub can't take it on this turn, but it should fall on turn 115, so he'll hold it for 115, 116, and 117 at least. We can probably have it in your hands again by turn 120 at the latest and that should more or less be the end of the damage done to Australia. [/font][/size][/size][/color]

East:





Laying the foundations. Once the basics are in place we will begin training up a fleet here, too. 

West:




Same as always.

[marcopolothefraud]

The earliest we could reach either Ilmatic/Demak Sultanate or LET is turn 118, one turn before cartography unlocks. That does mean we could be launching a counterattack to regain your capital as little as 5 turns from now. Sub can't take it on this turn, but it should fall on turn 115, so he'll hold it for 115, 116, and 117 at least. We can probably have it in your hands again by turn 120 at the latest and that should more or less be the end of the damage done to Australia.

Umm...I think Suboptimal can take Demak Sultanate this turn. Jongs have a special ability that units in formation inherit the Jong's movement speed. That means one of those Jongs with the Swordsman attached to it can move 3 tiles, right next to Illmatic, and the Swordsman can take it from there.

I would love to be wrong, because then I wouldn't have needed to cannibalize its tiles, but I think I won't have my capital next turn. I wonder if the Blueprint would be considered my "new" capital, and if a Palace would be stationed there. I also wonder where I should put Magnus next.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Nope, you missed one trick: in order to TAKE your capital, the land unit will need to detach from the jong - because the jong is a ranged unit. When it decouples, its movement will revert to normal, minus however many movement points it's already used. So sub can move a land unit adjacent to your capital on this turn but won't be able to take it until the start of his next turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

As for Magnus, he should probably go to either MBDTF or to Aquemini, for the chop. I would make sure all your eastern cities are back on galleys - we need to slow up suboptimal now so that my frigates can catch up. If there's nothing to oppose him, he can keep ahead of me and raze a city before I can catch up. Remember to mass your galleys behind chokepoints if you can - areas where 1 tile spreads into 3 are best, since you can place a galley on all 4 tiles and he can't proceed until he sinks all 4, but typically will only have 3 or 4 shots.

Also, warriors might be an even better investment - they can embark and soak up fire, but are cheaper than galleys! Sometimes they'll survive a hit, too, better than galleys...so that might be what we're reduced to. Jongs are 1 tile faster than Frigates, so we have to do anything we can to slow him up. I'd like to save the desert cities, but don't think I can do anything for LET.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

also, I'm diverting all my eastern forces towards your coast, and swapping everything over there over to galleys, I think. I can get out one or two rounds before caravels come in, and that'd be 6 extra ships to try and hold the western desert. IF we get out of this with only having lost Rodeo, half of Ilmatic, and LET, in return for taking Indonesia's big knockout punch, then we'll be ahead - you can focus on rebuilding and Russia on counterattack and home defense.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

By contrast - sorry, train of thought - TCD can probably swap back to its holy site. That will be a nice boost in production and with frigates coming out of Borodino the city is no longer in any danger at all.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

One last post: I'm sorry this is happening to Australia, Marco. I feel like I'm the one who brought jongs down on our heads with overzealous expansion, and I haven't done enough to protect you. Getting kicked around like this in a PBEM is no fun. All I can promise is dire revenge against Indonesia, and all of his island cities in compensation. I'm glad you're in PBEM21 and hope you stick with it.

[marcopolothefraud]

No screenshot today.

Demak Sultanate has about 40 HP left, so Suboptimal may kill it. His Jongs seem faster than I thought they'd be; two of them are already at Low-End Theory, and I only have 3 Galleys in that area to stop them. Suffice to say Low-End Theory will fall as soon as Sub has a land unit to take it.