[SPOILERS] Roland and Suboptimal Team Up

[roland of gilead]

Turn 114

Get a great merchant and head to woden to get a copy of his marble hopefully. would like the faith asap too.





Next up is...

Should get that one in 12 or so turns.



New trade route out of the NW. really wish it would route overland.



Mausoleum 3 turns away.



Due to convert in 6 but grows next turn. Do hope it converts as will have a wonder.



merchantalism next turn.



boost for guilds is in next turn and will probably go for that next.

[suboptimal]

Turn 114

Open the save to find out that Marcopolo has suzerained Valetta. I drop in two envoys and get it back, earning two era score in the process. CMF has proposed a deal:




Um, nope. He’s had a power spike spent all his and reached the next column of the tech tree. I’m assuming that means frigates incoming and that deal is a threat. Time to see how many Australian cities I can raze while that fleet hunts me down. Check the picket line and there’s three galleys there now. Hearts and Bones will be the harder city to defend against massed frigates. For Mother & Child he’ll need some land units but he would be able to get three frigates to bear on the city. Everything else would need to be by land as only Under African Skies could come under attack from multiple frigates.

Rearrange some units on Big Island, with the swordsman and horseman both converging towards Mother & Child Reunion. Kaiser’s got a quadrireme in the cove at Graceland, surely checking things out.

Down at Australia it’s time to get busy.




Two escort jong move into the second ring and drop the city to 26 health. There are no defenders. Two other escort jong head east towards the next city. There’s an Aussie galley parked out front so I bring a solo jong up and shoot it. Another solo jong sinks that Russian galley and the remaining solo jong moves east. I’ll take the capital next turn but will have to settle for holding it with a swordsman. I need to buy a jong up at Hearts & Bones for defense next turn. I’ll buy in walls the turn after next down here. CMF will have to decide to reclaim his cities or risk the destruction of half (or more) of his teammate’s empire.

Roland, you’ll want to get frigates out soon – you’ll be on home defense if CMF comes all the way north.

Just noticed something...not quite right:




I have Feudal Contract slotted. The completion time for a Man-at-Arms should be 7 turns, not 10 turns. It appears that the policy doesn’t boost the production OR that I need to have a policy change to get it to apply. I don’t know what I’m going to build here – a unit, obviously, but I don’t know if I want to get a trebuchet for coastal bombardment or a man-at-arms to boost city defense.

[Bruindane]

If I recall, Russia chose Crusade, a surprise conversion could be devastating to the fleet. Does it apply for Russia in Australian waters/lands?  Another missionary to convert your own cities may buy some time.

Spend  to upgrade a swordsman to a man-at-arms?  Any policy changes available to eek out a few more points of combat strength?

Looking at the mini-map, if you are wildly successful against Australia, I would expect England/Japan to jump in and take those cities off you.   The war is about to become expensive.

[suboptimal]

Yes, Crusade would apply in Australian lands. However, Australia doesn't have any religion. Thanks to the change in GWAM generation from the latest patch, CMF has no shrines (he'd be generating writer points if he had any). No shrines = no missionaries = no conversions. Russia also took DotF so Crusade isn't a concern here.

No policy changes available but I could upgrade a swordsman if I had the right policy and 125. I'll build one at Obvious Child. Al is starting a trebuchet next turn since that'd be at full strength vs. ships.

With Australia I'm not keeping the cities except for the capital. Everything else is getting razed. At a minimum it'll severely cripple Australia, at best it'll eliminate them from the game and leave Russia facing the world solo which should bring in their snowball a little bit. I think England and Phoenicia are eyeing each other up - they're very close to each other and I expect both of them to have a power spike in a few turns' time as they get frigates going.

[roland of gilead]

That is a confident peace offer from CMF and i can see why. strong navy, strong production and tech advantage coming up.

CMF can only be a handful of turns away from Caravels. maybe 3 or 4. What he doesnt have is much gold for now.

is there value in turning back and smashing his fleet?

i suspect as you round russia you will end up between caravels behind and frigates in front.

i have four quads just now and 10 turns to Square rigging. Will get to 8 quads or so in that time and more enough niter and gold to upgrade 5.

russia with work ethic are monsterous it would have been less value to us but we should have taken it anyway. he has holy sites puting out 14 hammers. my second city is putting out 14 hammers.

[suboptimal]

It's possible I find myself in a bit of a sandwich between caravels and frigates. I don't think that I should turn around to hit his fleet, though - if all we get out of this is a bunch of galleys at the bottom then I haven't accomplished much of anything (hmmmm, that actually sounds about right for most of my military endeavors ). The plan remains to cripple Australia as much as possible before my navy finds itself in a pickle. There's also a chance that I can get to Cartography before my fleet gets sandwiched which would give me more options for escape and regrouping. It also can't hurt to shift my own naval focus back to galleys for a bit in preparation for ym own round of caravel upgrades.

[roland of gilead]

fair enough. We have set our course here and it may or may not work out but what else could we do. someone has to at least try to stop russia. best of it is Australia could be worse given time.

[suboptimal]

Yeah, Australia has a large snowball potential and having two civs on the same team in a snowball would not be good for anyone. I think what may be saving us here is Marcopolo's play. I don't understand why he's been so slow to develop but then I went back and found PBEM 13, where he started out as Arabia, posted no reports and Rowain took over and things were in shambles.

[roland of gilead]

BTW russia must have shrines and temples he has evangelised beliefs and he has converted australian cities.

[suboptimal]

Hmmm good point (and I now see the one converted city on the southern coast)....wonder if the patch misapplied and his pre-patch buildings aren't generating GWAM like they should be?