[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Okay, works for me. I can't believe we're doing this, but I have to agree that it seems like the best plan . Writing on the Wall is probably worth more to us as a trade chip for 20 turns of peace than it is for its actual output as a city anyways.

I agree that China's coastal cities should fall quickly, especially since I can't see any way for them to throw together a navy in the next 10 turns, but we should be prepared for them to upgrade knights and build medieval walls with Limes to try to slow us down. Not sure if they'll do that, but they do have some avenues for setting us back even if they can't really win the naval war.

We should also do some discussion about how to keep the cities loyal. I think I will go for the Intelligence Agency in Cuneiform next and try to get Victor promoted to help with this. However, I have a Dark Age coming up that could make it very difficult to hold the cities long-term. If that starts to look like a problem, I'll probably just gift all the conquests over to you to hold onto them - how is your era score situation looking?

[Woden]

I think it is the best path to victory. If we fight TAD right now, we all will be dragged down in endless war and only CMF will benefit.

[Woden]

DoFs sent to both Kaiser and TAD.

[Woden]

Turn 114-Vikings 
Apprenticeship and Mercenaries are in. For my policy swap, I take out Urban Planning and slot Limes. I figure it is going to be a while before I get another policy swap, as I will want to bring 2 civics down to 1 turn for upgrades and then switch to a war policy set up when we are ready. I plan on getting a few swords out, then build walls on my coastal cities. I swap my 2 city state conquests to swords and will have Loki start one next turn when the lighthouse completes. The lighthouse completed at Thor and I chop into a trader, finishing it next turn. Thor will then chop out another trader before building a swords. 

I asked you for some iron this turn, so I can build another swords next turn. I will probably ask for more in a few turns, once I figure out how much I need. I don't want to fill up my stores so I lose out on collecting more of it. Odin will build 1 or 2 when the library completes and Frigg will probably build 1 too. I am also going to have Frigg build a chariot to upgrade into a knight. 

I have my ram start heading for Balder to get into position for an attack. He is what we can see of China...
   

I am thinking the best place to start the attack will be Borna Barasic and Connor Goldson. That way we can get a foothold on their continent and then have you sail north hitting the 2 cities up there while I capture Connor Goldson and attack Glen Kamara. By starting in the south, by the time suboptimal can react, we will have moved north and he will be chasing us. There are few tiles I can pillage with longboats that will give us some upgrade gold and me some culture and science. I will also have to see if I can build a temple and save for an apostle to launch an inquisition to remove his religion and lower the loyalty. The key to hold his cities will be to take his capital fairly early, so maybe plan to have a larger force in the north. How many frigates can you get?

[ljubljana]

Turn 115 - Phoenicia

MPF had a city razed by suboptimal this turn, so we more or less know where their navy is. CMF responded by spending all their gold on frigate upgrades and offering me 1 diplo for 1 diplo, which I gladly accepted. Then:



I can't believe I'm doing this. If it goes through, it should be a strong red flag to sub/roland about our intentions, but who knows if it will be read that way.



Take a good look at this core, because it's as intact as it's going to be for a long time . I start the IA in Cuneiform, which will finish around when we can begin the attack, though I'll have to see next turn if I need to make a quad or two here first. As for frigates, Linear B and Hieratic will start quads next turn, and Abugida when the Cothon finishes. I'm aiming for 8 frigates at the start of our attack, which is about as many as our niter and gold supplies allow, and probably a caravel or two also to protect from sub's navy and boost the defensive strength of any captured cities. In 3 turns I'll get the chop at Linear B into quads, and LB and Hieratic should manage to alternate 2- and 3-turn quads, which should be enough for 8 in 10 turns, and Cuneiform can add one or two if needed. I might also have Mitla do one with help from the Linear A trader - the upcoming trader wave should probably mostly go towards cities like Mitla and Runic that still need their lighthouses bootstrapped anyways. It might be tricky getting the first quad built and upgraded before I have too much niter to continue quad builds, but I thiiiink it should be doable with good niter trading micro.

The attack plan sounds good too. Borna Barasic and Conor Goldson are definitely the two cities we're closest to being able to hold given the loyalty situation, then I think I'll head for the capital to try to alleviate loyalty problems with the rest of the cities. I sure hope this works .

[Woden]

I can't believe I'm doing this. If it goes through, it should be a strong red flag to sub/roland about our intentions, but who knows if it will be read that way.

If we pull this off, it will a huge coup. If not, it is not that great a city and you would have lost it in the first few turns of teh war anyways.

As for roland/suboptimal, we will know if they start building medieval walls his China's coastal cities.

[Woden]

Also, be aware that when you finish Square Rigging, all the quads in production will eat your niter up and upgrade to Frigates. Best to switch off any in production before you finish the tech to save it for upgrades. But also be aware, it will look like you have no production in Frigates in cities where you have a quad in production that you switch off of when the tech completes. You will need to upgrade Frigates to use up all your niter before the previously worked quads will show back up. Does that make sense?

[ljubljana]

That more or less makes sense, although this is a pretty weird mechanic so I can't claim that it makes total sense . My plan right now is to stay between 10 and 20 niter by carefully gifting it to you when SR completes, then to use Retinues for 10 niter upgrades so that I never have to exceed 20 niter (and therefore switch off quads) during the fleet construction process. This does give a bit of our plan away by producing a trickle of frigates rather than a sudden spike (not to mention obviously manipulated niter stockpiles if sub is checking that), but I'm not sure there's a way around it since I simply don't have enough quads built (0 is not what I'd call "enough quads" ) for the "sudden spike" plan. If they were checking the diplo screens every turn, they'd see the extra DoFs with you and know we can't be just defending against TAD, but...I'm not checking the diplo screens every turn, so hopefully they aren't either. I probably should be, though, I just haven't had the patience for it lately.

I'm thinking about moving Magnus from Cuneiform to try to boost the incoming chop in Linear B, by the way. I'm not really sure that's actually worth doing because of the overflow math issue, though, since I'm sure the chop will give less than 120 base hammers either way, likely resulting in the overflow getting eaten due to the +150% multiplier. I might try it anyways, though, with no settlers coming in the next 10t in Cuneiform and therefore nothing really to lose other than maybe a few turns of Surplus Logistics.

TAD is taking plenty of time to think this one through, it seems...8 hours since the last turn, but 6 since a suspicious post in their spoiler thread that almost surely denotes mid-turn discussion with Kaiser. Maybe you hit the nail on the head by guessing that they'd come for us without the city gift and they are now deciding whether to re-evaluate that plan. Or...maybe they're thinking about taking the city and ignoring the DoF and are trying to figure out how big a breach of the RB spirit that would be . (IMO, it wouldn't be a breach of the RB spirit at all, I knew perfectly well when I offered that there's no way to actually enforce the 30 turns of peace I'm trying to trade the city for)

I think next turn I'll send CMF 12 gold for 12 gold (or however many turns are left in the suboptimal DoF) and 1 favor for 1 favor to indicate the general thrust of our plans. I'm a little worried sub might peace out with them now that frigates are on the board, which would really mess us up - hopefully the offer of help against sub will be enough to get CMF to stay at war and try to take back the island cities.

[Woden]

TAD is taking plenty of time to think this one through, it seems...8 hours since the last turn, but 6 since a suspicious post in their spoiler thread that almost surely denotes mid-turn discussion with Kaiser. Maybe you hit the nail on the head by guessing that they'd come for us without the city gift and they are now deciding whether to re-evaluate that plan. Or...maybe they're thinking about taking the city and ignoring the DoF and are trying to figure out how big a breach of the RB spirit that would be . (IMO, it wouldn't be a breach of the RB spirit at all, I knew perfectly well when I offered that there's no way to actually enforce the 30 turns of peace I'm trying to trade the city for)

I noticed this too. It is a little suspicious. They probably never thought you would agree to it and need to decide if it is worth switching gears. I doubt they will take the city without the DoF but Kaiser did seem to jump around alliance wise in PBEM18, depending on how the wind was blowing. Although it wouldn't be against the spirit of RB, it would be a hit to reputation and future dealings in these games.

[ljubljana]

Given that they've waited so long, I think it's pretty clear that, if they don't accept this, an attack is almost certainly coming. That's another argument in favor of this move that I didn't notice at the time - if TAD was planning an attack, as they most likely were, they are now in the very difficult position of having to either choose a different target, commit the mother of all diplomatic stabs, or make it glaringly, blindingly, incontrovertibly obvious to their target that an attack is coming when the DoF lapses. On that last point, we never doubted that an attack from them is plausible and that we would need to be ready for it, but they don't necessarily know that - rejecting this deal will probably make the attack look much less appealing from their perspective than it did a turn ago, since it's now obvious that we're going to mass-upgrade ships and build walls in every exposed city if they do so.

There is one reason for them to reject that we should be on the lookout for, though - it's possible that they could read our offer as indicating extreme weakness and desperation, as would be the case if, eg, we were nowhere near Square Rigging/Cartography or hadn't revealed the former yet. That's a little implausible given my gold reserves, but if they reject, I might try offering again in 8 or so turns once we've started upgrading frigates just to make clear that this isn't the case.

As for reputation, I did let their ships go when I could have stabbed TAD in a similar way by killing them before accepting their peace offer at the end of the last war. Hopefully that will win us some goodwill here in the English war room.