Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Turn 122
Fine, be that way:
It's my fault Aquemini is gone. I explained why I placed the Chariot where I did in my last post, but I forgot that he could sail around the chariot - and that he'd have the movement to blast Aquemini with a single jong still. I didn't think that one jong plus the knight would be enough, and yet, here we are. I should have placed my chariot 1 tile further back, where it might have tanked just one more jong hit - now, sub had the jong to spare (the last one is skulking somewhere out east), so it might not have mattered. But I keep underestimating how fast the little bastards can move.
Anyway, the Russian navy extracts its vengeance:
Two jongs, one of them double-promoted, are destroyed, and the lone visible survivor is redlined with no promotions in sight. He will get one more attack, so I throw the chariot where I should have last turn and place it between sub and SFFB. I also place the courser just across the river from the knight:
The last jong, the intact single-promotion, will have the movement to reach either SFFB or my courser, but no land unit should be able to reach SFFB this way and we'll be able to finish off the last two, hopefully. The double-promoted jong is trapped and doomed, but will go down swinging - if sub concentrates he can knock out one of my frigates on his turn. We'll see how he chooses.
Australia is down to 4 cities, but we can take that back to 5 within 10 turns. Then he'll need now four settlers to rebuild, but least he didn't chop anything at Aquemini or MMLP, so they can be refounded. We'll also ahve the gold, perhaps, to immediately place and chop their holy sites, though those are now more expensive due to the increases in tech. But with Magnus, MMLP can insta-chop the holy site using both forests, and Aquemini will just need to work the forest for a while before its chop. Again.
Man, I don't like Indonesia.
China flipped Antananarivo, so I flip it back. I'm trying to parcel out my envoys to farm era score a bit and see if Roland gets careless, though again I don't expect succeed here:
Abroad, we discover a decent jade island south of Norway and move towards Woden's capital, I think:
Magellan is deployed to Fuji, where he will lead our new Caravel into battle in 2 turns against the barb frigate:
Then he'll sail to rendezvous with the fleet and assume command.
With the rest of the jongs all but caught, I deploy some of my galleys in ambush, supporting marco's galley - if the jong lurking at Shikishima comes out to sink the Australian trailing his cape off his borders, he'll get swarmed by 4 galleys and sunk.
That will could leave Indonesia with only 2 galleys or so for his entire navy - sub's military power is down almost to where it was at the start of the war. I'm about 120 points down from my peak, or about 4 galleys, but I have 2 frigates coming off the slipways and 2 caravel upgrades in the next, well, turn, so that will be erased right away. I send 6 more galleys north to swarm and pillage Sub's city-state:
We spot a trader on the way. The rest of the galleys either support the frigates or sail for China - I'm operating about 4 squadrons right now, although all 4 will be concentrating towards Call Me Al over the next 10 turns.
China has about 9 quads out now, by my estimates, and approximately 100 gpt. With 700 gold in the bank, he could upgrade 4 frigates now, 5 next turn, 6 in 3 turns, etc. He and sub don't have the niter for that, so I estimate about 6 frigate upgrades coming in the next 10 turns to be prepared for. That will be met and matched by my fleet reconcentrating, but I have time - he needs to upgrade in Chinese waters and then sail somewhere useful, so I can sink the jongs and head for Ilmatic to begin liberating it, which should take about 10 turns between travel time and bombardment time.
Kaiser's colonization wave continues:
In about 20 turns we will need to check back in on Japanese development, he might have once again become a threat in that time. He's been stagnant the last 40 turns or so.
East:
Sevastopol dumps production into a builder, SV into a frigate. That is mostly to eat up niter and let me keep accumulating it, the frigate itself won't be active until we get canals at Steam Power. My research plan is to go Education -> Mass Production (for Shipyards) -> Build 2 shipyards/2 workshops (Navarin and Borodino) -> Find Industrialization and Steam Power -> Beeline those -> Build a coal mine and an ironclad ->Beeline Steel for Battleships. I think that's the most rapid way to leverage my science/production advantage. BB construction will be hard without a card and any good way to save up gold for upgrades, but I can hold off on finishing steel if I have to.
Center:
I change my mind and decide to just get as much infrastructure out as I can before Press Gangs. Efficiency seems to me now more important. So Borodino will go Aqueduct -> IZ -> Ships, etc, etc. It'll be an interruption ranging from 4 turns to about 10, but I will have 4 new trade routes, 4 new districts, and a handful of buildings out of that 10 turn delay, so it should be manageable.
West:
Nakhimov is converted, and while it's only making 12 production per turn, that's on size, er, 2, and it's working both marsh tiles to grow as rapidly as possible. In full production mode at size 3 it'll make twice that. Anyway, growth is most important to me on this isle, because at size 4 each city will partake in a campus megalopolis to make Japan drool. Except for Apraksin, each city will be able to build rapidly using lavras, so once the initial campus builds are done my science will shoot up. All told, between the 13 total adjacency (doubled to 26), the 4 3-science libraries, and the 4-4 science universities, the complex once finished will provide 54 points of science to the empire, or a 50% increase over present rates (which are presently game-leading).
So, the center builds infra and then ships, the east is finishing infra and will go over to ships very shortly, and the west is going to boom its way to my endgame science complex.
also I think Indonesia must be destroyed.
May 7th, 2021, 17:15
(This post was last modified: May 7th, 2021, 17:18 by Chevalier Mal Fet.)
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Turn 123
For the first time in ages, we don't open the turn to fresh disasters. Instead, things are in motion and momentum is swinging in favor of Team Underdog over Team Sandbox. Education is in...
...and, more importantly, so is Civil Service:
This enables a policy swap AND it opens up Military Alliances. Marco, I can't think of any more important civic for Australia right now than Civil Service - once you unlock it, we will be able to form a military alliance against suboptimal and roland, which will enable a more or less permanent +5 combat strength boost. This is practically a necessity, since all other teams will be heading this way, too. Due to Roland and suboptimal's superior culture (well, Roland's), they're almost certainly here before us, so if you are not researching CS please prioritize that as soon as practical. 
After some waffling over Urban Planning's +16 hammers (net), I go with this policy configuration:
In retrospect, I should ahve gone with Urban Planning first for the quick boost of hammers, and then into Naval Infrastructure next turn, but no matter. I have 3 harbors on the map and 3 more completing over the next 4 turns, so this will be a tidy gold boost. Maritime Industries is totally obsolete now, with nothing left to build, so Professional Army is in. Caravels take no resources so that's all that's needed, and of course we keep our Holy Site/Campus boosting policies in place. Diplomatic slot probably will never change until Merchant Confederation becomes available, uh, somewhere.
EDIT: Medieval Faires, very close.
I start the turn with piracy. The Fourth Galley Squadron (GalRon 4) finds a lone Indonesian trader plying back and forth between Mohenjo-Daro and the former Brussels. Quickly ships of the squadron run down the wallowing merchant ship, put the crew into lifeboats, and set fire to anything they can't steal. The precious cargo is carried back to Russia and will pay for upgrades later, as well as hurting Indonesian income a bit - Sub was down to 12 gpt before I sank his fleet, so this was keeping him afloat.
On the front, sub bizarrely opted to fire a futile shot at my least valuable unit, the body-blocking chariot, while the 1-promotion jong to the east either stayed out of range or more likely fled. If he fled, there's only one place he can go, but he's too fast for my frigates to chase down unless I try to head due southeast and cut the corner at Thesa (the new Japanese colonies)*. That'd take a commitment of most of the fleet, so unless he comes back, I'll let him go. I'll keep one frigate in the area for security until the two caravels in the south deal iwth the frigate adn come up to assume security duties, but the rest of the fleet heads for the more important objective of Ilmatic.
Oh, obviously after murdering the last veteran jong:
On the whole, then, assuming this si the end of the jong invasion, we cost suboptimal about 1800 production but lost 4 cities razed and about 30 galleys. The unit hammer ratio is vaaaastly in our favor, due to the cheapness of galleys and the relative expense of jongs, but the overall exchange ratio is obviously skewed hugely in Indonesia's favor due to the mutilation of Australia. Marco is basically combat ineffective for the next 30 turns or so, while he regroups and rebuilds. However, on the whole, this was a strategic victory, I think, because we survived - something I don't think any other team could do - and suboptimal failed in his goal of knocking us out of competition.
We push north and find one promoted Indonesian galley retreating:
We will try to run him down and then go pillage the harbor nearby. I wish I could spare frigates for a quick dash at the city, but the capital comes first. I think the Indonesian navy consists of perhaps 1-2 galleys and 2 jongs at this point, and the most of the rest of his strength is in military units (or he's building a second wave at his capital, but why haven't we seen them at Shikishima?).
From Indonesia's perspective, however much damage he did to Australia, this has to be seen as a pretty grave defeat. His best advantage in the entire game was the jongs, and he needed to secure a game-winning position with them or fall behind. The era of jongs is over - there are only 2 left on the map, against probably 20 frigates between the 3 square rigging powers - and not only did he fail to win a dominant position, he's not even really in a competitive one. China and Indonesia have the best culture in the game thanks to China's age of wonders, but are very badly behind in science. Any production invested into science will be production NOT going to ships to resist the oncoming Russian invasion, and the little fleets they'll be able to field now before I'm on their shores will not be able to resist the tide of Great Admiral-led frigates and, more importantly, caravels, coming at them in the next 10-15 turns. We'll discuss my strategic plans for the war in a follow-up post, but as I said, I think the momentum is now all in Russia's direction and we are going to go seeking some payback (and securing our own game-winning position in the meantime).
Marco, it will be about turn 127 before I can begin bombarding the city. With medieval walls to blast through, assuming jong-level counterfire, it'll be about 5 turns before I can retake the city. I ran a test and you recapturing your own city does NOT count as a liberation.  It has to be a third party city. Anyway, our immediate goals now are
1)The liberation of Ilmatic
2)the eradication of Indonesian remnants (the three military units in the east, survivors from the capital)
3)The reconstruction of Australia.
Thankfully - a very small mercy - the hammerblow from Gitarja fell mostly on Marco's newest and least important cities. The ONLY surviving cities, practically, are his core 4, minus, of course, Ilmatic. That city can be recovered but will be a wreck when it is. So, Marco should first ensure his production base in the existing cities is as strong as possible, then he can pursue I think a wave of settlers to once and for all claim his land, then work on districts and getting research in order, and then start building a modern army to join Russia in our revenge tour.
To try and wear down sub's newly-promoted knight, I throw in an attack. My thinking is that he's on unfavorable ground, and I have friendly cities and sources of production in support, while he's a long way from home. Attrition favors me - I need him weaker so he can't go for Oz cities.
The sword and knight will struggle against either city unless that last jong comes in, but my frigate will stay in the area to operate with Australia's galley and quad. If it does, Marco, swarm it if my frigate can reach. The knight can't reach SFFB with my courser in the way, so all he can do is blast the city but not take it.
In the center, GalRons 1 and 3 maneuver:
GalRon1 is headed to scout the bay near Suboptimal and Roland, and seek targets of opportunity, but will avoid getting into any serious conflicts until the modern units show up. This is a campaign of harassment and intelligence gathering, not a decisive attack. GalRon2 is still supporting Australia's galley, but I think it's time to pull back, Marco, the jong isn't coming out to play. Once you pull your galley back to home waters I can send GalRon2 to join 1 on the harassment campaign.
Notice also my forming attack squadron in the south - the two frigates will be joined in about 7 turns by 2 more frigates and 3 caravels (one an upgraded galley), then the 7 units will head north under Magellan's command to begin operations against Shikishima and Sakhalin. We expect to face about 2 -3 jongs and 5-6 frigates, so will rely on our Great Admiral and supporting galleys for the decisive edge.
Overview of the East:
University builds started, caravel upgrades complete, and Exploration is due in 1 turn.
Overview of the center:
Oryol will begin its university next turn, after the builder is out. I should have left Serfdom in place one more turn, dammit. Oh, well, Liang is in place so it's a 4-charge builder instead of 6, and I'm running out of useful improvements to make.
We will miss 1 turn of press gangs, but then Borodino, Knyaz Suvurov, and Petropavlosk will begin frigate and caravel builds. In two turns Navarin and Mikasa will follow with 2 more caravel builds. Each city will take about 5 turns to build the modern units.
I went back and forth on Navarin's build and actually flipped it one more time after this. First, I had a lighthouse scheduled, but then though I wanted a Frigate out faster. Further reflection on the inefficiency without press gangs prompted the 2-turn monument build, which seemed to sync up nicely with everyone else. However, after taking this screenshot, I realized Medieval Faires would be a much greater return on culture than another monument, and Navarin is one of the only cities eligible to get my 4th lighthouse up in reasonable time (Mikasa, Petropavlosk, and Knyaz Suvurov being the other 3 possibilities). So I ended where I began: On a 4-turn lighthouse.
The west:
The important cities in Svalbard are all fully converted. GAGA will flip naturally for +3 gpt, but I won't invest faith in speeding that along. Chop is due next turn for Seniavin's lavra, which should take it to 1 turn or so. So in 2 turns the lavra complex will be fully operational,** and we'll begin granaries for maximum growth to size 4 and our campus megalopolis. Notice how even my tundra cities are outpacing Oracle Bones in growth, which is 25 turns old or so and is still only size 3.
What to do with my new trade routes?
As they become available, I will probably send them to Miln, for +16 gpt per. I can get in 3, for 48 gold, taking me up to Chinese levels of income. That will roughly equalize our gold per turn with sub, though we will still badly trail the two harbor powers. Gold is our Achilles' heel in this game thus far (well, that, and Australia getting punched in the mouth with jongs just as his development was turning the corner).
I might also propose an economic alliance with ljubljana. Marco, we could get very good returns on trade routes to Geneva, including science, and Ljub would be encouraged to reciprocate to our own cities, which might be more in our pockets. The downside is that it would lock us out of war with them for 30 turns, and, well, we might want to attack them sooner than that...
Three powers all now have great admirals:
But Ljubljana's team has totally wiped out their own gold reserves, and Phoenicia has a LOWER military score than England (Russia's is still higher, even with all the frigate upgrades). Archduke still has 1200 gold left in the bank, which means another 8 caravels or so of advantage is going to be piled on - this will be a very tough slog for Ljubljana. He did not follow the RUssian practice of spamming infinite galleys, probably because he desperately needed internal development (and invested HEAVILY in settlers - sucks to suck and not have Monumentality), but now he's going to find himself outnumbered, and probably outgunned when Archduke drops that ironclad on him.
Speaking of!
Research strategy. Here's my visible tech tree:
Going Tactics -> Buttress -> Printing [pause for eureka, due in 9 turns] -> Mass Production for Shipyards.
With IZs at Navarin and Borodino, I can quickly get out workshops when needed for the Industrialization eureka and the location of coal (as well as a mine boost and factories becoming available).
With harbors, well, everywhere (sucks to suck, Indonesia), I can choose any two cities to build 2 Shipyards. Each shipyard will be worth +4 - +8 production due to the adjacency card, like a little lavra, and will boost Steam Power.
Together, Steam Power (ironclads) and Industrialization (coal mine) will boost Steel, which will grant me DotF City Defenses everywhere and also open up battleships, I think long before evne Kaiser can get there. That will be the game winner, right there.
Okay, so where is Steam Power and Industrialization? Here's the default tech tree:
Click me!
The two unrevealed Renaissance techs must be Siege Tactics and Metal Casting. I have 3 archers, but will probably faith purchase a crossbow, upgrade one, and faith purchase 2 trebuchets (on the central island to go after the inland cities) for those boosts. Now, Industrial Techs:
We have located Rifling and Scientific Theory (boostable when I get around to it). That leaves:
Industrialization
Steam Power
Ballistics
Military Science
Sanitation
Economics
4 of the 6 are in the front row, meaning there's a 66% taht we're only 2 techs away from one and a 43% chance that BOTH are in the first row. So we can reach ironclads very, very quickly - within 30 turns or so, I think. Canals will also be so valuable to open up Sevastopol and Sissoi Veliki to the ocean and bring 2 fully armed and operational shipyards online. So that's the plan.
Notice also that 3 powers have not yet reached Square Rigging. One is the hopelessly backwards Norway.
The other 2 are the two powers of Team Sandbox.
Good luck, boys.
You're going to need it. 
*
**Side note on lavras:
Posts: 400
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2018
How realistic is war with Ljubljana/Woden? We consider Archduke/Kaiser to be the real frontrunners, so there's little reason to go after Ljubljana/Woden. So the real question is whether they will attack us instead.
On the one hand, they have witnessed my empire being badly destroyed, and they *must* notice Kaiser plopping cities in the largely empty continent south of Japan proper. Not to mention the Classical-era war they had over the city that kept flip-flopping - clearly that city has some key strategic value for all of them.
On the other hand, they have noticed Russia's niter storages rapidly decrease while your military score rapidly spiked. When you strike back at Sakhalin or the main Chinese/Indonesian continent, they might seriously worry about the safety of Oracle Bones.
Hmm. I really hope they team with us, instead of with Archduke/Kaiser.
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Great Patriotic Campaign against Indonesia
Now that the jong campaign is over, I think we can safely say that Phase I of the war against Indonesia is over. We were pretty badly battered, but we survived and are still in a competitive position. I now know roughly what assets I'll have available, I know what sub and roland will have available, and I know the general tasks that must be done. So, in this post, I'll outline the game as I see it right now, and my loose objectives and plans for the future.
Strategic Situation
As I see it, all four teams stand roughly balanced with each other, with Indonesia/China (in first place on the scoreboard) the worst off, the Central Powers (the Archduke & the Kaiser) roughly balanced with the Raiders, and I honestly think my own team in the lead.
Indonesia and China have largely exhausted their advantages, which are concentrated in the early game - China's free wonders and Indonesia's jongs most especially. Instead of dominating the game, though, they're largely trailing, with the least amount of science, the least amount of shipbuilding cities, and the smallest militaries in the game. If not for other factors they'd be in serious danger of being completely torn apart over the next 30 turns or so - thankfully, those other factors are intervening, because we would gain very little from them dying to a Punic or English invasion.
The Raiders have a fairly large empire, but the development is a bit behind Russia's - ljubljana's cities are small, and Woden didn't start building districts or founding cities until only about 20 turns ago, so he's relatively backwards. Phoenicia's science is competitive, for the moment, but in 20 turns or so they'll lose free inquiry and be thrown onto their campuses. The worst part about their situation, though, is an ongoing naval arms race with the Archduke - both sides have been massively expanding their fleets, and I'd be really worried except that they both signed DoFs with our team within the last 15 turns. Archduke, especially, will not let a military era go to waste, and so the Raiders are facing a probable English attack very soon.
If ljubljana survives it better than Australia did Indonesia's assault, then he'll have decent prospects of wearing England down - he has +50% to ships over England and Norway has +50% to caravels in particular, which will roughly balance England's quality advantage. However, I don't really see any prospects of Archduke suddenly collapsing and them conquering him, so a bloody slapfight for 10-20 turns is more likely. If, however, ljubljana loses 4-5 cities to English razes, then I don't see any way he can recover - Norway will NOT be able to shoulder the load that Russia has, and the two will then be in serious danger of being ground down themselves as ljubljana won't have the production base and Norway won't have the science to keep up with modern units.
The Central Powers are strong at the moment but a bit brittle. Japan was stagnant on 5 cities for ages, going from a leading position to probably 6th at best. Kaiser has invested a ton of production in expanding but his military is small and his science even now is propped up a bit by the golden age. Long-term he'll be an issue - probably my last opponent, I think - but for now he won't be able to contribute much. Archduke has upgraded a mighty fleet, but like suboptimal it's a one-and-done - his culture is poor and he'll be very sluggish to Press Gangs, and his cities have been on military builds so long that it's hard to imagine he'll be able to easily build a new fleet to match this one. Once his edge is worn off, then I don't really see how he'll rebound again. So he needs to crush Phoenicia enough that he can ride his momentum to victory - in THAT war. But then he'll still have Russia to deal with...
And as for us, we're actually okay. Australia is badly mutilated, yes, BUT Australia is in no danger anymore of being conquered and eliminated. Marco's core 4 cities survived, with the exception of Ilmatic, so he still has a solid, if somewhat weak, base. Normally he'd be dead, BUT he still has all of Australia's advantages and AUstralia is a late-game civ. There are opportunities to even earn doubled production still, and with Russian cover he should be able to rebuild. However, it will take him probably 20 turns to build and send the settlers to reclaim his lost sites, and then those cities will need even more time to build the now very-expensive districts to make them useful. And Australia still struggles with gold generation, as many of the sacked cities were silver mines or harbors.
However, Russia has been totally unscathed (unless you count the 300 faith I invested in settling Vladimir Monomakh? Bitch, I just spent 1000 faith on an admiral, don't come at me with that nonsense), and due to my, er, eccentric geography I've HAD to keep expanding infrastructure even while at war. Now I have the most shipbuilding cities out of anyone, and every one of them is getting between 8 to 16 free production per turn. I have the advantage of science, the ability to spit out ships, and the ability to hit fairly easily the key eurekas to speed me down the tech tree even more. For example, Suboptimal just hit Exploration last turn (reasonably sure), while I'll get it right after him despite not having China trailblazing for me, since I can build the Caravels for the inspiration and he can't.
Thus, our two neighbors to either side will be tied up and out of action for a while. WE have that window of opportunity to leverage Russia's strength to solidify an advantage, and rubber band Australia back into relevance. Once that happens, we will be essentially unstoppable and concessions might follow soon. So, how to do that?
Theater Overview
Here is the known world:
We occupy the south, with Russia's coast split into two halves by the many peninsulas of Australia. To our northwest is the raider homeland, sharing the island of Svalbard with us, to the northeast is the Central Powers. Due north is the large island of Sakhilin, held by Indonesia, and north of that is the Indo-Chinese homeland. We have one fleet north of Australia, a second gathering in Russian waters south of Sakhalin, and a third is raiding in the far northeast near Indonesian outposts. Our two major shipbuilding areas are in the west at Mikasa Bay and in the east at Fuji Bay. Indonesia can faith purchase jongs at any coastal city, and can build ships from scratch at Shikishima in the center, Have a Good Time in the far northeast, and at Call Me All at his homeland. (Uh, that's it). China has an unknown number of shipyards and is the main wild card since I have very little concrete intel on him.
Basic Outline
Here's how I see the campaign unfolding based on the geography:
First Fleet, once it liberates Ilmatic, and supplemented by ships from the Fuji yards, will be very near the isolated Indonesian outpost of Good Time. It will also by near the south coast of Sakhalin. The fastest way to get into action and hurt Indonesia, although it won't be decisive, is a thrust north to seize the city-state, then sail west and seize control of Sandbox Gulf. The Mikasa yards, on the other hand, have a straight shot north to Sandbox Gulf and will be able to hurl my fleet right into the main arena of action. Indonesia's limited shipbuilding will be supplemented by Chinese reinforcements coming from the west.
So, in general, my plan is to concentrate my two fleets in the gulf right outside sub's capital. If I can get firm sea control of that area, I cut sub's empire in half - the cities on Sakhalin will be dependent upon their own resources to survive and most of them are open to bombardment from the sea. At the same time sub will ahve to concentrate on defneding his capital. So, we will build ships and keep building them until that area is mine, mostly watching for new builds/jong purchases and defending against Chinese reinforcements.
We will proceed in two phases: First, we seize the two city-states framing Sakhalin and cut it off from seaborne reinforcements. Those will also be bases to invade the large island. Second, we concentrate both fleets right outside Call Me Al, smash any targets of value, and seize the capital itself.
Sakhalin
Sakhalin is a long, narrow, jungley island. In the south are the two former Russian colonies of Shikishima and Vladimir Monomakh. 4 Indonesian cities dot their way up the island, though sub has curiously neglected to settle the eastern part. More bizarrely, every single Indonesian city was founded away from the coast and thus is about as useful for a naval campaign as tits on a bull. Still, the growing district clusters and population in the island are an important source of Indonesian science, culture, and gold. It is my intention that Sakhalin will be the seeds of Australian revival. It'll also be the jumping off point for our campaign to end Indonesia as a threat, dubbed Operation Burke:
Operation Burke
The plan is simple. First Fleet will initiate festivities after the fall of Ilmatic around turn 130 by sailing straight north and beginning an attack on African Skies, accompanied by my surviving land units from the Australian campaign - 3 heavy chariots and a courser, most likely. The fleet will destroy any Indonesian units near the coast and blast the walls into rubble. Once the city is vulnerable, we will land on the island and occupy the city, transferring in Victor or Amani to maintain control for a few turns.
Meanwhile, the Mikasa yard complex will turn out ~6 frigates and equal number of Caravels. This fleet, purely naval, will move east of Shikishima, clear out any enemy vessels in the area, then envelop the city from 3 directions to take it as rapidly as I can. Attacking up the narrow strait from the south is, obviously, idiotic, so that will only be an avenue for part of our fleet and not until everyone's ready. Once Shikishima falls, we will transfer in Victor or Amani and bombard Vladimir Monomakh into submission.
Each fleet will move independently once its target falls. First Fleet will head north and take the short path to Good Time, capturing that city to open the way to Sandbox Gulf. Second Fleet, more cautiously, will head north and into the Gulf, supported by my galleys and hopefully joined soon by First Fleet. Then it will destroy any enemy ships and seize control of the gulf, isolating Sakhalin.
Sandbox Gulf
If sub had settled coastal cities, this place would be a nightmare with jongs spewing out of Sakhalin and Call Me Al at the same time, one every 5-6 turns from each city, and I'd have to slug my way through. As it is, there are very few points for Indonesia to reinforce. China and Indonesia neglected to settle most of hte islands nearby, although a few turns ago China did bestir itself and colonize Numenor. The city is young and won't be able to rapidly build ships, especially since Roland is favoring culture and gold at all his cities rather than raw hammers. The Banda Sea is our main target here, control of it grants control of the entire Indonesian coast.
Operation Wills
The two fleets, absent two frigates detached to support the Sakhalin campaign, will move into the Banda Sea and launch a direct attack on Call Me Al. Spare ships will burn down the Chinese colony, but Al has priority. Once Al is taken, we can relax about Indonesian naval reinforcements, and will move down the coast, taking and burning Chinese cities as available.
The land units, meanwhile, will fan out from Shikishima and African Skies. I will be saving faith all the while for the Grandmaster's chapel, to the tune of 250/turn. Assuming I can take my initial cities by, oh, 16 turns from now, I will have 4,000 faith banked up - that's roughly 10 knights' worth. So, each turn, a unit will be bought from my base c ities and begin pushing inland. Frigates are posted at the two starred locations to bombard down those cities, while trebuchets and knights push on Proof. Once Proof falls, it'll be relatively straightforward to roll up the other cities. I anticipate that I shall be able to conquer quickly enough that loyalty pressure won't be too much of an issue.
Together, Burke & Wills will destroy Indonesian shipbuilding, strip them of every city off their main continent, and capture 5 cities that can be held long-term. Once Call Me Al is mine, I will buy raiding units in it as available to move inland and pillage the Indo-Chinese heartland, while the fleet continues its campaign of destruction. My goal is to compel Team Sandbox to accept peace, at which point the conquered cities will be transferred to Australian control and the fleet/army will prepare for its next targets.
Honestly, I don't see a real need to build much infrastructure at the Mikasa cities at all. If those 5 cities - 7 once Svalbard cities join...- keep building 4/5 turn Frigates and Caravels, that's one new ship a turn. Can sub and Roland sink one caravel/frigate every turn, without taking losses of their own? How will they replace those losses if they do? How long can they keep that up? I don't think they can.
So yeah. There's my plan to win the war and the game in more or less the same blow. I think I can bring the whole thing off within 40 turns.
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
(May 7th, 2021, 18:46)marcopolothefraud Wrote: How realistic is war with Ljubljana/Woden? We consider Archduke/Kaiser to be the real frontrunners, so there's little reason to go after Ljubljana/Woden. So the real question is whether they will attack us instead.
On the one hand, they have witnessed my empire being badly destroyed, and they *must* notice Kaiser plopping cities in the largely empty continent south of Japan proper. Not to mention the Classical-era war they had over the city that kept flip-flopping - clearly that city has some key strategic value for all of them.
On the other hand, they have noticed Russia's niter storages rapidly decrease while your military score rapidly spiked. When you strike back at Sakhalin or the main Chinese/Indonesian continent, they might seriously worry about the safety of Oracle Bones.
Hmm. I really hope they team with us, instead of with Archduke/Kaiser.
Yeah, I think they'll have their hands full, but we might want to have the option to attack them in case they start completely collapsing and we need to sweep up, say, eastern Norway as spoils.
Or, less likely, they might win and start rolling up England, in which case I need to backstab them at Oracle Bones.
Neither of those seems likely, so we might offer an economic alliance to work on repairing our gold generation.
Posts: 400
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2018
Nothing much happened on my turn. A Knight and a Swordsman are still menacing the territory north of MBDTF, but I have two Crossbows in the area to fight them with. Three, once a Crossbow from Blueprint comes along.
My land army is starting to burden my economy again - my income has dwindled from +10 per turn to +1.3.
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Right, with 3 Xbows and my courser in the area (plus the heavy chariots if needed) we should be able to deal with the 3 lingering Indonesian units.
As for gold, I should have a fair influx soon as I begin to raid and pillage the Indochinese coast, but we need to work on Australian income. I think 5 settlers, maybe 2 each from MBDTF and Blueprint, 1 from TCD, to resettle Rodeo, LET, MMLP, Aquemini, and Crabville. Crabville can borrow Blueprint's tiles and work on rapidly growing onto the crab tiles, LET has the silver (though we'll need to re-acquire the sugar tile to grow the city), and there's more silver in the north. Plus, once the settlers are out you can get down harbors.
Ilmatic can probably skip the plaza and go straight for the harbor - the Ancestral Hall can't be rebuilt in time to really benefit the new cities, unless you delay resettlement an unconscionably long time. So why not make the plaza the size 7 district (or relocate it entirely?). We can find out if you get 2 new titles, too!
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Well, you'd be out the cost of a settler and the plaza (+building if you want 2 titles) each time, so probably not a viable way to bootstrap all the governor titles. :P But at least it's a small compensation for getting your capital captured...Actually, it MIGHT be economical to settle a small city near an aggressive AI, build the plaza+buildings, and then take and retake the city. Each time you don't need to rebuild the settler, just the cheap plaza, for 1 title each time. Assuming that you DO get a title, of course. :P
@Marco, I'm thinking that one refinement to make in Burke is for an Australian galley or caravel to strike the finishing blow, liberating Brussels - we can retake the city right after if we want, but that way we'll get x2 Australian production for a while. I don't see any other way to get it. If you are near Cartography, I'll send along some of my pillaged gold to upgrade a caravel and he can tag along with the Russian frigates.
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
nah, you don't build it in your CAPITAL, you plant a little settler in front of Genghis and build the plaza *there*.
Posts: 3,975
Threads: 19
Joined: Aug 2017
Why does Kaiser never play on Saturdays? I have more time on the weekend but I always have to wait until Sunday afternoon to get a turn. We only get one turn every 2 days, the game will take ages at that rate. /whinyMcWhineface
|
