[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

For niter, I'd like 8 if that's possible, but I don't actually know if it's the best idea. It would just be so I can start a 4-turn frigate in Cuneiform, if you're planning to upgrade frigates in the half-cost niter policy soon it's probably better for you to just keep it and get a few more frigates. Unfortunately, that market is my first...I'm only building it for the extra trade route really. I could build a second in Cuneiform if you think it's worth it, it would take roughly 5 turns and cost about the same as a frigate after multipliers. Not sure I think that's a good idea (the ship is probably worth more given the military situation), but I will go with it if you'd like me to. Otherwise, I can wait a few turns for your guilds hard-research to finish - in the meantime, I can finish Medieval Faires to get Victor now that it's obvious that the fight will take place not in open waters but in desperate defense of my cities. But yeah, let me know what you think I should do on the second market vs. frigate choice.

Do you think it's worth re-sending the research alliance to CMF? Not sure we will actually get anything out of it unless this game somehow goes so long that we get to level 2, except for I guess 2 bpt from a trade route from Oracle Bones that I guess I could run. But it's pretty clear that CMF is going to be the one friend we can actually count on in this game, and I am up for sending it to them just to signal the depth of our passion and emotion for them and total unwillingness to ever attack them. In that case, though, maybe a cultural alliance is better...I can envision a scenario in 30t or so in which Oracle Bones is my last city not conquered by TAD, and I will need it to not flip to CMF if that's the case, which we might be in some danger of in a dark age once the population of CMF's island cities starts growing.

[Woden]

A Cultural Alliance with CMF will work. As for niter, I will send you 8 on my turn. I need to upgrade a Frigate but it can wait a few turns. I still need to buy the tile for the encampment at Thor and will need to upgrade a few berserkers, so I have time to get more niter. As for the market, I can just straight research Guilds and maybe, if I am lucky, I can get some pillage culture to help it along. I think boats are more important than the boost right now.

For timeline, I think I need 8 or 9 turns for Guilds, 7 for Diplomatic Service, and 11 for Reformed Church. I can build a monument in Odin and one in Heimdall that could help shave a few turns off. Then whatever I can get form pillaging will help. I think each pillage will be worth about a tur of culture. I think you can wait for my boost to Guilds as you will have to wait for my boost to Reformed Church too anyways and you can get some of the other civics boosted for me as you wait. I see what I can do to help speed it along.

[ljubljana]

Sounds like a plan to me. What civics do you think I should boost for you? If you don't have the boost for Medieval Faires, I think that makes the most sense, since it will get Victor up in my cities a bit earlier and I can then get him a promotion when Guilds comes in. I should probably have promoted him instead of Magnus, back when I was laboring under the delusion that TAD would not be able to conquer my cities. Then Guilds would get me a third promotion for a second ranged attack...

If we ever do get to Wars of Religion, I will stack it with Twilight Valor and Bastions for the rest of the war. Maybe that will slow TAD down...

I will offer CMF a cultural alliance. If CMF rejects (as they probably will), I think I will wait until we start losing cities and see if that makes CMF reconsider. An Oracle Bones OCC could be pretty useful to them at that point to keep TAD's conquests under occupation.

[Woden]

Turn 126-Vikings
Didn't see much of anything that TAD did on his turn. He must still be positioning. One thing I did notice while looking around...
   

He may have brought some ships to the polar region and using the path up there to sneak around your fleet and then will advance on Runic when Cartography comes in. Might want to consider having a few boats playing zone defense just in case. 

AS for my turn, I think instead of bringing my berserkers up north since they will only be able to attack at the high 60s if lucky, I bring them over to where Kaiser has settled south of their mainland and go for a Hail Mary attack. Three plus a ram and maybe a crossbow might be able to do some damage to Kaiser, especially since his MP is low right now. What do you think? My units are going to have to wait a few turns to upgrade, so there is time to reconsider. I am also set up to do a little pillage next turn and if left alone, do a lot of pillaging in 3 or 4 turns. 

I switched research to Military Training and switched civics to Guilds to preserve any overflow I might lose when you finish Exploration on your turn. 

Thinking about TAD a little more, I know he has a "super" boat right now but our combined military power is more than his alone and his combined with Kaiser's. If we are persistent and keep building boats, we might have a chance here.

[Woden]

A little more long term plan right now. I am sending a bunch of longboats south and then west to look for pillaging opportunities along TAD/Kaiser's southern coast. My hope is that TAD sends his fleet north to fight you and his coast will be relatively open. Thor and Loki are going to build longboats and caravels until this war ends or they are destroyed. All my other cities will also build longboats once their current builds are complete and then will build caravels. I am thinking Odin will build a monument after the lighthouse and then its 2nd government building. I am still a little split between the Grand Master's Chapel and the Intelligence Agency. I am leaning a little more towards the latter, since I will never have enough faith to buy units and science builds and builders/settlers with monumentality during the next era. Maybe better to focus on the buildings later in the game. If fact, maybe I should look for a theater square somewhere to help speed up the civics. IDK, might no be worth it right now.

I think the era ends in about 14 or 15 turns. I have secured a Golden Age and will probably take Monumentality. I do really need some builder love in most of my cities. I can also expand a little to the islands east of Balder.

I also just noticed that TAD spent about 1,340 , so he most likely finished Cartography and did a mass upgrade of Caravels. I figure about 8 because my estimate doesn't include his income from the turn.

[ljubljana]

It will be a bit before I can play the turn, but the reason we aren't seeing TAD ships this turn is almost certainly because he just got Cartography and upgraded 10ish caravels. Similarly, our apparent milpower advantage is an illusion and will be gone next turn, and it's more illusory than that because the only units that matter at all as far as fighting ability is concerned are caravels, frigates, and TAD's ironclad, everything else will be effortlessly one-shotted by GA frigates and caravels. TAD has 20 of those ships and I have 10, so really we have about half their milpower as far as actually useful units are concerned, maybe slightly more than that but not much more. We should start closing that gap because we will make ships faster with Press Gangs + Cothons/Norway and might have stronger income than TAD now, but the gap could also widen if they can kill ships faster than we can replace them or burn down enough of our production centers that we no longer have an edge there. We have a chance, but it's a very slim one that requires a lot to go right to be at all feasible IMO.

As for where the zerks go, I'm not sure. You could definitely set Kaiser back significantly by razing the southern cities, I am just not sure how much it contributes to our odds of actually winning the war. Trying to recapture a city with the ironclad inside has like a 90% chance of your zerks sitting around doing nothing, but maybe a 10% chance of significantly swaying the war. Against Kaiser's cities in the south, you are pretty likely to set his development back, but I am not sure it'll help our military situation much if successful unless it draws TAD's ships away.

[Woden]

What do you thin of running the commercial hub doubling card along with the doubling harbor card? Do you think it would shave a turn off of Printing. With your spy and the MA, you could get a +11 CS advantage. That will go a long way and TAD is going to be a few turns behind you if he knows about the added diplo visibility.

You could use this CS advantage to hurt the moral of TAD. He is a good fighter but does get discouraged fairly easy.

[ljubljana]

I think my two military and two wildcard policies have to be Conscription, Professional Army, Press Gangs, and Bastions by default. Of those, I think only Bastions has an argument for dropping for the CH policy, but I don't think it's worth it - that's only worth 7 gpt + 7 bpt, not insignificant but I think we need the city defense strength more. Also, wait, do we have the CH policy unlocked yet? I thought it was at Guilds or somewhere thereabouts.

[ljubljana]

Turn 127 - Phoenicia



Mandatory policy swap. Again, Bastions vs. Urban Planning is arguable, but I go with the former. 10 hammers/turn on caravels is significant (really significant actually, that's a caravel every 10t), but it seems very likely that some of my cities will come under attack in the next 4t, and I think Bastions makes more sense to maybe help them live an extra turn or two to buy time for the caravels I'm making to actually get produced.



All I did militarily was kill Kaiser's pillaging archer with a frigate so they don't get any free intel. I also upgraded an embolon caravel (2 of those left to go now) and made a little screen with my biremes in the south in case TAD tries to move ships up to retake WotW next turn. Due to the bireme ZoCs, TAD will have to kill at least one of my ships to be able to spot my navy lurking in the fog - correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think I have made any other mistakes here that would give them away. If they do that and I can get in a strong first strike, I'll probably just throw everything at the southern group and try to kill it before the northern group can help out, since I at least stand some prayer of actually defeating those ships, then swing around and try to hit the northern group from the rear while it is bombing out my cities. If TAD doesn't do that but instead moves ships up in the north while ignoring WotW, I will reposition next turn to try to open the possibility of engaging there instead.

One nice tactical feature of this position is that if TAD wants to take Linear B efficiently, they will have to have frigates bombing the city from the south, where they will be exposed and potentially susceptible to a counterattack. TAD will probably try to block the channel south of the city with caravels so I can't do that, but if I am lucky maybe I can hold it with caravels of my own to complicate their approach.

Otherwise, the basic idea tactical idea is this. Linear B, Runic, and Writing on the Wall are basically lost causes, but that is fine because they are weak cities that don't contribute that much to ship production. I am also a few cities ahead of TAD anyways, so I can afford to trade them for time and not be completely eliminated as a military power as long as my navy remains intact. After that, I am hoping TAD goes for Cuneiform next. The city will have a frigate inside plus Bastions plus probably Victor as well, which will be as strong a defense as I can muster at a single location. If I can defend Cuneiform for a few turns while my navy either defeats TAD's southern attack force or just follows the northern force from behind, I may be able to hit TAD from both sides at Cuneiform with the newly-produced caravels from the east and my main fleet from the west while they are working on the city. If not, TAD can't hold Cuneiform for long anyways due to loyalty, and we can try taking the city back with berserkers to hopefully kill the ironclad (though with caravels in play I doubt TAD will be dumb enough to take the city with it). The line that I need to hold to avoid completely collapsing is the one at which my major production centers start being burned, which basically means I need to kill TAD's navy before they take Hieratic. If that seems imminent, I will probably throw everything I have at them and let the chips fall where they will.

edit: Really, though, if I get a decent-looking chance to, I should try to make my last stand at Cuneiform. If the capital gets taken and I have to recapture it, it will lose a bunch of population, which is replaceable in Isolationism, but I believe it will also permanently lose the Government Plaza and 400 hammers of investment into buildings there, which really, really is not, not while I have to re-settle my mainland at the same time at least. The worst part is that I would probably lose the +3 combat strength from the spy - I don't actually know what happens when the IA burns while the spy is on a mission, but I bet it's not good. That is worth more to the odds of success of a last stand attack than the few more turns of production I would get by waiting, so I think if I get a chance to I will try to hit TAD from both sides at Cuneiform before it gets captured. Ideally, I should do so before the city gets too low on health, too - that way I can force TAD to choose between attacking the city (which will be killing at least one ship per turn with Victor and the frigate) and firing on my navy. I think TAD will need 3 turns to take the capital, and probably the right time to attack is after 1 of those turns has elapsed, when TAD's ships are in position but before too much damage has been done. Similarly, if I decide to try to hold the line at Linear B instead (unlikely, but I'm worried TAD will jam up the strait west of Cuneiform with caravels which would be a big problem), I should let TAD attack for a turn to take out the walls and then throw my ships at them to make them choose between finishing off the city and engaging my navy.



Here is what "boats in every city" looks like in Press Gangs. Not quite as impressive as I hoped, but I will take what I can get - Cuneiform and all cities east of it (well, except Mitla lol) should have time to finish their current builds before being captured. Linear A is pennies away from a trader for +16gpt, so obviously that has to come first, but it's a decent city and should be able to get in a caravel before dying anyways. Other than that, I have just one city, Nsibidi, on a Cothon instead of a ship, but that is because the Cothon is half-finished already while I would need to build the ship from scratch. It will take a few more turns to go Cothon - ship than if I just started the ship now, but I'll make 6gpt from the Cothon and only delay the ship by 3t or so after the Cothon hammer boost, which seems worth it over the course of the war since I doubt TAD sees this as a particularly high-priority location to take out. I'll swap this city onto ships too next turn if you think that's the better call, though.

Do you think I should switch Mitla/Runic over to lighthouses? 20t is a really long time to wait for a caravel, and they could have the lighthouses done in 15tish which would help by giving another TR and giving Demotic something useful to build in 15t in the form of the trader for that other TR. On the other hand, it might be 20t before TAD can get to Mitla, and a caravel would be nice to have.

Also, my spy has arrived at the former Mohenjo-Daro - I now rather wish I had picked a city closer to the front for the tile visibility (as opposed to the diplo visibility), but it's too late for that now.

I am thinking of using the last charge on this builder to do a Magnus crabs harvest at the capital. That's worth a permanent loss of 4gpt, 2bpt, and 1f at the capital, but I could do both remaining embolon caravel upgrades next turn if I went for it. I think I should probably do it, but what are your thoughts?

edit: One more question for you - my DoF with suboptimal lapsed this turn, and, as I have mentioned, China has a bunch of gold and rejected my offer of an extension a few turns ago. Do you think there's anything I can do diplomatically to dissuade them from attacking me? I don't think that's particularly likely given their hot war with CMF, but if they do go for me, even if it's just a drive-by to raze a few of my eastern cities, I will be totally and completely dead.

[Woden]

Maybe chopping out Medieval Walls at Cuneiform would be a better use of the builder than harvesting the crabs? Might be enough HP to slow him down enough to kill the ironclad, if you had Victor with the double shot walls.

Sub/Roland aren't going to attack. Look at there combined MP versus CMF's. You think CMF is going to leave them alone after sub razed some of Marco's cities. I bet there will be a renewal offer from suboptimal on my turn or when you open your next turn. Last I looked, sub didn't have Square Rigging (so no Cartography) and CMF looked to have both. They would be stupid if they launched anything our way.

As for Milta/Runic, either way works. They really aren't going to make much difference either way. Trade Routes are nice but will take too long to make much difference and another ship is good but might not matter in 20 turns. The lighthouses are probably a little better option, since if you lose a city with an existing lighthouse, you can still use the trader once those lighthouse are complete.

Alternatively, you could have those cities build quads for either upgrades or cannon fodder.