[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

The problem with chopping out Medieval Walls at Cuneiform is that I'm not in Limes anymore and it wouldn't finish the whole cost at this point. Not sure how much time I'd have to spend on them, but I probably would have to choose between that and the frigate over the next few turns. I do have another builder who is frantically running around mining plains hills, but it would take a long time to bring it up to Cuneiform. I think the frigate + crabs harvest seems better since I can then use the crabs to get 1.5 extra caravels too, and medieval walls would probably buy us just one more turn whereas a few more ships could make the difference in whether the defense succeeds overall.

I also can't get the double shot wall promotion on Victor anytime soon - I don't even have the default Victor promotion yet, though I will in 4t. Unfortunately I messed up and wasted a title on Magnus when the IA came in because I didn't know about the super Ironclad and thought we could fight TAD away from our cities...but even if I hadn't done that I would still need to wait until Guilds, which is probably too late anyways.

Also, my plan is to mostly use the city defenses to go for frigates rather than the ironclad, at least initially. If we can kill 5-6 frigates with city defenses and counterattacks, we might be able to meaningfully impact the pace of TAD's conquest such that I can then kill even more frigates. The ironclad, on the other hand, is probably just going to heal off whatever damage I do with promotions for a while while the frigates keep knocking down my cities. If I think I can kill it, I will go for it, but I seriously doubt that that'll be possible.

I agree that sub/roland are probably not going to attack, and that attacking would be very dumb of them. But maybe they will be tempted to burn down a few eastern cities if it is extremely obvious that we have no ships over there and can't hit them back. Idk, I think I'm just being paranoid and it's not going to happen, but we would be totally screwed if it did.

[Woden]

You can put Limes back in in 4 turns and you will probably need that time to get the builder to the chop. Maybe the gold is better, IDK, just spit balling.

One thing I don't know if I have mentioned in the past and it is worth mentioning before major war breaks out. For your boosted healing ability, the ships need a full turn of movement to fully heal. You can't move them into your borders and expect them to fully heal on the same turn. I actually don't know what happens if you have a ship healing on your turn, then TAD attacks on his turn, does it fully heal at the start of your turn? Might be worth testing out.

Edit: This is also one more thing you have over TAD, your boats fully heal in 1 turn within your borders if the city has a Cothon.

[ljubljana]

I could switch into Limes, but I am not sure what I would swap out of to do that...I can't really give up 4 turns of Bastions or Press Gangs to do that. I could maybe drop Professional Army but that would commit to a lengthy period without being able to upgrade. I don't know, I think I should just take the gold...maybe I will get punished for that but I think it's better. We can see what TAD does first before deciding though - if he dawdles and doesn't come for my cities straight away I can see the argument for walls instead.

I totally forgot about the Cothon healing buff. Like, totally, completely forgot. That could be the beginning of an idea. It's probably too late to execute this at Cuneiform due to positioning problems unless TAD doesn't advance the ironclad next turn, but let's say TAD goes for Linear A next after crushing Linear B. If I park the caravel armada on the Cothon tile and just heal to full every turn, TAD won't be able to break it with just the ironclad, and I will have the +10 defense vs frigates promotion online too so they may not be able to break it with frigates either, especially if I can kill some with my ships and with city defensive fire in the meantime. That could be a nasty puzzle to force TAD to solve, and if I can surprise them and buy a few turns while they figure out how to deal with it, that is more time for our production advantages to come into play.

edit: I think it comes down to whether I think my armada can survive attacks from one ironclad, one caravel, and six or so frigates per turn, which is the max they can hit me with at Linear A. I don't think it can, but it might be closer than we'd think. Embolon applies to defense against ranged ships too, right? If so, my armada will defend against frigate shots with 72 base strength + 17 from promotions = 97 before modifiers against TAD's vanilla frigates, which is not too far off of the Turtle Ship. The TS could definitely take 6 frigate attacks per turn (and still be well in the green on health) so maybe it's not as crazy as it sounds.

How do people test things like this in Civ6? I don't know much about the map editing support besides that it is extremely limited. Is the thing to do just to play a game with Phoenicia and goad some AI into throwing ships at me so that I can see if the Cothon will let my ships start each of my turns at full health after being attacked?

[Woden]

How do people test things like this in Civ6? I don't know much about the map editing support besides that it is extremely limited. Is the thing to do just to play a game with Phoenicia and goad some AI into throwing ships at me so that I can see if the Cothon will let my ships start each of my turns at full health after being attacked?

I either set up an advance start duel hotseat game and play both until I get what I want or you can run fireturner, which allows you to add whatever you want to a game. I usually don't use fireturner, just play a duel game.

[Woden]

Turn 127
Military Training is in, go back to Cartography and have enough overflow to save the turn of research into MT. I set up my western ships for a little gold, science, and culture generation...
   

After I sent the turn, I realized I should have had the longboat in the east end its turn on shallow water to get the extra movement. They won't be able to move up and pillage next turn (need 3 MP for pillaging). Also, the southern one by Doing the Honours will wait a turn before pillaging or maybe he will move to the niter at Miln. I want to pillage the Harbor and the eastern mine at Doing the Honours but I think the city can 1-shot a longboat so I will have to pillage both at the same time, so I only lose 1 ship instead of 2. I am also planning on slotting Raid, so I think if I can get 2 pillages out of a boat, it will be worth losing it. If I am luck, the longboat by Big Brother can make a bunch of money, with 3 mines, a lumbermill, and a plantation in range, but there maybe a city just below the campus pin and I may lose the boat there once in range. 

Back home, the encampment at Loki is finished and I chop out the one at Thor...
   

Both cities work on longboats. I convert another Phoenician city and get a natural conversion. That should be enough to get you to follow my religion but it won't update until after my turn. I didn't get a DoF from sub so I send him one. I want to get a scientific alliance with him since he already has a trade route to Odin. CMF also has a trade route and I am getting 4 gold from it. Hope he sends more. 14 turns until the next era. I am desperate for some builder love and the faith from pillages will help in that department.

[ljubljana]

Turn 128 - Phoenicia



Tough turn. TAD has me forked at Writing on the Wall and Linear B, which I was never really going to be able to prevent without getting my navy destroyed, and I can't do anything to stop it without giving TAD the first strike. In retrospect, maybe I should have moved my ships up into this area last turn so that I could take a first strike at the frigates now, even though that would give TAD the ability to counterpunch. If TAD is smart now, they will move this whole fleet due east, using the ironclad to block the narrow strait between WotW and the mainland (since it's not like I can kill it even if I can get it totally surrounded) while the frigates bomb out Linear B with impunity. If we are very lucky, though, TAD will try to retake Writing on the Wall instead by sending ships south. If they do that, I can maybe exact some punishment by swinging around to the north while the Turtle Ship is preoccupied and hitting the frigates.

TAD has such a numerical advantage at this point that they can use one fleet to hold off my navy without breaking while the other fleet takes my cities without my being able to do anything about it. I really hope they don't do that...if they do, I will only really be able to engage the targets TAD gave me and hope they miscalculated. I am not sure there is any circumstance in which it's worth engaging the monster ironclad, though...I can barely scratch it even with my best unit with all our bonuses, and if I tried to hit it with a bunch of frigates to soften it up, I still would not be able to kill it and it would simply promote-heal to gain another +10 vs frigates and even more total impregnability against the kind of force I can currently bring to bear. I think TAD won this war during the planning stages by getting to recruit Yi...this defense would be so much more tractable if not for that one unit...

[Woden]

Don't get so down on one ship, you have a +8 CS advantage at the moment on all other ships. We are at a disadvantage but it is not game ending yet. After looking over all of our abilities to make sure we aren't missing anything more, I realized TAD gets an extra movement if the ship is built in a RNY, so make sure to remember that when setting up defenses and attacks.

If I can get a few turns of pillaging in for each longboat, I should have a bunch of gold. With raid slotted, it should be just under 200 per pillage. I will send it over to you if you need it for upgrades. I will eventually need some soon too, as I should get 1.5 turns of science out of each mine and could have Cartography done in 3 or 4 turns but can send you what I have if needed. I would like to upgrade at least one berserker next turn to increase my city defensive strength but will send you the remaining. It should be enough to get another upgrade with the gold out earn on your turn. The only pillage I will have next turn is a quarry, so no gold but the following turn, I should get a few mines in and the turn after, I will get 2 mines and a lighthouse. That should be between 900-1000 gold over the next 3 turns. Not sure what pillage opportunities I will have after that, since it will give TAD/Kaiser time to react and tehy may killl my ships by then.

[ljubljana]

That sounds like a plan to me. I am actually starting to run out on easy targets to upgrade - I have 3 quads that can turn into frigates (though I would need some more of your niter for that), and some biremes that I am using to scout TAD's approaches and so are therefore swiftly meeting their end. If you will get that much gold for free from pillages, I can try to save the remaining biremes to upgrade to caravels. All told, though, I think other than the 3 quads if we can spare the niter and maybe a few more biremes, I actually am getting close to a fully-upgraded navy. It will probably be time to start thinking about reversing the flow of gold so that you can upgrade your ships pretty soon. I am also very excited for you to get Cartography and Press Gangs and start mass-producing caravels, that could really help turn the tide.

I really wish I had stationed my ships to the north of WotW on t127 rather than where they are now, I could have then swung around this turn and seriously damaged their frigates. Oh well, though, what's done is done. If TAD tries to link their northern fleet with the ships in the south, I will probably still end up profiting from the position I chose. I am not sure why TAD seems to have made no effort to move the southern ships northward - my best guess is that they either anticipated exactly such a trap or are keeping them home for defense. Either way, we know at least two frigates are down there, so their northern fleet probably has no more than 6-8, which is not too many more than I have.

[Woden]

I am not sure why TAD seems to have made no effort to move the southern ships northward - my best guess is that they either anticipated exactly such a trap or are keeping them home for defense. Either way, we know at least two frigates are down there, so their northern fleet probably has no more than 6-8, which is not too many more than I have.

The key to naval battles is getting the first mass strike to hurt your opponent as much as you can in a decisive battle. He is either waiting for you to make a mistake so he can move in for the kill or trying to push you to where you can't maneuver. You will want to try and keep most of your ships just out of reach of his navy and he is doing the same but since he has a slightly longer reach, he will try and push you into a corner. He is also probably trying to get both of his navies into position where he can trap you in the cove between WotW and your other cities. One of the reasons TAD is good at combat is that he is patient and he lets others make mistakes. 

This slow rolling the battle is good for us, you get closer to Printing, I get closer to Caravels, and we can upgrade more ships. But, he will jump when he thinks he has you trapped, so be careful in your positioning.

[ljubljana]

The thing is, because of the lay of the land here, TAD does not actually need to force me into a decisive battle to kill me. My ships had to choose to hang out in either the cove by Linear A/WotW or in the north by Linear B and Cuneiform, and either way I would then be unable to defend the cities on the other side. I think what I should have done, in retrospect, was hang out west of Linear B so that I could be swinging into his frigates this turn before he even got a chance to fork me like this.

If TAD tries to link up with their ships in the south, force me back into the cove, and get a decisive battle with my fleet, I actually think that's a good outcome for us. The ironclad can only anchor one area of TAD's position if he tries that, since the Writing on the Wall island is in the way, and I think trying to corner me in the cove would actually give me a chance to counterattack somewhere where the ironclad can't intervene and my ships have a CS advantage over TAD's. That is, unless TAD advances his whole navy by literally two tiles per turn to push me back with his higher reach without ever coming into range of the first strike, but that has other problems in that our cities will be pumping out boats the whole time while he does that.

The play that I'm really worried about from TAD is this: if he moves the ironclad 7E next turn, or 5-6E backed up by caravels, it won't matter that he's in first strike range because I have no prayer of significantly damaging it. He can then totally ignore my navy and send his frigates and remaining caravels north to burn Linear B and Cuneiform, and I can't do a thing about it unless I throw my whole navy against the ironclad blockade and likely lose most of it in suicide attacks against the clad (which oneshots even Embolon caravels right now). Do you think I have any options against that move that I'm not seeing?

I think I made a significant error in the positioning I went with over these last few turns... I figured that if TAD swung north towards Cuneiform, I would just follow him with my navy and try to trap him between my core ships and the newly produced ones I'm making in the northeast. But I didn't count on TAD using the ironclad defensively in the strait between WotW and the mainland to keep me from following him... Hopefully he doesn't end up doing that, but I am really wishing I had gone with a deploy north of WotW right about now.

edit: If we have a chance, a large part of it will come from our advantage in visibility and scouting - if TAD does not know where our navy is, even though he can make an educated guess, there is a chance of him messing up, either by overcommitting where we can get a first strike, or the reverse, being too cautious to advance on my cities in case he is moving into first strike range of a northern deploy. This is the biggest thing we got out of recapturing WotW IMO - if not for that, TAD would know exactly where my ships are at all times and could advance north essentially with impunity.