[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

Yes, I will move up and flank TAD on my turn. I think the first target post-WotW should be Official Visit. I can buy a settler once the era changes and settle the small island to provide additional loyalty. I can also take the Victor's Garrison Commander promotion with my next title and us him to hopefully hold the city while we take the ones close by. Also, my "army" (with a ram) will be in the south and closer if we need them to help out.

I will listen to arguments to go for his capital and his northern holdings but I think going south is the better move. If TAD retreats to the narrows, we can sail south where it is more open and relative flat, where Frigates can shoot over the land. I am going to upgrade a Frigate next turn and think I should upgrade the remaining 2 quads as soon as we can. Then maybe we could split once his navy is gone. One could go north and one south.

[ljubljana]

I agree about going south, I think that's the only place where we have any kind of a chance to hold cities against the loyalty pressure. If we go north, we will be able to take one city and then his capital will be right there, which is not enough to build up the kind of buffer we would need to hold on anywhere. When do you think you will get the next Victor title? I think we will need to prioritize that; if you don't have Medieval Faires yet, maybe it is worth taking a detour there when we think we are just a few turns out from taking our first TAD city. To be honest, I am a bit worried that we will not be able to hold on to any TAD cities at all other than the city-state island, and will need to raze and replace Official Visit and the other city in the south. I hope not, but if that is the case, at least we can take out some of TAD's best cities and then have some hope of holding on to the capital and the other cities in the north.

As for frigate upgrades, sounds good to me. Do you have Retinues slotted in, though? One way for TAD to stalemate us or even push us back is to leverage his greater niter supply to catch up on frigates, and I suspect that is what he is doing with that gold - building quads everywhere and getting ready for a mass upgrade in Retinues. I think we should avoid frigate upgrades that we can't do at the reduced niter cost, if possible, otherwise we will have no way to prevent TAD from slowly catching back up on frigate numbers and perhaps eventually retaking the lead. I am planning to swap out Bastions for Retinues when Guilds comes in to get in some more frigate upgrades to keep our lead there intact.

edit: On reassessment of TAD's possible escape routes, I have a sinking suspicion that all of his ships except the galley will be gone next turn, with the eastern caravels retreating to the south while the ships in the west retreat to the SW through the strait. If TAD does that, we are both too far away to catch any of his ships before they get back to OV. In that case, I suppose the best play is just for me to spend the next turn shelling down WotW and for you to have two caravels in range for liberation next turn?

[Woden]

I agree about going south, I think that's the only place where we have any kind of a chance to hold cities against the loyalty pressure. If we go north, we will be able to take one city and then his capital will be right there, which is not enough to build up the kind of buffer we would need to hold on anywhere. When do you think you will get the next Victor title? I think we will need to prioritize that; if you don't have Medieval Faires yet, maybe it is worth taking a detour there when we think we are just a few turns out from taking our first TAD city. To be honest, I am a bit worried that we will not be able to hold on to any TAD cities at all other than the city-state island, and will need to raze and replace Official Visit and the other city in the south. I hope not, but if that is the case, at least we can take out some of TAD's best cities and then have some hope of holding on to the capital and the other cities in the north.

I can swap to MF, it will slow down Reformed Church and War of Religion by probably worth it. As for holding cities, PBEM18 showed me it is really easy to retake cities that have revolted. They revolt at the start of your turn and you get first crack. I think I only left a few survive past the turn they revolted in PBEM18. A Frigate and caravel can retake a city on the same turn it revolts and we can have a pair patrol a few cities. I think with the poor production in this game, it is worth to keep them all, else we have to hand build.

As for frigate upgrades, sounds good to me. Do you have Retinues slotted in, though?

I am not running Retinues, couldn't afford to lose anything else. I do have another niter to hook up once I can get a builder in 9 turns. I think we just need to bite the bullet on a few full resource upgrades. It would mean I can slot Raid again, taking out of Professional Army.

One way for TAD to stalemate us or even push us back is to leverage his greater niter supply to catch up on frigates, and I suspect that is what he is doing with that gold - building quads everywhere and getting ready for a mass upgrade in Retinues. I think we should avoid frigate upgrades that we can't do at the reduced niter cost, if possible, otherwise we will have no way to prevent TAD from slowly catching back up on frigate numbers and perhaps eventually retaking the lead. I am planning to swap out Bastions for Retinues when Guilds comes in to get in some more frigate upgrades to keep our lead there intact.

That is why we have caravels.

[Woden]

Longer term, I like you development plan. We are reaching the point in the game where we can start chipping away at CMF's Work Ethic advantage. I am hoping he makes the same mistake Ichabod did in PBEM18 and rely too much on Work Ethic as we reach the Industrial Age. In PBEM18, I was able to blow passed him (Ichabod) in production once I start building Industrial Zones and Shipyards, while it took him a while to get an Industrial Zone.

[ljubljana]

Okay, sounds good to me. I would like to upgrade at least a few more Retinues frigates between when Guilds comes in and when the dark age starts, but after that I have to swap to Isolationism/Twilight Valor and so can start sending you my niter. I have to admit, other than getting frigates every so often as the niter comes in, I am not sure what I should be doing with my gold to help speed the war along. I guess I could buy traders for some awesome 6f/7h Cuneiform TRs, but that seems to have very questionable immediate military benefit. I could also start saving for ironclads, but surely it's too early for that, right? I will need to find some way to time my civic swaps so that I can pop into Professional Army and Retinues for a turn every so often to upgrade a wave of quads without losing too many turns of Conscription and Isolationism (I dare not give up Twilight Valor even for a second), which could be a real challenge...

Agreed about chipping away at Work Ethic. I am hoping that, because CMF has been settling tundra cities with an eye towards strong DoA holy sites, he has not been prioritizing strong IZ locations like we have. Getting doubled IZs in place at +5 to +7 adjacency at all my core cities should really help out, as should a few judiciously-placed shipyards. I started placing some campuses this turn though and they are horribly expensive...even at my 20-hammer cities it will be 10 turns for a campus then another 10 turns for an IZ. Still, though, we obviously have to do it if we want to start catching up, and pretty soon at that so we do not fall too far behind in the ironclad race. At least with all the extra TR food I can go campus - library (scientist specialist) - IZ to help offset the lowish campus adjacency bonuses up here.

[Woden]

Okay, sounds good to me. I would like to upgrade at least a few more Retinues frigates between when Guilds comes in and when the dark age starts, but after that I have to swap to Isolationism/Twilight Valor and so can start sending you my niter. I have to admit, other than getting frigates every so often as the niter comes in, I am not sure what I should be doing with my gold to help speed the war along. 

Send it my way. I have lots of units I could upgrade. Otherwise, save for future upgrades.

[ljubljana]

Okay, I will start sending you whatever I don't need for the next few frigate upgrades.

[ljubljana]

How TAD is still making well over 200 GPT without my TRs and with fewer cities than I have is honestly beyond me. I guess maybe he has an economic alliance with someone on the other side of the world and is running 8 or so TRs there instead of maintaining a bunch of domestic ones like I am (like I have to given my terrible food situation, really). Or...wait, or, could it be possible that TAD was so certain we would crumple when attacked that he signed an economic alliance with Kaiser and had Kaiser build up a super-TR city with CH + harbor + GP somewhere? That would be the right move if he thought he was literally one hundred percent certain about conquering us (although IMO being that sure about a conquest is never really the right move), and it would explain their continuing lack of an MA, which is getting more and more suspicious as time goes on. I mean, Kaiser's culture is as good as mine, and I got Civil Service a billion years ago - there is absolutely no way they couldn't have had it by now if they were beelining, right?

Also, I think I'm going to promote the other two promotable frigates Line of Battle. I think a core of 6 or so Bombardment frigates is necessary for taking down the cities quickly, but after that I think LOB makes more sense and will retain usefulness longer (eg against CMF). Also, I have found that the key tactical breakpoint in setting up good turns is being able to two-shot frigates and move my own ships into the vacated spaces, and having a few LOB frigates to throw into the breach should make that easier in certain situations (eg if I ever have to take down a fully-healthy caravel).

[ljubljana]

Turn 134 - Phoenicia



WotW should be ready for you to liberate next turn. TAD will probably try to delay us by moving that galley out to block one of the tiles, but it will only buy the city a turn at most, and you might be able to take it out with just one caravel attack anyways. I also killed the two TAD caravels that Chose Unwisely in their retreat path and ran into your fleet. If we are lucky, the fact that you only used two caravel attacks and the ships got killed before the turn came around to TAD again will mean he is still unaware of just how much force you have in the area. My two caravels there are now very weak, and I would absolutely love it for TAD to swing around and kill them next turn and waste a ton of ships. Failing that, I think I finally have enough leeway in terms of caravel shielding that they can start heading to Geneva to heal next turn. In the west, the rest of the TAD ships have escaped to Official Visit. We can't easily break past that caravel (not without Line of Battle frigates anyways, which I'm working on...couldn't do it this turn because the promotable ones were the only ones that could reach the TAD caravels), but there is a choke point on our side too, and now TAD's ships will be totally unable to break out to the east unless we let them.

Where do we go from here? Well...



I think we have two options. One is to try to force the pair of chokepoints at Official Visit - this is tricky, though, as we will only get in two frigate shots and one caravel shot per turn at each of them if we try that. That could just maybe kill one caravel per turn at each chokepoint, but we will be trading ships rather than gaining them for a while, since TAD can likely kill a caravel per turn on the counterattack as well.

The other option is to swing south towards The Compassionate Society and make that our first target. I kind of think this is better for a few reasons:

One, if we leave a few ships up at the Official Visit chokes, TAD will have to defend those too, and his limited number of ships will be stretched too thinly to fend off a southern thrust as well, plus the odds of us forcing a decisive engagement with his fleet should be higher. 

Two, the city will be much easier to take, since we can throw as many shots per turn at it as we have frigates in range.

Three, once taken, the city opens up Economy Drive and Jobs for the Boys as subsequent targets, where we can get in many more shots per turn than at Official Visit - the latter city can only be hit by 5 frigates per turn, really just 4 unless we want one in range of ED's city fire, while TAD's other cities down here are way more exposed.

Four, if we can take the southern cities while TAD is forced to have ships defending the choke at OV, we stand a great chance of surrounding TAD's navy. 

Five, and most importantly, TCS will serve as a loyalty beachhead on TAD's continent in a way OV simply cannot. We will probably need to take just TCS and ED to hold TCS, and then can jump to the other two cities to bootstrap ED's loyalty in a way that I'm not sure is as feasible if we go for the loyalty-swamped OV first.

What do you think? This plan might leave our north exposed if Kaiser comes calling or TAD starts rebuilding ships up there, but I think I can reallocate enough of my next wave of caravels to hold them off if that looks likely. This seems to me like the fastest way to strike at TAD's underbelly without having to redo a bunch of work recapturing cities and without having to spend a bunch of turns grinding down the chokepoints at Official Visit, and if we pull it off, TAD's remaining navy will be surrounded in the Bristol Channel and in potentially serious trouble. If we're going to do this, I think those of your ships that are not heading for WotW should move into the Irish Sea but stick to the east side while my ships claim our side of the second chokepoint. I think we should use mostly your caravels (since they do full damage to walls and can do coastal raids) and my Bombardment frigates to ultimately take TCS, while I still leave some force at the chokepoints to box TAD in and maybe attrit his navy a little.

edit: Actually, let me see next turn if two GA frigate shots plus a caravel attack is enough to kill one of TAD's caravels at one of the chokes. It probably isn't but it might be, and doing damage to the caravels is useful anyways since TAD really doesn't have enough of them down here to keep manning the chokes for long if they have to stop to heal. If your caravels stick to the east side of the Irish Sea, I can try that at both choke points next turn if TAD has caravels there.

Other stuff:
- I'm building ships in every city still, duh.
- I sent you 200 gold and 8 niter this turn. The gold is for you to use, I don't need it for upgrades anytime soon. The niter, though, I will want back plus 4 more in 3 turns to upgrade my 3 quads - I am sending it to you so that my new quad build in Linear B (due in 3 turns) doesn't get auto-upgraded. Is that okay with you?
- CMF is wandering a bunch of units through our territory, what the heck? There is a long line of galleys off our eastern coast that doesn't seem to be doing much of anything even though roland is right there. He also started Huey Teocalli a little while ago according to the gossip screen - I am very skeptical that this is a good build in most circumstances, but maybe CMF has enough lakes nearby that it somehow seems worthwhile?
- That injured longboat you have by Jobs for the Boys could actually be very useful as a scout. I am anticipating that Kaiser will send what ships he has towards us from this direction as soon as he realizes the game is on the line. Maybe it's worthy trying to keep it alive as long as possible so it can spot their approach? IDK, just a thought, getting more TRs and setting TAD back is probably more compelling since we can just scout with a caravel if we have to.
- I might know what's up with TAD's alliance - Kaiser is two civics behind the three of us, which could be Exploration (which he definitely doesn't have since he's still Medieval) and Civil Service. If that's true, they will get an alliance very very soon. I also noticed something else, though - Rationalism is coming up on the tree, and because of the way it only works on huge cities or ones with +4 adjacency now, the recent Rationalism nerf constitutes an enormous stealth-buff to Japan. They will be the only civ running rationalism in addition to their already high campus yields, and could simply pull away and leave everyone else in the dust. Kaiser's civ is very spread out and doesn't seem well set up to do that, but he will get a big boost out of it nonetheless and we would do well to watch out for that.

edit: One more important thing to think about - I am honestly wondering if either of us should ever stop building ships. If we successfully make gains against Kaiser and TAD over the next 25 turns, say if we completely conquer TAD and are making progress against Kaiser, CMF/marco and roland/suboptimal will do one of two things: concede, or make peace and declare Final War on us at the first possible opportunity. I am hoping to forestall this a little by offering marco some type of alliance in 5-10 turns (before we take any TAD cities), but I doubt he takes it.

CMF is a very smart player who is always focused on the geopolitical side of the game and what needs to be done to retain some avenue for victory, and is also fresh off the heels of PBEM19 where failure to coordinate against the runaway was a major factor in thrawn's win. I think there are really only two ways in which we will not be attacked by them as soon as our alliance ends: one, if we stall out against TAD, in which case we're dead anyways, and two, if they are well on their way to killing suboptimal and roland by that point too and think they can outbuild us or tech to ironclads first. How likely is that, though? CMF is still working on his first suboptimal city and is very far away from sub's core as far as I can tell. That could change quickly, but right now, I think we will be faster vs TAD. While I really want this game to end in an ultra-late-game showdown with CMF, I think we are unfortunately very likely to be in a three-front war in 25t instead, and if so, we may not have time to build infra at all and should just both be pumping caravels from every city in Press Gangs as fast as possible until the end of the TAD war at least. If CMF really doesn't attack us in 25t, we can either attack him or just consolidate our gains and build infra then when we will hopefully have double the cities of everyone else. What do you think?

[Woden]

I think going south is a good idea. On my turn, I will pillage cotton and take Akkad (changing its name before liberating). My remaining boats will sail south to go around the desert island.

CMF is probably looking to upgrade his boats before he launches an attack. He has alliances with both of us and can upgrade in our shores.

I think this game is becoming a race between who can conquer who first, us with TAD/Kaiser and CMF/marco with sub/roland. I don't see CMF peacing out sub/marco if we conquer TAD/Kasier, he will need to conquer them to keep up with city counts. He might peace out them if he can get to ironclads quickly. My hope is that I can pillage enough to met him there.