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You can't be too hard on yourself. Yes, a faster start would have gotten Australia a few more galleys out. But would more galleys have stopped the jongs once they promoted? One they hit that threshold, there was nothing we could do to even slow them, really, except making them pause long enough to blast our unit out of the water - which we did, because it was better than nothing.
Look at the trendlines on the graph, before Indonesia hit you - Australia was gaining ground rapidly on everyone. You had passed Norway, you were catching Japan and England. Yeah, you tripped a bit out of the gate, but go back and look over my first PBEM, PBEM7 - I screwed up massively again and again and only succeeded in lasting as long as I did through desperate gambits and being too irritating to kill.
...in retrospect, PBEM18 was not out of character for me.
Anyway, point is, while Australia could have started better, I don't think those mistakes have much of an impact now. If Sub had come after me instead of you, he would have razed fewer cities but they would have been more valuable ones like Knyaz Suvurov. We'd be very badly behind Phoenicia and Norway then, probably badly enough off that we'd be desperately seeking a global coalition against the Raiders.
I do think Australia is a wild card that they might be neglecting. With double production, you effectively get 20 turns out of the next 10, giving you 40 "real" turns before the war. If you can get the new cities into generating either gold or production in a timely manner, then you'll have multiple strong shipyards capable of putting lots of modern hulls into the water - and that could be the difference, in the end. We can't fight the war the same way Archduke/Kaiser and Roland/suboptimal did - one partner at a time. Woden and ljubljana aren't fighting that way, so neither will we.
The longer the game goes, though, the more favorable our position comes, as we build our science lead and gradually reach more and more important techs, the same way that Canada gradually dropped into irrelevance in PBEM18.
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Hmm. Thanks for your kind words of support, man.
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I believe the relevant phrase for sub is "play your damn turn."
He's played more than a few turns of PBEM21 but has ignored this one for a full 24 hours.
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(November 17th, 2020, 14:18)marcopolothefraud Wrote: I'd strongly disagree about Indonesia. The more I read about them, the more I like them.
Like Japan, I don't have much to lose if I don't push religion. I can build a few Holy Sites, and even if I have 3rd or 4th religion, I can channel a lot of faith into buying ships for cheap. Jongs (unique frigates) are 600 faith, which is relatively pricey, but the most important thing is that they don't cost niter. You mentioned in your PBEM19 thread that Musketmen were the only effective counter to the Zulu, and Musketmen were hard to get because Niter would be limited. Indonesia wouldn't need to worry about that.
Kampungs are awesome too. The Black Sword made really good use of housing and production in PBEM17 to win the game, and the Kampung improvement provides food, production and housing for a great value.
So they have a great military peak (Jong), great infrastructure (district adjacency, Kampung), and a potentially-useful faith economy. They would be somewhat bad at science, though. It seems like I can really use all of their bonuses on this map, and that's not something I can say about even the most powerful civs here.
In hindsight, I think this analysis predicted my situation perfectly. 
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Kaiser has really failed to use Japan. In fact, he and Archduke have blundered so badly in the last 50-odd turns that I think they've basically tilted the game to Norway/Phoenicia.
Kaiser took an amhibious civ and has failed to fight at sea basically at all the entire game. He grabbed a religion and crusade but didn't bother spreading it. He took Japan but has settled widely scattered cities (compare with oledavy's Jovian island in PBEM4) - I think only Tibbet's Brook and Milne have neighboring districts at all! He hasn't bothered to build a fleet, didn't bother to expand for ages, didn't really do much of anything.
Archduke saved up a bunch of gold and invested literally everything he had in a massive galley -> caravel upgrade, and then somehow managed to lose the entire thing while barely scratching ljubljana's paint. All while the only real setback they had in the early game was losing a marginal city-state (Writing on the Wall looks like -garbage- to me and not really worth fighting over). Ljubljana and Woden would ahve been just as badly off except since Archduke didn't bother defending his coasts Woden has been free to pillage, well, everything, and since his ships aren't being sunk he's going to get thousands of free gold, culture, and faith. I have to do it all the honest way, and I was attacked by what was in retrospect a wildly more competent invasion from suboptimal - and you saw how merciless I was about that earlier.
On the whole, disappointing. I don't think the game is over but the trendlines over the last 15 turns have been bad, bad, bad from our perspective.
Should we think about peace with sub and alliance against the Raiders? An intact Chinese fleet...could actually do quite a lot. Hmmmm....I will offer sub peace in return for his island cities. If he rejects, I'll offer again after Barasic falls. We sign peace, we cultivate alliance, and we try to build a grand anti-Raider coalition. That seems the only way to change the trajectory of the game. Me and marco would be evenly matched, perhaps disadvantaged, fighting China and then the Raiders. But if we flip China to OUR side...?
It's worth thinking about. I will try and communicate with roland and sub that if we keep going down this path, I MIGHT not win but they CERTAINLY will not.
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Turn 140
One turn to go! Curious to see Ljubljana's new research rate. Worst in the game? Nah, he has a high pop - it'll probably be Indonesian level.
The knight was indeed killed as the courser re-emerged from the fog. I maneuver to kill it with my crossbow. If my courser can hang on he can withdraw and promote! I'd like that.
A second crossbow purchase in Brother nets us Metal Casting's eureka:
I've left a lot of stuff unspoken on the land war front, so let me be a bit more transparent about my tactics here. In general, I am willing to accept trades in open battle in an effort to tear through suboptimal's army faster. He has no faith income and no plaza, so all he can do is build fresh units out of his three surviving unconquered cities. I figure that will take ~10 turns per unit, and he can't boost it without cutting his own shipbuilding capabilities. So the sooner I can kill the units, the sooner I can sweep up the remaining cities.
In the south, I have my two knights healing up before the assault on Proof. Once they're ready to go in ~5 turns, then I will send them at the city from both sides, while moving up both trebuchets - they might be bombards by then, actually. Anyway, the siege units will go for the walls while my budding army around Brother keeps away Indonesian reinforcements. Once it falls, 50 Ways is very exposed from the south. Graceland is a tougher nut to crack but must also ultimately fall, with no further investment of resources on my part other than the faith to fuel these armies.
So it's only a matter of time before Sakhalin is mine. The issue is these cities are, by and large, total garbage. They need harbors to be at all worthwhile and building those will take ages unless I chop them out (which I plan to), then stick 'em on ships like everyone else. The Chinese mainland cities would be juicy, but would also take a tough campaign to get and we need to be ready to fight on turn 168. That's my timelimit for the war.
Thus, in general my strategy is to ramp up the pressure on Sub and Roland, threatening them with the torching of most of China's empire, in return for peace and Sakhalin. Then I want to try and mend fences - sub started this war, not me - and try to get them pointed at the Raiders with me. If the Raiders get most of England and Japan, that will help...or this backfires and they come after me and marco at the same time as the Raiders do anyway. But continuing on the path we were on seemed to offer poorer prospects. We both lose if the war continues, so it shouldn't continue. But I can't just peace out, either, not without getting gains for our pains.
I offer sub what I think are generous terms for the war he started and for the position he finds himself in:
His island cities, no more, in return for spare Russian luxuries and diplomatic favor.
Anyway.
South:
A new scout appears as I clear a slinger. If the barbs are up to muskets this could get serious. I should be aggressive in finding and clearing the camp.
I also attack Akkad, because fuck 'em:
Woden has suzerainty, he and ljubljana have dumped envoys in here, and I have ships.
Unless the city miraculously finishes walls or a unit on the interturn (I put the odds of that at 87.6% precisely), then I should be able to take and burn it next turn.
Overview of Fuji Bay:
Of Russia:
And of Svalbard. Note what a great ship center it is now:
Woden is building the GMC in his capital. 9 turns to go - such is our visibility! I should be able to calculate his hammers per turn from that. I'm giving him a bunch of food and hammers per turn from these trade routes as well, but the gold is so valuable to me. He doesn't need gold since he now has pillaged over four thousand from the utterly supine Central Powers.
Sorry for low quality. I am leaving town in ten days and am distracted.
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>finishes turn within 2 hours, puts 11 images and writes over 500 words
"Sorry for low quality. I am distracted"
June 2nd, 2021, 23:19
(This post was last modified: June 2nd, 2021, 23:37 by marcopolothefraud.)
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Confusingly enough, Kaiser asked me for a DoF this turn, even though there's still so much time left on our DoF. My instinct is to say no, but with an offer of Diplo Power for Diplo Power so that they know our intentions are clear. But I'm willing to hold the save until you give me the green light.
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They might be able to resist better if they have an alliance of some kind with us. An econ alliance, for example, would let you run really rich trade routes to Tibbett's Brook.
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Hmm. I'm already making a Market at Blueprint and a Lighthouse at College dropout, and my monstrous production (60 at Blueprint and 53 at College Dropout) will finish these in the next 3 turns. So yeah, an alliance would be really nice.
Strategically speaking, should I still worry about defending my eastern flank from the Raiders? I have quite a few Frigates coming out of MBDTF right now.
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