[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

I did get your renewal request and accepted it! We should be good for our alliance until T183!

[ljubljana]

Turn 154 - Phoenicia

Scouting report first, which reveals the size of one of the forces williams is using to siege down the Chinese core:



That's encouragingly small, and very killable with a first strike. I doubt their navy will stay this scattered when t168 approaches, but still, a carpet of doom scenario would be much scarier here. Do I dare to dream that some significant fraction of their milpower is tied up in ground troops, like ours? It also looks like one Chinese city flipped back and/or was razed last turn, which is great news for us! Not sure what's going on with the health at Scott Bain, but I did spot roland's capital building trebuchets easier - maybe they are retaking his cities by land, where the Russian ships can't reach them, and razing them after doing so?

You can see that my sword did indeed find a NW last turn for a welcome ES boost. I move them one tile east and...omg...



I think the CS placement is one area of somewhat uncertain map balance here...the two locked in the northern tundra have survived way longer than the others, and have been providing suzereign bonuses to roland and sub for quite some time. Then again, they also have worse terrain than the others by a decent margin and would have been tricky to conquer if sub/roland had tried, so maybe it balances out? I'm not sure how long roland has had that canal city for, and it could be that failure to take these early CS like the other teams did actually hurt them overall...



Domestic report. I am building s h i p s. Not pictured is the shipyard at Geneva, due in 9, which I couldn't resist as it is worth 10 hammers. I have managed to resist the IZs, though, other than one at Nsibidi because it is discounted and worth 3 ES. Maybe I will revisit the others later, but I think our milpower is still too far behind to do so now, even though I am rapidly careening towards bankruptcy. I could do something about that next turn by swapping into Mercenaries, but I'd have to give up 9 cities' worth of Isolationism to do so, which seems very dubious. What I will do is start transitioning away from Isolationism TRs towards Wisselbanken ones...I need one more Isolationism route in Runic to speed its discounted +3 campus, but future traders will head for your capital, along with old ones as their routes complete. In retrospect, I kind of think I should have been doing this the whole game, since the diplo policy required to maintain it is much less constraining than the wildcard one I needed for Iso...

After Nationalism comes in, I might drop Professional Army and Retinues for Mercenaries and Natural Philosophy to get my economy in order if it looks like this game is going long. I don't think I can do that now, though, as if williams attacks as soon as they are able I will really regret not having more frigates...



I took the walls down to 54 health at Big Brother, and they will go down next turn. Of note is that the city still has an unpillaged, unblocked harbor! I left two tiles south of the city open so you can move your caravels there next turn, and then I will vacate the harbor on my turn so you can occupy it and start pillaging, williams permitting.



I should be able to burn DtH next turn. I am not sure I should, though, as doing so would mean you get the 5 ES from eliminating TAD, which I still think should probably go to me as you are very far from a GA and I don't think I can get there with just ship kills plus the IZ. I am also not sure what will happen to my very expensive spy if I burn the city with him in it. Thoughts?

Also, if the Kaiser caravel is still out of range of city fire, would you mind redlining it instead of killing it so I can grab 1 ES from there too? I will try to trap and kill the one south of Open Government too over the next few turns.

You should also probably hit Angiers next turn or the turn after to keep it from repairing its walls, if that would be convenient on your end.

[Woden]

We need to focus on getting TAD eliminated ASAP! Take out Doing the Honours next turn and plan on me eliminating TAD the turn after. Don't worry about Golden Ages, the game will probably not last that long. It will be determined by whoever wins the initial battles between us and Russia/Australia. I will probably take Big Brother without pillaging the harbor. It will allow me to add a trade route ASAP and start building ships. I want TAD out without delay so I can get his cities out of occupation and kick out ships faster.

Where do you need production? I have a few open routes that I will have the faith to buy the traders over the next few turns. Sending your routes to me and running the food/production for routes to allies because it will also give you more income and you won't have to run Mercenaries.

As for your spy, it will be teleported to your capital and you can place him elsewhere (not sure if you can do it on the same turn) or you can ship him to one of Kaiser's cities before taking the city.

Also, you should figure out what you will need to wipe out Australia's navy once TAD is eliminated and use those to take care of Kaiser's northern holdings. Then send your remaining navy towards China to help fight Russia. I am starting to mass ships on my east coast and am move my quads over there too. Sometime soon, I will need my niter for bombard and quad upgrades, so will need 4 turns to accumulate enough for the upgrades. Not sure when, still need to figure out the best timing but figure in about 5 turns, I am going to stop sending you niter for a bit.

[ljubljana]

Sounds good to me! The main place is Runic, which is struggling to build a lighthouse and then a +3 discounted campus...although maybe we are past the point in the game where I should even really bother with those? I have a trader there now which I will send either to you in Wisselbanken or to Cuneiform for 7 hammers, not sure.

I actually already have a spy on the way to Kaiser, so the one I am freeing up will go to MPF or to Russia when the alliance lapses.

Sounds good about naval allocation....I will probably need roughly half of the TAD fleet to hold MPF at bay, maybe a little less. We are going to struggle to take out the last Kaiser cities, though, as I expect MPF to occupy every tile in range for as long as they can.

As for golden ages, it probably won't be important but it will be if williams waits a few turns before attacking. The next age will be on t181, and with a GA my ships will get +2 movement, which could be crucial.

If you're not going to pillage the harbor, I guess I might as well do so, right? I will need two turns to take out the walls and health anyways, so I will have two turns to pillage it. I also think you will only need to delay taking the city by one turn to get the pillages, which is arguably worth it in Raid and with your bonus beakers. The extra TR + harbor adjacency is worth maybe 28 GPT, but me pillaging is worth probably 4-500...I guess if you're not going to repair the harbor before starting ships, leaving it unpillaged is reasonable too. Just let me know what you'd like me to do next turn.

For both you and future me: I may start slooowly moving the GA back over to the home island for use against Russia instead of Australia, if I can even do that in 13 turns. We needed Leif Erikson over here for DtH, but I'm pretty confident that he won't be the difference-maker against MPF (who has a 10 CS disadvantage to overcome anyways from not having corps) and it might be versus Russia.

[Woden]

If you're not going to pillage the harbor, I guess I might as well do so, right? I will need two turns to take out the walls and health anyways, so I will have two turns to pillage it. I also think you will only need to delay taking the city by one turn to get the pillages, which is arguably worth it in Raid and with your bonus beakers. The extra TR + harbor adjacency is worth maybe 28 GPT, but me pillaging is worth probably 4-500...I guess if you're not going to repair the harbor before starting ships, leaving it unpillaged is reasonable too. Just let me know what you'd like me to do next turn.

I would prefer that the harbor and lighthouse NOT get pillaged. The city will have little production and it would take a while to repair both the lighthouse and harbor. Over that time, the trade route to Cuneiform will probably make as much gold and we both will get additional food/production. I don't think it is worth it. I only get gold from harbors, so no additional science or culture if we forgo the pillage. I would rather get TAD's cities out of occupation a turn earlier.

[ljubljana]

Turn 155 - Phoenicia

I finish Siege Tactics and Humanism and swap to Wisselbanken, sending a TR from Runic to your capital. I could have sworn I locked the campus cost in at Runic while it was discounted, but it appears to be full-cost now...no idea what I messed up there. Anyways, that means it's ships here too after the lighthouse. I'm pausing the discounted IZ at Nsibidi too, as it can make a 6-turn caravel instead that will still make it to the front in time.



Big Brother's walls are down and it should be yours on t156, exactly 30 turns after the start of this war . Once the city health is gone, I will be able to start moving ships up north to attempt to engage Kaiser's northern cities. I doubt I'll be successful, though, as MPF is moving a large fraction of his navy up there with the presumed intent of blocking every single tile to prevent me from firing on the cities at all, as he tried to do at Doing the Honours. That's a pretty degenerate strategy, but it will be effective if he does employ it, and we're going to need some kind of backup plan if that's the case. IMO we should consider offering peace to Kaiser once you kick him off the mainland to at least get your cities out of the occupation penalty and get both of us out of war weariness.

Alternatively, we could simply sit back and invite MPF to pin his own navy there with such a blockade, which will allow us to partially surround his ships... I'm not sure this is a good plan, though, as we won't be able to effectively engage if his ships are jammed up there in the strait and protected by Kaiser's city fire, and my western ships would likely be surrounded and killed by fresh ones from the Australian core.

Fort Lakton is on track to flip in 4 turns, btw, and we will need a plan for that too. I think letting it flip to you on its own is fine, but maybe I should consider sailing down there next to try to take it myself after the flip. That should avoid destruction of the harbor and lighthouse, and it would also allow me to link up my two groups of ships to reinforce the southern fleet, which will probably not be possible if MPF fully blockades the northern Kaiser cities.



Doing the Honours is no more. I opted to raze it instead of trying to hold it against MPF (probably impossible) or liberating it (which would just give Australia a free city), and got in a nice pillage of its lighthouse before doing so thanks to MPF's ships moving away. The health on my ships looks dicey, but actually all three redlined ones plus the southern frigate are promotable, so I shouldn't need much rest before they can sail up north. As stated above, though, that's likely to be futile given MPF's head start on a blockade at Fort Krasia, so I might just retreat and heal. I am very unsure where the GA should go, but we'll have to decide this turn one way or the other...it could be the tip of the spear against the Australian cities if it stays put, but I think that requires me to take Fort Lakton to link up my ships. I could also spend 13 turns trying to get it to the Russian front, but I'm not 100% sure I have time at this point.

What do you think I should do next? Should I bother sailing my fleet up north just to run into an Australian blockade, or should I prepare to take Fort Lakton so my ships can link up? It looks like an attack on FL will have to come in 4 turns after it flips if I want to keep its harbor intact, but I'll be out of position if my ships spend too much time wandering around up north. I also still think it is important for you to poke both Angiers and the capital with a berserker/frigate next turn, as we are really starting to run the risk of the former repairing its walls and the latter finishing Medieval Walls, both of which would be disastrous for our timetables here. You may also want to start walls in at least Fort Miln and Big Brother soon, as I expect these to be the site of most of the fighting against MPF...

[ljubljana]

Hmm, I did recently start a discounted IZ in Nsibidi, which is probably the culprit. Thanks for the heads-up! Luckily it's probably not hugely impactful at this point, as even discounted districts seem like pretty dubious builds next to more boats... At least this time I managed to check my builderitis after just the Nsibidi aqueduct and Geneva shipyard...

Speaking of which, I'll be ready for the +2 campus in the capital in something like 6 turns. That is worth 6 science for me with a faith-bought library and scientist, 7 food from all my Isolationism TRs, and probably 10-12 science for Woden with all the TRs, plus I'm getting it half-off from Phoenicia's civ ability for a 150-ish hammer build that should be doable in 3 turns. So it's probably not worth building over 1.5 caravels, right? That's kind of a shocking thing to say, but I'm starting to think we might have hit the point in the game where beakers are obsolete unless williams decides not to attack us...

[Woden]

I could have sworn I locked the campus cost in at Runic while it was discounted, but it appears to be full-cost now...no idea what I messed up there.

Yah, you have to be careful when dealing with the discount. The costs don't update right away.

Big Brother's walls are down and it should be yours on t156, exactly 30 turns after the start of this war . Once the city health is gone, I will be able to start moving ships up north to attempt to engage Kaiser's northern cities. I doubt I'll be successful, though, as MPF is moving a large fraction of his navy up there with the presumed intent of blocking every single tile to prevent me from firing on the cities at all, as he tried to do at Doing the Honours. That's a pretty degenerate strategy, but it will be effective if he does employ it, and we're going to need some kind of backup plan if that's the case. IMO we should consider offering peace to Kaiser once you kick him off the mainland to at least get your cities out of the occupation penalty and get both of us out of war weariness.

Alternatively, we could simply sit back and invite MPF to pin his own navy there with such a blockade, which will allow us to partially surround his ships... I'm not sure this is a good plan, though, as we won't be able to effectively engage if his ships are jammed up there in the strait and protected by Kaiser's city fire, and my western ships would likely be surrounded and killed by fresh ones from the Australian core.

Push on the northern cities. If marco keeps his navy there, then you can sink them. It won't take long to take Kaiser's capital, walls will be gone next turn and I can probably capture it on the following turn. Then, my army can shift north to hanle the city on the mainland, which will limit cross fire from Kaiser's cities.

Fort Lakton is on track to flip in 4 turns, btw, and we will need a plan for that too. I think letting it flip to you on its own is fine, but maybe I should consider sailing down there next to try to take it myself after the flip. That should avoid destruction of the harbor and lighthouse, and it would also allow me to link up my two groups of ships to reinforce the southern fleet, which will probably not be possible if MPF fully blockades the northern Kaiser cities.

I think you taking it is a good idea. Not sure if you will be able to hold it with my loyalty pressure but not sure if it even impacts you. Regardless, it will help with your ship movements.

What do you think I should do next? Should I bother sailing my fleet up north just to run into an Australian blockade, or should I prepare to take Fort Lakton so my ships can link up? It looks like an attack on FL will have to come in 4 turns after it flips if I want to keep its harbor intact, but I'll be out of position if my ships spend too much time wandering around up north. I also still think it is important for you to poke both Angiers and the capital with a berserker/frigate next turn, as we are really starting to run the risk of the former repairing its walls and the latter finishing Medieval Walls, both of which would be disastrous for our timetables here. You may also want to start walls in at least Fort Miln and Big Brother soon, as I expect these to be the site of most of the fighting against MPF...

Leave a few frigates and a caravel to attack Fort Lakton when it flips. The AI doesn't usually attack ships with its city attack, so you will only need a few Frigates.

As for the coming turns, I think you should have your fleet ready to attack marco when we can. Have some forces over by China to defend against Russia but I think we need to attack marco. If we attack marco, it will force Russia to shift resources to defend his partner and will make it so they are reactive to us instead of us being reactive to them.

Also, I don't think I am going to send any niter for the next 4 turns. I need to upgrade a few frigates and bombards and need to do a policy swap soon-ish. I can send one last round if you need it, otherwise, it will be 4 turns.


Sorry about not posting much but the turn speed is killing my interest in this game.

[ljubljana]

No worries, I totally understand. Hopefully the turn pace will improve soon though as players begin to get eliminated - sub and roland have held to a limited degree for the past while but I am sure they will collapse soon given williams's enormous military strength. They are presumably using the GMC to faith-rush ground troops on the roland/sub homeland, as you are doing, and should soon be able to more efficiently attack the inland cities there.

Do you think you will be able to defend against Russia without many frigates from me, though? If I were Russia and marco got attacked, I would react by completely ignoring his defense and throwing everything I have at Norway to try to get to our cores ASAP. If Russia does that, I am worried that they will just overwhelm your navy with their 2.5-1 numerical advantage and then we will end up trading marco's colonial cities for our core cities, which is a game over scenario. If you are confident that you can hold against Russia without much help, then attacking marco makes sense, but otherwise I think we should consider leaving only enough ships in the west to stalemate marco and trying to win by winning engagements vs. Russia's fleet.

[ljubljana]

Turn 156 - Phoenicia

For the first time in a long time, the front is small enough to (awkwardly) fit in one screenshot, so here it is:



My spy reached Oasis of Dawn, and I committed to an 8-turn Listening Post mission there. With the 5-turn minimum travel time that I've been seeing, my best guess is that they will be free to spy on one of marco/williams on t159, one turn after war will presumably break out. Do you think I should be without a spy against marco for a turn or against williams? I have the second spy free in the capital right now, and am skipping its turn while waiting for the Russian alliance to run out.

I am streaming Line of Battle frigates over to Kaiser, and will start working on their forward caravel next turn. All the same, though, I think it's highly likely that marco will block all the tiles by the city and keep me away in perpetuity. I also noticed this turn that there is a small northwest passage above this island, which may be my salvation, tactically speaking. If marco fails to occupy this or has failed to scout it, I can reinforce the GA group with ships from former England if need be.

And, finally, TAD is ready for elimination. GG TAD - you played a great game, and I feel like I learned a ton from spending all this time banging our heads against each other

edit for future me: plan your dang civic swaps so I can make sure to be in Twilight Valor + Wars of Religion + Bastions for death war #2 lol. You can also see that I moved a bunch of weakened caravels around Big Brother to heal next turn, which is great and all except I forgot to do the same with the Mary Rose (wounded level 2 caravel), so get on that, future me! There also appears to be a barb camp on that far northern island, which means I should send either the sword or horse over with a frigate or two to try to clear it for 2 ES before t181, if I have the time... And one more thing - I have one frigate (the Dreadnought, the wounded ship by Big Brother) that has Rolling Barrage and is close to a third promotion. Usually that means taking LoB with no questions asked, but I am now realizing I could also spend Artemisia to get a 3-range frigate, which I believe could then be combined with a LoB frigate to give a 5 promotion LoB frigate fleet with 3 range. Now that would be a fun surprise Depending on how much XP it has now, I may farm AI units at Fort Lakton for a turn or two before taking the city to make sure that happens.

edit2: If war does break out vs. marco, I think we will be in an interesting position. His culture is way too bad to hit Nationalism in time, so my frigates will have 55 + 10 (fleet) + 7 (LoB) + 5 (GA) + 4 (WoR) + 3 (spy) = 84 base strength, enough to threaten a one-shot on those unpromoted caravels. Marco will surely run civics of their own to counter that, but I don't think he can save his frigates from being one-shot or caravels from being easily 2-shot. If it looks like we will narrowly fail to one-shot caravels with fleets, I could leave some frigates un-combined for now so we will have more shots total and can get more of those two-shots. It could leave us vulnerable against Russia, but if we do fight Australia I am pretty confident that the pride of the Phoenician navy will eat through them very quickly in a straight fight...

edit3: Oh crap, I am SO DUMB. Remember how I spent a bunch of gold earlier on libraries and monuments? I have finally figured out why that was wrong - because as williams kills your ironclad fleets, you will need more gold to upgrade caravels into more (which you will be able to do, as each one he kills frees up a coal per turn that you can reallocate to a new clad). I strongly suggest that we spend no gold anywhere other than on this and on frigate upgrades from here on out (not that we were really going to anyways ofc). I will really be kicking myself if my stupid libraries end up costing you 720 gold worth of clads down the line... At least we have more than twice their gold reserves as of now, and probably more coal too with sub/roland still resisting conquest