[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Warning: era score post

I think we still need to be thinking about this - the game is, in my opinion, pretty likely to still be competitive at t181, either because williams doesn't attack us right away or because the naval war takes more than a few turns to resolve. I should need 14 more points to hit a Heroic Age - where can I get them? I am thinking

4 from Kaiser's 4 visible ships
1 from the Fort Lakton frigate, if it's still alive
2 from industrial tech/civic
3 from a +6 IZ at Nsibidi
1 from a fleet
1 from an ironclad maybe? I think when I hit Steam Power I should be able to upgrade one (well, two so I can make a fleet) if you ship me a handful of coal

That is 12, which leaves me a little short, but obviously I will make up the difference if williams attacks right away. If he does not, though, I will probably construct a wonder in Cuneiform (Machu Picchu if it's still on the table) for 3 more points. I could also try to take the barb camp in the far north for 2 points, if that turns out to be feasible. Maybe I will also get another great person before then for +1, with the World Congress set to reconvene and abolish the 0 GA point resolution? I could also get 1 more point if Cuneiform makes it to size 15 (possible, but I doubt it will be the first in the world) and (I think) 2 more if I do spend Artemisia to get a level 4 frigate. Otherwise, I will not have too many options...I doubt Kaiser has that many more ships off in the fog, and they are probably working on Medieval Walls everywhere instead of caravels...

Speaking of which, there were two redlined Kaiser caravels by the capital this turn - I killed one and trapped the other. If the trapped caravel doesn't promote, would you mind letting me kill it for ES? I think it will promote, though, in which case we will both need to hit it to finish it off anyways.

Also, this is unrelated, but do you know what the deal is with the Convoy promotion? It gives +10 strength "when in a formation" - does that mean I would get the boost if I combined the unit (a caravel in this case) with the GA? That could be another use for Artemisia besides a 3-range LoB frigate - an ironclad fleet with Convoy would have 97 base strength with Convoy + Embolon, 107 vs frigates with Reinforced Hull (plus Twilight Valor, plus Wars of Religion...). Such a unit could be more impactful in a straight naval engagement than 3-range frigate, though the latter doesn't consume coal, is much better vs. cities, and would benefit from the GA boost... I am kind of in shock that I didn't think to stack this on the caravel armada way back in the day, which would have been the equal of the Yi ironclad with 10 more strength and might still be alive today to get upgraded into the best ironclad that has ever lived. If there is one lesson I have learned about naval logistics during this war, it is to never ever EVER underestimate or forget about GA retirement bonuses...

We also should do some thinking about whether it's possible to get Wars of Religion up for you vs williams. They will definitely have it, so we may want to think about buying some missionaries or swapping some cities (once we know where the coal is) to make sure you can have it as well. You also need to build a spy somewhere ASAP and send it to Russia, if you haven't done so already - +3 CS on all your ironclads is definitely worth a few more backlines caravels. I think you really need to start the spy right now if you don't already have one, since it will take 5-7 turns to establish - you will need it done by t162 at the latest so it can already be in place when Russia first strikes you on t168, and that's assuming you can move it to a Russian city in just 5 turns. Worst-case, you can spend a small fortune to the buy the spy, though that is a very inefficient use of gold due to Machiavellianism. Even with all that and Oligarchic Legacy, you will still be way behind williams in CS because of his Renaissance GA and trading post (in addition to his mirroring all of the above), so I think it is absolutely essential that you have access to all the CS bonuses still available.

[ljubljana]

DoF expires on turn 168 (the most recent DoF anyways, that Woden and marco signed).

As far as what our plan is...to be frank, if marco and williams could attack right now, I think we would just die, so Woden is frantically teching to ironclads (he has Steam Power but Industrialization is the hardest tech to reach in the Industrial Age due to tech shuffle). Then Woden will keep all the coal in TAD + Kaiser + his own lands (probably 6 total sources) and upgrade 18 ironclad fleets, which is hopefully more than williams will be able to field, at least at first, for lack of having conquered enough coal. In the meantime, we are making ships only in all of our cities (other than Geneva which I have on a +10 shipyard that was probably a mistake) and hoping that Norway + Phoenicia's ship construction bonus will allow us to, if not catch up to williams' numbers, at least keep the lead from growing any wider. If we stay behind by roughly 1.2k military power as we have been, that will be less impactful in terms of combat outcomes when both our teams have 4-5k milpower than when they both had 2-3k. We also need to add on every CS strength edge we have (fleets, alliance, spy, Wars of Religion, Oligarchic Legacy for Woden and Twilight Valor for me) to keep pace with our opponents who will be doing the same (and hey, maybe they won't do the same - that's the only reason we were competitive against TAD after all).

Then, we have to allocate our ships to the two theaters. I am very unsure about the right plan here - I'm confident that with my current fleet I can beat marco soundly, as he lacks a GA, doesn't have the culture to get to Nationalism, and has zero promotions on any of his ships that I can see. But I'm not 100% on board with that yet - if williams reacts to it by splitting his fleet to defend Australia, it will be a good move, but if he comes at Woden with everything he has and ignores marco, I think our ironclad fleet will collapse and we will probably die. The other option is to try to stalemate marco in the west with maybe 5-8 frigate/caravel fleets and no GA and throw everything else at williams, but we will need to commit to this NOW if we are making that switch, as my GA will take a very long time to get to the Russian front - probably something like 15 turns, which is after the war starts, but we can trade cities for time if we have to. So, Woden, if you're reading this and think I should start moving the GA over to Russia, please let me know

I think we will be major underdogs in the fight either way, though, mostly because williams has two crucial advantages - the trading post in Norway and the Renaissance Great Admiral - which combine for a +8 CS edge that will let his ironclads crush ours in a straight battle unless we have a major edge in numbers or williams forgets one or more of the other CS boni like TAD did to let us even things out. That said, we have a chance if williams makes a mistake - he could forget a CS bonus (unlikely but possible), or he could split his fleet and not drive right for our core. Maybe the latter is actually a justification for me making a big attack against marco - it could be that we have little to no chance in a fleet vs fleet battle with williams no matter how many ships I send (in fact I kind of suspect that to be the case), but this plan at least allows us a good shot at hurting their team's ship production and numbers while giving williams the opportunity to panic and make a mistake by defending marco. Perhaps because the bottleneck in city capture speed is frigate availability and time, it might actually be better for our odds to win one front and perhaps lose the other badly than to stalemate both fronts with a good chance to lose the one with Russia anyways. If it looks like Woden will be obliterated by Russia, it's possible the best plan is for him to fight a delaying action and preserve his fleet while I do as much damage as I can vs. marco - we will lose core cities by doing this, but it could even up the milpower differential, and maaaybe I could then swing my fleet back around to the Russian front over 10-15 turns (while Woden and I both lose our cores!) and then have a real fleet vs fleet battle that we have some chance in.

I will also note that we shouldn't actually attack the other team, as that would trigger Australia's +100% bonus production. So the war will begin on their timetable, which means it may not happen at all if they think they have better odds out-building us than they do in a straight fight. I think it would be a mistake for them to do this, though, as our response would be to turn Woden into even more of a superpower by having him kick out settlers all over the map while Russia is spending their faith on GMC troops to finish off Roland. I think Norway could roughly match Russia in territory by doing that, and that should allow him to eat away at their production and beaker edge long-term with campus and IZ spam. As empires get larger, the proportional impact of WE will begin to fade as the new Russian conquests don't have super tundra holy sites, and Woden could ultimately counter it just by being slightly bigger and better developed (since they seem to be having to raze many of the Chinese cities) when this second landgrab phase ends.

As for Japan, I think we will make no progress at Oasis of Dawn and Anoch Sun due to marco's blockades until Woden is able to land berserkers on the island, which will not happen any time soon. There is some advantage for us in that, as it will force marco's ships to stay in the north, but I don't know if it's much of an advantage as that area is very strong for marco defensively as long as we remain at war with Kaiser. I also think that we will want our berserkers landing in Australia in 15 turns and not chasing down Kaiser cities in the north or south. I therefore think that we should stay at war with Japan for now to keep marco overextended, but I doubt we'll make any gains after the capital/Angiers/Fort Lakton and maybe Fort Krasia. I'm not sure that should really bother us either, as the other cities are very underdeveloped and the southern ones are inland and therefore basically useless at this stage of the game. I think once we are one or two turns out from the DoF expiring, we should offer peace and open borders to Kaiser, which would undermine marco's position and maybe make him flee south where I expect to have ships to intercept him.

[ljubljana]

lol i'm glad you think so because i'm more lost than ever 

just don't ask me what time it is, okay

Now that I think about it though, maybe I'm wrong above about not wanting to attack because of marco's bonus. We are never going to be able to defend the CS conquests between Norway and Russia with our current plan (and maybe can't with any plan), so I actually don't think we have much chance of preventing the bonus either way, and marco has ships in the area that will take one of those cities on probably the second turn of such a war. Indeed, if they do attack us, it will almost certainly be AT one of those cities (or Mitla which is almost as bad defensively), so he might just get the bonus immediately, as soon as war is declared. Maybe we should just go after them ourselves if we see a good first strike opportunity (especially since being first in the turn order means I should get that against marco), and try to counter the extra production by just, uh, killing his ships and burning his cities. In that case, it's too bad that I burned that TAD city, as it actually might have been the only one we DO have a shot at defending...

[Woden]

Turn 155-Vikings
Removed the walls at Tibbet's Brook and hit Angiers to prevent it from repairing the walls. Three science pillages brings Economics down to 1 turn. I should be able to finish Industrialism in 3 or 4 turns, if needed. I am thinking of delaying it a few turn to get a few more caravels out because once I start getting coal, it is near impossible to build caravels afterwards.

As for Kaiser's remaining cities in the north...
   

I can take Fort Krasia by land. If you can kill the sword (if it is still there) on the campus, that would be a big help since I can pillage it by sea. I think your western fleet should sail around marco's ships and hit Anoch Sun from the northwest. I think you can out maneuver them if you keep your fleet out of sight to his west. The only one that will give us a hard time is Oasis of Dawn but once I have Fort Krasia, I can buy a few tiles to clear marco's units out and you can bombard it. We should be able to capture these cities before T168.

As for an attack from willaims482...
   

If I were him, I would plan on capturing one city, then buy units to pillage everything to weaken us while attacking our other cities. I think he is going to go for one of three cities. Odin, Heimdall, or Freya on his initial push. I need to prevent him from capturing a city, which means I need to build better defenses. Therefore, I need to shift off ships for a bit and build better walls. With better walls, a fleet ironclad in each city, and bastions, I don't think his frigates will do much damage, even if they are fleets. My lowest city defense will be 86 versus a 65 fleet frigate. Add in the added defensive bonuses from districts and walls and we should be good or at least delay him until we can more units out. This is why I think you can push on marco's land...as long as you have enough units to protect your coasts. I will lose my island city state holdings but I think I can prevent him from gaining a foothold on our island.

As for Russia having a trading post, they don't have one yet. He has 7 trade routes and all but 1 is near my empire, meaning they won't return to establish a trading post by the time war comes. Also, I have a route that is about on the same timeframe as him. I do need to make sure NOT to finish Civil Engineering, it will obsolete Limes and Bastions.

Here is what I have for units so far...
   

I will have at least another 4 to 6 caravels out before Industrialism. Once I get access to coal, it will become very difficult to build caravels again and I will focus on building quadriremes for Frigates and future battleships. Another reason I want you to push on marco is that my army is closest to him and if we can gain a foothold on their island, we might be able to put pressure on Russia. On that note, how many envoys do you have? Do you have enough to chase after Valletta? I would hate to have marco/williams482 being able to build walls with faith. I think China is their suzerain now but if they were to fall, I think marco is the next highest envoy count.

Other bits and piece's First, no peace for Kaiser, I want him out of the game to help speed up the turn pace. Him, marco, and TAD are all the worst players for holding the turn too long.  Second, Convoy requires your boat to be attacked to a land unit and you speed is determined by the embarked movement. Not sure if that is best. Third, the era will end around T181. We will be at war with marco and you will have plenty of opportunity to kill ships for era points.


Next turn, I kill TAD and take Kaiser's capital. I will also launch an inquisition and buy a few inquistors to sail over and convert Kaiser's holy city and then convert their island.

[ljubljana]

Hmm, I think I would recommend delaying Industrialism until you have some more caravels. We are going to want 18 ironclad fleets between the two of us to use up all the coal, and it looks like you will only have half of that at the current pace. Another option is that you can gift me some coal so I can make up the difference with my own caravels - I don't know my exact numbers, but I think between the two of us we will be able to get 36 ironclads = 18 fleets by t186. I think the longer you wait before obsoleting caravels, the better, though, as our main advantage is Norway's +100% ship modifier and we should ride that for as long as possible IMO. We will also need more caravels than just those 36 to upgrade into clads as williams kills your fleets - our other advantage is your massive bankroll, which will go to waste if we don't have ships to upgrade. So really I think the plan should be all of the above - build as many caravels as we both can and delay industrial so that we can overshoot 36 by as much as possible and can replace our losses vs williams for as long as we can.

Unsure about medieval walls vs. more ships. We have huge production bonuses on ships, but we do absolutely need to prevent a city capture which will most likely result in GMC-bought Cossacks. Will better walls do more to do facilitate that than a few more caravels? Caravels cost 96 hammers for me and 80 hammers for you, while walls will cost 110 in Limes, so I guess it's roughly a 1 for 1 trade. That could be worth it, at least in the most exposed cities, and I will think about a swap to Limes myself when I get to Nationalism. As for what to defend with, I might recommend a frigate over an ironclad fleet in the cities, especially the one with Victor - Victor double shot + frigate fleet will kill one frigate fleet per turn of williams's, which is the kind of attrition I was terrified of facing vs. TAD as it would have stopped our attack cold.

Not sure I think an inquisition is the best use of faith - bombards on the mainland would be very helpful vs. williams's frigates, especially if you put them in the exposed city centers. But if you think it's the only way to get Wars of Religion active, that takes precedence. I think a better approach might be to have it both ways by gifting me a few Kaiser/TAD cities after the dust settles, though that is bad longterm as we want the one superpower + one lesser power configuration for teching if possible.

I have 9 envoys - probably not enough for Valetta Not the end of the world if marco gets it though as I don't think they have much faith income.

Agreed about Anoch Sun...which means I should have tried to stay out of view on this last turn too... Marco will probably blockade both cities anyways, but I guess that's fine since the timetable for taking them depends on shipping zerks to that island either way. It sounds like we are giving up on denying Australia the 100% hammer bonus - is that correct? If so, I think I can get in a nice first strike on any marco ships foolish enough to stay up here when t186 comes around.

I know Kaiser has been taking a while with the turn, but I don't think we will be able to kill him soon either way unfortunately. Those cities on the southern island will live until we can ship your zerk force to them, and there is zero chance you will want to do that when we are also at war with marco. That means he will have to live until the marco war, which means he will live until the end of the game. Since we can't eliminate him either way, we should peace out if it is in our interests, and when he is down to two cities left it 100% will be for war weariness reasons.

Just to make sure, you are going to be in the PA + Retinues when you do your upgrades, right? I do not think we should do any full-price upgrades if we can avoid it as we need all the niter we can get and our bankroll is one of our only advantages over williams. This could pose a policy-swap problem for us with delayed Industrialism, though, as our four mil + wc policies when war breaks out should be WoR + TV/OL + Bastions + Press Gangs...

important edit that supersedes some of the above: There is one other big thing we need to worry about with Russia, which is a massed landing of embarked troops. It is not enough to just hold our cities, if we lose control of the seas they will just buy Cossacks in China, protect them with ironclad fleets, and ship them over and we won't be able to keep them from landing. This is a big reason to worry about more ships vs better walls...if 5 Cossacks land and start pillaging I think we are just as dead as we would be if williams took one of your cities and faith-rushed them. Only more ships can stop a landing, so I think we should seriously consider prioritizing that over medieval walls and trying to hold the seas for as long as possible.

[Woden]

Not sure I think an inquisition is the best use of faith - bombards on the mainland would be very helpful vs. williams's frigates, especially if you put them in the exposed city centers. But if you think it's the only way to get Wars of Religion active, that takes precedence. I think a better approach might be to have it both ways by gifting me a few Kaiser/TAD cities after the dust settles, though that is bad longterm as we want the one superpower + one lesser power configuration for teching if possible.

Converting England/Japan increases my faith output +2 per city, so it has a compounding effect. Plus, it will give era points.

Agreed about Anoch Sun...which means I should have tried to stay out of view on this last turn too... Marco will probably blockade both cities anyways, but I guess that's fine since the timetable for taking them depends on shipping zerks to that island either way. It sounds like we are giving up on denying Australia the 100% hammer bonus - is that correct? If so, I think I can get in a nice first strike on any marco ships foolish enough to stay up here when t186 comes around.

I know Kaiser has been taking a while with the turn, but I don't think we will be able to kill him soon either way unfortunately. Those cities on the southern island will live until we can ship your zerk force to them, and there is zero chance you will want to do that when we are also at war with marco. That means he will have to live until the marco war, which means he will live until the end of the game. Since we can't eliminate him either way, we should peace out if it is in our interests, and when he is down to two cities left it 100% will be for war weariness reasons.

I will have all those cities in the south before the war with marco starts. I am staging units and will launch my assult once I can upgrade the bombards (3 turns). The city that will be last is probably Oasis of Dawn.

Just to make sure, you are going to be in the PA + Retinues when you do your upgrades, right? I do not think we should do any full-price upgrades if we can avoid it as we need all the niter we can get and our bankroll is one of our only advantages over williams. This could pose a policy-swap problem for us with delayed Industrialism, though, as our four mil + wc policies when war breaks out should be WoR + TV/OL + Bastions + Press Gangs...

Yes, plan is to get my current civic down to a few more turns, pillage the cotton at Fort Krasia to finish it. Swap policies, upgrade what I can. Complete another civic a few turn later and swap out until I need to upgrade ironclads.

[ljubljana]

Turn 157 - Phoenicia

With TAD defeated, my cities return to neutral amenities for the first time in forever:



I think I still should prioritize ships over walls, even though several of my cities seem likely to be targets for williams at the start of the war, especially if he moves more ships up over the next 10t. I am going to scout with my new caravels so we have time to react to that if it happens, then I can finish a civic and swap to Limes if emergency walls look needed.

Here are my unit counts:



Anoch Sun seems to pose a tricky dilemma:



No possible movement I can make with the GA will escape the vision of marco's caravels, and if I go for Anoch Sun he will respond immediately by blocking it. Therefore, I'm going to feint at the western CS first and see what he does. If he doesn't react, I will sneak my ships around outside of his vision and try to go for Anoch Sun, after taking off some of the CS's health next turn to make the feint more believable. If he shadows my ships though (as I anticipate), I will actually take Have A Good Time, which will be useful for us as a distraction once war starts (since we have given up on the idea of denying marco the +100% hammer boost). At the same time, I will sneak ships around through the northern passage (which I doubt their team has scouted) and try to attack Anoch Sun from that direction, where it may not be anticipated. Sound good?

Here is what the first turn of that plan looks like:



In retrospect, I kind of blew it with this deploy because only one frigate is in range to attack Kaiser's ships if he sinks your caravel fleet. I assumed marco would block me, but I should have stayed a little closer to force him to do so instead of overcommitting to trying not to threaten Anoch Sun. Blah, sorry about that - I plead a growing feeling of loopiness and possible illness that I am crossing my fingers is not COVID-related... Well, hopefully Kaiser will not be able to kill you (I don't think he should given the strength difference involved, right?) and then you can run away closer to my ships...

Also, important and bad news on the civic front - Nationalism is showing as needing 7 more turn and Reformed Church 6 after that, which means I will be without Wars of Religion until turn 170, blah. Or I could take WoR first and be without corps until t170, which actually might be the better bet depending on how many corps williams has deployed at the outset of the war. Either way, that is an argument for delaying an attack by a turn or two if we can manage that, though I am hoping amenities + city growth and etc push that eta down to t169...

[ljubljana]

Turn 158 - Phoenicia

I missed the screenie in the north, but I helped with Kaiser's caravels as much as I could (which was not that much due to my bad positioning last turn). We are probably going to lose Anoch Sun, though, as marco will blockade now that I am in range. I am sending most of the frigates from Big Brother up through the northern passage to reinforce the group up here, which is badly outgunned vs. marco at the moment. I am also sending a bunch of ships down to Fort Lakton to take it when it flips (unless I need to spend one turn farming for Dreadnought experience).

Main story of the turn is this:



Cultural alliance ended with CMF and we are in big, big trouble here. We may need a few zerks in the area in 8t to take the city back after it flips. I could move Magnus down here too, but that would buy me only a couple more turns and would cost a ton of promotions on my frigates coming out of Abjad. I think the latter is more important, since with all the forces I am committing to marco, I will only have 5ish frigate fleets by Russia when war breaks out, assuming you resume sending me niter in 3t, so they had better all have Line of Battle.

[Woden]

I could move Magnus down here too, but that would buy me only a couple more turns and would cost a ton of promotions on my frigates coming out of Abjad. I think the latter is more important, since with all the forces I am committing to marco, I will only have 5ish frigate fleets by Russia when war breaks out, assuming you resume sending me niter in 3t, so they had better all have Line of Battle.

I would suggest moving Amani down there. If you need the culture from the city state, use 1 of your envoys. It will delay a flip. As for berserkers, they won't be able to do much while the walls are up. I will have a few frigates in a few turns that will hang around and I will keep the current berserker near.

[ljubljana]

Oh whoops, I meant that I could move Victor down there to get +12 loyalty instead of the +8 I'm getting with Magnus. I already moved Magnus down, as he had been sitting idle for some time for lack of chops to boost. I don't think moving Victor is worth missing out on a bunch of Line of Battle promotions on my frigates. But the 8 turns to flip is WITH Magnus in place, as the city is getting the maximum -20 loyalty pressure from population due to the age difference...