[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[williams482]

Turn 154:

Somehow we got the boost for Steel with the completion of our first Ironclad, despite not having revealed coal. It's located here:



That's reachable, but won't be easy. 

Our courser which burned the Petra/Coliseum city suffered a predictable fate. It's a good thing I didn't purchase a knight last turn, because Scott Bain has already flipped:



That's actually perfect timing for us. With four frigate shots to kill the Free City units and a caravel attack to recapture the city proper, Scott Bain is ours again and now holds a brand new Courser. It will flip again after our t155, then we'll pillage on t156 and t157 before recapturing and razing the city on t158.



At 50 Ways, troops shuffle about in preparation for a concerted push next turn. A frigate moves up and takes 16 points off the defenses, that unit will get hit and replaced next turn while I push up a bombard, a treb, and two crossbows into firing positions, blocking off melee attacks and establishing a siege with two knights (one landing on the wines from the water) and a man at arms. Suboptimal will be able to hit at most one range unit, then we'll hit back and knick off as much as we can. I'm frustrated by the lack of combat worker options, as a road on the current siege tower tile would allow the crossbows to actually shoot on the opening turn without blocking off any other units. Oh well. This is going to be a bit of a slugfest and we will take losses, but we should be able to knick enough off the walls to break through.



As discussed Graceland is probably another matter, currently 74 strength and tricky approach angles. Our only realistic path to conquest probably involves faith purchasing a bunch of sacrificial trebs, but as discussed the ROI on that is lousy and it's not even clear that adding this city to our empire is beneficial.

What we need to be thinking about is if/how we can convince Team Sandbox to make peace. That's desireable because we're running up a horrific hapiness penalty largely due to war warriness in our captured cities, a combined 29 amenity deficit to a 24 city empire. The problem is getting our enemies to agree to it on terms that actually benefit us and still leave them unable to contest our victory. I'd like to capture 50 Ways because it controls a wines resource, although getting a builder over there will take some time and we have more urgent priorities for the builders we have. What do you think of blasting that city down to nearly nothing, then trying to offer Suboptimal a white peace? We could punctuate the threat by blasting some large holes in Morelos' defenses, but that would add a likely unacceptable risk of our frigate fleet being trapped in Bo Hai if China manages to snipe Scott Bain next time it flips.

Speaking of Bo Hai, this is the extent of it:



As theorized before, Morelos is the only true shipard inside this bay. Diamonds theoretically could build a third ring harbor, but it doesn't even have a valid tile within borders, never mind the district. There's very little long term danger here.

Archduke is down to two cities, Big Brother and Doing The Honors. I believe both are former city states, although I'm not 100% sure. I very much doubt Archduke will survive two more turns. Kaiser is doing better and could stick around as a tricky thorn on Thesa and the Mato Tipila island for some time, but the only thing that will save him from elimination is if the Raiders decide they don't want to bother.


Woden has maintained parity with us in total number of techs thus far. I don't think this can possibly drive them all the way to battleships before we can get there, but they're doing a pretty impressive job burning the hell out of every improvement they can find, and we're going to have to be careful about them doing the same to us.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The best defense against Woden is a good offense. If his fleet is scattered burning our improvements, well, that will end poorly for him as his cities fall. If we can build military police again they can also cover coastal improvements, in a pinch. But I think the best policy is still concentrating near Balder and forking the enemy fleet, then trying to beat part of it in detail and gaining a toehold on Woden.

In the meantime, I think Steel is probably the next best priority, over military science. Once we hit it our cities will be more or less invincible before Flight, which they won't reach soon, and we can focus entirely on offense.

[williams482]

Any thoughts on how (and when) we might be able to convince Team Sandbox to make peace?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Something they want, basically? All we have is Call Me Al. If we took 50 Ways and offered peace in return for Al, how much mischief could Suboptimal make? Faith-purchased jongs, yes, but that's about all - it'd take him ages to build up a fleet capable of causing any real trouble, longer ages than we need to shatter Norway's fleet in ~15 turns.

[williams482]

Turn 155:

No major developments on the interturn. Marco has some messages for us:



I get the distinct impression that he hasn't been reading my walls of text. Understandable for a busy international student, I suppose, and attempting to coordinate via pins is better than nothing. Allan McGreggor, as discussed, is simply too tough a nut to crack with what we've got right now. I attempt co communicate our thinking through Marco's medium of choice:



Scott Bain will flip next turn. We'll leave the city intact for two turns, blast any ground units that spawn, then raze with the courser on t157 immediately after pillaging the mine.

At 50 Ways, our frigate from last turn took 47 damage and retreats into the borders of Shikishima to heal. One of our Bombardment/Rolling Barrage frigates moves up to take it's place and blasts 12 points off the walls, and our ground pounders move into firing positions:



Our Courser near The Obvious Child stages a smash-and-grab against the horse pasture in the city's second ring, while Michelangelo checks out some lovely unspoilt tundra wilderness. Reminiscent of home, but he won't stay here long. The Russian recon corps will be (inexplicably) in need of his services in the next war.



Some barbs get rekt in the frozen south of svalbard. I haven't found the camp just yet, but it shouldn't take long.

Woden unfortunately won the race to pillage some potentially blockable mines on Mato Tipila Island, but the terrain and Marco's blockers will make actual captures difficult. Japan won't be quite as tough to dislodge as Indochina would be for us, but Kaiser can probably drag things out pretty good up here.



Archduke, for his part, is clearly doomed. I sent him a final request for three coal, but I highly doubt he'll live long enough to send it, with this the final bastion of English culture remaining in the world:




I think offering to return the Indonesian capital in exchange for peace after 50 Ways has fallen and Scott Bain is razed seems like a sensible option. All I can think of for an incentive to give China would be threatening Morelos, but there's too much extra risk there.

[williams482]

That "very minor benefit" hinted at in the tech thread is a grand total of 3 coal I requested in exchange for nothing, which the AI will certainly decline to send my way. If that's ever relevant to us, things will have gone sideways in a very strange way.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Marco being mostly checked out of the forums is grave news. We've been a bit hobbled all along because he's busy - he rarely had time to check the forums even in the winter, leading to snafus like Desert Folklore getting skipped or his refusal to settle some of the gold-generatng spots I identified. It didn't matter much against Sandbox because they built so few ships we could single-hand them, but a world war against the raiders will want coordination.

Oh, well, use pins as best you can, including economic tips. Marco will need to take the east all on his own, concentrating on bleeding the raiders and trading space for time, while Russia puts every single ship we can scrape up into beating them on the far side of the world and seizing at least one city to commence pillaging.

Personally, while I think fleets will be helpful, I've always thought you get more raw damage and numbers out of individual units. It's only when you get to crowded areas and all units can't engage effectively (like inside or around a city) that the fleets/corps become useful. So maybe we'll want frigate fleets to try and blast down Norwegian cities, but otherwise numbers, numbers, numbers.

[williams482]

Turn 156:

We are (officially) no longer allies of Woden. The Raiders have two relatively inconsequential disasters to deal with, a flood in the Punic core and a dust storm off the coast of what once was England. Three units were fired upon but none of them died, and Scott Bain has flipped to Free City status as expected:



Our frigates make short work of the southeastern free city unit, and the courser pillages the pasture and moves onto the now-abandoned mine. I decide to take the top off the other Man at Arms, but not kill it or damage the city proper to eliminate the risk of Roland sneaking a unit in there to recapture the city and burn it themselves. I also took a crack at an embarked city state musket for the sake of a little extra experience.



At The Obvious Child, our courser was attacked by a pike and withdraws to Adios Hermanos to heal. That's about all we have left for low hanging pillage fruit, and subsequent attempts will require tanking a city strike (plus whatever else) and probably aren't worth it. Adios Hermanos did complete ancient walls, and starts a 4t quad.



At 50 Ways, Suboptimal opted to hit my bombard with the city strike for 43, then attack one of our knights with the garrisoned pike for 34 (and gets us a promotion). I attack with every ranged unit for a combined 70 damage off the walls, and throw in melee attacks from the man at arms and healthy knight to boot while advancing the courser adjacent to the city for a potential additional attack next turn. I fully expect the Bombard to die next turn, but it's sacrifice should guarantee that the walls will be gone next turn instead of some time after, and I don't expect that unit to provide much value against the Raiders.



With Suboptimal declining to fire on our frigates, I decide to sent a small fleet towards Graceland, to take some initial bites off the still-medieval walls. As discussed I don't think I can take this city, but suboptimal is ignorant of my pessimism and relative weakness in this theater, and I want him to think this city will eventually fall. Said fleet spots a pike, fortified outside of Graceland for no purpose I can calculate:



If that unit stays where it stands, it dies next turn.

Norway has fleets:



The question of combining units vs keeping them separate is a complicated one, but in general terms I think it makes sense to combine units in most cases. concentrating firepower on one tile is valuable even on a long front like a clash between fleets, and combining units allows green troops to benefit from promotions granted to the older units they are merge with. Combining units with continuous resource requirements is very nearly mandatory, as single ironclads (for example) cost one coal each while fleets and armadas still cost just one coal each. We are likely to be more limited on resources than production, so we'll be mashing those ships together as best we can.

For non-resource units, it's definitely situational. I'll avoid joining units until we have a better sense for where our battlefields are likely to be and how much space we're going to have, but I suspect most will wind up merged. We have a lot of ships to play with.

[williams482]

Turn 157:

A pleasant surprise at 50 Ways, Suboptimal opted to kill my very expendable Man at Arms instead of the much more valuable bombard:



One shot each from the treb and frigate, a final charge from our nearby courser, and A Church Is Burning rises from the ashes of the Indonesian defenses:



The capital moves to Graceland, as expected, bumping that city's defense strength to 77. Our caravel takes a peak and discovers that there's a musket inside. That pike did remain stationary, and thus dies:



At Scott Bain, our courser pillages, and three frigates level the city defenses to allow that courser to waltz in largely unopposed. We do burn the city, but not before sending our last caravel in Bo Hai back through the canal. I thought I took a picture, but whatever. Y'all know what a razed city looks like by now. They look super boring, to be honest. I don't know why they couldn't come up with some graphics for burned cities/districts/etc, instead of those silly looking one tile road circles. Anyway. 

With one city taken and another destroyed, plus a unit ambushed and killed outside Sub's last colony and fairly little opportunity for additional low-cost pillaging, this seems like the best time to make peace offers. To be clear I don't think any peace offer is likely to be accepted, Suboptimal in particular tends to be stubborn about these things, but it's certainly worth a go. I decide to offer Suboptimal and Roland white peace, just to see. Next turn when they reject that and I've been able to verify that there is no coal at Hermanos, I'll offer Suboptimal his capital back. I'm not sure if I should also ask for Graceland when I offer Hermanos; I'd rather have that city than not, but isn't especially valuable and might make the deal less likely to be accepted. What we're really bargaining for is a 10% yield bump empire wide, and that's a lot more than a single city.

Next turn, as just mentioned, we learn where our coal is and how much of it we actually have. If we're limited there, we may be forced to shuffle our builds a bit to maximize ironclad builds. Certainly we'll merge as many as we can once Nationalism unlocks on t160. I am also continuing to kick out quads in as many cities as I can; once we get the resource discount card in play our Niter income (+10) is sufficient to upgrade one per turn. That should make for a solid trickle of reinforcements after the opening acts of the war.

It is absolutely imperative that I start putting together a more detailed strategic plan for the Raider war upcoming in 11 turns. We are the strategic favorites, and yet we are inevitably one strategic blunder away from destruction. Stressful times ahead in the Russian war room.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, I expect sub to dismiss the peace out of hand. He has twice rejected pretty generous peace offers - once when I asked only for my two cities back, after he had burned his way across Australia and gotten his fleet sunk, and again after I took those cities by force and asked only for the remainder of Sakhalin in compensation - BEFORE most of his and China's empires were burned down. You'd think we attacked him and not the other way around!

Anyway, time to start plotting war with the raiders. You and Marco combined field 4800 strenght against only 3100 of theirs - Marco in fact has more milpower than Woden! And we know he has a fair amount of berserkers, so it's not all ships. They have the advantage of the large English empire and they each get +50% to ships, so a long war favors them, BUT if we strike before they can get England fully online I think we will have the advantage. The main goal should be the Norwegian/Phoenician fleets, with the secondary goal of seizing any practical city on their mainland.*

Whoever is near ljubljana needs to be wary of a Phoenician first strike, since he goes first in turn order. Around turn 164 or so we'll want ot start positioning our ships out of range. WIth 9 movement though you should be able to land a pretty good first strike on Woden, and that would decide things, hopefully.

*You could capture the two outlying cities near Svalbard and use those as bases to ship troops across the channel. Slower but hard to stop!