[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

ljubljana, can you try nudging marco at PYDT? Since you are player 1 there should be an option on the game's webpage, near where "Play Turn" and "Surrender" tabs are located. I think it will send another email saying it is his turn. No idea if he will play his turn then but might as well just in case he missed the original email.

[ljubljana]

Not sure I see what you mean - the only extra tabs I can see as first player are these:



I suppose we could revert the turn and ask roland to replay his turn to send marco a reminder, but I don't see a more straightforward way to do so in the web portal...

I personally think the game can actually be called for a winner but I might be biased.
For me it is fine to play it out or call it, I put some thoughts for the above in my thread.

Russia/Australia are still favorites for sure, but if marco disappearing results in this game getting called for marco i will be, uh, disappointed, to say the least .

I'm also not sure what metrics indicate that the game is callable for them given that we are within striking distance in such numbers as bpt (just 22 behind and climbing), cpt (actually ahead here) and city count (probably very close at this point though I haven't done the math). But maybe Kaiser views their 1500 milpower edge as decisive. You did say though that some of that is illusory due to your early corps, and I think the impact of promotions, tactics, and combat strength modifiers are significant enough that it's difficult to directly translate close-ish milpower numbers into projected war outcomes before any shots are actually fired...

[Woden]

Maybe I am mistaken. I thought there was a tab to bump a user to remind them to play.

I personally think if the game was called, it should be for us. We have 2 foreign capitals (versus Russia having 1), took out a player, and we are not the team having issues. Regardless, I am not conceding to Russia/Australia. The game can end without a victor.

As for our real chances if the game continues, I think it is 45% us versus 55% Russia/Australia chance of winning. I give them a slight edge because they do have a larger navy/army, a slight edge on science, and probably a bit more production at the moment but our overall power balance between teammates is closer than theirs and if they attack my cities, they are going to hit a brick wall. I think what is going to determine this more than anything is what happens between you and marco in the west. If one of you gets a significant advantage over the other, they will be free to attack cities while the other navies are busy in the east...and I think you have better odds than marco in the west.

[ljubljana]

Agreed on not conceding to Russia/Australia

I sure hope I have better odds than marco in the west. As bizarre as this may seem considering how large my fleet is over there, the milpower numbers suggest that he has roughly the same number of ships there, and he will be actively reinforcing while I can't afford to do so with Russia breathing down our neck. I should have a nice CS advantage though, with a GA, access to fleets, and essentially all of my frigates having Line of Battle.

Unrelated, but we should probably talk about ironclad upgrades at some point. I think I will want to upgrade at least one ironclad fleet (by stealing your coal, natch) to buff my city defense strength. In addition to that, if you end up with more coal than you need to support your clads after you have upgraded all your caravels, I imagine we should spend the rest upgrading my Embolon caravels. Does that sound good to you?

If so, how much coal do you think you will have left over after your upgrades? We can probably assume you will have access to 6 sources and will be able to support 18 ironclad fleets, so if you think you will have a lot left over, maybe I should consider keeping Professional Army in place next turn (dropping Retinues for Limes and Isolationism for Conscription) to discount those upgrades.

[Woden]

I was planning on sending a few coal to you to get better defenses on your cities. My next turn I am switching to finish Industrialism, then we will know how much coal we have. I figure I should have 2 sources near my main empire and at least 1 source near each of Kaiser's and TAD's capitals. Maybe even a 2nd sources in each of their former empires. . At a minimum I should have 12 per turn. My plan is only upgrade 1 ironclad right away to get the boost to Steel, otherwise all other upgrades will happen on my T168 so I can accumulate a store for upgrades and in case I lose one of those sources. With 12 per turn, I will need one for the coal plant and should save 1 for accumulation to build stores. So, I will have 10 ironclads. I am dropping the resource card in favor of limes in a couple of turn, so my upgrades will cost 2 coal unless I can get Urbanization complete to get the combined card to replace professional armies.

I have a few builders spread out in my empire and will probably try to spread them out a bit more next turn. I found that coal likes to spawn naturally in forested plains, so I may need a few turns to get it hooked up. One to remove a lumbermill (if one exists), 1 to chop out the feature, and 1 to hook it up. I should have a decent supply starting come in ion T165, which is only 3 turns to accumulate before I upgrade and it starts costing me maintenance coal. That being said, if I upgrade enough to keep 2 coal accumulating, I should be able to feed you some coal for upgrades. You will have to realize that you won't have a source for maintenance, so no healing and you will get a -1CS for each coal you are missing for maintenance. But one good thing is that your ships heal instantly, so I can send you a few turns of maintenance if you need to heal.

Overall, I think we need to wait until we know where our coal is located before we make plans on how many ships to upgrade. I think I have 10 fleet caravels and 9 or 10 signal caravels I can upgrade plus a few more in production.

[ljubljana]

Okay, that sounds good. If you are going to discover Industrial in 2 turns, that will be immediately before I discover Nationalism, unless we decide to delay that. I guess you should post info about where the sources are during that interturn, and we can then decide whether I am keeping Professional Army before I play.

Wait, I was under the impression that I would only suffer the CS penalty for not having coal if I actually had 0 coal in my stockpile in addition to a negative coal income. If that's the case, let's say you have 18 coal available but only 10 ironclads + a coal plant of your own - you could just send me 7 coal for maintenance every turn and then we would have 7 more ironclads between the two of us on t168. But if I will suffer a -7 CS penalty on each of my clads for doing that, it's probably not worth it beyond my two most promoted caravels. I don't know if I'll get the CS penalty for having no coal sources even if you send me enough coal that I can maintain a positive stockpile every turn - do you know anything about that?

We are also going to run out of things to build soon...after we both have Steam Power, we can't make more caravels, and we are niter-limited on our frigate production. Should we start spamming Privateers after that, or just do an infra push? I'm a little worried about the latter since clearly CMF/marco are pumping ships in every city and they will quickly get a huge lead in milpower if we ease up on ship production, but Privateers are pretty garbage so idk...

I assume Russia has enough ironclads that they are sitting at 0 coal and 0 coal/turn and can keep up the caravel spam, which is why they haven't encountered this problem. Maybe we should aim for that ourselves? It might be impossible to do that while you are sending me maintenance coal every turn, though, which could be a reason to nix that plan.

[Woden]

Wait, I was under the impression that I would only suffer the CS penalty for not having coal if I actually had 0 coal in my stockpile in addition to a negative coal income. If that's the case, let's say you have 18 coal available but only 10 ironclads + a coal plant of your own - you could just send me 7 coal for maintenance every turn and then we would have 7 more ironclads between the two of us on t168. But if I will suffer a -7 CS penalty on each of my clads for doing that, it's probably not worth it beyond my two most promoted caravels. I don't know if I'll get the CS penalty for having no coal sources even if you send me enough coal that I can maintain a positive stockpile every turn - do you know anything about that?

You are correct here that the penalty only applies if you don't have the coal to pay the maintenance costs. I wasn't planning on sending you coal for maintenance, only to upgrade. I will have enough ships of my own to to use what I have. This will also let you continue building caravels.

Like I said before, my plan is to use all but 1 or 2 coal per turn. I am think more like 2 per turn because I am going to want a stockpile for when battleships come online.

We are also going to run out of things to build soon...after we both have Steam Power, we can't make more caravels, and we are niter-limited on our frigate production. Should we start spamming Privateers after that, or just do an infra push? I'm a little worried about the latter since clearly CMF/marco are pumping ships in every city and they will quickly get a huge lead in milpower if we ease up on ship production, but Privateers are pretty garbage so idk...

No privateers, they suck and underpowered when compared to other ships of the age. I am building 2 for the boost to Electricity. You may want a few for pillaging but no more a few. Build caravels, frigates, and quads (then upgrade them).

I assume Russia has enough ironclads that they are sitting at 0 coal and 0 coal/turn and can keep up the caravel spam, which is why they haven't encountered this problem. Maybe we should aim for that ourselves? It might be impossible to do that while you are sending me maintenance coal every turn, though, which could be a reason to nix that plan.

Maybe he hasn't finished Industrialism yet or hasn't hooked up his coal. I think TAD was sending him coal and he probably used that up so far.

[ljubljana]

Sounds like a plan to me, assuming we don't end up having so many coal sources that you don't have enough caravels to upgrade. In that case, probably the best plan is for me to have just one ironclad fleet with -1 CS and you to take all the rest. I will still get a nice unit out of it as I have two double-promoted caravels ready to go - maybe it's worth upgrading them both to clads fleets at -2 CS, actually.

Happy to keep making caravels and frigates. Not sure how many quads I can upgrade after the war starts, though, as I will be locked into Wars of Religion + Twilight Valor + Press Gangs and won't be able to run the upgrade policies. I guess I could do some one-turn swaps and drop Press Gangs for a turn if need be, but it will take some time to get two different civics down to 1 turn from completion. I really dropped the ball on saving up some instant civic swaps earlier in the game, honestly...

I'd be surprised if TAD got to Industrial but williams didn't, given the vast disparity in their science rates over the last 40 turns. I think it's more likely that they are just waiting to mass-upgrade ironclads when the war starts.

[Woden]

TAD got 1 coal per turn from the GA that gave him the ironclad. I figure he gave CMF/williams482 his coal after the ironclad died because Russia had an ironclad before he finished Industrialism (if he has yet).

[ljubljana]

Turn 163 - Phoenicia

Had to replay the turn due to issues with uploading the save, so I might be a little terse. Crossing my fingers that I didn't make any major mistakes as a result...

Two new players this time in the form of Bruindane in China and roland, our erstwhile ally, in Australia. Will there be any immediate differences in the conduct of our increasingly-tense military standoff with the Russia/Australia team?



...yes, apparently. I am not sure if this is a wholesale withdrawal of the blocking ships, or if they are simply being shifted to cover the encampment. I bring my frigates down from the north in case it is the former, and will strike with the four in range next turn if that is the case.

You can also see that my pins reflect a deep ignorance of some basic Civ6 mechanics . Kaiser can't sail a ship into the encampment tile and then attack out of it, right? I assume not, or canals would be even more worthless than they already are...



More ships down here confirm the story told by the milpower numbers of a huge naval buildup by Australia. We should definitely be wary of a pivot towards Fort Miln and the former Japanese/English cities on the southern coast - I'd recommend starting walls there ASAP, if you weren't already planning to do so. If they get bogged down attacking Medieval Walls (ideally) at Fort Miln and the other cities in the south while my ships hit them from the north, we could be in a strong position.



Even if roland stays to block the encampment, the withdrawal does open up an attack from the east. I only have four frigates there, but that is about as many as could usefully fire on either of these cities at once anyways. The ship labeled "hit Kaiser caravel" is one XP away from becoming a 3-range frigate, though, which will help a ton, especially when merged into a fleet (probably with the LoB frigate so we can hit other ships at range 3 as well). I have therefore opened up my chokehold on said caravel in the hopes that it will then wander into range of that frigate a turn early.

That builder in the north, which has one charge and which I managed to steal from Kaiser a few turns ago, is slowly heading down to Fort Lakton to magically repair all its pillaged tiles. Will it get there before the game ends, I wonder...



Current situation in the east, where Abjad's recent wave of LoB quads means I should have 5 or so LoB frigate fleets, plus a good amount of caravel shielding, by t158.



Domestic situation showing the long trail of reinforcements trickling eastward. I am of course making more ships everywhere at the best available rate. It's a good thing we like boats so much

Other news: switched research to Nationalism, will start Limes walls as the last ships finish in exposed cities. Fort Lakton, without any kind of walls up yet, starts the ancient variety this turn after repairing its monument. Of note is that Cuneiform, which its huge food surplus from Wisselbanken TRs, is actually housing capped and will appreciate +2 housing from Monarchy as it gets its wall upgrades up...

Sent China a DoF as well, and will offer an alliance if accepted. Oracle Bones is about to flip, in 3 turns, and I don't think there's anything I can do to save it, really I suppose I could send over a few frigates to attempt a recapture, but that would leave us out of position vs. Russia and is almost certainly not worth it.

Reminder (from weeks ago, lol) to please post about our coal situation before my turn rolls around, if you get the chance. It would be nice to see how much we'll have to work with in advance before I decide on dropping the upgrade cards. I would also appreciate one more niter next turn, if possible, so I can top off a second frigate upgrade before the swap if I do go that route (and thank you for the 200 gold this last turn, by the way ).