[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

Magnus chop is currently 162 I can switch to Rifling next turn and get it up to 165 the turn after my next one. I checked and nobody is generating GG points beyond the 1 point Kaiser has for his encampment that is going to be pillaged, so no worries about losing it. I think I am going to forgo harvesting the rice and marsh. It is a loss of a bunch of food but I don't think I can finish the wonder before war if I delayed it to harvest the tile. It would take a turn to move to the tile, a turn to remove the farm, and 2 harvests. That already brings us to TT168 before placing the wonder. With 2 chops, I will still need 3 turns to finish it.

[ljubljana]

Okay, sounds good. I guess that means williams will probably need 3-4 Magnus chops in place to swipe it since he would be chopping out a discounted encampment and barracks too. That could be possible, and we should take a look at their territory to see if there's any city where they have enough chops + open tiles to do that. If so, they will probably try to rush something into place once they see us start the wonder, but if we are really worried you could always buy the second-ring jungle (or grab it by natural expansion? it should be next in the tile picker queue) to finish it off.

[Woden]

Turn 165
Bad news...I had 1 MP left on my berserker but the game didn't let me attack the encampment, so it lives another day...
   

It will be pillaged on my next turn and I am in position to hit the city with 2 attacks, so you should be able to take the walls out on T167. Bummer!

I converted Kaiser's holy city for 4 era points and should have enough charges to convert his capital too. I didn't buy a settler this turn, instead I bought 2 traders to help speed up walls at my 2 eastern city state conquests. They won't be able to finish walls before the presumed start of the war without them. 

I placed and chopped into the Terracotta Army. I had to buy one of the jungle tiles to make sure it completes on T168. Otherwise, I would have ended up short a 4 production. Hooked up 3 coals and will get another hooked up next turn. I think I will upgrade 1 ironclad next turn to see where Steel is located and then upgrade the rest of my caravels on T167. I would wait until T168 but I will need to promote all y units once the wonder is done and I want them ready before the war starts. 

My settler has made land fall on the southern island and will need 2 turns to settle the city. Then a couple of turns to mine the coal, so I should have another source on T169. In addition, I should be able to buy a settler in 2 turns for the other coal city and should have coal hooked up there on T171.

I am undecided if I want to place ironclads in my city state holdings. It would bring their defensive strength north of 90, which would really slow down Russia/Australia form taking them. I figure those will be their first targets and if they get bogged down, it gives us more time to build more units. What do you think? Or should I just let them get captured and keep those units with the rest of my navy?

[ljubljana]

Turn 166 - Phoenicia

Fairly quiet turn.



I made one more fleet and promoted my Dreadnought. Oasis of Dawn has a caravel in it now, which will complicate efforts to capture it. I am nervous about Anoch Sun's flip time, which is down to 3t...hopefully we can clear out enough of the pressure in the next 2t to avoid having to go back and retake it.



Where in the world is the Australian fleet? There's nothing in the water between the caravel and the horse either, which is where the horse started its turn. Are they moving west on a slow trajectory to potentially impact the war there? These do not look like the moves of someone who is about to attack us, unless they are in the fog to the SE getting ready to attack Fort Miln...



I guess I was wrong about this unit, which is going to take 40 niter to upgrade. Also, my niter is mysteriously gone this turn, and after scanning my cities I can't figure out why, with none of them having a frigate in the queue. Unless...unless the quad that was under construction in Oracle Bones got upgraded right as the city flipped . Totally my fault, very dumb unforced error there.



Found the source of Russia's extra movement. My best guess is that they are in Monumentality and have +1 movement from the lighthouse, but don't have the +2 dedication, though of course I've seen nothing that would rule that out either...



I scanned the Russian territory for a city that could contest the Terracotta Army, and here's what I found. They have so many chops...we could really have a race on our hands here, especially if Magnus is already established there. Here's hoping they notice neither the gossip screen nor the physical Army tile right by one of their scouts, as if they faith-buy builders here over the next 3 turns and chop out all the woods and jungle and stone, I think they have a chance of beating us (though I haven't actually done the math on whether it is a realistic chance).

As for ironclads in the CS holdings, I'm torn too. I think in Hod you could probably stall them for a while killing one frigate every turn with the Victor double-shot, which could be useful. But Embolon ironclad fleets are pretty valuable and it would be a shame to lose two of them in cities we can't really defend. Russia will also gain a bunch of experience shelling them down, and you won't be able to kill any frigates at Balder, so all we will get in return is time, time that Russia will use to reinforce on their end as well. But that is time in which Australia won't be getting +100% hammers, which is worth something... I guess on balance it does seem probably worth doing to me, since we could use that time to make progress against Australia, but again those are valuable units we'd be spending on a pretty impossible defense, so I'm far from confident about that.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I actually might recommend sticking frigates in those cities instead of ironclads - not sure if you'd get the same effect in terms of defense strength, but firing out of the city with a frigate + city defense fire can probably kill one frigate per turn at both cities, especially if Balder has a LoB frigate or frigate fleet. At the Victor city, you may even be able to kill one frigate fleet per turn with the three shots you would get, which is probably the more relevant benchmark since that's what's likely to be coming for us. That is the one thing TAD could have done to REALLY grind our offensive to a halt, since we could only take cities with frigates and were niter-limited on producing them, and since we are on defense now we might do well to adopt that approach ourselves. If we get Russia stalling out trying to crack the 90 strength walls AND losing two frigates/turn while doing so, that might start to look pretty good for us from an attrition standpoint, since they are surely not making niter quickly enough to replace those losses.

Do you have any plans to retake Oracle Bones? It will flip to Russia in 12 turns, but we will be out of position and open to Russian attack if we sail towards it from the north. Maybe your frigates in the west could do it, though, since they are presumably headed in that direction anyways and will be a bit sheltered from the approach of a Russian fleet by the presence of Hod. We're certainly going to want it back if they don't attack us though...

[ljubljana]

Well, it's really Sullla's move from PBEM7, just repurposed to a somewhat more desperate-looking naval war

But I am surprised TA is not a more standard play, and am wondering if it might become so going forward, especially in naval warfare. That +7 strength makes a world of difference in generic circumstances, and not just because CS differences are always very important - as Sullla mentioned in his writeup, +7 is just the right amount to allow for your frigates and caravels to (usually) two-shot opposing frigates. This opens up the tactical flexibility to chain two-shots together by moving your ships into spaces vacated by opposing frigates, which is a big force multiplier in close-quarters naval engagements like the ones at the start of the TAD war. We had (iirc) a +8 advantage in that combat from a military alliance + spy, and we were baaaarely getting the two-shots we needed in the critical turns - if it had been only a +5 instead, I think the outcome of the whole war would have been different.

[Woden]

I made one more fleet and promoted my Dreadnought. Oasis of Dawn has a caravel in it now, which will complicate efforts to capture it. I am nervous about Anoch Sun's flip time, which is down to 3t...hopefully we can clear out enough of the pressure in the next 2t to avoid having to go back and retake it.

I will hit the city and pillage the encampment on my turn. I think you should push all you can into the gap from both sides and hit Fort Kasia with all you can and Oasis of Dawn with whatever is left. Then, I should be able to take Fort Kasia on my T167. Then, you should be able to take Oasis of Dawn on your turn. That should help you hold Anoch Sun.

I scanned the Russian territory for a city that could contest the Terracotta Army, and here's what I found. They have so many chops...we could really have a race on our hands here, especially if Magnus is already established there. Here's hoping they notice neither the gossip screen nor the physical Army tile right by one of their scouts, as if they faith-buy builders here over the next 3 turns and chop out all the woods and jungle and stone, I think they have a chance of beating us (though I haven't actually done the math on whether it is a realistic chance).

He would have to have everything in place already to beat us. I doubt that is the case. If he reacts to us building it, he will be too late.

As for ironclads in the CS holdings, I'm torn too. I think in Hod you could probably stall them for a while killing one frigate every turn with the Victor double-shot, which could be useful. But Embolon ironclad fleets are pretty valuable and it would be a shame to lose two of them in cities we can't really defend. Russia will also gain a bunch of experience shelling them down, and you won't be able to kill any frigates at Balder, so all we will get in return is time, time that Russia will use to reinforce on their end as well. But that is time in which Australia won't be getting +100% hammers, which is worth something... I guess on balance it does seem probably worth doing to me, since we could use that time to make progress against Australia, but again those are valuable units we'd be spending on a pretty impossible defense, so I'm far from confident about that.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I actually might recommend sticking frigates in those cities instead of ironclads - not sure if you'd get the same effect in terms of defense strength, but firing out of the city with a frigate + city defense fire can probably kill one frigate per turn at both cities, especially if Balder has a LoB frigate or frigate fleet. At the Victor city, you may even be able to kill one frigate fleet per turn with the three shots you would get, which is probably the more relevant benchmark since that's what's likely to be coming for us. That is the one thing TAD could have done to REALLY grind our offensive to a halt, since we could only take cities with frigates and were niter-limited on producing them, and since we are on defense now we might do well to adopt that approach ourselves. If we get Russia stalling out trying to crack the 90 strength walls AND losing two frigates/turn while doing so, that might start to look pretty good for us from an attrition standpoint, since they are surely not making niter quickly enough to replace those losses.

Frigates won't help with the defensive strength, which would be the goal with ironclads. I could see if I can get some bombard corps in their but I think that will come too late. Also, I am not sure how many frigates I am going to build. With my +50% for melee ships, I will be able to build ironclads as fast as frigates.

Do you have any plans to retake Oracle Bones? It will flip to Russia in 12 turns, but we will be out of position and open to Russian attack if we sail towards it from the north. Maybe your frigates in the west could do it, though, since they are presumably headed in that direction anyways and will be a bit sheltered from the approach of a Russian fleet by the presence of Hod. We're certainly going to want it back if they don't attack us though...

I don't have a plan to take the city but I do have a berserker there and will take the city if Russia takes out the walls. If they don't attack (highly unlikely), I will my 2 frigates over to attack the city and take it.

[ljubljana]

I guess my thinking about the frigates is that sticking ironclads in those cities will help them hold out a bit longer, but won't really help our attrition rate by killing any Russian ships. If the cities hold out longer but are just damaging one ship/turn with city range fire, those ships will just heal up and come back with more experience, and all we will get out of it is a bit more time to build ships. But if we have a LoB frigate fleet in the Victor city (at least), we can probably kill one frigate fleet per turn with defensive fire, which I think will hurt their naval strength in a more concrete way than just forcing them to spend a few more turns taking the cities. But I could go either way on this, especially since you are pretty limited on frigates and will probably need them to get good results in the fleet-fleet battles as well.

[Woden]

Turn 166-Vikings

Finish Rifling and switch back to Electricity (due in 3). Ballistics is after Rifling, which means Military Science is on the top row, behind Banking. If Russia wants his Cossacks, he will have to burn research on 2 dead end techs.

Open the save to a surprise storm at Loki....
   

It removed a lumbermill and plantation. Luckily, it didn't kill my builder. I have him replace the plantation so I can make sure Heimdall remains content. You may think I am risking the builder but the storm already did damage to the tile last turn and will move off before killing him...or at least I think. 

At Heimdall, I buy the jade tile, mine it and lumbermill a jungle tile. I am on schedule to chop next turn and finish the wonder on T168. Maybe I wait on the chop and do it on T168 just to be safe. 

Over by Kaiser's northern cities...
     

I kill the encampment and hit the city twice, removing more than half the walls. If you could be aggressive and get as many ships to hit both cities, That would be great. I will then be able to take the city next turn and you can take Oasis of Dawn the following turn. If you don't pillage the harbor (if Russia moves), you can heal your boats there. We need to be a little aggressive here to make sure we can take these cities in the next few turns, so take some risks if you have too.

Edit: I now have the same science rate as Russia!

[Woden]

I guess my thinking about the frigates is that sticking ironclads in those cities will help them hold out a bit longer, but won't really help our attrition rate by killing any Russian ships. If the cities hold out longer but are just damaging one ship/turn with city range fire, those ships will just heal up and come back with more experience, and all we will get out of it is a bit more time to build ships. But if we have a LoB frigate fleet in the Victor city (at least), we can probably kill one frigate fleet per turn with defensive fire, which I think will hurt their naval strength in a more concrete way than just forcing them to spend a few more turns taking the cities. But I could go either way on this, especially since you are pretty limited on frigates and will probably need them to get good results in the fleet-fleet battles as well.

I can hit the ship with the ironclad and kill it with the walls. Then, the ship is dead and my ironclad is still in the city. If he does bring a ship next to the city, it will only slow him down. 

Delaying his conquest will work for us too. Gives us time for more ships.

[ljubljana]

If they are smart, it will be ironclads fleets next to the city with big support bonuses - I am skeptical that an ironclad melee attack + two city range strikes will be enough to kill one of those from full health, and if we wound it without killing it we might end up just knocking it into promotion range. Frigates fleets are much, much squishier defensively (enough that I am confident we can kill 1/turn at the Victor city with a frigate inside) and will slow them down more to kill, since city conquest speed is mostly dependent on frigate firepower. But I haven't really done the math and if you are confident that you can kill an ironclad fleet in one turn, that would certainly be valuable too - we just need to be careful not to create Embolon ironclad fleets for Russia, which we will have a lot of trouble dealing with, and should try to not spend our city range strikes doing chip damage if we might be able to kill something with them.

edit: I'm on board with rushing in at the two Kaiser cities - will play the turn as soon as I am free (right now I am multitasking at my tabletop RPG group)