[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

I will still have one coal in the bank next turn, so if you send me gold and one more coal I should be able to upgrade a fleet IC. I won’t be able to power it but if it raises my DS that is good enough for now. Or you can send me all 3 if you are worried that my DS might not go up if I can’t power the clads. That would be really weird, but we are already clearly in “this is a bug” territory so who knows...

edit: The actual answer is that I need to go and sim this out, honestly. Not sure when I will have time to, but I will try to get to it sometime before your turn...

[Woden]

edit: The actual answer is that I need to go and sim this out, honestly. Not sure when I will have time to, but I will try to get to it sometime before your turn...

I sim'd this out and you should get an increase in DS if you upgrade a fleet caravel. For some reason you don't get the DS increase if you merge 2 ironclads but do get it when you upgrade a fleet caravel.

[ljubljana]

Awesome, thank you! I guess another question is if I still get the DS increase if I merge a fleet ironclad and then upgrade a fleet caravel on a later turn, or if I have to have produced my first fleet ironclad by upgrading to avoid permanently missing out on the DS boost. The reason I ask is because williams is still having the same problem, and it seems unlikely that all of their IC fleets were merged instead of upgraded. And, unfortunately, I can imagine how coding logic might result in the boost being permanently missable, if, eg, merging a fleet IC updates the "strongest unit you've ever built" variable but skips the DS increase check somehow, and if during non-bugged circumstances DS is only checked/updated when the value of that variable changes...

[Woden]

I tested it out by first merging 2 ironclads into a fleet, no addition DS. Then, I upgraded a fleet caravel and got the extra 10 DS. All played on the same turn in the same game. My best guess is that the code only calls the DS routine when a unit is created or upgraded and not when 2 units are merged.

Edit: This makes me wonder if you need upgrade a fleet quadrireme to get the increased attack strength?

[ljubljana]

That's great to hear! I guess williams really has made all their IC fleets by merging...

As for the fleet quad, luckily I did already do that with my LoB quad fleet right before the war started. If I remember correctly, my city center did do slightly more damage (from Bastions) to the Cossack than the frigate inside, so I think I do have the increased strength. Will double-check this turn, though. You might be able to compare city ranged strength on your end to a mouseover battle from your frigate fleet against a Cossack to test the other side - could be worth an upgrade to fix that if the frigate fleet is doing noticeably more.

edit: I am wondering if I should swap to Limes soon (after this round of P/S builds?) to do Medieval Walls in my cities on the west coast. Williams' best move may soon be to sail all the way around our continent just to hit me in the one spot where I still have only 100 HP walls up and no frigates in cities. In retrospect, btw, my best strategic approach to this war was likely to build wall upgrades instead of caravels everywhere, not just in the exposed cities, and to stick frigate fleets everywhere too and not even try to engage the Russian fleet, but you live and you learn, I guess.

[Woden]

Turn 174-Vikings start
Russia was able to kill 2 of my ironclads and my privateer...
   

My choices are to retreat to Heimdall and hope he follows or stand my ground and probably lose most of my fleet on his turn. I should be able to kill at least a fleet ironclad and a fleet caravel. 

I think the best option will be to stand my ground and delay him as much as possible.

[ljubljana]

Wow, impressed at how many kills they got... Agreed, I think the best we can do is trade ships at this point. You should be able to get 4 or 5 more with the rest of your clads, and it will get us some amount of a delay. Probably a strategic victory for him to take out our promoted fleet, but it's not like we can realistically get away.

[Woden]

I sent you 2 coal and all my gold. Please send back what you don't need and all your niter. I need to start build friagtes in my less productive cities. Also, I am contemplating dropping one of the CS bonus cards for the one that adds a niter and coal to each source. That would be 6 extra niters and 6 extra coals per turn. That would get us some battleship coal and niter to make frigates. Also note, since I finished Steel, quads are obsolete and I can not longer build them.

Edit: Also, kill the walls at TMMLP. He finished them on his turn and my berserker only did 1 point of health damage to the 5 health city even though I have a +30 CS advantage. Firaxis must have changed something with attacking cities with walls, because with that CS advantage, I should have done more health damage.

[ljubljana]

We have a special session available to be called...



What do you think? We'll never get this passed, but maybe it's worth spending 30 favor to start the discussion so Australia has to dump all their favor into defeating it?

[Woden]

turn 174-Vikings cont.

As stated earlier, roland got walls at TMMLP on his turn. I do find it a little funny that you can get ancient walls completed if the city is attacked but an attack will stop production of any higher level walls. I did pillage 2 mines and a pasture and was able to 1-shot a crossbow that was in the open, but for the city...
   

It has 5 health and 100 wall strength. I am attacking at 76 versus a city strength of 38. I do 17 damage to the walls and 1 health damage. Unbelievable! Whatever. Make sure to remove the walls so I can capture the city on my turn. 

A little further south...
   

I found the Russia ships I saw with my archer. There are more ships down there as each ship has a support bonus of 6, meaning at least 3 other ships down there. I pin the ships and retreat my ironclad back a bit. If you are able to reach them in 2 turns, I will attack on my next turn.

Elsewhere, I notice all Russian cities have a higher DS so he upgraded a fleet caravel. He also sent one of his Cossacks down to pillage my districts but ran into my crossbow and was not able to kill it. He did pillage one of my trade routes though. Also, my ironclads on my SE coast found a corps Cossack trying to sneak over to my land. I sent him to the bottom of the ocean. 

I killed an ironclad fleet and caravel fleet but could only injure a few other units. I did retreat my single frigate back to Heimdall to merge with the frigate due in 2 turns. Here is the battlefield...
   

I am pretty sure I should have some units left next turn but they probably won't last a second turn. 

In other news, I finished 4 ironclads and merged them into 2 fleets this turn to save on maintenance. Another reason to run the extra coal card is that I can field more ironclads and I think numbers right now are probably better than stronger units since it looks like Russia is coal limited. Not sure though, still need to think about it. Giving up +4 CS might not be worth it. I have a few turns before my next swap. 

Ballistics should be done in 2 or 3 turns and my builder is ready to remove the lumbermill next turn for the forest chop into the coal factory.  We should know where Refining is located in 4 turns. Then, we will pillage Australia's southern coast to race to it.