[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

One good thing about the emergency is that Australia used most of his diplo favor and you should be able to direct the next World Congress. How many envoys do you have? Can you take Suzerain at whatever the Industrial City State in the north? That would get you earning diplo favor. I think it is 15 turns until the next congress.

As for stationing P&S to pillage if he captures a city, that would be good but I don't think he will be able to take Cuneiform with its 96 DS and I don't think once he has Abugida or Abjad he would take a city without pillaging it completely. One thing we can consider for a little bit down the road is laying some railroads from north to south to help get units where they need to be. I would need to build a ME, so it would be after I get Refining but might be helpful long-term. Also, I think stationing P&S on your campuses and IZs to prevent Russia from gaining science is the best use of them. We can't let him beat us to Refining.

Another though I had is that I need to start buying trebuchets when my niter is low. Once I can get oil hooked up, artillery with balloons will really help out against ship attacks. The only problem is that I need to buy builders while I can for chopping out ships and not sure how many trebuchets I can get before Refining finishes.

[Woden]

Australia split their fleet! Wow, their edge in ship numbers is truly gigantic, as the milpower scores suggest. But they will not take Oasis at Dawn, as they can move only one frigate per turn past the encampment due to ZoC rules, and any frigates that try will be two-shot by the encampment and city fire. They may be able to take Anoch Sun, though...which I wholeheartedly welcome them to do, as that city is the target of the emergency and I believe taking it would forfeit their +2 CS. That is well worth losing an almost completely unproductive city site over, and if they go for it, I may even deliberately leave the walls unfinished to help them out a bit

Unfortunately, the emergency doesn't end if they take the city, it ends in 30 turns.

[ljubljana]

I have 10 envoys + Amani, so unlikely I could take suzereignty, but worth looking into. Agreed about trebs as well, which will be more effective against Russian ships than berserkers, to say the least...although I think we still need to be worried about the threat of faith-bought Cossacks showing up in Australia in a turn or two and eating all your zerks.

As for P/S, yeah, I will park them on the campuses, although I think we shouldn't see too many more pillagers now that the first wave has been beaten back. The wave we just beat was worth 680 * 6 = over 4k faith, and they will need way more than that to make progress against the 6 P/S I will have next turn. I am debating repairing the campus/library at Hieratic to boost the defense strength, though, especially if they go for another pillage there next turn as I suspect they will...that would potentially give Russia another science pillage, but would also boost my survival time ever so slightly. Let me know what you think.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Razing stuff that was just yours isn't an exploit, even if you didn't do anything to earn the payout you get when you raze. This is because getting free stuff isn't a problem in this game. CSs are free, the might as well have a "hit-me" sign taped on their backs. And social policies give you free stuff too. It would be a problem if you could get infinite free stuff but that won't happen against a human.

[ljubljana]

Also, the two critical tiles for frigate positioning next turn are the ones next to Scum Fxxx Flower Boy to the SW and SE - do you think you might be able to a) leave them open and b) shield them a bit with melee ships so that I can safely move my frigates there next turn? If my two frigates get caught off guard by some random Russian ships on their way to MBDTF, it will be a major setback.

[Woden]

Also, the two critical tiles for frigate positioning next turn are the ones next to Scum Fxxx Flower Boy to the SW and SE - do you think you might be able to a) leave them open and b) shield them a bit with melee ships so that I can safely move my frigates there next turn? If my two frigates get caught off guard by some random Russian ships on their way to MBDTF, it will be a major setback.

You are talking the 2 tiles right next to the city? I can open them up and they will be protected by a fleet ironclad and a single ironclad, as I am upgrading my ships on my turn. And regardless of what shows up, I have to upgrade my ships on T177. My next civic will be Civil Engineering and it obsoletes Serfdom, which I am running and when a policy obsoletes while you are running it, it screws up the whole thing and I won't be able to upgrade anything at a discount at the start of T178 before I swap out of it.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I am planning to take the two tiles next to the city, so I can then move both frigates 4 spaces into the bay and fire on the following turn. Sounds like a plan.

[ljubljana]

Shower thought: I don't know if you were already planning to do this, but I would avoid building or repairing improvements/districts on Australia Island until we have located williams' recent wave of faith-purchased Cossacks. If they are in his mainland cities, there is a good chance your zerks will be overwhelmed, and he would then have a free hand to re-pillage anything you repair. We should know in the next couple of turns if that is indeed where all his faith went... Also, it's possible the coal mine is worth it even if it might get pillaged, your call.

[Woden]

Yes, I only planning on mining the coal and fixing the niter. 

Turn 177
For some reason I didn't take that many screenshots (or they didn't take but I think it is more the former) and none where it mattered. The big news of the turn is that China/Indonesia made peace with Russia/Australia. Russia still has Indonesia's capital but the shitty little island city just off the coast of it is now in China's hands. Don't know how I feel about this, Russia has to be suffering from war wariness and now most of it is going bye-bye. We will have to see what his yields are after his next turn. In other news of the world, Australia took suzerain of Valletta and faith bought Renaissance Walls in all the cities I can see except MBDF, it still has Medieval Walls. 

I finished Colonialism and swapped out the Oligarchy Legacy card for Force Modernization. I figured I wasn't going to fight much and didn't want to slow ship production down by taking Press Gangs out. After I made the changed, I realized I might lose a berserker this turn. Australia was able to do 31 damage to him with 2 crossbows and a city attack, so maybe he dies without the extra +5 CS, IDK. We will see next turn. I upgraded to 2 Field Cannon corps, a pike and shot, 2 ironclad fleets, and a single ironclad. I finished an ironclad at Loki and started another. I will finish an ironclad at The Right To Know next turn along with chopping out the one at Japan's capital. I pillaged the holy site and 2 lumbermills at MBDF and will pillage the campus and a mine next turn. 

Ship production is coming along nicely in England...
   

I will switch production to an ironclad next turn at Official Visit next turn and chop it out on T179. I will also buy the stone at The Right to Know next turn and chop into a new ironclad. The former Japanese capital will get 2 forest chops into ironclads over the next few turns and I should have 3 new ones in 3 or 4 turns. I am going to buy a settler at Jobs for the Boys next turn to settle the coal city and I should get a few frigates out of there with the chops. I could have bought the settler this turn but forgot about it until I bought the builder at Open Government but there is still time to get the city settled. I might have to send an ironclad or 2 up to the north. Australia is sending a decent fleet up there and I really don't want to give them free pillages. But, I think the ironclads are more useful over by you. We will have to see. 

Russia has started attacking Abjad and has a few Cossacks around Abugida. I did bring my ironclads towards Cuneiform a bit but really want to wait until the era change to engage. I should have a few more fleets by then too.

Edit: Also, trebuchet are not an option, I can't buy or build them anymore.

[ljubljana]

Turn 178 - Phoenicia

Australia first, since that's the fun part:



Sweet, that's exactly the move I was hoping for - they moved up some frigates, badly injured their frontline caravels, and still barely failed to kill my double-promoted fleet, which will return to Fort Lakton (Twilight Valor means no recuperating in Norwegian hot springs this time). In addition to the pictured units, I have one more double-promoted fleet offscreen that is just close enough to hit one of the redlined caravels. That said, I should still be able to get all three frigates if I play my cards right. But how do we do that, given that we have only 3 tiles at distance 2 from the frontline pair of frigates and distance 3 from the back frigate? We need 4 frigate shots to kill all 3, since only the fleets will one-shot, and we have only 2 fleets in range. That means we will NEED to use a caravel attack against one of the Australian frigates to make this happen. But how do we do that without compromising the integrity of our deploy?

The answer is...very carefully. Step 1 is to kill the closest caravel with the offscreen frigate fleet, which is in range of exactly that ship and nothing else.  Then, we take the following caravel attack, BEFORE moving up the GA...



This attack needs to NOT kill the targeted frigate, which would move the attacking caravel off the reef and onto the crab in a very exposed position. We should be favored to pull that off, but the dice do not always agree...



...but this time we did exactly 99 damage, taking 10 in return  

Now we can move the two remaining fleets, including the Dreadnought, and the highlighted frigate 1NW, and, with the GA, these ships should get 3 kills on the corresponding frigates. Then the last LoB frigate in the east can kill the redlined caravel, and the Embolon frigate in the NE can occupy the other reef tile without taking damage.



That leaves us with a beautiful, safe deploy and Australia with 5 fewer ships Our most exposed ship is a full-health Embolon fleet on a reef and in GA range, which will have to withstand as many as 2 caravel and 4 frigate attacks next turn. That might maybe be enough to kill it if roland actually has 4 frigates in range, but given that we have killed 4 already this war and can see 2 wandering off towards Anoch Sun in the north, I'm not at all sure that he does.

Final deploy in this theater:



I went with a little more shielding for our strike force against MBDTF, since there was a path a hypothetical Russian ship could take around the ironclad ZoCs to hit my full-health frigate fleet. Good thing roland inexplicably went for Renaissance Walls at The Low-End Theory instead of here, or this attack would be in serious trouble. The highlighted frigate is here to take a hit from any scouting Russian ships...I don't think we will see any, but if one does emerge, I would much rather lose this ship than my invaluable triple-promoted frigate.

Also, please move ironclads onto the pinned tiles next turn so that my frigates will be protected while I take down the walls. If anything is going to draw Russia out, that would be it...

And now for the Russian front, which is significantly less fun:



Lowrolls galore over here  I missed the kill on the Cossack corps AGAIN, and then I got tilted and made a mistake. If they move 2W and stop, pillaging nothing next turn, they can get a campus on the following turn and I can't stop them. Hopefully they will get greedy and go for a pasture/mine or promote instead.

And Abjad is pretty much doomed next turn. I did kill one frigate fleet, but needed all 3 shots to do it due to another lowroll  That does not bode well for my odds at Hieratic and Abugida...