[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Actually, if you can spare 3 of your ironclads for this next turn, shielding like this would be better:



This way, even if they use a frigate, Russia would still be ZoC-blocked from hitting my ships as they work on the walls.

edit: I also really hope Australia cannot buy Renaissance Walls while we are working on the Medieval ones...

edit2: By Cuneiform, I also moved my ships up, but I strongly believe we should wait to engage. We do not have a mass of ships capable of challenging him yet, and if we trickle ships at him 8-10 or so at a time, we will take very inefficient trades. IMO it is better to just use my cities as a meat shield while you build up, then throw everything we have at him in an all or nothing battle.

[Woden]

Actually, if you can spare 3 of your ironclads for this next turn, shielding like this would be better:

This way, even if they use a frigate, Russia would still be ZoC-blocked from hitting my ships as they work on the walls.

Sorry, but that is not an option. I can leave the single ironclad and the fleet ironclad by MBDF to help shield your frigates but my other 2 are sailing south to pillage the pasture and camp by Russia's southern city. My ability to faith buy builders ends in 3 turns and I need as much faith as I can get to buy as many builders as I can in the next 3 turns. More builders, more ships!

I don't think Russia is going to magically appear with a bunch of frigates to strike your ships down.

[ljubljana]

Okay, that's fine by me!

[ljubljana]

Governor plan for next turn is to move Magnus to Hieratic and Victor to Cuneiform, to keep them guessing about which one is the new Victor city. I might even give up 2cpt by moving Amani to Abugida as well - if they know which city Victor is going to, the right plan is to do that city next, but hopefully this plan will give us the time we need to get Victor established in Cuneiform. Two city range strikes + the frigate should then threaten a kill against a GA frigate fleet, while just the two city range strikes probably would not (as demonstrated by the situation at Abjad this turn). This is why I made such a stink about upgrading that quad...I may turn out to be wrong about this (I am running off of instinct rather than actually doing the math) but I think it was a good investment.

I perhaps should have started moving Victor this turn and conceded that we can't do anything to save Abjad this turn. But I didn't, and don't have much justification for it. The city is at 109/200 walls, so will definitely die if they throw everything at it and have more frigate fleets in the fog (which we know they do). At least keeping Victor there will force them to use all their firepower at the city to take it, I guess? But that was true anyways, it's not like they're going to start working on Abugida with just the 2 or so frigates left over after they use 5 shots on Abjad. Probably a mistake from me TBH.

[ljubljana]

If we are only shielding with 2 IC, this map is probably better than the first one I posted:



It offers at least partial protection from frigates, as there is only one tile they can reach that would be in range. We would also be less vulnerable to being surrounded and trapped in case Russia does have multiple ships in the fog. I do think a frigate shot + city range strike might be enough to finish off my injured frigate fleet on the reef, though...and I don't want to put that ship next to the city center as I am expecting MPF to build a caravel here in the next few turns (MBDTF has pretty strong production).

I am still trying to come up with something better though. If Russia + Australia manages to kill even one of my promoted frigates, through any means they have available, I think the attack on the city will fail...

edit: I also begged you for your 80 gold to keep me financially solvent for the next few turns. I am about to experience the mother of all financial crashes as my core cities start falling...

[ljubljana]

I guess we should probably just go with this:



where "car" indicates my fleet caravel. This makes me nervous as I will likely have only 2 healthy caravels in the north after this turn, but I'd say it's better to have to retreat from the choke a turn early than for the city attack to fail. Hopefully once the GA comes in we will still be able to escape in the south even if I run out of caravels and we have to abandon the choke...

edit: I would also appreciate a screenie from the Australia front before you play, if it's not too much trouble, so we can coordinate a bit and I can start brooding about the counterattack...

[Woden]

Turn 178-Vikings start
Here are a few screenshots of at the start of the turn. Bad news, Russia took Abjad...
   

And started the assault on Hieratic. Over by Australia...
   

Roland doesn't want to play anymore. I see no ships by TMMLP. I also see no ships in the south. I do find a Russian privateer by Jobs for the Boys and am going to need a few patrols around England. I think I should pillage the Australian trader this turn, which means my ship would end its turn on that tile. I don't think Russia is hiding in the fog and waiting to attack into a bunch of ironclads. 

Up North...
   

Roland seems to be going for Anoch Sun and not pushing towards Fort Krasia and Oasis of Dawn.

Finally, my coal plant finished and Refining is in fact behind Radio...
   

I should have Radio down to 6 turns at the end of the turn with a few pillages. One thing I have been thinking about lately, it might be beneficial to buy a seaport at Thor. Seaports give a 25% discount when building fleets/armadas, meaning it should only be an extra turn of production to build a fleet versus  single frigate. They are expensive, at 1,760 gold but there is a bit to pillage in this southern sea. I would start a single frigate now and then buy the seaport in a few turns, after more pillaging. Then, start pumping out fleet frigates. I figure, maybe 10 turns until Refining is done. That would be 2 fleet frigates (versus 2 single frigates). Then, once battleships are available, switch to fleet ironclads until. We would double ship production at Thor for 1,760 gold, is that worth it. I think there is plenty of gold opportunity from pillages for battleship upgrades and I am not really going to have that many to upgrade anyways, maybe 5-6 fleets or 8-10 singles plus a few fleets. That is only 2,000-3,000 gold and that should be do-able with the southern sea.

[ljubljana]

Ok, looks like about the amount of damage we expected in my core. Will move Victor to Cuneiform this turn, hopefully it will be fast enough...

Not shocked roland retreated, he is not taking good trades here. But not sure what to do now either. He probably moved to defend Low-End Theory and wants us to pursue...but should we do that now or wait for the GA? If we wait for the GA, I can move the Dreadnought down this turn as a backup in case something goes wrong at MBDTF.

Skeptical of the seaport purchase, we will need gold not just for battleship upgrades but for destroyers as well, which means we can't save it up quickly enough. We are also due for a big economic crash as Russia obliterates my core. Holy crap, he is over 5000 gold already! Must have raid slotted...this is looking very bleak, he will upgrade all his frigates the second he hits Refining at this rate and simply run you over...

I wonder why he kept Abjad? He is begging for it to flip away at this point. Getting a "loyalty handle" like he has at Mitla worked for us against England, but only because you were in a GA and TAD's cities were very thinly spread and could not exert loyalty pressure effectively. I think Abjad is doomed to a quick flip once the era changes.

edit: I don't care too much about Anoch Sun, but if we want to keep it we do have one option - if you manage to extract a peace deal from Kaiser I can gift you both cities. Roland has no chance of cracking them once Urban Defenses are involved. Not sure if that's worth giving up potential pillages in the rest of Japan, though, as Anoch Sun is a very weak location. It's also not really in the spirit of the rules so maybe not the best idea...

[Woden]

For the set up at MBDF, I am going to pillage the quarry and trade route, so my ships will end on those tiles but I am going to give Russia a target if he has ships in the area. My single ironclad can reach the iron mine in the south and pillage that. I figure his frigate ran off to one of the cities in the south, so if it is in that city, my ironclad should be able to handle a frigate shot and a city attack. If he has more down here, my ironclads will be able to reach him next turn to kill anything that pops up. And, I should be able to pillage the tiles at Imperator Nikolai before the era ends for faith bought builders.

[ljubljana]

If we pillage the TR this turn, I may need to send down backup ships and hold off on pursuing Australia in the north. If I were Russia and had a frigate in range, I would 100% sacrifice it to take out the damaged Phoenician triple-promoted frigate fleet (in conjunction with the city range strike). That move would end the attack on the city unless I have more ships coming down to reinforce it. Or we could wait a turn or two on the TR pillage, which I think is probably better, although I do not know where the trader is going to move and it might end up blocking one of my attack tiles against the city.

edit: And/or I can use my meatshield frigate (which luckily did survive) to force Russia to have at least more than one ship in the area to get a shot at my promoted frigate...