[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Current plan is to make walls for my next round of builds to stall the conquest for a bit longer, hopefully for just long enough to get a few flips. Even Demotic could probably use Medieval Walls in case Russia buys a bombard or two, which might be a tempting play with their horde of Cossacks. I am even making Renaissance Walls in Geneva, since the time may come in the not too distant future when it is my last city and I need it to hold out to avoid dying and breaking our military alliance. After that, not sure what I'll make yet, it probably depends on how the pillaging is going - more P/S seems likely though. And yes, I might merge a few P/S for the CS boost, although I can't afford to leave gaps in the line either really. Also open to suggestions if you think walls are not the right build now.

If he only has 300 faith/turn, I don't understand how he is both faith-buying Cossacks in his core to defend Australia and also flooding me with what looks like at least 1/turn in my heartland. Maybe that is part of the answer to the "what is he building at home" question actually, if he is making Cossacks everywhere it would explain the dearth of additional ships + university beakers.

edit: Also of note, when Russia shot at Cuneiform, the game decided to dump a bunch of hammers this turn into...the next item in the build queue, which turned out to be Machu Picchu, lmao. I should have put a P/S there to avoid that, will avoid that mistake in the future.

[Woden]

That is the problem with keeping stuff in your queue, whenever you finish something, it will dump any overflow into whatever is in your queue. In this case, the walls didn't finish, so it dumped your production into the wonder. It is good practice to keep your queue clean unless your are spanning a bunch of the same thing (e.g. ships), then it might be beneficial to overflow as the game might overflow the bonus production (one thing I haven't checked but thought I read it somewhere, probably should check).

My estimate of 300+ could be wrong, it was a while ago. He could also be buying them with gold since he is getting a shit ton from pillaging.

Your plan seems good. One thing that has been bugging me that I think I need to correct is that my navy is in 3 locations and I really should be rallying in 1 spot. I might bring some of my southern fleet to the north and rally by Linear A. The fleet over by Australia is needed for pillaging but I might send 1 or 2 ships back home. We are going to need to hit him in mass to do as much damage as we can. I am going to try and limit my merging into fleets as much as I can but I will be short on coal soon. I will need to balance it so I make at least 1 coal per turn to keep accumulating it for battleships. I also think I am about 7 or 8 turns from finishing Refining. Next turn, I will pillage to finish Scorched Earth and then I figure I am going to drop the Oligarchy card for Raid. That should help speed things along and getting gold for upgrades.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I will clean the queues next turn...a bunch of my cities have ancient district builds there that I started to lock in the cost and never cleared because I was worried it would make the cost go up. In retrospect, though, I highly doubt that would actually happen.

As for faith income, Russia has 520 this turn and had 508 last turn, 209 the turn before that. That seems consistent with a 300ish faith income if they got a faith pillage this turn? If they are faith-buying Cossacks, the pricetag is 1360 per Cossack, which is ridiculously inefficient. I will take that over them saving up for a mass destroyer upgrade in addition to the coming mass battleship upgrade...

I definitely agree about massing your fleet and probably agree about slotting in Raid, just as long as you have a civic swap ready to go back to Oligarchic Legacy if we need to do fleet to fleet fighting with anyone. One thing to think about is whether we want to power my clads, and for how long - it could be nice to trade them for frigate fleets if we get a chance, but otherwise I will just drop them in the Linear cities and they can stay unpowered.

My hope at this point is that Cuneiform + the Linears will hold out for just long enough to get cities flipping back...Cuneiform will last 3 or 4 turns I think, and Linear B is in a great location for defending against frigates and so might last a bit longer if we can get the wall upgrade up in time. It is going to be close though...the big question is whether they will have a critical mass of population to offset the loyalty pressure once they take my capital. That may depend on whether they get a dark or a normal age - I am assuming they at least managed the latter, but I have not been tracking ES lately so I do not know for sure...

[Woden]

There is a 2:1 ratio for faith-to-production. Cossacks cost 680 faith (340 production), not 1360 (gold price; 4:1 ratio) but he is also in Theocracy with a 15% discount, so they are costing him 578 faith per Cossack.

[ljubljana]

WHOOPS that was supposed to say "If they are gold-buying Cossacks...", lmao. I promise I'm not actually quite that ignorant

1360 gold/Cossack is very inefficient...what is that, probably 2 battleship fleet upgrades with leftovers in the discount policy? It would be great for us long-term if this is what he is doing, as long as we can keep each Cossack from getting more than 3 or so pillages. That is not a foregone conclusion by any means, but it should at least be possible. He will have plenty for battleships anyways, but perhaps he will run into a wall when destroyers come online. Since he is coal-limited right now, Combined Arms tech unlocks not just the IC-destroyer upgrades but also a bunch more battleship upgrades as his coal supply is freed up...

[Woden]

He has 9 coal in reserve so he is probably accumulating 1 or 2 per turn. I looked at the global resources last turn. My best guess is he is building frigates and privateers with no new ironclads to preserve some coal for upgrades. I think a fleet battleship upgrade is ~620 gold normally, ~310 with the discount card. Gold buying Cossacks is very inefficient and doubt he is doing very many of them. He could be sailing some from China/Indonesia or had some Coursers that he upgraded.

[ljubljana]

They are going to get one of my coal sources at Hieratic this turn, unfortunately... Maybe I should have given the tile to Cuneiform, but that would have conceded another pillage which didn't seem appealing either, especially since I can't keep him from taking my capital for more than 4-5 turns anyways. Maybe if we are lucky he will be a bit shy about using the new coal due to flip concerns... and maybe if we are really lucky we can hold out long enough that the city actually will flip...

[ljubljana]

Btw, Russia is renaming my cities according to their naming scheme, which is early 1900s Russian Imperial Navy ships. Following in our grand tradition of stealing names from our defeated opponents, I think I will rename my cities after Japanese ships from the Battle of Tsushima, just to mess with them in a petty act of defiance It could also be good luck, as that is where the Borodino, Knyaz Suvorov, Olsyabya, and Izumrud all met their watery ends 

edit: Wait, no, I am wrong, Mikasa, Fuji, Asahi, and Shikishima are Japanese ships from the same battle. Maybe by adopting such a contradictory naming scheme they have already cursed themselves...

edit2: The name of their religion, Fine Weather and High Waves, references a famous quote from Japanese Admiral Togo during the battle. That's cute But how am I supposed to mess with them if I can't steal names from their historical adversaries and their naming scheme is already derived from the most spectacular Russian naval defeat? ...I guess I could rename Cuneiform to something like Torpedo Boat #34 

[Woden]

Turn 180-Vikings

He took Hieratic and killed my ironclad...
   

I can kill one of the frigates but I am sure there is more in the fog. I think it best to wait a turn or 2 and get more ships here. The extra movement won't kick in until T182 so maybe we let him attack Cuneiform a few turns and then attack? I would like to hit him in force so we can do a bunch of damage. 

Also, Russia spent a bunch of money on something. Looking at his resources...
   

I say he upgraded a 2 fleet caravels to ironclads and maybe bought a Cossack. He only has 6 coal (would have 10 if he was making 1 per turn). 

No surprises elsewhere, nothing showed up in the southern sea and Australia didn't take my ironclad bait.

[ljubljana]

You don’t think he might be at Refining already do you? If not, great news that he is blowing more money on clads.

What are the support bonuses on the visible frigates and caravel? If you can confidently one shot, might be worth doing. They should be down to 5 or so full health ones + a few injured, which is almost few enough to throw the Cuneiform attack in doubt. If we wait too long they will surely get smart and protect their frigates with melee ships.