[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

You don’t think he might be at Refining already do you? If not, freat 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.

No, he has 44 techs and I have 42 but he also has Military Science for his Cossacks and that is 2 techs (+Banking) I don't have. So, no way he has Refining yet. Pretty sure he doesn't have Radio yet either, no aluminum and bound to have a mine or district on it already. I think he completed Ballistics a few turns ago and probably 7 turns from completing Radio (we have about the same rate and that column is 9 turns). We need to make sure to protect your campuses, it is the only way he can gain science. 

I don't think a fleet frigate is worth a fleet ironclad. As soon as I kill it, I would be swarmed next turn. Better to wait a turn or 2, then hit him is mass. I have 5 single ironclads coming from England and 2 more from my southern tip plus another one is coming out of Loki next turn. All should be in position in 2 or 3 turns to attack. I figure he will go after Abugida next to try and save Asahi from flipping and bring his fleet in mass to attack Cuneiform. I brought my 2 fleet ironclads to behind Runic just in case he scouts in the north.

Edit: Send me all your niter!

[Woden]

Turn 180-Vikings cont.

Let's start in the southern sea. I pillage the plantation to finish Scorched Earth but need to make sure all my attacks are complete before I drop the Oligarchy card. My redlined berserker at MBDF has 15 HP but guess what...
   

He can still take the city. I love these guys. I buy a builder to chop the city out and will probably start with the un-pillaged lumbermill to make sure Russia doesn't take advantage. 

I had really good luck finding hidden ships this turn, or at least williams482 put them in bad spots...
   

I was bringing the ironclad out of the Japanese capital last turn out towards JFTB and came across a fleet privateer and then saw that a fishing boat was pillaged at TCS, so I sent the ironclad over there to go and take a look around and found a single privateer. Both are now at the bottom of the ocean now. Down south, I was going to position my ironclad to hit the camp at Imperator Nikolai and came across another privateer...
   

He is now at the bottom of the ocean. Over by Japan's remaining cities, Kaiser has been building units and I had to retreat my bombard for the moment but I was able to kill a full strength Samurai with a good dice roll. With all the attacks done, I drop the Oligarchy Legacy card and slot Total War for bonus pillages. Each mine and harbor are now worth about 420 gold. There are 10 gold generating pillages in the southern sea and all but one can be raided with a boat. Plenty for battleship upgrades...so I spent a little gold...
   

It is costly but a fleet frigate is 420 production versus a single frigate costing 280. That alone makes it worth while. With the faith and this being the last turn to buy builders, I bought 4. Three on my mainland and 1 at the new conquest. I am also chopping builders out at Harden's Grove. It has trees but not on the coast. I am going to run the builder's card until Natural History is complete so I can get a 5 charge builder when I settle coal city. My plan is to get as many builder out in noncoastal cities to get ready for Oil and Conservation...also England still needs lots of love. 

Over in the north...
   

I bring my fleets back behind Runic. They will probably go back to where they were next turn...or not, we will have to see what Russia does. I did merge a couple of the single ironclads together. I checked and I had 21 ships needing maintenance cost, add in the coal plant and I would lose a coal next turn. I will have to merge another 4 next turn to get down so I am accumulating 1 per turn. Right now, I have 9 fleets and 11 singles. 2 more will complete next turn and at least 1 the following turn. I left the fleet ironclad I had near our southern tip on the harbor at Freya and sent the 2 singles heading north. 2 of the singles that killed the privateers will also be sent north. 

Two or 3 turns and I think we will be ready to damage the Russian fleet.

Edit: Also, in case you missed it on the previous post, send me all your niter. I am going to chop out frigates in Australia and at Thor and will need all the niter I can get.

[ljubljana]

Turn 181 - Phoenicia

In the face of longstanding predictions of our doom and untold reams of CMF posts begging us to concede, we have made it to the Industrial Era!



Double dark age for our opponents, ouch!

As for dedications, you are spot on, of course:



I doubt I will ever again reject Heartbeat of Steam with this level of wanton coldness in the future, but it's the right choice for me and my 2 remaining campuses. Reform the Coinage, which I totally forgot existed, pulls me out of the negatives and all the way up to +50gpt! That's very nice, and I may start working on a trader in Geneva or Fort Lakton soon to get one more route out before the rest of my lighthouses get pillaged. Or we could buy one, which may be a good option as Runic and Cuneiform have very exposed lighthouses...



Limes and Grand Armee will maintain an uneasy coexistence for now. Conscription is worth 32 gpt, no insignificant sum, but Grand Armee looks likely to make the difference in whether Cuneiform can get one more P/S out before it goes down, and I would gladly pay 96 gold in opportunity cost for one more unit. I am building walls everywhere, as you might imagine, with only Fort Lakton as a possible exception due to its central location. I will want wall upgrades there too sooner or later in case it ends up as my last city standing, but for now I think it's okay to put them off for a few more turns.

And finally I can no longer procrastinate answering the million dollar question - how does Russia's loyalty situation in my core look?



Bad! Shockingly, surprisingly bad! They are low on amenities and it is really killing them here, even despite Bruindane and sub's craven peace deal. Now if only there was some way to keep them from shipping Russia their excess luxes...

They will run more cards to slow this (I assume), but as of now 4ish-turn flips at Izumrud and Hieratic seem to be looking plausible. Judging by the population pressure at Asahi, which is not even in range of Cuneiform (!), they are unlikely to be able to conquer quickly enough to change that math either. They will then turn around and immediately raze my cities, of course, but it will be a nice delay, and, crucially, should be able to keep them from turning my core into productive territory, while you will face no such obstacles with the assimilated Australia.



I also reallocated the coal tile at Demotic, as per your pin. If Hieratic does flip back, that will give me a nice window in which to reclaim all its tiles before Russia can burn it. Demotic will be a great city in 80 turns at this rate



Russia deploy. I can't deny them those two pillages at Demotic without losing P/S to Cossack multi-attacks, so I chose to concede them and try to get kills on the counterattack. I am in the process of reformulating my line to defend those campuses for as long as possible...hopefully that will be doable, but they are going to get quite a bit of extra gold in the meantime. On the other hand, I think they now have to keep some units on garrison duty in their captured cities to avoid even more rapid loyalty bleed, so maybe that will slow their advance here.

You can see also that I moved my caravels up to join you at Runic, and my IC back slightly, the latter out of a desire to keep them close to the Linear cities in case they are needed for the DS buff. I expect that to be how those two ships ultimately meet their end, so I am probably not going to throw them at Russian frigates unless it's really necessary to get important kills. I do think we should also be careful to make sure we get an efficient trade if we end up attacking them - if we can take out a bunch of their frigates, it will be worth it, but I don't want to attrit your newly-built navy just for the sake of buying Cuneiform an extra turn or two.

Weird bug alert, by the way - note Magnus is 2t from establishing in Abugida. He was trying to get established in Hieratic, but got displaced this turn by the city's fall, and apparently the turns he spent establishing in the conquered city transferred over to his new destination. I guess his flight got rerouted in midair...



Australia. I did not move my fleet up this turn, but I think it is about time we do so before they turn up with IC and fleets and WoR. Do you think you can move your IC and maybe frigate out next turn to try and find them? Then I can follow a few tiles back so that I can get a first strike if they kill your ships, which will also give my reinforcements from the south and east a little time to catch up.

You should probably be careful with that newly-bought builder in MBDTF, by the way... Based on the Cossack positions last turn, and the fact that none of them were visible in Russia's core this turn, I am expecting them to show up as soon as next turn to start pillaging, and if they do not show up then, the following turn is pretty likely. I do not think it is safe to remove the lumbermill and try to chop, although perhaps even if it removes the mill and is immediately captured, you will still get decent value out of having denied Russia the pillage...

As for our overall plan here, if we can defeat the half of Australia's navy that is still down here before the other half thinks better of their foolish attack on Anoch Sun, we can open up his north coast to pillaging and potential conquest:



The Low-End Theory may have Renaissance Walls, but it is also way more exposed than the city we just killed and should be easy to capture with 2 turns of frigate fire, barring any DS increases. Then, all but one Australian city will be exposed to attack from the north coast, after which we can probably flip them out of existence at The Blueprint. The Low-End Theory is in the negatives on loyalty already (!!), and I am quite confident that The Blueprint, which is juuuust barely out of range of Borodino, will rush to join its brethren in submission to the might of Norway when the time comes



In the north, I don't know what roland is doing. Did they poke at Anoch Sun with, like, one frigate? If anything, I am a little worried that finishing walls next turn will discourage them and accidentally prompt them to make the correct move of retreating back to their core... I also decided to use my two caravels to take the long way around through Fort Lakton so that I can have one more fleet on the front lines, uh, eventually. They could only delay any pillagers trying to get around Mato Tipila by 1 turn, most likely, which didn't seem worth it to me. But, on second thought, that logic assumes they will commit frigates to such an endeavor which they might not do, so maybe I will reverse myself on that next turn... Feel free to let me know if you have an opinion on this.

One last thing to report: the end of the epic journey of my low health exploring sword...



He bravely approached the third ring of sub's former capital in search of a pillage, and instead stumbled upon his undoing. Good night, sweet prince

I did send you my 9 niter, and I also asked for two more coal to support my ICs. Hopefully I won't need it, but good to keep our options open. I am also going to look into what it would take to steal roland's suzereingty of Valletta, in case it is doable with Amani + all my envoys + the two incoming from Opera and Ballet...

[Woden]

Weird bug alert, by the way - note Magnus is 2t from establishing in Abugida. He was trying to get established in Hieratic, but got displaced this turn by the city's fall, and apparently the turns he spent establishing in the conquered city transferred over to his new destination. I guess his flight got rerouted in midair...

If you move a governor and then move him back to where he was originally, they only take as long as they were gone to re-establish. Magnus was gone for 2 turns and therefore will establish in 2 turns. This is really good if you accidentally move the wrong governor (this is from experience).

Australia. I did not move my fleet up this turn, but I think it is about time we do so before they turn up with IC and fleets and WoR. Do you think you can move your IC and maybe frigate out next turn to try and find them? Then I can follow a few tiles back so that I can get a first strike if they kill your ships, which will also give my reinforcements from the south and east a little time to catch up.

Yes, I will move the ironclad up to look for Australia. The frigate is going to join his brothers and become a fleet.

You should probably be careful with that newly-bought builder in MBDTF, by the way... Based on the Cossack positions last turn, and the fact that none of them were visible in Russia's core this turn, I am expecting them to show up as soon as next turn to start pillaging, and if they do not show up then, the following turn is pretty likely. I do not think it is safe to remove the lumbermill and try to chop, although perhaps even if it removes the mill and is immediately captured, you will still get decent value out of having denied Russia the pillage.

The builder will be guarded by my full strength berserker corps. He should be able to handle a strike from a Cossack. The lumbermill tile has a road, so I can remove the lumbermill next turn and chop the following. I doubt they will attack since it means being in range of the city strike. They probably will be waiting in the fog.

As for our overall plan here, if we can defeat the half of Australia's navy that is still down here before the other half thinks better of their foolish attack on Anoch Sun, we can open up his north coast to pillaging and potential conquest:

The Low-End Theory may have Renaissance Walls, but it is also way more exposed than the city we just killed and should be easy to capture with 2 turns of frigate fire, barring any DS increases. Then, all but one Australian city will be exposed to attack from the north coast, after which we can probably flip them out of existence at The Blueprint. The Low-End Theory is in the negatives on loyalty already (!!), and I am quite confident that The Blueprint, which is juuuust barely out of range of Borodino, will rush to join its brethren in submission to the might of Norway when the time comes

Yes, the best play now is try and kill Australia as quick as we can...and kill Japan too. If we remove the military alliance from Russia we will have a huge advantage. We also have to be careful, with the dark age comes dark age policies. I will have to take a look and remind myself of what is available but I think there are some nasty ones, especially in the later eras.

[ljubljana]

As far as the Dark Age policy cards go, I think we are lucky...it is too late for Monasticism (which would be game-winning in this position) and juuust barely too late for my personal MVP this game, Twilight Valor. Their options are:

Isolationism - reasonably strong as usual but not game-winning and anti-synergistic with a stronger option in Wisselbanken.

Letters of Marque - +100% hammers and +2 movement for privateers, +100% yields from TR pillages, -50% TR yields. This is a bit scary but we have some defenses against it - my TRs can no longer be plundered, and their privateers will only be as fast as our IC with this in place instead of running circles around us. Still, I can see them running this and simply spamming privateers at us to step up their pillage income. They will also lose probably close to 100gpt from running this which is a very significant cost.

Robber Barons - ridiculously bad, at least in this position. +25% hammers in cities with a factory, which they probably have all of 2 of, and +50% gold in cities with a stock exchange, lmao, in exchange for a devastating -2 amenities in all cities (!).

Elite Forces - +100% unit experience but +2 gold in maintenance per unit. How many units do you think Russia has, 60 or 70ish? I do not think they will risk total economic collapse to try to make this work, although I do think it has some real potential in generic circumstances.

Their policy slots are very constrained, too - Oligarchic Legacy and WoR are inviolable, and they have 2 military and 1 wildcard slot in Theocracy, so if they use a Dark Age card, it means giving up Raid or Press Gangs. Not exactly appealing options...and that is before considering the strong impetus they now have to run loyalty cards.

[Woden]

I am not sure not plugging the hole north of Oasis of Dawn was a good idea but we will see. If Australia brings a large force through it, it might not be that bad. Less ships to fight through to get at his core. He won't be able to take any cities but might be able to pillage. I will work on getting a ironclad out of Fort Lakton in a few turns to slow him down.

I looked at dark age policies that they might use. Luckily, Twilight Valor is only available through the Renaissance Era. There are only 2 policies that they could consider that will help them militarily: First, Letters of Marque for +100% production and +2 MP to Naval Raiders plus 100% to trade route plunders and -50% trade route yields. Second, Elite Forces for +100% combat experience to all units but +2 gold in maintenance. Given the number of privateers we have seen, the number of pillages he is doing, and the restricted resources they have, I can see them slotting Letters of Marque and swamping us with privateers and maybe subs when he hits Refining and gets oil online. I am not too worried about Privateers, as they are weak and an ironclad can 1-shot them; single-for-single and fleet-for-fleet. Subs will be more worrisome as they have a ranged CS of 75. Luckily, destroyers can see raider units, so it will be important that I go for the tech straight after Refining. I think I should also research it un-boosted, as I don't think I can reach Mobilization but the time I need it. As for the experience card, they may use it but I doubt dropping both CS bonus cards would be worth the extra experience. I am not 100% dropping one of them would be worth the the extra production on raiders is worth it but he might be planning to swarm us with ships to get kills. We need to at lest consider it as an option for them.

Edit: it looks like you posted the same as me as I was writing it up.

[ljubljana]

At least if they spam subs they will only be able to boost them with Letters of Marque and not Press Gangs...they are still a pricey 240 hammers with LoM in place, probably a 4 or 5 turn build in their best cities. Flooding us with 93 hammer privateers and hoping to evade your clads might honestly be better in terms of pillage economy.

As for the berserker, that sounds good as long as you don't get double-attacked, which Cossacks are unfortunately uniquely great at accomplishing. Sadly, I was not watching this closely before last turn and am not sure how many will be in his first wave. I only saw 2 over the last two turns, a single cossack and a corps with the corps exactly one turn behind, but there could be more just ahead of those...

I guess it did turn out to be a good thing that I ended up with all these random colonies scattered across the map...it should be fairly labor-intensive for Russia to remove our MA by killing me now. Geneva will be my first city to get Renaissance Walls in 3t to make it more difficult, and I will keep intermittently working on walls in places like Fort Lakton in case they go for that. Worst-case, I could always stay alive a bit longer by taking an Australian city if they launch a determined push everywhere else.

[Woden]

Lots of chatter in Russia/Australia thread this morning and now a few post in the lurker thread. I wonder what is going on?

[ljubljana]

Best guess is that they underestimated how bad the loyalty situation would be - I don't think it makes sense to try to hold territory in my core if 3-turn flip times are on the table, and I am interpreting their decision to keep Hieratic and Izumrud as reflecting a (possibly misplaced) confidence that they could conquer quickly enough to bootstrap loyalty at those locations. Perhaps they are doing some kind of strategic reappraisal now. I bet they were going to head for Cuneiform next, but now Hieratic will flip back during the 3 turns it will take to siege down the city, and the city itself is unrazeable and will also likely have a 3-turn flip time, so maybe they are debating whether that is still the best move. Lurker posts would then be a mixture of expressions of astonishment that we may not actually be dead yet and requests that the entire loyalty mechanic be modded out for future PBEMs...

That, or they are asking the lurkers to prod us about concession and the lurker thread is full of debates about whether or not they should do so

[ljubljana]

I'm sure you did not intend that as an allusion to the last archipelago game that went this late but that's where my mind immediately went  Now what does that say about my mind, I will pointedly decline to consider...

Random thought for Woden: if we do make it to The College Dropout, I should probably make the initial capture and then gift it to you once Australia is dead. That way, I can sail the Dreadnought into that little lake where it should be able to hit The Blueprint, as long as it is not on a hill.

edit: We should keep an eye on whether Australia's northern fleet starts to head back home this turn. If it does, we may want to consider using our movement bonus to intercept it on its way back before it can link up with the other Australian ships (in a reprise of williams' move to successfully keep us separated at the outset of this war)...