[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

...ok, that's fine with me as long as you are one hundred percent certain that you won't take the -20CS penalty.

But I am not sure you will still get the 2-shot against a frigate fleet with only a 12 CS advantage, and your IC will take a lot more damage from a -3 penalty. Not sure it is worth it, and definitely not worth it if you end up having to chew through melee ships first. But we can see based on how many frigates he has left, whether your battleships can reach them, and just what the tactical situation is looking like generally in 4ish turns.

edit: Really hoping he goes for Cuneiform now, where my setup should actually be able to pick off one frigate fleet per turn this time with two 75-strength city attacks + the frigate inside for the finishing blow.

edit2: Wait...can you upgrade in my territory? Wow, I am so ignorant about how this game works If so massing by Cuneiform looks much more viable, the only issue being getting the GA in play. Do GAs always spawn at the capital?

edit3: Let's make an effort to record his coal count every turn and keep an eye on his coal income going forward. Combined Arms attack will look better if he can't afford a bunch of battleship upgrades right away and has to wait until destroyers to get the coal for his BS.

[Woden]

edit2: Wait...can you upgrade in my territory? Wow, I am so ignorant about how this game works If so massing by Cuneiform looks much more viable, the only issue being getting the GA in play. Do GAs always spawn at the capital?

You can upgrade and heal in allied territory.

[ljubljana]

One nice thing tactically about battleships to keep in mind - with the 3 range, you can leave a one-tile gap between them and your IC front line if Russia does not expose frigates to you immediately. Then he will be unable to counterattack with frigates against your BS, and if he uses them against your IC they will be exposed to BS counterattack on the next turn.

This battle, like most post-frigate naval battles, will probably be determined by who can break the ranged firepower of the other's fleet first, and you have a huge advantage as the only side with BS. Also, even if you lose your navy, killing all his frigates would finish his ability to conquer our cores.

edit: Another way to save your coal is to take otherwise-suspect trades like a fleet frigate for a fleet IC. I think we should seriously consider taking that if it is offered again, especially for a double-promoted frigate. And if it slows down the Cuneiform siege by a turn that might earn us another fleet frigate kill via the city attack setup there, which would be an actually good trade

edit2: If we attack at Cuneiform, we will need to find some way to block him from just escaping back to his core, in addition to a solution to the GA problem (teleport to Open Government and go from there if he spawns quickly enough? how many turns do we still have left on that?). I do not have good answers right now, will need to think on it...

edit3: GA should be 3ish turns away based on t176 report which should be fast enough to teleport to OG and make it to Cuneiform, if JUST barely. No clue on how to stop him from escaping though...

edit4: I do still think your single IC already on the Australia front at MMLP should use maximum movement to scout for their fleet this turn though, if you are ok with that.

[Woden]

Turn 181-Vikings
I was a little surprised that Kaiser squeezed out a heroic age. Here is what it looks like near Cuneiform...
   

It would have been nice to be able to reach those frigates but my extra movement kicks in next turn. I am thinking of moving the 2 fleet ironclads to the polar ice caps. He may look to form a line to the west of Cuneiform to protect his frigates. He did bombard the city but only did 31 total damage to the walls. 

Also looks like he is making a push to your campuses. You will need to make sure to put a P&S on each of those and maybe make the one on the coal a corps. The last thing we want is him pillaging those campuses. 

For the GA, no discount. I guess it is because it is an Industrial. I am at 914/1075 and making 29 per turn. That is 6 turns but I might have some faith to buy it in 4 turns.

Thoughts?

[ljubljana]

huh, i guess he really thought it was important to heal that clad this turn and only hit the city with 2 frigates. if i am lucky i will get a tasty triple-promoted frigate kill today

Moving the clads north seems good, just make sure you leave yourself an escape route (to the north above the tubdra island above Runic?) that he can’t cut off in case he scouts there and tries to trap you.

Campus situation is not good at all. I do not have enough P/S and he may be able to just brute force them. Hard to believe but I’m afraid it may be accurate, stupid Cossacks

GA depends on where you are going to mass ships. South of Woden has its advantages as he will be less able to escape, but I don’t know if you can mass enough ships there in time. I would save your faith just in case, althogh faith-buying an admiral is a dead giveaway that an attack is imminent.

[Woden]

There is nothing down by Abugida so you can shift your P&S north and get one on each campus.

The problem with going south is his reinforcements. I would be suck between his main fleet and his reinforcements. I should have a 1 tile MP advantage, so running away is not really an option for him.

[ljubljana]

Do you know how Cossack movement works? If they attack something on a hill, does t cost 2 movement or just 1? I have never managed to use them despite my best efforts...

What he can do is run away during the turn you upgrade. You will upgrade to BS while you are one turn away from him so as not to get hit w a first strike, and he will see it and run away. By the time you catch up to him it will be 8 turns later and he will be most of the way to his corr...

[Woden]

Do you know how Cossack movement works? If they attack something on a hill, does t cost 2 movement or just 1? I have never managed to use them despite my best efforts...

He will need the MP to move to the tile, just like every other unit. And I think an attack costs 3 MP. I don't know if the forest hill he is currently occupying is a hill but if it is, a second strike Cossack will end its turn after attacking. If it is not a hill, he could get 3 attacks on your P&S. Might be best to replace him with the full health one if you don't make him a corps.

What he can do is run away during the turn you upgrade. You will upgrade to BS while you are one turn away from him so as not to get hit w a first strike, and he will see it and run away. By the time you catch up to him it will be 8 turns later and he will be most of the way to his corr...

If he runs away, all those cities will revolt back to you. Also, in 2 turns, I will have a couple more ironclads out of (W)Odin and Heimdall. I can use them to block the retreat and slow it down a turn to catch up. In 5 turns, I will have ones out of Freya and Hod. I am not worried he will get away.

[ljubljana]

I am thinking about making him a corps, yeah. Probably our best bet is a triangle of corps on the coal and the two campuses. Still might not be enough but at least I will have a solid flanking bonus and he can only get two attacks/turn (and will have to end turns in range of Demotic's city fire). Good thing I didn't give him that lumbermill when he took Hieratic, isn't it? That would be worth a devastating +5 CS for the Cossacks being in/next to Russian territory. God, I am missing Twilight Valor already...

Yeah, we will have to block him off from the south to catch him I think. We don't want to devote too many IC to that as they will be outside of GA range but if we drop a few there we can make him pause for a turn to take them out and hopefully catch him in the act of doing so.

I really hate to advocate for faith-buying the GA when we are this close to getting them naturally, but I think we will need to if we want to attack literally as soon as possible after getting Refining. They might run away as soon as they see us do that honestly, which would be really bad for us but also really amusing.

[Woden]

Turn 181-Vikings cont.
Kind of a slow turn with not much happening. I pillage a mine at Admiral Seniavin and see that Russia has a Pikeman posted on the niter. Looks like I won't get that pillage anytime soon. 

Over by Australia...
   

I pillage a harbor and a lumbermill and get my ships into position for some major pillaging. Two lighthouses, 2 harbors, 2 mines, a quarry, and a lumbermill. The area also has 2 fishing boats to heal my injured units. With the mines here, I might be able to finish Refining in 4 turns but I don't know if I want it that quickly. I don't know if I can get 2 fleet frigates out of Thor by then. We will have to see. I will probably the mines until after the harbors so I can pillage them once I figure out when the 2nd frigate will be out of Thor. I will also have to time it with Natural History so I can drop Total War for Force Mobilization. 

Back by (W)Odin...
   

I think he is expecting an attack near Cuneiform as there are no ships over this way. Another reason I don't think he will retreat. I think the attack will be best in 5 turns. I will have more ships and battleships and maybe even a GA. 

Finally, I move my ironclad over by Australia...
   

I found his fleet. Not sure if you can reach them this turn but you can definitely get into position to attack next turn. If he does attack my ironclad, I doubt he can kill it and it should gain a promotion and be harder to kill. I do have 2 more ironclads heading over here. I removed the lumbermill at MBDF and will chop out a frigate next turn and merged a few ironclads into fleets to bring my numbers down to 19 (10 fleets and 9 singles). More will come out in the coming turns. I am about out of features to chop at England. I think there are a few jungle tiles left but that is about it. I am placing mines now to get production up.