[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[roland of gilead]

That was a beating 

Naval combat in civ6 is brutal... Williams did the same thing to them at Diomede.

It was i was in far too many minds and frittered away troops. In fairness to me my initial plan was one of the better ones. 

I was also a turn to late in coming up with  moving north and trapping them against the coast. though that wouldn't have done much of anything different. 

Hey ho let's see how long i can hold them up for.

[williams482]

Turn 186:

Radio completes:




That boosts Mass Media, located here:



Norway has recruited an Admiral and a General, and suddenly not only we but also Phoenicia, China, and Japan all have enough points to recruit one of our own:



As expected we have two Aluminum, both at Navarin on the northwest corner of our continent. Neither is connected, one is on an unimproved plains tile, the other under an incomplete aqueduct. Australia had a similar arrangement, with two deposits third ring of Marshall Mathers. 

Sadly, I have lost not only the two privateers north of Australia, but two of more which I had been hoping could make pillaging runs against the Loki industrial zone this turn. Woden is taking no chances here:



Nobody seems to have taken any bait on my feint towards moving my fleet here. Something I would like very much to do for real, but the circumstances just don't merit it. But ahead of tough decisions here, a brief diversion in Punic lands:

[Uhh, oops. Apparently this one didn't take. You'll see most of it later]

I have brought my troops ashore, although less effectively than I had hoped. The redlined corp didn't have enough movement left to pillage the wheat, so he moves into a forest and hopes not to be killed for my (continued) misunderstanding of embarked movement rules. The rest attempt to continue swarming Ljubljana's pike and shot units, with that half health corp hoping to be the beneficiary of some inappropriate aggression. All the healthy or nearly-healthy singles here have a promotion in reserve, including the 83 HP one who helpfully demonstrated last turn just how little damage those free cities really do.

North of Australia I could trade four privateers to sink two injured frigates:



I don't think that's a very good trade though. Most injured ships will stay injured unless they get a promotion or pillage some nets, the later of which are in short supply on the Australian coast. And if I wait a couple turns until I have three times as many ships in theater and Ljubljana has redirected their efforts towards trying to actually do something with their victory here, I'll charge in and sink some ships, kicking off a combat where I can expect many of my attackers to survive the initial return engagement and hit back again. If Ljubljana instead decides to run away and heal, fine with me. That buys us more time to get battleships and submarines in play, and guarantees that this fleet will be no threat to my production centers in the immediate future. Final deployment:



Woden, through a mix of promotions and pillages, has completely healed his ships near Olsayaba:



It was probably silly of me to shoot at them at all, unless I believed there was a credible chance at a kill. I'll likely be seeing these ships again in a theater where their promotions might actually matter. Oh, and speaking of silly, spot my error:



Why the fuck did I leave that man at arms guarding a useless forest instead of that camp? enjoy your free 160ish faith, 160ish gold, Woden, courtesy of your bumbling hosts. In direct opposition to my previous comments, I shoot this ship for a truly crushing 15 total damage. Take that!

In southwest Norway, I decide to make some limited hay with the privateers we have down here, hitting harbors and improvements which could be struck without the quartet of fleets further north being able to reach them:



Note the privateer to the north, who moved too far to get out of the likely path of those ironclads. Wasteful.

With perfect information, Woden's best play is probably an all out attack with any ironclads in reach, combined with brining his ships to the north down far enough to ensure I can't possibly expect to counterattack effectively on my turn. I would have little choice but to withdraw in that case, and try to find softer targets in former England. I'll probably do that regardless of Woden's movement here, however, as this area proved far better defended than I anticipated, and the timing is not right to bring full force against it.

Northwest of Phoenicia, the fleet holds position:



Advance scouting from the front units reveals nothing within 6-7 tiles, so although we could be first struck the potential damage dealt would be light. 

Unless challenged, next turn I'll turn around and go back to blasting at free city Runic, and then the other two. I haven't actually decided if I should raze or recapture this time: the arguments for razing are fairly obvious, but I also genuinely believe I could keep these cities after I get battleships and subs and start blasting away at the others with a little more force. Plus, holding Buyniy for even two turns is six more coal in our stockpiles, and with my fleet relatively safe farming experience off free cities with minimal damage in return is actually a pretty decent bargain. There's a huge difference between having LoB/Bombardment/Rolling Barrage and not, even on battleships. On the other hand, I clearly have a bias towards attempting to keep cities that likely can't be kept, demonstrated in my attack on Suboptimal in PBEM18, my initial hopes for the Chinese invasion in my first turns after taking the reigns in this game, and then also right here just a couple turns ago. So perhaps I need to be more conservative with these things. 

Something to consider.

[roland of gilead]

Remember every time you take them the pop drops and holding them becomes harder.

[roland of gilead]

Played my turn and am now very much on the defensive.

they killed my 3 northern ships.

attacking my citys.

[williams482]

Turn 187:

My losses for the turn are two privateers (one with the main group, died to a city strike, the other the one I foolishly left exposed further north) plus the promoted cossack corp:



Also obvious here, the identity of that mysterious Norwiegan ranged striker. Our chances of actually pillaging those campuses have fallen off considerably from my high hopes just a few turns ago, now that Ljubljana has joined their units into corps and clumped together to control access to this one part of the map I want to reach, dislodging them may be a task beyond the abilities of the units I've deployed here. I don't know how many cossacks I've thrown away in this fight but it's a horrendously embarrassing figure. There must have been a better way to deploy these units, but viable alternative plans to not leap readily to mind: speed was important to prevent Ljubljana from building defenses to counter (as they ultimately were able to), and in these frustratingly narrow confines a numerical edge meant depressingly little. I guess ranged units would have helped, field cannons cost basically the same as cossacks and in theory can help break through in tight spaces like these, but in practice they are soft and slow and wouldn't live long enough marching through hostile territory to do anything. And they still couldn't have shot at these pikes, the way the terrain is laid out means that they would never have had line of sight from any plausibly survivable firing position.

On the bright side, the free citizens of Buyniy have done us a solid and repaired that campus, so I gladly claim that 155 beakers. Also claimed as spoils: 310 clefs from Ljubljana's Intelligence Agency and Ancestral Hall, which makes Civil Engineering our second civic to be left at one turn from completion. I swap to Scorched Earth, ostensibly six turns out, although it will get another 155 clef infusion from the plaza proper next turn. Miscellaneous other pillaging produces more gold and faith, another cossack is prayed into existence, and the ones already in play promote and redeploy with eyes towards staying alive a little longer, perhaps long enough to merge into corps and have another real go at those campuses in a couple turns:



As for Woden's tech progression, well, called it. That ship is a frigate no longer:



Frigate to battleship upgrades are 310g (155g with professional army). Woden net-spent 3,163g last turn. If that's 10 battleship upgrades (counting fleets as two), and Woden makes suitably aggressive moves against my fleet and not my cities, then we lose. I cannot win that fight, although I'll sure as hell try. And on those lines, the very limited damage done to my privateers down here suggests very strongly that Woden had better ideas for what to do with those ships.

And of course it gets worse, because we would only be 12 turns away from Combined Arms, unboosted. That's the tech that unlocks Destroyers, and it's a miserable break for us that it's so bloody close, right after Steel and the only tech in the atomic era that we can locate (although Woden, with Refining unlocked, can identify two more). At Woden's natural tech rate he'll get it in 10, with some real overflow. And he's going to keep pillaging stuff, like that mine at Illmatic which Ljubljana helpfully left him a path to. And, not only will that give him a half dozen turns with the strongest, fastest ship around, but it will bump his city strengths up again so I will once again be unable to make rapid progress against them. So I think our longterm outlook is "totally fucked," but I've got to ignore that and play for the short term objectives that might keep us alive. Welcome back to Canada, folks.

Five turns. I need to keep Woden's fleet from fucking mine to hell for five turns, and I need to be in my own territory at the end of that period. What if I just fucking run? In five turns, frigates moving seven tiles per could reach Svetlana on the tip of Svalbard, which I'm sure would be surprising and would probably work out except that Svetlana won't belong to me in five turns, thanks to loyalty, so I'd need an additional turn to allow units to upgrade. No can do.

I guess I should figure out how far Woden can reach in that time. His max movement is the relevant figure, and with a bunch of ironclads backed by battleships against my fleet of dead trees he doesn't need to do the little stepping back dance that Ljubljana and I shared prior to Diomede, he can just move up into my face, tank a first strike, and crush me with the counterpunch. Especially if he manages to do it in a relatively narrow space where I can't surround him. Even if I can, the trick I pulled surrounding him at Diomede only worked because he had so few and such relatively weak ranged strikers. Three range battleships will break an encerclement attempt like that wide open.

Here is all I know about the location of the Norwegian fleet:



That ironclad there is alone, no support bonuses. It could very possibly be bait, which I very briefly considered jumping on except holy hell would that be stupid. The quartet of ironclads spotted last turn could have moved up further than they did this turn, into view of the artist, but they did not. That doesn't mean much, as it would make sense to start an aggressive push once the really dangerous ships are actually able to move the turn after upgrading. And it's the battleships I'm really worried about, so I should track how far they, not the ironclads, can move. The closest one to my fleet (assuming none were upgraded on the east side and attempt to come around the other way at me, because that would be silly and my opponents are not fools; I'd crush those few units independently and then go after the rest) is at either Loki or Archduke's former capital of Open Government. The frontrunning ships from either city, moving 9 tiles per turn with GA support, could get themselves between Linear B and Runic by the beginning of my t189, and attack units in Asahi's territory before my t191. So that would get to be very scary if done with conviction.

However, there's definitely benefits if Woden does choose that path. Ships pulling away from their west coast would allow my privateers to move far more freely, and permit me the chance to trade a few of them in order to burn down Loki's workshop and industrial zone, worth 310 of the 643.4 beakers we need. We'd be two turns of natural research plus a mere 14.8 beakers short of completing the tech. Without pillages, we're four turns plus 6.2 (!!!) beakers shy. These are margins I could cover by dumping 99 or 42 hammers into campus projects for extra beakers, clearly worth it if we get to that point. Hell, should I be doing that anyway? Hitting that tech as soon as possible is enormously important. Hypothetically if I shifted every city with a functional campus over to projects, I would get these yields:
- Borodino: 57.6h -> 8.6 beakers
- Imperator Aleksandr (inland) : 40.8h -> 6.1 beakers
- Oryol (inland) : 43h -> 6.4 beakers
- Sissoi Veliki: 31.2h -> 4.6 beakers
- Sevastopol: 43.2h -> 6.4 beakers
- Knyaz Suvurov: 44h -> 6.6 beakers
- Adios Hermanos: 20.8h -> 3.1 beakers
- Vladimir Monomakh: 14.4h -> 2.1 beakers

So, in total I could bump my science rate by a grand total of 62.8 beakers per turn, a ~39% increase. In return, I give up almost 420h per turn (before the +200% modifier) towards ships. That's obviously a terrible trade in isolation (a 1:0.15 return ratio does, in fact, suck) and in context I still think it's too crummy to consider here, but I absolutely should switch over Aleksandr and Oryol to projects. Those are certainly more important than cossacks (which will be a long ways from the relevant fighting) or builders (of which I still have a few one charge guys, and which I can buy when and where I need them in a pinch). So those two swap over, the rest stick to ships.

As a sidenote, this is likely to be outside of my control but it would be enormously helpful if I were able to finish off Refining with a pillage instead of completing it at the start of a turn. It will reveal oil, which will automatically upgrade privateers in queue if I have any sources. I am therefore forced to both swap my entire empire off of privateers when oil is first hooked up, and upgrade privateer fleets commensurate to my entire allotment on that same turn. I can't possibly know if one or both of my oil resources is under a completed district (if any are under an incomplete district, god help us), so if the tech will finish when a turn rolls I'm left with the prospect of wasting an entire turn's production for the whole empire on the possibility that I might already have oil hooked up. If instead I can complete the tech during the turn via pillages, I can see immediately where the oil is before we start accumulating any, shut down privateer production (or not) as required, queue up the right number of privateer fleets to be upgraded, and (with the upgrade card already in place for our battleships) swap over to our second one turn civic to get that upgrade card back out once we know it's no longer needed. This is important because Submarines are expensive, and they won't benefit from Press Gangs (just Letters of Marque). Borodino can two turn privateers, but would need 6 turns to crank out one 680h (!!!) submarine. Our other cities will take even longer, and those are turns we desperately need our best ships to be already in play.

On the topic of oil, here is Woden's home reserve:



Note one is already hooked up, the other presumably will be connected next turn. Incredibly fortunate timing for him, the builder which did it was on the dyes tile with three charges remaining last turn. For better or worse no similar sources are visible in former Axis territory, either they are all outside of Norwegian territory or (more likely) under districts. Woden doesn't have any oil stockpiled which unfortunately doesn't tell us much, he could have upgraded privateers (or had them upgraded in queue) to consume any oil produced from districts.

I'll also note that there appears to be a pattern to how aluminium is distributed (which I do not recall from when I checked over the map over a year ago now): it seems to be clustered such that both sources are on or near a far "tip" of each continent. This holds up to some degree for Russia, Australia, Norway, Indonesia, and England. It doesn't line up well for Japan, Phoenicia, or China, who each have their two sources well dispersed (at least I assume so for China, I haven't found their second but they have fogged tiles). Blindly extrapolating from Norway's oil location here, I think there's a strong shot that my oil is in the tundra area around Navarin which has been stuffed full of holy sites, and Australia's oil is in the desert between Low End Theory and Marshall Mathers. That's little more than a hunch, but it is enough for me to take all cities off of privateers before completing Refining if I know we won't be finishing it during a turn.

China is building Machu Picchu in the city on Númenor which we returned to them. I suppose Ljubljana could have been banking on this when they apparently dumped a bunch of production into the wonder in Cuneiform, figuring they could make better use of the (halved) fail production when China eventually built it? Still odd, but I guess there's logic there.

So, what to do with my privateers near Geneva?

I have come around to the conclusion that I want Woden to push against me to the north, while I withdraw my main fleet towards Asahi, and slip a privateer force in behind to pillage two turns worth of science to get Refining completed on my t190. As long as Woden is advancing with some degree of caution and not rushing me as fast as he possibly can, I'll be able to make it to friendly territory just in time to upgrade, come about, and either attack or take advantage of Asahi's Victor-boosted defenses to absorb a Norwegian first strike. Then I just have to win the naval battle (which I am clearly capable of, but that will be neither easy nor guaranteed) and we're back to being heavy favorites to pull out a win. That is extremely risky, but probably our best shot. Thus if Woden is feeling indecisive I don't want him thinking too hard about my privateers, and instead forming up against my main fleet. Woden should know that I managed five pillages last turn, and one of those pillagers was sunk, so smashing four things stands a good chance of looking like the last gasp of a lesser wolfpack than the one I really possess. So I'm going to do that (well, really smash five things by double-pillaging Geneva's Cothon, which one unit could do), and stash my other ships in places I hope no Norwegians are going:



I expect one or two of these units to die, but they have plundered well, and if that convinces Woden that there's little more here worth his worry then we have our chance.

What if Woden doesn't come after me? In that case, I need the full five turns to get battleships, which brings Woden two turns closer to destroyers and reinforced cities. I'd still have a small window to dish out some serious hurt to his capital and other cities on the eastern cost, and I probably could do some real damage, but this is Woden. He lost practically his entire core to Ichabod's marvelously executed attack in the closing stages of PBEM18 and didn't give a fuck, because he had a tech edge and a whole other core to build nukes with. He's got that tech edge. He's got that second core. We may be a long ways from nukes, but he's still not going to flinch if I fuck up a few of his cities. I need to kill his fleet while preserving most of mine if I'm to actually persuade him to surrender.

So, my main fleet. I want them pulling back, and I want every frigate which can to get a shot off at Runic while we go by. Together that drop the walls to 152 and the garrison to 24, little enough that I could take the city and either "keep" or burn it. I can only keep it for two turns, but two turns of visibility in this area is a relevant advantage. And I can promote one of my ironclads by attacking, so that's worth doing. I pillage the harbor and capture the city, knocking the walls down to 142, move in the just-departed Liang, and set to work repairing the walls. City is due to flip in three turns. Either I can go after it again after a decisive battle, with all the time in the world to take it, or Woden snags it on his way by and needing to spend an extra shot could possibly be relevant. Nothing better I can build there anyway. Interestingly the two city state units vanish when the city is taken, I did not know that would happen.

For the rest of our units, fall back and maintain a relatively defensive formation, with great people watching for oncoming attackers:



I'd love to get up to further mischief with these two privateers, but there's a very good chance I'll want them converted to submarines shortly and losing them would therefor be painful.

The situation at Cape Matilda:



Ljubljana clearly expects to be attacked, the Caravels are all body blocking for the frigates, which have been crammed into Illmatic Bay and are relatively safe. Counting the probable identities of units in the fog all five caravels are accounted for here, as are six of the eight frigates (although at least one of these fleets is newly merged, Ljubljana could easily have formed another fleet as well). That means the caravel to the north is likely alone, and vulnerable. It's not a very valuable unit, but it does give Ljubljana something to sweep for privateers with and I'd rather keep them feeling a little jumpy about surprise attacks. With neutral luck we'll come up five HP short of sinking the caravel with three attacks and will be unable to capture the builder, but all but one of the privateers will be safe from counterattack by the main fleet. I take a shot with the one exposed privateer, move the next into firing positions, and run into this guy:



Even better! Three shots later, scratch one frigate. If I were smart I would have moved first, figured out I wanted to kill the frigate, and kept that first attacker invisible instead of shooting the caravel. Oh well, maybe that sort of sloppiness will make them overconfident.

My cossacks at Marshal Mathers pillage the coal resource there, and my reinforcing cossacks move up near Illmatic. Final deployment:



Roland, because you (we) move between Ljubljana and Woden, we can occupy mines with units between their turns and force them to wait an extra turn to blast the unit, then raid the tile. Delaying or preventing Woden from pillaging mines specifically is a really big deal because he gets ~160 beakers from each of them, and slowing down his progress towards destroyers is one of the many, many things that could very easily decide the game at this point. I will park a cossack on one of the mines that he doesn't raid this turn, you need to put one of your units on the other. Buying a turn of not getting pillaged is a good return for a dead archer at this point in the game, and that final, injured ironclad is definitely a high priority target for my privateers once they can get down there in force.

I decide to spend the one charge builder at Adios Hermanos chopping out a Privateer. I find it unlikely that the builder could have been used on an oil well anywhere that we would actually keep said oil well, and a ship is a ship.

Also, when this emergency finishes in a couple turns ask for all my diplo favor immediately. You aren't running a deficit, you should keep all of it unless/until we decide distributing it right before a vote is more efficient.

Oh, and these two goons exist:



Only supporting each other. If there are a bunch more in the fog, maybe that "upgrade at Asahi" plan gets dicey. Or if there aren't an enormous number in the fog and they still try to mess with me, I'll fuck 'em up while they're isolated. Recapturing Buyniy and/or Izumrud might be beneficial as slightly closer upgrade spots as well.

Interesting times ahead. What else is new.

[williams482]

Turn 188:

Open the turn to 14 dead units. That's not great. A quick look near Geneva reveals where the bulk of them occurred:



Final tally of privateer kills near Geneva:

- 3 by battleships
- 8 by ironclads
- 1 by city center

Plus a cossack lost in Raiderland, and the exposed privateer ambushed by a couple of caravels. Neither of which is especially shocking. One of my privateers actually required a second hit "from the Norwegian empire" (because why bother to tell me anything more?), which is a bit of a surprise. An unpromoted ironclad fleet with Oligarchic Legacy active is an 85% favorite to one shot a privateer fleet, so I'll bet one of mine landed the lucky 15%. 

Obviously I'm not pleased by this. These ships are invisible, to even allow for 12 of them to be sunk simultaneously means I really fucked up in placing them where I did. Had I anticipated that Woden was about to throw the full force of his fleet at ships he (theoretically) didn't know were there, I would have revealed the lot of them and burned a bunch more stuff in the process. As it is, this is very nearly a complete waste, buying some time for the main fleet and little else. I won't know anything more about what happened here until I can read the Raiders thread. If it turns off Woden knew how many privateers I had lurking there I'll be cringing pretty hard reading through that. Hats off to him regardless. Oh well.

So, lets think about happier news. Ljubljana is clearly going to take Illmatic, probably next turn. That's a bad thing, but, Illmatic has a campus. I can and will pillage that campus to complete Refining in two turns, t190. The previous screenshot showing four turns is yet another display bug, likely because the shaved turn comes from the campus projects which were processed after the tech completed and this game doesn't update bloody anything automatically because someone is bad at their job. Because Woden threw a large chunk of his fleet at my privateers, he can't possibly reach me with a full force in that time. This means, among other things, that we should NOT attempt to retake Illmatic! That pillage opportunity is immensely valuable, and not to be surrendered lightly. If I had thought of this I probably would have suggested building a library here for the express purpose of pillaging it after capture, but just one pillage is plenty for our battleship timing. Not that another 155 beakers would ever go unwanted.

Unfortunately tiles have not been reassigned properly ahead fo the inevitable capture: Illmatic should be assigned the iron mine my cossack is currently guarding, so they can't pillage it if they take the city, while all the swappable tiles with the possible exception of the horse pasture are given to other cities which can continue using them post-capture. I should have given explicit instructions on that, my bad. Anyway, we can make up for some of that by pillaging the unswapped tiles ourselves.

Here's the naval situation down under:



Obviously those two caravels took out my privateer. They are directly supported only by each other, and I could hit the northernmost one with the three ships Ljubljana knows about while staying out of range of the main fleet in Illmatic Bay. Speaking of those ships, I am as usual tempted to attack (I could sink that injured single frigate for sure), but a better plan is likely to drop back to the far side of cape Matilda and act defensively. There are enough potential sweepers in these waters that I'm at risk of the same fate which befell me at Geneva if I leave privateers scattered but in reach of the main fleet, and my only real concern with these ships is that they'll round the cape and start attacking my cities. In the narrow confines of Illmatic bay the caravels can protect the frigates effectively, but that will not be true in open waters. And, decent shot I have submarine fleets to play with in three turns. So caution is the call here.

I do, of course, take my cracks at the northernmost caravel, and with some slightly lucky rolls sink it in three hits. My deployment is as shown:



That privateer fleet on the reef is placed to be just out of attacking range of the closest caravel, if Ljubljana opted to make an aggressive move around the cape. If not, that unit will be well positioned to drop back and up upgraded to a submarine, along with what will be three more fleets down here, and the two Diomede veterans at Asahi, if I happen to have two sources of oil already hooked up.

North of Raiderland, our fleet makes a mad dash for friendly waters:



Next turn we'll take some drive-by potshots at Buyniy and maybe Izumrud, hoping to score some EXP and ideally 6 coal from holding it for two turns. The cossacks in the area continue what they were trying to do last turn (burn shit, avoid death).

Woden has three oil in his stockpile, the number we would expect if he has no sources except those we spotted last turn (and one other in former Japan, still unconnected). I'm skeptical of the idea that three of the four axis sources are on tiles outside of current Norwegian territory though, so I'm not assuming that's the case.

If I were Woden, I'd definitely be flirting with the idea of trying to ambush my fleet while it is upgrading at Asahi. I don't think Woden can have enough ships in that area to make it worth a try (I've controlled the straits on both the northern and southern end of their continent for some time, so any ships over there were built their in the last ~10 turns), but I'll still be careful to screen my vulnerable ships with ironclads and caravels to make any attempts impractical.

[williams482]

Time for another edition of THE GRAPH:



Suffice it to say it's been a bad couple of turns for us. Woden's milpower rose a remarkable 481 on the turn prior to unlocking Refining, and another 340 points on the turn of. Each frigate -> battleship upgrade (of frigate fleet -> battleship fleet) is worth +15 milpower. We know that Woden had at least one frigate fleet, and that he upgraded (or built? Probably not built) at least one single battleship. He also net spent enough gold for 10 frigate -> battleship upgrades, which if he upgraded eight singles and one fleet would be only +135 milpower. So clearly more shipbuilding is going on than just the upgrades, unless gold pillages covered up additional upgrades? Or he had a discount card in place. He did finish a civic before our t186 and could have made a swap then, in which case he's packing 20 battleships or fleet equivalents. If that's the case, and I have no idea how to confirm or deny with the information available to me, we're in big trouble. And even upgrading 18 singles plus a fleet is only +285 milpower. 

I had hoped a quick analysis of these numbers would yield helpful insights, but really I've got no idea. 

It's too bad I haven't been tracking resources. That would have allowed an accurate count of frigates built (work out niter income from map info and/or just watching numbers get bigger, count the 20 point reductions), and give some less helpful hints about ironclad numbers as well. Only problem is that tracking that stuff is a pain in the butt and I just didn't want to deal with it, which is all on me (although I'll happy blame the damn game too!)

[williams482]

Turn 189:

Ljubljana has completely abandoned their assault on Illmatic, apparently prioritizing cleaning up my privateers:



Those three ships took two attacks "from the Phoenician empire", and were finished by two caravels and a frigate. I also lost a cossack to that Norwegian field cannon in Phoenicia.

And, here comes Woden:



The cryptic pins of Ljubljana's northern coast are the max movement attack ranges of the frontmost battleships and ironclads for the next two turns. Our margin for time is razor thin here, and Ljubljana's choice not to take Illmatic this turn may have won them the game. I MUST get a science pillage next turn, or my fleet is at tremendous risk of being ripped apart. 

Roland: If Ljubljana or Woden takes your capital next turn (and pray to all that is holy that one of them does!) then DO NOT pillage your campus, DO NOT occupy your campus! Stay off of it! Nothing else matters in that theater except Russia pillaging that tile next turn. Don't even make the tile swaps I said you should last turn, anything that nudges the Raiders away from taking that city could be fatal for my fleet and thus the game.

There's two ways I can foresee that this could have gone down in the Raider war room:

1. The Raiders foresaw that I was going to need to pillage Illmatic's campus to hit refining fast enough to upgrade my ships before engaging with the Norwegian fleet, and bailed until they had safely crushed my fleet. If so, that is positively brilliant play from them.

2. Ljubljana got skittish about my privateer raids and opted to stamp out the pests with their full fleet, keeping everything together for safety. If that's the case, harassing their ships at all was a horrific error, and shows a failure on my part to properly anticipate the reactions of my opponent. Under slightly difference circumstances moving all the ships out into open waters together like that would have been a disaster for Phoenicia: I don't know exactly where their ships are, but I ought to be able to get close, and I could certainly sink something. And of course they can't know where my ships are, and if this happened one turn later and I were actually gunning to make that ambush, I would have enough ships around to do a bunch of damage to the frigates which must have abandoned the shelter of Illmatic Bay and (unless I severely underestimated the strength of the Punic navy) cannot be fully protected by caravels in open waters. But I don't dare attack because in truth I don't have enough ships in the area, and I desperately need Ljubljana to feel emboldened enough to attack and capture Illmatic next turn. So we sit back, merge the furthest back privateers into fleets, and hope.

But lets assume for a moment that Ljubljana won't take Illmatic. Can I stall Woden's fleet enough to buy an extra turn, or can I pillage anything else?

On the later point, maybe. I do have one privateer left, and it is just barely close enough to, if undiscovered and no ships are occupying the Loki harbor, pillage Loki's workshop next turn:



On the former point, also maybe. Woden't ironclads here are unpromoted, and they are suffering a -1 strength malus from limited resources. (Ljubljana's ironclad is suffering a -20 penalty for the same, !!!) Woden doesn't have an admiral in this theater (which leads me to wonder, where did he deem to be a more valuable place for Laskarina Bouboulina to be deployed? There's more going on than is plainly visible here). That means my ironclads beat him mano a mano, and he does have to worry about being first struck. Hell, promoted caravel fleets get a solid edge attacking single battleships like these two. Because I only forfeit one speed to Woden's fleet, I could draw this out considerably if Woden opted to be careful about not being first struck, and that could draw things out plenty long enough to get upgrades in... except that just pulls us closer to the looming specter of the 85 strength destroyers Woden will have within the next 10 turns. The best case scenario for is is clearly a decisive confrontation immediately after we get battleships. So, how can we buy a turn while still looking desperate enough that Woden will press his advantage? An option for this turn is to do nothing different, continue fleeing for the hills at top speed, and if either pillage opportunity presents itself then we take it and continue with the plan, taking potshots at free cities as we pass. If our gamble comes up empty and no pillage is forthcoming, we'll line up next turn to force Woden to either accept the first strike, or slow his advance.

Of course, Woden can't see my ships that aren't in view of Cuneiform, and will have to make his move blindly. So I do decide to stack some melee ships out of view in places where they could deliver a first strike, in the unlikely event that Woden's deployment made that seem reasonable. I also take a bunch of shots at Buyniy, kill a city state cav, and pillage several more tiles:



All seven frigate fleets will be able to reach and upgrade in Asahi's territory next turn, although they will be vulnerable to fire from Izumrud and it's new field cannon. I'll use my cossacks to run interference and hope to draw fire instead. 

I don't believe Woden's field cannon can reach any of my cossacks this turn. No Norwegian ships to be found to the east, but in the west my withdrawing caravel finds a reminder that we aren't the only ones who can build invisible units:



No escape for our caravel, but no escape for that privateer either. At that cost of 9 HP, we send it to the bottom. I expect to see more of those for the same reason I started building them: no resource requirement. Except no, never mind. Woden can't build more because they upgrade into Submarines, which he has the tech for, and I'm sure he wants to save as much oil as possible for destroyers.

On that topic, Woden now has 9 oil stockpiled. Exactly the number we'd expect if he has only the two visible sources, no others, and no oil unit builds in progress. This is very surprising (and Woden couldn't be terribly happy about it) but it seems likely that that is what they have to play with right now. I do hope I get to see where the oil actually is next turn.

In accordance with that hope, I swap civic research to Civil Engineering, which will complete next turn and allow a policy swap. Whatever happens tech wise I'll pull Press Gangs for Force Modernization and put research into another one turn civic, and either immediately be able to upgrade a bunch of units, or take every city off of privateer builds in preparation for resource hookup at the start of the turn.

Eight single privateers west of Rodeo become four fleets, to be upgraded as soon as possible.

Roland, please request all of my diplomatic favor when I get some for the emergency next turn. We'll have to coordinate how much to give back right before the World Congress, which again you will have to offer on the correct turn because your turn comes first.

[roland of gilead]

I think they want to pillage that campus themselves.

i will make sure it is clear for you if they do take the city.

i rearranged the mines and tiles but that may be a mistake too.

[williams482]

I don't see any way they could pillage that themselves, so I hope they aren't waiting to try. It's a tile inland and we have clear ground superiority with my cossacks running around there.