[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Great turn!! I know I didn't kill as much as I would have liked, but this more than makes up for it. Hopefully williams will open the save to "13 units killed" and get demoralized

For the coal mine, I fear that if williams wants it to stay pillaged, it will stay pillaged, as they can buy cossacks much faster than you can Cuirassiers. That would at least force them to take some of the heat off other areas such as our core...but I would not count on having access to that coal long- or medium-term.

[Woden]

I think we need to discuss what I should do with my boats. The main fleet will go north around your empire, chasing Russia until I can catch him but I have a number of ships elsewhere. I have 4 fleets coming out of the southern sea, do I send them all towards Australia or do I split them? Maybe 2 to Australia to join with the one current there and the other 2 go plug the gap on my southern tip. But, I also have ships coming off the assemble line that might be bale to do that. I have a single ironclad finishing at Freya next turn, one at Balder in 4 turns, one at The Compassionate Society in 3 turns, and 1 at Official Visits in 2 turn. All would be able to plug that gap before the ships from Australia can make it over there. Maybe bringing them all towards Australia is the better move. Of coarse, the 11 I killed could be only part of a larger force but IDK, I think that is a good amount to be scouting for ships and pillages. He could have the others going towards Australia?

Also, there is the 3 fleet ironclads and fleet battleship at Wodin. I am planning to have them plug the gap around the small island between me and China but would it be better to sail up China's coast to see if I can get a frigate of 2 of opportunity. That would be pretty much a suicide mission but he might not expect it. The front of my main fleet should be Between former Akkad and Linear B next turn but will have show down a bit to get the GA and majority ironclads to catch up. I expect Russia to pull back to Asahi to upgrade, maybe even recapturing Buyniy for some extra coal. I don't think he will wait at Runic considering it will probably revolt in 2 or 3 turns (I have a plan for Runic I will discuss in a bit). Do I see if I can get some ships up by Joe Aribo (China's northern city)? I doubt he would be expecting ships up there. I could also look to delay him by having them run head long into his fleet but I don't think my other fleet would be close enough to be able to catch up on the following turn. Or do I just plug the gap and hold reinforcement at bay and prevent him from retreating back to his lands (which wouldn't be too horrible for us as it would bring the fight to him). Thoughts?

As for Runic, I can probably end a turn of movement close to the city and retake it quickly. My emergency is also ending in 2 turns. The emergency will net me 200 diplo favor minus the 29 I am losing each turn. Liberating Runic and giving it back to you would also net 100 diplo favor. The World Congress is in 5 turns (4 for you). I am going to send any favor I have to you because I will just lose it. 271 (or 242, depending on if I lose the 29 when I liberate Runic) diplo favor will give you significant power in the next World Congress or we can figure out how much you could spend in votes and send the extra back to me the turn before WC, but I also might lose 29 of what you send. Regardless, any favor I get is coming your way. I would also expect Russia to do the same as his emergency will end the same turn but maybe they are not into the game as much to think of it.

[ljubljana]

I think the best place for the ships south of Australia (or any ships, really) is with your main fleet, but I guess they are too far away to get there before the coming battle concludes. With that in mind, I think the next best place for them is with my fleet in Australia. I think most likely the new Russian privateers are headed there - if he commits them to pillaging us, and lets Australia be overrun, eventually we will be at his doorstep and he will lose his major remaining edge over us, the lopsided pillage differential. You will also gain a bunch more cities from Australia if he does not stop us. With that in mind, I think his move is to simply funnel privateers at my fleet and pick off one frigate at a time until they are all dead, counting on me not being reinforced since my core is currently dying. That strategy would succeed given enough time - they can afford to take 3 for 1 trades with my frigates if they are outproducing me by a factor of infinity to one. Those 4 IC fleets would go a long way towards helping me hold out there for long enough to do real damage to Australia.

As for the ships at Wodin, I would try to have them join up with the main fleet somehow where they can do the most damage. I think the best return you are likely to get on a suicide mission is 2 frigate fleets or so, not worth 3 fleet IC and a fleet BS. I think your options are to either sail clockwise around the island and rejoin the main fleet 2-3 turns after the battle starts, or to leave them in place and attack Russia's fleet on the same turn as the rest of your ships (hopefully catching some BS from the rear). You could also use them in the south for privateer hunting, which would free up some of your newly-produced IC to join the main fleet, possibly as part of that clockwise trip around our shores.

Runic is revolting every 3 turns, but Russia seems willing to sit there for a bit - they retook it this turn after it flipped on the interturn. My guess is their preference is to upgrade there so they can move on Cuneiform immediately. Not sure I would bother liberating it, as it would slow you down and give Russia another turn to escape. That is, unless you can catch Russia's fleet in the act of recapturing it and hit the fleet with your ships, which would be a coup.

It might be harder to force an engagement with Russia than we would hope, unfortunately. We do not really have a movement edge over them, just movement parity or perhaps a 1 movement edge. If they retreat correctly, they can prevent you from getting a first strike, and it will take ages for you to force them back one tile at a time. Your best bet is probably to try to catch them in the process of upgrading or of taking one of my cities. You are likely going to have to position your fleet in some kind of sneaky way in order to make that happen, assuming Russia does not make a colossal blunder by moving in at Linear B without scouting.

One last thing - let us all offer up our thanks to our good friends on the GS dev team for making submarines require oil. If they were still resourceless, Russia could spend their 7600 gold to upgrade 38 privateers right now and we would be so unbelievably dead

edit: unrelated but important - can missile silos be built in neutral territory? Civwiki claims that airstrips can, and there may be neutral islands within range of the Russian homeland.

[Woden]

Turn 188-Vikings start
Nothing too surprising when I open the save, Down at Australia...
   

Looks like Russia killed one of your caravels in the north and is blocking the iron tile from being pillaged. If you can clear out in front of Illmatic and hit the chariot with Frigates, that would be good. If you hit the Cossack, that would work but the chariot is more important since it can block the horses tile next turn. I am going to see about bring over my 2 berserkers at MBDF to pillage the campuses near Illmatic. We are not going to want to take the city until at least the campus for Illmatic is pillaged. No need to give Russia more science. We are also going to want to pillage as much as we can to limit him from getting gold/faith. 

Over by Cuneiform...
   

I can hit either Cossack with my field cannon and it shows I can kill the single on the niter, so I think I will go for that one. I am thinking on bringing my 2 fleet ironclads and 4 battleships up near Linear B if my privateer doesn't find anything in the water west of the fleet caravel. Nothing new down by Geneva, so either his is holding back waiting for me to rush off north or I killed most everything down here. I will leave a few units back to guard my harbors and IZ but everything else will head north. 

As for my boats not near the main fleet. I am going to have the 4 by Australia help you out. They are too far away to do much in the main fight. They would make good destroyers as most are double promoted but I think it better to see if we can push on Australia's west coast and Russia's east coast. They should also do fairly well against the privateers in the area. 

As for the ones by Wodin, I will hold the gap until my ships get closer to attacking and then hit him on 2 fronts.

Added: There is also some culture providing pillages at He Was My Brother that might be worth detouring to speed research along. I will have the boost to Suffrage in 2 turns and it will be down to 1 turn to complete. I thin i might switch off of it until Combined Arms finishes (5 turns later with no more pillages, could be 4 or 3 if I can find open mines). I hate to delay it because what if Fascism is unknown tech behind it and I am going to forgo some of the gold generating and happiness benefits from going into Democracy. I could buy a policy swap again but I don't know if the benefits of finishing early outweigh the costs of delaying it. I might have to work it to see what might be better.

[ljubljana]

Hmm, it is going to be tough to both keep the privateer numbers down and take shots at the land units at Illmatic. Not really sure what the best approach is. I can finally attack and kill the 3 up north in relative safety this turn (and may be able to find more victims via scouting) but if I also leave frigates behind to take out the chariot, they will be extremely vulnerable to a privateer snipe. Not sure it's worth it...my inclination is to just hit the privateers with everything and keep my frigates relatively safe by moving up with the rest of the fleet, and then alternate "kill privateers" turns with "kill land units" turns going forward. What do you think?

Sadly, I am not sure how realistic it is for us to pillage the Illmatic campus. Note that the Cossack we can see now is at full health but unpromoted, so it is not the same one I shot at last turn. The city is probably crawling with them, and I am afraid that landing your zerks there might be a suicide mission (not to mention it would abandon the coal). Maybe what we need to do is at least wait to land until I can thin out their numbers a bit, but if I want to keep my ships together that will be a slow process. I think we need to seriously consider whether we would rather take the city or abandon the attempt if the campus pillage turns out not to be feasible, though.

Don't think it's worth buying a policy swap, we need every penny we can get for destroyers. Delaying Democracy does not seem so bad, if you are going to need two closely-timed policy swaps anyways to go back into the upgrade card then back into Oligarchic Legacy. The question, I guess, is whether the opportunity cost from missing Demo for 5 turns is worth the cost of a policy swap. I wish we could have it both ways though...maybe at this point it's better to do Democracy as soon as you can boost it and just drop Press Gangs for the upgrade card until you finish another civic? That seems like the destroyer-maximizing option since you save on the swap and get the Demo gold boost early...

[Woden]

IDK if going after privateers right now is the best option here. Yes, you can kill them but no telling what he has close and is he baiting you to kill those 3. Might be better to wait 2 turns until my 4 highly promoted fleet ironclads make into the theater. He only dropped 293 MP with killing 12 plus the Cossack last turn. He may have a shit ton waiting to swarm your fleet. I am not sure hear. Also, if you kill the chariot, I can pillage the pasture for some culture, then there are 2 plantations near Japan's city I am currently attacking that I can pillage once I clear out units and get rid of the walls, plus there are 2 pastures at He was my Brother. Those 5 pillages can speed my next civic up a bit.

As for policies, I am not running Press Gangs right now. I am running the extra coal card, OL card, and War of Religion. I can't really drop the extra coal card until I can upgrade units. Even if I repair the coal at TMMLP, it would still coast me 4 coal per turn to drop it. The thing I have to figure out is if +2 amenities in my big cities (3 districts) plus Colonial Taxes (25% gold and 10% production in England/Japan plus a few others) is worth the cost of a policy swap in 5 turns. It should coast about 400 - 500 gold. But, I also have to consider the increased science and culture because the gold probably won't be there. Also, I am seeing -3 and -4 amenities in Japan and England (8 unhappy cities right now), which getting then to displeased (-2) would increase yields by 10%.

As for Illmatic, I think if we don't capture for 4 or 5 turns, pillaging the campus won't matter as much. I just don't want to speed up Refining for him.

Edit: Also look to see what we are trading and what I have extra of in terms of Luxuries. No point in having your cities unhappy when I have extra luxuries.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, dropping only 293 MP is concerning and indicates that he likely replaced 6-7 last turn. But those replacements would still mostly be 1t away, I think. Not sure I am being baited either as those privateers up north are only barely in range...could be a clever trap though. But if I keep letting the privateers skate by, their numbers will quickly increase to the point where they can swarm the fleet anyways, since I don't really have enough ships to scout everywhere. Maybe the plan should be to scout the tiles in the west within range of where my frigates will go, then attack if I don't find any huge blobs?

There is always going to be the possibility of giant blobs appearing from the fog to kill me, unfortunately. The area in the west past the cape could have held such a blob last turn, as I couldn't scout it without throwing valuable caravel fleets away, and it could have one this turn too. I think the only realistic way to keep from being overwhelmed may be to kill the privateers as they appear and try to position so as to blunt the strength of their counterattack....

[Woden]

I played my turn and passed the save. I don't think anything I did changes our current discussion. You may want to leave 2 tiles open at illmatic just in case he tries to block the single open tile with the caravel inside the city. If he does and you leave 2 tiles open, I can kill the unit.

I was able to kill the single Cossack on your niter tile. You may want to think about getting a builder to start repairing tiles. If we can chase him off in 6 or 7 turns, you will want to start repairing stuff just in case the game goes on longer.

[Woden]

Yeah, dropping only 293 MP is concerning and indicates that he likely replaced 6-7 last turn. But those replacements would still mostly be 1t away, I think. Not sure I am being baited either as those privateers up north are only barely in range...could be a clever trap though. But if I keep letting the privateers skate by, their numbers will quickly increase to the point where they can swarm the fleet anyways, since I don't really have enough ships to scout everywhere. Maybe the plan should be to scout the tiles in the west within range of where my frigates will go, then attack if I don't find any huge blobs?

There is always going to be the possibility of giant blobs appearing from the fog to kill me, unfortunately. The area in the west past the cape could have held such a blob last turn, as I couldn't scout it without throwing valuable caravel fleets away, and it could have one this turn too. I think the only realistic way to keep from being overwhelmed may be to kill the privateers as they appear and try to position so as to blunt the strength of their counterattack....

Sounds good. Just be careful not to overexpose yourself. We do want to keep up the kills to hurt his amenities.

[ljubljana]

Turn 189 - Phoenicia

Greetings from an adorable gelato shop (Yelp link to support the actual business), which very generously let me sit in the corner for 2 hours playing my turn on their public wifi. Despite the pastel vibe, their Pandora station was surprisingly somber, and kept playing melancholy classic rock standards like Kansas's Dust in the Wind and Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. That might seem incongruous...until you check out NYC's spiking, record-high COVID-19 numbers. The whole city is like that right now, vibrant as ever on the surface, but with a black pall rapidly descending over everything as Omicron takes over. This trip is increasingly looking like the one of dumbest decisions I've ever made... I wasn't infected yesterday, with the test results to prove it, but today, who knows?

As the actual game gets more stressful and complicated, the temptation to turn this thread into an irreverent, self-indulgent blog (or dare I say, Instagram) gets harder and harder to resist. But really, williams' privateers are a bit like COVID-19. They cast a dark shadow over my thoughts as I wander around the city, and every interaction with the fog carries a high risk of an unwanted and potentially fatal encounter. There were only 4 visible last turn, but this turn?



Pins mark the nearest unsafe locations at the start of the turn. I pushed my caravels forward one at a time, trying to preserve the 6 attacks I need to kill the privateers while minesweeping as many spots as possible for a trap. Every interaction is a nervous one, as if one of my scouts uncovers an enemy ship, the two will stick together due to ZoC. My poor explorer will then be doomed to a swift death from whatever mass of foes it stumbles upon, and I will need to position to stay in range for a counterattack next turn.

Today, though, we escape any unwanted surprises. I am barely in range of the enemy ships and need to use caravels to get them all, so my deploy is not the greatest...



When facing privateers, the safety of our deploys becomes a probabilistic concept, an unsettling development. I think there is only one privateer at most in the north, the one I spotted last turn but couldn't find this turn. I hope that there is not a huge wave of ships on the pinned tiles, and to reinforce this hope, I stick caravels in the way so any ships that are there will at least need to go around them. And as for the exposed frigate in the yellow...dammit, that's just a screw-up of the kind that I badly need to stop doing. Most likely 2 privateers will show up next turn, one from the north and another from the west, and pick it off

At home, I am reconsidering my decision to move the 3 caravels over to Australia:



If Russia lets me mass my ships, I will have 4 caravels, 2 IC, and 2 frigates by the time you engage, a non-negligible force. That will not make much of a difference, but it will make a small one, whereas it will take forever to reallocate to Australia. These ships will certainly inflict much more damage under the aegis of my GAs and vs. privateers on the Australian front than here vs. Russia's front line. But that will not matter if Russia kills your fleet, and as meat shields they might protect your battleships for an extra turn. Let me know what you think, and next turn I will commit to a position for them.