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

[williams482]

What the hell? I distinctly remember doing that...

Also, I have 174? What the hell? I had 186 on my turn. Does that mean that diplo favor is accumulated/debited at the beginning of the round, instead of at that start of each player's turn like all other currencies? Or possibly at the end of the round? In either case we're left short of the magic 360 I was hoping for, and we'll maybe net further losses before voting.

So, we're both going to want 150 favor for five votes, and the leftover 68 (or will it be 65?) should be distributed such that we each have 30 and can vote twice for something else. I was debited 14 diplo favor off the emergency reward prior to actually playing my turn, then lost another 12 before your turn, so probably this is processed at the very beginning of the round. So I want to have exactly 180 at the start of my turn, leaving you with 188. So you should offer me 6 diplo favor, and we hope that favor income/loss is not applied again prior to the actual voting.

What a mess this situation is.

[roland of gilead]

ok will sort that out.

[williams482]

Turn 191:

Refining completes:



As does Opera and Ballet. Here is our oil:



There are another two water-based sources in Occupied Phoenicia:



And this is what Roland would have to play with if Australia had any chance of reaching these techs:



First impression: we're fucked. That's just one terrestrial source, with the others being water based, available at Plastics somewhere in the Atomic era. Norway, China, and Japan were the only civs to have two land-based oil sources on their continent (although China's are way up in the north, 3rd and 4th ring of Joe Arribo). Russia and Australia are the only civs with exactly one land based source, by all appearances Phoenicia, England, and Indonesia appear to have zero. That's a pretty significant balancing error, and as the person who QA'd this map, it's my fault. Oops.

On the bright side, there's this:



2120g for a settler and ~600g for tile purchases would get us three more sources. That's well worth doing, but short term military priorities first. Refining also reveals two techs:



Well, I know where Woden is going once Combined Arms wraps up. Nuclear Fission also nets the boost for Cold War, the Atomic era civic which unlocks the post-industrial shipbuilding card. Although it doesn't seem terribly likely that that card will mean much in this game once nukes start flying.

Svetlana has flipped to free city status, and is on track to flip to someone (Woden, I assume?) in 35 turns. Assuming Bruindane's research doesn't stall out completely and the game actually lasts long enough, we ought to be in a new era 30 turns from now and I suspect the loyalty tables will turn once again. In the short term, this is just another chance to pillage the lighthouse and harbor, witch our privateer in the area will handle over the next couple turns.

In the north, Woden liberates Runic and extends a gentle "come at me, bro":



Call this a trap or an sacrificial probe, the result is the same. Obviously I'm not taking this fight, but I fully expect to take whatever I'm given if and when these ships push up into more open waters next turn. I will have a very narrow window in which my new battleships won't be operating at a resource penalty, and I intend to take it.

Oh, and look who's trying to be sneaky:



If this is bait it's very expensive bait, that I'm willing to bite on. I have two frigate fleets close enough to shoot ships in this group this turn, plus the privateer fleets, three promoted ironclad fleets, an unpromoted caravel fleet, and a single privateer coming up from the south. I can definitely kill one ironclad, can I get the battleship?

First, are there more ships that could be lurking behind these? I count eight ironclad fleets in the battlegroup near Runic, while my very conservative estimate allowed for five. There are also two more ships by Diomede than I had previously spotted, which already puts me two above the full fleet count from last turn, based on Woden's coal reserves. Woden did repair one coal source last turn and now has no penalty on units and none stockpiled, meaning he spent two last turn. It's possible that one of these visible ships showed it's nose near Olsayaba and sprinted back here starting on t185, but the other three could not possibly have returned fast enough to join in. Did I miss a coal source? No, he's got 8 total including the reconnected Marshall Mathers source. And he was at a -1 penalty for two consecutive turns, so unless that doesn't mean what I think it means he must have had exactly 22 coal consumers (21 units plus the coal plant) in play during those turns. Unless, Bruindane has been fronting them coal? That's possible. Ugh. Hard to be sure of anything if that's the case.

Wait, no. The obvious explanation is that he's running Drill Manuals and getting an extra +1 coal per source. With that, he could have been supporting 28 units a -1 deficit, and can support 32 now. That's terrifying, but nothing I can do about it.

We're about to swap policy cards, so we spend 1,550g and 5 coal upgrading the five frigates who can't shoot any Norwegians this turn:



Now that an engagement is imminent, is it worth it for me to drop Letters of Marque for Oligarchic Legacy? I think the answer has to be yes, just for the moment. I'd replace Force Modernization/Press Gangs with it if I could, but Oligarchic Legacy is a wildcard policy and can't be placed in a military slot. I'll lose the production bonus and more importantly movement on my privateers for a couple turns, but if I can force an engagement here the +4 strength is well worth it. I wish dropping that card could have been better coordinated with what will have to be staggered oil hookups, but that was not to be.

How about that military slot, though? The obvious choice is Press Gangs, but as far as maximizing my combat effectiveness in the next couple turns, Drill Manuals is more beneficial. Right now, we have 13 coal, eating a gross of 14 per turn and generating 12 from four sources. We will lose our fourth source after next turn when Buyniy flips back to a free city again, and go from netting -2 to netting -5. So on t192 we'll have 10 stockpiled, then 5 on t193 and 0 on t194. If we instead run Dill Manuals for the two turns it takes us to complete Scorched Earth (and maybe we delay that swap a touch if we think there's a tactical advantage to waiting further on our shipbuilding policies), we'll be generating 16 per turn from four sources and 12 from three, giving us a net of +2 before losing Buyniy and -2 after. So our stockpile will be 12 on t192, 10 on t193, and then we'll swap out and drop to 5 on t194 and 0 on t195. That's potentially a very valuable turn to be shooting without penalty in a pitched battle, or if all goes really well in a siege, but is it worth the shipbuilding losses? The leverage of a potential battle here is so high, I think it is. So we're going all in on this.

Thus, I swap out Force Modernization and Letters of Marque for Drill Manuals and Oligarchic Legacy:



That reduces our gpt deficit to a mere -193.5, and bumps our project-boosted research rate to 198.7 beakers per turn. And I'm going to leave those projects running: I want very badly for Woden to be pressing and allow for a proper battle to be fought here starting next turn. A sudden, sustained increase in research rate may generate some extra urgency and give more reason for him to fight now instead of switching over to what he probably should do; keeping his ships relatively safe while waiting for destroyers. I have enough ships defending Cape Matilda right now, a couple more in four turns (and that's what we're talking about at this production speed) probably won't make the difference.

Eventually I'm going to get burned for playing mind games instead of sticking with the theoretically optimal play, but that's a chance I'm willing to take right now.

But before we get to the real fight, some raiding. My quintet of privateers in the Tethys gang tackle a field cannon:



I was hoping I could kill it in four hits, but that proved impossible. Five does the job, and if at least two of these ships survive the next turn I'll raid both of those coal sources. Also of note, that builder didn't go to the oil tile this turn. I wonder where it was supposed to be going.

Bruindane wants an Embassy for some reason. Sure, why not. I'll take 50g. And Roland gives me 6 diplo favor as planned.

But enough stalling. On to the interesting bit. I attack the westernmost ironclad with one of my ironclads, dealing 46 and taking 18. That's a relatively good roll, high enough that a followup from another ironclad has a 30% chance of a kill, but that would be bad because I want to slip the third ironclad into this tile to hit the Battleship. Two frigate strikes are heavily favored but not guaranteed to get a kill, so I bring up the first and shoot for 25, slightly below the expected 28. That leaves the second frigate at just 58% to knock out the last 29 HP, and it deals... 28. Fuck! I have to finish the job with a privateer fleet, which does at least get a promotion in the bargain. Now our second ironclad smashes into the battleship for 66, taking 18, and our other privateer fleet has a go dealing... 32. Twice we're just a couple HP short of a kill, although in fairness 32 was the most likely damage roll for this second shot. The third ironclad wraps up by dealing 50 HP to the northernmost Norwegian ironclad, taking 15. Our caravel and single privateer can't do much as far as useful attacks, so they settle for bottling these ships up to prevent an easy escape:



Woden can kill the single privateer for sure in retaliation, and probably one of the privateer fleets. Or he might throw three attacks at an ironclad. In any case I'll clean up whatever is left on my next turn.

Unfortunately, it dawns on me now and not prior to swapping policies that I should really just upgrade as many caravels as I possibly can right now and live with the resource penalty consequences.   I'm about to lose a whole bunch of ironclads in this fight regardless, and there's really no way around the fact that even with a resource malus, ironclads are just flat better than caravels.

Each upgrade now instead of at the beginning of the turn is 290g and 1 coal sacrificed to the gods of terrible timing, and it will probably make Woden think I upgraded even more ships than I actually did, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Especially if leaving one of them dangling just a bit too far draws Woden up to start the fight next turn. Bloody hell, I'll do it. Light a little more money on fire, merge some cossacks, and we line up as so:



I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier...

I do buy the Settler at Admiral Seniavin, for the future oil plant.

Outside Marshall Mathers, I merge a newly arrived cossack with my existing single and sit back, hoping this new dust storm does something good for us. I have no idea what direction it's going because I closed the notification by accident. What a brilliantly executed turn this has been. 

At Illmatic, the Raiders continue to not take the city, and the appearance of some veteran ironclads makes me think they are about to make a push around the cape. Our privateer swarm stands at the ready, prepared to make any such attempt as expensive as possible.

[williams482]

Woden's best play here, knowing what I know and he hopefully does not, but nothing that he does know and I don't, is definitely to just turn tail and run away, then come back with destroyers. Trying to force a decisive confrontation never seemed to make a ton of sense for him strategically, but if his purpose in pressuring me was to get me to make a bunch of short-term focused decisions instead of continuing to mass ships and achieve nothing much with them, I've definitely fallen for it.

I could potentially take (W)Odin if not harried any in the next couple turns, but blasting through 400 HP worth of walls isn't something you can do in a hurry, and 85 strength destroyers (95 strength fleets!) just comically outclass anything I'll have five turns from now. That's the time to draw me into a fight, and Woden is probably just a couple turns away now.

[williams482]

Rapid fire observation here: these WC resolutions suck. The trade route one isn't awful, I guess, we could try to vote Australia to the top and I'd get a bonus on trade routes to their cities, but that bonus is going to be halved by Letters of Marque and the Raiders have more favor than we do anyway.

I see two decent options:

1) We try to give the trade route bonus to someone on Team Sandbox (Indonesia seems less likely to benefit the Raiders), just so Woden can't get a benefit there

2) We invest a minimum amount of favor and hoard it for a potential emergency in 15 turns. So many cities are being taken, it seems very likely that one will generate somewhere or other. And unlike these bonuses, emergencies can actually matter.

[roland of gilead]

let me know what you want me to day. i say save it

[williams482]

All right, that sounds good. Let's vote the minimum.

Now, what for? Trade routes to Japan can't possibly help the Raiders, but boosting Indonesia or China is more likely to give a winning margin. Whatever call you want to make on that, I'll match it.

As for Public Relations, reducing the grievances I generate is probably the best bet. We could increase Norway's grievances for taking your cities, but that will come back to bite us (to the extent any part of this "bites") if I manage to take their cities.

[roland of gilead]

china then for old time sake.

[roland of gilead]

and reduce your grievances,

[williams482]

Turn 191 World Congress:

First a quick look at the military situation. Woden took out my sacrificial privateer and not-so-sacrificial privateer fleet, but the remaining three ships are safely doomed:



I'm really ticked at the battleship hanging on long enough to provide a necessary assist against that privateer fleet. Lucky bastard. 

Note that Woden also pillaged the coal mine at Buyniy. I really should have anticipated that, but there wasn't a ton I could do to prevent it given the field cannon and battleships in theater.

At Matilda, Woden also took out my frontmost privateer with an ironclad, and started pillaging Rodeo:



These are veterans from the Olsyayaba pillage campaign, and my idiotic decision to hand out free promotions by repeatedly shooting at units I couldn't kill is likely to really hurt us here. I don't know how many Privateers it will take to sink one of these ships, but it's more than I can reasonably afford to expose to Punic counterattacks in the process.

Also note Woden's beaker rate, up to a staggering 240. I dunno if that's from projects or something more sustainable, but it's going to get him destroyers in a real hurry.

On the bright side, no action was taken against my Privateers in the Tethys.

Anyhoo, my votes:



Here's hoping the Raiders haven't found a way to turn these resolutions into a further advantage, but spent their favor here anyway.