[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Turn 194, Part 4 (this one's actually important) - Phoenicia



What if you send this IC fleet south around Tyr island to pillage their precious oil wells as soon as they lay them down? God would that be a joy to witness. And if you time it right maybe you can even capture the builder!

I would say to add the one at Oracle Bones too but then they may see you coming so idk. Getting the builder would be such a coup if you can pull it off.

[ljubljana]

Turn 194, Part 5 - Phoenicia

Not sure what I should research...



30 turns to Steel or 50 turns to Refining? Surely there is zero chance of this mattering before the end of the game, right?

In Phoenicia, I did slightly adjust your pins:



Moved the melee ships back a tile so that they are 9 away from the fog instead of 8, and are therefore out of IC range. And I moved one caravel a bit east to finish off the ZoC-blanket in case they have ships in that area. But I think the effect of the positioning should be the same. I also moved the frigate out of Cuneiform to join the party

Making P/S up here again, too, and sending most of what I have in your direction at my best rate (so, uh, 2 tiles per turn, pretty much). Going to bring back Grand Armee in place of Bastions next turn too unless I think better of it.

In Australia:



My previous deploy was one tile west of this until I belatedly realized what's wrong with that. If they take your bait, the Great Engineer is going to embark to the east first to look for ships, and it would have scouted me. This retool should prevent that.

But I feel too far forward and too far back at the same time. The sword is badly misplaced as it is both about to be scouted and is unable to swing around and hit HWMB next turn if we have to abandon the plan. That was dumb, oops... And if there is a back attack by at least 4 privateers I can kiss the Dreadnought goodbye and will cry myself to sleep every night for a week. So hopefully that won't happen, I've had enough trouble sleeping lately as it is...

Maybe we should keep a ship or two in the channel by Fort Miln to keep them from sneaking up on us like that. Also, blocking off the channel would close the western coast of Japan to pillagers which would be great. Ugh, I am really sweating my rear this turn as I got greedy and left 4 tiles open next to the Dreadnought and losing it to stupid privateers would be a catastrophe. Please tell me there's no earthly possibility of that happening.

As for The College Dropout:



Sheesh, those numbers are bad. Scratch those comments about 3-turning this city, it looks more like 5 turns and the city range strikes will be tearing me a new one the whole time. I will save the promotion on the Dreadnought and try to bait him into firing at me so I can heal off at least one shot's worth of damage (assuming it survives the turn...). Other than that, we can pillage districts to help - the harbor would be a start, and if you manage to kill that Cossack, you can try for the campus or holy site with the berserker. If we can get the base strength from 85 down to something in the 79 range, it would make a huge difference.

Also, with the conquest of a good chunk of Australia, you actually have access to the Work Ethic religion for some potential thrawn-like belief stealing. Not sure it's feasible to get it into Thor anytime soon (ok, it definitely is not feasible), but maybe there is somewhere in your empire where it is worth spending some faith on that with the GMC offline.

edit: Do you know how the Convoy promotion for melee ships works? Looks like your yellow IC is about to be eligible for it and +10 CS would be a big deal if you can find a unit to get into formation with. Maybe bring over an outdated GG from somewhere that you aren't using? Or do you not have any of those?

[Woden]

Convoy works when a unit is connected to the ship. Not sure if it works with a builder or great person. I would love to hook up my berserker but he needs to be in the city for garrison loyalty. I needed to think about bringing Magnus over to Rodeo, as he is rally helpful at Thor with Black Marketer and could speed the Manhattan Project with jungle chops. But, I also think I can move him and move him back in 8 or so turns for chops to finish the project or chopping out builders.

As for College Dropout, we need not repeat the mistakes Russia made by not attacking a city because it will take too long to bring down the walls. This would be a completely different game if Russia had gone after (W)Odin and my cities right away. He chose your cities because they were easier and he could take them quicker. Our objective is to take out Australia. We need College Dropout. Once we take College Dropout, Blueprint should flip and we can work on his island holdings with my berserker.

That being said, I don't think we rushing in lily-nily. We can control the seas, especially now that we have 2 destroyers to sweep the seas. I think next turn, I will sweep the area with my 2 destroyers and bring my ironclads as far south as I can so we can. I can probably set up with 1 destroyer 1 tile east of the fish and the 3 ironclads can set up south of him to form a line between College Dropout and the Russian navy. They we can pillage the canal the following turn and be in position to sweep for freshly upgraded subs at KS before they can engage us.

For Work Ethic, I don't really have that many Holy Sites and should really work on converting Australia's cities so I can lose the -3 loyalty penalty. I also still need to convert England/Japan's cities to my own religion. With the GP being pillaged this turn, I am going to focus on saving faith for future units, converting Japan/England and buying any needed science buildings. Maybe I keep Australia's cities in their religion and once we kill him, I can have some highly productive cities but also, will probably not have as good of holy sites there since he gains adjacency from appeal and I do not. Will have to see if it is even worth it, adjacency-wise.

[ljubljana]

Not sure Russia should have gone for your cities first...it was a tough call as he would have been able to take your capital eventually, but by the time he took a second city the capital would flip back. His strategy at least let him keep 2-3 cities at a time so he could maintain a steady stream of Cossacks and if he had not stalled out at Cuneiform he might have boostrapped loyalty in his conquests. But he also spent valuable "hurt you" time hurting me instead...

College Dropout I agree that we need. First-pass thought is we should try to move my ships roughly to this area:



That way, he can't upgrade safely at either Borodino or KS without us getting a first strike in, and we are in range of TCD the following turn. Goal is probably to sweep every tile within 9 spaces of this area with destroyers/IC so we will be safe to move up frigates. That's probably not feasible in the west but at least we can sweep the south and then kind of orient the melee ships such that they are facing the more dangerous areas of fog. I would say to use your 2 destroyers and the bait IC to sweep the south and southwest, respectively, and then the other 2 IC we can incorporate into the line once it seems safe.

Not sure if we should stick an IC into the one-tile gap at Vladimir Monomakh to block an attack from that direction. It would take a city range strike so not sure it's worth it, and I don't think you have an IC in range (other than the one we badly need in the SW).

Thoughts on pillaging his precious oils at the south pole city with your ICs?

[Woden]

For the oil, that is where that ICF is headed and it is his current mission. He will probably have a unit guarding the builder (he does have 2 pikes down there) and maybe guarding both oils. If that is the case, he is not guarding the mines anymore and I will pillage those as I wait for the battleship fleet in production (still a frigate for 1 more turn) to take out any guards. The single ironclad up by Oracle Bones is going to play games with the 2 privateers that almost killed him. See if I can clear out the ships or have them chase me around but he will not travel south. I don't want to tip Russia off that I have a unit coming to pillage the oil in case he is currently not planning on guarding them. Maybe even send the IC east to see if I can find the back side of Russia's navy.

For destroyers, I can move the northern one down to west tile between the fish and crab SW of Rodeo and the one near Rodeo can make it to the crabs 2 tiles SW of the trade robbing IFC. Then I can bring an ICF or 2 down towards KS to see what is around there. That will bring all but a single ring of coastal tiles into view. We should get a good idea of what is lurking in the shadows.

[ljubljana]

Sounds like a plan re IC and ICF near Oracle Bones.

It is going to be tricky to siege down TCD thanks to the frigate in Borodino. We have to figure out how to keep it in the city without taking too much damage, since if it gets out it could kill a frigate fleet together with the city range strike. Maybe if we don't find any privateers we can have two ICs switching off between standing in front of the city and pillaging a fishing boat. Also if we kill too many of his coal units (or he gets destroyers), that fleet will turn into a battleship fleet which would be a nightmare.

Your destroyers just have 7 movement right? We might get somewhat better coverage by using the Rodeo one to scout the south since it is closer, and have the further one go for the central Pacific Ocean. Something like this:



That defogs every tile up to the orange line, and gets all but 3 tiles at Borodino and KS, which is where I think the privateer stack is most likely to be. If we don't see anything, the main stack is probably significantly further west and planning to either upgrade out there or sail to KS this turn and upgrade. Might be a little bold with the furthest IC though as I'm not sure I can fully protect it with my own ships following that route, but maybe we can figure something out.

edit: Northern destroyer could fit into a defensive line for our frigates at that position too which is a nice plus.

[Woden]

Also if we kill too many of his coal units (or he gets destroyers), that fleet will turn into a battleship fleet which would be a nightmare.

About this, I have been thinking about the game tonight and realized, we have been worried about him getting subs into action but he could be 1 or 2 turns from completing Combined Arms and we will see destroyers in a couple of turn. He finished Refining 3 turns ago (?) but in that time he has pillaged the campus at Illmatic, a campus and library at Tibbet's Brook, and the IZ at Fort Lakton. He could potentially get 6 science pillages at Frigg's and (W)Odin's campuses over the next 2 turns. That will definitely complete Combined Arms and may get a good chunk out of whatever he researches next. Each district pillage is roughly 140 (4*140=560) and 3 turns of research at 180 bpt is 540, totaling 1,110 of 1,760+ tech. Depending on how he moves his Cossacks, he could have it done next turn with 3, maybe 4 pillages.

I think his best play will be to connect 2 oils next turn, wait 2 or 3 turns to accumulate some and hook up his next source. Then upgrade 12 units is 3 turns and have enough to support them. This means we have 3 maybe 4 turns top wipe out his fleet in the north. He might also say screw it and upgrade as he gets his oil because he has more to hook up, meaning we could see destroyers at our core in 2 turns. We might have to get more aggressive here, if we wait, he improves his position greatly. 

I think we need to press him ASAP. If he does complete a tech next turn, we can tell if it is Combined Arms since he already has uranium hooked up and has some under a Holy Site. I think we need to push up within range of his ships, knowing he will probably upgrade the following turn, maybe...IDK. I don't think we wait until whatever comes next. Thoughts?

[ljubljana]

He sure might do that and it would be quite consistent with his upgrading into the coal penalty. Not much reason to do that unless he is anticipating...something...coming along to free up his coal supply. Of course the major upside for us with such a plan is that he would be giving up what looks increasingly like a 6-7 turn lead on nukes (ie probably he will get a tech next turn with the pillages).

Will we be favored in the fight if we give up the first strike? His first strike would happen on t196 in that case. He will have 6 battleships to hit us with at least and will probably get 3 battleship kills with those. Then he attacks with all but 3 of his IC and kills maybe 3-4 of our melee ships, and upgrades 3 destroyer fleets with the 6 oil he will get at the beginning of his turn. Seems like probably too big a setback for us to come back from but I don't know.

Maybe there is a very smart way to do it that would help...like if we move a wall of destroyers up into range but keep the battleships back 4-5 tiles, so he will only get melee ship kills on the first turn and we will be able to counterattack his BS if he commits with those. That's probably the way to do it if we move up IMO.

The other option is to wait, keep pushing forward cautiously, and assume he will not move into our first strike range of his own accord either even with destroyers. Then we try to leverage our faster nuke time to beat him that way and nuke his fleet. But that will take 20 turns at least and he will do a huge amount of damage to you in the meantime. If we are predicting 2t to kill (W)odin, by the time we get a nuke he will have conquered...oh, only your entire core

The sad thing is, if we engage in Phoenicia we can't just win, we have to win fairly decisively as he has the money to instantly re-mass by upgrading old ships and we will probably have another fight on our hands quite soon. That will happen in his core too which means we would have to retreat from Australia. I think the only think keeping us from getting blown out by battleships over there is his lack of coal, as soon as he either gets Combined Arms or gets into a fight with you he will be able to push back our little fleet.

So it seems like waiting for a nuke is not really feasible and we have to engage him before he kills your whole core. We can either try to get a first strike by sneaking around, or we concede the first strike. The two possible attack timings are right now when he is in coal penalty + lacks destroyers or at Fascism. Of those two, I think this timing is a bit better just because it represents more total strength difference in our favor.

But, well, your fleets are pretty evenly matched right now and that means if you give up the first strike our odds to win the fight are really bad. That means our odds to win this game are actually really bad if that's the best move, and we should be looking for some kind of high-variance gamble that could get us the first strike...

[ljubljana]

One piece of info we will get next turn relates to what he does about our scouting ships. If he is unwilling to attack them, that means he didn't scout behind them either. So your fleet could have been right behind the leading scout ship and he wouldn't have seen it, let alone attacked it. So possibly the high-variance option is to move up the scout ships up and move your main fleet behind them, just out of scouting range, and assume he will continue to treat the scout ships as bait and leave them alone again on his next turn. That might force him away from his cities if he wants to stay safe from first strikes, or might get you a first strike if he assumes your fleet is 5-7 tiles behind the scouts like it is now but you are actually just outside his vision.

edit: What if he doesn't get a tech next turn? We have no way of knowing if he has Combined Arms or Fission with 1t to go in that case (and it's doubtful he is more than 2t out from his next tech). Do we need to think about moving up anyways?

[Woden]

Right now, I thin we have the advantage and more powerful navy. He has at least 3 privateers and 1 privateer fleet we know about. How many privateers does he have? No clue, but 3 privateers equal a destroyer in MP and a destroyer will kill all 3 privateers before it would lose half its health. Knowing that, the question becomes do we think he has a lot of privateers or have we killed most of what he has built. Because if we think he has a lot of them left, we will win in a stand up fight, simply for having more powerful ships. Then the question becomes, do we just chase his ships down instead of holding back and letting him upgrade?

And for reference, I am talking about the navy by Australia. I think we are about evenly matched in number of ships and quality in the north.