[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

You would be the 4th that could potentially go into the modern era. Since the game has a 10 turn count down, it needs to predict when that will occur, so even if you don't research a Modern tech or civic, since you can right now and as you finish more techs, the game will account for it. I don't know the inner works of how it determines the timeframe but I think it will be closer to the 24 turn than the 44 turns.

Regardless, I am going to kill Japan because I want 1 less person delaying this game and want to lose the war wariness in his cities. The impact of keeping him alive for a few extra turns is not worth it and who knows what stupid-ness he can do with the WC or buffs he can give Russia with an alliance.

[ljubljana]

Cool, sounds good to me. One hopes that in 24 turns the naval war portion of the game should largely be over anyways....

We may want to check on Russia's era score soon, regardless. I do not know if they are close but if they manage a Heroic Age, they can take HSD again and that would be a big problem. Should be pretty unlikely though as you have to imagine they have been building mostly units this age and not really focusing on wonders and splendid districts and the like...

edit: Actually they should be like me last era and in the dedication that gives +1 ES for every ship killed in their dark age. So we can probably pretty much count on them getting an HA next if there is a major naval battle...

[ljubljana]

...did we even choose to declare any of these wars?

Maybe the others are attacking us because Woden's turns are so fast and they are jealous

edit: I guess we did attack TAD the first time but that was 10 months ago so it has kind of faded into the hazy mists of memory...

[Woden]

Civ quiz. When choosing the target for your next war do you declare on:

a) The person with the weakest military;
b) The person you'd gain the most from;
c) The person who delays the turns.

In this game, with all the delays and trouble getting on a decent turn pace, definitely c!

[Woden]

As for next era, doesn't really matter. We should have nukes in about 30 turns and we will use them. The question becomes can we strike before Russia. He only has 1 armory to build MEs in and no decent area to hit us from unless he can keep Asahi. Will he go the Rocketry route? I only have 1 armory but am currently building 2 more and am having the northern most Japanese city building a barracks into an armory so I can mass produce MEs to get them were we need them. If he goes for airplanes, that will be a longer road, as he need aerodromes and bombers plus aircraft carriers. We will have to start thinking about air defenses while we build nukes. A battleship plus an anti-aircraft gun might be enough to do half damage to a bomber and then prevent the nuke from dropping.

[ljubljana]

I guess we will want to find/research Advanced Ballistics in that case. One thing I don't know is whether switching a coal power plant to oil qualifies for the eureka there, or if we have to build an oil plant from scratch.

Or do we go for Flight -> Advanced Flight after Rocketry and try for fighters + battleships to counter his bombers? There is much more infra required to get those up and running but they serve a more convincing general purpose as military units.

I do suspect he will go for Rocketry, it is right there and if he is building nukes everywhere, he hardly has the extra production needed to divert to aerodromes, then 2 biplanes for the eureka, then bombers... Though he will probably have Advanced Flight by the time he gets a bunch of nukes since it will take 20ish turns to produce them, so it could go either way. But bombers are not an 100% reliable delivery method, as you said, and he will probably need quite a few to get through, which feeds into the production issues. Bombers are almost as pricey as nukes themselves at 560 hammers, and he could definitely have a nuke for the cost of a bomber + Aerodrome. I guess he has the cash to simply buy a few outright but that solution does not really scale.

If it is Rocketry for him, we will want to start watching his coast for any departing military engineers on their way to Asahi. You also might want to get yours sent out sooner rather than later before Russia realizes what's coming and tries to stop you from getting one to Australia.

[Woden]

If we are thinking Flight after Rocketry, then you should switch your research to it immediately so you can pass me the boost about the time I need it. You could probably hit Combustion (right after Flight, I think) too and get me that boost in case I need it too, but I think that might be on the line to Advanced Flight and I will probably catchup to you by then. I could also get an archeologist out of Frigg to extract a few artifacts that are in the way of mines.

A oil conversion will grant the boost but I would rather scratch build one somewhere, probably at one of the English cities with an IZ. I am currently building stuff that will improve their production for when I can build nukes. I don't want to switch out of a coal plant at Thor since coal plants are the only power plant that's production is equal to the adjacency and once I finish Ideology, I can run the campus/IZ doubling card.

Only place I can build MEs right now is Thor and I am not going to build one there. I am currently building Armories at Loki and (W)Odin, with the plan to start spamming MEs for both cities. First one will go towards Australia but it will take him a while. I will also start MEs at Fort Krasia as soon as I get an Armory there, probably 10 or 11 turns. Those will be closer and should get to Australia by the time we need a silo. At 170 production, it will take Fort Krasia 6 or 7 turns per Engineer. I don't remember but do those increase in production costs? I suspect they do but don't know by how much. It is probably 6 turns of travel while I have the extra movement, so I should be able to get an Engineer to Australia around T220, give or take a few turns.

For nukes, I have 5 turns left on Nuclear Fission and can probably speed it up with some campus pillages but not by much because cultural pillages are going to be a priority for the next few turns. Let's say 12 turns for the Manhattan project because Thor is going to be pillaged but I can make up some time with chops. Then, probably another 15 turns to get at least 3 nukes out. In total, roughly 32 turns until we blast the 3 capitals. I don't think we need that much time because we should be able to get 1 nuke out beforehand and launch it at Russia. If he isn't close to having launchable nukes, he will most likely concede.

[ljubljana]

This plan sound great to me! Flight is a 25-turn research for me though (!!) which might still be too slow. But maybe I can build some biplanes in Linear A

Also, apparently I have the boost for Combustion already, wtf? It is "extract an artifact" which I definitely did not do...



I see some vague suggestions on civwiki that the ME cost does not increase, but can't immediately confirm this firsthand.

Is Thor still your best city for the MP if it gets pillaged into the ground? I am not sure what your strongest city on the England/Japan continent looks like, probably nowhere near Thor's production, right? There also might be some chance Russia will try to capture Thor, idk. Depends on if the gossip screen (or a spy in the city if we are very unlucky) tells them where we started the MP. I don't think it's going to do that but it could be a big problem if it does.

[Woden]

Thor is my best city now and has 5 jungles to chop, so it will have the bet chance of finishing the MP quickly. The city is almost impenetrable. Battleships can only hit it from 3 tiles and my encampment can reach 2 of them. Also, it will have a fleet battleship in the city in 2 turns that will start hitting Cossacks that come close. A lot of its production is coming from trade routes right now, so pillaging the IZ will have only a minor impact of its overall production, with is ~70, with at least 20-ish coming from trade routes. I do have 3 builders in the area to repair once we clear out the Cossacks. I think my field cannon from up north is going to head to Thor and help protect the area.

As for English cities, Official Visit is my next most productive city (of my whole empire) at ~56 but needs some love before I can dedicate it to something long term. It needs housing so it can grow past 10 population and needs luxuries. Both Official Visit and Open Government are working on infrastructure right now to set them up for nuke builds. I should be able to get them close to Thor's production around the time I can build nukes. Open Government, Loki, and (W)Odin are all in the mid-40s but Open Government has a little more potential if I can get it to grow and lumbermill a bunch of the flat land tiles. The city across the bay from Open Government also has a bunch of potential but it really needs to grow but is right next to an active volcano, so I don't know if it will really ever grow quickly. Regardless, if I give my top 5 cities some love I should be popping out a nukes from each city every 8-12 turns, so roughly a nuke every other turn.

[ljubljana]

Cool, sounds great to me! Hopefully we can deter them from getting too close to Thor by flooding the area with field cannons and seaborne P/S. If they spend this turn killing my P/S corps they will pretty much be out of healthy Cossacks, and we might see them go for the rice at (W)oden soon, which is good as it is in the wrong direction.