[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

He got two more at Suboptimal's capital after it flipped, which had a library and the campus itself

I may swap the IC and caravel positions you proposed, if that's ok, just so the IC is slightly harder to attack from the east. Caravel will be one-shot by a destroyer no matter which one does it.

Okay, so I did miss something. Maybe it was NF, IDK. If it was NF, I will only be a turn behind him. I will have to figure out what city is his highest production and watch to see if he is chopping the MP out. 

Fine by me to swap positions, whatever you think works best.

[ljubljana]

Borodino and Imperator Aleksandr are essentially tied for highest production IIRC at 70ish. But Magnus is in Sissoi Veliki which looks like this:



Uh oh...

So that is why Russia has been saving up gold and not upgrading his frigates, to buy a bunch of builders down here! Very good move if that's how it turns out.

On the bright side, with two jungle and one forest chop at Thor, you will not be too far behind. Once we clear out the Cossacks, that is... We should probably start moving Magnus back there soon in preparation for that (and Victor over to Australia). Luckily because you captured those cities we will get a bit of a break from the Cossacks that we can hopefully use to make that happen.

[Woden]

That is a lot of wood to chop, we will have to watch out for a builder. I was looking over his empire with my last save and noticed a few things. Most of his cities have -6 for amenities in the loyalty screen. Not sure if that corresponds to -6 unhappiness, but that would be a -30% penalty (maximum penalty for unhappiness). I also noticed a few of his cities in the southern ocean are losing loyalty. I might be able to flip 1 or 2. I also don't really see any production cities, i.e. focused on production like Loki and Thor. Lots of mix and matching of city specialties. He does have a bunch of nice holy sites for Work Ethic but he may have falling into the trap of relying on it too much. My gut tells me we should be able out build him, especially with England/Japan coming online.

Also, if you want to send me the Japanese canal city, you need to do it this turn...and let me know if you want any of his former cities.

[ljubljana]

Good point about Fort Lakton, I am not sure what we should do with it:



It is my only source of reinforcements in Australia really, and is making a frigate every 4 turns. But in your empire it will make a destroyer every 12 turns, down to 9 turns in Fascism. Idk what we should do with it, what do you think?

One other consideration is it has a TR running now, which would break if I gift the city. That costs us short term, but it would also mean I only have to repair 1 lighthouse to send a TR to Thor. Not sure if I should be doing that given the Russia battle, but something to think about.

I was not able to find any mention of the MP in the PBEM18 lurker threads from around the time you were building it. But I could have missed it or they could have spoke about it in more cryptic terms (as "the MP", perhaps) that would have foiled my "Ctrl-F Manhattan" approach to this search...

Also, what of Valletta? I can drop 16 envoys in there this turn for 20 total, he has only 18. He will hopefully need another civic to dislodge me after doing that. But I am also open to waiting a few more turns so as to not show our hand, though he may use that time to buy Ancient Walls in the northern cities on the island. What do you think?

[Woden]

Keep Fort Lakton, I don't need it and if it supplying you with reinforcements it is better if you have it. I also might take a amenities hit, so don't know if it will help or hurt if I have it.

Does he have Amani in Valletta? Might be good to kick her out. I say do it now, prevent anymore walls going up.

For pillaging, if it is a harbor, if you have the MP, you can pillage it twice.

[ljubljana]

Turn 199 - Phoenicia

Finally, a reasonably fast turn where I don't feel like I messed everything up. I guess losing half your navy will do that for you

In our homeland:



I did manage to snipe a Cossack with Logistics, so I guess that paid off. Then I moved my unpromoted corps back onto the campus, and fortified the promoted corps on your EC to get 20 points of healing. Next turn, I will have enough units in this area to form a wall between the eastern mountain and campus, which will cut off the northern group from the southern group unless they are willing to take the long way around NW of Frigg or through your capital's rice farms. That, or I can head south towards Thor to try to purge it of Cossacks in preparation for the MP build. Depends on where he moves next, I think.

The highlighted P/S and its friend are playing zone defense, which embarked units are uniquely great at in this era. With 7 MP next turn, it can reach either Abugida or Linear A's city center next turn with 4 moves, then still have (I think) 3 left over to move normally. That means this unit can reach either my campuses in the north or your campus in the south, depending on if williams decides to change tactics and come charging at me next move. I do think that's a live possibility, as the appearance of a fourth corps P/S in the south should tip him off that the north is now mostly empty.

Re: the harbor, I actually did not need to pillage twice with one unit, becauuuuse:



The GP placement by roland let me pillage a lighthouse with one caravel, then poke the GP to break away from the city's ZoC, so I could finish off the harbor with a different ship! Hilarious, and also pretty effective too, as it means I got the -2 on the city's DS without having to leave any single frigates within firing range. I might be willing to do that anyways, but I want to see how much the defenses can do to my fleet frigates first.



TCD at end of turn - my 4 frigate shots did roughly 60 damage. So 4 more turns of siege before we have a realistic chance to take the city. 

Of the two, I think maybe next turn we should double-block Borodino rather than KS. Right now, I am a bit concerned that Borodino will finish a privateer this turn, and with that in conjunction with the city strike + FC one of my frigate fleets may die. With KS open instead I will at least get a turn of warning before that can happen. Then I can make a caravel wall to the NW next turn to protect my frigates, since sneaky Russian ships are a bit more likely to try to come up that way via, eg, VM.

I kind of think you might want to bring back a fourth or even a fifth unit anyways, though, as we need to block the harbors (or at least the Borodino harbor) for something like 4 turns and that is a tall order for just 3 ships. We do not have all that many fishing boats to use here, and a few will need to go to my frigates to keep them healthy enough to maintain the siege. Especially the ones 2t from my frigates at TCD should probably be reserved for this purpose, so I can move 2, pillage to heal, move back 2, and fire all in the same turn.

I had 2 fewer envoys than I thought, but was still able to claim Valletta, barely. Since roland put his 18 in first, I was able to kick him out by going to 18 myself. He will get suzereignty back the next time he discovers a civic, most likely, but who knows how long that will take.

I wonder if we should move the zerk out of Rodeo soon (replacing it with the Illmatic FC) to try to pillage TCD's campus? No sense letting Russia have it if we can take it ourselves, and it will weaken the city defenses by another 2 points as well. The danger there is that we will have no way to replace the loyalty if a Cossack comes by and kills it... I also wonder if The Blueprint even has walls...if not we might be able to just walk in there after TCD falls, with the Dreadnought within range from the lake.

Oh, and I also got a crapton of gold from 2 harbor pillages and a trader to give to you this turn, have fun Unless you think I should use it myself to upgrade a few ICFs, which admittedly could put in some very good work by helping us wall off the Russian harbors. Actually, yeah, that might be a decent move next turn if there is not a more compelling use for it. Let me know what you think our most pressing gold needs are?

[Woden]

Turn 199-Vikings
Quick turn around today. Let's see what happen. Up in the north...
   

Ouch, he was able to do more damage than I expected. I think I need to retreat any ship that can and kill units with the ones that can't. I think I will need to regroup and connect with my destroyers in the Australian field to attempt to hit this group of ships next. 

Over by Australia...
   

It is going to be harder to block his cities now that he has fleet battleships inside them. I am curious how he went form a -7 penalty on his ships last turn to having coal to upgrade this turn and having 17 coal in reserve. I went back into last turn's save and it looks like China sent him a bunch of coal. Gee, thanks China! Why help the team that took you out of the game? Must have been one hell of a deal. Russia has no oil, so he upgrade 5 units, probably subs over where he is hiding his ships. My plan is to pillage to finish Nuclear Fission. I will block Borodino but I think I will leave KS unblocked. I doubt he will bring the ship out to kill 1 ship, then lose the fleet battleship. 

Back at my core...
   
I should be able to kill 3 of the 4 Cossacks by Thor and block him from Thor's IZ  I will start the MP this turn.

Edit: I just noticed that China has ~1,450 more gold than he did last turn, so I can see why he sold the coal.

[ljubljana]

omg, he beat the shit out of us . Yeah, time to regroup.... Looks like we can only save 3 battleships. On the bright side maybe you can trade your trapped ships for some of his BS, it does look like he left a few exposed. It is also not crazy for you to give up a few extra BS for some of his if your trapped ships manage to redline one or two. If you can find a way to kill 3 or so BS we may yet end up having slowed them down a little. And I guess we had better start making ships in every city that can once again...

Are you blocking both tiles at Borodino or just one? If you can get only one, the harbor is much better so he can't shoot my frigates. KS unblocked is ok as I think I can ZoC-block the battleship, but I don't think we should make a habit of it as he can still make privateers and sneak them past me.

[Woden]

omg, he beat the shit out of us . Yeah, time to regroup.... Looks like we can only save 3 battleships. On the bright side maybe you can trade your trapped ships for some of his BS, it does look like he left a few exposed. It is also not crazy for you to give up an extra BS for one of his if your trapped ships manage to redline one. If you can find a way to kill 3 or so BS we may yet end up having slowed them down a little.

Yah, I think the decision here is, do I go for battleships, slowing his offensive down, go for the injured ICFs and run, or just go for killing as many ships as I can. I should be able to get a few battleships and a few destroyers out of ZOC if I decide to cut and run. The southern most destroyer by Izumrud can make it to (W)Odin this turn. I can put a battleship in Buyniy to help the attack and hope he doesn't go for the city next turn. He is pretty exposed here but I just don't think I can kill enough to stop a lose of my entire fleet next turn. 

I can kill at least 3 battleships, maybe 4 if I get some lucky rolls but he does have 2 more frigates that he will just upgrade and he has the coal but IDK if he will have the gold. He "only" has 806 this turn and we pretty much stopped his pillaging at the moment. He may get a few more before we can kill his Cossacks but not many.

Edit: I should be able to kill all 4 battleships and a few injured IFCs, is that worth it? They are pretty experienced ships.

[ljubljana]

He will surely just upgrade but IDK, he is going to do that either way. If we can make him have 4 battleships instead of 8 after next turn it should slow down his conquest substantially, and the main thing now is to get to nukes with as many of your production centers intact as we can. You are probably not going to get another chance to hit his BS as once he has a chance to regroup he will block them with melee ships, and it will be ages before we have enough ships to deter him from going wherever he wants again, if it's even possible for us to get there before the end of the game.

Of course, this is a lot of ships to trade for 4 battleships though. IDK, I see arguments both ways.