[SPOILERS] swans will bite u

[ljubljana]

hey, if there is any player in this field who we would want to stick on Portugal, it's gotta be TheArchduke, right? everyone thinks twice at least three times before attacking you, whatever the circumstances

Over the hills and over the main
through Flanders, Portugal, and Spain.
King George commands, and we obey
Over the hills and far away...

pretty sure chev thinks we just signed our own death warrant

4 more picks before this thing gets around to us again. Indonesia, England, and Phoenicia would be great partners and will surely all be taken, but that means of Japan, China, and Netherlands (and Egypt? ) we will get a choice of at least two. Fingers crossed

[ljubljana]

England falls to Woden + Banzai! Guess they agree with my assessment that they are slightly ahead of Phoenicia in generic circumstances

but well, generic circumstances, i fear these are not. england is not that strong pre-frigates and we have some hope that this pick may find itself a little outmatched against the Viking swarm.

Chev has the ridiculous combo of Phoenicia + Indonesia available now, though. Ah, to have picked fourth and fifth

[williams482]

Yikes on what Chevalier has available. I do wonder if they might go for Indonesia+Spain instead, for potentially better gold generation? But mostly that's wishcasting.

As long as one of Phoenicia or Japan survive to our pick, I think we'll be okay.

[ljubljana]

yeah, I too hope they go for Spain, but, nah, there's no way they will. They will likely be as terrified of thrawn's carpet as we are and Indo will attract a lot of attention by itself and does not really do much for its own self-defense. Phoenicia doesn't match Spain's gold output but makes up for it in defensive utility IMO, in addition to a strong Classical research rate in Free Inquiry that might let it surge out to caravels at the same time as Indo is working on Jongs. Indo/Phoenicia would be a killer combo and I would love to have had it ourselves

meanwhile Japan is a pretty good England partner too since they also need security against the Carpet (team name for thrawn/krill?) and England's regular galleys don't trade too efficiently with longships. but England has a lot of good partners and maybe the Woden/Banzai team's opinion of Norway's early game will be too colored by our PBEM20 experience to recognize how dire the threat is? or maybe they won't want to exactly duplicate the England/Japan team from PBEM20? I think there are at least a decent number of straws to grasp at in that case and I could see them being tempted by eg an Australia. as perhaps we still should be if the next 3 picks really do go indo/phoenicia/japan in that order... we would likely only get the hammer bonus once but even 10t of double production does translate to a fair few extra galleys, which is more than the likes of the Netherlands can say plus Oz has free housing without lighthouses, which does match well with my stated intention to delay harbors in favor of campi in the partner civ

[williams482]

If we do lose out on the two obvious galley bonus civs, maybe the play is to just lean way into the "we are probably vulnerable but if we survive we will fuck you up" Portugal setup, grab Netherlands, and pray for helpful map circumstances? There's definitely nice synergy between those two civs economically and in military timing, and the difference in galley production abilities isn't that big between Netherlands and Australia.

I don't think I've convinced myself of that, frankly, but I am tempted. There are a lot of ways that the map could make our territories annoying for The Carpet to extract much of value from without a difficult fight, and shorter supply lines plus proper planning of defense forces should allow a generic civ to put up that fight. Plus, Netherlands is less likely to be incentivized to put districts in pillageable spots the way Australia will be, and they are much better as a late game industrial power if we manage to hang on to that point.

I don't like either option much given the expected tactics from Thrawn/Krill. Worth further consideration for sure.

[ljubljana]

hey, chev predicted our Portugal pick even given thrawn's norway, which means they think it's not insane but they also speculated about a Japan pick so they may be planning to pair that with Phoenicia and let Indo drop to Woden. That would be no fun at all for us although it would leave Woden's team a bit on the weak side militarily but VERY on the scary side come frigates, so perhaps they would draw some of the heat away from us if they land that combo. Indonesia as a plausible 6th pick? Wow, never thought we'd see that happen...

Yeah, well, if we can't get a galley bonus civ there really isn't anything we can do to get that much pricklier than a generic civ early on. May as well lean into synergies. At least someone like the Dutch will have shields to burn on an early galley navy due to not needing to build monuments...

[ljubljana]

yup, Phoenicia/Indonesia for Chev as is glaringly obvious

well, maybe that's such a power couple that thrawn will feel compelled to engage them pre-Jongs even if there WILL be a ton of biremes wandering around? a me can dream, i guess...

[ljubljana]

hey guys is maya any good??

they get half-cost weird campuses like Korea and (i can't believe i'm bolding this) +5 CS to units within 6 tiles of the capital, which is where all of Portugal's TRs will be going

[williams482]

Interesting idea. Certainly there would be no dispute over who would be the bigger partner, although getting locked into that one early isn't the best. We're also more worried about what happens between the two cities than right near the destination, but that bonus definitely can't hurt. Maya is unfortunately extremely map dependent and I'm not impressed by their bonuses (plantations or bust, basically) so I'd rather not go with them.

Fortunately I have to think Japan is too obvious to be Woden's pick here, given his little challenge, so here's hoping...

[ljubljana]

Woden picks Gaul and Japan has dropped!!!

they will have really strong production, which usually creates issues with lack of district slots for harbors + campi BUT with england as a partner they can perhaps afford that. should function as a nice pseudo-Work Ethic, wouldn't be surprised to see this choice slept on in other threads but turn out very strong in practice. I'd say "attack them at Frigates" but nope, England has that covered! Brutal