[SPOILERS] Kaiser and TheArchduke are nice and friendly neighbours

[TheArchduke]

Still no losses on my side, one loss on their side, a bireme.

   

Once again, 4 attacks, and we do counterattack on bireme to soften it up, a bit of relocation, one promotion.

With 3 attacks each, the norwegian longships will get promoted most probably, nothing I can do until quads.

3 biremes to the south are held up for no reason whatsoever.

2 turns until I get a quad and a galley as reinforcement, hold on guys!

   

[TheArchduke]

Walls would have worked, but then again I did not really expect an attack as it does not make much sense.

[Kaiser]

TAD and me were able to siny up quickly tonight in order to plan naval movements and strategy.



We decided that it would be best to heal my Galley for the moment to then strike in an opportune moment onto the phoenician holding force. My other Galley is nearby and they both can join up next turn, giving my Galley at least 1 turn of healing on TADs harbour.

He held back with firing his Slinger in order to avoid giving promotions to Llubljana's fleet here.

Please note that I took the liberty of naming the islands here, I am aware that not all of them are in the Irish Sea, but I tried to take a fitting GB theme with known islands in that area of the world. It should help us coordinating any attack, a first rough idea is sending the Japanese expedition force around the Isle of man to trap the 3 phoenician boats and try a break through to Akkad.



The Crusade situation is slowly progressing naturally, the first Missionary has been bought and will take the Northern Passage to Akkad with a Galley Escort already at Lakton.

Meanwhile Lakton should be proselytized in 11 turns which in turn should increase the pressure on TADs cities in this area.
His incoming new city will help as well as it is very close to our Holy Capital Angiers.



My finances are strapped and I optimized tiles in order to get to the next turn while TAD will give me 20 .



This will let me hold out until my +5 Harbour in Krasia finishes in 6 turns. However our my costs will also increase with 2 Quadrieremes finishing in the meantime, I am still wondering how to best utilize them with their Range of 1 but at least they can threaten Wodens Ocean loving Longboats.



In the West, it looks like there already is a Siege on Mohenjo Daro ongoing, but the barbs are getting nowhere. I hope they decide to fire on Woden's Longboat but they more likely will try to finish the HC on the island.

I moved my new Galley defensively as Woden's Longboat has the potential to screw our plans at Krasia heavily, there are in total only 6 pillageable tiles, 3 of which are at Krasia and it could also block the crucial harbour there.

Llubljana shuffled his Amani out of Mitla to fight for Mohenjo Daro, but it was too late as mine established and kicked his out. He also invested an Envoy into Nasca to take away my Suzerainship there, which is not crucial as long as it still provides its 4 per turn for the base and shrine bonus when at peace.
I have Theology nearly ready so we could finish it to kick his Amani out If he should try to turn Nasca against me, but I am not sure if it is a good play to do so.

I have two questions:
- : we can get a Builder in 4 turns or another Missionary in 7. What would be your recommendation?
Our current missionary is enough to prosetelyze Akkad and will have a charge left, which is probably not enough to go onto a direct offense, so a 2nd Missionary would be very valuable if this becomes an option.
A Builder could either:
- chop a forest and jungle into Quadriereme's @Lakton (and use his last charge for a fish harvest or horse improvement)
- improve Banana, Hill, Crab @ (TB long term good but meh)
- improve 3 luxuries @ Krasia (Gypsum, Cotton, Turtles => vulnerable and long term)

- : An aqueduct is worth 144 and I will only very unlikely be able to get the Eureka for Castles (6 slot government) as these are gatekept after naval tradition. The best place to build one is Miln (7 turns) which could be started after the next Quadriereme finishes. It basically is a trade off of 1.5 Quadrieremes vs 144 , what would you recommend?

International News:
- Llubljana/Phoenicia 2 empire
- Roland/China civic#13, tech#17
- MPTF/Australia 2 empire, 3 era (splendid district (Harbour/HS?)
- TAD -
- Kaiser civic#10, 1 empire, 2 era
- CMF/Russia civic#8, 2 era
- Suboptimal/Indonesia tech#15
- Woden/Vikings civic#11, tech#17, 2 era

[Kaiser]

Surprise, surprise healing in TADs territory is not possible as it does not count as friendly territory. I am sure I have played games were Allied territory counted as friendly territory, so I assume this is due to us lacking the technology for alliances.



TAD gave me the tech update, Cartography is the upper tree I am already working on, as well Apprenticeship which is on its way.that leaves two unknown techs until we see the other 3 possible Square Rigging techs in the upper branch.

TAD told me to go with the Aqueduct after the Quadriereme, as he feels confident that we can win the war in the east and we should try to get as quickly to Frigates as possible.



The war in the West saw the first major losses as TAD was able to sink 3 Biremes before they were able to upgrade.
The actual plan was different than the final result as the Galley on the W of Akkad Island sadly won its first fight and moved onto the tile blocking the reinforcing Galley to get to that tile. This is particularily bad as it opens an attack vector for Llubljana we only wanted to give to Woden forcing his Longboat onto coast and having a retribution strike in range. Due to the lucky damage roll, Llubljana can bring his bireme there instead and cut TADs two N boats off while attacking near Akkad.

Else TAD exposed two Galleys and left a heavily damaged one in range, we expect it to fall next turn as well as the Galley to its SE and the exposed Galley in the E.
This will require most of their fleet though, so TAD also attacked out in the S blockade to prepare a break through, maybe Llubljana will kill this boat instead of the exposed one in the middle.

Sadly the unassailable long boats were able to all upgrade this turn and are back to 2/3 health.

@thrawn
I see what you mean and you are right that it is too late now as the city will grow anyway in 9 turns. I can either put moksha in Angiers to increase the pressure or wait it out.

I meant that I moved the new Gallexy from Miln N instead of W so it can trap the longboat should it try to pillage the fish and horse up there. That is the 3rd ship you are talking about :D
Woden attacked out and I am moving now to support my Galley there, it has moved onto the reef to get a better defense. I might be able to surprise Woden with my Quadriereme here, but it will be tight.

TAD told me he thinks the going into a builder chopping military/harbor at Lakton is the right play.
What do you think?

International News:
- Llubljana/Phoenicia -
- Roland/China 1 empire
- MPTF/Australia civic#9, 4 empire (2 districts or combined growth?), 2 era
- TAD civic#11
- Kaiser 1 empire
- CMF/Russia civic#9, 1 empire
- Suboptimal/Indonesia 1 era
- Woden/Vikings 1 empire

[Kaiser]

We are not the only ones with lucky rolls



It looks like they were able to kill TADs Galley SW-SW of Akkad with only one Bireme and one Longship, which freed up the other longship to do heavy damage to TADs lucky Galley from last turn.

Else we received the expected losses, I now understand your point better by realizing that they were able to isolate Akkad with this maneuver. They actually even brought a Warrior and a Sword so they can stop the city from healing, good think TAD can upgrade his Warrior to a Sword next turn.

I decided to move up into counterstrike range and will switch to Oligarchy next turn to be even in combat strength to their unpromoted boats.
I think you were right that we should have healed the two boats in Akkad instead to let them wear themselves down over time.



Soon there will be the first GA joining this war, but TAD is close by to his GA as well.



CMF is leveraging his Navy into more cities, Nasca always was to far away and it might be that he will be heading to Mohenjo Daro next.

All in all TADs prognosis that this war ends the game for them and us is very likely right. They might take Akkad but lost a big part of their fleet in the process and most importantly, they lost time until Jongs come into play and their early advantage is gone.

@thrawn
Thanks for the hint with the missionary movement, I tested it and it can only move two while embarked so I will take you up on your suggestion and move to Lakton and then hop into the sea to get out at Open Government.
If we cannot hold Akkad, we can use the missionary to hold TADs Southern cities so he can focus on defending the N ones, especially BB.

You are right, I really need a builder in 3 cities each to get some important infrastructure down, just when to build ... too much districts early on I guess

CMF is sadly on the wrong side, we would have to slog through MPTF first or go around which takes too long considering that we need cartography to reliable take short routes.

International News:
- Llubljana/Phoenicia GA, tech#18, 1 era
- Roland/China 2 era
- MPTF/Australia civic#10
- TAD settler, 4 era
- Kaiser 3 era
- CMF/Russia tech#14
- Suboptimal/Indonesia 1 empire, GP, tech#16, 6 era
- Woden/Vikings

[Kaiser]

I was sadly not able to check shortly with TAD here to align our planning. I felt he is still trying to fight for Akkad and so I decided to move accordingly.



I switched to Oligarchy and moved my Galley up to threaten their Akkad attacking ships, this brings my ships in a vulnerable position, especially as I have no upgrade yet, but the front Galley will require 3 ships to concentrate on it which will not attack Akkad and be damaged as a result.



It also lets me move more freely here on this side with my damaged Galley, as it has a higher base strength than TADs Longship thanks to the reef, Oligarchy and 2nd Wind.
The Other Galley put some damage into the barb Quadriereme, Mohenjo Daro got walls up so we would not have been in time with our attack anyways.

International News:
I forgot  to take them tonight

[Kaiser]

Yes it was, they managed to take Akkad nevertheless (I think they have reduced production though as they did not liberate it before).



Their ships are heavily damaged, they killed one of my Galleys but the other one lived, for the moment, they might be willing to trade one ship for my Galley though.



And we also have bad luck with the GS, Euclid is so incredibly bad as I often have the Mathematics Eureka already when he gets around. This is the case again, I will actually finish my 4th different district before I can pick him.

My gut tells me to skip this one, but I need to look up the Medieval GS before I take that decision.

[williams482]

From the Medieval scientists it's worth testing if Abu Al-Quasim can heal ships in neutral water and also if he works even with twilight valour. If yes, he'd be an amazing one to have. Hildegard is no good to you but CMF will love him with the super-lavras. Omar is a standard inspirator, which is pretty nice for this game. But either way the choice is whether 12 extra points is worth spending on Hypathia instead of Euclid, which I see as an obvious yes. Unless you are considering also passing on her to aim for a medieval one but I don't think that's worth it, just get Hyp.

Abu Al-Quasim was patched a while back to not heal ships at all, only land units.

[TheArchduke]

Kaiser, we need a bit of a talk on how we wanna do this this evening.

@lurkers, I promise to put up a bit of an overview, but still really pressed for time atm.

[Kaiser]

I can manage tonight around 21:00 UTC