[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

I will take a good look when the save comes to me and let you know what I think.

[ljubljana]

Thank you for that . Well, hopefully he will not have gone with the nightmare move and it won't be necessary. At least we are giving TAD opportunities to make mistakes - I can at least imagine him going for WotW next, which would be one, or taking his sweet time with the advance to avoid giving my hypothetical northern navy a first strike, which would be one as well since every turn that goes by helps us equalize our numerical disadvantage. If he does go for a northern dagger strike, it will be without the southern ships - I don't really think there are all that many of those at this point, but maybe I'm wrong about that and that will stay his hand.

By the way, I didn't comment too much on this, but I think the pillaging campaign with your longboats in Raid is a really great idea. There is no way TAD has any ships back home to deal with them, and while Kaiser does, they are all galleys and quads since he has been funneling his whole income to TAD for upgrades. I would not be surprised if your ships manage to be a nuisance for a fair amount of time over there, and it might be worth sending some more to places like the southern Kaiser island that should be lightly defended to look for even more opportunities.

What promotions do those boats by Doing the Honors have? The city is probably just firing with the 55 CS of a frigate - if you are defending at 42 or, better yet, 45 strength depending on the promotion, your boats might live. I also don't know how many of our bonuses will apply on the defense vs. a city strike - you might get 5 more CS from the alliance too that TAD can't easily compensate for. I highly doubt he will slot in Bastions just to stop pillagers, but if we can make him do that, so much the better.

[Woden]

By the way, I didn't comment too much on this, but I think the pillaging campaign with your longboats in Raid is a really great idea. There is no way TAD has any ships back home to deal with them, and while Kaiser does, they are all galleys and quads since he has been funneling his whole income to TAD for upgrades. I would not be surprised if your ships manage to be a nuisance for a fair amount of time over there, and it might be worth sending some more to places like the southern Kaiser island that should be lightly defended to look for even more opportunities.

I think I have 4 longboats sailing south, towards Kaiser's south island. They will cut north and pillage TAD's southern city if he doesn't have any ships around there. Kaiser only has 1 plantation tile I can hit on his southern island but if lucky, I can sail passed and hit some stuff on their southern shore of their main island.  If each of those ships are able to hit 2 targets, we should be doing good for upgrade gold and speeding to my next civic/science targets.

[Woden]

Please don't play your turn until I post here again. I have a plan but need to get my kids to bed before I can type it up.

[Woden]

The Plan
I though about what we could do all day today to try and make some gains against TAD. This is what I saw when I opened the save...
   

He killed your northern Briemes and are heading towards Linear B. I want you to sail your ENTIRE navy north and engage TAD. Keep your ships in a group and I want you to position them between Linear B, the small island, and Linear B. TAD has a split navy, one in the south and one in the north. Right now, he out numbers you in total ships, so we can't let him combine his forces. You should be able to do some damage if you attack one of his fleets. I think the northern fleet is a better option, since it threatens your core, it is closer, and once it is taken care of you have less distance to go to engage the southern fleet. I think TAD splitting his fleet and not massing them in one area or at least close to each other is the mistake we need to win this thing. In naval warfare, and warfare in general, you want massive groups of ships. You will die if you have lone ships or small groups of ships where a large fleet can take them out before you have a chance to react. 

I also think TAD is holding off a bit because they may be close to military alliance, so the time to attack is now, while you still have the +8 advantage. If you press him, I am hoping that advantage limits the strike he do against you and then you can do more damage in return. You want to hit his galleys and caravels with your frigates and hit his frigates with your caravels. Also use your Briemes as meat shields. I know he has a super ship but as I stated earlier, it is only 1 ship. You need to get rid of his other ships before you can deal with that ship. 

You are leaving WotW open to attack but who cares. If you can't destroy his ships, you won't be able to hold it anyways and it will keep his southern fleet occupied while you take care of his northern fleet and then I should be close to Caravels myself and we can pinch his southern fleet. 

As a side note, I was able to get 87 and 145 from a quarry, meaning I greatly under estimated the gold I will get from a mine, it will be 290 not 200. I will have 2 mines to pillage next turn and hopefully more on the way over the next few turns. 

I think if we try and wait him out and play too defensively, his fleets will join and trap you and wipe you out. We need to act now. Be careful but act now. And if you think he already beat you, no reason not to try this anyways.

[ljubljana]

I think I'm not going to play the turn for a little bit - I accidentally fell asleep very early and just woke up, and there's no reason to rush into it while I'm tired or not fully on top of things cognitively and lose everything. I will open the save up and sail up a sacrificial bireme though to get a better idea of TAD's positioning.

I am a little concerned that there may not actually be a southern fleet - I only ever visually confirmed two frigates and a bunch of galleys down there, and he could have just upgraded those two frigates for defense or to throw us off and is focusing everything else on the northern fleet. That would probably be the smarter play, anyways - I don't really think I could burn down any TAD cities anyways given the walls and Yi-buffed defensive strength. I guess TAD might not know that I only have 6 frigates though, so maybe this move makes more sense from their perspective than I'm giving it credit for.

[Woden]

There is a southern fleet. I saw a bunch of galleys hanging out by his southern city when I had a longboat scope him out 4 or 5 turns before the war. Its not like they sailed around his empire and we didn't see them sail north. I figure he probably has equal numbers in the north and in the south. From what I can tell by his movements and what we have seen, I think his plan is ultimately to hold your fleet near WotW with his southern fleet while he moves to take out your core in the north. I think he is hoping the super boat scares you into inaction, especially against his northern fleet. I think we need to upset that plan and move in ways that is unexpected and disrupt his plan.

[ljubljana]

TAD's fleet is very far north:



The fast ships moved their full 7 movement NE this turn, in contrast to the caution of previous turns. It looks like they might be headed for Runic? Seems like a weird decision, but maybe it makes sense if their thinking is that Runic and WotW will provide enough of a loyalty cushion that they could actually hold Linear B if they do those first. This is a very weird way to position if they're headed for Linear B next, since they need to get protected frigates south of the city to fire on it if they're going to do that, but they certainly could also turn and head that way if they feel like it.

As you can see, though, TAD is playing it safe and is still too far to hit this turn. The caravel in the west looks like a straggler or a scout, with 0 support bonuses and no GA, but every fogged tile next to the ironclad or frigate contains another ship, of course. I agree with trying to find some way to attack the northern fleet, especially now that TAD did not cut me off at the strait, but if I move to the pinned position I will get hit with a devastating first strike. Actually, if I move my ships even one more tile toward TAD's, I will be in range of a first strike if TAD scouts it out. Maybe the plan should be to move NW, but just a few tiles to reduce the odds of TAD scouting it and to set up a first strike if TAD goes for Linear B. Or maybe I should just hang back another turn and advance if he knocks down the walls at either Linear B or Runic? Well, if he knocks down the walls at Linear B, anyways...he can probably get in enough attacks at Runic to kill it in one turn if he wants to .

Oh, the deal you can see is China offering a DoF, by the way. I will take it unless you object.

[Woden]

Move everything up as far as you can. You have a +5 CS bonus against him, right? You need to start thinking about your advantages, not what TAD can do to you. Fight the man, not the myth! Move to the the area between the small island and Linear B. Don't have you armada on the front lines but maybe try to get caravels in the front with Frigates behind them. Each ship will have at least +4 for a support bonus (also remember that reefs provide a +3 defensive bonus for ideal terrain) with higher in the middle. It is okay to let him hit you, if it is limited. I don't think we can wait and have to move soon. I would also plug the area between the small island and WotW. Then you might be able to swing around a few ships if he hits your line of ships.

I would also keep your older ships back so you can upgrade more next turn. How much niter do you need for your next upgrade? I might actually get 3 mine pillages next turn, from 870 gold! I can upgrade a few units but can send you enough for some upgrades. Alternatively, if I do get 3 mine pillages, that might be enough to finish Cartography but I am not sure if I want to finish it next turn as I have a few longboats in production that I would like to finish.

Edit: Maybe it would be better to finish Cartography and upgrade 5 longboats but I am not sure I have that many in port to upgrade. I can move some closer to home and pillage a 4th mine on the next turn. I will have to see on my turn, maybe my boats will all be dead.

[ljubljana]

I would need 8 more niter next turn for a frigate upgrade. I will try to keep the most of the rest of my older ships alive but I think I did need to move the ones I did up to get visual confirmation of TAD's fleet, and I will still need one or two in the south in case the southern fleet moves up.

If I move the navy as far as I can NW, to the pinned tile, the leading ships will take hits from up to 8 frigates, 4 caravels, and the ironclad. The ironclad kills a ship by itself, and the other 12 attacks will kill maybe 3 or 4 other ships, assuming no flanking moves from the west. That is close to a third of my (15-ship) navy, which is already significantly smaller than TAD's...I don't think we can risk losing that many ships. There is also no chance that I will evade being scouted out if I do that, while there could be a chance with a more conservative deploy. I think if I'm going to move up into the Alboran Sea, I should stop at the tile 1E of the bireme. That spot is much more defensible and could only be hit by 3 frigates, 2 caravels, and the ironclad.

I am still not sure this is a good idea, though. If TAD is smart, he will attack from the front with whatever ships can reach, killing 3-4 of my ships, and send the ships that can't reach down to the two-tile gap between the island and WotW to get a partial envelopment and prevent me both from breaking out through that gap and from surrounding any part of his line. I am not sure how many ships I could kill on the following turn, but it's not many - the ironclad will be on the front line and can't be killed in one turn, and it also protects its neighbors with ZoC and by limiting the number of attacks I can do. I could probably kill like 2-3 ships on the following turn, but I'd be surprised if I could get more than that. Then what will TAD do on the turn after that? He will have me partially surrounded in the bay and can get in even more attacks, and will kill maybe 4-5 ships. At that point I will be essentially out of ships, and may not be able to kill more than 3ish of TAD's in return.

edit: I'm not arguing for waiting forever here, I just think I will lose for sure if we let TAD get in a big first strike on my already smaller navy. I think maybe we should wait one more turn and see what he does. His positioning is a little strange for a Linear B attack, since you would think he would have plugged up the strait with his ironclad and started working on the city this turn if that was his plan. I don't see why he would waste a turn moving NE like this if he's just going to spend next turn moving to a position he could have taken this turn anyways to then hit Linear B. I think he's probably going for Runic. If he hits me there, that's perfect, the city is very weak and won't hurt me at all to lose. It will also buy me time to do more upgrades with whatever old ships I have left, and I am also only 3 turns out from the first new ship builds completing in my core. I think we have a much better chance of taking TAD by surprise if we move up while he is attacking a city and force him to choose between taking the city and doing a big first strike, and that could also let us trap TAD between our ships and the city rather than being partially enveloped ourselves.

I don't really think we need to rush to engage TAD's ships while we still have the MA either. He will get the MA soon, but we will get Printing soon to alleviate that, and are equalizing the numbers disparity with large-scale ship production and upgrades in the meantime. By the time TAD gets Printing himself (and we know he is a few turns behind because he had to do Cartography first), we will be getting close to Twilight Valor for another +5. I think as long as TAD goes after low-value targets like Runic, waiting still favors us as the side with the production advantage but the numerical disadvantage. IMO, TAD is the one who should be feeling pressure to make gains or see his advantages slowly slip away, not us. If I make a big, inefficient trade of ships with TAD's navy now, though, no amount of production in the world will equalize the numbers.