It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Old Harry]

I dunno, "you propose the deal, you're signing up to eat the first strike" sounds pretty fair to me

Oh, I thought the problem was that whoever is first in turn order gets first strike no matter who proposed the deal. Is that wrong?

(Also nice move and thanks for the detailed report!)

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I dunno, "you propose the deal, you're signing up to eat the first strike" sounds pretty fair to me

Oh, I thought the problem was that whoever is first in turn order gets first strike no matter who proposed the deal. Is that wrong?

(Also nice move and thanks for the detailed report!)

The deal expires on the turn of whoever accepted it. So, I accepted Archduke's deal - and timer started ticking down from 30 turns. It hit 0 at the start of my turn and so I was the first one able to act without an alliance. Had Archduke accepted my original offer, instead of counteroffering, it would have ended on HIS turn and he'd have crushed my fleet last turn. On such small things are the fate of civilizations decided...

[Old Harry]

Oh, in that case I don't know what folks are complaining about.

[Banzailizard]

Congrats on the win. I went from dedlurking to skim reading over time. You played well though and it was great to see a full fledged Arabian machine running.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'm surprised and thrilled that Archduke and Japper were willing to concede! I thought I'd have to slug my way through most of Archduke's fleet for another two weeks, and if Japper was willing to play on it could have been another 30 turns (or two months...) before I was able to subdue him. 

I'll do one more comprehensive report, and maybe a retrospective later. 

Thanks to everyone who followed along with me the last - god - 9 months! 

[suboptimal]

Congrats on your win!

[williams482]

Congrats Chevalier! Thanks for keeping us all entertained!

In retrospect, you picked the perfect game to bust out the Baseball stuff.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 161 - Final

Well, so we come to the end of our long journey. This game started on June 2nd. I was rapidly finishin PBEM8 after a quick 4 months, PBEM7 had lasted 5, and so with the summer break I figured I was in for a rapid PBEM resolved by October or November (PBEM4 started in July and resolved by the end of November). Instead, with numerous delays, foot-draggings on all parts, and long hiatuses, it has straggled to an end 8 months and 21 days after it began. It is with mixed joy and relief that I watch it go.

I played out the last turn, and then I’ll do a grand overview and wrapup, maybe a retrospective. Let’s dive in - one last time.




At Tyrion Strait, the Dutch hit harder than I expected, sinking 4 Frigates instead of 3. This heavy blow shows that Archduke may have been premature. As I said, I was not expecting a concession this soon. In fact, in my estimation the Archduke still held the long-term advantages - my attack was a final effort to seize the initiative and win while I had a temporary margin of superiority. But we were very closely balanced. I’ve got 2 more Caravels and 1 Frigate making all sail to join the fight next turn, but for now I have 8 Frigates and 2 Caravels against 9 Dutch Sevens and 2 Caravels. I have the advantage, though, of a Great Admiral, while Archduke’s is badly out of position trying to rejoin the fleet from the southeast (he’s getting teleported to Catcher Island). So, I go to work:




First, I apologize for no detailed tactical diagrams. It’s really not necessary to understand the flow of the battle: My own ships stayed tightly grouped up for support bonuses, and we blasted anything in range. I’m not a sophisticated tactician - I just follow Nelson’s maxim: no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.

Our own counterattack is just as powerful as Archduke’s, and the second day of the Battle of Tyrion Strait sends 4 more Sevens to the bottom. Archduke can still muster 5 & 2, against 9 & 4 on my end - my advantage is near 2:1 now, and he has a dilemma. If he continues to sink Frigates, he hurts my immediate striking power, and indeed he can maul my northern fleet badly enough that I’ll have very few reinforcements to send south or towards his core. But, if he ignores the Caravels, in a few turns (once I liberate Perez for friendly territory) they’ll be Ironclads, and Archduke has no answer to that.

Why not? Couple of reasons:

1)The biggest issue is that I will have caught and sunk a majority of his Caravels right as I’m ready to make the upgrade. This means he can do one of two things for his own part. First, he could pop his Great Scientist - if he hasn’t already - and grab Steam Power at the same time as me. But then he has nothing to upgrade, and he’s got to build from scratch. That will take ages, and in the meantime my own ironclads will run rampant. Second - this would be faster - he could rebuild his caravel fleet and THEN upgrade. But while he’s rebuilding those, I’ll already have my ironclads in place, and I’ll be pumping out more Frigates in the meantime.

So, Tyrion Strait is going to be a bloodbath, but a firm strategic victory for Arabia.

Further south, it’s more one-sided in our favor:




At Tortuga, Archduke swapped his Seven and his Caravel, which makes sense, but was only able to damage a single Frigate. One round of shelling and then my own Caravel storms and razes Tortuga. The Dutch ship is destroyed and another Seven is trapped in the lake behind. Two more ships neatly removed from the board.

Personally, I think Archduke’s strongest reply would be to slip around the southern cape and go for Moustakas. With my perfect knowledge of my own dispositions, I’ve got basically nothing other than light anti-American patrols in the eastern ocean. He could hit Moose, Hosmer, and further up the coast, Colon and my prime shipyard of Gordon. I’d face the difficult choice of either pursuing him with my own fleet or going for hsi core. The first choice means I’ll still lose at least Moose and possibly Hoz, while his core rapidly rebuilds the navy I just sunk, while the second means mutual annihilation for both of us, most likely.

But he doesn’t know that, and instead his thrust is more to the north, towards Cain:




If I was playing this turn for serious, I’d continue to withdraw my picket and join with my southern force just north of Bataria Bay. I’d number 14 Frigates (this fleet has been augmented steadily by builds out of Escobar, Cain, and Moustakas) and 2 Caravels against what I believe to be 2 Caravels, 1 galley, and 9 Sevens. We’d then sail to engage next turn if he continues to come north.

Instead, though, let’s see what damage we can do. I push up any ship that can reach and account for two more Sevens and 99 hp of damage on the Caravel. Bah. The 7 Sevens remaining would wipe out most of my engaged squadron next turn, but there won’t BE a next turn.

So, on this turn, I’ve destroyed or otherwise rendered combat ineffective 9 Dutch ships accounting for 520 points of Archduke’s 1860 total power at the start of the turn. Allowing for his army, fully ⅓ of the Royal Netherlands Navy was neutralized on this turn. Perhaps Archduke WAS right to concede.

I send the remaining ships - that can’t get at a Dutch target this turn - north towards Perez in a moral gesture towards liberating the city. A fresh-built Dutch caravel sits inside, which accounts for most of the 60 point gain in Dutch power over the interturn.

And...that’s basically it. The patrol units prowl back and forth over the American coast, but Rowain has clearly no thoughts of offensive action towards me. All he does is threaten La Venta with his two knights:




Even this is a poor way of striking back at Arabia, if such is his intention. If he razes the city, no harm done - I lose about 10 faith per turn, which I no longer need, and he is even more trapped on his island than ever. If he keeps it, then any small Arabian squadron of 3 frigates and an ironclad can retake it before he is able to do more than build a single ship.

Abroad, Japper declared war on Emperor - again - and flung his 3 jongs, 1 ironclad,* and 1 caravel at...well, I’m not sure what, since the English have no more coastal cities, either. I wasn’t sure Japper would accept a concession, since his empire score is as high as mine and his research rates are rapidly catching up, but realistically he’s badly behind in military (less than ¼ the total power of the Dutch or Arabians at this point), he’s 20 points behind in science per turn, to say nothing of total science gathered thus far, and has no time or prospects to fix any of that.

And so it comes to an end. A few of my builders shuffle towards my final copper mines in northern Arabia, ready to synthesize upgrade gold for ironclads. My trade routes, all neatly rerouted from Dutch cities, now all head to La Venta for faith, science, and gold, and my economy is roaring. Every harbor city in the empire continues to pump out ships, and my 3 inland cities work on a few supporting builds - an entertainment district (for war weariness), a workshop (and eventually a factory hitting damn near every city in the empire), and the Grand Master’s Chapel (to eventually faith buy an army and finish off America, the Netherlands, etc).

Final score photo:





Overview and final retrospective tomorrow.

*Japper burned a GA to give him ironclads early.

[Grotsnot]

Congrats!!

[shallow_thought]

Congratulations! It's been great reading along.