Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[oledavy]

For the record to anyone reading along in the diplo thread, I'm very intentionally needling Archduke with my last post. 

Subs are a MODERN unit, not an industrial one, which means Press Gangs doesn't effect them. It is just a much better idea to produce lots of privateers and upgrade. I produced 8 privateers and upgraded them, but had I known the cost of subs was so prohibitive, I would have built more. Archduke is undoubtedly gunning for electrity, and building Sea Dogs. I need him to finish the tech sooner rather than later and lose access to Sea Dogs and the cheap upgrade ability (which dovetails well with his economy) before he can produce too many of them. This will effectively leave him at 3-4 subs to my 8, with no way to efficiently produce a ton more. At least I can pay 480 hammers for two subs, he has to pay one. 

I think I will be using ironclads as the mainstay of my fleet for now though, and using my subs as a crucial auxillary. 

No though, nothing will get Archduke to finish electricity faster than the paranoid fear that 8 subs are about to hit his coasts, a fear I'm happy to cultivate. 

This does make surviving a Minas Geraes swarm harder though....

A decapitation strike now seems increasingly like my best way to stay in the game. I will be putting more thought into this on my next turn. I'm still going to commit at least a couple subs to keep Singaboy in this thing, but I may be by and large leaving him to his own devices to ensure Woden doesn't just back door me with tons of battleships in 15 turns. 

If I can largely remove Woden from contention, the end game will likely be Archduke and me. Should be interesting. My tech target now is battleships, with the aim of producing a bunch more frigates before getting there and having them set to upgrade.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Battleships make sense, but hopefully the game is decided before that point.

I didn't realize subs were so danged expensive, but hopefully your core will be hard to counter - obviously you'll wanna protect those as long as you can. Still, their stealth capabilities will hopefully make them similar to Alhambram's "boogiemen" Cossacks, with your enemies' units simply vanishing and they never knowing how many subs they're facing.

Of course, you'll also never really know how many subs YOU face. Is it possible that Archduke has Sea Dogs in the North Sea, helping out? That thought never occurred to me. It might explain why he's done so well, and why he seemed to build so few ships. ...but I guess you would have blundered into at least one by now. Huh.

[oledavy]

Of course, you'll also never really know how many subs YOU face. Is it possible that Archduke has Sea Dogs in the North Sea, helping out? That thought never occurred to me. It might explain why he's done so well, and why he seemed to build so few ships. ...but I guess you would have blundered into at least one by now. Huh.

Nah, pretty sure that's not it. 

I have to say, I'm really bummed about this game at present. Winning a huge victory over Archduke was probably my best chance to win, and now we're back at square one. The fact that I can't mass produce subs and that Archduke is about to get a 5th GA (There is just no way I can beat him to it, especially since there is a good chance he's going to run a project or two, I would have to go all out to even have a coinflip chance), means my long-term position is quite perilous. 

The character of the naval war is about to change again. Modern units are about to rule the seas, and International Waters (the +100% production boost civic) is on Cold War. That might as well be a lightyear away.  

Archduke can produce triple GA buffed Ironclads that fight at a base 75 strength forever using Press Gangs. Woden? He's about to get MG's, which are 80 ranged strength. I just have the Venetian Arsenal, I can only Zerg. But, Zerging ends in you having 30 War Weariness. I just can't raise my production values in my cities much higher, I have mined basically everything, and my best cities only make 20-30 hammers. How am I supposed to build 480 hammer subs? Except very slowly....

I can't fight both of them, even in Woden's weaker economic position, 8-10 MG's could be a huge issue. 

I just don't see a way out at this point. 

For the record, even had we won and burned a couple of Archduke's western holdings, he would still be a huge (if greatly reduced) threat. The GA's are just a major recurring source of strength for him. 

Anyway, it's not that I haven't been able to score some wins elsewhere. I have Spain on the ropes, and will be liberating Toronto next turn. I lost 15 ships, but that wasn't even fully half of my navy. It's just looking like there's going to be a lot of time left in this game, and I don't see a clear path to victory anymore.

[oledavy]

I'm unfortunately not going to get around to reporting either t148 or t149 before I go to bed, but I had to share this image, since CFCJesterfool is not reporting. 



He has rebels!!!!

How the hell did that even happen? He still has at least two luxuries that I see. How high is his War Weariness?

Anyway, they're actually going to probably end up helping me speed up my conquest of Cortes quite a bit. 

What a wacky game...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hm, is the new wrinkle the unexpectedly high cost of subs, coupled with war weariness? So you can't crank out as many units as you were counting on.

Well, let me noodle on this.

Increasing production is tough to do. Everything's mined, the urban core is built up. How prohibitive would introducing shipyards and seaports be? Obviously a long-term interruption in shipbuilding would be bad, so I don't know if a program of gradual introduction would work - taking one city at a time out of the line in order to upgrade its naval war capabilities.

Decreasing war weariness. Well, only way two things I can think of: Increased amenities, or peace. Amenities can only come from conquest, or (again) if you cease war production for entertainment districts. Maybe some of your inland cities can work on that? Except you really only have the one...Another possible source is Alhambra, for +2. Dunno if you have a spot for it, though.

Making peace seems like a poor idea to me, UNLESS it's a sort of global peace. Let us assume, for sake of argument, that Archduke would be open to it (if Archduke makes peace and Woden doesn't, well, that'd be awesome, but Archduke won't leave his ally high and dry). The advantage is that it would wipe away much of your weariness immediately. It'd let you pause shipbuilding relatively safely to upgrade amenities and naval production, consolidate the new imperial holdings, and regroup. It also lets your enemies do those same things, of course, but if you hurt Archduke sufficiently that might be acceptable. If you hold the highest science rate and a roughly equal empire to him, I think it might be a potential avenue to explore.

The disadvantages are diplomatic. Woden and Archduke are both full-on "Dave is the biggest threat to win," which, to be fair, is not entirely untrue. Abandoning Singaboy is obviously unacceptable, but even if his independence were guaranteed I worry that a period of peace would let him re-evaluate and switch sides. Peace is good if it lets you strengthen yourself enough to win a new round of fighting with modern units. It's not so good if it allows a 2 v 2 to become 3 v 1. I see no way to guarantee this does not happen, so for now I vote against any sort of truce.

I dunno. I see no better course than to press forward. Archduke's navy has had its teeth pulled and he'll have to rebuild from scratch, apart from the small upgraded squadron. A swarm of ironclads will be annoying, but you'll have 82 strength subs against his strength 75 ironclads (really, he can have 3 GAs boosting them at once? That's absurd! How can he have landed all three!?). If you catch any away from the GAs, well, then they're just strength 60 against 82 and that's a one shot (would it be possible to blockade him with invisible subs? Ambush the new builds as they sail to the battle area? You could do this with a handful of submarines, it'd cut into his navy, and the subs SHOULD be relatively safe from retaliation if you can pick off isolated units).

Keep up the faith. Things look tougher htan they did 5 turns ago, but the situation is still MUCH better than it was 15 turns ago.

[oledavy]

@Chevalier

Thank you for your continued luring and excellent thoughts! 

I'm going to respond to your posts in a bit, for now, I'm going to try and write three turn reports. Additionally, I'm going to do what I always do when I suffer a stinging defeat - offer some analysis so that I might avoid the same mistakes in the future (like the analysis I did for Pelepponesian War II in PBEM2). This is made more relevant now, because I already see Archduke positing I think a pretty simplistic narrative (hur dur bring more boats scrub) in the diplo thread. He's at least partially correct, but there's a lot more to this loss than that. 

So, without further ado. 

The Battle of the North Sea

German Forces: 
4 Frigates
2 Caravels

Japanese Forces: 
12 Frigates
4 Ironclads

Total Forces: 
16 Frigates
4 Ironclads
2 Caravels

22 Ships Total

Total Losses: 20-22 (estimate, still to be confirmed in game)

British Forces
4 Ironclads
1 Frigate Fleet
7 Frigates
3 Great Admirals

12 Ships Total 

Total Losses: 8-9 (estimate, still to be confirmed in game).

So, tactically, despite my ability to double produce ships, I think this is a pretty clear win for Archduke. He killed more than he lost, even factoring in my hammer discounts. I'm going to estimate that of the hammers and gold in units lost in this battle, about 60% of it belonged to me and Singaboy. While Singaboy and I were successful in protecting West Germany, we utterly failed to annihilate his fleet and begin attacking England's west coast. Strategically, this battle is a draw. I was able to capitalize on Archduke's engagement to continue acquiring territory elsewhere, and my intervention guarantees Germany's survival for now. Regardless of whether going through the strait into the North Sea was the right move, I think acting to defend Germany absolutely was. The immediate threat to Germany is gone, and while Singaboy may still fall, it now will be a longer, more drawn out land war rather than a swift naval campaign. However, the war weariness from losing all my ships complicates things somewhat, as losing the battle is having a negative effect on my ability to produce a replacement fleet, making my losses slightly more meaningful than they would have been otherwise. 

However, more than anything else, and regardless of the above, this was a huge missed opportunity for me. Had Singaboy and I prevailed, this game would probably be in the bag for me. Archduke would hardly been eliminated or removed as a threat, but taking out his fleet and burning a couple coastal cities before he could cram out subs would have put him on the backfoot, and made it that much more likely for me to win. This battle kills me inside because of the missed opportunity it represents moreso than the outcome. I still have good odds to win, perhaps the best odds of anyone at the table, but it's going to be a long road to hoe from here.

But despite everything, the numbers on the field indicated we should prevail. Here was some of the math I did when running battle scenarios: 

Due to first strike, we need 1.5 times Archduke's fleet size. 
It will on average take Archduke 2 attacks to kill a given ship. 
It will take us on average, 3 attacks to kill a given ship. 

So, if we had run in with 18 ships against his 12, we should have gone about even according to my math. 22 ships should have translated into a modest victory. An ideal 22 vs. 12 ship engagement should have produced a win with ~10 ships. What went wrong?  

Well, let's get into each individual mistake, in chronological order. 

Not Sending More Ships

Let's address this one right out the gate. 5 ships in Task Forces 1 and 2 could have been with Task Force 3 for the Battle of the North Sea. Their presence would have almost certainly guaranteed a win. However, when I made the decision to split up, it was looking like Archduke was going to mass around the channel, prevent me from slipping more than 2-3 ships through each turn - making moving north of the channel ill-advised. With this in mind, the task force was created when it looked like I was just going to have to defend the channel with Singaboy. A task for which the 15 ships I originally assigned to Task Force #3 were more than sufficient to do, combined with Singaboy. 

When Archduke withdrew from the channel and opened up the option, all but one ironclad was too far away to turn around and rejoin the fight, and this was when I believed I would be going to war on t147. In reality, the ironclad would have been late.  The decision to split was a strictly better decision in the event that Archduke defended the strait. The decision to go in anyway despite having allocated in this manner was made because Archduke still had only 10 ships. He hadn't upgraded, he hadn't added any ships, and I had Singaboy's fleet to help me in what looked like it would be a 22v10, a battle we had strong odds to win. However, this mistake largely stems from....

Believing War Would Begin on t147

Not much to say, I made a simple slip up here with the math and confusion about which turn the DoF lasted until/if we had an alliance, and thought it more likely t147 would be the first turn of the war. This meant I was deploying on t146 with an eye towards being able to resist and attack, but not believing I would have to. Critically, the ironclads were two turns away at the rear of the formation, meaning they could not absorb the initial hits. Singaboy also deployed on the expectation of t147. If I had known t146 was going to be the first turn of the battle, I would have deployed closer to the channel to try and bait him into a position where my ironclads could hit him sooner. This had an enormous effect on t2 of the battle. Where he was able to bring his full might to bear on me, and I was only able to bring half of my fleet to counter. The battle was basically lost on this turn. However, it was not helped by....

Singaboy's Late Arrival

My battle sims were predicated on basically every ship fighting each turn. Singaboy's fleet got to the battle two turns later than it should have. One of these was my fault, telling him the t147 number. The other was Singaboy deciding killing Woden's caravel was more important than getting to the battle ASAP. This meant during the first two turns, there were a lot less allied guns firing than there were British guns. Moreover, had we been able to take some losses on Germany's shittier unpromoted and not benefiting from Divine Wind ships, firepower for subsequent rounds of the battle would have been maintained. Archduke was able to further capitalize on our missteps with....

Archduke's Mass Ironclad Upgrade/Arrival of Reinforcements

Archduke's ironclads were the determining factor in the tactical battle. At 77 strength each, they were near impossible to kill and could basically one shot frigates. They screwed up all my pre-battle math. He was able to get them upgraded in the nick of time by using Darwin. Combined with the arrival of two additional ships towards the middle of the battle, it was overwhelming. I had trouble dealing with Ironclads, and Singaboy's strength difference without Divine Wind meant he was basically hitting them with pea shooters. Finally, there's the matter of....

Archduke's Luck

I'm not going to be that guy who attributes his opponent's win entirely to luck, but it did play a small role. Notably, if you go back through my thread, you'll notice I gave Archduke an estimated range of kills he was likely to make on the next turn. He scored the top of that range 3 turns in a row. Having one less shot each turn for three turns in a row makes a huge difference. Moreover, the only turn he lowballed (t149), was the turn he withdrew. 



In sum, I don't regret the allocation of my forces, or the decision to go through the strait, I think they were both the absolutely right decision at the time based on the information we had. The battle hinged largely on me recording the wrong turn for the end of the NAP, and a maelstrom of bad results stemming from that. Archduke having a first strike with Great Admirals was the biggest single disadvantage to overcome to fighting him. The fact that he got it and got to effectively defeat me and Singaboy's fleet and mine in detail over a number of turns is what allowed him to prevail against numbers that should have been sufficient to overcome his advantages. What's worse, you can go back in my thread and see the post where I realized I counted the DoF wrong - where I had turned it into an alliance right afterwards when any look at Archduke's icon in the game would have indicated otherwise. More than any other factor, the mistaken belief that battle would be joined on t147 snowballed a winnable position into a depressing defeat that has once again thrown the game into doubt.

[oledavy]

Turn 148

This was the most second most brutal turn of the North Sea Battle for me, With Archduke destroying all four of my ironclads just before Singaboy finally entered the battlefield. 



There wasn't much to do here but try to support him in finishing off England's ironclads. Unfortunately, there was just no way to kill them both with 3 attacks. I settled for sinking an ironclad and nailing a promoted frigate in a flanking assault. 



148 was notable for one big reason elsewhere. 



The beeline complete, it was time to get subs upgraded. 



I also swapped governments. Getting professional Army in for the upgrading. 



Even at this point, Retainers couldn't come soon enough, and things are about to get worse.

[oledavy]

Turn 149



This was a pretty bad move from Singaboy. Archduke actually withdrew, only killing my two frigates this turn. We had an avenue to retreat with the German fleet intact. 

Moreover, he double promoted that Ironclad, giving the one that gives it +10 strength against ranged attacks. That thing is now basically unkillable by anything we had on the field Even subs will have problems with it. I don't think Singaboy grasped the significance of that second promotion. At any rate, he went all in and sank another frigate, so I had no choice but to join. 

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD. 



Eeesh, war weariness is getting bad. It's costing me at least a couple hammers and science in most cities. Count up how much I've incurred, from capturing cities and losing units. I'm not done with the former though, meaning its going to get worse (plus the steady accumulation of it).

I really need the formula for WW. 

I can only hope Archduke is suffering a lot too, but I doubt he's suffering anywhere close to this much. Spain cannot die soon enough. 

This turn was also notable because a Mohenjo Daro caravel slipped the sentry net and killed my only remaining westward tracking trade route. 



They will pay...



Really annoying to lose a valuable trader and all the resultant missed productivity due to a city-state 

In the north, I started sieging Toronto, and Archduke moved to make my life harder by pillaging the tea. 



God, is there a way we can broker a grand peace at this point just to get rid of war weariness?

Things at least look more promising in Spain, where the campaign is grinding towards a conclusion. 



Going overhead, you can see me building 12 scouts to mitigate my WW, and beginning my second round of ironclads. I have a lot of partially completed subs (due to carryover from pre-building privateers), but the soonest ones complete in about 20 turns. I need more navy now. 

Yeah, my other dumb misconception: thinking subs are an industrial unit, this changes a lot of my calculus, which I will get into in my strategy post. On the plus side, this means both battleships and subs will benefit from the modern/atomic admiral (the 6th one), who I am set to get. If I can hold things together long enough, my navy will be very strong, triple GA'd ironclads be damned. 

[Bacchus]

War weariness is incurred per combat:

(base 16 + era points(8-16-24-32)) * (1 for combat in allied lands OR 2 for combat in foreign lands) * 3 for lost unit​

You lose an amenity every 400 points. Both attacker and defender get the penalty. WW decays at 50 points a turn during war.

Every attack of yours or his gave 96 WW, every time you lost a unit, another 192 on top of that. It's pretty brutal.

[oledavy]

Turn 150

Singaboy threw in the towel, and withdrew his fleet. 




This really should have happened last turn. Running at this juncture is basically pointless. But sometimes you just have to suck it up and go along with something. In this case, the alliance is more important than the frigate. 

On the plus side, this last turn, some really good stuff finally starting happening abroad. 



POnce De Leon cracked, and I got its encampment. 

This is actually a really good city. 



3 districts, all those mines. This is a haul to say the least. Once I get it out of occupation its as good as any my core cities and can immediately start producing navy. 

In the north, my forces liberated Toronto. 







I'm a little irritated he didn't change the name back before I took it. 

I liberated the city instead of conquering it for a couple reasons. First off, it has no luxuries connected, and would just contribute to my unhappiness right now. Second, it's suzerain bonus might actually prove useful should I get an electronics factory into Europa's IZ. Most importantly though, it gives me a substitute for Libson. I can run lots of gold producing trade routes east through safe waters when I go to war with Woden. 



Singaboy will have to fight valiantly. I can only hope my subs get to his west coast in time to protect it. They are very slow. 

I've actually been vaguely considering building the Great Lighthouse (only 290 hammers) to help address this issue. 

Woden is settling cities in the north. 



Apparently sending 3/4's of your existing navy to help an ally is half-assing it, but building the Colosseum and settling two new cities while fighting is "full-assing" it....