Is that character a variant? (I just love getting asked that in channel.) - Charis

Create an account  

 
[Spoilers] Gröt and Bänzai lose several screws assembling a Sweedish Strategy

(Note: Missing a small handful of screenshots I'll have to upload when I get home. But gonna post it anyway so I can at least have a few hours of only being 1t behind on posts lol Also I'm bumping up against a 50images/post limit so will fork the gossip screenshots and the deal screenshots from 10&11 off to another post, since those are most of what I'm missing)

All right, so what we're gonna do for the Milestone post is smush 10 Turns and 20% of Turns together and cover T10-12 all at once crazyeye This is half to get the hell caught up and half because I'm missing an EOT save for T10 and the transcript for T11. Luckily Banzai had half of the latter smile T12 was a solo turn due to IRL timing constraints - was able to bounce a pair of things off Banzai for confirmation before finalizing the turn, though.

We have a few distinct theatres separating out by this point so can cover them individually: Wolin, Russia, and the Western Flotilla. Also our city management and what the other Vikings have been up to.

Empire-wide we finish Shield Wall and Naval Empire on T11. Queue up Knarrs - to jump over the Bay of Biscay or around Iberia, if necessary - and Military Training next. We slot in some nice policies, Feudal Contract to get +50%Icon_Production to a incoming Zerker Wave and +100% Harbor adjacency which nets us something like 20gpt hammer






Let's see... the flotilla is the most disconnected from the home front, so let's head over there:

T10: Traffic Jam dancing


Fine! We can logjam just as well as you guys! (the highlighted Longship moved a tick left after scouting inland a bit)

T11: Yeah, that's right, you better clear out. Conga party in the Channel, boyos.



T12: Well, bugger, the Norwegians did blitz down to Iberia banghead  Have I mentioned yet that going at the bottom of the turn order has rather compounded Sweden's disadvantages? Even pushing hard on catching up on the fleet, we have yet to get ANY pillaging outside Apuole shakehead
Here's hoping they don't block us around the elbow please


Can just make out the vision range of a Longship we sent north to scout out how things are going around Scotland/Ireland/Iceland. Hasn't seen anything interesting yet, but it'll be nice to know when and who eats Scotland and settles the islands.


Speaking of Norway's boats, they've been on a tear for the first GA. Without even spending gold yet bang






And boy do they have a lot of it:



Us and Denmark have been spending our gold on other projects so at this rate Norway will probably be both 1st and 2nd to Vinland eekduh scared



I think Norway adopted Christianity, though, despite the gossip not showing it. They've got 50% of cities converted so fingers crossed they aren't getting +100Icon_Gold pillages anymore. Will have to go back and compile gossip and math it out...



Also Kopingsvik is very popular



Banzai already incorporated the scores from these turns into his graphs, but it feels wrong to have a post without a score update so for completeness' sake...









Let's go into city management next, since what we're building impacts the Russian and Pomeranian fronts.
T10: Kop finishes its Settler, causing Ladoga's to go up to 3t away. Kop starts on a Berserker.
T11: Apuole finishes its Harbor, though no new TR since it already had a CH. Up in Birka we chop the Longship into the CH in progress, bringing it down to 1t. After the +100% chop in Birka is executed, we do the policy switch. Perfect timing Toot
Helsinki is founded, sites its Harbor, and starts on a Berserker. In Apuole we chop out a Huscarl for the Siege of Wolin and - to our happy surprise - there was enough overflow from the Harbor to immediately complete it! jive


T12: Riga finishes Harbor, Birka finishes CH. Both start on Berserkers. Now everyone but Ladoga is working on Zerkers for the ERE Campaign. Ladoga will finish its Settler in 1t and then get our 2nd Huscarl for the Vikings Civic boost. We have a Builder headed over to its other forest to chop the Huscarl (likely overflow into another Settler?)

Here's where all our cities stand - we're maxed out on our current amenity supply so everyone but Ladoga and Helsinki are in 0-growth mode until we convert to Christianity. And Ladoga will join them once they bounce back up to 4 after building a Settler; Helsinki once they get their first growth up to 2.













One thing I forgot to bring up for the solo turn was unlocking a new trade route. I held off buying a trader in Helsinki since we're going to want a road or two going north from Ukraine to cut through the swamps and hills. And given we need Great Heathen Army and likely Lances soon, it might be a little bit until we get the doubled TRs from Hacksilver. Something we'll have to plan out.



Check out that +90gpt! toast Considering how badly we've gotten hosed on pillage, it's gonna be critical to buying units for our ERE invasion.


So having touched on Wolin a bit, let's turn there next.
T10: Staring contest; our purchased 'zerker en route


T11: We poke it with a boat, determining that ADMF don't have enough troops in the area to take it with the smidge of extra damage. We don't either and need to chip away whatever we safely can. Plus the Longship from Birka is sailing down to take its place if the poking boat gets shot again.


(Zerker had fully healed so popped out quick to check that SW forest)


T12: Denmark brings another level 2 Berserker out of the fog up to the city. Booo. Luckily(?) Wolin has spit out a Huscarl to get in the way. The Danes now have 3 Zerkers and 2 Archers in the area squaring off against our 2 Zerkers, Huscarl, Archer, and Longship(s). Gonna be close. They've taken more damage and with any luck their embarked Berserker is leaving the scene. We have more melee units as well so I think we have a sliiight edge but it's gonna be real close.
I send our embarked Berserker to cover the Huscarl's approach tile so the Danes can't block it. And since their embarked Zerker won't have the +2 movement, they ought not be able to make anything unpleasant happen next turn. If we are very very lucky we could maybe get 4 units surrounding the city and squeeze the Danes out of bringing in reinforcements.
Also our siege Longship got shot again so I withdraw them to promote and let the fresh boat take their place.






Meanwhile over in Russia, we settle on a general plan for settlement and invasion. To repost the dotmap


(using mine since it's already in my imgur files but Banzai's has the same 3 sites we're looking at right now)
We both (I think independently?) arrived at the starred sites as the most important. Get us very useful luxuries and stage us quite nicely for expanding into the Black Sea city-states and Byzantium. We currently have 3 Settlers on the move and another due shortly out of Ladoga. We're going to stick with settling southern Finland with the northmost Settler to get that ball rolling and make use of its forests. The other 3 are going to make their way down to the star sites - tentatively referring to them as, north to south, Kiev, Cherson, and Odessa. (The middle on in particular has been tricky to find a good geographic match)

Anyway. Plan is to stretch the lead Settler down to Cherson, send the one sailing east from Kop on a long trip down to Odessa, and have Ladoga's due-up Settler head to Kiev. The northern pair will wind up synchronizing fairly nicely, both due on T16. Odessa will, unless we have to detour for barbs, be founded T23. We can use that city to purchase a Longship if our Flotilla still has a ways to go. It takes ~9-10 turns to get from Apuole to the Black Sea on foot so, even if the siege wraps up soon, our forces in Wolin are going to be lagging behind a little.

Setting aside a turn here or there from optimizations, we have Berserkers due up in 3t/4t/5t/8t in Birka/Kop/Apu/Riga respectively. Under ideal conditions they'll take... 12t/12t/9.5t/8t to reach the Black Sea? So in about 15-16 turns we could have our army gathered and ready for action. We'll have to buy the Battering Ram but it's money well spent. I think Tmutakaran around T30 is juuuust barely achievable, if requiring some good luck. The ERE will likely have a bunch of Knights around Preslav, making Tmu the more accessible target. We'll then need to decide whether to charge across the sea to Trebizond or wheel around to attack Preslav and stomp through the Balkans.

One tricky thing on this front is the Religion aspect. With getting skunked out of all the faith pillaging thus far, I'm skeptical we'll have adopted Christianity by the time Kiev and Cherson go up. So we're unfortunately delaying our adoption by a city and likely making it a tighter needle to thread with flipping back to Paganism for money before we have to re-flip to sack us some cities. Especially if we win at Wolin, since that would make Odessa an even numbered city and thus not sufficient to deconvert. I wonder, maybe if we're close to netting a religion we should reorder the settlings to delay Kiev or Cherson so that we have an easier job of it..?

Anyway, to repeat a couple screenshots, here's where things stand at EOT 12. The Russian theatre has mopped up the barbs and have been rolling south with our Settler. Surprisingly few barb camps so far (knock on wood)






And finally, the T10 transcript and latter portion of T11:
Quote:Banzailizard joined the chat.
Banzailizard: right
Grotsnot: so yeah. Denmark is going for Eoforwic and Rouen both
Grotsnot: unless maybe they sniped it from Norway?
Banzailizard: shall we move our ship?
Grotsnot: it comes with Mont St Michel so better than utrecht
Grotsnot: yeah sounds good
Grotsnot: well fuck
Banzailizard: but not supper useful
Grotsnot: oh fuck what the hell boat
Grotsnot: why did
Banzailizard: its trying to go go arround now
Grotsnot: what
Banzailizard: send the LS north
Grotsnot: fucking piece of shit
Grotsnot: this is some crap
Grotsnot: sigh
Banzailizard: not much to be done about it now
Banzailizard: just position ourselves for Knarrs
Grotsnot: well let's just logjam the hell out of thetford
Grotsnot: asshats
Grotsnot: work for you? Knarrs is far enough off to reposition and might be able to get a break through the channel
Banzailizard: no reason not to try
Grotsnot: being last in the turn order really compounds sweden's weaknesses
Grotsnot: probably don't need two boats in the baltic, right?
Banzailizard: can't see why we would
Grotsnot: still nobody blinking on Wolin
Banzailizard: neither of us can take it in one shot right now so neither of us will
Grotsnot: right
Grotsnot: huscarl suicided into us
Banzailizard: can that zerker promote?
Banzailizard: if not get hoom out of there
Grotsnot: yes
Banzailizard: him*
Grotsnot: probably best to promote in place to get some extra healing
Banzailizard: yes that is why I was asking if he could promote
Grotsnot: can scout a little with the settler first though
Banzailizard: sec
Grotsnot: what are we thinking the objective is for settling pattern?
Banzailizard: look at the dot map
Grotsnot: leapfrog or convoy
Grotsnot: like settle closest (good site) and then push further or go for the far one and wind up settling the whole chain roughly at the same time
Banzailizard: well if we wanted to chain
Banzailizard: we went the wrong way slightly
Banzailizard: should go north 1 and east one
Grotsnot: oh?
Grotsnot: I thought we were skipping over the nearest to get down to the truffles
Banzailizard: hmm
Banzailizard: well my dot map is diffrent on that count and would have us go south 1
Banzailizard: how many settlers do we have?
Grotsnot: ohh like it could settle this turn
Banzailizard: yeah
Grotsnot: we have 3 and another due soon
Banzailizard: I am thinking that might not be bad
Banzailizard: settling this turn
Banzailizard: short game means short time to turn around an investment
Banzailizard: on the other hand, less time for religion
Grotsnot: hmmmm
Banzailizard: this is not a great spot thought
Banzailizard: would be more for trade routes later
Grotsnot: nah, this little stretch is fairly weak
Grotsnot: yields-wise
Grotsnot: if we need a relay for the TRs then yeah would be important
Banzailizard: I am almost thinking settle kiev then black sea
Banzailizard: by the iorn
Grotsnot: So we need cities in Odessa, Iron/Mercury, and Truffles
Grotsnot: ok
Banzailizard: the forward settle is to be agressive
Banzailizard: try and get some units there for the ERE
Grotsnot: similarly for the short turnaround time is the farther cities taking longer to settle and having even less time
Banzailizard: maybe even use our district discount for an encampment
Grotsnot: hmmmm
Grotsnot: maybe
Banzailizard: yeah but this would be more a purchase hun
Banzailizard: hub*
Banzailizard: buy some units to push with
Grotsnot: true true
Banzailizard: do you want to do the truffles one frist?
Grotsnot: Mercury is only 2 turns away from the truffles
Banzailizard: I like it a bit better for the iorn to work
Grotsnot: yeah
Grotsnot: ok so current settlers
Grotsnot: stick with Helsinki?
Banzailizard: yes I think, lets stick with that and chop chop chop
Grotsnot: ok
Banzailizard: then send those units south
Grotsnot: so send lead Settler to Iron and Kop Settler to Black Sea
Grotsnot: ?
Banzailizard: yes
Banzailizard: and Ladoga to truffles
Grotsnot: and Ladoga's will either go to relay or truffles
Grotsnot: ok sounds good
Banzailizard: or maybe to furs?
Grotsnot: we don't need more furs
Banzailizard: the green one on my map
Banzailizard: trade with norway?
Grotsnot: vikings all start with one so no trade value
Banzailizard: ah ok
Grotsnot: it's a solid tile to work with the backfill cities at least
Banzailizard: then truffles
Banzailizard: I wouldn't improve just yet
Grotsnot: oh?
Banzailizard: lets wait for religion then unleash all those amenities to buff pops
Grotsnot: ahhhh I see
Grotsnot: makes sense
Banzailizard: well no maybe not
Banzailizard: I guess it depends
Banzailizard: how quick can we get religion
Banzailizard: once we have ERE
Banzailizard: we will not have much room to grow
Banzailizard: and 10 per is better than none
Grotsnot: ok so with this plan Truffles settles T17, Iron T16, Odessa T23
Banzailizard: at the same time, if we can convert sooner its ok to hold then let them grow and then take our ERE
Banzailizard: ok that sounds good
Grotsnot: yeah your plans too
Grotsnot: the ERE cities are preconverted so will keep us in majority once we start nomming
Banzailizard: right but the only reason to hold our own frm gowing is if we can get religion before we start noming
Banzailizard: once we have the pop from ERE our amenities will be streached thin
Grotsnot: right
Grotsnot: well
Grotsnot: ERE comes with a few too
Grotsnot: escort the settler I assume
Banzailizard: yes
Grotsnot: and promote in plce
Banzailizard: yes
Grotsnot: Battlecry, aye
Banzailizard: yes
Banzailizard: we'll want tortise latter I think
Grotsnot: archer to stone? Heal? North?
Banzailizard: vs cities
Grotsnot: yeah
Banzailizard: heal
Grotsnot: k
Banzailizard: send the builfer north 1 first
Banzailizard: 1 charge builder would be less of a loss
Banzailizard: if there is a barb there
Grotsnot: hmm
Grotsnot: he won't have sight on the dark forest
Banzailizard: guess you are right
Banzailizard: well ok settler then
Grotsnot: so into the lake or into the forest
Banzailizard: lets just not lose both
Grotsnot: o7
Banzailizard: move the settlers and see what we see
Banzailizard: and safe
Grotsnot: builder->wheat?
Banzailizard: yes
Grotsnot: then to a forest for chops
Banzailizard: well for a chop but yeah
Banzailizard: btw what happened to norway's settler
Grotsnot: ha true
Banzailizard: oh there it is
Grotsnot: tick west
Banzailizard: ok np then
Banzailizard: if it went north I might be worried
Grotsnot: man I was hoping Norway eating Utrecht was a coup
Grotsnot: but it seems like the Danes just let em have it to go eat other cities faster
Banzailizard: nto sure what the norway is doing in south england
Banzailizard: with 2 zerkers
Banzailizard: 3
Grotsnot: Wintanceastershireford?
Banzailizard: trying to get Wintanceaster?
Banzailizard: Wintanceastershirefordmcburgenburrou
Grotsnot: or like us trying to blitz through to Iberia/Med
Grotsnot: but zerkers probably cities
Banzailizard: yeah
Banzailizard: maybe they are trying to trip up the danes a bit
Grotsnot: could maybe try to skunk Eoforwic
Grotsnot: we can only hope
Banzailizard: doubtful
Grotsnot: ok so wolin zerker could heal a little bit - currently at 96 - or go see if denmark has someone hiding in that forest by their archers
Grotsnot: that trader in odense is giving us some great visibility
Banzailizard: heal we will need all we can get to take the city
Grotsnot: o7
Banzailizard: brb
Grotsnot: oo franks gonna die trying to retake utrecht looks like
Grotsnot: ok not much left to do
Grotsnot: Kop has to decide whether to crank out one more boat while we have Maritime or start on a Zerker right away. And pick what to do with our c
Grotsnot: I also switched Apu to minimize growth since it's at 4 pop
Banzailizard: back
Grotsnot: working 2 forests, sheep, and crab. Working the CH would be +1gold but loses a production to make up the food loss so I think this is best
Banzailizard: zerker
Grotsnot: k
Banzailizard: with the trafic jam we are not going anywhere
Grotsnot: hopefully it's not permanent
Grotsnot: especially since it's a dane and a norwegian and we only need one of them to move
Banzailizard: we get knarrs in 4 turns if nothing else
Grotsnot: yep but going around britain is slowwww
Banzailizard: move the captured builder into the woods
Grotsnot: ladoga grew so didn't even need the deer to 3t the settler
Grotsnot: chop stuff?
Banzailizard: get ready for a melee unit chop
Banzailizard: yeah
Grotsnot: ok
Grotsnot: 1 or 2 chops?
Grotsnot: i.e. east or west forest
Banzailizard: might even be eother it to chop sooner than 1 turn in
Banzailizard: west for now
Grotsnot: o7
Grotsnot: ah right here's the franks just popped over quick to spy on
Banzailizard: keep it away from the shore
Grotsnot: yeah
Grotsnot: just wanted quick vision
Banzailizard: kk
Banzailizard: all set then I think
Grotsnot: I think that's it
Grotsnot: nothing to buy with 78g
Banzailizard: can't wait for those harbors to be done
Grotsnot: won't be long! :D
Banzailizard: we do need a GG for ERE I think it will make it much easier
Grotsnot: no aura in VTR
Banzailizard: oh really?
Grotsnot: nor teleporting
Grotsnot: yeah, which is honestly good for Sweden
Banzailizard: telaporting I knew but I thought there was still an aura
Grotsnot: since Denmark would be a beast with aura
Banzailizard: yeah no kidding
Banzailizard: what do the scores look like
Grotsnot: same old
Grotsnot: Denmark kicking ass
Banzailizard: at some point here I will put up a score graph
Grotsnot: oo nice
Banzailizard: breaking down the score by turn and claim
Grotsnot: T10 is a good checkpoint
Banzailizard: wait
Banzailizard: danmeark got a GG already?
Grotsnot: you'll have a couple days for me to catch up on reports :P
Grotsnot: yeahhhh
Grotsnot: got them a free zerker
Banzailizard: oh right
Banzailizard: I remember that now
Grotsnot: was around T5 I think?
Banzailizard: honestly
Grotsnot: we have got to get some damn pillage going they both are stomping us on that
Banzailizard: most of their VP are from religion
Banzailizard: without religion they would be where we are
Grotsnot: I mean yeah but I feel like religion is the main lever
Grotsnot: pillage+pops
Grotsnot: trade is a marginal number of points in end score
Grotsnot: religion, vinland, and to a leser extent empire are the moneymakers
Banzailizard: yeah
Grotsnot: SHIT
Grotsnot: fuck you ui
Banzailizard: ?
Grotsnot: ended turn by mistake
Grotsnot: at least we were done
Banzailizard: yes
Grotsnot: was trying to cycle city over to birka
Banzailizard: sounds like a lot of combat
Grotsnot: whatever can reload for screencaps
Grotsnot: oh?
Grotsnot: ohh does it play combat sounds while processing the turn?
Grotsnot: I don't have sound
Banzailizard: yes
Banzailizard: ah
Banzailizard: yeah it does
Grotsnot: neat
Banzailizard: lot of shots
Grotsnot: hopefully beating up danes >:3
Banzailizard: ok we're done here then
Grotsnot: yep
Grotsnot: getting late here so should call it a night
Quote:Grotsnot: ok so we'll send the sweden builder over to finland
Grotsnot: yep, jinx :P
Banzailizard: chop in apu then?
Grotsnot: sure
Grotsnot: the main question left is what to do for wolin: whether to poke and whether to chop
Grotsnot: spy says Denmark got a settler, interesting
Banzailizard: they need one for the boost
Banzailizard: they might also try for iceland
Grotsnot: looks like maybe they bought one
Grotsnot: I hopeso
Banzailizard: they are amenities starved
Grotsnot: oh
Grotsnot: thank you traders
Grotsnot: we can see it's not in scandinavia
Grotsnot: so must be headed west
Grotsnot: huzzah
Banzailizard: looks like they took more land in england
Banzailizard: on the minimap
Banzailizard: even if not on the fog of war
Banzailizard: oh wait
Grotsnot: ah yeah that's tamworth
Banzailizard: that is france
Grotsnot: also rouen yeah
Banzailizard: send the one boat north?
Grotsnot: he's 1t behind the fleet
Banzailizard: I would send him along norway
Grotsnot: but that has 6
Banzailizard: then west
Grotsnot: so yeah I agree
Banzailizard: they have a lightouse up
Grotsnot: yeah and 900g
Grotsnot: these guys want a GA
Grotsnot: real bad
Banzailizard: very few cities though
Grotsnot: hmm I forget did we see their settler at start of turn?
Grotsnot: lemme check the screencaps
Grotsnot: damn those ones didn't take
Grotsnot: whatever, small potatoes
Grotsnot: Norway is getting close to religion too
Grotsnot: with Utrecht they're only 1 or 2 more faith pillages away
Grotsnot: oh hey they sent Kop another trader
Grotsnot: we're popular
Banzailizard: very
Grotsnot: new one is from Oslo
Banzailizard: going to work on those graphs if you can send any score SC you have not posted
Grotsnot: wonder why not go to Odense
Grotsnot: will do
Grotsnot: RB PM?
Banzailizard: sure
Grotsnot: o7
Banzailizard: also maybe religion?
Banzailizard: they might be avoiding it to pillage more
Grotsnot: hmm
Grotsnot: Odense isn't religious that's why we gave up gold to go to Ribe
Grotsnot: maybe Oslo already has one to Odense?
Grotsnot: since can't rebase traders
Grotsnot: even the road is redundant with stavanger
Grotsnot: ANYWAY
Grotsnot: Wolin
Banzailizard: what are the bonus points for?
Grotsnot: VPs?
Banzailizard: I say chop in Apu a waste but we might never get a better chance
Grotsnot: end of game gold and faith
Banzailizard: ah
Grotsnot: ^yeah I'm conflicted
Grotsnot: I agree with it being a waste but if it gets us Wolin...
Banzailizard: well I mean
Grotsnot: the boat poke is tempting. If they shoot it again it'd get a promotion
Banzailizard: I am ok with a boat poke and waiting a turn to see what happens
Banzailizard: if no new units in Odense we are fine
Banzailizard: if new units it is a race then
Grotsnot: ok. Wait on chop?
Banzailizard: for one turn
Banzailizard: but yeah poke with the boat
Banzailizard: oh hmm
Grotsnot: ok
Banzailizard: close
Grotsnot: oh?
Banzailizard: is it worth the chop if it gets us the city for sure?
Grotsnot: so yeah denmark definitely won't be capping
Grotsnot: If it's a guarantee I think so
Banzailizard: can our north LS get there next turn?
Grotsnot: aye
Banzailizard: damn I hate to do it but let's chop
Banzailizard: maybe chop a zerker though
Banzailizard: and hardbuild the housecarl
Banzailizard: at 4 turns it should be fine either way
Grotsnot: ok
Banzailizard: yeah I like that better
Grotsnot: zerker I think will still take 3t with a chop
Banzailizard: and the housecarl?
Banzailizard: how long will that take
Grotsnot: ah, make it 2
Grotsnot: carl is 1t
Grotsnot: so only 1t delay for zerker
Banzailizard: damn ok better to be on hand with 10 men than absent with 10,000
Grotsnot: ok so chopping the huscarl
Banzailizard: yes
Banzailizard: blame me if this goes south tongue
Grotsnot: HA
Grotsnot: bitchin
Grotsnot: yaaaaaay overflow
Banzailizard: into another housecarl?
Banzailizard: or a zerker?
Grotsnot: sorry, the HA was to the instacompletion :P
Banzailizard: either would have been understandable
Grotsnot: 1t difference
Banzailizard: oh shoot I need to head out
Banzailizard: can you finish the turn?
Grotsnot: I think zerker here and huscarl in ladoga for the chop overfow
Grotsnot: yep we got the important stuff done
Grotsnot: later!

This is kind of a smushed post - happy to answer questions if something isn't clear lol
Reply

@Banzai, not sure what your travel schedule is, so just in case: We're finishing Knarrs this turn and have to pick our next tech path. We've got 3 main candidates, I think: Great Heathen Army, Hacksilver, and Lances (which needs Stirrups first). None of the 3 lead to anything worthwhile so it's purely a competition of which gives us the biggest bang for our buck (er... beaker?)

GHA is projected to take 3t. Hacksilver and Lances are the next tier up so cost 180Icon_Science/90 when boosted. Lances also requires Stirrups which is 25Icon_Science We chewed through Knarrs (cost 60Icon_Science) in 3t at about 19Icon_Science/turn so we won't have much overflow.

So total beaker cost is something like
GHA: 60Icon_Science - 3t
Hacksilver: 90Icon_Science - 5t, mayybe 4.
Lances: 205Icon_Science - ~10t, possibly 9 with the new cities we'll get in that period

The major difficulty is that we haven't boosted Lances and likely cannot for a while, so that one's probably out. It requires killing a Knight which won't happen until we head into the Balkans, unless Justinian seriously storms through Preslav and then sends scouty dudes north. There's an outside chance we could pick off a Caballarii near Wolin, but the repositioning required might very well throw the city to Denmark.

So while more units catching up to the first Zerker wave ASAP is useful, I suspect we can postpone it. More Berserkers are still able to be useful pre-T25-30ish. Plus we don't have a policy card for Knights - it's a long way off: need to culture all the way up to Divine Right.

So that leaves GHA vs Hacksilver. Hacksilver will immediately double our Trade Route capacity. Useful for getting more Icon_Gold and some roads in the east. We'd have to chop or more likely buy the Traders themselves though.

GHA unlocks Battering Rams and Catapults. We don't need the Battering Ram for some time - assuming we buy one in Odessa instead of hardbuilding it (130Icon_Gold vs 32Icon_Production - 3 or 4 turns in one of our current cities). Getting an early Ram or a Catapult (240Icon_Gold, though, could be just what we need to break Wolin wide open. But I rather suspect that's what Denmark is already researching, since they finished Shield Wall on T12 and I doubt they care much about Knarrs. If they get siege units over to Wolin first then it's a waste of gold and beakers for us. I think the topography favors them in the race too - they could likely see ours coming and buy one in their Encampment and beat us to the punch. Will have to verify. It's gonna take us 5t to get a ram in position, I'm guessing 3 or maybe 4 for Denmark  thumbsdown





Thoughts? I'm kind of leaning GHA at the moment to stay in the race for Wolin but would switch to Hacksilver if it looks like it'll have resolved within the next 5 turns when I load up this turn.
Reply

Just got home, bit sleep deprived, but I agree with GHA. If nothing else the Rams will be useful vs Preslav. Hacksilver is useful once we have cities down and trade posts to extend range back to the Homeland. Right now we do not have the gold or production to spare on the traders.
Reply

Shouldn't the city be Helsingfors? Seeing as ye are Swedes.
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
Reply

Oh shoot, that's even right there at the top of the thread. Good catch - shall have to correct it!

GHA confirmed.
Reply

Well this is frustrating. All the screenshots from last turn said 1T to Knarrs and this turn has the meter a smidge away from completion. Got robbed of precious time getting around Iberia rant rant rant

Extra bullshit is they both have Knarrs this turn and I don't see how Norway would have a higher science output
Reply

(Minor bad news is I don't have screenshots uploaded yet so bear with me)

Ok, so the good news is I figured out why we missed out on Knarrs and that it won't impact GHA timing. Ladoga completed a Settler on T13 and the UI, which we all know by now is dogshit, helpfully failed to update the tech timer. So while we got hosed on a turn of sailing south (Norway stopping up the coastal waters around Galicia), we missed the tech by <1Icon_Science so will get nearly a full turn's overflow for GHA. And our science output is >20 so it will still finish on T17. (Edit: need to remember not to boost any techs this turn and sink the overflow. Shouldn't be a problem. The only remotely plausible boosts left are Kill a Knight and Earn a GA)

Other good news is that, unless I'm severely misremembering the Gossip screen, Denmark went for Knarrs first as well. (Curious, but okay. Maybe looking to settle Iceland or something?) So they should also have to wait for T17 to unlock it.

Also, Norway keeping pace is explained by pillage - they've burned at least one Iron mine, down in Iberia. [repeated whining about pillage distribution redacted]

Bad news is I think we're still boned for Wolin. We have a Berserker due out of Kopingsvik on T16, so the earliest we can attack is T18. Swapping out the Huscarl for 3 Berserkers, a boat, and an Archer ought to be sufficient, I think. However...
Denmark unlocks GHA on T17. They can purchase a Battering Ram in Odense's Encampment and

Woah woah, hold up. This might be ok after all? I was going to say they can get right up to Wolin on T18 and eat it since the Encampment is only 3 tiles away from the city. But our Berserker is sitting on the siege tile it could reach in one turn! So here's my new projection:

T15 (next): Staring contest
T16: Zerker finishes, heads south
T17: Denmark finishes GHA, buys Ram; We finish GHA, Zerker reaches the walls of Wolin
T18: Denmark's Ram gets 1T away from in position; We blink, go all in and hope the RNG doesn't screw us

If we do not see a Ram in their Encampment on T17 we should buy one in Kop. This would give us the option of delaying the assault for a surer thing on T19. If T18 doesn't look like we could get away with it, we'd just go all in as planned.

Another option would be to purchase an Archer in Apuole (or Kop) this coming turn to get in a 2nd shot to try and offset some bad RNG. Sneak peek at the coming T13+14 post: Wolin shot dead the Archer that Denmark was using to hold their 3rd Zerker's place in line. So now the melee slots are all filled, 3 for us and 3 for them. But we have the superior water tile that can hold both a Longship and a Zerker smug So we currently have 1 Archer each and the maximum force arrangement is:

3 Danish Zerkers & 1+ Archer(s)
vs
3 Swedish Zerkers, Longship, and 1+ Archer(s)

I don't wanna get too optimistic yet since this is Archduke we're dealing with, who knows what tricks are still up Team Denmark's sleeves. And the RNG could hose us too, especially sans Ram. But things are cautiously looking up! Ohdear Rolldice
Reply

Ok, I slept 4 hours wed-thursday then 6 hours last night following by being up for two hours and then asleep for another 4.  I am at least well rested even if I am not following a sleep schedule recognizable as normal in either of my two most recent time zones.  Good news is that I have a laptop now (early Christmas gift) the bad news is that I hate track-pads so I cannot do much more than type with it until I resolve that. I will probably get  a mouse over the weekend, and then I can go back to doing some graphs and such.

I think that you have Wolin well in hand, I have little to add, it mostly seems to be a matter of hoping for the best and taking some appropriate risks.  As I said in steam I am fine tying up a chunk of the danish army at minimal opportunity cost for ourselves.  Those are units they could be using in Germany and France but cannot due to us.

Instead I will sit here for a bit and try to puzzle out what to do with Russia and the east.  That is where our points lay.  I will admit Norway is more of a contender than I thought.  I expected form a design standpoint that the vineland VP were going to be their main source but it looks like they really have leveraged their long ships and pillaging well.

The Danes meanwhile made the interesting but I think correct choice of switching to religion early. They got some VP early from the raids and then more VP from pop growth. 

Let's go over the VP sourses and where we will get some:

25 per city.  We should actually finish the game with the most cities I would think.  Norway and Denmark will settle a few (incidentally I think the Danes will go for the the foros or Iceland for whales, they are amenities starved quickly) and conquer a lot, but we will settle a lot and hopefully conquer quite a number.  How many cities are out there?

9 in Scandinavia (3 each) with room for more settles in Lapland and north Sweden
2 on the South Baltic Sea
5 in England (room for 2 in Ireland but realistically 1)
7 in the HER with room for 1 settle near where Bohemia meets Germany (these are really poorly placed as cities but well placed for our purposes)
5 in Iberia
2 in North Africa, with room for another settle or two late game for points
5 in Italy
8 in the ERE and Black Sea region

Russia has room for at least 10, plus we have already settled in Finland.  Iceland has room for 2, 1 on the Foros, Greenland 1 (maybe 2 but really late game settle there) and Vineland 1.  Even if Norway and Denmark take HRE England Ireland and Iberia, and settle everything available, that will be a total of 17 conquest and 8 settles (Again assumes some poor settled) for a total of 25 new cities split between them.  Meanwhile (at the legion of doom) we already captured 1 and settled Finland.  If we capture the whole ERE and settle all of Russia we are looking at 20 for us alone. Each of those is worth 25 VP, or 500 in total.  We could squeeze in another 50 VP for 2 settles. 

In addition each Commercial Hub or Harbor is effectively worth 25 vp pre-Hacksilver and 50 post, since only TR capacity matters not trade routes.  We can look forward to capturing some districts off the ERE.  I am not going to go through the exercise right at this second, this is a strategic post not a tactical one, but we may even be able to work the discount formula to net more VP if we plan our path of destruction correctly. 

Now realistically not all of those cities will benefit from the trade bonus, some may never have their districts down, but we should get somewhere between 500 and 1500 VP from our cities alone which is comparable to the first two vineland runs. Our opponents will get between 650 and 1950 but spit between them.  I would assume a 60/40 split favoring Denmark, maybe a 75/25 split.

I have not covered population, but I will do that below with religion VP since they are tied together.

GP - we might be able to snag at least 1 GA and GG but the GG are largely the purview of Denmark and the GA Norway.  Its hard to say how much this will benefit them but they might come out 100 or 200 VP ahead in this category.

Vineland - bad news for us.  Norway like you said is set for the first 2 GA's and even if they were not they would be guaranteed to get there first with that +2 movement.  With some luck in the south we might overtake Denmark for the third and gain 300 VP if not its a hefty loss for us. 

It looks like we never resolved what happens with the pillage VP for faith.  Once I get a mouse I will test that (this laptop should be able to run civ 6, one thing the designers did well is make it run-able on mediocre tech and this is fairly new if not supper powerful).  We need to know what to prioritize in our raiding.  I think that pillaging faith also bring religion back home right? Need to know the rate for that as well.

Ok we do also get 50 VP per pop after converting, I think this is in addition to the 10 VP from getting a pop.  I do not know how many pops are in each city right now due to Fog of war, what we can figure out is how many amenities are available to each of us and determine a maximum potential population for each nation.

To repost from earlier in this thread:
Quote: Russia has Truffles+Mercury, also more Furs
   Nothing in Baltic/Finland or Ireland
   British dyes
   Moorish Oranges
   Black Sea Wine, also in France and Italy
   Oh shit Wolin has Salt want want want
   Italian Marble
   Greenland Ivory
   Iceland+Faeroese Whales

Norway: They have Whales, Ivory, Furs, for sure, Very likely dyes in England (specifically Scotland). They might be able to grab Wine and Oranges
Total amenity types 4 solidly, 6 possibly for a total of 16-24 amenities scattered across their empire.  They need 1 per 2 pops starting at three.  But since each city cannot double up and its 4 amenities per city they really can have between 4 and 6 cities each add an additional 9 to 13 pops (remember odd number pops do not count). I will assume they get Scotland, Ireland, at least 1 settlement in Iceland 1 in Greenland 1 in Vineland. 2 pops from each of them are 100 points another 60 from their home cities before growth, and another 20 per pop city they conquer.  This is their base pop score.  Then they will get those amenities spread out over multiple cities, for another 360 to 520 points from pops alone.  (calculation there is 9 pops * 4 cities * 10 per pop low end or 130*4*10 high end.

Let me take this one step further and abstract the formula so we can quickly plug in numbers as the game goes on.
N = number of cities
A= number of amenities

Max Vp from pop alone = 20*N+4*10*A = 20N+40A = 20(N+20A) whichever is easier to calculate. 

A couple of caveats. 1. I am not sure if gettign 2 copies of something will spread to more cities.  Like having 2 wine does grant 8 amenities, and while the same city cannot get extra amenities from the same source, maybe they can now effect more cities? That would complicate the formula though not enough that we cannot make a new one. 2. This is a softcap not a hardcap since you can grow beyond even with a penalty to food production.  That being said with only 60 turns it might as well be a hardcap.

Let's list amenities for us and Denmark then figure out VP from pop alone.

Denmark: Fur, Dyes Wine for sure.  Likely whales, maybe Salt and Oranges. 3-6
Sweden: Fur, Truffles, Mercury for sure, likely Wine, maybe Salt maybe Marble 3-6

So Norway A= 4-6
Denmark A=3-6
Sweden A= 3-6

Though I must say it seems like we will be capped at 4, Norway 5 and Denmark might be closer to 6.  Ouch. Taking Wolin would be critical then.

Norway= 20N+(40A,60A)
Denmark 20N+(30A,60A)
Sweden 20N+(30A,60A)

If we do not get Wolin it might even be worth trying to steal Foros, Iceland or Greenland though that is a high risk strategy. Norway would see it coming might rush a settler and would beat us there. I would not be surprised if the Danes and the Norwegians both have settlers lined up ready to sale with Knarrs.

Knowing this though, there will be little difference from Pop alone in our civ's vp.  The time limit means that the max cap is more theoretical than practical.

Where does that leave us for VP. As a quick aside the VP from gold and faith endgame is basically a tie breaker.  You see it all the time in eurogames.  I mean yes we could get 100 VP for 1000 gold, or we could spend that 1000 gold getting stuff to help us get better VP. 

I have been suggesting this in our steam chats but realistically we need to leverage religion for our VP.  See what is important is that its 50VP after we have religion.  Denmark and Norway both have less growth potential than us since they will be conquering cities with pops already in them. We have the potential to gain 50 VP for a lot of population.  Here is my suggestion which is similar to the current plan.

1 Plant the cities in the south, plant them sooner rather than latter.  We need them for forward bases and for production.
2. capture a city with a HS in it if possible, Hard to tell which ones do in the photo.
3. Raid as much as we can to gain faith but not enough to flip over just yet.
4. Raid some more for VP
5. finish our capture of ERE lands flipping us to christian
6. Finish settlers (buy with gold if possible) and get out missionaries in the south ( buy with faith wherever possible).  Settle and immediately convert cities so all growth grants 50 VP. 
7. Grow grow grow maybe even worth using builder charges on farms for a change.
8. Grab Italy if possible.

Some information we will need through testing or other souses:
1. How many VP per faith raids.
2. How does faith spread back to current cities.
3. Which cities in the ERE have HS
4. Confirmation on how amenities work and if multiple copies of the same are spread to more cities
5. Can we work the district discount formula in our favor to maximize the number of TR we get.
6. What is the best sailing path through the Med for our raiding purposes.

Side thought we might want to figure out how to choke up the Aegean sea so the Norwegians cannot kill steal.

Long post but hopefully helpful.
Reply

Hmm. This is a tricky one. The Danes shot Wolin with an Archer and have 3 healthy Zerkers in the area. Need to do more research on Walls... they make predicting combat outcomes hard cringe
Reply

Finally found something on Wall maths that I really should have seen sooner. Back on Hans Lemurson's thread all the way at the end has this gem:
Quote:Edit: After reading another thread and trying it out myself I am pretty sure now that the damage of outer defenses in cities like walls is calculated as followed:

OuterDefenseDamage = NormalDamage * COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_ * (1 / 100)
COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_ can be looked up in GlobalParameters and is dependent on the unit type.

So if the attacker is a non-ranged unit then this value is COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_MELEE = 15. E.g. if a melee unit would do 20 damage to a city, then its damage to the city walls would be 20*15/100=3.
For ranged units we have COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_RANGED = 50 and for bombard units COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_BOMBARD = 100.

The damage to the city garrison (i.e. "the green bar") is proportional to the damage of the outer defense of the city:
CityGarrisonDamage = max( NormalDamage * (OuterDefenseDamage / OuterDefenseMaxHitpoints), 1 )

So if the city has full outer defense health, then its garrison damage will always be 1, even if the attacking unit has much more combat strength than the city.


Plugged it into a spreadsheet and the results are... troubling.


(ignore the labels being wrong in the bottom left, I don't want to bother re-screencapping it just for that)



Now it's using a very basic way to handle series of combats: just concatenates averages/lows/highs together. In reality an early high or low could throw everything off. Like with the way it affects the city strength for future combats I think
  avg->avg != low->high != high->low
but it'll have to do. I don't have the math background to calculate the distribution of a random series where the previous results feed into the subsequent ones  ipecac  Just bear in mind the total lows and highs are ludicrously unlikely and just there for upper/lower bounds to know whether a) it's even possible to take the city and b) whether it can be guaranteed. And that actual damage done will be some butterfly effect distance away from the average crazyeye


On the plus side, learned to hit walls with ranged units first despite Archers being crap at garrison damage.

On the downside, a purely average outcome has the Danes barely taking the city next turn and us barely failing this turn cringe
Reply



Forum Jump: