[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Turn 48 - Phoenicia



Nothing really happens this turn, besides Pingala getting established for an extra bit of science and culture. Mining next turn for a mercury mine and the Wheel eureka, so that's exciting. One of the remaining charges should go towards the marble, obviously, but I'm not sure about the third charge - the second mercury mine is an obvious use, but I'm thinking about saving it for an iron mine once BW research finishes so we can see where IW is located and start getting some iron income. What do you think?

[Woden]

Turn 47-Vikings
Longboat near suboptimal finds borders for another city but it is off the southern coast. Eastern most longboat finds...
   

Uh, well...this is awkward.  There are borders under the pop-up. I will meet them next turn. We are getting close to circumnavigation...
   

The pin is the extent that I have defogged down south. Funny thing here, the white trapezoid in the mini map doesn't wrap around when looking from the east but if I go over to where your Brieme is located, it does. Please note, I forgot to share the pin's vision with you and will do it next turn. We have at a couple of turns before we need to be careful. 

As for having your Briemes help out. One issue with that is their cities only have a single coast approach and can only be attacked once per turn. My boats can heal in neutral territory, so with four, I can cycle them out each turn and heal while the others are attacking. If I where you, I would pump out settlers for the time being.  Fill up your half of the island and then you can start building a landing force.

Edit: Just looked up Ago Bay and it is a Japanese sea name and the borders were white. Looks like we will meet Kaiser next turn.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, the reason I'd have my biremes help out is not so much for the cities but because I expect them to have a significant navy too by the time the longboats arrive, especially with sub's ability to faith-buy ships and solid faith income. It seems like 2 biremes from my cities plus one or two returning explorers might be a significant help in cracking that and in keeping them from putting out a significant naval force to break the back of our harassment. Since it's only a 2-turn investment, it seems worth doing eventually, though maybe after the first settler in the capital since you'll still need some time to actually crank out the longboats.

Also, I think it makes sense for my boat up in the polar regions to go ahead and turn around now, or at least turn south instead of continuing west. Every tile west that it explores is a tile east that your boat can't explore, and your eastern exploration is probably a higher priority now given the civ we're about to meet.

[Woden]

Yeah, the reason I'd have my biremes help out is not so much for the cities but because I expect them to have a significant navy too by the time the longboats arrive, especially with sub's ability to faith-buy ships and solid faith income. It seems like 2 biremes from my cities plus one or two returning explorers might be a significant help in cracking that and in keeping them from putting out a significant naval force to break the back of our harassment. Since it's only a 2-turn investment, it seems worth doing eventually, though maybe after the first settler in the capital since you'll still need some time to actually crank out the longboats.

Good point and good plan.

[ljubljana]

Turn 49 - Phoenicia



After defogging one more tile to the west, I change my mind and turn the northern bireme around, following the logic that it's more important that you be able to continue east to scout Japan than it is for me to figure out the exact contours of this likely-uninhabited island. Mining comes in, and I grab the Wheel eureka - I'm still undecided on whether I'll improve the second mercury next turn or save the last charge for iron, which will appear in 7 when BW finishes. The tile picker grabs the wrong tile at the capital (that is, the one that doesn't connect to the GP tile), and it'll be 8 turns before it gets the forest. I'm now irrationally scared that iron's going to pop up right there on the GP tile and ruin that pretty IZ complex...I could prevent that by buying a tile or delaying BW by two turns, but neither of those things is worth it, of course.

[Woden]

Turn 48-Vikings
Open the save to Foreign Trade finishing...
   

I swap in the ship building card. Settler at capital will finish next turn and then will start building ships. I might send the settler down to settle next to the natural wonder for era points, but not 100% on the idea right now. 

I move my longboat to meet Japan and England...
   

I was thinking of sailing back west to see if I can find the last team. Best guess is they are south of suboptimal or at least west of Japan. You can probably continue west for a few turns. As for your builder, probably best to keep around for iron and the boost.

[Woden]

Turn 49-Vikings
Settler is out at the capital and it starts a longboat (3 turns). Eastern most longboat turns around and heads west, looking for the last team. Longboat by suboptimal continues east...
   

Both those tiles belong to the same city. I found some tundra, so not sure if those cities are coastal. Will continue following the island to see.

[ljubljana]

Turn 50 - Phoenicia



We meet Akkad! This smells like opportunity to me - you're going to take 12ish turns to kick out 4 longboats, and I'll have Linear A's bireme out in 5, which is fast enough that I think there's a narrow window of time in which I could attack Akkad before sending biremes towards our eventual harassment target. With this in mind, I turn the northern Bireme around, which would give us a third ship in the area just quickly enough to participate in this attack. Feel free to veto that plan, though, if a) you think 3 biremes might not be enough to eat the city-state or b) you think having a ship in place for circumnavigation in the Ancient Era is more important. I'm not going to need the ES at this point, with DT's 1 ES adding to the Cothon's 4 to guarantee a GA, but you conceivably might if you don't find the last team in the next 10 turns.

I'm a little nervous about Archduke's galley, nervous enough that I'll probably try to tail it back to Linear A over the next few turns. If I were them, I'd probably DoW and pillage an unoccupied Cothon given the chance, which would be a significant setback. Internationally, Kaiser finished the world's first campus (last turn, but I didn't catch it until this turn), the reason for their game-leading science rate but only average number of completed techs.

Not much going on economically this turn, but next turn will be a big one - the first Cothon boosting SW to completion for +2 science from a CS quest plus another +4 culture from the Pingala promotion. The capital will start a settler at +100% hammers after a swap to Colonization, then finish its boat...or the other way around, which would delay the settler 2 turns but which would be just fast enough to give us another boat in the area for an Akkad attack. That's probably worth it if we're going with that plan, and definitely isn't if not, IMO.

[Woden]

Akkad! Do we really want to take Akkad out or do we want to dump all of our envoys into them. Their bonus is that melee units and anti-cavalry units do full damage to walls! No need for rams or siege units. Sadly, their bonus doesn't apply to naval units. Alternatively, we might want to take them out to deny others from gaining that advantage against us.

As for your Brieme turning around, that is okay, I can send my longboat in the east back west of 3 or 4 turns and then turn around to get the circumnavigation bonus if we need it. Given how close we are to suboptimal and roland, I still might find the other team if they are that close to Kaiser.

[ljubljana]

Oh. That's a good point and a good question...if one of us takes Amani (probably me since I'll have an extra title soon from the GP), they could potentially suzerain Akkad in time to have that bonus up before we attack sub/roland. I'm also somewhat doubtful that anyone would try to out-envoy us there, simply because the CS itself would be almost impossible to defend from a naval attack from Phoenicia and so anyone who tried would put themselves at a significant risk of losing all their envoys.

That said, I'm not sure how useful the bonus really will be in an attack - it only applies to one of us, not the whole team, right? It'd be nice to not have to buy/build the one or two rams we'd need to take out walled cities without it, but I feel like it might be nicer to simply have a free extra city on the books, especially this early. It could probably contribute a unit or a couple of ships to the attack from its native production, and would also be a significant economic boost with extra science/culture/gold, an extra Cothon, and general snowball considerations.

Hmm, maybe I'm not giving the power of the Akkad bonus its due with that logic, though. In the Ancient/Classical Era, it doesn't seem to be worth thaaat much - it saves us from needing a ram, but Akkad itself would give us enough production to just build the ram if we take it at ~t60 and land ground troops at ~t75-t80. But once our opponents start building higher levels of walls, especially Renaissance walls, the bonus could really shine in ways that can't be replicated by dumping production into siege weapons. Maybe that's too late to be really significant, since our current gameplan relies on executing a quick attack before that happens, and if we fail to pull that off we've probably lost anyways. On the other hand, I'm still a little nervous that we're not going to be able to pull off a quick attack anyways, since I don't think we can get ground troops over to sub's island faster than t80 or so due to tech problems, which is probably too slow for a sword conquest, especially if they're already in troop buildup mode due to our naval harassment.

Idk, what do you think? It seems like the combination of the tech shuffle mode and the need for IW + Shipbuilding to attack someone delays the timing of a Classical ground attack enough to heavily favor the defender here, especially if they have warning that an attack is coming in the form of a DoW and active harassment campaign. If we plan around a Medieval attack with Frigates and simply use our UUs for harassment and against CS now, then Akkad's bonus could be crucial against the level of walls we'd face in such an attack, making it well worth keeping around. On the other hand, though, we may not be playing to our civs' strengths by waiting that long, which could lead to us being outmuscled by things like Crusade Japan, England's UU, and the other late power spikes that our opponents have access to.

edit: if we do go for a quick attack with swords, I think my tech priorities are probably wrong. Wheel-BW is the right choice to find and boost IW and start stockpiling iron, but I (we?) should research and start building swords after that before wasting time on Shipuilding, so we can have swords ready to embark as soon as we have all the tech online. I still kind of shudder to think of how long it'll take to get all the tech in place, though...if IW is right after Archery, maybe it won't be so bad, but we're also going to be iron-limited since I can't get iron hooked up before BW pops, and teching all the way to HBR seems like it'd take way too long to be effective. Hmm...

edit2: this is unrelated, but if you do find the last team, maybe it would make sense for you to deliberately not end the turn with vision on any of their units? That way, I'd only end up contacting one of the two of them on my turn, and could save the "contact all the civs" ES bonus for the next era.