[Sword of Islam]: Byzantine Conquest

That's a tall order. We need to have solid stability around the time of Saladin's spawn for him not to flip Damascus. I don't foresee any troop building enough to take Damascus AND defend ourselves from barbs for another 50 years at least.

2x Horse Archer mercs and our existing Sword are all that is required to take Damascus.

We must refuse all flips.

But it's OK to give cities away, no, if it's not a flip?

We need Markets before Granaries in my opinion. Why are we bleeding cash at 10% Science if we aren't trying to build Markets?
Tarsos needs a work boat before anything else.

OK, smallish cities like Ankyra probably don't need granaries. But for Smyrna and other potentially big cities, to not build granaries first is to limit growth (e.g. it takes something like 10-12 turns to grow from size 6 to 7 if you don't have a granary). Growth in population is going to allow us to build markets much quicker (able to work more tiles).

For Dorylaion I just set it to a granary as a place holder (until it grows so we can build the worker).

Check system should be prioritized (so we can build gold).

Actually I have time to play now, so I'll grab the save.

Quick comments:
I am not going to give away any of our cities, since IMO that defys the rules. Also I'll switch granaries to markets and devote all espionage on the Abbasids, who will be the best target for stealing techs. Damascus is going down asap.

AnotherPacifist said:

Check system should be prioritized (so we can build gold).

Click to expand...

We don't have too much time to research techs outside of the line to Cataphracts, of which Long-Distance Trade is already a tech from another line. We do have a deadline with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum to remember, and will need a sizeable number of Cataphracts by around 1060AD.

Hey guys. I love lurking these SG's and I love SOI so I am really looking forward to this one. The nuances of SOI are still outside of my experience so I am really glad that these types of games are starting to be played so it gives me something to learn from.

I do have a couple of questions though, if you wouldn't mind.

First on Damascus, i am curious on why you are prioritizing its capture. Although it is a great city, I find in my games as Byzantines that it is a drag on my economy. Its main use to me is as a forward unit builder, but as you have said that you are going to be doing your expansion later i am not sure why you are prioritizing its capture early. Is it because of your rule variant where you want to only have Orthodoxy in asia minor, therefore requiring an Islamic city for the wonders?

also, in terms of terrain improvements, I am curious on how you guys choose between windmills and mines, especially in a city like Ankyra which has a lot of plains hills and therefore not a lot of food. i tend to convert all my mines into windmills once I get the tech, as I think its a wash on hammers but it gains me some more commerce and population. Am I right to do this?

Also, a suggestion, I always go for cheque system before bee-lining selective breeding. Building wealth helps me research down that line quicker plus it also opens up inns which i prioritize for Byzantines to leverage their UP better. My typical strategy is to cut research after selective breeding and put my commerce into espionage to steal crucible steel, engineering and a bunch of religious techs from the Abbasids which I use to build a pile of wonders in Constantinople. Then I go after asymmetrical warfare to further boost my espionage in preparation for the spawning of the later more advance civs.

Thank you jammerculture, I agree with you on all 3 points.

How do you guys handle the waiting with these games? lol

I do not know how it is even possible to play civ twelve turns at a time. I started a byzantine game to use as a semi-shadow game, but when the battle lust faded I had already taken out Rum lol.

jammerculture said:

First on Damascus, i am curious on why you are prioritizing its capture. Although it is a great city, I find in my games as Byzantines that it is a drag on my economy. Its main use to me is as a forward unit builder, but as you have said that you are going to be doing your expansion later i am not sure why you are prioritizing its capture early. Is it because of your rule variant where you want to only have Orthodoxy in asia minor, therefore requiring an Islamic city for the wonders?

Click to expand...

Damascus can build Spiral Minaret and other early Islamic wonders very effectively. It also provides most of the remaining health/happiness resources that Asia Minor does not contain.

also, in terms of terrain improvements, I am curious on how you guys choose between windmills and mines, especially in a city like Ankyra which has a lot of plains hills and therefore not a lot of food. i tend to convert all my mines into windmills once I get the tech, as I think its a wash on hammers but it gains me some more commerce and population. Am I right to do this?

Click to expand...

That is how I usually operate also.

Also, a suggestion, I always go for cheque system before bee-lining selective breeding. Building wealth helps me research down that line quicker plus it also opens up inns which i prioritize for Byzantines to leverage their UP better. My typical strategy is to cut research after selective breeding and put my commerce into espionage to steal crucible steel, engineering and a bunch of religious techs from the Abbasids which I use to build a pile of wonders in Constantinople. Then I go after asymmetrical warfare to further boost my espionage in preparation for the spawning of the later more advance civs.

Click to expand...

I can usually get science research to 70% well before Selective Breeding without Cheque System, so I don't see the need to prioritize it myself. I'd rather be building infrastructure than gold if at all possible.

blizzrd said:

I can usually get science research to 70% well before Selective Breeding without Cheque System, so I don't see the need to prioritize it myself. I'd rather be building infrastructure than gold if at all possible.

Click to expand...

How do you do this? my last few games my science would always lag very badly. By prioritizing markets for royal mint, and then building wealth in a few cities I have greatly increased my output. Am I missing something else?

Religious buildings + Spiral Minaret for the rest of the economic growth mostly.

Guess how much more science we can have with check system AND Spiral Minaret!

Cities like Amasra, Trapezius and even Tarsus are not very productive until they have grown (because there are no high production resources close by. After a granary, I usually let them build wealth to sustain my science, while the other more productive cities finish their infrastructure, and then I switch away from wealth in the former. The only exception is a blacksmith (which should be prioritized for most cities).

blizzrd said:

Religious buildings + Spiral Minaret for the rest of the economic growth mostly.

Click to expand...

Right so in my last game I built the Spiral Minaret in Constantinople (which I understand wont work with your variant rules which I think is pretty cool) So then I built churches and monasteries everywhere. Was this overkill? Some cities took a long time to build the buildings.

So two gold for a church and two gold for a monastary, then an extra gold if you have a market (if I understand correctly). So if I knew how many hammers I needed to build the three buildings and how many hammers each city produced, I could determine how many turns it would take for the buildings to over produce building gold (Where is Voiceofunreason when you need him?)

I guess as many things in civ, it comes down to long term vs short turn gain.

On a slightly related note I am going to build the Islamic wonders in Damascus as suggested my next game for one very important reason. In my last game Constantinople was too busy buildling wonders that I never built the religious buildings there, which with the royal mint was a loss of 10 gold per turn! Would that be 13 with a cathedral? And how best to compensate for the lack of wonder culture?

There are only 2 ways to guarantee that Constantinople is the most cultured city in 1000AD: (1) Great Artist culture bomb and (2) send an advance raiding party of units into Samanid territory and raze whichever city they culture bomb (if any).

In other words, it doesn't matter how many wonders are in Constantinople really.

I'm back now, is it correct to assume that the order is blizzrd-AP-Jusos-rrosen-Science Rules? We need to decide on the culture question. I've never done Samanid raid. How many units do you need to be reasonable sure of succeeding? When will they need to be sent? Should we pop a great artist, but not settle it, and just look at the culture scoring in 1000 to see if we need to bomb it?

Turn 0 I switch granaries to markets and hire a Bulgarian rider. Science at 0%.

Turn 1 Khan Krum's invasion starts.


Turn 2 Bulgarians approach.

Turn 3 Khan Krum's invasion ends. No losses.


Turn 4 Mopping up the bulgarian spearmen. Our two mercs head to Tarsos.

Turn 5 Our economy improves drastically as a market is finished in Constantinople.

Turn 6 Uneventful.

Turn 7 Our mercs head towards Damascus from Tarsos. The swordman has been on his way for some time now.

Turn 8 Uneventful.

Turn 9 Uneventful.

Turn 10 We are almost ready to strike at Damascus.



Notes and suggestions:
-Take down Damascus and make peace with the Abbasids.
-Escort some workers to Damascus.
-Contact other nations.

blizzrd said:

Damascus can build Spiral Minaret and other early Islamic wonders very effectively. It also provides most of the remaining health/happiness resources that Asia Minor does not contain.
snip...
I can usually get science research to 70% well before Selective Breeding without Cheque System, so I don't see the need to prioritize it myself. I'd rather be building infrastructure than gold if at all possible.

Click to expand...

Damascus' culture will also flip Sur, which can be disbanded before the crusaders are born. Also the resources around Damascus will easily cover the rising science and maintenance costs. Altogether the spices and incense will give +4gold in five cities via the Venetians, so it is almost as capturing a shrine.

Check System is pretty useless imo. I found that building gold, before all the infra is ready, is a bit like wasting resources. We'll also want to have Mechanical Engineering and Blast Furnace way before the mongols show up. With Heavy Lancers the Mongols go down like wheat.

Version 0.3.5 is out. (Save compatible with 0.3.4)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sword-of-islam/