[Sword of Islam]: Byzantine Conquest

Are we focusing our espionage against one civ?

Science Rules said:

Are we focusing our espionage against one civ?

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Yes, unless someone went in and changed it, I focused espionage on Abbasids on our very first turn.

AnotherPacifist said:

5. After Crucible steel, I would do Engineering, and build Kutlag-timur in either Damascus or Tarsus (need Islam to build it).

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We won't have time to learn Engineering and get all the techs required early enough to build a mass of Cataphracts before the Rum spawn.

I think that we need to beeline straight to Selective Breeding first and then we might consider other tech paths.

on that note why crucible steel?

Selective breeding needs agricultural science which in turn needs cash cropping. Since the Makurians usually like to research it (as shown by the next turn), we can trade for it. In fact, I would take that detour now for agricultural science if we really want selective breeding.

I usually like crucible steel first because of the blacksmiths.

Is it worth it to build the Minaret of Jam (not for the piety for spreading Islam) for the +1 XP for all units? I personally don't find it very useful.
Speaking of religion, we should probably try to switch to theocracy after we get selective breeding to build experienced units. Maybe save the next great person for a golden age?

Since we haven't invested much on Crucible Steel, I would change it into Agricultural science and maybe steal or trade for CS later.

Concerning civics, can we please agree that nobody changes them on his own without first agreeing with others what to change into.

For that matter, we could change into theocracy and agriculture during a golden age. Afterwords I would lose theocracy though.

For right now, we should maximize the use of the OR for buildings. I think only cities like Damascus, Ankyra and maybe Adrianopolis and Sevasteia should produce troops.

I will play tonight (in 12 hours).

jammerculture said:

on that note why crucible steel?

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Because it is also a pre-requisite for Cataphracts, and it allows Blacksmiths which should be built in all of our cities ASAP.

AnotherPacifist said:

Selective breeding needs agricultural science which in turn needs cash cropping. Since the Makurians usually like to research it (as shown by the next turn), we can trade for it. In fact, I would take that detour now for agricultural science if we really want selective breeding.

I usually like crucible steel first because of the blacksmiths.

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Exactly. We can trade for Cash Cropping, learn Crucible Steel ourselves and steal Education from the Abbasids. By the time it comes to learning Agricultural Science and Selective Breeding, our research rate should be up around 60% as we will have the Royal Mint in our Capital.

AnotherPacifist said:

Is it worth it to build the Minaret of Jam (not for the piety for spreading Islam) for the +1 XP for all units? I personally don't find it very useful.

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Not the most useful wonder to a Christian civ, but nevertheless one that we should have and not our opponents. As it has two pre-requisites (neither of which we have, and neither of which progress us towards Cataphracts) there is no likelihood that we'll be trying for Minaret of Jam any time soon in any case.

AnotherPacifist said:

Speaking of religion, we should probably try to switch to theocracy after we get selective breeding to build experienced units. Maybe save the next great person for a golden age?

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Jusos2108 said:

Concerning civics, can we please agree that nobody changes them on his own without first agreeing with others what to change into.

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I agree with jusos on this one - no anarchy for Theocracy, it's not worth that much. I usually only have the 5 or 6 most productive cities building Cataphracts and Theocracy is only something that we should adopt if we are in a Golden Age.

I'm OK with saving our next Great Person for a quick burst of Theocracy-inspired Cataphract production. That would be a good idea.

Jusos2108 said:

Since we haven't invested much on Crucible Steel, I would change it into Agricultural science and maybe steal or trade for CS later.

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Oh no! This is not a good idea. We need Blacksmiths ASAP and we need Crucible Steel for Cataphracts as well as Agricultural Science/Selective Breeding.

AnotherPacifist said:

For right now, we should maximize the use of the OR for buildings. I think only cities like Damascus, Ankyra and maybe Adrianopolis and Sevasteia should produce troops.

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Agreed. I would add Smyrna, Attaleia and Kaiseria to that list potentially also though.

rrosen said:

I will play tonight (in 12 hours).

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Good luck!

Sinope should next build an Orthodox Church instead of a Fairground.

We could pillage some cottages for extra cash that are in random locations outside of our cultural borders and won't ever be worked by us, such as the two near the Rum spawn location and the one NW of Damascus.

The Cilician Horse Archer merc in Ankyra might have just about outlived his usefulness and could maybe be disbanded.

blizzrd said:

Sinope should next build an Orthodox Church instead of a Fairground.

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Fairgrounds are cheaper (8 turns vs. 13 turns for church), will add 1 trade route (currently +1g with Adrianople so I suspect +1g also, but might be more) while church will +2g. With a harbor it will be double that. It's not that unhappy now.
Also, I thought we should save the churches for a stability buff later (at least that's what I do usually for domination games)?

How about sending the Cicilian to Damascus (still rather vulnerable against camel archers)?

blizzrd said:

Oh no! This is not a good idea. We need Blacksmiths ASAP and we need Crucible Steel for Cataphracts as well as Agricultural Science/Selective Breeding.

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I forgot that we need CS for Catapracts, I was only looking at the tech lines. So yes we should go for it next and steal Education, which was the original plan, I suppose.

AnotherPacifist said:

How about sending the Cicilian to Damascus (still rather vulnerable against camel archers)?

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Camel archers won't be spawning anytime soon, so we should disband the Cilician HA after we have another Horseman patrolling.

Turn 1: Buy Cash cropping for religious philosophy from Makuria.


Turn 2: Kill a pirate war galley outside of Smyrna. Atteleia finished monastery, starts fairground. Kaisarea finished barracks, starts horseman. Damascus gets water of life event. New wave of Bulgarians. Beduoins cleared outside Damascus.


Turn 3: Adrianopolis under attack, more waves of Bulgarians appears. It finishes a monastery, starts building a fairground. Damascus finish a barrack, starts a fairground.

Turn 4: Countryside around Adrianopoulis is ravaged by Bulgarians.

Turn 5: Ankyra will now churn out 1 horseman/2 turns. Thrace is further ravaged by barbarians, but an assigned horseman saved the countryside of Constantinople at least.


Turn 6: Tarsos library -> lighthouse.

Turn 7: Lose a spearman in Adrianople. Gujarat spawns. Dorylaion finish a monastery and starts a fairground. Amastris granary->fairground. Sinopi fairground -> orthodox church. I dismiss our wonded Bulgarian horseman. Mosul is independent, but we can finally see the abbasid border!


Turn 8: Royal Mint finishes in Constantinople and we jump to 62 gold. Fairground next. Attaleia fairground->lighthouse. Samsounta granary -> fairground. We're now running 60% science at +8 gold per turn (36 in stock) with crucible steel in 4 turns. Do we have too many workers? Crash to desktop, but autosave the same turn. Settled caravan for 76 gold in Dvin, and increased science to 70% (-19 per turn, still 4 turns). Last Bulgarian killed.


Turn 9: Double Ilkhalid spearmen south of Damascus.

Turn 10. Spy finally arrives at Samarra. Construction is just troops. The farms south of Trebizond are finished and I have started a road towards Armenia, futile though that may be. Sevasteia has 2 horsemen, 2 spearmen and an archer. The worker guarding force consists of two horsemen and the cilician horse archer. Troops are quickly being churned out, so the Seljuks should not be a problem.


To do:
When Crucible Steel arrives in 2 (or 1, if you set science high enough) turns, start with blacksmiths. Start with Agricultural science and selective breeding.
Steal education from Abbasids.
Pray that the Samanids won't culture bomb. It is now too late (I think?) for either of the two options, unless we send our four horsemen of the apocalypse+horse archer from Sevasteia immediately towards the east.
Possibly dismiss our Cilician horse archer.
Move troops to Damascus to replace the Turcopole horse archer to dismiss him.
Should we prepare a force to raze Antioch?

I will be in Spain from tomorrow until wednesday (6 days). If the work laptop can handle civ and there is Internet access, I'll write here, otherwise you can skip me until then.

... and the save file is nice to have as well.

Economic relief, finally!

About Adrianopolis' defences:
I always fortify the forested hill 1NE with a spearman, some of the dumb barb riders will run into it and it can always kill a rider nearby or move back to the city, vice versa with axemen approaching an archer should move to the hill. It doesn't matter if the city is unprotected when the barbs can't reach it. The important part is that we don't keep building the improvements over and over again.

I would say that we forget the Samanids, since most likely we'll get the condition anyways.

Agree with protection of Adrianopolis. I usually build a fort and station "Robin Hoods" (marksmen with forest promotion) there (but that's for later on). Right now, a fortified archer, spearman and axeman (promoted for forest) is all that's needed.

I thought we were going to allow the PoA to spawn to gain some XP? (personally I would like to raze it). Remember that there will be random barbs coming just SE of Sevasteia (not just Seljuks), so leaving an indy (and then later on, PoA-owned) Antioch to defend against them may not be such a bad idea.

AnotherPacifist said:

Fairgrounds are cheaper (8 turns vs. 13 turns for church), will add 1 trade route (currently +1g with Adrianople so I suspect +1g also, but might be more) while church will +2g. With a harbor it will be double that. It's not that unhappy now.
Also, I thought we should save the churches for a stability buff later (at least that's what I do usually for domination games)?

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Fairground adds + 1 commerce, not gold. That's not the same thing, not by a long way. For Sinopi for example, which has base commerce of 16 (+1 with Fairground) at 30% taxation increases our gold output by 0.3g from 4.8g to 5.1g. An Orthodox Church would increase our gold output by +2g. Both Fairground and Orthodox Church bonuses are then affected by the +25% bonus from Market, which also makes the Church significantly more useful than the Fairground.

We should make use of Spiral Minaret before it is obsolete and make use of Fairgrounds more so when we have Harbors and Companies.

It appears rrosen didn't read my post anyway. Enough already with the Fairgrounds! We need religious buildings before Fairgrounds!

Regarding the defense of Adrianopolis, I would have promoted a Spear with Hill promotions instead of generic strength. But can't really do much about that now.

Well, I did read your post, it's just that I prefer fairgrounds for the short term boost.

Short term boost of what? With such small commerce output currently, the +2g from Spiral Minaret is around 6 or 7 times better than the +1 commerce (not gold) from a Fairground.