[Sword of Islam]: Byzantine Conquest

Does anybody know if and when the Latins are going to come back? Right now we have no companies--the Assassins are gone, the Knights have just left Tarsus.
Maybe we should take 4 turns to research Music Theory and build Mevlana's Tomb in Damascus from whence it can spread to the rest of Iraq.
Does anybody know if you can get Sufism if you don't have Islam in a city? Or if you have brothels and inns?

AnotherPacifist said:

Egypt: Alexandria (has Lighthouse so can't raze)
snip...
Strictly speaking we don't need Edessa since we have Hamah (should cover PoA).

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We should also keep Cairo. Hamah is in Syria.

AnotherPacifist said:

Does anybody know if and when the Latins are going to come back? Right now we have no companies--the Assassins are gone, the Knights have just left Tarsus.
Maybe we should take 4 turns to research Music Theory and build Mevlana's Tomb in Damascus from whence it can spread to the rest of Iraq.
Does anybody know if you can get Sufism if you don't have Islam in a city? Or if you have brothels and inns?

Click to expand...

IIRC it won't take that long. After the crusade I suppose.

I doubt it, the only way is probably to build the Mevlana's Tomb and get rid of the Muslims. Somehow I would like to see the Tomb of Mevlana in Smyrna, it would be great for the science and gp bonuses. So we need a muslim missionary.

Turn 0: I make peace with Seljuqs, they give us 230 gold and 1 gpt. I bribe the Fatimid to do peace with Armenia for the price of religious unity and algebra.


Turn 1: Banking finished, started music theory. I generally built alot of banks, plus marksmen for the forts. Three cities close to Iraq builds orthodox missionaries. Wasit captured.

Turn 2: Great Engineer hurries Soltanieyh. Not much else happening. I have a little difficulty on finding meaningful things for our workers to do, they mostly build forts.

Turn 3: As you expected, Georgia declares war. As we don't want to expand, I don't conduct any offensive operations towards them. Soltanieyh finished in Bagdhad. Ahvaz captured, and expansion finished for now.


Turn 4: Not much of interest happens, a few Georgian units destroyed.

Turn 5: Music theory finished, black powder started. 18 turns @70% science (+50 gpt). I built a missionary, but Mevlanas tomb don't need islam, so the missionary is left sleeping.

TUrn 6: An angle of mercy arrives in Constantinople. I choose the health (and happiness) bonus. Meet Khwarezm, who are furious. Missionaries spread orthodoxy in Ahvaz and Wasit.


Turn 7: 1169 has arrived, and no Ayyubids in sight.

Turn 8: Orthodoxy spread in Kufa, Iraq is christianised.

Turn 9: Constantinople finishes Ulan Beg Observatory. Black powder down to 12 turns. Starts Grand Bazaar next. Smyrna starts Melvanas Tomb. Perre founded (1E of the horse, northen Syria).


Turn 10: Realized we were at war with Ghaznavids, made peace with them and they gave us quite some gold (forgot the exact amount). A small Georgian troop is threatening Trebizond. The cataphracts close, plus heavy lancers, should be more than enough to deal with it. There is currently 1 marksmen en route to each of the Iraqi cities, but perhaps we want two each? Some of the border forts in Anatolia still requires marksmen, for the mongols.

To do: Prepare a few more defenders for the mongols in Iraq and the Anatolian border.
Build banks in all of the cities.
Decide on when to go to the offensive again. After mongols?

Edit: forgot the save.

Why bribe the Fatimids to make peace when the Armenians would do it for free?
Send the cataphracts around Armenian territory to trash the Georgians.
Send the Sunni missionary to Hamah (outside Anatolia=fair game for Islam).

An oversight. I assumed Fatimids to be the more powerful party, and in my experience the usual case is that the less powerful party is unable to make peace, however much they want to, so I didn't even check with Armenians. Still, no dangerous technologies traded.

That's OK, but it leaves them free to research military techs sooner.
Remember we have to destroy them after 1250.

Why do you need the anti-horse archer promotion? A heavy lancer with Combat II already has a 84.1% chance against Mongols.

Wouldn't a city on the honey be better than Perre?

Only Brothels affect Sufi negatively. Italian companies come back after 25 turns.

MessageMan said:

Why do you need the anti-horse archer promotion? A heavy lancer with Combat II already has a 84.1% chance against Mongols.

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I cannot tell you how many heavy lancers I've lost with that chance against their 2 first strikes...I think it's 1 in 6 or so. Still hurts when it happens.

I think Perre is perfectly fine. Founding on the honey will overlap with Hamah, as well as not grow as quickly (missing the apples and the bonus from improving the honey). It's also much more defensible.

AnotherPacifist said:

I think Perre is perfectly fine. Founding on the honey will overlap with Hamah, as well as not grow as quickly (missing the apples and the bonus from improving the honey). It's also much more defensible.

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I think Perre is fine too.

Um, ScienceRules, tick tock.

Got it.
Edit: Done.
The solution to my CTD issue is to take notes the old-fashioned way (pen & paper) instead of taxing my poor PC with excessive alt-tabbing.

I'm not going to type up everything I wrote unless someone else asks.

Basically, I built infrastructure in all cities; auto produced marksmen in Sevesteia, Ankara, Sinopi, Adrianople, Attalea and Kayseri.

Zengids are now Armenia's vassal and converted to orthodoxy, but won't OB with us.

Georgia overwhelmed an armored lancer in lesser Armenia with two horsemen. They also destroyed a few workers that I was carelessly building forts with. At the same time, we destroyed the Georgian stack near Trapezounta and also took a potshot at Poti. We can capture this city at any time we want.

Smyrna finished Melvena's tomb and has begun a Sufi Shrine.

Questions: Our workers are very bored, after Hamah's borders pop, I think it may be worth deleting some workers to save money on maintenance. We aren't going to need them until after the Mongols anyway. Nearly all of our needed forts are complete. (BTW, rrosen could you stop creating groups out of our workers; it's a real pain for me to undo them at the beginning of my set).

Why not build Perre 1W of where it was actually built? Are we not counting Edessa as a PoA spawn zone? After the Mongols, we will need to build a city in Jazira/Asuristan because it's the Zengid spawn zone, any ideas?

Lastly, I favor keeping Poti and razing Tplipsi when the time is right.

Science Rules said:

Are we not counting Edessa as a PoA spawn zone? After the Mongols, we will need to build a city in Jazira/Asuristan because it's the Zengid spawn zone, any ideas?

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To be clear: the goal is a minimum of one city per civ spawn zone. That does not require one city per province within each civ's spawn zone.

The same city may suffice for multiple civs.

Northern Syria is also PoA's spawn zone and we only need one city in each civ's spawn province, so having a city in NS is enough.

EDIT: crosspost

My question was about building a city in Edessa as an alternative to building in Northern Syria to satisfy the PoA spawn requirement.

Also, I didn't realize Northern Syria is a part of the Zengid spawn zone (is it?).

Why not build Perre 1W of where it was actually built?

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Woops! That should've been 1E, which is in Edessa and a much more productive location.

Science Rules said:

My question was about building a city in Edessa as an alternative to building in Northern Syria to satisfy the PoA spawn requirement.

Also, I didn't realize Northern Syria is a part of the Zengid spawn zone (is it?).

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Well it is an either/or city location, so it doesn't matter that much.

No it isn't. Mosul is will probably be our Zengid city.

Could you explain why you think it was an either/or situation? 1E has 1 less peak and gains cotton at the expense of stone.

Well because Perre has other advantages, like defensibility. I probably would have founded it 1E after valuying the spots properly, but it would've been a close call.

I prioritized defensibility over production.

Which techs should we aim for before starting the massive expansion?

So we're sure to win before 1400 (when Ak Koyunlu spawns)?
I would leave Jazira/Asuristan alone until the very end (since it's close to us), after we've conquered India.

I would go for light cavalry, and then the Topkapi Palace (-25% expansion stability cost).

We should make use of the Tomb of Khalid in getting some vassals before we obsolete it.

Please switch all specialists away from the spies--we've got plenty of espionage. I would favor scientists or engineers.

Speaking of espionage, we should switch to another civ since it's clear the Seljuks are rather weak.