ALC Game 16: Persia/Cyrus

Amass an army on Huayna's borders so if HIS army passes you can declare and wipe them out. MC can still help you by trading to GK for Construction if he gets it soon.

At this point Sisiutil is researching metal casting. This leads to machinery, engineering, and civil service. Pikes should do well against elephants. Cats and trebs will be available for bombardment. Maces and crossbows should be able to handle melee units.

Hmmm...I come back to this thread to AGAIN see people recommending going for khan. I STILL think this is a bad idea.

I think a major opportunity was lost: going hardcore on immortals early and hitting HC (after China) before he hooked up copper/elephants (got construction). That razing war on HC would've crippled him hard, which is a great idea when he's such a threat (the only one on your continent I would say).

Now, with his war elephants, he's got you in a bit of a pickle. But you have a great opportunity here. I agree with people who suggested construction before MC, but what's done is done. Get construction, mass catapults bring along a few spears, and join the war with Issy against HC.

The longer you leave a financial civ, the stronger they get in my experience.

Personally, I thought when I checked in on this game that HC would be crippled or done for by now. I don't think you can afford to wait forever.

Logical progression for this game still seems to be in my mind: China (done) --> HC (do not delay much longer) --> Issy (she is backwards) --> Mongols (will be very backwards by late-gameish).

I see a few more of my suggestions fell on deaf ears

1) You must bring up relations with GK so you can bribe him on HC and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!! Why is he still at cautious???

2) Beelining cavalry? With 6 cities if you nab GL and adopt castsyst + pac you can have cavalry 1000AD +/- 200 years. With cav you could take out your whole continent in no time. If you are not attacking HC you should be beelining cavalry in my mind...

If HC gets to wipe out/capitulate Isabella then he's going to be tough to beat. Not impossible, but tough.You'll have problems pillaging all his ivory though, maybe if you have OB you could sneak a few immortals into spanish territory for closer access. You can get construction in four turns if you switch now and run research at 100% then finish off MC at your leisure. It would be prudent to have a spear in border cities. Ideally you would have GK fight HC along with you if only for the mutual struggle (and it might keep him out of mischief).
It looks an interesting point in the game.

Maybe you could bribe Huayna into making peace with Queen Jailbait. That way he doesn't become a huge obstacle and you still have a tool on your continent that you can use against him. Just throwing ideas out...

futurehermit said:

2) Beelining cavalry? With 6 cities if you nab GL and adopt castsyst + pac you can have cavalry 1000AD +/- 200 years. With cav you could take out your whole continent in no time. If you are not attacking HC you should be beelining cavalry in my mind...

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Beelining cavalry is by far the best option in my opinion, and would showcase some of the benefits of running a caste/pacifism-based SE nicely.

Too many people focus solely on slavery and cottages; or falsely believe that an SE will only work if you build the pyramids for early representation and/or have a philosophical leader.

I regularly beeline cav, works great. I'm going to miss it post-xpac :'(

Hi all

Sisiutil and all the others contributing to this forum, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your valuable insights have proven priceless in helping me make the transition from freshly whipped rookie to somewhat successful intermediate.

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but I just wanted to let you guys know that your work and time is appreciated.

King Nunu said:

Hi all

Sisiutil and all the others contributing to this forum, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your valuable insights have proven priceless in helping me make the transition from freshly whipped rookie to somewhat successful intermediate.

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but I just wanted to let you guys know that your work and time is appreciated.

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First post but longtime lurker...I wholeheartedly agree above. These are very good write-ups technically and aesthetically.

HC is not that threatening as long as we can keep the tech rate with him and keep building units to maintain power. actually we out tech him so far and we could take the window finish GK and back to HC with promoted units. HC could be a temporary tech trader, so we are after izzy, she should be backward.
calvary is too far away to talk about, with courthouses in hand, the whole continents should be yours before calvary appears.

EEE_BOY said:

HC is not that threatening as long as we can keep the tech rate with him and keep building units to maintain power.

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And do you do that ?
Why not build some wonders in the meantime? Does that sound manageable ?
Come on, wake up ! HC WILL ahead before war with Khan is over. And experienced troop s will be matched his veterans of the spanish war.



Sisiutil, I strongly suggest to forget about going after Khan.
Take the incans down as soon as you catch up in military techs, and build some proper counters to elefants. Try to bring relief to Izy, pillage, and capture a couple of towns if you can. That should be feasible, since he´ll be diverted when you strike

Another vote against Khan.

He is laughable in the long run, but HC is always a monster.

I guess the thread slows down as the game wears on. This thread was getting about two to three pages per day at the beginning. Now it's starting to slow down.

But it sure was amazing at the beginning! (Not that it isn't good now, of course! )

Clovis said:

I guess the thread slows down as the game wears on. This thread was getting about two to three pages per day at the beginning. Now it's starting to slow down.

But it sure was amazing at the beginning! (Not that it isn't good now, of course! )

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That's my fault for the infrequent updates. When I manage to post a round every day or two, there's a flurry of activity. When I get busy and can only post once a week, of course it slows down.

I'll try to play the next round tonight; posting it may have to wait until tomorrow. Sounds like I should gear up for war and go after Huayna.

Yeah, by the end of May 7, you had already reached 5 and one half pages!

Come on, we are all waiting!

Round 7: 65 AD to 725 AD

You know how in sports, when there's nothing much happening on the field, the coach and/or GM always says something like, "It's a building year"?

Well...

"It was a building round."

No, I didn't mix it up with the AI in any wars. Well, aside from a brief phony one, which doesn't really count. I have more thoughts on this later, but first...

I started the round by changing techs:



I also founded that Ivory city on the north central coast:



These were the first two of several moves that I thought were going to pan out in a certain way but didn't. I anticipated getting Construction and building an army of Catapults and Elephants to take on Huayna and come to Isabella's rescue... you know, kill the bad guy, rescue the girl, save the world, just like in the movies. Well, it didn't turn out that way. It seemed like it was taking forever and a day to get anything built, even with my use of the whip, and believe me, I whipped like crazy this round.

I came to a simple conclusion.

I suck at the Specialist Economy.

Seriously, I don't know how you SE advocates make it work. I've only had one successful game EVER with a SE. (That was the Frederick game, which if you remember was atypical, especially since it used an extraordinary gambit to get the Pyramids.) All my citizens are either working farms or busy being scientists with almost none working hammer tiles. I keep trying to grow my population so I can switch to Caste System but I keep having to whip them away to get things built.

Anyway, I think that's the reason why this game is taking so long--it's my frustration with what seems to me to be an unworkable economic model, for me at least. Maybe it means I'll never graduate beyond Monarch level with Civ IV, but you know what? I'm finding Monarch is my level. I still get challenged (especially with the Better AI mod) at Monarch, and as the last game showed, I'm perfectly capable of getting my butt handed to me.

Okay. Enough venting. Back to the game.

The Smilin' Incan showed up and asked me to join in the festivities to the east:



I turned him down. I simply wasn't ready for any type of war, and at this point I thought that when I was I'd be coming after him, not Isabella. Who also asked me, a couple of turns later, but be her dancing partner, but I turned her down too. Not good for diplomatic relations, I know, but I need to stay alive to have those in the first place.

Like I said, I whipped quite a bit this round... for example:




However, as you see above, a lot of the whipping was for infrastructure. Like I said, with citizens either on the farm or in the lab, builds seemed to take a lot longer, so I got impatient and the populace paid the price for that.

A few turns later I got my next Great Scientist and used him to lightbulb Philosophy (on the Liberalism path, of course). This also founded Taoism in Guangzhou:



And wouldn't you know Taoism spread like wildfire through my cities? Not to anyone else's, though. I was really hoping it would spread to Genghis, but he went and founded Christianity several turns later and converted to that. So the religious situation is decidedly complicated. Thus, I remained non-committal through the whole round and did not select a state religion. Frankly, between Monarchy and my luxury resources, I didn't need it for the happy, and it just would have ticked someone--make that several someones--off at me.

As it was, I maintained relatively even relations with Khan (who remained Cautious with me through the whole round) and Huayna (who was Pleased with me most of the time). This allowed me to experience success in at least one area this round--some decent tech trades.



I was heavily subsidizing research with gold (yet more evidence of my SE suckage, I suppose), so taking gold off of Huayna's grubby hands had appeal:



Around this time I made another change that I thought would pan out a certain way but didn't. I finished researching Civil Service. Since I was going to change my legal civic, I thought it made sense to change the religious one at the same time:



My thinking was that I would spread one of the religions I had in my cities (I had both Hinduism and Buddhism now, in addition to Taoism) with OR's monastery-less missionaries, then convert to whichever one offered the most economic benefits. Well, like I said, Taoism spread on its own, and the sluggish build times meant I was reluctant to devote hammers to missionaries--I needed units and infrastructure. So I'm running a very expensive civic for very little benefit. Somebody shoot me.

Another tech trade:



Now I was thinking that I'd build my queues up with units at some point then switch to the Vassalage/Theocracy combo for all the XPs. That hasn't happened yet, but may soon.

I was running short of gold again, and decided to throw Izzy a bone in her fight against Huayna:



Since she has horses, that should help her out a little.

I researched several techs on my own this round, as well as trading for them or lightbulbing them: Construction, Metal Casting, Civil Service, and this one:



Which was obviously important because it gave both Macemen and Crossbowmen the green light. Now I was starting to feel like I could field a decent army--if I could just get the damn thing built.

Then things got a little complicated. Genghis, who I didn't really want to take on just yet, came by and made a demand:



I caved, just to try to keep him off my back. Remember I'm anticipating attacking Huayna still, and I have Mongolia on my rear flank. After this, Huayna again asked me to join in his dust-up with Isabella, and this time I said yes. It was a short phony war on my part just to keep Huyana happy for now.

I kept making tech trades:



As you can see, I was gradually accumulating the techs to build a strong medieval-era army. I had Civil Service and Machinery for Macemen and Crossbowmen, Feudalism for Longbowmen, and I'm researching Engineering for Pikemen and Trebuchets. I finished Engineering at the end of the round and began on Guilds for Knights.

I also, finally, founded that fishing village I should have kept when I took it off the barbarians' hands:



And towards the end of the round, Huayna made peace with Isabella and I did the same:



So Izzy is now relegated to most-backward status. As usual. Sorry, babe.

Anyway, that was the round. Not much to write home about, but I'm slightly ahead in techs and even score, as you'll see in the state-of-the-world post that will shortly follow.

The State of the World, 725 AD

Let's start off with a look at the map--with resources,



And without.



I sent a Sentry Immortal around the continent this turn (though he's just getting into Mongolia now), so it's reasonably up-to-date.

EDIT: I just noticed this--Huayna went and founded a city right in the middle of Mongolia, on the northwest coast! Cheeky, eh? The maintenance costs must be murder. No wonder he's not running away with the game.

Now the Domestic Advisor, so you can all see what I'm busy building:



Civics:



Like I said earlier, I'm thinking of building up a big medieval army in my cities' build queues, then switching to Vassalage and Theocracy for a few turns to churn them out. After that, I think it will be time to switch the labour civic to Caste System.

Here's a detailed look at diplomatic relations. Huayna's attitude towards me:



What Isabella thinks of me (not much!)



And Genghis's opinion of me:



Genghis and Huayna, despite their religious differences, appear to be quite cozy with one another. Here's Huayna's thoughts on Genghis:



And vice-versa:



Suffice it to say that no one's very fond of our little raven-haired religious fanatic. BIG surprise there...

Here's the tech situation, first how I compare to Genghis:



To Isabella:



I should have mentioned before that she did not become Huayna's vassal when they made peace.

And compared to Huayna:



Now one thing that doesn't show up here is Paper. I just lightbulbed that tech with my latest Great Scientist in this very turn, and for some strange reason when you do that the tech doesn't show up in the diplomacy screen until the next turn. So I have a better edge on everyone than it appears.

Even so, Huayna and especially Genghis have been keeping up remarkably well. The Mongolian was several techs behind me for most of the round, but has clearly almost caught up. I think it's several things--he's probably traded with Huayna (you saw he traded with me quite a bit too), the fact that he hasn't had to fight a war, unlike the Incan, and he also built the Parthenon, of all things, which meant he got a Great Prophet a little more quickly, whom he popped for Theology.

So I may come to regret some of those tech trades. I'm beginning to think I should research Optics soon and get out there and meet the other two remaining civs and potential trading partners, so I can start to freeze out the gang on my continent.

Then again, I haven't heard much about what's happening in distant lands this round. I'm beginning to think that the other two civs may be isolated and therefore slowly falling behind. Tough to know for sure, though.

The Military Advisor:



Well, at least that's a little better than the end of last round, when I had nothing but 14 Immortals.

Speaking of which, here's the power graph:



Not bad, but not great. All the more reason, I think, to do the queue build/civics switch thing. Besides, I love doing that, just to see my power rating spike over the course of 3 to 5 turns.

Finally, here's a look at the religious situation:



I told you Taoism spread like crazy! To be honest, I used the free missionary in Goth, and another one I built in Arbela for border-popping, but it spread to Shanghai, Pasargadae, and Persepolis all on its lonesome. I'm thinking I should switch to it as a SR soon. I was hoping it would spread to Mongolia so Genghis would convert, but no, he had to go and found Christianity.

So despite my curmudgeonly grousing about the SE, I'm ahead in score. Still, as an Imperialistic and Charismatic leader, I really should be warring more in this game. I think that should be the objective of the next round: build units and wipe Huayna off the map.

First, though, if anyone can tell me how to get things built in a decent amount of time while running a SE, I'd really appreciate it.

good round and game so far.

BTW where you said to put religious advisor, it isnt showing up, but other than that good job

Sisiutil said:

The State of the World, 725 AD


First, though, if anyone can tell me how to get things built in a decent amount of time while running a SE, I'd really appreciate it.

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A novice guess would be Priests and Engineers along with every damn mined hill you have.