ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

Sisiutil said:

Attacking Louis early is definitely a possibility.

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Just to add to the "why rush Louis?" crowd... if you rush him and take him out, and Suleiman is the only other AI on the continent (which seems likely), then you'll be out of luck for trading partners.

Bh

Let him build some wonders first. And wars with catapults or trebuchets are less expensive.

Let him build pyramids, then kill. Representation is far superior to crappy hereditary rule.

Sisiutil you silly wee player. You switched to slavery? This means you can have a slave revolt. Don't switch to slavery until you intend to whip, then run back. Spiritual!

I would go with swords and cats as soon as possible. Even if you shut off his eastern expansion completely, it looks like his half-dozen cities will be in pretty good land, making it far more difficult to out-produce him when the war finally starts.

Of course, I'm not thinking it will be easy to shut him off from dropping in a city or two to the east, making it even more difficult to establish a good macemen/camel/treb production base at that point in the game. He'll probably have 8 cities to our five.

My vote is to claim the two sheep city sites as soon as possible and then see what you can do about your French problem.

This looks like it could get pretty challenging. The question of whether or not to DoW Louis comes down to whether you want to kill him now when he's relatively weak or kill him later when he's got a full-grown empire and his UU available to him. There's a very good chance that waiting until later will also see you in a 1 vs 2 since Suleiman and Louis could end up religious buddies. It seems pretty clear cut that Louis should die sooner rather than later, but I don't see how you can pull that off, given his high cultural defense and the fact that you don't have a lot of production to draw on right now. Given all that, I'd REX a bit more and then see if you can kill Louis off with swords and cats.

The problem with leaving Louis alone is that AI can expand and research much faster than the Human player so out expanding an AI is essential and usually this leads to war. Also keep in mind with Marble and Industrious, he won't be spending anywhere near as much time on wonders as other civs might, he could build 4 in the time it would take another to build one. If he gets metal casting for fast forges this applies even more so.

We also don't have a clue what's happening on the other side of the world. My first Monarch game featured me having three protective leaders on my side of the world while the other side has Mansa Musa, Gandhi and Wang Kon almost an era ahead of me by the time I found them. The moral of the story is, get fatter now, so you can tech faster later.

Folks...we can attack Louis to cripple him, but we don't need to kill him.

By killing him, we rob him of his opportunity to build wonders for us...he can still do that if we take just half of his cities.


With Protective and Feudalism, we will have Longbows with free Drill + City Garrison...so we won't need to fear Louis or his possible ally (Suleiman) rising up to attack us.


Taking half of Louis' cities also requires fewer troops to succeed...the main requirement is a core force of Catapults to reduce his cultural defenses, and also a small group of Axemen to finish off garrisons.

Fewer troops means less commitment required to mount the offensive, which means we will still have hammers for settlers and workers.

If we limit the conquest of Louis' cities to only some of them, that means city maintenance can be saved for expansion of our half of the continent, using settlers.

Artichoker said:

Folks...we can attack Louis to cripple him, but we don't need to kill him.

By killing him, we rob him of his opportunity to build wonders for us...he can still do that if we take just half of his cities.


With Protective and Feudalism, we will have Longbows with free Drill + City Garrison...so we won't need to fear Louis or his possible ally (Suleiman) rising up to attack us.


Taking half of Louis' cities also requires fewer troops to succeed...the main requirement is a core force of Catapults to reduce his cultural defenses, and also a small group of Axemen to finish off garrisons.

Fewer troops means less commitment required to mount the offensive, which means we will still have hammers for settlers and workers.

If we limit the conquest of Louis' cities to only some of them, that means city maintenance can be saved for expansion of our half of the continent, using settlers.

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I agree :

take few cities with swords & cats, turtle, and finish him later with camel & trebs.

Folks...we can attack Louis to cripple him, but we don't need to kill him.

By killing him, we rob him of his opportunity to build wonders for us...he can still do that if we take just half of his cities.


With Protective and Feudalism, we will have Longbows with free Drill + City Garrison...so we won't need to fear Louis or his possible ally (Suleiman) rising up to attack us.

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Hmm...that's a really good point. The extremely difficult to kill protective longbowmen would be a very effective way to make use of the protective trait. One could smack around Louis, taking as many cities from him as is economically feasible, but not having to worry too much about letting him hang around until you can finish the job.

Of course, that will mean timing the coup de grâce around his UU, but that might not be a problem if you cripple his research enough.

If you can pull this off, it would also serve to keep the other guy from coming down and settling into areas that you would be forced to free up by razing cities.

JTMacc99 said:

Of course, that will mean timing the coup de grâce around his UU, but that might not be a problem if you cripple his research enough.

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What I foresee/plan is crippling him in the classical era (with Axes, Swords, and Catapults) and then finish him in the medieval era (with Saladin's UU, among other things)--long before he gets to Gunpowder and his own UU.

Out of curiosity... We are protective and spiritual. We are planning on attacking Louis in the relatively near future. Suliman has no religion.

I would think that since we are protective we can easily arrange it so that we don't really care if Louis attacks us. Since we are going to attack him fairly soon anyway, we have no reason to make him happy with us. We might as well become officially Islamic (since we can change out if Suliman converts to Confucianism) and get the + now (and potentially OR or theocracy later). If Louis attacks (before we attack him), we can leverage Protective to, well, protect ourselves. If we decide that we really want some tech that he has we can leave Islam for a while and trade for it, then swap back.

Religious hatred dies instantly once you change to another religion, right (religious love just takes a while to take hold)? It seems like we should be leveraging Spiritual more completely (and as mentioned should not be in slavery if we aren't whipping anything).

Lets hope Suleiman agrees with the live and let live and doesn't help himself to Louis. Land is power. Suleiman's got a lot of it.
He's lot closer to a creative, industrious leader in organised religion with Stone and Marble in the BFC than Saladin. One who could have the Chitchen Itza.

I'd rather see the invincible Arabian camel Corps unleashed on the poor unspecting Ottomans. Don't want the French to have a settler sail away on a galleon to safety, now do we?

Kill Louis now. Letting him wonderspam is no excuse or reason to delay his execution.

Scarredroman said:

Kill Louis now. Letting him wonderspam is no excuse or reason to delay his execution.

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I think I've ruled out an axerush, so this will become a talking point once I have swords and catapults. I think finishing the French or letting them live a little longer will depend more on the state of my economy than on their wonder pursuits.

I'm still a bit wary about starting an early war with just three civs on this continent. Unless we feel Louie may eventually warm back up enough to trade with or that Sul will provide enough tech trading to last us, I would just try more to block his east expansion where I could and hold off on hostilities until later. I would also prioritize optics if we cannot find the other 4 civs.

Still, the warring will likely make us civ-non-grata on the continent for Louie, and that will be especially true if we raze a city. If we keep a city or two, that's going to be a pretty decent drain on the economy - and again we'll likely be without multiple tech-trading partners to catch up.

Would a capture and pillage campaign, letting Louis recapture (or us liberate) his cities (without culture buildings and possibly a few others) work until we finally decide to perform the coup-de-grace? This would significantly hurt his economy while maintaining some stability in our economy and decent relations for tech trading purposes. Maybe just leave mines and hope he builds Wonders/buildings instead of units?

Sisiutil said:

I think I've ruled out an axerush, so this will become a talking point once I have swords and catapults.

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What are your thoughts on a tech path?

Are you still looking to build the AP?

What other wonders are you considering for now?

When do you plan on researching IW?

When do you plan on researching Mathematics?

Will Alphabet be the tech you research during war (presumably to extort a tech off Louis)?

How are you going to spread Islam to Suleiman before Louis spreads Confucianism to him?

Round 3: 1500 BC to 380 BC (48 turns)

As I started the round I decided to put off Masonry for awhile in favour of a different technology, to give Medina's borders a chance to claim the nearby marble first.



My thinking here was to get Monarchy for the Hereditary Rule civic ASAP to help with happiness. As you'll see, our hopes of claiming that silver resource turned out to be a pipe dream, so that makes HR all the more important despite the unfortunate lack of any wine resources on the continent.

It was no surprise to discover that I'm far behind in technology:



Well, I'm hoping to catch up later with the help of the UU.

I should also let you know that during this round, many of our far-fetched plans turned out to be just that. Our scheme to make Suleiman into our Muslim buddy, for example, fell flat early on.



Two turns in! So much for spreading Islam to him--I can't even build Missionaries yet?

And nearly as quickly, Louis finished his first wonder:



This wasn't really a surprise--he's Industrious and has marble, after all. Someone else built the Pyramids a few turns later--so much for that idea as well! I felt glad I hadn't put any energy (or hammers, whips, or chops) into them--I have a feeling I'll need them for other purposes before too long.

I kept on my own path, hoping everything will eventually work out.



After that I went after Masonry. I'd just about finished a monument in Medina, and the city soon got some help in the cultural department. Louis sent a Missionary there, you see.



I converted, of course, for both the and the diplomatic bonus with both of my neighbours. So now we're one big, happy Confucian continent. So much for our dreams of Islamic hegemony. Maybe next time...

With the monument, that boosted Medina's culture to 2. Meanwhile, for those of you fretting about my not micro-managing my civics (switching in and out of Slavery to avoid revolts), believe me, I was whipping away this round. The more I play Civ IV, the more I come to believe that hammers beat gold or flasks in the long run, and whipping is, of course, one of the best ways to get quick, easy hammers in the early game.



I founded my third city, the one many of you were urging to make a priority.



It makes sense, frankly. This city will be my early GP farm thanks to no less than 3 top-notch food resources. A Madrassa here will be a priority, though I didn't get to it this round (I built a Work Boat, Monument, and Granary first).

My next tech came along shortly after this:



I decide to pursue Alphabet after this. I never like delaying it too long. On Emperor I sometimes get beaten to it, which never happened on lower levels. Besides enabling tech trading, it's fine tech trading fodder all on its own as well. In terms of the game situation, what with the happy Confucian brotherhood breaking out all over, the military techs seemed like a little less of a priority in comparison. I'm also hoping to trade Alphabet for Monarchy.

As I said, I kept whipping away.



Some of you might be wondering why I didn't rush out a Settler to that corn/sheep city on Louis' borders. Well, I rushed Axemen instead, because the barbarians beat me there.



I decided to keep it. It's one tile east of where we'd planned and thereby loses the fresh water health bonus from the lake. But it saved me a Settler (though it cost me one Axeman). It still claims the corn and the sheep will (eventually) be within its fat cross--Louis' extra heapin' helping of culture claimed that tile. But eventually I hope to get it back. And with that extra cultural pressure, it's probably better to have the city back a tile.

I decided to run the round through to the completion of Alphabet.



If you check then number of turns, you'll see that it showed up sooner than originally planned. Two things helped this. As you can see, I ran deficit research for a few turns, making use of the gold captured from Sakae. I had also completed my first Madrassa in Mecca and ran two scientists to help research along a little further. I thought the first Great Person should be a Great Scientist anyway so I can get an Academy going. However, I don't want to run specialists in Mecca for too long; the city needs to focus on working its cottages.

I did my first tech trade--a doozy:



I thought that was a pretty decent trade. As you can see in the next screen shot, Sailing immediately gave my economy a little shot in the arm. No, Sully wouldn't trade me Monotheism instead of Sailing; that was just a tad too pricey for him.

I didn't trade Alphabet to Louis since he's only willing to trade Monotheism for it. Remember that No Tech Brokering is off this game, so I am running a risk of Suleiman turning around and trading it to Louis. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, because I have other plans for that tech with Louis.

Ah yes, I now have Iron Working. Do I have Iron?



That simplifies matters, doesn't it? Medina is going to be a very strong production city, the hammer-heavy tiles powered by both the corn and no less than five grassland tiles that can be irrigated pre-Civil Service. It will probably my Heroic Epic city. And you can see that Medina will produce a Settler on the next turn, and this means I don't have to settle to claim iron. In fact, this is the only source of iron that's even remotely close by. I think the southern fish-sheep-copper-silk city will be next (blue #6 on my dot map).

And that was the round. Not too shabby, I think--I caught up a bit in techs thanks to Alphabet, completed my exploration of the continent (as you'll see), got my first UU built, and claimed a city from the barbs. The save is below; a state of the world post will follow.

Hmm, the monument in Damascus seems soft - you don't need the pigs yet, not with the wheat, crabs and the extra hill already in play.

Medina promises to be a lot of fun.

Where's the rest of the Iron on the continent?

Sisiutil said:

I didn't trade Alphabet to Louis since he's only willing to trade Monotheism for it. Remember that No Tech Brokering is off this game, so I am running a risk of Suleiman turning around and trading it to Louis. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, because I have other plans for that tech with Louis.

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I doubt Suleiman will be in the mood to trade Math to Louis within the next 2 turns, so I think you're safe there. If you're lucky, you might even convince Suleiman to take Monarchy for Maths later down the line!

I Alphabet.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Hmm, the monument in Damascus seems soft - you don't need the pigs yet, not with the wheat, crabs and the extra hill already in play.

Medina promises to be a lot of fun.

Where's the rest of the Iron on the continent?

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I think he's working on the State of the World post right now.




@ Sisiutil:

Even more so, I am still in strong favour of playing nice with this continent. (If you haven't read my dissertations yet, just find the longest-winded posts over the past 3 pages ... those are mine. )

If you don't play nice, Suleiman is the better target, IMO. Plus, if you attack Louis, you know Suleiman will jump in on Louis' side ... but if you attack Suleiman, Louis is less likely to come to his aid.