Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Which is exactly why I ended this round when I did; I don't like having Great People sitting around contributing nothing. But I still think waiting for Alphabet before deciding was a good move.
ALC Game #22 Take 2: Arabs/Saladin
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Which is exactly why I ended this round when I did; I don't like having Great People sitting around contributing nothing. But I still think waiting for Alphabet before deciding was a good move.
Smakemupagus
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 113
Welcome back!
I wouldn't be in a rush to declare on Zara, personally; you might end up in a better position to take on Roose while staying on good terms with Z and Sury. Even if (when?) you do take out Zara first your situation w.r.t. him should only improve by mideval when you will have more land, camels, protective-juiced xbow & lbows. I would make peacefully expansion top priority, Iron city first, then look to add west coast corn; & capture and keep the two barb sites.
So, I think you should prioritize 2 settlers & several workers more urgently than madrassa & barracks which are currently in queue.
Tech: In the short term I think HBR and currency are key, whether you research or steal. I would pass on Aesthetics. Keep an eye out for opportunity to bulb Theo and maybe grab some religious wonders. If you can control diplo through religion you'll be set for whichever target you choose @ medieval war.
I wouldn't be in a rush to declare on Zara, personally; you might end up in a better position to take on Roose while staying on good terms with Z and Sury. Even if (when?) you do take out Zara first your situation w.r.t. him should only improve by mideval when you will have more land, camels, protective-juiced xbow & lbows. I would make peacefully expansion top priority, Iron city first, then look to add west coast corn; & capture and keep the two barb sites.
So, I think you should prioritize 2 settlers & several workers more urgently than madrassa & barracks which are currently in queue.
Tech: In the short term I think HBR and currency are key, whether you research or steal. I would pass on Aesthetics. Keep an eye out for opportunity to bulb Theo and maybe grab some religious wonders. If you can control diplo through religion you'll be set for whichever target you choose @ medieval war.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
I like the idea of prioritizing HBR, a tech I almost never research on my own. It makes sense, though; with it and clear undisputed ownership of horses, Horse Archers become my multi-purpose power unit rather than Axemen or even Swordsmen. They don't get defensive bonuses, but I have Protective Archers for that. And if I get a few HAs hyper-promoted by attacking those barb cities, they can become uber-CAs later.
On that note, I've become quite fond of the Flanking promotions for mounted ever since the Cyrus ALC, so look for more of my mounted units to follow that promotion path.
On that note, I've become quite fond of the Flanking promotions for mounted ever since the Cyrus ALC, so look for more of my mounted units to follow that promotion path.
IagoAlberto
Warlord
I don't think you are in a good position to war or REX for the moment so either currency or COL should be your tech priority.
Second, settle the great spy, it will give you more espionage points over the course of the game than an infiltration mission will at this point. I tried this strategy after watching Mad Scientist's Mao RPC and it works like a charm. Get another two GSpy's later, one for settling and one for scotland yard and you will have more than enough EP's to steal techs as needed and preform city revolts whenever you want.
Third block Zara first with the crab and gold site then grab the iron city then you can block Roosevelt and backfill the other cities as needed. With that empire in place you should be well positioned to launch a late medieval/renaissance war.
Second, settle the great spy, it will give you more espionage points over the course of the game than an infiltration mission will at this point. I tried this strategy after watching Mad Scientist's Mao RPC and it works like a charm. Get another two GSpy's later, one for settling and one for scotland yard and you will have more than enough EP's to steal techs as needed and preform city revolts whenever you want.
Third block Zara first with the crab and gold site then grab the iron city then you can block Roosevelt and backfill the other cities as needed. With that empire in place you should be well positioned to launch a late medieval/renaissance war.
fjordan
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2007
- Messages
- 210
With Rep it is tempting to settle the spy but I will still go for infiltration of Roosevelt. After all, with the Madrassa's in place we are not goinig to get much more spies for a spy economy. My plan would be:
- Scout Roosevelts land with the GSpy and infiltrate
- build Madrassa's everywhere and do some farming
- when they are finished, put the slider to 0% and let you specialist and spies do the research. Now we will have some spare cash for war recovery
- steal the important techs like currency etc. when they become available
- don't bother with stealing cheap techs like sailing; they are not worth the hammers for the spy
- self research all cheap pre-req techs and sell them for gold to Roosevelt if possible
- don't bother settling any more cities: what is the use of blocking if you are going to declare war anyway?
- Iron can wait till we really need it; with Zara gone there will be plenty of time
- EP for bringing walls down is too expensive in early game: apart from the EP, for every spy you can almost get a catapult
- prepare a SoD and completely kill Ethiopia
Well that's how I would do it.
- Scout Roosevelts land with the GSpy and infiltrate
- build Madrassa's everywhere and do some farming
- when they are finished, put the slider to 0% and let you specialist and spies do the research. Now we will have some spare cash for war recovery
- steal the important techs like currency etc. when they become available
- don't bother with stealing cheap techs like sailing; they are not worth the hammers for the spy
- self research all cheap pre-req techs and sell them for gold to Roosevelt if possible
- don't bother settling any more cities: what is the use of blocking if you are going to declare war anyway?
- Iron can wait till we really need it; with Zara gone there will be plenty of time
- EP for bringing walls down is too expensive in early game: apart from the EP, for every spy you can almost get a catapult
- prepare a SoD and completely kill Ethiopia
Well that's how I would do it.
patagonia
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2006
- Messages
- 1,025
The other reason for pursuing HBR now is that you've got a very long border with Roosevelt. If he gets antsy with you, the extra mobility of an HA force will be very useful.
Forgot to mention that earlier
Stuck in Pi
3.14159265358979323846...
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 646
I think you should settle the Great Spy. Other than that, I have nothing.
It seems to me that the infiltrate vs. settle issue comes down to a choice between a short term benefit or a greater long term benefit. The question that then arises is "Given the current situation in the game can you afford to be thinking long term?" IMO the answer here is no.
Zara has 6 techs on you at the moment (Polytheism, Priesthood, Fishing, Sailing, Math, and Construction) but more importantly he has double your GNP. This means he's likely to tech quickly for the foreseeable future. The fact that he already has construction for catapults is worrisome, but that also means he's just one tech (HBR) away from bringing his jumbos online.
Given the current land availability situation you have to wonder how long it will be before Zara attacks.
The fastest route to military parity is to infiltrate Zara, build a couple of spies and then steal math, construction and HBR (assuming Zara researches it in the near future). If you do decide to infiltrate you might want research Fishing while the Great Spy makes its way to Gondar. This will allow you to see what Zara is researching, and also hopefully allow you to trade Alphabet for Sailing with Zara. Given Zara's tech rate you'll want to trade as many techs as possible to reserve the EPs for techs that you can't get in trade.
Overall there seems a lot that needs to get done in the next round. A couple of settlers (iron/fish and corn/fish), a few workers (minus how many you manage to nab from the barb cities), a couple of spies (if you infiltrate), several axes (to take the barb cities), madrassas in Medina and Damascus. It looks like you'll need to break out the
frequently in the coming turns. Good luck.
Zara has 6 techs on you at the moment (Polytheism, Priesthood, Fishing, Sailing, Math, and Construction) but more importantly he has double your GNP. This means he's likely to tech quickly for the foreseeable future. The fact that he already has construction for catapults is worrisome, but that also means he's just one tech (HBR) away from bringing his jumbos online.
Given the current land availability situation you have to wonder how long it will be before Zara attacks.The fastest route to military parity is to infiltrate Zara, build a couple of spies and then steal math, construction and HBR (assuming Zara researches it in the near future). If you do decide to infiltrate you might want research Fishing while the Great Spy makes its way to Gondar. This will allow you to see what Zara is researching, and also hopefully allow you to trade Alphabet for Sailing with Zara. Given Zara's tech rate you'll want to trade as many techs as possible to reserve the EPs for techs that you can't get in trade.
Overall there seems a lot that needs to get done in the next round. A couple of settlers (iron/fish and corn/fish), a few workers (minus how many you manage to nab from the barb cities), a couple of spies (if you infiltrate), several axes (to take the barb cities), madrassas in Medina and Damascus. It looks like you'll need to break out the
frequently in the coming turns. Good luck.How useful will HAs really be against the AI with all the ivory on the map? Unfortunately that also means camel archers aren't going to be very useful in this game either.
why would infiltration look like a bad idea?? go steal mathmatics!! not to mention the obvious benefits of spy bombing someone so they cannot possibly continue to expand. sabotaging their population through poisoning or forcing unhappyness is always a good thing.
not to mention that while you build up to protect yourself or ready for war.. they'll be continuing to tech as fast as the AI does. every tech they potentially get up on you becomes a stolen one as soon as possible. you should be able to steal atleast 4 techs this way and literally double your research over the next 80 turns or so
NaZ
not to mention that while you build up to protect yourself or ready for war.. they'll be continuing to tech as fast as the AI does. every tech they potentially get up on you becomes a stolen one as soon as possible. you should be able to steal atleast 4 techs this way and literally double your research over the next 80 turns or so
NaZ
slaze
Deity
Couple things. First of all, I'm not so sure where your cities are going. You're cottaging Mecca, okay, are you going for bureaucracy? you're building a madrassa but you have no farms. Fine, but if you're going to cottage mecca, cottage the whole thing, you have three more pop to grow into yet your working mines but of course you don't have any workers there. 4 cities and 4 workers, not so good. lotta things you gotta do.
4 cities is not taking you anywhere. you need to more cities, like now, and cities needs workers and workers first. Of course, cottaged capitols aren't good at this, but such is the boat you've put yourself into. And back to city growth if i look at medina, your working a plains hill mine building a granary which is good, but as soon as that's done, the last thing you want to do is work plains hill mines. with slavery, a grassland farm is worth more production than a plains hill mine until 12 pop, so don't kill your growth and waste production by working plains hill mines. of course, you don't have these farms up, you decided to road mecca instead (sorry, man, just trying to wake you up)
Anyway what you gotta do is finish the granaries (or not) and other ....stuff.... you're doing, and build a worker first, but then a settler and the workers and two more settlers with interlaced workers and all that. Get to seven cities (nine wit barbs), like now, and production cities. and 10-12 workers.....or more. Here's where your cities go, the first one at the end of the river 1E of the last peak by the barb cities. farm the floodplains and the river grassland, gets the iron (which you don't need at all) and kills the seafood, leave that for zara. Second goes on the west coast (hehe) with the fish and corn. This is killer production, leave the dye for wash for now. Last goes on plains hill 1 NW of bronze just south of capitol, production.
And it goes without saying you take the two excellent barb cities with horse archers. nice going, patagonia.
But then you attack wash with elephants and the rest. Catapults will be fine, no need to build up some massive stack first, slash and burn is fine. objectives are the dyes, unseen new york, and the last elephant tile (no need to fret validator, that's the last one)
Research: Horseback riding -> metal casting. If you get metal casting any time soon, I'll be dissapointed in you. Expand like hell. Kill the economy. But everything going to be allright, and here's you it works: you infiltrate Zara Yaqob. His GNP is great - the best of the four of you (although some of that is steleed culture. He built the great lighthouse, let him do his thing. he has no production, he's nothing to be afraid of, let him build his coatal cities down the coast (give him the gold crab and the garbage seafood cities that you'll compromise with your riverside iron). As long as you turn into a production powerhouse he'll never attack you. If he gets to oromo's, no biggie, get him with rifles, but either way, his land is garbage, leave him alone.
Gift him alphabet to encourage him towards currency, steal the thing and build markets to fund your expansion. Screw madrassa's at this point. You may even want to hold of on specialists to get a second great spy. You may even wnat to go into the slider pretty soon, even without a multiplier.
But the task ahead is clearly to expand to an acceptable size to be able to do anything of consequence. You're the king of the 60% slider rule, you can throw that right out the window, like, right now. Cities, cities, cites. And they need workers to be of any value and 4 workers ain't cutting it. This cottage empire ain't going nowhere. farm it, whip it, attack. keep zara as you bff, keep sury on wash only to break sury's heart later. no spy bombing, science is priority #8, espionage #4, expansion #1, fighting #2. do.
4 cities is not taking you anywhere. you need to more cities, like now, and cities needs workers and workers first. Of course, cottaged capitols aren't good at this, but such is the boat you've put yourself into. And back to city growth if i look at medina, your working a plains hill mine building a granary which is good, but as soon as that's done, the last thing you want to do is work plains hill mines. with slavery, a grassland farm is worth more production than a plains hill mine until 12 pop, so don't kill your growth and waste production by working plains hill mines. of course, you don't have these farms up, you decided to road mecca instead (sorry, man, just trying to wake you up)
Anyway what you gotta do is finish the granaries (or not) and other ....stuff.... you're doing, and build a worker first, but then a settler and the workers and two more settlers with interlaced workers and all that. Get to seven cities (nine wit barbs), like now, and production cities. and 10-12 workers.....or more. Here's where your cities go, the first one at the end of the river 1E of the last peak by the barb cities. farm the floodplains and the river grassland, gets the iron (which you don't need at all) and kills the seafood, leave that for zara. Second goes on the west coast (hehe) with the fish and corn. This is killer production, leave the dye for wash for now. Last goes on plains hill 1 NW of bronze just south of capitol, production.
And it goes without saying you take the two excellent barb cities with horse archers. nice going, patagonia.
But then you attack wash with elephants and the rest. Catapults will be fine, no need to build up some massive stack first, slash and burn is fine. objectives are the dyes, unseen new york, and the last elephant tile (no need to fret validator, that's the last one)
Research: Horseback riding -> metal casting. If you get metal casting any time soon, I'll be dissapointed in you. Expand like hell. Kill the economy. But everything going to be allright, and here's you it works: you infiltrate Zara Yaqob. His GNP is great - the best of the four of you (although some of that is steleed culture. He built the great lighthouse, let him do his thing. he has no production, he's nothing to be afraid of, let him build his coatal cities down the coast (give him the gold crab and the garbage seafood cities that you'll compromise with your riverside iron). As long as you turn into a production powerhouse he'll never attack you. If he gets to oromo's, no biggie, get him with rifles, but either way, his land is garbage, leave him alone.
Gift him alphabet to encourage him towards currency, steal the thing and build markets to fund your expansion. Screw madrassa's at this point. You may even want to hold of on specialists to get a second great spy. You may even wnat to go into the slider pretty soon, even without a multiplier.
But the task ahead is clearly to expand to an acceptable size to be able to do anything of consequence. You're the king of the 60% slider rule, you can throw that right out the window, like, right now. Cities, cities, cites. And they need workers to be of any value and 4 workers ain't cutting it. This cottage empire ain't going nowhere. farm it, whip it, attack. keep zara as you bff, keep sury on wash only to break sury's heart later. no spy bombing, science is priority #8, espionage #4, expansion #1, fighting #2. do.
oynaz
Prince
I agree with Slaze in principle. 4 cities in 300 BC? I tend to have between 6 and 10 at that point, depending on available land, and whether or not I have had to kick Shaka's butt. 4 is not enough by a long shot.
Yeosol
monarch
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2007
- Messages
- 120
I don't think anyone has mentioned this but I thought it was kind of funny. I would of thought S would have mentioned it in the pre-game, although likely he has forgot. Maybe the fame has made him forget his roots?
This is a quote from him from the Hatty game.
"I did play a game as Saladin/Arabia which did not go well. (Basically, Caesar and Kublai dog-piled me in mid-game.) I posted about it in another thread way way back, and everyone offered so many suggestions on how I could have played it better, especially on how to better take advantage of Saladin's traits, opening techs, and UU, that the idea for these threads occurred to me. If there's interest, I may go back and try another Saladin game once the other leaders are done."
Just a little ALC trivia.
This is a quote from him from the Hatty game.
"I did play a game as Saladin/Arabia which did not go well. (Basically, Caesar and Kublai dog-piled me in mid-game.) I posted about it in another thread way way back, and everyone offered so many suggestions on how I could have played it better, especially on how to better take advantage of Saladin's traits, opening techs, and UU, that the idea for these threads occurred to me. If there's interest, I may go back and try another Saladin game once the other leaders are done."
Just a little ALC trivia.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that the ALCs were borne out of that ignoble first attempt to play a game outside of my 4 faves from vanilla Civ IV (Julius, Liz, Cathy, George). So Saladin deserves his moment in the spotlight, doesn't he? Let's just hope history doesn't repeat itself!I don't think anyone has mentioned this but I thought it was kind of funny. I would of thought S would have mentioned it in the pre-game, although likely he has forgot. Maybe the fame has made him forget his roots?
This is a quote from him from the Hatty game.
"I did play a game as Saladin/Arabia which did not go well. (Basically, Caesar and Kublai dog-piled me in mid-game.) I posted about it in another thread way way back, and everyone offered so many suggestions on how I could have played it better, especially on how to better take advantage of Saladin's traits, opening techs, and UU, that the idea for these threads occurred to me. If there's interest, I may go back and try another Saladin game once the other leaders are done."
Just a little ALC trivia.
sylvanllewelyn
Perma-newb
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
- Messages
- 2,036
Generally speaking, 4 cities in 300BC is weak, but sometimes your surrounding lands just cannot produce enough commerce to support anymore than that. What that means is that he's stuck at 4 cities because of commerce. If that is indeed the case, then while a dedicated military effort would surely work against any emperor AI, eliminating a rival and getting more cities won't solve your original problem. If his lands are commerce-rich, on the other hand, then yes, it is sloppy gameplay, but after over 20 ALC games, I doubt that his play could be classified as "sloppy".
Lord Chambers
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2001
- Messages
- 1,004
What would commerce-rich land look like?
pigswill
fly (one day)
Quick thoughts:
Switch back to slavery next turn, whip madrassa in Mecca and run a couple of scientists instead of working mines, you lose 7-8 hammers but gain 15 beakers. Build/whip a couple of settlers in 'larger' cities to close the gaps.
Settle GSpy.
Currency>CoL or maybe med> ph > col (opens up philosophy bulb).
Switch back to slavery next turn, whip madrassa in Mecca and run a couple of scientists instead of working mines, you lose 7-8 hammers but gain 15 beakers. Build/whip a couple of settlers in 'larger' cities to close the gaps.
Settle GSpy.
Currency>CoL or maybe med> ph > col (opens up philosophy bulb).
Artichoker
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2007
- Messages
- 1,711
$$$$$$ in the BFC
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Gems, gold, silver, dyes, beavers, etc!
Otherwise, at least:
Riverside tiles, seafood resources, and otherwise tons of food so one can cottage it up
.Generally people get one or the other, but if you're lucky enough to get tons of food and something like multiple gems/gold then
and play the game like it's a difficulty lower...I have trouble dealing with food-poor starts without much in terms of super commerce. They're hard.
