ALC Game 18 Pre-Game Thread: Playing as Isabella

Unless something was changed, Conquistadors can also fortify and receive defensive bonuses, which isn't reflected in the original post. It's not enough to really save them from the hit they took being moved to Cuiriassers IMO.

Early tech order should be determined by available tiles. If you don't have good commerce tiles for a religion run then getting a worker tech and building cheap workers is a good fallback.
To get a great prophet you either need a religion + temple or one of Stonehenge/Oracle. If you don't get Med/Poly/Mono, you will need one of those wonders to get a GP - otherwise you won't be able to generate a Great Prophet, cheap temples or no.

Some thoughts on military:

Hopefully, the game will be long over before you even think about heading toward Conquistadors. Because of that, I'll look at early units.

• Chariots = no fear of Barbarians and very cheap happiness from Monarchy. That requires Wheel (you want that anyway) and horses. We'll see if the map encourages this.
• Axes = no fear of any Melee unit during this entire game.
• Spearmen = no fear of horses.

Other than that, you don't need any units for defense until the creation of the Longbow, so don't worry about anything else. You aren't going to be taking anyone's cities for a while since you'll be founding religions and building settlers and workers instead of early Axes.

Units you can ignore:

• Scout. You don't start with Hunting and it's not a priority unless there are Beavers, Deer or Ivory in your BFC. Your starting warrior will do just fine to see the lands around you in the beginning and a Sentry Charriot will work better than a Scout to finish the exploration.
  
• Swordsman: By the time you discover Iron Working and get the Iron, it will be too late for Swordsmen to take any decent cities without siege assistance. If you have Copper somewhere within your empire and not too much Jungle, you can ignore Iron Working entirely.
  
• Horsebowmen: The less said about these the better. HBR is only worth getting if you happen to have Ivory and you feel like crushing a neighbor.
  
• Archers: You don't need 'em. Axes and Spears will do just fine to defend your empire and Chariots are a better option than Archers for Monarchy garrison units.

One final thought:

Trebuchets
Machinery is needed for Optics anyway. That puts you only one step away from Engineering. 10 XP Trebs under Theology sound mighty tempting to me. If you do need to extend the game and capture a neighbor's cities, this won't take you too far off of your path.
Math + Construction + Engineering = dead neighbors and Construction plus HBR will give you Elephants to go along with your Trebs if you have Ivory nearby.

Not to try and de-rail this. Just a question. Why did you choose Isabella and not one of the new BTS leaders?

Cheers.

Orion071 said:

To take this thread in a totally different direction, people need to realize that commerce may be in very short supply. Izzy doesn't start with any Worker techs, and the religious focus means that we won't have any for a while.

Click to expand...

This is the main reason I think we should let the AI get the first two religions. They'd probably get one of them anyway. Meanwhile we get some worker techs, unless seafood is plentiful and our early builds are just workboats, but even then there are reasons to let the AI get the first two faiths.

We don't need all the religions. It's handy to have two, but we only really need one. I would aim to be first to Monotheism and Theology (Mono is on the tech path to Theo anyway).

The reason for the second religion is that we will be spreading our chosen faith to all civs, but we don't want them to spread it to all of their cities because of how the AP works, so it's good to spread a second religion to them as well unless they already have a religion.

As an aside, if you meet somebody like Toku who won't open borders and therefore you can't get a missionary in, here is a little trick. Found a city near him, pop a missionary into it (or two different missionaries if he has no religion), then gift the city to him. Or you could do it by invading one of his cities, spreading religion to it, then gifting it back to him, but the first way is preferable unless there is nowhere near him that a city can be founded. After all, you want him to vote for you in the AP election.

I'm playing a game like this at the moment with Ramesses. But he's industrious (easy Oracle and AP) and starts with good worker techs so it's even easier. He doesn't start with Mysticism, but you don't need the first two religions anyway.

An AP victory will be interesting to see pulled off, if circumstances allow. Having Monty or Boudica next door may call for a quick revision of the game plan, eh? In that vein, I don't see the harm in talking about Izzy's possible late game strategies, just to have some kind of reference in case the AP falls short.

Did Solver's patch change Barb activity any? Defense is Izzy's consistent weak spot, and I don't know if Archers will be enough to cut it on Monarch if there's no Bronze close by-- and none of the discussion so far has mentioned AH in the early research path. Just throwing out the question for all of you who play at this level, cuz I don't know from experience.

Orion071 said:

To take this thread in a totally different direction, people need to realize that commerce may be in very short supply. Izzy doesn't start with any Worker techs, and the religious focus means that we won't have any for a while. Combined with the fact that the Expansive Worker bonus is only 25% (and not double like in Sisiutil's first post), a Worker-first approach obviously won't happen. Unless this is a coastal start, we might not have ANY extra commerce for quite a while. All this talk of a Gold-boosted Divine Right slingshot - I just don't see how you can get the religions and enough Worker techs to work enough useful tiles to be competetive. This is the problem I always end up with when I start with a religious path.

Click to expand...

Commerce is always an issue early on. First of all let's assume she starts off with some sort of 2 commerce water source. The tech path I would take for her is

Polytheism to found Christuism (I love that term, greta idea), most useful worker tech given start (agriculture, mining or hunting), military (animal husbandry if you went agriculture, BW if you went mining, archery if you went hunting). Go from there, if not defensive resource after three techs, beelive archery to save yourself. If you get a military resource (copper or horses) go wheel.

So my suggested paths, pending start

polytheism/hunting/archery
polytheism/agriculture/AH
polytheism/mining/BW

The first is the safest to start.

All that said, if the start in NOT arround any water sources (no lakes or coast), go worker tech first and found a religion by bulbing theology (OK, no christianity).

So play the start, not that hard.

1) As Baldas pointed out, you may well be HURTING your chances of getting Christianity by playing with the option to pick whatever religion you prefer whenever you're the first to any religious tech. Christianity is by far the majority preferred religion among the civs, and you have a much better chance (i.e. less luck-dependent) of being the first to Theology than you do of being the first to Meditation or Polytheism. Plus, it just makes no sense for Christianity to be founded before Judaism. It's like getting Horseback Riding before Animal Husbandry. But that probably doesn't bother other people as much as it bothers me.

2) As MadScientist pointed out, the Apostolic Palace victory condition is set up in such a way that the best strategy is actually to KEEP the true faith AWAY from the rest of the world until you have the Palace up, and then quickly snipe one city from each of them with your missionaries. But (as Mad also noted), that's cheap rubbish. I would LOVE to see an AP victory from this ALC, but only if you can do it in a way that doesn't completely violate logic, common sense, and Isabella's personal mission statement. You should spread Christianity as much as you can, try to build a Christian bloc, and try to get them to support your claim to the title of Holy Univeral Empress. The problem with that, of course, is that it could backfire horribly if one of the other members of that bloc ends up with more influence than you. Sounds like a worthy challenge to me.

3) @Madscientist:

Spiral Minuet

Click to expand...

Is that some kind of whirling dervish dance?

Florian said:

Is that some kind of whirling dervish dance?

Click to expand...

More like devilish English. I was born and raised in NYC, I try not to write like one but it comes out anyway.

Early Religion:
If you are going for Theology anyway, I'd probably pass on trying to nab an early religion. Temporarily passing on Meditation and Polytheism puts less pressure on you in the early tech race and reduces the risk that you get beat to the religious techs. I'd get monotheism and priesthood after picking up the worker techs and then grab Theology from the Oracle.

If you have enough wood, you can also divert some workers and hammers to chop out Stonehenge. You could then use the Great Prophet to lightbulb Theology and then use the free Oracle tech on Metal Casting, Monarchy, or Code of Laws.

I would suggest a tech path along these lines:

1. Agriculture, assuming no fish
2. Mining
3. Bronze Working (consider chopping Stonehenge)
4. The Wheel
5. Pottery
6. Animal Husbandry (assuming animals are around)
7. Masonry
8. Polytheism
9. Priesthood
10. Monotheism (start building Oracle now)
11. Writing
12. Theology (from Oracle)

Going for the worker techs also ensures that you can immediately get going on your economy and infrastructure. The Oracle is such a cheap wonder that you can chop/pop rush it without a giant hiccup in your production.

Holy Shrine:
Others have posted about not over-spreading your religion in pursuing an early AP win. This also means that building the holy shrine is a two-edged sword. It will certainly help you spread the religion, but you run the risk of diluting your voting strength in the AP. Because the economic benefits of building the shrine are so potent, I'd probably go ahead and build it but be prepared to expand militarily to increase your voting power.

Early War

I am not a big fan of axe rushing in BTS. There are so many protective civs and/or civs with early UUs it's a crapshoot that depends on having copper nearby (which seems to be reduced in frequency in BTS) and having a vulnerable nearby neighbor. The AI also puts cities on hills more frequently now. If you axe rush and fail, you've blown 35 hammers per axe while the other 5 civs are happily teching and REXing.

I like the idea of Isabella REXing with cheap workers and granaries, funded by her holy shrine and cottages, then going to war in the Medieval period against a nearby infidel.

Florian said:

2) As MadScientist pointed out, the Apostolic Palace victory condition is set up in such a way that the best strategy is actually to KEEP the true faith AWAY from the rest of the world until you have the Palace up, and then quickly snipe one city from each of them with your missionaries. But (as Mad also noted), that's cheap rubbish. I would LOVE to see an AP victory from this ALC, but only if you can do it in a way that doesn't completely violate logic, common sense, and Isabella's personal mission statement. You should spread Christianity as much as you can, try to build a Christian bloc, and try to get them to support your claim to the title of Holy Univeral Empress. The problem with that, of course, is that it could backfire horribly if one of the other members of that bloc ends up with more influence than you. Sounds like a worthy challenge to me.



Is that some kind of whirling dervish dance?

Click to expand...

Yep rubbish.

So I would like to see the game go

1) AP victory, legitimately. Not drop christianity into one city for each AI.
2) Failing that, I think the world can defienitely acknowledge Isabella's great leadership via the UN (even if you have to crack some heads to get some sense into them).
3) Failing a stubborn UN membership, bring it to the people and build those three legendary cities.
4) Failing 1, 2 and 3 I say kill all the heathen dogs (yes, that is also Isabella at her worse). No not domination, conquest.
5) I see no reason for Isabella to be bringing Christianity to some alien life form on alpha centuri.

you don't get double speed workers anymore, its only a 25 percent increase

A lot of people are saying how the AP victory is cheap right now. Not to get too side tracked but how do you think it should be implemented?

I was thinking that maybe at least 50% (or more?) of the world's population should have to believe in the AP's faith for it to be an option in addition the current requirement of every civ having at least one city with the faith. That seems like it would make more sense as how could you really win if the religion that voted you ruler isn't the dominate religion? Might be hard to spread the religion that far and wide but this is a victory condition so it shouldn't be too easy.

mudphud said:

A lot of people are saying how the AP victory is cheap right now. Not to get too side tracked but how do you think it should be implemented?

I was thinking that maybe at least 50% (or more?) of the world's population should have to believe in the AP's faith for it to be an option in addition the current requirement of every civ having at least one city with the faith. That seems like it would make more sense as how could you really win if the religion that voted you ruler isn't the dominate religion? Might be hard to spread the religion that far and wide but this is a victory condition so it shouldn't be too easy.

Click to expand...

No question that the AP in its present state is somewhat borked. But we gotta play the game as it is, which means bork, or be borked. As long as we can still look at ourselves in the mirror, that is.

1) Founding one of the earliest religions guarantees that the Holy City will be the capitol. If you want to your Great Prophets to come from your capitol, this can help as the Shrine is another source of GP points -- it also allows an additional 3 Priests.

2) Unless you want to be at war with everyone forever, I would think you want your neighbors to share your religion. Let them be your Holy Shields. (you just need to have more POP than they do ). Building the Shrine will also reduce the hoops you have to jump through later in order to spread your religion to the heathen masses.

3) Since you are not planning on being around for The Late Game, would it be better to make your capitol food/hammer heavy and leave your commerce to your second or third city? This would let you build GP Wonders, Temples and run Priests when needed (pulling them off of mines, etc. . .).

4) Moai Statues. If you do get a coastal start, this should seal the deal on #3 above: it adds +1 hammer to water tiles and adds +1 GP Point.

5) Great Wall. If you have stone, you should build it somewhere. It will deny it to your foes, ease your early expansion, and provide G.Spy points. An early Scotland Yard can make a big difference. Espionage will matter later. I would build courthouses everywhere - they are free EP.

Or you could do it by invading one of his cities, spreading religion to it, then gifting it back to him, but the first way is preferable unless there is nowhere near him that a city can be founded.

Click to expand...

There is an additional way to get your religion into a recalcitrant enemy (one with Theology and no Open Borders). First use a spy to change their religious civic to something else. Next, gift them a caravel with the missionary inside. I don't know if this will work for all the AI personalities but it worked for Shaka in my recent AP win game.

Good luck on your last (?) Monarch level ALC. It would be great to see a combined arms Spanish assault led in prayer.

This is not as much a suggestion as a request that some of you might find interesting.

I find I rarely see anyone suggest the use of the ability to pillage other than the occasional strat ressource. Given the nature of Izzy's unique unit and the time that you get it, I think it might be interesting to see it being used to do some sort of "mass pillaging" of a tech leader. The basic idea is by that time in the game empires are somewhat large and there are some leaders that you know will start to really take off in terms of power. By using cavalry units to pillage most of their improvements (and i do mean most), you can cripple a rival empire, (killing pop, ruining econ, etc...) as well as fund your own research.

Btw I've been following the series for almost a year now and I love how everyone gets into a game and the discussions that are involved. I generally take the role of spectator as I don't feel my skill lvl is quite as up to par as the rest of you. (i win 50% of time on monarch)

There are a lot of wonder suggestions floating out there and Sisiutil already has an admitted wonder addiction. I don't think we should be feeding it.

There's no way to build Henge/Oracle/GW/Moai Statues/Apostolic Palace and have anywhere near enough hammers going into settlers/workers/military/infrastructure.

The centerpiece of Sisutil's plan seems to be the Apostolic Palace. None of the other wonders are needed to propel him towards that near-term goal. Of them, Oracle could help the most, nabbing Theology or a nice infrastructure tech. If you can Oracle Theology that saves a great person, which is really nice. That means you get your shrine built earlier and you will have more GP available for settling or using on Golden Ages down the road.

Having said that, settling a Great Prophet when you only have a few cities seems especially attractive because those few cities will have to work harder to expand your empire. If you get your first GP extra early I would settle without a doubt - those hammers will crank out your workers and settlers faster, and if you only have 3 cities the gold from a settled prophet will likely be better than a shrine in the early going. By the time you get your second GP shrine income will match if not outpace settling.

I'm really curious to see how this plays out. I attempted this on my own with Isabella on Monarch over the bank holiday to see how well I would fare and compare it to your game. I have never built the AP yet, and I haven't had any losses to it either, so this was my first real experience with it. I hope you do better with the AP than I did.

I was on a continent with Hammurabi, Sury and Mansa. Jaoa and Ragnar were on another continent that could be reached through a couple of islands with fishing boats and galleys. Gandhi was on a continent by himself that was also able to reach Jaoa and Ragnar with fishing boats from the other side.

Gandhi got Buddhism and I got Hinduism, then Judaism and Christianity. Hindu spread to Hammy, Sury, Mansa and Ragnar. I built the AP and we were all buddy buddy. I spread Hinduism to one of Jaoa's cities and then finally to Gandhi with Optics.

Unfortunately Sury had just enough votes to foil my win. I figured I'd liberate a couple of Hindu cities from him to weaken his vote and strengthen mine. That worked well. By that time, I had no real competition but in spite of Hammy and Mansa being friendly and pleased with me, they abstained from the vote. I still fell shy.

I REXed like crazy and built a huge Hindu empire, but Jaoa kept creating colonies forcing me to go convert a city on some island to get the vote. I finally got everyone on earth to have some hindu influence and with relatively good relations with everyone but Sury, who nobody really liked anyway, everyone still abstained. I never broke the cusp of having enough votes on my own to win.

I did get the space race victory because I had planted cities everywhere I could to make them hindu and get votes. It was far more cities than I normally use, and I think I learned how effective that can be when building workshops everywhere. I was way ahead in techs and production and cruised to Alpha Centauri.

It was a strange game, because I've never waited so long to go to war and I was way behind in the power graph from my REXing and spamming. My neighbours liked me though, so I didn't get anyone declaring on me. Hammurabi snagged both Taoism and Islam, yet never spread them or converted.

In hindsight I can say that the best way to leverage the AP really is to hoard the religion yourself. Don't let it get more than a toehold in other civs, which is kind of counter intuitive. Hinduism was ultimately just too dominant in the world and that prevented my win.

By the way, is Hammurabi always such a weenie? For crying out loud, he's aggressive and I couldn't bribe him into war with anyone. He spent the whole game just peacefully building an army that sat there.

Hinduism was ultimately just too dominant in the world and that prevented my win.

Click to expand...

In one sentence, a strong argument that the AP victory condition needs a major overhaul. Worldwide dominance of the AP religion, or at least of the nation bloc that has taken it for their state religion, is the only thing that can justify winning that way, so if such dominance actually PREVENTS the win, that's ALL backwards.

I wonder if other factors are actually to blame, though. I would love to see Sisiutil make the attempt.