ALC Game 18 Pre-Game Thread: Playing as Isabella

Because I'm stubborn, I tried the AP victory again with Justinian who I chose because he's Spiritual and I hadn't played him yet.

I won the AP diplo victory this time, but it wasn't that much fun really. Genghis got Buddhism, must have been from a hut, and Monty got Hinduism. I got Judaism and Confucianism and built the AP as Jewish. Catherine was originally Jewish but converted quickly to Hinduism and buddied up with Monty, my neighbour. My other neighbour was Frederick who went Buddhist. I was able to get Judaism to Frederick, and it went on its own to a couple of Monty's cities.

I had to go no religion for the rest of the game to get Genghis to open his borders and keep Cathy happy with me. I needed Cathy because she had enough cities to thwart me if she abstained.

After optics I finally found Darius, who had founded Islam and Christianity. Oddly enough he was on a continent by himself where he built only two cities with his capital?! Come on, Darius, you're organized! He built the Great Wall and apparently never ventured out again because there was an undeveloped continent with two barb cities at 10 and 11 pop.

Shaka was the last contender and he was all alone on an island and backwards as hell. He had no religion, but wouldn't open borders to me. I didn't have astronomy so couldn't try to trade to spread it. I ended up giving him a ridiculous amount of techs just to open his borders and get a missionary in.

Monty declared on Cathy and she asked me to join in. I was ahead of Monty in the power graph and wanted to use my new Cataphracts so I joined her. Weirdly, her disposition with Monty never went down even after he declared on her so I got a +2 mutual military struggle modifier and a -1 declared war on a friend. Weird.

I got the victory in about 1140 AD I think. Everyone abstained but Cathy, and if she had done so as well, I would have lost. Everyone else didn't matter because they only had a couple votes, but she had about half of mine and could have stopped me.

If I hadn't won, the game would have been pretty well screwed. Genghis was teching like crazy and would have been difficult to catch up to. Having no state religion for 90% of the game hurt, so I would say that the Shwedagon Paya would have good synergy because you can go free religion early.

All in all, it's kind of an anticlimactic victory in my opinion.
 
Unless you get on of the religion-spreading random events. I think the best of those is for spread to 4 of your cities and 4 rival cities, but I'm not sure what the criteria are to trigger it.
Just had that happen last night. I was the one it spread to, 4 cities at once. I was wondering what happened, didn't see anything in the log about a random event. Maybe I just missed it. Anyways, I was in free religion and had my shrine religion in the cities so it was free :) for me.
 
After optics I finally found Darius, who had founded Islam and Christianity. Oddly enough he was on a continent by himself where he built only two cities with his capital?! Come on, Darius, you're organized! He built the Great Wall and apparently never ventured out again because there was an undeveloped continent with two barb cities at 10 and 11 pop.

:lol: Stands to reason, when you've built this nice shiny Great Wall, why would you want to live on the other side of it?
 
I like the AP victory, (btw does that sound like a class at the greatest high school ever to anyone else?) and I think that Izzy will be a fun game. I think the start says if you should go med/poly, as if you have tons of capital, you may be able to beat the masses to poly, which used to be more popular among AI. At least, it was in warlords
minor note: Sisuitil, can you change your sig to link to the pregame until you start the real one? Thanks
 
Something I haven't seen brought up here yet is the possibility of building the ToA. If you can secure marble and get the coastal start with Izzy, the benefit of having a free priest could work nicely with purusing the religious tech path. In addition, the bonus to trade routes is nice and this would work well with a FE. Also, the citadel will provide another trade route. Coastal cities with library, market, castle, harbor will generate a lot of income. And, this income won't be affected with civics shifts, say to caste system, to work specialists; your trade income will remain.

When I was thinking this through, it just seemed all the pieces fit nicely together. Of course, you'll need marble and several worthwhile coastal settling spots.
 
Not to try and de-rail this. Just a question. Why did you choose Isabella and not one of the new BTS leaders?
I'm trying to go through them in order, more or less. See the ALC bullpen thread's 2nd post for the complete list of games-to-go.
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.
Yeah, that's what I thought must be involved until I heard otherwise. I assumed it was similar to the UN victory, but with a shared religion as the basis. It is tempting to try to play it that way anyway and then fall back on a different victory condition if it falls through.
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.
I rather like this strategy, I think it plays to Isabella's strengths and sounds very much like what I wanted--vintage Isabella, but even better than the AI plays her.
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.
You're right, and that's what I've found in my off-line games. Rushing is very conditional, very dependent on your target and the map. I managed to War Chariot rush Boudica because she didn't have any metal, for example, so I only had to worry about Archers. Even if they were on a hill all I needed was more WCs, and they're cheap. In the game before that, however, I was next to Shaka who had copper right next to his capital. He mopped the floor with me.
This how I See it, If Sisiutil wins a Religious Victory before he's able to use his UU & UB, he'll load the last save before he won/choose that victory option. Because the ALCs were also meant to show off how to properly use the UU and UB.
That's an intriguing idea. I'll consider it, and the way we're talking, the AP victory may not be a lock if I play it the way it "should" be played, with maximum religion spread.
Petition: Next ALC is Settler difficulty.
:lol: I played a Settler game a few months back just to see how fast I could get to the spaceship. I popped three Settlers from huts! :crazyeye:
 
Oh yeah, I fixed the details of Izzy's characteristics in the first post. Can someone double-check to verify that Conquistadors can still receive defensive bonuses? If they're like Immortals, which have that benefit, they'll have a "Fortify" option which mounted units normally lack.
 
You're right, and that's what I've found in my off-line games. Rushing is very conditional, very dependent on your target and the map. I managed to War Chariot rush Boudica because she didn't have any metal, for example, so I only had to worry about Archers. Even if they were on a hill all I needed was more WCs, and they're cheap. In the game before that, however, I was next to Shaka who had copper right next to his capital. He mopped the floor with me.
If you have horses/copper in the capital and a close neighbour, a rush is still very much on - I'll sometimes go ahead with one before building a second city if it's someone I really want rid of (say Monty, Shaka or a Roman). AI capitals make good second cities.

However, as you've pointed out, it's highly situational and picking up a strategic resource with city 2 before launching a rush tends not to be worth it unless you've got a killer early UU (such as a war chariot). Much better to expand a bit and war with swords/cats once you reach currency or CoL. Certainly at this level.

If you're tempted to follow slobberinbear's proposed tech order, then you're best off leaving religious selection on default so that Izzy can be Christian. I'd try to make sure pottery's in when Barcelona is founded so that it's first build can be a granary (whip and put the overflow into a monument if culture's needed, that way you get two buildings and fast regrowth). Assuming Theology gets you your first religion, Barcelona will likely still be the holy city so make sure you get a high food location for it (it always seems to end up in my second city if it lacks religion no matter how many other candidates there are, but that could just be me?).
 
The BTS civilopedia for conquistador has no "Doesn't receive defensive bonuses" line , like the Cuirasser has. So it should have the same defensive abilities that it had in Warlords ( the civilopedia entry was similar in this regard )
 
If you want to lightbulb Theology (or have the option), Meditation has to be researched because that's the first tech the GP gives.

First hut you pop could be Polytheism. Whether you can avoid early removing a neighbour or two, depends on who they are and the resources on hand to defeat them.

How many opponents are planning on using?
 
The BTS civilopedia for conquistador has no "Doesn't receive defensive bonuses" line , like the Cuirasser has. So it should have the same defensive abilities that it had in Warlords ( the civilopedia entry was similar in this regard )

According to my copy of CIV4UnitInfos.xml....

UNIT_CUIRASSIER.bNoDefensiveBonus = 1

UNIT_SPANISH_CONQUISTADOR.bNoDefensiveBonus = 0
 
Theology from the Oracle sounds like a good idea. It would be nice to save the Great Prophets for other uses--shrines, settling, and lightbulbing (not necessarily in that order). What other techs will be required besides Mysticism-Polytheism-Priesthood?

And I appreciate the advice about getting DR out of the way so the GPs lightbulb better techs. Usually I ignore DR completely and wonder why the GPs and GAs won't contribute to something more useful. :lol:
 
Theology from the Oracle sounds like a good idea. It would be nice to save the Great Prophets for other uses--shrines, settling, and lightbulbing (not necessarily in that order). What other techs will be required besides Mysticism-Polytheism-Priesthood?

And I appreciate the advice about getting DR out of the way so the GPs lightbulb better techs. Usually I ignore DR completely and wonder why the GPs and GAs won't contribute to something more useful. :lol:
Writing and Monotheism, I believe. Getting it off the Oracle can be pretty tricky, as one can never quite be certain of how much time one has with the Oracle. The military benefits are nice...I did a Theology slingshot with Monty once, and I actually pulled it off in a reasonable enough time-frame that could still get off a Jag rush on a neighbor. It was pretty brutal, actually. A late classical war with level three units out of the box is pretty nasty...
 
Writing and Monotheism, I believe

And Masonry (required for Monotheism).

There are other routes to Theology, but if you're going for the Oracle you'll need Priesthood anyway.

But as I said earlier (and so have others) the quickest route to Theology ignores mining, bronze working, agriculture, etc. so it's not really a good idea to get to Theo ASAP, but rather a "semi-beeline" picking up worker techs as well. It's not that difficult to be first there, and even if something went really wrong and you were second there, as long as you've founded a religion along the way you'll be fine. The thing you MUST be first to is building the AP. Build it in a city with lots of trees....
 
And Masonry (required for Monotheism).

There are other routes to Theology, but if you're going for the Oracle you'll need Priesthood anyway.

But as I said earlier (and so have others) the quickest route to Theology ignores mining, bronze working, agriculture, etc. so it's not really a good idea to get to Theo ASAP, but rather a "semi-beeline" picking up worker techs as well. It's not that difficult to be first there, and even if something went really wrong and you were second there, as long as you've founded a religion along the way you'll be fine. The thing you MUST be first to is building the AP. Build it in a city with lots of trees....
If you grab Theology from the Oracle before 1000BC, you'll easily be first to the AP, but building it sooner rather than later is best because it'll pay for itself that much quicker (at normal speed, a spiritual temple pays for itself in 20 turns and a monastery in 30. After that it's all hammer profit).

At this level, you don't need to ignore worker techs on the way to writing, mono and priesthood. You've got much more leeway than on the Feudalism slingshot where you need to research monarchy yourself and even doing that you can still pick up bronze and AH along the way.
 
The six are

Mysticism- Polytheism-Masonery-Monotheism-Preisthood-Writing-Theology.

You start with Mysticism and plan to use Oracle to grab Theology so that's four you need to research.

A GP will look to give you Meditation and Divine Right, assuming you have Theology(and Meditation). (Taken from the post in Articles - GP Techs explained (or similar). If you have yet to research/grab theology, you'll get CoL instead.
 
The six are

Mysticism- Polytheism-Masonery-Monotheism-Preisthood-Writing-Theology.

You start with Mysticism and plan to use Oracle to grab Theology so that's four you need to research.

A GP will look to give you Meditation and Divine Right, assuming you have Theology(and Meditation). (Taken from the post in Articles - GP Techs explained (or similar). If you have yet to research/grab theology, you'll get CoL instead.

The problem I see with getting theology from the oracle is you need this path but you minimally also need mining and BW to get some production to build the thing, toss in the wheel to hook up copper for defense. It's too much teching via the religious route, and if you get no copper you have no defense and will have to try for AH/archery/IW.

I say Bulb theology, get COL or metal casting from oracle. A bit of risk makes the game more exciting but Isabella really starts too poorly in the military tech path. I would rather see forgetting the early religions, get stonehenge and oracle for the GP points, and bulb theology.

Of course I still say as many religions as possible. COL from oracle!!!

polytheism
Mining
Bronze
Worker tech
Masonry
Priesthood
Pottery
Worker tech
Monotheism
Writing

And prioritize hunting/archery if no copper is arround. The AP is pretty useless if your dead.
 
Top Bottom