Sword of Islam: Strategy discussion

youtien, thanks for the discussion.
More intresting city placement in N.Levant for domination game;) Transjordan is a terrible province, only stone for later game when stone it exhausted near Aswan and Bagdad. In domination victory B'ir look preferable than Al-Karak.

Antioch has stone too.
 
Max Fatimids strategy:

0. Switch to aristocracy - slavery - OR. Switch to Sunni if it become more popular in your cities.
1. Found Cairo 1SE from spawning point -- you can catch 4 foods and 5 hills this way. Build worker - granary.
2. Found Aswan on hemp - it has access to stone and can grow up to 13. Build worker and one javelinman, then Spiral minaret if not built yet.
3. Found Duba on camel, Hejaz - access to pearl, clam, dates and horse, you really need that horse. Build worker - 2 catapults to bombard Medinah. Remember to have 1 citizen to let culture grow.
4. 3 Berber cavalry to rush Damascus. Capture Sur too if possible. Make peace with Abbasids afterwards.
5. Gather remaining cavalry and merc mounted units to rush Baghdad (likely under Buyids control) and Iraq.
6. Capture Jerusalem. Jerusalem build missionary or worker only. Generate a great saint before KoJ comes.
7. Gather siege and infantry units to conquer Medinah, you need marble for Al-Azhar.
8. Research education - crucible steel - engineering (trade silk from Seljuks to build Kutlug-Timur) - algebra (bulb by GS from the House of Wisdom in Baghdad or Damascus) - guilds - economics (partially bulb by 2 GS), enter the Mongol invasion era!
9. Remember to send a unit to squat Akka and Sinai so there won't be indy city spawn.
10. Found Dumyat & Asyut and other cities around Levant after the Mongol invasion era.
11. Play at will. How fast can you finish the tech tree?

this interesting for succession game;)
 
If Otrar is not founded then I found Shymkent (NE tip of Sogdiana, 1S of Camels)- gets Silks and Gems in the fat cross along with a nice set of floodplain and hill tiles.

Otrar(on silk, 4 flood plains + oasis) >> Shymkent(1S camel, 3 flood plains)
Pop: 12[max]> 10[max]
Hammers(base): 19=19
Commerce(base): 33>28
Otrar not overlap Chachkand or Khavakend!(which usually built by Samanids)

Otrar:
Spoiler :

Shymkent:
Spoiler :
 
UHV:
  1. 3000 gold in 1180AD;
  2. 1 city each in Sistan, Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Hindu Kush, E.Khorosan and Tocharistan;
  3. 10000 gold in 1300AD.

Strategy is based on building a House of Wisdom and the Spiral Minaret plus the rapid expansion of lands.
Such a possibility can be easily found after 3-4 restarts.

Ghazni on silver, Chaman in Balochistan, a third settler through Kabul valley in the direction of Peshawar (Nowshera, on wheat).
Horse archers attacking independent Zaranj and Kerman, destroying troops outside the city walls and steal workers.
We organize transfer of all cavalry units in India through a passage in the Sulaiman mountains, we must capture Multan, Lahore and Delhi
(+ Gwalior ideally) near 1060AD. In Sindh burn Tarry (Alor location much better),Tatta and Mansura (or rebuild Mansora 1N1W).
Swordmen putting pressure on the Balkh, if possible burn Tulukan/Kunduz if no garrison archers, conclude peace with the Samanids.
After the collapse of the Samanid after Kara-Khanids invasion capture Balkh, swordsmen expect visiting Khorasan Seljuks, our next goal - Marv.
At this point, the workers must build a road from Afghanistan to India. Part of the cavalry troops remain to guard the city in Sindh, the other moved to
Khorasan to conquer Herat and Marv. Ideally, also capture Qazvin or Isfahan grab for Orthodoxy (2 WW). Now time to make peace with the Seljuks.
Burn fragments Samanid power - Bukhara and Samarkand. We are waiting for the appearance of Khorezm, destroying the main army retake Bukhara,
steal more workers as a result after the fall of Khiva Khorezmshahs ready to capitulate. Further expansion - Nishapur, Bela (Balochistan, in citrus), Bost.
The last step - the suppression Ghurid. The campaign to complete UHV№2 finished.

Ghazni builds WWs, others - worker, granary, UB, madrasah, mosque, market, fairground, library, university, walls, castle.
Lahore could become the second center built WW (Rani Ki Vav, Minaret of Jam, Kutlug Timur and Al Ahzar) or military center, Multan - generator of great people.
Starting money to hire on any horse mercs, in the priority build roads, improve on the resources and cottages, except Balkh, Zaranj and Lahore (farms).
Great people use a golden age after 1100AD, the first scholar bulbed Education.
The third objective is performed approximately 1150 years, in my golden age I received 560 gold per turn. You just need to leave the 3000 gold to 1180
Do not forget to trade and open borders, exchanged primarily attract Karimi and Sufis.

Key technologies:
  • Botany (get a trade: Buiyds or Abbasids)
  • Education (bulbed scholar)
  • Engineering (get a trade: Seljuks)
  • Religious unit (get a trade: Yemen)
  • Agricultural Science (get to the trade: Byzantine Empire)
  • Check System (study or through a trade if possible)
After the discovery of Crop Rotation and Castle Building slider Science to zero.
 
As the sultanate of Rum, I attached one of my flanking 3 horse archers to a great general, but found that I wasn't able to give him the tactics promotion (+30% withdraw chance). Why is that? Is there a certain max withdrawal chance?
 
I've tested this again, and can confirm it. Tactics is available as a promotion, but disappears the moment you choose flanking 3. I guess this was added to prevent horse archers with 95% withdrawal chance.
 
So I'm currently trying a catholic URV with KoJ. I got three relics into Jerusalem, and have gotten the Catholicism:Orthodoxy ratio up to about 0.75, and I think making it higher won't be much of a problem. My only issue is the three vassals. I captured the whole of the Levant (except Antioch), Madinah, and Egypt. In most cities I massacred the population to help with incresing Catholicism, due to which most muslim civs are quite angry at me. How can I peace vassalise them in such conditions? Or if I do capitulate them, which civs are liekly to capitulate easily and not collapse afterwards?
I think I will be able to take Makuria as a vassal, but the Principality collapsed quite early so I would still need two more. Any help would be appreciated.
 
So I'm currently trying a catholic URV with KoJ. I got three relics into Jerusalem, and have gotten the Catholicism:Orthodoxy ratio up to about 0.75, and I think making it higher won't be much of a problem. My only issue is the three vassals. I captured the whole of the Levant (except Antioch), Madinah, and Egypt. In most cities I massacred the population to help with incresing Catholicism, due to which most muslim civs are quite angry at me. How can I peace vassalise them in such conditions? Or if I do capitulate them, which civs are liekly to capitulate easily and not collapse afterwards?
I think I will be able to take Makuria as a vassal, but the Principality collapsed quite early so I would still need two more. Any help would be appreciated.
Zengids should be easy enough to capitulate and stabilise, helps if you remove the Islamic religions and just leave Catholicism in their capital before it flips to them.
I usually try to get Fatimids to be another of my vassals rather than conquering it for myself, because if they are stable enough then the later Egyptian civs don't spawn.
Georgia or Makuria or PoA (if you hadn't already removed them) are usually the next easiest options for the third vassal.
 
Zengids should be easy enough to capitulate and stabilise, helps if you remove the Islamic religions and just leave Catholicism in their capital before it flips to them.
I usually try to get Fatimids to be another of my vassals rather than conquering it for myself, because if they are stable enough then the later Egyptian civs don't spawn.
Georgia or Makuria or PoA (if you hadn't already removed them) are usually the next easiest options for the third vassal.

I should have mentioned that I'm currently quite late in the game (1340's). My early game all the way till the Ayyubid spawn was hampered by the very strong Abbasids whom after I took a lightly defended Tyre, retaliated with a stack containing 7-8 CRII trebs:eek: Had to give them all my money to make peace with them.
Regardless, the Zengids have stuck around till now but they were almost always unstable/collapsing so I didn't think they would survive an invasion.

The Fatimids collapsed a little before the Ayyubid spawn despite never actually being unstable/collapsing. I took Egypt from the Mamluks.

Georgia has collapsed, as has the PoA. Cilicia is under Byzantine protection. Makuria's doing okay, but they seem to be having a pretty decent military (they even took a couple of cities from the Zengids :lol:) because of which they won't peacefully vassalise.
 
I should have mentioned that I'm currently quite late in the game (1340's). My early game all the way till the Ayyubid spawn was hampered by the very strong Abbasids whom after I took a lightly defended Tyre, retaliated with a stack containing 7-8 CRII trebs:eek: Had to give them all my money to make peace with them.
Regardless, the Zengids have stuck around till now but they were almost always unstable/collapsing so I didn't think they would survive an invasion.

The Fatimids collapsed a little before the Ayyubid spawn despite never actually being unstable/collapsing. I took Egypt from the Mamluks.

Georgia has collapsed, as has the PoA. Cilicia is under Byzantine protection. Makuria's doing okay, but they seem to be having a pretty decent military (they even took a couple of cities from the Zengids :lol:) because of which they won't peacefully vassalise.

Sounds like you're probably a bit too late to get any 'easy' vassals, unfortunately.

The key to capitulating a vassal is to quickly re-gift key cities back to them in order to stop them from collapsing, but not too many at exactly the same time. There is a bit of an art to it.

Zengids are a really small civ, which means you should be able to move in with fast moving troops from different directions simultaneously, quickly take the key cities, capitulate them and then re-stabilise them.

*tip*

Don't take their capitol, hit everything else. They lose too much stability from the change of capitol.
 
Sounds like you're probably a bit too late to get any 'easy' vassals, unfortunately.

The key to capitulating a vassal is to quickly re-gift key cities back to them in order to stop them from collapsing, but not too many at exactly the same time. There is a bit of an art to it.

Zengids are a really small civ, which means you should be able to move in with fast moving troops from different directions simultaneously, quickly take the key cities, capitulate them and then re-stabilise them.

*tip*

Don't take their capitol, hit everything else. They lose too much stability from the change of capitol.


Ah okay, thanks for the help :D

Atm the Zengids seem useless (Ak Koyunlu) so I guess I'll try to capitulate Yemen and later Makuria, in case they dont peacevassal.

If I capture a single city somewhere in Hindustan (especially if I manage to get a mutual war going), are any of the Indian civs likely to peacevassal? Malwa doesn't usually hold much of a grudge for different religions, and unlike the muslim civs I won't get a "persecution of our brothers in the faith" penalty.

Also, does the PoA respawn?
 
So I'm currently trying a catholic URV with KoJ. I got three relics into Jerusalem, and have gotten the Catholicism:Orthodoxy ratio up to about 0.75, and I think making it higher won't be much of a problem. My only issue is the three vassals. I captured the whole of the Levant (except Antioch), Madinah, and Egypt. In most cities I massacred the population to help with incresing Catholicism, due to which most muslim civs are quite angry at me. How can I peace vassalise them in such conditions? Or if I do capitulate them, which civs are liekly to capitulate easily and not collapse afterwards?
I think I will be able to take Makuria as a vassal, but the Principality collapsed quite early so I would still need two more. Any help would be appreciated.
Look reports in Challenge: Earliest Religious Victories
 
Ah, thanks. Where are the last dates for the respawns stored?

Additionally, where can I find the years to turns conversion mechanism? I find that rather useful for UHV's where I find myself short of time.

Consts.py -> tFall (line 241)

CvGameUtils.cpp (search for "int getTurnForYear(int iTurnYear)")
 
The best candidates in the vassals for KoJ, also don't forgot to convert to catholicism one of vassals when you have 3 of them and 2 with same religion (sunni/shia/orthodox)
  • sunni Islam: Sultanate of Rum(Karaman), Zengids
  • shia Islam: Fatimids, Imamat of Yemen
  • catholicism: PoA
  • orthodox: Kingdom of Cilikia(Armenia), Kingdom of Makuria
 
Consts.py -> tFall (line 241)

CvGameUtils.cpp (search for "int getTurnForYear(int iTurnYear)")

Cool, thanks. I didn't really understand the stuff in the .cpp file though :lol:

The best candidates in the vassals for KoJ, also don't forgot to convert to catholicism one of vassals when you have 3 of them and 2 with same religion (sunni/shia/orthodox)
  • sunni Islam: Sultanate of Rum(Karaman), Zengids
  • shia Islam: Fatimids, Imamat of Yemen
  • catholicism: PoA
  • orthodox: Kingdom of Cilikia(Armenia), Kingdom of Makuria

Thanks for the help :)
I think I'm too late in my current game to get the vassals, so I'm going to retry it with the PoA soon.
 
I think I'm too late in my current game to get the vassals, so I'm going to retry it with the PoA soon.
Agree.
For PoA/KoJ very important staring situation with Abbasids(strong/weak/collapse) and development of Damaskus(it's sweet city if Harun-al Rashid was built here NoW/AM or settled 2-3 GP). I restarted many times for find ideal start:rolleyes:
Massacre: catholic URV don't need high piety lvl, i prefer save population, especially if built mosques and madrassas.
Mercenaries: help a lot for fight aganist Rum/Zengids/Fatimids.
 
Top Bottom