RBC13A - Middle Ages - Byzantium, Sid

OK, here we go. I'll assume we know most of the standard stuff about the scenario by now. Mass Regicide, relics, optional tech trees, forests produce 2 food and 2 shields, Monarchy government forever.

ROSTER:

T-hawk
Arathorn
Jabah
Charis
Speaker

I'm moving Jabah up to make sure he gets more than one turn this time. This is a real all-star experienced group of players here; we all go quite a ways back in the annals of SGs. Good to be playing with Arathorn again.



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc13a-start.zip

We are Religious and Seafaring. We start as the most powerful civ in the game, but there are definitely limits to that. The city of Corinth there is at least 75% corrupt, losing three of its four shields. We have two 1-1-2 king units and one 0-0-1.

Units available to us are standard warriors/archers/spears/swords/horsemen early, the Cataphract (4-3-2 for 70), Spy (2-2-1 ATAR for 20), standard Catapults at the start of the Crusades age, standard MDI at the end of the Crusades, Assassins (5-1-1 stealth invisible for 60) if we go up the Muslim branch, Inquisitors (4-1-1 ATAR for 30) and late-game 2-4-1 pikemen, 6-1-1 longbow, and 3-5-1 Swiss Merc units.

Given that we pay astronomical Sid prices for techs, should we try for any of the optional tech trees? We can of course research the first tech with 40-turn minimum research, then research or buy as normal from there.

We will certainly want to go up to Cataphracts on the Byzantine tree. Cataphracts do not trigger our Golden Age, though; only Dromons do that. Beyond Cataphracts, one of the techs gives nothing but Battlefield Medicine, which won't be worthwhile. The other gives the Intelligence Agency and Spy units, which could be useful.

The Viking tree for Blacksmiths (50% shields like a factory, cost is 100 shields) and the Norse Saga (+2 Magellan's and Heroic Epic effect) is quite tempting, actually. Should we start minimum research on this, or beeline Cataphracts by starting Lost Roman Secrets at minimum?

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Near-term plans:

We start right next to the Bulgars; just north of Constantinople is their capital. What would everyone think of a really fast blitz on the Bulgar capital? Get them before the Sid cost factor starts kicking in?

Peeking in the editor, their capital starts with a sword, a horse, and a 0-0-1 king, plus (I think) an extra free spear. We start with three regular swordsmen although it will be some time before we get iron to build/upgrade more. We can build two veteran archers out of Constantinople (it can make 10 spt) by the time the swords would be ready to reach Pliska. I think we can do this and it'd be a great jump on keeping our only immediately strong neighbor in check.

If we don't do that, I think the strategy is to build up our productive cities as hard as possible. We have a limited number of productive cities available thanks to the steep Sid corruption penalty - we'll probably want to build maybe one or two settlers at all to fill in Turkey. Pushing workers and irrigating everything (no despotism penalty) is the way to do that.

Also, stop me if I'm wrong, but is there any reason not to bring the 1-1-2 kings as combat units as well? Doesn't matter if we lose them if we keep the 0-0-1 king in our capital; if we lose our capital we're going to be losing the game anyway kings or no kings.

Comments welcome, of course. I'll start playing tomorrow or Wednesday night.

Once again (cf. RBC12 Celt) we have stupidly close tiny cities next to our capital.

I am a 'fanatic' of production, so Viking tech for blacksmith is quite appealing, but I have to look at the scenario to see how 'annoying' can the invisible units be and so how important spies are.

Does someone knows what happen with assassin, are they invisible UNTIL they attack and can they target a specific unit? In that case losing our 2 first kings in early battles might be a very bad idea if some AI can decide to 'assassinate' our last king with some invisible units.



BTW - regarding the 0-0-1 king, is he able to do some MP, or is he a useless tyrant

I can't see Iron on the picture, please tell me there is some not far away ....

Jabah

Checking in good sirs.

Originally posted by T-hawk
Beyond Cataphracts, one of the techs gives nothing but Battlefield Medicine, which won't be worthwhile.

Click to expand...

Small point, but this tech (Defender of Europe) also enables conscription.

Yes, I can't hold back with a few comments as well:

T-hawk, you're second post contains some errors:
Longbows are NOT standard, but 6/1/1, strongest generic attacker.
Assassins are 5/1/1, and have Stealth Attack; however, Kings are Immune to Stealth Attacks (and the Plague)! In general, they work like subs; you see them as usual with a unit with 'Detect Invisible' - Spies, Assassins, Inquisitors. And since they work like Subs, they also cause the 'Sub Bug'...expect the Franks to be at War with Cordova as soon as the later starts building Assassins
And you forgot one of the IMHO most improtant units for you: The Inquisitor, 4/1/1 ATAR for 30sp - and since your Cataphracts have the same attack, but cost 70sp...

No mentioning so far that you have neither Iron nor Tar - and Dromons require Tar here (but if you hit the Bulgars ASAP, you're on track here).

I for one would abandon Nicae after some time; already at DG, a useless city with rank 2 is a .Its only use is to get an initial Dromon into the Black Sea, helpful for exploring/ settling/ fighting Bulgars, but after that, goodbye.

Checking in and some initial thoughts...

- Slow Constantinople's growth for 10 spt and it can crank quite a bit of military.
- I would research HBR @ max, hoping our early size can get it for us, if not first, early enough we can trade for a fair bit of cash and/or goodies.
- Switch Sinope to worker to get the dyes hooked up pretty quickly.
- Ancyra and Corinth to settler?
- One dromon north through the Black Sea for contacts and one through the Med and up to meet the vikings. West, as we'll meet the Abbasids through land units soon, I would expect.
- Where is iron??? We need a source or two. We might consider building warriors for upgrade in Const and hitting Bulgars with swords once we get iron.
- We should settle most of Turkey -- make sure we get that little river between Ephesus and Attalea.

Looks like it will be a challenge!

Arathorn

Thanks for the corrections, Doc - I've edited the original post with the fixes. I missed the Inquisitor because I didn't really look at that tech tree since I don't think we have any chance of affording going that way on Sid.

Arathorn, what do you think of the ultra-fast blitz on the Bulgar capital? On turn 8 of the scenario, we can attack with three swords, two vet archers, at least one 1-1-2 king, and a spearman or two. (One sword is in Sinope; we'd send a Dromon to go pick it up. The ships have 5 movement.)

Besides/after the ultra-blitz, Constantinople needs to farm workers for a little while. It's our only city with either a granary or food bonuses. It can easily make a worker every other turn, and we need them since we only start with 3.

There is iron northwest of Larissa, in a spot where the AI won't settle to claim it, but will take us 100 culture or a settler or colony to claim. The other nearby source is quite far east into Turkey, past the end of the Black Sea.

The problem with researching Horseback Riding is that there's no other tech that we can possibly trade it for. Nobody else will have the second Byzantine tech, and you can't trade for the Norse Tradition branch entry tech. The AIs won't have gold to sell us either, and they will prioritize researching Horseback themselves (offensive units are the single biggest draw for the AI to research a tech.) Because of all that, we're better off doing minimum research to start, on either the Norse or Byzantine branch, and later research or buy a devalued Horseback Riding.

Arathorn, what do you think of the ultra-fast blitz on the Bulgar capital? On turn 8 of the scenario, we can attack with three swords, two vet archers, at least one 1-1-2 king, and a spearman or two. (One sword is in Sinope; we'd send a Dromon to go pick it up. The ships have 5 movement.)

Click to expand...

Hmmm... Good question. First of all, that is definitely NOT what I would attack with -- *IF* we go the attack-Bulgars-immediately route, we should send at least one and possibly two dromons to bombard help out.

In 8 turns, the AI will probably have built a few spears (they cost 8 shields -- what spt does Pliska start off with?). They'll probably have built at least 3, and quite possibly moved in another one from an outlying town, knowing how the AI feels compelled to defend its capital and kings. That gives them a horse, a sword, a king, and 4 spears. We would attack with 2 dromons, 2 archers, 3 swords, a king, and maybe a warrior or spear or something for flavor.

Doesn't look particularly promising to me. Casualties would surely be high and I don't like putting the whole game on some early dice rolls. I'd be much more of a mind to build 10 warriors in Constantinople in the first 10 turns, while getting a settler out to connect some iron for us, upgrade, and hit about turn 15 or 20 with a dozen vet swords, a dromon, and some spears for defense. That feels like it would have a much higher chance of success to me.

I'm FAR from convinced, though. And Pliska's early spt might be a major determining factor.

As for workers, Ancyra has wool and wheat and seems a natural location for a worker factory to me. A size 7 city takes some work and I'd prefer to let Constantinople take care of all our military (and most of our economic) needs for a while and let the smaller towns build up and do workers and the like.

Gonna be interesting either way....

Arathorn

I thought of Dromons too, but they can't help because Pliska isn't coastal. We can actually contact them and establish embassy on the first turn to get a peek - I'll do that early tonight. I strongly suspect the AI will start by building a settler, not military. That will take 3-5 turns, drop it to size 1 slowing its future production, and they'll probably send a unit out to escort the settler.

As for Constantinople, I'm talking about farming 4-5 workers, not 20, but it really does need to do that to get any of the cities up to speed. That includes itself; it isn't going to grow beyond 7 until it gets a bunch of its own tiles improved. It'll take us a lot of time to accumulate 600 gold to upgrade 10 warriors - it's 3 per shield to upgrade in this scenario.

Good grief, we sound more aggressive than the nastiest Viking!?

"Checkin' in!"

I like the ultra-blitz idea. We start equal, well - better than equal, and in Sid, start going down on turn 1. If we can capture their captial and hurt them quickly, it would be much nicer to have a weak Bulgar (or even better a 'gone' Bulgar) and focus on the Abbasids.

I think the reality is between the two extremes here. They are AI in early game and can think nothing else of expansion. If timing is good we'll hit them right after a spear+settler leave the city. I doubt more than 4 units of defense 1 and 2 plus the king. Constantinople can (and should, until land is improved) go to 10spt, one vet archer per two turns. We have no iron so that's not an option for a ultra-early attack. Pitska is on a hill and has several BG's around it. It would make a nice and defensible addition to our empire now, rather than trying to take it from a Sid-pumped AI later. I won't be distraught if we don't do this, I'm just lending support to the idea and think it might be worthwhile.
BTW, we can hit it closer to turn 5-6, or 7-8 if you want one more archer. If it drops to size 1 (likely) then about 4-6 MORE turns for 2-3 more archers would probably improve our odds, as their production is right now PUNY (even for Sid) due to small city size. Why not strike them while small? And if it's a brief war they'll be knocked out of that quick expansion rhythm, and it won't cost us much - any units produced will be needed for MP and exploration anyway. Not to mention, there is tar next to Pilska

I like Arathorn's comment: "A size 7 city takes some work and I'd prefer to let Constantinople take care of all our military (and most of our economic) needs for a while and let the smaller towns build up and do workers and the like." It's one 10spt city and many 1-2 spt cities, with one that can do 3 (woohoo). In fact, I agree with all his 'checking in/initial thoughts' comments. If we did not go for ultra-blitz, about 2-3 quick workers out of Constantinople then no more, letting it crank out mil for the whole nation.

I definitely would NOT disband Nicaea, at least not for quite some time. OTOH, there's nothing wrong with building NO buildings there and just building workers or settlers so that it it does turn out after exploration that it should be abandoned, there's almost nothing lost. It might be that we want to settle to the SE and the dromon route through Nicaea would save many turns in reaching it (?)

Should be fun, guys
Charis

Charis: It'll take at least four turns from the beginning to get the starting swords from Caesarea and Sinope over to our capital, so we can't hit sooner than turn 7. And thus we can build two archers from Constant in the first 4 turns before attacking. A third would complete on turn 6, and can be used in an attack on turn 9 if one square of road is built. That might be good.

Nicaea needs to stay; going through the city square is required for a boat to get from outside waters to the Black Sea. Farming workers with it is probably a good idea.

Any other thoughts on research? I'm leaning towards starting 40 turns on Norse Tradition. The Viking tech tree offers nothing until getting to Blacksmiths with the third tech; are those that good to make it worthwhile? I'm thinking so, though we'll probably try to trade/broker for the later Viking techs rather than research.

One disadvantage of the Byzantine tech tree is that nobody else goes into it so the techs can't be brokered. The AI Bulgars do have the Byzantine flavor so can research the first tech, but it's unlikely for the AI to pick it and will take them a long time even if they do.

The ultraultra early attack uses the Dromon to bring those two swords over quicker. I don't think I prefer that, just wanted to mention it's an option to go that quick. Better to let the settler and spear be built and head out first. And yes, no reason not to build a road right away toward the city, then a second strip after the capture to hook up the city to our lands (and to bring home tar later)

The other thought I wanted to mention - I think a turn 7-8 attack would likely net us Pitska, but no other concessions or cities - but since they're a minor power they have only two kings and do we want to consider not a 'ding' but an early TKO?! ALL their units go poof if we can get to the second king and take him out, and all that lands becomes either ours to settle or area for the AI to fight over and settle corrupt village after village instead of coming after us. I think that with the ability to have a focused attack, and by using another, oh, 12 turns to crank archers, we could knock them out. Exactly how many we need would be a guess, and I don't know which city houses the second king, or if it's nearby.

So it comes down to: Go after 0 kings, 1 king or both?

For research, I like the Norse. With our decent size empire and facing Sid, those Blacksmiths will be awfully helpful, and yes we can trade for the later techs.

Charis

OK, enough talk, time for action!

Re Charis' last post - the sword in Caesarea would take 4 turns to reach the cost and load onto a Dromon, so it can't get to the target any faster than by walking.

Peeking in the editor, the Bulgars' other king is in Pitesti, all the way on their far side, which isn't unexpected. After Pliska is taken, another city besides size-1 Pitesti will likely become the capital, and the king may move to it. A fast TKO isn't going to happen, so I'll go with the ultra-blitz plan. We'll attack most likely on turn 9.

Research set to Norse Tradition at minimum.

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843 AD: Start by moving one Dromon east to pick up the sword from Sinope. The other goes westward to seek contacts.

Move the lovely Theodora king unit over to make contact with the Bulgars. We establish an embassy.



As expected, there's the one sword, one horse, and the free spear. It's building a settler as I guessed. Their king unit has a HP bar and is doing police, which means it's a 1-1 unit, not 0-0. I think we can handle it, though.

Our plan is locked and loaded, with Constantinople set to build an archer at 10 shields/turn. I didn't realize this before, but Adrianople and its 3 shields/turn can also contribute an archer before we're ready to attack.

Not much to do at the other cities. Order up mostly workers and send out units to bust fog. Athens starts a settler to claim iron. One of our 1-1-2 kings will go east to seek new life and new civilizations.

Worker in Athens moves to start building roads to connect Greece and Byzance. Something's screwy in Athens - the city is pulling 5 commerce from terrain but somehow has 8 showing in its city window? If I move laborers around, that extra surplus of 3 remains. Also, the Greek cities count as connected - listed on F2 as trading cities and they have the home luxuries - although there's no road?

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Between turns, the Bulgars move their horse out of the city northwards. I realize that it would be a very good idea to park a unit on that mountain to keep an eye on their capital.

846 AD: More of the same. Moving swords and boats, busting fog. Note that the Civilopedia doesn't mention that Dromons sink in sea water, but according to the editor they DO.

849 AD: Yet more of the same. Two Bulgar swords appeared out of the fog, I can't quite figure out what they're doing.

852 AD: A Dromon contacts the Magyars to the north. No trades to be made, naturally. Pliska has dropped to size 1 as expected.

855 AD: Pliska back up to size 2. I haven't seen a settler leave it, though.

858 AD: One of the wandering Bulgar swords left the city along with the settler. I don't know where the other went but it wasn't into Pliska.

We could march into Bulgar territory this turn, with three swords, two archers, and one 1-1-2 king. Or we could wait two turns and have two more archers. I decide to spend the 24g to investigate Pliska again to get detailed info.



OK, so we'll have to kill four units to take the city. That means waiting for those two more attackers.

861 AD: Our boats contact Burgundy and the Turks and an exploring spear contacts the Abbasids.

864 AD: It's time. We declare war on the Bulgars, and move 3 swordsmen, 4 archers (3 veteran), one spear, and one king up next to Pliska.

Between turns, no counterattacks.

867 AD: Great news comes from our front-line parties! We have contacted Spain, France, and Castile!

Oh, you want THAT news.

In the Battle of the Bulge..ars....

Vet archer attacks a veteran spear and wins 4-2! Another veteran spear appears underneath (uh-oh...)
Next vet archer attacks that spear and wins 4-1! Luck be a lady tonight.
Last vet archer attacks a regular spear and loses 4-1. Oh well.
Reg sword attacks reg sword and wins 3-2 (whew!)
Reg sword attacks 2-HP spear and wins 2-1.
Last sword attacks the King and loses 3-2.
Reg archer attacks the King and...





We keep the city. I don't fear a flip: our culture is far ahead of the Bulgars' (we started with two temples and a colosseum). It comes with two workers and a barracks.


870 AD: We add Cordova to our list of contacts, and fortify around Pliska. A Bulgar swordsman is going to attack the city this turn; we have a fortified reg spear defending; if we lose it, oh well. There's also an incoming archer and warrior but I'm sure we can pick those off at will. (Incidentally, that Bulgar swordsman is only there because of the AI free spear. That sword escorted the settler to found Veliki Praslav, and when that city got a free spear, the sword was freed up to come back.)

I'll pass off now. Was only 9 turns, but I had plenty of fun, and that evens up the year numbers and lets next leader veto the initial 10-turn worker builds if he wants.

Map in next post. Take it away, Arathorn!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc13a-870ad.zip

The Bulgar capital moved to Vidin, way on their far side. I would guess the AI will probably move the king unit there. There is a path of high ground all the way over to the city - it might be possible to set out for it with a stack of swords and archers and go for Charis' TKO?

An alliance with the Magyars against the Bulgars is an option for only 5 gpt. That could be an *excellent* buy.

Constant could build either an archer or spear right now; Arathorn's call. Any of the other builds can be vetoed, except Ancyra's granary. That city is a very natural worker farm - remember to irrigate its grassland.

We do not have Dyes yet, so get a settler to the southwestern part of Greece to claim and hook them up sometime. Larissa's settler will probably want to claim some iron.

The westernmost spear is making sure that they don't get that iron hooked up. It doesn't need to move onto the iron - it can stay on the safer mountain, the AI won't move workers next to it. Arathorn probably knows all that.

Got it!

Arathorn

A most auspicious start to the Sid team! BTW, the Greek cities are connected due to the harbor in Corinth, which is nice since there are so few harbors available at start, and they can't be built for a long time.

Since our cities (in Greece) are quite defenceless, I think an alliance with Magyar would be a good idea to limit/prevent the risk of Bulgars sending a lonely sword there. Other option is peace, if possible (but getting Veliki and Ruse first would be nice) ???

From what I remember (from the Start) Cesarea (deep Turkey) is more than 85% corrupt (can't get a second trade even while working the wool/lamb that was 1 out of 8 trades not corrupt), without courthouse (when is that / if there are some), cities there might be useless.

We probably should settle first cities close to Constantinople in (now) north Greece or West Turkey... 'red' dots compared to 'green' dots in the 'fast-crappy' dotmap made at work without the save

Jabah

I already played some last night, but a major computer crash in 888 AD kept me from finishing...and my notes from saving.

Executive summary of first 5 turns -- Still at war with Bulgars, no alliances signed, different dotmap followed. Veliki is close to falling and Ruse might come as part of a peace deal. Play quality was sporadic and I lost one of our swords. Bulgars have lost about 12 units, though. Highlight was our iron-watching spear (fortified on a mountain) losing its first two to a Bulgar sword and then rallying to defeat not only that sword but two archers to promote to elite. The PRNG giveth and the PRNG taketh away.

Will hopefully complete tonight.

Arathorn

Way to go, Arathorn. Maybe we can get Horseback Riding in the peace deal too. I would expect the Bulgars to research that first, as their only other possibility is Byzantine Ingenuity, which the AI is very unlikely to prioritize over HBR.

Courthouses are called Town Halls, cost 50 shields, and come at Code of Laws at the beginning of the third age. We definitely want to build lots, as one of the penalties of Sid difficulty is that OCN is reduced to HALF the original value, and a courthouse goes a long way towards digging out of that hole. Don't forget WLTKD too, with our many luxuries and up to 3 police. There's also a Sheriff's Office which is a combination bank/courthouse for 240 shields, which comes very late at Divine Right.

To Justus: Harbor... Corinth... I'm an idiot.