Nobles' Club CLXV: Saladin of Arabia

[elitetroops]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Saladin of Arabia, whom we last played in NC CX. The Arabians start with Mysticism and The Wheel.

• Traits: Saladin is Spiritual and Protective. Spiritual allows for cheap Temples and Anarchy-free civics changes, making it a versatile trait that lends itself to just about any victory type. Protective gives Drill and City Garrison promotions to all Archery and Gunpowder units, along with cheap Walls and Castles. Saladin is therefore suited to turtle up and go culture, but don't underestimate drafted Protective Rifles in the late game.
• The UB: The Madrassa is a Library that gets double culture and can run two Priest specialists. Extra culture is always a good thing (especially on an early building that doubles its culture after 1000 years), and the Madrassa can also help fuel a prophet-based economy if you feel like doing something different.
  
  
  
  
• The UU: The Camel Archer is a Knight with no resource requirement and an innate 15% withdrawal chance. It's generally regarded as one of the weaker UU's since Guilds is often a backfill tech for many players, but if you don't have Horses or Iron, it can be used to secure those resources for a later Cuirassier or Cannon rush.
  
  

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal

Spoiler edits :

Made sure all AI have some strategic resource.

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC number Leader Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[elitetroops]

Reserved

 

[Ironlungs76]

Count me in, I've not played Saladin for a while, I do love me a daft knight/Xbow rush

IMM/NH/NE etc but won't get a chance to try for a few days

 

[dutchfire]

Lush green riverside land with double corn (dry though). Cottage spam? Hoping for a strategic resource to pop up too.

 

[duckstab]

Yeah, not much obvious production there unless there's some metal. Still, no obvious reason not to SIP that I can see.

Will play the noble save, huts/events on.

 

[dalamb]

Thanks for posting, elitetroops.

I had been contemplating a no-horses map just to make Camel Archers useful, but it's probably a good thing for Nobles that I wasn't well enough to try it.

 

[TheDanish]

First NC game in a long time. Been playing a lot of Europa Universalis, but I got tired of committing genocide against natives.

Prince/Standard/No huts or events.

to 1200 BC

Spoiler :

SIP. Went Agriculture > Mining > Blacksmithing. As soon as I knew I had copper in the BFC, I decided to axe rush Zara Yaqob. Well, so much for not committing genocide...

While I was enjoying wanton slaughter, I teched Pottery > AH > Fishing.

 

[Flipantropo]

Yeah you did the right thing. I was thinking of rushing him aswell but then i thought "wouldnt it be cool to oracle metal casting and build the colossus?"

Spoiler :

then I saw I had no iron, so I started building axes. I stopped at two, right after i saw an ethiopian longbowman strolling around. I waited till Camels/Trebuchets to invade him, by that time Shaka had like 14 cities (he just stomped the british). Luckily for me, Shakas AI is a terrible tactician, even tough its good producing units. Lets just say the brave Arabian soldiers killed 120 Zulu cavalry brigades some time after that

 

[elohssa]

Immortal, conquest, 1720 AD (1 sitting , <5 hours).

Spoiler :

I saw that it was a tight start so I focused on settling spots that were maybe weaker but were up for grabs, then I back-filled the other sites. Got 7 cities.




Budhism spread to most civs and as I teched to lib I got to friendly with Zara and augustus. Both were good trade partners. There was no iron but I still went for a cannon rush (no horses either of course). I libbed chemistry and slow-teched steel while building up money + whipping 17 trebuchets. Buying iron from Augustus was not very feasible as he made me pay 115 gpt and a ton of resouces! So I traded him iron for 1 turn + upgraded my trebuchets. Then I pillaged my own cows which forced the trade for iron to cancel before 10 turns were up (and I saved a ton of money). 17 cannons with musket + grenadier support was easily enough to beat down Zara after which I had my own iron.




I found theocracy very useful as CR2 cannons get 30%+ better survival odds which saves many hammers. After Zara I more or less kept declaring on everyone in that direction; capping Shaka and Izzy. Napoleon and Augustus were tougher. For Augustus I had to spend a lot on upgrades to infantry. Lastly I took out SB with ease.



Score 172k.

 

[duckstab]

To 975 BC, noble, standard speed, huts/events on

Spoiler :

I did a rush last time with Washington so I'm taking a more peaceful approach this time around. I'm in the process of trying an Oracle->MC->Pyramids slingshot. Oracle is done, just finished a forge in Medina barely in time to get a Great Engineer out before Mecca pops a Great Prophet.

I reloaded an autosave a couple times because I think I stumbled on a pre-chopping bug. After two replays the same thing happened so it wasn't just a miscalculation. Had a worker that was going to take 3 turns to pre-chop a forest north of Medina. After one turn, I checked and it said still two turns left. Then the next turn, the forest was gone. Anyone ever run into this?

Anyhow, since I'm leaning towards culture this game I'd love to have that stone up north but I'm betting Augustus will be there before me. My next city is probably the orange dot to the east.

Advice welcome.
View attachment Duckstab BC-0975.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[elitetroops]

Good Job elohssa!

@duckstab:

Regarding chopping, without BUFFY, a worker will automatically continue to chop the last turn when you want to prechop. If you don't have any other units to move, they will automatically finish the chop at beginning of turn without you being able to do anything about it. So when prechopping, at 2 turns left you should chop, then select the worker again and press space to cancel what they are doing.

Regarding your game:

Spoiler :

Two cities by 975BC is a bit slow. Try settling more cities earlier. 4-5 by 975BC would be okay. I guess the Oracle slowed you down here. On noble you wouldn't have had to rush that fast to the Oracle, it wouldn't have been built in a long time. Often it's better to first get writing and math, before heading towards the oracle techs.

Capital is unhappy and will be a long time, but you are still working both corns for more growth. Switch one corn to mine for now to stagnate growth.

Why are you researching monarchy when you are about to build the mids?

What have your workers been up to? It's T76, you have 2 workers, but I only see 27 worker turns worth of improvements... With a start like this you should probably have all those green riverside tiles around your capital cottaged by now. You should also build roads to connect your cities for trade routes and hook up the health resources. And pasture those pigs, it's the best tile Medina has available.

 

[elohssa]

@duckstab

Looking good. My only advice would be to settle Medina 1 tile NE. Yes you need to get a monument out to get the clam, but long term that is stronger and short term it gives you two (each way) trade routes via the river.

 

[TheDanish]

Bad news in my game.

Spoiler :

I got DoW'd by Shaka and Julius some time around Education. Couldn't hold them off across such a spread out front. I've had a losing streak recently against very aggressive AIs and it got me really frustrated, but I think I'll try again soon.

 

[elohssa]

Julius I've never found to be aggressive. I've had him as my only neighbor once before and I had little power and he was cautious to me whole game. Never declared. Try spreading out your cities so the BFCs don't overlap much. On non-isolated starts it's not a bad tactic anyway due to better land-grab and it reduces DoW chances due to how the AI picks their targets (many cities close together).

 

[TheDanish]

Sorry, I didn't mean Julius, I meant

Spoiler :

Augustus

It's been a while since I've played so I'm not sure if he's normally aggressive. Anyway, on this playthrough I'm staying on his good side and going to war when he asks.

Spoiler :

Shaka declared on me some time around 500 AD, and we were at war for several hundred years. I destroyed his initial invasion stack, and he came back with a moderate Chariot stack, but nothing that offered any trouble. But he refused to make peace, despite my clear military superiority, and kept demanding one of my cities. Eventually I gave him Aesthetics to shut him up, since I'd traded it away to everyone else and was far beyond that tech level.

 

[duckstab]

@duckstab:
Regarding your game:

Spoiler :

Two cities by 975BC is a bit slow. Try settling more cities earlier. 4-5 by 975BC would be okay. I guess the Oracle slowed you down here. On noble you wouldn't have had to rush that fast to the Oracle, it wouldn't have been built in a long time. Often it's better to first get writing and math, before heading towards the oracle techs.

That's exactly right. Normally I would have more cities by now, but went for the Oracle instead. What's a good rule of thumb here, i.e., if you want the Oracle, how long can you wait before starting it?

Capital is unhappy and will be a long time, but you are still working both corns for more growth. Switch one corn to mine for now to stagnate growth.

Running Slavery, I'd gotten into the habit of growing into unhappiness and then whipping it away. At some point, usually once I've plunked down my first batch of cities, I lay off the whip and let my citizens cool off. Maybe I've just taken that philosophy too far. What's a good balance here?

Why are you researching monarchy when you are about to build the mids?

Good question. I guess I was going to hedge my bets in case I missed them, because they're still 35 turns away. Maybe switch to Alphabet, so I can start tech trading?

What have your workers been up to? It's T76, you have 2 workers, but I only see 27 worker turns worth of improvements... With a start like this you should probably have all those green riverside tiles around your capital cottaged by now. You should also build roads to connect your cities for trade routes and hook up the health resources. And pasture those pigs, it's the best tile Medina has available.

Chopping, for the most part. Those items you listed are next up on their list.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[dutchfire]

Played until 800 AD, was gunning for Lib -> Military Tradition, until I noticed I don't have horses (or iron...). D'oh! Should probably change to Lib->Rifling and drafting to grab someone's horses.

Spoiler :

I popped gems in the capital early, that was lucky since the start is food heavy but happy poor.

Pyramids were built very late, I should have gone for them earlier, they would have helped a lot.

 

[cseanny]

@ Dutch

Saladin has a resourcless UU and +2 strength. Knight the world yeah?

 

[dutchfire]

Yeah, but I should have thought of that before researching Music+Nationalism, without having Feudalism. If/when I continue the game, I'm going to give it a shot, use Camel Archers to grab horses.

 

[Izuul]

@ Dutch

Saladin has a resourcless UU and +2 strength. Knight the world yeah?

+2 strength?

Anyway, about the resource situation.

Spoiler :

I've played a handful of turns past 1000 BC and can now see all of the relevant strategic resources, and i think there a few ways to approach the situation.

1) Trade for Ivory from Augustus and elepult Zara. Shouldn't be too hard really. I would rather take out Augustus himself here because he has juicy land, but that would cut off my ivory too early plus he has praets and all. I've already secured his ivory for wheat + clams so this might be the route that i choose. Tons of food available to whip units although happiness could be at a premium.

2) Go for Engineering and Guilds. Don't really even need Camel Archers to start, trebs and maces would do fine, and Zara's iron is close and likely quite easy to capture so x-bows and pikes could be added - possibly phants too if you have some of Auggies ivory.

3) Shoot for later game breakout with either rifles or perhaps canons if iron can be traded for briefly to upgrade some units. I'm gonna get 8 7 cities easily in my game and i didn't even push for the stone site, so there's plenty of room here to self-tech on up the tree and the direct neighbors are rather peaceful. They also have dangerous neighbors that may well keep them busy.