A general strategy for Morocco

[megabearsfan]

Continuing my series of Civ V BNW strategies, I have just published a guide for Morocco. Please check it out at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2014/02/08/Civ-V-Morocco-strategy.aspx

As always, I appreciate any feedback, so please comment, share, or rate the post as you see fit. I also welcome any discussion about the strategy guide or Moroccan strategies in general in this forum topic.

This is my fourth strategy post. The first three are:
Assyria the tech thief
Brazil the jungle king
spicy Indonesia

I will also be posting a similar thread on the official 2k forums.

 

[budweiser]

I think you do a pretty good job with your guides. I also like Morocco a lot. I think they are the coolest civ.

Morocco does not necessarily need to start in the desert. There will be desert nearby and they should eventually expand into it. The UU would be good for this, if you don't get around to it until later.

The Kasbah is great for hammers and if you score a wide swath of desert you can be a production monster in mid game owning World's Fair and Games.

 

[joncnunn]

The main problem I see with this guide, and this applies to all guides is that the readers are assumed to be on a low enough level to where you can actually beat the AI to early world wonders.

(The wonder section is great for someone at Prince; counter productive at Immortal+ where the AI starts with a worker)

Kabash has three cases:

With Petra: Awesome

Without Petra but with Desert Faith: Decent; but the desert hills will be much higher priority than the desert flatland.

AI beat you to desert faith as well The flat desert is very marginal with Kabash. The hills are still okay.

The good news is the Morocco's UA still works fine without any world wonders (Extra gold per trade route); it is however a bit more specific (more like neighboring civ specific) as to weather they will establish trade routes with you.

 

[Resipsa]

I have played a few games with Morocco and agree you because their early game brings in culture I'm kind of torn between liberty and tradition because I want to expand out to have more lucrative trade opportunities but I also like a lot of growth. You don't need a desert start but if you get one and you get DF you can beeline writing and then get to currency for a shot at Petra mid 60s to mid 70s is a good aim to hit.

 

[megabearsfan]

The main problem I see with this guide, and this applies to all guides is that the readers are assumed to be on a low enough level to where you can actually beat the AI to early world wonders.

(The wonder section is great for someone at Prince; counter productive at Immortal+ where the AI starts with a worker)

Maybe I should put a disclaimer in my strategies that I typically play on King difficulty, and then also be more specific about noting that certain wonders are impractical on higher levels. However, I try to write my strategies to be difficulty and map-agnostic. I did add a note about the difficulty of building Petra and Colossus on higher difficulties.

In the case of Morocco though, Petra is far enough into the tech tree, and requires specific enough terrain that in any given game, there's only a few civs that are even eligible to build it (same goes for Macchu Pichu), so Petra is definitely a buildable wonder even on higher difficulties. Especially if you finish Liberty and get an Engineer just in time to rush it.

I have played a few games with Morocco and agree you because their early game brings in culture I'm kind of torn between liberty and tradition because I want to expand out to have more lucrative trade opportunities but I also like a lot of growth. You don't need a desert start but if you get one and you get DF you can beeline writing and then get to currency for a shot at Petra mid 60s to mid 70s is a good aim to hit.

When I play as Morocco, I usually open Tradition for the bonus culture, then I open Liberty, then I take Aristocracy, Republic, Citizenship, and Collective Rule as needed. Then I'd typically finish Liberty for a free Great Person and move on to Commerce or Patronage.

 

[joncnunn]

Maybe I should put a disclaimer in my strategies that I typically play on King difficulty, and then also be more specific about noting that certain wonders are impractical on higher levels. However, I try to write my strategies to be difficulty and map-agnostic. I did add a note about the difficulty of building Petra and Colossus on higher difficulties.

In the case of Morocco though, Petra is far enough into the tech tree, and requires specific enough terrain that in any given game, there's only a few civs that are even eligible to build it (same goes for Macchu Pichu), so Petra is definitely a buildable wonder even on higher difficulties. Especially if you finish Liberty and get an Engineer just in time to rush it.

The wonders which can be worth going after on King are almost the same as Prince so I didn't notice it. (Basically it's only Great Library that on King requires a good hammer start which is always buildable on Prince)

But with regards to Petra; I'd agree that it's still buildable on Emperor.

But on Immortal+, it's a crap shoot; if none of the AIs spawned in Desert, you can easily build it. If 1 AI spawned on desert; there's a significant risk of failing. And if 2+
did, it would take a very good hammer start to beat both of them *. Currency is actually a favorite path for AI to go down.

* Above is via hand build; for beating them via GE, you'll either need an early cultural city state friend or to stumble across a cultural ruin or two. In this case, your not risking wasting hammers (other than the turn when you use the GE)

On Diety; it would be if even 1 AI spawned on Desert that it would take a very good hammer start to beat it. At this level, the free GE is going to arrive too late.

 

[adwcta]

I've yet to fail to build Petra on immortal, and I've learned to not even attempt it on deity. I can barely tech to it before it's gone, and the AI has it on very high priority with two cities, whereas immortal one city still has to build settlers, workers, troops, etc. On immortal, both tradition and liberty can hard build it if you beeline hard.

 

[Luven]

If I were to write a Guide I would write it for immortal. Deity is very limiting in the variety of strategies that work and very start location, ruin, map and opponent dependant. While you can almost always adapt your play, catch up later and finally win. On Immortal you can plan a lot more strategies beforehand and actually execute them. Everything that works on immortal works on difficulties below aswell.

The big early bonuses of Deity AI makes them unbeatable in science and production for quite a while. But they also have Workers and Gold and send Settlers alone while failing vs Barbs.

This sometimes leads to Situations where a good Deity start can be easier than a good Immortal start. Because you can steal 2 workers form one opponent while selling your double mining rescource and horses to your two randomly gotten friends while getting a 3rd worker or a city state through quest. Then you go capture a city with 2 wonders turn 60 all while liberty great engineer building petra yourself on your desert faith river hill start, bamm your oficially supercharged.

You just cannot savely go for petra every time. But I would say 30%-50% of the time you can get it.

If you wanna make Deity a little bit easier, turn on Raging Barbs. You will have more workers captured by barbs and more barb clearing quests from city states. And AI builds probably a bit more Units because they actually lose some vs Barbs.

 

[joncnunn]

On immortal, both tradition and liberty can hard build it if you beeline hard.

If the beelining is so hard that it delayed National College, the science loses are often to the point that on net it delays the turn of victory. Better to just restart in 4000 BC if your start requires Petra even to be decent if trying to beat your previous turn of victory.

If I were to write a Guide I would write it for immortal.

So would I; but 90% of it for any civ would be the same 4 city tall tradition science is king strategy and skip all Ancient & Classical era wonders with the first one that sometimes worth shooting for being Midevil era if you get a tech lead.

 

[adwcta]

NC is not terribly important early, and who cares about turn times? It's just for style points, like getting Petra.

 

[Cromagnus]

On King, I would argue that virtually any strategy would eventually result in a win, so turn times are the only indication of whether it's a *good* strategy.

On Immortal or above, faster turn times (usually) indicate a stronger strategy, so that if you screw up some aspect of it, you still win. On those difficulties an inferior strategy will often just result in a loss. So, I think it always matters to some extent. Strategies for getting Early Education and maximizing growth result in faster turn-of-victory, but they also result in better chance of victory. The exception are the high risk strategies. Sacred Sites on immortal+ is high-risk. If anything goes wrong you lose. The same can be said (IMHO) for early war relying on insta-heal. By using all your ranged promotions on heals, if you don't gain significant advantage early, you will have worthless units not capable of finishing the fight. Whereas, a slower CB rush relying on logistics and range leaves you in a good position even if you only take a few capitals, and those promotions make it more likely that you can continue taking capitals if something goes wrong. So, there are exceptions, but generally, earlier finish time = stronger strategy... because if anything goes wrong, you win on t240 instead of t220. Versus losing entirely. IMHO.

 

[adwcta]

Eh, not true about turn times being indicative of closing in on victory.

If you generate 500 tourism and normally finish on turn 250, but fail, that's a lot worse than generating 1000 tourism ending on turn 270 and failing. The former is often screwed, while the later will still usually win within 20 turns. Same applies for science between tall and wide.

Similarly, if Mongols run out of steam, but usually finish turn 200, they're screwed if you didn't tech well. America, who normally finishes turn 280, can selectively attack civs that are ahead first far more easily, and have a more secure victory.

Similar with diplo if you usually try to hit science fast, but then fail to secure enough gold to gain cs board control. A slower strategy that ensures board control and sets up host, world religion, ideology, etc, is more secure, but significantly slower.

Slow styles often have back loaded benefits that makes for a more secure victory than faster styles. Not always, but it depends on how successful your strategy is. The turn times are a misleading indicator for success rate. In fact, they actually often run counter to success rate because you're explicitly trading security for speed.

 

[Cromagnus]

Eh, not true about turn times being indicative of closing in on victory.

If you generate 500 tourism and normally finish on turn 250, but fail, that's a lot worse than generating 1000 tourism ending on turn 270 and failing. The former is often screwed, while the later will still usually win within 20 turns. Same applies for science between tall and wide.

Similarly, if Mongols run out of steam, but usually finish turn 200, they're screwed if you didn't tech well. America, who normally finishes turn 280, can selectively attack civs that are ahead first far more easily, and have a more secure victory.

Similar with diplo if you usually try to hit science fast, but then fail to secure enough gold to gain cs board control. A slower strategy that ensures board control and sets up host, world religion, ideology, etc, is more secure, but significantly slower.

Slow styles often have back loaded benefits that makes for a more secure victory than faster styles. Not always, but it depends on how successful your strategy is. The turn times are a misleading indicator for success rate. In fact, they actually often run counter to success rate because you're explicitly trading security for speed.

Except in the case of focusing on growth and science. This *does* consistently result in faster win times and ALSO more reliable victories. Also, Mongols don't run out of steam unless you're pretty bad at conquest. If you can't win reliably with Mongols, it's not the fault of the strategy, nor is it the fault of focusing on science if you fail an SV. Gonna have to just agree to disagree on this one. Almost every game I can think of (with the exceptions I mentioned in my previous post) where I won early was a case where victory was inevitable...

I'll give an example. Even if I suicidally rush all my units against the last couple capitals at once... and fail to capture... I will still inevitably win. It will just take longer. The AI is so terrible at conquest that they *will* fail to defeat me. I'm not running against the clock with early conquest in the sense that I either win or lose. I'm running against the clock in terms of beating my previous record...

Sorry, with few exceptions, early snowball = earlier win time = better chance of victory.

Edit: I will grant that if you take it to extremes this is not true. For example, when pursuing SV, if you never spawn a single unit in your relentless pursuit of optimal growth... well yeah. On Deity you'll get DoW'd and lose.

But, duh. Build some archers. Problem solved.

If you go for early conquest and completely ignore libraries, unless you're Attila or Egypt, you're probably going to lose if you don't get lucky. Duh. Build a library.

 

[adwcta]

That's my point exactly. Turns times are not an indicator of success rate. I'm not saying faster turn times guarantees losses if you fail. I'm not trying to prove a negative here.

The factor isn't turn time, it's turn time AND raw infrastructure. Those two are always opposed due to opportunity cost. So, to the degree that your pursuit of turn time has hurt your infrastructure, your victory is less secure. But, to the degree that you've shaved off target turn time, you have those extra turns to produce. Security is lost at the point where production x turns needed to win for the faster turn time strategy is lower than that of the slower turn strategy. This happens more often than you think, not just on the extremes. It's with every decision you make in the game. This consideration only disappears when you are at 0% or 100% victory, at which point like I said before, turn times, like anything else in this game, becomes just style points.

 

[joncnunn]

Science is King with Civ V; more science early generally means faster completion time / higher chance of victory.
The main risks:

1. Great Library (with tech allowing NC chosen and NC as immediate next build afterwords). If you succeed in building it you will beat the pants off your non GL turn of victory (in addition to being a shoe in to victory. (This is even as 1 city; immediately following NC you build 2 settlers back to back and have a 3 city empire with NC faster than the normal way; 4th settler to follow as soon as happiness allows)
The risk here is if you don't get it, you may as well restart with fail gold being so low. On a high enough difficulty level attempting and failing is going to put you so far behind you can't catch up. On a lower level it will merely delay your turn of victory.

2. Having every single city so focused on buildings that no military at all is built (as opposed to a few ranged units and then having a designated city building units): If you don't get DOWed on, also likely to have a quicker turn of victory. But if you are DOWed in that state at a high enough difficulty level, the risk is an actual conquest defeat.

NC ASAP is the key national wonder on Immortal+; it's what allows you to overcome the AI starting handicaps.

 

[Paszczak]

The main problem I see with this guide, and this applies to all guides is that the readers are assumed to be on a low enough level to where you can actually beat the AI to early world wonders.

And how is that a problem? Perhaps the readers are assumed to play on difficulty 4 or 5 because most of the time they actually do? It's easy to assume reading these forums that 90% of players play on Immortal/Deity but in actuality it's more like 10%. It's gotten so ridiculous to the point that you have to explicitly state in your post/guide that you're playing on Prince, or else you'll get the inevitable train of condescence "Hurr that's your /turn on T200?? What level is this?? "

When somebody writes a Civ-specific guide it should be assumed that it's not a Deity guide for one simple reason - there is not such thing as a Deity Civ-specific guide. With all the obnoxious bonuses the AI gets and the whole Science > All thing there is only one way to play the game and that is Tradition Sim-City for 300 turns unless the player decides to spice things up by going for Domination (which ironically is the hardest VC). And even then there's a whole lot of cool UUs that will never see action because 6 archers is the only way to wage war against endless stacks carpets of units. In the end what Civ you pick on Immortal+ will play a marginal role, unless it's something truly game-changing like Venice. Morocco is not.

Sorry for rant, nice guide OP

 

[Cromagnus]

Every guide should state what difficulty level it's for, because virtually no guide is valid for all difficulty levels. Also, if the guide poster only tested it on Prince, it's not a safe assumption it will work on Emperor, nor is it necessarily a good guide for Warlord. The OP should always preface with the difficulty level he tested it on, or, if more than one, like some of the experienced guide posters, explicitly state which levels it was tested on, and what adjustments need to be made per level.

 

[joncnunn]

Every guide should state what difficulty level it's for, because virtually no guide is valid for all difficulty levels. Also, if the guide poster only tested it on Prince, it's not a safe assumption it will work on Emperor, nor is it necessarily a good guide for Warlord. The OP should always preface with the difficulty level he tested it on, or, if more than one, like some of the experienced guide posters, explicitly state which levels it was tested on, and what adjustments need to be made per level.

About the only thing does not work on lower levels than written would be a tactic trying to exploit the AI having a tech lead that don't include the assumptions & reasoning.
(e.g. a Deity level strategy saying to build a caravan ASAP could fail even on Immortal. But if written correctly like; check to see if there is any civ in which you would gain 3+ beakers per turn and if so build a Caravan ASAP, then it can apply at all levels.

Or an Emperor level+ strategy saying to send the first civ to an AI civ to steal a tech could fail easily on lower levels; but if written as if there is a Civ in which you'd gain 2+ science from a trade route with indicating they have a 3+ techs that you don't then send a spy, then it will work at all levels.)

 

[Cromagnus]

I'm thinking more along the lines of: research agreements aren't a good idea below a certain level; AIs don't have enough money to trade for luxuries below a certain level, but they do for strategics; picking different religious beliefs because the AI won't be able to fight off your spread; the higher value of expansion with per-city unhappiness being lower, etc....things that change the strategy as you lower the difficulty level... things that someone inexperienced reading the guide might not realize and might follow blindly otherwise. Even tech priority changes when you can achieve the lead easier.

 

[Laurwin]

Morocco has very good synergy for peaceful science victory, due to Moroccan UA. Freedom policy and tall empire is recommmended for this purpose. Important wonders are Colossus and Petra - both of which grant extra possible trade routes. Diplovictory is also possible.

-petra, colossus grant extra trade - this is crucial not the extra yields from petra in most cases

-coastal city would be needed preferrably for the purposes of cargo ships

-sea trade routes bring INSANE gpt, and also healthy amount of extra beakers.

-I would go so far as to say I prefer Morocco for trading empire, over Venice - I just can't get over the OCC aspect of Venice, in which case if your start is bad, your game is ruined, and Venice is too weak early game, and too constricted in victory conditions.

-Freedom space procurement policy - of gold rushing space parts becomes extra viable with Morocco.

-UA hopefully promotes peaceful relations with Morocco towards the AIs, who don't want to lose their extra trade, their own extra gpt, from trade with Moroccans.

-patronege filled up to consulates can work. I would personally go perhaps for Freedom ideology still. Tradition opener, patronage consulates, possibly commerce big ben, fill up the freedom with necessary policies. Perhaps even rationalism.

-main goals for CS diplomacy, prevent AI winning diplo, also important hurt the order AIs with luxury bans and world ideology freedom (possibly). Prevent them getting early science victory.

-if science victory is out of reach due to tech disadvantage, patronage partial + freedom can salvage diplomatic victory through better spy coups. Extra influences to city states are provided from a collections of means: patronage consulates, freedom military unit gift to CS, freedom spy coups, freedom nato trade routes influence boost.