A Moors Game

[Fresol]

Uninteresting title as usual. This is an illustrative strategy guide for Moors.

This is a Moors 600 AD Regent/Normal game played under SVN revision 966. The aim is to win Unique Historical Victory.

Compared with the Portugal game, during this game(which is still ongoing) I took less screenshots. So I'll compensate by providing more strategy descriptions.

No starting screenshot, you'll see it whenever you start the game anyway.

First let me remind everyone of the 3 UHV goals for Moors:
1. Control 3 cities in Iberia, Maghreb and West Africa respectively in 1200 AD.
2. Settle a total of 5 Great People(Great Engineers, Great Prophets or Great Scientists) in Cordoba by 1300 AD.
3. Acquire 3000 gold through piracy by 1650 AD.

Your stack spawns at the Cordoba tile, and consists of 1 horse archer, 2 longbowmen, 2 swordsmen, 2 settlers and 2 Islamic missionaries. 1 galley, 1 trireme and 1 workboat appear at either 1SW or 1SE of your stack. I picked a start with the latter situation.



Revolt to Mecernary civic. You need it sooner or later so why not do it early to minimize lost from anarchy?



Settle Cordoba in place and workers start to improve the sheep, wine, horse, then build farm and windmills. Load the horse archer and 1 longbowman onto the galley, and sail it eastward. Cordoba builds pagan temple. If no religion spreads in before the temple is whipped, we can save ~45 from the temple conversion.

Turn the science slider to 0%, we don't need to research anything until much later.

 

[Fresol]

Catholicism spreads to Cordoba the next turn. Good news and bad news. The good news is that we can get extra and priest slots. The bad news is we lose 45 hammers and have an extra .



We have met the Spanish, our archenemy. Spy on them if you want, it doesn't make much of a difference.

The galley, accompanied by the trireme, unloads the horse archer to Tunis. He'll try to take Tripoli from there.



Meet the Byzantines. They need a little bribe to open border with us.



The horse archer takes Tripolis. The spearman usually wanders off and you can do this most of the time. Keep the city.



Use the longbowman to capture workers from independent Roma.

 

[Fresol]

I forgot to mention Marrakus. It flipped to us on the third turn. It's building a workboat, and the worker is building improvements around the city. Move the settler to settle Tunis.



We are lucky this time. The independents are not at war with Byzantium, and we are able to capture 2 more workers from them.



Meet the Arabs, who are willing to gift us marble for free. Marble's worth 1~2 per turn in this revision of game.



Tunis settled. Remember we need to settle 5 Great People in Cordoba? La Mezquita can provide one. We'll raise 3 Great People in Cordorba and 1 more in Tunis. For that we need a temple and a library in Tunis.

 

[Tigranes]

Meet the Arabs, who are willing to gift us marble for free. Marble's worth 1~2 per turn in this revision of game.

I am not sure why Leo did it this way Trades are pretty crazy now, with Chinese demanding all my resources for 1 Silk in my Persia game!

Did you opt for 600 start because of the Great Library preplaced in Alexandria? Carthage could have been your Tunis in 3000 BC start, so extra city with a settler.

 

[Fresol]

Because of faster load time.

Also the starting situation is quite fixed in 600 AD scenario.

 

[Fresol]

The three captured workers build improvements near Tunis and Tripoli. Then they'll get transported to other cities.



We send out the horse archer to contact Holy Rome.



Random event : the quest of greed.



Meeting the Germans. They'll trade Feudalism to us eventually.



Wahran is settled, on the dye. The settler was trained in Marrakus. Since we could trade for marble(we got it for free from Arabia) early on, we delayed settling Wahran quite a bit. Wahran is our third city in Maghreb(Tripoli doesn't count), and we build a barracks in it right away.



Feudalism as promised.



La Mezquita finished in Cordoba. Build a temple and a noria before it and nothing else.

Talking about build orders, Cordoba and Tunis both need to work 4 specialists eventually so build 2 temples or temple+library in each city. Marrakus, Wahran and Tripoli should build barracks and train armies. There's no need to build harbors before UHV 1 is finished.

 

[Fresol]

Meeting the French.



An interesting event.



Meeting the Vikings.



The Great Prophet from finishing La Mezquita is now settled in Cordoba. It's strange how he popped out in Wahran, not Cordoba.



We are preparing a mercenary army to invade Spain with. We need horse archers, catapults and maybe a few longbowmen. After the culture expansion update, the iron near Marrakus is unreachable for most of the game(unless you build a fort there; a road is also needed), so no crossbowmen for us.



Meeting the Russians.

 

[Fresol]

Just as I'm about to have the forests cleared, there's this nice random event.



Our second Great Prophet settles in Cordoba.



The Arabian Sultanates, our only friend and ally so far, is willing to trade Compass to us.



An overview of the tech situation.

 

[Fresol]

I surely have had a lot of random events this game.



An overview of our cities. I'm hurry buying units every other turn in the 3 cities. Marrakus and Tarabulus are training settlers for west Africa. That's right, we are not going to invade Mali. A few coastal settlements would do the job.



Looks like we are ready to wipe out the Spanish for good, there's 6 more horse archers on the way. It seems the Spanish does not have a single spearman in their army, which is good news for us.

 

[Fresol]

A third Great Prophet is settled in Cordoba. I'm feeling quite confident about the war so Cordoba starts to train a settler. Meanwhile we need another galley to help ferry the troops across the Strait of Gibraltar.



We are having some heated combats with the Spanish.



5-move galley FML.



Fall of Madrid. Santiago will be next.



We won't accept Spain's capitulation. The Iberian peninsula belongs to the Moors only.



Fall of Santiago and the Crown of Aragon.



Looks like we have our UHV in the bag. Hmm... it's still too early to say.



Our first super medic. But it's too late, the war is almost over.



Barcelona will be our 4th Iberian city.

 

[Fresol]

Byzantium has collapsed.

The independent triremes from Roma is wreaking havoc in this game.



We have finally met the Malinese. But our trade routes are not connected yet.



Not wanting to wait, we are getting Divine Right from Arabia instead.



The Great Scientist from Tunis settles in Cordoba as well.



Spreading Islam.



Our settlers in west Africa are almost in place.

 

[Fresol]

Indie Naples taken by the French. Guess I can disband all my merc troops now. I'll train another army of knights and cannons to deal with the Portuguese later.



Yeah, them.



Constant indie trireme harassment. Aren't we supposed to be the pirates?!



Finally, the 5th Great Person is settled in Cordoba.



UHV goal 2 achieved.

 

[Eric Cartmenez]

Nice gameplay, now I see, where I did a constant mistake - by razing Tarabulus after conquest and not using Tunis for GP ... I also prepared my army in Cordoba instantly while building La Mezquita in Marrakus loosing some precious time.

Thanx Fresol, I am curious how the story will continue

 

[Fresol]

I hope that my thread has helped you a bit.

About Tripoli, it's not necessary to keep it. But one additional city is surely helpful. You'll feel the difference once you get to compare them(razing and keeping the city).

The game is still in progress, as I can't find enough time to finish it yet. I'll post more about the game in the next few days.

 

[Theodorick]

The luck you had with random events has me a little jealous, because I usually get mostly negative events with Corboda.

 

[Fresol]

The luck you had with random events has me a little jealous, because I usually get mostly negative events with Corboda.

Did you mean this?

 

[Fresol]

The Italians. Maybe I should've converted to Catholicism? Being heretics, it's hard to make any deal with the Europeans. But then again, there's very little I need from them, and Arabia is a worthy ally to have.



Arabia is already friendly towards us so I choose to save the money.



In 1190 AD, we establish the 3 west African settlements.

I guess I should've settled them earlier, because they seem to be producing positive net worth(almost, but surely when in a golden age), and the gems is quite the happiness resource we need.



UHV goal 1 achieved.



And the golden age is triggered. No one declares on us, which is good.

 

[Fresol]

Take some time to convert to Vassalage-Guilds-Fanaticism-Levy Armies civics combo. The golden age count down won't decrease during the anarchy. I like the version where golden age completely cancels anarchy better.



A period of peaceful development. I'm going for Gunpowder/Optics, which would unlock the Moorish UU: Corsairs. Corsairs are privateer replacements, they do a good job sinking ships and pillaging workboat, while providing a considerable amount of .



We have met the Ottomans.



Quickly, trade it before Arabia collapses!



An overview of our cities during golden age.



The English people are willing to open border with us.



Our first corsair is out! The strayed Portuguese galleys are our first targets. 25:cash: is too small an amount for our 3rd historical goal. Looks like we have a long way to go.

The generally slow tech rate of AIs mean that we are going to be hunting galleys, triremes and caravels for a long time.



Another overview of our cities.

 

[Fresol]

Since the Moors game is going to end(with victory) soon, I'm trying to find a third civ to playwork with. Any ideas folks?

 

[Eric Cartmenez]

I suggest Mughals, I consider their UHV great, but waaaaaaaaaayyyyy to hard to acheive, never did it. Surely yours moorish gameplay is inspiring, going to try it soon. Thank you for your time, btw.