A Turkic Monarch/Marathon Walkthrough

[Hickman888]

We begin the Turkic game in what appears to be a rather desolate part of the world, flipping over 5 cities to have a total of 6. The Turkic Historical Victory has "3" (really, 7) goals:

1. Control 6% of the world, and pillage 20 improvements (900 AD)
2. Create an overland route from any city in China to a city on the Mediterranean, and spread Silk Road to 10 cities (1100 AD)
3. Control a capital with developing culture (900 AD), a 2nd capital with refined culture (1100 AD), and a 3rd capital with influential culture (1400 AD)

The silk road is the lifeblood of the empire, and I must make it a top priority to improve and control the resources that help make the silk road more profitable (silk, camel, incense, cotton). I instantly set my core cities to begin training 5 settlers, and begin research on Artisanry. The historical territory to the north of the Turks is vast and uncontested, and will help us reach our 6% of the world goal. I also send off a band of Oghuzs to China, to get my plunder goal out of the way. (China is full of developed towns, so I actually manage to make a good chunk of change doing my plundering). I position mounted units strategically around my empire, so I that I can instantly respond and recruit any barbarians that should appear. When my settlers are finished training, I settle a city 4 tiles to the west of Dukhan. This spot is important, because it allows my culture to cover the entire road (necessary for the second goal). It also has a couple of Oases and some Gems, so that with the Silk Road present, it actually becomes a decent city. I also settle one city in Mongolia, one city to the northeast of Orduqent, and two cities to the northwest of my core, south of the Russian spawn. The Silk Road tab under the Corporation button states that the location that the Silk Road may spawn into is Central Asia/Persia, and if you look in the worldbuilder for the exact tiles of these regions, it appears that, so long as I'm settling in a Turkic historical area, the Silk Road may appear there. Luckily, that gives us a lot of room to play around with.

Spoiler Turkic Empire, before the invasion of Iran :

With my settlers trained and Artisanry researched, I turn off my research and turn up the culture slider, convert to Buddhism, begin construction of the Salsal Buddha, and begin training catapults. By this time, I've recruited several barbarian mounted units to my side, and I just need to get some siege units to have a chance at hurting these enemy crossbowmen behind walls. (Despotism is very useful in helping to get out those catapults ASAP.) Invading Persia quickly causes them to collapse, and I press on. The wonder I'm most eager to get my hands on is the Apadana Palace, which gives a free monument in every city, and lets my workers construct improvements 50% faster. This will not only help my borders pop, but it'll also help me develop the land around my new cities ASAP. With Persia conquered, I declare war on Arabia, and move into Mesopotamia. I unfortunately started my conquests a bit too late, and so I was really up against the clock to reach my "control 6% of the world" deadline. Luckily, partly thanks to the Oghuz's 3 movement, I was able to quickly take several cities in the last few turns, achieving my first goal by the skin on my teeth, on the last possible turn.

Spoiler Conquering Jerusalem + Sur finally put me at 6% :

I asked for peace with Arabia, who ended up collapsing the next turn. Since I controlled a Mediterranean city, and having the Silk Road in 10 cities was basically a given, I just had to wait for my culture to cover one last tile to the southwest of Kuchi for me to achieve my second goal and enter a Golden Age, which is to be boosted by the Great Mausoleum. I now turn my full attention to getting my culture goal completed. Getting Refined culture in Orduqent is trivial; Getting refined culture in the 2nd capital is probably the hardest goal, just due to the time crunch; Influential culture in the 3rd capital is difficult, but possible with planning. As soon as I captured Persepolis, I set it up to run artists to earn a Great Artist. Likewise, upon capturing Babylon, I began developing the cultural infrastructure of it, so that it could be my 3rd capital. Babylon has an abundance of wonders, including Ishtar Gate, which helps me keep good odds for a Great Artist in the city. I send him to Samarqand (which ended up being my 2nd capital), and create a great work there, to push it well above the Refined culture level. (I was up against the clock with this one. If I didn't get a Great Artist from Babylon, I would have lost.) I tech into the Medieval era (great works provide more , depending on the era you're in), earn a 2nd Great Artist from Persepolis, and send him to Babylon, providing a good amount, but not all, of the required culture. Meanwhile in my other cities, I am constructing temples of various religions, so that I may construct their cathedrals (Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism) in Babylon. I'm also training more Oghuzs, in preparation of the Mongolian spawn.

Spoiler Turkic Empire at its height, just before Mongolian spawn :

I move all of my units north of Persia into my core (Persia) to prevent them from being flipped to the Mongolians, and await the Khan's arrival. The Mongolians spawn several stacks of units around my cities in and around Persia, and send them all into a short revolt. I have built such a strong force, however, that I'm able to destroy most of the Mongolian conquerors, and quickly retake three of the four cities they did manage to take. I move my military and threaten another Mongolian city, and then ask for peace. I now only have a few short turns to wait until Babylon hits influential culture, more than a hundred years before the deadline. Unfortunately, after spending several missionaries spreading Zoroastrianism to Babylon, it ended up leaving Babylon anyways, causing my Zoroastrian cathedral to disappear. Nonetheless, Babylon achieves influential culture a few short turns after my peace with the Mongols.

Spoiler Turkic Historical Victory :

I really enjoyed this game, and it was a lot of fun sending out settlers to control such a large swath of the Earth. If I were to play a Turkic game again I would probably do only a few small things differently:

1. At the beginning of the game, have two of my cities train catapults right away, while the others train settlers. I'd still wait until Arabia attacks Persia for me to begin my invasion, but if I had catapults and invaded Persia sooner, I could've gotten hold of the Apadana Palace sooner, as well as all the Silk Road resources in Persia.
2. If possible, I should've devoted a Turkic city ASAP to running Artists, to make sure my first great person is absolutely an artist. I got lucky at 60% for the first Great Artist in my game, but if I didn't get him I would've failed to get a refined capital.

The only two things I would change for the Turks is, first, to make the Salsal Buddha more attainable for them. As it is, the Salsal Buddha requires Buddhism as a state religion, and is rather expensive. I'd like to see Buddhism just be present in a city, and perhaps have its construction sped up by camels, to allow the Turks to build it more often. You can picture Camels as bringing in the resources necessary for the wonders construction as the reason for why it could be sped up by camels. And second, it seems that the silk road can only spread to 11 of my cities. It got to a point where everytime the Silk Road spread to one of my cities, it would disappear from another. Maybe this is necessary to prevent the Turks from abusing the Silk Road and settling too many cities, but I would like to see this (seemingly) artificial limit removed, and just increase the costs for the Turks to maintain a large number of cities to a proportionate amount. They have the Divan to deal with it, after all!

 

[BaneFire]

Nice stuff! The Turks are a super fun one to play, though I think you get most of what you can out of them in the first UHV completion. Here's my empire which I think even beat the actual historic Turks

 

[Hickman888]

Nice stuff! The Turks are a super fun one to play, though I think you get most of what you can out of them in the first UHV completion. Here's my empire which I think even beat the actual historic Turks View attachment 556990

Well done! Did you achieve that empire before the first UHV? If so, that is very impressive. I agree that completing the first condition as the Turks was my favorite of the three, just because there were so many potential ways that you could go about completing it.