Abbasids in Middle Ages?

[ummmm........]

I just wanted to get some feedback on what y'all think about playing as the Abbasids in the Middle Ages scenario. I don't get much time to play, and I usually play epic games. I was thinking about playing the Middle Ages conquest as a break, but I wanted to make sure I picked an interesting civ.

It seems like it would be fun to play as the Abbasids, since they start in Jerusalem and everyone would come to them. Is the rush too much? Also, if someone tries to bring an artifact to Jerusalem, and you (as the Abbasids) defeat them, do you capture the artifact? Can you get points for bringing it back to Jerusalem, or is it just the "Christian" nations that can score points that way?

If the Abbasids can't hold off all of the other nations, I thought maybe the Byzantines would be good? They start near Jerusalem, but seem to get a more advantageous start than the Abbasids. I could just rush Jerusalem and try to hold out.

What do y'all think? I don't especially care about winning, but I want a fun game, I don't want to get wiped out early.

Sorry about the long post. No one ever accused me of being concise.

 

[Duke Togo]

There isn't much in the way of crusading going on in the Conquest. Don't worry about being rushed, there's a chance you may never see a single unit from the western Christian nations in your lands.

 

[ummmm........]

I appreciate the reply, but that's downright depressing! Who would be a good civ to play then? I'm looking for an interesting game. That's it. Winning and losing is irrelevant, but contesting for victory is important.

 

[Invisible Rhino]

But there is a good chance they'll see yours It's actually pretty fun, if the like the scenario in general I think you'll have fun as the Abbasids, they can't build the heavy knight units so you'll want to rush as fast as possible to keep them away from those, but if you can outsmart and outmanuever them it can be lots of fun! Espescially when they have twelve cities and your Ansars surround their puny little king and tear him to pieces! hahahahahahahaha! Where'd all your cities go?!?

It's fun

 

[ummmm........]

Okay, I'm gonna go with the Abbasids. Thanks for the replies. Go Lightning!

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

If you're planning only one game with this Conquest, better pick Franks/ Germany/ England or Danes/ Norway/ Sweden.

 

[ummmm........]

Well it was fun for a while, but then everybody kept bumping into my Assassins and declaring war on me. Which made me think: What would happen if a 0 attack unit like a settler or worker bumped into an invisible unit?

 

[Qpdaj]

I won this conquest as the Byzintines (sp?) by victory points for capturing cities (including Jerusalem and the surrounding areas). The Christian civs never did send any armies (with relics) my way, which was a little annoying since I left lots of units in and around Jerusalem to protect it. Then again, knowing the AI, if I hadn't defended it well, they probably would have tried.

Which does raise the question, if a non-Christian civ captures a relic, can they deliver it and get the victory points?

I did also try this one as the English, but I could never get enough units to Jerusalem fast enough to capture it (at one point I had three armies with two relics sitting right outside the city, but they weren't technologically advanced enough to defeat the defenders). Ah well.

 

[Gumby78]

Originally posted by Qpdaj

Which does raise the question, if a non-Christian civ captures a relic, can they deliver it and get the victory points?

Yes, any Civ that has or captures a relic can deliver it and get the full 10,000 victory points.

 

[Tweedledum]

Originally posted by Qpdaj
I did also try this one as the English, but I could never get enough units to Jerusalem fast enough to capture it (at one point I had three armies with two relics sitting right outside the city, but they weren't technologically advanced enough to defeat the defenders). Ah well.

If you take the army you start with (plus relic) and head there straight away, you can get it in VERY quickly...

 

[Grohan]

Originally posted by ummmm........
Well it was fun for a while, but then everybody kept bumping into my Assassins and declaring war on me. Which made me think: What would happen if a 0 attack unit like a settler or worker bumped into an invisible unit?

Assassin will kill him

 

[LouLong]

IMHO the real challenge is to play a European Christian power (Franks, Burgundy, England, Germany) and to consider winning only by crusading. Then you will be sure there will be trouble, if only caused by you. Even better, send 2 relics (which means you have to capture a second one). O course that's between you and yourself....

The Danes and Norwegians are the civs that will be in contact with most civs and might into trouble, being speard along a thin line of coastal, inland cities but it is difficult to know what their aim is.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Originally posted by Grohan
Assassin will kill him

Wrong. 'Non-Combat units may not attack'. For the AI path routine, this simply is an unaccessable tile like water, if the unit the path is calculted for has no attack value.

btw, while I hate the sub bug elsewhere, here it works historically correct; if you have drug-addicted fanatic killers running around, no wonder regular troops of other nations kill them when stumbling on them .
And the late-game oscillating wars are fine, too - only 4 Civs are supposed to build Assassins, and none of those is intented to move them out of their territory, nor are other nations supposed to pass through Cordovan/Fatimid/Abbassid/Turk lands without causing war.

 

[Heffalump]

Which does raise the question, if a non-Christian civ captures a relic, can they deliver it and get the victory points?

Ha ha. In my first stab at this conquest I sent an insufficiently large army to take Jerusalem. They fought their way to it's doorstep before being wiped out to the last man. An Assassin then grabbed my relic and carried it the 1 square necessary to claim the 10000 points....

 

[Grohan]

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
Wrong. 'Non-Combat units may not attack'. For the AI path routine, this simply is an unaccessable tile like water, if the unit the path is calculted for has no attack value.

btw, while I hate the sub bug elsewhere, here it works historically correct; if you have drug-addicted fanatic killers running around, no wonder regular troops of other nations kill them when stumbling on them .
And the late-game oscillating wars are fine, too - only 4 Civs are supposed to build Assassins, and none of those is intented to move them out of their territory, nor are other nations supposed to pass through Cordovan/Fatimid/Abbassid/Turk lands without causing war.

In my last game as Danes I sent an assassin through Swedish territory to Norwegian territory.
Then suddenly I saw that Sweden moved worker to the same tile where assassin was and assassin killed worker.
Then foreign advisor said that Sweden has declared war on us.
Is this bug or something???

 

[ummmm........]

Just to clarify, after I disbanded all of my assassins, the Turks eventually declared war on me for not letting their units move through my territory. Now whenever I try to move one of my catapults into a tile occupied by one of their assassins, it says "non-combat units may not attack" or "only ground units may capture cities" or whatever. It may be different for workers.

I still don't like this though, because once the Turks declared war on me, they moved their assassins out of their own territory into mine, and everyone else's units started bumping into them, starting more wars. Essentially, the Turks turned themselves into a rogue state, and it didn't even cost me anything! At this point, I could probably sue for peace and let the other countries wipe the Turks out, while I concentrated on culture and shoring up my defenses. It's a little unbalancing.