ALC Game #10: India/Asoka

[wioneo]

I would vassalize Ragnar. i always try to vassalize financial civs, even more so now that it's possible to get them to not hate you.

 

[aelf]

Now that you got Clammy Horse, I think Mehmed can wait. Like you said, he's your best trading partner after all. And he definitely doesn't stack units the way Toku and Ragnar do. They are somewhat bigger threats at least up to late mid-game.

 

[drkodos]

Now that you got Clammy Horse, I think Mehmed can wait. Like you said, he's your best trading partner after all. And he definitely doesn't stack units the way Toku and Ragnar do. They are somewhat bigger threats at least up to late mid-game.

Agreed. Mehemed does not bring his UU to the fore until much later than does Ragnar and/or Toku. Mehmed likes building large cities that are not well defended. Let him do all that work for you while you take out the more dangerous dogs on the block.

 

[NaZdReG]

I just have to weigh in that the price of moving your capitol that one square has been revealed by the positioning of the surrounding resources. if you had left it one SE you could have settled the fish spot and one to claim the iron and eles and wheat.. but such is life. hopefully it will weigh on the decision to move the capitol at all in future alc games

NaZ

 

[drkodos]

I just have to weigh in that the price of moving your capitol that one square has been revealed by the positioning of the surrounding resources. if you had left it one SE you could have settled the fish spot and one to claim the iron and eles and wheat.. but such is life. hopefully it will weigh on the decision to move the capitol at all in future alc games

NaZ

The same could be said if he had settled on the coast hill to the NE, couldn't it?

 

[Sisiutil]

The problem with leaving Mehmed alone for now is the marble. It will be darn hard building the Great Library in Cuman without it; the city has all of two grassland tiles and no forests.

So I think spreading Buddhism to Ragnar is a high priority. Fortunately I have a little time; I have to build my stack and capture Cuman before I think about taking on one of my neighbours, so that may give me time to build a monastery and a missionary or two.

 

[Jet]

(Edited to fix math)

You'll probably have better things to do, but if you squeeze a military city between the iron and the wheat it can stagnate at size 5 working:
-- city 2F 1P
-- wheat 4F 1P
-- iron 2F 4P
-- plains mine 4P
-- 2 flat plains forest 2F 4P
14 hammers, 17.5 with a forge. That's an Axeman every other turn, nice. I always hate wasting food.

 

[drkodos]

The problem with leaving Mehmed alone for now is the marble. It will be darn hard building the Great Library in Cuman without it; the city has all of two grassland tiles and no forests.

Keep in mind that with the patch some civs now heavily prioritize Alphabet because they are aiming to build the Great Library and will even chop for it. If you see a civ with early Alphabet it is almost a guarantee they are angling for GL.

Is there is an Industrious Civ out in the darkness?

 

[curtadams]

Long-term you want the penisula city founded on top of the cows. Everybody's going to scream about founding on a resource, but wine+iron+an extra hill outweighs a cow. The problem is that the city will be a total basket case until the first border pop - which is fixable with a missionary.

Second, in terms of long-term coexistence, Mehmed is unnacceptable. Istanbul will encroach on Bangalore with its next border pop - not far off if I counted right - and snitch the wine and cows with the second. This is aside from your desire for marble, which has to come from Mehmed's territory. So you want to buddy up with Ragnar and squish Mehmed.

So I'd propose the missionary strategy - for both the penisula city and for befriending Ragnar. So build the military, snatch that barb city, crank out two missionaries, and take out Mehmed.

 

[Mannu]

Count me with those who advise leaving Mehmed alone unless Ragnar converts to Buddhism. You need a trading partner for sure. Conquest is always a good strategy, but with your current situation I'd like to see you consolidate diplomatic relations a bit. If you make a bad decision here, you are in danger of falling behind the other continent which contains your true rivals for victory.

You have Two bad options here:
1) Early Conquest of your continent before your opponents get to their unique units. Samurai and Berserkers and not long after Janissaries. You will probably ruin your economy and fall well behind in Tech to the other continent.

2) Wait for conquest until after your opponents Unique Units advantage expires. That means probably Grenadiers for Ragnar and Tokugawa and Calvary or later for Mehmed. That is a long time and they will probably already have established diplomatic relations with the other continent.

Here is what I propose then, and I have had luck with it in an offline game (not this map). It is risky.

1) Create a single religion block. Spread Buddhism to every city on the continent. Get a shrine up. Try very hard to get the Spiral Minaret. If Mehmed founds a religion and converts you will have to take him out. You want all the other religions to be founded on the other continent.

2) Peaceful Aggression. Get to Drama and crank the culture slider to 20%. Build culture buildings and wonders on your border cities. You should be able to capture a couple of cities this way from your allies while maintaining good relations.

3) Get to the seas, explore and get to Astronomy as soon as you can.

When you meet the other continent your position will be the leader of a group of friendly states. They will like who you like and hate who you hate. You will be in a position for a diplomatic victory. Or you can invade (across the ocean) the weakest nation there to establish a foot hold and then get domination that way (perhaps vassalizing your Buddhist friends to win). This might be alot harder after the patch. Last time I did this was pre-patch.

The best part of this to me is that it plays to Ghandi's strengths and is a different strategy than we have seen.

P.S. If I was to have pursued this strategy from the beginning, I would have tried for both the Great Lighthouse and the Temple of Artemis, perhaps above the Oracle. And probably the Colossus as well.

 

[carl corey]

I'll speak against leaving Mehmed in peace. His capital is a crazy good site, with three seafood and one "earth"-food sources, not to mention the Iron. I'd even leave it in place, as adding an iron mine wouldn't be as important as salvaging some of the buildings inside. If you only take that one and Ankara you're better off than with what you have now or could possibly add to your empire from somewhere else. I really don't see how your economy will not benefit from them. Of course you'll need quite a few troops to take them but that shouldn't be a problem given the fact that you have four good cities and resources to build anything you want.

I say go crush him. Worry less about trading, you'll extort something from him in the end.

 

[Sisiutil]

It's always nice to get contradictory advice...

Before making any decision regarding Mehmed, I think we need to see if we can make Ragnar more friendly or not--maybe even Toku as well. So while my three other cities focus on military, I think Delhi should focus on religion. I'll build a Monastery, then some Missionaries, and also a temple (for a priest specialist to hurry the Great Prophet for the shrine). My fast workers can also build a trade route down to Viking territory, and Japan, too, if there's time and it's possible. I'll need to give the FW an escort, of course.

Meanwhile, I build up a large enough force to capture the barb city. Once that's done, I'll probably end the round and we'll see how things sit diplomatically. If Ragnar's warming up to us, then I think Mehmed dies. If things go awry (say he founds a religion on us and converts to it) then we'll have to rethink things.

I had another thought: some people talked about moving the capital--what about moving it to Cuman so my science city gets bureaucracy's commerce and hammer boost? I don't know if there'll be time to move it before I have to start the Great Library, however, but since I don't have Civil Service yet, I don't think it would make that much difference.

 

[pax]

It's always nice to get contradictory advice...

Then a little more of the same. I just installed Warlords myself. I was playing as the Carthaginians with Stalin, Toku and Louis as neighbors. Toku was the closest, so I decided to take him first. Due to the vagaries of the map, it was to be a middle age war (Macemen, Trebuchets and Longbowmen). Toku is protective, which means free City Garrison 1 and Drill 1 to his defender troops. Not great, but something that can be dealt with. Until I realized that the top defender in most of his cities had CG 3! In the transition from BC to AD, many of Toku's archers had fended off attacks from Barbarians. Coupled with Barracks, and you're potentially stuck fighting Longbowmen with a +125% ( 75% CG 1-3, 25% in City, 25% fortify) bonus (add an extra 10% if you're attacking with melee units) and 1-2 first strikes. The word you're looking for is OW.

This is all to say, if you're going to attack Toku, do so early (Archers) or late (first Gunpowder units). In either case, try to have a military tech advantage. I'm not saying Toku should be your target, but if he is, go now. Otherwise, plan to wait for a while.

If Ragnar's warming up to us, then I think Mehmed dies. If things go awry (say he founds a religion on us and converts to it) then we'll have to rethink things.

Along these lines, should you try to prevent someone else founding a religion by hogging them to yourself? At first blush, that doesn't seem to me to be the best strategy, but maybe someone's inclined to work it up into something useful.

 

[Sisiutil]

Along these lines, should you try to prevent someone else founding a religion by hogging them to yourself? At first blush, that doesn't seem to me to be the best strategy, but maybe someone's inclined to work it up into something useful.

Sounds like Kylerean's peaceful Gandhi game except with that other Indian leader. I think it would be better to let the other continent found as many religions as possible to hopefully lead to factional strife. If I can spread Buddhism on my own continent, it may dissuade the AI from founding religions themselves. On the other hand, that may mean they'll focus on military techs instead.

 

[patagonia]

In the transition from BC to AD, many of Toku's archers had fended off attacks from Barbarians. Coupled with Barracks, and you're potentially stuck fighting Longbowmen with a +125% ( 75% CG 1-3, 25% in City, 25% fortify) bonus (add an extra 10% if you're attacking with melee units) and 1-2 first strikes. The word you're looking for is OW.

The word you're looking for is trebuchet. They may cost more hammers since the patch, but they still seem to be disproportionately effective at wounding or winning with very low odds.

Along these lines, should you try to prevent someone else founding a religion by hogging them to yourself? At first blush, that doesn't seem to me to be the best strategy, but maybe someone's inclined to work it up into something useful.

I'd say that unless you're prepared to spend a lot of time and effort spreading the good word of Buddha, leave founding the remaining religions to others, preferably those on the other continent. Having another religion spreading on your own continent increases the chances of an AI adopting it and complicating the diplomatic situation further. Ragnar's unlikely to found his own and Toku generally lags too much in tech to do so (if he misses out on the earliest ones), so Mehmed's the only real threat there and if he does...

Sisiutil, the strategy you've outlined for the next turnset sounds fine to me so get to it!

 

[pax]

The word you're looking for is trebuchet. They may cost more hammers since the patch, but they still seem to be disproportionately effective at wounding or winning with very low odds.

Admittedly, it's not the broadest of examples, but of the four trebuchets I threw at that longbowman, exactly none of them survived. Then, since I knew I was only messing around, I threw the rest of my stack at him. A few Numidean cavalry (one dead, two retreated), couple of axemen (dead, no points knocked off) and a couple of macemen (one dead, one, finally, victorious). 8 dead units, two retreated cavalry to take down one longbowman. Oh, and then there were the other two city defenders who could now pick off my much-diminished stack.

It was my first Warlords game. I'll know now that a combination of Trebuchets and Numidian Cavalry are helpful in knocking off points before the heavy units go in. It's either that or wait for Knights.

 

[drkodos]

 

[Jet]

You could build a forge in Bombay and hire an engineer, either for the Great Library or whatever. That might make it easier to ally with Mehmed instead of Ragnar if you wanted. Mehmed is probably a bad attack dog, but geographically seems to be a better non-target. But maybe I prefer your plan to build 3.4 Axemen for the barb city instead of a forge right now.

 

[Tyrant Roger]

I recommend a two prong strategy. Build missionaries to go to Ragnar to make him your friend. He will partner against Toku and trade techs to you [he is financial so he will have lots to trade]. Build axes and later swords to take the barb/science city and later to take the marble from Mehmid. His cities are too juicy to leave alone for too long.

Do not build on the stone; it isn't worth it as a working tile. Build the clam/fish city once you have some courthouses to soften the cost of building it and taking the barb city. The marble city should mostly pay for itself.

Your fast workers will turn the jungle into grassland farms and then let the science burst forth with a little help from the GL.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

This is all to say, if you're going to attack Toku, do so early (Archers) or late (first Gunpowder units). In either case, try to have a military tech advantage. I'm not saying Toku should be your target, but if he is, go now. Otherwise, plan to wait for a while.

attack Toku early because his Gunpowder units get CG1 Drill1 and Combat1 a very dangerous combination.