ALC Game 14: Mongolia/Kublai Khan

[KMadCandy]

nares: at tolosa, those diagonal river corners don't actually count as being across a river for amphibious attack/defense stuff.

and welcome back, from someone who wandered in while you were away *giggle*.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, this is interesting. Apparently all of you are so confident in me that none of you seem to feel that iron is a pressing concern. Most of you seem to be advocating using the available Settler either for kniteowl's orange dot (1SE of the NE corn) or on top of the SE furs (the starting position). Neither of those will claim iron.

I, however, would prefer to prioritize such an important strategic resource. Some of you are advocating kniteowl's yellow dot (2E of the western iron). So I will send my Settler and Archer trotting over there for the next city. It also makes a move towards blocking Mansa, so it seems like a good idea. Before founding any other cities, I will have to consider our economy carefully, as UncleJJ suggests. I think the next city, if I can afford it, would be the orange dot.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought we were going to try out a specialist economy (SE) in this game. We have a couple of long rivers that lend themselves to irrigation and farms--but also to cottages. I can punt the SE and start plunking down cottages. But if I want to go SE, what should I be doing? Cottaging the capital anyway to eventually leverage Bureaucracy?

Julius is weak, he has no metal yet … doesn’t this make him a perfect target for Keshiks? I vote for pillaging him back to Stone Age, while staying friends with Mansa Musa and Churchill for a while.

I would build two Keshiks first and attack Julius immediately before he hooks up his iron source.

As I mentioned, it will be at least a half dozen turns before the horses are connected via roads. So I can't build two Keshiks first. A couple of Workers, though, would be handy, especially with everybody so concerned about my economy.

first capturing the temple of artemis(mostly luck, but brennus was the one with polytheism, so it makes sense he should built the according wonders) ! No problem getting the shrines built now!
second : why would you want to attack mansa musa?
this guy is never a problem. He trades easily and when you attack him he bows easily.
The purple guy next door is a lot more trouble.
Given the religious status, i'd go straight for rome now. He doesn't have IW yet, so the time is just right. You don't want to face praetorians!
I'd build a keshik to "monitor" the iron, and go for him with just what you have.
You don't need to finish off brenus right now. Let him build the parthenon .
There is no time for building now. You are at you power peak. It's only going down from there.

I like the idea of leaving Brennus alone to see if he does, indeed, build the Parthenon. So I can take it from him.

I would turn your point about Mansa around on Caesar. This guy is the one who's never a problem. Praetorians in the hands of the AI are not that intimidating. The AI doesn't use them well. Now if this was a multiplayer game, yes, I'd be more worried about Rome.

Mansa, however, is a tech fiend. Of all the neighbouring AIs, he's the one with the most potential to quickly research techs that would reduce my military advantage (such as Feudalism for Longbowmen).

The other problem with going after Rome at this point is that as I pointed out, Caesar's land is not the greatest. No rivers to give cottages an immediate boost and a lot of jungle to clear for either cottages (or farms if I go SE). I'd be going after him in order to wipe him off the map, but I'd be razing all his cities, which I can't afford, possibly even the capital since it has no wonders nor shrine potential. My rule of thumb for warmongering is to go after the strongest first; the weak can wait. Mansa is strongest (after me), he's close by, and he has good land. So he's a good tech trading partner. So what? That also means he can bee-line to some annoying techs like Feudalism. I think it's best to take him out long before he gets there. Alternatively, I can extort techs from him.

nares: at tolosa, those diagonal river corners don't actually count as being across a river for amphibious attack/defense stuff.

Thank you for pointing that out before I did. Nares should know me better.

 

[Brave Sir Robin]

if you check the last map the romans have two sources of iron in their territory, one will be tough to get to, even to pillage with Keshiks.
LTL of the ALC series ,desided to play a shadow game this time
I really like the aggresive power of the creative trait
so KK is a natural for me
desided to move the settler differently two sq due west settled
on the other side of the river ,but still had the furs & corn in my fat cross. It seems to me that to start with hunting(to imm camp the furs) is like starting with fishing and fish or clams off the coast .Wouldn't most players quickly build a work boat to exploit this ? The camp furs quickly boosted my reasearch and I only popped one Tech from huts but it was BW
My second city went north to get both the elephants and copper
Damn those horse are a long way away to quickly use a keshik rush
since my capital was farther south brennus moved to found cities
that had the wine & iron just north of me . Obviously this could NOT
be allowed. Oddly both cities were just as poorly defended as in the
ALC game and celtic blood was spilt by the mongol axe
I however did not take the Celtic capital to keep a buffer btw me and JC .
wont give anything else away ,just remember that elephants are mounted units and get the ger bonus

 

[Preston85]

My experience of Caesar is he can't be trusted, whenever I leave him at my backdoor and he has no one else closer to him than me, he has a habit of walking in uninvited even when he isn't unhappy with me.

Because of that I would recommend making Caesar the next target.

 

[LucyDuke]

Roma delendum est. Caesar's weak right now, but he'll hook up his iron soon and you're the closest target. Sure, he's not as big as Mansa at the moment, but it'll be much easier to take him out quickly. No need to keep too many of his cities. Brennus is Jewish now, so staying in church with Mansa and Churchill will keep them happy while you kill off Caesar and then Brennus. Forget wonders, you can take them from their builders later. Coastal wonders are questionable on this map, anyway.

Are you planning to move the capitol at any point? If you're going to be stealing cities in the north, the distance upkeep could get pricey. Your "borrowed" capitols might also have wonders that would be worth relocating the palace to.

 

[Sisiutil]

Roma delendum est. Caesar's weak right now, but he'll hook up his iron soon and you're the closest target. Sure, he's not as big as Mansa at the moment, but it'll be much easier to take him out quickly. No need to keep too many of his cities. Brennus is Jewish now, so staying in church with Mansa and Churchill will keep them happy while you kill off Caesar and then Brennus. Forget wonders, you can take them from their builders later. Coastal wonders are questionable on this map, anyway.

Are you planning to move the capitol at any point? If you're going to be stealing cities in the north, the distance upkeep could get pricey. Your "borrowed" capitols might also have wonders that would be worth relocating the palace to.

I will have to consider moving the capital, though we'll see about Forbidden Palace and maybe even Versailles later on.

Do you really think coastal wonders are that useless on this map? I don't have many coastal cities yet (just Bibracte so far) , but look at kniteowl's dotmap--he has at least 4 specified. And if I keep Rome, that's another one.

 

[jerVL/kg]

Mansa, however, is a tech fiend. Of all the neighbouring AIs, he's the one with the most potential to quickly research techs that would reduce my military advantage (such as Feudalism for Longbowmen).

Isn't it the plan to vassalize Mansa, instead of wiping him out? That means one of you will need Feudalism anyway (and Mansa will almost certainly get there first) and you might as well let Mansa grow a few more cities so his vasslage will be useful. He's got iron, but it's right on his border and can be easily pillaged, when the war comes. And you of all people should know that it's not a game-breaker to attack a civ with a technological advantage (as long as it's not, say, riflemen vs. mechs or something.) Why worry about longbows? You'll have elephants & catapults soon enough!

You don't need to keep any of Rome's cities -- except Antium, maybe, since it's got sugar & dye. Raze Pisae & Cumae, plus any cities he may have settled in the north. Heck, you might want to raze Rome itself.

I do agree you need to watch your economy, but the situation is far from critical. You can easily afford two more cities, and once you get Currency (lightbulb from a GM, perhaps?) you should be economically solid for awhile.

 

[KMadCandy]

Well, this is interesting. Apparently all of you are so confident in me that none of you seem to feel that iron is a pressing concern.
I like the idea of leaving Brennus alone to see if he does, indeed, build the Parthenon. So I can take it from him.

*giggle*. we are confident that you'll capture jewish holyville and gets its iron! which has doubleplusgood bonus of denying it to ceasar, unless he wants to settle the other iron up in desert hell. you'll have your ("for the") horde and axemen/spearmen, striking early enough will make up for the lack of swordsmen right?

"I would turn your point about Mansa around on Caesar. This guy is the one who's never a problem. Praetorians in the hands of the AI are not that intimidating. The AI doesn't use them well. Now if this was a multiplayer game, yes, I'd be more worried about Rome.
Mansa, however, is a tech fiend. Of all the neighbouring AIs, he's the one with the most potential to quickly research techs that would reduce my military advantage (such as Feudalism for Longbowmen)."

he's also really easy to manipulate to use his techfiend tendencies to optimize trading and focus your own research. can be tricky, don't want to give him too much help in that area, and have to watch out for him sharing his brainiacness with everybody else. but that's a part of the game i find challenging and very fun, gamestyles vary of course. i like having him around but as i play at higher levels, and as the game progresses, he moves up higher on my "you are going to be a problem, time to smack you down, cripple if not eliminate you buster" list.

i sound like a broken record, but i cannot emphasize enough that as soon as anybody gets feudalism, that's a warning that if mansa goes to war with anyone (not just you), check every turn as to whether he'll capitulate. he is a chicken and once he's in "i'm reading to vassalize if someone will take me" mode, you being the master may well be better than somebody else. just yesterday i had gandhi (another on the wimp list) down to one last city, all set up to capture it next turn but was out of movement this turn ... i didn't check the screen (forgot i had vassal states on actually), he capped to asoka, who was my next designated target but i wasn't yet ready to handle them both. i was, ummm, not pleased.

"The other problem with going after Rome at this point is that as I pointed out, Caesar's land is not the greatest. No rivers to give cottages an immediate boost and a lot of jungle to clear for either cottages (or farms if I go SE). I'd be going after him in order to wipe him off the map, but I'd be razing all his cities, which I can't afford, possibly even the capital since it has no wonders nor shrine potential."

hmmz true. you did raze and later found nova roma one square over in a previous ALC (hatty?). here it might not even be worth re-settling, even the capital is the suck. add in all that jungle clearing and your consistent tendency to not have enough workers and limited tolerance for micromanaging them (which i nag about often). but having him gone, even if we just raze the territory and erase all evidence that he ever existed, is a good thing, particularly pre-praets. a war to get him out of the picture, without gaining new territory, isn't a bad thing. even if we want to go domination at the end, the land won't disappear. we can go back for it later when our economy can handle it, even if someone else has settled it meantime. there's that confidence in you popping up again

"My rule of thumb for warmongering is to go after the strongest first; the weak can wait. Mansa is strongest (after me), he's close by, and he has good land. So he's a good tech trading partner. So what? That also means he can bee-line to some annoying techs like Feudalism. I think it's best to take him out long before he gets there. Alternatively, I can extort techs from him."

see above for my thoughts there.

about the river thing: "Thank you for pointing that out before I did. Nares should know me better. " i don't know Nares but if he reads enough of the new threads he'll get to know my posting style; mix of rambles and stating the "obvious to most but IMO helpful to newbies so worth a mention" since i know i appreciate mentions of things i'd not known. i take it as a given that folks who are annoyed by this see my name as the poster and glaze over or skip my posts.

My experience of Caesar is he can't be trusted, whenever I leave him at my backdoor and he has no one else closer to him than me, he has a habit of walking in uninvited even when he isn't unhappy with me.
Because of that I would recommend making Caesar the next target.

/nod. add the religion thing to his personality type and he is going to be unhappy.

Roma delendum est. Coastal wonders are questionable on this map, anyway. Are you planning to move the capitol at any point? If you're going to be stealing cities in the north, the distance upkeep could get pricey. Your "borrowed" capitols might also have wonders that would be worth relocating the palace to.

agree on the first phrase, which i had to google. coastal wonders, well there's always denial, and we don't know the map to see if they're particularly help a certain civ. and it would give me more chances to giggle at S not being able to resist chances to go against what he said he'd try in the pre-game show.

 

[Validator]

It seems to me that this situation is working out perfectly for you to not only use Keshiks, but to use them the way they were meant to be used. There are arguments that can be made for attacking either Mansa or Julius next. Why not attack them both?

Use your current army to capture and raze the Roman cities. Once that's under way build a few Keshiks and then declare war on Mansa. If there's anybody who needs to be pillaged back to the stone age it's Mansa. You'll want to keep an eye on his sources of metal and if he starts to hook them up you'll need to declare war earlier. Once your iron is hooked up you'll want to build some swords to reinforce your axes. Once Rome has fallen you can send your army after the nearest Malinese target.

The only potential issue is what role (if any) Churchill will play. If he has access to a metal and is bribed into joining the war by Mansa your Keshiks may need help from a couple of axes.

You could also reverse the plan. Send your army after Mansa and send Keshiks to pillage Roman lands. That would probably make it easier to deal with Churchill if he joined in on Mansa's side and it shouldn't take many Keshiks to keep Julius from ever being a threat. But you'll probably want to keep the Malinese cities you capture, so you'll have to think about what that will do to your economy.

 

[Structure]

I don't see any real advantage to going after Rome now except that you can. Even if you are backstabbed, the geography is going to make defending against Rome rather simple. A few shock axes and a couple Kashiks should be able to stopper Rome up for a long long time. But if you play the diplomacy right (which you always seem to!), I doubt Rome will be a problem. Let them cut their own jungles and develop their own continent. Pratorians against Grenadiers isn't going to be too scary.

Mansa, however, is going to tech to Feudalism while you are gobbling Rome. By the time you turn on him the Kashik era may already be coming to a close. Plus, his land is too juicy to pass up.

 

[Melon Head]

Structure makes a good point. A couple of shock/woodsman axemen and keshiks would do a wonderful job bottling JC up. The isthmus is what, 4 squares wide? That's manageable with a pair of small stacks, as the AI stacks tend not to be too large. 6-8 units might be able to hold JC off indefinitely.

 

[Sisiutil]

I rather like Validator's plan of pillaging Mansa with Keshiks while my veteran stack, so close to Rome already, razes Caesar to oblivion. Both tactical approaches would keep the economy and research afloat without being a drain on it. Validator's right, I'd want to keep the Malinese cities, but the Roman ones? Feh. So, better to keep Mansa weak while Rome falls, and come back for Mali once my economy can absorb his cities--say, once I have Code of Laws and Currency. I could probably go through a cycle of pillage, sue for peace & techs, pillage, etc. with Mansa before sending a city-busting stack his way. If Churchill joins in, he gets pillaged too.

I could bottle up JC, but I like the above plan because it really gives the Keshiks a chance to shine. And it's different and risky--I usually don't go for a two-front war, preferring to take down one opponent at a time. I'd just have to ensure I have sufficient defenders in my own territory to prevent being pillaged in return. Again, Keshiks strike me as perfect for that duty as well.

 

[ratrangerm]

I agree with those who say you should take out JC first. He can be a pain in the early game if you aren't careful. Mansa should be left alone for now as his Skirmishers will be tough to deal with.

So take on Caesar as soon as you can to at least pull him away from metal, then you can evalutate things from there, whether you press on to eliminate Caesar or make peace with him and go back to Brennus.

 

[Rancid Sushi]

Validator's plan does sound solid. Seems like Caesar won't be much of a threat at all, so you can squash him at your leisure. The AI really doesn't know how to use praets anyway. Mansa is more important, and with keshiks online, pillaging everyone into submission shouldn't be a problem. I'd still like to have Mansa as useful vassal.

 

[carl corey]

Validator's plan does sound solid. Seems like Caesar won't be much of a threat at all, so you can squash him at your leisure. The AI really doesn't know how to use praets anyway. Mansa is more important, and with keshiks online, pillaging everyone into submission shouldn't be a problem. I'd still like to have Mansa as useful vassal.

Agreed about Roman AIs. I also played a game with Kublai and attacked Rome with Swords/Axes/Cats and he had only a few Praetorians. Pathetic. Makes you want to play Rome yourself so that you can show'em what a real Roman army looks like...

 

[curtadams]

One big disadvantage of being at war with everybody is that you lose foreign trade. That's painful, because very soon your finances will be dictating that you raze quite nice cities. I agree you should be prioritizing Currency since that's the best early tech to help with the large empire you're about to have.

I recommended founding the Iron city for the wrong reasons although it will still be a good city. It's pretty much a draw between that and a good city to your north. You should be able to get the Iron from Brennus so I don't think that's an issue.

Longterm Mansa is by far the greatest threat (huge landmass plus coreligionist, ick), and shortterm he's the best opportunity so I'd say it's really obvious to go after him after you finish Brennus. With your finances, though, you're basically going to be razing everything. If you are to go after him, you need to do it fast before he hooks up the Iron. And don't forget the spearmen! He's going to have lots of chariots, and probably horse archers soon.

 

[patagonia]

One thing to be wary of:

You've had a strong start militarily, but you can't drag the whole world down at once. Getting yourself bogged down in a two-front war could allow Churchill and our two mystery guests to get a bit of a jump on you.

Where the human really shines against the AI is being able to focus excessive force on a single area to break the backbone of resistance. If war with Rome's to happen, you don't want operations in Mali to spread you too thin.

Is running a pillaging operation against Mansa now going to do him sufficient damage to make it worth your while, or would it be better to wait until you've got the cats to actually take some of his cities? It's been mentioned several times in this thread that he's one of the quickest AIs to capitulate and makes a very worthwhile vassal, but even a tech-whore like Mansa is a better vassal if you don't have too many negatives from war declarations first.

====

I guess you could aim to take some of Mansa's cities now, but axes v skirmishers is going to be brutal, so that really doesn't seem worthwhile.

 

[Structure]

Your "stack" of axes is only five units right? A drill 1 CR 2 axe gets maybe 70% odds against a fortified archer in a 20% city? So you will get three of Rome's lesser cities if you are lucky. Two is more realistic. After that you won't have enough axes left to take on more cities (esp if on hills). So you'll need to reinforce the attack.

What is Vienna going to do soon? Looks like it's cultural boarder is going to expand and block the land bridge to Rome... So now you'll need to declare on Brennus too, or talk an angry religious nut to give open boarders. That means more troops to take out Vienna (capital on a hill...). All this while also jumping on Mansa? Well, like I said, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, but I'd go Mansa first.

If you do go for Rome, I'd take Vienna on the way to ensure help can get to your rapidly depleating stack.

I never run SE economies so I was hoping you were going to stick with this plan. My understanding of SE is that one doesn't worry too much about running the slider down. They use GPs and specialists? So why the worry about the economy? I thought one of the advantages of SE was you could warmonger early like this and just let the slider tank.

 

[patagonia]

My understanding of SE is that one doesn't worry too much about running the slider down. They use GPs and specialists? So why the worry about the economy? I thought one of the advantages of SE was you could warmonger early like this and just let the slider tank.

You can warmonger early and let the slider tank whatever sort of economy you're running. The only factor to really consider is whether the military/strategic gains you're making in the process are sufficient to cover the hit to research that they've caused.

Generally speaking, wars which cripple a rival are worth dropping the slider for, wars which stagnate them aren't.

The main things against an SE on this map are relatively low food everywhere except Bibracte, and a lack of either libraries or caste system for scientists.

 

[LucyDuke]

Not trying to beat it to death, but I'm stuck on Rome. If Caesar is on the hit list, it's not going to get any easier than it is now. Killing him off will let you forget about the eastern border, and his only brother in faith is Brennus, who's not going to be your friend anyway. If you touch Brennus, you'll upset the east - Caesar must go down before Brennus does. Mansa will capitulate relatively quickly whenever you go for him.

Coastal wonders, I'm not saying they're useless, just not really worth the investment in this game, especially with limited resources (how many cities do we have?). Recovering builder, aren't you? They'll be captured anyway.