ALC Game 16: Persia/Cyrus

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I just had a look at the save. Your economy is a disaster! You're losing money even at 10% research. You'll gain some income when your borders expand, and you could save 3 gold per turn (which would get you a 1 gold per turn surplus at 10%) by moving your units back home, eliminating the supply costs, but basically you're in rough shape.

I think continued war might be inevitable just to generate income. If that's the plan, I'm not sure why people seem to be recommending Genghis as a target. He's significantly farther away (7 to 9 turns for your main force to reach him vs. 3 to 4 turns). He's also much farther behind on score. What do you gain by razing and pillaging Genghis' cities?

If your long term plan is domination -- and I think with 5 people on the continent that's a no-brainer -- then you want to keep everybody as backward as possible so your superior army can take over their land when the time comes. That means you go after the strongest AI, and that means you go after Huayna.

The argument for Genghis seems to center around diplomacy, keeping Huayna as a friend, but why do you want him to like you? You're going to destroy him. Hatred is inevitable. Trash him now, before it's too late.

 

[Structure]

I've been staying out of the discussion, but lurking and playing along avidly. I can't believe how much bad luck I had with the 4000BC start! Out of SIX starts four ended in disaster with my warrior and settler for horse city destroyed by a bear one time and archer the other. The city was also sacked by a barb archer one time and warriors the other. I was crying with frustration. And my timing was similar to yours (actually my settler was slightly earlier).

That would be bad enough but on the two starts that I made it through, Qin had spears waiting for my stack. You didn't face a single one! I did eventually win, but it was so costly that the the rest of the game was trouble.

Anyhow, I just had to vent. I was seriously thinking this start was jinxed for me. But I'm really enjoying playing along and learning (though I can win on some Monarch starts on my own now ) even if my results differ so enourmously.

I'm going to now download the latest save and avoid the whole early fiasco

 

[Sisiutil]

Structure, now you know how I felt in the Mehmed game.

Dr. EJ, I'm well aware of the economic issues. Hence the reliance on pointy-stick research. Something needs to be done soon, however. Trading for Pottery, among other things, is very attractive. Even a SE needs some cottages, as I understand it, and the former barb city is the best candidate.

 

[futurehermit]

Nothing wrong with some cottages, but keep in mind you can run 0% science and still tech very nicely with lightbulbing and back-filling. You also don't need to be first in tech to win domination victory (fight with numbers, out-produce).

More important is the acquisition of land. See my signature below

 

[lukep]

You economy dont suck that much, if you go the full warmonger way. And with cirrus, i think it is the only way.

You can get a -20gpt deficit at 40% research. Work farms, add scientists and you will tech very correctly even without lightbulbs and backfills.

A city is worth 100-200g depending of size, + you have pillaging. So you can afford war as long as you take cities and keep only those which will pay for themselves.

 

[Validator]

The argument for Genghis seems to center around diplomacy, keeping Huayna as a friend, but why do you want him to like you? You're going to destroy him. Hatred is inevitable. Trash him now, before it's too late.

The problem that Sisiutil faces is that he has two neighbors whose borders with Persia are separated by a great distance. He can not attack both simultaneously, so he will want the one who he doesn't attack first to be as friendly as possible during that time to decrease the chance of facing a two front war. Once the first neighbor is finished off he can then his "friend". Being friendly during the time he's attacking the first neighbor also could allow him to get better tech trades with the second.

Dr. EJ, I'm well aware of the economic issues. Hence the reliance on pointy-stick research.

Given the poor state of the economy I'm not sure that continuing war is the best option. Once a pillaging force leaves your lands you'll be paying supply costs for it, so it will have to pillage a couple of tiles a turn just to cover that. As to raising money from pillaging I'm not sure how much you'll get there. I only seem to get at best a few gold from pillaging farms and mines. Resources give a little more, but the real pillage gold comes from well-matured cottages. How many of them do you expect to find this early in the game?

Also if you do go directly into a new war you'll need to continue building military, which will both force cities to work high production tiles instead of high commerce tiles and cause a delay in civilian builds.

If you do decide to move ahead with the attack you'll need to scout out your enemy first. Having OB with a civ you plan to attack is a big advantage. Use it. In fact you might want to play a short round that includes finishing Qin off and scouting out the AIs. With more information available everyone may be able to give better advice regarding how to proceed.

In case you missed my earlier post:

If you have at least 6 immortals available now I wouldn't make peace. I don't think you want to earn any more diplomatic negatives by making peace and then re-declaring war. And the techs aren't worth much (archery and fishing are too cheap to risk WFYABTA implications and you can probably get Pottery in trade from one of the other AIs or just research it yourself).

Xian won't be as bad as Beijing since it doesn't have any cultural defense. At least for now, but if you wait... I'm assuming that you plan to raze it and resettle 2 tiles east when your economy can handle it.

Xian now has a palace and the Chinese state religion, so it will get a 20% cultural defense soon. Even worse Qin may be building walls there which would significantly increase the losses you'll face. You have 5 immortals in place to attack Xian this turn. Attack with the 2 with flanking promotions first and then finish them off with the 2 immortals with combat 3. If either gets unlucky the combat 2 immortal can finish up. If you do this just make sure you trade with Huayna for Math first since once Qin is dead Math becomes a monopoly tech for Huayna and he won't trade it.

And whip the monument in Shanghai immediately. You'll get the border expansion (and the ability to work the gold mine) 9 turns earlier.

 

[KMadCandy]

If you do this just make sure you trade with Huayna for Math first since once Qin is dead Math becomes a monopoly tech for Huayna and he won't trade it.

good thinking! i hate when i miss things like that until it's too late.

That's not it. My M*A*S*H unit marches with the stack. As a result, it periodically gets hit by collateral damage counter-attacks. When that happens, I don't like having to leave the Medic III unit sitting around healing, I want it to keep moving with the healthy units in the stack (Once I have a large enough stack, I often have a 2nd Medic I that I leave behind in a recently-captured city to heal the wounded). Hence the March promotion to keep the M*A*S*H unit on the move.

yeah me too. i just deal with that by making them out of weak units and never upgrading them until choppers. so right now is really the only era i'd fear my medic3 getting hurt. soon enough, collateral will be the only kind of damage he'll get, since he won't be picked as the defender in a stack, and i don't ever ever let him start anything. his weakness protects him in a way. as long as he doesn't travel solo, he can travel injured. and of course he can heal whether he's wounded or not, but that makes me sound so insensitive *giggle*. so for me, the way i don't upgrade my medics, morale or sentry is the way to go, march would be wasted. they have low strength to start out with; march isn't gonna make any difference for a chariot or horse archer when he's running around healing my gunpowder troops.

i imagine i'd have to seriously rethink that whole strategy if i was playing MP .

 

[Hackapell]

Pointy stick research? I assume that means beating the tech out of your rivals.

Anyway, it seems your immortals have run out of effectiveness(by now most of the AI's will have spears), so I would finish off Xian and then consolidate,consolidate,consolidate. If you're running a war with 10% science with no culture slider, your economy is shot. Focus on making the SE a reality and propping up your holdings. try to take Maths from Hunaya, and spend the next round reconstructing for a war with, most likley, Hunaya. You can leave Ghengis for later; he's got a big jungle to go through, and afaik, he's not as aggressive as you think. In my experience, he's NEVER declared war on me: Louis has...5 times! Attack Hunaya as soon as your economy is rolling; he's a DANGEROUS late game threat. If you're lucky, Izzy will declare war on him at about the same time, so you can get a Diplo bonus with your soon-to-be girlfriend

 

[KMadCandy]

You can leave Ghengis for later; he's got a big jungle to go through

his keshiks will travel faster in that jungle, and the forests by kara, regardless of roads or culture, and we cannot pillage that advantage away. there are ponies between besh and kara. the last map picture doesn't show them as brown and claimed yet but he wants 'em, he has stonehenge, and he'll get 'em for at least a while.

i have not seen anybody else point out the implications of GK at your doorstep being the builder of stonehenge. until calendar, i advise considering GK as a combination GK + half KK; do not slack off at goth with culture. you were already going in the right direction there for other reasons, don't panic. you're building a library there anyway, a good idea since goth is cottageville, i'd stick with that for sure now. we will need an economic recovery phase and/or more units to harass our next target, but at goth i'd get that library finished first. even if a tribal villager goddess came down from a mountain and handed you tablets of Code of Laws and anarchy-free Caste System that you could use while still running Slavery.

just my advice, whether HC, GK, or economic recovery is next target.

 

[futurehermit]

People, people, the immortals have NOT, i repeat have NOT finished their time in the sun.

As has been said a number of times, simply deny HC metal (and ivory just in case) and then raze/pillage to your heart's content.

This will be a boon to the economy while getting specialists in order for lightbulbing. Get a stack of 9 or so immortals and go raze-and-pillaging throughout HC's empire. You're best to avoid the capital and holy cities at this point since you will want to keep them eventually once you can afford it. But do pillage the tiles in those cities.

This is the best way to go. You basically keep HC in the stoneage land-development-wise, which is great for a financial AI! That basically means you can take him out at your leisure later.

I really don't see a better strategy for how this game is unfolding. Let Genghis develop his lands, keep HC underdeveloped, Issy has crappy land...It will be amazing how fast you can mop up this sad continent once cavalry come on board...

 

[Jet]

simply deny HC metal

 

[Welnic]

Is that one of those thousand word pictures?

 

[oyzar]

Seriously you can raze that city in one turn and you'll face max 1 spearman... Shouldnt be hard to overcome...

 

[EEE_BOY]

don't panic with your current economy. it is common. once u get courthouses and cottage the jungles, you will be fine.

 

[vormuir]

The earlier poster was right -- you're not exploiting this ability.

How do Immortals differ from chariots? Three ways:

1) 50% bonus vs. archers;

2) Can receive defensive bonuses; and,

3) 30% withdrawal chance instead of 20%.

You're ignoring that last one, but it's actually pretty sweet. This means that with Flanking II, an Immortal has a 60% chance of surviving an attack. That's ANY attack, no matter how crap the odds. Protective CG II Longbowman on a hill? Doesn't matter -- your Immortal will still escape 60% of the time.

This means that you want to use these guys for FIRST attacks, not last. You use them to soften up the enemy. Sort of like catapults. Okay, they don't do collateral damage, but on the other hand they have much better chance of survival.

I use this promotion a lot for powerful mounted units, Immortals and Cavalry. Flanking II Cavalry units stay useful far into the endgame.

Sometimes you'll encounter a city with one very strong defender and several weaker ones -- like, one archer with CG II, and the others without. In this situation, Flanking Immortals are gold. Use your flanker to attack that strong unit first, before using a suicide catapult. The Immortal is much more likely to survive, and if it whittles the strong unit down then the cat will more likely survive too.

Give it a try and see how it works for you. Good luck!

cheers,


Waldo

 

[Azander]

First time posting on the ALC challenge. I've been reading along quite a bit, and learned a lot from these challenges! Still haven't seen all the challenges, but I'm getting there.

I hope you'll go for a SE, since I can't quite get it it work myself, could be useful to follow along. I agree that eliminating Qin is the way to go, his techs are close to worthless, besides, you'll feel great afterwards

 

[popejubal]

Does WFYABTA count techs that you got from someone before you met a civ?

Specifically, if you take the three techs from Qin now, will Augustus Caesar hiding on some other continent (not a spoiler, just a random Civ you haven't met) count those three techs toward WFYABTA?

If not, then grab them now while you can and then trade for Math afterwards (even if it isn't with Qin). Then, when you've hit the WFYABTA limit on your own continent, you'll still have trading partners overseas for those last few techs to squeeze out.

One of the things you have to do with a Specialist Economy is backfill since you can only lightbulb one big tech instead of several small techs with a single specialist. Qin is offering to backfill for you right now and WFYABTA is still a very long way off.

Obviously, if Civs you haven't met yet would count those three techs, that's another story. Even still, Pottery is very useful and it would be nice to get a fishing boat moving so that you can explore that potential continent in the far west.

Now that you have Alphabet, you want to be able to trade with as many civs as possible to get the most bang for your technological buck and it would also be nice to have a possible head start on the Great Caravel Race coming up in a few centuries.

 

[JoeBlade]

Does WFYABTA count techs that you got from someone before you met a civ?

If memory serves: no.

From what I remember the limit is based on the number of techs a given civ 'sees' you obtain through trade. 'Seeing' means having met the involved civs in this context. AI civs are automatically aware of tech trades between all known civs even when they themselves are neither on the receiving nor the giving end.

I can't recall whether the observer needs to know both parties involved in the trade or only one however.

 

[KMadCandy]

WFYABTA is not retroactive. so when we meet the other continent, they won't know about any trades we've done up until that point.

I can't recall whether the observer needs to know both parties involved in the trade or only one however.

all that matters to us is that he knows us. he knows we got a tech in a trade whether the source is his neighbor or someone he won't meet for another 1200 years.

my source i hope someone will jump in to correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[popejubal]

WFYABTA is not retroactive. so when we meet the other continent, they won't know about any trades we've done up until that point.

all that matters to us is that he knows us. he knows we got a tech in a trade whether the source is his neighbor or someone he won't meet for another 1200 years.

my source i hope someone will jump in to correct me if i'm wrong.

Nice. That means that we'll be able to get 5 techs from the current set of AI civs and then get an entirely new set of 5 (or more) techs from the next set that we meet.

Okay, we'll miss out on getting a few techs from HC. In all honesty, though, did anyone actually think that we were going to get any techs from Isabella? I doubt we'll get anything significant from Ghengis Khan. We can get the Fishing, Pottery and Archery from Qin and then get Math from his neighbor. It's a short hop to Construction from there and we can take any part of the continent we feel like at that point. Just make sure you either discover or steal Code of Laws for the Courthouses and the economy will do just fine.