ALC Game 18: Spain/Isabella

[slobberinbear]

Which is why it should be pursued in this game, so that never ever again we have to hear people say it's balanced =P

I would prefer to see a "hard" AP victory (using Buddhism, say) after years of war and diplomacy, like an early UN. Of course that's also more dangerous, since using Buddhism gives him a lot less direct control of the votes and exposes Isabella to a sudden loss after an otherwise brilliant game.

You're right though, in that the AP is not balanced if a civ can win by spreading the AP religion to one city in each civ. The AP diplomatic win should only be enabled when a certain percentage of the world population has the AP religion.

 

[Molon Labe]

I really want to see Sisiutil go for the AP victory for a couple of reasons. The first is selfish: I played from the opening save with that goal and want to see how my game compares. The other reason is that I hear people say that the AP is broken, and I think in principal it seems like it could be, but I've tried for it a few times now and haven't found it easy. Cheesy, certainly, but not easy.

An ALC playing up Izzy's strengths and the AP would reveal a lot about that wonder which I think would be enlightening for a great many players. I know Sisiutil plays for fun, like most of us do, so it is up to him and what kind of game he feels like playing. But I read the ALC to learn new strategies, improve my game and figure out new mechanics. I'm sure I'm not alone.

 

[Scarredroman]

The AP religion should be the state religion of every other civ, too. Why would a Buddhist nation care what Taoists (e.g. AP religion) think? They wouldn't. They would act against the minority taoists inside their empire.

 

[Molon Labe]

I agree that the AP has problems with balance in that the optimal way to win the AP diplomatic game is counterintuitive. You want to hoard the religion and just give other civs a nibble. That really doesn't make sense for why it would be so powerful.

I have a feeling there will be a patch or a mod that corrects this. I think the AP owner should gain power with the spread of his religion. Perhaps making it so that only the cities that have that religion, or the entire civ if it is a state religion, are affected by any AP ruling. I'm confident somebody clever is working on a sound fix for that.

I still want Sisiutil to go for the AP victory here though.

 

[Winston Hughes]

The AP victory is not a moral question.

Did anyone say it is?

I said I'd rather not see an easy AP victory played out here - some people agree, others would like to see Sis give it a go.

I take it you're in the latter camp. Perhaps you could explain why?

To clarify my position, I see nothing intrisically bad about winning this way, and it's certainly fun to see how early you can win. But from a start like we have here, the most straightforward path to victory would likely be both one-dimensional and far too easy, denying us a large slice of the education and entertainment that have made ALC games a great institution on this forum.

Back to the game:

If possible I'd settle blocking cities in the SW and NW to keep Lizzy out. Apart from grabbing the land for ourselves, we need The Virgin Queen to expand south to stop Pacal from becoming a monster. With any luck Charlie will settle one for us, in which case we could go for either the furry city or the cow/wine/iron site.

Other than that I'd concentrate on keeping our economy afloat, whilst preparing the ground for the AP and crusades against Charlie and Lizzy.

*Tech path: Mono, Theology (GP), Mathematics (?), Currency, Construction. I don't like leaving Currency so late, but Maths makes it cheaper, is needed for Construction anyway, and we've got a hell of a lot of forests about.

*Send the Confucian missionary to London.

*Barcelona should be working the cows, not the forest. And I don't think it needs a lighthouse yet - I'd go temple, settler, courthouse, worker, Conf. missionary (for Lizzy again).

*Aachen - courthouse, Buddhist missionary (to Madrid), AP.

*Madrid - Finish library, then settler, galley, worker, 2x Buddhist missionary. The galley can deliver one missionary to Sitting Bull and get some exploring done. The other missionary goes to Barcelona.

*Prague - Granary to size 4, then worker (whip it!), finish granary, courthouse.

*As each build queue nears completion (or the economy starts to crash), switch to commerce tiles or Caste System scientists/merchants to speed up research.

One other thing (man, this is a long post even by my standards...). We've got too many axes, and that's screwing up the economy - unit costs make up almost half of our expenses. I'd actually consider disbanding some of them unless we're going to finish off Charlie very soon. A few cats and elephants will do for him if we wait until Construction.

 

[carl corey]

I don't like disbanding such good units. If nothing else I'd start a pillaging war with Charlie, make sure nothing gets in and out of his last city. No kills until you bring in the cats, so no increase in war weariness anyway, but he won't be able to develop at all. I'd personally build axes and take out Charlie, hill be damned, so as to be able to take care of the economy next.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I don't like disbanding such good units.

I'd personally build axes and take out Charlie, hill be damned, so as to be able to take care of the economy next.

Disbanding is a horrible waste... But if we're not going to attack again pre-construction they're not needed. Even if we can trade for Monarchy soon, we won't need that many units to keep our cities happy.

I don't know... I probably wouldn't do it, but I thought I'd chuck it out and see what the response was.

On the second point, if we take on Charlie straight away support costs would cripple the economy in the short-term, and it would give Lizzy a great chance to muscle in on our turf (thus leaving Pacal to expand uncontested). On the other hand, Vienna is high quality city, and it would be nice if we could put all those axes to good use...

 

[Gooblah]

Hmmm. Protective gives free City Garrison I and Drill I to gunpowder and archer units, right? Thus, you have limited time to attack Charlemagne and take him out: i.e, before Feudalism, since City Garrison I/II (with barracks, which I'll bet anything Charlemagne has in the city) Longbowmen are pains to deal with. Make a beeline for construction and do it fast. I prefer the loss of gold to the death of the war by the Protective trait on a hill. To destroy his defenses, you're gonna need at least 10 cats only bombarding, and 5 doing collateral to the point the 100% bonus (assuming 0% cultural, City Garrison I/II and fortification for 5 turns) only brings the Longbowmen's strength to within that of your Maces or Swords or etc.

 

[slobberinbear]

Hmmm. Protective gives free City Garrison I and Drill I to gunpowder and archer units, right? Thus, you have limited time to attack Charlemagne and take him out: i.e, before Feudalism, since City Garrison I/II (with barracks, which I'll bet anything Charlemagne has in the city) Longbowmen are pains to deal with. Make a beeline for construction and do it fast. I prefer the loss of gold to the death of the war by the Protective trait on a hill. To destroy his defenses, you're gonna need at least 10 cats only bombarding, and 5 doing collateral to the point the 100% bonus (assuming 0% cultural, City Garrison I/II and fortification for 5 turns) only brings the Longbowmen's strength to within that of your Maces or Swords or etc.

He doesn't need to wait for Catapults.

To quote Jim Morrison,

"They got the guns, but we got the numbers."

Sisiutil has 16 axes (some with good XP) and 2 spears right now. Building some archer garrison troops and a few swordsmen is plenty to attack Charlie after the 10 turns of enforced peace. Heck, it wouldn't even take all of his hammers over the next 10 turns to get it done.

Even if Vienna had 5 protective archers on a hill, Isabella would have 4:1 numerical superiority. Losing 10 units (assuming each archer kills 2 attackers before dying) to take out an AI civ is worth it.

 

[Scarredroman]

Winton, your builds are free of combat. There's no telling how many cities Charlie will have founded and Izzy has to take before seeing the HRE destroyed. Nor can I see any purpose spreading confucianism to Lizzy when she already has Buddhism. Why give her free happiness?

Izzy is going to need markets to boost gold to support the large number of troops it's going to take to finish Charlie off. Once that's done, Maths, Civil Service, Construction, Metal Casting, Machinery and Engineering.

 

[TeraHammer]

Why dont Sis do both? Pursue an AP victory aswell as a "normal" victory. Thats a challenge isnt it? :-D

 

[Tyrael]

^ I think somebody suggested earlier that Sis go for the AP victory for educational purposes, then reload from a recent save and go for a "real" victory instead, preferably utilizing Izzy's traits. I myself would like to see Sis use this approach, as it fulfills the purpose of the ALC in educating us noobish masses. (At least that's how I view the ALC- to each his own, am I right? )

 

[Sisiutil]

^ I think somebody suggested earlier that Sis go for the AP victory for educational purposes, then reload from a recent save and go for a "real" victory instead, preferably utilizing Izzy's traits. I myself would like to see Sis use this approach, as it fulfills the purpose of the ALC in educating us noobish masses. (At least that's how I view the ALC- to each his own, am I right? )

I just might end up doing this. That should keep both sides of the debate happy.

*Send the Confucian missionary to London.

One other thing (man, this is a long post even by my standards...). We've got too many axes, and that's screwing up the economy - unit costs make up almost half of our expenses. I'd actually consider disbanding some of them unless we're going to finish off Charlie very soon. A few cats and elephants will do for him if we wait until Construction.

First off, I prefer to use the Confucian missionary in Madrid, as suggested earlier, to build another temple, run another priest, and accelerate the appearance of the next GP.

Second, I plan to take out Charlemagne once and for all once the 10 turns of peace are up. So the Axes remain. Don't worry, I suspect the HRE Archers will "disband" several of them for me.

 

[TeraHammer]

Don't worry, I suspect the HRE Archers will "disband" several of them for me.

Hehe thats what i allways say too when someone annihilates my army

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Nothing much happened, built walls in cities, built a 3rd city SE OF wheat to claim clam/wheat on hill, proberly a mistake, should have built on desert in hindsite, for some reason I was affraid of Justinian, and wanted it on a hill.

Buddisism FINALLY spread to my new city, and I've taken the route of spamming Christianity to all my cities, plan on 4/5 4th over on southern coast by wine tile, had a mad idea to settle a city by stone over PACAL's way, but have since thought about it, as seems only way for Pacal to expand out, and PRIME resource early on...Nah..

Note, I meet Sitting bull in the 2500+BC period, MUCH EARLIER than you..

Going to try the wondercity/wonder spam stratergy, 3rd city by wheat will get Maoi Statutes, and HOPEFULLY will be heroic epic city, as has many hills/ocean.

Main aim, which I must restate to keep on track is Apotilic palace victory, settled first Great profit, for cash to remain at 100% research, building cottages.

Great rush on Justinian, are any further conquests planned?? or will it be a consolidate and build palace with many cities.

 

[alcaras]

IPEX, you probably should edit out spoilers from your post.

Also, you may just want to post an ALC-mirror thread as Sisiutil suggested a few posts back and then report a comparison back in this thread when Sisiutil finishes this game.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Winton, your builds are free of combat. There's no telling how many cities Charlie will have founded and Izzy has to take before seeing the HRE destroyed. Nor can I see any purpose spreading confucianism to Lizzy when she already has Buddhism. Why give her free happiness?

Does Lizzy already have Buddhism? I didn't see it in any of her cities... If she has, that could complicate matters no end. My idea was to get her to convert to Conf. - which she almost certainly would if it was her first religion - and hope she spread it around to limit the spread of Buddhism.

If both Lizzy and Pacal have Buddhism then building a Buddhist AP would be risky - we might well lose control of it, or, at the least, miss out on the chance to use it effectively (war vs Sitting Bull anyone? ).

And yes, my builds were free of combat units - my plan was not to attack until Construction (mass elephant/cat whipping session), and to spend the intervening period securing our peninsula with settlers, securing our economy with courthouses and cottages, and securing our papal throne with missionaries. (And are markets really such a priority? We can run Caste System for merchants when necessary (we are spiritual, after all), and 25% of sod all is sod all.)

This is how I play almost all of my games - alternate periods of war-building and peace-building. Since we've been focusing so heavily on war so far, I reasoned that a period of peaceful building was the way to go, before finishing Charlie off, and using the AP to start a three-way dogpile on Lizzy.

@Sisiutil: If you're going to replay from a save after doing the AP win, I'd suggest doing so from the current save or the one after Charlie is finished off. As with most victories, the AP win is best achieved by focusing on it from the earliest reasonable point, and that moment will be arriving soon (the moment when you choose the AP's religion seems most obvious). To play several rounds with both plans in mind could lead to a lot of confused priorities.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You need Bismarck to turn up so I can say "Izzy, Lizzy, let's get Bizzy" at some point during this thread.

EDIT: Based on famous magic words of the one and only

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sooty

 

[Gooblah]

Hehehe....I like that, Paradigm.
Now, for my military perspective:
16 Axemen with CRI-III should be enough to take Charlie's last city. Since treaties can be canceled even before the 10 turns are up, simply post your weaker units around Prague (is that Charlie's city) to kill off any settlers that may try to found a city, while a main stack destroys his last defenses. The trouble I see here is the cultural defense.

 

[Scarredroman]

Buddhism is in Aachen; Charlie founded it and spread it to Lizzy and Pacal. A monastery, a missionary and the religion will be in Madrid and a third temple giving another happiness and priest specialist to speed the production. The whole point, as discussed in the pre-game thread, was for Izzy to found Christianity, spread it all over and build the AP.

Charlie's ability to REX is not something to allow free reign. he'll spread across the map. Since Sisiutil does not have Civil Service, markets will do the job and after he does, he may want other GPs produced. Charlie has to go before construction is researched.