ALC Game 18: Spain/Isabella

I'd combine CS with a switch to bureaucracy after Aachen has become the Capital. Running citizen specialists adds to the hammers produced shortening the time to build AP.

I am in favour of pretty much immediate war against Lizzy.

 

@Scaphism

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but...

Sorry for nitpicking, but if we get into a fight with Lizzie now it would hurt tremendously. Our economy is in no shape to have to fight another war at this time - that means building more troops instead of all the other stuff you rightly suggest. That said, I don't think it's at all likely that she'll attack us before we've recovered our economy, so maybe I should've kept my pedantic trap shut.

This is a very good idea, not least because there's an outside chance that the other two civs can be reached via the Native American lands. I've seen a couple of fractal maps where all the continents are connected by coasts. Chances are he's all alone over there, but it would be most helpful if we knew for sure.

Another very good point. Most worryingly, our stargazers inform us that a Great Prophet (name of Sojourner Truth) was born in a faraway land back in 485bc. We must assume that this Prophet set up a shrine to to Jehovah, thus speeding the emergence of more of his kind. In this light I would suggest giving absolute priority to the completion of the AP. If another Jewish Prophet is born in the near future, we could find ourselves in a desperate race to give Izzy her birthright.

That, my friend, is a colossal understatement. 'Engulfed with all-consuming rage and an unquenchable lust for bloody vengeance' would be closer to the mark.

Edit:

See above.

 

About all our economy can do is fight wars. If you think leaving Lizzy safe behind her Great Wall merrily building the SP, Parthenon and Statue of Zeus is a good idea, itell you it is not. You are creating a monster. She is already exploiting her well construced CE. Later we will not be able to take her appart, now we can. So we fight her now.

 

First things first ... finish the AP, get the economy in order, seal off Spanish lands ... then deal with Bess.

 

Have you looked at the save? Our economy is royally screwed atm. We're producing only 15 (!!) beakers per turn, we need to get the AP finished asap, and we have literally only just finished fighting our second economy-stalling war. Our power rating is only marginally better than Lizzy's, and hers will quickly shoot up if we attack, meaning we'd need to produce more troops and take the existing ones off HR duty.

How do you propose to defeat her armies without destroying our economy, missing out on the AP, and ending up miles behind everyone else in the tech-race? If you insist on counselling immediate war, you'll need to back that up with a seriously detailed answer to that question.

Moreover, I don't at all see why you think she's such a threat. We want her to build all those juicy wonders, so we can steal them for ourselves at a later date. Yes, the SoZ would be a pain, but with any luck we'll have some AP-driven assistance by the time we set about taking her down. And who's to say she wouldn't get it built in time to mess us up if we attack now?

 

Again rebuild the economy and finish the AP. Take Liz out later. If she has the SOZ built just make you've teched drama and run the culture slider as high as needed and make sure it's a fast war. Pcal can probably be bribed into working her down a bit if aa different religion (Sitting Bull for that matter too).

 

Well done to date, Sis. Too early for another war. Build a settler to settle south towards the jungle and block Lizzy, but don't actually settle the city until an AI settler nears the area.

After the economy is in order, the AP built, and conquistators are available, then Lizzy will join our new Holy Empire involuntarily.

The long term plan should first be an AP victory and then a reload with a substitute cultural victory a century or two later. That will require first Optics and missionaries and later all those shiny wonders we know you really like to build plus temples and cathedrals.

Exploit spiritual to change civics and religions as needed. In particular Caste System and Artists during peace and slavery and theocracy [and maybe vassalage during war].

Isabelle will forever be remembered as the Queen of faith and culture.

 

I agree with the those urging the pacifist course for now. I need to follow the usual Civ 4 cycle: finish a war, rebuild your economy. Liz can wait. Look at the map: if she does build the Statue of Zeus, it will be nearby. The Spanish stack can make a bee-line for it to minimize its effects. I am tempted to found one more commerce city south of Aachen and leave Liz to settle in the jungle. Let her cut down that crap.

A switch to Caste System is an excellent idea. Being able to run Merchants pre-Currency will help tremendously. I foresee a hybrid economy, with Aachen and the city south of it devoted to cottages and commerce, Madrid as the GP farm, the other cities specializing as the map dictates.

EDIT: Some thoughts on Sitting Bull.

I've encountered SB in several off-line games now. He's a "mini-Monty" in certain respects, not others. Like Montezuma, he builds a lot of units and techs slowly. Unlike Montezuma, he's much more peaceful and predictable, less of a mercurial psycho. He has to be treated with respect in the early game, as he's protective and has a very strong early UU which is an effective counter to the best units you can muster against it. He's like Hammurabi in that respect. His UB is also early and makes his Protective Archery units even more formidable. Scary. By mid-game, though, he tends to fall far behind in techs, and his UU's day has come and gone, making him a pushover.

With SB on a separate land-mass, I don't think we have a lot to worry about from him in this game.

 

Good strategy here Sis. Now we're just waiting to see how this next round plays out.

 

Winston - you're right, I misspoke. A fight with Lizzie right now would be bad, and I don't advocate picking one right away. However I don't think there's a reason to believe she's close to DOWing on Sisituil; Even if she did, Spain would have no trouble fighting Lizzie off.

Re: Caste System. I don't think you'll be able to run many(/any) merchants right away but it should be handy before you get any Markets built. Madrid should run as many priests as possible which will bring in a bit of gold and when the shrine comes in that should easily be 12-15 GPT from when it first becomes active. That will help quite a bit. Somewhere down the road it would be nice to build the Church of the Nativity just for flavor, but that shouldn't be a priority right now.

I'd suggest renaming Charlemagne's cities. Aachen just doesn't have that Spanish flair worthy of a double holy city..

I do like Tyrant Roger's plan to build a settler but hold off on settling until you see an English settler approaching or your economy has stabilized. The only problem I see is that it would require keeping a few axeman escorts with it outside of your borders, taking up $. Still a good idea in my book and it would also serve to fogbust and give you a good indication of the pace of Lizzy's expansion.

 

I disagree. Attack Liz ASAP. You can run a deficit, supplementing your income with booty from conquest. In between producing troops at each of your cities, you whip a courthouse. You might struggle a bit and fall behind tech-wise, but one you've taken out Liz, you'll be the size of three civilizations - with three capitals no less. At that point, you'll be a juggernaut. Perfect for mass producing conquistadors and launching crusades against the heathens (i.e. everyone except Spain.)

Also, I don't understand why you're against settling in the jungle. Lots of grassland and a few resources. I'd try to block off the Mayans from settling there. You'll have blocked his expansion off, then you can backfill later.

That sounds like a lot to do in your situation, but I think you could pull it off.

 

Oh, and ditto on renaming Charlie's cities. They sound too much like heathen names to me!

 

Here's a possible dotmap. I think Blue would be the best choice to block off Spanish lands from English settlers, with red being a logical follow up. Red is ho-hum, it has plains Elephants, plains Cows, 2 floodplains. I'd farm/watermill/workshop it. It will have okay production to get infrastructure built and will be able to run a specialist of your choice fairly quickly. I'd favor coastal cities over non-coastal because of Expansive's cheap harbors.

The Green and Magenta X's are backfill sites. I like them where they are but Magenta could go 1NE to work the Iron instead of being coastal, or put a city 2W of the Iron which I don't like nearly as much.

The fish due south of Aachen looks lost to me. You could make a Horse-Fish-Elephant city but it screws with other dotmaps of the area and doesn't block off your peninsula as effectively as blue would IMO.

 

Winston Hughes, have you tried fighting a war against a moderately mature financial civ with the SOZ?

4 monasteries and library is + 65% research and 2 scientists everywhere, except Aachen and Madrid,
in three fairly decent productive cities. Run citizen specialists in Aachen and build monasteries and temples for Madrid's GP production.

The economy will take longer to recover, even with caste and merchants than it will take Lizzy to finish building the Wonders and be ready to receive the assault. Izzy is more ready for war now than Lizzy will be.

 

Not yet, but I recently killed off a protective civ with the SoZ at the same time as out-teching a couple of financial civs. How? By building a strong economic base after my initial conquests and, as per madscientist's post, using the culture slider to deal with WW (running an SE, of course).

We have the chance to build a powerful economy here - our cities have great potential that needs to be unleashed. And Lizzy's empire isn't worth much right now (our present cities are much better than hers imo), but will be much more valuable if she builds us a couple of wonders and grows us some villages.

Throw in the fact that if she doesn't build those wonders then someone else will (not us because we'd be fighting her), and the potential trouble that could cause, and there's no way I'd go after her at this precise moment (unless I was aiming for an early domination win).

One other thing... I can't for the life of me see why you'd run citizen specialists in Aachen. Have these been given some kind of buff in BtS that I've yet to discover?

 

If the poking around I did from your last ALC is any indication, we really shouldn't count on that too much. While I'd never looked at a Warlords Monarch game with the World Builder before, the amount of Workers (and so development) was a whole lot less than I'd have expected. Solver's patch may have changed this, though.

On the plus side, all those Jungle cities will blunt the power of her CE, giving you a little more breathing room in the tech race. Right the ship of state economically, and there likely won't be too much trouble keeping up.

I also have a hunch that Sitting Bull will declare war on Pacal soon, but that's only a gut feeling. The guy seems to like early war- no matter whether if it makes sense or not- in about half my games, and in the other half he'll just sit there and fall happily behind in techs and power. Crazy. In any case, Sisiutil may have a diplomatic decision coming up soon . . .

 

Long time fan, first time caller, been enjoying the ALCs since I discovered the forum several months ago and have definitely learned alot....sigh, I feel so cliche.

I agree with settling south of Aachen and forcing Liz into the jungle - every turn her workers spend cutting down jungle is a turn they're not building cottages. As far as Scaphism's dotmap, why not move Blue, Red and Green each one tile west? Blue would then claim the cows and not have a 1-food ocean tile, red would pick up the fish and horses, and green claims the coastal cattle. I haven't done the math on the plus/minus food ratio that way (not my strong suit) but that seems to be a way to get all those resources in BFCs.

 

WH, you haven't tried war against a fin civ with those wonders. Citizen specialists are the only extra hammer resources available to help speed the AP along.

Great plan, WH, let Lizzy run Pacifism, the Parthenon, her Phi trait and specialists with her +250% birth rate and see how long it takes for her bulb teching to leave Sisiutil far behind. Then we go to war and have +100% war exhaustion. Now, there's a war that's going to leave our economy shattered.
No, you say, we must build our economy and then attack her. I'm sure her longbows, crossbowmen, macemen and war elephants will be a real push over.

 

Scarred:

No question Liz must be tamed. The immediate issue is that Sisiutil will go bankrupt if, right now, he fields an army large enough to hurt/conquer Liz.

After about 20 turns to get currency, get out workers, getting the silver and gold online, and settling 1-2 more cities, Izzy should be in the 60% research ballpark and able to get to the medieval military techs and field the necessary army, whereupon I assure you Liz will be collared like the bad girl she is.

 

Financial civs nextdoor don't scare me, especially not this early in the game, no matter how many wonders they're likely to build (the more the merrier, in fact). It's the ones you meet half a world away later on that pose the real threat.

Look at her empire and the land available to the south. This girl's not going to be blasting out multiple wonders, teching like crazy and building a monster army anytime soon. Especially while there's all that space to settle into.

And as slobberinbear points out, we're not talking about leaving her alone for a couple of hundred turns. Just long enough to get the other elements of our strategy in place.

In that time, the most she'll manage is to expand to the south (good for us), tech at a modest rate while growing a few cottages (good for us), and build one or two wonders (mostly good for us).

I'm much more worried about our Jewish rivals out in the wide black yonder.

No, they are not. Check the save. Or even one of the screenshots. There are loads of hammer sources available, most of which will also contribute food, allowing the city to grow so as to work more of them.