ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

[Sisiutil]

I didn't see a map, and it looks like you've gone to bed, so I took the liberty of printing a map for you (I hope you don't mind):

Oops! Fixed!

From the screenshot it looks like Medina is not connected to your capital which is why Islam won't spread there!

As several others have pointed out, Medina is connected by road. I corrected the post by adding the map back in. You can see it in OTAKU's post as well.

Being industrious you should get the marble on line ASAP.

Er... Saladin is Spiritual and Protective. Louis is the Industrious one...

 

[d.a.oconnell]

I agree with the suggestion to spread some missionaries to the ottomans to get them on you side, but that would be using some crucial early hammers. I also like the early rex strategy. There are some good cities you can build closer to Louis.

Since you're waiting for iron and catapults, expand a bit, spread islam, build a couple axeman, and let the french build their wonders.

As for wonders, the Pyramids & Parthenon would be great for all those priests - especially Representation for making up the research. Unfortunately, you don't have stone. Oracle may be out of reach and I'm not sure if you would want the Great Lib to offset great prophet points, but the Parth would be helpful.

Lastly, Validator's advice about spiritual and slavery is interesting. Seems like a lot of civic micromanagement, but hey, why not.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Since you're not going for Archery can we ask for late game invasion using Drill-Promoted Gunpowder units?

 

[Scarredroman]

And our friend Suleiman is Imperialistic and Philosophical. He'll be going for maths. He must be expanding north.

Louis doesn't appear to have horses, so he's not going to chariot rush Saladin. He's industrious and has monotheism with his own religion. He's likely to revolt to org religion and receive a 75% bonus on buildings. He simply has to go. And soon. Build those axemen.

Looks as though you'll to build a monument in Medina. Research Aesthetics to start the Parthenon and then Masonry to hook up the Marble. As OTAK suggested in option 1. Go on with Meditation to build the SP (Pacifism) in Mecca, Monotheism to revolt to Org Religion and Priesthood to build the Oracle in Medina. Literature to build the Great Library in Mecca. Assuming all these Wonders fall into Saladin's lap, my desire for Feudalism from the oracle depends on popping a great artist for Monarchy before completing the Oracle and that's a big ask. Unlimited artists from CoL or Theatre from Drama would help. An inordinate amount of luck would be required.

 

[YaKidK]

Long time lucker, first time poster.

I am just a humble Noble player, trying to understand the high level play.

Before Round 1, there was a lot of discussion about going for a early religion or not. Since Sisiutil is yet to use Islam as a state religion (Mecca has a happiness cap of just 5), are the benefits of an early religion only to be able to control it later!? Or has changing to Islam just been put off a bit to avoid diplomatic penalties?

I would have gone straight for Pottery after the Fishing popped, cottage-spammed Mecca early and gone for Monotheims or CoL later on.

Also didnt Writing arrive a bit early? Mecca has other things to produce (settlers/workers/axes) and can barely support two priests at the moment.

Just my two

Looking forward to see how helpfull Loui will be with the wonder building. Is there anyway of making him aware that his sole option to survive is to build wonders ?

Is whipping+chopping (each forest or pop is worth 90 ) a wall to generate overflowing hammers considered a cheat!? Doing so in Mecca would net some cash to enable a 100% science rate again.

 

[Artichoker]

And our friend Suleiman is Imperialistic and Philosophical. He'll be going for maths. He must be expanding north.

Louis doesn't appear to have horses, so he's not going to chariot rush Saladin. He's industrious and has monotheism with his own religion. He's likely to revolt to org religion and receive a 75% bonus on buildings. He simply has to go. And soon. Build those axemen.

I'm in the "halfway" camp.

I believe some amount of war is beneficial, in order to limit Louis' power.

However, allowing Louis to build Wonders does have advantage, as then Arabia can take them later and gain their benefits.

Attack Louis to the extent that he can still build Wonders, but won't be a threat to Arabia. This can be done with a simple Axemen attack.

 

[Tyrant Roger]

Of course, Saladin is not industrious. I confused him with my current off line civ which is. Getting the marble on line soon still makes sense if you plan to build some marble wonders soon and who wouldn't.

Still a REX and block toward Louis will allow you to back fill in several additional cities when your economy is strong enough to support it.

 

[Kev]

I know we've given archery amiss right now thanks to a lucky placement of copper, but nicely-promoted protective archers can be great harassing troops to pillage, steal workers, and just be pests near enemy land. Handy if the plan is to stall Louie for a while rather than to take cities.

However, if we're only going to have these two civs near us for the immediate future, would it not be better to cultivate better diplomacy in order to utilize them for trading? Might it not be better to plant a city somewhat nearby Louie and connect to his land and try to get Conf. spread to us. Gives us a state religion that we can use for happiness at least, and if we can get a shared religion and civic (someone mentioned HR being Louie's fav, which is one we should get to soon too) then Louie should be very helpful in terms of a tech partner short term.

We can always backstab as necessary...

 

[madscientist]

Long time lucker, first time poster.

I am just a humble Noble player, trying to understand the high level play.

Before Round 1, there was a lot of discussion about going for a early religion or not. Since Sisiutil is yet to use Islam as a state religion (Mecca has a happiness cap of just 5), are the benefits of an early religion only to be able to control it later!? Or has changing to Islam just been put off a bit to avoid diplomatic penalties?

I would have gone straight for Pottery after the Fishing popped, cottage-spammed Mecca early and gone for Monotheims or CoL later on.

Also didnt Writing arrive a bit early? Mecca has other things to produce (settlers/workers/axes) and can barely support two priests at the moment.

Just my two

Looking forward to see how helpfull Loui will be with the wonder building. Is there anyway of making him aware that his sole option to survive is to build wonders ?

Is whipping+chopping (each forest or pop is worth 90 ) a wall to generate overflowing hammers considered a cheat!? Doing so in Mecca would net some cash to enable a 100% science rate again.

Welcome, some answers

1) Early religion means early shrine for lot's of gold which is independent of the state religion. Also Sis may convert to a different religion for diplomacy reason. Nevertheless, he will get a prophet very early and have a very large gold income to fund early expansion. The reason for the early religion is financial, not the early use of religion for happiness.

2) Pottery was delayed in order to get a miltiary unit up and going. AH produced no horses. Sis went for BW for copper and axe/spears although I personally would have persued hunting/archery. Small gamble/bigpayoff as he has a military unit AND slavery and chopping ability.

3) I am pretty sure Sis cottages the floodplains eventually, no need to rush it when he can get other useful techs.

4) Writing opens up the Madrassa and early priests. With a few chops or whipping he can get the madrassa built fast. He can also scout out his opponants with open borders. The faster he gets priests, the faster he get's a shrine, the faster he expand.

As you can see many have different opinions on the early religion. Some avoid it like the plague, some will always try for it with mysticism as a starting tech (that's me), and Sis seams to go both ways.

 

[Nares]

1) Early religion means early shrine for lot's of gold which is independent of the state religion. Also Sis may convert to a different religion for diplomacy reason. Nevertheless, he will get a prophet very early and have a very large gold income to fund early expansion. The reason for the early religion is financial, not the early use of religion for happiness.

Well, depending on how soon Sis gets the GPP cities online, I think we may want to settle the first Great Prophet.

Until we really start spamming Missionaries, we're probably stuck with just our cities as sources of income for the Shrine. Depending on when the Great Prophet pops, we may not even get the same GPT from the Shrine that we do from the Great Prophet. If that's the case (that we're getting about equal amounts of gold from a settled Great Prophet as we would from the Shrine), I vote for settling.

Again, depending on how Sis runs the GPP, we may want a Great Scientist first. I certainly feel that getting a Great Scientist out for an Academy before, or possibly very very shortly after, we tech Civil Service is more important than bringing a Shrine online.

To add to that, now that wonderspam looks unlikely, and we're no longer pursuing religion, I don't think we'll really need the Great Prophets for bulbing.

3) I am pretty sure Sis cottages the floodplains eventually, no need to rush it when he can get other useful techs.

I'm surprised none of them were farmed for the short term. We need hammers and food now more than we need commerce, though Mecca will emphasize hammers and commerce soon enough (no specialists there).

4) Writing opens up the Madrassa and early priests. With a few chops or whipping he can get the madrassa built fast.

Madrassas also offer double the culture of a Library, or 4 per turn. Due to city placement, we'll need that extra culture to help keep out Louis. I think that's the real advantage of building them for now. Only one or two cities will really make heavy use of the specialists, and we haven't even founded those yet.

 

[madscientist]

Well, depending on how soon Sis gets the GPP cities online, I think we may want to settle the first Great Prophet.

Until we really start spamming Missionaries, we're probably stuck with just our cities as sources of income for the Shrine. Depending on when the Great Prophet pops, we may not even get the same GPT from the Shrine that we do from the Great Prophet. If that's the case (that we're getting about equal amounts of gold from a settled Great Prophet as we would from the Shrine), I vote for settling.

Again, depending on how Sis runs the GPP, we may want a Great Scientist first. I certainly feel that getting a Great Scientist out for an Academy before, or possibly very very shortly after, we tech Civil Service is more important than bringing a Shrine online.

To add to that, now that wonderspam looks unlikely, and we're no longer pursuing religion, I don't think we'll really need the Great Prophets for bulbing.

I'm surprised none of them were farmed for the short term. We need hammers and food now more than we need commerce, though Mecca will emphasize hammers and commerce soon enough (no specialists there).

Madrassas also offer double the culture of a Library, or 4 per turn. Due to city placement, we'll need that extra culture to help keep out Louis.

Not sure settling the Prophet is preferable to shrining here. The shrine helps the spread of the religion, easy to get more than 5 cities Islamified early. Bulbing theology maybe a better route if he does not shrine Sialm, but we shall see.

I agree about the farms short term.

Very good point about the Madrassa's in border cities. In a sense they negate Louis's culture bonus once built. And Sal's fast temples sort of offset teh fast libraries of Louis.

 

[Nares]

And Sal's fast temples sort of offset teh fast libraries of Louis.

I was hoping to avoid spending hammers on spreading religion, as well as avoid Priesthood for the short term now that the Oracle looks like a dream.

The shrine helps the spread of the religion, easy to get more than 5 cities Islamified early. Bulbing theology maybe a better route if he does not shrine Isalm, but we shall see.

How much of a boost to the spread of religion does the Shrine provide? What is the likelihood that Louis will build a Shrine (he might get a GP first thanks to wonderspam), and how will his Shrine affect our cities? Do we have closed borders with him for now?

Bulbing Theology would require us to research Meditation, Masonry, Priesthood and Monotheism. The only upsides I can see to this are that Priesthood opens up Temples, and both Priesthood and Monotheism are prerequisites for Monarchy, which is in turn needed for Feudalism. Cheap Walls from Masonry are useless now that we're planning on an earlier offensive.

Priesthood is also needed for Code of Laws, which we'll want reasonably soon. However, Priesthood is the cheapest tech on that list, and is currently available for research. I suppose it is a reasonable priority on its own, but I cannot justify an additional 172 just so that we can bulb Theology.

A Shrine seems preferable to bulbing Theology. The gold would do more for us to help carry on a war than Theocracy will. And the extra research is about 80% of the research cost of Code of Laws, about 70% of the research cost of Alphabet, or about 85% of the research cost of Mathematics.

 

[madscientist]

I was hoping to avoid spending hammers on spreading religion, as well as avoid Priesthood for the short term now that the Oracle looks like a dream.

How much of a boost to the spread of religion does the Shrine provide? What is the likelihood that Louis will build a Shrine (he might get a GP first thanks to wonderspam), and how will his Shrine affect our cities? Do we have closed borders with him for now?

Bulbing Theology would require us to research Meditation, Masonry, Priesthood and Monotheism. The only upsides I can see to this are that Priesthood opens up Temples, and both Priesthood and Monotheism are prerequisites for Monarchy, which is in turn needed for Feudalism. Cheap Walls from Masonry are useless now that we're planning on an earlier offensive.

If I remember, I think teh shrine roughly doubles the chance of the religion spreading but I am not 100% certain on that.

I agree the oracle is definitely out, now that Louis has marble, masonry (he teched monotheism) and likely priesthood.

Also, meditation/masonry/monotheism/priesthood are pretty cheap compared to the benefit of first crack at the AP (we definitely DO NOT want Louis building it). Also remember the AP gives +2 hammers to those religious building, so cheap temples in every Islamic city. Plus it opens up the thoecracy civic for helping to bash French heads later on!!

 

[Validator]

I think emphasis needs to be given to the situation at this point. Sisiutil has a whopping zero from resources at the moment, and little chance of changing that anytime soon. Silk and incense require Calendar, whales require Optics and the silver doesn't appear to be reachable. It's possible that Suleiman will have an extra gems to trade, but even there Sisiutil doesn't have any spare health resources right now.

Louis founding a religion means Islam can't be used to provide the SR bonus without incurring diplo problems.

So as it stands now Arabian cities are at their initial happy caps (5 for Mecca, 4 for everywhere else).

Monarchy needs to be the priority. HR is the only way to significantly increase the population of Arabian cities. Without it there's no way to improve the economy and the tech rate is going to suffer. Other tech paths may be attractive, but how quickly can Sisiutil get there if Mecca is working 5 cottages?

The only other option is to try to chop Pyramids. But there doesn't seem to be much support for that option.

 

[Nares]

Also, meditation/masonry/monotheism/priesthood are pretty cheap compared to the benefit of first crack at the AP (we definitely DO NOT want Louis building it). Also remember the AP gives +2 hammers to those religious building, so cheap temples in every Islamic city. Plus it opens up the thoecracy civic for helping to bash French heads later on!!

Edited the civic I referenced. Vassalage is a bit ahead of the game.

What kind of ability would Louis have to stop our war should he build the AP? How would our relations with Suleiman (sp?) be affected by ignoring an AP decree?

I agree that the +2 hammers are nice, but the synergy really only lies in the Temples. We would research Meditation, and could build Monasteries, but I don't think there's much synergy between our planned economy and Monasteries (I'm the only one advocating scientist specialists atm, and only our capital will be commerce heavy for awhile).

 

[Validator]

Lastly, Validator's advice about spiritual and slavery is interesting. Seems like a lot of civic micromanagement, but hey, why not.

FYI: The BUG mod helps quite a bit with the MM. When you revolt to slavery to whip something you can set a reminder (ALT+M) to pop up in 5 turns to remind you to switch back to tribalism.

 

[madscientist]

Edited the civic I referenced. Vassalage is a bit ahead of the game.

What kind of ability would Louis have to stop our war should he build the AP? How would our relations with Suleiman (sp?) be affected by ignoring an AP decree?

I agree that the +2 hammers are nice, but the synergy really only lies in the Temples. We would research Meditation, and could build Monasteries, but I don't think there's much synergy between our planned economy and Monasteries (I'm the only one advocating scientist specialists atm, and only our capital will be commerce heavy for awhile).

OK, let's assume Louis get's the AP built, his state religion is the religion of the AP for the entire game. He get's +2 hammers per religios building. He also can initiate proposals to stop a was against him (if he likes) so Sis would generally need to have all of his cities with Louis state religion in order to block teh vote (which means alot of hammers on missionaries as most of Sis' cities will be Islamic). Sis could defy the vote if he has enough of the AP vote, but that brings along 5 unhappy faces. Also if Sis does not get Louis state rleigion spread to any of his cities, Louis can vote to bring Suliman into a war against Sis.

The AP can be a major advantage, a major disadvantage, or a none-issue. I say bring the AP under the influence of the Islamists.

Reagrding monerstaries, with teh AP that's +2 hammers, +2 culture, +10% beakers. NOt exactly chump change there.

 

[madscientist]

I think emphasis needs to be given to the situation at this point. Sisiutil has a whopping zero from resources at the moment, and little chance of changing that anytime soon. Silk and incense require Calendar, whales require Optics and the silver doesn't appear to be reachable. It's possible that Suleiman will have an extra gems to trade, but even there Sisiutil doesn't have any spare health resources right now.

Louis founding a religion means Islam can't be used to provide the SR bonus without incurring diplo problems.

So as it stands now Arabian cities are at their initial happy caps (5 for Mecca, 4 for everywhere else).

Monarchy needs to be the priority. HR is the only way to significantly increase the population of Arabian cities. Without it there's no way to improve the economy and the tech rate is going to suffer. Other tech paths may be attractive, but how quickly can Sisiutil get there if Mecca is working 5 cottages?

The only other option is to try to chop Pyramids. But there doesn't seem to be much support for that option.

I gotta agree here. Monarchy should be a priority. He can get another happy from a temple, but that's not exactly helping much.

 

[Nares]

Monarchy needs to be the priority.

Monarchy does play into some potential synergy here.

We're already looking at Priesthood for Temples. I dislike that we'll need to double up research with Louis. He's ahead of us in pursuing Theology (is this what he's going for? Or is he after Feudalism?). I would like to trade for some of these techs if possible, but I don't know that the situation is favorable.

Masonry and Monotheism are needed both for Monarchy as well as for bulbing Theology. I'd still want our second Great Person to be a Great Scientist for an Academy, which would delay our Shrine until our third Great Person, should we bulb Theology.

Masonry we'll need anyway for Construction.

Do we even have a chance on the AP? If Louis is pursuing Theology, he's not very far from it. He's lacking Writing, I believe, but that is a relatively cheap tech. Even with a bulb, I fear we're too far behind to build it.

The path doesn't look that disparaging. Priesthood for Temples. Masonry we'll need for Construction. Meditation is a bust, IMO, but only needed for the bulb. Monotheism is a toss-up. We need the Shrine to spread Islam without Missionaries, or we need Meditation to build Missionaries.

Many of these are also useful for some of the other techs we need. Priesthood for Code of Laws and Monotheism/Priesthood for Monarchy.

I guess the questions to ask is, do we have an actual chance of getting the AP? If we don't, then there's no bulb. This would mean we build a Shrine instead, or settle. But the Shrine offers religion spread, which may eliminate or greatly reduce our need to research Meditation and build Monasteries so that we can build Missionaries to spread Islam.

Organized Religion does offer some relief. We can skip Meditation, because we probably won't be building Monasteries soon, while still building Missionaries to spread Islam. However, the high upkeep seems unattractive, especially given that we won't have Courthouses yet, and we'll be 2-3 cities larger by this time.

 

[Froggie818]

I'm in the "halfway" camp.

I believe some amount of war is beneficial, in order to limit Louis' power.

However, allowing Louis to build Wonders does have advantage, as then Arabia can take them later and gain their benefits.

Attack Louis to the extent that he can still build Wonders, but won't be a threat to Arabia. This can be done with a simple Axemen attack.

Depending on the size of Louis' empire when we go in, I'd go halfway also. My only concern with that is, once we start a war with Louis, will we really be able to extract ourselves for any length of time? From that point forward, we'll always have poor relations with him and he's already got a hair trigger to begin with. When the war ends he may not go back to building wonders for us to capture, but may, instead, start building his army to bring the war to us. We might be better off preparing to hit him hard and fast and eliminate him completely.