ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

[Nares]

Also, this hasn't really been discussed much, but roughly when will we hit Louis?

I'm assuming it's a good bit off.

Should we be looking to tech towards Feudalism, and bait him with some Longbows? Also, how do we keep Suleiman out of the war?

 

[Validator]

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.

I think you're right about the eliminate completely option. One other issue to consider is that ending a war after you've taken half (or so) of the cities always leads to a problem with cultural pressure from the remaining cities. This would be worse than normal since Louis is Creative.

 

[madscientist]

I'm in the all or nothing camp. Either remove Louis from the game or leave him alone for a while.

 

[Morgawr]

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.

I agree to building up a big army after expanding enough and hitting Louis hard before he gets into war mode.

Also, how do we keep Suleiman out of the war?

Suleiman happens to be one of the only two AI's (aside from DeGaulle) who will not dowar against someone he's pleased with BUT will join a war if someones bribes him to, even if he's pleased. So he's not a backstabber but will do it for the money. Plus, he doesn't even need to be cautious towards us to do so. Meaning, it's very easy to get him to join our war against Louis as long as we have a tech to bribe him with. (and Alphabet, of course) And then we can get up to a +6 mutual war bonus with him (+5 of which would remain permanent), and combined with the +4 from HR civic he will become our best friend as we destroy Louis.

On the flipside, this also means that it would be equally easy for Louis to turn him against us once we declare war. So we should be ready to bribe him and get him on our side first.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the real issue is when to hit Louis
1. Now?
get 2 more cities and then Axe Rush him
Needed: Hunting, probably Archery, work on Monarchy
Problem.. he has high culture defense
Advantage... fast, eliminates a competing religion

2. Later
get 3-4 more cities, and go with Catapults, Axes/swords, and spears
get Monarchy/Construction

3. Mideval
settle as much as you can and get
Feudalism, Construction, Iron Working, CoL
Literature for Great Library
and Hit with Vassalized Axe/Sword +Longbows +Cats

Problem: by this point there may be a Confucian AP
Bonus: Louis may have some wonder rich cities.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I'm in the "Now & Later" camp.

Axes alone will not efficiently take down Paris and Lyons (if even at all). If we focus on building Axes now while teching towards Construction with an emphasis on preparing extensive chops and whips for the 1st turn Construction is discovered, then a swift and effective invasion should be prepped and ready by Round 5.

If, on the other hand, we wait until the Medieval Era, we might as well leave Louis alone and go for Suleiman. It appears from the map Suleiman has Gems in his Capital and plenty of room for his Imperialistic self to expand into. Meaning by that time, Suleiman will likely have more good land to offer and be in more of a position to cause trouble should he be instead bribed into war against us. If need be, Louis can be cleaned up afterwards.

Specifically, concerning Monarchy: I don't think it's worth it.

Nowhere on the map is there any Wine, so Monarchy would only be for HR. I think we'd be better off going with Validator's idea and chopping the Pyramids in Wheat/Crab/Pig city with the help of Mathematics (and possibly OR from Monotheism).

10 Forests + 2 Workers + Mathematics + OR + 7 base production = Pyramids in 30 turns. (45 turns w/o OR)

I think the above plan also works very well with a quick DoW on Louis. Switching to OR for the 15 turn bonus to the Pyramids won't matter when he already hates us for declaring war. For comparison, the Pyramids only cost 8.5 Axemen to build.

It's also worth mentioning the new exploration has revealed another choice strategic city outside Paris:

This city is strategic and valuable in that it has considerable whipping potential as well as post-war economic potential as a strong specialist city.


I think emphasis this round should be on settling the two strategic locations outside Paris as well as setting up the National Epic city SE of Mecca. Even in the event we do not go to war with Louis, all 3 are still of high economic value.

I also think (in summary) if we don't rush Louis now, then we might as well leave him alone.

 

[Artichoker]

Agree about settling the new cities near France. It looks like east-west movement of units will be guarded by those two cities, effectively blocking in Louis' expansion.

Now, the choice of government is a real question we'll have to consider. With Monarchy, there's no wine, but it unlocks Feudalism, which unlocks the Longbowman. With the Protective leader trait, that makes our battles more efficient.

Regarding diplomatic standings with Louis/Suleiman...I think the focus should be on building a solid defense, regardless of the war situation. With Protective and access to Longbowmen, this should be no problem. We can build Walls in border cities and wait for both of them to declare war on us.


As for attacking Louis, I think we should take advantage of our Copper resource and attack him early. Take a few cities (possibly some with key resources) and tech towards Construction. How we exit the war will require some thought. As I stated earlier, I think we can allow him to keep some of his cities and live...temporarily. This is so we can catch up on settling and city infrastructure, while building the Heroic Epic. As for the cultural pressure from Louis' remaining cities, remember that we have the Madrassa, which gives +4 culture instead of the normal +2. We can whip this in border cities, effectively canceling the +2 from Louis' Creative trait.


Then, sometime later, we should tech towards Feudalism and build a core of defensive cities at the border, defended by Longbowmen. We should then start sending ships to explore new terrtiory, looking for new settling opportunities.

 

[Olodune]

Well, immediate hammers should go towards workers/settlers/axes, in roughly that order.

However, we need to assign beakers towards a more distant goal.

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.

To me this is the largest obstacle preventing economic development. I'd take monarchy soonish. (An early calendar grab or 'mids are alternatives ... expensive alternatives, imho).

I think the real issue is when to hit Louis

Agreed. An axe rush would require a clear focus on the next turnset -- but it looks like most are advising a period of peaceful development (including me). So, I'd head to construction after monarchy. As long as Sisiutil keeps building an axe from time to time, by the time constructions rolls in he should quickly be able to build/whip a complementary force of cats. Louis' culture won't matter then.

 

[Nares]

As for the cultural pressure from Louis' remaining cities, remember that we have the Madrassa, which gives +4 culture instead of the normal +2. We can whip this in border cities, effectively canceling the +2 from Louis' Creative trait.

Is that first city his capital? It's going to be putting out significant cultural pressure.

But that makes it an easily hit target. If he builds the AP, and I think he will, our choice for targets will be made.

Tech path should be Priesthood, Masonry, Monotheism, Mathematics. Or Alphabet and trade, but that doesn't seem guaranteed. The good news is, all of these will probably be researched by someone else already, so they'll be a bit cheaper.

You'll need Catapaults for invasion thanks to Louis' Cultural trait and wonderspam. This opens up Construction. We can swap to OR and build a few Missionaries while researching Mathematics, and swap out shortly after. But first build those cottages.

Once Monotheism is in, we're one tech (Meditation) from bulbing Theology. I still don't think we hold a candle to Louis, so lets get cottages online rather than food and specialists. We're also ready to research Monarchy.

Other techs we can look towards are Iron Working, and Calendar, and I still believe we need Code of Laws before the invasion begins.

Do we expand towards Louis, or do we get the specialist cities online first? We are under some time constraint here, as he's probably not far from Longbows.

Get the closer sites settled. Sheep/Flood Plains to the west, Wheat/Flood Plains to the north, and Wheat/Crab/Pig to the southeast. Mecca still needs at least two cottages and the plains hills need to be mined, especially the one two tiles east of the city.

 

[Scarredroman]

Louis' only got two cities. He's doing something. Lyons has to be the Confucian Holy City and he'll put in temple to work a priest and monastery to get the science bonus. Grantedthere's a chunk of France , Saladin can't see. It's liokely that he's got stone. already hoolked up and a couple of wine. He's french and his favourite civic is hereditary rule. I doubt he has any metal in his BFC. I think he's got the Pyramids abuilding in Paris and has had a number of barbarian raids disconnecting his stone. If the standard 15-axe stack of doom can't take 2 cities defended by archers, scouts and warriors, they don't deserve to carry axes. Louis' UU is gunpowder based and his UB requires Astronomy. Can't see why he'd bulb Theology.

It doesn't seem that anyone has started with an uber production centre from the slow production of wonders.

I am hoping against hope that Justinian is up there and that Saladin can pick up Alphabet and Drama from him in trade (amongst other things).

Mecca's got the makings of a fine GP farm with the NE.

NB: I haven't looked at the savefile, so this is just a guess.

 

[Roxlimn]

OTAKUjbski:

That's another nice food-rich site right there. Soooo good. With all these food sites available, it'd be best if Pyramids can be snagged. That would be a real coup, but it's not a sure thing. A very risky gamble. If Pyramids and Rep can be gotten, it'd be a good point to get the food tiles going fast and then use the Madrassas to run all available Specialists (+3 beakers each!) for all their GPP worth. Parthenon with Marble or Pacifism with Philosophy can leverage that Specialist spam even more.

 

[whakamole]

I see a lot of talk about Louis, and there only seem to be two solutions floating out there: attack him now or attack him later.

One thing I don't see is an option to leverage our protective trait. Let me propose a third option for dealing with Louis:

1) Research sailing to get coastal trade routes going
2) Revolt to Islam as state religion. Extra happy to grow our cities, extra culture to combat Louis' creative trait.
3) Build Islam shrine with your Great Prophet. Allow Islam to spread to Suleiman via our newly-opened coastal trade route to his capital.

So now what do we have? An alliance with Suleiman against Louis (since our trade routes should link to his capital over Louis' trade routes to spread Confuscianism, since I see no roadbuilding to the Ottomans on his end - and if we get OTAKUjbski's newly-discovered city site online, we share one more trade route across that northern bay)... and, of course, we get negative modifiers with Louis over his poor religion choice.

Again, I say so what? Why are we trying to "play nice" with Louis right now?

With a protective trait, let him get mad at us, then waste his resources building towards a war effort while also building his wonders. His nearest copper resource might get claimed by the Ottomans, and even if not, it'll be a while before he gets axemen online. All this copper around might be indicative that iron is not easy to find in this corner of the world, either... so he's only going to have archers and warriors for a while.

So as Louis builds an army, we slip in cheap walls and protective archers in our builds for the waves of Louis' army to crash against and break apart. By the time Louis launches attacks against us, we'll easily use our fortified archers to repel any threats, and we start slipping attack units into our builds as we continue infrastructure. Once Louis is sufficiently weakened by his attempts to attack us, we sally forth to wipe him off the map and take all the nice wonders he's built for us, with the help of our brother in Islam, Suleiman.

The way I see it, that's a great strategy for a Protective civ.

 

[Nares]

3) Build Islam shrine with your Great Prophet. Allow Islam to spread to Suleiman via our newly-opened coastal trade route to his capital.

We need to finish exploring his lands first. There's no guarantee that he has a coastal city up there.

Louis has access to a number of wonders but hasn't seemed to build any. I doubt he's dealt with any more barbs than we have so far. So, what exactly is he doing? His lands are much more developed than ours. He has cottages; we still have zero cottages up. He also already has marble.

Sis hasn't been posting wonders as they've been knocked off (it's possible none have). But Louis is close to Theology and Monarchy. His research into Writing will be at a heavy discount; he knows two pre-reqs and at least two civs have researched Writing already.

He has Animal Husbandry, but still hasn't settled toward those Horses. Now, the AI won't bulb a technology, I believe, or very rarely does. He has a holy city, so his first Great Prophet will probably build a shrine. Any after that will probably be settled.

While Monarchy offers his favorite civic, I don't know how enthusiastic the AI gets over its own favorite civic. I know it will not run its own favorite civic at times. Does it prioritize research towards that civic? I know the AI loves Feudalism. That means Louis will definitely research Writing soon, as it's another pre-req for Feudalism.

But once it researches Writing, it has access to Theology. I suspect that the AI places a very heavy value on the Apostolic Palace.

Given that we haven't seen a wonder yet (that I know of), I'm going to guess that Louis is building the Pyramids for us. Afterwards, he'll build the Oracle (we have no chance I believe), and I think after that he'll be looking at the Apostolic Palace.

Sadly, I think given the current differences in the quality of our cities, especially given that his have developing cottages already, that even if we specifically beelined to the AP, we'd be in a race to build it. He's ahead in tech, with more commerce per turn.

 

[Artichoker]

So as Louis builds an army, we slip in cheap walls and protective archers in our builds for the waves of Louis' army to crash against and break apart. By the time Louis launches attacks against us, we'll easily use our fortified archers to repel any threats, and we start slipping attack units into our builds as we continue infrastructure. Once Louis is sufficiently weakened by his attempts to attack us, we sally forth to wipe him off the map and take all the nice wonders he's built for us, with the help of our brother in Islam, Suleiman.

The way I see it, that's a great strategy for a Protective civ.

It's a good strategy in principle, but it's much better done with Longbowmen instead of Archers.

If we begin with a phase of offensive war, we can take a portion of Louis' cities and make him a non-factor, militarily.

The defensive phase of the war would begin when we gain access to Longbowmen. With the help of cheap Walls, they'd be virtually invincible on defense. Let Louis ally with Suleiman, or any other leader for that matter.

Meanwhile, use the secure position to do naval exploration and expansion. That's where the payoff would be.

 

[vicawoo]

I think the happiness bonus is more useful than the shrine gold right now. If the capital caps on happiness, I don't see why you shouldn't run a religion. You're not to close to Louis, he probably is expanding outward, and he might be building wonders. You're better off opening borders to Suleiman and hoping for some lucky spreading.

With the new land, it seems more important to try to grab the western land than it is to war immediately. He has an early religion, so his holy city will reach 40% pretty fast, as will is capital.

 

[whakamole]

We need to finish exploring his lands first. There's no guarantee that he has a coastal city up there.

Abso-tively correct, Nares. I was a little too quick in evaluating the map, and on first glance, it looked like Suleiman was on the coast. Wait, what was I thinking? The AI typically builds one tile OFF the coast! (That should have been my first gut reaction)

Anyway, yes - I agree with you. More exploration is key, and Sis is already heading for this with his workboat build.

It's a good strategy in principle, but it's much better done with Longbowmen instead of Archers.

I was actually considering this as I typed, but didn't want to have a massively long post that nobody would read... but since you bring it up - yes. A much better strategy with longbows. But until then, with walls and protective archers and axemen in our cities, we should be able to hold off stacks of Louis' warriors/archers and even axemen if he gets that copper (provided our axes take them out before they reach our cities in big numbers). When he hooks up horses, we build some spears. All the while, we cottage up, spread the faith, build a shrine and tech towards machinery and CS (as others have been suggesting). By the time Louis could give us a stack to worry about, we'll be ready with guilds & longbows. In the meantime, we'd have a safety cushion to pursue exploration, REX and early game infrastructure builds to give us a leg up for medieval warfare... and then we take Louis' wonders to get our second leg up.

The idea behind this strategy is really to keep Louis occupied with wonders and military, (and taunting him from behind our walls) so that he doesn't ever really grow his culture or commerce to the point where he gets dangerous, and he stays backwards in tech. We should be able to hold off anything he throws at us in the meantime.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

He has an early religion, so his holy city will reach 40% pretty fast, as will is capital.

Both Paris and Orleans have already popped their borders twice, so they are both already at 40% and working on 60%. It appears Orleans is the Confucian holy city based on the timing of those border pops.

 

[Artichoker]

I was actually considering this as I typed, but didn't want to have a massively long post that nobody would read... but since you bring it up - yes. A much better strategy with longbows. But until then, with walls and protective archers and axemen in our cities, we should be able to hold off stacks of Louis' warriors/archers and even axemen if he gets that copper (provided our axes take them out before they reach our cities in big numbers). When he hooks up horses, we build some spears. All the while, we cottage up, spread the faith, build a shrine and tech towards machinery and CS (as others have been suggesting). By the time Louis could give us a stack to worry about, we'll be ready with guilds & longbows. In the meantime, we'd have a safety cushion to pursue exploration, REX and early game infrastructure builds to give us a leg up for medieval warfare... and then we take Louis' wonders to get our second leg up.

The idea behind this strategy is really to keep Louis occupied with wonders and military, (and taunting him from behind our walls) so that he doesn't ever really grow his culture or commerce to the point where he gets dangerous, and he stays backwards in tech. We should be able to hold off anything he throws at us in the meantime.

The one concern I have with this strategy is that Guilds appears pretty late..probably more than halfway down the tech tree.

Saladin's leader traits are Spiritual and Protective...there's not much economic power there to support a 100% peaceful expansion. Once we get access to Bureacracy, Vassalage, Organized Religion, and Theocracy, things will be much better, but before then, Saladin's economic bonuses are close to zero.

If we war early, there's a good opportunity to gain some important resources and cities. Also, there is the opportunity to earn a Great General, which we can settle in the HE city to strengthen military production.

Without the additional resources, the happiness of cities will be limited. This will, in turn, limit economic growth until adequate happiness resources are found.

 

[whakamole]

The one concern I have with this strategy is that Guilds appears pretty late..probably more than halfway down the tech tree.

I should have been more clear in my post - when I said "we'll be ready with guilds & longbows" I should have said "we'll be ready with camel archers & longbows" (we only need feudalism for longbows - one step from Monarchy, which is what many people are advocating as a tech push). I was anticipating we'd be pushing to get our UU up for war as soon as possible in the spirit of the ALC games, but if we haven't yet reached guilds before we'd be ready to pursue an offense campaign, this could still work with just longbows and good offensive units.

Anyway, this strategy is just food for thought, and one that would be interesting to play out, considering our civ's leader abilities. I'm all for proving how weak leaders and weak traits can be shown to be strong in the right situations. It's still too far off, with too many variables between now and then, to absolutely plan for this... so I'm just sayin' - we've seen an early axe rush, we've seen a city raider maceman attack... but we haven't yet seen an enemy exhaust itself on our defenses and then get gutted like a cat at a tennis racket factory.

 

[Validator]

I think the happiness bonus is more useful than the shrine gold right now. If the capital caps on happiness, I don't see why you shouldn't run a religion. You're not to close to Louis, he probably is expanding outward, and he might be building wonders. You're better off opening borders to Suleiman and hoping for some lucky spreading.

This is a good point. With no other sources of available, getting the SR +1 amounts to a 20% increase in Mecca's output (i.e. going from 5 pop to 6). Monarchy (or whatever tech is targeted ) will be reached faster if Mecca is able to work an additional cottage (once they're built of course ).

The "heathen religion" hit with Louis will probably cause him to go to "Annoyed" but it seems unlikely he'd go to war because of it.

Once the SR bonus isn't needed you can switch back to NSR, and of course Spiritual means you're not losing any turns to anarchy either time.

Of course if Suleiman happens to convert to Islam in the meantime you might want to stay with Islam.