ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

[Nares]

I'm curious as to what people's opinions are regarding having a holy city that your enemy does not, and increased Castle production speed from Protective.

I'm unfamiliar with espionage, but from what I understand, you receive a bonus if the target city has your state religion, but it's owner does not. You receive an even greater bonus if you have the holy city of that religion.

This could be played to our advantage. Assuming we're on a 3 civ continent, we can prepare for war against our primary target, and spread our religion to the third civ, who hopefully has one of the early religions.

With Protective, you build Castles faster. Castles provide a nice modifier to espionage. For this reason alone, I'd really love to see stone nearby.

While these benefits are small, I'm curious as to how they can still be leveraged. As I said, I'm unfamiliar with espionage, but I am aware there are other structures that benefit espionage. What are those?

Can we use targeted espionage to clear select techs?

 

[slaze]

I'm unfamiliar with espionage, but from what I understand, you receive a bonus if the target city has your state religion, but it's owner does not. You receive an even greater bonus if you have the holy city of that religion.

You get a 40% multiplier if you perform espionage in a city with the same religion and you control the holy city and are in that religion.

I'm unfamiliar with espionage, but I am aware there are other structures that benefit espionage. What are those?

It goes:

Castles .....................+25%
Nationalism ................+25%
Jails .........................+50% (Constitution)
Intelligence Agency .....+50% (Communism)

and Scotland yard ......+100%

Can we use targeted espionage to clear select techs?

Basically, you tech up to Engineering, get your castles up, and steal the rest.

 

[Strato]

One question I want to know is by settling in place, what would the city specialise in. I see a lot of potential for both food, hammers and coin, yet if I was in this situation, I'd be stuck thinking of where it would best serve the empire.

But I'm of the opinion that by founding an early religion (perhaps Hinduism because I think buddhism is out due to the AI tech bonus) and having the city as a holy city would be of great benefit for the money to come in, with a shrine and possibly spiral minaret built (the hills mean this city can develop some hammers and be able to win a wonder or two). The nice food bonus would also suggest some potential for priests to help develop some early GPP, I'm not sure if this would be a suitable GP farm, but I'm not too good with those anyway.

Well, this is all long term thinking, but yeah, I just wonder what others think the city would be best specialised in (if at all).

 

[Der Graf]

It would be very much in the spirit of a Saladin game to include the founding of an early religion so I say polytheism first followed by mining or agriculture depending on whether you want food first or hammers and are going a military route...

The AI prefers heading to Polytheism in BtS. If an early religion should be consensus, I'd try a shot on Meditation, Saladin starts with Mysticism.

 

[patagonia]

One question I want to know is by settling in place, what would the city specialise in. I see a lot of potential for both food, hammers and coin, yet if I was in this situation, I'd be stuck thinking of where it would best serve the empire.

As Slaze said, you'll want farms initially to help with worker/settler production.

Then you'll want cottages in preparation for bureaucracy.

Later you'll either want farms to pump artists (cultural victory); or you'll want workshops/watermills for a brute of an ironworks (space victory); or you'll want to keep the cottages for Oxford (pretty much any other victory).

The ultimate decision can be left a fair while at this stage until we know what other city spots have been settled. All it means initially is that one national wonder slot needs to be kept free until the renaissance or a final decision is taken.

The AI prefers heading to Polytheism in BtS. If an early religion should be consensus, I'd try a shot on Meditation, Saladin starts with Mysticism.

Isabella definitely prefers meditation though, so it's still a major gamble. And that's overlooking the fact that it'll be a long, long time before we're able to build any improvements other than roads if we go religion first. With Saladin's UB he can easily pick up a religion later on and run priests regardless so I see no need to cripple ourselves in the early game by gambling on one of the first two.

 

[madscientist]

Regarding castles: They are powerful in BTS but short lived. They give you

1) +25% espionage
2) +trade route
3) + 50% versus barrage, so it take alot longer for the AI to reduce your defensive bonus
4) Traditional +25% defense
5) +1 culture

Items 1 and 2 go obsolete at economics (which leads to corporation). You lose espionage bonus but do not lose the trade route IF you revolt to free Market.

Items 3 and 4 go obsolete at rifling

You cannot build castles after teching economics.

So the biggets decision on castles is how long your willing to let your trade route yields suffer (meaning delaying corporation) for the espionage bonus.

My experience is that the earlier you get economics/corporation the better unless you need the defensive bonus in uncastled cities.

 

[Nares]

So the biggets decision on castles is how long your willing to let your trade route yields suffer (meaning delaying corporation) for the espionage bonus.

I was thinking just enough espionage for a small handful of techs.

Not enough to warrant delaying research of an important tech.

 

[Polobo]

Until you get the espionage generating buildings maintain research while stealing techs via espionage really isn't feasible nor desirable, and ever after it isn't that easy to accomplish. If we find ourselves behind in tech to a continental neighbor then switching over to an EE and catching up isn't a bad idea, in which case we get to Engineering and then head for Nationalism, skipping Liberalism and Economics since the freebies won't be around anyway by the time we get there, and a castle in every city is just as good as Free Market until corporations come around.

The thing to keep in mind with an EE is that all your science multiplier buildings become useless, and CoL and the Great Wall become really important for seting up Scotland Yards. In EE it is more important to build markets and grocers and banks than building libraries, universities and observatories (though some will be needed, and with the extra priest slots the madrassa is beneficial regardless IF you run the priests, ideally under Ankor Wat.) Also, you cannot build espionage like you can research and wealth.

 

[Nares]

If we find ourselves behind in tech to a continental neighbor then switching over to an EE and catching up isn't a bad idea

Are you trying to say that we won't be able to leverage cheap castles and multiple holy cities to steal 1-2 techs?

I don't think a full blown EE is whats wanted here. Madscientist notes that delaying Economics in order to hold onto castles is a waste. I'm looking to leverage this to grab 1-2 techs shortly after we first research Engineering.

I've gathered that the Great Wall and Courthouses provide espionage points. What other structures do?

 

[madscientist]

@Nares, Its' real hard to turn on espionage like that for swiping a few techs after building castles all over. To me, the best way to continually utilize espionage for stealing techs is to build the Great Wall, settle the Great Spy (3 beakers, 12 eps) and start focusing eps towards which ever AI has a tech your interested in. The next Great Spy gets scotland yard in the same city,followed by a jail, castle, etc.....

This approach allows you to tech normally, but get's enough eps to backfill techs (polytheism, calender, guilds, etc...) within the age your playing all the way up to computers where the internet should take over.

As odd as it sounds, one of the best leaders I have done this with is Ghengis Khan. Great Wall with Imperialistic trait and some smart defensive warring get's you alot of GGs fast plus the settled Great Spy let's you steal the techs you are falling behind in due to Khan's lack of economic traits. Even odder, my game with him generally lead to a space race win.

But that's off subject. Sal's strength is the religious game, and the more prophets the better. So ignore the espionage in this game, or get enough to help take down some cities during war.

 

[madscientist]

Espionage producing buildings:

Courthouses
Jails
Security bureau
one other that I cannot remember the name of
Scotland yard (requires a Great Spy, similar to a Prophet for a shrine)
Castle

I think that is it.

Wonders

Great Wall (Great SPy points)
Kremlin (Great spy points) but allow you to run 3 extra Spies (I think)
Pentagon (great Spy points)

Stealing one or two techs is harder than your think because by the time of engineering you need a significant number of eps, unless you have delayed techs like monotheism or archery.

 

[Nares]

Stealing one or two techs is harder than your think because by the time of engineering you need a significant number of eps, unless you have delayed techs like monotheism or archery.

The idea was that the mission would be at reduced cost, due to the religious aspect, combined with quick castles for a slight boost in EP.

I see this as non-GP farms run spies in place of priests, MMd so as not to pop an unwanted Great Spy. I take it we would want to supplement our espionage points. Castles are only a modifier for point accumulation, not a source of points themselves.

I'm assuming we'll have at least two religions, one of which we'll spread to our enemy. This gives us a holy city of a religion we can run as state religion on the fly (yay Spiritual), and more importantly is a religion present in our enemy's city, but isn't our enemy's state religion.

But from what it sounds like, we would need to be a bit more devoted to espionage to make it work.

 

[oynaz]

If you are protective and have a source of stone, I believe castles are worth it. They become quite cheap, then.

 

[oyzar]

Castles are still not very hot as they expire with economics, however it makes UoS and SM cheaper which makes it more probable to get them(and along with getting the AP religion that is some savage cheap temples you can get in all cities...).

 

[Polobo]

Are you trying to say that we won't be able to leverage cheap castles and multiple holy cities to steal 1-2 techs?

I don't think a full blown EE is whats wanted here. Madscientist notes that delaying Economics in order to hold onto castles is a waste. I'm looking to leverage this to grab 1-2 techs shortly after we first research Engineering.

I've gathered that the Great Wall and Courthouses provide espionage points. What other structures do?

I would agree, but in order to steal mid-game techs without a great spy espionage mission either we will have to forgo espionage spending on other civs or will have to use the espionage slider. As for delaying economics, it is only a waste if the delay causes us to miss the free great merchant (although I agree that being able to give Economics to the AI to get them out of Merc. is worthwhile). If we are going to miss being the first to econ anyway (either because we are behind in techs to a financial civ or we decide to take an alternate tech route) delaying it even further and capitalizing on the castle bonus is a good idea.

It really requires seeing how the game plays out but generally I am FOR doing the castle leverage and stealing some techs after Engineering and/or Nationalism but I understand that this will cause us to possibly forgo being the first to Liberalism and other "first-to" technologies. The benefit is that we will effective research these techs more cheaply and if we have a strong production base producing the numerous spies necessary to make this work shouldn't be a problem.

Along those lines, we might as well delay education as well for the reasons mentioned in my prior post, which effectively has us give up the liberalism race. This also delay Economics but allows us to go down the Nationalism, Constitution and Democracy path, further enhancing our espionage capabilities and opens up Representation. As we get more of these buildings up we can steal our way toward economics and liberalism where we finally give up our castles. Then, if we are reasonably close in technology, we transition back to science and start building universities and the like while running Representation to even further increase our science output and priest and spy yields. From there on out we can quickly leverage our infrastructure to focus on espionage when a situation presents itself or tech via science to work toward rifling and a military advantage and possibly start heading toward space.

 

[Polobo]

Espionage producing buildings:

Courthouses
Jails
Security bureau
one other that I cannot remember the name of
Scotland yard (requires a Great Spy, similar to a Prophet for a shrine)
Castle

I think that is it.

Wonders

Great Wall (Great SPy points)
Kremlin (Great spy points) but allow you to run 3 extra Spies (I think)
Pentagon (great Spy points)

Stealing one or two techs is harder than your think because by the time of engineering you need a significant number of eps, unless you have delayed techs like monotheism or archery.

Buildings:
Courthouse (+2EP, 1 Spy Slot) - Code of Laws
Jail (+50% EP, +4EP, -25% WW) - Constitution
Security Bureau (+8EP, Counter-Espionage Bonus - frees up a spy) - Democracy
*Intelligence Agency (+8EP, +50% EP) - Communism
Castle (+25% EP) - Engineering
Scotland Yard (+100% EP)

Edit: Jail, Security Bureau, IA and Kremlin allow 2 spy slots each.

Civic:
Nationhood (+25% EP, Req. Nationalism) - Government (i.e., requires giving up Bureaucracy)

Of course we are spiritual so the civic switch itself isn't that big a deal but depending on whether the Scotland Yard is in the capital with other buildings the added commerce if we are running a dedicated EE may be worth more than a distributed +25% EP. Of course, the NO UPKEEP is really nice as well.

 

[CivCorpse]

Suggestion for future ALC games....move the scout/warrior before posting the starting position. Or even better Settle in place each game. Then we can have a game instead of ten pages of discussion on where to move the scout. It has gotten to the point where I just wait the month or so for the ALC to be done then read the write up.

 

[madscientist]

Suggestion for future ALC games....move the scout/warrior before posting the starting position. Or even better Settle in place each game. Then we can have a game instead of ten pages of discussion on where to move the scout. It has gotten to the point where I just wait the month or so for the ALC to be done then read the write up.

I think Sis started doing that at the beginning, but everyone wanted to run him out of town. Seams like this community like their 10 page minimum of where to move the settler.

 

[cas]

The AI prefers heading to Polytheism in BtS. If an early religion should be consensus, I'd try a shot on Meditation, Saladin starts with Mysticism.

That is the exact opposite of my experience. I've played approx 50 games (early stages only) testing different start strategies in the last 2 weeks. The AI does go Poly more in BtS. If I don't go for an early religion, a 2nd AI usually founds it a few turns after Med/Bud. But for whatever reason, I can beat them to Poly >60% of the time whereas Meditation is <20% with a similar start position to this (2 FP tiles to work starting with warrior build to get pop2).

Plus Poly is on the path to Mono. Meditation can be overlooked for a long time unless you are trying to beeline Philo.

cas

 

[Daedal]

I think Sis started doing that at the beginning, but everyone wanted to run him out of town. Seams like this community like their 10 page minimum of where to move the settler.

Although in this case there's already discussion of the mid-game before the warrior has even moved. At this rate we'll have played out the entire game by the end of the first round.