ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

[Validator]

A couple of quick points from looking at the save:

Great Wall was built in 2325 BC and Stonehenge in 1825 BC. Both were built by unknown. I don't know what to make of GW's build year. It seems really early to me, but maybe it's just the Emperor-level AI. Or it could be that there's an Industrious civ on the other continent, or a civ with Stone in its capital's BFC, or a civ with both .

According to the trade screen Louis has already founded his third city. The road graphic in Paris' pig tile would seem to indicate it's located to the south by the horses, but that may be reading too much into a tiny graphic detail. There's also the source of copper just north of French territory, so that's a possibility too. I would think the woodsman III warrior should be ending its exploration and heading back through France (thanks to OB) to find the third French city and finish revealing the tiles in the heart of France. Keep in mind that before we make plans on when to attack Louis is might be helpful to know if Paris and Orleans are located on hills.

Looking at the total EPs that each of the leaders have toward each other it appears that there are no more leaders on this landmass. Suleiman has 364 EPs which is exactly what his palace would have generated if he met Louis on turn 9 (which seems reasonable). If he hasn't used the Espionage slider then this would mean he hasn't met any other leaders.

 

[zombiestomp]

one thing that a protective civ can leverage are cheap castles, too.

i know that they suck, and i'm an idiot, but you probably will want to hang back and build up a bit before you attack louis. grab three, maybe four new cities. tack on engineering and you get a cheap, early, extra trade route.

as far as taking louis, i'd say you need three things: construction for catapults to lower his high cultural defenses, guilds for the camel archer with a 25% withdrawal bonus, and horseback riding for stables to promote those camel archers to flanking 2.

this will all take a while, but with the city sites available to you i see no reason to blow a load of hammers trying to take cities you could barely pay for anyway. then when you do take them, they'll be nice and big and might even have some wonders.

i wouldn't stop with louis and just keep stream-rolling on over sulieman, too. gauging by the speed that those other wonders were built, and the fact that two of the three early religions are already stuck on this continent, i would guess that the other hemisphere is just one big tech-trading family. you will need the production of that entire continent to compete, so CoL and courthouses are important, too.

 

[zombiestomp]

settle in close to louis to force his expansion back westward, then back-fill the east. even if he does attack you, which i'd say is fifty-fifty, cheap walls and protective archers/spearmen will hold up to his chariot/archer attack. the only problem would be a cultural flip, but you have the madrassa so i think it's a moot point.

 

[Nares]

The road graphic in Paris' pig tile would seem to indicate it's located to the south by the horses, but that may be reading too much into a tiny graphic detail.

He does have Animal Husbandry, though I think the AI likes to build road networks frequently.

 

[Scarredroman]

The third French city makes things a little more interesting amd suggests that the attack schedule should be advanced before chariots make an appearance. A couple of spears pollutes the 'axe only' stack. Of course the French will have at least one city on a hill.

The Stonehenge date looks like it came from a masonry pop from a goody hut. It doesn't suggest that there's a civ with industrious and stone. Stonehenge is late, which indicates that it wasn't founded by a leader with mysticism. Only 2 wonders by 1500!

Aren't the EP totals displayed for leraders "our" civs knows and as such not an indicator that there's no other civ on this continent?

The early axe rush has been a feature of Sisiutil's ALC games. It's good to see some old Civ III strategies still followed - like the worker at pop 2 and settler at 4.

 

[Airefuego]

Subscribing.

War is best as soon as possible after the target has been fixed.

In this case, "possible" means Cats.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

It's good to see some old Civ III strategies still followed - like the worker at pop 2 and settler at 4.

... neither of which are the strongest (read: "best") opening strategies. (But I guess I'm about 12 pages late for that discussion, eh?)

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Worker at 2 I'm not fond of unless you have no useful worker techs (Sal is pretty bad in that regard however). Settler at 4 seems good though, you can whip for 2 pop then. I suppose it depends if you chop a settler or not.

 

[Sisiutil]

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

Don't worry, I will leverage the Protective trait sooner or later.

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.

This very effectively sums up my dilemma and the discussion to this point. Do I axe-rush Louis now, or make nice, REX, and go after him later? What makes the most sense?

Attacking Louis early is definitely a possibility. I'm reminded of the early Axe-rush of Charlemagne in the first Isabella ALC. He wasn't Creative, but he was Protective and had a holy city with high cultural defenses. It took a lot of Axemen, but I was able to rush in and defeat him. Up until then, I'd always thought an Axe-rush of a Protective leader was a non-starter. And Louis isn't even Protective, he just has the advantages of Creative's high cultural defenses.

In terms of the leader, however, a medieval war makes more sense. That way I would be able to take full advantage of Saladin's strengths: Protective Longbows, Camel Archers, cheap walls and castles, not to mention quick Spiritual-powered civics switches into Vasselage and Theocracy. And I'll have Catapults and Trebuchets to deal with Louis' cultural defenses.

The disadvantage of waiting is that Louis gets the chance to expand and possibly beat us to come of our desired city spots; he'll get more powerful, possibly powered by wonders; and there's the tile contention from his Creative trait. If his capital is a holy city and/or spewing wonders, our UB and cheap temples in those nearby cities we have planned may not be enough to fend of the cultural pressure.

And my own Civ instincts tell me that waiting until the medieval era for your first war is waiting too long. So what I'm inclined to do is to REX and then attack Louis in the classical era once I have Iron for Swordsmen and Construction for Catapults. Even if Louis beats me to a couple of spots, I still have lots of good land for a half-dozen decent cities. And having Catapults will be the counter to Louis' creative trait and potential additions to cultural defenses from wonders. What does everyone think of that plan?

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.

I am leaning towards teching towards Monarchy for this reason as well. Too bad there's no wine, but you can't have everything. And once again, I think it plays to the strengths of the leader--Mysticism giving me a slight edge in researching Monarchy along the early religious tech path.

I'll wait to see a little more debate on the two main discussion points (war/peace with Louis and the upcoming tech path) and then make my decisions and play the round. You'll probably see it posted here tomorrow night sometime.

 

[Validator]

He does have Animal Husbandry, though I think the AI likes to build road networks frequently.

Just to clarify my earlier post I was talking about what the road graphic in that tile looks like:

It appears to connect to the tile to the SW, suggesting another city in that area. Unless the AI is following Sisiutil's lead and building roads to nowhere.

 

[Sisiutil]

Unless the AI is following Sisiutil's lead and building roads to nowhere.

What can I say, I'm a Talking Heads fan from way back.

 

[zombiestomp]

if you do war in the classical era, with swords and cats, i suggest keeping it somewhat limited. take down just one or two cities and then keep pillaging until you get those camel archers. war weariness is not as much of a problem in the early game, so you could cripple him while waiting for a more decisive strike.

i guess that all you need really are cats to take his cities. once the cultural defense is gone, he has no advantages over any other leader. it's just that i really want to see those camel archers in play, as i've never used them.

also, i worry about the costs of maintaining a large empire in an early game without financial as your trait. just because you could take those cities now doesn't mean that they will be immediatey useful. it could drag you down for a while, not forever, though, and you could easily build back the economy and be fine. i just see some advantages with waiting and letting him build up those cities for you.

of course, if you plan on razing all but one of his cities anyway, then i guess go for it.

a word of caution. all of this meticulous planning for what to do with the french is done while completely ignoring the other continent which, by this point, has only one religion shared amongst them. what happens when they find you, diddling around in the medieval age when they have astonomy. plus, they'll probably hate you if you decide on having a state religion. stonehenge came sort of late, which might indicate no religious fanatics, but the great wall came really early for the ai, so there has to be something going on there. scarredroman is probably right about them popping masonry from a hut, but either way they got it up pretty fast. and just because only two wonders have built, i wouldn't take this as a good sign. they all could have gone for the same ones, missed it, and now have a pile of gold to research with and then tech-trade with each other.

expand toward louis. when do cities ever culture flip? hardly ever. the real issue is not being able to work any tiles, and the madrassa and cheap temples could at least hold the borders at bay while you prepare a strike force. backfill the east, then crush him and sully with a big stack of camels. they're fast, so with a medic 3 in tow and great withdrawal chances, you can push an early blitz all over your continent.

 

[zombiestomp]

quote: What can I say, I'm a Talking Heads fan from way back.

har har. start making sense.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

WARNING: Another long-ass post under the guise of just "2 ":

If his capital is a holy city and/or spewing wonders, our UB and cheap temples in those nearby cities we have planned may not be enough to fend of the cultural pressure.

Paris isn't a holy city. France's 2nd city ("Orleans", I think, is the 2nd French city name) was settled by the end of Round 1 on Turn 55. Confucianism was founded on Turn 78. Unless the AI plays by a different set of rules, Confucianism was therefore not founded in Paris. It was most likely founded in that 2nd city, Orleans.

And my own Civ instincts tell me that waiting until the medieval era for your first war is waiting too long. So what I'm inclined to do is to REX and then attack Louis in the classical era once I have Iron for Swordsmen and Construction for Catapults ... What does everyone think of that plan?

I'm doing an unexpected about face here.

Why are we attacking Louis?

• Is he right on top of us begging for a smack down? No. Paris is 16.5 tiles from Mecca, and it appears his expansion cities are even farther than that.
  
• Is he an easy target? No. He is Creative and has a Holy City. (We also don't know if his cities are hilltop, yet.)
  
• Is he about to win the game? No, lol.
  
• Is he blocking our expansion? No. Including the 2 planned cities on Louis' borders and Mecca, we have 5 great city sites and 3-4 okay city sites planned (3 & 3 otherwise) -- plenty of land to work with for the time being.
  
• Does he have a Holy City? Nothing we don't already have ourselves (both unshrined, mind you).
  
• Does he have a resource we need? No. He has Pig, Wheat, Silk & Marble with a possible Copper and Horse soon. We have ALL of those resources except Horse, which we don't need [for our UU]. (Some of his tiles are yet revealed, and we don't know where Iron is, so that is a future possibility.)
  
• Is he holding the key to the Heroic Epic? No. We already have a lvl4 Woodsman III Warrior thanks to the Leadership random event.
  
• Does his land shimmer in the morning sun like calm waters on a chill Winter morning? Not hardly.
  
• Are we ready for a war? Arguable, but probably not.

So, again, I raise the question: Why are we attacking Louis?

I think this discussion is a knee-jerk reaction to our "Civ instincts" to crack open the first head we see like it's a candy-filled piñata. (That's what I always do.)

But nothing about this situation merits attacking anybody yet. We have plenty of good land to work with for the time being and aren't even in a position to afford Louis' cities.

This war will be a long, drawn-out, expensive war I don't think we can afford.

Even if we do beeline Code of Laws to better afford it, we might be doing the wrong thing, because we will (yet again) take another religion for our island -- all but sealing the other continent's fate as a bunch of peace-loving hippies under their one religion, Christianity. (Are we still planning on bulbing Theology?)

Like zombiestomp said, we might be digging ourselves into a deep hole by poking our stick in places it doesn't belong.

Let's jump on the "hippie highway" and tech trade ourselves into a peaceful bliss. If the other continent isn't a bunch of hippies, we'll be even more so ensuring when we get to Astronomy, they will be the backwards, Medieval civs.

A few points in favour of the "hippie highway":

• Both Louis and Suleiman's favourite Civic is Hereditary Rule. This very likely means a Monarchy beeling in both of their technological futures, which is the same thing we're doing. This also means staying friends should be a fairly easy undertaking.
  
• Both Louis and Suleiman have UU Muskets. This very likely means a Guilds/Gunpowder beeline in both of their technological futures, which is the same thing we're doing. This is very good for us if we tech all the "other" stuff and trade it with them. It's very bad (even stupid versus the Janissary) for us if we try to leverage our mounted UU and Protective non-unique Muskets against them.
  
• The AI sucks at naval warfare. If we focus on making "Astronomical Warfare" our goal [with Protective Gunpowder units ], defending our continent shouldn't be too difficult. This will be made even more apparent once we get a foothold on the other continent. This also ensures Louis and Suleiman won't be getting in our way once war is waged.
  
• We control Islam. This plus Spiritual is just another tool we can use to pick other civs off.

I am leaning towards teching towards Monarchy for this reason as well. Too bad there's no wine, but you can't have everything. And once again, I think it plays to the strengths of the leader--Mysticism giving me a slight edge in researching Monarchy along the early religious tech path.

Tech Alphabet and trade it for Monarchy and whatever other techs you can get from Suleiman and Louis.

Tech brokering is off, so I have full confidence you'll be able to make the right tech decisions later to ensure the most optimal tech trading situations between the 3 of you guys.

We may or may not be able to do so as quickly as I hope, but I think if we make haste, we will be able to showcase both the Camel Archer and our Protective Muskets against the other continent!

The AI loves to buddy up and quickly tech trade themselves into the Modern. Why don't you do the same against them in this ALC?


-- my last 2 for this round

 

[Olodune]

And my own Civ instincts tell me that waiting until the medieval era for your first war is waiting too long. So what I'm inclined to do is to REX and then attack Louis in the classical era once I have Iron for Swordsmen and Construction for Catapults. Even if Louis beats me to a couple of spots, I still have lots of good land for a half-dozen decent cities. And having Catapults will be the counter to Louis' creative trait and potential additions to cultural defenses from wonders. What does everyone think of that plan?

My instincts also lean towards a catapult war (swords are optional). A medieval war makes some sense if you can grab most of the spots on the dotmaps and Louis gets contained. I'd put all my espionage against Louis in this case for a few revolts -- battering down castles is a painful process.

Oh, and uh, cottage those floodplains already Or irrigate them if you prefer -- unimproved tiles in the capital that have been worked for thousands of years doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

imho, louis will declare on you anyway since you plan to more or less landblock him

 

[Validator]

If an axe rush is going to occur it needs to happen ASAP. Of course neither Mecca nor Medina have really been developed with thought of an axe rush, so building up enough troops will be difficult. I wouldn't even consider it unless the scouting warrior discovers that the French cities are very poorly defended, and neither Paris nor Orleans are on hills.

Expansion to 5 cities (or so) would probably make the most sense at this point. Also focus on vertical expansion to make the cities much more productive. This will provide the foundation for either a sword/catapult based war in the next round or a peaceful buildup to medieval war. We can decide next update what is best.

If we focus on making "Astronomical Warfare" our goal [with Protective Gunpowder units ], defending our continent shouldn't be too difficult. This will be made even more apparent once we get a foothold on the other continent. This also ensures Louis and Suleiman won't be getting in our way once war is waged.

I agree with most of your analysis of the military situation. But I don't understand this part. Waring with civs on other continents is much harder than with civs on your own continent. And given distance maintenance and colonial maintenance it's much more expensive.

It seems to be pretty standard practice to gain full control of your own continent before venturing to overseas lands. At the very least you invite an extremely nasty if you allow relatively powerful civs on your continent to live.

I know Sisiutil has been having an easy time of it on Emperor, but I think adopting the unconventional "conquer the other continent first" strategy might be a little too much to handle.

Tech Alphabet and trade it for Monarchy and whatever other techs you can get from Suleiman and Louis.

That's a little bit more of a gamble that I would want to take. With very limited sources of available it's going to be impossible to get much productivity out of the cities prior to HR becoming available. IMO the AI is a little too unpredictable about its tech path to delay a critical tech in hopes of trading for it. But Sisiutil is the master of tech trading so I'm sure his decision of tech choice will work out.

 

[ace94d]

IMO, wait to war into Medievil times. We have enough land to get it going until then. Beeline Monarchy, then Alphabet, then if we don't have it/can't trade for it, beeline Currency.

 

[madscientist]

I'll give you mt very short reply to what I think of the dilemma.

1) The Isabella/Charlemange game had him right on your doorstep with a holy city. You had room for 1 maybe 2 more cities. There was no choice there.

2) Louis in NOT on your doorstep. Nor does his UU/UB come ealry, they are rather late.

3) If he builds wonders, he's not building military.

4) Suliman can be manipulated. Wating increases the chance of getting him on your side.

5) AS discussed previous, and I still think this. USe teh UB for Prophets, get 1 shrine, bulb theology, build the AP. That allows you to go after Louis from military (UU) and religious (AP) strength.

My nickle's worth.

 

[Kietharr]

Leave Louis alone for the time being, he really poses no threat to you and you have priorities. Get the silver city up, then the second bronze city, mostly for the silks, partly to deny Louis a chance at its copper. Louis as an AI tends to act like he did IRL, building lots of shiny stuff while neglecting the needs of his people, their need for a defensive army in this case. Kill him as soon as you either run out of room to settle or he starts screwing up your dotmap with badly placed cities.

Plus you can use him as a tech trading partner until its his time to die, either go confucian and trade with him or convert Sully to Islam so you can jihad Louis's arse back into the stone age and beat techs out of him. Just be sure not to isolate yourself against emperor AI too early, don't even consider claiming your entire continent until you've met the other continent.

I think the one thing we can all agree on though is that Louis has to die.