ALC Game 22: Arabs/Saladin

[Polobo]

Farms.

With the free Fishing, which I assume everyone got, it also reduces the cost of Pottery.

But the real blessing is in increased growth rate.

Here's a better question. Why Hunting?

See my previous post for "why hunting".

While pottery becomes cheaper once you've research agriculture the reduction in cost is LESS THAN the cost of agriculture. If we needed agriculture anyway then maybe but putting down a few cottages first and thus boosting our science rate will make the time to research agriculture fairly minimal and we can research it just before we need to start building farms on our second or third city.

 

[Daedal]

I agree, but I think what would be a smarter play with Saladin is to not go after an early religion, but to leverage the Madrassa to generate a Great Prophet to pop a religion from something like Monotheism or Theology--if that's warranted. On this map, it wasn't; as I mentioned, Louis, though he has not advantages in this regard, likes founding religions. Had I known I was starting next to him, I would have not pursued Polytheism but left it to him. However, I played an off-line game a while back where I was playing as Julius on a continent with Shaka, Sury, Ragnar, and Sitting Bull; no one founded a religion until Shaka discovered one from Theology. If I'd been playing as Saladin, founding a spreading a religion would have been entirely warranted in that situation.

The trouble with founding a religion is you don't know if it's worthwhile until it's too late. It's also a gambit with a low return.. what does it give you to found a religion? Shrine income? You can still get that from a captured shrine city. Peace with your neighbors? Spreading a minority religion to a rival? All possible without being the one to waste the beakers founding a religion. I like the idea of founding a religion for the RP value, but CIV simply won't let you get away from optimal play at higher levels. Maybe if founding a religion gave some extra bonus... but it doesn't.

Regarding someone's comment earlier about Sisiutil playing a very aggressive game and starting each game with either a REX or a conquest... it may be standard, but it's effective. If you don't expand up or out, you fall behind and lose. WE isn't exactly Sisiutil's style, so expanding up is not an option. Expanding out requires a REX or a war.

 

[idiot_savant]

I have to agree with some of the other posters that the plan as executed was not well tailored to Saladin either in terms of victory conditions or tech selections. Resources clearly had a lot to do with it as well as drawing some inaccurate conclusions on what Louis' strategy was (ie. Oracle to MC to Machinery... Xbow army).

Next time I would recommend playing more to Saladin's strengths:
1) SE. Sounds like Sis was doing this. Doing so in a peaceful way early would create better opportunities for Sally imo, then using it to supplement an axe rush. It also leads into...
2) Feudalism or Machinery slingshot. Both difficult, but think we should try for one and leverage Protective offensively. Feudalism could be leveraged by early prophet lightbulbing Monarchy and using Oracle for Feudalism. Machinery is a more well-known path and can be leveraged via GSs if you don't take or need Fishing early. Both techs put us in line to go after the UU quickly after that as well.

I also think assessing whether an early culture win is viable is important. Sally I think lends himself to this. We had enough land to build the requisite cities, etc., in the first game. While less exciting, hindsight -- 20/20 as always so no knock on Sis -- would indicate that this was the strongest victory condition available imo.

 

[Nares]

An unimproved floodplain is equivalent to a farmed grassland so we really aren't that worse off competitively and we don't have to worry about cottaging over farms in preparation for Bureaucracy.

Making less than maximum use of your terrain, simply because it is "comparatively better" than other possible terrain, is still making less than maximum use of your terrain.

Therefore, hunting (cheaper and leads to archery for inexpensive and promoted defenders) would have been better off since we already had fishing to open up pottery.

We still want Hunting. Possibly even Agriculture -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry.

The discount for knowing agriculture wouldn't be worthwhile especially since we decided to research Polytheism early.

And this is widely viewed as the wrong decision, especially given the leader and his easy access to priest specialists.

The key here is growth. Prioritizing Hunting over Agriculture gives us earlier access to Archery. That is all it does.

It skips a worker tech which we'll presumably need. You cannot know that there will be few or no Agriculture resources, except in the immediate vicinity. Given Saladin's lack of worker techs, we're forced into researching one early on. This gives us the choices of Agriculture or Mining, with Hunting as an option if we find a Hunting resource in our BFC. Mining doesn't offer the early growth opportunity that Agriculture does.

One of the hallmarks of this ALC was wasted worker turns. Wasting them on an idling worker is as bad as wasting them building a road to nowhere.

Our earlier access to Archery is squandered, both because we still need to research multiple worker techs, and also because we don't have the capacity for building archers yet.

 

[kazapp]

The trouble with founding a religion is you don't know if it's worthwhile until it's too late. It's also a gambit with a low return.. what does it give you to found a religion? Shrine income? You can still get that from a captured shrine city. Peace with your neighbors? Spreading a minority religion to a rival? All possible without being the one to waste the beakers founding a religion. I like the idea of founding a religion for the RP value, but CIV simply won't let you get away from optimal play at higher levels. Maybe if founding a religion gave some extra bonus... but it doesn't.

Regarding someone's comment earlier about Sisiutil playing a very aggressive game and starting each game with either a REX or a conquest... it may be standard, but it's effective. If you don't expand up or out, you fall behind and lose. WE isn't exactly Sisiutil's style, so expanding up is not an option. Expanding out requires a REX or a war.

I think the problem is that on lower difficulties, founding a religion is comparatively easy, and so the payback can't be too big. (It can be very significant with luck and skill, but still).

On higher difficulties, the diplomatic penalties for adopting a religion early can be quite severe, and thus you hesitate to take advantage of one of its main benefits (the happy bonus).

Had it been impossible to conquer the later game main draw (the shrine income) then perhaps an early religion would see more use (because it would perhaps be the only way to get a religion), but as it is, I agree - in the early game, you need to do other things: religion can wait until your army is built...

 

[madscientist]

You do not need to adopt the founded religion. Merely found it. With Sal and his UB and fast temples he can easily shrine it fast and use that income to finance his game. He also has the ability to found additional religions and shrine them. He also has a very good chance to get the AP and wreck havoc with that. Avoiding religions with Saladin is sort of avoiding his strengthes, and trying for a later one can be even more difficult as you typically tech from behind at Emperor level. The reason Sis ran into trouble was not becaus ehe founded the early religion.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I think I see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that the one extra food is worth it so early. It will come into its own at Bronze Working and Writing, respectively.

But since Hunting also allows Animal Husbandry, the Worker can improve the Cattle, giving you a 3-food 3-hammer square. I actually downloaded the save (I most emphatically do not play on this difficulty level normally), and ended up not researching agriculture until I actually had some resources that needed it. I didn't miss the extra food because I had already gotten Pottery and cottaged those Flood Plains -- the extra commerce helped far more, I believe, than one extra food in those squares.

Granted my tech choices were influenced by scouting the map (it makes a huge difference to actually be playing it instead of just seeing the screenshots, for me). There actually wasn't much for farming to do that early in the game, it seemed.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The key here is growth. Prioritizing Hunting over Agriculture gives us earlier access to Archery. That is all it does.

It skips a worker tech which we'll presumably need.

The proper question isn't "need?", but "need now?". Notice that Agriculture was researched on turn 30, but as of turn 55 there are still no farms. That's a hint that, for the opening approach that S had chosen, farms are not a priority. Yes, you'll probably want to have discovered Agriculture before you found a city near the corn, or near the wheat, but that is still a ways off (Medina isn't founded until turn 72, and Mecca still has no farms).

It's also a gambit with a low return.. what does it give you to found a religion?

10% research boost in the capital, after you invest in Meditation and a Monastery. Also a thunderbolt of culture in a newly founded city (not an option for the early religions).

 

[r_rolo1]

VoU ( as always ) hit the nail.... this start needed farms ( IMHO far more than AH, regardless of the cow issue , but that is another discussion ) and because of that agriculture was a priority.... This is not a question of shunning early religion, but of how you price early religion vs worker techs. As this start was very generical ( no resource abundance, just FP ) worker techs and the consequent city development should had been the main focus.

But we are being too harsh on S man... it is the first time that , instead of picking a start, he actively choosed the worst looking out of six . A novelty on ALC, most surely ....

 

[Polobo]

Making less than maximum use of your terrain, simply because it is "comparatively better" than other possible terrain, is still making less than maximum use of your terrain.
We still want Hunting. Possibly even Agriculture -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry.
And this is widely viewed as the wrong decision, especially given the leader and his easy access to priest specialists.

Yes, we are making less than maximum use of our terrain but in return we are able to focus our research choices on more valuable technologies; and worker turns expanding our empire and increasing production, thus more easily building archers.

Even tossing out very early religion (mono/poly) doesn't change the fact we could head for writing earlier by skipping agriculture and then researching agriculture and building farms while constructing madrassas in the appropriate cities.

The key here is growth. Prioritizing Hunting over Agriculture gives us earlier access to Archery. That is all it does.

Its also opens AH (more cheaply) and enables scouts/spears. Plus, if our goal was to leverage protective and attempt aggressive yet peaceful expansion then having archers is a definite plus since they are inexpensive yet effective.

It skips a worker tech which we'll presumably need. You cannot know that there will be few or no Agriculture resources, except in the immediate vicinity. Given Saladin's lack of worker techs, we're forced into researching one early on. This gives us the choices of Agriculture or Mining, with Hunting as an option if we find a Hunting resource in our BFC. Mining doesn't offer the early growth opportunity that Agriculture does.

Except with floodplains in the BFC mining gives us production and access to bronze working. Plus, a mine adds 2 hammers to the production of a worker/settler while a farm only adds 1. Early on the goal is to get more cities out and hooked up to the trade network. Once we have more commerce coming in spending a few turns on agriculture is worthwhile and we would know whether those second and/or third cities required farms. Could be we found cities on the coast with seafood and want fishing boats instead of farms and can delay agriculture even longer. At the time S popped fishing no overwhelming need for agriculture was present while we know we wanted AH and eventually archery.

One of the hallmarks of this ALC was wasted worker turns. Wasting them on an idling worker is as bad as wasting them building a road to nowhere.

Our earlier access to Archery is squandered, both because we still need to research multiple worker techs, and also because we don't have the capacity for building archers yet.

As it was we had agriculture and still didn't build farms, so I don't see how you can use that to defend the desirability of researching agriculture. Pre-choping would probably have been the best use, with roads to our second city spots a close second. Quicker access to pottery using the beakers saved researching hunting instead of agriculture would have been even better since the plan was to cottage at least a couple of those floodplains.

 

[madscientist]

After looking at the game again, this is what Sis teched Poly/agriculture/AH/mining/BW and popped fishing.

A better plan would have been poly/hunting/AH/archery/Pottery. Cottaging the FP where you get an extra food and extra commerce very early.

I know the preference for mining/BW, but there are times when this expensive but valuable tech can be delayed. Hunting is cheaper than agriculture, cottaged FP more valuable here plus you leverage the protective trait. Hindsite is a wonderfull thing!

 

[Lord Chambers]

I would encourage anyone who is more than a "I learn so much from these ACLs -will be following this one" poster to pick up Sisiutil first or last save and put these ideas to the test. In particular I take issue with the notions that he expanded too quickly, or that protective was somehow not taken advantage of. I just have a stubborn mind and assume anyone qualifying protective's strengths by building walls or choking someone with fortified archers (something that the first strike is not going to make much more effective) isn't someone who plays regularly on emperor.

So lets see some games where people expand slowler and don't lose, or "leverage protective" and don't lose.

 

[madscientist]

I would encourage anyone who is more than a "I learn so much from these ACLs -will be following this one" poster to pick up Sisiutil first or last save and put these ideas to the test. In particular I take issue with the notions that he expanded too quickly, or that protective was somehow not taken advantage of. I just have a stubborn mind and assume anyone qualifying protective's strengths by building walls or choking someone with fortified archers (something that the first strike is not going to make much more effective) isn't someone who plays regularly on emperor.

So lets see some games where people expand slowler and don't lose, or "leverage protective" and don't lose.

Lord, I think you need to chill a bit. I am a marathon monarch player who loses more often than not on emperor. Sis lost the game, we are all giving adviceor trying to.

I cannot really understand what you are actually taking issue with. If Sis came on here and said enough is enough that's another point.

 

[Sisiutil]

It sounds like those with the most successful shadow games played peacefully with Louis and Sully, though I could be wrong. That's not really my play style--I find that once the first wave of expansion is over and I'm boxed in by the AI, I need to break out through war or I'll be an also-ran for the rest of the game. After that, I might settle back and play peacefully.

I'll roll another Saladin start soon, but first I'm trying to get back into the swing of things in an off-line game. I'm playing as Mao and experiencing some success; I chose him because I've played as him before (though the Mao ALC was before his traits changed), because he's also Protective, and because his UB and 2nd trait (Expansive) aren't stellar enough to make him feel significantly different from Suleiman. He also has a medieval-era UU, of course. I've taken out Ramesses and Hannibal is next (Carthago delenda est!). I'm about to test the capabilities of Protective, as I share a long border with Carthage, so those cheap walls and Protective Longbowmen and Cho-Ku-Nus had better hold...

I hope to wrap that game up later this week and start the new Saladin thread sometime on the weekend.

 

[pigswill]

Maybe one way of playing Saladin is to start off fairly standard (settler spam or axe-rush depending on neighborhood) then use madrassas to generate some prophets and go for mono-theo-DR and look to build AP and SM instead of the standard lib slingshot thing.
Theocracy could be a pretty useful civic as it combines with nationalism and protective so you can draft CG1 Drill2 muskets/rifles as the core of an army for the second expansion.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I would encourage anyone who is more than a "I learn so much from these ACLs -will be following this one" poster to pick up Sisiutil first or last save and put these ideas to the test.

I did, as I posted earlier, just that. Checking the turns vs. the posted game, at every point:

I had more improved tiles;
I had more cities;
I had protective archers garrisoning them, Madrassas going in Border cities to protect against Louis' culture; and
Surprise at how appallingly long everything is at that game speed.

Was I in a position to crush Louis through sheer military might? No. Was my power graph rather nice anyway because of Walls being the first thing built in every city? Yes.

 

[Stuck in Pi]

Just a question: Can we stop discussing the loss and try again?

 

[Bandobras Took]

Just a question: Can we stop discussing the loss and try again?

Sisiutil already answered that question. We're discussing the loss while waiting.

 

[manu-fan]

Wow! Look what I get for just constantly checking page 1 to see if there have been any updates. After two weeks of nothing, I decided to have a look in the body of the thread. Oh my, he quit!

Siiutil: Please add a link to the capitulation on the first page so that people who only check that will know what happened. Call it what you want. Disaster? Capitulation? ??

Here's looking forward to the next one.

Cheers.

 

[Sisiutil]

Maybe one way of playing Saladin is to start off fairly standard (settler spam or axe-rush depending on neighborhood) then use madrassas to generate some prophets and go for mono-theo-DR and look to build AP and SM instead of the standard lib slingshot thing.

That sounds like a cool idea. I may try that. I'd add the University of Sankore to that list of desirable "religious" wonders; they all leverage Spiritual's cheap temples (which in turn allow you to build more cathedrals, which also benefit from those wonders). Angor Wat would be nice too, but that's a lot of wonders. But hey, if I'm lucky enough to have stone nearby in the next attempt at a Saladin game...