ALC Game #22 Take 2: Arabs/Saladin

[sveint]

There was talk of advancing to Immortal next time. With that in mind: no wars until siege.

 

[patagonia]

I adopted Slavery right away...

Gaaaah!

Every ALC you do this. Why? Why would you do such a thing?

You don't need to worry about civic cost at the moment, but by being in slavery unnecessarily you're leaving yourself prone to slave revolts in Mecca. You're spiritual - revolt the turn you want to whip something and swap back ASAP.

And I'm with svient on the whole no war until siege thing. You can get to construction before Zara gets to drama, which will save you a lot of in the long run. Cats are much more useful than axes against high culture cities, plus you'll have access to heffalumps, plus it's not like you're short of expansion opportunities in the meantime. If you can get to the crab/wheat spot on the south coast before Zara does, you'll cut his expansion to the south off.

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, if you do go to war with Zara and don't build the Pyramids, you might want to increase the chance that Roosevelt gets them by trading/giving him your stone. Just a thought.

But going to war will be a pain with all that culture he's getting into his cities...

 

[huerfanista]

Well, Zara has stone and maybe if you let him, he'll build the 'mids for you. That way, he puts hammers into your future wonder instead of military. He seems to be inclined towards wonders already anyway. Tech to construction and build chariots and axes. If you can get that gold hooked up asap it will cut the time to research construction. I'd also try to cut Roosie off from those jumbos to the west. He'll definitely expand that way very soon. (That's a lot to ask for, I know. Choices, choices. )

 

[Honkoid]

Everyone in the discussion seems to take copper for granted, but I wouldn't be surprised, if Zara's capital grabs the copper near Medina soon. At the moment he get's 2+2+8+1 * 1.25 = 15.25 /turn. Until now he has at least 15.25 * 23 + 4 * 67 = 618.75 in his capital. It'll take less than 10 turns until he gets his third border pop in Aksum and will influence the copper tile. Additionally Stonehenge is not far from doubling it's basic culture output. You won't get the madrassas fast enough to either fight Zara for the copper or claim the southern copper tile. Add to that 60% defences and an axe rush looks pretty bleak.

a) You won't have copper
b) You won't have sufficient production unless you ignore the pyramids and further settlers.

So my vote goes against an axe rush. You have plenty of room to expand peacefully anyway.

And as your next tech take Iron Working. You want to work the gems asap.

 

[JTMacc99]

IF you can pin in Zara, that would be as good as a rush. He is a peaceful guy, and would probably look to jump on a boat and expand East if possible. He'd also sink hammers into more wonders in his capital.

It's my opinion, however, that taking him off the board ASAP would be a great help in the long run. Of the three (3!) other civs on this little continent, he is by far the most difficult to deal with later in the game. So, if that's the strategy, what are the consequences?
1. Pyramids might fall into enemy hands, hopefully FDR.
2. High culture problem with Zara, BUT, this would be an excellent use of Great Spy points.
3. FDR might move into the Southwest.
4. You might lose your copper before your axes are ready.

Benefits:
Only two wars to fight with seige weapons.
Will have two capital sites and what will probably be a primo coastal city early on.
Zara is BY FAR the most likely of the three to tech ahead and put us in Swords vs. Crossbows again.
Claiming the entire southeast portion of the continent will be a major position of power when it is time to clean house.

 

[Pieman]

There's probably no real need to heed my advice (I'm only just beginning to crack into Prince) but before you kill Zara, it might be advisable to go for the Pyramids yourself as you can't entirely rely on another Civ on this continent building the mids for you. Sure, Roosy's here but what if someone like Huanya's on the other continent?

 

[Airefuego]

Usually with a close, powerful neighbour stealing tiles, I'd be axing him without a moment's hesitation. Not very imaginative though...

So I'd be interested in seeing how the peaceful block-and-REX idea works out - if only because early axing is such a common tactic that I find it hard to think about the other options.

I think we can keep ahead of Zara in tech - we have rivers in the capital, and gold, unlike him it seems. He has stone too though...

 

[civ4legs]

A tangentially related point:

Do the free monuments that come with stonehenge disappear when stonehenge goes obsolete?

I seem to think they do, which for Zara is actually a bad thing, since he'll lose the substantial culture bonus someday...

 

[aelf]

No. The chops go to the Pyramids. Put one unchopped turn into the settler. When you reach size 6... wham! Three citizens go off to found a new city. With two food resource, the city will grow back real quick.

Wouldn't that cost 4 citizens? With one chop it should be 3.

 

[aelf]

Sounds good to me. I'm a Prince/Monarch player and need some pointers/reminders in the fine art of production swapping. I guess you mean ... grow to happy cap while building the pyramids, then swap to settler, whipping after two chops to get the overflow into the pyramids and the benefits of putting slavery overflow hammers into the Wonder. Do I have that straight?

Yes. I'm not sure how much overflow there'd be, though. The main point is to allow you to build both and not spend unproductive time not growing while slow-building the settler.

 

[huerfanista]

3. FDR might move into the Southwest.

There's no "might" about it. If you look at the map, it's the only place he can expand. It's also the juiciest area (jumbos, gold, flood plains) easily available to Saladin, with big strategic implications (locking up the south, flood plains for 2 GP farms with gold to finance them, and JUMBOS!). 2 settlers to lock up the jumbos and gold floodplains would put Sal in great shape, and keep Roosevelt in check in a big way. Let's hope that stealing that worker will slow his starting rex enough so that you can grab that land. (hint: ASAP).



Of course, it may not be possible to peacefully block both Zara and Roosevelt at the same time. If you let him, Zara will definitely try to steal some of that gold city SE by putting it in a culture vise (I bet he will settle 2E of the southernmost gold for max pressure - talk about crappy city placement!). OTOH, Zara can easily be pinned right now with just a couple of chariots. That little peninsula connecting to his capital looks like it has some forested hills. Park a couple of chariots there and he's screwed big time. Park a couple more outside his second city so he can't hook up the copper and food, and he's going nowhere. Take him out whenever you want - jumbos and cats v. archers is just sick. I'd chop out 2 chariots immediately and pin his capital right now. Chop/whip a settler and grab the jumbos. Then 2 more chariots to put the vise on Zara's 2nd city, another settler for the gold floodplains, and finally one more to hook up the rice copper south (a fine production city for the war with Zara). When the money starts to run out, just do the chop-whip-protective-stone-walls trick and you've got 300+ gold to finance all this early expansion.

Yes, it's a very aggressive early move that, if successful, will get you a dominant position on this continent. I don't know if it can be done, TBH. If you let Zara off the hook, the land SE is no great loss when he grabs it (he will) compared to the W-SW. If you can block Roosevelt and reap these riches for Sal, Roosevelt will have to expand to his W (your NW), which will strain his relations with Surya (a big plus for you).

edit: And drop the mid's. You won't need them, and if you're lucky one of your future victims will build them for you. If you're dying to build something with that stone, go for the HG later.

 

[carl corey]

I like huerfanista's idea of dropping the Pyramids and build settlers to block Roosevelt and Zara. Despite the stone... As I said before you can give it to Roosevelt, and then if one of Zara or Roosevelt builds them, they're going to be nearby.

 

[Bandobras Took]

If you settle to block, may I recommend using the stone on extremely cheap walls instead?

 

[Validator]

You don't need to worry about civic cost at the moment, but by being in slavery unnecessarily you're leaving yourself prone to slave revolts in Mecca. You're spiritual - revolt the turn you want to whip something and swap back ASAP.

Actually according to the civic screen Slavery is costing 1 gpt at this point relative to Tribalism. Not exactly leveraging Spiritual, are we?

Do the free monuments that come with stonehenge disappear when stonehenge goes obsolete?

Yes.

Wouldn't that cost 4 citizens? With one chop it should be 3.

It should be just 3. Settlers cost 150 at Epic speed. Each pop whipped provides 45 . So to finish a settler for 3 pop you would need to have put at least 15 into it. It should be no problem for a pop 6 city to reach that amount in one turn. Of course if the desire is to finish Pyramids ASAP it would probably be better to build the settler for a couple more turns to maximize whip overflow.

OTOH, Zara can easily be pinned right now with just a couple of chariots. That little peninsula connecting to his capital looks like it has some forested hills. Park a couple of chariots there and he's screwed big time.

Chariots don't get any defensive bonuses, so they wouldn't benefit from the forested hills. And FYI the AI will attack "choking" chariots with archers (until they get a couple of promotions at least). Axes do a much better job of choking and Medina's copper should be hooked up shortly.

 

[slobberinbear]

... Medina's copper should be hooked up shortly.

Arabia's never going to get much of a sniff of that copper, I'm afraid. Zara's culture wave is coming.

I still think Medina is a great city, though, and not just for the gems. It is very strategically located to block Zara and provide a forward base for eventually striking him. It is not, however, going to be able to provide copper, and Sisiutil will need to get the northern copper (near FDR) or the southern one (immediately south of Mecca) if he wants to do axes any time soon.

What seems to be called for is two more cities, the Pyramids, and either (a) economic build-up for more REXing or (b) a spy + axe war against Zara.

If you settle to block, may I recommend using the stone on extremely cheap walls instead?

It would certainly help if Zara gets boxed in and attacks, and provide a little insurance in case Sury gets testy later and launches a surprise invasion. It would also be a way to get more mileage out of Protective, one of the goals of the ALC IIRC.

Frankly, though, Sisiutil prefers to be on the offensive, and I'm guessing he'd rather put those hammers in an archer than a wall. I would be shocked if he didn't attack Ethiopia.

 

[kazapp]

I think you might have to prepare for a war against Zara, DoWing him when he claims your Copper (you should have another one hooked up by then), to prevent him from building any Spearmen and Axemen.

Again, even if you can't take his cities, you'll easily (and cheaply) withstand any Archer offensives of his. Hopefully you can raze that Medina neighbour though.

Trying to compete with him culturally would be a complete waste of resources. Don't even try - instead prepare for the inevitable cultural loss, and it won't have to mean much suffering.

Plus, defensive wars is what Protective is meant for (not that this means I like the trait very much).

Zapp

PS. And oh, get back out of Slavery - patagonia's right...

 

[Scaphism]

a) You won't have copper
b) You won't have sufficient production unless you ignore the pyramids and further settlers.

So my vote goes against an axe rush. You have plenty of room to expand peacefully anyway.

And as your next tech take Iron Working. You want to work the gems asap.

I strongly agree with these points.
You have pretty effectively cut Zara off from the gold, and your chances of successfully rushing are very, very slim.

Continue doing what you're doing - expanding, grabbing good land and resources. Your empire will start to flourish once you can run a few specialists and get some bonuses off of them. Right now you're not particularly strong, and diverting production into axemen now will stunt your growth heading into a more productive era.


As for city placement I would have settled the gold city on the hill 1E of your current spot (hill bonus, you get a third gold but lose a floodplain). Ah well.

Seal off the other spots you're aiming for. You are protective with stone, and you have the Great Wall. If Zara, or any of the AI's come after you, you should be more than able to hold them off.

In this case I think I'd be aiming for Engineering as the tech to go to war with. Castles for increased espionage and commerce, increased road movement, and trebuchets. Until then you can continue expanding.

Any thoughts yet on what you'll do with the Great Spy when he finally arrives?

*Edit* Re: Tech
You're currently researcing Writing, but you've barely started and in the last screenshot it shows 28 turns at 40% science. I assume it will take far less once you get some gold hooked up, but that's fairly slow.
Honkoid brings up a good question: Should you get Iron Working so you can work the gems next?
I personally lean towards Writing for Madrassas. The gems are nice, but that city can grow with the pigs and whip military until you later get IW and can clear the jungle off of the gems.

I'm strongly in favor of not declaring war right now. Get Madrassas up ASAP, you'll at least be able to contest Zara culturally, even if you can't beat him. If you do start leaning towards early agression, I hope you ask what it is you plan to gain from it. You haven't yet seen what Zara has in his capital, and you have so many juicy resources of your own to grab, while you've already sealed him off pretty well. Let the barbs be your early aggressors. That's at least part of the reason why you grabbed the Great Wall, right?

If it's possible, Code of Laws would be really nice. Founding a religion (in one of your border cities) would really help you in the culture war, add cheap temples on top of that and you'd at least be a match for Zara. Throw in artist specialists (I know, they're not Priests or Scientists from the Madrassa) and you should be able to control the tiles in your BFC. That's probably something to evaluate after the next round, however.

 

[Daedal]

A defensive war against Zara while you build the Pyramids would effectively show off the protective trait. Build some cheap walls, archers, and chariots for the border cities. Build the settler and the 'mids in the capital. You can't fight Zara's culture right now. Wait for catapults to launch an attack. I wouldn't even DoW Zara. Let him DoW you if he feels up to it and repel his attackers with protective archers. Once you have Pyramids, more cities, swords and cats, then you can attack Zara.

 

[fjordan]

Regarding the settler / mids chop: every chopped hammer would double because of the stone if it is used for the mids. So it looks more economic to me to spend the chops on the mids directly. And if we are going to build up 15 hammers and then whip there will be no overflow at all, so what's the point? The only advantage of concurrent building I see is growing to your happy cap while building the mids, then build / whip the settler, then chop finish the mids.