ALC Game #22 Take 2: Arabs/Saladin

[Julian Delphiki]

Oh, tease!

Random event giving your troops advantage for crushing them enemies?

 

[Aquarius_DJ]

The creature from the barb city came begging for a cookie?

 

[Roxlimn]

Well, in all fairness, you shouldn't be using Protective that way, Sis, at least by my experience. Protective allows you to build less defensive troops. It doesn't mean you should build less troops. It just means that you have the freedom to build less troops OR build more offensive troops and launch them pretty much unopposed into vulnerable cities (because you'll be wanting to bog the enemy SoD down in your lands).

 

[Mukuu]

You popped a goody hut that gave you a small nuclear arsenal... cause that would definitely be irony (It looks like there really WAS weapons of mass destruction America!)

 

[carl corey]

In my last game there was a barbarian uprising near a city I had just conquered. Horse Archers. Luckily the city was guarded by two Jumbos and I had more Jumbos going towards the war front. I lost only a catapult that was in my territory, and got a corn pillaged (it was in the big cross of the new city, not out of revolt yet) but for a moment it looks scary.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 10: 920 AD to 1340 AD (51 turns) - Part 1, in which Arabia's enemies multiply

I started off the round, as usual, by implementing some of your much appreciated advice. For starters, I heeded Slobberinbear's recommendation and changed civics to Police State, Vassalage, and Slavery to all help pump out my much-needed army:

As Validator suggested, I got rid of the scientists in Etruscan and got it working on becoming my military city:

Meanwhile, the Americans were causing trouble around Baghdad and had to be dealt with. La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose...

My Flanking II Horse Archers mostly survived their battles, and the XPs acquired led to the emergence of my first Great General, who was combined with my 7 XP Combat I/Medic I Chariot to become the MASH unit.

Roosevelt kept sending units on suicide missions to buck up my units' XP levels and contribute points towards my next GG:

And then I acquired my final medieval military tech, unlocking the UU:

Right around that same time, as I expected, Suryavarman got into the action.

It seems that my target practice on Roosevelt's various task forces had caused his power rating to dip a little--enough to encourage the very powerful Khmer to regard him as a tasty treat:

Along the way I earned my next Great General and sent him to become a military instructor in Etruscan, where the Heroic Epic was nearing completion:

I then made a minor civics change since I wasn't whipping as much anymore, just to avoid an unwelcome slave revolt in Mecca.

And that's when the funny thing happened. Roosevelt's forces were depleted, I had the beginnings of an offensive stack standing by in Baghdad, eager to pounce into American territory... when this happened.

And he moved his own task force into my territory, next to Medina:

I thought at first that Roosevelt bribed him into it, but with what? Maybe it was just a funny RNG roll. At any rate, Zara had joined the fray, and now I was in a quandary: should I stick to the plan and invade America while holding off Zara? Or vice-versa?

Then I remembered how I'd been grousing about Zara's cultural borders practically since the beginning of the game, and remembered how I'd been lusting after his capital's plethora of wonders, and remembered how I'd been grimacing every time he extended his tech lead. Zara had always been the intended target of my first war... and now he'd gone and started it. Meanwhile, Roosevelt had his hands full and had obviously gotten tired of sending units to Arab territory to die (sound familiar?). So...

He's not going anywhere. He can wait.

This little rating confirmed, for me, that shifting my target was, indeed, the correct choice. I now had a chance to take down the game's tech leader:

So, to start off, I made it more bothersome for Zara to annoy me with espionage missions:

I then moved my stack over to Medina. I still needed a few more units, Macemen mostly, before I was ready to attack.

While that was going on, my peace treaty with Roosevelt expired, and Sury asked me to join in again.

Well, why not--I'm trying to keep Sury happy until I have to kill him. So I fought (or, rather, didn't fight) a phony war with America for a few turns and kept the Khmer pleased with me.

Finally I was ready to start taking out Ethiopian cities:

Some opposition, but not too formidable, and taking them out would deal quite a blow to Zara's military.

I used the Accuracy Cats to remove the cultural defense, then softened up the defenders with Trebuchets, losing only one in the process. I then gave the UU a chance, hoping it would cause flanking damage to Zara's Trebuchets.

A few Mace attacks later, and the first Ethiopian city fell.

Still, that was just a stepping stone toward the real prize: the wonder-rich Ethiopian capital, Aksum. Its fate will be revealed in the next instalment, coming soon...

 

[Rub'Rum]

Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil Indeed...

 

[Mukuu]

Wow 51 turns this time Sis... Are you finally getting more comfortable with Saladin, or do you just really like Warmongering?

 

[JujuLautre]

or do you just really like Warmongering?

I think you have it

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well the thing is Saladin has 2 Military Traits
Protective is directly military
Spiritual is indirectly military (especially with Pyramids)

So War is the way to go... especially in an ALC

 

[CivCorpse]

MMMMMMm waaaaaar. Start cranking those camel archers out. Looks like Zero has oromos. Using Camal archers basically renders it a mundane musketman. Hopefully he promotes along the drill line >. I'd add more but it seems you have already played the war with Zero

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Love the Americans sending so many units and invading Baghdad

Also good job, I think you can win a pretty decent domination win here, possibly before ever seeing the other continent!

 

[Bandobras Took]

Simply for information's sake -- has Protective helped any during this time of military struggle and universal broohaha?

 

[Lord Chambers]

That is a huge stack. I don't think I've every had that many siege units in a single square. I rarely find myself which that kind of force since attacking sooner is more reliable and wastes less shields than attacking later with more guys. I would have split that up into two stacks and conquered almost twice as fast.

I feel compelled to point out that's the only issue I noticed, so good job.

Also I should mention that you're taking it to Zara and he's likely reeling, and all it took was siege and macemen. You only have one pike, one knight, and one archer. I think those techs could have been done without, especially if it meant 20+ turns sooner war.

For the next round, squash Zara until he capitulates, and redeclare on Roosevelt as soon as possible. Keep your military production high so that you can be sitting on Suryvarman II's doorstep before he gets to Riflemen and you need to wait for Cannons. Hopefully it's possible to start the final war with him and mostly cripple him before then, but only if you're really military minded, I'd guess.

Oh, and maybe let Zara have Narjan so that he might burn it, or give it away after you capitulate him. That's a size 3 embarassment to city settling.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 10: 920 AD to 1340 AD (51 turns) - Part 2, in which everything changes

I then had a nice stroke of luck. You see, Zara's stack outside of Medina had not only pillaged the gem mine on which they were standing; they also, by pillaging the road, cut off access to the other gem mine. In a way, this wasn't so bad, as the sudden explosion of unhappy citizens in my cities (not helped by going to war with the owner of the Statue of Zeus) just encouraged me to switch into Slavery for a while once again and whip some more units. But then, to stave off any more unhappiness, I was the happy recipient of a mining discovery:

Nice! Better than a kick in the teeth, that's for sure.

Suvy made peace with Roosevelt, so I decided to end the phony war with America.

25 gold for standin' around and keeping Sury off my back? Beats workin' for a livin'.

Speaking of Sury, I did a tech trade with him...

A bank in Mecca, after all, would further exploit all those cottages and Bureaucracy, which I was going to switch back to soon.

My stack o' doom approached the Ethiopian capital, which had a 100% defensive bonus. Rather than waiting 2-3 turns for the Cats and Trebs to whittle it away, I used a Spy.

So once again, I'm getting something out of all the accumulated espionage points from the settled Great Spy.

I attacked with Trebs first, and lost a couple--which is to be expected--then the City Raider Macemen finished the job.

Now have a look not just at all the wonders, but at the special buildings and settled Great People as well!

Dang. Eight wonders, plus an Academy and Scotland Yard. This has gotta be a candidate for some sort of "Best captured capital in an ALC" award. And settled GPs, too. Though one of those priests is from the Temple of Artemis, of course. The cool thing is that all those wonders are still in effect (though I need to acquire Theology for the Hagia Sophia to work--not that I need it at the moment).

I thought of making this city the GP farm, since it has a pretty good food supply, but it'll be nearly impossible to force a certain type of Great Person with the mix of GP points from all those different wonders. However, I think that with no less than thirteen coastal ocean tiles in its BFC, this city is an obvious candidate for the Moai Statues.

Okay, enough gloating about my new prize.

A couple of turns later, Zara was apparently fed up and decided to throw his stack at Medina. The city still had 25% cultural defense and around 3 or 4 Protective, Vassalage-augmented Longbowmen protecting it. Zara didn't stand a chance--he lost every single unit, while my guys barely got a scratch. So Bandobras, you were asking about an example of Protective helping out, and I guess that's the clearest one. Though frankly, the cheap walls and castles also helped.

Yes, Mukuu and JujuLautre, I do like warmongering in this game. You know why? Because I like to win. And there is no other part of this game, frankly, where the human player can so completely and clearly out-class the AI. The AI can out-research you, it can beat you to more wonders, it can even, sometimes, out-culture you. But even after all the hard work of folks like Bhruic and Blake and other nameless worker bees at Firaxis, the AI still does not know how to wage war effectively. So remember this, kids: if you really want to win at this game, go to war. I mean, let's face it--prior to this round, the game was up in the air; I hate to sound cocky, but, I'm gonna win now. Because I won a war in this round and in the process all but eliminated the tech leader, claimed a bunch of good land, and gained a crapload o' very helpful wonders. And, oh yes, built up a large, highly-promoted army. So, you guys call it: domination, conquest, or space race?

Okay, enough gloating, back to the play-by-play.

I got my first quest.

It seems a little late for this to be popping up, but whatever. I have 6 Madrassas and only need one more to win the quest, but I haven't made it a high priority. As I recall, this quest is really only worthwhile if I own the Great Library (which I don't, you may remember), because the best prize is another free scientist in the GL city. Without it, I think I'm only going to get +2 research in the capital. Big whoop. Eh. I guess I'll whip a Madrassa somewhere at the start of the next round and get it over with.

It took a while, but I finally finished researching my next tech:

I chose Gunpowder for many reasons. Again, it leverages Protective. I'm warmongering now, so war techs are a priority. And Zara had researched it for his annoying UU several turns back, and Protective Musketmen with Pinch seemed like the best counters for those annoying Oromo Warriors. With Gunpowder in the bag, I started pursuing the techs I needed to go out and meet the other civs--you know, the jerks who've been hogging all the religions. Oh, one of 'em beat me to Liberalism this round, too. I don't care too much now that I'm killing things, though.

My next Great Person finally appeared, another Great Engineer in Mecca. I sent him to Gaul and had him build the National Epic there.

Yes, it has 3 useless desert tiles, but with all those flood plains and rice it was the best choice for a GP farm that I have. There wasn't a world wonder available for the GE, and look, he saved me 54 turns of building the National Epic. Gaul can now start churning out Great Scientists so I can go some way towards catching up with whoever beat me to Liberalism by a country mile.

Another day, another Ethiopian city falls.

I switched into Slavery briefly yet again, taking advantage of Spiritual. I had also switched back to Representation and Bureaucracy now that I had a sufficient army built.

I then whipped away a lot of unhappy former Ethiopians in Aksum.

I'm a tyrant, but hey, the trains run on time. Well, they will run on time once we research Railroads, which ain't gonna happen if everyone's dressing in red and whining and moaning and not going to work! Sheesh!

I earned my third Great General of the round. He also became a military instructor, giving me the equivalent of West Point in my HE city many, many turns before that national wonder will be available.

Speaking of West Point, I'm thinking of putting it in Aksum along with the Moai Statues (a combination I really, really like). What do you folks think?

On the last turn of the round, I finally finished researching what I need to contact the other civs--since I gather Egypt was eliminated, there should only be two of them, but I'd rather tech trade with overseas civs than with neighbours I soon hope to eliminate.

Etruscan will spit out a couple of Caravels early in the next round, and I'll go find out who's hiding out there in the fog. Oh, Zara beat me to the circumnavigation bonus. Jerk.

I captured another Ethiopian city on that last turn and finally finished alleviating the cultural pressure that Creative Zara was putting on my cities.

Now, Zara isn't done; he has two more cities remaining on the continent on the northeast coast as well as two island cities--one due east of Aksum, the other off the far northeast coast. He is willing to capitulate:

Y'know, it's going to be a pain taking out those island cities; I'll have to build a bunch of Galleys, since I'm ages away from Astronomy and Galleons. The remaining Ethiopian cities on the continent have little to offer and are going to be subject to heavy foreign culture for some time. Also, Zara might not make a bad vassal: he's proven his teching ability, and the cities he has left might be enough to keep him going in that regard. Plus I haven't razed any of his cities, so it shouldn't be too hard to win him back over and eventually convince him to part with the other techs he has on me. I might be able to get him to swap Paper for Drama in the peace deal above.

The only thing I have to gain by eliminating Zara is removing the "We wish to rejoin out motherland" unhappiness from the captured cities--something that's largely offset by the combination of "influence other nations" happiness plus Notre Dame, which Zara was nice enough to build for me. I dunno, I'm really thinking it's time to call it quits with Ethiopia and move on to Roosevelt, who has several nice, juicy calendar resources that are rightfully MINE. Whaddya think?

Anyway, that's it for the round, one in which the game has shifted, I think irrevocably, in my favour, if I do say so myself. A pity it took me this long to get here. At any rate, the saved game file is below, and a state-of-the-world post will follow.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Domination or Conquest win. Either way, ALL of your starting continent should be controlled by you soon...I see no need to meet the others.

Wipe out Zara, he is useless and irritating. His land can be put to much better use under Arabian control.

I say destroy Zara (Should be really easy), and then destroy Roosevelt (Should also be really easy). Then you can tech and build and then get rid of the Khmer freaks.

 

[Sisiutil]

The State of the World, 1340 AD

Let's start with a look at the map, where you can clearly see Zara's remaining four cities--at least the ones I know about.

Domestic Advisor:

A balanced mix of civilian and military in my nice-sized empire of a dozen cities. Etruscan, by the way, with all those hills has turned out to be an awesome military city, churning out units with pleasing regularity and ease. Good call, Validator--as usual.

Foreign Advisor, glance, with a focus on Zara's attitude.

So when the war ends, the -8 for the war goes away, putting Zara at Cautious, methinks. Open borders, trading resources, a defensive pact and a mutual military struggle against Roosevelt should get him back to Pleased in a hurry. So like I said, I think it's time to vassalize him. Heck, he may even take an American city (or, later, a Khmer one) with his Oromo warriors and become an even better outsourced researcher for me.

Foreign advisor, current trade deals:

Sury's UU's day has come and gone, so I have no problem trading ivory to him. But that also explains why silk and 11 GPT is the most he's willing to pay for that resource.

Speaking of resources:

As I said, Taking over Roosevelt will give me several resources, though I'll have to initially compete with Khmer culture for some of them.

Techs:

Now that the SE is gearing up again and I have a GP farm, I'm hoping to catch up tech-wise. Contacting and trading with the other 2 civs will probably help.

Military Advisor:

Victory conditions:

Power:

So Sury still outranks me here, but then again, as I was pointing out before, it isn't just what ya got, it's how you use it.

Production:

Demographics:

Top 5 cities & wonders:

I'm betting that the city at the top is owned by a Financial civ. Just a hunch. Any takers?

Washington will also be nice to grab for the Mausoleum. I haven't used a Great Person for a golden age yet--it would be nice to get an extended one. Though if the GL owner beat me to Liberalism, I kind of doubt that I have a shot at the Taj Majal, especially since I don't think my continent has a source of marble.

Espionage, with a focus on Suryavarman:

So as I said, I think the plan for the next round is to capitulate Zara and turn on Roosevelt. I'll see how long that takes and then we can probably talk about Sury.

 

[timmy827]

Uh, shouldn't the Trireme being built in Aksum be a Caravel?
WW isn't too bad, so you could take the nearest remaining Ethiopian city. It won't be culturally pressured by the Americans for long, and will be decent. But OTOH, it's probably best to go after Roosy ASAP, so I'd capitulate him now if you think taking that city will slow down your next attack at all.
For victory...well it will be a familiar sight once you dominate your continent, and you'll just have to decide whether the tedium of a no-suspense space race is better or worse than the tedium of intercontinental warfare.

I will end with a classic AI moment, it appears Sury is building the U Sankore with no religion on the continent.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Maybe he's doing it for the Great Scientist points.

 

[Validator]

It seems a little late for this to be popping up, but whatever. I have 6 Madrassas and only need one more to win the quest, but I haven't made it a high priority. As I recall, this quest is really only worthwhile if I own the Great Library (which I don't, you may remember), because the best prize is another free scientist in the GL city. Without it, I think I'm only going to get +2 research in the capital. Big whoop. Eh. I guess I'll whip a Madrassa somewhere at the start of the next round and get it over with.

I'd say it's late. When you finished researching Gunpowder you entered the Renaissance era and failed the quest. Which happened on the next turn.