ALC Game #22 Take 2: Arabs/Saladin

[Kev]

If we/you/one had time, I'd suggest taking the Khmer cities and gifting them to Zara to use and try to boost his tech speed, but you are close enough to domination I think to get a capitulation and then concentrate on more distant targets.

If it's still available, go for Sugar Island first and see where things stand. From there, if you only need a bit more, I might even look to invading CHINA. Yes, it brings Pacal into the war and his ships might be annoying, but likely all of the land units will be China's only and they will be technologically inferior it would seem. Granted, Monte will also have inferior units, but look at the power graph and see the difference. I'd suggest bribing Monte to fight them too to keep him off your back.

And hey, China holds the Islam Holy City with the Shrine - what better target for Saladin?

 

[kazapp]

P.S If we are going to talk why S man lost previous Sal ALC.... That map needed a swift action on Louis.

Yeah, at least a declaration of war. Being at war really wrecks the AI, which is a break we couldn't afford to be without in that game. Protective archers should be more than enough to oppose whatever Louis would have thrown at us. Then, a few thousand years later, you build an invasion force and start the war for real.

I'm not as skilled as Sis, but this works remarkably well at Monarch. One game I found myself with Caesar as a neighbour, but still some distance away. I didn't particularly relish going toe to toe with Praets, so I DoWed him, and kept up a phony war for millenia (even turning down a Great Mediator who offered to broker peace). Sure enough, a few centuries, he's dead last in score (together with Tokugawa, who I always worker-steal as he's too bothersome to keep chummy). Conquering his sorry excuse of a backwards capital was all too easy...

Perhaps in a future ALC?

 

[Bandobras Took]

It actually seems to be the civilian stuff (wonders, religions) that really brought Sisiutil down in the last attempt and at the beginning of this one. (I advocated some of that stuff too.... my bad ). The amazing recovery in this game has definitely shown me how important war is to success. War early. War often. If you're not at war you should be getting ready for it. If you're ready for it you should be knocking heads. And if the map generator gives you a bad start, just take somebody else's.

With the necessary and often overlooked disclaimer of the game speed making war more viable.

Was this slow? Only be standards of earlier military action. He expanded, got ready for a medieval war around the time he needed, and beat the tar out of everybody on the continent. I don't find it amazing as such. Not everything in this game has to be done with axes.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^I've to disagree on that one. S man had a strong hint of how the game was going to be when he saw the date of the 2nd french city and when he saw louis spittting wonders. Those 2 together are a indicator of a very strong starting position and a sure sign that you need to act fast before the AI can leverage it. Given also the Ind leaders love for MC and the fact that Louis made the Mids, it was not far fetched to think that he would get a GE and bulb Machinery. After that any action based in melee units needed to be rethinked, a thing that clearly wasn't done....

I'm not saying that S man played bad in that one, but he was slow in changing plans when it was clear that a sword-axe-cats war was becoming unviable due to the probable tech path of Louis and his strong starting position.

But that is what you get when you choose the worst looking start out of six

 

[Johnpecan]

Game over.
It would be an easy cruise to space now.
But if you want a domination win take out Monty. There's no way he is keeping up tech wise.

 

[DanF5771]

Khool stuff!

Game over.
It would be an easy cruise to space now.

Yup!
Though the easiest and quickest cruise would be to a diplomatic victory.

quick shadow spoiler:

Spoiler :

Diplomatic Victory in 1828 after 10 minutes.

 

[DMOC]

Keep in mind that, although Pacal has destroyers, they will be of relatively little danger if you have enough spy points on him. Just take your galleons, and unload ALL troops and spies on turn 1 of the war and just kill him on his own land. If your ships die, well...that doesn't really matter when Pacal's cities are just falling apart on his land.

Oh yeah, use spies to get city defenses down.

 

[Mukuu]

Diplomatic Victory? With the AP or UN? I didnt even consider that one... But hey, that might not be a bad idea if Sis wants to stop with the warmongering

Yea, looks like we are going for domination.

 

[Kietharr]

Monty's island is the low hanging fruit, push your advantage. If Pacal isn't at war anymore you can drag him back in, his destroyers would be valuable in the conquest of the Aztecs. The best way to go for the highest possible score atm is to accept that vassalization deal with surry and whip/rush buy enough galleons to load your entire offensive force, escort it with as many SotL's as possible and smash monty before he can do anything to stop it. He doesn't even have all of the prereqs for rifling, there is literally nothing he can do to stop you if you get moving ASAP.

Hit his big beaker cities first to make sure you don't have to fight hordes of modern units. Rushmore should be a priority as you stated, because monty will doubtlessly have a ton of units, if not modern ones. Between Rushmore, police state, and jails, you should be able to keep any WW in check long enough to cinch the victory. Monty's land alone should assure a domination victory, sugar island is tempting but honestly unnecessary for victory and would waste time and resources you could be putting into a full force offensive against the backwards Aztecs.

 

[Asoka99]

Am I misreading the victory conditions screen, or is Pacal very close to a cultural win?

 

[Bandobras Took]

You might be misreading it. I'm seeing only one city higher than 20000 and the third city isn't even to 10000 yet. I don't think they lowered the culture victory standards recently. I could, however, be mistaken.

 

[Asoka99]

Oh, ok--thanks, and sorry. I was under the (mis)apprehension that you needed 3 cities w/ 10K, not 20K.

 

[Validator]

Actually for Epic speed you need 3 cities with 75K.

If Pacal does turn off his research to go for a culture win that will just make him dead meat.

 

[huerfanista]

The game speed is epic, right? So that's 3 cities to 75,000 culture. Pacal's a lllooonnnggg way away.

 

[Kev]

I'd like to hear from the better players in the gallery regarding my thoughts on taking China out rather than Monte to finish the game. I was thinking that taking Sugar Island along with settling a few of the smaller islands along with Qin's cities would be enough for Domination but it is just a guess as I'm not good at the math involved.

If the math DID work out, I'm attracted to Qin's VERY low power rating (and the Islamic Shrine city, but that's just for role-play kicks). With Monte we're certainly the technological superior, but I'm guessing that he must have a good bunch of units.

Again, I would think that with Qin's cities being all coastal we could land and/or attack in so many different places at once and end things quickly.

I see one con as having Pacal brought into the war, but that would be just from a ship point of view really - I don't foresee him landing units to help his Vassal or gifting him anything useful. Another con would be what if Monte tries to attack us while we're dealing with China/Mayans. I am hoping that we might be able to bribe Monte first to war with them (thus even distracting Mayan ships and units) effectively helping out with both cons.

These are the thoughts I have in my own games, so I'd love to know if I'm off or not keeping things simple enough to have good wins (Monarch player currently).

 

[DanF5771]

Diplomatic Victory? With the AP or UN?

Spoiler :

UN! Didn't bother with any seafaring missionary adventures on wooden boats. Took peace (no Khapitulation) and 2(!) cities from Khmer. Switched to Hereditary Rule for Pacals favorite civic bonus. Then just built wealth/research in all cities, bulbed part of Electricity with Great Scientist, after Mass Media switched to Universal Suffrage and rush-bought the UN in Medina (Kremlin!) and iirc the Christo Redentor in Mecca to quickly switch back to HR. Gave in to all requests/demands, voted Pacal for AP (+4 you voted for us) so he was friendly when the first UN vote came up--easy&quickest diplo win!

But yeah, domination is so much more rewarding!

How about shipping troops to Uxmal, protect wooden boats there, station 8 Airships in Uxmal and Izamal, and go for Mutal and maybe Chichen Itza for a quick capitulation of Pacal? Power ratio seems fitting and iirc Pacal is one of the leaders that surrenders quite quickly. Only problem might be that he has Quin as his vassal--IDK if that would prevent him from capitulation.

 

[Peluin]

[...] Only problem might be that he has Quin as his vassal--IDK if that would prevent him from capitulation.

Sadly, I've never known an AI to capitulate while it has a vassal. I'm convinced it's not possible. China would have to be destroyed, or released in another way (taking China's land or Pacal's until the land ratios break vassalage).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sadly, I've never known an AI to capitulate while it has a vassal. I'm convinced it's not possible. China would have to be destroyed, or released in another way (taking China's land or Pacal's until the land ratios break vassalage).

It IS possible, and as of the most recent unofficial patch the target's vassals will instantly break free (and are usually willing to discuss peace).

It's hard/rare as hell. You have to be really dominating the AI, and it has to have been large enough to begin with so you've really done some damage. I've done it before in some extremely rare circumstances, though it's not something I'd bet on if I were you . Some AIs wait ridiculous times to capitulate as is!

 

[patagonia]

The war with Sury looks like it was a cakewalk, but I think you missed a trick in terms of research. Going for artillery after physics (instead of detouring to MT, communism and biology) would have been a nice boost to the army since they have no real counter pre-industrialism. Along with your current grens/rifles, that'll easily be all the military you need to complete a domination win.

 

[DrJambo]

This was a bad map to be honest. The civs not on the big land mass were never in the running and never would have been. So in essence this game was a four player game: Sisiutil vs the 3 others on his landmass...

There's something to be said for playing with the low sea level setting on a standard map size with 2 extra civs - a playstyle that Blake, the AI designer, use to advocate as the best setup. This is what I do, and the end games are always far more interesting.