ALC Game #8: Alexander/Greece

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I'm usually not a big fan of holding onto great people, but you might want to consider keeping that artist for use on the other continent. Assuming you plan to eliminate Victoria sooner or later, you shouldn't have too much trouble getting your borders to expand sufficiently on the homeland. Overseas, however, the artist might be just what you need to establish a beachhead or to accelerate the final push toward domination.

 

[pigswill]

If you're looking at domination its worth considering that you've got unclaimed tiles to the north of your continent just waiting a couple of settlers and theatres; probably save you taking 3-4 cities on other continent.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Interesting. Shortly after discovering civfanatics, I discovered a post which suggested that Versailles is the one wonder you prefer that somebody build for you (preferably a target ), and haven't questioned that idea since.

Actually that sounds like an awesome idea.

Early in my gameply, I had played a game where another AI built it in an absolutely awful location (right next to my Forbidden City as a matter of fact). I placed the Forbidden City close to the enemy intending to expand into the enemy territory and my target had the Versailles built only a few tiles away just before the attack started. After that, I started trying to beat the enemy to the Versailles every game and I hadn't questioned THAT idea until now. Cool, thanks.

Great artist for the last inch of domination... nice.

 

[Killroyan]

That is why I suggested the forbidden palace in London.
1. It is further away from your capital
2. Versailles could be build on the other continent (Vicky is not going too anyway with you knocking on her doors)

Using the great artist to get that last bit of domination control sounds like fun and a nice twist.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 7: to 1824 AD

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
- Menander

I started this round pretty much determined to do in Vicky once and for all. I was going to have Cannon, Cavalry, and Grenadiers to face her medieval units; it made no sense to me to give her 10 turns of peace to catch up in some regard.

I built up my units first with all those lovely Vassalage/Theocracy promotions. I also took some advice about claiming some of the territory up north and founded Iceberg... er... Pharsalos:

I was also thinking about the health bonus from the crabs, of course.

Once I finished researching Steel, I blew a huge wad of cash upgrading almost all of my Catapults to Cannon; at 200 gold a pop, that isn't something I'd normally do, but between the trade mission and the hybrid economy I figured I could get away with it, especially since it would probably speed up the war, or so I hoped.

In 1690, it was time to get the ball rolling:

My first target was Liverpool, since it would provide a buffer to the valuable city of Mecca:

Now as I've played more Civ IV, the composition of my stacks has gotten a little more sophisticated, or so I like to think. I learned the trick, a long time ago, of including at least one Medic unit in the stack; then I learned to make sure he was one of the weaker units so he wouldn't get chosen to defend against a counter-attack. I also learned to include a "protective" unit (no CR promotions!) that would absorb the counter-attack.

One of the latest units I've started to include in the stack is a "recon" unit: a mounted unit with Flanking I and Sentry promotions. His job is to scout out the next target and to spot an approaching counter-attack. I had one of these units in each of my stacks--the one that took Liverpool, and the one that was waiting in Hastings to pounce on Warwick. I sent each of them one tile into enemy territory for a look see.

Here's what the Cavalry recon unit out of Hastings spotted in Warwick:

Whoah! Quite a few units there, even if they are all medieval era. The Cavalry unit turned tail and trotted back across the border.

Now this is the same turn that I took Liverpool. On the following turn, I sent the same Cavalry unit across the border again, and suddenly a bunch of the units that had been in Warwick had vanished! No more dreaded '...'! But that was no comfort, because... well... where were they?!?

It was the recon Cavalry unit out of Liverpool that spotted them again:

Yeah, headed straight for my recent acquisition. Instead of moving the west coast stack towards Dover as I had first intended, I hunkered them down in Liverpool. I even pried open the treasury and upgraded my 4 Accuracy Cats to Cannon (3 on this turn, one on the next).

Fortunately, spending all that gold wasn't going to be as painful as it first appeared:

I normally don't like having a golden age during a war--it's the builder in me--but this time, it suited me just fine.

You might notice that I was researching Constitution. Huh? What about Rifles? Well, I was a little concerned about war weariness and figured a few well-placed jails would come in handy. I also had my eye on Democracy and the Statue of Liberty--free specialists being very helpful to a hybrid or specialist economy, and a boon to a Philosophical civ as well.

So on the following turn, Victoria's stack advanced into my territory:

Now I was actually delighted about where she placed her troops. As has been revealed in another thread (IIRC thanks to Krikkitone, CFC's own XML guru), war weariness is brought on by units of either side being killed outside your borders. Units killed inside your borders do not count towards war weariness. So I could basically wipe out her stack free of charge, which is pretty much what I did. I lost maybe one Cannon and my units earned a lot of XPs in the process--including CR III for several of the Macemen, who promptly got upgraded to Grenadiers. Thanks, Vicky!

The golden age was helping out in other regards, such as completing some very expensive builds:

I should also mention that once I had Steel I started building drydocks in just about every coastal city, then started churning out Frigates and Galleons in anticipation of invading the other continent. I may have focused on this a little too much, but we'll see.

And yes, I finally started researching towards Rifling. Hatty had beaten me to Printing Press and Replaceable Parts and refused to trade them to me. Once again, though, she traded them to Cyrus, and the runt of this particular Civ litter was happy to oblige me:

With Vicky's stack gone and my two stacks hard at work, the war progressed as one might expect. Eventually I closed in on the main prize, London itself, and this is where I chose to use the Great Artist:

Why London? Remember I'd had Steel for several turns now, and London was clearly the best candidate for the Ironworks city, what with all those flood plains tiles that could host watermills. I wanted to get on with it! Even so, I had a lot of unhappy citizens to deal with, and I had to whip many of them away for infrastructure before I was able to start on the Ironworks.

I'm SO glad I've stuck with the Slavery civic this long! I'm not using it as much in my core cities, since I'm getting to the point where I need and want large populations. However, I did use it in a few of them to deal with growing war weariness. I also bumped the culture slider a couple of times to deal with it as well. Fortunately I'd built a Jail in Corinth early on, so my main science city never succumbed to WW. And I built the Globe Theatre in Delphi--I figured with all that extra food, it was the logical city to be my "whipping boy". (Nyuk, nyuk. Better or worse than "Iceberg"?)

Oh yes, and I was researching towards Physics now rather than Rifling! What gives? Well, first off, Hatty, the little minx, beat me to Scientific Method. And after so many Great People and the abandonment of the Pacifism civic, my next GP was going to be very expensive and a long time coming. So I really wanted that free Great Scientist! My Grenadiers were doing a splendid job, so I figured the Rifles could wait. I did get the GS from Physics, thank you very much, and I settled him in Corinth with several of his buddies.

There were still several cities to capture, and slogging through England's large cultural borders, one tile per turn, slowed me down, even operating two stacks. I kept every English city I took, as several of you recommended. That also slowed me down, as I had a plethora of City Raiders and not nearly enough good defensive units with Combat, Pinch, Shock, and Cover promotions.

Finally, in 1824 (!) it was all over:

It took long enough that my next GP showed up, as if to celebrate the end of hostilities and the conquering of the continent. He appeared in Sparta--guess what type he was?

Yes, a Great Prophet for the Taoist shrine! That was a pleasant surprise; it was pretty much a 1-in-4 chance of a GP, GS, GA, or GE out of Sparta with the mix of wonders and specialists that it's been running. I put the city into stagnation just to run a priest specialist for the last few turns and bring out the GP sooner; that may have made the difference. The next GP will likely be a GS from Corinth, but not for quite some time.

Below you'll find the save. Before we discuss how I should proceed next, I'll do a follow-up post with more information about the state of the world in 1826 AD.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 7, Supplementary: The State of the World in 1826 AD

Before we make any more decisions about how to proceed, a little information would, I think, be helpful. Once the war against Vicky was done in 1824 and the continent united under the Greek banner, I played one more turn to get an idea as to how things really stood in peacetime. This was also important because you might notice that it meant I finished researching a very important technology for a hybrid or specialist economy such as mine:

Biology, of course, means more food, which means more specialists in each city. I spent a lot of time at the end of this turn assigning more specialists, mostly scientists, in just about every city.

Where do I stand vis-a-vis the other civs in terms of technology?

I'm researching Communism for State Property to really fire up London's Ironworks, which will complete in a little over a dozen turns. Also, I suspect Hatty is already building the Kremlin and I'd like to beat her to it. With all the gold I have and can generate, I'm definitely anticipating Universal Suffrage for rush-buying at some point. The Kremlin may be the Ironworks' first wonder. (Oh, Medina is working on the Statue of Liberty at the moment...)

My friends and relations:

Speaking of civics, Theology has kind of run its course. I suspect that Hatty has been so reluctant to trade any technologies because of our religious differences. I usually like to switch to Free Religion once I have Scientific Method anyway; the +10% science boost for each city helps make up for the loss of the benefits of monasteries. And the happy boost would be welcome as well.

Hatty was at least good enough to spread Hinduism to Beijing, and I was smart enough to spread it to Corinth and Athens and build monasteries for it. So I have Confucianism in every city, and two more religions I can spread to them as well. Spreading Taoism would be the first priority, now that I have its shrine.

Speaking of which, once I get Corporation, where should Wall Street go? One of the holy cities makes the most sense, but which one? Confucianism is wider-spread and Shanghai has established cottages, most of which are now towns; but it also has a lot of tundra. It also has several nearby forests, though, that can be chopped to rush along WS. Thermopylae has more grasslands, but I'd have to change the current farms to cottages and switch to Emancipation to really get them rolling.

Yeah, I'm thinking Shanghai. Not the best WS city I've ever had, but it will do.

On the subject of money, here's the trade situation:

Basically, I refused to trade with Monty at all to keep Hatty and Cyrus happy. Every time I saw that one of my two friends had at least 2 GPT for trading, I offered them another resource. They're also supplying me with some helpful resources as well. All this makes Monty the logical first target on the other continent.

So let's have a closer look at that other continent:

I did a little trading of maps with Hatty and Cyrus to get a better picture of how things look over there. (That bright spot is a Scout I've had running around on auto-explore--but given the lack of Open Borders with Monty, I needed my two friends' intel on his territory.

Now here's a close-up of the southern, Aztec-owned tip of the continent:

The Aztec capital has to be in the fog in the middle of this area. It will exert a lot of cultural pressure on the surrounding cities--it is the Buddhist holy city, after all.

So I could hit two cities on each coast, or I could converge my eastern and western fleets on one. Either way, I think it makes sense to start here and then fight my way north.

Power-wise, I have a pretty good lead on Monty:

Of course, I'm also way ahead of him on techs. I anticipate, as with Victoria, another Industrial-versus-Medieval era clash. Since Hatty is ahead of him on techs as well, Monty probably owns the #2 spot thanks to sheer numbers, as usual. So as we plan our strategy for taking the other continent, keep in mind that my forces will likely have to soak up a huge counter-attack.

And I, er, used my Great Artist already.

I also should have focused a little more on producing some good defensive units rather than all those ships. I'd love to set sail right away, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a few more properly-promoted Rifles on board. This may argue more in favour of taking one of Monty's cities to begin with rather than two.

Anyway, here is how the victory conditions look:

So we actually have a long way to go, either for domination or for conquest. I still think attacking Monty first is the way to go, and I might be able to get Hatty or Cyrus or both of them to join in. After that, if it's conquest, Hatty would be next since she's more powerful and advanced, then poor Cyrus. Meanwhile, I'd be teching towards Infantry, Tanks, and Flight--the latter especially for airports and air-dropping troops.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards conquest again--pax's post hit home. And as Eggman pointed out, I kinda messed up the whole finish early/finish big plan. So why not go the long way around and finish Prince level with a victory condition I haven't accomplished yet?

So... with that in mind:

Civics: Should they be changed? To what, and when?

Research: Where to from here?

War: Is everyone agreed on Monty first? How, where?

Victory: We're pretty close to domination. How do we avoid winning it by accident on our way to conquest? We can't raze everything... we need a beachhead, and we need cities for later airdrops.

It promises to be a big finish. I look forward to your help in accomplishing it.

 

[bitplayer]

Great thread. Loaded with information and entertaining to boot.

Anyways I would take on monti first as well.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Every time I saw that one of my two friends had at least 2 GPT for trading, I offered them another resource.

I noticed you this in one of the previous games, but I forgot to mention it. IMHO, you'd be better off cancelling the original trade and then renegotiating for a higher price. The deals you have in place now are giving each of your allies 3 resources for the same amount of money you could likely get for just one. Of course, if they're truly allies, then that's great, but if you plan to eventually consider them rivals, then you're unnecessarily helping out their situation by giving them more happiness and health than you need to.

So we actually have a long way to go, either for domination or for conquest.

Only sort of. Yes, you're about 16% away from the land required for domination, but Montezuma has 19%. You won't get all of that, because the Egyptian and Persian borders will expand over some of it, but you also have some expansion to do on your home continent. If Montezuma's lands don't push you over the top (I think they will), you're going to be about 1 city away from it.

Montezuma is so technologically backward that you're going to wipe him out in no time. Once you take care of the initial counterattack, it's just going to be a question of how fast you can heal.

You're also short on population, but between Biology and the Aztec cities, that will take care of itself.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards conquest again--pax's post hit home. And as Eggman pointed out, I kinda messed up the whole finish early/finish big plan. So why not go the long way around and finish Prince level with a victory condition I haven't accomplished yet?

Having said all that in defense of domination, I like the idea of conquest. I also like knocking off each victory condition (though not usually score). In the same way that it's fun to try each leader, it's also a good challenge to try for varied victories.

In some ways, conquest can actually be easier than domination, because you don't care about defending the cities. You can go on a real scorched earth war, which means there's actually less to manage during the war.

Some things to keep in mind for conquest are:

• Again, you're not as far away from domination as you think. If you plan to go for conquest, be careful about how many Aztec cities you decide to keep. You definitely want to keep some, because you need a staging area for your troops, but make sure there's a reason you're keeping each city.
  
• Plan on keeping a few cities here and there as forward bases. Once you get flight, they're vital as airbases, not just for airdrops but also as a place to station your planes. Plan ahead to make sure those don't push you over the domination limit.
  
• If you aren't planning on going for time, you can consider taking out Montezuma now and then just sitting back while you build up your modern army. A large force made up of destroyers, marines, bombers, fighters, and tanks will plow through Egypt and Persia at an average of about 1 to 1.5 cities per turn if you manage it right. I hate modern troop management, so I like to build up such an overwhelming force that I can end the war in as short a time as possible. I don't care what year it ends as long as the war itself doesn't last long.

 

[carl corey]

I'm also with Doc here on the late war stuff. I really hate the unit management so my late wars usually take 10-20 turns in which some huge stacks of troops (yeah, more than one) finish off cities here and there with the help of a humongous airforce. I usually have a combination of fighters and bombers though, as the bombers' longer range can help me not waste time during my attacks. Cats or cannons are (maybe) used for bombing the city defenses, but I never upgrade to artillery. Air bombing is the way.

I just noticed there are a LOT of coastal cities of all civs. Maaan, this could be the amphibious war of the century! I purposely delay wars sometimes just to use my neat Marine+Carrier&fighter combo to attack several cities in one go. Never know what hit them.

 

[Toshiro126]

Hey, first of all, great job so far. I always tell myself I'm going to save Great Artists too, but never end up doing it. Is there a 12-step program I can join?

I'm at work (as usual) so I haven't looked over the info as much as I would like. But wouldn't it be bettter to take Cyrus out first? that's a fairly narrow strip of land he's on, which would be easier to defend. Once you had those cities, you could use them to land your army. And by that time, I'm assuming you'll have tanks and infantry, which would make killing Monty a lot easier.

My experience with Monty is that even though he might be behing in science, he often has a TON of units to throw at you. Might be nice to have a nice huge, defensible piece of land under your belt before you start beating the tar out of him.

I think you pretty much have the game won. it's just a question of where to start.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

But wouldn't it be bettter to take Cyrus out first?

I think if you're going for domination, attack Montezuma. He has more actual land to take, and he's so backward that he'll be a pushover. You can probably win by domination without ever fighting Cyrus or Hatshepsut.

On the other hand, if the goal is conquest, then I think you're right. Either Cyrus or Hatshepsut should go first. Cyrus probably has the most easily defended territory. Hatshepsut is probably the stronger opponent and therefore would be worth getting out of the way if possible. Definitely save Montezuma for last in a conquest. He's the one guy you can be absolutely certain will never become advanced enough to build anti-aircraft units.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Yeah, definitely go for conquest. That'd be cool, and, as I said earlier, true to the spirit of Alexandros himself. Fight until there's no one left to fight! Maybe even conquer the other continent in some grand, huge war against all three at once? That'd be insane....but it's your last prince game! Go crazy!

 

[patagonia]

One thing to be wary of is that you're probably about 5% closer to the domination limit than the victory conditions screen is currently showing as there's land on your continent that is still to come under your control. Bearing that in mind, I'd be inclined to keep just one (or at most two Aztec cities) and with conquest being the goal, the coastal ones nearest Egypt/Persia seem like the most usefully situated.

Monty has Elephants (visible on the close-up map you posted) so I'd expect him to have a ton of those, but not a whole lot else to worry about. If you can, bribe Hatty into war with him for whatever civilian techs you can give her that she doesn't already have (but nothing on the way to assembly line if possible). Doing this a couple of turns before your fleets show up will draw his mobile forces north, allowing you to easily raze the southern three cities on the turn you declare (assuming you have sufficient frigates). Leave the landing unit in each case to any Aztec counter and sail the rest up the coast to the next pair of cities, which should fall two turns later. I've advocated keeping the east-coast one so I'd land a sizeable force there to press on inland to the capital.

Amphibious assults pre-marines aren't anything to worry about with the tech advantage you currently have over Monty (Hatty may be another matter), as long as you use a suicide canon or two in each case, so I'd keep your troops on ships to render them immune to counterattacks wherever possible.

War with Monty needs to be done and dusted ASAP (and you can have half his empire burning in 3 turns so it should be), because you don't want to delay until Hatty gets infantry before nailing her. At the moment, with you having CR3 grenadiers and her having rifles, she'll be toast, but if those rifles get upgraded things could get a bit uglier. Cyrus last seems like the correct option.

As far as civics go, I'm not the most rampant warmonger in the world so others may disagree, but if you haven't picked up Fascism and Mount Rushmore by the time you go to war with Hatty, Police State might be a good idea (war with Monty should be so quick that WW won't be a factor from that). You'll probably want to use US for rush-buying with all the cash you're going to have from capturing and razing cities unless you've got a ton of units to upgrade in a hurry (eg when you get to infantry). Vasslage is worth considering too (until the Pentagon appears at least), to ensure all new units get two promotions immediately. Even with the Pentagon, I'd probably keep it to get them only 1-2 battles from their 3rd. Aside from all that, State Property is more or less a given, and Free Religion would probably give Hatty an extra push into a war with Monty due to the improved relations.

Happy burning!
(See Cuban Isolationists for further inspiration if needed)

 

[Mind_worm]

I noticed you this in one of the previous games, but I forgot to mention it. IMHO, you'd be better off cancelling the original trade and then renegotiating for a higher price. The deals you have in place now are giving each of your allies 3 resources for the same amount of money you could likely get for just one. Of course, if they're truly allies, then that's great, but if you plan to eventually consider them rivals, then you're unnecessarily helping out their situation by giving them more happiness and health than you need to.

I was going to point this out also, you really only need one deal resource for cash per AI. Not only that, but it keeps the AI from from putting itself into debt because it wont cancel a deal (i.e. keeps you from taking advantage of an exploit).

 

[flamingzaroc121]

when you attack monty try to keep cities that prevent Hatty and Cyrus from settling in your backyard ,they are just more citys to conquer in the end

 

[Sisiutil]

I noticed you this in one of the previous games, but I forgot to mention it. IMHO, you'd be better off cancelling the original trade and then renegotiating for a higher price. The deals you have in place now are giving each of your allies 3 resources for the same amount of money you could likely get for just one. Of course, if they're truly allies, then that's great, but if you plan to eventually consider them rivals, then you're unnecessarily helping out their situation by giving them more happiness and health than you need to.

Perhaps. I see your point, that each resource allows them to grow their cities larger, and we all know what that means.

But here's the flip side: what happens to their cities when I cancel all those deals? Same thing that happens to a junkie when you cut off his supply. Yes, I'm evil. But then, I've had the AI do the same thing to me.

I like the idea of conquest, and I like the idea of doing it right--building up an overwhelming force and smashing each opponent within a few turns. In which case, I may throw the brakes on the war machine for just a few turns; as I said, I'd feel comfortable with a few more good defensive units--some Riflemen with Shock, Pinch, and/or Formation promotions on top of Combat bonuses. A few more cannon as well, to damage a stack of counter-attacking units.

And here I was all geared up for Monty, and now everyone's urging me to go after either Cyrus or Hatty, and I have to agree with the logic. Cyrus' peninsula would indeed be easier to defend, and with less land, a couple of his cities will be less likely to put me over the domination limit. And he's almost as backwards as Monty and will be a push-over. Poor Cyrus...

What about getting Cyrus to war on Monty instead of (or even as well as) Hatty? That may draw Persia's forces away from the northern tip of the peninsula, which is where I could invade.

(On another note: I actually don't think I'll get that much closer to the win when the remaining English cities come out of revolt; York, Oxford, and Newcastle are pretty darn close together, with most of their tiles shared between them.)

And I've heard the victory movie for conquest is pretty cool.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

But here's the flip side: what happens to their cities when I cancel all those deals? Same thing that happens to a junkie when you cut off his supply. Yes, I'm evil. But then, I've had the AI do the same thing to me.

Yeah, that's true. In fact, I often use spies to do that sort of thing. Sabotaging oil or aluminum is usually risky, since the AI is fairly smart about guarding those resources. Sabotaging luxuries and food, on the other hand, is fairly safe and can quickly crash an economy if you're relentless about it.

 

[Eqqman]

Now I was actually delighted about where she placed her troops. As has been revealed in another thread (IIRC thanks to Krikkitone, CFC's own XML guru), war weariness is brought on by units of either side being killed outside your borders. Units killed inside your borders do not count towards war weariness. So I could basically wipe out her stack free of charge, which is pretty much what I did. I lost maybe one Cannon and my units earned a lot of XPs in the process--including CR III for several of the Macemen, who promptly got upgraded to Grenadiers. Thanks, Vicky!

Not quite correct. To have no WW you need to be culturally dominant in the tile. Even though that tile was in your borders, since you took it by force and not a culture flip, Victoria is still dominant in the tile. So the WW was all yours. Unfortunately, once you take tiles by force you have no way to tell when you are now the top dog culturally by natural causes.

I agree that you are likely safe taking just 1-2 cities on the other continent to use for Airports. Then you just have to remember not to build culture producing buildings by mistake. Just ship your men along the coast as much as possible. Start building Galleons/Transports with Medic I so that you don't have to rely on land unit Medics so much.

And yeah, the Conquest movie is WAY cooler .

 

[Sisiutil]

Not quite correct. To have no WW you need to be culturally dominant in the tile. Even though that tile was in your borders, since you took it by force and not a culture flip, Victoria is still dominant in the tile. So the WW was all yours. Unfortunately, once you take tiles by force you have no way to tell when you are now the top dog culturally by natural causes.

I agree that you are likely safe taking just 1-2 cities on the other continent to use for Airports. Then you just have to remember not to build culture producing buildings by mistake. Just ship your men along the coast as much as possible. Start building Galleons/Transports with Medic I so that you don't have to rely on land unit Medics so much.

And yeah, the Conquest movie is WAY cooler .

Ah, thanks for clarifying, that makes sense. Even so, WW was very manageable this time, despite the length of the war; I didn't have to raise the culture slider until quite late, and only to 10%, then 20% for the last few turns.

Hmmm, I've been giving my Galleons Flanking/Navigation promotions. Darn. I was thinking of when they'd become Transports and get outpaced by Destroyers. Well, I do have a couple of Medic I Frigates with each armada, so they should do the trick.

I should mention that another advantage to going after Cyrus first is that Scout I've got on auto-explore, who just happens to be in his territory at the moment. So I'll have better intel than I do on Monty (I shoulda kept a Caravel...); by the time I take him on, I should have spies.

The biggest downside to attacking Cyrus is the inevitable diplomatic hit I'll take from Hatty for declaring war on her friend. But I'm planning on switching civics to Free Religion (once I have Communism so I can switch to State Property as well), so that should more than make up for it. Plus she likes all those resources I'm selling her.

Okay, so, 1 or 2 Persian cities, then... which ones? Tyre looks like it would do a stellar job of cutting off all access to the rest of the peninsula, so I think that's one. (Too bad it doesn't have one less land tile to its northwest--it would then work as a canal, as well!) It also has a sugar plantation, though razing Arbela may be required to make it mine.

As for the others... Pasargadae is the Christian holy city (no shrine yet though), and Persepolis contains the Sistine Chapel. Since I'm trying to avoid a domination win, I'm not sure I want that particular wonder!

Both of those cities have Sheep; Sardis, however, has a gold mine. Ooooooooo... Hey, if I'm going for conquest, that means war, and that means war weariness. Gold brings in +1 happy, +2 in every city with a forge, and nearly all of mine do. Health I'm not as worried about--most of my cities don't even have aqueducts. Bonus: Tyre's sugar and Sardis' gold are within the 1st ring of their fat crosses, so they're easy to defend and available as soon as the cities emerge from revolt. AND their fat crosses overlap and consist of a lot of water, minimizing the tiles I'll claim and helping me avoid winning by domination.

So whaddya think: take Tyre and Sardis and raze everything else, including the SC and the Christian holy city? And how much you wanna bet Hatty settles in my back yard up there at the earliest opportunity?

 

[flamingzaroc121]

Sardis and Tyre look good, but itll be hard giving up a wonder and holy city