Babylon Contrast Journal, All Welcome

[Milae]

Spoiler settling location :

There are a lot of ways to settle this. I'm considering replaying as tradition with a different settle.

I'd probably settle the hill if it had 1 more good tile, like a forest, adjacent to it, or if ancient ruins were on. But it's just floodplain then either grassland/plains. When I settled where I did, I had not revealed the Marble yet, and I figured there was a chance of another silver to the south beyond the river. I work the perfume immediately for the gold, the city itself also gives 2 gold, I invested all 3 of monument-shrine-well.

My spot has 3 good tiles in immediate range, instead of just 1 floodplain. I also like where the borders would grow, settle on the hill and you'll 'waste' an expansion growing to the perfume. I saw that you could settle with 4 silver but knew the borders would take forever to grow.

Also it's wild how much earlier the AI got religions in my game.

Spoiler :

I actually did try with tradition after, I went for the perfume tile since it had many workable squares around it. I was rushing and played pretty badly but it seemed doable to start from there with Pyramids. Probably Earth Mother Pantheon is best there since you can't really guarantee any more wonders after Pyramids.
My guess is that the Silver Hill would be best since you could still get Pyramids and then go Beauty with Petra or Stars and Sky. I didn't to go there though since my first play was to scout the perfume rather than up into the tundra so I would never have known about the other Marble or Silver.

 

[CrazyG]

Did mine on a livestream:
[/SPOILER]

Spoiler game spoilers :

Watched your video. Looks like you got fairly unlucky with Petra and especially with AI religions going so early.

A good reason to scout north is because city-states like to appear on the edges of the map on Oval. With ancient ruins off a little bit of extra gold from tributing them makes a big difference. Also settle on the silver to sell it once you discover mining makes a big difference.

 

[stii]

Spoiler settling spoilers :

It is kind of insane how slight changes make such a huge difference in where you settle. Like I moved my warrior two hexes east onto a hill, which revealed the 4th silver. Making settling on the hill so much more attractive.

Which then lead into the tundra pantheon and me settling a bunch of cities in the tundra. Having two silver producing 11! worth of yields early on was huge.

 

[Milae]

Spoiler game spoilers :

Watched your video. Looks like you got fairly unlucky with Petra and especially with AI religions going so early.

A good reason to scout north is because city-states like to appear on the edges of the map on Oval. With ancient ruins off a little bit of extra gold from tributing them makes a big difference. Also settle on the silver to sell it once you discover mining makes a big difference.

Spoiler :

Yea I was looking for them but went the wrong way, I guess the tundra being at the edge makes sense. Do you scout with your units together so that you can tribute easier or apart to find more stuff? Yea settling on stuff seems more necessary without ruins, but actually I think the silver hill tile would still make building Pyramids quite risky, I guess you could invest in them with the extra money.

 

[stii]

Spoiler :

Yea I was looking for them but went the wrong way, I guess the tundra being at the edge makes sense. Do you scout with your units together so that you can tribute easier or apart to find more stuff? Yea settling on stuff seems more necessary without ruins, but actually I think the silver hill tile would still make building Pyramids quite risky, I guess you could invest in them with the extra money.

Spoiler :

I think under recent patches and your sub mod building pyramids is just a bit too risky. It used to be 100% safe on pretty much any start but now sometimes the AI get it pretty early. Maybe if you settle on copper and build a well it is safe.

Settling on top of thing is just a bit of extra yields for no real cost, it is even better here because you will want to work all the silver possible but that will be hard to support without really slowing your growth to a crawl. I think the flat silver probably is best ignoring the further out lux as it gives you a well, but the silver hill is best as it gives all the possible lux and I do feel like you should be able to spot some of them on the first turn.

I general scout apart but not too far so they can move back together for higher tribute. So one north west and the other north east. It is a bit random if you find CS early though

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler :

Yea I was looking for them but went the wrong way, I guess the tundra being at the edge makes sense. Do you scout with your units together so that you can tribute easier or apart to find more stuff? Yea settling on stuff seems more necessary without ruins, but actually I think the silver hill tile would still make building Pyramids quite risky, I guess you could invest in them with the extra money.

Spoiler To Pyramids or Not To Pyramids :

Usually I send the warrior to scout a quick circle around the capital while the pathfinder tries to find the edge of the continent. Once the pathfinder finds a CS the warrior goes that way.

I also noticed in your difficulty mod that the Pyramids is more risky and if you do build it, any AI who was building it will hate you. That damage to relations is a major negative in my opinion. A major reason to build them in regular VP is just to deny the AI, who collect their handicap twice, but your mod adjusts that anyways.

The main disadvantage to settling on one of the two silver is if you take Earth Mother, which you said you were planning on. That's a reasonable plan, Earth Mother usually is passed by the AI, you just got a bit unlucky. I think it was still available when I took my pantheon in my run.

 

[CrazyG]

The first post says Tuesday was the deadline? It's Wednesday here so I guess it's discussion time.

I went through the images and made a 'best of' list:

Spoiler Best in Each Category :

Science: Complicated, see below.
Culture: CrazyG
Population: Stii
Production: Probably Stii (an estimate)
Gold: Possibly CrazyG, but the authority saves might be ahead when considering bonus yields
Faith: CrazyG
Military: Milae

I want to not that while DeAnno's save isn't clearly top in any category, it's frequently #2. Overall it's a well balanced position (mine and Milae's have a lot of extremes).

Now, onto Science! I'm curious how people would measure this. Is it more important to have more techs, or more per turn? Also, how many bonus yields are the authority guys getting for kills?

On number of techs, it's very close. Stii, CrazyG, and DeAnno all have 14 techs, Milae has 13. However not all techs have the same cost and everyone appears to have a different combination of techs.

CrazyG has the most raw science per turn, but DeAnno's is higher when you adjust for city number. Milae has the lowest but is probably collecting some bonus yields and may get a big payoff for capturing a Siamese city. Stii's is strong too, he's closest to the next Great Scientist.

Spoiler One More Note About My Save :

I already had my Golden Age, and it looks like others didn't, so that affects the culture race.

 

[Milae]

Okay so feel free to play on and post if you want, and people can download others' save and play from there as well.
Next milestone I'd just say ~turn 140 since everyone will probably be doing different things.

Spoiler :

I also have 14 techs btw as have currency, Am getting ~10 per turn from unit kills but probs won't get that much for conquering this city as it's not that big. So I'm sure I'd be behind soon.

I think it all depends what you guys' plans are next, Hagia/Borobudur are plausible but not safe even for the progress guys I think, In terms of conquering stuff I think it has to be done before castles really which probably isn't far off. Or perhaps rush for Metallurgy as Crossbows ain't the best.

I have no idea what religion you guys are thinking though, I'm pretty curious to see.

 

[DeAnno]

Spoiler Instant Yields :

I think one thing we should remember is the Progress saves are more ahead in cpt than they look, because Progress has a ton of culture instant yields. Then again, the Milae save is getting Culture and Science instant yields from the kills in the war, and bowmen are good at standing back and killing even if taking the city seems a while away.

Anyway, looking at the saves holistically:

Spoiler :

Milae: Very book authority play, we have a large ball of UU army fighting a war in terrain that favors it. Also he has the most expansive empire, could even settle the peaceful city northwest of Russia if it was wanted, maybe even the city northeast of Assyria too. However the Milae save did miss religion (didn't even try for it, so it's a clean miss at least) and it's behind by about 3/4ths of the 6th policy from the pack. Even with culture from kills and maybe a capture it'll be hard to catch up there. This is a high variance save that depends a lot on how the war goes.

Stii: This was a more passive Authority but has a lot to recommend it. It has a stars and sky religion in it's pocket, has a good wedge of cities and could grow more, and has a good army ready for upgrades. It should also be noted Stii has two techs 1 turn from finishing, both Sailing and Mathematics, so his tech situation is even stronger than it looks. This save also has Petra.

DeAnno: This is a Progress save very similar to Stii's Authority save, including the late-ish Stars and Sky religion. Similar cities less the Southern one, similar diplomatic situation, similar army, slightly worse science and better culture. Also lacks the Petra. Basically this is a worse save in most respects except that it has the long term horizon of Progress instead of Authority, it's looking to be pointed at a kind of tall Progress sort of play. Note there is a 5th city settler almost done who at this point is probably going to head north up to the kind of marginal spot with 3 deer.

I feel like both the DeAnno and Stii saves are very low variance defensive sorts of positions. I have the issue of being a little low on cities for Progress and Stii might want to get his Authority fighting soon but these aren't big issues.

CrazyG: Another Progress save but a very different style, with six close in cities taking space to the south and room for some more marginal cities in the north. Slightly better culture and religion (Ancestor Worship) than the DeAnno save and also Petra. This one even has Scriviner's office already which isn't nothing, it'll always have a slight vote advantage. I think this save probably plays more to Progress' strengths than my save, especially because of the more extra settling space to the north that is still untaken, it could feasibly end up as an eight city Progress with no war. The big downside of this save is the army is super trash and I think to prevent the AIs getting so antsy they cancel the Friendships it'll need to build some Bowmen quickly.

I think if we wanted to rigorously compare Authority and Progress the DeAnno and Stii saves are a good chance to do so (does the weaker Progress earlygame recover from the early disadvantage or not?), however I think the CrazyG save is best overall. I'm not so good at judging wars though and the Milae save could be better than it looks with the power of those bowmen.

Spoiler versions :

Is 5-28 compatible with 5-24? If it is should we switch over for the small fixes or keep playing this on 5-24?

 

[stii]

T140 sounds good, better than doing at enhance as that varies wildly.

I'm going to continue the plan and only attack at muskets, attacking at crossbows would probably be better. Maybe even earlier but this is at least safe as I don't really know how strong the AI is under this mod.

This game is a lot less dumb in terms of AI trades, even with silver mines everywhere we don't have infinite gold.

 

[stii]

Spoiler up until t141 with my save :

So lot more building up, the giant group hug continues. Not sure if it is good for authority as killing units is free culture but it does mean I can focus on other thing and being in the centre loved by everyone means I am getting a lot of culture/science from AI trade routes anyway 8/10 and a lot more in the future.

I took Holy Law and pagodas because while I got a religion I don't think I can really keep it without a huge fight. So instead I just want two faith buildings and pagodas provides pretty huge yields. Given the nerfs to founders I'm not really sure which are best but I figured holy law is best short term and worse long term, but I won't have anything long term anyway. Having my holy city not in my capital makes it a lot less appealing to get loads of food for example.

Attacking earlier might have been more powerful but things are still fine. I am behind the stronger AI but I can just attack the weaker ones, make them my vassals and catch up. But I am still quite a bit off muskets for that plan. I built a 6th city because it seemed pretty free to do so. It grew super quickly and with investing it made the important buildings as well.

I went fealty and I am getting a lot of discounts on faith buildings, although the finisher is going to be a bit rubbish. Reforming is going to be a pain but not impossible. It is tricky balancing multiple religions but it does provide lots of benefits.

 

[bonniepbilly]

Thanks ya’ll, very interesting to read. I tried the game too but my save is much weaker. I don’t even play deity usually, let alone with Milae’s mod. Maybe I should post my save to make other readers feel better though

I didn’t see CrazyG’s save, did you post it?

Looking forward to the next parts, in particular to compare stii’s authority vs DeAnno’s progress.

 

[CrazyG]

Thanks ya’ll, very interesting to read. I tried the game too but my save is much weaker. I don’t even play deity usually, let alone with Milae’s mod. Maybe I should post my save to make other readers feel better though

I didn’t see CrazyG’s save, did you post it?

Looking forward to the next parts, in particular to compare stii’s authority vs DeAnno’s progress.

I forgot to post my save. Here it is.

 

[DeAnno]

My save ran fine on patch 5-28.

Spoiler The Story :

In the interests of science I decided to play my save to t141 for direct comparison with stii's. While I'm late to found, there aren't a lot of founders nearby, just Siam, so I have hopes to keep a religion and profit from it with Holy Law. Given I want to do a lot of spreading right now to everyone I don't want a building, and with Walls of Babylon everywhere it'll be practical to run a specialist in every city easily, so I pick Creativity because the extra faith gives it a lot of value. Immediately the 6 followers in Dur-kurigalzu give me 2c2f. My workers will soon complete roads to our two back CS to increase religious pressure there, while I actively spread to myself and then to Assyria and Russia. I will eventually go Fealty.

Gandhi loves me so much he gives me incense. Meanwhile I reserve a gold for 4 gpt and sell out all my silver, trusting itll come back from some other deal soonish if I end up needing it. I get my final Progress on turn 97. Running back to settle my new city I discover a surprise babarian, there must be a camp back here! The army comes to help, such as it is. Gandhi helps again, blocking the critical tile with a skirmisher, and I get my settle off, revealing the camp. I consider waiting for a quest to finish the camp off but it feels like too much of a liability to leave there, my army isn't actually strong. It also makes a production trade route to the new city safe.

I go Sailing and then Philosphy, allowing a Scout upgrade, extra trade route, temples. Babylon is being set up to be the unit factory and works the Forge, DK works the Scriviner and I ally Quebec, other cities work Scientists. I tried Hagia Sophia in DK despite being a bit late and only missed it by 2 turns (I wouldve invested the last turn); DK missing wonders isn't too bad though because it has the full marble/stone bonus so I'm kind of happy to give them a shot, I don't even have a single one yet.

I was concerned about the Russia Friendship ending, but she declared war on Korea just as it did. She doesn't renew friendship on my turn, but does on her turn, so I keep living close to the edge with my spearmen. Later by a few turns the Huns terrify me but I still have a DoF 30 turns with them, I don't think they'll backstab.

Religious spread to Assyria goes well (I only spread to Moscow once, Russia was more competed for and less accessible), and I finish the Divine Court at 129 as first to reform taking TTGOG (I'm behind I need to just take broken things at this point), then take my 8th policy on 130 with 575 in each instant yield (implies 115 followers.) Whatever other problems my save has, religion has been an unqualified success.

I considered mixing policies, but I think it's not wise, I can use a lot of the Fealty stuff really well and the Pressure in specific will be big for helping Holy Law. If I had "rights" to more than like, 2 and 1/2 City States or even any port at all I'd have been more inclined to mix, but just getting some goodies from Artistry isn't tempting enough. Also I haven't built a single Castle or Armory yet and that's kind of a lot of total rocks to get as a steroid right this second, I teched to Chivalry on t130 as well and Steel the turn after that.

I enhance on t133. Since I'm going full Fealty, I'd rather double down on WLTKD with Synagogues than mess with Mosques (plus Synagogues do Distress, that's great for happiness on this patch, and the rocks are apprieciated with a small empire.) I vacillitate between Orthodoxy and Symbolism and decide on Symbolism, DK decided it was too busy to be a Writer city right now but its doing Diplomats and can branch out to a Merchant, Artists, maybe sideline in Scientists, it'll get the early musician, etc etc. I'll put the National Monument there too, hadn't decided that one yet.

Things end boringly, as is right and proper for this save. I build religious buildings and tech towards Machinery, looking for upgrades and possibly Leaning Tower eventually. Korea is becoming a bit of a world pariah but other than that it's still a hugfest. Also my scouting is trash sorry about that, maybe build a pair of explorers when you get around to Compass. I stopped at t141 for better comparison with Stii. I also attached the t129 save before Reform, 8th Policy, and Enhance choices in case someone is interested in doing that burst of options differently.

The Empire:

Religious Summaries:

Converted Assyria:

Spoiler Vitals :

5 Cities/51 Pop, 0 Wonders, 1 CS ally 2 friends.
26 Techs +124 spt (3 turns until Machinery) [Tech leader is 31 techs]
8 Policies (Progress->Fealty) +125 cpt (5 turns until Policy 9) [Policy leader is 10 policies]
National Wonders:
DK: Scriviner, Nat Monument, Circus Maximumus
Capital: Heroic Epic, Grand Temple
Other 3 Cities: Writers' Guilds
Nippur: Also School of Philosophy

My rates do look a lot lower than Stii, but I am even in techs/ahead in culture by about a third of a policy and I argue that is because of my instant yields being so strong with Progress and a Real Boy Holy Law. Also only 3/10 of my Monasteries and Synagogues are built, so the science will prop itself up quickly.

EDIT: Also note that I'm carrying a larger army, I have no Friendship with Siam to make me feel more secure. Babylon has made a lot of Bowmen over time, whenever I don't have money to invest its next building I make a Bowman instead.

 

[stii]

Spoiler comparing my game to deanno :

When you took the same founder as me I wondered if we were going to be utterly identical here. You got a lot more value off holy law. Korea being the 5th religion in your game changes things, I didn't even try to convert due to Assyria having a religion, just figured I'd get the short term stuff. Which has worked fine but your religion is certainly more powerful. My enhancer is going to syncretism.

And yeah I am generating more science/culture but you are equal/ahead so at most I'm ramping up more, certainly not ahead yet.

You are a bit safer without the bottom silver city near Siam, which probably makes sense for both of us, you don't want a war but I'm fine with getting attacked

I'm running the 5-28. and see no issues, AI peace out normally in my game for example.

I think the AI views DoF as a binding pact, they will never break it to declare war at most they will break it and wait ten turns to declare.

The fact we are even almost identical on Machinery is pretty funny, but I promise a big divergence in the next 50 turns

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler progress till turn 141 :

Started on my save. I took Holy Law and Thrift.

Ormus and Quebec City had a civil war, which I settled to get an alliance with both. That's a cool 15 in the capital and 5 everywhere else. Didn't have too much success with any other CS though.

Finished Drama and Poetry on turn 94, then go for education. I want to reach the next era just to double all my bonus . All got the 6th progress on turn 94.

Stayed at 6 cities (I had promised not to settle with all neighbors). Assyria and Russia didn't renew friendship but Siam and India did. I built a few bowmen while also pushing out temples in every city.

Kept building missionaries, converted Assyria, and eventually the Huns. Got pretty value from Holy Law, had 168 followers for my 9th social policy. Took Fealty to discount my faith purchases, the first time I've taken it in a while. I denounced the Huns, even though he liked me, because I wanted better relations with Siam and Assyria.

After education I went for Theology. When I unlocked it, Parthenon was unbuilt, so I decided to try Hagia Sophia. With a CS quest, forest chops, and investment it only took 6 turns. Enhanced my religion on turn 120, taking Pagodas and Symbolism. Pagodas feel very strong and contributed a lot to unhappiness issues.
Reformed 3 turns later with inspired works. The faith buying university thing was also available but I think this gives more .

Cities on lakes can build lighthouses, so all my trade routes are centered in Akkad and giving food to other cities.

Korea is running away with the game, 4 techs ahead of the next AI. I've fallen behind the AI in culture. He's very popular diplomatically and has the Great Wall. It really sucks that it's Korea because he beats Babylon to a spaceship by default.

I reached the Renaissance through chemistry already, though I can't build leaning tower yet. Going for gunpowder next, I think a war might happen soon but I don't want to be the one who declares due to defensive pacts.

This is my first game on Milae's mod and I have to say I enjoy the difficulty. In science and culture I have to work really hard to keep up with the AI. In happiness I've been constantly on the edge, but I'm also doing a pretty growth heavy strategy.

Spoiler Pics :

 

[DeAnno]

Spoiler :

One thing is I'm very surprised at the size of other people's armies, so small. I'd think the AIs would be more opportunistic to cancel friendships and even declare wars over that.

I'm not surprised CrazyG pulled ahead, his empire looked very good last save. The main bane of his situation though is that his political situation isn't great, with less friendships and Korea ascendant. In particular I would be terrified of Assyria and Russia becoming friends and then double declaring on him. On my save, as I mentioned, Korea is a little bit of a pariah already and it should be easy to pass a sanction against them when WC starts voting. His religion is even stronger than mine but I think we will both hit the Holy Law cap soon enough as cities grow taller everywhere.

Everyone picked Holy Law, maybe it's the next target for the nerfhammer. Though it also might just be this was a good situation for it, as least in the saves where Assyria didn't found. Symbolism is also getting a lot of play, though Stii seems more aimed at Syncreticism.

At this point my save looks like quite the weaker Progress than CrazyG's, but if it can stick around until Industrial it'll have TtGoG to try to bail it out. The Great Generals at least as well as not having to defend from as many directions will make it more resilient, perhaps. I should probably just trade away my iron for pennies, not like I'll want cannons or fleets, but I think I want to keep my horses and build some Skirmishers to complement the Bowmen in open terrain, a couple Skirmishers to fight fires on defense can go a long way.

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler :

One thing is I'm very surprised at the size of other people's armies, so small. I'd think the AIs would be more opportunistic to cancel friendships and even declare wars over that.

I'm not surprised CrazyG pulled ahead, his empire looked very good last save. The main bane of his situation though is that his political situation isn't great, with less friendships and Korea ascendant. In particular I would be terrified of Assyria and Russia becoming friends and then double declaring on him. On my save, as I mentioned, Korea is a little bit of a pariah already and it should be easy to pass a sanction against them when WC starts voting. His religion is even stronger than mine but I think we will both hit the Holy Law cap soon enough as cities grow taller everywhere.

Everyone picked Holy Law, maybe it's the next target for the nerfhammer. Though it also might just be this was a good situation for it, as least in the saves where Assyria didn't found. Symbolism is also getting a lot of play, though Stii seems more aimed at Syncreticism.

At this point my save looks like quite the weaker Progress than CrazyG's, but if it can stick around until Industrial it'll have TtGoG to try to bail it out. The Great Generals at least as well as not having to defend from as many directions will make it more resilient, perhaps. I should probably just trade away my iron for pennies, not like I'll want cannons or fleets, but I think I want to keep my horses and build some Skirmishers to complement the Bowmen in open terrain, a couple Skirmishers to fight fires on defense can go a long way.

Spoiler Turn 142 Spoiler :

Assyria declares war on me.

I've never fought a war on Milae's mod before but it's fair to say this game becomes very difficult.

 

[DeAnno]

We are still waiting on Milae, and I want to hold before my playthrough and get a chance to see what he does, but how far should we play on the next leg? Maybe to Turn 180? In my experience turns get a little longer as the game goes into this period. Also nice to hit an even multiple of 15 in case anyone is rigging elections, it gives the new player a chance to freely move the spy.

EDIT: Also a note to Milae, I saw some of your video and wanted to mention this play of the Mapscript has low seas on, I have found over some experimentation that that produces the better feeling version of the map with it less crowded. I might switch it to be the new normal sea if I release another version, with the others calibrated against that.

 

[Milae]

We are still waiting on Milae, and I want to hold before my playthrough and get a chance to see what he does, but how far should we play on the next leg? Maybe to Turn 180? In my experience turns get a little longer as the game goes into this period. Also nice to hit an even multiple of 15 in case anyone is rigging elections, it gives the new player a chance to freely move the spy.

EDIT: Also a note to Milae, I saw some of your video and wanted to mention this play of the Mapscript has low seas on, I have found over some experimentation that that produces the better feeling version of the map with it less crowded. I might switch it to be the new normal sea if I release another version, with the others calibrated against that.

Ahh yea that makes sense, it was soo different to the practise one I did where I had to scrape for 3 cities.
Mine should be done today also.

Spoiler Religion :

Mostly referring to the Progress guys:
So from my previous experience on a map like this you either have to go all in on religion and convert everyone, or just get reformation and then accept that your religion will be limited to which cities you want to inquistor. Basically whoever has the largest religion gets the pressure which overwhelms everyone else. I probably would have gone with Mausoleum and Artistry or Tradition and tried to win at religion as it gives crazy faith later. Or Theocratic, rushed to reform, and just kept it in my capital/my own cities (one cool thing about this founder is that it affects all cities even if they aren't your religion) and then used spare faith on Prophets which get the +5 culture from Holy Sites as well. This is one of the main reasons I much preferred Tradition first if possible since it would synergise better with either of these. Tbh I've not used Holy Law much but I can see it's doing good for you guys atm but just wondering how useful it will be later on and if you will be able to keep the followers? I think with the Mod on the lategame synergies are more important than early utility so that might be why you guys prefer Holy Law to me. But it might be the difference in getting Porcelein Tower or not so that could be pretty big.

Also I was definitely thinking inspired works instead of Glory of God since you can already buy the Great Writers, and pretty sure you will get Rationalism so you can get Scientists, which are the main reasons for going Glory of God if you don't have these. And when you reform so early you aren't getting a benefit from it for quite a while until you get to industrial.

One other thing is that the new Pilgrim Founder is actually insanely good for getting city state allies. I played Polynesia and by mid renaissance I had every city state as my ally which gave +100 Science per turn from Scholastism. I know Statecraft Babylon is pretty weird but it was soo good I think it's worth considering. I didn't even have Borobodur, I think if you have that it's just strait up OP. Maybe some of these option weren't available for you guys anyways as well.

@stii Is there anyone who you could attack without big repercussions? It will take a while to weaken people and getting to range/logistics is pretty useful so I would start as soon as you can with Crossbows, even though conquering probs not possible until Muskets.