[BNW] Community Deity Game #25 - Arabia

[beetle]

CDG 25 – Harun al-Rashid

Please see the CDG Series Discussion Thread to express yourself if you have remarks and ideas. Some maps use mods. This map uses the DLC map packs, so you will need “Explorers Map Pack”, “Scrambled Nations”, and “Scrambled Continents”.

Please provide a screenshot of your victory turn. We also very much encourages pictures and stories related to the achievements and keys point in the game – because it’s fun to read for all of us! Restart and reload as you like, but in your write-up (which does not have to be long) please describe the challenges you faced.

We welcome all comments and questions, but please use the SPOILER tag if you attach a picture, make a comment about which civs are in the game, about natural wonders, locations of ancient ruins, terrain features, luxes, resources, etc. In short, if it’s information you can only know by playing the game, don’t spoil it for others by divulging this information in the open. Thank you for your co-operation, and have fun!

Before you download and play the map, please take a moment to speculate here in this thread on your initials thoughts plans for the game. Will you settle in place? What are your plans for getting the most from the UA/UU/UB? What VC are you aiming for?

The suggested VC is Domination.

Spoiler for opening screen shot :

Spoiler for UA, UU, and UB :

Ships of the Desert: Caravans gain 50% extended range. Your trade routes spread the home city’s religion twice as effectively. Oil resources are doubled.
You can train the Camel Archer, which replaces the knight but is a strong ranged unit that keeps the promotions of any upgraded Chariot Archers.
You can build the Bazaar which replaces the Market and provides an extra copy of each improved luxury resource near the City.

Spoiler for map type and settings :

Standard size, standard speed, standard number of civs and CS, etc. Map type is Pangaea Plus, Hot (Temperature) and Arid (Rainfall). Map was not altered. All VC are enabled.

Spoiler if you are not familiar with Pangaea Plus :

The in-game description reads: “Similar to Pangaea, but with extended scripting for chains of island and city-state placement.” Experience is that most of the CS will be placed on those island chains. This helps keeps them safer from aggressive AIs, but also means that it is harder for the player to find CS early. Since the CS tend not to be on the mainland, this also makes the map functionally larger.

Spoiler for hints about which AIs you might encounter :

Opponents are hand selected for good competitiveness and role-play.

Spoiler for difficulty :

Medium. You have a decent civ for Dom VC, the start location has Salt and your immediate neighbors are manageable. OTOH your opponents are pretty strong...

Spoiler for links to previous threads in CDG series :

CDG1: Persia, Oct. 31st, 2015, domination, Pangea, hard, map by Consentient
CDG2: Assyria, Nov. 15th, 2015, science, Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient
CDG3: Ethiopia, Dec. 2nd, 2015, culture, NQ Pangaea, hard, map by Consentient
CDG4: Spain, Dec. 17th, 2015, domination, NQ Pangaea, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG5: Indonesia, Jan. 2nd, 2016, culture, NQ Continents, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG6: Zulus, Jan. 15th, 2016, domination, Oval, easy, map by Consentient.
CDG7: Shoshone, Feb. 2nd, 2016, culture, Oval, very easy, map by Enslingkorp.
CDG8: Austria, Feb. 15th, 2016, science, Pangaea, very easy, map by IronfighterXXX.
CDG9: Brazil, Feb. 28th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Blatc.
CDG10: Denmark, March 14th, 2016, domination, Lakes, hard, map by Beetle.
CDG11: Venice, April 1st, 2016, domination, Archipelago, very easy, map by Wild_Woojsha.
CDG12: Byzantium, April 15th, 2016, domination, Continents, very hard, map by Beetle.
CDG13: Inca, April 30th, 2016, culture, Pangaea, medium, map by Shark Diver.
CDG14: Celts, May 18th, 2015, domination or culture, Oval, hard, map by Consentient.
CDG15: America, May 30th, 2016, diplomacy, Mesopotamia, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG16: Sweden, June 14th, 2016, domination or diplomacy, HB Continents, medium, map by Consentient.
CDG17: Germany, July 2nd, 2016, diplomacy, Pangaea, easy, map by Dan Quayle.
CDG18: France, July 14rd, 2016, diplomacy, HB Continents, hard, map by MaxAttack.
CDG19: Ottomans, Aug. 5th, 2016, domination, Continents, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG20: Portugal, Aug. 20th, 2016, domination, Pangaea, medium, map by Beetle.
CDG21: China, Sept. 9th, 2016, domination, Pangaea, medium, map by @Dan Quayle.
CDG22: Maya, Oct. 2nd, 2016, domination or science, NQ Pangaea, hard, map by @consentient.
CDG23: Iroquois, Oct. 15th, 2016, domination or culture, NQ Oval, very hard, map by @consentient.
CDG24: Babylon, Nov. 11th, 2016, science, Continents, medium, map by @beetle.

 

[raider980]

It would be nice to be on that hill next to the mountain but then you're further away from the gems. Or across the river next to the mountain but then your further away from the nice hills. And either means waiting a turn to settle, and that's bad for deity right?

Move the warrior to the hill on the other side of the mountain maybe to see if anything is there. But probably settle in place unless others say that is a bad idea.

I think I'll go domination since that's what was last being talked about in the other thread. Plus Camel Archers. And Arabia is a good domination civ from what I've read.

 

[beetle]

@raider980, I moved to the hill for the (1) extra early production and to (2) unlock observatory. Gems in 3rd ring (instead of 2nd) is not a big deal IMHO. Domination VC is very much encouraged, and Arabia is good for that. The UU is strong on its own, but it also benefits from an early Chariot Archers rush. Chariot Archers are a nice enough unit, but most players do not like them because they loose promotions when upgrading to Knights, and Arabia avoids that trap..

 

[Grendeldef]

CA is a replacement to Knight, not an earlier unit and by the time those will be upgraded to Cavalry the game should be practically over unless something weird has happened along the way.

Without looking I'll do too many cities Liberty and prolly unnecessary side track to get a decent religion after looking at the pic.
Perhaps I'm overly cocky with Harun but as long as there're horses somewhere it should be fine and most likely I'll have most troubles to stay even close to focused on winning. By now doing cool stuff has been way more fun than winning.

1st move: warrior behind that closest mountain to see whether to settle on place or somewhere else. Capital Observatory is obviously tempting.

 

[beetle]

Welcome back @Grendeldef! (I edited my post immediately above to spell out CA, since I was not providing sufficient context as to if I was meaning Chariot Archers or Camel Archer.)

I agree, well promoted Camel Archers upgrading to Calvary is not too bad, as Calvary starting with Logistics and March is good fun!

Can a Landship (or Tank) with both Logistics and Blitz attack three times?

I am sorry to report that I am having a tough time getting a Domination Victory before someone launches. I think I need to do more with Chariot Archers, as I left the one neighbor alone after I took two workers. Then I need to do more with Camel Archers. I ended up giving up to roll Polynesia maps.

 

[raider980]

Getting ready to start. What does the difficulty mean? Is it just your estimated difficulty based on the map or some sort of official setting that I'm not aware of?

 

[beetle]

@raider980, the difficultly rating is just a guess, and not something that I am particularly good at estimating.

 

[raider980]

Ha, lost my capital on T101.

Spoiler :

Assyria destroyed me. I thought I was doing good too. I had captured Susa from Persia and it had 4 horses. I had like 7 Chariot Archers, some promoted from barbs. But they are pretty weak. An injured Horseman can one shot a full health ChA. And those Siege Towers are tough; a ChA and a city bombardment barely dents them.

I probably shouldn't have captured Susa. It was not a very good city, I just did it because it had 4 horses. But not sure what I could have done against Assyria regardless. I guess build some horsemen of my own. But still, what do you need to take down 5 Siege Towers? I had just gotten Pikemen too but didn't have a chance to build any.

 

[beetle]

I do not think this is a particularly easy map. I am pretty slow generally, and I cannot get a Dom VC before someone launches. I have tried three times now, beating on a different AI each time — but that just lets some different AI runaway. I have tweaked the description in OP.

 

[poxpower]

Jesus that was tedious. I thought I'd have a nice Camel CakeWalk but man.

Found Darius first, very early, decided he was a good worker farm. Stole like 5 workers from him, went Liberty and founded 2 extra cities that had 2 lux and a bunch of nearby horses. Horses are great as Arabia APPARENTLY.
Did a little building then went right to Chariots and spammed as many chariots as my horses could afford me and used those to easily take Persia down. Kept 2 of his cities in the end I believe, since one had 4 sweet sweet horses.

Then it was time to take Morroco, who was impossibly far. Why is this map so big? I founded an extra city in between us because it was like 20 tiles away. That city had double cotton so whatever. All my stolen workers managed to make me nice roads and by that time I had oppened Honor. Just took 3 liberty and then just full honor.

Morroco was extremely annoying and the start of my not paying attention anymore.

I wittled him down pretty easily, killed all his units, then just went all-in for the kill. Magically 4 pikemen and one Knight appeared out of nowhere exactly that one turn to decimate my chariot army and kill my capture horseman, which was insanely dumb and infuriating. I HATE when the Deity AI does this. They just forget about their units until their city is nearly dead, at which point they remember that they wanted to spend their magical hoard of gold to instant-buy 10 units.

So I retreated and had to wait for Camels. Even that was hard because of the Pikeman spam, but Camels made short work of Morocco and then Babylon.

By then I had found Constantinople and saw Egypt capital, which I thought was coastal, so I dedicated my long-term plan to frigate rushing Theodora. I wish I had known that Istanbul was the earth's stupidest city location because I actually took it with Camels and suffered heavy losses. I took 4 of his cities in a peace deal, which revealed the tiny land bridge that lead to his capital. What the hell.

I sold one crap city and razed 2 others to get Istanbul eventually without being too unhappy.

At that point my secondary army was looking good and starting work on Assyria, the earth's mightiest unit spammer. He crammed a couple horrible cities in mountains and hills, as usual. It took a long time to get the first 2 cities but eventually his army was demolished, though he had extremely early Riflemen which was tough to deal with.

I started to slowly take Constantinople with my armory frigates. With honor it was very fast to get +1 range so I took that capital decently fast.

BUT THEN THERE WAS EGYPT. Dear god. He had the Great wall, of course, a massively sprawling territory was that circled with mountains and hills. He declared war on me and had been doing nothing but wonder-spamming and massing a huge army the entire game. He took back Istanbul, which required my fleet going there and retaking it. I managed to defend Babylon with the camel archer leftover from the early Ottoman conquest. Good call for me to leave that there.

I managed to take one of his cities eventually at great losses but he just swarmed me with endless units. He got Red Fort as well of course.

I just couldn't take his cap so once I got Istanbul back, I just peaced out and set up this hilarious thing here:

http://www.thepoxbox.com/tests/cdl25_1.jpg

Turns out Morroco had an INSANE good religion ( desert faith + mosques + pagodas ) which I spread to all my cities. That +3 happiness per city was crucial, but the ability to buy 4 great Generals with faith in the last game allowed me to basically just circle Egypt's capital with Artillery lol.

It wasn't necessary but whatever. I used the 10 turns of peace to pop Artillery tech with a scientist and upgrade all my canons and circle the city with my camels. I declared war as soon as I could and his city stood no chance and was taken instantly:

http://www.thepoxbox.com/tests/cdl25_2.jpg

It was a very rough game. Persia had Petra so I thought I was set but I made a huge mistake early in not finishing the National College because of a weird city razing and not finishing Circus Maximus so it got all bizarre.

I played full honor which is absolute trash in the base game. The bonuses are SO BAD. Tradition probably would have been the best for faster camels and more happiness but whatever. I was extremely late in tech due to bad spying.

For sure I think I could have done way way better but this map is extremely awkward as 4 of the AI are extremely hard to reach.

 

[beetle]

Thanks for the very entertaining write-up @poxpower!

 

[Blatc]

I was curious if anyone took more than 1 capital with chariot archers and if it impacted how quickly they reached Chivalry.

I expect Liberty, using finisher for GS, is the fastest social policy path towards Chivalry and Camel Archers. With this map type, you're not meeting many CS early and likely need to build GW guild or Oracle to finish Liberty in decent time.

Thanks for posting, beetle, I've played around with the early game and am slowly remembering how to play DomV. Started with scout, monument, scout, scout, caravan, granary, settler, caravan, library in capital and went 3-city Liberty.

 

[vadalaz]

To T100

Spoiler :

Went Liberty, settled on the Gems and opened with Scout x3 - Monument - Granary - Warrior x3 - Settler - Chariots
Playing a bit sloppily and I lost a few more units than I should have, but I took Marrakech, Persepolis and one city from Babylon with chariots, getting ready to upgrade and spam Camels with a GS sitting there. Didn't get quite as much gold as I wanted for upgrades and I was considering using the liberty finisher to GE Machu Picchu instead. Didn't build NC as I generally don't care for it when I'm playing wide and/or doing an early rush.



Should've read this was one of the Plus maps, noticed the lack of inland CSs way too late. Moroccan religion has DF but he picked rubbish faith buildings - Cathedrals and Monasteries, so happiness has been a bit shaky. I should probably try to grind through Egypt's cities to get Chichen and Notre Dame from him, and to just slow him down as Ashur seems to do nothing about it despite the bribes.

 

[poxpower]

I was curious if anyone took more than 1 capital with chariot archers and if it impacted how quickly they reached Chivalry.

I got within 1 turn of doing it but then the AI remembers that ACTUALLY he had 4 Pikemen with triple movement that one turn lol. But I was careless and had my horseman die to his weird "haha I still have units hiding on a road 40 tiles away in the shroud while you're getting my cap to 0 health".

I recommend making 2-3 horsemen and keeping them all game. I upgraded one of mine to a Camel at Chivalry because I didn't realize that horses AND chariots upgraded to camels lol. I thought I'd have a Knight all game but then I had to take the rest of the cities with god damned Pikemen and Muskets. It was terrible.

 

[Blatc]

vadalaz, we settled the same capital and nearly identical spots for first 2 expos.
I'm electing to prioritize getting Chivalry as early as possible, at the expense of conquering more with chariots. I think it's close whether to build NC ASAP (before capturing any cities) vs. ignoring Philosophy.

 

[vadalaz]

To 150

Spoiler :

Thebes and Constantinople down, Assur and Babylon should fall fairly soon. Suleiman won't be able to hold this army off for too long either.



Went Tradition to Aristocracy after finishing Liberty, I figured it's the fastest way to get some extra happiness. Tech-wise, Chivalry > Iron Working to upgrade my Warriors with double cover, Education > Chemistry. Hard-built Machu Picchu in Medina to get my gpt up.

Re: NC vs No NC, I think both approaches are about equally good for the average map. I like No NC more, but I didn't play it well this time. Never even got any trade routes up. It's been a constant battle to keep my happiness up, so I couldn't find room for caravans in my build queue.

update - T176 DomV

Spoiler :

Babylon and Assur 160-somethings, Istanbul T176 after a T175 DoW. Disembarked my units and had just enough firepower to take the city in one turn.



Didn't pay much attention in the end, because essentially I went for the "get a bazillion units and forget about tactics" play, so I probably wasted a few turns there and lost some units that didn't necessarily need to die.

Notable mistakes: didn't get any navy and ignored CSs, never established any trade routes, didn't build roads quickly enough near Assur which was the toughest city to take, didn't build Pyramids although it would've been easy in this playthrough.

Overall a fun game with one of the best UUs out there. Thanks for the map!

 

[Blatc]

vadalaz, we settled the same capital and nearly identical spots for first 2 expos.
I'm electing to prioritize getting Chivalry as early as possible, at the expense of conquering more with chariots. I think it's close whether to build NC ASAP (before capturing any cities) vs. ignoring Philosophy.

I should clarify that it's close meaning the turn you'll reach Chivalry at doesn't change much. With 3 cities, Philosophy requires ~221 beakers - could be less as more civs research it - so your NC needs to produce at least that many beakers by Chivalry just to break even, if you're viewing Chivalry as a quasi endpoint for a fast DomV. However, that doesn't account for the production invested, which is worth roughly 4 more chariot archers. Getting the NC is a reasonable safe approach, but skipping it is likely the better move if pushing hard for a fast DomV.

 

[vadalaz]

Getting the NC is a reasonable safe approach, but skipping it is likely the better move if pushing hard for a fast DomV.

I suppose you're right. I'm not convinced getting Camels 10 turns earlier is better than having some very well upgraded units and 2 captured capitals by that time. With chariots there's the risk your push gets stalled too early though.

 

[beetle]

Very nice @vadalaz!

Ha, lost my capital on T101.

Spoiler for naming civs :

But still, what do you need to take down 5 Siege Towers?

Agreed, they are tough, I got an unmanageable early DOW from Assyria in my first game. At the time, I only had two CA, and they were off to the east, working on Worker steals from Morocco. In my subsequent play, I have reloaded to bribe him to DOW civs that were, you know, actually close to him!

But the idea is to just fortify Warriors between your city and the ST, use zone of control, and wear them down even if it takes a while. Kill the horsemen, then the melee units, then the ranged units, and save the ST for last. The ST cannot melee attack, so if they do not touch your city, they are harmless on their own. Depending on what you are facing, your CA might get away with being in front of your city instead of inside or behind it, and you should be fine. With enough ranged units (and it sounds like you had enough) you might not even need the blocking Warriors.

Then it was time to take [snip], who was impossibly far. Why is this map so big?

Should've read this was one of the Plus maps, noticed the lack of inland CSs way too late.

Sorry that it does not help either of you, but I have added an additional note about the map script to OP.

 

[Blatc]

I suppose you're right. I'm not convinced getting Camels 10 turns earlier is better than having some very well upgraded units and 2 captured capitals by that time. With chariots there's the risk your push gets stalled too early though.

To be clear, I do not think researching Philosophy and building NC will get you to Chivalry 10 turns earlier. I think it's closer to 0, though helpful for the post-Chivalry game and therefore smart for most payers to consider getting an early NC.
I think the biggest factors to speeding up Chivalry are sending out early trade routes to neighbours and using Liberty finisher for GS.