DocT01a - Middle Ages Modified: Reconquista!

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Nice turns, Bede

I was expecting we need to dance with some intruding Settlers, that's why I hurried the first two of our Settlers. The green dots in Spain should be save, from my rather extensive experience with this Conquest I would be very surprised if someone settles there - they seem too close to other cities for the AI.

The Temple in Barcelona is needed IMHO for cultural pressure on Valencia.

A Galley in the Mediterranean Sea? Must have been a Barbarian; only England has 2 Galleys to start with; Byzantium has Dromons.

If there's a chance try to contact the Poles with our Northern Curragh, Poland is hard to meet otherwise, and we should help Poland - the stronger they are, the weaker Germany will be, and if Poland researches the Western Church tree, the Tech prices will drop.

I agree with getting a Settler from Leon right now, but then it should stay at max size, since most of our income is made there, having our only Market Place.

And nobody can beat us to Norse Traditions - the Vikings now it already, and the other Civs won't research it before they finish the generic tree. Since it cannot be traded, it won't show up in negotiations. just save money now, and check once the others have HBR; as soon as the Vikings have Seafaring, we should buy HBR and trade it for Seafaring; could as well sell it for small cash to everyone else except Bulgars and Kievan (those two will research the Byzantine tree without much sucess, and since they usually have nothing to offer, they won't be able to get it from the AI Civs - so we can trade for something more useful like Alliances later).

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Welcome aboard, Elvis.

Now, lets do some pretty soon.

 

[Corrado]

Pre-turn check:

Change Santiago from a Curragh to a Barracks. We won't need the Curraghs, not right now. Swap Leon to a Swordsman and Navarre to a Settler; they're both producing the same, but Leon needs the pop more given its Marketplace.


IBT: England gets pissy about our fleet sailing in her waters. Our military advisor suggests getting together a huge fleet- we'll call it an Armada- and wiping the sneer off her face. I politely decline.

918 (1): Pull Santiago warrior back to Leon for upgrading. Swordsman-laden curragh sails out to look south.

IBT: Cordovan Ansar Warrior (5/3/2) marches out of Frankish territory.

921 (2): Leon Swordsman->Swordsman. Navarre Settler->Swordsman.

Upgrade Warrior to SM for 60 g.

IBT: Cordova complains about our curragh, and we squeak and mewl cowardly at the thought of their Ansar warriros.

924 (3): Madrid Spearman->swordsman.

IBT: Watch a Cordovan spear move into Lisbon; the Ansar is moving down towards Valencia. Denmark carps about our curragh.

927 (4): Continue to explore. Meet the Poles.

IBT: Cordovan Ansar and Settler leave Valencia. Settler and Spear begin to move out of the darkness towards Madrid.

930 (5): Leon Sword->Sword.

Germany, Sweden, Celts and France have HBR, but are unwilling to trade it at all.

IBT: Cordovan settler pairs continue to move through our lands.

933 (6): Finally hook up the horses near Madrid.

Burgundy now has HBR, but still no one will trade.

IBT: Still more Cordovan movement past us.

936 (7): Santiago Barracks-> Settler. Salamanca Granary -> Swordsman.

Found Murcia just north of Lisbon. Begin work on Barracks.

England gets HBR. We can now spend our entire economy to get it. I say nay.

939 (8): Leon Swordsman->Swordsman.

Discover the Kievan Rus. They, Norway, and Denmark are the only ones who don't have HBR. We can now get it for 218 + 17 gpt, leaving us no money and 7 gpt. Again, I decline.

942 (9): Nothing of note.

945 (10): Finished the gold mine outside of Leon. Now up to +29 gpt. HBR now 266 + 14 gpt, leaving us +15 gpt; I leave it to the next player to decide if that's at all worth it.


Okay, so here's where we stand.

We're up to 7 swordsmen, which is still 'weak' compared to Cordova. On the other hand, a lot of Cordovan units are escaping east to go settle Russia. Leon pumps out a swordsman every 3 turns; other cities are pumping them at 6-8 turns each. We have a few units in Murcia, partially to keep the city in order, but mostly to spring out at Lisbon when we decide it's time. There's also a warrior in Salamanca we can upgrade if you think it's worth the money.


We're building a Settler in Santiago for settling south of Salamanca, but there's a nice space between Bordeaux and Ampurius with two forests if we want it. In the map that follows, I've marked that site in red. I've marked in Blue a good site to settle for attacking Cordova- it allows us to get much closer to their cities while still being in our territory, and won't incite them to war (it poaches on the 3rd ring of their capital).


We're making a buttload of gold each turn, but that won't last if we keep pumping out units, or if we want any research whatsoever.

Convert the Heathens!

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Looking good.

Your proposed city spot is fine (I suggested 1NE in my dotmap, but in this case, it really makes no difference at all). Another good spot will be where the single 'black' tile 2SW from blue dot is. Also, we should settle a coastal town at the Costa del Sol between Seville and Toledo during War, this will split the Cordovans in the middle, and we'll get access to the Mediterranean Sea.
We'll need lots of towns for unit support, so a denser build is fine IMHO.


We'll need about 4 Swords for Lisbon, and 6 for Cordova; could work with less, but since we could amass those within a few turns anyway, it's better to have enough.

*Important note to all players*: Watch out for that Ansar, if he leaves with a Settler, it's about time to go to war.

BTW, the Sword in the Dhingi should be dropped at Ceuta (opposite of Gibraltar/ Toledo), we need a town exactly there if we want to fight the Fatimids - we'll get a Lux and Quarry (Walls!) there, and it's close enough to Toledo to ship troops over there in a single turn wuth Curraghs.

On the Tech situation: No need to buy HBR before we have Norse Traditions, but like expceted, we can easily buy it; min Science for the first 40 turns really pays out. Try to get Seafaring (completely useless by itself, but the next tech in that tree is Smithing) for HBR from one of the Vikings. And I'd prefer to research at normal speed for CB; I'm pretty sure we should buy it once it is out, but researching it for several turns will reduce the price at large. Depends on the upcoming war, it may be better to save cash and completely research it by our owns.

Should we try to get some Wonders? If yes, then let's get a Granary in Madrid and set it on Palace right now. If we can get enough Town Halls, Domesday Book is absolutely worth it; if we miss that, the Tapestry is the natural choice. We should be able to get both in Madrid btw, if noone beats us to the Book. Once we have a Blacksmith there and the hills mined, it'll make about twice the shields of any AI city!

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
*Important note to all players*: Watch out for that Ansar, if he leaves with a Settler, it's about time to go to war.

Actually, he's already on his way out. He hasn't quite disappeared into Frankish blackness yet, but he's almost there.

On the Tech situation: No need to buy HBR before we have Norse Traditions, but like expceted, we can easily buy it; min Science for the first 40 turns really pays out. Try to get Seafaring (completely useless by itself, but the next tech in that tree is Smithing) for HBR from one of the Vikings.

As a warning- Sweden already has HBR; Denmark and Norway do not, but Norway is accumulating money, so we may find ourselves with no one to trade HBR to. However, once we get CB, we may be able to trade it to one of them for Seafaring and another for Smithing.

And I'd prefer to research at normal speed for CB; I'm pretty sure we should buy it once it is out, but researching it for several turns will reduce the price at large. Depends on the upcoming war, it may be better to save cash and completely research it by our owns.

Good point; we'll have to see how much money gets tied up in troop building and troop maintenance.

Should we try to get some Wonders? If yes, then let's get a Granary in Madrid and set it on Palace right now. If we can get enough Town Halls, Domesday Book is absolutely worth it; if we miss that, the Tapestry is the natural choice. We should be able to get both in Madrid btw, if noone beats us to the Book. Once we have a Blacksmith there and the hills mined, it'll make about twice the shields of any AI city!

Heck, if we pre-build now, we might even be able to get HRE. The best computer players are still 18-24 turns away from CB, which is plenty of time for a massive pre-build. The only downside is that it'll be one less city pumping out Swordsmen for our assault on Cordova.

 

[Bede]

Looking good.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

HRE? I'm pretty sure we could get the shields for it, but I would be utterly surprised if we know Western Church before someone completes it.

On the other hand, I once lost the race despite prebuilding from Turn 2 in Würzburg and joinign Workers to get it at size 6 ASAP (ok, was Demigod); the HRE is simply quite random.
You don't have a chance if: Poland starts it in Poznan early (and has Mines there), or France starts it in Chartres/ Orleans instead of Paris (Iron mined), or Germany has Regensburg or Salzburg working the Wheat and Iron on the HRE. In any other case, everything is possible, including the (AI!) Turks getting it and unmodded Castille starting it.

Depending on the war, we could pretty soon allow us to have one city on a wonder, the unit supply would kill us otherwise anyway, and there are no useful units to be build for some time:

Swordsman do not upgrade to MDI!

They upgrade to Crusaders, but it'll take a looong time until we get there...

So once Cordova is seriously crippled, we should stop building Swords, and concentrate on some Horses/ Cats once we have Early Siegecraft.
That's the main reason why I'd prefer to get the 4 mandatory 2nd era Techs before Western Church.

 

[Corrado]

Okay, more confusion for me- when I've played England and Germany, upon hitting the 2nd age (i.e., finishing CB), I get Western Church for free. Is this not the case for Castille?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

That's the challenge - we don't have a free Tech!

 

[Corrado]

Aaaah. *Now* I understand.

Well, with so many trading options with our friends, and so many extra luxuries, I expect we won't have too hard a time picking it up...

Okay, so I see three options here. Let's see if we can come to a consensus on how to handle a Wonder.

1.) Build the Wonder in Madrid right now, as suggested by DocT. Advantage: Madrid will become a very productive city with the iron nearby. Disadvantage: Madrid will also become a warzone once we declare on Cordova, and removing our chance of rushing swordsmen at the front will be a serious hassle.

2.) Build the Wonder in Leon as soon as we can start on a prebuild. Advantage: With 2 iron mines and a gold mine in radius, Leon will outproduce any city and any civ. Disadvantage: We don't have anything to prebuild with, unless we sell off the Granary inside and start pre-building that. Which means that we'll be in direct construction competition with Emperor-level civs, after having hocked our entire treasury on the techs.

3.) Don't bother with a prebuild. Get a smithy ASAP, build one in Leon, and expect Leon to so outpace our enemies that we can easily build a Wonder.


Personally, I lean towards option 3, then option 2.

 

[Bede]

I also prefer plan 3.

 

[DeceasedHorse]

I should be able to play tonight. I will go with plan 3, but may start a prebuild depending on how strongly the Cordovans are.

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Had some problems getting the save, but I was able to find it on the server.

Preturn: Everything looks fine. No changes.


Turn 1: Barcelona builds temple, starts worker. Madrid builds sword, starts another. I upgrade a reg. war to a sword. Normally, this wouldn't be a good idea especially on this map, but we currently have plenty of gold and need troops. All these empty cities make me nervous.

Turn 2: Cordovans are still moving spears north. Swords continue to gather for the upcoming assault on the Cordovans. We really need workers, but don't see any for sale. Decide once and for all to wait until we finish Norse Tradition before making any deals for Horseback Riding.

Turn 3: Cordovan spears keep shuffling around, but one picks up a settler and heads on east, presumably to set up some Siberian colonies. Will try and get a couple swords to bushwack them and get us some slaves if I can.

Turn 4: Leon grows to size six, reaching the magic 15spt, giving us a sword every other turn. A Cordovan spearman has entered our borders for no apparent reason, but a helpful Cordovan worker appears to be building a road link to Madrid for us...

Turn 5: Santiago Settler->Sword Barcelona worker->worker. Santiago Settler goes to settle the red dot; protecting our front lines will be difficult enough as it is.

Turn 6: Leon rolls another sword company off the assembly line and will keep doing so. Go shopping for Horseback riding; choose to buy from Poland, who will accept a slighty smaller payment and who we want to prop up against the western civs. Treasury to zero, income to +12 GPT. However...the norse civs have NOT researched seafaring, and don't even have the gold to defray our costs. I decide to start work on Castle building while checking every turn to see if the scandinavians get off their asses. The ability to bridge rivers will also be nice, since they are restricting our movement somewhat. Furthermore, no one has it, but I seriously doubt we will get their first. Economy cannot support any more than 10% research; We'd have to run over 50% sci to get Castle Building any faster.

Turn 7: Cordovan now have a double settler pair on the same tile heading north. Cordovan finally kick out our Curragh. Seafaring is now available; maybe the game takes a turn to figure out that we have researched the un-tradable begining tech? Switch research to smithing (no one has it, but I will keep an eye on it)

Turn 8: Santiago builds a worker, starts spear. Leon is now up to 17 spt. It can swap the mined iron with Navarre every other turn to give that city a boost. Lisbon has recently lost a couple of pop points; presumebly it spit out a settler. It is time for the infidels to pay for their centuries of oppression of Iberia. War with Cordova begins. Kill two spears and capture a settler. 4 swords move up to Cordova (Pop 1!) with more moving up. 4 others lay siege to Lisbon. Drop the sword on the hill next to Seville.

IBT: Cordovan settler pairs scatter in panic.

Turn 9: Kill two spears and a warrior in Lisbon, losing one sword and leaving a redlined spear still controling the city. Kill a wandering spear and redline another settler pair, but lose a sword. Found Pamplona on the red dot. Our attack on Cordoba fails miserably, although we do get an elite sword. 3 more swords moving up to reinforce the attack.

Turn 10: Kill a Cordovan archer w/ El Cid, our Seville-area swordsmen. We take Lisbon, gambling w/ an attack by a 2/4 Sword against one of their king units, but it works, and we even get a promotion. We keep the size 1 city and capture another slave. Cordoba should fall next turn, barring more RNG strangeness. Be sure to keep swaping the mined iron back and forth between Navarre and Leon so the capital can keep building a steady stream of offensive dude, whether Horsemen or more swords.Crush the infidels!

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Yeah, . Good job.
Do we have a Settler handy, to found somewhere on the Med coast?

I'm not really sure if researching Smithing pays out, we won't be able to trade it, while we could have traded CB for Smithing later...now if we could get it in less than 40, it would be great.

CB wouldn't have needed 40 turns, all AIs are researching it, so the prize will drop soon.

Over to Elvis1985!

 

[Corrado]

Nice work, DH.

Questions/notes:

* What's our main objective in taking out Cordova? Do we want to conquer their cities, or do we want to wipe them out and resettle the land? I lean towards the former, as it's less work and less risk that someone else will poach rightfully Spanish lands. But if we do want to conquer them, should we take Cordova? I don't know how many kings they have, and if we take the last king, we destroy all of their cities...

*If we get an MGL, I think we're better off using it to re-locate the Palace rather than build an army. A sword army isn't that strong, and will be very pathetic once MDI and Knights show up. But moving our capital to Madrid would mean less distance corruption in Spain as a whole, and less distance corruption in the North African lands we conquer. It would also mean Leon could pre-build the Palace for future Wonders.

 

[DeceasedHorse]

We have only done a few turn of research on smithing, so we can still switch if we want to.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The 3 Cordovan Kings are in Cordova, Cadiz and Lisbon.
Cordova and Lisbon are both border towns that cannot grow above size 6 and have Horses.
I would prefer to just take those 2 cities, and keep them alive for leader fishing, and pointy stick research once we can enter the Arab Tech tree. Maybe also take Toledo, and make peace after that. 20 turns later, we could take the next city, and so on.
The main advantage are the VPs, Valencia and Seville can grow large.
Tech situation: We could try a gambit by staying on Smithing and forcing the Cordovans to hand over CB, but I don't think they will research it faster than 40 turns during war. And I would rather have the 4 mandatory 2nd era techs ASAP (btw, heading for MM should pay out, in all but one of my games I was able to get insane amounts of money, techs and even Luxuries from the Great Map Brokering, even when I was only 2nd or 3rd; extensive exploration and contacting is key).
IMHO, it's safer to switch back to CB.

Relocating the Palace to Madrid is a good idea, and would be very historically correct . I thought of that, too. I only would want to really helpful wonder (Bayeux), and Madrid is by far more productive than Leon (which still has a good shield output, but Madrid can grow). But don't dare to waste a MGL for that, Knight Armies rule this Scenario, and even a MDI Army is worth it. If we get a leader now, just store him as empty Army.
Handbuilding the palace midgame when we still haven't that many cities is the better option IMHO.

 

[Corrado]

Re: tech
I definitely agree on grabbing MM as soon as we can- there's a bundle of money and techs to be gained by selling our maps and contacts.

Re: the war
The problem I see with not taking as much of Cordova as we can now is that the land needs a lot of work to be productive- plains to irrigate, forests to road, hills to mine, etc.- and if we wait too long, those cities will never be as productive as we want them to be. And while we can Cordova for points, we can just as easily Fatimid for points, and the Fatimid terrain is very conducive to landing a stack of units next to a city for quick conquest. And until we build a city in NA, the Fatimid can't really react to that. This especially becomes true once we get MM, especially while we have MM and Fatimid don't.

 

[Bede]

Ouch!

Looks like Cordova's defense is pretty well over, though.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Unbelievable set of turns.Unbelievable!


The save

Reconquista 1008AD

Ouch. We’ve just lost a core city, another one is undefended (though a Sword can reach it before the Cordovan Spear), and we’re still researching Smithing for 40 turns. We’ve also lost the opportunity to settle at Ceuta. Leaving cities open is...well, you are aware there are 2 Cordovan Ansars with move 3 around?
We’ve not contacted several Civs so far. Castle Building is out, and we could buy it for all our economy. But since only Germany and France know so far, the price should drop.

Preflight: Smart rush a Sword via Spear in Leon. This also allows me to redistribute tiles, so Santiago will finish Horse next turn. Lisbon to Barracks. Barcelona to Horse (will be regular, but we’er MIL, and a Granary is not exactly what we need right now...

IBT: Cordovan Archer moves out of Valencia and redlines and promotes our Sword – 1HP more, and not swithing Barcelona to Horse would have meant another city lost...

Leon (Sword) -> Horse
Santiago (Horse) -> Sword
Lisbon (Barracks) -> Spear
Madrid (Sword) -> Sword
Barcelona (Horse) -> Barracks
Pamplona (Barracks) -> Temple

Turn 1: 1011AD

Position Troops. Stack Workers. Please don’t leave units on goto.

IBT: Nada

Turn 2: 1014AD
Battle for Navarre: Vet Sword vs. Reg Sword -2/-3, Navarre is ours again – and completely empty .Set to Barracks. Resistance ends immediately, of course.
Battle for Cordova is delayed for one more turn, there’s at least a Spear, a Sword and the King in the city.
A Spear will pillage our Horses near Lisbon in the interturn, but I cannot risk to leave a city open, since there’s a Cordovan Curragh floating around.
Smart rush Horse via Spear in Leon.
Change Murcia to Spear, Lisbon to Temple.
I veto everything I said against researching Smithing; Cordova knows Castle Building, and it’s a close deal for straight peace – and we haven’t even taken Cordova itself!

IBT:
Our Horses are pillaged, Archer moves out of Cordova towards Lisbon.
Leon (Horse) -> Sword
Salamanca (Sword) -> Spear
Murcia (Spear) -> Curragh

Turn 3: 1017AD

Battle for Cordova can wait another turn, no peace before we have founded a city in their territory anyway – but they’re researching Jihad, so we must hurry...
Elite Sword at Lisbon slays pillaging Spear without a scratch.
IBT:
Reg Sword attacks our stack out of Cordova, takes off 1HP from Vet Sword and promotes it to elite.
Archer moves next to Ilsbon Sword. Archer enters our territory from Valencia.

Turn 4: 1020AD

Here we go:
4/5 Sword vs 4/4 Spear: W, -2/-4
4/5 Sword vs 4/4 Spear: W, -2/-4 ...and:

Immediatedly move him to Madrid and form an Army, since I have several more elite units to attack.

4/5 Sword vs 3/3 Sword: W, -0/-3..and:

I swear, I did no reloading cheat on this! Never had happen that before, two MGLs from two attacks in a row. More than one in a turn, ok, that’s why I formed the Army ASAP. Hmm...I have 3 more elite units I form the next Army.

4/5 Sword vs 3/3 King: W, -3/-3..and: I fall off my chair, Sancho arrises. Sorry, forgot to make a screenshot this time...but before the attack:

Who's defending here?

(The last leader wasn’t quite as unexpected, for any reason I nearly always get MGLs from killing Kings.)
And Cordova comes with Marketplace!
Cannot form another Army due to lack of cities, so no more MGLs this turn.
I nevertheless slay the 2 Archers.
Cordova would give CB and Seville for peace. Guess what? I take Castle Building (we wouldn’t get VPs for the city, so better take it in the next war). The place I want to settle is not in their borders anymore, and since they did not settle there so far, they won’t do it in the next couple of turns.
Immediadetly switch research to CoL at max (21 turns at -9gpt, but I’ll rush the Temple in Cordova once resistance ends, so I may have to lower SCI). Gift CB to Poland for all their gold (4). If they grab the HRE (and since their capital is more productive than Regensburg or Paris, that’s quite likely), we won’t have to deal with any Catholic Civ more powerful than we are.
Switch Madrid from Sword to Granary, Salamanca to Temple

IBT:
Leon (Sword) -> Sword
Barcelona (Barracks) -> Settler
Resistance in Cordova ends. Poles start the HRE..in Gdansk :wall:

Turn 5: 1023AD
Rush Temple in Cordova.

IBT:
Navarre (Barracks) -> Spear
Cordova (Temple) -> Barracks

Turn 6: 1026AD
Meet Abbassids. They are as advanced and rich as we are; they have no Iron, but we have no trade route.
IBT:
Leon (Sword) -> Sword
Salamanca (Temple) -> Settler

Turn 7: 1029AD
Zzzz...

IBT:
Santiago (Settler) -> Granary
Madrid (Granary) -> Palace (prebuild for Domesday Book)
Murcia (Curragh) -> Temple

Turn 8: 1032AD
Zzzz..again

IBT:
Leon (Sword) -> Sword
Pamplona (Temple) -> Granary

Turn 9: 1035AD
Nothing to tell about.

IBT:
Cordova’s border expand, we have Horses again

Turn 10: 1038AD
See turns 7 – 9.

Our lands: The spot (Red) at the mediterranean coast is crucial; could be possible to still get a foothold in North Africa, that’s what the Curragh is looking for. Blue is a good location (Lisbon won’t grow above 6pop for a long time), Yellow mediocre, but would help with unit/army support.

Notes for the next player(s).

• Leon is at 16spt, thus can build a Sword every other turn and still share the Iron with Navarre and the Forrest with Salamanca. Don’t build Settlers there, we need to keep it at 6pop for our economy (though a Worker next turn is fine).
• We need 5 Town Halls for the Domesday Book, get them ASAP via prebuilds. Once Madrid is at 6pop, try to get WLTKD to cut off waste (10% Lux should be enough)
• I for one wouldn’t build Military outside Leon; Swords don’t upgrade to MDI, and the unit support hurts. Cordova is seriously crippled, we can take them out whenever we want; I’d prefer the next war when we know Arab Learning – take another city, and convince them to hand over Jihad.
• Tech: Map Making! Our WM and contacts are easily worth the 2 other mandatory Techs and 1000+gp (that is, if someone is rich enough, and we’re among the first who know it).