DocT01a - Middle Ages Modified: Reconquista!

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I just read over the whole thread again, and wanted to expand on some points:

1) Why peace now?
Castle Building. I was rather surprised they had it that soon, and with all the cash we have, we are almost sure to get MM first now.

2) Why not relocating the Palace, and start a prebuild instead?
I won't object against using our leader for a Palace switch later (that is, before the next war - or, if we have enough cities by that time, make another Army and hope for another one), but currently we benefit more from Leon being the capitol because of the Marketplace there. And corruption is not very high now, and will be rather pointless with Townhalls. Plus Madrid will be more productive at size 6+.
However, getting the Palace closer to N Africa is a convincing idea - Cordova (because of the market, and to completely remove any flip risk) or Madrid?

3) Abandoning 10+ turns of research on Smithing?
We would have gotten it at turn 79; at least Norway cannot research anything else; they still lack HBR, if they'd picked HBR after Seafaring, they would have it already. And Norway will have it for trade in turn 81...when we have HBR, CB and CoL to offer.

4) Why not eliminating Cordova soon and turn against the Fatimids?

I'd rather have Cordova around to get a few techs from them, they seem to have lots of Workers, so there remaining cities will grow fast. And most important: We simply cannot get sufficent troops over there with Curraghs unless we have a city in N Africa, and even then it'll take some time. However, as soon as we have a force there and they still have no Ansars (quite possible, they are usually not able to research anything in less then 40 because of rampant corruption), pull the . But to be able to fight them effectively, we need Assassins - simply because we cannot see theirs otherwise! And the easiest way to get there is keeping the Cordovans around for some more time.

 

[Bede]

Got it.

Write chronicle tonight.

 

[Corrado]

Whoa. Kick-ass turns, DocT. Way to rebound!

 

[Bede]

T0 1038
Progress about the realm. Make no changes other than rush a settler so we can nail all the spots and move the leader and a general to Cordoba as we have three Elite* swords waiting there.

We have lots of Spanish Red for sale but only one potential buyer, in Norway. So Harald gets some wine for 19g as I just hate to see stuff lying around and we have lots. Everybody else we can trade with are broke or inaccessible.

Our military is strong against Cordoba and weak against the Caliphate. Out unit support costs are twice our deficit so getting three more towns will help.

There is a Notwegian longship at the Pillars of Hercules.

T1 1041
Settlers complete and start trek to new villages. Fiddle with builds to start accumulating sheilds for Town Halls. Sail curraghs around.

T2 1044
Trekking and working the land.
Form an army in Cordoba and name it Cordoban Conquistadors.
Heathen Cordobans are trespassing again. Demand their departure. They give mealymouthed commitment.

Our border in the east expands, opening a salient into Frankish territory

T3 1047
Found Vitoria south of Salamanca

T4 1050
Found Santander on south coast.

Cordoba's workers are trespassing again
T5 1053
Ask Cordovan workers to leave again. And get another mealynouthed response

T6 1056
Trekking, working and exploring

T7 1059
Found Asturias on river bend.
Add a vet sword to Toledo Blades in Asturias.

T8 1062
Abassids learn Early SIegecraft
Norway has furs for sale, will only sell for wool and HBR, or a mortgage on the Palace but we don't need 'em. All the others are broke, still or have no toys to trade.

T9 1065
Building and working

T10 1068
We get a trade route with the Rus and they buy some wines for 49g

Lisbon, Murcia, Santiago, and Navarre can produce Town Halls right smartly after CoL comes in. Each have granaries due in 4 and CoL is due in 3.

Once the Town Halls are built and Madrid starts on the Domesday Book I think a Palace move to Cordoba might be in order.

I wasn't paying good attention to the terrain development around Madrid and killed its growth trying to keep it at ten shields on the Palace build. There are workers roading down the center of the Realm and one can be shifted to Madrid to get it to pop6.

It looks like we will have CoL as a monopoly unless the Abassids or Byzantiun get there first. Only problem with that is right now the only trade available for it is Early Siegecraft from Abassids and they are followers of Mohammed, you know. Everybody else in the world is broke.

There is a settler equipping himself in Salamanca who could build on a spot NE of Pamplona or on the coast between the two Codorvan villes. The site NE of Pamplona might be more productive, but farther from the core, more Catalan than Castilian, and subject to foreign influences.

The Realm

 

[Corrado]

Got it. Will play later today.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

We have no problems making deals with Muslims by variant rules, as long as we benefit more; we just shouldn't help them. making deals with the Abbassids is crucial, since they're most likely the only really rich Civ.

A Settler N of Pamplona? Don't anger the Franks!

One problem - filling the Army was (sorry for sounding rude) a horrible mistake ..for 2 reasons:
1) Swordsman Armies aren't worth it.
2) Even more important: We cannot load them on a ship until we reach the 3rd era! That means, it won't fight the Fatimids before it's completely outdated. We should have transported the empty army to N Africa with a Curragh...

 

[Bede]

@Doc

Live and learn.
No offense taken.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Well, now I only would prefer to use our leader for another Army (we should have enough cities now), and relocate the Palace with the (hopefully arrising) next one. Currently we don't need the jump. An MDI Army in Africa and another one to be filled with Knights once we have them will serve us well.

IMHO, we should not trade CoL below market price, not even for Siegecraft; this will asure we'll get MM first, and we may need to throw in CoL to get the maps of the mid-size Civs.We'll easily aquire Siegecraft in the great map Brokering.

 

[Corrado]

Sorry for the wait, folks- my ISP decided to be nasty with me.

Pre-turn check: Wow, we've got a lot of cities. Spain proper is nearly entirely ours!

We match or exceed everyone in technology with the exception of the Abassids, who are ahead of us in Siegecraft. Nearly everyone is flat broke.

We have 1585 points out of the 35,000 necessary to win. Abassids have nearly twice that.

1071 AD (1): Zzzzz.

1074 AD (2): Leon Swordsman -> Spearmen. Salamanca Settler-> Spearman.

In my opinion, 22 un-upgradable Swordsmen are enough. If we want more units, we can build Spearmen and sent garrison Swords off to the front. Besides, Leon can produce a Spear every 2 turns without touch either iron mine.

1077 AD (3) Finish researching Code of Laws. Move on to Map Making in 25 turns at -7gpt.

Switch Santiago, Navarre, Cordoba, Lisbon, Barcelona, Murcia, Pampalona, to Town Halls.

1080 AD (4) Leon Spearman->Spearman. Santiago Town Hall-> Spearman. Navarre Town Hall-> Temple. Lisbon Town Hall -> Spearman. Barcelona Town Hall-> Spearman. Murcia Town Hall-> Temple.

Madrid switches to Domesday- due in 18.

Have to raise taxes- Map Making now in 30 at -2 gpt.

Friend and enemy alike have jack-all to trade to us. Abassids are the best, offering us 100 gold and 18gpt for Code of Laws, but that's well below true price, and they won't even consider Early Siegecraft in its stead.

And bad news now that I think about it. Since we can't trade for Western Church- but we *know* people building the HRE have it- that means it's an untradable tech and must be researched. I think that's our next priority after MM.

1083 AD (5) Zzzzz.

1086 AD (6) Leon Spearman->Spearman. Cordoba Town Hall-> Barracks.

Burgundy starts HRE.

Build Jaen between Valencia and Sevillle. Start Temple.

1089 AD (7) Barcelona Spearman-> Worker.

We offer Horses to Sweden and get Smithing. Change Leon, Salamanca, Santiago to Blacksmiths.

IBT: A Cordovan pack of Spearmen attempts to move through our area.

1092 AD (8) Lisbon Spearman-> Blacksmith. Pamplona Town Hall-> Blacksmith.

Tell Cordova to go home. He does.

IBT: But then he comes back.

1095 AD (9) Navarre Temple-> Blacksmith. Barcelona Worker->Blacksmith.

1098 AD (10) Cordoba Barracks-> Blacksmith. Asturias Temple-> Town Hall.

English are building HRE.



Okay, that's my ten.

Good news:
We're 10 turns away from Domesday Book. No one else has even started it.
Most of our fellow civs are without Code of Laws, and we will easily be the first to Map Making.
Our army is strong vs. the Cordovans, and average vs. Fatimid.

Bad News:
Most of our fellow civs are flat broke, and I'm not sure we'll get anything for our maps.
We need to research Western Church just to get to the point where we can start wheeling and dealing for Knights. But we need to research Arab Learning if we want to get any techs out of Cordova.
Our army is weak against everyone except Cordova, Fatimids, and Celts.
The game is nearly half over, and we're 5th in VP.

Here's the save; good luck!

Spain into the 1100s

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Sounds good, Corrado.

Screenshot someone? I can hardly tell where all the newly found cities are...
100% agree with stopping Swordsman. It's time to concentrate on infra. The Domesday Book should greatly help our economy, as well as being the only Civ in the world with 2 Marketplaces.

100% agree with not trading away CoL.

Re: Techs - we need to have Medieval Combat and Seafaring before we do the 40 turns run on W Church, or we cannot build anything useful; I'd even consider Polearms as well.
Pikes, Harbors and Galleys are the only things we need from the third era, once we have those, we can beat on the Fatimids and research the flavor trees.

 

[Corrado]

A few other thoughts-

* I don't think we're ever going to research Arab Learning. Most of the 3rd tier techs are going to take 20-25 turns to research at best with our current economy, and WC we'll be researching at near-minimum. With only ~120 turns left, that doesn't leave much room for the ~40 turns necessary to learn Arab learning. And meanwhile, every turn we delay is a turn the Fatimids get closer to Jihad and Ansars.

Maybe I'm being a bit over aggressive, but I think we need to start the Fatamids now.

*By that token- there's a single Norwegian city in North Africa on the west end of the coast. Should we consider a quick war to grab it, and thus get a nice foothold on NA before we need to attack the Fatamids?

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Agreed, I don't think we'll research Arab learning too soon (with Monasteries, our research time will drop significantly, so we could get it in ~15turns later), thus no need to keep Cordova around except for leader fishing; let's do the Palace Jump, and kill them off, hoping for another MGL.
But the Arab tree will serve us better than the generic 3rd era tree later.

Iwant to the Fatimids soon, that's why I propose the city in N Africa since ages, or we'd need a huge fleet of Curraghs .

I don't think we should fight any Vikings right now, they'll make great and cheap (for outdated techs) Allies against the Fatimids, especially when they have cities there. If there is no better spot, declare on the Cordovans ASAP (once peace is over, in ~5 turns) and found on that tile within Toledo's borders, it'll grab the Wine and Quarry after expansion/ elination of the Fatimids city there.

BTW, there is a completely invisible source of Ivory "under" the minimap, you'll have to use the DEL-key to see it. We want it!

 

[Corrado]

Okay, let's the Arabs!

Cordova should be no real problem to take out. I also recommend we don't work to replace the Swordsmen lost- much of our economic troubles will go away with the combination of losing units and gaining large cities for support. Besides, why should we build lots of Swordsmen that are just going to be outmoded very soon?

Once Cordova is gone, we can start thinking about the Fatamids. Many of their cities are conveniently next to coastal hills, for ease of dropping off units. We have a curragh waiting on our southern coast; once the one galavanting aorund Greece returns, and should we build 1-2 more, we can make a drop of 4 units. Not many, but if we choose a nice low-value city to start with, we should be able to get a foothold and start caravans.

 

[romeothemonk]

(Lurker cloak off)
I have played this scenario many times as many different races. The best way to open up a new tech tree is to steal the first "untradeable" tech. I usually steal the first roman tech from the Bulgars, then trade the Rus for the rest. You can steal tech for ~600 gold. Plus if you get the Roman tree you can get the intelligence agency, which is VERY NICE. The abbassids/turks are good steal targets as they are so far from the action. (plus it fits with the theme of the game) Then you can flatten the infidels with relative quickness and impunity. (spies see assains just nicely and only cost 20 shields). Good luck guys.
romeothemonk
{re-engage cloaking device}

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Thanks for the reminder, please check the steal costs for Arab Learning from Cordova, the embassy there should be cheap enough to be worthwile just for the look at the defenses of Cadiz.

I don't want to risk a steal from the Catholic Civs, but stealing from the Bulgars (err-did we meet them already?), Cordovans and Fatimids is fine.

I'm just surprised about the price - the last time I stole something in this Conquest was Medicine from the Abbasids, and 'careful' was above 1200gp.

 

[romeothemonk]

Hmm yes. I always try to steal right after the great mapmaking trading sequence. That way you should have all the gold, contacts and maps you want. I go for the quick steal from the bulgars, and it checks in at 598 gold, if I remember right. (2 quick steals being cheaper than 1 careful steal). Also you may want to consider a steal from England, as they are rather impotent until seafaring. Just some tricks I use in my Middle ages conquests. I should have elaborated slightly on this last night but sleep was clouding my mind.

 

[Corrado]

Deceased Horse? You out there?

 

[DeceasedHorse]

I should be able to play tonight

 

[DeceasedHorse]

I cannot download the save, nor can I find it on the upload server. Please fix the link.

Thanks,
DH

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Corrado, you cannot use SPACEs in the file name, it always gets lost then - use _underscore, or no spaces (like the game does by default).