France or Arabia

[Desertsnow]

Celts, Monarch, respawning on, aiming for 100k Culture but will take any VC.

Military advisor: We have destroyed the Strong Mongolians.
I: Good, they deserved it.

Okay, so who should be next? Arabia looks like the easier target; they lack both horses and iron (the last time I checked; if they have these now they're probably buying them), so they can't build Ansars although they're in the appropriate phase of the game, and I do have regular Knights just coming into action. France on the other hand does have horses, so they have fast units, but they also have the Great Library in Paris, so I can catch up on tech if I manage to take it. I have SoZ in Eboracum, built after I took the Aztec city with the ivory. I've already had my Golden Age.

I plan on using my next leader to rush a new Palace in the southwest, in former Mongol territory, or maybe in an appropriate city taken in the next war.

Some self-critique: I know I'm probably better off with a Republic than a Monarchy at this point. I can switch easily enough with a Religious civ, especially now that I have enough luxuries to keep the masses happy (and mitigate war-weariness). I know I probably should have razed rather than kept the Mongol cities in the west; there is easily room for five or six cities where there are three, with decent starting growth. I know I should have more workers deployed.

Comments, criticism, and flames welcome.

The game: "Celtic Quandary"

 

[Vampiloup]

My two cents : Take on the Arabs !

Without Horse or Iron, they :

- Are stuck at move 1.
- Their better defense is the Spearman, mean no attack (1 !).
- Their better attack is the Longbowman, mean no defense (1).

But their are maybe near to discover the salpeter, with the Musket man who s a 2.4.1
With a musketman AND a longbowman, Arabs can hope defend itself agains you, and even doing slow attacks against your cities.

Then hit him hard before that.

For the french, depend if he has Iron or not.

 

[Desertsnow]

I don't think there was Iron in the France.
I don't know who has Saltpeter as I have not yet discovered Gunpowder myself.

 

[Aabraxan]

I don't know who has Saltpeter as I have not yet discovered Gunpowder myself.

Even if you haven't discovered Gunpowder, it's possible to tell who has Salt. Watch what units they're building.

 

[Nergal]

And check out if they have a town in lots of desert. usually thats where it will be.

 

[Desertsnow]

I don't have any mapping beyond the outskirts of their territories but I'm sure there's a lot of desert out there. Hm.

 

[Nobody]

No one ever says arabia

 

[vmxa]

Did not see the save, missed this post. I did want to jump in with a caution on a palace jump. It is rarely worth doing in Conquest. This is because you have your core build up and once you move the palace those places will get more corruption and not be that useful.

The new location will probably not have the towns nearby build up and you end up making less for some time and have use a leader that could have made a small wonder or an army.

 

[Desertsnow]

I didn't do the palace jump, by leader or otherwise. I'm doing excellently now with the original arrangement.

Anyway, I decided to go after France, and got 19 techs out of the GL when I took Paris. It turns out it was Arabia and not France that had the horses. I did not encounter a single horse unit when fighting France, and Arabia is building Ansars. Maybe a horse tile got poached? Or maybe I was just plum mistaken. I'll have to look again. The musketeers were not much of a problem; she didn't have many of them, and I had enough Knights to take them down easily enough. Arabia is next, then possibly Persia (on the other continent) if I decide to continue conquering. I just canceled my RoP with Arabia (I'm also attempting an 'honorable' game here), so will start with them soon.

 

[vmxa]

Great, musketeers are like rifles and can be rough on Knights.

 

[Desertsnow]

After some looking around, I found that maybe a palace jump might be worthwhile. The cities in the area were somewhat built up. I got a leader, Caractacus, from a battle in the war with Arabia, and rushed a new palace in Tours. I got some improvement in economic growth and a little balancing out of corruption. It might not have been worth it in the short run, but I've survived. In any case Boudicca appeared in the next turn and I used her to organize a cavalry army. (That army was lost, alas, later on; I tend to be a bit hasty taking out an enemy's last few cities sometimes. Live and learn.) It was actually world war for a while, as Spain declared against Arabia and signed Greece into an alliance. Greece recruited Persia, and Arabia was under a dogpile. None of the others actually landed any troops, though, except for a few Persian cavalry appearing in the last turns of the war, attempting (and failing) to take Abu's last city. So, I got the city and the whole continent was, and is, mine. I now have tech parity, approximately, and am doing fairly well in other aspects of the game.

I had already started pressing for cultural domination when I saw some Greek naval units (two galleons, I think, with an ironclad or two escorting) approach my coast in the far southwest, and, suspecting an impending attack, asked Isabella for MPP. Well, as it turned out, Alexander declared on her on the same turn, and those ships turned right around! No matter, we cooperate against him anyway and nobody has yet landed any units in my territory.

I probably should have gone after the Greek mainland rather than those island cities, but I wanted to get them before Izzy did. (On that note, considering that I am still playing an 'honorable' game, would it behoove me to give Valladolid or whatever that other city is back to her? I didn't observe when it was taken, but I did see some Spanish troops trying to take it back.) The military buildup in Lyons is waiting for the ships. I'm at zero science now in order to build up the funds for a mass upgrade of some of those ships (Galleons to Transport), and maybe an espionage mission. When that is done, I'll turn research back on.

Should I continue and go on for Domination, or go with my original plan of a cultural victory? Also, do I have a snowball's chance of Diplomatic, considering that someone is going to build UN fairly soon?

Comments, critiques, recommendations and flames welcome.