Help with Persia

Akbarthegreat

Angel of Junil
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Playing a Persia game on monarch, I realised that the first UHV condition (7% of land area) is pretty hard compared to vanilla RFC because of the different way in which culture spreads. Earlier you could just plonk a few pointless cities in the desert and pop their borders with the culture slider, which would take you a large way towards your goal. Secondly, the current UP doesn't seem as powerful as the original (+2 stability upon city conquest).
With these two things in mind, I think it would help if Persia's stability map were expanded a bit. To include Thrace, a few more tiles near the upper Indus, and (most importantly) Egypt. This seems compatible with maps I can find of the Achaemenid empire at its greatest extent.
Additionally, the apothecary seems pretty useless with respect to the Uhv conditions. Hell, I didn't even bother researching more than the techs for catapults and the Mausoleum (was that a mistake?) because maintainence ramped up pretty soon.

EDIT: Just checked, settling only Persia's core, historical and contested areas don't even give half of the required land area (only ~3.2 / 7 %)
 
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There are ~3231 land tiles on the map, which translates into ~227 controlled tiles for UHV 1 requirement. That many controlled tiles will make your expansion stability plummet and it's better to "settle and abandon" on consecutive turns to realize the goal. Each settler gives you 9 tiles, which is ~0.28%, and depending on how well you are doing in India and Egypt, you may need 4-8 of them. Send the settlers to northern Europe or western Russia, escort with sentry horseman if you'd like, and settle them all on the same turn. Grant them independence on the next turn after you've achieved UHV goal 1. Deserts and rainforests are not ideal locations since they hamper cultural expansion.
 
Also when I was playing under regent/epic setting, apothecaries were not too bad. They produce :gold:, :health:, :), and are easily whipped once you finish researching Law. With monarch difficulty I guess things are much tougher, I cannot offer specific advice.

Around 300 AD you'll start to see barb horse archer hordes and lone camel archers. Be warned that these light cavalries are much harder to handle than before. You need either skirmish horse archers or heavy swordsmen to put up a fight against those annoying barbarians.
 
Is settling a large amount of cities and then giving them independence even historically plausible? Why would any empire work so hard to settle so much land only to give them up 20 or so years later? Are there other UHVs that require cheese like this?
 
Best way to win historical victory is not to play historically. If you consider DoC to be a game that has some element of history and geography, instead of a game OF history and geography, you'd tend to agree.
 
I never managed to get 7% land area as Persia in monarch/normal. There isn't enough time to conquer Egypt and/or Greece. At the beginning of the game you have to send 2 immortals and one horseman to conquer India which may become independent because of expansion stability. If you don't send them early India will grow and you will need more units and you can't afford to build units to conquer they because you are busy with the conquest in the west. Those 2 initial cities there will help with the prophets or will build works.

In the west Egypt is way too strong, 90% of the time he survives Greece and Rome conquest events so you have to deal with 2 enemies at least. As for Greece conquest I always declare war on them when I meet them so when they conquest triggers I can seek for peace by defeating some of his army.

I always keep 4 immortals at my core to deal with barbarians and another 4 to conquer Samarkand and resist the barbarians.
 
Best way to win historical victory is not to play historically. If you consider DoC to be a game that has some element of history and geography, instead of a game OF history and geography, you'd tend to agree.

TL;DR I'm not asking if it's historically accurate, I'm asking why any leader would ever want to do this. It seems gamey to ruin your empire because you win history if you control 5 extra cities for a single turn.

I'm not asking if the required route is historically accurate, I'm asking if it's historically plausible. As in something that historical figures could have done and would have wanted to do. This route is indeed something that could have been done, but I doubt any leader would have ever wanted to settle so many cities they knew they could not control.

In contrast, a Despotic England conquering Rome and Jerusalem, whilst very improbable for any figure at the time to have thought of, is historically possible because
  1. Rome was independent from any large empire like in game and had just been sacked by the Normans in 1084.
  2. The Seljuk conquered Jerusalem in 1073, meaning if Britain could get open borders to move troops through France and the HRE and conquer Rome, they could there build a boat to ride over to Jerusalem and conquer it.
I have little doubt that if a historical figure knew this would happen they would take advantage of it. That's how I view this game. An alternate history by rulers who know the future. I do not see why any ruler would ever settle so many cities they know they cannot control.
 
Also when I was playing under regent/epic setting, apothecaries were not too bad. They produce :gold:, :health:, :), and are easily whipped once you finish researching Law. With monarch difficulty I guess things are much tougher, I cannot offer specific advice.
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I produced mostly just units without focusing on infrastructure, because it seemed like a good econ wasn't really needed. If you teched all the way till law and currency, did you not use the culture slider at all? I find that to be an integral part of gaining more land %.


Is settling a large amount of cities and then giving them independence even historically plausible? Why would any empire work so hard to settle so much land only to give them up 20 or so years later? Are there other UHVs that require cheese like this?

Mongolia does, on a much larger scale. I couldn't complete that even on vanilla RFC.


I never managed to get 7% land area as Persia in monarch/normal. There isn't enough time to conquer Egypt and/or Greece. At the beginning of the game you have to send 2 immortals and one horseman to conquer India which may become independent because of expansion stability. If you don't send them early India will grow and you will need more units and you can't afford to build units to conquer they because you are busy with the conquest in the west. Those 2 initial cities there will help with the prophets or will build works.

In the west Egypt is way too strong, 90% of the time he survives Greece and Rome conquest events so you have to deal with 2 enemies at least. As for Greece conquest I always declare war on them when I meet them so when they conquest triggers I can seek for peace by defeating some of his army.

I always keep 4 immortals at my core to deal with barbarians and another 4 to conquer Samarkand and resist the barbarians.

Not enough time to conquer Egypt? I don't get how that could be the case. Even with my poorly coordinated invasions, I was able to get Egypt (coincided my attack with the Greek conquerors), Carthage, and after that get my units back and conquer India (not like any of that helped; I was still a shade under 6% :lol:). Greece I did not bother for the land area criterion, but would probably have attacked after 140AD for the wonders.
Pretty much all the invasions were very easy because of cheap CR2 immortals. In the off case that you see skirmishers, bring a couple of catapults along.
 
How's this: change the first UHV from

1. Control 7% of land area in 140AD

to

1. Control Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, Thrace, Sogdiana, and Greece in 140 AD

The main challenge here would be Greece (emulating history, this would also be the most fun part :D). Sogdiana = Samarqand. My main issue with this condition is that it would make the second UHV (control 7 great wonders in 350AD) pretty redundant, since odds are Egypt, Greece and Babylonia will contain 7 wonders anyway.
Any suggestions in this regard?
 
Not enough time to conquer Egypt? I don't get how that could be the case. Even with my poorly coordinated invasions, I was able to get Egypt (coincided my attack with the Greek conquerors), Carthage, and after that get my units back and conquer India (not like any of that helped; I was still a shade under 6% :lol:). Greece I did not bother for the land area criterion, but would probably have attacked after 140AD for the wonders.
Pretty much all the invasions were very easy because of cheap CR2 immortals. In the off case that you see skirmishers, bring a couple of catapults along.

I usually wait for the Greek conquest in Mesopotamia to end to invade Egypt otherwise i don't have enough core cities and economy to withstand a expansion. But sure if you go for them earlier they will be much weaker.

One thing i think it would make it easier, at least in my strategy, is having a additional settler so you can expand faster.
 
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I usually wait for the Greek conquest in Mesopotamia to end to invade Egypt otherwise i don't have enough core cities and economy to withstand a expansion. But sure if you go for them earlier they will be much weaker.

One thing i think it would make it easier, at least in my strategy, is having a additional settler so you can expand faster.

Don't the Greeks attack Egypt and the Levant together? Just beat the small 3-unit stacks that appear outside Sur and Jerusalem, and go straight to Egypt. Alexander will have weakened them considerably.

An additional settler might help, yes, but eventually a bigger problem is not a lack of production (Babil/Shushan can easily churn out settlers), but a lack of historical areas to found cities.
 
How's this: change the first UHV from

1. Control 7% of land area in 140AD

to

1. Control Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, Thrace, Sogdiana, and Greece in 140 AD

The main challenge here would be Greece (emulating history, this would also be the most fun part :D). Sogdiana = Samarqand. My main issue with this condition is that it would make the second UHV (control 7 great wonders in 350AD) pretty redundant, since odds are Egypt, Greece and Babylonia will contain 7 wonders anyway.
Any suggestions in this regard?
I think the original idea of a land percentage requirement was so that you're not limited in the direction of conquest. But of course the 7% is still quite stringent and no less difficult than the German conquest one.
 
I think the original idea of a land percentage requirement was so that you're not limited in the direction of conquest. But of course the 7% is still quite stringent and no less difficult than the German conquest one.

Yep, and that's because there's nothing else you can possibly conquer barring India. And if even conquering India doesnt get the UHV, then you are just encouraging the settlement of crap cities to grab land. Making Persia invade Greece is a better idea.
 
I managed to complete 1st UHV on original rhye rise and fall and you just have to conquer every civ next to you, including Greek, Ethiopia and India. It is not that difficult, just spam cities in Arabia and Nubia.
 
Even I have completed Persia on vanilla RFC, but it is harder on DoC because:
1. Culture spread is different. Dialing up the culture slider won't pop your borders as easily.
2. The Persian UP is not as powerful as it was in vanilla. Conquering all three of these ahistorical regions is bound to take a huge hit on your stability.
 
You can build theaters now. Previously you could only build monasteries and monuments to get more culture.

I dont know how balanced system is now but with GA, syncing civics and cultural building it should be possible. Maybe I will give it a shot.
 
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