King of the World #7: Saladin

[Jet]

Axes and cats? Why?

Because I'm unimpressed with the land in Persia and I'm less optimistic than you about attacking Egypt at that date with those cities with Horse Archers only.

 

[patagonia]

Because I'm unimpressed with the land in Persia and I'm less optimistic than you about attacking Egypt at that date with those cities with Horse Archers only.

Egypt will be easy to take out pre-construction due to the lack of metals at Hatty's disposal.

I think the two main points for Neal to consider here are where he's going to get metal of his own from, and whether to finish Cyrus off or go to block Alex/Hatty from expanding into Turkey. Either way, the current build of a WB in Mecca is a mistake, since you can't use it to achieve either of those goals. With so little left, it should be finished to develop the fish though.

Finishing off Cyrus will snag you a lot of mediocre land, but means you need to focus heavily on chariots. Alternatively, if you can whip out a settler to grab the copper in Turkey/Armenia, so much the better.

 

[Jet]

By that time she'd have CG Archers, Walls, and War Chariots. After taking the Persian capital you'd have 2 production cities or 3 if you built one to the south. That wouldn't be many compared to the number of Horse Archers you'd need to build.

 

[oyzar]

CG archers behind walls are hard to take out with horse archers?? CG archer with walls and 40% culture is 3*2.6=7.8. By comparison C2 horse archers are 6*7.2 ... Not too terrible. You are probably going to want to use flanking 2 archers to soften up the archers meaning you'll lose roughly half a horse archer per archer you kill. Thats not terrible expensive...

 

[JammerUno]

7.2 vs. 7.8 is terrible when your throwing units with double the cost of the defenders at the city. On top of which, once people get metals, and in effect spears, HA will be utterly useless until guilds comes along, and then the cost of upgrading hardly weighs against the cost of training new units. Also, with all those cottages she'll smack down on the riverfront, Hatty might progress to construction before a sufficient amount of HA are available, in which case you're looking at war elephants, then a cease fire followed by a peace, and you're faced with either paying for the upkeep of the HA until you can upgrade them, or disbanding them.

Get peace with Cyrus, and head for the nearest source of metal, or capture persepolis. I'd try for the latter.

 

[Gagonite]

Good job so far Neal, keep building chariots with yer capital and charge at Cyrus with 4 or 5. In my shadow game, Cyrus was a HUGE contender, because I did not rush him and instead went after Hatty first. Then as I was preparing for Cyrus, Alex attacked..

But yea, onto the subject, finish off Cyrus then go for Hatty. Make sure you build a city somewhere near Jerusalem to block off Alex, or he'll be pushing into your territory. Not that he's much of a threat, but when you do decide to take him, he has gooood production territory.

 

[kingnorxis]

I agree with everyone else that rushing Persepolis is absolutely necessary, its a nice juicy city to control early on. Once Persepolis is under your control I would probably continue on to Europe and forget about Egypt for the time being. Although the lands in Africa are good, they're not great. Block Egyptians in Africa and capture Thebes at your leisure. Early control of Europe will allow you to dominate the rest of the game - and chances are you will only be facing capital cities (though it will no doubt be very hard!).

 

[Kietharr]

Push Cyrus out of Persia proper, push all of the way to the Indian border. Don't chase his expansion region to the north until you're in need of land for the win, it's all desert and hills so all he does up there is provide Persepolis a convenient barrier against the barbarians of the steppe. Even with AI bonuses I've never seen him amount to anything significant after losing Mesopotamia and Persia, he's also agreeable enough that you shouldn't need to worry about a backstab if you can get him back up to pleased.

After crushing Cyrus, you need to REX, I recommend a city at or near Jerusalem, or in Anatolia if Alex hasn't gotten it already. As was stated by Gagonite if you don't block him off now he'll be a nuisance for a long time, and unlike Hatty he actually has production tiles AND metals, and is far enough away to give him time to build a sizable army. Also be sure to grab the site on the south end of the Caspian Sea, it's excellent for early game production with its plains hills, copper, and two food resources.

Hatty can wait a while, she's a total pushover until Construction and frankly, if you build some spearmen she's not exactly frightening there either. When you attack her, be sure to have a decent garrison force as barbarian uprisings are pretty common in Africa due to lots of land down south with no civilization taking advantage of it.

 

[Gagonite]

Aye, Alex, given the chance to expand, can become a real nuisance. In games you've played so far, he always gets blocked off by various AI's, but I've seen him expand quick enough (It MAY have helped that I gave him 2 extra fish sources... ) and he was a fairly powerful entity. He has poor-commerce tiles, most of his food is sheep / sea based, but his production capabilities out of only 3 cities are staggering. One being his capitol, one being on a hill just north of it, and the third being on the marble just to the east. With those 3 he can become a productive powerhouse, as I've found out. The AI is just a bit too stupid to use that to its full effect though.

(As you can guess, Alex is my favorite civ to play on this map, so I know him well )

 

[FlammableWaffle]

I think that the best course of action is to harass persepolis (or at least cut off western expansion) with a couple chariots while you rush to settle Turkey and Israel, increasing hostilities thereafter (possibly before the settling israel depending on the size of the persian garrison).

And on a build order note, if you had put hammers into something other than a worker (say the baracks) for the first 11 turns while growing to 2pop, you would have had the worker finished before AH anyway.

 

[Belisar]

Settle the northern copper/production city and take out Cyrus first.
Let Egypt cottage the floodplaines for you and maybe building as a bonus a usefull wonder or two for you.
Production is your ultra-early priority, not commerce, so BW (for slavery and the copper) should have been teched before pottery.

 

[Neal]

In this round, we double our cities, triple our Worker Force, and pretty much eliminate Persia as a credible threat.

I started out by sending one of our two chariots off to check out the Persian capitol:



Yeah. Our two units may be fierce, but they're not that fierce.

So the chariot hung out, burning camps and pastures until Cyrus was willing to talk turkey:



Gotta love the fake peace. It was time to spam chariots.

But first, we had to keep the filthy Greeks from encroaching on our lands. I founded Jerusalem in 2125 B.C.:



Looks like Alexander beat us to Turkey. Ah, well. At least he founded the city in the right spot. That'll make things easier later

The Gods continued to mock us:



As if Emperor weren't already hard enough! Cyrus gets a free pasture, and I get mine destroyed! *sigh* Nothing to do but pick up the pieces. Worker! Get to work!

In 1625 B.C., the Vedic Aryans bubbled forth from the depths of the Arabian peninsula and camped out at the gates of Pasagardae:



Well, at least that's where I'm mustering my troops. I just hope I don't lose too many-

Hey! Get back here!



I'd wanted to train a few more troops, but with that Archer stack deciding Pasagardae wasn't worth the effort and heading to Persepolis, I had little choice but to follow. It's called piling on

The barbarians did a reasonable job, taking out an Archer and an Immortal that were guarding the city. Unfortunately, the survivors, hardened from the onslaught, were ready to make a stand:



We lost more than half our force, but Persepolis fell:



Part of me thinks I should have razed it and rebuilt on the coast. Oh, well. The existing population allowed me to whip out a Monument.

My next target was the one-pop city of Susa, garrisoned by a single Archer:



I lost yet another Chariot in the assault, but the real prize was the two Workers just outside the city.

So with Cyrus deprived of his coastal settlements, I decided to call it a round. Here's a look at the empire so far:



Yeah, I should probably work more on military builds, but both Jerusalem and Persepolis could use the big culture boost a Madrassa would provide, and I need to get a settlement up north to claim that Copper.

Also of note in the screenshot, Egypt is now potentially a harder target, with the Great Wall up. Though that also makes her that much juicier

Regarding the remnants of Persia,



Ecbatana is on a hill, garrisoned by two Archers. I have five Chariots in various states of disrepair. I think I'm going to offer peace and let him rot in eastern Russia. At least until it's time to mop up.

Here's a look at that army:



Yeah. It's not great.

And Diplomacy:



I'm working towards Construction, since I think the age of Catapult-free conquest is over.

So! I know that I'm screwing up, and I'm sorry Tell me what to fix and I'll fix it.

 

[Gooblah]

I think you're doing fine.

A Spear/Cat/Sword rush should be enough to eliminate Hatty, though wait until she has either mature Cottages (Hamlets or Villages) OR a Wonder in place. Then wipe her off the map. Once that's complete, East Africa, Madagascar, and the rest of the Arabian peninsula are all yours for settling.

I suggest a Construction/Code of Laws routine. Try to find Qin Shi Huang or another relatively far-away leader and trade Construction for Alphabet, then trade around with everyone but Hatty. Once Hatty has Construction, you know it's time for an assault.

If not Hatty, then Alexander, I guess, but raze Sparta and move it 1W to claim the Horses.

 

[Kietharr]

Be sure to settle up in the Armenia city sooner or later, it's a good production site which helps Saladin pump units. At this point, you've got three realistic target choices:

1) Hatty: Provides commerce and research through two really heavy floodplains cities, opens up the great majority of Africa to peaceful expansion. Southern Africa has Silver, Gold, and Gems, high value resources that are otherwise difficult to obtain from Saladin's start. Hatty also usually provides a decent Mediterranean port at the Alexandria site. She has no metals, she is an easy target no matter what really.

2) Alexander: Provides solid production land and has a few good resources. More importantly, he opens up a land route into Europe, which contains a bunch of tiny nations that can't hope to match your unit output individually and have really nice cities. The most difficult target you could face at the moment, with access to most military resources available and land that can easily pump units.

3) Asoka: Provides lots of calendar resources, some good land (once you clear the jungle) and isn't generally a big military producer. Most importantly, he provides a land route into East Asia, where the giant cities of Indochina, China, and Japan lie. China is usually one of the tougher powers on this map, it may be advantageous to wipe them out earlier. Worth note though, is that while East Asia has great cities like Europe, it is further away, and partially on another 'continent' (Japan) so it will incur much larger upkeep costs.

You've technically also got a fourth option in chasing Cyrus up in Central Asia, but the only benefits this provides is the elimination of cultural pressure on Persepolis, and the "We want to join the Motherland!" that goes along with it. It'd be a massive waste of troops, plus Cyrus shields you from Barbarians up north so he's worth keeping around until that area is more settled.

 

[Gagonite]

Looking good so far. I'd recommend founding a city 1 SE of the persian city you raised, Cyrus founded it there in the game I'm playing and its not a terribad commerce city. You took Cyrus's juicy lands, most of the lands to the north are desert / plains with little resources. He's pretty much screwed. On to takin' Hatty! That GW will definetly be nice to have.

 

[Gagonite]

Be sure to settle up in the Armenia city sooner or later, it's a good production site which helps Saladin pump units. At this point, you've got three realistic target choices:

1) Hatty: Provides commerce and research through two really heavy floodplains cities, opens up the great majority of Africa to peaceful expansion. Southern Africa has Silver, Gold, and Gems, high value resources that are otherwise difficult to obtain from Saladin's start. Hatty also usually provides a decent Mediterranean port at the Alexandria site. She has no metals, she is an easy target no matter what really.

2) Alexander: Provides solid production land and has a few good resources. More importantly, he opens up a land route into Europe, which contains a bunch of tiny nations that can't hope to match your unit output individually and have really nice cities. The most difficult target you could face at the moment, with access to most military resources available and land that can easily pump units.

3) Asoka: Provides lots of calendar resources, some good land (once you clear the jungle) and isn't generally a big military producer. Most importantly, he provides a land route into East Asia, where the giant cities of Indochina, China, and Japan lie. China is usually one of the tougher powers on this map, it may be advantageous to wipe them out earlier. Worth note though, is that while East Asia has great cities like Europe, it is further away, and partially on another 'continent' (Japan) so it will incur much larger upkeep costs.

You've technically also got a fourth option in chasing Cyrus up in Central Asia, but the only benefits this provides is the elimination of cultural pressure on Persepolis, and the "We want to join the Motherland!" that goes along with it. It'd be a massive waste of troops, plus Cyrus shields you from Barbarians up north so he's worth keeping around until that area is more settled.

Well said, pretty much sums up everything Keep an eye on China.. if he gets on a roll, he's a beast.

 

[dutchfire]

I'd say, take Europe first while Hatty establishes Africa for you, then take it off her.

 

[AndrewN]

Wow, I have never seen the barbarians pass by like that. I assume they spawned from the event and not just random?

Do you have Alphabet yet? I have no problem aiming for construction but I think you are going to need to back trade all the techs you miss out and the AI can't be relied on to research it for you.

The next and possibly last city you should settle will be to get the Metal. From my recollection of the map the AI always settles the city in the wrong place. IMO it should be on the forested hill N, N, NW of Pas. Unfortunately Pas is in the wrong place (stupid AI) and I prefer it SW of its current position, but it is too late for that and a wrongly placed prebuilt city is better then rebuilding it yourself.

As for the next target, I would take a bit of building time to do some scouting. I would be reluctant to take on Europe just yet as you want to keep your distance from Rome and its dreaded legions, at least until you have a counter (axes don't count).

India is also a target but you want them to keep the Chinese honest as you can't afford to expand all the way over to Indo-China just yet.

 

[Jet]

Having researched most of Math I would proceed directly to Construction rather than going back to research Alphabet. Not having Agriculture is a little odd and is stunting Jerusalem, but I guess you don't really need it yet.

Work towards having two scientists each permanently hired in Mecca and Pasagardae, and an Academy in Pasagardae, with the other cities building units. And build more Workers, of course.

When you get Masonry and Stone you might want to abuse Wall whipping overflow. I don't know if it's been discussed in this series. If you haven't done it before, with the bonuses from Protective and Stone and proper micromanagement you can whip Walls and force the overflow to be converted into a lot of gold. There are posts on how to do it. Even if you decide you don't like it or you think it's a broken exploit, it's a good thing to try once and the learning experience will help you transition to Emperor.

When you're ready to fight again, I'd take Sparta, then Egypt. The flood plains in Egypt will balance out your economy.

Your exact techs will have to depend on what trades are available, but after Construction I'd probably make Calendar the next big one.

 

[DMOC]

Leave Cyrus alone. You will need him to found more cities up north to block the expansion of Russia.