Man, Saladin sucks.

[Cornhog]

I saw Madscientist's Holy Sal article and thought I'd give it a try - albeit with a random map on emperor. What I discovered? Saladin sucks!

It's hard to even get a first religion. He doesn't have fishing so you can't work any sea tiles. If I can manage to get one religion, I can usually get a couple more, but then my empire is weak because he has the worst starting techs imaginable. Protective is bad enough but starting with the wheel and mysticism is brutal. It takes forever to amass enough tile improvement techs to actually benefit your empire.

I read madscientists write up, but does anyone else have any tips for helping my Islamic Empire prosper during this Christmas holiday? How do I play to this man's strengths? For that matter, what the hell are his strengths?!

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P.S. - Is he generally agreed to be the worst leader/empire?

 

[Gliese 581]

I think Charlemagne is the worst leader, having the two weakest traits, and a bad combination of starting techs. It's made up for by the UB though.
Saladin definitely has to be one of the weakest though, he used to own when he was philosophical, but BTS brought a shadow indeed over most civs east of europe..

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Strengths: Medieval warfare (protective crossbowmen and longbowmen, camel archers), Madrassa/Priest economy ( especially shines with Pyramids/representation), should be able to grab at least one religion, Spiritual works well with Priest economy

 

[Cornhog]

Horse archers get the protective bonuses? I thought horse archers were mounted and not archery units.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Whoops meant camel

 

[Antilogic]

I saw Madscientist's Holy Sal article and thought I'd give it a try - albeit with a random map on emperor. What I discovered? Saladin sucks!

It's hard to even get a first religion. He doesn't have fishing so you can't work any sea tiles. If I can manage to get one religion, I can usually get a couple more, but then my empire is weak because he has the worst starting techs imaginable. Protective is bad enough but starting with the wheel and mysticism is brutal. It takes forever to amass enough tile improvement techs to actually benefit your empire.

I read madscientists write up, but does anyone else have any tips for helping my Islamic Empire prosper during this Christmas holiday? How do I play to this man's strengths? For that matter, what the hell are his strengths?!

---

P.S. - Is he generally agreed to be the worst leader/empire?

I haven't played as him since Vanilla, but he still has the Spiritual trait. That means you can whore it out for all its worth. You could try for the early religion gambit, but that has never really been to my liking. I think a better strategy would be to focus on other worker techs and get your empire running first, then run priests with the madrassa, and then use a great prophet to pop a later religion.

Afterwards, get Machinery earlier than you would normally grab it, and use the crossbow, spear, and catapult combo (okay, a few city raiding swords as well) to launch an attack against a neighbor. That combination, for the Classic Age, works solidly with Protective leaders. If you can get elephants or some horse archers, great, but it's no big deal.

Ideally, you will have a decent empire in the medieval age, so you will be able to war again using the Camel Archers, longbows and crossbows, and the rest of the medieval cast. Your army won't have the strength of an Aggressive/Charismatic leader's medieval army, but ideally you will be larger than a competitor, and you will be able to use those crossbows and camels with good effect to take another enemy out of the game.

And of course, use the Spiritual trait. Spread your state religion around to every city, then run Organized Religion while all your cities are building buildings. Then switch to Vassalage-Theocracy for troop production in every city that has medium to high production. If anyone asks you to adopt their favored civic, just do it for diplomacy points, and then switch back to your original setup in 5 turns. Change your state religion to be able to trade with various trading blocks--if the Buddhists don't have anything good, become a Hindu and trade with the Hindu countries.

In the hands of someone willing to put in some legwork, Spiritual can be the strongest trait in the game, comparable to the "classic" strong traits like Financial and Philosophical. Just take it slow and keep looking at your Civics screen.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I had some thoughts on a Saladin game in this thread:

Saladin defies his critics and the world

Early religion is a no-no - despite Mysticism you need worker techs too badly. Building Stonehenge and using the prophet to get theology is a good move. And you can guarantee getting prophets with your UB. With stone a specialist economy powered by the pyramids and priest is very viable.

Militarily he won't shine until you get gunpowder. Then he can draft at the drop of the hat and should compete pretty well. Protective rifles are fantastic units and you can switch to Theocracy whenever you want.

 

[Cornhog]

Awesome. This sounds like some good advice, and I hadn't noticed your thread before I posted my Sal-bashing one. I should have checked better, but I was frustrated and wanted to let everyone know that Sal blows

I'm better than average at this game (I usually win on emperor given a decent start). Playing as Saladin is interesting. I think to win with him requires the complete opposite of my typical style. I'm an early, lean expansion and free religion kinda guy. I keep civic switching to a minimum and I rarely, if ever, build archery units.

I might try the George Constanza approach to the game. If every instinct I have is wrong (for Saladin) then the opposite would have to be right.

 

[Zanttu]

A leader with spiritual trait can't be the worst of the game IMHO. I haven't played as Saladin since vanilla though.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I imagine Christianity would be easy to grab simply by lightbulbing for Theology, since you can get a great prophet through the madrassa.

 

[madscientist]

Thanks for reading the HOLY SAL thread. That game was a little different as we deliberately went after as many religions as possible. I seriously doubt that would have been done in an off-line game.

The strength's os SAL

1) Spiritual: You can swap civics AND religions in a flash. The more religion you have the more you can play a diplomatic game, which is more important to Sal than the number of religions.
2) Invisible Stalker is correct, you need food techs big time for Sal as well as defense. I will always risk getting Polyhteism with him if he has one commerce tile and a second after border pops. Build a warrior first with him.
3) After the early religion, time for a food tech (agriculture or fishing) then hunting/archery/AH. He is protective and you need to leverage that fast.
4) Mining/BW should be delayed UNLESS you have gems or gold in Mecca's BFC, only in that case will I prioritize mining.

Sal is the slowest AI at the start and early patience is needed. Just remember the AI will rarely attack earlier than you have well entrenched archers. Barbs are the issue and you cna always turn them off. Also getting some early wonder the leverage some advantage over the AIs helps most with him as he needs all the help. Also sent that first built warrior out exporing, one tech goody hut can turn his game in a hurry.

Charlemange is not as difficult to play because he can get archery very fast as he is the only protective leader to start with hunting..

 

[Cornhog]

Yeah, I really like your roleplaying threads. I read them all the time at work. They usually inspire me to play as that leader, although I don't follow your strict rules normally

 

[gallego]

Well, the wheel puts you closer to pottery and cottaging up early can be a huge boost. At the very least, it lets you start laying down roads with your worker to save time. So I would say it's a good starting tech.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Well, the wheel puts you closer to pottery and cottaging up early can be a huge boost. At the very least, it lets you start laying down roads with your worker to save time. So I would say it's a good starting tech.

The problem is that you have no tech that lets you improve a tile to make it better immediately. Hence the slow start. Building a road gives no immediate payback. And because your other tech is mysticism you have a dilemna. Research polytheism and gamble on early religion but still have no tile development techs, or go for agriculture to build farms which wastes the mysticism start.

I go for the farms (or mines depending on whats around) since the slow start is a killer. Its no good being able to build stonehenge immediately if you can't get any hammers and can't chop. But Saladin needs religious techs to shine so I commit to a later religion - usually Theology since that can be reliably popped with a prophet which you can reliably get with your UB (and writing is a prereq to both Theology and the UB).

 

[Diamondeye]

I think Charlemagne is the worst leader, having the two weakest traits, and a bad combination of starting techs. It's made up for by the UB though.
Saladin definitely has to be one of the weakest though, he used to own when he was philosophical, but BTS brought a shadow indeed over most civs east of europe..

I think Charlemagne is okay, I detest Hammurabi more, especially if we consider UUs and UBs, HRE is an awesome civ.

Man, Saladin sucks.

O RLY?

A leader with spiritual trait can't be the worst of the game IMHO. I haven't played as Saladin since vanilla though.

Depends on playstyle. I'd say a financial leader can't be worst. spiritual leaders manage just fine.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

I think Charlemagne is okay, I detest Hammurabi more, especially if we consider UUs and UBs, HRE is an awesome civ.

Nevermind.. brain malfunction.

 

[iamnleth]

If you research Polytheism and miss the religion, you have a good shoot at getting one with Monotheism.

 

[Zanttu]

Depends on playstyle. I'd say a financial leader can't be worst. spiritual leaders manage just fine.

Depends on playstyle. In pure SE financial is pretty useless. Financial leaders manage just fine.

AFAIK "just fine" is better than "the worst", or am I missing something? I said that any spiritual leader can't be the worst, and you said spiritual leaders manage fine. Don't those mean the same? I didn't mean spiritual would be the best trait (well, actually for my playing style it is the best).

 

[Cornhog]

It'd probably be fair to say that spiritual is the trait that I fail to utilize the most. I definitely do not work it to get the most out of it. Probably has something to do with me being an atheist Ahem.. Merry Christmas!

 

[Cam_H]

Julian Delphiki,

Referring to Gilgamish?