Nobles' Club 300: Saladin of Arabia

[Mr_Trotsky]

560AD

Spoiler :

Not got much time at the moment but played on a handful of turns. Hopefully able to lib MT in four turns and complete Taj in eight (or fewer if I whip).

I've closed borders with Gilgamesh and Ragnar to stop them crushing Wang. May have to do the same with HC too.

Louis has 940 gold and I could sell him nationalism. Only Ragnar and I have it but the HR crowd all love each other. I'm torn between thinking he's likely to get it anyway and not wanting to risk the Taj.

I bribed Ragnar into Taoism but he's still friendly with all of them except Giggles. Not having Judaism is a real pain. I feel this would be quite straightforward if I could join in the love in but I've missed so many trades. I have had one trade with Giggles - philosophy for feudalism (when I could see Ragnar was one turn away) - since trading music for calendar, MC and one other similar sized tech.

I don't think I'll get cuirs much earlier than anybody else so I think my aspirations will be quite limited. Probably Wang and Giggles if I can manage that. Then hope the civ I've not met yet is weak and work out what I can do late game with the rest. The land is so brown. I think I'll play tropical climate next game.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

640AD

Spoiler :

Some next level BS. I decided not to trade nationalism to Louis for 940 gold because I didn't want to jeopardise the Taj. Naturally he got it next turn along with HC. I think he traded it with HC. I couldn't check whether anybody was going for it because nobody will trade with me.

Then Wang poisoned by capital which meant I had to work food to avoid starvation. That would have meant the Taj was never going to finish so I whipped it. I think I might have done that anyway because HC just popped a GE. I've got the Taj and should win lib next turn but I now have a low food capital which is unhealthy at size 6. Even if I can get some merchants out, the trade missions are going to be pretty underwhelming with such a small capital. Also, I need to get engineering from someone if I'm ever going to get my merchants across the map. Ragnar is friendly so maybe that'll work.

I reckon I'd have been better off selling nationalism to Louis and getting Taj failgold than trying to get merchants. It would also mean I could upgrade earlier. Live and learn perhaps.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

1120AD

Spoiler :

I traded education for guilds with Ragnar and then guilds for engineering with Gilgamesh. I won lib and took MT. I teched gunpowder during the golden age. I managed to get a pathetic one merchant out due to having such small resource starved cities. As I feared, I should have just sold nationalism to Louis for 900 plus gold and taken the failgold from the Taj. Probably a bad habit from immortal where you always seem to be able to build the Taj if you've got marble.

I traded three or four resources plus about 100 GPT for iron with HC and upgraded a few elephants and camel archers. I could only upgrade about half, meaning perhaps 10. That and a couple of rounds of whipping before smashing my gold to cancel the trade was enough to get an army to take Wang's last five cities.

I then had a decision to make about whether to push on and attack Gilgamesh. He had RP but not gunpowder. But everybody else had gunpowder so he could get it at any moment given everybody is friendly with each other. I was worried about him getting rifling mid-war which would have put an end to things and most likely seen him peace vassal. I'd also have needed to whip a fair few more cuirs given losses and the relatively small army I'd attacked a backward Wang with. I didn't really want to do this with so much risk around any attack on him. I therefore bottled it and decided to try to recover instead. He actually still doesn't have rifling now - only HC does - so I'm pretty sure I could have taken him. I don't know whether it's a surprise he still doesn't have rifling or not.

I've just teched astro and need to work out what I can get in trade for it. My plan is to now go for steel and trade my way to rifling, build the globe in Seoul and then try to take out isolated Monty. That would get me to 25 plus cities. I might be able to manage some late game war but that looks awkward - not least because of the network of defensive pacts - but I suspect I'm going to get left behind techwise given my poor land and the diplo situation. Honestly a cheesy diplo win is looking like my best chance.

 

[konata_LS]

@Mr_Trotsky

Spoiler :

These defensive pacts look really disgusting . Louis' land is insane; him or Capac are dangerous if they try to win Culture. Conquering Monty's land then farming everything might lead to a UN victory though.

Why did you decide to go Cuirs instead of Cannons or Engineering attacks? krikav mentioned last year that siege often works better against unit-spammers. Cuirs can probably take weak AIs like WK, but fighting against Ragnar with Cuirs might be tough unless you have some dogpile opportunities.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@konata_LS

Spoiler :

Agreed. Played on a bit last night and I’m already pre-farming and starting to convert Gilgamesh to Taoism.

Interesting question. Lots of reasons really:

• I think attacking at steel would have been too late. Peace vassals and defensive pacts were likely given the friendly faces.
• Bad land and not loads of it so I wanted to change that sooner rather than later.
• I wanted to kill Wang so I could reopen borders with the other jokers, mainly to build relations as I still got foreign trade routes from Louis whose armies had been too pathetic to me worry about him capping Wang.
• I didn’t have iron which I find more problematic with cannons than cuirs because a cannon wars are slower so I would have likely needed to keep the horrible iron trade open longer.
  
• Realistically my only other target was Giggles. Not having the AP religion meant I would need any war against a target other than Wang to be really short (ie within AP vote window). Otherwise it would be a holy war against me and game over. I think I could have declared on Giggles wiped his huge medieval stack out when it crossed Ragnar’s land or entered mine and then gone and taken a city. I think that would have been enough to cap him. I had time to do that but just didn’t realise at the tile. Also, if I had wasted time building the Taj, I think it would have been clear that I had time.
• I thought that, by the time I got to cannons, everybody was likely to be at rifles. No way I’m confident in taking 11 city Ragnar in ten turns (AP vote window) if he’s at rifling and I couldn’t really rely on cheesy ceasefires to avoid the AP because of peace vassals, the diplo hit and risk of bribes.

In short, Krikav’s point is a fair one, but I don’t think it’s really applicable here because I wasn’t planning on attacking a unit spammer any time soon.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

1620AD diplo win

Spoiler :

Traded paper and theology for banking with Monty. Then traded astronomy for chemistry with Ragnar and traded it for printing press with Gilgamesh. Then went into free religion to get HC to friendly and traded astro for RP with him.

Golden age to research steel, build the globe and start build some galleons to get them from my western cities to the coast facing Monty in time.

Then traded steel for rifling with Gilgamesh, military science with Ragnar and sci meth with HC. Then sold steel to Louis for 90 gold and plus four relations because he was getting it next turn anyway. Next turn, traded military science for economics with Giggles.

Switch into theology, nationhood, slavery and free market. Started:

• whipping cannons and a final few galleons and frigates;
• drafting rifles;
• upgrading cuirs to cavalry and my exploration caravels to frigates.

Attacked Monty. Everybody liked him but he was at best cautious with everybody so no peace vassal risk and he had nothing to bribe anybody with.

He had printing press but no RP or gunpowder and oddly went towards physics rather than rifling or grenadiers. Despite spamming units, it was pretty straightforward and wiped him out 1515AD.

It was easy enough that I could stop building units and switched back into caste, bureau and org religion mid-war. Teched to communism - switched to nationalisation - and then teched biology. Traded biology for steam power and physics with Ragnar and Gilgamesh. Sold biology to HC to get him to switch into HR and back to friendly.

Also built missionaries to convert Gilgamesh and got him to friendly.

I wondered if I could now tech to tanks and then attack Louis and Gilgamesh. I wasn’t sure about that but I was sure that I couldn’t face it. This game had already taken me best part of three weeks.

I went towards mass media with the intention of gifting it to Louis if he hadn’t already gotten there. He was the least popular and the second biggest so I wanted him or me to build it. He beat me to mass media and built the UN as well as all the wonders down that line.

I won the Secretary General vote with Rags and HC voting for me. I then bribed them into bureau to stop them switching civics for the next five turns, ended turn four times and then selected victory vote.

 

[InovA]

Spoiler :

Camel Archer do guarantee that you have a Mounted unit you can build in preparation for upgrading an army into cuirs even if you lack the Horses and Iron

Before game: Hmm.. yeah I guess that could come up one day

During game: OHHHHH, guess that day's today