RBC13B - Crazy Cordovans

[Justus II]

@Mazarin,
Sorry for the confusion, the left side was supposed to be what they gave us for our WM. After the English (CoL, Contact) all the other deals were our WM straight up for whatever they had to offer, WM+ workers or gold. The only race with gold left was the Abbasids. What I meant about workers being left is that some nations (Celts, Burgundy, Abbasids) had more than 1 worker available, but we are limited to 1 worker purchase per civ before turn 50 (it's turn 44 now). Good point though, if there was cash left, I could now go back to the early ones in the cycle and resell. I'm hoping to do some of that next turn, since most nations still don't have the tech, and cant initiate map trades, and those that do already have complete maps.

 

[Arathorn]

Nice trading, nice turns. Very nice all the way around. Can we trim the French a bit before we take out Castile? I think it may be necessary. WE've got a LOT of work to do before the game is over and the clock is ticking.

No good suggestions on researching -- all options have pros and cons. It's doubly difficult without being able to seei the save.

Arathorn

 

[Justus II]

For our Peace with Castile and the Great Map Trades on my inherited turn, see Previous Post

975AD – Al-Justus is now ready to settle down for some building turns. He is very concerned about our cultural situation. We are facing cultural pressure from Castille, on all our northern towns, and also would like to put pressure on Madrid. Swap production: Lisbon, Granada-Town Hall. Salamanca, Toledo, Valencia, Mertola, Cadiz-Temple (which also gets the fish). Cordoba-Horse (Library here wouldn’t put pressure on Madrid, so instead I free up the quarry to speed temple in Cadiz, leaving Cordoba at 10spt, just as good as 14spt for horses until mining is done). Seville swaps from Sword to Horse. Do some shuffling of units (and kings), but get a garrison in each city (No sense tempting the Danes). After some thought, decide to go with a min research on Smithing, keeping our cash for flexibility/brokering opportunities. Besides, we are just breaking even at min science, with 10% lux. Finally hit enter.
IBT: Danes move back north (whew!). Cordoba-Horse>Horse.

978 (1) – Just when I thought I could catch my breath, the situation changes. Abbasids and Turks have Jihad! Everything we have can’t get it yet, but we could get close if we get creative. But since we can’t resell it to anyone but the poor Fatimids, we can’t recoup the costs, so that won’t work. Now if the Fatimids got it, that would drop the price, and actually we are 2 techs up on them, so we could probably trade for it. Otherwise, we would be giving our entire economy to one of the top two civs, who don’t need our help anyway. So, I decide to go ahead and try researching it ourselves. If nothing else, if another buying opportunity comes along (Fatimids), we will have earned a discount. As I mentioned, we are basically breaking even at 10%, so this will be pure deficit research, hopefully offset by our map trading. I was very diligent with the map trading, even doubling back to hit up early civs twice sometimes, but it definitely paid off. I may need a new mouse after all the clicking around the F4 screen, though. Our first turn, it nets 87g. Research is begun at 90%, losing 49gpt (with 502 in the bank), Jihad due in 15. Also, with the new plan, I swap Cordoba back to a Library, with short-rush I can get it in 5. I have recalled the Ansar, and our northern curragh, our southern one is chasing a few remaining spots of fog.
IBT: Danes continue backing up.

981 (2) Map trades net 41g, Jihad drops to 13. Lots of worker actions as I am putting our slaves to work.
IBT: Cadiz-Temple-Settler, Seville-Horse-Horse, Malaga swaps to a settler, borrows an FP from Cadiz.

984 (3) Santa Maria founded near wines N of Lisbon, also starts a temple. Map sales net 37g.

987 (4) Map sales bring in only 27g, it gets a little harder. A note, some turns I had to “prime the pump” by buying someone else’s map (for 1-2g) then I could sell ours, and eventually build up a map value to go back and get our initial gold back.
IBT: Valencia-Temple>Town Hall, Lisbon-Town Hall>Horse (6spt now).

990 (5) Good turn for maps, +49g.
IBT: Cordoba Library>Horse (up to 16spt now).

993 (6) Trade the Rus contact with England for their WM+10g to get started. This is turn 50, so I can also pick up another Celt worker, trading WMs plus contact with Germany, Rus, and Sweden, and 40g, for a worker. Franks now have Map Making, so they would trade the remaining contacts soon anyway. Map sales get a total of 55g this turn.
IBT: Cadiz-Settler>Worker. Byzantines start Bayeux Tapestery (uh oh).

996 (7) Yep, Byz, Abbasids, and Turks all have Medieval Combat. We can’t afford it, (even if I zero out science and lux), and there’s no 2-fer available, or any real money out there, except the Byz. Maps get me 40g, Jihad is down to 6, we are close for everything we have, I think it’ll actually turn out cheaper to research.
IBT: Cordoba-Horse>Horse. Seville-Horse>Horse. Malaga-Settler>Barracks. Germany starts Doomsday Book (Code of Laws was already known, but it means they have 4 Town Halls). Abbs and Turks start Bayeux.

999 (8) Net 36 gold. Trade the Danes Early Siegecraft for 11g and a worker, as several other nations know it now. OK, I can see the price on Jihad now, and we are better off researching it ourselves. We could buy it for 340+5gpt (440 total), or research it at 5 more turns at 59gpt, or 295 total.
IBT: Cadiz-Worker>worker.

1002 (9) Have trade English contact w/Magyars for WM+12 to get started, but I still net 31g. More people have Map Making, once it is universal, I doubt we will make much more in trading.
IBT: Cordova-Horse>Horse, Lisbon-Horse>Horse.

1005 (10) Norway comes through for us, as they have Smithing [dance] The best part is, they were the only Viking tribe that didn’t have Map Making yet, so we can trade them MM for Smithing straight up! Sweden and Denmark don’t have it yet, but don’t have anything to offer yet, keep an eye on them. Cordoba, Seville, and Lisbon swap to Blacksmiths. Maps get only 22g, but Jihad is due in 3. After that, we can see where we are on Medieval Combat, or go straight for Assassination, and try to pick up MC once more “normal” civs get it. It’s still held closely by the big 3. They are also the only ones with serious money, although the other civs occasionally have 20-30g. We are close on MC, once Jihad comes in, we may be able to scrape enough together to buy it, but unless some of the other civs come up with some more cash, there probably won’t be enough of a payoff to bankrupt ourselves to get it. We do have some serious GPT payments ending in another 10 turns.

Our military is growing, in addition to the 9 swords, we have 6 vet horses, and 10 workers+13 slaves. We still need lots of work, but the roads are almost complete. Cadiz can get to a worker/2-turn factory with a little growth. Unfortunately, our 2 best cities (Cordoba and Lisbon) are stuck at size 6 for another couple techs at least. We also have 2 settlers out, one ready to settle where he is on the east coast N of Granada, another one tile away from a spot on the river N of Seville. That should help unit costs, and work unused tiles.

Only real concern is VPs, we were 3rd after the big trading round, but now are 6th. Abbasids lead with 3755, while we are still back at 1660. Other than the big 3, the Fatamids and Franks are ahead of us. I assume the Fatimids are racking up points vs. the barb keshik uprisings, and I think the Franks are at war with Germany or Burgundy, our Ansar saw a couple wounded pink swords in his travels. I haven’t bought any embassies to check it out, as I was saving to buy/trade for tech. We have 10 turns of peace left with Castile, although they do have an archer in our lands. I have been shadowing with a horse, but I think it’s just trying to get home (it left from Madrid). But that should be enough time to get Jihad in, upgrade a few horses and build a few, and be ready to attack. We could always kick off our GA early to get more money for upgrades, and to hurry up the blacksmiths. Once they are done, we should be able to go on a rampage. (Another problem I just thought of, without Western Church we have no way of knowing how close the Catholic civs are to knights. An embassy might let us know if they are building any, or building Churches or Manors yet).

The Cordoban Caliphate, 1005 AD

ROSTER:
Arathorn -- skipped until 3/24
Justus II -- Just Played
Charis -- Up Now
Corrado -- On Deck

Hammer out some Ansars

 

[Justus II]

OK, after looking at the map again, it appears that the Franks are indeed at war with Burgundy, as Marseilles is pink, and that was one of Burgundy's starting cities. It doesn't look good for Burgundy, either, as they have neither Iron nor Horses connected. France does have both connected.

 

[Justus II]

Bump!
Can't let this one stay on the second page! Just a reminder, with the skip of Aragorn, Charis is up. I know he posted in another thread he would be busy yesterday, hopefully he can grab it tonight, if not Corrado would be next, but with the short roster, it's probably worth waiting a little while.

 

[Arathorn]

Yeah, let's wait a bit.

And it's Arathorn, not Aragorn. I tried to send Charis a PM earlier today, but his inbox was overfull, so it didn't go through. Let's give him another 24 hours or so, since with only 4 and me on skip for a bit, being too anal about times will get the turn-around too quick.

Arathorn

 

[Corrado]

I can't take it tonight anyways- Mondays are already packed full.

If France is currently at war with Burgundy, this may be our best chance to hit them. It also may be our *last* chance to hit them- not to be a Cassandra, but if they take a lot of cities from Burgundy *and* get HRE, they're going to be really tough to fight.

The problem will be getting troops *to* France; we can't declare war on Castille without destroying our rep. We could get an ROP; that would delay a war with them by 20 turns, but I don't think they're in any position to build up troops- or get Knights- in the next 20 turns. If we think we can wait 10 turns- between Jihad in 3, producing Ansars, and the money needed for upgrades, we might have to- then we can do a quick strike on Castille to take Oviedo and Navarre.

Something sneaky to try, though- if we put a stack of Ansars on the plains N of Valencia, they can move over the plains and land in the mountains outside of Ampuras; Castille might not give us trouble over that, but if they demand an immediate retreat, we might end up with the Ansars jumping to the un-controlled area between Bordeaux and Ampuras...

 

[Charis]

Oh so *THAT'S* what happens when your inbox is full... sheesh.
I guess I better clean that up a bit. And yes, I missed the post once where I went to the CFC page but was interrupted and never got to read it. Then next time I visited, poof, it's waaay down the list and not seen.

A lot of SG activity in the forum is a good thing, but occasionally you'll miss a post. The irony is, after Arathorn's msg on a previous turn I told him "sheesh, I saw it, I saw it, it's not even 24 hrs "

Got it...
Charis

 

[Justus II]

Sorry about that Arathorn, I'm always a little rushed when I'm posting from work.

As for our next attack plan, I wouldn't mind getting an ROP and letting Castile stick around for a while in order to hit the Franks first. Castile is certainly not getting stronger, while the Franks are. Any Castille cities we take will be unproductive until they get town halls built (other than Madrid). Also, the sooner we can get at least a small stack into action, the sooner we can kick off our GA, which will finish our smiths and speed our Ansar production. Then again, if it takes us 10 turns to assemble a good attack force, Castille would go down easily, we could take just take Leon, killing their other king, then resettle the other sites ourselves if we want.

 

[Charis]

I'm on it, but it's 2:30 now and I won't finish tonight. (Take a look at the Kievan Rus game, it was quite an adventurous turn!)

I have looked at the situation for a long time, have formulated what I think is an excellent plan, and just gotten into playing it, so fear not

Charis

 

[Justus II]

@Charis,
I just finished reading your Kievan Rus turns, and it WAS quite adventurous. After the early 'warning labels', I was prepared for much worse. Here's hoping Luck is a lady in Cordova!

 

[Charis]

The year was 1005 and there was unrest in the gracious land of Cordoba. First off,
the people were mightily confused whether to call themselves according to their
nation (Cordovans) or their capital city (Cordobans)! On the plus side, their nation
was doing well, had secured much of the Iberian penninsula, and had amassed a few thousand
victory points. OTOH, we were now *6th* behind the ever-dominant Abbasids and Byzantines,
as well as our comrades in faith the Turks and Fatamids. Worse yet, we trailed the
infidel dogs known as Franks and were barely ahead of the unwashed masses of Rus.

More good news - the teaching of Jihad is on the rise and an outcry expected to lead to
glorious Ansar warriors (5.2.3) is expected in a mere 3 seasons. Just one tech from the next
age (Medieval Combat, MDI). After Jihad, Assasination (5.1.1) will be nice. One more after
that will give Medicine and needed fresh water supply. All civs are known. Germany, a
potential ally vs France, lacks Map Making. Clueless civs include the Rus, Danes and Swedes.
For now no Knights with France, as we fear their 'swordsmen'. We would sorely *LOVE*
to have an Ansar cut their iron a turn before the tech for Knights. Burgundy's days
are numbered. Good news - Paris is so *lightly* mined that I doubt they'll get HRE!
Poland, not otherwise looking too strong, seems a favorite. That would be great. Poland
is so surrounded by civs that a dogpile would cut them down to size.
If we DID just plain sell Map Making all around, what would it get us? ~55g+1worker.
Burgundy is the best sale and 3 highly so-so gold from Bulgars, Fatamids, Danes.
Now when/if war with France starts, pulling in the Danes by giving Map Making would be fun!

Hey! Is that our one Ansar warrior riding back home?! We have 6 horses, 9 swords, and 0,
yes ZERO spearman 12 cities, 288g, -58gpt for 3 more. Upgrade cost will be
90g per Ansar (60 shields vs 30 shields). We'll probably want, oh... 8-12+ Ansars?
since we can be sitting on top of closest iron on round 2, and on top of far iron rnd 3.
That's a pretty quick disconnect. Our returning Ansar should target the horses at Ghent
for a pillage. A dozen Ansars could likely pillage both iron and both horses this way,
leaving France with archer production for the war, even if we lost several in the process.

Ten turns of peace deal with Castille. (Bah! Peace!) Hey! Wait a minute... that's a
Castille ARCHER next our capital?!?! I wonder, would she be so good as to sign her own
death warrant??! I command the wench to leave and... Castille declares war on us!
The game is afoot!!!! As we could use the extra cities, we'll target Leon LAST to fall.

What's tough is those Blacksmiths. At 100 shields, they'll take quite a while. At +50%
shield production, the effective cost for Ansars would be 40 not 60, so the payback time
is 5 Ansars by accepting a 1.5 Ansar "delay". Cordoba would be 22 instead of 15 shields,
so one Ansar per 3 instead of per 4. That's a 33% gain, not a 50% gain. Lisbon would go
from 7 to 10, one per 6 instead of 1 per 9, 50% gain. Same for Seville.

I swap Toldeo's temple, which it won't need after the war, to Town Hall. Mertola's temple
makes little sense, as it can't grow past size 3 - swaps to rax and needs a worker to mine.
Salamanca swaps from Temple to town hall. Are these temples placeholders? Santa Maria doesn't
need one either, and swaps to worker to be followed by rax. That leaves us making zero
spears and zero Ansars until the three smiths are done. What will our income be after
Jihad is done? About -1gpt? Eep! That will leave us cash for exactly one upgrade.
Income will be low until... 10-11 more turns when 27gpt and 11gpt deals end with
Byzantines and Abbasids. After that we can upgrade one Ansar every 2 turns. Bottom line...
we'll have 9 Ansars in about 12 turns. The war with Castille should be over by then
and hopefully roads to our front lines done as well.

Regarding Justus' comment, I strongly disagree with hitting Leon first, as we do need more
cities badly and we really cannot afford ANY of our existing cities to waste time on
settlers. But, your comment reminded me that the first Ansar win will trigger our GA!
That in turn will get the Smith's done and allow actually Ansar production, not to mention
giving us a non-negative income. We do have cash for ONE upgrade, so if we can get just
one win on turn 4 then our estimate of Ansars on hand at the end of 12 turns goes up from
9 to more like 16-18!! That's the difference between a suicide iron-pillaging force
and a Grand Armee that could capture Paris and a relic and kill several kings! It should
also turn the reigns of Corrado and Arathorn from snoozers to fireworks displays!

10 YEAR PLAN: Induce war with Castille, kick off a Golden Age, wipe Castille out, capture
all cities but Leon, and build up an army of over 15 Ansars in 10 turns to hit France!

(continued)
Charis

 

[Charis]

[0] 1005 AD - Swap items mentioned above, get Castille to declare and war happiness lets us
drop lux slider (good, more cash!) I do sell MM to Burgundy for WM+worker, but don't sell it
to other civs cheaper than that.

Swords toward Oviedo, Santiago, Madrid, Navarre (worker captured).
Sheesh, we almost forget the archer in our territory who started it all! Darn same colors!
IBT - Byz start Domesday Book?! Castille settler pair flees out of Leon heading North.
A Castille spear walks up between two swords thinking he can sack Toldeo

[1] 1008 - Hmm, where is that settler going? Meaning to settle on the hill? Ah yes, the
dot map reveals all, thanks Justus. I like the spot that eliminates the gap near
Toledo and Salamanca, but I think for our next phase that a forward deployed city on
the other side of the mountains might serve us best. We'll need that to secure a road
over the mtns for our glorious Ansars. Huelva is founded on the hill N of Granada.

Madrid: Elite sword beats spear w/o a scratch, horse does likewise. Still an archer left,
but we'll have it next turn. It's size 2 now and I hope we get to keep it. Hmm, probably
not - I had a horse 'in reserve' near the area but not on the mtn and so he attacks
so we can keep it. It wins, sweet! (I love when just-in-case foresight works, I only
expected two units there)
Santiago: Sword beats spear, another moves up.
Oviedo: Tense moment as sword goes red, but he wins. The warrior from Valencia is there
to provide cover. Does he attack? No, they're on a hill. He just prays instead,
while a sword moves up. Ooh, check that, horse can hit it. (I fear archer whipping
intra-turn and it's a size two city we want to keep.) He wins and promotes. Another
spear there. The warrior is so tempted to try, but that would be foolish, as it would
not only lead to his death, but that of the sword he covers. Al-Mundhir steps on to
the hill to rally and encourage his men!
Navarre: Sword moves up, horse behind.
We finish up by selling maps around. Bulgars give a worker+WM for Map Making.
IBT - Sword out of Navarre attacks our hilled sword and loses. Sword beats warr at Leon.

[2] 1011 - Santiago, sword loses, sword gets hurt but wins, a hurt spear left. Elite
sword hoping to hit free sword must instead attack. It is sweet to see this...

El Cid, working for our side?! Can you say Ansar army?! I knew you could!

He runs to Toledo (rax city) and forms an army. A horse is there to upgrade next turn.

Oviedo is still size 2? Nice, let's rock. Sword attacks and... loses, bah. Elite
horse hits and... Al-Mansur?? Good grief, why didn't the leaders come this quick
in the Kiev game?! He makes it to Toledo as well. We pull back hurt units, with
the Ansars coming, no need to overstretch. Map goes around, turn ends.
IBT - Nothing! A Castille sword moves over Pyrennes back towards Olviedo.
Jihad arrives! We start Assassination, at min for now for cash to upgrade.
(I'm hoping no aggressive neighbor notices we have 10 cities undefended, btw)

[3] 1014 - We upgrade to our first new Ansar - the illustrious Ansur Rider al Mansur
Second ansar upgrades. Only one attack, elite sword beats spear at Olviedo.

IBT Castille sword and archer near Olviedo move up. We see France and Burgundy at war.

[4] 1017 - We put one Ansar in one army and send him for a victory and a GA.
Spear at Olviedo works... and we have it.

Oh my, that was the last spear? The city is ours, and still two move left.
In other news, Danes get Map Making for 13g and a worker, allowing one more upgrade.

Our income is now around +45gpt, excellent. Smiths finish in 2, 4 and 6.
Sword beats sword at Olviedo, then elite vs an archer... oh my... Al-Muhamin.

I'm sorry, this has got to look awful, but I don't write the script!
I had the same feeling as when I get an early settler from a hut, kinda yay but
kinda "oh shoot, I hope things aren't too easy now" IBT - Swedes start Bayeaux Tapestry.

[5] 1020 - Al-Mutamin forms another army. (Keep up with Ansars? Or for flavor have
an Assasin army?) Our roaming initial Ansar is now positioned in Burgundy territory
right next to the Ghent horses, but... they're already disconnected?!

We sell maps all around and keep eye on tech. Finally Sweden who lacks Smithing
has a tech - Medieval Combat. He knows our tech is much rarely and freely offers
MC+WM+all 16g for it. Done! NO one can offer *anything* for it. The big guns,
Abbasids, Byz, Turks have it, and others are broke and techless. No one has Assassination.
We could get it in 20 at slight deficit, or 11 if we had unlimited cash.

Our Ansar army with move 4 is next to Navarre. He only needs two attacks, for two spears.
The city is captured, and now only Leon remains. Well, two other units too. There is
a spy next to Salamanca. Well, he looks like a spy, since he's wearing almost identically
our colors, but it's a spear. Next to an elite sword. Then elite sword past Olvieda
next to a reg sword. At Leon are a vet and an elite sword. (Shoot me, I'm an elitist!)
Actually, two of those are 'named' elites. We beat the sword, can't reach the spear and
so use the other army, and hit Leon. Both armies saw a promotion. Reg spears at Leon,
so in we go. Out they go. At least one spear left, plus the king.
IBT - Shoot, our Ansar gets the boot from Burgundy. Where will he go? West of Lyons.

[6] 1023 - Cordoba's Blacksmith has finished. It's GA production is 31spt! That's a town
hall in two turns even to eliminate its one corrupt shield/coin, or a sword per round,
but of course, we start an Ansar! Granada's town hall finishes and it shoots up from
2 useful shields to 6, now can start a smith.
Of course it starts an Ansar.

Our roaming booted Ansar happens to end up near our Curragh on its way back home!
Want a lift?! I rename him "The Original". Sell maps, Abbasids do reach Assassination,
and of course won't sell it. Perhaps the Turks will get it and break Monopoly?

Ansar Army (hereafter 'AA') attacks Leon with 2 move left, to kill spear and sword.
Now just a worker is showing. The last king. They have nothing to offer to prolong
their life and nothing but rebellion and flip chances not too. The illustrious elite
Sword El CharisCid has the honor of the final blow on Castille. (Actually, he's too
busy polishing his sword, and an ultrafast Ansar screaming "Promote ME!" gets there
first!) We've moved up to second in VP behind Abbasids, ahead of Sweden/England/Fatimids,
then Turks, Byz and France.

We now have 17 cities and two settlers (one not far from Leon spot), and what kind of
homeland defense? 3 warriors, 3 Abu, 7 swords, and amazingly, still ZERO spears!!
Then for our vanguard, 3 armies with 5 Ansars and 2 horses to be upgraded soon.
We'll need six units just to avoid having cities undefended. Total units 39 of allowed
34, will be about even after two cities founded. We also have 10 native workers plus 19.
Several of the smaller towns go on reg MP/defender production. Leon's site is off river,
not great, but given other city placement, putting it on one is just too close. And with
the exposure to Vikings, off the coast isn't awful.

[7] 1026 - Malaga completes our first *spearman* It heads to Lisbon to celebrate!
Son of a gun!!!! Our settler-sword arrived at their founding site last turn but IBT
the sickly pink French borders expanded to overshadow them! They step back for now,
and could settle where you will see them fortified, but I would be more prone
to have them move one square NE onto the river-hill spot on the turn we declare war,
especially if we have some troops to sack Ampurias. Their site now is NOT on river.

[8] 1029 - Seville finishes Blacksmith and hits 21 spt in GA. Post GA (or soon) it will
definitely want to finish a town hall, but right now there's no benefit to that. It could
also crank a much needed one vet spear per turn for the nation.

[8] 1029 - Ansar Warrior the Original arrives back home to a hero's welcome!
A spot for him is reserved in his majesty's royal army (especially since he's a regular)
A new tech shows up, Polearms (2.4.1 pikes) in the hands of Byzantines
Hmmm, interesting - Bayeaux Tapestry could be ours in 20 turns (well, ~24 due to GA expire)
IBT - Speaking of which, the Poles start building this, in their best city. Looking at
F7 there's just too much good competition, and it's just a Sun Tzu.

[9] 1032 - Selling maps, covering cities, preparing for handoff. Settler moves onto the
Leon site. Sell maps and hit 91g, just enough to upgrade the LAST horse to Ansar.
IBT Swedes land a settler pair on a spot where they would like to settle right near
Leon site. NO way pal, this is OUR penninsula!

[10] 1035 - Our settler plops down on the ex-Leon site, happy to be in time for a
change. Carmona is the new city. (Too bad we can't build harbors, btw, we have 4 excess
iron and 3 excess horses). Map sales continue at a brisk pace. No change in tech situation.


Notes to next leader...
- Do note that the Fatimids are weak, lack Jihad, lack horses and lack iron. And they're
right close to us. I think Catholic Europe is a better target, but these guys are by
far softer. Kind of a reverse Moorish invasion idea
- It would be an option to get one more town hall down then put Cordoba on Domesday Book,
which would complete in just 10 turns, but I don't know when others will finish. Looking
at the cities trying, maybe they're too slow? 5% interest when your bankroll is never more
than 100g however isn't that great for us.
- Cordoba's protector just upgraded and left town. It's scheduled at present to spit a
one turn sword for its defense, but you might prefer to ignore that and continue Ansar
production, maybe leaving one home in Cordoba for homeland zone defense. Or let the
21spt city crank several spears, as this would free a half-dozen swords for front lines.
- The GA has 14 turns left. The two armies are unmoved. The unfilled army is in
Toledo, conveniently near two Ansars, if that's what you want to fill it with.
- Are we still looking at a "cut-off-the-iron" decapitation strategy on France?
Ally with their enemy Burgundy? DO keep in mind that with just 2 defense, I don't
think the armies are considered invulnerable. I did have a sword attack our army,
and I was glad I was in high terrain at the time or it could have been ugly.
The alternate approach is a blitzing city-capture strat, although if they get
HRE and/or tech for Knights, we'll want that iron gone before it happens!
When France gets Med Combat, they will have the MDI option which could kill Ansars.

Our look at the terrain...

The red circle is the intended settling spot on hill-river, the blue one is where we
are now (and on a hill where we could settle, although not on a river).

Let's see, how well did the execution match the plan? Castille is gone, all cities
captured, Leon re-founded, extreme army action, and 9 Ansars total, plus three smiths done,
more due, and lots of town halls done or due. Up to our next leader how many Ansars we need,
but since France has not progressed much on the tech front, I would likely ride the GA wave
a bit more and produce another ~6-12 Ansars first. They will be extremely effective in
stacks, far less so if we just have a few here and there!

RBC13B Save file 1035 AD

Arathorn <-- on deck (heavy warfare almost guaranteed)
Justus
Charis
Corrado <-- UP (Two armies, extra Ansars and a GA!)

Good luck!
Charis

 

[Arathorn]

Boy, am I looking forward to getting back to this. Up to *4* armies of ansars? That would be incredibly sweet! I'm all up for attacking France ASAP. Sweep them with ansars. I'd love to keep the pressure up and continue to sweep generally east. I'd like to see us capture cities/kill units and keep up in VPs that way, if at all possible. Maybe one or two relics to Jerusalem as a denoument, perhaps, but I'm curious if we can make a serious run of it with military alone.

We have enough armies and production that I think we should be able to try it -- if we can't make it with this situation, it's gonna be tough for anyone to do it that way.

GREAT turns, Charis. Incredibly fun read. Probably was even more fun to play, though!

Good luck, Corrado. And I'll be back in action by tomorrow evening....

Arathorn

 

[Justus II]

Excellent turns Charis!! I agree with Arathorn, with multiple Ansar armies, no one will stand up to us, we just have to 'kill people and break things' faster than anyone else and we won't need to go to Jerusalem, but grabbing a relic along the way would be a nice touch.

Yes, the temples were prebuilds for, um ... temples.
Actually, at the start of my turns, looking at 20 turns of peace and Castille's cultural borders pushing us, I thought it would be good to get some culture of our own before we had some ugly flips, while letting the cities grow a bit. Of course, if I'd had the foresight to remember who followed me, I should have known we'd never have to sit through 20 turns of peace

 

[Corrado]

Holy cow. That's one heck of an act to try and follow.

I should be able to get to it tonight. And when I do, France should tremble...

 

[Corrado]

Pre-turn: Take a look at the situation.

Navarre and Cadiz are building settlers. Good idea- there's plenty of space in between the French cities, and we don't want anyone poaching. Switch Cordoba to Ansars; at one per 2 turns, I'll let someone else bother with spears for MP.

Our culture, unfortunately, sucks. We seem to be 1/3 of France and Germany. If cheap libraries or temples avail themselves, I may delay some of our military production.

1038 AD (1): Seville AW->AW. Malaga Spear->Spear.

Swedish units have entered our territory. I threaten them with destruction; they wisely withdraw.

Take a long hard look at the French situation. We have 2 armies in position. A third will be there next turn. Well, what the hell- no one ever accused me of being patient, not with the game 1/3 over already.

Call Joan up. They'll renegotiate peace, even give us their 5 g for it, but gpt? That's out of the question (probably because they have none). Use the talk breakdowns as an excuse to declare war.

Kill 4 spears in Bordeaux at negligible loss to ourselves.

IBT: Sweden invades our personal space again. Guys just have no manners at all. Go back to Minnesota!
France moves workers under cover, but no units show up.

1041 AD (2): Cordoba AW->Domesday. Toledo Town Hall->Spear. Madrid Spear->Temple. Huelva Spear->Temple.

Army #1 redlines, but kills 2 spears, 1 sword, and king #1 in Bordeaux. The city, along with 2 spears and 2 catapults, are captured. It starts a temple to prevent poaching and get some culture to prevent flipping.

Army #2 moves onto the first iron site, will pillage next turn.

Found Niebla where we wanted it to be before French land expanded. A Temple is likewise started.

IBT: Swedes continue to move into our territory. They offer their WM for 17 g + WM; we laugh.

French MDI attacks one of our swords.

1044 AD (3) Salamanca TH->Temple.

Army #1 heals.
Army #2 pillages French iron, moves to the other French iron spot.
Army #3 attacks Ampurias, kills 2 spears and conquers the city.

IBT: More French shuffling, but no counter-attacks.

1047 AD (4): Cordoba AW->AW. Seville AW->Temple. Oviedo Warrior->Spearman.

Army #2 pillages the other French iron, then attacks an MDI in the open, and then kills a spear in Clermont.
Army #1 kills a spear in Clermont, and takes the city, starting a Temple.
Army #3 kills 2 spears and takes Marseilles, which starts a Temple.

IBT: France continues to shuffle units, but again neither attacks us nor sets up a SoD. They must be fully committed against Burgundy.

1050 AD (5): Valencia TH->Blacksmith. Malaga Spear->Blacksmith. Mertola Blacksmith->Temple.

Army #1 loses 6 hp, kills an MDI and a sword.
Army #2 moves into Clermont to heal.
Army #3 captures a worker.

France will come to the table and offer us Naples and 14 g for peace. They still have no income for gpt deals, and they are equal to us in tech, so no dice. Either we get a 3rd era tech from them, or we eliminate them.

IBT: France moves a lot of units into Rhiems, which we have 2 armies sitting outside of.

1053 AD (6): Cadiz Settler->Blacksmith. Seville Temple->Library. Toledo Spearman->Spearman. Badajoz Barracks->Blacksmith.

Ansar kills a sword in the open.

Rush a Temple in Ampurias.


Army #2 kills an MDI outside of Clermont.
Army #3 kills 2 spear and 2 sword in Rhiems.
Army #1 kills a spear, a sword, and 2 archers, taking Rhiems, which starts on a temple.

IBT: France moves an MDI out towards us. Ooh! I'm scared!

1056 AD (7): Ampurias Temple->Warrior.

Celts have started the HRE, which makes it official- every semi-Western power is now trying for it.

Ansar kills a spear in Naples.
All armies heal.


IBT: French archer attacks our Ansar outside of Naples and kills it- our first casualty of the war.

1059 AD (8): Mertola Spear->Spear.

France finishes Holy Roman Empire.

Switch Lisbon to a Library- loss of 64, but that's only 3 turns production, and there's no way we'll get Bayeux after the cascade. Domesday we're only competing with Germany and Byz for, so there's a small chance.

France gets Polearms and Divine Right from the HRE.

Army #1 kills a spear and an archer.
Army #2 red-lines, but kills 2 spear in Orleans.
Army #3 kills an MDI, returns to Rhiems.

Rush Temple in Marseilles.

Found the city of Arcos on the NA continent. This will be our foothold should we decide to go after the Fatamids. It begins a spear.

IBT: France rushes troops out of Orleans.

Byzantines demand TM and 51 gold for us to live. I don't think we want distractions, and I want her as a trading partner. So I demur, and wire her the money.

1062 AD (9): Salamanca Temple->Blacksmith. Lisbon Library->Spearman. Marseilles Temple->Spear. Granada Blacksmith->Temple.

Germans finish Domesday. Cordoba switches to Ansar. Sorry about all the waste on that, folks.

Army #1 kills 4 spears in Orleans.
Army #3 kills a sword and King # and takes Orleans.
Army #2 moves into Orleans to heal and crush resistance.

Found Moron in the space between Bordeaux and Clermont. I swear that's what the computer suggested, and I just went with it. Honest.

Given that we no longer need to save money for Domesday, rush a Blacksmith in Valencia and Badajoz.

IBT: Finally, the French counter begins to assemble, as archers and swords move into our newly-conquered areas.

1065 AD (10): Cordoba AW->AW. Valencia Blacksmith->Spear. Seville Library->Spear. Toledo Spear->Blacksmith. Badajoz Blacksmith->Spear. Mertola Spear->Spear. Huelva Temple->Town Hall.

Army #3 kills 3 spear in Angers.
Army #1 kills 1 spear and takes Angers, capturing a Catapult.

Ansar kills a French archer.


Okay, I know it's frowned upon to make deal on the last of one's turns, but this is what I've been building towards all along. With the taking of Angers and Orleans, we have completely denied Iron to the French, which means we don't have to worry about them having Knights and/or Crusaders. Our units are exhausted and broken, and we need time to put down the resistance in the cities we've captured and start putting reinforcements out. We could kill the French in order to do that, but that would mean losing any chance to get the techs they've gathered, as well as allowing the other countries to settle in their vacated spots.

So: We give France the peace they want. They give us Divine Right, 83 gold, and Naples. Trade Divine Right to the Turks for Polearms and 4 gold.

Rush the temple in Moron so that we get the 2 iron before someone else dares settle.

So, the situation:
Turks and Abassids are up on us by Assassination. Byz is up on us by Middle Class. Everyone else is equal or slightly behind. We are still researching Assassination on minimum, and have 23 turns to go.

The Fatamids are still seriously lagging, lacking Jihad. However, there's no point in attacking them until we have Seamanship- without a Galley to transport our armies, or Harbors to transport goods, any attack on them will be slow and keeping the towns will be painful.

I recommend we heal up our armies, get our new towns in something of order, and then slam into Burgundy- they have a single source of Iron which is easily pillaged, and once we take Venice we'll have a harbor and the chance to trade our wines and wool. Even if we never take Metz or the cities north, there's 4000 vp in poorly-defended towns waiting for our fast armies to overrun.


In terms of victory: we are at 9170 points, the closest rival is the Abassids with 5525. We have 5% of the world area, compared to the Byzantine 10%, and 8% of the population, compared to the Byzantine 12%.

Arathorn <-- UP NOW!
Justus <-- on deck.
Charis
Corrado <-- Enjoying his virgins.

Go forth and convert!

 

[Charis]

Great set of turn, Corrado!

Your timing was perfect! I think I was the only one wanting to hold off for another half-dozen Ansars, but you were spot on, pillaging their iron just a scant few turns before France got the HRE! And it's great news that they got it. If Germany got it, things would not be good for us.

> Switch Cordoba to Ansars; at one per 2 turns, I'll let someone
> else bother with spears for MP.
Good call.

> Our culture, unfortunately, sucks. We seem to be 1/3 of France
Irrelevant!! Culture nets us no VP, and if a city flips we recapture for yet more points

> Swedish units have entered our territory. I threaten them with
> destruction; they wisely withdraw.
We're very lucky indeed this indiscretion went unpunished! What a huge diversion of effort and focus from the task at hand if they had declared war on us. We have *no*, zero, none, nilch, nada, defense against berzerker assaults from the sea. Left alone they focus on France and Germany, and leave Cordova alone. Then we got lucky a second time on the second boot. Please let sleeping hornets lie. Even if you kill the nest you end up getting stung.

Two kings dead, a good start. All iron denied (permanently??) is the best outcome. MDI are a big deal despite the yawn, as they're a credible army killer. The nice/surprising thing is that the AI did *not* attack an unhurt army at all?? That's the best news we've had all game. It means free unhindered pillaging of iron and horse within the first few turns of a war.

> Found Niebla where we wanted it to be before French land
> expanded. A Temple is likewise started.
Yay! I feel vindicated

> France continues to shuffle units, but again neither attacks us
> nor sets up a SoD. They must be fully committed against
> Burgundy.
More reason why the timing was so good.

> All armies heal.
I like this, caution with our finest national assets.

> France finishes Holy Roman Empire.


> Switch Lisbon to a Library- loss of 64, but that's only 3 turns
> production, and there's no way we'll get Bayeux after the
> cascade. Domesday we're only competing with Germany and
> Byz for, so there's a small chance.
There was no chance for either, really, and besides, distinguish between wonders you need to build, and ones you can conquer!
Domesday book and Tapestry are good ones to capture, HRE is not, for example. Second, if it's a risky wonder gamble, use a non-capital city with a fallback palace prebuild. Fortunately the waste in Cordoba wasn't that much.

> France gets Polearms and Divine Right from the HRE.
Oh my, now that's different! Were they so slow that they had Feudalism and Chivalry, or just because they were open to the next era they took those?

> Okay, I know it's frowned upon to make deal on the last of
> one's turns, but this is what I've been building towards all
> along. With the taking of Angers and Orleans, we have
> completely denied Iron to the French, which means we don't
> have to worry about them having Knights and/or Crusaders.

A good choice, but a few comments why.
The reason this 'general' advice is given is because there are times when player A takes peace in an unclear situation, with no specific gain or objective met, other than "seems like an ok time for peace", while player B had a very different view and objective and was aghast at the decision. In that worst case example the second player has to live with the choice of the first one despite getting no gains.

> ... but this is what I've been building towards all along
Now that's a good reason for making the call when you did. You had a goal, one that was discussed and found agreement, and met that goal. ('... our units are hurt and exhausted' is one of the worst reasons to make the call unilaterally. Usually the incoming general sees this one right away and it's the main reason for ending a war 'passed along for the next leader to decide')

> We could kill the French in order to do that, but that would
> mean losing any chance to get the techs they've gathered,
Excellent reason #2. We get points for killin' stuff, not for wiping out civs in this scenario. Coming back when healed to kill even more units where we have a huge advantage gains more VP. Getting very nice techs like pikes helps us get VP.

> as well as allowing the other countries to settle in their vacated
> spots.
Good point again - these cities will now be held by a crippled civ instead of a power-vacuum monster.

Again, I think a great call on the peace and tech - I just wanted to clarify when/why it's dangerous in general to do that - and if you had left them a source of iron there would have been some hair pulling, but you knew that

Divine Right and Polearms - that's the first time I've seen in any of these games these techs in practice. (Alas, I don't like having to FACE polearms, but that's what iron denial is for, eh?)

> Rush the temple in Moron so that we get the 2 iron before
> someone else dares settle.
That's the idea!

Good recommendations too on leaving Fatimids til Seamanship, heaing the armies, getting some reinforcements, and hammering Burgundy.

Having cut Burgundy open like a fish in the French game, their holdins are awkward to defend. Aix-la-Chapel and the big city north of it are trivial to raze, leaving only Venice for the coup d' grace, and they have almost no 'natural' supply of iron or horses.

A campaign where two armies razed Aix and Dorstad (?) on the first turn or two while a third pillaged any resources would be devastating. And DO IT SOON, while they are gassed from the beating they've taken from the French. And as you say, lots of VP in weak cities between Aix and Venice. Chances are good we can rather cripple them in 16 turns, extort tech, then take 4 turns to heal and reposition, and annihilate France in one turn - just kill the last queen in Paris. Then go and blitz-cripple Germany with a pillage and capital-bust campaign as with the other nations.

Arathorn is up next, I know I need not twist any arms to see this (or some equally aggressive plan)

Well done, now carve us up some Burgundian flesh, our next general!
Charis

 

[Arathorn]

Got it (despite the broken link -- it was was easy to find). Do please zip save files, though. It's not so much the space saved as it is the error-correcting/checking codes that zips add. Thanks.

Will NOT play tonight, however. 10 hours in the car with a 5-year-old and a 20-month-old does not make for good playing. And I want to be at least semi-fresh when I crush the Burgundians and/or the Germans -- whoever is most in my way!

Arathorn

 

[Corrado]

Originally posted by Charis
> Our culture, unfortunately, sucks. We seem to be 1/3 of France
Irrelevant!! Culture nets us no VP, and if a city flips we recapture for yet more points

Yeah, but it's when those cities flip with our armies inside that it becomes relevant. I did build quite a few temples, but most of them were either very quick (1-2 turns) or in areas where we needed cultural expansion (i.e. our front).

> Swedish units have entered our territory. I threaten them with
> destruction; they wisely withdraw.
We're very lucky indeed this indiscretion went unpunished! What a huge diversion of effort and focus from the task at hand if they had declared war on us. We have *no*, zero, none, nilch, nada, defense against berzerker assaults from the sea. Left alone they focus on France and Germany, and leave Cordova alone. Then we got lucky a second time on the second boot. Please let sleeping hornets lie. Even if you kill the nest you end up getting stung.

My thinking on this, and I think you'll find it reasonable:
*If I force Sweden to retreat, I have more time to settle/expand in the open areas left in our kingdom (and at that point, there were 2 large spaces open in Spain, and in the end, we beat Sweden to the Moron spot by only a two turns).
*If Sweden declares, I have Ansars in position to kill the 'zerk and get 2 free workers. For Sweden to attack us, they would have to A) have a longboat nearby B)have bezerks on it and C) actually attack a city and D) not do it on the every-other-turn that Corodoba pumps out an AW and can counter-attack.

As I have never seen the computer use a Viking 'zerk as a marine unit, but rather always as an overland unit, I had no real worries in making such an attack.

> France continues to shuffle units, but again neither attacks us
> nor sets up a SoD. They must be fully committed against
> Burgundy.
More reason why the timing was so good.

Exactly. I realized that waiting for more units just gave France time to make peace and pull back from Burgundy. Besides, given the Demigod production bonus, I had no expectation of out-producing them, so what good would delaying the fight be?

> France finishes Holy Roman Empire.

Yeah, did a little happy dance when that happened.

The disadvantage is that now we can never capture HRE for ourselves; Paris holds France's last king as well, so capturing Paris will kill France first.

> Switch Lisbon to a Library- loss of 64, but that's only 3 turns
> production, and there's no way we'll get Bayeux after the
> cascade. Domesday we're only competing with Germany and
> Byz for, so there's a small chance.
There was no chance for either, really, and besides, distinguish between wonders you need to build, and ones you can conquer!
Domesday book and Tapestry are good ones to capture, HRE is not, for example. Second, if it's a risky wonder gamble, use a non-capital city with a fallback palace prebuild. Fortunately the waste in Cordoba wasn't that much.

Yeah, going after *either* wonder was my really big moment- I should have realized that with the massive HRE buildup, there would liekwise be a massive cascade. Had I not even tried for the wonders, that'd be probably 3-5 more AWs for us. That doesn't sound like much, but we need every unit we can right now to stomp out rebellion. Bordeaux alone has 7 of our units stuck in it because the last 3 citizens won't stop rioting.

> France gets Polearms and Divine Right from the HRE.
Oh my, now that's different! Were they so slow that they had Feudalism and Chivalry, or just because they were open to the next era they took those?

France started on the Templars as part of the cascade, so I'm assuming that they already had Feudalsim and Crusades due to the comps being so far ahead tech-wise. I don't know why we never saw any Knights if they had Feudalism all along; hopefully, they just killed all their knights in attacking Burgundy. Hoepfully, Burgundy did likewise.

> ... but this is what I've been building towards all along
Now that's a good reason for making the call when you did. You had a goal, one that was discussed and found agreement, and met that goal. ('... our units are hurt and exhausted' is one of the worst reasons to make the call unilaterally. Usually the incoming general sees this one right away and it's the main reason for ending a war 'passed along for the next leader to decide')

Well, if I hadn't been planning on ending the war at that point, our units wouldn't have been so hurt and exhausted- I hurt two of our armies by rushing to get Angers, but that was the last bit of French iron *and* made them willing to give up more at the peace table.

Again, I think a great call on the peace and tech - I just wanted to clarify when/why it's dangerous in general to do that - and if you had left them a source of iron there would have been some hair pulling, but you knew that

Thanks! I figured that once we had extracted the guts from France, we should bargain for the rest and move on. And if I had left France with the chance to pick itself up, you would have been perfectly justified in pulling my hair. (Assuming you can find any! )

Divine Right and Polearms - that's the first time I've seen in any of these games these techs in practice. (Alas, I don't like having to FACE polearms, but that's what iron denial is for, eh?)

Polearms are nice, as they have a defense of 4. If we invade someone with Knights or Ansars ready to counter, a few Pikes will do us worlds of good.

The downside is that making cheap MP/defensive units is going to be that much tougher since Spears are obsolete.

As for Divine Right: Sheriff's offices should go into all of our cities. +25% production, reduces corruption, adds to tax, but makes one person unhappy- we can generally absorb the happiness penalty, but desperately need something to reduce corruption.

A campaign where two armies razed Aix and Dorstad (?) on the first turn or two while a third pillaged any resources would be devastating. And DO IT SOON, while they are gassed from the beating they've taken from the French. And as you say, lots of VP in weak cities between Aix and Venice. Chances are good we can rather cripple them in 16 turns, extort tech, then take 4 turns to heal and reposition, and annihilate France in one turn - just kill the last queen in Paris. Then go and blitz-cripple Germany with a pillage and capital-bust campaign as with the other nations.

Actually, I wouldn't even bother with Aix and Dorstad at first. Now that we have Pikes, rush a few in the front lines, and use them and a few free AWs to stall any Burgundy counterattack while 3 armies push E to Venice, then rush down the boot. I can't see it taking us more than 8 turns to take Italy for ourselves.

Whatever we do, though, I think it is imperative to take Venice before taking Dorestad. Burgundy kings are in, IIRC, Dorestad, Venice, and either Aix or Cologne; if we go all the way to Dorestad first, taking Venice destroys the Burgs. And we definitely want to keep Venice with the harbor and the trading and such.