RBC13C - Tenacious Turks (Deity)

[T_McC]

Since I believe all (4) members of this are playing this scenario as parts of other teams, I'll skip most of the introductory material.

Turks, goal of Domination

Domination in this scenario is 25/25 land/population. I was really worried it would be the standard values. Initial guess, the land requirement will be harder, as most civs won't have large cities.

The Turks are Commercial and Militaristic. We start with Arab Learning (not visible until the 3rd era), and build Sipahi (6.3.3, enabled by Assassination). Assassination is the third tech on the Arab flavor tree, so we should be able to get there before too much of the game is gone. Conceivably, it could be the 4th tech we research. One problem here is that we do not build Ansars/Knights, so no intermediate step in the upgrade path. Horseman to Sipahi upgrades will be 150 gold each, so most of our UU will have to be self-built.

Technology
We have a difficult research choice to begin: We can either bee-line to the third age, and head right for Sipahi. We can research the Norse entry-tech, with an eye towards Blacksmiths (factories), but the problem there is going to be meeting a Viking Civ to trade with. The Byz tree only allows for Spies and Colosseums. If we're willing to do without Spies, we can instead research the Catholic tree which gives a Colosseum equivalent. That line of research would probably be kicked off by a pre-war steal of the entry tech. I have no feel for how often the AI research flavors other than their own.

Military
We start with 6 Horsemen, 3 Warriors, 3 Workers, 3 Kings, and 5 Settlers. We are 14 units over our support limit, but that will improve quickly. With that many horses we should be able to generate contacts at a brisk pace.

Geography
In this scenario, Turk must mean "Mongols with better teeth". We are as far east as the map will allow. Our capital is (of course) at the eastern-most point you could be and still have all 21 tiles on the screen. Half of our first and second rings have fallen off the flat edge of the earth, and we're over 500 years away from being able to send Columbus out to look for them. I think we will have to use an early leader to jump our Palace at least 1 ring west. This is exactly the sort of position that tempts the Palace-jump exploit.

Our capital of Ghuzz (excuse me, I have a bit of a head cold. ), has Barracks/Temple/Marketplace. Our other two cities of Khazar and Patzinak have no existing buildings. We have lots of river sites available, so aqueducts are not a heavy priority. We do seem rather lacking in Hills initially, so an early war for Iron or Quarry seems possible.

Pictures in next post.

 

[T_McC]

Nothing like a dot-map when you can't see the terrain!

There is 1 Settler in Ghuzz, so I figure he should go up river. Which side is dependent on what else I see there. I could just cheat and look at the editor, since the Horse in Ghuzz will follow the river ahead of the Settler.

There are two Settlers in Khazar, maybe one goes SE along the river, and the other goes N to plant another first ring site.

There are two more settlers in Patzinak. One can head for the fish, and the other can head back to Khazar or try to grab that plains wheat.

First general question: Are we better to send the initial settlers out, beyond our current cities, and then backfill with the second wave. Or should be try to form the 1st and 2nd ring immediately and get to fighting. I lean towards the first, push the settlers out and try to get a second wave of 4-6 to fill in the gaps.

Since I don't see any lux on the screen, should we aim to keep our cities fairly small, spacing them for 8-12 tiles each?

I may just peek in the editor to see who and where our neighbors are. I think we will have to deal with the Huns, so that may affect our opening strategy.

Roster
T_McC
Caesar_Augustus (West Coast US?)
Aggie
Jack_Merchant

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

Just checking in for now, be back later with some analysis and strategy

 

[Aggie]

Checking in and subscribing

 

[Aggie]

As a first step I would send the horsemen and king units out to see what land we can settle.

If I see things correctly, we only need two techs to enter the third age (Horseback Riding and Castle Building). We want those horses, but the Blacksmith is also a very good improvement.

I assume that we want to expand and improve our lands peacefully for a while and then conquer the world with our Sipahi?

 

[jack merchant]

Consider the open spot filled, please .

 

[T_McC]

Welcome aboard, Jack!

I'll try to start this one Friday morning (GMT -5). I'll take a waltz through the editor and post some more thoughts later today.

Still time for others to comment/advise!

 

[jack merchant]

Norse Tradition seems the way to go to me - our Sipahi rock but they do take 80 shields (fortunately though, they do not require iron, only horses !) so we need the blacksmiths. We may be able to pick up HBR with pointy-stick (or pointy-arrow, more likely) since I've read in a few threads in the Conquests forum that the AI do tend to send a bunch of settler pairs to our Norhtern lands to settle. If all goes well, we can trade for the non-specific techs with the Scandinavians, then trade those for the Arab ones with, well, the Arabs.

Initially though, peaceful expansion is likely the way to go, keeping into account that the barbarians are reported to be nasty.

 

[T_McC]

Took a stroll through the editor, and confirmed that Sipahi only require Horses, not Iron. Also, our neighbors are: (going CCW from 12 o'clock) Bulgars (Byzantine), Kievan Rus (Norse units, but Byz flavor), Magyars (RC), Byzantines, and Abbasids way to the south. Nobody is that close, so we don't have to get into an early war if we don't want to.

I think we have to research Norse Tradition @minimum to begin. I don't see much good on the Byz tree, and most of our nearest neighbors (and likely combat foes) are the only other Byz civs in the game, so trading would be tricky. One minor problem: To build Blacksmiths, we need iron. Not a lot of that around, although we can grab a couple of horses.

Our only good initial city is Patzinak. It can be a 4-turn settler factory, but requires a Granary, Temple, and a 10% lux tax to do so. I believe due to corruption that the cycle will be 5-->7 for the settlers. [Without corruption we could go 4-->6]. Irrigate the wheat and mine the 3-5 BG's to get the cycle cranking. Ghuzz will be a decent military city, it has BG and plains primarily. Khazar is almost completely useless. Plains + reg Grass = craptacular. Probably best to irrigate and grow workers or rush settlers there.

Our capital is definitely moving west, maybe even to Patzinak when we get a leader. Since there is no Heroic Epic, thus less importance on forming an initial army, I would even say that is the best use for the first leader we get. Not a decision to be made now, just something to keep in mind.

In addition to Iron, we also may have to search far and wide for Quarry. A number of the "stone" buildings require it, but in a pinch we can manage without.

Just a reminder, we should try to keep our treasury low as we are likely to get hammered by barbarians to our North.

I'll play tomorrow morning. Anywhere between 10 and 14, depending on how the mood strikes me.

 

[T_McC]

RBC13c - It Begins!

843 AD (0)
Set research to Norse Traditions at 10%. Treasury is 100 gold, losing 6 gpt. Nice to see the game is going to cooperate with our intention to keep our treasury low.

Horses and Kings out to scout. One of the Horses is told to simply "Go Deep". And shall have the responsibility of (politely) informing all of Western Europe of the Terror of the Turks. Most will get confused and think he's talking about some sort of bird disease, but eventually they'll understand. Renaissance and all that.

Settler in Kazar SE to coast, spots tar. Not sure that is any use to us, but someone will pay for it. Second settler from Kazar heads W to the plains wheat. Horse goes S, King W, warrior stays home, worker moves out to river grassland.

In Ghuzz, King heads W, Horse N, both see lots of plains. Settler undecidely goes W. Warrior stays home, worker moves out to river BG.

Central Horse goes N.

At Patzinak, warrior stays home. King SW to the coast, worker to wheat, one settler SW, one N, Horse north.

Western Horse: "Go West young man!". Immediately spots Knight (horse + iron) location. One of Patzniaks settlers will detour.

Southern Horse spots more horses.

Khazar to worker, Ghuzz stays at Warrior, Patzinak to Warrior in anticipation of MP duty.

<Return>

846 AD (1)
Lots of exploring, not finding anything particularly inspiring upriver from Ghuzz.

849 AD (2)
Find a Wheat and a river over by the Knight site. Have to figure what square I want to plant on??? [Honest, I didn't map this out from the editor.]

After playing as Norway, it feels odd to have made three moves and not met anyone. I guess Ships with 7 moves a turn make a difference.

852 AD (3)
Found La Brea by the Tar, on a river. Starts with Warrior, at 2 spt it can build its own MP.

We are now making +1 gpt.

855 AD (4)
We meet the Magyars. He's already spent almost all of his money, and is larger than us for now.

Found Edrine on a river by a plains Wheat. Starts on a Worker. Found Bursa on a river by a fish, likewise starts a worker. We now make +9 gpt.

One settler continues to soldier on to the Iron.

Ghuzz: Warrior --> Spear.

858 AD (5)
Meet Kievan Rus. We're bigger than them, and they know nothing.

Swap Patzinak to Settler, we got some land to grab!

Found Iznik (our future capital?) SE of Patzinak, and by its placement we get some cheap border expansions. Set to warrior to time with growth to 2.

See some more Iron, Tar, and Wines to our south.

861 AD (6)
See our first axe-wielding maniac. Just Kievan though.

Keep Settler wandering towards Iron.

864 AD (7)
Spot pale blue borders, find out who that is next turn. Position settler for Iron grab.

867 AD (8)
La Brea: Warrior --> Worker.

Found Ferrouz by the Iron. With a Berzerker standing right next to it.

Meet the Bulgars. Who have a worker for sale. "Yoink" for 7 gpt.

Rush Settler in Patzinak for 88 gold (that's why I didn't pay cash for the "involuntary" labor).

Light Blue was Poland. Where are the Byz?

870 AD (9)
'zerk moves on. *whew* Move Horse in to garrison Ferrouz.

Patzinak: Settler --> Settler.

Find more Iron North of us.

Find Germany. They too have a worker for sale. OOOOOH .... no. Can't torque our economy like that, especially since I think we will be cash-rushing settlers.

873 AD (10)
I'm going to play 14, so I can see the end of a GoTo order.

Ghuzz: Spear --> Warrior. Eventually we will produce a Settler here, but not yet. Might as well grow the city to limit of happiness (size 5) before reducing pop. I wouldn't be opposed to a Granary either, but with the heavy worker-push I'm doing in the other cities, someone has to build troops.

Khazar: Worker --> Settler. Still mucho land to grab, including lux!

Spot first barb camp. See another lux (spices to our SE) High priority for a rushed settler from somewhere (probably Khazar).

876 AD (11)
Double-Iron site up north. We could probably cripple our NW opponents by grabbing all the Iron. Nothing but spears, archers, and horses for them.

Whack barb camp, promote, and get 25 gold.

879 AD (12)
Spot red-lined Kiev sword. No idea what that was about.

Meet the Abbasids in our South.

882 AD (13)
La Brea: Worker --> Barracks. This might be a decent spot for a second troop producer.

Found Izmit SW of Ferrouz. This will pull in horses with a border expansion, and (in my mind) further defines our Western front line. I do not think there is a legal spot for the AI to settle to poach the Horses, and we can now settle behind our borders, at least in the west.

Contact Denmark, our Scandanavian brothers. (At least now we know someone from whom to trade for Smithing.)

Quick run through Diplo shows nothing interesting.

885 AD (14)
Whoo-hoo, our Tar road completes. I don't believe anything we can build requires Tar.

Nothing much else happens.

Notes to next player (Caesar):
I have moved a stack of three workers out of our territory S of La Brea. I thought they could build a road to speed travel to the far SE where we could grab Tar, Horses, Iron, Quarry and Spices with two settlers.

I leave you with 7 workers (+4 on these turns) + 1 slave. Three more are in production. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say we should be aiming for 30+ workers. Two settlers are in production, you can rush the one in Patzinak in 3 turns. The settler in Khazar can be rushed in 7. We are only 6 units over our limit, and our economy can support at least one rushed settler every 8 turns. Might be a good idea to get a road connection to Ferrouz and Izmit (there are three workers scattered near Bursa), and then concentrate on improving Patizinak so it can build settlers naturally. Snagging a lux or two would be a great help towards that, as I was deliberately trying not to let our non-capital cities grow beyond size 2. Ghuzz will churn out a Warrior every other turn, so we can soon allow some cities a 2nd MP and growth to size 3 to improve our economy. Once the capital gets to size 5, it can pop a settler to help the land grab. At size 3 it pulls 5 spt, so that's a convenient point not to go below.

The Hun will be coming from our North. Probably a good idea to set up a defensive city or two upriver from Ghuzz, so our workers can work in peace. Also keep the treasury low.

One King is exploring SW of Ferrouz, one is MP in Bursa, and one is MP in Edrine.

Have to figure the right way to play this is to continue the peaceful land grab at full speed, especially when we can grab resources. If we are going to maintain a large worker "army", having resources to trade will allow us to keep up in tech.

More notes in the next post, with pictures.

Expand!

 

[T_McC]

Our Empire!

Why yes, it does look like a sausage. A consequence of a "build out, then in" strategy. I wouldn't anticipate settling any farther west of Ferrouz, as it is already horribly corrupt. But by starting there, we have a much shorter walk to better sites than do the AI. No dotmap, but a quick glance indicates that merely settling 1st ring to Patzinak gives us 4 more cities.

The northern blue circle contains two Iron hills. A single city can claim both in its first ring. Settling there is a risk, but if we could hold it, that may cripple the AI NW of us. If we looked in the editor we could tell whether they have easy access to other Iron. We already pulled an "AI-like" move by poaching the 1st-ring Iron from the Rus with a 5th-ring city for us. Since the Rus have 'zerks, defense of Ferrouz will have to be done by volume. Enough Warriors to buy the time needed for us to mobilize Horses from our core.

The southern blue circle contains Tar, Wines, and Quarry. This site is in slight danger of being taken by the Abbasids. A single city can claim all in its 21.

In the SE, we have this:

The two blue dots claim everything. Might be easier with 3 cities, but will be difficult to get three settlers down there quickly. Also note the road in the picture. That road could allow the Arabs to walk over the mountains to claim the site, so if I were continuing, I would make it a point to pillage a few segments of that road. If the game doesn't start with us having roads between our cities, I'm certainly not inclined to allow the AI to benefit from a road built by an extinct civilization (or aliens :mutant: ).

 

[T_McC]

After taking a second thought, I'd probably prioritize the Wines site ahead of anything else. Those workers can just as easily be building a road generally south as specifically to the Spices in the SE, so the Settler from Khazar can follow them. Maybe aim the workers for the Wines site diagonally, then if we get beat there, it still is a short adjustment to get the Spices.

From the Rus thread, I can tell we have poached their only easily accessible Iron. :devil2:

 

[jack merchant]

Well, we know who's going down first then ! Although we can just as easily take the road south to the Abbasids eventually, but our Sipahi will have a bigger edge against the Western AIs.

 

[T_McC]

Hmmm ... not a lot of action in this thread.

Caesar hasn't posted on any forum for 3 days, so let's do this:

If Caesar doesn't claim the game by Noon Eastern (GMT -5, so it's 6 PM in the Netherlands?), Aggie is up and may claim the game.

Jack will follow Aggie, and then Caesar will follow Jack.

Whatever order we play this first round in, we will make the permanent order.

I'm out of town for the weekend, and will have sporadic (at best) net access. So I likely won't continue to blather in this thread, at least until Monday.

 

[T_McC]

I think the last post was confusing.

To make it clear:

If Caesar can claim the game soon, say Noon EST in the US (GMT -5), then our order will be
T_McC
Caesar_Augustus
Aggie
Jack Merchant

If Caesar is out of town or otherwise unavailable, and cannot claim the game soon, our order will be
T_McC
Aggie
Jack Merchant
Caesar_Augustus

Whatever order we play in the first round is the order we will stick to.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just not sure all involved are aware this game is going on.

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

Sorry for not being more active in the discussion aspect, but this has been a hectic week

Got It

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

Everything looks good; I hit enter. My mandate will be to build roads, found a few cities, and explore. Will also keep my eye out for tech trade opportunities.

IT: Iznik Warr.-Settler.

888 AD (1): Roading and exploring. I note that Tar is indeed useless to us, as it allows Dromons and the Krak des Chevaliers, a Great Wonder that doubles its city's defence and requires Tar AND Quarry within its radius (a la Iron Works/Coal/Iron). But at least it provides +1sh and +2 trade.

IT: Ghuzz Warr.-Warr.

891 AD (2): Hmmm, looks I should have pillaged that road a little earlier . . .

I cash rush a settler in soon-to-be-size-3 Patzinak for 92 gold.

IT: As expected, the Keshiks kill our Horseman. Patzinak Settler-Worker.

894 AD (3): Send the settler towards the wine site.

IT: Our Western Horsemen spot many European settler pairs heading East. Ghuzz Warrior-Warrior.

897 AD (4): Moving/Roading. Germany has a Worker for sale but there are a couple of settlers I would rather rush during my turns.

IT: Germans kick out a horseman - only a turn away from Contact with France too.

900 AD (5): Not much happening.

IT: Ghuzz Warr.-Spear. Edrine Worker-Worker.

903 AD (6): I'm going to sneak our Southern Horseman past Alexandria so we can make contact with the Fatimids and Cordovans. Everyone except for Kiev, Denmark, and Poland know Horseback Riding. However, with only 137g/+11gpt we're in no shape to buy it. Plus I think it would be more beneficial in the long term to cash rush settlers now to settle our vast expanse of land.

IT: Nothing

906 AD (7): Cash rush settler in Khazar.

IT: Khazar Settler-Worker.

909 AD (8): Move settler to a site along the La Brean River. I think I've managed to squeeze a horse through to make contact with France - we'll find out next turn. With our rather sad economy no one will offer us HBR.

IT: La Brea Barracks-Worker. Izmit Worker-Worker.

912 AD (9): Ermm scratch the French contact, I forgot the Burgundians are lodged in between them so we're stuck in their territory. We do make contact with the Swedes however.

IT: Ghuzz Spear-Granary. Bursa Worker-Worker.

915 AD (10): Move settler into place near Khazar. We ignore the pleas of the Burgundians to leave their territory and move onto a hill - spotting a French Worker and making contact with them. An Abbasid Ansar blocks off the Suez Canal and we can't cross into Africa this turn. And that's it for me.

RBC13C - The Turks

 

[Aggie]

I got it, maybe today. But otjherwise surely tomorrow (it's Saturday here )

 

[Caesar_Augustus]

Notes/Suggestion for next ruler:

-Iznik can rush a settler this turn - I leave it up to you to decide if you want to do this or perhaps save our $$$ for a HBR purchase. Or Patzinak could produce a settler next turn, but since we can afford only one rush I put Patzinak on Worker detail for now.
-A horseman is in position to strike the barb camp next turn - though fortified on a mountain the odds don't favour us. If you want to make contact with the Byz, you can move that horse down to Turkey.
-The Spear in the North was intended as a future garrison for a city along that river, but I've sent him exploring a little north for now.
-I've left 3 green dots for suggested future city sites - but of course feel free to veto/use your own judgement.
-I've been pretty aggressive in trying to ram our Horsemen through foreign territory in order to make contacts and lessen tech costs. I haven't had the gold to make embassies and sign RoPs.
-Watch out for Keshiks! At 3.2.3 they can make mincemeat of settler pairs (and probably our cities ). Thanfully none of the Keshiks that killed our horseman came north.
-Having to spend 20% of the game researching one tech sure sucks! But those Smithies should be worth the price.

 

[Aggie]

I had a PC crash (again) and lost my write up until 933 AD). I founded one city until then and got contact with two more civs (Byzantines and Celts (?) ). HBR was too expensive, even for 14 gpt.

Turn 7 (936 AD) Antalya founded, starting with woker. Norway contacted. We can finally pay for HBR (our income went to 26 gpt).

IT: Khazar: worker->barracks. A massive uprising is reported!

Turn 8 (939 AD) Konya founded, starts with workers.

Izmit: worker->barracks. Germans and Franks start Holy Romand Empire.

Turn 9 (942 AD)

IT: Burgundy start HRE.

Turn 10 (945 AD)

A lot of building on our empire. I didn't buy HBR since we haven't hooked up the horses and they all have it anyway.

945 AD save

The empire: