Saladin and Synergy (or lack thereof)

[madscientist]

Fob, I'm not really arguing about better strats. The origional start of this thread was synergy for Saladin, so my discussion is specifically about him and how I think they do merge together and how he can be used. Again not my favorie civ but he is designed as a defensive religious leader. It's how you take him to victory and it's not necessarily through the sword.

 

[frob2900]

Fob, I'm not really arguing about better strats. The origional start of this thread was synergy for Saladin, so my discussion is specifically about him and how I think they do merge together and how he can be used.

Ok, my point was just that he doesn't really have any military synergy that other protective civs (or any Civs that have some advantage without metal/horses) don't have.

I agree with you that he is probably designed as a religious leader, but his uniques/traits just don't come together that well. You are better to bet on Gandhi for lots of religion (philo for prophet popping). Like I said a few posts back, Saladin is best played as a flavour leader imho.

 

[madscientist]

Ok, my point was just that he doesn't really have any military synergy that other protective civs (or any Civs that have some advantage without metal/horses) don't have.

I agree with you that he is probably designed as a religious leader, but his uniques/traits just don't come together that well. You are better to bet on Gandhi for lots of religion (philo for prophet popping). Like I said a few posts back, Saladin is best played as a flavour leader imho.

I agree about his military synergy, but if you look at simply a defender the traits/UU goes together. Musa is skirmisher is better but looses the edge once longbowmen and gunpowder comes along. Churchhill is close but I think his UU, while very strong, doesn't give him the versatility of the faster camel archer (again assuming noone has horses, iron or copper). Qins cho-huks need iron. I would take churchills redcoats/knights over the arab riflemen/camels though, and cho-huk/knights over crossbows/camels provided the resources were there.

Think of saladin's traits/UU as defensive insurance Noone like to pay insurance premiums until you need it.

Ghandi can get Phil faster but the shrine is more of a pain, and if he runs priests he would have had to build a temple AND library to match the Masadra, not really a big deal since he is spiritual. The Masadra is the key to the religion thing with saladin, it's a permanent egyptian obelisk and incan terrace in one already powerful building.

 

[ATopic22]

Saladins UU is simply awesome. I know this may not mean much but i was playing RFC and as I started with Arabia, I had 4 of the UU. With it I was able to conquer all of Egypt without loosing one soldier and Egypt had been there from the start.

 

[frob2900]

Saladins UU is simply awesome. I know this may not mean much but i was playing RFC and as I started with Arabia, I had 4 of the UU. With it I was able to conquer all of Egypt without loosing one soldier and Egypt had been there from the start.

You conquered Egypt with 4 Camel Archers?

I think Ramesses/Hatshepsut need to go and do some reading in the "Civ IV Strategy Articles" forum

 

[Jet]

In that mod Egypt gets hammered with barb Camel Archers out of the Sahara and waves of Impis out of southern Africa. The Warlords AI doesn't really anticipate it or respond effectively. (Not to put down your conquest, ATopic22!)

 

[frob2900]

In that mod Egypt gets hammered with barb Camel Archers out of the Sahara and waves of Impis out of southern Africa. The Warlords AI doesn't really anticipate it or respond effectively. (Not to put down your conquest, ATopic22!)

Sheesh. Still, 4 Camel Archers sounds like a pretty unlikely candidate for an empire-toppling SoD..

 

[futurehermit]

You conquered Egypt with 4 Camel Archers?

4 Camel Archers sounds like a pretty unlikely candidate for an empire-toppling SoD..

This made my day. Thanks frob!

 

[ATopic22]

its true guys. in my first 10-15 turns i was able to destroy egypt and capture about 6 cities

 

[futurehermit]

I think I've come up with a strat for Saladin that takes everything he's got to offer into the equation. I am going to play a game and take screens, saves, etc. If it pans out, I will post the game in a separate thread.

 

[futurehermit]

Ok, well, I tried it out a few times and I believe I have found Saladin's synergy.

However, I just couldn't get it to execute. A couple of times, I made stupid mistakes. A couple of times I got super bad luck like getting a pair of great artists in a row at super low odds or a prophet instead of a scientist at low odds, things like that. Then I had one game going really well but Kublai ended up declaring on me and screwing everything up (I had guilds ca. 400-500AD and was just about to start massing camel archers).

Anyways, I will share the strat I dreamed up. Let me know how it goes.

Tech:

Poly (Hindu)-Mining-Bronze (Copper)-Masonry-Monoth (Judaism in 2nd/copper city, adopt early org rel)-Priesthood (Oracle)-Writing-CoL (Free from Oracle)-Ag-Alpha (Trade back for skipped worker techs)-Lit (Great Library)-Theology (Lightbulbed with 1st GP)-Philosophy (Lightbulbed with 1st GS)-Metal Casting-Machinery-Feudalism (Trade for it with Machinery)-Guilds

Even though you will have low base beakers (run complete FE empire-wide...ahem, that is 3 cities total), you will be fine tech-wise because you can trade around Theology, met cast, etc.

Settle copper city for barb defense and production. If you don't have copper, you need to pump warriors non-stop out of 2nd city to have enough fogbusters. You can't afford a deviation to hunt-arch or ag-ah early on. Copper, fog-bust, or die! Settle your 3rd city once you are able, no rush. You just need another whipping factory for camel archers.

Get madrassas, temples, shrines in your 3 cities. After initial builds specified above are done, get angkor wat for enhanced priest production. With your shrines, angkor itself, lots of temples, madrassas, you can run many priests. Get your shrines built (you can spread them far and wide later for lots of $), lightbulb divine right, settle them.

Once guilds comes online, spam camel archers. The goal is to eliminate one rival completely with them in a short period of time before they get engineering. If you happen to have horses you can prebuild some chariots for upgrading to help out, but the synergy of camel archers here is not needing horses and iron, and in a 3-city empire you may be missing one or both.

After you take out a neighbour, hopefully all is well on the diplomatic front, and you have 9 (adjusted for map size) cities.

Settle down and go for cultural victory utilizing protective trait to ward off early attacks and diplomacy to ward off late attacks.

The synergy of the strat is lots of religions and lots of priests (spiritual = cheap temples, mysticism = religion path, madrass = extra priests, shrines = extra priests, angkor wat = stronger and extra priests). It's also starting slow early allowing for an unusual opening tech path, but using a no-resource UU to explode out afterwards.

Thoughts?

 

[Jet]

I consider anything that's inflexible about worker techs and early military to be a "specialty strategy". That's OK, though.

I think 3 cities until Camel Archers would probably be OK on many maps and difficulty levels. I can see defending 3 cities with Archers and Longbows.

The research path feels a bit "greedy" and I think probably accommodates more flexibility than your description seems to suggest. For example, I think if you happen to Oracle to CoL, and if you happen to get a Scientist at the right time, then sure, lightbulb Philosophy, but otherwise, it's not important. In general I think you can skip a lot of techs in the top half of the screen, like Alphabet, Literature, and Code of Laws. Hinduism or Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are enough for a Cultural. Likewise if you can build the Oracle, Oracle to Monarchy would be just fine, since it's on the way to Longbows, Camel Archers, and Divine Right, and is a good source of economic strength for a small empire.

 

[futurehermit]

Couple additional thoughts and responding to the above post:

Additional thoughts:

-You can trade phil instead of machinery to get feudalism. This keeps your opponents away from engineering

-You don't HAVE to limit yourself to 3 cities. If you have more land, then expand. I just kept getting boxed in (monarch) in the games I was testing

Response:

-I would say it is inflexible with respect to starting techs, yes. So, it is a specialty strategy in that respect, but I am looking for synergy with Saladin, and this is the best I could come up with. The Madrassa lets you bulb scientists or priests. Priests can't be picked up with caste system. So, being able to run many priests is something that Saladin can do better than anyone else.

-Re: Many religions. Founding many religions gives you a number of benefits. You don't NEED more than 3 for a cultural victory, but having more temples certainly doesn't hurt! Furthermore, if you control the religions, you control the diplomacy for the most part. This is always a good thing, because you can manipulate friends and a single opponent based on religion. Also, having many shrines gives you access to running additional priest specialists in multiple cities.

-Re: Greed. I feel like if I was to work on this strategy and refine it that it would work in most instances. It is of course possible to lose out on Hinduism. But in most cases you will get judaism, you'll get the oracle, you'll get the GL. Part of refining the strategy for me that worked in the last game I tried was running priests early after the oracle to speed up the GP to bulb theology and then stopping priests until GL comes in. Then run scientists to get the GS to bulb phil. Then stop scientists and start running max priests. Any scientists that come can be put to work on the liberalism path. Prophets can build shrines, bulb divine right, or be settled. The two wonders that come with Theology and Philosophy are great for Saladin (angkor wat) and cultural victories (sistine chapel).

-In my most recent game I built the NE, which I think is a mistake early when you want GSs and GPs. I got two low-odds artists which really hurt--although artists are fine for a cultural victory normally you don't want them early here. Later they are ok.

-Re: Buddhism. You have three possibilities with Buddhism: 1) It is founded on the other continent. This is good. No need to worry about it and you will be in free religion by the time you meet them. 2) It is founded by your closest neighbour. This is ok. You just have to keep them at bay until Camel archers and then you could potentially control every religion and be the ultimate puppet master. 3) It is founded by a distant opponent on your continent. This is tricky. You can't wipe them out and Buddhism will probably spread making diplomacy very tricky. In this case, you might want to run organized religion for a little bit early to get the wonders and then drop a state religion to avoid getting invaded.

-Re: Spiritual. I find spiritual really rocks with this strategy. I saved a turn on slavery. I saved a turn on org. rel. I saved a turn on her. rule. Or, if you look at it another way, I didn't have to wait to adopt them together. I also adopted judaism as soon as it was founded in my 2nd city to pop the borders quickly there. Then I adopted confucianism once my third city was built to pop the borders there quickly. I also changed my religion if neighbours had a religion pop up in their empire. Also, adopting pacificism when it becomes available. Plus, when it's time to pump camel archers, you can adopt vassalage and theocracy easily. Spiritual really fits in synergistically with this strat.

-Also, eventually GPs bulb CS, which is a good thing. But theology also opens up the paper-ed-lib path for your GSs.

Saladin: FE/SE with a mix of GPs and GSs. Controlling many religions and hopefully still first to liberalism. Settling down to a cultural victory after taking out one close neighbour with camel archers before they get pikemen. Shutting down research after democracy (US to rush buy temples, etc. Plus the SoL is nice). Transition to artist farming after GP and GS roles are complete. Have no worries about money with multiple shrines, which you can spread around the world.

 

[madscientist]

I also tried a game for Saladin ti utilize his trait, Prince/Marathon/Huge. I had both good and back luck in the start, had alot of good hills in capital and stone close by in second city but had found alot of other civs on my continent (fairly small for a huge map) and had a huge jungle to my south.

1) Got hinduism, researched mining, masonry, bronzeworking I think, send settler out to claim stone (this city had to deal with quite a bit of jungle).
2) Got great wall early for protection (chopped most of it) and stayed with warrior defenses for a long time since there was no easy copper anywhere and I researched AH and archery later. Noone bothered me. Got horses and iron eventually.
3) I built the pyramids earlt, stonehenge in my second city. Got a GE and built Temple of Artmedis in capital.
4) Research is slow because of a cramped start, I missed founding Judaism and Confuscism by 10 turns each (not that much on Marathon), got phil from bulbing a GS but got a GE again (built ankor wat).
5) Built Masadra all arround and ran as many scientists/priests as I could while running representation.
I am including a save, but gave the game up. These marathon/huge games take alot of time and there are other games I want to play before BTS comes out. I think this strat would work if I could have played it a little better but the bad luck start with 5 AIs and large jungle limited what I could do.

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't think anyone has mentioned yet the rather obvious use of University of Sankore and Spiral Minaret duo. If you have stone and get to the religions first, then building them is a nice way to get a payback on the religous buildings you'll be making anyway.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I try to use that in games where I don't go all war crazy. Maybe after my game with Persia, or during if I get a period of quiet...

 

[futurehermit]

I don't think anyone has mentioned yet the rather obvious use of University of Sankore and Spiral Minaret duo. If you have stone and get to the religions first, then building them is a nice way to get a payback on the religous buildings you'll be making anyway.

Yes, and being first to paper and divine right is quite easy to do with the Saladin strat I've described, so definitely it is a good idea!!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

But why put so much trouble into getting a lackluster UU into play early? If you had horses and iron you could play the same strategy to get early knights which would be just as good - but noone ever does.

Spiritual/Protective/Madrassas all scream culture victory and religion hog. But why bother with guilds? Get your nine cities as early as is reasonable the old fashioned way - with catapults. Beeline liberalism and democracy for the emancipation switch. Run liberalism with super productive priests and scientists in your other cities to keep research going. Settle down with protective rifles guarding your borders while you tech up.

Changes are you can back trade for guilds only slightly later than you can rush it - certainly on the higher levels. So you get your camel archers too, for what they are worth.

I just won a very hard fought culture win on Emperor with Isabella and a guilds beeline. Here it made a lot more sense - Conquistadors went through praetorians and maces like a hot knife through butter. It still cost me the liberalism race but it was worth it.

I would have appreciated protective later though when Alex invaded me with cavalry, artillery and tanks and I was defending with riflemen, cavalry and catapults. Lots of catapults. Lots of barrage 3 catapults. Great fun to play defensive and enjoy the benefits of that a six tile border gives you. Protective would have definitely been good in that game.

 

[ATopic22]

But why put so much trouble into getting a lackluster UU into play early? If you had horses and iron you could play the same strategy to get early knights which would be just as good - but noone ever does.

Spiritual/Protective/Madrassas all scream culture victory and religion hog. But why bother with guilds? Get your nine cities as early as is reasonable the old fashioned way - with catapults. Beeline liberalism and democracy for the emancipation switch. Run liberalism with super productive priests and scientists in your other cities to keep research going. Settle down with protective rifles guarding your borders while you tech up.

Changes are you can back trade for guilds only slightly later than you can rush it - certainly on the higher levels. So you get your camel archers too, for what they are worth.

I just won a very hard fought culture win on Emperor with Isabella and a guilds beeline. Here it made a lot more sense - Conquistadors went through praetorians and maces like a hot knife through butter. It still cost me the liberalism race but it was worth it.

I would have appreciated protective later though when Alex invaded me with cavalry, artillery and tanks and I was defending with riflemen, cavalry and catapults. Lots of catapults. Lots of barrage 3 catapults. Great fun to play defensive and enjoy the benefits of that a six tile border gives you. Protective would have definitely been good in that game.

I thought we were talking about Saladin here and a strategy, so to say getting a knight instead is no difference because for one, the knight is replaced by the camel archer for the arabs and the last time i looked, they had the same attack and movement, with the camel archer having some better effects. Also you can use some civilizations if they are your favorite to try and develop a strategy that proves people wrong like using a peacefull civ to go on the warmonging side. The game allows you to choose how you want to play and so people can just choose how they want. Thats wat makes the game so fun.

 

[JujuLautre]

tried a strange strat with saladin a few days before. Wanted to bulb constitution early with a great merchant AND to get religions

So I got hinduism, judaism, used priests (cheap temples from religions + madrassa) to bulb theology, then divine right (gives a great prophet in my version), then civil service + a shrine; and in the same time get a great scientist and a great merchant, tech for music, get a great artist, bulb philo (much before in fact for pacifism) with the scientist, nationalism with the artist and constitution with the merchant

Oh well, I finally retired this game because it was like "and now, what do I do with priests/constitution and the whole buddhist world against me?", but it was fun and a good work on timing the GP