[Vanilla] Strategy discussion: Conquest of Alexander scenario; Deity level

[Chef Raewkwon]

Hello all,

I realise there has been a topic about this particular scenario before, but since the fall patch has made this scenario (way) more difficult, I figured a new topic would not be a bad idea. Besides, it ensures the community has something to do while patiently waiting for R&F. So let's discuss this scenario and its achievements!

At any rate, this scenario on Deity is by far the hardest challenge I've personally had in Civ so far. I've tried and finished this scenario close to 10 times on Deity already, getting awefully close but never being able to conquer all cities and / or finishing with (over) 200 points.

There have been some resources dealing with this scenario, most prominently this forum's own Square Triangle Mouse (see:

), but I feel these resources are a bit outdated. I know for a fact that production has been nerfed a bit (try to emulate the build times in the previously mentioned video - it's impossible) and my gut tells me that Persian unit production has accelerated a bit, though I can't substantiate this with concrete evidence.

I think my macro strategy is decent to good, I think my micromanagement has to be improved upon. My strategy is as follows: Capping Halicarnassus after Tarsus, splitting the army after Babylon (one army goes south with Alexander; one army north with another great general; a few units take Egypt and cap the capital when your army desperately needs that final heal). I'll provide a save game of my latest attempt (turn 14 and turn 25; I think my army is in good shape by turn 14, however, by turn 25 I feel I like I've already lost. Any pointers are welcome!), hopefully someone can coach me through the following turns or point out what could've gone better.

I do feel sending Alexander south speeds up southern conquests, but too often my northern army is bogged down around Hagmatana and Ispahan and unable to speed up after capping these cities. If I send Alexander north, I'm able to cap almost every northern city but the southern army does not always reach the southern city state and Kabul. I feel I lose too much momentum there, which I cannot recover. Any advice there?

So did you beat this scenario on Deity yet, preferably after the latest patch(es)? And did you manage to accumulate 200 points before turn 37? What helped you t

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

I'm quite annoyed noone has any ideas on this.

It's almost as bad as my discovery that there are more people playtesting the game than people who've completed Path to NIrvana on deity.

 

[Chef Raewkwon]

I wouldn't say nobody has any idea's, it's just that most are outdated. There are some resources, both on this board, as well as Reddit and the Steam boards which featured some idea's, but in my experience their strategies don't seem to work anymore.

I'm only starting a new scenario as soon as beat this one on Deity!

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I haven't taken a crack at Alexander's scenario since last summer, but it has always been unforgiving. Are you sure the difficulty has changed? I found Paths to Nirvana to be relatively easy, even on Deity.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

I haven't taken a crack at Alexander's scenario since last summer, but it has always been unforgiving. Are you sure the difficulty has changed? I found Paths to Nirvana to be relatively easy, even on Deity.

Is this true? Steam says 0% of owners have that achievement. When I tried on immortal, China had 560 faith per turn which, frankly, I cannot match.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Is this true? Steam says 0% of owners have that achievement. When I tried on immortal, China had 560 faith per turn which, frankly, I cannot match.

It is from my experience. All of the city states give faith, and they all have a quest to complete a trade route. You want to get your trade routes up early. Also remember that defeating enemy units spreads your religion to the surrounding area. This is more important than spreading your religion by expending charges.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

All of the city states give faith, and they all have a quest to complete a trade route.

I understand the industrial ones provide hammers (if you've an aqueduct), the merchant ones provide culture from commercial districts and the nautical ones provide food from harbors. Of course, I've done this (using the diplo policy that gives two envoys for the first envoy).

I'm pretty good at spreading the religion (and converted 3 of my opponents). Still haven't figured out how to crank out 500 faith per turn. I suppose sending envoys exclusively to the faith CSs might help.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I understand the industrial ones provide hammers (if you've an aqueduct), the merchant ones provide culture from commercial districts and the nautical ones provide food from harbors. Of course, I've done this (using the diplo policy that gives two envoys for the first envoy).

I'm pretty good at spreading the religion (and converted 3 of my opponents). Still haven't figured out how to crank out 500 faith per turn. I suppose sending envoys exclusively to the faith CSs might help.

Now that I'm home from work I fired it up to refresh my memory. I mis-remembered slightly. Trade routes to CS give faith (more with the card) as well as a free envoy (2 with the card) which is why I prioritized them. Religious CS are good to send them to for faith, but Industrial and Commercial districts both give hammers. In this scenario you can build religious units with hammers so your faith production isn't all-important. For the most part you want warrior monks, with a couple gurus to back them up- be sure to make use of their passive bonuses. Don't expend the last charge on your monks, use them to fight enemy units, retreating to heal when necessary. If you have the tactical where-with-all to control the battlefield it doesn't matter how much faith the ai is producing. Don't get discouraged just because they have gobs of faith; their units die constantly while you add to yours by building more.

 

[Chef Raewkwon]

While I personally haven't taken a crack at Path to Nirvana scenario yet, I would appreciate if we keep this topic specifically for the Conquest of Alexander scenario.

I'm fairly certain the difficulty of the scenario has had some sort of stealth increase in a patch. I haven't done the scenario before the latest patch, so I can't personally attest for how difficult it was before the latest patch, but if you look at the production of the video in the topic and compare it with current production, you'll notice that the production has increased a fair bit in the live game.

Also this topic on Steam has some hints about a possible increase in difficulty of the scenario: http://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/0/135513549101768985/

Might try again this weekend, I'll keep you posted.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

If you have the tactical where-with-all to control the battlefield it doesn't matter how much faith the ai is producing.

In this scenario, you get score from faith per turn. In my game, China had a score of something like 7-8 hundred and 500 of that was from its faith per turn. That's what prevented me from succeeding. The actual religious combat and city conversion was mostly fairly easy.

also, sorry for the diversion chef raewkwon.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

Yes apologies for all that Raekwon. However, I did beat Path to Nirvana with 3 times the score of my nearest competitor, so there that! On topic:

I'm fairly certain the difficulty of the scenario has had some sort of stealth increase in a patch. I haven't done the scenario before the latest patch, so I can't personally attest for how difficult it was before the latest patch, but if you look at the production of the video in the topic and compare it with current production, you'll notice that the production has increased a fair bit in the live game.

There do seem somewhat fewer units in STM's video. Although it's quite difficult to judge. I also haven't seen units disappear when I've captured a city. But STM himself says that that seems to happen through random chance.

STM keeps a steady pace in the video. On each turn he takes the following cities:

2: Athens
4: Sparda
6: Gordian (or on 7)
10: Tarsus
12: Halicarnasus
13: Thapsacus
15: Arbela
17: Babylon

At this point I'm generally one turn behind.

18: Tyre
19: Susa, Hagmatana
20: Gaza

I actually capture Gaza on schedule, so maybe 1 hypaspist and 2 hetairoi are a bit too much for the south. STM on the other hand uses 3 hetairoi and an archer for this.

22: Ray, Parsa
24: Pura, Shahr
25: Zranka
26: Tusa
27: Thebes
28: Haraiva
29: Bakhtri

etc

I've noticed I'm a lot stingier than he is about promotions. He'll use them to heal, where I'll use them only when my guy is near death.

From that steam thread:

Encampment building:
- When you repair it, I'm fairly certain you get a production boost to the next thing you build. This is obviously only for Persian cities for the most part. But everytime I repaired the encampment in a conquered city, the turn after, I could build 1 unit much quicker than normal.

That's interesting.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

biggest thing i can say with regards to AI and you
this game is all about speed
Alex +3 Move ability
Het -- 4 Move + Ignore Zone of Control (good for leap frogging enemies)
Hops -- +1 Move Promotion
once again from my observations
the AI is reactive and not aggressive
enemies wont pursue once ur a tile or 2 away
especially true if they are suddenly in ur terrority (ie u took city)

ideally when capturing a City
should be positioning if not already attacking the next
the more time your in the Enemy Territory the more units it will spawn
this means constantly pushing to next city even if it means leaving a enemy in your midst

also fascinating. "positioning if not already attacking the next". I am far too conservative. I like to have all the enemy units in my territory systematically eliminated. I generally don't beeline cities.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Yes apologies for all that Raekwon. However, I did beat Path to Nirvana with 3 times the score of my nearest competitor, so there that! On topic:



There do seem somewhat fewer units in STM's video. Although it's quite difficult to judge. I also haven't seen units disappear when I've captured a city. But STM himself says that that seems to happen through random chance.

STM keeps a steady pace in the video. On each turn he takes the following cities:

2: Athens
4: Sparda
6: Gordian (or on 7)
10: Tarsus
12: Halicarnasus
13: Thapsacus
15: Arbela
17: Babylon

At this point I'm generally one turn behind.

18: Tyre
19: Susa, Hagmatana
20: Gaza

I actually capture Gaza on schedule, so maybe 1 hypaspist and 2 hetairoi are a bit too much for the south. STM on the other hand uses 3 hetairoi and an archer for this.

22: Ray, Parsa
24: Pura, Shahr
25: Zranka
26: Tusa
27: Thebes
28: Haraiva
29: Bakhtri

etc

I've noticed I'm a lot stingier than he is about promotions. He'll use them to heal, where I'll use them only when my guy is near death.

From that steam thread:



That's interesting.

Congratulations on the victory! I didn't want to hijack the original thread either, I just like discussing the scenarios. Thanks for the tip that a hypaspist and 2 hetaroi might be too much, I've been bringing too many units and that's probably why my eastern army bogs down.

 

[GeorgeF]

Just tried this for the first time, did it on Immortal to learn the ropes. Did it in 38 turns, but tons of mistakes were made.

I didn't get any of Alexander's bonus units - guess I never had him near enough a city.
The 28/30 strength cities should just be skipped by the main armies - just slows them down. Send 1 or 2 heteroi or trailing hypastists to take them, it takes a couple of turns but it doesn't impact the end time. Let the main force of heterois continue to the east.
I took all the wonder cities early, didn't really slow down for heal ever but leaving memphis or halicarnasus at low health to take later on might have sped up a late city capture by 1 or 2 turns.
I also sent Alexander for the northern city state. He's probably best spent on Kabul and that other city to the east, while a northern army takes the walled persian city in the north, so the Indian city can be taken from the North, Alex can teleport to whichever front needs the most help after that.
I didn't spend all my gold purchasing units, did that and it helped some, but could have done more.

I'll try again tonight on Diety, and send my whole army with Alexander straight east, and take egypt and babylon and other Southern cities with troops hard built by the original cities.

 

[GeorgeF]

Next go, I skipped Hali, Tarsus, Thapsacus, Babylon, just got the towns on the East road, to try this strategy.

On turn 13 I have Hagmatana, and puchased a Heteroi at the advanced encampment. Other troops in this advanced army are 3 Hetaroi, 2 archers, 2 hoplites, and 2 hypaspists, plus the heteroi I just bought.
I've got one more Hypaspist trying to catch up. My second general is helping out take Hali with 2 Heteroi built in Pella, along with Galley and Battle Ram (purchased in Sparda), the third I'll deploy to help my main army stay together.
Turn 14, took Ray then Halicarnassus for the heal. My backup army now has 3 heteroi, ram, galley and Seleucus. I plan to take Tarsus then split it again, one to take Tyre and Egypt, the other for Babylon and points SE.
Turn 16 Tarsus.
Turn 17 Ispahan. (makes that pass wider and gets all my army through to Shahr faster, while I kill units outside Ray).
Turn 18 Thapsacus. Ram will wait here while my next 2 Hetaroi from Pella and Sparda catch up, will go to Tyre. The other 4 Hetaroi will continue to Babylon.
Turn 19 Shahr-I Qumis.
Turn 20 Tusa.
Turn 21 Babylon.
Turn 22 Haraiva, Bakhtri.
Turn 23 Tyre. Founded Pydna (original settler marching east with main army) in the pass to Patala. Can port generals here and buy Heterois. Split off a mini-army of 2 hetarois to take the desert cities in the middle.
Turn 24 Kabul (split off archer/hypaspist/heteroi, borrowed alexander mid-tern to take this, ported new general into Kabul and sent Alex back to main army to give it movement bonus for the hills around Cyra.
Turn 27 Taxila, Cyra, Zranka, Gaza. Now I can start killing units from eastern city states, while I finish mopping up back west. 2 hoplites are doing very well against northern horsemen.
Turn 28 Susa. Pydna is driving Patala crazy, sending all its units towards that, making the advance of my army from Taxila go much smoother.
Turn 30 Pura, encampments for Patala and Parsa, then Memphis for the well-needed heal. Parsa is ready to fall, will wait until best moment for that.
Turn 31 Marakanda, get a useless Horse Archer. Thebes gets barbarian immortals, that will slow down taking Thebes. Take Patala down to 20%, take Parsa for the last heal. Alexander of more use for Thebes, so teleports to Memphis.
Turn 32 Thebes (Alexander helped!) - Persia gone, along with that +7 defense for Patala. 2 Hypaspist hits on Patala, finish 5 turns early!.

Not sure I can do any faster than 32 turns. Even though I never got troops past Pydna into the pass, just having it there distracted almost all of Patala's army, I think I only had to kill 2 elephants on my march from the North.

 

[wxstall]

This has proven to be a pretty challenging (and entertaining) achievement. This is the last achievement I need, and the first scenario that I haven't felt like I'm just "getting it over with". After some save scumming, I was able to get sooo close, just needed one or two more turns (screenshot below). All of my other necessary cities had been founded already. I'll probably restart from a save around turn 20 as I feel I could've made better movements with my northern branch units.

Spoiler :

I followed a strategy pretty similar to the OP, skipping a couple cities along the way for a later wave of troops to clean up. Hopefully I'll be able to shave off a turn or two yet.

 

[wxstall]

I finally accomplished this (1/20/2018) although it took me a whole Saturday basically. Used a LOT of save scumming; any time I lost a unit I reloaded and replayed the turn. I can't emphasize enough how important saving units is in this scenario. The free Babylon archer and Parsa immortals also played an important role for me. I was able to take Parsa and Ray both by turn 21 which was far better than any previous attempt. I still finished on turn 37, although could have shaved a turn off with better troop movement at the end near Kabul.

So long story short, yes, the achievement is still possible, although the amount of save scumming I had to do made it feel a little cheap (and also quite tedious).

 

[GeorgeF]

I finally accomplished this (1/20/2018) although it took me a whole Saturday basically. Used a LOT of save scumming; any time I lost a unit I reloaded and replayed the turn. I can't emphasize enough how important saving units is in this scenario. The free Babylon archer and Parsa immortals also played an important role for me. I was able to take Parsa and Ray both by turn 21 which was far better than any previous attempt. I still finished on turn 37, although could have shaved a turn off with better troop movement at the end near Kabul.

So long story short, yes, the achievement is still possible, although the amount of save scumming I had to do made it feel a little cheap (and also quite tedious).

Try my technique, which is to take Parsa with fresh army, sending entire original army through to Ray and all points east. This speeds up the eastward march, I took Ray on turn 14 (and Parsa as the final heal on turn 31 to push me over the line, that was as fast as I could get second army there).

to be plain, second army goes Halicarnassus -> Tarsus -> Thapsacus ->Babylon ->Susa->Parsa.

third army goes Tyre->Gaza->Memphis->Thebes.

First army does the rest (with a split after Bahkri for North/East/Desert cities).

 

[Half Nelson]

I managed the Conquests of Alexander deity achievement today, before any R&F updates make it even harder!. The GeorgeF strategy works great for the actual conquest (I managed it almost exactly as listed for a turn 34 victory, but did not have the required 200 points for the achievement). To get the 200 points, I found it necessary to settle the original settler on turn 1 as per Square Triangle Mouse strategy (building encampment then settlers) and squeezing in an early settler from the capital (BO Het, Hysp, Het, Settler, Het to t20ish, then settlers). This second settler can catch up with the the main army if helped by GG movement bonus and I got it to settle the key city at the Patala pass by t24. Even then, I had to micromanage chops to produce enough settlers for a t36 deity achievement victory. A few additional tips / observations:-
1. Settlers completed by chop can move immediately. With a nearby GG they can move and found cities on the same turn from a couple of locations
2. Settler costs increase by 15 production / 60 gold increments. The increased cost does not immediately appear on screen, you need to go into the build window and flip builds for it to update in-turn. Chopping the last settler in the capital seems optimal to me (it is the only city with >15 production per turn). I needed to build 2 settlers from captured cities (choose those with good production AND forests for chop)
3. I bought 2 settlers (1 x t34, 1 x t35). These can't move immediately so need to appear close to settling spots
4. I also bought 2 heteroi, 2 rams and 2 builders (captured ones never seemed to be in the right place for chopping!)
5. I settled my final city (to give a running score of 200) then captured Patala on the same turn (t36). You don't seem to need to wait a turn for the 200 score to register BUT your last capture does not add to the total.

Many thanks to those posting here for their advice!

 

[LadyAlexander]

I have now finished this scenario TWICE with two cities left on turn 37. The last time I had a giant army that JUST ARRIVED at Marakanda. I honestly think it is partly some luck to how easy or hard the AI units are in the beginning, because if you get ahead a turn or two, with some easy units defeated, that can make it or break it for this scenario at deity. Also, completing this on Settler by turn 32 is easy, and means nothing for how you will fare at Deity.