[Sword of Islam]: Byzantine Conquest

[AnotherPacifist]

Great turnset. I kinda disagree with Sevasteia being the recipient of our 2 GGs. Ahvaz or Esfahan have probably about the same (if not more) production, and are much closer to India. Ahvaz already has a GG, and the 2nd GG could have built a military academy there.

We don't need any more defenders in the forts near Armenia until 1380 or so when the next set of barb horse archers appear, I think. They will actually also appear next to Sevasteia and Ankyra. Hopefully we would have won by then.

 

[blizzrd]

We don't really need any more military production in fact, we could conquer the world with the existing units at our disposal easily enough. But I take your point about Ahvaz over Sevasteia.

 

[Jusos2108]

At this point I would attach all the GGs to units, in order to make couple city breakers.

I'll play tonight.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

We don't really need any more military production in fact, we could conquer the world with the existing units at our disposal easily enough. But I take your point about Ahvaz over Sevasteia.

Do we have enough siege weapons to knock city walls down within 1-2 turns? I usually like to build them closer to the action.

 

[Jusos2108]

I played, but I don't have time to post until tomorrow.

Quick summary:
-Black Death, argh!
-Oman, finished
-Ghorids, gone
-Sindh, next

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Black death isn't such a bad thing. It allows the economy to grow when you get out of it.
Just be careful not to conquer a city with plague when we're free of plague, unless you plan to raze it.

 

[Science Rules]

Do we have enough siege weapons to knock city walls down within 1-2 turns? I usually like to build them closer to the action.

Light Calvary with Flanking III don't need siege weapons.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Light Calvary with Flanking III don't need siege weapons.

10% more against archery doesn't count for much...though they have 55% withdrawal chance. I.e. in half the cases you won't lose your unit if you lose, in slightly less than half the cases you'll lose them.

 

[Science Rules]

But the extra withdrawal percentage makes them nearly immortal.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

But the extra withdrawal percentage makes them nearly immortal.

Nearly immortal doesn't mean they can win against marksmen. If they are successful at withdrawal then they have to heal before they are effective again.
Though I can see that if you have a lot of them, just attacking around the clock with fresh units can probably do the trick, but you better have lots of them.

 

[Science Rules]

Our industrial capacity is large enough to create large stacks of roving light cavalry that our able to sack cities on their own without siege. Because these cavalry will be working faraway from our production centers, I suggest that all future cavalry be promoted with flanking III instead of combat III. BTW, the Flanking III bonus vs archery is +15% which is half of what you get with combat III (for the rest of the game all of our "tough" battles will be against archery units).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

It's only 10% against archery (I checked).
Edead should really give a city attack disadvantage with light cavalry. Whoever has ever heard of a city sacked by light cavalry?!

 

[Science Rules]

My bad about the 10%/15%

As to cities sacked by light cavalry, what do you think Mongols were doing?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

My bad about the 10%/15%

As to cities sacked by light cavalry, what do you think Mongols were doing?

I'm not talking about open battles. I'm talking about sieges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization

Technology was one of the important facets of Mongolian warfare. For instance, siege machines were an important part of Genghis Khan's warfare, especially in attacking fortified cities. The siege engines were disassembled and carried by horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle.

The engineers building the machines were recruited among captives, mostly from China and Persia. When Mongols slaughtered whole populations, they often spared the engineers and technicians, swiftly assimilating them into the Mongol armies.

Kharash

A commonly used tactic was the use of what was called the "kharash". During a siege the Mongols would gather a crowd of local residents or soldiers surrendered from previous battles, and would drive them forward in sieges and battles. These "alive boards" or "human shields" would often take the brunt of enemy arrows and crossbow bolts, thus leaving the Mongol warriors safer. The kharash were also often forced ahead to breach walls.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Blizzrd, since it looks like we can win fairly soon, what do you think of another requirement--to research a future tech before we can win? (I've personally never researched the later naval techs)

 

[Science Rules]

AP, thank for that discussion. Looks like I'm wrong once again.

Keep in mind that we need to stick around until 1453 when we have purged Anatolia of heathens.

Personally, I wouldn't mind killing the Portuguese with advanced ships of our own.
I too have never researched those naval technologies before.

 

[jammerculture]

Finish the tech tree!

Conquer the world!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

For your next game, i recommend you go with a variant of a one city challenge, except the goal is to raze all other cities in the world.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I don't think the Portuguese can be killed (I tried that playing Oman, going as far as Goa). They just respawn with new ships loaded with troops.
Then again, we shouldn't be at war with our coreligionists, even though it's after the Great Schism. That is, after we expel the KoC from the Middle East.
We may have to kill the Portuguese in order to be able to win. I.e. they might be our last opponent unless they vassalize.

Here's another criteria to think about: we need to kill or vassalize ALL the civs, including the ones that haven't shown up yet. (e.g. Portuguese, Safavids and Mughals). We can even take 20 turns each if it becomes boring later on.
(might give us some incentive to raze a lot more cities in northern India)

 

[Jusos2108]

We still have a lot of resistance in India. Also don't forget the Bahmanis and Ak Koyunly

I have once finished the tech tree with Ottomans in 1660, so it is going to be difficult, but definetly doable. So we could include the following criterias:

-Finish the tech tree
-Kill every civ

 

[blizzrd]

We still have a lot of resistance in India. Also don't forget the Bahmanis and Ak Koyunly

I have once finished the tech tree with Ottomans in 1660, so it is going to be difficult, but definetly doable. So we could include the following criterias:

-Finish the tech tree
-Kill every civ

Sounds good, but do we have a possible conquest problem with an eternal Portugal that can't be eliminated?

With regard to the religious SG objective, I now think we should have to spread Orthodoxy in all of our cities outside of Hindustan, rather than in all cities.