[Sword of Islam]: Byzantine Conquest

[Jusos2108]

Note: Another condition could be: control all excisting wonders. Razing a city with a wonder is forbidden.

Agree. I tend to go easy on the axemen and just build a couple of horsemen units for Barbs. I also focus on Markets early after building enough workers and work boats to get started.

I agree. Early work boats and workers are essential to get Byzantium going. After that markets, so that Constantinople can build the Royal Mint.

All islandS?? You're kidding, right? You mean that little island that the Portuguese like to capture (Suqutra)?

I think there are only three islands in the game, if Rhodos' islands are considered as one.

 

[Jusos2108]

I don't think Edessa or Tripoli need to be razed for PoA to not exist. If there's no Antioch, there's no starting troops for PoA, and they won't even exist as a civ, i.e. no 3rd turn for cities to flip.

If you try to raze Edessa, it will reappear as a rebel city later on. (it's scripted)

But it seems people don't like the idea of Germanikeia, so I guess we should just let the PoA be and vassalize or kill them.

If Antioch is razed, PoA will flip Edessa as their capital.
Kill or let someone else kill, we don't want them around taking any of the Genoans or Venetians corps away from us.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I actually like to build more axemen initially because rebel peasants have 50% bonus against horsemen. But in the long run it doesn't matter since they rarely attack cities in full force.

I also think we need to agree on where the Heroic Epic should be. Angora would be my choice.

 

[Jusos2108]

Angora sounds good to me.

 

[rrosen]

Which UHV should we go for? The province one is given. But culture or wealth? I think we need to settle a great artist to reliably get the culture, but then we should make sure not to get the wealth goal by mistake after 750 years of struggle.

The no islam goal needs to be specified. By which year?
I like to keep Armenia from collapsing and respawning as Cilicia by reinforcing their borders with some of my units. Should we aim to do that?

 

[blizzrd]

Has anybody been declared upon by those promoted Zengid horse archers, playing as Byzantines? I don't think that's uncommon, especially if you take out PoA first and if Zengid makes peace with KoJ.

Yes I have, but all the Cataphracts from the destruction of Rum can handle whatever number of Zengids choose to come our way, if any.

Sis appears as an indy city 1NE of the wheat near Tarsus. Germanikeia is 1NE of Sis. If you garrison Germanikeia and the forested hill that is north of Antioch, you basically guarantee that the entrance to Anatolia is secured (the AI is not so smart that it'll cross 1N of Germanikeia first to attack).
A more productive city would be 2E of Germanikeia, but it's not nearly as defensible from the south.

We don't really need to build a city in Lesser Armenia at all though?

BTW, I usually raze Kaiseria (Kayseri) once I recapture it from Rum--it's a small city that cannot grow big and overlaps with Germanikeia, and we don't need another city to defend against the Mongols.

Umm, we must refuse all flips - meaning that we must hold Kaiseria and other cities in Rum's spawn zone for 10 turns (with no units inside) after Rum's 3rd turn. Kaiseria does have decent production though, so setting it to build Caravans or gold isn't too bad.

When you say "no other religions other than Orthodoxy in Asia Minor" does that mean Islam needs to be eradicated on capture of Tarsus? Or is it by a certain date, say 1453? (the latter would be much preferable so that we can build the wonders)

I think by a certain date is acceptable. 1453 works for me.

I don't think Edessa or Tripoli need to be razed for PoA to not exist. If there's no Antioch, there's no starting troops for PoA, and they won't even exist as a civ, i.e. no 3rd turn for cities to flip.
If you try to raze Edessa, it will reappear as a rebel city later on. (it's scripted)

True. And then it must be razed again. More XP!

But Rodos is 2 islands--do you want 2 cities?

How about I reword such that our culture must cover all land masses?

Another condition could be: control all excisting wonders. Razing a city with a wonder is forbidden.

I like.

I agree. Early work boats and workers are essential to get Byzantium going. After that markets, so that Constantinople can build the Royal Mint.

We are on the same page here.

I also think we need to agree on where the Heroic Epic should be. Angora would be my choice.

Ankyra?

 

[blizzrd]

Which UHV should we go for? The province one is given. But culture or wealth? I think we need to settle a great artist to reliably get the culture, but then we should make sure not to get the wealth goal by mistake after 750 years of struggle.

The no islam goal needs to be specified. By which year?
I like to keep Armenia from collapsing and respawning as Cilicia by reinforcing their borders with some of my units. Should we aim to do that?

Samanids get a GA and culture bomb one of their cities about 30-40% of the time from my experience. If that occurs, then I say we fail the first UHV condition and aim for the 2nd and 3rd. Or if we get the 1st condition (by chance) then we arrange to fail the 3rd condition at the appropriate time. Shouldn't be too hard to bankrupt ourselves if we really want to!

Regarding Armenia, as long as we deal with the Horse Archers that spawn SE of Trapezounta each time, I find that Armenia can handle the remaining Barbs OK.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

We clearly don't want the 3rd UHV criterion. We want advanced science rather than gold! In fact, we should try to get arqubusiers (when promoted against archers they rock).

 

[Jusos2108]

I agree, we should go for the first two, which we'll both get without even focusing on them.

Nothing beats Light Cavalry.

 

[rrosen]

Then I'd rather not take the risk of being beaten by Samanids and culture bomb a great artist.

 

[Science Rules]

Is it too late for me to join?

 

[blizzrd]

No, it isn't.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Edead is planning to release a new version on 5/30. We should wait until then to start, since there are major changes to the title of Roman Emperor and also to the Topkapi Palace we might be interested in (-40% expansion instability!).
We must also be aware that there's a new victory (Religious) now that we cannot win by mistake (especially since we're need Orthodoxy in all our cities).

 

[Science Rules]

We must also be aware that there's a new victory (Religious) now that we cannot win by mistake (especially since we're need Orthodoxy in all our cities).

Hopefully he took my advice and required a certain faith point threshold to win.
That way we only need to raze a few Orthodox cities or declare war on an Orthodox Civ to keep ourselves from winning.

 

[rrosen]

Though the penalty for razing is temporary, and will go away with time? Beyond Anatolia and the Levant, which we'll conquer pretty early, there will be few in the east. Perhaps we should keep some spare neutral orthodox cities to raze at the end.

 

[Science Rules]

Perhaps we should keep some spare neutral orthodox cities to raze at the end.

I like this idea.

 

[blizzrd]

Then I'd rather not take the risk of being beaten by Samanids and culture bomb a great artist.

Rather, why don't we just send a vanguard force to Western Khorasan to arrive there with enough time before 1000AD to raze whichever Samanid city was culture bombed (if any)?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The new version (0.3.4) is out!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sword-of-islam/

 

[blizzrd]

Downloading now. Will give it a test run later tonight.

I want to have a Religious objective, but I don't want to win a Religious victory by mistake. Will need to do some more thinking about this.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

0.3.4.1 version out.