[Sword of Islam]: Mamluk Domination

[AnotherPacifist]

No, please don't liberate any of the Asia Minor cities to Ottoman, except the coastal ones! Angora is a great military production center that will help produce troops to conquer the rest of Asia Minor, Armenia and Georgia. If you really want to, Eskisehir is a trashy city (can't really grow to use all its tiles), but it still encompasses a lot of land, much more than Izmir or any coastal city would.

Being that we don't have Tomb of Khalid, it'll mean that the Ottomans won't vassalize very easily, so prepare to capture at least 3-4 cities.

Here's a screenpic of my (just-won) Armenian domination game. You'll see that I left Ottomans with the trashy coastal cities (Sur, Canakkale, Amasra). Amasra's culture is dwarfed by Eskisehir which means I get more tiles for that one city.

 

[MessageMan]

No, please don't liberate any of the Asia Minor cities to Ottoman, except the coastal ones! Angora is a great military production center that will help produce troops to conquer the rest of Asia Minor, Armenia and Georgia. If you really want to, Eskisehir is a trashy city (can't really grow to use all its tiles), but it still encompasses a lot of land, much more than Izmir or any coastal city would.

Being that we don't have Tomb of Khalid, it'll mean that the Ottomans won't vassalize very easily, so prepare to capture at least 3-4 cities.

So vassalization is primarily to prevent respawn? Ok.

I think I'll liberate Eskisehir already since it's stability is red. Probably shouldn't have razed Konya if we're going to take most of Asia Minor.

Ottomans are right now willing to capitulate after making peace with Georgia.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

At this time, since we have Constantinople (and hopefully 3 other Asia Minor cities), we cannot collapse. (Remember it's not just Constantinople to be Roman Emperor) Stability is a moot point now. Just make sure there are horse archers in each city so that if they rebel, reload and move the horse archer out and recapture it. (actually, as long as a horse archer can reach a city, it doesn't have to be 1 per city--I usually have 1 horse archer per 2 or 3 cities, sitting within 1 move of all of them).

Every little bit of land counts in domination. Eskisehir is such an inland city that it would be a shame to let it go.

 

[Jusos2108]

We have to make sure that we get the title from the Ottomans. That's the pretty much the only thing that matters in a domination game.

 

[Jusos2108]

So MessageMan, when are you going to play?

 

[rrosen]

I'm back now. So to summarize the vassalizing strategy, do we capture the 3-4 cities in short, consecutive time, kill a lot of units, or do prolonged sieges, what works best according to your experiences?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

From what I've seen, it's usually down to the last city before anyone will vassalize, especially the Ottomans. Some other civs like Zengids and Ak Koyunlu vassalize easier (probably some hidden modifier as to their "pride" in not being a vassal).

Since messageman is missing, do you want to pick it up, rrosen?

 

[rrosen]

Sure. I'm going to bed now and tomorrow evening my mother in law will be visiting. If there is time, I will play before then, otherwise I will do it on tuesday (providing no message from messageman).

 

[MessageMan]

My apologies. I've been busy lately so I didn't have the time to finish my turn.

Turn 1

Make peace with Georgia. This makes the Ottomans willing to vassalize but we'll take some more cities first.

Turn 2

Domyat builds Imam Reza Shrine. Trade Sorghum to Mewar for Cotton. Edrene is captured.

Turn 3

Nothing happens.

Turn 4

Brusa is captured.

Spoiler :

Turn 5

Gujarat resurrects and vassalizes to Mewar.

Turn 6

Medinah builds Qutb Minar.

Turn 7

Nothing happens.

Turn 8

All of our old trade deals get cancelled except for Mewar. So I make new ones. Cow to Mewar for Barley. Olives to Oman for 4 gold per turn. Spice to Oman for Hemp. Fish to Sindh for 8 gold per turn. Spices to Sindh for Barley.

Turn 9

Nothing.

Turn 10

Great General is born.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Sounds about right to vassalize the Ottomans after Brusa is captured...if you're really war hungry Afyon would be OK to capture (since it's inland). There are plenty of Anatolian cities to make us emperor. Eventually we'll have to liberate some of them to the Ottomans. The important thing is NOT TO COLLAPSE THE OTTOMANS! (because otherwise they will respawn, possibly with Constantinople, Angora and Eskisehir, the most productive cities).

 

[rrosen]

Just a quick question: since we failed the population goal, should we abandon the 2/3 UHV? To reach the area goal we need to have a city in Northen Syria, where we have raised all cities. It needs to be built before 1500 AD. The third goal is without a time limit, but might take some dedication.

In my opinion, we have all the cities we want (Edirne, Brusa, Eskehir and Angora (spelled incorrectly)) and I'd like to vassalize them immediately, to avoid any further stability hit to them. Can I do that?

 

[Jusos2108]

Yes vassalise them, so we become the Emperor. I would found a city in northern Syria, 1E of the horse IIRC.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

You know, it's really not necessary to get 2/3 UHV. We just need to build enough gold to sustain a big empire, and once you have economics and banking and their buildings, we don't really need anything else.

I vote for vassalization now, but don't liberate any inland cities to Ottoman (coastal cities are OK, probably not Sinopi though.

The push now should be to get Iraq and Ak Koyunlu to vassalize.

 

[rrosen]

Turn 0: Ottomans vassalized.

Spoiler :

We sell horse for wine, apples and opium. We also buy silver for barley from Oman.

Turn 1
Started Royal Mint in Al-Minya, 8 turns, it is our top gold city at 73 gold/turn. For buildings, I generally concentrate on courthouses and companies.

Turn 2: Our roundship is destroyed. Great Engineer born, standing by at the moment. Settle great general in Hamah and start building trebuchets. Capture and keep Sivas. Only become Roman Emperor after that, perhaps we needed an additional city?

Turn 3: Capture and keep Malatya. Capture and Liberate Adalya.

Turn 4: Not much happens, move into position.

Turn 5: Nothing.

Turn 6: Kayseri captured and kept. Bought two cottons for barley and pearls from Sindh.

Turn 7: Kalonoros captured and given to Ottomans. Anatolia and Thrace is now finished, except Trebizond. We declared war on Ak Konyolou and capture Harran. Since we intend to vassalize them, I don't raze any cities.

Turn 8: Besiege Dyar-i-Bekr

Turn 9: Capture Dyar-i-Bekr

Turn 10: Yemeni declares independence. We are currently close to Erzurum

Spoiler :

and Mardin,

Spoiler :

with a strike force also moving directly into Iraq.

Spoiler :

We can currently build the summer palace and should in my opinion do so soon. We can trade for Welfare state with Mewar if we wish.

Spoiler :

We are running a 41 gold deficit,

Spoiler :

sustaining it through city captures at the moment, with every city except three building economy improvements.

Nobatia and Makuria are border provinces, should we start thinking about capturing them?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Very nice. (did you seriously leave that trebuchet undefended?)
I think we should trade for techs now, since it's going to be impossible later on (with our megaempire).
I'll play when I come back today from work.

Addendum: Blizzrd, one of the veterans for domination and conquest games on RFC, is going to join the game! I'll play after him.

 

[rrosen]

Yes, I clicked too far, but I hope they have no available cavalry. With Blizzrd we'll be the full five, nice!

 

[Jusos2108]

So everything went are we have claimed the greatest title of the game!
We should also make sure that Ottomans won't collapse..

And nice the see that blizzrd is joining!

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Personally I think the greatest title is Shahanshah--it's practically guarantees your economy will suck because you have to get bad cities like Yazd and it's only the Khwarezmids, Seljuks and Safavids that have any intrinsic stability in that vast area...
but I'm getting ahead of the story here.

 

[blizzrd]

Hi all, just checking in. Some background reading to be done and I need to upgrade from 0.3.2 to 0.3.3 which apparently takes a while to download.

 

[blizzrd]

OK, I have spent some time investigating our position and have read through the moves to date. But I cannot see any discussion about what the long-term plans for domination might be?

Short term, I see capitulating Ak Koyunlu but how many cities do we liberate to them? Do we keep any?

If we found Adiyaman (1E of Horse) in Nortern Syria we complete 1/3 UHV. And if we liberate Matalya to Ak Koyunlu as our vassal, our culture will eventually win out and Adiyaman will be able to work all of the BFC tiles to the north. Is this the way to approach this?

What to do with southern Iraq? Do we need to wait for a respawn of the Ayyubids?

Who is the next target after Ak Koyunlu - Georgia?

EDIT: and what exactly are we waiting for with the 2x Great Engineers and 1x Great Artist in our capital?