I did it.
Revision 401, Moors, Monarch, Normal, 3000 BC. Virtual UHV achieved at 1200 AD.
The start:
If there is any city in Iberia that you flip other than Nova Cathargo, restart.
A war of Spanish liberation will completely wreck the tight schedule that you need to adhere in order to win the UHV.
Same thing with the Maghreb, if there you flip less than 2 cities on spawn,
and one of your cities do not already contain a Library/Forge/Temple or any combination of such buildings, restart.
Yes, it's start dependent, and after the fact, you need a combination of luck, skill and good micromanagement to get you through this.
The first goal is easy enough and I'm not even going to trip about it.
Run Dynasticism & Absolutism (beeline Civil Service as soon as you spawn),
build order in Qurtuba is as follows:
-La Mezquita -> Library -> Temple/Harbor -> Forge
Worker order is as follows, location is relative to Qurtuba:
-Pasture 1N1E, Winery 1N, Pasture/Cottage 2N1W, Winery 1N2W, Farm 1N1W, Farm 1W, Windmill 1S, Windmill 2E, Farm 1E.
You will need to utilize a semi-advanced tactic to achieve the 3rd UHV.
It's basically queuing up your GPs so you can generate 2 in somewhat quick succession.
I used to do this with no-Fishing civs to get a Machinery -> Engineering slingshot in vanilla BtS Conquest games.
Basically, it works like this: Have two cities generate GPP at about the same rate so that they'll end up generating a GP on the same turn:
(i.e. Qurtuba will generate a GP in 8 turns, and Qartaj will generate a GP in 8 turns)
If one is ahead of the other, you need to reduce the amount of specialists
in those cities to align the GPP gain so that they'll end up generating a GP on the same turn.
When both cities are 1 turn away from generating a GP,
what you need to do is work less specialists in one city so that it becomes 2 turns away,
while the other city gets their GP on the next turn.
What will happen is this:
The second city will have generated a Great Person for you while in your first city,
the GPP bar will automatically sit at 1/2 of the amount of GPP required to gain your next Great Person,
effectively reducing the time you need to generate the next GP by half.
Now, ideally, you want to generate your first couple of GPs from your second city,
because it is much easier to generate GPs from your capital, therefore, there is less of a threshold to catch up.
So, your GP generation should look like this:
1. Qartaj
2. Qartaj (Generate just enough GPP in Qurtuba to nearly fill the bar, then let Qartaj generate the GP)
3. Qurtuba
4. Qurtuba
Check your cities every turn. I mean it.
One Barbarian or the Portuguese spawning can really,
really mess up your GP rate because your governor will decide to move things around without your consent.
Okay. So the conquest goal.
On Normal speed, you do not have the luxury of funneling barbarians into Mali.
That just doesn't sit at all. I like that advice, iOnlySignIn,
and it reminds me of usi's Great Wall of Ethiopia (see vanilla RFC forum) but that just doesn't fly on this speed setting.
From about 1090 AD to the deadline, 1200 AD, you essentially have an 11-turn window of opportunity to invade Mali and completely take it over.
Sometimes, this will coincide with a Spanish war because Spain does not always spawn at war with you.
Hire mercs to deal with the Spanish in the event that they peace-spawn.
Because the window to attack the Malinese is tight, you must have about 8-10 War Elephants/Knights/Heavy Swordsmen
at the ready outside their borders no later than 1130 AD. Anything longer, and you've surely lost.
Now I mentioned Spain before, and if you happen to spawn at war with them,
just wait for them to move their troops out of the capital and then rush a Chariot/Camel Archer into Madrid and burn it down.
If you have Nova Cathargo, then all you need to do is settle up north in any spot that you'd like.
If you don't have Nova Cathargo, then you'll need to compensate by settling in eastern Spain. Barcelona is a good spot.
I actually was able to generate a 5th GP on 1240 AD.
Now, I'm very hesitant to suggest that the 3rd UHV goal be moved back to 5 GPs,
if only because it would make the Moors into something of a super start dependent civ,
similar to Mali, who we all know almost nobody touches because they play like that.
That is, the number of rolled starts that are winnable would go down in number and severely hamper the fun rating of this civ.
But, since I did it, I'm waiting for anyone else to try it to see if it should go back up to 5.
I would like to voice that even though it's possible, it is not very accessible.
I think the difficulty is enough that a most starting DoC players would not be able to beat this UHV without requisite knowledge of specific gambits.
I shudder to think of the doability of Emperor/Normal though, and that's something that should be put into consideration.
So all in all, I think the Moors are in a good place right now.
and after some very rigorous testing, I conclude that the Moors have now been balanced into a mentally challenging, exhausting but fun civ.
Oh, and I won Liberalism + Printing Press before the victory too, so score!
