Hello !
I've been a lurker and an avid reader of reports here for years, but this is actually the first time I participate in an adventure ! Sadly I didn't take notes during my game, so I will only give the outlines of the game I played, which definitely won't make for a fast finish but I had a few strange moments that might be entertaining to read about (particularly regarding religions).
At the time of writing this intro, I'm getting to the end of the Tech tree but the game still has some hours in it. I will probably go back and load a few saves to make screenshots before I finish this report, and maybe some more specific dates and turn numbers If I can (later edit : Well I didn't, maybe I'll add some screenshots later ?).
We are playing Saladin, which goes well with some religious play (obviously), but we are going for science victory, which needs a LOT of production (and some science, but production is the hard bit).
One nice thing about Saladin and religion, is that "The last prophet" allows you to get a religion while still being quite lazy about it. I resolved to use it by ignoring faith beyond getting a pantheon and worry about religion later, when the last prophet will come in.
As we are on emperor, I started with a slinger : I like to get that Archery eureka as soon as possible, as an insurance against barbarian and usual AI early game aggression (Archers usually being all you need for a few millennia). I think I pushed a scout out next, then a builder, before going for my first settler, which went west to found Aleppo.
It was apparent very soon that this would play as a low production map - at least for me, compared to the last games I played. Not many hills, no really obvious spots for great industrial zone. In most Civ games but specially in VI and particularly when going for science, I tend to obsess quite a bit about production and most often make my dotmap by picking ideal industrial zone spots and planning around these. Here the pickings are slims, but I'll try to make do.
I quickly met Preslav and Frederick Barbarossa in the east, then Norway in the west, and finally Scythia in the south west, and the Hong Kong city state (which I wanted to be suzerain of : production yet again !). I was expanding toward Scythia with my third city (Baghdad) when the Norses declared war on me.
I had my figurative pant down, with an army of one warrior and a single slinger (with a kill to his name), and possibly a scout (I don't remember when I lost him). I quickly recruited 2 more slingers before grabbing archery and upgrading all three, while Tomyris joined in the dog-pile and declared war on me as well.
I started to beat down on the Norse warriors, and took the peace Harald was quickly ready to pay for to turn my attention on Scythia. Luckily for me, Tomyris had probably been pulled into the war by Harald and didn't have units ready to strike at my cities when she declared, as all my units were busy fighting Norway at that time.
While I was positioning to strike at Scythia (directly to the capital Poprovka, which was close to Baghdad), Tomyris took Hong Kong (I wasn't suzerain, she was already at war with Hong Kong at the moment). It took some time, but I ended up taking the whole of Scythia, and even Kept Hong Kong for myself. I thought about liberating it, but in the end the AI always end up hating me whatever happens anyway, so I decided that the "liberator" bonus wasn't worth it, and while I like production city state in general, Hong Kong bonus is not the best...
Now If it had been Toronto or Buenos Aires, I would have liberated it simply because I rank the bonuses above the benefit of a city, but as things were... Hong Kong would make a fine Arab city.
I planted Hattin between Cairo and Hong Kong, and started to think that early conquest was probably a good thing after all, as the map felt quite a bit cramped to me (I don't often play small maps), and I still didn't find some of the Hilly production paradise I was looking for. I met Pericles and Vilnius in the south, founded a Pantheon (Religious settlement : anything to get faster border expansion !), and started to consider, now that I had an army (well, 2 warriors and 4 archers anyway), who should I strike next. Despite my counter invasion of Scythia, I still felt I needed more land and started to look toward Germany...
Frederick had been peaceful so far, not attacking city states as he is usually prone to do, but he a had founded a religion and was starting to convert my cities to Catholicism (while Harald was pushing Protestantism he had founded).
While I was pondering what to do with my army, I saw Harald send an unescorted settler to colonize further up my north (he had already taken the coast north of Aleppo while I was fighting the scythes), and I decided, since he had denounced me already (for warmongering of course, although of course he and Tomyris were the only leader who had declared a war at that time) that I wouldn't allow it.
The penalty was moderate, I quickly snagged the settler and a pair of city he founded on the north coast. It was still early war, notably without city walls to protect any of the places I conquered.
Then, as Nidaros was fortified, I accepted peace from him for a hefty tribute. Now rich of 9 cities, I decided to spend some time on infrastructure and improvement. I beelined governments, then feudalism on the civic tree, as is hard to escape, and I was gunning for apprenticeship and Industrial zones in the science tree.
I managed to get almost all eureka and inspirations, and I had built an early campus in Cairo to make use of those nice mountains, so science and civics were progressing nicely. Somewhere along the road, Pericles founded Sikhism, and I got my prophet and founded A'Tuinism in Pokrovka (the Church of the Cosmic Turtle). I didn't try to get any wonders.
I started to get industrial zones everywhere, get workers to improve what I could, and I think I managed to get OK science and food, but production was always an issue. Then some time before turn 100, I realized that I still didn't have any other city converted, and more and more German missionaries were flooding my country... Most of my land was Catholic, I had very low faith generation, 2 or 3 basic holy districts only pulling adjacency bonus and I think one more with a shrine in Pokrovka, and I would have a hard time saving A'tuinism from being extinguished by Catholicism. I had neglected faith too much and couldn't generate missionaries or apostles to spread my religion...
Actually, I had it extinguished before I could do anything. I will admit I shamefully reloaded an auto-save when I finally realized what was happening, as my original thought of letting faith take care of itself since I was "guaranteed" a religion to play with was coming back to bite me in the arse...
Alas, even with this shameful reload, I only managed to get out one missionary before A'tuinism was extinguished again, and I could only convert Poprovka back for a handful of turn with it before Catholicism killed it again. Even save-scumming couldn't save the true faith. A'tuinsit faith lay smouldering below vast majorities of catholic and protestant believers. Even if the game is to be won by science, and Madrassa and mamluk are still available, I wouldn't get my awesome (and super cheap !) Meeting houses and the "righteousness of the faith" bonus.
This shameful passage was a bit disheartening, and Germany just forward settled another poor city on my frontier, despite my protests (I had asked them not to forward settle, nor to convert my cities when I reloaded the auto-save. They immediately promised not to, and then immediately did it anyway). I was disappointed in my play and almost ready to abandon the game.
Then, probably because I had let my fearsome army of ancient conquest obsolesce its way into irrelevance, they declared war on me. Of course Frederick hated my warmongering since I dared conquer Scythia who had chosen unwisely some millennia ago, but he came at me with a Casus Belli and everything : this was a war of territorial expansion.
Well, that got me interested again ! My army was old and slightly crappy : my archers were still well promoted and quite useful to defend myself, but my units would almost die in one shot from German city walls, so as things stood I couldn't attack.
I had techs however, and notably stirrup. I already had a game with Arabia before, and by now everyone should know it but guys : Mamluks are the best.
March was always one of my favorite promotions in Civ4, and here you get marching knights.
Knights were good in Civ IV, good enough that a beeline to Guild was one of the strongest war moves in the game. I don't know about Civ 5, in civ 6 most of the time range units are the real deal because they can attack without using up their strength by losing HP, and you only get enough melee to protect them.
Well, mamluks lose HP, but they always gain some HP back, and if you're fighting near your frontier, if you really take a beating you can retreat for a turn, heal 15hp at EoT somewhere in your territory, and strike back with a vengeance right away the next turn.
Combined with a siege tower or even a simple a battering ram, they will reconcile you with melee units if you needed to be. Of course being cavalry, they are quite mobile enough that getting sieges against city to prevent them from healing is quite easy. Mamluks are awesome.
As the war was declared, I ordered 4 of them (using the policy to boost their production, can't remember its name), and started to bring my troops toward the east (most were stationed near Norway, where I thought the next war would happen, as I still somehow resented Harald for declaring the first war against Arabia eons ago).
Preslav was a vassal of Germany and sent quite a few units to threaten Cairo, but after I killed only one unit, seeing 2 swordsman closing on the city still defended by a single injured warrior, I remembered I had quite a few envoys in reserve (I usually do that to make sure I can keep the suzerainship I want the most, and it comes in handy in such situations) and quickly turned Preslav against the Germans. Surprise diplomacy !
It would possibly save my capital and certainly help delay the germans while I mustered my forces.
Frederick didn't send many unit directly, so I got my old army to the south and took the small undefended forward city he had settled there. Then began the march on Cologne (which he settled below Aachen in my game) for my first Mamluks, accompanied by a siege tower I outright bought in Hong Kong (close to my target).
I was vaguely hoping to find some Catholic missionaries around to kill, hoping to lower the level of the religion in my cities (in the hope of reviving A'Tuinism), but no missionaries were hanging around and it didn't happen. Well, that would have been a long shot, but crazier plans have been known to work... from time to time.
Anyway, In the end I took all Germany for myself, so let's see, in order of conquest :
Trier, Cologne, Aachen, Heidelberg, Magdeburg and another city (Holm ?) I founded in the north with a settler I found twiddling its thumb in Aachen. That was some war of territorial expansion alright, although maybe not the one Frederick was looking for.
I got monarchy then Theocracy, and finished Norway sometime after Germany, since I had all those Mamluks hanging around twiddling their thumbs.
Pericles was anyway destined to hate me to the end of time, as I had a penalty for warmongering in the multiple hundreds despite declaring only a single war with a moderate penalty. A second one would not change much.
For some reason for the longest time I was afraid of winning a domination and thought I had to choose between Nidaros and Athen, while of course there were two unmet player on another continent still, as the description of the game made abundantly clear from the start, and as even a casual glance at the minimap should have told me at this stage.
At that time, since I finally got the desert tile outside Cairo (I bought quite a few tiles in a few crisis using the 20% reduction policy, but never that desert), and the pyramid was still available, I got it. That was the first wonder I got (Although I had conquered Stonehenge with Aachen and the Oracle with Nidaros).
Super late of course, but a late pyramid is still better than no pyramid, and I started a long sweep through ancient, classical and other neglected wonders that were hanging unbuilt since the dawn of time.
This is how I managed my greatest coup ! After a long time (very poor production there) in Hattin I managed to get a Holy site beside a still standing wood (most of these were chopped for hammers a long time ago), and I landed the Mahabodhi temple !
I was hopping for one of the apostle to be a proselyte, but I wasn't THAT lucky. I was lucky enough that the temple had remained unbuilt, apparently all religions had been founded on our continent and no one had been able to build it, what with the wars and everything. One of my apostle immediately launched the inquisition (I still had no cities with my religion so couldn't get inquisitors anyway). The other went on a pilgrimage to Holy Mount Kilimanjaro.
When the holy man came back to Poprovka, he spoke to the people of their lost faith, not one, not 2, but 3 times ! Poprovka's people couldn't continue following the false Catholic, Protestant, Sikh Dogma that had taken hold over the years. When the majority of the people there went back to the true faith, the holy man departed. Inquisitors were immediately recruited in Poprovka, and they performed their duties admirably. The original pilgrim spoke 4 more time, bringing A'Tuinism back from the abyss as a new strong, vibrant faith for Arabia. A mix of missionary and inquisitors washed over Arabia and soon the True faith was also the Only faith.
Meeting houses sprouted everywhere, eventually a proselyte apostle was recruited and converted Preslav, Vilnius and Brussels to the way of the Great Turtle.
Their faith restored, in an extended time of peace they had long longed for, Arabs went about exploring the rest of the world, while the country was set for an early industrialization (I beelined it quite aggressively, as factories looked like the only way to get some decent enough production).
I got a few more wonder, among theses the Potola Palace in Aachen, The Forbidden one in Hong Kong, the Hagia Sophia in Pokrovka, and even mount Saint Michel in Aleppo. I also grabbed the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse, which had remained unbuilt for unknown reasons.
As time got on, I would not build additional holy site since quite a few of the cities I had captured had one, but added a few campuses and some commercial hubs, and as I usually do, industrial zones in every single cities. For a time, after the last Norse war and before my second commercial hub, I had a worrying deficit (around -10 each turn).
After eating through most of my cash, the "double commercial hub income" policy, then the addition of several new commercial hubs put an end to the problem.
I met the French and the Russian with my caravels (my first naval units ! hooray !), and set profitable trade with them (they didn't have as bad a relationship with me as Pericles, as they didn't know of us Arabs when we ate up Scythia, Norway and Germany), mainly for luxury resources and some GPT.
I had a lot of faith, as I had a scramble for holy buildings when A'Tuinism was threatened by German missionaries a long time ago and I then couldn't spend it until I built the Mahobadi temple, and I grabbed several holy districts from all my conquests. I set to convert all the city states to my religion, and some of the French, Greek and Russian cities, specially in the new world. Soon A'Tuinism was by far the dominant religion. Thankfully I realized in time that I should be careful enough to avoid a religious victory.
I found (with an adventurous mamluk) a long unoccupied peninsula to my east, south of Amsterdam and la Valletta; I had a wave of settler built and colonized it, settling 4 cities there, plus 2 more in the north.
I was racing through the tech, but Civics were slower : I never built any theater, and only got 2 in the ex-German cities of Aachen and Heidelberg. Monuments everywhere and the wonders were seemingly enough to get enough culture.
Production was now really a lot better once factories and their overlapping bonuses began sprouting everywhere. I got quite a few more wonder, notably a Big Ben that was worth almost 3000 gold, and notably ended up with 4 free additional policy slots (Alhambra, Big Ben, Pottola Palace and Forbidden Palace), which is pretty crazy. Make it 5 with Adam smith !
I used a mix of Faith buy (I had the belief which allow to faith buy scientific and cultural building), cash rushing, and a lot of caravans to develop my lands. There actually were no further wars, although I massed a navy (using the Venetian arsenal to produce Battleships) and hesitated to eliminate Greece, which somehow had access to 3 of the 4 oil resources on the map (Brussels had the 4th one), but really I had no need for oil.
I rushed through the remains of the Tech and Civics tree; In the end I built a Trio of spaceport, and rushed blindly through the great engineers, merchants and some scientists with district project in the rest of my cities (and with a lot of cities, this generates great people insanely fast). I really wasn't focused, didn't plan my strategy and could probably have finished quite a bit sooner (Actually I had a go at that from my last save and could shave almost 15 turns, despite that save being very advanced already).
I built my first Spaceport much too late, didn't prioritize the right science order, and could have rushed to the relevant great people much earlier to get the best bonuses for the job.
In the end, the Arab people considered their goals achieved when they had launched all the required modules into orbit, so as to send a party to explore Mars and hopefully get a better vantage point from which to study the Cosmic Turtle, in 1852.
I guess this is quite a late finish, I actually didn't follow any strategic planning to win earlier beyond an emphasis on science and production. Just by replaying the last part, without plans but better priorities, I could shave 15 turns. Without messing up science priorities (would have had to get farther back to fix that), a lot more could have been gained. I had a blast anyway, specially reviving my religion from the brink of extinction.
On that matter, I really thought A'Tuinism was dead after my failed save-scumming attempt, had my "so be it" moment.
Then later I saw that the Mahobadi temple (including the 2 free Apostles) was still unbuilt, and had a very long shot at building it (I had no holy temple next to a forest, and had to build one AND the wonder in a low production city). I didn't even know If it would really work and spawn A'Tuinist Apostle despite Hattin being Catholic while building the wonder...
But it worked in the end, and that was a fun idea to play with, and gave me quite an incentive to actually write a report to tell my tale, despite the shameful reload and everything.
In most of my personal games I had more room to expand, and usually more productive terrain (more hills, etc). In this game I only founded 4 cities until the discovery of the new world (which occurred very late in my game), most of my empire was made of AI developed cities, and obviously the AI needs a lot of work when planing its cities.
Really, does it even try ? Everything look like AIs build any district they can as soon as they can, without planing for the later ones, so they usually end up wasting good locations for a district with a wonder or another district, do not plan for tiles they will get later, improvements they can build... And of course, things like Chichen Itza on the only jungle in the city radius, providing exactly 1 culture (as an adjacency bonus for a theater) at the cost of one tile and 710 production.
Anyway, I found most of my cities had very questionable urbanism, and had to work around it and make do with poor early development. You don't have ta race for as much settlers as early, but the drawback is quite clear. Actually for some of my later conquest I think I might have been better off razing and resettling...
But in the end It taught me that adjacency bonuses, while making things vastly faster up to the industrial era (I was used to getting at least +3 adj bonus for almost every Ind zone in my previous games, here +2 were the good ones) actually don't matter THAT much once the regional effects of factory takes precedence. OK, I read people stating so, but experiencing it is still different.
So an efficient strategy for space victory might be to pack cities as close as possible and focus mostly on science to rush up the tech tree as science mostly need population after all, even if a few campuses are nice.
Then, just crawl-build factories everywhere (chopping or buying if possible) to get the craziest production for the actual late game and spaceship production. I probably don't have it in me to try again from the start, though, but that is certainly useful learning and interesting speculation.
Thanks for the game Sulla, I definitely enjoyed my first adventure (after yeeeeaaars of lurking and reading), I even found the will to report despite a busy life, and I'm eager to see what the other will have done with the game :-)
I've been a lurker and an avid reader of reports here for years, but this is actually the first time I participate in an adventure ! Sadly I didn't take notes during my game, so I will only give the outlines of the game I played, which definitely won't make for a fast finish but I had a few strange moments that might be entertaining to read about (particularly regarding religions).
At the time of writing this intro, I'm getting to the end of the Tech tree but the game still has some hours in it. I will probably go back and load a few saves to make screenshots before I finish this report, and maybe some more specific dates and turn numbers If I can (later edit : Well I didn't, maybe I'll add some screenshots later ?).
We are playing Saladin, which goes well with some religious play (obviously), but we are going for science victory, which needs a LOT of production (and some science, but production is the hard bit).
One nice thing about Saladin and religion, is that "The last prophet" allows you to get a religion while still being quite lazy about it. I resolved to use it by ignoring faith beyond getting a pantheon and worry about religion later, when the last prophet will come in.
As we are on emperor, I started with a slinger : I like to get that Archery eureka as soon as possible, as an insurance against barbarian and usual AI early game aggression (Archers usually being all you need for a few millennia). I think I pushed a scout out next, then a builder, before going for my first settler, which went west to found Aleppo.
It was apparent very soon that this would play as a low production map - at least for me, compared to the last games I played. Not many hills, no really obvious spots for great industrial zone. In most Civ games but specially in VI and particularly when going for science, I tend to obsess quite a bit about production and most often make my dotmap by picking ideal industrial zone spots and planning around these. Here the pickings are slims, but I'll try to make do.
I quickly met Preslav and Frederick Barbarossa in the east, then Norway in the west, and finally Scythia in the south west, and the Hong Kong city state (which I wanted to be suzerain of : production yet again !). I was expanding toward Scythia with my third city (Baghdad) when the Norses declared war on me.
I had my figurative pant down, with an army of one warrior and a single slinger (with a kill to his name), and possibly a scout (I don't remember when I lost him). I quickly recruited 2 more slingers before grabbing archery and upgrading all three, while Tomyris joined in the dog-pile and declared war on me as well.
I started to beat down on the Norse warriors, and took the peace Harald was quickly ready to pay for to turn my attention on Scythia. Luckily for me, Tomyris had probably been pulled into the war by Harald and didn't have units ready to strike at my cities when she declared, as all my units were busy fighting Norway at that time.
While I was positioning to strike at Scythia (directly to the capital Poprovka, which was close to Baghdad), Tomyris took Hong Kong (I wasn't suzerain, she was already at war with Hong Kong at the moment). It took some time, but I ended up taking the whole of Scythia, and even Kept Hong Kong for myself. I thought about liberating it, but in the end the AI always end up hating me whatever happens anyway, so I decided that the "liberator" bonus wasn't worth it, and while I like production city state in general, Hong Kong bonus is not the best...
Now If it had been Toronto or Buenos Aires, I would have liberated it simply because I rank the bonuses above the benefit of a city, but as things were... Hong Kong would make a fine Arab city.
I planted Hattin between Cairo and Hong Kong, and started to think that early conquest was probably a good thing after all, as the map felt quite a bit cramped to me (I don't often play small maps), and I still didn't find some of the Hilly production paradise I was looking for. I met Pericles and Vilnius in the south, founded a Pantheon (Religious settlement : anything to get faster border expansion !), and started to consider, now that I had an army (well, 2 warriors and 4 archers anyway), who should I strike next. Despite my counter invasion of Scythia, I still felt I needed more land and started to look toward Germany...
Frederick had been peaceful so far, not attacking city states as he is usually prone to do, but he a had founded a religion and was starting to convert my cities to Catholicism (while Harald was pushing Protestantism he had founded).
While I was pondering what to do with my army, I saw Harald send an unescorted settler to colonize further up my north (he had already taken the coast north of Aleppo while I was fighting the scythes), and I decided, since he had denounced me already (for warmongering of course, although of course he and Tomyris were the only leader who had declared a war at that time) that I wouldn't allow it.
The penalty was moderate, I quickly snagged the settler and a pair of city he founded on the north coast. It was still early war, notably without city walls to protect any of the places I conquered.
Then, as Nidaros was fortified, I accepted peace from him for a hefty tribute. Now rich of 9 cities, I decided to spend some time on infrastructure and improvement. I beelined governments, then feudalism on the civic tree, as is hard to escape, and I was gunning for apprenticeship and Industrial zones in the science tree.
I managed to get almost all eureka and inspirations, and I had built an early campus in Cairo to make use of those nice mountains, so science and civics were progressing nicely. Somewhere along the road, Pericles founded Sikhism, and I got my prophet and founded A'Tuinism in Pokrovka (the Church of the Cosmic Turtle). I didn't try to get any wonders.
I started to get industrial zones everywhere, get workers to improve what I could, and I think I managed to get OK science and food, but production was always an issue. Then some time before turn 100, I realized that I still didn't have any other city converted, and more and more German missionaries were flooding my country... Most of my land was Catholic, I had very low faith generation, 2 or 3 basic holy districts only pulling adjacency bonus and I think one more with a shrine in Pokrovka, and I would have a hard time saving A'tuinism from being extinguished by Catholicism. I had neglected faith too much and couldn't generate missionaries or apostles to spread my religion...
Actually, I had it extinguished before I could do anything. I will admit I shamefully reloaded an auto-save when I finally realized what was happening, as my original thought of letting faith take care of itself since I was "guaranteed" a religion to play with was coming back to bite me in the arse...
Alas, even with this shameful reload, I only managed to get out one missionary before A'tuinism was extinguished again, and I could only convert Poprovka back for a handful of turn with it before Catholicism killed it again. Even save-scumming couldn't save the true faith. A'tuinsit faith lay smouldering below vast majorities of catholic and protestant believers. Even if the game is to be won by science, and Madrassa and mamluk are still available, I wouldn't get my awesome (and super cheap !) Meeting houses and the "righteousness of the faith" bonus.
This shameful passage was a bit disheartening, and Germany just forward settled another poor city on my frontier, despite my protests (I had asked them not to forward settle, nor to convert my cities when I reloaded the auto-save. They immediately promised not to, and then immediately did it anyway). I was disappointed in my play and almost ready to abandon the game.
Then, probably because I had let my fearsome army of ancient conquest obsolesce its way into irrelevance, they declared war on me. Of course Frederick hated my warmongering since I dared conquer Scythia who had chosen unwisely some millennia ago, but he came at me with a Casus Belli and everything : this was a war of territorial expansion.
Well, that got me interested again ! My army was old and slightly crappy : my archers were still well promoted and quite useful to defend myself, but my units would almost die in one shot from German city walls, so as things stood I couldn't attack.
I had techs however, and notably stirrup. I already had a game with Arabia before, and by now everyone should know it but guys : Mamluks are the best.
March was always one of my favorite promotions in Civ4, and here you get marching knights.
Knights were good in Civ IV, good enough that a beeline to Guild was one of the strongest war moves in the game. I don't know about Civ 5, in civ 6 most of the time range units are the real deal because they can attack without using up their strength by losing HP, and you only get enough melee to protect them.
Well, mamluks lose HP, but they always gain some HP back, and if you're fighting near your frontier, if you really take a beating you can retreat for a turn, heal 15hp at EoT somewhere in your territory, and strike back with a vengeance right away the next turn.
Combined with a siege tower or even a simple a battering ram, they will reconcile you with melee units if you needed to be. Of course being cavalry, they are quite mobile enough that getting sieges against city to prevent them from healing is quite easy. Mamluks are awesome.
As the war was declared, I ordered 4 of them (using the policy to boost their production, can't remember its name), and started to bring my troops toward the east (most were stationed near Norway, where I thought the next war would happen, as I still somehow resented Harald for declaring the first war against Arabia eons ago).
Preslav was a vassal of Germany and sent quite a few units to threaten Cairo, but after I killed only one unit, seeing 2 swordsman closing on the city still defended by a single injured warrior, I remembered I had quite a few envoys in reserve (I usually do that to make sure I can keep the suzerainship I want the most, and it comes in handy in such situations) and quickly turned Preslav against the Germans. Surprise diplomacy !
It would possibly save my capital and certainly help delay the germans while I mustered my forces.
Frederick didn't send many unit directly, so I got my old army to the south and took the small undefended forward city he had settled there. Then began the march on Cologne (which he settled below Aachen in my game) for my first Mamluks, accompanied by a siege tower I outright bought in Hong Kong (close to my target).
I was vaguely hoping to find some Catholic missionaries around to kill, hoping to lower the level of the religion in my cities (in the hope of reviving A'Tuinism), but no missionaries were hanging around and it didn't happen. Well, that would have been a long shot, but crazier plans have been known to work... from time to time.
Anyway, In the end I took all Germany for myself, so let's see, in order of conquest :
Trier, Cologne, Aachen, Heidelberg, Magdeburg and another city (Holm ?) I founded in the north with a settler I found twiddling its thumb in Aachen. That was some war of territorial expansion alright, although maybe not the one Frederick was looking for.
I got monarchy then Theocracy, and finished Norway sometime after Germany, since I had all those Mamluks hanging around twiddling their thumbs.
Pericles was anyway destined to hate me to the end of time, as I had a penalty for warmongering in the multiple hundreds despite declaring only a single war with a moderate penalty. A second one would not change much.
For some reason for the longest time I was afraid of winning a domination and thought I had to choose between Nidaros and Athen, while of course there were two unmet player on another continent still, as the description of the game made abundantly clear from the start, and as even a casual glance at the minimap should have told me at this stage.
At that time, since I finally got the desert tile outside Cairo (I bought quite a few tiles in a few crisis using the 20% reduction policy, but never that desert), and the pyramid was still available, I got it. That was the first wonder I got (Although I had conquered Stonehenge with Aachen and the Oracle with Nidaros).
Super late of course, but a late pyramid is still better than no pyramid, and I started a long sweep through ancient, classical and other neglected wonders that were hanging unbuilt since the dawn of time.
This is how I managed my greatest coup ! After a long time (very poor production there) in Hattin I managed to get a Holy site beside a still standing wood (most of these were chopped for hammers a long time ago), and I landed the Mahabodhi temple !
I was hopping for one of the apostle to be a proselyte, but I wasn't THAT lucky. I was lucky enough that the temple had remained unbuilt, apparently all religions had been founded on our continent and no one had been able to build it, what with the wars and everything. One of my apostle immediately launched the inquisition (I still had no cities with my religion so couldn't get inquisitors anyway). The other went on a pilgrimage to Holy Mount Kilimanjaro.
When the holy man came back to Poprovka, he spoke to the people of their lost faith, not one, not 2, but 3 times ! Poprovka's people couldn't continue following the false Catholic, Protestant, Sikh Dogma that had taken hold over the years. When the majority of the people there went back to the true faith, the holy man departed. Inquisitors were immediately recruited in Poprovka, and they performed their duties admirably. The original pilgrim spoke 4 more time, bringing A'Tuinism back from the abyss as a new strong, vibrant faith for Arabia. A mix of missionary and inquisitors washed over Arabia and soon the True faith was also the Only faith.
Meeting houses sprouted everywhere, eventually a proselyte apostle was recruited and converted Preslav, Vilnius and Brussels to the way of the Great Turtle.
Their faith restored, in an extended time of peace they had long longed for, Arabs went about exploring the rest of the world, while the country was set for an early industrialization (I beelined it quite aggressively, as factories looked like the only way to get some decent enough production).
I got a few more wonder, among theses the Potola Palace in Aachen, The Forbidden one in Hong Kong, the Hagia Sophia in Pokrovka, and even mount Saint Michel in Aleppo. I also grabbed the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse, which had remained unbuilt for unknown reasons.
As time got on, I would not build additional holy site since quite a few of the cities I had captured had one, but added a few campuses and some commercial hubs, and as I usually do, industrial zones in every single cities. For a time, after the last Norse war and before my second commercial hub, I had a worrying deficit (around -10 each turn).
After eating through most of my cash, the "double commercial hub income" policy, then the addition of several new commercial hubs put an end to the problem.
I met the French and the Russian with my caravels (my first naval units ! hooray !), and set profitable trade with them (they didn't have as bad a relationship with me as Pericles, as they didn't know of us Arabs when we ate up Scythia, Norway and Germany), mainly for luxury resources and some GPT.
I had a lot of faith, as I had a scramble for holy buildings when A'Tuinism was threatened by German missionaries a long time ago and I then couldn't spend it until I built the Mahobadi temple, and I grabbed several holy districts from all my conquests. I set to convert all the city states to my religion, and some of the French, Greek and Russian cities, specially in the new world. Soon A'Tuinism was by far the dominant religion. Thankfully I realized in time that I should be careful enough to avoid a religious victory.
I found (with an adventurous mamluk) a long unoccupied peninsula to my east, south of Amsterdam and la Valletta; I had a wave of settler built and colonized it, settling 4 cities there, plus 2 more in the north.
I was racing through the tech, but Civics were slower : I never built any theater, and only got 2 in the ex-German cities of Aachen and Heidelberg. Monuments everywhere and the wonders were seemingly enough to get enough culture.
Production was now really a lot better once factories and their overlapping bonuses began sprouting everywhere. I got quite a few more wonder, notably a Big Ben that was worth almost 3000 gold, and notably ended up with 4 free additional policy slots (Alhambra, Big Ben, Pottola Palace and Forbidden Palace), which is pretty crazy. Make it 5 with Adam smith !
I used a mix of Faith buy (I had the belief which allow to faith buy scientific and cultural building), cash rushing, and a lot of caravans to develop my lands. There actually were no further wars, although I massed a navy (using the Venetian arsenal to produce Battleships) and hesitated to eliminate Greece, which somehow had access to 3 of the 4 oil resources on the map (Brussels had the 4th one), but really I had no need for oil.
I rushed through the remains of the Tech and Civics tree; In the end I built a Trio of spaceport, and rushed blindly through the great engineers, merchants and some scientists with district project in the rest of my cities (and with a lot of cities, this generates great people insanely fast). I really wasn't focused, didn't plan my strategy and could probably have finished quite a bit sooner (Actually I had a go at that from my last save and could shave almost 15 turns, despite that save being very advanced already).
I built my first Spaceport much too late, didn't prioritize the right science order, and could have rushed to the relevant great people much earlier to get the best bonuses for the job.
In the end, the Arab people considered their goals achieved when they had launched all the required modules into orbit, so as to send a party to explore Mars and hopefully get a better vantage point from which to study the Cosmic Turtle, in 1852.
I guess this is quite a late finish, I actually didn't follow any strategic planning to win earlier beyond an emphasis on science and production. Just by replaying the last part, without plans but better priorities, I could shave 15 turns. Without messing up science priorities (would have had to get farther back to fix that), a lot more could have been gained. I had a blast anyway, specially reviving my religion from the brink of extinction.
On that matter, I really thought A'Tuinism was dead after my failed save-scumming attempt, had my "so be it" moment.
Then later I saw that the Mahobadi temple (including the 2 free Apostles) was still unbuilt, and had a very long shot at building it (I had no holy temple next to a forest, and had to build one AND the wonder in a low production city). I didn't even know If it would really work and spawn A'Tuinist Apostle despite Hattin being Catholic while building the wonder...
But it worked in the end, and that was a fun idea to play with, and gave me quite an incentive to actually write a report to tell my tale, despite the shameful reload and everything.
In most of my personal games I had more room to expand, and usually more productive terrain (more hills, etc). In this game I only founded 4 cities until the discovery of the new world (which occurred very late in my game), most of my empire was made of AI developed cities, and obviously the AI needs a lot of work when planing its cities.
Really, does it even try ? Everything look like AIs build any district they can as soon as they can, without planing for the later ones, so they usually end up wasting good locations for a district with a wonder or another district, do not plan for tiles they will get later, improvements they can build... And of course, things like Chichen Itza on the only jungle in the city radius, providing exactly 1 culture (as an adjacency bonus for a theater) at the cost of one tile and 710 production.
Anyway, I found most of my cities had very questionable urbanism, and had to work around it and make do with poor early development. You don't have ta race for as much settlers as early, but the drawback is quite clear. Actually for some of my later conquest I think I might have been better off razing and resettling...
But in the end It taught me that adjacency bonuses, while making things vastly faster up to the industrial era (I was used to getting at least +3 adj bonus for almost every Ind zone in my previous games, here +2 were the good ones) actually don't matter THAT much once the regional effects of factory takes precedence. OK, I read people stating so, but experiencing it is still different.
So an efficient strategy for space victory might be to pack cities as close as possible and focus mostly on science to rush up the tech tree as science mostly need population after all, even if a few campuses are nice.
Then, just crawl-build factories everywhere (chopping or buying if possible) to get the craziest production for the actual late game and spaceship production. I probably don't have it in me to try again from the start, though, but that is certainly useful learning and interesting speculation.
Thanks for the game Sulla, I definitely enjoyed my first adventure (after yeeeeaaars of lurking and reading), I even found the will to report despite a busy life, and I'm eager to see what the other will have done with the game :-)
Do you know what turn number 1852 AD corresponds to? It looks like roughly Turn 300 from what I can see.