Swiss Army Desert Domination

[Swiss Pauli]

Adv 20 - Desert Domination

Well, my PC won’t handle Epic 11’s large map, so let’s have a romp around the sand dunes. Warlords 3 has got me in the mood for religion gathering, so in this Adventure I’m going to try for seven holy cities, and, if practical, not to train a single missionary. It’s Noble, so it should be possible because we know we’re up against non-Spiritual civs.

Now seven holy cities looks sweet at first glance as we can only building commerce multipliers in holy cities, but unique holy cities of later religions are probably less beneficial: the late religions won’t spread so easily, so - unless lots of Prophets are spawned - there won’t be much commerce to multiply. The most efficient approach, financially speaking, would be two or three cities with two or three well-spread religions. However, I’m as interested as in using my holy cities to dominate culturally as to drive my economy (so I’ll be pagan, then a Free Religionist).


We go settler first, a common move when pursuing a religion, and very necessary if I want to get a religion into city 2.



There’s one for Mecca. By the time I meet Cathy in 3240BC, I’ve found a nice site for my second city with fish and marble. The latter will be handy for an Oracle grab (CoL in all probability). Tech-wise, I’ve delayed Polytheism research to time with Medina’s founding:



Disco! If I were to have lost a religion, this may have been the one: if an AI hutted Mysticism then Poly would have fallen much earlier. I meet Fred and George and research towards Monotheism, plonking down Damascus on the floodplains to the south of Mecca.



I’m being slow in my settlement because I don’t want my new territories to pick up an existing religion. I’m also consciously settling out toward the AI, as I want to dominate culturally as much as possible. This means I’ve been putting some hammers towards Stonehenge, which is done in 975BC. Wasn’t a top priority, but the GPP in Mecca is welcome (and the cash refund would have been handy had I not got it).

More of a effort goes into the Oracle, which is completed in BC800, with CoL being selected and Confucianism goes to Baghdad. I don’t have a screenie of it’s founding, but the eagle-eyed may spy it on my cultural overview.




As you can see, Boney is south of Damascus and we’re already clashing borders, thanks to his choice of spot for Rheims. This will end badly, my Little Corporal, but you can certainly have Monotheism, if it’ll bring a smile to those chubby cheeks.

[Swiss Pauli]

Somewhere around BC500, my first Great Prophet is born, but he has to sit on his hands for a couple of centuries as it’s only in 325 that Najran is in place for the birth of Jesus in its stables:



In order to buff my commerce, I decided to research metal casting: I’ll have three coastal cities of my own and I’ve eyes on a few more from Cathy. And Astro won’t be considered on this map. The Big Fella gets nailed in 125AD, polluting the GP pool in Mecca, but more on that later.

I found Kufah in AD100: it’s a good spot, but I don’t want it to get a religion as it‘s a hinterland town. However, it’s smack between two holy cities, so I’m confident that it’ll catch one religion or another. Basra reaches out into the western desert, but as I finish research on Pacifism, Kufah is still pagan…



Both were size 1, but Basra was the newer, so Taoism went there. A settler went off to found a city in the eastern desert, but Kufah (now size 3) stubbornly refused to catch religion, so I had to abandon the no missionary sub-variant to ensure that Islam went where it was intended:

$


I thought about renaming the holy cities at this point: firstly as the Seven Dwarves, and then as the Seven Deadly Sins, but in the end I…couldn’t be bothered…how slothful, or should that be Lazy?




At this stage in proceedings, I start to turn my hand to military matters: Boney has placed Marseilles south of Medina, and was getting cultural pressure that would only get worse with Khurasan pushing from the other side. I’m quite late in starting my aggression as a result of all this religion gathering, but with Jumbos at hand (and Noble difficulty) France doesn’t stand much of a chance against my hordes.

Fred called up in 880AD, asking me to cancel trades with Boney and I agree. Half a dozen turns later, I launch the offensive. Boney has HBR, but as horses are only found in the northern half of Oasis maps, I‘m quite surprised to see a couple of Horse Archers spring forth to pillage. Turns out Cathy has been supplying him with Horses, in spite of religious differences. :mad: You’re next, missus.

As ever, Napoleon has a good amount of units, so it takes a while to overrun his lands, but Marseilles, Rheims, Paris, and Orleans are incorporated into Greater Arabia. Lyons is food poor, so it gets razed. I call off the campaign before attacking Tours: we’re looking at Longbows on a hill, and I don’t fancy the price as I’ve want a big army for the upcoming campaign against Russia. I also get Lit and Calendar from Boney for peace, which is a nice bit of pointy stick research. Paris:

[Swiss Pauli]

We’re at 1160AD and almost halfway towards domination. Colossus has yielded a Great Merchant, who gets cashed in for 900g; not a great yield, but OK for this map. We’ve been spamming Camel Archers since we got Guilds, so our troops are racing to Russian border to boot Cathy off the map: she’s Creative so I don’t want her culture cramping my style.




Jute, (food-poor) St. Pete, and Moscow fall without incident, but GW uses the opportunity to sneak in San Fran into lands previously under Russian culture: not bringing ‘combat settlers’ with my armies is a glaring weakness of mine. I retaliate with a culture bomb on Moscow, giving some use to the 10% Artist I’d just got from Mecca (pesky National Epic pollution). A few turns later, this happens:




Touché! GW sets off a suspicious cultural device of his own! I take some solace from capturing Cathy’s last city the next turn. Bye, bye, baby.

The spoils of war are helping my research tick over nicely, but Printing Press helps a lot when it’s discovered in 1430. I’ve not mentioned Liberalism yet, because the AI has been ignoring Philo, letting me duck down the lower arm of the tech tree, before switching back for a Chemistry grab in 1505. This lets me upgrade elite city raider Maces to Grenadiers, so it’s not looking good for Frederick: his lands border mine, and taking them will put me over the victory line.









Sums up the initial phase of the assault, as Cologne, Dortmund and Frankfurt are taken, and Stuttgart gets razed. This is looking like plain sailing, so I make a civics switch to Free Speech, Caste System and Mercantilism, so that I can pump culture in all cities, but especially in my new acquisitions. An 11% Artist bombs culture into Frankfurt.

Fred shows that there’s life in the old dog by sending out some Grenadiers, but his questionable (OK, rubbish) tactics sees them slaughtered on open ground. Essen falls in 1560, with Berlin succumbing in 1570. Munich and Hamburg are taken in 1590, and that’s the end of Germany.

This puts me at 64% land (out of 68% for Domination), so I extort some cash from GW and whack up the culture slider to close out victory ASAP.




A thoroughly enjoyable Adventure, I must say, even if I did not exploit the monk-economy to the max . I had three shrines by then end, but my main economic driver was Damascus, not only the Jewish holy city (ToS, bank, market, grocer), but also a spectacular flood-plains site, with cows, corn and gold to boot. It housed Oxford University, and, thanks to the Great Library, an Academy, too.

[DerangedDuck]

Beautifully played. A nice quick victory. Note to self: try to remember this 'quick' concempt in future games.

[KMad]

oh that is wild! our games were so different but so the same in spooky ways! your damascus is my Cuman, the same exact tile i think. it sure was a great city, i moved my palace there! i think i had a city at your baghdad too. your city of paris from the inside when you captured it ... could it be more different than when i got it in my game? but with all the differences, we won within one turn of each other hahaha! these alternate universes are so much fun! but you never did get nappy's pigs over in the southeast corner ... i think your game might have been a bit better if you'd have gotten them *giggle*.

[Chacal]

Nice game and report. I enjoyed reading.

I can understand that you would want to have a second city very quickly in order to make sure that your second religion will get founded there, but you imply that there's another reason to build settler first when going for an early religion. Why is building a settler better than a worker in this situation? At Noble and Prince (which is as high as I've played so far) I pretty much hit the worker button on auto.

Obviously this variant makes it very desirable to have your second religion in another city, but in normal circumstances I would have thought it better to have two shrines in the same city for the Wall St multiple. Please enlighten me!
Thanks.

[Swiss Pauli]

.. but you never did get nappy's pigs over in the southeast corner ... i think your game might have been a bit better if you'd have gotten them *giggle*.

"i don't dig on swine, that's all."

[Swiss Pauli]

Nice game and report. I enjoyed reading.

Cheers. It was fun to play, too.

...but you imply that there's another reason to build settler first when going for an early religion. Why is building a settler better than a worker in this situation?

It's fairly strightforward: worker techs, or the lack thereof, mean that settler first is often a better play than worker first when grabbing that early religion, especially as one increases difficulty (and therefore research time). Unless your initial unit gets killed, you should be able to grab and alpha site going settler first. Even if that scout/warrior does die, you can still normally get a good 2nd city established, and the earlier a second city, the better.

[Chacal]

Thanks.

And another question (if I'm not being too annoying...): You mention holding back your first prophet until you founded Christianity. What was the benefit of doing that rather than just packing him straight off to Damascus?

[KMad]

dude! i wish i'd let my nappy live so we could get him to meet up with yours and have their heads examined. i just looked at our paris pictures side by side. your "inside paris" picture is 80 years after mine. 2 forests left. mine has 10. but somewhere in there he found the hammers to build two wonders in mine, and just one in yours. what the heck was going on? i guess the french decided they were environmentalists in my world, even tho they were 80 zillion techs away from medicine? i'm freaking out. probably just need more bacon in my diet or something.