Time for a good, hard look at this game - the short version is the game is probably over, just everyone except me and the Archduke doesn't realize it yet. We'll see why shortly. I'll give you a broad overview of the Arabian Empire, my options as I see them, and potential long-term strategic goals. I've done a great job catching up, I think, but that turned out to be mostly because the Duke was gathering his strength for his next leap forward, and once again I'm in the dust. I can catch up, again - I have great long-term growth potential - but at that point he'll also have grown, and so on and so forth until he crushes me with 7 Provinces in 30-40 turns. Or Emperor. And then wins.
This is not a concession, just a realistic appraisal of my chances. I hope the lurker thread hasn't been slapping its forehead TOO hard at me, since I've tried to point out as many of my mistakes as I catch them, but yikes, we're still in a hole.
Finally I picked up Apprenticeship. Not grabbing this sooner was a huge mistake - I've got dozens of mines all across the empire, and I've been forgoing +1 production on all of them. That was 3-4 production per city, each turn. That adds up. Yikes. So why did I take so long? Well, a chain of mistakes.
1)I have not done a high-level overview of research strategy, the way that rho and Cornflakes repeatedly do. They nail which boosts to grab and plan long in advance for them. I have totally failed to do this and have just been stumbling through the tech tree. So, I never felt a pressing need to go for Apprenticeship, because I'm a dummy.
2)Apprenticeship is locked behind Horseback Riding, which is behind ARchery - and I kept delaying Archery until I had 3 slingers out, which was in turn delayed by my continual losses of slingers to barbarians. If I'd sensibly used my slingers as defensive garrisons, or if I'd trained more early warriors, then I'd have grabbed Archery much sooner and probably noticed the Apprenticeship beeline.
On the whole, not my finest moment. I have repeatedly remarked that it's amazing I'm even still in the running, given so many errors like this. In fact, score-wise, I'm neck and neck with the Archduke, and have a larger empire. My research rates are the real killer, though. We'll see those in a moment. So, what am I doing well? Well, like in my other games, I think I conceived a decent high-level trick - this time, leveraging the Ancestral Hall + Colonization to spam cheap settlers in relative peace. That's where my horde of cities has come from. BUT, those cities are all underdeveloped, both in housing - a recurring weakness of mine - and in districts, which are quite expensive to build. I'm going to focus hard on getting those two issues fixed. If I can manage that decently, I might have an empire that's semi-competitive with the Dutch. Just need Archduke to sit on his butt and not improve for about 25 turns.
Here's the immediate tech tree. Note how few boosts I have.
1)Stirrups needs Feudalism. Okay. We can delay that. I want to build HC first anyway. Not sure how many is a good number to target - one from each city? Enough to break the bank? I think "lots." Upgrade as many as I can afford, slip past Archduke's navy (or Rowain's, if I have to) and go nuts on land. That's my Hail Mary.
2)Military Tactics - a useless diversion.
3)Education - a useless tech for me! But necessary eventually. It can wait to be boosted.
4)Construction - should boost this. Zobrist's next build, I think.
5)Engineering - Will boost this soon. Need Limes first, then I'll start a mass chop around the empire.
6)Military Engineering - Need to place and build an aqueduct.
7)Machinery - Great tech for the lumber mills, there's a few candidates. Need 3 archers. I'd like Mercenaries first.
Here's the later tech tree:
Education opens up Mass Production, largely useless due to the VA ban or that'd certainly be my #1 priority on all fronts. But that would be the entire game for everyone, hence the ban.
Allow me a fond moment for yanking it out from under Sullla's nose in PBEM7. Ah, too bad I couldn't finish the rest of the game as well. Maybe now I could give those players a run for their money.
Astronomy seems useless.
Banking - I need Guilds civic. Long-term, I can probably land that. Not a great tech, since I have so few CHs. I need to slot 2 for later Eurekas, though.
Gunpowder - Needs an armory, which needs an encampment. That's a lot of production I probably can't spare. But once I have Muskets, I can try and kill a barb in the north (worth keeping that camp around?) to boost Square Rigging. Definitely worth considering.
Metal Casting is trivial to land. Not a priority.
Siege Tactics will be tough. Hard to justify the production.
Printing - I can boost htis down the road. The extra visibility is nice to have.
Cartography - this will boost in 10 turns, when Gordon finishes its Harbor. This seems the most urgent to me. The Dutch will be here soon, and the English not far behind. I need Caravels in hand for the end of the truce with the Archduke, and I'd like them for the attack on Mohenjo Daro. I can knock out 10 turns while waiting for the second Harbor, and then it'll be 3 more turns. So, eta Turn 115 for Caravels. Need to start hoarding gold.
I'll work out a long-term research strategy later, but for now I have time to land the boosts for Engineering and Construction, and can start working out a plan for the others. TODO list.
Let's look at Civics.
-flip-
-flip-
-flipflip-
-...-
-flip-
Okay, let's look at Civics later when I actually take a screenshot of the tree. Bottom line, we're grabbing DT now that we have a DoF with the Archduke and no one will be granting us the Eureka anytime soon. Plus Recorded History has to wait while I work out the Campus problem.
So, let's bite the bullet and reveal how badly science ahs degraded in the 20 turns since I caught up. Spoilered for length:
Astonishing 20 points higher than mine. Hattusa cost me 3 points, but wehre did the other 17 come from? I think 6-8 can be attributed to Natural Philosophy. The other half, from his high number of campuses? I look forward to seeing wehre Archduke gets the production to build as quickly as he does. Simply fantastic to see how much he's grown as a player - I confess, one of my role models. I want to improve like he does.
Rowain has sunk more resources into campuses, and has a smaller empire than me. His is mostly attributable to Recorded History, I think. With a smaller empire score, culture rate, and navy, I'm not as worried about America. A problem to be solved later.
Archduke has held a massive culture lead for a long time. He took God of the Open Sky, one of his favorite Pantheons (rightly so), and has built on it with Culture districts - at least one or two. He's enhanced that I suspect with a Culture city state out in the fog, because I can't quite get the numbers to add up otherwise. Regardless, it's a solid lead. Contrast it with Emperor's and Rowain's culture rates.*
23 points apiece, compared to 25 for me as my monuments come online. And remember, my culture is suppressed by 25% right now due to Monasticism, which means in the next age my own culture will surge by about ~6 points to 31 - clearly ahead of those two, but only about 66% of the Dutch.
Bottom line: If this were a 4-person game, I'd be crushing it right now. Rowain, Emperor, and Japper all lag the Arabians in Empire score, military might, and faith generation. Actually I have no idea about Japper, I'm making assumptions based on past performances. They also lag badly in culture, but Rowain does lead in science - at least until my cities start to translate into campuses and madrasas.
But it's not a 4-person game. It's a 5-person game. And Archduke is killing it. He has the most science, the most culture, the most military, and the most empire at the moment. I have more cities, but he has more and better districts. Part of it, I think it's fair to say, is attributable to the map - my starting island was -tough-, with little food and not as many choppables as I'd like (contrast it with the lush jungle of the Netherlands once I get around to showing the map), and part of it is the Dutch are really strong as a civ (Archduke's strong campuses and theater districts), but by far the biggest part is Archduke himself. He's done magnificently seemingly building everything, conquering 3 city-states, and fighting off an attack on himelf and keeping himself strong enough that I don't dare interfere (I see no reason to suicide into him to drag him down - why does it matter to me if Archduke wins or one of the other three does? either way it's not me and at least this way I have a chance to come back).
So. That's why the game is over, I think. Archduke is researching nearly twice as fast as anyone else, and has a strong empire base to back it up. He'll open the gap further, I think, in turns to come, he'll reach his UU and then he'll go murder someone. Maybe me, maybe Emperor. At that point he'll be too strong to stop and we'll all concede. I see three possibilities to stop that:
1)I somehow outbuild him and succeed with a sneak Mamluk attack. Low odds.
2)I pile into his rear while he attacks Emperor, and manage to bring him down. Medium odds, but tricky diplomacy.
3)I attack someone else (ie, Rowain) and conquer them and stay competitive.
Thus, I see no real chance of peacefully building my way to victory. I mean, war would have to come at some point - most likely by being first to Battleships - but yeah, I think it's going to come sooner rather than later, and it's going to involve a major strike either at Archduke or Rowain. Rowain's the easier target (except for his damnable combat bonus!), but Archduke would clinch the game. So much for research rates.
Okay, part 2. Let's look at my cities. How are they, and what do they need? Right we know that I need districts, and I think the best way to that is Limes chops. So, I need builders. What else do I need builder charges for? Let's take a look (also spoiled for length):
Escobar:
The capital is decent. 2 up and running districts with infrastructure fast coming in. Pingala boosts the outputs of my oldest city, and Monasticism boosts science even more. Escobar is responsible for over a third of Arabian science and a quarter of its culture. However, the hinterland is a goddamn mess - only 3 improved tiles, with soon to be 6 population. I need a builder to slap down some mines, with 4 candidate hills available. Food and housing would also profit from a farm out west, but the terrain precludes a Feudalism triangle. I could give up the hill to a farm, though, if I really needed the extra food.
Call it 4 charges - 1 builder.
Zobrist:
After a slow start, our #2 hitter has become my premier production city. The vast network of hills has given Zobrist nearly twenty cogs, and the fertile river tile has led to swift growth. We've been over the issues with, ah, population of course. Housing is limited, even with a granary in place. Zobrist punches below its weight in science at the moment with a district slot given over to the Government Plaza. That's paid off in the Ancestral Hall, of course, but it's annoying at the moment. We have 3 possible farm sites to alleviate housing and food issues in this and neighboring cities, and 1 more chop+mine available. We could also build a lumber mill there to boost Mass Production and use it as a fine production tile in the meantime, so call it 6 charges needed here.
Cain:
Cain has been sadly neglected, I think - no builder attention since the initial visit 50 turns ago. Cain has 2 more mines and a chop/farm available. 4 charges. The two unfinished districts mean the city is rather weak - we could get it up to 15 production fairly easily, it needs a granary in the near future, and the campus and harbor need to be finished. Once the campus is done we'll fill it in with faith-bought libraries and madrasas. If we hit size 7 there's a good Holy Site available as well. We're up to 15 charges, which is at least 3 builders.
Moustakas:
Young Moustakas is growing. It has a Harbor placed, and next will probably be a Campus or Holy Site - depends on whether Faith or Science is in more demand. Two forests are available, and another pasture soon. I'd rather lumbermill those flat plains tiles, so call it 3 charges. There is 1 chop available further west, though, a prime target for the Limes move. 18 charges total.
Gordon:
Gordo is fantastic at only 3 pop with all those hills! It can churn out lots of things, fast - maybe a better target for a builder pump than Liang? It has no choppables, barring those forested hills across the bay, and food is reliant on a few flatland tiles and seafood. I need 1 more farm (in Zobrist's territory), and one more mine further south. Call it 2 charges here.
Morales:
Morales has limited production, but its strenght will come from the Culture and Science districts I slap down around the Plaza. There are 2 farms available, 1 possible mine to the east, and 1 chop, so we'll round off to 4 charges here. Production is hard to come by, so getting the districts out will be a challenge. I'd like to chop sooner rather than later so I can place a cheap Theater on the forest.
Colon:
Youngest city has a purchased monument boosting border growth, since I didn't need the gold for emergency war upgrades. Now I'm saving for Caravels or Mamluk upgrades, so no more purchases if I can avoid it (maybe a single round of Land Surveying if I get greedy). It has fantastic tiles already, but like everywhere else in Arabia food is limited. It has perhaps 2 mines in the near future. Call it 2 charges. We're up to 26 total - 6 builders with Liang.
Davis:
Our home city-state isn't the greatest, thanks to the barren location. It's modest, but really reliant on seafood. 2 charges could harvest the marsh and replace it with a farm for a quick boost, and there's some choppables around. We'll round off to 4 to make it an even 30 charges total.
Hosmer, Rios, and Perez are still to be founded. 1 settler is on the map and sailing for Perez, 2 more are in queue. Gonna go ahead and finish them, we'll use the walls for chops.
Finally, scores. Archduke is slowly pulling ahead in Empire:
Overall, yeah, I still don't think I will win. But I think I have a better shot than any of Archduke's other 3 opponents. But he remains, as he has for the last 60 turns, in firm control of the game.
I hope this report didn't come across as gloomy! Actually, my own mood is fairly cheerful - I'm having fun, learning a LOT, and if I can't win, well, at least I'm keeping Archduke honest. It would have been nice to romp to victory, though. Anyway, long term strategy seems clear. I'm going to put my research rates in a competitive position via the following:
1)Build lots of builders (ugh)
1a)Fuedalism wave? Maybe! The timing si right, we just need a few more farms. I've got 3, I think.
2)Limes walls while the builders make initial improvements.
3)Wall chops into districts.
4)Save future faith for library purchases to insta-boost districts. Maybe Madrasas better ROI with the faith?
5)Heavy Chariots
6)Mamluks
7)Ride for ruin, and the world's ending
8)also Temples -> Apostle -> Wats would be nice, and Crusade.
9)Shit. Crusade would be REALLY nice.
10)Get a Temple and buy an apostle sometime before step 7.
Clear enough, right?
*I apologize for not editing and condensing the shots into one or two pics each throughout this report, but that's a level of effort that I can't afford to invest at the moment. The management thanks you for your patience in this matter.
I've been thinking about Petra in Rios, and wondering if that's viable or cost effective.
This is a "back of the napkin" micro plan. I am assuming that you can get one trade route sent to Escobar on t12 (because that's a convenient turn for my math!) A different arrival time shouldn't change things that much, but a 3f2h route could have a big impact.
t0 - Rios founded (2f1h), immediately purchase 2nd ring sheep hill. Begin construction of granary (65h). builder moves towards 2nd ring sheep hill. Steal 3rd ring improved sheep hill from Escobar (2f3h). Net yields: 2f4h
t2 - builder pastures 2nd ring sheep hill (1/4 charges). Work the new pasture, return other sheep hill to Escobar.
t3/4 - builder moves to and mines hill southwest of sheep (2/4 charges)
t5/6 - builder moves to and mines hill west of Rios (3/4 charges)
t7/8/9 - builder moves to and mines copper (4/4 charges)
t11 - trader moved into Rios
t12 - grow to pop 2, steal and work Escobar sheep hill (2f3h, housing 3 -> 4). Trader sent to Escobar (3f1h). Net yields: 5f8h
t15 - granary finishes (1f, housing 4 -> 6, 7h overflow). Purchase 2nd ring coast and 3rd ring flat desert. Start on Petra (7/400h). Net yields: 6f8h
t19 - grow to pop 3, work mined plains hill (1f4h). Petra 39/400h. Net yields: 5f12h
t28 - grow to pop 4, work mined plains hill (1f4h). Petra 147/400. Net yields: 4f16h
t42 - grow to pop 5, work unimproved plains hill (2nd ring escobar, or natural border pop). Petra 371/400. Net yields: 1.5f18h
t44 - Petra finished! (7h overflow). Reallocate tiles stolen from Escobar. Builder needed to improve desert hills. Citizen assignments before further improvements: plains sheep (2f3h), 3x mined plains hill (1f4h), desert sheep (3f2h). Net yields: 1.5f18h
t?? - complete 2x desert hill mines and desert hill pasture, work those tiles. Net yields: 2.5f19h
My takeaway from this? Hardbuilding Petra would be fun, but it's very likely not worth it. Rios can be a decent enough producer in it's own right, although it will need a trader and a few stolen tiles to do it, and there is a lot of other stuff you could do with those 400 hammers over 30 turns. IF you think you can drag out the game into the later eras then go for it, but if your goal is to recreate the Pelennor Fields (which, in my opinion, you totally should) those hammers are better spent on chariots.
I think if you do build petra, it's going to have to involve an overflow chop from one of those forests around Gordon. I don't see any other way of getting it up fast enough to really matter.
(October 30th, 2018, 00:37)williams482 Wrote: I've been thinking about Petra in Rios, and wondering if that's viable or cost effective.
This is a "back of the napkin" micro plan. I am assuming that you can get one trade route sent to Escobar on t12 (because that's a convenient turn for my math!) A different arrival time shouldn't change things that much, but a 3f2h route could have a big impact.
t0 - Rios founded (2f1h), immediately purchase 2nd ring sheep hill. Begin construction of granary (65h). builder moves towards 2nd ring sheep hill. Steal 3rd ring improved sheep hill from Escobar (2f3h). Net yields: 2f4h
t2 - builder pastures 2nd ring sheep hill (1/4 charges). Work the new pasture, return other sheep hill to Escobar.
t3/4 - builder moves to and mines hill southwest of sheep (2/4 charges)
t5/6 - builder moves to and mines hill west of Rios (3/4 charges)
t7/8/9 - builder moves to and mines copper (4/4 charges)
t11 - trader moved into Rios
t12 - grow to pop 2, steal and work Escobar sheep hill (2f3h, housing 3 -> 4). Trader sent to Escobar (3f1h). Net yields: 5f8h
t15 - granary finishes (1f, housing 4 -> 6, 7h overflow). Purchase 2nd ring coast and 3rd ring flat desert. Start on Petra (7/400h). Net yields: 6f8h
t19 - grow to pop 3, work mined plains hill (1f4h). Petra 39/400h. Net yields: 5f12h
t28 - grow to pop 4, work mined plains hill (1f4h). Petra 147/400. Net yields: 4f16h
t42 - grow to pop 5, work unimproved plains hill (2nd ring escobar, or natural border pop). Petra 371/400. Net yields: 1.5f18h
t44 - Petra finished! (7h overflow). Reallocate tiles stolen from Escobar. Builder needed to improve desert hills. Citizen assignments before further improvements: plains sheep (2f3h), 3x mined plains hill (1f4h), desert sheep (3f2h). Net yields: 1.5f18h
t?? - complete 2x desert hill mines and desert hill pasture, work those tiles. Net yields: 2.5f19h
My takeaway from this? Hardbuilding Petra would be fun, but it's very likely not worth it. Rios can be a decent enough producer in it's own right, although it will need a trader and a few stolen tiles to do it, and there is a lot of other stuff you could do with those 400 hammers over 30 turns. IF you think you can drag out the game into the later eras then go for it, but if your goal is to recreate the Pelennor Fields (which, in my opinion, you totally should) those hammers are better spent on chariots.
I think if you do build petra, it's going to have to involve an overflow chop from one of those forests around Gordon. I don't see any other way of getting it up fast enough to really matter.
Oh, wow, thanks for running the numbers and saving me some work! That's actually a better timeline than what I had guesstimated, which confirms something that was hovering in the back of my mind: Petra (and by extension, Rios) in this game will basically never be worth it. Let's be generous and say Rios works 6 desert tiles (on average). Petra is granting Rios +6 production. Total. To pay back the 400 hammer cost, that's nearly 70 turns (67, I believe) - on top of the 44 I sunk into building the damn thing. Sure, I get the food and gold yields, and by extension a trickle of science and culture, but with the settler and the granary we're looking at nearly a 700 cog investment that won't turn positive until turn 220 at the earliest.
So Rios, like his real-life counterpart, is basically an ineffective city. I see nothing else of redeeming value about that location, and I'm going to send the settler to found our first foreign colony somewhere near Mohenjo Daro instead. It'll be Dyson something-or-other, wherever it is.
I also am going to crunch the numbers on a Mamluk attack later today, after work. The main limiting factor will be gold for upgrades, with the time to generate it being my research time to Stirrups, with or without a diversion to square rigging (there is no profit in going for Stirrups now - we have 25 turns or so before we can even attack Rowain, and I don't intend to do that...well, maybe I intend to do that. We'll look at it). A complicating issue is the impossibility of generating a Great General for the attack. No one took the Ancient general, which means I need to generate 60 points and THEN generate points for the second guy, which will take ages with one encampment, and divert production from military units. And telegraph my attack a mile away. My strength will spike and telegraph my attack as is, but I think the others won't see a land rush coming, anticipating a primarily naval attack instead.
On the whole, evaluating the rough build outline above, I've come to the final decision that Arabia is indeed more of a Single Player civ than a Multiplayer one ("Wow, brilliant deduction, Chevalier. Nobel prize winner over here!"). Yes, yes, this was broadly accepted before the game, but we'd only seen one Arabia before and I thought maybe I could milk more out of them than Alhambram did.
The thing is, Arabia has a lot of interesting kit when all put together. The Last Prophet is not ideal, as we've been over, but the +1 science per foreign city really rewards spreading your faith aggressively (which is why I've sent a pair of Missionaries to the Archduke now that we have a DoF. Rowain I haven't bothered, since he has his own religion, but looking at his paltry faith generation it might be worth it...Mental note, look at Hail Mary religious victory). When you add in the cheap worship building, which ALSO grants +10% from the city (if I take a Wat, Escobar for example at this very moment would earn +4 science from the Wat alone, almost as good as a Madrasa and DAMN cheap at 19 production! Basically free!), and the Madrasa, it's really easy ot see how late-game Arabia would be a science monster, like a more religious Korea. The Mamluk is a bonus thrown in.
What I hadn't considered was the sheer amount of effort it takes to activate all that kit. First and foremost, you need a religion. I didn't push as hard for one as I could have, opting to expand first. Japper did the opposite and from the score I think my route was the better one. I still was very slow due to wanting ot line up a chop to do it - probably being too cute for my own good there. Hopefully you get an early religion and get good beliefs - in SP the Last Prophet will take care of this for you. Another reason Arabia is probably a SP civ.
But even now I haven't activated Arabia yet! Now, I need to spread the faith - and not just to my cities, which passive spread can do, but with active evangelizing. That means investment into missionaries, which I've done, but it's faith siphoned off from Apostles and Jesuit Education, both of which also are key to the strength. (EG or GotH are basically required to make Arabia work, I think). Then you need a vulnerable neighbor, and I've lost half my potential recruits to Rowain, since Inquisitions are so cheap and effective. Good thing I didn't start between Japper and Rowain or I could basically kiss my science bonus goodbye.
Then again, I could have just conquered one of them and been fine. You win some, you lose some.
As you're spreading your faith, you need to work towards the next step: the Unique Madrasa building, and the Temple to unlock an Apostle or two to evangelize. That means you need two districts basically required ot get the most out of your civ. Most other civs can get away with one. Now, you want to build campuses anyway, but they directly compete for adjacency with the other essential district, the holy site. With cities being limited to 3 or at most 4 districts in multiplayer, having 2 jostling for attention is a really steep cost, ESPECIALLY on a water map where you also need Harbors. But if you DON'T build holy sites, then your faith income to take advantage of missionaries, apostles, and JE is limited, and you don't get the worship building.
At the same time, though, temples and madrasas are expensive to build. 225 cogs for a Madrasa, which is .5 Petras! 105 for the Temple, which means per city you're looking at 330 cogs (.75 Petras) before you're all set up. And that's NOT counting the cog cost of the Campus or Holy Site and the library/shrine. That's a HUGE investment in production on the whole, when you have settlers, builders, city buildings, and military units competing for the precious cogs. At the end of it, I'll have a shining city - +14 science from the various buildings without other bonuses, +10% culture, +10 faith or so - but man, the start up cost is steep, steep.
And that's the issue. Look at that build queue. Only Escobar is nearing the end of the "set up phase" - most cities don't even have their first campus/holy site completed, let alone two, and it'll take ages - long after the game is decided - to get those set up, and finish the shrine/temple/wat, and save up to buy the Library/Madrasa with faith. In the meantime, a more straightforward civ like the Dutch will sink the normal amount of cogs into a juiced-up campus/theater square, a bunch of 7 Provinces, and then conquered a neighbor and be way ahead of me with way less investment.
Which everyone know before I started. To quote T. S. Eliot,
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. "*
So yeah. Arabia is a strong civilization, but not in the frantic environment of multiplayer, when speed and simplicity are king. If only I'd had the option to choose a civ that's simple to play available, one that doesn't require a lot of investment to activate its advantages, one that would compensate for my island with its limited housing and my poor culture.
* From Little Gidding. I think the game uses it for the Exploration civic quote.
(October 30th, 2018, 06:52)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: On the whole, evaluating the rough build outline above, I've come to the final decision that Arabia is indeed more of a Single Player civ than a Multiplayer one ("Wow, brilliant deduction, Chevalier. Nobel prize winner over here!"). Yes, yes, this was broadly accepted before the game, but we'd only seen one Arabia before and I thought maybe I could milk more out of them than Alhambram did.
The thing is, Arabia has a lot of interesting kit when all put together. The Last Prophet is not ideal, as we've been over, but the +1 science per foreign city really rewards spreading your faith aggressively (which is why I've sent a pair of Missionaries to the Archduke now that we have a DoF. Rowain I haven't bothered, since he has his own religion, but looking at his paltry faith generation it might be worth it...Mental note, look at Hail Mary religious victory). When you add in the cheap worship building, which ALSO grants +10% from the city (if I take a Wat, Escobar for example at this very moment would earn +4 science from the Wat alone, almost as good as a Madrasa and DAMN cheap at 19 production! Basically free!), and the Madrasa, it's really easy ot see how late-game Arabia would be a science monster, like a more religious Korea. The Mamluk is a bonus thrown in.
What I hadn't considered was the sheer amount of effort it takes to activate all that kit. First and foremost, you need a religion. I didn't push as hard for one as I could have, opting to expand first. Japper did the opposite and from the score I think my route was the better one. I still was very slow due to wanting ot line up a chop to do it - probably being too cute for my own good there. Hopefully you get an early religion and get good beliefs - in SP the Last Prophet will take care of this for you. Another reason Arabia is probably a SP civ.
But even now I haven't activated Arabia yet! Now, I need to spread the faith - and not just to my cities, which passive spread can do, but with active evangelizing. That means investment into missionaries, which I've done, but it's faith siphoned off from Apostles and Jesuit Education, both of which also are key to the strength. (EG or GotH are basically required to make Arabia work, I think). Then you need a vulnerable neighbor, and I've lost half my potential recruits to Rowain, since Inquisitions are so cheap and effective. Good thing I didn't start between Japper and Rowain or I could basically kiss my science bonus goodbye.
Then again, I could have just conquered one of them and been fine. You win some, you lose some.
As you're spreading your faith, you need to work towards the next step: the Unique Madrasa building, and the Temple to unlock an Apostle or two to evangelize. That means you need two districts basically required ot get the most out of your civ. Most other civs can get away with one. Now, you want to build campuses anyway, but they directly compete for adjacency with the other essential district, the holy site. With cities being limited to 3 or at most 4 districts in multiplayer, having 2 jostling for attention is a really steep cost, ESPECIALLY on a water map where you also need Harbors. But if you DON'T build holy sites, then your faith income to take advantage of missionaries, apostles, and JE is limited, and you don't get the worship building.
At the same time, though, temples and madrasas are expensive to build. 225 cogs for a Madrasa, which is .5 Petras! 105 for the Temple, which means per city you're looking at 330 cogs (.75 Petras) before you're all set up. And that's NOT counting the cog cost of the Campus or Holy Site and the library/shrine. That's a HUGE investment in production on the whole, when you have settlers, builders, city buildings, and military units competing for the precious cogs. At the end of it, I'll have a shining city - +14 science from the various buildings without other bonuses, +10% culture, +10 faith or so - but man, the start up cost is steep, steep.
And that's the issue. Look at that build queue. Only Escobar is nearing the end of the "set up phase" - most cities don't even have their first campus/holy site completed, let alone two, and it'll take ages - long after the game is decided - to get those set up, and finish the shrine/temple/wat, and save up to buy the Library/Madrasa with faith. In the meantime, a more straightforward civ like the Dutch will sink the normal amount of cogs into a juiced-up campus/theater square, a bunch of 7 Provinces, and then conquered a neighbor and be way ahead of me with way less investment.
Which everyone know before I started. To quote T. S. Eliot,
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. "*
So yeah. Arabia is a strong civilization, but not in the frantic environment of multiplayer, when speed and simplicity are king. If only I'd had the option to choose a civ that's simple to play available, one that doesn't require a lot of investment to activate its advantages, one that would compensate for my island with its limited housing and my poor culture.
* From Little Gidding. I think the game uses it for the Exploration civic quote.
I think you're probably right about the economic side of Arabia's game, but (naive optimism alert!) Mamluks might be enough to save your game. We all know how effective a HC -> knight mass upgrade rush can be, and Mamluk healing means you can better sustain an assault. If you can land a dozen or so Mamluks and a ram on Archduke's continent before he can get his Sevens (two big ifs there, admittedly), I like your chances.
One other thought: is that healer GS available? He would be cheaper and less obvious than a general, but with Mamluks, might be even more effective.
Well, true. A lot is riding on getting successfully across the water, but if I can, I think I'll have the upper hand. He'll raise merry hell on my coastal cities, but I should be able to hold Escobar and points north, and in the meantime I can kick the stuffing out of his core.
To that effect, I have a series of General Staff Studies commissioned in the next few days to look at the following possibilities for victory:
1)"Operation Astro," a Mamluk invasion of the Netherlands.
2)"Operation Blue Jay," the same, but at America.
3)"Operation Metropolitan," the chances at a backdoor religious victory.
I've done some initial noodling on each of these, and I think each is viable, but a long shot. I'll post more details later.
I apparently missed 103? Probably I just mislabeled the last report. Anyway, let's dive in before I do those staff studies.
I finish my first Madrasa, and boy, is it a whopper, especially with Monasticism! Our science jumps TEN points, up to 44/turn! Just 10 behind the Netherlands. More worrisome, Archduke has finished Cartography:
That had to have happened recently, I think - his ships stuck to the coastal waters when he attacked Hattusa. That means he needs to earn 790 beakers or so for Square Rigging, which puts his eta (at present science rates) at about 14 turns or so. That should coincide roughly with the expiration of his friendship with Emperor K, and would give him about 10 turns of free reign to go after England.
Now, that could work. Let's say turn 130 is my target date for a Mamluk invasion. I can start research on Stirrups after Cartography, skip square rigging for after, and save up as much gold as I can. I've got 10 crabs and coppers to work with. I can save 1 charge from each builder, let's see...from my table, harvests will come to 200 gold, I think? Magus can be present for 2 or 3, for a trickle more, but not much. That nets me about 2,000 gold to work with. I should naturally generate ~800 more, so call it 2800 gold if I spend nothing. It looks like upgrades will cost 355 gold if I'm reading the table right, or 180 with Professional Army slotted. So with Professional Army, I could upgrade damn near 15 Mamluks. I can't even operate that many near Dutch cities, not and also have ram support. So gold won't be an issue, which is good, since I need a few for Caravels.
Okay, civics needs to go Feudalism -> Mercenaries, for sure. Not sure I'll get there in time but I'll try.
Spoilered, here's an overview of the empire. The battering ram at Davis is intended for Mohenjo Daro, if I forgot to mention that (I think I might've), I'll lead with a pair of Caravels, I think. Should be plenty. Note the vast amount of crabs and copper nearby.
That's my working plan, but I'm also open to invading Rowain if he looks vulnerable, or trying to knock out Japper and snipe Rowain's holy city (he seems to have only 1 Holy Site from his paltry faith generation - a Proselytizer apostle could strangle his religion in the cradle if I catch him off-guard). That would leave me iwth the only religion in the game, and I'm determinedly working on spreading it to the Archduke during this DoF, with Emperor following along. It's a heavy lift, but it's just barely in the realm of possible, if not plausible.
Civics, belated:
9 turns to Feudalism if I get farms up.
Civil Service, not happening.
Military training, not happening.
Mercenaries, just possible with my HC. I'm at 5 right now. In a pinch, could I whip out 3 scouts? Worth testing.
Medieval Faires much harder to manage, but I could do it with Merchant Republic...which, ah, is behind Medieval Faires so not happening.
Guilds, not happening.
Monarchy, probably the next target after Mercenaries.
So if we beeline Mercenaries, we should just manage to grab it in time if I get the Eurekas I can manage (farms and soldiers).
Good lord, how has it been a week since I posted!? 6 days! You tell yourself, "Need to write that turn report...eh, I'll get to it this evening." Then evening rolls around and "I'd rather go to bed - I'll knock it out tomorrow morning before work." Then tomorrow morning comes and "Oh shoot, gotta play the turn! After work I will write TWO reports." Then it's the afternoon and "Well, I need to get ready for Halloween..." and next thing I know WELP
Anyway, let's try and get caught up real quick here.
My finishing Apprenticeship triggered the end of the Classical Era, as Rowain and Archduke were already in the Medieval era. I'm hemorrhaging Era points that would be VERY handy to try for a Golden Renaissance Age, so I'm actually impatient to move on, although I'll regret the loss of Monasticism. The fleet is moving north to Mohenjo Daro. I have two galleys that will hold for Caravel upgrades (due when Gordon finishes its Harbor), then they will be the tip of the spear, supported by my Quads and a battering ram.
That should be ready to go ~turn 111.
I also get a look at some of Rowain's territory, with a VERY nice 6-science campus with a library:
That should mean a 4-adjacency campus, yes? Or a 2-adjacency campus + Natural Philosophy. I really need more Campuses of my own - the fact that I'm keeping pace in science with only one campus is astonishing and a testament to the power of Monasticism. Escobar is responsible for nearly half of Arabian science output at the moment!
Meanwhile, I busily spread my religion to Dutch shores:
It's possible taht this will annoy the Archduke. I get more science and more gold for every city - to say nothing of evangelizing Crusade! However, he ALSO gets the benefits of Jesuit Education, something to spend his excess Faith on, to juice up his Theater Squares and Campuses. I think I get more of a benefit, obviously, but he still profits compared to everyone else.
There is a small window here. Archduke and Emperor have no religions of their own. Rowain has a weak one, and Japper is a weak civ in general. If I can convert Archduke, the prospect of conquering Rowain and Japper, or forcibly converting Rowain's lone Holy Site and then conquering Japper (or letting him be conquered) opens up the possibility of a religious victory. The only downside is I'd really need different Enhancer beliefs (30% cheaper Missionaries, Monastic Isolation, and Mosques instead of Wats and Crusade) than what I've taken. I do think our community continues to discount hte possibility of a religious win, since the overuse of Declarations of Friendship really opens people up to it.
We found Perez al Muhay'min:
I place a Pasture and a Harbor, and get to work on the monument. We'll work on the harbor afterwards. Perez is mostly a naval base, with little room to grow, but it'll get good production and be able to churn out lots of ships. I'd like to get a lighthouse, too, to unlock a trade route. But the damned things are so expensive! It's really hard to spend that production when I can avoid it - but I'm also still stuck on 1 trade route. Would it be better to have sucked it up and gone for it? There always seems to be something with a faster payoff, but traders are not to be sneezed at. I'm sure I've played this suboptimally, but hey, what else is new? :D
Turn 108 brings a shuffling in government:
Saving gold for my Chariot upgrade, Ilkum in to prep for the Feudalism wave, Diplomatic League since I'm in exploration mode, and Monasticism, of course, as the cornerstone of my science.
Here's a look at Emperor K's capital, Teklis, right across the water from Archduke's empire:
Don't recognize the naming theme.
We also meet Japper, on the far side of the world:
Japper makes decent faith and culture, roughly on par with me, but his science is an appalling 25. However, he does have as many cities as me, though with a lower population in general. He is VERY close to Emperor. On the whole, there's not a lot of room between anyone's islands at all - Archduke and I's large sea may be the LARGEST inter-island sea there is.
Here's scores. Starting to look like a 2-horse race, but I expect Archduke to pull away. His foundation is stronger than mine.
I'm not sure what I had in mind when I took this screenshot, but it looks nice enough so here you go:
Make of that what you will (in b4 some lurker "why the hell is Chevalier building a TEMPLE!? He CLEARLY needs to be working on [something far superior to a temple right now that I haven't seen because I'm an obvious idiot.]") (Ugh, the punctuation at the end of that parenthetical. -shudders-).
Actually, there may be something to be said for ignoring infrastructure at this point and just pumping straight military. My science base is enough to drag me to Stirrups in the timeframe I want, I'll get Caravels soon, and that's the tech tier I'll want to make my push in - so why NOT just go for Heavy Chariots now? Well, the main answer is that's just not in my DNA as a player. In singleplayer, I'm always tardy and slow to attack the AI, even when I'd win easily. I'm very much a sandbox player - my pleasure in Civ stems from watching the map fill up with beautiful buildings, roads, and units as you roll through the ages (one reason I like Civ 6 more than Civ 5 - that never happens in 5! I love the district system for that reason alone!), not from solving optimization problems. So why play Multiplayer at all, then? Well...because the AI is dumb as a bag of hammers, and I need challenging opponents. I would also like to win, and I'm doing my best to get there, but it's mostly me aping moves that I know are winners - I'm acting against my own natural instincts the whole time.
Still, I'll do my best, as I said. :3
Mostly I keep exploring while prepping the builder wave at home. Hosmer will soon be settled, and I need to decide next turn where to send the latest settler out of Zobrist - to the all-but-useless Rios, another spot on my home island, or abroad to establish an overseas colony. Here's a bit more of Indonesia:
And a bit more of England, with a library under construction:
At home, nothing changes from last time - no builds finish, the navy is sailing to Mohenjo-Daro or awaiting upgrades, which should be available in ~2 turns.
After waiting a full week, we finally have a turn!
I don't even remember what's happening in this game anymore!
Oh, right, Archduke and me, locked in a cold war.
I find a way to pick up the naval tradition inspiration:
Not sure if I NEED that one, but every little bit helps. We can use it for an emergency policy swap later. I need to keep up with Archduke's monstrous culture - the Theater squares stacked with the Pastures are really feeding him well. He's doing a great job playing to his strengths. I'm trying to a similar job playing to Arabia's strengths, but it's really hard. One more sigh of regret for Germany and Rome...
Anyway.
I explore some more of England's coast, looping back along Archduke's island. I don't want to circumnavigate before the new era, I've thrown enough era score in the trash already, and I worry I'll be starved for it in the Medieval era.
In fact, when I press on a little further, I see how close the Archduke's borders are to Emperor. That HAS to be the early city-state that Archduke conquered, and it's easy to see why Emperor was upset about it. Unfortunately, it seems getting knocked back in the war has dispirited Emperor. He's lagging badly in most categories, especially domination. I think he's trying to switch to infrastructure to catch up, and sees building for war again as a fool's game. That's disappointing from my end, but perhaps the right call.
Of course, consider Archduke's behavior in PBEM2, in PBEM4, in PBEM6, and PBEM8. He's going to attack you again, dude, so do what you can to prepare anyway.
I'm counting Archduke's aggression, in fact. The hope is his navy will be tied up with England, long enough for me to get my army across the water. If I can land 7 or 8 Mamluks in Holland, intact, then I think I'm a fox in the henhouse. Any land forces to speak of will almost certainly be established in the south, at his land border with England, and if he's beelining Square Rigging, he's NOT beelining muskets. I'll be able to take any inland city almost permanently, and the coastal ones I'll happily raze. My own navy can try and play defense and wait him out. If I can remove him as a competitor, then I think the game is wide open. Rowain and I are both doing well, but I think I've got a lead on him and my civ will be coming into its own.
As you can see, we're neck and neck, really - but his research rates are far above mine. Now, I had been planning on this wave of builders chopping out campuses and holy sites and whatnot. But I'm rethinking that.
If my invasion works, I'll have plenty of time to build infrastructure. So maybe I should just go Mamluks now. CHop straight itno Heavy Chariots, start my crab harvests. We grab Feudalism, then Mercenaries and research towards Stirrups. Let the war with the Archduke happen, THEN we've either lost the game or we'll have time for wall->campus chops.
I hope that's not leaving things too late, but I think it's a better priority than infrastructure now.
Fingers crossed!
I plan to stage at Perez, then land the first wave on the northeast coast there. Strike inland at those cities hard and fast (Brannigan's Law), then we can work out how to take the more dangerous coastal cities later. That's the key to keeping the 7 Provinces neutralized - take the offensive, don't give them a chance to attack your own cities.
Anyway, long term strategy seems clear. I'm going to put my research rates in a competitive position via the following:
