I am going to nuke Saladin if I ever get the chance!

[MrPhil]

I am playing my first marathon game and I share a long border with Saladin. He was able to nab most of the iron and copper resources in the area so his technology always is one step ahead of mine.

He will attack my cities with Grenadiers, Camel Archers and Catapults (to my credit, he has never conquered any) and let more of his freaking camels roam my lands destroying all my infrastructure. After he has destroyed everything I have except for my cities and specifically guarded resources like gold mines, he offers a reasonable truce. Of course by this point my lands are pillaged and I jump at the offer.

I go about rebuilding everything and when I am about 50% completed he declares war on me again. This time he brings his Cavalry and Rifleman versus my Grenadiers, Musketman and a few Knights. I am still in the midst of this battle now. Again his damn camels, with some rifleman, are pillaging my resources while his other units attack my cities.

I swear, if I survive this war and get nukes (of course he will probably get them before me), I am going to radiate as many of his cities as I can!

[Huskerfan]

Try switching to his religion until you can get back on your feet.

[Robert]

Get mighty friends!

[Strategist83]

Get Mansa Musa too while you are at it!! Annoying ***** went on a raid in my lands just because I refused to share 'alphabet'. Montezuma attacking is one thing - since that is to be expected - but Musa? Damn! Roast that SOB!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

and let more of his freaking camels roam my lands destroying all my infrastructure.

nuke the bastard

[MrPhil]

Originally posted by Huskerfan
Try switching to his religion until you can get back on your feet.

That is a thought, thanks!

[MrPhil]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Get mighty friends!

I tried, unfortunately the only two real "allies" I have are Napoleon but he is weaker than I and my lands cut him off from Saladin and Catherine but, she recently declared war on me out of the blue after being pleased with me. Fortunately she is on another continent right now.

[Blake]

Those moaning camel hordes are a pain in the ass.

Ofcourse you only got in this predictament by not killing him right away. At the start Saladin is fairly passive and easily invaded for some sweet holy city booty. Come camels he has a change of personality. Saladin isn't quite on my kill-on-sight list, I prefer to let him build me some nice stuff first ... but... he does have to go sooner or later, because he can't be trusted.

[MrPhil]

Originally posted by Blake
Those moaning camel hordes are a pain in the ass.

Ofcourse you only got in this predictament by not killing him right away. At the start Saladin is fairly passive and easily invaded for some sweet holy city booty. Come camels he has a change of personality. Saladin isn't quite on my kill-on-sight list, I prefer to let him build me some nice stuff first ... but... he does have to go sooner or later, because he can't be trusted.

I have learned this lesson the hard way. He is my future enemy #1 in all new games..........

[johnmcd]

I never have bother with Saladin, I find him to be extremely dependable. He will sometimes make demands, but that's fair enough.

[Crossfire]

I agree there. I would much rather have Saladin as my neighbor than Monty. If I have any contact with Monty I just start building troops because that bastard IS going to die. After all, it's him or me.

[Hauptman]

anytime i have permanent alliance turned on, Saladin is the FIRST one to ask me to ally with him... careful though he likes to build space ship parts in his crappiest cities. I think Mansa has him on the payroll to slow down your spaceship build.

[MightyTiny]

MrPhil - I think that with successive games what you learn is a better handling of diplomatics. Religion switch is indeed a good option if threatened by a more powereful neighbour that you really don't want to fight... yet.

I did that in my ongoing game, when I had botched up my diplomatic dealigs earlier on (I had tried to be friends with Tokugawa - I gave him gifts of gold, one tech, plus I shared the same religion with him, and he STILL wouldn't give me open borders. Damn xenophobe!)

I'm playing a game that's turning out very interesting: A one city challenge as Masa Musa, on noble, on a large pangea map with raging barbs.

Got a tech lead that just MIGHT prove to be enough for a space race victory, but got in deep trouble there at one point: I had messed up my diplomatics, and had no real friends, and then the most powerful nation in the world (the azteks) attacks me, and Montezuma (who else) joins in. Fortunately my army was strong enough at that point to repel the attacks, and I managed to get peace soon enough to survive. What I did then was forget about that idiot Tokugawa, and switch religions to match my largest, most powerful neigbour Ghengis Khan, gifted him an old tech, some gold, and later agreed to join him in a war against someone who didn't have realistic chances of hurting me. Now we're best buddies, and when Monty now attacked me (for the third time in the game), I managed to get Kublai to join me against him.

So sometimes switching sides diplomatically can be worth it, if your current tactic is running against a stone wall.

[dearmad]

Saladin has always been a wimp to the end in my games- such a pushover.

[Kruztee]

Re: I am going to nuke Saladin if I ever get the chance!

Originally posted by MrPhil
I swear, if I survive this war and get nukes (of course he will probably get them before me), I am going to radiate as many of his cities as I can!

I just found out for myself in a recent game that the diplomatic penalty for nuking is not nearly what it used to be in civ3! In fact I'm pretty sure that civs who were not pleased or friendly with Napoleon didn't even bat an eyelid when I started irradiating half of France. Even from French allies I was only taking a -1 diplomacy hit IIRC!

I can remember the entire civilized world declaring war on me for nuking in civ3....

So bombs away MrPhil!