Initial techs

So somebody said he was lost when he looked at all the new techs. It took me a while, but I think there is an optimal tech path depending on your situation.

a. Optimizing science and economy
Way of the Celestial Masters (cheap tech that allows the equally cheap advisor mansion=monastery which gives more science and a free specialist--it's amazing how the AI neglects this often)
State monopoly (need blacksmiths)
military advisor (to protect yourself and prereq for poetry)
reformed poetry (try to build Tianlu library)
Jianan literature (farms have hammers)
code of laws (then switch to meritocracy and agrarian colony together)
Ancient dictionary (for catapults, not for Zheng's Academy which is too expensive to build unless you start with blacksmiths and can generate a great engineer in time)
household tax system (bulb with merchant) (+1 trade routes)
Regular Script (allows you to sell maps like mad for about 700-1000 gold, depending on your location)

Trade for shipbuilding, bridge building and drainage system after the Canal is built, then go for calendar (for oligarchy)

b. Optimizing military
Swordsmanship
military advisor (for the national wonder)
state monopoly
high-saddle bridge (if you don't already have it)
ancient dictionary (catapults)
anesthesia (for colosseums which give exp points)
professional army
nine bestowments (wuwei swordsmen)
blades (more powerful axes)
advanced riding
(the rest doesn't really matter)

c. Jungle/plantation rich civs
Way of peace (if you don't start with it)
anesthesia (chop jungles!) (why Liu Chong starts with it I don't know)
bridge building and drainage system
calendar

d. culture--pretty much the same as a. except emphasize
Way of the Celestial Masters (early monasteries=early culture)
Regular Script (can convert hammers to culture)
Noble Music (allows theaters and Music Bureau=Sistine Chapel)
Blades (allows culture slider) Most important to turn the slider at 10-20% early on
State Education
Laws of Wei--not that you want vassals but it's prereq for:
Wei and Jin's Grace (allows Spagirism Workshops which give 50% culture)
I usually trade for Secretariat because it's usually late that I get to build big cathedrals (i.e. Regional governments)
Then aim for folks of Wu which gives a free great artist

This mod is rather innovative and against the civ4 norm of spamming cottages, in that farms, watermills and windmills have much more value than cottages, workshops or mines. In fact, early on I build nothing except farms unless I can't, then I do cottages, and after wooden ox, I convert as many farms as possible to watermills. The reason is because farms have hammers after Jianan literature (agrarian colony civic) and later on, ranking classification returns the lost food that your watermills took away, i.e. watermills with ranking classification is equal to a farm with 1 more hammer and 2 more gold. Nothing beats that, even with fully grown towns.

The fact that farms and watermills need fresh water means that traditionally strong civs have lots of rivers while weak civs only have flat land (Liu Bei and Yuan Shu are clearly disadvantaged this way, because they either have no access to lots of river tiles or their culture doesn't envelop them).

Large cities = more specialists = more production and science

AP, I have a request, in our thread back in Modpack section, someone asked for a brief tutorial that tells him what to do. Since you played this game thousands of times more than me myself, I think you'd be the perfect person to write that. It will be included in the next patch if it rocks.:D

Here's the link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7802995&postcount=289

What say you?:crazyeye:

You mean something like what I wrote for RFC: http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye%27s_and_Fall_of_Civilization_ generic_strategy

Yeah, I can do that. It's basically hit or miss initially but eventually you figure it out (for example, it took me a while to learn NOT to use slavery at all because food builds units).

Wow! I didn't know that!

But wait, we don't seem to need a that long one. Players need tutorials partly because my introduction at the first post is too long.:lol:

OK, I'll do a short one on Liu Zhang (a major player who has the best turtling position while being at war with a relatively weak civ Zhang Lu). I think Yuan Shao and Cao Cao's situation is tough to do in one page since you have to do so many things at once.

This mod is rather innovative and against the civ4 norm of spamming cottages, in that farms, watermills and windmills have much more value than cottages, workshops or mines. In fact, early on I build nothing except farms unless I can't, then I do cottages, and after wooden ox, I convert as many farms as possible to watermills. The reason is because farms have hammers after Jianan literature (agrarian colony civic) and later on, ranking classification returns the lost food that your watermills took away, i.e. watermills with ranking classification is equal to a farm with 1 more hammer and 2 more gold. Nothing beats that, even with fully grown towns.

The fact that farms and watermills need fresh water means that traditionally strong civs have lots of rivers while weak civs only have flat land (Liu Bei and Yuan Shu are clearly disadvantaged this way, because they either have no access to lots of river tiles or their culture doesn't envelop them).

Large cities = more specialists = more production and science

I totally agree. Instead of spamming cottages, I spam farms, windmills, lumbermills, and especially watermills. I generally always switch to agrarian colony civic and ranking classification. This is because there are sooo many "fresh water lakes" i.e. the wide rivers that separates certain areas. I make any river tile that I can a watermill, and most the other tiles end up as farms, mines, and windmills. Add in a levee with all these rivers bonuses, and its clear that anyone with rivers around their lands, has a HUGE advantage over other civs. Its not even close... honestly if you don't have rivers in your land relatively soon, its basically impossible to do conquest victory (unless your playing on perhaps prince or easier).

I'll write a short description on what I think is the best early strategy while using my favorite character: Lu Bu

Also just for clarification, this is for the 68x64 196 AD scenario for 2.01 & patch A. Also I've tested this strategy on Diety difficulty/Epic speed and it works.
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Lu Bu starts out in a tough position. He is at war with Cao Cao and is heavily outnumbered. He is unpopular and starts with the worst of civics and beliefs. His capitol is roughly garbage, hardly worthy of being called a city, but the other one (I forget the name right now) is decent.

Also with the increased maintenance for cities, and the new maintenance for legions, its next to impossible to keep research levels high, early in the game. In fact on diety level, I was at 0% for about 10-15 turns, while I had to heavily micromanage my cities to keep from going completely bankrupt and all units on strike.

First things first you'll need to deal with Cao Cao by any means necessary. This will mean drafting an Anti-Cav Battalion in your capitol and moving all units in your capitol up to the other city. Stay on the roads and when you see Cao Cao's main army approaching, move to the hills/wheat just west of your 2nd city and defend it with at least 3 units. This is to keep Cao Cao in the open grasslands where he'll be easier to kill next turn.

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Also you'll want to build an archer in your capitol and a warrior in your 2nd city. And research Fishing. It'll be the only tech you'll be able to research before your broke and begging for mercy with this strategy (on diety). But you will rise from the ashes like a phoenix and eventually outshine all your rivals.

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Hit Cao Cao's main army with at least 2-3 xbows, until your best units (attached to legions) can kill Cao's strongest units with at least 90% odds. By the time most of his army is dead, you will have earned a great general. Attach said GG to the warrior you produced in the 2nd city, and continue to build Anti-Cav Battalion and/or archers in both cities.

I like to make the warrior(aka anti-cav battalion after free upgrade) my healer specialist, so I give him medic I, II, & III and let the group heal for a turn.

By now Cao Cao will have another army coming for you, this one smaller than the first. Protect the wheat/hills again and kill his army again. By now you've got some very experienced and dangerous units.

Once the whole group is healed, move the weaker of the two legions (both units) up to Cao Cao's northern most city. Take the other legion (all units) and any other troops you have to the closest Cao Cao city (directly west of your 2nd city).

Remember to never attack across rivers and that speed is everything! You must overwhelm Cao Cao before he has time to re-group.

Once you have those two cities (which you should be able to do without losing any troops, or perhaps 1) you should heal in the one closest to Cao Cao's borders. Keep sending archers to newly conquered cities and build markets or culture producing buildings.

Again once their healed, split your army once again (to take the next 2 closest cities). Go for the western one with the weaker stack and the southern city with the stronger stack. After that, go directly to the choke point city that is south/west of where your units already are.

You should be able to literally grab 5 cities from him without much of a fight, after you kill his two main attack armies. Taking his capitol and his other city we're a little harder, and by this time (playing on diety) you have ran out of money and have to micromanage like crazy to keep from having units go on strike.

It'll be all worth it though.

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Keep organized in the choke point city, and let the main attack stack heal. Once healed, move straight south to Cao Cao's capitol and take it asap. Rinse and repeat for his other city. He might even have another city to the west if he attacked Bai Bo (sp?).

By now your bankrupt, and science spending is 0% and your wondering if this was all worth it. Well it is. With any luck you will have captured Cao Cao's legions (leaving you with 5, and 3 of them are already level 3 or higher), taken all his territory and gained emperor support. Not to mention captured the Unification holy city and killed your fiercest rival.

Now is the time to switch to Unification, but first you must switch out of indifference. I like to switch to Noble School, Legalism, and Normal at this time. Not to mention it'll give you 3 turns to escape the inevitable crashing of your economy due to capturing tons of cities and legions. When thats over, now switch to Unification.

After your horrible 4 turns of anarchy (maybe 3 if on easier difficulty) your economy will no longer be crashing, and you'll actually be able to maintain 20% science (on diety). Keep building markets and other stuff to improve your economy, and now your on the path to glory.

I can post some more screen shots or answer any Q's if you have any. Just ask.

Wow, aggression really works. :lol:

The other civs for which early aggression works is Ma Teng, Zhang Yang (attacking Ye, Han Dan and Dun Qiu early on pays off big later) and Yuan Shao (forget about Gongsun Zan and head straight for Cao Cao's lands). Kong Rong must be eliminated early or they start pumping out archers.

Liu Zhang: an intro to HoTK

Congratulations! You have decided to download and play one of the most innovative and historical mods for Civ 4. Now it's time to start conquering China and declare yourself emperor! :king:

Uh, not so fast. May I suggest starting with Liu Zhang, a much maligned figure in the novel on which this mod is based, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In history he kept Yizhou (which forms the base of the Kingdom of Shu) peaceful and prosperous until he was unceremoniously ousted by the would-be emperor Liu Bei. You have some appropriate traits: spiritual (which is nice because it'll allow you to experiment with the new civics) and protective, and you're only at war with that religious fanatic, Zhang Lu who you'll crush in no time. Your location is secluded which allows a lot of exploring without immediate danger. But all this in good time. As with all civs, read a little history about each character first before playing--it'll save you a lot of grief.

All civs have a trait which gives them certain advantages. LZ's guerrilla tactics means that he can derive 1 food and 2 hammers from mountains, which will allow you to grow big cities in the mountainous Yizhou.

You start off with knowing most of the major players of the game, and it's a good thing to open borders with most of them. Built a scout from one of your cities bordering Liu Biao (a distant relative) and get your foreign trade routes.

The tech tree is very different from the old one, but some functions are the same. I would suggest starting with starting with Animal Husbandry (since your capital has some free pigs) or Way of the Celestial Masters which gives you Advisor Mansions, which give different benefits depending on your Belief, plus more science. Thereafter, it's up to you either to go the war path (Military Advisor, ancient dictionary) or wondermonger (state monopoly for workshops and production). Calendar is a very important tech because it'll allow plantations, and your capital, being a major city, needs Silk for its benefit to come online. Calendar also allows Oligarchy which allows happiness without troops (Despotism) and research (just like Representation in Civ 4).

Speaking of civics, the others you're running currently are Corvee (which allows military units to be built by food, so your city essentially stops growing), Hereditary and Confucianism (workers build quicker and faster cottage growth). You don't have any workers so start building them! In the meantime, you might want to switch to Mohism initially to get an extra 10% of science until those workers come online.

Belief is your political outlook on the future of China. You're currently running Revival (i.e. of the Han Dynasty) which is somewhat appropriate historically. However, you'll note that some of your cities have Division, which suits your location much more. So it's up to you whether you want to convert all your cities to one or the other. Indifference is actually not such a great option because it'll deprive you of many useful buildings. You're now in Normal which allows Advocates (i.e. those who spread belief) to be built without Advisor Mansions. Later on, you may want to switch to Strong, which has lower cost but less benefit for getting great people and if you do get some shrines (Zhang Lu has one right north of you), you can always switch back and spread Religion around for money.

One big difference between this mod and regular Civ4 is that farms, watermills and windmills have a lot more strategic value than cottages or mines, when you adopt certain civics. (This is somewhat appropriate since China is known for its big agricultural basis). So don't go spamming cottages all over, because you'll have to build some farms to grow.

You have 1 hero to start with named Zhang Ren who later almost killed Liu Bei in history. Click on him and you'll find the option to form a legion. Initially you can choose just one unit to attach him to, which will give that unit certain benefits. Later on, you can detach the hero and reattach it to a different unit if you want. You can capture or buy heroes, and as their experiences grow, more upgrade options will come up, but their maintenance costs also go up, so use them wisely. Great generals have been replaced by Champions, which will give the usual experience points to your units if you attach them to one, and these units can also join legions for extra skills. They upgrade for free.

If you were wondering why Zhang Lu hates your guts so much, read about it in Wikipedia or Sevopedia which will help you learn all the new wonders and tech trees. This is not a substitute for reading the novel, but it's almost as good. If schoolwork was only so easy in real life...

I saw this AP, thanks!

Now it's time to link it to the publishing post

@AP

Excellent write-up :goodjob:. One thing, not every Advisor Mansion gives a free specialist. It is Unification Advisor Mansion that does so. LZ's belief is Revival.

@stmartin

It is quite difficult to extract building info from XML files because you keep tags for religions and their building as they are in BTS. I needed to figure out that Christianity stands for Unification, Judaism for Revival, Islam for Division, etc. through the gamefont.tga file. I know that this should saved you a lot of time (and trouble) but it is basically a simple text find and replace operation through files (Notepad++ can do it). Sometime, somebody might like to prepare a documentation of the mod by extracting info from XML files.

@Kalimakhus

It's likely the XML confusion be solved in the next few patches. Lots of work for our XML guy.

Military advisor (relatively cheap early tech)
reformed poetry, build TianLu library and get for free:
Jianan literature (farming has hammers)--expensive but worth it

Using Reformed Poetry and Jian'an Lit, a lot of other techs can be traded from friendly civs, e.g. state monopoly, drainage cellar (after the Li Cao Canal is built), shipbuilding, ancient dictionary, bridge building, code of laws. The AI for some unknown reason prioritizes bridge building and drainage, which are the most useless techs for small cities.

It's also fun to have Royal Hunting Field and build other civs' unique units, and Chancellor Mansion for more great people.

Early on, never use a catapult for collateral damage if you can use a crossbowman. Reason is you need the bombardment, and unless you get ancient dictionary, you can't build those precious catapults. Corvee and a good size 5-6 city can build a crossbow in 1-2 turns.

Honestly I never use catapults except in the very beginning if I start with some. Kinda like how I never use horse archers... not sure why anyone would want a horse archer over an elite rider. Also like the trebuchets vs the catapults. I always pick trebuchets (And yes I probably spelled trebuchets wrong but my spell checker doesn't know how to spell it either). Nearly the same with Xbow vs archers. Xbows are still nice defenders so I tend to ignore any other archer units, simply cause for the cost Xbows, they are one of the best units for killing large enemy stacks. But I still keep a few other archer types around for purely defensive. But really the best defense is a good offense, I find most "defensive oriented" units to be generally quite weaker, especially in the open field to their offensive counterparts so I don't waste too many hammers on them. Even spearmen I'll only have maybe 1 or 2 in a 60 unit stack. They just don't have much of a role unless your playing vs a behemoth AI that wants to kill you.

I find the two lines of Cats, and Trebs quite useful, so I always keep a number of both types in my SoD. I tend to have more Trebs however. When it comes to attacking cities Trebs are more useful. They lower defenses faster and when causing collateral damage they are either as good as Cats or better due to their city attack modifier. However, in open field trebs are almost useless. They lose the advantage of city attack modifier and their basic strength is lower than cats. So if I need to soften an enemy stack in the open field I use Cats. (note that what I mean by cats are the two more advanced types not the early one that you use only because there is no alternative).

But what I meant was in early game, when nobody can build catapults because of lack of Ancient Dictionary, there is a big difference between getting a city after bombardment vs having all your units die because you couldn't bombard. When there's only 50% with walls, you can bombard it down to nothing in 2-3 moves. (That's all assuming you don't play Gongsun Zan of course)

Having the emperor is a good thing, it allows you to bribe the AI to do stuff not in their best interests. Zhang Xiu and Liu Biao each had quite a large stack in their cities, and I wanted to eliminate both of them without causing massive damage to my stacks. So I bribed Liu Biao to declare war on Sun Ce. Zhang Xiu was left with about 1/3 of his troops in his cities, and I have enough espionage to eliminate most, if not all of his troops in 1-2 moves. Then Liu Biao will put me above domination limit.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=206086&stc=1&d=1236457977
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=206087&stc=1&d=1236457977

@AP

I was replying to Shiggs713. concerning the early game, I agree with you. If I am fortunate to have a few cats I only use them to get rid of city defenses. If my best unit can't kill defenders after that I use crossbows to soften the defenders. Usually the only units I build early are crossbows for that purpose and to station one of them in the city after taking it. They are cheap and effective.

On other note, I think horse archers are quite useful. They start with a higher withdrawal chance than Elite Riders so they serve well in attacking powerful stacks. They will weaken the best units in a stack if not kill it. If they survive they will damage siege units in the stack making it less dangerous.

I guess when playing on higher difficulties you get to appreciate the variety of units more as you won't be able to build just gigantic numbers of them, and you will meet some large AI stacks probably composed of more advanced units than yours.

Anyone have any idea about the new rebalancing of units? It seems Daodun Swordswen were nerfed quite a bit, making the AI Guardian spam alot more effective. Throwing Crossbowmen at them seems to work, but that invariably leaves me with high war weariness and carries the risk of not having enough troops to mop up. Cavalry would be a great solution, but my legions can only do so much at once and regular cavalry doesn't stand a chance.
I guess that attrition is becoming more and more necessary, unless you have multiple legions attacking a single city.

1. Stay in Corvee until you have a decent amount of land (read: most of Cao Cao's land)
2. Finish off Yuan Shu easily (with the use of crossbows and then mopping up with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei). Declare on Bai Bo, open borders with Cao, traverse Cao's territory and get Xin An/Hong Nong. Capture Ru Nan to have easy access to Xu Chang. Luoyang is usually lightly defended, declare on Cao Cao after resting and you'll get both cities when he's still busy with Lu Bu.
3. Capture capitals first if possible (you get half their culture which means you'll have enemy troops on your turf)
4. Xia Pi builds Military Advisor and churns out axemen/crossbows. Xiandeng swords are useless against Lu Bu's anti-cavalry battalions.
5. Trade for ancient dictionary from Wang Lang. Research military advisor, reformed poetry, get Jianan Literature and build the 2 wonders (Xia Pi and Xu Chang, the latter for Royal Hunting Field to get some special horses later on).
6. The Prince of Chen will trade you anesthesia eventually if you play nice and involve him in wars against Cao Cao.

I don't remember who it was, but one of my Liu Bei heroes had a promotion that weakened nearby opponents by a certain percentage each turn (awe-inspiring). I felt the same thing happening to me while I was playing as Sun Quan attacking Cao Cao's Wan, so it must not just be specific to Liu Bei. This is a must-have promotion, better than any city-attack promotion! (probably only counteracted by a doubly-promoted medic)

The other must-have is water-assist--either rivers or ocean will give you 20% more attack. Probably limited to Wu generals.

BTW, has anybody obtained a golden age yet from their heroes (small chance of getting golden age after a victory)? Must be really small indeed.

The promotion I saw that weakens foes was called Dread. I have yet to get a golden age from my officers new promo. You get it for defeating enemy core unit?

Dread is awesome, though not very useful in seiges unless the enemy is damaged already. I have to really test the Triumph promo with Guan Yu. Assault + Tough + Triumph should = win. Especially against all those weaker officers around.

Dread is awesome, though not very useful in seiges unless the enemy is damaged already. I have to really test the Triumph promo with Guan Yu. Assault + Tough + Triumph should = win. Especially against all those weaker officers around.

I'm playing Liu Bei, and with Guan Yu and Zhang Liao both having the A+T+Triumph promo, I'm having almost a continuous stream of Golden Ages. I purposely don't kill off my Rivals, and hit them one city at a time for the free GA's.

After each city, I grant them peace. While my GA is going on, I move to another rival, declare on them with a turn or 2 left in my GA, with Lu Bu or Zhang Fei's siege taking down their defense. Then, when the city is takable, I hit them with Guan Yu or Zhang Liao for the free GA. If I DON'T get the free GA, I wait another turn while their hero regroups, then hit their core troop again. Delaying taking a city for 2 or 3 turns is definately worth the GA.

At this point, Guan Yu is making Cao Cao's Xaouhu twins his personal b*tches.

P.S. Lu Bu is a tough nut to crack. Make sure he's in the depth of his fight with Cao Cao before going aginst him. Helpful if you've got Open Boarders with Cao Cao, to have a scout observe how the fighting is going. Start out by using Yuan Shu as a trainging punching bag.

Yeah, with the new promo rebalancing, Triumph is awesome! Xiahou Dun is hard to take down when he has a full legion though, since Guard seems to give +50% vs. ALL Legion members.

Zhang Liao is definitely the most powerful hero of this release though. He gets the best promotions, and though he lacks Vigorous IV, he gets Indomitable, Persuasive and Dread. Since he also gets Defence I, he doesn't have Lu Bu's weakness on the defence. If he does get caught off guard by a major stack, Indomitable is great! It's saved my elite units more than once.

The Guard promotion works only against core troop, it's only the help text that's wrong, adding/removing the enemy legion hero's Guard promotion and then target them again will not change the combat odds.

The triumph is good, but perhaps we could have a little tweak here: making the golden age chance dependent on the enemy hero's level, say 5% per level, so defeating weaker enemy heroes will have a lesser chance of triggering a golden age than defeating stronger enemy heroes.

Ah, that's good to know on the Guard promo. Your idea with triumph would be great though!

I just noticed that the length of the Golden Age is cumulative with Triumph! Forget my previous strat, I'm just gonna roll over all my rivals with the Guan Yu/Zhang Liao combo! Currently I have 23 turns of GA from destroying 2 stacks from 2 separate nations, in 2 turns!

I declared on CaoCao to lay seige to XuChang. He paid off DongZhuo and HanSui to declare on me. To bad for him, I managed to capture XuChang before his reinforcements arrived. I don't know if it's part of the AI, or just coincidence, but the 2 forces reached me at the same time, backing each other up!!?? I was facing 3 generals with 6 cats, 5 halbs, 8 riders, and a few misc troops combined. It's wierd seeing DongZhuo's halbards defending HanSui's cats.

BUT, too bad for them, I hit them with LuBu leading LiuBei's unique unit, the something-or-another crossbows with massive collateral damage, then Guan Yu and Zhang Liao defeated a general each for 2 GA's in the SAME TURN! They started running back to Cao Cao's territory, and I finished off the stack with my collection of generals, and Zhang Liao got ANOTHER GA by taking out HanSui himself.

Too bad I'm still a few turn away from completing the WW that extends GA length! Or it'd be 35 turns!

Wow, that's nice... I never really bothered to get triumph all that often, simply because Golden Ages don't mean as much to me as some of the other abilities.

As for some random strategic talk, do you attach all your champions to a single general (to maximise bonus leadership xp) or do you spread them out. It really helps out generals who can get lots of promo's, but can be horrible at times because if your whole legion consists of champion-led units, if your core troop is defeated he can't attach to another legion member. This is especially deadly for Zhang Liao (as Lu Bu) because his loyalty dissapears after a bit, making him defect to almost anyone who defeats him, especially Cao Cao.

An Introduction to HoTK: Sun Ce
The year is 196, and China is in turmoil. Long gone are the days of the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the tyrannical Dong Zhuo. Now, regional warlords vie for power, each with their own equally ambitious goal. Yuan Shao of the North begins his invasion of Gonsun Zan's territory, Cao Cao of the Central Plains seizes control of the powerless Emperor Xian and Liu Bei begins on the path to restore the Han Dynasty. Two years previously, the young Sun Ce, a decedent of the famed Sun Tzu, was detached by his lord Yuan Shu to conquer a foothold in Southern China. Surmounting all odds, the young Ce began reclaiming lands that he believed were the rightful territories of the Sun family while defeating far larger forces with apparent ease. Still, despite his successes, the enemy Liu Yao still retains hold over much of the land coveted by Ce. Beyond Liu Yao lies the hated enemy, Liu Biao, slayer of Ce's father, Sun Jian. Here we begin. The legend lies before you.


Updated to: V2.4, Patch B
Last Updated: 08/21/09


Introduction: Well, you've done it, you're now playing one of the greatest mods ever made for CIV. My goal with this guide is to ease you into the game's immersive atmosphere while explaining all the bells and whistles. I also strive to achieve a high level of quality in this guide, and will attempt to keep it up to date with each successive version. As you can probably tell, I'll be introducing you to the game with Sun Ce, also known as the Little Conqueror.

Game Setup: First of all, the game comes with several scenarios. I'd recommend the 51x51 196AD map for beginners, as it contains all the action of the others, along with a faster pace in general. I'd also highly recommend that you have the music pack installed, as nothing kills the feel of conquering China more than blatantly European medieval chanting.

Starting the Game: Ok, you've started the game up. Notice Sun Ce's traits, fairly straightforward, but also the most powerful combo in the game. War God's awesomeness will be embellished on later. Now into the actual gameplay. First thing you should see is a nice stack with your flag waving over it, standing right next to one of Liu Yao's cities. There's even a few heroes in the stack! Yep, right into the action! However, I'm going to be a nice little bore and explain the domestics first. After that we go tromping across China, smashing heads with our heroes. By all means though, skip ahead to the fun part unless you really absolutely want to know about the economy.

1.) The techs: Usually the first thing I look at when playing mods. You might be looking at the massive tech tree wondering how the heck they can break 90 something years into all that. Either way, Way of the Celestial Masters is your best bet choice at the moment as it allows you to build the equivalent of a Monastery, but called an Adviser Mansion. I'll go more into this later. After Way of the Celestial Masters, there are a few key techs that are worth focusing on. The closest priority tech would be Bridge Building not only because they're lots of rivers in the map, but also because it allows you to build Danyang Armies. Those guys, and their upgrades, are basically are the most versatile and most powerful unit for a good two-thirds of the game. The second priority tech would be Calendar. Same reasons for being good here as it is in normal CIV. Calendar is conveniently located on the same path as Bridge Building for further ease. The final and biggest priority tech is Canal. This is true for all factions, as Canal allows Levee's which give bonus hammers AND gold to riverside tiles. Yep, I said gold. +1 commerce to be exact. For Sun Ce, his UB gives +1 hammer and gold on riverside and ocean tiles. If you remember those three techs, the economy should be no problem in this game.

2.) Civics: This is going to be short. Switch to Noble School. Anything else is simply your preference. Labor Civics often allow military units to be built with food. Oh, and avoid Indifference. Government buildings are far to good in this game for you to pass up.

3.) Belief: A change from the religion system, the belief system represents what your rulers goals are. It's quite well explained in the Pedia, so I'll just so out and say Unification is the best. Revival comes close, but Unification is the best. That being said, convert to Unification right after your civics anarchy ends.

4.) Buildings: You're in the unique position of having traits and a UB that can make all coast tiles yield 3 food, 1 hammer, and 4 commerce early game, and and addition 1 hammer and commerce later on. So what are you waiting for, build river harbors in cities near the coast, followed by either Barracks or whatever suits your taste. Most of the buildings have effects similar to their CIV counterparts, though Granaries are far weaker. If you take the time to look up all the buildings that a tech allows when you get it, you should get this part of the mod down easily.

5.) The Units: The military has been completely redone in this mod, though it retains the same concepts. Halberdiers (who are essentially axemen) have the +50% vs. Mêlée and Swordsmen still get the city attack. Each unit line (Halberdier, Swordsman, Spearman ect.) has 4 levels, with each level getting 3 more strength than the previous one. Swordsmen also get an increasing large city attack bonus. For you, Sun Ce, there are the awe-inspiring Danyang Armies. These guys get +25% vs. Mêlée and Mounted, can walk on Coast, and have higher base strength than all the other units, even Cavalry. If you're playing on the 51x51 map, you don't start with any, so building them will be your first priority. On the other maps, you do (or did), allowing you to steamroll until your economy tanks. Their only drawback however, is they only get 3 tiers, making them about par with the other lategame units strength wise, while still retaining their limit of 12 and higher build cost. Cavalry have also undergone a slight tweak. They now have a promotion (Cavalry) that grants +30% withdrawal chance, +10% Grassland and Plains attack, and -40% strength in hills and -50% in forest.


War, aka Crushing others beneath the heels of your Legions

Now that you've fallen asleep reading my list of rather boring and dry tips, wipe the drool off the keyboard and start conquering! First of all, click on that nice little stack you have and select Sun Ce. After you've selected yourself hit the Form Legion button. A nice screen should pop up with a list of units to select. Here's where you look at the bottom left. You see the letters shown under "current" (the top ones)? That shows how many of that unit type you can have in your legion. Below are the max levels the hero can achieve. D is 1, C is 2, B is 3, A is 4 and S is 5. They also grant a modest bonus to the troops, so in a D level Legion for Mêlée, a Mêlée unit would get any legion promotions, plus +10% strength. A C level Legion in Mêlée would grant +15% strength boost by comparison. The best part of Legions however are that they can grant additional base strength depending on the level of vigorous the hero is promoted to. Each Hero also gets access to different Legion promotions, such as those that boost attack strength, and also special Hero Promotions that only affect the core troop, the one the hero is physically attached to. Those special hero promotions are usually very powerful and have specialized effects.
Furthermore, each Legion can only contain one unit type.

Back to Sun Ce. I'd recommend selecting a Swift Rider unit to be part of his legion, even though he has a D currently in Mounted Aptitude and a C in Mêlée. I do this in part because he can promote all the way up to an A aptitude (same as Mêlée) in Cavalry, along with the fact that his unique hero promotions are far more suited to Cavalry than to Mêlée. I would HIGHLY recommend looking at the Hero section in the Pedia at this point and just browse though all the promotions. Not only are they interesting, but the Hero portraits are quite nice.

Now we load Cheng Pu up with Mêlée units, and attack! Each time a legion member wins a battle, the hero gets experience based on how much the unit gained in battle. This means attaching a Champion to a unit in a Legion and giving it the Leadership promo will net the hero double experience from that unit too! Either way, you will defeat the pathetic garrison and defeat Taishi Ci. Taishi Ci may or may not join you, but you better hope he will, because he can sure make life difficult later on. Next move South until you hit Liu Yao's next city. Make sure your Core Troops (the ones the hero are with) don't lose in battle, because if they do, the Legion loses it's movement and suffers a strength penalty. If there are no more legion members to flee to (like in Sun Ce's case) they could suffer a serious injury. If heroes sustain enough injuries, they die. Each hero can take a different amount too. Sun Ce can take about four, so don't lose him. If you do, then your younger brother will take over the country and you can say bye bye to your traits and your best hero. If you play your cards carefully though, you can take on all the nearby civs around you with just that little starting stack.

By now you should of racked up enough xp for either Cheng Pu, Huang Gai or Sun Ce to take a hero promotion. Have fun with it, each one is good in it's own way. The red promotions will raise the aptitude of that class on level (from D to C for example), so they can be useful early on. For Sun Ce though, you're an idiot if you don't choose Conqueror, because it's the singularly most powerful promotion in the game. If something can turn 30% odds into 70% odds, I'd take that one. I will forgive you though if you did so to upgrade the Cavalry level to get that other Swift Rider in your legion.

If you do manage to knock out Yan Baihu (Shan Yue dude) and Wang Lang (Nerdy guy), you'll be set in the game. You're UU Meng Chong Ship will ensure command of the waterways, allowing you to pick and choose your targets. Just watch out for Gan Ning... did I mention a rather pissed of pirate with a nice fleet of his own? He doesn't exist. Totally ignore naval defense, then I can laugh when your fishing boats get pillaged... uh, I mean nod my head in an show of sorrow.
Do manage to defeat him though, but since his loyalty is to you, he'll join you even if somebody else employs him first.

Invade Liu Biao next though. He has great land, horrible production. Meaning: Great land, no defense. If he does manage to tech to Professional Army before you attack though, his UU will slaughter you. He's also a culture freak, so if you don't decide to attack him based on my advice, you'll be wishing you did when your citizentry are running off to enjoy tea parties at his Salons and Terraces.

Hero Promotion Tips
The big message that I'm going to try to get across is specialize. Once you start upgrading your hero down a certain Aptitude path (ei. from D to C in Mounted), stick with it. You will want to minimize the amount of those promotions you take from different unit types, because you only can have one unit type in the legion at a time. Promotions are best spend on better things such as Attack 1-3 or unique hero promotions such as Assault or Tough. For promotions, Vigourous is usually the best choice, but requires a tech requirement for each succesive level. Finally, though the Defence line might seem useless, it can come in very handy when your Legion gets hit unawares. The lack of use on offense is balanced by it preservation of your elite troops when they might otherwise have died.

Campaign Strategies:
1.) Reclaiming the Sun Family Lands - After defeating Liu Yao, immediately send Sun Ce, attached to Cavalry, to take on Yan Baihu. Speed is of essence here, as all the cities have only one or two defenders at this point. Furthermore, Cavalry will sustain less damage against the enemy Archers than swordsmen. Yan Baihu should fall to Ce's Cavalry, without taking any losses. Remember though, that Jungle inflicts 10% damage/turn along with Marsh! Next, blitz down into Wang Lang's territory after you heal and pick off the flatland cities only guarded by archers. Victory odds should be in the high 80-90's. Once Cheng Pu catches up, he can take on the hill city with his swordsmen. Usually you would lose one swordsman to the Private Guard. Now you've unified the south, and set the foundation for your empire!

2.) The Fall of Liu Biao - This may or may not be an easy conquest. Depending on when you start, Liu Biao might have his Swift Bowman
UU which gets a bonus vs. Melee and also has 2 movement. Either way, the basic troop movements are the same. Your goal is Xiang Yang, one of the eight Great Cities of the game. The city wonder itself grants improved military production, +XP to Archer units, and gives all water tiles +1 commerce. Given on how reliant your economy is upon water, this campaign would be a good choice in itself, even ignoring the whole eliminate the culture freak aspect. To achieve this conquest early, you will need several Danyang Armies and a fleet. Ideally your fleet would have been build in Mo Ling to take advantage of the free naval unit XP. The attack itself is quite simple: Sail down the river until you hit Xiang Yang, unload and attack. Use Crossbowmen promoted to Drill to inflict collateral damage, and then clean up with your Danyang Armies. Do not wait to attack Xiang Yang, as it's millitary bonii will make conquest impossible once Liu Biao starts spamming Archers that can take CG3 and Drill 2 right out of the gate. Following the conquest of Xiang Yang, leave a garrison and march your Danyang Armies south taking Chang Sha and any other lightly guarded city on the way. Next, swing North and mop up his last low production holdout on the river. After all that, Liu Biao would have lost his core territory and should fall easily.

Hero Strategies
As Sun Ce, the Little Conqueror, you command the loyalty of several capable officers each of which can take the Water Support promotion. This unique Legion promotion grants +25% Strength when fighting adjacent to a River or Coast. And there's alot of rivers in China. Officers who have loyalty toward your faction include Gan Ning, Sun Ce, Cheng Pu, Lu Meng, Huang Gai, Taishi Ci, He Qi and Sun Quan. Of those eight, Gan Ning and Sun Ce are best equipt for offence, while the rest have strong defensive abilities available to them. Lu Meng, Cheng Pu and Taishi Ci are probably the most versatile of the defensive heroes since they can promote to a high level of Vigorous, and have strong promotion choices.

I'd recommend making Sun Ce's legion a mounted one, so you can take advantage of his Flying Wedge promotion, along with the strong combination of Conqueror and Flanking. If you promote him with Cavalry General to and aptitude of A, he gets a nice bonus against archers. If his unit has Flanking, he can turn a 20% chance of success city attack into a 75% chance of win/ 15% chance of withdrawal battle. Not bad at all... Furthermore, I like having his as a Cavalry general so he can save my butt when a stack marches in from the other end of the empire.
Gan Ning on the other hand should take Infantry Commander promotions. Though he only can get up to a B aptitude in Melee, it's the most powerful class in the game, especially when combined with his Attack promotions. Remeber to take the unique Hero promotion Dread with him too. It basically saps the health of any adjacent enemies outside a city.

For defence, things are straightforward. Take the Vigourous promotions, followed by Iron Wall if available. Iron Wall ultimately will boost combat odds by around 20% on attack and keep you almost immune to damage on defence. Cheng Pu also has Reconditioning available to him, which makes him one of the most versatile generals under your command. He should be able to hold almost any defence, and performs well on prolonged seiges since he recovers health after combat. Taishi Ci, on the other hand, lacks Reconditioning but has full access to the Defence line. He is near indestructible on defence once you promote him up. Defence IV grants immunity to collateral damage, making him the perfect person to stop those mass Crossbow/Catapult attacks. Huang Gai and Sun Quan are archer generals, so are by default limited to defence. Still, it's not a bad thing, as a specially designated defence legions can make all the difference in a suprise attack.

Lu Meng is a unique case. Despite having several levels of Vigorous available to him, promote down the command line. Why you may ask? Since his unique promotion Mature Late gives half experience before level 5 and double afterward, you want as many legion members racking up experience as soon as possible. If it takes too long to get him to mature, he may never develop to him full potential.


Miscellaneous Stuff: Notice how Liu Biao hates you? Apparently he's still pissed off that your dad stole the Imperial Jade Seal... I guess killing him wasn't enough revenge. Don't worry though, if you ever play Liu Biao, Sun Ce will hate you with all of -5 diplo points. I guess revenge really does come second to a few bribes...

Also, everyone hates Yuan Shu, so don't do anything nice to him, or trade for that matter. He's always gets quadrupled teamed by everyone around him, but his captain Ji Ling gains quite alot of experience defending. It is quite worthwhile to sweep in and administer the killing blow to get Ji Ling to surrender to your forces.

Danyang trades for everything. I mean everything. It is valued as it should be by the AI, so they give you plenty of resources for it. You start with two by the way. It's quite useful in pitting Yuan Shao and Cao Cao against eachother. They will be strong, so trade it to the slightly weaker one to ensure their wars against eachother are all that more destructive.


Note: This guide is still in a very early stage. It will be modified and improved on (hopefully so it's more than a bunch of tips and facts), so if you have any comments or questions, please tell me. I don't care if you think I need to shorten it, expand on this or that, just tell me! Even if it's that your guide is horrible, your writing style sucks and your should never utter another word of advice again... or wait, actually, I think I might care if you said that, but you get the point. Thanks!

(not directly a strategy question but not worth its own thread)

The heroes have a vitality count. Is it true that this is the same as a "number of lives"? That is, suppose hero X has a vitality of 10. His core unit gets killed. The unit for X stays in the game but its vitality is decreased by 1. If this happens a few times and X's vitality goes to zero, *then* the unit is eliminated. Is the vitality mechanism more complex than that?

My question is, does the AI for the unit do anything special in considering its vitality? Does the unit take fewer risks as its vitality drops? Or is it just considered as a normal unit and if it dies, it dies?

This is related to a common request for a "Regicide" type game. In several mods, people have suggested it would be neat to have a single leader unit, and if the unit is killed, you lose the game. Obviously this only works if (1) the unit has a high offensive power so you don't just park it in your capital, and (2) the AI knows not to take silly risks with the unit.

So I am wondering if the HOTK hero AI takes its mortality into account.

@Kenjister

Awesome! Now tell me where do you want me to put you nice guide? My take is I'm going to translate it into Chinese as well and put it into civilopedia:)

@davidlallen

Yes, the heroes' vitality count are about the same as number of lives, but when a hero is defeated in combat, he only has a small chance of taking an injury. Right now, our hero AI don't take into account of vitality at all. Part of the reason is hero AI has a lot of room of improvement, and taking vitality into account is not our top priority, the other part of the reason is vitality is hidden, it shouldn't be visible to both AI and human player, because a man don't know how long he will live.

I do agree with you in the future we may implement special AI for some of the less aggressive heroes, as well as some leader heroes who are not fighters, just to simulate their tendency to protect themselves from the risk of combat.

Thanks! I might still want to add a few more things that people might not notice at first (such as the Hero Screen, the Info section of that, and a nice reminder about the enhanced advisors)
I would feel bad if you did any sort of translation, and then I updated it. Anyhow, I probably would make some major changes with the next version, since there seems to be a rather large influx of heroes coming :)

Sha Mo Ke's initial Rattan army, led by Meng Huo, can kill almost anything in early game. Singlehandedly, he conquered the 2 Liu Biao cities south of the river, and all of the cities up till Danyang. Sure, it takes time, but correctly promoted (e.g. healing on the road, city attack and against archers and infantry, with stealth), he's invincible.

I noticed that too, the only problem being your horrible economy...

Right now I'm playing a Ma Teng game (prince, due to the horrible land) and maybe I'll notice something nice to write up on.

1. World Wonders are a waste of time (if you can get them, well and good, but especially on the higher levels, it is not worthwhile to chase after them).
2. What is important is 8 good cities--conquer and hold on to them by whatever means, even if it means sacrificing science. Diffusion of knowledge later on will allow you to build infrastructure.
3. Blades is important early on for cultural slider. Stop science after Wei And Jin's Grace.
4. Usual 4 cultural cities will be
a. Capital
b. conquered capital of another faction (hopefully with a shrine)--bomb great artists here.
c. your most productive city (hammers later turned into culture)--early forge/levee/metal bureau, either forbidden palace or Chu Shi Biao (due to mines giving specialists), and iron and salt bureau here.
d. your most financial city (build both resting palace and Royal reference here for generating great artists).
5. Assign all artists early on, if a great minister spawns, use him to build a national wonder in a less productive city.
6. And it doesn't matter if you don't have cultural attributes or are called Wuling barbarians. :lol:

Nice guide on cultural AP... what do usually do though when a major power comes knocking?
at least if your south of the yangtze you don't have to worry about Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. Sun Ce's pretty dangerous though with his Danyang Swarms.

Well, you can defend in critical points (like Liu Zhang who got declared on by Ma Teng), or involve Sun Ce in wars he can't win (against Liu Biao). Just let other people fight their little wars and leave you in peace.
From my first win for this patch with Liu Zhang (emperor) in 212 AD using the 194 AD start in normal speed, the cities were
a. Chengdu
b. Hanzhong
c. Ba Xi
d. Fu ling

All according to the scheme above.

Ahh, normal speed... that would give a nice boost to the defenders too. I usually stick with the default epic since I'm more of the conquer by historical priority guy.

With the new addition of Unstoppable for free, I think it's actually becoming quite viable to promote cavalry down the flanking line... what are you guy's thoughts on this. A flanking promoted Ma Teng legion for example can kill the tough defenders with easy since you essentially get 2-3:1 odds. On the other hand, the legion's strength it usually in the actual unit's promotions, especially in late game, making the flanking legion much weaker when you aren't attacking strongpoints with a large stack of defenders.

Noble difficulty, 51x51 map, normal speed (not epic). I was attracted by Gongsun Zan's special ability, mounted units ignore city defense. I always hate building/transporting stacks of cats or trebs. I started the game without reading more. Ack! Yuan Shao shows up with 6 swordsmen, 6 cats and other stuff! Fail. Restart. Fail. I decided to approach the start position like a wargame puzzle, and found a solution. The key is to delay until you can get a pasture and a third swift rider in your capitol.

I actually gifted the small western city to Liu Bei, hoping he would be friendly enough to declare war on YS and divert his attention. This wouldn't have worked anyway because he's too far south. But this made YS focus on my middle city with 150 defense, and he bombarded it for a number of turns. Just before he attacked, I flank attacked with the three midlevel swift riders. I had built a couple of crossbowmen and stacked all the archers there, so I could then sally out and kill the stack.

The swift riders weren't badly damaged and they leveled, so I took the offensive. Most of YS's nearby cities had 1-2 archers, and a legion swift rider can take a city archer without too much trouble. So I quickly had all but two of YS's cities by about turn 30. This is already a kind of victory, I think, to survive the initial attack.

Phase 2 was to build an economy. As you can imagine my economy was poor since this region is mostly plains. Build workers, switch to Confucianism for the +50% improvement build speed, and keep turning out crossbows and eventually elite archers to protect all these cities. I had the two homeland cities building swift riders and my main hero had the Frontal Assault promotion, which does 25% collateral damage. Even better, now I really don't need crossbow/cat/treb stacks for city cracking. Swift riders are a little expensive but I can take 2-3 units from his legion and throw them at a city like you would normally throw a crossbow/cat stack to soften it up. I marched down the center part of the map and wound up at Cao Cao's western border.

I am in third place on points and I'm about to build my Forbidden Palace at YS' capitol, Ze. I'm going to have a little trouble with river crossings since all the cities in the north are carefully placed one square away from the river, so the opportunity to build galleys is very limited. I am pretty sure this position is winnable, but I have found that by even turn 150, the game gets to be a bit of a grind. Even with autobuild cities and rally points, there is a loop of build stack of doom, crack a city, wait a couple of turns for damaged units to heal and reinforcements to arrive, and repeat. I have eliminated about five players which only leaves about 20 more to go. And this is the smallest map available.

If you play on Monarch or above, the many Jizhou Crossbows will probably make it impossible for your light cavalry to do their thing right outside your cities. What I usually do is try to take enough of Yuan Shao's cities early on until he's willing to make peace. If you stagnate and just defend, he'll eventually kill you.

I am in third place on points and I'm about to build my Forbidden Palace at YS' capitol, Ze. I'm going to have a little trouble with river crossings since all the cities in the north are carefully placed one square away from the river, so the opportunity to build galleys is very limited. I am pretty sure this position is winnable, but I have found that by even turn 150, the game gets to be a bit of a grind. Even with autobuild cities and rally points, there is a loop of build stack of doom, crack a city, wait a couple of turns for damaged units to heal and reinforcements to arrive, and repeat. I have eliminated about five players which only leaves about 20 more to go. And this is the smallest map available.

This is a good description of the problem which we call 'late game stagnancy'. In BTS random map there are exploration then expansion then economy and military, but in scenarios of HoTK there are 'hold off the first wave of invasion' and then killing all your neighbors. So in HoTK scenarios the late game stagnancy comes earlier.

I have a couple of ideas about how to solve this problem, the guide line is to introduce more base-level game element into the middle and late game. In FFH there's the Armageddon count, RFC the stability and UHV, and other mods have other solutions. I think HoTK can learn from them and also invent something of its own.

I agree that something needs to be done to adress late-game stagnation. What to do is an interesting dilemma though. We can't have an Armageddon count, stability doesn't exactly speed up the late game as much as change the very dynamic of the whole thing, and UHV's are simply an alternative that you may or may not achieve.


Perhaps you can implement a political will counter for each faction. This counter would be similar to war weariness, but you would want to keep this counter as high as possible. The counter would start at a base level (determined by your leaders "will") and would largely decrease for each unit lost. It would also increase for each unit you have (checked once every month or two), making it largely dependant on the size of your army.
For example let's say your faction has a count of 45. You lose a few troops defending the homeland, the counter goes down to 42. You then attempt a huge counterattack with your legions and fail miserably due to enemy reinforcements. They then take a city. Both those events would drop the count to 19. Next turn the monthly check is done and the count goes up by 10 for troop levels. If you're sill below a set number (in this case it could be 30) bad things would begin to happen to your country when enemies approach such as cities flat out surrendering. If the counter goes down by an insanely large amount and hits 0, then the faction flat out surrenders. The point of this whole thing would to model crushing defeats that totally breaks a faction's will to fight (in the late game) and cause the leader to surrender. Of course victory in your own land would be treated in a very positive manner and perhaps lead to bonus troops appearing in your cities. The famous rulers would have a very high base "will" and also a bonus to will increase everytime the check is done. I know it's really huge idea, and would be extremely hard to implement (not to mention, possibly very slow), but I was thinking that the game needed to reward quick decicive victories, and punish inept defence of the homeland. Of course for it to truely flow, there would have to be dynamic leader change, as to better model weak willed rulers taking control of the throne.
Just throwing the idea out here! feel free to criticize, I don't really this would ever make it in, but without ideas we'd be nowhere!

Critical move is to found Pu Yang 1 SE of start (to get the copper). Then it's anti-cavalry battalion all around until you've killed everybody in Cao Cao's traditional lands. Still not quite enough for domination, but you can capture the emperor and vote yourself emperor. :D

Yep, Lu Bu is almost totally overpowered with early rushes due to his Tough trait... they don't stand a chance on the small map!

Speaking of Lu Bu, Flying General is the most powerful when paired with Crossbowmen. On the small map (with cities), Lu Bu paired with one of the crossbowmen has the ability to take out every single Cao Cao general in his mega stack in one turn unless they're attacked to Cavalry! It's possible to do with an axeman (I got really lucky once and took out Xiahou Dun without taking damage) but much easier when you have first strikes. I used to think Flying General would be useless unless Lu Bu was given Assault, but now after seeing Lu Bu take out 5 core troops in a row, I think I've changed my mind. Currently, I'm dominating in that game, since Lu Bu now has Quick and Attack IV, allowing him to attack twice in a turn meaning he can personally take out a 3-4 troops in a single turn if there's a general in the stack.

1. Goal is to get more cities very quickly, even at the expense of low science rates. If you start out with 2 archers, buy a hero to lead them and conquer a smaller civ that has only warriors.
2. Use the cash to aim towards swordsmanship and know where your copper is.
3. Let your cities grow initially to at least size 2-4 before building any settlers.
4. Once you can build halberdiers, churn them out like mad and conquer the biggies (Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Liu Bei, Liu Biao, Lu Bu). You will get their generals and cash from their cities.
5. You will hit a bottle neck once the number of your cities is around 10-12. Don't worry, just maintain barely even cash flow while researching towards Reformed Poetry and then calendar, and with a decent sized empire, even at 10% science and oligarchy you'll have enough science to be ahead.
6. Foment wars with the Emperor if possible, then declare on the one of the combatants closest to you when they are weakest. (E.g. As Liu Biao I asked Gongsun Zan to DOW on Yuan Shao, and after a while I DOW on the latter and got his cities). (You can capture the emperor if you're anywhere close to the central plains, and if not, just battle your way to him. It's doable even for Sun Ce)
7. Stay in Despotism, Corvee, hereditary, private school, Confucianism initially. If really in a crunch for science and culture, do it in 1 move with noble school and Mohism. After you have improved some happiness resources with calendar, during a GA (done with a great person saved for this purpose) change to the best civics for a large empire: oligarchy (science with specialists), state education (free specialist), agrarian colony (hammers with farms), legalism (less maintenance and more production), strong (more happiness and exp for new troops), meritocracy (quicker great people). Later on you want to switch to ranking classification and maybe Daoism for large productive cities.
8. Try not to get too big before you are able to get vassals with Laws of Wei. ("You have grown too powerful")
9. Roads sometimes are more important than useless cottages and mines you'll never use.
10. Micromanage gold so you don't lose any troops to strikes.

I was discussing a few posts above about Gongsun Zan. He has an awful starting position on the historical map. I have been playing random pangaea maps lately. Now I am wondering if his ability is overpowered. The combination of ignoring building defense, plus frontal assault for collateral damage, means that a White Horse Cav army, with Gongsun at cavalry commander B can roll over most cities without trouble. You have to build cities near every purebred horse or regular horse, and make them your WHC factories. I have stacks of about 6-8 WHC, of which three are Gongsun's legion. Those three attack first for collateral; they may get damaged, but at strength 13 they are unlikely to be killed. Then attack with the other WHC and I can usually take a city in one turn.

Once you have Laws of Wei, you don't even have to leave behind any troops to guard cities; just abandon them and keep rolling. After 2-3 cities are crushed the civ will capitulate. You can gift back the cities to avoid maintenance.

Do most people play the historical maps, or are others also playing random maps? Are there some civs which seem over/underpowered for random maps?

For random maps, historically tiny civs like Yan Baihu, Yang Feng (love his Incan UU equivalent), Gongsun Zan, Zhang Lu (quick pop growth) and Ma Teng are probably the best to play with.
I've played all of the historical maps, but I really like to start out with cities that I build (don't really like the placement of some cities), so I keep playing them. I tried a random map and it's just not as fun. E.g. As Liu Biao, building 1N makes a huge difference in terms of production with more hills and a horse.
I guess that's why I still play RFC from time to time since I know the map so well.

I've always thought that the Emperor civic was a fad, only to be used by megalomaniac AI's who don't know what they are doing. Well, together with Legalism, it has the benefit of reducing your city maintenance by 80%! Which make early expansion a much less expensive proposition.
Of course the most important move is to found your capital 1 NW so you can get the copper, build lots of militia to take out the archers of Liu Bei, and once you have halberdiers, you can take on Lu Bu and the rest. Unfortunately Ji Yin died early for me, but I got lots of other generals.
This has to be the earliest win on monarch for the small map for me (for no cities/normal speed of course)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=230907&stc=1&d=1255412134

1. Start with swordsmanship (no need for metal for building Heishan Bandits)
2. Found capital 1 SW of start (much more productive without mountains, more grassland/plains and same number of hills (2))
3. Let capital grow to size 2 (should have swordsmanship by then) and build a bandit.
4. Switch to Force (belief) and Mohism/Strong when it spreads to you.
5. Hire Zhang Yan and hit Zhang Yang (who still only has warriors) and get his worker/warrior camp.
6. Expand east and get Yuan Shao before too long.

Li Jue can do pretty much the same thing as Liu Zhang, except that you don't even need copper for halberdiers. Armor halberdiers are good against melee but very weak against archery, so you need many more to kill them. Order of elimination: Zhang Lu, Liu Zhang (which opens up Yizhou for colonization until you meet Liu Biao going east), Yang Feng (bring the emperor back to Lin Jing/Chang An, Cao Cao (best technique is to war until you can't, get 2 of his cities and leave Chen Liu alone, make peace and wait until Lu Bu declares on him), Yuan Shao (who should have his hands full with Gongsun Zan), Gongsun Zan (can't wait until he gets cavalry), Zhang Yang (by now he should have several warrior camps to snatch), Liu Biao, the Prince of Chen, and finally Han Sui (capitulated). Zhang Xiu was a voluntary vassal, I didn't even touch Zhang Yan (he was completely surrounded by me) or Ma Teng. Lu Bu was stabbed in the back while he warred with Liu Bei. I got domination just growing cities in Yizhou and Jingzhou (I capitulated Liu Biao and founded cities south of him).

...if he wasn't nerfed by his location. Yuan Shao has no chance against him without Jizhou crossbows. Order of elimination: Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Yang Feng (want the emperor soon to move palace to a more central location, Chen Liu), Zhang Yang (send warrior camps to the purebred horse and sheep near Quan Zhou), Li Jue, Zhang Yan (to avoid backstabbing, even though he was happy with me), Yuan Shu, Liu Bei and then backwards for Lu Bu, the Prince of Chen (whose name always escapes me since I can't look him up in wikipedia), Liu Biao, Kong Rong, Zhang Lu, then Ma Teng was capitulated. Gongsun Du and Zhang Xiu I left well alone since they vassalized.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=231304&stc=1&d=1255721878

Well, he does get a horrible starting location for a reason :lol:
You've really been busy with those no city maps haven't you? I personally get really irritated for some reason when the dates don't match with the events (ei Cao Cao's rise begins in 202 AD) so I never can bring myself to play a complete game on them. Perhaps I'll try soon though.

I'm trying to prove that it's possible to win on the small map with no cities, in monarch mode, with every civ (some of them might have to be cultural like Liu Yao, Zhang Yan and Shanyue). I'm right now doing Zhang Yang and I've already eliminated Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Gongsun Zan, Li Jue and on my way to getting Gongsun Du (who had the temerity to found a city outside his peninsula, right where I wanted my 3 excess warrior camps).
Xianbei horsemen are really strong, and can travel blocks even in forests! (Too bad you can't combine that with Gongsun Zan's ability)
Just a thought: wouldn't it be nice if you have Cao Cao (the hero) and wherever he is, that city gets his abilities (philosophical, agriculture, talented), or if you have Gongsun Zan and he's on a horse, he can ignore city walls? Imagine getting Liu Bei and be able to get his abilities!

That seems like a pretty cool idea... perhaps it will be implemented in a future version. I'm thinking maybe when Advisors are started?

Zhang Yang's Xianbei Horsemen are equally overpowered. 1 of them (spawned early combined with Zhang Yang) can kill an entire army of levy crossbows and conscript archers, even against Lu Bu's anticavs. The only problem I had was with Huang Zhong behind 125% walls, and I actually had to depend on a very lucky strike in a second war against Liu Biao which killed him before I could take him down. Sun Ce capitulated, Yan Baihu dead and I was about to kill Wang Lang when I won a diplo win. Even killed Gongsun Du which is usual for me, because he dared to build a city west of Quan Zhou.

I had so many warrior camps that all of northern China's pastures had warrior camps. From then on it was just free Xianbei horsemen every 3-5 turns.

A horrible thing for Chinese culture if the Xianbei took over China before the 16 Kingdoms period.:lol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianbei

It is possible to found 3 of the important religions even with your crappy starting location. Buy a workboat and work the fish and 1NW even if you can't grow quickly initially. You have to basically be lucky and hope nobody founds Pure Force with the Way of Peace (Zhang Lu shoots straight for Religion which is impossible for you to take, and in 1 out of 3 you'll miss Pure Force). Then just aim for Reformed Poetry and the relatively cheap Eight Diagrams, and with the money from the free shrines you should be OK with tech. Liu Biao or Yuan Shao will most likely get Ancient Dictionary before your GP pops but it should be possible if you try really hard (I didn't).

The TONS of barbs from the south and west are a major nuisance to expansion, and make sure you don't piss Sun Ce off (just switch to his religion which will most likely be Unification, and DOW on whoever he likes to DOW on, either Shanyue or Wang Lang). Steal techs and gold from Sun Ce (I already got Drainage Cellar and Calendar) and later Liu Biao when you expand westwards. The only war was against Yan Baihu.

In the end, Sun Ce's Shu flipped to me with the Imperial Jade Seal intact. So I had 5 religions and their shrines.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=231609&stc=1&d=1255925120
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=231610&stc=1&d=1255925120

Why does Liu Chong do so badly when played by the AI? It's not because he has one of the best, if not THE best, early units--there really is no counter to a doubly promoted Chen's crossbow, and if you chose either 25% against melee or archers you'll chew up anything in the Central Plains easily. The only tech he needs is high-rise structures (about 18 turns) and no need for iron/copper--just a good big city that can reach out in each direction.
He's the Prince of Chen, which is a really crappy place early on. What is needed is a migration that takes 3 turns to Qiao, and using your initial warrior to steal 2 workers from Cao Cao (the AI likes to work the pig right around that time) and let your capital grow to 3 which can then churn out 1 crossbow in 3-4 moves. Order of elimination is Cao Cao, Lu Bu (he never had a chance to build any ACBs), Liu Bei (just a fountain of good generals wasted), then Zhang Xiu/Kong Rong/Yang Feng at the same time, and then finally Liu Biao before he gets those nasty swift bowmen. From then on it's just a matter of mopping up while getting the economy in gear.

Oh, and the best promotion is bravery (even 1 strength above 5 gives your crossbows a much better chance against defenders) and the must-get hero is Huang Zhong (use him to bombard with archers).

Actually, Liu Chong is insanely good on the small map with cities too! Give Luo Jun a few Chen's Crossbowmen and he will eat up everything. Resilient and First Strikes really make for easy city combat.

Ma Teng is rather tricky. Can't really aim for going for the good Central Plain from the start, although you can certain rescue the emperor and bring him back to Chang An.
First target should be Han Sui (before he blocks your exit from Liangzhou) who's a good cavalry general too. 2nd target should be Zhang Lu (he has nothing but archers who are but mincemeat for a correctly promoted light cavalry with 7-9 strength). Then Li Jue must be weakened if not completely eliminated. Rescue the emperor while you pacify Lin Jing (Chang An) and be friends with Liu Zhang. I made the mistake of going for Cao Cao next which allowed Lu Bu to snatch Qiao from me. Then Liu Zhang and Liu Biao. I'm at the point of getting rid of Zhang Xiu which will basically allow me to concentrate all my forces on the east, either Liu Chong, Liu Yao or Lu Bu. Or I should be able to just build cities for a domination win since Yizhou, Jingzhou and the barren area north of Liangzhou should just be mine without any opposition.

Don't forget about Zhang Yang (I squeezed him in after Li Jue) but let him grow a little first, grab some warrior camps (by now he should have 5-6), let him rest, then eliminate him at Tun Liu (where there is a sheep and he'll have more camps to be captured). I sent 2 warrior camps to Wu Wei (my first capital) and it's now size 12 and growing with tons of production (built Chancellor Mansion and Stone Sentinel Maze there and now building 1 quadruply-promoted light cavalry in 1-2 turns).
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=231961&stc=1&d=1256264684

Wang Lang's personality is like Mansa Musa in RFC--reasonable peaceful guy who is unfortunately exiled to the south, otherwise he would be a formidable tech broker. Find him at all costs (either by direct route or building the Imperial Court) and befriend him, he'll trade you a lot of techs including bridge building, drainage cellar and calendar when nobody will.

He's like the Americans--no great generals or great people associated with him early, but grows like rabbits. First order of business is to conquer the inept Liu Zhang, then take Li Jue by surprise, then rescue the emperor. Han Sui stupidly declared war on me so I took a detour and got Laws of Wei to capitulate him. Then Cao Cao, Zhang Xiu, briefly Yuan Shu, Liu Bei, Meng Huo (never even got to build those war elephants) and Liu Biao were capitulated, and finally Zhang Yang capitulated and brought be above 46%.

Best building in the whole game: house of freedom--cheap and gives a free specialist. Strongest early unit besides Chen's crossbow: Ghost swordsman (doesn't even need iron to build!).
This has got to be one of the biggest stacks I've ever built on the small map.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232419&stc=1&d=1256601551

...has to die before he could see himself crowned emperor. Most important step is to stay away from Liu Biao's culture initially, found where Cao Cao's Xu Chang is on the premade map (making sure to emcompass the iron, copper, sorghum and sugar, and churn out troops as soon as swordsmanship is in. The Cao Cao AI is so stupid that it gives you workers to raid several times and inevitably makes peace if you kill a couple archers outside cities (Royal Guards have no trouble doing it, even with generals on the other side).
Order of elimination: Liu Chong, Liu Biao, Cao Cao (several times of DOW including once with Lu Bu helping), Yang Feng (send emperor to your capital), Liu Bei, Lu Bu (who usually sends a stack towards Liu Bei), Li Jue. Liu Zhang had the good sense of spontaneously vassalizing, which benefited him by me choosing cities to vote back to him (he lost 2 cities and gained them back without war). Then it's all vassals: Kong Rong, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan, Zhang Yan (who died), Liu Yao, Zhang Yang, Wang Lang, and finally Sun Ce was killed. I was just about to get domination (DOW'd on Yan Baihu and Zhang Lu at 44.5%) when I got the diplo vote.

Yan Baihu had a very interesting general: just with a levy crossbow he could withstand tons of damage due to his general having warrior spirit, iron wall, defense 2 and bravery, plus 6-9 first strikes. So my odds were something like <1% even though strengths were equal!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232625&stc=1&d=1256789653

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232624&stc=1&d=1256789653

Best building in the whole game: house of freedom--cheap and gives a free specialist.
To take full advantage of the House of Freedom, Zhang Lu player should do his best to build the Terracotta Army. On the first turn, start building workers from all three cities. Once you build the first worker from your capital, start building the Terracotta Army there. Switch to Confucianism and start spamming mines and you should be able to get Terracotta Army just fine.

With the prebuilt-city map (where most civs have a decent sized city and know shamanism), it's almost always possible (except for the smallest civs) to build the Terracotta Army. Unfortunately with no prebuilt cities, the only civs that can do it before the AI researches shamanism before you (assuming you're playing monarch or above) are Yuan Shao, Sun Ce (stone available for these 2), and Liu Zhang (lots of trees to chop). The stone near Cao Cao is occupied by the White Wave Rogues who are too strong for Cao's starting units to kill.

Like any other wonder, capturing it might be easier later on, and not all civs need it (Liu Biao and Kong Rong don't).

Same technique as Liu Chong--found Qiao, let it grow to size 4, build another 2 setters to get the iron just west and occupy Liu Chong's city (got razed by barbs), then get all of Cao's heroes. Qingzhou is a death trap because there's no food, it pays off big time to migrate even if it means you take 4 turns to found a city.
Elimination order: Cao (stole 2 workers early on), Yang Feng, Liu Biao (too bad I couldn't eliminate him before he got swift bowmen just as I closed in on his last city, but eventually he vassalized spontaneously), Liu Yao, Yuan Shu, Liu Bei, then backwards towards Lu Bu, Yuan Shao, Zhang Yan, Zhang Yang, Gongsun Zan. Meanwhile Gongsun Du vassalized spontaneously and Li Jue got killed by Zhang Lu. After Zhang Yang was done, Zhang Lu and Han Sui was done, and the timid Liu Zhang vassalized after just 1 city captured.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232857&stc=1&d=1256956617

Key is to found near the iron which takes about 5 moves extra, that city became Luoyang for me while Sun Ce's Shu became Xu Chang (I stupidly built the Silk Road in Xu Chang and thus couldn't build Mo Ling).
Order of elimination: Liu Yao (opens up the whole Jingzhou), Yan Baihu (who was building in my home turf), then Sun Ce. Zhang Lu had the foresight to build a city in Jingzhou just limiting Liu Biao's growth, so I captured his 2 cities there. Then Liu Biao (took a long time due to swift bowmen), Zhang Xiu (who had the emperor), Yang Feng, Liu Chong, Liu Bei, Lu Bu, Cao Cao (took a LOOOONG time since he had plenty of heroes and garrison halberdiers, not to mention tiger riders), Kong Rong, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Du, Gongsun Zan, Heishan Bandits, and finally Zhang Yang. I just couldn't resist DOWing on Zhang Lu again since he was busy fighting Liu Zhang.
This is probably the most developed southern China in my games so far.
BTW, the only free "educative" buildings I got were schools at city size 4, no official schools, advisor mansions, observatories, nada. Of course I got the Yellow Crane Tower. Rather weak unique power IMHO.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233007&stc=1&d=1257046812
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233008&stc=1&d=1257046812

Same city as Wang Lang, only this time Sun Ce needed to be killed first since he's really mad at me. Then Wang Lang, Liu Yao, took all of Zhang Lu's Jingzhou cities (there were 5 of them) in 2 wars, Liu Chong, Liu Bei. Then Lu Bu vassalized and I capitulated Cao Cao and Kong Rong. (Too bad Lu Bu took Xia Pi from me by culture because it had the Great Wall, and I got the 9 inner city walls event which I took the +100 espionage):mad: Then Liu Zhang spontaneously vassalized (even though we had no contiguous borders, but he must have been afraid of Zhang Lu).
Then Liu Biao, Zhang Xiu, Yang Feng, Li Jue and finally "Ma Teng" (aka Han Sui who died).

Got almost all the shrines for once either by conquering (Liu Biu had Force, Cao Cao had Division and Liu Bei had Rebellion) or founding...even Guangling Melody. :D

Icy Fort + chopping jungle giving hammers = small cities in the south that had lots of infrastructure.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233133&stc=1&d=1257120753
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=233134&stc=1&d=1257120753

Being creative and organized is optimal since you can get cities early with culture and cost less to maintain. Order of elimination: Liu Chong (before he gets crossbows and I was helped by Zang Ba), Cao Cao, then built a city for the iron and copper west of Qiao, then Liu Biao (before he gets any swift bowmen, thank you very much), Lu Bu, Yuan Shu and Liu Bei (these three were in a war that weakened all of them), (Zhang Xiu spontaneously vassalized), Kong Rong, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan, (Zhang Yan spontaneously vassalized), Zhang Yang, Li Jue (who kidnapped the emperor which I rescued back to Mo Ling/Chen Liu), Han Sui, Ma Teng, Liu Yao, and finally Sun Ce.

Even though you start at peace with barbs, eventually they will declare war.

There's still the bug of generals being generated due to wins from barbs, but not appearing in any of your cities. Which explains why I had 4-5 missing generals.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0068.jpg

Too bad he died in 216, and a newcomer (Yue Jin who was just captured from Yizhou) became the leader...not everybody agreed with this. :D
Order of elimination: Weakened Yuan Shao by capturing one city, then Zhang Yang (too bad no nomadic camps captured), then Yuan Shao for good. To secure the north, Gongsun Zan, and maintained good relations with Gongsun Du (who was the first to vassalize). Then Cao Cao (who was embroiled in a war against Lu Bu who eventually got killed by Liu Bei), Liu Bei, Kong Rong, Li Jue (who was busy against Zhang Lu), Liu Chong, Yuan Shu. Then Zhang Lu declared on Liu Zhang and I bribed him to sponatneously vassalize to me, saving me a lot of grief. Then EVERYBODY got bribed to DOW against Liu Zhang and I captured 2 cities before he vassalized. Then Liu Biao (who had Liu Yao and Zhang Xiu as vassals) and all were vassalized. Final vassal was Meng Huo even though I really didn't need him (just needed 0.5% for domination, i.e. 1 city founded in the south), but 3.5% land was his domain and elephants.

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0069.jpg

Not just that he has probably the worst combination of traits (why expansive when there are no freaking harbors to be built, and who needs protective when one needs to expand quickly and kill Li Jue), but to die before his nemesis Ma Teng takes over (and gives his faction a much better set of traits), that's just bad luck. Can't expand as quickly to the central plains as Ma Teng due to lack of good horses (but easily remedied by getting Ma Teng's capital early), so I was going for a cultural win when Gongsun Zan declares on me, so I DOW him and I found I was close to domination. Liu Zhang vassalized early on even though he could have crushed Zhang Lu with or without me.

This is the only game which I didn't get the emperor (was about to when Liu Biao capitulated Zhang Xiu).

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0070.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0071.jpg

Liaodung is a worse death trap than Kong Rong's Qingzhou. No rivers, a few mountains, fewer food (just deer!?). What you do have is copper which is key to expansion.

Found city 1S (the deer there is a on a grassland which allows quicker growth, also you miss a peak and all tiles can be used). Switch to Mohism and do hunting, post road, mining, swordsmanship (reveals copper and by then you would already have a connected mine there), high rise structures (need some collateral damage for Gongsun Zan's archers), shipbuilding and animal husbandry. As soon as your capital grows to size 4, build nothing but halberdiers and levy crossbows. Build a road around the peninsula and build 2 floor galleys to shuttle troops towards the mainland. When you attack, Gongsun Zan should have nothing but 1-2 archers in his capital. Found 3 cities in his traditional lands and take Gao Ping from Yuan Shao, then 2 more cities in a second war which effectively nerfs him. Kong Rong should be done between these 2 wars. Then it's just biding time when you take out Yuan Shao for good, Zhang Yan, Lu Bu, Liu Bei (who built many many wonders I wanted).

Just like the USSR, I basically set up a set of satellite states around me which doesn't allow anybody (except Sun Ce but the AI is sucked into a permanent war with Yan Baihu so can't DOW on me): Cao Ren, Yuan Shao, Liu Chong, Yang Feng, Li Jue and Zhang Lu. If I had the patience I could have done domination (since I had the largest stack ever: 100+ units in Lin Jing!)...but Gongsun Du just wanted peace and I was running Division, after all.:D

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0079.jpg

Meng Huo is destined not to conquer China (by the time you have infrastructure like roads developed everybody is too socked in to be dislodged easily). But you can build a large empire, and if Liu Biao in this game weren't so aggressive (actually DOW'd on me at one time but easily repelled), I would have most of southern China under my grasp. The terrain is not very hospitable but easily defended.

Found on site, worker, then Great Wall (since you're industrious and it gives early culture and defense for all cities, plus a great strategist generation). Then nothing but halberdiers, 1 per settler.
Hunting, post road, mining, swordsmanship, etc. but aim for anesthesia.
Early on, Liu Zhang actually vassalized spontaneously when Ma Teng DOW'd on him which made stealing techs much easier.

http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0080.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu349/anotherpacifist/Civ4ScreenShot0081.jpg

Dang, you actually went through all of them! All the strategies look quite sound too, though I seem to notice a preference for culture. Good job!

Dang, you actually went through all of them! All the strategies look quite sound too, though I seem to notice a preference for culture. Good job!

Really? Of all the factions, only Meng Huo, Gongsun Du (and that was because I was lazy), and Liu Yao (again laziness on my part) were culture victories. Even Yan Baihu, Yang Feng and Kong Rong (the latter 2 with 2+ culture per city) I played domination.

Well... now that you list it out, it seems alot less. I suppose it's because I never really go for cultural :lol:
I just seem to find it odd that everyone in China bows down to Meng Huo great Nanman culture and immediately concedes rulership of the land to him.

I just find it ironic that it's the barbaric Nanman who builds the Great Wall (to keep the barbaric Chinese out) and builds Luoyang. :D
The Nanzhao/Dali kingdom actually captured Cheng Du at one time but were beaten back by the Tang before finally being conquered by the Mongols in 1253 AD. So it wasn't SO out of the realm of possibility for Meng Huo to build it.

Well... Meng Huo wasn't really a Nanman but a disgruntled Shu official, a little bit less than Yong Kai. He was basically a Chinese official leading the Nanman. Yong Kai could be said to have been a better and more talented official who's change in allegiance actually caused Shu to have a strong enough need to go to war down south against him and his southern allies.

Kong Rong is actually fairly easy to use, even with just two cities if you just focus on building buildings for the first few years and pruchase/recruit a few heroes and build up units for them you find that it get's really easy. If you can manage to get Gongsun Du's city to switch allegiance due to culture and with that going to war with Zang Ba isn't so difficult. Lu Bu and Cao Cao are at war nearly constantly for a while. Yuan Shao can't seem to defeat Gongsun Zan so there is plenty of wiggle room for you to defeat Zang Ba. Afterwords you can recruit the actual general himself and that makes it even more easy as you notice heroes and leaders dying left and right. Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Xiahou Yuan, Cao Cao, Yue Jin, Xiahou Dun, Cao Ren, and others start to die around you. Without the great men it's easy to declare war, take a few cities and then make peace with them when you are running out of gold or troops. A cultural vicotory isn't so hard. A domination victory could happen easily if you force them to capitulate and then go to war with the next one.

Yuan Shu is harder to use, but equally easy if you push an early advantage against Liu Chong and against the bickering warlords. Though the diplomacy is a bit of a pain as allies are few to come by and Liu Bei has something against you. It's still fun, sadly the game crashed several times before I could actual win as him.

well looks like this thread and maybe this mod is dead, but here is a little strat for anyone still looking. Build on location, grow to size 3 or 4, produce a settler asap, get him to the coastal crossing just south of Liu Zhang, build nothing but halbs with the 2x jungle movement promotion, to get them up to his land quickly. open borders, and wait for an opportune moment during his war with Zhang Lu. I got a little lucky, and Zhang had founded pure force in the first city I grabbed. Had to immediately sign a peace treaty, even one more turn would have meant his retaliation had suceeded. From there, build another 15-20 halbs to finish off LZ, ZL, punch a hole through Li Jue to get through to the emperor, unless he will OB with you, and from there it's fix economy to get to Rattan Armor swordsmen, IMO the best unit in the game if you get there early. Great thing about the Pure Force shrine, it gives 2ep per city. This meant I had almost no use for cats or xbows, as my spies would cause city revolt, maybe burn a few swords on the way in, then the heroes hit, and immediately move forward, with march and a super medic, this led to one of the most fun games of civ I've ever played. Anyone interested in a 1st century Chinese blitzkrieg would love this.

Nice game, although probably won't work with normal speed (since you can't build halbs quick enough AND get them to Chengdu with all that jungle).

but here it is. Same strat as before, actually a little easier this time because Li Jue OB'd!:D So no war with him or Yang Feng, just waltz in and take the emperor from an already wounded rogue without a single loss. Ran immediately to Liu Bao, but the swift bowmen were already in place. Switch strats to builder for a long time, no units or war until general medicine, then the mighty rattan army began rolling. the combo of ep's and fast infantry worked like a charm again, I was already generating 250 ep's per turn against Bao, and it was up to 700+ by the time I took on Yuan Shao for the last 5%. Could've won it earlier filling in the south and picking off easier opponents, but Liu Bei and Yuan Shao were both way ahead in tech, so I went straight into the shark's mouth. As you can see I probably overbuilt on the swords, but a strategy of "wave after wave of my own men" had already been decided upon. Still one of my all-time favorite civ situations, and, after looking at the top 5 cities, begs the question of who the real barbarians are.