Abegweit's Guide to the UHVs

Overview

One of the most enjoyable things about Rhye’s and Fall is that the approach to each civ is very different. The normal game is kinda repetitive. Worker first. Find the copper and the horses. If you don’t have either, go for Iron. You know the map-generator will give you at least one of the three. Chop every forest in sight. Chop. Chop. Chop. Blah. Blah. Blah. RFC truly is a refreshing a change from the routine. It is a challenge to find out the most efficient approach to each of them. Only the Chinese come even close to fitting the typical pattern, and even they have challenges which are unique.

I have decided to put together a series of strategy guides to the various civs. The guides will primarily address their UHVs but will also talk about how to use them effectively to attain other victories. I don’t promise to do them all (although I would like to) but I do have about ten prepared and will certainly do more. This mod is sooo addictive.

RFC is clearly tailored to Monarch. As such, these guides will mostly be geared to that level. Some civs (the Indians, for one), are impossible at Emperor. My first impression is that some others are pretty easy so I may explore the tougher challenge in those cases. Or I may not. I haven’t decided yet. I will not ever play Viceroy. Ever. So assume Monarch unless I explicitly state that I am going for the harder target.

The next post will contain links to the civ-specific guides, starting with the Egyptians.

Warning! Do NOT follow these links if, like me, you enjoy figuring out the optimal path. They contain spoilers (and I am sure that the designers of this mod had these tricks in mind; the Babs are an especially good example of a puzzle to solve). OTOH, you may be able to find a better route than I did. Perhaps my thoughts might help you find something even better. If so I would really like to hear it. And… Congratulations if you do!

The rest of this post will focus on tips which are specific to RFC.


Revolt at the Right Moment

All civs, aside from the starting four, come into the game with advanced technologies and civics. Most know Monarchy and Bronze. Some know far more. So decide what you want to revolt to and when to do it. The game is prejudiced against anarchy. If you want to play the game properly, you need to be too. It costs one turn of the good government in order make one switch between the various inferior ones. It doesn’t cost any more to make them two at a time. So try to do so.

Try also to pick the right moment to make a switch. The best time is just before you are about to found a city because it won’t be affected by the game rules. If you’ve just built a settler and he’s on his way to his destination, that is a good time for a revolt. If you do it beforehand, the settler build will be slowed. If you go it afterwards, the city production will be.

Specifically, many civs start out with two or more settlers and/or cities which are about to join them. So revolt at the very beginning. For a young civ, HR and Slavery are impossible civics to beat. Switch to them right away, long before the actual benefits are need. Make your move before multiple cities are affected.

OTOH, this may not be the optimal moment. For example, the Incas start out with HR but badly need Bronze Working. So get BW and switch when you know both of them. It saves a turn.

Three switches cost an extra turn. Four is no more expensive than three and is exactly twice two. Several of the European civs start with HR, Slavery, Theology and Vassalage. They want all four civics. OTOH, Theology is a serious mistake if you don’t have a religion yet. So revolt to HR and Slavery first. The other two can come when you are ready.


Use Your Workers in Gangs

Later civs start out with several settlers and several workers. Unfortunately the land is undeveloped and you will be in an enormous hurry to get your citizens working developed tiles.

It is far better to have one good tile today and a second tomorrow and than three on the day after. The Aztecs start out with four workers on a hill. They are badly in need of farms. Even as hills go this is far from the ideal choice to work (others are on rivers) Whatever. This is where you are, so work it now. You may never come back again. So much the better.

Next send one or two workers out in front of the main group. They need to make roads so that the others can follow without wasting any time. Don’t waste worker moves.


Smash the Barbs

RFC civs start about with five guaranteed victories against the barbarians on the attack. In vanilla, this can almost be a game-breaker. Incan Quechas can take down the Mayans at vanishingly tiny odds. Greek Phalanxes can conquer six or eight barb cities to the east, gaining an empire and CRIII status in the process. Do not take promotions when in invulnerable mode. They serve no point and the worse the odds, the greater the experience bonus you will get. Once, as the Aztecs, I attacked Tikal at 0.0% and suddenly saw my unit go from 1/2 experience points to 10/2 in a single mighty leap.

To repeat, you do not get this bonus on defence. If you can at all deal with the barbs on the attack.

In Warlords, this is far less important since you do not have the same bonus against the Independent States. It’s still useful to know, though. If you can, attack. Are your fishing boats threatened by a barb trireme? Don’t hide behind the 10% defender bonus. It won’t help. Instead take your galley out and strike the bastid down. You will win despite the apparent odds.

Links to the civs.

1. The Egyptians (Warlords v1.19)

2. The Babylonians (Warlords v1.19)

3. The Chinese (Vanilla v.150)

5. The Indians (Warlords v1.19)

The Egyptians

Overview

In real life, Ramesses II conquered Palestine and Syria and they remained in Egyptian hands for hundreds of years after his death. In Civ’s alternate world, he is boxed in by the Hebrews. He has no idea how to deal with them and consequently turtles up in his North African cubbyhole. In Civ, Ram never meets anyone who doesn’t come calling at the door.

Eventually some powerful civilization on the rise, Persia or Arabia, will take down the Hebrews and he will have a neighbour. His vast stock of archers and daunting culture may well protect him, and he can survive for a long time. However, he will never be in the hunt and, sooner or later, will be conquered.

In fact, he has an extremely powerful civ. The key is to get off to the right start.


The Unique Historical Victory

It can be shown mathematically that the only way to win the Egyptian UHV is to build at least two wonders. You have 86 turns to get 500 culture. Your Palace gives you some but most, to be precise – 328, will have to come from somewhere else. Stonehenge is the best early wonder, as it gives you 9 cpt (eight for the wonder and one for the obelisk). It will take 37 turns to accumulate enough, leaving you 48 turns to get it built. If you start out on Stonehenge as soon as you can, you won’t come close to finishing in time. The better move is clearly to build a worker first to bring the stone on line. That still doesn’t work. It is also possible to get a temple or library up before the deadline but it won’t help you either.

You absolutely need a second wonder. Logically that would be the Pyramids, since you need Masonry to use the stone anyway. Counting everything together, you will have 17 cpt, enough to attain your objective in a mere 30 turns. Together with whatever you get before the Pyramids are finished, it should be more than ample


Selecting Your city position

Egypt starts in an area with many flood plains. The natural starting position is one south in the desert. This keeps the stone within reach and turns the desert tile into something productive. If you do that, you will quickly find that you are stifled in bad health. Even aside from that, your historical objective has just become unreachable. You simply do not have enough time to get enough culture by Turn 86.

One reason why Ram does so poorly in this game (although certainly not the main one) is that, unlike you, he doesn’t have pre-knowledge of the map. To the north, there are many rich resources – wheat, marble and fish. The land is healthy, too. There is less diseased water and the health resources help in any case.

It doesn’t take long to get there either. You can settle on the coast on the second turn, which is as fast as the desert tile would be. The natural move is to settle the plains tile on the coast to the northwest. This brings in wheat, fish and marble. A very nice spot indeed. It is also a mistake. The computer likes it (which should be proof that it is a mistake!). If you settle there, you have also lost. The problem is that you no longer have the stone. Without stone, you have no chance.

The solution is to forget your prejudice against settling one square off the coast. The water tiles can be worked by other cities anyway. The proper location is the desert tile one south of there, or two to the northwest of the starting location. It has also access to marble and wheat. Most importantly, it retains the stone. The combination of the wheat and stone will bring you home. Once you have chosen this spot, the rest is easy. Your capital’s name turns out to be Siwa. Apparently, this place was a necropolis in Ancient Times. Whatever.

Ultimately, you will want two to four cities. As well as Siwa, you need a city to build the Great Light. You should also plan on taking Jerusalem – as a matter of principle. There is also a nice spot for a fourth city two tiles to the northwest of the capital. The last two are not necessary though.



Build Those Wonders

Build order: Worker-Stonehenge-Pyramids!
Research order: Mysticism-Masonry

Once the worker is trained, he should farm the wheat while waiting for knowledge of Masonry to be acquired. The timing is perfect and you can move straight from the wheat to the stone. Whip both Stonehenge and the Pyramids as soon as you can. It is possible to finish the two before turn 50 if you are careful. That’s more than enough to get your first objective in time. Actually, five hundred culture is easy. Once you understand where the proper location for the capital must be, you can have far more than that.



5000 Culture?!

To get maximum culture at turn 143, you must plan for it right from the beginning. In fact, the build order suggested above is not optimal. You need to lay some groundwork for pumping out the rest of the wonders in a remarkably short period of time.

Initially you will be cycling from size 2 to 4, whipping two citizens. To whip more efficiently, you will need to whip three at a time, going from size 3 to size 6 and back. At size three, you can work the wheat and the two quarries, which is ideal. As you grow, plains and forest tiles to the northwest will added as well. Later, you may start whipping four or even five citizens.

Build wonders while the city is growing. If there is something you need, switch to it when the city is at maximum size. Whip that instead. Then return to building your wonder. When it completes, start another. This way you spend most of your time on the wonders while getting out the other stuff you need as well. This technique is especially important for settlers, since you absolutely don’t want to be building them at size 3 preventing growth.

In the shot above from Turn 86, the capital is about to grow to size 6. This normally would be the moment to switch and whip something else. However, there wasn’t anything useful available at that point so Artemis was allowed complete normally and the Great Library was whipped, as was the Leaning Tower. In civ, there are always exceptions to every rule.

In order to grow back your population rapidly, you will absolutely need a Granary. To research Pottery immediately would be a mistake though, because Masonry is needed for quarrying. You will also need an additional warrior in order to keep the population happy at size six. And, in fact, you might as well slip the warrior before Stonehenge. Why waste the stone on a warrior when the wonders will get double value from it?

Here is the capital when it first reaches size four. Stonehenge is almost finished but should be put it aside. The granary is more important and the wonder will benefit from the overflow anyway.



There are a couple of pitfalls to avoid. Your free tech from the Oracle should be Alphabet (!), which gets you well on the way to Literature. Thus getting to Writing in time is important. Also, the computer likes to work a plains at size three instead of the wheat. Do not listen to it! It likes to hire priests too. Blow off! Unfortunately, micro-management will be the order of the day. This is typical of any game involving heavy use of the whip.

The research sequence should thus be:

Mysticism – Masonry – Pottery – Priesthood – Writing – Alphabet (free tech) – Literature.

After that, you need Math for catapults to take Yerusalayim. You do want it, don’t you? Music (make sure you get it before the end, just for the principle of the thing), Drama and Philosophy are the remaining techs which have value. Hint: it is possible to use a Great Scientist to get to Philosophy and Angkor Wat. The exact method is left as an exercise for the reader.



By choosing the right moment to build stuff, the capital can be almost astonishingly powerful. This shot is taken at Turn 143. By that time, Siwa had built ten wonders, including Angkor Wat and Notre Dame (actually everything available before Construction except the HG and, of course, the Great Light). It also had a barracks, granary, temple, monastery, theatre, library and obelisk (ok, the last was free…). Not to mention that also trained every military unit in the land.

While it’s fun to go after Angkor Wat, it doesn’t really maximize score. By stopping at Music and Drama and turning up the culture slider, it is possible to attain 10,000 culture without any GP luck at all.


The Great Lighthouse

The one essential wonder which the capital cannot build is The Great Lighthouse. This task is left to your second city, which should go on the copper hill to the east where it can share the marble and exploit the crabs and horses. This makes for pretty decent production (and there is no other location on the coast which has any at all) so it will build the Light. After the granary, your next two whips in the capital should be your barracks and your settler. The order is not as important as the precise moment in the growth cycle of Siwa. The Barracks costs two pop so the city should be at least size five. The settler costs three so it should be at size six when it is whipped. Because of the mechanics of growth, the Barracks should come first.

The city will have little to do anyway and costs maintenance money. You need Fishing, AH and Bronze in order to develop it. Unfortunately, the priority is Writing so its initial growth will be pathetic. Do not fear. Once you get Writing (and Alpha), you should be able to trade for these techs in order to get it on the proper track. Don’t forget to go visit the Carthaginians if they haven’t dropped by themselves. When you finally have the crabs on board, you can grow Copper Town to size three, exploiting the marble and horses to build the Light in plenty of time.


Military

When you run out of wonders, the capital should finally start to build some military. You will have to take a break in the wonder mania somewhere after Lit anyway. Axes and cats can grab Jerusalem where you can build The Temple of Solomon and perhaps The Church of the Nativity. Pikes and axes can defend against the horse archers and impis who will appear out of the desert. Be assured that they will. Near the end you may see some camel archers too. In general, build your military normally. Whipping is not efficient for less than 31 hammers.


Emperor

The UHV is also attainable when playing at Emperor. The extra warrior at the beginning is even more important at this level than at Monarch. In fact, you will need a third one fairly soon. By the same reasoning, it is a good idea to train it right away.

While happiness is an issue, the main difference between the two levels is research speed. Because of this, you are going to miss to lose wonders to the AI. Worst of all, you will lose the Oracle. This hurts badly. Don’t even try for it. You won’t get it, which makes Priesthood a waste of time. You need to get to Alphabet and Literature as fast as possible. Otherwise you may lose the Great Lib too, and that would end your chances altogether. Use every trick you can think of to speed up your research. Build lots of cottages. After you have your Library, hire scientists. After Alphabet, you can consider building research. It should save a couple of turns.

At this level it is simply not possible to build 5000 culture through buildings and wonders. This being the case, you are going to have to find the rest through other means. Counting on an artist to appear from your GP factory is cheesy (although admittedly it is likely). Surely you should plan to find another way to get the thousand odd which remain. There are two possibilities. You can either get Music for the free GA or you can try Drama for the culture slider and the theatres. Back of the napkin calculations seem to indicate that the Drama route does not generate enough culture, although it will be close. It is possible to get to Music on time, although it is very tight.

Truly excelent guide, Abegweit!!

if you're going to write it of all the civs and keep it updated with every future change, I'll move it to the site

As I said in the intro, I make no guarantee to do them all. In fact, I probably won't. Certainly, I will not even attempt the obviously impossible ones (like Persia). After experimenting with Hammy a bit, I believe that Carthage is impossible too. Five die is simply too much. Four would be hard enough. However, I am going to give it a try and will write up the result. I have a few ideas about how to get the last one.

As for keeping them up to date, that would be an impossible task - and no fun either. I will add the version I used to the index, which will at least warn people that the goal could have changed.

The Babylonians

Overview

Hammy starts in the middle of a fetid mess of disease. The first temptation is to move to the north where the air is clean. Up there, you will also get access to game and wheat, which are not available at the start position. Unfortunately, the UHV specifically states that Babylon must become the most cultured and populous city in the world, not Ashur or Nineveh. This makes the problem much harder. You are stuck in the swamps, like it or not. Let me assure you. I know this for a fact.


The UHV

The charm about the Bab UHV is how tightly the three requirements fit together. There is a synergy about them which is not true of any other civ. The research requirement helps you get culture and the culture requirement helps you get research. Together, they serve as the means through which your city can grow to be far larger than any other.


Solving the Mystery

The first step is to get to Writing before the Chinese do. This means you must beeline straight for it. Research order: Pottery-Writing. As usual, training a worker first is a good move. Then build a granary and a library. The granary will help you with growth and the library with research. Once the worker is finished, he can cottage the stone and marble to further increase your research capacity. If the Chinese decide to make the same beeline (and they just might) you will lose. They play on Noble and you play on Monarch. You simply can’t get there faster than them. Check your status on F8 once you have Writing. If you’re a loser, deal with it and move on.

The library also gives you some culture but you will need more than just that. At least one early wonder will be needed too. The best culture in the early wonders comes from the Oracle and, Sacre Bleu, this one helps with your research too. So next go for Mysticism, Meditation and Priesthood. You should be able to time things so that you can immediately start on the Oracle the moment your library is complete.

With Writing and Priesthood, the path is now open to the two last techs you need for the UHV. Monarchy also opens up the Hereditary Rule civic, which is the key to allowing your city to grow. As you need it badly, you should actually choose Monarchy as your free tech instead of the more expensive Code of Laws. Growing the city will also provide additional research capacity which speed up CoL anyway.

But before going after CoL, there is one more tech you need: Animal Husbandry to fence in the sheep. You really need them more for the health than the food. Health is what slows your growth more than food, which you have plenty of. There actually is one more health resource within reach and it should be worked too. On Babylon’s second border expansion, it will take the Wheat away from Shushan. A farm and a road there will connect to Shushan and from there along the coast and rivers to Babylon.

This city will certainly revolt to Babylonian rule a few turns later. Disband it! It is a Persian town and, if you keep it, you will be faced with a choice of war or losing the Wheat a few turns later. Sur may revolt too. You can keep that if you like but there is little reason to.

With HR and the two health resources, Babylon will zoom up in size. Push the ‘Emphasize Food’ button and watch it grow. It will reach size 10 by the deadline. The city can try to build a Monument to add a bit more culture but it probably won’t be able to. Unless it can get an additional warrior from a revolt in Sur, it will be too busy training MPs to do anything else.


Summary

Research Order: Pottery – Writing – Mysticism – Meditation – Priesthood – Animal Husbandry – Monarchy (free tech) – Code of Laws
Build Order: Worker – Granary – Library – Oracle – Warrior – Warrior – Warrior…
Worker tasks: Cottage stone – Cottage marble – Farm plains – Farm plains – Farm wheat – Road wheat – Pasture sheep

Result: victory in 6 minutes!



Congratulations to the designer of this excellent little puzzle.

Elhoim said:

Truly excelent guide, Abegweit!!

Click to expand...

Thank you. It would be interesting to attempt a mix between this approach and Mercenary86's completely different method. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any synergy and the combination is probably worse than either one on its own.

Your solution to the Egypt UHV works very well and makes it pretty easy to get the UHV. I always start Egypt first city on the coast adjacent to the Wheat. I can usually get 2 of the 3 conditions, but miss on the 5000 culture.

I've played both out into the future. What is interesting for me is that the UHV with your suggested starting city positions leaves you in a bit weaker military and positional situation when things get dicey in the later stages of the game. I like having the Sena as a blocking factor and passage between the Med and the Pacific. In the later stages of the game when navies become important, you seem to be at a disadvantage, but perhaps its more my style than anything else.

The only other thought is the choice between playing as a "puzzle solver" to get the UHV as opposed to playing as a regular game. It seems the two styles conflict sometimes. Good job though and I will see if I can add to any of your tough solutions your are working on. (I agree with you on Carthage, but I have come close on Persia.)

I just tried the Bab UHV solution...lol...a Barb Chariot came down and eliminated me in the building the Oracle. I think it might be wise to sandwich in one extra warrior in the build sequence.

@HoriujiMan

So far I see three suggested starting positions. Mercenary86's Niwt-Rst location in the other thread has the huge advantage of getting military on line ASAP and he leverages this very well in order to take down Babylon and Delhi. This is thinking outside the box and kudos to him for doing so.

It unfortunately is disease-ridden and, as such, falls back in the medium and long term. Almost as bad, the opening moves required to take advantage of this seriously hinder your long-term prospects. It is difficult to get the Pottery on line. You always seem to be whipping wonders and growing other stuff instead of the other way around. And do you really want to train two warriors at the beginning?

The power location is Siwa. It is reasonably healthy. Most importantly, it remains healthy through the entire cycle from size three to six. What exactly does building on the coast gain you? You lose the stone. Aside from the double wonder-speed, it simply is a good tile. What does the coast gain you instead?

I noted earlier that there is a good spot to settle 2 nw of Siwa. If you take the coastal spot, not only do you lose the stone, you lose this position too.

If your objective is anything other than immediate military conquest, Siwa is the best spot to settle. In the long run, it is definitely stronger militarily. You don't have to go for a mad wonder rush after all.

I just tried the Bab UHV solution...lol...a Barb Chariot came down and eliminated me in the building the Oracle. I think it might be wise to sandwich in one extra warrior in the build sequence.

Click to expand...

Fair point. This might happen one time in twenty. The extra warrior costs little other than a slightly lower score and it definitely makes your victory almost certain. It's a trade-off. I just got a brand-new video card and, if I play this scenario again, my objective will be to get down to five minutes from six. Extra warriors do not help for that.

Great Egypt strategy Abegweit! I'll try a peaceful UHV myself now. I also agree that Siwa would be better for a peaceful victory, but the spot 1 tile north of start position is essential for an early rush. Even though it is disease ridden, it only needs to be size 3-5 throughout the game to get the UHV.

I also agree that Siwa would be better for a peaceful victory, but the spot 1 tile north of start position is essential for an early rush. Even though it is disease ridden, it only needs to be size 3-5 throughout the game to get the UHV.

Agreed totally. Your location is necessary for the military UHV. Kudos to you for finding it. In contrast, I simply came up with the most efficient way to do the obvious.

I played a little with trying an early rush from Siwa. It can't be done. By the time the horses come on line, the moment when it is possible to leverage them has already past.

What I was saying earlier is that Siwa is the power spot. As such it is superior for all victory conditions except your UHV rush. Some folks appear to think that Niwt-rst is the place to start a conquest. While I have no doubt that it can be done from there, Siwa remains the power spot. If anyone wishes to try any other victory from Niwt-rst while I play Siwa, I would be more than happy to take him on. Need money on the line; that's the way I am.

@Abegweit

I was just reading your guide to Egypt, and you mention Stonehenge is the best wonder because of the Obelisks... Some time ago, the powers of the Stonehenge were swapped with the Pyramids... I always build the Pyramids prior to Stonehenge when heading for the UHV, for the same reasons you have Stonehenge listed...

Oh, and it IS possible to hit that 500 culture goal with Niwt-rst as your capital... It takes a slightly different research path and ensuring you found judaism... But you're strategy is awesome...!

Good point about the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Stonehenge is still better though (8 culture instead of 7). Furthermore, I start on the wonder before I even know Masonry.

I'm somewhat surprised to hear you say that Judaism can do it for you. Is the situation so marginal that 4cpt is enough? I would think that the granary gives you more culture than the religion anyway (faster growth = more wonders = more culture).

While this is clearly not the only route to victory, I maintain that any strat (except Mercenary's early chariot rush) that would work at Niwt-Rst would work even better at Siwa. I haven't tried it but I think that the method I outlined here would perform adequately with the Niwt-Rst start.

Taking Delhi early on also has the advantage of helping with the 500 culture goal since it automatically produces culture from being a double holy city, I always get the 500 culture goal, and never have founded Judaism.

The Chinese

The Chinese start out in a truly gorgeous land. There is food everywhere. Wheat, rice, fish, and game are found in almost shockingly abundant quantities. The capital is blessed with three food bonuses, many hills and several other resources. There are calendar luxes everywhere. To the far north, we find gold and gems. If that wasn’t enough, we have horses to defend ourselves from the barbs (and we will need them, because they will come from the north and the west in great hordes) and will have iron when we learn the tech. Marble is also within reach – and copper too, to build those Big Temples.

In the midst of such abundance, how could you possibly lose? It would be embarrassing.


Research

So let’s start with what is necessary to develop this land to its full potential. The secret is to adopt the proper research order which is... Bronze Working. That’s it. Nothing else. The rest is up to you.

The principal mistake you can make with the Chinese is to fail to research this essential tech. It is not on the path to Math and Calendar but it is the crucial step towards victory. With the chop and the whip, your growth will be rapid and smooth. Your civ will quickly become far bigger and powerful than any other on earth. Without it, you will always be teetering on the line between expanding too fast and expanding too slow. You will forever be attempting to keep the size of your cities down, in the process wasting all that yummy food.

Once you have made this fundamental initial move, you can easily win your UHV. Alternately, you may decide to play a peaceful game and expand to fill your East Asian home from the North Pole to the Equator. Or you can go warmonger. Wipe out the puny Japanese when they arrive – and the Mongolians too. Start west towards the Indians and the Europeans. You can do whatever you want. You own the world.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. BW merely sets the stage. The key to the Chinese is to understand that your economy is more important than a mad rush to Calendar. Take care of your economy and you will get to the goal faster than if you start out for it immediately. I like to continue by researching The Wheel, Fishing, Animal Husbandry, Writing, Math, Pottery, Hunting, Sailing, Calendar, and Currency in that order. Every one of these techs is either essential for the goal of founding the two religions or for building up the economy rapidly and efficiently.

Whipping a few libraries, granaries and markets in food-rich cities will do wonders for your economy so make sure you get the techs for them. Math should get you Iron Working from the Romans. Calendar will get a few more techs. Slipping in Alphabet before Currency in order to trade with the other civs is possible but it is likely to be a mistake. If you want to grow, you will need the extra trade routes and access to markets. Alpha can come next if you like. There is a reason why Currency is the only tech recommended in the startup hints. Like Bronze and Pottery, it is essential for the smooth growth of your civ.


Initial Moves

The warrior explores Korea and then heads off to Europe to meet the Romans and Greeks. It is not essential to do so, but it is nice to trade for a few of their techs before you leave them in the dust. It is not important to ensure his survival either. If he dies, you can always send a chariot after him. Alternately, just stay home and live in magnificent isolation. The Middle Kingdom can do quite well without foreigners, thank you very much!

Back home we need to stake out as much territory as we can as quickly as possible. We need cities ASAP and we should build as many as our economy can stand. Initial build order: worker, worker, settler. Chop, chop, chop! Then let both cities grow a little (start a barracks or train a couple of warriors; it doesn’t matter much) and build two more settlers, one out of each one. At that point, it’s time to build up infra for your four cities. When they all have – or are close to having – the essential buildings (at minimum, a granary and a library), you can consider the possibility of expanding a bit more. But be very careful until you have Currency for the trade routes and the Markets.


The Power of the Bronze

Here is a picture of my empire just as I started researching on Calendar on turn 94.




The tech is due in a very respectable 9 turns. This is almost entirely due to the fact that I had four libraries running six scientists. Without the scientists, it would have taken about 18 turns. Without the libraries? Perhaps 23. In those four cities, there are also three granaries and a barracks. Every building was chopped or whipped, usually both. What would I have had without Bronze? One library. Maybe two? Perhaps a barracks? Certainly no granaries.

Luoyang had just been founded. At this point it was a drain on the economy but that would soon change. In fact, in the next eleven turns, its granary was chopped and its library chop-whipped. All of a sudden, it had become a productive city. You can also see that Tiajin was building a workboat. This is not because it needed one (all the fish already had dinghies) but rather to provide a jump start to my sixth city, which would be built out of Beijing as soon it finished the chariot and a worker. This would be the fourth chariot built. All were vets, as were two warriors.

I could actually have finished the research in eight turns because I soon added additional scientists in Shanghai and Taijin. Instead I chose to whip out workers in Dairen and Taijin, as well as a granary in Shanghai. The overflow from the workers finished the workboat and almost completed the barracks. Another worker was produced the hard way from Beijing. With all these Calendar resources about to come on line, the additional peons were badly needed. All in all, this was a pretty good trade against one turn of research. On the same turn that I discovered Calendar, Beijing’s settler was whipped and ran off to meet the waiting workboat.

BTW, Tiajin provides an instructive case of how to handle the whip and scientists. It is about to reach to its happy limit and will grow far past it long before the work boat is finished. The solution is not to worry and to let it grow. When it gets there, another scientist will be hired. At the same time, we switch to training a worker. Usually it is better to build it the normal way so that the citizens have time to calm down. In this case, we need it badly so we will whip it. In this example, the work boat was built with the overflow and the city started to grow again building something else (a lighthouse as it happened). Each time that the city grows, the new citizens are hired as scientists.

This, in short, is how to handle the whip in food-rich cities. Build something until the city reaches its happy limit, then (probably) switch to a worker or settler. Depending on how unhappy the city is, you may either whip that or the next build. Rinse and repeat. On growth, hire specialists. In this example, all we are allowed are scientists but merchants and engineers are good too. Except in special cases avoid priests. The one downside with this technique is that it takes a lot of micro-management. Each turn you must go through all the cities, checking to see whether to add a specialist or if the happy cap has changed. However, the benefits are clearly enormous – and we haven’t even talked about all the GPs this technique generates. In going for the UHV, it is best to use them for Super Scientists. You want the benefit immediately.


Barbs

The only other pitfall is failing to keep up your military. The barbs will come in swarms of three and more at a time. There will be horse archers out of the north and west (mostly the north) and swordsmen from Tibet. In Warlords, The Great Wall would be an ideal addition to your empire. You won’t want to expand north or west anyway. As soon as you get Construction, go for it.

Playing in Vanilla, you can’t rely on such crutches. Without it, you absolutely must connect the iron at Beijing ASAP. This should happen around the time you research Calendar. If you can’t get Iron from the Romans, you will have to research it yourself. Julie can be something of a dick. If you can’t get it the first time you ask, don’t settle for less. You can usually get it later. I assume that this is because more civs (that he knows?) learn the tech so the price goes down. Once you hook up the Iron, Spears are the priority. It is possible to whip out an Axe if you see danger approaching but there is no time to react if mounted units appear.

Place three axemen on the hill entering into Tibet. Then spread spears along your northern border and on the iron at Beijing. The axes should be nearly invulnerable. You are liable to lose one spear on each attack from the north. Salute the dead hero, get a new recruit to replace him and move forward.


Academies and Pagodas

After you have Currency, your civilization needs to grow again. The requirements for a Big Temple are Music and four little temples. I assume the fourth one is due to the size of the map but it may be simply RFC. Anyway the bottom line is that you need four, so you must have at least eight cities.

You will need Alphabet, Literature and Music in order to get the right to build Big Temples, and you need Priesthood for little ones. With reasonable luck, Confucianism will have spread though most of your cities but Taoism is definitely going to require missionaries. While it is possible to build them out of Monasteries, Organized Religion makes things much more flexible and the building bonus is not to be distained either. So you will need all five early religious techs as well. You should be able to trade for most of the religious techs, so research Alphabet first and then move on to Literature and Music once you the religious techs.

Oh, and don’t forget to bring the copper on line to in order to double the building speed of your BTs. For the same reason, a detour to Metal Casting is well worth it. In fact, that would be my next project after Alpha. Alternately, you may be to get it from Julie or Alex in exchange for Currency and something else.


Mongols

The Mongols start with seven keshiks, two horse archers and three crossbowmen. They will be found on the shores of the lake to the northwest of Beijing. Pikes are fine against the keshiks but the crossbows will eat them alive. The solution is war elephants, which have 8 strength and a 50% bonus against mounted troops and thus are stronger than any Mongol units. About fifteen WEs should do it. There is Ivory at Angkor. Hook it up and eat ’em up before they become a threat.

I don’t know why you say hello…



I say goodbye.



Note The Great Wall of Human Bodies. Roads across it are essential.

I've found that you can tackle the China UHV in a slightly different manner. The main points are key, particularly the order to research and using the chop and whip.

I offer two variation points. First, I put a spread of cities similar to what is shown, but also in the south. I try to get the Great Wall up before the first horse archers barbs start appearing. As a result, my cities are garrisons by just Warriors. And, it stays that way until the late game.

I had an inkling that if Beijing was large enough in culture, it would encompass the horse resource to the north of Beijing where the Mongols usually settle. In four repeat tries on the UHV, the denial of horses keeps the Mongols up in central asia for a long time. It's a bit funny to see a bunch of Keshiks accompanying a settlor unit, come down to the Beijing border, look around and then turn around and go back up north. So the 1400 deadline for no city lost is easily met.

Oh yes, finally the Mongols do declare war...in three out of the four games, they declared war in 1916, 1960 and 1998. Unfortunately for the Mongols, the Keshiks, catapults and macemen were met by Infantry and Artillery.

The 120 unit requirement is easy if you don't mind crowds of Axemen. Just remember to get rid of them after 1600 AD, because you don't even want to think about upgrading them (unless you are inclined to play the Chinese human wave fight tactic.)

The UHV aside (and this should probably be posted in another thread), the stability system is really broken in my opinion particularly in the last 100 turns or so of the game. While China remained solid to stable during this period, in four out of four games by the last 10 turns, there were only 2 or 6 other civs...the rest had collapsed.

Thanks for the great China guide! The research order helped me a lot with my economy, as I was one of the people always making the mistake of beelining to Calender first. This better economy I had helped me get the Great wall after the first group of HA's showed up, so barbs were no problem at all.

As for dealing with the Mongols, I prefer to use them against Persia or India first instead of taking them out right away. I declare war on Persia or India and bribe the Mongols to join in. This gives me good relations with the Mongols, so you can keep bribing them to attack other civs as well. Eventually one of us will back stab the other, but most of the Mongols hordes are off else ware when that happens, so it isn't that hard to deal with.

The Cathedrals came pretty easy since I needed to spam temples everywhere to keep stability up, but I still can't avoid collapse before getting the 120 units goal unfortunately.

The main thing I need help with China on is managing stability during the medieval and later eras so I can get the third goal, but hopefully this newest version takes care of that issue.

Well, the trick, at least for me, is to be peaceful...don't even think about declaring war or siding with anyone. You should be very solid during the whole period. Sit calmly within the Great Wall and use Sun Tsu's writings for kindling until you get past 1600. After 1600, nothing is more fun than sending 100 Axemen or Macemen somewhere in one wave (and it beats having to use the delete button). You don't even have to take cities, but you can totally change the map by wiping out all improvements over a vast area for everyone else.

Actually, there's a good thing to point out here. Avoid the temptation to build current tech units in the 120 unit build. I've done this several times. It is more efficient to knock out one turn Axemen and be done with the requirement by 1500 or earlier, then you can turn your attention to prep for beyond 1600 (assuming you have the patience to play further on).

Another trick thats kind of risky that I do is to pillage my iron for a few turns to spam warriors, just make sure you have a few spears and Elephants in your cities while you do this. I dont think the warring is what caused instability, as I barely lost any units, and only war about once before 1600, it must have been something else.