Role Play Challenge, TNG:The Dalai Lama, A One City Challenge

The Dalai Lama: OMENS!

Apparently there are two world leaders that hate Pacifism





Which was immediately followed by this opportunistic demand



Which we eagerly agreed to.

We never saw any Japanese military but there was definitely a Greek stack heading towards the Himilayan Mountain Pass.

As we had an archer, a Dog Soldier, a musket, and a pair of warriors I decided to start building Military and upgrade everyone to pikes/macemen.

Meanwhile, Alexander apparently has a hatred of Bananas as his force appeared to deliberately deviate to ruin our plantation



The was huinger in the streets os Lhasa but under the Dalai Lama's wise leadership enough food was saved to last until Bananas once again flowed into Lhasa.

Meanwhile about that Greek Army.



We dropped many muskets into both Mountain passes, with either the Guerilla or Woodsman promotion, and waited. Alexander apparently did not like the fact that instead of some Mountain Patsy he found determined defenders, so he suicided one Knight and went back to attacking Bananas.

More war horns are sounded, however we found out that we are not being dogpiled.



Apparently Cyrus went after Qin. Remember that Barbarian Pacific city Cyrus took early, he still has it and they have had bad border relations, now complicated by Cyrus's adoption of Free Religion.

After a while he found that Banas really did not offer that much of a fight, so he decided to sue for peace.



The Banana-phobe Greek never bothered us again.

But what is going on with China and Persia?



Looks like someone used the AP religion to leverage a holy war against the unbelievers in CHina! Looks like only us and Russia do not have it, a serious concern for the remainder of the game.

Of course we got manyr equests to stop trading with Qin and to attack the Chinese, but the Dalai Lama was not interested. In fact the Dalai Lama attempted to broker a peace between Cyrus and Qin but Cyrus was not willing to hear it, say "We would rather win the game, thankyou very much!"

As expected, the rifleless Qin is getting pummelled by Cyrus



And is getting trached from Genghis in the north.

As we are getting near finishing Medicine we are approached with a very promising trade



Now I was just about to start researching that, your a good man Mansa!

We got a map of the New world in teh Rifle trade showing that Monty is



well doing what Monty does best, acking the smackdown on Roosevelt while apparently vassaling teh wimp Incan.

Finally Toku agrees to peace figuring it's hard to send his army towards me through enemy land.



We finished Medicine.



And changed civics



Resulting in a net increase in beakers! Nice!

And leaves us a decision point



What to research next??? Electricty for more commerce for early crack at the modern wonders (6 in all if we got down the electricty/radio/Mass Media line) and refridgeration for a Corp/Supermarket/Superconductors. Assembly Line for production and defense (dozens of infantry in the mountain passes will certainly deter even Cyrus I think). Steel for the IronWorks, the last National Wonder (we built Wall Street and the Globe Theater this segment).

Lhasa is cruising along



I did switch to all merchants before the save to try and force out a Great Merchant.

Tech we are still doing decent





And we upgraded all the mountain units to rifles



In all we have about a dozen.

One question here, if I build the UN, is Monty considered for a vote even though we have not met him??? It is possible I can actually swing a UN victory with most of the Old World nations voting for us if Monty is my UN competitor.

Get forts up in the mountain passes, it will increase defence (and healing as well I believe).

Those were some brave bananas!

I like the electricity/radio/mass media approach. You'll be able to backfill other techs with that, and will give you first crack at a number of nice wonders. Funny to see Qin in trouble - I'm so used to seeing him huge & powerful on earth 18.

A question I have bout forts in the mountain passes. Are they worth it?

I believe they will add +25% defensive bonus ontop of the hill and forrest, and I assume teh Gureilla and Woodsman promotions still work. They also allow the free CG promotion to work since we are protective.

However, my defenders are now succeptible to any CR promoted units, otherwise only Combat and pinch promotions are a concern.

Is it still worth building forts???

mad,
an obvious mistake - do not build farm over the rice on the ex-jungle hill. Get a fort there, it's like 10 times betters (75% + 75% (CG3) extra defense) CG works in forts which makes super-heroes [CG3/D4/G2/Leadership, I did that in my shadow btw] a true beasts on such tiles and above all you get the resource.

Generally OCC-wise consider forts wherever possible.

Consider this: xbows, CG3 upgraded to MG in the forts, siege that's the only CR troop by then doesn't touch them at all. And since you can have CG3 out of gate the only case it's sort of even match is CR3 which you won't see much, if any. Most troops will be combat promoted.

Tech: (if Kremlin available, get communism and rush buy it)
Electricity->AL->Industrialism->(trade electricity to combustion or just buy w/ cash)->Plastics->Radio->Computers

You get: +25% D, +20% from CG1.

They'd need to be attacking with CR2 units to even that out. And all their rifles/infantry won't have that. Throw on a slight healing bonus, and it makes sense. Also probably makes sense to chop out the jungle around it, in case you want to throw a few cannons at passers-by.

Very nice write-up, I love the way you tell those stories...

As you noted the AI really dont like attack the passage alex sent one knight? Even when I got cyrus and his 4 vassal to declare war on me in my shadow they didnt send any troops there and instead fought china. For some reason the AI dont like to attack that place maybe they belive its hopless

I know few of you will be impressed, but may I just place on record my delight at having won my first game on Emperor. I normally play Prince, but now plan to move up to Monarch... Space in Jan. 1963, just under 10,000 points, which is surely not bad for a OCC.

China came within a few votes of diplomation, thanks to numerous vassals, and I wouldn't have stood a chance without the Internet, which got me ALL spaceship techs that I didn't have when I built it (plus all the useless military ones that I could then sell to not-China to give everyone else a chance).

Didn't bother with culture at all - used my one GA for a GA (ha!) - and was able to buy oil, coal and aluminium and have loads of money left over. I think something like 70,000 by the end. My one mistake was in getting into DPs with Persia and Russia - dragged me into useless wars, although I never saw any troops.

Pressing enter every four minutes while the turns to victory counted down was the most nerve-racking hour of my life. Maybe that says more about me than the game...

Mad - LOVED this, and am loving your write-up as always. I owe you, Neal and TMIT a huge debt for helping me get so much more out of this game. Now, what next...

The Dark One said:

I know few of you will be impressed, but may I just place on record my delight at having won my first game on Emperor. I normally play Prince, but now plan to move up to Monarch... Space in Jan. 1963, just under 10,000 points, which is surely not bad for a OCC.

China came within a few votes of diplomation, thanks to numerous vassals, and I wouldn't have stood a chance without the Internet, which got me ALL spaceship techs that I didn't have when I built it (plus all the useless military ones that I could then sell to not-China to give everyone else a chance).

Didn't bother with culture at all - used my one GA for a GA (ha!) - and was able to buy oil, coal and aluminium and have loads of money left over. I think something like 70,000 by the end. My one mistake was in getting into DPs with Persia and Russia - dragged me into useless wars, although I never saw any troops.

Pressing enter every four minutes while the turns to victory counted down was the most nerve-racking hour of my life. Maybe that says more about me than the game...

Mad - LOVED this, and am loving your write-up as always. I owe you, Neal and TMIT a huge debt for helping me get so much more out of this game. Now, what next...

Click to expand...

Nice job

Steel and Ironworks is next build priority, hammer multipliers sooner rather than later and is the cheapest tech of the three you mentioned to research

Next segment is played out and saved. It is long and I will post it tomorrow.

Techpath went electricity/refridgeration/radio/superconductors/rocketry

Here is save for those who do not want to wait.

Hit a problem in my shadow. Louis declared war with no ground army and only a fleet with planes. Since I can't kill any troops, and he's so powerful, I can't peace him, and because I'm landlocked, I can't sink his ships. Also, as I can only put a warrior in my capital, I can't intercept his planes, so he's destroyed all tiles in my BFC, leaving me screwed just before a space vic.

@Boom12389

Have you tried rush buying stuff with all that shrine gold?

@boom: You are allowed to place forts around you and station fighters there on intercept mission, I believe that should protect your land

The Dalai Lama: Technology

The Dalai Lama looks across the Tibetan Plateau and mumbles to himself "We must get more out of all those windmills"

"Tibetan's, it is time to accelerate our research! Time to delve into mor emodern times, Time to bring electricity and power to Tibet, for our salvation is not in the world but lies in the heaven's above".

So Tibet starts researching electricity followed by refridgeration.

The next GP to arrive is a Merchant



Who takes up a relaxing residence with our save Great Scinetist until called up by the Dalai Lama.

Meanwhile the Dalai trades technology with only 2 leaders, the generous yet non-threatening Malinese and the over-friendly Russian Lady who seams perplexed as to the Dalai Lama's Platonic relationship.



And we start upgrading out rifles to infantry while building a factory.

We did manage to make one chinese trade though, more to try and save him from extermination than a need for Communism.




We did try for the Kremlin but was fittingly beaten to it by Russia.

And once we finished electricity, we cna see Lhasa now



Like I said, we lost the Kremlin race. In fact we also lost Broadway. I should also mention Lhasa about half the time was either constructing buildings or building science.

Once Lhasa reached legondary status and Cyrus torched CHina, Coal became easily available



And by torching China I mean



So Qin is vassaled to Cyrus who basically is a good friend to us all segment. In fact both Cyrus and Catherine kept proposing Defensive Pacts, but we politely declined.

The next Great Person was just what we wanted, an Engineer



So our great Scientist, Merchant, and Engineer are sitting around Lhasa playing card and abmiring the scenery waiting for the Dalai Lama to erquest their services. Their wait did not take long as



Which allows our Great Merchant to



We managed to up it to 3 food later on via trades.

Also Catherine came by with a trade offer





Perhaps over generous, but the Dalai Lama knows who is true friends are, and just which leaders need to track through ALOT of land to get to us.

Finally, America Inc.... arrives to great the Dalai Lama



All the American nations scoff and ridicule the Dalai Lama, treating hiw with no respect or courtesy. While the Dalai Lama is still a loving and peaceful person, he has become somewhat prideful in almost 6000 years and refuses to have any dealing with the Americans. Apparently the feelings were mutual.

Moving along the technology tree as we research Radio





But he Russian trade was made just before we finished



Allowing to make many resource trades, for example



I also canceled that hideous iron for 37 gold trade with Asoka to renegotiate to acceptible levels. The Dalai Lama has become quite a business man!
Perhaps TMIT simply paid for everything, but I negotiated all good prices to max out all I could get, with uranium the only missing component.

We used the Great Engineer to found Creative Inc, which is compatible with Aluminum Inc which we want later on



So the Tibetans are enjoying their life of Bliss and even lands to the east and south have been pacified under the stern but fair guidance of Cyrus.

However, peace was not in the Tibetans future as we got these messages






To Be Continued......

Isabella is Monty's vassal. I like the historical irony.

The dalai Lama: Technology

We are researching Superconductors while the Aztecs and Greeks decide to attack.

But let us take a minute to appreciate



Sure mostly for GPPs but still a wonder is a wonder.

Monty sent a suicide stack of outdated garbage



Upon finding masses and entrenched infantry Monty got the idea of how pointless this situation was.



Soon we got



And this is one tech I think I will keep a monopoly on for a long time.

Techs



Allowing



And we started researching Rocketry. Usually I will hold off until I can the internet but I think I need Apollo fast to start on Space Parts ASAP, I already can build 5 thrusters.

Al was more courageous than Monty bringing better troops, however after a few rounds of newly acquired Artillery followed by merciless infantry attacks, Al's stack was decimated giving us



And getting Al to see reason



We had peace the rest of the segment allowing us to continue towards our lofty goal.

Catherine offered us



And in one turn we had another trade route via an airport. we have a few forts to stacka decent airforce in although we have yet to construct any.

The last leader to be discovered



The Dalai felt rel bad here and considered gifting her Music, but the reality of the situation is she is NOT liked much and there is Tibet to look over. So the Dalai Lama simly turns his back and rpetends he never met her, ignoring all open border or tech requests/demands.

As you can see here we did build some machine guns, at the same time the UN was built by Louis



We voted for our friend Louis who easily won.

The number of useful trades we got from Mali and Russia were just countless this game, having a strong trasury certainly helps!



We also continued to bring in mega resource trades




And finally finished



We used the last saved GP to found Aluminum Inc



Note Creative Inc is now giving us 3 hammers!

Miscellaneous wars have broken out



But no where near Tibet!

We immediately start on Appollo



Seven turns away! Pretty impressive!

Heading down teh Plastics route towards Computers and getting a Hydro-Plant to reduce pollution.

As far as techs



The only one of interest out tehre now ir Satellites, easy enough to pickup later.

SO I saved here, figuring we have one last long segment to head into space. I plan to mix in some SAM units and an airforce for protecion. Perhaps tanks, but not sure they are needed.

There is ONE major concern though! The Manhatten Project has been build and we have no uranium and are veyr far away from laser and SDI! While the Dalai Lama has been somewhat pragmatic with coal and oil, the idea of ever constructing a nucelar weapon is out of the question.

SO we head into the final run!

Creative inc looks like a mistake. If you're only going to get 3 hammers from it, better to just settle the engineer instead.