Nobles' Club XLII: Qin Shi Huang of China

Yes...I'm posting a lot, aren't I?

Anyways, general update. After taking three of Mehmed's cities Nap declared war on me. Fortunately, a mediator made peace between Meh and I, so I focused my attention on nap. Although he was by far stronger, I had the brain and ended the war with one of his cities (he took one of mine but I took it back). I did some "peaceful" expansion (part settlers, part capturing barb cities) down where WVO started. I took a risk with marriage random event and ended up back at war with Mehmed. No worries, as I was just getting maces and CKNs. Took all his cities, about five or six more in total (two auto-razed). Next on the menu was Hatty, who, for the entire time of her existence never had more than four cities. Maces and CKNs crushed her easily. That's where I stopped. Hatty and Meh dead, and I'm sitting pretty having taken the lands of three AI whereas the others have hardly exchanged cities. Which now brings up the question, what next? My eco is horrible (minus 47 gp per turn at 50%), but my military is pretty strong. I want to keep up with the CKNs, but I doubt my eco could handle that. Should I just keep an army to discourage an attack from Nap? Thanks to common religion with Joao, Monty, and Brennus they're all pleased or friendly (Joao and Monty are at war, though). Should I just sit here and go for a diplo?

Screenies:

Overview (takes three screenshots):





Diplo:



Demos:



Techs:



Probably time for prince...

I'm no expert myself, but your city placement seems a little funny. For example, why is that size one city where it is? (I can't read the name). It would seem to me that placing it just one north of the cow tile would lead to a much more useful city. The other two cities down there also seem to be in "okay" positions...there is a lot of green just suspended between the city radii of your cities.

Initially I placed the southeastern city there to block a mountain pass (which it turns out wasn't actually an area you could move through) You're definitely right on the cow spot though, looking back I was eager to get that gold, but settling above the cows would have opened up more commerce in the long run because it had grasslands instead of mostly plains. City placement is always a really tough decision for me; I always feel like I should be minimizing overlap. It's probably best to just let them overlap and make sure I'm working every productive tile I can. Thanks for the input

After I got my guys all togther and ready:



It was time to payback monty for poking me, dowing me, having a ugly map color and just being a all round dillhole in gerneral. The war went pretty easy. Monty being Moty tried to send his stack around mine to attack a city and left it city RIGHT next to my stack on FLAT ground. Afet killing off that stack Monty didnt caus emuch trouble and he died very cooperatively leaving me Spiral and Moslem holy city both of which helping my economy BIGTIME.

Mountains were cutting Montys land off from willies so my guys had to go a LOOOOONG way round to find a way into willies. While they were making that walk I saved some gold for some upgrades and soon as they were rdy:



Its willies turn to meet the 3 generals and the boys

And thats where I am now.

My empire at this point:



REALLY gonna need biology soon I think.

Techsitch:



Willie has grens on me but TMiT always talking about how pinch cavalry can be viable against infantry so Im figureing if thats true then they should be viable against grens too so I made some to help out my rifles.

Demos:



Starting to finally get some leads and pull away a little bit.

Diplo sitch:

Thanks to those events that let you throw some keggers for jewish weddings or some such Im actually at friendly with nappy now. He even dogpiled on willie so soon I will get shared war bonus. I dont even have open borders with him right now cuz actually I really DIDNT want him going after willie cuz I want to take ALL his cities. So when I saw his stack going through my lands I closed the borders to make em pop back home. But he just went through Mehs lands after willie so I might as well open em again to get that bonus back. Probably wont save him from being next target after willie tho. His and Hatties cities are just SOOO much better than Meh's.

So thats my game at this point. two civs dead one civ my lapdog and looking to put willie next on the dead list.

After that just not sure. If I am VERY close to dom win with willies cities and think I can attack meh without dropping below friendly with Nappy I may just go after meh. But if not I will attack Nappy and take my chances on holding off a backstab by meh.

But first things first. I have to see if I can handle willie and his grenadiers so wish me luck

did you try to drag Nappy or Meh into the war with you against WvO ? Unlikely they will take many cities...and then you can catch their SoD units out of position when you're ready to backstab. Also good for +diplo modifiers and to make sure you don't get a auto-war if WvO vassals to one of them once he loses a few cities. Looks like you have a lot of trade-bait with techs if they're willing to war against WvO. Nappy is usually easy to drag into war.

No, I didnt want Nappy in the war just cuz he can be a little TOO good at taking cities but he DoWed on his the turn after I did and I cant get meh to now even if I wanted to cuz he is in wheeoh mode but I didnt want him in the war either cuz ALL of willies citiesare MINE and I HATE sharing . And cuz wille is xian and EVERYBODY else is jewish nobody likes him all that much so I think it very unlikely he would voluntarily vassalize to anybody or they would accept if he did BUT he MIGHT cap to them if they are at war with him so I was just hoping they both stayed out of it.

And I like the slow speeds, a game that covers 6000 years of history SHOULD take a few days to play and I am NOT a warmonger I am VERY peaceful and ONLY go to war if the AI's force me by poking me or hogging the shinies or building cities on my land before I get there or if they just annoy me but other than that I out ghandi ghandi so

On the city front Xian was founded in 725 BC equidistant with the three elephants, Chengdu was added in 250 AD SW of the SE rice. On the wonder front Beijing added the Temple of Artemis, the Parthenon, the Great Library and the National Epic. Guangzhou got the Statue of Zeus while Shanghai accidentally built the Shwedagon Paya while seeking a loss for cash.

For reasons beyond comprehension (oxymoronic?) Montezuma declared on Hatshepsut in 205 through Chinese territory. In 460 he got around to the Chinese. The pass just north of Shanghai is well defended; there will be bloodshed ahead but machinery is six turns away. Land and population and production levels are fine but the number of soldiers (5th) no doubt invited the Aztecs.

With five Buddhist civilizations (Montezuma and Joao II are Hindus) the Chinese adoption of free religion may not have been the best of choices.

Willie has grens on me but TMiT always talking about how pinch cavalry can be viable against infantry so Im figureing if thats true then they should be viable against grens too so I made some to help out my rifles.

Click to expand...

Grens only get their bonus vs rifles, not rifle-carrying horses. Short version: cavs TOTALLY pwn grens. So have fun.

EDIT: Also, grens 50% bonus vs rifles is only when they attack rifles, not the other way around.

I "hunkered down" as planned and built the early wonders I wanted: Stonehenge, Great Wall, Pyramids, and Oracle. I wanted the stone and marble online for the latter 3, so Shanghai went near the stone in a place that's quite suboptimal until Iron Working clears out the jungle. Guangzhou went next to the marble. I've only one exploring scout, popped from a hut; when the warrior got enough hut experience to hit Woodsman III I sent him home to preserve as a healer if/when I attack somebody. Thus I know nothing about the lands to the East (that I don't happen to remember from creating the map, of course). Here's what I know:


I just finished Alphabet and need to backfill:

Having MC from the oracle, I figure I can get a lot in trade; advice welcome! I particularly need IW for the jungles and as a step to the UU, and Monotheism so I can bulb Theology with the Great Prophet who showed up in Beijing. One of the fishmongers must have Sailing, which I'll want to get next round to open up trading on rivers, so I have to be slightly careful to preserve something one of them will want next turn.

I'm planning the next few cities and am quite puzzled about what to do. I'm holding off on more chops in Beijing until Math, to get the best value from my trees, since there aren't a whole lot of them elsewhere. Several are gone to get the 2 settlers and 2nd worker. But here's my very tentative plans:

I expect to cottage up Beijing after chopping settlers; it looks like the only good cottage site to me. I may build a fort on the forested hill between Guanzhou and Willem, just to block him. As to the rest:

• Red (SE) gets the gold and has grassland and one food source; it might be slightly useful for cottages but I might need to irrigate the forested grassland next to the river just to have enough food to work a hill or two plus the gold.
• Dark blue, south of Beijing, has a bit of food and some riverside grassland; it might be useful for a few more cottages, but once again probably needs some farms.
• Light green has all those mountains but it's a good place to block Mehmed.
• Light blue gets the elephants and shares one food source with Beijing; I waffle between that location and 1NW
• I doubt I can grab a site near the floodplains to the north, but it might be worth thinking about after the others.
• I don't see a good location NW of Beijing.
• I suspect Joao is building near the pass NE of Shanghai, so I don't expect to built over there, but that's where the scout goes next.

Those 3 additional cities give me enough to go for culture; I'd kind of prefer to go for space. I'm not sure who might need to be conquered; is Willem or Napoleon usually the bigger threat?

In my game the Ottomans or whoever's over to the west was sending settlers over to my land so you might want to block him off with the green city. I did play on monarch so I don't know what the difference in AI settling would be. IW needs to be prioritzed trade to help make Shanghai and any northern cities more productive. You can't build anything better besides walls in guangzhou?

You defintely need more cities but you seem to know that and have some good city sites planned out. Looking at the culture map the AI doesn't seem to expanding quickly in your area so you shouldn't have any problem taking all the cities you mentioned. Usually, I would probably settle the cities on the outskirts of my land first so I could block AI's and later backfill cities. Even though WvO is closer to you, Nappy is expanding quickly and will probably destroy hatty sometime or vassal her so I would defintely look out for him because he can be a threat.

Not that big of a deal at all but you should cottage/work cottages near the river first because you gain an extra commerce because its riverside. I noticed the only cottage you have in Beijing is non-riverside but like I said it's a minor detail.

Thanks for hosting and goodluck with your game.

NW of Beijing; the sugar act as 4 food when plantaged. It became a decent city for me, as I took the rice and I jumbo with it, as well as the silk.

The first cottage is off-river because I'm waiting to finish math before chopping the riversides (26 turns as-is, but running two scientists in Beijing and building research reduces that to 12). I goofed with the walls -- they may be needed eventually to protect from Willem, but a fort on that forested hill is a better defence. I should likely build archers there, or, now that I have alphabet, a few spies -- for counterespionage at least!

I often forget about post-Calendar resources and don't get Calendar until quite late; this time around, after I trade for fishing and sailing, I expect to prioritize it to get the Mausoleum and longer golden ages.

A minor query: I sometimes wonder why so many people have numbers in their userids.

First, a confession. I've restarted this game 3 or 4 times, either because I ran into a game killer early on (4 hostile warriors from my first goodie hut, and once, Vedic Aryans), or because I screwed up my opening gambit.

I've been trying to get to Cho-Ko-Nus as fast as possible, by using the Oracle to bulb Metal Casting, building a Forge, and running an Engineer to pop a GE and bulb Machinery. I've pulled this off before but as my several restarts indicate it's a tricky maneuver.

The main problem is that once you've built the Oracle the clock starts ticking because if you don't get an Engineer up and running quickly your Oracle city will pop a Great Prophet first. So you have to make sure your second city is settled and ready to build a Forge as fast as possible once you've bulbed Metal Casting. I accomplished this by doing a lot of queue shuffling in Beijing. If, at any time, it looked like the Oracle was going to finish too early, I threw a Warrior or something else relatively inexpensive to the front of the queue.

Anyhow, this is my best result so far. Shanghai will pop a GE in around 26 turns. I'm in the process of backfilling most of the techs I bypassed in getting to Metal Casting: IW, Archery, Masonry, AH are in, next up are Polytheism, Monotheism, Writing, and so on. I've started the Pyramids in Shanghai. It's not the best city for wonder building but if I can get the Stone hooked up I'm hoping a couple chops will get it done in time to accelerate the GE there.

I'm not overly worried about my military weakness, because nobody's gone WHEOOHRN on me yet. If Joao, Nappy, or Mehmed shows signs of aggression I'll prioritize hooking up the Iron and cranking out some Axes.

My research rate has been adequate despite my total lack of cottages, thanks to some gold popped from huts and from whipping overflow. I won't be able to rely on that for very long, however, so I need to get a few cottages up.

Of more concern is my acute labor shortage. 2 workers is not nearly enough for 4 cities, and I need to deal with that. I'm even working some unimproved tiles at this point.

So, from here, I will be expanding to the north to claim the Ivory, building workers, finishing the Pyramids, and waiting for my GE to show up.

Comments/suggestions welcome! I'm using BUG 4.2, BTW.

View attachment Duck Stab Huang BC-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave