King of the World #9: Genghis Khan

With regard to city placements, South of Beijing I think I would like a city placement 1North of the coastal rice (Ultimocrat's red city). Then, 1SouthWest of the other coastal rice (Ultimocrat's yellow city). The rest would be pretty much on with what Ultimocrat has. I just think these versions overlap a bit less...

mystyfly said:

HOW can you justify increasing WFYABTA for a already-researched tech?? "2 turns of research gained... true, but you aren't counting the techs you won't get in trade because of that I wouldn't have traded for a tech as cheap as agriculture either... You really should be a bit more careful about WFYABTA...

BTW, congraz rolo, just crossed 7k posts

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20 beakers gained 10K lost, who cares? Seriously though the amount of techs you trade for is rather weird indeed...

Also, make sure you have plenty of workers. Significantly more than you would have in a normal game, for three reasons:
1) With so many food sources, you will have very rapid growth of new cities, and thus your workers will need to go faster to keep all citizens working improved tiles
2) Much of the area you are rexing into is heavily forested/jungled. This makes your workers about half as effective at getting improvements up (normal pasture = 4 turns; pasture in forest = 7 turns + 1 more for moving onto the forest tile).
3) You should be chopping out (or whipping, I suppose) culture buildings rather than slow building them, especially in cities where there are a lot of good second-ring tiles to work (Beshbalik, Beijing)

AHH!! Fun point in the game, so many different ways to proceed. I didnt hear any mention of religion or diplomacy, how are the blocks forming up? Do you plan to cultivate Cyrus as a long term partner?

While Rexing into alot of land and crashed Economy seems like the best move right now, it seems like a shame to go 1000yeasrs with out a war. Maybre go on a worker stealing and pillaging romp into India?

Neal said:

re: Dotmap- I'm digging Ultimocrat's suggestion. I played with it myself, and ended up with an almost exact copy of his work. Any suggestions or criticisms on it? That north Malaysian city looks like a monster!

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My idea dotmap would be very similar but a the difference is that the southern coastal city would loose sugar (instead of being founded on it) but it would be on a river giving access to a levee. It doesn't really matter though.



*Sorry for stealing your pic.

I think the comments about my dotmap are well made -- the brick red city will be much stronger placed 1 SE (though the light yellow will be a bit weaker). I had been thinking that brick red would steal Beijing's fish as a 6F tile, but Beijing using it as a 5F tile isn't the end of the world.

I also agree that boxing in Asoka with a city on the Bangladesh/Burma border is a good move, though it means really getting the worker/settler pumps going fast, and holding off on infrastructure. The Great wall is a huge help here, since otherwise you'd be forced into building units to deal with the swarms of barbs from both north and south.

Surpirsingly Toku is still on one city. I would suspect AI trying to get early Moai

How about few galleys and quick strike on him?

In general my memmories about China land is simple - lots of food and very few happines before calendar. This is one opf problems China gas on this map.

In this round, we start paying taxes on what we earned last round.

I started by pulling off one of my patented terrible tech trades:



There's a lot of Iron in our borders. We may as well get the extra hammers for it.

The Barbarians started getting comfortable in "South Mongolia," so the Keshiks got some exercise:



Six lousy gold, but I did keep a lucky foreign explorer from taking the city and establishing a foothold.

In 575 B.C., our Settler reached northern Malaysia and established a border with Asoka:



That city, for now, is an expensive money sink that serves to keep Asoka from sneaking into China. In the future, once I get those resources online, Ning-hsia will be one of the shining jewels of the Mongol empire.

Saladin's religion spread to Guangzhou. I quickly declared myself a Hindu:



Conversion not only allowed us to join the eastern bloc and make nice with everyone from Egypt and Russia eastward, but it'll also give us a tiny boost in any culture wars we may have with Tokugawa over Korea. Admittedly, that does make us friends with our likeliest next targets... Whoever thought that being a bloodthirsty madman would require so many tough decisions?

Well, Barbarians are always a safe target:



I burned Sarmatian to the ground. The plan, at that point, was to refound southeast of the Sugar.

In 320 B.C., I paid more than I should have for Alphabet:



And I traded with the enemy, to boot! Everyone who's been saying that I'm too trade-happy is right. I just assume that, with as many people as there are on these maps, any techs I research are going to be common sooner rather than later, so I try to get what I can, when I can. You can also, in the background, see that I've managed, in the first time in the history of the KotW series, to crash the economy! Let's hear it for 0% Science! Needless to say, I immediately started running Scientists.

The Barbarians tried again, this time right where I wanted a city. I took it gladly:



What's another 3 or 4 gold in maintenance per turn?

And the Japanese, as predicted, sent out colonists to the coast:



You'd think that someone as paranoid as Tokugawa wouldn't be sending out unescorted Settlers. Oh, wait. He was escorted. By a Worker. Needless to say, I reeducated the Worker and sent him off to improve my cities, and slew every man, woman and child in Satsuma. A few turns later, the war was called off. Yeah, the Japanese will probably never be in our circle of friends.

Running those Scientists paid off:



You can also see that Currency bailed out our economy in a big way, and now I'm working on Code of Laws to take it even further. I used the Scientist to take Compass, and got what I could for it:



And with that, I Revolted to Organized Religion and Slavery. By round's end, I have no fewer than five religions spread throughout my empire (missing only Judaism and the yet-to-be-founded Islam), so I figure I can spread them around as much as I can and then revel in Free Religion when it comes along. OR's removal of the Monastery requirement would be most helpful. Calendar is also huge for my position on the map. Is there a single Plantation resource that I don't have access to?

Beijing also lived up to its name as a production city:



The Health bonus is always nice, but, more importantly, I have a huge number of cities for this point in the game, so that free population is a big boost.

Right before I came out of Anarchy from the Civics change, Asoka made me this little deal:



... Ah, well. I think we've got enough sources of happiness that Hereditary Rule can wait.

So it was around there that I decided to end the round. Here's our empire as it currently stands:



As you can see, the economy is on its way to recovery. I'm going to want to move the capital soon. What do you all think? Beijing? Old Sarai? Maybe go really crazy and go with Ning-hsia?

A closer look at our cities:



Not too much more to say there, but we seem to be looking good. The Happy cap will rise as Plantations come online.

The Tech Trading Screen:



... Yup. You all were right. WFYABTA's a pain in the neck. Ah, well. It'll go down soon enough. And even if it doesn't, our raw land should catapult us into a tech lead once it gets on track.

And the Diplomacy screen:



Things are, predictably, splitting along religious lines. Maybe I should convert to Buddhism, since it seems that my next few targets are all Hindu. Or is it too late for that?

Oh, and here's a look at Ning-hsia with my force of Keshiks:



Looks like the Barbarians founded a new settlement right where I'd wanted it! Sweet! I want to wait a while, though, to let it grow to size 2 so it can be taken.

So what do you all think? Our dark days of scrimping and saving seem to be over, probably for good, as our core will only get stronger and stronger as time goes by. As has been said, the game is basically won, so I guess we can talk victory conditions. It's too bad Shaka won a Cultural victory; with five religions at 200 A.D., we could make a very strong case for it. Maybe a U.N. Diplomatic victory? Only Tokugawa really and truly hates our guts, and our abundance of religions will lead us to Free Religion, which is always good for making friends.

Here's the save:

Well, with war elephants, invading asoka seems like a bad idea.

Given that you have open borders, no scouting of the lands. I mean, I know you know what the land looks like, but I usually find it's a good idea to see where people are expanding to.

Given how pathetic Toku is, invading Japan seems like a good idea to do at some point. Better to do it before he gets religion and starts making friends with your neighbours (to avoid the "you declared war on our friend" penalty).

Other options are beelining caravels and going over to meet the people in America. At least gives you more tech partners. That or you could try colonizing down to Australia. That'd give you lots of territory to play with. Or if you don't want maintenance, you could always settle Australia and then break it off as a colony.

UWHabs said:

Other options are beelining caravels and going over to meet the people in America. At least gives you more tech partners. That or you could try colonizing down to Australia. That'd give you lots of territory to play with. Or if you don't want maintenance, you could always settle Australia and then break it off as a colony.

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Or maybe moving your capital to austrailia and shipping off your old lands as a colony, and becoming a glorious austrailian/indonesian empire. Well maybe not as australia kinda sucks but its an interesting idea for your Elizabeth game. (you could mod monty and roosevelt out and colonize america in a historical fashion, becoming "independant" by 1776. )

As for your next turn, I'd say at this point wipe out Toku sooner rather than later and filling out the rest of your lands in preparation for a medieval war with Asoka.

I agree war against india with your army sounds rough. Japan and Indonesia sound safer and a better return on the hammers.

I'm still pulling for a pillage war against some one...maybe Europe?

I'd say sell a cheap tech to Louis for his 300 gold. He's a non-factor, so it's not like it's going to come back to bite you. In regards to your comment that you trade too much, I'd say you trade fine. I'd say just trade whenever you can. Free beakers are free beakers.

I'd say take over Japan, then choose your victory.

Joshua368 said:

Or maybe moving your capital to Australia and shipping off your old lands as a colony, and becoming a glorious austrailian/indonesian empire. Well maybe not as Australia kinda sucks

As for your next turn, I'd say at this point wipe out Toku sooner rather than later and filling out the rest of your lands in preparation for a medieval war with Asoka.

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Joshua368, Australia doesn't suck, it rocks..he he but I'm biased...Nah in the game it does.

Move Capital to Beijing, Eliminate Tokie, Ironworks in Ning Hsia looks formidable, but by then probably have better candidates. Wait until Engineering to take on Asoka, Build Versailles there, or hope he gains Islam, so leave along till then, then you've got middle capital set up, and forbidden palace in Oh Berlin.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Keshiks rode across the Russian Steppes in 1200's, but Calvary, will Substitute.

Gotta love Mongolia.. so good at taking cities, it's the best civ for ruining yer economy! It's happened to me before.. lol. The only way to keep myself afloat and to keep my men from going on strike was to continue to pillage my neighbors.. literally. I ended up ending that game XD So.. victory conditions already eh? Hm... Diplomatic victory'll be a different approach I suppose. I personally think that going an espionage-heavy route to a space race would be fun.. steal techs instead of trading them ;D

Rome took Thebes? Wow, once in a while they put praets for good use. if they could take Egypts position western part might develop into something intersting.

Move capital to New Sarari and expand west!

I've been playing a shadow of this -- Monarch, Vanilla, Normal. Restarted after an unsuccessful chariot rush, and decided that Keshiks took too long and were underpowered (no gers in Vanilla for the extra XP) compared to aggressive swords -- plus the research line to IW includes BW and chopping -- useful in the forest-heavy north. So I approached Beijing in 775 BC with a solid stack of 8 Swords and a medic warrior, to find it swarming with archers. Now, mind you, "protective" didn't exist yet, so the battle was still won, but it was enough of a dent in my attack not to be able to take out China in one blow.

So, what's the reason for this discrepancy -- (recall that Neal faced all of two archers)? The fact that I'm playing normal speed, or some aspect of the game that has been "improved" in BtS?

Ultimocrat said:

So, what's the reason for this discrepancy -- (recall that Neal faced all of two archers)? The fact that I'm playing normal speed, or some aspect of the game that has been "improved" in BtS?

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I think that the Great Wall is probably the culprit here. In my game, Qin wasted a ton of hammers on that wonder. Hammers which probably went to extra Archers in yours.

Or it could be something completely different.

Victory conditions? You're Ghenghis Khan! Slaughter your enemies!

I recommend a pillage and raze-based economy. Keep only the best cities, salting the earth everywhere else.

Or if you're stilled warred out from the Saladin game, aim to launch the Mongolian Starship Keshik, to seek out new worlds to plunder!

I'm all for a diplomatic victory- as long as it's achieved by you conquering everything and having a monopoly on the vote.