Nobles' Club CLIX Mao of China

Fractal - Toroidal.

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

People have found this map a bit tough, definitely NOT one to move up a level!!

Thought about vranasm's stone settle and FS's rax/whip worker, but did SIP (thought I'd want the PH tile) and worker first (BW was 15 turns away, so worker would be whipped anyway on turn 15 and it takes 15 turns to build de novo).

Fishing > BW > AH > Mas > Myst > Wheel > Sail > Pottery > Write > MC

Turn 12: Meet Wang Kon and Willem, so tech race anyone? (addendum, turn 24 we see Willem has gold in BFC, seriously?)

Turn 22: Whipped WB. Then warrior, settler to get the copper/FP site to the West (Future capital as FS mentioned...?)

Turn 36: 2 pop whipped settler. Settled sheep to West to claim copper and marble in BFC.

Turn 53: Stonehenge (stone, counter Willem's creative)

Turn 57: Willem founds Judaism. Glad he is researching that line.

Turn 66: Meet Ramesses, on island to E. Found cow/silk city. I'd like to move more West and block Willem (e.g. cow/gem) but his city somewhere to S/SW blocks that site. Then he did this: (I was going to settle, in his face, 1W of Rotterdam...)


Turn 78: GLH, Nanjing.

Turn 87: Moai in Beijing.

Turn 89: Oracle went, I missed it. GP, settled in Guangzhou - which I think will be future capital as center of our island.


Analysis:
--I figured my first emperor game, given recent monarch games, would be more warring. I didn't given far bronze, lack of enthusiasm about chariot rush, and a perceived need to settle westward.
--Willem settled in my face before I could do it to him, but I have more room left to the north.
--Consequently I delayed OB. This delayed Willem sending missionaries to me (a few went to WK).
--I need the happiness, so brief OB.
--Should have prioritized Oracle?
--Didn't get a GS but a GP, so trying for GS. Academy in western cottage city.
--Not enough military?
--Maybe should have chariot rushed?
--Need to meet others and trade.
--Too wonder heavy for Emperor?
--Poor leverage of GLH so far (would have moved 2nd city 1W to coast).
--I have 2nd biggest empire but only 4 cities to WK's 5, Egypt's 7 (?)

--Tech: alpha and IW behind, and I know Willem has COL, but no one has currency, math.


Plans:
--Cities S of Beijing.
--Hook up silver.
--Spread a religion.
--Cho-Ko-Nu...meet Willem.

shanghai seems a strange settle to me,after you've taken the trouble to build the GLH,you either want to settle for the marble OR the copper to keep your city on the coast for the extra trade route.Waiting to get both in the BFC from stone henge monument is a mistake imo.

Ive not played many turns myself,but can tell its going to be a tough map.I play with huts/events on and got AH with a hut,thats going to change my tech path to yours,but the advice I can give you is-our starting lands rubbish,war,war,war in the early game until we get some decent citys.Chariot rushes only work well if the AI is on your doorstep,WvO is too far away to consider it I think,and with Emporer city maintainance costs you could kill your game by taking over too many long distance citys early on.

Totally agree: I've reflected on the turn set and I messed up this city site: "--Poor leverage of GLH so far (would have moved 2nd city 1W to coast)."

I also don't have 8 cities by 1AD...

,war,war,war in the early game until we get some decent citys.Chariot rushes only work well if the AI is on your doorstep,WvO is too far away to consider it I think,and with Emporer city maintainance costs you could kill your game by taking over too many long distance citys early on.

Click to expand...

. So what do you rec for the war plan?

Fish > BW (slavery) > AH from a hut > Wheel > Pottery > working on Myst, then Masonry. Worker > Workboat > Scout from a hut > Warrior x 2 > working on 3rd warrior. Rest of the huts gave some gold. Probably need another worker soon, but after that... see discussion below.No real good city sites IMHO. Given various people's comments on their own games, I should try for the GLH with these coastal locations. I might need stonehenge first, though, since there is very little production in any of these locations, and building individual monuments would slow down more valuable things like granaries (which seem like a necessity, since whipping is going to be a major source of ).

Also from various people's comments it sounds like a chariot rush isn't going to work well because of the distances.

So which first, settlers or the 2 wonders?

Fishing - masonry - sailing - bronze working and chopped + whipped lighthouse + settler into TGL, got 2nd city (on wine+pigs) and TGL at 1800BC, while I fogbusted my 'island' with 2 warriors.

I didn't scout the floodplains site yet, so I teched myst-hunting-AH in preparation of improving the deer and the pig sites.

Intention was writing, but found horses so needed the wheel, thus I also teched pottery before writing.

My settler was heading for the pigs/silver site, but then found willem at the floodplains, who captured a barb city 1N of the marble. So I sent my settler up there and settled a city 1E of the oasis, against willem and Wangs borders. Quickly whipped another settler and settled 1S of the sheep, to complete the blocking.

Despite TGL, this still ruined my economy (thanks, toroidal map, I forgot about that!). After writing I banked gold until I got libraries up, that took a while tough, I had to get some chariots out to prevent the AI's getting a barb city (autorazed) that spawned on the silk (and got a woody III warrior/heroic epic unlock in the process).

Another barb city spawned on the western silver ON A HILL, blocking me from settling the pig/silver and deer/silver sites.

So, finally got 2 libraries up around 500BC after banking for 15+ turns. still only have 4 cities due to barb cities. Wanted to tech MC but Willem had it, so went Aesthetics. By the time I got it, only Julius didn't have it. Mansa, Willem and Wang have a tech-trading lovefest going on like you wouldn't believe.

Also popped a GM, he scouted out willems land before doing a trade mission for 900 gold





Ugh. Teching all those small techs was probably a mistake in hindsight. Got IW from ceasar (no use for alpha since everyone has it) and teched drama, which got me currency, which got me metal casting. I had no choice but to add heaps of gold often, as holding on to a tech for one turn meant the trading oppertunity would be gone thanks to mansa, willem and wang.

Wang won the music race, and culture bombed the city 3N of my blocking city, the basterd.

Ok, I have to cut this short.
ended up going CoL, CS, Paper, and half-bulbed eductaion with my second GP, a scientist (so still no academy). Was 2nd to eduction, and with no hope of winning lib I immediately traded it around for philo, machinery and a heap of other stuff. went for gunpowder monopoly tech, and went for steel to crush Wang with cannons. However, he starts preparin and techs gunpowder, chemistry AND steel in the time I need to research steel. Also, due to the foodless lands and forced bad city founding order, my cities are nowhere near ready for an epic army-whipping session.

So, warring seems to be doomed. What do you think? I might try just to be sure, but I guess I'll count this as a loss. I'm tempted to start over, and try a 4-city win-liberalism-cuirrasier battle, possibly fueled by the pyramids!

Although, maybe a late game-corp fueled culture thing could be possible too? Any input is appreciated. I'll include the save too.

I proceeded as I guessed might be best, which was

• BC 2175 Shanghai on the wine
• BC 2050 Stonehenge
• BC 1800 Guangzhou near the marble
• BC 1150 GLH
• BC 950 Oracle Metal Casting

I wound up making a lot more trades in this game than I usually do, since with Willem and Mansa both in the game I was behind in tech. If anybody cares to examine the details, it would be nice to know if a more experienced player thinks these deals were reasonable.I think I have some chance at the liberalism race, but I won't know for a while. Here are the techs. At least Mansa doesn't have Education yet -- but he may well beat me to it if he doesn't get conquered by Rome soon enough (they're currently at war).A couple of other bits of history:

• BC 410: Bulbed Theology with a great prophet; I wanted the extra 2XP from theocracy when invading Willem.
• BC 170 Noticed Willem had already founded Taoism, so I'd lost the race to Philosophy. This puts liberalism in jeopardy.
• BC 80: I was going to take out Willem anyway, so whatever minor benefit this gives will likely be mine (if I don't take too long!)
  
• AD 115: Started a golden age with a 2nd Great Prophet and switched civics:
  

Meanwhile I've been building up an army to take on Willem. I plan to wipe him out, crash my economy, then recover and take out Wang. After that I need more tech, maybe Mil Trad / Cuirassiers, to be able to invade the nearby continents and take out Mansa, the other tech rival -- but at that point I'd probably best capitulate everyone and take a domination victory -- since there's somebody out there, overseas, that I haven't met yet, it won't be conquest. The issue right now, given how poor a warmonger I am, is how close my army is to being big enough to get started with conquest:

9 macemen, one unpromoted to maintain flexibility. 11 trebuchet (5 accuracy, 6 iunpromoted). 1 Medic I chariot. Only 2 longbowmen for protecting captured cities, so I guess I need more. No spare spies (somebody has already poisoned Xian, the copper/floodplain site, so there are spies in all my cities but none to protect captured ones). My power rating is noticeably higher than Willem's, even a bit higher than JC: