AbsintheRed
Deity
Why did you raze Kyoto?
Is the stability penalty for occupied cities bigger than the raze penalty in DoC?
Is the stability penalty for occupied cities bigger than the raze penalty in DoC?
Dawn of the Middle Kingdom [DoC]
- Thread starter Tomorrow's Dawn
- Start date
If you don't count the turns where a city is in disorder, there are only disadvantages to razing cities (the stability penalty for having ahistorical tiles is the same after all, no matter if you conquered the city or founded it yourself). So I'm curious here as well.
Great AAR so far, by the way. China in 1.81 is probably a lot easier than currently, though. Anyway, may the gyros be with you
Great AAR so far, by the way. China in 1.81 is probably a lot easier than currently, though. Anyway, may the gyros be with you
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
Have the resources in Japan changed about?
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
If you don't count the turns where a city is in disorder, there are only disadvantages to razing cities (the stability penalty for having ahistorical tiles is the same after all, no matter if you conquered the city or founded it yourself). So I'm curious here as well.
Great AAR so far, by the way. China in 1.81 is probably a lot easier than currently, though. Anyway, may the gyros be with you
Japan actually flips cities in their core post-conquest instead of pre-conquest.
I believe it's tied to the Viking spawn, since they come 1 turn after.
That's why I razed Kyoto and refounded it.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
I'm happy to see this story because
*You are a good writer
*I completely fail at playing China on DoC, and your walkthrough-like style is giving me a clue how to win games with them
Very nice so far, keep it up!
Oh, and by the way, is 10 CKN's not a little bit over-kill when Kyoto has only two defenders?
*You are a good writer
*I completely fail at playing China on DoC, and your walkthrough-like style is giving me a clue how to win games with them
Very nice so far, keep it up!
Oh, and by the way, is 10 CKN's not a little bit over-kill when Kyoto has only two defenders?
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
EDIT:
That's true, but as you can see with a lot of the feedback from other players here,
playing China is not immediately intuitive at first.
I think someone mentioned before that a lot of new players have difficulty with the 2 Cathedrals goal.
I still think China is one of the most polished designs in DoC though.
You turned something from being written off as "pillage your own metals & spam Warriors"
to something that's much closer to historical and has a lot more care put into it.
This, India, Arabia & the new England are definitely the most robust civs to play now.
It's not overkill because newly spawned civs will continuously spawn defenders at a 50-75% rate after each battle, I believe.
Not Warmongering For A Change.
Education is ours! However, we don't exactly have time to build Universities yet.
When we do however, it will greatly boost our Science output by miles.
We're also one step closer to Liberalism now.
This has to be one of my all-time favorite tweaks about DoC.
See this tile here? It no longer flips to the Mongols.
(In real life, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty fought fiercely against the Mongols; so this is much more appropriate)
It must be taken into consideration that the Mongols get nicer things now though...
Before, in vanilla RFC, we had to settle for the awful Sanshan tile.
This is no longer the case, and we have a nice historical Manchuria to settle.
(At least half of it anyway, Japan still has the northern half as historical)
We use another Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy.
Apart from being on the way to Liberalism, it unlocks Republic!
Republic is a civic that provides +50% GP birth rate.
Stacked with The Great Library, The Pantheon & The Hagia Sophia...
We can spawn a new Great Person about every 7-12 turns or so.
Since Rome is collapsing around now, there is no harm in trading them techs.
Although, I have generated two French saves before where Rome was scarily advanced.
In the first, they had Cannons & Currassiers and had destroyed the Germans & the Byzantines, and were well expanding into Russia as I was slowly developing.
In the second, they were just about advanced but thankfully, they collapsed.
It's worth noting too that while it's possible to found Divine Right and Islam when playing Rome, I know, I've done it.
It's definitely worth trying out, as the Muslim Wonders are all quite powerful.
Great AAR so far, by the way. China in 1.81 is probably a lot easier than currently, though. Anyway, may the gyros be with you
That's true, but as you can see with a lot of the feedback from other players here,
playing China is not immediately intuitive at first.
I think someone mentioned before that a lot of new players have difficulty with the 2 Cathedrals goal.
I still think China is one of the most polished designs in DoC though.
You turned something from being written off as "pillage your own metals & spam Warriors"
to something that's much closer to historical and has a lot more care put into it.
This, India, Arabia & the new England are definitely the most robust civs to play now.
Oh, and by the way, is 10 CKN's not a little bit over-kill when Kyoto has only two defenders?
It's not overkill because newly spawned civs will continuously spawn defenders at a 50-75% rate after each battle, I believe.
Not Warmongering For A Change.
Education is ours! However, we don't exactly have time to build Universities yet.
When we do however, it will greatly boost our Science output by miles.
We're also one step closer to Liberalism now.
This has to be one of my all-time favorite tweaks about DoC.
See this tile here? It no longer flips to the Mongols.
(In real life, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty fought fiercely against the Mongols; so this is much more appropriate)
It must be taken into consideration that the Mongols get nicer things now though...
Before, in vanilla RFC, we had to settle for the awful Sanshan tile.
This is no longer the case, and we have a nice historical Manchuria to settle.
(At least half of it anyway, Japan still has the northern half as historical)
We use another Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy.
Apart from being on the way to Liberalism, it unlocks Republic!
Republic is a civic that provides +50% GP birth rate.
Stacked with The Great Library, The Pantheon & The Hagia Sophia...
We can spawn a new Great Person about every 7-12 turns or so.
Since Rome is collapsing around now, there is no harm in trading them techs.
Although, I have generated two French saves before where Rome was scarily advanced.
In the first, they had Cannons & Currassiers and had destroyed the Germans & the Byzantines, and were well expanding into Russia as I was slowly developing.
In the second, they were just about advanced but thankfully, they collapsed.
It's worth noting too that while it's possible to found Divine Right and Islam when playing Rome, I know, I've done it.
It's definitely worth trying out, as the Muslim Wonders are all quite powerful.
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
Outta Nowhere.
A quick look at our stability here.
The trick to playing China is all in the Economy.
You want to be growing steadily and not whipping frequently,
despite what the old guide on the Rhye's wiki says.
Also, Golden Ages will sap at your Economy rating
since they cause your growth to go erratic with highs and lows.
Maybe having 1 Golden Age before the end is nice,
(if you're playing for something other than the UHV).
We meet Ethiopia, in the legendary guise of Prester John,
and he gives us Horseback Riding and a few other things for some techs.
Oh hey, look. We get +1 Happiness in all Catholic cities for 30 turns.
Well, for 20 Gold, but this is a steal!
Pliny compiles a list of the most advanced civilizations in 800AD.
Unsurprisingly, Qin Shi Huang is at the tippy top, with the Romans close behind.
We don't have to worry about that though, considering they're Unstable/Collapsing.
Suryavarman II declares war on me for absolutely no reason at all.
Well, he's a chump anyway (not in vanilla BtS though) and I have little reason to be concerned.
Here, we attempt to destabilize Rome by forcing them into 1 Turn of Anarchy.
For those that don't know, each turn of Anarchy your civ suffers gives you a permanent stability hit.
I've learned that it's not so bad as it first seems, and you can be a little liberal in your own civic switching.
However, it remains to be a great tactic to use against strong AIs, just trade with them to switch civics every 10 turns or so.
Even better, use Spies to switch their civics, and it'll help contribute to collapsing them.
France is the only civ that is willing to trade me Feudalism, so I take it.
Don't worry though, I have a plan to take them down a notch later.
A quick look at our stability here.
The trick to playing China is all in the Economy.
You want to be growing steadily and not whipping frequently,
despite what the old guide on the Rhye's wiki says.
Also, Golden Ages will sap at your Economy rating
since they cause your growth to go erratic with highs and lows.
Maybe having 1 Golden Age before the end is nice,
(if you're playing for something other than the UHV).
We meet Ethiopia, in the legendary guise of Prester John,
and he gives us Horseback Riding and a few other things for some techs.
Oh hey, look. We get +1 Happiness in all Catholic cities for 30 turns.
Well, for 20 Gold, but this is a steal!
Pliny compiles a list of the most advanced civilizations in 800AD.
Unsurprisingly, Qin Shi Huang is at the tippy top, with the Romans close behind.
We don't have to worry about that though, considering they're Unstable/Collapsing.
Suryavarman II declares war on me for absolutely no reason at all.
Well, he's a chump anyway (not in vanilla BtS though) and I have little reason to be concerned.
Here, we attempt to destabilize Rome by forcing them into 1 Turn of Anarchy.
For those that don't know, each turn of Anarchy your civ suffers gives you a permanent stability hit.
I've learned that it's not so bad as it first seems, and you can be a little liberal in your own civic switching.
However, it remains to be a great tactic to use against strong AIs, just trade with them to switch civics every 10 turns or so.
Even better, use Spies to switch their civics, and it'll help contribute to collapsing them.
France is the only civ that is willing to trade me Feudalism, so I take it.
Don't worry though, I have a plan to take them down a notch later.
JamesCaesar
People-Vulture
This is making me want to get DoC... Nice job Dawn!
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
I actually encountered a glitch where the Arabs were said to have been destroyed on the turn that they spawned.
I went to check up on them and it turned out they were fine, but it was just weird.
You'll see the Arabs soon enough.
Got Me In A Panic.
Aside from the Holy Romans, you can see that we've been busy meeting lots and lots of neighbors.
Also, see the Buddhist Roman Empire in that picture there.
Alright. We now have Gunpowder!
In the SVN version of DoC, Cannons are replaced by the weaker Bombards;
8 STR Siege Units, for the sake of balance (Cannons themselves are unlocked by another tech).
The difference to me, on paper at least is marginal at best,
considering RFC already heavily emphasizes Cavalry over slow sieging tactics.
(Vanilla BtS is actually more or less of the same way;
I jumped up a couple difficulty levels via learning how to use Currassiers properly alone.)
The last piece of the 2nd UHV condition that I need is right here.
Even though I have just about 0 Cottages, it's still very useful,
if only because it triggers The Reformation.
The Khmer are actually sending units towards me!
In regards to the Khmer; in vanilla RFC, I had the habit of
rushing the Khmer (and the Mongols) right after rushing Japan, but later on,
I let them survive, mostly because they're a non-issue security-wise
and that I needed them to survive to stop my culture from claiming unstable tiles.
I believe in the current SVN version of DoC,
Leoreth was able to eliminate/reduce the stability penalty for culture
claiming foreign/foreign core tiles, but I'm not exactly certain.
Oh, and on the topic of the Mongols, I tried to do something a little unexpected with them.
*Gulp*
Thankfully, they are roflpwned by my expert sharpshooters.
I was a bit worried too, despite having 40% defense to fall back on.
I had to upgrade to Warrior to a Spearman and the Cho Ko Nus
did not have a fortify bonus to utilize.
Suryarvarman II sues for peace and we dictate the war reparations he is to pay.
On a separate note, for those of you playing DoC as another civ,
Khmer or Thai holding onto mainland China is a very, very common sight you will see.
It's simple, after the Mongols collapse China, they'll usually collapse too, leaving behind a lot of cavalry units.
With the AI disposition to go after Indpendent cities often, the Khmer and the Thai will often be seeing besieging southern Chinese cities.
Both their UUs, the Ballista Elephant & the Chang Suek eat cavalry for breakfast, so it's not surprising from a mechanical POV.
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
Cathedrals And You.
About time it happened!
The resulting explosion in Rome sent our Warrior flying to Greece.
Now, he's going to make a mad dash to Rome to see if he can capture it.
Meanwhile, back at home base, we are cutting it very close for the UHV.
I keep seeing this repeated everywhere, on the topic of China's UHV,
so I'm going to break it down for everyone here.
The Cathedral goals are very much attainable, despite how intimidating it seems.
You just need to follow these guidelines:
1) Newly founded cities NEED to be accompanied by a Missionary.
2) They need to raise a Temple as soon as the religion goes up,
which is usually the same turn that you found the city
(pop the Missionary after the city founding)
3) Send another Missionary en route ASAP.
4) If you just need to throw out the new city fast and don't have time for the Missionary, start on a Forge/Granary.
As soon as the religion becomes available, switch to building a Temple immediately.
5) Do not whip in those cities until pop 4/5, immediately begin the next temple afterward.
6) Do not whip in your core large cities (the ones you already have on the Chinese mainland) whatsoever,
unless it's for a Confucian Academy/Taoist Pagoda.
You'll typically want 4 cities in the Chinese mainland.
There are a number of common problems I see China players do:
1) Clumping your cities way too close together.
Stability map be damned, you're supposed to be big.
Your cities are supposed to be big to boost your Economy.
Clumping cities completely destroys that and hurts you in the long run.
2) Not rushing Japan. Why would you let a neighbor that continually
DoWs you over the length of the game live?
In vanilla, you can take them out with a couple Galleys filled with Swordies,
and in DoC, as you just saw, it's done very well with Cho-Ko-Nus.
Kill them fast and utilize that overpowered land.
Don't fall victim to amphibious Samurai landings later.
3) Keeping Pagan in the case of a city flip.
It's not worth it, not for China at least.
Alright, here are a list of good cities for the other 4:
1) Hanoi (If you build Hanoi, you'll want to build your southern Chinese city 1E of the river, to give Hanoi some room).
2) 1 Japanese city spot, usually Kyouto. (Having more than one city in Japan will trigger revival).
3) 1 Corean city spot, usually Seoul. (Same rule with Japan applies)
4) Shenyang (If you're playing vanilla RFC, DO NOT found this city, it flips to the Mongols).
5) Kunming (DoC only). Yunnan is fairly servicable in resources.
6) Okinawa (I don't have the city name, but it should be Kumemura or Shuri). If you're going for the Hanoi setup,
you can still get a (theoretically) good Great Cothon city on Okinawa.
7) Dagou (Taiwan) as your default Great Cothon spot if you don't like Hanoi.
Success! For the first time in the city, we give them a taste of the whip,
and complete the first UHV condition on the following turn.
Here, you can see how I'm keeping up in stability.
The burgeoning Egg Roll business is fueling growth across the Empire.
As you can see, our Great Cothon city is incredibly productive.
It'll just keep growing and growing and growing.
We get to work on a Lighthouse, which we probably should have started sooner.
Is it?
Can we do it?
I can hardly wait!
Find out next time in the next installment.
About time it happened!
The resulting explosion in Rome sent our Warrior flying to Greece.
Now, he's going to make a mad dash to Rome to see if he can capture it.
Meanwhile, back at home base, we are cutting it very close for the UHV.
I keep seeing this repeated everywhere, on the topic of China's UHV,
so I'm going to break it down for everyone here.
The Cathedral goals are very much attainable, despite how intimidating it seems.
You just need to follow these guidelines:
1) Newly founded cities NEED to be accompanied by a Missionary.
2) They need to raise a Temple as soon as the religion goes up,
which is usually the same turn that you found the city
(pop the Missionary after the city founding)
3) Send another Missionary en route ASAP.
4) If you just need to throw out the new city fast and don't have time for the Missionary, start on a Forge/Granary.
As soon as the religion becomes available, switch to building a Temple immediately.
5) Do not whip in those cities until pop 4/5, immediately begin the next temple afterward.
6) Do not whip in your core large cities (the ones you already have on the Chinese mainland) whatsoever,
unless it's for a Confucian Academy/Taoist Pagoda.
You'll typically want 4 cities in the Chinese mainland.
There are a number of common problems I see China players do:
1) Clumping your cities way too close together.
Stability map be damned, you're supposed to be big.
Your cities are supposed to be big to boost your Economy.
Clumping cities completely destroys that and hurts you in the long run.
2) Not rushing Japan. Why would you let a neighbor that continually
DoWs you over the length of the game live?
In vanilla, you can take them out with a couple Galleys filled with Swordies,
and in DoC, as you just saw, it's done very well with Cho-Ko-Nus.
Kill them fast and utilize that overpowered land.
Don't fall victim to amphibious Samurai landings later.
3) Keeping Pagan in the case of a city flip.
It's not worth it, not for China at least.
Alright, here are a list of good cities for the other 4:
1) Hanoi (If you build Hanoi, you'll want to build your southern Chinese city 1E of the river, to give Hanoi some room).
2) 1 Japanese city spot, usually Kyouto. (Having more than one city in Japan will trigger revival).
3) 1 Corean city spot, usually Seoul. (Same rule with Japan applies)
4) Shenyang (If you're playing vanilla RFC, DO NOT found this city, it flips to the Mongols).
5) Kunming (DoC only). Yunnan is fairly servicable in resources.
6) Okinawa (I don't have the city name, but it should be Kumemura or Shuri). If you're going for the Hanoi setup,
you can still get a (theoretically) good Great Cothon city on Okinawa.
7) Dagou (Taiwan) as your default Great Cothon spot if you don't like Hanoi.
Success! For the first time in the city, we give them a taste of the whip,
and complete the first UHV condition on the following turn.
Here, you can see how I'm keeping up in stability.
The burgeoning Egg Roll business is fueling growth across the Empire.
As you can see, our Great Cothon city is incredibly productive.
It'll just keep growing and growing and growing.
We get to work on a Lighthouse, which we probably should have started sooner.
Is it?
Can we do it?
I can hardly wait!
Find out next time in the next installment.
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
Lucky!
iOnlySignIn
Prince$s
Capturing Rome with your lone starting Warrior in 1000 AD. When you get your GG (Sun Tzu) please make sure to let him lead this unit. Their legend needs to continue!
Also, no-cottage China is nice. May be compounded by the OP Hagia Sophia though. I'll do a no-cottage America just to see how good it is.
When you get your GG (Sun Tzu) please make sure to let him lead this unit. Their legend needs to continue!Also, no-cottage China is nice. May be compounded by the OP Hagia Sophia though. I'll do a no-cottage America just to see how good it is.
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
Eight Stunning Angles.
Unfortunately, our Woodsman Warrior was stopped by a Legion,
who demanded that they count the number of sides on an octagon.
At least our Warrior is still alive though to maintain contact with the Europeans.
They didn't sally out to attack me because the French were nearby and
would be ready to swoop in had they sent out even 1 unit to attack me.
I have captured Rome (in medieval times) as China 2-3 times before,
and it really all depends on how much you're willing to invest in that gambit.
If you're serious about it, park a Chariot and an Axeman in Rome.
When they collapse, enter through the corner with the Chariot, then move in to fortify with the Axeman.
Works like a charm.
What did I ever do to you, England!?
There is nothing strategically significant about this screenshot.
I just wanted to show everyone Charlemagne's face.
We switch to Republic & Aristocracy.
That's right, we are now the Republic of China.
Except, instead of flying the RoC colors,
Qin Shi Huang is President For Life
Our Egg Roll based Economy continues to expand at a rapid pace.
Unfortunately, our Woodsman Warrior was stopped by a Legion,
who demanded that they count the number of sides on an octagon.
At least our Warrior is still alive though to maintain contact with the Europeans.
They didn't sally out to attack me because the French were nearby and
would be ready to swoop in had they sent out even 1 unit to attack me.
I have captured Rome (in medieval times) as China 2-3 times before,
and it really all depends on how much you're willing to invest in that gambit.
If you're serious about it, park a Chariot and an Axeman in Rome.
When they collapse, enter through the corner with the Chariot, then move in to fortify with the Axeman.
Works like a charm.
What did I ever do to you, England!?
There is nothing strategically significant about this screenshot.
I just wanted to show everyone Charlemagne's face.
We switch to Republic & Aristocracy.
That's right, we are now the Republic of China.
Except, instead of flying the RoC colors,
Qin Shi Huang is President For Life
Our Egg Roll based Economy continues to expand at a rapid pace.
iOnlySignIn
Prince$s
Gosh I HATE Charlemagne's leaderhead.
He's always picking his nose with his index finger and then trying to wipe the finger on the person he's talking to (i.e. you). Disgusting.
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
Lots & Lots of Events.
The game was in love with me.
So it gave me a +2 Hammer boost in a plot.
That was quite lucky!
Sometimes though, an unlucky termite/volcano event
can really kick you down a peg.
I've got a neutral opinion about events in general,
but sometimes I think there should be an option to turn them off.
Not content to just give me tin,
my Deer tile was granted a +1 Commerce bonus as well.
This is one of the best parts about founding Catholicism in DoC.
You get to switch to Protestantism AND found it too!
And 500 Gold on top of that?
Count me in, we need every cent we can get.
So around this time, the Seljuks will spawn.
The Seljuks are a minor civ that you can't make diplomacy with,
much like the Celts in 3000BC vanilla RFC & the Byzantines
in 600AD vanilla RFC.
They're a big addition, and their primary purpose is to make the Middle East
more accurate in their inclusion.
Rapidly taking over Persia (or independent cities in that region) with their hordes,
they sweep through Mesopotamia and give Arabia & Byzantines trouble.
Typically, it's enough to make Arabia collapse.
I've seen at least one person complain about the new difficulty of the Arabs before.
As an Arabia player, I just have one thing to say.
The Seljuks are chumps in the face of your UU, the Camel Archer.
Keep 15-20 Camel Archers in Baghdad and pick off each wave (there's two waves)
when they spawn with impunity. Free XP right then and there.
Speaking of Byzantines, we trade with Justinian to get Engineering.
This is a great tech, not because of Pikemen or Trebs really,
but mostly because we want to build Notre Dame,
which will raise our happy cap even further (+2 per city on continent).
And speaking of the Arabs, they DOW me too, along with their vassals, the Egyptians.
How am I supposed to get my falafel fix now?
The game was in love with me.
So it gave me a +2 Hammer boost in a plot.
That was quite lucky!
Sometimes though, an unlucky termite/volcano event
can really kick you down a peg.
I've got a neutral opinion about events in general,
but sometimes I think there should be an option to turn them off.
Not content to just give me tin,
my Deer tile was granted a +1 Commerce bonus as well.
This is one of the best parts about founding Catholicism in DoC.
You get to switch to Protestantism AND found it too!
And 500 Gold on top of that?
Count me in, we need every cent we can get.
So around this time, the Seljuks will spawn.
The Seljuks are a minor civ that you can't make diplomacy with,
much like the Celts in 3000BC vanilla RFC & the Byzantines
in 600AD vanilla RFC.
They're a big addition, and their primary purpose is to make the Middle East
more accurate in their inclusion.
Rapidly taking over Persia (or independent cities in that region) with their hordes,
they sweep through Mesopotamia and give Arabia & Byzantines trouble.
Typically, it's enough to make Arabia collapse.
I've seen at least one person complain about the new difficulty of the Arabs before.
As an Arabia player, I just have one thing to say.
The Seljuks are chumps in the face of your UU, the Camel Archer.
Keep 15-20 Camel Archers in Baghdad and pick off each wave (there's two waves)
when they spawn with impunity. Free XP right then and there.
Speaking of Byzantines, we trade with Justinian to get Engineering.
This is a great tech, not because of Pikemen or Trebs really,
but mostly because we want to build Notre Dame,
which will raise our happy cap even further (+2 per city on continent).
And speaking of the Arabs, they DOW me too, along with their vassals, the Egyptians.
How am I supposed to get my falafel fix now?
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Is this your first golden age?
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
Yep. I might as well make it clear here.
I am not going for the UHV.
The 4 Golden Ages thing can be easily achieved, if you really want to go for it.
Burn 1 GP for the first one.
Get your 2/3 UHV for the second.
Then do any combo of anything for the last two.
If you build Pantheon + The Great Library + Hagia Sophia + Republic + State Church,
you'll have a bunch of stacking GP generation effects that will make it easy.
I am not going for the UHV.
The 4 Golden Ages thing can be easily achieved, if you really want to go for it.
Burn 1 GP for the first one.
Get your 2/3 UHV for the second.
Then do any combo of anything for the last two.
If you build Pantheon + The Great Library + Hagia Sophia + Republic + State Church,
you'll have a bunch of stacking GP generation effects that will make it easy.
