Coming from CaterpillarKing? I doubt it
Crapsack world challenge
- Thread starter MattiK
- Start date
Coming from CaterpillarKing? I doubt it
So I'm not just screwing up all the time, but actually get something right then?
Elderly man surveyed the assembled people, the settlers, and their equipment and livestock.
"Dear friends!" he began. "We depart for journey towards largest and thickest jungle known to us. Long and hard journey is ahead of us. And when we get there, we have many, many years of hard work to build city worthy of the Korean empire. But rewards of our work shall be great! Great animals await there to be hunted and tamed to help with our work, and to fill our bellies. And delicious fruits grow in trees waiting for us to pick and eat. There are dangers, of course. But king Wang Kon has provided protection for us. Brave soldiers accompany us on our journey and they will defend our city from barbarians and other threats. Now let us go!"
With that, settler caravan left Pyongyang.
And that's the origin of Pusan. In addition I completed the quest to train 10 swordsmen and I got to choose reward. I chose Drill I (1 extra first strike) for all melee units. In addition my swordsmen on exploration discovered barbarian city south-south-west from Wonsan and captured it. Gold and 3 sugars within its BFC, and some floodplains too. Worker is building road from Wonsan to there and north-west flank is covered by Maya border. And someone else beat me to great wall 1 turn before its completion. I need to train some missionaries. And more workers. And more troops to defend against raging barbarians. And I really need to go to sleep now...
"Dear friends!" he began. "We depart for journey towards largest and thickest jungle known to us. Long and hard journey is ahead of us. And when we get there, we have many, many years of hard work to build city worthy of the Korean empire. But rewards of our work shall be great! Great animals await there to be hunted and tamed to help with our work, and to fill our bellies. And delicious fruits grow in trees waiting for us to pick and eat. There are dangers, of course. But king Wang Kon has provided protection for us. Brave soldiers accompany us on our journey and they will defend our city from barbarians and other threats. Now let us go!"
With that, settler caravan left Pyongyang.
And that's the origin of Pusan. In addition I completed the quest to train 10 swordsmen and I got to choose reward. I chose Drill I (1 extra first strike) for all melee units. In addition my swordsmen on exploration discovered barbarian city south-south-west from Wonsan and captured it. Gold and 3 sugars within its BFC, and some floodplains too. Worker is building road from Wonsan to there and north-west flank is covered by Maya border. And someone else beat me to great wall 1 turn before its completion. I need to train some missionaries. And more workers. And more troops to defend against raging barbarians. And I really need to go to sleep now...
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CaterpillarKing
Conqueror of Cacoons
I mean both from a gameplay and story level. I love seeing new writers on here 
And I'm not usually sarcastic unless it's very obvious. I don't want to offend anyone.
And I'm not usually sarcastic unless it's very obvious. I don't want to offend anyone.
Krugi
At heart
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 120
Don't worry about screwing up -- you've already shown good strategic planning (such as forgoing Stonehenge when 
were scarce enough already, settling the western river as soon as you found the Mayans to deny them valuable land, etc.). Your mistakes are mostly technical in nature; they originate in Civ4's mechanics contradicting your intuition. That's just how it goes in the beginning; I'd like to see the player who understood, right when playing the first few games, that plains mines producing 4 per turn yield less production than grassland farms producing no at all. :crazyeyes:
(It all makes sense as soon as you realize that Slavery converts food into hammers at a rate of roughly 1:1.3, while food also grows your city, allowing it to access even more food, whereas plains mines consume your food just as angry citizens would, except that they yield a few hammers to make up for their gluttony.)
You could have founded Pusan on the bananas, in fact -- the three food per turn provided by the unimproved tile would become part of that city's central tile yield, so you'd gain the food bonus for free. What's more, bananas are not the strongest food resource; in fact, they're the worst, as they require Calendar tech to yield the same returns as riverless rice paddies. At least rice has the decency to improve at Agriculture, rather than 100 turns into the game.
Drill I adds one extra first strike chance, which amounts to 0-1 first strikes depending on your lucky stars. The other quest reward (City Raider I) tends to work out better because the bonus can be relied on -- swordsmen usually should be attacking cities anyway. You also unlock City Raider II all the sooner; lastly, by upgrading veteran melee units, you can get City Raider promotions on Riflemen, which they cannot usually access.
and on a settler, explored the surroundings, and perhaps most importantly in the short term, you've gained ample 
from looting to fuel your research. Since Pusan also needs its food resource (bananas) badly, consider teching Calendar directly after Maths to add plantations -- with 290 gold in the bank, you should still make it to Currency after Calendar at 100% research. Currency is the key economic tech in the early game because (1) it instantly unlocks extra 
that doesn't consume food or require worker labor, i.e. +1 trade route per city, (2) you can start converting into by building wealth, and (3) you can start trading gold for techs or resources in diplomacy.
If you haven't researched Alphabet yet, that's where you could direct your research after Currency -- I think the Noble AI should have advanced to Code of Laws about now; check whether Confucianism has been founded. Trading for that would allow you to proceed to Civil Service sooner, which will boost your Financial-cottaged capital tremendously with Bureaucracy. Getting Metal Casting for Calendar or Currency (or both, even) could also help you, although the AI may be unwilling to trade it around for a while because it unlocks the Colossus wonder.
Edit: Construction will be another key tech for you, unlocking both elephants and catapults. Elephants promoted to Combat I -> Shock flat-out have the advantage over every pre-Medieval unit including spearmen (!), and six to eight catapults can take out any stack of defenders. If you're plotting a Classical-era war against Pacal, make Construction another one of your priorities.
The missed wonder awards you lots of consolation when you most need it for your research; that's an advantage which the Great Wall's actual effect might not have made up for, although Raging Barbarians makes the wonder more attractive than it usually is.
The problem I have with the Great Wall is this: it costs as much as two axemen/spearmen and two swords (doubled with Stone) so it's profitable exactly when you need to train more than this amount of units specifically to defend against barbarians... and also don't need the units to attack the other civilizations, or defend against them, or provide happiness via Hereditary Rule. The Great General effect that mimics the Imperialistic trait is cool, but probably not worth 150 by itself.
Therefore, in many cases, trying and failing to build the wonder bizarrely gives you higher returns for your.
per turn apiece. If you switch to Organized Religion to produce the religious buildings, you'll start making a net profit from the invested quite soon. Slight bit of number-crunching spoilered:
Besides, an AP diplomatic victory might make for an amusing conclusion to this story.
You could also try to convert the AI to your self-founded religion and simply have them build the Palace, though. saving you the hammers and the need to research Theology, as its effects apply to all players, except for the Great Prophet points it produces. If you do decide to build it yourself, you'll need to switch to Organized Religion and Bureaucracy for their boosts to production, and pre-chop your forests at Seoul. Keep an eye out for Christianity being founded; you're likely in a wonder race at that point.
Edit: One last thing -- city walls usually make for a dubious build; you may want to whip them in an emergency, but they're wasted on cities that never get attacked with considerable force, and it's likely that your southern frontier will shift further south in the near future. I think you should rather build a chariot in Pusan to reinforce the two swordsmen. With a counter against stray axemen at the ready, you should be safe from everything the barbarians can throw at you. Later, that unit can even assist in capturing the barbarian stronghold on the river.
were scarce enough already, settling the western river as soon as you found the Mayans to deny them valuable land, etc.). Your mistakes are mostly technical in nature; they originate in Civ4's mechanics contradicting your intuition. That's just how it goes in the beginning; I'd like to see the player who understood, right when playing the first few games, that plains mines producing 4 per turn yield less production than grassland farms producing no at all. :crazyeyes: (It all makes sense as soon as you realize that Slavery converts food into hammers at a rate of roughly 1:1.3, while food also grows your city, allowing it to access even more food, whereas plains mines consume your food just as angry citizens would, except that they yield a few hammers to make up for their gluttony.)
You could have founded Pusan on the bananas, in fact -- the three food per turn provided by the unimproved tile would become part of that city's central tile yield, so you'd gain the food bonus for free. What's more, bananas are not the strongest food resource; in fact, they're the worst, as they require Calendar tech to yield the same returns as riverless rice paddies. At least rice has the decency to improve at Agriculture, rather than 100 turns into the game.
This is another example of Civ4 acting obtusely and defying first impressions. Drill I melee units don't get to pursue the Drill promotion line any further. Drill III/IV are amazing promotions, particularly for city defenders; Drill I not so much.
Drill I adds one extra first strike chance, which amounts to 0-1 first strikes depending on your lucky stars. The other quest reward (City Raider I) tends to work out better because the bonus can be relied on -- swordsmen usually should be attacking cities anyway. You also unlock City Raider II all the sooner; lastly, by upgrading veteran melee units, you can get City Raider promotions on Riflemen, which they cannot usually access.
That looks like a very strong location once you can remove the jungle and improve the sugar. A good move on all counts; you've saved
and on a settler, explored the surroundings, and perhaps most importantly in the short term, you've gained ample from looting to fuel your research. Since Pusan also needs its food resource (bananas) badly, consider teching Calendar directly after Maths to add plantations -- with 290 gold in the bank, you should still make it to Currency after Calendar at 100% research. Currency is the key economic tech in the early game because (1) it instantly unlocks extra that doesn't consume food or require worker labor, i.e. +1 trade route per city, (2) you can start converting into by building wealth, and (3) you can start trading gold for techs or resources in diplomacy.If you haven't researched Alphabet yet, that's where you could direct your research after Currency -- I think the Noble AI should have advanced to Code of Laws about now; check whether Confucianism has been founded. Trading for that would allow you to proceed to Civil Service sooner, which will boost your Financial-cottaged capital tremendously with Bureaucracy. Getting Metal Casting for Calendar or Currency (or both, even) could also help you, although the AI may be unwilling to trade it around for a while because it unlocks the Colossus wonder.
Edit: Construction will be another key tech for you, unlocking both elephants and catapults. Elephants promoted to Combat I -> Shock flat-out have the advantage over every pre-Medieval unit including spearmen (!), and six to eight catapults can take out any stack of defenders. If you're plotting a Classical-era war against Pacal, make Construction another one of your priorities.
This may actually work out best for you.
The missed wonder awards you lots of consolation when you most need it for your research; that's an advantage which the Great Wall's actual effect might not have made up for, although Raging Barbarians makes the wonder more attractive than it usually is.Spoiler :
The problem I have with the Great Wall is this: it costs as much as two axemen/spearmen and two swords (doubled with Stone) so it's profitable exactly when you need to train more than this amount of units specifically to defend against barbarians... and also don't need the units to attack the other civilizations, or defend against them, or provide happiness via Hereditary Rule. The Great General effect that mimics the Imperialistic trait is cool, but probably not worth 150
by itself.Therefore, in many cases, trying and failing to build the wonder bizarrely gives you higher returns for your
.Seeing as you have founded your own religion, you must consider the effects of the Apostolic Palace as you proceed. Religious buildings of the Apostolic faith give a permanent bonus of +2
per turn apiece. If you switch to Organized Religion to produce the religious buildings, you'll start making a net profit from the invested quite soon. Slight bit of number-crunching spoilered:Spoiler :
Besides, an AP diplomatic victory might make for an amusing conclusion to this story.
You could also try to convert the AI to your self-founded religion and simply have them build the Palace, though. saving you the hammers and the need to research Theology, as its effects apply to all players, except for the Great Prophet points it produces. If you do decide to build it yourself, you'll need to switch to Organized Religion and Bureaucracy for their boosts to production, and pre-chop your forests at Seoul. Keep an eye out for Christianity being founded; you're likely in a wonder race at that point.
Edit: One last thing -- city walls usually make for a dubious build; you may want to whip them in an emergency, but they're wasted on cities that never get attacked with considerable force, and it's likely that your southern frontier will shift further south in the near future. I think you should rather build a chariot in Pusan to reinforce the two swordsmen. With a counter against stray axemen at the ready, you should be safe from everything the barbarians can throw at you. Later, that unit can even assist in capturing the barbarian stronghold on the river.
If I had set up Pusan on the bananas, it would have missed second ivory tile, BFC would have got more of desert instead grasslands, and little overlap with Seoul (just 1 plains and 2 deserts though). I have already researched metal casting, so no point to buy it from others, though I could offer it for trade. Calendar has prerequisites which I have not researched, but I could go after it anyway to get advantages from the bananas, dye, spices, and sugars. After Seoul has completed 2 missionaries, it shall resume build settler to make city up north in middle of the sheep and 2 spices (BFC will overlap with Seoul a bit).
After that is done, I will focus to develop existing cities: temples, libraries, forges, aqueducts, colosseums, markets. Jungle goes under the axe to improve health and make room for cottages. I have intention of making Pusan major source of income with all the cottages place can support. More cottages there, less those are needed in other cities, the more other cities can focus on production with mines and watermills. But before that, I will maximize city's production with horses, 2 ivory, and grassland mine in order to build improvements that will best enhance that capability. I'm planning for granary, temple, aqueduct, colosseum, market. After that, I'll take workers from those production tiles to cottages and collect the money & research. Maybe by then I can have sufficient income to make more cities along with everything needed for support (more military and whatnot).
East from Seoul & neighborhood are cows, deer, copper, plains, deserts. Not gonna do city there. There comes more grasslands and jungles way beyond, but it is best expand there from Pusan. I'd rather go south towards yet another floodplains river with corn in its neighborhood. I also give up on the wheat north from Pyongyang. I might be able to tap on it later when Pyongyang's borders will expand. Maybe I should speed it up with culture generating buildings like monument (it's cheap) and whatnot. But if Mayas want it along with all the plains and deserts, they can have them.
Tomorrow I need to go to work earlier than usual and I didn't get enough sleep last night. You know: one more turn... So no game today, but maybe tomorrow. I need a vacation...
After that is done, I will focus to develop existing cities: temples, libraries, forges, aqueducts, colosseums, markets. Jungle goes under the axe to improve health and make room for cottages. I have intention of making Pusan major source of income with all the cottages place can support. More cottages there, less those are needed in other cities, the more other cities can focus on production with mines and watermills. But before that, I will maximize city's production with horses, 2 ivory, and grassland mine in order to build improvements that will best enhance that capability. I'm planning for granary, temple, aqueduct, colosseum, market. After that, I'll take workers from those production tiles to cottages and collect the money & research. Maybe by then I can have sufficient income to make more cities along with everything needed for support (more military and whatnot).
East from Seoul & neighborhood are cows, deer, copper, plains, deserts. Not gonna do city there. There comes more grasslands and jungles way beyond, but it is best expand there from Pusan. I'd rather go south towards yet another floodplains river with corn in its neighborhood. I also give up on the wheat north from Pyongyang. I might be able to tap on it later when Pyongyang's borders will expand. Maybe I should speed it up with culture generating buildings like monument (it's cheap) and whatnot. But if Mayas want it along with all the plains and deserts, they can have them.
Tomorrow I need to go to work earlier than usual and I didn't get enough sleep last night. You know: one more turn... So no game today, but maybe tomorrow. I need a vacation...
Sacked barbarian city south from Pusan and created new city north from Seoul. I lost some swordsmen against axmen and had to train replacements on Seoul. Now Seoul is building an aqueduct for hanging gardens. Hope I'll make that in time. Would be my first wonder even. And even if not, more gold to fuel research
[edit]
Pacal II offered open borders. I accepted. Worker is on his way to border to build a road that will link our trade networks. Maybe useless becouse we have a river...
[edit]
Pacal II offered open borders. I accepted. Worker is on his way to border to build a road that will link our trade networks. Maybe useless becouse we have a river...
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Krugi
At heart
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 120
When you're unsure if someone is connected to your trade network, look at the scoreboard; a triangle of arrows next to the foreign leader's name will indicate so.
When building the Hanging Gardens, ensure that the population boost doesn't result in unhappiness, unless the citizen will be whipped at once. With the rare Great Engineer points it provides, you have all the more reason to construct a forge in the same city and run an Engineer specialist.
Stone doubles all invested into the Gardens, so you may want to pre-chop the forests around Seoul once the granary in Namp'o has been chopped out (good move, by the way), because these will yield 60 apiece (75 if Seoul already has a forge or Organized Religion, 90 with both) -- in effect, that's as though you had double the number of forests and workers in the area, for the worst-case scenario. Production overflow from the aqueduct will also be doubled if you build the Gardens right afterwards.
Plains copper is a very strong tile for production (1/5/0!). Therefore, I'd suggest the deer/cows/copper spot NE of Seoul for your next city site, especially if you can found it just before the Gardens finish and work their magic. It could instantly pay back its maintenance cost and much more beyond that by building wealth at size 2 for ~10 turns (working copper + cows). The location may feature mostly bad tiles to grow onto, but it's more important to make gains from the good ones.
Your economy looks nearly ship-shape in Bristol fashion thanks to Currency fading in; see if you can find Suryavarman and defog his coastline for lucrative foreign trade routes. The river at Cuman does flow into an actual sea rather than another misleading lake, right?
When building the Hanging Gardens, ensure that the population boost doesn't result in unhappiness, unless the citizen will be whipped at once. With the rare Great Engineer points it provides, you have all the more reason to construct a forge in the same city and run an Engineer specialist.
Stone doubles all
invested into the Gardens, so you may want to pre-chop the forests around Seoul once the granary in Namp'o has been chopped out (good move, by the way), because these will yield 60 apiece (75 if Seoul already has a forge or Organized Religion, 90 with both) -- in effect, that's as though you had double the number of forests and workers in the area, for the worst-case scenario. Production overflow from the aqueduct will also be doubled if you build the Gardens right afterwards.Plains copper is a very strong tile for production (1/5/0!). Therefore, I'd suggest the deer/cows/copper spot NE of Seoul for your next city site, especially if you can found it just before the Gardens finish and work their magic. It could instantly pay back its maintenance cost and much more beyond that by building wealth at size 2 for ~10 turns (working copper + cows). The location may feature mostly bad tiles to grow onto, but it's more important to make gains from the good ones.
Your economy looks nearly ship-shape in Bristol fashion thanks to Currency fading in; see if you can find Suryavarman and defog his coastline for lucrative foreign trade routes. The river at Cuman does flow into an actual sea rather than another misleading lake, right?
Got hanging gardens built. Heavy barbarian attack (3 warrios, 2 axemen at once) against Pusan repelled. Cities continue build their infrastructure, borders expand, got camps on ivory, stable on horses, and mine on gold. Now building plantations. And cottages and farms. And more of everything. Income is still on the red with 70% research. I hope that to change when new cottages mature to villages. If not, I need reduce research even further so I have some treasury to update my military when I can (mace, longbow, and else).
Building more cottages, plantations, and city infrastructure. Lost some swordsmen against barbarians and made replacements. Traded some tech, and it seems that contest is fairly even. Treasury fell below 100, despite of money income from trade, and I had to drop research down to 50%. I won't make new city until I get that back up to 70% at least with some income!
Made 2 scouts to explore Maya territory and it seems my own empire isn't too shabby by comparison. I've got 6 cities against Mayas' 4, and mine are bigger (now). Though it looks like Montezuma has got at least one city from Mayas: it had much bigger % of Mayas than Aztecs when my scout discovered it. Should I improve my relations with Mayas by helping them against Aztecs and capture some Aztec cities for myself while I'm at it...
Still much more to explore. I hope to get on with it after current build projects are complete, I can get stables made, and then do some mounts for exploration. Already I have 1 chariot, but I reserve that against barbarian axemen.
[edit]
I just realized I have good opportunity to backstab Mayas and compete with Montezuma to take Maya cities. But I still need more income and especially more military.
Made 2 scouts to explore Maya territory and it seems my own empire isn't too shabby by comparison. I've got 6 cities against Mayas' 4, and mine are bigger (now). Though it looks like Montezuma has got at least one city from Mayas: it had much bigger % of Mayas than Aztecs when my scout discovered it. Should I improve my relations with Mayas by helping them against Aztecs and capture some Aztec cities for myself while I'm at it...
Still much more to explore. I hope to get on with it after current build projects are complete, I can get stables made, and then do some mounts for exploration. Already I have 1 chariot, but I reserve that against barbarian axemen.
[edit]
I just realized I have good opportunity to backstab Mayas and compete with Montezuma to take Maya cities. But I still need more income and especially more military.
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Krugi
At heart
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 120
I'm not sure if you need those aqueducts. I can't look inside your cities, but unless you're sitting at the
cap with no workforce to chop jungles, building the Hanging Gardens, or playing as the Ottomans with their amazing unique building, aqueducts consume 100 that you could be using for something different right now.Building wealth can often be preferable to markets, unless you need Merchant specialists outside of Caste System or you anticipate a long road to victory still ahead of you (i.e. space race). The market consumes 150
that could have been used to build 150 instead; therefore, it has to make up for this amount of money by the boost that it provides before it actually turns a profit.It's not the percentage that matters, it's the absolute numbers that you should take as your point of reference.
You're at ~70 beakers per turn at 50% science, with your income and expenses in
roughly balancing out. If my empire was producing 72 beakers per turn at 90% science and losing 20 gold every turn, or 40 beakers at 70% while gaining 9 gold per turn (I have arbitrarily drawn these numbers out of unspeakable places), I would obviously be lagging behind you in tech.Optimally, you should oscillate between 0% science (accumulating
) and 100% (burning your on research) because all other configurations cause you to lose beakers/gold due to rounding down (Civ4 generally floors all floating-point numbers), particularly in cities with libraries, markets, or other buildings that amplify /
by a given percentage. This concept is called binary research. If you strongly dislike it, though, you don't need to implement it; the difference is noticeable, but earth-shaking only to a seismograph.Also, trade routes yield
rather than money. is converted into or depending on your sliders; to wit, at 50% research, half of your trade route income per turn produces . If you can produce by other means than by converting , such as by building wealth or running Merchants (i.e. your / become ), this allows you to get more from , since less needs to be converted into each turn. Conversely, you could try to sit at 0% science while obtaining research power from converting into (by feeding Scientists in Caste System, which will eventually produce Great Scientists for vast amounts of beakers from "lightbulbing") or into (by building Research after teching to Alphabet).Another possibility would have been to build spies rather than scouts, because you can extract further profits out of them later by conducting espionage missions; they can also use all roads and may always enter cultural borders. What's more, since they are (mostly) invisible, they cannot be threatened by random barbarians in the wilderness. Spies are more expensive, though; if you need
in the short term, scouts are best suited for mapping out friendly territory.I agree that you definitely performed stronger than the Noble AI in this game. In fact, since the Noble AI does not receive any bonuses over you to compensate for its inability to think and plan ahead, you can be sure that your extra two cities will allow your empire to surpass the Mayans in any category that you want to pursue: technology, military production, wonder-building, whatever your strategy entails.
Another clue is that the city name is on the Mayan list, although I could hardly tell the difference if I didn't have this circumstance memorized for some reason.
As you've already noticed yourself, if you're planning for war, you should rather take the Mayan cities. The Aztecs are further away from your centres of military production, so logistics become an issue and you probably don't want the Mayans to bisect your realm after the campaign. On higher difficulties, you would also suffer from an obstructive increase in maintenance costs due to the Aztec cities' large distance from your palace.
Besides, the Mayans must be rather exhausted from their fight against Monty if they're already losing cities, whereas Monty clearly has some kind of force available (that's his deal, after all). Consult the power graphs in the Demographics screen when picking a target for conquest.
Lastly, I suspect that Pacal makes for a more immediately profitable target, because he tends to build ample cottages that your cities can usually work once the revolts cease, whereas Monty doesn't prioritize
in his cities.By the way, if you have a unit with 10 XP or more sitting around, you should aim to build the gorgeous Heroic Epic.
Which units are you planning to attack with? Related question: which units does Pacal have, and which ones could he be teching for soon? Bring catapults in any case; the holy city in particular receives a huge defensive bonus from culture (20% for every border pop) that you could bombard down, and collateral damage decides battles.
I wonder if you can get the bonus from circumnavigation.
"It is expected we help trade partner of our empire!"
"This is perfect opportunity to take Maya cities for ourselves. We should do it before Aztecs take them all!"
"But then we have to deal with the warmongering Aztecs by ourselves! Can our empire stand up against them alone?"
"We can with enough effort."
"But how much is enough and what it will cost to us?"
King Wang Kon listened patiently as members of his court argued. To his understanding such events are necessary so members of the court can feel they have some say in decisions that affect the whole Korean empire. Only when arguing started to get repetitive with shouted voices did Wang command to quiet down.
"All of you have made sound arguments which can work. But I must agree with duke of Wonsan, that it is best we keep Maya empire as buffer between our Korean empire and Aztecs. Therefore our scouts are to keep vigil eye to progression of war within Maya territory, and if Mayas lose any more ground, we join to war against Aztecs. All cities are to complete their current build projects, after which each city is to create no less than two military units each. Generals, tell us what do you need."
So I consider to join the war and help Mayas out. I remember seen Aztecs having at least their unique unit (can't remember name) and other foot sloggers. Can't do catapults, but I've got Hwacha. I'll have couple of those to weaken the stacks. How about this kind of stack:
2 Hwacha
2 war elephant
4 axeman (is cheaper than sword, therefore better for low prod. cities)
"This is perfect opportunity to take Maya cities for ourselves. We should do it before Aztecs take them all!"
"But then we have to deal with the warmongering Aztecs by ourselves! Can our empire stand up against them alone?"
"We can with enough effort."
"But how much is enough and what it will cost to us?"
King Wang Kon listened patiently as members of his court argued. To his understanding such events are necessary so members of the court can feel they have some say in decisions that affect the whole Korean empire. Only when arguing started to get repetitive with shouted voices did Wang command to quiet down.
"All of you have made sound arguments which can work. But I must agree with duke of Wonsan, that it is best we keep Maya empire as buffer between our Korean empire and Aztecs. Therefore our scouts are to keep vigil eye to progression of war within Maya territory, and if Mayas lose any more ground, we join to war against Aztecs. All cities are to complete their current build projects, after which each city is to create no less than two military units each. Generals, tell us what do you need."
So I consider to join the war and help Mayas out. I remember seen Aztecs having at least their unique unit (can't remember name) and other foot sloggers. Can't do catapults, but I've got Hwacha. I'll have couple of those to weaken the stacks. How about this kind of stack:
2 Hwacha
2 war elephant
4 axeman (is cheaper than sword, therefore better for low prod. cities)
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
Why help the Maya out? You should declare war on the Maya and gobble up as much of the Mayan land as possible before the Aztecs can get to it.
Becouse it is easier for me to spank Aztecs with help of Mayas. And while I fight war on Maya territory, it is the Maya cities and infrastructure that are in the harm's way instead those of my own. Anyway they made peace while my vanguard force of axemen were marching to battle, so this issue has become moot.
Krugi
At heart
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 120
Well, this will also hold true if you take the war to the Mayans
, but your decision not to attack yet likewise seems reasonable to me. Your advantage over them will only grow larger every turn, anyway, as long as your empires keep expanding at a similar rate, and the longer that you keep the non-threatening Mayans alive, the longer will they give the Aztecs something to waste their on. Absorbing the Mayans right now would strengthen your empire tremendously in food and production, but it's questionable whether you have built the necessary army for total conquest yet; and maintenance costs would rise, likely impeding your research in the short term, just as you were introducing yourself to war-crazy Montezuma's neighborhood. Besides, if vassal states are enabled, it may be advisable to tech or trade for Feudalism, so that you can get Pacal to capitulate to you instead of conquering him.On that note, even before Feudalism, there's always the option of limited war, aiming to capture 1-2 cities near the Korean border to keep a Mayan rump state intact, but that would devastate your diplomatic relations with them, making you a likely target for Pacal's revenge (be glad it's not Montezuma's revenge), even though he probably couldn't do much damage; and as the royal advisors have noted, the Mayan trade routes would have to be abandoned if Pacal drops below Cautious relations. At the grand strategic level, there are multiple approaches to expansion in this game. No wonder your nobles are arguing all the time!
And naturally, the Duke of Wonsan isn't particularly keen on possibly seeing his precious floodplains ravaged (and also possibly seeing his beloved aqueduct project cancelled by a scheming adversary among the King's advisors).
Two
Edit: I actually have no idea how well the HWACH'A performs compared to the stock
It would have taken much more turns to build that many units. And before I could got my first 4 axemen to fight, they made peace. Aztecs have great wall by the way, so they need less troops to guard their realm against raging barbarians while I need ~20. At least the recently trained troops meant for the war means I can now use them to expand my empire. Going to raid barbarian city near the corn now, and then build my own city down there (don't like barb city's location).
Niccolo Edwards
Looking busy
Ugh. I hate the Great Wall. I've always felt like it's almost cheating when I build it (not that I don't like unfair advantages in real life). The only scenario I actively pursue it in is the 18 Civ - and even then only when I'm playing America, the Aztecs, Rome or Russia (the only ones who have/will soon have giant open uninhabited fields at their border).
Oh man! I just had fight against Attila the Hun, and survived with light casualties! Bloody huns got onto sheep pasture on the hill near Nampo, but they didn't demolish it. Instead they attacked my nearby units. To sum it up: I put longbow and sword up on the hills. Attila attacked longbow, longbow killed one and wounded another before falling. Next turn I attacked with some 3 units and killed more of Attila's cavalry. Then Attila made one last glorious charge and got killed. Barbarian axeman in screenshot got owned by fresh sword from Nampo where I send wounded longbow as replacement garrison.
I also wrecked 2 barb cities and created one of my own, Cheju, at north end of yet another flood plains river. Barbarian cities had removed flood plains features along the river damnit. But at least I can get some production out of Cheju with 3 grassland hills, copper mine (made by barbs), and maybe some waterwheels along the river. There's corn too once borders will expand. Damnit, worker is building farm at wrong side of the river and thus it does nothing to irrigate the corn! But man, barbarian workers have been busy building roads!
My chariot has found Suryavarman's settler escorted by chariot. I thought more is merrier, and so my chariot is going along until I can get horse archer to back it up. I lost one against barb archer guarding a village, but chariot finished him off. Suryavarman may have captured barbarian city whose borders I had founded many turns earlier (upper-right on the screenshot).
Enough of the games for now. Gotta shower and go to sleep. Good night.
[edit]
Seoul is building Great Library, confucianism got to many of my cities in single turn, I have started spread buddhism elsewhere, and I hope to get great prophet to make its special building so I can collect church tax all around. For some reason there is 40% chance of great engineer even though I haven't run engineer specialist. I had got great scientist earlier becouse at first I didn't notice Seoul had scientist specialist and I didn't want mix great person point pools, but now it is 60/40 between prophet and engineer
I also wrecked 2 barb cities and created one of my own, Cheju, at north end of yet another flood plains river. Barbarian cities had removed flood plains features along the river damnit. But at least I can get some production out of Cheju with 3 grassland hills, copper mine (made by barbs), and maybe some waterwheels along the river. There's corn too once borders will expand. Damnit, worker is building farm at wrong side of the river and thus it does nothing to irrigate the corn! But man, barbarian workers have been busy building roads!
My chariot has found Suryavarman's settler escorted by chariot. I thought more is merrier, and so my chariot is going along until I can get horse archer to back it up. I lost one against barb archer guarding a village, but chariot finished him off. Suryavarman may have captured barbarian city whose borders I had founded many turns earlier (upper-right on the screenshot).
Enough of the games for now. Gotta shower and go to sleep. Good night.
[edit]
Seoul is building Great Library, confucianism got to many of my cities in single turn, I have started spread buddhism elsewhere, and I hope to get great prophet to make its special building so I can collect church tax all around. For some reason there is 40% chance of great engineer even though I haven't run engineer specialist. I had got great scientist earlier becouse at first I didn't notice Seoul had scientist specialist and I didn't want mix great person point pools, but now it is 60/40 between prophet and engineer
Attachments
Krugi
At heart
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 120
I like Cheju's placement. There's time to clear the jungle before the city grows out of workable tiles, you have an optimal number of floodplains in the fat cross (4, producing 4*0.4 unhealthiness points, rounded down -- that is, only one of them), and you can farm the corn and 1-2 floodplains, then cottage the remaining land, with two grassland mines possibly available for production.
With such strong cities for long-term potential (imagine what this site will do post-Biology with farms and cottages / State Property with watermills), you might want to race into space for your victory.
I spy with my compound eye something that is most definitely Suryavarman's borders, along with an international highway that I assume his workers have built towards you. That's endearing. You can probably establish valuable trade routes with him by discovering his largest cities with your chariot.
With such strong cities for long-term potential (imagine what this site will do post-Biology with farms and cottages / State Property with watermills), you might want to race into space for your victory.
I spy with my compound eye something that is most definitely Suryavarman's borders, along with an international highway that I assume his workers have built towards you. That's endearing. You can probably establish valuable trade routes with him by discovering his largest cities with your chariot.
For just repelling the Aztecs' attack by crippling their stack, your force would have sufficed, I think; for conquering the Mayans or taking the Aztecs' core cities, it probably wouldn't have. I didn't know exactly what you were aiming at with your planned intervention. Still, I'm in favor of bringing 33%-50% siege weapons to any party, unless it's a 2-mover invasion (horse archers, knights, cuirs, cavalry etc.).
Well, nobody can say that you're not living up to the challenge you've set for yourself. All that's missing on my bingo card now is a Mongol incursion.
I don't know which technologies the Barbarians receive at the start of the game on Noble difficulty, but they always research very slowly and can't pop borders, so their underemployed workers often produce road spaghetti to pass the time.
That's an excellent wonder, I hope you'll land it.
The reason is that the Hanging Gardens add +2 Great Engineer Points every turn. In fact, GPP pollution from wonders makes it preferable to spawn desired Great People outside of your capital by planting the National Epic in a food-rich city (Nat. Epic + Great Library in the same city is optimal, of course); otherwise you risk receiving a Great Artist from the Mausoleum, an otherwise valuable wonder, or some such nonsense.For some reason there is 40% chance of great engineer even though I haven't run engineer specialist. I had got great scientist earlier becouse at first I didn't notice Seoul had scientist specialist and I didn't want mix great person point pools, but now it is 60/40 between prophet and engineer
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