Role Play Challenge: Chairman Mao's Plan

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Plan: Start

Welcome to my next RPC game. Chairman Mao's Plan. These challenges are primarily for entertainment but also focus on strategy/economy strategy for educational purposes. They are my own brainstorms, and do not reflect so much on historical accuracy and more tie in from our game expereinces with these leaders!!!!

So what is Chairman Mao's Plan?

Chairman Moa's Plan is a 4 stage plan, and we can use any method(s) to acieve this. There is no concrete rules, but criteria that Mao must reach to achieve victory.

1) State Property: All AIs must be in state property by the end of the game, or eliminated. We must adopt is ASAP, and we must tech Communism imediately after acquiring scientific method. In addition, any AI cities we capture with a corporation HQ must be razed. We cannot adopt free market, mercantilism, or environmentalism (we must defy a UN resolution).

2) Religion: Mao is an atheist and cannot adopt any religious civics including FR. He cannot build any wonder that produce Great Prophet points, nor can he ever build a religious building. He must raze holy cities if captured. He cannot found a religion, nor can he even acquire monotheism, theology, or divine right. He may tech meditation/polytheism/CoL/Philosophy as long as he does not found the religion. He may not open borders with an AI with a state religion. The exception is Stalin who is the only preselected AI, and immediately a friend, so Mao may open borders with him even if he has a state religion.

3) Population: China is the most populous nation, and Mao wants to keep this up. He must have the world's highest population by the end of the game to win. He must ALWAYS strive to reach the happy cap. Pollution is not an issue here, let the people breath in smog for the glory of China. If we have to farm, then do it. No specialists can be run IF the city can still grow in population (unless there is no workable food tile). Regarding civics, representation/universal sufferage/free speech/caste system are forbidden.

4) Espionage: Yes, we are going to try and promote a stronge espionage game although I am not going to wreck out game trying to adjust the ep slider. We shall make all efforts to build the Great Wall, and we must build all those nice espionage building ASAP once they are open (as long as it does not affect military production).

So there you have it, the four principals of Maoism

State Property
Atheism
Population
Espionage

Game Settings

Marathon Speed
Shuffle map, Temperate Climate
NO vassals
5 random leaders plus Stalin

Our Illustious leader



And the starting map (YES, it's a radom map dammit and the first one I generated!!!!!)



Ok, where do we start!!!! 2 nice happiness resources and alot of farmable/cottageable grasslands.

[Cam_H]

Best of luck ... I have an espionage-based role play challenge in mind myself!

Me, I'd go one tile east and pick up the river (Levee) and the second riverside Dye ... Ivory's a great resource, but the tile yield is only so-so, and as such I could live without the other two Elephants in the capital - maybe a city to the west might still pick them up? Shame you burn a full turn to move the Settler there however.

[GeneralGab]

Hmmm... moving 1E would give you the ability to build levees later on in the game, but you lose 2 elephant resources. It may not be worth it. You'd still get the fresh water bonus (by moving 1E), and gain 1 river tile. Tough call.

[Walliard]

I agree with 1E for the reasons already stated.

[grandad1982]

I think I settle 1 SE on the dye. You lose two elephants and a grassland hill but pick up anouther grassland hill, you keep the rice, get access to the dye sooner as you don't need the plantation, and pick up anouther dye in the BFC. Also I think the levee bonous makes up for the lost ele hammers - I think.

Only reall problem i would you loss a metal in the BFC? I reckon you won't.

Also I loved your caviate at the start of your post!

I think this game might be really fun. Its a bit like the Borg!

Edit: also you can still settle first turn.

[MyOtherName]

Of course, a hammer now is often better than two hammers in the distant future! Ivory is quite good in the early game; I don't think you should give it up.

I would consider moving 1W or 1NW, for the extra grassland hill. Fortunately, you can get nearly all the information you could possibly want for that decision by moving the warrior 1NE.

But I would probably just settle in place, out of habit. You have a clear optimum hammer production at size 5: 3 ivory and 2 hills.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Elephants are crappy resouces to work, later on you're better off workshopping over them, so losing them isn't a big deal. Settle on the Dye SE.

[JustinianVII]

Settling 1S would give the capital access to all of the resources on the screen, but lose the defensive benefit of settling on the hill.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

No levee either.

[grandad1982]

Or fresh water. While Mao doesn't care if his people are smothered in smog he would like that he can have a higher pop with the water bonous I reckon.

[Groogaroo]

No forrests? bizarre start. Normally I hate settling on top of resources, but in this case 1SE seems like a good idea, for reason already stated.

seeing as your starting techs are all you need right now your free to pick whatever tech path you want straight away. I'd be really tempted to go b/working right away, go crack some heads! but I guess if want you can chase the great wall your free to tech masonry straight away. Allthough there are more sensible techs to start out with.

I'd like to see libral use of Cho Ko Nu's this game please! Maybe some clever way of getting to machinery early might be nice, thought I wouldn't know how, especially without the oracle.

The rules might be tough to enforce, I think you might have to kill everyone again!

[BARBEERIAN]

I'd settle 1-SE on top of the Dye. It'll give your city tile +1 commerce right off the bat (11 beakers is better than 10). It gives Levee access which is important since you plan on playing until the modern era. Losing the 2 grassland Jumbo's isn't that big of a deal. They're not bad tiles but I don't find grassland jumbo's that great until you can workshop them, Besides you can always have another city work them. That move also gives you more rivered grassland in the fat-x.

Techs: I'd go BW > Hunting > Archery to start.

Builds:

> I'd go worker first to farm the rice, mine the rivered hill, mine the other hill, and then camp the jumbo's (you'll have hunting by then). The 2 mines + jumbo's are to leverage expansive's +25% worker production. 4 + 8 towards a worker becomes 4 + 10 (14 worker production units). Whereas a grassland farm + 2 mines would yield 5 + 6 which only becomes 5 + 7 (12 worker production units).

> Next the standard Warriors/Archers until you hit size-4 to work all those tiles and go Worker > Settler > Worker > Settler.

Side Note: China has a huuuuuuuge workforce so maybe as a small guideline you should also aim to have huge numbers of workers and to maximize terrain yields at the cost of health. IE: No Lumbermills/Forest preserves, chop those forests and workshop/watermill the tile.

[Plinko16]

I've played the start through ~200 AD, and let me tell you, you've given yourself a ton of restrictions MadScientist that will really make it very hard to tech in the game.

You can only raise your happy cap by finding ivory (we're lucky to start with them!), gems, gold, fur and silver up until you research Monarchy, Calendar or Metal Casting.

Tech gets pretty slow really fast if you can't run specialists and are stuck at size 4 cities.
Without the ability to open borders with anyone other than Stalin, you lose out on any valuable trade routes, too. If I manage to chop my way to the 'Mids, I can't even run Rep to get the extra Happiness or the extra beakers from the scientists I can run once I hit my happy caps.

Spoiler:

I am teching at 20% with five cities and cottaging what I can other than one production city, I am down 7 techs already to the AI leader.

Looks like war is the only answer, get money through pillaging, razing cities and keep your neighbors down.

Lastly, I don't know how you can keep yourself so restricted on Marathon, I keep lazily hitting return 8 times in a row waiting for something to finish, only to accidentally agree to/refuse something I didn't intend to.

I might retry the start and play without restrictions just to see how much damage the low happy cap has been so far.

[BARBEERIAN]

Originally Posted by Plinko16

I've played the start through ~200 AD, and let me tell you, you've given yourself a ton of restrictions MadScientist that will really make it very hard to tech in the game.

You can only raise your happy cap by finding ivory (we're lucky to start with them!), gems, gold, fur and silver up until you research Monarchy, Calendar or Metal Casting.

Tech gets pretty slow really fast if you can't run specialists and are stuck at size 4 cities.
Without the ability to open borders with anyone other than Stalin, you lose out on any valuable trade routes, too. If I manage to chop my way to the 'Mids, I can't even run Rep to get the extra Happiness or the extra beakers from the scientists I can run once I hit my happy caps.

I am teching at 20% with five cities and cottaging what I can other than one production city, I am down 7 techs already to the AI leader.

Looks like war is the only answer, get money through pillaging, razing cities and keep your neighbors down.

Lastly, I don't know how you can keep yourself so restricted on Marathon, I keep lazily hitting return 8 times in a row waiting for something to finish, only to accidentally agree to/refuse something I didn't intend to.

I might retry the start and play without restrictions just to see how much damage the low happy cap has been so far.

Hereditary Rule > Happy Cap!

[Leventis]

In keeping with the flavour of these RPCs, what do you think about building the Three Gorges Dam as well? Since you are going for the G-Wall, might as well go for China's modern day wonder too...

[BalbanesBeoulve]

No open borders without state religion might make things tough. You should have added Darius, Asoka, and Elizabeth into the game.

[Killroyan]

Everybody must adopt state property but you will raze holy cities. Oef, this is going to be hard. You will have to vasalize everybody almost to get that done if you start razing holy cities. Good luck to you.

About the start, it looks good. Not great but good. Moving SE is not a bad option. As people have mentioned elephants are a weak resource to work (what is it? 2F1H2C?). Levee can be build later on. Extra commerce right of the bat. Forests in the bfc and propably another hidden resource. This is a good cottagable capital.

[MyOtherName]

Originally Posted by Killroyan

As people have mentioned elephants are a weak resource to work (what is it? 2F1H2C?).

2 2 1. Better than a grassland hill in the same way a grassland hill is better than a plains hill... and it has the bonus commerce.

[grandad1982]

I think elephats - as a tile - are distictly average. Having one to work in a ne city is ok but there are beter options to improve a tile.

As a resourse though I love them! +1 + 2 with a market, trade, faster SoZ, availible early with a cheap tech. Nice.

Is this going to turn into a multipage ALC style discussion of settling in place or moving?

[SenhorDaGuerra]

before i say anything let me just say i love these RPC's! they are great! definately subscribed to this one! keep up tyhe good work!

I think there are a few things you have to consider when it came to Mao, and may have an effect on the rules of the game.

Mao wanted to be a superpower. He created (with much aid from Stalin, and then from Kruschev (sp?)) the superpower programme, by which China sold ~90% of all agricultural produce to Russia for technological aid, mostly military. This happened to the detriment of the general population, who lived in substandard conditions and below subsistance means. (90 million people died in china during peace time from starvation during Mao's reign). More than anything Mao wanted the nuclear bomb. Consequently he allowed for a small elite of scientists who worked to develop a nuclear bomb (these scientists lived like kings compared to the rest of the populace).

Mao was also keen on industry, but had no infrastructure for it, however, during the great leap forward, people were enocouraged to recycle all scrap iron (that meant all your kitchen ware to the average peasant) in local forges.

Mao basically ran an espionage economy, which was keen on purging anti communist threats, which in reality were non-existent. he had moles and agents all over the place, spied on his highest ranking officials etc etc.

so... in terms of rules for your current RPC in light of what i've said, though if you dont want to use them by all means dont! its your RPC!!!:

1. i think nationhood should be a must civic, along with state property.
2. Caste system should be adopted for the scientists. however artists and merchants are not allowed. (mao was not a fan of the economy or high culture)
3. workshops should be a priority over cottages, especially after state property has kicked in
4. espionage slider should be perpetually on at least 10%
5. since stalin is a leader (and was pretty much leader of the whole of the communist bloc, inlcuding china, during his time in power), you should suck up to him and give in to any demands he has.

i think this could work well for a SSE economy, with other cities focusing on production and teching towards a nuke. maybe make beijing an uber capital, perhaps farming most of your grasslands for the spcialists.

just some thoughts! hope it helps, good luck!