King of the World #13: Asoka

Round 0: The Subcontinent (4000 B.C.)
Round 1: Asoka REX (4000-2150 B.C.)
Round 2: Slamming on the Brakes (2150-1225 B.C.)
Round 3: The First Wave (1225-380 B.C.)
Round 4: The Second Wave (380 B.C.-265 A.D.)
Round 5: Dogpile! (265-565 A.D.)
Round 6: The 365-Year Plan (565-930 A.D.)
Round 7: Prelude to Apocalypse? (930-1265 A.D.)
Round 8: Prepping the Bunker (1265-1445 A.D.)
Round 9: Just Desserts (1265-1806 A.D.)

Greetings and salutations!

The King of the World series is basically Civ IV played on Earth maps. This sacrifices the exploration phase of the game for the exciting realism of being able to hold Gibraltar against the English Navy or stymie Chinese troops in the mountains of Tibet. In this game, we'll probably be doing the Tibet thing more than the Gibraltar thing, for we are...



Asoka of India! He's a surprisingly effective warmonger, but for this game (after the knock-down, drag-out Sitting Bull game), I plan to utilize his equally effective Builder skills and India's splendid isolation to play a largely peaceful game. I'll probably be aiming for a Cultural win, but you know what they say about plans and first contact with the enemy.

On this map, we'll be playing with Medieval Civs. This means that the Americas will be populated by Pacal II of the Maya and Sitting Bull of the Native Americans. Pacal will be starting in his usual spot, though we will be levelling the peak blocking him off from South America. In Africa, we'll have Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia and Mansa Musa of Mali, with Saladin of Arabia nearby to maybe duck into Egypt. Whoever claims the Nile first could be a major power in this game. Europe will be crowded, with Justinian I of Byzantium, Elizabeth of England, Louis XIV of France, Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire, Isabella of Spain and Ragnar of the Vikings. That's kind of as it should be. And I don't plan any wars of conquest this game, so I'm not really disadvantaging them overmuch. In our neck of the woods, we'll share Asia with Qin Shi Huang of China, Tokugawa of Japan, Suryavarman II of the Khmer, Wang Kon of Korea, and Genghis Khan of Mongolia. With so much of Russia open to expansion, let's see if we can get those terrifying Keshik hordes that are normally missing from Earth games.

Asoka is Spiritual, which means that we won't have to wait for Golden Ages to undergo massive Civics changes. Of course, going for a Cultural win, our Civics choices will be pretty straightforward, anyway, so there you go. At least we get some cheap Temples out of it. Organized will be nice to defray some of the high costs of Civics, and, hey. Who doesn't want a discount on Courthouses?

Considering that we start in the middle of Jungle hell...



Our Fast Workers will get a workout. Even though we're gonna be Mr. Nice Guy, Iron Working is still a priority to get those Grasslands cleared. The Mausoleums are kind of a throw in. I don't see us engaging in enough wars to make Jails a real factor. I may decide to make more use of Espionage than I'm used to, though, so that may be a reason to build a few.

So... what do you all think? Early religion? Normally I'm loath to do such a thing, but, well, we ARE going for a Cultural win, and we DO start with Mysticism. Settle in place (Our starting location is shown by the green square)? It's not a great spot, but not a bad spot, either. I think our second city should be to the east, to neatly cap off any Khmer ambitions of expansion. Then maybe we shoot west, trying to claim as much of Persia as possible before establishing a border with Saladin. Then we can backfill the Indian subcontinent.

Here's the scenario (Panama is still blocked, but it's easy to WB that fix in):

Interesting! Looking forward

may i ask why there is a hut off the coast of myanmar? or are the mer-people going to impart their knowledge of sailing on you?

anyway looking forward to the game. should be a change of pace from the slogging sitting bull marathon.

Should be interesting. I would try to rush in to claim as much of the middle east as possible. And despite your saying you may not war, it might make sense to take out either Sury or Saladin to claim that extra land.

Getting that early religion is nice, but on these huge maps, it's hard. I mean, Saladin, Izzy, Charlemagne, and Justinian are all big religion folk.

While blocking off Sury would be useful, I think it's probably not worth settling the crappy jungle lands too much too early. Go west, and claim as much of the middle east as you can. Personally, I'd expand west, let Sury be backwards and hopefully chop some jungle, then just take him out with elephants, and then hole up basically with all of south asia, from the middle east to the chinese border.

Yay! Early religion seems hopeless. IW is obviously a priority. I would agree with UWHab's ideas.

Recently dicovered the king 12 and read it with great interest . So will look forward to follow this one!

Seeing the map already maybe you should settle on the cow to the SW. Normally I'd never do that, but at least you'll then get some hills (and iron) in your capital and thus production. Otherwise it's just grass, plains and mountains. Not sure if it would be a 3 food city square as well.

what's with the villiage in the water off the coast of Thailand?

The hut clearly represents the Burmese Sea Gypsies that were featured in National Geographic a few years back. Here is an excerpt from http://www.projectmaje.org/gypsies.htm :

"Freely roaming the ocean in small boats from birth to death, living simply off its riches, a Southeast Asian people seem as mythical as mermaids. These ethnic groups known as "Sea Gypsies" are still found from the Philippines to Borneo to Thailand to Burma."

Early religion should be possible, with a 2 2 riverside grass dye tile to work. But with the emphasis on expansion early worker techs are probably a better call (probably Ag -> Hunting -> AH, then BW -> IW?)

If you can get 2 early settlers out to block off Sury in Burma and Sally in Iraq you will have boxed out some nice territory for yourself.

Ooh! What would be really cool would be to time the founding of a 2nd/3rd city with founding Judaism. Asoka has the right starting techs for that, but it would mean putting off at least IW and maybe BW too. Especially if it was founded in a city in the Mid-East you could block off some nice territory with its quick border pops.

Nocho said:

Seeing the map already maybe you should settle on the cow to the SW. Normally I'd never do that, but at least you'll then get some hills (and iron) in your capital and thus production. Otherwise it's just grass, plains and mountains. Not sure if it would be a 3 food city square as well.

Click to expand...

Moving the starting settler 1SE to found on the cows (I assume Nocho means SE not SW) I feel would sacrifice early settler pumping for a better long-term site. Tempting, but I'd probably divy up those hills between 3 cities (like 4S-2W of start on the river/coast, and 4S-3E on the elephants/coast). If going culture (assuming with slider?) you want pretty hybrid cities that can build enough city improvements but that also run a good number of commerce tiles. Possibly use a mid-east city as the GP farm running artists off FP's? That'd also give a nice cultural and pillage-proof barrier to any aggressors from Europe/Africa.

Hope you enjoyed your (brief) respite Neal, but thanks for starting up another!

Ah, indeed upon closer inspection I can see the jungle there too now. I'm still a fan of the judaism-in-3rd-city-in-the-mideast plan though!

So, you want to get a early religion with Justinian, CharleMagne, Izzy and Saladin in game? Good luck with that...

I think it would be a good idea to think on a early block to sury....

No persians? One of the fun aspects of playing India on standard Earth18 is surviving immortals long enough to get iron hooked up.

I'd get a settler out ASAP to claim the normal Babylon spot (FPs, stone) before Sal (who will definitely try for a religion, so you should be able to get it if you go for worker techs). I think you can wait a bit on Suya - his start is horrible and he'll be very slow to expand. I'd claim Persia's normal start second to grab horses. Finally, go east to block Surya a bit. Obviously, IW and calendar should be priorities, but do take advantage of the ORG trail and expand like h3ll. Unfortunately, there are no resources before calendar, so grabbing monarchy via trade will be important.

I think that instead of seeing mongol hordes, you're more likely to see a huge HRE, which is probably much more dangerous.

To say the truth, and given what happened in last game, I pretty much expect a Huge Justinian...

I'd settle SE on the grassland cows.

Lose 3 mountains for 3 hills.

Yay, my fave leader played in my fave series good luck Neal, the "supersoka" as i call him is a fantastic leader with fantastic trait synergy. Seeing as you are going cultural and have lots of jungle to clear might i suggest a bit of a strange move and try to get IW from the oracle? Or maybe you could grab a better tech and trade for IW.... Anyway good luck!

r_rolo1 said:

To say the truth, and given what happened in last game, I pretty much expect a Huge Justinian...

Click to expand...

But this time a really lame Sitting Bull...

huerfanista said:

Unfortunately, there are no resources before calendar, so grabbing monarchy via trade will be important.

Click to expand...

There are elephants in the India subcontinent. Probably will still need HR/trade, but it's something.

Oh I see... stupidly, I thought mediaeval civs meant starting in the mediaeval era. Glad to see I was wrong.

Re: early religion - I think not. First, because it means forgoing the early worker techs that you really need, second because you want to catch as many religions as possible if going for cultural, so that you can more easily cosy up to whoever you need to - guessing Arabs, China and Byzantium - to keep the peace.

The subcontinent is yours, so you don't have to rush to grab it, though you might have to take a couple of cities from the barbarians. Better surely to race to grab Persian/Babylonian lands to the west and block Sury to the east, as others have said.

Mostly farms or mostly cottages? What's the plan?

PS I'm very excited!