Nobles' Club XLII: Qin Shi Huang of China

dalamb

dalamb

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May 9, 2006
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Kingston, Ontario
The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Qin Shi Huang of the Chinese.
  • IND means 50% wonder production -- wonderspam time! PRO means archers and gunpowder units start with CG I and Drill I, so you can protect yourself while wonderspamming. The Chinese start with agriculture and mining.
  • His UB: the Pavilion, a Theatre that gives an extra 25%:culture:.
  • His UU: the Cho-Ko-Nu, a souped-up crossbow with a second first strike that does collateral damage like seige engines. If you have iron and get to Machinery fast enough, drill-promoted Cho-Ko-Nus might make decent attack units.
And the start:

Spoiler show map details :
I started with Global Highlands, Medium Sea Level, Temperate Climate, Ridge Lines. This kind of map has more hills and mountains than others; Ridge Lines mean the mountains tend to form chains that restrict movement. I edited it to turn "restricted movement" into choke points where cultural borders could prevent some AIs from meeting other AIs if you liked, and where protective units could readily block enemy invasions. I also added a 7th AI to fill a spot that looked a bit too empty.

Motivation: With Qin I was looking for a leader who could, with reasonable safety, hunker down and build wonders, while not especially favouring any one victory condition. "Hunker down" led to the choke points. Regarding IND:
Spoiler further details you might not want to know :
Qin can build wonders pretty fast already, but he also has reasonably close access to some early-game wonder accelerators. They're not as close as I'd have put them, but they're not terribly far away either.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do request that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards.

Tentative posting updates are suggested at:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didnt, met other continent if applicable, etc)
1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

Remember, these are only guidelines. What we really want are your thoughts as the game goes on, so if your strats don't fall into line with those dates, feel free to adjust your reports accordingly.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps for most of the series, and all of you for playing.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 42 Qin Noble" (or Monarch, if you want the AI to start with its usual Archery bonus tech, or Immortal for Archery+Hunting, or Deity to add Agriculture). This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
 

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This is a list of victories achieved, up to message 93, in the order posted.
Spoiler victories :

  1. BigTime: Emperor/Normal, Culture, 1814 AD
  2. cas: Monarch/Normal, Space, 1991 (with one city!)
  3. TheMeInTeam: Immortal/Normal, AP diplomacy, 1878 AD
  4. tmd17: Monarch/Epic, Cultural, 1788 AD
  5. King Pluto: Monarch/Epic, Cultural, 1758 AD
  6. Sarassin: Monarch/??, UN diplomatic, 2004 AD
  7. Chimera1804: Noble/Marathon 1632 Domination
  8. KaytieKat: Prince, Marathon, 1762 AD Domination
  9. gagnarath: Noble / Normal 1850 Conquest
  10. GGS: Prince/Epic. 1655 Conquest victory.
 
I still may do Monarch for this one, but what's the best option for Emperor?
 
Yay! Qin is up! :) I have been looking forward to this game and looks like a sweet start.

You really can't beat china's starting techs, I'm looking to go worker first & bronzeworking.

Taking a break from Emporer while I try and mess around with my game so it's Monarch/Epic for me. I'm also going to try and avoid space & cultural victories for a change.

Early Cho-ko-nu's are tempting I wonder what the chances are of grabbing machinery from the oracle on Monarch?

Or perhaps the possiblitly of an Oracle/MetalCasting early enigineer gambit for bulbing machinery?
 
Emperor/normal to 1 AD

Spoiler :


Dalamb, you're spoiling us. An IND leader with stone AND marble near by. With the pavilion as a UB? It just screams culture, which is what i will probably do.

Anyway, settled in place, saw stone close and got that city early, but got these 2 w/o stone:





Then the Mids in a crap city working a 5 hammer quarry.

Teched out to Alpha stupidly, seeing aesthetics would be the better option. Oh well, still got IW for it and building research powered me to aesthetics and literature.

Got Parthenon and SoZ from aesthetics:





With the Great Library up in 9. After currency to recover, I'll head straight to music and go the culture route. With 2 religions already and probably another few in the future, I should be good.

I managed to REX to seven cities, which should be good.

Current empire:





As long as I can keep everybody off my back, I should be good. 2 of my four neighbors are confucian. Hatty is hated by everybody, Joao should be at pleased if I gift him something, and Monty can't reach me b/c of peaks.

 
I thought I'd try the deity one, but seems there are never ending problems always with these god-aweful world-builder saves. Now it seems they strip off my entire GUI, and not just techs anymore.

I think I may have a work around, if I load the stupid world-builder save, edit in the 4 techs for barbs, and THEN save to a STANDARD SAVE.. .exit to main menus.. load up mods, and THEN load auto-save.... then just maybe we have a game.
 
Ahhh Damn, still no go. You have locked assets on or something? Now it tells me I have to re-start because it requires Mod "None" in order to run.
 
Deity - Normal - 1 AD

Spoiler :

If you think you placed stone and marble "not very close" then we have very different definitions of those terms! :lol:

Anyway, my game's going well. I had TERRIBLE luck in the early game with no less than THREE bad random events. In addition, as you'll read about later, everyone was beating me to city spots and culturally pressuring me, etc. :mad: But then my luck turned around, and I popped gold in the capital! :goodjob:

Tech went: Bronze Working, Hunting (from hut), Archery, Wheel, AH, etc. I researched Archery for barbarian + AI protection. They were tremendously helpful.

First, I settled by the marble to block (unfortunately it didn't work as Willem founded Maastricht in my boders :mad:), then the stone, then the gold/rice (but the gold is under Willem's culture). :mad:

I was in need of a 6th city (5th came after capturing a barbarian city that had a wounded archer in it) so I declared war on a deity Willem (most powerful AI at that time) and took over Maastricht, so I now have 6 cities. Furthermore, I have both the Pyramids AND The Great Libary in my capital. And that's after me doing a failed beeline towards Mathematics (by the time I got maths everyone but Hatshepsut had it) because 2 AI's had Aesthetics before I finished writing! :crazyeye: My science will increase further as a result of the National Epic in the capital, due in less than 7 turns. Currency will also help me raise the slider by buiding wealth. All in all, a good start. I have no worries about Hatshepsut as she will get clobbered this game, and I have no worries about Montezuma/Joao II because they are at war. Mehmed II is enemies with Willem so he'll attack Willem if given the choice. And Willem ... well ... in typical AI fashion he didn't send a stack over to attack me ... that's actually the smart move, seeing the protective archers I have. Protective on deity early war = :goodjob:. I must say, the situation now seems much better than it was about 50 turns ago when EVERYONE was beating me to city spots. Also Willem beat me to the Parthenon :)mad:).

Teching at 1AD is about 50-60 beakers at zero percent research, about 130-150 with 100%. Not bad, I'm at tech parity now. Long-term plan is to tech towards something like Rifling or Steel and crush Willem. Mehmed can wait seeing as how he builds so many units. He has a size 17 capital before 1AD. The AI's have very good land.










Any comments are welcome. :)
 
Emperor/normal to 1814 Culture

Spoiler :


#1 culture wonder:



Won lib, take nat and build Taj to switch into final culture civics:



Run out to culture with 3 religions and a LOT of wonders. That's what happens when you have an IND with marble and stone. Only got 3 GAs, but with that much cpt from wonders, it's fine.



Final demos/builds/graphs:







I love being #1 in Land and GNP when going culture. You can also see how nobody else was even close to culture. The world was up in flames, with Nappy taking on Joao and Joao taking on Monty. Even Williem got in on the action later. Nappy managed to get quite big.

The top five:



And the 3 culture cities:








Which all adds up to a crappy culture score:



Global Highlands is an interesting map script. The peaks give natural blocking points. It was a little easy with marble and stone to run out to culture, with a nice culture UB, but it was fun nonetheless.



Thanks for hosting Dalamb!
 
dalamb said:
@BigTime:
Spoiler :
Unless I'm having more major memory problems than usual, the stone and marble were already there. And no extra huts this time (though I moved one from a spot where I wanted a mountain to go).
Click to expand...

Spoiler :

Oh, I'm not saying you actually edited anything, it's just the map you supplied is easy with and IND and marble and stone. It was still fun though. :)
 
Seems like this is a built map. Maybe go one higher than normal?
 
Alright, I'll give this a go.

Prince/Normal
4000BC-50 AD
Spoiler :
I’m having another attempt at Prince, despite miserably failing the Lincoln game. Qin is a fun leader, and I’m thinking of making it my first cultural victory. Though it would be a waste of Cho-Ko-Nus and Protective, Industrious + Pavilion seems pretty nice to me. So, Cultural it is. I'll try to get some nice wonders early (Stonehenge, Parthenon, Sistine Chapel, and maybe Hanging Gardens or Pyramids), and try to get Music (or is it Drama?)first for the free GA, then rush to Liberalism and start turning up culture. Once I get Radio (and therefore, with luck, Eiffel Tower), I'll go all Culture.

4000 BC- Settled in spot, started on a worker.

1000 BC- I’ve gotten Stonehenge and 4 cities, and met all the AIs. I’m doing quite well, and managed to block off the southwestern pass.

0 AD- Golden Age with a Great Prophet. Build the Parthenon and started the Statue of Zeus. There are two nice cities nearby. I’m filling out the Classical economic techs (Calendar+Currency). After that I need to get a few religious techs to exploit my religion, and then Machinery for the Windmills, then I beeline Music, Philosophy, and Liberalism. Basically, I'm going to start going for victory once I hit the medieval age. I am running into some trouble with food though, thanks to all the hills, which will hurt my ability to make Artists. Once I get Machinery I'm going to mass-build Windmills.






 
obsolete said:
Ahhh Damn, still no go. You have locked assets on or something? Now it tells me I have to re-start because it requires Mod "None" in order to run.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid I don't know enough to be able to guess why you're having trouble. I never lock modified assets. DMOC appears to have used the Deity save, and that's the one I loaded here at home to verify that the AIs got the right units at deity level.
 
Hey all
This is my first time playing a Nobles Club game so I'm really looking forward to some good feedback. Don't hold back, it won't hurt my feelings I just want to improve my game.

Spoiler :

Cultural victory 1864 - Noble difficulty

Once I figured out the natural choke points of the map and the amazing combo of both stone and marble I elected to dig in a pump out wonders. I think I managed to grab every early wonder other than Great Wall, Colossus, and Stonehenge.

I placed my first city to the south to seal off that checkpoint and grab the two rices and the marble. I located the third city near the stone and began work on the pyramids, oracle and parthenon. Mentally, I designated those three as my culture cities and chose locations for my remaining 4 cities based on securing resources and sealing off gaps in the mountain ranges.

I chose to make Beijing my science city, shanghai focused on wonders that gave great artists, and guangzhou was for great prophet wonders. This arrangement worked out well, but I didn't feel compelled to put many specialists in shanghai or guangzhou. What do you all think?

Once I had produced all these wonders I was able to get a nice tech lead. Got liberalism first, and a couple of other techs that give GP. With all that culture, Hatty offered to become a vassal state pretty early on which I accepted. But baiscally once I had my culture cities all I worried about was spreading religions within my territory and fending off rivals which brings me to my next point.

Other civ's can be very freaking annoying! I'm an international affairs major and I've read enough Joseph Nye to know that trade between two nations makes war less likely. Unfortunately that doesn't quite work in Civ. I would enter into favorable trades with civ's in an attempt to curry favor only to have them attack me shortly after. I think I made peace with Mehmet once and he declared war again within 2 turns. I found that if I made a peace where one party gave the other 1 gpt at least I'd have a 10 turn buffer of peace with that nation. Regardless, I never actually lost a city (Hatty made a great buffer against Napoleon!), but I did have some close calls. This was my first time going for a cultural win on noble, normally I shoot for domination so any advice on diplomacy for a would be much appreciated.

All that aside, I think my real weak point is infrastructure/city management. Please comment on suggestions for terrain improvements or general city organization,
I look forward to your advice.


Thanks
gsheff
 

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