Immortal University 53 - Genghis Khan

NihilZero

WHEOOHRNY
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
1,161
Location
Dublin, Ireland
Greetings all. It is with great trepidation and profound humility that I welcome you all to this, the 53rd edition of the Immortal University.

It has apparently fallen to me to host this one. I have purpose-generated a completely random Fractal map for your amusement. No care has been taken whatsoever to ensure the worthiness of this map or its suitablity for purpose. And that, fellow civvers, is the whole point.

I won't promise you that this map will be easy, or hard, or interesting, or fun. What I can promise you is a randomly generated map that is unchecked for isolation, lack of commerce or food or metals, Shaka, or other unfortunate things that can befall you in the real Civ world but which forum games in general often shy away from.

No, this is utterly raw and uncooked and is the first map I generated.

Regardless, we will do our utmost to uphold the university's traditions - namely, smacking down the hapless AI! (I always wanted to say that)

So, as you may have gathered from the title, the randomiser in its infinite wisdom has given us:



Genghis in his civ incarnation doesn't quite embody the sheer unholy terror of his real-life counterpart and is definitely one of the weaker leaders. His traits are, on the whole, below average, and those starting techs are not going to help much either when it comes to quickly hooking up life's necessities in the early game. Still, if he gets up some momentum going his highly promoted units (particularly the mounted ones) can certainly put a hurt on somebody. When he's not fighting he's pretty much a lame duck, but fighting he does well. Kind of a one-trick pony.

The start looks like this:



As coastal starts go, this one doesn't look too bad. Two Agriculture specials means we can get the show on the road fast with just one tech and expect our worker to be busy from the word go. My instinct here is SIP on the picturesque plains hill, worker first and delay the workboats until we can chop 'em out (but no doubt somebody will prove me wrong).

I'm posting the inital Autosave on Immortal/Normal. This means you don't need to mess about giving the barbs Archery. I guess I can worldbuilder up one with variable difficulty and speed settings if people really want one. Do people really want one?
 

Attachments

hmm I actually agree with you on landlocked start with ignoring coast for awhile.

But! where are our hills???!
 
NihilZero said:
Shaka, or other unfortunate things that can befall you in the real Civ world

Ha, actually laughed at that. :D

Nice that this comes along just as I'm about to move up (to imm obv). Probably go and SIP just because I like to mindlessly trust the RNG on such things. Normally like at least 3 hills to mine in capital but whatever
 
Ha, actually laughed at that. :D

Nice that this comes along just as I'm about to move up (to imm obv). Probably go and SIP just because I like to mindlessly trust the RNG on such things. Normally like at least 3 hills to mine in capital but whatever

Settling on the plains hill compensates a little for losing a mine-able one, but this is never going to be a monster production cap by the look of it. Plenty of food for settlers and workers, though.
 
Settling on the plains hill compensates a little for losing a mine-able one, but this is never going to be a monster production cap by the look of it. Plenty of food for settlers and workers, though.

Indeed, and whipping
 
You could well get boxed in with this start. still 2 land resources to work and 2 clams.

Whilst mongols have a great UU don't get sucked into just playing that. I would certainly move the scout before settling.

This could get interesting. I don't really see a quick way to HBR. Plenty of food to whip capital i guess once it grows.

Play the map not the leader I guess.
 
You don't like Ghengis? Hmm... i pretty much love him actually, one of my favourite leaders as he makes smacking AIs easy. Okay, you'll need horse, but if you have horses it's a slaughterhouse :) His starting techs are actually very well suited for him, Wheel is maybe the best starting tech for almost all openings and Hunting is good for the instant AH beeline (if you want to call it that way). IMP for horrible amounts of GGs and much land, AGG for teh rush.. i really like him. His UB also makes my favourite military units, mounted units, alot better.

Nice leader!

But the start is bad for this leader... maybe N/NW, but there you won't have ANY production 8[ Maybe the scout W/SW and then settler NW, one off the coast but an overall a nice cap.
 
You don't like Ghengis? Hmm... i pretty much love him actually, one of my favourite leaders as he makes smacking AIs easy. Okay, you'll need horse, but if you have horses it's a slaughterhouse :) His starting techs are actually very well suited for him, Wheel is maybe the best starting tech for almost all openings and Hunting is good for the instant AH beeline (if you want to call it that way). IMP for horrible amounts of GGs and much land, AGG for teh rush.. i really like him. His UB also makes my favourite military units, mounted units, alot better.

Nice leader!

But the start is bad for this leader... maybe N/NW, but there you won't have ANY production 8[ Maybe the scout W/SW and then settler NW, one off the coast but an overall a nice cap.

There's no doubt that what he does, he does well. But objectively speaking not every game is suited to a Keshik stomp. I've had some games with Genghis that were hard work because when he's not warring he's pretty bad.

Also, the post-Keshik recovery phase can be tough going with nothing to get the economy kickstarted. I do like the uniques a lot though.
 
3200BC
Spoiler :

Settled in place after moving E-SE with scout. Revealing cow but nothing else worthwhile. Capitol will be a fine GP farm or draft city later, with 15 food surplus at size 4 with irrigation on the rice.

After a bit of scouting...we are south of the jungle with room for about 4-5 cities, most of them require IW :crazyeye:. Hammurabi is to the north. If we have horses, he's dead.

I am building a size 1 settler to settle the cows spot, then worker-warrior-warrior.

My planned tech order here after AH is mining-writing-bronze-pottery-alphabet. I might squeeze in fishing at some point to get an exploring WB out, but the clams are not a priority just yet.
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0083.jpg


 
It's a good start, fast growing capital with nice production in the beginning
Lots of water for SIP, but doesn't matter much imo cos there are still enough good land tiles and this city can be used for GP later.

Agree with Ahcos, Genghis is a lot of fun to play and a Nemesis as rusher :)
Not a weak leader.
 
to 50 ad
Spoiler :

Horses are found.. keshik rush preparations are started. I teched mining-writing-bronzeworking-pottery-fishing-HBR-archery.
Maths bulbed with the first GS, 2nd gs will come later for academy.

Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0084.jpg



Hammy has 2 source of iron...not what I like to see!
Civ4ScreenShot0086.jpg


2 stacks of 5. Akkad has 2 bows, easy to handle. Durkazu has 1 spear 3 bows, 2nd stack is going to get ravaged.

Akkad falls with one loss, I used flanking to weaken the hill archers because I am so short on hammers. My cities are going to be bleeding unhappiness for a long time. The battle for durkazu was horrible, lost 5 keshiks to raze the city.


Civ4ScreenShot0087.jpg



Toku first to alphabet.
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Trades. I could have bribed Monty on ramsess but the difference in cities there is too much.
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Civ4ScreenShot0094.jpg


His capitol, I was not able to capture it. He had reinforcements coming from cap and north city. I could have forked the hill city and captured his iron city, but it's too late now (maybe if I replay after winning or losing this one). I took peace, capturing one city and land for the gem city was decent compensation I think.

Civ4ScreenShot0095.jpg


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Barb galley catching me with my pants down. 60 hammers down the drain. Whipping was not a good idea here with 30 turns of unhappiness. Note the city hammurabi planted down near my capitol :mad:.

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Sury gets COL the same turn I do. Really? I did found the religion, but this is still a rageworthy moment.

Civ4ScreenShot0100-1.jpg


Hammurabi needs to die so I can actually win this game. I'm not sure how to go about it but I have a few ideas, and will play this some more tomorrow.

 
Up to 100AD:

Spoiler :
Settled in place. Not only are we hemmed in by jungle (a very common predicament on coastal starts in my experience) but Hammurabi is so close that his cheap beard-lotion is making me wretch, and more importantly we have nowhere to settle our IMP settlers. Nobody does that to the Khan and lives to talk about it! The good news is that horses are plentiful. Commerce possibilities are so-so, but then again city costs are not going to mount to much so with some luck a Keshik breakout should set things up nicely.

Two cities are formed by loves, er I mean by two settlers, giving us a total of three. One of them claims cows and horse, the other just claims cows. Neither are going to win any prizes for awesomeness but they will provide a Keshik or two for the war effort.

I work coast and cottages and grope my way from the darkness of barbaric ignorance to the half-light of barbaric ignorance but with Horseback Riding. That should be enough, for the Mongol way is not a subtle one (apologies to any Mongols who may be reading this, please don't Horsearcher me).

Genghis isn't the only one feeling feisty, and Sury molests Rameses early on, resulting in Montezuma doing the same to him.



In this pleasant picture we see a realistic portrayal of Mongol civic life: children playing, mothers nurturing, and mass Keshik production in anticipation of exterminating a neighbour.



And here are the Keshiks in question, accompanied by their wheely friends.



And here's what the Keshiks did next:



This wanton city-razing clearly pleased the bloodthirsty gods, because they rewarded the Mongols with some silver:



Encouraged by this, the Mongols lay waste to the Babylonian empire, keeping three cities for themselves and razing four to sate the angry but generous gods. Here are the three I kept: Babylon, Borsippa and Nippur:



Taking out Hammy cost me nine Keshiks and six chariots. I kept pillaging his iron but he always had more. Turns out the swine had no fewer than three iron mines to make pointy, Keshik-hurting objects, the inhumane dog. It's good that I killed him and put his people to the sword, for he was a bad man.

By this stage Ramesses and Sury had agreed to stop killing each other for now, and Monty eventually made peace with Sury too.

I met somebody else who had eluded me for a long time when his caravel came by. Ragnar, a man of similar tastes and life philosophy to GK.



Note that Monty is WHEOOHRN in this picture. Turns out he was at war with yet another AI that I hadn't met even at 75BC.

With the killing temporarily on hold, we see the not-so-fun side of Genghis as demonstrated by his crappy teching:



Still, the rest of the world is backward as hell too so it's not so bad. It's not exactly an enlightened bunch of philosophers and deep thinkers that we have on this map.

State of the empire at 100AD:



Egypt and the Khmer are Hindu, Monty is Buddhist and Ragnar is Jewish, so there is plenty of tension.
 
That capital will be a monster GP farm with three five food tiles. If horses pop favourably this is a great start.
 
To 625 B.C.

Spoiler :
1st turn :
Spoiler :

Scout went 1E, spotted the cows and then 1NW.
Settler went 2N1E to get more river tiles and specials that are easily improved. The 2 clams in the SW will be used by another city.
Techpath : Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry.

After the initial scouting, it is clear we are land locked by Hammurabi. The map gives us 2 options :
- Go for Keshiks ;
- Go for the GLH as there seems to be at least 2 islands available to the east and the west.

Being a Khan, Keshiks being so powerful and being only 1 tech away from Writing, we went for HBR.

Updated techpath :
Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Writing -> HBR -> Archery -> Bronze Working -> Fishing -> Maths (bulbed) -> Currency.
Next techs : maybe Calendar for the resources ; maybe Litterature for the Epics ; maybe CoL for Courthouses.

The Great Scientist was popped quite at the time we had 2 Gers and Maths was very handy to produce the initial Keshiks wave (6-7).
Hammurabi had founded Hinduism and built the Oracle, so his lands were very poorly defended.
925 B.C. : we DoW Hammurabi.
725 B.C. : Monty DoWs Suryvayarman
675 B.C. : Hammurabi is dead. 12 Keshiks produced, 5 lost, 10 Bowmen killed. 3 cities captured.
675 B.C. : Sury has Alphabet (Toku has it as well, I don't know for how long he's been holding it).

Spoiler :


The 1st settler was built at size 4 and claimed the Horse + Cow in the NW.
After the library in Karakorum was done, another settler was built to get the other horses in the SE. That city started a Library working a mine and completed via a Maths enhanced chop. Then it built a settler at size 1 for the Clams site.
 
I was bored last night so played a bit for nostalgia..
Spoiler :

Knocked out two closest neighbours right off the bat. then Surry gave me nothing but problems, always researching the same thing I was and blocking trades. Since I couldn't trade with anyone else, I was tech crippled and missed lib by just 1 turn. Then I lost Taj by the same amount, and so on.. and so on.

Eventually I said the hell with it and vassaled Surry. Then I went after Monte and vassaled him.

And then I decided to quit since I'm not so bored anymore...

cavb.jpg

capitals.jpg

 
700 AD

Spoiler :

I rushed Hammurabi quite late - like 250 BC, declared peace for some techs 250 AD.
My economy was doomed so I attacked Egypt when my stack was healed. I took 4 cities from them (including one with AP) and declared peace for a tech and some money.
Then I took Hammurabi's only city.
And now I have been and I am recovering my economy. I'm not sure about the future - probably I will attack Sury and convert into buddhism.
Tech rate is very slow. I'm not doing very good but still well enough.
Spoiler :
bubaba.png


 
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