ALC Game 33: Korea / Wang Kon

shyuhe said:
It's actually his failure to look for food around the gold that's the most problematic.
Click to expand...

I also can't see why you would not scout around the visible gold first.

Spoiler :
And it just so happens that scouting west first instead of east will reveal a more-or-less perfect site on a desert hill with floodplains, second gold, wet corn and plains hill sheep with all but the gold immediately workable if i recall correctly. Being slow to settle west will probably lose you that spot to Persia you make the game way, way harder for yourself.
 
What's the tech path from here?

Are you still going for the oracle, knowing that there's a bunch of blood-thirsty, yet generally powerful AIs surrounding you?

@Ben-jammin:
Spoiler :
Yeah, I know that spot very well :lol:. It's the first place that the Persians always attack, even over the pretty decent horse city (which would've crippled my military-producing capabilities.

I don't think that he could've seen the gold until his borders expanded, though. I'm used to slower speeds, but I think border pops happen at 10 culture, right? He would've had maybe a turn or two to turn around.
 
ben-jammin said:
I also can't see why you would not scout around the visible gold first.
Click to expand...

What happened is that I sent my warrior to the east first and then five turns later when the borders popped I saw the gold. My warrior was already on the east side of the continent and I chose to let him keep going that way. Also, I plan to have at least three warriors out before my first settler and since the gold is so close it will be easy to scout the area before ~turn 37.

Um the Muse said:
What's the tech path from here?

Are you still going for the oracle, knowing that there's a bunch of blood-thirsty, yet generally powerful AIs surrounding you?
Click to expand...

I'm undecided at the moment. I'll have to reach some decision about going with horse archers or hwachas + swords/axes first. I might go for it either way, but I think deciding on a war strategy first is good idea.
 
Benginal said:
What happened is that I sent my warrior to the east first and then five turns later when the borders popped I saw the gold. My warrior was already on the east side of the continent and I chose to let him keep going that way. Also, I plan to have at least three warriors out before my first settler and since the gold is so close it will be easy to scout the area before ~turn 37.
Click to expand...

What's the problem is fact you have decided date than you settle. yet, you have no idea, if site of question has food/jungle is contested.

Maybe you would need to build settler at size 2 to get it, no?
 
That's a good point. Both of your southerly neighbors are Imp, aren't they? Chances are, one will come sniffing around before long, I imagine.
 
Benginal said:
What happened is that I sent my warrior to the east first and then five turns later when the borders popped I saw the gold. My warrior was already on the east side of the continent and I chose to let him keep going that way. Also, I plan to have at least three warriors out before my first settler and since the gold is so close it will be easy to scout the area before ~turn 37.
Click to expand...

That makes a little more sense, but at the same time scouting that far away isnt really serving your purposes. You arent going to be settling your second city that far if there's any better sites closer, and for that reason you're scouting land that may well be claimed before you get there anyway. Better to get your warrior to the best fogbusting position and stay put, that way you dont lose the warrior to do what I see as mostly useless scouting.
 
Hello guys. That's my first post on the forum, and therefore im sorry if some questions, or things I'll say, are clearly stupid for you. Im still on Noble level, trying to get on Prince, but eh, not gonna be fast I think xD

I dont think Im... good enough to try to help you in anything Benginal so I guess I'll just comment and try to support you, the more I can.
First of all, I gotta say to you that you're doing a really great job in these ALC games. Actually I knew the Sisiutil's games, and now I've just discovered your own games in this serie. Kepp doing this, you play well and I love the way you explain your games (however that's probably because Im a beginner).

About this game, once more I wont criticize or give advices, that's obvious.
In my opinion you started nicely. The death of your warrior a bit slowed down your scouting, thats sad, but as you said you're going to build warriors anyway. So even though I understand those who criticized it a little bit, I still think you're fine.
My ideas about what to do then may be stupid, wrong in your opinion. But anyway I posted to give my opinion, so here it is:
You got Cyrus and JC at your southwest, and JC already has got BW. You probably can't rush him then (I mean, he got BW really fast, his UU are Praetorians, well I think I'd avoid trying to rush him, unless I've got horses in the BFC, or a great UU for an early rush. But what do I know). Rushing Cyrus looks better then, but I can't help thinking that his UU is Immortal... I'd think of rushing him with Axes, with 1 or 2 spearmen to defend against Immortals' counter attack. Im not used to playing as Wang though, so correct me if I said something stupid.
Anyway, if you dont have any copper nearby, an horse rush may be the best solution. I still think Cyrus would make the perfect target (Um_The_Muse pointed out above that Cyrus is Imperialistic, so I'd think of rushing him, so as to avoid losing all the land to him.). At the east you have Bismark, but even if I still played a lot less than you, I don't think he's dangerous... And once more, the scouting will say everything anyway.

Well I feel like I said things, maybe right, but which won't help any of you since it should be kinda obvious for everyone. I talked a lot, for nothing, didnt I? Sorry about it. Eh, that's my first post, I'll learn to talk less and better things xD

BTW: English isn't my main language so please forgive my mistakes, if there are some. I hope I've been understandable xD I think yes but who knows...
Also, Im more used to playing Civ4 without expansions. I just bought and installed BTS, so I might have made some mistakes. In the posts I'll probably keep sending when you'll start playing again, I may be going to miss things, about new wonders or new traits, diplo through the new leaders... Once more, Im here to learn anyway, but try to forgive my inexperience. And my wish of giving my opinion eventhough I know that's useless for you guys. =)
 
Timo33 said:
You got Cyrus and JC at your southwest, and JC already has got BW. You probably can't rush him then (I mean, he got BW really fast, his UU are Praetorians, well I think I'd avoid trying to rush him, unless I've got horses in the BFC, or a great UU for an early rush. But what do I know). Rushing Cyrus looks better then, but I can't help thinking that his UU is Immortal... I'd think of rushing him with Axes, with 1 or 2 spearmen to defend against Immortals' counter attack. Im not used to playing as Wang though, so correct me if I said something stupid.
Click to expand...

I think you're speaking of a very early rush in which I attack with a dozen axes or chariots. Those rushes don't work very well on Immortal as the AIs start very strong meaning that there's a lot of luck involved. It's much better to wait until catapults which can significantly help diminish the luck factor. Given that the Korean unique unit is a catapult replacement, that's the plan here.

Timo33 said:
Anyway, if you dont have any copper nearby, an horse rush may be the best solution. I still think Cyrus would make the perfect target (Um_The_Muse pointed out above that Cyrus is Imperialistic, so I'd think of rushing him, so as to avoid losing all the land to him.). At the east you have Bismark, but even if I still played a lot less than you, I don't think he's dangerous... And once more, the scouting will say everything anyway.
Click to expand...

Indeed, Cyrus is a great early target as he doesn't build a lot of units making him not too difficult in the early game. Not only that but he tends to become a powerful leader that's hard to take down later in the game. So if we could knock him off before the Renaissance that would be really nice. I agree about Bismarck who is usually a pushover in the hands of the AI.
 
Ow, yeah ^^ that was obvious and yet I didnt think about it. I kept thinking at my Ai's level, however you're way higher, I shouldn't have mistaken about it. Thanks for clearing it up =)
 
Round 2: 3320 BC to 1800 BC (turns 17-55)

Spoiler :
I had just finished teching Animal Husbandry and was deciding what to research next.



Fishing was silly as I was not planning on settling any fish sites soon. The wheel wasn't vital since my second city was going to be on the river above the gold and therefore already connected to my capital. Pottery would have been nice for granaries, but that would have meant researching the wheel. That being said, the Wheel and Pottery were on my to research list. Agriculture would be nice for farms, but again not vital. Archery might be needed since there seems to be quite a bit of land and no horses in the fat cross. The religious techs can always wait. That left Bronze Working which probably also wasn't vital, but is always a good tech when nothing else pops out as mandatory. That's not the best reason to choose a technology so I rationalized it by saying I have a lot of trees and some decent food tiles. Also I was hoping for copper nearby so that a Hwacha + Axe rush would have more merit (be possible). Hwachas and archers could be cool though.

A few interesting things happened the next few turns.



My imperialistic neighbors both settled their second cities and Cyrus founded Hinduism. This is an interesting development as it means he has a holy city.

You have to be kidding me?!



I think there's something out there that somebody doesn't want me to find. I knew the panther was there but was confident that on my forested hill I could take it. I did learn something though, and that's that there's some good quality farmland around the gold.



In the end though no sooner had I left my borders than I was dogpiled by back to back wild animals, ridiculous. More warriors it is.



Bronze Working finished and I had no copper, which was a disappointment. It meant that I couldn't count on axes defending me.



So I decided that Archery would be a prudent tech to research. I'm not a huge fan of Archery as it's dead end tech, but in this game I'd already lost two warriors and was just kind of pissed off at the RNG. After archery I planned on teching Agriculture so that I could farm the flood plains and feed the gold and some scientists. The scientists would come from Writing which was up next. And I was still hopeful about my chanced at building the Oracle so left those techs at the end.



After that warrior finished I began my second worker. I thought about building a settler, but I didn't have adequate protection for it. I also thought about building a warrior, but since I'd decided to go Archery building another warrior seemed wasteful. So worker it is.



But after that worker came out I built another archer to make way for the yet unborn settler that had its eye on the gold.



Rats. I hate all these barbs. But check out what my warrior found. Corn! Excellent, that make a city on that plains hill a no brainer!



Agriculture is a useful technology and super nice now that I have corn. I maybe should have researched this instead of hunting way back in the day, but I'm not going to worry about. Hunting definitely helped me get off to a quicker start which can be really nice.



So after the archer finished I started on a worker that I could two-pop whip in two turns for maximum overflow going into a archer and growing back to size three right away thanks to this civic switch.



I settled my second city in this great location.



I missed out on a second gold, but it looks like Cyrus might get that anyway. I'll get over it. I was kind of at a loss for what to build first since I was planning on building a library as soon as I got writing so I went ahead and started on a unit.

Some more thorough scouting found us an excellent third city site.



It's got gold, two food and blocks out the top half of the continent. So let's go for it!

And guess what? Another neighbor!



By the looks of things he's somewhere to the east of Bismarck. I opened borders with the Roman so that I could begin scouting out his land.





Ruh roh! He's got some melee units. Luckily I get a unique unit that gets a bonus against these guys. And here's the situation at the end of the turnset.







Remember how Cyrus founded Hinduism. Well above you can see that he built Stonehenge which is not only a nice wonder to capture but it should mean that he gets a Great Prophet soon and build the Hindu shrine. Question, does the AI always build a shrine in that situation or might Cyrus settle the prophet?









You can see that I've given up on the Oracle idea. It was fun while it lasted but with an industrious leader out there and me not even close I don't think it's a good idea. But I'm interested to hear what you have to say, about techs, neighbors, war plans, or micro!
 
Nice round dude.
JC looks scary, 2 cities already at 8 pop, gems gold flood plains, top of the scores, already some melee units.. But hopefully i think he's too far away to be a threat for you for the moment, especially with all the jungle between you and him.

I've got 2 questions, sorry if it seems stupid ^^
What are you planning to do with your capital? I mean, you're building a library right now but I dont see this capital running lots of scientists. Also you've got 3 cities and 2 workers, you'd need workers, and your third city is undefended. So I'd have built all but a library, at the moment at least. So I was wondering why you were building it ^^ (Im expecting an answer which will show how much im inexperienced again but if I dont ask I'll never get better).
Secondly, Why did you take Alphabet next? Im trying to think on higher level, so I'd think that even if Alphabet would be nice to trade Fishing, The Wheel or Pottery, what would you propose to the AI in exchange? Maybe directly Alphabet well.. But maybe some AI will already have it, and then you wouldnt be able to trade that much. Or tech brokering? Once more im not an Immortal player at all, but I think I read somewhere that prices for trades got higher with the difficulty. So, in my mind I'd have gone for Mathematics so as to get a tech noone, or a few AI have, so as to be able to trade it for much techs (Pottery, Wheel...) with the AI who have Alphabet already. Even trading Math for Alphabet, if that's possible. Also Mathematics helps to make more production on chops, and as you need workers soon I'd think about it...

I feel dumb again and I know i'll feel even more, when you'll answer me. Sorry if my questions annoy you :S
 
I'm not an immortal player either, but this is what I think.

He didn't show us a tech trade screen, so I assume that nobody has Alpha yet? If that's the case, you need Alpha to trade techs and it is good for quite a few techs in trade. He'll probably try to spread the deals out as much as possible for diplo points (ie. if there are four techs he could get from alpha, he'll try to grab them from different AIs so that he'll get the "our trades have been fair and forthright" bonus), which is important because he's surrounded by war-like civs.

If his game is anything like my shadow, JC has had Alpha for a long time now, but since JC has had a monopoly on it, he hasn't traded it around yet, so the plan should still work. Don't forget that it's also along the path to liberalism.
 
Timo33 said:
Nice round dude.
JC looks scary, 2 cities already at 8 pop, gems gold flood plains, top of the scores, already some melee units.. But hopefully i think he's too far away to be a threat for you for the moment, especially with all the jungle between you and him.
Click to expand...

This is why I think I'll leave him alone for now, the jungle that is. Early jungle is a pain as it's so worker-turn intensive. So I'll let him chop it down and then go get him later. But he is indeed quite scary. Maybe I can bribe him against Cyrus and then attack him and take out his core backstab style. It's definitely something worth considering. I'll have to wait and see what the situation looks like in 20 turns. I can either beeline right for war or I can continue to expand. I have at least a few good cities I can still settle peacefully.

Timo33 said:
I've got 2 questions, sorry if it seems stupid ^^
What are you planning to do with your capital? I mean, you're building a library right now but I dont see this capital running lots of scientists. Also you've got 3 cities and 2 workers, you'd need workers, and your third city is undefended. So I'd have built all but a library, at the moment at least. So I was wondering why you were building it ^^ (Im expecting an answer which will show how much im inexperienced again but if I dont ask I'll never get better).
Click to expand...

The capital is at size 2 and has the happy to afford to grow so I don't want to build workers or settlers. I also don't immediately need any more worker turns (note that I have 3, not 2) as I'm not going to chop for a dozen turns or more, my special tiles are improved, and I don't have the wheel. Another settler is also not great since I can't afford it just yet and there's no races to any good spots so I'll save on the maintenance costs. The main reason though is that I want to grow back to size 4, workers are always good.

Warriors and archers would be okay. But they cost maintenance and I don't really need them. City three doesn't need any defense at the moment as I have enough barb patrol to the north and cyrus is blocking the south. I also have an archer in my territory that can rush over there if a problem arises. And I don't need a garrison since I have 5 happy cap thanks to the gold and I'm not nearly that big, so no units are needed.

That leaves Barracks and Library. Barracks might have been alright since I'm planning war, but just in case I change plans libraries are better. The capital has the palace and is usually working the oasis. That gives 12 commerce right there (there's another from the city tile), so the library is an added 3 beakers a turn. The library is also a good building to build since I need it for a university and I need 6 of those eventually and my hammer heavy capital will definitely be building one.

So that's why the capital is building a library at the moment. When it gets back up to size 4 it will probably switch to another worker or perhaps a settler. I really need to get the wheel for foreign trade routes. That will also give a 4th worker something to do. I'll wait for more feedback. If I do decide to go with cats and units of some sort I'll have to decide.

Note that there's elephants down south I can claim if I hurry, copper I can take my time getting up north, and horses in my border. There might be iron already in my borders, but I don't have Iron Working yet. So what do you say? This might be one of those games where I can just expand peacefully and then go after people with curis or cavs.

Timo33 said:
Secondly, Why did you take Alphabet next? Im trying to think on higher level, so I'd think that even if Alphabet would be nice to trade Fishing, The Wheel or Pottery, what would you propose to the AI in exchange? Maybe directly Alphabet well.. But maybe some AI will already have it, and then you wouldnt be able to trade that much. Or tech brokering? Once more im not an Immortal player at all, but I think I read somewhere that prices for trades got higher with the difficulty. So, in my mind I'd have gone for Mathematics so as to get a tech noone, or a few AI have, so as to be able to trade it for much techs (Pottery, Wheel...) with the AI who have Alphabet already. Even trading Math for Alphabet, if that's possible. Also Mathematics helps to make more production on chops, and as you need workers soon I'd think about it...
Click to expand...

Um the Muse was correct when he said that nobody else had alphabet. And with four AIs to trade with, I can probably get a lot for it and a lot of diplo bonuses, again as Um the Muse said. It's important to notice that that is just kind of place holder. I've only put a few beakers into at this point and can easily switch. I like it for its trade value though as I'm pretty sure I can get the wheel, pottery, fishing, sailing, IW, monarchy, and the religious techs for it. Either way I'm going to keep the slider down until I finish the libraries. So that way if somebody does get Alpha I can re-evaluate the situation.
 
I wouldn't go with Alpha. you have marble, a lot of land to north - north east, I think you should go Aesth->Lit while filling your land.

At first I thought you should HA rush cyrus, but you're off schedule and you have enough land to north for yourself.
Let the AI's improve the jungle for you.
 
@Timo33:

[EDIT: Sorry, I somehow missed that Benigal and vranasm had already responded to this :p]

His slider is off; he's not teching alphabet. Regardless of what your next tech after writing is, it's good sense to turn off your slider until libraries come in, as your research gets a bonus then. It's also a good way of delaying the decision of what to tech next, as each turn brings new information. (for example, whether anyone else has alphabet)

At that stage of the game, alphabet is an extremely valuable tech, as it allows you to turn hammers into research, as well as trade, both of which boost your effective research substantially.

Below immortal, it is frequently the correct move to research alphabet directly, but on immortal and deity it is more common to research aesthetics then trade across for alphabet. Math could also be used, but 1) it's cheaper, so harder to trade for alphabet, and 2) the AI is much more likely to research math than aesthetics, so it's not as good of a trade chip. Math can be a priority for other reasons, however, such as a strong need for quick catapults.
 
It's interesting to see the GUI changes that BUG made. I assume it's also BUG that lets you know exactly when a civ builds their next city?

It's also interesting to see your decision for your third city. I went for the horses south of the capital (I pretended I didn't know that 2S was the better place to settle the cap, so I SIPped), but you haven't even hooked up your horses yet. I don't know how you can deal with the suspense. If Cyrus has horses, his immortals will kill your archers, even if you are protective. You're also in big trouble if JC attacks before you get construction--or even afterwards, if he uses war elephants.

On the tech question, I guess Aesthetics would be better. Maybe you can gift somebody (*cough*Cyrus*cough, cough*) your marble to build the wonders for you. It should make it not too hard to take him out, too, that way.
 
Um the Muse said:
It's interesting to see the GUI changes that BUG made. I assume it's also BUG that lets you know exactly when a civ builds their next city?

It's also interesting to see your decision for your third city. I went for the horses south of the capital (I pretended I didn't know that 2S was the better place to settle the cap, so I SIPped), but you haven't even hooked up your horses yet. I don't know how you can deal with the suspense. If Cyrus has horses, his immortals will kill your archers, even if you are protective. You're also in big trouble if JC attacks before you get construction--or even afterwards, if he uses war elephants.

On the tech question, I guess Aesthetics would be better. Maybe you can gift somebody (*cough*Cyrus*cough, cough*) your marble to build the wonders for you. It should make it not too hard to take him out, too, that way.
Click to expand...

Don't you know that most AIs will never attack you this early? JC and Cyrus are not Shaka and Montezuma. And JC is pretty far away.
 
@Keilah:
Spoiler :
Maybe I was just really unlucky, but this is more or less when Cyrus surprise attacked me in my shadow game. I was really grateful I had chariots, especially since I'd skipped archery. Btw, I'd also gotten declared on by Kublai Khan. Maybe it was a war bribe? Either way, it sure hurt.

Stopping swords with chariots is painful, but those Immortals were something else. I raced for the far away source of copper that Benginal hasn't found yet, and kept pumping out units for 20 turns or so. By this time, I was so far backwards in tech that I just gave up.


The other thing is that it's not all that early for JC, considering how advanced he is. I'm not saying that he start foaming at the mouth in a whipping frenzy. Just warning him to keep an eye on his rapidly expanding neighbors. Who knows how long it'll take before he has Hwacha and can relax his vigilance?
 
Um the Muse said:
It's interesting to see the GUI changes that BUG made. I assume it's also BUG that lets you know exactly when a civ builds their next city?

It's also interesting to see your decision for your third city. I went for the horses south of the capital (I pretended I didn't know that 2S was the better place to settle the cap, so I SIPped), but you haven't even hooked up your horses yet. I don't know how you can deal with the suspense. If Cyrus has horses, his immortals will kill your archers, even if you are protective. You're also in big trouble if JC attacks before you get construction--or even afterwards, if he uses war elephants.

On the tech question, I guess Aesthetics would be better. Maybe you can gift somebody (*cough*Cyrus*cough, cough*) your marble to build the wonders for you. It should make it not too hard to take him out, too, that way.
Click to expand...

Bug doesnt give you any information that isnt already available, it just gives it to you automatically. If i'm not mistaken the game tells you when cities are founded and their names, from that info you know how many cities every civ has but you'd have to write it down. Just like BUG tells you when the AIs are prepping for war...you can find that out but you'd have to go into the diplo screen with every AI every turn.

About this map:

Spoiler :
I played it twice so that's already cheating in a sense. But the real strong strategy here (unless you're Obsolete and then you can conquer a map like this mostly with horse archers somehow) is fast expansion, not early war. If you're fast enough Persia and Rome can both be blocked in, but also kept happy. Thus your 2 closest neighbours are not powerful and can be picked off later at your leisure. Especially as a financial civ some vertical expansion following the horizontal does a lot of good. The next closest civ is far off with lots of land to claim between you and him, and he will inevitably get slowed down a little by his neighbour mongolia who get a star twith a lot of land.

Of course knowing this is tricky if you're doing the map for the first time. My first run through I saw all that jungle that wasnt going to be any good until both IW AND calendar and I said forget it. Result was that Julius took most of it, and along with his multiple shrines became a more-or-less unstoppable tech monster even with fewer cities than some other civs (including myself). Second try resulted in exactly the same religion/diplo situation (hindu love-fest), but I had limited Julius to just 4 or 5 cities and took his best ones after he was kind enough to build THREE holy city shrines and more wonders than any other civ. Persia was a non-factor both times through.
 
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