Nobles' Club XCIII: Mao Zedong of China

dalamb

dalamb

Deity
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
3,161
Location
Kingston, Ontario
The Nobles' Club series stated 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 Mao Zedong of China, whom we last played in NC LI, which was also the last time we played as China. The Chinese start with Agriculture and Mining.
ChinaMao.jpg
  • Traits: Mao is Expansive and Protective. EXP gives +2:health: per city and faster production of workers (+25% on :hammers:), granaries and harbours (both +100% on :hammers:). PRO gives faster walls and castles, and all archery (and gunpowder) units start with Drill I and City Garrison one. This synthesizes with the UU, an archery unit.
  • The UB: The Pavilion, a Theatre with +25% culture.
    Pavilion.jpg

  • The UU: The Cho-Ko-Nu, a Crossbowman with an extra first strike (2 instead of 1) that does collateral damage. With a fast Machinery bulb these can sometimes be good city attack units against archers.
    Cho-Ko-Nu.jpg
And the start:
start.jpg

Spoiler map details :
Big and Small, Massive Continents, Islands Separate, 2 extra AI
Spoiler edits :
Regenerated until an AI had a decent agricultural start and swapped us with him. Ensured we had iron reasonably nearby for our UU. Extended the river south of us by one tile to irrigate our wheat.
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 suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 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 didn't, 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)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

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 in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
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 93 Mao Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can 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.
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
Spoiler huts and events :
Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.
 

Attachments

Reserved.

A couple of comments on strategy:
Spoiler :
  • Fast machinery bulb: From the Great People Tech Preferences thread: A Great Engineer (from running an engineer specialist after forges) bulbs Machinery as soon as you have Metal Casting. To use a Great Scientist you self-research Aesthetics (which you can trade to the AI for other techs), Masonry, Alphabet, Mathematics, Iron Working, and Metal Casting while avoiding Fishing and Philosophy prerequisites (Meditation, or both Code of Laws and Drama).
  • I did a brief WB experiment with a Drill II cho-ko-nu versus an archer in a city with 40% cultural defence, getting 66.9% odds against a normal archer and 44.3% against a Protective one. At 60% cultural defence it's 47.5 and 38.6. Given those numbers and the collateral damage, I think this means Cho-ko-nu are indeed reasonable city attack units if you get them early enough. Against longbows, not so much.
 
I actually used Cho-ku-nus (without siege!) against cuirrasiers and grenadiers in the VI-6 HoF challenge. It... worked, I guess. 200 dead cho-ku-nus notwithstanding.:mischief:
 
The other way of getting cho-ku-nu's fast (or a way of helping to get them faster) is to build the pyramids, which give you GE points. Better with the other Chinese leader as he's industrious, but with all these forests, if we can find stone it might be viable.
 
Mao's not my favorite leader, and this start is kind of eh (though the gold and PH starting tile are kind of nice), so I'm honestly looking forward to this. After the relatively straightforward Hatty game, this one looks interesting. I'm tempted to do the reverse of what everyone else is going to do, beelining Drama instead of Machinery and going for way early Theaters for a cultural victory. I dunno, we'll see.
 
Took a look at the save...

Spoiler :

Ugh, Charlie and Mansa being the two closest neighbors is...unfortunate for rushing.

On a humorous note, eventually met 7 of the 8 other AI's and mapped out most of our landmass but hadn't found who built the Great Wall, so I opened up WB and lol'd
Spoiler last AI :

Poor Louis....Not only is he essentially isolated, but his land's small/pretty poor and he wasted those hammers on a totally unnecessary wonder. Silly AI

 
Silk for China? How apt! Gold is always good for REXing, Plains Corn is OK. Lots of plain forest...usually I leave as many of those alone as possible since chopping them loses a hammer with no decent improvements until guilds/workshops. Couple of green hills but lack of river tiles so a GP farm it ain't!

Cho-Ku-Nu are useful for engaging AI stacks, particularly with shock promos against melee units as the AI generally doesn't use cover promotions. Offensively I haven't really found a use for them, there are better units available for the cost.

Protective and Expansive...can do early land-grabbing and fill the gaps between your border cities and the cap later on I guess? The Golds resource will help with maintenance costs in that respect.

I'm going to try this at Monarch (1st time!). Aggresive early REXing is the key to this map I reckon.
 
Mao and not Qin. :( We have a nice capital that could be for rushing.

Well, I guess I'll see if there's any suckers to rush with chokonus. The main worry is enemy horse units.
 
Nice starting techs considering wheat & gold will probably be the first things we want to improve. Think I'll tech TW -> pottery for super-early half-price granaries, then BW so I can whip to make use of them :) SIP for a 10-turn worker too (PH and expansive).

+1 for Archon's comment about horse units. Make sure to build a couple of spears. Horses defending can be quite annoying too due to immunity from first strikes.
 
I'm gonna play Immoral and was thinking early writing (skip Myst altogether) to start 2scientist in the 23-2200BC range while teching towards Astehtic>trade Alpha>Math>2GS bulb MC/Machin and launch a 5city Cho/Cat war in the 400-200BC range. Next would be picking up Fued and 2quick Vassals.
 
425 AD Monarch, No huts/Events

Spoiler :

SIP and went BW then AH. Started to rex out to five cities while making my way towards an early machinery, chopping/whipping out stonehenge along the way. Settled Shanghai to grab the eastern cows & wine, and more importantly, confine Mansa to his peninsula. Used my first GS to bulb Machinery in 250 BC
civ4screenshot0005p.jpg


and chopped/whipped out my army of CKN. Decided on Charlie, as Mansa is pretty well blocked off and everyone else was just a little too far.

Plowed over Charlie with a kill-to death ratio of better than 3 to 1. I've never used CKN's before, as I generally don't care for early war unless it's a horse/axe rush. But I really enjoyed the CKN's a lot. Even against Charlie's Pro hill archers they did pretty well. Fastforward to 425 AD, by which point I've conquered 5 cities (razed 3 other garbage ones) to wipe Charlie off the board. Taking a pause to get some feedback/figure out the next step.

First a look at the lands:

The southwest part of the empire + Celtia:
civ4screenshot0006n.jpg


Northwest/North/Central Part of the Empire:
civ4screenshot0007n.jpg

I have a settler about to plop down 1N of the copper (hopefully to help grab some of the gems too).

The Southeast part of the empire + part of Mali:
civ4screenshot0010.jpg

Not sure where the other two Malinese cities are, but I assume somewhere south in the tundra

And finally the tech situation:
civ4screenshot0009i.jpg


My army is well promoted, so I'm wondering if attacking Brennus or Mansa would be a good move. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I can expand into more land without crashing the economy. I'm close to civil service and hopefully Bureau helps, but the slider is break even at 10%. Yikes. I also have yet to build an academy, as I've only gotten two GP's (the GS used to bulb machinery & a GProphet who I used to shrine Aachen, which is about the only thing keeping me from strike). Mausoleum is being built for fail gold, which hopefully comes soon. Neither Brennus nor Mansa have any wonders that would help me decide.

I also have yet to choose a religion. Judaism is the majority religion, but only two of my cities have it. All but two of my cities have Buddhism, but only Cathy is Buddhist. The Paya for Free Religion could be a possibility (would have to grab Meditation though).

Do I fix up my new land, or keep pushing? I could also head for Feudalism and vassal Brennus or Mansa, adding their capitals and maybe one or two other nice cities as part of China Proper. I'm inclined to do the former, but I'd hate to see my nice army sit idle or disband.

 
cseanny said:
I'm gonna play Immoral and was thinking early writing (skip Myst altogether) to start 2scientist in the 23-2200BC range while teching towards Astehtic>trade Alpha>Math>2GS bulb MC/Machin and launch a 5city Cho/Cat war in the 400-200BC range. Next would be picking up Fued and 2quick Vassals.
Click to expand...

Spoiler :
good luck settling 5 cities =D
 
@ giant wolfman:
Spoiler :
looks great so far. Now vassal Brennus, and be sure to keep his holy city. With a shrine, plenty of food that won't be culture stolen, and not much else of note, you might consider building wealth multipliers and running merchants there
 
@ Keilah

Spoiler :
I had plenty of room for 5!! ;) Not sure why you think there would be a problem? I stole a worker from Charlie and camped 2 warriors on his forested hill FOREVER. My 1st settled city was cow/4Ivory up North as a semi-blocking city. I'm in a pretty strong position + I got the Mids through force. I'll post some screenies/save when i get the chance.
 
cseanny said:
@ Keilah

Spoiler :
I had plenty of room for 5!! ;) Not sure why you think there would be a problem? I stole a worker from Charlie and camped 2 warriors on his forested hill FOREVER. My 1st settled city was cow/4Ivory up North as a semi-blocking city. I'm in a pretty strong position + I got the Mids through force. I'll post some screenies/save when i get the chance.
Click to expand...

Spoiler :
oh, ok. I don't worker-steal or warrior-choke so I forgot the options existed.
 
I'm just getting back into Civ after a long hiatus. I used to follow this series but my schedule never allowed me to play along with everybody. I'm looking to improve and am open to critique. A few things I'm trying to improve on in this game:
-Diplomacy
-Intentional Tech Path(s) - bad habit of meandering through mid-game
-Having a purpose for each war I fight

Playing on Noble, Standard speed.
Initial thoughts
-Grab granary asap to take advantage of exp. trait
-Capital has a different look to it, a lot of hammer potential makes me want to try for an early(ish) rush.
-Try to grab an engineer to lightbulb to Cho-Ko-Nu and make a big push...but need to see more map first.

Wish me luck
 
immortal/normal

Spoiler :
conquest in 1520 ad

This was one of the easier games I've played in a while.

Settled the corn/gold and the cows/fish, chopped out the pyramids while teching metal casting, whipped a forge in the capital and ran an engineer to get machinery out in decent time. Bribed celtia against Willem, allied with Hindu Catherine & Mansa, ignored Gilgamesh as he founded a religion that nobody shared, and killed Charly. Hammurabi got crap land and was a joke.

Every war was easier than I expected, highly promoted Cho-ko-nus are soooooooooo strong. Every time I was about to start a new war, I said, 'ok, probably most of my army will die but I'll vassal this one and then tech up'... but no, every war I dominated with hardly any losses. A handful of trebs to soften things up came in handy once longbows arrived, and a lot of trebs did the trick for bombarding castles. I built a few elephants for anti-horse as well.

I went Charly -> Brennus -> Cathy -> Hammurabi -> Mansa -> WvO -> Gilgamesh -> Louis, warring nonstop with maybe 5 turns to transfer my army between distant targets. In hindsight I'd have done better to take WvO out right after Brennus as he was closest to my army, but he was teching well and I underestimated the strength of my own army.

Vassals did most of the teching for me after engineering, which was very nice. It's amazing how fast your tech rate explodes once you get a couple of decent vassals.

Game would've ended around 1000-1200ad if not for lonely Louis and the 63496847 small islands preventing me from taking domination, but such is life.

GG! Finished with a little over 250k points, not too terrible.
 
Noble/Normal. Huts&Events.

Opening thoughts? The expansive trait works nicely with early forges and if timed right MC is grand for mutiple tech trades. The Cho-Ko-Nu, properly supported and promoted is a killer for more than one war assuming appropriate targets. It's never too early to go target seeking.
 
Monarch/Normal/No Events.

SIP. Tech AH->BW->TW-Pottery->Myst (Stonehenge)->MC (Engineer Spec. off an early Forge).

Cap Build: Worker->Warrior->Worker->Settler->Stonehenge.

I'm having problems getting an GE as my first GP.

What I'm going to try to do is build a second city
Spoiler :
to block off Mansa
and build Stonehenge whilst teching MC and get a forge up in the second city for an Engineer so that the Engineer comes in before the GP from Stonehenge.

Once Stonehenge comes in a Great Prophet will take 50 turns. A GE will take 34 turns, so I need Metal Casting PLUS a forge in my second city within 16 turns of Stonehenge or I won't get the GE in time. If I run the GE in the Cap it's going to get polluted by the Great Prophet points from Stonehenge.

A Forge is 120 hammers though. I've tried a couple of times to get the Forge up in the second city in time but I can't do it, the forge costs too many hammers even with chopping.

How's it done?
 
@ Keilah

Spoiler :
You're game is pretty impressive. I'm playing so many shadow games I forget lots of stuff lol. I didn't get the Mids this game and after my 5cities bribed Musa/Cathy to war and got Celts to stop trading with Dutch and one more trade imbargo. Then I conquered Charlie/Brennus/William?/Giggles Maybe the order was my problem. Had around 13 cities and 3 Vassals at 500AD but then Giggles Vassalized to Cathy so I just used my Vassals plus went to research mode to get late cannons around 1200 then took over the continent around 1400 then quit cause game over and screw Louie lol.
@ Choggy

What do you want the GE for? In my experience, unless you have 3 VERY good cities that can make CHO's in 3turns each w/forge then its best to expand a bit more while using GS to bulb both MC/Machinery.

A Forge is 120 hammers though. I've tried a couple of times to get the Forge up in the second city in time but I can't do it, the forge costs too many hammers even with chopping./QUOTE]

Don't build SH. Build the Oracle and take MC as you're free take then 3chops and a whip to get a forge up. Or you could just do it in the same city you got Oracle an hope :) But then again, that goes back to my first statement at you above.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

AcaMetis
Nobles' Club 373: Mao Zedong of China
2 3
Replies
47
Views
3K
jorissimo
jorissimo
AcaMetis
Nobles' Club 380: Darius of Persia
Replies
19
Views
842
pmarc
P
AcaMetis
Nobles' Club 379: Gilgamesh of Sumeria
Replies
19
Views
911
soundjata
soundjata
AcaMetis
Nobles' Club 377: Gandhi of India
2 3 4
Replies
67
Views
5K
Tecumseh1
Tecumseh1
AcaMetis
Nobles' Club 376: Cyrus of Persia
Replies
12
Views
2K
soundjata
soundjata
Back
Top Bottom