NC XXIV: Wang Kon

[Tempesta13]

Emperor/Normal to 1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled 1E on sugar. 2nd city went on the copper and i started building axes to rush Toku. He's protective, little bit far away, and built 2 cities on hills - but i don't like him. Passed by his other 2 cities to take his capital 1st since it wasn't on a hill. Will turn into my GP farm later.



Razed his other two cities and eliminated him. Unfortunately i didnt' get a blocking city up to the east, so Qin has put 3 cities on "my part" of the continent.



So i figure i'd try and kill some more protective archers. CRII and CRIII axes helped out.



Also took Nanjung which was just east of my capital. A few turns later i would take Khoisan and get meditation from Qin for peace.



Tech at 1 AD - Qin is way ahead but the rest aren't too far away.

to 1160 AD

Spoiler :

Nothing much happened in this part. Built infrastructure trying to get some kind of research going. Just starting to get decent now.



Way behind everyone - especially Qin. He got paper ahead of me. I went for machinery, waiting for a GS to bulb part of education.



Took too long to get national epic up in Kyoto. Was running 5-7 scientists in caste, but wasn't popping GS's when i needed them. Qin beats me to lib by 5 turns with his tiny dumb empire.



I still don't even have construction. I just started my UB in the cap. Need to get 6 up quick for oxford while also looking to get a bunch of maces/cats to take out Qin. He has nice cottaged land, and with him gone i have paper/education/lib on everyone and it won't look as bad. Might go for trebs instead of cats, not sure. He doesn't have a lot of troops or cities - but protective longbows are tough to kill. I'm #1 in land so i should be able to win this if i don't mess it up. Optics would be nice too cause i'd like to see what the map looks like.

 

[Trystero]

Great! My second NC, and a leader I've not played, yet. Thanks for taking this over Sian! And thanks, and job well done TMIT! I'll be playing on Noble (though I might move back to Epic speed)... As soon as I write up my LHC game, that is...

 

[Trystero]

Also, as a Noble player, can I ask a little about the rationale for moving the settler? I must admit that usually settle in place because the capitals tend to have nice resource allocation. Reading through the thread I see two reasons for settling 1E put forward: a) 3 food in the city tile, meaning you'd get 6F out the gate at a pop of 1; and b) you'd gain (at least) 3 hills and lose 1 (net gain of 2). Is either of these the overriding factor in moving the settler, or is it the combination? I'm still very reluctant to move the settler most of the time for fear of losing a hidden resource.

I guess what I am really asking is if these advantages are such that settling on the Sugar is an obvious move for a more experienced player, and what leads you to that conclusion? Thanks.

 

[Amao]

@Trystero

More food = quicker growth, faster worker/settler which means faster expansion etc... Well, seasoned player may also consider early happy caps and other extreme scenarios. I'll settle 1E and just pump some worker/settler until I go bankrupt.

 

[Belisar]

@Trystero, about the thoughts leading to my suggestion settling 1E on the sugar:

The decision where to settle is complex, a combination of factors.
I usually compare the gains from moving with the losses.

Most important early in the game, especially for the capital, is the food.
Very important: moving 1E doesn't lose the 2 corns and also preserves a riverside/cosatal start.
By moving 1E we gain 1 food for the city center temporarly (until Calendar), in the early stage, when it matters most.
+1 food (or +1 hammer, for example plain hill) from the city tile is very good since we save turns on
our first worker and therefore our whole civilization starts literally a few turns earlier.
In situations where you have the choice, settling on tiles like plain hill, sugar, (unirrigated) rice, plain elephant...
is often nice, unless you sacrifice more important things like food ressources.

What we also gain is production. The site where the settler stands has 2 visible green hills and most likely a 3rd 1N,1NW.
(From my fog-reading and the fact that 3 is usually the minimum hill number you get on your starting plot).
The site 1E has 4 hills, 2 plain, 2 green.
If you remember that most of your early non-slavery, non-chopping production comes from hills, thats 11 vs 14 hammers for
4 tiles each (assuming plain forest as 4th hammer tile) - and a single irrigated corn (together with city tile) will feed them.
As a side note, plain hills are only good tiles if you have a good food-surplus like this start provides, otherwise
green hills are preferable because you need less food to feed them.

Minor positive thing: 1E has 1 less water tile (less water tiles are preferable, the best coastal city has exactly 2 water tiles,
which gives you all the benefits (health from harbour, trade, some additional buildings, ships) but as few weak tiles as possible.
Financial (especially with colossus) mitigates "bad" sea-tiles a bit.

What we lose:
By moving 1E we exchange 5 tiles. The 2 visible sea-tiles are irrelevent, 1 lost sea tile is in the fog, a minor gamble,
the tile 1N,1NW is, as stated, most likely a forested grassland hill (already considered in the production analysis, together
with the visible green hill 1W, 1NW)

All in all, the gains exceed the losses and the gambles are small, therefore the suggestion settling 1E.
Hope those explanations helped

Spoiler for results of moving settler:

Spoiler :

Bleys stated in his spoiler that he regretted settling 1E because he wanted to divide the nice tiles in that region between 2 cities.
I agree with him that with further information, alternative spots are possible.
On the other hand, you don't have this information on turn 0, you have to decide with limited intel.
(for example the fish was not visible and a minor surprise, considering there were already 2 land-food ressources which have double the "weight"
for the map generator than sea-food)
Moving the warrior at turn 0 before you settle (which is a good idea anyway) wouldn't have influenced my decision to settle 1E.

By moving 1E one also loses the copper in the initial BFC. The copper would have (almost) balanced the production of the initial plot
compared with 1E and copper would have been available several turns earlier.
When you get BTS-starts that are heavily forested and 1 tile is not, chances are that there is a hidden ressource.
In this case, however, there were several unforested tiles, a ressource showing up on the only blank tile one loses by moving 1E was simply bad luck.

 

[budweiser]

Spoiler :

I was spoiled a bit at work. I knew the neighbors and the opening land and the copper. I played at Noble so I dont think it matters. I settled in place and only built 1 other city. So I had a 2cc going until 1 chinese city flipped. One other city flipped much later in the 19th century.

I went for Buddhism 1st and then bee-lined writing for open borders and alpha for tech trading. Of coarse I had fishing, and BW. Three axemen guarded my lands until I got the UU. My capitol with only 1 axe had to survive an attack from 4 barb archers. That was tense. In case you dont know, you can get by for a very long time with 1 unit per city as long as your neighbors like you.

I wanted to set up a ‘love fest’ but was late getting it going and missed out. After writing, I went for the Oracle and as I said above I ended up timing my first GS to appear when the Oracle was done and I popped Confucianism and Taoism in the same turn in city 2. At 850BC I was in Pacifism. I generally GS bulbed up to Liberalism, which I got sort of late. I dont remember what I took, maybe Rep, maybe Printing Press. I remember researching chemistry first to set up steel but not taking it. Then I sort of grabbed all the techs that give a free GP.

Early on Buddism quickly spread to China, but I couldn’t get Toku to open up his borders before he went Confucian. It took several tech gifts before I could open them. Then China went to Confuscious so I quickly changed and got the ‘love fest’.Toku built the AP but there never was any action. After that I teched and built culture, doing whatever I wanted. I wanted a 2cc space win, but I am not good enough at using backwards nations to help me throguh the tech tree. 1900 rolled around and I am at industrialism, and 30-40 turns away from a cultural win so I my not play it out. What I will probably do is repl,ay the same approach at Prince.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hi guys, I played to close to 1000 BC last night, but then got interrupted by a TERRIBLE migraine and slept for about 13 hours. Here's a text update:

Immortal/normal

Spoiler :

I settled 1E as I called. Now that I have BW I regret it a tiny bit but it WOULD have been harder to use the other fish if not doing so. I settled the plains hill near toku first, then the fish city, then the gold/corn site to block china (and get good tiles), then even beat toku to the eastern city with livestock. Both sites near toku are settled on hills. I don't know how much land he'll get now that I took those sites, but for now I'm letting him have the food-poor land to his SW so that his declaration, if he rolls it, has fewer troops. QSH could be a problem too. Preferably I oust one of those guys, they're not pleasant neighbors but their PRO status is really annoying too...grr.

If my aggressive settling leaves one with little land, that one dies. It might be immortal, but 8 cities will still outproduce 5 or so (I currently have 5, can fit another into the sugar area and some to backfill).

All looks ok so far.

 

[Bleys]

I guess what I am really asking is if these advantages are such that settling on the Sugar is an obvious move for a more experienced player, and what leads you to that conclusion? Thanks.

Sugar is probably the most common resource for me to settle on top of. Maybe Elephants, but Sugar isnt that great even when improved (actually better with a farm after Biology IMHO, I often farm over it late-game).

Here is how I would have settled if I had known the map ahead:

Spoiler :

Notice cities 3 and 4 can poach food from the GP farm, til they can get farms chained in.

Personally, I think re-playing games like this are a bigger learning tool than the first time. Being able to recognize a situation where you move your Settler is absolutely a topic worthy of discussion at any level. Packing 3 cities in the space of 1 on this map could be the difference between being able to produce enough units to take out your neighbors or not. In fact, I firmly support Noble players starting the game, dotmapping, then restarting. It would help them learn about the rest of this game without being handcuffed right out of the gate. Where to Settle, put your first and second cities are 3 of the biggest decisions you will make in the first 50 turns. And its not just for Noble players, I even learned something about my own shortcomings here, and will be slightly better off in similar situations in future games.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This map has some truly awkward resource clusters. I probably will look like I settled very aggressively, and it wasn't even intentional.

 

[Bleys]

I am enjoying this game, although its been fairly textbook:

Emperor, Normal, through 600 AD:

Spoiler :

I settled on the Sugar, and immediately regretted it when I say that huge patch of no-food hills to the North. As I have said in my other posts, I wish I had settled differently, but its not too bad. I grabbed two sites right in Qins face, the Gold-Corn and the Gems-Fish-Clams, and watched that Copper in the NE corner. Toku never settled it, and 8 or 9 Axes later, he was dead. I only kept his Capitol, and I regret doing that, since it had no Wonder or Religion, I could have re-settled it later and teched MUCH better through CoL and Curency. I had Qin totally cut off in the SE.

I teched Construction before even getting Alphabet, and took out Qin with Axes, Swords and Hwachas a bit later. He was kind enough to build both the GW and GLH in his capitol. Since I had gotten Stonehenge and the GL in my own Cap (I settled right on top of that Marble in the NW corner, that has no land access, but has a fish, just before starting the GL), I was very very pleased with my Empire. Sury jumped in on Qins side, and once Qin was gone (only 3 cities, I kept them all by that point), I took 1 city from Sury, and gave him peace. We will remain friends as long as I need to now though, since we are in the same religion, along with Cyrus. I am headed to Lib now, not sure what I am going to take though, I really dont need to war from here to win, at least not until Combustion when I can carry enough units for an attack. I may just sit tight, tech to Transports. No one is going to attack me, and I have a nice it of land once you add in 2 extra Capitols.

 

[Amao]

Hi guys, I played to close to 1000 BC last night, but then got interrupted by a TERRIBLE migraine and slept for about 13 hours. Here's a text update:

Man, rest well. Health is more important than Happyness in middle game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

indeed it is.

Anyway, the REAL updates!

Immortal/Normal To 1 AD

Spoiler :

Well, easymode immortal that is. I didn't take advantage by rushing the AI with warriors at least!

Settled 1E and worked the corns. Settler out after worker and some hammers in warrior, I never understand why people grow below deity, where barbs actually stop this:



I notice that Toku is expanding slowly, ornery idiot. I took all his land it would turn out later, but at this point I am just seeing 3 cities and no metal for him, which turns defensive axe building into...



I actually have 5 cities at this point...MORE production than toku. Is this really immortal? I checked and yes...the starting archery/AG must be a big deal after all?

Stupid QSH went aesthetics AND alphabet, but I still get some mileage:



Oh god, mass archers, time to turn around and make that his only city:



One of the few times I raze, because if I don't I can't work that corn. You're an idiot toku.

To 1906...conquest. !@#$% stupid AI and their #$%@#$ no opening borders so no easy AP win @#%$. Die die die all of you, or bend over at least .

Spoiler :

Fleece toku for tech



QSH is teching away, no way I'm letting these immortal bonuses kick in nicely.





Gah...war bribes.



I have to quit when he gets CKN's after I take 2 cities. That leaves him with only 2 on the mainland though...I'll get there eventually.

Since I got christianity spread to me I use a philo bulb (though I don't found it) for trade bait and double GPP. Heyo! I win lib despite idiocy.



And sure, QSH is pushing 5 turns from magic rifles, but as we'll discover, cannons are not nearly as vulnerable to magic rifling as rifles.







Now, I was worried about declaring on toku, since it would piss everyone off. Well, everyone was bribed vs me anyway (more like just sury/gk), but they're suckage on another continent. Toku doesn't have much either.





And I get out of wars.





I go for my usual AP cheese...but I can't do it! GK doesn't have the religion, and won't open borders. I could declare war, except I need the DP points with cyrus to get enough points from him to win, and GK is his friend! Damn! So, I use sushi and my land lead to tech away while all but cyrus war (mostly on asoka). I decide I'm just going to dagger the hell out of everyone. For fun.





Yeah. Infantry (later tanks), and massed destro/transport/carrier/FIGHTERS. So many fighters. Watch the fireworks!

















A tidal wave of Korean garbage just kept building and building, crushing the entire map in its backwards idiocy (actually, cyrus was pretty far ahead of me, and asoka was a little too, but hell do I care?) I started colony as roosy so I didn't have to pay for cities I took, got free garrison troops guarding them, kept conquested AI pop down a bit, and triggered the land target rule. There IS a use for colonies! Haha!

Final stats:



Score around 83k, not bad for how late it finished.

 

[Trystero]

Thanks Amao, Belisar, and Bleys for the feedback on where to settle. I might follow Bleys advice, and settle, explore, and post a dotmap for more advice/discussion before I play very far in this game. I certainly would welcome the opportunity to improve this aspect of my game, and become less reluctant to move my settler from his starting point.

 

[Trystero]

@Trystero, about the thoughts leading to my suggestion settling 1E on the sugar:

<snip>

By moving 1E we gain 1 food for the city center temporarly (until Calendar), in the early stage, when it matters most.

Sorry, I'm not sure if I am following this correctly: Is the +1 food for the city tile lost after Calendar? Or do you mean that by settling on it, you lose the ability to improve the Sugar with a plantation after Calendar, and thus lose the +2 food of the improved tile (for a net loss of 1 food in your BFC)?

 

[pigswill]

The Noble Epic of Kon the Merciless. Chapten Two (10ad).

Spoiler :

Build Pyongyang (corn/gold) to block off Qin in 1675bc. Teching away quietly. Oracle>CoL>confu in 1400bc. Glight 900bc. Couple more cities 600bc. Meanwhile get construction in 600bc and start building some hwachas. Send out a galley to explore around to locate some cities for Glight overseas trade routes. Note that the Khan's Keshiks are better than Persian Immortals (Persia totally eliminated from starting continent, down to one city in Sury island). Get alphabet 350bc, manage a couple of trades (mono,IW).

Declare on Qin 290bc, raze one poorly placed city, capture Beijing (Stonehenge, Temple of Artemis) about 150bc, capture Shanghai 65bc and that's the end of Qin. Now its just me and a bunch of very annoying barb galleys on the homeland. Eventually knock out 4 galleys of my own, sink barbs, fogbust the coast and replace the workboats. Get monarchy from Asoka in trade in 20bc, revolt to HR and adopt NSR to avoid diplomatic complications. No GPs yet, Prophet from Oracle due shortly.

The 'plan' looks like finish settling the island, improve economy (cottages!!!), get a decent tech lead then decide on victory. I'm leading on tech and demographics already so I'm not too worried about losing atm.

 

[SlipperyJim]

In fact, I firmly support Noble players starting the game, dotmapping, then restarting. It would help them learn about the rest of this game without being handcuffed right out of the gate.

I am SO going to take this advice. My usual choice is to trust the map generator and settle in place, but now I'm not so sure. I played a bit this morning, and I think I'll start over with moving the Settler.

 

[GGS]

Prince/Normal

The former because I've won one game at this level; the latter because Wang Kon is hardly a warmonger of the first order. I'll settle 1E to maximize the hills. This looks grand for bureaucracy and levee if Korean survival is in the cards. My inclination is meditation for a religion and the monasteries with a worker as the first build.

@ Sian Thanks for stepping up and stepping in.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sorry, I'm not sure if I am following this correctly: Is the +1 food for the city tile lost after Calendar? Or do you mean that by settling on it, you lose the ability to improve the Sugar with a plantation after Calendar, and thus lose the +2 food of the improved tile (for a net loss of 1 food in your BFC)?

You don't get a net loss of food because the city tile retains the +1 food. You can just farm the original site for equal food, but with +1 available much earlier than otherwise possible, if you're short on food (unlikely with 2x corn!).

 

[Pohjalainen]

I'm trying to learn dotmappind and here's my first attempt. It is made from the map of 350BC. I try also to give some thoughts why I have made the decisions. I'd appreciate constructive critisisim and also unconstructive if it's funny

Spoiler :

So, here's the map. The blue ones are excisting cities. When I started making this map I also started to think that I should have razed Osaka, but can't help it anymore

A: Basic costal city with clams, could be GP-farm.

B: Claims all those nice resources especially iron.

C: Production city that claims the marble.

D: This gave me the most headache. Actually now when I'm writing this, I think that maybe I should move the city 1E and make it a commerce city. First I thought I'd need the stone, but probably the benefit is quite limited. But anyway, iron and commerce city.

E: I was thinking commerce city here and it claims the copper and the pigs.



I was also thinking one more city south from the Pyongyang to grab those see-food resources and gems.

 

[Bleys]

I'm trying to learn dotmappind and here's my first attempt. I'd appreciate constructive critisisim and also unconstructive if it's funny

It looks fine, but I have a suggestion. Try out the new BUG, 3.6. It has a very strong dot-mapping tool, that is accessed with ALT-X. Its awesome for a guy like me who likes to make all kinds of dotmaps,