Nobles' Club 225: Mao Zedong of China

[AcaMetis]

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 Mao Zedong of China, whom we last played in NC 189; we last played the Chinese under Qin Shi Huang in NC 179. The Chinese start with Agriculture and Mining.

• Traits: Mao Zedong is Expansive and Protective. Expansive adds +2 to all cities, gives a +100% bonus to Granaries and a +25% bonus to Workers. Note that excess converted to will not benefit from Expansive (or anything else, for that matter). Protective gives all Archery and Gunpowder units a free City Garrison I (+20% City Defence) and Drill I (+1 First Strike chance) promotion, as well as a +100% bonus to Walls and Castles.
  
• The UB: The Pavilion, a Theatre with +25%. The bonus isn't going to do anything if you're not generating massive amounts of culture in the first place, but when you are it can turn the tide of a high-stakes cultural battle in your favor.
  
• The UU: The Cho-Ko-Nu, a Crossbow with +2 First Strike instead of +1 FS and Collateral Damage up to 60%. Ever wanted to rain death down upon your enemies' flanks while raining death down upon the enemies directly in front of you? Yeah. Aside from a lack of ways to deal with city defences these guys are walking siege units that mow down Melee units and don't care overly much about anything else. Less than most Knights would fear a Pike, at any rate.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate Climate, medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps were done to give AIs nearby strategic resources, and a Fish was moved from an unworkable position to a location where it'll see use.

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 225 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 Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler 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 labelled 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.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

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.

 

[AcaMetis]

If not a straightforward choice that at least looks like a straightforward question: Plains hill or the plains Ivory? Both are 2 city tiles, both are riverside. One ruins a forest and other ruins a nice tile, one gets Plains Cow and the other gets a Floodplain, one leaves behind a few mystery tiles and the other knows it's getting Spice...what's the better option here ? If either of them, of course .

As for the Warrior, could go NW to check out all the water (most likely Coast, and if so, potential seafood) and see if settling the Spice is worth it? Not a fan of moving towards the coast, though. Could also move SE to check the green tiles (although unfortunately the tiles that matter for ivory/PH are jungled and too far away to scout with the Warrior, respectively). What do the experts think?

 

[krikav]

My first inclanation is absolutely to settle on the hill. Keeping mystery tiles seems wise.
And walking away from a plains cow isn't smart either. It's not the best of food sources to start with, but it's a superb tile nevertheless.

The important thing here though, is to NOT settle in place.
The algorithms is not fair, it has placed us on a floodplain. Don't kill the floodplain by settling in place! Don't please!

 

[sampsa]

I'm going 1SE warrior and 1S settler. I don't think the coast is important for a while at least. The spices will be a decent tile to settle on later.

 

[AcaMetis]

The hill seemed like the better choice to me as well, but I've been proven wrong before .

And yes, definitely don't SIP . It's a choice between a 221 city tile working a base 31 tile and a 211 city tile working a base (once the forest is gone) 21 tile. Remember: Food is king . Especially when your only visible "food" resource is plains Cow .

 

[earthy]

@krikav

how superb of a tile? worth teching AH if we don't find any other pasture resources superb?

 

[sampsa]

Because of the stellar starting techs, I think we can afford to go AH first.

 

[earthy]

@sampsa

followup question - would it be worth considering hunting->AH for the double discount? we're going to be getting a 10 turn worker anyways, so we need to put some turns into a FP farm. Might it make sense to delay AH a bit, finish the farm, and have better growth before we start on the cow?

 

[sampsa]

I don't think hunting is worth delaying AH. There are floodplains available, extra city center so I think settler at 2 is a possibility, so we don't really do much with camps.

 

[Pengu]

Imm until 575 BC

Spoiler game :

Well, it sure isn't the map from the Ethiopia game
Had to be 1 S to settle as you didn't know if you had more than PC. And, no there was only PC :/
The surrounding land wasn't great with jungle to the south. We did have stone to the N though just to tempt us ;-). I despise AH but what decided it for me was the grass cow among the jungle. I had to settle the spot
fast as my 2nd city and pray to rngjesus jungle didn't spawn on it. My prayers were heard and I got my pasture on it. Mission successful . No horse again though. Met Asoka early on and it seems like he is the only other civ on the continent.
At least small chance of war unless I want it. Land isn't rich enough to justify an early war so I go for the mids. Belined maths after pottery/BW and chopped out the mids fast. Still a bit late as it always is. Settled my 3rd city by the rice/stone and 4th city on top of the spices to the west. Got the academy pretty early as I worked on a GS in my 2nd city. Was bit worried Asoka didn't spawn Hindo nor Buddism as the happiness/relations would had been nice but my prayers were heard when he got judaism. And as commerce was low I was really anxious to get the gem city to the SE. I was lucky that a barb city spawn just N of the gems which saved me otherwise I'm sure Asoka would had taken it. Only have to deal with the culture from his holy city :/.
I am thinking of grabbing a city to the south of the gems to completely block him out. Just got currency which I hope will boost the economy. Asoka has not built a single wonder which is a bit sad and makes attacking him worth even less. At least he will have to build a shrine for me 1st . There is no issue with space though as i could easily expand to 10 cities.

 

[Pengu]

I went Hunting first for the rebate, though I am stupidly greedy at times
Might had been the wrong decision but PH cows aren't that much food richer than grassland ivory. I also wanted BW and pottery out as fast as i could. But then again I also don't do settler at size 2

 

[sampsa]

Deity T50

Spoiler :

So, settle 1S, AH-wheel-hunt-pot-writing-(BW). Going for 3-city elephants, so want a library asap (bulb maths). Hunting before pottery was dumb, was better to start putting into granaries asap. Settler at size 2, settle 3N with roads ready.

T31 saw the stone and had to stop to think about Mids. Nah, I think just taking Asoka's land asap is better. Land is not that great for Mids anyway.

Silly Asoka finishes GW which is unpleasant. Barbs head to me and he won't build a shrine. My fog busting certainly wasn't ready to deal with this.

Immediate barb threat is over, lost the cow though. Will settle 3rd for the southern cow and capital cottages. Writing is in so should get religion soon. Not super happy with my play, but should be able to pull off a decent elepult-attack.

 

[krikav]

@earthy and others
Abit too early to have such a discussion really. After settlement and T5 scouting one knows, so anything I say here will likely be radically different from what I would conclude T5.

I agree with @sampsas warrior movement, it's jungle down south and probably worthless info, but likely warriors trajectory is SE 3-4 times before turing northwards from jungle. Highest chance to meet some AI before T5 I think.
Settlement 1S on the PH would be my choice too.

Cows are so good that they warrant AH before BW at least.
If one is eager for the hunting discount (It's about 19-20 beakers I think?) I don't think I would use the extra worker turns making the camp, but rather farming the floodplain on the initial settler position. I think that would line up pretty nice with hunting->AH.
And if the floodplains+plains cow is all we have, then having that floodplain a farm right away is good imho and it could be that it beats getting the cows online quicker.
Getting the camp (a -1F tile) online sooner is likely a mistake, as one would have to cease to work that tile, or accept slower capital growth.
So we would spend early worker turns (T10->T14 turns) to get a tile improved that we wont' really see the benefit from untill T25-T35 or so.

But if more food shows up, I think we should forgo the hunting discount and just go straight AH, no matter how painful it feels.

 

[sampsa]

@Pengu

Spoiler :

Jungle can't spread on cows. Only on pigs, rice and calendar-resources. Our conclusion on best strategy was different, but I think I would have also gone for Mids and peaceful expansion on immortal. On deity AIs will improve land and grow cities so quickly that the prize for war is much greater.

 

[krikav]

At T44 right now. Really love this map.
Will play onward to T50 and post.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T42 relative calm, action on the horison! :

First off, if one consideres settling on the PH, the first move should likely be settler SW, this loses nothing at all but gains visibility of the tile SE of the ivory. The settler has two movements and the first should be used for scouting anything if it can in situations like this.

There was no food. Unfortunatly I didn't meet anyone until T5, a pity since every AI knows hunting so i lose on the discount. I go hunting anyway with the intent of farming a floodplain before pasturing the cow.

Meet Asoka and he has founded Buddhism. He also puts all EPs on me so this might be semi-iso.
Here I saw his scout comming from that region, so I can risk my warrior climbing that hill.

No horses, and that plains tile sure look suspicious. I decide to make a try for BW. Hoping that river tiles plus the ivory will serve my commerce needs so I don't get trapped in a research-hole.
AH came a turn late so I spent one turn farming the floodplain 2N of capital.

Capital is yielding 11 hammers toward settler, and 9*11 = 99. I just need one hammer overflow to finish settler in 9 turns, I finish the warrior working a floodplain to stockpile extra food for later, this gives me 2H overflow which is enough.

Green hill sheep up north, this makes 3N of capital a sweet spot for a city imho, was thinking of going there even w/o food.

A barb warrior kills Asokas scout, I could move down and kill him but keeping warriors alive is nice as they prevent barb archers spawning and are much easier to handle.
I'm improving the ivories in the "correct" order, 2F ivory before 1F ivory.

BW is in, and copper makes a no-show. Thinking that BW was a mistake now. Have seen alot of archers in the west and I don't know how large the jungle in the south is. And asoka has already made a scouting tour up north and is unlikely to send archers here soon.
I feel I need to go archery but if I start to chop more cities now I'll be in big trouble economically. Thinking of growing these cities larger to work more riverside tiles and postpone chopping for a while.

I forget to revolt to slavery, but should have a new chance at third settler. Capital won't be whipped anyway.
I scout stone but don't think I have any immediate use for that. Building pyramids w/o food when I already have ivory for early happines doesn't ring true.
Besides, I'm in economic troubles and can't really afford more detours. Need to get archery to not die and then TW->Pottery to not go broke.

Archery drops in and I start to build some defenders. Did pre-build part of a third settler.
Barb pulse is comming and the first one to show is that injured warrior from earlier.
Good times!

 

[Tobiyogi]

If you think about that we are EXP here, settling ON the ivory would rob us 1 plus moving away from the Cow (another 3). These are many wasted hammers that we should absolutely work in order to get workers and the granary. Settling on the PH hill on the other hand leaves the possbility to work the ivory from the very beginning and have a worker in 10T (plus working 1).

If there is only one cow, however, I would delay AH for a little while. The city cannot grow on the plains cow anyway, farmed FP might be better. Being EXP, we can build another worker at size 2 (hunting for the ivory first) and then farm those FPs in 3,5 turns.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T50 :

Now, that is something I really really really did not need.
Me and Asoka seem to be isolated on a huge ass continent totally ridden with barbs and Asoka the troll builds TGW. Very happy I didn't fool around with only warriors here.

Thinking of moving this warrior forward to spawnbust and let the archers slip between the defenses to reach my archers back home.

But no, there are more comming. A forth one is behind this one too.

My southern warrior took a stance on a jungle hill and died. His bane of a archer is moving up now.
I could have taken a stance with the northernmost warrior against two archers possibly killing one, but I opt to save them as city garissons if I can

Or perhaps I'll just die?
Hope I win some fights now and that the barbs don't pillage everything from me.
Not sure how to work with this, but I suspect the path toward a chance at victory on this map goes along elephants hoves trampling over India.
But short term I should just defend and try to push back and see if I can settle something by that eastern copper/cow.
Every single riverside I had south has been overgrown with jungle too. >_<

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Very happy I didn't fool around with only warriors here.

You probably already guess how my game ended. I was too focused on my initial plan that didn't even consider emergency archery, even if that was quite an obvious play.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Oh, did you die? Pics or it didn't happen!
It's quite possible that I'll join you shortly.
But more likely I'll just whimper away holding of spears and axes, stuck at 3 cities while Asoka fills up the continent and becomes a monster I can't handle.

Very nice to see that I'm not alone in getting stuck in my own focus on a perticular plan.
Absolutely an exciting map!