Nobles' Club 294: Wang Kon of Korea

[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 Wang Kon of Korea, whom we last played in NC 258. The Koreans start with Mysticism and Mining.

• Traits: Wang Kon is Financial and Protective. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2. 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 Seowon, a University with +35% instead of +25%. A minor and marginal increase to an expensive building, but place it in a city with a solid (FIN-boosted) commerce generation and watch the beaker output shoot through the roof.
  
• The UU: The Hwacha, a Catapult with +50% vs. Melee units. An early siege unit that's noticeably better against the most powerful defensive units that they (and the rest of their army, whatever that is composed of) is likely to face off against.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Shuffle, Tropical Climate, Medium Sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

Strategic resource swaps, the usual.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

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 294 Wang Kon 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 what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

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 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.

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.

EDIT: Updated the worldbuilder files to fix a duplicate tech entry in the Deity and Demigod saves. No clue if that makes any difference, but it's the only issue I found.

 

[AcaMetis]

No visible food makes me want to SIP, since there should be some food resource or another in the starting BFC. Settling the stone would be nice, for the +1 in the city centre and immediate hookup (we do start with Myst, so Stonehenge failgold is on the table), but what if there's no food source? What if our food source is to the west? Not sure how to play this.

What do the experts think?

 

[Nick723]

As the stone is riverside, less incentive to move and settle on it I think. The quarry is a pretty nice tile to work in the early game anyway (if you work a quarry rather than a mine you recover the bonus hammer you would have got by settling on it).

Given no visible food therefore, I’d SIP

 

[Anysense]

I'd move warrior 1S to see if there is anything worth moving there. If tempted by settling on the stone then check for food 1E and if there is something good I'd settle on the stone. There is sure to be some food in BFC, but for all we know it could be plains cow or dry rice, so worth a try to find something better.

 

[Henrik75]

Move warrior 1 south and maybe settler 1S or SE if there's food so you can claim more of that delicious grassland river with FIN

 

[Pangaea]

With such a nice starting area, think I'd just SIP, or possibly 1S. Bound to be food somewhere, probably west somewhere. Warrior 1S to check out that place, and SIP if nothing great shows up. Won't have time to play, though, I'm already behind on BOTM games, not to mention all those Deity games I was playing before the turn of the year.

 

[jnebbe]

I put the save in my worldbuilder folder and now civ inexplicably crashes when I click Play Scenario, I think Aca's trying to hack us all


@AcaMetis I didn't know if it was related since I removed the save from WB folder and was still crashing, it worked today though

 

[AcaMetis]

Oh for the love of...not again. One moment, I'll look through the files and see if I can figure out what went wrong

 

[Nick723]

But if I move 1S how will I build the Great Wall?

Seriously though, I don’t know why you’d give that up.

 

[mscellaneous]

Oh for the love of...not again. One moment, I'll look through the files and see if I can figure out what went wrong

The IMM no huts file works fine

 

[AcaMetis]

I couldn't find anything wrong with the files other than a duplicate tech entry in team 5, which shouldn't cause a crash upon opening the list of scenarios by any sane measure, so if the problem persists I have to assume it's not on my end. For the record I tested the Deity file even before noticing the duplicate tech entry, and it worked fine. Of course it also worked fine when I accidentally had an AI adopt Paganism0 and everyone else crashed, so

 

[jnebbe]

Pain

Spoiler :

Played demigod, SIP
agri->mining->bw->wheel->pottery->masonry->writing
Went for a size 2 settler
Interesting early game choices, bw+ah puts you into a commerce hole. I have no idea what you're supposed to do instead because if you don't go bw then you're settling your 2nd city like T40 or something



settled 2nd city, was debating to settle it 1S instead so it could share the wheat but decided against it so Seoul could work it's only 2 good tiles and build a 2nd worker
I was really confused how I could tech AH with only 14 beakers instead of 20 and I finally realized that the tech boost from knowing ais with the same tech must be invisible, never really thought about that




I realized way too late that chopping the silk made it a 3 commerce tile, so teching pottery->masonry was real slow.
I got devoured by barbarians which delayed expansion a ton.
And then pyramids were built T68 so I only got 3 turns of failgold




Barbs are mostly under control, but my tech rate is pretty crap, expansion is not great, I also think it's a big mistake to go writing period, I think fishing+medi/poly->priesthood is much better since HR would be so strong here but I was already halfway done with writing so I just finished it anyway.

 

[5tephen]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

Second city SW of copper might have delayed need for AH until some cottages up in the capital? Could build a couple of axes for barb defence and pump workers with the copper tile, maybe whip a monument at size 2.

My experience of deity is it's rarely affordable to go BW and AH before pottery and out of the two techs, delay in BW is generally more problematic as needed for barb defence and early production.

 

[gamegasmo]

Noble/Normal/No huts

SiP, moving warrior 1S.
Maybe Mids, ToA. Definetely Maussolos.
W>Pot>BW>Masonry

Hoping to see some food...

2000 BC

Spoiler :

Popped up wheat and silk. Gone round a little bit with my warrior and met Gilg, AC and Just.

Founded Pyongyang north, near copper -> 2nd warrior.

Research: W>Fi>Pot>BW>Mas>Poly>Writing.

Some real good spots. A double gold floodplains in the east is a tempting early crazyness.
Is it worth a try?

 

[Heathcliff]

Going great wall.

 

[Nick723]

Deity T1-71

Spoiler :

As per above discussion settled in place. Agriculture food resource and riverside stone makes this the perfect start for an early Great Wall.

Tech path: Agriculture -> Masonry -> Animal Husbandry -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Bronze Working -> Writing

This is one of the relatively rare maps I think where it makes sense to postpone bronze working. In fact, I still haven’t done a single whip by T71!

Second city goes for the double cows (most productive site first). Third city east to claim that resource cluster and improve the happy cap via the gold.

T71 overview:

Seoul and Pyongyang take turns to build pyramids whilst growing, the other builds a settler / worker.

Hope is to get enough culture in Wonsan to flip the barn city before anyone gets any other ideas - we’ll see!

Next step is to go construction and hit Justinian with Hwachas (he had the temerity to settle in my face!).

 

[Nick723]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

Comparing my T71 and yours I think shows the strength of going the Great Wall here. You invested 150 hammers in dead warriors, vs 75 I did on the wall. Also early masonry allows many more turns to be put into the pyramids...I think I have ~300 failgold still to come. I think also your tech path didn’t help, as key techs came later than they were needed (eg delay in animal husbandry for cow city).

It’s a good point about writing vs monarchy. In this case, I plan to go construction, so it’s writing. But if you planned a more peaceful game then monarchy could be the way to go. Another option for a peaceful game would be to build the pyramids and solve your happiness issues that way.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

What do people like to use Great Spy for on Diety? Settle, try to loot tech early, or hold for golden age?

 

[sampsa]

What do people like to use Great Spy for on Diety? Settle, try to loot tech early, or hold for golden age?

Infiltrate is the standard line I guess. @drewisfat has had some nice games using , so maybe he can share some insight. Below deity GW seems a bit weaker as the AI are mostly too slow in teching.

 

[konata_LS]

The start looks a little mysterious. As we all know, there are usually some resources in the settler's BFC. But in the screenshot we cannot see any , which means there is surely a resource in one of the 4 tiles in the fog: 2N of the settler, 2N of that flood plain, 1NW of the flood plain, and 2W of the settler.

The stone is interesting, and may create some significant differences about settling place and tech paths between difficulty levels. On Deity, barbs are a real threat, and Deity AIs tech quite fast, so TGW and tech stealing become tempting, on Deity the players tend to tech Masonry and improve the stone tile. But on Emperor and below, barbs are not very aggressive (unless some people play "Custom scenario" and choose "raging barbarians"); with a FIN leader + river, the player shouldn't rely on tech stealing. Mids are good, but judging from the starting place, I'm afraid that the surrounding land might be low on , which makes Rep less appealing - of course I'll consider building Mids if I find many high spots nearby. In case I don't build Mids, I wouldn't tech Masonry for a long time, then settling on stone is better at lower levels. Maybe move the warrior 1NW to check if there is at 2N of the settler? If there is some on that tile, settling on stone would still keep the food; but if there is no at 2N of the settler, I'll just SIP to keep the potential resource.

Decided to try this map, because I'd like to learn Emperor level without relying on some early powerful UUs such as Immortals or Quechuas. WK's PRO trait is weak; his UUs not very impressive, but at least he's a FIN leader.

Emp, NHNE, from 4000BC to 225AD

Spoiler :

Settings:


Moved the warrior 1NW and saw the wet wheat. Decided to settle on stone. Tech Agri-BW-TW.


After TW, tech AH because my second city had grassland cow. Not a strong city for the long term, but two gold mines and FIN oasis were a really nice boost during the early game. Luckily some grasslands can be irrigated after CS.


Met Justy and AC quite early, I thought I was surrounded by IMP leaders and worried about land grabbing. With two IMP neighbours, I'd prefer "having 2 more cities" to Mids (I didn't know that AC had not shared borders with me until many turns later). Plus, I also needed the civic bonus with Giggle. In my experience, AI Giggle is quite dangerous at Cautious. Giggle's attitude became soon pleased after HR.

By contrast, Justy built Mids and adopted Rep.


And Giggle DoW Justy in 100AD

After Justy and Giggle started killing each other, I temporarily closed border with Justy, because Justy and Giggle were the WE of each other. IMHO, turning down Giggle's request of "stop trading with Justy" is much more dangerous than refusing Justy's, because Justy doesn't plot at Pleased (but Giggle does!). Plus, Justy's religion already spread to me.

Keeping Giggle at Pleased also enabled this trade:


Didn't dogpile Justy, because there was nice land up north for me to backfill. Had 7 cities and would soon get the 8th near that crab.


This barb city would be the 9th city, when my wounded HAs are healed: it's a nice spot with horse + pig.


Tech situation in 225AD, not bad. Giggle oracled Metal Casting. Hopefully one more AI gets MC and is willing to trade it to me


The plan is to backfill the land up north and go for Cuirs.