Nobles' Club 332: Kublai Khan of Mongolia

[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 Kublai Khan of Mongolia, whom we last played in NC 279; we last played the Mongolians under Genghis Khan in NC 312. The Mongolians start with Hunting and The Wheel.

• Traits: Kublai Khan is Aggressive and Creative. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums.
• The UB: The Ger, a Stable with +4 exp added to Mounted units rather than +2. Generally not seen as useful for a Keshik rush since quantity is often better than quality in very early rushes, but Elepult can get some good benefit from Gers since one or two cities can focus on pumping out high quality War Elephants while the others pump out a steady stream of Catapults and other miscellaneous units.
• The UU: The Keshik, a Horse Archer with +1 First Strike instead of FS immunity, and an innate ability to ignore any and all terrain movement costs. Target behind a forested hill which itself is behind a river? Keshiks don't care, they'll cross the river and climb the forested hill with one like it's nothing. Note that this ability is unique to the unit and not a free promotion (in fact Keshiks can't actually get the Mobility promotion at all, largely because it'd be completely useless to them), so the ability will not transfer over if the unit is upgraded.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Inland Sea, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel, +1 AI to balance the field.

Spoiler edits :

Some strategic resource swaps, and a river was added near your starting position to make the land significantly less unapologetic garbage.

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 332 Kublai Khan 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.

 

[AcaMetis]

Can't say I feel a need to spend a turn moving away from forests and rivers into Tundra territory, so I guess SIP it is .

Unless one of the experts have some sort of super secret special strategy, of course .

 

[Izuul]

BW seems useful here.

 

[Fippy]

BW seems useful here.

Could build the Three Gorges Dam just from forests?

 

[Izuul]

The early tech situation here is pretty bad. Maybe there's something else in the fog that helps, but you tech AG first and then your worker does what after the corn? Roads every forest in sight? Ag > Mining > BW is gonna take awhile with no visible commerce.

Oh to have useful starting techs like Ag and Mining.

 

[Fippy]

Izuul made me curious and i checked ig..let's just say

Spoiler :

you will not have any such worries like pointless roads

 

[AcaMetis]

Hope that doesn't count as spoiler

Might want to spoiler it anyway, just in case.

 

[soundjata]

I did like @Fippy and a little more.
This map has so much cheese in it I recommend the cheesers come take a slice

 

[Texas03]

Spoiler turn 50 IMM :

SiP looked good here. I skipped archery, it's getting dicey with the barbs. Have to settle very conservatively. I wonder if that was the right call. I'm just now getting my third city on the plains hill in the west.

 

[antimony]

Evaluating different openings on deity...

Spoiler :

This is T10 after Agri. I tried working out the next 20+ turns on paper. In every case we grow to size 3 then build settler (since worker is catching up on improvements), that settler is done on or about T31. We built one warrior before settler and can probably finish a 2nd with settler overflow to improve fogbusting safety.

Possible research lines:
- AH then Min/BW: BW around T44. Settling on silk west of cap (ignore my "s" signs below, I forgot about Creative!), our single worker finishes the western corn around T35 then builds a pasture and a green mine in city 2 before BW is done. Capital keeps 3 power tiles to build a new settler in 7, then probably worker. Of course AH could reveal horses, changing plans.
- Min/BW then AH: In this case worker just builds 3 farms and is done around T31 (settler also finishes then, just with less overflow than in the AH line), BW is done soon after. This seems strictly inferior to AH first unless there is copper and no horses (or unless our scouts uncovers some precious metal in the east). Our workers have 11 turns waiting for AH with nothing to do but chopping and mining weak tiles.
- Min/BW then Pot: Slightly better than BW->AH, due to the synergy between Slavery+Granary and chopping and cottaging capital. However it feels suboptimal to delay cows (and finding out where horses are) this long.
- AH then Pot: Pottery is done when settler comes out (T31). I would probably still settle on western silk, but then worker can cottage that river after being done with cow/corn. Capital can continue slow building settler (7 turns per) or worker (4 turns per) on 3 power tiles. I would probably look for 3rd city around the north / northeast river to block more land. This line seems very good economically, but missing out on whips (and potentially copper) until almost T50 could make us more vulnerable to barbs.


Tentative plan: AH first, decide next tech based on scouting and horses.

EDIT: Forgot I could farm those river FP before Pottery instead of building mines, therefore early Pottery seems less important. I know in NC 331 it was a good idea to delay BW but perhaps a difference is that this map calls for more whipping with all that food.

 

[Mr_Trotsky]

@antimony

Spoiler :

I think on this map script the copious space for barbs means archery has to be a consideration if no horses that can be connected early - especially as you have hunting so it’s not a huge detour - and even aggressive warriors seem inadequate to me when being swarmed.

I’d place lower value on early pottery because you’ve got a fair few riverside resources and the wheel for connecting cities so commerce won’t be terrible. Cottages also only have value if you can clear forest to build them riverside - not possible pre-BW in the cap - and have the barb defence to stop them being smashed.

 

[antimony]

T50 Deity

Spoiler :

AH -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery (2 turns left)

After worker, capital built warrior x2 (grow a bit past 3), settler, warrior (grow to 4), worker, settler. Lost initial scout and 1 warrior to barbs. Settled the western city first since it fit better with the worker path, and I didn't expect to build chariots until I could whip. 2nd city grew to 3 and now building workers.

Creative really helps with fogbusting, given how fast the capital grows to 3 rings! Had to build 3 more warriors between my then 2 cities due to an influx of barbs around T40, then chopped/2-whipped a 3rd settler which is just out on T50. Now that I can build cottages, I plan to rush at least one more settler (perhaps use the overflow for Granary in cap) to try to claim the northern river area before Wang Kon, and perhaps another city on the east river depending what it looks like and where Boudica is. (WK only has 3 cities and Boudica 4, I expect a settling rush from them soon.)

We'll see what my units encounter as they move further north and east, but given the ample commerce and space to expand to 6-7 cities, it doesn't seem a good fit for Keshiks. I would definitely not tech HBR myself, seems too much of a gamble, but if I could get it in a trade I could reconsider.

 

[antimony]

T102 defeat

Spoiler :

Was plotted on by Boudica, I tried getting her to pleased and begging 1 gold but that didn't work, after which I switched to producing horse archers but couldn't get enough out before the DOW.