Tibet UHV, Regent/Normal, 600 AD, SVN rev.983

[Fresol]

This is a Regent/Normal Tibet game played under SVN revision 983, 600 AD scenario.

A Tibet game is not too hard once you know what to do, when to do them.

The 3 historical goals for Tibet are:
1. The Tibetan Empire: Acquire 5 cities by 1000 AD (Turn 40)
2. Tibetan Buddhism: Spread Buddhism to 30% by 1400 AD (Turn 80)
3. The Dalai Lamas: Settle 5 great prophets in Lhasa by 1700 AD (Turn 140)

For someone playing Tibet for first time, the first historical goal may be a little confusing. The land in Tibet is so poor, where can you possibly get the 5 cities? If you try to be historical and look to the north, you'll find the land there even poorer. What's worse, there's a whole bunch of barbarian horse archers doing constant harassment.

So the correct approach is to go south. Take the loosely defended Indian cities, take Pagan(with the Shwedagon Paya inside of it). You need Pataliputra(Gron Kyer Me Tog) for the many great prophets anyway, the shrine gold is also a huge boost. With the rich cities in India, you can train a good number of Buddhist missionaries to spread Buddhism all over the world, with Europe being your primary target(far away and densely populated). Send the missionaries through the Middle East before the Seljuks spawn, aim for cities with high population and few religions. After the 1040 AD mark, you can spread Buddhism to your neighbors since it's harder to reach Europe then.

5 great prophets shouldn't be a problem because you have Gron Kyer Me Tog(food-rich and lots of priest slots). Just remember you probably want to get 1 GP from another city(Pagan or Delhi). Anyway focus on historical goal 1, and then goal 2, and at last goal 3(you have a lot of time for it).

 

[Fresol]

Found Rasa on the spot(only way to win UHV). There was a bug that a barbarian Lhasa would spawn and flip to you if you move all units away from the tile on your first turn, but it has been fixed. The nearby 2 barb swordmen provide enough experience points to our 2 khampas, allowing them to reach lvl 3.





First adopt Warrior Code+Agrarianism, improve and connect the horse, build barracks in Rasa. And then switch to Slavery+Mercenaries.



Hire khampas when there's enough . We need at least 1 mercenary khampa to help take Pataliputra, since there's 1 additional Patiyodha instead of archer inside the city.



The rest 2 of the 4 free wins can get our archers promoted with City Garrison III.



Hurry khampas when there's not enough to hire one.



Try to capture some workers as you siege the city(when the 3rd khampa arrives). You can declare war on the independents by either alt+left-click on the indies on the scoreboard(you need to enable showing minor civs in the BUG menu first), or by trying to move a non-khampa unit into their territory.



We didn't lose any khampas during the siege of Pataliputra. The city buildings are also quite well-preserved. Sometimes you don't get as lucky but that's fine, it's

not too much of a problem.



Khmer is Buddhist this game.



Indie Pagan is only guarded by a single archer and should be taken with ease(with your 4th khampa). In it you can find the Shwedagon Paya great wonder.



Barbarian swordsmen are causing problems. Luckily they choose to attack the city rather than pillaging. You can notice our workers prioritized building a road connecting to Gron Kyer Me Tog instead of improving the wheat. The wheat is too easily pillaged and we could lose lots of worker turns for it.

 

[Fresol]

Peasant revolts in Gron Kyer Me Tog. This random event marks only the beginning of the countless revolts in the city(due to low culture). Build temples(for happiness and culture) or other needed infrastructures in Gron Kyer Me Tog to make it sufficiently effective.



The Khmer Ballista Elephants seem to be always traveling in group. This means we will be able to take 1 of their 2 cities with 2 khampas.



But first our main stack head further west to take Delhi. 4 khampas should be enough.



Hmmm, I wouldn't S/L here unless I fail to take the city, but all khampas have survived again this time.



In earlier versions of the game, I always went for Lavapuri for the 5th city. But now with the introduction of Patyodhis to the subcontinent, the city of Lavapuri is harder to take than a Khmer one.



Angkor's defence is poorer than any of the indie cities in India.



Indonesia is at war with Khmer, too.



There goes the 5 cities.



We are already suffering from expansion instability, because our only city in core -- Rasa -- can only afford a very low population.

There's actually a core tile in India(on the grassland hill between Deli and Gron Kyer Me Tog). A city there can grow decently if you let it steal all shared tiles from Deli and Gron Kyer Me Tog, but building a city there is not a wise thing to do(in all respects other expansion stability).



With the Shwedagon Paya in Pagan, we can switch to Scholaticism for immediate Buddhist missionary production and faster GP birth. Fanaticism is an alternative, the +25% unit production bonus applies to civilian units too, and the bonus from Scholaticism wouldn't kick in until the city has a base GP points of >=4 anyways. First adopt Fanaticism and then after the Seljuks spawn switch to Scholaticism seems to be the best choice.

 

[Fresol]

Natural disaster in Angkor. Forges should be prioritized in all cities that is going to train missionaries.



We make peace with Khmer.



Hurrying missionaries with 2 pop is the way to go.



Lavapuri is another productive city, and the garrison is not as strong as the other indie cities on the subcontinent.



Constant rebels in Gron Kyer Me Tog due to low culture percentage is a huge pain in the a**.



We take Lavapuri.



You can see Arabia has taken control over Persia, and a route to Europe is open to us. Tibetan missionaries can travel through neutral territories so no OB agreement is needed.



Our first Buddhist missionary should spread the religion to Delhi to make it operational.



We have a sizable empire now, though instability implies secessions in the future.



City Garrison III archers in Rasa can succesfully defend against barb swordsmen.

 

[Fresol]

Missionary training in Gron Kyer Me Tog is disrupted again.



I have learned to omit meaningless screenshots like this in my recent games. But not yet in this game.



Independt revolt in Deli, FML.



A galley has been produced from Angkor. Now we can spread Buddhism to Indonesian or Japanese cities if needed.



Meeting Justinian I from Byzantium.



Due to the rise of the western civilizations, Buddhism's global percentage has decreased a bit. But there's a stream of Buddhist missionaries going from India through the Middle East to Europe, which is going to change the situaion in the near future.



Irrelevant random quest.



Hmm, I don't know whether this is the right time to build a teample.





Buddhist weddings, huh.

 

[Fresol]

This is one meaningless act.





Meeting France and Holy Rome.



Consume(uh) Sun Tzu to get 2 Navigation II galleys. Hey they are fast!





Dang, bad luck.



Meeting Isabella of Spain.





Spreading Buddhism in the West and East. Again I should mention, the Buddhist population in a city equals the total population of the city divided by the number of religions in the city, so large cities with few religions are the best targets.









Meeting various civs.

 

[Fresol]

After 1040 AD, passage through Persia is blocked by Seljuks. By this time you should have made peace(automatically if you don't station any units in their territoy for a few turns) with the indies, and your missionaries can spread Buddhism to their cities.
























Spreading Buddhism to various cities. Some of the attempts failed, but most succeeded.

 

[Fresol]

We are close to achieving our 2nd UHV goal.







Doing some more work.



And we have done it.



Research is not really needed, but we have all the from the shrines to spend.



We have intensionally suppressed hiring specialists in Gron Kyer Me Tog, because we want 1 great prophet from Pagan first. Then Gron Kyer Me Tog can focus on getting the rest 4.



A small boost to our research toward Philosophy. Why Philosophy? I guess I was going after the Wat Preah Pisnulok.



Our 1st GP, Gendum Drup is born in Pagan.



We acquire Compass from Japan.

 

[Fresol]

Tang Taizong Li Shimin is willing to pay handsomely for Alphabet.



Gendun Drup joins Rasa.



The plague is annoying.



While Gron Kyer Me Tog is focusing on hiring priest specialists, our other cities really have nothing to do. So train khampas and take Kolkata to solve the indie culture invasion problem that you can see is happening in Gron Kyer Me Tog.



The plague is not helping. We are hiring 10 priests while in starvation, to make best use of the golden age gpp bonus.



We have learned Philosophy.



The plague is gone, and we have culturally retaken the tile 2E of Gron Kyer Me Tog.



Asking Genghis Khan to convert to Buddhism so we can maintain better relationship.





It's year 1210 AD. We gift the city Lavapuri(which is about to flip to Mughal) to Suryavarman, in hope of creating some conflict.

 

[Fresol]

Paying tribute to China ensures our safety.



Our little trick has worked out well.



Doing a bit of pillaging.



Random event.



Our second GP, Sonam Gyatso is born in Gron Kyer Me Tog.



We are only slightly behind Mughal in military power.



This is one meaningless quest for us.



We are planning to invade Mughal and take Dilli by surprise. Meanwhile it seems like France is losing the war against Holy Rome.



Doing a bit of resource trading.



Move our khampas into Mughal territory and then declare war. Khampas have a +50% city attack bonus so strike at once.

 

[Fresol]

It turned out to be a one-sided victory for us.



Since Khmer is at war with Mughal too, it's very convenient for us to gift the city of Deli to them. We won't lose city to Mughal and soon we'd accumulate enough victory points for Mughal to capitulate.



Paper unlocks Gompa, one of the most useless UB. It's worse than an ordinary university.





Undefended Khmer Deli fell into Mughal hands, and we take it and gift it to Khmer a second time.



Rasa finishes the Wat Preah Pisnulok.



Third time is the charm.



A charm that makes Angkor secede due to instability.



But of course the good news is Mughal is willing to capitulate. Hip hip hooray!



I'm trying to retake Angkor, but Thailand is going to appear next turn. I totally forgot about it. Of course the khampa will be lost.

 

[Fresol]

Although we have won the war, liberating Deli may be the better option to alleviate our stability problem.





Reconciling with Mughal.



Meeting Naresuan of Thailand.







Doing various trades.



It has taken quite an effort on our part to solve the indie trireme problem.









During year 1370-1380 AD we have aquired quite a number of techs through trading.

 

[Fresol]

Our 4th GP Yonten Gyatso is born Gron Kyer Me Tog.



China has lost the war against Mongolia, but manages to keep its sovereignty.



Korea, on the other hand, has unfortunately collpased. Our khampas are immediately on the way looking for vulnerable targets.



The Mongols are one step ahead of us.



This is one of the few games where Spain capitulated to the Caliphate of Cordoba.





Entering Renaissance with Printing Press has for the first time in a long time, completely nullified the instability from overextension.





Kanggye is not as nice as Hancheng, but we take it anyway.



Great general Zhuge Liang is born in Rasa. Tibet needs its own GG namelist.

 

[Fresol]

The indies are wreaking havoc near Kolkata!



Another rare sight: Thailand becomes a vassal of Khmer.



What is Zhuge Liang and his khampas doing in Japan?



Our 5th and final GP, Tsangyang Gyatso is born in Gron Kyer Me Tog.





Guilds and Gunpowder.



Poor Mughal is losing to the independents.





Tsangyang Gyatso reaches Rasa and all 3 historical goals have been achieved.



But just before embracing victory, let's sneak attack Edo just for the fun of it.

 

[Fresol]

I had to reload here, because aquiring Drama would cause a stability check and make Edo secede. I'd like to keep it, even only for 1 turn.



It's a huge and awesome city.





Expansion stability hasn't been updated yet.



Victory!



You really can't do much with Tibet, can you? Winning a UHV is not a problem though. If you are playing under Emperor or Paragon, the increased difficulties mainly come from barbarian pressure(groups of 3 swordsmen each time, and only 2 free wins) and stronger independents. Otherwise you can use pretty much the same strategy outlined in this game.

 

[Fresol]

Coming up next will be a Canada game.

 

[ales_]

Wow! Great game and great announce!

 

[Eric Cartmenez]

Sweet, but c'mon, even in my wildest dreams I wouldn't think of harrassing Mughals

Canada is an interesting option, looking forward for it.

 

[calad]

So what kind of building Tibet UB is?

 

[Fresol]

Gompa, replaces university, requires Engineering+Paper instead of Education. +10%, +25% defense against non-gunpowder-based units, +1 free priest.

Looks pretty nice actually, but it never gets built because it is as expensive as any other university(160 for Tibet).