1.16-China UHV Strategy Guide
- Thread starter Mxzs
- Start date
My preliminary idea on a manchurian (I know it will not be in the game), or early modern version of Chinese UHV:
UHV 1: Ten Great Campaigns - Control Manchuria, China Proper, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet by 1760 AD.
UHV 2: The High Qing - Control 30％ of the world's population and GDP in 1820 AD.
UHV 3: Self-Strengthening Movement - Don't lose a single city and be the most advanced civilization in 1900 AD.
It's cool to design a historical gameplay from ancient era to digital era, which I think is the best notation for a game under the name of "Rise and Fall". And we've had Ethiopia and Japan whose gameplay extends extremely long. The first two UHV of China, I think, is well-designed. But waiting for golden ages is trivial and boring, and may be replaced by a more dynamic, challenging one.
UHV 1: Ten Great Campaigns - Control Manchuria, China Proper, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet by 1760 AD.
UHV 2: The High Qing - Control 30％ of the world's population and GDP in 1820 AD.
UHV 3: Self-Strengthening Movement - Don't lose a single city and be the most advanced civilization in 1900 AD.
It's cool to design a historical gameplay from ancient era to digital era, which I think is the best notation for a game under the name of "Rise and Fall". And we've had Ethiopia and Japan whose gameplay extends extremely long. The first two UHV of China, I think, is well-designed. But waiting for golden ages is trivial and boring, and may be replaced by a more dynamic, challenging one.
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UHV 1 should be staggered out. Control South China in 300BC, Vietnam in 100BC, Tarim Basin in 100 AD, Central Asia in 800AD, Mongolia in 1400AD, Korea in 1650AD, Outer Manchuria in 1800AD. Otherwise there's no actual challenge to control that territory. Here you've got to go toe to toe with basically every Asian civilisation.
UHV 2 is a given as you write it assuming you get UHV 1 - so I'd say keep the four great inventions, it's the fun challenge of both wide and tall China.
UHV 3 should remove the don't lose a single city aspect, the most advanced is good but I'd move it to 1990 (winning the cold war).
If you want to push the alt-history boundaries I'd even add some Sinosphere goals... Singapore in 1900AD, Japan in 1945AD, Indochina California and Australia in 2020AD
Dracosolon
Emperor
I've held up on posting about new UHVs for the old civs since it seems a bit premature but I agree China's third UHV should be a priority.
One possibility would be adjusting it to "start a Golden Age in four different eras" (so possibly Ancient/Classical/Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial, with one miss allowed), which would add some measure of timing your research right early on and keeping it up in the late game.
The "Four Great Inventions" goal is fine as it is but the other two could potentially be combined, possibly by shortening the Cathedrals goal to "build 5/6/7 Cathedrals" depending on the level of difficulty desired.
For a third UHV part of world's population is an obvious option, but it could be complicated by adding part of world's production and/or commerce, demanding a careful balance between the two/three.
Other options:
- Controlling a certain number of vassals,
- Controlling certain areas as mentioned, or a percentage of continental Asia,
- Or as a remix of the Golden Age and population goals, "start X eras while controlling X% of the world's population and production by X".
A big problem is that China has so much time to evolve that later UHVs get harder to balance, especially with regard to tech.
One possibility would be adjusting it to "start a Golden Age in four different eras" (so possibly Ancient/Classical/Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial, with one miss allowed), which would add some measure of timing your research right early on and keeping it up in the late game.
The "Four Great Inventions" goal is fine as it is but the other two could potentially be combined, possibly by shortening the Cathedrals goal to "build 5/6/7 Cathedrals" depending on the level of difficulty desired.
For a third UHV part of world's population is an obvious option, but it could be complicated by adding part of world's production and/or commerce, demanding a careful balance between the two/three.
Other options:
- Controlling a certain number of vassals,
- Controlling certain areas as mentioned, or a percentage of continental Asia,
- Or as a remix of the Golden Age and population goals, "start X eras while controlling X% of the world's population and production by X".
A big problem is that China has so much time to evolve that later UHVs get harder to balance, especially with regard to tech.
How do you think of this combination? I think it represents the dynastic cycle and repeatedly rise and fall in Chinese history.
UHV 3: Rise and Fall - Start a golden age in four different eras, during which control 40％ of world's GDP, production and population.
From my experience on playing India, percentage goals are harder to reach in late game, as the number of civ grows. It may be challenging to outperform everyone in every aspect, even with the power of myriads and golden age bonus. Also, you have to plan for your golden age strategically and dynamically, to choose the point that maximize your advantage and minimize your rival's relative power.
UHV 3: Rise and Fall - Start a golden age in four different eras, during which control 40％ of world's GDP, production and population.
From my experience on playing India, percentage goals are harder to reach in late game, as the number of civ grows. It may be challenging to outperform everyone in every aspect, even with the power of myriads and golden age bonus. Also, you have to plan for your golden age strategically and dynamically, to choose the point that maximize your advantage and minimize your rival's relative power.
Dracosolon
Emperor
40% seems way too huge.
Dracosolon
Emperor
Completed my first Chinese UHV today. Here's my setup.
- Capital Yiqu 1N1W of the starting position to get the Sheep and Copper. Dujiangyan gets built here along with Terracotta Army since the city's a
powerhouse but lacking 
in to work all of its tiles otherwise.- Dianjiang to Yiqu's south, between the Salt and the Silk, for early Rice (otherwise India will steal Dujiangyan). It can eventually culturally flip the barbarian city to the west (much easier than capturing it early) but will be under constant attacks for the first part of the game, so it needs a steady supply of defenders.
- Tongwan in the north, to expand borders for the Great Wall. Its Sheep is annoyingly out of the way so will get frequently pillaged.
- Tuhe and Lixia to the west can be settled once doing so doesn't destroy your maintenance. Once all of these cities have reasonably expanded, the Great Wall can be finished. Unlike the old map, Horse Archers tend to attack in smaller numbers so there's a bit more leeway for completing the Wall.
- After that, things are a bit more freeform. Far in the south Panyu and Tahe will spawn and can be captured, but before that settling closer is advised. Maintenance remains your biggest limitator, but cities pay for themselves eventually, and you quickly become, and remain, the top player.
- Korea settled one conveniently placed central city which was easy to conquer without demanding more settling.
- I had initially misread the UHV as demanding 2 Confucian Guozijians instead of 4 and had planned for 12 cities, not 16. So I settled Taiwan and three cities in Manchuria as well. One of these cities went to the Mongols, which have a particularly large flipzone.
Expansion stability was bad during the middle game but my other factors were good enough that I never went unstable.
Rafaelito
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2014
- Messages
- 142
I've managed to win by 1130 AD on emperor/marathon yesterday with a strategy that might be difficult to pull out on normal/epic.
Founded my capital 1N1W, grew it to 4 pop and built a settler heading to Linzi. Researched writing for UB, then slowly grew my empire. Kept an eye on chengdu and once they disbanded half the defenders, assaulted with 3 lightswordsman. After that, sent 3 workers to connect my empire with India who I should have open borders with by now. Then, I kept going with 2 workers to connect India with Persia. That allowed me to early trade techs with everybody else like Hittites, Assyria and so on. They should be your main trading partners as they are meant to die early, whereas Rome, Greece and Persia can be potential competitors to the tech race. Keep an eye on techs they can research to give you a hint on how far ahead they are so you can determine whether or not is safe to trade.
Something I found interesting although not essential is to adopt syncretism. That allows you to easily switch between religions like Buddhism and Hinduism (although Hindu is hard to keep, switch as soon as you spread the religion to your top cities) which allows you to snatch different wonders, particularly those who add food or production to your specialists. That not only improves your specialists but also gives you more birth points, allowing you to reach golden ages faster. Some can also boost your birth points even more like the Potala Palace and Shwedagon Paya, so try to get them as well.
Founded my capital 1N1W, grew it to 4 pop and built a settler heading to Linzi. Researched writing for UB, then slowly grew my empire. Kept an eye on chengdu and once they disbanded half the defenders, assaulted with 3 lightswordsman. After that, sent 3 workers to connect my empire with India who I should have open borders with by now. Then, I kept going with 2 workers to connect India with Persia. That allowed me to early trade techs with everybody else like Hittites, Assyria and so on. They should be your main trading partners as they are meant to die early, whereas Rome, Greece and Persia can be potential competitors to the tech race. Keep an eye on techs they can research to give you a hint on how far ahead they are so you can determine whether or not is safe to trade.
Something I found interesting although not essential is to adopt syncretism. That allows you to easily switch between religions like Buddhism and Hinduism (although Hindu is hard to keep, switch as soon as you spread the religion to your top cities) which allows you to snatch different wonders, particularly those who add food or production to your specialists. That not only improves your specialists but also gives you more birth points, allowing you to reach golden ages faster. Some can also boost your birth points even more like the Potala Palace and Shwedagon Paya, so try to get them as well.
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black213
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2010
- Messages
- 1,712
An alternative to building a road connection is building a galley+scout early and sending it towards Persia revealing all the coastal tiles on the way. This also allows you to snatch three tribal huts on the way, two in Japan and one in Indonesia (Australia seemed to be off limits).
banzay13
Emperor
I settled Jicheng as capital, then moved it to Danyang/Luoyang
Also, if you don't want capture Korea - you can take silk roads cites (and found 2 more on that way), recapture them than Turik born quick, trying not to lose Confucianism where. So your get ability to build 1 additional Cathedral
Also, if you don't want capture Korea - you can take silk roads cites (and found 2 more on that way), recapture them than Turik born quick, trying not to lose Confucianism where. So your get ability to build 1 additional Cathedral
urbestfriend
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2014
- Messages
- 188
Anyone have advice for how to play the early game as china? Like, the research path for the first 10 or so techs, what cities you build in order, and how fast you expand? Tried to play China a few times now and I find I either expand too fast because I have so much territory and crash my economy (like, strike level crash because I have nothing to build and built like 40 works woops) or then try to over correct and don't expand enough and start getting massively out teched and out produced. Ironically I think China is a bit too open and unstructured for me to figure out a plan.
Temujin8k
Fluyts, Grand Vizier of Your Mind
My usual route:
Writing (Taixue)
Alloys (chopping)
Calendar (Plantations)
Arithmetics + Construction (prepare for Contract)
Bloomery (Iron + Swordsman)
Contract (Confucianism)
beeline Aesthetics (Taoism)
Law (Jail)
Currency (Market)
Artisanry (Chu-Ko-Nu)
Architecture (Cathedrals for UHV)
After that, try to prioritize each UHV tech: (in order) Compass, Paper, Gunpowder, Printing
In terms of expansion: Found "Kaifeng" (Chang'an 3E), then Zhongdu/Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai/Hangzhou, Chengdu, etc. Then I try to expand historically (I google the found dates lol). I don't found Guiyang and not expand west of Fuping/Yinchuan until I get Jails and Markets online.
Need to prioritize Alloys and Bloomery also before founding religions, so that you can build Swordsmen and Spearmen to defend against barbs once they start spawning.
Just to let it out: Dujiangyan takes so long to build, especially when attempted historically. Not sure if one can clutch a GE in time for that + the GA goals. Gameplay-wise, you can stack it up on Chang'an too, for that extra juicy capital core pop. Not to mention that in the event you reach Statecraft, you'll want to use a GE for the Forbidden Palace too (-1/3 civic upkeep is a must).
Writing (Taixue)
Alloys (chopping)
Calendar (Plantations)
Arithmetics + Construction (prepare for Contract)
Bloomery (Iron + Swordsman)
Contract (Confucianism)
beeline Aesthetics (Taoism)
Law (Jail)
Currency (Market)
Artisanry (Chu-Ko-Nu)
Architecture (Cathedrals for UHV)
After that, try to prioritize each UHV tech: (in order) Compass, Paper, Gunpowder, Printing
In terms of expansion: Found "Kaifeng" (Chang'an 3E), then Zhongdu/Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai/Hangzhou, Chengdu, etc. Then I try to expand historically (I google the found dates lol). I don't found Guiyang and not expand west of Fuping/Yinchuan until I get Jails and Markets online.
Need to prioritize Alloys and Bloomery also before founding religions, so that you can build Swordsmen and Spearmen to defend against barbs once they start spawning.
Just to let it out: Dujiangyan takes so long to build, especially when attempted historically. Not sure if one can clutch a GE in time for that + the GA goals. Gameplay-wise, you can stack it up on Chang'an too, for that extra juicy capital core pop. Not to mention that in the event you reach Statecraft, you'll want to use a GE for the Forbidden Palace too (-1/3 civic upkeep is a must).
black213
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2010
- Messages
- 1,712
Switching to republic ASAP for free scientists also helps out a bunch. I settle the first one in the capital as well, and the second to build an academy. Once happiness becomes an issue I switch back to monarchy, and in my experience as I get closer to the cathedral goal, monarchy's happiness hasn't been necessary by that time and so I switch out to despotism to get the temples and such up in time for the deadline.
