ALC Game 14: Mongolia/Kublai Khan

One thing to keep in mind is that there are only 3 visible copper resources. Expect some aggressive expansion towards those places by the AI so better secure them fast. I don't know if MM or Brennus has reconned your land yet. If so then better settle the copper city firs and let the other 4 contestors fight over the sole copper resource at top. Since there is only 1 copper source visible there will not be any spearmen/axemen so far making a keshik rush more interesting. Now lets hope there won't be a lot iron either :p
 
One thing to keep in mind is that there are only 3 visible copper resources. Expect some aggressive expansion towards those places by the AI so better secure them fast. I don't know if MM or Brennus has reconned your land yet. If so then better settle the copper city firs and let the other 4 contestors fight over the sole copper resource at top. Since there is only 1 copper source visible there will not be any spearmen/axemen so far making a keshik rush more interesting. Now lets hope there won't be a lot iron either :p

I'd make the dual copper city.
It's not low on food:
1 copper feeds itself, the cow feeds the mine for the other.
After that, you have a river and farmable land. Not great but enough for the next 1000 years.
 
I vote for cabledog's blue, 1N of the cows. True, because of food problems it will never grow into a great, "modern" city, but early game it's got alot of production. Reasorces permitting, grow it to size 9(take it easy on the whip), its pre-CS max, and build units. HE later.

City three, the horse city, should go 1N of horses as that claims the most "land". You won't get optics any time soon so save the whales. Irrigating the wheat means it'll have at least one farm, but irrigate one more to keep its food an even number. Cottage the rest to keep your economy up, and the pigs will allow you 2 specialists and then up to 3 with the CS farms and then back 2 with the tundra lumbermills and finally 3 with biology.

After that, maybe city four back at the start (quickly commerce positive) and five(which will probably have to be cleared for from mansa) 1SW of corn by silk, but first things first.

Nobody has copper. But they do have chariots. It'll take about three units to take down Brennus. two axemen and one speaman (or maybe vice versa)is all you need to take down his horses. maybe a little bit more but not much. the sooner the better.

Techwise, literature is appealing, more so for the HE. But keep in mind, the four happiness resources the market doubles are fur, ivory, silk and whale.
 
ho one more thing :
you don't want to build a city on the grassland, when there is tundra in the fat cross!
If you really build the horse pig city, build it on the forest tundra 1W of the horses. This gives you one more workable tile + whales in the fat cross.
 
Here's my dot map, my pink, blue and gray dot are Cabledawg blue, green and yellow dot

for the city or cities in between the horse pig- pink dot city, you can either have 1 super city or 2 medicore cites.

If you decide White Dot, you'll get a food surplus city that'll able to work the those hills in the west in it's FC for production.

If you decide White X, The double copper city you'll be able to work both coppers and cows. By improving the grassland Tile in the NW of the FC, you'll have 4 extra food (1 from farm 1 from cows, 2 from city) to work at least two hill, the other tiles require Irrigation from Civil Service

If you decide to have two Cities my red and blue dot

Red Dot,
has the grassland copper, silk, plains cows plus 6 Grassland tiles, 2 grassland hills, 8 plains and 1 plains hills. Will make respectable production city in the early game and in later stages if you farm a couple of those grassland tiles, you could be able to support more cottages on the plain tiles for satisfactory commerce/production hybrid city.

Blue Dot is the coastal production and in the future will be a powerful ship builder. the food gained from the farmed wheat will allow you to work the copper, 1 grassland hill and 1 plains hill, you'll also gain an extra hammer for settling on the plains hill, later in the game you can windmill the grassland hills and work the plains hills instead, with CS, you can chain Irrigate to the wheat on the west side from the river to the north and those grassland farms will further assist you working more of those plains hills.

Pink dot
is the Pig/Horses City,

The next City locations are on the assumption you settle Red and Blue dot.


Black dot in the south that gains the wheat/deer Whale is a Future city, probably settled in the middle ages, it will make a nice fishing city, I'm making it share the wheat with blue dot because, I'd want it to grow super fast to work those Coastal tiles so it can pay for itself, none of it's coastal tiles overlap with blue dot so sharing the wheat should be fine besides you won't work those tundra forest tiles anytime soon, if you don't like overlap just move the city east.

Both Yellow dot and Yellow X
are commerce cities, they both have 5 unworkable tiles, Yellow X has 5 Desserts while Yellow Dot has 3 Desserts and 2 Peaks. I prefer Yellow dot as it's doesn't overlap with red dot, even though it loses 2 grassland tile and a dessert hill, it gains a floodplain, a forest plain and a forested grassland hill.

If you settle White Dot or White X though just shift yellow dot in the south and west direction, which ever location maximizes food and commerce and minimizes overlap.

Purple dot
in the FAR FAR Distance is unlikely to be settled on time but if you want to work that gold tile, you need to get food from somewhere and only those floodplains are available nearby, you might consider moving 1 tile south if the Mali settle too close and share the floodplains with yellow dot.

The following Cities are north of the capital


I moved Cabledawg pink dot south which is now green dot, because the pigs are in the Celts Capital's 2nd ring and your unlikely to work them, even if you were in a culture war, besides even if you did capture the Celt's Capital, you'd want as few overlaps with it if possible.

Green Dot
is another coastal city and and works the fish and 2 wine tiles, will likely have a culture war with the Celts.

Orange Dot
is a commerce city working the Marble and Corn and will likely have many tiles overlap with Green dot

Orange X and Green X are alternatives if you want to decrease overlap or if the Celt's Aggressively settle close to those cities (eg-corn/gems) and you're unable to settle Orange or Green dot or want to decrease the amount of culture wars.

And Finally...

Gray Dot
early commerce city, if you decide to work both fur tiles for early commerce

Gray X is the alternative if you want to work the fish tile for extra food, but you lose the extra early commerce from the furs if you decide to do that
 
ho one more thing :
you don't want to build a city on the grassland, when there is tundra in the fat cross!
If you really build the horse pig city, build it on the forest tundra 1W of the horses. This gives you one more workable tile + whales in the fat cross.

If he settles 1W of the horses location he loses 2 grassland 1 plain tiles and gains more coastal and ocean tiles compared if he settle 1 NW of the horses.

I'd say settling 1 NW is the better option even though he he gains a weak tundra forest, he also gains 2 more grassland tiles to the north and loses unimprovable coastal and ocean tiles.
 
If he settles 1W of the horses location he loses 2 grassland 1 plain tiles and gains more coastal and ocean tiles compared if he settle 1 NW of the horses.

I'd say settling 1 NW is the better option even though he he gains a weak tundra forest, he also gains 2 more grassland tiles to the north and loses unimprovable coastal and ocean tiles.

well, it's true that settling on the tundra forest makes the city work a little less land tiles. On the other hand, it also gains a whale while losing a peak.
I don't think this city will ever be much more than a fishing village anyway, so I'd give it more seatiles to work, but 3 more cottages could make it self paying too.
Just a matter of playstyles, probably.
 
I would spam axeman out asap after you've build your copper/cow city. Go and claim Brennus' horses instead of building your own horse city. He'd be down already before you have your first keshik online.
 
Did you notice the horses in brennus' land?
You don't even need to get those faraway cities for now. Just build 6 axes and take down brennus. After that it's keshiks all the way to victory!
That I like. It's aggressive and creative... Khan.
 
OMG!
You have all it takes for an early AD domination win, and you're still scratching your head???

Did you notice the horses in brennus' land?
You don't even need to get those faraway cities for now. Just build 6 axes and take down brennus. After that it's keshiks all the way to victory!

DO IT DO IT DO IT.

I would say settle a second city to the north of the capital then make that Brennus horse city your third.

Copper is already in your fat fat cross of the capital, you don't need to settle to get it, hook it up, get some axes, smash some skulls then get the horde rampaging.

Settling between then will allow you to road it in preperation then get it hooked up quickly. Keshiks will be able to flow from your captial from the on :D
 
DO IT DO IT DO IT.

I would say settle a second city to the north of the capital then make that Brennus horse city your third.

Copper is already in your fat fat cross of the capital, you don't need to settle to get it, hook it up, get some axes, smash some skulls then get the horde rampaging.

Settling between then will allow you to road it in preperation then get it hooked up quickly. Keshiks will be able to flow from your captial from the on :D

Yeah. I am also for some nice and decent early warmongering. Why settle faraway horses, if you can get those of your neighbour.

Why is everyone suddenly so aggressive? Must be that Sistutil is playing the Khan!:lol:
 
Wow. fun start... I think I may play a shadow game of this!

I agree very much with Cabert's idea to simply take Brennus' horses; we know you're going to end up going after him anyway, let's get it started by rolling in some axes and taking that city, thus gaining you the horses. You need horses (sooner than later to leverage the great huts and your UU), so go for the closest ones I say :)

I am a HUGE fan of cutting off land with culture so that you can backfill at your leisure... with a cultural leader it's even easier, and I would like to see it happen, especially since in this case there are spots for quite a few good cities that you would be reserving. It's also nice that step one for that would involve grabbing the marble there; it would make getting the great library much easier, and I have found that having the great library, especially with an academy, and maybe one or two extra scientist specialists can really keep the early techs coming in while you drop your slider to support a conquest...

I have also had some recent success with pillage wars to keep a known target weak; coupled with cutting off the south from settlers, does it make sense to pillage away at Mansa with keshiks for a while, since you already know you'll be returning to vassalize him? Could/should this be done while you're in the midst of beating up on Brennus? Just a thought...
 
One thing you might want to keep in mind, is that if you can get Brennus to attack (it shouldnt be hard, he is a minnie izzy) he gets the penalty w/ mansa and churchill if you are their religion which makes MM and Churchill more likely to attack Brennus
 
First, I would like to say that I am sincerely sorry if I am out of line here, and I wont repeat this mistake if I have offended anyone.

I simply could not accept Mongolia being banished to the corners of the Earth! Those horses near Mansa are, as far as I was concerned, Mongolian property. And since Timbuktu was close to the horses, it was rightfully Mongolian property as well! Thus, I set off on a path to make this so. After all, Kublai is creative and taking the horses seemed possible. And for icing on the cake, Mansa would build our stables (how considerate of him) :)

I write this as I play from the save at 3280bc.... I went to 805bc

Spoiler :


I set the capital to produce a settler, as I think this a faster settler build than letting the city grow to 2 pop (on archer), then switching to settler. I explored with the scouts (popping a warrior from a hut just north of Timbuktu, and exploring with him as well). While exploring, I kept track of when the settler would be complete, and made sure that I could bring all 3 of them back to our capital in time to escort the settler and worker to our horses (by checking turns to capital each time I explored further). In the meantime, the worker had time to build a farm at the corn, connect the corn by road, build a camp at the elephants, and build a mine on the plains-hill (this was, serendipitously, completed the same round that the settler build was complete).

Having returned home safely, the escorts joined the settler and worker, and ventured off to our next city location. The location for Besh (Mongolia’s second city) was chosen on 2 criteria: adjacent to our horses and great production capacity.

The capital was set to build an archer (in order to grow and take advantage of the 3 improved tiles). When the archer was complete, it was sent to Besh and another was begun to protect the capital (it was about time for barbarians to make an appearance).

While waiting for our creative trait’s culture to claim our (already stabled) horses, the worker at Besh built a farm on floodplains and a mine on plains-hill (I lost at least 1 worker-turn during this due to missteps). During this, Besh was set to build barracks and then a Ger (to grow population for whipping Keshiks and to produce higher quality troops when the time came). Our warrior and 2 scouts remained at Besh (fortified at the worker, and later one scout at the farm) to insure there would be no disaster resulting from barbarians.

While Besh’s archer was on the way, he was killed by a barbarian archer (despite having jumped into a forest to prevent this)! Fortunately, the next archer was finished the following round. He set out to hunt down the offender on the way to Besh, and another archer was set to build in the capital.

Since the capital could produce fast enough to defend itself, the 3rd archer was sent to Besh also, and production was changed to worker (as some chopping was imminent at Besh).

The second archer did not locate the offending barb-archer on the way to Besh, but did munch a barb-warrior (so at least some revenge was had). The worker in the capital was whipped at earliest opportunity and sent with the 3rd archer to Besh.

When the archer arrived at Besh, the 2 scouts were sent out to explore once again.

I forgot to get open borders, remembered at 1660, and did so with everyone except Mansa (why pretend to be friendly – they stole our horses). Also in 1660, the stabled horses became (rightfully) ours! Forest chopping had just begun (perhaps this should have been sooner… Instead of building a farm and mine, I could have pre-chopped forests…

A scout was killed almost as soon as he left Besh. The 3rd worker was whipped (probably a couple rounds late), and the other scout was diverted to escort the 3rd worker (via fogbusting in front of the worker – a scout around the worker makes it unlikely that the worker will misstep and die to a barbarian. Additionally, the second archer backtracked to make sure the 3rd worker would arrive alive.

With the 3rd worker built and at a population of 1, the capital was again building an archer for its own defense.

With 3 workers, an archer, and a warrior at Besh, the remaining scout was free to go and explore. Additionally, there was an English and a Roman archer hanging around our border at Besh. I guess they could sense the excitement, and wanted to be part of it.

As soon as the scout headed east out of Besh, he encountered a barb-archer and (without open borders with Mansa) was forced to return to Besh.

To my AMAZEMENT, when the capital completed its 4th archer, I noticed that I could produce a Keshik there too!! I wonder if this was not possible earlier and I hadn’t noticed!! Even with a barracks or ger, it began to do so.

Brennus converted to Buddhism in 1150BC (while the 3 workers were chopping forest), meaning that if we took Timbuktu, we would own the religion of 3 civs on our continent.

The Oracle was built in 1000bc, by someone, while I was chopping forest for keshiks. I realized at this point that maybe I should have researched math (would it have been done while I was still chopping forest?). Well, alphabet would allow us to get techs in suing for peace with Mansa anyway. I only hoped that 4-5 keshiks and a couple archers would suffice to take his capital. Since I did not give him open borders (perhaps this was a mistake), I haven’t had a look at his defenses yet.

When Besh was at 4 population, I whipped for the first time, despite having 2 more forests left to chop. I wanted to combine chopping and whipping at the same time to produce an army all at once instead of finishing chopping and then having to wait for whipped keshiks. I whipped again 2 turns later (at 3 pop and with a chop into production), with one forest left to chop, and sent the none-whipped keshik from the capital to Besh.

The next turn Alphabet was completed (955bc), and I began masonry. Perhaps I should trade Alphabet now, while it may be a monopoly tech; however, I looked at the technology page of foreign advisor and other people only had myst, fishing, and masonry to offer (Churchill was not willing to trade iron working), so I figured no trade was needed (why get WFYABTA for masonry?). Also this turn, I whipped another keshik - at 3 pop and with 1 more forest coming in. The capital’s 2nd keshik could not be whipped yet, but soon, and it would go to Besh for the invasion.

The next round, Mansa offered to trade myst for agriculture. This was a tough decision. Maybe I should do this, so that better techs would be available for peace? However, we were 8 rounds from masonry and myst would only take 7 rounds. We were at least 10 rounds from sueing for peace, and could maybe research myst ourselves before peace. I’m not sure, should I take the trade and suffer a WFYABTA for myst!? I guess not, so I turned him down and hoped that he would have iron-working or something else better than myst by the time a peace treaty became available.

Another keshik was whipped in Besh next turn and 2 chariots were produced quickly with overflow, 2 keshiks from the capital arrived, and the capital is producing its 3rd keshik (for capital protection, this time).

In 880bc, the great wall was built somewhere.

820bc: 5 7xp keshiks, 2 0xp keshik, 2 chariots, 2 archers, 1 warrior. I declare war on Mansa.

805bc: I take Timbuktu!

2 of my 3 flanking_2 keshiks died (bah), and I was forced to use a 0xp keshik to kill the 3rd Skirmisher. Because the chariots lacked mobility, they were not available to hit the capital with the keshiks unless I waited 1 round. I did not want to wait 1 round because another skirmisher would probably arrive or be built in the capital. If I reloaded, I could sacrifice a 0xp keshik (or both of them), and not lose a 7xp keshik, but this would be cheesy.

Save attached below.

I am only good at this kind of absurd level of aggression conception and execution (I was a paratrooper in real life). I have no interest in continuing management of the Mongolian Empire. I suggest getting techs from Mansa for peace (if any are worth wfyabta), later vassalization of Mansa, and settling between the capital and Besh - to secure the entire SW section of the continent for the Mongolian Empire. If any nation needs to be kept in the stone age, it's Rome, before it gets iron or too many praets (Rome does not have IW yet). Besides, they are the only civ that has not adopted the religion we own. One of my mistakes was researching masonry instead of IW - we would know which mine to pillage first. Perhaps Brennus will help us fix this before the keshiks get to Rome.



As I look at the save, one correction: I didn't start another keshik in the capital, I did barracks and started a Ger.



http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112297/Sisiutil_BC-0805.CivWarlordsSave
 
Dammit, I cannot believe I did not think of the need for a spoiler. I feel like a real jerk. I hope that Sisiutil will notice the dateline and not read on (like that is really possible - I'm grasping here). I hope I didn't make the game less fun. Or maybe he has already played on. I will try to edit the post and put it all in a spoiler.


Sorry, I'm a newbie to forums (civfanatics is my first one ever).
 
Thank you so much for pointing out the need for a spoiler, cabert. Thanks to your quick posting, I put it all in a spoiler, probably in time.

PS. I took screenshots along the way, in case anyone wants them. (Great list, critical turns/events, etc.).
 
Sorry, I'm a newbie to forums (civfanatics is my first one ever).

welcome to CFC! don't fret too too much, i think you caught it in time. if you didn't, well, S is generally a pretty nice guy. if he does yell at you i'll stick up for you. not that it would help, he knows what i'm like and would just say something to make me giggle and distract me from my defensive duties.

the ALC threads are a great place to start reading/posting IMO. friendly folks, tons of discussion that helps me learn so much, and questions are answered in ways that don't make even permanoobs like me feel dumb. so jump on in and don't worry about that first impression. i try to learn from S's mistakes in these threads, but it's ok to learn from your own as well ;)

the most common thing i see people slip on when playing shadow games is revealing map info S hasn't seen yet, even in a general way. things like opponents he hasn't met, or even the fact that the opponents he hasn't met aren't reachable until astro. so if you learned any of that stuff, keep it secret for now.
 
Just for "kicks" last night I tried to replicate the unbelieveable fortune of all those techs from the goodie huts. LOL Not even close, "Corgrats- you get a map" best I did in the 40 tries I took at it was a scout/1 tech/1 map/ rest various amounts of gold. How the Bleep did he get so lucky???
 
OMG!
You have all it takes for an early AD domination win, and you're still scratching your head???

Did you notice the horses in brennus' land?
You don't even need to get those faraway cities for now. Just build 6 axes and take down brennus. After that it's keshiks all the way to victory!
D'OH! Good catch. I missed the fact that Brennus has horses. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Well, that changes things. Now I'm thinking that two quick cities make sense. One to the north on Brennus' doorstep, a gateway to invading Celtia; and another to the west to make sure no one else grabs that other copper tile. Then it's an Axe rush to wipe out Brennus, take his horses, and go after everyone else.

Does that sound like a plan?
 
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