ALC Game #3: China/Qin

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

VoR, you were nearly bang-on: looks like that other blue circle was right on the coast.

Actually, he suggested that it was probably one tile away from the coast. The AI suggests a city location that's on the coast? Must be a bug.

 

[MamboJoel]

This is definatly a commerce city spot.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OK, I'd go with the 1 S idea... pump out a few support cities and then make the Capital Wonder Central. (with a CS slingshot, you can get the +100% for wonders... justifying a US Pyramid)

 

[Nares]

Ouch, I got here too late. I'd have suggested down one tile to get on the river. A Plains Cow isn't enough to write home about, especially not when you've got mostly Grassland Hills around. I know, it looks like the center of the Bermuda Triangle there, nestled between those three blue circles, but for a first turn move&settle, it was the best choice.

I already see people suggesting a CS slingshot, but if I may, I'd care to suggest an alternative. The Machinery slingshot is what I would go for. The only potential rough spot involved is in researching CoL before you go bankrupt, while still maximizing research so as to get the most effect out of your CKN rush. Given that you're not gunning for CS, there's really no reason to emphasize your capital too much (tailoring it for Beauracracy, as you would if you were doing a CS slingshot).

This also means delaying techs such as Animal Husbandry (so why bother with the Cows), and I'm sure others.

I currently don't have a working copy of the game, so I can neither actively follow the seed nor test hypotheses atm (should have that fixed tomorrow, I hope, or at least in the next few days).

 

[Gnarfflinger]

If you are going for a cultural win, then settle and start ramping up the finances. The faster you get the techs to build cultural buildings, the sooner they produce culture for you...

As a side benefit, you could get a tech edge over a neighbout that wants to be a jerk...

 

[Nares]

If you are going for a cultural win, then settle and start ramping up the finances. The faster you get the techs to build cultural buildings, the sooner they produce culture for you...

As a side benefit, you could get a tech edge over a neighbout that wants to be a jerk...

I don't know if you followed ALC2 from the pregame post through the early/midgame, but Cultural was a word tossed around then. It didn't pan out (I think mostly for lack of advice on the subject). I'd be hesitant to plan on any particular victory condition at this point, short of someone with a wealth of experience on the particular condition deciding to offer his or her advice.

Not to exclude it, but I think victory conditions emphasize fundamentals beyond whatever a particular leader might embody. Which is to say, it's an All Leaders Challenge, not an All Victories Challenge. I personally think that fact was overlooked in ALC2.

 

[The Tyrant]

I agree with settling one tile south of current position. The number of hills will remain even (lose one gain one), the fresh water health bonus will be offset by the jungles (but once the jungles are gone you're up a point), and a northern city could probably use the cows. I wouldn't wait another turn, though. Your position is so sweet you need to either settle in place or move one south. No need to delay.

Edit: It is possible those are two different rivers, or they could be two section of one long river. If it turns out they are different rivers, then remember to make a point of roading to the other one for the trade route benefit.

 

[Mutineer]

I would settle in place. It is a perfect place for commercal capital and it has enoght hills for initial production.
You allredy have agriculture and mining.
With this start I would go after Civil service GP slingshot.
You can farm sugar for fast grow and mine hills for production.
Just for fun of it and if you never did that befor:

Research:
Animal husbetry-
(if you dicover hourses, research well, othewize do not)

Mysticism-Meditation or Politheism (Depend which AI did not discover yet, you will have a good chance to get early religion)-Priesthood-writing-(col from Oracle)-well-Pottery

Build wize:
Worker-
worker pastured cow and farmed river sugar then mine hills
warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-
(at that time you grow at maximum speed)
Stonahedge-Oracle

With this order I garanty you will get bouth and will get GP fast.

Then expand why waiting for GP. I would even suggest to spend first gp on Srine and only second on CS.
You can get second GP very fast, as shrine will let you run 3 priests if you want and farmed sugar will provide enoght food for that.

 

[Killroyan]

1 south is indeed a sweet spot. You will still have the lake, get the sugar, have a lot of great production hills (with 1 commerce, yum) and the ivory is in range but you will need iron working for it because there is a jungle around that elephant. So ivory is only important later in the game and hunting is not a good idea yet. The idea of having a coastal city with the cow is a nice one. Good planning ahead. Watching this with anticipation again. These challenges are the best sisiutil.

 

[Nares]

Let me just clarify here. The site I'm talking about is 1S of the starting position, or 1SE of the current position.

To Mutineer, is there any reason beyond irrigation/Beauracracy that you would suggest a CS slingshot given this start?

In my current non-playing state, I'm suggesting a Machinery slingshot, if only to provide some real evidence of China's strengths. CKNs weren't prominently featured in ALC2.

 

[MamboJoel]

I really think you guys should reconsider your philosophical strategy with such a leader. This site demands one thing : cottages.
I just played the game for an hour to bring the civ to Lib + Navigation around the world, so th save game is in 1090, one turn to lib (that would give Astronomy of course.

Things I noticed:
- Failed Pyramids by 2 turns. Good deal in fact, I don't care at all about wonders, I just had a time window to use Qin's trait. I decided to go for monarchy anyway.
- I don't care about wonders except the Hanging Garden, pretty cool and easy to get, brings up an engineer right on time to rush the Kremlin.
- No single use of specialists of course.
- Beeline for Pottery, Writing, CoL, Optics, Lib.
- Great city site in the south west : river, food, gold.
- I have confucianism (though I don't care too much about religion either), and ended up with Taoism on my route to lib (Conf+Tao, pretty cool for a chinese civ )
- 4 Commerce cities and 2 production cities. I'm not quite comfortable with this proportion, 5-1 would've been better since Prince AI is not so aggressive : I only need one military factory. But I didn't have any other commerce site. Having to prod cities gives me a rather good military compared to others and I used the extra production to develop my 2 religions in the empire (because I'll need that when I stop with Monarchy and go with Free religion).

Anyway, the game is pretty straitforward now. The continent could be invaded fairly easily, or a dip win, or a space ship (considering the fact I have a bit more production that I would've liked).

So this was a peacefull cottage spam test.
Edit : The optimal strategy is to invade the whole continent early and cottage everything like hell.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

1 south is indeed a sweet spot. You will still have the lake, get the sugar, have a lot of great production hills (with 1 commerce, yum) and the ivory is in range but you will need iron working for it because there is a jungle around that elephant. So ivory is only important later in the game and hunting is not a good idea yet. The idea of having a coastal city with the cow is a nice one. Good planning ahead. Watching this with anticipation again. These challenges are the best sisiutil.

Good point, forgot about that...yeah the Ivory isn't that useful...
I'd just go back to the start position, you get 3 Hills*, the Cow, some more Sugar (basically a floodplains up till calendar) .. you do lose a forest by settling on it but you have access to more.

*as many hills as a 1 S or 1 SE postion
And that group of Western hills can probably be better accessed by another City.

So about the same... I might still go for Hunting first for the Scout (since it will decrease the cost of AH a little bit).. and you won't have the Worker probably until both are done.

As for the Win type...Well Cultural basically needs religion Rush.. followed by a dedicated GA city, and 2 or 3 High Commerce Cities. Financial Helps here, as does Industrious for Prophet Wonders for Religion and Artist Wonders in the GP Farm.

It's best pursued alone on a medium sized continent... or with a nice friendly neighbor...(achieved through luck or elimination of the bad neighbors)

Going Oracle->Machinery is another option.. and that would be a decent Space Race Path... Clear the Continent with CKN and then Cottage Spam all but one or 2 Wonder/Military Cities.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Well Cultural basically needs religion Rush

That depends on how early you want to commit and how willing you are to rely on luck. You need access to several religions in your cities, but you don't necessarily need to found them yourself. You can capture them from a neighbor you plan to conquer or just allow natural spread to occur. Of course, this only works if someone nearby helps you out by founding a religion or two.

I generally like to found at least one and ideally two myself if I'm going for a cultural win, but I'm willing to let the others come from elsewhere.

 

[Sisiutil]

Killroyan, that's a very good catch with the Ivory. I'll probably either go back to the start as Krikkitone suggests, or 1S of it like Nares is urging. I'll just make sure I have a coin to flip. Nah, actually, I'm leaning towards 1S just to make room for a later city to the north.

I'm also going to try for Nares' suggestion of a Machinery slingshot; I'd like to combine it with a Stonehenge -> GP -> Theocracy slingshot as well, so I can increase the promotion level of the Cho-Ko-Nus. I've also never tried it before; I've always used the Oracle to either get Civil Service (on the lower levels) or Code of Laws (on Prince).

Going for the UU early on and rushing with them would make this game substantially different from the Mao game, where, as Nares pointed out, I didn't really exploit the UU. (Of course, since Mao is Organized, going after CoL for the cheap courthouses was too enticing to pass up.) From what I've been reading on the boards, if you get CKNs early enough and load them up with Drill promotions, they can be devastating. The only real counter to them is Knights, though I suppose promoted Horse Archers could also be dangerous. So I'll also want Chariots or another mounted unit to rush in and pillage an opponent's horse pasture, if they've got one.

EDIT: It occurs to me that this would also be an effective tactic to use with Tokugawa to help bee-line Samurai, along with a GP to hurry CS. I'll keep that in mind for the upcoming Japan game.

Yes, I am anticipating warmongering again to start. Frankly, on Prince and above, I think it's hard to avoid. Furthermore, I'm still playing on a continents map, and going by the jungles, I'm near the equator. That means I'll likely be squeezed between civs to the north and south of me, at the very least; I doubt that I'll have the option of easily sealing off my portion of the continent at a chokehold. Even then, there's the luck-of-the draw factor, still undetermined, on whether I'd have neighbours reasonable enough to leave me alone.

MamboJoel, I do appreciate your comments and enthusiasm, but I would ask you to refrain from posting spoilers--or if you do, hide them like the Tyrant's done with his signature. (Anyone care to post instructions on how to do that?) In the previous two game threads, most people who played along waited until I finished the game before posting how their version went. Thanks! (I'll add a general request along these lines to the first post of future game threads.)

With religions, I tend to have better luck with the later ones. The Monty game was the first time I ever snagged one of the early three, and that's only because I started with Mysticism. On Prince, it's just easier to use the Oracle, a GP, or a GS to pop them than to come by them honestly.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That depends on how early you want to commit and how willing you are to rely on luck. You need access to several religions in your cities, but you don't necessarily need to found them yourself. You can capture them from a neighbor you plan to conquer or just allow natural spread to occur. Of course, this only works if someone nearby helps you out by founding a religion or two.

I generally like to found at least one and ideally two myself if I'm going for a cultural win, but I'm willing to let the others come from elsewhere.

well it doesn't need to be an early religion rush... and there is the problem of Getting them to your cities (computer being a poor spreader)

Its quite doable if the religions are mostly founded on your continent, then you can capture cities with them, or let them spread naturally. Religions founded on another continent are harder to get in your cities... and if that other continent has spiritual civs... they are likely to get multiple religions. (all non-player founded religions were founded by spiritual civs in the last game... with the exception of Taoism)


In any case an early warmonger push (especially involving Theocracy) will guarantee a good chance of some of the later religions (strong economy for Islam+Taoism)


As for which 1S does have the advantage of saving a turn (starting requires settling after moving)

 

[Nares]

As for which 1S does have the advantage of saving a turn (starting requires settling after moving)

Which is why I liked it the most (1S of starting position, that is). 1S of current position would leave an extra river tile open for additional Cottaging, I suppose (3gpt from a Cottage sure is nice), but would require a one-tile road to be built to the river (and the loss of fresh water bonus, which will help balance early Forges).

EDIT: "and the loss of fresh water bonus"!!!!!! (I might be wrong on this, hard to check without having my CIV disks).

You can even conceivably delay religious teching for a bit and still get Hinduism. I did this in ALC2, researching Bronze Working before pursuing Hinduism. I think Buddhism would be beyond reach without starting with Mysticism, however, if you did opt to research BW first. I'm not sure how the AI prioritizes picking up holy cities, but I've seen Buddhism and Hinduism float around freely for a significant number of turns so long as I avoided researching it or anything close to it. Then again, if you ever beeline for one, the other is almost always discovered around the same time.

So I'll also want Chariots or another mounted unit to rush in and pillage an opponent's horse pasture, if they've got one.

As Mutineer pointed out in the Horse Archer post (I may yet go find the specific quote), running up some Chariots or Horse Archers to harrass the AI will result in the AI building more Spearmen. A good choice if you want to rush with CKNs, as it'll both provide squishy meleers for the CKN to whomp on (hardcore whompage there), and it will reduce the number of Horse Archers the AI builds to counter your CKNs (HAs being the only worthwhile counter to them at this point).

I really think you guys should reconsider your philosophical strategy with such a leader. This site demands one thing : cottages.

Machinery slingshot doesn't utilize a GP at all. You might consider popping a Great Prophet for CoL (if you're short on cash, which you shouldn't be), or for partial CS research (a better choice, IMO). The key for Machinery is, obviously, The Oracle. You'll need to streamline your tech choices with greater precision, however, as both Iron Working and Metal Casting are fairly expensive relative to other techs.

I agree that Cottages should be a primary goal (works with Machinery and Financial both).

I won't harp on the spoiler (I myself "revealed" about 15 tiles of hidden terrain in ALC2 and got some grief, so I'm not really one to talk; not that they were anything but stupid coastal Tundra), but if you care to play ahead and relay some information, here's a few tips. Don't mention resources or units related to specific resources (IE, don't say if there's Iron around, as it's vital to a CKN rush and would be a major plot development in this ALC if there's not). Also, try to discuss your game from a non-ALC perspective (that is to say, put it in terms that would apply to any and all games, not this particular one). Oh, and don't post pics.

Btw, who's Kankan? And how did he get into Sis's game?

EDIT: Nvm, you're running in French. Also, would you mind editing your post, at least so far as to delink the screenshot? Again, I'm not trying to be offensive, it's just that what's in there would certainly have impact on how I'd play the game.

Mutineer, I'm still curious as to why a CS slingshot would be desirable, though founding in the original start location does have the obvious benefit of fresh water (as did 1S of that point). I just noticed that no one mentioned this yet.

EDIT: Sisiutil, I just noticed your request on not calling you Sis p). My fault if I did it again (I think I may have, but I can't track down where I did). Shortening names is a (good) habit I came up with from playing MMOs, especially ones that are hard to remember or spell (I think I called you Sistiul or Sisitul or something like that once). It was actually the driving force behind coming up with Nares (and another, older, handle of mine, Chrest). I'll try to remember for the future, but maybe you could come up with an "acceptable" nickname? If not, I'll just tough it out .

 

[Nanzook]

MamboJoel, I do appreciate your comments and enthusiasm, but I would ask you to refrain from posting spoilers--or if you do, hide them like the Tyrant's done with his signature.

Just So you know Tyrant's Spoiler is more of a sig. It gives connection to other threads and has no spoiler of this string. Well it does have few exploits links and that is the spoiler.

Sisiutil if you are going look at that link then just to be on the safe side and not destroy your fun for game I noticed he also posted in your last string and that also has the sig.

Oh yeah by they way awsome ALC challenge threads just really looked at yesterday and spent waaaaaaay to much time reading the last two. thx I certainly have picked up some new tactics and they have improved my current game alot.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

refrain from posting spoilers--or if you do, hide them like the Tyrant's done with his signature. (Anyone care to post instructions on how to do that?)

As Nanzook pointed out, Tyrant's "spoilers" aren't really spoilers. He's just using the tag as a convenient way of hiding the links so they take up less space.

Anyway, it's simple to do. Just use the spoiler tag.

[SPOILER]foo bar[/SPOILER]

turns into

Spoiler :

foo bar

More extensive information can be found in the vB Code List page that's referenced from the FAQ.

 

[Sisiutil]

...running up some Chariots or Horse Archers to harrass the AI will result in the AI building more Spearmen. A good choice if you want to rush with CKNs, as it'll both provide squishy meleers for the CKN to whomp on...

"squishy meleers"?

EDIT: Sisiutil, I just noticed your request on not calling you Sis p). My fault if I did it again (I think I may have, but I can't track down where I did). Shortening names is a (good) habit I came up with from playing MMOs, especially ones that are hard to remember or spell (I think I called you Sistiul or Sisitul or something like that once). It was actually the driving force behind coming up with Nares (and another, older, handle of mine, Chrest). I'll try to remember for the future, but maybe you could come up with an "acceptable" nickname? If not, I'll just tough it out .

How about "Sissy"?


































Hmmm, on second thought, no.

Oh, go ahead and use Sis. I was just raggin' ya. I'll get used to it.

 

[Nares]

How about "Sissy"?

Hmmm, on second thought, no.

For my part, I'll do what I can to remember your preference.

And I'd certainly call Spearmen squishy when they're facing off against CKN.

Wait, they do get the base +50% vs melee that Crossbow get, don't they?

Argh, this lack of CIV disks is starting to really bother me.

Now go play, because I can't.