ALC Game #3: China/Qin

[Gnarfflinger]

I generally start playing a few games on my own settings as the leader of choice for the ALC. I won two games as Monty, none as Mao, and 2 as Qin (but never built CKN in until this last attempt as Qin).

I think the games as Hatty should be intriguing...

 

[Nares]

First off, let me say that I really think the Machinery Slingshot was an incredible fluke. No, really. Watching the turn counter go by, I was reminded of CS Slingshots, which I think this is equivalent to. And as most players will tell you, pulling off a CS Slingshot in a level above Noble, where the AI civs start with a tech advantage on you, is extremely rare. And I think the Machinery Slingshot belongs in that category.

The Machinery slingshot was reminiscent of other Prince level CS slingshot attempts (I think something similar occurred during ALC1). The biggest problem with the proposed alternative Machinery slingshots I had was that that particular tech line is not streamlined with some of the key early buildings, nor religions. The religions are needed for the culture they generate (you basically need to skip Stonehenge in order to get the GE to pop with any reasonable timing).

My one thought would be to build The Oracle in one city, such as the one NW of Beijing. I think this would be ideal since it's best placement was away from the coast, yet it had strong early game production capabilities (and no Jungle). Time a Forge in the capital so that, once completed, you immediatly run an Engineer (it doesn't need to be whipped at all, and probably shouldn't be unless you have low production there). I think the capital is the best choice as I believe it's prioritized to pop a Great Person over other cities (I had the GP from The Oracle and the GE from the Forge complete on the same turn, and it was the GE that popped; perhaps this is priority for the GE, or priority for the greater GPP source, or priority for the capital; I'm inclined to think the latter).

Time completion of The Colossus and The Great Lighthouse in a third city (such as Shanghai) so that the extra GPP they produce does not interfere with the generation of your GE, and there's no risk of a rogue GP from The Oracle. GE pops, cost raises to 200, and the points from TC and TGL should be enough to overtake the city with The Oracle. Blow the GE on Machinery, and the GM on Currency.

I generally start playing a few games on my own settings as the leader of choice for the ALC. I won two games as Monty, none as Mao, and 2 as Qin (but never built CKN in until this last attempt as Qin).

This is a good idea (especially in light of the spoiler that was posted during this ALC), though I think this particular start was rough given the terrain layout (almost 100% Jungle on the southern borders, 1/4 of the continent disjointed into a island), and that certainly played its part in the game.

I know you think an Axemen rush would have been more appropriate Sisiutil, but I think that the only reason it would have been would be that it allowed you to research more economically friendly techs sooner (via a more traditional CoL/CS slingshot).

As I said, it was a bit of a double whammy here. Poor opening terrain and a raw (unrefined) strategy. None the less, it did highlight some of the power of CKNs (perhaps Catherine in ALC2 would have been a better target for them, as she would have only just been responding to them as you finshed her off), and certainly showed the Ind/Fin combination's ability to (quickly) recover from deficit spending.

As for the Hatty game, let's hope it doesn't turn out to be a reverse ALC1 (remember how close her Horses were to your border, Sisiutil?). And let's hope there are Horses nearby in the first place.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I'm going to be out of town for a few days, so I'll miss the Egyptian planning thread. The one suggestion I want to make is to consider the tactics discussed in this thread on using chariots to stifle your opponents?. It really seems ideally suited for War Chariots and/or perhaps Immortals or Quechuas.

I made a game recently to try it with Immortals, and wouldn't you know it, Cyrus was stranded all by himself on a continent, so I never got a chance to use my Immortals on anything except barbarians.

Hatshepsut may not get you that elusive cultural win. I've done it before (my first Prince win, I think), but that game was really a perfect scenario where she wound up alone on a continent with an ideal landmass for 9 city cultural layout. More generally, the fact that she doesn't start with Mysticism and is Creative (therefore making Stonehenge less attractive) makes founding religions tougher. I also think cultural wins are substantially easier to pull off with Financial leaders.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I feel like I really honed my tech-trading skills in this game, especially when I was shopping Steel around. Waiting a turn for dependent techs to open up and become available in your trades is a risky tactic, but one I will remember when making the rounds if I'm behind. You can probably use it any game on the turns following the discovery of Alphabet.

I learned a lot more about city specialization and tile improvements in this game. Cuzco was an amazing powerhouse with IW and all those workshops and waterwheels, especially once I implemented the State Property civic. This was invaluable to try because it's so counterintuitive. When I see grasslands next to rivers and few or no hills, I think "cottages"--especially if I'm Financial! For those of you wondering when and why you'd build workshops or watermills, now you know. I was one of you too before this game.

That one startled me too, when I discovered it for myself. Rivers are a big deal for a lot of reasons.

There are a few things I would add here.

The first is the minor detail that, because of the tile allotment, Cuzco was not bringing in as many hammers as it could have been. Had you transfered control of the lumbermill and pigs from Ollantaytambo, you'd have had another... eight? hammers per turn before multipliers kicked in.

The second is that keeping food surplus handy until you get to size is important. A farm on an unworked plot doesn't cost you anything, and it makes a big difference when growing up to the happiness limit (especially post biology). Yes, it means running around with workers "re-improving" tiles after they get up to size. Shrug.

 

[Sisiutil]

Heh, that's funny. I was thinking about the Hatty game today and the first thing that popped into my head was "War Chariot Rush!".

Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ, as my mom used to say.

VoU:

Good points about the tile use of Cuzco. Since a city like isn't really possible until you get both Electricity and State Property, you're inevitably going to have to re-improve several of its tiles, as I did with Cuzco. In my defense, I would say that utilizing a city and tiles like that was completely new to me. (Isn't everyone's "first time" a little awkward? Ahem.) And I was gearing up Ollantaytambo (awful name, that) to stifle Liverpool, so it needed some hammers.

Anyway, now that I've seen it in action, I can refine it and do better with it next time.

Nares:

I don't think the terrain is ever ideal. It's always a mix and you just have to work with what you've got. In this game, Beijing, Rome, and Cuzco all had those supposedly-ideal blends of river, grassland, and a few hills. But check the rest of the city locations out and you'll see less-than-ideal-or-even-useless desert, plains, tundra, peaks, ocean, and so on.

You take disadvantages in this game and turn them into advantages. Having Mansa on his mini-continent worked in my favour; it kept him out of my hair for most of the game, it meant we had no "close borders" to sour relations so we tech-traded a lot, and in the late game, it meant he'd reached his peak and got left far behind. The jungles and peaks in the middle of the continent restricted my opponents' paths for counter-attack.

As for a raw strategy, that is just me, I know. I prefer to hold off on overall game strategy until I have a better idea how things look--my location, opponents, and so on. As well, I noticed that all the new, unfamiliar tactics I was trying in this game threw me off any overall strategy, mainly because my tried-and-true ones did not apply. I could have gone the usual Axe rush/CoL slingshot route, but you folks suggested something different, I wanted to try it, and it was fun and useful and revelatory and I don't regret it one bit. It got me an a hole I had to deftly tech-trade my way out of, but that was very instructional as well--nerve-wracking too, but all the more fun for that.

It's an excellent point however. We should consider an overall game strategy in more detail before the next game. But we'll discuss that in the pre-game thread, which I'll start tomorrow night. (I'm sorry you'll be away Doc. I have seen that thread you refer to, and that's exactly what I'm thinking of doing.)

 

[Nares]

I made a game recently to try it with Immortals, and wouldn't you know it, Cyrus was stranded all by himself on a continent, so I never got a chance to use my Immortals on anything except barbarians.

Eery. I started my own Hatty game earlier this evening and found myself in the same position. No less, I was lacking for most military resources, yet had an extreme abundance of Horses (I'm talking like five or six sources on my island).

You take disadvantages in this game and turn them into advantages.

True, and you certainly did that in this game. Your point about having Mansa on his own island is well taken. He would certainly have been a far larger thorn in your side if he shared your continent. However, I think that would have been balanced in the fact that there would have been some land to expand into without having to settle in Jungle. Somewhere between the Jungle and the distances needed to travel to get to AI cities in this game left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

 

[pigswill]

I went for a vanilla start:settler,stonehenge,settler,oracle.CoL slingshot. Tried to stay peaceful. I was the first to found a religion (confucianism from CoL) which I spread to Jules but not HC. Once I'd got axes I stopped worrying about a Quecha rush though as I wasn't beelining machinery I did worry about Praets, conversion and a few generous trades got Jules friendly though I also didn't want to fall too far behind power wise. After Oracle I didn't prioritise wonders except GL, I half built some purely for the cash. Meanwhile HC went on a wonder rush: Pyramids, Parthenon, something else. GP wise I popped a GS (10%chance) for academy,Prophet for CS, Prophet for Shrine, GS for academy. I also cottaged the sugar and ivory (except one for luxury);combination of bureaucracy,academy and cottages gave beijing a solid start as research centre. Once I'd done my initial exploring I started leaning towards spaceship victory but first I wanted to clear the island starting with HC. I started my war against HC about 900ad. As I hadn't gone for theocracy my units were starting off at 4xp but I'd been amassing cash and the plan was to promote surviving axes to CR2maces.

 

[pigswill]

Busy round. War against HC,razed a few cities coz I didn't like their location(mistake coz Jules quickly filled the gap cutting my civ in half). Explored the world,met interesting people, the natives were friendly and I got open borders and map trades. Tech wise liberalism bee-line,took astronomy for observatories and oceantrading. GP wise I had a mini-GS factory based on GL. Jules meanwhile got religion: founded Christianity and Taoism, built their shrines and Sistine Chapel. After I'd finished HC (including annoying city on MMs island) I then started on Jules, he'd also converted to Taoism so we were falling out anyway.

 

[pigswill]

Quieter round: polished off Jules eventually,started on national wonders.tried and failed to convert Vicky but made money in the process. Put Wall Street in shrine city to amass cash, Oxford in Beijing as research centre, Ironworks in stone city to try turning it into GE factory (GL became obselete so end of GS factory). The neighbours came visiting and camped on the edges but peace reigned otherwise.

 

[pigswill]

After a reasonable start I lost my way;eventually fumbled my way to a spaceship victory. Over the course of the round I flipped and razed all my visitors' cities without diplomatic repercussions.Eventually got defensive alliances with MM and Asoka.
Too embarassing to include a save this time. I think I'll rerun this game a few times from 1710 to improve my spaceship building.
While I had bits of luck (HC building wonders for me, Jules building shrines for me, everyone else being friendly) I think my main conclusion when comparing to Sisiutil's game is that vanilla is in many ways the best flavour.

 

[Killroyan]

I am not so keen yet on the workshops although they do help a lot when you have a lot of grassland. However the watermills I love. On floodplains these things rule. 4 food, 2 hammers and 3 coins or so with state property and all the technologies is not something to laugh about. Nowadays I put up like 50% cottage and 50% watermills on floodplains. Sometimes I even remove cottages from them if it suits the city better.

Quick question about the three gorges dam. You can build hydro plants if you build this wonder but does this further boost your hammer output? So I have a factory and a coal plant already in that city, is it usefull to get a hydro plant also? Or a nuclear plant?

Looking forward to the hatseput game. After reading the war chariots post I tried it out and it is still one of my most fun games yet. Took out Monty on turn 4 and got a cultural victory. Keep up the good work.

 

[The Tyrant]

The TGD supplies "clean" power to your factories, but it doesn't increase productivity beyond that. If you already have a coal plant in a city, the TGD will effectively negate the health penalty from the coal plant (the citizens aren't using the coal plant). If the TGD city is captured, the coal plants will kick back into operation, supplying "dirty" power to the factories.

 

[sand]

thanks Sisiutil !. you inpired me to move up to prince. my first game gave me a late renosance domination. i scored 30,000 something. then next i played a game a liz. i lost this game but got within 10 turns of winning cultural. no surprise though since i started on my own island.

recently i played a toguwara game as japan and was able to get samurias early AD and destroy the world before they had gunpowder. iwon domination before my stack of 50 catapults 10 cav and 30 rifles with city raider could reach izzys shores i scored 49,000.

these games are teaching me alll the time so thanks.

 

[MamboJoel]

Yep, this slingshot (and I would say most slingshots except liberalism) looks pretty cheap to me. You basically throw all your energy in the game for an extraterrest unit you can't even build decently at that time.
I'm pretty much confident you could have Mach at about the same time without any slingshot just by making your empire grow smothly (settler/warrior/worker/river/cottage) and thus beeing *really* advanced technogically in a sense that you would owe Mach not as a future tech but as a tech corresponding to your overall level (I mean having also CoL).
Also, while I really love this UU, it's absolutly not mandatory to attack Rome or the Incans, ordinary units work just as well, all you need to do is have a bit more of them and concentrate your power in one point.
So at the end of the day, you end up having this super tech that doesn't give you any decent bonus. I'm not comfortable with slingshots (The Oracle is number 456 in my todo list, right after GPP), but if I had one I would use it for CoL.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I'm pretty much confident you could have Mach at about the same time without any slingshot just by making your empire grow smothly (settler/warrior/worker/river/cottage) and thus beeing *really* advanced technogically in a sense that you would owe Mach not as a future tech but as a tech corresponding to your overall level (I mean having also CoL).

Another point I'm thinking about with the benefit of hindsight is, what are the units that worry you most against Cho-Ko-Nu's? I think it's horse archers, well-promoted or forest-squatting macemen, and longbowmen. Knights too, but that's significantly later.

Well, 2 out of 3 of those (and also knights) can be stopped by resource denial and pillaging. And since resources are usually guarded by melee units, your 50% bonus will come into play. So I'm thinking that if you really wanted to prolong the effectiveness of Cho-Ko-Nu, you could do it.

You don't need to rush to get them. You just need to make sure that once you do get them, they last a while.

Sisiutil, when you talk about your change in tactics with the Cho-Ko-Nus, would it be accurate to say that longbows are really the turning point for that? I'm thinking that prior to longbows, Cho-Ko-Nus can and should be used as your primary assault force. Between the melee bonus, first strikes, and collateral damage there's really nothing that should be able to stand up to them. But after longbows arrive, you should probably switch to a more traditional approach using catapults to soften them up with collateral damage and then let the Cho-Ko-Nus finish the job.

 

[frankcor]

Sisiutil (why does your name remind me of a Unix command?):

Thanks for the ALC! I'm learning stuff that's helping my Monarch play.

Can you post here when you start the next leader in the series? I don't regularly check for new threads. Thanks!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Another point I'm thinking about with the benefit of hindsight is, what are the units that worry you most against Cho-Ko-Nu's? I think it's horse archers, well-promoted or forest-squatting macemen, and longbowmen. Knights too, but that's significantly later.

Well, 2 out of 3 of those (and also knights) can be stopped by resource denial and pillaging. And since resources are usually guarded by melee units, your 50% bonus will come into play. So I'm thinking that if you really wanted to prolong the effectiveness of Cho-Ko-Nu, you could do it.

You don't need to rush to get them. You just need to make sure that once you do get them, they last a while.

Sisiutil, when you talk about your change in tactics with the Cho-Ko-Nus, would it be accurate to say that longbows are really the turning point for that? I'm thinking that prior to longbows, Cho-Ko-Nus can and should be used as your primary assault force. Between the melee bonus, first strikes, and collateral damage there's really nothing that should be able to stand up to them. But after longbows arrive, you should probably switch to a more traditional approach using catapults to soften them up with collateral damage and then let the Cho-Ko-Nus finish the job.

Well I think the issue with CKNs as a primary Assault force (pre-Longbowmen) is that Axemen are just about as good and Cheaper.... consider with 2 CR promotions or Drill promotions

Axemen 5+45% cost 35
CKN 6+3-4 FS cost 60

The Axemen are probably better for many units (Archers, Swordsmen, etc.) and the only thing the CKN seems to be better against IS axemen.

Using them for Collateral Damage on large Stacks inside or outside of Cities or for City/Stack Defense seems better.

 

[uncarved block]

Sisiutil, these games have been incredibly informative, though I'm such a poor player that I'm having trouble putting the good advice to use. A teacher is only as good as his student lets him or her be, and right now, I'd make you look pretty bad on a test . . .

Two points/questions. I'm almost hoping you don't get to use War Chariots in the Hatsepshut game-- not out of any personal animosity, but because I'd love to see a good player react to not having their UU. I think the combo of Hatty's starting traits and techs is fairly powerful, and seeing that shown in a game would be interesting.

Second, are you at all interested in changing the maps, or are you going to use Continents as a baseline to ensure all the games are roughly similar? I never play Continents, because the isolation from several of the other civs isn't very appealing; either you're way behind the other AIs or not, and it's pretty much a roll of the dice whether this happens or not. (In this game, if Asoka and Alexander had switched locations, I'm not entirely sure you would have won. The Indians can be tough to beat if you can't reach them easily.) Are you at all interested in playing say, the Hub map, or Oasis? If this doesn't appeal to you, I'll understand, but thought I'd throw the notion out there.

Thank you for taking the time to post all these games, and I hope you have the stamina to keep going for many more.

 

[pigswill]

A thought on ALC. Playing the same civ twice even with different leaders did seem slightly repetitive in some ways. Have you considered going through each civ once then going back to the civs with two leaders to run it again with leader#2.e.g.Liz,GW,Cat,Vicky,FDR,Pete.

 

[Nares]

I'm thinking that prior to longbows, Cho-Ko-Nus can and should be used as your primary assault force.

Longbows are indeed the bane of CKNs. Actually, Longbows are the bane of just about every period appropriate unit. The point was to get the CKNs out before the Longbows became much of a problem.

I'm pretty much confident you could have Mach at about the same time without any slingshot just by making your empire grow smothly (settler/warrior/worker/river/cottage) and thus beeing *really* advanced technogically in a sense that you would owe Mach not as a future tech but as a tech corresponding to your overall level (I mean having also CoL).

I must admit, I suggested making more use of these units, as I don't think Sisiutil produced any (maybe a few, I forget) during ALC2. In hindsight, that game was more suited to a Machinery slingshot.

As for a CoL/CS slingshot, that is what Mutineer suggested early on in the thread, but neglected to elaborate on the reasons why. I think one of the most outstanding features of ALC is that the reasoning behind particular strategies (both previously executed and upcoming) can have their reasoning explained in a more direct context. That probably would have worked better for this particular game, but Sisiutil deftly managed the path he pursued.