ALC Game 33: Korea / Wang Kon

[Benginal]

All Leaders Challenge Game 33: Korea / Wang Kon
Played with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack

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Round 0: 4000 BC (turn 0)
Round 1: 4000 BC to 3320 BC (turns 0-17)
Round 2: 3320 BC to 1800 BC (turns 17-55)
Round 3: 1800 BC to 675 BC (turns 55-88)
Round 4: 675 BC to 150 BC (turns 89-109)
Round 5: 150 BC to 75 AD (turns 109-118)
Round 6: 75 AD to 760 AD (turns 118-148)
Round 7: 760 AD to 1050 AD (turns 148-165)
Round 8: 1050 AD to 1240 AD (turns 165-184)
Round 9: 1240 AD to 1826 AD (turns 184-283)
Post Mortem


Introduction

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that games are going to be played with each of the Civ IV leaders. With the help of all the posters who participate, an attempt will be made to make the most of the leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are (mostly) kept constant for the sake of comparison. I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible.

In this ALC game I’ll be playing as Wang Kon of the Korean Empire. Before we start the game, a more detailed discussion of Wang Kon is in order.

Traits:

Protective: This trait, lovingly referred to as the worst trait in the game, gives free Drill I and City Garrison I promotions for archery and gunpowder units. It also lets us build walls and castles at double speed. The archer and gunpowder promotions are actually not bad. On defense their benefits are obvious but even when attacking it means that fewer city garrison troops need to be left to defend from counterattacks when the main force moves on. Walls I rarely build and castles I never do. So getting them at half price isn't particularly useful. However, when price goes down, demand goes up (note we're moving along the curve, the curve is not shifting). The question then is, does making castles half the price mean I will build them? The answer is still a pretty decisive nope.

Financial: Being financial means that for every tile that has at least 2 we get an extra on that tile. It's huge early in the game when there are quite a few tiles with just two or three commerce and getting another one gives another 50%. Later in the game the benefit is less but still far from negligible. Financial as I see it has two key characteristics. The first is that coastal tiles go from a lame 2 to a decent 3. And the second is that we don't have to wait for cottages to become decent as after just ten turns of being worked a riverside cottage is giving an excellent 4.

Starting Techs: Mysticism and Mining

Mysticism let's us build monuments, Stonehenge, and get a quick religion. It's not a very good early technology, but since we're not creative we will definitely be needing it at some point which makes it not completely terrible. Mining is much better. It lets us build mines right away giving our worker hopefully at least one or two tiles to improve as soon as he's finished. Mining is also great since it means we can get Bronze Working, one of the most important early game technologies, faster.

Unique Unit: Hwacha

The Hwacha replaces the catapult and is exactly the same except that it gets a 50% bonus against melee units. It might be better than the Landsknecht, but not by much. Catapults are good units for an early war, but they are usually either bombarding cities or sacrificing into the cities best defenders, which are typically archery units. Depending on the map I may be building some, but this unit is not a game changer by any stretch of the imagination.

Unique Building: Seowon

The Seowon is an improved university. A university gives +3 and +25% while the Seowon gives +3 and +35%. I think it's a fairly decent unique building. I'm not sure what to say about it except that universities are good buildings and this is better than a university. Again it's not going to drastically change my game, since I'm usually beelining Education anyway, but it's better than a poke in the eye.

Starting Position

In this ALC game, I'll be playing as Wang Kon, leader of the Koreans. I'm playing the game using the Beyond the Sword expansion pack and its latest patch, as well as the BUG mod. The difficulty level is Immortal (why not), the map is Fractal, and the speed is Normal. I’m leaving all the boxes unchecked except for huts and events, both of which are off. All victory conditions are enabled. If you have any questions about why I picked what I did, feel free to ask.

Here is a more detailed look at the initial game settings:



Here's a reminder as to Wang Kon's unique characteristics:



And, finally, here is the starting position:



Alright, let's get thinking!

 

[Sian]

warrior 1se ... settling 1s or 1se looks interesting (if protentially low on hammers), but gains riverside

 

[bobbyboy29]

Hmm, may be one of those rare cases where worker first isn't best. Unless there's some goodies in the fog it looks like you'll need Ag (or hunting) then AH before he can improve food. He could mine the hills but that seems hardly worth it, otherwise he'd just spend come turns thumb twiddling. An extra warrior for scouting and defense may well be worth it.

Warrior 1NW may give you the best idea of where to settle, all other moves reveal very few tiles. SIP will be strong but if there's more food up north you may want to settle on that plains hill.

 

[Benginal]

Round 0: 4000 BC (turn 0)

Spoiler :

I've decided that it's about time I learn how to do this whole gazing into the fog thing to learn about my surroundings. This post here is a worthwhile read for some of you. I'm sure it's overkill to most of you, but it's pretty cool. Anyway, this is the first time I've ever even tried to do this, so I'm quite in the dark (pun intended, ).

This first one is from 2:00 (on the clock, so 2:00 means northeast of the settler).



We can see that there's quite a few trees between where we are and where the settler is.

From 12:00 we see this.



I couldn't see any trees or hills or mountains so I'm guessing that means there's water to our north. I tried listening for the sounds of water since apparently you're supposed to be able to hear it if you're over water, but I couldn't so I'm not sure there's water up there but whatever.

9:30.



Some trees.

From 8:00.



Some trees, so therefore we've got some land.

6:00.



The reason we can't see our units is because there's a mountain in the way. There's at least 4 peaks down to our south. I can't tell how far down they are, but I'm guessing somewhere between 6 and 10 tiles away from our settler's current location.

4:00.



Some more trees and mountains, so more land.

All of these screenshots suggest to me that we're on some sort of continent lol. No but seriously, there appears to be land to our west, south, and east. I'm guessing that nearby to our north is ocean. Also to our south are a lot of peaks and as far as I can tell not many trees so it seems likely that there's a desert of sorts below us. Armed with that knowledge I didn't really know what to do so I went ahead and moved the warrior 1SE.



And we've got more marble. I love marble, . I moved the settler 1S. I thought about 1SE, but didn't like the look of all that brown and a definite loss of river tiles.



I liked what I saw so went ahead and moved 1 more south onto the plains hill.



Settling on that hill seems pretty attractive right now. I've got 2 grassland hills, a plains hill, cows and marble for hammers and cows and pigs for food. The oasis is a good early tile, especially since we're financial.

On to the next part of Rolo's post. It's still turn 0 and the human player goes first so none of the other AIs have done anything yet. But let's look at the soldiers count and see what it can tell us.



Here's the main post I'm using in my analysis.

What do we know? We know that on Immortal the AIs each start with a settler, a worker, two scouts, and three archers. The settler, worker, and scouts provide no soldiers, but the archers each provide 3,000 soldiers. So that means all AIs have 9,000 soldiers from units.

The other sources of soldiers are buildings and wonders. Since no AIs have yet played a buildings and wonders are providing 0 soldiers. The next factor is population points, which again cannot be providing any soldiers. The only other factor is technologies.

On Immortal the AIs start with their two unique technologies plus Agriculture, Hunting, and Archery. If their two unique technologies are Agriculture and Hunting then it sucks to be them because they only get 1 free technology. In terms of soldiers, Hunting is worth 2000 soldiers, and archery is worth 6,000 soldiers. That means that on Immortal the AIs are guaranteed at least 17,000 soldiers in total.

In our game we have 6 other AIs. The one(s) with the highest number of soldiers has 21,000 soldiers which means that their other technologies give them 4,000 extra soldiers. The only other technologies an AI could have at this point that give soldiers are Mining - 2,000 soldiers and The Wheel - 4,000 soldiers. So there is at least one AI in this game that starts with the Wheel. Also, there is at least one civ that starts without either Mining or the Wheel.

Looking at the average we can conclude that the remaining 4 civilizations have a total of 19,333*6 - 21,000 - 17,000 = 78,000 soldiers. Subtracting the base soldier amount of 4*17,000 soldiers we prove the other 4 civilizations have an extra 10,000 soldiers. 5 minings is impossible since there are only 4 civs; so we know that the remaining 4 civs have between them 2 wheels and a mining or 1 wheel and 3 minings.

So what do we know? Not much as it turns out. But we had fun right!! .

 

[chadxo]

Looking forward to this. The game I started tonight is with Wang Kon (random as always for me) so I'm anxious to see this. Cool to see the tech path, I always have a tough time fitting pyramdis/great library in. I'm assuming GLib is a no brainer with marble, so anxious to see how you manage troops/settlers/workers and still find room to build an early tech. You're doing a great job continuing these ALC's, please keep it up, I was so happy to see they were finally continued!

 

[CivSetä]

Settling that hill looks good enough. I agree warrior first while growing to size 2.

 

[Optical]

Pretty much what CivSeta said. There's quite a bit of brown land there, but hopefully a few farms and the Pigs and cows will offset that. AH and Masonry look like priorites here, of course, and Wine tiles are definitely worth improving after Monarchy.

 

[lymond]

Farmed wines are a decent early yield. I'd go worker first here.

 

[Um the Muse]

I think that looks like a pretty sick start; the oasis will carry you through until you get AH. I think either hunting or agri will be tenable, but I'd go for hunting first: all those plains means you have a decent chance at either horses or elephants (hunting is cheaper, so you should hopefully find the horses faster). It also lets you build a scout. You do have a track record of neglecting your explorations, after all
After AH, I'd suggest bw and some placeholder as you expand. Financial will help you catch up anyway.

I don't understand why the hate against hwacha, yet you're ok with sewons. Hwacha let you skip any axemen they have defnding their cities. Sure, they might normally defend with archers, but that doesn't mean exclusively. Besides, hwacha make awesome defenders. Not to mention the cool animation.

Seowans (or however they're spelled), otoh, are really no better than unis. You have to have more than 3 scientists going before it'll grant you a measly 1 . The saving grace is that you're financial, but that still means an extra per two towns. Seriously? It's better than the Mall, maybe, but that's about it. If you think about it, the extra trade route from your half priced castles are worth more (not that I recommend building those in this game).
Edit: I've changed my mind about agri. Going agri first for the wine is a bad choice, imho, because you won't want to work it for awhile: you'll work the oasis until your worker can herd the cows and pigs. You'll work those three tiles in reverse order for awhile, maybe the two grass hills (though I probably wouldn't wait that long) then you start building settlers and workers. You simply won't have time for the wines for awhile. It might make a good third tech, depending on what the rest of your land is like, but I suspect bw will be higher priority. It probably goes before pottery or anything else, though.

 

[Optical]

Hwacha actually has to be one of my personal favourite UU's. I'd play Korea more were it not for that useless Protective trait...

 

[Um the Muse]

I personally don't mind PRO, but it often comes with something that makes it redundant. I hate that. For example, the NAs have PRO archers, totem poles--and dog soldiers. That's probably the worst offender, but the Koreans get a little of that, too, with a UU that can more or less take the archer's place if it had to. That said, it's really not that bad an overlap.
I think that the Koreans are a middling civ to play as and are rather balanced (one good tech, one superb trait but no real synergy, the UU is good but the UB is horrible, that sort of thing).

 

[vranasm]

@ben I hate you I wanted to make some argument on SIP and you just threw it out the window...

btw I would have sipped, run ag->ah with worker first... there was enough hills for improving.

in this situation you should settle on the hill and start with worker, ag->ah again too ;-)

farm those wineries as lymond said, 2f1h3c is very good tile in early game.

btw this position is very good position in disguise...

you have a lot of 6-yield tile there. pigs 6F, cows 3F3H, 2x wine with farm 2f1h3c and last the Oasis with 3F3C.
commerce shouldnt be much problem, happy cap is.
With so many good tiles you want to sit at size 6-7 soon (marble+GH as another good tiles).

Having myst already is good since you want masonry and should have poly at hand for some ToA fail gold.

you should maybe already plan what you take with oracle :-D

 

[Soirana]

On to the next part of Rolo's post. It's still turn 0 and the human player goes first so none of the other AIs have done anything yet. But let's look at the soldiers count and see what it can tell us.

You forgot some other stuff Not sure about quechas bur skirmishers definetely give extra soldier points.

Actually Mansa has like 26k starting soldiers on immortal start, so you can say for sure there is no mansa in game.

As start [take with gran of salt as i have not played civ in last half of year or so]...

hunting>AH with worker first. Work winery before border expansion and after wards oasis. With extra turn to move worker on resource i think he will be iddle for two turns which still beat any warrior first thing.

i would work winery cause it does speed imrpoving your food which should set of for turn [or two] lost growth on unimproved tiles.

With2xfood resource +oasis i still don't see where you fit working in farmed winery. Teching agro just for this is IMHO waste of time.

 

[ben-jammin]

Great map here.

Spoiler :

This is my second try at it. First try was doomed, Ceasar only had 6 cities but he built the hindu shrine and EVERY city on the continent had hinduism. He ran away in the tech race and because the hindu lovefest was so friendly he traded his techs to everyone.

SIP, settled more aggressively this time leaving the Romans with only 4 cities. Built the Oracle (how could you not on this map?) without chopping and took metal casting. Around 500AD have 10 cities, none of them marginal. Won the music race but was beaten to the MoM, which was built in Rome. Thus I am about to finish up construction and will Hwacha the out of his praetorians and take the MoM thankyouverymuch before burning the artist for a golden age.

Managed to also build the Parthenon and Great Library, giving me three wonders in the capital plus the national epic. Persia is also blocked in at 4 cities, so after rome they'll be next. From there it'll be lib->cuirs beeline with a pretty hefty production and tech advantage over the rest of the world.

I count seven happiness resources within my borders with another two at least to be taken from the blocked in romans and persians.

 

[Killroyan]

Gutsy move with 2S but damn that is one powerfull capitall. Cow/pigs/marble/oasis and a possible 2 farmed wines is really good Thx for bringing out another game. I love your explanation of the points and values of the soldiers. Didn't know that one yet.

 

[kossin]

Pretty ordinary start imo, way too much brown tiles. If you can convince yourself not to cottage brown tiles this time maybe you can get decent production city.

Actually, I'd recommend for your learning you try to avoid cottages a few times Last game was in the bag at Liberalism but with cottages whipping fast is difficult!

Soirana's assessment is most likely good, you can get Masonry early and build The Oracle possibly here.

 

[XRW175P6MQ4]

@benginal that is so cool what you did with the crazy angles.

Shame I'd die horrifically on immortal or I'd try it out.

 

[Um the Muse]

Pretty ordinary start imo, way too much brown tiles. If you can convince yourself not to cottage brown tiles this time maybe you can get decent production city.

Actually, I'd recommend for your learning you try to avoid cottages a few times Last game was in the bag at Liberalism but with cottages whipping fast is difficult!

Soirana's assessment is most likely good, you can get Masonry early and build The Oracle possibly here.

Huh. You don't think that that start is good? I'll agree it's not much of a bureaucracy capital--it tries to do a little of everything--but it's the fact thqt it is a very generic yet powerful start that I liked it so much.

 

[ben-jammin]

Pretty ordinary start imo, way too much brown tiles. If you can convince yourself not to cottage brown tiles this time maybe you can get decent production city.

Actually, I'd recommend for your learning you try to avoid cottages a few times Last game was in the bag at Liberalism but with cottages whipping fast is difficult!

Soirana's assessment is most likely good, you can get Masonry early and build The Oracle possibly here.

It's a very strong start? First border pop gives you a 3f3c unimproved tile, pigs give you the best single food tile. With those the plains cow is a good balance because you don't need much more food until much later. Farming the riverside wine until monarchy gives you a city that can work 6 well balanced tiles that get you the early techs quite fast with more than decent early production from the marble and cows.

 

[WelshGandalf]

I love the 2S position. The extra hammer, 5 resources & an oasis. Farm those two wines, work them & the oasis = 3 excess food, 4 hammers and 9 commerce at size 3 I feel it's so good, that another city overlapping the BFC would be no bad thing. So many nice tiles & the capital won't be able to use them all until later in the game when health & happiness are not such big issues.

I'd go ag -> ah -> bw -> masonry -> tech to oracle, plenty for your worker to do with those techs & I reckon you should get the oracle with the marble & all that commerce.