ALC Pre-Game Show: Playing as Qin

[Sisiutil]

All Leaders Challenge Pre-Game Show:
Game # 3 - China/Qin

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Qin Shi Huang, leader of the Chinese Empire.

The fact sheet:

• Traits: Industrious and Financial
• Starting Techs: Agriculture and Mining
• Unique Unit: Cho-Ku-Nu

This should be an interesting contrast with the Mao game. The UU and starting techs are the same, but the traits are completely different. China is like Germany and Russia in that regard, in that the civ has two leaders with no overlapping traits (unlike America, England, France, India, and Mongolia).

Industrious means Wonders cost 50% less to build, as do Forges. A bee-line to Metal Casting may make even more sense than when playing as Mao. MC will not only allow Qin to build his cheap forges; it's also a pre-requisite for Machinery, which opens up China's UU, the Cho-Ku-Nu. And it allows you to build the Colossus; if the map lends itself to a few coastal cities, this Wonder makes Qin even more financial. By the time the Colossus is obsolete with Astronomy, the cottages should have matured to compensate. Too bad China doesn't start with Fishing to make it even more attractive.

(Historical footnote: Qin is "Industrious" because he's the guy who built the Great Wall of China. Well, not himself personally--you know how that works: )

And what can you say about Financial that hasn't already been said here on the boards ad nauseum? Remember I'll be playing with the 1.61 patch, so banks are no longer cheap, but Financial is still an awesome trait. If stone is available, the Pyramids seem even more attractive, since it would give Qin early access to the Universal Suffrage civic. Then he can do something about all that money burning a hole in his pocket. (Of course, Qin doesn't need stone to speed the Pyramids, but Industrious + stone means they get only require 1/4 of the usual amount of hammers.)

We discussed the Cho-Ku-Nu extensively in the Mao Pre-Game Show thread. I don't think we need to repeat ourselves. I found in the Mao game that it's a good UU--not in the "awesome" class like Praetorians, Redcoats, or Cossacks, but respectable nonetheless. I usually never build Crossbowmen, but I do like this replacement for them, especially with Drill promotions. As I mentioned above, with Qin's traits, it makes sense to access the CKN earlier.

As for the starting techs: Mining is even more of an advantage to Qin since it puts you one tech closer to Metal Casting. As with Mao, Agriculture means I could justify building a Worker earlier if there's a farmable resource in the capital's fat cross. A farmed resource would also lend itself to faster production of more workers and settlers.

On that note: one strategem I'm thinking of using in this game is NOT building early wonders in the capital. Instead, I rush out a couple of settlers and building any early wonders I decide to pursue in the 2nd and 3rd cities as their first build orders. The capital focuses on the first military units, workers, settlers, and since it's usually the best commerce/science city, eventually, a library. Much has been said about how building a wonder slows your early expansion, and this strikes me as a way to avoid it. The wonder-building cities would grow faster, since they're not held back building Settlers and Workers. The capital then should have more forests available for chopping later Wonders, and with better yields thanks to Mathematics. Plus this approach would lend itself to the city/wonder specialization I used in the Mao game, although that was more productive mainly because of Mao's Philosophical trait. (Maybe I should go after the Parthenon too?) Of course, a lot of this depends on the map.

Thoughts?

Regarding religion, Qin doesn't really have any strengths here, but then again, no more or less so than Mao, and I wound up founding three religions in that game--though I really only took advantage of one of them. I think building Oracle for a CoL slingshot would be attractive. Courthouses are always good.

I look forward to everyone's perspective on Qin before I start the next game. I'm very pleased and even humbled to hear how enjoyable and useful these ALC threads have been to everyone. I'm certainly learning a great deal, and it's fun too!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Um, slight Correction

Industrious does NOT Wonders are 50% less to build, it means you get a 50% bonus in building them

so Pyramids in a city with 10 per turn=
15 per turn with Industrious
20 per turn with Stone
25 per turn with Industrious+Stone

so they are 40% cost not 1/4 cost

 

[sand]

do you intend to start the game in this thread or in another.

 

[stuge]

(Historical footnote: Qin is "Industrious" because he's the guy who built the Great Wall of China. Well, not himself personally--you know how that works: )

Okay, seriously now.

Trying to take advantage of cho-ko-nus as early as possible is a good idea but has some drawbacks. I remember you saying that you'd like to pursue cultural as Qin and for that you'd have to prioritise the upper part of the tech tree. Qin's traits lend themselves well for cultural, of course but that means that the 'Nus won't be used for early aggression. Of course, you can throw the sissy cultural out of the window and concentrate on eliminating everyone who mocks The One True Leader.

 

[pigswill]

Difficult to be definite before the game starts but I'd consider an initial build order of worker/warrior,settler,stonehenge,settler,oracle. Use city 2 as potential science city with library,2 scientists for early GS and Academy, Great Library. City 3 could be either pyramid city or garrison city depending on early metals, aggressive neighbors etc. Having said that these are just my thoughts on initial city specialisation and specifics will also depend on terrain and early resources.
CoL via Oracle usually sounds good, prophet 1 for Theology, prophet 2 for CS. Probably want a shrine at some point but not so essential early on. Early wonder building is less of a slowdown with industrious ( also worth remembering early chops get 30 hammers for wonders, 20 for anything else).
Cho Ko Nu are good but not such awesome raiders that they're worth making sacrifices to acquire early.I'm wondering if the AI stop producing melee units virtually as soon as Cho Ko Nu appear.
Expand towards your nearest neighbor early on.
Bit more on early wonders:Stonehenge = free culture for early border expansion. Oracle= early slingshot (CoL or Machinery depending on research paths) so these are immediately useful. Pyramids, Parthenon and GL are more long-term and less immediately useful. So I'd reckon SH and Oracle generally worth going for (and in same city for GP boost); Pyramids,Parthenon and GL are more in the way of luxury items in the initial expansion phase. Regarding US, I'd have thought it likely that Qin would be using his increased commerce to fund beakers rather than bullion.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Qin's got nice synergies. The sweetheart tech for Industrious is Metal Casting which has pottery as a pre-req (the sweetheart tech for Financial). So the Granaries that are so important with Slavery are on the way to MC. Life is good. Furthermore because forges are cheap, you'll beeline that tech, and so have forges available earlier, making all your subsequent pop rushes that much better.

Since you'll have forges everywhere, an artic mining camp (silver) pays for itself immediately. Also health will be an issue earlier than otherwise.

If you really wanted to try your luck, plan to land Metal Casting as you build the Oracle, and take Machinery as your free tech. More realistically, consider taking Metal Casting as your tech (Sullla is a big proponent of this play, I don't have a reference handy though), and using the Prophets generated by Stonehenge and the Oracle to land CoL and Civil Service, the double back for Construction.

Also note that Machinery is the top tech for a Great Engineer. You are industrious, so the marginal cost of burning a GE on a tech is lower than usual.

An idea I would keep in the front of my head is this - assuming the usual omni generalist starting city location.... Plan to be running Engineering specialists in all of your cities (at least until the city generates it's last engineer). To do this, you'll need Metal Casting, and fairly early on. First Engineer you get goes toward Machinery. Hey presto, Choks (assuming you've picked up Archery and Iron along the way). Remaining engineers typically get attached to the capital (again, your wonder bonus reduces the cost of doing this). The attached Engineer is 3 hammers and 3 beakers. Add a forge, org rel, and that's a 6 hammer kick when building a wonder. Add Bureaucracy, that's another hammer +. Drop Ironworks in here, along with power factory and so on, and it gets really silly.... And you still haven't torn down your cottages to build watermills and workshops.

The Parthenon is a nice match with this, since your parallel engineers bring you Machinery that much more quickly. So I'd be inclined to go through Polytheism, rather than Meditation, on the way to Oracle. The Artist points pollute things a bit, though you can probably reduce the problem by not running an engineer in that city.

Ooh, thunderstorm. Saving to avoid losing changes, more edits to follow

 

[pigswill]

VoU: I'd be grateful if you could clarify how you use prophets for CoL and CS slingshots without getting caught up in monotheism and theology on the way because it sounds a very nifty trick.

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks for the correction, Krikkitone. You can tell that math has never been my strong point. Sand, I'll follow the same pattern as before: the game will have its own thread. Stuge, Qin and a lot of the other leaders in the game were just Civ fanatics centuries ahead of their time.

As for the game play ideas: interesting suggestions, some of them a little counter-intuitive. This is one of my first times playing as an industriuous civ. Generating GEs and using them for techs/specialists is not an approach most people use, but as VoU says, with the Industrious trait, not going the obvious route with a GE (hurrying a Wonder) is less costly.

The route I take on the tech tree will probably depend very much upon the map. We'll still be playing continents, so that usually means a large land mass with 3 or 4 neighbours. That likely means a fair amount of warmongering just to get access to certain resources and a decent amount of room for cities.

On the other hand: in the Mao game, if I'd had a more reasonable neighbour to my south (i.e. NOT Monty), I probably would have considered sealing off that half of the continent and pursuing a cultural win. So I'm not ruling it out. But as I also said in the Mao game post-mortem, I think it's best to see the lay of the land before committing to a victory condition.

I've been lucky enough to have stone and copper close by in the last two games, which supported both wonder-building AND early warmongering. We'll see if my luck holds out. I feel I may be getting addicted to the Pyramids and it would be interesting to see how I manage a game where I don't build them. Of course, since I'm Industrious, I have a pretty good chance at building any Wonder.

Stonehenge is a very attractive early wonder because it's cheap even without stone (more so with Industrious), and very useful. I've played a couple of games without it; let me tell you, having to build obelisks or libraries, or constraining your city sites so a critical resource is within its first ring, really puts a crimp on your early game. If I'm a Creative civ I may give it a pass, but if I'm not, I go for it.

Anyway, keep the comments coming!

 

[Cam_H]

VoU: I'd be grateful if you could clarify how you use prophets for CoL and CS slingshots without getting caught up in monotheism and theology on the way because it sounds a very nifty trick.

Trick question?

Do not acquire Masonry.

This, of course, makes getting both The Oracle and Stonehenge more difficult. Masonry is not a prerequisite to Metal Casting, so it's do-able.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I've played 4 attempts as Qin today. The first three went like this: Hemmed in quickly, Beaten to a wonder I want then Axerushed by an unreasonable neighbour (Monty once and Catherine twice). Once I started losing cities, I exitted right out, sought some privacy and let fly with a nasty string of obscenities.

The fourth, Sitll hemmed in quickly, beaten to the Pyramids, Great Library, and about two or three other nice wonders--usually late in production. Beaten to all the free GP techs. Then the time limit elapses 4 turns before my spaceship is ready to launch...

This could be tough...

 

[Nares]

This could be tough...

Dunno what difficulty you're on, but these are Prince.

As for the strategy for ALC3, I'd go with the Machinery slingshot(by The Oracle), followed by fast research to CoL and early CKN attacks (assuming you find Iron =p).

Forget about GP farms for the moment. It's certainly not Qin's specialty. Utilize Financial to compensate for the lower research you should be running (because you're delaying CoL).

 

[Nares]

Trick question?

Do not acquire Masonry.

This, of course, makes getting both The Oracle and Stonehenge more difficult. Masonry is not a prerequisite to Metal Casting, so it's do-able.

Masonry or Alphabet.

Just do what I did, and make a GP game for studying GP tech progressions. You can get surprisingly far without researching either of those two techs.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

VoU: I'd be grateful if you could clarify how you use prophets for CoL and CS slingshots without getting caught up in monotheism and theology on the way because it sounds a very nifty trick.

I think we can give you a bit more detail on this....

First note: Great People can only be used to research a tech that you are currently capable of researching yourself. Furthermore, if you research the tech that the GP offers, the GP will then offer you a different one. So you can save the GP for something good.

Second note: each type of GP has a particular FLAVOR associated with it; each tech has a score in each of the different flavors. So GP end up researching whatever tech is available that has the highest score in their flavor.

The practical upshot of this is that you can predict what techs a GP will give you.

Now Prophets in particular place a very high priority on the religious techs. But they don't place a high priority on Masonry. So if you can research up to Priesthood and Writing (having picked up both Polytheism and Meditation), the next tech that the Prophet will give you is Code of Laws. If you've gotten up to Code of Laws, then the Prophet will research almost all of Civil Service for you. Research Monarchy on your own, and the next Prophet will research Philosophy.

After that, the techs stop being particularly useful.

The most common combination I've seen is to research Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, build the Oracle to grab Code of Laws, then use the first Prophet spawned by the Oracle to secure Civil Service. On easier difficulty levels, you have time to research CoL and use the Oracle to grab Civil Service, so the trick with the Prophets isn't so important.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Continuing my earlier thoughts

Metal Casting suggests the Colossus, which is a pretty good deal for a financial civ with lots of ocean tiles. If you have lots of cities on the coast, then the Great Lighthouse would also be nice (possibly in the same place, so that you can combine the Merchant points). The light house requires Masonry, though, which puts your Great Prophets back onto their normal research path. I think my general feeling here is that you plan to skip the lighthouse unless your initial position features seafood (raising the priority of fishing).

Hunting is not one of my favorite techs, unless you get it early (or are next door to Genghis). But it is on the path to Chokonu. If the deer or ivory are immediately at hand, I might research this first, then spit out a couple scouts (a reasonable "growth build" for your initial city).

The solution to the culture issue isn't clear to me. Qin is industrious, so of course StoneHenge is an option. Failing that, you can just build obelisks. If you are going the Oracle route, you'll already have two of the prereqs for Writing, and the Capital as production uber city means that everything else is commerce, so rushing libraries for culture probably makes a lot of sense.

 

[Sisiutil]

Okay, I've started the game thread HERE. Go to it, gang!

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I actually dropped from Noble to Warlord after the three losses. Today's game I'm in the 1700's, and well en route to a Cultural win. I may look for a space race win as Plan B...

 

[Nares]

The most common combination I've seen is to research Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, build the Oracle to grab Code of Laws, then use the first Prophet spawned by the Oracle to secure Civil Service. On easier difficulty levels, you have time to research CoL and use the Oracle to grab Civil Service, so the trick with the Prophets isn't so important.

With Philosphical trait, it's possible to spawn a Great Prophet early enough to use for CoL if you build Stonehenge (and perhaps augment with a Priest specialist).

 

[Gnarfflinger]

One thing I've gotten away with was using the Oracle for CoL, and a Great prophet for Theology. That has given me an early edge on a cultural situation, and the early religions (and the Shrines when I get them) also let me ramp up the science when I need a crucial tech...

Maybe that is less effective on higher levels...

 

[Sisiutil]

One thing I've gotten away with was using the Oracle for CoL, and a Great prophet for Theology. That has given me an early edge on a cultural situation, and the early religions (and the Shrines when I get them) also let me ramp up the science when I need a crucial tech...

Maybe that is less effective on higher levels...

That's a combination of gambits I'm coming to like as well, but more for warmongering than culture. CoL means you have Courthouses to make the conquered cities cheaper to keep, and Theology gives you Theocracy, which is a warmonger's favourite civic.

And spreading one of those religions to another civ can give you valuable intel. If you convert them, they usually won't jump on you while you're busy beating up on someone else.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

I'm actually trying another game as Qin, this time more military. I've had to delay my offence until Macemen because I wanted a guage on Genghis Khan (Where to invade, what he can respond with...)

I think I'm the only one with metal on my continent, so I'm taking out Saladin first (He's the most annoying, always wanting me to adapt HIS religeon, give him my copper, give him tech but not wanting to trade his tech...)

I've got one city and am moving on a second as I write this...