I got a crush on Wang Kon.

InFlux5

King
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May 25, 2003
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Wang Kon is fast becoming my favorite leader. Korea was a civ that I originally scoffed at, mostly because of the Protective trait. Some civs make better use of Protective than others. China, for example, gains access to free promotions on its powerful Cho-Ko-Nus; so there's a synergy there.

In Korea's case, Protective may or may not be all that useful in a single-player game. In multi-player, however, it can be a real boon. And in both cases, it acts as an insurance policy against early attack while you beeline to Construction, your cottages working over-time thanks to the Financial trait.

What this means is that, even if Wang is boxed in to 1 or 2 cities, he can quickly raise an army of several Hwacha - quickly being the key word. The fact that these amazing units require no resources is also key. What Wang Kon has is an extremely effective warring strategy that is totally independent of starting land or resources.

By the time you field some of your shiny new siege weapons, you can expect little more than a few Archers in enemy cities, and a defensive bonus of no more than 40% in the capital.

The potential weak point is lack of production. Of course, Slavery always works if you have lots of food but few hammers. And the Hwacha is such a great unit that you don't need that many of them. (In multi-player, one would do well to choke Korea ASAP is he's anywhere near you; delay his Construction beeline, and then delay his production if he ever gets there.)

Then finally, there's the Seowon. Consolidate the gains made by your destructive sound and light show with super-charged universities, and an economy that's humming with extra-lucrative cottages! There is great synergy here from the moment you start building cottages - it's just harder to see than with some other leaders.

So that's my salvo to Wang Kon, in my view a leader who is strong in every situation, even multi-player. Maybe I'm too enamored with the Hwacha - after all, it just gets a bonus to melee, right? But it essentially replaces Axemen due to that fact, making your early-game strategy much less dependent on bronze. Bring along a War Elephant or a couple of Archers for defense, and you can walk all over your ancient-era foes.
 
I agree, Korea is starting to become a favorite civ of mine as well. Whatcha gonna do when Hwachamania runs wild on you?
 
sounds interesting. I'll have to give him a try. I've almost always played as one of the two german leaders, but recently have began having lots of fun with rameses.
 
I have actually played around with a strategy for Korea that involves getting oracle then taking construction.

It worked pretty well the time I pulled it off. And had construction super early. Then while I built an army, I self researched code of laws. It timed out perfect that when I was ready to go conquering, I had the ability to whip court houses into the newly conquered cities.

It was really tight on the timeline, cottages on flood plains really helped out. Barbs were a bit of a problem. It would have been way more efficient if I had better fogbusters. But every other civ was to my south, and I had a great expanse of tundra to my north. If not for that it would have been even more devastating.
 
So that's my salvo to Wang Kon, in my view a leader who is strong in every situation, even multi-player. Maybe I'm too enamored with the Hwacha - after all, it just gets a bonus to melee, right? But it essentially replaces Axemen due to that fact, making your early-game strategy much less dependent on bronze. Bring along a War Elephant or a couple of Archers for defense, and you can walk all over your ancient-era foes.

If you do have Ivory then any civs beeline to Construction is a big danger for the others. If not, as you said, Hwachas are only getting a melee bonus apart from the catapults. I'd expect human players in multiplayer to counter by sending lots of horse archers to kill any forming hwacha stack if they know Korea is nearby. You still want to rely on some melee units for adequate protection, so you're not spared searching for metals.

The best situation you can have is copper for a few spears, archers and hwachas. (not mentioning ivory) Even then the human opponent should secure horses and try to pillage the copper mines. You can protect your cities with protective archers, but not the surrounding tiles.

Anyway, I've never played multiplayer, but I expect a much more brutal play is needed if you want to win.
 
If you do have Ivory then any civs beeline to Construction is a big danger for the others.

Absolutely. But what the Hwacha does is make the Axeman redundant. This means you mainly need bronze just for Spearmen defenders - but ivory works just as well. In other words, where most civs need bronze, Korea needs bronze or ivory. And in reality you don't need either one, because Archers will work for defense.

It's kind of a silly point, but it makes sense in practice. Putting off BW isn't a problem. You can found your 2nd city wherever the best commerce is and still be confident that you'll have a strong invasion force.

As for multi-player, I admit I can mostly speak only hypothetically. But pillaging works both ways: you can pillage horses, which takes away their counter, but they can't pillage away your Hwachas.

And if at any point you find yourself in dire straits, you always have your beefed-up Archers to fall back on. (Again, Protective definitely shines more in multiplayer.)
 
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