[K-mod] (1) The Chinese King

[K.Murx]

Hello everyone,
this is intended as a little series on K-mod v1.28 (Forum thread here). As always, any advice and help is welcome!
Planned are three different games on the three consecutive difficulties monarch, emperor and immortal (last one just for fun). I can usually win my BTS Bull/Buffy emperor games largely on autopilot by now (unless the RNG/map generator screws me), but things have become a bit repetitive. Hope that the better AI of K-Mod will change that...

So, to start off easy and get a feel for the mod, I chose the following settings for the first game:

Monarch difficulty
Small map
Inland sea
Normal speed, no huts, no events, no tech brokering
4 opponents (one more than standard for small maps)
Qin Shi Huang (IND/PRO).

The leader choice was due to great starting techs, one extremely useful trait and a trait that... well, does not hurt, and a very decent UU.
Btw, protective gives +100% build rate for security bureau in K-Mod - well, guess that is an improvement. If I build security bureaus.

Save is attached, needs K-Mod, naturally.

Starting location:

Spoiler :

Decent location.
Warrior SW seems obvious.
Think moving to the forested plains hill 2E is a good move - one more riverside, the grass is greener, more forests and the early production bonus will easily offset the moving cost.

Tech: AH -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery?

Expected break points: T2 found city, T13 worker done, T17 farmed corn, T21 City growth, T23 (?) pasture complete... whatever. It's monarch, after all.

Demographics:

Spoiler :

So... 4 AI's, at least one with 14k and at least one with 20k. Average is 16k - That means the two "unknown" AI's have in total 30k soldiers. Cause there are only 2k steps (techs Hunting and mining give 2k, and AI has two (special) archers), this means one AI has 16k soldiers, and the other has 14k as well.
AI 1: 20k
AI 2: 16k
AI 3,4: 14k
It follows that AI 1 is Mansa Musa,
AI 2 is (I guess) someone who starts with the wheel but not with hunting and is not Hammurabi or Mansa -> ergo Justy, Saladin, Egyptian, French, Toku, Ottoman or Gilga. Hope it's Louis or Hatty. Probably not.
AI 3, 4 are... whoever.


Sorry for the image size. Will resize next time. Or you could all start to use opera

 

[K.Murx]

Seems like I played turn 0 perfectly Okay, here's the next set to turn 27:

Scouted the land, revealing pretty decent land:

Spoiler :

We are in the SW corner of the map. To the NW is Julius (thanks, RNG!) and to the east is Mansa Musa. There are elephants and horses, but there is no copper. Plenty of food in the east, not so much to the NW. There is also marble, and we are industrious -> Wonderspam imminent (after settling the land).

Dotmap:

Spoiler :

The colours indicate settling priorities: red -> first, yellow -> second, green -> third.

Red is to get the horses, which will give me chariots for barb defense and scouting. It will have to be fed by the two flood plains until fishing is researched.

Yellow is to block Julius from the elephants and the calendar stuff. The location marked is obviously a placeholder - I need to scout that are for food and (preferably) a hill.

Green is a likely GP farm. Might build Moai there as well.

Long term I am unsure what to do with those gems. Probably settle a city on the desert and farm some grassland?

Capital:

Spoiler :

Settler due in 4 turns, then two more warriors for our scouting needs. Then either settler or worker.

Thoughts on strategy:
My guess is that I am in for some sort of war with Julius. Going for machinery would probably be a good idea, then (although elephants could stomp praetorians pretty well). Oracling metal casting would be a nice step towards that - but I am not so sure if I can fit the oracle in, there is a lot of land to settle. Maybe if I forgo blocking Julius, but that does not sound like a good idea. On the other hand, it's monarch, right? So I'll gamble and leave Julius unblocked for the time being.

Therefore, I'll chop the oracle. This means to tech to priesthood after pottery is in, and requires a second worker from the capital for chopping duty.

Save attached.

 

[noto2]

Hey there I just started playing with Kmod 3 weeks ago. I used to play and win regularly on emperor and now I've lost 19/20 games on Kmod...on monarch. The AI is amazing and I'm really struggling to get a monarch win (my only win was a time victory in a ridiculous game) so I'll be following this definitely.
Now, about the game - blocking usually doesn't work with Kmod, the AI will just build behind your city, so be careful about that. I love QSH, fun leader to play. If I were you I'd try to chop out the pyramids and play a settled specialist economy using that marble to build the great library/parthenon/etc. You could also get the Sistine, remember culture is much more powerful in Kmod and city flipping is easier.
So my vote is to get the horses for chariots, those and archers can defend your empire, while you work on chopping out the pyramids after settling your 2nd city.

 

[strijder20]

Subscribing.

 

[K.Murx]

Hm, good to know. So I will definitely settle the NW land closer to my borders. I wonder if the "war target" routines are also modified, i.e., settling a hill border city is useless?

I think the Pyramids are too much of a gamble. In a couple test games the mids went really early (compared to BTS emperor), and I think there are a lot of other things to do. If I had stone I might try, as the failgold would be worth it, but without stone I think settlers and workers are a not necessarily a better, but a more flexible investment.

Next update will be tomorrow evening (GMT+1), as there is a local chess tournament.

 

[Um the Muse]

Looks interesting. Might I suggest moving Red over one to grab the clams right away? If you insist on Marble, then I would build the city on the plains hill to grab the gems. Also, looks like Yellow might have to be two separate cities, neither of which look all that interesting right now. Maybe one city could steal the plains cow and grab the elephants. Cows+grassland farm lets you work both elephants, for a total of 10 hammers at size four. Not great, but good enough. The capital can then farm all that flatland with judicious whipping or you can build cottages.

Moai Statues are pretty expensive without stone. I don't normally recommend them.

 

[Smilingrogue]

I am with Um the Muse on the Clams city. Consider settling it one East. If I were you, I would settle a city one South of the gems. Riverside grassland gems is a very nice tile, but looks like you have jungle to chop before you can mine it. In the meantime, I would chop the forests in that city's BFC for a Great Lighthouse. Those riverside grasslands can be cottaged up for a commerce city that will serve well throughout the game and it will secure the marble that you lose by moving the Clams city one East.

I am not familiar with K-mod, so disregard the GLH bit if it can't be had on monarch in this mod. Good luck!

 

[Um the Muse]

The Great Lighthouse is obtainable, but it's a lot more expensive than normal (something like 1.5x the normal cost). I don't really recommend it on this map.

 

[Htadus]

I downloaded this mod and played this save in my typical aggressive settling manner. The biggest shock to the system was seeing how my Oracle city loose tiles to the nearby capitals cullture.

Other than that, I did not see too much of a difference and thought the maintanance was actually better.

K.Murx, are there other significant differences?

As for city placement, do a little more exploring if possible.

 

[Htadus]

I just realized the map was small. No wonder I had a culture issue settling next to an AI considering what I just read about the culture modification in this mod.

Poor move. I think I will retry tonight with minor settling adjustment.

Lets see how well chariot rush work in this mod.

 

[Htadus]

I chose not to replay and continued the game.

The culture dynamics is interesting but the UI is too much of a change to continue. Seems like a reasonable Mod. To bad the UI is different.

Spoiler :

Mansa asked me to join a war against his eastern neighbor and I joined in the phony war.

My aggressive settling perturbed JC and he dowed and lost a few units. He is ready for peace but I am 13 turns from Machinary and have traded for construction.

This game is very winable.

 

[K.Murx]

You can readjust the UI to BUG/BULL standards in the options menu - no idea why that is not the standard option, but well.

For something completely different: Chess keeps me busy, so this thread will be continued on Monday.

 

[Htadus]

I Played along for till 1410 AD.

Spoiler :

It was non stop war with SE guy and JC.
Eventually left JC with 1 city and his neigbore took him out of the game.
I build many Wonders and raced Mansa to One critical tech to another. Discoverd Music and Liberalism on the same turn as he did. We just completed the Taj and in our second GA.

So far the most critical part of this game is the culture mechanics. But I am about to apply cuiras to solve that problem. I will not back stab Mansa. First will go after NE guy from north via land and sea.

 

[K.Murx]

Next turnset, save attached.

I accidentally settled the plot suggested by Um/smilingrogue even though I have no intention to research fishing any time soon - got distracted. Anyway, trade route commerce never hurts.

Scouting commences, although the scout that went NW got eaten by a bear.

Mansa's Land:

Spoiler :

Lucky bastard got a (almost) two gold start.

What is known currently about Julius land (not much due to the grues):

Spoiler :

And I met Toku and Hannibal. Looks like I am in for an interesting game AI wise.

Current settling plan / land overview:

Spoiler :

In six turns, Priesthood will be researched, a settler will be available, and my first chariot will leave the garage. Two warriors have been completed in Peking and Shanghai and have not moved yet - will probably use them for spawnbusting. One warrior each is scouting S and NW, the starting warrior is in the far east. Could use more workers, but the oracle will take priority - Shanghai will produce one after the chariot is finished. The worker S of Peking is already pre-chopping for the oracle.

Btw, chopping the forest N of Peking was an accident - does anyone know how to re-enable the "prechopping"-feature that makes workers stop one turn before the forest is chopped?


Strategy:
Julius is Hindu, Mansa is Buddhist. I am really not interested in an early war, and my counters to Praetorians are still a long way off - therefore I will try to get Hinduism and suck up to Julius. Mansa is the much juicier war target with all that gold, anyway - and he will not declare on me as long as I do nothing to piss him off (I think). BtW, some AIs can declare at friendly in K-Mod, and I would guess Julius is one of them.

Regardless,the plan after oracling metal casting for forges is cataphant/elepult against Mansa (Chu Ko Nus against Skirmishers does not sound so hot).

Tech path for now will be priesthood -> pottery -> fishing -> writing (OB with Julius) -> Sailing (Hindu spread from J) -> whatever (hunting for phants? Something like that).

 

[Htadus]

I recommend that you do not trust JC. Or do not approach his culture. Unfortunately sooner or later he will found a city in your face.

Chokunu with anti archery promo is very usefull even taking cities. Specially if JC come knocking with or without promotions..

Mansa can be your only true friend in this game. If you take him out make sure you are ready for the next AI and cover you back from JC.

 

[K.Murx]

Mansa might become a friend, but he is almost always no threat, and tech-trade anyway. So I can either get a friend who will usually not be that helpful, or I can lower my threat level significantly. Toku and Hannibal are too far away to be of any concern currently.

I played to turn 60. Hanni build the great wall (I am very happy with that), and I got the Oracle (T52 or so) and Stonehenge about 5 turns afterwards - I actually wanted failgold, and am very much surprised that I still got it.
I reloaded a couple times - three times due to the chopping problem mentioned before, and once because I forgot to time the Oracle with pottery (prerequisite for metal casting).

Signed OB with Mansa Musa, writing for me is still one turn off. Bejing and Shanghai are building settlers/workers.

Settling plan:

Spoiler :

Red got promoted due to Mansa settling nearby. Btw, I have actually three workers - there's two farming the floodplains.
And I have a dream:

Spoiler :

Although there's no way this will happen Man, what a commerce city... 11 riverside cottages, a gem, two dyes... Well, maybe later, after JC is out of the picture.

Demographics look decent:

Spoiler :

First in production, second in land, gold and pop.


Unless someone has a better idea, the next turns will be settling, settling, settling, settle Great Priest to pay for more settling, and settling. And sucking up to Julius.

 

[Htadus]

Settling, I am wondering why you like sities without fresh water and with many FP's. These cities can barely grow.

Also allow me to suggest that you relocate a few dots and squeeze in another city.

White Dot: move 1 left(west)
Yellow Dot: on to PH 1 2 Left and make it a production city with farms and mines.
Squeeze in a city 3 S od Red dot. Hybrid city working pigs and farms and runing a specialist or two as needed.

BTW your gem/dye city get -2 health from floodplains (permanant) It will take forever to grow without farms.

 

[Um the Muse]

I agree with Htadus about White. I don't see what he's talking about with yellow because it looks to me like 1 Left is a mountain, but I do agree that there's no reason that I can see for settling on the floodplain.

I cringe, thinking about settling on top of a grass hill. It's not necessarily bad play, but it's unfortunate when it happens. That plus the fact that the pigs would have to be in the second ring makes me want to look for another place for Red. Again, this is a matter of opinion. Still, I personally think that I would prefer Red 1 Up and building another city on the plains tile halfway between Red and Yellow. Red can run two specialists and work both grassland hills.

The new city can borrow the pigs until it is size four with a granary. At that point, all it needs are four grassland farms. This city will be a military city. You should whip it whenever it is about to grow to size 5.

 

[Htadus]

I agree with Htadus about White. I don't see what he's talking about with yellow because it looks to me like 1 Left is a mountain,

snip

I fixed my error. It was meant to be 2 left on PH.

BTW he has SH built. There is nothing wrong with placing a city with food on the outer ring. He will have it soon enough. That is why I recomended squezing in another city 3 below the red dot.

I do agree red dot on the GH feels like a waste. No fresh water on top of that and FP's.

 

[Um the Muse]

Oh yeah, that's my inexperience with Normal speed speaking. On Marathon speed, SH still takes a city 30 turns to get to the outer ring. That's plenty of time for a city in the inner ring to grow to size 2.

I don't particularly care for Htadus' new Yellow, with all due respect to him. A city with no food resources takes a long time to develop, and for what? Still, I guess you can use it as a buffer between you and the next guy.