[K-mod] (1) The Chinese King

[Htadus]

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.

You friendly disagreement is what is this all about Um, and it is very welcome. I know the prevailing feeling is that food in the outer ring is weak. But the way I look at it, in 10, 15 or 30 turns with the free Monument, the city will have the access to the pigs and that site have plenty of hammer potential. I am aonly sorry I did not see it early. Otherwise I would have it planted much sooner in my game because that city become a powerhouse in no time. It had several FP's, marble and PH and several plains tiles for workshops.

 

[Um the Muse]

The way that I see it, food has two uses: it lets a city grow in a reasonable time frame and it can support other citizens. Therefore, a food resource is very necessary before you get a granary and very useful if you want production. It's rarely useless even when your other tiles are 2 or more, but it's not nearly as important. Ditto about using one after you've reached size four (when you're 2 pop whipping) or happiness cap (if you're not whipping in that city). It's useful, but unnecessary.

Htadus' Yellow is slow to get started, but decent after that. By the way, Htadus, where's this marble that you speak of? The only source that I can see in the screenshot is nowhere near Yellow. Also, workshops are stronger on grassland tiles than plains tiles, since you get an extra food at the cost of only a single hammer. It's just like the strength of a grassland hill versus a plains hill.

 

[K.Murx]

Regarding settling: Remember that cities cost maintenance. My eastern border is under pressure from Mansa already, so I need to place my cities now. Sure, I could squeeze in a couple more, but I would risk Mansa squeezing in as well - and imO, I do not have a shortage of good city spots.


I played till turn 90. Pretty active round...
First, Mansa was helpful as always:

Spoiler :

This gave me all the worker techs I needed, and opened traderoutes.


Then, just idly browsing the map, I noticed this:

Spoiler :

Yeah, sure, those archers are for defense, right Julius? And you have no nefarious plans with that iron, no?

Preemptive strike (netted me two workers as well):

Spoiler :

And two archers die to my chariots, one chariot withdraws

Spoiler :

A couple turns later I take peace, just to re-declare after the ten turn limit to pillage the iron again. Killed three archers in the field, and since then, we're at war - by now I have an axe to counter possible spearmen (Julius has copper somewhere) and two horse archers. And I'm heading for mathematics -> construction next... Bye, bye, Julius then. Along the way, I have converted to confucianism (Mansa), just because I can.

Sometime in between, Toku has declared war on Mansa, so that one's occupied as well. No idea what Hanni is doing, but his score is not really increasing - so I'm happpy.

State of the land:

Spoiler :

Demographics T90

Spoiler :

[edit] Still no time to do a detailed writeup regarding strategy, although it seems pretty straightforward now. Btw, I fixed the "State of the land" image.

 

[Htadus]

No arguments about food is king.

After my 3rd or 4th city, all my subsequent cities I toggle on the food button under the city manager while building a Grainary and when I remember get whipped. Ditto with Forge, then I let them get to happy limit (or 1-2 unhappy for one more whip) and turn off food button. (lazy man's city managment I suppose) This city grows in no time and then become a production power house working all available hammer tiles to balance food. I too would prefer to use grass tiles when possible but in this game I will take the plains and use them as well as possible.

As for marble, I was not refering to the yellow spot. It is to the squeze in city I was recommending. But I was off on that too. So forget wthat marble. I am going to take a nap....need rest

 

[K.Murx]

Played to turn 130. Things are looking quite well.

Mansa traded Monarchy for HBR, and I switched into HR and slavery. Got construction on turn... 105 or so, followed by currency while I built up my army. A barb city had popped right next to my dream city spot, which I used to obtain a medic 2 chariot (and the city). I also caught a small stack of Julius in the field, which provided me with a GG, which I used to turn the medic into a supermedic.
Antium fell after a brief assault, but was surprisingly well defended by about 10 units within. A relief force of another 10 units had to be stopped in a bloody battle on the hills north of Antium by 3 archers, an axe and a spearman of mine (all but one archer perished). I am currently advancing on rome, which is defended by another 7-8 units, including a praetorian - no idea where that one comes from, as I monitor two sources of iron. Guess there must be a third somewhere.

Toku and Mansa are still fighting (good!), and Mansa has converted to Judaism. He also kindly spread Judaism to (almost) all my cities, so I converted recently as well.

Here is the state of the land:
South

Spoiler :

North

Spoiler :

Here is the military advisor, showing my units:

Spoiler :

Save attached, as always.

Plans: War weariness is becoming a problem, so I might take a break from the war after taking Rome and research Calendar - unless Julius vassalizes after the fall of Rome (doubtful). Anyway, Julius is as good as dead.
Next: Lib beeline, cuirstomp Mansa, steamroll map, win.

[edit]
Continued playing. Turn 201, 37 Cuirs and two fortified spies are ready to stomp Mansa.

Although I almost lost Lib to Mansa, had to sell Education to Hannibal to get enough money so I could build research everywhere. Too close call there.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Love the idea of this thread, but K-Mod on Monarch? No thanks. Upload a Noble save and then you're talking

It would be nice to figure out more strategies for K-Mod. For example, I find Chariot/HA rushes rarely work effectively since the AI is now significantly more intelligent at building Spearmen to counter them. I'm also trying to work out some effective naval strategies because while they seemed almost unnecessary in vanilla BTS, K-Mod AI seems very fond of launching massive sneak attacks by sea once they've got Galleons - frustrating because unless you've got an effective navy yourself, you won't even see them before they strike and all of a sudden someone will DOW and take a city in the same turn.

So I'm interested to see how other people do with it.

 

[K.Murx]

The game is over - AP win in turn 215 (or 216?). Mansa had nothing on my Cuirs, and capitulated after four cities fell. Toku (who had vassalized to Mansa) capitulated the same turn.
I was wishing for a "I win" button, facing the tedious business of regrouping my cuirs to attack Hannibal, who had just 2/5ths of my military strength. Then the AP election popped up.

I will add the final save later, as I am on a different machine currently.



All in all this was a very easy map, with Mansa as a neighbour and the possibility to keep iron out of Julius hands. I did find the stack composition much improved compared to the base game, and Julius actually fought back. Usually, I see smaller stacks on emperor.
Tactical AI may still be improved - e.g., archers under threat should not move onto flatland, and fortified archers on a hill should not be attacked. These mistakes cost Julius roughly 20 units over the course of the game, which is quite a lot.

Mansa still went on the silly Guilds - Banking - Engineering - etc. tech path. If he would have "wanted" Lib, there would have been no way I could have denied it to him.

Tile improvements of the AI were actually somewhat sensible - no grassland hill cottages. Still found a lot of unimproved tiles and unchopped forests around Julius cities - this might be due to the war.


Well, next up is probably one of Big & Small, Tectonics, or maybe the Planet Generator as mapscript, and emperor difficulty. Not sure about the leader yet - probably Elisabeth, Shaka or Sitting Bull. It's been a very long time since I played Lizzie...
Ah, and a house rule: No more cuirs!

[edit]
Added my last (auto)save.

 

[Htadus]

Congrats on the AP. Emperror should be fun. I will finish my game after finishing the current WOTM and GOTM.

No cuirs = Elapults?