Korea?

@dagriggstarr, unfortunately, just surviving is already a condition to winning ;-) So that doesn't make sense as a UHV. As you can see, I already did put in the "education and science" theme with the research, one could remodel it to included the Interent as a symptom of multiplayer gaming ;-)

@zagoroth Yes, you're right with the UP. But I'm too less familiar with the exact implications of one city and research to make a balanced suggestion. One could also tie the bonus gold to "science buildings". Like Power of Education: Science Buildings (from libraries to universities and monasteries) give that and that commerce or beakers or hammers more. This way, the bonus would have to be earned. Unfortunately, it could allow you to become a monster if not playing occ.

I had always thought of a unforced OCC: If you want the UHV, you cannot have more than one cities. A forced one seems to be too restrictive (but on the other hand allows for a more powerful UP)
 
Last year, when the subject came up, I suggested:

* Never lose Seoul.
* Be the first to discover Printing Press.
* Conquer the Japanese islands.
* Build a Confucian Academy (by a certain date, perhaps)
* Build the Internet.

Reasoning behind these:

Seoul: Kinda obvious and boring.
Printing Press: Koreans like to claim that they invented movable type before anyone else.
Conquer Japan: Indulge Korean fantasies.
Academy: One of the pre-unification kingdoms did colonize/conquer large swaths of Manchuria. An Academy would be one way of forcing that. It would require them to found at least 3 more cities (goodbye OCC), and Manchuria is the logical place to expand into. Once the Academy is built, of course, there would be no need to hang on to the cities.
Internet: This was my attempt to to turn 3Miro's "Win ten Starcraft championships" joke into a serious possibility.

I like the idea of building a fleet, especially if the UU were the Turtle Ship, a proto-ironclad. It might replace the caravel, being as strong as a Frigate but confined to coastal waters. Which, yes, defeats the purpose of a caravel, but would be the right time period, and would be useful (as it was in history) against Japanese naval incursions.
 
My ideas for the Korean UHV
1) Controle Manchuria by 700 BC
2) Build a Buddhist/Confusian Cathedral, or maybe just any cathedral, it should be already very hard having 4 cities with the same religion for Korea
3) Build the Internet (raise of the electronic companies in S-Korea)/ For a BtS version only, build a corporation
 
I like SadoMachu's victory conditions. I see Korea as having a futuristic HV (Internet or Apollo Mission). Not losing a city could be a condition since that would be huge feat for Korea with Mongolia, Japan, and China sorrounding them.

This is a great Mod btw, I do not mean to knock it. I just thought it would be neat to add more Civs in the next addition.
 
I think we can all agree on the "education and science" theme. Founding the internet or something alike can be found everywhere.

now the control manchuria by 700 BC (BC? when does korea then start?) seems to be nonsense as there is no competition for this and by 700 BC the only difficulty would be to produce a settler fast enough.

The cathedral condition on the other hand has been proposed already and seems reasonable, as do the ones mxsz proposed.

Again, in the end it boils down to the question wether you want a OCC-civilization or a "normal one". The other steps would then be to determine:
1) Start date, spawn zone, "modifiers"
2) UHVs
3) UP and adapting if necessary UU and UB and may be at last
4) work the leader and his personality...
 
sorry, should be 700 AD to contole Manchuria,

starting age 57 BC, maybe a bit later

but what to do with the LH, because it's a Chinese LH now
 
Take the Leaderhead away from China and give them Taizong or something.
 
I've been sufficiently intrigued and inspired by this discussion to start playing around with some "Korean" test games. I don't mean coding—I'm not that good—but by using WB to mimic what a Korean game might look like, so as to spot some potential issues for further discussion. I only played for about an hour, but it was enough to spot a couple of issues that should probably get some attention.

I used the Maya for my test, choosing them for two reasons. First, the Maya start date (c. 100AD, IIRC, is reasonably close to the start of the Korean "Three Kingdoms" period, which is when Korean history, and political/diplomatic interaction with China and Japan, begins to come into historical focus. The other reasonable alternatives are either a Korean prehistory start (c. 2250 BC) or the rise of the Goryeo dynasty in AD 900. The first seems way early to me; they would, I think, be the first post-initial civilization to spawn, and would give the player much more of a chance to turn Korea into an unhistorical rival to the Chinese. The last seems very late, and modeling a late start in a game that might involve serious flippage of Chinese cities would be a complication too far (at least for this initial run). Moreover, the Three Kingdoms period was when Korea expanded into Manchuria, which is one possible UHV that could combine simple expansion and conquest, and so a Three Kingdoms start would be congruent with such a UHV.

Second, Rhye himself suggested a Korean modmod use the Maya as the Koreans.

So, I launched a Maya game (in Monarch), opened WB, copied the Maya initial units into the Korean peninsula, erased the original units, modified the reveal map, and then exited and saved. Naturally, stability is going to be an issue, since I'm playing the Maya outside their area, but oh well.

The attached atlas (copied from the RFC area atlas) shows my starting location as a green dot. Red and white shaded areas show (more or less) the cultural areas of China and Japan in this launch. A charming neighborhood, no? :D

My initial moves/set up: I started them at Hanseong with 2 Settlers, and 3 Warriors. I had also used WB to give myself a Confucian missionary. I want to test out the "build an Academy" UHV, and relying on natural religion spread seemed like relying too much on chance, at least in a test game. The missionary was the only change I made to the original Maya starting lineup of units and techs. (More about which in a bit.)

For the first game, I just decided to try for SadoMacho's "control Manchuria by AD700." How to define "Manchuria" and define "control"? On the attached atlas I've drawn two possible areas. If you want to be generous, you might make "Manchuria" their union; if restrictive, you might make it their intersection. It's an inhospitable region, but at least the marshes are offset with a generous supply of forests, and Korea is rich with health-generating resources.

As for "control," I decided to try out first by taking a page from the Roman UHV, and define it as "build three cities." This would also have the advantage of connecting with a "build an Academy" UHV. I had a second settler, which I settled on the coast at Wonsan/Hamhong, which I guess is technically part of Korea. I was easily able to chop two more settlers and settle along the Amur river in two spots by turn 173, which is AD 500.

I was able to do this even though I did not have Bronze Working, which I had to research first, which brings me to the first issue this limited exercise raised.

What initial techs should Korea have? As faux-Mayans, I started with Agriculture and Fishing but without Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, or Iron Working. Maybe that makes sense for the Maya, but does it make sense for the Koreans? I don't think they should start with all the techs the Chinese are likely to have, but should they at least have the Japanese techs, and those techs Japan is likely to have acquired?

The second, related, issue has to do with defensive units. Japan DoWed on China shortly after I launched, which is to be expected. Naturally, I was in the middle, but I only had Warriors, and the test UHV had me scrambling for Settlers. Perhaps foolishly, I rather alienated both sides by telling Qin and Tokugawa each to go sit on a tack, as it seemed to me I was going to be on the front lines if I joined either side, and would quickly get smashed. To make things even more fun, I also launched in the midst of a massive barbarian invasion. Now, as the faux-Mayans I have Holkans, which don't require a resource. But if the Koreans don't get a resource-free defensive unit early on, I suspect they are going to have to get or start with Iron Working so they can work the Iron resource they have nearby for Spearman.

I noted a couple of other issues that need exploring before I comment (such as the way that launching four cities in quick succession will kill your economy.) But before I test things any further, I'd like to know what (if any) intuitions people have about what the Koreans should start with tech-wise, as that will powerfully affect strategy and game play.
 

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Manchuria actually includes the continuation of the peninsula Korea is on. Thus the nice city square three squares West and one North of your start point would be counted in Manchuria.

Edition: I did a bit of research and from extremely preliminary findings Korea should start with Pottery, Metal Casting (if not Iron Working) and the ability to build horse archers.
 
Manchuria actually includes the continuation of the peninsula Korea is on. Thus the nice city square three squares West and one North of your start point would be counted in Manchuria.

Edition: I did a bit of research and from extremely preliminary findings Korea should start with Pottery, Metal Casting (if not Iron Working) and the ability to build horse archers.

On Rhye's maps, aren't all the UHV areas rectangular? If this is a requirement for defining UHV regions, then a Manchuria that includes the south coast of that region would also encompass most of the peninsula itself.

I rather like the idea of a generously sized Manchuria than includes that sweet, sweet city spot; Korea and China did fight over it during the pre-Kingdom period, IIRC. But I wonder about game play, if it would be too easy with a mega-Manchuria.

Well, OTOH, if you make it big, a player could hardly go wrong in settling Manchuria, the way they can so easily, accidentally settle outside of Rome's or Carthage's UHV areas.

Horse Archers: Horseback Riding is an early tech. You'll have to refresh my memory on Korea and horse archers, though. My surely faulty memory is that it is known that Koreans descended from a horseriding culture based on sartorial clues (traditional dress features elements that would only make sense if they developed from clothes that horsemen wore), but that that skill atrophied and disappeared after they settled the peninsula.

[OT: Is there a mod--would it be possible to make a mod--in which techs were "lost" if certain buildings and units weren't part of the player's repertoire? That is, if the player discovered Horseback Riding, for example, but went ... oh, let us say thirty turns in a row without a Horse Archer, Knight, Curassier, etc., then he would lose that tech and would have to acquire it again?]

Korea definitely needs to have Archery, though. Soon after I posted, I lost three of my four cities to barbarian horse archers because I only had warriors to defend them. (I'm not going to "cheat" by making Holkans.)

So I'm going to start over (same initial save, just WBed to add Archery). New goal is to found four cities by AD 700, and to build a Confucian Academy by 1400. Does that sound overly easy? Probably, though founding four cities so quickly can overwhelm the economy, and the Academy requires some fairly expensive techs.
 
If I was playing that as a real game I would settle Dalian and Seoul as my first two cities, build the three cities in Manchuria, and possibly just let one be captured by barbarians. Also, if the UHV area rectangle was at its most southern point at the Dalian city location then Seoul would not be part of, "Manchuria." Thus if one UHV condition required Seoul then there would be no value in settling in Korea for the Manchuria condition.
 
A Confucian Academy by 1400 is pretty historically accurate.
In 1394, King Taejo (Yi Seong-Gye) adopted Confucianism as Korea's official religion. (He also moved the capital to Hanseong/Seoul and build the Gyeongbokgung Palace)
Is the Mayan UP affecting gameplay at all?
 
After living in Korea for a few years, I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I think a few good UHV conditions would be:
1 - sink a certain number of Japanese ships - Yi Sun-Shin was pretty badass.
2 - Be the first to research "Printing Press" (Mxzs was correct, Koreans really love to claim that, and whether or not it's true, it's a decent UHV condition)
3 - Never lose a city before 1945 - this would be pretty tough in the game - Japan, China and Mongolia all really seem to like that spot of land.

I like the idea of the Confucian Academy, but in order to do so, Korea would no longer be a "one-city challenge", which to me would be the only point of adding it. Not to mention that Korea has never really been able to expand - their history has basically been to either repel invaders or be defeated/vassalize to foreign powers. There isn't enough space on the peninsula in the game to support more than 2 cities either.

The "build x number of ships" is a good idea as well.
 
I like Louis XIV's UHV's the most, but would like to see his first UHV swapped with his later suggestion of X number of ships, as that would stop you having to have a war with Japan.
 
Great comments and questions, very helpful. Keep 'em coming!

If I was playing that as a real game I would settle Dalian and Seoul as my first two cities, build the three cities in Manchuria, and possibly just let one be captured by barbarians. Also, if the UHV area rectangle was at its most southern point at the Dalian city location then Seoul would not be part of, "Manchuria." Thus if one UHV condition required Seoul then there would be no value in settling in Korea for the Manchuria condition.

I would have loved to settle Dalian, but in this game it's solidly Chinese. It does raise the interesting question of whether to muscle up the Korean starting army so that an early war against China is thinkable.

A Confucian Academy by 1400 is pretty historically accurate.
In 1394, King Taejo (Yi Seong-Gye) adopted Confucianism as Korea's official religion. (He also moved the capital to Hanseong/Seoul and build the Gyeongbokgung Palace)
Is the Mayan UP affecting gameplay at all?

I was thinking Taejo when I decided on 1400, but forgot to mention that as the rationale.

On the UP: *smacks forehead* I totally forgot about the Mayan UP, probably because I'm so used to playing civs and strategies where the UP doesn't have such powerful, cumulative influence.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was making a difference. After founding four cities and turning down my Science rate to 30% (both acts I delayed as long as possible), I was still able to tech along at a pretty powerful rate. (Though I'm sure the four scientists I hired after quickly chopping two libraries helped too.) Even without beelining, I was able to reach Music by 1200.

And then one of my four cities flipped when the Mongols spawned. I knew it was coming, but hadn't prepared before I remembered it was coming.

No. The Turkish area around the Black Sea certainly is not.

Another forehead-smacking moment; how could I forget that stupid Black Sea UHV, which has tripped me up multiple times?

* * * * *

Okay, based on the questions here and events in the second test game, here is what I'm thinking for Manchuria (in this test game). See the attached map. Again, white is Japan in the Korean/Mayan game start; red is China; brown is the Mongol spawn area within the proposed Manchurian borders.

EDIT: Oops, crap; just assume I included the Liaodong peninsula (Dalian) inside the Manchurian borders.

It's an expansive treatment of the territory. What with the marshes in the east; the Mongols in the west; and the Chinese (who will likely be squatting in Dalian) in the south, there's not a lot of room for peaceful, long-term colonization. Defined expansively, though, Manchuria does give the player some (hopefully) "interesting choices."

1. Go peaceful (1): This means squeezing three cities in Manchuria and not caring about whether they are economical, since their only purpose is to house necessary temples. Probably a losing strategy over the long term, though.

2. Go peaceful (2): This means building three cities in Manchuria, building temples quickly, researching Music ASAP, and racing to complete an Academy by 1200. That would be an early establishment of "official" Confucianism, but that's okay.

3. Go peaceful (3): Building three cities in Manchuria, accepting the loss of one to the Mongols, and putting a fifth city (for the fourth temple) elsewhere. Like, Australia? Siberia? Well, if people could advocate a Siam strategy for Carthage ...

4. Go warlike (1): This means fighting for control of Dalian (which is historically accurate) so you can fit the other two cities in the non-Mongol portions. This could still be hard, if Beijing's cultural radiation is as expansive as it is likely to be. As noted above, this would argue for giving the Koreans some kind of small starting army.

(BTW, I made one abortive start (screwed up in WB) which suggests just how much territory the Chinese might have under their control: cultural borders reached all the way across northern Korea to touch the Pacific, so that Korean units could not even get into Manchuria without an open borders agreement. The more expansive the Chinese borders, the harder it is to go for a peaceful game. OTOH, if China is imploding under barbarian assaults, there might be LOTS of room for the Koreans.

5. Go warlike (2): This means going peaceful at first, but then fighting tooth and nail against the Mongols to retain a flipped city, if that's the only way to keep that fourth temple in being long enough to score the Academy.

So far, I'm liking the Manchurian UHV proposal because it gives room for improvisation and different games based on how the borders are arranged when the Korean start.

* * * * *

Now, back to the Mayan UP.

If the Koreans are going to replace the Mayans, one might want to give the Koreans the Mayan power. There are some game play reasons. Given how squeezed-in Korea is, they might need the leg up. The whole "Astronomy" thing, which is supposed to justify the Mayan UP, might be applicable to Korea, too (see Cheomseongdae, e.g.). The basic UP might remain but be modified. Perhaps instead of a 40% discount, it could be a 25% discount. Or maybe it could be a 40% discount on any techs already discovered by the Chinese.

For the time being, though, I've decided I'm going run two separate games, to at least get an idea of how powerful the Mayan UP is in this context. One will use the Mayans, and the other will use the Ethiopians. Unless I'm missing something (again!), the Ethiopians don't have any unique units or buildings that would make an important difference. (Well, there is the Stele, but I'll just avoid building it.)

To bring them both in line with each other as best I can, I'm giving the Ethiopian and Mayan starts both the same sets of starting techs and units. I think it's silly to have a 1st century BC civilization that is right next to China and does NOT have Bronze Working, at least, so I'm giving them that. Also Animal Husbandry. Complete list:

Units: 2 Settlers, 3 Workers, 2 Archers, 1 Confucian Missionary. (Which means a peaceful game, at least in this iteration of the test.)

Techs: Mysticism; Meditation; Polytheism; Priesthood; Fishing; The Wheel; Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Writing; Hunting; Mining; Archery; Masonry; Pottery; Bronze Working; Horseback Riding.

I decided to go with Horseback Riding because it's possibly a tradable tech, and it's not useful unless/until the Koreans break out of the peninsula and are able to seize the Horse resource; something which is likely only possible if Beijing is conquered or sacked by barbarians.
 

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