Monarch Student^ X - Wang Kon

Meatbuster

formerly Robo Kai
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
2,302
Location
Philippines
Leader/map combo suggested by CivIVMonger. I wonder if s/he is still posting at CivFanatics. Anyway...

Welcome to the 10th game of MS^ today we feature Wang Kon a.k.a. Taejo of Goryeo (Wikipedia). Apparently this guy was a rebel general who unified parts of Korea. Can he do it again... this time on a continent larger than Australia... and how will he fare against the best (and worst) leaders the world has to offer?

Wang is Financial and Protective. Financial, well... spam cottages and settle coastal cities. Protective... too bad for whipping walls, but archery and gunpowder units get a boost.




The Hwacha was featured on Mythbusters last year. They confirmed that its rocket arrows can go 500 yards and explode on impact. The Hwacha has also been proven to be able to launch many of those bolts at a time. Koreans must be proud of their heritage...

In this game it's a catapult replacement with a bonus against melee units. Korea can "sorta" manage a cheaper version of the "Elephant+Crossbow" defensive stack with just Horseback Riding and Construction... no Iron required, no detour to Machinery needed.




The Seowon is a university with 10% more research. Sounds like a dandruff shampoo commercial, but how can you say no to 10% more research? (Especially with Financial trait.)



Overcrowded today...

Map Settings...
Map: Pangaea
Oppnents: 8
Sealevel: Low
Climate: Temperate
 
This is the start:



Spoiler map hints, spoiler and comments :
MOO! :lol:

Your biggest rival is on the other side of the world.

I expect the continent to be embroiled in war.




The Worldbuilder save is below. It is perfect for Monarch or Emperor starts, and... "okay" for other levels.

To play, unzip the worldbuilder file and place it in your Documents/My Games/BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game by choosing Single Player -> Play a Scenario, where you may adjust the speed and difficulty to your liking. Or Custom Scenario, if you also wish to turn off barbarians or events, and adjust other settings to your liking.

Let us compare strategies and progress with other players as well as learn to play. Win or lose, for better or worse, feel free to report on your glorious exploits. Perhaps other players can give you advice on your game.

Please keep your reports in spoiler tags. It's better that way. Perhaps decades from now, your descendants will still be playing this save. So let's keep them in the dark so they can enjoy!

Recommended Checkpoints:
*1000BC or 1AD or 100AD
*800AD, 1000AD or Liberalism
*1200AD or 1400AD
*Victory!

The worldbuilder saves are in the zip file below. Comes in no-huts or huts flavors.
 

Attachments

  • MS10-Moo!(updated).zip
    28.3 KB · Views: 344
Playing now. Lets see how this one folds out.
 
Emperor/Epic to 1AD:

Spoiler :

Moved warrior north, found extra cow so settled 1N on plains hill.

Built war>worker>settler while teching hunting>AH>BW.

Doesn't take long to find other people. I find an Asoka worker and steal it. There is room to expand but it would have to be fast. So I choose expansion option #2 and settle second city for horses. After that build only chariots for a while. Rush Asoka, who only has 2 cities due to my worker steal. Nice capital with gems and great commerce site. Also forms a nice boundary against Boudi to the east. Later chopped out SoZ and Delhi is winning the culture battle.

Then Augustus Caesar starts encroaching on my land - a quick scouting reveals he has no metal yet and only ~2 archers per city? Is this actually emperor? Anyways my chariots roll and I take two cities and raze three other. At the end of the second war things look like this:



Had to move quick to block off remaining land. Mehmed still got a city where I wanted one but oh well. As of 1AD the empire looks like this:




Landed GLib in 170BC.
Bulbed Philo and founded Tao in 20BC.

Currently in same religion as Mehmed and Izzy and they are both almost friendly with me (I plan to get them there soon). Brennus is in different religion and hated by Izzy. Monty has been going at it with Justinian and Qin.

I'm tempted by a hwacha+phant war, but I might just hunker down and rebuild my economy. I have a ton of good land that needs to be improved and with several calendar resources that just came online I have plenty of happy to grow my cities. I will shortly have currency+courthouses to greatly boost my economy. Then I think I can head toward a Lib>Steel run and go smack some neighbors around. Mehmed is small and built the GLH :satan:


Round 2 - 1000AD/Liberalism
Spoiler :

Pretty uneventful. Stayed out of wars while teching ahead, got courts up in all cities and Seowans in key commerce cities. Treasury is holding even at 60%:science:. Just took Lib:


Notice in the background that Oxford will be done next turn in the capital (which I moved to Delhi - old capital became GP farm with Glib+NE).

Globe Theater will be up shortly with a big whip. I'll probably wait until Rifling to switch to Nationhood and draft. Meanwhile I'll soon be starting a musket+cannon war. First target is Mehmed with only 5 cities and at war with Qin and Brennus. Also this tasty treat:


Don't have to worry as he still only has medieval units. And everyone else is well behind in tech:


After that I'll probably crush Brennus and secure my rear before heading after others.

 
I'll say this start/leader combo has Phantapult potential.
 
Seeing Phants in the BFC, I think I might just go an all-or-nothing Phant and Hwacha war, and attempt to take out my entire continent before 1000AD or something. We'll see how it plays out.
 
Emperor/Epic to 1435AD Domination
Spoiler :

Not much to say. Spammed cannons while teching to rifling. Started with muskets then drafted lots of rifles later. Never faced anything more than a few muskets at the end.

Izzy voluntary vassaled to me because she was getting beat up by Monty. Then Mehmed is the first to taste my steel:




Notice the Mausolleum - this city came out of revolt just in time for me to kick off 4 Golden Ages! 2 via 3 GPs, one via Taj, and one via the Sports League quest. That's 60 turns of golden age. I still had 28 left at the end.

Brennus next:


From here it was just a race to cap everyone as quickly as possible. Stacks never even stopped to heal:









The early rush of two civs set me up nicely. I think completely skipping classical and medieval warfare was a good move as it would have been much slower. As it is musket/rifles+cannons rolled over everything. Maybe it would have been faster with Curi/Cav?



 
IMM/Normal

1 AD

Spoiler :


Not much deliberation ---> settled 1N for more hammers in city tile. Turned out I get some luck 2nd cow too. Start worker, tech hunting>AH>writing>wheel then other worker techs. I want the widely available foreign trade as an early boost. Early gscientist gets settled to boost research further. Ais draw 1st blood



And I an only expand to 6 cities...this is a box in map for high levels.



Tech picture (no wonders for me)





To liberalism 1100 AD:

Spoiler :


Another problem starts: AC switches from buddhist to jewish. I went buddhism due to it being a favored world religion so I could take advantage of OR. Worse still, AC is getting quite large now...



We get a rare total AI wipeout of another AI



Unwilling to sit by and tolerate this nonsense, I whip up an army, switching to theo once I can do so:



He ALSO got Asoka to voluntarily vassal, so the first order of business was dealing with his stack + Asoka's. Siege initiative and mace vs prat was easy enough, I inflicted pretty heavy losses on them, got a GG, and set up HE in pyongyang.



For a while I kept producing units in all but capitol, but once I broke through 2-3 cities I left that to HE city alone and put up some infrastructure. Despite a slog war I tech happily along...



Taking nationalism as right now I need the trade bait. After this the plan is to head first for cannons, then rifles while continuing to take it to rome.



1858 Domination

Spoiler :


I let AC give me a city for peace (only 10 turns)



Tech situation:



From there I regroup and continue to whittle away AC's cities and units:



Note that I am now making 11 xp troops in the HE city, and that many of the maces are combat III+ march or even combat IV + march, while others are CR III or even CICRIII. In other words, my war strategy was bombard, minimal collateral, use maces to beat longbows, knights, and even xbows at decent odds. It works. I also get a surprise:



Poor guy was boxed in to like 3 cities and got owned in his war vs asoka. I can use him as a pin cushion on my flank. Thanks!

And for the 2nd time a civ dies at the fall of a celtic city:



The other AIs weren't idle. Monty capped BOTH izzy AND asoka. Damn. From there, he went after Justinian, but I had other plans in mind...



Monty and company lack infantry for the whole war although they get machine guns fairly early in it (too bad for them I have a lot of super promoted troops). Monty does send units my way but his true stack got pinned in Justinian's area. I first go to work on his vassals:





Pretty much all infantry/cannon. I get arty close to the end of the war, but I don't have to capture a lot of monty's cities to get capitulation since he decided to attack my drill IV infantry in bunches and lose pretty much every time.



I also declare on justinian the same turn, but I only take 1 city and never get him to talk because:



Basically, a straight-up beatdown:









Huge kills/death lead, not bad in tech



Economy was almost entirely SP + Workshops with rep/nationhood/caste/SP/theo





Based on the name, I believe justinian was supposed to be our rival, but I don't see how that was possible given how he gets boxed in. For me, it was a familiar foe (aztec), but the result was the same:



 
^^
Spoiler :
Thanks for playing... you took 3 hours! Impossible! :)

Oh, Monty was supposed to be the rival. Somehow he gets shafted in dualmaster's game.

Justinian was a typo. I copied and pasted from MS^5 to get rid of Saladin who was already in the previous game. My bad. Time to cough up a new save. :D


@dual:
Spoiler :
Good job. I totally forgot to give AC some nearby iron. :lol:

Or maybe he just didn't research Iron Working in time before he died.


EDIT: Ok, updated save. Now a certain leader is correctly named. Sorry to cause a minor inconvenience those who already played! :)
 
Spoilerfied for your protection

Spoiler :

How obvious is the 1N hill to settle?

It seemed to me, from the screenshot only, that a 1N settlement was correct (settler moves 1E then 1NW), with the warrior avoiding the hut so that the border can pop it on turn 6.

I suppose most of that comes from knowing (a) the tree filler algorithm and (b) recognizing the importance of plains hills - plus I suppose some theoretical considerations about the relationship of playing space and jungles.

Or I may be talking complete bs, using the result to justify the decision.


 
Spoiler :
Well it wasn't obvious to me :) . I settled 1W to get access to the ocean. Not sure why i did, i suppose i just can't stand being that close to the ocean and not have access to it.
It might have to do with the fact that i never play pangea maps.

Despite all the mistakes i made in tech researching order i'm not in a terrible position at the moment. I'll post some screenshots and a save when i get home, maybe i can get someone to take a look at them for some advice on how to proceed.
 
Please expand on the cheaper "Phant+Crossbow" tactic...thanks
 
Played till 1795 AD - no huts for the first time ever - Monarch

Spoiler :
I settled 2 west on the coast. I saw a lot of cows so i researched to AH. My tech path was this: hunting-->AH-->BW-->Horseb.riding-->archery-->fishing-->pottery-->IW-->writing-->Aesth.
3080bc meet Asoka
3040bc meet Mehmed
2440bc meet AC

I was growing slowly so i decided to build SH because it took very few turns.
I settle my second city near the horses.



I meet Brennus and he is already the worst enemy of AC. My initial idea was to get HA's as fast as possible and then take out Asoka. I changed my mind later since he was teching fast.

900bc meet Isabella
875bc meet Montezuma. I like him :) , at least you're never in doubt about his intentions. That nutcase is the worst enemy of Isabella, Augustus and Asoka.

675bc Asoka converts to Buddhism and 1 or 2 turns later Mehmed to Hinduism. I thought that could mean some nice wars between them but Mehmed later switches to Buddhism as well.

550bc i get a great prophet and let him join my city. Later in the game i get a great scientist and after that no great persons anymore. First time i had so few ever, must be because i played differently then i normally do.
Around this time i also meet Qin and Justinian.

My initial strategy was to use HA's for my first war and then tech to construction and use the Hwacha in my second war.

Because most of my Neighbours share the same religion exept for Brennus i decide to attack him. When i move my stack of HA's to my border AC dow's on Brennus. I quickly join him.
One of AC's stacks attacks Brenus his capital but doesn't take it after which i do. Not sure why he even attacked because his stack was too small but it made my attack easier so i'm not complaining :).
After his capital i had the choice of attacking 2 cities, i chose the one to the south because it had much less defense, was sitting on copper and i was sort of hoping AC would soften the other city up for me. He didn't btw.




Nothing much happened untill the middle ages (well Monty attacked 2 or 3 times but his soldiers never returned home).
To my complete surprise Mehmed declared war on Asoka, and he only had 4 cities. I could see where Asoka was going to attack him and i decided to take Mehmeds closest city and try for another after that. The second city was too heavily guarded and after Qin also dow'd on me i decided to take peace.

city i took


City i decided not to.


tech:


I was the first to Liberalism and took Printing press. I usually take Nationalism but i just don't know how to use that correctly so i decided not to.

Justinian also Dow'd on me some time later but he attacked my city which was surrounded by Asoka's culture, and i had a defensive pact with him so his stack didn't stand a chance.

It is now 1795 AD and i'm not sure which way to go. I switched to Free Religion for the extra research but this made AC and Isabella go from pleased to cautious so i'm not sure if it was the right thing to do. Isabella doesn't worry me much because she has Monty as a neighbour and they fight wars all the time, but i'm not to happy about AC.
I do have a defensive pact with Asoka again and am the only one with steel/cannons for now.

The advice/comments i would like if anyone has the time: :)

Is a conquest victory possible, and if it is what is the best way to achieve that?

Should i have more production cities, and if so which cities would be best suited for that?

Should i have stayed in OR so AC and Isabella would have been friendlier? Would switching to AC's favorite civic make him pleased with me again?

And offcourse all advice about anything else would be greatly appreciated. :)



 

Attachments

  • Monarch Wang Kon AD-1795.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Not sure if I'll have the time for number X, I have my hands full with moving house and studying for an exam...Still, if I get some free time I'm all over it.
 
^^
@dual:
Spoiler :
Good job. I totally forgot to give AC some nearby iron. :lol:

Or maybe he just didn't research Iron Working in time before he died.

Spoiler :
Actually, he did have iron just north of Rome, but he didn't settle that until his 4th city and perhaps didn't research IW too early. However, that was the last city I took and he did whip a praet there that killed off a couple of my chariots before I razed the city.

In my game Monty was at constant war with Justinian, Izzy, or Qin, sometimes all together. I think he was just getting beat up from all sides. Even Izzy managed to take a city from him.
 
Spoilerfied for your protection

Spoiler :

How obvious is the 1N hill to settle?

It seemed to me, from the screenshot only, that a 1N settlement was correct (settler moves 1E then 1NW), with the warrior avoiding the hut so that the border can pop it on turn 6.

I suppose most of that comes from knowing (a) the tree filler algorithm and (b) recognizing the importance of plains hills - plus I suppose some theoretical considerations about the relationship of playing space and jungles.

Or I may be talking complete bs, using the result to justify the decision.



Spoiler :


If I can get a 2H city tile w/o losing a food resource, I almost always do it since it's a big lift to the early game. The other considerations were in the back of my mind but the 2H city tile dominated the decision process.

 
Emperor Epic 5bc.
Spoiler :
Oops. Not going at all well. Got boxed in to five cities. Gus built a city next to my borders then complained about border tension. Initially he didn't like Brennus at all but after Brennus discovered Judaism and converted Gus the Romans decided that I was their worst enemy and invaded in 400bc (4 praetorians, couple of axes heading to my capital).
Fortunately a hilltop city with walls and protective archers can just about survive. But I'm still at war and falling behind on tech, no currency, no Col. Monte's already got philosophy.
The only good news is that I've just whipped out a couple of elephants and Seoul (despite having its water supply poisoned) is starting to chop out some hwachas (got construction in 20bc).
 
Monarch/Epic Huts on.

I actually played the whole game almost in 1 sitting. Also forgot to take screenshots for checkpoints. I'm just gonna write up the report all in 1 shot.

To 1706AD Conquest

Spoiler :


This was a sloppy game on my part. Seeing all the civ's I kinda just rushed through this game. I could have won this game alot earlier if I took the time. What I get for rushing.

After moving warrior and seeing extra cow I settled 1N. started worker and teching hunting.

3850AD Get AG fron hut.

3825BC starts the mayhem of meeting everybody. I met everyone by 2575BC But Izzy which I met much later. Civ's include Mehmed, AC, Brennus, Asoka, Qin, Monty, Justin, Izzy.

In 2875BC I worker steal from AC.

2800BC I settle Pyong Horse site.

2775BC Peace with AC.

2300BC Settle Wonson Gem city to block AC.

1600BC SH in Pyong. Started this for failure cash and forgot to stop it. Again this was a rushed game, and very sloppy.

1400BC Declare on AC. I decided to take him out first before he gets iron.

825BC AC is dead after taking his 4 cities. I keep 2 including capital. Raze others.

650BC Captured barb city south of capital.

485BC Settle Pusan.

410BC SoZ in Pyong.

305BC Academy in Seoul.

55AD GL in Seoul. Put NE here also.

280AD First to music. Start GA. Also GP pops settle in seoul.

I stayed out of all the warring going on. Someone was at war the whole game. 3 different religions. I pulled aqway in tech because of this.

1270AD I took steel from LIB. I could have waited alot longer. Only 1 person had philo at this time. No one had paper or Education yet. I wanted to use cannons and muskets/rifles to kill everyone.

1420AD Izzy friendly vassals to me. So I declare on Monty who was at war with Izzy.
AP declares on Brennus, which means I delcare on him.

1460AD After taking 2 cities Brennus capitulates.

I then want to go kill Monty, but Asoka won't open borders with me. So that means I declare on Asoka and his vassal Mehmed.

1560AD After taking all but 2 cities fron Asoka he capitulates. He just wouldn't vassal. Same turn Mehmed capitulates.

1605AD I redeclare on Monty and his vassal Justian. I made peace sometime before to kill Asoka. See i rushed this game and foprgot to take some notes also. Wanted to finish the game before bed.

1675AD Monty and Justian capitulates.

1690AD Declare on last civ standing. Qin

1706AD Qin capitulates.

Game over Conquest win.

Screenshots of ending stats and score. Only ones I took.:( I'll never rush through a game like this again. Really didn't learn anything.







Thanks to meatbuster for hosting game.
 
meatbuster - just wanted to say thanks for the great game. i moved up to emperor a few MS^ games ago, but this one is a real challenge. still haven't won, and not sure i will, which is an excellent sign of a well constructed game.
 
Bump.

Haven't played Civ for around a year. Been doing other things.

This was my first game back. Played on Monarch/normal.

Finished in 1595 AD with a domination win. No screens taken :blush: .

Found this one pretty easy once I stopped making buildings. :nuke:
 
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