Nobles' Club 279: Kublai Khan of Mongolia

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Kublai Khan of Mongolia, whom we last played in NC 245; we last played the Mongolians under Genghis Khan in NC 261. The Mongolians start with Hunting and The Wheel.

• Traits: Kublai Khan is Aggressive and Creative. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Creative gives every city +2 for free, and gives a +100% bonus to Libraries, Theatres, and Colosseums.
  
• The UB: The Ger, a Stable with +4 exp added to Mounted units rather than +2. Generally not seen as useful for a Keshik rush since quantity is often better than quality in very early rushes, but Elepult can get some good benefit from Gers since one or two cities can focus on pumping out high quality War Elephants while the others pump out a steady stream of Catapults and other miscellaneous units.
  
• The UU: The Keshik, a Horse Archer with +1 First Strike instead of FS immunity, and an innate ability to ignore any and all terrain movement costs. Target behind a forested hill which itself is behind a river? Keshiks don't care, they'll cross the river and climb the forested hill with one like it's nothing. Note that this ability is unique to the unit and not a free promotion (in fact Keshiks can't actually get the Mobility promotion at all, largely because it'd be completely useless to them), so the ability will not transfer over if the unit is upgraded.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Global Highlands, Small size, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel, six AIs, Scattered Thin Peaks.

These settings are roughly equivalent to a standard Pangaea or Fractal map, with the main difference being that the map is absolutely covered in hills. Tech costs are also slightly lower due to the (technically) smaller map size.

Spoiler edits :

Usual strategic resource swaps, nothing more.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 279 Kublai Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

Tricky. Lots of plains hills to move to, but the only one that keeps both Pigs has a forest on it. Is a T1 settle and a forest worth +1 on the city tile? Not to mention all the mystery green tiles you'd be moving away from in favor of what look like mostly empty (though there could be hidden stuff around) brown tiles...not sure. I'm tempted to just call SIP "good enough" and gamble on the green being, well, greener than whatever the brown holds, but one should probably at least move the Scout first. No harm in doing that.

Where to send the Scout, though? There's many possible options - including scouting the mystery green to see if it's actually all that green - and I'm not sure which is best. What do the experts think?

 

[krikav]

Weee! Kublai!
Now I'll have to put the other Kublai game I started on hold.

I think you are right in your analysis @AcaMetis

In either case, keeping both piggies would be a priority imho.

SiP could be nice, could be other yummy stuff in the south or the east.
Scout E -> SE would reveal some of what we would lose, by moving NW with settler.

But scout N->NE would scout up in the north, perhaps there is something there to warrant moving away from one piggy to settle the hill 2N?
Or likewise with settlement 2W....


The extra city center hammer is extra nice with Kublai (AGG), to get barracks and some cover warriors out.
But so is keeping the 3H tiles in the BFC. With Kublai and a AH start, there is always the possibility to ignore mining and go straight for writing, with the intent of getting a early commerce rush with two specialists, likely to make a run for HBR.
Bulbing math also becomes a option with that early writing approach.


Tough!

 

[Set]

Default settle looks like 1 NW on the wooded plains hill. Plains hill = good + we grab the flood plain and a bunch more river side tiles to the west (could be green). Scout can go 1 S -> 1 SE to make sure we're not moving away from anything too juicy like wet corn.

 

[krikav]

Another good aspect with a capital on the NW plains hill, is that is maximizes flexibility with regard to satellite cities sharing either pig.
SIP gives a more restricted set of locations for such satellite helper cities.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Lots of brown to be sharing food from the capital here; if settling 2W1N, probably want a farm on that floodplain. I would acout SW to see if there's anything green that direction, and maybe settle 2W leaving the first pig for another city, if there's some other food in the west.

 

[user330977]

Darn it - I just played a game with Kublai Khan! think I'll give this one a miss but interested to see what folk make of it. Looks a pretty solid and versatile start - I'd be tempted to settle 1NW. Lots of production, but both pigs needed to get any use out of it. Scout could move anywhere and reveal anything... Tricky!

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[Set]

Played until T75, Immortal difficulty with huts and events:

Spoiler :

Scout revealed nothing so settled 1 NW and went AH first

Spoiler :

Oh

I guess we're supposed to keshik rush then.

I've only ever done one HA rush before in my life, and while I won the game it was very very messy. In general I find the adrenaline involved in rushing someone is a little bit too much for me! But I try to play the map and with Vicky and Gandhi so close it's absolutely the best play.

Built two settlers for cities to the east and south (delicious three hammer city tile for southern city). Build order for capital was worker -> warrior -> warrior -> settler -> settler -> library -> worker.

Spoiler :

After AH I decided on writing -> mining -> BW -> HBR -> Archery -> Agri (because I need to be able to steal pottery from my first victim). With creative leader and high hammer capital this map is perfect for HA rush on the back of specialist science.

You can see Beshbalik building a library which was a big mistake. Much better to spend those hammers on a barracks or more warriors. I did whip a third worker in beshbalik as soon as it hit size four. Turfan (third city) built warrior -> barracks.

T58 Archery finishes (HBR on T55) and I switch into war mode. Just one Ger, in Turfan.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Vicky has no metal. She does have very early alphabet though so I can steal techs from her. And 5 cities already.

Does BUG mod tell you what an AIs best unit is without having to click on the diplo a million times? I actually tried to check for metals from Vicky again the turn before my attack but got sick of opening diplo again and again and just assumed she still didn't.

T68 Attack

Spoiler :

That's gold by London (though apparently Vicky's been having some bad barb problems). Will definitely help a lot with the post conquest economy. 7 Keshiks + a Chariot and scout make up the attack force.

Here's my empire on the turn of the attack.

Spoiler :

Vicky bribes Hatty on me immediately. I don't even know where she is.

Spoiler :

London is on flat land with just two archers and a chariot for defense. It falls easily.

Spoiler :

Also forgot to give the barbs Archery! But didn't affect my game too much. I actually had two chariots for barb defense which ended up being way overkill with just barb warriors incoming. Mostly end up being a buff to the AI I think since they get barb cities easier.

 

[Set]

Until T75 (continued):

Spoiler :

I head north to Nottingham

Spoiler :

That's a triple CG archer on a hill. Not attacking that city anytime soon.

I clean up York and Coventry instead (losing a Keshik at 98% odds in the process ) and then decide to make peace. Hastings is a garbage city with no food and the last city is way south in the jungle somewhere. Vicky gives me Alpha for peace. Plan is to trade it for pottery and other backfill techs. Hatty white peaces once Vicky's out. Gandhi is the next target since he still seems to have no metal and only has three cities.

Gandhi is good for trades though.

Spoiler :

State of the empire T75

Old Empire:

Spoiler :

English Conquests:

Spoiler :

Feek like things went okay. Not flawlessly but I'm in a pretty good position. This games success is dependent on fixing my economy now. Only got 1 worker from Vicky so building another one now. Trying to get the Gold online ASAP and then cottage everything up. Killing Gandhi is secondary to that I think so I won't build too many more Keshiks and just peace out after taking one or two cities if things get tough.

Currently debating if I should switch into Hinduism. I could use the happiness boost and Sury is tech and score leader so making friends with him seems good. But I worry about Toku on my western flank. Toku already hates me because I stupidly signed open borders with Gandhi and then didn't cancel them when he asked (that adrenaline from rushing someone does crazy things to your judgement!). I would like to get Judaism but can't count on it happening.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Does BUG mod tell you what an AIs best unit is without having to click on the diplo a million times? I actually tried to check for metals from Vicky again the turn before my attack but got sick of opening diplo again and again and just assumed she still didn't.

Eh...maybe? IIRC the military adviser as a sit-rep screen which lists a bunch of stuff at once, including the best units an AI is known to have access to. I don't know if that includes units that are listed through diplo or only units you know they have access to based on your knowledge of their techs/resources. That might also be a BULL feature rather than BUG, I'm not sure.

 

[konata_LS]

Wow Kublai start with two piggies + river + PHs and forests! Definitely a strong start, for food and hammers

NW plain hill is certainly a good settling spot, giving a 221 city tile while keeping both pigs. The only downside of settling NW is it kills a forest. Since this is NC, the UU resource (horse, in this case) will be within a range of 2nd or 3rd city so the keshiks rush will be available. In an early rush, it's hard to neglect 20 from a forest.

2N of the settler (1 pig + 1 FP + 5 hills to mine) or 2W (1 pig + at least 4 forests to chop) might also be worth considering.

Another possibility is settling on pig for +25% defense bonus on hill <--just joking . Don't settle on pigs .

Currently busy with several off-line games and watching Henrik's and Lain's videos. So I think I'll skip this NC and just watch .

 

[Set]

To the finish:

Spoiler :

Gandhi died very easily. I actually think it would have been possible to keep going with Keshiks. I was number one in power and could have whipped out another stack of Keshiks. But diplo situation was tricky and I didn't think I would be able to clean up the whole map. I figured I would need Cuirs to win no matter what so the fastest and most secure win was just to race to Lib from a strong position rather then over-extend and slow down my tech.

Don't remember the exact series of trades but I self-teched aesthetics and used it + HBR to trade for IW (to improve gems by York), Polytheism and Math. Math and Poly were delayed because AIs were treating them as monopoly techs despiter multiple AIs having them(?)

Here's a snapshot of the empire after killing Gandhi. T93

Spoiler :

Land was very food poor with the exception of Delhi (double clams) and a city I later built by double fish NE of Dehli. Not a lot of green land to grow cottages on. Also notice that even though I have 9 cities, 3 of them (Coventry, Vijayangara and Bombay) have no food resource. Vijayangara is particularly terrible. Beshbalik only has a plains sheep for itself and I really should have given away Turfan's pigs to the capital. So while my position looks very nice at first glance (and is actually very nice) it's not quite as good as it might seem.

While gold and gems helped the economy recover quickly from the HA rush, there just isn't a ton of potential for long-term BPT here. Cities are just growing too slowly while working cottaged riverside green hills and riverside plains tiles. I still managed to win Music race by holding Lit until the last second (and then traded it for half of monarchy with Mehmed) but I felt myself limping my way to CS and didn't get there until T128. Also picked up Calendar and Sailing in trade. Currency took a long time to get as AIs, again, didn't want to trade it for monopoly reasons.

Some key city snapshots:

Spoiler :

Karakorum

Spoiler :

Capital has food issues, even with the farmed flood plain. I ended up cottaging all the green hills but it just took ages to grow and work them. Especially since I got off to a late start since no pottery until ~T85. I really should take the pig from Turfan and just let Turfan sit at size 4 with two green mines and a cottage, would help alleviate some of my commerce problems to grow the capital faster.

London

Spoiler :

Dehli

Spoiler :

York

Spoiler :

I'm building Barracks here because I hadn't decided if I was going to off Tokugawa with Keshiks yet.

 

[Set]

To the finish (cont):

Spoiler :

I built GLib, MoM and Parthenon. Really only intended to complete GLib (so many forests around London to chop means it could be completed very quickly) but I think all those wonders are better than the fail gold so I was happy to complete them. Got decent failgold from Pyramids, Chichen Itza and ToA. I also built National epic in Dehli and Heroic Epic in London (all those hammers into research might have improved CS time but I think it was a good trade off).

Spawned two GSs shortly before finishing CS tech. One from capital (was almost done with GS from running specialists earlier during rush) and one from GL city. First GS bulbed philo and I saved the second one. Music artist set off a mega-golden age (Paci + Parthenon + MoM) as soon as CS was done.

Some snapshots of the empire on the turn GA starts:

Spoiler :

Overview

Spoiler :

Karakorum

Spoiler :

London

Spoiler :

Dehli

Spoiler :

York

Spoiler :

Ning-Hsia

Spoiler :

After switching into Judaism, pacifism, bureacracy, and caste, the plan is to generate 4 great people. One GM (for upgrading Keshiks) in Ning-Hsia (5 turns). Then one GS in London the turn after that and finally two additional GSs in Dehli (one of them will finish a couple turns after GA ends but that's fine). With the additional saved GS I can double bulb Education, bulb lib and run a trade mission for upgrading my Keshiks. That leaves one great person left over for a future golden age + some redundancy in case I accidentally pop an aritst or prophet. Unfortunately Dehli ended up popping two great prophets so I had to slow tech Lib, using up a big portion of my trade mission money in the process.

You can see my GA planning was a little messy. I'm one turn late with the Jewish missionary for Dehli and both Ning-Hsia and Dehli really should be bigger. I was slow to settle Ning-Hsia. Dehli had 5 pop whipped the NE when I should have 3 or 4 pop whipped it. But 4 great people from a golden age is pretty good anyway! I used one prophet to build the Buddhist shrine (+15GPT) and the other became a golden age later on with a GA from London.

Managed to hit with ~25 Cuirs in 900 AD. Vicky was first (she recovered nicely to ~7 cities) since she didn't have longbows. Capped her in one turn. Then Toku because he also didn't have longbows and was plotting on me. Caught his army in the field and then took two cities and he capitualated on turn 4 of the war. Sury was next, a little bit trickier since he had pikes but still easy enough.

Cuir Power Graph is scary!

Spoiler :

Army took ~8 turns to reposition across the map and heal. By the time I hit Hatty I had a stack of maybe 50 Cuirs and capped her in 3 or 4 turns. That was enough for domination in 1190AD.

Spoiler :

I'm running into kill Mehmed there. Played an additional turn for fun and he capitulated immediately after I killed his stack.

I think this was my fastest ever immortal win!

Very fun game. Was nice to use a Keshik rush, although I found it a little bit stressful. Did @AcaMetis intend us to run the map with Keshiks? I almost felt like I could this game. With some luck maybe it's doable. Although maybe I only felt so strong this game because I was lucky enough for Vicky to grab Alphabet early so I could extort her.

I really enjoyed building wonders and then planning my first GA the most. Dehli and Ning-Hsia as strong food cities (+London with GLib) really helped alleviate the overall weak food situation by giving me more GPs for bulbing which was a good dynamic. I've had a couple of immortal Cuir attack games in a row so I will try something different for my next game. Maybe peaceful space? Or I might dip my toes into Deity.

Thanks to @AcaMetis for diligently uploading these.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

As with most maps I don't really have a clear plan in mind so much as just a vague idea that will probably end up working out in some way, shape or form. I've learned not to plan too much because no plan survives contact with the AI if not the map generator anyway . My vague idea in this case was "Highlands and Keshiks, that'll probably work out pretty well".

The game rolled no PRO AIs other than Toku, rolled Vicky/Hatty/Literally Gandhi as possible neighbours, so the map pretty much wrote itself. I'd say the map generator even did it's best to try and make not rushing a viable option, with the nearby Marble for wonders/failgold, CRE for cheap libraries and cultural pressure, etc. I mean there's only so much you can do on a Highlands map, you've seen how food starved it is because of all the hills and lack of farmland, but it's not completely hopeless.

 

[Set]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Very nice opening! I think your second city is much stronger then mine and is the obvious choice in retrospect. Those flood plains will be huge for commerce on this map. I might still choose my marble city over your proposed pig city. Two extra hammers on the city tile seems like a nice boost for building Keshiks which is the critical part of the game here. You're probably just going to capture Vicky's pig city anyway. OTOH, maybe total food is what actually matter here since keshiks are coming from whipping?

Bulbing maths definitely seems like the right move given chops will be coming in. I never really consider it to my detriment.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T80 :

I scouted in the east and saw nothing of interest so I settled on the PH.

When I saw horses I knew the path I was going to take.

AH->Writing->mining->HBR->BW->Archery, settled second city to share pigs and grab sheep and also alot of forested green hills.
Was behind abit on workers, but Gandhi provided that.

Barbarians had pillaged that cow at some point.

Rather good luck here, promoted the first chariot to withdraw which it did, got the archer down to 1.7 hp too giving the second chariot of 3 good odds.
Was going myst->poly->PH here to make sure I could get monarchy in a peacedeal, but apparantly Vicky didn't go that way.

Math bulb guy. I have Gers in both cities and I also whipped out one in Nottingham. I want alot of Keshiks and I want them top notch.

3 yummy workers. The city is razed. Alot of cities is razed, I need the conquest gold and the war success but not the crappy locations.

I moved chariots to look like they thretened London previously, that way I could get York and that worker-loaded city with Keshiks further south.
I chopped out some more workers too.

Got Monarchy from Gandhi. He is such a nice guy!

I like the split of these 20 xp, bringing up 6 keshiks to 10xp, and the chariot to 10xp too, I attached the general to the chariot with the intent of boosting it further to a super medic later on.

Gandhi does have metal, but I waited a few turns in Egypt territory and then there was only 2 archers in Vijaygara. A small dispatch is moving to pillage the iron.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T91 :

Gandhi traded ivory for a new source of iron with Hatty, so I rushed past Dehli which had a spear and 4 swords in it.
Bombay, the Buddhist holy city which had TGW in it had to be razed too. Had it been placed 1N it might have been worth it to keep.

Gave Hatty a tech and then begged for fishing to get a peace treaty before declaring on Gandhi, she does not like me now.

Come out, come out! Nasty swords! Assist Agra which is in GRAVE danger!
They didn't fall for the trick though.

Two of the four swords moved to attack fish-city, that prompted me to attack. Lost quite a few to the seemingly immortal spear.

Empire overview. Still alot to chop. I'll chop everything I can even outside culture.
Alot of nice spots to settle but I don't think I can afford such things.
WIll turn around and finish of Vicky now, but not sure what to do after that.
Toku is so robust with Agg/Pro so I don't know if I can topple him with keshiks, and Hatty is starting to look strong too. Perhaps backstab sury..?
Toku has pyramids which would be nice.

Somewhere after Vicky I self teched currency. Also self-teched agri->pottery. Traded for some stuff like Monotheism but most things are from peace treaties.

The gems and the gold around York is helping me stay afloat, and most teching have been fueled by conquest gold.
I want litterature and feudalism.
Litterature to get Glib and for failgolding, heroic would also be nice. Feud to get some vassals.
If I could get my hands on compass/calendar I could perhaps bulb machinery and get to guilds somehow..?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Alot of nice spots to settle but I don't think I can afford such things.
WIll turn around and finish of Vicky now, but not sure what to do after that.

That's pretty much what I figured would end up being the challenge for this map . Well, at least for NC newcomers who aren't used to early rushes...yet .

You're basically handed a Keshik rush on a silver platter, inevitably make some good gains because what is literally Gandhi supposed to do against a horde of Mongolian horse archers, and...now what? Diplo is a mess, economy is in ruins, and Highlands isn't the greatest in terms of food or commerce potential. Well, not until much later anyway. Not an impossible situation, of course, but one that's going to require some tricks of the Civ IV trade to work out a solution .

 

[krikav]

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

Oh, I love the map! Silver platter Keshik rushes doesn't come often enough.

Spoiler T102 :

Not that much has happend since T91. Finished a pair of Keshiks that where in the pipeline, declared on Vicky and got 3 more workers and one decent city.
Gifted Toku abit of stuff and converted to Hindu which he was, and got him to join in on the fun too. Last turn he suicided a stack of 4-6 archers/chariots over a river onto Vickys last stonghold, a hill city loaded with archers.
Then I got the marble improved and sprinted to LItterature.
Now 20 (!) workers are chopping like mad dogs into Parthenon/GLib/Natepic/Heroic.
Hatty just finished Parthenon, which really would have been a nice wonder to have, but need gold too, and beggars can't be choosers.

Spreading Hindu, getting forges up.. Soon I'll need to return to unit production again. Perhaps more Keshiks? It's never too late for more Keshiks... no?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Everyone except a one city Gandhi has a red fist icon. This can only end well .