Nobles' Club 294: Wang Kon of Korea

[konata_LS]

@jnebbe

Spoiler :

With FIN leader and river, you might have chance to catch up in techs. Traderoutes from Justy would also help, I guess.

@Nick723

Spoiler :

Interesting. It seems Deity Imp AIs expand much faster than Emperor AIs and you have to launch a construction attack . Or HA rush maybe?...

That barb city 3E of Wonsan looks delicious.

@AcaMetis

Spoiler :

The starting place looks mediocre, but a long river + two gold mines are quite generous. The neighbours are nice as well. Both Justy and AC don't plot at Pleased. After playing some turns, I have to say this map looks like heaven compared to another WK map - I mean that famous "prepare to die" one (the conversation between sampsa and drew reminds me of that cooked map). But it's totally understandable, as a cooked hard map would be too tough for the players who are still learning the game.

Deity players build TGW while at lower levels people just Rex - different challenges/fun for different levels <-- Another great success in your map creation .

 

[konata_LS]

From 225AD to 1705AD

Spoiler :

Settings, no huts:

Giggle and Justy made peace. Giggle's attitude towards Justy returned to Cautious, but Giggle became Justy and AC's WE.
The situation became a little weird: until 600AD no GArtist born in somewhere, so no AI got Music even in 600AD . Maybe AIs who has high culture flavour like Gandhi or Suleiman were not in this game .

Giggle started plotting again around 1000AD

In 1060AD he DoW Justy again. Poor Justy got DoW twice because he had no civis bonus from HR with Giggle .

Justy lost Thessalonica to Giggle, which forced me to bribe Giggle out of the war with Philo. This really surprised me, because Justy was usually a strong AI and built a decent number of units. Maybe I underestimated AI Giggle's military power . After that, AC had a short war with Giggle but they made peace in 1350AD.

Peacefully expanded to 12 cities before lib, and all the cities had at least one resource and/or some riverside tiles. Didn't settle the northern double crab city before Renaissance, because I wanted to switch out of Caste/Paci after getting MT + Gunpowder. IIRC, in standard map under normal speed, if the player had 13 cities or more, changing 2 civics would take 2 turns of anarchy instead of one turn.

Lib MT. Attack with Cuirs. Justy capitulated on T200. The next targer was Giggle, but he was really tough! He's not FIN, but in this game he teched really well with Colossus and GLib, he had no Printing Press but he got Grens. PRO Grens and Muskets in hill cities were indeed annoying. So I temporarily took Banking from Giggle in the peace treaty, got Chemistry through trade from my vassal Justy, and all cities built or to finish Steel. Declared on Giggle again with Cannons, maces and Cuirs. Finally Giggle capitulated on T235:

The war with Giggle was tougher and longer than I thought. But captured wonders were nice . With Iron, Corn and 3 GGenerals, Uruk became my HE city.

Another reason that I went to Cannons was this: after Justy's capitulation, I noticed something extremely alarming and dangerous in the demo screen. Something I rarely see at Emperor level.

I had around 15 cities with a vassal Justy, but the strongest AI had even more land and almost twice power than I. After scouting Giggle and AC's land and stacks, I didn't think they were stronger than me. So that mysterious super power could only be in another continent, probably with one or two vassals. To fight against such an AI, I would need Cannons or Arty. Since I had to build Cannons/Arty anyway, I'd prefer to build them earlier. That was why I decided to go Steel even Giggle was quite far from Rifling. Plus, the war with Giggle might give me some CR3 Cannons, which could be upgraded to CR3 Artilleries.

Then DoW AC. Who cares about Chitchen Itza. Who cares about 125% defense. Spam Cannons and destroy them all

AC soon capitulated:

Up to T251, built many Cuirs. PRO Grens and Muskets were disgusting, especially in hilled cities with nasty CRE culture defense.

No AI in my continent had Rifles. Only Giggle got Grens. But as I mentioned above, the real trouble in this map was not on my continent, but on the other continent.

About that mysterious super power: my caravels met Zara who had 15 cities and a 4-cites vassal Pacal.

Zara had several cities which had Mayan names (Mutal, Uxmal, etc.). It seemed Pacal lost most of his land to Zara. Now they both tech like crazy. Zara already had Medicine and Steam Power.

After conquering my continent, I had 20+ cities and 3 vassals vs. Zara of 15 cities and 1 vassal. The game looked winnable from here. Though I needed some time to build a fleet and more sieges.

 

[konata_LS]

From 1705AD to 1900AD

Spoiler :

Settings as below, no tribal village

The free GSpy from Communism scouted Zara's land. And yes, this was an Emperor AI's stack . Apart from this stack, Zara had 2 or 3 Infantries in each city .

Use a GScientist and a GMerchant to start a 12 turns golden age (captured MoM from Giggle). Upgraded all the surviving Cannons to Arty. Also upgraded a CR3 mace to Infantry. Built many Arty, Infantries, tanks, MGs, transports, and destroyers. After building enough units, all cities who had 12+ pop built jail, colosseum and theatre, because Zara had statue of Zeus.

DoW Zara and Pacal. The war wearness was soaring after I only captured 1 city and wiped out Zara's stack. Combined with Emancipation angers. Had to run slider and even built mount Ruthmore to deal with the abundant - faces. Fortunately, the dropped after I captured the SoZ:

Zara lost his capital and several core cities but refused to capitulate, mainly because his vassal was still alive. Had to completely destroy Pacal. Finally Zara capitulated with Xukpi, a former Mayan city he took from Pacal:

2 turns later, when some captured Ethiopian cities came out of the revolts, domination:

An efficient solution to deal with unit-spammers is to become a unit-spammer .

Killed 90+ Infantries, 80+ Cavs, and 30+ cannons . When I saw the statistics screen, I checked again the settings to make sure I played at Emperor level . I guess even in some Immortal games, the players wouldn't kill so many Infs .

Something I forgot to say in my write-up before 225AD: all the three early religions were founded on the other continents. Our continent had no religion until Justy founded Confu.

The events at the end of the game show Pacal founded Buddhism, Boudica Hindu, and Zara Jewish. That explains the religious conflicts in far away land: Pacal had a war with Zara and got dogpiled by Boudica. This war probably slowed down Pacal's tech rate, thus no AI got Music even in 600AD.

Pacal capitulated to Zara in 1370AD:

Some personal thoughts about the leader and the map:

Spoiler :

WK is certainly on the weak side among FIN leaders, just because PRO is a weak strait. OTOH, WK is one of the best leaders (if not the best) among PRO ones, just because FIN is powerful. Thanks to massive FIN cottages, I didn't fall behind in techs at the end of the game, even after the long wars with Zara:

Korean starting techs are just average. WK had not cheap building or units during the early game (cheap wall is close to useless, I only built one or two walls when I saw Giggle started plotting), it's a little painful when building workers/granaries or libraries. But I have to admit that PRO Infantries make it easier to hold the captured cities. In this game, I just put 2 or 3 PRO infantries in the captured Ethiopian cities; Zara made some attempts but he never managed to take back the cities he lost.

+10% from UB is better than nothing. But I don't think this boost is very impressive. As shown in some screenshots above, during war-time I often ran 0% . Thus the benefits from seowons are almost inexistent. During peace time, however, with many FIN cottages, some extra may let the players get an important tech 1 or 2 turns faster.

IMHO, WK is not the best choice for people who challenge a new difficulty level. But WK is a decent choice for people who want to get more consistent victories after winning some games at a new level (for example, after some victories with Capac or Darius, a player might try a game with WK).

This map gives the human player some sweet land, a long river and the essential strategic resources (horse, copper, and iron are all reachable). Justy and AC don't plot at Pleased. Giggle is dangerous but it's not difficult to get him to Pleased via HR or a gifted city - and in this map, due to peaceweight, AI Giggle usually hates Justy or AC more than he hates the human player. All the AIs in the player's continent have high WFYABTA, and the human player may get some nice deals. The super power (Zara) and fast techer (Pacal) overseas spice up the game. This map tastes like Korean gochujang, sweet and spicy.

Thanks for this gochujang map