Nobles' Club 312: Genghis 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 Genghis Khan of Mongolia, whom we last played in NC 261; we last played the Mongols under Kublai Khan in NC 279. The Mongols start with Hunting and The Wheel.

• Traits: Genghis Khan is Aggressive and Imperialistic. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Imperialistic adds +100% to Great General generation and +50% bonus to Settler production (note that the settler bonus doesn't apply to excess directly converted to ).
• 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 :

Pangaea, Temperate climate, High sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps and some minor changes to the player's starting area to make it less depressing. Chiefly adding a second plains cow (yes, you originally started with just one), swapping a starting Alu source with a distant Gold source, and slightly changing the starting river to make both cows and gold riverside.

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 312 Genghis 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]

When farmed floodplains are your best food tiles, and you don't start with agriculture...could be worse I guess. East looks like coast and Genghis doesn't seem the type to get in a boat and go for a round of fishing, so I'm inclined to move further inland. Meaning as far as I can see this boils down to either Settle on Plains Hill or Settle on Gold. SoPH gives up a floodplain for a large number of mystery tiles which the scout can reveal T0, SoG gets less mystery tiles but keeps the third floodplain in return for ruining a very high commerce, very nothing food tile. Not sure which is better, although I suppose most people will tell me that the correct choice is clearly to settle 1N or something .

So what do the experts think? SoG, SoPH, 1N, move the scout to check for seafood and tell Genghis to invent fishing rods, what's the best move here?

 

[sampsa]

I think 2W with scout, if nothing settle on gold. I wouldn't seriously consider other settling spots than plains hill or gold.

 

[chinemol]

thinking SIP, --> AH, mining, then see, probably no BW for low food punishes every whip. check upstream to see what lies ahead commerce-wise. and find horses for sime khan time

Spoiler :

ok, played a bit. wasn't going for bw, ended going for it though. no whips, but some chops. size 2 settler to claim the pigs, fish and horses next. was going to keshik ghandi, but nice commerce + nice land = expansion. charly and pacal are on the "other religion" pacal can't be keshiked easily and charly isn't near. self teched iron working. thinking on self teching currency to overexpand. shouldn't, I know, but it's just nice land

Spoiler :

update Nº2, turn 123. got code of laws and traded for currency. also, 11 cities and a settler ready to plant, so pumping courthouses. pacal has 4 cities, the wrong religion, no commerce other than a lake and just finished the pyramids. he will have jumbos since he is going for construction, but once I reach the tech so do I. prioritizing metal casting for better whipping of those catapults. didn't get to use much of the aggresive trait other than barb action + 2 barb cities (one razed), but sure did on the imperialistic side. anyhow, expecting to loose the lib race despite having phi, expecting lasting peace and high tech pace. then again, massive empire and soon to be even bigger

Spoiler 1520 domination :

elepulted pacal. mansa peace vassaled. ghandi gave in after I took delhi (1 city only). cyrus was close to rifles, put him in a 3 turn revolt and wiped his 6 cities. victoria got bribed in, but was behind and weak due to fighting charly the whole game. wiped out with not much effort
this was emperor, on deity mansa should get a masive empire, ghandi might take the pigs and the keshik ghandi strategy might be the best to open up

 

[Fippy]

Hmm gold makes an excellent tile while building settlers, for IMP leaders.
I mean with double cows + gold you can build them in how many turns..7 or 6 with some OF?

 

[drewisfat]

Not sure which is better, although I suppose most people will tell me that the correct choice is clearly to settle 1N or something .

The correct choice is clearly to settle 1N
This is because we can't improve food past 3 anyway (unless we detour to agri and farm a fp). Better to just get the growing done ASAP. Warrior first, grow to size 3 on the floodplains, only then worker which can immediately improve and work the gold.

 

[sampsa]

The correct choice is clearly to settle 1N
This is because we can't improve food past 3 anyway (unless we detour to agri and farm a fp). Better to just get the growing done ASAP. Warrior first, grow to size 3 on the floodplains, only then worker which can immediately improve and work the gold.

Not sure if I get it. What's wrong with just going AH, improve cows, stagnate working good tiles and grow later?

 

[Fippy]

Looks like you fell into his anti-anti-gold joke trap

 

[jnebbe]

Obviously you're supposed to go for the all-in 8 city AGG warrior rush!

(demigod to t84)

Spoiler :

I was not swayed by the settle-on-gold-propaganda and settled 1S of gold instead. 2nd city grabbed pig but was a little slow since it couldn't share tiles with capital
AH - mining - bw - fishing - pottery - HBR - archery
I'm curious if I should've gone fishing-pottery before bw. I didn't go into slavery until right before my 3rd city. I easily slowbuilt barracks+granary in all 3 cities so I only chopped 2 forests before getting HBR and a stable in the capital.

I usually aim for minimum 10 HAs to attack but gandhi was so lightly defended it still worked fine.

Super straightforward, 10 cities, room for 3-4 more and an island city in the north. 15 cities on a 650 tile map, should be easy to close out.
Got stone last turn, getting some failgold from pyramids.
Captured 6 workers, still have 11 keshiks, most of which are triple-upgraded,
Only other noteworthy thing happening is that cyrus is plotting me but he barely has a stack so I'm not worried about that.

 

[Izuul]

Settling on the PH means no fresh water, which is usually bad with FPs around, but this city doesn't have enough food to grow much anyway. I think settling on the PH and working 2 cows + gold at size 3 is pretty good. That's 11 base hammers + IMP bonus. 18H/turn building settlers at size 3 i think?

Might be room to the north for a proper city to use those FPs more effectively.

 

[sampsa]

I think settling on the PH and working 2 cows + gold at size 3 is pretty good. That's 11 base hammers + IMP bonus. 18H/turn building settlers at size 3 i think?

Sure. SOG has some trumps too, though. Timing of AH is perfect even on deity, not only due to +1cc, but also +1 tile on the first ring. If SOPH, gold is ready to be worked T27 I think. By that time SOG is ahead by 27+5=32 and some due to faster AH. No reason to grow to size 3, meaning a faster 2nd city (and 3rd city). At size 2 the city produces 84pt, meaning 16 towards a settler with IMP bonus (SOPH at size 3 is 112 ->18 towards a settler). I think that's T28 settler (SOG) vs T33 settler (SOPH), a 5T difference. Not saying SOG is better, but that it has definitely merits.

The biggest trump of SOPH is that post T27 it is generating 6 more, which means it will run ahead in quickly, which is very useful if you consider for example HBR-attacks.

 

[jnebbe]

continuing demigod

Spoiler :

I was gonna go for elephants but I didn't quite have enough gold so instead I went for more keshiks and tried to pick off small lightly defended cities
I captured a vicky city that had iron which was really stupid since I could just trade for copper with charlie and just made everyone mad at me.
I attacked mansa's south cities and then charlie got bribed against me

Mansa was busy capturing barb cities so his army was super spread out

Swoop in and capture Gao and get out right when I see the first elephant!

Added 5 new cities but now everyone hates me and I'm 6 turns from strike, debatable if I'm in a better position lol
Vicky lost 1 city, mansa lost 6, I still have 17 keshiks so I could heal and take out pacal who's only on 3 cities and not well-liked
tech situation is somehow not bad, I have a scientist in 6 turns but I need cyrus to tech something useful to trade since he's the only one who will trade ith me
Haven't seen a single charlie unit yet, eyes peeled

 

[Izuul]

Demigod T167 Domination

Spoiler :

I'm too lazy to take a lot of screenshots these days, but i settled on the PH 1S of the gold and went for Keshiks. There are several wimps around us, but Ghandi is certainly the most wimpy since he doesnt have Skirmishers or Holkans. I attacked on T76 and rolled over Ghandi pretty quickly. He only had archers when i attacked but did get spears fairly soon after that by trading for copper. I did raze two or three of his cities including the western stone city and the deer city. I didn't want the maintenance costs at the time and i also didn't want to deal with Vicky border tensions at that point in the game. I didn't think the stone was important enough to be worth the hassle. I settled two cities (resettled the deer + iron spot) after the war and ended up with 11. I think i probably could've taken out Mansa with Keshiks at this point but decided to just play it out to Cuirassiers since i had plenty of tech potential.

One of the more noteworthy things that happened in the game was that i intentionally completed a great prophet and built the Buddhist shrine! I don't think I've done that many times before.