Nobles' Club 333: Wang Kon of Korea

[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 Wang Kon of Korea, whom we last played in NC 294. The Koreans start with Mysticism and Mining.

• Traits: Wang Kon is Financial and Protective. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2. Protective gives all Archery and Gunpowder units a free City Garrison I (+20% City Defence) and Drill I (+1 First Strike chance) promotion, as well as a +100% bonus to Walls and Castles.
• The UB: The Seowon, a University with +35% instead of +25%. A minor and marginal increase to an expensive building, but place it in a city with a solid (FIN-boosted) commerce generation and watch the beaker output shoot through the roof.
• The UU: The Hwacha, a Catapult with +50% vs. Melee units. An early siege unit that's noticeably better against the most powerful defensive units that they (and the rest of their army, whatever that is composed of) is likely to face off against.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps and moving of unworkable seafood to proper locations.

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 333 Wang Kon 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]

A plains elephant tile you can settle T0, two plains hill tiles you can settle T1, or a plains hill stone tile you can settle T2. The elephant tile moves away from floodplains into darkness that can't be scouted, the eastern plains hill even more so but keeps the improvable elephant tile (which is worth 3 improved because of riverside and Fin ), the north plains hill keeps a lot of the floodplains but moves away from the only visible food (albeit a food that requires AH, and Wang Kon starts with neither Hunting or Agriculture), and the stone hill likewise keeps floodplains but moves away from visible food, albeit the starting Warrior is in position to scout that area a bit better.

In terms of scouting I think move the Warrior 1SE to check both of the grassland river tiles SSE and SESE. If there's, say, Corn on either tile that could majorly change the stone hill settling plan. If there's something enticing and/or settling west (either SIP, on the elephant or on the west plains hill) is off the table (or was never on the table ) move the Settler 1NE to scout that one empty grassland tile, and from there decide on either whether to commit to the north plains hill or do another turn of scouting/moving towards the stone hill if the stone hill is a lock in. Bit of a convoluted plan IMO, but using the settler to scout early tiles can be worth it. Especially if there's nothing lost from doing so .

Anyway, that's my overcomplicated plan which is probably a complete waste because there's some blatantly obvious settling spot I completely missed...again . So what do the experts think .

 

[Pedro78]

A few good options here. Warrior 1NE or 1SE both make sense. If nothing is found either 2W --> quick settler or going for the stone anyway are both decent (even if stonecap has no food it'll have enough oomph to get a settler out quickly).

 

[antimony]

I like @AcaMetis's idea of scouting with both units. Agri food would help given that it's a long way to AH.

 

[soundjata]

Yeah it's probably SOS and Settler first for me (settler is out T19) ; bar some other food.

 

[Nick723]

I would follow @AcaMetis ’s scouting plan but likely settle 1NE if nothing found.

Tech hunting -> masonry, mine pigs, camp and then quarry. Build the Great Wall.

 

[soundjata]

@Nick723 Issue will be lack of worker techs after masonry no ?

 

[Nick723]

@Nick723 Issue will be lack of worker techs after masonry no ?

Not sure of exact timings, but there is another hill to mine in the meantime.

Probably agriculture or wheel after masonry which would keep the worker busy.

But this is a challenge wherever you settle? This start needs a lot of techs.

 

[sampsa]

I don't even understand the point of 1NE. Loses a floodplain for not much. Loses ability to settle on stone. I think for example 1W/2W is a better version, but I couldn't resist SoS, even if it means need to go settler first.

 

[Qactus]

For me it's 1W on the Elephants, if Warrior doesn't reveal some good food around stone. 1W has a nice number of floodplains for the capital (1.6 unhealth rounded down) and can share three of them with the city that will most probably be planted on the stone. 2W loses too much of that (capital FPs, cottage sharing, plus it loses a turn and a forest) only for the ability to work a FIN camp

 

[andersw]

Havent played civ4 in years but inspired by quill (and I watch absolute zero at times) so I gave it a go on Monarch.

Spoiler :

edit: early tech path was agri > pottery > masonry > bronze working.
I settled on stone and got pyramids, godly start, also grabbed the marble and a few wonders (Great lib, Mausoleum and Taj Mahal).
Was a bit lucky grabbing the iron with a city north west.
Willian built apostolic with a religion only he cared about.
Did the curassier sling shot at 6-7 cities and after that the game was a rather smooth cleanup, I was a bit worried about Portugal who nearly surrounded me (damn he spams cities) but he wasnt much of a challenge.
Portugal (vassaled) > Netherlands (vassaled only island cities left) > world war vs Inca (deleted)/Rome/Ottomans(deleted)/Arabia.

 

[jnebbe]

Looks like a fun map for my favorite leader

demigod t60

Spoiler :

Settled on stone -> settler first
2nd city settled on elephant for the faster worker, perhaps it was smarter to secure the corn/sheep spot...

Masonry->BW->wheel->pottery->AH
Pyongyang makes a 2nd worker, pig is mined then worker chopped out.
Capital will finish TGW then grow 1 turn to size 3 and then get a settler out

:|

Settler was done t50 I think, not sure if I could've gotten it out faster. In hindsight of course I should've settled corn/sheep spot but at the same time I wanted to make sure I secured the ivory. I didn't know how close wilhelm is and CRE borders could really be annoying. Its ok though, every game is winnable with elephants
3rd settler done in 2 turns and he's going to settle 1NE of wilhelm's archer in the north
I think it's still a good position, AH finished this turn which revealed horses, so horse archers is suddenly a possibility. I really don't like HAs much, feel like it's much more luck reliant/less sturdy than catapults but figured I would ask here first.
Maybe HAs just to take the 2 south cities and transition into catapults and elephants after? They're both flatground, shouldn't be too bad.

 

[Fippy]

I don't really understand settler first with the tiles you had available @jnebbe
We like getting creative especially here sometimes..but wow i would never.

 

[antimony]

This is T49 Deity

Spoiler :

Settled on stone, worker-warrior-(grow to 2)-settler-settler opening in capital.

There was probably a reasonable chance to get Pyramids with this map and leader, but seeing Portugal so close I thought an early breakout (elepult with the UU) was preferable, which (together with FIN and easily obtainable happy resources) diminished the value of Mids. My plan was to settle the more contested southern corn-sheep site first and then ivory-pig-marble. As Portugal got the sheep early and a barb city spawned W of marble, I had to adjust city locations.

First techs were Agri then BW, chops being the only thing our worker could do between gold mine and city 2 corn improvement. Switched to slavery while settler was on its way. Continuing was Hunting-AH-Wheel-Pottery I believe, but it doesn't really matter as food/production for expansion, rather than commerce, is the limiting factor here. From now on it's going to be a Math-Construction beeline, hopefully trading for HBR.

After farm and gold, worker chopped to get first settler 2 turns early, then improved corn in city 2 and then more chops in capital (into settler) and in city 3 (rushing a monument as soon as it was settled to grab the pigs). I think worker 2 was a 2-whip... just wanted to get it out in time for cottaging around the cap.

The best tile by far up for grabs is the gold to the north, so I'm planning the next city there at the "s" spot. Horse and silver to the south are good tiles but really suffering from the lack of food... perhaps it would work by farming the river grasslands W of Pyongyang, for a stagnant size 3 city working farm-horse-silver.

Looks like a tight spot but still doable for elepult. The good news is if Joao is the target then all the other AIs can be appeased by switching to Buddhism, perhaps.

 

[jnebbe]

demigod 1ad

Spoiler :

didnt take many pictures because it was a really straightforward 4 city elepult. I was surprised how well it went though since joao had I think 11 cities by the time I attacked

Took 3 good cities and razed a 4th, still have a really strong army + a super medic. I've started seeing a few elephants but having hwatchas kind of balances it out so it's not a big deal

Wondering what I should do now. Joao will give currency for peace. Normally I'd gladly make peace and just redeclare but my gut is saying on demigod it would be smarter to keep warring now that I have a firm advantage. I still have my great spy. Most of the aesthetics wonders have been built.

 

[antimony]

@jnebbe

Thank you for sharing! Here's my comment and a comparison with my deity game (found a 200AD save rather than 1AD).

Spoiler :

Very similar situation, I had 4 cities to set up the elepult war, got construction T80, barracks in all 4 and library only in capital. At 200AD I was just about to take Portugal's 2nd to last city (Evira, to the south) before settling for peace. In my game Portugal only had 7 cities, whereas the Dutch seem stronger than in yours.

I would suggest to keep going as long as you have a favorable power rating and the opponent doesn't have or is about to have the tech that will stop your rush (in the case of elepult, Feudalism and Engineering would really slow it down). Joao's 2 eastern cities seem quite good and give you a path to the Dutch, who seem like a good next target. If you go that route you may consider also switching to Hinduism since it would appease most of the other AI while you attack Wilhelm. One thing to be careful of is that if you can't vassal Portugal and get them weak enough, they might become vassals to the Dutch for example.

In my game, the Dutch were obviously too strong for elepult, so as you can see in the screenshot below, I am winding down the war and building up my economy again. I had planned to beeline Engineering after construction while obtaining other important techs Currency in trade, and using the Great Scientist from the capital library to bulb Engi (luckily, no use for fishing with our start). Trebuchets extend the window of relevance of our elephants to the whole medieval area which is nice. I was not planning to go very far on the top of the tech tree (beyond Civil Service) and instead beeline the next siege tech (Steel), possibly getting a 2nd GS to bulb part of Chemistry.

And a later 800 AD spoiler

Spoiler :

It doesn't seem like I'm gaining much ground into the Dutch territory, but what is happening is that he keeps reinforcing Amsterdam while I destroy his units, with my Elephants + Trebuchets gaining XP and staying mostly intact. Because Trebs are only good at attacking cities it is really about wearing him down that way. Here I already stopped whipping my core cities, since I have 14 Elephants + 30 Trebuchets which should be enough for finishing this part of the war, and Amsterdam has a few nice wonders incl. Parthenon, which should help in the next peaceful phase (Caste + Paci) to generate a GS or GMs to upgrade all those well-promoted siege units. I am planning to leave the Dutch their eastern-most cities while taking everything Amsterdam and everything north which hopefully should be enough to cap him.

 

[antimony]

Last update

Spoiler :

1560AD Diplomatic Victory.

The main challenge was balancing the amount of whipping during the elephant-hwacha and elephant-treb phases with the need to keep enough commerce to research the last few techs to Steel, which was completed at 1200AD. With cannons and 20 cities the rest was fairly straightforward, although the ending was a bit funny.

Around 1550AD, with an army of mostly cavalry and cannons, I declare on the last AI competitor (Saladin, who had 2-city Joao as a vassal) and use siege to destroy one big stack parked at the former Roman city of Cumae. I had over 55% of the population already and could have got an AP victory, BUT Saladin had no Buddhist cities and was of course running Theocracy, preventing any spread. So I decide to grab some land from him and take Joao's remaining cities in the middle of my land to get to the domination land limit. I lightly defend Cumae and let Saladin retake it to take advantage of the city raider promotion and continue reducing his forces. However, I forgot the land around that city was neutral at this point, so he was able to run a group of cavalry around my stack to take Ravenna. The funny part is that Ravenna had Buddhism, making Saladin an AP member, so the very next turn I get the Diplomatic Victory vote option.

Out of curiosity I kept playing, retook Cumae and liberated it to the Romans to grab more culture for my team, also ran the culture slider a bit and took one more border city. Ended up past the domination limit a few turns after the diplo victory.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

BUT Saladin had no Buddhist cities and was of course running Theocracy, preventing any spread

One trick you can do in this situation (if declaring war isn't an option ) is to build a Missionary and gift it to the AI instead of trying to directly convert their city. AIs, for whatever reason, are exempt from the "no non-state spread" aspect of Theocracy, and their Missionaries likewise don't have a chance to fail as far as I know, so you can use the unit gifting trick to give an AI a non-state religion.

It's actually a great trick to speed up religion spread in general, since gifting a Missionary gets it off of your team the moment it's gifted over and AIs don't have to deal with spread chances, so it allows you to pump out Missionaries faster and not have them fail to spread stuff. Not a lot of instances a player wants to aggressively spread religion to an AI, though .

 

[soundjata]

Some screenshots of my game (till T126)

Spoiler :

On my first opening I went full Jata (settler first) and it worked (blocking Jao)

Then I read @Fippy post and did another opening which I really liked:
Worker > Settler in cap. Bronze Working > Agriculture
Improve the gold tile first (work it forever), chop next

T26 Settle in Jao's face


T47 Warrior wall of defense


T65 Mathematics


T100 Music


T126 After libbing MT

There is an iddle GS in Seoul for some reason...

 

[antimony]

@soundjata

Spoiler :

Thank you for the post! Seeing how you set up farms pre- and post-CS is really helpful.