Nobles' Club 359: 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 312; we last played the Mongols under Kublai Khan in NC 332. 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 :

Fractal, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few strategic resource swaps, and a single tile Mountain in the deep ocean had it's three unworkable seafood resources moved elsewhere. As well as a few other unworkable seafood moves.

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 Genghis Khan 359 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]

Honestly, I'd just SIP here. Might be better to move 1NE into some mystery tiles and save a forest, but the scout is out of position to check and being able to work a 3/1 tile to build a worker with 5t (really 6t) earlier seems pretty nice. Not to mention being able to improve it a turn faster if the worker doesn't get build too early. Lake/coast aside this doesn't look like a commerce rich start, so the extra coins from T0 settle/T0 1 tile are tempting.

Any experts willing to make a case for 1NE or some other clever play I missed? Or is moving away from SIP just udderly ridiculous .

 

[antimony]

I would definitely SIP and scout grass/coast for city sites. Looking forward to 16 / turn on settlers at size 2.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I also considered 1 but it seems overly fancy/risky and I'm not good enough for that SIP, AH then to BW. Hope for the horses and game is on

 

[Tecumseh1]

T13 immortal:

SIP. Worker. AH. Pretty standard. Horses in the capital yay. Genghis is much more fun to play this way. Good production but poor commerce. Cow/rice city in north is another good production spot. Commerce situation is really sad. I'm actually considering fishing next to work that lake and later on coastal tiles. Otherwise I don't see how to get to HBR for HA rush in a reasonable time. Nice floodplain spot in the east but Big Wash is gonna grab that. Prob need to get that spot via conquest. Is it worth going for the floodplain spot as 2nd city with imperialistic? I still may not get it slow building settler at size 2.

So either fishing + settle cow/rice spot or pottery and try to grab floodplains. What do the experts think?

 

[Build2Much]

There have been some really helpful threads (shadow games and noble discussions in particular) which have coincided with me playing and actually trying to improve, so thanks all! In particular thanks to BIC for getting me to look at this map differently.

Spoiler :

I personally choose not to raze cities and crash my economy as a result quite often. This time I did not. Skipped mining and BW, went straight to HBR from AH. Took out Wash and NY with chariots, now I had all the floodplains I needed! Left chariots over there to deal with barbs, Karakoram was pumping out Keshiks now working cows, horses and 2 forested PH. Took out Saladin while teching Alphabet and Currency and had a 7 city kingdom without building a settler and building only 1 worker (captured the others). Eventually traded alphabet for everything I skipped from Peter. If you raze everything, you can probably wipe out the island with only one city, although Washington and NYs cottages really came in handy.

I downloaded this map.

Spoiler :

The issue here is that the prospective city spots for cities number 2 & 3 are not worth it...
So, what do you do ?
I think it's all in Barracks --> Chariots and pray to the RNG gods.

As far as tech goes, you could either go AH -> BW to help pump more units or straight AH -> HBR to aim for some upgraded military.
Is there any use in building additional settlers/workers ? I wouldn't say so. Maybe after some military success.

Is it worth it trying to improve your eco with the likes of Fishing & Pottery ?
I wouldn't try it. Maybe you can find some T250 victory following that path and settling 3-4 cities but you would surely need the patience and resiliency.

gl gl

ps : to the credit of the mapmaker, I've tried some other maps and I've found the latest Isabella, Joao and Hatshepsut maps to be very enjoyable, as far as I've played them.

[/spoiler]

 

[Tecumseh1]

I downloaded this map.

Spoiler :

The issue here is that the prospective city spots for cities number 2 & 3 are not worth it...
So, what do you do ?
I think it's all in Barracks --> Chariots and pray to the RNG gods.

As far as tech goes, you could either go AH -> BW to help pump more units or straight AH -> HBR to aim for some upgraded military.
Is there any use in building additional settlers/workers ? I wouldn't say so. Maybe after some military success.

Is it worth it trying to improve your eco with the likes of Fishing & Pottery ?
I wouldn't try it. Maybe you can find some T250 victory following that path and settling 3-4 cities but you would surely need the patience and resiliency.

gl gl

ps : to the credit of the mapmaker, I've tried some other maps and I've found the latest Isabella, Joao and Hatshepsut maps to be very enjoyable, as far as I've played them.

I'm always too chicken to try a chariot attack but it makes sense here! With poor commerce it seems good to stay small and reduce maintenance costs. Straight AH -> HBR seems best as even with BW 1 city can't produce units that fast with chopping/whipping. Who would you attack here?

 

[Build2Much]

Spoiler :

I also made the choice of going straight towards HBR (can have it circa T50) and targetted Washington (capital).
This is another issue with the map, both neighbours are quite competent and build a lot of units. Both targets are quite intimidating and N-Y was on a hill... I suppose I'd rather let Saladin some time to build a wonder and possibly Shrine Buddhism.

I made the mistake to move out with 7 chariots (a number of those decently upgraded vs barbs) and crashed against 4 archers in the city (2 reinforced after I DoWed).
Hitting before culture raises to 40% in the capital has evident appeal but iIt would have made a lot of sense to wait for 8 chariots (2v1 is a magic number) or possibly even 10 (only possible with BW).
I didn't try to manoeuver much either, which hastened my demise It's also possible I chose the wrong invasion route and would have had better success going in between Washington and N-Y.

Glad it worked out in such a wonderful fashion for you

I am admittedly not on Deity and it sounds like you are…seemed to work on Emperor though!

Spoiler :

Yes I went around the back side and declared on the same turn I attacked. Also in my game they built NY east of Washington, 1 NW of the horses, 1 tile off the coast. I wouldn’t have settled there, but it was all floodplains between the cities with overlap, wound up being terrific!

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler :

followed the imperialistic, not the aggresive path and settled 3 bad buffer cities with saladin, left north pretty much untouched. might be able to pull it off, as sala is easy to get to pleased, but I think it was the bad approach. probably will replay with aggresive in mind

 

[antimony]

Deity T80

Spoiler :

AH-Ag-Pot-Wri-Alpha-Mining on 5 cities (soon 6 to grab NE gems), because the capital is churning out workers and settlers and production wasn't a priority otherwise. Built a lot of 1 food cottages.

City 2 near wheat and river to the west, city 3 cow/rice NE, city 4 sheep SW, city 5 corn S of capital.

Half of the AI didn't have Alpha so I grabbed BW, IW, Masonry in trades, no one would trade math though. Avoided fishing line to keep Engi bulb open but with marble in city 2 and good diplo since everyone but Sury is following Saladin's religion, I am now considering TGL-Music to Cuirs.

 

[chinemol]

replayed imm going the AH->HBR->Archery path. Thanks to BIC for the advice posted above

Spoiler :

this route it was much easier. capture gold alone rescued a bad situation. even setted a temporarily bad city 2 tiles away from food and copper, hoping the 1 cottage will make it worth. still no agriculture for the time being, but already have alpha, so smooth route ahead unless the bull decides being in the same religion and accepted to pay tribute was not enough. as for the others, gonna move my capital elsewhere, so let them throw anything against a hilled 40% culture aggresive soon to have metal kharakorum

sth extra to add:

Spoiler :

TGL, pyramids, colosus!!!!!!! need courthouses!!!! need currency!!! not gonna stop anyway!! only the bull getting his own religion might spoil this, so going to misionary rush him. other than that, just keep an eye on peter, gona beg soon. brutal difference from the sad first try.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I tried this on Immortal and went for an unsuccessful chariot rush.

Had a second go which was much better:

Spoiler 2nd try :

Built one city near sheep and then built TGL in capital.
This made a huge difference in tech rate compared to my first game (chariot rush) when i couldn't reach Horseback Riding because economy crashed.

Took 4 cities off Washington around 650ad with Elephants, Catapults and Keshicks

Same religion and Pleased with all the western civs, Sitting Bull is the same religion as Washington and has great land and power.

 

[antimony]

T105

Spoiler :

425 BC Great Library (capital), 300 BC Music artist. By trading Aesth/Lit/Music, I was able to get Monarchy, Currency and Code of Laws as well as a bunch of failgold from the AI, since a few wonders got built around the world in the last 5 turns (resulting in a 624 gold reserve as you can see below). Already used 1 GS for the Philo bulb.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

@antimony well done, seems like such a hard setup to crack on Deity. You did well getting your cities out for the marble and the gems. Good luck! (And any plans for military strike? Curraisiers?)

 

[antimony]

@antimony well done, seems like such a hard setup to crack on Deity. You did well getting your cities out for the marble and the gems. Good luck! (And any plans for military strike? Curraisiers?)

Spoiler :

Yes, Cuirassiers. Ideally I would want 3 GS (2 for Edu, then Lib) and a GM to pre build and upgrade a few Keshik.

There is an interesting decision point now. I think it's better to wait for CS in 8 turns to start the Golden Age with bigger cities, but I could revolt to Hereditary Rule to raise the happy cap and get Pacifism still on one turn revolt, which would help stack a few more GPP before the GA.

Also, I might be able to get Taj with marble and about 200 of forests available to my capital (500 towards Taj with Bureau/Marble) The advantage of a 2nd Golden Age is to keep Caste/Paci between the two for more great people, maybe even an Academy in the capital with the next GS if I'm confident about Taj.

 

[antimony]

T163 - 1030 AD

Spoiler :

Used the music artist for a first golden age after CS, then got another one with Taj. Got 3 GS and 2 GM (2600 gold from those trade missions in Saladin's Temple of Artemis city), so after Lib->MT (around 500 AD) I prebuilt 15 Keshik to upgrade while researching Engineering (since I could get Gunpowder via trade). Declared on Saladin in 620 AD after upgrading to Cuirs, and after a somewhat prolonged war he capitulated in 1020 AD. I gained a net 4 cities (gave one to Peter), with the main prize being Medina with both the Great Lighthouse and a 49 gold/turn(!) Hinduism shrine. That shrine alone should make me almost break even at 100% research when that city comes out of revolt.

Russia recently declared on the Khmer, creating an opportunity to share the gains from that war with my current army.

After that (post-Rifling) the best target might actually be Darius, who was isolated pre-Astro. He has Steel but no MilTrad or Rifling; he also founded 4 religions and built the AP, which was a lucky break I think as it reduced diplomatic complications on the mainland.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler Demigod T110 125 BC :

Went AH>Fishing>HB. Being able to work lake tiles allowed me to expand and fund my tech. Built about 10 Keshiks, attacked Washington at 775 BC. He had 10 cities by that point, some with swordmen and spears. Built Gers in capital and some other city. Was able to sue for peace. Now I'm completely stuck. I have no funds and no feasible way out of this
Maybe some of the experts here can help lol.