Nobles' Club 361: Qin Shi Huang of China

[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 Qin Shi Huang of China, whom we last played in NC 311; we last played the Chinese under Mao Zedong in NC 321. The Chinese start with Agriculture and Mining.

• Traits: Qin Shi Huang is Industrious and Protective. Industrious gives a +50% bonus to all Wonders (World and National), and gives a +100% bonus to Forges. 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 Pavilion, a Theatre with +25%. The bonus isn't going to do anything if you're not generating massive amounts of culture in the first place, but when you are it can turn the tide of a high-stakes cultural battle in your favor.
• The UU: The Cho-Ko-Nu, a Crossbow with +2 First Strike instead of +1 FS, and Collateral Damage up to 60% which also affects Siege units. Ever wanted to rain death down upon your enemies' flanks while raining death down upon the enemies directly in front of you? Yeah. Aside from a lack of ways to deal with city defences these guys are walking siege units that mow down Melee units and don't care overly much about anything else. Less than most Knights would fear a Pike, at any rate.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A strategic resource swap, a few unworkable seafood were moved, and a tiny river was added in your (expected) territory to make an otherwise barren area at least slightly workable.

Spoiler isolated? :

Full Iso.

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 361 Qin 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]

Awkward. I'd like to put a city 1E of the warrior eventually, but that means no SIP. The initial settler can't go North (walks into a Lake, runs away from coastal Clam) or West (could potentially ruin seafood depending on the shape of the land, although stepping on the hill should give at least significant advanced warning if not outright confirm/deny whether that's the case), trying to claim the pig with the capital makes no sense given it would mean spending two turns moving away from wet Corn and coastal Clam...

I think I would just SIP in this case and say a good capital is more important than a good second/third city (realistically if that pig is the only nearby AH resource it's entirely possible we won't get the tech to Pasture it for a while anyhow, and a mined grass pig is still a nice tile if you don't need the bacon ), but I'm not sure on this one. What do the experts think?

 

[sampsa]

I think SIP. Moving E/NE for more river makes some sense, but slower corn and maybe even more importantly gives up GLH, which might be excellent on this map and with an IND leader you can get it even on deity.

 

[chinemol]

T82 IMM

Spoiler :

played a bit. SIP BW->fishing went for archers early, maybe a mistake, but killed couple of barbs with them. got TGL. think I'll learn my lesson and go straight for optics now, no fancy going for northern stone. good call @AcaMetis for posting a game related to the latest post.

 

[chumbosity]

T21 Emperor. Been struggling with this difficulty so far, so maybe things will go better in an NC game.

Spoiler :

SIP, thought about 1W but couldn't really think of a good reason. Glad I didn't, since c#2 is looking like the only feasible spot for a second city. Teched BW-Fishing and now really thinking about going straight for IW next. Cities #3 and on seem awful without IW thanks to all that jungle but great once it gets chopped down, and with no copper yet barbs are gonna be a pain. I'm thinking this is at least semi-isolated as well so I don't think I'd be able to trade for IW either. The northernmost yellow BFC could be good if there's a food resource in the coastal fog but I did a pretty poor job of scouting so I'm not sure. Looks like there are islands NW and SW of Beijing too, so maybe one or both of those could be accessible & worth our time.

Once the Warrior's built I think I want Settler-Fishing Boat-Worker with another Warrior in the second city but I never really know at what time to build Fishing Boats to begin with.

 

[Build2Much]

Thanks for posting, exactly the kind of games I need for my poor mid game management. Hoping a couple of the better players will show their work as usual! This is not a leader I have used very often, so a question on how to leverage them on this map:

Spoiler :

on Emperor, I think I played this really well for me through astronomy. I only got one GS, but I was able to send the GM that came out on a caravel to fund research instead so wasn’t too bad. Huge tech lead at this point. Not in front of game now so dates may be off, but it was roughly 700ad Astro, no one else even close.

In these situations I believe it is usually recommended to go chem>steel to cannon attack - But I have a huge lead NOW and I have collateral damage crossbows. Should I pick a target and try to overwhelm someone as soon as I get chem and can Frigate their coastal cities? I feel like I could whip out a fleet and army and hit someone quickly. Thanks!

 

[sampsa]

@Build2Much

Spoiler :

Sure, why not. Though probably you'd need trebs as well, otherwise casualties will be high.

 

[antimony]

Deity T56

Spoiler :

Great Lighthouse and The Wheel next turn. Previous techs were BW-Fishing-Sailing-Masonry. Worker farmed corn then built 3 mines and chopped trees around the capital.

I mostly produced warriors after the starting worker to stabilize against the barbs (lost 2 of my first 3 at 10-30% odds, ended up with 3 dead and 6 still alive). Eventually built settler at size 5, then whipped lighthouse 5->3 with overflow into GLH.

I'm quite sure it needs to be Pottery next, then (Hunting?)-AH-Writing before Iron Working. Besides the island city that should be #3 or #4, I'm seeing 3 reasonable city spots to share cottages with the capital, and only one needs AH. The river city east of cap (for gems post-IW) doesn't have food, so could farm the silks. For the ivory, getting it with either of the two pigs would require both resources to be in 2nd ring (see two s? spots)... but maybe it can just chop most of library, I would really like to avoid Mysticism if I could.
...

 

[antimony]

@chumbosity

Spoiler :

Iron working this early would take a while to research and in the meantime your workers and cities will lack things to do. I would at least recommend pottery before it. Here, I am also thinking of researching writing before IW in order for great scientist points to start accumulating.

As for barbarians, in isolation you just need to build many warriors to fogbust the whole island, even if it costs a few gold in maintenance. You can see on @chinemol's minimap that about 6 units prevented any barb cities from spawning. In my case on deity I got one barb city far to the north.

 

[antimony]

T80

Spoiler :

Contrary to the previous screenshot, I decided not to go for lighthouse in Shanghai, but instead Galley (4->2 whip) with overflow into worker, while Beijing built the settler for the island city after GLH. Since there were no resources to improve in island city yet, I'm just slow building a worker there. After that, Beijing and Shanghai both 2-whipped a Granary, grew back and put 40 hammers into settler for another 2-whip (done in Beijing first to found Nanjing by the SE pigs, and Shanghai settler is ready to whip at size 4 for east river - future gems city).

Meanwhile my worker farmed one silk and partially built a road to connect east river while waiting for pottery, then cottage around capital joined by the 2nd worker for Nanjing, until ready to improve SE pigs.

I may turn down the slider to 0 for a bit for libraries, but turn it on whenever IW can be completed at 100%. City 6 for ivory shouldn't wait too long after the gems one, I'm now thinking maybe on that plains 1NE of that northern "s?" marker so I can just chop 4 first-ring forests for a quick library. I don't think it's worth to tech Mysticism just for that (and island city will wait for border pop from Shanghai where a library needs to be built soon anyway).

 

[chinemol]

IMM t 177, having doubts...

Spoiler :

went the optics route, met ragnar first, then monty. couldn't get a lot, they also traded among them. as of this post, going for engi, guilds, chem, cannons route, but monty is annoyed and has astro. own and nearby islands are kind of secure. probably didn't micro well enough, wasted trades (missing a couple with peter as of this post) or overtraded by now. is it still the optimal strategy to go cannons and then grenadiers with a pissed offf monty and so few populated cities? if so, do I trade asto away? attaching pics and a bug save just in case

 

[Krugi]

IMM T80

Spoiler :

BW->AH->Fishing->Sailing->Masonry->Wheel->Pottery->Myst->IW (in progress)->Writing->Hunting->path to Astro bulb. I considered going Writing before IW, but unlocking three jungled grass gems seems better than getting a GSci ~8t earlier. Built Great Lighthouse T70. Trouble with barb archers around T40-60 since we have no strategic resource, but a few warrior whips (even cold whips) saved the day. Demos are looking horrible, but I'm assuming that's normal for Immortal isolation. Economy is 25 gpt at 0% sci / 39 bpt at 100%, Shanghai and Guangzhou have granaries (Guangzhou also a lighthouse). I whipped Guangzhou a lot and it just keeps growing, probably time to double-whip a few foodhammer units there (growth into unhappiness is not such a problem, angry citizens still slave as good as any).

chinemol's game looks very similar, except he founded Shanghai and Guangzhou in reverse order. I preferred to found pig city first because it makes better use of worker labor.

 

[Krugi]

Astro (T166)

Spoiler :

First GP was actually a Merchant (bad planning). I used him to bulb Metal Casting. Took a gamble and produced the second GP in the capital as well, because I figured a trade mission would be fine as well; got the Scientist. Had good success trading Compass around; the AIs aren't as advanced in my game as in chinemol's, possibly because they are constantly waging war against each other. Nobody has Optics (most don't even have Compass, and I traded it to those who do) and only Isabella has Engineering; I managed to trade for Meditation, Priesthood, Alphabet, Currency and Construction. The plan is to go for grenadiers and cannons via Guilds, of course.

I cottaged Xian and Chengde (the gems cities) to get more use from commerce multipliers. Other cities get farmed, I think the time is past cottages now (better to settle more cities for GLH Astro foreign trade routes). There's still room for another fishing village in the New World. CR1/2 swords took the barb cities full of archers.

Economy: 349 bpt (-122 gpt) at 100% sci, 186 gpt at 0% sci.

 

[Krugi]

Steel (T206)

Spoiler :

Whipped all my more or less mature cities for cannons this turn, except the capital and Moai city (Nanjing), in which that would be detrimental. 10t to Military Science, during which we regrow and then whip another round of cannons, then a round of grenadiers (roughly 2:1 ratio). First target will be Ragnar since his islands make for a suitable base from which to attack the large continent; the central island will be taken first. I'm aiming for an attack date of T230-240. It doesn't seem like the AIs will reach Assembly Line or cavalry any time soon; closest is Suryavarman who is two techs from Rifling.

Four of six civs don't even have Astro lol, three don't have Gunpowder, nobody has Chemistry. I whipped a frigate to cover my galleon stack, maybe I'll build two more in the capital. Frigates might be cool anyway since so many cities on this map can be bombarded from the coast.

I actually had the lead in crop yield before whipping like a madman. Good sign that I'm starting to out-develop most AIs. Sury is the end boss.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I SIP. Didn't like moving on the plains hill as it needs AH. Did not see a point in wasting 1-2 turns to move more north/northeast.

25 BC (Immortal)

Well isolation it seems. Hoping to apply some of the advice in my recent isolation thread. Went for GLH as Qin is an industrious fellow and the first 3 cities were gonna be coastal anyways. Got GLH T66. Barbs started to storm in around T60 but mostly warriors except 1 archer. Anyways protective archers will defend any position against barbs so not too worried until future expansion.

Very uneasy about tech order but I went fishing/AH/sailing/BW/masonry/wheel/pottery. Just finished pottery now. Second city was big and third was fish. Noticed an island in southwest but the clam is not in first ring so not rushing to settle that. Gems and ivory not too far away seems good and there is potential 4th coastal city north near pig.

After pottery I'm stuck between beeline to optics (maybe after writing) or monarchy for the happiness/economy. If it's monarchy then probably can even skip writing as there is not much value in library before happy cap increases. Not in big rush to settle gems as it's expensive worker wise and monarchy seems like a smoother way to get happiness. But iron working is needed anyways so maybe just gems and build forges for extra happiness? Thoughts from the experts?

 

[Tecumseh1]

T21 Emperor. Been struggling with this difficulty so far, so maybe things will go better in an NC game.

Spoiler :

SIP, thought about 1W but couldn't really think of a good reason. Glad I didn't, since c#2 is looking like the only feasible spot for a second city. Teched BW-Fishing and now really thinking about going straight for IW next. Cities #3 and on seem awful without IW thanks to all that jungle but great once it gets chopped down, and with no copper yet barbs are gonna be a pain. I'm thinking this is at least semi-isolated as well so I don't think I'd be able to trade for IW either. The northernmost yellow BFC could be good if there's a food resource in the coastal fog but I did a pretty poor job of scouting so I'm not sure. Looks like there are islands NW and SW of Beijing too, so maybe one or both of those could be accessible & worth our time.

Once the Warrior's built I think I want Settler-Fishing Boat-Worker with another Warrior in the second city but I never really know at what time to build Fishing Boats to begin with.

Some thoughts:

SIP is good imo. I don't think there is much value in BW this early. For city placement you want second city closer to capital and it should have a fast start (so avoiding fishing spot 2nd as fishing cities are always a bit slower unless the workboat is prebuilt). So I went for pig spot (but choose spot so pig is in inner ring). RE barbs: you are protective so archery is more than enough to deal with barbs. Also they won't start coming into the city until you have 3 cities (and often later if AI is slower to expand).

Additional thought about BW is that you already have good production with riverside mines and corn/clams. So slow building settlers will be pretty fast to get the first 2 settlers out in a reasonable time.

 

[antimony]

@Tecumseh1

Spoiler :

With GLH, that island city as your 4th city gets three 2 trade routes, and creates one 2 trade route in each of the other 3 cities and every city after, pretty good even if it does nothing else.

I would not go Monarchy with the gems/ivory + possibility of 1 more happiness with cheap forges. Writing early is to make sure you have 2 GS for Astro. Often you want the bulb somewhere in the T130s if you have a good Optics date, and 2nd GS takes 34 turns of committing 2 scientists in a city with a library.

 

[Krugi]

Not an expert but @Tecumseh1

Spoiler :

With GLH I think you want the offshore island asap. It will bring in 10+ commerce per turn right away, almost entirely from trade routes (6 from itself, then +1 for every other city you own), which by the "1f:2h:3c" rule of thumb beats working (distant) pigs (consider both worker labor and maintenance), and the jungled sites are unusable before IW. Also the offshore island is excellent for IND Moai. Think it might be worth considering not 2-pop whipping a lighthouse at fish city yet (!) so you can 3-pop whip the library faster. But not sure if the math works out. I went with Myst anyway.

IW/Writing is an interesting decision on this map. I think going IW first, which means a Great Merchant from GLH as your first GP and bulbing Metal Casting, is actually okay because it develops the jungle sites faster, which are slow to grow but have good cottaging potential. I would not skip libraries. The Astro bulb is a bit under 1800 beakers. This is roughly 6t of 100% sci at T150 or whenever you finish Astro (I finished on T165 but I suck; on IMM I think it's fine, though) that get transferred into the early game. Writing is on the Currency path anyway, which you'll definitely want to trade for with GLH post-Astro.

I would not go for Monarchy. Your happy cap is 7 post-Calendar (ivory, silk, gems), 8 with IND forges. The cities with ample river grassland have no food and will not grow far beyond that. The food-rich cities are all on the coast and won't be adding cottages past size ~8. Non-FIN non-Moai coast should usually just get whipped.

 

[antimony]

@Krugi

Spoiler :

I don't think I would bulb Metal Casting without being sure I can get 2 more guaranteed GS in time for Astro, which I think is rarely possible in iso without PHI or Code of Laws. So I would run scientists in pig and fish cities as soon as feasible if GLH is in capital.

The difference between an Astro bulb and MC bulb is too large to be compensated for by earlier expansion into the jungle. In particular because the food at the gems site is not great and that city won't be large, I think most of the commerce will come from working the gems in priority rather than cottaging. But I need to continue my game to see what it looks like in terms of optics date.

 

[Krugi]

T298 - Diplo victory

Spoiler :

Crucially Suryavarman's favorite civic is OrgRel so he can be kept at Friendly, and Isabella built the UN rather than him. Capping Gilg and Ragnar should have been doable instead, but not for another 50t maybe.

The Ragnar attack (T235) went badly, he reached rifles and cavalry the turn after I attacked him with ~25 units in theatre. I captured two cities but had to break off the siege of Nidaros, and he didn't capitulate. After that, I declared on Peter (who only had muskets and surrendered immediately after his coastal capital fell) and Montezuma (who lost his cuir stack to Isabella in a simultaneous war). Unfortunately, this is when Gilgamesh reached Infantry and Machine Guns, but not in great force. I limped to Artillery to try and dislodge him, which is when the game ended anyhow. I only had 7 siege units left on the continent, but if hit by airships (which he didn't have), INF is effectively only 16 base strength. I think I had a good shot at taking his capital, at least. My Heroic Epic + Ironworks capital could build 1-turn artillery, but the supply lines are disastrous even with circumnavigation. Perhaps I should have tried to chain galleons, I would probably have teched to Bombers next; I should have had a brief monopoly on them. Isabella had a big army, but with arty and bombers it might have been possible to take even if the line infantry is "only" Pinch and Drill III grenadiers (PRO might unironically be better than AGG).

There is evidently a lot I can still improve about my play. The mid-game in particular (up until T80 or so, my game looks pretty similar to others'). But I'm happy that I won.

Thanks for the map!