Nobles' Club 361: Qin Shi Huang of China

[antimony]

@chinemol

Spoiler :

Late feedback, but from your position I would trade Astro to Peter for Engi. Paper ruins the chemistry bulb if you are going for that, but with those great engineer points in Shanghai it seems uncertain.

Too bad nobody wants to trade Guilds. I would keep trading freely, just not with Monty's worst enemy.

Tech leader Monty is always a bit strange. In my game he was a vassal of Peter already.

 

[Tecumseh1]

@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.

Thanks! I didn't think much about how those trade routes worked and just assumed it was 1 commerce. Now if i could only remember to avoid meditation for astro bulb and life would be great.

 

[Tecumseh1]

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.

Excellent post!

 

[antimony]

You only need to avoid meditation if you research code of laws, I think.

 

[antimony]

T135

Spoiler :

500 AD Optics, could have probably got it faster if I settled pig city before the island one or if I waited a bit longer to run scientists there. After that I researched Math, Calendar and the pre-reqs to Monarchy. A few AIs didn't have Optics yet, traded it for Alpha and Currency, and just for some gold to Ragnar so he would be pleased and open to trade his techs . Peter was the tech leader and Monty his vassal, but Monty was quite advanced along the military flavor, up to Guilds and Nationalism from what I could tell. I didn't trade with Isa who everyone hated and who 3 of them were already at war with. Settled 4 more cities including one on NW island in time for Astro trade routes.

Got Astro via double bulb on T145. Was able over the next few turns to get Engineering, Monarchy, Feudalism, Code of Laws, Philo and Civil Service. A great merchant popped in Beijing and started a golden age during which I switched to HRule/Bureau/Caste and produced a great scientist in Shanghai to bulb half of Chemistry.

T160 - 1000 AD

Spoiler :

Just finished golden age and ready to research Steel in the next 9-10 turns. I traded Gunpowder / Chemistry to Peter to get Paper and Printing Press which might be a gamble, but it will hasten Steel by a turn and get me closer to Rifles eventually. Nobody else has Chemistry and only Monty and Ragnar have Gunpowder.

 

[JSS]

Deity 1AD

Spoiler :

Tech path was BW -> Fishing -> Sailing -> Masonry -> Wheel -> Pottery. After that I went for IW for a few turns but figured my 5th city wouldn't be in time, so went Writing and finished IW after I had libraries up.

Settling order was Shanghai (fish city to the west), Guangzhou (pigs) and Nanjing (island). I have room for 2 more nice river cities in my part of the southern island. I'll get the flood plains crap later on after I have met everybody else probably.

My Astro bulb date will be quite late I think. I delayed my GS for a few turns to let the cities grow a bit because I thought would've struggled for commerce had I beelined my scientists and they wouldn't have had nothing to do. Trying to balance it out a bit. Not expecting a super early Astro date that's for sure, but I'll use my GM to trigger GA when the time comes.

Edit: This was badly played, I made a mistake in choosing my tech path and prioritizing growth over GPP. I'll try again with a different strategy.

 

[antimony]

Some mistakes on first attempt post-Astro

Spoiler :

Because I traded for Printing Press and Banking, I thought Rifling rather than MilScience first would be good, but on deity the AIs will have frigates at that point so Ship of the Line would be good to have. Also won't have the money to upgrade that many Muskets to Rifles anyway.

Then I shouldn't attack one of the weakest AIs because they risk vassaling to Peter right away. An AI around the middle of the score table (e.g. Sury) would be a better target.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler My very first conquest victory ever! (Immortal) :

Turn 348 1928 AD I manage to cap every single civ in the entire map. I usually get DOM victory by vassaling 4-5 AI (with one or two dead) but there wasn't enough land so I had to build a massive stack of 60 Tanks, 60 Artillery, 50 infantry, 12 Calvary all with 4 Great Medics from taking the first 4 AI.

All in all, I built Great Lighthouse in BCs, bulbed ASTRO in 450 AD, and rushed Ragnar around Turn 240-250 with Cannons and Rifles. I libbed cannons late in the game, surprisingly no one went for Lib till 1300 AD. I was able to get combustion before hand, tried attacking sooner but he has a very strong naval army, so I reloaded, waited longer, destroyers and transports absolutely wrecked his frigates, ship of the lines and galleys. He also liberated Roosevelt on a little island above his main continent.

Then I took Isabella, she capitulated nearly instantly. Then I upgraded my massive stack to artillery/infantry, took Monty, then Sury. By that point, I still didn't have enough land for domination, so I built 60 tanks and took out Peter, who had Gigi as a vassal. Both of them already had tanks but didn't build anti-tanks and my stack far outnumbered his. I took several of his cities, GIGI managed to take two of my small ones from me (that were originally his that I took from Monty). Peter took one from me with a small stack, but these were small cities. I took the two cities Gigi took back, and I took 4 of Peter's big cities and once his capital Moscow fell, he capitulated. Immediately after, Gigi took one look at my army, saw the entire world was now at war with him, **** his pants and capped right after. The turn after, Conquest victory!