Nobles' Club 373: Mao Zedong of China

[jorissimo]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

So, the only road you actually need to connect those cities is the one SW of Beijing Not sure what your tech situation was at the time but that could impact your worker orders (unless you had some to spare).

Yes, I had worker turns to spare and wanted to speed up settler movement

AH->The Wheel makes absolute sense. But going BW -> Pottery next would be my prefered option.

I see your point, and it makes sense, but I saw the bare floodplains around future city 2 and that triggered Pottery first for me. I also inherently dislike the idea of farming floodplains when I have a decent food source available and replacing them shortly after. But I didn't do the math on this.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Deity:

Spoiler :

I went on the PH, but not the stone. Yes it is a 3 city tile, but improving the pig is limited by researching AH, thus settling on the stone would actually delay improving the pigs by one turn. I scouted SE with the warrior, so I did not see the northern rice, which actually makes the stone settle much better. I proceeded to mine the stone for a 5 tile, mine a grassland hill, and just build workers and settlers in Beijing for the early game.

I made one relatively big mistake in going AH -> BW, as my economy could not support my production. Getting TW first would have been much better, Pottery before BW would also probably have been better than BW directly. I did not whip anything before granaries anyway and only chopped a few forests, although getting the copper for Shanghai (NW pigs) really helped. I never saw any barb archer with a few warriors to fogbust.

Here I am at T58:

As visible, I could not use my forests yet and Willem settled the NE.

I decided to go for Cuirs, due to the ample land available and thus went into peaceful teching mode. This way greatly helped by everyone except Monty going Hindu and Monty soon attacking Willem. I moved my Capital to Guangzhou, 1N of the sheep. This allowed me to go Caste/Pacifism outside of a golden age, as there was nothing I wanted to build, netting me 3GS, 1GM and one almost finished GP that I earmarked for a GA.

In 1 AD things are fine, although there are few resource trades available and I made a mistake with Chengdu.

Spoiler why is Chengdu a mistake :

It should have gone 1N or 1NE, leaving space for a city on the desert hill to work cottages for Guangzhou.

The obvious targets for Cuirs are Rammy and Willem, with me favouring Rammy due to the longer border and him being closer to culture.

So I bulbed Philo, double bulbed Education (I traded for Machinery earlier, so no Lib bulbing.), but had to Lib Nationalism, since the Tech pace was quite fast, with all techers being in such a love festival. I did trade rather actively, even giving out MilTrad shortly before my attack for PP, Const, eco, as there was no way this would end on Cuirs. I bribed Mansa (who cancelled being a vassal to Willem after Willem switched religion), on Willem to keep my back clear, later bribing Willem off Mansa as Sury joined in and Monty went after Willem again. I did attack Rammy on T154, and here we are on T155:

I did somewhat underestimate Rammy, as he had lots of cultural defence and I had to wait for reinforcements around Thebes, which is bad when attacking with Cuirs. Attacking one or two turns later would have been better, but that is with hindsight. I left him Giza for keeping the culture on others and trading me some tech. In the around 10 turns to build up and 15 turns to conquer him I went form being up Lib, Gunpowder, MT, sharing PP only with Huayna (he was friendly before switching religions), and few having Constitution to the non Monty rest of the world being close to Assembly line. Also Monty started plotting while in enforeced peace with Willem and stacked on my border.

Meanwhile I made another mistake, as this is one of the few situations where AL before communism would have been good, due to Monty plotting. I did the standard Commu -> AL line and barely had factories up when Monty attacked. (Yes I should have built some Infantries before.) Fortuantely he only had 3 trebs in his massive Rifles/Cavs stack, so I could have let him take a city and suicide his stack on the next, but I did not stop to think and had the genious idea of throwing my cuirs at his rifles (on a hill) to flank all but one treb out, buying me time. This did work, but nonetheless was a terrible idea. He suicided his stack into CG3 Infantry.

I did capitulate him while fighting of Willem (In a four turn war I ended via AP), went for Tanks and ran over Huayna, Willem, Mansa in that order to win domination.

 

[Izuul]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

How did you manage to avoid a holy city in Heliopolis? Did Ramses fail to found a religion in your game? I lost that western gold tile to the holy city culture pretty early in the game and didn't reclaim it until i captured the city around 1 AD.

 

[jorissimo]

T75, and another decision moment:

Spoiler :

I decided to go for the Mids given the terrible happiness situation. It's due next turn (I just 3-pop whipped it). I missed out on the Oracle (was teching Poly when Ramesses built it). Other than that I have a bit of a dilemma: there is a lot of land to settle, to the extent that I can only see Egypt's borders so far. So I'm not quite sure anymore about CKN rush. On the other hand, Rammy is close and might cause trouble, so maybe this is a good occasion for a city gift? Right now my slider is at 0 waiting for Aesthetics, but with the Mids CoL might be better? Decisions, decisions... Btw, I know I need more workers, but I'm just waiting for the whip unhappiness to run out in Shang and Guang (which will coincide with the turn after anarchy from switching to Rep).

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

How did you manage to avoid a holy city in Heliopolis? Did Ramses fail to found a religion in your game? I lost that western gold tile to the holy city culture pretty early in the game and didn't reclaim it until i captured the city around 1 AD.

Spoiler :

Ramesses settled Memphis to the West in my game, and founded both Buddhism and Judaism in it. I guess Buddhism had already spread to Heliopolis when he founded Judaism.
Sometimes the Player's capital location changes the AIs settling pattern - if you mean Memphis was founded East in your game. Did you also settle on the stone ?

Ramesses settled Elephantine to the south before I got my Shanghai, but he was still on 3 cities when I settled Guanghzou.
Going 2nd Worker -> Settler -> Settler at size 4 helps with the grab plan, I think. It will delay city 2 but reduces the timings between cities 2 and 3 and I would think that makes city 3 by corn/gold safer.

Spoiler :

Shanghai is not a great city, here. I settled it specifically for blocking purposes. It helps control the 2nd ring copper (with 2 cities) and prevents any Egyptian city to pressure me from SE of the mountain.
It also leaves a good range of options to backfill the pigs in the north.

 

[a pen-dragon]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

Why did you settle Xian? As you remarked there is a huge amount of land available and you settle a helper city that can only work one additional tile.

Rammy is relatively peaceful and does not plot at pleased, so gifting him a city is probably a bad idea. He still has room for expansion in the north and it will probably be some time (if ever) until he starts plotting. You are not even a land target (yet). If he starts plotting, just switch into his religion and beg.

I would advice you to grab the good land.

The main point of Aesthetics is trade bait to get Alpha. The AI will frequently tech CoL before Aesth, thus it is a riskier plan. Additionally, IMHO you do not have enough high-food spots to need the extra slots ASAP. Also running specialists slow your expansion.

 

[soundjata]

@Izuul

Spoiler :

I'm pretty the deity AI will settle its second site based on the direction its initial scout explores. (and it needs to "see" the future city site)

Now what decides the movement of AI units on turn 1? This is probably quite random...

Maybe something like (pass random test 1 => move east or else pass random test 2 => move south ; etc...) and this is very speculative but gives me a nice justification for the (small sample) result we get => only BIC was "lucky enough" that Ramses scout decided to explore west instead of east on turn 1.

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

Yeah, I see in BIC's last update that Ramses did indeed have a holy city (double holy city no less), but it was to the west rather than the east. I'll have to check my game to compare his city placements. One thing of note is that he didn't found a religion until Monotheism in my game. I don't remember the city names in my game though so it's entirely possible that his placement was the same (or very similar) and the religion just got founded in his 3rd city instead of his 2nd since it was founded later.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Spoiler :

In my game Rammy placed his second city in the west, too.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

For what it's worth I stopped checking where Deity AIs planted there second city a long time ago, because more than once they consistently placed it in a specific spot during testing only to go in a completely different direction in some - not even all, just some - people's games and throwing off all of my plans .

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

Why did you settle Xian? As you remarked there is a huge amount of land available and you settle a helper city that can only work one additional tile.

Rammy is relatively peaceful and does not plot at pleased, so gifting him a city is probably a bad idea. He still has room for expansion in the north and it will probably be some time (if ever) until he starts plotting. You are not even a land target (yet). If he starts plotting, just switch into his religion and beg.

I would advice you to grab the good land.

The main point of Aesthetics is trade bait to get Alpha. The AI will frequently tech CoL before Aesth, thus it is a riskier plan. Additionally, IMHO you do not have enough high-food spots to need the extra slots ASAP. Also running specialists slow your expansion.

I agree on most points

Spoiler :

And see things a little different regarding Aesthetics vs CoL.
CoL considerably speeds up a Civil Service beeline. And I don't think the AIs get it that fast. And if one does, he won't trade it away.
The issue, here, is that Beijing does not qualify as a great Bureaucracy capital. A couple of players (no spoilers ) found a roundabout solution : rebuild the Palace. And that is perfectly fine.

Aesthetics is trade bait. A reward for marble. An entry point to Music (also rewarded with marble). And a chokepoint to Great Scientist bulbs towards Machinery & Engineering.
I think the value of Machinery and/or Engineering bulbs greatly depends on the early Library(es) timings. And is perhaps also difficulty dependent (better trades = easier bulbs).
If Libraries are late and trades are difficult, I think it's conceivable to forego the Machinery bulb and focus on the Engineering one.

I think either route can be pursued but they both come with a specific and different plan (Lib race vs Engi bulb). In any case, Jorissimo's T75 is a point at which he needs to decide.
I will echo your advice he should still keep expanding. Hint, hint : there's a corn to the west
I'm not sure how the Pyramids fit in all of this but they are a good grab either way 1000 BC Mids with 5 cities and 2 (incoming) Libraries is perfectly respectable

 

[jorissimo]

@a pen-dragon and @BornInCantaloup :

Spoiler :

Why did you settle Xian? As you remarked there is a huge amount of land available and you settle a helper city that can only work one additional tile.

Hint, hint : there's a corn to the west

My reasoning for settling Xian where I did was that there were too many floodplains for Guang and Shang to work with the low happy cap (although Rep will change that) and wanted to prevent Ramesses from settling in that gap. It was also cheap and safe. For the western corn spot, barbs were a concern, but settling it is the top priority right now.

 

[soundjata]

@jorissimo

Spoiler :

Nice. In your position I would whip settlers and workers (1 pop whip) wherever / whenever possible

 

[jorissimo]

Possible plan going forward:

Spoiler :

Given that I have land to settle and develop, I think I might forego any bulbs and do a normal Henrik-style Engi rush whereby one goes CS first and then Engineering, getting MC and Machinery on the way by teching or trading. In this scenario a GP can be used to speed up research around Machinery, but I could also use it to bulb Philo and use that to trade for Feudalism and stuff. This strategy is more flexible in the sense that I can pursue a normal Lib game if the circumstances favor that by the time I get to CS. In this case going for CoL can actually be quite worthwhile because on Immortal the AI can sometimes tech very slowly and you're waiting for them to get any techs you could almost have researched yourself in the meantime if you hadn't gone for Aesthetics.

 

[Izuul]

Finished my deity game

Spoiler :

Ramses did indeed settle east rather than west which explains the location of the holy city in my game vs BIC's game.

Whether or not to research AH was an interesting decision early. There are three nice AH resources so i could see it being a worthwhile diversion, but i chose to skip it and trade for it later. I also went straight for Metal Casting rather than Aesthetics to trade for Alpha which is not a play I normally make, but it worked out nicely here. It's more expensive, but you don't have to put any turns into Alpha to make the trade so it doesn't end up being too much more expensive, and here i obviously wanted MC for the potential CKN attack. Looks like i got MC on turn 74/75 (74 by the log) and was immediately able to trade for Alpha and then IW on the next turn. Not having iron around would've been a bummer. Picked up Machinery around T100 and attacked Ramses on 25BC.

The game went pretty easily from there. There was a moment when Willem and then Mansa both declared war on me (i think literally the turn i finished off Ramses), but neither really had many units. I assume Mansa got bribed in, but i really don't know why Willem declared without a stack. I bribed Monty into the war against Willem which probably made things a lot easier too. I lost two cities temporarily, but got both of them back rather easily when my Xbows got back from the former Egyptian lands, and i even ended up with Willem's dye city to the NE before making peace with both of them.

Tech pace seemed very slow the entire game for Deity so i decided to go for Cuirs/Cavs rather than cannons. I got Lib, but had to take Nationalism with it else lose it to Sury. Picked up MT and won with Cuirs/Cavs, and eventually some Airships. I didn't have to fight against Rifles until Capac at the very end which was pretty bizarre for a deity game. This map seems pretty easy unless you run into very early trouble with Monty. He was at war with others in my game though so that was never much of a concern.

 

[soundjata]

Same here

Spoiler :

Triple golden age.
Warlike civics finally, including advanced monitoring

Capture Willem territory with ease.
Sign peace for Replaceable parts, when he's got 1 city left (Maastricht)

Next turn Willem is gone, Monty stack is in Maastricht and Mansa Mussa peace vassals

We are now at war with Capac and decide to bribe Monty, wishing he will move his stack in a position where we can crush it.

Unfortunately he does not oblige properly.
Instead he gets stuck for many turns
First he heals his troops,
Then he spends his sweet time upgrading everything (horses and phants > cuirassiers)

In the meantime we capitulate Capac and Sury surrenders.

Finally Monty comes nearby and we can partially obliterate his stack.
(Cannons have unfavorable odds vs cuirassiers. Send the cavalry first and destroy his siege with flanking)
Before:

After there is nothing left to throw at it:

Next turn he vassals.
T185 conquest, topping my personal HOF

Great people summary:
1 bulb (engineering)
6 for 3 golden ages = 38 turns!
3 for merchant missions.

Utilizing vassals to get high tech:

Thanks @AcaMetis for the game.
Relatively easy for once

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Relatively easy for once

 

[jorissimo]

T102:

Spoiler :

Brief update, will describe in more detail later.

Expanded to 9 cities, got the GL with the GE from the Mids. Now full steam ahead to CS through Currency and CoL and then hard-tech Machinery -> Engineering. I'm #1 in GNP. As far as I'm aware, this is my BPT record at ~T100.
Diplo situation is favorable, with much of the continent at war.

 

[pmarc]

T179

Spoiler :

Following the beeline from Engineering to Steel and Mil.Science, declared on Mansa with 2 dozen cannons and comparable amount of grenadiers in 1000 AD. 19 turns later I have vassaled Mansa and Willem, with a monopoly on Steel and Rifling, so it should be a formality from here.

 

[jorissimo]

Spoiler 1 AD :

Played until 1 AD. Gained almost 100 bpt since the last update. I decided to play a normal Lib game, planning to draft Rifles, as I have land to develop and with this tech rate I don't see why I should attack at Machinery/Engineering. I'm 4 turns away from CS, and Beijing is 4T from generating a GP. If it's a GE, I'll save it for a GA and if it's a GS, I'll bulb Philo with it. Beijing is also close to completing the NE, which has nice synergy with the TGL. I shouldn't be hard to get a second GP out in time. I decided to stay religionless so far, but during the GA I might switch into Juda just for activating Paci. I'm now also starting to scout a little, late, I know, to see how the two wars are going. No cities have been captured yet, but Monty launched a failed attack on Ramesses, who is now stacking troops in his namesake city. I probably also need some more workers (I have 9 right now), as I have 2-3 unimproved tiles being worked.