Nobles' Club CLXXIX - Qin Shi Huang

[georgjorge]

Deity, 1300AD:

Spoiler :

After my conquests are done (for now), the economy is tanking. So what to do? More cities, of course!

I crawl to Physics (just in) and notice that I do have one Uranium, which is crucial for later.

I also ferry all my military and a number of Settlers over to the New World. After fighting huge Deity stacks, it's a nice change to take cities defended by only two Longbows.

There is one big problem: Ashoka has just gone into war mode, and I'm the likely target (not easy to tell attitudes with two vassals). If he attacks me it's game over as I have no military on the continent and not even Rifling.

Cities: 25
Highest upkeep costs of a city: 38 gold a turn

 

[troglodyt]

Tried my hands on this one with an easy going game on IMM. Conquest in 1846.

Spoiler :

Went for a worker steal from JC. Build Oracle for MC in 1920BC. On the same turn I build a forge to run an engineer. Teched up to currency. Then popped the resulting GE for Machinery in 800BC, all the while choking poor Julius. Then it was Cho-Ko-Nu stomping time.

Took JC's 3 accessible cities and vassaled him once I got feudalism. Next was Bismarck, Washington Asoka and Willem. Teching went strictly along the bottom path, with Engineering, Guilds, towards MiSci. With a less lazy effort I could have vassaled the whole map way earlier, but because I needed too much time Lizzy went to the other continent and she wouldn't cave even after taking all her cities on this one. As I had not taste for a naval invasion I just went for Nukes letting the city manager do his thing. After dropping two nukes she had enough.

What can we learn from this game: Early Cho-Ko-Nus are ridiculously OP.

 

[georgjorge]

@troglodyt: Strong play!

Spoiler :

Early worker stealing and choking is something I am always afraid to do against unit spammers (on Deity), but it might well be a good thing to do on this map. Seems like you really got the ball rolling with it, and the MC-Engineer-Machinery combo is something I didn't account for myself. How many cities did you have before you started the Cho-Ko war?

 

[troglodyt]

@georgjorge

Spoiler :

I only had three cities. But more wasn't necessary. Beating an already choked enemy is easy when you have Cho-Ko-Nus. And for some strange reason absolutely nobody had the only (early) effective counter against crossbows: Horse Archers. Nobody researched HBR for a very long time.

On Deity I would be afraid too, but on Immortal worker steals work more often than not. In this game I sat with one warrior on a forested hill outside JC's capital and he didn't attack even with 6 archers sitting around.

The whole Machinery gambit has so much synergy with an industrious leader. Chopping Oracle for MC is easier. Then you get cheap forges, often before maths, which in turn makes chopping much more effective (not to mention the added happiness from gold etc). As I'm a bit weary of playing the same old tech-to-lib-MT-breakout game this was a nice change.

 

[georgjorge]

Deity, to 1540AD:

Spoiler :

I LOVE STATE PROPERTY! Total upkeep with Free Market: 1200 gold/turn. Upkeep with State Property: 600 gold/turn (plus more food and hammers). Now I can go above 0% research again...

Ashoka went out of war mode without attacking anyone. And just like that, we're Pleased with each other (Free Religion bonus)!

I stopped settling the New World when I couldn't find any other city spots. Despite being the last to Astronomy I got five times as much cities there as anyone else. Willem is a very useful vassal for research as his rate matches about mine (though I have three times his cities). Now to get production up in my cities, and then...NUKES!

The only units built for the last few centuries are continous Longbows in two former German cities to keep from revolting (one has about 20 of them in it).

Cities: 35

 

[civfanchambers]

Tried my hands on this one with an easy going game on IMM. Conquest in 1846.

Spoiler :

Went for a worker steal from JC. Build Oracle for MC in 1920BC. On the same turn I build a forge to run an engineer. Teched up to currency. Then popped the resulting GE for Machinery in 800BC, all the while choking poor Julius. Then it was Cho-Ko-Nu stomping time.

Took JC's 3 accessible cities and vassaled him once I got feudalism. Next was Bismarck, Washington Asoka and Willem. Teching went strictly along the bottom path, with Engineering, Guilds, towards MiSci. With a less lazy effort I could have vassaled the whole map way earlier, but because I needed too much time Lizzy went to the other continent and she wouldn't cave even after taking all her cities on this one. As I had not taste for a naval invasion I just went for Nukes letting the city manager do his thing. After dropping two nukes she had enough.

What can we learn from this game: Early Cho-Ko-Nus are ridiculously OP.

Try playing an Always War game as Qin of China. Cho-ko-Nus are still powerful even after they're considered "obsolete".

 

[Powerfaker]

My first attempt on this map turned out rather unsuccesfull. Although not a lost cause I will start all over.

(imm/epic/NHNE)

Spoiler :

The start looks really great, even greater when our warrior reveals marble. Not good enough to move the cap though so I sipped.

Then scouting around brings the bad news of poor land except the FP/gold to the NW. JC unfortunately is close too and he is the first to settle a new city and it is right there, while I just hit pop 2 after worker->warrior on going. A chanceless race.

No wprries, copper had popped up so I settle my second city 1E of it, and I decide to go for an axe rush. 2000BC I invade with 10 axes. Guess what, JC already has praetorians!! My plan was to conquer Antium and Rome, but Rome is untouchable.
I don't even try. All I've done seems out of place now. Slow tech, wasted production.

In the meantime SH went 2700BC and Oracle 2225BC. Building wonders seems to be going a tough race too.

So, I'm going to retry with a more aggressive approach. I will try a workersteal from JC and then stay in permanent war with him. Maybe I can delay him and claim the FP/gold spot this way + deny him access to metal until I'm ready to seize Rome.
Luckily I don't have to choose between an elepultrush and an axepultrush......

 

[shakabrade]

Hi guys, long time no see.

I am happy forums are not completely dead.


Game:

Spoiler :

I settled on PH to the NW for two reasons:

1. Terra maps are cramped, therefore moving from SIP frees more space for additional cities and your SIP should be too far for AIs 2nd or 3rd city.

2. I wanted worker as quickly as possible so that I could chop settlers sooner and get more cities (needles to say that my first tech was BW).

Then, what happened is that I also got gold and copper in BFC. I actually thought about dropping the game as my risky move didn't have such a reward in mind (I moved away from wet corn!). But then one more turn syndrome kicked in and I saw Julius and soon after Bismarck who are both tough unit spammers, became intrigued and played on...

With horses available, I actually went for HA rush against Julius to get rid of him as he is really problematic factor. Somewhere in the middle of researching HBR, he got Praets (around T70). Since I committed heavily to that rush ignoring a lot of important tech, improvements and 5th city, I decided to pivot and attack Washington whose 3 mainland cities were defended by Archers. Attack commenced with around 8HAs around T80, I produced 12HAs overall and took all mainland cities with 5 losses. Then peace was made for Alphabet and a bit more tech.

It was very important that I didn't overkill because of transition that was about to happen. My economy was very good with alphabet and it was time to try to get rid of JC. It was important that he didn't kill me first so I liberated him a city and switched to his religion (and Bismarck's). Then they converted to Christianity, and so have I, losing one more turn, but that is the cost of being safe. Anyway, JC had quite a stack and he still attacks at pleased.

I followed his stack and saw this :

Spoiler :

This was after me!
I begged 30gold and bought 10T of peace and Cho-ko-nu spamming.
(Also note the city of Gift in Jungle)

That stack was too huge to sit in place and JC decided to attack Bismarck.

Spoiler :

I also liberated to Bismarck who JC decided to be my best friend. Having a friendly AI is important in the game for overcoming WFYABTA.



Anyway, I enjoyed watching JC waste his army and spammed CKNs.

Now some pics:

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I captured GLH from JC! Later, that made me more eager to settle new world but that is the part of the second story.

 

[georgjorge]

Nice, another great Deity player brought back from inactivity! Strange that nobody seems to play a Nobles' Club game on anything below Immortal...

@shakabrade:

Spoiler :

Very interesting diplomacy options - gifting a city is something I hardly ever consider for the high cost but it seems have allowed you the dodging of some serious bullets here.

How did you sustain your economy while waging (almost) permanent war? That's a weak point of my games but you seem to have managed well, researching Astronomy at a pretty decent date...

 

[shakabrade]

@georgjorge

Spoiler :

@shakabrade:

Spoiler :

Very interesting diplomacy options - gifting a city is something I hardly ever consider for the high cost but it seems have allowed you the dodging of some serious bullets here.

How did you sustain your economy while waging (almost) permanent war? That's a weak point of my games but you seem to have managed well, researching Astronomy at a pretty decent date...

Spoiler :

Although it seems obvious, but to win you must not lose.
Sometimes that means sacrificing victory date. There is actually a lot you can do to avoid getting killed.

For sustaining economy it is very important not to commit too much. That is the matter of feeling but also of scouting. Before the war, I try counting units and estimating how many should be enough, taking reinforcements into account. Also, it is important to wage quick wars (therefore I am not in permanent war mode). Don't waste time healing and try to save promotions for healing purposes. That leads to less whipping and your new cities contribute sooner.

If you have decent cottage spot, don't whip it too much.

But what is most important is to have Alphabet (produce research and trades) after the war and go straight to Currency. With HBR it is often possible to make a trade for Alpha or Currency.

Currency makes problems go away but you still don't really fly. That is no biggie as you can easily produce GPerson for GA. That is when your extra land really starts shining. First you research monopoly tech like Compass to get some important techs, and soon after, you are in lead.

Most of the things said should be anticipated an prepared to have full effect.
I hope this helped.

 

[escream1]

As I am trying to level up from Prince to Monarch, I tried my hands on this map, Monarch difficulty Epic speed. I have not kept saves or taken notes during the game, but I will still try to share a bit about my game and some thoughts.

Spoiler :

- Starting thoughts:

Spoiler :

- The protective trait is pretty useless in most of my games, but industrious plays right into my ballpark as I am a recovering wonder-spamming-addict!... I try to avoid building too many wonders now, but I do know how to leverage the trait. (well, with limitations, I'm only a "prince/monarch" player...).
- However, the Cho-Ko-Nus are awesome units in my opinion! Especially for a relative bad warmonger as myself, they are so easy to use: get the techs early, build the same unit a gazillion times (instead of balancing siege/melee/mounted) and pound with them. At prince level, I went for the "Cho-Ko-Nu rush" a few times with relative success. One epic game I was able to Oracle for Machinery on a double-gold start... Not expecting that to happen on Monarch...
- The Pavillion seems meh, but may be useful for a cultural victory. Going cultural is not what I had in mind though as I am generally trying to get better at the warmonger game.

- Starting location: settling in place seemed just fine! Two great food resources, river tiles and lots of forests to chop. There was nothing that was luring me into moving my settler.

- First turns:

Spoiler :

- First build: Worker - standard, right?
- First tech: BW seemed like a no-brainer with agricultue already in and all those forests to chop
- Second build: Here is one of the gambles I took this game and I would be interested to know what others think of it.
My scouting revealed the very close neighbours to the north and the west. Julius Caesar in particular seemed like a big threat to me for three reasons:
1. So close
2. Praetorians are very good and might even be a big problem for my later Cho-Ko-Nus
3. Teching BW revealed two copper sources. The closest one is north of Beijing, in a very good spot with gold nearby, but even closer to Julius C!
That meant that if I don't get there first, the Romans could very well be taking this spot.
So I decided to build the settler at 1-pop, for the first time ever in my life.
It felt like it worked out fine, because building one farm and chopping one forest with the worker made the settler appear really fast, allowing me to settle where I wanted!

- First war:

Spoiler :

With the Romans so close and copper hooked up, it seemed natural to go for an Axe-rush. So that's what I did.
While I teched up to Priestood to build a post-war Oracle, I went for intensive Axeman production, whipping whenever I could.
I decided to give the north corn to my second city, making it a very good production city very fast, while my capitol was helped by the worker chopping everything he could except his own legs.
By the time I had 7 Axemen posted close to the Roman border (a city which Julius founded very close to my second city) and 2 more on their way, I declared war and promptly captured a first Roman city only guarded by two Archers, losing only one axeman.
I went on to attack Rome, which had only 3 Archers as defenders. I was a little worried as I wasn't able to kill all defenders on the first strike, but his lone remaining archer was weakened and my surviving Axeman had almost full health.
So this was it: I conquered Rome really early.
The Roman civilization was not dead though, probably one or two cities to the north, but we decided that a cease fire was best for both of our civs.

- Rex- and recover phase:

Spoiler :

So after this war, my economy was in bad shape, as could be expected.
The science slider needed to be somewhere around 30-40% for cash equilibrium.
I still decided to rex a little, as the two conquered cities were in good locations and would start paying off soon and the proximity of the other neighbours forced me to take the remaining spots right now.
So I grabbed the nice floodplains to the west and the oceanic spot to the east that grabs fish and horses. Later on, I would found another city in the SW to grab a few resources.
While Beijing was busy popping out settlers and workers, Shangai, the production city , built Oracle for Metal Casting (I helped with chopping what forests were left, because I was really afraid that I was going to be beat to the clock here) and a few units.
I went down the aesthetics path, given that I have marble secured and that I am industrious and my economy recovered very well. Workers were chopping-chopping-cottaging-cottaging.

- Wonder-spamming or "going back to my addiction and still easily win"

Spoiler :

So going for Aesthetics allowed me to backfill a lot of techs through trades (I think I had Maths already, and teched Currency as well for my economy).
The situation at that point was the following:
My economy started booming and I was starting to tech really fast. During this time, I was making friends with all my neighbors other than Julius, who was too weak anyway!
Cho-ko-nus are great and all, but with all my neighbors non-threatening right now, it seemed like a great time to boost my economy even further.
Because let's face it: on Monarch, with Industrious and Marble and decent production cities, those wonders come really really fast.
So I the capitol built the Great Library, which is standard.
But even for a wonder-whore like me, there was a first for me in this game: building shwedagon paya! While I started the build thinking "at worst, it is good fail-gold", I ended up finishing it and it actually had its uses.
My early forge in Beijing produced a Great Engineer. What did I do? Well, trade for Calendar, rush-build the MoM, while I tech Music and use the free GA to start a Golden Age and switch to Pacifism. During that time, Rome built the Parthenon and now all my specialists were powerhouses GP-wise. Not having to tech Pacifism was nice, and I was able to rush to Civil Service to get to Bureacracy before the Golden Age ended.
To be honest, at the end of that Golden Age, the game was won.
And to be even more honest, the game was probably won at the end of the war against Julius C...

- How the game was won

Spoiler :

With all these wonders already built, Buddism spread in all my cities and Confucianism in two of them, I decided that the Cultural victory was the fastest way to victory. Well, maybe not in terms of centuries, but in terms of time spent in the game, for sure...
And while this path didn't make good use of the UU, it certainly uses the UB...
So I made sure to build the Sistine Chapel and once Machinery kicked in (soooo late), I started building Cho-Ko-Nus as defence mechanism in all my non-cultural cities.
I tried to build the Ap. Palace to make sure that my most built religious buildings (buddhism) would get the bonus, but I was beaten by 1 turn. Luckily, it was also a Buddhist civ... Nice failgold ;-)
The beeline to Liberalism went well as my economy was strong and I was able to grab Nationalism. My science slider was immediately set to 0% to allow for culture and I went into Anarchy to switch civics.
All my non-culture cities continued to build the best units I could (trades allowed me to get to gunpowder and knights) while my culture cities (Beijing, Shangai and Rome) made a few worthy builds before switching to all-out cultures (the builds I made: taj mahal in Beijing which was ahead in culture, some cathedrals and Hermitage in Shanghai which was going to be late in culture).
I was a little lucky with GP pops as I got more GAs than probabilities would suggest (almost exclusively GAs actually), so I was able to pop them.
One neighbor declared at some point, but my units actually had a fighting chance and an AP resolution ended the war rapidly!....
I bowed to all gold and tech requests and the AIs didn't bother me at all for the rest of the game. Culture was even going so strong that 3 cities switched to my civ.

--> Culture win by 1744

- Final thoughts:

Spoiler :

So this game didn't play at all into what I was looking for, which is more warmongering, but it was a lot of fun! A 18th century cultural win at Monarch is a pretty good achievement for me, so I am fine with that!
I guess I could have taken a different route after my post-war rex and gone to Machinery for further war. But once my most threatening neighbor was out of the way and my economy blooming, my well-oiled industrious-with-marble route was just too tempting I guess.
I even thought I could achieve the cultural victory even faster, but maybe I was too worried about an enemy attack. I had like 120 units by the end of the game.

Maybe I should try the game again, taking the same shots at the beginning, but trying for domination after that...

 

[shakabrade]

Part 2/2

Sorry for very bad write-up in advance.

Spoiler :

After conquering Rome, I went to claim the New World. It was very successful attempt and I claimed something like 75% of the continent as that seemed enough to me. State property was beelined to deal with distance maintenance and colonial expenses. Good stuff!

Liberalism was out of question, didn't make slightest attempt in that direction.

It was also very important to figure out how to win. Well, I really didn't shine in this part.
Realizing that AIs were very quick techers, I wanted cavs+bombers to conquer them all. Then I became terrified of handling all those units and decided to go for tanks + bombers as tanks have blitz so you can have fewer of them for the job. And finally I realized that with 30+ cities, I could go for space colony as I haven't done that in last 3 years, at least. Therefore, my focus was very bad, I didn't make everyone happy sooner (for dealing with WFYABTA in trades). I even built Kremlin which I never used (that is the only wonder I have built and also one of two wonders overall, other being GLH).

Basically, I hindered tech pace for the first half of the game and then wanted to accelerate in the second part. Also, my Great People management was bad as I forgot about that aspect of the game. But I managed to get 3 golden ages, very nice to get with so many cities.

Spoiler :

Since I decided to go for space around 1300AD, 1695AD is relatively good date, but still, this was one very unfocused mid game.

Pics:

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[Fippy]

Can i still call you Shaka?
Very good space date

 

[shakabrade]

Can i still call you Shaka?
Very good space date

Of course you can (if I can call you Mylene)...

Yeah, it is good space date for tough neighbourhood and on the other hand not so much with Elizabeth's and Asoka's tech rate. More focus can land pre 1600AD space colony on a map this rich.

 

[Fippy]

How about "My", like Lymond uses i.e.

Lizzy and Ashoki were doing surprisingly good there yep.
Useful AIs for trading.

 

[georgjorge]

Deity, 1842 Win. Or: How I Became Head of the UN by Killing Everyone Else.

Spoiler :

I always knew it was going to come to nukes, but I didn't anticipate having to lead FOUR nuclear wars until I got the win...

A very scrappy win and luck-dependent, but I'll take it.

I simultaneously declared on Washington and Ashoka (having two vassals) around 1750ish. World population went down drastically, as did military power of everyone. It went as planned, didn't lose a city myself while razing around twenty on the first turn of the war. Second turn I made peace with Ashoka and continued nuking Washington - his cities were on islands which made for fast conquest. He capitulated after losing ten cities.

Ashoka was nearing a spaceship launch and Liz a cultural win. My only way out was diplo and I thought: Instead of gaining votes for myself, why not reduce the overall world population? So I declared on Ashoka again, took some cities and made some others very small. Made peace again.

Liz was 20 turns away from culture with her third city, so I had to declare once again and raze it (along with two other cities). I also nuked her main stack and she capped on the next turn.

Ashoka finally launched in 1840 but I was able to win diplo before his spaceship could land. It's fun how the AI doesn't grasp nukes - Ashoka launched a counterattack with his only ICBM on me, his target? My capital, not threatened by any troops of his and guarded by a single Warrior (he survived at half health!).

Cities: 58
Worst diplomatic attitude: -190 (my own war allies give me -50).
Nukes used: 145
Modern units killed: 460

 

[elitetroops]

Congrats shakabrade and georgjorge on very impressive Deity victories!

And welcome to Nobles' Club escream1! 1744 Cultural victory is a lot better than my first Monarch level Nobles' Club cultural victory when I joined the forums a couple of years ago.

Some thoughts on your game:

Spoiler :

Building all those units was probably not necessary. In a culture game you should control your neighbors through diplomacy to make sure you face no risk of being attacked. Many AI cannot start plotting a war at pleased, some require you get friendly with them. Get over the threshold and you can be 100% sure that they won't declare on you. You can learn how all the different AI leaders act here.

To speed up Cultural victory further, build temples instead of units to unlock as many cathedrals as possible. Otherwise, it seems you had the basics for a good cultural victory strategy under control.

A minor point, Hermitage should go in your best cultural city almost always. Since you are doing culture bombs at the end with Great Artists to even out the differences, it's more about creating a total of 150k culture in 3 cities than 50k culture each in 3 cities. Placing Hermitage in your strongest culture city gives you the biggest benefit towards this 150k goal. Only if that city would become legendary without Great Artist culture bombs before you can make the other cities legendary it can make sense to build it elsewhere. Normally this isn't the case, but you divide your Artists among all three cities, with at least one or two culture bombs in your strongest city as well.

 

[georgjorge]

Thanks for hosting this one! This would be a tough map on Deity without Cho-Kos, but it's manageable with them. And the maptype makes for some interesting decisions...

@escream1:

Spoiler :

120 units when going for Cultural Victory? You could simultaneously win Domination/Conquest in addition with this kind of army on Monarch! I guess it can make sense on Monarch, on higher difficulties building an army to defend is pointless after 1000ADish because by turning off the slider you fall so far behind in tech - no amount of Renaissance units will save you from a stack of Tanks and Mobile Artillery after all...

Impressive wonderbuilding! Though I would be a bit scared of polluting the Great Artist pool with other types of great people. Good job on the finishing date as well.

 

[Mizar]

IMM, epic, up to 1900BC

Spoiler :

This map is so cramped, some expansion by stick will be necessary.
Julius is also an extremly bad neighbour, can't be sure he won't attack at even pleased.

I rapidly meet the AIs, the good news is that most others don't pose a huge threat.
Scouting reveals bad land to the southwest, ocean northeast, east and southest.

After BW comes in, the first good news of the game, copper close by north.

3100BC
So far I've identified 3 1/2 halfway decent city spots;
1) western floodplains/wheat, but Bismark is actually not too far away
2) north-west floodplain/gold, which Julius settles in 3100 BC
3) northern copper/marble that has to share a corn from capital
4) a helper city south-east getting fish and some grass cottages

Normally, this setup Quin and nearby Marble would ask for Oracle/Machinery beeline for early Cho-Kos.
But Rom is so close and such a bad neighbor, there might very well not be time and room for that,
also so few and mediocre city sites.
So I go for old fashioned axe rush, which has to be executed fast.

chop-chop-chop is the nature of the game.
By avoiding the lure of the close marble I can focus on the top par of the tech tree, Pottery -> Writing
I'll need a lot of cottages and both gold tiles in range to fund annexing Roman land.

2550BC
Meanwhile in the south-west, a super early Barb city spawns at the Deer spot.
That is mixed news, as I now have to adjust my western spot, but can potentially capture it if I'm faster than Bismark.

2100BC
it's time to take some lands that's rightfully ours.
The next turns will be critical, I do not know how close Julius is to Präts.
I take Antium defended by 3 archers, loosing 2 Axes.
On to Rome.

America has Alphabet, which leads to us picking up 2 missing first row techs.

+Reinforcements, march on Rome and the good news is that Rom is defended by 5 archers, they lack roads.
Loose 4 axes, take Rome, it's actually not that fantastic of a city but it comes with elephants and a crapload of forests, that will easily net a wonder.

1950BC
They have more city/ies in the north which I need to raze as maintenance is kicking in.

I now have 5 cities, room for +3 reasonable ones and 1 barb city that I can hopefully capture, that could also net me silver, which would be awful nice together with Rome's ivory.
Writing finishes, chopping a lib in the western floodplain city that needs the culture anyway, going for a very early GS/Academy.

Game is progressing nicely, I want to cultivate America as a friend and take on Bismark next once the economy can take it.

 

[Izuul]

Moved