Open Challenge: Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor (BtS)

[azaris]

I have a confession to make: I cannot play the new Qin Shi Huang at all. Maybe my early play is weak and I'm dependant on expansion traits like Expansive, Organized, and Financial, but I cannot get any synergy out of Protective/Industrious. I'm having a tough time finding any "walkthroughs" where strong players tackle post-Vanilla Qin (remember he used to be Financial/Industrious), so I figured I'd throw this gauntlet out for the stronger players here to tackle.

My idea is that we have a couple of players (experts) who play 50 turns at a time and then report how it went. The reports don't have to be amazingly detailed, a few strategic screenies here and there and explanation of decisions made. If we have experts with distinctly different strategies that would be great. I will play independently from the same setup.

After the experts and I have played our turns and reported, we pause for discussion and compare the games to see who made the right decisions and who made the mistakes (hint: that will be me). Other people are also welcome to report on their shadow games. Then we play the next turnset, and so on. When the games are over I hope we'll have a detailed guide for playing Qin in BtS, and hopefully we've all learned a thing or two.

I rolled a start for us. It's Monarch because that's the difficulty where I can keep up with the pack but not win (as Qin, anyway). Continents/Standard map/Normal speed all the way, bog-standard setup:





(I almost rerolled this start, but decided against it)

So there you have it. If you think you can beat this start and tell us all how to do it, feel free to enroll yourself as an expert. I think three experts would be a good number.

 

[azaris]

reserved for later use

 

[Johan^^]

reserved for later walkthrough

I´ve started my game and will post shortly... maybe thursday this week or friday.

Spoiler :

Can say that the strategy used is a combination of aggressive expantion and wonder spam

 

[oyzar]

Um everyone who wants should play the start like in all the other challenges. Then post what happened in spoiler tags. As for the start i would research fishing while working the oasis. Settle in place to get both plains hill in fat cross. This is monarch difficulty so i figure that allot of ppl on the board(including myself) can probably beat this start. I am not sure how much i'll play through, but if i do i'll post it in spoiler tags. You don't have to read all the spoilers if you don't want to. You could also do games sitsuil style where you actually do the playing while we talk about it.

Edit: Upon further inspection i would probably go BW->fishing grow to size 2(work the oasis most of the time but a grassland forest hill one turn then once you grow work a total of 4 hammers and 2 food to get out the warrior for exploration then start on a worker revolt to slavery when possible start prechopping and when the workboat gets available start on that. research AH. Start on a settler on size 2 chop it out. Research myst get another settler out start on stonehenge research wheel hook up copper and/or horses get stonehenge and pyramids in capital. Expand with other cities.

 

[azaris]

You could also do games sitsuil style where you actually do the playing while we talk about it.

There's only one problem - I'm not Sisiutil.

Like I said, I'm hopeless with Qin and would like to see the experts handle this and compare to see where I'm making the mistakes. Otherwise I'll just end up following the advice and not really playing based on my own skills.

 

[Johan^^]

The fact that you have to give "permission" to post is not a great thing... You should specify a date at which people have to post before and then we can talk about the varius strategies... After a few days we play on ...

 

[carl corey]

Well, in Warlords I had it all planned out with him: Great Wall (capital), Oracle (2nd city) -> Metal Casting, GW + Forge (capital) -> Great Engineer -> Machinery -> Cho-Ko-Nu's. Worked perfectly on Monarch, moderately on Emperor.

But now with the Great Wall giving spy points this won't work unless you have stone nearby and manage to get the Pyramids instead. The problem is that the Great Wall let me build minimal military which won't be the case with the Pyramids...

That looks like an awesome start by the way, with both food and health going through the roof. I'll probably trade away health resources (especially sheep, they're just 1 health for a long time) for happiness ones. Or keep everything, go for Pyramids and run Hereditary Rule for an uber-capital.

 

[azaris]

@ Johan^^: Yeah, OK, we can do it so that people post their reports in spoilers. I just though it would make for easier reading if the reports weren't scattered all over this thread and didn't require clicking on various spoiler tags to view. In any case we should wait until all the reports are in before discussing the situation to avoid spoilage.

@carl corey: I agree on the start, which is why I said I nearly rerolled because it's considerably better than what I usually get.

Are you guys willing to be experts?

 

[pigswill]

I'm not an expert but I might play (and post) a shadow then read other people's games to learn what I should have done.

Initial thoughts:

Spoiler :

Industrious is likely to help with early wonders coz you get bonus on chopping (30h instead of 20h) regardless of resources. This makes Oracle worth considering. Maybe go for something like BW, techs to pottery, techs to priesthood while establishing second city. Chop Oracle in second city, take MC then forge/colossus in capital.
Obviously everything changes once you've seen the map and met the neighbours but that would be my initial plan.

 

[tycoonist]

hey azaris, i will admit that i am having trouble with this guy also, so i might play along (not as an expert) just for fun. see how it goes.

 

[martin031]

Yes, I think I will give this a try also. Monarch is my normal level, so this is in my "wheel House".

I am by no means an expert, but have learned just as much from other players mistakes as from their successes. Hopefully that will be your experience here also.

 

[kniteowl]

Sweet post 1000...

Anywayz that's a lot of food, fish, 2 crab and sheep... 2 hills for production... Looks like a GP Farm but it can be quite a Production monster if you have more hills.

Yeah I rarely play China but basically it's Normal game play depending on map and Oracle to MC and assign and build cheap forge and assign an Engineer then wait for 34 turns to bulb Machinery.

You may want to run OR civic early if you can get a Religion unless you want to stay Diplomatically safe just to go happy wonder spamming. I once start with Marble in my Capital's FC with an Ind Leader and built every single Marble wonder without ever chopping 1 forest in my Cap's FC.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

The standard multiplayer cheese will be Oracle --> Metal Casting --> forge --> engineer --> machinery for the unique unit. Beats the living daylights out of newbs that think prets rule the world.

Seriously though, if you say your early game is bad (a statement that I'm not too sure about yet), then don't focus on the traits. Focus on the starting techs: they're my favourite, and here's why.

It's not religious, that's for sure, but try bronze working and then animal husbandary. With your first two techs, you can immediately locate any copper and/or horses nearby, and a source of strategic resource will automatically be your second city site. The Chinese have a "non-religious" start, which really implies "militaristic". The tech order than leads itself "as needed": wheel if horses, mysticism if strategic resource is not in the first 9 tiles, then pottery for granaries if whipping is needed.

You know what would be a "bad" start? Mysticism and fishing when you're well away from the coast. If you choose to found a religion, it'll be 1000BC before you have a city other than your capital.

 

[shyuhe]

This looks like a nice start. Room for lots of whipping. I'll definitely give this game a spin as soon as I finish up my current gauntlet run.

Qin's traits aren't glorious but at least industrious is semi-economic (if you build colossus or ToA). It's a heck of a lot better than people who are.... aggressive/protective

I will probably try an oracle --> CoL and get monarchy as well. With HR + caste, you can run the capitol with merchants or scientists as your economy needs - you can then spam settlers without fear of crashing your economy.

3 seafood + pigs makes it tempting to turn the capitol into a globe city later and move the capitol more inland (possibly a river city?).

 

[oyzar]

Just turn the capital into a wonder farm.

 

[Flamer123]

I have no idea what protective is ever for besides a turtle game which i really hate.
Industrial + monarch will definetly get u pyramids even if no stone is nearby.
with pyramids secure, SE follows, which will earn u a tech lead, from there go conquesting.
since pyramids is in ur mind, the next few cities don't have to be built far to secure happy resources.

the capital looks awsome.

 

[Gocho]

Home sick today so what the heck, haven't played a Industrious leader in forever. 1AD report.

Spoiler :

I went silly with wonders as I don't normally build them that often

Our South



Our North



And the crazy silly wonder spamming capitol

I'll probally settle the tundra iron city next and take out the barbs quick before Joao does, wonder spamming is silly but entertaining!

 

[jihe]

You can do the historically correct thing and build the great wall. I cannot stop myself doing that every time. Then tech to alphabet, trade a little and build great library while your great spy does all the research in the middle ages. You can either start conquesting with the UU or just wait till you can draft protective rifles.

 

[Giaur]

Is there noone who likes Advanced Start?

 

[shyuhe]

@Giaur - I think the problem is that the AI is terrible at dealing with advanced starts. If you look at the AI on the Charlemagne SG run by Sulla, you'll understand how incompetent it is on advanced start.