RB21 - The Mongol Hordes

[Sullla]

Hello all, this is another variant game from the folks at Realms Beyond. What would it be like to have to conquer the world without using promotions? We're about to find out.

RB21: The Mongol Hordes
Civ: Genghis Khan Temujin (Aggressive/Expansive)
Map: Standard-size Pangaea, all options default
Difficulty: Emperor
Other: Epic speed, all victory conditions enabled but we must with by Domination or Conquest
Variant Rule: No Promotions, ever!

Roster:
Kylearan
sooooo
regoarrarr
Sullla
Zeviz

Standard rules for succession games apply: 24 hours to post a "got it" message, then 48 hours to play after that. The picture you see above is from the first start I generated, so in true Realms Beyond fashion we will "play the hand we are dealt" (which doesn't look too bad with two food resources on hand). I've played the first turns in my last two succession games, so I want to give one of our other players that chance. Kylearan will play 30 turns to start, sooooo 25, regoarrarr 20, I will play 15, and then starting with Zeviz we'll be back to the usual 10 turns each. (Remember, this is Epic speed so the early turns will go real fast.)

Wish us luck - we may need it!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/RB21-BC-4000.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Mutineer]

Hello all, this is another variant game from the folks at Realms Beyond. What would it be like to have to conquer the world without using promotions? We're about to find out.

RB21: The Mongol Hordes
Civ: Genghis Khan Temujin (Aggressive/Expansive)
Map: Standard-size Pangaea, all options default
Difficulty: Emperor
Other: Epic speed, all victory conditions enabled but we must with by Domination or Conquest
Variant Rule: No Promotions, ever!

Does it mean that you cna not build any melee and gunpowder units?
Otherwize you are breaking your wariant!
They will start with a free promotion!

 

[angeleyes]

doublemessage

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Does it mean that you cna not build any melee and gunpowder units?
Otherwize you are breaking your wariant!

No, it only means we cannot use xp (from previous battles, barracks, theocracy, vassalage or wonders) to promote our units manually. The free combat I promotion from being aggressive leader is okay. In fact, Sulla had chosen for us to be aggressive so that our disadvantage in combat will be eased up at least a little bit.



I see the game, and will play either in a few hours or tomorrow. Any ideas about our starting position and initial research? Founding on the starting spot means not losing a turn and founding on a hill, but we could also move one tile west to get the corn in range, too. The only tile in range of the starting position we cannot see yet and where another resource might be is 2W of the settler, so I guess I'll move the scout there to have a look. Assuming there's no resource, founding on the starting spot means we have to hope for metal in range, or our capital won't be so hot.

Regarding Initial research, I'd favor the conservative opening of going for the early worker techs and building a worker first. An alternative would be to go for fishing first to work the lake for the extra commerce, but I don't see a strong reason for that.

-Kylearan

 

[sooooo]

Signing in, looking forward to a Realms Beyond SG .

1W seems the obvious choice, but there looks to be desert tiles over there. Probably still worth it though. Hopefully they will be flood plains. Worker + AH sounds fine.

 

[Mutineer]

Hi,


No, it only means we cannot use xp (from previous battles, barracks, theocracy, vassalage or wonders) to promote our units manually. The free combat I promotion from being aggressive leader is okay. In fact, Sulla had chosen for us to be aggressive so that our disadvantage in combat will be eased up at least a little bit.

Cheaters

 

[regoarrarr]

Keek reporting in. I'm having trouble getting the save - any chance one of you folks can post an image of the starting position.

So, with no promotions, then a barracks is pretty much useless, right? I can't remember if it aids in healing at all (beyond what a city itself does).

This is emperor, so it's likely we're going to need an early war to have enough land to compete. Since we're winnign by conquest / domination, an early war fits right in .

It also seems to think that we'll want to make sure to be teching quickly, in order to have state of the art units. Units will have a shorter shelf-life, since they won't be able to take advantage of promotions.

 

[Sullla]

We are the Mongols because they fit best with the theme of the game: hordes of unpromoted units. No one ever seems to play as Temujin either, so I wanted to give him a chance to shine a bit. The Aggressive leader is designed to help slightly, but at the cost of virtually any economic benefits whatsoever. Let me put it this way - who do you think would prove more of a challenge for this game, an Aggressive/Expansive Khan, or a Financial/Industrious Qin? That's what I thought too.

As far as the start, I definitely think we need to settle one west to get both resources in range. Let's go for Animal Husbandry early on and hope we have some horses nearby!

(regoarrarr: yes, barracks will be absolutely useless in this game, as well as drydocks. Oh look, the buildings we get at double speed for being Aggressive do nothing! Still think this is going to be an easy variant? )

 

[regoarrarr]

Are those both a plains hill that the settler is on, as well as a plains hill 2E of the settler? It might be worth moving the scout 2SE to see what we have to the east, and then, if there's another resource to the east, settling 2E.

That way we're on a plains hill, and we leave the corn for the 2nd city. Depends on what the scout sees

 

[T-hawk]

Cheaters

I think they can even build the Red Cross too.

Regarding the initial settler move -- you want to leave a corn resource (irrigable even) out of range of the capital? Cows are a comparatively weak food resource that takes some time (techs) to get going. That corn could feed thousands of slaves!

 

[rho21]

yes, barracks will be absolutely useless in this game, as well as drydocks.

Don't drydocks speed ship building as well as giving extra XP?

I'm looking forward to lurking this one - a great variant idea. What's more, it makes perfect sense: you're the Mongols, so what else would you do with XP but hoard it?

 

[regoarrarr]

I wasn't saying that we should do that, but for all we know, there is another corn on the other side of the plains hill 2E. Or wheat. Or something else. Could be worth investigating

 

[uberfish]

Lurker comment: That start just screams 'hidden resources nearby', very likely horses since it's flat. Good luck.

 

[lost_civantares]

Don't drydocks speed ship building as well as giving extra XP?

They do, but there is little need for quickly built ships since the map is a pangea.

 

[Zeviz]

For starting location, I wonder what's hidden in the fog. Moving west will cause us to lose 2 grasslands, 2 grassland forests, and a grassland hill, leaving only 5 grassland-based squares in city radius. So if the only thing we'll gain for losing 5 grassland-based squares is a single corn and lots of desert, would the move still be worth it?

As for research, what about beelining to Alphabet (after AH, Wheel, and possibly HBR) and trading for everything we'll skip in the process?

PS About early fishing, how quickly would it pay for itself, if we count just the extra commerce from lake tiles we could reasonably expect to work?

 

[Qwack]

Good luck. I will be lurkin'

 

[Kylearan]

This is a tricky starting position, as our discussion even before moving any units shows. The first thing I do is to move the scout southwest - sorry regoarrarr, but I think moving the scout southeast is a bigger risk, as we know less about the tiles to our east - at least we know that moving and founding west might be a good idea, so let's make sure it really is.

Our scout reveals a wine resource on the plains tile, and two desert tiles west of that. So founding the capital on the starting spot would give us cows and wines, which isn't a very strong start. Moving the settler west, on the other hand, would give us access to the corn, but it would also mean we have two useless desert tiles, a flat plains tile and two plains hills instead of a lake tile, a forest plains hill, and four(!) grassland tiles. Long-term, the starting spot would be stronger, but short-term, the corn location would be much better. What to do, what to do...

In the end, I decide to found on the spot, as I agree with Zeviz that losing so many grassland tiles would be too high a price for a single corn. With a farm on a grassland tile and the cow, I think we will be able to grow fast enough; also, the extra hammer from the hill will come in handy in the beginning, and there's also the possibility that we have horses or metal in reach of the starting location we might lose otherwise. Maybe I trust the algorithm for finding a starting location too much, but I'm always a bit reluctant to move away from the proposed tile. I hope you all can live with that decision.

To make this opening even more controversial, I do not produce a worker first, for several reasons: The worker would be finished two turns before we would discover Animal Husbandry, and he would have nothing to do after improving the cows for a long time, as we are so low on commerce that our research is simply too slow to feed him with techs. Instead, I produce a scout first, which will be finished in 11 turns, which coincides nicely with Karakorum's growth to size 2, and then will go for the worker. Research is set to Animal Husbandry nonetheless.

We meet Peter in 3880BC already, who must be somehwere close to the south of us, and Cyrus, who has his capital right next to us to the east! That's not good.

In 3700BC, a scout from Elizabeth finds us as well. Oh my, I think we'll have a lot of options for early warfare here... Toku joins the fray in 3640BC, the same year somebody founds Buddhism.

In 3460BC, we lose a scout we had received from a hut previously. Three other huts have given us gold - what happened to my early-techs-from-huts luck? Better gold than to gain xp though, I guess.

Animal Husbandry comes in in 3400BC, and we have horses...just outside of our cultural borders south of Karakorum. Now what to research next? Agriculture, to irrigate a grassland for faster growth? I don't think this is really needed, as we have a low happiness limit and the cow will provide 4 food soon anyway. Mining? We have no hill without a forest to mine, so this would only be useful to go for Bronze Working immediately thereafter, which should indeed be a priority. But in the end I decide to go for Fishing, so that we can use the lake tiles for research, and which leads to Pottery for cottages. We do not have any commerce tiles other than the lake in range, so this should pay for itself very soon.

In 3370BC, we meet Huanya Capac, and Washington in 3130BC. After Fishing, I've invested two turns of research into Pottery already so that our worker will have something useful to do after building and connecting the pasture, but this can be changed to Mining -> Bronze Working instead, if we think we need axemen sooner, or even Agriculture to farm a grassland (not really needed in my opinion).


We have some AI capitals quite near to us, and not a lot of fertile lands around us (see next post for screenshots). This game will be...interesting.

I'm also not really happy with my opening; I hope my decisions were not too controversial, but I found it hard to find the "optimal" path here. That was also the reason I was so verbose about my thoughts in this post. Criticize and discuss away!

-Kylearan

 

[Kylearan]

Here are two bird's eye views, one with resources, and one with cultural borders shown.

 

[regoarrarr]

Good turns. I don't have a problem with Pottery. I think a good first goal would be Construction. I don't think that we have a pressing need to get metals for axes/swords, if we can hurry up and get to Construction, for elephants. Elephants own immortals. If we don't do that, we'll need to get a spear or two to counter Cyrus's immortals.

That, of course, assumes that we can get a city to the ivory before Cyrus does. Though I do feel the uncontrollable need to point out that settling 2E of the start spot would have ivory in range of the capital

So if we do that, our tech path would be, after Pottery, Writing, Math, Construction. Probably need to pick up Archery at some point too.

My vote for the next city is on the grassland between the spices and the ivory. It pulls in spices, horses and 2 ivory. 3rd city can go to the SW to get the dyes, corn and bananas.

 

[Sullla]

This is certainly an odd starting position, but you get that sometimes when you play the first start generated. I'm not sure why we're this crowded (it's the default pangaea), but we'll just have to make the most of it. I would concur that our second city must prioritize getting ivory and horses in the southeast, and hopefully there will be some room for more cities in the north after that.

In the end, I decide to found on the spot, as I agree with Zeviz that losing so many grassland tiles would be too high a price for a single corn... Maybe I trust the algorithm for finding a starting location too much, but I'm always a bit reluctant to move away from the proposed tile. I hope you all can live with that decision.

I can certainly live with the decision, but frankly I will never understand why you wouldn't move to get a hugely helpful resource in range of your capital here. We didn't move one tile west because it added 2 desert tiles to the city radius? That won't mean a darn thing until we hit size 19! And then we could mine the plains hill for additional shields. Anyway, it's not a big deal, but I do not think that founding on the starting tile was the best move. I ignore the blue circles constantly - the AI follows them, and we all know how poorly placed some of their cities can be.

So - we have corn, horses, and ivory all just outside the borders of our capital. And a lake in the middle of it. This should be interesting.

sooooo is up, due to play 25 turns.