RFCA strategies

[adhiraj.bose]

This thread is for posting strategies for winning the scenarios for Rhye's and Fall of Civilization Asia.

 

[adhiraj.bose]

As a first a question, I just tried the Vietnam UHV on the bare 1.3 version. The first two goals are easy enough. The second goal, ( no Chinese culture south of the Mon river ) is easiest I think. The last goal however seems tricky. By 950 AD, I was at a distant number 4 competing with the SriVijayans for score.

What's the best way to keep up the score and get highest score in 950 AD ?

 

[civ-addicted]

Techs and population are the best way to keep the score up.
It is possible to settle southern China and Taiwan, there are some juicy places to choose from, and at some point you will be able to overpower Khmer. In my last game, i had Co Loa and Indrapura, 3 cities in southern China, 2 cities in Cambodia and 1 city on Taiwan.
Trading techs is also a fast way to get points. Choose to trade with lower scored civs, for obvious reasons.

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Is there a tech path that I should keep in mind ? I settled all of Vietnam's coast and Hainan island. And the isthmus of Kra. That was for the sea resource goal. Is the Vietnamese UB any use for the UHV ?

 

[civ-addicted]

With the new Silk Road mechanic, Maritime Trade is vital to get a hand on the Silk Road Access next to Canton/Phien Ngung. In the late game, research all the cheap techs you can't trade to boost up the score.
The Communal House will be of use if i decide that stability should be an issue while playing them Right now, i managed without it, i think i didn't even research it either.
If only i made some screenshots last week when i tested them

 

[adhiraj.bose]

My Gupta strategy (first time tried in eunuch level):

With the new revision, you no longer have to make the Vedas but Ayurveda which makes the UHV much more doable. ( earlier Vedas would be completed 2 out of 3 times before the Gupta spawn by some Indian civ ). So the UHVs are :

1) Build Ayurveda, Kamasutra, and decimal system

2) Have 36 turns of golden age.

3) Ensure no non-hindu civilization in Persia and India after 1150 AD.

First moves :

In every game I've played, the Mauryans get wiped out by the Guptas once the Guptas spawn in Bengal. The starting stack is enough to conquer all cities up to Delhi/Indraprasth. I had to whip out a few catapults for an unusually strong garrison at Delhi though.

My first targets are : Pataliputra, Varanasi, Delhi, Bhubaneshwar. Sometimes there are minor cities founded around Himachal Pradesh North East of Delhi. I conquered that as an afterthought. It wasn't a completely useless city, but I dislike the idea of building a city there as it takes up some of Delhi's BFC. Bhubaneshwar may sometimes be taken by the Cholas sometimes independent. A short war with the Cholans won't do lasting harm, but its not a good idea to push southwards and overwhelm them even if you can. Most of the Gupta game focuses on north and West India in any case.

What you have to keep in mind playing the Guptas, is the Chalukya spawn. They start off with a large amount of troops and have a large flip zone in the Deccan. If they start off at war with the you its a tough task putting them down. So its better to avoid taking any cities which would be targetted by them, chiefly this is just Vengi or any Western or Central Indian city.


Goal 1:

The only real challenge in the UHV is the first goal IMHO. Usually some other civ starts off for one of the three projects for the Guptas. In my first try I lost Kamasutra to the Vietnamese. What I did was to beeline for medicine and get Ayurveda first. Kamasutra comes with literature which would be in the tech path for Ayurveda so techpath wise I could cover both project's tech requirement.

My first mistake was to build the Kamasutra in Varanasi which didn't have much production instead of Pataliputra which was my production centre throughout the game. What advantage it did give however, was that I could build the other projects while working on Kamasutra in Varanasi.

Till around 600 AD I was just conquering North and West India while building the main Goal 1 projects. While I was at it, I built the hindu and Buddhist shrines. This helped my economy and helped later on in goal 2.

Goal 2 :

Goal 2 requires 36 turns of golden age. Technically this means 3 golden ages given the Gupta's UP. The first can be had by training a priest from either Pataliputra or Varanasi and a Scientist which you'd get from the decimal system. This gives you the first 12 turn of Golden age.

The next can be had by similarly training 2 Great Persons, 1 priest from Varanasi or Pataliputra, 1 Merchant or Scientist and one free engineer from either Blast Furnace or that other Great Engineer giving tech.

The last Golden Age I got was from the regular 2 UHV goal. After fighting off the Delhi Sultanate It came to me around 1200.

Goal 3 :

Its a much more straightforward goal than the first one, but not as easy. The wording of the UHV is "No non-hindu civ *after* 1150 AD" this means that it should click only *after* the Delhi spawn. There are two civs who could challenge you for this goal one is the Ghaznavids and the other would be the Delhi Sultanate. What I did was prepare for a military contest and kept building elephants, crossbows and the Gupta's UU the bamboo bowman ( a most effective UU in my opinion ) .

When the Ghaznavids spawned, the Gokturks had control of Gandhara/Afghanistan which was previously mostly under Hunnic rule. Funny thing that happened was, the Ghaznavids and their huge stack of death didn't move out of Ghazni even though they were at war with the Gokturks . Similar oddity happened with the Delhi Sultanate.

Even so, I turtled in my North and North Western cities training bowmen, crossbows, arbalests and elephants to fight off the impending Delhi spawn. To deal with the barbarians, I rushed the building of the Great Wall. That is necessary to conquer cities while some distance away from your Western and Northern Indian cities. The Gokturks took up some of the barb rush. The Chalukyans absorbed some of the Rajput barbs.

When the Delhi sultanate did spawn, their capital was at Bharuch ?!! and they didn't have a very large stack. Just one camel rider , 4 islamic missionaries, and a few bowman. I steam rollered them with my large stacks. I had settled one city in Rajasthan, Mandapura. That flipped to the Delhi Sultanate and that is where the biggest fight was put up. But I won at the end with sheer numerical strength using a stack of cavalry, elephant rider, and arbalests.

Taking Bharuch was no problem nor did the Delhi Sultanate put up much of a fight in the other flipped cities. This is obviously a bug in the bare 1.3 version and I haven't tested the Delhi sultanate in a game yet to know for sure.

By the time I had to fight off the Delhi Sultanate, I had a huge army, and was the most technologically advanced nation in the world. The Ghaznavids vassalized to me as did the Burmese. Because of that, I could convert the Ghaznavids to hinduism. When I vassalized the Ghaznavids they were at war with the Gokturks so it gave me cause to take out Alexandreia Archosia which was their's at the time. I gave it over to the Ghaznavids ( but they still didn't move their stack out of Ghazni O.o ) .

So with this vast empire stretching from Gandhara/Afghanistan to Burma/(Bramhadesh ) and from Indraprasth/Delhi to Vengi *( which I conquered with ease during a brief war with the Chalukyans when they DOWd me ) I sailed smoothly to a comfortable victory in 1224 AD and a score of 5104.

 

[civ-addicted]

This was played on Monarch, because i wanted to see if my last findings were repeatable.
First of all, you're free to settle Harappa itself. Throughout the game, it's a decent spot; anything that it lacks in production can be made with the food plains and engineers (later)

Spoiler :

The tech goes Pottery - City Planning - Polytheism - Archery - Sailing for the beginning. Also, there are some town improvements around that can be raided with the initial Shaman Warrior. I usually start with a worker, and build another Shaman Warrior afterwards. Remember that you have 2 auto-wins against barbs, so you can use that to give your warriors some boni.
You should start building the Great Granary before the forest disappears, but as soon as you have Caste System.

Spoiler :

As soon as you discovered City Planning, switch to Oligarchy and Caste Sytem.

Spoiler :

By the time the massive attacks by the Aryans start, you should have buildt a wall, and maybe one or maybe 2 archers. I got lucky, but usually the barbs first start raiding farms, all if you're really unlucky.
As soon as you survived the wave, it is safe to take a Warrior, your worker, a settler and a Great Engineer to south. Amri is propably the best spot to build your Great Harbor in. You need to have a connection from that city to Harappa to use the Silk Road trade, however. Rather research Trade than building a road, use the worker to improve Amri.

Spoiler :

The Indo-Greeks will be another big threat. If they show up, having a Citadel is of enourmous help. Sometimes they make a lemming-attack, sometimes they just hang around Harappa until you can trick them into a peace. Same goes for Maurya, but they hardly attacked me in the past, but it's still safer to bribe them, too.

Spoiler :

If you made peace with the Greeks, you're free to found another city on the coast. Balochistan is really juicy, and the luxury resources are indeed handy for later. And for the Silk Road trade, of course.

Spoiler :

Sanghao in the north is another nice spot. You should carve some flood plains from Harappa, to make sure that this city can grow, too.

Spoiler :

The Greeks DOW on me again, but that is more of a bother than a threat. They will get killed soon, so i don't mind boosting their techs a bit

Spoiler :

All the flood plains between Harappa and Amri would go to waste without Mohenjo-Daro. Build it; rather go with a Granary asap, to help its growth (i didn't)

Spoiler :

 

[civ-addicted]

The Great Wall gives you the final peace of mind.

Spoiler :

So in the end, i founded another city north of Delhi, let my cities grow further to get the 3 mio JUST in time

Spoiler :

The Silk Road trade can help boosting your economy a little. Although not that tempting, Palmyra offers luxury resources that can keep your cities happy.

Spoiler :

And this is the final stage of the empire:

Spoiler :

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Ok this is great thanks !

I realized what my mistake was now. In my earlier games ( pre 1.3 version ) I would always get rolled over by the Greeks because I'd focus on building the Harrappan wonders *( trying to foolishly emulate history ) . So I decided a reversal went straight for archery and trained a bunch of archers in Harrappa to deal with barbs and the Greeks. Then settled two cities. I did get the first two goals without any trouble, but failed the last one. I'll try again with this strategy. Thanks again .

 

[civ-addicted]

I propably will extend the time, maybe for good, because i feel that you need a perfect run to make it... just to prevent rage-quits. The date is just arbitrary to begin with.
Understand that i will try to find to make them harder with other means though

 

[merijn_v1]

As Harappa, I usually conquer Varanasi ASAP. Your UU has about 50% chance against the initial warrior. (wait first until the city grows to size 2, which it will do on turn 12, otherwise the city will be autorazed)

It's a decent city. But more importantly, it's a second city early on. So your production/science gets an early boost without the need of producing a settler first.

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Two failed strategies :

1) Tang Dynasty :

I am now beginning to suspect that the 2nd UHV maybe broken. Since we are supposed to compete with the Song Dynasty which begins with an enormous tech advantage ( to facilitate its 1st UHV no doubt ). The tech goal therefore, isn't strictly speaking to be achieved at 950 AD rather its to be achieved at 960 AD at the time of the Song Dynasty spawn. Its definitely become more difficult to achieve the tech goal as the Tang Dynasty due to the Silk Road mechanism which puts Central Asian civs at a tremendous advantage commercially and scientifically. Of the other goals, Spreading Buddhism is no issue if you conquer enough independents quickly enough and build Wats in your first core cities and whip a few missionaries. I got Buddhism spread to all of northern China leaving 3 independent cities which I couldn't capture.

2) Song Dynasty :

While I don't think the UHV is broken, I am not sure how to compete with the Mongols. When they come with Keshiks, pikemen are no match for them, nor are arbalests ( 50% against melee units is meaningless against Keshiks it seems ) . The play basically forces us to build firelances which were the only effective counter I noticed against Keshiks. I didn't build enough by 1206. Even so, its easily doable as the Song Dynasty with the tremendous tech advantage you have. The only real competition I noticed was Burma which usually gets an insane tech rate.

 

[civ-addicted]

Gaah I even found that the UHVs and UHV texts for Tang are messed up but didn't change them!
- Spread Buddhism to 5 cities in China by 950 AD
- Own 5 Silk Resources in 950 AD
- Conitious empire as usual

With the current status of the mod, i can only say that the UHVs for the civs up to Han are doable, and maybe Korea and Japan to some extent because there should have changed too much for them. So i can't give you a strategy for them.

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Gaah I even found that the UHVs and UHV texts for Tang are messed up but didn't change them!
- Spread Buddhism to 5 cities in China by 950 AD
- Own 5 Silk Resources in 950 AD
- Conitious empire as usual

With the current status of the mod, i can only say that the UHVs for the civs up to Han are doable, and maybe Korea and Japan to some extent because there should have changed too much for them. So i can't give you a strategy for them.

Well I did finish the Song Dynasty UHV by cheating (I went to World Builder and killed the Mongol Stack which came near my Westernmost city) . As a first effort, I just wanted to test the Song Dynasty as far as I could so I needed to check how the UHV worked. Anyways, the Song Dynasty UHV did check in 1320.

So with regards to the Tang Dynasty game, is the goal for 950 AD the silk one or the tech one ?

 

[civ-addicted]

Well, it's not like i didn't try to make them interesting You're bound to a few cities, but got the tech race and you got to defend your shores against pirates and the Japanese. And it's a short game to compensate your small size (i'm aiming for the same with Chalukya). I'm trying not to oversell them, but they are one of my favorites

EDIT: the tech goal got scrapped completly, because it is Song's job to represent China's technology

 

[adhiraj.bose]

I don't blame you for the Korea game actually. In Civ mod mods Korea is like the neglected middle child . In DOC their UHV absolutely sucked. In some of my games though Korea seems to get really powerful and takes over parts of Manchuria.

With the Chalukyans, well their present power is OP. I once tried a domination game with them, but most of the time I didn't know what I was doing . It was that game however, that really made me love this mod .

Sometimes I just go with alternative goals, like playing an Indian civ = Control South Asia from Afghanistan to Burma by 1300 or something like that. Or as the Chinese = Control all territories of the Qing Empire by 1400 . Its a fun thing to do . btw kudos for the silk road mechanism .

 

[civ-addicted]

Thanks I should have come up with that idea earlier though
The current/new Chalukya UP was described as OP before Is it bad in general or would it be enough to tone it down, like getting one free specialist for every 2 mines?

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Thing is, its not really bad. But it feels disbalanced from a historical point of view. The Chalukyans get to be extraordinarily powerful and steam roller the Cholas. Which is not what happens in real history. the Chalukyans weren't a very dominating force in medieval India. The Pala empire was the real South Asian power of the time. I more or less view the Gupta Empire as a combination of the Gupta and Pala empires though. Which gives a case for the Guptas to have a better UB. Probably a more militaristic one.

I'd agree with either a tone down or given that the UP is called power of "Cave temples" I'd have something like a free priest for every mine in the city's BFC as the 'mines' would represent cave temples there.

In the meantime, I tried the Tang Dynasty game again. I secured 5 Silk resources by 928AD getting a golden age and built the Great Wall and Sun Tzu's art of war before the Song Dynasty spawn. Keeping them contained for a few turns was enough to collapse them. After that I didn't expand as I should have rather just preparing for the Jurchen invasion. That invasion was easily defeated. Now I'm not sure whether in the Tang game the third goal would figure if I vassalized the Gokturks and Ghaznavids or whether I have to actually "control" the whole stretch of territory from Bukhara to Hangzhou... which is rather difficult without cavalry .

 

[civ-addicted]

Thing is, its not really bad. But it feels disbalanced from a historical point of view. The Chalukyans get to be extraordinarily powerful and steam roller the Cholas. Which is not what happens in real history. the Chalukyans weren't a very dominating force in medieval India. The Pala empire was the real South Asian power of the time. I more or less view the Gupta Empire as a combination of the Gupta and Pala empires though. Which gives a case for the Guptas to have a better UB. Probably a more militaristic one.

I'd agree with either a tone down or given that the UP is called power of "Cave temples" I'd have something like a free priest for every mine in the city's BFC as the 'mines' would represent cave temples there.

The Gupta UB used to be the Maurya UB, because i didn't found anything better at the time i added them.
Their general Problem is that they lack a real concept. You have your cultural goal, your technological goal and a quasi conquer goal instead of something interesting. They are, without a doubt, the civ i'm the least satisfied with among the early ones. Any feedback or suggestion (up to a complete makeover) are deeply appreciated.

In the meantime, I tried the Tang Dynasty game again. I secured 5 Silk resources by 928AD getting a golden age and built the Great Wall and Sun Tzu's art of war before the Song Dynasty spawn. Keeping them contained for a few turns was enough to collapse them. After that I didn't expand as I should have rather just preparing for the Jurchen invasion. That invasion was easily defeated. Now I'm not sure whether in the Tang game the third goal would figure if I vassalized the Gokturks and Ghaznavids or whether I have to actually "control" the whole stretch of territory from Bukhara to Hangzhou... which is rather difficult without cavalry .

All plots that connect the 2 cities must be within you realm. Vassals don't count.
I won with them 2 or 3 times, so i can say that you have to turn West as soon as the Song have collapsed. I made the AI barbs build a road from Kashgar through the Qilian Mountains to China (which almost works as i want it to), so the conquest will be a little easier in the future. Their UP is designed so that your culture will expand a lot faster, but you still need to found 3 cities along the Silk Road regardless. A Great Artist for culturebombing one of your founded cities can also be of use.

 

[adhiraj.bose]

Would be great if you could post a winning strategy for the Tang . I personally like the Tang Dynasty history and would like to see it played out.