Role PLay Challenge: Chairman Mao's Revised Plan

[DMOC]

I would say try taking Astronomy from Liberalism as it is the most expensive beaker-wise techs.

You got an excellent draw of AI's on the other continent, since all three generally don't seem to do well in my games (especially Wang Kon). However, you really need to address the issue of creative-civs Willem and Sury soon, since they seem to be in strong positions. They are likely too powerful to hit now, so the best thing to do is hit Justinian and use his extra land to your benefit.

 

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Revised Plan: Part V

OK everyone, the Chinese have finally flexed their Military might. We have now wiped anyone out nor tremendously expanded our borders. But we have knocked one of the AIs back, and proceeded down the long road of teching towards better things. I saved the game after the war with a question as to the next tech?

First of al We teched off liberalism/Gunpowder/Chemistry. Three techs in one segment, yeah!

And chinese espionage is still well at work!!



Music, a needed tech for military tradition. Hey, it was free!

And we made a big military breaker



We had almost teched off liberalism so I was not concerned about losing teh race.

Speaking of which



I opted for Printing Press as it gives us an imediate benfit to our cottage heavy empire.

We also further flexed chinese espionage



For all of you watching at home I hope you have kept count of the techs we stole, all basically originating from the Great Wall and a single spy specialist in Bejing.

HBR
Polytheism
Meditation
Calendar
Compass
Optics
Music
Banking

Now consider these all came from essentially three great Spies, and I promise you more will follow unless we completely distance ourselves from the AIs in tech.

Anyway, back to Mao's plan.

We got another Great Spy which we also settled in Bejing.



And got this nasty request from Sury



Mao cringed and gave in. This got Sury to pleased and...



Funny, we got back all the gold we tributed to Sury!!!!

Now Charlemange declared war on Sury, and Saladin declared on Charlemange. Basically the other continent appears to be erupting in war!!!

Not to be left on the outside



Yes, time to roll. But I gotta say we lost quite a few UUs and we could not get both iron sources out from Justinian. Damn Cataracts.

We also made this trade



And revolted to nationalism. With that and the castles we are doing very nicely in espionage.

Also here are the civics.



Notice how crippling these conditions are to the poor chinese leader.

We captured and razed the Christian Holy city (sorry, mandatory RPC rule).



Now, the Judaist holy city was sitting there in the middle ripe for taking. We bypassed it since I am sure Sury would have been real mad if we razed it. Not ready for a multiple border war here.

We very quicly ran our army to the north as this looked like the most accessable region





Now apparently we have one city with teh AP religion. And now the vote came up to stop the war against Justinian. I am certain I know where that's going so



Get the cash before we miss out. Note Justinian is down to 4 cities, and the capital is NOT to our east (gotta find the damned thing).



See what I meant

SO after teching chemistry we saved. Here is a list of tech options



OK, where to??? I am guessing we can get astronomy off of Willem, and steal economics which doesn't mean much to us since we cannot adopt Free Market. I am leaning towards replaceable parts/rifling before scientific method/communism. Then again there is military tradition which would allow Crussairs which equal the Byzantine UU.

To be Continued

 

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Revised Plan: Part V continued

OK, the status of our empire

Diplomacy



Please note and consider with any advice. Willem has a "We Have Enough on Our Hands" message. Now I have no problems with Will, he seams to dislike Sury (hell, who doesn't) so let's see where he goes. I am willing to wipe out Justinian and Sury but allow Will to remain providing we have the required population.

TEchs



Wang is our trading buddy over on the other continent. I am hoping eventually get constitution from him. Astronomy in a trade from Will, and steal economics (and likely later corporation). For now the rest is likely to be teched manually for now.

Powergraph. Yeah we know Sury is king, hence the need for rifles. Will's increase is a concern and I hope we do not look like chump change.

A view of Bejing. Maybe we should be running a few scientists to speed up tech.

And as you can Xian is doing very stronge. Remember how jungle infested the city was!!! I say converting the city to a watermill haven looks like a very good idea later on.

And the map of Justinian lands.



Notice he resettled another city.

OK, we are doing pretty well here. Definitely better than Mao's first plan. I am hoping Astronomy open up some intercontinental trading. But I will feel alot better when we can get some protective rifles popping out

OK everyone, how are we doing??

 

[bestje]

i'd consider skipping economics for as long as possible as it will reduce any trade routes from castles that you have
i'd say go for either rifling first then get communism and then the military trad.
replaceable parts is a useful tech as it will boost your production a bit as well

is justinian's capital the city south of you?
its strange that its not in his main empire

 

[Rub'Rum]

"Damn cataracts"?

Can't see the screen properly? That would make Mao's plan even more complicated

 

[madscientist]

@Bestje, yes it is strange. Not sure where it is exactly though. I'll have to scope it out

@ Simon. I was going to ask what you meant but I see it's another of my classic typos!

 

[d.a.oconnell]

This is the first time I've seen espionage used and I must say it's pretty tech savvy. As for the game, don't let sury become too powerful. When the rifles come around, you need to flex your military muscle.

 

[Gooblah]

Quick question: Where's the Byzantine capital?I assume its the grey dot in Dutch land, but I can't be sure.

 

[madscientist]

@ d.a.oconnell. Glad to show the use of espionage. What was that your saying about old Sury??? Played the next segment and you will be interested in what was brewed up!

@ Gooblah. The Byzantine capital is in the middle of Dutch lands. It is also the Islamic holy city. Interesting things with Justinian.

Next segment is ready for posting. If we can get through the one after I am pretty certain we can win, as Mao's plan will be coming to fruitation and not really have any hindering RPC rules. However, can we get through segment VII? Well let me post Segment VI and let's discuss!

 

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Revised Plan: Part VI

Well this was an interesting segment which ended with a very interesting situation.

But let me ask you all a Question: Can a civilization with superior tech defeat an attacking vicilization with superior numbers? That my friends is the question that will likely determine the outcome of this RPC.
How did we get to this point. An RPC rule unfortunately may lead to our downfall, but then again that is the fun of the RPC!!!!

Let's start with my overseas tech trading buddy



Wang is a tech hog and ahead of us now. But that's OK as he's getting pummelled by Charlemange over there. Too bad he cannot vassal to him!!!
But we did get access to Jails which helps our espionage situation.

We then turned arround and traded constitution to Willem



And here is a shot of the Byzantine Capital



Good, let Willem and Sury worry about him.

After building a jail in Bejing, here is a look at our espionage producing mega city.



We waited patiently to see what Willem was doing



But Sury beat him to it. OK< those two are at war, let's work on Justinian a bit

By the way, before the war our techpath went : RP/rifling/SM




And soo we got another tech from Willem via a spy

.

Military tradition!!! Combined with teching rifling we shall have Cavalry. And we shall need it!!

We get a little cash from Sal



And now time to declare war on Justinian



Notice how we send the city into revolt with a spy, as we still have eps against Justinian



We keep the city



We also got another Great Spy. In retrospect I wish I had used the Spy in infiltrate Willem to speed up steel as we could use cannons. However, at the time we settled.



We then captured Andinople from Justinian and did what may be the game turning event



It is the Judaist Holy City, so we had to raze it. Justinian is quite upset, but unfortunately Sury is now annoyed. He soon declares peace with Willem, Oh boy!!

We finish taking some Byzantine cities, making sure we cut off all the iron





And quickly make peace before he can bribe Sury into a war.



Unfortunately Sury still has war on his mind.



Sury has a nice stack with trebs outside our one of the key cities.



And the full front



OK, at the moment we have not seen any big stacks. We are limited on gold options, so a fast upgrade is not easy. Also while we have rifles Sury has grenaders. Our Cavalry can take care of the Blista elephants for a while.

THe biggest problem with this upcoming war

1) We have limited collateral damage weapons, losing most to Justinina including most of the UUs
2) We have cavalry so we cannot flank damage the trebs!!!
3) If Sury suicides trebs at the city we cannot get reinforcements there in time.
4) Diplomacy is very limited as everyone has a favorite civics we CANOOT use!!!!

I know I always as for advice and help, but this time

I NEED ADVICE!!!!!!! How do I repel Sury enough to start building a superior army. We have rifles/cavalry to his knights/grenaders/Balistas. We both have trebs and steel is far off in tehc and espionage (damn settled Great Spy). If we can fight a standstill we can recoup enough to go on the offensive.

HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[r_rolo1]

Sury units only have bonus vs yours on attack ( grens vs rifles and Bal phants vs Cavalry )..... this means you have to attack and not defend

And don't pillage any iron! It is far better for you that Sury makes knights than grens

 

[semirami]

I cant help
I really dont know, how you'll survive. You have terrible power ratio(0.4) with Sury and he comes with big stack to Nanjing, no doubts you will lose the city.

 

[bestje]

buy time by letting him bombard down your defences whilst you rebuild your army

what do you have defending the city, from your screenshot the stack doesn't look too scary if you can kill the grenadier the rest of the stack shouldn't be too hard to deal with and from what i can see it will take him a couple of turns to reduce your defences as he only has 4 trebs

balliista elephants don't get their UU bonus against cities, its a pretty poor UU really

can you get will to declare on him again they can't like each other too much so he might

 

[Commodore Nate]

It looks like Sury has a trickle of reinforcements coming in, and his stack looks like it can be dealt with, but only if you attack.
Can you give an idea of what sort of troop numbers you're fielding? If you have enough cavalry, I'd say send them in ASAP while Sury works on your culture defense.

 

[madscientist]

Well, I played out the next segment. It was one of the wildest segments I think I ever played in an RPC, something to rival Washington's women problems.

We have survived!!!! I will give all a quick recap while I work on posted the segment, it is long and I want to make sure I get everything right. But in short

1) We got very lucky. A random event 2 turns into the war allowed us to get peace
2) We rebuilt the military, emphasizing cavalry and rifles
3) We stole steel from Willem
4) Sury declared war on us.
5) We fought a mega war that was essentially defensive although at the end we took One of Sury's cities.
6) We teched off Communism!
7) We stole Physics from Willem.

I will do teh recap, but I want to emphasize one thing here

At the cost of 4 Great Spies, 3 settled and 1 Scottland yard We have stolen

HBR
Polytheism
Meditation
Calendar
Compass
Optics
Music
Banking
Military tradition
Steel
Physics

We could also have
Monotheism
economics

except for the RPC rules.

All this from just building the Great Wall. It was our only wonder. Oh yeah, we also got 3 GGs that war, all settled in our HE city.

Long Live Maoism!!!!!!

 

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Revised Plan: Part VI

You read the recap, let's get to the game.

Chairman Mao's Grand plan is alive and well. Atheism/Communism/Population/Espionage all in play this round.

First as I mentioned we got that random event that stops the war. I was so happy I forgot the screenshot.

The techpath went Scientific method/Communism/started democracy (which noone has yet)

So soon after the war we offered old Sury this trade, to mend fences.



And soon after we used our espionage again



Go ahead Willem, you just keep staying ahead in tech.

In fact, let me help you along



Cash, almost as good as money.

And even more cash



We did have two problems.



The AP gave a city back to Justinian and Thesalonia culture flipped to Sury.

We shall reclaim that in a later segment.

And we get another visit from our favorite CIV alien



Bring it on Green Man, we are ready.

We gave Sal education for gold and a declaration of war against Sury. As of the save they are still at it, trying to figure out how to bring troops across the ocean in caravels to kill each other.

Now, I do not have screenshots of most of the defensive war. Most of it was running my cavalry out to attack his stacks, trying to retreat, using cannons for collateral damage, mopping up with obsolete units like Pikes and chariots.

But look at the power numbers after the first turn of war



Yes, Sury is hurting himself although by the end we took a good beating there, but not as bad.

Near the end, notice we are below Willem. Now I tried to get Will involved but he's cautious and "We have enough on our Hands". Now since we do not share a border, and Sury attacked him earlier and took severla cities I gotta assume he's going after Siry.

A little more cash upgrade a few more knights to cavalry or Muskets to Rifles.

Finally, we get a group of troops together and start bringing the war to Sury.



Resulting in



Shove that in your crown, dammed Khmerian freak!

And finally peace



My problem here is that Sury is teching physics and will get it much earlier than us (as we are plodding along with Communism). Airships have no counter, they are tough!!!

He also originally offered Thesalonia whichw be declined. The city would have revolted anyway.

Soon after the war



Willem is passing us, but almost ontop of Surymanan. As soon as Willem DoW's on Sury (if he does) we are dogpiling him.

Finally, one key part of Maoism has been realized.



We revolt to state property. Our civics are now HR/nationalism/slavery/state property/tribalism. The last civic swap will be emancipation, hopefully within 30 turns.

We got real nervous here



No great love of the Zealot Sal, but we do not want Will ruining his plans for attacking Sury.

Luckily



Guess Will has some payback also.

And near the end of the segment



Now you gotta admit, that is pretty darned cool. Stealing physics via espionage.

And note Bejing, spy capital extraodrinaire



I say that phrase to bring back another RPC, Peter's failed attempts. My advice on espioage, stay away from teh slider unless you just need some fast eps for an imediate tech. We did all this espionage without ever adjusting the slider!!! Settling GSs and one scottland yard. Spy missions to the closest city, let the spy sit there for 5 turns, easy as pie!!!

And after all of that



Settle him, settle. And we do not even have the intelligence agency in Bejing yet!!!!

At the save here is the tech situation



We need about 4000 eps to steal economics from Willem, that's 20 turns!!! I have delayed it to drag the castles along for a while, but we need economics for corporation. I say we are due and after teching democracy it's time for corporation.

Victory conditions show Sury must surely dies for us to win!!!



There is a very nice thin strip of Khmerian land separating Will from us. Yeah, I think Will has Sury in his sights. Of course I could be wrong and Justinians capital could be the target, but I don't think so.


And one final thing. There are only 2 oil sources on our land mass, one burried in Will's turf and the other..



Load the cannons boys, we shall feast on Khmerian flesh tonight!!!!

OK, I say we tech and spam military. The spam, spam, spam!!!!! We are getting 13 XP promoted cavalry out of the HE city (3 GGs in that defensive war, what a wonder the GW is!). We just have to wait Willem out.

 

[CivCorpse]

kill kill kill.....go do what you do best Mad (LOL, which is NOT typing). Surry is a capitalist....so is will....smash them....smash them hard.....then launch cosmonauts into space. Pilliage the oil in willville and kill kill kill

 

[d.a.oconnell]

Did you really get 5070 gold from willem for replaceable parts or is that a typo
? Wow! and once again, I may have to test this espionage plan... you stole physics!

Very interesting read.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Did you really get 5070 gold from willem for replaceable parts or is that a typo
? Wow! and once again, I may have to test this espionage plan... you stole physics!

Very interesting read.

He's playing marathon, that's how he got so much for it.

 

[semirami]

Nice, nice, nice! Incredible luck with the random event! And the barbarian city is nice city.

I played a similar heavy espionage game few days ago and now I know, that The Great Wall is the best wonder in the game, even more than Pyramids.

Sury is behind in military techs and look what he research It seems like we will have khmer meet for dinner tonight.