Role PLay Challenge: Chairman Mao's Revised Plan

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Plan II: Start
Welcome to the restart of Chairman Mao's Plan. Changes to the rules form the previous Mao game are in CAPS! These challenges are primarily for entertainment but also focus on strategy/economy strategy for educational purposes. They are my own brainstorms, and do not reflect so much on historical accuracy and more tie in from our game expereinces with these leaders!!!!

So what is Chairman Mao's REVISED Plan?

Chairman Moa's Plan is a 4 stage plan, and we can use any method(s) to acieve this. There is no concrete rules, but criteria that Mao must reach to achieve victory.

1) State Property: All AIs must be in state property by the end of the game, or eliminated. We must adopt is ASAP, and we must tech Communism imediately after acquiring scientific method. In addition, any AI cities we capture with a corporation HQ must be razed. We cannot adopt free market, mercantilism, or environmentalism (we must defy a UN resolution).

2) Religion: Mao is an atheist and cannot adopt any religious civics including FR. He cannot build any wonder that produce Great Prophet points, nor can he ever build a religious building. He must raze holy cities if captured. He cannot found a religion, nor can he even acquire monotheism, theology, or divine right. He may tech meditation/polytheism/CoL/Philosophy as long as he does not found the religion. MAO MAY TRADE NORMALLY WITH ALL LEADERS.

3) Population: China is the most populous nation, and Mao wants to keep this up. He must have the world's highest population by the end of the game to win. He must strive to reach the happy cap ATHOUGH THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT THAT HE MUST REACH IT. Pollution is not an issue here, let the people breath in smog for the glory of China. If we have to farm, then do it. SCIENTISTS/ARTISTS/ENGINEER/SPY SPECIALISTS MAY BE RUN FREELY, MERCHANTS ARE NOT ALLOWED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Regarding civics, representation/universal sufferage/free speech/caste system are forbidden.

4) Espionage: Yes, we are going to try and promote a stronge espionage game although I am not going to wreck out game trying to adjust the ep slider. We shall make all efforts to build the Great Wall, and we must build all those nice espionage building ASAP once they are open (as long as it does not affect military production). WE MUST ADOPT AND STAY IN NATIONALISM ONCE THE OPTION IS OPEN TO US.

So there you have it, the four REVISED principals of Maoism

State Property
Atheism
Population
Espionage

Game Settings

Marathon Speed
CONTINENTS map, Temperate Climate
NO vassals
6 Random leaders

Our Illustious leader

Not much different from the first time.

And the map.

Not much different from the first time either (NOT REGENRATED, FIRST MAP I GOT!), obvious choices on settling!!!

I checked this time. The hill we are on and the one to the north are plains hills, so settling on either one get's us an extra hammer!!!

Let the debate begin!!!

 

[NintendoTogepi]

I'm thinking maybe 1S? For the rice, extra floodpain and the river health bonus?

 

[Krick19]

Yeah, I think 1S is the best cuz you don't lose the cow.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Better luck this time dood.

 

[DMOC]

Best to settle one south for keeping cows/getting floodplains/levee in future.

Also, I've been lurking your RPGs and just wanted to wish you better luck this time.

 

[Groogaroo]

1 south looks like a good idea, gives you 2 floods, rice, cows plus the possibility of a levee later. However setting in place still gives you the freshwater bonus. I hate having too many plains hills in the BFC of my capital, their just expensive food wise. compared to grass hills.

Settling in place tho looks like it would be a bit low in food, just a plains cow and a floodplain, so I say 1 south.

I have a sneaky suspicion there might be metal in the hill 1 north of your starting position, which would be nice.

Techs, A.Hus first to get the cow going, and if your going for the G.wall again, masonry next. your starting techs should give your first worker plenty to do.

Good luck on the second attempt!

 

[goldenhero]

I would agree with the 1S idea. Nice food, plus the floodplains, AND the two workable plains hills are very nice. You also not only get cows, but rice too.

 

[Gooblah]

Spoiler :

The Great Leap Forward was the name given to the Second Five Year Plan which was scheduled to run from 1958-1963, though the name is now generally limited to the first three years of this period. Mao unveiled the Great Leap Forward at a meeting in January 1958 in Nanning. The central idea behind the Great Leap was that rapid development of China's agricultural and industrial sectors should take place in parallel. The hope was to industrialize by making use of the massive supply of cheap labour and avoid having to import heavy machinery. To achieve this, Mao advocated that a further round of collectivisation modelled on the USSR's "Third Period" was necessary in the Chinese countryside where the existing collectives would be merged into huge People's communes. An experimental commune was established at Chayashan in Henan in April 1958. Here for the first time private plots were entirely abolished and communal kitchens were introduced. At the Politburo meetings in August 1958, it was decided that these people's communes would become the new form of economic and political organization throughout rural China. Astonishingly for such a dramatic social change, by the end of the year approximately 25,000 communes had been set-up, each with an average of 5,000 households. The communes were relatively self sufficient co-operatives where wages and money were replaced by work points. Besides agriculture they incorporated some light industry and construction projects.

Mao saw grain and steel production as the key pillars of economic development. He forecasted that within 15 years of the start of the Great Leap, China's steel production would surpass that of the UK. In the August 1958 Politburo meetings, it was decided that steel production would be set to double within the year, most of the increase coming through backyard steel furnaces. Mao was shown an example of a backyard furnace in Hefei, Anhui in September 1958 by provincial first secretary Zeng Xisheng. The unit was claimed to be manufacturing high quality steel (though in fact the finished steel had probably been manufactured elsewhere). Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighbourhood. Huge efforts on the part of peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants' houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools and even hospitals. As could have been predicted by anyone with any experience of steel production or basic knowledge of metallurgy, the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth. However, Mao's deep distrust of intellectuals and faith in the power of the mass mobilisation of peasants led him to order this massive countrywide effort without consulting expert opinion. Moreover the experience of the intellectual classes following the 100 Flowers Campaign led those aware of the folly of such a plan to not dare voice criticism. According to his private doctor Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal. However he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. The program was only quietly abandoned much later in that year.

Substantial effort was expended during the Great Leap Forward on large-scale but often poorly planned capital construction projects, such as irrigation works often built without input from trained engineers.

On the communes, a number of radical and controversial agricultural innovations were promoted at the behest of Mao. Many of these were based on the ideas of now discredited Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko and his followers. The policies included close cropping, whereby seeds were sown far more densely than normal on the incorrect assumption that seeds of the same class would not compete with each other. Deep plowing (up to 2m deep) was encouraged on the mistaken belief that this would yield plants with extra large root systems. Even more disastrously it was argued that a proportion of fields should be left fallow.

The initial impact of the Great Leap Forward was discussed at the Lushan Conference in July/August 1959. Although many of the more moderate leaders had reservations about the new policy, the only senior leader to speak out openly was Marshall Peng Dehuai. Mao used the conference to dismiss Peng from his post as Defence Minister and denounce both Peng (who came from a poor peasant family) and his supporters as bourgeois and launch a nationwide campaign against "rightist opportunism". Peng was replaced by Lin Biao, who began a systematic purge of Peng's supporters from the military.

In spoilers is Wikipedia's article on the Great Leap Forward (or a part of it, anyways).

1S sounds good. I suggest you emphasize the Workshop/Watermill Economy to show the aspects of the Great Leap Forward, as well as its benefits. This means targeting Rifling, Communism, Electricity, and Steel.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

1 South is a perfect spot to settle.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm in. I got flattened on LHC, though actually had I played it out a little smarter I could have avoided that. I'm going to do this before going back to that.

Now...to get it back to normal speed =P.

Difficulty will be getting the AI's into state property. I can think of 2 pretty effective ways to do that though. Well, 3, if you count razzing their entire civ!

Er...holy cities have a star next to the religion right? I usually don't notice when I capture one. I'll have to pay careful attention so that I don't keep one by accident. That would be embarassing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Checkpoint 1: 2k BC

Spoiler :

Scouted around again. Yes, I'm doing this over. The oracle is illegal. It makes great profits, not allowed! Instead we shall be using cottage spam and libraries, although the rush will still be underway shortly. I'm moving my 3rd settling location over as such, to provide more backfilling room.



I hate knowing there's horses in that BFC, but what can I do? Intentionally settle it out of range? Plan is similar...attack attack attack!




City settling locations are to block and allow some backfill. Also, the one has a food resource and mines (production), the other 2 food sources and a couple mines (production then commerce). Hot sauce.

We are going to hook up horses, spam HA's until there are none left anywhere but underneath people, and gogogogo. Let's not lose a 97% chance battle this time!

Sorry guys. I'm still a noob. I got beat last time, and then on my 2nd attempt I forgot I can't build the Oracle. 3rd time's a charm. At least I'm learning. Bear with me .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Checkpoint 2: 1 AD

Spoiler :

wonder what Mao is planning to do in this situation...we are doing much better here, but sadly so is the AI. Most of them have monarchy, so that means most of them will have long bows soon. The goal, if I can manage, is to take the entire continent with knights or earlier. This is step one. Four cities have stables, library, some have granary, and of course monoliths. No crappy religions this time! No wonders. At all. we tried for GW, but someone appears to be industrious, and we don't have stone. Mao was torn between GW and actually getting cities, thought he could manage both, and failed.



As you can see, Justinian is about to suffer, although I'll probably get 10 HA's before stepping in. This is one of the reasons I love them so much lately. That city will not be reinforced prior to being hit. As we can't vassalize, we're going to have to kill kill kill in the name of state property. MY state's property. As wrecking the entire continent will likely hurt me techwise, that is when we'll be pumping infrastructure. The plan is to take most of the continent, and then you guessed it, burn a golden age, and use it to quickly pump out courthouses and whatever else I can manage with espionage (probably castles?). It's probably too early for this, but after that we're going to go after 2 things: mass (and do i mean MASSED) Cavalry and state property. State property is kind of needed for holding those other cities. Espionage will help a lot since, well, siege won't be coming along, and we will be needing techs. Let's see if I can manage it.

Edit: Here's a little bonus:



It's the jewish holy city! I knew it would be something like this . Massive cultural D, and he whips an elephant! But these aren't just any horse archers. These are Mao's elite murder squad horse archers...



Luck isn't on my side. This clown has ivory, and now he gets partisans. Another neat little bonus about mobility...you can run. The way I ran means that only 1 axe will be able to reach my escaping stack. It's still a shame I had to razz it, but rules are rules. I can always slap a settler right there later. On the bright side, khmer is teching slowly, so the HA's may get some extra lifespan. Maybe not, now that these axes are causing me a delay. Once I'm healed up though, they're not really special against HA's.

I feel bad for that last guy who razzed the city though. He's taking one for the team .

 

[Diamondeye]

1SW imho. Might get more floodplain, wastes less riverbanks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1080 AD

Spoiler :

We wanted capitulation, but that's turned off =P. Still, civil service AND calander! NICE. I took this because I have no idea where this guy's city or cities are. He's a cripple either way now. Note that we had to razz 2 holy cities, christian and jewish. The christian one was no biggie, but razzing that capitol...oof.



Egad! Why did I conquer too much land with my praetorians?! (I mean horse archers...!) GA time! Has anyone here played trauma center for the nintendo DS or the wii? It feels like every time I use a GA this way, it's like using the "healing touch" on my economy. Hang in there.......! Who's up for some courthouse spam? Oh yeah, civics are HR and serfdom. Everything else is just default. We don't want caste anyway, even if it weren't against the rules! We want to use workers to build stuff quickly, even if we're automating them at this point. Also, we need the citizens in the fields, getting those hammers to apply GA bonuses to!



We always want to plan ahead, right? This is very fun and I wish I could push the HA's further, but IMO it's impossible with the way my economy looks right now. I have to consolidate quickly. On the plus side, I'm pretty close to guilds, which means I can deal with longbows. Sadly, knight withdrawal isn't nearly as rigged as HA withdrawal (knights get no base withdrawal, it only comes from promos, so 30%). On the bright side, first strike immunity and 10 STR should give me a better chance of winning outright, especially against the NON 60% cultural holy cities :/. Die, justinian, die. Or just give me all your techs and hide somewhere. If these guys must take a military tech, I very much hope it IS feudalism, and not engineering. Pikes would really piss me off .

Upcoming turns to 1500AD I hope to mostly lock down the continent with HA/knights. Then it's time to look for astronomy, state property, and a little bit o cavalrying! Using galleons to wage war is hard. I even made a thread about it, and almost everyone said it's impractical. Unless my war bogs down, we're going to find out. The thing about them is, they're slow. whoever I hit over there, I'm going to need to make the first wave count. A lot. Like, maybe even win the war with it, depending on how far away the other continent is. Let's hope they've been fighting too .

Also note that everyone hates me...I razed the AP religion city! So not cool. They hate me even more because they're at war and I wouldn't declare, because I was too. The AI is stupid and unreasonable. Now, I just have to hope they don't decide to dogpile me. We can rule out one bribing the other, but if somebody feels opportunistic...well maybe I'd better jam a couple longbows in forts so that if Willem tries anything fancy he gets delayed. That would not be ideal, though.

 

[madscientist]

Chairman Mao's Revised Plan: Part I

OK, we started off with a fresh idea and I think we are doing very well. My techpath is different from usual, as we still have not teched off hunting/archery @2000BC . I know, very unMadscientist but this was done for 2 reasons as you will see below. We also met three leaders, all a variety of different extremes with one being one of my msot hated AIs to face off against.


SO first or der of business, where to settle. I moved the warrior to see if we have more floodplains like Diamond recommended.

And indeed we do! Nice cottage capital through Bureacracy, which we can convert to watermill-heaven @ nationalism/communism. We settled 1 SW and soon found why the computer suggested settling where we did.

Techpath went: AH/BW/Masonry/wheel/Pottery. AH is a no-brainer as Mao plans to dominate the world's beef industry (not a monopoly, he ain't no capitalist, but the guy likes his steaks!). BW also a no brainer considering the AIs, and masonry because STonehenge fell in 2900BC meaning some indistrious AI likely has stone!!! We definitely want the Great Wall!

We mee tour first AI, a zealot although one of the more restrained ones.

No state religion or theocracy make shim a tough nut to warm up to.

Now, I should give you a glimpse of Bejing.

Yep, we got a full desert tile in the capital BFC. Still well worth it for the land!!!

And before we finish AH, we find the next AI

BLAST!!! One of three AIs I detest early on, Sury/Toku/Monty. And he will have access to Jumbos. Hmm!!!!!!!!

We did manage to scout the entire continent by the save, and here is where Justinian is

Very close.

After AH we find

OK, got a good plan. Delay hunting/archery, get masonry for GW (protection from barbs) and wheel for chariots (protection from AIs). Unfortunately there is very little copper, and nothing near us.

We meet the third and last AI on the continent.

OK, note to oneself. This is not last game, befriend him!!! We ended up with open borders by the save.

And you can see the very bottom as Surymanans lands.

And you can see Justinian has copper.

Note to oneself, DO NOT TICK OFF JUSTINIAN JUST YET!!!


And south of Suymanan

Is Willem.

With all of our exploring we pop a goody hut very far south to get

Nice, we can build alot of statues to Chairman Mao!!!!

Now our build order for Bejing went

worker/warrior/warrior/warrior/warrior/warrior/settler/Great Wall/settler

And we send the first settler out

A difficult area to settle, but I took the cows and horses in the small square and will claim the marble on the second pop expansion. We are forbidden from the oracle but the Great Library is game and marble will help there!!!

We chopped a few forrests to speed up

Yes, I was pretty nervous after Stonehenge sent so early. OK all we need to worry about are AIs. Wheel and Pottery next, followed by writing and then IW or HBR I think.

We settled the third city is a very good river area. Nice cottage area foloowed by watermills/workshops post SP.

We saved here, some views

Nice center land but those will onyl come with a fight to claim or keep.

Here is a planned map

OK, prioritizing??? I plan ALOT of cottages to pay for several more cities, then we shall see.

Even with Warriors we are doing pretty well in early power numbers

OK, so I think this is a good start. MY immediate concerns are the lack of coastal cities, not for now but later for intercontnental trading or mischief.

But the chief concerns are Justinian but mostly Surymanan. My experience with him is that he will ALWAYS declare early war on someone with some pretty nastly early stacks. SO I think early defense is a major issue.

So the tech path I am looking at

writing/hunting/archery/IW/HBR in that order. After alphabet for the spies as I expect the Great Spy by then which we should settle and backfill techs. I do not see any wonders to pursue although perhaps the Parthenon or SoZ (if we nab jumbos). Pyramids are too hammer heavy inless we get lucky and get the stone, but remember that the stone is between Justinian/Surymanan/ourselves and they are both creatie while we cannot build any religious buildings!!!

 

[madscientist]

@The MeIn Team: Don't worry about your do overs (yes I did check the spoiler up to 2000 BC after I posted the first segment), it is about having fun. Think of it this way, rules that force you to avoid the oracle can help you get off the dependance on it! Besides the Great Wall is one of the more valuable wonders and the extra GG points last throughout the entire game!!!!

 

[bestje]

better luck this time, I think it still won't be easy though

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Spoiler :

@The MeIn Team: Don't worry about your do overs (yes I did check the spoiler up to 2000 BC after I posted the first segment), it is about having fun. Think of it this way, rules that force you to avoid the oracle can help you get off the dependance on it! Besides the Great Wall is one of the more valuable wonders and the extra GG points last throughout the entire game!!!!

I didn't get it. I didn't get any wonders . I often lose the Oracle because I probably build too many early archers and want to settle everything. I teched masonry pretty early to open up GW (actually, right after hunting, archery, bronze, and AH). I also popped mysticism from a hut (on this attempt anyway). The great wall wasn't even an option! Somebody built it mighty quickly . Is it acceptable to you if I just find it and take it? Assuming it isn't a holy city, that is .

I like lots of mounted troops, but the ivory! Oh well.

Question about running merchants, or rather, not running them. I'm at a point where I want to build markets. I definitely don't want the governer running !@#$ing merchants automatically and causing me to break the rules. Is there a way to prevent it from doing so, or do I just have to turn the governor off? Also, if i do have to turn off the governor, what happens when I build wealth? New guys just work tiles with the governor off, but would building wealth (the logical alternative to running desperation merchants) make them go auto merchant? I'd like not to cheat if possible, especially by accident!

 

[Groogaroo]

Well the revised plan seems to be going well. If your concerned about Sury, Just try and keep your power graph up there this time, last time you looked like a sitting duck.

Can't really comment on the city settling plan, resource tags ain't on!

Here's to Mao actually getting his plan in action this time.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I prefer to axe rush suryaman asap. He's annoying as hell, better to get him out of the way early.