Role Play Challenge: Return of the Great Khan, An open RPC game

[madscientist]

This game has been fun and I restarted several times with different strats

Spoiler :

My views on how to proceed

Ideal techpath: agriculture/mining/masonry/BW

Build order: worker/warrior/warrior/settler. Get the stone quarried while building the settler. Farm floodplains for the moment. Sent the settler towards the known horse area (In my first game I lucked out and settled that spot without prior knowledge of the horses). Build the Great Wall (do not chop).

Worker in new city, build road to copper source and mine with existing worker. Build Barracks fast after GW. use workers to chop out axes ASAP!!!

If all goes well you can jump on Shaka BEFORE he get's those copper mines built. Attack with axes before chariots.

At that point I settle a 4th city to claim marble/gold. A 5th for the Jumbos and Rice in the NE. Attack Ramses II with a large force (you may or may not have HBR teched by then, you should at least be working on it) and take Thebes and the PRIME iron source, this is city #6. A final city in the hill at the penninsule to claim to cows and wheat.

ONe thing I also did, get libraries ASAP for scientists and a SE while building cottages to take over later. GK should have quite a few cities, and 2 capitals early (my recent attempt I also got stonehenge from Ramses).

Also every time I built the pyramids successfully except the last time where I missed it by a few turns (random event trashed the stone). This gave me well over 1000 gold which funded expansion and research. This was much more valuable than the early government civics. I traded off HBR for techs including up the monarchy tree, which I teched off myself. That ends happiness issues for the moment.

I am kicking Gandhi off our lands and deciding how to proceed, but I think th above order is optimum for this game. GW, kill Shaka, settle, take out Ramses.

 

[huerfanista]

1748 AD update:

Spoiler :

Dead civs are Zulu, Arabia, America, Egypt, Korea, Native America, Carthage (all killed by the Mighty Khan, except for Korea (Ragnar)). In addition, I've whittled Portugal down to 2 pathetic cities, and am currently chewing up the Incas, who kindly built the Pentagon for me (bizarre - Huayna must have had 2 GEs stored up, because he finished AL after me and had it quickly built. Not that it mattered - he didn't have rifling yet. ) Militarily, things are well in hand. I have infantry and artillery. Only Ghandi and Hammi have cannons and rifles yet, and they are a long way from either infantry or artillery. Hammi is my closest rival (I have twice his score and 2.2 times his power), so I think he'll be next. I have around 6000 saved up for upgrading cannon to artillery (not the best deal in the game - 320 IIRC ). I have 6 cities with MIs, and 3 of those have 2 MIs, plus one supermedic. My cavalry and connons have done a great job, but I think they'll have to take a back seat to infantry and artillery at this point, especially against Hammi. I'll send them to finsish off Joao, Izzy, Ragnar, and Pacal (none of whom have rifling or steel yet). I'm also approaching the domination limit with close to 40% of land area, so I'll have to switch into scorched-earth mode pretty soon.

What a slog this is! My military is huge at this point, since I almost never lose a unit in battle - an occasional cannon, or a cav to a freak outcome. I have about 80% of my cities churning out nothing but units (the rest are new cities building up infrastructure). Currently I'm about 5 turns from completing railroad (for MGs to protect my back lines and for the production boost and movement bonus) and then it's on to electricity and industrialism (tanks ftw!).

 

[huerfanista]

1748 update continued:

Spoiler :

Diplomacy has been primarily of the middle-finger variety (I love it when one of teh AIs is stupid enough to DOW me ). Hammi and Pacal are both friendly (that's gonna change real soon ), Elizabeth and Ghandi are cautious, and everybody else is .

I have the confucian, hindu, and taoist holy cities. Civics are rep, bureau, emancipation, state property, and theocracy. War weariness doesn't seem to be a problem, since I almost never lose a unit. But Hammi built the SoZ, so I'll have to find out which city it's in and take that one first.

I'm building Wall Street in Mecca (hindu shrine city) - it will complete in a few turns. I'm currently running about -28 at 40% on the slider. Wall street and some more courthouses should put me in the black soon. I'm definitely out-teching everyone else AFAIK. I have a GE for ironworks, which I'll probably build in Baghdad once I get public service for more health. I'll probably pass on building West Point - I just don't need it and the are better spent on units. My capital has Heroic Epic and Oxford (strange combo, I know, but I don't really have a good GP farm).

 

[Bleys]

Nice Huef! I am at about the same year, here is mine up to 1704:

Spoiler :

One thing mate, if you are in SP, dont rush to build Courthouses, there is no distance maintenance. This is hard isnt it, LOL.

Dead so far are Zulu, Egypt, Korea, and Ragnar. SB is down to 2 cities, Gandhi is down to 4. Currently, Saladin is my voluntary vassal, and is serving as a buffer between me and the Charley-Qin-Hannibal-Hammi lands. Its a good deal, since they HAVE to come through him to get to me, I think Khan would gladdly use his "allies" as war-buffers!

I actually have had 2 DoWs on me, most recently Charley (the first was Ragnar, but I was actually building to kill him, so my stacks swept through him like butter).

I am in US, FS, Emanc, SP, and FR now. I am still slightly ahead in techs, but the others are catching due to the old "you tech this, I tech that, and we trade". Plus I have sold techs off as I needed cash.

I have HE in Thebes, killer production city, and I dont have a real GP farm either, Shaka's old cap is as close as it gets, but thats also my Globe city and I have drafted it from 12 pop to 6 pop twice now. I dont much care about GPs, to be honest, its all about GG. I have 8 settled in my own cities, 4 attached to units (2 medics, 2 assault troops) and SBs capitol has 5 settled in it by itself. Once I finish off SB it will be a monster troop producer, but his culture is still alive there. I have a wide strip of cities from North to South, dividing the land in half, and its all VERY rich with many many towns, as well as a good scattering of Watermills and Workshops.

Distant wars have kept going too. Right now Pacal is at war with Gandhi. Charley made Issy a vassal, but then attacked me. He promptly lost about 20 Cuissars to my stack of Rifles defending a border city, and then GAVE me Madrid for peace!

I have followed the rules, and only kept the enemy capitols, but its hard. Every now and then I make 6 or 7 settlers, then re-settle the well developed lands as I conquer. I will do this until I approach the Dom limit, then just raze it all, even Caps. Who cares at this point? My cities are amazing combinations of production and commerce.

Oh, I have kept 3 cites that were given to me as peace deals (one was Madrid, from Charley). I figured Khan would have. I didnt take any AI as vassals, other than Sal as voluntary, 3 others have asked for protection and I told em to go away.

I am teching Steam right now. Most of the others went up the Physics line. I was the first to Rifles by a mile, and Steel. I have sold a LOT of techs to upgrade troops. I was also first to Communism, and I settled the GSpy in my Capitol because I got an AWESOME quest.

It was the "Build Castles" quest! I had stone, and 11 strong cities at the time, so I churned em out FAST. It has an extra reward if you own the GW, +25 Spy points! WOO! I beelined Communism for the GSpy to build Scotland Yard in that city, so now I have over 100 Espy points a turn without touching the slider.

Washington is next, and his vassal, SB. From there, I figure I will turn back to the East, and take out Gandhi and Pacal, and Liz. I built the AP, and have controlling votes by far. No one is running its religion anymore either, so I can relax about it, but I am planning to build the UN when its time.

Great game, totally hooked on it, to the point I havent played any others but my Monarchist Cookbook round, which I havent even posted because I wanted to get back to this one! Its hard to handle such a huge military and as massive a landmass as this. I love the RPC condition of Caps only. Soon, I will take Gandhi and keep 2 cities, his double-holy city and Cap. I may burn everything else to the east, even Liz's cap, and all of Pacals cities. Going to play it now, since theres another LHC up already, and its one of my fav leaders. So many games to play, sigh, and this one takes a long time. Hooked though.

 

[huerfanista]

@Bleys

Spoiler :

Currently, Saladin is my voluntary vassal, and is serving as a buffer between me and the Charley-Qin-Hannibal-Hammi lands. Its a good deal, since they HAVE to come through him to get to me, I think Khan would gladdly use his "allies" as war-buffers!

Do you mean that Sal asked to become your vassal and you accepted? What about this rule:

2) The Great Khan accepts NO vassals. You MUST destroy everyone.

How are you gonna un-vassal him?

 

[Bleys]

@Bleys

Spoiler :

Do you mean that Sal asked to become your vassal and you accepted? What about this rule:

How are you gonna un-vassal him?

Spoiler :

Hmm, good question. He asked out of the blue for my "protection" and since I had no plans to take him for a while, I accepted. I guess I will just have to piss him off enough so he leaves my protection, maybe. Not sure how that mechanic works. It will be a while though.

What I am hoping will happen is that when I take out Washington, Sal will settle that area, and then break it off. He can break the agreement any time he wants, there are no conditions. I may even be able to force him to leave, not sure.

 

[huerfanista]

1884 update:

Spoiler :

Rather than list the dead civs, I'll just list the ones that are still alive - China, India, Maya, Portugal, and England. I'll be tackling China first. Qin has been rexing into all of the lands that I've liberated from ... well, everyone who's dead. I don't even have time to pillage the land before he's got a new city up. Like cockroaches. Unfortunately, this has really sped up his tech rate. He now has rifling, assembly, and combustion, and is currently teching electricity. I have about 20 turns left on industrialism, running -100 gold at 30% on the slider. I've totally ignored infrastructure, just cranking out units left and right (I do want to finish this game sometime this year ). Even at -100 gpt I'm still making money from pillaging cities and improvements on liberated land.

My power rating is 3.5 times Qin, 7.5 times Ghandi, and >10 for Pacal, Joao, and Liz. Even though I'll be fighting Qin on even terms - as far as unit type is concerned - I should be able to squash him with superior numbers and quality pretty easily. He still has a lot of old units, whereas I'm currently getting combat5/march promotions for my veteran units. I think that the longest time I've spent NOT in war for the last couple off centuries has been around 10 turns.

Qin only has one or two cities in the NW, otherwise all his land is to the east. I'll just sweep eastward with 3 massive armies, each with it's own superhealer (I have 4 of them now). I'll close borders with eveyone else to keep them from expanding into the liberated land. Once Qin is caput I'll clean up the rest in the West. This game is insane.

 

[Neoseeker]

Never played with Ghengis before and after reading this thread, its given me some ideas. I keep you posted as per everonelse,

Great thread ppl keep it up!

 

[madscientist]

Spoiler :

Still playing this game. At the Crussairs/musket/treb era. Expanding by getting a capital and "Bridging" the empire to that city with new cities. Currently a member of the Buddhist block which includes the only AI with higher power numbers Isabella, but that's OK as she's best freinds with teh Khan. Slowly stamping out teh heathen Hindus one at a time which is interesting since Khan owns Mecca and it's 53 gold Hindu shrine.

So far we have the following former capitals: Zulu/Egyptian/Mayan/Arab.

At war with Gandhi and his vile Viking Master. The idea now is to knock out Ragnar and Gandhi isolating Liz geophraphically (who is the last Hindu strongehold), then destroy England. Repopulate and develope economically, The systematically backstab teh Buddhist block one by one!

Right now the Capital is spitting out combat V grenaders, combat IV crussairs!

 

[huerfanista]

July 1904 update:

Spoiler :

Qin is down to his last city - a one-tile island off the coast of Beijing. I'm just waiting for the transports to arrive, and then he's history. My big problem at this point is avoiding going over the domination limit. I'm at 49%+ land area (64% pop), and every so often I have to gift a city to one of the other civs to avoid reaching 51%. I've given 2 cities to Joao and 2 to Ghandi, and what sucks is that I'll have to leave those 4 cities until last and capture them on the same turn (recapturing cities that you founded doesn't give you the option of keeping them or not ). I have 42 cities, not including the 4 that I gave away.

After the last round, I went through and did some micro in all my cities. That brought me from losing 129 gpt to a 14 gpt profit at 40%. I finally got jails and Rushmore built and am running police state, so war weariness is a thing of the past. Yay!!!

I've got tanks and the other AI's are still researching electricity, but that won't help them. Their research is very slow compared to me. The game is obviously over, but I'll play it out anyway. I've got 9 times the power rating of my closest rival, and my GNP is huge. I'm putting out 4-5 artillery and 2-3 tanks per turn. It's time for the final push.

 

[madscientist]

July 1904 update:

Spoiler :

Qin is down to his last city - a one-tile island off the coast of Beijing. I'm just waiting for the transports to arrive, and then he's history. My big problem at this point is avoiding going over the domination limit. I'm at 49%+ land area (64% pop), and every so often I have to gift a city to one of the other civs to avoid reaching 51%. I've given 2 cities to Joao and 2 to Ghandi, and what sucks is that I'll have to leave those 4 cities until last and capture them on the same turn (recapturing cities that you founded doesn't give you the option of keeping them or not ). I have 42 cities, not including the 4 that I gave away.

After the last round, I went through and did some micro in all my cities. That brought me from losing 129 gpt to a 14 gpt profit at 40%. I finally got jails and Rushmore built and am running police state, so war weariness is a thing of the past. Yay!!!

I've got tanks and the other AI's are still researching electricity, but that won't help them. Their research is very slow compared to me. The game is obviously over, but I'll play it out anyway. I've got 9 times the power rating of my closest rival, and my GNP is huge. I'm putting out 4-5 artillery and 2-3 tanks per turn. It's time for the final push.

Spoiler :

As long as the Mighty Khan get's his win, finish it out and he will be most pleased.

My own game is going an interesting direction. I am currently obliterating the Buddhist block still (Ragnar is going down) and looking to destroy Gandhi/Liz during the rifling/cavalry era.

Even in tech, although only one AI has rifling besides me. trading to stay on a par but expect to pull ahead. Isabella is getting to be a monster as she has several vassals so my game looks to be more of an Apolcolytic Final Battle at the end. Depends on how many Ais I can kill before moving onto Isabella.

WHAT A GAME!!!

 

[madscientist]

Spoiler :

By the way, Right now I have 7 GGs settled in the Mongol capital of Karakom. An extra 3 in Mecca although I am currently building gold building help the shrine (cannot whip there as we are currently in emanciaption).

 

[IagoAlberto]

Up to A.D. 650 or why keshik's are my new favourite unit!

Spoiler :

I have now destroyed Pacal using a classsic pincer maneuver. I ran a stack of Keshik's through Ramssess territory and attacking him from the north while my main seige stack attacked him from the south. Even holkans stand no chance against the Mighty Khan's armies of Keshiks!

Just as I was finishing off the Maya, the dastardly Native Americans stabbed the khan in the back, capturing the former zulu capital. Being a strong warrior, the mighty Khan recovered and decimated Sitting Bull's empire reducing him to two cities. Just as the native american capital fell the scheming Egyptians sought to sully the mighty Khan's victory. Khan made peace with the Native Americans, accepting great tribute. His armies are now marching west once more, bent on vengeance.

Having to raze all the cities is interesting, it certainly puts a strain on production having to produce settlers and defensive units for new territory. In the positive column, all the gold from razing is letting me run a pretty solid economy based on defeceit research. With the entire buddhist bloc at my back I can easily grab good trading techs and trade them widely for backfill.

 

[huerfanista]

January 1926 Conquest Victory!

Spoiler :

56K score. On the last turn of the game I had to take 4 cities which I had gifted to the AIs earlier (in order to avoid a domination win), plus 2 of Pacal's which were keeping my SW border in check due to cultural pressure. I did go over the domination limit during the turn (due to former cities popping out to full size without anarchy), but got the conquest win anyway by eliminating Pacal, Ghandi, and Joao on the last turn. 58 hours of playing time -gaaaa

I took screenshots at the end, and if someone can point me to instructions for posting pictures, I'll be happy to oblige. Khan is

 

[madscientist]

January 1926 Conquest Victory!

Spoiler :

56K score. On the last turn of the game I had to take 4 cities which I had gifted to the AIs earlier (in order to avoid a domination win), plus 2 of Pacal's which were keeping my SW border in check due to cultural pressure. I did go over the domination limit during the turn (due to former cities popping out to full size without anarchy), but got the conquest win anyway by eliminating Pacal, Ghandi, and Joao on the last turn. 58 hours of playing time -gaaaa

I took screenshots at the end, and if someone can point me to instructions for posting pictures, I'll be happy to oblige. Khan is

You need to go to a site that allows you to upload pcitures. I use www.photobucket.com which is free (unless your very popular which I ended up being) and let's you uplink alot of picture. Easy to figure out, simply copy the info from the picture at the site and paste.

Great game!!!

 

[huerfanista]

Screenshots:

Spoiler :

I had 6 stacks like this one at the end of the game, each with its own superhealer:

Military units shortly before victory:

Victory in January 1926:

Score:

Power:

Mfg goods:

GNP:

What a handsome bloodthirsty warmonger

Keys to victory:
1. Very early axe rush to eliminate Shaka.
2. Taking Mecca with its 52 GPT shrine was a huge boost to my economy and research, enabling me to get a keep a military tech lead throughout the game. Hinduism was the most widely spread religion in my game, and combined with my own confucian shrine was a huge 85 GPT.
3. Trading techs for huge piles of gold as soon as I finished a key military tech (CS/Mach for maces, guilds for knights, MilTrad for cuirassiers, rifling for riflemen, steel for cannons, etc). Because there were so many civs in this game, there were always at least 6 who were behind on tech that I could trade obsolete techs for lots of gold. IIRC, I got 10,000 just after finishing rifling. This translated in every case to an immediate overpowering advantage, which I exploited ruthlessly. BTW, I never traded a "current generation" military tech to anyone.

Key wonders:
Great wall - built for the early great spy and barb protection, although I got a priest instead, which I used to build the confucian shrine.

Pyramids - ran a strong early SE, and used conquered lands to transition to a CE later.

Oracle - HBR for early keshiks.

Shwedagon Paya - theocracy for +2xp (I never researchthis, and didn't in this game).

I only built wonders later for the gold, and ended up capturing all of them. In particular, HC built the pentagon and I captured Cuzco as soon as he finished it.

Civics:
I adopted Rep as soon as I finished the mids, bureaucracy and theocracy together (CS + Shwedagon Paya), I stayed in slavery until I adopted emancipation due to unhappiness, State Property after getting communism (I was first) and Police State to deal with the crushing WW (I swear I was in war almost the entire time from the middle ages on).

 

[madscientist]

Huerfuesta, great game!!!

Spoiler :

This game is highly addictive. I like your approach of expanding eastward and saving teh western leaders and their smaller kingdoms to the end.

Currently I am pumping out combat III, blitz, pinch promoted cavalry from Karakom (9 settled GGs!), looking to finish Ragnar.

Isabella has been a great friend and likely the last AI to go down, she has several vassals and I payed her well to attack and cripple Joao the teh leader. Currently looking at dealing with Washington who actually has higher power numbers but we have assembly line and two techs from tanks!!!!