Wang Kon of Korea, Noble, How would you play him?

[Sunesha]

I just after playing Alexander and Pericles of Greece successfully.

Then I thought off the most odd choice I could think off as a leader. Somehow Wang Kon popped up as hard to play for me. As a player I like to challenge my own playing style and play on Noble with a leader until I feel it is easy. Now to say something about me as player. I kinda play for fun and aren't the power gamer. I more off challenges, often choice my play style on a more emotional level than the best choice. Often playing the civilization as historic by my knowledge.

So I thought the following would be good strategy:

• Cottage Economy
• Start a religion, Buddhism as choice
• Build Angkor Wat, just as it is near the region
• Specialize in Science
• Be aggressive against people with not the same religion
• Spread religion as much as I can
• Build alot off Hwacha, cheap and maybe more powerful than expected

Some info about Korea as people probably not play this guy much:
Traits:

1. Protective
2. Financial

Uniques:

1. Seowon, replaces University extra 10% research
2. Hwacha
   * Doesn't receive defensive bonuses.
   * Can withdrawn from combats (25% chance).
   * Causes collateral damage.
   * +50% vs. melee units.
   * Can bombard city defenses (-15%/ turn).
   * STR. 5, Cost 40

So how would you play?

 

[eewallace]

I had a space race victory with Wang Kon on noble. I had a pretty nice starting area with room for 3 coastal cities, so I didn't need too many cottages to leverage the financial trait. I ended up with confucianism as state religion, and build the spiral minaret and the university of sankore. Only one war fairly early on (after I had the hwachas though) so I had room to expand, and eventually spread my religion to the other 3 civs on my continent and had lots of peaceful trade and some tech exchange. (I had "no tech brokering" on.)

All in all, a good game. The seowons are nice, and hwachas are really awesome.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Turtle up for a strong economy and laugh as the AI tries to figure out how to attack you. CG3 Longbows are fun, especially against one of the AI psychos.

 

[Diamondeye]

Depends on start area and starting techs (?);
If starting techs include Mysticism I would definately shoot for Hinduism/Judaism for a try.

Also, if start is very -rich, and "early" Hwacha-powered conquest might be nice, whether if the start is -poor, go for the turtle and cottage everything!

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Yeah I play as Wang Kon sometimes. I don't really use his UU very often, as the two times i prefer to war are either an axe rush in the bcs, or a war conquering rampage post rifles. He's potentially one of the best techers in the game. Switch to free religion, and now you're getting 20% more beakers than any civ with a religion. Wow.

With either theo, vassalage, or the pentagon you can pump out CG3 units out of the gate, which are just so ridiculously hard to kill. Leaving these units behind in the cities you conquer means you can leave less of them than you normally would and don't need to worry that the AI will retake any cities you conquer.

 

[Diamondeye]

Also, being protective, you have CGI DI gunpowder units pre-xp-promotions, so when going rifle-roadtrip, you can simply leave a Drill rifle behind and he will have a nice potential for keeping a city from up to several enemy units, even more so if he is highly promoted (Drill IV ), or if they are technologically backwards.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Currently playing Wang on Immortal - and he is kicking butt.

Expand rapidly - you can afford it with financial.
Build lots of cottages but have a couple of early production cities for military - lots of archers early.
Keep strong borders with walls and archers.
Tech to Monarchy, switch to hereditary rule and build more cottages and more archers to get your cottage cities big.
Race to Liberalism, pick Nationalism probably. Build at least 6 Seowans quickly.
Tech to rifling.
Conquer a neighbour or two until they catch up in tech. By now you have enough land to cruise to space or any other victory condition.

No wonders needed although Great Library can speed you to Liberalism. Early war only if needed for land. Simultaneous horizontal and vertical expansion powered by financial and protected by protective is VERY powerful.

Also note that the Seowan isn't +10% research compared to everyone else. Its an extra +10% on top of the other multipliers you (and everyone else) have. With library+university others are getting science +50% and you are getting +50%. So if off 100 base beakers they get 150 and you get 160 - 6.66% more, not 10% more.

 

[Loose Nut]

You never know. I just recently played Wang Kon on Noble, and wound up going domination.

Me, Monty, Qin Shi, and Mehmed on a big land mass; I found Hinduism and Monty founds Buddhism. Hinduism spreads to Qin Shi, I jump Monty around 500 BC, find him completely unprepared, barely have time to roll out hwachas to finish off Tenochtitlan. Teotihuacan turns out to be an excellent production site with watermills, HE and metal resources – one of those 1-or-2 turn army factories. Meanwhile Qin Shi has peacefully bottled up Mehmed into a nonentity, and eventually takes him on as a vassal.

I figure if I chew up somebody else a bit I'll have more than enough land for the space race.

So I begin to build up in late-medieval era, skipping ahead to trebs, my relations with Qin Shi coincidentally sour – not much help from religion – and just before I have my stack ready he declares on me, and we have a great big continent-spanning land war in Asia for about 200 years. He gets Alex, on a neighboring continent, in on it too, but the Greeks are the most backward civ in the game and don't do much. But I remember this.

Finally roll up Qin Shi – he has a little colony way off elsewhere so I don't vassalize him – take a breath, wipe out Mehmed, look at the land percentages, pause to consolidate gains, and stomp Alex.

Interesting game but totally not what I'd planned!

 

[Sunesha]

I played a game yesterday. I must say I am surprised how well it played out. I was playing Hemisphere map, my favorite map. As that map always bring you a surprise when you meet the other continent. Size tiny, aggressive AI

With just 3 cities I pressed out Saladin as my neighbor culture wise. I had the colossus so had tons off money. Also had Rome as my second neighbor. Which had me worried a lot. Those praetorians can be really hard. But we become good buddies and he never back-stabbed me. But I was so lucky got elephants, so beelining to construction was 2 flies in one hit situation.

So Saladin and I was good friends. Everyone my continent was like a happy family. But Rome worried me. I built up a good army with Hwacha, Spear men (rome had horse archers), elephants and alot off axeman to counter the praetorians .

So I backstabbed my friend Julius Ceasar, we was about same power rating. It was a hard struggle lasting 25 turns. But the Hwachas was invaluable as their collateral damage took the sting out off Ceasar's praetorians. But after taking them over I felt that I could tech and build my empire without great risk.

I saw that two off my cities was cultural leaders. So I sent over my ships to the other world where Asoka and Boudica was ruling. They wasn't a happy family. So I made boudica to my angry girlfriend and let her be at constant war with Asoka. This slowed them down.

At mean time I culturally took one off Saladins city. I decided that he was no threat, just kept a miltary force to keep him away from attacking.

At around I got Mass media won culture victory, my first ever. Thou Saladin attacked me but my upgraded units since the Rome war kept them away very easy and captured him.

I must say I never had such a strong economy going. I was doing full sliders around 1000 AD and earning money. If this was typical game for me I would bump a level from noble. But I was lucky, as I got choose when to war. I think the elephants was the ones that made me have chance against rome before mace-men.

Well I think I gonna re-play him as he was fun. Maybe try on Pangea to add more tensions as I got so lucky to get everyone my religious buddies I could just turtle and tech my empire to a power.

 

[Artichoker]

Currently playing Wang on Immortal - and he is kicking butt.

Expand rapidly - you can afford it with financial.
Build lots of cottages but have a couple of early production cities for military - lots of archers early.
Keep strong borders with walls and archers.
Tech to Monarchy, switch to hereditary rule and build more cottages and more archers to get your cottage cities big.
Race to Liberalism, pick Nationalism probably. Build at least 6 Seowans quickly.
Tech to rifling.
Conquer a neighbour or two until they catch up in tech. By now you have enough land to cruise to space or any other victory condition.

No wonders needed although Great Library can speed you to Liberalism. Early war only if needed for land. Simultaneous horizontal and vertical expansion powered by financial and protected by protective is VERY powerful.

Also note that the Seowan isn't +10% research compared to everyone else. Its an extra +10% on top of the other multipliers you (and everyone else) have. With library+university others are getting science +50% and you are getting +50%. So if off 100 base beakers they get 150 and you get 160 - 6.66% more, not 10% more.

I believe you, but I've never got around to playing Wang Kon yet. There are so many leaders I haven't tried yet...

The "no wonders needed" now rings a bell. You must be referring to the Financial trait. Because non-Financial civs will need to find a way to equalize economically to keep up with the Financial civs that are in the game. The most obvious way is to build Pyramids and then run Representation.

So, you're saying that you tech straight from Monarchy to Liberalism, and then rifles? Do you ever bother to get Feudalism for Longbowmen? It seems like that's a lot of turns to go from Archers to Riflemen. Or, do you build Crossbowmen instead of Longbowmen?

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

So, you're saying that you tech straight from Monarchy to Liberalism, and then rifles? Do you ever bother to get Feudalism for Longbowmen? It seems like that's a lot of turns to go from Archers to Riflemen. Or, do you build Crossbowmen instead of Longbowmen?

He probably trades the techs he gets from the liberalism beeline for techs from the banking line.

 

[semirami]

Be aggressive against people with not the same religion

You want to behave like AI?

The human player doesnt care for different religions. A different religion shouldn't be a reason for aggression, unless you see danger in the future.

 

[DaveMcW]

You want to behave like AI?

The human player doesnt care for different religions. A different religion shouldn't be a reason for aggression, unless you see danger in the future.

-3 You are have a adopted a heathen religion!

Definitely a danger sign.

 

[semirami]

-3 You are have a adopted a heathen religion!

Definitely a danger sign.

Thats what I mean!
The reason should be: "I feel myself unsafe", not "I dont like that Shaka is hindu, while I am buddhist"


Who cares that Sitting bull is hindu, and I am christian? He is at another continent, currently researching CoL, while I research Plastics

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I believe you, but I've never got around to playing Wang Kon yet. There are so many leaders I haven't tried yet...

The "no wonders needed" now rings a bell. You must be referring to the Financial trait. Because non-Financial civs will need to find a way to equalize economically to keep up with the Financial civs that are in the game. The most obvious way is to build Pyramids and then run Representation.

So, you're saying that you tech straight from Monarchy to Liberalism, and then rifles? Do you ever bother to get Feudalism for Longbowmen? It seems like that's a lot of turns to go from Archers to Riflemen. Or, do you build Crossbowmen instead of Longbowmen?

H Rule > Representation for a financial leader - you are only running specialists for great people and getting your research from cottages. Why settle for +3 happiness when you can have effectively unlimited happiness.

Nope, don't bother with Feudalism except later when I can trade something like Philo for it. If I was attacked I guess I could have diverted to it or machinery, but I kept my power rating up with walls, archers, swords and hwacha. Eventually I was attacked by Sitting bull, but I had gunpowder by then and rifles was close. Four cities later I believe he was regretting that move. Especially when bribed my allies to join in.

After Monarch I went to Literature and got the great library (I had marble so it seemed a worthwhile diversion). Then Currency, COL, Lighbulb Philo, Civil Service, Paper, Lightbulb most of Education, Liberalism, Nationalism, Machinery, Trade for Guilds, Printing Press, Trade for Banking, Replaceable Parts, Rifling. Then mass Rifle drafting and WAR!

Followed by Tech to Democracy, run golden age and build SoL, then Astronomy and first overseas invasion underway. Meanwhile tech towards Radio.

 

[Sunesha]

You want to behave like AI?

The human player doesnt care for different religions. A different religion shouldn't be a reason for aggression, unless you see danger in the future.

I usually make out something to make a more fun reason to attack other players. Just to calculate the best way to win always ends up just be a job I feel. I rather enjoy to put some aspects in the game that give you reason to do things other that most effective way to win. Also wiping out the other religions makes fun. It is fun to try to convert the world to your religon.

After all it is a game. In one game I just spent pillaging weak enemies for fun, sure I didnt make myself the best choice for a diplomatic win. But it was more fun. Also I benefited to pillage around as it slows the enemy down.

I figured out I am not most effective player. I guess I play a lot I do in most games for fun.

 

[pi-r8]

The Hwacha is actually an incredibly powerful unit, if you get it early. They basically mow through anything except HA, and even then you can win with collateral damage if you're attacking. You just have to bring along some archers or axemen or something to finish off wounded enemy units.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The Hwacha is actually an incredibly powerful unit, if you get it early. They basically mow through anything except HA, and even then you can win with collateral damage if you're attacking. You just have to bring along some archers or axemen or something to finish off wounded enemy units.

My problem with it is that very seldom does it help better than a normal catapult.

Attacking a city, its likely the top defenders will be archery units. So its melee bonus never applies until the archery units are so wounded that the axes start defending. And by then they have taken enough collateral damage that it simply doesn't matter.

In open ground I might find a melee unit as top defender. Buts its rare that another catapult, a horse archer or crossbow wouldn't take over that role. So again no bonus.

It would be FAR more exciting if it gave a bonus against archery units.

 

[theKurgen]

My problem with it is that very seldom does it help better than a normal catapult.

Attacking a city, its likely the top defenders will be archery units. So its melee bonus never applies until the archery units are so wounded that the axes start defending. And by then they have taken enough collateral damage that it simply doesn't matter.

In open ground I might find a melee unit as top defender. Buts its rare that another catapult, a horse archer or crossbow wouldn't take over that role. So again no bonus.

It would be FAR more exciting if it gave a bonus against archery units.

Good post and it outlines exactly why it's a much more effective unit for an AI wank-on than a human controlled Wank-on. AI's automatically build multiple archers in each city which won't be effected by the UU, whereas a human will build mostly axes.

 

[lovetramy]

haha we need something like the . .. .. .. . Kmer elephant which auto target mount unit