Wu Zetian Playthrough

[StoneColdNuts]

Hey there! I know you're thinking, "StoneColdNuts, please show us how you play Civ 5." Well, my glorious peasants, here you are!

Oh, and please critique my play! We're all trying to get better here.

Let's play with these settings



Random Civ, Small random map type (no Archipelago, please!), Standard Speed, King difficulty. I might be able to handle that.

And the winner iiiissss....



Wooooo!! I mean, Wuuuuu! Wu Zetian, come on down!

Wu has the super-Crossbowman that can fire twice, a unique building that does all sorts of stuff (it doesn't replace anything). And she makes Great Generals a lot faster with her Art of War. That being the case, let's go smash some people!



Hey, that's a nice capital! I've found that rivers are very, very good in this game. Civil Service gives river farms +1 food, so that means we'll have a very big capital that can support those mines to the south as well. Two happiness resources too, which is I think the most important part of Civ 5.



Let's research AH to see if we can trample our opponents with hooves. If not, we can at least have steak.

I start a Scout to head West.

Our exploring Warrior finds Lhasa, a cultured City-State to the East.

Then my warrior steps on more Culture than my Civ has ever known.



Ding! You know what that means!



I thought about taking the +1 food in the capital and the +50% for settlers. I chose Honor for a few reasons. Firstly, it makes sure my warriors stay alive and experienced before they attack my first victim, its also the most sure-fire way to keep myself unharrassed by barbarians. The other reasons are farther down the tree. The double XP SP is ridiculous. Also, Liberty conflicts with the Industrious War SP. We'll be needing that, so no point wasting a SP now.

With my shiny new Barb bonus my warrior runs down a hill into an Encampment, and takes it out.



In the meantime, my Scout finishes, and I fire up a Worker to get this food going! I could probably build a warrior, but I think I'll be OK on the barbs for now.

This chump with the funny hat approaches from the south.



Oh so you're a god, huh? I'll show you in a couple thousand years!

My Warrior to the west finds some pointy spears in a Ruins. Finding them much more dangerous than his club, he impales some nearby barbarians in their encampment.



Back at home, we research Mining > Masonry to get a Quarry on that Marble. (y'know, after a few farms on the river).

My Scout makes a great discovery.



That emaciated Indian man is the best news I've seen all day. He'll be our first target, so no Pact of Cooperation with him.

My Spearmen out west are true diplomats, meeting several City-States, finding a Natural Wonder, and impaling Barbarians.



Ramses' Capital is to our East, behind some stones. Speaking of world leaders...





These guys show their ugly faces. They're both to our South.



We tech out to Calendar, for the Incense and Bananas at our second city-site.



Here's a map of the Chinese colony. Or India. Whatever. My second city is going on that river by my warrior.

My Spearmen and citizens save up their allowance and buy a Settler! I really like this play as a first-buy, rather than a Monument or a Worker. It lets your Capital keep growing, and so it can get big quickly.

I've been beelining to Iron Working to see where that is on the map. Apparently all of the AIs beelined Philosophy, there's two research agreements going on right now!



My second worker built a farm in the Capital (which makes three farms, moo moo cows, and Marble over there so far) and headed over to make some Chinese wheat fields.

I'll end it here. Ghandi is going down. We'll maybe settle a third city if we need some Iron. Or maybe we can just take his cities with Spears and ChoKoBos since Ghandi's military strength is probably equal to Mother Teresa's.

Any suggestions?

 

[StoneColdNuts]

A few more thoughts on Rd. 1

Build order in cap was:

Scout > Worker > Warrior > Worker > Monument (Buy Settler

Tech was:
AH > Mining > Masonry > Pottery > Calendar > BH > IW

I also forgot to mention that I took the Great General SP next. He's hanging out with Wu in the capital, planning his attack on Ghandi. He'll be useful later, and double XP is next down that line.

Ghandi is a very good target. He has two happiness resources that I don't have, so it should be an easy Annex. He even has wine, which my Cap wants for We Love the King Day (even my citizens want to kill Ghandi). Which is hereby abbreviated WLKD. Which sounds like a radio station.

Forgot to mention Augustus Ceasar is to the far SouthEast. He's showing off Rome's Cultured nature by attacking a defenseless City State. With five leaders of six found, looks like a Pangaea map.

I think I want to take out Ghandi quickly. The happiness shouldn't be a huge issue, but I don't think I can handle any more than two cities, and I would very much like to settle down those rivers before Oda grabs too much land. I might want to make friends with him, not sure I want to figure out how good Bushido is.

Looks like a good game plan would be to kill Ghandi, settle as far down those rivers as possible, farm the hell out of them, and use the Library + Paper maker to get some serious tech. Use that tech to kill some other people.

 

[omglazers]

I was under the impression paper maker replaces library.

 

[StoneColdNuts]

Yeah, it does. I thought it was unlocked with a later tech. Well, at least we'll get some extra gold.

What have you guys found out with Trading Posts? I'm not always sure where to build them. With these river cities, should I just be building farms on Rivers, Mines on hills, and Trading posts on anything else?

What about river-less cities, what do you find works best for those (given that you have a few food resources like cow or fish handy)?

I'll try to get the second round up before the weekend.

 

[bhavv]

The '+3' gold from paper maker isnt actually that helpful, all will really do is cover the maintenence cost on a temple.

(+3 because it has a -1 maintenance cost itself).

IMO they ought to remove the maintenance cost on the paper maker too.

If you play any other player and get a load of gold / silver or gems nearby, thats a lot better than having China's UB.

 

[Syiss_]

I find that river cities are best used either as production (if the have 3-4 hills nearby) or gold cities. If you have some hills (like Shanghai) and food resources, it can be a great military pump if you farm up those rivers.

If there aren't any hills, or at least not enough to be worthwhile, I suggest throwing trading posts all over and maxing gold output (if you follow the river your capital is on to the south, it sort of looks like a good location for this). With a warmongering strategy your happiness is going to be pretty strained for most or all of the game, which means your cities wont grow very big. With a granary and/or watermill, and the help of a friendly maritime city state, you wont need any farms to hit the pop cap.

 

[vranasm]

If you have calendar I found stonehenge really sweat...the amount of culture basically tripples your culture output.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

My feeling is that the cows are too far away to consider in making your initial tech choice. That doesn't make Animal Loving wrong, but it does have weaker support. Of course, you can buy your tiles out to the cow, eventually, but I think you'll have organically researched AH by then.

I'm very unsure that improved tiles are enough different from unimproved tiles that you really need two workers in the opening.


My guess on posts is as soon as you can. posts -> gold -> buy City States is clearly a strong line when it doesn't leave you over exposed.

 

[Shillen]

The '+3' gold from paper maker isnt actually that helpful, all will really do is cover the maintenence cost on a temple.

(+3 because it has a -1 maintenance cost itself).

IMO they ought to remove the maintenance cost on the paper maker too.

If you play any other player and get a load of gold / silver or gems nearby, thats a lot better than having China's UB.

That gold is multiplied by other buildings, so you can't just compare it to maintenance costs. Adding 3 raw gold to each of your cities without having to work a tile to get it is pretty substantial. You need to build it in every city anyway to get the national college or whatever.

 

[ds61514]

Paper Maker is a great UB. Imagine if China's UB said:

"You get a library, a free unpillageable customs house, +1 pop and +1 happiness." That's essentially what paper make does. In my experience puppets like to build the paper maker early on.

Also, note that upgraded CKN's keep their blitz promo and upgrade to rifles for 150 gold. So yeah, a 26 str unit that can attack twice OR attack once and move back into a front line? Sign me up .

 

[DanPMN]

The '+3' gold from paper maker isnt actually that helpful, all will really do is cover the maintenence cost on a temple.

(+3 because it has a -1 maintenance cost itself).

But the library has a maintenance cost of 1 also, so it's not really fair to say it's just 3 gold.

Playing with China and having the paper maker gives you 4 gold for every city that you would have built a library in anyway.

If you're just building it for the gold, then yes you only get three, but from that point of view the tech bonus is "free."

 

[Mannu]

Also, note that upgraded CKN's keep their blitz promo and upgrade to rifles for 150 gold. So yeah, a 26 str unit that can attack twice OR attack once and move back into a front line? Sign me up .

Holy crap.

 

[Viss]

I've come to the conclusion that China is my favorite Civ.

The Library replacement gives you an extra 4 Gold (Which we all know it the most important thing in this game besides happiness.) My thought is, you can use that extra gold to account for upkeep buildings necessary to keep going strong (The extra gold could cover the maintenance of somewhere around 5-6 happiness per city.) I find that CKN's can REALLY bombard a city and simply need a swordsman or a knight to walk in for the final blow. Libraries (or in this case Paper Makers) are useful to have in every city for research reasons, so I think this puts China at the top of the list for Science pumping. (Besides maybe Babylon and their UA. (Though I'd prefer to use a civ available anytime, including multiplayer)

So, how viable is a Great Library slingshot into Civil Service... Moving into a short term war status as you get 4 CKN's and a Melee of your choice. Horsemen being ideal since they can move quickly in on cities to clean up?

Just seems like it's such a strong start, and then allows for great income and science all in one. The funny part is that those Great Generals that I didn't really care about (Damn UA) actually get utilized rather well due to timing.

I'd love to see if someone actually good at the game could try this and see how it works, or maybe just tell me I'm dreaming .

I mainly consider the slingshot for the ability to quickly get to the Medieval Era while also getting over the hump that is Civil Service. Depending on the game, this could also open you up to the National College if you get it early... But that just may be a little much. (Who knows, I'm not so great at the game yet ). So far I've tried Homor into Patronage so far as Socials go. I figure after that first Civ is eliminated, I can focus on the various Maritime C-S's that I've found.

So, thoughts?

 

[andrewlt]

Unless you're going to ignore happiness, I believe that the game gives enough Golden Ages that you're better off having tiles with at least 1 production and gold rather than 2/0 or 0/2. In other words, farm/trading post on hills, farm on river plains and trading posts on non-river plains. I forgot if you can build a mine on grassland but that's good, too.

 

[Ahriman]

The '+3' gold from paper maker isnt actually that helpful, all will really do is cover the maintenence cost on a temple.

(+3 because it has a -1 maintenance cost itself).

This isn't quite the case. The +4 gold income gets multiplied by markets, banks and so forth. The -1 maintenance cost doesn't.
So +4 gold -1 maintenance is better than +3 gold.

And besides, it is +4 gold, because a normal library still has the 1 gold maintenance cost, and libraries are a no-brainer in almost every city.