Yelü Chucai's surprising ascent

[Cam_H]

Yelü Chucai's surprising ascent​

The smoke of the burning bodies and the ashes of the razed village could not warm the nighttime chilled breeze, as the Mongols finally laid to waste to yet another tribal settlement in their wave of terror.

In his tent, Genghis Khan's bookkeeper - Yelü Chucai - struggled to sleep, as his pocket protector tucked into his pajama top jabbed him if he rolled over in the wrong direction. Scenes of the day flashed through his mind however - for he was sure that he spotted a yellow belly sap-sucker, a most exciting ornithological spotting indeed, especially for this time of year! It was unfortunate that all of those peasants' screams of terror scared the little fellow away. He wondered what his friends would say when he would unveil his discovery at the next meeting of the Karakorum Bird Watchers' Club!

Subedei: "Everyone - come quickly! The Khan is dead! Our great leader appears to have had an unfortunate shaving accident!"

Ogodei: "This is terrible news! How are we to continue without my father's iron fist to crush our enemies?"

Subedei: "Yelü Chucai ... you must lead the troops - it is what he would have wanted."

Yelü Chucai: "But our annual audit is coming up, and I still haven't had a chance to do last month's accounts. And some of these expenses that you've lodged are never going to be approved by internal revenue ..."

Subedei: "Enough! ... You must realise the Khan's vision!"

Yelü Chucai: "Awww ... if I have to ... By the way, do you have a puffer? This night air is really bad for my asthma ..." ​

Mods

Note: This game is played using the Hall of Fame 2.13.004 mod for Warlords that must be installed for the game to be loaded. (Thanks for the tip vran' + lymond!).

This mod will extend an improved user interface, which can be activated by opening the Options menu and selecting from the optional tools / interfaces within the HOF1-3 tabs.​

Leader:

Yelü Chucai of Mongolia (Gandhi re-cast)

Spiritual: No Anarchy during Civic switches, +100% for Temple construction.
Philosophical: +100%, +100% for University construction.
Keshik: Horse Archer replacement. One first strike, no terrain movement cost penalty.
Ger: Stable replacement. +4XP for Horseback units rather than the usual +2XP from a Stable.
Hunting and The Wheel.​

Victory:

All victory conditions are enabled.​

Game Set-Up:

Rivals:

Asoka of India
Cyrus of Persia
Peter of Russia
Qin Shi Huang of China
Saladin of Arabia
Wang Kon of Korea​

Roster:

FiveRings
Pigswill
woopdeedoo
Cam

(Spots still open and interested CivFanatics are welcome to join!)​

The first turnset of the game will be of 30 turns duration. The next turnset of the game of 20 turns. 10 to 15 turns per turnset after the opening two depending upon game conditions. Players are expected to complete their turnsets within three days of completion of the preceding player's. Swaps and skips are allowed. Players may be removed from the roster. Players may not 'play ahead' until the game is completed.​

Start:

​

 

[pigswill]

I'm kind of tempted (if I can find my warlords disque and upload the hofmod).

 

[Cam_H]

Good enough! You're in!

 

[Cam_H]

FiveRings,

Please feel free to make a start on this. Hopefully we'll get sign-ups along the way.

 

[woopdeedoo]

I will like to join as well please.

 

[Cam_H]

Good enough! You're in!

 

[FiveRings]

Thanks for setting this up, Cam!

Sorry for not showing up - I was away from my computer during the weekend, and then had a terrible Monday of work...

I think I'll move the scout SW and clockwise - going NW onto the hill to see whether there is seafood there with a possible settling on the PH seems a bad idea for the corn and tempi lost.

Production wise I feel I'll start with a warrior or two before the worker and try to bust the fog a bit to SE while acquiring other useful technologies besides TW to get the worker busy - pity pur leader has lost touch with the fast workers - I think of AH but was hearing about Agri making it cheaper, so would go Agri - AH.

I guess, somewhere about when the Scout makes a full roundtrip, I'll pause for further discussion. Or in case of other unexpected developments.

I see we are in the company of tech-ers, and I don't play the khan, so am looking forward to an interesting game of warring!

I'll wait till the team's very welcome comments, and then move forward.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Depending on scout rresource discoveries, I am leaning towards settling on the square south of the swine.

 

[Cam_H]

This is kind of a tough call on the settling spot. I'd like to move to one of the two blue circles to the south, but we'd give up those rich Plains Hills. I'd conclude that there's seafood to our east in light of the blue circles. SiP actually doesn't look too bad, esp. if we want to defer Fishing and go; Agriculture-An. Husbandry so we can work the Corn, then Pigs, then 'hopefully' Horses.

Personally I'd move the Scout to one of the three tiles south-west / due south / south-east of the Settler before making the call on the spot - but I am not especially 'decided' on this one.

Dull as it may be, I'm won over by the; Worker-first opening play. At least we have The Wheel, so he's got something to do during quiet times.

 

[FiveRings]

Well, going clockwise from (South-) East to West will be insignificantly slower, so it seems worth to embark on the CaManeuver suggested. Lately I avoid seafood, as I can't stand the Fish-LH combo temptation which seems somehow to be slowing me down. But the Southern land might have a goody or two.

I still prefer the warriors first as we can't be sure that enough land will be clear to sight to decide upon the next city and to road towards it, but if the better part of the team sets up a (pro-) labor union, I'll defer. In the latter case it seems worth considering whether it might be worth to go directly for the AH (better resource, possibility of having a convinient Horse reveled and worked right away).

BTW, I'll be playing in the evening earliest, and it might help if somebody with access to the download actually does the CaManeuver and posts the save and the screenshot after moving the Scout, to speed things up a bit.

I have just remembered - and checked - that I'm in for 30 moves, so we might discuss a third Tech as well. Without going to the coast, Mining-BW seems the traditional follow-up to Agri-AH (or AH-Agri) but I was wondering about fast beeline to HBR if we have Horses at arms' length... Any takes on this or further ideas?

 

[Cam_H]

Link to quick YouTube video checking the scene.

I opted to move our Scout directly south, who reveals a few jungle tiles, some flat, some hilly. No new visible resources.

Save with the Scout moved as requested.

 

[lymond]

Just my lurkin' 2cents after getting an earful of aussieness from that vid :

IMO I'd ignore the blue circles here - just not worth the move and both appear to lose production. 1S is a pretty good long term city, but the jungle is a bit prohibitive early on. Still, you could probably work with that spot. However, I think SIP is the way to go here. Nothing screams here to lose a turn moving - that is, you really don't have a significant gain and you burn a forest as well, which you don't have much of here. SIP is very strong food and production - you can't go wrong with it. The 1 coastal tile is insignificant.

 

[woopdeedoo]

On one hand I totally agree with Lymond. The production and decent food makes SIP very attractive. OTOH, if we SIP and discover awesome seafood 1N or 1S of pigs, I will be a sad lady...

 

[FiveRings]

Sorry to say I can't open the saves, and yes, both of them! Is somebody else having a similar situation or it's only me?

 

[Cam_H]

I am not sure why the file won't open for you, but it works fine on my machine. I really only made one meaningful change, being the replacement of Genghis Khan with Gandhi in WorldBuilder, and then opened it as a scenario within the HoF mod, and saved it as a playable game.

I take it that you've not altered the HoF mod (e.g. removed it) since we did the Moonraker game.

Unless you've since found a fix, perhaps it might be best if you posted a brand new game from your computer to save us from what could be several days of fluffing around trying to find a solution?

My #1 request would be that we start with a leader with the Spiritual trait - anarchy sux in Warlords-based SGs.

("earful of aussieness" indeed!)

 

[FiveRings]

I have prepared the new start-up. I am no compwiz, so it's simply Genghis, but the other settings are the same as in the Yely (well, I have made the shoreline "normal" and the modified assets are "fixed").

However, I have also found where the/my problem with Cam's save was: the spelling of the name. When changed to (simply) "Yely" it works. I am posting the changed one (after the Scout move). However, I have made a few moves without thinking a lot, and without choosing the techs - just to see whether it worked, so I'd rather ask to switch places with the next in the list. To make it easier, and not to get most of the uneventful moves "burden" someone else, I'd suggest that s/he does 5 or 10 moves, then I'll make 25 or 20, and then we'll go as planned.

A complete switch also works with me.

 

[vranasm]

lurker:

I think SIP is perfectly fine... I gambled with the idea to settle 1N to get quicker worker and since you already know hunting you could AH right off the bat.

After watching the video... maybe SIP is best... that GH is a little bit in danger of getting jungled, I don't think moving towards jungle is good way to start. Agri->AH looks like best course of action.

 

[Cam_H]

OK - pleased that the revised/new save works.

Pigswill ... are you with us? If so, please take the first 5-10 turns of the opening turnset, but please move the Scout to 1 tile south of the Settler as part of the very first turn.

 

[FiveRings]

lurker:

I think SIP is perfectly fine... I gambled with the idea to settle 1N to get quicker worker and since you already know hunting you could AH right off the bat.

After watching the video... maybe SIP is best... that GH is a little bit in danger of getting jungled, I don't think moving towards jungle is good way to start. Agri->AH looks like best course of action.

Nice to have you around, V, esp if you find the time for comments and suggestions! Always much appreciated, despite all the questioning I usually involve in.

I feel somewhat flattered that we are thinking in the same vein with regard to SIP and AH first... although the latter seems a bit of a gamble, if going Agri really makes its research cheaper, somehow...

 

[Cam_H]

OK, to keep things moving at a brisk pace, we've; settled in place, begun researching Agriculture, begun building a Worker, got 26 from a hut, and met Saladin from 'I don't know where?'. There's a tribal hut to the Scout's north east. There's nearby Stone. No dazzling spot for City #2 at the moment.

As suspected, there was seafood off the coast, so woopdeedoo is likely to be sad.

Another YouTube video ... riveting stuff.

Pigswill ... please confirm that you're "in".

FiveRings - best of luck with the rest of it!