Help on Monarch - FP + Victim selection

[ducki]

Ok, I think my current FP build is a good spot for when I move my palace.

I'm China, and I have Japan and Mongolia on my landmass...
...who do I attack once I get Riders?
Mongolia has lots of mountains on the borders, so the Keshiks will have speed, but Samurai are strong on defense.

Everyone is even with or ahead of me.
What to do, what to do?

[DaveMcW]

Mongols, definitely. They shouldn't be able to stop you from siezing the mountains if you declare war when you are ready.

Don't pick on Japan until you get cavalry.

[ducki]

Mongols it is, then.

What about the FP, just SE of Beijing?
Assuming a later Palace move to the more fertile lands of either Mongolia or Japan, or both.

[Mad Bomber]

I second the mongols as the victim, however you may want to ask Japan to join in your attack. This will free you from the threat of an attack from Japan on your border, and tie up a considerable amount of Mongol units fending off Japan. The only drawback is that you may make Japan a little larger, but it is worth the risk IMO.

FP Looks fine, especially considering the palace will move south west eventually.

[Tuberski]

I would move the FP to Hangchow, but I like to centralize it a little more.

ACK!

[DaveMcW]

My main concern is not so much the location of the FP as the amount of stuff you are building in your capitol. One of the major advantages of building the FP close to home is the ability to palace jump using a settler and 11 workers, without a leader. But it doesn't look like you'll be abandoning Beijing any time soon.

[Dominae]

My advice would be to take a chunk out of Japan instead of eliminating the Mongols immediately. The battle will be tough, true, but once you gain the upper hand against the Japan, the continent (and the game) is yours. The Mongol lands will not produce much for you if you conquer them first, meaning you'll have an even tougher time with the Japanese when their times comes around, since the Mongol war will not grant you any significant advantage. Samurai are tough, though. Try letting the Japanese attack you with them, rather than the other way around; Samurai versus Musketmen is acceptable, and it gets better when you use Riders to counter-attack.

Although I wouldn't go so far as recommending a general "attack the strongest neighbor first" policy, it seems to me to be the right choice in this case.

Good luck however you decide to play it out.


Dominae

[Robber Baron]

I concur with Dom: it looks to me as though you are in danger of losing primacy on your continent to the Japanese. They need pruning. The Mongols will be less of a threat or, alternatively, a safer power to ally with.
And Dom's advice about lessing [edit: letting] Toku's samurai batter themselves against your muskets (assuming you have gunpowder and salt) is a nice touch. Hard to tell from the map where the Japanese iron is, but (as you probably know already [ ] riders make very effective pillagers.
Bringing the Mongols in as allies should keep the Japanese off-balance, though -- that may be the key here.

[Mad Bomber]

I would stick with the mongols, either war is going to start a GA for both sides, and I would rather see a horde of Keshiks than a horde of Sammurai, save the Japanese for the cavalry phase, that is when they are vulnerable.

Tuberski: The strategy is to move the palace, not the FP. although a FP there would not hurt, the eventual palace site should be around the Kazan area, and that would be too close to the FP.

Dave: The palace move you suggest is only good at the early stage of the game this civ is too dveloped to disband palace jump.

Robber Barron and Dominae: Japan seems to be the choice for you two, and I know your reps (esp Dominae) I think that the Japanese may be a little to powerful at this point, and I think it may be wise to wait after Navigation to take on the Japanese. Also, the ideas for taking on the Japanese seem to be to fight a defensive war with pillaging and the capture of a few border cities. that is not my way of fighting, When i decide that a civ is my enemy I take it down. My way of fighting would suggest that the Mongols would be a better target than the Japanese. Although he is in danger of losing primacy to th Japanese, parity with Japan could be restored with the conquest of the mongols.

[ducki]

Tuberski - Hangchow, even considering a Palace move to central Japan later? Also, none of the cities near Hangchow are very productive, and they probably won't be, even with the palace - lots of desert/floodplain and mountains with little food support. So with those in mind, would you still go for Hangchow?


DaveMcW - Correct, I'd like to keep my original "core" productive once I move and I truly can't afford to starve Beijing down. I'm truly struggling to keep within a few techs of the AIs and I'm definitely not keeping up with unit production.


Dominae - I was hoping to strike before Gunpowder. I have not had a single war yet due to the great distance between me and my victims... er, neighbors. If I wait for Muskets, I'm gonna be really scared of the Samurai.
On the other hand, you are correct that the Mongol lands will not net me very much, thus making Japan a "better" strategic target, if not tactically "better".


RobberBaron - If you look just to the right of the Sentry button, there's one of Japan's Irons. The other is about 4 squares SE and 1 square S of that, easily 3 turns away for my Riders and squarely between Kyoto(capitol) and Tokyo, blech. There's a third, unconnected Iron 3 squares South of Nagoya. Scary.

I'm gonna need a lot more Riders than I have horsemen, that's for sure. I'm not even sure I can afford to upgrade my measly horseman force, since I've been stuck in the "buyer" of tech category.

Argh.


For someone who absolutely abhors to be without Industrious, I sure am missing being Japan. The cost of temples is killing me, especially those desert towns that should have been able to get some of that green foodland from Japan, but his Temples went up faster than mine. Argh.
Blah.

[ducki]

Here's a sav for anyone that cares to see more of the map than I screenshotted.

I tell ya what...
the PTW ai tweaks combined with the AU:PtW mod make the jump from Regent to Monarch really painful for me.

I can either dominate early at Regent or struggle at Monarch. I hate being a 'tweener sometimes.

[Theseus]

FP in Hangchow.

Forget Sun Tzu... you are militaristic and get cheap barracks anyway.

I would focus on Temples, Barracks, and units. Once you've got at least 20 Horsemen / Riders, switch your best cities to Marketplaces. When that's done, go back to building Riders... I'd probably want to get up to a standing army of about 40 of them, until you've turned your neighboring civs into punching bags.

Also, I'd slow down research a little to save enough gold for all your upgrades.

The second you have completely upgraded, raze Nagoya and Izumo. Don;t worry about the Sammies... for a while at least, you'll have the advantage on an open ground battlefield.

Ally with the Mongols... you need to burn both AI civs' GAs by getting them into a war with each other.

[ducki]

Ok, that's two votes for Hangchow...
Why?

First, my original logic behind Tsingtao.
1. It maintains my already well-developed primary Core as productive while slightly extending my productivity reach - not much, but hopefully just enough to make those desert and floodplain towns not totally corrupt.
2. I plan to move my palace to central or western Japan eventually, since there's great terrain there and much of it should already be improved - this goes hand in hand with #1.
3. Hangchow puts my immovable FP in a perfect place to improve all those desert and desert/mountain towns - which to me seems a waste of the FP. I'll never get that much out of those towns, they are just a ploy to a)eat territory and b)try to steal most of the saltpetre.

Looking at the terrain around Hangchow and it's surrounding ring of towns, I don't understand why I'd want to put the FP there instead of at my current, productive core and do a palace move (or two) later on to make the southern part of the continent non-corrupt.


I'm not trying to be difficult, I just truly do not understand the logic. Does centrality for later use automatically trump the actual useability/productiveness of what would be the secondary core?

me = confused

thanks!

Edit: And Sun Tzu's is a cascade from the lost Great Library. I've gotten zero wonders so far. I'm just trying not to lose the shields.

[Theseus]

Don;t forget that your core productivity doesn;t change until you actually move the Palace... your stronger cities by then should have courthouses, and so, supported by an FP in Hangchow, they should be OK.

Yes, I would vote for centrality as the key issue, acknowledging WHEN the Palace move takes place.

[Dominae]

ducki,

1. FP

I've heard two kinds of advice from Corruption experts: either build the FP in a central location regardless of surrounding cities, or build it in the middle of a grouping of wonderful city sites. My advice is to build it as centrally as possible, while making sure that at least 5 cities around the FP have good potential. I would never ever build the FP in a "neck", although I've been told that's sometimes the thing to do.

2. Japan or Mongolia

Japan is not at its weakest during Cavalry; if they have access to Iron, they will have plenty of Samurai, which they will upgrade for 20 gold each, given their largish territory.

There is no reason not to wait for Gunpowder, as the toughest battles you will be fighting against the Japanese will be against Samurai anyway.

The best way to cripple a large AI when time is of the essence is to declare war, and let them come to you. They will lose many many units on the attack, and your UU is the best counter-attacker of the Medieval age. The AI has no concept of "attrition" until they've lost half their troops in a futile war.

Once the Japanese weaken, you'll conquer their cities easily, and Cavalry will simply overrun the Mongols. Better that than face a long Cavalry war against the Japanese.

Killing the Mongols first gives you almost no advantage against the Japanese. So, why attack the Mongols first?


Dominae