Chinese - early colonial

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ruminator
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Chinese - early colonial

Post by ruminator »

I'm starting to play China again and having some trouble with pop caps early on.

On hitting age 2 I can drop a barracks down asap from wood collected during age up and then have enough wood for the first old han army. My first card (generally 7 steppe riders) then turns up and I then struggle to build more troops ...

I need 200 wood to build a 2nd village and then need to collect 180 more wood for another old han army, but can't put all villies on wood or I can't build any more villagers or get the 255 food needed for old han.

1 If I'm not looking for a fast rush (or expecting the enemy in my base too soon) can I play 700 wood as my first card and then drop another village and consulate?

2 as my first card is the TP wagon I earn enough xp that I can earn a second ship before aging. Rather than shipping advanced monastery (I take disciples wonder) should I ship 300 wood which would ease my early wood problems and then still ship 7 steppe riders on hitting age2.

3 do I just abandon the disciples idea and go for the resources wonder instead? This still seems to be a longer term gain and not necessarily imediate enough to avoid that 5:30 - 6:00 period where I'm effectively housed and not producing military.

Any thoughts ...
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I__CHAOS__I
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by I__CHAOS__I »

you can't mix too many strats at once...
If you age with the disciple wonder, you need the monastery imho, otherwise they are just not good enough to invest in. Don't ship 7 steppe riders but send 700 wood or 700 coin (for FF). 700 wood allows you to get up a market, village, rax, 2nd TP (if you played TP wagon first) or even the consulate, although I don't think it's of any use so early.
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by Soccerman771 »

[quote=""ruminator""]I'm starting to play China again and having some trouble with pop caps early on.

On hitting age 2 I can drop a barracks down asap from wood collected during age up and then have enough wood for the first old han army. My first card (generally 7 steppe riders) then turns up and I then struggle to build more troops ...

I need 200 wood to build a 2nd village and then need to collect 180 more wood for another old han army, but can't put all villies on wood or I can't build any more villagers or get the 255 food needed for old han.

1 If I'm not looking for a fast rush (or expecting the enemy in my base too soon) can I play 700 wood as my first card and then drop another village and consulate?[/quote]
Yes. I often do even if I go for the hard rush. A Brit/Russia/German consulate can really be an advantage.

[quote=""ruminator""]2 as my first card is the TP wagon I earn enough xp that I can earn a second ship before aging. Rather than shipping advanced monastery (I take disciples wonder) should I ship 300 wood which would ease my early wood problems and then still ship 7 steppe riders on hitting age2.[/quote]
What I want to know is how are you not shipping 300 food first or 3 vils and aging on time? Don't ship 300 wood....ever.

[quote=""ruminator""]3 do I just abandon the disciples idea and go for the resources wonder instead? This still seems to be a longer term gain and not necessarily imediate enough to avoid that 5:30 - 6:00 period where I'm effectively housed and not producing military.

Any thoughts ...[/quote]

90% of the time I age with the summer palace. I usually don't have housing problems until I hit the 50 or 70 pop cap.

IMO, you probably aren't putting enough vils on wood when you start building your age-up wonder.

Got a rec? What Chaos says are very good and valid points. I think you are mixing too many strats.

The 3 best strats I've found are 1 - Nav's Suicide rush (all or nothing), 2. Eco up and play somewhat defensive, but aggressive (my CRUISE strat), 3. FF - which is still very powerful, but not OP.
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by TheRam »

Here is my strat, I don't encounter housing and just got back so don't wanna read lots of words so here ya go:
Start of the game, keep 1 villager one crates and rest to WOOD, get 400 wood ASAP, then get your two villages up and put everyone on hunts, get your villages guarding your hunts preferably, you'll have a few seconds not building villagers, try to make it as small as possible but it's worth it.
First Card - The settler from villages/TC one.
Age up ASAP, 4 villagers on wonder age with about 15-17 vills I think
400 food age, put about 7 people on wood, leave some on hunts and set gather point to hunts and build more villagers in age.
First card in colonial = 700 WOOD.
2 Rax, another village and your wood gathering vills + age up food = instant 2 Old Han armies and a 3rd card shortly after.
It's what I do, and it works well.
Maybe not vs the really hard fast rushes some of the lower ranks still use.
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by I__CHAOS__I »

1 on crates? your first villy will be queued too late, just collect crates and put 3 on wood, you will still be able to get the 2nd village up on time and have no idle TC, at least that's how I do it
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by Kaiser_von_Nuben »

I think 700 wood is a must for your first card if you're not doing a super-fast rush with Qiangs, right? I had an old 2v2 partner who was great with China and he always told me 700 was his first card, even if he was rushing. He used to build a forward village and barracks next to each other, so the shipments would go to the village.

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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by LoN_Colossus »

I always go for 2 villages in discovery whilst shipping the vil card, and then ship 2 military cards and then 700 wood. NEVER have a problem with houses, though it cuts it fine.

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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by Navarone_Guy »

Here, there's really no way you can have abundant population while having a reasonably fast rush (trust me, I know). What you need to do is make the most of your initial power while slowly building up villages as you go.

First, age up with the 400 food/army production wonder after having about 2/3 of your vils on wood and 1/3 on food during aging. Throw down the barracks, que up an old han army and a few villagers and send your first military card. That should put you over your population limit (you'll only have one village at this point). If you attack a lot you will lose a few guys, and take advantage of that pop space to que some more vils and more banner armies. The nice thing about Chinese banner armies is that they can be qued with 1 pop left and still come out. After you build up some wood slowly, throw down another village and then you can really get going.

If you need more specifics, refer to my Navarone's China Slam thread.

Hope this helped!
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by deadhanddan »

land grab card reduces the cost of rice patties but also villages, patty from 400 to 240, and village from 200 to 140, may not seem like much but lets say if your very first card is 300 food, and you are using your monk to pown alot of treasures, then you will get your 2nd shipment card 3/4 the way to colonial, ship land grab, and shortly after hitting colonial you will get your 3rd shipment after making your first batch of army which should be 700 wood, followed by 8 bow and or 7 step rider, then northern refugees card for 5th shipment(at this time when i send northern refugees i have round 33=35 villagers being 4 from villages and 1 from t.c. ), this way from 700 wood card you have your 2nd rax and enough wood for 3 villages with 80 wood left over for another batch of old han, and use shipments instead of making army in order to do a nice semi-ff,i use this early card order with porcelian tower( i usually age to 3rd with temple of heaven to heal all my units from harrasing other guy and don't use summer palace until i hit 4th age for forbidden army since most other armies are relatively cheap and summer palace takes long time to spwan army ) this with my semi-ff for new army upgrade card and access to hand mortors for seige usually powns good, i'm not saying you shouldn't ship the 8 bow-9 pike-7 step rider cards in your deck a.s.a.p. but the way i play china is too save the 9 pike card only if im being raided hard and leave the pikes in my base for defense while not having to splinter my fb army is nice option to have and ship my 8 bow/7 stepp rider during age up
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Re: Chinese - early colonial

Post by _LearCo_ »

Sorry, but i can't explain in english my strat with china, but if someone would to see it, ask me that. ;)
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