Skip to content

Turbulent Winds - Edge of Ordos

To the west, in the great loop of the mighty Yellow River, the arid Ordos Desert serves as a less than secure buffer from the troublesome nomads of the Northern Waste. Our clever ruler, Xuan Wang, has devised a simple plan: outposts shall be established in the Ordos region. These shall serve both to warn of barbarian incursions and to exploit the area's resources. Though the land is dry it is not barren. Deposits of salt and copper are present, if not plentiful. Smelt the copper to bronze and fashion weapons.
Wood is scarce, and must be imported, but that is understandable given the conditions. Using irrigation, your farmers should be able to grow enough millet, and hunters catch enough game to feed the population. Settlers venturing into the desert should watch for predators. Scouts report that fearsome bears have ventured south from their home in the Gobi. They are not to be trifled with!
One last thing: The King can spare one company of charioteers or one of infantry, but not both. Choose wisely!

Starts Feb 823 BCE

$13,000 Normal

Requirements:
  • 2000 population
  • 10 racks of weapons in one year
  • 1500 in Elegant Dwelling
Elegant Dwellings hold 52 people each and need
  • Ancestral Shrine
  • Appetizing Food
  • Herbalist
  • Music
  • Hemp
  • Ceramics

Now, doesn’t this look like fun? You can see already that you are going to have some interesting times placing the houses and farms. You just need a bit of the green area for the water well (and the Admin building, don’t forget that one). Feng Shui isn’t too hard in the dry areas.

Now, 2000 population and 1500 of those in Elegant Dwellings is the goal. You might be able to do it in one block, but I laid out two – with one market in between. One market saves on food, goods and infrastructure. It is a bit tricky, because each time you add services to evolve the houses, you get huge numbers of new workers to find jobs for.

You can feed your folks game meat while the millet is growing. I irrigated all my farms. The jury is still out on just how much irrigation helps (or overlapping crop tiles for that matter).

So when you get some workers, start mining the copper ore. Starting the weapons industry early has two advantages. You need to produce 10 racks of weapons in a year for the goal, and you need some military really, really bad and pretty quickly, too. No, the cities are relatively friendly, that isn’t the reason. The reason is the bronze and salt areas are infested with Giant Gobi Bears.

You only get to build one fort. Since you would have to import wood for chariots, I built an infantry fort. While you are working on the other goals, you can move the infantry guys around to kill the bears.

Trade opportunities abound. You can sell your salt and bronzeware. Find some one to import some extra food from. You are growing millet, but the hunters don’t bring in much game meat, what with getting killed by the bears. With the Salt you produce, that equals Appetizing (2 foods plus Salt) but it might not be steady enough. I like a little insurance in the food department. I imported Rice and Cabbage, that’s how paranoid I am.

Make some ceramics over by the bronzeware industry and set a warehouse next to the market to Get Ceramics. You wont need much.

After your fort is staffed, you can sell your extra weapons. It shouldn’t take you too long to meet the goals. If you take too long, you might have to use that infantry fort for another purpose.

  • Finished July 818
  • Pop 2125 all in Elegant Dwellings
  • Best weapon production – 16
  • $10,575
BackIndexNext