Okay, welcome to game one of the Noble's club! We are the players who are stuck on noble, and we discuss strategy here.

The Start:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Elizabeth.jpg

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Start.jpg


Here's some tenative settings:
Version: BTS 3.13 with Bhruic's

Civ/Leader: England/Elizabeth

Map: Big and Small(Just what I like)

Speed: Epic? I'd rather not Marathon, and I like Normal, but people tend to like slower speeds.

Victory:I'm suggesting Cultural, but I'm thinking that you can just choose a condition.

Here's the settings, everything in the second column is unchecked.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Settings.jpg

Anything else I need, please mention.

Okay for our Checkpoints (sorry everybody in LHC, I just had to use this idea)
NOTE: YOU HAVE TO USE SPOILERS. It would kinda suck if people had their game ruined. Also Screenshots are great if you can do 'em. Lastly, I'd like it if you would just put all of the checkpoints in one post. I can link to it from here.

1. When we have met everyone on the island that we can meet. (If we can't go through someone's terr., then that's okay.) NOTE: this is a very fluid checkpoint. Just post when you've met a couple people and have seen a lot of the continent.

2. When we have met everyone, or we have definitely chosen a condition and we are moving towards it.

3. Same as above, just whichever one comes first.

4. Victory/Defeat ;)

Here's the save:

My post:

Start opinion:
I think we should just settle in place. Rice and Cows in the start and two clams in the BFC isn't bad. And we're on the coast. This city could be a great cottage city with the food resources and everything.

Checkpoint 1: CHECK-Spoilers



Checkpoint 2:
RESERVED

Checkpoint 3:
RESERVED

Checkpoint 4:
RESERVED

Yay! Let the games begin, so we put up a post to fill in later? Like so.

Groogaroo's post's

Checkpoint 1: Updated at 775 BC
Well I'm not doing very well here, I think in my excitement I just rushed through the game to the first checkpoint.

I think I met all the civs that are on this continent, although there could be one more, havn't done a great job of exploring so far. Here's a pic of the world so far.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth01.jpg

I normally play a Specialist Economy, but was gonna really try a CE with lizzie, then stone appears just below the BFC, all of a sudden I've switched back to my usual routine, knocked out a couple of settlers, then built the oracle, then the pyramids, switched to caste/rep. but I've really not done myself any favours. I could have settled several cities peacefully by now. however my science jumped from +14 beakers to +46, and should start to increase quickly now.

Heres a pic of my cities

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth03.jpg

In my sudden rush to build wonders I didn't do a great job with city placement, york is going to be a poor city plus I'm very light on military and have blocked Monty in, hmmm... great plan.

I think I need to,

a)found more cities asap, luckily there seems to be a fair amount of space on this map,

b)biuld some troops in case monty tries to bust out

c)possibly take out monty once I have the copper hooked up

In short my mistake was rushing into this game instead of taking my time and thinking about what I was doing.

Checkpoint 2: Updated at 245 BC


Okay so to summerize my last round, I nailed a couple of graet early wonders, founded conf, but severly neglected my military and expansion. The next set of turns is about building some troops, getting my SE going and expansion while I try and get my self into a position to go for this culture victory.

750 BC

okay teching alphabet to see what the tech situation is. Mainly building archers at the moment as I'm getting worried monty will attack. We pop our first gp, a great engineer... cool.

will save him to hurry a wonder

Monty is starting to get twitchy with me, he makes a demand! I cave in for now.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth05.jpg

625 BC

Aplhabet is in and here is our techs. we shoot for aesthetics next.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth06.jpg

Could be worse with my stunted start. I make a trade straight away to monty to I/Working, its one sided in his favour but I give him useless religious techs and writing and hope this might keep him happy with us.

More building, military...

380 BC

Aesthetics is in, next up is Lit, which will take 7 turns

our next GP also pops up, a great scientist, I build an acadamy in nottingham as its producing most of our research, 32 beakers.

I'm now just chopping loads of forrests to get archers/chariots/workers/settlers out and settle a city to the north in the jungle.

305 BC

Lit is in (yay!) this is such a great tech, maths is next (6 turns), as I am making a beeline to music for the sistine chapel and cathedrals. I take my reserved G.engineer and he builds the Great Library in Nottingham.

We also take this barb city and pick up a free worker too.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth07.jpg

Also Saladin (founder of hinduism) spreads his religions to my land, nice chap.

Okay so I'm only at 245 BC but I'm going to stop here as I think I have committed to my victory and have a plan.

Well tech is fairly solid, at 245 BC were getting +91 beakers @ 70% science theres 108 gold in the treasury and were only running a -3 deficit. We still are low in military although I'm not to far behind my imediate threat monty. I still need more workers as my cities need improvements and I could still do with a couple more cities.

My plan is now set. I will tech music and drama then trade for some of the techs I've missed. I'm going to shoot for philosophy next to get taoism as my third religion. At this point I'm going to start switching from running scientists to running artists in some cities whilst building temples and then cathedrals in my cities. The Artists will still produce some beakers under rep, so I will beeline thru to philosophy pick up nationalism then switch of research. I hope to have a few scientists reserved to help me through to philosophy.

And some where between all that I need to keep monty at bay.

Heres the tech screen, looking better.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth08.jpg

And heres the world as I know it

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth09.jpg



Checkpoint 3: Updated at 1070 AD


Here's my update for checkpoint 3, I'm including screenshots of what happened during this round but their are some pics of some city screens, tech, powergraphs and such at the end of this summary for those who are interested.

Okay at my last checkpoint I had committed to going for a culture win, I got my plan laid out and I spent this round putting it in to place.


tech order started with, > mathmatics > construction > music > philosophy


As soon as music was in I stockpiled my Great artist for the end game, started on the sistine chapel and bulbed philosophy with a great scientist founding taoism.

next techs were, > calander > civilservice > feudalism > paper(bulbed again)

During this time I was basically focusing on keeping monty happy, building longbows, speading as many religions to my cities as I can and founded a sixth city. I won't build any more cities unless I get in to a war with monty then I may take his.

Monty keeps making demands on me but I keep giving in to him, he's seems pretty happy with the situation and has declared war on just about everyone else bar me! luckily buddism (montys state religion) spread to me and I have switched to it to keep him and sitting build on side.

in 640 AD sistine chapel was built, geez that took a while without marble,


next up on techs were, > education (part bulbed) > Currency > Libralism, picked nationalism.


I kind of handily got a great engineer out of the blue just in time to build the taj mahal in a turn.

at this point I'm going to start switching scientists off in my prospective 3 legendary cities and putting on artists instead, they will still give me some beakers through representation, and I will just slowley tech toward rifling, I have a tech lead right now so I should still get there before the AI.

As far as the plan for a culture victory goes, all my cities now have the three key religions I wanted, cofu, hindu, taoism and I'm partway through building enough temples to get two cathedrals in each legendary city. I also have judasim and buddism in one or two cities so I could squeeze out a few more cathedrals if I wanted. I still have been to war yet this game and hope to keep it that way.

I have skipped quite a few techs this game, but I guess I won't need too many of them and I plan to trade a few of my techs around in the next few turns to fill in some of the important gaps, (still havn't got Metal Casting!!)

Here is the tech situation,

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth10.jpg


One of my big problems is I have really neglected infrastructure, most of my cities are currently well under the happy cap but on the limit with the health cap so I need to improve my health bonuses to get my cities up to speed. Some cities still don't have graneries yet!



Here is the map of my cities and a couple of city screens,

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth11.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth12.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth13.jpg


Checkpoint 4: Cultural Victory 1888 AD


Woo-Hoo Achieved cultural victory in 1888 AD.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth41.jpg

With hindsight it could have been earlier if I had played better at the start, had three more cities to build more temples and unlock more cathedrals. In the end I had access to six religions so I could have built more cathedrals. The main thing that helped me in this game was not warring, in fact I wasn't involved in a war the entire game, unlike other people out there I actually buddied up to monty and sitting bull, they were both buddist so I converted and managed to play the game in peace.

I should have also picked my earlier wonders a little better as towards the end even with 10 artist specialist's running I was popping the odd scientist which was annoying.

here are the three legendary cities a turn before victory, I had saved three great artists at this point so could use them to make all three cities go legendary by the next turn.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth42.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth43.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth44.jpg

Final score, not amazing, but I think cultural victories tend to have lower scores.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth45.jpg

And a couple of the graphs, first culture, no suprises here.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth46.jpg

and power, managed to keep myself in the middle most of the game

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth47.jpg

and on a side note, here's a pick of poor old germany under pressure from the culture of one of my legendary cities.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth48.jpg

Don't you need to post the start save file? You use "go advanced" then "manage attachments" for that.

EDIT: good luck anyway guys

Okay everything's up now! Good luck, hope to see some opinions on the start.

Checkpoint 1:
RESERVED

Checkpoint 2:
RESERVED

Checkpoint 3:
RESERVED

Checkpoint 4:
RESERVED

Looks like a nice start, 2 clams, cows, rice and some plains hills. Right on a river, all be it a very small one, but still give the fresh water bonus.

I think I will give the cultural a go, as I don't go for it very often.

Settings are all fine by me :)

Ooh, food capital. Yes, I agree with settling in place.
I have never tried for a cultural win so it would be quite the learning experience.

I will start it tonight.. Prolly finish it pretty quickly also. And if the point is assist at the Noble level, cultural is not the best choice for Lizzy.
Checkpoint 1:
INitial Thoughts:

Lizzy - Financial and Philosophical (so good for CE or SE)
Probably gonna cottage the crap outta everything
Settle in place - Jeses after I did that 5 resources, cow, 2 fishies, rice, and Incense.

Build Order - Work Boat, Work Boat, Worker
Teching -BW (gonna chop a lot I think), Ag, Sailing (TGL when I get out a worker or two), Wheel, Pottery


What to do with London - Well good food, but I dont like it being a GP Farm I dont think. So I am thinking production seeing all the plains and hills.
I worked a forested hill initially to get he workboat out) Then will switch to the fishies as grow to happy cap

Exploring the region - STONE!!!
Met everyone;s favorite nut job. Monty. Change of plans to axe rush if I get some copper
Copper is close enough, need a 2nd city to hook it up.


NExt techs - masonry,
NExt Builds - Lighthouse, Settler, TGL (chopped), Maoi

Monty wants clams.. Fine for now. no need to piss him off yet
no oracle run, wanna kill monty

Checkpoint 2:
Teching MOnarchy.
TGL, built in London 1400bc
Barracks then Maoi in London.
Now Axes (a lot of them) for Monty

I managed the ORacle in York, chose Metal Casting
Now onto more axes and MOnty

Took first two Aztec Cities.
Killed MOnty's Capital in 200ADish..he still has oe island city. I take peace for now

Another note is that I never opened borders at first.


Checkpoint 3:
Teched to Calendar.
With the two GMs, I bulbed. Bad idea I think, but we will see
=---------

Mids build by someone in 880ad. retarded
--

In 890AD got the damn 7 trieme quest. Have to do it before renisance, and that aint gonna happen
Well it did happen...got +2gold per harbor.. Awesome

900ad. Slider at 50% now, running pure CE.
------------
GP popped finally in York. Got the confucian Holy Site. SB and I are both Confuc so nice influx of money and slider moved up one to 60%

---------

Way too late, but building Colossus in London - 1200 ad
--
Liberalism 1255 - took the standard nationalism

Checkpoint 4:
Now beeline Rifling with a first stop at printing press.
=------------

NExt target is Germany....he is not friendly, but kinda a part of my triangle. May go for ariabia. not sure yet
Well Feddy is Cautious..1450 redcoats.. he just DoW...dead man walking

Took a while..but he is done. Aat this point, I have tanks and rest barely have rifiling. Over.

I'm happy with these setting. Let the games commence!

Checkpoint 1: Done - 1075BC
Well it turns out the start position was tricksy and the surrounding land is really annoying!
This section I teched; Agr>AH>BW>Wheel>Pot>Hunting>Archery>Myst>Masonary>Writing>Poly>started Mono.
First hut I popped gave me... barbs! Second one gave me a warrior.
Ok picture time!
I meet Sitting Bull to my east
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz1.jpg

Then, happy day, I meet Monty the muppet
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz3.jpg

Then in quick succession De Gaulle...
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz5.jpg

...Frederick...
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz6.jpg

...and Saladin
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz7.jpg

I found York to claim the horses and try to cut Monty off
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz9.jpg


Nottingham and Hastings are founded (forgot the screen of Nottingham)
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz12.jpg

Again these cities were founded in an attempt to capture some decent land and stop the AI boxing us in to much.

Glance
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz14.jpg

Unsuprisingly Sal and Monty the founders of the two religions present don't like each other much

Nearby resourses
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz/NCLiz15.jpg


Turns out that De Gaulle is miles away to the north east. Him and SB have loads of really lush land to expand into - unless theres an AI thats on this landmass thats keeping quite - whilst the rest of us are squashed into some rubbish land.

Hopefully I'll found Judaism. When thats in I'm thinking of Beelining Music for the free Great Artist and theaters etc. I also want Iron Working, Priesthood and CoL.

I think my second Culture city is going to be Nottingham.

Next segment I also want to take out Monty before he does something I regret, build a load of workers and try to get to 9 cities. Maybe I'll even use Montys capital as my 3rd city (depending on what its like of course). I hope when Iron comes in that its not in a rubbish low food area like the bronze.
If no easy iron then maybe I need Construction and HBR for Jumbos. So much to do!


Checkpoint 2: Done - 10AD
Ok so How am I doing? I feel like I haven't done much for culture, because of the metal and Monty situation.

Ok so this section I teched; Mono>Math>Priest(trade)>CoL>started HBR>Med(trade)>Alpha(trade)>Sailing(trade). Lots of tech trading, Maybe to much?
Also I tried for the mids but industrious De Gaulle beat me by 8 turns.

Hastings faced a constant stream of barbs this round - about 6/7 warriors and 2/3 archers, but the defender saw them off and is now CG3.

First of all some extortion and bullying!
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz1.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz2.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz4.jpg

I agree to all there demands as the last thing I want is to find two AIs declaring on me at this stage.

Montys Land - his capital could be nice Culture city...
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz7.jpg

Trade
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz8.jpg

More extortion! I give in.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz9.jpg


More trade
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz15.jpg

We tell Monty to stuff it as everyone just converted to Judaism
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz16.jpg

Our land. Notice Monty settled the Copper? Hes got Iron too. Bum.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz18.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz19.jpg

Glance
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz23.jpg

Monty is annoyed with us but isn't "hands full". Teching HBR then Construction as he really has to go - Jumbos and cats here we come! Once hes gone I will go to 9 cites and consolidate as we should have 3 religions.

I started to build court houses - will whip when I can - and temples. When I hit 6 cities I'm going to go to Cast. At the mo I'm Slavery and OR.

Conf founded in Hastings so I guess thats my 2nd legendry city.

Popped a great scientist to build a acadamy in London. Will try for 1one or two more and maybe a preist or two to build the shrines.

Think thats all. So then? What to do? After construction finally head for music and on to Lib?


From now on I'll post a link in the spoiler for new check points as I've hit the image limit for this post and just had to edit loads.

Checkpoint 3: Done - 1305AD
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6586979&postcount=76

Checkpoint 4: Victory! - 1903
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6591186&postcount=93

I've said it before (in the other thread) and I'll say it again (in this thread!), Lizzy is one of the best for culture wins.

* Cottage the capital or wonderspam there, or both
* Have another cottage city as your legendary city #2
* Have a high food GP farm which concentrates only on artists (maybe a scientist or 2 for an academy in the capital/cottage spam city, or to lightbulb philosophy). I'm assuming winning the liberalism race shouldn't be too difiicult on noble. Settle very early artists in your capital or cottage city. Use the rest to bomb the cities that are not performing right at the end of the game.

You want 6 cities at least (so you can build 2 cathedrals of each religion), 9 is better (3 cathedrals). You want at least 2 religions, 3 or 4 is better. Non-legendary cities support the legendary ones by providing troops, or economy boosting via markets, banks, etc. Legendary cities concentrate on culture buildings.

Turn off research and go 100% culture at some point, the cottage cities will rocket in culture then.

Try and get the Sistine Chapel. Parthenon is nice too but not essential for Liz. Other wonders which are nice: any producing Great Artist points (esp. Mausoleum of Mausollos, Statue of Zeus, Taj Mahal. Notre Dame is OK as well).

Pyramids aint bad either, you can change to Universal Suffrage and buy temples, cathedrals, etc. Forget about the great library or stonehenge or the oracle, you don't want too many scientists and you really don't want prophets, UNLESS you aren't getting any religions. You can wait a while to get religions anyway, there's no hurry.

Civics: organised religion when you are in your building phase, pacifism when generating great artists. Bureaucracy for the capital. Slavery early on to get buildings up fast (especially theatres), caste system goes well with pacifism (run max artists).

Take nationalism (Taj Mahal, Hermitage) or printing press (extra commerce from towns) from liberalism.

When you say "we" should just choose a condition, is that "we" the collective, or "we" as individuals? Either way I'm happy to try for a culture win/lose ;)

Nice food surplus in the capital, cottages and some artists too I reckon.

Well I'm off to play a bit now!

@Grandad

Well I'm gonna go for a culture win, as its not one of the wins I generally use.

But it sounds like its optional?

Thats all pretty good advice above, I think I going to shoot for 6 cities and try and get 3 religions(not necessarily all founded by me) that gives me 2 cathedrals per legendary city. A bee-line to music seems like a good idea as that opens up sistine chapel and cathedrals, and of course a free great artist.

I will probably research upto nationalism before switching off the research, although I am tempted to reasearch upto rifling. Seems a shame to play as lizzie without redcoats. Plus it would make me feel a bit safer in the end game.

I think the problem with a culture victory for me is not the culture but the threat of attack!

I'm of to play too :D

This is a great idea.

Checkpoint 1
Reserved

Checkpoint 2
Reserved

Checkpoint 3
Reserved

Checkpoint 4

Reserved

Arrg, it won't let me play with the HOF mod (which incorporates Bhruic patch).

Checkpoint 1 (Finished):


So i settled in place. Rice, Cow, 2 Clams and Incense in the BFC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/4000BC.jpg

i wasn't too patient to wait till tomorrow so i started.
first build - workboat as starting techs are fishing & mining. Will research first bronze working as my first worker won't be built for the next hundreds of years... warrior is gonna scout around.

after scouting some eastern land, found stone, wine and pigs resources... and mr. tough guy Monty showed up from the south with the scout:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/3775BC_MONTY.jpg

3575BC - Hinduism founded in the distant land.
3500BC - Buddhism founded in the distant land.

Workboat is up and i started building worker.. 11 turns for agriculture, 18 for worker... i'll probably whip out worker so it can start improve rice earlier an than build another warrior to scout around. god damn i got used to hunting as a start tech, but mining is cool too. heres the area @ 3450BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/22_3450BC.jpg

Year 3300BC: just met Sitting Bull on my West. He seem to have nice land around him:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/SB_3300BC.jpg

Turn 32: Whiped worker & agriculture researched. Begin building another warrior to scout Monty. I'm going for pottery now... figured i need cottages and granaries soon as my land will be food poor especially my second city near copper & stone.

Turn 41: Wheel Researched, Pottery next... Warrior found 98 gold in a hut and another warrior built.. beginning building first settler to claim copper.

(god damn civil service)

turn 45: De Gaulle showed up near SB
turn 49: Saladin showed in the south
turn 63: researched AH and started improve Cows with the worker... Mysticism next... and heres my area at 2425BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/2525BC.jpg

and the whole view:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/2425BC_whole.jpg

2025BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

1950BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

1900BC: first barbarian. i thought there will be no trouble with them on this map so didn't build great wall :)
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg

1100BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg
picked CoL and:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
sent first missionary to Sitting Bull... later Monty converted too.. niiice. but Monty will fall down soon in my plans.

950BC:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

925BC Monty asks one of my clams as a tribute. i give it. ill cancel the deal after 10 turns:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

395BC another great prophet... damn i rushed and clicked on the light bulb icon and discovered polytheism. damn. i could have 2 religions by now. hope another GP will show up soon.

... i started building libraries and putting scientists in cities. only london for now.

and i found where De Gaulle is:
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

Thats the end of Checkpoint 1 i guess.


Checkpoint 2 (finished):


275BC: freakin' barbs: 4 spearmen attacks near London but i managed to defend with 3 axes!

230BC: finished researching Alphabet... going for currency..? i'm not keen on making right research decisions, guess few +coins will be nice for science.
... did 2 trades: got Monarchy from De Gaulle and Monotheism from Bull and switched to Organized Religion:

170BC: Monty asks for Open Borders... "It ain't happening... i just don't like you enough!" :D
Settled Hastings. Seems SB would settled that gold if i didn't
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg

Monty The Predictable declared war.
I've managed to survive first attack. Hope i will make peace with him soon as i'm not prepared to attack him.

130AD: another great prophet showed up and Christianity founded in Hastings. cool!

235AD: Moved my axe stack into Monty's territory and found out Texcoco is lightly defended. so i captured it
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg
than made peace with him for a while. gave me 110 an 1 gpt.

325AD: Researched Civil Service and started Construction (Frederick fagot won't trade it). Now i can finally bring irrigation to York.
415AD: DoW'd Monty and captured 2 workers.
445AD: Construction researched.. now i can truly defeat Monty, as he's cities are nice defended with walls. Begin on HR.
1000AD: I captured Montiys cities but SoB allready moved to another continent. At least he's history for now. Also i built AP in London, switched to Caste System and assigned Scientists..
...while at war. great prophet born. bulbed Divine Right, and soon got Islam.
1020AD: GS born, bulbed Philosophy, and got Taosim... great, thats 4 religions, and 3 holy cities, all i need now is 3 GPs to go and im rich!!!

1255AD: Spiral Minaret built in London. OMG what am i gonna do with all those Prophets damn
...clickong the red dot, building infrastructure (HE & Maoi Statues in London, NE in Nothingam...)

1430AD: my caravel rushed into Sury :)
1470AD: WTF!? Haty showed up. Stupid colony bug! She's now vassal of Frederick!

OK i think i met everyone else! Thats the end of Checkpoint 2 i guess.


Checkpoint 3/4:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6592192&postcount=97

Hi

I have a question, some of these check points sound like very large gaps in between them. If point of these games is to get advice shouldnt we post more like when we feel we are at any major decision points or something like that? Ask dot map advice, when to go to war or not to, decisions during the war or its prep, asking on advice when we have questions or city ties or improvements or what to produce next? things like that?

Depending on how individuals play there could be different and MANY decison points for each person.

The biggest problem with doing it that is noone will be able to see how others are doing since seeing advice or results for different decisions is gonna make some spoiling happen. Unless everyone does exactly the same thing. Its just a little confusing to me how its all supposed to work.

Kaytie

nice start. rice, cows, 3 hills, trees, and fresh water. only its coastal, but what the heck. will settle in place.

U got a point there Kaytie. We should all just play the game till the end and than read others spoilers and see what went wrong, or who got better.

Well, at each checkpoint you post what happened, and what your plan is. You can also look at everyone else's checkpoint to see what they did.

Well I'm going to start it up tonight. I look forward to any feedback!

Hi

I have a question, some of these check points sound like very large gaps in between them. If point of these games is to get advice shouldnt we post more like when we feel we are at any major decision points or something like that? Ask dot map advice, when to go to war or not to, decisions during the war or its prep, asking on advice when we have questions or city ties or improvements or what to produce next? things like that?



Yeah, I kinda know where your coming from, I've already started playing, and I feel like I've already started slipping in to bad habits I promised myself I wasn't going to do! But how can you get a good open discussion going about the game without messing it up for everyone?

Feel like like I could have done with some advice already.

Open a spoiler thread, people who don't want to read it don't have to.

I'd like to see a screeny of the start anyway. I'm not going to play this, busy with my prince walkthrough.

EDIT: Just upload to photobucket or something, for screenies.

@ Groogaroo

I feel like I need advice to!
Bloody stupid copper. Crazy looking landmass:mad:

Gonna update check point 1.

I'm at checkpoint one too, will update mine now!

Checkpoint 1 - Done
Like someone said, crazy landmass, crazy Monty also, which I'm trying to block off but I dunno if it's going to work. Definitely going to need to spam units for a while until we can wipe him out. I didn't open borders with him, but that prevents his Buddhism to reach me, I think... I opened with mostly everybody who seemed relatively far, but not with Sitting Bull, who seems to annoy everyone. I'm hoping for a miracle to get a religion somehow. I think Frederick founded Hinduism. Now that I think of it, Judaism still hasn't been founded...

Anyway, my first build was a workboat, since we had fishing... I think I went for agriculture at the same time, somehow. Probably not a good idea, but my next build was definitely going to be a worker. I didn't keep track of all my tech choices, I must say this is probably where I'm not too good. I never plan too much ahead and always seem to pick depending on what seems like is going to happen in the next 30-40 turns or so.

Anyway, I founded York a bit late for my own tastes. I thought that our capital already had a good production so this cottage spam area or GP farm may be good. It just seems awkwardly distanced from my capital. And yes, that copper is really annoying, I'm not done with iron working so I don't know... But I'm tempted to put a crap city around there to further block Monty, but there is NO FOOD WHATSOEVER there. My tentative location could be moved south towards the ocean to get some lighthouse benefits at least. But I'm really at lost, the land is driving me crazy. There is so much stuff that it's making decision making quite hard. Just north of us is a nice spot where I'd like to put city A, but I don't know if it's really urgent. Maybe I want to be more aggressive and go towards Sitting Bull, but I stared at this chunk of land, wondering, for quite a while. Where do I put it. I definitely want the pigs in there, but it seems that anything that includes it also includes way too much useless plains and not enough hills for good production either, it's weird. I'm really at lost. Site A? Question mark for copper? (I hate that site), or AAAAARGH land, I dunno...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10000.jpg

I seem to be doing quite well in points, if I remember well, 1st or second... I used the whip a bit liberally in my capital to get workers and my two settlers.

I'm thinking that maybe, with two cities in AAARGH land, and after wiping out Monty (dang), I'd have enough land to think of figuring out how to go for a cultural victory. Haven't seen marbles though. At some point I was thinking of going for the pyramids... I dunno if I should still try, I mean, we have stone. But it seems I want to put cities more than I want to build that, especially considering how weird the land mass is and how quickly we could be bottled. Aaaanyway.



Checkpoint 2 - COMPLETED up to 85 AD, still haven't met the last AI but it's been a while...
Part 2: The Britanno-Aztec war; the war for a worthless piece of tundra and desert

The turn started with De Gaulles threatening me. I gave in, I think I want to be his friend. Maybe it's a common mistake in my games but I always tend to not open borders with my immediate neighbours, especially if I can box them in... Or if I have other plans for their territory. Opening borders is always a bit difficult for me. I also often check if my potential friends like the people who are asking me for open borders, I'm always afraid my wannabe friend is going to ask me two turns later to STOP TRADING WITH xyz

Okay froggie, take that fishing and have some nice meal (I'm allowed, my first language is French).
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10001.jpg

A british settling group quickly ran to that iron that popped up south of AAAARGH land. Unfortunately for them...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10002.jpg

Only a few years later, the strange people from the south known as the Aztec, who we were trying to contain in their paradise of a peninsula, started to get too close for our comfort.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10003.jpg

And too close for theirs too, apparently. I almost decided to take the city while it was in revolt, but decided that my forces were still a bit too low for the beginning of a war.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10004.jpg

By this point, Britain is in an arms race with its neighbours as the Native Americans and the Aztecs are building large armies. Meanwhile, the French, Arabian and German people are having a go at wonders as messages keep popping about them having achieved great feats of engineering. I hate it when this happens, forced into army building when you can easily imagine far away AI in Neverland building a vast empire with two warriors in each city to defend it. AAAARGH. All the time.

Meanwhile, I have been using York as a makeshift GP farm (2 scientists via a library) and over the course of this round it has given me 2 Great Scientists, I can't quite remember what I lightbulbed... One of them was Alphabet, I think.

155 BC, the beginning of war. As you can see here

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10005.jpg

The Aztecs were sending a settling company towards the east (look closely) and apparently, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, decided to resort to this. At first the situation seemed quite impossible for me, but a mix of axemen and chariots (for those invading Axemen) made ground meat of this Aztec offense.

It was time for counter-attack (while more wonders are being built). The whipped was used again for more axemen... It's difficult mounting this attack while keeping my eastern city (which I founded north of the iron, close to the elephants and the river, can't see it here but it grabs elephants, spices, pigs, and rice, not too bad, but low in production, I'm thinking of a city on the side of the water north of there close to more pigs and rice, that has a lot of hills, need more production soon).

The British army thus marched south (bunch of axes and a few chariots and a spearman, last being a build mistake, hehe). It razed the first city that was present in the desert with few casualities (one I think). I decided to leave Texoco (in my territory) alone for now as it pathetic and will eventually be easily razed anyway.
The army reached Tlateloco, by the side of the water, which has a couple of hills, and has fish and wheat... Here the Gods decided to hate the British. I lost two 95%+ odds of winning battles, and wasted a bunch of units. Which was already annoying me, and when satisfaction came at last, basically on the same year the invasion of the city had succeeded...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10006.jpg

... A strange throng of a petty civilization called "Philistines" decided to take arms against my civilization! So after in the previous turn I lost two 95%+ odds battles (add a third one to that a few turns earlier when an axeman in my territory failed to prevent a wounded Aztec spearman to pillage a mine...), the random number generator throws this at me. I wanted to hit my head on the wall until I realized they were only spearmen... My men fought them off bravely and got promotions! Wort wort wort!

Meanwhile, our first Great General (El Cid) was born in London. I settled him there for meaner units. Finally, in our last thrust south, we found the capital of the Aztec empire, as we arrived, we surprised another settling company with two axemen, they quickly withdrew to their capital, and are now buckled in this fortress (60% defense + on hill...). Luckily, our scientists are almost done with this strange rock-throwing invention (beelined construction). So I shall reinforce the remains of my stack with a few units and catapults and put an end to the Aztec's insolence.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10008.jpg

I forgot to take a screenshot of my empire... You can add Copper city on the edge of the waters south of our capital... And the elephant city I was talking about. Now I also have one Aztec city that I showed you.

For over 200 years, the Aztec war has forced us into purely military avenues. The French are growing larger and larger in their idyllic country... This is proving to be hard. I win 75-85% of my Noble games (none of the wins ever feel that comfortable though... So I still stick to it for now), but I thought of giving up when I first got declared on and I was seeing my opponents building all these wonders. Probably because I still had the cultural victory in mind.... I don't know if I still want to pursue this. I find our land devoid of much production. I still haven't been able to settle site A as shown in my previous update. But I think I'll rush for another city in the nothern parts of AAAARGH land where there are hills, grassland, and food. A production city.

Iron seems to be completely out of reach... Unless I declare on Sitting Bull, in which case this game is turning more and more into a domination-type win. I'm thinking that my near-future army will consist of axes (for defense at this point), a lot of war elephants, some spearmen for defense too, and longbowmen in my cities.



Checkpoint 3 - COMPLETED, the year is 1708, I have finally met the last AIs and are looking towards the end of the game...
So, I saw that de Gaulles had no restriction whatsoever on his growth... He liked me, and he was annoyed by everybody else. I decided to become his best buddy and to leave Sitting Bull between him and me, as a buffer.

So I built large defenses on my eastern cities, to remove any ideas Sitting Bull might have of trying to declare war on me.. But I was left with the problem that if I was BEST FREINDS 4EVER with de Gaulles, he would win the game by becoming so huge. So I had to expand. I went for the tech leader but the weakest civ; Frederick. Oh and I finally managed to build a wonder!

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10011.jpg

Sadly it's a bit late for that, but still, will provide a lot of money for this incoming war. I also built University of Sankore, since I was now a Jewish believer alongside de Gaulles. I even adopted Nationalism as soon as I could to please him (his favourite civic). He's friendly with me now. I also built Notre-Dame, and... Something else... Can't remember. Oh yeah, Statue of Zeus for the win. And the Spinal Minaret! I love that one too. I landed Islam and taoism, but haven't done much with them yet. What's interesting is that my wonders were spread among 3-4 cities, so maybe I still have a shot for the cultural win? ... I only did cultural wins on easier levels so I don't know if it's still worth trying now.

So anyway, I declared war on Frederick, he was friendly with Saladin so he immediately got that one into a war with me too. So I phoned up my own best buddy (de Gaulles) and got him to go to war with Saladin to keep that one busy while I annihilated Frederick. I wanted Berlin really bad, and look what I got.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10014.jpg

My goal was to kick Frederick (and Saladin had a city there too) out of the peninsula to our West. So I did this rather easily, razed about 3 worthless cities, kept those which were decent. But then when I was ready to stop the war, Frederick wasn't going to capitulate... I thought that I didn't really care if he didn't want to capitulate, but realized his new capital was very close up north in worthless desert. Turns out he also has a bunch of cities oversea, I don't care. One of my problems was that he had astromony and I didn't yet, so he sank all my ships and pillaged all my seafood tiles and my whales! Argh. He might not have had a big army, but it was on par with mine technologically. He even had knights before me, no problem, I had pikemen in my stacks. But yeah, it was macemen on macemen. But I had a lot of trebuchet... But yeah, his new capital was close up north, I thought "okay let's raze that crap city and see what he says after that"...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10015.jpg

The German empire, vassal of Britain, finally. And de Gaulles doesn't mind, he's still friendly. So yeah, I stopped the game there, it's 1708, and Fred's maps allowed me to finally see the last AI the Khmer dude. I had almost reached him with caravels but they got sunk by Fred's huge army of frigates (congrats Fred on your useless navy that just managed to annoy me slightly).

So here is my empire in 1708...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10016.jpg

I'm in a good position to win, but I haven't really decided how yet. I'm kind of too lazy to think of war with de Gaulles (which I pretty much would have to if I went for domination... I dunno.. and I'm BFF with him now... ). I get the feeling Suveryanaman whatever his name is will try for cultural, he's on an island and AI on faraway islands tend to do this I noticed. So I may have a war ahead of me there. I think the easiest for me at this point would be to sit back and cruise my way to a Space Race victory. But who says I have to use the easiest route?

Oh did I mention that Saladin is the resident of the AP in this game and forced me to DEFY a resolution to stop wars against him and Fred... so it's two times I had to take the large unhappiness penalties because of that. Annoying. It's hinduist and me and de Gaulles have very little Hinduism in our land. Maybe with my new aquisition, and by spreading it, I could prevent further lame crap like that going on. I hate how when these menus pop up you have to select something and you can't go and check the number of votes or any of the advisor menus...

Any input?


Checkpoint 4 - COMPLETED - End of game 1941
Well... It turns out my friend, de Gaulles, made a mistake...

I was going to surf for some sort of space race victory... Then I noticed my "friendly" ally de Gaulles had "too much on his hands". I figured he was going to invade the weak Sitting Bull next door. I wasn't going to just sit there and watch him take more land. As soon as he declared on SB, I declared on SB too and a race for land ensued. He captured 2 cities, I captured 4 SB cities in the south, and made sure to leave a band of 4 SB cities between me and de Gaulles... a buffer... Then I vassalized Sitting Bull. So now I had two vassals, SB and Frederick. I realized that I only had 3 opponents left, and they were all extremely weak except for de Gaulles who still kept up. So I thought that probably vassalizing everyone was going to be faster than just going space race. So I turned unto my next target, Saladin, who was also hated by my best friend de Gaulles. Once again, it was war with my redcoats. (They also were prime army in my SB war). I quickly got up to Mecca and after razing a few cities that turned into capitals on far away islands, he had enough and capitulated too... Now I turned unto the Khmer empire, who were really lame and just pumping up culture. I sent an army there on 6 transports with 6 destroyers and I only razed two cities until he capitulated.

Even with 4 vassals, and after having attacked his friend (Khmers), de Gaulles still was very friendly with me.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10026.jpg

That was just before I declared on him. I think key to my victory was doing a lot of things he liked, almost only trading with de Gaulles... And adopting Nationhood, his favourite civis, even if it wasn't optimal for me. Since we had both been together at war with Saladin and Sitting Bull, he was happy. If permanent alliances had been on, I would have had an easy domination by becoming one with him, I think... If it works like team play in multiplayer. But it wasn't so.. So tht screenshot was taken just before I declared war on him. Such a shame, I liked him... He even got a random event that popped up for me as "The French empire are bragging about the quality of their truffles", I thought it was funny.

By that point, I was so huge and had so much production that I was invincible, I also had insane beakers per turn and I was way in advance on him. I ended up killing grenadiers with gunships and marines and tanks. Sad sad... Here is one of my three stacks in his territory, the one that razed Paris to the ground...

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10020.jpg

He gave up a few turns later and capitulated, appropriately, in the summer of 1940. By that point, I had razed about 20 cities, given a bunch to my vassals too... The British empire, razing wonders of the world. Oh yeah.

And that was that. Conquest victory, my first (I usually get domination when I'm forced into the military route... first time I take on everybody). 32832 points. Augustus Caesar for the win. Also, CLOSED EYES BOOYA. Oh, I forgot to mention that Washington popped up in this game as a colony of the Khmer empire. It was a short lived colony (see last graph). On this powergraph, you see De Gaulle's forces dwindle. He attacked one of SB's city, and he had, I swear, about 60 units there. I brought 15 tanks and destroyed it all. By that point I had removed the animations for battle, it was taking too long (I like watching them usually, dorky, I know, but with Avain's MOD, it's nice to see all the diverse looks of different units. But jeez, it was a French genocide.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10023.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10024.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10025.jpg

Hmm, start position doesn't look good from what I have seen in the spoilers.

Everyone seems to be going for the Oracle, if you are going for culture that will annoy you later on. Priesthood is a big tech diversion when you could be going code of laws instead. At least take code of laws from the Oracle. (EDIT: for the religion, of course)

I've been a naughty boy.
In my rush to play this game I haven't even done a spot map. I reckon the cities I've placed are going to haunt me when I go to bed tonight/in a minute. I'll do one tommorow. If some other people post their dot maps I'd like to have a look.
Any one whos looked at the spoilers could also suggest away of making the copper city - which I haven't settled:eek: - anything other than rubbish.

I haven't been that naughty

@paradigmshifter

I honestly intended to focus on expanding in the opening of the game, rather than worry about wonders, but couldn't help myself! I did pick CoL so that makes me a good boy!


@Grandad1982


In my hurry I didn't do a dot map either, :rolleyes: I think I'm actually getting worse not better. This map is tough, on my travels I havn't found a single flood plain yet...


Plus I'm already fed up putting this is spoiler boxes. I don't know whats sensitive or not!

Hope others are having a better time at this.

Did you get the religion from CoL groogaroo? Otherwise, Oracle is a waste.

EDIT: Pyramids are better, you might get a great engineer to rush the Sistine or another artist wonder. + Universal suffrage, rush buy those buildings. Representation is good when running lots of artists too.

Yup! I but I still need a couple more.

Sorry didn't see your edit

EDITgot the mids too... running Rep/caste

Thats not a big spoiler but I put in a box anyway.

OK, bulb philosophy next. Divine right is worth it in culture games as well. Let neighbouring religions spread to you also.

It's the first time I participate in such a thing, and I have to say it seems quite fun. I'm glad to notice I'm not completely retarded at this game since people have often placed their second city exactly where I chose to. And grandad1982 even had the same research order as me! woohoo!

That being said, the checkpoints, on second thought, are kind of vague, but I don't see how they could be clearer, I think maybe we should also write the date of our update... like

"Checkpoint 1 - Completed - 550 BC" or something like that, maybe it'd help. I don't remember the date in my game so I'll just have to do it for checkpoint 2.

Yer the spoiler was doing my head in when I was writing my checkpoint!
Still this is all stuff that can be sorted out as the series progresses.

I think the land north of SB is the best area. If only this was a millitary game!

Where oh where to put my GP farm? Capital? Somewhere else?! Arrrggghh.

It really is bed time for me now!

Good checkpoint times:

When you have a settler ready to go to 2nd city site.

When you research alphabet.

1AD. Gets everyone in sync.

When you research civil service.

When you tech education.

When you hit liberalism.

I decided to play, even though I am a "prince / monarch" level player, because although I tend to start well, I lose it mid-game, and I think thats a BIG problem among Noble-Prince-Monarch players in general. However, I hate to "butt-insky" to a thread like this if others feel its not right for me. I do think this is a great concept, and there are so many incredibly helpful players on these boards, I am hoping to get some input on my own "style".

Anyway, here is my update through 245 BC. I have established 4 cities and met 5 of the 6 opponents, but have not explored a ton:

Once I explored my immediate surrounding territory, I decided right away on some early goals. One for sure, The Great Lighthouse and Colossus with a slingshot to Metal Casting from the Oracle, with the intention of trying to run a strong TE. Plenty of forests and hills, but not a ton of great cottage area in "our" lands (lack of rivers, lots of plains, etc) made me decide to go this way. I also saw the stone, and knowing it was Noble, I decided to get ambitious and go for the Great Wall as well as the Pyramids. The GW mostly for the spy points and GGs, since I can sense impending conflicts in the future, with such nasty civs right in out backyard like Monty and Sitting Bull, both of whom I plan to eliminate or at least cripple. Monty would have to go ASAP, no question about it. I am not sure whats down there south of him, but he already dropped a city "too close for comfort". SB could wait, as I could cut him off early, and he would be expanding in the other direction, and being protective, is a much tougher nut to crack.

So I settled in place, started with a Work Boat and teched Ag--> BW. The only hut I managed to pop gave me Masonry, which was an excellent surprise given my goals. Using aggressive chop and whip overflows, I got 2 workers, 2 Warriors, and 2 settlers out ASAP, and then built a lighthouse and started the GLH in London. I didnt bother settling a separate city for the stone, knowing I would get it fairly quickly in London's cultural border. Instead, I settled York to the SW and Nottingham to the SE, and chopped/whipped monuments in both quickly for border pops. My 4th city, Hastings, was from a settler I built when London was about to go "unhappy" during the GLH. I settled this city by the Copper. Here is where my current Screenshot. GW and Oracle were built in York. Mids and GLH in London, and likely Colossus and GL:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

I am currently building Barracks in a couple cities, and will rush Monty as soon as I pump out enough Axes. In the meantime, its important to get my populations up and get Scientists running soon, to take full advantage of Liz's PHI trait. For now, its going to be libraries and axes, and a couple more cities, one to the NW, and one to the W. Note, I have ALL my cities on the coast, and will look to build the Colossus very soon. I am not a perfectionist about my GPPs, and will take whatever I happen to get most of the time. I am not going for a Cultural win at the moment, but I may decide to before long. I merely started on the best "winning" path I could think of. There will be time to focus on a winning condition later. I dont think its right to pick a VC before you even start, I tend to go where the game "takes" me. After Monty, I would really like to take out SB, since he has that fat river running down his western borders (which I am poaching a bit with Nottingham, heh). I have opened borders with everyone, because BTS doesnt have as much "settling behing my lines" as Vanilla.

So, to sum up, my #1 goal was GLH + Colossus, #2 was Pyramids, #3 is taking out Monty early. I teched Ag (for the rice), BW, popped Masonry on hut, Wheel, Myst, Med, Priest, Pottery, Sailing, Writing, Math (for chopping bonus building all those Wonders), AH (3 cities have the need, and I also found Horses near enough to 2 cities that I will have them soon), and right now I am halfway through Currency. Once I bang out Currency and get the Colossus up, plus my city to the North which will have the other clam in that area, I will have a pile of trade and tons of cash flow (I hope).

Oh, and just after the Mids were done, I got the +2 health event, thus already increasing my health in all cities. Coastal means Harbors, which fall in line with my GLH-Colossus combo, so fresh water settling wasnt a huge thing. I also have a lot of +health resources to tide me over til Harbors anyway, and the Hanging Gardens have become a common wonder for me in games where I dont have a few rivers. I may still build the HGs, but its not as big anymore. The Temple of Art and SH are already gone, and after Currency I plan to tech Alphabet and see where I stand. I am sure I can trade some, and pick a couple "friends", Freddy and Sal maybe, since Monty, SB and Chucky DeG tend to be asshats, then likely tech Aesthetics --> Lit and head for the GL as well. City production wise, its Barracks and/or Forges, then axes until I have 20ish to pound Monty. I tend to overwhip at this stage of my games though, so I am hoping I can avoid that and get some population growth soon. There is also a barb city already up, to the west, so I am betting there is even more settleable land that way, but it can wait til after Monty is dead.

I will put up another update once I have my cities in "order", the war is on, and will post city screenshots at that time.
I do realize I might be a bit advanced for Noble. However, I can't win on Emperor comfortably (translation, I have to "work at it" too much, and get bored, maybe?), and I just dont enjoy "grinding" the harder levels. I still have too much to learn about focus, mid-late game city specialization, GPP management, etc. I like Prince and Monarch, because I can still make mistakes and accomplish most of my goals. I am a Wonder Addict (and dont mind, I love building them), and lately have become heavily addicted to SEs. But I am hopeful this will be an educational thread, much like the LHC, where we actively discuss the various strategy paths in situations of isolation. Those games have really helped me, although I am 0-4 on Monarch (first tries, that is).

BTW, I also think folks should update a lot, especially if they think they dont have a plan, or dont feel comfortable about the plan they have. I think the whole point of this thread (and regular series, it if becomes one) is for higher level/skilled players to help those of us who feel sort of "overwhelmed". I REALLY tend to lose it in the mid-game. Pre-Liberalism I do OK, but after that . . . well, lets just say I simply dont seem to focus, and jump all over from plan to plan.

Specific criticisms I am looking for are:

City Specialization tips
GPP management (especially with a PHI leader)
Proper population growth (my cities tend to be smaller due to overwhipping, working on that this game especially, since higher pop is important for my economic approach)
Build queue management (sub category of specialization, avoiding unneeded buildings, etc)
Mid-late game directions and "goals" (other than bee-line Lib, take Nationalism, beeline Rifles, and draft an army that wins by brute force more than finesse)

Feel free to be as critical as possible (without being rude or abrasive, please), and keep advice specific to me in a spoilers with "@Bleys" on it, so it doesnt interfere with the other peoples games. I am playing this game mainly because I feel I need to learn certain specific items that are sort of "difficulty neutral", and this is a good level to be able to practice without fearing that minor blunders will blow the whole shebang.

That being said, the checkpoints, on second thought, are kind of vague, but I don't see how they could be clearer, I think maybe we should also write the date of our update... like

"Checkpoint 1 - Completed - 550 BC" or something like that, maybe it'd help. I don't remember the date in my game so I'll just have to do it for checkpoint 2.

Goog idea atleast we'd get a clue at how big the spoiler would be. I suppose once everyone is at checkpoint one we can openly discuss evenis in that period.

@ ParadigmShifter

Good points. All being in sync at some point would be great.

Ideas about tweaking the format should probalbly go in the planning thread. Sorry Krick19 if we're hyjacking your idea its just because its a good idea!

Have downloaded the file and am going to play to checkpoint one. Will have it up by tonight.

First round is below. It's from 4000 BC to 395 BC.
Founded in place, then started researching agriculture for the purposes of getting that rice and to get AH. Got 20g from the hut. I'm thinking of cottage spam around the land for the capital, but I delayed researching pottery, going instead for agri>AH>BW>Masonry>Wheel>Pottery>Myst>Meditation>Priesthood>Writing>IW
As such I haven't been able to get all my cottages up right away, but I'm starting that beautiful cottage spam.

Founded York in 2375, the same turn Hindu-founder Saladin gets BW (2nd to do so). Because of its location, I was able to run 1g deficit at 90% off of hut gold. Founded Nottingham in 1600 BC-I didn't found near the bronze because it's such a food poor location. I found some iron to the SE of Nottingham, so a settler is en route there to hook up some iron.

As far as builds go, I've been getting mostly work boats, warriors, and workers out of the capital, to hook up those clams, scout the continent, and get those cottages down/hook up resources. Only buildings so far have been granaries and monuments. For wonders, I built the 'mids in London and started the Oracle in York with the intent of running a hybrid econ. with Rep/Caste/Mercantilism (when I get it).
Below are screenshots at the end of the turn: http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/3853/civ4screenshot0001fk6.jpg
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/3711/civ4screenshot0006yl5.jpg
For the first map, I'll do black dot when I can get some gold flowing in at 80%ish. For the second map, I am leaning towards Red Dot. Although it is one tile from the sea, it will only have two water tiles, and has more food (Deer) than any of the other dots (resource wise; someone please correct me if I am incorrect).

For diplomacy, I know Monty must die. Maybe take his Holy City and use Buddhism? But I'm already going to get Confucianism, and I'd prefer to use that because I founded it XD After that, take out Sitting Bull when I have swords and horse archers (and maybe cats, too).

Wow, I'm doing really badly, mostly because i settled York to block you know who and founded Judaism.

OK so anyone whos looked at my game could they give me some advice please? Pretty please?

I feel like I'm a bit wonder light here. Does any one have some suggestions for me? Are the mids still an option?

Should I go for CoL - for the religion (won't swap to cast yet as I've still got whipping to do!) instead of music - maths (the chop benifit)>currency>CoL?

Looking at others spoilers I wish I'd placed York 1W. Silly lack of dot map. Thats what happens when you get exited I guess!

I might put a city to the NE of hastings near the gold - or near Iron when it shows up. Also Is it a good idea to try and block Frederick in a bit, i.e. found a jungle city up near him? Maybe I should cultivate him as a friend instead?

@ SimonL

When it comes to settling in AAAARGHLAND I chose to settle along the western river bank as I reckon you can still grab the resourses and it hems SB in too.

@Krick19
Like my advice to SimonL I reckon expanding out towards SB I what its about at the moment. Expanding in to the jungle will be slow andyou need land! Also Monty must die!

WooHoo:dance: my 100th post!!

Never mind, my comp crashed. I think I'll just play the next one.

Never mind, my comp crashed. I think I'll just play the next one.
Nonsense mate. Play this one from the beginning again. Replaying maps is an excellent way to learn. Take a look at all the spoilers and suggestions so far, and use what you like from them and have another go. Thats the beauty of these games, learning from your mistakes.

Yer don't give up! I can feel this is going to be a long game so take what you know already and us it to win! Theres no shame in restarting!

Gonna update check point two and I've hit AD.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6578402&postcount=10

Is it possible to put multiple attachments on one post?

If not my last save is here.

I just added my second checkpoint. It was a bit hardcore. See link here, as suggested by ParadigmShifter;

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6579191&postcount=26

I usually play with Avain's Varietas Delectat mod!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237192

I find it sad to play without it now, the game looks a lot more bland :( But I shall play without it nonetheless for the sake of these Noble Club thing :cry:

@grandad1982
Haha, I wondered what you were talking about when you mentionned Monty had iron. I mean, I was all scared not to have any... Look at my last screenshot from update 2!

I think I'll wait for more people to finish checkpoint 2 in order to continue.

Those of you who wish to use MODs, there is a workaround. First, open the game without the MOD loaded, and go into the World Builder (try not to peek). Immediately save it, using the default "WB" save, naming it as you will (named mine NC Liz). Then, open up your MOD, and select "Play Scenario" and you can play it with your fav MOD. I am playing mine with the HoF MOD loaded, and its fine.

Those of you who wish to use MODs, there is a workaround. First, open the game without the MOD loaded, and go into the World Builder (try not to peek). Immediately save it, using the default "WB" save, naming it as you will (named mine NC Liz). Then, open up your MOD, and select "Play Scenario" and you can play it with your fav MOD. I am playing mine with the HoF MOD loaded, and its fine.

Sweet, I think I'll do that next time. Don't worry folks, Avain's mod is purely graphical and doesn't change the gameplay. However, using world builder to do it, it's sort of hard not to see at least one thing, argh, oh well. I'll try.

Its not too bad if you know EXACTLY where to concentrate on looking to click "save". Practice with a random game.

Besides, lets remember, this isnt any kind of official game. Its for educational purposes, to learn to play better. I have learned a ton replaying maps, and while its true foreknowledge is a big advantage, the point is to streamline your play, omit unnecessary builds and ideas, etc etc. I have gotten pretty good at quicky saving the WBs, and quickly skipping past the "choose leader" part of loading a Scenario. Sure I saw that the Aztecs and Germans were in this game (I think they were 2nd and 3rd on the list of civ choices).

There are many other ways to get great educational value from your games as well. Playing lower level RPCs on these boards, then checking how your decisions stacked up vs the actual games can be invaluable. Use all the MODs, do-overs, and re-loads you want, and you will soon find you are "thinking" better in your regular games as well.

About 2nd city...
I settled it to claim copper & stone right away. Where did u put yours? Hm those farms are troubling me right now.. only 1 tile available for farming right now. until Civil service i will go nuts. :) i guess ill compensate with cottages

@J4Ck RE: 2nd city
Most people seem to have settled west towards the corn, pigs and elephants. I was a bit afraid to settle the copper as the second city because there is no food there whatsoever. Basically I settled the copper city as my third or 4th city (I almost settled these at the same time) and I placed it right next to the copper to have it right away... So I consider this a junk city that will mostly try to not be too much of a money waster later on. I should have moved it a bit east to claim at least one wine... I think... But I thought that I would probably have other cities claiming that eventually. Anyway, in this game city placement has been a bigger challenge than it usually is for me. But I think I'm not too good at it to start with. I always try to have the most resources I can within each city's BFC, but that comes at the expense of almost no overlap, and wasted rows of tiles between BFCs...

hey guys, whoa! I'm falling behind I still havn't played the next segment yet... will get staright to it now! I'm feeling better about my game now, was getting really frustrated with my game yesterday.

@Grandad



I don't know about the mids, but your still only at 10AD, on Noble I've seen them get build as late as 200AD!!!, so you probably have a shot at them but there is a risk (remember de gualle is industrious, I think).

CoL, is worth it if you have a shot at founding the religion, and of you'll want caste system at some point.

I don't know if you should take my sdvice tho, its like the blind leading the blind!

I really wish I'd taken more time planning my cities out, particularly as this map is a little odd.



@J4ck



I didn't settle my copper city too well, just missed it being in BFC, I think I will live to regret that!



Okay I'm going to try and play the next bit so I can look at all your updates.

(or maybe I will have a quick peek first :mischief: )

When you update you should post a link to the post containing the update. If you click on the post number link (Groogaroo's post above, it is the underlined link #53), it opens that post in another window, paste the link in to your reply, Bob is your Uncle and Fanny is your Aunt.

EDIT: Like this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6580795&postcount=54, that's a link to this post.

I just got upto checkpoint 2 and updated my post, which is here.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6578219&postcount=3

Only played upto 245 BC, I'm a little busy (away for the weekend, but have my laptop ;) ) but I think I've committed to my victory condition and have a plan.

I'm off to take a look at everyones checkpoint 2 spoilers now. :D

Hmm, not seeing many tips from the higher-leveled players. Am I the only one who built the GLH-Colossus combo? Seems impossible, giving the amount of coastal land on this map.

Hmm, not seeing many tips from the higher-leveled players. Am I the only one who built the GLH-Colossus combo? Seems impossible, giving the amount of coastal land on this map.

Hi Bleys,

Unfortunatley I'm a bit stuck in my ways, I always rely on the same stratagies and become too dependant on them, rather than playing to the advantages of the map/leader.

I really need to try and experiment more.

Hmm, not seeing many tips from the higher-leveled players. Am I the only one who built the GLH-Colossus combo? Seems impossible, giving the amount of coastal land on this map.

I wish I could have built at least one wonder but somehow the power graphs of my two neighbours was exponential!

I have been through this one. My spoilers are in an earlier post, but i wanted to put my latest save. Dom vic incoming soon.

I axe rushed Monty early. block SB from the rest of the continent, then converted him to Confucian. He became a life long ally. Then rexed and solidified empire til the middle ages.

cool ejfree... Monty is an itch in the arse in civ4 :) war gainst monty is inevitable. Sitting Bull can wait tho, guess he's stupid enough as "indians" were stupid to give away their land to americians :lol:

bout 2nd city:
yeah... this copper-stone-wine city of mine will be junQ so ill probably make it a soilder whiping factory till first farm is in its BFS..

All in all.... My plan is to chop out the oracle for confucianism (& courthouses).. thats the only wonder i can think of for now as stonehenge isn't very important as monuments aren't important at all. Great Wall isn't of much importance either.

Pyramids?
IMHO:
Naaah! Axes better (even for a cultural victory, as its all dense on the map currently :) ) Monty & Bull must be controlled. I'm not a vet... Hopefully my tactic will be successful :)

@SimonL:
I think u made smart decision bout your city placement... stone and copper would come eventually anyways (but I wanted to make sure its mine) :lol:
Cheers!

Hi

I have been playing a LOTS hehe. I'm up to modern era now. I know I know I SHOULD have did better with checkpoints BUT it was kinda hard to be SURE if I met EVERYONE on my landmass till wayyyyy into the game already so by then I just kinds kept on going. So anyways here is how its going so far.


Well first I settled in place and then went mining, bw while I built work boat. Got a scout first goody hut and then Mysticism the second hut :) which was very convenient :) so after first work boat I did worker had him build roads until BW was done then chopped second worker then chopped stonehenge.

By this time I met Monty and knew THAT wasnt good. I went after masonry then farming and chopped great wall just so I wouldnt have to worry about the Barbies. I got my second city going near where the Copper showed up so I could start making axes to go say hi to Monty.

It took a lil while monty got IW by time I was ready. I still just had those two cities plus a barbie city i took over east of me. But my stack eventually got done and RIGHT before that happened a barbie uprising happened. Monty lost a city to em. They left it in uproyected so my stack just walked in and took it over. After that I declared on him and pillaged his iron then took out his capitol then the rest of his cities. I got 3 more cites out of it which was very nice since it doubled my size and Montys capitol is now my second best city :)

Now I kinda slowed down to build up my new cities and get a better stack for next victim. I may have taken a BIT too long but I wanted to get some better soldiers so I waited until I got a couple of Jumbos and cats after getting construction and then some swords.

Then I porbably made my first mistake. I went after Sitting Bull. I PROBABLY should have gone west after Freddy but SB was getting a lil too big for his britches and so was Degaul and SB was between me and him so I figured I had better take him out soon and then use his cities as launch pad for when I go after De Gaul. And I also took my sweet time about it hehe. instead of swoard and cats it was maces and trebs which sounds nice but ny then SB had engineering and MAN protective leader with castles is NOT fun.

BUt I eventually got him to down to size, took his best cities then made him a vassal. It was also touch and go with AP since the WHOLE land mass is one BIG hindu family. I got AP built so I would be a candidate but SB won first election. I did bribe degaule to DoW on SB though and that helped since whenver stopped the war votes came up me and Degaul had enough votes to block it.

After that I went after Freddy. He wasnt TOO much trouble but the little %&*^*&^ REFUSED to captiulate. I was gonna try and push him off the land mass since he got squeezed in between me and Saladhead so he had a few cities off on islands. On the turn I declare on him though he spawns a colony Rome with Julie leading it. I took him almost ALL they way off the landmass. I left one city just beacuse war weariness was getting to be a pain and that last city would have been swapped in arabian culture if I took it.

So now Mont is dead SB is my vassal and Freddy is pretyt much out of it. Him and his vassal rome are pretty much backward island civs now.

Right NOW I am in middle of war with Degaule. Taking most of SB and freaddys empire gave me enough votes so now I am in control of AP so dont have to worry about war stopping until i want. AGAIN I think I waited a BIT too long. Epic when you are used to marathon is BIG drop back. I am used to tech advantage to last a good long while but on epic it can be VERY short. But I kept teching and building up what I already have but the clock is running out. Just like 250 something turns left or something like that.

Good news though is I do have a pretty decent tech lead now. I am sending tanks artillery and infantry at DeGual and best he have is rifleman. He does have railroad but he hasnt built THAT many machine guns and he does have combustion BUT no oil hehe so my destoyers only have to fight frigates and ironclads and get buzzed by PITA airships. They are not doing MUCH damage but they are ANNOYING.

Airports are making it go faster since I can airlift tanks and Infantry in to keep up the stack and garrison cities as I take em. But weariness is getting to be a pain again. I am 3 turns from finishing Cristo and soon as I do I am switching to Police State and hopes that helps make some of it go away since I have rushmore built already.

I guess at this point I am heading for domination win. After Degaule is taken down I will go after Saladin but will also build some transports for Khmer. He is off by himslef but the lil snot is trying for a culture win so he have three cities that might need razing if he dont watch it hehe.

I am in lead now in land and pop and score. And my tech lead is widening better mostly because I went after assembly line asap. Not JUST for the infantry but mainly for the factories. Getting them built is making BIG diff in getting everything else done. I am one tuen away from plastics and will build 3 gorges since I havent been building coal plants since it would have REALY caused a lot of health issues. I get competive with teachs sometimes so when I see a civ going for like communism I TRY to get it frist so I can get freebie hehe. So because of that I just only recently got medicine and still dont have enough hospitals built yet but they are getting there. After Plastics is done I will go for refrigderation and that will help health even more.

I THINK I am in pretty good shape to win I just feel pressed for time. it is around 500 trun mark and game feels almost over. On marathon game wouldnt even be HALF over hehe.

I hope other people are doing better it seems like it. I only founded TWO cities hehe. Everybody else seems to be able to get TONS founded.

I also havent been too good at leveraging Lizzys traits or UU. But honestly at beginning gold wasnt a problem. My first two GP were priests so I settled em and one thing bout only starting off with two cites is maintaince is VERY low hehe. And by time I got to cities Monty founded for me I had courthouses and soon after markets so I didnt really NEED cottages to keep decent tech rate going. And GP were coming in decent early on so I mostly focused on farms and mines and most cottages I have now are like the cities someone else built em for me hehe. And tech window so slow on epic I think I build grand total of 10 Redcoats and most of them were upgraded maceman most of those upgraded axemen hehe. But they were all I really used. Mostly a battle would go like. Use siege to take down defense then soften up garrson then use redocats to take city and then whip some archers to be garrions while stack heals then move on. Usually when that city goes out of revolt they can whip a garrison unit and then build another to follow the stack and will be in city by time stack heals and ready to go to next target.

And now garrison is being airlfted in. So even though they werent THAT many redcoats they are a some nicely promoted ones hehe and are infantry now.

Well nayways thats how its going so far. Sorry no screenies but for SOME reason like most of screenshots I take end up all black and I have NOO idea why :/.

I will try to post some saved games tho if ppl want to say or just wait to end and post save of how it turns out hehe.


Anyways hope everybody else is doing ok :)

Kaytie

Man I wish I'd bult my copper city. I feel like Monty should already be dead.

Bull is being pretty nice towards me - apart from extorting techs from me - so I wondering if I just leave him to it will he attack me at some point? Was thinking I could get him to help me control De Gaulle, who already seems to be running away with it, and building all the wonders I wanted! No wonder the English and the French spent so long fighing each other...

Heres some ideas for my last few city placements. The rest will be Montys!

Took me far to long to do a dot map.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz20.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz2/NCLiz21.jpg

I might move yellow 1 north


General comments on my game so far.
Thing I think I've done wrong. Should have come up with a plan sooner, i.e. what economy will I run? Should have already made more of a move on Monty. Took ages to ge metal. York should be 1W.

Things I think I've done right. Settling more aggressivaly than normal - towards SB. Caving in to demands from my immediate nieghbours whilst I was still vunerable. Um. Seems like I think I've done more wrong than right!

@SimonL. Hahaha! I see what you mean thats pretty funny1

Hey Evertone,

I'm not getting much of a chance to play the game at the mo, so I might have to wait until tommorrow until I get to play my game out a bit.

@Grandad (sorry I keep forgetting the numbers)



I'm really annoyed about the copper to, wish I'd planted a city to claim it as I'm waiting for a 2nd border pop to be able to get a mine on it.

I'm not finding Monty to be much of a threat, actually in my game his power rating isn't that high, I thought he normally build loads of units in the early game. were pretty equal in power so he's kind of not being to aggressive right now.

I'm not going to give you advice on city placement as my city placement has been awful this game! At least you've started dot mapping. But it looks good to me. I placed a city in the same spot directly northwest of the capital in the jungle, but its taking me ages to clear.



@KaytieKat

Hey, I wasn't sure if you were going to join in or not, your in the modern era already? geez... I need to catch up. I'm not to bothered with spoilers but I will wait a bit before reading your spoiler as you've played quite far.

This is kinda fun but there has to be a better way of organising this to allow more disscussion on the game, I think its the disscussing strats and developments that I was looking forward to.

Anyway. Have to go.

:)

Monty declared on me. So far I take 3 cities inc. his capital - I razed one. He has two annoying small cities, a good one and on island one I can't see. Its a slow war.

Thats some speedy play KatieKat! I'm just hitting 1000AD. I'm also finally gettng some of the wonders I want as well!

I'll update when my war has finished - probably tomorrow as I've got to work later today.

@Groogaroo and anyone else!
I agree about the disscusion. Maybe in future we should play fixed length turn sets by a certain time/date, and then all post our reports. When we reach the first check point we could stop play and post our reports. After the reports are posted we can then discuss stats, swap ideas and seek advice. When this is over nd the majority agree we could resume play (obviously you could play on any way but getting far ahead would defeat the point of the thread, i.e. shared learning). Instead of saying all must go for a certain victory it would be good to see how different players takle the same map with the same leader (some games could still have a specific aim or victory condition). We could all reserve our first posts to put links and then we can jut post our reports when there ready. Reports could still be in spoilers.

I guess this would make it more like the ALC than LHC. What do people think? As it stands I feel the learning side is lacking.

My British empire in 580 AD with a few words on city placement.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10010.jpg

My biggest blunder recently was my placement of Canterbury (rice/pig north east).. To my credit I had to move it up there because once again Sitting Bull built a city (Mesa Verde) too close to where I originally wanted to put Canterbury. He stole two or three grassland hills from me, I intended this city to be a production city, now I don't even have a hill (the only one... the city is sitting on it!). So... Considering the lack of production I have... well... I dunno what to do. I think the ex-Aztec capital has a relatively okay production... And London too. That's pretty much all I have though. And France is going to grow HUGE. De Gaulle has no restrictions whatsoever. So I'm thinking that I need to expand more. I don't know where. It seems this game will be war or something like it. Either I take out Frederick, whose capital is AWESOME (check it out)... Or I take out SB. Or someone convince me I have all I need for some other type of victory, hehe. I'm not sure how I'd go about it though.

wow nice job SimonL. I have only 3 cities in 395BC.. hope that will change soon when i tako out Monty..

Well.. I normally play prince, but I've never won anything but domination/conquest (can't help it, it's the warmonger in me.) I'm going to play this one out and see how I do with cultural.. Hopefully I can improve my diplomacy because I usually end up with everyone angry at me..

Finished Checkpoint 1. Check it out :)
Maybe someone got any suggestions for my further gameplay?

wow nice job SimonL. I have only 3 cities in 395BC.. hope that will change soon when i tako out Monty..

You still have plenty of time... It's only 395BC, and I didn't manage to complete any wonders or religions like you did, good job on that. I was too busy with crazy batshits neighbours building troops.

That being said, I just thought of a possible strategy for the rest of my game, but it involves trying to reach a permanent alliance. I never did this before, is it actually possible to get a PA with the AI? Is it hard? How does it work? Someone knows anything useful about that?

EDIT: Oh crud, forget it, I think it has to be turned on as it is a custom option in the game... I think...

You still have plenty of time... It's only 395BC, and I didn't manage to complete any wonders or religions like you did, good job on that. I was too busy with crazy batshits neighbours building troops.

That being said, I just thought of a possible strategy for the rest of my game, but it involves trying to reach a permanent alliance. I never did this before, is it actually possible to get a PA with the AI? Is it hard? How does it work? Someone knows anything useful about that?

EDIT: Oh crud, forget it, I think it has to be turned on as it is a custom option in the game... I think...

PAs are off by default

communism enables PAs. But i never did any either. My diplomacy sux.

Yes it does, but only if they are enabled, it's one of the options in the custom game menu.
EDIT: And the OP said all boxes are unchecked, which means that they are in fact off. I'd rarely be able to get one anyway, diplomacy again.. Also because I often run free religion for the extra :)

Checkpoint I:
Played to 2125 BC (Turn 75):
I moved the warrior SE and settled in place
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Turn1.jpg
The initial build is a workboat and I work a forested grass hill for 1F2H, after the workboat I build a second warrior followed by some hammers into stonehenge while growing to pop 3 and then worker => settler.

3825 BC:
Meet Monty, warrior continues SE

3725 BC:
Meet Freddy's scout SW of London

I missed out on both early religions after not pursuing them too aggressively, I plan to build stonehenge in the capital and possibly use the first prophet to bulb theology for christianity.

2900 BC:
Meet Sitting Bull to our SE. I hate this guy, he constantly DoWs me for no good reason and he goes nuts with poisoning water supplies.
For the time being I'm going to expand in his direction and possibly declare on him post construction.



2675 BC:
Meet Saladin, his scout popped up on London's SE border, I haven't looked in that direction yet, but I will soon since both Monty and Sal came from there.

The rest of the turns are uneventful, I scout out the NW thoroughly and I'm looking around by Bull to try to find some solid city locations there.

2225 BC:
Found York SE towards bull, it grabs wine, pigs and rice + coastal, I think it could be a decent production site with workshops, and could be a decent naval pump later on.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/york.jpg

Build is undecided at the moment, probably a warrior, followed by either another or a barracks.

London:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/london.jpg

I whipped the settler there because I was thinking "This is taking WAY too long!" but then I remembered it was epic speed :mischief:

My part of the world w/ resource tags:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/globeresources.jpg

there is copper.. and a fair amount of food resources out there.
the southern site on my dotmap is going to have solid production and I may have to reconsider it's location after popping the copper there @ BW

Culture:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/globeculture.jpg

My early dotmap:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/dotmapres0000.jpg

next city will be directly NW of London, followed by the either the E city or the production city I mentioned earlier.




Early on I popped a hut for masonry.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/poppedone0000.jpg
The rest of the BC years were spent quietly expanding, I settled the southern spot on my dotmap first after I saw montys culture pushing that spot, followed by the eastern dot and the spot directly NW of the capital, which will make a nice commerce city with ample grasslands to cottage over.
Still haven't met anyone else, but I declared on Monty in the early ADs at Fred's request and took him out with my leftover chariots, then elephants and cats. I kept two of his cities, including the capital which I'm going to use as my late GP farm.
I've tossed out cultural after losing out on all the religions so far, although I probably didn't go after them as hard as I should have. My long term plan is now to tech to space while continuing to expand, possibly by taking over Bull next.

London, set for growth now that I've (finally) hooked up my happy resources/buildings. I got way too lazy with getting everything hooked up because I was making use of the whip to get my army out.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/london0000.jpg

The map w/ cultural overlay:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/globe0000.jpg


Couple of general comments:
The land definitely favors a CE with its lack of nearby rivers. Although I can chain irrigate from the east to farm some of the plains near York and Hastings in the east.
De Gaulle is the leader among the known AIs but he's too far away for me to do anything about it right now. Maybe after I take Bull I can go after him next, if at all.



Okay, still a quiet game, I haven't declared on anyone but DeGaulle is ticked off at me, due to the fact that I tell him to stuff it whenever he comes with his crazy demands.

I won the liberalism race (could have held off another couple hundred years given the tech lead I have, but I decided to finish it) and took nationalism, I think a golden age will push me over the top easily.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/lib0000.jpg

DeGaulle comes offering me a trade that's hard to refuse in 1340 AD:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/SURE0000.jpg

I accepted, because he's only a turn from machinery anyway, and that IS all the gold he has.

Nottingham popped some gems in one of its mines during this turnset. I'm not too pleased about this because it gives -1H in the plot - Nottingham is a solid prod. city - and the future city of Liverpool, as you'll see in the globe-view later, grabs gems for me..
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/poppedgems0000.jpg
Here's the domestic advisor:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/domestic.jpg
Nottingham is building Taj, but is configured for growth right now, so Hammers are low for a few turns. As you can see, London and Tenochtitlan pull down a fair amount of :science:/turn and I haven't yet built oxford, though it is unlocked, and it will go in London.
Speaking of London, a closer look...
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/london0001.jpg

AND the globe view, with cultural overlay.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/14500000.jpg
As you can see, Bull's culture is encroaching on me in the east, and Hastings is going to run a couple of artists to deal with that problem.


The endgame save (3.13, with Bhruic's unofficial):

Hi

Okies I managed not to loose hehe. I got a domination win in 1939. Not BEST game I ever played but beast non marathon game I have done in awhile usually I get frustrated and just quit and go back to marathon hehe.

Here is some final info:

Infoscreen and score. Not my highest score but at least I wasnt dan quayle :P

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171043&stc=1&d=1205179890

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171044&stc=1&d=1205180002

I finished off game by taking out degaul. And in middle of that I decided I HAD to do SOMETHING about Khmer. you can even see from culture graph how sury was going for culture win BIG time he founded 3 religions all on his own and I guess he had the slider going pretty high on culture cuz it seemed like his top 3 cities were going off like almost 1000 points a turn.

You can also see on graph when I sent 5 transports with 20 tanks and raised two of his top cities including his capitol hehe. Just Englands way of of saying "Hit there how would you like to be my vassal?" :)

I guess he didnt get the message because he refused to capitulate. And it was kind of a quick and dirty attack since my main stack was busy with degaule so it was just the first 20 tanks my cities could produce so no medics and except for one city on cost that got bombarded with destroyers no seige. His capitol was inland so I razed that next after the coastal city but by then my tanks were a little ragged and most got shreeded trying to take out his last big city. But I figure diplomacy is ALL about communication and since he didnt understand my message the first time I repeated it and ANOTHER 20 tanks ended up on his shores a few turns later and THIS time he understood and became a suburb if England :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171045&stc=1&d=1205180152

And while I was dealing with Khmer I was also finishing off degaul. But I wasnt TOTALLY heartless. After I took all his cities on main continent I let him keep his one last city for a retirement home :). I just hope he brought a parka or something hehe.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171046&stc=1&d=1205180258

After that it was only matter of waiting for degauls cities to come out of revolt and then border pop so I could get domination. I was getting a lil impatient so to hurry it up I declared on Freedy and started taking what wa sleft of his empire and after taking his last city on the mainland and 4 of his island cities it put me over for the Victory :)

Salad head was pretty much left alone. I have NOO idea WHAT he was up to he just kind of minded his buisness and I minded mine and we left each other alone. We had open borders which I got HOSED on since the difference was like my cities sending him like 300 something commerce and me getting back about 100 or so. And he had the only silver on whole map so I did a trade for that and later for some extra seaford to boost Sushi company. After that we pretty much didnt talk to each other. He did ask for electricty once but I told him that was gonna happen RIGHT after Britney Spears joins Mensa and that was bout it. Although by minding his own buisness he DID manage to take second place and didnt have to say hi to my tanks even though they WERE massing on his borders and getting bored with nothing to do after taking out degaul but game ended before anything happened hehe.

But that made the whole endgame pretty easy since Saladin and me were the ONLY civs who had oil so even though Degaul got combustion and Sury sury manged to get it eventually it was pretty much useless to em. And freddy and his colony vassal were so backwards that they never had a chance to use try and use it even if there was any in what was left of their civs.

But it still FELT rushed hehe. That was why Londer was wonder whoring so much hehe I was like wow only 9 turns to get that sure why not hehe. But it was still fun and I am glad I stuck it out to the end. Usually when I play noble on slower speeds I fall so behind I get mushed :)

And finally here is a lil peak at a couple of my cities :)

The only two cites I founded the whole game hehe. So we started out small but it DOES saves dot mapping if you let the other civs just build em for you. And by end England's empire had over 4o plus cities so it grew even without making that many settlers :) But pretty much ALL the sites were sucky but I managed to get by :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171047&stc=1&d=1205180414

London upclose. As you can see I really didnt cottage it all THAT much. London was mostly built to be production althouth she was also my biggest science city thanks to oxford and buracracy. With all the production if your guessing London was a wonderwhore your are right hehe. 19 great wonders was final count I think. And she was busy working on the internet when game ended. Not that it was needed since I had tech lead by that point but I just wanted to make sure Saladguy in Arabia didnt get it hehe.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171048&stc=1&d=1205180447

Even though I only founded 2 cities and Yorks only function was to get access to copper and wasnt good for much else for a LOONG time is it means you HAVE to go get cities from other civs early and if you do and get their capitols they can be veyr nice. Tenowhatchamacallit ended up being my second best city :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171049&stc=1&d=1205180550

A few oddities in the game. I had NO quests at all not one :/. I did get the horsehoe event and that barb uprising but other than that nothing major. Like a horse pasture that wasnt even in a cities BFC got destroyed by hurricane or something and one building got destoryed by natural disaster early on but that was it.

Even spies left me alone for most part. SB ican be a PAIN since he LOVES a high EP slider but since he got vassalized pretty early his spies didnt mess with me. Mostly just seeing other spies get caught but no improvements or poisonings or anything like that. Only one successful spy mission happened on me when Tenoland got its customhouse destroyed but that was no biggie so while I didnt get much luck on good events the bad ones stayed away too.So thats bout it. I will attactch endgame save I saved it 1 turn before victory was declared. So hope everybody else had fun too :)

Kaytie

edit: grrr the pictures are not coming out right is there a way to upload so they show up in middle of post and NOT also end up as thumbnails on bottom? whenever I try to remove the the thumbnails the images in post disappear two :/

Small update added to above post..

Okay managed to get a little time play today :) and got upto 1070 AD, I have posted my checkpoint 3 update in my original post,

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6578219&postcount=3

I think I should be able to achieve a cultural victory now, providing no-one wipes me out.

The great thing I've noticed about playing a game this way is that usually when I get frustrated with an annoying map I would just give up on the game and start a new one, but I was forced to keep going and will probably win. I wonder how many other games I just gave up on could have been won?

Well if nothing else comes from this thread atleast I have learnt to keep going.

I think its pretty safe to have a look at other peoples recent posts so I'm off to have a little peek!

Well things are starting to settle down for me now. Got to checkpoint 3.

Checkpoint 3: Done -1305AD

Well most of this round was taken up with warring Monty. He's still got one city left but that can wait for the moment.

Tech path; HBR>Construction>Aes>Drama>Monarchy(trade)>Music>Calender(trade)>Currency>>Philo>Lit>CS>MC(trade)>Theo(trade)>Paper(bulb)>Started Education.

I started to build up my army whilst putting some inferstucture in place. Just as my army was pretty much ready Monty Declared on me
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz1.jpg

Well Monty time to die. Taken and razed.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz4.jpg

Taken and kept.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz7.jpg

Taken and kept.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz9.jpg

Taken and razed.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz11.jpg

Taken and razed -maybe should have kept it though
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz13.jpg

After this we took peace with Monty.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz14.jpg

While this was happening I finally got some wonders I wanted and founded Taoism.
In hastings (founding city of Conf)
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz5.jpg

Popped and Great Profit fthis in Hastings as well
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz6.jpg

Founded Taoism in York
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz8.jpg

In London
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz12.jpg

My three highest culture cities
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz16.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz17.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz18.jpg

Montys former capital.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz19.jpg

My cities
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz20.jpg

Glance
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz21.jpg

Tech
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz22.jpg

Power, Bull is going up pretty fast.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz23.jpg

My diplomatic situation is hardly ideal. SB keeps going from pleased to cautious but he likes De Gaulle less so hopefully that doesn't matter to much right now.

I gifted Fred some iron as he doesn't have any, also he lost his capital to Saladbin in a small war. Bribed him to join me against Monty - he didn't do anything but the diplo bonous was nice.

I'm set on culture now my plan is to tech to Lib and take Nationalism, go for constitusion, and then tech to rifling for our UU. I've got 4 religions so I'm going to spam missionarys and temples for the cathedrals. When the basic infastructure is in place in my new cities I'm going to swich civics to rep, cast and pacifism. Then I'll start to push up the culture slider - I'm at 20% at the moment - and start to put artists in the cities that count.

While I was warring SB and Sal settled the sites I wanted from my previous dot map. I have 9 cities but I'm going to place 2 more to consolidate my part of the world. The black dots show where.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCLiz3/NCLiz15.jpg



Ok for those who have looked at my update, I really need some advive here. I've never won a cultural victory before so I don't have any Idea how I'm doing! Some questions:
1. Does the 50% culture bonous from cathedrals stack? I so my culture cities are going to get 4(!) each.
2. Should I use Montys former capital as a culture city - I'd fill it with artists and the NE if thats a good idea. For an alternative see Q3.
3. I'm pretty set on London as one of the big three, and I think Hastings will be my 2nd. Should I use York instead of Montys former capital? Its got two religions there (could be a wall street city if it came to it).
4. What should I do about SB? He was sending spys my way but appears to have stopped. Will he back stab me?
5. Any other advice? Some fresh eyes might see something I've missed!

And the save.

Nice win KatieKat! Sadly I couldn't see your screen shots!

Hey Grandad1982,

each catherdral will increase culture 50%, so 4 will increase it by a whopping 200%, I would pick an city producing reasonable culture for your legendary cities, as I've noticed in my game without a decent amount of culture the cathedrals don't do much (I havn't built many wonders) so if you have wonder heavy cities these might be good options. Don't forget the national wonder hermitage for the 100% to culture, I'm saving for the weakest of my three legendary cities to give it a leg up with the others.

I probably wouldn't use monty's old capital, not much culture bieng produced there, unless your planning to build wonders there. once you've got your cathedrals in place and are running some artists and freespeech your culture should rocketing up.

The problem I have is my cities are wonder light, so one of my three legendary cities is going to take another 200 turns even with hermitage(+100%) Freespeech(+100%) 2 cathedrals(+100%).

Looks like your games going well.

added another update above, I'll finish my game tonight and add one more.

I finished checkpoint 3, year is 1708.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6579191&postcount=26

I'm off to check your updates guys.

Okay I'm finished, Cultural victory in 1888 AD,

Here's a summary of the victory,




Okay I'm finished, Cultural victory in 1888 AD,

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth41.jpg

With hindsight it could have been earlier if I had played better at the start, had three more cities to build more temples and unlock more cathedrals. In the end I had access to six religions so I could have built more cathedrals. The main thing that helped me in this game was not warring, in fact I wasn't involved in a war the entire game, unlike other people out there I actually buddied up to monty and sitting bull, they were both buddist so I converted and managed to play the game in peace.

I should have also picked my earlier wonders a little better as towards the end even with 10 artist specialist's running I was popping the odd scientist which was annoying.

here are the three legendary cities a turn before victory, I had saved three great artists at this point so could use them to make all three cities go legendary by the next turn.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth42.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth43.jpg

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth44.jpg

Final score, not amazing, but I think cultural victories tend to have lower scores.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth45.jpg

And a couple of the graphs, first culture, no suprises here.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth46.jpg

and power, managed to keep myself in the middle most of the game

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth47.jpg

and on a side note, here's a pick of poor old germany under pressure from the culture of one of my legendary cities.

http://www.groogart.co.uk/civ%20screenies/groogaroo_ncelizabeth48.jpg




It's been fun playing a game while checking out other peoples different take's on the same map, we should so it again sometime, :)


@Kaytie Kat

Just read your write up, now you have your screenies up, an entertaining read. nice game. I have the opposite problem to you, when I'm trying marathon from epic, "the pyramids... how long?" I feel like I could win the game before i got them.


@Schwartz

What victory are you aiming for?

EDIT - Forgot to attach my save.

Oh and I have a question... I just noticed the wonders I captured in a city don't show any cultural bonuses... Is that normal? The city is out of revolt.

Oh and I have a question... I just noticed the wonders I captured in a city don't show any cultural bonuses... Is that normal? The city is out of revolt.


Yeah, I forgot about that, they loose their culture bonuses after capture even though you keep their other advatages.

@ SimonL

Could you post a culture view of your lands and a victory screen? You could get closer to a dom win by putting some cities down in the territory you already control to get closer to pop. Also will De Gaulle DoW on SB? If so get him to do that and then sneak in through the back door.
In my game Fred loves me and is tiny and a bit backwards, whilst Sal is rocketing away with De Gaulle in terms of power.

@Groogaroo
Nicely played. I agree about doing this again. Usually I would give up by now or be slowing down, but playing along with others makes it more intersting! Right I'm off to finish my game off!

Sure thing

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10017.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj208/SimonL_images/NC-10018.jpg

Like I said, a bit late for culture... Well, I saw Sisitul pull a really quick one at the end of a game in one of his ALCs. Um.. As for domination, nah, I'd have to go to war I think.

Yer theres no way you can get Dom without war. Cottage spam and run for space looks like the best bet to me.

@Groogaroo
My plan is to win by space, I'm at 1776 right now and I'm currently teching rocketry, update will come later.
Update:
max images above so we continue here -




Last update, goes through the end.
I finished up with the Taj Mahal and triggered my golden age:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/taj0000.jpg

Domestic Advisor - Golden Age edition:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/domesticadvisor0000.jpg

London - Golden Age edition:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/gage0000.jpg

Shortly after the GA, I declared on Bull with a small stack of redcoats/leftover elephants and trebs.



http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/wartime0000.jpg

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

I had run 3 turns at 0% :science: to upgrade my existing maces to redcoats. As expected, Spiro fell on the next turn, followed by Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Cahokia (peace was forced TWICE by the AP between the city captures...)
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/forcedpeace0000.jpg

Native America after peace was forced for the THIRD time by the AP (I couldn't defy, the resultant unhappiness would have crippled me..)

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/formernativeamerica0000.jpg

--------------------------------------------------------------

1776 AD:
I pick up my game again, with 7 turns left on rocketry, I'm going to build apollo program asap and beeline the necessary techs to win space. There are a lot left...

I declare on Bull again as soon as the forced peace expires, and quickly take Mesa Verde, Mound City, Moundville, Anhaica and Nacogdoches with redcoats/artillery. I vassalize Bull:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

And gift him Anhaica, since it will be under cultural pressure from him and I want him to be able to do SOMETHING for me. I continue teching towards space, with apollo going up in York, which has Ironworks.


It's going up this late because I needed to hook up aluminum and finish the Ironworks. I got a really nice event near one of my new cities, for +5% spaceship production!
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

What follows is DeGaulle declaring on me and I proceed to suicide a bunch of redcoats :mischief: and then making peace, only to repeat the process three more times, near the end I vented on him with modern armor/mechs..
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

Sorry about the concise update here, but I showed once again that I can't win peaceful conditions as well as warmongering.. I win space in 1952, for a score of only 18663 :(.

Some of the highlights shown below:

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/end0000.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/launce0000.jpg
Save is attached

I'm done

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6579191&postcount=26

Congrats everyone!

Just read through your updates, well done everyone.

I havent bothered finishing mine. Drafting Redcoats, and building Cannons and Cavalry while the AIs are still not even up to Macemen yet is . . . not that much fun.

I definitely think most of you are ready for Prince at the very least. Prince isnt that big a step up IMHO, Prince to Monarch is a bit trickier and Monarch to Emperor is just brutal, especially for guys like me who love to REX and build.

Remember the keys to success, FOCUS and PLANNING. I read all your games, and you all did quite well making plans and carrying them out. Even if the plans are bad, STAY FOCUSED on it, thats how you learn. Its much much easier to learn new plans than learning HOW to follow a plan. That is an important difference when moving up. Having a plan and being able to execute (even if its a horrible plan, your next plan will be better) is what wins.

Also, remember to play your leaders strengths and the map. This map begged for a Coastal REX with the GLH and Colossus combo. It was sick how far ahead I was in tech with this plan. Even though I had the Mids, I didnt run any specialists at all (except in my GP farms). It was far better to get my research with the slider, swap into HR for happiness, and having max population growth to use all those juicy food-neutral +4commerce water tiles to pay for techs.

I think we should continue this series, but I honestly think we should move to Prince. Prince is the level I "always win, but cant get my EXACT way non-stop". Monarch is the level I lose 20%, and Emp I lose 80%. Why? Because I dont have solid mid-late game PLANS.

Fun series, you guys are excellent at posting and making your games fun to follow. If you decide to try Noble again, I will certainly follow the games and offer tips as much as I can. I am not in the same league as many players here though, but I usually have solid opening-Pre-Lib planning.

Agree with Bleys, my game was rather poorly played but I still won by my chosen condition, and considering it was the first time I even TRIED to win by space, it was a game that didn't really challenge me too much..
Good point about the GLH/Colossus, I didn't do it but if I had to play this through again that would have been the plan.

Well, in that respect Bleys, I can't say my game was a success. I didn't really have a solid plan and it turned in different directions many times in the game because of military pressure. I did win, but mostly because I picked the easiest route for a win. On a more positive note, while I had won domination before, I had never done conquest, so maybe that's a good thing, hehe.

That being said, even if I won that one, I can't say it felt that comfortable. Especially at the beginning, it was a bit tough early on.

EDIT: My only plan was making friends with the French. That's the only thing I kept 'til the end...

EDIT 2: Wait a minute, I just read in another thread that if the French hated my vassals (which it kind of did), my relation with the French was not FRIENDLY, it was FRIENDLY between me and him, but it was really CAUTIOUS because it was an average of my relation and his relation with my vassals. Is that true?

Victory!

Checkpoint 4: Cultural victory - 1903

Woohoo!
Well that turned out to be better than I expected. The end of my round was filled with all sorts of fun!

First off Tech; I can't be bothered to write out the whole list! Got to Lib first and took Nationalism, then teched on to Rifling for the Redcoats - which as you'll see saved my ass. Also steam power, RR among others and started on Assembly line.

Wonders I built this round
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz1.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz2.jpg
This really helped the money roll in

Golden Age here I come! Infact two Golden Ages as I popped a great profit 1 turn before the first GA wsa over.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz4.jpg

A nice research boost
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz5.jpg

Ummmm free specialist. Can you feel the love?
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz6.jpg

Finally met the last AI. He quikley became a good if somewhat useless friend
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz3.jpg

He looks so creepy!

Well then During this round De Gaulle really went for it. His power graph was massive at one point. Fred twice voluntarily Vasselised to him which was a problem as he was my mate. Whilst I was checking some trades I noticed De Gaulle was "Hands Full".
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz7.jpg

This set the old alarm bells ringing. I tried to get on side with him by offering him some stupid trades and giving in to his demands to stop trading with SB - SB didn't like that. I realised this wasn't going to work so I revolted to Nationhood and Theo (actually OR because I clicked the wrong one and didn't notice for ages :( ). Anyway I turned down the culture from 90% to 70% to get some cash to upgrade my troops to Redcoats, drafted loads, and reconfigered my cities to pump out Cannons and Redcoats as fast as they could. When De Gaulle finally declared I had a decent amount of troops heading to the front but I needed to slow the MASSIVE stacks he was sending my way. I sent some cannons and rifles to Snake Town (which revolted to me) and parked them outside. DG attacked the city and captured it. I then suicided the smallish stack there to take as many troops out as possible. He then moved onto Hastings - one of my big 3 - and whilst it could have been close, I slaughterd him as on the turn he arrived I hit him with cannons and then a load of Readcoats. This hurt him a little, but happily I'd already taken out most of his nearby siege troops, so he spent several turns bombarding the city. This gave me a chance to hit him with cannons and rifles a few more times. When he finally attacked I still had about 25% cultural defences so he died. Simple as that really. Sadley no screens of this as I forgot in the exitment. One thing to note is that using promos to heal your troops works very well in this kind of situation!

Took peace with Fred - who had broken away again - and DG.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz9.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz11.jpg

Oh yer Monty wanted a pop the turn before I took peace
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz8.jpg

So after I took peace...
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz10.jpg

Hahahaha!

During the peace I went back to Free Speech and Pacifism and reconsentrated my big 3 on victory, whilst still pumping troops out at a good rate. I built 2 stacks and when the 10 turns of peace where over declared on DG. I razed a few of his cities to keep my economy afloat while I went for victory. Those Redcoats propmoted to Drill 3+ were monsters! Heres an example of a city being razed.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz12.jpg

I also took Montys new capital and then turned the it and anouther city on a small island in to a colony - Lincoln.

My big 3 one turn before London went legendary - I culture boomed York and Hastings
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz13.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz14.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz15.jpg

Shortly followed by
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz16.jpg

Nice. Very nice.

My score
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz18.jpg

Final power graph - in your face De Gaulle!
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz17.jpg

Finally here's a picture of my army that made this all possible. Cheers guys!
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/grandad1982/NCliz4/NCLiz19.jpg

Well In summery I probably could have won sooner If I'd consentrated on spreading my religions faster and playing a better diplo game, thus avoiding the war at the end - still I like it better this way as the war was fun (apart from all those Airships DG had)!
Also if I'd dropped the culture slide I could have teched the the others into the dust and probably have got space or one of the millitary victorys. Liz really is a versatile leader!



Well done to all the others who have reported a victory as well. The crazy map turned out to be really fun to play!

Oh and the save.

I definatley could have played the map and leader better in this game, this map (or the start atleast) wasn't great for a specialist economy and Bleys reading of the map and choice of wonders does make a lot of sense. I just guess just because I've had good results with running specialists in my last few games has made me become a bit narrow minded with my choice of stratagies. I will definatley be trying out and experimenting with different tactics from now on.

I probably should try playing at prince and actually play the game through, I always get bogged down and give up. But playing a game that I know I'm going to have to post on this thread actually made me play a bit better and see the game through (and it was fun :) )

@Grandad, yay another cultural win, will read your last update.

@SimonL, I have no idea how the vassels/relations things work, but buddying up to degualle kind of made your game, so in theory you did have a plan and stick to it and it was successful.

@ Shwartz

Your space victory makes me wish that there was a new Alpha Centuri. Well not to new or my computer couldn't run it!

Hi

Looks like everybody is doing well so gratz all :).

I am probably nowhere near ready for prince. I am still about 50/50 win/loss on noble. And I really didnt have a plan other than get them before they get me hehe. I was just lucky that the civs who ended up being my strongest rivals were relatively easy to deal with. Monty got stomped ASAP and Saladin was happy to leave me alone while I fought eveybody else and could focus on degaul. If say DeGaul and Salad had been like Ragnor and Shaka or something then game would have tuned out LOTS different for me hehe.

ALso how DO you people manage to get screen caps in your posts instead of them being attachments on the bottom. The one time I removed them from the bottom it looked like that stopped showing up in the middle so this I editied and tried keeping them at the bottom but still not sure if other people can see em in my post. But it would be nice if I could uplaod em to show JUST in middle of posts where and want and not have to leave em on the bottom too hehe. And does anyone besides me have probs with LOTS of screenshots ending up just a big black picture?

Kaytie

Finished with diplomatic victory...

Checkpoint 3/4:

After Checkpoint 2 it was all mostly: build army - attack - make peace - fix economy - build army/attack.

I had a silly relationship with De Gaulle. He declared war and didn+t want peace so i had to give him Hastings (that would anyway flip to SB).
Haty and Augustus showed up as colonies of Frederick.
After finishing Monty i attacked Fredy (he wouldn't capitulate, so he disappeared of the map), than Haty and Augustus that capitulated.
Sitting Bull and Suly were culture maniacs.
So the next target was SB. Had to give some techs to De Gaulle as he was also after SB, and i didn't want SB to become his vassal instead of mine. After capturing some of SBs cities, he capitulated. Next target was Suly and he capitulated also after i captured his best cities.
Than i had to decide: attack De Gaulle or Saladin. De Gaulle was cautious, Saladin annoyed, so Saladin! Anyways I give everything De Gaulle wanted so he wouldn't attack while i was at war with SB and Suly. All of my Tanks, MAs, MIs towards Saladins cities.... and since i build UN and had most of the land and most off AIs were vassals I won diplomaticaly
Victory came a bit late, but I like playing modern and future era with all those warfare. Here are victory screens:

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj18/J4Ck_2008/Civ4ScreenShot0025.jpg

I could play this game better tho. But it could take too much time, managing this, managing that, instead i focused in building army and clicking on the red dot :)
congrats to everyone for the win... SimonL had a great game from what I see.

Cheers!

@Kaytie
Use photobucket or imageshack or something, then just link to them with the [IMG] tag

sorry double post...

Usually, in my experience, one war to expand is enough to get enough land and shoot for a victory condition, but in this game many of us were forced into more than one wars because of our cramped starting location and De Gaulle's large luxuriant lands that had to be counterbalanced. Kudos to those who did the cultural victory!

From what I see, we did all the victory conditions! Domination, conquest, space race, diplomatic, cultural... Just no religious (which is diplomacy really) or time victory! Although your diplomatic victory, J4Ck, was rather "imposed". Good job ;)

Well done J4Ck.

I like the fact we've shown that how its possible to go for the different victory types on the same map with the same leader. I'm very happy with my first cultural win, but reading some of the other posts here makes me wish I'd pushed for a military victory! Some of those AIs were really annoying me so Its good to see they got their just deserts!

I particlary liked bleys's costal trade economy idea. Whilst I've seen it done before - Mad Scientists Victoria game - it just wouldn't occure to me to do it on a non archapeligo (spelling?) map, even after I saw the twisty nature of the map!

Looks that I peeped in a little late...

I think that I'll try the game, just for the fun of it ( this if you accept a Emperor player in here ;) )

P.S No prob about the checkpoint system... the idea is not even mine.

Not late at all! I'll be nice to see what a regulare emporer player makes of the map.

Also any feedback you have would, no doubt, be very much appreciated by all involved!

As for letting an emporer player have a crack well send a check to.... ;)

Having got my arse handed to me in my last couple of games, I thought I'd give this a go for some relief. I very rarely go for cultural victories (last one was about 6 months ago iirc), so this was a nice chance to brush up.

Anyway, I thought I'd post my saves so you guys can take a look, if you like.

And, since I've just enjoyed reading all of your reports, here's an overview of my thoughts and actions for anyone who's interested:


Settle in place. Build workboats, tech Bronze Working.

Mean neighbourhood. Murderous Monty to the south. Charles De Backstab and Sitting Bastard on the mainland. Shifty Sal and Freddy Dogpiler to the NW. Need a roadkill - show 'em I mean business. Monty is nearest and has a holy city. :hmm:

Copper in terrible spot. Settle a junk city? No, too slow. AI is weakest early, during initial expansion. Plus I need to get wonders built soon, so the quicker I get this war done, the better.

Random event: archers get combat1. Archer rush? Too weak on their own, but horses have appeared to the south and Horseback Riding can be done as my settler arrives.

York settled on the horses, while workers build road and London spams archers. Chop/whip horse archers. Rush Monty. Suicide cover-promoted archers to weaken his defenders; HAs finish the job.

HAs go exploring and manage to capture four (!) nicely placed (!!) barb cities, which grab all the territory I'll need for the time being, and a quite remarkable range of resources.

Oracle for Code of Laws, Pyramids for Representation, GS lightbulbs Philosophy - the old ways are often the best. Settle island near former-Montyland to grab marble.

Charles and SB have the mainland to themselves, and will become very powerful if they ever start to co-operate. I could invade SB, but that's too big a war, and risks letting Charles become too strong. They don't like each other atm, so I bribe Charles to attack (twice). Now they'll hate each other forever. Sorted.

Thinking about culture cities. My capital and Monty's ex-capital will be perfect, but I will need a third. Weakling Freddy's capital looks ideal. And he's settling those islands to the west - all that seafood could be very handy later on...

Golden Age with unwanted GPs, run Caste/Pacifism and as many Artists as I can in my two culture cities. Save the resulting Great Artists to kickstart Berlin. Spreading my four religions (three of which I have shrines for, thanks to low-odds Prophet pops), and building up for war.

Conquer Freddy's mainland cities in no time. I vassalise him, partly so I can have his seafood later on, and partly to make me look more threatening to the others. Saladin loves me, so I can move the whole army to my chokepoint city on the mainland, next to the isthmus. SB won't be coming through that lot in a hurry, and Charles can't reach me at all. I am secure.

Proceed with Operation Templespam. Religions are spread, Temples are built in all non-culture cities, Cathedrals in the big three (Berlin gets the Hermitage too). Workshops, farms and mines are the order of the day.

Four tech-targets: Liberalism (Free Speech), Economics (free Great Merchant), Biology (+1:food: from farms), Medicine (Sid's Sushi), in that order.

AI civs are teching so slowly I end up selling them twice as many techs as they research themselves, and still maintain a big lead despite runnning a hammer-heavy economy.

Once enough Cathedrals are up and running, I give the Artists free rein in my culture cities. Earlier Great Artists were settled, but now I start to bomb them. Biology gives a big boost, but more to my overall economy than to the culture cities.

Cities are settled wherever necessary to pick up more seafood. The desert city I took from Monty (the one several of you guys razed) is the better of my two non-culture shrine cities, so it gets workshopped up in preparation for the mighty Sushi Corps.

After the GM I saved from Economics has done his work, I quickly blast out three executives and send them to my culture-cities. The Sushi city then gets Wall Street built to cover costs. I beg, buy and bully every seafood and rice resource I can from the AI.

With the help of the massive food and culture from the corporation (20:food: and 85:culture: iirc), all three culture cities are soon generating more than 1000:culture: each.

Victory comes in 1738, for a 54k score. Not bad, given it's so long since my last culture game. But I made a few glaring errors - for example, London went most of the game without a Granary (so careless!). And I reckon I could've shaved off at least 100 years if I'd planned things better, cut a few corners, taken more risks, and micromanaged a little more thoroughly.

171187
171188
171189

I always play noble, but I also noticed that the AI seemed to tech very very slowly for some reason.

It certainly will be interesting seeing this game played from higher level players,

@Winston Hughes



Just read your report, I totally forgot about sids sushi adding culture (doh!) plus the extra food allowing for more artists, really missed a trick there.

@rolo:
If you think Hannibals LHC had a strong TE with the GLH-Colossus combo, wait til you see this map, LOL.

@ Bleys

Thanks for not spoiling my game :p

I see that you already played your game and have better insight, but TGL works better with higher levels, where the AI has bigger cities earlier. Of course that this is big and small ( wacko maps... only fractal beats it sometimes ) and if this is a ragged map things can tilt that way.....especially for the Collosus

I'm still very open-minded about what to do... and I never played BtS noble ;)

Not much of a spoiler rolo, heh, it is a bit of one though, sorry mate, my bad. You will see the layout fairly quickly though, so I know its going to be a "strongly possible" given your starting location, and the fact that I have seen your style quite a bit, albeit under much different circumstances. Very fun map, thats for sure.

@Groogaroo


This being a B&S map, from the moment I saw the start I knew I'd be able to pick up tons of seafood, so I always planned to grab Sid's. Expanding into the prime fishing grounds of the north, south and west (rather than eastwards into the mainland) served this purpose, as did making friendly with Saladin (who gave/sold me loads of extra seafood - the AI really digs its own grave sometimes, doesn't it?).

Good job on your victory, btw. You clearly have a strong grasp of diplomacy, managing to stay out of trouble with such a small empire and those neighbours. That kind of thing becomes really important as you move up to the higher levels. Although, as you may have guessed, I prefer to take a more aggressive attitude towards potential troublemakers, there are times when only the softly-softly approach will do.

@Groogaroo

You clearly have a strong grasp of diplomacy, managing to stay out of trouble with such a small empire and those neighbours.



I think its more a case of me have a strong grasp of givinig in to AI demands :blush:

Looking at other peoples games I regret not going to war atleast once, my poor redcoats never got to have any fun.

I think its more a case of me have a strong grasp of givinig in to AI demands

You'd be amazed how many players don't give into the stronger civs' demands (or do anything else to make them happy) and then come here asking why they keep getting dogpiled. :rolleyes:


my poor redcoats never got to have any fun.

Mine neither. I thought about sending them on a score-boosting rampage once my culture cities were set up for the win, but by that point I just wanted to see that victory screen.

Who come your final score was so high Winston? Does score increase with earlier victories. One thing you did that I wish I'd done was to get Sids but I took to much time spreading my religions so did't go for SciMeth, as I was still producng missionarys late on. Is there a point where the extra food of Bio and a corp would out weigh the extra cathedral?

Earlier wins do yeild higher scores but also land mass is a big factor I think, which is mhy domination/conquest victories have such high scores.

I obainted my victory earlier than you Grandad1982, however your score was higher than mine. I think that was down to your % of land mass.

As for the extra food from sid's sushi, probably wouldn't made a big difference in my game, winston hade captured qhite a few of the required resources so I think it did help alot. Being able to run more artists doesn't just add wetra culture, more importantly it should get you more artists and sooner allowing you to artist bomb your way to victory at the end.

I had about 9 artists for bombing at the end of my game, which was handy.

As to whether an extra cathedral is worth more than getting sid's and biology, I don't know. Your cities seemed to be producing a lot of base culutre from all those wonders so perhaps the +50% of the cathedral was better.

Yer after I posted I realised that, as with most things in life, its pretty situational as to which method works best. If I started planning a high food strat early then I guess I would have gone Sids, Bio and got a benifit from it.

Who come your final score was so high Winston? Does score increase with earlier victories.

Yep, time is crucial, although land area is also important. This is why early domination victories get the biggest scores. Also important are difficulty level and map size (not 100% sure on the latter, but all of my 200k+ scores have been on larger maps).


Is there a point where the extra food of Bio and a corp would out weigh the extra cathedral?

Well, my culture cities were chosen because they had the highest food yield from the fewest tiles (mostly seafood). And I didn't grow them as much as I should have earlier in the game, so the extra food from farms didn't have a huge direct effect (though it probably shaved off a couple of turns).

What it did do was give a big boost to the rest of my economy, speeding up research to Sid's - even after Biology I had 10000+ beakers worth of prerequisites to get. It also allowed me to run lots of merchants elsewhere, and thus to keep the culture slider up for a extra boost to each culture city (again, probably shaved a few turns).

The problem with building extra cathedrals is that you have to slow down your culture and GA generation to get them built. In the end, after a period of intense building, I had three cathedrals in my wonder-heavy capital, all four in my second city, and two plus the Hermitage in my third.

I thought about using Universal Suffrage to buy the extras with gold. But rush-buying is frightfully expensive, and means losing the free beakers from Representation. I wanted to maintain a strong tech-rate throughout, so I could grab Sid's and then shoot for some military techs (taking no chances - this was a culture win backed up with muscle). Extra turns of anarchy did not appeal, either.

The corp, on the other hand, was massive. It instantly chopped 30-40 turns off each city's 'turns until Legendary' counter, and probably shaved off another 10-20 as the cities grew and added more artists.

HiI am probably nowhere near ready for prince. I am still about 50/50 win/loss on noble. And I really didnt have a plan other than get them before they get me hehe.
I read your write up Kaytie, and I think you are EASILY a Prince level player. Your ideas and plans were plenty solid, and you executed them well.

Half the game at the higher levels is usually about being able to rush a neighbor to secure enough land to settle, while keeping peace with your other neighbors at the same time. You did VERY well, dont sell yourself short. This map was not that easy, in all reality, we were surrounded by civs that are difficult to have strong diplomacy with (other then Steady Freddy, really). I bet you would have won just as easily if this was Prince difficulty.

The problem with Noble is you can fall into some bad habits and patterns, because the AI is so slow. Prince isnt too bad, to be honest, but the AI isnt quite as inept, so you just have to be a little bit more "solid", if you get my meaning. The switch to Monarch and Emperor is a lot harder IMHO. Personally, I think every player who wrote up their game played well enough to beat Prince. Heck, the very fact that you all come to these boards and read them regularly is enough right there. You may lose a couple Prince games, but it will be because of poor habits developed playing Noble, not "bad" skills.

Have to agree with Bleys, I think I'm to reliant on the sloppy AI at Noble level.

Also, Kaytiekat, it wouldn't be to hard to save the start in worldbuilder and load it as a scenario, that way you can play along at your native speed of marathon, which as you said would make big difference to your game.

I see no reason why we couldn't post the intital save in both epic and marathon for future games.

^^That doesn't work very well... the WB saves how many turns you have until the end of game... that means if you generate a game in Normal, save it to WB and load it to Epic you will still have 550 turns to play ( and game ends in 1900ishs )

Most likely there will be a way to do that ,but I've been too lazy to dig in the creation an costumization forum.... :p

Too bad :(

I suppose its just aswell as people playing on marathon, would be quite behind everyone else playing on epic, nevermind.

Have to agree with Bleys, I think I'm to reliant on the sloppy AI at Noble level.


hehe, I rely on the sloppy AI on Emperor and Immortal. It still plays like an idiot, but it gets big bonuses (esp. to production) which mean the human player has to exploit its idiocy more carefully and thoroughly.

I should say, however, that the AI tech rate on this map was catastrophically slow. I haven't played against the Noble AI since Vanilla (iirc), but surely it can't be this useless in most games. If it is, then the step up to Prince must be quite a big one.

I'm not trying to put anyone off, btw. I agree with Bleys that you guys look ready to give Prince a shot. And if you run into trouble, I'm sure we'll be able to offer a few handy hints. ;)

Edit: oops, just noticed ejfree's post. Did the rest of you find the AI to be really slow, or was it just the two of us?

Yes Winston_Hughes, one of the reasons I took out Monty and Fred was to make sure I ended up having enough land to compete in research with de Gaulle, considering he had this massive and luxuriant land mass for himself. However, he did a horrible job with it or something, I was already out-teching him with a smaller empire and while at war. I think he just built way too many troops that ended up being useless against my infantry and tanks later on. It doesn't seem to be that bad usually.

Did the rest of you find the AI to be really slow, or was it just the two of us?

Well I found the intial start hard, but once the economy got going yeah I guess I did build a good lead over the AI techwise. I suppose I didn't notice it as much because I switch off my main research after nationalism, so the AI slowley caught up. Perhaps playing at this level all the time I'm accustomed to having a strong tech lead from early in the game.

^^That doesn't work very well... the WB saves how many turns you have until the end of game... that means if you generate a game in Normal, save it to WB and load it to Epic you will still have 550 turns to play ( and game ends in 1900ishs )

Most likely there will be a way to do that ,but I've been too lazy to dig in the creation an costumization forum.... :p
Ah, THATS what happened to me on this months LHC rolo! The game is going to end in 1910, because I brought the save into WB to play the HoF mod, and picked Epic speed as well! Dang, you even warned me about it a couple months ago IIRC.

@Winston:
Yes, I thougth the AI was amazingly slow. As I said earlier, I was drafting Redcoats while building Cavalry and Cannons, and most of the AIs hadnt even gotten to Macemen yet. Thats just too much.

Is speed the only problem when performing that trick to play with a mod Bleys? I mean, like I said I'd like to use the graphical mod I have to play these games if we keep doing them, but I'd rather not run into a problem on turn 542 :)

There are other factors. At higher levels, the AIs receive physical starting bonuses as well as their other benefits (tech speed, production speed, etc) and player handicaps (lower happy/health cap). So if a game is created at Noble, and you take it into the WB, and then play Immortal, in theory you should ALSO give the AIs their rightful physical starting benefits, like extra workers, archers, techs, settlers, etc. The other stuff, like lower caps for the player and faster production for the AI, will still be in play.

But we are talking about a fairly low level thing here, so game turns is the real kicker. As rolo said, I am sure there is info on creating specific situations somewhere in the Customization boards, but for our purposes, I think we are OK.

I think Prince/Epic is a PERFECT teaching/learning level for our little group, I really do. So as long as we create our game on that setting, we can each use our fav mod. I have no idea what happens if you create the game on Marathon, and then pick Normal when you go to the Scenario screen, though, heh. May not be able to get a "Time" win until the year 2112 or something, LOL (for you Rush fans, heh)

I also want to push you all to try the Lonely Hearts Club. I can safely say I have learned an incredible amount playing those games, both because of the setting and the other players who play it (your always isolated, the AIs may be, but may not be, and in fact, one month, all 6 were on the only other continent, heh, that was my 7-religion game, which, ARGH, I still havent finished! Man, rolo must hate me for my Procrastinating ways!). Nice thing there is you can pick your level, so if you take the Prince save, you should all have a decent shot at winning.

I'd really rather play it on Normal speed, but anything is okay by me.. I wasn't really focused on this game (it actually took about 3 hours less than my normal speed prince games..) and got into a habit of just hitting the red button over and over in the early-mid game because things were moving slowly.. I'm sure I could get used to it though (it was my first epic game..)
I've wanted to play the LHC games since I started lurking here but I always get caught up in something else, I'll start the Gilgamesh game tonight..

I always fancied trying an LHC, had a go at the gilgamesh game but found it hard changing to normal speed from epic, I suppose what ever speed you get accustomed to makes any other speed seem just plain wierd. I suppose to get around the amount of number of turns issue I could load it up as a custom scenario and switch off time victory and pick epic. Would that work? or would it still be screwy?

About the speed in LHC:

The first LHC were played in Epic ( still with willpax as host ) , but a lot of people complained that hitting enter for 400 turns was hair raising, so when I started the BtS version I decided to go Normal. I know that a lot of people likes to play slower but....

And Groogaroo, as I said before WB saves how many turns you still have until the end.... I suppose that disabling time victory could work, though ( I really need to stop procastinating about this.... )

One reason I suggest Epic is because I feel we have both Normal and Marathon people interested, and that seemed the most viable compromise.

I am just finishing up my Gilga LHC, its going to end on Time before I can manage to get a Dom or Conquer victory, but as I pointed out in my post there, I am WELL ahead of the AIs in all the important categories, points, tech, power, etc.

I will look around the customization forums for a solution as well, ultimately, we want to appeal to as wide a variety of folks as we can. I think a lot of less experienced players hesitate to post on these forums for fear they will look dumb compared to some of the incredibly genius posters. Breaking that "fear" barrier is my ultimate goal. The game is much more fun (IMHO) if you are challenged a bit but still can manage with mistakes and blunders. Prince is my ideal level for that, Monarch is less forgiving, but I play the LHCs at Monarch because I KNOW I am isolated.

Also, a heads up for anyone else interested in a "common map" themed game, the next BTS Game of the Month is Prince, Epic speed, with Churchill. You can see the starting position here, (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=266984) and read how some players plan to attack the game in the pre-game discussion thread. That format is a lot of fun as well, and makes you REALLY consider your moves, since re-loads and take-backs are expressly forbidden (if you want to submit the game, that is). I actually have yet to submit a game, since I get stomped without some re-loads on any level above Prince, which is why I consider myself a "Prince" level player. One benefit of the LHC games is that trying new strategy, even if it means re-loads, are not only allowed, but encouraged. Replays, do-overs, etc, are all fine in the LHC, all we really ask is that you post some reports about your game, and discuss what you did, what you learned, how your particular "twists" went, etc. LHC is mad fun, honestly, Game of the Months are a bit more like "work", but you can use those games to learn as well, since you get VERY detailed reports there, most of those regulars are amazingly precise about every single tiny detail of their game.

I get the feeling that Epic and Normal are the two most common speeds. To me, Epic feels more natural, I used to play Normal, but when I tried Epic, the game made more sense to me.

I use to play on normal speed when I started playing civ, epic takes a bit of getting use to as everything takes longer but once I got use to it, its very hard to go back.

With regards to the LHC... I may pick one from the back catalogue and test out playing it on epic with time victory disabled and see if it gets screwed up, providing of course that rolo doesn't mind people playing on different speeds.

As far as Nobles Club goes, whens the next game? I guess we should wait for bit, but we might need to discuss how to take this idea forward.

PS - Krick19 where are you?

For this kind of games the routine to make a properly working scenario is to create the map, save it as WB and then change the corresponding part ( notepad will do ) to this (red are the changes, *text* is comments ( do not paste it ):
BeginGame
Era=ERA_ANCIENT
Speed=NONE *to not override the choosed speed*
Calendar=CALENDAR_DEFAULT
ForceControl=FORCECONTROL_HANDICAP *to avoid other levels*
Victory=VICTORY_TIME
Victory=VICTORY_CONQUEST
Victory=VICTORY_DOMINATION
Victory=VICTORY_CULTURAL
Victory=VICTORY_SPACE_RACE
Victory=VICTORY_DIPLOMATIC
GameTurn=0
MaxTurns=0 *to not overrun level usual turn limit*
MaxCityElimination=0
NumAdvancedStartPoints=0
TargetScore=0
StartYear=-4000
Description=
ModPath=
EndGame
And change all teams playableciv tags to 0 except for team 0 ( the human, except selected otherwise )

OTOH I'm having some problems with the LHC scenario creation.... but that is a entirely diferent issue. WB tech info overrides the defined in-game info for the levels... I'm not sure how to turn around this.

Sorry guys, haven't gotten a chance to play much, but way over this game right now. Anyone up for Mansa Musa?

Maybe a different leader. Mansa is financial right, so that is same as lizzy

At this level, maybe ghandi so that people who want to learn or improve their SE game.

We could also go somewhere completely different and try for conquest/dom. Someone I'm interested in is Suryavaman.(I know some hate him)

Hey Krick19!

Actually Conquest/domination could be a good idea, I need to improve my warring! Gandhi actually makes quite a mean warmonger if you play him that way.

I guess so, my two last games were conquest (this one) and domination though. I just finished a domination victory game on an Arboria map (which is really a forested pangea with a whole lot of deer, but I didn't know that, I don't really like Pangea that much) as Ragnar. How could I not war as Ragnar? I used a strategy similar to Nobles' Club 1 though; I became best friends with a large AI far from me (Alexander!), while I wiped out Wang Kon and Sitting Bull (AGAIN! ARGH), who were my two (PROTECTIVE!? ARGH!) neighbours. I also wiped Mansa Musa and Asoka... Alex helped me with a constant war with useless Asoka throughout the game. But I had 60% land at this point so I had to up that to 64 to win... Which meant WAR with Alex and his vassal Shaka (!). Yeah, at war with Alex and Shaka at the same time... But I was far ahead in techs so I just took a few cities and got my 64%. It was my earliest win too, in 1850 or something. My biggest score ever (45000). It was on noble.

That being said, it must be noted that I did lose a Malinese city to Alex. He sent one of the largest AI stacks I have ever seen. About 15-20 cannons (!) + 30 cuirassiers + 15-20 units of various type. I had to suicide a lot of cavalries to kills these cannons (yay flanking) but he had pikemen in there too who did annoy my cavalry, somehow. I didn't take that city back, it was small and useless, and by now he was more into trying not to lose Corinth, Athens and, you know, his core empire...

So yeah, lots of warring in my recent games, I'm not that kind of guy usually!

Where you been Krick19! Hey that rhymes. Good to have you back with us.

I want to vote for one of the Indian leaers too. I don't often play them and MadScientist is always saying that they make exellent warmongers - as do others.

I'm not massively keen on a pangea type map as I like naval units and want to have ago at a succesfull intercontental war - if we end up going for a millitary option.

I liked KatieKats idea of having a report thread and a spoiler thread. Repots would still be in spoilers in the report thread but open disscustion of the game could take place in the spoiler thread. Also maybe we should start a home page/Bull pen thread so there can be easy linked to each game etc, and we can have some were to disscus game settings etc.

Erm, I guess I'm missing something here, but if the reports and the discussion are in a separate thread, what actually goes in the main thread? I can't see why you'd need two threads for a game like this. :confused:

Edit: Ah, it seems I misunderstood. Reports go in the main thread, and then there's discussion in the spoiler thread (it may be better to call it the discussion thread, to avoid confusion amongst idiots like me). Well, I suppose that could work, though I'm not sure if it'll work out much different from having the discussion take place in spoilers in the main thread...

If it's a rolling discussion you want, then you'll need to have clear time-based checkpoints, and a group of you who are prepared to play at the same speed (eg. 1000ad by next Wednesday). Even then, different decisions and in-game developments will make a coherent rolling discussion more difficult as time goes on.

In any case, it'd be a very good idea to post screenies of the start and settings, and spend a couple of days discussing possible strategies for that leader/map/start/suggested victory, before posting the save.

Oh, and Gandhi would be an excellent choice - he's possibly the most flexible leader in the game imo. Then again, I'll always sing his praises. I :love: Gandhi!

Ahem, my own obsessions aside, one major advantage of playing with any Spiritual leader is that to take full advantage you really need to think about what the different civic options and combinations can do for you. Hence, it's great for breaking you out of any civic-related habits or inflexibility, and for discovering the potential in those civics you rarely use.

Okay, here are my views on the future of NObles Club,

first off the format, I think a disscussion thread is an excellent idea for those us who want to play the game at the same pace reporting in at strict checkpoints to discuss firstly the start and leaders abilitites then the lay of the land, comparing dot maps and our views of the other civs/possible trading buddies. As the game goes on the usefulness of meeting up at particular checkpoints becomes less as we will veer of down different paths and then it becomes more of a case of posting in for advice as and when its needed, personally at this stage i don't think any of the posts will cause many spoilers to the other players.

I'm also happy during the opening stages just play a short round every couple of days rather than bashing the whole game out over a weekend like we did in the current game.


The initial checkpoints could be something like the following,


- 4000BC/turn0

Discuss the start and leader/traits

- 2000BC/turn80

Discuss dotmaps and rivals, start taking about short term stratagies

- around 1AD/turn 175

discuss how the game is going and our plans for victory


I think for me this is the most important time for open discussion and after the last checkpoint you can just pop in with the odd question if you feel stuck or need help with a crucial decision or just want to say hello!

Game reports could go in the main game reports thread in spoilers (which we could link to from the disscusion thread), the game reports thread will also be for people who just want to play at their own pace or join in later and so can play the game without any spoilers.

As far the next game goes, I love Gandhi, but... we shouldn't probably play as a philisophical leader again so soon after the lizzie game (by the way I love philo, so I don't know why I'm saying this) my vote goes for Asoka, spiritual/Organised, I like india becuase you don't rely on a powerful UU for warring (unlike lizzie and her redcoats) and its harder to make the most out of Asoka's traits compared to Fin/Philo which are easy enough to take advantage of.

Whether we play on Noble or Prince is another question, most people seem to be up for prince (I think its a good idea) but it depends on the leader we choose, if we play an obviously strong leader the definatley prince, if we play a weaker or atleast tougher to leverage leader maybe we should play 1 more round on noble... this is nobles club after all. ;)

Just my thoughts, I'm not trying to dictate or anything. What are other peoples views?

:)

PS - yes a kind of bullpen/new thread is a good idea to link to previous games and news of new games etc... not sure if we need that yet.

@ Winston Hughes. I think the idea of a discussion thread is that it was pretty frustratiung deciding what should go in spoiler tags. I realise its not anymore difficult to post like that but it was still really getting on my tits! ;)

As I said before I agree that we went way to fast in this first game. I guess that was the exitment! :lol:

As an aside I started an offline prince game yesterday! Random leader gave me Saladin and the map gave me an isolated start :rolleyes:
I have no idea how its going yet - just finished settling my landmass, won Lib, and demographics say I'm top in production, and pop, second in land and GDP and nearly bottom in power. Haven't met any AIs yet. Might try for a space race win, using a CE. One or more of the AIs is a wonder hog and theres ben a couple of GGs born too.
I only mention this as the positive comments from you guys has inspired me to push the evolope a bit :goodjob:

India seems good.

It seems to be that there isn't much to spoil after all AIs (or all non isolated ones...) have been met and after our main land has been explored... I'm not sure I understand what you guys are trying to achieve with two threads, I'm a bit confused. It seems there is no way to discuss the game without potential spoilers. Be it in one thread, or thirty threads, hehe. I mean, why would we go see the thread with spoilers if we're trying to avoid them with spoilers tags in the first thread?... ack!

I think I agree with specific years for checkpoints.

Hmmm... maybe this is just getting over complicated. :crazyeye:

Running two threads for one game could be bit wierd. If its a case of one or the other I vote for a thread of open discussion at early checkpoints, moving on to just general open discusion once the chance of spoilers is lower. No spoiler boxes, except maybe for our game reports just to keep them neat and tidy and the thread easy to browse.

I agree Groo.

I suggest 1 thread for each game, and a separate thread for the actual "Overall" discussion of the subject. Just use spoilers, and dont go back to old posts and edit them in, thats a PITA, no offense.

The LHC runs very smoothly with this format. Granted, there are more distinct "game target points" with an isolated situation, but we could easily come up with some of our own in-game updates. Some ideas are:

3rd city (or whichever we decide, 2nd city is pretty early, but 3rd - 6th are all good), first war, Met all civs on our landmass, decided on a "Wonder-Economic" plan, have an update for EACH war, or, each time the AIs go to war amongst themselves if you plan a peaceful builder, etc etc etc.

As for leader choice, we just did Gandhi in the LHC last month, but I am still OK with him, since isolated and non-isolated are very different. He is easy to play though. Other leaders that are "fairly easy" to play are basically the FIN, IND or SPI ones. I have a massive respect for SPI leaders, especially in "longer" games, as the Anarchy penalty post-Lib or so gets so harsh you practically need a Golden Age to swap civics. I like the idea of Gandhi, Ramses or Mansa, all SPI who also have a "powerful" additional trait.

Great thread guys. I'm a Noble player from Vanilla & Warlords but I've been having difficulties with Noble on BTS and this thread is awesome. I'd join in but I'm stuck with dialup at home, so I am not loading any Mods or getting any updates any time soon (way too lazy for that).

I'd like to thank the higher level players for their comments and seeing how they tackle the same situation. It really helps (plus I'll check out that LHC as well).

My problem tends to be after the start. I can handle the early game quite well, I usually get off to great starts but I usually fail to have any game plan and/or fail misserably at diplomacy. That's usually when it either goes down hill fast or at least my big lead falls apart. Near the end game, I can usually pick it up again but my mid game is brutal.

Okay, so for the next one we will prob have two threads. But for the spoiler thread, I'll edit the title as we continue so it will say something like Checkpoint 1 completed. For next leader, I would try to move away from philosophical, but organized is sort of weak. However, if people really like Gandhi, we could use him.

For our new checkpoints, I'd prob use something like Groogaroo's:

1:4000BC:start

2:2000BC:Early strategy

3:1 AD: Recap

4:1000 AD: Update on Victory status

5: Victory.

The problem I see in going with a spoilers thread is that, there's going to be only a small window of time during which some players who could not play in the first few days will be able to see people's discussions... Well, I'm not sure how to explain that. And I'm still not sure what kind of discussion can go on in the other thread?

Checkpoint idea is just fine with me, we can have 1 thread per game and then an overall 'bullpen' like the LHC/ALC games have.
As for the leader: Anything is okay by me.

well atleast weve kind of starting to agree on the checkpoints, :lol:

I still don't know the best way to organise the two threads/one thread spoilers issues, my heads starting to hurt just thinking about it :crazyeye:

The important thing is not neccessarily what we decide to do but that it's very clear and that everybody understands what's going on and how its going to work.

Now leaders, if were thinking of trying spiritual (which is an awesome trait), but want to avoid philo/fin as we played lizzie last round, that leaves the following leaders.

Asoka Indian Spiritual/Organized
Brennus Celtic Spiritual/Charismatic
Hatshepsut Egyptian Spiritual/Creative
Isabella Spanish Spiritual/Expansive
Justinian I Byzantine Spiritual/Imperialistic
Montezuma Aztec S spiritual/Aggressive
Ramses II Egyptian Spiritual/Industrious
Saladin Arab Spiritual/Protective

If these are the leaders were looking at my vote goes for RamesesII, been a while since I've had a chance to wonder spam, Justinian is also a very interesting leader, I love his UB.

If we're going spiritual, Ramesses all the way.

Hatty aint bad either, the war chariots are uber anyway.

I got my first ever Prince win with Ramesses, first conquest win ever as well, in a WOTM game. It was a terra map, which made things quite straightforward. I was teching Guilds for Knights when I won. Also did the Oracle/metal casting gambit (which is easy to do with Ramesses) to build the pyramids immediately.

If you go Egypt I recommend conquest, if it is a terra or pangaea/single landmass map.

1:4000BC:start

2:2000BC:Early strategy

3:1 AD: Recap

4:1000 AD: Update on Victory status


These look good, but for anyone who goes much past 1900ad they'll all be in the first half of the game. Perhaps add one at 1500ad.

Those look solid to me. Remember guys, keep it simple for the "masses". You can always do more updates individually, but if you keep it simple, we are likely to get more players.

Always remember to post in spoilers though, thats important, and define whats in the spoiler above it, like:

2000 BC, my first War:
I crushed Monty like a BUG!

Also, just so we can start getting on the right track, I am copying this post into the "other" thread. This thread was supposed to be for the Elizabeth game, and here we are talking general Noble Club business!

@Winston,
that's a good idea, I'll do it.

Just want to contribute my game play. I know it's half a year too late. But after reading many of the opening plays, it seems my experience has been pretty unique. So, here is my play.

Game settings: BTS 3.17 with Solver's unofficial patch. So, easy capitulating. :D

Checkpoint 1: 1900BC

Ever after COTM 1, I have been avoiding Lizzy. She's simply been too powerful. But, anyway, i just want an easy game. :)

Settle at place, and start researching Agriculture which i regreted soon after. building a worker. And move warrior southeast. Warrior went all the way through the later known east west choke point and hit 2 huts before meeting Sitting Bull where the fun begins. Of course, before that Monty's scout found my base. So, when i saw there was a Native American worker working on the wheat, I DOW, and hijacked the worker.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=186088&stc=1&d=1218962490

The next turn, my warrior closed in on Sitting Bull's capital and found only one warrior was there defending. Yet, even with 5 exp points from last hut, my warrior was in no place taking the capital. So, i hung arround and decided to keep going northeast where i found a hut right outside Sitting Bull's borther. And this hut gave me another warrior! And now the whole thing went wild. So i regroup and went back at Sitting Bull, and the 2 warrior took his capital with one casualty.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=186090&stc=1&d=1218962919

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=186091&stc=1&d=1218962919

I took sometime before decided to keep the city. It was a city far away and my warrior was basically trapped there. And it was not cool place. However, i think the things turned out well for me later.

I was merely stealing his worker and want to limit his growth, but i'll take the surprise. :)

I went Agriculture -> BW -> AH -> Writting. My second first home built warrior went south west and found horse and corn.

So I chopped a Settler and settled sw of horse for immediate horse access and the rich food from corn.

Then i found monty was corner to the south of me. So I moved my first chariot down there hoping for another surprise attack. However, monty already got an archer on his hill captial. no luck, i left my warrior sentry there.

Met De Gaulle at 1900BC, hence all but one AIs are met. I figured that must be the "small" AI. :D So, 1900BC, 4 cities, 100% science on Alphabet with 7 turns left and -9 per turn.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=186093&d=1218964215

Haha. This is the only NC game I never played :(. Sure brings back memories though...I was avidly training for the jump from noble ----> prince but didn't have BTS yet!

Haha. This is the only NC game I never played :(. Sure brings back memories though...I was avidly training for the jump from noble ----> prince but didn't have BTS yet!

Same, but it was Warlord -> Noble. Sadly, I haven't gone very far since.

Same transition for me (Warlord > Noble), but I never started this game and never finished any of them since. Here's hoping....

I'm glad Amao got some responses; I'm thinking that if I ever finish a later game, I may want to come back and do all the others (unless some patch or other invalidates the saves).

I only realized later that there was a suggestion for Culture Victory. Too bad, i've already chozen the quick military path by then. And never had culture in mind. Anyway, I followed my original plan and went on.

Checkpoint 2: 160AD


War on Monty

1800BC, barb set up a city to the west of London with Gold in city's expanded radius. I moved my chariot in and killed the one of the warrior then waiting for city to grow to 2 and took it. By 1475BC, former barb city Hittie got civilized and became English city #5 with gold and plenty of food. I later found that I didn't have IW to chop the jungles. I traded IW and many other techs. No iron nearby, but it was a non-factor at all in this game.

Around 1600BC, my sentry warrior in Aztec reported that Monty has set up another city. warrior found a un-protected worker. I DOW and stole the worker and sent back to improve York. well the warrior was pillaging the road that connects Monty's 2nd city and it's capital to delay his reenforcement, my newly built chariot came down from York and destoyed the warrior guarded plain city.

Since there is no way that my chariot could take his hilly capital, i simply stationed 2 chariots just ourside his culture boundary. Monty is cornered and doomed.

Great Stuffs
Got my first GS around 1600BC, popped Math after nailing Alphabet. And changed London into Wonder building mode since the stone is now connected. Stone+Math did wonder in chopping and got my Pyramids in 1175BC. I immediated changed my civic to Rep and give the cities a few more happy faces just in time.

I took detour in tech and went for Literature. This took painfully long. And my cash started running low. By 1000BC, the side effect of over expanding had taken its toll. I was running 30% science and it's -1. It further lower to 20% by 750BC to just break even.

3 Fronts
Fred started expanding from west and settled a city closed to Hittie. So I sent my chariot and investigate and found nothing but archer. Of course, there was a worker. So I took his worker and retreat to my border. This worker worked on the gold mine and eventually pushed my science back to 30% with +2 by 500BC, even after I took another barb city, Gaul, in the far east in former Native American's area.

Now I'm having 3 wars going on at the same time. The non-eventful soutern front, for Monty encirclement, where his archers would not advance out of forests, and the new west front, where Fred's archer would come once a while but was easily defended by chariots and later axe. However, the toughest front was in the far east, where you don't know when and where the barb's would strike.

However, my empire was ok, either Monty nor Fred had copper, iron, or horse connected. Yes, Monty does have an iron just inside his border. Hey, that's why i stationed an axe and 2 chariorts just outside the border by it.

Btw, I took another barb city between former NA capital and my proper. That city was originally guarded by 2 archers on the plain, but still too tough for my light mounted only force in the far east. However, one day, i found one archer went out killed some AI's scout and got injured. So my chariot moved in and killed him. Then I sumoned my nearest axe from my proper to finish the business.

The Great Library
A GE popped out right before I finished Literature. This is luck. Otherwise I won't know where I should build the Wonder. Popped GL at 425BC. Now I'm focusing on construction for serious seiging business.

Serious Wars
However, Monty asked no catapults to say goodbye, after he learnt IW and started popping his Jaguar. I had to mobilize and pulling troops all over the country to finish him. 140 BC, I assembled 5 axes and 3 chariots after some of his troops went out to battle me in the field. That was a mistake to him. I dashed to take his capital. The battle gave me a nice cottaged city and a GG which further enhenced my CR ability.

Then I turned west on Fred with catapults, Fred is no match and quickly lost 4 cities to me and retreated to an island. I razed one and kept 3. The 2 sizable city for quick rushing, and another jugle city as beach head for Saladin.

So, here was 160AD, I had 11 cities (3 in native English core cities, 3 eastern cities, 1 souther city from monty, 4 cities in the west including the gold city)with 70% science (+186) and 480 cash (-47/Turn) and 6 turns to Feudalism. I didn't make peace with Fred because I didn't want to waste my time to do the island conquering. I just want to capitalize him. Studying my land mass, it was only about 14%, ehhh, so domination looked too much of a trouble considering my economy status. So, a quick conquest is good for me. And it seem the only 2 techs I need are CS and Astro, nothing more.

Not sure if people are still visiting and/or playing in the Nobles Club, but here it goes.

First off, big thanks to Orion, who's sample games have helped me make the jump to Noble. I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn, but I can win virtually every game now with no more than one reload needed (still learning the behaviors of various AIs)

Anyway, I just finished Liz, and though my notes are not nearly as detailed as some other posters, I'll throw a quick analysis in for any that are still perusing the Nobles Games.

Cultural Victory in 1918. I was able to axe-rush Monty with 3 axes and eliminate that known trouble-maker early. Peace for a while, then SB and I brawled when he captured the barb town SW across the lake from our starting loc. Was able to use capital, Tenochtilian, and Nottingham (not adept at screenshots, but was set up south of capital with two food resources and the horse) as culture centers and Canturbury (set up near ex-barb town but better located) as science/GPF. Brawled with Germany late, probably costing me about 20 turns on a victory, but I had had enough of his nonsense. Was able to convert both Fred and SB to Confucianism in order to repair past transgressions; started handing out techs ~ 75 years before victory to keep em off me.

Again, superb thread and idea for the Club. Noble is definitely the correct level for me right now, and I hope to improve as I go to make the next jump. For any who are struggling out there, read through Orion's samples! You don't need to copy everything exactly, just become aware of the things that have the most impact on success and failure.

...

Welcome to NC club with a win and it's first post! I've been found this club friendly and easygoing yet a lot potential for lowlevelers to learn and prosper.

These threads inspired me to finally beat a game. Normally I get to 1000 AD and get overwhelmed with all the things I need to be doing.

As far as the victory, I didn't take any screens but

I ended up winning a domination victory. I took out Monty with Axe/Chariots earlyish, and was able to claim all his land.

After that, I had all the cities I needed to be able to boost my tech/develop my cities. I pretty much cottaged everything, as I couldn't find very many places for good production cities.

Around 1000 or so Sitting Bull/France went to war while I beefed up my borders around them. I left my left pretty wide open because I was bordering Saladin who was friendly by then, and Germany, who I was in pretty good standings with.

At this point I wasn't sure what victory I was going for, but I set about continuing to beef up my borders and get ready for France/NA. A few turns and captured cities later, France made Sitting Bull his vassal and there was some peace.

At this point I figured production wasn't good enough for a space race and too many people were annoyed for a diplomatic victory, plus I had always wanted to be a warmonger. I went into warmode for about 10 turns and declared on France/SB.

I ran through their border separating the two capturing all SBs cities along it, to make sure they wouldn't reinforce eachother. At this point, I reinforced all these cities and went to work taking out Sitting Bull. With all my new units I sent about half to the border and half to take out SBs cities. Several turns later, and several close calls with France attempting to take the cities back, I had the lower continent. I stole a few cities from France and got a peace treaty.

I had the whole lower continent as well as my starting spot, so I just kept churning out units for my eventual declaration on France. At this point, due to all my ~10 starting cities being cottage towns, I was getting enough income to run incredibly high research and beat everyone by a mile to things like Modern Armor, Rocketry etc.

Once I had a bunch of tanks, infantry, bombers and gunships to his riflemen I declared on him and methodically took over his whole side of the continent.

This took me til about 1700 and I thought it would get me the victory but apparently 64% land is a lot more than I realized, as the whole east continent + my stuff was ~54%. I set up barebones defense in the once French/SB land and moved all my troops to my border with Fredrick. Also, with all the cottaging in the new towns as well, at 10% research I was getting 2k gold a turn, and I started hurrying units with gold.

I waited til all my recently acquired cities had gotten through their anarchy then decided I would race through Germans/what was left of Shaka and SB (who had settled some towns in the lower left islands. At this point I had about 54 modern armor with quite a few stealth bombers etc.

I was able to reduce those three to one city each and get them to be my vassal (something I wanted to do for fun), and still only had 62% of the land.

I ended up having to declare war on Sully and take out his island before I finally got my 64% land.

Fun times, and sorry for the longwindedness.

Stuck at home without anything to do, started this game. The devil knows if I'll finish it, but I don't. The Big and Small map script (BS) sometimes generates a BS map, if you know what I mean.

Anywho, on to the game. I'm playing this on Immortal level and Normal speed. (Is on the correct preposition?) I added The Wheel, Hunting and Archery to everyone and also deleted their begin and end unit lines.


No reason not to settle in place. Sent my warrior to the south to see if I could find something and met the nutjob Monty really early. On turn 9, he founds Buddhism.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/01.jpg

I was a little afraid that I'd be declared on instantly, but the Punching Bull was around and was prepared to draw more attention than me.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/02.jpg

I built a worker in the capital, some warriors then started on the workboats. However, I only got to build one of them early in the game because I got the health event, which caused my population to become unhappy.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/03.jpg

Time to switch builds.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/04.jpg

When that settler was done, I sent him to the horse / corn area. Upon getting there, I saw that Montgomery had already settled to the south. Well, he tends to declare war over a dirty look or whenever a leader or diplomat stares at his skull (Little Monty) so settling that close to him should only be done with caution. That's why I settled the city on the hills south of the horses.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/05.jpg

Sure enough, Monty came asking who the man was.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/06.jpg

Of course, I gave in. I could settle copper just in time. He had already sent his archers there to secure the area.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/07.jpg

Again on the hill. For a long time, it's going to be a crappy city, working only the copper and the grassland hill. It can build axes, can't it?

I didn't mention London for a while, but my (very short) experience with BS maps taught me that there are somethings we can do to make them work better.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/08.jpg

Monty got Organized Religion right before I got Writing so it was time to try to appease him with some religious diplomacy.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/09.jpg

Is it going to work?

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/11.jpg

Now, the Great Lighthouse was really paying my bills. All my cities are coastal so it is huge. Just wait to see what will happen when I find France.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/12.jpg

I started to expand into the jungle and needed Iron Working, but why tech it, right?

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/13.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/14.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/15.jpg

Let's see if we can get some turns of peace.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/16.jpg

Whoops. Fortunately, mastermind extraordinaire Frederick decided to become Confucian. I think Montezuma was about to send his troops to reeducate the German public.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/19.jpg

When he decided to call it a day. WTF?!?

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/20.jpg

I got my GLH merchant and thought of sending it to the Temple of Artemis' city, but it was Arab. I'm their worst enemy because they founded Hinduism so I chose to bulb Currency.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/17.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/18.jpg

I stopped around there. This is England, plus future cities:

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/21.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/22.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/23.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/24.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/25.jpg

And then techs, diplomacy and demographics.

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/26.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/27.jpg

http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy190/sidney_magal/LIZ/NC1/28.jpg


The problem with BS maps is that sometimes the AIs get to have a somewhat permanent expansion and get really big without having to pay a lot of maintenance, which is the same thing that happens when you put low sea level and don't add more AIs to make up for the extra land. On Immortal, it can put the human in some difficult situations and it also makes military victories a bore.

Any comments regarding my game will be appreciated.

First post but I've been lurking a while. Thanks to all for sharing their thoughts so that I could start my education! I will be working through the Noble Club games with a goal of learning and moving up through the difficulty levels.

This first game was a lot of fun! Play was on Noble level, Epic speed.

Pre-start strategies:


Due to the nature of the challenge, I will go for a Cultural victory before even viewing the map. I took this to be the intent of the challenge so I am not considering other victory conditions.

Impact of Leader traits:

Financial - I need to maximize commerce in my win. To do this, I will build lots of cottages and I will try to include lots of water tiles into my cities' BFCs.
Philosophical - I will also use a lot of Great Artists for culture bombing. I will want to set up at least one city as a GA farm and support it with Civics and building choices to maximize GA output.


After initial scouting:

The major revelations of initial scouting are:

The geography includes a ton of coastal areas
Copper is south of the start but in an area with no food so only a crappy city can pick it up
Choke points to the East (with Sitting Bull) and to the West (with Frederick)
Monty is on our same landmass to the W (or S?)


The impact of the geography is huge. Combining the Financial trait of Lizzy with the huge amount of coastal area implies that a Great Lighthouse and Colossus combination is a winner.

The impact of the other civilizations is significant also. Cities need to go up in the choke points to the east and west to block Freddy and SB. Monty will be a pain and will very likely need to be neutralized.

The copper is just a pain. I want it so that I can rush Monty with axes but taking it as a second or third city is going to slow down growth as it's a dud of a city. There is no food and no real chance of getting irrigation anywhere close for a good long time (if ever!).

Early Game (through 65BC):

There were two main goals of this early stage. First was to get the Great Lighthouse and Colossus built. Second was to handle Monty who was going to be a pain if not handled early.

To reach the Wonder goals, the main thing was to get Metal Casting relatively early so that work could begin on The Colossus. Secondarily, the capital needed to get a normal lighthouse up so that we could start on the GLH. Tech path to support this was:

Ag, BW, AH, TW, Writing, Sailing (2150BC, start on Lighthouse in capital), Masonry, Alphabet (trade for Myst, Pottery, Hunting), IW, MC (550BC)

Generally, the capital was working on Lighthouse, GLH, Forge, The Colossus during all of the BC times. I completed the GLH in 1250 BC and The Colossus in 65BC. Other work done by the capital was the creation of 2 settlers and a few axes to help with Monty.

Speaking of Monty, his presence defined placement and growth strategies for both of my first two cities. My second city was placed as a blocking city intended to both block the western choke point and limit Monty's growth. York was placed to the SW, picking up the pig-corn-ivory, on the square 2W of the corn. My third city was placed non-optimally but with the sole intent of picking up the copper site. The need for fast copper outweighed the desire to place a good blocking city to the east. So third city was 1SE of the copper mine (lots of coastal squares but no food!).

Once the copper was settled, I rushed axes and built up a small army before Monty declared war on me and snagged a worker (925 BC). He had built two cities surrounding my second which I razed quickly. His capital was a little harder to get at but I conquered it by 110BC with my axes.

After the war was over, The Colossus wrapped up at 65BC. This concluded the early stage and I was now prepared to begin moving towards my victory conditions.

Disclaimer: I had to play through this section three times before I got it done well. It is much easier to write out my thinking with experience than it was to go through the first time.

On my very first attempt, I had missed the importance of the GLH/Colossus combo and missed out on these early Wonders. After seeing more of the map, I decided that I'd rather restart and take the lesson: Always consider a GLH/Colossus strategy on maps with tons of Coast, especially when your leader has the Financial trait.

On my second attempt, I got cute and tried to settle city #3 to the East (2N1W of the rice) as a blocking move on SB. In this case, I was unable to block Monty from settling the copper site under my nose thus blocking my attempts to remove him from the map. I think on an even harder difficulty level, it may have been called for to settle copper as #2 even! Lesson here was: Don't delay on getting strategic resources, especially if you will have an early war.

Mid-Game (through 1395AD):

This phase was all about setting up the framework for a Cultural victory. I did some reading on the strategies and came up with this approach:


Research up to a certain point and then turn the slider to all culture
Use multiple Cathedrals from multiple religions to give +% to culture from commerce
Maximize commerce with cottages
Use Great Artists to culture bomb cities with less CPT (culture per turn)
Use Sistine Chapel to magnify the culture effects of both specialists and state religion


I found this phase of the game easy to do when you have a set of goals but easy to get distracted. With the cultural win in mind, we don't want to spend time building useless Wonders or getting overly involved with other civs. The main lesson here was: Keep focused!

I settled a total of 9 villages roughly in a circle around the capital. Warwick was founded on the small island near Monty's capital to get access to Marble for the Sistine Chapel (built in Capital). I got three religions as two were spread via AI sending missionaries and I founded Taoism. A trick I pulled here was gifting Meditation and Monotheism to Freddy early in the hopes he would go Organized Religion or Monastery and send me a missionary. It paid off in the end as he spread Buddhism to one city.

Research was basically to Liberalism and then to Democracy and then stopping. I left off a lot of Tech even useful stuff. No railroads (or even engineering!) or modern worker improvements. The important stuff for me was the Civics:


Universal Suffrage - Hurry production with gold
Free Speech - Double culture!!
Caste System - Unlimited Artist specialists
Pacifism - Double GPP rate


Tons of commerce was coming in from GLH/Colossus and working water tiles. Every settled village was on the coast to maximize commerce. The capital and city #2 were both cottage spammed to the max to maximize culture creation in the end-game (after research is turned off).

Monty's cap was turned in to the Great Artist farm. Only food tiles with 3+ food were worked with all excess going to Artists. Buildings were generally either purchased for gold or rushed using a high hammer configuration for a few turns. National Epic was built here for more GPP production. I had to fight a bit with my capital here as Wonders there were tending to create Great Merchants where I only wanted Great Artists. I played around with ratios to create as few GPs possible in the cap; in the end, I generated 3 "extra" GPs at the capital, 2 Great Merchants (1 bulbed currency, the other made a huge trade at the Khmer capital) and 1 Great Artist (yay!). The main GA farm generated 9 by the end of the game (with 1 more GA from Music).

Cities other than the main three (London, York, Monty's cap) were used in support roles. Their main function was to spread the three religions and build temples. Secondary function was to generate science and enough troops to discourage would-be attackers.

Timeline went like:

AD 265 - Music
AD 580 - Philosophy and found Taoism
AD 910 - Complete Sistine Chapel
AD 1080 - Liberalism
AD 1395 - Democracy, turn off research


Victory (or not?):

The foundation of the mid and early game made this a cruise. Culture slider was set to 60% at the start and 70% by the end both with +50 to +100 gold per turn. All three culture cities had all three of the cathedrals and big economies. Cottages all grew to villages and towns and became more profitable than the water tiles. Cities all reached the population caps.

The trickiest part at this stage was to dodge the other civilizations and keep them from declaring war. My power was smaller than my neighbors due to a focus on culture. Here I used the same religion as SB figuring he was the one to factor religion in to relations more than Freddy. Saladin was never very happy with me but always further away. De Gaulle was largely disliked by everyone. I did what I could to keep SB and Freddy happy, Saladin from declaring war, and every once in a while someone would war with De Gaulle. I kept SB and Freddy pleased the whole time. I paid various people to war with De Gaulle at key points. And I actively bribed Freddy and even Saladin a bit to keep them happy despite different religions. There was only one time where I had a scare as I got dragged in to a full world war on De Gaulle but I wasn't really a factor.

I used a combo of Wonders to pull off a big Great Age and speed up my victory. I built Mausoleum of Maursellos and Taj Mahal to get a +50% Great Age right toward the end of the game.

The end date is 1830 AD and I win with a score of 24008. Overall, an excellent result that is largely attributed to the fact that I re-did the start until I got the optimal outcome. Still, there were big lessons learned especially about the cultural victory.


Attachment is save one turn before end of game. You will need BUFFY loaded for the save to open.

Gratz on the win! That was a fun game to play, and my first Noble win.

In an effort to revitalize my interest in CIV I am planning on playing through as many nobles club and monarch student games as I have the time to.

This was a great game to start with, Lizzy is my favorite leader, and I decided to drop down to Noble for an easy game after I got praet owned by JC in my last Monarch game because I only had horses within a reasonable range of my start and I dropped the ball when I saw stone and an oppurtunity for the Mids, but I digress...

Started with workboat=>worker build. Teched early worker techs with first priority on AH then BW. I popped 2-3 techs from huts giving me a really unfair advantage early on. As soon as I saw the snaky looking continents I figured GLH was the way to go early on this map. Combined with nearby stone, I figured I'ld be able to wonderwhore a bit and had no quelms prioritizing masonry and sailing. Unfortunately I quickly ran into Monty which changed my priorities to his elimination ASAP. A nice horse city to the W/SW and I figured I'ld go chariots, but I popped HBR from a hut and said why not? Prioritized archery and HA ran him down easily while starting on GLH in my third city during the war prep. Monty's elimination yielded 4 cities including a good block on Frederick.

I lucked out on religion as Saladin spread hinduism to everyone on the main continent and we all eventually switched to it. Still I had already refused De Gaulle's demands when he was Buddhist so I planned towards a draft war later in the game.

From then until the renaissance I focused on expanding into the northern jungle and colonizing some islands to the West. I couldn't resist a FIN cottage spam so out go the cottages as I set up to lib Democracy. I certainly ended up wonder whoring a bit nabbing Notre Dame, GL, SM, AW, UoS, SoZ, and eventually SoL, to name a few. I teched towards rifling and steel as I set up my capital for Globe drafting and built Heroic epic and Moai in a peninsular city of Monty's. Then it was a strick drafted redcoats and cannons stack that made it's way towards De Gaulle. At some point during the renaissance Frederick offerd to be my b**** and I accepted giving me a strong ally (compared to the AI) for the rest of the game.

By the time I got through SB's lands De Gaulle had unfortunately made nice with everyone else so I got some diplo hits for declaring war, but it didn't really matter b/c cannons and redcoats destroy anything the computer can field pre-lib. In fact I'm pretty sure they destroy anything until Inf. and Arty. which was never even close to a problem.


By the end of the war with De Gaulle, I had teched to Infantry and artillery so I shut off research and upgraded all of my stacks (3 at this point). Then I DOWed SB and took 4 or 5 cities before he capd. Same with Saladin...Domination VC.
After I took out Monty there wasn't any serious challenges since I was cottage spamming in a religious safe area, making diplo easy. I actually ended up prioritizing gold buildings more then beaker multipliers in most cities, (didn't get oxford till my war with SB). Other then the draft set up it was a pretty sloppy albeit fun game.

Unfortunately I can only find the screen shot of the final unit stats...note the number of redcoats and infantry actually built...Almost all of my foot soldiers were drafted. (HELL YES YOUR GOING!);)

250089


Looking foward to the next one.:D

Here is my game so far:

So, I'll settle in place. Research BW--> AG for that Rice--> Wheel--> Pottery for those cottages--> Sailing because of all the water. Looking pretty good. I'll go Space Race here, because that's all I'm good at.

A While Later: I have discovered Saladin, Monty, and Fredrick. Because it may be fun, I'll chop out a bunch of axes and rush Monty. Any tips for promotions? I think my endgame will be Space Race; that's all I am really good at.

Later On: The Axe-rush failed and I wasted SEVEN AXES on Monty. The worst part was that one of them had a 52-ish% odds of victory. I know that any battle with those odds I will be guaranteed to lose. Anyway, the focus here has been shifted to diplo as Saladin founded Buddhism and spread to me and Fred. SB, Monty (the prick survives), and someone else are Hindu. I plan to engage in Holy War, killing or vassalizing Monty, and then riding the popularity into a Palace win circa the Renaissance. Only problem is, how will I keep Saladin from winning instead? He is more powerful than I am; maybe I don't include him in the holy war so Fred becomes my BFF while only he and I gain power and votes?

So, now... Building the Palace in London. I have ascertained that Fred is even punier than I am, so he and I will engage in our holy war, leaving Saladin to not gain any cities. Palace victory, here I come... will beeline towards Rifling to get my beloved Redcoats.


By the way, how do you do screenshots? I'm new here.

@MrSqueers
To take screens during your game hit the printscreen button on your keyboard. It should save the screens to your Documents/MyGames/BeyondtheSword/ScreenShots folder. There is then a button to manage attachments which allows you to upload your screen to this website. However, alot of people open imageshack accounts and link their shots from there to save their quota on this site for posting games.

Thanks. But it's hard to take them because then you have to quit but you don't want to and all, know what I mean...

Thanks. But it's hard to take them because then you have to quit but you don't want to and all, know what I mean...

No you don't have to quit, you just hit print screen and it goes in the folder mentionned by jwez automatically.

Yeah, but then I'll have to go to the forums and post the screenshot, which is a bit of a pain.

Actually no. The screenshot(s) will stay in the folder until you're ready to post a report.