OK, the next installment has arrived, and rolo has warned that this map is a bit different from the usual maps we play. I have played some turns, and while it does seem a bit poor, resource wise, forest-chopping is going to create a massive amount of hammers. Also, given the semi-sparseness of resources, having a CRE leader is going to play a pretty decent role here. So here is the standard info:

Our leader = Zara has an excellent combo of traits, both of which aid in one of this games primary goal, grabbing land. His starting techs arent bad either, although unless you start with deer, you need foodto get some food techs going:
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0147.jpgHis UU and UB = The Steele and the Oromo Warrior. The Steele is an upgraded monument that also adds a percentage of culture overall, making Zara a culture monster. CRE plus this UB can overwhelm a TON of AI tiles in those "our close border" situations, and you can even use Zara to culture-flip like mad. In fact, in the Zealot PYL game a while back, one of the players tried the "no conquering, all culture-flip" style of taking over AIs. Crazy stuff like that is very possible.

In regard to his UU, what can I say, its HUGE. No need to push for Rifles with this thing, even drafted they are powerhouses. Watch out for those Immune to First Strike units, have counters in the stack, like Pikes, great combo with the Oromo, but being Immune to First Strike themselves, they are solid up against LBs, making them stronger city raiders than standard muskets:
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0149.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0150.jpgAnd the start. No Fishing, so its not tough to pick that opening tech, but as I said, this map has some interesting twists. Not sure what script rolo used, but its a very interesting look, thats for sure. You will see soon enough if your scout survives, heh, mine got ate pretty quickly:
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0148.jpgAnd here is the standard cut and paste of our Club Doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here, fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do request that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards.

Tentative posting updates are suggested at:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, etc)
500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didnt, met other continent if applicable, etc)
1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

Remember, these are only guidelines. What we really want are your thoughts as the game goes on, so if your strats dont fall into line with those dates, feel free to adjust your reports accordingly.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Once again, special recognition goes out to r_rolo1, our Map Maker, who sets these up for us (so I can play without peeking, heh, the WB needs to be modified) and also to Krick19, who came up with the idea of running a series like this for the less confident players. It is our goal to get folks to play and post without feeling self-conscious about being a "n00b" or asking dumb things. There are NO stupid questions! Learning this game is a process, not an event.

The WB-save is attached (zipped, they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, I suggest checking out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC X - Zara". This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Prince, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Also, it should be noted that although this is a "pre-Monarch" oriented series, you are welcome to play it at levels above Prince. However, the AIs will NOT get their full set of bonus techs. The main difference is Archery, which the AI normally gets for free at Monarch and above. The main affects of this are in the AIs starting units (warriors instead of archers) and it also creates a tad "slower" AI, since they now have to tech Archery themselves.

In addition, because of the variations of using the Scenario menu, your starting Scout/Warrior may not be in exactly the same spot as the one shown.

On to the game!

Did I miss the save?

Ugh my bad, I KNOW I attached it! (ok, maybe I forgot, I mean, I forgot in 3 or 4 others, and most of my SG turns, LOL).

It's been up for 2 hours straight and still no playthrough from TMIT? Kinda strange. :crazyeye: :D

Anyway, thanks for this thing, I'll be playing Emperor light for my very first time, so I expect to get killed in a long and bloody slogfest. It's gonna be fun! :)

i've been waiting for this, good show, zara is such a monster its not even funny.

interesting start...
emperor/normal for me.

I'm going to making my first solo attempt at Monarch this Nobles Club... (Which probably means I'll be begging for advice at about 3000BC) So... Monarch/Epic

Thoughts on the start

I'm not sure I'm liking this start much. These seafood starts always seem to slow down my opening game :sad: especially as we start without fishing. Techwise, I'll be boring and probably go for fishing first, B/working second, might even build a spare scout first as we seem to be on a choke point between 2 land masses.

Prince/Normal somewhere in the ADs.


The map is larger than I'm used to, but there are enough inland lakes one tile away from coasts that the cheap Lighthouses are proving to be excellent sources of food, which is rare on this map, it seems. I don't normally go wonder-happy with a non-Industrious leader, but I've chopped out Stonehenge, the Statue of Zeus, and the Shwedagon; still a few turns away from the Parthenon. I'm pondering a cultural victory; it'll be tough as no religions have spread to me yet. Montezuma in the south makes me nervous.

It's been up for 2 hours straight and still no playthrough from TMIT? Kinda strange. :crazyeye: :D

Anyway, thanks for this thing, I'll be playing Emperor light for my very first time, so I expect to get killed in a long and bloody slogfest. It's gonna be fun! :)

Give me a break, I work and have class mondays/tuesdays, and I want to play out the 2 immortal U games before this! I've been dabbling in people's other posted games too.

I might seem like I play a lot but I'm still human :eek::lol:!

No worries though, I'm very likely to have played this before the week is up ;).

Obviously we need BW and fishing early. Triple seafood can mean some nice whipping too which means it might be worthwhile to go sailing shortly thereafter, although since we can't see the entire initial BFC atm I'd say it does depend on that somewhat also.

Well, I tried Emp, but did not do well, I was so far behind in techs and military that I gave up (might have been able to salvage, but bleh, so much grinding). Restarted at Monarch, and of course, now I am killing, and I didnt really do much different, same cities, same tech path, same builds, but I am in a comfy lead in both techs and military (mostly).

@BleysCollosus! :lol:

Hi

Noble, Marathon 240 BC Loss :(

Grrr pretty much my own darn fault. I mean I DO know better but THOUGHT I was doing ok with Monty diplo wise. I had him up to pleased his worse enemy was Freddy so I ahd NOTHINg to do with him. I EVEN had my scouts all sentird around monty's borders JUST in case a stack headed my way, BUT after awhile I sent a couple in to scout Monty's lands so somehow a stack snuch through and before I knew it he DoW'ed and like 8 or 9 axes came rolling in and my cities NOWHERE near able to to handle em. I COULD probably whip like 3 or 4 from my cap if I send it down to pop 1 and then live with like HUGE unahhpiness for the next hundred turns or so but that wont save my other cities and by then it will be all over grrrr. Like I said my own fault I KNOW Monty is a loonie and diplo means NOTHING with him but trusted diplomacy anyways to buy me some time before I had to deal with him which was stupid of me grrr.

Probably part of dealio was I think it just seemed this map would be sooo unfun that my heart wasnt in it very much so I wasnt as careful as I should be. Thin snaky strips of mostly sucky land and only ONE way to start getting any kind of expanding going all of which pretty much kills org and creative traits plus starting techs not very helpful on this map either :/. and then NO calendar resources and darn few other resources. Two neighbors that can be a pain if you dont kill early but are so far away that rush is gonna be MAJOR pain at best. Especially on snaky map where it hard to go in stright line so you have to zig zag too em. It kind of like having isolated start without benefit of being isolated so it worst or both worlds :/.

I guess skill level of this series just going past me. It seems like used to be for most of the first few games the starts and maps were designed to be helpful to player but last few games they seem more like chosen to be extra obstacle. Which is good for most players here I guess. I mean even though it started out as noble level series I think pretty much EVERYbody who started out on noble is on to like monarch or emporer now so playing extra tuff maps is probably fun challenge but for plain old noble players like me I get crushed BIG time :( .
Kaytie

Well... I'm having a funny game here and its only 2000BC. Something very interesting happened in my game and I managed to document the event.

Update 2000BC - Monarch/Epic


Well I'm having a bit of a slow start. Settled in place, starting build was Scout > workboat > worker, teched fishing > Archery > Bronzeworking, met Mansa and Monty and then this happened...

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_01.jpg

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_02.jpg

Ouch! if you look at the pic I don't even have a Garrisson troop in Aksum! :cry: I switched to slavery in a last ditch attempt to try and save the game but... The Barbs decided they didn't fancy my undefended capital and wondered off :confused:

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_03.jpg

Out of curiosity I decided to follow them and guess where they end up?

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_04.jpg

and...

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_05.jpg

:lol: :lol: :lol:

After all this took place I decided to chop out the great wall, there was a lot of space on this map before Mansa died but now its huge! Here's my known world,

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo_2000BC_06.jpg

So I think its time to start getting some cities up fast. I'm going to make sure I leave plenty of space for barbs to get through and bother Monty.

@ KaytieKat

I've got to agree that the map sucks big time for Creative. It also sucks with the only food source being cows. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get steamrolled by Montezuma, too, but I do have one city that's dedicated to making military units and nothing else.

One interesting things about the map, though, is the ability to settle on the coast and have access to inland lakes, allowing for 3 food 2 commerce tiles when you build a cheap lighthouse.

But yeah, I've had a hard time with the last couple of Noble's Club games, as well.

@Kaytie and Bandobras
I have to admit that this map is not your ordinary map ( I told it to Bleys very explicitely and let him to decide if he would put it or if I would make another ) and my idea was to showcase some more "hidden" forces of the traits of Zara.... This map has few food, surely, but has a good deal of lakes and chokepoints and lots of woods, making easy to chop for protection or infra. This, like bandobras said, is also a good map for the cheap lighthouses and libraries of Zara ( and for a chopped colllosus ).

About Monty: well, you all know the drill... Monty is the usual nutjob and it is almost assured that he'll attack you sooner or later. His land is not that good and if you can outtech him things will be allright ( if he founds a religion you can direct him vs mansa easily )

To end: In spite of agreeing that this particular map is not that easy, I think that the problem comes from the players being unfamiliar with this kind of maps ( both the João tectonics as this one ( Planet generator, gently ceded by BUG 3.0 ). To say the truth I runned the João Map in real Emperor and I didn't finded it more hard than most of the fractal maps, simply a little diferent in terms of strats. And ( atleast IMHO ) this kind of clubs need to serve varied maps: besides breaking the monothony, it serves to show how to cope with various situations.....

@rolo:
This map is understandably giving people a rough time. My settling plan is using lakes as a "poor man's" food resource (3F with lighthouse) but I think that Mansa will beat me to Colossus given his tech rate here. (I'm trying, though :p)

Noticing that the capital is going to be hammer poor, I move 1S so as not to lose the hills.
Start with a worker (15) and bronze working (16). Will probably pull off a rush if we have a neighbor.
Scout got eaten by lions on turn 10 :lol:
Bronze popped 3N and I feel like an idiot for moving. A new city in the north will grab bronze/clams (this is what I had in my notes, but I changed this to the fish+bronze city further west, see map)
Meet the nearest neighbor, Montezuma, coming from the south on turn 24.
Teched fishing after BW and got a workboat out after the worker (helped by a chop, then teched off sailing (GLH is in my plans here.)
Also met Mansa in this round on turn 31 and drew the herbal medicine event on turn 46 (still one city)
Got the GLH in 1120 and then had massive barb problems (pillaged my gold, and made trouble in general, as usual)

Played up to 275 BC where I just settled a 4th city and have plans to keep expanding and generating some GSs to get my way back into the tech race (Mansa already has compass, alpha, and some others on me.)
Map:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/zara0000.jpg
You can see I'm working some cottages right now, even though they'll likely end up as farms later to fuel the TRE with big cities. Also, expect a HUGE settling run in the next round (I'd like to get 12~ cities peacefully, if not more)
@Kaytie/Bandobras:
I agree that the maps have been getting tougher and I don't necessarily agree with the decision.. I got eaten up in the De Gaulle game (granted I did play emperor and I wasn't ready..) and in the Joao game I had a rough time even though I was able to steal everything off of Izzy before she even got archers (monarch light) but still managed to scrape a win. I'd like to see a more "standard" type map for the next game, since the whole point of the series is supposed to be a more laid-back learning experience, but it's turning into something different, IMO.

I have to admit that this map is not your ordinary map ( I told it to Bleys very explicitely and let him to decide if he would put it or if I would make another ) and my idea was to showcase some more "hidden" forces of the traits of Zara.... This map has few food, surely, but has a good deal of lakes and chokepoints and lots of woods, making easy to chop for protection or infra. This, like bandobras said, is also a good map for the cheap lighthouses and libraries of Zara ( and for a chopped colllosus ).


To end: In spite of agreeing that this particular map is not that easy, I think that the problem comes from the players being unfamiliar with this kind of maps ( both the João tectonics as this one ( Planet generator, gently ceded by BUG 3.0 ). To say the truth I runned the João Map in real Emperor and I didn't finded it more hard than most of the fractal maps, simply a little diferent in terms of strats. And ( atleast IMHO ) this kind of clubs need to serve varied maps: besides breaking the monothony, it serves to show how to cope with various situations.....
I agree rolo, which is why I let the map stand as is. Its easy to play maps where you have 2 food resources every 5 tiles, this map requires a MUCH bigger understanding of city placement and strategic play rather than basic principles that most of us already know.

No worries though guys, we will go back to more standard layouts next round. I actually thought the Joao game was a piece of cake, but I closed Izzy off early and had an easy time from there.

This does prove what I have been saying all along, that "Difficulty" is not defined solely in the level you play, its a combination of factors that include map, speed, AI positioning, starting land area, etc. ALL those things come into the picture when talking about difficulty.

I would have been ecstatic to be Wang Kon on the map.

A psycho next door and good hills to settle on is a Protective dream.

I agree rolo, which is why I let the map stand as is. Its easy to play maps where you have 2 food resources every 5 tiles, this map requires a MUCH bigger understanding of city placement and strategic play rather than basic principles that most of us already know.

No worries though guys, we will go back to more standard layouts next round. I actually thought the Joao game was a piece of cake, but I closed Izzy off early and had an easy time from there.

This does prove what I have been saying all along, that "Difficulty" is not defined solely in the level you play, its a combination of factors that include map, speed, AI positioning, starting land area, etc. ALL those things come into the picture when talking about difficulty.
IMO, the whole point of the NC series was to learn basic principles to get people through the Noble/Prince difficulties. For those of us who've improved since the beginning, well, we can just choose monarch/emperor and play there, which, for most, is hard even on a normal map.
That said, I love a good challenge, so this map suits me just fine; although I do see where it would put some (if not most) people off.

To be honest I don't mind these unusual or tougher maps (although I'm kicking myself for picking this game to try Monarch!). :hammer2:

Heres the thing schwartz, at Noble, this map isnt all that hard. It gets harder for the human as you scale the difficulty, but so far, everyone who has mentioned it as being harder is playing their "working on beating" level. This is a HARD map if your trying to go up a difficulty, but its not so hard if you are playing your actual level, IMHO.

I mean, if we want easy, we can just throw HC out there every week, put stone and rivered gems in the BFC, and all the "advanced" players can beat the crap out of it on Emperor, while the Noble and Prince player have it won by turn 50. Thats not teaching anyone anything though.

I think a big problem with folks moving up in difficulties is that they dont have as much fun playing from behind. You cant always be the tech + power leader by 1 AD, you cant always win the Lib race, you cant always get away with doing exactly what you want to do every turn of every game, nothing gets learned that way except how to beat the snot out of the AIs by playing below your skill level. I cringe every time I see a Noble or Prince player execute a Warrior rush. Thats a clear indication that you need to move up, and try Axe rushes instead, because you "solved" a big part of that level.

This map is hard, but not impossible. Its very beatable, there is a LOT of land to be settled between the 2 AIs we share the landmass with, and with some basic diplomacy (like befriending the one its easier to keep happy and being ready to pound the one thats notorious for his insanity) you can lay a pile of cities out and just grind into the lead eventually (perhaps Lib on Monarch, Rifling on Emp, for example). But not everyone has fun grinding like that, they want fast-growing cities, easy access to resources and such, etc etc. As I said, if I want to play a game like that, I can regen HC starts til I get what I want and pound the AIs out of the gate.

@Bleys:
I see where you're coming from, no doubt.
As it is, I'm playing in my comfort zone on emperor, but I feel a bit slow on this particular map.
However, playing at Noble on this map, or any other, isn't easy for everyone so all I was saying is that we should just keep that in mind, in the future :)

@Groogaroo:
Get over to Mansa's former capital ASAP because the barbs will leave it empty. (Uprising barbs are programmed as city attackers only, IIRC.)
edit for untagged spoiler..

Deity/quick - up to 25 AD

Just kidding. I'm still playing emperor/epic! This does end 25 AD though.

Settled in place. We have a non-forest tile in the BFC so maybe copper or iron or something stupid and late lie uranium. Teching fish while building a warrior to scout, starting scout hugs coast to southeast.

3700 met MM
3300 work boat complete, going worker as BW is 4 turns off, I can chop future WB's out. We're on a peninsula and while MM is obviously not close (I found him already) there's still much exploring to do. I like to warmonger and it gets a lot easier if you expand well - and zara does this easily. Going for speed.
3200 Revolt to slavery. We have bronze! Teching the wheel next and then probably sailing.
3100 Montezuma, huh. He's buddhist. I want sailing ASAP to get his religion to me.
3000 Worker is whipped out. Going work boats then an axe or two then going to settle aggressively.
2825 MM founds and converts hinduism. Very very nice. I can now grab a religion and pick my ally.
2700 Archery from a hut - I got AG earlier too
2525 I have sailing - going for AH next as I see a gold/cow city that will hamper MM's expansion towards me.
2450 Finally found Monty's capitol, he's a long way off.
2225 Have AH - going for pottery/writing, then monarchy
1100 GLH goes :/. I wasn't even trying for it yet...!
800 Met Freddy and he has alphabet. He's NOT on this home continent - I've long since explored it all unless he's west of Monty. Must be in sailing reach.
725 I revolt to HR, going for currency
600 Monty asks that I cancel deals with MM ----> I accept
550 Monty asks for gold...I bend over again.
455 Buddhism spreads to me -----> I obviously take it.
275 Met Joao, and he didn't have monarchy so i traded it to him for IW.
155 Currency to Joao for alphabet, monarchy to monty for poly and 100 gold.
125 My 5th city picks up wheat/wine/copper/2 jumbos, and does much to wall Monty off from expanding east.
35 BC MM no longer shows as anyone's worst enemy - trade currency/monarchy to him for MC, masonry, 30 gold. I also complete CoL - an important tech for sure as I am pretty scattered with cities in blocking attempts.
5 BC Ah, FREDDY is now monty's worst enemy. Excellent that he switched worst enemies, allowing me to tech whore without penalty.
25 AD - I use my axes to take a barb city.

Thoughts:

I've read some comments that this is a hard map, but I can't agree with that. The terrain makes it easy to block MM away, and we get a 3 seafood start with multiple gold resources in reach along with jumbos - this means early :) and COMMERCE, commerce that can power REX. If you can manage diplomacy, there is a LOT of land you can expand into peacefully. Also, since MM isn't very aggressive just siding with monty and keeping an ok stack should be enough to survive.

And finally, some pictures of my empire at 25 AD:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/25ADcentral0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/25adnorth0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/25adsouth0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/25adtech0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/25adpower0000.jpg

I feel like I'm in excellent shape on this map - and again with no wonders at all. I have monarchy/currency/CoL before 1 AD and now have 6 cities that block off room for 12+ cities easily. I'm #1 power and the only aggressive neighbor near me hates someone else who is weaker.

I'd imagine once those courthouses finish I can finish expanding into most of the rest of the continent - there's some silver down there to take advantage of as well as some coastal seafood on the east etc. Eventually MM will get sailing and take that stuff so I want to beat him there. Just need enough axes/swords to keep people off of me, but it looks like that won't be too hard.

Edit: I respectfully disagree about the difficulty of the map. I don't think it's hard, although it obviously plays different from a lot of starts. Nonetheless, I had a harder time on earlier NC maps to this point, so I don't think it's out of the ordinary in terms of difficulty - it's a good map to learn from IMO.

Good points about the map TMIT. I think, perhaps, "hard" is the wrong term. I think the problem with this map is that it offers too MANY strategic choices.

Lets face it, many maps in these types of games end up with 5 or 6 players putting down cities on identical tiles, because they are "no brainers". This map, however, offers a multitude of solid, playable choices, and people dont LIKE that. They WANT simplicity and a bunch of those "no brainer tiles". Heh, just looking over your city placements, we both had the same exact plans in mind, but we have our cities 1 or 2 off, in fact, I dont think we have a single city in the EXACT same spot, and that speaks volumes about the map, since I consider both of us "reasonably strong" players.

My problem with my Emp try was speed. I REXed too fast, and even though I got the GLH, half my cities had no coastal routes! Took forever to get them connected (you actually have to see the route along the coast to use it, fog or closed bordered AIs cut you off). My economy fell apart, and while I might have pulled it off, I decided I didnt want to grind it out, went to my standard Monarch, and played the exact same game, basically, REXed just as fast, maybe I got a Work Boat exposing coast a bit sooner, but thats about it. And it was enough to put me into control.

So yes, I agree the map isnt "difficult" hard, its "strategic" hard, because there are very few no-brainer moves, mate, very very few.

After looking at some other games, I may revise my opinion about the map.

I haven't done too much to the North, I've been worried about making sure Montezuma doesn't grab too much land to the south. That double Gold site is rather nice. It still doesn't change for me that creative isn't quite the tool I would want for this map, but Organized is going to be good.

Hi

Just responding to some of the things mentioned here. I made a couple of direct refernces to current game. I DONT THINK they give away anything TOO revealing about game to ruin play for someone who hasnt started game yet but just in case I put it in spoilers.

Hmmm maybe the name of this series should be changed to Monarch Club/University or something. I think the focus has definitely changed from what it started out.

I think I am the only one posting on regular basis who actually is a noble level player. I am not saying I am a great noble player. It just difficult I play on. Some games I win easy peasy some games I get crushed so bad its silly and most games somewhere in between so I think it kinda puts me in as so so noble player.

I still have TONS of weaknesses but I can figure some things out. Like in my original post I stated how once I had land mass explored how this game was going to be at BEST a long slow grind for my skill level.

And that major factor for it would be because the map itself either by design or by accident was going to be an obstacle the player would have to overcome and deal with. Now when just the design of the map or the starting location is the challenge itself is whole different style of game with their own separate issues. And challenges in ADDITION to those which happen in more average type of game. Which is why series like LHC or just threads of the type “wow look at this crazy start--here is a save for anyone who wants a crack at it” get started.

Or in this case like rolo mentioned this start requires more of utilizing the “hidden” strengths of zara rather than the more obvious ones. Now for people like Rolo and Bleys and TMiT who are waaaaaaay beyond noble level difficulty I can see how this would be an interesting and added challenge to spice up their monarch/emperor level games. For someone like me, a so so noble level player who hasn’t even mastered the OBVIOUS strengths of Zara yet. It just means I am in for LOTS of banging my head on computer desk in frustration.

But since average regular player in this series are now more monarch level than noble level challenges like these are what the majority wiahes now to keep it interesting for them . And if so then fine just make sure to note that series is no longer about learning how to deal with things that trouble noble level players and more geared now for monarch level players.

Hopefully some noble level players can benefit from it still. But honestly. When someone of my skill level mentions how difficult the map is seeing players who are like 3 levels above me dismissing my comments with things that amount to “nah its easy if you play it right” or “well it was kinda hard on emperor but on monarch I had no problem so anyone on noble who has trouble is just a player who needs resources on every other square and should just go play HC and restart map until they get gold and gems in their bfc” or that they are just whining for “no brainer” games., doesn’t make it very encouraging for lower level players who would like to participate.

I mean I think there is a difference between saying that --considering that focus of series when first started by Knick was meant for people still trying to handle the more standard and common challenges in game that can trouble a noble level skilled player -- maybe the maps shouldn’t be designed with unusual extra challenges thrown in such as above average difficulty maps, (or in case of degaule game where map was loaded with Fin leaders all with super start locations to pretty much almost guaranteeing being out teched like crazy) and asking for every map to have 3 gold hills on rivers and 3 food sources in starting bfc.

But if the focus has changed that’s fine. I mean I am not even sure the person who first came up with idea is still around and it does seem like most people playing are way beyond noble now so it is understandable that things that would be challenging to a noble level player would be boring fro them and therefore need extra difficulties to keep their interest. I just think that maybe it should be mentioned that Noble’s Club really isn’t intended for noble level skill players anymore.


Kaytie

KaytieKat makes an excellent point. Noble difficulty puts the AI on equal terms as far as Happy/Health Caps, research rate, etc.

But a Noble player doesn't necessarily have an understanding of every facet of the game required to dominate -- otherwise, they'd likely move up.

The upshot of this is that the BtS AI (whatever one may say about its military strategy, it has been programmed to utilize all game mechanics, if not optimally, at least to good effect and with a thorough mathematical grounding that I couldn't keep track of if I tried) can often zoom ahead of a Noble player for no readily discernible reason even on a map that is, to an experienced player, a good start or a balanced start.

I've taken a look at my game again, and I'm afraid this is a hideous map for a Noble player trying to learn what Creative is good for. It's great for learning more about Organized -- if you happen to think about building cities touching a coast and having an freshwater lake in their Big Fat Cross. Other than that, your going to be looking at poor teching because you're not going to be finding the food to work cottages, water, or gold mines.

If you scouted to the south and found Montezuma underneath large tracts of forest, you'll likely do what any Noble player without Protective does -- panic. You'll be sending your cities south to try and make sure he doesn't get too much land, and if your scout gets eaten by a bear, you won't even see the other genuinely useful city spot near Mansa. Creative will expand your city borders in a hurry, but there's just not much to grab -- half of the stuff near your starting position is either plains hills or tundra without the food to really work them. It took me a long while to realize that the Plains Gold southeast of the start actually had two farmable Grasslands, and I nearly made drastic mistakes with my other cities before thinking of using the Lighthouses to improve the inland lakes. With such vast tracts of tundra and forest to the North, you're not going to think of settling there unless by chance you sent your scout that way at the start -- all these things add up to something a Noble player is going to find daunting if not impossible. A Noble player with Zara Yaqob is probably hoping that they can grab some good city sites to get a strong economy with. Those sites are not there on this map. There are some reasonable ones with a little unorthodox thinking, but that's precisely the thing that Noble level players aren't usually going to be working with.

As a Noble player, I was still often clueless as to why I would win some games and lose others. Unorthodox thinking presupposes this foundation.

A warning that a particular map might be difficult and even some spoiler suggestions in the start (for example, the Lighthouse/Lake trick) for such a map might mitigate this and be more conducive to helping Noble players learn the ins and outs of the game.

@KaytieKat:
Incidentally, and completely off-topic, that's a cool name. When did you first start using it?

I feel this map plays to Zara's traits pretty well actually (or rather, Zara is a monster but that's besides the point).

Creative is an excellent walling-off trait and to that effect it has a lot of value on this map (on top of the usual cheap libraries). In fact in this map in particular I really liked having it. Organized is of course a 100% usage trait - its benefits are quite passive as you use courthouses in most cities regardless and civic upkeep reductions are again not something one needs to plan for (maybe feel less damage from high upkeep civics, if that's worthy of planning). In other words, Zara has two average-to-good traits that are generally useful on all maps in my opinion. Not much special effort needed to make use of them.

The problem with this map is that it looks different from other maps. It definitely isn't harder than other maps per se', but its differences make optimal play different - less whipping for me. It may not be something good for noble players, but it's hard to judge beforehand even for skilled map makers like Bleys/Rolo.

Why?

There's so much chance that goes into it. In one of the LHC games Rolo commented that he didn't think an AI would do ANYTHING given its start. That same AI wound up being a consistent problem in many games - pushing for domination, winning backdoor diplomacy via forcing tons of capitulations, or straight-up invading the player. I'd say such performance is a bit more than nothing ;). Or, take this map for example. My opening went quite well, but one of the reasons is that I DIDNT LOSE SCOUTING UNITS TO ANIMALS. I didn't lose the opening scout until a barb warrior sniped it around 1000 BC. I never lost the first warrior I made - it's garrisoned in one of my cities for HR :). Why does this matter? Well, it let me see the ENTIRE CONTINENT, including all relevant AI start locations, before they'd settled their second city. Indeed, a large portion of my strategy came as a result of seeing this - but what if I'd lost one of those units, and failed to even meet one of the AIs as a result before settling a 2nd or 3rd city (quite plausible)? I'd look a LOT weaker, in fact depending on some other draws I could even wind up in a losing positions.

Look how religions shook out too. What if they hadn't? Again, entirely different game depending on who founds what.

I do think that for NC, the map makers should try to make games suitable for noble-level players (I play these games often to relax a bit or for testing things sometimes, and lighter difficulty helps there). However, I will comment that thinking that you have such a map vs actually having one are two different things. I know from experience things I thought would be very easy starts turned out quite hard, and vice versa.

Even pre-conceived thoughts about the map can vary outcomes - seeing comments on the difficulty of this map, I brought my "A" game to it, which I might not have to such an extent otherwise.

Overall I think Bleys/Rolo have done pretty well with this series but going forward I think the focus should still be winnable/relatively obvious decision trees for noble players. I didn't think this map was that bad after playing that stupid map nintendotogepi put out though :lol:. Gotta love tectonics high sea level islands maps.

Edit: Hints for players on maps like this could potentially be very helpful. I have a very high failure tolerance when having set a goal to improve, but even for me it would have been very nice early on in this series ---- if the decision isn't overtly obvious but it's an optimal play, maybe a spoilered suggestions tab would be worthwhile. Of course, this is just a suggestion and it may put unnecessary strain on those kind enough to run the series, but nevertheless it would be nice for players new to maps like this.

Note: I didn't actually make a point of settling coastal tiles to lighthouse freshwater lakes :lol:. Not once in that turnset did I consider doing that - I definitely just settled the resources best I could...shows I have a ways to go even if I managed to look good occasionally ;).

Emperor/Epic (my actual game settings :p)

Lots of talking about this map, time to play it! This segment goes to 1500AD, and luck allows me to do some outlandish things. I don't want to spoil it, but it's hard to get luckier than I did early on in this segment. I could in theory still lose this game but I'd almost have to try to thanks to this kind of luck :p.

130 alpha to monty for 110 gold and monotheism.
160 Sold CoL to MM for gold
175 MC to Joao for construction and 60 gold
235 I get CS, bureaucracy instantly. Paper/education next, no reason not to push for lib and trade for needed military techs ----> I'm in good military shape atm
340 CS to MM for theology and 170 gold.
400 Theology to Joao for calendar and 60 gold
475 AD monty had too much on his hands. I knew it wasnt me. Was it freddy or mm??? It was MM. He autorazes a city up there. Time to help I guess...MM has the hindu shrine!
685 Monty asks I once again cancel deals with MM. I agree - don't worry monty. I'm going to do something you will like even more shortly.
715 AP is built in buddhism, by Joao I believe
790 Dow MM ---> don't want Monty getting these cities. I want them.
805 Freddy is bribed into war against me. I chuck monty theology to DoW him, since he'd just made peace with MM.
960 Freddy takes 5 gold for peace. AP forced monty to stop war on him earlier.
990 Met asoka --- probably not isolated because he's teched well. Confucian.
1050 AP forces war on MM
1060 My forces capture Timbuktu - it has TWO SHRINES. Hindu and Jewish
1080 Asoka declares on me...?
1110 Joao is near the lib race with makes me just take it. Interesting tech choice though ----> I take...DIVINE RIGHT!!! Nobody has founded it yet, giving me an excellent shot at those wonders and with a lot of cities. 2 shrines and spiral sounds very enticing, like the kind of advantage that gets you infantry vs rifles later.
1140 The war isn't stopping me from plopping settlers down, I continue to settle in the SE of continent as well. Note that the very southern part of the continent is terrible (literally about 1/2 peaks) so I decide to leave that alone.
1170 I knock MM off the map. Guess what? This last city has the CHRISTIAN SHRINE. This feels dirty :p.
1190 AP votes to declare on Asoka :lol:. That's now 3 AI's at war with him too. I...negotiate peace ;). It's time for missionary spam, grabbing a barb city, and settling 2-3 more sites. I might get Univ of Sankore and will definitely get Spiral minaret, so missionary spam here will make me a very, very powerful force in the near future as cottages grow. I'll be able to run the slider ridiculously high.
1230 Although I AM already getting 311 BPT at a slight deficit ;).
1250 U of Sankore completed in capitol (I'm in bureaucracy and believe it or not I put Maoi there :lol:). Not bad as I also have colossus now!
1320 Spiral Minaret is mine.
1325 Joao makes a colony - lincoln. I capture the barb city of Estruscan...Monty had a lone jag there - not gonna cut it against longbows monty.
1345 Switch to FM and FS
1350 False war with Asoka to please monty ----> nobody I care about likes asoka...!
1360 The new AP resident is me since I've been spreading the religion around :).
1370 Great Prophet pops...:rolleyes:. Well I did found islam...
1470 Sign defensive pact with both Joao and Monty - both are at friendly ;).
1490 GE pops. Good timing - I was thinking about SoL too...!
1495 Taj completes.
1500 State of the empire:

Dominating at the moment :lol:. I have FOUR shrines, 3 of which are quite lucrative. I'm spamming missionaries and making some military in 2 cities although the defensive pact with both monty and Joao along with control of the AP would make me a daunting target regardless. Not #1 in tech but in a position where I will be very soon at this rate. Missionary spam has caused me to neglect the final 2 cities I'll make on my own...well that and early war on MM.

At this time of the game it's time to pick a victory condition. I have a number open to me - space, cultural, UN diplo (vassalize a couple idiots and GG), and military. Culture is really interesting here - I don't have to get astronomy to obsolete steel, I am huge with strong defensive pacts, and I have 5 religions which I'm spamming regardless. Yes, culture would make sense.

Does anyone believe I'll actually go that route though?! I'm thinking I'll grab me some infantry/marines, and then do some mix of an across-the-ocean Asoka amphibious assault and betraying Montezuma. I probably don't have to betray him, but I think that would be cooler. Who knows though...maybe I'll just take a naval show on the road further to freddy or vicky since people don't really like them either. We'll see...that way would mean a lot less potential AP pain.

Goal ATM is conquest or domination, or if I get tired of that UN. Highlight reel:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/790admmdow0000.jpg

Declaring on MM - he has longbows but no iron so no Xbows. Thankfully no copper either so no maces. If he had such annoyances Monty probably wouldn't have attacked him so early. Anyway it was a pretty easy war, longbows are nothing special when faced with lots of siege with few cities to produce such defenders.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1500ADsouth0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1500ADcentral0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1500ADnorth0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1500Techs0000.jpg

Could be worse - the GA is really convenient as it will let me switch to emancipation/rep/merc easily and I'll GE the statue of liberty for some utter nonsense. 2 free rep specialists in every city, and both religious building wonders. Kesshi would be so proud :p.

I tend to agree with KaytieKat. I started playing this series, when it started out. Played the first few games as noble and I think I learned something doing that. I compared how I started to how everybody else started, I looked at the dot maps about city placing (and the explanations why which city was placed where and when).

After that, my mainboard died. I didn't have a computer on which to play civ for about three weeks and a lot of different things to do in the following weeks.

When I started playing again, I noticed that there are no more dotmaps about city placement. And not that much talk about which technology when. The things that helped me a lot in the first games a simply not there any more. Instead most people seem to be playing somewhere in the high leagues, totally unreachable for me.

I lost every single one of the last three games I tried. I even lost some on noble although I was up to prince in normal games. This series is not teaching me anything anymore, it's frustrating me. I still look at the new games that come out but I don't really play them any more.

And somehow I don't think that new noble players get that much out of these threads...

Everything that Kaytie/Siran/BT said is what I was trying to say ;)
This series has become something it wasn't intended to be. Understand, I'm happy that all of us are better than we were in the beginning, but the Noble's Club games should still be the place to go to learn the basics, like it was in the beginning. To win at Noble/Prince, and maybe even Monarch, all you need is the basics. There's no need for any deep understanding of the game, just a very solid grasp of the basics (planning cities properly, proper specialization, diplomacy, good tech trading, etc..) and that's what the NC games, IMO, were always about.
As to what Siran said, about the lack of explanation about city placement and such, I know I'm guilty of having a very superficial report, and I probably should go in depth more, like I did earlier, but I get too involved in my games now :p

EDIT:
TMIT also makes a good point about how hard it is to find a start that both looks and plays easy. Also, you obviously have varied results based on what the RNG throws at you so some people may get lucky vs others getting stiffed.

Round 2 (Image heavy, this time :))
Started out by teching currency after math and popping some axes out of Gondar, which also has gold and some cottages. Lalibela, which grabs fish + 4 lake tiles is building up towards running scientists, as is the capital.
1 AD I met Joao's workboat coming over from the west along the island chain, I send my own worboat back that way to see if I can't open some good foreign trade routes with him.
In 50 AD I drop down a new city, Yeha, here:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg
it grabs some grassland cows and a gold + coastal so the GLH will help pay for it.
100 AD:
Pop the first GP, a merchant from the GLH, in the capital and settle him there so my science slider stays up.
I need to pause for a moment and talk about why Zara is actually very, very good for this map.
Being Creative seals off land nicely, but also gets half price libraries, which are quick to build in every city and add a nice multiplier to the extra trade routes from the GLH.
Organized gives you cheap civics, but gives you the half price courthouses and, more importantly, lighthouses. Most cities are going to use a lighthouse and they are extremely cheap as organized. This also allows you to use freshwater lakes quicker, and they are better, actually, than a grassland farm with their 2 commerce.

Moving on, there is a solid barb city in the south, Magyar, that I want. Right now it's on a plains hill and my military is non-existent, but I will have it eventually.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

Currency came in at 150 AD, and I could immediately bump the slider up to 80%. My expansion is going very slowly, right now, but I'm teching at a decent clip and more cities will just add more beakers :)

Monty comes calling:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

and I have to accept, of course. I also sent Currency over to Joao for Alphabet, Archery, and 15 gold this turn.

At this point I notice my main problem, which is that I don't have very many workers. This is, I think, the most common mistake that most people make, you can't have cities working unimproved tiles, and if you're relying on trade routes, like I am here, you need a road network or coastal passage ASAP.

Monty soon came with another demand
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg which this time, I had to refuse. I can't go giving him a strong tech like currency..
Take a look at the strength of the GLH:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

Notice that I have 4 3 commerce trade routes. That's like working 2 financial towns at this point (pre-free speech). Very solid, for sure.

On this turn I also found a hut in the south, with my axeman, he attacks the protecting warrior and:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg
WOW!

Check out this next city:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
Right up against monty's border, but it's a good spot, if I win the cultural battle (easy, with the stele, creative, cheap library) I get grassland cows, wheat, ivory and the city center is on plains ivory, which is an extra hammer as well.

But the really intriguing thing is the full plan here, though:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg
If I settle on the sign, I can SMOTHER Monty's city here culturally. I also have a bunch of techs on him so I can send him Mansa hunting :p

Another turn, another solid city:
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg
snug on Joao's border, but also will have a few hammers.. I'll probably put the statues here.

That's about all for this round :)
Here's the tech screen, we're behind, but not terribly far..
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/jsschwa/NC%20X%20-%20ZY/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg
CS will be a good trading tech and Bureaucracy is looking pretty good right now.
I really need to get Monarchy and run HR because of the huge lack of :) resources.
I did try to get a better report this time, with some explanation to my plans.

I do agree with all those issues, guys. This map is indeed something "deeper", and recently, we have been working on some of the more advanced aspects of the game.

I will try to go back to our roots, easier maps with strong leaders that focus on a specific aspect of play, like religion, warmongering, peaceful building, CE vs SE, Water Map basics, etc. I have already asked rolo to do us a "supplementary" map with Zara, something a bit more straight-forward.

I will say this though, I do agree with TMIT that this map really demonstrates the power of Zara quite well. Its packed with choke points, and since they arent so close to the Cap, ORG comes into play pretty heavily. CRE + the Steele can choke out any AI. And while it is a tad food-poor, it showcases solid city placement that carve out chunks of land for settling later on. These are not "advanced" skills, using Culture to cut off the AIs is pretty basic. Using ORG to support cities a bit far from the capitol is also kind of a basic skill needed at levels above Noble. Learning these techniques first-hand is a strong way to gain skill for that next level. I do admit, however, that the map isnt as "fun" as some others have been, so I will try to make sure that future maps can be both instructive and fun.

These are not "advanced" skills, using Culture to cut off the AIs is pretty basic. Using ORG to support cities a bit far from the capitol is also kind of a basic skill needed at levels above Noble.
Unless I've misunderstood the way Org is implemented, it only has an effect on civic cost, not city maintenance (including the distance component).

Granted, half-price courthouses can be whipped more quickly, but the trait doesn't directly make settling further away cheaper.

Hey I'm jumping into this game.

I'm playing Noble for the first time without Incans/Pangea, so I'm ready for a bit of a tough time.

Rd. 1:
425 B.C. Noble/Epic

The early game started out fairly well, though I think I've made my fair share of mistakes. For one, I maybe should have moved one south to settle. I saw someone else made that move, and I think it's probably the right one to make. So it goes.

I was able to explore the continent with minimal difficulty. In fact, since I was able to consistently get the defensive bonus from the abundant forests and hills, I was able to explore most of the continent before either Monty or Mansa had constructed their second city. Goodie huts were plentiful; providing me with a couple warriors, a few hundred gold, and Agriculture.

Early tech-line: Fishing was first, followed by getting bronze working so I could start chopping for a settler (which revealed the copper which lead to Roads) and Pottery for growth. Iron Working was soon after to reveal the resource. After that, I teched to Priesthood for Oracle and masonry for Marble, then Writing and Alphabet so I could start trading the techs I'd left behind. Currently researching Monarchy for Hereditary Rule.

I sent out my first settler around turn 70, and founded Gandor here:
183254

I'm not sure that I really love the placement, but there are a couple reasons why I founded it there:
1. Resources; my burgeoning capitol is already suffering from unhappiness and unhealthiness, so the cows and gold should help a bit. Access to horses is, obviously, advantageous.
2. Block off Monty. I'm not sure this is a great a idea, but I've decided to go for it anyway. He's already over-extended himself, so far as I can tell. There was a barb city just a little SW of Aksum, which Monty has taken over for his third city; it shouldn't be too much trouble taking it from him, but I am somewhat concerned about retaliation.
3. It had some forests which enabled me to chop The Oracle.

- Oracle Race -

Soon after founding my second city, I decided I was in trouble and had to build the Oracle. I whipped a settler from the capitol, and sent him off with an axeman escort here:
183255

Again, I'm not crazy about the city placement, but it gave me access to Marble, which I needed to get the Oracle out. I won the Oracle race and learned Metal Casting, which will help start to reduce the unhappy faces that have been mounting (and will continue to as I crack the whip :D )

-- Future Plans --

Here's my empire so far:
183259


And here's where I plan to found my next city:
183263


I want access to that Iron, and if I finish building the Colossus, the coastal squares will be fairly decent too. Depending on what's across that little strait, I may end up moving the city one NW. If anyone's got advice on a better placement, please share.

Besides this city, there's a bit of a complicating circumstance... Monty. Since Mansa and I are religious brethren I can rest easy about him, but Monty's a whole different animal. His nearest city is very close, and I'm afraid he'll have access to Iron very quickly if I don't move against him soon. Although I'd rather just grow my empire for awhile, I know I can't trust Monty to be cool for any length of time, so I'm thinking I'll bring it to him before he can take me by surprise.


Anyone who wants to offer constructive criticism (or just out-and-out bashing, if you really want to) would be greatly appreciated.

And while it is a tad food-poor, it showcases solid city placement that carve out chunks of land for settling later on. These are not "advanced" skills, using Culture to cut off the AIs is pretty basic.

Er . . . cut the AIs off from what, exactly? There's not much point to sending a bunch of settlers to either Montezuma's or Mansa's territory; they're too far away. Using Creative to cut off AIs is indeed a basic skill; I would have relished a map where it was viable/made a significant difference. ;) In my own game, I've been using big culture to make sure that there's plenty of space between Montezuma's troops and my cities, but I've had to spend so much attention on Montezuma that I've not given much thought to Mansa, who's currently at the bottom of the score chart without my having done a single thing in his direction.

As far as my own game, I finished out the Parthenon and used a Great Prophet and Great Arist to bulb Divine Right, founding Islam. I got an annoying "your improvements have been destroyed by rioting" event. Got to remember to manage happiness a bit better. :) Other than that, Montezuma thankfully declared war on Victoria. It seems my city devoted to axemen was sufficient to keep him off my back, but we'll see (unless that event has permanently put me off of the game . . . I had to quit when that happened or I might have broken something. :))

The cheap courthouses from ORG are what I was referring too to help with the distance factor.

And BT:
I cut Monty off here, with these 2 cities ensuring the SE portion of the map was open for me to settle:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0155.jpg

And I cut Mansa off here, limiting him to very few cities for a LONG LONG time:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Bleys_bucket/Civ4ScreenShot0156.jpg

I didnt settle the areas in between these cities and my cap until very recently, after Currency and CoL. If I had not built those cities, Mansa and Monty would both have gained much more land, as they AIs can settle many more cities than the human player because of the decreased maintenance they pay.

Again, I think the problem people have with this map is there there arent a lot of "grab 4 resources" spots to settle, its resource and food poor, but hammer rich, with tons of forests to chop and hills to mine. I dunno, maybe I am wrong about that, can someone explain to me why they think this map is "hard"?

Bleys: What's your game speed?

Unless I've misunderstood the way Org is implemented, it only has an effect on civic cost, not city maintenance (including the distance component).

Granted, half-price courthouses can be whipped more quickly, but the trait doesn't directly make settling further away cheaper.

While true, from a pure $$$ standpoint it doesn't matter which facet of costs ORG is cutting - the fact of the matter is you can settle further away than other traits and pay the same amount of gold. While you'd pay even less if you'd settled closer, the reduction in civic upkeep allows for abusing settling strategy more than other traits. Of course courthouses are nice too.

@ BT: There are two viable examples of using creative to block posted already ;). By chance I managed to *really* screw one of the AIs I did it to, and greatly limited the other - one of the key factors in my success thus far.

@ ViaArete: I like your tech path thus far (now a fan of early monarchy), and wonders are a matter of strategic choice. Expansion is a little on the slow side and you could certainly use more workers - also mind barbs with that city placement. I disagree on the 4th city and think you should us it to claim the nice tiles that will be out of its range to the east, although I've not seen 2 equivalent city sites in that area yet.

@ Everyone in general: In my walkthroughs I list what techs I'm going for, and not only that but the dates in the early game (when it matters vs just tech path choice). I'm pretty sure I even mention the majority of my trades up until 500 AD when it gets annoying to :/. I will apologize in advance about dotmaps - I'll never post them. I never did actually :p. My mentality is usually just throwing cities down where they benefit me the most quickly - I want fast returns as in Civ IV I find that the early game is the hard part for me and that I can take advantage of early strengths and turn them into game-long ones. I actually put some thought into city placement on this map for a change, but that was less for city optimization than it was for the strategic decision of blocking the AIs off. You can see what walling off led to in my 2nd segment - I got away with something you'd not get away with even on lower difficulties because of it.

Bleys: What's your game speed?
He's playing Epic ( 750 turns in screenie ;) )

Do you think epic speed allows you to scout the map twice as much before placing a settler?

Edit: Not to mention more relative time to move your Settlers before settling them?

Do you think epic speed allows you to scout the map twice as much before placing a settler?

This is my first Epic game. There's a huge difference in the amount I was able to explore prior to building the settler. The speed change is kind of disorienting, actually. It takes me longer to build units and then they move around relatively faster... It is taking some getting used to, but I don't think I'll be going back to Normal anytime soon - I can see slower speed being incredibly advantageous for warring.

Do you think epic speed allows you to scout the map twice as much before placing a settler?

I think it lets you scout it 1.5 times as much ;). My first build was a warrior though, so I scouted along the coast in both directions. The key factor in settling strategy then on this map is less the speed (no quick though, you'd probably not be able to scout much on quick) than it is KEEPING SCOUT UNITS ALIVE.

DaveMCW is a big advocate of exploring along the coast. I agree for several reasons (as if it matters, he's a lot better than me): You see the landmass shape more quickly, you actually reveal more map tiles, you open up sailing trade routes, and it's fairly efficient in terms of scouting. Finally, there are less directions animals can surprise you from so you have better statistical chances of not losing exploring units (though it definitely still happens).

On epic I actually had looped most of the continent before I settled a city (seafood starts like this usually delay the settler slightly, although once set up can churn them out faster than normal). IIRC there were only tiny pieces of fog here and there around 2k BC!

Normal should scout about 2/3 of what epic does as that's how units move relative to building speed on the two difficulties.

rolo is right, I play Epic, I think its the most "natural" of the speeds. I also now consider myself "60% Emperor" which means I feel I can win Random/Random on Emp 60% of the time (have been running a lot of half-games at Emp and to find my "pace" and streamline my play, because I think pace and streamlining are HUGE factors in going up levels once you hit Monarch)

I honestly do understand why some feel this map is more difficult than others, its because you just cannot grab hold of the lead and keep adding to it. You have to play a bit from behind. Usually, in these Monarch Light games, I feel like the game is won by the time I hit Lib, since I often have a commanding lead, but this game, I have been changing the lead with 2 other AIs for the last 100 turns. I have lost a pile of techs to Espionage (Nationalism, those buggers!) and watched as they traded em among themselves. I cannot run as many cottages as I would like, I simply do not have the food. None of my cities are growing as fast as my "usual" style, because I am a big fan of the Slavery Based FE for the first half of the game. In fact, I stay in Slavery most of the game, but this game, its hard to whip, because each pop takes so long to grow back.

Seriously guys, give me some thoughts about what you feel is harder about this map. I do not mind making more "play themselves" maps, but I dont see a big problem here. Yes, its a tougher than normal map, but so what? Every game cant be a cherry-picker, I felt the Joao map was very solid, and the De Gaulle map pretty much "played itself", with stone in the BFC, rivers to settle in the south, LOTS of resources, and such wimpy AIs as Liz and Pacal. I am not trying to come off as abrasive here, I really do want some specific thoughts about the map. I dont mind a bit of WB editing to add a resource here, or remove a tile there, etc etc.

I said twice because you have relatively fewer moves before Barbarian Warriors start showing up. They will wipe out your scout unless you get lucky.

I would say that's the biggest difficulty with me -- optimal play on this map requires more scouting than can reasonably expected on normal speed.

Edit:
For example, blocking off Montezuma would have been great -- if my scout hadn't been killed by a Barbarian Warrior before being able to really scout out the land so I could make an intelligent choice to do so. I don't play by sending my Settlers off into great distances in unexplored territory on the chance that I'll be able to block of Montezuma and be able to defend such a blind town with reinforcements that take far longer to arrive, relatively, than on epic. I may restart this and post some screenshots and ask what plays people would make based on what I've scouted so far, but I think people are underestimating how much extra info and settling options you get from longer game speeds.

IMO the hard things about it are as follows:

1. Spawn distance from nearest AIs -----> less ability to benchmark what you're doing. Also, it changes the build a bit since there's so much peaceful expansion - THIS much peaceful expansion is unusual and it affects people's timing.
2. Building on above, the food. Everyone's mentioned it. I whipped a lot less in this game - by necessity. A lot of cities have to rely on a lone cow or wheat and (if you're smarter than me) some lake tiles. ANOTHER adjustment to make.
3. The neighbors - players have to balance a tech whore and a warmonger while sandwiched.
4. No stone/marble (at least not before like city # 3-4 for stone if you want it (and it'd be a bad city) and MUCH later for marble) - a lot of players default to wonders when they have a ton of room to expand. There's not much going on here that supports wonders other than trees though. Wonders will build incredibly slowly and a lot of players don't like that. My first wonder was university of sankore!

It's just a combination of factors ----> unfamiliar terrain/starting situation/a rough neighbor.

I didn't think it was any worse than Joao, honestly, but the last few NC maps have played a bit harder. I'd say after De Gaulle it started getting rough. De Gaulle was reasonable for noble players - you had the ability to build wonders or attack the weaksauce leaders nearby, with the biggest threat being sury.

Edit: I've seen players do VERY similar things on normal speed, although they're generally from the Immortal University crowd. IMO you can easily scout your neighbors and then some by the time you see stuff other than animals on normal. The problem is that some animals will easily kill scouts anyway, and neither speed has an answer for that :(. I hate the idea of animals, I'd turn them off if I could still leave barbs on, or just make them extremely weak so maybe you still have to escort stuff.

Seriously, what animal group could take out a group of armed men? A unit represents a large # of people. Is civ a world where you get attacked by 1000 bears (is this the golden compass? Do they have armor?). I really hate losing scout units to animals. Even worse is when they attack and kill a warrior en route to attacking an AI...there's something logically wrong with that picture.

Edit #2: I actually built an extra warrior to scout straightaway, and later popped another from a hut or I might have built a 3rd. You're absolutely right on making decisions based on scout information, which is why I'm willing to slow myself down a bit to get that info.

Update
Round 2 (565 AD):

At the beginning of this round, I wasn't feeling to pleased with my position, and was thinking that my first challenging Noble game would be a miserable experience. I knew I was ahead in tech, but was highly concerned about my cities' poor health and unhappiness (not to mention an unhappy neighbor). Lucky for me, things would be changing rather quickly...


My primary concern entering this round was Monty. He was expanding his empire rapidly, apparently by capturing barb cities. He'd acquired one very close to my empire (seen in the screen below), and I figured it wouldn't be long before he was on the attack.

183274\

I learned Theology so I could get the +2 experience from Theocracy, and started pumping out Axemen. After roughly 10 were built/whipped I checked the demo screen to get an idea of where I was at and I saw I was in 1st, but slightly. Figuring Monty was right behind me, I went after that first city, Scythian (former barb city). It was guarded by a couple Jaguars and an Archer, but fell quickly. A few reinforcements arrived while my stack healed, and we marched on to Teohiticuan (sp?) where, again, minimal resistance was found, and led to a march to the capitol Tenochtitlan. The capitol was a better better defended, but was still captured. Although the Aztec Empire was now in shambles, my stack was decimated and I called a Peace Treaty soon after capturing the Tenochtitlan.

This really would not have been possible without a couple of lucky events coming my way: First, a great merchant popped in the capitol and bulbed Currency. Soon after, Mansa came along trying to purchase Theology, but would up with Currency for 405 gold:eek: . The newly-infused cash allowed me to continue teching while my stack conquered the Aztecs and my cities built happy and health buildings.

Here's the empire at the end of the round (Tenochtitlan is still in revolt):
Original area (plus Scythia):
183275

Newly conquered area:
183276

Place of next city placement (revised):
183274


Goals for next round include:
- Eliminate Monty
- Control (some of the) Northern portion of this continent
- Decide what to do with Mansa
- Figure out what's going on in the rest of the world...

Goals for game:
- Domination Victory


Aside from my game, and to comment on the map, itself:

I can definitely see the difficulty people are having with this map, and I think it stems largely from the food supply (as has been mentioned a few times already) and peaks. In most of my games, the desert and mountain ranges are generally devoid of food, and might contain a resource or two. The difficult part about this map is that, in order to get the resources and food you're after, a few tiles have to be sacrificed to peaks.

I don't think that the map is terribly difficult, but it definitely requires looking at it differently than usual, and *that's* what makes it challenging.

Hi

My 2 cents bout game difficulty and some other stuff.

I think mostly TMiT covered lots of them. Low food. Low health. Neighbors who are a pain to deal with. Screwy map that requires lots of adjustments to more standard style of play on more average maps.

I managed to scout out the land mass pretty good before Monty came in with his axes. My build order was a scout while teching fishing and then I also got a scout from a goody hut plus I play on marathon so I got good lay of land by point my game ended.

And my heart sank about enjoying this game since all I saw when I went through game in my head was smally sickly cities taking forever to to grow and produce anything and taking even longer than normal since most would have to be working on making troops to go deal with monty. Where even if I ended up winning somehow it would be a long unfun grind.

I think some fo the problem is perspective. Like when bleys mentioned trying this map on emp first and finding it an unfun grind. And then trying it again on monarch felt it played better. Thats from a monarch skill level perspective. From a noble skill level perspective this map would be just as much an unfun grind on noble as someone on Bleys level found it on emperor.

I think thats what I mean when i say series feels like it losing focus. When series first started I think idea was mostly like hey we are gonna do basic maps playing basic style which is still always not easy for noble level players but we can learn from each other and if any higher level players want to try then coolies. I mean yeah we know players that high are gonna own these kinds set ups but by showing how it was so easy for them it would still help the noble level players.

Then as more and more of regulars posting started turning out to play on prince and then monarch and higher the focus seems to have shifted perspective to be what would be "challenging" or interesting for people on monarch-emperor skill level. But the things that make it challenging and interesting on monarch skill level tend to make it unfun frustrating grind on noble level. And things that may seem boringly easy on noble to a monarch level player are still very challenging to noble level players.

One difference in perspective is in what players "see" when they look at a game. I mean some have seen this game as a "straight forward" use of creative trait to block people and dont get how some have said it doesnt feel like map offers chance to get much use out of creative.

Well from my perspective a "straight forward" use of creative for blocking is more like a big wide open map like pangea or something with lots of space and not very crowded and coming to a gap were other leaders might need 3 or 4 cities to cut off a space a creative leader would just need 2 and count on getting faster border pops to cover the gaps. On map like this full of thin choke points my mind was pretty much more with whoever said they would have been thriilled to be Wang on this map. Little thin chokepoints dont need wide borderpoping cities just walls and tuff archers. Pluss all the coast would make financial much handier. So while from a monarch level perspective this map may be straight forward on how to use creative it isnt so straght forward to lower skilled players.

Or what would be a "no brainer" city site for monarch level player is STILL very much hit or miss for noble level. So deciding to make a map with more "subtle" city site locations and avoid what from a monarch perspective would be boring unchallening "no brainer" decisions is gonna be VERY frustrating to those of us who still havent even figured out all the obvious "no brainer" decisions yet.

And yeah maybe sometimes a tuffer map where say-- potential city locations are LOTS more subtle then normal or difficult neighbors are present but are too far away to just rush asap so have to be contained some other way or resources are poor or hammers and lack of easy growth are such that chopping will be MAIN source of hammers and NOT just something for wonders and big projects or that all lakes dictate more of some kind of lighthouse ecoonomy since most land tiles wont be worth working or worked as easily--may be a learning experince once in a while where ONE of those things is thrown in to be dealt with. But a map where ALL those curves are thrown in at once--from perspective of people still trying to get hang of basics on average noble game--is beyond challening to just plain frustrating and unfun.

Now I know this is easy for me to say since I am not running this series. I mean I think I recall it even said in one fo earlier bullpen threads how thse games would NOT be challening at all to higher skill players. But there were tons of series like Diety challenges, or Immortal U or shadowing ALC games or LHC or things where high level players want maps and games where when they look at em go "whoa this is gonna be tough". But here the game will be of types that players that skilled and good with the game will own in their sleep but if they want to do it for grins it could still be very helpful and appreciated if they posted some reports on what they did that made games so easy.

But now vast majority of players are all playing way beyond noble level. And challenges and aspects of game a monarch level player may want to work on or try or see as fun are probably TOTALLY different than aspects of game a noble skilled level player finds challenging. So maybe in order to keep interest of majority of participants the focus of series needs to include difficulties that would interest monarch level players in which case that should be made very clear since that means it would no longer be as much a noble level series as name implies but more something like a monarch club or something.

On other hand if it decided that it would be nice for series to stay focused on noble skill level then the higher skilled players need to realize just because something is easy and a no brainer for them--that for a lower skilled player trying to learn that same easy no brainer map is still a challenge for them.

Kaytie

PS

@BT All my life :P First name Kaytie (I wasnt consulted on wierd spelling when name was picked out so blame parents for that :P) middle name Katrina = KaytieKat :)

@TMiT yeah when scouts die its annoying but at LEAST it over quickly. I hate even more things like scout fighting a animal and living but sooo wounded they take 10 plus truns to heal then RIGHT after they heal fight again and have to take ANOTHER 10 plus turns to heal. it like some kind of slow annoying torture .

Plus dying to bears isnt so bad since bears are godless killing machines. it when my woody 2 scout who is on a forest on a hill AND across a river dies from a wolf which has happend like two or three diffrent times that make me want to put curse on whoever thought up animals in game grrrrr.

And it could be worse--rem back in civ vanilla first came out? how animals couldnt END a turn in your borders but the two move animals could move in and out of them so unprotected workers minding their own business building a farm or something on a border square could be snatched by wolf or panther if you didnt protect em.

I started a new game just to go through a detailed scouting run.


I settle in place and move my scout the only sensible direction - 1 NW.

Turn 2: 1 SW with my scout; I'm doing a worker and BW to chop some of those Forests.

Turn 3: Border Pop reveals tundra to my North. Since there's no guarantee that my scout can even make it to that area and it's tundra anyway, I'm going to do the sensible thing and turn my scout south. I can gamble on east or west. There are forests either way, but I'll want to see whether there's anything around the gold that will let me feed it. I move on top of the gold for potential hill view.

Turn 4: Move 1NE to get full movement.

Hmmm . . . plains, mountains, and I KNOW there's tundra up there. I will leave it for later. I move southeast.

A Cattle/Gold city wouldn't be too bad.

Turn 5: Moved 2 SE. More plains and mountains to the north; it makes sense to leave that area for later. I can continue south and go either west or east from here. The Tribal hut decides it.

Turn 6: Doh! The hut gave me a Scout. Somewhat spoils the purity of the experiment. I will send this Scout back to my capital to act as an escort for my first Settler. In a normal game, I would be rejoicing at my luck and happily sending him in the opposite direction of my first scout, but I want to see what I can actually see with just this one Scout.

Turn 7: The first animal has appeared.

More tundra to the South? Already? What kind of a map is this?

Turn 8: Marble far away. Ivory closer. I'm going to see if there's some kind of food to support this Ivory.

Turn 9: The RNG is determined to foil me; the tribal hut gave me a map that detailed a huge amount of land. Perhaps I just had a run of bad luck in my previous game with Scout, but I got next to no information that would have allowed me to cut off Montezuma. As with any other normal speed game, you're using your starting unit to look for potential nearby city sites primarily and secondarily to determine the shape of the land. You don't have time for much else in the early game. After you've placed a Settler or two, if your scout is still alive, you'll probably have a better idea of where more strategic cities can go. Since I've got that Map, I'll turn the Scout inward and make sure I've got interior land well mapped out so that I don't screw up my city placement by missing a vital resource.

The area revealed by the Tribal Hut Map:
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn232/b_took/ScoutGame/ScoutGameTurn009WhyCantAllMapsDoThi.jpg

The immediate area of my scout:
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn232/b_took/ScoutGame/ScoutGameTurn008MarbleIvory0000.jpg

I'll probably put a city 1 NE of the empty Tundra tile in order to get a lot of 3F2C tiles. The Granite seems too far away and there are a lot of plains. In addition, I haven't seen much seafood except for that which was obviously generated by the starting position script. I'm going to scout and see if there's any real food for that Ivory. (I would need to spend several turns doing this if the villager map had not revealed that 1 SW is a fairly good spot).

The area near my capital:
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn232/b_took/ScoutGame/ScoutGameTurn007FirstAnimal0000.jpg

There seems to be very little choice in where to put a city to get the Cattle to feed to Gold Mine. Lots of plains, peaks, and forests. The best spot will probably be 1W of the wolves, which offers three irrigable grassland tiles.

I've got to be looking at these things right now because I'm going to be chopping out a Warrior and a Settler starting in 6 turns. I've got to be blowing Scout turns on making sure of city sites because I don't have time on normal speed -- the Settler arrives that much sooner compared to slower speeds. It's already going to be a painfully slow four turns after I get the Settler out to get to the nearest decent city spot, which seems to be the Cattle city. I haven't run into any AI yet, so I know they're not close enough that I'd want to drop my first city to cut them off.

Without that Map revealing the Wheat and the one-tile river near the Ivory, I'd have even less to go on than I do now. I'm probably going to spend more scout turns having to go through forests and hills, which pretty much annihilates the usefulness of a two-move exploration unit. A slower game speed perhaps means means that slogging through hills and forests with normally two-move units isn't as painful. Even if I started with roads, the path to the mainland seems to run right across a river, I think -- corner rules throw me.

Would any of you have done differently so far?

I agree. With all that has been said. But there is always a but.

I've chosen this game for my first emperor level try and after playing till 500 AD read some spoilers saying it's a really bad one to move up a level. :lol: Very weird that I still seem to do good - even without a single wonder. Sneak peak:

Pics from 175 BC.
183280183281
This is nobles club. I'm not gonna post emperor stuff because I want more noble level players here. Right now we're university students sitting in kindergarten chairs. No offence to noble. That's not rolos fault.

I didn't find the map unplayable but rather interesting. And having been a real noble for a long while I can say with confidence that even a noble player likes a challenge once in a while, so I'm absolutely fine with this map. Just make sure the next one will be between DeGaulle and this one.

I want to thank rolo for what he does. All the maps I've played from him so far felt different than the random/random-stuff and were quite interesting and interesting means fun to me. :king:

KaytieKat said:


I think some fo the problem is perspective. Like when bleys mentioned trying this map on emp first and finding it an unfun grind. And then trying it again on monarch felt it played better. Thats from a monarch skill level perspective. From a noble skill level perspective this map would be just as much an unfun grind on noble as someone on Bleys level found it on emperor.


Personally, I disagree. This is the second game I've played on Noble. The first I played Incan on a Pangea map and just crushed it, so that doesn't really count. Furthermore, I have almost always played Continents or Terra (ever since learning how to use a navy competently; prior to that it was Pangea all the way).

Yet I'm having a fine game. As long as you move quickly (with a decent stack) our neighbor-friend shouldn't be too much of an issue ;).

I said earlier: the difficulty with this map is not that it's so terribly difficult, but it is abnormal and does require adjustments.

Furthermore, I've definitely learned a lot from the map, especially regarding food resources. Food is usually plentiful enough that I won't worry about have enough of the resources, and only consider their placements within a city's BFC; in this game, I've come to see how significant food can be in keeping an entire empire's population healthy. Since learning is the primary goal of this series, I think it has done really well with this map.

Yet I'm having a fine game. As long as you move quickly (with a decent stack) our neighbor-friend shouldn't be too much of an issue ;).

Moving quickly with a decent stack=unfun grind to me. I don't like to war until the Modern Era; Cavalry is early for me to be attacking. ;)

Emperor/Epic - Round 3! To 1901! Game over...MAN! Victory method? CONQUEST :devil:. OK technically it gave me domination, but it was really conquest!

Soooooo, in the down time after last night it occurred to me that I CAN'T fall into AP troubles, as I control the AP. DoWing Monty wouldn't be a problem unless it pisses Joao off too much. My goals then at the start of this segment are:

1. Get to communism ASAP for the Kremlin and
2. Knock some heads - preferably monty as he's really poor in tech.

Most people are near rifling - Monty is not. I think I can go kremlin before wiping him off the map. That will also allow me to spam missionaries peacefully some more until I can rush buy cavalry en masse'

OK, let's go.

1525 Democracy completes. Time for Emancipation and US. Divine Right and MT to Lincoln for SM (hurts to give up monastaries, but I need the Kremlin. Constitution and 700 gold to lincoln for replaceable parts! The only person with techs I don't have now is vicky.
1550 I pop a great merchant - why not trigger another GA? I can revolt to SP freely then and will be in my end civics!
1565 Revolt to SP - running the slider is a 23 gpt deficit now at 100%. Anything less and I net positive.
1570 GE rush and some hammers net me SoL in capitol
1580 Finish corp - going Rifling, but first turning slider off to BUY kremlin since vicky is near it too maybe.
1590 Monty cancels the DP to DOW me :cry:.

...JUST KIDDING! He declares on Vicky, his worst enemy. I'm still friendly with him.
1595 Asoka declares on monty. AP forces war on Vicky (yes, I did this ;)). This forces everyone but asoka into war with vicky, which is a pretty big screwjob on her - she's next to Joao and Freddy after all!
1620 Rush buy finishes the Kremlin
1650 Vicky pillaged a ton of seafood, but now I gave her 55 gold for peace. She's everyone elses problem now. Aztec took a city so change of plan - I'm teching to industrialism, then turning the slider off to buy my way to a very, very fast sequence of wars!
1665 DR, Communism, MT to Joao for Physics. BTW, 100% science, +10 GPT. 794 BPT...all w/o GA.
1690 Joao goes FR - pleased now. The game is still bugged too - AIs in their favorite civic consider ALL CURRENT CIVICS their favorite civic in the trade screen. Monty also fell to pleased, which kind of means he hast to die.
1704 Revolt to theocracy.
1706 Asoka makes peace with Monty.
1708 I bribe Monty into war with Freddy. I don't want him getting too much on his hands early.
1724 Monty wants war with Freddy - I REFUSE!!!!!! ;).
1732 Rush buy has gotten me 50 Cavalry - I now go back to teching.
1734 :backstab: Monty, whose best unit is the musket. Too much Cavalry for that I think! I instantly capture 2 cities.
1736 Another Aztec city falls.
1740 Huge field battle win for me, another city.
1742 Aztec recapture Teotihuacan - not for long!
1748 It's mine again with backup cavalry - main stack is healing to charge Monty's capitol. After taking it I'll probably take capitulation because I'm afraid of Joao taking Monty as a vassal - that would suck. Actually, scratch that, I will keep on Monty until Joao makes peace with Vicky - I don't think the AIs will take a vassal and DoW while at a major war like that.
1750 Monty makes peace with Freddy. Ok.
1752 The intelligence agencies I built kick in - I can see all of monty now. He's in BAD shape :).
1754 Aztec capitol is mine :). Buddhist shine? He has it. 37 GPT :lol:. FIVE SHRINES FOR ME (though I'm not bothering with islamic). I'm already netting positive at 100% slider (currently 20% in culture). Another shrine? Yes please!
1762 Joao makes peace with Vicky. OK, I'll stop smacking Monty down now! The shrine is what I wanted and I did enough damage so that the city won't revolt too! Monty capitulates, giving me 120 gold also.
1778 Where am I techwise? Combustion just finished. 1083 BPT. The war slowed me up a bit (did turn the slider off to rush buy after all). Joao has assembly line on me but pretty much I'm pushing towards industrialism and will get there first! Since most of asoka's cities are coastal, that will get very ugly fast. Actually, now that I look at it, EVERY SINGLE CITY HE HAS IS COASTAL ;).
1780 Um...on this entire land mass, monty is the only one with oil, alternatively I can settle a junk city in the southern mountains. I will do that, because if I didn't I'd have to wait 12 turns to tech out fission.
1790 Monty settled the oil first :(. Whatever, I'll just gift him techs and make him give it to me.
1820 I'm an idiot. I had oil after all...there's some near Texcoco, which I captured.
1828 Industrialism. Slider off time. Massed marines/destro time - Asoka then Vicky are going to leave the map.
1859 DoW Asoka - He doesn't have infantry yet, and I have marines/destros :lol:. As I mentioned...ALL of his cities are coastal!!!!!!!!!
1860 Nevermind, he is getting infantry now :(. Still doubt this will take long. Delhi falls. So does Bombay. See what I mean?
1861 Most advanced civs comes out - Lincoln, the COLONY, leads :lol:. I'm 5th. Do I care? Of course not. I want this to end fast, so I capitulate asoka even though I could obliterate him.
1869 DoW Vicky. Much better force, since she's actually ahead of me in tech a bit. She is, however, in no condition to stop forces like this - my power rating is more than double hers - and she's the strongest AI left ;). I capture 2 cities the same turn.
1876 I use the AP to force war on vicky. Yes, that means the entire world vs vicky :p. I also have triple her and Joao's power now.
1877 Vicky capitulates ;).
1878 Lincoln and Joao have both made apollo, though neither have parts yet.
1885 It's time to cut down Germany.
1889 I take all of freddy's coastal cities, asoka takes an inland city, freddy has capitulated!
1896 No time to waste! Time to take out lincoln/joao. USA first - they're on my continent and I doubt Joao will capitulate nicely if he still has is vassal. Also, I think Joao may just be distracted by the dogpile coming from his own continent :mischief:. I take 3 of Lincoln's 4 cities instantly - 2 coastal and one of them using leftover cavalry ;). 3 infantry don't do well against 30 cavalry, even with 80% defense.
1897 Lincoln is off the map...Back where you came from guy, the real america will debut elsewhere ;).
1898 I capture a portugese city, so does vicky. I cut through the captured city to take lisbon.
1900 After I take a few more cities and vicky gets her 2nd, Joao capitulates.
1901 I'm somewhat angry, as this triggered conquest and domination simultaneously, but I got the latter :p.

Let's review:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1734DowMonty0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1859DOWAsoka0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1869DoWvicky0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1885DowFreddy0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1896DoWLincoln0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1901domination0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1901Power0000.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/stats0000.jpg

Took a little longer than usual mostly because I was typing this as I went and taking the pics - I upload them afterward.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk134/themelnteam/NC%20X%20Zara/1901score0000.jpg

See, wasn't that more fun than culture? I think so ;).

@ BT:

You just scout differently from me. I took my first scout, sent him HUGGING THE COAST headed north. The first thing I built in my capitol was a warrior, this guy HUGGED THE COAST DUE SOUTH. After the worker I started making units to fogbust nearby and find city sites - these are the ones that revealed the territory to the east, and although on epic there was plenty of time there would probably be enough to see nearby settle-able resources on normal also. Doing this, I think you'd find the information you needed quickly enough on normal. The assumption that "the first scout always reveals the land you plan to settle" isn't necessarily true - that was never even a piece of the consideration for my first scout. My first scout's intent was to determine what kind of landmass we were on, find the AI, and allow for trade routes via the sailing tech. Ditto for #2.

I used to go worker/worker/settler as opening build on most maps and just cheese out a 2nd city ASAP but over time I've learned making a scout unit early early then worker THEN fogbusters/settler to allow a more dynamic adjustment to the map. Whether you choose to explore like you do, adopt what I do, or pick something completely different, it has consequences on your game...however before saying x isn't possible, it's usually a good idea to take a look at the situation you're in and the assumptions you're using!

Interesting . . .

I'm going to have to work on varying my scouting methods depending on the map type, it seems. (Hooray, I've learned something new! :))

Moving quickly with a decent stack=unfun grind to me. I don't like to war until the Modern Era; Cavalry is early for me to be attacking. ;)
I will concede that this map is much more difficult at Normal than a slower speed where you can scout more land earlier in the scheme of the game.

But given this style you have, I would think this map would suit you better than some closed-quarters packed map with AIs 10 tiles in every direction. This map offered a LOT of land to settle before you butt heads, now granted, its not the best land I have seen, but its there, and with enough workers to chop, you can get infrastructure up pretty quickly. Zara is an excellent leader to play the "Cities make the best fogbusters" strategy, with a Steele, cheap Libraries and Theaters, and CRE, he pops borders like a madman.

I will definitely admit that this map is far more resource-poor than almost any map I have seen. Many city sites have to rely on nothing more than lake tiles with a lighthouse for extra food, which means slow growth, limited whipping, and (as I am discovering right now) limited drafting. With Zara, I took Nationalism from Lib, promptly got it stolen, lost the Taj, so I had to manually switch civics when I hit Gunpowder to draft UUs. After drafter 10 or so, I was already running into the 40s on unhappiness in my "best growth" cities, and I didnt dare draft from my smaller, slower growth ones.

But I disagree that being able to play amd adapt to a situation like this isnt a useful tool for the noble player. I suggest people play this map multiple times, to try out various city placements, REX strategies, etc etc. OK, so you got smashed the first time you played it, so it goes, fire it up again, scout differently, get those Workboats out to find the seafood you need to base a city on, and those warriors wandering through the forests to discover the best city placements. Learning is the goal here, and sometimes, to learn, you need to get your butt handed to you. Being able to cake-walk through every game isnt going to teach folks anything.

Rolo specifically asked me to play my start before posting the game, to see if I thought we should keep it or regen. I gotta say, after 50 turns, I was ready to tell him "this map BLOWS bro! Lets do another, easier one!". But then I got my 4th and 5th cities out, and started looking over the continent, and saw that Mansa and Monty could be confined to their respective corners, and yeah, I noticed the cities were going to suck, and grow like snails, etc etc, but it WAS playable. Lots of lakes to use for food, and chain farms in from. Lots of natural choke points to use with a leader who thrives on fast border pops. I knew there would be back-lash, heh, but hey, its ONE game folks. Next one will be up in a week or so, and we can return to the "city layout is obvious" style if you guys wish too. But I think we are doing ourselves a disservice if we keep trotting out tailor-made maps for tailor-made leaders. Play this one again, see if you learned anything, and if you do, your that much better at this game than you were before this round started.

A general comment:

While bad land for the human and good land for the AI is a pretty severe handicap, GLOBAL BAD LAND is NOT. The AI is not smart - it will play its normal game when drowning in peaks, desert, ocean tiles, or other AIs. To this effect, the AI global tech rate is often awful on maps like this - and this one isn't an exception (2 AIs will tend to tech OK, the rest were teching so poorly that I almost couldn't believe I was playing on emperor).

This is also why archipelago maps and maps that are extremely arid favor the human - the AI just can't handle these things.

@TMiT yeah when scouts die its annoying but at LEAST it over quickly. I hate even more things like scout fighting a animal and living but sooo wounded they take 10 plus truns to heal then RIGHT after they heal fight again and have to take ANOTHER 10 plus turns to heal. it like some kind of slow annoying torture .

When that happens to me I usually just figure that scout's days are numbered and keep on going with him until he meets the next animal and bites it. I usually have 2 scouts running (more if I get one from a hut) and in /most/ cases by the time one gets bad hurt I can either make do with one less scout or else build another. I figure it's better to eventually sacrifice a scout and maybe make it to another hut or two before the AI does... but maybe others disagree! I"ve yet to finish a game on Noble.

Well I have to admit I'm struggling with this map too! But it's purley a combination of falling into some bad habits and not playing the map to its full advantage. It was also a bad call choosing to attempt Monarch on this map! (not that I'm particulaly against this map I just didn't play it well). So I'm going to play through again on my native prince level. See spoiler below for a more detailed report.

Monarch/Epic 200 AD

A few things happened that scuppered my game.

Mansa getting wiped by the barbs early in game left me capturing his capital while trying to settle cities to block off Monty. This all left my economy crippled for some time.

Becuase I was playing my first attempt at monarch I focused too much on getting my beaker output going as I feared I would lag behind if I didn't and as usual I fell behind in military output and it wasn't long before Monty came a callin. Survived his first attack, got peace, but his second DoW was too strong and I just didn't have the military to stop him! :sad:

And lastly I just didn't play the map well. My city placement was poor and I just didn't have the strength in my economy to expand and tech well. I'm planning on taking a peek at others games to see if I can learn a thing or two.

As to the discussion in this thread regarding this map, I don't have a problem playing these unusual maps, they are really interesting to play and I probably have learnt more playing them, particularly when they end in defeat. But I agree with the comments about attracting more Noble and below players to the club.

A big thanks to Bleys & Rolo for all the effort you guys have put into this series and of course Krick for starting them up. :goodjob:

This game seems to be going really slowly for me -- not just RL slowly ('cause I don't play very fast) but game-slowly: I have the feeling I ought to have accomplished more by 235 AD than I have so far.

I went fishing > BW > wheel > pottery to set up for whipping; since by then I'd found the cows near the gold I went AH > writing > math and held off chopping until math to maximize the hammers. I currently have 5 cities (Aksum, gold/cows/horses east of Aksum, stone/iron in the far north near Mansa, cows/gold south of that, and just planted a 5th city on the island to the west between the bronze island and the mainland fish). Monty has expanded to just south of me, and I'm gearing up to take him on; iron should become available shortly.

I expect to leave Mansa alone for a while. His missionaries have been hindu-izing my cities for me, which has helped the happiness cap.

No wonders, though with stone available soon I might be able to go for the Hanging Gardens while all but Aksum are enough below the happiness cap not to suffer for the extra population.

I've found Joao, Victoria, Asoka, and Frederick to the west. I haven't been able to get much variety in trades; they seem to all be going for the same techs.

Does anyone build steles?

Time to look at everyone else' postings before proceeding, but with a vacation trip starting tomorrow and my slow playing rate I likely won't finish until early August.

I've certainly noticed that few Noble-level players are saying much. I am still struggling very hard to do much on Noble, much like KK, but the real problem for me isn't that I want easier maps, like some higher-level players seem to be saying (sometimes in a somewhat condescending way), but that I want to have a clue as to what to do before I start. I have learned stuff from every game, but only on the 3rd or 4th restart, and that is enormously frustrating.

By clue I don't mean a whole plan, just a few guidelines that give me a direction to try. Back when I tried conquest with JC, people said "tech BW > Wheel > IW" which was an eye-opener: that worker techs could be irrelevant sometimes. Somebody said Earth 18 was a good map on which to learn warrior rush if you start in Europe, and I learned a bunch from that one.
On this map, on my own, as you might see from my initial comment in my first message, I had a vague feeling I should be getting more done, and hadn't quite clued in yet that the low food except at the capital was going to do that. I had begun to get the idea that lakes might be important with lighthouses; maybe it was best that I figure that out on my own, but I didn't manage it before seeing other peoples' comments. I did know from early on that I was going to be able to build a few more cities than usual, without crashing my economy, because of the Org trait, and that seems to be working out OK, but because I didn't realize food was limiting on this map I kept feeling frustrated at my slow expansion without knowing why, even taking into account my deliberate choice to avoid chopping settlers until after Mathematics.I taught university-level computer science for 16 years and was considered fairly good at it. When you give someone a formative assignment, you don't say "go solve this any way you can, see what you learn": you say "this assignment is meant for you to practice techniques X and Y that we covered in the last 2 weeks". "Solve it any way you can" comes in the upper level courses, particularly in the technical equivalent of a Senior Thesis in 4th year. This is not hand-holding; it's normal teaching technique.

These are not "advanced" skills, using Culture to cut off the AIs is pretty basic. Using ORG to support cities a bit far from the capitol is also kind of a basic skill needed at levels above Noble. Learning these techniques first-hand is a strong way to gain skill for that next level.Exactly right -- but we just-starting-Noble players don't know these techniques, at least not down deep in our bones like the more experienced players. I don't want easy maps; for easy I can always go back to Warlord but that's not what I want or need at this stage of my Civ skills. What this series is for me is: totally blow it, read the comments, slap head when realizing how stupid my approach was, try something someone else suggested, get past where I restarted in a much better state, bog down a few dozen turns later not sure what to do next.

I'm going to keep trying, but I suspect I'm never going to be able to finish any of these games.

If you PM me or probably other players or just ask for opening advice and wait a bit I can give you some :p. There's no way I'd have known what to do just based on the starting picture - the strategy changed a bit (though ultimately I still went cottage/commerce funded expansion and then military as this straightforward approach is my preferred) when I scouted and that should be true for everyone since the map is a tad unorthodox.

Also, and this is for anyone: if there's something about my summaries that I didn't post that you want to know, feel free to ask ;). I generally follow these threads after I'm done to see how other players did it - I'm definitely still learning also ;).

If you PM me or probably other players or just ask for opening advice and wait a bit I can give you some :p.Thanks for the offer. I'd be quite content to wait a few days for some more experienced player to post a spoilered comment like:Not a lot of food nearby except at the starting location -- expect slower expansion and look for places with lakes, where lighthouses are as good as farming several grassland tiles at once. Reminder, standard technique: ORG means you can afford to REX more, with both reduced costs and cheaper courthouses.Nothing about who the opponents are, or the specific contents of anywhere on the map; just some advice about what sort of approach to consider practicing on this particular gameboard.

Edit: KK and other new-Nobles: Would this have helped you, too?

Gotcha, although my advice would have varied slightly as I didn't consider the lighthouse lake = farm until someone else mentioned it and I'd posted my 25 AD save :lol:. I'd have given something more like:


Tough map - not a lot of food on it so keep that in mind when it comes to whipping (outside capitol). There is gold nearby and I suggest using it to fund expansion (there is actually a lot of gold within reasonable reach if you're quick). There are other happy resources that you can take advantage of if you scout enough. You're creative so try to wall off the AIs early as if you do so you can claim incredible amounts of land peacefully. Strongly recommend an extra scout unit early on this map to get a feel for where things are.

Settle a hammer city and use it to make units - it will probably be necessary on this map.

Everyone is still learning, TMIT ;)

About the map dificulty and related comments:

Not all maps are made equal and that is not the fault of the map maker. But I think that the line that Bleys is following here ( and the one I use when sorting maps for this ) is to put diferent stuff every instalement, sort of like if they were lessons of how to deal with diferent balls that the game throws at you.....

And that leads usto the cruxis of this arguement: not all maps should be played equal, regardless of the leader and other stuff. In fact I've been somewhat surprised that some of the players try with all strengths to put a ball in a cubic box ;) You can't play a Pangea map like you would play one where you're isolated ( where you can give yourself the luxury of making 950 hammers ( normal speed ) worth of early wonders, like I did in Cathy LHC ) or to rely extensively on the whip with food poor maps..... In fact my philosophy about this game is that a Noble player that can play well in every situation and option that the game can throw at him is far better than one Emperor player that only plays Inca in duel maps or pangea with Rome and balanced resources ;). And I think that is the philosophy behind Bleys thought on the series as well..... to make more resilient and skilled Noble players ( not forcing them to climb up or down ;) )

I think that the best compromise is that I , as map maker, to make some spoilered comments on the map and the general thoughts behind it. Nothing too revealing, only some guidelines..... Thoughts?

I think that the best compromise is that I , as map maker, to make some spoilered comments on the map and the general thoughts behind it. Nothing too revealing, only some guidelines..... Thoughts?If you mean the sort of stuff TMIT and I suggested, that would be / would have been great!

Well, I would had add one thing: a certain wonder avaliable with metal casting .... works very well with this map and lighthouses ;)

I think that the best compromise is that I , as map maker, to make some spoilered comments on the map and the general thoughts behind it. Nothing too revealing, only some guidelines..... Thoughts?
I think this would be an excellent idea. In past installments of the series, we have tried to "steer" the strategy a bit, like the Water map for Hannibal, or the Wonder-Spammable map for Ramesses. I like the idea of a set of tips specifically designed to steer players toward the right strategy line without giving too much of it away.

I would prefer we keep that set of tips spoilered though. I think rolo and I can work it out in PMs, he can send me the tips, and I can put them in the OP with the specific notation "Rolo's Map Tips" for each round. I definitely think this particular game would have gone differently if there had been just a few brief tips like "low food, lots of forests, so chop instead of whip. Lakes are as good as Oasis' with a Lighthouse and Colossus" or something along that line. We should definitely try to implement this next round.

As long as my tips stay better than Sid's ones ...... ;)

The name of this thread is a bit misleading, this is explained in the intro but the title can still keep people from reading the intro. I use to play immortal and sometimes deity so this thread didn't seem to interesting as a challenge at first. Anyway i'll probably try this one on immortal the fact that the ai doesn't begin with archery is not totally insignifant but not that important either as they'll have it by the time i'll try anything.

Once i've played a chunk i can also give some advice as to why i chose a certain path and read some spoilers about how the others did.

@Dirk

AI starting without archery ( and wheel and Agri, compared with Immortal ) can lead to very diferent games from the "normal" output in high levels... especially if you have AI like Shaka, Pacal or sitting Bull, that in higher levels tends to take all the barb cities ( defended by warriors in the beggining ) and to become moguls. There are other issues, like less AI resilience to barbs and the slower AI teching due to the lack of the extra starting techs. This will not make the games necessarily easier though, especially if a AI like Shaka starts to steamroll everyone due to have more cities due to barb capturing.

Just a small warning ;)

The name of this thread is a bit misleading, this is explained in the intro but the title can still keep people from reading the intro.Well, if you read the recent commentary, you'd see that the title isn't supposed to be misleading... :(

The spoilered tips for Noble players seems like an excellent idea.

i don't think it really can be called "nobles" club when half the games are above emperor :lol:

not that i think thats a bad thing

Handled correctly it can be a very useful resource to noble players though - I was a Prince player when this series started. Just after NC III I won my first monarch game in ridiculous fashion - an RPC by Cam_H that still stands as my 2nd highest scoring game of all time somehow. I think I finally went monarch in NC IV and that was a very tight win (grenadiers/cannons vs SAM infantry, but force of #'s...!). Many of the players you see posting here WERE originally noble-prince players and moved up over time.

What I'd like to see is some "new blood" aka new noble level players stepping up and posting. That's when we can really help them if they ask ;).

IMO the above-prince players here are a good resource for noble players. I try to post more of why I do here than in other series (other than my host series, the relatively new APG), including trades, mindsets, and pictures...everything but a dotmap (i'd post that too if I made them ever).

What I'd like to see is some "new blood" aka new noble level players stepping up and posting. That's when we can really help them if they ask ;).

Okay. Hi!

My first question is a bit meta: I have seen some maps posted with colored arrows pointing out possible city locations that look like this:

================
............\/

Is that something that you can get the game to do for you or are people just editing their screenshots in a graphics program or something?

Okay. Hi!

My first question is a bit meta: I have seen some maps posted with colored arrows pointing out possible city locations that look like this:

================
............\/

Is that something that you can get the game to do for you or are people just editing their screenshots in a graphics program or something?

That's an in game feature. ALT+S and click on the desired tile and you can enter text. If you zoom out to the world view strategy layer (furthest left option in the bottom right corner near the mini map) you can also draw lines.

Ahh! Thank you. I was driving myself nuts last night trying to find it.

:lol:. Another thing I wondered about but never knew how to do. Maybe I'll start dot mapping.

















Nah.

Would it be better to do a walkthrough detailing decisions and such?

Hey everyone. It's been a while (seems like forever by how much has changes since I was last here 4-5 weeks ago. A new patch is out and everything. See what you get for having a vacation and forcing yourself to not even touch the gamecomputer for some time.)

Now when it's back to normal working behaviour I feel the urge to once again spend a few hours (understatement) "civving" again and forgetting about that nice sunny wheater outside for atleast a few evenings. This NC seems pretty interesting, I think the last one for me was the Sitting bull one or was it Brennus, I don't remember which one was last...

Probably it'll be a Monarch/Marathon or Monarch/Epic. I've been playing Marathon for so long so it might be time to try a switch back to Epic and see how quick things move along. We'll see, maybe I'll start tonight, we'll see. I writeup will follow when I do start ;)

Hmm, anyone but me having trouble loading up this save? I can see people managing it perfectly but on my system, it ctds when initializing map. Could it have something to do with that I installed the official 3.17 patch and then Solvers v0.19 (and then BUGmod 3.0). If I'm not mistaking Solvers unofficial patch does a few changes to mapgenerating, though in my book it shouldn't affect a scenario.

Well, starting a new game works without any glitch but I can't run any of the old NC scenarios either (they did work before that I'm sure of...)

Well, I may have done a few too many modifications in the custom assets so maybe a fresh install is needed anyway, just wanted to hear first if anyone else has similar trouble with scenarios and the above config.

Don't have solvers but I do have 3.17 (I'll spare you the long-winded moaning about barb galleys for now), and this worked fine for me. It could be solver's otherwise you probably just have too much inter-version junk in that folder :p.

Nevermind that above. I got it working now. Don't ask me what was wrong. I did reinstall solvers patch manually (skipping the installer) and before trying things again I did reinstall Blue marble as well. My gut tells me it wasn't any problem with solvers patch but something with Blue Marble (though I would've betted blue marble only affects graphical files and nothing that's changed in the patch(es) as I could start a fresh new game without trouble. Oh well, we'll never know the real reason, finally I can enjoy this Nobles club installment.

Monarch/Epic - first update will come tomorrow night, too late to actually get somewhere today ;)

Finally got around to giving this game a second attempt. I'm going back down to my native Prince for this.

Heres the current progress of my game plus an initial dotmap

Update 2300 AD - Prince/Epic

Started out without a fixed plan this time other than get a second scout out first and grab as many goodie huts as I could. Once I get my cap up and running I'm going to spam Settlers/workers and grab as much land as possible.

Initial build in the capital was - Scout > workboat > workboat > worker > archer > archer

while I teched - Fishing > Bronze > wheel > archery > pottery > writing

The extra scout was really helpful as I managed to pop 9 goodie huts! :lol: (I swear I didn't remember where they all were... honest) :mischief:

Which gave me... a total of 218 Gold, Experience for my scout, a warrior, and free techs, Mysticism, Sailing and Masonry.


I'm just about to start founding cities, abit later than I'd hoped but seafood starts always slow me down and theres plenty of room on this map. I've drawn up a little dot map of my planned cities.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo2_2000BC_01.jpg

I'm probably going to have a stab at getting the oracle for Metalcasting and get the collosus built.

Any advice on the dotmap is more than welcome. :)

PS - the idea for a Rolo's tips in the opening post for future NC's is an excellent idea, particularly on the more unusual maps.

@Groogaroo


Looks mostly like pretty good placements, fairly close to what I'm aiming for (though I haven't done any fancy dot-map, I'm quite sloppy with that actually and thus normally ends up with a few poorly places cities...). The lack of Happy/helathy resources on this map will call for some non-common approaches. The one thing you do have is alot of coastline, even some of those inland "lakes" is actually coast if I recall correctly from my start yesterday. I haven't gone any further than you in my game just yet but my aim will be to utilize two wonders for boosting early economy, The great lighthouse and Colossos. That and the two possible goldcities should allow for a decent enough economy. So the only thing I can think of with your placement is that you'll have a few cities not on any coastline this way and thus won't be able to fully utilize the two wonders above, but then, you may not aim for that kind of economy and getting the two goldmines in one city and place that one on a coast doesn't really give any good placement options, so there may be the exqception.

I have no idea yet what goal I'll aim for but it seems to me I'll try something new, we'll se when my first update arrives.

@ Dubrown

Thanks for the tips :)

I was thinking about the Greatlighthouse/colosus combo, but I'm wavering on whether to go for the Greatlighthouse or not as its going to interfere too much with rexing, might still have a stab at it once I'v laid down a couple of cities. I'm trying to avoid too many early wonders as I also want to focus on building enough troops to discourage monty from attacking me!

I like you have little idea where I'm actually heading with this game just yet!

Monarch/Epic 4000BC-~190AD


Ok, so here we go. First buildorder was scout, start worker, workboat when fishing came in, continue worker, workboat, lighthouse, GLH, Axe, settler

That one is strange even by my standards....

Research-> Fishing, BW (finding Bronze in the capital bfc was nice), Wheels, Sailing, Mazonry and after that I don't remember, but it was all the needed worker techs (Pottery, Agri, AH I think), then Metal Casting. After that I went writing, Alpha and then traded for the rest of the early techtree. I believe I got Mysticism from a goodiehut, one of the two I managed to secure (dang, I think I explored the whole area the wrong way as I see other people has gotten a great deal of huts)

Ok, there's the basic idea of the start, also part of it was a bit of rexing and sound city placement, but sure, that didn't happen.

Here's a little map of my initial plan, ofc I forgot to take a final screenie with the cities actually built, but when you see it later on, it'll not look exactly like I intended. Oh, and I said I would focus on only costal cities, well, that didn't happen either, most of my placement went to block of parts of the land and making bridges for ships later on, sure those are coastal, but the goldcities went inland, no good placement otherwise...

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0078.jpg

So, what happened more, very early the poor portugise civilisation must've gotten the barb uprising event because it was destroyed. I recently discovered Lisbon as size 10 barb city, will be interesting to see how large it'll grow, I think I'll let it be just for that. Though it's nicely placed so if someone else shows interest, I'll likely go and grab it.

The AIs I actually met so far is Monty (I hate having that guy on the continent, I went an adopted Buddism just to please him a bit (and for the fact that it was the religion that spread to my capital and I needed a bit of happiness...)) Mansa is blocked of (I hope) to the NE. He's a nice neighbour on the other hand but I've managed to annoy him with adopting Buddism. Freddie of germany is a distant friend I just met, I have no idea where he is exaxtly, I've only encountered his scout on what I believe is a different landmass.

So summary of the diplosituation. Freddie is my friend, he's worst enemy according to the game with both Monty and Mansa, Mansa is annoyed with me, partly because I adopted Buddism and he's Hindu, patrly because I refused to open borders with him. Monty is Cautious with me, mostly because I adpoted Buddism, else he'd been annoyed I'm sure. I haven't opened any borders with anyone. I will with Freddie when the time is right, but the two on my continent must be enclosed as long as possible.

So what happened next do you think. I'm no weakling in the military department, but far from the strongest. But that doesn't matter much with Monty on the continent, sooner rather than later I spot this coming towards my southern city

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0080.jpg

And a few turns later the inevitable:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0081.jpg

And here we are now, I actually played out another turn just to see if I could slay his stack or not, which I could, 3 axes and 2 archers was enough.

To be continued...

@ dubrown:

More scouting, since you're on epic the entire continent can be explored before 1000 BC pretty easily ;) (I think I'd revealed all but tiny portions of it before 2000bc actually). And while difficult, it IS possible to avoid a Monty DoW (I had cavalry and he never DoW'd me...actually I took a :backstab: to him ;) ). Make sure you have a military city!

BPT is kind of low for that time - as you expand you probably aren't working in some library scientists early in some cities/cottaging enough. An academy in a science city (almost always my capitol for a powerful bureaucracy capitol) can go a looooong way towards getting high bpt in the timeframe your segment ends in. Currency IS the right tech for you at the moment though unless you're hitting :) cap issues.

@TMIT

Actually, I had intended to scout the whole of the continent but had some bad luck with animals eating my scouts... After that I figured I knew enough for that point.

About libs etc, no libs in that screenie, I told you I had a whacky build this time. I'm slowly catching back up now though, but anyway, I haven't lost out in science anyway, econ has been marvelous, sure with libs it'd been even better, I don't think I've ever gone this far in a game without libs (or Monasteries for that matter).

Mostly screwing things up this time though, but it looks to go pretty well anyway.


Update to ~730AD


As TMIT noted, I'm behind in building up my cities, I'm still behind, lucky for me here Zara's traits helps out quite a bit, not a courthouse so far and still a manageable economy. Currency was a priority and is in place.

Here's some screenies that will tell the story so far:

The first war with Monty ended quickly:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

Warscore: 1 razed city of Montys and annihilating his stack, minimal losses from my own side.

Peace for a while and I did convert to Hindu to please Mansa. I figured no use in trying to please Monty anymore.

Som time later another stack approaches (missed that screenie I'm afraid) but this one I got:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg

A turn later he wastes his entire stack on my pretty solid defense in Addis Abeba. War still on, I'll let this play on for a while, my cats will soon join my axes and atleast one of Montys cities will be history before I demand some tribute to end this war. I'm quite sure there'll follow more installements in this war series, but it's quite funny to harrass Monty as he's so predictable...

To my surprise, the turn I research Feudalism this happens:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg

Off course I accept. Now I can direct Mansa's research to help me along which suits my current wartrack perfectly.

The world as we know it. I know, plenty of mistakes in this one, but I've been hurrying things along. And I'm used to Marathon so everyting goes very quickly on Epic for me ;)

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

The juicy barb former portugise city I was talking about in the previous post, I think I want that soon, else Freddy will likely grab it.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0006-1.jpg

The diplo situation:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

And the powerrating, noting much to brag about here...
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

More will follow another day. Good Night everyone!

Immortal until 2500 BC,since i'm not posting in an immortal thread i've put some more detail in this post than usual, maybe too much.

Strange map, where are the agriculture/calender resources?

Techs and capital:

Start is fairly obvious we'll have to start with fishing to get our only resources improved. Building a worker first achieves nothing, So we'll start with a warrior to have at least some defence. It also contributes to happiness once we grow to size 5.

After 7 turns Fishing's in, i start on bronze working now, easily the best choice since there are only forests around. The warrior's ready so we start with a boat, at the moment the city grows to 2 i switch from 2 grassland tiles (2 Food, 1 Hammer) to 2 grassland forested hills (1 food 2 hammers). This stagnates city growth for the moment but getting the boat out asap and working an improved clam is much more important than working unimproved tiles now and growing a bit faster.

Once the first boat is out an interesting decision shows up:

I can build 2 other boats, second boat'll cost me 10 turns now, third boat some 7 turns since part of this boat'll be built at size 4. ~17 turns, total.

Also i can build a worker in 10 turns now and chop 2 boats subsequently this'll cost some 20 turns. This looks like it's a faster approach. since i now have a worker and 2 boats. However it costs us 2 forests and since the boats are coming later it'll cost commerce from the clam resources which'll be worked later.

Actually there's a third way which i choose, i build the second boat and start on the third, once the city reaches 4 i'll immediately switch to a worker with the intention of whipping it in such a manner that the overflow from the whip is enough to get the third boat finished.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/2-pop-wip.jpg

Notice that it's very important that i whip now. the worker costs 60 hammers, i've invested 27 hammers atm. If i whip now 2 pop are needed to complete the worker (1 pop = 30 hammers on normal speed). This 2 pop whip will yield 60 hammers, 33 of these are used to complete the worker, the other 27'll go to the boat on the next turn which will subsequently be finished. If i'd waited one more turn i'd have invested 36 hammers in the boat. I could then only whip one pop of which 24 hammers would go to finish the worker, only 6 would go to the boat, 1 pop whips should generally be avoided unless your city is at size 2 and you need a monuent or workboat.

Exploring:

I find out quickly that i'm on a sort of snaky continents map, i meet Mansa

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/first-contact-MM.jpg

Not obvious from the map atm but he must be able to reach me by land since i don't think he can have built a galley yet. I'm not afraid he'll attack me but it's important that i settle my first cities towards him (Blocking). I find out he can reach me via a choke point, it's very important to get here first, i'll seal of a lot of land for myself this way.Note the annoying peak just at the point where i'd want to settle.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s256/dirk1302/Chokepoint.jpg

In general and especially on this map (there's a lot to explore) it's important to keep your scouting units alive. Once i see the first animals appear i'll try to end each turn in a forest even if i can move only one tile instead of two .Sometimes this can't be done, at least try to choose a hill in this case for some protection. Once warriors appear scouts'll die anyway so i don't care that much after this happens.

BW reveals copper in my BFC (abbreviation for tiles that the city can work). I next go for the wheel to get copper connected, all the other techs are useless to me atm. I can't remember playing a game where the order of research was as easy as here.

Plan:

Connect copper asap

Then as i see it i can basically choose from 2 plans
1.after first worker grow back to 4, build/chop a settler and an axe and settle the choke point.

2.research masonry and sailing chop/whip 2-3 workers and chop the Great lighthouse (GLH) subsequently. I probably don't have time to settle the choke first and then chop GLH on immortal.

This map screams Great lighthouse, having two extra foreign trade routes in each coastal city you settle is huge on a coastal map. I'm not sure if i can reach more civs apart from Mansa since i don't know this type of map very well, it seems likely however.The map also doesn't seem too crowded so i'd probably have room to expand after chopping GLH.

There are 3 reasons why i might not do it:

1. Further scouting has to reveal how close Mansa is in other words how
much time i have to settle the choke.

2. Even if i start beelining for GLH an AI might beat me to it, this chance is not that big but it'd be bad if that happened.

3. In the Ghengis immortal student game i chopped GLH and aborted the game 1260 AD since i was totally winning without having to do much more than just plunk down cities that payed for themselves immediately with the trade routes they received, i and some others agreed that GLH is just an overpowered wonder if the circumstances are right taking out all challenge.


a save at this point is rather useless since i've just begun.

I've tried a few offline games with the coastal scouting thing . . . I'm seeing positives and negatives. Maybe I'll just have to use three scouting units before starting on a Settler. :) Still, it's nice to have something new to think about.

The "3rd" scouting unit is basically just your fogbuster(s) vs barbs and future city garrison troops.

Just browsed the thread backwards as I didn't read everything thoroughly in between of the first post and my posts at the end before.

@dalamb





Does anyone build steles?



I'ts practically a "culture bomb" if built early, so if you aim for a cultural victory, it's an early mustbuild in your cultural cities. But other than that, with a creative leader it's fairly meaningless IMHO to waste turns on a Steele early on unless under very strong cultural pressure from a cultural strong neighbour. Atleast on this map it's fairly meaningless in the start. So, no, don't bother unless you aim for culture victory.



@ViaArete


Looks like it's going pretty well for you. Taking Montys capital will be areal boost for you, now you have two food heavy cities, atleast one could be focused on running specialists for a little GP farm.

Other that that, you have a pretty spread out empire to control and lacking improved cities in many places. So workers seems a prio here to get everything up and running. A city should never work unimproved tiles.

Your city placement is pretty good, though I would've made some different choices with some of the locations, on a food poor map you may be forced to place some cities that'll never become anything just to claim a resource or as on this map, block of a part of the continent. I probably would've placed the marble city on the plains hill 1NW and left the silver for a city 1S of copper east of the silver. That would've have given you more grassland to farm with the marblecity to get some more growth potential out of it.

With Mansa, a well placed city is really all it takes to block him off (unless he takes to galleying his settler out). If you look at my game, I managed to block him in and with that city claim two gold and later as a bonus got the Iron.

Now, this may be late advise as you might have played the game out already, but better late than never ;)

Finally got around to giving this game a second attempt. I'm going back down to my native Prince for this.

Heres the current progress of my game plus an initial dotmap

Update 2300 AD - Prince/Epic

Started out without a fixed plan this time other than get a second scout out first and grab as many goodie huts as I could. Once I get my cap up and running I'm going to spam Settlers/workers and grab as much land as possible.

Initial build in the capital was - Scout > workboat > workboat > worker > archer > archer

while I teched - Fishing > Bronze > wheel > archery > pottery > writing

The extra scout was really helpful as I managed to pop 9 goodie huts! :lol: (I swear I didn't remember where they all were... honest) :mischief:

Which gave me... a total of 218 Gold, Experience for my scout, a warrior, and free techs, Mysticism, Sailing and Masonry.


I'm just about to start founding cities, abit later than I'd hoped but seafood starts always slow me down and theres plenty of room on this map. I've drawn up a little dot map of my planned cities.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/groogart/NCXGroo2_2000BC_01.jpg

I'm probably going to have a stab at getting the oracle for Metalcasting and get the collosus built.

Any advice on the dotmap is more than welcome. :)

PS - the idea for a Rolo's tips in the opening post for future NC's is an excellent idea, particularly on the more unusual maps.

Few notes: the 2 gold city is a little lacking in food.

I founded a cows/gold city in the middle where you did, and then I found that you can't build a lighthouse, making the water tiles a waste. Consider moving it.

The right fish is great with a lighthouse.

The western non-fish city with a fresh water lake, move it down to get two grassland hills.

Yellow city is worthless, no food, just a waste of maintenance.

The ivory/cows city, you don't need water. Move it 2 NE to get the second ivory and 2 hills.

I grabbed wheat/copper/wine/ivory before montezuma could.

Vicawoo

Thanks for the tips, I was forgetting that cities on a lake can't build lighthouses :crazyeye: I'll have to re-think that. I should probably be more aggressive with my settling and settle closer to monty to grab as many of those happy resources as I can as I can.

Cheers :)

Prince/Normal - Space Race Victory
I really enjoyed playing this map, and while others found it hard, I found it quite esy to get enough food for the cities using lighthouses. Basically, I stopped Mansa expanding by settling Gondar up my the two gold resources, and he offered to be my vassal when he was getting hammered by Monty. After taking most of Moty's cities, he capitulated, leaving me two vassals. I then used Mansa to research a lot of the techs I needed, so I got the spaceship around 1950AD

Monarch/Epic: Update 730AD-1470AD


When we left the action last time, I was in the second war of the game with Monty. I didn't pursue this war for any prolonged time, just enough to annihilate his stack and to get a decent peacetreaty out of it. The deal this time ended with +160gc to me.

Now I figured it was time to do something constructive with my game, I've just been fooling around too much so far. As Mansa so nicely joined my cause as a vassal my continent now only had a Monty to civilize.

So the short term goal was the following:

-Make Monty vassal or destroy him
-Get Lisbon from the Barbs and build it up to a GPP farm (I've totally misused my citys this time, no specialisation anywhere...)

Victory goal: Domination. It should be possible if I can get my own continent under control. Freddy is a bit of a obstacle but it should work.

On to the short term goals:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

And Lisbon quickly fell to my smallish stack. Now, reinforce and build it up as quickly as possible. The Forbidden palace will go here as well so when my campaign against germany begins economy will be a bit easier to handle.

Next short-term goal, Monty. And here goes war number 3 against him, this time with me as the agressor.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

Took two cities in this war, the first is shown above, these aztec names are impossible to spell or even remember... The next one below, not really worth keeping but it's coastal and I need to keep Monty in place so I kept it.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpg

Time for peace again. I had gone far enough with my outdated Axe army. I had Maces and Knights waiting to be built but no time to do it yet. So 10 turns of peace would do me good to build up a new fresh army that'd steamroll Montys obsolete troops far easier.

Decent peacetreaty:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg

Fourth war with the Aztecs came a bit earlier than I wanted but well, Monty is Monty. He declared and came with a frightening stack against me...
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0029-1.jpg
The marked "stack" is the one against the city starting with a "C". The other "stack" is a lone spearman Monty sent to my "T" city...

Sure, this was no match for my new attackforce, to small to march far but should atleast be able to take a few cities.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0030-1.jpg

Two cities fell, one actually useful as it secured wheat and wine for my empire. The other useful in that way that it took away Montys iron.

At the same time, in my sciencedepartment I managed to secure the race to liberalism. With Liberalism I took Economics for the free GM.

Peace again with Monty as my army needed to get a bit stronger for the real push to finish him/vassalise him. Once again a pretty decent deal:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0036.jpg



What I've forgotten to mention is that Mansa finished the AP right after he became my vassal. I'm now in charge of the AP. So technically I could twist it to an AP victory, I only need Monty to get a Hindu city which I easily could do by giving one back to him. Unfortunately Mansa will be my opponent so my vassal will not vote for me, but Freddy should be possible to bribe my way.

Asoka should also be possible, He's now Freddys vassal by peaceful means (seems to me that peaceful vassalisations is more common with the new patch than before...)

In the tech department I'm ahead of everyone so things looks pretty good. Everyone but Mansa is far behind so getting a techwise superior army against Freddy should be possible. Unfortunately he's pretty huge, with the Portugise being destroyed early he could claim all that land easily that should rightfully been Portugise. So it'll by no means be an easy task to take him on.

And to finalise this set. A picture of the world as we know it by 1470AD:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0037.jpg

My apologies if I missed it, but what exactly are the settings for this map?

Thanks in advance,

Jason

Yellow city is worthless, no food, just a waste of maintenance.If he ever decides to go for a cultural victory, it might eventually be useful as a last city to squeeze in those last few temples to allow the 3rd cultural city to get its cathedrals. Even so, it's a build-last or build-very-late.

My apologies if I missed it, but what exactly are the settings for this map?

Thanks in advance,

Jason

Hmm, I don't know exactly which settings you refer to. It's a WB scenario, you play Zara as the Ethiopians on this map. Other than that I believe it's the default settings if you choose "play scenario". You can choose difficulty level and speed.

If it's map specific settings in the map generator, I guess you need to ask rolo.

Monarch/Epic Update 1470-1640


When we left the action last time I had peace with Monty, was rebuilding and considering my options.

I would've needed more time to be enough prepared to war Monty another time, I did lack a bit in offensive power. But Freddy made the decision for me:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

And a screenie later I noticed that the English should've been on this map as well, I must've missed when they got destroyed. Man, two AIs probably destroyed early by the barb uprising event. No wonder Freddy could grow so strong on his continent...
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg

Well, my a bit unprepared army marched towards the Aztec lands:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0003-1.jpg

War took time, I did really only siege two of his cities for quite some time, lowering defense with my very few surviving siege engines while building more.

I did a decent deal in the meantime:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0004-1.jpg

And finally, had a strong enough attackforce to sweep through the two targetted cities (Partly because Monty suicided his big stack on my Oromo warriors, fortified on a forested hill with drillIV promotion. It turned out one was all that was needed to kill his 10 or something cats + Lbows and some X-bows and Jaguars...
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0005-1.jpg
The above one I razed, the one below I kept
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0006-2.jpg

As I was worried that Monty might capitulate to Freddy instead of me I decided to cut the war short if he did capitulate to me. Also, a decently strong Monty could be an ally I could have some use of in a coming war against Freddy and Asoka.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0007-1.jpg

Now, I'm a bit worried about what to do next.My mind was set on a domination victory but that will not be easy. Here's the current status of the victory screen:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0009-2.jpg

Look at the powergraph below, I'm quite weak compared to Freddy.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0010-2.jpg

I will need to be a whole lot stronger, get my economy back on track and keep my tech advantage against Freddy and Asoka if I'm to have any chance to get that domination victory.

The other options available is still a AP-victory. I will have to spread Hindu to Monty and with some diplo tricks I may be able to pull that one of. Though it's not that a fun solution, although probably the quickest.

The other one is to aim for a space race victory. Techwise it should be possible to outtech the competition, Mansa wil be a valuable ally here and he's to small to be able to outproduce me in a spacerace. But I do have too few good production sites.

If anyone hasn't any better ideas I will try a domination victory in this one. At this point I have gunpowder, Astro and Chemistry as a bonus compared to Freddy/Asoka. I am in the middle of producing a Privateer fleet to distrupt Freddys economy a bit. He did put a hole in my economy by going Mercantilism anyway.

I doubt my advantage of Oromo warriors and Knights will stay long enough for me to be able to get a large enough army and to cripple Freddys mainforces before he gets the needed techs he lacks. Techgoal should be to get rifles/cav quickly and ship up as much as possible to Lisbon and use that city as a staging point for the war. A fleet of galleons should try to ship in a decoy force some way of Lisbon to see if I can split his forces a bit.

Off course it'd be the best if I could split up Asoka and Freddy first, but I very much doubt I can pull off such a diplomove at this point.

To be continued another day.

Monarch/Epic 1640-1718 Religious Victory


When I left last time I saw 3 options for Victory and said I would go for a domination, requiring me to take down the very strong German warmachine.

Now, I did prepare for that, but this option came first, and frankly. A war against Germany would certainly been doable and a domination victory possible but it would've taken some time. My economy wasn't brilliant, barely a profit at 40% research, I lacked vital improvements (never got around to building Oxford for instance...), the AI started to catch up a bit in research, I already lost my advantage with gunpowder, though I had still Chemistry Military Science up on them and a short while from Rifles, but the germans had all the prerequisits for Rifles so if I declared, they'd have it fairly quickly I believe.

So I chickened out and spread Hindu to the Aztec lands, Shortly after this happened:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0002-2.jpg

I told you all I would have some use of Monty as a vassal, though not that warhelp I had imagined...

So you can see that my warmachine was far from ready for a campaign against the germans here's two screenies of my SOD so far, it did lack quite alot so a war would've been some years in the future.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0003-2.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d143/Elenthrial/Civ4ScreenShot0004-2.jpg

Conclusion, pretty fun map. I didn't play a normal game at all and it showed, I got all sorts of trouble I normally not find myself in. The map itself was a bit challenging with the lack of food as the major concern, using the laketitles and the few foodresources available got far more important, but even so, early game growth was pretty slow.

My game would've likely been easier from a domination victory point of view if the same barb uprising event hadn't killed both the English and the Portugise before 2000BC. Now the Germans had all the room in the world to grow.

You play what you're given. Looks like you did good to me.

I love AP wins though :).

You play what you're given. Looks like you did good to me.

I love AP wins though :).


Well, it actually gave me my highest score ever up to date. 65k or something. But I do feel that AP victories tends to be on the easy side of winning after you've pinned down the technique to do it, it's not that hard. I believe most of my NC games have ended with a AP-victory.

Actually there's a third way which i choose, i build the second boat and start on the third, once the city reaches 4 i'll immediately switch to a worker with the intention of whipping it in such a manner that the overflow from the whip is enough to get the third boat finished.

Notice that it's very important that i whip now. the worker costs 60 hammers, i've invested 27 hammers atm. If i whip now 2 pop are needed to complete the worker (1 pop = 30 hammers on normal speed). This 2 pop whip will yield 60 hammers, 33 of these are used to complete the worker, the other 27'll go to the boat on the next turn which will subsequently be finished. If i'd waited one more turn i'd have invested 36 hammers in the boat. I could then only whip one pop of which 24 hammers would go to finish the worker, only 6 would go to the boat, 1 pop whips should generally be avoided unless your city is at size 2 and you need a monuent or workboat. I'm not sure everyone needed this level of detail, but it helped me a bunch to get the guidance about when to whip. I did know about re-examining which tiles to work when pop increases, but the reminder was good since I haven't reached the stage where things I passively "know" surface to "active" at the right point.

You're welcome dalamb, i enjoyed writing it.

Yet another restart...

I restarted after getting advice in this thread, and managed to place cities a bit better, I think. I settled Gondar to the south, given hills and a lake nearby and blocking off Monty a bit, then cities to the east to get horses and north near Mansa to get iron and stone. Yeha came last in the middle, once again partly as a blocker and partly to get the cows (overlap with Gondar, but G doesn't need it so much after 3-food lakes and mined hills) plus ivory.

Then there were two variants. The first time, Monty attacked me when I was totally (and stupidly -- we all ought to know about Monty by now) unready for him; the second time, I cosied up by switching to his religion and giving in to whatever demands, but by the time I really needed to push him back his troops were all over my territory going after Mansa, and I really didn't have the resources to manage what amounted to a multi-front guerrilla war.

So this time I've refused to open borders, and when Mansa's religion (Hindu) spread to some of my cities I switched to his for the extra happiness. As expected Monty attacked, and I was ready to stop him and counterattack to take out his civilization after a long hard fight. Unfortunately I missed some really important wonders, particularly Colossus, since I was totally focused on war production.

So, I restarted again, this time from early enough to get Metal Casting and forges in time to build the Colossus by 415 AD. Aksum was involved in unit production only until MC, and all the other cities are producing a variety of military units (archers in the really slow ones, since they're not needed for a while, and a mix of axes and catapults in the others). After Teo I got a GG and settled him in Gondar, which after Granary, Lighthouse, and Barracks has been doing solely military units.

Aksum went back to military after Colossus until the stone from the northern city came online, then went after Pyramids (7 turns to go) so I can get Police State if it's necessary during the Aztec wars.

Here's the current situation.[list] The green blob is where Monty has his nearest city, which will be a PITA if I go after Tenochtitlan in the southwest first. I have to go after it next but there are jaguars in the intervening woods so I expect to lose most of my SoD unless I build a bunch more anti-melee axes first.
I think I need to keep expanding cities for this long fight, which means using Aksum for settler production. The two orange BFCs seem like near-term possibilities; the one to the west is just lakes and fish, little production, but it'll have decent commerce with the lakes. The one to the east has marble, which I'll want for the Epics (Heroic in Gondar, National likely somewhere else if I decide to go for cultural victory). I'd backfill a city near the cows and gold in the north at some point, but my northernmost city can work one of the gold hills in the meantime.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee171/dalamb54/NCZara715AD0002.jpg

Advice wanted: is this mixed war-with-Monty but still-build-cities strategy reasonable? If so are the city placement choices also reasonable?

^ Can you put a save up? I'ts easier to comment on a game that way.

For instance i can see from the beakers/turn rate 715 AD that you can improve your cities/capital more than you've done but i'd need a save or screenshots to see what is missing.

From what i can see/read,

Why are you so fixed on collossus?, i agree it's a good wonder on this map but not a nearly as good as great lighthouse. Working sea tiles is always something of a last resort.

Hard to see on this screen, imo the city near Mansa should have both the goldmines in it's radius, does it?

I wouldn't be to fixed on an early war with Monty, just set him on someone else, there's loads of land to be developed without war, especially since you blocked Mansa completely :goodjob:.

Sorry - not used to thinking about posting savegames.
I missed Great Lighthouse; obviously didn't start soon enough, but the capital had a lot to do because of lack of food elsewhere. Re Colossos, on this map based on prior advice in this thread I figured I'd need to work a lot of 3F lake tiles anyway, just to get enough to work low-food plains hills and suchlike, e.g. Gondor, and rolo suggested the colossos was especially valuable under those circumstances. Re war with Monty: he started it! And without tromping him I'd constantly be worried he'd come after me again. My diplomatic skills are nonexistent aside from obvious stuff like religion.

You didn't do a standard install but a mod install of bugmod 3.0, i don't know if that was intentional but people won't be able to load the save unless they do a mod install of bugmod 3.0. Since it's time that i had Bugmod again (lost it after my comp crashed a while ago) i downloaded it, it looks great, hats of to the bugmod team.

I put some comments in a spoiler.


You're obviously doing fine. A few things i'd do differently:

- As i said i'd have founded Lalibela one S of where it is now ( i actually did in the game i played) then make 2 farms, grow to 4 and work the 2 gold + build a library. City is stagnated in that case but the 2 gold are huge in the early game, later on around the time CS is in i'd start growing Lalibela again. I see you're connecting the gold right now.

- You have 5 workers for 6 cities, i'd build/whip some more, more important they haven't done that much sofar, i'd chop the Mids in capital and build cottages there. Once these cottages mature you'll have far better science. Doing this as early as possible is especially important around the capital, The tiles around the other cities look a bit unimproved as well, working forest tiles is not really productive, i'd build cottages but building farms and running some specialist on the surplus food is also possible. It's crucial for a good game to build a lot of workers as early as possible, chop forests building new settlers/workers with the incoming hammers creating a snowball effect where you're empire grows fast horizontally and vertically.

-You have huge gold surplus, i'd raise the slider to 100% science, you'll lose gold rapidly but you can stay in the green by selling techs like aesthetics and later literature/drama to the ais. Personally since you're winning the war against Monty anyway i'd research CS now, convert to Bureaucracy, it's easier to research (or trade for) feudalism subsequently.

The slow start on building workers/improving the tiles undoubtedly has to do with the war with Monty,you have a big tech lead on Monty, it seems likely to me that you could have avoided the war with him by giving him some 4-5 techs in exchange for war with Mansa or more save Frederic for instance.

Btw i had forgotten about all the lakes on this map, this certainly makes Collossus a much better choice than i thought initially, there's another reason why it's rather good here, all the other Ais can be reached by workboat so you can delay astro for quite a while.So Gondor and rolo were right.

@everyone: sorry to anyone who tried to help but hit that BUG mod roadbump.
@Dirk1302
In an earlier game I chopped forests in what is XX in this game, Gondar in others, and had significant health problems for a while; I guess I got excessively paranoid about chopping, which was silly in this restart because I now have the effects of the Health event.

I realize now my northern city doesn't need to work the stone, and can't work everything I'd like because of lack of food, so 1S would as you say have worked out better.

I had no idea slow improvements would affect the war with Monty. In past games I hadn't seen much effect from gifting techs, but I realize now Monty gets so far behind in techs that I can afford to gift him a lot.
It seems from your comments that this game can do fairly well with a few changes, so I guess I'll continue instead of compulsively restarting yet again (I've heard it's a phase some players go through before learning to just plow on through; maybe I need to play more xOTMs to break the habit).

You can continue to play this game i think since it's going well, just improve the tiles some more. Spoiler is a about gifting techs and bribing.


Gifting techs helps Monty get to pleased, watch out though, if you get the modifier "fair and forthright trade" up to +4 further gifting doesn't make sense anymore since it can't get higher than that. What i meant is checking regularly if Monty was willing to declare on someone and offer him techs to do so, the idea is to do so every time Monty makes peace subsequently, just get him to war with someone else. You incur penalties too though so a little caution on whom you set him is recommended.Mansa is on your continent for instance and though he is peaceful enogh repeatedly setting Monty on him would be a bit risky, Frederick seems to be a good candidate though. I'll post a save from my game around 1 AD tomorrow to show this strat in action.

Heh, well I'll revive this with a late play for me.

Prince-Epic-1960BC

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg

I settled in place, and my build path went

Warrior-WB-WB-Settler-Worker-Oracle(still building)

Tech went

Fishing-BW-Myst-Meditation-Priesthood-AH

Nothing much happened, just met Monty, got Archery from a hut, and settled Gondar to grab the gold/cows.

The world:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

Aksum:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

Gondar:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x281/krick19/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg




Could someone help with a dotmap/any advice you have?