THE Noble's Club Bullpen, MK II

[Capellan]

Just checked, and the earth map has plains elephants and grassland elephants (with the grassland 'phants ringed by jungle). See the opening post of King of the World 13, for instance.

So I think adding grassland elephants amidst jungle is A-OK, even if whatever map script you use doesn't deliver them by itself.

 

[dalamb]

NC 48, Suryavarman, is up. I'd normally post in the evening but might not be online then. Early birds should let me know if there are any problems; I'll be around for a few hours.

This is my 11th map, so I've tied my illustrious predecessor, TheMeInTeam.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

NC 48, Suryavarman, is up. I'd normally post in the evening but might not be online then. Early birds should let me know if there are any problems; I'll be around for a few hours.

This is my 11th map, so I've tied my illustrious predecessor, TheMeInTeam.

At least in NC hosts, anyway . Now you just have to run at least that many IU games, 5 or so PYLs, and an LHC and I'm beaten .

But seriously, good work on this series.

 

[dalamb]

Not likely to run any Immortal University games for a long time! But, yes, I meant NC only.

 

[Scarlet Lux]

Hey all I'm a player coming out from Warlord. I recently played a game on Warlord and it would've been in the bag but I let Shaka survive. I realized I could play on noble level so I fired up NC XII (Elizabeth Revisited). Though I'm not too great with attacking with early units. Praetorian rushes were great because I could just mass produce one unit but I want to be able to hone my skills (not relying on the best UU in the game) but take it slowly. What would be the easiest NC game? Preferably they have a good UU to rush with. Before my recent Warlord game I was a peacemonger, it was with that past Warlord game I realized the value of war but this recent NC XII game showed that I still have a lot of work to do.

 

[lymond]

Hey all I'm a player coming out from Warlord. I recently played a game on Warlord and it would've been in the bag but I let Shaka survive. I realized I could play on noble level so I fired up NC XII (Elizabeth Revisited). Though I'm not too great with attacking with early units. Praetorian rushes were great because I could just mass produce one unit but I want to be able to hone my skills (not relying on the best UU in the game) but take it slowly. What would be the easiest NC game? Preferably they have a good UU to rush with. Before my recent Warlord game I was a peacemonger, it was with that past Warlord game I realized the value of war but this recent NC XII game showed that I still have a lot of work to do.

Egypt or Persia

 

[Scarlet Lux]

Egypt or Persia

Thanks! Go for a war chariot or immortal rush? I've never done those sort of rushes so I hope I do everything right.

 

[drlake]

Thanks! Go for a war chariot or immortal rush? I've never done those sort of rushes so I hope I do everything right.

Honestly, if you never learn to use siege weapons, you'll never really progress beyond early rushes and similar situations where you have a huge advantage. Try a game, build a big stack with half of it siege weapons and most of the rest melee units that can get City Raider Promotions and cavalry units, find a city, use bombard to reduce the cultural defenses, suicide a few of the siege weapons with CR promotions to weaken the defending units, and then kill them with the melee and cavalry. Rinse and repeat, until you've learned the basics of warfare with siege. There's a war academy article about this you should look at, as well.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/offensive_military_stack

 

[lymond]

Honestly, if you never learn to use siege weapons, you'll never really progress beyond early rushes and similar situations where you have a huge advantage. Try a game, build a big stack with half of it siege weapons and most of the rest melee units that can get City Raider Promotions and cavalry units, find a city, use bombard to reduce the cultural defenses, suicide a few of the siege weapons with CR promotions to weaken the defending units, and then kill them with the melee and cavalry. Rinse and repeat, until you've learned the basics of warfare with siege. There's a war academy article about this you should look at, as well.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/offensive_military_stack

This is fine advice and worthy of heeding. However, given Scarlet's usual play style, I think trying out the early rush method is certainly worthwhile.

Scarlet, just note that sometimes early rush are not optimal. You may not have the special resource is close enough proximity to hook up timely or the AI is simply too far away. Chariots do make up some of the distance it's true and they are very powerful at Noble level.

 

[lymond]

Thanks! Go for a war chariot or immortal rush? I've never done those sort of rushes so I hope I do everything right.

There's some basic chariot rush strategies article threads here. I recommend searching for them in the forum or war academy. I recall someone posting such a thread not long ago.

Anyway, the War Chariot is a whacked strong UU and the Immortal is widely considered the best early UU in the game. Also, unlike most mounted units you actually get defensive bonuses with the immortal, i.e., you can fortify it on say a hill. The archer bonus is sick.

The key to the rush is building enough units and getting them into play asap. If you have horses in the caps or in the cultural borders you are golden. Otherwise, settle a city right next to one. I recommend getting out at least 10 units with some on the way as backup. Also, try build a road in the general direction of the enemy to speed your units along. Surprise attack and take out any metals the AI might have hooked up - otherwise, you may be facing spearmen which is not good. On Noble, you may very well be facing warriors if you get things going quiick and the war chariot and Immortal eat warriors for breakfast.

Lastly, keep in mind that the rush is part of your expansion strategy. You are building units not settlers early. Therefore, you are taking enemy cities to expand. However, keep on eye on the cities you are taking. Some may be suboptimal but the caps are usually always worth keeping.

 

[dalamb]

Current plan for this Friday is Churchill. I often like to ensure the map is suitable for the leader's traits, UU, and UB. I figure since he's not FIN this shouldn't be a watery map, and some stomping with Redcoats ought to be possible. Pangaea, perhaps? I don't like doing that with an early UU, personally, so for example the Julius game had multiple continents. Redcoats are late enough that you might be facing reasonably tough opposition on Pangaea -- unless you're the sort who usually conquer the world with axemen! Plus the Stock Exchange doesn't need overseas trade in order to be worth building.

If I'm up to playing next week, I think I'll be delighted to stomp folks with Drill IV redcoats! PRO starts with Drill I, so 3 promotions is Drill IV. Normally that's (4-1)^2+1 = 10 XP, and -25% for CHA means only 8 (I think it's *3/4, rounded up).

Comments welcome.

 

[drlake]

Current plan for this Friday is Churchill. I often like to ensure the map is suitable for the leader's traits, UU, and UB. I figure since he's not FIN this shouldn't be a watery map, and some stomping with Redcoats ought to be possible. Pangaea, perhaps? I don't like doing that with an early UU, personally, so for example the Julius game had multiple continents. Redcoats are late enough that you might be facing reasonably tough opposition on Pangaea -- unless you're the sort who usually conquer the world with axemen! Plus the Stock Exchange doesn't need overseas trade in order to be worth building.

If I'm up to playing next week, I think I'll be delighted to stomp folks with Drill IV redcoats! PRO starts with Drill I, so 3 promotions is Drill IV. Normally that's (4-1)^2+1 = 10 XP, and -25% for CHA means only 8 (I think it's *3/4, rounded up).

Comments welcome.

Sounds interesting, though I've played the English before and there are quite a few civs I can't say that about. That said, is Drill really that good a promotion? I'll start a new thread for that discussion, so don't respond here.

 

[Amao]

Current plan for this Friday is Churchill. I often like to ensure the map is suitable for the leader's traits, UU, and UB. I figure since he's not FIN this shouldn't be a watery map, and some stomping with Redcoats ought to be possible. Pangaea, perhaps? I don't like doing that with an early UU, personally, so for example the Julius game had multiple continents. Redcoats are late enough that you might be facing reasonably tough opposition on Pangaea -- unless you're the sort who usually conquer the world with axemen! Plus the Stock Exchange doesn't need overseas trade in order to be worth building.

If I'm up to playing next week, I think I'll be delighted to stomp folks with Drill IV redcoats! PRO starts with Drill I, so 3 promotions is Drill IV. Normally that's (4-1)^2+1 = 10 XP, and -25% for CHA means only 8 (I think it's *3/4, rounded up).

Comments welcome.

dalamb, don't be too nice to us.

 

[dalamb]

NC XLIX Churchill is up. I don't think I was "too" nice. Somewhat nice, though -- we're still officially for Noble players, after all.

 

[dalamb]

Next game starts this Friday (21st). Remaining leaders are Augustus (IMP/IND), Hammurabi (AGG/ORG), Huayna Capac (FIN/IND), Justinian (SPI/IMP), Mao Zedong (EXP/PRO), and Peter (EXP/PHI). I was planning Huayna next -- but since I've started a few Prince games, and he's an "easy" leader to play against the AIs at Monarch, I think I'll put him last in case I'm ready to step up another level. I'd prefer to put off Mao a bit to avoid another PRO leader right away, and I suppose we should spread out the two IMP leaders a pit. So, within those constraints, any preferences?

I've installed BUG 4.4 in my CustomAssets; if I create saves/scenarios, will other people be able to load them without BUG? Since installing this way is supposed to work for succession games, I expect it won't cause anyone problems.

 

[drlake]

You might want to separate the IND and EXP leader pairs as well. How about something like this?


Augustus (IMP/IND)
Mao (EXP/PRO)
Hammurabi (AGG/ORG)
Justinian (SPI/IMP)
Peter (EXP/PHI)
Huayna (FIN/IND)

That splits all the traits so each game will explore different traits from the one before it. I'm not that concerned with the sequencing, personally, so whatever you come up with works for me.

No idea on BUG, but I can't imagine why it would change the save/WB file in any way.

 

[dalamb]

That order sounds fine; it has been a while since Mao and Qin.

I asked about BUG because I used to install it as a mod, and that did create problems for other people.

 

[lymond]

Running BUG in Custom Assets should not cause problems for others. In fact, it shouldn't even matter between different versions of BUG. I'm still using 4.3.

Running anything as a stand-alone mod will cause problems, unless one uses that mod. I play most forum games using BUG in custom assets, unless there's a WB file in which case I use BUFFY or BAT.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

The mods you have only count when it comes to save game files themselves, which are encoded with information from your actual games, including (I assume from the fact that different mods break savegame files) certain information which only the mod can interpret.

WB save files are sets of instructions for the game on how to create a map, and what mods you have shouldn't affect those, so, you're pretty much safe.

~~~

I'd vote for either Peter or Hammurabi next.

 

[dalamb]

NC 50 Augustus is up. I'm going to try to finish Churchill first, but like many people said, that's fairly tough and I might drop it if Praets sound more attractive.