Nobles' Club XLII: Qin Shi Huang of China

Welcome to nobles club . If you post screenies of your games you might be able to get some more help. Lots of people sometimes have mods like BUG or Bat or something hooked up and it can make it diff to load other people's saves sometimes. (it also helps get comments from people who may be reading forums from work or school or something and dont actually have game handy for looking at saves)

As for the diplo thing yeah it can be a pain. Usually you have to make a choice. Once you get lay of land and learn who all hates who pick 1 or two civs to be buddies with (hopefully two that dont hate each other) and make them your priorities always help em when they ask, dont trade with thier worst enemies, try and run their religion and fave civics etc. It doesnt mean you CANT try and make friends with the other ai's too it just that usually it ends if you try to please EVERYBODY you just end up ticking off everybody so just make your budies the priority if it comes to a choice between them or someone out of your little click

And meh declaring 2 turns after you made a peace treaty is weird. If you make a peace treaty it is supposed to ALWAYS last 10 turns minimum before you can redeclare. Only exceptions I can think of are:

A: some kind oif diplo resoution called for all the ai's to declare on you.
B: You DoW on a civ Meh had a def pact with.
C: You were at war with another civ and they voluntarily vassalize to Meh for protection which makes him automatically at war with you.
D: opposite of C Meh is at war with a civ they offer to vassalize to you and you accept which means you at war with Meh automatically
E: you agreed to a ceasefire by mistake and only thought it was a full peace treaty.

To clarify on the situation with Mehmet, once I saw that he was willing to talk I did a "Lets stop this pointless fighting and declare peace." On the next turn, Napoleon declares war, so I moved some War Elephants from the large stack I had guarding my borders against Mehmet over to my northern border with France. Subsequent turn, Mehmet re-declares war and I'm in a bit of a pickle.

Is the "Lets stop..." option not a peace treaty and merely a ceasefire that can be broken at any time? If so that game could have gone much easier...

Also I'm adding some screen shots to make this easier:
The first image shows my three culture cities and the improvements nearby.

Second shows a zoomed out view of my empire.

Third and fourth should be self explanatory.

If there are any other shots that would provide helpful info, let me know and i'll get em up asap.

I'm just curious, but if you're going for a cultural victory, why do you still keep research on? I would think it's best to turn research off all together and focus only on the cultural slider.

PS: Culture wins are best done after Liberalism/Nationalism. Typically what I do is stop teching after that point.

Moved the settler 1 NW to settle on the dye. Same(?) number of river tiles, and chance for fogged resources. Was glad when I saw sugar (farmed=5food under bio) but ended up having NO strategic resources in the culture reach of the capital. No copper/horses/iron/coal/oil/aluminum/uranium. Yikes.

Had to really focus on the diplo front in this one with that crazy mix of leaders. No one DoW on me, but there were some tense moments early with France and I had to give into demands in the BC's (a lot). I bribed war dogpiling on Monty and Brennus to get + diplo mutual military struggle with the powerhouses. Helped Hatty spread Judaism to all my neighbors, traded meager resources, opened borders, etc... All that work eventually paid off with Nappy/Orange/Mehmed/Joao friendly where they stayed all game. Monty/Brennus (and Hatty) were vassalized thus no threat to me. Built both AP and UN. AP was moderately useful and annoying at the same time. I built the UN because I was nearly guaranteed leadership...which kept me from having to defy civics resolutions until the last 20-30 turns. Orange was a culture beast but I recognized it early and bribed him to switch civics every 5 turns to stay out of FS. Beat him by 6 turns at the end.

Normal tech pattern. Oracle->CS sling with 1 GS bulbing math. Liberalism->Bio sling with 4 GS bulbing partial PPress,Chem,SMeth. Spam forest preserves (eventually chopped for SS parts). Beeline computers for Internet. Then on to fusion and backfill.

Cut down on the wonders this game, but regretted building the GWall. My exploring warrior died so I didn't know we were in the middle of everyone and the map would fill quickly.

Fun and challenging game for a one city space non-OCC.

Welcome to the Noble's Club. For diplomacy, sometimes it's best to take sides, especially with unstable leaders. It's better to have a few strong allies and a few enemies than to be neutral-ish with everyone. That was my main mistake in the Mehmed game. Pick a few strong leaders who like each other and try to buddy up with them. Trade DOES help relations, but trading with another civ's enemy will hurt relations with them. Also, switching to a larger religion can help, and you still get the benefit from your shrines even if you are a different state religion. Later on, Free Religion is useful for balanced diplomacy, but it's often better just to take sides.

For terrain improvements, the wonder city should probably have mostly production, so mines and workshops and later watermills. Science should have a mix of food resources and cottaged river tiles, probably with windmills on the hills.

That said, I probably don't follow my own advice half of the time, so... "Do as I say, not as I do."

100 AD- Willem asked me to cancel deals with the French, so I checked out the foreign advisor and said “no!”. Mehmed and Napoleon are pleased towards each other, so I’ll try to buddy up with them.

270 AD- Finished the Statue of Zeus and whipped 2 courthouses done.

1000 AD- The tight map conditions and a far-too-improvised tech path have crippled my economy and I’m behind in tech. I’m managing to get courthouses and plantations built, and that should help, but I may lose Liberalism and Music, which is very bad. I’m also locked in with only 5 or 6 cities. Winning on Prince will be difficult… Luckily, Napoleon keeps settling next to my cultural borders and far from his lands, so a Great Artist may actually be able to get me a new city or two.

1060 AD- I got a Great Artist, and just in time. Next turn, my Northern Border pops, then, I use my Great Artist to increase it again. I take all the French territory to their city, and in 15 turns my border will pop yet again.

1100 AD- Montezuma declares war on me? As far as I know he has no actual way to reach my territory…. In the meantime, I get Music, though I’m not the first, and Liberalism doesn’t look too good either. I needs more economy! The next turn, Monty slips 2 units into my territory and pillages my stuff. I’m way behind militarily as well… Aagh!

1180 AD- Monty slips a massive stack into my territory… over the mountain range?? Joao declares war. I didn’t prepare at all for this.. game over… Prince is hard.. any advice with balancing diplomacy/teching/economy/military? Help would be greatly appreciated.

I went for domination, but waited my UU to attack. Before I DoW anyone, the French decide to DoW me. Then Montezuma, then the celts in the next 20 turns after the french. Ok fine, I go into a defensive war, do some damage, sign peace with the french and celts, block montezuma at a chock point, then push the egyptians since she is allied to the french by religion. I capture half her empire, she refuses to vassalise, then on the same turn she vassalize to the french! Gah annoying, but no problem I go push the french. After killing most of his stacks, I take a couple of cities and he vassalize to mahmed!! Again after refusing to vassalize with me "we are doing fine on our own" on the same turn (i try to vassalize after taking each city).

At this point I am tired of it, how do you deal with AIs vassaling to each other? Mahmed was huge, now he is even bigger (the french only lost 2 cities, they still have 8-9 of them and a huge area). And he did not even attack the french, just declared war and watched me do all the work.

I don't want to go into an endless game where I need to kill everyone, too much work. I just want to hit hard and vassalize, but how do you get them to submit to you and not another AI? I already have 2-3 times their power and I hit their capitals but it isn't working.

4000 BC- Settled in spot, Worker, Bronze Working.

1000 BC- Met all leaders, built Stonehenge.

675 BC- Founded Confucianism, built Oracle, free Philosophy.

600 BC- Used a GP for a Golden Age.

0 AD- Joao, Mehmed, and Hatty convert to Confucianism.. cash! Looks like religion will pay off this game.

325 AD- Built the Confucian Shrine, boosting my economy to allow 100% research.

540 AD- Built the Parthenon, bribed Willem to switch to Confucianism.

740 AD- Built Statue of Zeus.

940 AD- Willem won the Great Artist from music. I start building the Apostolic Palace.

1130 AD- Apostolic Palace done.

1210 AD- Sistine Chapel done.

1410 AD- Willem wins Liberalism. The Dutch have really been maniacs in the last few games…

So far, I'm doing better. Massive expansion and exploitation of religion has helped with both economy and diplomacy, and now Joao is the one fighting Montezuma and Brennus while I pat him on the back and say words of consolation. Napoleon is more of a menace, but at least Mehmed isn't helping him. Hatshepsut is Friendly with me, despite my standing by while the French attack her. She's holding out pretty well, though. I'm just about ready to go all-culture, but I'm not sure if I have enough culture points to actually win. Still, an improvement from the last so far..

Are you planning to put the National Park in your capital to help farm some late-game GPs? If not, you're working way too many unimproved tiles.

And if so, it probably wasn't optimal. You've got so many riverside grass tiles that you could probably have farmed or cottaged them over ages ago.

Settled in place. BW---->masonry (chop gwall) ---> mysticism/wheel ---> AH ----> pottery ----> IW

Also build pyramids. Stonehenge went ~2100 BC but I didn't make a serious effort for it (was starting it in the stone city for some $$$ though note that if it went late I might have actually gotten it).



Chop some workers/settlers, cottage, trade aesthetics for the likes of math/alpha/backfill.

I decide to smack hatty around a bit. Rough her up good. She likes that kind of thing sometimes.



I get an offer from Joao, who is getting butchered by monty:



I bribe monty out and then take it.



Time to finish the job:



Doink.



Next up is napoleon. He has some medieval stuff so that prompted me to get knights and use knights + catas to deal with his stack, then continue on with knight/musket/leftovers to take his cities. He moved the stack into my land and promptly got wrecked at like 4:1 k/d. Smooth sailing after that until he capped.



After that I picked up steel and was closing on rifles when monty declared. He of course had to fight Joao, and I managed to trade Joao rifles to slow the ENEMY down with magic rifles! Haha! This war was grueling. They had so much production. I killed a lot of cavalry and actually got a stack annihilated unexpectedly before regrouping. Eventually, monty/voluntary brennus hung it up and I took control.



Willem was closing in on culture fast but with all the vassals I was able to broker to infantry/arty almost instantly. I was #1 in power when I saw an easier out ---> hatty made a confucian AP. Having captured any serious opposition to an AP win, I used it.







As for my tile improvements, I just spammed units while working some cottages. Very little infra until after banking, where I switched US and went market/grocer/bank (MGB) rush buy. I didn't even have democracy! But almost all of my improvements were already towns so that didn't matter. This was fun diversion as I used to fight medieval war a lot more than I can now.

Was happy to see the stone and marble close by with an industrious leader. I decided early on I was going to wonder spam because of the favorable conditions and I thought this would lead well into a cultural victory. Also, since I soon met all the AI's on I knew we were all on one continent and there would be lots of religions around for me to grab for an easy cultural victory.

I settled in place and founded my first city east of the capital near the stone. I was able to get SH and Mids. I settled a city way north up near hateshput which thinking now may have been a bad idea because I think it only antagnoized napoleon who was in that region as well. He declared on me in the late BC's but wasn't able to do much.

Nap's SoD



Was able to build/whip some archers up there and he didn't get past them.

The early game was spent settling a decent amount of cities, blocking all my little area within the mountains, and wonder spamming. I built great library, parthenon, sistine, and a few of the other marble wonders. After all my cities were founded I spent the time building up the culture infrastucture and spreading religions, I was able to get 4 religions in my cities.

Empire at 10AD



I won Lib race and took Nationalism. After that I changed civics into FS, pacifism, and caste system and turned cultural slider all the way up. Because of all the religions, my legendary cities had a pretty good amount of culture per turn and I was able to shave off many turns compared to what I usually do.

Diplo was a real concern this round because of crazy monty and nappy. There were lots of religions which caused a lot of wars between the AI's but I avoided most by switching religions and gifting techs.

The turn my last two cities hit legendary Willem decides he doesn't like me flipping anymore of his cities and declares on me. Luckily he wasn't really near my legendary cities and he declared too late anyways.



3 Legendary Cities







Final Look at Empire 1788

North



Middle



South



1788 Cultural Victory





Thanks for hosting and looking forward to more games. =)

Settled in place. The build course was worker, warrior, settler, warrior, worker. The tech path was BW (no early war), the wheel, IW, masonry, pottery, writing, hunting, archery (defence), AH. The three huts were not overly generous - map, hostile, 52 G. Five competitors introduced themselves very early. Joao II showed in 1875 followed by Napoleon in 1650. No doubt there will be a priced to be paid for very limited exploration.

The new cities are fine, if late bloomers. Shanghai in 2575 1E of the stone. Guangzhou in 2075 NNE of the marble. Nanjing in 1775 NW of the southern iron. Beijing built the Great Wall in 1625 and the Pyramids in 1175.

Currently, China is a surrounded middle-power. The future is a tad foggy. Most likely the capital will become a wonder-driven science centre/GPF; certainly there will be no aggressive war until machinery and construction; an elephant city seems to be a good fit.

The date is 1930. Managed to vassalize a very weak Jao who was being pounded by zuma and his vassal, the celts. They make quite the pair, the celts settled on other islands and have been a tech leader since early on... montezuma doing the warfare and the celts feeding him techs. They were the first to tanks and it became quite troublesome to fight the high production of montezuma with tanks while still limited to rifles and artillery.

Mahmed and his vassal, the french have been my allies but their AI seem to have trouble navigating the map, the french seem to be concentrating on sabotaging my north empire using spies. Mahmed took a couple of cities and me too, and unfortunately just when we were getting the upper hand he decides to declare peace with zuma.

I keep willem at pleased, but can't get him to DoW montezuma even tho I have his favorite civic + bonus trade, etc. The last 10 turns someone stole 3 big techs from me (biology, physics, and electricity) and from land position and tech screen I think it is Willem. (Does the AI spy on you on pleased?)

Anyway I losing a bit of morale and starting to play sloppy. We'll see how things will turn out, but it is not looking good so far. I guess my warfare on monarch is still shaky.

I get tanks, start to build up. Then OUT OF NOWHERE Willem vassalises to Mahmed. Willem was not even in a war, did not lose any cities, and has very decent tech and power. There is just no reason for it!

Mahmed having vassaled napoleon + willem which are both strong means I won't be able to attack him to kill his cultural cities. I just don't understand the AI game mechanics behind vassalage, and I hate when things happen just at random. At this point the game became just frustrating and I am learning nothing from it.

I give up.

I rarely think that a particular map requires a specific civic in order to win thats the beauty of Civ 4 so much variety and different routes to victory are possible. While this map is a bit different from the usual I defintely do no think it requires SP to win. There has been, I believe, 3 Culture wins on this map and SP is not required for culture at all. SP is nice when you have a large empire in order to reduce maintenance and to increase production from workshops. T

This map has so many hills for mines I do not think you need to use many workshops in order to already have great production. I think this map is great for culture because of the many wonder possibilities but also Conquest/Domination or even Space because of the great production.