Nobles' Club CXVII: Montezuma of the Aztecs

dalamb

dalamb

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The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Montezuma of the Aztecs, whom we last played in NC LXI. The Aztecs start with Hunting and Mysticism.
Monty.jpg
  • Traits: Montezuma is Aggressive and Spiritual. AGG means faster barracks and drydocks, and a free Combat I promotion for melee and gunpowder units. SPI means faster temples, but its chief benefit is no anarchy when switching civics. Despite Monty's usual psychopathic aggressiveness as an AI, this can be a diplomatic trait: it lets you yield to AI demands for civic and religion switches, gaining you improved relations, while allowing you to change back easily five turns later.
  • The UB: The Sacrificial Altar, a Courthouse that reduces anger duration from whipping by 50%. This lets you build an army more quickly, giving a critical advantage in warfare.
    altar.jpg

  • The UU: The Jaguar, a Swordsman with Woodsman I. With one promotion from a cheap barracks, you get Woodsman II city-attackers who move through forest and jungle at 2 tiles per turn.
    jaguar.jpg
And the start:
start_zpsc809b041.jpg

Spoiler map details :
Hemispheres, 2 continents, specific AIs
Spoiler edits :
Regenerated to find a 2-food start, and added a little more food. Swapped the AIs around; you'll probably discover why.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:
There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 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, where you're thinking of putting cities, 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 didn't, 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)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number of 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.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
The WB-saves are 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, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 117 Monty Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
Spoiler huts and events :
Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.
 

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Looks like a great starting location, and allows room for a helper city on the west coast. Will try this game later, but want to finish the Elizabeth game first. I'm slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow :D
 
Monster capital there! Monty will love it. Leaning towards chopping out the Oracle for CoL and then the whip frenzy begins.
 
Monarch NHNE 675 BC

Spoiler :
SIP, Tech order: agri, the wheel, pottery, mining, bw, mediation, priesthood, writing, Oracled CoL at 1600 BC, then IW. I expanded to four cities, one north to share a cottage tile, corn, and have a grassland hill and corn to itself, second to the northwest to grab copper and corn, many hills, and last to the south of the capital to grab corn and hills.

I was able to get a granary and barracks in each city before churning out jags. Stole two workers from pacal, my target. Also was able to get a sacrificial altar in my capitol b4 the rush. Pacal only expanded to three cities which were easy to grab with a total of 16 jags and lost only 4.

Currently teching alpha, I guess the big plan is to cut off siting bull and HC from the north so I have it all to myself. Tech towards Lib and expand to all the land in the north. Thinking I will Lib either cannons or rifles, upgrade those jags for some fun woodsman action.

Also will have to make a sidetrack or trade towards optics and astro eventually to meet the other AI. After I expand to all the land to the north I will be pretty powerful. Also marble is here for Parthenon, great library, NE, and hopefully MoM action.


Should be a really fun game, thanks for the map dalamb.
 
Huh? I fired up the Immortal save and have played a little while, then check out the settings, and I can only see "No Random Events." Haven't come across any huts yet, but this puzzled me. Is there an error there?

Amusing.
Spoiler :
I'm playing AC/DC in the background. In turn 30 Bronze Working comes online. What song is playing?

"If you want blood.... you got it!"

:lol:
 
Spoiler :
^ I chose the Monarch save no huts, and always go to custom scenario. Huts were turned on, so I checked them off, but I don't think it matters, I didn't run across any huts either and I played to 675 BC. I'm not sure but when you are modifying the world builder save you can turn the huts on or off. Not positive about that, maybe a vet can chime in. Because whenever I make IU games I always turn off huts and events, so I haven't run across any problems like this before.


Didn't know to spoiler or not, best to be safe!
 
Yea, that must be something with setting up map - it doesn't say "no huts", but they are off just like events. I'm no vet :lol: but I saw or asked that somewhere here...

I played to 1640 BC - Emperor, Normal, no huts/events.

Spoiler :
I settled and teched similar as klonoklown and have a opportunity to steal a worker from Pacal as well :D

He is hindu and founded judaism as well and is sending jud. missionary to me. If I declare to steal that worker now, will he still send those missionaries? I hope he's in that spreading mode - if so, I should leave him alone now to surprise him later, right?
Spoiler Images :
Spoiler 1 :
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Spoiler 2 :
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Spoiler 3 :
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Spoiler 4 :
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Spoiler 5 :
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Spoiler 6 :
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Spoiler 7 :
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Warning: Do not copy my settling, cause there are better options. I just can't see them! :D
 

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Holy moly! I like! :drool:
I am going to move the scout to the coast first though to make sure SIP doesn't screw us out of a fish 3west, 1south of where the scout is.

Did Robert make this map?
 
One thing that might make this map tough on higher levels...

Spoiler :
...Isabella gets a ton of land. :p


But it's a fun map. If you're a Noble looking to step up to Monarch, this is a good one to try.
 
@ The Oz-Man

Well, that's expected. :p
Although I whine about such stuff, the maps should be balanced for the Nobles looking to learn and not with Immortals in mind. As long as it serves that purpose, it's all good. :)
 
The regular saves with no random events and no huts get that way by running an editing script over the corresponding with-huts, with-events saves. It gets rid of the huts by deleting the lines that say "put a hut here" which is thus independent of any "no huts" option. Turning on "no huts" in a scenario has no effect; they're either on the map already or not. If you've got a no-events scenario, there are no huts to find either.

With regard to the map:
Spoiler :
JJS, the area around the start is extra food-rich to make it especially attractive to whip with the Sacrificial Altar -- whipping being something many Nobles need to practice. The majority of the map is what the Hemispheres RNG gave us.

About Izzy -- trying to avoid "too much land for some AI" is about the hardest standard edit to judge. I figured it was a fair bit of land but not all of it good; it seems I misjudged. Sorry to the Immortals.
 
Yeah, it's a great map for learning because there are a lot of different things you can do with it without it being particularly cheesy. Good advice for this map just based on the starting position isn't just whip-whip-whip; it's to pack 'em tight. Just within visible range, we have three irrigated agriculture sources (first tech is obvious), more than enough to feed not just the capital, but at least another city or two in the short term. I'd advise Nobles to build at least two or three satellite cities around the capital. Have them work Cottages to build that up while your happiness is low; then, by the time Bureau is in and you have more :) , you can send them back to the capital to work.

It's obvious stuff for high-level players (and matches feedback I've gotten in the past about my play), but with Nobles, it's worth reiterating that this is all stuff you can see just from the very first move. Overlap is good. Overlap is your friend. ;)

@dalamb:

Spoiler :
If it helps, Isabella's land isn't the greatest. Her continent was pretty far behind when I found them (or when Joao found me, because eff you Joao).
 
Ugh, regret checking those few spoilers as I didn't expect to see info about AIs on the other continent. Oh well, can't un-remember it now.

Played to 1AD. At Immortal.
Spoiler :
Settled in Place and explored the map. TONS of food! :lol: Opened with the obvious Agriculture, then Mining and BW. Think I then went The Wheel, before going up to Priesthood. Had already pre-chopped a lot, but had to hold off for what felt like half an eternity while teching up Writing, because I wanted Code of Law from the Oracle.
Spoiler :
attachment.php


Pacal built the Great Wall, and this led to a veritable invasion of barbs. I managed with only warriors, strategically placed on defensive terrain, but some of them died. In 950BC we had already killed 15 barbs.
Spoiler :
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Got Alpha from Pacal for CoL, and AH from Huayna for Writing, and three backfillers for three backfillers with Sitting Bull.

Built a Library early to overcome the Gprophet GP points, and built an Academy in 700BC.
Spoiler :
attachment.php


The AI doesn't always place their cities very intelligently....
Spoiler :
As you can see in the 2nd screenshot, Pacal doesn't even have IW, so can't know about the iron there.
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I usually don't see Barb cities grow large this early, so I made it a priority to attack Olmec in the north. I was very puzzled though. There were 5 archers and a worker. Then I moved the Jaguars out of their borders, hoping they wouldn't produce more. Next turn I took a Woodsie II Jaguar back in to see....
Spoiler :

1 archer? WTH? Where did the others go???
attachment.php


I took it the next turn, and then tried to locate the missing archers. None to the left, and 1 damaged well to the right. I've no idea where they went. Could Pacal have tried to attack the city, and gotten wiped out in the east? I've no idea, but they were simply gone. I'm thankful though, because unsettling 5 hilled archers is NOT fun. :cry:


By almost 1AD another GP was ready, 75% GScientist / 25% GProphet. Was unlucky and got a Great Prophet. However, Confucianism had spread a little bit, so I built the Shrine and got 7:gold: per turn.
Spoiler :
attachment.php


An opportunity to worker steal from Sitting Bull presented itself, and I took it. Grabbed another one later via 2-move Jaguar, but unfortunately he got killed, and the worker retaken (thought it would be deleted) by a Dog Soldier. Some turns later SB tried to attack, but I wiped him out with 1 loss (he brought 4 guys). Also took out another Dog soldier with a Chariot. However....
Spoiler :
attachment.php


I'm sorry, are you flipping NUTS?! I know I've taken more guys than he has, yet he wants a city for peacing out? Weird.


The reason I wanted to end the war now, is that his land is really crummy, so I'm not really interested in taking him on now. Have started to produce-whip catapults, but think I'll attack Pacal instead. His land is much better. Would be nice if he built the Buddhist Shrine first though.

This is the overview at 1AD:
Spoiler :
attachment.php


Spoiler Image upload problem rant :
(The new Photobucket sucks all kinds of MASSIVE sh*te, so I'm trying imgur instead. Think they delete images quickly, but at least I can USE the darn thing. Why must ALL websites progressively get WORSE every time they "upgrade" [sic!!!!!] ???? :wallbash::gripe:

Well, isn't this fun. After five minutes of doing NOTHING after I click "Upload", apparently imgur blows chunks too... Sigh :( Now I had to use the silly nested spoilers, because CFC doesn't resize images, and 1920 is rather wide.)
 

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@smilingrogue: Dalamb made this map. My first forum map will be the next NC game, de Gaulle. Don't say that my maps sucks. I can't be master yet. By the way I've kept on losing in prince. Let's hope that I finally could beat 'em up....
 
As usual, I'll play on Prince/Normal/No huts/No events. Some initial thoughts:

Although Monty starts with Mysticism, this time I will not let myself to be fooled to found an early religion. Worker as the first build and Agriculture as the first tech. Then I shall proceed to Mining and Bronze Working, because I see a lot of forest that can be chopped into further Workers and Settlers and maybe perhaps even into wonders. It seems that the Settler has already been placed on a plains hill. That means a boost to early production.
 
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