THE Noble's Club Bullpen, MK II

I was going to dig up a description around the time I posted the game (since I'm usually to lazy to go use the Search function), but the basics are:
  • Beeline Horseback Riding
  • Build barracks and stables gers. You get 7XP out of the gate, even without a GG or theocracy or vassalage, enough for 2 promotions.
  • Build lots of Kheshiks. Lots and lots. I think in some games he never built any other attackers.
  • Remember that "rush" means "rush" -- attack soon and keep attacking. "Warfare is self-sustaining" -- you'll get lots of cash to keep your economy going if you keep conquering cities.
  • Promote your "first attackers" to Flanking II, which gives Kheshiks a 50% withdrawal chance. Attack cities with these when they still have 2 moves (1 move left after they attack); more than half the time they'll either win outright or retreat.
  • Promote others up the Combat line. Use these (in the same stack, of course) to clean up.
Since I didn't search for his original message before writing this, and my memory is often poor, I am certainly leaving out important details he actually covered, so its probably best not to question or criticize this strategy until I have an opportunity to post it "for real".
 
Me too :). So i guess that'll be too of us. I have been playing a few emperor starts offline and finally seem to be getting to a strong position in one. So may have my first emperor win soon.
BTW - Big difference from Monarch for me is how the AI seem to unit spam by the mid game.

Atleast I'll have someone to compare how badly I'm doing! I've done a couple of 150 turn tryouts at emporer, just to test the water so to speak, I'm finding the increased costs a bit tough. Seems like a totally different league to Monarch.
 
From the Caesar thread:
.... I also found it only stocked with warriors. Did I neglect to do something to the save to make sure the AIs started with archers?
@Kingjester1: Unfortunately this game was before I learned how to edit the default Noble save to make Monarch, Immortal, and Deity saves, so the AI had its extra starting units and tech rate but not its extra techs. So, no archers. Starting with Gilgamesh there are multiple WB files.
At some point I could go back and create higher-difficulty WB saves for my various pre-Giggles games; is that of any value to anyone? The time-consuming part is creating a proper Noble WB save, which is already done; it takes maybe 5 minutes to add the techs for the other saves and run a sanity check (such as loading the Immortal save and checking that the AI units look right).

Creating those saves for other peoples' games would also be possible but I wouldn't be able to update the first post in those threads. About 1/3 of the old games have been picked up again some months later.
 
This weekend's game will be Ghengis Khan. I plan on using an Arboria map for the first time, inspired by madscientist's recent all-Montezuma RPC; the Kheshik ability to ignore terrain costs would really shine (though that's true of Highlands too, but I imagine people had enough of Highlands with too few opponents in the Boudica game). A quick look at an example suggests that these maps have a single continent (no islands), a lot of food, most of it deer but also other types (I saw seafood, corn, sheep, horses, ...) plus a lot of trees (the main point, of course). There is no way to change sea level, so I can't (intentionally or not) fiddle to make too much land for Immortal TMIT.

There will be horses within range of a first or second city -- first if the script starts that way, 2nd if I have to edit it in (or, I suppose, if the script does that itself). Some questions:
  1. Does anybody care about world wrap? Cylindrical is default as on normal maps, but I was thinking of making it Flat (no wrap).
  2. Any opponents you want to request or discourage? I'm thinking of Monty because of his woods-savvy Jaguars, but I think I'd want to edit him to be reasonably far away from us.
  3. Are there any other suggestions for things people would like?
I will copy TMIT's brief guide on Kheshik strategy into a spoiler in the original post.
 
  1. Does anybody care about world wrap? Cylindrical is default as on normal maps, but I was thinking of making it Flat (no wrap).

I'm not a big fan of flat maps myself. I suppose it might be OK if we're surrounded by ocean anyway.
 
Nooo....

I care about world wrap. :(
I also like more islands.

But of course, these are all subjective reasons, and not even based on anything other than personal bias. I guess one huge land mass is easier to play than other map types, but... blah, I for one would find it boring. :(
 
Flat map = fewer vectors of threat, so I prefer cylindrical.

If you do go Arboria, Monty is a definite to include. Also one of the Indian leaders would be good: the fast worker should really shine on such a map type.
 
Some questions:
  1. Does anybody care about world wrap? Cylindrical is default as on normal maps, but I was thinking of making it Flat (no wrap).
  2. Any opponents you want to request or discourage? I'm thinking of Monty because of his woods-savvy Jaguars, but I think I'd want to edit him to be reasonably far away from us.
  3. Are there any other suggestions for things people would like?
I will copy TMIT's brief guide on Kheshik strategy into a spoiler in the original post.

1) I'm ok with flat or wrap, but i guess wrap = better
2) Dont change any of the leader, if we have to contend with Monty or even Shaka :eek: (who would be a lot worse) so be it.
3) Since it's low sea level maybe we should increase the number of AI
 
Actually after a few quick tests, settling a capital and checking the domination limit, it seems aboria maps tend to have less land than a standard medium sea level pangea map.

Average land tiles count for pangea was 901 and aboria weighed in at just 775 tiles.

So maybe we should keep it at 7 unless your aiming for a crowded map.

As for the other questions I'm actually not too fussed on which leaders, wrap type or flat or not. Whatever you feel like Dalamb.
 
well in that case definitely keep the usual number of suspects.

@ Groogaroo - you ready to give this a whirl on Emperor??? I have been practicing :p

Yeah I'm up for Emporer this game... Hmmmm... practice? maybe I should get me some of that!
 
I didn't realize you could check the domination tile count. :blush: Does that just involve land tiles or does it count coast, too? Edit: OK, how do you find the # land tiles? I know about getting percentage from the victory screen and "land area" from the demographics, but how do you translate that "square kilometres" number to actual tiles?

If Arboria is 100+ tiles short of Pangaea, then clearly leaving it at 6 AI is the right thing to do. Given the land tile shortfall and given that CivilizedTiger likes islands, maybe I should create an one somewhere?
 
I didn't realize you could check the domination tile count. :blush: Does that just involve land tiles or does it count coast, too? Edit: OK, how do you find the # land tiles? I know about getting percentage from the victory screen and "land area" from the demographics, but how do you translate that "square kilometres" number to actual tiles?

If Arboria is 100+ tiles short of Pangaea, then clearly leaving it at 6 AI is the right thing to do. Given the land tile shortfall and given that CivilizedTiger likes islands, maybe I should create an one somewhere?

Settle the capital (9 squares) check the land domination % on the victory screen

9 squares devided by the land domination % multiplied by 100 should give you a rough idea of the number of land tiles. Atleast thats what I think :crazyeye: I have been known to be wrong before though!

Up to you about the island thingy, given that most will probably be going Domination or Conquest on this game AI's settling on islands are a pain in the butt on a map where your not going to be prioritizing naval warfare. But I guess it's just personal taste.
 
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