Nobles Club V - Hannibal

Bleys

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We wanted to try a water map with a Civ that has some connection, and Hannibal certainly fits the bill. His UB is a nicely upgraded Harbor.

Carthage
Cothon (replaces Harbor)
+1 trade route,
Costs 20 more hammers than Harbor

Here is his info:



Not sure if we will see much use for the UU, but thats ok. Maybe the map will allow some galley based warring opportunities, and the UU is nice for that.

Unique unit for Carthage; Replaces Horse Archer
Immune to first strikes.
Doesn't receive defensive bonuses.
Can withdrawn from combats (20% chance).
-10% city attack.
+50% attack vs. catapult and trebuchet.
+50% vs. melee units.
Starts with Flanking I.

The start looks excellent, gems in the BFC and everything. Here is a look:



And now for the copy and pasted standard monthly rundown:

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. We also request that as you progress, you link back to your earlier posts for that game, so that folks can see how you progressed through the ages (if you need help with how to do that, ask, its really simple once you know how, a great example of the technique is here, by Refar). Again, none of these are required, just suggested.

Tentative posting updates are suggested at:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
2000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, etc)
1 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1000 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didnt, met other continent if applicable, etc)
1500 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 HoF MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC V Hannibal".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
 

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Looks very interesting. Gems are moderately game breaking for the early tech rush. I will definitely go Agr -> Hunt -> BW -> AH
 
Ooh, gems. On a grassland.
 
Just completed the first round.

Spoiler :
I settled in place and dialed up a worker. I started with agriculture. Pretty nice island, good commerce, not so great on hammers, but hey, it's an archipelago map. Founded Utica 2N of the Cows, to grab rice, fish and the cows.
 
Bleys:
Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, I suggest checking out the HoF MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC IV Frederick".
:p

Looking forward to this! Going to play Monarch, Normal. See if I can get an early space victory via GLH and early REX.
But then again, I may just go domination like I usually do...
 
Yippee!!!

Hmmm... Interesting, a no seafood coastal start for someone who starts with fishing and quite a decent landmass. 2 hills in the BFC so production will be okay but not amazing. Its nice to see the gems (which we can mine straight away), great for early research and +1 happy. Alot of clear flat grasslands so maybe horses might be here too! I may still build a workboat 1st as I'm eager to see whats out there!

Looking over my plans I'm probably going to go for the GreatLightHouse/Colossus combo this game. With the gems I may bypass the oracle and self research Metalcasting, which would avoid alot of unneccassary research ie... myst/poly/priesthood

I'm thinking of playing this game almost religion-neutral, and focussing on building a strong economy that can handle lots of cities, particularly if we have to settle lots of islands. so with GLH+Colossus I may set my self up a Great Merchant farm for settling to fund rexing.

But Ofcourse this all depends on whats out there?

Coolio! :)

Edit - Forgot to say... Sticking with Prince/Epic for this one might make the jump to Monarch for the next one!
 
To 40AD. Noble/Marathon (I forgot to change difficulty :mischief: )

Spoiler :
Met Ramses and Mansa Musa. I hate these neighbors. No warmongers. I'm not going to be doing any warmongering, either.

Crappy landmass, crappy islands. No good hammer sites. Iron in the BFC of Carthage, but ehhhh. I founded no religions, built no wonders. The Great Lighthouse was built uber fast, in like 2300BC or something.

By 40AD I have 6 cities up. Carthage, pop 11, Handemrbdurnm pop 10, on the gems/fish/fish site to Charthage's west. Utica, pop 6, is my main hammer site, founded 1N of the horses. I founded Leptis (pop 3) near the rice to get rice/fish/fish. I also settled two cities on the island to the northeast, one at each extreme end. Was gonna settle on the southeast island, but a barb city popped up.

Again, not liking this map. I am the tech leader and have been the tech leader, outstripping Ramses and Musa by a lot. I just switched to Civil Service, and am planning on going for Compass/Optics next, for the Cothon and +1 vision.
 
Shoooooooooot, my game just crashed. And I forgot to save. Oh well, time to start over.
 
I'm in for this weekend. Like last time, I'll give monarch a go for the NC, since emperor is otherwise smacking me so fierce that children shouldn't see it. In a bad way, too.

I'll say it right now...I WILL drag numidians across water using a galley if I get a reasonable chance. Maybe I'll even go with 309486720349875 colonies just because it's funny. So many options (intelligent decisions and perhaps even winning be damned!)
 
I might give this a shot, probably on Emperor. Hannibal is my favorite leader right now. Fantastic traits, great UB. The UU isn't bad, but i dislike early wars.

That start looks hammer light, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a grassland metal. Too few trees.
 
I gave this a try -- and remembered why I despise water maps. I like to do production-heavy games. :mad:

And mistake of the day -- I forgot Caste System doesn't allow priests.
 
Good catch schwartz, fixed that, I was in a bit of a hurry and wanted to get the game up.
Shoooooooooot, my game just crashed. And I forgot to save. Oh well, time to start over.
Ouch bro! I keep my Autosave on "every turn", since thats what they recommend for the HoF games, and it has saved me more than once, since I play mostly on my weaker laptop. Getting my beefy desktop set up for playing though, and using this machine for writing updates and such (got the idea from the SG guys).

For myself, I am going Monarch, because the gems are just huge. Remember, due to the AI tech "bug" with WB saves, levels above Prince will play a bit easier because the AIs will not be given their proper starting bonus techs, namely Archery (and Hunting where applicable). This puts them a few turns behind because nearly every AI prioritizes Archery fairly early, making early Wonders a bit later, etc etc, than standard offline games.

My thoughts on the start are simple. Some spoiler info on the surrounding area though.
Spoiler :
I want the hill I am on for a mine, since its not going to give my city an extra hammer. I also want to avoid wasting a turn, and still keep the Gems and Corn in my capitols BFC. That leaves one tile, and its a beauty, since it catches a Fish as well.

I am planning to tech BW, Ag, Myst (for Monuments, especially in new cities), Masonry, Sailing. I want the Oracle, Colossus, and GLH, minimum. Best case I get ToA as well, but that will depend on the production and timing. Oracle for MC and Colossus, and GLH are my first priorities.

I also plan an early extra workboat to explore the islands in the area. No need to wait for Galleys, workboats are fine for exploring. FIN is a great trait for REXing, and I plan to make a pile of cities to rake in the GLH do just that to maximize those 2 key wonders.
 
Just posting to subscribe and give you my support ;)

What's so great about gems on grassland? I mean, it sounds like it's the best thing ever but I can't quite figure out why. You get lots of food and commerce on the same tile for the early game? You put a mine on it right?
 
Actually.. now that I see the gems I thought about emperor.. BUT I want to win this one so I'll stick with Monarch :lol:
@TheMeInTeam:
I'm learning emperor myself at this point, chose my favorite leader (Zara) for my first 2-3 tries and fell behind militarily and then in tech post democracy (Other than an extremely backwards Charlemagne..) Maybe one of us should start a walkthrough type game and get advice as we go :)
 
This is my first uh, I don't know what to call it... 'shared' game? It's also my second emperor game :sad:

I won my first monarch game today. So what do I do? What else... I play emperor! I got owned my first emperor game by barbs.... (I swear the barbs had a +50% against bonus against me), this will be my second try.

I don't really expect to win, which I guess is in the spirit of this game, right? To learn.


Spoiler :


** DISCLAIMER: I am in way above my head and despite what it may sound like, I have no idea what I'm talking about. ***

Settled in place, and I newbishly went Bronze -> Agri -> AH -> Wheel -> Sailing -> Mysticism (current research project in 1990 bc)

Built Warrior, Worker, Settler (chopped)
by now I had realized I was secluded on an island, but there looked to be at least a few places to settle via galley (and probably, based on the nature of this game, I imagine I can reach at least one other player via galley as well)

I then made several warriors to fog bust the island, successfully doing so only having to fight a single lion (won defending on a forest hill)

I had planned where to settle all my cities after bronze but before AH. I settled Utica (2800) before AH and sure enough, horses spawned in like, the perfect spot to screw up my plans. (not that my plans were really that great in the first place =p)

I met mansa, or rather, he met me.

I settled my third city in 2080 and it's already growing quickly because I had chopped a workboat for it.

I also just had the health tests event which hurt my populations but did provide the +2 health bonus













 
Actually.. now that I see the gems I thought about emperor.. BUT I want to win this one so I'll stick with Monarch :lol:
@TheMeInTeam:
I'm learning emperor myself at this point, chose my favorite leader (Zara) for my first 2-3 tries and fell behind militarily and then in tech post democracy (Other than an extremely backwards Charlemagne..) Maybe one of us should start a walkthrough type game and get advice as we go :)

I'm thinking along those lines also :). You get a shot first though, because right now the MBA program is giving me a bit of a hard time. I have to wait until I can get real life out of the way a bit more :D.
 
Well, I can tell this is going to be WILD. I decided to play a few turns before turning in myself, and I am already in great shape. Decided just to save, and go to bed, then try to finish up the Roman LHC first thing in the morning, because I get to stomp a few AIs that I really carry a grudge against, especially Alexander and GK!!.

I will finish this up soon enough though, I am anxious to play, you will see why I want to in the spoiler.

Spoiler 3950 BC at Epic Speed (2 turns in) :
My warrior got a different starting spot when I began my actual game, which is why I knew about the fish from the beginning (I had taken the starting screenshots at Normal/Noble)

That was my first choice anyway, moving off the hill but still settling on turn 0, which is why I mentioned it in the other post. The Fish just puts it over the top. But when I made that Early Thoughts post, all I had actually done was start the new game, see the fish from where my warrior now was now (NW of settler instead of SE), and then pop out to write it. After going back to the game, I start a Workboat, and start teching BW, swapping to the Lake tile for growth + the commerce, then sent my warrior North, when this happens on turn TWO!!




Note the date, LOL, totally unbalances this start which is already pretty darn strong. I am not even sure I should take it, I wish I could switch to Emperor right now, as this is a BIG boost out of the gate.

I have to start remembering to make my first game at the proper settings for the screenshots, and save that 4000 BC starting position, because I keep forgetting the Warrior can vary. Maybe I will look into hard-coding him in his place in the future, I think its doable, since there is no variable units for the Human from Warlord to Emperor, we ALWAYS start with a single warrior/scout and a single settler.

I have to laugh, because I already planning to do a LOT of whipping in this capitol. My happy cap is going to be sweet with Gems, a Monument, a religion when I get one (at the pace I am going to be able to tech, I should get at LEAST CoL, even if I self-tech it and get MC off the Oracle. Not going to play another turn, or I wont be able to stop playing. Whipping out the first Workboat is HUGE for this start. I am not going to read any spoilers though, and first thing in the morning I am finishing this Agustus Caesar LHC for sure, its a mad fun game if anyone wants to check out another community game after this one.
 
I'm going to make this my first Monarch attempt, because I've won my last few on Prince, and I might as well get a little practice for the BOTM anyway. So Monarch/Normal.

The start is obviously nice in terms of resources, but I don't like settling on that hill at all. While it gives me an extra hammer in the city center, I lose the chance to mine it, and since this spot is really short on production I hate to give anything up. If I go S, I keep the corn and gems, but I lose the other hill which ruins the point of moving. Or I could go SW... which is what I ultimately decide to do. I can still settle on the first turn unless I see something I really hate.

Spoiler :
Moving 1 SW rewards me with an extra seafood in the BFC. It's tempting to build a workboat, but I decide to go with my usual plan of starting with a worker. There's a lot of productive things for my worker to do on this map.
 
i really like hannibal, i've had some of my best games with him, the cothon makes for a trade route beast. i'll give this a run, probably on monarch because i generally do fairly well on prince and i need a challenge.
 
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