Noble's Club VII - Sitting Bull!

Welcome to the latest installment of the Nobles Club. This time, we feature one of those AIs that you just hate to see pop up in your own games (at least I do, heh).

SB offers a very interesting mix of traits, as well as an early UU and UB. I think he is the most "offense oriented" of the PRO leaders, since his UB + PRO trait offers nice bonuses to what are normally considered Garrison Units. However, his PHI is a strong "peaceful builder" trait that offers lots of Great People. An enigma of a leader to be sure, one who can play a number of various styles comfortably.

Heres the info:



And his start (NOTE, due to the variable nature of the WB Save files, your Warrior may start in a different location)



And his UU and UB:

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.

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 BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC VII - Sitting Bull".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.

I don't like the start, but I'll settle in place unless my warrior reveals something.

Going to try another construction sling if the AI is close. If they are not, I've got a cute idea I want to give a go, involving more crap religious manipulation. Stay tuned, I guess. One has to play the map!

Start is far from spectacular, but some nice resources could be revealed... I hope.

No idea where this game is going, it's certainly interesting not to know the map type before starting. Every possible victory condition is open for me from cultural (protective/totem pole Longbows will provide some sound defense) to conquest (dog soldier rush? offensive archers??)

Settle in place I guess. Build order: Worker first as we have agriculture for the corn.

Techs: mining/BW I'll have to tech mysticism+hunting+archery for the super archers. Also monarchy will have to come sooner to get the wine online. If I want the mids (hell yeah!) Masonry too. damn... I hope there's stone around!

Bleys, update your BUG.... there is a new version.

Non-spoiler comment: just from the starting screenie, I would consider moving the settler 1 E..... unless you value the extra hammer from settling the plains hill.

And the map types is fractal... not that this help a lot

There is another thread in this sub-forum about experimenting with Serfdom. In it, I found the very interesting idea of using the Oracle to pick up Feudalism way, WAY before it would normally be seen. I tried it almost immediately in a game, and it worked like a charm. Given the special traits of Sitting Bull, I think this game may be an outstanding opportunity to clear out huge areas of enemy territory with hyper-powered longbows centuries before the AI can deal with it, and serfdom to get the economy in gear soon afterwards.

Here's a direct quote on how it was done:

The minimum tech path would be:

Mysticism -- Meditation -- Priesthood -- Writing -- Monarchy (building Oracle simultaneously)-- Feudalism.

(Writing is a prerequisite of Feudalism).

Of course, that path ignores key worker and military techs. In most games I wouldn't start building the oracle until I had the wheel, pottery, mining, bronze working, and animal husbandry first; and of course you'd also need hunting and archery before you could build longbows from feudalism.

This also sets you up to get a great prophet, which you can then use to get Theology once you pick up Monotheism.

Click to expand...

As he suggested, I had most of the other techs in my hand when I did it. I think I was actually without archery at the time, so it took a couple extra turns to crank out the longbows. By the way, I thought about doing it in my most recent game, but somebody built the Oracle before I got to Monarchy because I over-expanded and had the slider at 50% for too long.

I used Lbows + cats as attacking force in a SG ( RK -11 ) in monarch with S. Bull and even with tech parity they are extremely strong.... collateral damage pwns, surely , but the AI is very reluctant in attacking lbows and in making cover units ( atleast compared with the speed they start chunking shock units if we attack with melee ), even in the open ( especially if you use some shock lbows to protect the stack )

I'll give this a shot. I like Sitting Bull a ton (see my sig ) and agree he's very versatile. I'll be moving the warrior 1 NW to see what's over there.

In my SB game, I had stone in the BFC and went on a wonderspamming tear, generating boucoups GPs. I may try a more traditional SE on this map, assuming no stone or marble. I'm also going to try to defer my usual early warmongering ways if possible.

I think I may try that Feudalism slingshot idea, especially since Mysticism is needed for the Totem Pole. Leaving BW for so long means no chopping of whipping, but there look to be fewer trees than I often see, anyway, and I've only recently begun to use them (still have a lot to learn!) I expect to move 1E to be on the river.

Wow. Our starting area is just ridiculous. This will be a very easy game. Gonna give it a shot at emperor. Haven't played a full SE in a while.

My plan will be peaceful expansion until rifles and cannons, then opening a can of whoop ass. Gonna use philosophical to bulb my way to rifles and cannons. You can bulb replaceable parts and printing press with great merchants, and scientists will bulb chemistry.

My initial thoughts on the start are:
1)corn should enable quick growth (and growth with Slavery = quick building?)
2)wineries come from monarchy.
3)monarchy requires priesthood (or Monotheism)
4)priesthood also allows The Oracle
5)I really like the Oracle->MC->Pyramids slingshot (especially with philosophical)

I also think:
1)resourceless axemen
2)philosophical

Thus, my initial plan is to (hopefully) find some nearby neighbor while researching bronze-working, then spam out dog soldiers until I manage to overwhelm.

From there, it depends on the map, but maybe try to do the Oracle->MC->Pyramids slingshot and make a specialist economy for better warmongering.

In any case, I'll definitely be trying to do a lot of what other people have said, including trying to get Feudalism reasonably early for awesome Longbows.

r_rolo1 said:

Bleys, update your BUG.... there is a new version.

Click to expand...

Hmm, I dunno, I had a lot of problems installing it in the first place, although I think I helped them get around the "Complete or regular Expansion install" thing. I will have a look though, what are the new features?

Lots of stuff: a complete new F5 screen with info on possible bribes, a new unit grouping option ( that is how I know that yours is not updated ... see those nice signs in the bottom tab ):

....., a new espionage screen....

This new version is quite good. I strongly recommend it.

Hmm, I grabbed the new version, installed, but I am not getting that line. It says I have v2.22 in the options screen, is that right?

The new version is 2.30 ... are you sure you picked it right?

P.S I uploaded it to here if someone wants it

Ah, I grabbed an older one. Getting the new one now, thanks man.

Hm, I have a great game as Gilga going right now, but I might have to put it away for a while. Settling in place looks alright, but as Rolo said, 1E could be nice as you're on the river and other things.

P.S. Rolo, I've always wondered what mod it is that lets you change the color of your interface(i.e. yours is black)

^^No, it is silver with 75% of transparency ( as it is over fogged tiles it looks black )

I use CivScale, the small brother of BlueMarble ( same developer ) , for that... it allows you to change colors and tranparency of the interface, the letters font and the size fo cities, buildings, untis and inprovements ( it helps a lot to make cities bigger IMHO: it surely helps in the raze/not raze decisions ). I strongly reccomend that one as well, along with BUG and BlueMarble.

I'm having some trouble understanding all these comments about the start.

TheMeInTeam said:

I don't like the start, but I'll settle in place unless my warrior reveals something.

Click to expand...

BalbanesBeoulve said:

Wow. Our starting area is just ridiculous. This will be a very easy game.

Click to expand...

Krick19 said:

WOW. Our terrain is sick ...

Click to expand...

Negative from TheMeInTeam, apparently very positive from BalbanesBeoulve, and I'm not sure what from Krick19. So can somebody explain to me why this start is good or bad? I see there is BFC corn for growth, some good production squares, and some double-coin plains squares for economy (which, if temporarily farmed, could provide 2F1H2C), so it looked reasonable. But I also don't see why it's great instead of just good. Help!

Its strong because of the river, but weak because of an overabundance of plains tiles.

A very balanced start IMHO, nothing spectacular, but certainly playable. Wine tiles will be nice with Bureaucracy, especially if you get the Mids and run an SE (which I plan on), which would indicate farms.

The actual starting "chunk of land" we have is very very strong indeed, with a number of outstanding city sites to settle. I am already too hooked on this game to return to the Brennus one, heh, oh well. Still have a pile of games half done, sigh, I am so bad about that.