Noble/Epic and Struggling...

[flipsix3]

Thanks to some great input (mainly from Kesshi and Deathturnip) I've now left Warlord behind and moved up to Noble, and following a couple of mediocre wins I also decided to step up to Epic speed as well. Now I'm really struggling, and could use someone watching over my shoulder as I try to make something from this game. In all honesty I think it's the speed change that is causing me more difficulties.

This isn't your usual follow-along game, as I'll confess that I've already played into the AD's twice - but thanks to being pounded in two defensive wars both attempts have been fruitless - indeed on the second one I was under so much military pressure (and had so few funds) that I was stuck with my science slider at 0% for dozens of turns just to keep my cities

I'm playing as the Dutch (Fishing/Agri start) led by William van Oranje (Fin/Crea) and here's where I am - back in the very early days. Don't ask for later saves as (i) things were in a total mess in terms of city structure as I desperately tried to keep turning out more military to stem the tide so (ii) I deleted them in a bout of frustration.

I've made a couple of key notes - you'll see that I'm aware of a close spot where Iron will pop (there is no 'starting' bronze on this continent - although I got a random pop late on). Shaka will also have iron, Joao will not.



/edit: Note that Shaka is to the North East - but not directly NE of the sign - that's just the furthest point that I could place the sign for now)

The continent is square-ish - me bottom left, Joao bottom right and Shaka top right. In previous games Shaka was predictably aggressive - and whilst I held him at arms length until the fourteenth century, it was at the cost of my economy and scientific development - even though I somehow won the liberlism race, I was being swamped with stacks of 20+ against cities defended by 7-10 defenders. It didn't help that Joao kept picking fights too, although he was somewhat eaiser to deal with. It was fairly self-evident that things had not got off to the best of starts, hence I was having to constantly re-adjust city builds/layouts just to cope.

The save file is also attached - you'll note that this is a few turns into the game. I've (finally) turned out a WB to give me the foo for a worker - Epic build times seem agonisingly long in the early stages?!

My thought process is that Amsterdam will be set up as food-heavy, making use of what hammers I have, but turning out all of my settlers/workers to allow expansion.

The first target spot is 2S of the iron, putting the pigs right in my first ring - AH is researched so I can use them immediately, and WvO's traits will quickly pop the borders to ensure the iron plot is in my workable BFC beofre IW is even researched. (However I've also considered a spot halfway between the Iron plot, and the pigs that are NE of Amsterdam)

Seems sensible to me to beeline IW as much as possible, and try to get a decent force of Swords up (I foresee some major chopping though? (That build-time issue again) - with some chariots from the horses at Amsterdam (?).

Any alternative strategies?

Hopefully I can make a decent attempt at controlling this continent (third time lucky!) and still have enough science building to get me overseas and open up some trade routes.

[Soirana]

Have you moved settler for original position? It is strange to see three food sources in third ring. Although Pig and corn can go into nice production centre dirrectly north. but fish seems to be lost.

Hard to say without playing. Have you tried early HBR (exactly after writing)?

Re:swords. Highly depends upon your plans. Archers (and horse units) are ussually enough for survival.

[Gwynnja]

do this: after you get your food online, settle an iron city and then build 15 swordsmen, 5 axemen, and 2 spearmen. then attack shaka and kill him. then attack joao and kill him. then settle your continent.

[bestje]

don't bother building chariots to fight the zulus, impis destroy them.

as Gwynnja says: build a horde of swords and kill him quickly

[flipsix3]

@Soirana - yeah, I think I moved one square SW to settle Amsterdam

@Gwyn/Bestje - working on that strategy at the moment - wiped out Shaka but he was stubborn (4 or 5 cities - 2 on hills - by the time I had a decent force), and I was running down to two Swords (with reinforcements arriving) by the time I wiped him... by which time Joao has established 9 or 10 cities to my 5 or 6.

/edit - clearly I was wrong on Joao's city numbers (see post below), but he's certainly grabbing land at an alarming rate

Difficulty (once again) is/was total lack of gold (got it up and running again now) meaning that I'm building Swords/Cats still, and Joao has cities garrisoned with Longbows.

I certainly can build the numbers to take his cities, one at a time, but he's now stretching diagonally across the continent and I'm likely to get counter-attacked from all sides... in the meantime I'll be aiming to keep him sweet, but of course he won't trade any techs at all - so I suspect I need to divert my teching to get me in touch with the rest of the world asap

[vicawoo]

Animal husbandry ahead of mining in this case. Grow to size 2 before starting the worker.

If you're getting bored on epic, focus on scouting optimally and city planning while you're waiting for your worker. Amsterdam is more production oriented.

[lampshade]

why does shaka always seem to settle in a weird diagonal wiggly way? most of the other leaders "block expand" does he go for certain resources i wonder?

oh, and you'd better get him quick because he will kill you btw.

[bestje]

good going on taking out Shaka, don't worry about joao being bigger at this stage you should have a lot of land to expand into.
him not have metals means his best unit will be LBs until gunpowder.

do you have some more screenshots?

[flipsix3]

@Vicawoo - I certainly had Amsterdam on production first time around, but expansion was an issue and I was coming under pressure before getting more than 3 cities on line.

It's not that I get bored, more frustration as I just don't seem to be able to turn out a half-decent military presence quick enough. Granted I was always more of a peaceful builder, but I want to be able to go down the large army route - it just never seems to go smoothly

@lamp - he was certainly strung out all over. That's why I ended up razing some cities - with not enough forces to garrison them I was more focussed on pushing on and cleaning him out. I did keep his capital, and settled where I took a size 1 offshoot, but that's led to an 'interesting' situation.

@Bestje - here's a screenshot or two, and the latest save. You'll see that Joao spears right through my split empire now - so I'm going to have to run OB with him for the foreseeable future.





Frankly my cities are a bit of a mess as I ry to recover the economy. No gold huts in my early exploration meant that my slider has been low for large chunks.

I was wrong about bronze, Shaka had some (mine now). I have an eye on Faro, but I suspect that if I take that then Joao isn't likely to sit around the table and talk peace any time soon.

As for tech trading...



It's Joao, forget it!

The way I see it I have two options - (1) Keep teching, do my best to expand into what land there is, and get overseas asap to set up better trading partners. (2) Keep teching, build build build and prepare for a slog to take Joao out - at which point I'll then have to play catch-up with the rest of the world when I find them.

From previous attempt(s) I know the rest of the Civs will be more prepared to tech trade - and I'll have plenty to offer them - but I can't help feeling that either way I've got a long and uphill struggle on my hands...

[vicawoo]

Er... you shouldn't have opened borders with joao. He shouldn't have been able to expand past your and shaka. If you're building swords at 1385, something went wrong.

[flipsix3]

Originally Posted by vicawoo

Er... you shouldn't have opened borders with joao. He shouldn't have been able to expand past your and shaka. If you're building swords at 1385, something went wrong.

To be honest OB would have made no difference, I didn't have the forces to take Shaka out and hold all of his cities - hence Joao got in the gap. whilst I was trying to finish that damn Zulu off

As for the swords, trust me, I know. That's the result of a 10-20-30% slider, no gold, and a desperate offensive to wipe out Shaka before he did the same to me.

To be honest I'm already 99% sure that this is a start-over case - I may take it back to that initial save and see if I can put something together with more frequent guidance/input from you guys.

I think it's all down to those first few dozen turns whilst trying to get the first cities online and try to build a military. Anyone want to expand on the original "build swords" advice - I certainly got that going well enough, but clearly at the expense of everything else.

[Zavior]

Did you note what turn/year it was when you attacked? Did you chop/whip those swords? How many cities you had at the point you attacked?

[flipsix3]

Originally Posted by Zavior

Did you note what turn/year it was when you attacked? Did you chop/whip those swords? How many cities you had at the point you attacked?

I had just Amsterdam/Utrecht and both were building/chopping/whipping my army - declared in 455BC, and took until 430AD to wipe Shaka thanks to his hilled cities and the time to ship reinforcements out to the front line

I'm starting over, I'll post some screens/info at the point that Iron is online, and take advice from there...

[JujuLautre]

I would be happy if you could try my guide and tell me what you thought of it. Link in my sig

Otherwise, I did not look at the game, be it seems a clear mistake to go after Shaka quickly considering the distance between you and him: settle cities in between first !

[flipsix3]

OK, backtracked to the start point that I originally posted. Amsterdam got up to size 2 (knocking out a warrior or two), and then worker-settler-worker.

Settler founded Utrecht whilst warrior(s) scouted (scout having been eaten)

Here's my two cities, and a look at the map, at the first point that Iron came online. Note that Utrecht is building a library, but this was a stop-gap until was online only - happy to drop that to the backburner of course.

On a side note, had more luck with my one hut this time, and actually got a little gold to keep me ticking over.







Whilst hooking up the iron I also teched Mysticism (didn't do previously). A major issue before was the happy cap, and when religion spreads this time I'll be in a position to knock up temples.

So, what's the verdict? Still rattle out the army as a priority, or found more cities while building it up a little more slowly?

[bestje]

early game critique: I would have settled 1W of your current capital location as this gives an extra fish but I'm not sure where you actually started and if you ould see this tile but as you are now replaying hindsight is available!

In my games my first build is usually a worker (unless I have fishing and seafood when I would go WB first). this lets you get some improvements built and I find is better than warrior first, after my worker I would grow my capital to size 3 before starting a settler.

next point: if you are planning to rush someone put all your resources towards getting the rush started, beeline the techs you need and get resources hooked up ASAP. then build the units you need. the only buildings you should have are barracks and granaries (only if you are whipping). I notice you are building libraries, IMO you shouldn't be. you are creative so your borders are expanding, you have IW and iron is hooked up. I would have built barracks and would then build my axes and maybe a spear then nothing but swords and replacements until the war is over.
Then when you have stopped fighting is the time to fix your economy and get science sorted, rushing is all about hitting the AI hard, fast and early. then using the extra land and high quality cities or 2 that you captured to catch up.

[Joshua368]

1325 BC is a bit early to start putting up infrastructure. If you aren't going to war I'd think you want to churn out a bunch for garrisans/settlers/workers. Those libraries won't do you much good if Shaka boxes you in.

Also your cities should really be emphasizing growth. They aren't at their happy caps. Your capital should be working the corn and a clam, it'll quickly grow to work the good hammer tiles, or it can whip something out once it hits size 5. For your second city, I hope a worker is improving that corn or pig right away.

[bestje]

Originally Posted by Joshua368

1325 BC is a bit early to start putting up infrastructure. If you aren't going to war I'd think you want to churn out a bunch for garrisans/settlers/workers. Those libraries won't do you much good if Shaka boxes you in.

Also your cities should really be emphasizing growth. They aren't at their happy caps. Your capital should be working the corn and a clam, it'll quickly grow to work the good hammer tiles, or it can whip something out once it hits size 5. For your second city, I hope a worker is improving that corn or pig right away.

I mostly agree with Joshua's points. unless you want to rush when your only concern should be getting the attack going ASAP.

growing your cities is a good plan when not rushing, @1325BC it may be too late for an early rush though

[flipsix3]

@bestje - point taken on the settling of Amsterdam. In this case I did move to the spot (from NE) so the suggested spot would have meant another move. Also, although 'restarting' I didn't keep the very first save so I've only backtracked to the point at which this thread started.

As for the libraries - this is because I seem to hit happy caps to early, and have taken to using libraries to juggle population to stay within this...

@both - ...but I see that I should be turning out more settlers/workers to REX maybe 3-5 cities very early on? (Joshua, yes I have worker about to improve the hill-pig right away)

In this case I'm therefore thinking that I'll get Utrecht set up quickly to start churning swords, whilst using (mainly) Amsterdam to turn out a couple more settlers and found a couple of further cities.

Given how quickly Shaka is likely to get moody, does anyone have any further suggestions/advice before I push on...?

[vicawoo]

I played through a bit on the following assumptions: I know where the iron is (but trying not to take too much liberty, like building a road to it from the capital before I pop iron working), and I want to attack Shaka.

I'll post stuff a little later, but some notes: I grew to size 4 because your tile yields are so high. However I Joao grabbed the pigs because of that.

The warrior in your capital, he should be scouting. I uncovered the entire continent and popped 3 or so huts.


Basically warrior scouted the coast to the north then curved back down to uncover the coast and all land west of joao.


and once he scouts the land west of joao he will fogbust for the settler.


The scout I sent him east to scout the land around shaka, then went explored the land south of shaka and east of joao.


Then the scout curled back north and scouted the land northwest of shaka and then coastline to his north. Capital build a warrior while growing, and he scouted north along the coast, met up around near the scout, then fogbusted, north of the capital to secure a 3rd city (pasture/pigs).