NC XIX: Napoleon

Hello everybody, it's time to present the 19th installment of the Noble's Club series!

This time we are using:



France. With the little general.

UB isn't the worst thing ever, just close. The UU IMO is underrated, as are units with >1 move in general. Musket smackdown! How fast can YOU get to gunpowder?!

And the start:



Fractal map. There was an extra normal civ added, and an extra not-so normal civ added. No worries, you all get the usual TMIT stamp of "I playtested this repeatedly for about an hour so it's balanced" for maps where I do shenanigans. I do these things for fun, but do my absolute 100% best to prevent it from hampering the learning process.

And here is the standard cut and paste of our Club Doctrine, courtesy of when Bleys was hosting the series and relentlessly vultured:

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)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, 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 didnt, 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)

Remember, these are only guidelines. What we really want are your thoughts as the game goes on, so if your strats don't 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 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, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps for most of the series (and the one I learned from!), and all of you for playing.

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 or HoF Mods), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC XIX". 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.

Also, it should be noted that although this is a "pre-Monarch" oriented series, you are welcome to play it at levels above Prince. However, the AIs will NOT get their full set of bonus techs (unless your host gets too creative). The main difference is Archery, which the AI normally gets for free at Monarch and above. The main effects of this are in the AIs starting units (warriors instead of archers) and it also creates a tad "slower" AI, since they now have to tech archery themselves.

In addition, because of the variations of using the Scenario menu, your starting Scout/Warrior may not be in exactly the same spot as the one shown. Yes, again. I screwed up when trying to fix it, giving poor France just a warrior at first. Then I made corrective changes, but they weren't applied until I restarted, so I removed the corrective changes. Ah well. If you're warrior is in a different place, just use it to your advantage!

Starting zip file:

View attachment 200020

TMIT's Map Tip:

Settle on the stone for a 3 hammer capital. Definatly worth it when you have at least an irrigated rice, also means you don't need to hook up the stone for it to be useful, tech path something like AH -> mining -> myst -> masonery . Worker first improve the rice then the cow then whatever other resources there are, then mine the hills, at size 2 build workers / settlers and build henge / great wall / mids / whatever else catches your fancy once you have mansonery in(workers and settlers are better before you get masonery).

The Ub is far from useless, allowing for quite a boost in a cultural victory or getting a lot more beakers through rep, making it easier to fight cultural wars and boosting late game GP production(which are typically used for golden ages anwyays so getting an artist doesn't hurt).

Perfect, I was kinda looking to play nap and the French, as I never have.

Is +3 hammers worth losing +4 food from freshwater + lighthouse? Not to mention the 8 commerce? I'd say yes, short term hammers are always worth it at the start, but it's something to keep in mind.

Signing in! Might take me a little while though cause I'm in the middle of a Napoleon game at the moment. Thought I might get used to playing him just in case he appeared here

Also praticising my new diplomatic strategies. Not sizing everyone up as a potential victim anymore - no sir - not me. I'm reformed like.

Signing in on Monarch - Paris should be a production powerhouse. Just looking at the start, seems like getting to bureaucracy early makes sense with all the hammers.

For people who play this at monarch or above, is there a decent way to handicap yourself to make up for the AI having to tech archery? I was thinking of forcing myself to tech something I'm unlikely to use in the early game, say hunting in this case. What ideas have others come up with, or do you just go ahead and play it as monarch light?

michmbk said:

Signing in on Monarch - Paris should be a production powerhouse. Just looking at the start, seems like getting to bureaucracy early makes sense with all the hammers.

For people who play this at monarch or above, is there a decent way to handicap yourself to make up for the AI having to tech archery? I was thinking of forcing myself to tech something I'm unlikely to use in the early game, say hunting in this case. What ideas have others come up with, or do you just go ahead and play it as monarch light?

Click to expand...

Just WB in archery for the AI and barbs..

How the heck do you lose 4 food? You don't get any coastal tiles if you move on the stone(and another city is free to use the clams, you also gain the rice which is HUGE when you start with AG.

How do you WB in Archery to all the AI without seeing the map and seeing all the other civs - I always like to play without knowing anything about the map or civs?

Put a piece of paper over most of the map? just hold your hand there or not look? but yes it can be hard, i guess you could ask tmit(or anyone really) to do it for you .

Singing in.

I doubt anyone will remember, but I tried a couple of NC's back in Sept/Oct of 2008.

I stopped playing Civ for a while due to my frustrations with the game , but I've secretly tried both the Togu and William of Orange games. I still haven't won, but I think I'm improving. At least I don't have to restart every 3 hours....

Oysar: I take your point about the Stone start. Let me see if I can follow your reason.

1) you get rice in the BFC which you can work immediately as Napoleon starts with Agriculture
2) you get access to stone without having to build a quarry
However:
3) you lose one turn of research and building
4) you lose 2 plains hills from the BFC
5) you also lose access to the sea (lighthouse, harbour trade etc.)

I'd be tempted to stay, but (see above) I have still to win a game on Noble

I think my first move would be to send the warriors 1 SW to see what they reveal and hope that what looks like a 1 square lake is really another partial shoreline...

AR

Signing into this one. Looks like the Pyramids might be the way forward.

oyzar said:

How the heck do you lose 4 food? You don't get any coastal tiles if you move on the stone(and another city is free to use the clams, you also gain the rice which is HUGE when you start with AG.

Click to expand...

You lose costal access, which means the 4 lake tiles in the BFC cannot get the extra 1 food from a lighthouse.

I think I'll try it. I play at Noble level right now (although I'm not very good).

What do you usually do? When you post a checkpoint in spoilers tags do you look what others did or you usually wait until you finished the game entirely?

Joe052 said:

I think I'll try it. I play at Noble level right now (although I'm not very good).

What do you you usually do? When you post a checkpoint in spoilers tags do you look what others did or you usually wait until you finished the game entirely?

Click to expand...

You can look at the spoilers if you want at any time. That's why they are used. Its your choice.

michmbk said:

How do you WB in Archery to all the AI without seeing the map and seeing all the other civs - I always like to play without knowing anything about the map or civs?

Click to expand...

- Open the WB save in a word processor (MS word is fine)
- Under every team, there's a line for technologies. Under each one that isn't team 0 (aka your team), just add a line for TECH_ARCHERY
- With barbs, you have no choice but to use the world builder. Barb data doesn't seem contained in the WB saves. When using WB zoom in as much as possible if you don't want to see too much.

You might be able to infer civs based on their tech, but if you're deliberately trying to avoid doing this it shouldn't be hard. You don't see who the leaders are until further down in the save. Note that if you're good with copy/pasting, this is just as fast as doing it in-game, too.

Here's the WB for Monarch

View attachment NC XIX Napoleon.zip

Monarch/Epic to 975BC:

Don't post here much, but I do like to play a few of the recurring games and this looks like a really good one with a production heavy capital, because recently it seems with all the GP farms, cottage cities and more GP farms I am losing out of a heavy early production city.

I will edit this post with my progress. Epic/Noble

To AD505, MonarchLite, Epic speed

The Settler is on the coast, and I agree moving to the Stone would be painful, no harbor, no Custom house, never a 5th food from the clam.