Nobles' Club LVII: Joao II of Portugal

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Joao II of Portugal, whom we last played in NC IX. The Portuguese start with Fishing and Mining.

• Traits: Joao is EXPansive and IMPerialistic, making him an excellent REXer. Imperialistic means 50% bonus on for building settlers, and EXPansive means 25% bonus on workers.
• His UB: The Feitoria, a Customs House that gives +1 for water tiles.
  
  
• His UU: The Carrack, a superior Caravel. It can carry two of any type of unit, unlike the Caravel's single unit of a restricted set of types, and can enter ocean squares -- making it more like a Galleon, available with Optics instead of Astronomy. Thus he can cross oceans with settlers and military units with cheaper ships (60 vs 80 at Normal speed) and a bit earlier than the AIs (Astronomy being an expensive tech, and requiring Calendar as well as Optics). Thus on some maps an Optics beeline might be appropriate.
  

And the start:

Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

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, where you're thinking of putting cities, 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 didn't, 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 strategies 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 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.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps for most of the series, and all of you for playing.

The WB-saves are 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, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 57 Joao Noble" (or Monarch, if you want the AI to start with its usual Archery bonus tech, or Immortal for Archery+Hunting, or Deity to add Agriculture). This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Note for those who hate goody huts: open the WB save file with a text editor and delete all lines that say

ImprovementType=IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT

Click to expand...

Reserved.

i say settle in place. maybe check out what 1SW is all about.

beeline to found a religion?

Monarch, Normal, through 1400 BC. Been waiting all week for this game!

I've Been looking foward to this! Marathon/Monarch No events, settle in place. Whats the map size?

some month ago someone posted here game with Earth2 gamescript... didnt like it then and I didnt like it now...
just too much plains around... too bad i didnt wrote anything about it.

SIP looks reasonable, would start worker first and since i never know aggri-ah techs to get first, then mining->bw

spec economy will be probably needed so probably writing before pottery.

UB is one of the worst ;-). UU can work, but the colonial expense will be problematic and severely limit settling other continent.

Mids are a bit questionable...wouldnt be bad to get if there is enough food around.

I'm going to definitely SIP on this one. Since Joao starts with Fishing, I'll go WB first (working the 3h location once I get a border pop). Tech will be Agr then go for AH (to use the Cows and find Horses), and then probably BW (Slavery and Copper) before maybe Sailing for the GLH (seems a good situation for that). I'll be looking for an early war, too, so some of this is subject to change.

@May Day
Beelining to found a religion really has little or no value, particularly for a leader like Joao who does not start with Mysticism. You can get away with it on lower difficulty levels due to AI penalties, but you won't find many of the Monarch+ players doing it because it sets your economy and military too far back. You're better off getting worker techs that allow you to exploit special resources and discover key strategic resources, and only after you've at least got Writing does it work well to get the early religious techs (and then only because you need some of them for Monarchy). You might want Myst fairly early for Monuments, but that's about it.

stevoh said:

Whats the map size?

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Standard; if I do any other size, I'll say so explicitly in the "map details" spoiler. Or would it be better outside the spoiler? The spoiler's there because a few people wanted not to know which script was used, but perhaps size is something people would want to know even if they want the script to be secret. OTOH you can find out size from the Settings tab if I recall correctly.

I really like Joao as a leader. Sorry not to have posted much in the last couple of NC, as I've really been making a push for the high levels, but have been unlucky in the last NCs. I am having success now on IMM so I will try this game on IMM.

Joao is a superior leader in extremely early REX with bonus on both Worker and Settler. So, I can't emphasize less about BW beeline. However, it looks like we are in western Euro. Then it will really be hard to Block anybody. I'll still play on Monarch/Normal, for fun.

i played on Noble/Epic (I know I shouldnt),

wanted some 'quick' fun before I go to bed...well it's 3 a.m., but it's finished

655 AD Conquest victory

Damn Protective Archers...

4000BC-825BC, Emperor/Normal

will play this one

stevoh said:

I've Been looking foward to this! Marathon/Epic No events, settle in place. Whats the map size?

Click to expand...

Marathon and Epic? How do you do that?

4000BC-1600BC

1600BC-300BC

Monarch/epic, through 520AD:

Siran said:

Marathon and Epic? How do you do that?

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My bad, i was going to do epic but i changed my mind to marathon, just forgot to delete the epic bit when i edited my post, and i also forgot put monarch in instead!

J2 on E2 is a crap-shoot so I probably need my head read for trying this on monarch. Three decent city locations, which are often hard to find and found on a crowded resource-limited map, can actually sink the economy. The key techs in this game, in no particular order - writing, I/W, monarchy - are on different research lines.

On the bright-side, Joao II is good for an early war and the UU/UB are fine in the mid-game. Team Portugal will settle in place and open with workboat and B/W.