Nobles' Club LX: Ramesses II of Egypt

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 Ramesses II of Egypt, whom we last played in NC II. The Egyptians start with The Wheel and Agriculture.

• Traits: IND suggests wonder spamming; you might want to consult the guide in my signature for which ones to pursue based on what goals you have in the game. SPI suggests a diplomatic game ('cause switching civics to please opponents is easy and doesn't disrupt you for too long before you can switch back to what you really wanted in the first place).
• The UB: The Obelisk, a Monument that can turn two citizens into Priest specialists; this can give an early boost and bring in a Great Prophet early, should you want to pursue a religion and build shrines (or bulb Theology, which through Theocracy can give your early armies a nice boost).
  
  
• The UU: The War Chariot, a Chariot with 5 instead of 4 and immune to first strikes; it can be very good in an early rush.
  

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 60 Ramesses 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

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reserved

Cool, I haven't played Ramesses for a while and a WC rush is always fun. Having Marble so close is also awesome for either wonder-spamming or fail gold strategies. SIP allows for a serious GP farm down the road, so I'll probably do that and build a worker first, then a couple of warriors for scouts. Techs priority is Mining, Masonry, AH, Myst, and Fishing (not in that order).

I'm giving this one a go on um i think its emperor, hopefully i'll get somewhere with it but its got a lot of the AIs I have an irrational dislike for in it. I had same tech priorities and settling idea as drlake, its difficult to choose what strategy to go for

I'm going to play on Emperor/Epic as usual. If I can pull it off, I'm going to try to rush two AIs with WCs. I should get time to play it by Sunday, so wish me luck!

Immortal/Normal 1520 BC

Monarch, normal speed, 4000-800BC

Variant! --> MUST BUILD ALL LAND WONDERS, preferably in OCC style.

(might expand to 3 cities, not sure yet). If I fail such a wonder, I instantly lose.

I decided on this after

Monarch/epic, through 820AD:

First time back on civ in ~6 months, so i decided to look up the current NC and give it a shot on monarch/epic.

Mikehendi said:

Monarch, normal speed, 4000-800BC

Variant! --> MUST BUILD ALL LAND WONDERS, preferably in OCC style.

(might expand to 3 cities, not sure yet). If I fail such a wonder, I instantly lose.


As I get 2 build only 2 national wonders (oxford for sure, the other one I'm not sure yet...

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Red added by me for emphasis. This statement doesn't make any sense.

Assuming you didn't check 'OCC' in the game setup, you would need more than 3 universities to build Oxford.

If you did check 'OCC' in the game setup, you could build 5 national wonders.

Perhaps you meant national epic instead of oxford.

cas

cas said:

Red added by me for emphasis. This statement doesn't make any sense.

Assuming you didn't check 'OCC' in the game setup, you would need more than 3 universities to build Oxford.

If you did check 'OCC' in the game setup, you could build 5 national wonders.

Perhaps you meant national epic instead of oxford.

cas

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You're right!

Unfortunately, I never got to find out myself:

800 AD-finish 1847



Pics

I gave it it a try, it's quite a long time I haven't played with Egyptians, and a bit rusty
at playing Civ.
I've play at Noble / marathon.

4000BC - 1000BC



1000BC - 1 AD


1AD - 500AD - advice needed.

tijup said:

[/SPOILER]

1AD - 500AD - advice needed.

Spoiler :

Betweem 1AD and 500AD, I added a few new cities, droped my research to 40%.
I, then, realised that I've made a mistake that could be an issue.
Thebes is a 4k, Memphis (confusianism shrine) and Persepolis (boudist shrine 200 or 300AD) are at 2.4k, and Delhi at 2.3k (judaism and hinduism holy city, no shrine, + one wonder.)
Sadly, I've made Statue of Zeus in Memphis, which produce 20 cultures / turn, instead of building it in Delhi, I have now 4 towns competing for producing culture instead of 3.
I may have to let one go, and focus on dehli since it have 2 religions.

What should i do ? focus on Delhi with its two potential shrine ? or continue to build in Memphis. I realised that I've no detailed screenshots of both towns.

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When going for a cultural victory always pick three cities to prioritize, misplacing a wonder isn't going to make or break a cultural VC. Not being able to see any screens I can't recommend which three to pick but if your diplo situation is good enough to go for an early culture win I'ld take a good look at how much commerce each city is producing as well as their base culture.

Going for culture is generally good when you can manage the diplo to prevent any AIs from DoWing, which spiritual can be very helpful with. Be sure to capitalize on all the religions you have by building enough cheap temples to pump in 2 or 3 cathedrals in each culture city and really focus on getting great artists to save for culture bombs in the second and third cities. Check out the war academy/peacmongering section for some helpful guides on pursuing culture. You might also take a look here at a game TMIT played for culture with only 3 cities. Just looking at how he set up the cities gave me a new angle to approach culture VCs.

Monarch/epic 1695AD domination:

jwez11007 said:

When going for a cultural victory always pick three cities to prioritize, misplacing a wonder isn't going to make or break a cultural VC. Not being able to see any screens I can't recommend which three to pick but if your diplo situation is good enough to go for an early culture win I'ld take a good look at how much commerce each city is producing as well as their base culture.

Going for culture is generally good when you can manage the diplo to prevent any AIs from DoWing, which spiritual can be very helpful with. Be sure to capitalize on all the religions you have by building enough cheap temples to pump in 2 or 3 cathedrals in each culture city and really focus on getting great artists to save for culture bombs in the second and third cities. Check out the war academy/peacmongering section for some helpful guides on pursuing culture. You might also take a look here at a game TMIT played for culture with only 3 cities. Just looking at how he set up the cities gave me a new angle to approach culture VCs.

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Not really a spoiler, but since there's the name of atleast one of the other civ, I hide the text.

Noble / Marathon, 1764, Cultural Victory.

tijup said:

Noble / Marathon, 1764, Cultural Victory.

Spoiler :

That game was very entertaining for me, I've won very few Cultural games, and thus, was quite a challenge for me, jwez11007's advice about diplomacy was quite helpfull, since I tend to warmonger a lot, and not really counting on allies.
I've made a Defense pact with Wang as soon as I can, and then, manipulating the
two others to avoid them to DoW on me.
Safe the initial wars to wipe out Gandhi, Sury and Darius, I made no attempts to fight, but I kept a good amount of units to keep Gilgamesh in check, after his sole DoW on me. I stoped it quickly, without even seeing even an enemi unit (he DoWed throught a spy sabotage), with the AP.
The rest of the game was uneventful

Thanks for the game.


Here's my little empire:
View attachment 268785

Some stats:
View attachment 268786
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View attachment 268789

My 3 cities: Thebes, Persepolis and Memphis.
View attachment 268790
View attachment 268791
View attachment 268792

And suprisingly, I was still ahead in tech with 2 of them. Wang was catching up.
View attachment 268793

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I'm glad you had a good time playing this game and I'm also glad that you won a culture VC before Electricity and all the modern culture wonders on Noble. It shows you're picking up the general ideas that can boost your game to the next level.

I will say that after clearing ghandi, darius and sury any VC was well within reach and probably made culture seem easier than it usually is. While I actually prefer culture b/c I think it plays out faster b/c there is less micro after you set it up, I rarely go for it anymore b/c if you misscalculate on higher difficulties you find yourself up a dry creek so to speak with no way to contend with runaway AIs.

Still I commend you on your choice of VC and a good execution of your plan. You clearly leveraged your religious advantage and seemed to recognize the importance of commerce by running your culture slider high.

For future reference, military strength is rarely important if you're planning on moving up difficulties. The military strength required to prevent DoWs quickly becomes impractical the higher the difficulty level. More important is recognizing AIs probable targets and how to avoid becoming one.

First time playing cIV in a while, after taking CiV for a whirl. I've never played Egypt before, and I rarely seem to random Industrious leaders, so this should be interesting.

SIP, going to go Mining > Masonry, then follow that up with AH, BW, Fishing, and Mysticism in some order.

I guess I'll finally delurk and actually play one of these games. Probably Prince/Normal. Can anyone teach me to take screenshots? I dont know how.......