Nobles' Club LXXI: Churchill of England

dalamb

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May 9, 2006
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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 Churchill of England, whom we last played in NC XLIX; we last played the English with Elizabeth in NC LVII. The English start with Fishing and Mining.
  • Traits: Leader is CHArismatic and PROtective. CHA means +1 :) in each city and an extra :) for monuments; this can help a lot with early city growth. It's also a warmongering trait, since units take 25% less XP to improve (2, 4, 8, 13, ... instead of 2, 5, 10, 17, ...) and, if you didn't grow to the happiness cap, helps reduce the impact of war weariness. PRO means archery and gunpowder units start with City Garrison I and Drill I; along with CHA that means they can reach CR III and Drill IV sooner than most (4 and 8 XP, respectively), and Drill IV Redcoats make nice military units. Walls and castles are cheaper.
  • The UB: The Stock Exchange, a Bank with +65%:gold: instead of +50%. It goes better with a FIN leader like Elizabeth, but is nice for anyone.

  • The UU: The Redcoat, a Rifleman with +25% vs gunpowder units, and the only UU based on Riflemen.
And the start:

The gold suggests settling 1E; the PH suggests settling in place.

A Standard map this time; in future I'll only comment on map size if it isn't Standard.
Spoiler map details :
Good old Pangaea, medium sea level.
Spoiler map edits :
Regenerated until we got a seafood start to go with Fishing. Added stone somewhere not too far away on an otherwise useless desert tile, to go with PRO walls and castles. Chose leaders to be a mix of nasty and nice, but swapped a nasty one close to us with a nice one that had been farther away.
Spoiler which ones :
Swapped Monty with Mansa.
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 71 Churchill 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: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
Note: First time with both huts+events and no huts/no events saves. Let me know if there are any problems.
 

Attachments

  • NC 71 Churchill.zip
    106 KB · Views: 338
If the gold is only accessible with a galley, SIP. But from what you can see it might be reachable without a galley, so that'll give alot of discussions i guess :) Apparently the coast reaches down in the east, so from what i can see now i'd rather SIP. Fish+clam should give pretty nice commerce, too, so SIP should be fine and 1E is too much of a gamble imo.
 
Thanks dalamb for the amount of work you did with the saves.

I say it's overseas and SIP is best :-D
 
I played the game a bit yesterday when I was making the map -- otherwise there's no way I'd be posting so soon! I'd appreciate comments on the dotmap, since I was having a bit of trouble concentrating when I got that far.
Spoiler :
SIP, since I was starting early enough that I remembered the map. I settled York to get the gold and floodplains, which I'll cottage to make a commerce city. The game doesn't seem to like my location since it recommends 2 others instead:

Now I'm wondering where to send settler 2. With the nice locked-in peninsula to the west I figure I should expand a bit towards the AI. I also need to explore more; my Woods III axeman will be doing that.

Neither orange SE of the capital, nor blue to the east, are great sites, but they look like the best nearby. My plan for the peninsula is to pack in a lot of cities, so there's none with huge amounts of food. Moving light green (the stone city) 1NE1N would give it two fish but cut off food from yellow.
Spoiler events :
I play with events and huts on because I find them fun. Huts gave me some gold and promoted my Woods II warrior to Woods II, and events cost me a little gold but not that much. There's a lot of "bad" events you can buy off if you keep a little gold in your treasury:
  • 3300 BC: Shock axes this early could make a significant difference in the game.
  • 2150 BC:
  • 1950 BC:
 
I'm going to try this.

Does this type of thread warrant the posts similar to other strategy threads?

I mean the kind with frequent images and accompanied text.

Also, hi.
 
@rridgway
Welcome to CFC :cheers:

Pictures are worth a thousand words, so people usually do use screenshots to give an accurate description of what's going on.
 
Spoiler :
Okay to start off, SIP and began researching AG. Sent the Warrior to the hut. Also started construction of a work boat.



Just as I researched AG, my Warriorreached the northern hut and popped AH. That'll help.


Went Masonry-Sailing. Popped a few huts and got a scout, and a map of the jungle.

Found a few neighbours. Some are not pictured.







Decided to go for Great Wall.



Settled a second city to grab the cow and gold. Third city will probably be to the west.



Succeeded for Great Wall. Went for Oracle right after.



Going for Music. Going to grab (hopefully) the GL.

Thats annoying.



Thats a good site, pity about it being too far away, as well as near Temujin.



Speaking about Temujin, apparently the screaming Mongols are bad at diplomacy, how knew?




Ditto, but I should be able to block it off, isn't there something with the AI not using boats to move to different spots on the same landmass?



I grabbed the oracle, and went for CoL. Converted to Confucianism. I used the missionary to convert Musa, which succeeded. Should make him a good trading partner. (Longer term, are permanent alliances on?)




At 875 BC I decided to stop, with my third settler/warrior/worker heading towards my third site.



Final tech path (so far) : AG-AH-Masonry-Sailing-BW-Mysticism-The Wheel-Meditation-Priesthood-Writing-CoL-Math-Poly-working on Aesthetics.


Comments, Concerns, Queries?

I've noticed people with uploaded saves, do I just use rapidshare or is there something else? (Problem solved.)

Spoiler :
I'm thinking that I should be able to do a cultural, conquest, or a domination. Mansa should be a good meatshield in case Monty comes knocking. As well, I may spread confucianism to Temujin as well, as further buffering.


So, how did I do?

Edit: Save.
 

Attachments

  • NC 71 Churchill- rridgway BC-0875.CivBeyondSwordSave
    89 KB · Views: 110
ridegway - spoiler tags are not of much use if you don't put the spoilers inside them

you can attach saves directly...use the "go advanced" button and find manage attachments at the bottom
 
@lymond

Oh, it was just the starting picture, I wouldn't think that it would be spoilers. I'll move it. everything else is in spoilers.

Also, thanks, I guess i'll add the save to my older post.
 
@lymond

Oh, it was just the starting picture, I wouldn't think that it would be spoilers. I'll move it. everything else is in spoilers.

it is if you've settled your city or moved your warrior/scout
 
So from the picture i can't see wheat in the 1S 1 SE plains tile so the 2 fish are likely to be only food. I will still probably move my warrior 1E to check (still pretty new at reading fog tiles :p) and carry on that way to see if gold is gettable. If i don't see a food tile, then SiP is probably best as a workboat is probably going to be built not a worker first and the extra hammer helps). Moving 1E also gives up 1 each of unforested grasslands, plains and plains hill, since they are in the initial BFC its likely atleast 1 of them is a resource, and the tiles you gain are all forested from what i can see in the fog so shouldn't have resources (there are afew in forests).

Anyway I'm going to give it ago on Monarch no huts/events as Noble/Prince has been abit easy lately :)
 
LoL i can say this might be abit harder than i thought. Just lost 2 warriors to bears, 1 fully fort in a forest the other on a hill+forest but not fort at all as was moving out to spawn bust.
 
Monarch/Normal speed to 1000 BC
Spoiler :

Decided to move 1 east with the settler. Through the fog it looked promising that the gold was connected via a land route and ...

fortune favors the bold. this will make a nice capital. I start off on a work boat for the fish. worked the riverside plains hill until the borders popped to get the work boat out asap.

This is a different start. Wasn't sure what to tech. I actually considered masonry which would be the first time that was ever my starting tech, but i decided to go bronze working since i have a lot of food for whipping, forests for chopping, and maybe i can find some copper to take care of barb defense...

haha, well there you go! barb defense taken care of. I meet some AI's:

*cough* loser *cough*


2nd city site:

I decide to go oracle considering the marble...I think this is the 3rd game in a row I've done this, which I usually don't do.

and I get it :) I take metal casting. I think the colossus could be a very nice build. Plus the forges will be a +1 happiness w/the gold. W/charismatic & monuments my happy cap should be nice and high this game

another ai:

3rd city:

very funny

not happenin brotha. I'm handily whooping the AI in tech:



So I stopped here. I saw some horses out to the west, but I dont know if there's any food there b/c I was scouting w/a warrior and lost a 75% battle to a barb [pissed]. I could block Genghis, but the land between us is pretty much crap. There's like no food. There's a corn site to the NE which should be decent, but a barb city sprung up there. Unless there's some seafood I may raze it so I can get corn/gold in my small ring.

 
A comment on the map:
Spoiler :

The amount of land we have is disgusting - I managed to settle 11 cities without fighting. I screwed up my diplo a bit and got dogpiled by Genghis, Roosy and Mansa:/ I'll give it another go later.
 
Just recently moved up to Noble here, and this is my first time in the Club.

I'll start with a couple general questions on this sort of starting position: When you start (like here) with multiple seafood tiles, when do you work the workboats into your production order? Here I actually started with a boat (specifically went boat, worker, warrior, settler, boat).

Also, how much (if any) do you defend your fishing boats from barbarians? I've had games where I've left them undefended and they've been unmolested most of the time, and games where my one defending ship got repeatedly smashed by multiple barbarians so often it wasn't even worth rebuilding in between.

Current state of the world (975 BC, extra information visible from BAT/BUG mod)
Spoiler :




Spoilerific comments on my opening.
Spoiler :
Settled in place, only to find out the gold was on the same landmass asfter all. Followed the build order mentioned above, and founded my second city on the hill n-ne of the gold tile, which I think was not the best location (I went there to grab the cows+gold, but there was a site on Fresh Water that could also have grabbed both resources). A third city soon was placed to grab corn+horses. Huts and events turned on, but the only major one was a fortuitous discovery of masonry.

Bronze working and copper helped turn London into a nice production city. Meanwhile, I had yet to make contact with any other civs. I went with the Great Wall as my first wonder (silly in retrospect given that I've yet to see a single barbarian). When the Oracle showed up as taking 5 turns to build, I couldn't resist it, and got Metal Casting off of it.

The religion situation's a bit weird. After I built the great wall, my "isolated" position turned out to be far less isolated than I thought, as 4 other civs made contact with me. None of them had any religion. I eventually bit the bullet and founded Judaism myself (which I wasn't expecting to be able to do) on turn 65. I guess I'll be building missionaries in the new future to try and turn neighbors into fanatics on my side instead of the other way around.


Goals for the coming years:
Spoiler :

1. Exploration. I've put it off for a while, but I need to at least get enough of a map that I can start trading with my neighbors.
2. Religion. Everybody wants to be a Jew, right?
3. Get my science up. 19 turns for Alphabet is just painful to look at.
4. Expand. I'm not even sure where to put my next cities yet (West, most likely) because of my failure at step 1 so far.
5. Figure out how the heck I want to win this game.


Further questions:
Spoiler :

1. To grow (my cities) to grow (my empire). How do I judge when to go for my fourth city? By ye old 60% beginner's rule of thumb, I can go for it now. But my non-capital cities are all small at the moment, and it feels like they should grow a bit first.
2. I have what looks likely to be a great spy coming up. My instinct is just to use him as a specialist in London, but is there any better use for him?
3. How soon should I be making the decision on #5 above?

Saved game (I'd appreciate any comments people had):
 

Attachments

  • kcostell BC-0975.CivBeyondSwordSave
    85.3 KB · Views: 130
@kcostell:
Spoiler :
The 60% rule can be ignored: land is power, and lowering your slider for a few turns to grab more land pays off(and more) once the cities develop. A better rule is 6 cities by 1 AD. Since there was only a marble(and bronze, which you had no way of knowing existed until BW), a worker was less important and I would have put the WB's first. Regarding exploration, you need to explore more ASAP, as based on what you have revealed, I couldn't put a dotmap together.
 
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