Nobles' Club LXXV: De Gaulle of France

dalamb

Deity
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
3,161
Location
Kingston, Ontario
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 Charles De Gaulle of France, whom we last played in NC VIII. The French start with Agriculture and The Wheel, which are are sufficient prerequisites for early Pottery.
  • Traits: De Gaulle is Charismatic and Industrious. CHA gives extra :) and faster promotions; IND means faster wonder building and forges. If you decide to wonderspam, I have a link to a draft guide in my signature.
  • The UB: The Salon, an Observatory that gives a free artist. Many players say this is one of the worst UBs, though it might prove useful in some cultural victories.

  • The UU: The Musketeer, a Musketman with two moves instead of one. Once again, may players disparage mustketmen, but even in the fairly narrow window before musketmen become obsolete, it can be useful to be able to get to the battlefront more quickly.
And the start:

Spoiler map details :
Medium and Small. I'm not especially familiar with this map type; it appears to have less land than some others, so it's slightly crowded.
Spoiler edits :
Gave us the corn, since initially there were no agricultural resources in the BFC, and added the river to irrigate it (and give us levees if the game lasts that long). Moved us to the PH, which is why we can see so much territory (forgot to un-reveal our original location), and gave us a few more forests in the BFC. Swapped an Industrious leader for his civ's non-IND counterpart.
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 suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 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)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

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 75 De Gaulle Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels)
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel
You can 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.
Edit: I replaced the .zip file at 8:15 Saturday May 28. The original save files had "NC 75 De Gaulle" as the name of one of the AIs -- a combination of temporary stupour along with the equivalent of a ctrl-V before the appropriate ctrl-C.
 

Attachments

  • NC 75 De Gaulle.zip
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Pretty decent start, I'd say SIP is a no brainer although 1W could be a better location,Perhaps move the warrior 1N on the Hill to see if there's anything else worth settling. Sigining in Emperor/Normal.
 
Hmm double gold, seems like the various Forum games are getting some nice starts today :) Plains Hill City to if SiP which i think i'd do. We still have 2 Forested Hills + the Sheep and Gold hill so production seems fine :)
 
The tile 1S2E looks unforested so may be giving up a resource for the wet Rice
we also lose the Plains Sheep (3F/2H/2C tile iirc), probably gain 1 riverside Grassland too but also a coastal
 
@stevoh

only decent? This is absolutely stellar! I don't have much praxis with HoF games and score hunting, but I suppose this is HoF quality start.

Some Oracle deep beelines should be possible.
 
Yeah. With this being the first example I've generated of this particular map type, I was going to generate a bunch and study them first, but I figured when I saw the two gold plains hills the fiddly details of the rest of the map might not matter so much. Nobody would forgive me for giving up a 2 gold start unless maybe the rest of the map were terrible.
Spoiler what changes I did make :
Like I said, I added the corn and a river, moved us 1N to the PH, and added 2-3 extra forests in the BFC. Self-indulgent, I guess; I have always had a lot of trouble finishing games and even more lately, so I wanted a situation I'm more likely to be able to keep playing.
 
@stevoh

only decent? This is absolutely stellar! I don't have much praxis with HoF games and score hunting, but I suppose this is HoF quality start.

Some Oracle deep beelines should be possible.

Gems would've been better,and i recall TMIT saying in polycast that most HOF players prefere Gems, its a food neutral tile after all!! Your right though, it is a good start, the gold will help in early conquests and/or REXing.
 
Gems would've been better,and i recall TMIT saying in polycast that most HOF players prefere Gems, its a food neutral tile after all!! Your right though, it is a good start, the gold will help in early conquests and/or REXing.

on a hill it's not food neutral, but much better then ph gold that I will give you... some players will complain about anything (I think considering everything I could go and change it to gems, wouldn't change the things to "worse" much)...

do you realize this is 6 resources start (even if 2 of them are calendar one) based just on the first ss?

wet corn should give enough food to run both gold and still have surplus.
 
Corn + 2 Gold + Sheep + 2 Grassland Hill at the Base Happy Cap with 1 Food Surplus is too, plus 1 Grassland Farmed would mean you being able to work all 20 tiles at cap :)
 
Sigh. Somehow I managed to name one of our neighbours "NC 75 de Gaulle" as well as us. Sorry about that -- but it's obvious who it is when you meet him. Edit: I replaced the .zip file at 8:15 Saturday May 28. The original save files had "NC 75 De Gaulle" as the name of one of the AIs -- a combination of temporary stupour along with the equivalent of a ctrl-V before the appropriate ctrl-C.
 
Looking forward to following this thread. I was playing at Monarch about a year and a half ago and just picked the game back up. Civ IV is NOT like riding a bike and I'm having trouble making the jump from Noble to Prince this time around (Yuck)! I'm also playing through some older NC games. Hopefully I can get back up to speed!
 
It will almost be like Mad's Sury game then, and we can kill ourselves :p
 
Easy map so far :p
Monarch epic here
Spoiler :
HA rushed JC and Have the whole continent left to fill up at my pace, Basicly 9 cities at 1AD so far
 
Immortal/Normal to 1AD (will probably not finish)

Spoiler :
semiisolation with JC, really?


After thinking a bit it through I went with mining->ah (this i had my doubts, but it's on path towards writing)->writing->bw->myst->med->ph->CoL->bulb math->oracle CS

Spoiler :


big civic switch

Spoiler :


Since I am industrious I thought that getting Mids isn't actually bad idea. Not the fastest in a world, but T85 it's home

Spoiler :


Tech path after that wasn't that clear (for obvious reasons), but

Spoiler :

decided to go with Aesth->Lit anyway and right now building Great Library and hopefully will finish it first


at 1 AD sitting at 8 cities with 1 settler in place.

Spoiler :

Tech trading seems problematic and i am not sure what to do about.


Future strategy should imo be
Spoiler :

Kill JC.
Go space.


Some 1AD screens to motivate people to open the save ;-)
Spoiler :






Starting position IS absolutely stellar.
 
OK, I'll take a crack at this one. SIP although I hate settling one off the coast... The loss of a trade route will come back to haunt us, methinks. Noble/Epic, I see many wonders in my immediate future!
 
1 off coast is generally bad due to no lighthouse + you have coastal tiles so you can't get them food neutral, here that doesn't really apply due to how the coast is :)
 
4000 BC to 1 AD. Monarch, normal, no huts, no events.
Spoiler :



I'm just playing through my standard opener. Tech bronze working, go for writing, alpha and get aesthetics for trade. Orleans was placed to grab the rice, cow, and the couple of hills. It's a bit forward placed to block somewhat my other sites. I trade agriculture for fishing.



About this point I figure that Rome is a garbage trading partner. The city sites were settled 1 then 3. The idea is site "1" aka Lyons Would get a border pop to pasture the pig so site 3 would be ready to rock and role with food to help it get started.

After reading another posters comment, I realize that I am industrious. So I go for the mids. Finished turn 83, not that I'm trying to one up anybody.



I get around to scouting our the north east portion of my sort of landmass. With 1 fish and a crapton of grassland Marseiles looks to be a good cottage site. Tours is looking to be a good production site. I've been flipping tiles back and forth between cities a lot this game. I decide that tours will be favored with the pig from lyons so it will be even more awesome for production. Lyons will now be cottaged somewhat with a few farms to run specs. Lyons now obviously has no use for a forge.

I figure that Rome is just going to fail as hard as it possibly can this game. They not trading anything. I went machinery to build crossbows. Self teched iron working. Got metal casting for cheap forges. I was generally trying to avoid techs that I normally trade for but that's just not going to happen.

P(war with rome) = 1.000



Hope this helps to follow my tech path.



All systems are go.


Crossbows or swordsmen for attacking cities? I have catapults as well.
 
This is the easiest start I've ever seen. Subbing to see how peoiple do, although once again I am too short of time to play it.
 
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