Nobles' Club LXXXIII: Peter the Great of Russia

dalamb

dalamb

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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 Peter the Great of Russua, whom we last played in NC LIV (also the last time we played the Russians). The Russians start with Hunting and Mining.
Peter.jpg
  • Traits: Peter is EXPansive and PHIlosophical. EXP means +2:health:, which allows your city to grow bigger sooner (and thus run more specialists sooner), plus faster workers, granaries, and harbours (the latter two having :health: advantages, too). PHI means faster production of great people, and faster production of Universities, improving mid-game :science:.
  • His UB: The Research Institute, a Laboratory that gives 2 free scientists, which boost late-game :science: if you're going for a space race (or high-tech late game war).
    ResearchInstitute.jpg
  • His UU: The Cossack, a Cavalry unit that gets +50% versus mounted units. The once-underrated Cavalry are a powerful UU in their time period already, as Horse Archers are in theirs.
    Cossack.jpg
And the start:
start.jpg

Spoiler map details :
Hempispheres, 3 normal continents, islands.
Spoiler edits :
Swapped the formerly off-river corn with a riverside forest. Changed the scout's tile from flat to hill for a bit better production in the initial site. Changed a duplicate and not-terribly-far-away strategic resource to copper. Verified we have horses (for the UU) within reach of a 2nd or 3rd city (though for a late-game UU it might have been enough just to verify they were somewhere on the continent).
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 in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
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 83 Peter Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels)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.
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.

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.
Spoiler huts and events :
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.
 

Attachments

On iPhone so not best view of picture, I spy tundra to NW but would still settle 1N I think. Agriculture first and then BW with mining the pigs or AH depending on what the scout reveals for potential 2nd city sites :)
 
I have a bit of time this weekend so i might get back into civ and try this, it might be a week before i can post anything though. Sigining in Emperor/Normal
 
Habitus said:
I spy tundra to NW but would still settle 1N I think.
Click to expand...
Thanks for displaying fogspotting skills -- I'm not very good at it and if I hadn't made the map probably wouldn't have noticed. Note to Nobles: settling 1N is for starting off on a plains hill, where the +1:hammers: can make a very big difference in the early game (which snowballs as the game progresses).

Despite its advantages, I'll probably SIP myself if I get time to play this one; psychologically it's very hard for me to trade an early-game 2:hammers: for a later-game 4+:hammers: (plus because of railroads).
 
I think SIP might be a bit better here.

The tiles in the north are a bit suspect, could be forested tundra, that'll hurt later on. In the south there's 2 non river grass tiles, not great early game but once you'll work them (farm or slow cottage) it'll be better than any tundra. We lose a turn by moving which hurts a bit as well.

Also we're expansive so indeed that extra H is extra useful especially making up multitudes of 4. However when making a worker we can also just work that tile for 5 H output (1 city square + 3 plain forest) * 25%. So we'll get the first worker in 12 T regardless. If there's resources in the fog i'd go for 1N, scout can check this, it can also check for forested tundra.
 
You gain the riverside grassland your on, + 2NW looks to be one, the loss of 2 plains hill thou (1 you settle on + one 2W1S) does hurt the production. Its unlikely the game will last until you need to work enough tiles for the tundra to matter (unless it ends up being a harder than normal game).

So I can see SIP for the additional mid-late game production rather than cause you might pick up afew tundra.
 
What about send the scout N to see if the above land really is tundra crap, and settle 1s. That would let us keep one plains hill as opposed to settling 1n? Plus we get to keep a forest. :lol:
 
Archon_Wing said:
What about send the scout N to see if the above land really is tundra crap, and settle 1s. ..........
Click to expand...

I am thinking of the same. Except if there is another resource up north i will SIP. As of right now I am thinking to move the scout to 2N1E and the settler on to PH and to move the scout to explore more of north to be certain that I am not moving away from a resource. Then decide to settle on the PH or back on the original spot.

Tech path is Agg and then AH. Worker, War and may be another worker as needed.

Level is not decided yet maybe a easy emperor or challenging Immortal. I do not find Diety to be fun, it need too much of a change from my normal diplomacy game.
 
ecuwins said:
Why not 1SW onto the plains tile? It doesn't loose a turn and keeps the hills.
Click to expand...

I would prefer to use that extra hammer from the PH for the duration of the game if I am not going to loose a good resource.

The 1 SW tile is very good but it will eat up the food surplus very quickly but it does have the option of making a one hell of a buro production capital with 17 base hammers minimum very early. I like to make my capitals more cottage heavy since most other cities do not get them.
 
Here's my initial dotmap; discussion would be nice to help other Nobles but in order to make it more likely I actually finish, I'm going to continue playing.
Spoiler :
Settled in place; tech path planned was Agriculture > Animal Husbandry > The Wheel > Pottery > Bronze Working -- I've been following the opinion I saw a couple of months ago to let my city grow more before whipping, so I de-prioritized BW. With all the forests to chop maybe BW should have come sooner on this map; I'm not sure.

I went worker first, working the forested plains hill to take advantage of the EXP bonus on workers, which requires 4+:hammers:. I improved the pigs and corn, then started chopping riverside grasslands to build cottages. The first chop went to a 2nd worker, and the next will go towards a settler. By now I've gone into Slavery and have whipped a granary (I forget whether I whipped that 2nd worker).

I've now built my 2nd worker and will send him towards the 2nd city (that is, the one to be built by the first settler). Here's a dotmap:
2650BCdotmap.jpg


I plan to go with light green on the east coast, to get the copper to axe-rush Cyrus and clear the continent. A peaceful alternative might have been magenta, a "settle towards the AI" choice. Or I could have gone with west-coast light blue for horses and a chariot rush, or waited a bit for horse archers, but I figured axes were better. I popped Writing from a hut, so I know what his territory looks like:
2650BCworld.jpg

I'm going to have to watch out for him connecting horses, lest his Immortals eat my axemen. His copper is far enough away that I don't think I need to worry about defenders.
 
@Dalamb -- one thing I don't think about your map is that you seem to be throwing all of the food into the second ring. That's got to be slowing you down. I think if you can find a dotmap that's almost as good, but faster food, you'll find the overall effect is stronger.

One additional way that you can accelerate this is by sharing food resources. For instance, the capital can often surrender a food resource temporarily to a new city, until it's had a chance to develop it's own resource. I think this is especially true if you are looking to early cottaging in the capital, but less so if you are using the capital as a settler/worker pump....

Spoiler :

dalamb said:
tech path planned was Agriculture > Animal Husbandry...
I went worker first, working the forested plains hill to take advantage of the EXP bonus on workers, which requires 4+:hammers:. I improved the pigs and corn
Click to expand...

Doesn't quite add up - with the accelerated worker, you won't have AH done in time to start on the pigs first (unless you choose to twiddle your thumbs). Corn then pigs?

You've an awful lot of good locations to settle here before you need to worry about Cyrus. My instinct would be to expand peacefully and establish a clear lead, then crush him with catapults.

Even with an axe rush plan, I think I would move green to the tile immediately north of the pigs. That position is closer to the capital, and with pigs in the first ring the city develops more quickly. It delays the first axe, but I believe it would ultimately speed up the last axe, which is the one that matters.


In a more peaceful world - Fuchsia should move one east, so that you have the wheat in the first ring.

Writing was a lucky break, but you've done beautifully in taking advantage of the scouting opportunity. Early writing -> early libraries is another opportunity cost of the axe rush.


 
Spoiler for up to the late BCs
Spoiler :
So I start out with Agriculture > AH > Wheel. With just a little bit of scouting and a peek at the espionage screen, I begin to suspect that Cyrus and I are totally isolated. ruh roe. The lack of early happy resources is disturbing to boot. So next I go Mysticism > BW > Meditation > Priesthood. Found Confucianism via Oracle, which is something I never do, maybe for Caste, never the religion. +1 happy will be nice here, but more importantly, I'm going to make Cyrus my best friend :)

So, we are both Confucian now, he is at pleased. Once I'm done founding all my cities, I plan to found a junk ice city and gift it to him. I'm hoping that will do the trick. Then we can get our trade on.

This is looking to be a different, interesting game.
 
BC 4000-2650

@VoiceOfUnreason: Thanks for the advice about food-based city siting -- but by the time I read your advice I had moved on and built the first couple of cities. I'll try to remember it for the future, though.
Spoiler :
I continued with my plan to axe-rush Cyrus, which I just finished in 40AD. I might have wiped him out sooner if I'd followed VoU's advice and had a better copper city sooner. However, my slower timing let me extort several techs from him, and kill enough units to get a Great General (just barely!). Doing an axe rush meant I had to dedicate Moscow to production, thus delaying running any science specialists; I've just started, and will get the first GS in 13 turns.

Chronology:
  • 925 BC: Workers mining a grassland. Hmm. I waited until they had almost finished, then started my war and captured both workers. I got them the turn BEFORE they finished, so in the two Persian turns before I captured Susa he had no time to whip axemen. Not sure if that mattered much.
    925BCgrassmine.jpg
  • 825 BC: attacked Pasagardae with 7 axemen to his 2 archers and 1 warrior.
    825BCatkPasa.jpg

    I razed it because I prefered to build my own city 1NE in range of the wheat.
  • 800 BC: With his 3 archers in Persepolis, which was on a hill, to my 6 undamaged axemen, I decided to make peace and extort Archery and Masonry.
    800BCextortarchmasonry.jpg
  • I was nearly ready to restart the war when Cyrus replaced the dead Pasargadae with Ecbatana right where I wanted a city of my own -- so I waited until it reached size 2 (to avoid auto-razing) and attacked in 305 BC.
  • 155 BC: I waited until my wounded units healed, then captured Persepolis. I extorted Iron Working in another peace deal:
    155BCextortIW.jpg
  • 80 BC: looters destroy all the improvements near Persepolis. I didn't find this one in the random events guide, so I guess it must be part of the regular game.
    80BCpersepolisunrest.jpg
  • 40 BC: I finish of the last Persian city. Its location wasn't good enough for the maintenance cost at this point in the game, so I razed it.
    40ADkillPersia.jpg
Spoiler my current status :

  • My part of the world:
    40ADcities.jpg
  • Statistics. Comparing Current To Built told me I lost only 6 axemen.
    40ADstats.jpg
  • Wonders; most of the early ones are gone (I got some failgold from the Oracle) except for Great Lighthouse. I doubt I could get it this late in the game, and have better things to do with my :hammers: at the moment than try for more failgold.
    40ADwonders.jpg
Spoiler events I encountered :
I run with events on; in this game I was able to avoid the effects of the negative ones by paying some money -- except the looting (see above).
  • 2250 BC: gold appears on one of my mines. Basically good, but reduces my :hammers: by 1 at a critical point in the game.
    2250BCgoldevent.jpg
  • 2075 BC: all Axemen promoted to Shock. This didn't make any difference while attacking Cyrus, but will likely be nice as barbarians start wandering by later.
    2075BCshockaxeevent.jpg
  • 2050 BC: farm looters cost me a bit of gold...
    2050BCfarmthiefevent.jpg
  • 455 BC: as does a flood:
    455BCroutewashedout.jpg

I'll be pausing for a bit, and would be happy to receive a bit of advice on future plans:
Spoiler plans :
  1. I need to decide what to do with the Great General. Since there won't be any wars until Astronomy, I figure I should settle him in St. Petersburg, a coastal city where I plan to put the Heroic Epic.
  2. I plan to use the first GS (13 turns) to bulb Philosophy and switch to Pacificsm to increase the GPP rate; the 2nd will go to an Academy.
  3. I will up the :science: rate to get Theology in 2 turns, entirely for the chance to build the Apostolic Palace for the extra :hammers:, then lower it again so I run positive on :gold: per turn. After that I plan to get Literature for the Great Library and Heroic Epic. I don't see a good city for a GP farm, so might build the National Epic in Moscow.
  4. After that I think I need Metal Casting for forges, then Civil Service, then start pursuing Paper/Education, which I expect to partly bulb with Great Scientists.
  5. I'll settle a city near the marble shortly. The timing may work out for me to build the Hanging Gardens right afterwards.
  6. Long term, I plan for a Space Race victory.
 
I played this on deity until 920 AD and it's not an easy game on that level, what would you do.....
Spoiler :

Maybe i should have axe rushed but that's not often a good tactic on deity and very iffy here as well with bronze quite some distance away, needs wheel etc probably just bad (on deity). HA rush seemed hopeless from the start as there's no early commerce. I had to hold of founding my third city to reach writing in reasonable time. With marble a lib->military breakout seemed best. Gifted Cyrus a city to get him to pleased. Got Parthenon and GL and many GS's. First one made academy, second was settled for +10 bpt. I would not do that normally but with slider dependent research at 50 bpt and no trading possibilities a permanent +10 bpt was huge at that time. And i got enough of them anyway,
bulbed philo(Tao->Cyrus friendly) edu, lib and astro with the other 6.

Miltrad is in now and i'm going to attack someone. But what are my options,

1. Go for Cyrus, if you do so would you go with curi's or do you research on to cavs, be sure to watch the screenshots before you say kill the bastard :).

2. Go for Izzy/Monty island and wreak havoc there.

3 Some other winning tactic i haven't thought of.

4. Dirk you already messed up you should have gone axe/horses/cultural/something other from the start (please state which :)). or ...

5. This game couldn't be won on deity nice try Dirk but time to move on.

I haven't played it further than this so i'm interested in your comments.

Where we are now....






 

Attachments

@dirk

Spoiler :


Not sure this is winnable at deity with the setup of "player blocked by AI that spawns at center of continent" unless you do something to intercept cyrus advantage early on. I'm not sure how you could do that however.

I like cavalry more than cuirassers in this situation typically but it's possible he gets rifles in ~20-25 turns in which case I'm not sure you could win using cavalry. Without it, however, you'll need to kill a ~30 unit medieval stack and then slog through lots of 70% odds battles against an AI that can probably be expected to produce 10-15 units on a given turn once you declare...painful and probably unrealistic.

Monty/Izzy are more backwards, so you have more time to prepare an attack. Can you 1. capture them 2. develop the captured cities to be productive and 3. clear a VC before persia wins though? I have doubts.

This map seems very difficult on deity. Maybe your best bet really was to pillage cyrus down ASAP (he IS the only other guy on the continent and due to EP we know this shortly after meeting him) and then work him over with swords or HA. That seems so hard to afford on deity, but it's also hard to break a 21 city empire with 7.

Maybe your best bet right now IMO is to pop-gouge cyrus via killing monty/izzy and then getting a non-cyrus AI to build UN, winning diplo using own votes + cyrus
 
^That sums it up nicely indeed.
Spoiler :

Maybe i should have choked him early on with archers. That's not my style generally but maybe it would have worked. Bronze would have come too late for choking i think. Then again Cyrus had no copper and i don't recall when he got IW. Choking would have been better than rushing immed indeed for sure.
 
BC 4000-2650
BC 2650 - AD 40

I should probably have made an intermediate report, but over the weekend I was pretty focused on making progress while I was in the right mood.
Spoiler :
Last round ended when I finished off Cyrus; this one was a peaceful expansion up to the point where I circumnavigated (and met all the AIs). Current status:
  • I'm high on the various charts, but only barely in power, and Zara beats me in culture and espionage. I have a bunch of CR II axemen I can upgrade to macemen (once I build up a bit more of a treasury, of course), though I'd been thinking of waiting until Rifling.
    1510ADcharts.jpg
  • The only tech they have ahead of me is Banking, which I'll have in 2 turns (at which point I can tell whether they've beaten me to Economics).
  • With Open Borders and some tech trades people on the eastern continent are reasonably happy with me, and I can gift some techs to Isabella to make her a little happier. If she asks, I'd be delighted to agree to help her fight Monty, for the "shared conflict" bonus.
    1510ADglance.jpg


    Pericles is a vassal of Zara. Aside: I wish there were less wasted space in the Glance screen.
  • Their part of the world: Nobody on the Western continent has been willing to trade maps yet, but perhaps Isabella will after I gift some techs.
    1510ADtheirmap.jpg
  • My part of the world:
    1510ADmymap.jpg

    I note the blank space between my North and my Far South, but there really are no good locations there pre-Sushi: no food! Yakutsk in the far southeast turned out to be a good GP farm, with 3 food and some hills for production. It's currently running 5 scientists and can run 2 more when I finish the National Epic. Yekaterinberg to its north (on the east coast) has the Forbidden Palace, but if there had been a decent city location in the "gap" a little further north and west, it might have been better there (because of the island city).
  • My wonders: World
    1510ADworldwonders.jpg

    and National:
    1510ADnatwonders.jpg

    I have the Hindu shrine only because of a spare Great Prophet from the AP city. I could have saved him for a 2nd Golden Age, I suppose.
A few milestones:
  • 70 AD: Finished Theology. I prioritized making Confucian buildings everywhere in preparation for the +:hammers: from the Apostolic Palace, which I finished in 990 AD.
  • 950 AD: Got the Great Artist from Music, but saved him for a golden age to switch to Hereditary Rule and Bureaucracy in 1305. I needed Music eventually anyway for Military Tradition and Cossacks.
  • 1410 AD: Finished Optics and immediately met Zara and Pericles because of the increased visibility over water. Traded with Zara for Feudalism and Pericles for HBR and Drama.
  • 1445 AD: Met Isabella and Monty.
  • 1505 AD: Won the liberalism race and took Steel. I wasn't sure I could delay it much longer, since it will be a while before I have enough EP to see what they're researching; only later did I realize that from the tech screen everyone was missing at least one prerequisite. Anyway, I will soon start Drydocks in St. Petersburg (east coast) and one of the West Coast cities.
  • 1510 AD: Circumnavigated the globe, getting the +1 movement. Qin has caravels, so might have beaten me if I'd been slower.
 
Spoiler :
On immortal, I can't keep Cyrus' REX in check. I'm going to try to HA rush him and see how that goes.
 
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