Nobles' Club CXLIV: Napoleon of the French

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 Napoleon of France, whom we last played in NC XC; we last played the French with De Gaulle in NC CXVIII. The French start with Agriculture and The Wheel.

• Traits: Napoleon is CHArismatic and ORGanized. CHA means +1 in each city and an extra for monuments and broadcast towers; this can help a lot with early city growth. Combined with ORG, which cuts your civic upkeep cost in half, Napoleon becomes quite a strong rexer that can grow a big empire with big cities early.
  
• The UB: The Salon, an Observatory that gives a free artist. This is not a very strong UB, though it might prove useful in some cultural victories.
  
  
• The UU: The Musketeer, a Musketman with two moves instead of one. This can be a good stack defender that can keep up with mounted attacks.
  
  

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 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_CXXXVII_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:

Reserved.

Looking forward to this, Warrior 1NE and if nothing revealed then settle 1W to avoid wasting a green hill I think will be my plan.

I have time to give this a whirl.

Looks a good commerce capital. Will move warrior and if I find nothing great probably settle in place. Commerce over hammers. Plenty of food to whip here so hammers are probably not an issue for this capital.

@ HJ

@HJ:

Gumbolt said:

@ HJ

Spoiler :

It's noble for a reason. The Ai start with a warrior and a settler. On higher levels they start with more techs, a worker and archers. 5 cities by 150 turns seems a bit low expansion wise. Certainly don't base your expansion on the AI.

Get the corn and pigs worked. Grow to size 3 after worker and get that settler out before 2500bc. Then aim for third city by 1500bc or before. 4th city 1000bc. 5th 700bc? Then keep expanding to 7-8 cities.

Yes certainly grab AH early here. Pottery early too looks good here.

Then whip, whip whip using Cha happiness.

Click to expand...

@ET

@HJ

@et

@HJ

1730 BC - Prince - NHNE

@ NZ

@Gumbolt

@ NZ

@Gumbolt

NZ -