Nobles' Club CLVI - Suryavarman II of the Khmer

Deonnim

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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 Suryavaraman II of Khmer, whom we last played in NC LXXXVIII. The Khmer start with Hunting and Mining.
  • Traits: Leader is EXPansive and CREative.
  • The UB: The Baray, an Aqueduct with +1 :food: It requires Math and Masonry, which are the prerequisites for Construction, which is needed for the UU..

  • The UU: The Ballista Elephant, a War Elephant that targets mounted units first outside of cities. This means they can avoid nasty pikes if there happen to be any horses to attack, but once you run out of mounted units you're stuck with a normal elephant. Many people prefer a UU that can get City Raider promotions, but some people are quite happy to make catophant wars (catapults plus elephants). It does mean that a lowly enemy chariot-medic dies fast if the AI actually builds such medics, like most humans do.
And the start:

Spoiler map details :
Continents, Temperate, Med sea level
Spoiler edits :
Swapped 1 Sugar (under Scout) in BFC with nearby Jumbos. The Jumbos were within distance for a 2nd city, but in a not so welcoming spot. This shouldn't have too much effect on us in the beginning, since Sugar is hooked up until Calendar.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine: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 number Leader 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 Prince. 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.
If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.
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.
 

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I can't comment too much on optimal starting strategies with this one, I'm a bit too familiar with the surrounding land.

Although, looking at this initial SS, my best guess is to move the Scout 2S1E to see what opens up. I think that would open up the square 2S of our Settler, plus a few of the surrounding ones. I'm hoping that it would reveal the map to 3S of us so that we could see if moving 1S or 1 SE is preferable to SIP.
 
Even without scouting, settling on the sugar is pretty obvious here, I think.
 
Settling on phants gives instant +1 happiness as you start with hunting. There is plenty of food resources nearby. A worked phant really only gives 2f2h2c. Nice but not brilliant.
 
Up to 750bc.

Spoiler :


I scouted south and found nothing useful in fog so settled on ivory. Worked out nicely with a food resource up north.

Techs. Agriculture, BW, AH, TW, HBR, archery and pottery.

Scouted south with scout and found a nice 2x gold and horse city close to where Hammy was. Seemed a good blocking site. Worth the settler trek.

I settled my third city below capital to grab copper. Not great for food but can work plenty of cottages soon. I builts 5-6 workers quite early here due to limited builds and fact i had 3 cities by 2120bc.

Once horse was connected by road I built 6 chariots as my HA were not ready.

Hammy reached COL by 1320bc He had a gold resource to help him reach COL quickly.. He built SH around 2120bc. (I count 5 gold now.)

Oracle was built by Germans. Germans also have Bud shrine! Crazy teching here by the AI.

Akkad (Conf holy city) was close to my borders and weakly defended. Also he was close to getting copper (His worker completed it turn i declared.). So I declared (1120bc) on him grabbing 2 workers. Pillaged his cooper and it's road and headed east. Attacked and captured the holy city and then healed my remaining 4-5 units. Akkad has a granary.

Hammy a few turns later offered peace and I took a ceasefire. (Heal troops.)

Once my mini stack was healed and backed up by 2 HA and a spear (whipped.) to defend city I declared on Hammy (775bc) again. Grabbing 2 more workers. (10 now for 5 cities.) Attacked his capital and lost only 2 units against 3 bowmen. Capital had CH, SH and monument. Unfortunately I killed off his great Priest.

Hammy has 3 cities left now but only has horse connected.

Overall 5 cities.
1 court house
2 granary
Stone henge.
10 workers.

Capital is size 8 and I have 6 workers cottaging my capital.

I have also met the Germans. I will probably wipe them out and use all the land myself.

 
Emporer,normal,huts and events.

I settled on the sugar,possibly a mistake from the above comments,I didn't think settling a grassland elephant would give you a 12 turn worker,but we are EXP so maybe it does.

View attachment flyingswan AD-0001 NC sury.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :
Went agr/AH,but miscalculated by 1 turn for improving these tiles so worker was idle for 1 turn till AH came in.After this it was BW, writing, alpha ,math.Went on a rex-a-thon with scientists fuelling the research.Limped my way to currency a few turns back and just managed to trade for calendar.

Ive got 13 citys and losing money,but now calenders in things should start to improve.Freddy and Hammurabi are Confucian,as am I so their at pleased,although you cant trust Hammurabi so Im going to whip in more border defences.

Ive got 3 barb citys under my culture pressure so hopefully they will flip soon and bring the city count up to 15 or 16.

Im going to try and be first to music,I need a free golden age to keep me in the running on this one.Im thinking a war with rifles rather than medieval troops on this map,depends how it plays out with Hammurabi I guess.

Ive secured all the elephant resources,so Libbing military tradition for cuirissars should be good,there only counter is pikemen then,and with only 2 source of iron in the south I should be able to sabotage that pretty easy...
 
@ Flying swan

The ivory would only provide 2 hammers if it was 1f2H. As it is only 2f1H there is no production advantage from settling on it.

Spoiler :
Nice going with 13 cities. I am way off that right now and I face a rather fast teching germans who have swords/axes and pults by 550bc. I still lack alphabet.

Settling plenty of cottages now so economy should soon recover.



550bc
Spoiler :
Captured Hammy's copper city. 2 more cities left. 4 turns off alphabet but I will need capture gold for this.

I may try to steal construction from Germans once I have alphabet.


Up to 450bc

Spoiler :
Alphabet in!! Captured Hammys horse/fish city. Lost 3 chariots. 7 cities now and all pumping out 3 culture a turn.

For peace took Myst/fishing/IW and masonry. Obviously could not get COl yet as i lacked myst/poly/med and PH I needed some techs to catch up with Germans.

Germans have maths/construction/myst/med/poly on me. They lack alphabet and HBR. germans are pleased with me.

Phants war next.
 
No reason to settle the elephants, they're not on plains. Nate45 is right, settling the sugar for a 3F city tile is the obvious thing to do regardless of what the scout might reveal to the north.

With no less than 4 green mines (2 riverside), plus green elephants, plus wet corn/pigs/3F city tile, plus no less than 4 riverside grassland tiles this capital can be both a HE/production monster or a strong GP farm.
 
lol settling on green Jumbos does not only not give any advantage, but also destroys a rather good tile. Negative move, deserves bonking if you also can settle on sugar.
I will even say complete newbie move, just for Gumbi :b
 
Yeah settling green jumbo,s is a bit odd,I thought I,d missed a trick and was about to learn something new.

View attachment flyingswan AD-1170 lib MT.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler :
Managed to culture flip 1 barb city,Hammurabi sniped the other 2.Freddys teching like a demon so I think Il take Hammy out first if I can get a peace deal with Freddy.

A few turns from the taj being built,and I also fluked the MoM so going to try for a realy good GA before the war with hopefully lots of GS so I can bulb astromony/chemistry as I have a feeling Im going to need cannons to take Freddy out if he keeps on teching fast.
 
I have no regrets.

Quick update

Spoiler :
75ad and Germans are few turns off engineering. Crazy tech speed here. They have feudalism/COl too. Wow! That shrine, flood plains and gold resource is really paying off for them.
 
in the 1300ADs now

Spoiler :

Settled on sugar
Tech (from memory): Agri - AH - Bronze Working - Wheel - Pottery - Writing - Masonry - Aesthetics - Myst - Poly - Priesthood - Literature - Maths - Music.

Settled 2nd city to the west, sharing pigs and corn with the capital and grabs the marble. This makes the western fish unreachable, but I did not want to tech fishing early anyway. This city built TGW and the Pyramids.
Capital built Artemis and GLib.

3rd city was a bit south at the copper, then a city further south at the FP/2gold. One city to the west of that, and a couple up north (settled later, because I was low on money early on).

I was first to Music, Philosophy and Liberalism. Got Nationalism and teched to cuirs. Built Taj.

Currently fighting a cuir war with Babylon, captured 3 cities, but probably don't have enough units to capture the capital. I am afraid he will cap to Freddy, who I bribed into war before I declared. That was expensive, not sure if it was a good idea.

I've got a caravel at the other continent, it seems completely backwards. Current plan is to finish up Hammurabi (or at least, get peace, I might not vassal him to take him out completely later. Just have to make sure that Freddy gets peace first). Then hopefully I'm strong enough to knock out Freddy. After that, it looks like smooth sailing towards some victory condition. Maybe I'll try my luck at an invasion of Mali, they seem the main tech competitor.
 
@dutchfire,sounds like weve played a very similar game.

Spoiler :
Attacked and capitulated Hammy first,and took some realy nice wonders-Sistine chapel,spiral minaret etc.As expected I was facing rifles with Freddy so I waited for cannons.He capitulated pretty easy though only after 3 citys.He didn't seem to have any SoD.

Met the rest of the AIs around this time.looked like cyrus had some fun,he had capitulated toku and mansa.Was,nt long before I got dog piled.I managed to get some ship of the line and iron clads out to protect the coast.Toku actually got closest to taking a city.

While this defensive war was going on I sent my galleons over to sitting bull.I took 3 citys and he capitulated.

View attachment flyingswan AD-1730 war on SB.CivBeyondSwordSave

Cyrus wanted peace anyway,so I didn't pursue the war any further,although a conquest or domination win was on the cards.I wanted to see if I could improve on my space victory.With cyrus and mansa as his vassal I figured there tech pace would realy take off,so I built a lot of the espionage buildings and spys expecting to steal some high end stuff.

It wasn't to be.Toku broke free and the tech rate was slow.So I wasted a lot of hammers building useless things rather than wealth.At one point I was going to steal medicine,but SB teched it for me just as quick.

Got the space victory in 1902ad,which is 1 turn faster than my Justinian game,but not that great realy.I think I need to read some guides to check im going about it the right way.



View attachment flyingswan AD-1902 space victory.CivBeyondSwordSave

Thanks to deonim for posting the map.
 
@FlyingSwan
Spoiler :
I played on, managed to conquer all of Hammurabi with cavalry, and then teched to artillery to take on Freddy. Declared war, let his stack move into my territory, and destroyed it. Artillery vs. Cavalry is interesting. A combat 2 Cavalry is similar in to an unpromoted artillery. After destroying his SoD, I slowly moved in on all of his cities and had him eliminated. Mansa is roughly at tech parity, but only has 4 cities. The other suck. I don't think I'll bother playing it out, but my tactic would be to get a small flotilla with carriers, battleships and transport filled with marines. Raze Mansa's seaside cities and he should be mostly done for.

My other continent is very different. Noone capitulated, and Mansa is 4 city tech leader.
 
Up to 475ad.

Spoiler :


War with Germans was grueling. Built up 20-30 units overall. Mainly phants and pults. He got engineering on 1st turn of war but I pillaged his only iron on 2nd turn of war. So no xbow or pikes seen.

Headed for his large city frankfurt first. Had a spy in place for a revolt. Fell losing a few pults. (Forge, LH, Monument and forge.)

Captured 3 of his new 1-2 pop cities.

Headed to Berlin and it's 17g shrine. His capital had a castle but 6-7 pult attacks and 8-9 pults took it down. Lost most of the pults but he had 100% defences with 5 defenders. Only 1 LB. (Hanging gardens, Barray, Shrine, Monument, granary and Oracle.

Next moved onto his eastern city Munich. No wall. Fell with 1-2 pults and 8-10 other units mainly phants/HA. (Monument, forge and granary.)

Also took chance to take out Hammy who had vasselled to the Germans. He had 1 city left with 3 bowmen. No match for phants.

At this point I took peace for MC. I am way behind tech wise now and facing happiness issues. Should have fur soon. 15 cities overall but my economy is tanked. Hopefully recover a bit soon. German threat has diminished greatly. He does have colosus and a lot of cottages near his new capital but no shrine funding him now. He lost 6/12 cities.
 
Emperor normal nohuts 1ad
Spoiler :
Pretty dull and pretty slow. We're all pleased to be Buddhist. 7 cities, Glib, currency just in. Time to expand northwards.
 

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