NC CLXXVIII: Napoleon of France

Gator Country

Gator Country

Warlord
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
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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 Napoleon of France, whom we last played in NC CXLIV. 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:
Spoiler map details :
Archipelago, Medium sea level, Tropical climate. Kind of by popular acclamation, since it's been forever since we played Archipelago in NC. I hand-picked the AIs here as well, to get some in who we haven't seen in a while, and to try to make a bit of a challenging mix.
Spoiler edits :
Moved UU resources to ensure everyone had reasonable access to them. Move some food for balance, and to make some "orphaned" food up near the poles playable.


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, elitetroops and NobleZarkon for keeping the series going, 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 178 Napoleon 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, and for Prince; the difficulty will default to Noble when you use this file, so be sure to select the level you want to play at when the screen comes up. 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

  • NC_178_Napoleon.zip
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I haven't played sea maps in forever, and I'm pretty sure I never tried one on Immortal, so this should be fun.

Moving the warrior won't show much more, so I'd be inclined to move the settler 1E before settling. Losing a turn should be worth it if there's decent land to the east, plus the extra hammer for plains hill.
 
Have never played Arch maps because I have a strong dislike for coastal starts (they're slower). Non-fresh water settler start; is that normal on maps like this, or mapmaker's naughtiness? ;)

I'd settle on the PH too. With some luck we pick up something decent further east (more sea food?), and the extra hammer will be useful. PH mines are crap anyway, and we can get hammers here from the green hills. With a lighthouse the lake will be 3 :food: 2 :commerce:, which is a good tile to work.

Naturally the GLH is a huge boost on a map like this, so I'd want to try for that if I were to play this map.

Warrior can at least reveal a little bit by moving him onto the hill 1E. But most likely I'd still want to settle on the PH. The warrior move could show pre-settler move how good/bad an option that is.
 
I like everyone's thinking here; I'm quite bad at picking prime locations for new cities, but 1E looks good to me; though without this discussion I might have just SIP so I could build build a mine on it. But, then, this is why I started with NC games.

@Pangaea, if you *really* want a Fresh water start, can't you can settle next to the lake 1N or 2N1E? ;)


The it looks like I need to beeline GLH & build a fleet; hope there aren't many Barb ships - destroyed all my coastal improvements in a recent game and I'm still bitter. Does Barb spawn busting work on water tiles with ships the same as on land with warriors?
 
After warrior move 1N, Settler could move 1NE first instead of 1N or 1E right away. This would reveal a tiny bit more coastal tiles I think. Maybe Hill 2N1E is an option too to settle. When food is revealed there's something to think about, otherwise I will settle PH 1E.
 
Looks a nice start. Lots of coast (or lakes?), hills for production and cheap light houses. Not viewed actual save yet.
 
Ok, so fired up the game, only 25 turns in but:
Spoiler :
Wow that's a small Island!
I've slapped some rough ideas on where to put cities, but there's not much space for them; half the island is desert! Going to need to colonise a near-by one soon - can see a potential candidate to the west thanks to a map from the hut. What you can't see in the screenshot is the edge of an Island to the South - it looks polar though, so not much point going there, I feel.


upload gambar
 
@VJ.
Spoiler :
How about 1W of the middle Wheat for city 2 ?
Gets a strong tile from the get go and a Lighthouse to work those lake tiles.

Is it better to settle off the coast ? Any early use for sugar/wine ?

Don't neglect exploration.
 
@BornInCantaloup
Spoiler :

1W of the wheat looks like a better tile, the coastal tile 1E of my City 2 marker is where I was originally considering*, but I didn't really like the tile and your suggestion makes more sense.


*Those markers are just "rough guides" that I slap down in the general area, so don't pay too much attention to their exact location. It's rarely the final one.

Re: exploration, That's the whole island, so I'll need to wait for an opportunity to build ships to go further. After the settler, I'm going for a lighthouse & GLH with Paris.
 
@VJ:

Spoiler :
I managed to squeeze 6 cities, and I think only 1 of them is really bad (though only 2 are really good). I made every city coastal because I went for TGL, so I wouldn't settle your city 2.
 
@DrCron
Spoiler :

6? Wow!
I might look a bit closer then; as for my city 2 marker, as I said to BornInCantaloup, those markers are 'rough guides' - I was looking more closely at 1E of the marker, coastal like you - I'm going for GLH too. Looks a bit weak and I like his suggestion of 1W of the wheat better.
I'm guessing your good cities are Paris and somewhere near my city 4 marker?
 
Immortal til 1080 BC.

@ VJ and DrCron (Land and AI's met Spoiler)
Spoiler :
TGLH seems obvious so all coastal cities is the way to go. There is easily room for 7 good cities. A good city to me is one that has at least +5F from working 1-2 tiles. Working dry wheat and 1 farm is great. Working a clam/crab with a lighthouse is good. Working sugar and a farm, once again, a fine city. That gives you enough food to grow and whip. Pretty much all you need. Tip - splitting up food is good ^^.

I've only got 4 cities at around 1000 BC but I did pick up Stonehenge, TGLH, and already have an Academy!!! in my Capital. Ai's seem a bit slow to me, especially since no one has Alpha yet (not even Mansa). I see some shiny stone on the other mass to my E so I'll settle that Asap and go for the Mids. Happiness isn't a problem either way. We're charasmatic and most cities will remain rather small during whip/settling/infra for quite some time.
 
Losing on a 1760 BC Great Lighthouse (t56, Deity) :

Spoiler :
Tech path :
Fishing, Mining, Sailing, Masonry, Bronze, skipping Mysticism.
Settled the plains hills, went Worker --> Workboat, started on the settler at size 4.

Then I grew the city on a couple of mines.
Hit size 7. Set up a couple of whips with lots of overflow to speed up the GLH : a settler and a galley. Worker has 1 chop ready to go. 2nd chop completes the build.
Whipping Settler and Worker instead of Settler and Galley would shave off a turn off the wonder, resulting in a 1800 BC GLH, or so I think.

Spoiler :




1920 BC, end of turn : Sumeria builds the Great Lighthouse.
That was close. Now I'll try for a Construction/Galley war. Try to make it work.

New plan :
Spoiler :
 
Losing games is fine with me.
Click to expand...
I find more pleasure in losing a Deity game early than winning a Deity game late ^^. Like I said, even if you beat Deity 99% of the time you play it - it's just not fun (for me). I'm sure I'll play some HoF Deity but still.................

Good luck with your game btw. Anyting outside of Pangaea can be rather challenging once things start snowballing.
 
I played until 350 BC. I'm doing a video of this one too:

https://youtu.be/zuHY4qtSmg4


Link to video.

If you don't have time for the video, here's a quick summary of what happened:

Spoiler :

1) Built TGL in my capitol.
2) Squeezed 6 cities in my island. 1 of them, next to the dessert, has serious production issues. The rest are more or less ok.
3) Found 2 neighbors: Gilgamesh to the North, Catherine to the East. Catherine got a city on an island to the East that I wanted for expansion, so I might DOW her. I could also DOW Gilgamesh because he won't trade techs, but his land seems bad.
4) I was first to alpha, but with these 2 neighbors only I couldn't get much (at least I got IW, and I have iron in my island). I will now go math-construction for catapults+swords attack. I'll have to build many galleys

My main issue is that I don't know where to build Moai Statues. Should they be in my city with no hills, so it has at least some hammers? Or in a good city so I get a production specialized place? I'm inclined to go with the 1st option to avoid having a useless city.
 
I'd forgotten how tiresome these kinds of maps were.
I've capitulated 4 enemies, and have two plus a newly created vassal left and are by far the most powerful and advanced guy around, but moving my units across the oceans and planning naval assaults is such a pain.
1575, but it is probably gonna take a while to finish this one of.
 
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