A Noob's Noble Game!

[SouljahAtWar]

Well, this is my second post, and my first noob game. Yay. Now enough of my sqawking and lets just get on with the game.

Map: Terra, Standard Size
Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Duh!
Mod: None

Our Shirtless Hero!


As I meantioned above, here are the settings:


...and my wicked start...


Ugh. A sub-tundra start. At least I have some crab sitting on a lake and a river out east, but things aren't looking good for me so far.

Any questions? Tips on how to start this game? I'm thinking of starting with Fishing, Mining, BW, Hunting, and Pottery, and having my capital build queue Worker, Warrior, Settler, Worker, WB, WB?

 

[ppciv4]

he's Exp. which+5h per chop for building worker.
so here's my start:
1. build worker, research BW.
2. mine the sheep tile.
3. chop 2nd worker, research fishing.
4. chop work boat.

ps: you'll need lighthouse later. and you'd better build a new capital for Oxford&Wall Street later, build here the +1h per watertile wonder.
turn it to be your GP farm(not a good one though), or millitary base.

 

[andreasb]

2. mine the sheep tile.

Wait..what? Mine the sheep tile?

 

[Yared]

I'd settle 1 NW for 4 hills and all the resources in the BFC. With the resources, I'm pretty sure you could mine all the hills. Damn that's gonna be one helluva production city with bureaucracy.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

Part 1 of ??, 100 Turns



Well, I settled in place, and Mutal was born. Nothing really happening in the first few turns but I met this chick:



Wow. Her god are smiling at me, and she dosen't even practice a religion yet. At least she's nice to me. For now. Note to self: point my army towards HER first...

29 turns in, Suleiman (I swear I misspell his name ALL THE TIME) and his arrogant opening line pops up.



You just want to slap him, don't you?

Anywho, I researched Fishing/Bronze Working and switched to Slavery. I just hope that infernal Barbarian Uprising event comes up and rears its ugly head like it has for every single other game I played with Slavery.



In turn 35 I finished my first Settler (queued Worker, Warrior, Settler, going to work on Worker, then milk those crab tiles), and this is my projected spot:



Mmm... wheat AND cows. Can you say cheese steak sandwiches? Since the rest of the tiles are tundra around that spot, this seems like the best spot to settle at the base of this river here.

As soon as I started planning for my second city, Baldie Gandhi pops up.


When he rejects my Philly Steak sandwiches (after I insist he eats something), he scurries off to wherever he came from, and I'm left with an empty empty feeling. Or it could be relief that he's gone.

After my unescorted settler dancing around a wondering Bear (and many many frusterating retarts later), I finally get the spot I was looking for.



I'm sorry, that was my third city. I thought I captured my second city being settled. Oh well. This one I settled blind (my warrior-scout was too far off the east to return now), I ended up getting rice AND Ivory (and if possible, more cows) in Chichen Itza's fat cross.

When I saw naps flying around my court I knew it was Zara Yaqob poking around my palace walls And if you haven't noticed he uses really horrible grammar (much worse than mine).



I start specializing some scientists into my capital for now. I want to compensate for the amount of land I'm going to be REXing later on.



Ok, it's one scientist. But it's better than having NO beakers. I also whipped the Granary, so I can whip faster later on. As you can tell, they don't like me cracking the whip on them, but they better get used to it until I get Caste System, the specialist's wet dream.


I rejected Zara's miniscule trade.

At this point, I have 10 axes, so that's enough to keep me out of trouble for now. As soon as I get 6-7 cities, I might get some more to take care of Hatty, but for right now I'm foccussing on growth and science.


My power levels are wayyyyy up there, so I'm not worried about early rushes by Zara or Hatty.

And, I have 10 axes, that will do for now.

Here's city #4's spot. Spices, but no real resources. This looks like it's going to be a good production city. Also you get a good look at city #2 (Lakahma), getting horses and iron in 2 border pops.



I decided this was a (less than) fair trade. I Hatty didn't get a coastal start, so Fishing isn't really useful for her yet, but I can use Hunting right away.

Then Zara made his first bunder of the game...

I rejected his beg right away. If dude want to learn how to count, he better think of a fair trade (I later learned he had nothing to trade to me so far).

This wouldn't be a war game without your standard issue warmonger, so one pops up:

I'd like to see him try to take my (un)defended cities. Oh wait, he just might do that. See, now I done jinxed myself.

 

[Yared]

How do you do Dot Maps?

 

[SouljahAtWar]

Here's city number five spot-- more ivory, iron, rice and a coastal city.


I think I'm done REXing for now... I'm not sure. If I do, I'm going to head east towards Hatty (possibly). I have plenty of land to capture if I keep REXing. Zara and the gang is slowly starting to creep up in the power levels, so I might have to start building my Holkens and Axes.


Gandhi wants writing. Oh. What should I do? Since I'm pretty high in the power levels, I challenged the wonder whore to take me on military wise and say NO.

I make some last mintue trades to Sully and Gandhi before callig it quits for the night.



So after 100 turns, I have five cities and a pretty shaky diplomatic status (especially with Zara), but I'm doing pretty well military wise and ecomonic wise, so here's my current city spots right now.



My score and power charts:



Info screens and demographics



So, that's pretty much it for 100 turns. I know it's a lot to read, but there we go.

Now for the upcoming questions. Zara is ahead. I have NO wonders.

Should I gear up in attacking Hatty?
What would be of Zara and Gandhi?
Should I keep REXing? I have plenty of room here.

I look forward for your comments and critiques.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

How do you do Dot Maps?

I don't. I just use the in-game lines to draw dotmaps in my games.

 

[Yared]

I don't. I just use the in-game lines to draw dotmaps in my games.

Mmm I just noticed.

 

[futurehermit]

Expand into the lush terrain to the E/NE. Find a good place in the E/NE to move your palace to. Use your old capital as a gpfarm (NE, etc.). Expand through Hatty. Her capital might be a good place to move your palace to. You need to acquire good land as the land in your empire is subpar.

 

[Killroyan]

Waiting to 700 BC to get hunting is an awfull long time when you have forested plains deer. That is the strongest tile in your bfc at 4F/2H. You propably could have researched it yourself pretty quickly to avoid the ridiculous trades by Zara Anyways nice capital now. Keep it going, but being ready with your rex??? You are in the plus at 70% sciende. That is not ready rexing in my book. You can at least get 2-3 more cities out easily. Land is power. Especially with good resources on them. If you give the overview please turn on the resource bubbles. It tells a whole lot more of the map.

 

[miked1991]

You've been in such good positions in this game, you should be able to have this one in the bag in the next turnset. It pained me to see you take such a massive power lead and not use it! Twice the power of everyone else! Even without seige you could probs have taken an entire civ out, probs Hatty and had yourself even more land... I wouldn't call 5 cities like that a REX myself.

In your final screenshot I can see your building research in two cities! Generally speaking thats not a good thing to be doing. I'd suggest you switch that to military production, tech for catapults if you havn't already and stomp over someone. If your easily keeping up in power with minimal unit production it means you could be spamming units and wiping everyone out! Once you've got the cats get an army of approx 10 cats to go with the axes you've already built and go invade. Tech Fuedalism pretty soon too as you'll want to start aquiring vassals as your war machine stomps over people.

 

[miked1991]

Double Post

 

[CHEESE!]

Ha, check out Gandhi's face when he begged writing. Hilarious.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

Sorry for not responding for a long time, but I have a life... y'know.
So let's continue with this crap fest. I kinda like miked996's phrase "War Machine", so I'm going to use it.

Last I left off, I was bascially on WHOOHRN mode with Hatty. I'm cut of with a horrible tundra start, and I expanded north/northeast to lush ground, but I'm losing land and everything else because of my wickedly dreadful start. Whats worse, Hatty, due northeast of my capital is expanding west towards me, and I had to take her out.

Spoiler :

What's worse, everyone (except for Gandhi) is sharing a religion, so if I do war, I'm going to eat a "-1 You declared war on our friend!" penalty from most AI's including two of my most feared leaders right now: Zara Yaqob and Suleiman.

So let's get stated with turn number 101... and suprise, suprised, guess who's the tech leader right now...



I know I have at least kept up with tech with Zara, but I was dead wrong. Even though I'm running a scientist ecomony, I simply cannot keep up with him techwise. Perhaps I'm beelining mostly military techs, or the fact that they are trading profusely is the reason for my insight.

Meanwhile those morons in my newest city decided the would want to join another civ... and guess it is.
No, go ahead, guess.

Spoiler :

Yes, it's Shaka... which means he is near by. One thing I do NOT want is a warmonger knocking at my door... especially when I'm due to attack Hatty pretty soon.

A little edit from last segment, the trade to Gandhi DID not stick, I accidently posted the picture and forgot that it didn't work. But Gandhi did make me a good deal:

Meditation is pretty useless, but Masonry is good for Engineering and later techs.


I know what you're thinking. Why is your capital doing reasearch? What are you thinking? But I'm trying to keep up in tech, and with only 51 bpt, I could use all the help I could get. I will soon start emassing catapults after that research beaker is done. I have enough power, and I'm building an army, so that's taken care of, but for right now, I need to keep up with Zara and Sully. Now, I have a great scientist, my very first GS, I'm going settle all of them into thier respective cities. Since every one of my cities are generating GS, I didn't see the need to move him. With this one, I'm going to start the tech whorring with an Acadamy.



Whats this? Hatty wants to open borders with me? Looks like she knows nothing of what I'm planning for her right now. Zara gave me a simular offer, and because I want to get some of his techs, and he's too far away for me to do anything to him right now, I accepted.

And finally... at last... the tech I was going for has arrived...

Mwahahaha... war elephants AND catapults... Now it's time to start building some cats and kick Hatty's egyptian ass.

Later on, Judasim has been spreaded to Chichen Itza, but I rejected using Judasim as a state religion. I have no time for buiding monasteries and temples right now, I want a war! I have a bad case of blood lust.

And while we are in the subject of Hatty and religion, she even asked me to switch to Judism.

As of right now everyone save of me and Gandhi has Judism. Great. I don't want a dogpile, but for right now it just can't be stopped.


Christianity? I didn't know anyone has founded Theocracy! Oh well, not my problem. I will pick up more religious techs along the line, but for right now, I'm emassing WE and cats (and some Holikens, the Mayan UU).

Later on Zara made a deal I cannot refuse. Seriously, what was he thinking?


And a rejected trade from Hatty. She should figure out whats up when she sees that huge SOD of mine knocking at her borders.

See my SOD?

I have NO iron, but there's iron at one of my target cities, so I guess I'll get it when I take that city to the east.

Since my SOD is complete, it's time for me to break the news to Hatty.


Two turns later, the event gods has smiled on me as I get a free resource. Oooh... Spices.



Hail the conquering heros! Da da da da daaaaa... ahem. Ok, All done celebrating.
Elephantine is a backwash border city, but I kept it to get the iron stored a single tile west of that. It's time for the Mayan War Machine to press east into the egyptian core.


Oh look. It's Shaka. What do you want? Convert to Judism? Why don't you make me convert?


No surpise here, Zara AI is a culture monster and a great REXer. I'm focussing more on conquest than culture, so this list is pretty much of no factor to me.

So let's press on and take Hatty out... hmm? what's this? What is Shaka pulling?


Looks like he's planning to one up me. Those Impis spell trouble for my elephants. They are fast moving and they are strong against calvary.

Meanwhile, let's look at my foreign advisor.
That's funny. Hatty is looking to trade to crappy religious techs. Everyone else is trading religious techs, a line that I'm not looking for. Zara can research some of the techs that I can't get right now, so again, I'm going to look forward to trading with him. Sully and Zara both have CoL, but not looking to trade those right now.

This isn't much help to me right now, so I'm going to continue focussing on the war at hand, and let me tell you, there is a big twist to this story coming up.

Yes, that's right. The standard issue warmonger has DOWed me. Me. The friggen power leader. Maybe he didn't like me trying to obliterate Hatty, or he just want to expand. I'm guessing that he just want to expand, and I seem to be in his way, which is stupid, because he should've checked the power levels first before DOWing. Sometimes the AI could be so ignorant. At least he's targeting one Uxmal, which seems to be a miliatry transporting city between it and Elephantine. I quickly divert some of my defenses in other cities to defend that city. I don't want a wedge going between my cities, then I won't be able to attack Hatty anymore. My main SOD is too far into Hatty's land to turn back now, so now I'm somewhat screwed.


This time, I will ACCEPT Judism, I cannot afford yet ANOTHER war right now.

Meanwhile, my main stack is marching right into another Egyptian city.

What a crappy land Alexandria has. I decide to scrap it.

But uh oh... looks like Shaka's moving up. Be glad I have sent enough reinforcements to that city.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

But Shaka failed to capture that city, and it generated a Great General for me. Yippie. I kinda expected a better attack than that, but my production machine was no match to his pathatic small attack. I will make him pay for crossing me, right now. For now I'm going make a big strong Strength III axeman to compliment my attacking power and send him to the front, which has been expanded around my borders with Shaka. I am fighting two wars right now, but they both seem to be weak powers.


Meanwhile my main stack continue to harrass Hatty by marching directly to her capital.

This is a BIG BLOW to Hatty, as her power center has been overthrown. You would want to keep her capital, because more than likely, it is thier best land, and with sheep and more copper, it's was a good starting point for her.


I expanded west (Gandhi seems to be stationed north/northwest of me). I might have to do something about that barbarian city thats dangeriously too close to it. For now it's time for me to teach Shaka a less not to challenge the Mayan War Machine.


I lost a few cities, but I got Ondini. I didn't mean to keep it though... it seems like one of those cities I'd scrap, but I spaced out a little, and now it's mine.


I also took Giza, and Hatty must be in her last leg right now.


Nongoma is gone, and Shaka must be regretting DOWing me.


GROOOOOOOWLLLLLLL!

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, let continue on taking over cities. By the way, I just got another GG. I'll dig him in and figure out what I should do with him right now.

I'm going to focus more on taking Hatty out, so I cut Shaka a deal and make a note to take him out in another time.

A crappy tech and some lump gold. Not much of a trade, but it gets Shaka off my back for now.

Well, I'm glad I decided to switch to Judism, because someone (I'm guessing Zara) completed the AP, and the AP leader dosen't matter with me right now, so I voted for Sully.

He got it the next turn.


Hmmm? Whats this? I left a city undefended and that upstart Hatty took it from me. Oh well.
On top of that I failed to capture Helipolis. Darn. The war machine is stopped for now.


I took Nongoma back, and trying to figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, Gandhi decided to beg for more techs.

It's more like a demand than a beg, and I promptly rejected him. Let's see him pray to Buddha for Machinery now.

I could use Monachy since I have a huge force, so I decided to trade to Sully for it.


And if getting demands from Gandhi wasn't bad enough, now I have a bigger, nascence to take care of:

THANKS ALOT, SULIEMAN, I VOTED FOR YOU, A-HOLE!

Excuse me... I'll be right back...

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

<beep beep beeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep beep beeeeeeeeeep beep beeeeeeeeeep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep beep beep>

Now that I have calmed down, let's move on. That backstabber wanted me to stop trading with Gandhi via AP, but since I'm not currently trading with him, I said yes.


I captured Helipolis with my main stack (by moving them north from Hatty's capitol), and torched it from pure rage from losing my secondary stack on this city (I should've kept it).

I took my second GG and created a great healer from it using a simple scout, and my main stack meets that turban wearing backstabbing <beep> Sully's main stack...

...and after a bloody battle, my defense prevails.

The Ottomans cannot stop the Mayan War Machine. The Ottomans WILL not stop the Mayan War Machine.

I continued to expand northeast towards the front with notes of defending it later on...

...with a certian event popped up, all begging with peace with Hatty:

I rejected it, and took Memphis instead.


Another turn of events forced me to make peace with Hatty. Only this time, it will make peace with Sully, too.

My ecomony is shot because of this lengthy 60 turn war, so I'm going to try to keep up with the rest of them as well as forcing peace with Sully (He probably activated it after that shameful attack attempt, and now he's reeling with regret). I accept it, and it passed a turn later, and that's pretty much the end of that lengthy Mayan/Egyptian/Zulu/Ottoman war.


So with that said, this is pretty much my land so far, the largest land in the world, and a sizable force that can pretty much take everyone out, dispite of that massacre in Helipolis. Hatty has maybe three cities, and I have no idea where the others is, though I'm guessing Shaka is due north, Gandhi is north/northwest, and Sully, far northeast of me.


Some things that is bugging me right now:

My diplomacy is shot. Zara dosn't like me, Hatty hates me (I'm taking over her cities), Gandhi hates me (because I'm in a different religion), Shaka hates me (for taking some of his cities), and last, but very least Sully hates me.

My Mayan War Machine dosen't seem to be as effective as it should be. I wanted to take Hatty out, but the distractions have slowed me down to a crawl. Should I continue to war after I recover?

My scientist ecomony seems to be sticking, but now I'm far behind in tech. What now?

It's true that I have left a dent into this world, but will be enough?

Stay tuned to A Noob's Noble Game!

 

[Killroyan]

Don't worry too much about the diplomacy. The religious bonus will start to accumalate pretty quickly. Get open borders with all, start trading some techs, maps and maybe give them something cheap to increase the numbers even more. Before you know it you have two or three AI's back to friendly. Keep an eye on Shaka though because he will attack whenever he feels like it.

 

[JBossch]

A comment on your diplomacy or lack thereof. Don't be shocked when AIs start DoWing you after you have rejected every demand they make. I know it can be annoying to cave to them but see these demands as opportunities to gain positive diplo early on. Shaka will pretty much always declare but giving in to demands can buy time or redirect him to another target.
As for your war, you need to tech toward some kind of advantage. Fighting with axes in 1400AD is crazy even on noble.