Nobles' Club 260: Ramesses II of Egypt

[AcaMetis]

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 Ramesses II of Egypt, whom we last played in NC 199; we last played the Egyptians under Hatshepsut in NC 229. The Egyptians start with Agriculture and The Wheel.

• Traits: Ramesses II is Industrious and Spiritual. Industrious gives a +50% bonus to all Wonders (World and National), and gives a +100% bonus to Forges. Spiritual allows you to swap state religion/civics without suffering Anarchy, and gives a +100% bonus to all Temples.
  
• The UB: The Obelisk, a Monument with 2 Priest slots. Getting very early Great Prophets is more for the AI than the player, since the former should be left to the task of founding and spreading religions while the player builds up their empire and bulbs their way through the tech tree. But if you're looking to rush someone who hasn't build a Shrine yet early, or you want literally any Great Person for a Golden Age, or you actually do want a Great Prophet to pull some manner of clever scheme, the Obelisk will allow you to get out the required Great Person that much easier, and earlier.
  
• The UU: The War Chariot, a Chariot with 5 and innate immunity to First Strike. A straight upgrade over the basic chariot, particularly against archers, these guys stand a chance at winning fights that regular chariots don't.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Pangaea, Arid climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps were done to give AIs nearby strategic resources.

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 260 Ramesses II 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.

Spoiler 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.

 

[AcaMetis]

Hmm...seems like you'd want to move 1N in this situation - grabs two conspicuously unforested grass tiles and saves a floodplain, albeit at the cost of a forest and a few BFC forests. As for the Warrior, not sure what he's going to do. He can check east or west, but we're not going to SIP, so his T0 movement seems kinda meaningless? Maybe 1N in case there's something insane on a hill even further north that justifies moving the settler 2N to grab it in the capitol, but I highly doubt it.

What do the experts think ?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

My favourite leader, nice.

Getting very early Great Prophets is more for the AI than the player

Agree however a settled Great Prophet is very strong early on.

like you'd want to move 1N in this situation

I'd be wary about moving away from food which is surely somewhere in the fog.

 

[coanda]

Fog-peering shows 4 forests and a floodplains given up by moving 1N. In fact, there's only two possible locations for a food resource on this start: 1N2W, and 1N2E. I see two reasonable options for settling: 1N, or 1SW on the marble. 1SW gives up the mystery tile 1N2E, so that's the place I'd check with the warrior in deciding between the two.

 

[Pangaea]

Don't have time to play these games now, but looking at the image... Without more knowledge, I don't like to move 1N and waste a turn and a forest without it being on a plains hill or similar. Think I'd move the warrior 1E so he gets a good view of the surroundings, and then settle on the marble unless something awesome is revealed. Looks like it may claim some plains, and possibly be 1 off coast (unless it's a lake south), but it looks like a solid enough option, and retains all the FPs, plus plenty of forests. Maybe there is food north as well?

That said, there's nothing particularly wrong about SIP. Sure, you kill a FP, but probably gain another one east (compared with marble settling), and will get more river tiles. Looks like a fine enough option. Keeps both "mystery" tiles east and west as well.

 

[Wrathful]

Immortal to T59:

Spoiler :

I wanted to settle on the marble, but there was a chance that this would lose food in the east. I moved my warrior 1E and found only dry rice, so I decided to go for the marble

Kept the dry corn, and now we get a quick worker as well. The capital will naturally fogbust that desert which is quite good. I suppose Mining > BW is the play here with decent food and plenty of forest.

It would seem that Mansa Musa is in the game, judging from the soldier count in the demographics screen.

Met Genghis on T4 - not great. Just about the worst neighbor you could have, really.

I met Frederick the turn after. That's good; Genghis will have another target to go after. He seems to hate Frederick already due to peaceweight differences.

There is a fish in the south that was almost ruined, but thankfully I can grab it later by settling on the wine. The jungle has some nice resources. Genghis might punish me if I go there however. I am thinking about building the Great Wall here; there is a lot of land around and barbarians might be a problem.

By T8 I met two more AIs (Justinian and Gilgamesh), so hopefully they can keep the barbarians at bay. Justinian founded Buddhism. I put my spypoints on him.

My worker started improving the corn on T13. There will be some time before BW is finished in which I will probably put turns into a flood plain farm.

I found Hammurabi on T19. That leaves Mansa as the last AI, unless I misread the demographics earlier.

With BW almost finished, I moved my worker into a forest to get ready for chopping. There's a chance that copper could be present in either of those two plains tiles to the south, so I positioned my worker accordingly.

There was indeed copper on the riverside plains tile. So settling on the marble is definitely the best move with map knowledge. My worker will improve the copper, chop the forest 1N of the copper, and build a road to hook up the resource.

I decided to grow to size 4 and whip my first settler. With SPI we don't suffer the anarchy turn. I will be able to work the copper, corn, and two flood plains. This also gives me the opportunity to get out another warrior for more safety.

Regarding tech, I think the Great Wall is no longer needed due to the copper, so I decided to head for Pottery next. After that I will likely tech AH to reveal any horses and also set up my next two cities, which will likely claim the 2 cows.

After whipping the settler, my capital used the overflow and a chop to get out a worker in 3 turns.

Frederick teched Writing on T32, which might be the earliest I've ever seen from the AI. I opened borders with him.

I think this is a good spot for the second city. It's connected due to the road I built (which hooked up my copper as well). It claims a flood plain, forest, and the dry rice, and also blocks off Genghis. I will try to avoid getting culture there so we don't share borders.

Instead of improving the rice immediately, my worker finished the flood plain farm from earlier. The new worker started chopping.

I finished AH on T44. There is horse to the north which my capital will grab with its second border pop. I am slow-building a settler in my capital; I think that's better than growing to size 4 and whipping now that I have the copper tile. When I get a granary up, whipping will become better again.

Justinian built the Great Wall, so I will send my axe up north to defend my city. I plan to go 1SW of the eastern cow.

This was a rather unusual sight:

That is quite an early date to be getting Alphabet. I don't see any reason to trade for Hunting; in fact, there are plenty of reasons not to trade for it.

In other related oddities, Genghis teched Mysticism early and got up a monument in his second city. Usually he skips that tech for a long time, in my experience.

As luck would have it, Frederick demanded AH from me a couple turns later. I gave in.

A barbarian archer appeared and threatened my rice farm. That was pretty bad actually. I wanted to whip a worker in Memphis but had to whip an axe instead. I decided to surrender the warrior to save my rice farm and hopefully wound the archer. I moved my warrior onto the unforested tile rather than the forest because I was afraid that the archer would ignore my warrior if he was in the forest.

In total that was a major delay and one that could probably have been avoided by managing my units better.

This is the situation at T59:

My cities are pretty good; the problem is I don't have much more land to fill out. There is the fish spot left and maybe something else in the southwest. I could still go for horse archers I suppose. The Aesthetics line is quite tempting with IND + marble.

Maybe I'll win Music and go for Cuirs. It all depends on the availability of iron. And Genghis needs to behave.

I think I'll whip a settler in Memphis and gift a city to Genghis. I should open borders with him too; the people who don't like him will just have to deal with it.

Genghis is definitely a danger. On Deity he could already have attacked me I suppose.

 

[umass_dude]

Thanks for these games, I really enjoy playing and then observing how the experts analyze. I got a religious victory on Monarchy. I am borderline monarchy/emperor level.

 

[shakabrade]

@Wrathful Very nice write-up. I agree with the dangers you have identified. One thing I like to do with warmonger neigbours is to place a city on hill (so you could defend with archers) on what seems and obvios path for an AI SoD and try to share as little tiles as possible to avoid becoming land target. It can be suboptimal regarding development, but you will not die.

 

[Qactus]

@Wrathful

Spoiler :

Looking good. You mentioned you could still go for Horse Archers. I would prefer using War Chariots instead. In both cases you would need to thoroughly scout your targets for metal, cities on hills, etc. Should you then decide to use mounted, I don't think 6 HAs are much better than 10 WCs (which would be the same hammer cost). Most importantly with WCs you don't need to tech Horseback Riding and can go directly for Aesthetics, unlock marble wonders and trade for Alphabet with Frederick.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Deity up to T66 (1360 BC) [no definitive plans to finish]

Spoiler :

Why did horses have to show up? I wanted to try the early settled Great Prophet.

Wait I still can. I do have the obelisk, in every city.

 

[konata_LS]

Ashamed of my gameplay, but still decide to post it . After all, people are encouraged to share their NC games and give comments/constructive criticisms. If I don't post my game, I'll just repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Spoiler :

Actually, what I did in this game affected me in the latest NC290. About two weeks ago, I decided to try this NC 260 at Monarch to "warm up" myself for the upcoming NC290. But my first attempt for this map was a desaster: after WC rush 2 neighbours, my economy was so bad that until 500 AD I couldn't recover . Ragequitted . I should have researched Pottery after BW and grown some cottages . I also should have razed some poorly placed cities.
Started the second attempt, grew some cottages before spamming UUs, and razed some cities to backfill later. The strike in my second attempt was much shorter than in my first attempt. By 25AD the economy situation was already acceptable.

That was why I only WC rushed WK in NC290, because NC 260 made me know that I won't be able to afford capturing Suleiman's cities.

Monarch NHNE. Normal speed:

Spoiler :

As described above, the game I post here is my second attempt for this map.

Settle 1N, because we can see the water near the forested PH (the blue circle one) and there is no "fresh water", which means that tile is on the coast. Settling on Marble might deny a potential costal cities or kill some seafood. Settling 1N would grant a second city near or on the forest PH.

Tech AH-Mining-BW-Pottery. Do not delay Pottery. Just don't.

Met Justy and Giggle before T5. They must be quite close.

: "Oh look. I've just built 10+ War Chariots. Now where shall I put it? "

Who cares about PRO. Who cares about 6 Vulture. Spam WC and destroy them all


Justy disappeared in 1440BC. Giggle disappeared in 1040BC. Captured ToA from Giggle and TGW from Justy.

The strike started in 875BC . I had been often close to strike in my previous games after a REX or early rush, but in this map I was really on strike .
Eh, I know I didn't manage everything well, but a strike which lasts only 2 turns is better than a strike which lasts 20 turns .


To be honest, this map is, how to say, a little weird. I met Giggle and Justy very early so I assumed both of them were very close. In fact, their cities were much farther than I thought.

Put all the citizens on the tiles which could generate some , chopped Library and turned some Scientists, research Alphabet then built to finish Currency. In 25 AD, the tech situation was already much better: Currency finished + got Monarchy and Calendar via trade


Gifted a city to GK. When I realised GK started plotting, quickly begged 1 from him, even I knew he was unlikely to attack me, as he was pleased with me but annoyed towards all the other AIs. Luckily his target turned out to be Hammi.


Such demand from AIs was always welcome, because I could just say yes then cancel the deal 10 turns later, but still get the peace treaty and +1 relation boost:


GK and Hammi were busy killing each other for a long time. Fred and Peri were wonder-spamming .


Fred teched quite well in the Classical and Medieval era, but he was slowed down by GK. Some turns after GK made pace with Hammi, he declared on Fred. And Fred bribed Hammy to attack GK as well.


On the other side of the continent, Pericles teched like crazy and founded 4 religions . He also won Economics race before I got Banking . No one could stop him, because all the other three AIs were at wars. Even GK made peace with Fred and Hammi, they had no open borders so GK's army could not reach Peri.

 

[konata_LS]

Continued.

Spoiler :

Setting as below, not huts:


The generating became really frustrating in this game, because I badly wanted a GS to bulb Edu or GM to upgrade my WEs, but ToA captured from Giggle kept giving me GProphets. Among the 7 GPeople I generated in this game, 3 of them were GProphets .


Attack with Cuirs. Backstabbed GK. He capitulated after losing 3 cities because he still used keshiks, swords and catapults. GK even didn't have Maces.
Gifted some cities back, because Genghis' cities are far and were poorly improved. Gifted Machinery, Guilds, and Engineering to GK so that he could spam Knights and trebs and help me in the future wars.


Fred capitulated on T192. I didn't understand why he researched Optics in a Pangaea map. Or maybe he had some Whales.


Gold, Copper and flood plains, Fred's capital was much nicer than mine - I mean, his former capital :


Hammi also capitulated after losing his capital. He was already weakened by the long Medieval war with GK and was one era behind:


It seemed Peri put all his into wonders and missionaries. He was close to MScience but only had some longbows and catapult in his border city. Why didn't he build some Muskets or trebs?


Peri capitulated after only losing 2 cities. It was hard to understand AIs' behaviour and tech choice:


Next turn, conquest:


Built some Cuirs and lost almost half of them . That 3 GProphets were the most unwanted people in this game .


TBH, the game is won due to some good luck. After Renaissance era, all the counter-attack I met were Medieval or even Classical units. The unit-spammer was too backward and too far from Gunpowder; the only competent techer who knew Gunpowder in this game was not military-minded and didn't even build Musketmen.


WC are really powerful. But my problem (not Ramsy's problem, he's a good leader) is how to afford the captured cities before Currency, especially for a leader who is neither FIN or ORG. It seems my early game is terrbile as always.

Thanks for the map