Nobles' Club 343: Darius of Persia

[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 Darius I of Persia, whom we last played in NC 313; we last played the Persians under Cyrus in NC 329. The Persians start with Hunting and Agriculture.

• Traits: Darius I is Financial and Organized. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2. Organized cuts Civic Upkeep in half, and gives a +100% bonus to Lighthouses, Courthouses and Factories.
• The UB: The Apothecary, a Grocer with +2. Not likely to be useful early game, as health is generally not that much of a concern and Grocers are rather expensive buildings to build. But after industrializing you generally find yourself in dire need of extra health and with production to spare, so a building that can get you up to +6 by itself is pretty useful at that point.
• The UU: The The Immortal, a Chariot with +50% vs. Archery units which gets defensive bonuses. A very early and cheap 2 unit that can punch through Sitting Bull archers and easily manoeuvre itself into a defensive position when necessary. Why, yes, this is indeed a good unique unit.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

Strategic resource and unworkable seafood swaps.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

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 343 Darius 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 what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

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]

For me that's as straightforward a case of "settle 1N" as it gets. Sure, 1SE is also a plains hill and saves a forest, but giving up riverside and two floodplains in return for Mystery Tiles doesn't seem worth. It might be, who knows what's hiding in the fog, but given what's visible I'd probably settle 1N.

Any experts think 1SE seems the better place to settle? I've missed obvious things before, after all .

 

[soundjata]

Let's move the scout first: SE>NE and if nothing crazy appears, settler 1N yeah

Pray for horses in the vicinity

 

[antimony]

A FIN start position indeed. If by some great luck we get horses in BFC, production would be good and could go for early pottery, otherwise Mining BW after AH might be necessary to get that 2nd city fast.

 

[konata_LS]

T0 scout move

Spoiler :

In order to know what I would miss if the settler moves 1N, I sent the scout to check the area around the bare plain hill:

Surprisingly found a plain cow.

Both cow and pig are 6-yields tiles and can be improved with AH. OTOH, settling on the riverside wine is probably not a good idea, because it will miss the pig. The scouting result changed my mind: settle 1SE will be my choice.

Still in the middle of some other games. I'll play this map when I get more spare time.

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler :

1590 inmortal conquest. 300 sth score. my best! settled 1N. secured land east and north, then south. even got a 7th crap city to get the elephants. only settled the west after quite a while. continental lovefest, on the other one they were really behind.
almost lost lib, huayna went for eco. wiped him, vassaled the others. other continent could have been much sooner, thought inmortal would tech fast so cav would't do. turns out they never got rifles.

 

[konata_LS]

From T0 to T12

Spoiler :

Settings as below, no huts


Settled 1SE and researched AH. T12 AH finished , but where is my horse???


Up to now I've only met Capac and Joao. Fortunately I can't see their culture, which means they're not close.


The lack of capital horse, far neighbours, and all these flood plains probably call for a peaceful builder game. And Darius is not bad (actually he's very good) for the peaceful development before renaissance era. Since the map is Fractal, the situation must be Joao, Capac, and I share a small continent. Capac founded a religion, so it'll be easy to get him to friendly via HR + conversion to Hindu. Joao also likes HR. Maybe I should befriend with these two neighbours and tech peacefully towards astronomy..?
OTOH, if the neighbours are not close, barbs might be a problem.

A barb lion has come near my scout, but I don't want to move my scout too far away from that wine & wheat area (oops, forgot to turn on resource bubble when taking screenshots), because that's good spot for my second or third city and I don't want some barb archers or a barb city spawn there. OTOH, the southern tundra might cause some barb troubles. Quickly send a warrior over there maybe ...? Only a dozen of turns and a lot of indecision.

The start with AH resources and flood plains reminds me of a Cyrus video , also cow + flood plains in Fractal map. Before playing further this NC, I think I should re-watch and learn from that Cyrus game first. I feel that one of the mistakes among some new players like me is to play hastily early turns, make many mistakes which snow-ball towards a tough situation or a loss later on. Most of the mistakes could have been avoided if we learn from better players before rushing into our games.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@konata_LS :

Spoiler :

Nice to see you stop early on with lots of info on your thought process

To me, the main difficulty, here, comes from your scouting pattern. Once you settled Persepolis on T1, you had vision over 2 rivers running towards the north, yet you lost turns sending your scout SW and then back NE.
So, despite the 2-move unit, you indeed have very little intel about the map at this point.
First off, if you send the scout SW first, you should continue about and circle towards the NW next, so as to uncover as many tiles as possible for your 2nd city. Backtracking is never a good idea.
However, riverside is so powerful (city connexions, less roads, more commerce) that you should have scouted towards the North first. Either NE and then circle back via NW or NW and then towards the NE.

Meeting AIs and scouting for city locations is the prime objective at this point in time.
As for Babarians, they are an issue but not for your initial unit. It is also the role of your initial unit to scout what areas can be a danger, what tiles you can use for defence (forest hills, forest+rivers) and, eventually, fogbusting. Fogbusting almost requires a full scout, full knowledge of the tiles : there is no use to fogbust an area very early on and leave another one in the dark. Said otherwise : your scout does the same fogbusting job whether you move it or not.
So, use the scout. If you need other units, get them at a later point (esp. easy with cow, 2h city, pigs).
Finally, keep in mind that fogbusting huge areas also costs maintenance. It is a lot easier to achieve at some point into the game than it is very early on.

So, for now, just go scout those rivers. You still have time to decide on your city locations and/or adjust your tech path if need be.
Once you have the full scout and are sure about the location for city 2... now, using the scout to fogbust/secure the area would be acceptable, indeed.



For reference, down below is a spoiler of my scout on T23. I don't have any earlier save. Don't open it now if you don't want to

Spoiler :

Warrior is out and now going to arc its way around to protect city 2 location.
The scout mostly follows AI units to remain safe.

As for what to do next :

Spoiler :

You project very far into the game and that is a fine thing to do, as long as you remain flexible about your possibilities.
Your next two decisions should be related to :
- What size are you going to stagnate Persepolis on ?
Size 2 and 3 are conceivable, depending on the number of warriors you want to get out. Size 3 having the modest benefit of the +1 commerce.

- What tech are you going into ?
I do believe that The Wheel should be a real consideration, helping you connect cities. Also, it does not seem that you can easily make use of Mining on your way to BW (although you could spend some time farming floodplains while waiting on BW).
Roading is a slightly inefficient use of worker turns but can shave some turns towards settling, just as chopping does, especially if you have to go through some rough terrain.
Sidenote : as for roads, always road in diagonals, if you can. Due to the tiles settings, they basically count for double compared with cardinal directions. (Same goes for scouting, by the way, you can uncover a lot more tiles by going NE-NW-NE-NW rather than N-N-N-N.)

The way those two questions intertwine is that you can try to adjust your settler timing (size 2 or 3) to your available number worker turns before the worker is needed by city two (worker turns depending on your tech path).

I do somewhat dismiss an early second worker, here, because there is no apparent quick route to Bronze Working. Otherwise, timing a second worker with Bronze can be very strong.

 

[antimony]

@BornInCantaloup What is your tech path in that T23 spoiler?

Spoiler :

I also settled 1N and am thinking of The Wheel - Pottery after AH, combined with stagnating at size 2 for a settler out on or around T30. In that time the worker pastures, farms one FP then roads to city 2. (Probably FP - Horses to the northeast if available since that is more contested land.) I probably also need to road the pig before doing any chopping due to the -2 health from FP at that location.

Otherwise it also seems like a good spot for pyramids? (stone, no early happy resources, much food in cap + many unworkable tiles that would push it towards running some specialists)

 

[drewisfat]

I don't mean to threadjack but I don't want BiC's advice + subsequent like by a known forge-hater to appear like a consensus opinion. I doth contest. Barbs should be a very big concern for your initial unit. I come with proof.

Spoiler YT vid :

Lain is a very good player, but I do think his barb play is the weakest part of his games and here it costs him big time. The disaster that unfolds is presented as bad luck. It's not. He's lucky it wasn't an archer and he didn't lose the game. He was lucky (1/3 chance) the barb warrior moved to the left tile initially, which gave him time to build a warrior. See by leaving the lone southern tile in the fog, any barb that spawns there is going to walk back and forth between that spot and one of the bordering 3 tiles due to a barb's priority not to move next to your borders early game. And given where Lain's good tiles are, that barb will get a vantage on his worker and WILL enter his borders/interrupt tile improvements/pillage/attack the city. That course of events is locked in - there's no chance for the barb to escape harmlessly out to the left. Don't knock it as "just one tile", as just one tile for ~15 turns is a considerable risk. Trying to squeeze out additional scouting turns and then prioritizing the tile he chose for the +75% defence was a clear mistake that set him 5 full turns behind on turn 25 - and that was the fortunate outcome.

Now if this is too cherrypicked buggy an example for you, let's say it was a few tiles there instead of one, so not a pathing trap. It would have still been correct to fogbust down there to clear an entire region and to keep the side key tile improvements were on safe.

 

[konata_LS]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Thanks for your detailed feedback and advice!

Yes, my early scout was a little messy. I moved my scout down south but didn't see any gold or gem, so I dragged the scout "diagonally" towards NE flood plains. Since then my scout stayed there. Many veteran players know how to find a balance between gathering information and keeping the initial unit alive, as you did in your early scouting; but for new players at lower levels, we tend to go from one extreme to another . Sometimes our scout runs too far away, get killed by a panther, and let more barbs spawn around us. Sometimes after checking a very limited amount of land, our scout just stay nearby because we're too afraid of loosing the scout.

Good point about the wheel. I angrily gave up on TW when I realized there was no horse in sight . With so many flood plains and FIN, early cottages are not a bad idea. Thanks for the tips about roading.

Agree about the flexibility of the future plan. It's only T12. Some discovery or information in the following turns might change the decisions, especially for Fractal maps. For example in a Mansa NC I thought it was a continents map and planned to lib astronomy, but actually the map was donut-shaped pangaea .

Your "double workers before the settler" remains an interesting approach. When land grabbing is not very urgent or some key wonders need to be chopped asap, double workers can make a difference indeed .

Spoiler :

Otherwise it also seems like a good spot for pyramids? (stone, no early happy resources, much food in cap + many unworkable tiles that would push it towards running some specialists)

Spoiler :

Not saying Mids are bad, it's just the FIN riverside wines slightly reduce the importance of the Mids IMHO.
Don't want to spoil the neighbour's name, but some of them love HR; even you build Mids, they might ask you to adopt HR. Of course, if you plan to kill your neighbours in an early rush, the -1 penalty from refusing their requests becomes unimportant.

It would have still been correct to fogbust down there to clear an entire region and to keep the side key tile improvements were on safe.

Good point about fog busting,

Spoiler :

Although emperor barbs are less aggressive than deity, I should send a few warriors towards the southern tundra corner.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@antimony :

Spoiler :

@BornInCantaloup What is your tech path in that T23 spoiler?

Spoiler :

I also settled 1N and am thinking of The Wheel - Pottery after AH, combined with stagnating at size 2 for a settler out on or around T30. In that time the worker pastures, farms one FP then roads to city 2. (Probably FP - Horses to the northeast if available since that is more contested land.) I probably also need to road the pig before doing any chopping due to the -2 health from FP at that location.

Otherwise it also seems like a good spot for pyramids? (stone, no early happy resources, much food in cap + many unworkable tiles that would push it towards running some specialists)

I went AH, Mining, The Wheel, BW. Worker did Pasture, Farm, Mine. I did road the pigs at some point for health concerns, as you mention, but that came later on.
I wanted AH, BW but that was too costly given our commerce situation. Also, I sent my first settler NE so had the use for roads.

I think there might be a difficulty if you stagnate at size 2 and produce a settler from pigs + city tile + non-farmed floodplains : Your output is 9HpT towards a settler, which is very low.
Pigs+Farm+Mine gives 12 HpT which is acceptable. Conspicuously, Pigs+Cows also gives 12HpT towards a settler/worker.

Yes, the Pyramids should definitely be on your radar. I didn't research Masonry but it is a strong option if you can fit the tech and hammers in your build order. Securing the 5 yield tile also comes with its own benefits.
I believe securing the first few cities to be more important than rushing the Mids, though.
Immortals are also an option that can be considered and could end up better than securing cities.

If you go Wheel + Pottery after AH, you will not have a lot of early production,
So combining Expansion + Pyramids would seem a little far stretched. If you want the Pyramids, I think you should delay Pottery until after Bronze/Mas and remain on 3 cities until you can get Pottery. You could also delay The Wheel and go double farm, so as to unlock the Quarry earlier for extra production at size 4.
I opted for the "land grab" with 4 early-ish cities and thus did not research Masonry early.

Now if this is too cherrypicked buggy an example for you, let's say it was a few tiles there instead of one, so not a pathing trap. It would have still been correct to fogbust down there to clear an entire region and to keep the side key tile improvements were on safe.

I don't pretend to have given exhaustive advice about the early game, nor to have absolute authority in that matter but I did try to express myself in a comprehensive fashion. You, sir, give the caricature of an advice.
The giveaway from your post resembles : "don't scout past T5".
I agree that protecting the side of the Empire that holds the improvements is very important.

The disaster that unfolds is presented as bad luck.

 

[Fippy]

drewisfat posts are irresistible.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

"Grow an extra size to produce a couple extra warriors
Time city growth with warrior completion (prioritize hammers)
Use the AI units to help clear the Barbarians
Use the early units to protect spots you want to expand to."

Distance. There is something to say about distance. A fortified warrior is far more useful 5 tiles out of the borders than it is 1 tile out.

There are many useful advices that can be given to help deal with the early barbarian threat.

 

[sampsa]

Not sure if I understand everything that people are saying (and my likes don't mean that I agree with everything the post says), but I think I agree with the forge-lover. Controlling barbs is very important in the early game, obviously even more so on deity and probably the most common reason for my downfall in a random game. I think scouting is a luxury and you should always consider carefully if you can afford it or if the prize is worth the risk.

 

[antimony]

Also regarding barbs here...

Spoiler :

Barb cities seemed to pop quite early on this map, maybe because there were a lot of good spots on our starting peninsula and it would need about 4 fogbusters to protect them all... but I got 2 barb cities before the infamous turn 40. At least immortals provide a fairly cheap option to take them later (if not on hills).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

The giveaway from your post resembles : "don't scout past T5".
I agree that protecting the side of the Empire that holds the improvements is very important.

Everything is about calculated risks so I wouldn't be too results-oriented.

I imagine that deity difficulty requires some risk-taking. In Lain's game, he was hoping that nothing will spawn on that tile until another warrior can move there. What was his probability of success?

 

[sampsa]

I imagine that deity difficulty requires some risk-taking.

Only if it's necessary.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I imagine that deity difficulty requires some risk-taking. In Lain's game, he was hoping that nothing will spawn on that tile until another warrior can move there. What was his probability of success?

Well, Lain's map had over 1000 land tiles and there were 6 turns for a non-animal barb unit to spawn on that particular tile before the worker would have fogbusted it, so... there you go
His chances of success probably were in the 95+% range.

Had there been more tiles down below, the warrior would also have had more room to wander and wouldn't have crossed borders before a second warrior could be produced

 

[sampsa]

His chances of success probably were in the high 99%.

I don't know how barb spawning works, but would like to. How did you arrive to this number?